Conscious Health & Wellness

A whole category of coffee is sold on the claim that ordinary coffee is full of mold toxins. The regulatory limits and the testing data tell a much duller story.

You wear period products against some of the most absorbent tissue in your body, so what they’re made of matters. Here are the organic and low-tox period brands worth switching to.

Researchers tested 30 tampons across 14 brands and found lead in every single one. The FDA opened an investigation. What that means in practice is more complicated and less frightening than the headlines suggested.

The chlorine bleaching that produced dioxin in tampons was phased out decades ago. Trace dioxin still turns up, including in organic cotton, for a reason that has nothing to do with tampons at all.

One state requires menstrual products to list their ingredients. Everywhere else, a pad can be most plastic, contain fragrance, and disclose neither. Here’s what’s in there and how to read around the gap.

Most protein powders hide artificial sweeteners, mystery “natural flavors,” and sometimes heavy metals. Here are the clean protein powders worth buying, vetted on short ingredient lists and third-party testing.

An independent lab tested 160 protein powders and found lead or cadmium in most of them. The two findings nobody expected are that organic tested worse than conventional, and chocolate tested worse than vanilla.

Any brand can pay a lab, get a result it likes, and print the phrase. The marks that mean something are named, and they check three different things people constantly mix up.

A strawberry protein powder can legally contain no strawberry. The sweetener you’re avoiding sugar with reaches your colon largely intact. Neither is a scandal, and both are worth understanding before you buy a year’s supply.

The supplement industry is largely unregulated. Here’s what that actually means, the red flags worth knowing, and what real third-party testing looks like.