Years ago people grew their own gardens, raised their own beef and chickens, collected their own eggs, and for the most part knew exactly what they were eating. But, do we know what we are eating today?

When my 21 and 23 year old children were young, they began getting excited for Christmas. All they wanted from Santa were hamsters.

They constantly talked about it and when we went to visit Santa, that is all they asked for. My heart sank because I struggle with small furry animals, but didn't have the heart to disappoint them.

Two days before Christmas my husband and I went out and picked up two small furry friends and got all of the wonderful accessories to set up a fine home for them. We purchased a Habitrail, a rolling ball, food, the works.

We hid them out and the excitement grew within us; our children would be so excited Christmas morning. The next morning when we woke up, one of the furry friends was laying in the cage, dead. My heart was broken. We called the pet store and with their guarantee, they replaced it.

When we got to the store, they explained that since the two hamsters may not have come from the same batch now, we would need separate homes for them. So, my husband bought a full second set of Habitrail accessories. Our project was growing.

Later that afternoon, hamster number two died. We were devastated; it was Christmas Eve! What would we do?

We called the pet store and explained the situation and they were baffled. How could this be happening? They once again stood by their guarantee and replaced the hamster.

We were relieved, but only for a few short hours. Hamster number three was getting sick. We got the pet store on the phone again and explained our hamster misfortune; it was Christmas Eve.

This time we got a very wise employee. He asked if we had fed our hamsters prepackaged salad. Of course! We were responsible pet owners and wanted to treat our new additions well! We learned that in reality we had killed all three of our furry friends.

I'll go one step further. Years after that experience I had mice in my garage. I worried about poisoning them with my mini dachshund accessible to the poison, so I immediately wondered if prepackaged salad would do the trick. Guess what? It did!

We eat and are exposed to all types of chemicals and toxins each day. We take them internally through the food we eat, the air we breath, the chemicals we clean ourselves with, wash our clothes in, and more.

Am I suggesting that you never eat Dole salad mix again? Not necessarily, but there are two major suggestions I have for you.

The first one is to rinse packaged salads thoroughly before eating them. I have noticed when I eat packaged salads and don't rinse it first, my hair loss increases. Does that sound familiar?

Second, participating in regular colon cleanses to detox my body is also extremely important. We take precautions throughout our day not to expose our bodies to harmful chemicals and toxins, but it is impossible to completely avoid all exposure.

The days of hamsters in our home have long passed, but I learned some very valuable lessons through that experience. The lessons learned go far beyond not feeding hamsters prepackaged salads because of the preservatives on them!

The preservatives on prepackaged garden salad is just one example of exposures to chemicals we experience in any given day. Since living in a bubble isn't a realistic option for us, washing all of our food thoroughly and cleansing for detoxification are simple practices that can improve our overall health.