Brands I Trust For Healthy Living

When I learn about a thing, I like to go deep. Friends often ask me for recommendations, confident “I have a spreadsheet for that.” Over the years, my research has taken me from engineering topics to mindfulness, and now the two are merging in health.

My coaching practice was born of these lists — the prior name, Mindful Optimizations, was a place to house notes turned Google Docs turned blog posts I used to send out on topics from “how to get a job” to “how to get a raise.” In this phase of life, it feels relevant to share this ever evolving collection of brands I trust as I navigate all the health things. I now read all the fine print, request manufacturer COAs, read the studies, etc. and hope this information may be helpful for you 🙏🏻.

Food

All these are organic; gluten free (I don’t believe there’s anything inherently wrong with gluten…it’s more that we’ve over eaten/farmed it leading to challenges for many); care about the planet; test for the standard yeast, mold, salmonella, etc.; and are Prop 65 compliant (extremely low levels of heavy metals) — pro tip: for the brands below, setup a CA shipping address on Amazon, select it, and look at items in the checkout page to see what’s compliant…be careful with other brands since many, even seemingly trustworthy ones like Bob's Red Mill, don't follow the law.

• Bread

  • Pacha

• Grains & Legumes

  • Anthony’s

  • Edison Grainery (the owner Lyndsy is amazing 🍁)

  • Lundberg (CA soil has some of the lowest arsenic levels, otherwise fairly prevalant in brown rice)

  • Nuts.com (they have all kinds of other stuff…check for the GF label)

  • TruRoots

• Mushrooms

  • HIGHVIBE (Austin brand!)

• Nuts (buy them raw + roast yourself under 390° F (that goes for all fats) to avoid carcinogenic 3-MCPDs)

  • GOODSAM

  • NOW

  • Wilderness Poets

• Seaweed

  • Maine Coast Triple Blend Flakes (.5 tsp. daily + avoiding iodized salt, other seaweed, and processed foods yields just the right amount of iodine for the thyroid)

• Powders & Seeds — great source of Omega 3 fatty acids

  • BulkSupplements

  • Go Raw Sunflower & Pumpkin Seeds

  • HerbaZest Sacha Inchi Seeds (great for Omega 3s, low-temperature roasted)

  • Manitoba Harvest Hemp Hearts (their testing goes above + beyond even my standards 🍁)

  • Microingredients

  • Navitas

  • Spectrum Essentials Flax Seeds

  • Sunfood

  • Terrasoul

• Spices

  • Smith & Truslow

  • Spicely

• Tea

  • Republic of Tea

Supplements

• Fullscript

  • Pure Encapsulations

  • Solaray

  • Thorne

Dog

• Balance.it

Cookware

• Cutlery Collection

• ECOSALL

• Oliviko (you can ask the owner Riadh to drill holes in the handles to hang them 🍁)

• solidteknics (you get what you pay for !)

Body

• Badger

• Bee You Organics

• Booda Organics (this stuff is epic)

• Bubble & Bee

Cleaning

• Airnex Sponges

• Aspen Clean (EWG approved)

• Benefect (you can literally drink this stuff that kills 99.99% of all the things 🍁)

• Betterway

• Dr. Bronner’s

• SWEDEdishcloths (ring it out with soap at night + hang to practically eliminate paper towel usage!)

• The Earthling Co. (be sure to rinse after use vs. leave soap residue on them)

Bedding

Organic, undyed or GOTS-approved, ethical, etc.

• Avocado

Clothing

Organic, undyed or GOTS-approved, ethical, etc. (check the elastic type)

• Industry of all Nations

• Jivanas

• Rawganique (undyed, lightweight things have organic cotton threading)

Wearables

• Apollo Neuro

• Embr Wave

Miscellaneous

• Zero Waste Store

Health Information

• consumerlab.com

• drchristianson.com (TLDR get 50-150 mcg. of iodine daily for a healthy thyroid…bla bla bla I’m not a doctor, and this isn’t medical advice, or something like that)

• nutritionfacts.org (summary)

What about you? What are your go-tos? Anything missing? That you feel doesn’t belong? Would love to hear in the comments 🙏🏻

* To mutually align interests, I’m an affiliate with Amazon + Etsy so earn a few cents here and there off of purchases FYI.