Ethical Teeth

In this episode, Kristen and Kyla sink their teeth into the ethics of dental hygiene — toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, and mouthwash. Topics: Kristen wants to feel the burn; what’s in toothpaste, anyway; toothbrushes and the environment; and why it is so hard to get a waste-free, fluoridated toothpaste. 2/2 podcasters agree that Kyla’s homemade toothpaste should not have been sweating.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Kyla: Welcome to pullback. I'm Kyla Hewson, and I'm here with Kristen Pue.

[00:00:09] Kristen: Hello.

[00:00:10] Kyla: We know that trying to be a good person can be overwhelming in our complex global marketplace. So in this podcast, we try to make it a little bit easier by looking at the details behind consumer movements product labels and ethical lifestyles.

[00:00:27] Each episode, we are going to challenge ourselves to try something new in ethical consumption. And then we're going to tell you what we learned. Fuck ups at all. Fuck ups, mostly in this one, I think. What do you think, Kristen?

[00:00:41] Kristen: So many fuck ups.

[00:00:42] Kyla: Yeah. I don't know like this, so this episode, maybe I'll just get right into it. We're going to be doing a teeth centric sort of theme. Yes for listeners at home kristen just bared her teeth at me threateningly.

[00:00:58] Kristen: I really understand the audio format.

[00:01:03] Kyla: So I think usually Kristen does most of the research. She is the academic, uh, with a, you're about to get your PhD. We're going to be saying that for a little while, but

[00:01:13] Kristen: At some point in the future.

[00:01:15] Kyla: Yeah. The funny thing about PhDs is that they don't really have like a date do they like, not like I'm graduating.

[00:01:23] Kristen: Yeah. I mean, you do. Graduate one hopes anyway. Yeah. It's not like a, this is a two year program or this is a four-year program. It's just as long as it takes.

[00:01:32] Kyla: Yeah. So, so Kristen is our academic

[00:01:34] Kristen: Thousand yard stare

[00:01:36] Kyla: And I am the lay man who she gets to explain stuff to. So, uh, I'm the comic relief, I think, although Christian is very funny, so I don't even know what she needs me for.

[00:01:47] Kristen: Well, you, you try more interesting things than me. So your challenges are always much better.

[00:01:53] Kyla: I dunno what order episodes are coming out, but this is only the second one we've ever recorded. So Kristen is really setting a bar for me on this.

[00:02:01] Kristen: Always.

[00:02:05] Kyla: I personally found coming up with the challenge, a little tricky on this one.

[00:02:09] Kristen: Me too. Yeah. I did come up with a little blurb for the beginning that I could maybe say.

[00:02:13] Kyla: Please. Yeah.

[00:02:14] Kristen: This was basically just stolen from the original skeletal blog posts that I had started. But for this episode, we're going to be looking at ethical teeth.

[00:02:23] So one of the earliest lessons that we learned in life is how to brush our teeth. We learned that from a very young age and we spend about 1,460 minutes every year, meticulously scrubbing our pearly whites. So...

[00:02:36] Kyla: If you're good at brushing your teeth, I don't know if I spend that much time.

[00:02:39] Kristen: I'm good at brushing my teeth yeah. Given how much time is going into our dental hygiene can we calibrate our daily habit to match our values. So looking at all the things that we use for teeth cleaning, basically on a daily basis or weekly basis, depending on the product.

[00:02:55] Kyla: Yeah. Which was a little bit broad, frankly. Um, I, you know, at first we thought, oh, this'll be short, but then I think we both found that frankly, we could have done a whole episode just on toothpaste, let alone...

[00:03:06] Kristen: Yes.

[00:03:08] Kyla: I looked at mouthwash, floss, toothpaste, and toothbrushes. I'm not sure what you looked at.

[00:03:14] Kristen: That's perfect. Those are exactly the products I looked at.

[00:03:17] Kyla: Yes.

[00:03:19] Kristen: Crushing it, professionals.

[00:03:20] Kyla: Fantastic. So I think we'll start with our challenges this week. I think that's the easiest thing to do.

[00:03:25] Kristen: So today, folks for my ethical challenge, literally this morning, I put some baking soda in water. It's more or less what it amounted to.

[00:03:37] I use a mouth guard at night because I grind my teeth because I'm a highly stressed person. And so

[00:03:44] Kyla: Maybe that PhD has something to do with that.

[00:03:48] Kristen: Yeah. So I have been using mouthwash to just clean the mouth guard every night, basically. And, uh, I thought, well, that's a lot of Listerine that I'm using and a lot of like plastic bottles that I have to replace, and that probably aren't really getting recycled, especially the caps they definitely can't be. Basically every month or so I'm using this plastic bottle and also Listerine's made by Johnson and Johnson. And not only do they test on animals, but also as we found out recently, um, in September, they are a big part of the opioid epidemic. So I'm not sure I want to be supporting them. And also I'm trying to move towards waste free as much as I can. And having to replace a bottle of things is not great. So the first option that I tried was buying mouthwash tablets. So I bought a set of mouthwash tablets from G Organics is the company, and I purchased it through a waste free shop online, actually, it's a, well, it's a physical store called Package Free Shop, but they also like you can buy online from them. And it's really nice. You, when you purchase products from them, you get it in a recyclable cardboard box, which is actually the cardboard box from this order is what I use to hold my microphone when we are not recording. So it's kinda nice, but then they don't put any, any packaging that it's a minimal packaging. And all of the packaging that they do have is stuff that you can recycle. So that's nice. I ordered a set of mouthwash tablets from G Organics. Um, it came out to $19 Canadian. If you're American, it's only $14 because

[00:05:24] Kyla: Reasons

[00:05:26] Kristen: You can also buy it for only eight pounds if you live in the UK. So just really being Canadians the worst, but such is life.,

[00:05:33] Kyla: I don't know, what's the exchange rate right now. Oh, actually I think the exchange rate is pretty bad for the UK right now.

[00:05:38] Kristen: No, I think it's mainly just that the exchange rate, our dollar has no value, but that's ok. Anyway. Um, so with that purchase, whatever prices there are for you and your country, um, that ended up being 180 tablets. So if you're using it every day, last you about three months. So it's not so bad. And it comes in just like a refillable jar that is glass jar with a metal top, and you can recycle both of those things.

[00:06:04] Kyla: Can you send it back to the company to have it refilled?

[00:06:06] Kristen: I am not sure, but I think what I going to try to do is, so often with tablets, you'll be able to get refillable, um just little, compostable cardboard containers. And so I'm hoping to just go to my local waste, free shop and find a replacement there. When I have to. I basically bought it online only because I was also getting a razor at the same time. And I was like, well, I'm getting the shipped from the states I might as well, like add in some other things. So anyway, um, so the G Organics mouthwash tablets is baking soda based, but it also has some sort of other essential oils and things like that to, improve it's breath fighting qualities, I don't know. And also to make it taste a little better. And basically it's just like, it's like a little tablet, um, more or less the size of a pea, but it's flat and you basically just dissolve it in a small amount of water.

[00:06:59] They've got instructions on the container, but it's pretty easy. Basically what I do now is I have a glass of water that I stick the tablet jar in, and I have a spoon. And so every morning I'll just put the tablet a little bit of water. I stir the tablet with the spoon till it dissolves. And then I put the mouth guard in there.

[00:07:17] I did also try gurgling with it and it tasted fine. Um, I'm very used to like the strong punch of like the alcohol from Listerine. And so

[00:07:26] Kyla: If it doesn't burn as it even doing it's job?

[00:07:28] Kristen: I know, that's how I feel. Um, but it was nice and minty and my mouth did feel very clean afterwards. So that's what I've sort of gone to as my general solution, but I also thought like, Hey, I could just be making this.

[00:07:43] Because it seems like with, um, if you're not going to use like an alcohol-based mouthwash, then baking soda is sort of the operative ingredient in a mouthwash. So, um, I found a few different recipes online and I ended up making my own mouthwash with a cup of water, a teaspoon of baking soda and a few drops of essential oils, which is usually what they recommend.

[00:08:06] I think it's just to improve the taste. I don't think it really has. Qualities. Um, so they, they say you can pretty much use anything. I used eucalyptus because that was the essential oil that I happened to have. It tasted fine. It was kind of weird actually. Like you're gargling with baking soda. It wasn't like unpleasant, but it also wasn't pleasant, but it did the job.

[00:08:29] It was fine. Some of the recipes that I found online also recommended using a sweetener. So, um, the usual one that I saw was birch syrup, um, or xylitol. I skipped that because I thought I don't really need this to be sweet. And also I do not know where I'm going to find birch syrup and I do not know what I will use for it afterwards.

[00:08:48] So I just skipped it and I did not find that it was missing. Like, I, I didn't feel like I was missing a sweetness personally. So really all you need to really make your own mouth wash is just like to put some baking soda in a cup of water, and you're pretty much good to go. Um, cuz baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, so it's an alkaline and it can be used to kill mouth bacteria.

[00:09:09] It has like antibacterial properties, um, and it also balances the pH in your mouth by neutralizing the acids that are caused by mouth bacterias. It does that, and it can also counteract the effect of acidic drinks. So if you're drinking a lot of coffee, you can counteract that by gargling some baking soda and water.

[00:09:28] So it was very simple life hack. Having said that I would like to have a pleasant, minty mouth feel. So I think I'm going to stick with my tablets. So that was mine.

[00:09:40] Kyla: I mean fair. The tablets are still better than Listerine. So I would say your challenge was a roaring success.

[00:09:46] Kristen: Although if like Listerine tomorrow is like A, we're not going to be an evil company and B here's like a refillable version... I like the product better I would definitely switch back. But for the like...

[00:10:01] Kyla: Being ethical is so hard.

[00:10:04] Kristen: Nothing will burn my mouth. But no, it's fine the G Organics, like they work perfectly well in the mint is like pretty pleasant. So. How about you? What was your challenge?

[00:10:13] Kyla: So this one I thought would be easier.

[00:10:17] I don't know why. So here's, here's where I'm coming from on my challenge last year, I did plastic free July. So I kind of already challenged myself because during my plastic free July, I ran out of toothpaste and floss at the same time. So what I did last year was I bought some toothpaste that comes in a solid bar form on a wooden stick.

[00:10:38] And it came in like a little wooden packaging and I bought it. A little vendor that I saw in Spitalfields market in London. So it was waste free and it was solid, which I kind of liked. I can't remember the brand, uh, which is good because I have nothing nice to say about them other than they were waste free.

[00:10:55] Gosh, it, it was super gross. It tasted awful. I had nowhere to keep it. Uh, it was hard to get my toothbrush to like pick anything up off of this thing. It got really messed up. It was awful. It was like a weird lollipop and I hated it. So I'll be honest. It was waste free until I threw most of it away. So that was a real.

[00:11:17] And then last year as well. So for the floss, it ended up being a little bit better. I bought my floss from G organics. Oh my goodness. So we're both shouting out G organics. The one that I bought was using a candle. Lillo wow. Uh, Ken Delilah, Kendall, Lola wax. And unfortunately it was using a polyester string, which I know isn't perfect because you still can't really compost polyester, and it makes quite the energy footprint to produce.

[00:11:44] But at the time I was mostly trying to avoid the plastic packaging and go waste free. And I couldn't really find a decent alternative that wasn't silk, which I don't know silkworms. I was reading about silkworms recently and it bums me out. I know they're worms, but also like the story

[00:11:59] behind some forms they're boiled alive.

[00:12:01] Yeah.

[00:12:02] Yeah. Yeah. It's a real bummer. I feel a little bit better about honey than I do even about, you know, like we're not boiling, beasel alive. Usually. I don't know how we're harvesting them, whatever honey is going to be a whole episode. I'm sure.

[00:12:14] Every episode, we're just going to mention it and never do an episode on.

[00:12:19] So, so the nice thing about the G organics thing was that it, obviously it came in a glass reusable dispenser, uh, and the packaging, like you said, came in the compostable paper box. It was the best I could do at the time. Unfortunately, I didn't buy it from. Their website. I stupidly bought it from Amazon.

[00:12:37] So it was still a little bit evil at the time, but what are you going to do to Amazon's credit? They sent it without any plastic in

[00:12:42] their packaging. So I mentioned for the, for the floss, um, I've been using a vegan waste free floss for a little while it is called floss, pot gold. And it's a with corn fiber and it's coated with a candle LOL.

[00:12:57] They're great. It comes in a little glass jar with a little lid, and then you can use the refillable paper things. I was able to find it. So whole foods does not have the vegan version. It only has their nylon one or sort of not their nylon one. It only has their beeswax one. I was able to find at just another waste free store in Toronto, I was able to find the gold version.

[00:13:17] So I think if you just like go through your neighborhood, Go to enough stores. You'll find it. Cool.

[00:13:22] Yeah. I liked that. They're compostable, the

[00:13:23] floss bought gold is made from corn, so you can compost it. Usually the vegan ones are made from nylon and you can't.

[00:13:29] Yeah, so I'm a big fan of that. And when I run out and a 10 years of floss from organics, I'm going to switch to floss, pot gold.

[00:13:37] So for my part of the challenge, I thought that it would be pretty easy to come up with an ethical alternative to my daily oral care. Deeply mistaken, at least on the first challenge that I set myself. So the first challenge that I tried to give myself was that I need a new toothbrush. You're supposed to change your toothbrush.

[00:13:55] Like every three months. I don't want to tell you when the last time I changed my toothbrush was, but it was a little bit more than three months ago. I've been using a bamboo toothbrush, which is fine. Yeah. But it is time to. Change her up. She is not clean. So I decided that now that I'm back in Canada, I would like to pick up an electric toothbrush.

[00:14:16] My mouth is always happier with those because I'm a lazy brusher. I was using one back in London and I could have brought it with me, but, well, not really, because technically it was my friends, so I left it behind. Okay. Don't worry. I started with a clean head and I left him with a clean replacement. No, we weren't sharing, but yes, I am a total mooch so...

[00:14:35] Kristen: I did have somebody on a road trip once that accidentally used my toothbrush. I didn't know what to do cause we're in the middle of this trip. And, uh, so I was like, okay, fine. And I just like rinsed it and used it again. And my other friend was horrified.

[00:14:51] Kyla: I mean, whatever I do that was easily, my friend's not sick. We share drinks. Right? Like. Yeah, cooties. I don't know. I wasn't using my friend's toothbrush.

[00:15:03] Kristen: I wouldn't do it under ideal circumstances, but...

[00:15:07] Kyla: But I did find two electric toothbrush options that seemed like they might be viable. Unfortunately, one of them was a prototype that you cannot buy yet. And I couldn't find a release date, but apparently it's supposed to work when it comes out with like an old timey sort of crank system.

[00:15:21] It's from a website called goodwill.co. And I can't vouch for it because it doesn't technically exist yet. But if anyone wants to pre-order it and let me know how it goes. I mean, please shout me out. And then the second option that I found was from a company called Forio and their electronic toothbrushes were $189, which as someone who is currently job hunting, it's just not feasible.

[00:15:46] So I basically failed my first challenge right out of the gate, because I just couldn't justify ordering a $200 toothbrush. I will just have to be less lazy with brushing. So while I was doing this research, I also found an interesting article from a green lifestyle magazine.com that I will link to that basically is an Australian website that pointed out that the energy usage of an electric toothbrush that's left on constant recharge is equal to the daily energy usage of a toaster.

[00:16:14] So that's fun. Manufacturers often recommend leaving your brush on constant recharge, but that can wear out your battery. So you're using more energy, you're replacing the battery or the whole toothbrush more frequently, depending on the design. It's not waste free at all. So, you know, I, frankly, if I want to be a more ethical person, I'll just keep using my bamboo toothbrushes, which are compostable, which you can pluck the nylon out of.

[00:16:39] You know, I'll just brush my teeth better.

[00:16:41] Kristen: Yeah. That's, that's a thing though. The, uh, the bristles. So most people will just like, assume I've got this bamboo toothbrush, I'll just throw it in the compost. But most of them have nylon bristles that you can't actually compost. So you have to, you do have to take the bristles out.

[00:16:57] Kyla: Is nylon 4 compostable? I think it is.

[00:17:00] Kristen: I okay. Yes. There is a kind of nylon that is compostable, but not in like your city's compost. You have to like put it in a special kind of composter. I don't know how Vancouver works, but in Toronto, most big apartment buildings will have like an organics bin that the city just takes away. And you couldn't compost nylon of any kind in that. Um, there is a type of nylon that you can compost in, like industrial composters, but you'd have to seek that out. It's a special one. So in general, it's just best to just take out the bristles. If animal rights isn't your jam then like you can go waste free by having a bamboo toothbrush with pig hair. That's an option. For me, not so much, but for other people, maybe.

[00:17:43] Kyla: I'm not a huge, none of that myself. Like a couple of nylon bristles, I think are worth the life of a pig in my opinion.

[00:17:50] Kristen: I agree.

[00:17:51] Kyla: I don't know pigs, I guess probably it's just like an offshoot of the pork industries where they're getting the bristles usually, but I guess you could just shave a pig and let him go about his day. I don't know.

[00:18:02] Kristen: I don't know how, I don't know how that works. Um, for, for my money, it just, uh, taking the nylon bristles out of the bamboo toothbrushes, the best you can do. And there are a lot of companies, like most companies that are putting out bamboo toothbrushes, especially if they're doing it in compostable or waste free packaging, like, they're trying to find a vegan version or a compostable version, that's not pig hair, you know, so...

[00:18:26] Kyla: someday we'll have something.

[00:18:27] Kristen: Eventually hopefully they'll get there. Yeah.

[00:18:29] Kyla: So I ended up giving up on the first challenge because it turns out what I'm already doing is perfect. I just need to be a less lazy brusher. And I went ahead and gave myself a second challenge that would be a little bit more exciting because this one kind of didn't really get out of the gate. So I went ahead and made a simple alternative toothpaste. I've always used Sensodyne, but I recently realized thanks to Kristen, actually that it's not cruelty-free and it's definitely not waste free.

[00:18:55] So apparently it's manufactured in the USA, but there are a bunch of ingredients. So I'm not really sure if those are all made at the same factory or shipped in and mixed together, probably that. So I don't know enough to comment about the labor practices as we've probably discussed in every episode, I'm sure, but basically Sensodyne isn't perfect.

[00:19:11] So I looked up some recipes for guidance and I ended up going with one from thethingswellmake.com and one from davidsuzuki.org. I figure I could trust those guys, but I ended up kind of combining them to do my own thing. So my first issue with homemade toothpaste came up right away. When I realized I wouldn't be able to floridate my own toothpaste.

[00:19:34] Kristen: Can we maybe take a second to talk about how toothpaste works? So people...

[00:19:39] Kyla: Yes. And then I, and then I have a rant about fluoride, so

[00:19:43] Kristen: Me too!

[00:19:44] Kyla: Great. Perfect.

[00:19:45] Kristen: One of the things that I was thinking about in terms of ethical toothpaste is like, what do you really need in toothpaste for it to work? So I, I found a few articles that sort of said the like building blocks of toothpaste.

[00:19:58] So the first thing is that toothpastes contain a, like, they contain mild abrasives that basically scrub away the plaque. So it'd be like, um, stuff that's granular. So it'll kind of scrape your. They're oftentimes also acidic and that can break down the enamel. So the abrasives although they'll have, they have a cleaning function, they also do some damage to your teeth.

[00:20:18] A lot of tooth toothpaste will also include fluoride, which strengthens and protects the tooth enamel, which is just the outside layer of the tooth. And that basically prevents you from experiencing tooth pain and cavities. So it's really important. Um, and then in addition to those two components, which are sort of like the big components of toothpaste, some toothpastes also include detergents, um, which make the toothpaste foam. And some people really liked that foamy texture. So if you have the foamy texture in your toothpaste, that is why. Something called humectants. Um, so glycerin is a good example of that and they basically help the toothpaste to retain its moisture so it doesn't dry out. So if you have liquid toothpaste in a tube, probably it has a humectant of some kind and glycerin is the most usual one that you'll find. Uh, then there are oftentimes preservatives that prevent the toothpaste from growing bacteria. Because you don't want that. Right. And then finally there'll be flavoring or coloring agents. So that's just so that you have a pleasant experience and your toothpaste tastes nice. But those are, those are the different components that are in toothpaste. Um, it's important to also note, so you, you had mentioned toothpaste bar, um, or it was like a lollipop. How exactly did that work?

[00:21:31] Kyla: Yeah, I, yeah, it was, it was basically a toothpaste lollipop and it was awful. I don't, I can't tell you what was in it because I threw it away ages ago, but I can't recommend. At all.

[00:21:41] Kristen: Yeah, but there's another, um, another quite common one other than the sort of liquid toothpaste option is toothpaste tablets, which I, I suspect feel a lot like the mouthwash tablet that I use where you basically just like you put it on your tongue and as I understand it, you sort of like bite down on it to... I guess you probably don't put it on your tongue in that case. Don't bite your tongue, but yeah, you, you have to break it up with your teeth a bit and then it'll start to foam and then you can just brush it as it as though it's a toothpaste. Um, so yeah, those are some of the options and, well, let's talk about fluoride then, because it really protects your enamel and it's important. Do you want to, do you want to go?

[00:22:20] Kyla: Yeah, so, so I, I think you have, so I think when I'm done, you're going to talk a little bit about fluoride in the alternative toothpastes you can get at like Whole Foods and places like that. Because when I was looking, um, I found that they were often proudly fluoride-free, which you're going to go, I think you're going to go into detail on that. But personally, I like fluoride in my toothpaste.

[00:22:41] Kristen: I went down a really big fluoride, regulatory rabbit hole, so buckle up.

[00:22:47] Kyla: Well, and I went down a bit of a fluoride, I think we both have a lot to say about fluoride. I mean, basically I like fluoride in my toothpaste. Uh, I don't see a problem with it. Uh, I know that if you are drinking way too much fluoride, it can make you sick, but it has to be quite a bit before it does anything. And it causes thyroid problems if you've poisoned yourself with it, basically. But if you're just putting it in your mouth and spitting it out, I mean, it's just gonna strengthen your teeth. Basically, every study agrees.

[00:23:14] Kristen: Or for that matter ingesting a safe amount in public water if you don't live in Vancouver.

[00:23:20] Kyla: Absolutely. Right. So here we go. Basically, my first issue was that I couldn't fluoridate my own toothpaste, so I thought, okay, well, if I'm getting my fluoride from my drinking water, then that should be fine.

[00:23:34] And I just decided, you know, on a whim, let's just double check. Make sure that BC where I live, fluoridates their water just like everywhere else does. And the answer is no, no, they do not. So this is where I went down my rabbit hole. Basically, according to Metro vancouver.org, there's trace amounts of less than 0.05 milligrams per liter. But just for comparison, I checked the Edmonton fluoride levels and they're at 0.7, which is significantly higher than 0.05. That's according to epicor.com. Although what it actually is when you test for it, I mean, I, I don't know, but according to epcor.com. I think where the water regulation comes in, it should be at 0.7.

[00:24:16] So basically I have to figure out how I'm going to keep my teeth strong with this homemade toothpaste. I honestly considered going to a pharmacy, asking for fluoride drops over the counter and putting them in myself, but I didn't want to accidentally overdose myself or something. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how it's going to mix in. I, yeah.

[00:24:35] Kristen: Yeah. And fluoride is like, it's super important. The city of Calgary, Alberta, which is the biggest city in the province of Alberta in Canada, they in 2011, decided that they were not going to have fluoride in the water, which as an aside, in 1989, the city of Calgary, like the people had a referendum and decided to vote to have fluoride in it. So for the council to just on a whim, decide that they were not going to follow that without holding another referendum to me is bonkers. But anyway, they took fluoride out of the water and like in that short period of time, that looks, it was like eight years dentists have already seen an uptick in kids with cavities. So fuck that noise fluoride is so important. Don't @ me.

[00:25:17] Kyla: We're both hippies that are pro fluoride. What do you want from us? So...

[00:25:23] Kristen: And it shouldn't be this hard. To get fluoridated waste free.

[00:25:28] Kyla: So I went to, um, 123dentists.com, which is a legitimate source. I double checked. And according to them... it sounds sketchy, but I Googled it and they're legit.

[00:25:39] Kristen: It does sound sketchy!

[00:25:41] Kyla: But, this is a legit, like scientific, like dentists are a part of this website. So I found some foods do contain....

[00:25:47] Kristen: Sure, four out of five dentists agree.

[00:25:50] Kyla: That some foods do contain trace amounts of fluoride, but I would need to consume like 30 portions of the very few foods with natural fluoride in them per day.

[00:26:00] And I just, you know, I can't, so the best thing that I sort of found for my own homemade toothpaste was to use cacao as an alternative. I found a couple of small studies that have shown that it may work as a bit of a fluoride replacement for strengthening your teeth. And also they have like a little bit of like the abrasiveness, like there, the fluoride that I there's, the cacao that I bought was, um, solid.

[00:26:25] So I had to grind it up myself. So it's going to have a little bit of a texture to it as well for brushing stuff off. So I went ahead and just put cacao in this as an alternative, it's the best I could kind of come up with for homemade.

[00:26:38] Kristen: Yeah. So I think there's like, there's a real problem right now in the sort of ethical toothpaste space where I personally would like three things in a toothpaste.

[00:26:48] The first thing is fluoride cause I do not want to get cavities. The second thing is I would like it to be waste free. So the container just needs to be compostable. And the third is that I would like it to be animal product free. And it really doesn't seem that hard to do those three things. And you can find toothpastes that do two of those objectives at the same time, but it really seems like right now you have to choose between them.

[00:27:12] It's especially the case for like, if you're trying to do waste free, a lot of the times you just can't find toothpaste with fluoride in it. I did end up finding a toothpaste that had fluoride and was waste free. There's a Burt's bees toothpaste that I was able to find, but the problem is they, they have glycerin in it and it didn't specifically say that it was non animal glycerine, so I am assuming it is, it also doesn't say vegan. So I'm assuming that I'm eating, or I guess spitting out animal products, which is not ideal for me, but, um, for the time being it's the best there is, but there they're really, there. Aren't a lot of options out there. If you want fluoride and you don't want waste like plastic packaging.

[00:27:54] Kyla: I don't understand. I popped into a whole foods when I got into Vancouver and all of this, like natural, you know, quote, un quote, toothpaste on the shelf, they were all proudly fluoride-free. It was like the very front thing on all of the boxes, like non fluoride. And I'm like, how are there 50 versions of the same toothpaste?

[00:28:13] Like the point of having choice is that they should be different. Right. So I want an ethical toothpaste made from mostly natural ingredients that keeps my teeth strong, but apparently I'm the only hippie in the world that wants that. So.

[00:28:27] Kristen: Yeah. So you're, you're not for sure. Cause I mean, me, lots of, I know a lot of people that are in the same situation.

[00:28:33] Kyla: So is there a reason that they're not putting fluoride in their toothpaste?

[00:28:37] Kristen: I have a theory on why this is the case. Why there are so many fluoride free options. So two explanations, one being that like the initial sort of naturalist movement has a lot of people that are in the like anti-fluoride conspiracy theory subset out there. That's obviously like part of the problem. But I think the second problem is regulation. Or maybe not problem, but the second reason that we, there are so many fluoride-free toothpaste out there it's that you are regulated differently in making toothpaste based on whether it has fluoride or not.

[00:29:07] So. I went down really big rabbit hole here. Um, I looked at the U S and Canadian regulations for toothpaste and it's pretty similar actually. So basically in both countries, if you have fluoride in your toothpaste, it's regulated as a drug. And if you don't, then it's regulated as a cosmetic. Now, the reason that matters is that you have a lot more hoops to jump through if you're regulated as a drug.

[00:29:35] So if you're like Joe toothpaste maker out there and you want to produce a toothpaste, that freshens breath, you can put out a toothpaste without fluoride in it, and you don't need to get pre-approval. You just put it on the market and it has to basically... like it has to be vaguely safe. And like, if people complain that it's unsafe, you might get in trouble, but you don't have to get pre-authorized approval to put the product out.

[00:30:00] Whereas if you're doing a toothpaste with fluoride in it, you have to essentially you have to go to the regulator and they have to check that it's safe and it has to have a certain amount of fluoride in it. And it has to be. Packaged in a certain way and have a certain amount of safety labels. All of which I think are great things, and even more reason that you should go with only fluoridated toothpaste, but it also is a big reason that you see a lot of companies that don't have it, right? Like Lush, big example. They have a bunch of toothpaste tablets. I would love to see a fluoridated toothpaste tablet, but none of them are fluoridated right now.

[00:30:33] And I don't specifically know this for the case of lush, but I would imagine part of the reason is that it just takes longer. You have to go through, um, like Health Canada, if you're going to sell in Canada and get that authorized in advance. So I think that's part of the reason and that makes me suspect that like the waste movement's pretty new.

[00:30:54] So given that and given that a lot of people, I think in the waste free movement today are people with immense climate anxiety that aren't necessarily like the same group of people that would be waste free like a decade ago. And a lot of us, I suspect want to be cavity free and don't really mind fluoride. So I suspect those products are coming in the next five years. It just, you know, it's going to take a little while.

[00:31:19] Kyla: Well we demand it, if any toothpaste manufacturer is listening, we will buy your product. If it is ethical and waste free and fluoridated, please.

[00:31:30] Kristen: And preferably if it has the American Dental Association or Canadian Dental Association seals, because I always look for those.

[00:31:39] Kyla: Oh, fantastic.

[00:31:39] Kristen: I don't wanna take risks with my teeth.

[00:31:41] Kyla: So I made this toothpaste, I'm not fluoridated. And both of the recipes that I was looking at were also calling for something called bentonite clay, which is supposed to help with consistency and apparently has good pH levels. But I was doing this. I was doing this challenge when I was in Salmon Arm, BC, uh, in the month of August, and I couldn't find anywhere... I mean, I'm sure that maybe if I'd looked really hard, I could have found bentonite clay, but I couldn't, I couldn't find it while I was there. So I went ahead and left that out as well. My options were limited. So what I wound up doing was, uh, four tablespoons of coconut oil and two tablespoons of baking soda, which was actually really weird when I was looking at the various recipes for baking soda to coconut oil, some were calling for like a teaspoon against like three tablespoons of coconut oil and some were calling for like, half the amount of coconut oil, which would be like two tablespoons to four tablespoons of coconut. So the, the ratio varied wildly, and I'm not sure how much baking soda is too much baking soda in toothpaste. Uh, so I just went ahead and did the four tablespoons to two tablespoons baking soda. Cause I don't know, it seemed easier. And then I dropped in two teaspoons of ground to cacao, nibs, uh, shout out to my dad who helped me turn the nibs into powder with a mortar and pestle and some elbow grease. I mean, I did my best and then I was like, dad, can you finish this for me? He kindly obliged. Uh, and then I added five ish drops of peppermint oil. Just kind of give it a full. Um, I popped it in the fridge for 10 minutes because it was pretty liquidy. I'll be honest. And when it came out, it was a pretty good consistency. Dad said that it smelled like an after eight, which is similar to what it tasted like, frankly.

[00:33:23] Yeah, it wasn't totally unpleasant, but that was my first experience with it. Now I've been using it for a couple of days and I have a follow-up to my notes that I had from the day that I did it. It got kind of hot yesterday and my toothpaste melted into liquid again. I popped it in the fridge to thicken it and I left it in for too long and it turned rough rock solid. So it was like, frankly, this bentonite clay is sorely missing. I'm pretty sure that would give it away better consistency. So at first I thought, okay. Yeah, I think I would do this again. Um, as long as I don't have any adverse gum reactions or, you know, I get a bunch of cavities, but I don't know.

[00:34:00] I made enough to last a thousand years. There's so much in this jar and after I'd used it for a few days, I've noticed basically two things are happening that have really put me off of it. And I mean, I made this to be waste free, but honestly, I'm probably going to throw it away just like with my other toothpaste, sadly.

[00:34:15] And I'll switch to the toothpaste that you're using. The, I don't know what you, you mentioned that birds and bees...?

[00:34:22] Kristen: Burt's bees pro enamel. It's, it's pretty good, but again, it's not vegan, so.

[00:34:29] Kyla: Yeah. I mean, I'm going to probably just have to, I mean, it's better than Sensodyne.

[00:34:33] Kristen: Actually, I did find, sorry. I did find a fluoridated waste free and vegan toothpaste option, but unfortunately you can only get it by buying it online in Canada because it's, um, it's a German company called Dent Tabs and they sell toothpaste tablets. So yeah, you can buy it only via Amazon, so that won't be waste free, but if it eventually sells in Canada, that's great. Um, and there's another...

[00:34:58] Kyla: And also Amazon, isn't a very ethical choice.

[00:35:01] Kristen: I'm trying not to use Amazon as much as I can, but I found another option too, that you could sell, buy, you could buy directly. So it's an organization called plastic-free beach and they offer a pretty similar product, also fluoridated also vegan, but the problem is so you could buy a thing of the, the tablets and it was 10 pounds. So 10 like British pounds, but the shipping was going to be another 20 pounds for this small thing, which, which is fair because international shipping is really expensive, but also I am not going to pay like $50 for a three month supply of dental tablets. I'm just not.

[00:35:37] Kyla: Absolutely not. Yeah. And as somebody who is currently, like, I just moved to Vancouver like a few days ago and I am currently not in a position to be ordering products online because I'm staying at an Airbnb until I can find a place to live. It's just what I can kind of make myself or find in a health food store, unfortunately.

[00:35:56] But my problem with my homemade toothpaste is that one, it tasted fine on the first day, but by day four, holy smokes does it taste really bad. Like it tastes so bad. I don't know if the bentonite clay would help like level that out, but...

[00:36:08] It's probably the cocoa going bad. Isn't it?

[00:36:12] Maybe? I don't know, because it was dry.

[00:36:14] Kristen: Is your cacao moldy?

[00:36:17] Kyla: It's not moldy, but I don't know what I've done. It. Look, it tastes awful. Maybe it's the cacao. I, I don't know. It tastes very bad though. And I think it's cacao mixed with baking soda probably. And then. My second problem with it is that the outside of my jar is always greasy like a lot. And I have no idea why. I'm standing it up. It's not moving, I'm closing the lid really tight, although apparent maybe that's why it tastes bad too. Cause like, it's just, uh, it doesn't have a good seal on it. It's, you know, a nice jar, like, I don't know, but basically it's sweating and it's always super greasy from the coconut oil and it's really slimy to touch and it just. I just, I'm not happy with what I've made.

[00:36:58] So I was a huge failure on my second challenge. It turned out okay for the first day and now I've just made so much toothpaste that is just gonna, I'll be honest, it's going to go in the bin and I'm going to go buy something fluoridated. Oh, sad day.

[00:37:14] Kristen: Yes. Do it.

[00:37:15] Kyla: And then I kind of, so then there was like a bit of a, an extra challenge that I gave myself. I wanted to, I don't currently use mouthwash and I kind of would like to, especially since at first I was like, oh, I'll be using this toothpaste. You know, that doesn't have fluoride. I might as well at least use mouth. So I basically accidentally did a third sort of challenge in that I, when I got to Vancouver a couple of days ago, I was walking past a Winners and I saw that they had like a natural health and beauty section and I impulsively purchased a mouthwash.

[00:37:47] It's from a brand called Jason and it's called Sea Fresh and it tastes... well, it takes a little getting used to, since I'm so used to Listerine's minty bite as we have discussed. And I haven't actually used a mouthwash in like two years, but you know what? I kind of like it. Um, although it's definitely not waste free, which is why I should never let myself impulse shop.

[00:38:08] And this is where I really started to realize how tricky palm oil can be as well, because I didn't see anything on the ingredients list that raise any flags until I got home and started Googling the ingredients one by one. Look, this product has the leaping bunny stamp of approval, their website says that they're vegan.

[00:38:28] Kristen: Yeah. Jason, I think is a fully vegan company. Yeah.

[00:38:31] Kyla: And I also see, unfortunately, that they're using, you know, they have to use glycerin as we've already talked about, and they don't say what they're using, the glycerin is made out of like what they're not saying what the glycerin is, so I can kind of assume, unfortunately, most of the time when it's not animal product, it's palm oil or it's a palm derivative. So it's not maybe palm oil, but it's a derivative from the palm tree. Uh, you can make the glycerin from stuff like soybeans, but unfortunately if they don't specify, you can pretty much assume that it's palm.

[00:39:00] Kristen: Yeah. It's just so cheap.

[00:39:01] Kyla: So that was a bit a rabbit hole that I fell down and it's a bit of a huge bummer. Although I will say that Jason has a really cool website that does list what all of their ingredients are that they use in their products. But like I said, when I looked at their glycerin, it didn't specify which source they use. So I could email them and double check to see if it's Palm, which maybe I might actually do just to, you know, hold companies accountable, they have no reason to change. Like, like, Hey, you guys are doing a really good job. Can you also be perfect? I know that it's hard. So like palm is one of those tricky things.

[00:39:35] I don't feel too bad about this impulse buy. This is a company that does seem like they're trying to use natural ingredients, uh, organic when they can they're cruelty-free and vegan apart from a few products that contain beeswax and you and I have discussed that we both really appreciate when a company tries to be transparent and just makes an effort to be better. Do you know what I mean? So...

[00:39:56] Hey, it's future Kyla here, just popping in to say that I did email Jason and they did get back to me and they told me that their glycerin is not made from palm sources. So good for them. All in all seem pretty decent.

[00:40:11] You know, shout out there, but yeah, definitely not waste free, so not a perfect choice, but I'm happy with it. Uh, I'm happy enough with it for now. Probably I'll just make my own mouthwash next time. Since it's as easy as dropping a teaspoon of baking soda into a cup of water.

[00:40:26] Kristen: Yeah. It really was the easiest challenge in the world, but...

[00:40:31] Kyla: Well, and then I also, while I was at Winners, impulsively bought a new bamboo toothbrush. I don't think that they use nylon 4 bristles, but frankly, I wouldn't know right now where to begin composting that anyways. I don't technically live anywhere yet. So we'll have to see what my neighborhood's recycling policy is when I get there. I also, frankly, Kristen, being ethical is exhausting because even though these toothbrushes come in compostable packaging, I saw after I got home that they're made in China because of course they are. And I just didn't think of it when I was in the shop. So now I feel bad because I bought from a big box store. The bristles are straight trash. I'm not sure what the working conditions are in the toothbrush factories in China, and the energy expenditure to get the brush to north America. I mean, did the cargo ship holding my toothbrush give a whale a headache on its way over here? How are we going to be better consumers?

[00:41:30] Kristen: This is a really inspiring and happy-go-lucky ending.

[00:41:36] Kyla: I bought a toothbrush and I feel bad.

[00:41:40] Kristen: No, it's so hard. I guess that's the whole reason we started this podcast though, right?

[00:41:46] Kyla: Yeah. It was like, how do we be better? I know you haven't watched The Good Place yet, but shout out to my favorite television show, which I actually just rewatched for like a third time last week, instead of doing anything productive. But it's a really, really good show that kind of goes into this sort of thing in a really funny way. And, uh, frankly, it's the existential crisis of our time isn't it like, ah, how do we be good without living in a shack in the woods?

[00:42:11] Kristen: Yeah, it's so much harder given how complicated global supply chains are. You really... it's impossible to get all of the information that you'd need to make good decisions and the information that's out there... like there's just so much of it. And it's so fragmented that it's really hard to sort through like, I, we talked about how I'm like lingering through a PhD right now, um, one of the things that I've researched is eco labels, so environmental labeling. And I still don't know what half the equal labels mean, and I literally researched this stuff. So it's, it's really hard and can be really overwhelming for consumers. But I think, uh, so one of my dearest friends is very known for her kitschy sayings and, uh, one of them is don't let the perfect get in the way of the good. And I really think that's like the right way to approach ethical consumption. You just have to try your best and know that we will make mistakes. And as long as you're incrementally improving it's okay.

[00:43:09] Kyla: Yeah. And I guess my, my guilt with the toothbrush, like there's four things that I feel bad about, but then on the other hand, I don't replace my toothbrush as often as I should, so less waste there and also, just the fact that you can compost the bamboo handle means that there's like, I was looking at some horrifying statistics. I frankly didn't write them down because they upset me too much of just how many plastic toothbrushes end up in the environment from being thrown away and it's staggering. And you know, just the fact that I'm using the bamboo handle makes such a big difference that...

[00:43:44] Kristen: I do have the stat on that if you want?

[00:43:46] Kyla: I was going to link to it, but if we want to make people even sadder than please. Yes.

[00:43:50] Kristen: Yeah. So toothbrushes account for approximately 2 billion, tons of plastic waste in our oceans every year. Sad.

[00:43:58] Kyla: Hello, future Kyla here. Kristen, couldn't find the source for the 2 billion tons figure. And honestly, that sounds a little high based on other figures that we've seen, but here are some stats that we are confident using. In the U.S. alone between one and three and a half billion toothbrushes are thrown out every year. And that would account for at least 50 million tons of waste from the U.S. alone. And if you're not sure what a ton is equal to an African elephant weighs between two and a half and seven tons. So there you go. Now you have a point of reference for how heavy is a ton. It's a seventh of an elephant, but 50 million of those.

[00:44:43] It's a lot. Now that you know, how much a ton is between 4.8 and 12.7 million tons of plastic waste to enter our oceans annually. So that's still not great.

[00:44:58] Hmm. Okay. Well, I guess what's our call to action this week. Everybody go buy a bamboo toothbrush?

[00:45:03] Kristen: I suppose, or you could... I don't know, you can't really, you probably can't convince Johnson and Johnson to be better. So I guess maybe a support, a company that's trying, you know, find a company that seems to match your values and support them as much as you can.

[00:45:19] Kyla: Yeah. We'll link to the companies that we've mentioned for sure. But if you have any others that you recommend, like if anybody knows any better products for us, please share them.

[00:45:28] You can reach us at Twitter for sure. @PullbackPodcast or Kristen @KristenPue. And we'll put those in the show notes too. So, you know, @ us!

[00:45:39] Kristen: Unless, unless you're anti fluoride, please don't @ me.

[00:45:43] Kyla: You can @ me, I'll tell I'll I'll field that one.

[00:45:47] Kristen: I'll be very personally hurt.

[00:45:50] Kyla: Fantastic. Well...

[00:45:51] Kristen: I guess the last message just try, try the best that you can and know that there's no way to be perfect on any of these so.

[00:46:00] Kyla: And take care of your pearly whites people. Thanks for listening guys. We'll catch you next time.

[00:46:07] Cause I wasn't recording all of that, but I bet you were.

[00:46:10] Kristen: I was, yeah, you've got four minutes and 22 seconds of... it's nonsense.

[00:46:16] Kyla: I mean, all of this is gold for our Patreon listeners who are definitely subscribing and getting all of these outtakes.

[00:46:25] Kristen: My mom

[00:46:28] Kyla: And my mom, hi mom.