What can serious illness change about the way we eat, live, age, and think about our health?

In this episode of Practical Nontoxic Living™, I speak with Elissa Goodman, holistic nutritionist and author of Cancer Hacks, about the health experiences that profoundly changed the course of her life.

Elissa was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma at 32 and later with hypothyroidism, Hashimoto's disease, and celiac disease. Eleven years after her cancer diagnosis, her husband, Marc, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and died after an 18-month illness, leaving Elissa to raise their two young daughters.

Those experiences ultimately led Elissa to leave her career at Vogue, study holistic nutrition, and rethink the role that food, stress, rest, movement, relationships, and daily habits played in her own life.

In this episode:

• Elissa's experience being diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in her early thirties

• Navigating hypothyroidism, Hashimoto's disease, and celiac disease

• Losing her husband to non-Hodgkin lymphoma and becoming a single mother

• Why those experiences led her to change careers and study nutrition

• How she thinks about hydration, fiber, plant foods, smoothies, juices, and everyday eating

• Her perspective on foods commonly marketed as "detoxifying"

• The roles sleep, movement, yoga, breathwork, and stress management play in her routine

• Infrared sauna and dry brushing as part of her personal wellness practices

• Why emotional health became as important to her as food

• What she has learned about resilience, aging, and feeling well over time

Elissa also answers a lightning round of questions about what she wishes more people understood about food, exercise, sleep, mindfulness, technology, Western and Eastern medicine, environment, resilience, and aging.

Her health story is personal. It does not establish that dietary or lifestyle changes treated or cured her cancer, thyroid disease, Hashimoto's, or celiac disease. Cancer and autoimmune diseases have complex causes and require appropriate medical care.

What I find valuable in Elissa's story is not a formula for healing.

It's the way serious illness forced her to ask different questions about how she wanted to live.

What was nourishing her? What was depleting her? Which habits were helping? Which no longer made sense? And as she got older, what did feeling well actually mean?

That makes this conversation less about "anti-aging" and more about something I find much more interesting:

How can we keep learning from our bodies—and shaping the way we live as our needs change?

Go deeper:

• Learn more from Elissa Goodman

• Read Elissa's book, Cancer Hacks: A Holistic Guide to Overcoming Your Fears and Healing Cancer

• Explore the Practical Nontoxic Living™ framework

• Explore the D-Tox Academy, Phase Two of the Ultimate Home Detox™, for ongoing guidance applying Practical Nontoxic Living™ across the home and everyday life

• Read A to Z of D-Toxing: The Ultimate Guide to Reducing Our Toxic Exposures

Elissa's experience reflects her individual health journey and should not be interpreted as evidence that nutrition or lifestyle practices can treat or cure cancer or autoimmune disease.

Special thanks to Chris Robertson, Practical Nontoxic Living podcast producer. The book link is an affiliate link; purchases may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.

What happens when feeling unwell for years leads you to start questioning what surrounds you—and later, what might be influencing your fertility?

In this episode of Practical Nontoxic Living™, I speak with Nita Ewald, a women's health and fertility coach with a master's degree in chemistry, about the personal experiences that led her from frequently feeling sick to becoming increasingly interested in environmental health.

In her late twenties, Nita began paying closer attention to ingredients and materials in personal-care products, cleaning products, cookware, and other everyday purchases. She gradually changed many of the products she used and also made changes to her diet and lifestyle.

Nita reports that she began feeling much better during this period. Her experience cannot establish which changes—if any—caused those improvements, but it profoundly changed the way she thought about her environment and health.

Then came another surprise: despite feeling healthier, Nita and her husband struggled to conceive and were diagnosed with unexplained infertility.

In this episode:

• Why Nita became "sick of being sick" and began investigating everyday exposures

• How her chemistry background influenced the questions she asked about products and ingredients

• The changes she made in personal care, cleaning products, cookware, food, and other parts of her home

• The health improvements she experienced during that period

• Her experience with unexplained infertility

• How she eventually became pregnant without fertility treatment

• Why her fertility experience deepened her interest in environmental and reproductive health

• What researchers mean by fetal origins and why pregnancy is considered an important developmental window

• How environmental exposures and epigenetics enter conversations about health across generations

• Why Nita believes preparing for pregnancy should consider the future child's health, not simply achieving conception

• The practical ways she now approaches food and family life

Nita's experience is one person's story. We cannot conclude that environmental exposures caused her earlier symptoms or infertility, that reducing those exposures enabled her to conceive, or that the same changes would produce similar results for someone else.

But her story raises a question I continue to find important:

What if reproductive health isn't separate from the rest of our health, but another window into the many influences shaping our biology?

Fertility is complex. Age, genetics, reproductive anatomy, underlying health conditions, sperm and egg factors, lifestyle, environmental exposures, and sometimes factors we still cannot identify may all play a role.

Practical Nontoxic Living™ gives us one part of that larger picture to work with: understanding the exposures we encounter repeatedly and deciding which ones we can reasonably reduce—before pregnancy, during pregnancy, and throughout family life.

Go deeper:

• Learn more from Nita Ewald and her work in women's health and fertility

• Explore the Practical Nontoxic Living™ framework

• Explore the D-Tox Academy, Phase Two of the Ultimate Home Detox™, for ongoing guidance applying Practical Nontoxic Living™ across the home and everyday life

• Read A to Z of D-Toxing: The Ultimate Guide to Reducing Our Toxic Exposures

• Learn the foundations of Practical Nontoxic Living™ with the free Ultimate Home Detox Kickstart email series

Nita's experience reflects her individual health and fertility journey and should not be interpreted as evidence that reducing environmental exposures can treat infertility or guarantee pregnancy.

What's actually different about an infrared sauna, and do the wavelengths matter?

I speak with Connie Zack, co-founder of Sunlighten, about how infrared saunas differ from traditional high-heat saunas, why her company combines near-, mid-, and far-infrared in different programs, and the claims that circulate about sauna use, from relaxation and circulation to "detoxification."

In this episode:

• How infrared and traditional high-heat saunas differ
• Near-, mid-, and far-infrared, and why a manufacturer would combine them
• Why "detoxification through sweat" deserves more nuance than it usually gets
• Why short-term water loss from sweating is not fat loss
• Materials, off-gassing, and EMFs as considerations when choosing a unit for the home

Most of the research on heat exposure examines traditional saunas rather than infrared, and the strength of it varies considerably with the outcome being claimed. [SOPHIA: needs a source before this publishes.] Evidence that heat can be beneficial doesn't establish that one wavelength, or a proprietary combination of them, produces a particular result.

So the question isn't "does infrared sauna work." It's which benefits have reasonable evidence behind them, what remains uncertain, what is specific to one product, and whether the experience adds enough to your life to be worth it.

Recorded August 2019, with Connie speaking from inside a Sunlighten sauna.

Go deeper: the free Ultimate Home Detox Kickstart series.

How can a life-threatening illness change the way we think about health, meaning, environment, and the quality of the time we have?

In this episode of Practical Nontoxic Living™, I speak with Ariana Ost Martz, founder of the design atelier Ariana Ost, about the experience of watching her mother live with advanced lung cancer—and the questions that experience opened for her about wellness, environment, mindset, ritual, and what it means to live fully.

Ariana shares how her mother became deeply engaged in researching health and lifestyle during the years after her diagnosis, and how that period influenced Ariana's own approach to daily living.

In this episode:

• Ariana's experience of her mother's lung-cancer diagnosis and the years that followed

• How serious illness can reshape priorities and the search for meaning

• Changes Ariana's family explored around cleaning products, indoor air, water, and food

• Why a plant-forward diet became part of their broader lifestyle approach

• Ariana's thoughts on stress, negativity, and emotional environment

• Why she became interested in EMFs and other environmental exposures

• The rituals she uses to create moments of calm, attention, and restoration

• Her interest in sound, vibration, crystals, and tuning forks

• A demonstration of how she uses a tuning fork in her own wellness practice

Some of the practices discussed here—particularly crystals, tuning forks, and other forms of "energy" or vibrational healing—are not established treatments for cancer or other diseases. And Ariana's mother's experience cannot tell us that any particular lifestyle change extended her life.

What I find meaningful in this conversation is something different:

When we can't control the outcome, what can we still shape about the way we live?

Our surroundings. Our rituals. What we eat. What we pay attention to. The people we spend time with. The meaning we make from an experience.

Not every one of those choices changes disease. But they may change the experience of living.

Go deeper:

• Read the full podcast show notes

• Explore the Practical Nontoxic Living™ framework

• Read A to Z of D-Toxing: The Ultimate Guide to Reducing Our Toxic Exposures

• Learn the foundations of Practical Nontoxic Living™ with the free Ultimate Home Detox Kickstart email series

What does "natural wine" actually mean—and how is it different from organic, biodynamic, or conventional wine?

In this episode of Practical Nontoxic Living™, I speak with Todd White, founder of Dry Farm Wines, about how wine is grown and made, what can be added during winemaking, and the criteria his company uses when selecting wines.

We explore the differences among conventional, organic, biodynamic, and so-called natural wines—and why labels alone don't always tell you everything you may want to know about how a wine was produced.

In this episode:

• What Todd means when he uses the term natural wine

• The differences among conventional, organic, biodynamic, and natural approaches to growing grapes and making wine

• Why "natural wine" does not have one universally defined certification

• What kinds of processing aids and additives may be used during winemaking

• Why Dry Farm Wines chose to establish its own sourcing and testing criteria

• What the company tests for and why lower alcohol, residual sugar, and sulfite levels matter to Todd

• How farming practices, fermentation, and winemaking methods can differ considerably among producers

• Todd's personal approach to food, fasting, fats, and lifestyle

• His three tips for Practical Nontoxic Living™

We also discuss experiences some people report when choosing wines made differently. Those personal experiences shouldn't be interpreted as evidence that "natural" wine provides health benefits.

Wine still contains alcohol.

So for me, the useful Practical Nontoxic Living™ question isn't "Which wine is healthy?"

It's: If I choose to drink wine, what do I want to know about how it was grown and made—and which characteristics matter enough to influence what I buy?

That distinction lets us be curious about ingredients, farming, processing, alcohol content, and transparency without turning an alcoholic beverage into a wellness product.

Go deeper:

• Read the full podcast show notes

• Learn more about Dry Farm Wines

• Explore the Practical Nontoxic Living™ framework

• Read A to Z of D-Toxing: The Ultimate Guide to Reducing Our Toxic Exposures

• Learn the foundations of Practical Nontoxic Living™ with the free Ultimate Home Detox Kickstart email series

Disclosure: I was not an affiliate partner of Dry Farm Wines when this conversation was recorded. I later became an affiliate partner for a period of time; this episode was recorded before that relationship began.

What should you actually look for when choosing a mattress—and which materials deserve more scrutiny?

In this episode of Practical Nontoxic Living™, I speak with Barry Cik, founder of Naturepedic and a board-certified environmental engineer, about the experience that led him into the mattress industry.

When Barry was preparing for the birth of his first grandchild, he began researching crib mattresses and became concerned about some of the materials commonly used in conventional bedding. He ultimately applied his environmental-engineering background to create Naturepedic, a company focused on certified organic mattresses and lower-exposure material choices.

Our conversation goes beyond mattresses, because many of the same materials and treatments can also appear in upholstered furniture and other products throughout the home.

In this episode:

• What prompted Barry to investigate crib mattresses

• How his background in environmental engineering shaped the questions he asked

• Common mattress components, including foams, fabrics, adhesives, waterproofing materials, and flame barriers

• Why the individual materials inside a mattress can matter more than broad marketing terms such as "green" or "eco-friendly"

• What "organic" can mean in the context of mattresses and textiles

• How third-party certifications can help—and what they do not necessarily guarantee

• Why mattresses are an especially interesting home-detox decision given how much time we spend sleeping on them

• How similar materials can also appear in sofas, chairs, carpets, nursing pillows, children's products, and other furnishings

• How to prioritize material choices when your budget doesn't allow for the most expensive option

• Why healthier-material decisions often involve tradeoffs among exposure, durability, comfort, sustainability, and cost

One of the most useful lessons from this conversation is that "sustainable," "organic," and "lower exposure" are related ideas, but they are not interchangeable.

A material can have environmental advantages without necessarily being the best choice for indoor air quality. And a product marketed as "natural" may still deserve a closer look at what is inside it.

That brings me back to a Practical Nontoxic Living™ question I use often:

What are the materials, what are the likely exposures, which certifications actually tell me something useful, and where is it worth spending more?

The goal isn't to find a perfectly "nontoxic" mattress.

It's to understand the parts well enough to make a wiser choice for your home, priorities, and budget.

Go deeper:

• Read the full podcast show notes and watch the video conversation

• Learn more about Naturepedic

• Explore the Practical Nontoxic Living™ framework

• Explore the Household Repeat Offenders™ framework

• Learn the foundations of Practical Nontoxic Living™ with the free Ultimate Home Detox Kickstart email series

"If you have lungs, you can get lung cancer."

That is the message Reina Honts wants more people to understand.

As Reina approached her 50th birthday in 2018, she had a persistent instinct that she should have her lungs checked. She had no symptoms and was a nonsmoker, so discovering a tumor in her lung was unexpected.

After surgery to remove a lobe of her lung, Reina was cancer-free at the time of this conversation. Her experience ultimately led her to become involved with the Lung Cancer Research Foundation, where she has worked to raise awareness that lung cancer can occur in people who do not fit the stereotype many of us still associate with the disease.

In this episode:

• How Reina's lung cancer was discovered despite having no symptoms

• What it was like to receive a lung-cancer diagnosis as a nonsmoker

• Her experience undergoing a lobectomy

• Why early-stage detection made such a difference in her own treatment experience

• How the diagnosis changed the way she thought about lung cancer

• Why the assumption that lung cancer is only a smoker's disease can be misleading

• What motivated her advocacy with the Lung Cancer Research Foundation

• Why she wants more people to recognize that anyone with lungs can develop lung cancer

Reina's story is extraordinary, but it's important not to turn one person's experience into a universal screening recommendation.

Lung-cancer screening guidelines are based on factors such as age and smoking history, and screening itself has benefits and potential harms. Someone concerned about personal risk should discuss that risk with a qualified healthcare professional rather than assuming that everyone needs imaging.

What stays with me from Reina's story is the larger lesson:

Our assumptions about who is "at risk" can sometimes keep us from asking important questions.

Her experience is a reminder to remain curious about our bodies, our histories, and the environmental and biological factors that may shape health—even when we don't fit the profile we expected.

Go deeper:

• Learn more from the Lung Cancer Research Foundation

• Follow Reina Honts on Instagram: @reinanyc

• Visit the original podcast show notes

• Explore the Practical Nontoxic Living™ framework

How do you reduce wireless exposure in a family without making technology the enemy?

In this episode of Practical Nontoxic Living™, I speak with Theodora Scarato, Executive Director of the Environmental Health Trust, about how she applies her concerns about radiofrequency and other electromagnetic-field exposures in everyday life—with her children, at home, at school, and in her community.

Theodora comes to this conversation from an advocacy perspective. Environmental Health Trust supports more precautionary policies around wireless technology, while the health effects of long-term, low-level radiofrequency exposure remain an area of scientific debate.

In this episode:

• The different kinds of electromagnetic fields we encounter from phones, Wi-Fi, 5G, laptops, cordless phones, gaming systems, and other devices

• How Theodora reduces unnecessary wireless exposure in her own household

• Practical ways families can use distance, placement, and device settings to lower exposure

• How she talks with children and teenagers about technology habits

• Questions parents can ask about wireless technology in schools

• Her perspective on wired versus wireless connections

• What to consider before buying products marketed as EMF protection

• Theodora's three highest-priority ways to reduce everyday exposure

One thing I appreciate about this conversation is that it brings an abstract debate into ordinary family life.

You don't have to decide that every wireless exposure is dangerous in order to recognize that some exposures are easy to reduce.

For me, that is where Practical Nontoxic Living™ becomes useful: rather than trying to eliminate technology, we can ask where distance, duration, and a few different habits might lower exposure without taking away the benefits technology brings.

Go deeper:

• Read the original podcast show notes

• Learn more from the Environmental Health Trust

• Explore Ruan Living's EMF Detox resources

• Explore the Practical Nontoxic Living™ framework

• Learn the foundations of Practical Nontoxic Living™ with the free Ultimate Home Detox Kickstart email series.

Podcast produced by Chris Robertson.

What do our beliefs about money reveal about worth, generosity, receiving, and the value we place on our work?

In this episode of Practical Nontoxic Living™, I speak again with Deborah Hanekamp, founder of Mama Medicine and author of Ritual Baths: Be Your Own Healer, about money through the spiritual framework she brings to her work.

Deborah often describes money as an energetic exchange. I think that idea becomes especially interesting when we treat it not as a scientific claim about money carrying measurable energy, but as a way of examining the meaning we attach to giving and receiving.

In this episode:

• What Deborah means by an "energetic exchange"

• Why receiving money can feel uncomfortable for people who strongly identify as helpers

• The relationship between price, perceived value, generosity, and worth

• Whether charging less is always the most helpful or ethical choice

• Why caregivers, healers, healthcare professionals, nonprofit leaders, and wellness practitioners may struggle with earning more

• How beliefs about money can influence the sustainability of work we care deeply about

• The difference between generosity and undervaluing ourselves

• How parents might think about giving children opportunities to earn things

• What our reactions to money can reveal about our expectations of ourselves and others

The idea that money possesses a literal healing or spiritual energy is Deborah's belief and interpretive framework, not an established scientific phenomenon.

But underneath that language is a question I find much broader:

What have we learned to believe about money—and how do those beliefs shape what we allow ourselves to give, receive, charge, earn, or ask for?

Someone devoted to helping others may believe that wanting to earn well somehow compromises the sincerity of the work.

Someone else may equate a higher price with greater value.

Neither assumption is automatically true.

What interests me is noticing the belief before allowing it to make the decision for us.

That feels increasingly connected to the questions I'm exploring now about the forces that shape us. Some are outside us—culture, institutions, markets, expectations. Others become so internalized that we stop recognizing them as beliefs at all.

Money can be an unusually revealing place to look.

Go deeper:

• Read the original podcast show notes

• Explore the Practical Nontoxic Living™ framework

• Explore the D-Tox Academy, Phase Two of the Ultimate Home Detox™, for ongoing guidance applying Practical Nontoxic Living™ across your home and everyday life

The spiritual concepts discussed in this conversation reflect Deborah Hanekamp's personal beliefs and practices and should not be understood as scientifically established properties of money or energy.

Special thanks to Chris Robertson, Practical Nontoxic Living podcast producer.

Kelsey Patel is one of Hollywood's leading wellness and reiki experts. She is not only a sought after spiritual empowerment coach, yoga teacher, reiki healer, and meditation teacher, but also a multi-faceted entrepreneur and inspirational speaker. She is the creator and founder of Magik Vibes, a soul-enhancing lifestyle brand, that was named one of the top 7 subscription boxes of 2017. In 2018, she became co-host of the celebrity-endorsed podcast series, Break Up with Your Bullshit and in 2019 she launched her very own wellness meets spirituality podcast, called Magik Vibes.

Kelsey's newly published book Burning Bright: Rituals, Reiki, and Self-Care to Heal Burnout, Anxiety, and Stress is especially apropos--during our time of great uncertainty.

We talk about our unique "imprints," which Kelsey describes as "a belief system or a deeply embedded memory that has altered how you see yourself, someone else, or the world." Listen to how this can cause unnecessary suffering in your life. Other topics covered:

• Different perspectives that can release suffering
• What Kelsey's debilitating back pain taught her and changed how she responds to her physical symptoms
• How we can change our relationship with fear and uncertainty
• How to see the many choices we have to change our life experience
• Reiki 101
• Think of your energy hygiene as important as your physical, mental, or emotional hygiene
• How to start a simple energy hygiene with a handwashing ritual

Follow Kelsey Patel:

• KelseyPatel.com
• @kelseyjpatel on Instagram and Facebook
• Magik Vibes podcast

Follow Sophia Ruan Gushee:

• NontoxicLiving.tips
• Text "DETOX" to 66866
• @ruanliving on Instagram or Facebook