Why am I such and ardent organics supporter and promoter? Well, I have not always been this way; in fact it was only a few short years ago that I told my then husband to be that we did not need to pay attention to the ingredient list we just needed to look at the nutrition label (fat, calories, protein…). Much has changed and all can be attributed to my journey with autism.
I began working with children with autism about 4 years ago. These precious children stole my heart and have captured my mind. In the beginning I wanted to know more; the more I learned the more I realized was unknown. One thing I kept running into was chemicals in the environment which I blew off at first. However it stuck in my mind and I noticed that everyone of the kids in the autism room in which I worked had a mother who was an avid gardener. I was newly married and had myself developed a love for digging in the dirt and growing plants. I was a conventional gardener and used any chemical I could get my hand on to keep insects at bay. At the time my thought was that if it was sold in the store it was safe, ha! One day I stopped and read the label of the toxic sludge that I was dishing out to keep my plants from being eaten. What was this that needed to be flushed for 10-15 minutes if skin contact is made? And who really flushes their skin that long? I was shocked by the long list of neurotoxins and carcinogens that I was eagerly applying to the garden. In hopes that I was just being paranoid I had Jeremy, who was working in a neuroengineering lab, research the chemicals further. To no avail, the first of many life changes was on the horizon. We then went from the garden to the chemicals I was cleaning with and then to the food. The following summer I was doing some volunteer work and looked at the ingredients on the snacks we were handing out to the kids and noticed TBHQ. What is TBHQ? TBHQ is butane and it is used as a preservative in our food… what? Really, butane is an allowable ingredient in food.
At this point I was convinced of the need to reduce the chemicals in our environment and that one way I could do that was to support organics. However, I had not yet taken my support of organics to clothing — it just had not occurred to me. After all, I was not eating clothing and washing would surely take care of the chemicals. Then in October of 2007 a study was published in Environmental Health Perspectives the results of which showed that the rates of autism spectrum disorders increased with the poundage of organochlorine pesticides and the the mothers proximity to the field site while pregnant. Further research revealed that the crops for which organochlorine pesticides are primarily used are cotton, soybeans, and rice. Now I had a problem because I could no longer feel good about buying cotton because it was a natural product; in doing so I was contributing to a lot of chemical contamination.
This is when I began to think about the entire impact of my actions. What had before been a simple act of going to a store and purchasing something turned into a chain of events that led back to the birth of the raw materials of that product and the effect that product had on the lives it touched on its way to me. We can change the world by being a little more conscious of our purchases.
