How to Break Up with a Toxic Friend

It's time to break up with your toxic friends.
Image: Shutterstock

There are many good friends you will come across in life. You know, the ones who will always pick up the phone and sing your praises when you’re not around. As we get older, many people experience their friend groups decrease in size, but the friendships they do have become more intimate. However, as friend groups continue to change, some people will encounter “frenemies” – people who use you as the butt of the joke or make you feel terrible about yourself so that they can feel better about themselves.

Toxic friendships need to be busted. You don’t have to stay in friendships where you are used as an emotional punching bag—because you are worth more than that. Downgrading a friendship isn’t easy, especially if you move in the same circles. Below are some tips on how to navigate a friendship sabbatical.

First take some time to reflect. This could just be a phase in your friendship… or it could be symptomatic of something going on their life. If this behavior continues, it suggests a simmering resentment to you on some level and you will need to deal with it head-on. Evaluate your relationship with this person using a critical lens; if this “friend” is offering nothing positive, it might be time to break up with them.

Second, brave the talk with them. Sit down with this person and be strong. During your conversation, take deep breaths and make direct eye contact. State the facts and address how they are not being kind or respectful to you. Try to be objective rather than hostile. And remember, if they are a true friend, they will show concern and not defensiveness during this exchange.

Then, prepare for the fallout. After confronting them, you might realize that their behavior towards you was just an excuse to blow off some steam, and this conversation could end up making your friendship stronger. You need to be honest with yourself and with them about what you are willing to compromise on and what you aren’t. If this friend isn’t open to altering their behavior towards you, you need to let them know that this toxicity isn’t healthy in your life and that you need some space.

Finally, move on. Sometimes it’s easier to start simple, such as by reducing the amount of text messages and phone calls, invites, etc. until the friendship dies of its own accord. Remember, break-ups aren’t just for romantic relationships, but unhealthy platonic ones too. You’ll be better off for breaking up with a toxic friend so that you can focus your attention on the positive people in your life.

15 Cleanest Foods to Buy

Onions are the least likely to be contaminated with pesticides.
Image: Alexandre Dulaunoy via Flickr CC

In my last post, I talked about foods that were best when bought organic because of the high occurrence of pesticides found in them. That list included popular fruits and veggies like apples, strawberries, and spinach (read the full article here!). Pesticide contamination for apples was around 98%, and some other food items were likely to be contaminated with dozens of chemicals and pesticides of varying toxicity. On celery and strawberries, one sample revealed the presence thirteen different pesticides on each. Yikes!

But enough about the contaminated foods. You can read about that in the other post. Here I wanted to talk about the 15 cleanest foods to buy. These are the foods that, if you can’t afford to buy everything organic, are much less likely to be contaminated with pesticides in their non-organic forms. Here are the “Clean 15” as provided by the Environmental Working Group (EWG):

Watermelon is among the cleanest of produce.
Image: Shutterstock

1. Onions
2. Sweet Corn
3. Pineapples
4. Avocado
5. Cabbage
6. Sweet Peas
7. Asparagus
8. Mangoes
9. Eggplant
10. Kiwi
11. Cantaloupe (domestic)
12. Sweet Potatoes
13. Grapefruit
14. Watermelon
15. Mushrooms

If you can’t afford to buy all produce organic, these are the safest produce items to purchase non-organic varieties of. The health risks from consumption of pesticide-contaminated foods are grave. Because health risks depend on the amount of pesticides consumed and the toxicity of individual pesticides, avoiding the most contaminated foods while eating more of the least contaminated foods will help keep you out of harm’s way. 

Top 10 Foods to Buy Organic

Do you really want THIS to be on your food?
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Buying all organic can get expensive sometimes; at some stores it may even be impossible. If you fall into the same category as most Americans, you might need to pick and choose which foods you buy organic and which you don’t. These ten produce items have been found by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) to be the most likely to contain pesticide contamination, which makes it a wise choice to buy organic:

It's best to buy your apples organic.
Image: msr via Flickr CC

1. Apples
2. Celery
3. Sweet Bell Peppers
4. Peaches
5. Strawberries
6. Nectarines (imported)
7. Grapes
8. Spinach
9. Lettuce
10. Cucumbers

Green Beans, Kale, and collard greens were also listed as foods that contained pesticides of particular concern—they were commonly contaminated with “highly toxic organophosphate insecticides,” which are toxic to the nervous system. This information comes from the EWG’s 2012 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce™.

Consumption of food with pesticides can cause serious health problems, such as birth defects, nerve damage, cancer, and more. Of course, these effects directly relate to how much is consumed and how toxic that particular pesticide is. Children are especially sensitive to pesticides because their bodies are still developing and they eat a greater percentage of their body weight in food than adults do.

Strawberries were among the most contaminated.
Image: Shutterstock

While eating one strawberry with trace amounts of pesticide might not do much harm, constantly consuming contaminated foods could become a problem. Steering clear of non-organic brands of the above produce will help keep you and your family out of harm’s way. My next posting will continue this topic with a list of foods that have been found to contain the least amount of pesticides.