Mission
Gimme the Good Stuff helps busy, conscientious parents easily avoid toxic products in their homes through our in-home consulting service, personalized shopping guides, and online store.
We simplify the process of navigating the confusing world of “natural” products, and our readers, customers, and clients enjoy peace of mind and confidence that their home is a safe, healthy place for their families.
How We Help You
Have you ever asked yourself any of the following questions?
- Which numbered plastics are most toxic, again?
- Is it sodium lauryl sulfate or sodium laureth sulfate that I’m supposed to avoid when buying shampoo?
- What’s the difference between partially and fully hydrogenated oil and why exactly are they bad?
- Will my toddler be smarter if I let him watch Baby Einstein or will he end up with ADHD?
If these are the kind of things you wonder or Google, you are our target audience. (Scroll to bottom of this page for the answers.)
We also hope to reach those of you who don’t research this stuff because the information you find is so completely overwhelming, confusing, and often conflicting (but you probably keep reading scary news headlines about toxins in cosmetics and pesticides on produce and wonder if you should be worried).
With more products than ever for parents to choose from, it’s exhausting—though I believe important—to educate yourself about safety of all of this stuff. I love sites like The Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep, but it provides SO much information that I often find myself thinking, “Please spare me the details of every ‘mammalian study’ ever conducted on every ingredient in my lip balm. Just tell me what to buy and where I can get it!”
Gimme the Good Stuff gives simple, accessible information to those of us who haven’t slept more than three consecutive hours in months (or, for us anti-Ferberizers, years), and therefore cannot be expected to know how to spell “diarrhea” for a Google search, let alone “phthalates.”
An Important Caveat
The ultimate goal of this site, our store, and our services is healthier kids AND parents, so I’ll remind myself, and all of you, that anxiety is an important contributor to disease. Theoretically, I’m all in favor of accepting uncertainty, thinking positively, and refusing to dwell on potentially scary scenarios, although I admit it sometimes takes effort to do so.
Try to remember that if your precious offspring drinks a few bottles of formula, is sprayed with Coppertone all summer, and gums a soft plastic “rubber” ducky each night in the bath, he will still be better off than most kids in this country—after all, he’s got you as his mom (or dad)!
SHORT ANSWERS TO ABOVE QUIZ
- Plastics containers with a 3, 6, or 7 should be avoided, as they may contain phthalates, known endocrine disruptors.
- Both are controversial, but sodium laureth sulfate is the worse of the two, as it often is contaminated with 1,4-dioxane, a known carcinogen.
- Partially hydrogenated oil, also know as “trans-fat,” is the big no-no, as it lowers good cholesterol and raises bad cholesterol. Fully hydrogenated oils are probably not good for you, either, but aren’t proven (yet) to be as bad.
- Probably neither, but TV of any kind is possibly harmful for young kids, and certainly not beneficial.
