BOOKS

Toxin Toxout

“How do I get this stuff out of me?”

Bruce Lourie and Rick Smith, two of Canada’s environmental leaders, have been asked this question on an almost daily basis since the publication of their runaway international bestseller, Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects Our Health. Their answer? It’s not as simple as we’d like, and it’s not as easy as we’d hope. But it’s too important to ignore.

In Toxin Toxout, Lourie and Smith give practical and often surprising advice for removing toxic chemicals from our bodies and homes. There are over 80,000 synthetic chemicals in commerce today, and the authors use their outrageous experiments (they and their brave volunteers are the guinea pigs) to prove how easily our bodies absorb these chemicals. With trademark humour, they give us the good news about what is in our control, the steps we can take to help our bodies remove our toxic burden—and what we can do to avoid it in the first place. Furthermore, Lourie and Smith investigate the truth behind organic foods, which detox methods actually work, if indoor air quality is improving, how we dispose of waste (where do those chemicals go?), and the ins and outs of a greener economy. The result is nothing short of a prescription for a healthier life.

Slow Death by Rubber Duck

Provocative and groundbreaking, Slow Death by Rubber Duck reveals how the living of daily life creates a toxic soup inside each of us.

Studies have shown that significant levels of toxic substances can leach out of commonplace items in our homes and workplaces. How do these toxins make their way inside us and what impact do they have on our health? And more importantly, what can we do about them? Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie, two of Canada’s leading environmental activists, tackle these questions head on by experimenting upon themselves. Over a four-day period, our intrepid (and perhaps foolhardy) authors ingest and inhale a host of things that surround us all every day, all of which are suspected of being toxic and posing long term health risks to humans. By revealing the pollution load in their bodies before and after the experiment – and the results in most cases are downright frightening – they tell the inside story of seven common substances.

The pollution inside us is insidious. “We cannot see it; we often have trouble measuring it and it is very difficult assigning specific damage to chemicals that are so widely used. But the alarm bells are starting to sound.” Doctors, nurses, mothers and community activists are questioning why these toxic substances can be put into products without our knowledge and with no evidence that they will not harm us and legislators are just beginning to listen.

Ultimately hopeful, Slow Death By Rubber Duck empowers readers with ideas for protecting themselves and their families and changing things for the better. If you are concerned about the level of toxins in your body and want to understand the hidden threats already in your home, you must read this book.