Gracelyn Guyol, the founder of Clean Up Stonington Harbors, presented the following remarks at a recent green-themed fashion show in Stonington Borough. Following Guyol’s lecture, models showed off the latest creations by Maria Barraza, while guests enjoyed organic treats and beverages.
How can going green to slow global warming possibly make you healthy and radiant? Everything on earth is connected and you’re part of that big web. Just one simple plan—to use less petroleum—may dramatically improve personal health while saving the planet.
To save gas you might drive less and walk or bike more. Exercise turns on a fat-burning gene that makes your body consume more calories. Walking tones muscles and delivers extra oxygen to every cell. Deep breathing brightens your eyes, puts color in your cheeks, and makes you sweat.
Sweating makes you healthy. The skin is your largest organ of elimination. Perspiring is one way the body throws off chemicals and toxins that contribute to disease. And there are plenty in our environment today—an estimated 850,000 chemicals, and most have never been evaluated for health risks.
A New York study of nine volunteers who did not work with chemicals found 167 chemicals in their blood and urine: 76 are known to cause cancer, 94 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 79 may cause birth defects or abnormal development.
Even more frightening, researchers in 2005 analyzed umbilical cord blood of 10 newborns chosen at random and found 287 different chemicals in those samples. We inherit a toxic load then add to it, so sweating out toxins as you exercise to save gas is a very healthy idea.
Say you decide to not use pesticides as another way of saving oil. Petroleum-derived pesticides were first developed as nerve gases during World War II. Testing showed they killed bugs fast, so when peace arrived, they were sold as insecticides and weed killers. Eighty-two percent of Americans now use them on lawns and gardens to eradicate every stealthy weed, life-threatening dandelion, and terrorist bug.
What we’ve gradually learned is that most pesticides contain xenoestrogens, molecules whose structure seems to have a key that fits into hormone receptors, allowing the body to accept and try to use them. By mimicking human hormones, xenoestrogens contribute to many cancers, infertility, and damage the brain, lungs, kidneys, and liver.
When pesticides find their way into oceans and harbors, those pesky xenoestrogens affect fish, too. Male fish are developing female genitals, contributing, as one might imagine, to the rapid decline in fish populations around the world. How does that impact you? You’ll have less fish to eat and less fish oils. You’ve probably heard fish oils are Omega 3 essential fats—fats the human body must have to function but cannot produce, which means they need to come from your diet.
You are what you eat—literally. The fats consumed are raw materials the body uses to make cell membranes and hormones. Healthy fish oils rejuvenate your skin, halt PMS for some, aid digestion, protect your heart, reduce inflammation that contributes to arthritis and tumor growth, and fuel your brain. To me there’s nothing quite so attractive as racy intellect in a radical body!
Today, pesticides are sprayed on 99 percent of the corn grown in the United States. You may think, you don’t eat much corn so that can’t possibly affect you, but a majority of the corn is fed to cattle, pigs, chickens, and other animals that humans eat. So unless you’re buying organic milk and meats, you’re unknowingly consuming pesticide residues, as well as growth hormones and antibiotics routinely given to commercially grown animals.
Michael Pollen’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma is a marvelously researched, beautifully written, yet horrifying tale that documents how our entire food chain has been contaminated by today’s commercial farming practices. This may lure you toward products labeled “all natural.” Beware. The term “natural” has no legal meaning. Arsenic is an all-natural element found in soils around the world. Your safest bet is to demand and buy certified organic foods, because that is legally defined and prohibits use of artificial hormones, antibiotics, synthetic chemicals, or pesticides. As demand for organic produce increases, farmers will revert to soil-restoring methods used by our grandparents, saving money and using less petroleum. We’ll all be healthier and a bit richer, which has a distinct beauty all its own.
In your decision to become less oil dependent, you might check ingredients in your skin and hair care products and cosmetics, since anything put on the skin may be absorbed into your body. Try to read those labels. You’ll find many 30-letter unpronounceable, chemical substances. My rule of thumb has become if I can’t pronounce it and the manufacturer doesn’t list what plant the substance is derived from, then it goes back on the shelf. With thousands of plant-derived products for sale, I don’t need to pay for cosmetics that increase my toxic load.
Huge oil savings might be gained by eliminating just one skin care substance: mineral oil. Doesn’t that sound natural and wholesome? Yet mineral oil is a liquid mixture of hydrocarbons obtained from petroleum. You’ll find it in moisturizers, lotions, and baby oils. Just think how much greener and healthier we’d be if we took all this mineral oil and burned it in our cars instead. Lush, supple skin softened by nut and seed oils may actually make you feel more sensual than radiant, but who’s to quibble?
You may positively blaze with green virtue after all these changes, but a healthy glow is about more than attitude and eliminating toxins. Vibrant health means providing your body with vitamins, minerals, and foods needed by cells to produce ATP—adenosine triphosphate—an internal fuel used by cells for repair, detoxification, and reproduction. Beauty is not just a static visual image, it’s a healthy energy like the grace of a panther stalking through the grass.
Think of everything you put in your mouth as cell fuel. What fuels this splendid animal energy? Splendid energy comes from cartloads of nutrient-dense foods: fruits and vegetables; vegetables and fruits; and more vegetables. Add in a few ounces of protein every few hours, some whole grains on the side, and healthy fats. Unprocessed, unrefined plants should make up the bulk of your diet. Eat as close to the earth as you can. Cut out the white, processed junk, skip boxed and tinned items (saving even more petroleum), and make your way to the produce aisle.
Vibrant colors are nature’s indicators of different nutrients inside. An extravagantly colorful meal means a bounty of healthy, energizing elements that will make your cells sing; whether it’s rock and roll, country, or soul is up to the new, vibrant you.
Gracelyn Guyol is the founder of CUSH (Clean Up Stonington Harbors) and an author and lecturer.