Today’s focus is on an essential but often overlooked aspect of low-tox living: the everyday products we bring into our homes without fully understanding their impact.
Big-box retailers like Costco offer incredible convenience and savings, but not every item on their shelves supports the kind of healthy environment many of us are striving to create. As both a parent and an environmental scientist, I’ve learned to approach these shopping trips with a critical eye—because, as you know, what we allow into our homes has lasting effects on our health, our families, and the ecosystems we all depend on.
This week, I’m sharing three specific products I never purchase — not at Costco, not anywhere — and offering safer alternatives to help you make informed, intentional choices. Avoiding toxic exposures is about understanding the risks, knowing there are better options, and feeling confident in the steps you take to protect yourself and those around you.
Thank you for being part of a community that values transparency, critical thinking, and a healthier future. Together, we’re redefining what it means to live well.
Earlier this month, I had the honor of serving as the Emcee of the Health Optimization Summit, one of the world’s leading events in wellness, biohacking, and preventative health. I also had the privilege of speaking on the Make America Healthy Again panel, where we explored how to reclaim our health through conscious, non-toxic living.
It was an incredibly inspiring experience and a powerful reminder of why this mission matters.
Non-Toxic Swap For This Week
If you're looking for something simple and truly nourishing for your skin, I can’t recommend Skin Food enough. It’s a handcrafted, tallow-based moisturizer that’s become a favorite in our home. Made with clean, no-nonsense ingredients, it’s a small way to treat yourself while knowing exactly what you’re putting on your skin.
Blog Spotlights
3 Products I Avoid as an Environmental Scientist
When you walk into a place like Costco, it’s easy to get overwhelmed — giant packages, tempting deals, all the convenience you could want packed into one warehouse. As a dad and an environmental scientist, I get the appeal. We’re all looking for ways to save time and money and keep our homes running smoothly. But something I’ve learned over the years is that convenience often comes at a hidden cost: our health and the health of the environment. Many everyday products are loaded with chemicals that aren’t just unnecessary but actively harmful. And even though these products are marketed to us as essential for a clean, well-run home, the truth is they can disrupt our bodies, our homes, and the planet in ways we can’t always see right away.
Toxic Tattoos? What to Know Before Getting Inked
Tattoos have been part of human culture for thousands of years. From ancient tribal traditions to modern body art movements, tattoos often represent deeply personal stories, milestones, or beliefs. Today, they’re more popular than ever, and the artistry continues to reach new levels of complexity and beauty. But beneath the surface—literally—there’s a reality that many people don’t talk about. Even the highest quality tattoo inks, including those marketed as “organic” or “non-toxic,” may pose serious health risks. As someone who cares deeply about living a low-toxin lifestyle, I think it’s important to pull back the curtain and have an honest conversation about the hidden side of getting inked.
Are Compostable Plastic Bags Safer?
When many of us first learned how harmful traditional plastic bags like Ziplocs are to our health and the environment, switching to compostable or biodegradable alternatives seemed like a no-brainer. If something breaks down faster in the environment and claims to be “eco-friendly,” it must be better for our bodies too, right? It’s an easy assumption, but unfortunately, the truth is a little more complicated. While compostable plastic bags are a better choice for the planet than traditional petroleum-based plastic bags, they are not necessarily safer for our health. In fact, they can still pose some of the same chemical risks as regular plastic, and sometimes even introduce new concerns we don’t often hear about.
3 Toxic Items I Would Never Buy From Home Depot
When it comes to keeping a home healthy, safe, and sustainable, it's easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of products promising "convenience," "power," or "performance." Big box stores like Home Depot offer much of what we need for home projects, repairs, and improvements, but not every product on those shelves deserves a place in your garage or under your roof. As someone who has spent years studying environmental science and investigating how everyday products impact our health and ecosystems, I’m here to tell you there are certain items I avoid—and I encourage you to do the same. These aren’t just minor preferences or “greener choices.” These are products with significant toxic risks to your health, home environment, and in some cases, your entire neighborhood ecosystem. Let’s break down three major offenders you’ll want to think twice about before tossing them in your cart.
Non-Toxic Tip of the Week
Air Out New Purchases Before Bringing Them Inside
Many household items—from clothing to furniture to cleaning products—are treated with chemicals during manufacturing. These chemicals, often called "off-gassing" agents, include volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can linger in your home’s air long after the new item arrives.
👉 This week, take one extra step: whenever possible, air out new purchases before using them indoors. Leave new clothes, cushions, packaged goods, or even cleaning products outside (or in a well-ventilated garage or balcony) for at least 24 to 48 hours to allow some of the chemical residues to dissipate. Especially for items like new bedding, children's products, or anything that will have direct skin contact, airing them out first can significantly lower your family's exposure to hidden toxins.
A simple habit — but one that can make a real difference in your home's indoor air quality and overall wellness.
Non-Toxic Recipe of the Week
DIY Non-Toxic All-Purpose Cleaner
As a dad and an environmental scientist, I’m always looking for ways to create a healthier home environment without relying on products full of questionable chemicals. When I first started paying attention to what was actually in conventional cleaning supplies — the ones many of us grew up thinking were safe — I was shocked. Brightly colored bottles, "fresh" scents, and promises of sparkling surfaces often mask a reality of hormone-disrupting chemicals, harsh irritants, and synthetic fragrances that linger in our homes long after cleaning is done.
Today, I want to share a simple DIY all-purpose cleaner recipe. It’s made from natural ingredients and safe to use around kids and pets. Plus, it leaves your home smelling naturally fresh without the chemical fog. If you’re ready to ditch the toxic cleaners but still want your space to shine, this one’s for you.
This Week on Social Media, I talked about:
Making the shift toward a low-tox lifestyle doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a gradual, thoughtful process of learning, questioning, and choosing better where possible. Avoiding products like dryer sheets, chemical-laden cleaners, and toxic dishwasher pods is not about striving for perfection — it’s about building a foundation for lasting health, resilience, and peace of mind, one decision at a time.
Every small change you make sends a powerful message: that your health, your family’s well-being, and the future of our environment are worth protecting. While it may initially feel overwhelming, trust that each mindful swap adds up, creating a safer, cleaner, and more sustainable home.
*Not what you're looking for? Go to the HTML version for the fancy stuff and content. OR: I need to ask you something.. How tightly are you holding on? Now don’t just answer with your mind. Feel it. Feel the grip inside of you, the tension, the way your heart clings to things, the way your mind grabs at control. I’m asking because this story is about letting go. Not in theory—not as some idea to think about. But as something to do. Right now. Let me explain. There was a man who lived his life as if he were holding on to a rope. The rope was long and frayed, tied to all the things he thought he needed to survive. He gripped it with both hands and held on for dear life. He thought that if he let go, he would fall into an abyss. He didn’t know exactly what was down there, but he knew it would be bad. He’d lose everything—his family, his job, his sense of self. Without the rope, he was certain, he would be nothing. But holding the rope was exhausting. It burned his palms and cut into his fingers. Sometimes it felt like the rope pulled him in different directions at once—one end tied to his need for people to like him, the other to his fear of failure. Sometimes the tension on the rope was unbearable, but still, he held on. Because to let go? That was unthinkable. One day, the man met an old woman sitting on a bench in a park. She had a peaceful glow about her, as if she carried no burdens at all. The man was jealous of her ease. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt that way. “How are you so calm?” he asked her. The woman looked at him and smiled. “I let go of the rope,” she said simply. The man frowned. “What rope?” “The one you’re holding,” she said. “You can’t see it, but you can feel it, can’t you? That tightness inside of you. That fear that if you let go, you’ll lose everything. But the truth is, the rope isn’t saving you. It’s strangling you.” The man was quiet for a long time. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even know how to imagine a life without holding on to the rope. “But if I let go,” he said finally, “won’t I fall?” The woman’s smile deepened. “That’s what you think,” she said. “But the only thing you’ll fall into is freedom.” The man didn’t believe her, of course. How could he? Letting go went against everything he’d been taught. He’d spent his whole life being told that survival depended on holding on—holding on to people, to possessions, to control. Letting go felt like giving up. It felt like failure. But the conversation stayed with him. And over the next few weeks, he started to notice the rope more clearly. It wasn’t something he could see, but it was something he could feel. He noticed how his stomach tightened when someone criticized him. He noticed how his chest constricted when he thought about money. He noticed how his mind raced when he imagined losing the things he loved. And the more he noticed, the more he realized that the rope wasn’t tied to anything outside of him. It wasn’t tied to his family, or his job, or his future. It was tied to his own need to control those things. And then one day, something happened that changed everything. He got into an argument with a friend. It was a stupid argument, the kind that shouldn’t have mattered, but it consumed him. He replayed it over and over in his mind, feeling the anger rise in his chest, feeling the grip of the rope tighten. He wanted to fix it, to make it right, to say the perfect thing that would restore the friendship. But no matter how much he thought about it, the tension wouldn’t go away. And that’s when he remembered the old woman’s words. “Let go of the rope,” she’d said. For the first time, he wondered what that might feel like. What if he stopped trying to fix the argument? What if he stopped replaying it in his mind? What if he just… let it be? So he tried. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and imagined himself opening his hands. He imagined the rope falling away, leaving his hands empty. At first, it felt terrifying. He could feel his mind resisting, telling him he was making a mistake, that he needed the rope to stay safe. But then something remarkable happened. The tension in his chest began to ease. The tightness in his stomach softened. And in the space where the rope had been, there was peace. It wasn’t the kind of peace he’d expected. It wasn’t a grand, earth-shattering revelation. It was quieter than that, gentler. It was the kind of peace that comes when you stop fighting. When you stop trying to control what you can’t control. When you stop holding on to something that was never holding you up in the first place. The man didn’t let go of the rope all at once. He still found himself holding it from time to time, especially when life got hard. But now, he knew he had a choice. He didn’t have to hold on. And every time he remembered that, the grip of the rope grew weaker. You see, we’re all holding on to a rope. It’s tied to different things for each of us—our careers, our relationships, our identities. But the rope isn’t real. The tension you feel, the struggle, the exhaustion—it’s all inside of you. The rope is just your mind trying to control what it can’t control. And here’s the thing: You don’t need to hold on. Life is not asking you to control it. Life is asking you to experience it. To let it flow through you, like a river, without clinging to the rocks. Letting go doesn’t mean giving up. It doesn’t mean you stop caring or trying. It means you stop resisting. It means you let life be what it is, instead of what your mind thinks it should be. So I ask you again: How tightly are you holding on? Can you feel the tension in your chest, the grip in your heart? And more importantly, can you let it go? You don’t have to do it all at once. Just open your hands a little. Just loosen the grip. And when you do, you’ll find that you’re not falling. You’re floating. You’re free. Let go of the rope. Trust me. You don’t need it. The Labyrinth of Light The dome was a living sun. Its translucent panels, segmented like a beetle’s shell, refracted the noonday radiance into a thousand glittering shards, each shard sliding and shimmering along the smooth, white walls below. Everything gleamed with antiseptic brightness, unmarred by the stains of weather, time, or emotion. This was Aurorium, the City of Light. It had no shadows, and, officially, no doubts. Here, under the ever-shining dome, humanity had left behind its fumbling uncertainties, its endless agonies of self-questioning. Gone were the abstract struggles of philosophers and the ceaseless murmur of poets. In their place stood the Ministry of Illumination, with its shining creed: “Meaning is not found—it is assigned. Meaning is not sought—it is delivered.” At the Ministry, every citizen was given their Lumen Pathway by the time they reached their eighteenth year. The system was flawless, or so the Ministry claimed. Each person’s psychometric profile was carefully analyzed; their neural maps scanned and cross-checked against the Collective Consciousness Index. By the end of the process, the result was inevitable: a tailored life-purpose, as precise as the color of one’s irises or the number of lines on one’s fingerprints. And yet, here was Elias. Elias Lorne, Citizen #71184-17, stood at the base of the Ministry’s grand atrium, staring at his Lumen Certificate. The holographic display shimmered faintly in the sterile air, the words inscribed in perfect golden light: "Your purpose is to tend the Reservoirs of Radiance." The Reservoirs. He had heard of them—a vast network of subterranean pools where the city’s refractive crystals were immersed and cleansed, their radiance replenished to ensure the eternal glow of Aurorium. It was honorable work, no doubt, necessary for the city’s unbroken illumination. And yet, as he stood there, holding his future in his hands, something in Elias’s chest remained unmoved. “Is this all there is?” he murmured under his breath. Behind him, a low hum of activity filled the atrium. Young citizens, fresh from their assignments, buzzed with nervous energy. Some smiled, others wept with joy at the clarity of their destinies. A girl beside him held her certificate like a talisman, her voice trembling as she whispered, “I’ll be a Vision Architect!” Another boy punched the air triumphantly, announcing to no one in particular, “Harmonic Technician. Exactly what I wanted!” Elias’s fingers tightened around the edge of the hologram. It wasn’t that he objected to the assignment—not exactly. He understood the necessity of the work. But somewhere deep in the cavernous recess of his mind, a quiet question flickered like a match held too close to the wind: Wasn’t there something more? The next morning, Elias descended into the Reservoirs. The air was cool, metallic. A faint green glow emanated from the crystal pools, each surface rippling with soft waves of light. Dozens of workers moved silently between the tanks, their movements precise and methodical. The cleansing process was simple: dip the crystal, let it absorb the liquid radiance, then return it to its casing. Elias fell into rhythm quickly. His hands moved automatically, his thoughts wandering. There was a kind of tranquility to the work, an easy hypnosis in the endless repetition. But as the hours stretched into days, and the days into weeks, he found that tranquility tightening into a noose. At night, lying alone in his cubicle, Elias began to feel the weight of the dome above him. Its brilliance, once comforting, now seemed oppressive. The endless light pressed against his eyelids, refusing to let him sleep. He stared at the ceiling for hours, his mind circling the same, unanswerable question: If meaning was assigned, then why did it feel so… hollow? Months passed. The other workers in the Reservoirs were kind enough, but Elias rarely spoke to them. They didn’t seem troubled by the same restless ache that gnawed at him. Most were content, even cheerful, in their purpose. It wasn’t until Elias met Mara that things began to change. Mara was a Senior Luminarian, one of the overseers who ensured the crystals were properly aligned before their return to the surface. She was older than Elias, with a sharp, watchful gaze that seemed to pierce through the white haze of the dome. “You’re distracted,” she said one afternoon, her voice cutting cleanly through the ambient hum of the Reservoir. Elias looked up, startled. “I’m fine,” he said, too quickly. Mara’s eyes narrowed. She stepped closer, her shadow brushing against the edge of his crystal tank. “You’re restless,” she said, not unkindly. “That’s dangerous.” “Dangerous?” “Restlessness is a crack,” Mara said. “And cracks are where the darkness seeps in.” Elias hesitated. Then, without meaning to, he said: “Do you ever feel like there’s something missing?” For a long moment, Mara was silent. Then, to Elias’s surprise, she smiled. “Come with me,” she said. That night, Mara led Elias to a hidden passage at the edge of the Reservoirs. The corridor was narrow and dim, its walls streaked with stains of rust. At the end of the tunnel was a door, heavy and ancient, unlike anything Elias had seen in Aurorium. Mara pushed it open. Inside was darkness. Not the faint, shimmering darkness of the city’s shadowless corners, but a true, unbroken blackness that swallowed light whole. For a moment, Elias was overwhelmed by it. The silence was absolute, the void pressing against his skin like a living thing. “What is this place?” he whispered. Mara’s voice was quiet, reverent. “This is where the light comes from.” Elias frowned. “What do you mean? The light comes from the crystals.” Mara shook her head. “The crystals only reflect it. But the source—the true source—is here. In the dark.” She gestured toward the center of the room. There, faintly visible, was a single point of light, no larger than a grain of sand. It pulsed softly, irregularly, like the heartbeat of some distant, unseen creature. “The Ministry doesn’t talk about this,” Mara continued. “They want people to believe the light is infinite, self-sustaining. But it’s not. It comes from here. And it’s fragile.” Elias stared at the tiny light, his chest tightening. “Why are you showing me this?” “Because you’re asking questions,” Mara said simply. “And questions can’t be answered in the light. Not the real ones.” In the weeks that followed, Elias found himself drawn back to the dark room. He spent hours staring at the tiny light, his thoughts unraveling in its faint glow. What was it about the darkness, he wondered, that made the light seem so alive? In the Reservoirs, surrounded by radiance, the light had felt hollow, artificial. But here, cradled in shadow, it was different—fragile, imperfect, and undeniably real. Perhaps, Elias thought, meaning wasn’t something the Ministry could assign after all. Perhaps it wasn’t something that could be given at all. Perhaps meaning had to be carved out of the dark.
