Busy lives leave many people looking for the fastest and easiest solutions for cleaning our homes, but are traditional products causing damage and are the alternatives effective?
Evelyn McGowan is a health-conscious shopper who is concerned about the food, cosmetics and cleansers she buys.
“It’s so important for our health, our wellness and kind of our longevity…You don’t have to go 100 per cent natural, you don’t have to be concerned about everything, but doing the best that you can is better than nothing.”
She finds it is “cheaper and easier just to make your own cleansers like using vinegars.”
Like her, Chris McGough prefers to use more natural products and worries about using commercial cleansers in the home.
“We’re pretty much a vinegar and water type of family…We weren’t supposed to have all these chemicals and I think that, you know, all the sicknesses that you see the increases of, show that there is some dangerous stuff out there.”
And trials have shown a simple mild solution of vinegar and water is effective in tackling smells, stains and lime scale.
Dan DiCerico of Consumer Reports says “Equal parts water and vinegar actually outperformed every commercial spray cleaner. So brands like Lysol, Fantastik, Ajax, the vinegar beat them all.”
But as McGowan noted, it’s not necessarily all or nothing.
University of Guelph toxicologist Dr. Keith Solomon says some so-called toxic, but well-researched and effective commercial products have their place.
“Those very, very small concentrations don’t represent a risk to humans or the environment.”
And while we’re better off now than we have been in the past, it’s important to note that some products labelled ‘natural’ can also be harmful.
“Some of the products that they sell as herbicides for controlling, say, weeds on a patio, things called fatty acids, these are more toxic than some traditional synthetic chemical pesticides toward non-target organisms like frogs.”
Nonetheless, retailer and biochemist Eileen Grogen of Eating Well Organically says science and common sense support the idea of using less of the chemical cleaners.
“Good old-fashioned elbow grease, yeah, it goes a long way, just get down there. And hot water. It’s not very complicated to clean your house, I don’t think you need 20 different products.”
Coming up in part three: Variety is key when it comes to our diets, but identifying healthy and fresh foods for the whole family can be harder than you think.
