In the United States, chemicals are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Anybody who wants to come up with a new chemical can add it to places where we are most vulnerable—like in baby bottles—and have no repercussions until decades later when people have come forward with the same illness.

We presume just because it’s on the shelves that it’s safe for us.

Unfortunately,  governmental requirements are limited to food and drugs and we have no regulations to list ingredients on other products, which means that even the stores that we trust aren’t always aware of what is in the products they are selling.

Companies can research what they choose to sell, and it simply depends on how much due diligence they want to do, to determine what they stock.

Stores like Whole Foods engage in more due diligence to make sure that the products they offer are safer than if you buy them at a traditional grocery store. Health and well-being is no longer just about diet and exercise. It’s also about toxicity, and Whole Food recognizes that.

The number of people who want to protect themselves is growing exponentially. All of the companies who are generating safe products are growing because people want to know how to protect themselves and their families. The industry growth of  Whole Foods is an example of how this kind of thinking is exploding.

But, like I’ve said before, you have to take control of your own life. You can’t expect other agencies to do this job for you.

Sometimes, people share with me that they feel overwhelmed and think that they can’t do much, so choose not to worry about it and take their chances. If that’s your mindset, I want to encourage you that lifestyle modifications aren’t that tricky. It’s actually not that complicated and it’s not rocket science to make a few simple shifts. You should be able to go to the grocery store without feeling overwhelmed.

Pesticides are the number one villain on the grocery store shelves.

Regardless of where you shop, eat organic fruits and vegetables, because non-organic fruits and vegetables have pesticides sprayed on them. Pesticides are essentially nerve gas.

It’s not common knowledge that pesticides started all the way back in WW2. Nazis had these stockpiles of nerve gas, and when they lost the war they didn’t know what to do with them. They figured out that if they sprayed it on the crops or in their houses it would kill all the bugs. So, they diluted it and didn’t notice any acute effects on humans. That was the birth of pesticides as we know it today.

If you can’t afford to buy anything else organic, then prioritize buying organic fruits and vegetables. There is rhyme and reason for what has worked for thousands of years, and we need to go back to those things. Reference the 2017 “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean 15” lists here.