From health crisis to empowerment
Hi, I’m Liz. For most of my life, I never questioned the products I brought into my home. Conventional cleaners, personal care products, cookware — if it was on the shelf, it must be safe, right?
Then my health started declining, and everything changed.
I began experiencing health issues that my doctors couldn’t fully explain. As an engineer, I’m trained to solve problems by going to the data, so I applied those skills to my own health. I dug into the research — books, articles, papers, podcasts — and what I found was eye-opening.
The connection between our environment, our nutrition, and our health was undeniable. As I started making changes to both, I noticed real improvements. That gave me confidence that we do have the power to take some control of our own health.
But here’s what I quickly discovered: trying to live a completely “non-toxic” lifestyle was creating more stress than health benefits. The perfectionist approach left me anxious about every product choice. The stress of trying to be perfect was probably worse for my health than making practical, informed choices that reduced our overall toxic load.
That’s when I started thinking about it differently — not as “non-toxic” living, but as low-tox living. Reducing exposure where it matters, accepting trade-offs where it doesn’t, and refusing to be miserable about either.
As my own approach got steadier and my confidence in evaluating products grew, I realized something important: the skills I’d built up — the engineer’s habit of going to the source, comparing claims to evidence, distinguishing real concerns from marketing — those weren’t unique to me. Anyone could learn them. Most people just hadn’t been shown how.
That’s why I started Casa de Chavez. It’s the resource I wish I’d had when I was figuring this out — not someone telling me what to buy, but someone showing me how to decide for myself.
The frameworks
Out of that work came two methods I now teach: the CLEAR Method™, a five-step framework for evaluating any product when you have time to research it properly, and the STOP Method™, a three-minute version for when you’re standing in the store and have to decide right now. Both are free, and both are designed to be learned once and used for the rest of your life.
What this site stands for
Casa de Chavez is built on a few principles that aren’t always popular in the low-tox space.
Progress over perfection. Reducing exposure is a valuable goal; eliminating it is a marketing fiction. The pursuit of perfect low-tox living causes more harm than the trade-offs it tries to avoid.
Data over dogma. The research on this stuff is genuinely mixed in places, the marketing is mostly noise, and many ‘toxic’ lists are sloppier than the evidence supports. I try to be honest about what we know, what we don’t, and what’s worth your attention.
Independence over influence. I don’t run sponsored content, accept gifted product, or maintain affiliate-only relationships. Anything I link to is something I’ve evaluated and would buy with my own money, because that’s the only standard that lets you trust the recommendation.
My goal isn’t to build a following. It’s to put myself out of a job, one independent evaluator at a time.
Where to go next
If this approach makes sense to you, here’s where I’d start:
— Liz