Earth Day, but make it for gut health 🌱💚🌎🦠

If Earth Day could sit at your kitchen table for a day, it would probably have a few thoughts about what’s going into your family’s bodies.

Because the same things affecting the environment, like plastics and chemical overload, are also quietly influencing what’s happening inside your gut and your child’s.

This is not about fear – it is about awareness, and then small, realistic shifts that actually make a difference.

So let’s start by talking about the gut. Your gut is not just a digestion tube. It acts as a barrier, a communication center, and a home for trillions of microbes. That’s a lot of functions!

And also a lot of opportunity for exposure to toxins – adults eat ~5.5 lbs of food, drink about half a gallon of water, and breathe in about 2000 gallons of air daily! Any many of us are bringing toxins in with all of these necessary swallows and breaths.

When environmental toxins enter the body, they can start to interfere with that system in a few key ways.

First, they can disrupt the microbiome. Certain chemicals and microplastics can shift the balance of gut bacteria, reducing beneficial species and allowing less helpful, more pathogenic ones to take over. This can show up as discomfort after eating, gas, changes in bowel movements over time, and even changes in our mood, behaviors, and skin.

Second, they can increase intestinal permeability, the technical name for “leaky gut”. The gut lining is meant to be selectively permeable, letting nutrients through while keeping larger unwanted particles like allergens, toxic molecules, and microbes from getting into the body’s systemic circulation. Some toxins can weaken the gut lining, making it easier for those unwanted particles to pass through instead of keeping them out. This can contribute to food sensitivities, immune activation, and inflammation while straining the liver.

Third, they can put extra stress on developing systems, especially in kids. Children have higher toxin exposure relative to their body size than adults, and their detox pathways (think liver, kidneys, intestines) are still maturing. Their microbiome is also still being built and stabilizing. What they are exposed to early on can shape their gut health long term.

Finally, we also need to consider the endocrine (hormone)-disrupting impact of environmental chemicals. This is where you may start to see ripple effects in how hormones are managed in the body, resulting in issues with behavior, sleep, mood, focus, and more.

It’s fine to get educated about a topic, but what can we actually do with this information?

Here are five high impact ways to start reducing exposure in a way that is doable.

1. Start with swapping plastic for glass, especially when heat is involved. Store leftovers in glass containers and avoid microwaving food in plastic. Be cautious with hot liquids in plastic bottles. Heat increases the amount of chemicals that can leach into food. Glass is stable and does not have that issue.
2. Take a look at your water. Tap water can contain microplastics, heavy metals, and other contaminants. A reverse osmosis system or a high quality countertop filter can make a meaningful difference. Just remember to remineralize any reverse osmosis water so that you maintain mineral intake!
3. Be strategic with produce. You do not need to buy everything organic. Focus on higher pesticide items first, wash produce well, and peel when it makes sense. This helps reduce the overall chemical load your gut has to process. (Check out the Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists to do this economically!)
4. Pay attention to what goes ON your body. We focused more on food, water, and air here, but skin also absorbs more toxins than we often think if we’re not using clean products. Choosing fragrance free products, simplifying routines, and using fewer products overall can lower exposure, especially for babies and young children. This can include dish and dishwasher detergent, counter sprays, and pesticides used in your food preparation areas.
5. Reduce packaged and ultra processed foods when you can. This is not just about nutrition. Packaging itself can be a source of microplastics and chemical residues. Whole foods support both the microbiome and the gut lining, so you get multiple benefits at once.

These changes are not about creating a perfectly toxin free life. While I would absolutely love that for my family and for all of you, living in today’s world, that is just not realistic.

Instead, we need to work on lowering the overall total toxic load, supporting the gut so it can handle what it does encounter, and protecting developing systems in our kids while they are still vulnerable.

When you support gut health, you are supporting immunity, mood, energy, and long term resilience. For this generation and the next.

👉 What do you do to reduce toxic exposures for your family? Shoot me a reply! I will be compiling your top tips and sending them out in an email later this week!

Happy Earth Day 🌱 Your gut is part of the global ecosystem, too 💚🌎🦠