Why I Chose to Go Green.
When you have a significant health event, or even have kids, for some reason, it’s a fabulous reason to take stock of what we eat and how we live. For me, it was both of these things. The biggest one, was that we had what is termed as “secondary infertility”, which means that, for some reason, we couldn’t fall pregnant with a second baby.
In the search for a restoration of my own health, and the promotion of maximal health for my family, I began hunting down the best sources of information that I could find.
What We Did To Change Our Life
We moved from the city, to a rural area, in an attempt to try and create a sort of sanctuary. It’s not perfect, we are not perfect, but we are trying hard. There are so many pollutants around in everyday living, we needed to try and find some sort of escape from it.
The things I’ll list out below were a slow work in progress and learning, but when I look at it, we’ve made some good headway and I’m proud of how far we’ve come.
We also moved, so that we could grow the food that we wanted to eat, so we had a very clear idea of the chain of custody of our meat and many vegetables that we grow.
Our Non-Negotiable's
The use of chemicals is prohibited at our place. The skin is the largest organ on the body, and earthing (no shoes on, walking on the ground outside) is a fabulous thing, so I want my kids and animals to run free, without the joys of sucking up Round up and synthetic fertilisers, into their little bodies. Or mine.
We catch and filter our own water. Colourbond roof, so we don’t drink the break down of the paint or sealants on tiles. We have a ‘first flush’ mechanism to minimise pollutants from animals and environmental contaminants entering our tanks. In addition, we have a ‘tank vac’ system that flushes out the bottom of the tanks each time they fill and overflow.
We don’t have wifi. Everything is hard wired, so that our kid’s fertility and brain development are given the best chance.
Growing our Own Veggies has been a Learning Curve.
Currently, we have our own eggplants, lemons, spring onions, celery, mint, basil, spinach, tomatoes, bay leaves, parsley, oregano, coriander, blueberries, cabbage, kale, chives and rosemary. It’s far from a complete list, but Food Connect is a fabulous source of locally grown, organic produce that supplements our food at home, with low food km’s.
We Grow our own Pork, Beef and Chicken.
We raise them on our farm, and they are butchered here. No grains fed to the cattle. We make our own licks to manage worms and ticks, and we don’t have any parasite load on our animals – we had the vet check them for us, just to be sure.
The chickens have 4 acres to free range over, and they have the most golden yolks and are truly delicious.
Changes to the House We Made To Go Chemical Free and Green.
We had a building biologist test our house before we moved here, and then after we made the changes to our house.
- We have solar, but the transformer is in the garage, so that it doesn’t disrupt sleep or our bodies with the EMF’s it could produce as a by product of harvesting the sun.
- The paint we use is zero VOC, inside and out. This is important, as the fillers in paints are not great to breath in, as they break down over the years.
- We removed the carpets from our house and replaced them with floorboards that are sealed with a natural oil, so that our baby can crawl around and eat food off it, without ingesting petrochemicals. We also don’t absorb them through our bare feet, because shoes are left at the door.
- The house has been rewired, and there is no longer any dirty electricity.
- The electrical boxes and air conditioning units at our house are not on the other side of bedroom walls. As much distance as possible to any living areas where we spend considerable time – they are on the outside of bathrooms and the laundry or garage.
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We insulated our roofspace to maximise the thermal barrier in our house and it also saves up to 40% on heating or cooling – we made sure that we used an Australian product that didn’t have formaldehyde added to it, like some can that come from Asia.
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There are no cell phone towers within 400m of our house, so radiation is minimised. We had a building biologist test our house – that’s not to say they won’t install one, but I will make lots of noise to avoid it, where possible.
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We changed the fall of the land at the front of the house, to drain water away towards our dam catchment, and also to minimise the potential of mould.
Bedroom & Living Spaces Were Upgraded Too.
We don’t have block out blinds, so that the plastics on the back don’t off gas into bedrooms while we sleep.
Our mattresses and pillows are natural latex, and our sheets are organic cotton – no need to absorb unnecessary chemicals into our skin while we sleep. Check out Zen beds, for fabulous locally made craftsmanship, whilst being amazing for your health.
No scotch guarding on lounges – they are certainly dirtier in appearance for it, but nothing a good steam clean can’t sort out. I’d rather sit quietly without leaching that not-so-goodness into my body.
All of our electrical equipment that draws current, is at least 1.5 m away from areas that we spend time. Our last house had a TV on the other side of the wall to where our daughter’s cot was. No more.
There are no phones or chargers or any form of technology in bed rooms, as we re-cabled in the walls where our bed head are located, to ensure they aren’t running where we sleep. In our old house, very few people who used to sleep in the spare room above the wifi router on one side of the bed got a very good nights sleep. Now, we don’t turn the wifi on, unless we need to update our phones.
We use essential oils instead of perfumes an fragrances, and try and ensure the phthalates are minimised.
This list is about sharing what we’ve tried to do at our place, and a bit about why we did it. It’s not an exhaustive list at all, but when I look back over it, it’s a long one.
We Made Small Changes, Bit by Bit, and We Will Continue to Make Them From Here On In!
My philosophy for living a chemical free and green life underpins everything that I do. As We have gone on to build Newmarket and reno Taringa I have tried where ever possible to incorporate my philosophies into the remedial massage clinics.
We use chemical free laundry detergent with a mix of essential oils, our paint on the massage clinic walls is zero VOC. We recycle. We have chosen specific plants to filter the air. We are constantly evolving the clinics to help the environment, decrease our exposure to chemicals and toxins and improve the air quality for our therapists and clients. To learn more head to our Doing Our Bit Page!
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