Easy Steps to a Non-Toxic Home

Video Transcript

Stephen Ezell  0:00  

You’re breathing these chemicals and you’re drinking these chemicals, you’re eating these chemicals on your food. So laundry and your dishwasher is are two really important places for you to start. Because those are the things that literally go on you and go in you like really frickin quick.

 

Andrea Duchonovic  0:24  

What’s going on Andrea here, your personal wellness connector and welcome back to my Channel today, I am so excited to interview one of my one of my friends, somebody that I met years ago that I respect so much. 

 

He’s an amazing human who actually just moved and bought a big farm. So we’ll talk about that. And he’s also the founder of MyGreenFills, which if you follow me, you know, is one of the top companies that I love, respect and pretty much use every single product that they get to offer. So I’m so amazed and just so incredibly happy to talk to Stephen today. What’s going on? How are you? How is your new house?

 

Stephen Ezell  1:06  

I’m doing awesome. The farm is great. We just bought a farm in Missouri. And it is wonderful. It’s a lot of work. But we needed a new adventure because I’m bored out of my mind. So we bought a farm and building a full, kind of 360 permaculture farm from, raising sustainable animals, and crop rotation to growing great food. So yeah. Next adventure.

 

Andrea Duchonovic  1:32  

Well, I love that you said, I’m so bored, because you don’t have enough going on with your businesses.

 

Stephen Ezell  1:39  

Three companies, over 150 employees, hundreds of 1000s of members all over the world. Clearly, I don’t have enough.

 

Andrea Duchonovic  1:49  

Well, first of all, I know a big part of your team. And you have an incredible team. And we know that it starts with our team. So you’re definitely blessed on that factor. So let’s talk about where you could talk. 

 

We could talk about anything here. But I really wanted to focus on everyday chemicals that we find in our homes, cleaning products in general, because let’s be honest, every single one of us cleans our home, I hope, right? And if you’re not cleaning it, somebody else is cleaning it for you with the chemicals that they’re cleaning it with, if that makes sense. And I am a clean freak. Not my studio right now I’ve actually is a big mess because I just bought a house too. But I used to clean you and I had this conversation. 

 

I didn’t know any better. Most of us don’t know any better. So I used to go and I used to use the products that I thought were the best for my home that gave me good results. And that were on sale and target or Costco. And I used to bleach everything. And a lot of my clothes I bleach too because of using bleach, and I had no idea how this was disrupting my body, my hormones and my health. And I don’t have a family yet, but we’re going to have a family. 

 

Most of you ladies watching have a family. Your kids are breeding in these toxins, your animals are breathing in these toxins. And this is just such a huge issue that we are not addressing enough. And you’re the expert because one of your companies is actually you know laundry detergents and everyday cleaners around your home. Tell me why this is such a huge problem and why we should be talking about it. 

 

Stephen Ezell  3:25  

As we’re living in an interesting day and age where Today, more than a month ago, a month ago, more than a year ago. And a year ago way more than 50 years ago, we are living in the largest human chemical experiment ever. 

 

We as humans are being bombarded with chemical intervention 24 hours a day, seven days a week and there’s no escaping it. And you take into account all of the modern medical interventions that are happening in humans lives today. And we as you know a sophisticated society have unequivocally no idea what all of these chemicals whether it’s pharmaceutical intervention, cleaning, chemical interventions, skincare, clothing, etc, etc. 

 

What this is doing to us as humans and years ago I set on a class you know, my son, I have five kids man but when my firstborn son was a tiny infant, he was three weeks old and I was in charge of one of his first baths. And I was getting him undressed and getting you know we had like this green thing that set inside the sink in the kitchen and getting them ready and it looked when I got his onesy off it looked like he was scourged with hot water. I freaked out. I was like, Oh my gosh, like, and I called my wife over who’s actually a nurse who specialized in sick babies. And she freaked out, I freaked out, we went to the pediatrician, to a specialist dermatologist to on our way to a pharmacy to get steroids and all these different pharmaceutical things and call a friend of the family. 

 

She asked me a question that changed my life. So what are you using for laundry detergent? Well, I’m using a big bright bottle, right? The big bottle that grandma’s always used and the fabric softener that grandma was used. Oh, no, you can’t use those. You got to use something else. That’s because kids can babies can have an allergic reaction to laundry soap. And how’s that possible? And so I was so obtuse and I said, 

 

Well, I’ll try anything before we give him pharmaceuticals. And, so we stripped his clothes and, you know, rinse everything with us, you know, kind of like homemade non toxic concoction. And 24 hours later, he was fine with no pharmaceutical interventions, I said, Well, if if laundry detergent can make my kids sick, what else is out there? 

 

So I became a full blown like eco conspiracy theorist, you know, like researching what’s in the back of labels and how things are made. And, that led from the laundry room to under the kitchen sink from the kitchen to the garage, the garage to the cover the cover to the refrigerator. And then finally, everything has to change. And, a report was done years ago, and has been confirmed many times at, you know, even at Mayo Clinic that the average child infant is born with over 300 household chemicals in its umbilical cord blood. 

 

That’s frightening, right? So, you know, to moms out there, that even those that are trying to do their best to live a safe eco life. Literally you are whether it’s through your skin, through your food, through the air, through pharmaceuticals blow like, we’re literally passing hundreds of household every day chemicals in vitro into our children. They’re born with these these chemicals already in their bloodstream. It’s frightening. 

 

So we decided something about it. And, you know, we’ve been pioneering green, eco chemistry now for just under a decade, and, you know, reinvented a laundry room and then went to surface cleaners. But if something has to change, and it has to change at the individual level, it’s not going to change at the store level, it’s not going to change at the governmental level, there’s just too much money to be made. 

 

But what you know, individuals have to take responsibility for their lives, and they got to take responsibility for one knowledge of what goes in them, to what goes on them and three, what goes around them. And so that’s how the story started for me and why, kind of our quest, our crusade is so important, because people need to know, what’s in their homes and what’s on them, because it’spretty crazy.

 

Andrea Duchonovic  8:12  

Yep. And, first of all, I got teary eyed and I got goosebumps listening to your story, because it really hits home for me because I have friends I have family. I don’t have children yet. And I but I will soon and after learning just everything you’re talking about. 

 

It’s I almost like beat myself up for consuming all those chemicals and putting all that chemical filled skincare on my skin, and absorbing it. And so this is just so important what you were saying, because it’s just sad what we are consuming right now. And like you said, we don’t know what we don’t know. I didn’t know until I learned about it. 

 

I knew but what you brought up is so crucial because we are responsible for our health. And like you said, these chemical filled cleaners, laundry detergent, skincare, products, water and everything else, it’s not going away. If anything, it’s getting worse. I do like that more people like us are coming out and talking about it. I think it’s talked about a little bit more and we have such incredible people in our space and in our industry. But what you said we might be the amount of friends that I have putting on toxic skincare products and makeup everyday while they’re pregnant. 

 

And then having babies that might have might be on the spectrum or might have all these allergies and God cancers You know, I’m involved with a foundation where it’s, you know, where we help kids with cancer and put them through these fun summer camps and it’s so sad and so much of it can be prevented. So give us your experience so you came up with these amazing products and ladies, make sure you are checking out the product reviews that I did with Steven on his specific products. 

 

They’re absolutely incredible. But let’s Talk about, for example, laundry detergent. What are some chemicals or even cleaners doesn’t really matter. What are some chemicals that you have seen in everyday products that we should be concerned about?

 

Stephen Ezell  10:10  

Maybe we should talk laundry? Yep. And this is where we started. And we started there for a reason. I believe that laundry chemicals are the single most toxic chemicals in a house. Because how’s that possible, right? 

 

Because you can look at like oven cleaner, or degreasers and things like that. And like they have all these warnings like if you breathe it in, if you spray it on your skin, go see a physician like there, it does everything but blink arrows for warnings. And that’s true because like the the the esters, the ethers this the solvents inside of these aerosol type, you know, oven cleaners are wicked. 

 

So how can laundry chemicals be more toxic than that. And just just think about for a second your local supermarket you go and you’re over in the paper, you got like paper towels over here. And then you get in a cleaning area, and you have an entire aisle full of laundry detergents. 

 

The other side of the aisle is full of all the other laundry chemicals, whether it’s fabric softeners, or stain treatments, and then you go over one more aisle. And it’s like everything else, whether it’s dish soap and hand soap and dish detergent, auto dishwasher, blump, furniture polishes, everything else is in one aisle. And then laundry is in one because it’s the single largest consumable in the category. 

 

So people use more laundry products than anything else will make sense. You make dirty clothes every single day. So you’re constantly using logic chemicals. But here’s the thing. Here’s a really good chance you’re wearing them right now. So we’ll look there’s if you’re watching this video right now, if you look down at what you’re wearing, hopefully you’re wearing something. 

 

If not, it would be kind of weird, is your there’s a real there’s an above average chance you are literally wearing your laundry chemicals right now as as I’m talking to you. When you put your head on the pillow, maybe you’re watching this, and you got your head on the pillow, you get your laptop on your lap or your phone, your head is touching laundry chemicals right now. Or whether you’re listening to this podcast in the shower, and you’re getting out, and you’re taking a towel and you’re drying yourself, you’re rehydrating residual laundry chemicals and putting them into your body. 

 

So it’s the reason why we started in laundry because it’s so crazy that these things and so a couple things to know if laundry chemicals are blue, if they’re green. There’s a reason why. And the reason why they’re goofy and they’re thick and they’re kind of all slimy, is for a reason. 

 

So the reason why they’re blue or green is because they’re chemically engineered to leave a blue or a green haze on your fabrics. So that under artificial light, your clothing appears brighter than it really is. It’s optical illusion. They’re called uv brighteners. And they’re blue because again, they pick up a blue spectrum that makes our eyes believe that your clothes are brighter. 

 

The reason why they’re thick they’re goofy is because they’re designed to leave as goopy thick film on your clothes, especially fabric softeners lots of times to carry uv brighteners but also carry fragrances. And here’s another interesting factoid is a fragrance can be comprised of anywhere between one and hundreds of chemical compounds. And by law, myself included Our company is not required to tell you what’s in it.

 

Andrea Duchonovic  13:56  

And, you know what, Steven? I need to cut you off for one second because when I learn what you just said about fragrances and I was the girl who had febreze plugins or you know the wall plugins and all of the different What do you call them the dryer sheets for the laundry, everything has a smell amazing and when I learned what you just said, I mean my face was a little bit like oh my gosh!

 

Stephen Ezell  14:24  

And really the fragrance industry is a pretty lascivious industry. So there’s a loophole in trade USPTO a US Patent trademark office is a little loophole if they industry is called as the fragrance loophole where if you have a product that’s under 1% of the total concentration of the of the finished good. 

 

For the most part, there are some limited exceptions but for the most part, you do not have to list what those ingredients are on a label And you can have, something that smells like sewage, but under parts per million smells like lilacs. And well, that’s now lilacs fragrance and perfuming. And so lots of companies, you know, just, again, they can, they can blend virtually any chemical that they want as long as one under 1% total concentration, they can just listen the back fragrance, parfum, and legally they don’t have to tell you what’s in it. And the unfortunate part is lots of these things may individually be recognized as a safe chemical based on some laboratory test on a rat or, or a chimpanzee. 

 

But we don’t know what it does to the human genome. And especially when you start combining all these different chemicals. Remember like high school you know, science class, you mix vinegar or baking soda, you made your volcano experiment. So vinegar itself is fine baking soda self is fine, you put the two together, there’s a reaction but we don’t know what these reactions are in the human body. When we start adding all of these you know perfumes and dyes and fillers and buffers and chemical compounds. 

 

It’s pretty crazy. So again, we took the stance of Hey, we’re going to list all of our ingredients and we’re going to stay as continually push the envelope of green and eco innovation. And put all of our labels put a formula on the label if somebody wants to steal it, please like steal my formula, please use it like it’s good stuff it works and you know it’s safe so that’s why laundry we started there to get to kind of circle back and so if stuff is blue, if it’s goopy, if the ingredients are not in the back, if they just say you know blend of surfactants which are the bubble makers right there. 

 

That’s what makes the suds if they’re not disclosing what those ingredients are well and if they’re not willing to be transparent don’t trust them with your money and there are some really great companies out there and but that’s to me you know people want a tight budget it’s like hey, I don’t know where to start so overwhelming, I just listened to Andrea just starting this my journey where do I begin it’s overwhelming start with laundry because that’s the one you use the most and you’re constantly wearing these chemicals all day long. And then as you can just piece by piece you know you run out of your special window cleaner will replace it with something that’s safer vinegar or a non toxic alternative from a great company and just slowly one by one just start replacing the things that you use every day which say for things and and you’ll be better off for it

 

Andrea Duchonovic  17:46  

Yep and that’s exactly what I say it’s always you know, if you want to do the switch all at once like like I did because I’m crazy then why the heck not right that’s just going to be less chemicals right away but I love that you said the laundry first because the story that you said they really are everywhere it’s your in your clothes your and your towel and then the next one for me will be like the everyday cleaner because you could clean anything with it more or less and it’s just such a staple where every single one of us we finished cooking we spray the countertop we wipe it down some things on the floor we spray the floor we wipe it down right so what are the chemicals first of all let’s touch on all natural because that’s just my favorite not only on animal products on cleaning products all natural. 

 

Tell me why you and I don’t love the all natural thing

 

Stephen Ezell  18:37  

Well because it’s just marketing right it’s just a marketing ploy you know again you make you say hey, it’s like it you know all natural chicken. Well, it was a chicken but you know what has been genetically modified in that chicken the hormones the antibiotics the food the blah blah blah blah blah that’s been done to that bird. 

 

It’s kind of a science experiment birds like a Franken chicken but it’s but it isn’t all natural chicken it just went into that chicken is far from natural and naturally occurring so yeah in the cleaning space. There’s no really no such thing as all natural. 

 

I mean even our products although they’re even they’re plant based and you know we go to great lengths to formulate things that are you’re safe and plant based and as non toxic as you can possibly make them they’re not, these are your chemicals right even mined salt from the earth sodium carbonate. It’s a process salt. I mean it’s a chemical. So that’s it’s a complete misnomer. And yeah, it’s just marketing ploy.

 

Andrea Duchonovic  19:46  

Marketing lies I talk about this a lot. I love it. So give us some, you know for the average woman that’s in the supermarket right or not even supermarket but target anywhere else. When you’re looking at a label, you’re looking at an ingredient for cleaning products on laundry detergents, you talk about like the dyes, the blue, what happens. 

 

What are some ingredients that we should really be paying attention to and staying away from?

 

Stephen Ezell  20:10  

The interesting thing is in most of the laundry aisle, they don’t list the ingredients you don’t really have to. So there’s really no way to say hey, look away from these ingredients because a lot of companies don’t. But I give one example, one of the most widely used chemicals in the cleaning industry is called sodium lauryl sulfate SLS, which gets a lot of hype right, SLS is this nasty thing. It’s actually not that nasty. 

 

I mean, it is it’s very irritating to the skin. It’s a synthesized coconut oil cleaner. So it’s put in toothpaste, it’s put in, in vaccines, it’s put in laundry detergent, it’s put in so much it’s putting cake mixes. I mean literally like, like people companies formulate and put sodium lauryl sulfate you sulfate detergents in over the counter cake mixes frightening right? So with that said, there’s incense SLS got all this bad rap, right? 

 

For being this harsh chemical. Then the alternative which lots of companies like EWG and others, you know, recognizes in that same category is SLES or sodium laureth. sulfate. Right? So, sodium lauryl sulfate, sodium laureth sulfate, same thing, right? No. So they basically take in the manufacturing SLES, or sodium lauryl sulfate and give it I’ll nerd out for a second. 

 

There’s a process called the ethoxylation process, where they take the SLS and then it’s unfoxalated related, which means in that process, it gets extremely, it gets extremely efficacious, does a great job of cleaning, reducing surface area, great foaming, flash all this nerdy chemical cleaner jargon. But in that ethoxylation process, there is a byproduct that’s get gets kicked off in that process called one four dioxane which is a documented carcinogen. 

 

Right, so this is a documented well documented carcinogen, that’s not listed on a label as an ingredient because it’s not an ingredient. It’s the byproduct of the ingredient and it’s in there. So and there’s so many cleaning products that use SLS SLES, I could buy this stuff by the tanker, you should like the you know, like the milk, a tractor trailer going down the road or the you know, the oil into the gas, I can literally have a 50,000 gallon tank are backed up to our warehouse and pumped into a vat. 

 

It’s so widely produced and it’s really cheap. So those are things that you should take a look at those are really and they do list them in toothpaste. And the things that are you know, skincare oral care, there’s lots of different laws, but I would recommend staying away from those. 

 

Really you got to look at a color and you got to look at smell because in the laundry aisle cleaning aisle that’s that’s what you’re really subjugated to because if you just say blend of ionic or non ionic surfactants fragrance, proprietary ingredients, there’s no label, there’s no ingredients to look out for. Right? 

 

Because they’re not really listed. So things that have color things that have smell things that are slimy and goobie stay away right because they’re going to leave a film and they’re going to be on you. The next piece I know you say everyday cleaning which again we use oh my gosh I don’t even we probably go through two refills a week in our house. five kids messes everywhere all the time. But another category that is very much overlooked is dishwasher and dish soap. 

 

And the same way that chemicals are residual chemicals left on clothing in your automatic dishwasher you throw one of these little tablets or pods and jelly things in there and what the same way that those chemicals are left behind on your pillow for you to sleep on. Same way these chemicals are left behind on your glasses and your plates. Oh I get that squeaky clean. 

 

Well, those chemicals that sheen of chemicals although crystal clean and squeaky when you add your a nice hot cup of organic Fairtrade bubble buck coffee, it’s acidic and it’s hot. 

 

You literally are rehydrating that chemical film on your mug and drinking it and you know like your clothes dryer. Oh, my clothes smell so fresh. Yeah, good luck. But a lot of that exhaust goes outside the house right you know you’re walking down the street and you could smell what your neighbor is cleaning their clothes with. 

 

A dishwasher does not exhaust out of the house, it exhausts through the front, inside your kitchen. So you’re literally breathing these chemicals in and they’re hot, and they’re moist. And they go straight and the fastest place to pass the blood brain barrier is through the nose. Make sense. 

 

And so, like you’re breathing these chemicals, and you’re drinking these chemicals, you’re eating these chemicals on your food. So your laundry and your dishwasher is are two really important places for you to start. Because those are the things that literally go on you and go in, you’re like really freaking quick.

 

Andrea Duchonovic  25:39  

And then you have the people still using and if you’re doing this stop using plastic storage containers and throwing those in the dishwasher, and then all the PVS and the plastics, and then you read put your food in it, and then you reheat it in the plastic in the microwave. It’s just like the perfect storm of… stop! 

 

Let’s stop this madness. We have so many great, great alternatives now. So I know we’re short on time. I mean, it’s just amazing how quick these interviews go when you’re talking to somebody like you. But is there anything else that you want to leave us off with? I think you just gave us such great insight and such easy implementation of where to start.

 

Stephen Ezell  26:18  

The biggest thing that I would leave leave you guys with is don’t be overwhelmed. And just do one thing at a time. And, you know, we just came through a very crazy election season here in the United States of America. And everyone talks about your vote, right? And yeah, that vote was kind of important. But what’s really important is the vote with your dollar every single day. And companies want to sell you. 

 

I don’t believe many chemical companies are inherently trying to kill you. If they do, they’ll have your day before God. But so I’d like to believe that most companies aren’t trying to kill you, but they are trying to sell you. They like making money off of you. And I use this example often, that’s organic spinach. 

 

Because, you know, a decade ago, if you went to your health food store and got some organic spinach from, you know, the local farmer granola crunching hippie, you know, it was like four or 5, 10 times more expensive than the chemical GMO written distant cousin at the supermarket, when I go to market, and organic spinach is pretty much the same price as the regular stuff. And why is that? 

 

It’s not because a bunch of farmers became philanthropists. It’s because lots of people said, This is what we want. And they voted with their money. And then what happened was agriculture, how to figure a way to scale organic spinach as a category because if they didn’t, they were going to lose market share. 

 

So if you look at your dollar and your debit card, as a vote, well vote with the companies and the products that are actually helping people are doing good things, because what’s going to happen is those companies are going to rise up and become big and companies that can help more people, or these big companies say we have to change the way that we’re doing business. 

 

Because if we don’t want to these other companies are going to take over or we’re going to go out of business. So if you look at every single time that you go shopping, whether it’s online or offline as a vote, support the people and the companies and in the products that you believe are good for you. And what will happen is that there will be economies of scale and things will change. And just do it one step at a time and it’s gonna be all good. 

 

That’s my last thing.

 

Andrea Duchonovic  28:36  

Ah, so beautifully said, love having you on. Ladies, make sure you are subscribing for more amazing videos like this with experts and fantastic human beings like Steven. 

 

So thank you for blessing us with your knowledge and enjoy that farm of yours. 

 

Stephen Ezell  28:52  

I certainly will. Thanks for the time. Bless you.

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Do you want to turn your home into a Non-Toxic environment?

Did you know you carry chemicals in your body during the entire day? 😱

We drink, smell, wear, and even sleep with toxic chemicals that are harming us and our families 😭

Want to know how to break this toxic cycle? This amazing interview with Stephen Ezell, founder of MyGreenFills & Truly Free, and a TOXIN GENIUS, will blow your mind 🤯

👇🏼Video Mentions:👇🏼

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👇🏼Awesome Stuff You Will Learn:👇🏼

🌟 Why the chemicals you are using are detrimental to your health

🌟 Top 3 places to start exchanging the products you use

🌟 How to keep it simple, with maximum results