How to Green Your Home to Reset Your Health with Emma Rohmann | How Humans Heal Podcast

Hi and welcome. I'd like to introduce you to Emma Roman, and she's an environmental engineer. She's also a mom, and she's founder of Green at Home. She specializes in helping women to identify toxins they're exposed to, how they may be affecting their health, and how to clean up the home environment so that they can prevent these toxin exposures from affecting their health. So thank you so much for joining me, Emma. I'm so glad to have you here with me.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited for this conversation.

Likewise. So tell us a little more, like what inspired you to do what you do? Because you didn't just start with helping people clean up their homes. You've been helping people with building clean homes or green homes for a long time. So, you know, this must have been something that you've been passionate about for more than just recently. So please tell us, how did that all start? What got you to here?

It's been a journey, for sure. I did my undergrad in environmental engineering. That was a decision I made when I realized I didn't want to be a vet, which was my passion for my entire childhood. I didn't really know what I was getting into when I got into environmental engineering, but I was passionate about the environment. I always enjoyed being outdoors, so I thought it sounded like an interesting pursuit, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do. And it was through the co op program, actually, where I got to test out different industries, and I landed in a job in green buildings. And this was back when green building was fairly new. I would call manufacturers and try to get information on their products that were used in construction projects. And nobody knew what the heck a VOC was. And so it was, you know, it was. It was back before it became so common. And it opened my eyes to what our indoor spaces were doing for us and how the construction industry and building industry in general, how that was impacting the environment. And so from my engineering degree and then that experience working in consulting, I started to make changes in my personal life as well. It started off more as a environmental passion than anything. And it started with switching over to green cleaners because I was learning a lot about designing water treatment plants and learning what we actually could not remove from the water even if we were going to be drinking it. And so that, yeah, that led me to cut conventional cleaners like cold turkey as a student. And it kind of snowballed from there. And then I started kind of dabbling in some of the health impacts. But that mission didn't really take hold until I had my. My children. And that's a big catalyst, I see, for a lot of women in particular, because we start to think of things a little bit differently and I was the same. So I had been doing a lot already, but I didn't really know why or the extent to which some of the changes that I was making were actually impacting our health. And I realized that if I was going to keep going on this, especially after I had my second child.

I'm in Canada. So we had, at that time, we had one year maternity leave. So I was home, not working with two kids, and I needed to figure out if I could keep up this lifestyle and if it was even going to be worth it. And so that began a very deep dive research project with more of that health focus. And I wanted to discover that I could stop and just live normally like a normal person.

Yeah, there's part of you that was like, can I just find it? Oh, I don't need to worry so much about toxins in the environment.

Yeah, pretty much. That's what I. That was what was in the back of my mind, like, oh, maybe I'll learn. I don't need to bother. I learned the opposite and so.

Propelled me to help other others. Because what I struggled with in my research was there was so much information that was very polarized. It was either, you know, everything that you're using is going to kill you or give you cancer. And it was very kind of judgmental and full of fear and shame. And then there was the other side that was, ah, don't worry about it, everything's fine. And my very like, analytical brain needed more of a middle ground and needed the reasons behind each of those. And so Green at Home was born as a way of taking all of the research that I'd done and creating a practical approach. Because I was, you know, urban, working full time, working mom. I needed something that didn't require me to be a homesteader. And yeah, I've been supporting other families through that mission ever since.

Oh, wow, that's. I love that because you really, you know, it sounds like you really followed what your passion was, showing up in front of you at each moment and bringing your, your sort of analytical researcher experience to this. And I think that's really unique. And it means to me that, you know, we can trust that the information you're sharing has been through that filter, you know that. The Emma filter.

Yes.

And to be able to simplify it for us because it's I mean, as a naturopathic doctor now, you know, over 20 years ago, when I was in my training, that was part of it, by the way, was we had a whole course in what's called environmental medicine, which has to do with looking at everything from foods and toxins of various types, even metals, as stresses on the human body and how we get exposed to them, how we can test for them, and how we can then make changes in our day to day life to help get those toxins out of our body and prevent future exposure. It's something that's very integrated into naturopathic medicine. And I think a lot of listeners will find if you work with a naturopathic doctor that you'll hear them talking about that because it is part of our curriculum and part, part of the work that we do. And at the same time it's, you know, it can be like learning how to get toxins out of your day to day exposure in your home. I would say I probably equate it to learning how to change your diet. You know, you have to really start to understand where are the issues in order to even know where to make the changes. And it can feel overwhelming at first. I'm sure you hear that too from your audience.

Absolutely. And it's, I think the overwhelm is what prevents so many people from being able to move forward. And I mean the overall overwhelm comes from so many different sources. It's from the confusing information like I talked about and different information coming at you. But it's also that not knowing where to start because you know, you can read articles and people can tell you, oh, just do X, Y and Z. But if it doesn't fit with your lifestyle, then it's not going to be sustainable and you're just going to end up in this cycle of woulda, shoulda, couldas and not actually moving forward. So there's a balance between taking in the information and understanding what you can do with actually taking action. And I think where a lot of people get stuck is either, okay, well I've changed out my shampoo and my dish soap and maybe my frying pan and that's really all I can do, so I'm done. Or you try to do everything all at once and then get again totally bogged down and overwhelmed. So it is this fine line of knowing what the steps you can take are that are going to work for you and that are going to give you the best results depending on what your goal is. And this is why I love, I partner A lot with naturopathic doctors because you guys work on the internal side of things and helping the body kind of balance itself out internally. And I work from the outside in. And so there's, it's, I think, a great kind of synergy. I actually teach at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine in Toronto. Their environmental health course for the reproduction and fertility class. So I'm glad that it was in your curriculum as well, but it's still a very small part. So I'm. Yes, I'm excited to see environmental medicine get more airtime in both naturopathic and allopathic medical schools. But it's got a ways to go.

Well, and I think that still there is this.

Even. The question you were asking when you were doing all this research is, is this really something I should be concerned about? Because these toxins are, I say it's like they're invisible. And we're so used to paying attention to things that we can see or that we can see a direct result of. You know, I eat this food and I feel worse, you know, so you can, you can put two together and decide not to eat that food with a toxin. First of all, sometimes we don't even realize we're getting exposed. And it's so subtle over time that we, it's hard to put together that that toxin exposure made that effect on your health. Right. So it's, you know, just for people to realize that hey, this is something that's worthwhile to pay attention to. And then it becomes just like what you're saying, more a matter of how to do it in the least stressful way. Right. Because like we know the stress, the toxins are a stress, but it doesn't mean we want you to feel stressed out about getting the toxins out of your life. We want to do it in a non stressful way.

Absolutely.

And that's what I love about the information that you share online and on social media is that you're really making it simple. And I love that you're mentioning in particular about women's health, infertility and maybe let's dive in a little bit more there in terms of understanding some more specifics about toxins we're exposed to that can disrupt our hormones in such a way that it can affect women's health, those particularly women's hormones and fertility. So let's talk us through that a little bit more.

Sure. I think it probably makes sense just to give a overview of what hormone disruptors are first. And they are one of the main.

Toxins that I tend to focus on because their effects are so broad. So hormone disrupting chemicals are chemicals that act in the body in a few different ways. They can mimic our natural hormones, which makes our body think that we have more than we actually do. They can disrupt the way that our natural hormones are made and metabolized in the body.

They can block receptor sites. Hormones act like a lock and key mechanism to trigger reactions in the body. And so hormone disruptors can. Can block those receptor sites, making it so that our natural hormones don't bind. And then the downstream effect that's supposed to happen does not happen. And where hormone disruptors have kind of changed the conversation in the effect that toxins have in the body is that the research is showing that they impact us at drastically lower concentrations than other toxins. So the. The whole environmental health conversation used to be more about occupational exposures and very high doses. And so the thought of, well, the dose makes the poison, and anything's toxic if you have too much of it. That applies to certain things. But when it comes to hormone disruptors, they don't always respond.

Oh, you're frozen.

There we go. Now we're back.

Back.

Yes. So they don't respond linearly. And so sometimes, depending on the chemical, low doses can have a negative response in the body, and high doses, not so much. Or high doses can have an effect, and low doses can have an effect, and a middle dose has no effect. So they don't behave like the toxins that were studied kind of conventionally.

I think that's an important distinction. You're right, because it's like, hey, here's something we could get exposed to in daily quantities that could actually affect our health. It's not something to blow off or dismiss.

Yeah. And they are everywhere. They've been made ubiquitous in our food, in our water, in the products that we put on our skin, the air that we breathe. And so it's not enough. Like, to your point on food, where, you know, if you eat something that makes you feel bad, you can kind of isolate that and figure out, okay, don't eat that, and I won't feel bad. But we're exposed to so many different chemicals in so many different products that the research to identify the specific impact of any particular chemical is very complicated. And so.

We can't just say, okay, well, if I don't use a shampoo with parabens, then that's fine, because there's a whole other host of combinations of chemicals that are in other products. And so it really is looking at your overall exposure. And the goal isn't to live in a bubble and never be exposed to any form of toxin. That is a unattainable goal. The goal is to lower your toxic load so that your body can handle what you can't control. And that's another misconception that people have, is like, oh, well, we have detoxification systems. They get out whatever doesn't belong in our body, so we don't need to worry about it. But as you're well aware, our detoxification systems, a, they don't have an infinite carrying capacity. And baby, all of the other stressors and lifestyle issues that we're experiencing these days are making our detoxification system sluggish to begin with. And we're born with a certain level of body burden already, even when we take our first breath. And so we need to bring down that exposure so that our systems can support us long term. That's really the. The ultimate goal is to reduce, not completely eliminate.

Such a good point. It's a really good point because it kind of, right away we can take the perfectionism out of it. You know, it's not about perfection. It's about just reducing exposure so that. Yeah. So that it doesn't have the chance to cause as much of a negative effect, you know, so it can just help us stay ahead of the curve a little bit more.

Yeah.

And so when it comes to.

Women'S health in particular, and why, I think it's. I mean, with the fertility conversation, it takes two to tango. And I think we can't let men off the hook entirely. Hormone disruptors affect everybody. I think a lot of people think that they are more of a women's health issue.

But they do affect us all. And it's not just reproduction. Our hormones govern every function in our body, so from mood to metabolism. In children, it's neurological development.

Hormone disruptors have been linked with asthma and allergies. So it's a big issue. I tend to work more with women because we tend to.

Become more aware and concerned about the issue and are more likely to act on it, I find. And because we are carrying the baby, our body burden and our exposures have a direct impact on that fetus through its development.

It is interesting how once there is something, once a woman's pregnant, all of a sudden there's this heightened awareness of what we're eating, what we're exposed to, you know, because we are more, you know, thinking of this baby and wanting to give it its best chances, you know, of health. And so all of a sudden, yeah, you start having these lights go on where you're like, oh, wait a minute, what am I eating? What am I exposed to that you may not have thought of when you, when you weren't trying to get pregnant or pregnant.

Yeah.

That'S interesting. And it shows us too. Like, I find what I try to do is, even after pregnancy, encourage women to keep that same level of prioritization for their health. Because of course, it matters all the time, you know, and it kind of points out that we tend to dismiss ourselves, you know, and kind of prioritize everything else and procrastinate our own health until we start to realize that we need to take care of someone else, this child. But really, if we can take care of ourselves in that same way over time, it's gonna, I mean, we can touch on that again, like what you're saying. I mean, we've seen that these toxin exposures can increase risk of everything from diabetes and cancer and dementia and heart disease and hormone irregulations. Like you're mentioning everything from menstrual disorders and endometriosis and to, you know, say, skin issues and.

Mental health, anxiety, depression, sleep issues. Right. It like crosses all levels of health issues and all different ages. And so it's, you know, again, it's worth it to pay attention to it. Talk us through what are some of the most common hormone disruptors in our. Like, if I were walking around the house, what are. Like. Because I imagine if I had some Emma goggles on, I'd be like, and that one and that one and that one and that one.

What would you be noticing in a house to identify hormone disruptors sitting around?

I am that person. Back when I could visit people's houses, I'd be washing my hands in their bathroom and I'd be looking at their bottle and reading the ingredients. Not in a judgy way, just because I'm always curious.

Yeah, no, I do the same thing.

And so I, I usually start.

With personal care products and cleaners. It is a fairly low hanging fruit. It's something that everybody uses and everybody has in their home. We can see it, we can read the ingredients on the package. So it's a good place to start. And they're fairly low cost and we use them up fairly quickly. So it's a low barrier to entry when it comes to beginning to look at reducing toxins in your home. Reading labels is one of the most annoying things to learn, but also one of the most important people don't like to think about it because when you look at the personal care product labels, they're in like size 6 font with Latin and 50 different words and something that should be fairly basic. So it's daunting and it's not. I don't read Latin. I don't know every ingredient, ingredient off by heart that's ever used in any product. But the more that you start to read labels and you can understand the marketing language as well as how that aligns with the ingredients that are actually used, the more informed you can be and you can start to make more conscious and informed decisions. And that's my ultimate goal for everybody, is that you're not going to be perfect. Like I said, you're not going to be avoiding everything. But at least what you are doing is informed and you are deciding how to prioritize changes in a way that works for you. And so with personal care products, the ingredients have to be on the label. Cleaning products, they do not. That is going to be changing. California tends to lead the way in labeling laws. And because they have like a whole nation's worth of GDP pretty much when they make a regulation change, brands more or less end up following suit because they distribute across the US And Canada. Typically, it's not worth it for them to have a different label for California than everywhere else. So I am hopeful that we will start to be seeing more ingredient disclosure on cleaning products. Most brands, if it's not on the package itself, it will at least be on the website. So personal care and cleaning products is where I like to start. And some of the main hormone disrupting chemicals specifically to be watching out for are phthalates, parabens, and the tricky ingredient listed as fragrance because fragrance does not need to disclose all of the different components that are used in it. So it might kind of a catch.

All word that they can, they can get away with on the label.

Yep. Yeah. So again, disclosure is starting slowly. Some brands are voluntarily disclosing.

And so hopefully that will change. But often synthetic fragrance will contain phthalates within it because they make the scent last longer and linger and smell better and stick around. So you might be having phthalate exposure in that fragrance even if it's not on the label.

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I.

Mean that to me. I think you're making a good point that even just if you're finding that you're sensitive like some people, that they do start to notice that I did for myself. I mean, of course I had migraines for 25 years. So when you have migraines you're thinking of everything in your environment. Like what, what are all the triggers here? And fragrance was definitely one. And what some people, I think you might, you'll probably agree is that some people start to say, oh my gosh, I'm sensitive to everything. Like, or they, as soon as they smell a perfume, they feel nauseous or get a headache or you know, get dizzy and it's, that's a sign that your toxic load is high that you're picking up on even these, you know, fragrances that maybe other people aren't even aware of. And so that's, I think, I agree that that's a common place to start is to just even start to choose products that are not scented and don't have a fragrance. Because if it doesn't have a fragrance, it's not going to have phthalates in there.

Yeah, I agree. Looking for fragrance free products, I think it's also a pretty simple thing to look for. Right. It's just wanting your.

It might actually be on the label in bigger fonts.

Yes. Now you have to be careful with again the marketing language because they might.

Sneak in, they might say fragrance free, but there might still be a phthalate in there or something.

Or they might actually still use fragrance. So there's different requirements between fragrance free and unscented. And so sometimes a product can be, I think it's unscented, but it essentially doesn't have a smell. But it's using fragrance ingredients to mask the smell of the other ingredients.

It is tricky. So, you know, use the front of the label with caution. I always recommend turning it over and reading what is actually double check, basically.

Double check the ingredient list to make sure it doesn't, you know, doesn't have something. Okay, good. But that's, that's a place to start. And I like too how you're mentioning like, like personal care products, meaning, like, I don't know, face cleansers and lotions and shampoos and conditioners and basically anything you put on your body. Because if you put it on your body, on your skin, it's gonna get through our skin and into our body. It doesn't just slide right off, it goes in. Yeah, that's a good realization to have. Like, when we put things on our skin, our skin does absorb. And even if it's only there for a minute and then you're showering off, it still has a chance to get in. And so, you know, one thing that I'll tend to do when I'm going, you know, say picking a product is all even just if you look at the number of ingredients. A lot of times if there's a lot of ingredients, I tend to find it's more likely there's going to be something toxic in the list. Although that's not always true because some herbal products might have a long list of things and they're all herbal. But that does kind of catch my attention. If I see a long list versus say four or five ingredients that, you know, then I'm like, okay, this is less likely to contain a toxin. I don't know what are some of your kind of quick things you look at on a label?

So I have a few. Well, more than a few, but I have ingredients that I know to watch out for, and for me personally are no fly zones. So I watch for those. But even I've been tricked before, especially if it's a really long list of ingredients. If I'm in the store, you know, panicked trying to read the label. It's really hard. So I first recommend if you know that you want to replace a product that you have at home, source an alternative before you get to the store so that you are less likely to end up with the shopping cart staring at it and getting like, I gotta.

Leave, I gotta go, I gotta just get this and run. And then once you have it, you feel like you need to use it.

Yeah, totally. So plan ahead. I always suggest that you find a replacement before you run out of what you're currently using. Like, if you want to replace your deodorant, let's say don't wait until the stick is empty. Because you don't want to go a few days without deodorant, you're going to rush out to the store and grab it and you're more likely to fall back on what you're used to. Right. I like to use label reading apps as well. That can be quite handy. Think Dirty is my favorite. There's also EWG Skin Deep. I have a training on my website that walks through how to use them. They are not perfect. Just like any tool, they are a tool in your toolbox. They are not just the, they're not the whole kit and caboodle but they can be really great way to help you read labels faster.

That's great because then you can kind of. Yeah. You have something to help you identify what you're looking at.

Yeah.

And yeah, fragrance is, is a big one. And that goes with cleaners as well. So cleaning products. Oh with, with personal care and cleaners, I guess to help you not get overwhelmed, I tend to suggest that you focus on the top kind of maybe three to five that you use every day. And with personal care products that sit on your skin so that you're not.

Trying to longer have more chance to absorb.

So just so that you can work your way into the wash off products. But if you're going to prioritize things, focus on what you're using most and what sit on your skin. So like your face cream, your sunscreen, your deodorant, those sorts of things makes sense.

So personal care and cleaners is where I tend to start. The next big area.

That people don't necessarily want to think about is water.

And it can be.

Tricky because water filtration can be an expense. However, when you think about bang for buck, you're drinking water, hopefully lots of it, all day long for other health benefits.

In North America. While our water is technically safe, it doesn't mean that it is free from harmful chemicals. And there are areas across the US and Canada that have.

Poor water quality. Often water testing actually exceeds what is regulated and regulations are not fully health based.

They take.

Not very conservative health approach and they're balancing it with the cost and effort required to change out old systems. Relying on the water quality standards that are set out by the EPA or Health Canada isn't really enough, unfortunately. I recommend that everybody look at filtering their water.

Because it's a source of pesticides which are can be hormone disrupting among other things. It's a source of lead in some areas which is a neurotoxin, particularly for children.

And there could be other heavy metals in there, in water as well, depending on where you are.

As well as a lot of our water is contaminated with environmentally persistent chemicals that end up in our water from manufacturing processes. And so really understanding what is in your water and then selecting the best water filtration system that you can afford and put in your home is well worth the effort. And it might take some time for you to figure that out and do it. But I encourage everybody to start looking into that if you're not already.

No, I completely agree. And it's, and I like how you're, you know, you're saying we can take a systematic approach to this and you can, you know, again, sometimes it can feel overwhelming because there's a lot of different types of water filters and there's a lot of, even a lot of different price prices for different water filters. And so at first you might be like, oh my gosh, this feels like a big project. But that's why, you know, having, you know, your help makes a difference to be able to also to just think through, okay, what, what toxins are in my water. You can get your water tested, see what toxins you're needing to filter out, and then find a filter that will filter out those toxins and then look at different options that, you know, within your budget.

I was in one of your posts, I was reading about this too, is that for some time, like when I did all of this research for my home, I ended up deciding to go with a reverse osmosis filter for the whole house because at a certain point it just made sense to me. Like, I just thought, because reverse osmosis is going to filter out the most of everything, so you're kind of left with the cleanest water and then you can decide what you want to put back in. But, and I love my whole house reverse osmosis filter. But I'm happy, I'd love to hear more. I mean, if people understand, like, that's kind of like if you wanted to go to that full, you know, sort of best water filter option, that's what that looks like. But there are a lot of options in between too.

Yeah. And there's also a lot of what I would say health washed water systems. So there are a lot of different marketing.

Strategies or terminology out there. So know that not all water systems are water filtration systems. So when I talk about filtered water, I'm talking about going through a process to remove toxins. And Ro, reverse osmosis does have the kind of highest contaminant removal profile and usually RO systems are combined with activated carbon. So you've got reverse osmosis. The biggest issue with RO is that it's fairly wasteful because of the reverse osmosis process. You end up having to dump water.

Out into the drain. So that is one downside for it. So usually for an RO system, I would recommend it for an under sink where you're using it just for drinking water, and then an activated carbon for a whole home system to help reduce the amount of water that you're wasting. Activated carbon can be an under sink option as well as.

And.

Then you've got your countertop systems that are also called gravity fed systems. So that's like your berkey is.

A common one.

Fridge and pitcher type filters aren't going to do a whole heck of a lot. They are better than nothing. You need to replace the filters very frequently and they have their limitations, but that would be kind of the bare minimum, I guess. So like you said, people often ask me, what's the best water filter, what water filter should I get? And the first question is, well, what's in your water to begin with? Because somebody who's living on a farm in the Midwest is going to have different requirements to somebody who is getting municipal water on the east coast or in the South. So it really depends on where you're living, what your water supply is, how old your home is, if there's lead in your municipal pipes, if there's lead on your house. All of those sorts of factors play in. So really understanding what's in your water in the first place and what your budget and priorities are for removing it. And that will help you come up with a system that is going to work for you. And I have a guide to choosing a water filter as well to help walk through those steps because it can be quite overwhelming. I wish that I could just say everybody install this, but that would be irresponsible of me.

Yeah, thank you. And I appreciate your, you know, how you, you know, I think it's. You're educating at the same time as supporting and helping, you know, and there's. This is the kind of situation where that education really makes a difference because then people feel informed about what they're purchasing and what they might then choose to purchase in the future. And yeah, so I'll definitely share links to your website and to your resources. I think you also had.

How to clean out the hormone disruptors in your house step by step guide, something like that. Right. That I'll share as well.

Yeah, I've got a room by room hormone disruptor checklist. So it just kind of works. Gives you some bullet points for each room of your home to identify things that you can do from as basic as dusting more regularly all the way through to swapping out products. And that's the other thing too is lowering toxins in your home isn't just product based. That's what I talked about a lot here. But there's tons of strategies and habits that you can build into your routine or just do once and have your home kind of work for you. You ongoing without having to do much. So.

It'S easy to get bogged down in the product and the kind of expense side of it. But there's loads of other things that you can do like dusting and using DIY cleaners and monitoring your humidity and having a furnace filter. All those sorts of things that work kind of at the home operation level.

Oh my gosh. The furnace filter makes. I also have a history of allergies. And sometimes I would like, my allergies would flare and I'd be like, what is going on? Why all of a sudden am I sneezing more this week than I was last week? And I finally figured out that that was how I knew I needed to change my furnace filter. I would change the furnace filter. And with furnace filters, I learned this again because of having allergies that I could order. There's furnace filters that are going to filter more and they tend to call them, you know, kind of like for allergies or for allergens. But I mean, it seems to me like everybody should probably get that because even if you don't have allergens, get the filter that's going to filter the most from your. From the air ducts that are, you know, putting the air out into your home. Might as well, you know, get that kind. I don't know if that's what you recommend too, but I'm like, I can. My body will tell me when it's like, because it's usually, I think you may be changed every six months. Or when I have the furnace service people come, they always say to me, oh, you could go a little longer. But my body tells me when. And it's usually sooner than the recommended time frame for these filters.

Yeah. And if you have a high efficiency filter, which I do recommend people install, you do need to replace them more regularly. The less efficient filters. So ones that have larger openings, they will let more through. And so they can stay in longer because they're not getting clogged up. Whereas if you have a high efficiency filter, the weave is tighter, so it's catching more stuff, which means they're going to fill up sooner. And so on one hand, it's stopping even more stuff from coming through, but it's also preventing air from flowing through. And so your house isn't going to be.

Ventilating or heating or cooling properly. And it can burn out your furnace because the motor is pushing too hard against it. So I recommend, recommend, especially if you have pets, check your furnace filter every month until you get a good sense as to how frequently you need to replace it. So typically, I recommend at least every season. So with each equinox is my kind of mental trigger. Or I recommend putting it in your calendar. So a reminder pops up every season. But if you've got, like, construction going on near your house, if you're somewhere that is particularly dry and dusty, if you've got pets, that's all going to affect how frequently you need to change it. So every month until you kind of know your own house rhythm. Or at least every three months. Or at most, I guess every three months.

I was just thinking about that because we're recording this at the beginning of the year. So I'm always like, how to keep track of. I can kind of say to myself, okay, it's the first week of the month, I'm going to change my water filters. I'm going to. Or whatever needs to be changed, the air filters, furnace filter, and kind of like, try to get it into a schedule. But no matter what, I end up somewhere in the middle going, when was it that I last changed those filters? And I feel like we need almost like a separate calendar for all the filters so that it just. Because if it gets scrambled up with the rest of my calendar, I miss it also. It won't happen. Yeah, this is just an idea. I don't know, some sort of, like, app or calendar idea for us to help us keep track of, you know, changing all of these different filters. Because it's important. Like, you're saying, like, if you like, with my water, and this is probably because I have a whole house reverse osmosis. I'll start to notice that I don't have as much shower pressure.

Right.

And I'm like, oh, geez, where's all the water? It's like, okay, time to change the filter. But I probably really needed to change it a few weeks prior to that.

I'm going to look into that. I wonder if there's like a home maintenance reminders app. That's a good idea, right?

I could. If you come across it, please tell me, because I definitely use it. I mean, that's the thing, is you coming up with some system. I mean, I also feel like, you know how, like, in buildings, like, I'm thinking, like in, I don't know, in a hospital or something, they have these kind of checklists of, like, here's the date that I changed this filter, and here's a signature that says that it was done. I feel like I want to create that for different locations in my home so that I can keep track. Oh, this was the last time this filter was changed, and by who and what type. And.

So those would be. I'm going to see if I can create something like that for my house because.

I like the feeling of being ahead of that, because it really does, you know, I really do find that it makes a difference. And like you're saying, even, you know, paying attention to our water and our air.

It pays off in terms of decreasing hormone disruptors and other toxins. Another one I've seen you suggest is taking your shoes off. Right. Because when you walk in the house, there's potential toxins on the bottoms of your shoes. Right. And just taking your shoes off, especially if you live in the city or something, you're going to be decreasing your toxin exposure in your home that way, too.

Yeah. Pesticides, petrochemicals, all sorts of things can get tracked in on the bottom of your shoes. And you don't necessarily see or think about it. So that is a super easy and very free way to help improve your air quality, for sure.

And then.

I don't know if you recommend this, but I also have separate air filters in the house with carbon filters to filter the air as well, partially because I do have pets, so I want to be filtering for that purpose, but also just to filter the other toxins that could come into the home. I mean, because that's the thing you figure, oh, the doors are shut, the windows are shut, the toxins aren't going to get in, but they do get in.

Yeah. And our. When our homes are all closed up, the air quality is actually worse than outside because our homes and all the products that we use in them and everything are off. Gassing, which means it's releasing the chemicals that are in them. Our body care, our cleaners, all that kind of stuff. And so getting fresh air through the house, opening windows. If you have a newer home and you have.

A ventilator, like an HRV or an erv that brings fresh air in that should be running as well. So just getting that fresh air through can help flush what builds up inside over time. Air purifiers and air filters.

Are beneficial. I don't blanket recommend them for everybody. And again, depending on your goals, you can go super high end air purifier to deal with allergens. And.

If you've got bigger health issues, I would say then those can be helpful. Or if you want to really clean up a baby's room, for example. But.

I caution people not to rely only on those. Those should be thought of as your kind of downstream final effort, not the only way to clean up your home. Because again, just like our detoxification systems, they can only work as well as we can reduce what's going into them so they can filter it out. But if you're sticking an air purifier in a home that has so many impurities a, the filters are going to clog up in no time and then it's not going to do anything, it's.

Not going to be able to keep.

Up with and it can't keep up.

Right.

So treat it like you would your liver where you're reducing what's going in in the first place so that it can do its job. And it's another area that requires some investigation before you invest again, because it's kind of one of those health bad things that have some tricky marketing associated with them. But I know lots of people, those with multiple chemical sensitivity or sensitivities in general, and asthma and allergies do get quite a bit of relief from them. You just need to know what you're looking for when you're buying them.

It's such a good point and it reminds me a few years ago when I needed a new couch. I got an organic couch because I was realizing I want to reduce the amount of off gassing from the furniture. And then I got an organic mattress. And it was amazing to me when I replaced that mattress because that's when I kind of knew before that mattresses contain all kinds of flame retardants. But when I replaced my mattress to an organic mattress, it was amazing. My migraines decreased almost overnight from removing that flame retardant mattress from my home. And I think these are things where again, you could have an air filter, but it's not going to be able to keep up with flame retardants that are on this furniture that we purchase. Better to get organic furniture to begin with, right? And then you don't have so Much to filter out.

Yeah, yeah. And mattresses. So that's the other thing is some people have health issues that show up seemingly out of nowhere, and they say, oh, well, I haven't changed anything. This happens a lot with laundry products. But mattresses are another thing as well. So if you notice migraines or insomnia or you're waking up a lot, or you're really tired when you wake up, I mean, all of these symptoms can be issues that you deal with medically. Like, there could be so many different sources. But looking at the products that you're using should be part of that treatment plan, because it could be your mattress or it could be an ingredient in your laundry. If it's a skin issue that just showed up that has been building an intolerance over time. So just because you haven't changed something doesn't mean that that thing you've been using for years isn't the culprit. Which is another tricky aspect with toxins. But that's where you need to be aware of what your exposures are so that you can identify what some of the most likely causes could be, or at least things that are going to support healing along with some other work that you might be doing to deal with those symptoms.

Such good points. Thank you so much. And I am actually, you're reminding me that I've been really. One of my goals has been to redo my kitchen cabinets because I live in an older home that has, I don't know, cabinets that are probably 40 years old or something. But I. Every time I research it, I'm so hesitant because I don't trust that I don't want to bring in cabinets that are going to be having VOCs and other toxins off gassing. And I'd rather have the old ones that I know probably been off gassing way long ago, and they're, you know, much less toxin exposure. But I mean, if someone thinking of that, is that something that you help with? Also, as someone who's kind of thinking about, hey, I want to do some renovation in my home, how do I choose the right, you know.

Sort of materials? And because, of course, if they use any kind of glue, right, it's going to be.

Spewing off more toxins. Tell me more. What can. What can we do with that situation?

Yeah. So I have a guide to healthy construction that is like a kind of. It's a PDF that you can go through, and it helps you understand what sorts of things to look for. And if you're doing a Bigger reno. How to talk to your design and construction team. I can also do consultations where you've got like a really kind of isolated project and you want help understanding what to focus on. So for cabinets, you know, a lot of the consideration comes from the fact that a lot of cabinetry now is made of composite wood or press board and is those glues that are sticking all those pieces of wood together.

That can off gas formaldehyde, which off gases forever. And so there's the glues, there's the finishes.

And different considerations to look at. So, you know, looking for formaldehyde free and low VOC and all the, all those sorts of things and knowing how to navigate again, the greenwashing, which is, you know, one of the downsides of the green movement becoming more popular, is everybody wants to sound green. So we, again, we need to know what we're looking for so that we can overcome greenwashing and better spot it so that we don't get sucked in because it ends up wasting a lot of our time and money when we're buying stuff that we think is healthy and then we find out it's not. So with construction stuff, like not being afraid to ask questions and really drilling down to an answer that is the complete answer and not a half truth is key.

Yes, it's. Believe me, I feel like I was greenwashed a few times and I was like, wait a minute. I'd rather wait. And then till I feel really sure that I really know that I'm choosing the best, the least toxic option. Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for everything you've been sharing. Tell us again how people can find you online so they can connect with you more. Sure.

My website is GreenAtHome CA. It's a CA, but I serve American and Canadian families. You can find me on Instagram. I hang out there and do quirky dance reels, if you're into the reels. So I'm.

Greenathome and I have a free Facebook group called the Green Product Forum where you can go and ask questions and get input and advice from thousands of other families who are on the path towards a healthier home as well.

Wonderful. Thank you so much for all of those resources and for coming to share with us today. And I look forward to staying in touch with you.

Thank you so much for having me.

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