Fig and Sage is a great blog about living an organic and eco-conscious lifestyle. It really is a great blog, it is one of the best resources for everything green. I give this blog 2 green thumbs up way up. I actually spent over an hour on the site looking at different companies that are making going green a lot more fashionable.
It is amazing what is out there if you take the time to do a little research. There is so much we can be doing to reduce our consumption, eliminate waste and still have the great products we have come to rely upon. As we keep evolving our society to live in more equilibrium with our environment it is great to know that we still can look sexy, smell fabulous and have a super clean house. To find out how to have the best of both worlds visit Fig and Sage and they will hook you up! By the way they have some really great things to say about our super fresh, Fruit Smoothie Enzyme Masque. it is good enough to eat.

Cosmetic Chef

David Parker.

I am a huge fan of detoxification. Funny enough it is actually what got me interested in natural cosmetics. I was born 6 weeks premature which resulted in underdeveloped lungs. I had to live with asthma most of my childhood. I still painfully remember the worst feeling in the world was to have an asthma attack and not have my inhaler around. I was a stubborn adolescent and did not really put much faith in authority. I felt I knew better and needed to research and through trial and error seek the answers to my questions myself. I know that there must have been alternatives to being dependent on a drug for the rest of my life. That simply was not an option for me. So then started my path toward researching health.

I must have read hundreds of books and did so many workshops, I got burnt out on information. At some point you just got to do it, no amount of book information will replace good old fashioned experience. So then I changed my diet, went vegan for 1 year then slowly transitioned to a 100% raw food diet and got really into healthy skin care (hence was that beginning of my obsession with natural cosmetics). I started to feel a major shift on all levels of my life. I remember my first cleanse was using the supplements from Arise and Shine. It was called their master cleanse and WOW what a relief. In one week I released a lifetime of impacted mucoid plaque from my colon.

From then on I have done many cleanses, fasts, colonics etc. It is just natural for me now to cleanser once or twice a year. Plus the best part I haven’t used my inhaler for over 10 years! This stuff works! Dr. Jeff our health and wellness contributor has posted a new thought provoking article about facing the toxicity in our “real” world and why we need to take responsability for our own internal environment. Go green take care of your internal landscape first.

Cosmetic Chef

David Parker

DR. JEFF – A Toxic World?

Some people think that detoxification is a “new age” idea. For me it isn’t, but I decided to at least look and see what shows up. First stop, PubMed, an Internet site put out by the U.S. National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health. Entering detoxification into their site search brings up 15,823 citations of studies done on detoxification. Pretty impressive. Next stop, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s website. A quick look brings up 981 citations of studies involving detoxification. Not as impressive, but still noteworthy. Last stop, the World Health Organization’s website. A quick search here brings up 1250 citations. All-in-all, detoxification seems to be a worldwide concern.

So, is detoxification an issue? If detoxification were not an issue, then we could eat all of the mercury laden fish that we wanted to. We could breathe polluted air without consideration. We could smoke 10 packs of cigarettes each day for a life time and not suffer as a result. We could dump all the waste that we wanted to into the oceans, rivers, and streams. We could do away with water filtration plants, waste recycling, and all the controls surrounding pollution. We wouldn’t need life-saving antioxidants in hospital and clinical settings. I think that it is self-evident that detoxification is an issue. It is a primary function of all cells, tissues, and organs in the human body and all other living organisms, as well as the planet itself.

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Detoxification is a necessity for life on the planet to go on existing. Without detoxification, we would suffer and die in our own wastes. The largest organ in the body is a detoxification organ, the skin. The next largest organs – the liver, lungs, large intestine, and kidneys – also deal heavily with detoxification. Detoxification sites and pathways are everywhere in our body’s tissues. As an organism, we come armed for detoxification.

Some people think that the body is adequately equipped for detoxification, but if it were, we wouldn’t have words like carcinogen, teratogens, reproductive toxicants, and endocrine disruptors. These are chemicals that create disease and dysfunction in the body because the body isn’t able to remove them. The human body was not made to handle the toxic load that it has to handle in today’s environment, and the environment wasn’t made to handle the toxic load that humans have dumped upon it. Of the 100,000+ chemicals in use worldwide, some 5000 of them are produced in high volumes in excess of 1 million pounds per year. Only a small percentage of these have been tested for environmental and human impact.

The human body is like a sponge that soaks up hundreds, perhaps thousands of chemicals. In testing done on babies, the number of toxins present at birth has been shown to be around 200-300. Scientists estimate that everyone alive today has a toxic load of at least 700 contaminants. Chemicals that have been outlawed years ago can still show up in the body’s tissues decades later. What goes in, doesn’t necessarily come out.

How we manage the toxic load of the body can have a great impact on our health and the health of our children. Reducing exposure to toxins is a great place to start. The home should be a safe place for us to retreat to and renew ourselves. We should eliminate, or greatly reduce, our exposure to chemicals through the foods we eat, the beverages we drink, and the air we breathe. Lotions, shampoos, conditioners, detergents, and household cleaners should be organic or biodegradable. Our water and air should be filtered whenever possible. Food should be our medicine. Routine sweating via saunas and hot baths is an established practice in many cultures that makes use of the skin and its detoxification abilities.

One can work with healthcare practitioners to investigate ways to assist the body in reducing its toxic burden. Nutrients can be useful in boosting the body’s resources for antioxidants. A supplement like N-acetyl-cysteine helps to replenish the stores of one of the body’s most abundant antioxidants, glutathione. Glutathione help to decrease the oxidative stress created by the toxic load we carry and expose ourselves to continuously.

So, perhaps detoxification is a “new age” concept, but more importantly, I believe that it should be a part of a new age of personal responsibility for our health and how our choices play a role in determining the quality of the life we live.

Dr. Jeffrey S. McCombs, DC, is a 3rd generation Doctor of Chiropractic, author of the book: LifeForce, and developer of The McCombs Plan (formerly known as The Life Force Plan). His 25 years of ongoing research and practice emphasizes addressing the nutritional, environmental, emotional, structural, and biochemical aspects of acute and chronic health conditions in his patients.
He can be reached at www.mccombsplan.com, 888.236.7780.

THEBODYDELI.COM

.Cindy Bokma is a true doll. The illustrious persona behind Hello Dollface, one of the best and most popular beauty blogs. Her simple philosophy is, let’s get gorgeous. I can’t argue with that! Our Light Facial Emulsion has been so popular lately. The blogosphere seems to be all lit up about it. It has saved our skin many times so we love, love to hear about it making a Dollface out of you.

Cosmetic Chef

David Parker

If you haven’t tried anything from the Body Deli, I urge you to do so. This stuff is the bomb! I love it, love it, love it! It’s all natural and made without any harsh chemicals. If you want organic skincare, this is for you. Flash Flood gives combination/oily skin a surge of moisture but is light enough to to not clog pores. It has a delicious scent and contains anti-oxidants. I’ve been getting several reader requests for all natural skin care so I want to point you right to the Body Deli for organic, pure products that work. Every time I visit their website I see many, many things I want! I am such a lover of all things rose and they have this Rose Euphoria Body Souffle I am dying to get my hands on….

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