History was never my best subject in school, but as I recall it, some of the first people to come to America did so to freely practice the religion they wanted.  The colonies grew as more people heard of new opportunities freely offered in the New World.  Think about the people who made that Atlantic journey.  This was no day trip to the neighboring town!  These could not have been the timid or contented folks, they could not have been the seekers of the status quo or those afraid to question.  These had to have been people who were adventurous, curious and not afraid of what the neighbors thought.  People who knew what their bodies and souls needed was a chance to freely think, work, learn, play and worship.  The desire for this freedom led independent thinkers to boldly defy convention, follow their own star and set about to make their own way. 
     When the Revolutionary War was fought, it was still these independent thinkers leading the way.  They didn't like having people who knew nothing of their lives telling them what to do - and having to pay for it!  They stood up and made a difference in their lives and the lives of their neighbors and descendants.  And those descendants and neighbors are us.
     Now it is we who are free to think, work, learn, play and worship as we please.  I am grateful for this, as I'm sure you are.  But today I want to encourage you to become even more free!  Some of these "more free" ideas will seem easy.  Others might require you to dig down deep into those genetic tendencies that you surely inherited from your very independent forefathers, stand up and apart from the mainstream and proudly claim your improved health and wellbeing!  But you CAN do it! 
     With a nod and some apology to those of you who may make your living in the advertising industry, I begin by suggesting that many of our current lifestyle and buying habits are not as freely chosen as you might believe.  You may feel that you are not influenced by advertising, but there are billions of dollars spent every year in detailed studies to be certain that you are, indeed, influenced by advertising!  And the goal of advertising is to create a need for a product, so that you simply must have that product, you go out and buy that product and hopefully are so convinced that you need it that it becomes a habit that you buy that product for the rest of your life.  I promise that the goal of advertising is not to improve your health.  I am quite certain that the makers of soda, candy, air freshener, tile cleaner, fast food, SUVs, juice boxes and panty hose care absolutely nothing about your glucose tolerance, waistline, energy levels, constipation or blood pressure.  Even if we give companies the absolute best benefit of the doubt and we believe that the company believes that their product will improve our health, their goal is still to sell product - not improve your health.
     Soap was actually one of the first products to use advertising to create a need.  It used to be that everyone made their own soap.  When it started to be commercially produced, manufacturer's had to convince the public that factory soap was better than homemade.  According to the book, Fables of Abundance:  A Cultural History of Advertising in America, they paired physical health and cleanliness with spiritual wellness - who wouldn't want that? - and factory made soap was certainly more pure and clean than homemade, and so started the beginning of a huge shift in our cleaning habits.  Today we haved moved way beyond simple soap!  Today it can't be clean without extra chemical additives to make it anti-bacterial, antiseptic, heavy-duty, extra-strength and smell like pine, lemon or Mountain Rain. 
     I suspect that most people can step back and agree with me at least to some extent about the advertising influence.  But here's another influence that I believe limits our "free" thinking - and it can be a little harder to admit.  This is the influence of "everybody" and "they."  Do you remember a conversation from your childhood like this, "But Mom, everybody has one/will be there/wears that?"  "If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you?"  We all want to fit in, but sometimes it's better if we learn to not follow the crowd.  Our impression might be that we have to live up to a standard that "they" set (whoever "they" are! - society, advertising, our neighbors, co-workers, family).  But where is your "free" thought when you're just going along with a standard you had no part in developing?  I am pretty sure that your co-workers and your neighbors, and in many cases even your family, are no more interested in your glucose tolerance, waistline, energy levels, constipation and blood pressure than those advertising companies are.  This all might sound harsh, but peer pressure is enormous and not restricted to children! 
    
Freedom from Excess Chemicals.  This is a huge category and I will subdivide it a little below.  Chemicals, for the most part, are not inherently unhealthy.  But they are an increasingly worrisome contributor to ill health.  Hundreds of new chemical compounds are introduced each year and we live in a much more concentrated chemical soup today than ever before.  These compounds include neurotoxins, carcinogens and endocrine disruptors.  While an individual chemical may be harmless to our body, that chemical meeting up with a different chemical - or 2, or 10 - in the bloodstream might interact and create a new compound that can cause harm.  Or perhaps that chemical is broken down by the liver into two or more parts that are harmful.  The possible combinations and effects are mind-boggling to contemplate and could never be adequately tested to ensure that everything we come into contact with is completely safe.  Plus, we all have unique capacities for handling this increased "total body burden" of chemicals - some have a more difficult time than others.
   So, chemicals aren't going anywhere, we're all loaded with them!  But we CAN make some free choices about limiting how many more we take on.  You can start small....
   Fragrance Free.  Guess what?  Fragrance in your dish detergent, fabric softener and window cleaner doesn't make them work any better!  And they could be harming your health.  According to the Environmental Working Group, "fragrance" is one of the top five allergens in the world.  When you see fragrance on an ingredient label, it's simply the allowable catch-all phrase for secret formulas that can contain any number of harmful chemicals including neurotoxins and carcinogens.  Sorry, perfumes and aftershave fall into this category as well, as do most candles.  Maybe you're not ready to be free from your Chanel, but consider buying the unscented variety of your next laundry detergent.  Air fresheners are hard on people with allergies and asthma.  How about opening the window for some fresh air?  Many plants are great natural air purifiers.  Baking soda is not an old wives' tale - it's great for absorbing odors. 
   Dye Free.  Ditto much of the information from Fragrance Free.  Making your toilet bowl cleaner blue or your dish soap green does not help them work more efficiently.  Unless you're buying dye because you want to change the color of something, dye is in products soley as a marketing tactic to appeal to your senses - and make you buy something. 
   Pesticide Free.  Think just for a minute that the pesticides used in conventional farming are designed specifically to kill a living thing.  Many of them are neurotoxins, although there are other mechanisms of action.  In conventional produce, and to a much lesser extent in organic produce, we eat residual amounts of those toxins.  Over time and in combination with other chemicals, it's anyone's guess what damage we are doing to our own bodies - a living thing!  How about growing a small garden of your own without the added whatever-icides?  Consider buying organic when you can, especially from the Dirty Dozen list.   If you want to go one step further, ever wonder about the warning signs that get put in yards after being treated by the chemical lawn-care companies?  If they are required to warn you about toxicity of their lawn treatments, can that possibly be good to be breathing in from up and down your street all summer?  Consider doing your own lawn care without the skull and crossbones!
   For more information about chemical and other environmental toxicity, visit the Environmental Working Group at EWG or Pollution In Me at Pollution In Me for an extensive resource listing for related information.
Freedom from High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Often abbreviated HFCS, this cheap, highly processed sweetener has crept into more processed foods than you can imagine!  It has been linked to diabetes and obesity (as has excess intake of other sugars).  The most obvious place we find HFCS is in soda and juice drinks and it's there in high measure.  But really, why do we need HFCS in spaghetti sauce and salad dressing?  Start reading labels and avoid this whenever you can.  Consider cooking some things from scratch again without the added sugar.  Consider switching your soda to sparkling water.  You can carbonate your own water like I do and add a squeeze of lemon and/or lime for a refreshing, fizzy drink without the HCFS, dyes and artifical flavors of a soda - not to mention all those empty calories!  Check out Soda Stream for home carbonating units.
Freedom from Shoes.  Surprised?  A shift from what we put IN our bodies to what we put ON them!  There are some great reasons to go barefoot.  If you look at a baby's foot you will notice that their toes have space between them and are the widest part of their foot.  It isn't until we start forcing our feet into the confines of shoes that our feet begin to change shape.  Our feet bear extraordinary burden as we move through our daily routines.  28 bones, several muscles, tendons and ligaments shift and adjust to our changes in position, balance and weight loads.  Shoes can limit their ability to make these adjustments in the most ideal way.  They can constrict the free flow of blood and nerve transmissions.  Encouraging the feet to function in their natural state can prevent, and improve, any number of fairly common foot problems.  Additionally, I've just run across some research that is showing that being "skin to skin" with the earth, i.e., barefoot in the grass, sand, water, has specific health benefits.  These include normalizing circadian rhythms, decreasing cortisol levels, and optimizing some lab test markers of overall health.  Small, preliminary studies, yes, but what's the harm in trying that out?  Might have something to do with our being natural creatures in nature - see also the notes in the What is the Vis? column to the left.  July is a perfect month in Michigan to go barefoot in your yard for 15 minutes each day.