About Meg

Why I Started Interior Medicine & My Philosophy

Hi! I'm Meg. My background is unusual for someone who runs a non-toxic home website. Anytime someone brought up non-toxic living to me when I was in my twenties, I rolled my eyes. I will always be a skeptic, but here’s how my mind has changed:

I planned to study Interior Architecture in college, but I read Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert, and decided to major in Biochemistry and Biophysics instead, so I could learn about how tiny, invisible molecules change our bodies and lives. Spending four years learning about them is what makes invisible "toxins" feel real and relevant to me to this day. During my senior year, I learned in a class that Teflon was made of PFAS, and it was thought, even back then in 2007 (!), that PFAS may be carcinogenic to humans — which now we know they are. I also learned about the biochemistry of how we digest synthetic food additives, and that marked the first time I had any interest in organic food and safer materials. Before, I had dismissed it all as unnecessary and just "for the hippies." Learning how synthetic chemicals affected my body on a molecular level changed my mind. It wasn’t all “woo” to be dismissed, after all!

After graduating with my BS, I worked as a neurology research assistant in an Alzheimer’s lab, and then in the Stroke department at the hospital. Seeing chronic disease in real people up close motivated me to prevent it, so I spent a year in an Epidemiology and Biostatistics Master's program to boost up my medical school resume and study for the MCAT. My time in that program ended up being incredibly valuable: I learned how to think about public health versus individual risk, correlation versus causation, and much more, all of the logic I still use constantly on this website and in my approach to healthier homes.

Halfway through that program, I learned what naturopathic medicine was: in Oregon (and 22 other states) it means a board-licensed primary care physician who can accept insurance and prescribe a full formulary of medications. I had no idea! The curriculum also included nutrition, movement, and prevention, aligning closely with my goals, so I became a naturopathic doctor. There, I learned primary care, but most importantly for Interior Medicine, I learned two other skills: discernment and meeting people where they are. Discernment I cultivated by watching wellness trend after wellness trend appeal to fellow students and patients. Some were overhyped and faded quickly, but others did turn out to matter (taking Vitamin D supplements was still considered pretty “wellness trendy” when I started, but it’s standard today!) Looking past the conventional algorithm is important to consider, but doing it carefully, and not chasing everything trendy does too. The second was learning to meet patients and people where they are: extremes do not work. Balance does, and cultivating tolerance for imperfection is really important. The goal is steady, reasonable change, not purity.

Years later, as an ND in practice, pandemic lockdown moved my patient care to Zoom screens and gave me time to wonder about my Ghost Ship: that alternative life where I had become an Interior Architect instead. I took online classes in Architecture and Interior Design for fun through my community college in the evenings, and while choosing materials for one of my projects, I noticed that stain-proof couch upholstery was made with PFAS, just like the Teflon pans of 2007. I wondered if I could help prevent disease by choosing a couch made without PFAS for my (imaginary!) clients. Making a home healthier, where people spend so much of their time, before they got sick, made sense, and felt closer to my prevention goal than anything else I’d ever done. Because of that, I started Interior Medicine as a side hobby in early 2021.

Since then, it's grown into a full-time endeavor, and it's growing into something larger: not just a library of non-toxic home products, but also an ongoing resource and project in how we can think in an open-minded but grounded way about environmental toxicants. I’m really interested in understanding how to navigate our polarized wellness conversation in a better, more inclusive, and reasonable way. Rather than reflexive fear or dismissal, or the tired rebuttals on either side, finding new material that’s closer to the truth in the middle.

I plan to keep improving and growing Interior Medicine as long as I can, and I feel so lucky that I get to do that. Thank you so much for being here!