A few years ago, I wrote about how we purchased an eco-friendly handmade Japanese futon made of wool and green-harvested cotton. It was such a sustainable and non-toxic choice! Unfortunately, that mattress has also been the culprit of my ongoing hip pain for the past several months. Several hundred dollars’ worth of chiropractic bills down the line, we spent a few nights on our conventional mattress in the guest room and BAM! Hip pain completely gone.

When we initially researched eco-friendly mattresses a few years ago, we had a tight budget. Now, another child and one less full time job later, we have even less of a budget. Since eco-friendly mattresses start at $2,500 and go sharply up from there (hello, Håstens at $15,000 and UP!), we were stuck squarely with no choice but to buy a conventional mattress.

There are a few things that we learned:

• memory foam was our best option for someone who suffers from hip pain and for our sleep types
• Sleep Experts have a machine that can determine the best type of mattress for you and your partner
• most memory foam is made from petroleum based foam
• memory foam is the type of mattress with the worst off-gassing
• most memory foam is now starting to move toward supplementing the petroleum based foam with at least some soy based foam
• I’m sure that soy based foam is GMO
• but then again, I’m not eating my mattress…

In the end, we did purchase a memory foam mattress. That thing has been off-gassing like crazy for the last 5 days. Every day, I leave all the windows in our bedroom open and wash the sheets, which smell like chemicals to me. My husband says he can’t smell the chemicals at all?!

However, for the first time in about 3 months I can fully open both my hips in yoga.

So, I guess there’s that.

Make me feel better — tell me about a non-green trade-off you’ve had to make! This is a GUILT FREE ZONE!