836: Hidden Toxins That Are Quickly Destroying Our Health With Non-Toxic Dad

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Hidden Toxins That Are Quickly Destroying Our Health with Non-Toxic Dad
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836: Hidden Toxins That Are Quickly Destroying Our Health With Non-Toxic Dad
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Warren Phillips, known as Non-Toxic Dad online, has been a friend of mine for many years and I’m excited that we finally get to record a podcast episode together. Warren has created an evolutionary movement to transform lives through non-toxic health practices. After battling a whole host of health issues, including fibromyalgia, anxiety, weight gain, and insomnia, his journey led him to alternative methods of healing. I love that he takes such a positive mindset approach to a toxin-free lifestyle. His background in chemistry means he really gets the science behind it, but he explains it in such an easy-to-understand way and without judgment.

Today, we go deep into the hidden toxins in our homes and clothes, and he gives us ideas we can easily implement. He shares his journey through heavy metal detoxification, the importance of water filtration, and other tips for you to implement in your home and with your family.

I learned so much from Warren, and I hope you do too!

Episode Highlights With Warren

  • The big offenders when it comes to toxins that affect our families
  • How shoes can be detrimental to your health and how to choose good ones
  • There can be dyes in shoes that make them brightly colored and forever chemicals to make the plastic soft 
  • Low-level exposures that you might not be aware of for your kids
  • Some simple switches that can reduce exposure
  • What to know about water and filtration
  • Things that can help remove toxins that have build up in the  body
  • What zeolite is and how to use it to help your family
  • Carbons do not bind heavy metals, but what they are helpful for
  • How to bind VOCs in the body or the home
  • Fulvic and Humic acids aren’t great binders but are helpful in other ways

Resources We Mention

More From Wellness Mama

Read Transcript

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This podcast is brought to you by Our Place. And I absolutely love this company. And I feel like they are a tremendous resource for moms because we are hearing a lot right now about Forever Chemicals or PFAS. And how, as the name suggests, these chemicals can stay in the body for a really long time. And how they’re present in a lot of places we might not expect from our clothing to our kitchenware and so much more. And for years, once I started understanding Forever Chemicals that are present in things like most nonstick coatings, I avoided them entirely and had intense frustration with my cookware because every single time, everything was getting stuck and dishes got really, really difficult, which is why I was so excited to find Our Place.

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Katie: Hello, and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com. And this episode is with a friend I have known for many years, and finally I’m getting to record with, which is Warren Phillips. And we’re going deep on hidden toxins in our home, in our clothes, he’s had some surprising ones that are destroying our health and what to do about them. And as I said, I’ve known Warren for a long time, but he is the visionary force behind the account Non-Toxic Dad, which I’ll link to in the show notes, which is a revolutionary movement aimed at transforming lives through non-toxic health practices. He’s had his own battles with fibromyalgia, anxiety, weight gain, insomnia, and a host of health problems. And his journey led him to alternative methods like heavy metal detoxification, which we touch on, dietary changes, cellular support, and this fueled his profound restoration. He now guides himself with a mindful attention to the five primary methods of toxin exposure, which we touched on today, and takes a positive mindset approach to a toxin-free lifestyle. It’s always a joy to chat with Warren, so let’s join him now. Warren, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

Warren: It’s wonderful. Katie, we’ve been friends for a long time and I’ve never been on your podcast.

Katie: I know, and so long overdue.

Warren: Excited to be here.

Katie: It’s always so fun to get to chat with you. And I love that we get to record this one, especially because you have been amassing quite the following the last couple of years for a new project that you have, which I love the focus of, Non-Toxic Dad. And we’re going to get to do actually two episodes together. And this first one, I really wanted to focus on hidden toxins that have a really big impact on our health. And especially for all the moms listening, our listeners are mostly moms today to kind of go through what are the biggest offenders and then get to some practical ways that we can keep our families safer. So I know this is a massive topic that we could probably spend 12 hours talking about and not get through everything, but to jump in broad, can you kind of walk us through what are some of the big offenders, especially any that we may not really think of or be aware of?

Warren: Yeah, well, one of the ones that I came up with, here’s a crazy one, right? I mean. One of the most crazy ones is we never think about a shoes. So I just did a deep dive, probably four or five hours on shoes, really looking at, you know, the environmental sustainability, of course, but also on the health impact, because this is something that kids put on every day, right? So they’re always putting these shoes on. And so inside of those dyes to make them bright, a lot of times there’s heavy metals, right? There’s obviously synthetic chemicals, microplastics, phthalates to make the rubber, you know, more supple, a lot of additives. And it’s just a, it’s a soup of chemicals. And we’re putting that on our kids’ shoes, on feet. And a lot of times they don’t have socks, but then you’re wearing polyester socks, which is full of, potentially full of BPA. And it just, again, 100% pure chemical on the kid’s foot, a highly absorbable area in your body. And you’re putting these chemicals inside of your children.

So when you look at anything, that you put on your kid daily, and now we can’t deal with everything. So my daughter is still wearing a little bit of polyester spandex when she wears her tennis skirt, right? She has organic underwear on, but she’s wearing that. Is that still an exposure, for sure? But, you know, what’s the exposure for her little heart wanting to look cool on the tennis court, right? So we incrementally get them there. We don’t shock her and say, you will not, you know. That’s what Non-Toxic Dad wants to say. But the loving father says, okay, here’s some other options. What do you think of this skirt? And try to find some GOTS certified fabric or eco, is it ecotex? I can’t think of the other one right, certified fabric, which I think that because of moms, and this is my favorite audience, it’s the biggest following that I have is like 75% moms on the Non-Toxic Dad channel.

Moms love using me as leverage to their husbands because moms are definitely more aware. They see the kids, they see the behavioral changes, they see the problems, and they look for causes and they don’t want to medicate their children. They want to find the root cause of some of these hormone disruption, the eczema, the things that happen from toxic contact, which is skin absorption, you know, when you’re dealing with clothing and shoes and kids’ makeups and lipsticks and nail polishes. Like, these are things that are fun for kids, but they’re also highly toxic to the child because they’re full of multiple toxic chemicals. And so we need to start just switching those things out over time.

I know I went through a lot, but some great options for kids’ shoes, Allbirds, right? In my, I can’t believe it’s all wool, pretty much environmental friendly, pretty low tox, and pretty reasonable, right? Then you can upgrade to the wide-foot Vivos and there’s some, they make some more non-toxic versions. Some still have toxic rubber by Michelin and things like that, but they’re still more functional and cool. And then there’s some other brands that are more fashionable, like oh, this is where I jump into the moms. I don’t know brands very well because I don’t, I just look for non-brands. I look for what’s not toxic. But there’s some other like cooler brands. And I have a whole list of those. We can actually provide those in the show notes.

So shoes, clothing, you know, move to organic. Polyester clothing, super bad. It’s likely going to contain, especially the spandex, the active wear with our children. There’s going to be BPA inside of that. There’s going to potentially be flame retardants inside of that. Because flame retardants, obviously, they’re not just for doing the slow burn. There’s some other benefits, chemical benefits to the fabric, potentially holding the colors in longer. And then the dyes are all synthetic. And so these are things that are on our kids every day. So we just need to start swapping those out, getting to more organic fibers, which is awesome. Hemp, organic cotton, wool. These things are, there’s brands blowing up all over the internet now. And if you just start talking to your Instagram, they’re going to show up. And you’re going to be able to look at these brands with the shoes. If you’re listening to this on your phone right now, you’re going to start seeing ads for shoes. You’re going to start seeing ads for organic, natural wool shirts. I’ll just plant these keywords so that you can start switching your kids over to this stuff. Because this is what’s on them every day. There’s an epidemic of cancer with everything that we have. All the cancer research, cancer is going through the roof. Chemicals are all through our children. They’re all through our moms. We need to start limiting these causes and look at the things that are exposing our kids daily.

What do you use daily? Oh, I use a cutting board. It’s made of plastic. Get a solid wood cutting board. So you don’t have to do everything, but do the big things. You know, you have toilet paper. That’s full of, can potentially as byproducts of dioxins. And your kids are sensitive. They’re little buckets. We’re big buckets. We’ve been filling up longer so we can still have disease and dysfunction. But they’re little buckets and we get to protect their little buckets as best as we can. No fear. Right. No judgment. You know, I can name a lot of things. You’re like, oh, Warren, I’m going, I’m overwhelmed. No, you’re not. You don’t have to do anything. You’re a great mom just as you are. Right. But it’s fun to play the games and start transitioning your family over one thing at a time, using psychology and not forcing it and saying, hey, look at these cool shoes. So and so wears them. You know, maybe you could, too. You know, I sound like Maverick from Top Gun. You know, if the government trusts me, maybe you can too. But I’ll let you jump in here, Katie, because this is a hot topic for you, too.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. And I love what you said. And we’re going to get to do a whole episode just on this, but about how to impart this to our kids and not from just a strictly fear driven-approach, but from a recognition of their capacity to understand and their autonomy and making healthy choices and how often I find with mine, they can surpass my expectations in when they’re making their own choices beyond what I would even expect of them.

But I love the ones you jumped in with because, I don’t think most people would think of shoes. I think I’m an outlier in that I have the opposite problem and my kids almost never wear shoes. So as long as I make sure our grass is chemical free, they’re pretty much barefoot all the time. But I have kids who are athletes. And like you said, but that’s kind of our 80, 20 of exposure as well as like at home, they’re wearing natural fibers and we’re aware of these things. And when they’re jumping over a pole vault bar and they need to clear it and not have baggy clothes. My daughter’s still wearing Nike pro shorts for that time when she’s doing that. And that’s okay. I think it’s like balancing that mindset.

But I love that you talked about skin exposure and fibers, especially. Because I think this is just starting to come to the mainstream awareness and it hasn’t been talked about that much yet. And I would say skin is arguably our biggest organ. Other people would say muscle might be our largest organ system, but skin is a large organ system, whether it’s the largest or not. And I’ve been trying to bring awareness to this for years as well as like things that go on our skin, a lot of that can pass into our bloodstream. So it’s something important to be aware of.

And I know for anyone who is new to that, it can seem overwhelming. The idea of, I need to get entirely new clothing for everyone in my family. So one thing I did as a baby step when I was making that switch was to focus on sleepwear first, making sure that sheets were a natural material and that pajamas were a natural material, because for kids, that’s a third to potentially more of their exposure for the day and they’re sleeping. So if you can find them comfy pajamas that are natural fiber, you’ve already made a big dent in how much time those things are on their skin. And you can re-wear pajamas or have a couple of pairs that get washed alternatively. So you don’t have to buy as much to start with. But I love that you are bringing awareness to the fibers.

Also little switches like the cutting board thing. I know you’ve talked about this, but how if with a plastic cutting board, what’s the stat? You can consume a certain number of credit cards worth of plastic per year when you’re using plastic cutting boards?

Warren: Oh, the number keeps going up. It’s like the number is pretty shocking. It might be two to three credit cards worth of microplastic a month now. So I mean, polyester clothing contributes to that. It’s washing, it’s getting into our waterways. Microplastics are everywhere now, unfortunately. And polyester is plastic. You’re wearing plastic. And it’s PET. It’s poly something terephthalate. And I wish I could memorize all these chemicals. I have my chemistry background, but I think I blocked that in my head because I don’t want to be rambling off chemical names all the time. But it is plastic, PET plastic. And some studies, I just looked this up, actually, because I’m doing a video. I’m going to go to a store and just look at all the polyester clothing. It’s half as expensive, and they’re charging twice as much. It’s the environmental impact, the impact on your health. And there are so many chemicals in there that they don’t even tell you about because it’s the cheaper it’s manufactured. Most of it’s manufactured in China. So there’s going to be hidden heavy metals in there. There’s going to be all kinds of stuff that are unknowns. And that’s why you want to go with these small, sustainable companies that you know what’s in there. They’re popping up everywhere because there is a consciousness driven by moms and their hearts, and they feel, and there’s that energy that’s out there that you don’t see, touch, or feel. But this collective consciousness, especially driven by women and soft-hearted guys like me, and yes, guys, you can be soft-hearted. Yes, that’s okay. Yes, your dad told you not to be that way. If you’re my age, punch people in the face. But no, that heart is powerful also in men. And we’re connecting to this.

And a lot of companies, women-based, a lot of these are women-based startup companies. So you’re supporting the leadership of women, which is super important right now. We need more women leadership. We need women to step into the roles as leaders more, and you’re supporting that. And what we’re finding is that you can get a reasonable price product. And just this is so much fun because you can declutter all the things. You can just start having five pairs of socks, right? Instead of a thousand pairs of socks made out of junk polyester and have five nice pairs. And then everything starts to become less stressed. So this switch to natural things, natural fibers, natural shoes, all this excess, all this stuff on sale, all these one-off websites and rubber shoes. I mean, there’s like 46 potentially harmful chemicals showing up in those rubber shoes and four or five of them are carcinogenic. And so just don’t do that to your kids, right? Now, you know, just simplify everything.

So this isn’t to make your life more complicated. It’s like, okay, we’ve gotten rid of all your 70 pairs of socks that we can’t find. We’re going to really care about these five pairs of socks, honey. And you can fold them up because you can manage five pairs versus 70 pairs and mixing and matching them. So it actually simplifies your life. You have four pairs of pajamas, right? Instead of 10 and all these hand-me-downs, right? You have a limited amount of outfits and just get the ones that you love and just wear them over and over again, mix and match. And it creates a simplification in your life.

And you can be bougie crunchy. Meaning there’s some really high-end brands that you can get some really nice outfits, mom, and protect yourself as well of natural fibers, and that’s going to help your hormone health. And when you help your hormone health and take care of you first, you’re going to be more calm. You’re going to be more intentional and kind to your children because it’s overwhelming. And I noticed that as I and my wife and I get more hormonally balanced, more in line with our hearts, you know, doing breathwork, doing the things that we know that can expel that toxic energy, like grounding, like breathwork. We’re more kind and connected to our children. We’re more kind and connected to the earth. And then these things become top of mind and it becomes a consciousness. It becomes part of who we are in our DNA versus the something we have to do. It’s something that we’re honored and we get to do.

Katie: Yeah, I love that switch. And another tip I found is I love shopping secondhand. Thankfully, all my kids have really jumped on this as well. But I found an online place. I can put a link in the show notes that lets you sort by brand. So if you know a brand that’s clean, you can look for anything secondhand by that brand or by fabric type. So you can search for cotton, linen, wool, and avoid the synthetic fabrics. And they’re often much cheaper. And I’ll do that and then search by sale pricing. So when I need to buy all the next sizes of clothes when the kids inevitably grow, that’s a resource that’s been helpful for me.

And I love also what you said. I know this could be its own whole episode, but about it being okay for guys to be soft. I think we’re starting to see this amazing complementarity, I hope, happening where women are feeling more safe leaning into their fierceness while keeping their femininity. And men are feeling more comfortable accessing their heart and their softness while keeping their masculinity. And I think the more we can all go on that journey, the more balance we’re going to see kind of across the board. So I love that you touched on that.

I also, when it comes to this topic, tend to try to think of it in sort of like a triage way of what is our maximal exposure coming from and how do we start with those high-impact areas and reduce. And so I say like sort of from a triage perspective, everyone in health wants to focus on the food and the supplements, and not that those aren’t important, but we eat less than we are drinking water, and we even drink water less than we are breathing air. So I think if we can think in that order of how do I make sure the air quality in my home is good, which is often more about removing the harmful stuff and the chemicals that are hiding under the sink or the harmful personal care products, more so even than air filters, I think those can be great as well. But I think you have to start with the removing the bad. And then if you need to supplement with the good there, and then water becomes a whole topic as well, because hopefully we’re drinking water every day, and hopefully we’re getting it from a good source. But I know this is a whole nother topic that’s starting to explode. Can you walk us through what we need to know about water and how to make sure that the water we’re drinking is helpful for our body and not harmful?

Warren: Yeah, water is a big deal. I mean, this is my one of my specialties because this is I was a chemist, low temperature aqueous geo chemist and geology and hydrogeologist. And this is what I did professionally. And it’s how I kind of got sick cleaning up the environment, cleaning up waterways that were getting exposed to heavy metals. And this is where my master’s was at. So, this is a huge topic. And to simplify all of this down, if you’re in a city, you have to filter your water. There’s just way too much exposure there from the forever chemicals, which EPA are now setting standards for. You know, they’re, like up in Park City just from the wax to make it slippy, I’m identifying myself from Pittsburgh. But to make it, I can’t say anything else. It has to be slippy. Slippy is all I know. I don’t know any other word, to glide, you know. You know, there’s all those forever chemicals that polluted the Park City aquifer, right? If you’re in the city, you’re drinking your neighbor’s blood pressure medications. You’re, you know, the daughter that’s on XYZ medication for her acne or PMS. And so all of this, the water system is just not set up to filter this stuff.

So if you’re in the city, it’s a must to filter your water. Now, you might not be able to do a whole house water filtration system, which is great. Save up for that. You can get one, you know, the three to 4K these days that lasts pretty long. It’s not going to take everything out, but you can take out the fluoride, some of the chloride and some of the heavy metals at least. But you can buy shower filters to knock down some of the stuff. But most importantly is going to be what you drink. And at a minimum, the best, probably if we’re going from best to most convenient, if you would do a get a distilled system. And the reason I’ve moved to distilled is because RO membranes have some plastics and there’s some just cutting-edge research showing that, of course, some of those nanoplastics are going to come across, right? It’s going to take out some of the bigger microplastics, but now as technology has gotten better, now we have these nanoplastics. So it’s not perfect. That’s what I’m still using, but I’m researching. I have one distiller over here and I’m going to, I’m looking for others.

Now you’re going to definitely want to put back in really clean sea salts. Because your distilled is even less, it’s more demineralized than even RO water, but reverse osmosis under the sink, really easy, really convenient. And at least, you know, you’re taking out almost, you know, 90 some percent of all the pharmaceuticals, if not more, heavy metals, chlorine, fluoride, all the petroleum, you know, based chemicals that are showing up in there. So you’re doing your family a great job and it’s inexpensive. It’s actually going to save you money than buying filtered water. So you can cook with that.

And then if you really want to be super cool, there’s some water services if you live in the city where you can see the testing on their water but get actual spring water. So spring water in a glass container and then have a lead-free, make sure it’s lead-free ceramic craft with a stainless steel nozzle on it. I did that for a while, but they stopped the water service. Or you can look up online. Maybe we can find one of the websites that do this to find the local springs near you that are being tested. Because spring water is just going to be the best because it’s going to have trace minerals and all that stuff in there. You’re not going to have to add it back in. So that’s what I love to drink. I have like three bottles left, unfortunately, and they stopped that service here in my local area.

Katie: Yeah, the minerals piece is huge. I’ve been going down the rabbit hole of researching that the past couple of years and just realizing we are at a point where we need to do things like filter and avoid certain things. And that means we have a bigger demand to put these things back in because we know our food supply doesn’t have the same levels of minerals it used to, our water, if it’s filtered, doesn’t have the minerals that it would if it was from a spring or a natural source. And I’ve noticed a difference for sure in my energy levels when I really optimized actually my salt intake and my minerals. I feel like we did ourselves a disservice when we got all that advice for decades to avoid salt. And I know it’s been often quoted, but we sort of like blamed salt for what sugar did and processed foods did. And I’m glad that that’s now being talked about much more as well.

Warren: It’s great for your kids’ headaches. Like get the salt in them.

Katie: Yeah, which can be an uphill battle with kids if they’re not used to the taste. But the salt and minerals is a big thing. And I live in a very hot climate. And they say, like, if you live in a hot climate or if you sauna often or if you exercise often, which our family checks all those boxes often, that you can lose more minerals in four to five years than a sedentary person in a cooler climate would in their entire lifetime. So it’s something I feel like important to be aware of and thankfully pretty low cost because a lot of minerals you can get without them being exorbitantly expensive.

I think the other side of this conversation is also many of us, I know I was in this boat, have been exposed to a lot of these things our entire lives before we even learned that it was possible to avoid them or that we might want to avoid them. So what can we do or are there solutions for if we’ve already had exposures to these? Obviously, we’re going to try to make better choices and get them out of our lives now. But is there anything we can do to help our bodies remove any of those things that have built up over time?

Warren: Yeah, I mean, drinking clean water is going to detoxify you. If I have my top things that I do, I love sauna. I just do. I think it’s really great. Be careful. You do elevate your mercury levels a little bit when you’re in there. So just it’s better to go slow. So you’re not recirculating toxins in your body. Just detox as much as you can that’s reasonable for your body. So start really slow, 15 minutes. I just got a new sauna from Sunlighten, who I know that you partner with and love them. They’re a really good, sound company. They actually sell a lot of the infrared technology to other companies. They’ve been around a long time. You know, I’m not partnered with them in any way, but I just got one and I love it. But I went in for like an hour and a half the first time and I have another one and it crushed me. So I had to do a heavy metal detox right after that because I think I circulated too many heavy metals. So I do love sauna.

I do love clean zeolites. And I would say 95% of them are dirty. And so I think they’re great for heavy metals. There is research that can bind biotoxins and some other toxins and glyphosate. But for the most part, the science that I’m reading, and I’ve been doing this for a long time, for like 15 years, in the chemistry of a zeolite is wonderful for heavy metals and lead. Unfortunately, that’s why a lot of them are contaminated. I have a patented cleaning process on ours. You could put ours next to any zeolite out there and we’re going to have the closest would be 10 times is as clean as ours because we’ve measured a lot. And then a hundred times is typically the case. They’re a hundred times more toxic, full of heavy metals, which, it decreases their ability to suck up heavy metals if they have heavy metals on them. Anyway, that’s CytoDetox. We can put a link in the show notes for that. A couple patents, a long time coming, especially with Non-Toxic Dad.

I think heavy metals is one of the biggest toxins out there that are making people sick, especially lead in children. Their guts absorb something like 50 times the amount of lead. There’s no safe level of lead. So zeolites are amazing at lead, right? And then we have the Uranium radioactive material contamination out there. It’s great at that. So it is one, it’s not a fix-all like some would say, take this and it’ll bind every toxic chemical in the world. Just don’t listen to that crap. It doesn’t work that way. It’s not meant to be that way. There’s not one substance. People are saying that carbons bind heavy metals. Carbons do not bind heavy metals. They bind organic toxins, right? They bind fats. That’s what the research says. But you, on Instagram, you’ll, these things will pop up and there’s this, you know, they think there’s a catch-all for that.

I love carbon. I’ve been using carbon for over 18 years. I was the guy that found that biotoxins could be bound with carbon. I read a study out of Italy, bound lower cholesterol, binding the biocomplex. That’s what colostyramine did. If you knew Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker’s work with biotoxic illness, I know you talked about mold on here. We came up with a carbon that we found that was in a study. That study showed it binding the bowel and lower cholesterol. We ran testing. It lowered the complement immune system for C4A. I know all that stuff’s over the hill, complicated, but at the end of the day, it does remove these biotoxins. Carbon, what do you use carbon for? To suck up volatile organic compounds in your home. Formaldehyde, off-gassing from a couch. I saved up for this couch. Very expensive couch. Took me five years, had a hand-me-down, and probably until six years ago, I bought my first couch, and I’ve been married for 15.

So, there is sacrifice, just want to throw that out there. But formaldehyde and different volatile organic compounds will come off this couch. And you use what? Carbon to bind up a volatile organic compound, right? Carbons are in some of the air filters that you can use. I know that I think you recommend AirDoctor is one of the ones. You probably have others. But they have a little carbon filter in there. It’s not great, but it does bind some of the volatile organic compounds in your home. But it binds organic things.

So I’m saying this so that you don’t get fooled when it comes to binding. Now, binding binders are great. I take mine every night. I have a product called True Carbon Cleanse. It has my patented zeolite in it. It has carbon in it. It has a baobab fruit known to bind some of that same bile and indirectly binding heavy metals indirectly because if you bind that toxic bile complex, it’s kind of like a catcher’s mitt when your liver dumps at night. There’s a catcher’s mitt there. It will grab some of those toxins and stop them from being reabsorbed into the body. So it’s like a catcher’s mitt. That’s why they call them binders. So I like binders. Folic and humic acids, not the best binders. They bind a little bit, right? So those are some of the things I don’t want to get.

There’s a whole episode on that binders and toxins. It’s I get a little fiery about it because it’s, you know, I got sick cleaning up hazardous waste for a living and to see people, good moms buying products, thinking that they’re safe and autistic community in the heavy metal space. And then I’m, I test these products. I don’t name them. I’m going after the good, like you said, I don’t want to be that guy. I’m just saying what everything’s wrong in the world. I’m going to focus on what’s right with the world. And that’s my, that’s my heart. So I want to tell you, but I can’t because it’s just not part of who I am. Maybe someday.

Katie: Well, I appreciate that mindset and your ethos around that. And one thing I learned recently is a side tip is often in the sauna, yes, we don’t want to overload our detox pathways. And I love that you gave some time parameters. And also in the US, we’re not super great at ventilation of saunas. And so often if you’re getting super fatigued in the sauna, it might actually be the buildup of CO2 in the sauna as much as it is the heat, especially if you have a lot of people in there. And I have a pretty big sauna. And so one thing I’ve started doing is taking breaks and like kind of moving the door and circulating the air and getting oxygen back in there, as well as adding extra ventilation. And that seems to help. But just a thought there as well. But I think also don’t overload your detox pathways is great advice.

Warren: Well the CO2 thing, great, great thing, like in your home for your kids, open windows. I know you’re in Florida, but you need that or get an HRV into your home and circulate fresh air in. That’s a heating ventilator return, HRV, H return ventilator, HRV, heating return ventilator. And there’s different ones. There’s ERV and HRV, depending if you’re in a humid environment or not. But that will, I’ve measured CO2 levels in homes. I started a little school during the vid times because I just focused on the solution. Let’s just start a school, so we did. We had 12 children our CO2 levels will go through the roof. Kids are fatigued. They’re not paying attention. Get fresh air in. Such a big, it’s going to knock down your vault organic compounds in your home by 10 to 100 times. These are easy hacks you can do. If you can crack your window at night, your kids are going to sleep deeper. Keep your temperature cool in your rooms. Things like that are really great, too. And they’re inexpensive. It’s inexpensive to open a window.

Katie: Exactly. And we’re going to get to do a whole other follow-up episode related to mindset and raising kids this way. And I want to go deeper on some of those topics. So you guys stay tuned for that one. That’ll be our next episode that airs. But the last question for this episode is you have kind of had this meteoric rise in your following with Non-Toxic Dad, which I love because I love having a dad’s voice entering this conversation and driving from this positive change mentality. So I’m so curious what’s next for you. What can we expect to see from Non-Toxic Dad in the future?

Warren: Well, I’m on a mission with you, Katie. Like you’ve been doing this longer than I have. I’ve been doing it behind the scenes. So I have been doing this, empowering other influencers that are out there today, you know, just helping them and coaching practitioners. So I feel like I’ve been on this journey, but I just newly launched Non-Toxic Dad like a year and a half ago. And it’s been really humbling to see and eye-opening to see the impact you can have with this information. So now I’m kind of hungry. I’m like, wow, we can create change. There is opportunity. Like that shift has happened in my mind. And like, how far can we take this thing?

So I have a lot of different projects. One of them, your toothpaste brand has joined. It’s called the Non-Toxic Project. All my products that I have and now yours and other brands, I’m certifying them as non-toxic for heavy metals. And I run a suite of heavy metals, third-party tested, ISO certified. More heavy metals than what’s required by the FDA. Way more stricter standards than the FDA. The FDA, it’s very loose on this stuff. In the toothpaste world as well, very loose. Cosmetic world, forget about it. That’s, katy bar the door. You can put whatever you want in that. European countries, 2,400 chemicals banned. U.S., I think like it’s 11, maybe 7.

And they just, just redid the Cosmetics Act, right? Haven’t changed it since 1938. And in that change that started in 2022, just implemented in 2023, guess how many chemicals they took out of cosmetics? In that act, big fat zero. Every chemical, formaldehyde, heavy metals left. It’s okay. As long as you’re below that safe level, just slap it on your skin, which goes back to what you originally said. That’s your biggest organ. You’re eating that stuff. So whatever you put on your body, your kids, you’re eating it. One of my most viral videos.

So what’s next for Warren? That’s what’s next for Non-Toxic Dad. I’m releasing a book. That’s what’s next. I launched a Homesick Home series with Dr. Pedram Shojai, which I’m a little bit of a part of that as well. So that’s really big and huge. Oh man, I’m speaking at events, when it’s of impact, and I’m doing podcasts. So now I’m ready to do those things. I’ve kind of pushed other projects off, and I really want to bring this message out there and educate moms mainly. So mom pop podcast. Not that, you know. Any big podcast will do. Any podcast will do, actually. Let’s do it.

Katie: Awesome. Well, I will put links to all of that in the show notes. And like I said, we’re going to get to do another episode as well. So you guys tune in for that one. But for this episode, Warren, thank you so much for your time. It’s always such a pleasure. And I have taken so many notes that will be in the show notes from this episode.

Warren: Thanks, Katie. I appreciate you.

Katie: And thank you for listening. And I hope you will join me and Warren again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Thanks to Our Sponsors

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This podcast is brought to you by Our Place. And I absolutely love this company. And I feel like they are a tremendous resource for moms because we are hearing a lot right now about Forever Chemicals or PFAS. And how, as the name suggests, these chemicals can stay in the body for a really long time. And how they’re present in a lot of places we might not expect from our clothing to our kitchenware and so much more. And for years, once I started understanding Forever Chemicals that are present in things like most nonstick coatings, I avoided them entirely and had intense frustration with my cookware because every single time, everything was getting stuck and dishes got really, really difficult, which is why I was so excited to find Our Place.

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Katie Wells Avatar

About Katie Wells

Katie Wells, CTNC, MCHC, Founder of Wellness Mama and Co-founder of Wellnesse, has a background in research, journalism, and nutrition. As a mom of six, she turned to research and took health into her own hands to find answers to her health problems. WellnessMama.com is the culmination of her thousands of hours of research and all posts are medically reviewed and verified by the Wellness Mama research team. Katie is also the author of the bestselling books The Wellness Mama Cookbook and The Wellness Mama 5-Step Lifestyle Detox.

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