Are organic sofas expensive?

OEcotextiles

A current theme in the blogosphere is that organic sofas are expensive, so let’s see what that could mean.

We often hear that organic stuff costs more than conventional stuff, and that only the rich can take advantage of the benefits of organic products.  That is true of food prices – organic food typically costs from 20% to 100% more than conventionally produced equivalents. [1]  And I won’t go into what we seem to be getting in return for buying the cheaper, conventionally produced foods, but let’s just say it’s akin to a  Faustian bargain.

But look at the food companies which in the 1950s routinely produced laughably inaccurate adverts trumpeting the health benefits associated with their products. 

Those old school adverts, ridiculous as they look now, displayed an awareness that healthy food resonated with modern consumers, and heralded the start of a 60 year long transformation that has…

View original post 1,503 more words

Toxic lies

OEcotextiles

Julie Gunlock wrote a blog post entitled “The ‘toxic’ lies behind Jessica Alba’s booming baby business” (to read the post, click  here ) We’re not necessarily fond of Jessica Alba nor her Honest Company, but the statements made by Julie Gunlock need to be addressed. She contends that the Honest Company’s main commodity is fear and the “false promise that their products are safer than others.”

I will not comment on her admonitions about how The Honest Company’s products are full of chemicals (as this should be obvious), or that Alba had recognized that “many people  –  particularly women (sic) – have been convinced that common chemicals are a bogeyman that lurks, waiting to harm them” – since everything is made of chemicals, some bad for us, some that are not.  We aren’t part of the “man made is absolutely bad, natural is absolutely good” camp.

What I will

View original post 2,056 more words

Book Review: Healthy Baby, Toxic World

Do I Look Sick?

Since I began blogging, one of the illnesses I learned a lot about was MCS – Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. This is an illness that develops after a certain amount of exposure to chemicals where your body becomes hyper-sensitive to almost everything. In a sense, you become “Allergic to Life,” which is the title of a book by one of the bloggers who first taught me about MCS – Kathryn Treat.

The thing that I found most profoundly frightening about MCS was that it could happen to anyone. Chemicals are like drugs, and the “overdose” amount for each one is different from person to person and hasn’t been studied much. While you may think you couldn’t possibly be at risk for this “overdose,” you have to remember that chemicals are in literally everything – your soaps, lotions, perfumes, shampoos, cleaning products, water, the air outside – EVERYTHING.

View original post 968 more words