Electronic Cigarettes

Electronic cigarettes - have you heard of them? I only came across them while doing product research for new sites and (being an ex smoker) they’ve got me quite intrigued! If you haven’t seen them or heard of them, they are basically a plastic cigarette. The filter screws on to the cigarette tube. You buy the filters for them and the filters contain  the nicotine and flavourings. Yes, they come in all sorts of flavours (and some sound quite disgusting I think!).

Rather than just plain tobacco flavours and menthol, as in standard cigarettes, these come in flavors such as Cherry, Watermelon, Coffee, Chocolate and more depending on which brand you decide to buy.

Anyway, the way they work is that they have a battery in them that creates a reaction with the substances contained in the filter, creating a vapor that is inhaled, just like the smoke from a burning cigarette – except there’s no smoke.

Now, don’t get me wrong here. Being an ex smoker (20 years of my life!) I’m in no way advocating smoking of any kind. However, for those who are currently slaves to the nicotine habit, this looks to be a possible alternative for the following reasons -

• Electronic cigarettes apparently work out a fair bit cheaper than smoking tobacco, saving you money. That’s always a good thing!
• Electronic cigarettes (otherwise known as the electric cigarette or e-cigs) seem to put less harmful stuff into your body.

About the chemicals in Electric cigarettes

E-cigs contain nicotine at varying levels depending on which strength you buy, plus flavoring and whatever substances make up the vapor. A lot of people using these are under the impression that it is a water vapor, however from what I’ve seen it’s a little more than that. There seems to be a few ingredients that go into making this vapor – the main ones being the use of either Propylene Glycol or Glycerol in varying amounts depending on the recipe.

Now, there are arguments surrounding Propylene Glycol (you will see that I’m definitely not a fan if you have a look around this web site) and it’s used in everything from skin care to chocolate cake! It is approved for use in food, but I personally prefer not to eat it! – there is a lot of evidence and research to indicate that it’s not really something you want to be putting into your body. However, most of the population at this point in time do put this stuff in and on their bodies (albeit unknowingly for most). There are quite possibly also other ingredients in these e-cigs that I wouldn’t be keen on putting into my body now a days .

However, if I were still a tobacco smoker, then that might just be a different story. This is because these electric cigarettes contain no tar, no carbon monoxide and there is no way they contain any where near the 4000 or so chemicals that tobacco cigarettes release into your body every time you inhale cigarette smoke. Chemicals such as mercury, benzene, ammonia, formaldehyde, acetone, arsenic and all the rest!

E-cigs don’t give off any smoke. That means that they not only don’t have the 4000 or so chemicals that will harm you, but they don’t affect anyone else’s health either (no passive smoking issues).

There is no smell. Sorry smokers, but you really don’t realise how much you stink! I know I didn’t until I quit the first time and then I was horrified. I still am. The smell is incredibly noticeable at times and very unpleasant – especially when mixed with perfume – yuck!

So, even tho governments around the world are haggling over the safety of these electronic cigarettes, (I have no doubt that the tobacco companies are having a lot to do with this – let’s face it – Electric cigarettes are a threat to the tobacco industry!) and whether they should be restricted, whether they are medicines, whether they are quit smoking devices etc, the evidence thus far stacks up in their favor. Lets look again at the pros for these devices:

1. Cost – they’re cheaper!
2. They have less harmful chemicals
3. No smell
4. No smoke
5. They can be smoked anywhere
6. Different flavors (if you’re into that)
7. No tar
8. They have been used successfully by people to quit smoking

The reviews from people using them from what I’ve seen have been really positive. Some brands may be better than others, but that like anything can be personal preference also.

As I already said, I’m not advocating smoking anything. My advice to everyone would be to quit and do it now! But the fact is that many people do smoke and will continue to do so and smoking tobacco does horrid things to your body – I know from personal experience! So if I still did smoke, I’d be keen to give these a go. Here’s some links if you want to check them out:

Smoke 51 Electronic Cigarettes
Blu eCigs
LUCI is like the real thing
Green Smoke UK
Green Smoke USA
The Safe Cig
My Electronic Cigarettes site – http://www.electroniccigarettes.ws

You’ll notice there’s also lots of quit smoking stuff on my E-cigs site – just in case you’re looking!

These days everyone knows that smoking is bad for your health. Very bad! Yet lots of people still do it. Lots of people justify their still doing it too – making excuses and doing their best to convince themselves and others that they like it!

I know exactly what it’s like. I wasted 20 years of my life puffing on those sticks of tobacco, inhaling all those chemicals into my body and a heavy smoker I was too. I had 20 years of being a slave to that addiction. 20 years of wasting my money on tobacco, to burn, inhale and damage my body. 20 years of my body not functioning as it should, including my teenage years – one of the most important times for our bodies as there is so much growth, evolution and change happening in both the body and the brain. As a smoker at the time, I would say with some certainty that there is no way that my body would have been able to develop as it should or otherwise would have, because it was having to deal with the toxic chemicals being pumped around my bloodstream every day from inhaling tobacco smoke and I would say that this would be the case for all teenagers that smoke.

The media and everyone around us tells us that quitting smoking is ‘hard’. It’s an addiction that’s tougher than heroin to quit, some will tell you. ‘The time has to be right’.

I’ve heard of doctors telling pregnant women not to quit smoking while they’re pregnant because it will stress them too much! How bizarre is that? Back when I had my children, there wasn’t too much info around about the bad effects of smoking – I think it was just starting to come out really. I smoked through both of my pregnancies and for that I am now truly, truly sorry. Sorry to my children for not giving them the absolute best start in life that I could. How much has my smoking during my pregnancy affected their overall health? We will never know, but I know that it has had a negative impact.

I also smoked all over my kids when they were babies and young children. It wasn’t uncommon then. My husband and I smoked in the house, and in the car with no thought for how it was affecting our son and our daughter.

When you’re a smoker you don’t realise how disgusting it is for other people who don’t smoke. As a smoker, you don’t realise how much it stinks and how it can make you feel sick and make it hard to breathe. We were just talking the other day about how unimaginable I now find it that my parents who were non smokers, allowed me to smoke at home as a young teenager – in the house! As is the case with many parents, they were just trying to work out how to handle the fact that I was smoking and I guess they thought if they made it ok then I wouldn’t want to smoke any more – unfortunately that didn’t work! They eventually (after a few years) put their foot down and banned smoking in the house. It really amazes me that they put up with it for the years that they did – but it was pretty normal back then – people smoked in their homes and in other peoples homes. The visitors came and you got out the ashtray and offered them a cup of tea!

I can’t fathom now that I smoked in the house and my mother was a severe asthmatic at the time. We used to smoke in the car with my parents in the car – we opened up the window and thought that was ok. We thought that got rid of the smoke – it doesn’t.

We still see smokers smoking in cars with kids in the back. People smoking inside their homes, but it’s not very common these days. Many smokers try to hide the fact that they’re smokers as it becomes more and more socially unacceptable.

Smoking doesn’t only affect your lungs, it affects your whole body as the hundreds of chemicals in the cigarette smoke enter your lungs then pass through into your blood stream instead of the health giving oxygen that should be passing across. These chemicals then get transported around your body, putting more stress on your organs of elimination such as your liver and your kidneys and damaging other organs and tissues that these chemicals come into contact with.

I know that for me, smoking affected much more than my breathing and cardiovascular system. It caused panic attacks, fear and anxiety as obviously the chemicals entering my body affected my brain, nervous system and adrenal system plus more. This was made obvious to me as I quit smoking for 7 years and these problems pretty much went away until I (stupidly) started again, ending up a smoker again for 4 years before I quit for the second and last time, when the panic attacks etc resolved once again.

The answer to the health risks that come with smoking is to quit – obviously. Some people use the excuse that they don’t want to gain weight – no excuse. I quit smoking and lost over 40 kgs then gained weight again when I started smoking again! I think it does help to keep weight off some people, but not all and it’s still no excuse.

Smoking is an addiction. I know that after my stopping and starting again. The temptation never really leaves – for me anyway and many other smokers that I’ve spoken to, but quitting is easy. All you have to do is stop putting them in your mouth – simple!

Change the way you think about it – you’re not giving up anything. By quitting, you are getting rid of a really bad part of your life. I remember being amazed when I quit the first time – I kept forgetting to take my purse or handbag with me. That was because the reason I always remembered before was because I had to have my smokes with me. Once I wasn’t a slave to the smokes any more, I kept forgetting my purse! I remember that I felt free! It was a great feeling. As a smoker, I was always making sure I had enough smokes and enough money to buy them – that stress was gone. It was an amazing feeling. For me also, there was an immediate improvement in my health and that too was amazing.

So it just takes a decision, some commitment to your health. Set a date, and until that time really focus on the bad things about smoking. Think about how it affects your life, how it makes you feel, how bad it tastes and look forward to being rid of it forever. You can do it – it’s easy!

Yeh right – you didn’t think I was serious did you? Well, once upon a time cigarettes and smoking were advertised as actually being good for your health and it wasn’t really that long ago! It was cool to smoke – all the movie stars and the beautiful people did it. Smoking was allowed everywhere – in planes, trains, taxis, movie theatres, offices, hospitals, shops – everywhere! There were a few ‘radical’ people who went against the grain and warned that smoking was actually bad for your health and that the advertisers and the tobacco companies were lying about tobacco, it’s safety and the implied health issues. That it was all about money and profits and the tobacco companies were lying through their teeth for the sake of money – but the people that were doing the warning – they were just weird radicals – right?

Hmmmm. We all know what the outcome was,  huh!

These days we have advertisements for junk with no nutritional value telling us it’s a healthy choice, and food manufacturers telling us that the chemicals they’re adding to the food that they’re selling and that we’re consuming are safe and healthy for us.

We also have companies making toothpaste, shampoos, deodorants and skin care products telling us the chemicals they use in their products are safe for us. Meanwhile, we have other experts and concerned citizens saying otherwise – weirdos, greenies and radicals right?

Wrong! I believe that one day in the not too distant future we will have the citizens of this planet unable to explain or fathom how such atrocities could be commited against the public by companies in their quest for profits. They will not understand how the blatant disregard for people and their health could be allowed by the powers that were in control at the time. It will be beyond their comprehension that the public did not see this for what it was for such a long time, until it became so obvious that something was wrong that answers had to be found. They will be unable to explain how foods and other products could be sold that contained such harmful chemicals that our cancer rates were getting to the point where almost every person would get cancer, fertility rates were dropping to extreme lows and the human race was basically in danger of extinction if things had carried on as they were.

Today we have cancer rates that are approaching the point where almost every person will get cancer in their lifetime. We have heart disease, diabetes, asthma, obesity, mental and behavioural disorders and much much more that are rampant. Why?

Too many toxins and not enough nutrition – simple.

In the next few posts I’m going to talk about what I believe to be the absolute worst foods on the planet, and they’re some of the most commonly consumed ones. Come back soon!