Darin Olien has made a name for himself as a wellness guru and, increasingly, sustainability advocate. He has a lot of good advice, but here’s why we don’t trust Darin Olien’s mattress recommendations.
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Who is Darin Olien?
Darin Olien is an entrepreneur who made his name working with the fitness company Beachbody to create Shakeology. This became one of the bestselling superfood shakes in America and launched Darin Olien’s health and wellness profile.
Since then, Olien has gone on to create detoxification programs, co-author a book on superfoods and healthy living, and co-host the Netflix show “Down to Earth with Zac Efron”. He also has a podcast where he talks about sustainability and wellness.
Why do we care what Darin Olien thinks about mattresses?
A couple of years ago, Olien put out a podcast where he talked about the dangers of memory foam. Or, as he calls it, the ‘fatal convenience’ of this popular mattress material.
It’s genuinely interesting, with Olien revealing the origins of memory foam (a NASA invention for astronauts!), and how memory foam has come to be in so many products since its commercial debut in the early ’90s.
Since 2021, thousands, possibly even millions of people have heard that podcast.
This is great! We love that so many people are being given a chance to rethink something that can have a profound impact on their health.
The trouble, though, is where Olien then points his listeners.
Can you trust Darin Olien’s mattress recommendations?
In short, no.
In the show notes for his Fatal Conveniences podcast on memory foam, Olien doesn’t explicitly recommend any mattresses.
He does, however, link to The Good Trade’s mattress choices.
And, as I’ve noted many times before at Leaf Score, there are very few non-toxic, sustainable mattress guides that seem to really understand what it means for a mattress to be non-toxic and sustainable.
The Good Trade’s mattress selections don’t make the cut.
Why?
Because we only need to get to Number 4 on the list to find a mattress made of memory foam.
This is a list that purports to highlight the best non-toxic, natural, eco-friendly, organic mattresses with no harsh chemicals.
And yet, here we are, being greenwashed into thinking that a memory foam mattress is somehow healthy, safe, and sustainable.
Number 5 on the list also features memory foam, which The Good Trade doesn’t mention in its write-up.
Number 6? Also memory foam.
Numbers 7 and 8 pass muster, but we’re back to greenwashed memory foam for Number 9.
In all, four out of ten of the supposedly non-toxic and sustainable mattresses on this list, as recommended by Darin Olien, are decidedly not eco-friendly, natural, and healthy.
Did Darin realize this when he linked to the list? I’ve no idea. If he didn’t, that’s quite the oversight. If he did, I would have at least expect him to have included a caveat noting which of the mattresses to avoid.
Final thoughts on Darin Olien
We like a lot of what Darin Olien has to say, and we appreciate that he helps raise awareness of sustainability and safety issues many folks wouldn’t necessarily encounter elsewhere.
But, he’s got a bit of work to do to help steer his listeners in the right direction to find genuinely non-toxic mattresses. In fact, Darin might want to do a podcast on greenwashing and change up some of the links on his website, so he’s not part of the problem but part of the great green solution.
See: The Leaf Score Guide to Toxic Chemicals in Mattresses
And for further reading and recommendations for genuinely green and non-toxic mattresses we offer the following guides. We promise, there’s no memory foam in any of them.
Check out Leaf Score picks for the best mattresses for: