Dhru Purohit Show - What’s in Your Home Air, Water & Products? The Changes Worth Making to Lower Your Toxic Burden with Allison Evans

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

This episode is brought to you by Cozy Earth, Puori, Rythm Health, and Branch Basics. Some of the most harmful exposures in modern life don’t come all at once. They come from the small, everyday products and habits we rarely question. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with Allison Evans to explore how the products we use in our homes every day may be quietly impacting our health. Allison shares her personal journey toward a low-toxin lifestyle and offers simple, practical ways to reduce toxic exposure without feeling overwhelmed. They discuss safer kitchen and laundry habits, the importance of water filtration, mold exposure, and how small intentional changes can help create a healthier home and family. Allison Evans, co-founder of Branch Basics, has dedicated herself to helping others reap the benefits of clean living. Removing toxins from her home and diet helped her overcome chronic pain and severe PCOS, and then several years later, a bad mold exposure and symptoms of chronic Lyme disease. She is passionate about helping others experience greater healing as she did.  In this episode, Dhru and Allison dive into: (0:00) Introduction  (1:57) Allison’s Low-Toxin Journey (10:12) The Impact of Pesticides & Cleaning Chemicals (15:57) The Hidden Toxin Hotspot in Your Home (22:44) Rethinking Household Products (36:59) Deceptive Marketing & Low-Toxin Living (38:40) The Harm of Traditional Cleaning Products (39:49) Why Keeping Your Home Dust-Free Matters (41:57) Why Mold Exposure Shouldn’t Be Ignored (47:26) Reducing Toxins During Pregnancy (53:39) Summer Do’s and Don’ts  (57:33) Hidden Chemicals in Everyday Beauty Products (1:04:47) Investing in a Low-Toxin Lifestyle (1:09:00) Smart Habits for Reducing Toxic Load (1:12:52) Final Thoughts Also mentioned in this episode: 20% of Branch Basics Premium Starter Kit - Code DHRU20 Try This: Reduce Plastic Exposure in Seven Days Loonen Water Ecos Paints Environmental Working Group MATE the Label PACT Apparel For more on Allison, follow her on Instagram, LinkedIn, Branch Basics socials: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, or visit their Website. This episode is brought to you by Cozy Earth, Puori, Rythm Health, and Branch Basics. Right now, get 20% off your Cozy Earth sheets and sleepwear. Just head over to cozyearth.com/dhru and use code DHRUP. Quality protein matters. Get 32% off Puori Grass-Fed Whey Protein and a free shaker when you start a subscription at puori.com/DHRU and use code DHRU at checkout.  Right now, Rythm is offering my community 15% off your first month, plus free shipping at Rythm Health. Just go to rythm.health/DHRUPUROHIT to get 15% off at checkout. For one week only, Branch Basics is offering 20% off the Premium Starter Kit; just go to  branchbasics.com/DHRU20 and use the coupon code DHRU20.  Sign up for Dhru’s Try This Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Allison, you are on a mission to do something super important. We live in this toxic soup. Every day there's a new headline about some new thing of microplastics in our brains, pesticides causing Parkinson's disease, you name it. Every day we're learning more and more about this milieu of toxins that we're in. But you have an important message for us today and a powerful story. And that message is often the best thing. thing you can do is not do some crazy cleanse or detox. It's actually prevent toxic exposure

before it starts. Right. And one of the best ways to do that is actually removing from our lifestyle. You hit the nail on the head. We always say it really is the life-changing power of removal and not this idea that, oh gosh, I've got to go, you know, invest in this, you know, red light therapy or this sauna or this organic mattress. All these things are fabulous. And I think, that they're amazing investments, but there's so much that can be done that is low-hanging fruit that barely costs anything. And it's just about getting back to basics.

I mean, not wearing your shoes in the house, not buying the latest, you know, cookware that claims to be stick-free. You know, go back to your stainless steel and your cast iron and open your windows and maybe don't hire the pesticide guy to come, you know, spray everywhere, you know? And you don't need a different cleaner for every single thing in your home. and you don't need all these body care products. I mean, if we can just keep things simple,

it's amazing how much we can lower that toxic burden. And it's those daily micro doses where disease really begins. Yeah. And when it comes to disease, you have a super powerful story. You are an example of a growing body of people that had toxic exposure in their life. I'll let you tell the story. But that led to an extreme situation

where you were told at one point in time, you won't even have kids in the future. And you'll be in pain forever. Yes. Is low and you're going to be in pain forever. Tell us a little bit about your story. Yeah. So I grew up in Houston, Texas,

and standard American diet, my mom, you know, wore the perfume. We did the soy formula with the Houston tap water. She always says, you know, if only I knew what you knew, you know, as I'm watching you raise your kids. And that's actually why we started. at our company to prevent people from one day saying,

why didn't somebody tell me this? It's not rocket science. So I had my first period at 13, never had another one. Fast forward to high school. I go to an endocrinologist in Houston, and I'm diagnosed with the worst case of polycystic ovarian syndrome that he's ever seen.

So thousands of cysts on my ovaries. I was told that I would never be able to get pregnant naturally, but don't worry, take birth control indefinitely, come back, we'll be able to help you get pregnant. And that was it. I owned it. If you wore a white coat, you were second to God at that time. I have total respect for doctors, but I now just have a different perspective on how much more we can heal. And I believe if there is breath in our lungs, that there is the ability to heal. So if you're someone that's been told something or you have a dire diagnosis, don't identify with it. Don't own it. So fast forward to college. I come down with

mysterious pain. Started off as just tension and my shoulders and my back. And but I was quickly seeing umatoid arthritis specialists. I was going all over the country doing trigger point therapy. I was doing raw things, steroid injections, acupuncture, pain killers, muscle relaxers, antidepressant, sleeping pills. I mean, eastern to western medicine. I mean, I was covering the gamut at 20. And this was in the early 2000s.

So it was real ahead of my time. My friends were like, you're doing what with the needles in your back? walking back from West Campus where I was going to college. Anyway, this was when my aunt Marley comes in the picture, and she starts talking to me about toxins. No one's talking about toxins. And she doesn't have any credentials. There's no white coat.

There's, I'm kind of like, listen, I know enough about you to know that you've been helping a lot of people, but, you know, how can all the smartest people in the room have never mentioned the things that you're mentioning? How is this going to help me? But she's asking me about what I'm eating. imagine that. And if I've been exposed to mold,

and have I recently moved or remodeled because of all the different things you can be exposed to during, you know, the paints and the, you know, new carpets and the windows that don't open. And I'm thinking, on one hand, you're crazy. And on the other hand, this is the first time that I feel like I can change something and do something, and I'm a doer.

And no one had given me anything to do. All they care about was the symptoms and my, you know, family history, basically, and the medications I'm currently on. So I decided, okay, I will get rid of my splendor and my 100 calorie packs, again, early 2000s. Counting calories was king. And acutane was not on Merrily's list.

Birth control was not on Marley's list. You know, the chlorox and the bleach and the ammonia-based cleaners. I'm not going to name names, but you listeners know the ones I'm talking about. Things I had never thought about. And within a few weeks, I started seeing a shift. And my roommate, who's now my business partner, said, I think we need to go live with

your aunt, merrily. I mean, she's on to something. You know, she'd watch me struggle for years through college. So we go out to the Texas Hill Country in 2008, and that summer changed our lives completely. We were drinking juice before juice was a thing. It was just OJ and grapefruit juice and apple juice. And now we're drinking, you know, a bunch of vegetables shoved through a machine. There's juice that comes out. And we're grounding and we're not on our cell phones and we're eating real food, but what's really cool, and I'll pause for a minute on my story and tell you merely story, because it really frames the entire context of why we exist as a company and why we're so passionate about this idea of removal of toxins. So she had two catastrophic

events in her life that really opened her up to the idea of our, the importance of our diet and the importance of our environment and our health. So one, she was diagnosed with basically kidney failure in her 20s. She was told she needed dialysis, she needed a kidney transplant, but she ended up learning about food as medicine, and she went on a very strict, specific medicinal diet for 10 days, and she saved her kidneys. All of her numbers were in line, and the doctors could not believe it. So fast forward, about 15 years later, she is taking now her 10-year-old son to school, drops him off, and he was exposed to Chlorid, which is a now banned pesticide.

He was basically deemed a bubble boy. He would never recover. His immune system, his brain were so severely damaged. He had to whisper. because everything was a scream to him. His lymph nodes were swollen up like BBs. And she again thought, no, I'm not going to take that for an answer. My son will heal.

And so she began to remove all the things in her home that could trigger him because the doctor said, you have to create basically a safe place for him. He's so sensitive. And they were outside laying in their cot one day because they could not sleep inside. And she thought, what is it about my house? And she remembered this box and it had her perfume and her cleaning products. and she was going to use it one day after he was healed. And she thought, I'm going to remove that box.

And she did. And the next day, he was able to come inside the house. And he said, Mom, this is so weird. I don't feel agitated. He usually couldn't spend more than about 10 minutes inside without getting really irritated. His lymph nodes would swell up. And she just didn't say a word the next day. She's at the grocery store.

She goes down the cleaning aisle. And she's like, that's it. That box is his cleaning aisle. On the parts per million, parts per billion level, it is leaching out into our home. And it is creating a low-level chemical soup that my son, who was, you know, the canary and the coal mine and represents a lot of people,

unfortunately these days, but he was reacting. So that was really the crux of his healing. So I'm entering that home. This was years later, but she had been consulting as a dietary environmental health specialist for 30 years when I'm entering her home. And I left that summer off every single prescription drug, off all pain,

ended up going back to the original doctor six years that I visited six years prior. The sister all gone. He's like holding up both sonograms. Like, I've never. seen anything like this. What'd you do? I'm like, with all due respect, I got off the birth control and I tossed the toxins basically. I started eating real food. I was breeding fresh air without synthetic fragrances. I switched my laundry detergent. Merely was that summer, merrily said, take off all y'all's clothes. Your detergent's horrible. And I ended up having my

second natural period at 25 and I've had four babies all at home. So it's really just the power of pure. I was not on any specific treatment plan that summer. It really was about getting out of my body's way and allowing it to breathe the air that it was intended and eat the food that it was intended. Well, you know, you have a powerful story. And it's a story that you've mentioned that increasingly and unfortunately, more people have learned the hard way because they're waking up to the fact of where has this mystery illness or where has this thing that traditional medicine, which is doing its best within the knowledge

that it has, where have these things that I've been exposed to played a role in this? So, you know, we were talking about Parkinson's disease. We've had Dr. Ray Dorsey on the podcast multiple times. Talk about his research at University of Rochester and many of his colleagues that showed that there's all these safety signals about how pesticides, how pesticides and dry cleaning chemicals play a central role in this explosion of Parkinson's disease that we've seen over the last 20, 30 years. The idea that something like that could have that effect, it's crazy.

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So we have mosquito misting systems. And that's kind of the place your head goes or like your raid or a golf course. You know, but if you think about it, we're exposed to pesticides in so many different ways. Some of the most insidious ways are actually just the disinfectant. we use every day. And people don't realize that an EPA registered disinfectant typically has a pesticide and an EPA registered pesticide inside of it. If it's not using alcohol, it's likely using a pesticide. And so you're basically, instead of cleaning your surfaces, you're just obliterating not only the bad bacteria, but the good bacteria, and you're introducing these neurotoxins.

Because what pesticides do and what makes them the number one underminer of our health efforts is they are neurotoxic, they affect our fertility, they cross the blood-brain barrier, they directly affect IQ, they are endocrine disruptors, and the thing is we don't smell them, we don't taste them, we don't hear them, you know, and I don't want anyone listening to this thinking, oh my gosh, well, there's so many of them we can't avoid, because so many of the pesticides we're exposed to, we actually can't avoid. So even just looking up the dirty dozen, because the pesticides that we're ingesting, like organic is not just boogey. You know, it is actually eating food in its original form without the use of glyphosate and Roundup.

And so really emphasizing the dirty dozen, those food you eat every day, just spending that extra amount, especially for your kids, just making sure that those, the berries, you know, the eggs, the milk, I mean, things like that, those everyday items are organic is huge. Today alone, there's so many things that we can do that are low hanging that significantly lower that body burden. Yeah. Yeah, when you get the question, which I've seen you get before, of like, where do often most people start? I've heard you say, again, the laundry room.

Right? So let's break down the laundry room a little bit. Let's go kind of section to section. Some of the easiest things that people can start to think about that can reduce this toxic exposure, some of these pesticides you've mentioned. Where do you break down the laundry room? It's crazy to think that it's probably the most toxic room in the house besides the garage. And we actually think of it as like the cleanest room, you know, because we're bringing in these problems. and efforts to clean things, but ironically, the products that are used to clean often have

the highest amount of toxic chemicals. So if we make one change, besides letting your pesticide guy go and getting rid of the raid, start with your laundry detergent. Because those conventional laundry detergents are literally manufactured to stick onto your clothing, to adhere, then you put them in the dryer, and they're basically just bound into the fibers of the clothing. And it's not just clothes. It's your pillowcase at night. It's your washcloth when you're naked in the shower. I mean, you literally do not escape what you laundered with, and it is coursing through your veins. And our skin is our largest organ, and whatever touches our skin becomes systemically available

throughout the whole body. You know, we think, oh, it's our largest organ, but it must just kind of stay surface. It doesn't. And so then our body has to literally sequester these toxic chemicals from our blood into our fat cells in order to prevent them from affecting vital organs. So sometimes when people change out their laundry, this is going to say, sound crazy, they lose weight because these detergents are metabolic disruptors. And so they literally will create fat cells on our body in order to sequester away from other things. So I mean,

they're endocrine disruptors. They are obesigens. They're asthmagens. They're allergens. They're skin irritants. There's no reason to use toxic laundry detergent. There's no reason that our laundry needs to smell. We're just trying to get rid of the odors. If you want to add a smell somewhere, I highly recommend it not be in through conventional detergents. Once you, DZox, I'm sure a lot of people that are listening are already on this train, right, that are like following this largely to the work of companies like yours, branch basics, many people educating, all the different experts that we've had on the podcast. But once you really step away from this and you haven't used them in a while, it's crazy that you smell it again and you're like, I'm literally nauseous from smelling laundry detergent or it feels so strong. I had a buddy that was in my car a couple of days ago. I had to like play some, like, pick a ball together. And he stepped in and immediately it felt like, whoa, I'm getting hit with a wave of going down the cleaning aisle at a grocery store. Or even when you're on a hike, you're outside and you pass by a group of hikers and you're like, whoa, you know, or you go back to your parents' house after having lived on your own and using your own, you know, cleaner detergent.

And you're like, how did I grow up in this house? Like smelling this my entire life. I didn't even notice it until now, you know. Were you of the generation that was going to like the body shop? What's it called? Oh, the Bath Body Works. Oh, yes. At the malls at the Mall.

Oh, I had all the mums at the Galleria and Houston. I mean, I can smell the like eusha right now or whatever the top, you know, smells are. It's amazing how they like embedding your brain. We would just all the bath balls and all the gels. I mean, no wonder I had body odor at six years old. I had, you know, all these endocrine issues. I had cysts all over my ovaries. I mean, the soy formula.

It's like, I look back and I'm like, again, why didn't somebody tell my mom? Yeah, we just didn't know. Just didn't know. We just didn't know. One other thing about the laundry room that I've also learned is that, you know, all dryers have that capture section where they're getting lint. Well, if you're using a lot of synthetic clothing, which is one of the items in the list, you have a shit ton of microplastics inside of that. and then we go in without a mask, without anything else, without ventilation often inside the laundry room,

and you're just peeling all that stuff out, and you're breathing in a ton of microplastic particles, nanoplastics, that are in the air that are all byproducts of these, you know, aphleisure and other things that, look, there's a lot of really great things about them, and they look cool and other things like that, and there's a lot of great companies that are trying to do their best in the space, but because they become so ubiquitous,

that's another form of exposure that we've gotten. That's one of your categories. Do you want to talk about that? Well, and you know, we wear all these synthetic clothes, and then we complain if there's so much static, so then we feel like we have to use the dryer sheets. It's like we're kind of bandating one problem on top of the other. And yeah, and then we're exposed to all these microplastics

and wondering what's going on with our blood work. So, you know, listen, sometimes I find myself in some plastic leggings because they hold me in a lot better, but the last thing I'm doing is working out in those things. because you have something that is compressing into your skin. It is full of microplastics, sometimes Phafos, which are forever chemicals, and then you're sweating and your pores are opened up

and you're literally just like a sponge to these things. So the more that we can really emphasize the cotton and the linen and the wool and the silk and just getting back to just natural fibers, the less problems we're even going to have. And we barely have any stat. My husband refuses to wear plastic shirts, you know, all of his friends do and they kind of make fun of him, but we don't have any static. You know, my friends complained like, well, how do you get your husband's, my husband's shirts all

stick together? I'm like, well, it kind of starts upstream. And it can feel like a lot in the beginning when people are navigating, but really going back to our original theme that we started the podcast with is that it's actually making a list of things that you don't have to buy anymore. Yeah. Dryer sheets are a perfect example. You don't need those softeners. You don't need those things. And when you start to use some of these cleaner brands, you realize that, hey, this is actually a great way to save money instead of stocking up on all this stuff that's making you and your family,

you know, potentially more likely to experience disease. Yes. No, absolutely. I mean, we work with so many families whose girls are getting pubic hair at six and seven and starting their periods before they're 10 years old, and this is not normal. This is not how it should be.

And we really have to think, okay, what are we doing? What are we using every single day that we could cut back on? How can we invest in some glass storage containers? Let's go through my daughter's room and see if maybe some party favor bath balls ended up in her bath. Or maybe we don't buy these things. But it's amazing how these scented, fragranced products end up all over our house.

And it really makes a huge difference to just go through and just weed things out and just get things back to basics, especially where your kids are sleeping. It can make the biggest difference in their health. You talked about glass. We featured a study in our newsletter this week, and it was one of the first of its kind studies showing that people were put on a very specific protocol of a diet and reducing takeaway in plastic and methodically reducing the amount of plastic that was inside of their kitchen and that they measured their blood work before and after for all these P-FAS chemicals, right? And these plasticizers, they all have crazy names. They're like so long. but all these basically plastic toxins. And what they showed is that even in seven days,

we'll link to the study, we'll put it on YouTube and Spotify over here, people can see it on screen. In seven days was enough to make a meaningful difference by simply just cutting back food storage, not buying as many things that are stored in plastic. If you buy things that are stored in plastic, especially liquids, immediately transferring them over to light glass when you can't. Because, you know, you can't have the perfect situation all the time.

Yes. and then making sure you don't order takeaway that's brought to you in plastic and a few other things that were inside of there. So meaningful difference in seven days. Let's talk about some of your top tips inside the kitchen. So you already mentioned one of that. I love that.

I mean, that's the thing about plastic. We cannot avoid plastic. It's impossible, right? I mean, you could, you would drive yourself crazy. I mean, you go and you're going to buy some frozen fruit, you know, at Costco that's organic for your kid smoothie. You think you're doing the right thing. It's in plastic.

you can't worry about that stuff. What I always tell people is just focus on the things that you can actually fix and know that plastic is everywhere, but it is not persistent. It is not a P-FOS. It's not a forever chemical. It's very transient. So the good thing is like what you're saying, we've done a very similar study ourselves within Branch Basics

where we actually remove plastic and other sort of endocrine disrupting chemicals from someone's environment for just 10 days. and their BPA and phthalates and parabins went down by between 93 and 97% in 10 days. And that was measured through a urine analysis, day zero and day 10. That's crazy. And that can happen in just a two to three day period. There was that hormosa study with the girls in their cosmetics. So plastic wants to leave the body.

So that's what I always tell people, just start with your kitchen, start with the things that your food touches. And we used to think, oh, well, it's BPA-free. guys, that doesn't matter at all. I mean, there are sub the A and BPA with any other letter in the alphabet. BPS, BPF, I mean, you're going to get the same negative effects. So that really was kind of a marketing thing and we think that it's safe and it's just not. There's no reason with the options available today and how affordable it is to buy stainless steel water containers and glass water containers.

You use them over and over and over. It's actually so much more economical than plastic. So anything that you're storing your food in, even if it's cool, even if it's, you know, cold, there's no reason to put anything in plastic anymore. The lunchboxes that are readily available. And again, it's a one-time purchase and so many companies are doing it right. So, yeah, I would say that's the number one place to start when it comes to plastic is just things that your food is touching. And then, of course, just looking at your, you know, cookware, I would say, is a huge one too.

That's something that is a little more expensive in terms of an investment by just getting back to stainless steel and cast iron and really moving away from any of the non-stick. control what we can and gather information, but worrying is also toxic, right? And so we have to let the things go that we can't control, but gosh, you can control what kind of cutting board you use, right? I mean, let's talk about the cutting board for a second. I mean, people, I go to people's homes,

and they are doing everything right. They have the organic mattress and the purifiers and branch basics and no sense, and they pull out their plastic cutting board that they're, because they're home-cooked meals, you know, and they're using that same cutting, and cutting board every day. As soon as a cutting board has any sort of irritation on it or, you know,

when plastic has been cut and there's little shards, I mean, you are significantly increasing the chances of plastic getting into your food. So just investing in a wood cutting board is huge. Thinking about a blender, I've had my same Vitamix base since we got married 16 years ago and I just got their stainless steel pitcher. I'm so excited about that because I'm like, I can't believe for so many years I've been using the same blender that's, I mean, talk about friction and heat and everything in this plastic. Of course, it's, it's cleaner plastic.

But that one-time purchase on Black Friday, I think it was around $100. I mean, it's little things like that, that that's a one-time thing. That picture is going to last me 30 years, you know? And so it's not about getting overwhelmed. It's just about looking around and saying, like, where can I do better? What swaps can I make that are actually going to affect my entire family? And they don't even have to know about it. Yeah, totally. And you make that swap, you don't think about it so that you can give love and attention to everything else in your life that matters. You don't think about it. Yeah. Focus here on your business, volunteering, your kids, whatever it is. It's like you think about it a little bit so you just don't have to think about it

moving forward. Exactly. That's the beauty of creating a clean home. It's really a finite process. You know, like I don't walk into my home and ever think about my home anymore. I mean, I've made the swaps. I've made the changes. What is not finite is what you put in your mouth every day. That is something you have to think about every single meal. Am I going to choose this? Am I going to do the, you know, Snickers bar? I'm just kidding. But the point is, you know, you might as well make the changes where it's easy, where you don't even really have to get your kids involved because you're going to get a lot of pushback when the pantry and the fridge come into place. So you might as well do the things that are

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Stop guessing and start testing. Rhythmhealth.com slash Drew. Hormones don't just respond to what you eat. They respond to what you're exposed to every single day. And this is the part that most people miss. Your cleaning products impact everyone under your roof, your kids, your partners, even your pets. Because what's in your home doesn't just stay on the surface. It becomes part of the air you breathe and the environment you live in. Many everyday products, the ones that are sold in big box stores like cleaning sprays, laundry detergents, and air fresheners, they contain endocrine disrupting chemicals or EDCs, which can interfere with your body's natural hormones and have been linked to fertility

challenges, thyroid issues, mood changes, and menopausal symptoms. So while we're trying to create a clean home, we actually might be increasing exposure to things that work against our health. This is why I'm a huge fan of branch basics. Everything starts with their concentrate, which is simply mixed with water to create cleaners for your kitchen, your bathroom, your laundry, your windows, and more. Their formulas are plant and mineral-based, fragrance-free, and made safe certified, one of the strictest certifications that are out there, meaning they're streamed against thousands of known and suspected harmful chemicals. And here's the good news. Branch Basics is now available everywhere you shop.

You can find them at Target, Target.com, Amazon, and of course, branchbasics.com. Tossing the toxins has never been more convenient. And for anyone grabbing their premium starter kit, you can still get 15% off at branchbasics.com with our code, Drew. That's D-H-R-U for 15% off. the premium starter kit at branchbasics.com. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please give us some love and make sure to mention the Drew Perowitz show. For me, at Branch Basics, we always say, just try to stick to the ceramic and the stainless

steel and the cast iron and just keep it simple. And again, those are like one-time investments. I mean, we're still using the same lacrosse from our wedding registry, the same lodge, cast iron, it gets better with time. And we only have a few. You don't need all this new fancy cookware. I don't have an air fryer. You know, I live.

I have four kids. It happens, you know, and I know there are cleaner ones, but you have to remember that kind of claim of non-toxic, non-stick is like can potentially be an oxymoron. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Buyer beware, look into things. Yeah.

Do a little bit of digging. So not heat it up as high. Like, who doesn't heat up their stuff very high in the kitchen? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I mean, so many studies. we've talked about before on the podcast

where people have come on and talked about how like one scratch in Teflon or other cookware that's out there can leach like thousands of to hundreds of thousands of little particles

and other areas. It's something that if you solve for it and you find the fit that's right there for you, you don't have to think about it. Anything else in the kitchen environment that you think about, you know, let's just talk about the basics.

Yeah. A high quality water filter, reverse osmosis. Is that what you're recommending? Sometimes it's funny. We can talk to how I'm blue in the face with someone who's trying to figure out health issues and I realize that they're drinking tap water and I'm like, ah! You know, sometimes we really do have to get back to basics. Like this matters so much.

Like getting good water in your body. Hydration is key, but making sure that it's clean. I mean, guys, just solving for chlorine is like, that should be table stakes. you know, I mean, nowadays in big cities, you've got to start looking at filters that are going to get out chloramines, which are just so much more toxic and they're so much smaller of a particulate.

So I recommend, if possible, having a whole house filter, but even more important, having something at the sink that is going to filter out the small little particulates, the chloramines, the heavy metals, the pharmaceuticals, fluoride,

super hard to get out. So you want to make sure if someone's claiming to get fluoride out that they can really substantiate that claim. But we actually recommend clear water revival, cWR Enviro.com. And they actually can.

They've proven to get out fluoride in their water. So we have their under the sink system. And it makes a huge difference. I go to people's houses and I drink their water and I can immediately, I can like smell and taste the difference because I'm so used to having clean water. So I think that's a really big one. And it's honestly like for the cost,

that's a pretty good investment. Yeah, it's a great way to save money because I'm such a fan of all the new bottled water companies that are coming out there that are trying to. Like there's a company that one of my buddies already sent me recently, no affiliation with them. It's called Loonin. Yes. Yeah. And they filter for like microplastics and other stuff and it's spring water. And I thought, wow, this is like great.

We should have access to a lot of these things. And, you know, so I got a case for my, you know, office to have around. And at home, you know, you just like on a practical level, you don't want to be dealing with bottled water on the time. It's going to be expensive. I never buy water now. Yeah, so just having a high quality filter and then remembering to put something on your calendar to change your filters.

That's another mistake that I see a lot of people made. They have a great water filter and I'm like, okay, great. When's the last time you changed it? Yeah, so we've got to be on top of that. Yeah, that's a big one. And then I mean, just looking under your cabinets, under your kitchen sink, you don't need all those cleaners. We're so conditioned to think we need an oven cleaner,

we need a produce cleaner, we need a stain remover. I mean, literally, if you absolutely feel like you've have to kill bacteria. So you just clean raw chicken. I mean, it's been 20 years since I've used a disinfectant. But if you really feel like you need one, get out the hydrogen peroxide.

Get out 3% hydrogen peroxide and spray it on that surface, let it sit for a few minutes. And if the combination of hydrogen peroxide in a separate bottle, a white vinegar, has actual more killing power than chlorox. And if you think about it,

a disinfectant actually doesn't clean. If you look at the directions, if you flip it around, it's going to tell you to clean the surface first and then disinfect. No one does that. We just pull out our disinfectant and we think that it's cleaning. It's really not.

It's not going to have the disinfecting killing power unless that surface is completely clean first of particulates. So you might as well just use a clean surfactant. I'm not here to push branch basics. Obviously, I think it's the best. But you don't even have to use it. I would rather see you have no branch basics and no toxic products under your sink

and you have some vinegar, a hydrogen peroxide, lemon, I mean, you can literally do almost everything with just that. It's crazy. I was revisiting a couple episodes of like early episodes of like Mad Men, which I was a fan of when it came out. And I was like, man, marketing is so powerful. We all like to think that we're immune for marketing,

but how many of us grew up at a time where we just thought like, if it doesn't look a particular way, if it's not this like ecto green cooler, you know, disinfectant, then it's like it's not working. Or if you don't smell it. If you don't smell it. Yeah. And a lot of people are, when I brought up like hydrogen peroxide for like washing your vegetables, that's a great way or white vinegar.

Often you're met with this feeling of like, but does that really clean it? Right? People often feel like, oh, it has to be this thing that's packaged in some factory somewhere made by an executive and a marketing team to actually work. But look into the details of these things. They actually make a difference. They actually work and they're cheap as anything. Well, listen, the CDC during COVID actually came out with a statement that said, it is more effective to use a gentle surfactant or regular soap to tackle germs than it is to use in disinfectant.

And I truly believe, and so does science, it backs me up when I say that the homes with the highest amount of disinfectant use are the homes with the kids that get sickest the most. Because you are, again, taking away that good bacteria that actually is used to fight off the sickness that you're being introduced to. So there's really not a need for a disinfectant in the home. I mean, originally those chemicals, a lot of them were made for like chemical warfare. And they should be used with very, very, very carefully and really like high stake, you know, infectious situations like in hospitals. But we don't, we haven't had a disinfectant in our home in 20 years. Here's something I heard you say that I think a lot of people don't know,

even people who are super into this lifestyle is that if you are using some of these traditional cleaning ingredients in the house. that people often buy at these big box stores. After you clean, your home air can be up to a thousand times more polluted, toxic than, what is it, outdoor air? Yes, than outdoor air. It's one of the home inside is typically about two to five times more toxic than outdoor air. And we're talking about measuring in toxic cities. We're not talking about, you know, countryland.

But when you clean, it's up to a thousand times more toxic. And what was that? There was a 20-year study out of Denmark. I think there was 6,000 people involved, and they found that the use of conventional cleaning products was equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. How sad is that? Again, the very products that we are bringing inside of our home

to create a clean environment for our family are actually the ones that are undermining our family's health. Let's go back to your story for a second. I remember reading or hearing that one of the things you were dealing with at the time that you thought might have played a role in addition to this toxic soup of chemicals and laundry detergent, other stuff you were exposed to, is that you had recently moved? Yeah. And there was some formaldehyde or, can you talk about that?

Exactly. Yes. So I was in college and we recently moved to a brand new apartment complex on West Campus, University of Texas. And in fact, we were moving in in order to start school and they were still like painting and installing. and literally that is when all, that's kind of the straw that broke the camels back for me. And then once I was opened up to that notion

and started opening my windows, HEPA vacuuming, I mean, that alone, guys, because you may be someone that's like, well, shoot, we just moved into a brand new house or we didn't have much control over this or we just built something and we just painted.

If you can reduce the amount of desk particulates in your home, you are doing your family the biggest service because what happens is you have volatile organic compounds and those actually get better over time. They will out gas over time. But what actually can do the most amount of damage

are these semi-volatile organic compounds because they actually ride on dust. So they don't just, you know, go away with time. They actually can increase with time just because dust will build up. So, you know, for instance, looking even just at paint and these brands will claim that they're no VOC. Well, sadly, they're high in SVOCs,

the semi-volatile organic compounds. So you may be using what you think is a safer paint, but if it still has those biosides that ride on dust, you're not really doing much good. And so, again, just investing in a hepa vacuum, making sure that you're actually using it. A lot of people get a vacuum and they're like, well, I never really use it.

And just keeping your home as dust-free as possible is really, really important. And just, again, like, we buy furniture and we bring all these things inside of our home, our rugs, our carpet, our cabinetry. I just got finished building a house and we're doing an entire series on that. So if you're someone that's remodeling or building,

you're welcome to check that out. But there's, again, a lot we can't control. So opening those windows and keeping your home vacuumed and getting the air purifier can take you a really long way. When was the last time that you were like, you had something in your house and you thought you're okay and then you're not feeling great or causing some irritation? You're like, oh man, I needed to like revisit this or do some detective work.

Can you think of something like that? I mean, mold. Okay, you want to talk about mold? Gosh. I mean, I will say that's just straight from hell. Mold's straight from hell. Mold is a beast. It's just the worst.

I mean, you can just, you can be doing everything right. And if you're living in mold, you know, it's just, again, it's going to, and the thing about mold is it can affect everybody in a family differently. So wherever someone's Achilles' heel is, like, that's what's going to bring it out. Because everyone's, you know, manifesting in a different symptom, it's hard to even know what it is and where it's coming from. But I will say if there are persistent, you know, asthmatic issues or insomnia or anxiety, tremors,

any sort of neurological disorder, autoimmune, all of a sudden you're like, where did this come from? Why did this switch just get turned on? I highly recommend hiring someone to come in that really understands mold, not from a perspective of, oh, let's get clearance because you're about to sell your house because that's a really different conversation,

then, hey, mold can actually do a lot of harm to your body. So making sure you're hiring someone like, you know, test my home. There's so many different building biologists out there that can really help you understand and go into the walls. I mean, removing the sockets from the walls and taking cameras into your walls, not just, you know, doing an air test. I mean, there's lots of ways that you can really dig down and figure that out. Is it something you've talked about personally, like your mold journey? Yes.

In fact, mold is actually how I discovered that I have Lyme disease. So about seven years ago, I am nursing my seven and a half year old. And I noticed all of a sudden, I'm like breaking out. I mean, horrible acne, which I hadn't had in years. I mean, since middle school, my husband was getting some headaches. And then I noticed that my nursing baby was getting really irritated, agitated, and then like had a vaginal rash. And I was like, something is going on.

Turns out, we went out of town, came back, and there was that musty smell. If you come out back to your house and there's a musty smell, you got to call someone, you got to start looking at places, going under sinks, looking for moisture. And sure enough, we found some mold actually growing under our dining room table. Like, that's how bad the issue at our home was. Like, the environment was so issued that actually started growing, like where you could visibly see it.

Turns out mold activated Lyme disease, which I didn't even know I had. And it activated it in my body and into my breast milk. And I gave line to my baby because it was actually. activated. And what's interesting is we actually did a test. It showed that she had Lyme, but my two-year-old at the time did not. So I was able to, the point is, I nursed my two-year-old for a year and a half, and she never got Lyme because I didn't live in mold when I was nursing her. So it's amazing what mold could do. It can literally trigger things in your body and start dumping things into your milk as a protective mechanism. Thankfully, I was able to get my nursling on herbal drops and get her in the sauna with me at like super, super low levels. And she was lying. free in seven months. My journey took a little bit longer to reverse, but mold's a beast. Wow.

Is you guys end up having to move out of that place? We ended up moving. We were actually renting, so it was kind of perfect. And the house that we built right now was kind of a response to our entire journey. We have moved 10 times in the past 12 years. And a lot of that has had to do with mold. I mean, we've dealt with black mold. I mean, I have an entire mold story.

And I've learned so much. And so if I could just sum up my building process, we ended up buying in 1950s home, took it down to the slab, basically. The entire building process, the thing that was driving every decision was mold. The mold prevention, I should say, making sure that the way that we were sealing our windows, the materials we're choosing, the HVAC filter we're using, even down to like the carpet we're using and what can hold more mold and what's more mold resistant like wool. I mean, every single decision the way we're doing our flashing and our drainage, like all kind of

had to do with preventing getting molding because we've been so burned. Yeah. You know, I've had on a fellow Texan, uh, and Shippie. Have you ever come across her? Yes. I love her. Yeah. She's a functional medicine doctor. Yes.

From Austin. And I remember, uh, chatting with her early in the days of this podcast. And I was like, you know what? And I, and I had been pretty aware of mold and we had different experts come on. I'm like, why does it feel like, you know, mold is so much of her more of a thing now? Yeah. She's like, dude, mold has been a thing. since the beginning of time.

Deerone. It's in the Bible. It's in the Bible. So many traditions, the way that we've built, you know, is been one. You look at like these traditional houses

in India, these big concrete slabs, other stuff. Like we've always had to be crazy aware of mold. And we've just never had drywall and insulation and all the things that we have now, which are so beautiful,

they allow us to live a modern life. We've never had them as a human species to the degree where we just can't see what's going on in our environment. Well, in these tight homes, because we want to save on our air conditioning bills. I mean, it's always kind of just one band-aid

after another. We want to put a bunch of spray from Rome in our house, but that's actually one of the biggest drivers of mold. I mean, we just went back and used formaldehyde-free bat insulation. I mean, talking about going back to basics, you know, it wasn't that much more expensive. Some of our swaps that we used to build a non-toxic home were actually less expensive. Let's come back to our list that we're going through.

You know, you were at one point in time told you weren't even going to have kids or you're likely at having kids is going to be super low. You have kids now. And in addition to launching your company, which is another baby of yours, you guys have been very focused on educating other families who are also in this position of like, hey, what's the best this?

What should I pay attention to? I think my wife even, shout out to Yasmin, who's a friend of yours. I love her. When she was pregnant, we were looking at our sort of buying guide of car seats and this, she referred back to your, blog posts multiple times in that process.

Yes, our baby registry post, I think, is the most searched of anything that we have on our website because that's when people really start waking up. Yeah, people have kids. They start waking up and they realize that, okay, they might want to trash their own body. It's not that big of a deal. They've made it this far, but how could you do that to a baby? Right. Right.

Yes. What did you learn about? You went through your own journey. When you actually got the incredible news that you and your husband for high school sweethearts, we're expecting your first. What were some of the first things that you started getting educated on that are ways to minimize this toxic exposure for, you know, these life forms that were bringing on Earth? I love this question.

And I actually have two quick answers. Think about the things that your baby is exposed to the most, the places they spend the most time. And that is their mattress and their car seat. and they, their brains are, what is it, like doubling the first year of life? I mean, every day is so precious. Their hormone system is so delicate. Their skin is so thin.

They're breathing twice as much as we are pound for pound. So, number one, if you are bringing a child home soon, if you're finding out you're pregnant, if you're trying to get pregnant, toss the toxins in your home. Just go around your home, get rid of the synthetic fragrances. I mean, that is the number one. thing is like really just looking under counters and the little shampoo staples you bring back from hotels that are, you know, your husband's cologne or deodor, whatever it is. Like get those synthetic fragrances out.

It matters a lot. But then as far as an investment, I think one of the best things you can invest in is an organic mattress for your baby. I mean, they're spending, what, 14 to 17 hours as newborns on that mattress. They recently did a study. It was in 2025, I believe. And they found the most toxic part of the nursery is right where the mattresses. because those mattresses are emitting so many different toxic chemicals from, you know, the flame retardants that cross the blood brain barrier are directly shown to lower IQ, the effect endocrine system.

The crib should be the most, the safest place in the home, you know, and they actually tested, I want to say they tested 16 conventional baby mattresses that they found it like, whatever it is, babies R.S, whatever the most, you know, calm tart. and every single one of them tested for just tons of different chemicals. So I would say organic baby mattress, and that's such a good thing if you're, if you have a shower, like, or people just pitch in and get that. The clothes are cute, you know, but really investing in a good mattress to me is like king. And then the car seat. Guys, I get so hot on this topic because here's a deal. In order for car seats and mattresses to reach to, to check the box for flame

requirements and standards, you do not have to use flame retardants. There are so many studies showing how bad flame retardants are for our babies. And the fact that you can use materials like wool and latex and coconut core and even the way that some polyester car seats, the way that the materials are actually woven together, will allow for companies to meet flammability requirements without the use of flame retardants. There is no reason that any car. car seat company should still be spraying their car seats with toxic flame retardants. None, zero. So there are so many companies doing it right. If you actually go to modern nursery,

the owners have done tons of vetting and they sell only flame retardant free car seats. And there's tons of brands that are doing it right. In fact, I just bought my son. I think it's the least expensive flame retardant free car seat by Chico, C-H-I-C-C-C-O, which is one of kind of the more conventional brands. And I'm just so excited that companies are kind of rising to the occasion. But I would say just look at the places your child is spending the most time. And even back to like if you're going to paint your nursery, just using safe paint. You know, it's a really large surface area. They're spending a lot of time there. And I think those decisions really add up. You know, for a long time with paint, people were looking for like, hey, low VOC, lead, that sort of thing.

What have you found is a better signal certification for people who are thinking about paint? Eco's is hands down the best cleanest paint you can get. I mean, of course, you can do plaster or like Vasari or lime paint, which are really great and a little bit, I think more high-end, a little bit harder to apply. But if you're just looking at regular paint, I mean, go to Ecos.com, I think EcosPaints.com, and they will color match any conventional paint.

They'll color match Farrow and Ball, Sherwin Williams, Benjamin Moore. So my entire house, I think we used 30-something different paint colors because I really wanted to, anyway, I was a little picky on the decor side. But one night, I got my painter to tell me exactly how many we needed and I went on Eco'sPaints.com and I put in the color match, I ordered it. It showed up within a few days and it, you know, my whole house is painted with Eco's.

There's just not a reason to not take that extra step. There is one specific paint by Sherwin Williams. I forgetting the name. I want to say it's either air purifying. So if you have, they're in a bind and you need a conventional paint looking for ones that are low in biocides and not just looking at VOC. The VOC thing, once again, does not mean that much. you can have a no VOC paint and it still has a conventional amount of biocides in it. Okay, great. Eco's paints.

Ecos paints. Okay, we'll link to that inside of his show notes. All right, pop it around a little bit. We're gearing up for summer. Hopefully people have fun plans and are going to do something, you know, exciting that's out there. Families are often, you know, dealing with all sorts of things that come along with that.

They're dealing with bug spray. They're dealing with, you know, taking care of the lawn. We've talked to a little bit about that. Yard treatments. Let's talk about that category as a whole. What do you want to say and what do you pay attention to in your own family? As an as an asitum, I was actually reading about this recently. Drinking alcohol significantly increases your attractability to a mosquito.

So if you are sitting outside, you may want to opt for that moktail. But, you know, if pesticides are the number one undermine, of our health, I would say go the extra mile and hire people or do it yourself, but doing more of an integrative pest management perspective on your home. So looking at your gutters, making sure there's not standing water, putting those, what are those like mosquito donuts, you know, in like fountains or standing water that can, that's basically like a natural kind of bacteria that kills the larva before the mosquitoes can mature. There is no such thing as a non-toxic additive, uh, to a misting system. You cannot find a mosquito misting system that uses a non-toxic liquid. It's not

possible because they're it's not. They basically are using things like pyrethrin-based pesticides. They're calling them non-toxic because they are derived from a chrysanthemum flower. And guys, here's the deal. They're neurotoxic. And so if they're designed to go after the insect in a neurological way, they actually act on the nerve cells. And so what they're doing is they're keeping the nerve door open so that's constantly firing. It's like a light switch that if you were meant to turn it on and off, it just stays on constantly. So basically the nervous systems of these insects are so, you know, hypervigilant that they actually end up going into like paralyization and they die. But here's a deal. We are also organic, right? We have cells just like insects, you know? And so

it's not, we're not above these things. And again, when we're exposing ourselves, especially in like a misting system that's constantly spraying and kind of those small particulates that get lodged in your lungs, obviously I'm from Texas. So all my neighbors have missing systems. So I'm speaking to this. And then there's mosquito trucks that come once a week down the street. I mean, it's, it's wild that we still live in a day where this is really happening. But it is. So the point is we actually have on our website a PDF and it lists all the pests that you can think of in alphabetical order and ways that you can get rid of those pests. You should not live in a house with pests. That's not what I'm saying. But like we have a roach bait, for instance, and you have equal parts, cornmeal and borax and powdered sugar and you mix it in a jar.

You put it in little plastic bottle tops, you know, under your fridge and under places that the pets or the kids can't get. And you're not going to have any roaches again. Go the extra mile to do things like that versus hiring someone when you see a roach to just come and quarterly spray your house because even what you're spraying on the outside, it's going to end up on the inside of your house. One question I forgot to ask you, which was, how's your aunt doing today? Amazing. I love that question. She's amazing. She is in her mid-70s. She has not been on a prescription drugs since the doctors looked at her in her 20s about her kidneys. And she eats real food. She doesn't own a cell phone. And she looks like she's had Botox. And she's just doing all the things right. And it's

just amazing to me that, you know, when the inputs are clean, it's going to show. You know, the out, it really does show. She doesn't, she doesn't have any issues. That's, it's amazing. She's also super proud of everything you've built. Right. One of the toughest categories I know for my wife for a lot of women is finding cleaner products that actually work when it comes to personal care, makeup. Yeah. Deodorant even. Has that been something that you've dealt with yourself? You know, it's one of those things that I think is a finite process. Once again, I've found my stuff, and I don't even think about it again.

I mean, one of my very best friends, I'm going to see her tonight. She started a company called Primely Pured. She makes tallow-based deodorant. I use the unscented. I'm all of them. I'm an unscented girl. I've been using that for years. I don't even know what it's like to use a conventional deodorant.

I don't miss it. And I am prone to, I actually have a genetic snip, and my body produces higher amounts of sulfur. So, like, I am not not smelly, is my point. You know, like, I can have body odor and her stuff works. And then as far as makeup, guys, I mean, with companies like Toops and Co and Azara and RMS and Ilya, like, I'm kind of like, what's, why even look further? You know, I mean, sure, your mascara may smudge when you're, when you tear up a little bit. But, like, I'd rather that than have P-FOS chemicals in my mascara that keep it waterproof, you know? My point is there are so many companies doing it right

that at this point I feel like we have no excuse and it's actually kind of fun. You can go to the EWG, inserts their skin deep database, you can find out what products are clean. Made safe is a great certification to make sure that things are super up to snuff. So yeah, I love all the great brands out there. Deodorant, is there a brand?

Primary pure. Okay, they have a deodorant. Oh, yeah, they do. Yeah, I have their deodorant. It's the best. Yeah. They did a great job. Any other categories of honorable mentions of companies that you feel?

Right. You mentioned a few for makeup. Any, you know, when you- Athletic wear. Mate the label is my jam. It's like my- M-A-Label. Mate the label.

Made to the label. M-A-T-E. And they are doing it right, guys. It's so cool that a company that is keeping it truly clean with 100% organic cotton. They may have like, it's maybe 97% organic cotton and 3% spandex. Because listen, you've got to stretch a little bit. but them and packed P-A-C-T, packed apparel.

Those are the only two leggings that I wear now. And they have great, like, crop tops and sports bras and, you know, underwear. So I just think that's one of those things that it's hard. I totally get the athlete's your thing. It does look great to be all sucked in and tight like that. But it's worth it's worth it to look at other brands that are clean, doing it right. going back to your own story of founding the company, give us a little bit of insight of like,

what was the first product, suite of products where you made it? And you were like, okay, we are on to something. Yeah, yeah. So we shed down the company actually after private labeling,

white labeling, a specific product for a few years and then not having a great relationship with the manufacturer. And we have no background in formulation. We always say we have no business starting a business. but my aunt who had been consulting as an environmental and dietary health specialist and really understands materials and has kind of that chemistry brain, she knew the ingredients we did not want to have.

And so we would send, you know, formulators and chemists this no list that was like a mile long. And we're like, listen, if you can crack the code and create a liquid that can basically replace every single product in your home that can be safe enough to remove your eye makeup up and clean your baby bottom and your vegetables, but yet strong enough to remove your stains and, you know, get streaks out of your windows. Like, if you can do that without using the following ingredients, then you can have manufacturing rights for our company. And so we went through over 100 iterations, and it took us a year and a half. And in 2016, I'll never forget the day, because we would get samples in the mail all the time from these different formulators who are working

to crack the code. And they'd always, a lot of them, they would just, they would send us a sample and then show us the ingredient. We're like, well, no, we said we don't, we can't have potassium sorbate or sodium benzodiaide or methyl isodin. And they're like, oh, yeah, but it's just a small amount. In fact, we don't, we actually don't even have to put it on the label. We're like, no, you don't understand.

Like, Marily says we can't do this. And this is a hard no. And the thing is we were working with people who would have reacted. Like, that was our, those were our test cases, all of her sensitive clients. So I'll never forget the day that we got our current formula. and it was, yeah, almost 11 years ago, and we've had the same formula ever since.

And it's like my first baby, my pride and joy. But it doesn't have anything on that no list. And it's been such a blessing for so many families who have had kids that have reacted to certain things, can't use anything else, cleaning women who clean for a living and have had to quit their jobs because their hands are falling apart, their asthma is being triggered, and all of a sudden they use branch basics

and, like, they're opening their business, like calling us in tears. I can finally do this again, you know? So, yeah, we do love our 32-ounce concentrates pretty great. Now in Target, what's actually sold as a smaller bottle under $10. Yeah, and for those that are not familiar, haven't heard my ads about Branch Basics before, heard me talking about in the newsletter.

You have a concentrate, you use that at different levels of dilution to basically create all sorts of different products inside the house. Yes, you have your all-purpose, your bathroom, your streak-free, your foaming bottle, even your laundry, all come from that same concentrate. So it really streamlines the entire cleaning process. And then, of course, we've added, we have oxygen boost. It's like a scouring agent.

Great for toilets and ceramic and tile. And then we have our new laundry powder because people were like, well, I don't want to do a liquid. And they have to put the oxygen boost in the drums. So we're like, okay, we have a one-stop shop for people who just want that one scoop. And that just launched in Target this week. Oh, amazing. A couple weeks ago.

So, yeah. I don't think I've used that, yeah, but I'm excited. And our just tabs are great, too, because they're plastic-free. And that's a really big differentiator. all those plastic pods that are, you're putting in a metal box and heating up, and then we wonder why we're getting such high levels of microplastics in our body.

A lot of it has to do with the residues from our pods. And just to pull in this third a little bit more, like, how is this concentrate, like it can do this stuff and also like, what is it? Is this a factant? Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets? Yes?

Good. This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different. Locked in, loyal, invested. They're called fans. Fans don't just listen to music. They feel seen by it, like it belongs to them. So when your brand shows up on Spotify, that's who you're talking to.

And you're right next to artists like me, Lizzo. So, are you ready to talk to fans? Spotify advertising. You're among fans. It's just simple. And if you look at the ingredients, they're simple. It's just not hard, you know. It's hard in that we spend a lot more money on sourcing.

and we're paying a lot more money for our ingredients and other companies do. We don't have all these, you know, chemicalized shelf stabilizers and fragrances and all these frills. I mean, we really keep it basic and we have dechal glucoside. We have things that are like sodium bicarbonate.

I mean, it's amazing how when you get back to just the science of it, a surfactin itself is so powerful because if you think about it, a surfactant basically makes water wetter, so it's like a bridge between the dirt and the water. So it's like a magneton. to any residues on whatever you're cleaning.

And like I said, the CDC says the best way to rid of germs is with a plain soap or a general serbactant. Amazing. All right. You know, we touched on a bunch of different categories. But just as we're looking at this and we're zooming out a little bit big picture, if there's an opportunity to splurge, right? So now we're into the sort of professional side of the podcast, right?

We're trying to make things super accessible for most people. Now we're to the part of it where there is part of me sometimes where I approach my life. Like some people watch sports, right? I don't watch a lot of sports. I like playing sports. But a version of that for me in my own life is like I like trying different devices and gadgets and other things. And it's not something that everybody has to do. But I'll try it and I'll see, wow, is this something that makes me feel better?

For example, in my studio, I have. a monitor that's always telling me the air quality, not just for toxic purposes, although it does look at VOCs and other things, but also, you know, we're in a closed room, and even though we keep the fan running, I know that if the carbon dioxide in the room is too high, I'm not going to be as sharp for the interview. It's hard for me to think.

Absolutely. And Andy has an air purifier I'm looking at. First thing I noticed when I walked in. I have an air purifier. So, you know, there's a part of me that's like, cool. that's like, cool, I like to explore and I like to try different things. I like to look at stuff. I like to splurge a little bit. I got some weird devices that help block some EMF or other. So tell me of that for you. We are very similar. I'm like laughing inside. So give me a few of your

splurges. Now that we've moved on from that side of it, is there anything recently that you've gotten into? It's not that it's for everybody, you know, besides building an incredible house where you've got you guys went the extra mile for all sorts of things. Anything you've come across recently you're invested in? I would say hands down, number one. It's not recent. I've had it for 20 years is my infrared sauna. I just think it's like that one thing that we're talking about this entire list right here. You can pretty much pull out the chemicals of the things that are on the list, the things that we've been talking about, through your sweat. And it's just amazing to me. And they've even done studies where they're testing the urine, they're testing the blood, they're testing the

feces, but it's not until they test that sweat that you're really able to pull out those toxins that are deep embedded, especially when you're adding the infrared. It's you're really penetrating at a different wavelength at a different level. And it's very different than like you go to a cycling class and you smell your, you know, towel. I'm not saying you do this, but if you were to do this, it's your sweaty towel. The smell of the towel when you get out of an infrared sauna is very different than that sweaty towel.

It is, it's like hutriot. I mean, you're getting, you're getting like the really deep. embedded grime out. And to me, this day and age, if you can invest in something like that, it is worth it. Because we live in a toxic world. And I know that a lot of people don't have access to this, but I do think that if we are to look at the amount of money that we spend on our restaurants and our trips and our clothes and our alcohol, I'm just saying, after a few years, you may be able to afford that infrared sonnet. And we have had, we really have, we've had it for almost 20 years. And my kids are in it when they're sick. We're in it all the time. My husband was

in it last night. And I just think it's kind of that all around. Now, not in a sauna. We're really big about finding ones that are low in EMFs, basically no EMFs. You want to make sure that you're not getting in a sauna that used a bunch of adhesives and glues. So you're basically just, you know, breathing back in chemicals as you're detoxing. So we personally love heavenly heat because it's handmade with all materials and tests for EMFs. Everything's super clean, untreated wood. But there's a lot of great sonnas out there and I think that that's probably the number one splurge for me. Okay. So the number one splurge, you've had it for a while. Yeah. It's a great bonding opportunity for the family. It is. We love it. Yeah. We even put a little installed a little TV outside of it and everything.

We actually, because we just built our house, we built our entire primary bathroom around the sauna. Your whole house is a sauna. Basically. It's just once. It's a mold free sauna. Your whole house is a mold free sauna. You live in Houston, which is already a sauna and your house is a sauna. Exactly. Exactly. Got it. I'm undoing the toxicity of my city. Any other things? Honorable mentions, cool things, stuff you've come across, products, other stuff. I feel like you're kind of on the cutting edge. You're, you know, it's tough.

It's one of those things where people are like, hey, what's your favorite movie? And you've watched a million movie. You're like, I don't know. No, but I can talk about this stuff forever. I think that the thing that I want to lead people with is that there's so much hope to heal. Our bodies want to heal. And 90% of the issues that we're dealing with today, the symptoms, the chronic disease, the autoimmune is actually lifestyle in nature.

Genes load the gun, our choices pull the trigger. And again, there's so many things we can't control and we just can't worry about the things that we can't control. But the beauty is that the majority of our time is spent inside of our home. The time that our body is resting and relaxing and naturally detoxing actually happens in the place we can control, which is our bedroom. And so just thinking about the products you're bringing inside of your bathroom

that you maybe have stored in your cabinets and drawers in your bathroom forever. And you're like, I don't even use them. Get them out. Get them out. They're undermining your air. And if your body is breathing those fragrances, even at a low level, throughout the night, it's using its energy. The detox organs are actually being, you know, burdened with those chemicals instead

of healing the deeper things and preventing future diseases. You know, you can literally turn on and off genetic expression. you don't have to have the same thing that your grandmother and your mom and all your aunts had. You don't. And Ben Lynch talks about this in his book, Dirty Genes.

But, I mean, we have so much more control as a study of epigenetics. Epigenetics really is the science of hope. And so there's so much hope. There's so much we can do. If you're that person that feels like I've tried everything, I've been told by so many people

that I'm never going to be able to do this or I'm never going to have kids or I'm always going to be in this pain or I'll always be on this medication. I ask that you would just rethink that and just really look around the things that you're doing and bringing inside of your home, putting inside your mouth,

and it can feel hard, it can feel restricting, but there is so much freedom within those boundaries. Yeah, and even if you're somebody or you love somebody in your family that is diagnosed with something, all the stuff that we've been talking about when we are exposed to it,

it's just going to make that situation so much worse. Absolutely. Right? Yeah. We talked about Parkinson's in the beginning. And when I was talking to Dr. Ray Dorsey about a friend's father who was diagnosed with Parkinson's and has been navigating for a while, and I said, you know, who are the best practitioners and, you know, who should I refer them over to and what's some best advice?

One of the first things that he told me to relay over my friend is that, hey, look, yes, we don't have a solution to completely fix Parkinson's right now. But any doctor who really knows about this research would say, the first step, is making sure we minimize or turn off the faucet of the toxic exposure that you're already having access to because to think that that wouldn't accelerate the symptoms that somebody's already having is ludicrous. Right. Right. We have to turn off that item that's making our heart disease even worse that's making the autoimmune even worse than you currently have. So even if you're already navigating something or you know somebody who is, you know, turning this off is a great way to reduce the

acceleration and actually give the body the opportunity to start healing. Absolutely. I mean, you step on a tack. You don't run to the doctor or take Advil. You take the tack out. Right. You know, and so I'm not saying don't go do the chemo. Don't go take this pill. Don't go do the IVF. Like none of that. You know, do wherever you feel like your call to do in this season of your life. But by reducing the toxins and your daily exposure, you are only helping whatever path you choose to go down. Yeah. Super important message. Uh, people. can find you at Branch Basics. Yes, Kelly, my co-founder and best friend, she and I help run our social media. It's so fun. We hop on all the time. I was actually, I tag you today on my way here.

I thought I was going to miss my flight because I refused to go to the damn body scanner. I am not going through that thing. But anyway, we just share everyday things and we keep it real and we try to just instill a lot of hope and make it, make living, clean, easy, and accessible to everybody. Yeah, well, you guys do a fantastic job about it. And it's, just powerful how you've taken your own story and use this as an opportunity to inspire people that are out there. And maybe they don't have as extreme. And sure, there's more people that are out there, unfortunately. I don't wish it upon anyone. But people see that and they're like, hey, it's okay for me to say that I don't want to live this way that everybody else is living. And I want

to take a little bit of an opportunity to prioritize my health. Yeah. And it matters for me and it matters for my family. And it's worth the investment, even if people think that I'm weird, that's okay. I'd rather be healthy and weird. Exactly. Well, wellness is becoming cool, guys. Yeah. I mean, we were doing it when we were super weird. Our sorority sisters were like, what is going on with Kelly and Allison? They're talking about cell phone protectors. They're grounding. They're drinking just like juice that comes. So I'm like, this is the time to get on the wellness train. especially here in LA. Exactly.

All these kids, it's wellness is cool. Allison, thank you again for being on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you guys and the work you do. This was too fun. Hi, everyone, Drew here. Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast.

If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share it with a friend. share with a friend who would benefit from listening. Number two, before I go, I just had to tell you about something that I've been working on that I'm super excited about. It's my weekly newsletter, and it's called Try This. Every Friday, yes, every Friday, 52 weeks a year, I send out an easy-to-digest protocol

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