What I Do: Organic Gynecology & Bioidentical Hormones

Often I get asked what I actually do with clients and in workshops and coming next month in WEBINARS! Here it is, inspired by Danielle Laporte's Burning Questions, and squeezed between seeing patients today and picking up the kids from school. Enjoy! Join the Love Train!

Notes on an Organic Life, Week 2

I'm 2 weeks into my organic experiment of wearing, eating and schmearing only organic. Frankly it's been difficult: cold, my options are rather limited and it's been expensive. Yet I love it.

Let's start with cold. I bought organic wool yarn from a sweet sheep farm in Petaluma last October. I thought I'd pop out some cute shrugs & easy cardigans. Now why did I think there was anything fast about knitting a sweater? A wool tube top - yes. In fact, I had moved on the "4-hour knitting project" some years ago when I diagnosed myself with inability to complete a sweater project (aka Knitting ADD or KADD).

I've been knitting for months and I'm delighted to have some yummy 4-hour product: fingerless gloves, hats, scarves, lotsa lotsa socks. Two half-finished sweaters. Record-low temps in the Bay Area + Half-awake thyroid + organic only = friggin' cold. All. The. Time.

All changed yesterday when my organic, fair-trade sweater showed up in the mail. The world brightened. Slipped it on at the UPS store. Fit gloriously and within seconds I was warm! Take me to Tahoe, Baby!

Next up: limited options. This one is mixed: a blessing and a curse. Blessing because limiting my options is delightfully liberating, the way a single peony in a vase can be so much more satisfying than a huge bouquet.

Packed up my beloved but probably toxic clothes, from my black Sevens to a rather frighteningly large Lululemon collection, last weekend.

Expensive: I'm trying to do this experiment on a reasonable budget. Yet organic cotton and wool are way more expensive (duh!). While the Europeans won't import the nasty cotton laced with DDT from China and South America, we do, and there's a cost differential for the cheap stuff full of pesticides vs the organic variety. I want to be transparent about the cost, so I'll be posting about that.

But for now, I'm warmer and strangely delighted.

Organically Jeaned: Change Up the Paradigm

Learned today that the European Union has rigid boundaries on the type of cotton they import - no toxic dyes, no cheap cotton laced with DDT, as several cottons from China and India were recently demonstrated to contain. The EU regularly tests their imported textiles carefully; we in the US do not.

One of the worst players? Your jeans.

They're full of pesticides, fertilizers, fungicides and defoliants. In California alone, over 7 million pounds of chemicals are used annually for cotton. Each pair of conventional jeans requires 13 oz of pesticides and fertilizers. That is very chemically intensive. Eek.

Here in the US, women on average have 8 pair in their closet.

There is one place in China, named Xingtang, Guangzhou, that produces 200 million pairs of jeans per year, and supplies 67% of the world appetite. Check out the pretty water coming out of the factory of this town and emptying into the "Pearl" River.

A Chief Medical Officer in Guangzhou said this water contains heavy metals that are "neurotoxic, carcinogenic, they disrupt the endocrine system," according to Dr. Tony Lu and as reported by CNN.

"They cause cancer of different organs." Dr. Tony Lu

So what about organic cotton jeans? What about jeans dyed in natural indigo?

Like any Berkeley girl, my first stop was Jeremy's on College Avenue for three reasons:

1. I love their prices particularly on samples and salvage;
2. An addendum to #1: my husband is getting very suspicious of my spending on "research" for my year of living organically;
3. It's only 0.5 miles from my house - very low carbon footprint on my end at least.

First up: Two entire racks of Edun organic clothing, brought to you courtesy of U2's Bono and his wife, Ali. They happen to have made the cut with Rogan Gregory for Top Ten best sustainable designer. All the cotton is from Africa which isn't great for the carbon footprint part of my experiment but that continues to be a work in progress. Sometimes we get two legs of the triple bottom line and this company definitely supports social justice. Their third party auditing is detailed right here.

Best part is my new 100% organic jeans cost $20. Here they are in full glory.

Here's what Tree Hugger has to say about Rogan:


Rogan Gregory has a good thing going. As the designer behind both Loomstate and Edun, he's mixing hip apparel with organic cotton, fair labor and celebrity to make a tremondous mark on fashion. Loomstate helped set the bar for sustainably-minded designer denim by using only 100% organic cotton and sustainable farming practices. With Edun, along with U2's Bono and Bono's wife, Ali Hewson, Rogan brings the notion of sustainable employment to catwalks across the world and widens the apparel designs from simply denim to everyday casualwear. With both efforts, Rogan Gregory is helping to change the paradigm in the fashion industry and make it possible for "hip," "sustainable" and "fashion" to happily co-exist. 

For my organic experiment, I got 3 pair of organic jeans because I've decided they are my new wardrobe staple. For my patients, warning: prepare to see me in jeans at work starting Jan 1, 2011.

Converted

Was getting a little veggie henna applied to my lashes today on Fourth Street in Berkeley when I stumbled upon a new eco boutique in the 'hood: CONVERT.

WOW.

Waltzed in and explained my organic experiment: one year - 100% organic in what I wear and schmear. No blank stare. Instead: efficient march through store, all arms loaded full with organic clothing delicacies.

They got it. Fast.

Fab design too. Not the organic crap that's offered at Patagonia (looks like your cousin in rural Idaho might like it), or Patagucci as I like to call it.

Becca, assistant manager, shown below, got me hooked up.  She-Bible or Curator (they're changing their name, I guess) of San Francisco, Prairie Underground from Seattle, Convert brand t-shirts (organic cotton, fabricated in Los Angeles), Tightology (organic tights).

Needed something warm to layer in my sometimes-chilly medical office. Here you are: Plath Cardigan.

 
Bought this little number for the next time I meet Tony Blair. The Bancroft dress by Curator. Still researching whether it's actually as organic as the staff led me to believe. Help - disavow me of my skepticism!

Casual organic: easy to source. Dressy organic: not so easy. Raincoats too: not so easy. Hook me up.

Liked this too but ran out of money: Pop Doyle Tee.

Here's Becca, Assistant Manager. She's so fly. Love her. Super bright. Loved Randy too - owner. Opened the place one year ago. Big party tomorrow night at the store - in the old Hear Music storefront.

In between lashes and organic cotton spree, I popped my head in Molly B's. I've shopped there for decades. Asked about organic clothes, cotton, wool, anything? Blank stare.