Small Steps Toward a Natural Life

Have you ever looked at the ingredients in your food or personal care products? There’s typically an ingredient list of at least a dozen items, most of which you can’t pronounce. Why do you need so many ingredients to make something simple like pancake syrup, chocolate syrup or M&M’s? If you do just a quick search on the study of food dyes and colorings that are added to almost everything in your cabinet, you can quickly be overwhelmed with how many bad things are added. One of the things we’ve been doing in our household is starting to look at each thing and seeing if there are small steps that would help us on a journey toward a more natural life.

This post includes affiliate links. Some posts were provided to facilitate this post.

Small Steps Toward a Natural Life

It is impossible to clean up your entire life in one sweep. Not only would it be very expensive to throw out everything in your cabinets and pantries, but that would also lead to massive food and product waste. Instead, take small simple steps toward a natural lifestyle. Focus on one area at a time and make changes there. When you are ready to buy a new bar of soap, a bottle of shampoo, or a new box of cereal, do some research, make a better choice and move one step along the journey.

Start With What You Drink

If you love drinking sodas but want to make a smarter decision and bypass the extra ingredients, then you may want to make your own sparkling water drinks. We have recently started experimenting with Carbon8. I want to try making our own ginger ale and some flavored drinks with fresh cranberry juice.

Savor the crispest, cleanest sparkling water straight from the spout with Carbon8. The state-of-the-art carbonator revolutionizes the way people can enjoy bubbles without bottles in the comfort of their homes. No more buying bulky packs at the market, no more plastic bottling accessories necessary for the carbonation to function. Just place your glass under the Carbon8 and you’re one click away from the most refreshing sip of sparkling water.

Look at Your Food

We started with something simple – pancake syrup. We don’t eat waffles very often but when we do, we have started using real maple syrup. Yes, it’s more expensive, but since it’s real ingredients, we actually use less and we’re not consuming something that includes almost a dozen ingredients that we can’t pronounce.

If you know me very well at all, you know that my all-time favorite snack candy is a bag of M&M’s! I have enjoyed M&M’s for my entire adult life but recently I have been noticing how much food dyes are included in the candies. So instead of reaching for a big bag of candy-coated chocolate, I have made a conscious choice to bake something homemade instead using real ingredients. I’ve even tried making my own chocolate syrup, brownies, and chocolate cake.

Take a look at one food in your cabinet and see if there is a simple step you can make that will take you to a more natural lifestyle.

Look at Your Soap

One of the things that my daughter and I are focusing on next is the soap, shampoo, and body wash that we are using. We’re just starting our journey down this road to more natural products, but we both want to learn more and make smarter decisions with the products we are putting on our bodies. 

If you look at the back of most bars of soap, you will find ingredients like sodium lulose, triclosan, phthalates, formaldehyde, and fragrances. Do a quick cross-reference search and these ingredients are linked to possible hormone disruption and reproductive issues, allergies, dermatitis, respiratory distress, and even carcinogens. In our journey of simple steps to a more natural lifestyle, this is a natural next step to want to replace those products with something simple and safer.

I recently discovered a company called Wenjulan Whole Body C.A.R.E. that uses only non-toxic, carcinogen-free ingredients to create soap and body wash.

Wenjulan Whole Body C.A.R.E. was founded following a personal experience with cancer when the founders realized a need for body care products made from clean, natural ingredients, for those seeking toxin-free skincare, are battling sensitive skin conditions, or have been touched by cancer. Free from carcinogens, artificial fragrances, and toxins, Wenjulan Whole Body C.A.R.E. products are crafted to soothe, support, and restore without compromise.

I give you fair warning though. Once you start studying the products’ ingredients in your bathroom and kitchen you can quickly become overwhelmed. Remember that this is a journey of small steps. Take one product at a time and start making better choices and then move to the next.

Give yourself some grace as you start this journey. Clean up one snack, one drink or one bar of soap at a time.

What areas are you focusing on? Do you have any tips on moving toward a more natural life? I’d love to hear!