6 hidden toxins to avoid in your kitchen

Even if you buy the best locally sourced organic produce, the way in which you prepare your food can take it from being beneficial to harmful. The average kitchen is filled with a vast array of toxins that can severely impact gut health and disrupt hormones. A natural kitchen on the other hand can ensure foods stay beneficial for you and is often a lot simpler than most people realise. 

Modern kitchen goods are built for one thing, convenience, not for health. So they often contain ingredients that may well make life in the kitchen easier but at the same time are degrading your health, so in this article we’ll cover both what to look out for as well as what to use instead.

1. Dish soap 

Most people use a washing up liquid of some sort, some of you may have even bought a more environmentally option and as the marketing tells you it is a kinder alternative for your skin. But the oldest washing up liquid is a simple soap, made of ingredients you could eat.

Many washing up liquids have been found to contain ingredients, that while helping get that stubborn grease off your pan, are also causing holes in your gut, leading to what is known as leaky gut. Residue liquid left over after washing plates, cutlery and drinking glasses etc, can so easily be consumed along with your food. A harsh detergent in the gut is what nobody needs.

So instead switching to a simple ingredient soap such as Aleppo or goat milk soap can help you avoid all these harmful detergents and save your gut health at the same time, it just may take you a little more elbow grease.

2. Aluminium foil 

Used in so many different recipes and even used by people who want to skip washing up, aluminium foil is one of the main culprits for the leaching of aluminium into foods. 

Studies have shown how increased exposure to aluminium also increased people chances of being diagnosed and suffering with the awful condition which is Alzheimers. 

For food storage switching to beeswax wraps and for cooking switching to alternative methods such as a dutch oven or cedar grilling planks. 

3. Microplastics 

Most of us are aware of the prevalence of microplastics in the modern world, but still so many are keeping plastic around the kitchen whether it’s plastic utensils, cookware, chopping boards, sponges or even polyester tea towels. Microplastics are endocrine disruptors that are highly estrogenic and so often contain known carcinogens such as BPA. 

Eradicating plastic from your kitchen is like waging a war on anything that may contain it. Switching to natural options such as glass, wood and cotton to name just a few can help you massively cut down on your microplastic consumption and save both your hormones and gut health.

4. BPA 

As mentioned above, BPA is most often found in plastic items but it can also be used to line cans and tins. The food doesn’t just sit against the metal as most people think it does, it sits against a lining made of BPA plastic. This is to stop acidic foods such as tomatoes leaching into the metal and causing it to degrade from the inside out. 

Thankfully there are more and more brands avoiding this use of BPA and using a safer natural option instead. And where plastic is still needed many brands choose to use BPA free plastic and they note this clearly for consumers to see. But it is important to reduce your reliance on plastic as a whole.

5. Counter-top sprays 

We all got sold on the sprays that kill 99.9% of bacteria but no one thought to ask (as with dish soap) if these chemicals would affect us too, and unfortunately they most definitely do. Again the chemicals found within counter top sprays have been linked to gut health problems and the endocrine disrupting chemicals that come with scented sprays. 

The alternative is so cheap and convenient that if everyone knew it and adapted it then a billion dollar industry would collapse. This is simply using white vinegar and water mixed 50/50 into a glass spray bottle. White vinegar kills harmful bacteria while not harming your own healthy bacteria and hormones. 

6. Non-stick coatings 

I know you love your air fryer but non-stick coatings are a huge chemical burden on your health. We all know the dangers of teflon coated frying pans by know but so many alternatives have popped up and people jump to them in a hope to keep the convenience of “non-stick” alive and kicking. Most non-stick coatings contain PFAS which are known as forever chemicals and are known carcinogens.

But we don’t need these untested and unknown coatings to cook with ease. Stainless steel is chosen by chefs all over the world for its simplicity, durability and the fact it won’t make the food taste awful when coatings inevitably leach. Stainless steel becomes naturally non stick above a certain temperature, you just need to wait for it to warm up. 

Additionally we have cast iron and carbon steel pans that will out live you if you look after them and are even closer to how humans have always cooked. They both develop a natural non-stick over time as seasoning and use compound. 

Summary 

When you start your health journey it can feel like a minefield trying to dodge every toxin and hormone disruptor that you never even knew existed. But starting with the basics such as the above and slowly but surely making healthier swaps and changes to your environment will help your health more than you can realise.

The environment we live in and the food we eat come together in the kitchen, don’t let one poison the other, focus on returning to what nature made and health flows easily from there.