I am the "Praning" Consumer

I'm getting paranoid with all the products out on the market these days. It doesn't help that I have a cousin who always discovers the next scary common ingredient that may eventually prove to be carcinogenic.

It started with mineral oils (as mentioned on my food blog entry). She said that it clogs up the pores and my Dad added that it's a derivative from petrol. How healthy could that be?

Then, it moved on to hydrogenated oils. Again, my cousin said something about it getting stuck in the body forever. I totally freaked out and banished all things containing hydrogenated oils from my diet. I can't even buy anything from the grocery without reading the labels carefully first.

The boyfriend isn't spared either. I drag him to the grocery just to show him what's bad for him. The poor thing.

So while I was trying to figure out if there was proof to what I was told about mineral oils, I found this site called The Beauty Brains. They answer all your beauty questions in a scientific manner:  a must for a scaredy cat like me.

I'm still not 100% convinced that there are no huge side effects on these chemicals. I'm well-aware that the FDA (or BFAD, in our case) has approved these ingredients and their doses beforehand. However, it seems to me that, just because something is approved because the doses it comes in are non-toxic, doesn't necessarily mean that it's actually safe (completely non-toxic) either.

I can't help but feel that the local health agencies try to push the limit on the "allow-ability" of certain products in the market, just because they are so damn useful and the demand is so great. Meanwhile, we, as the benefiting consumers, try to convince ourselves that everything'll be okay because the standards have been set.

Take a cellular phone, for instance. We are definitely informed that it emits a level of radiation (though FDA approved), yet we still allow ourselves to abuse it. In fact, I personally admit to abusing my cell phone by having it on hand at every waking hour. I even sleep with it beside my head, so that I can surely wake up to the alarm.

Knowing that it is so easy for things to get out of hand when it comes to using products, I have taken it upon myself to try and be disciplined when it comes to what I buy and how I use them. But obviously, a lot of the more safe and healthy options are also the more expensive ones. It becomes a difficult choice to make.

Good luck to all of us then...