The Hemp Connection:
endocrine disruption

I learned at Natural Products West this past weekend that many popular chewing gums are made with petroleum-based ingredients. If your chewing gum ingredient label says it is made of a"gum base," it may legally contain any of the following: petroleum, lanolin, glycerin, polyethylene, polyvinyl acetate, petroleum wax, stearic acid, or latex. In essence, you might as well cut a piece of inner tube off of your bicycle tire and chew on it, because that is what has been packaged and sold to you!

Vegans beware! There are some animal-based products in that list. And for everyone, there are endocrine disruptors up there.

When I learned this I immediately thought of all the chewing gum promoted by weight loss experts and shows such as The Biggest Loser. BIG OUCH. It's a well-intended recommendation, but in this situation, it's not the calories in the product that are the problem. That is often the case with PCOS, you need to look past the obvious to get to the answer.

Old-style chewing gums are made of chicle, which comes from the rubber tree. Over time, manufacturers switched to the cheaper and more readily available ingredients listed above. I saw chicle-based gum at the Natural Products Expo, made by a company called Glee Gum. In addition to being made with chicle, it is also GMO- and gluten-free. The chicle they use is sustainably harvested and creates an incentive for rainforest preservation. So you're doing a lot of good outside of yourself when you purchase this product.

I encourage you to take the time to learn where you can purchase it locally; if you cannot find it, here is an ordering link.

Glee also has a really fun Verve Chewing Gum Kit, 6.5-Ounce Boxes (Pack of 2) kit for any of you with budding scientists in your house. Bookmark this post and put it in your Christmas shopping file!

Over the weekend we hosted a fair trade chocolate and pesticide-free wine tasting in conjunction with Metta Community Yoga Center. We had the honor and pleasure of hearing our favorite local chocolatier, Lisa Reinhardt, talk about her passion, creating quality chocolate.
Lisa spent a lot of time talking about the thought she put into how she would make her Wei of Chocolate product line, and how bothered she was by the many things she learned about traditional chocolate making. One of the things that she shared resonated with me very much, as I thought about its pertinence to PCOS.

I know that many of you struggle with cravings for sweets, and that often times that craving translates into a binge on chocolate. Lisa shared that since cacao tends to be grown in Third World countries, much of it is grown in conditions that would not be legal in the United States. In particular, many pesticides that are banned in our country are freely used elsewhere.

Lindane, a toxic and endocrine disrupting chemical both used as a pesticide and as a medication for head lice, is a commonly used pesticide in cacao-producing countries. Though banned in 2006 in the US, except for its medicinal uses, it is not banned in many primary cacao-producing countries. In fact, chocolate tested in 2007 did have lindane residues.

I suspect that the argument you would get if you asked one of our major corporate chocolate producers here in the US is that the residues are so minute that they pose no health risk. I've just learned, in all my years of working with PCOS, that this line of logic doesn't work. First of all, you all tend to have nervous and endocrine systems that are more sensitive to chemical insult; you need to stay away from these compounds more diligently than the average person does. Secondly, the relationship you have with sweets and chocolate is not the average relationship. When you eat it, you tend to eat much larger quantities of it than does the average person…giving those pesticides more opportunity to accumulate and cause problems.

You've got a couple of choices here. You can keep eating the stuff you get at Walgreen's because it's cheap and it's available and hope that someday someone at the top of the ant pile over at Willy Wonka Inc. is going to care enough about PCOS to take a risk and buy the more expensive, pesticide-free raw material, and accept the sales loss that decision will create on behalf of the greater good…

…or you can take action immediately and only purchase the organic stuff for yourself. You know it's more expensive, but don't you deserve to do the right thing for yourself?

By the way, that lindane stuff? It's not just toxic to YOU. It's toxic to all the people in those Third World countries who grow it, touch it, process it, etc. By shifting your spending and making it harder for all of the people in that supply chain to make a living off of lindane-laced cacao, you're helping people in far away places balance their own hormones.

Some important things to think about.

If you're looking for a newer, better chocolate to treat yourself with, check out Lisa's website. She's wildly popular in Phoenix and gaining popularity in other cities like Los Angeles and New York. It's not a bad bandwagon to get on. Her organic chocolate, by the way, comes from the rainforests of Ecuador.

If you happen to be interested in which countries do ban lindane, here it is.

Banned lindane for all uses(21):

Finland, Indonesia, Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand, Saint Lucia, Sweden

Severely restricted the use of lindane:

Australia, Austria, Cyprus, Norway, Sri Lanka

Christine Cassano's interview was jam-packed with information about how to clean up your work, home, and beauty environment.

Here are some of her recommendations for products and companies who can help you do the same.

Art Supplies
American Clay Plaster: http://www.americanclay.com/

Clay Paints etc
http://www.bioshieldpaint.com/index.php?main_page=products&cPath=93
Environmentally safe paints, sealers, etc
http://www.afmsafecoat.com/

Soy Based Sealers & Stains http://www.ecoprocote.com/

Local (Phoenix) Vegan [and super-awesome!] Soaps & Lotions
Strawberry Hedgehog — http://strawberryhedgehog.com/

Hair Dye: Hennas
http://www.light-mountain-hair-color.com/#Story

Soaps & Lotions
http://www.drbronner.com/

Shampoos & Makeup
http://www.aubrey-organics.com/default.aspx
Cleaning Products
DIY: http://www.thedailygreen.com/green-homes/latest/green-cleaning-spring-cleaning-460303
Shaklee: http://www.shaklee.com/products_home.shtml
Seventh Generation: http://www.seventhgeneration.com/

General Resource Links
EWG: the most comprehensive environmental consumer advocacy group: http://www.ewg.org/
Understanding the risk of everyday beauty products 101: http://www.safecosmetics.org/
Beauty Products Chemical Database [by EWG]: http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/

Christine also mentioned a company called AKA Green. While they no longer have a store front, they do have a blog.

And our own co-host, designer Michael Keele, is devoted to finding and selling similar products. Check him out at http://www.centralslope.com/.

If you'd like to see Christine's art, here are three opportunities:
http://www.christinecassano.com/
http://www.monorchid.com/
http://www.practicalart.com/

If you missed the interview, you can find it in our archives at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/incystforhormones/2010/11/03/how-pcos-influenced-my-life-and-my-passion-artist-christine-cassano