cancer slayer

I’m instituting a new rule for those who come to my tiny Brooklyn apartment: all shoes off at the door. Until recently, I really resented such mandates when I went to other people’s houses, mainly because — like most women — my shoes usually coordinate with my well-thought-out ensembles. And nothing kills a sexy outfit like thick white sport socks that were never meant to be seen by the outside world.

I was inspired to adopt the no-shoes-in-the-house policy after attending an event last week in honor of Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. At a discussion hosted by L’Oreal’s Color of Hope initiative, nutritional counselor Oz Garcia was one of the featured speakers. During the Q&A afterward, someone in the audience asked Garcia about BPA toxins in plastic, which led to a larger discussion about toxins in general.

It was pretty disturbing. You know, the kind of conversation that exposes information you’d always suspected but decided to ignore anyway, like all those chemicals in the air that we breathe. Well, according to Garcia, who cited a report by President Obama’s Cancer Panel, there are about 80,000 or so, and many of them are known carcinogens. And get this, apparently some other really official and important study, also referenced by Garcia, tested tissue samples from umbilical cords and found that babies are born with more than 200 toxins in their systems.

Way to give our kids a head start. Imagine how many toxins you’d find in the body of the average American adult.

After Garcia dropped the aforementioned gems on us, someone asked him what we should be doing to curb the amount of poisons in our bodies and our environments.

“You can start by taking off your shoes when you come in the house,” he responded. He didn’t have time to elaborate, but I didn’t need him to. I walk around the streets of New York City every day.

In a place that’s home to some 8 million people, filth, grime, dirt, bacteria such as coliform from human and animal waste, and general nastiness abound — and collect on the bottom of your shoes. I hadn’t really thought about it until last week’s event, and now I’m wondering how it is that I never really thought about it until last week’s event.

I wash my hands all the time. I also wipe down the light switches and doorknobs in my apartment and regularly change the sponges in my kitchen. I keep my toothbrush in my medicine cabinet to prevent any extra bathroom germs from taking residence on an instrument that I put in my mouth, and sanitizer and hand wipes have their own special spot in my new designer bag.

But what does it all matter if I’m contaminating my home with the muck and the mire stuck to the bottom of my soles?

Now, it grosses me out to think of what I may be bringing home, something many before me must’ve considered before banning footwear in their houses, too — people like my sometimes employer, domestic goddess Martha Stewart (not to mention the millions of folks who live in parts of East Asia). I’m a little late to the game, I know. But now I get it.

And I’m going to make Martha proud. Near my front door, I plan to set up a boot tray for shoes. And next to it will be a pretty swing-handle basket filled with fresh slippers for all my guests.