How Did I Get Here?

Welcome! I’m Marissa. A married, 30-something year old mom who’s been on a mission to living a completely non-toxic life in every aspect. Health and wellness have always been hobbies of mine. I would spend hours on YouTube looking at people’s skincare routines, scrolling on Pinterest for healthy recipes, and zoning out on Instagram to people’s workout regimens. My life has changed over the years and so has my outlook on what health and wellness mean.

Where it began

My journey started in 2021 when I decided to see a chiropractor. My purpose was to fix my posture. I had just gotten engaged and didn’t want to look like Quasimodo walking down the aisle. Little did I know this decision was going to set me on the path to holistic, non-toxic living.

A few months in to getting regular adjustments, the office was having a talk on hormones. Being the health enthusiast that I am, I went and dragged my then fiancé along- unenthusiastically I might add. I had no idea what the talk was going to be about, and the fiancé was hoping it wasn’t going to be sitting in a circle talking about feelings.

Boy, were we surprised! We walked away from the seminar with a better understanding of how our hormones effect every little thing about our bodies and how, if imbalanced, can wreak havoc on our systems. We also learned what can cause imbalances. Let me just say, I wanted to burn our house down as soon as we got home.

I considered myself relatively healthy. I thought I knew what clean ingredients were and would buy things I thought were cleaner products. Everything we were using from kitchen utensils to clothing, from cleaning products to personal care products were an issue. I took a spiraling deep-dive into achieving a no-tox lifestyle. I say “spiraling” because I was in shock.

It was information overload for me. I wanted to get rid of everything and start brand new. Unless you have the money to do so, it’s just not possible to buy new all at once. I learned that the affordable products can be greenwashed, and the truly non-toxic products are pricy. (It’s ironic and makes me mad, but that’s a post for another day.)

So, what did I do? I started small as hard as it was and made changes when I could. I did so much research on every aspect of living non-toxic that it could have been a full-time job. As a result of that research though, we were making changes regularly to reach our goal of a non-toxic household.

An extra shove

Then, in 2022 when I thought I had everything figured out, my dad was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL). It was a shock to the family. Partly because he was rarely sick. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen him sick, including the common cold. The man would eat the cartilage off chicken wings because he believed it was healthy! (That’s a post for another day, too). And the other part, my maternal grandmother was diagnosed with a different cell type of the same cancer years before.

With my dad’s type of NHL, it was linked to the usage of glyphosate in a particular product called Round Up. He had used this product for years when he owned his landscape business. But my grandmother was a nurse, so was she around glyphosate in hospitals?

To me, it seemed a little odd to think everyone who had/has this type of cancer got it from one specific product. Everyone used it to kill weeds? Everyone has lawns to tend to? Possible, but not probable.

To save you the trouble of going down that rabbit hole, it’s used in commercial farming. So, conventionally grown produce, oats, wheat, etc. are sprayed with this herbicide and sold to us in grocery stores. And try as we might, it can’t be washed off because it’s systemic.

So, did my grandmother get NHL by eating produce sprayed with glyphosate? I can’t answer that, however, it could be a possibility. There are 80 known subtypes of NHL and I believe if doctors knew the cause, we would have a cure not just a treatment.

With this information, both my husband and I started to make changes to what we were eating. We bought organically when we could, avoided companies owned by the big bad wolf, Monsanto, and did a huge overhaul on what healthy eating really meant. I like to say we’re ingredient counters, not calorie counters.

The final push

A few months after my dad’s cancer diagnosis, I found out I was pregnant with baby #1. What did I do? You guessed it! Did another deep dive into every baby bed, bottle, and bath toy. I scoured the internet looking for low-toxic products.

Sadly, I learned that the “trusted” baby companies don’t really care about kids’ health and development. Clothing and bedding are still being sprayed with flame retardants; PFAs are still being used in bottles and formula; and ingredients in baby food have traces of heavy metals and toxins. Even though studies show that these chemicals are linked to cancer, developmental issues, and infertility.

It truly boils my blood to think that companies care more about the bottom line and making a profit than the long-term health effects of innocent children. If you’re making products for children, you should care. Did you know Gen Alpha (2010-2024) has a shorter life expectancy then their parents? That means my kids! I’m not saying we all need to live forever, but something just doesn’t sit right with me about that fact, but I digress.

Even with the amount of research I did, we still aren’t 100% non-toxic with baby stuff. I’m learning something new every day; products I thought were clean that are no longer or a company getting bought out and changing their philosophy on low-tox. I keep going though and striving for the best low-toxic items!

Where it’s going

Today, I feel like most people are only looking at the bare minimum of low-tox. Which in my opinion is better than living completely oblivious. There are so many things to consider and realize about going fully non-toxic that it does get overwhelming. Trying to remember which ingredients are bad in food, cleaning, cosmetics—it’s a lot!

As a household, we aren’t at 100%. Sadly, I doubt we fully ever will be. Even doing research and finding brands to trust can change in an instant. What’s “clean” today could be linked to a new cancer in a few years. It’s always changing, and trustworthy companies are selling out and changing their ingredients for the bottom line.

To wrap this up with a non-chemically treated bow, my journey has led me to starting this blog. A place to share information with those who will listen, are interested in non-toxic living, or need someone to laugh at for being a “paranoid” crunchy mom. Most of my posts will be about striving for a low-toxic life, my version of healthy recipes, and a little bit of motherhood thrown in. So, if that sounds like something you’re interested in, then subscribe to this blog and follow me on Instagram!