Archive for the ‘Clean & Green Living’ Category
Friday, July 22nd, 2016
Peanut butter and jelly, Fred and Ginger, tea and sympathy – okay, some things go really well together. Bug repellent and sun block? Not so smart. We know it sounds convenient and maybe more comfortable when you’re fighting the summer stickies; but really – don’t do it.
For critically different reasons, the CDC and the Sisters both say keep ’em separate. In essence, the CDC’s advice against combination products is actually advice against DEET, and here’s why.
The CDC is opposed to combination products because they are recommending the use of bug repellent products containing DEET. They know that DEET is dangerous so they want it applied rarely (once or max twice a day) and sparingly (e.g. never on the face) – the complete opposite of sunblock which calls for heavy application and frequent reapplication and for sure, it needs to go on your face.
The CDC and other reputable scientists are very concerned that when using a DEET-based combination product the DEET interacts with the sunblock formulation, making the DEET even more toxic at the same time that it reduces the effectiveness of the sunblock! See what we mean about it sounds great; but it really isn’t.
(more…)
Posted in Clean & Green Living, Holistic Health & Healing | No Comments »
Friday, July 8th, 2016
by Mary Duggan
ZIKA has everyone scared. And hopefully/probably heeding advice from the CDC. Most certainly women who are pregnant, women who might get pregnant, parents of kids and anyone who is in any way immune compromised. (My personal at-risk category.)
Michael Beach, deputy incident manager for the CDC’s Zika response team, advises:
“If you are going outside, wear mosquito repellent. It needs to be the same as putting on sunscreen or brushing your teeth.”
Great advice, I think. Because the Aedes aegypti means business. In fact, additional CDC directives even advise wearing bug repellent indoors all day long because this mosquito is as likely to be hanging out underneath your bed as in your yard. So saying yes to hours and hours of wearing bug repellent is our new reality. And important for protecting the health of you, your unborn child or your children.
But not if your bug repellent contains DEET. Not when healthy alternatives exist. And not when those alternatives are even more effective than DEET. (more…)
Posted in Clean & Green Living | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 7th, 2014
By Mary Duggan
Just when I thought the Pink Campaign couldn’t get any worse, it has. Here in Chicago, Advocate Health Care has created a 16-foot tall, 1500 pound, hot pink underwire bra sculpture and they are taking it, and their “Stories of the Girls” campaign, on the road for the month of October. Brace yourself, it may be coming soon to a neighborhood near you. If it comes to my neighborhood I will be there to take a selfie with THE BRA and then I will share it with you. I will be in the forefront making a negative hand gesture (no, not that finger) – a thumbs down actually – and posting it to my facebook page. Thumbs down Advocate. I refuse to take the bait. You are not warming my heart; but you are most certainly making my blood boil.
The “Get a Mammogram Every Year” squad will be there to counsel you when you go to see the bra.
Here it is October and like so many women I have my hands full (more…)
Tags: Dressed To Kill, Soma Grijmaijer, Sydney Ross Singer
Posted in Book Suggestions, Clean & Green Living, For the Record, Holistic Health & Healing | 10 Comments »
Friday, August 22nd, 2014
By Mary Duggan
Today is our summer intern Talie’s last day with the Sisters and Clare is baking a low-sugar/gluten-free coconut and almond cake to mark the occasion. Oh yeah, our Talie is a lucky girl. We do things up big here at the deodorant factory.
If I remember college at all, I know about six weeks into dorm food Talie will be remembering this healthy treat fondly.
Talie has been a tremendous help to us and has balanced the fine art of packages out the door, with data bank updates and Quick Books input. No matter the strange summer weather, she has carried sunshine in the door each and every morning with her sweet and gentle nature. She is the product of what used to be known as “good home training.” Does anyone even call it that anymore? Those intangibles of yes, please and no, thank you and so much more. She is opinionated and well-spoken and a credit to the superb school she has attended. It’s no surprise that Sarah Lawrence has snagged her for their graduating class of 2018. (more…)
Tags: #RedEyeRemix, Amy Guth, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Sarah Lawrence College, WGN Radio
Posted in Clean & Green Living, Eating with the Sisters, Gluten-free living, Holistic Health & Healing, Life at the Rose Cottage, LifeStinks® deodorant, Women in Business | No Comments »
Thursday, August 21st, 2014
By Mary Duggan
I know you are sick to tears hearing about my new anti-inflammatory diet. But please, bear with me. This is not a tale of me having to let go of my beloved snack – popcorn – but just for awhile. This is a simple and heartfelt congratulations to a fellow Chicagoland start-up.
But first, in addition to sharing with you that I have a leaky gut, I also have to confess another trait- I have a jealous heart. I watch all the rapid-fire growth and big investors and IPOs happening daily in the tech community here and I think, what are we doing wrong with our tortoise of an enterprise? It’s true, I covet their collective success. And I begrudge their youth and all the press they get. I resent their communal digs in the Merchandise Mart and I know its wrong to do so. My sisters always tell me so. But I am not jealous of Skinny Pop.
Yesterday’s Chicago Tribune reported the big news that Skinny Pop, creators of the amazing healthy alternative to Chicago’s famed Garrett’s Popcorn, has garnered big investment bucks. Already in more than 25,000 locations, this can only mean big growth for this special organization. But why you are reading about this in a Duggan Sister blog post? Because the Sisters love enchanting businesses and Skinny Pop has so enchanted us. Here’s the brief back story. (more…)
Tags: enchantment, Entrepreneurs, Guy Kawasaki
Posted in Clean & Green Living, Eating with the Sisters, Gluten-free living, Women in Business | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, August 20th, 2014
By Mary Duggan
Robin William’s death from suicide was announced the morning following my big brain meltdown. One of the dearest hearts and most amazing brains had come undone and the loss left me shaking my fist at the talking heads and the grieving friends and colleagues. It is not, I raged, that suicide needs to be viewed with compassion because it is an expression of mental illness. It is because, I screamed to my tiny little forum of two sisters, it is the final and fatal expression of a sick brain improperly treated by a medical community that just doesn’t get it. It is a brain disease – not a mental illness – and it will continue until we move beyond the psychotropic inadequacies of the pharmaceutical industry and re-connect our brains to our bodies and feed them. (more…)
Posted in Clean & Green Living, Eating with the Sisters, Gluten-free living, Life at the Rose Cottage, Raw & Living Foods, Truth Telling | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 19th, 2014
By Mary Duggan
I was 48 hours from the Grand Finale of our Summer Boot Camp – the rigorous Candida Cleanse Diet that had been the centerpiece of our summer experience. Yet I was anything but looking forward to the easing up of the very real discipline we’d adhered to for the last 90 days.
I was not eagerly anticipating what treat would cycle back into our restricted food lives; maybe Clare would approve apricots or peaches being added to our small daily portion of blueberries. Maybe we could really splurge with a gluten-free hard cider. Maybe we could go completely nuts and enjoy some bean soup! I wasn’t the least bit excited about swallowing fewer yeast-and-parasite-killing pills, drinking fewer than the requisite 7 cups of Red Clover and Pau d’Arco tea daily, or finally being able to whiten my tea-stained teeth. I wasn’t proud that each sister was down a clothing size, that we had adhered closely and successfully to a rigorous discipline, or collectively dropped some sixty pounds. Instead I was so deep into one of the scariest brain meltdowns I have ever experienced that all I could do was hold on to the walls of the pit I had fallen into and watch as my sisters reached deep down to pull me out.
Is this really how we ask for prayer in our brave new world? Yep.
I was in too much pain to pray for a remedy. So Clare reached out in my stead and requested prayers from facebook family and friends for “a very special intention” – ME. I finally had the good sense as Day 3 of the meltdown loomed ahead of me to crawl into a bed, do my umpteenth round of self-healing Reiki and surrender – while Clare’s prayer warriors prayed for her “special intention” who BTW was feeling anything but special. Unlike my slimmer, healthier, happier sisters, all I could think was that the cleanse had wrecked me. Despite my absolute best efforts, I had failed boot camp. (more…)
Posted in Clean & Green Living, Eating with the Sisters, Gluten-free living, Holistic Health & Healing, Life at the Rose Cottage, Raw & Living Foods | No Comments »
Friday, August 8th, 2014
By Mary Duggan
The summer of 2014 has been distinguished by two forces intersecting. First, we are doing a very significant Candida Dietary Cleanse to address our collective health woes. And secondly, but in no way less importantly, right smack dab in the middle of our huge health endeavor, our dear friend Kathy dies oh-so-unexpectedly from cancer. Those two points of convergence are keeping me awake nights lately as I try to make sense of it all. Yes, I am grieving – terribly. And yes, I am cleansing. And so I have staggered through the painful process without so much as a soothing glass of wine, a coma-inducing brownie, or a gluten-free pizza devoured somewhere in between. I have faced it all stone cold sober- no dairy, no booze, no sugar, no nothin. And it hasn’t been easy.
Through it all work has remained as consuming and demanding as ever. Finally late last week we put on the brakes and made a decision to take some quiet time for ourselves. We added a Friday to the weekend, and made a conscious decision to rest for 3 days. And for the sisters that always means one thing; first and foremost – get me to the chiropractor. Ours is a Master Adjuster who combines a degree in Naprapathic with gentle, precise and skillful Chiropractic adjustments, including cranial sacral, delivered as we lay atop a far infrared pad that is infused with healing amethyst crystals. That kind of doctor. (more…)
Posted in Clean & Green Living, Eating with the Sisters, Gluten-free living, Holistic Health & Healing, Life at the Rose Cottage, LifeStinks® deodorant | No Comments »
Friday, June 6th, 2014
By Mary Duggan
BOOT ‘EM TO THE CURB CAMP is our top priority this summer. How about you? Would you like to join in? Have you considered the possibility that parasites might be the cause of your appetite and bloating? Are you consistently feeding more than just you? Do you have an actual diagnosis of an auto-immune disorder that is leaving you feeling exhausted, in pain, infertile and afraid of a dismal future? Is Candida Albicans rearing its ugly head – AGAIN!? Didn’t we all clear that years ago? Is inflammatory “itis” of any and every variety (colitis, bursitis, tendonitis, arthritis, etc.) leaving you feeling old and more and more limited in what you have the energy to do? Welcome to the club and join in on the fun. (more…)
Posted in Book Suggestions, Clean & Green Living, Eating with the Sisters, Gluten-free living, Holistic Health & Healing, Life at the Rose Cottage, Raw & Living Foods | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, September 11th, 2013
By: Mary Duggan
It’s time to prep for our upcoming Fall speaking engagements. It’s almost October and that means church halls, school gymnasiums, Adult Ed classes, and every other imaginable venue for those of us in the breast health brigade. Summer fun is behind us and everyone is back to business. This week we resume our “ENOUGH WITH THE PINK, LET’S THINK” campaign at our local Curves and so I am preparing and updating. Fortunately there is so much exciting to discuss that the last thing on my mind is breast cancer. (more…)
Posted in Clean & Green Living, Gluten-free living, Holistic Health & Healing, Life at the Rose Cottage, LifeStinks® deodorant | 2 Comments »
