Drop Dead Healthy by A. Jacobs (books to read to increase intelligence .TXT) 📕

are made from endocrine-disrupting plastics that will cause my boys to grow breasts the size of Katy Perry’s when they’re twelve. These books warn my food will poison me, and my shampoo will give me scalp cancer.

The next day, I’ll read that these fears are overblown, and that science has proved nothing of the sort. I need to figure out the truth.

To represent the anti–rubber duck side, I’ve called in my aunt Marti. Marti has a few opinions about health—and one of her main causes is toxic chemicals. She’s in town to visit my grandfather and I ask her to do a sweep of our apartment. She agrees.

Marti arrives on a Thursday morning wearing her trademark purple scarf and a backpack.

“How was your flight?” I ask.

“Not bad, considering,” she says.

Airplanes are always a challenge. She needs to carry her raw organic vegetables with her, but the TSA tried to confiscate the ice pack. She won’t go near scanners, and she comes armed with a newspaper clipping to show the officers that they might cause cancer. Also, the flight attendant’s cologne made her gag.

Marti acknowledges she’s a character. She signs her e-mails “Your eccentric aunt Marti.” But I don’t want to dismiss her as a whack job. Well, sometimes she’s a whack job, like when she went through a phase called “solar gazing,” which is basically looking at the sun every day for thirty seconds to absorb some of its good energy. Staring at the sun. With your eyes.

But other times, she’s years—and even decades—ahead of the curve. She warned us all about secondhand smoke when most dismissed it as alarmist babble. She’s been promoting the health benefits of vegetarianism long before mainstream nutritionists started advocating a plant-based diet. Plus, she looks about twenty years younger than her sixty-two years. And she hasn’t gotten sick in eight years.

Okay, let’s go to work.

We start in the kitchen. Our sink has a bottle of strawberry-scented antibacterial soap.

“No, no, no,” says Marti. “Anything that says ‘antibacterial’ is a poison. Just conceptualize skull and bones on it.” Many believe triclosan in antibacterials is an endocrine disrupter and allergen. Marti says we need to buy organic vegetable-based soap.

We move on to the cleaning fluids under the sink. She picks up Mr. Clean Bath Cleaner and takes a sniff. She recoils like she’s smelled a rotting corpse. “Let me get out my oregano.” She keeps a vial of organic oregano oil in her backpack, which she dabs onto her wrists to counteract the Mr. Clean nasal assault. I should be cleaning with vinegar and organic baking soda.

And on it goes for another forty-five minutes.

My sunscreen and deodorant are tainted. They have parabens, which cause endocrine disruptions and cancer.

My store-bought clothes have been treated with chemicals, and need to be replaced with hemp, bamboo, or organic cotton fibers.

The plastic Keith Haring shower curtain with its abundance of phthalates elicits a shriek. There might be a link to liver cancer and lowered sperm production.

Having a microwave is like keeping a loaded gun under my kids’ pillow.

And my refrigerator is like a Superfund site. “Oh my God! This is child abuse,” she gasps, when she spots our chemical-laced American cheese.

She opens a drawer to find nonorganic cucumbers and blueberries. Pesticides used in nonorganic farming can cause everything from cancer to ADHD.

“You don’t have Wi-Fi, do you?”

I sheepishly acknowledge we do.

“That’s like having a mini cell tower in your house!”

She says that a Canadian study showed that Wi-Fi distorted the growth of Dutch ash trees. Marti thinks electromagnetic pollution is an underappreciated health hazard. Wi-Fi is terrible, but even old-fashioned wires emit harmful rays. In her own home, she hired a worker to put all her wires—computer, phone, printer—behind a wall.

We move onto the living room. She peeks under our Pottery Barn lamp. As she expected, one of those fusilli-like CFL light bulbs. “This gives off a small vapor of mercury. You need to take it to the toxic waste dump.”

“I thought I was being environmentally responsible.”

“You need to get an LED lightbulb.”

She points to a small arrangement of roses I’d gotten Julie for our anniversary.

“Those are toxic. Commercial flowers are sprayed with all kinds of chemicals.”

“Doesn’t the FDA protect us?” I ask.

“They’re years behind. Remember when the government said tobacco was just fine for you? They said it soothed the nerves.”

Julie comes into the kitchen to get some coffee.

“I just hope he doesn’t have to get rid of me.”

“Do you have metal fillings?” Marti asks Julie. “Because assuming you and A.J. are still intimate, you’re sharing the toxins in your mouth.”

Julie has only one filling, and it isn’t metal.

“She’s probably okay, then,” Marti says to me, smiling.

I’m also lucky I don’t have a car. The upholstery on car seats is on Marti’s list of hazardous substances. Many have the flame retardant Deca, which has been linked to learning deficits. In fact, here’s how committed Marti is to living a toxin-free life: When she bought her Toyota Corolla, she left the car on the street with the window open for six months before she drove it. Six months to let the upholstery emit its noxious gases.

After a raw food lunch, Marti goes to visit grandpa, and detoxify his house. I hug her good-bye, even though I probably transferred all sorts of chemicals onto her.

Better Living Through Chemistry

For equal time, I decide to have lunch with the anti-Marti. A couple of weeks ago, a mutual friend introduced me to a man named Todd Seavey. He works for an organization called the American Council on Science and Health (a job he would later leave to work at Fox Business Network). The ACSH is a libertarian-leaning group that battles against what its members see as irrational fear of chemicals.

I’m already seated at an Italian restaurant when Todd arrives.

“How are you doing?” I ask as he pulls in his chair.

I was expecting some variation on “fine” or “pretty good.” Instead, I got a three-minute mindspew about his horrible morning: A scientific journal has announced