I try my best to eat healthy and often buy a serving or two of fresh fish at the fish counter each week.  I weigh the toxic load considering whether it is wild caught or farm raised?  High or low mercury?  But never in a million years did I think I had to wonder how much Windex it might contain.

Last week I was picking out some grass-fed steak and decided some fish would be good too.  I look up and notice the fish counter man cleaning the glass at the front of the case.  I walk up and order some haddock and as I stand there while he weighs and wraps it I notice an increasing stinging feeling on my face from the mist of the cleaning product still hanging in the air.

I am very chemically sensitive and try to avoid toxic chemicals so I ask him what he had just used to clean the front glass.  “It was Windex”, he says.  “I can still feel it in the air”, I say.  It’s probably not a good thing to have on my fish.”  By the time I get to the check-out I am revolted by the idea of eating fish with a mist of Windex and leave it behind with the check-out girl.

The manager comes over and says, “I can assure you that will never happen again.”  (“Oh really,” my inner skeptic thinks.)  “They are supposed to spray it on a rag”, he continues.  “It’s an aerosol”, I say.  “It gets in the air.”  I don’t mention my skin still stinging from my mist bath in Windex but do say.  “I’m all for cleaning but there has to be a better way than spaying aerosols in the air.  I don’t want to eat Windex.”  Maybe I could have found a better way to talk to the manager about this but I was feeling rather self-conscious put on the spot, and standing in front of other customers and several store employees.

I have always appreciated that my local grocery store is clean.  The bathrooms are always clean and there is always soap in the dispensers which is a good thing in a place where people handle my food.  But I have to say, I have never considered what sort of toxic cleaning chemicals I might be eating from their cleaning practices.  Have you?

Now I’m having second thoughts not only about the fish counter but the olive bar and salad bar as well since I will always be wondering did they Windex this case before or after they put this food in here?

So what can happen when you swallow Windex?  I’m sure it depends on how much and which formula but I’m sure no one would recommend it for culinary uses or spraying on your skin.