“Let food be
thy medicine and medicine be thy food” - Hippocrates
Clothes
The skin
is the body's largest organ and is 16% of the body by weight.
The skin
helps maintain body temperature. When it's hot or during exercise, you
perspire through your skin to help you cool down. If you block the pores
of your skin it will impact on this mechanism.
The body
creates vitamin D through the action of sunlight on the skin. In the UK
half an hour outdoors in the winter makes all the difference. This is
not the same as burning on a tropical beach!
The skin
reacts to heat, light, temperature, pressure and maybe some other things
we don't understand.
The skin
is sensitive to chemicals, some of which can be absorbed by the skin and
pass into the body.
You can't
breath through your skin in the way that a frog does, so that it can
stay underwater for longer periods, but there is some exchange of gases
through the skin.
It would
seem sensible to wear natural clothing that is not too tight, so that
the skin can function as intended and not be in contact with artificial
chemicals, particularly petroleum based chemicals.
No-iron
cotton clothing contains formaldehyde. That's the chemical used to
preserve laboratory specimens. You don't want this on your skin!
When you
are exercising, in particular, you probably wouldn't want to douse your
skin in a mixture of perspiration and toxic chemicals!
I've never
really understood why anybody would want to rub petroleum jelly into
their skin either!
It is also
worth thinking about the chemicals that you wash your clothes in. You
probably wouldn't want any nasty chemicals left on your clothes,
particularly next to your skin.
The main
natural fibres available today are cotton, hemp and bamboo. Twenty five percent
of all pesticides used on the earth today are used in the production of
cotton, so do consider organic cotton.
There are
many great eco-friendly clothing companies out there right now. The
clothes are good quality, great designs and made with passion. As I'm
sitting here eating a few brazil nuts, I can't help reflecting that the
tree they came from could be one thousand years old. How are we leaving
the planet for the future?
