Is the Nontoxic Lifestyle Really Making Us Healthier?

On clean living, the illusion of control, and finding peace in an imperfect world.

What started as an investigation into the claims surrounding organic mattresses ultimately led me down a more interesting road: questioning the broader premise behind the “nontoxic” lifestyle.

Let me preface this by saying that, as a cancer survivor, I've been a supporter of clean living since long before it was trendy. Back in the early aughts, I would seek out green skincare and beauty products from small indie brands on the internet or hippy-dippy health food stores.

Looking back, I think I wanted a simple explanation for why I had gotten sick, and an equally simple plan for how to avoid it happening again.

But as time has gone by, I've come to realize that health isn't so binary. Our well-being is a complex interplay of our biology, environment, behaviors, and countless other factors, many of which we have little control over.

Of course, what we put into our bodies and expose ourselves to matters. But where things get tricky is when we become hypervigilant about every single exposure, particularly when toxicity itself is largely a matter of degree. Even everyday things like salt and water can be harmful in sufficient quantities.

So why is there such an enormous push to introduce “nontoxic” and organic alternatives into every corner of our lives? And how much of a difference do these products actually make, especially when simply living in a big city means encountering environmental exposures we can't entirely avoid?

Something my mind keeps circling back to is whether the greatest benefit of certain wellness purchases might be psychological rather than physical. Perhaps some of these products have only a marginal effect on our health, but offer something else entirely: a sense of agency in a world that often feels frighteningly beyond our control.

Is that simply clever marketing? A coping mechanism? Or perhaps a perfectly human response to uncertainty?

I suspect it's a little of everything.

I don't think buying an organic mattress or shopping at Erewhon will make or break our health. Nor do I think every “clean” alternative is without merit. What matters is learning to distinguish meaningful choices from the promise that we can somehow purchase our way to perfect health.

Ultimately, I think each of us has to find a way of living, and consuming, that aligns with our values without becoming consumed by them.

Maybe the healthiest lifestyle isn't the one that eliminates every possible toxin, but the one that leaves us feeling free enough to actually enjoy our lives.