Learn True Health with Ashley James

Get my ebook and audiobook here: https://learntruehealth.com/op/addicted-to-wellness-ebook.   Get my course, The 7 Foundations of Health, here: https://learntruehealth.com/sp/7-foundations-of-optimal-health   Get a physical copy of my book here: https://learntruehealth.com/addictedtowellness.   The Vibe: https://learntruehealth.com/vibe coupon code LTH - LearnTrueHealth.com/vibe   Get the NEW free IIN sample class and health coach experience: https://learntruehealth.com/coach Enroll in the next Health Coach Training Program! Use coupon code LTH when signing up to become a health coach.   Dr. Ellen Kamhi PhD  RN AHN-BC RH(AHG) provides CE eligible certification educational modules in Herbal Medicine, Essential Oil Therapy, Homeopathy, Energy Medicine, and all aspects of holistic medicine, and supports individuals on their path to incorporate Herbal and Natural Therapies into their Life and Career. She is a respected Consultant in the Nutraceutical Industry providing Formulation, Education and Regulatory Review. Ellen  Kamhi is actively involved, along with Dr. Eugene Zampieron, ND, with Natural Alternatives Health, Education and Multimedia Services, and leads EcoTours For Cures™, which brings participants to indigenous areas to experience the ancient healing arts of traditional cultures. Dr.  Kamhi is available as a speaker and consultant.  for your organization.   For details, call (954) 418-2388 or http://www.naturalnurse.com/contact   536: Your Natural Medicine Chest: Immune Support https://learntruehealth.com/your-natural-medicine-chest-immune-support/   In this empowering episode of the Learn True Health podcast, Ashley James sits down with Dr. Ellen Kamhi, also known as the Natural Nurse, who brings over five decades of experience in holistic and herbal medicine. From healing her own debilitating back injury without surgery to teaching thousands how to build their own natural medicine chests, Dr. Kamhi shares powerful, practical tools for addressing pain, boosting immunity, and living in vibrant health. Whether you're looking to support your family naturally through cold and flu season or take charge of your own healing journey, this interview is packed with must-know insights and remedies you’ll want to keep in your back pocket—literally. Highlights:  Dr. Ellen Kamhi healed a severe back injury using herbs instead of surgery, sparking her lifelong passion for natural medicine. She’s been practicing and teaching holistic medicine since 1964 and has written 18 books. Vitamin C (especially in powder form) and elderberry syrup are top immune-boosting tools she recommends having on hand. Oscillococcinum is a must-have homeopathic remedy for early flu symptoms—take at the very first sign. Oil of oregano is a powerful natural antimicrobial but can be too strong for children and some adults. Garlic also acts as a natural antibiotic but should be followed with probiotics like sauerkraut to rebuild gut flora. Food should be whole and unlabeled; eliminating wheat helps reduce inflammation and pain. Homeopathy and herbs work best when used at the first sign of illness, not once symptoms become severe. She recommends building a natural medicine chest at home so you're ready when symptoms arise. Joy, spirituality, and lifestyle habits like rest and connection are vital components of true health. Intro: Hello True Health Seeker and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. Today we have with us Dr. Ellen Kamhi. She has been teaching natural, holistic, and herbal medicine for 52 years. It's amazing. Since the 70s she's been helping people to get so healthy that they're no longer in pain, they're no longer sick and suffering and just a wonderful wealth of knowledge. We have such a great interview for you today. This is going to be definitely one of those interviews that you're going to want to share with so many of your friends. So many of your friends maybe just  copy the link to it and store it somewhere in your phone. I use them. I have an Android, my husband has an iPhone, so I understand there's two totally different types of phones out there, but both types of phones have somewhere where you can store notes. I use the Keep App and I love it. I keep tons of notes and then you can pin them to the top if they're really important. As I was interviewing her, I jotted down all the really important points and, of course, I'm going to make sure that this is in the show notes of today's podcast at LearnTrueHealth.com, along with all the links to everything she does. I've stored those in my little Keep App where you can keep notes. If you have never done that, it is a game changer. So definitely check out a note-keeping app on your phone. Whether you have an Android or an Apple, you will find that you can be able to store some notes and quickly access them. It's been so helpful because I can't tell you how many listeners in our Facebook group, Learn True Health Facebook group, and also friends and family, have come to me saying, oh, I've got a sore throat or I'm starting to have a cold, what should I do? Oh no, my kid is spiking a fever, or my kid's feeling sick, or I'm feeling sick, my husband's feeling sick, which I do. I grabbed the notes that I wrote down during my interview with Dr. Kamhi and they have been such a game changer. My family has also had quite the experience. I interviewed her a few weeks ago, several weeks ago, so we've had this experience. Since interviewing her, I ordered everything that she recommended and I've had it in my little medicine cabinet, or how she phrases it, the natural medicine chest. I definitely have a big natural medicine chest with a lot of cool herbs and homeopathy and phototherapy patches and now the vibe which I run to. Anytime someone in my family or a close friend who's visiting feels any symptom under the weather, we run to those and just blow it out of our system quickly. Get rid of pain, get rid of a headache, get rid of a little sore throat or a cough. It's just been amazing. My life, the last over 10 years. My first instinct is to go to natural medicine before going to a pharmaceutical and now myself and my family so rarely need a pharmaceutical, and I just love that. It was such a 180 that there was a time in my life where I was on constant medication, 20 years ago, and now it is so wonderful to have this reversal where it is so odd and weird and rare to even think of having a pharmaceutical either over the counter or prescribed. But of course these are tools. We have to be pragmatic. So have the tools in your tool belt so that when you get a scratchy throat in the middle of the night you can go to them instead of waiting to get super sick. This is what happened to us. We used her recommendations, several of us. One of us would have a little sore throat or the other one would kind of start feeling fluish, and we use them. The moment we started feeling that and we were able to blow stuff out of our system so fast. It was really cool, instead of having it take hold. Of course, eating healthy and all the lifestyle things you can do, but even super healthy people get sick. What I love is this concept that it's not that you don't get sick, it's how quickly your body can bounce back, and that is the true testament to health. How quickly can you blow it out of your system? How quickly can you bounce back? Are you still feeling sick weeks after a cold or flu, or do you just, within 24 hours, blow it out of your system and then you're moving on to the next thing and feeling great? We can always improve. No matter where we are, we can always improve. Today is one of those interviews that you're going to want to take the link to this interview, store it in the little notebook app on your phone, whichever one you use like I said, I use the Keep one, and I love that. You're going to share this episode. I bet you're going to share this episode at least 10 times this winter. This is the episode that is going to help so many of your friends and family. Before we get to this episode, I want to let you know of a few other things that have been so, so, so helpful for pain and for immune, because this episode is about helping with natural ways to reverse pain and also, really important, how to blow out a cold or flu out of your system and get healthier and get back to life faster than if you just, I don't know, waited, just stayed at home and waited to get better. These interventions are super helpful, the things that I have turned to that have really helped—the phototherapy patches. If you want to learn more about them, you can listen to my two interviews, episodes 496 and 517, and you can also book a free phone call with me where I can talk to you about them. I can help you order them and order the right ones for you, and I can teach you how to use them. They are a real game changer. One thing that I accomplished by using them is I used them for an adrenal and kidney tonification protocol that gave me the energy that I had back when I was a kid. I don't know if you ever have thought, like what happened to me? I used to be able to get up and get on my bicycle on a Saturday morning and just go, go, go, go, go, and then not come home until the streetlights came on. I was full of energy when I was a kid and then something happened in my 30s or 40s or 50s and now I'm just super tired. If you're thinking, when did I lose that youthful, unlimited energy? You're going to love the phototherapy patches. I use them specifically with that protocol and we have over 80 protocols. I did it for about six weeks and I noticed that I was able to get a lot more out in the gym, like I went from five minutes on the rower to twenty-three minutes on the rower, virtually overnight, having a lot more endurance. There are a lot of athletes. There are a ton of pictures we have of all the Olympic athletes wearing the phototherapy patches. RFK Jr—we have pictures of him. We see him in the gym wearing them and that's because there's results. There are over 80 studies showing that it increases muscle output and recovery time, but it also increases healthy bone tissue, so bone density. We've had great experiences with that, where people go back and get their DEXA scans and show that they have healthier bones. There's increased muscle mass and increased output and recovery for athletes. For me, I got that energy back. I used to watch my child—he's nine now, almost 10—but right around when he was about six or seven I had this aha moment where I lost that. I lost that ability to just go, go, go, go, go at some point in my life and I couldn't keep up with him. I did this protocol for about six weeks. Somewhere around the second month, I just realized it was maybe seven at night and I was, go, go, go all day with my son. We do activities all day. We homeschool, so we just do activity after activity and I hadn't sat the whole day and I wasn't tired. I'm like, oh, I got it back. It's really cool because I did that protocol about two years ago and I only needed to do it for just around two months or just under two months, and I still have it. It helped me. It corrected something and it's so intriguing. So listen to those two episodes, 496 and 517, and then book a free phone call with me because I'd love to chat with you. I absolutely love helping the listeners, helping you guys. I have the most amazing experiences chatting with you guys. If you're a little intimidated or shy, please don't be. I love talking to you. I'd be so honored and so excited to be part of your healing journey and to talk to you. You just share with me what's going on and I have so many resources that I can point you to. If you're suffering in any way, I'm offering you something for free. Just please talk to me for free. It's a free phone call and I'll point you to a bunch of resources. If you want to try the patches, you can absolutely try. They have an amazing money-back guarantee. I have over 200 clients using them successfully, having great results, and the good news is that there's no risk. If you don't like it, you can get your money back. I don't have any experience with returns because people get results with them, but it's good to know that there's no risk. Just try it. Go ahead and go to learntruehealth.com and click on “Work With Ashley James” in the menu, and then the very first option is scheduling a free phone call with me. It can be about 20 minutes long, but if you have a ton of questions it'll go longer. I'm just there with you to help you and I can point you to a lot of great resources. So that's the phototherapy patches. They're amazing, especially for if a cold or flu is coming on. We have a protocol for that and it really does work. At the height of a head cold, when you're all stuffed up, we put patches, these specific patches, on the sinuses and they will drain them within minutes. I had a friend kind of yelp because I put them on her and then she goes, oh my gosh, it worked. I'm like, of course it worked. She's like, I didn't think it would work. I'm like, well, what did you think I was doing putting these things on you? She's like, I can't believe that works.  At the height of a head cold, you will be able to breathe through your nose while you're sleeping. Even if you just use them as part of your medicine cabinet, your medicine chest. It's an amazing tool to have something that's drug free, that's all natural, that's not going to hurt you, that's even safe for children and babies. It's so neat. The other thing I wanted to share with you is the Vibe. You can listen to episode 532 with Mark Fox. He's amazing. He invented a machine that is a pocket PEMF and frequency-specific microcurrent machine. My family and I have been using it for several months. We've shared it with several of our friends and we are getting outstanding results. It is one of the coolest things I've ever experienced. It's right up there with the phototherapy patches. It's so neat. It's turned off headaches. It has turned off EMS pain. It actually helped me have an emotional mental breakthrough. It helped me significantly with my PTSD. There's a PTSD setting and it is virtually gone. I've just had such great emotional healing from it. It helps with sleep. I think I spent the first hour of the interview talking to him about all the results that everyone has been getting, that I was sharing it with and it just keeps going and going. It's really neat. So out of all the Christmas gifts you could get someone. If you're getting a Hanukkah or Christmas gift or just a holiday gift or a birthday gift, I know we always have these family members who are like, I don't know what to get them. They have everything they need. I don't know what I could get them that would add to their life because we just have so much clutter. We don't want to just give nonsense, just another knickknack, another candle, just something that is going to collect dust. It's not going to really add value to their life. This will add value. This is the gift you give people that you think have everything. They don't have this and it will add quality to their life and it will add health to their life. It's so easy to use, especially men. I've noticed husbands or boyfriends or whatever—men or brothers, dads—are not necessarily going to sit down and eat healthy and take a supplement, but they have the aches and pains and they're not necessarily going to make these big health changes. You want to help them in some way. They just press a button on this machine, they select one of the different programs, and they put it in their pocket. The programs are about a half an hour to 45 minutes to an hour, just depending on the program. It makes a difference. People notice a difference. They also have a money-back guarantee. They're a great company. Mark Fox is amazing, so listen to episode 532. What you want to do to purchase it is go to learntruehealth.com/vibe. That's V-I-B-E. Learntruehealth.com/vibe. That's V-I-B-E. Learntruehealth.com/vibe. Mark so graciously gave us a wonderful discount for ordering the Vibe. Get it now, because it will ship and get on time to your house for Christmas. If you are international, even Canada, for Canada, because the Canadian Post is on strike, he is shipping FedEx and he is not charging extra for that, he's amazing. He's like, yes, I'm eating the costs and I'm just shipping the fastest way I can so that it can get to my Canadian listeners. If you are in Canada, order it. If you're anywhere around the world, he says he ships worldwide, he will ship quickly. I'm not sure if he'll get to you by Christmas, but I know that in the US you absolutely can get it by Christmas if you order now because he does ship fast. So that's learntruehealth.com/vibe. That is the Christmas gift to get people. It is amazing. Tell your friend, hey, you use this, you've got to use it. But if you don't, just give me that gift back, because I'll use it for myself. Maybe that'll motivate them to use it. Have them listen to my interview, episode 532 with Mark Fox, where he shares the technology and why it works and it does. There are studies. He's been conducting studies—amazing studies on PTSD and sleep. He's in the middle of conducting a study with blood sugar and with diabetics.  Diabetics are noticing a significant shift in their blood sugar regulation, which is so cool. We also have really good results with people with Lyme. Lyme and the co-infections and also MS. Just amazing. There are so many, so many applications for this thing because it's frequency medicine, just like homeopathy is frequency medicine and the phototherapy patches are frequency medicine. This is where we're going. This is where we're heading: frequency medicine. Thank you so much for being a listener and, more importantly, thank you so much for sharing this podcast with those you care about. You want to help your friends and family and those you love and care about to get healthy and that's why you share. I do this podcast because I want to end the needless suffering of millions. So, with your help—and I can only do it with your help—please share it with as many people as possible, because we are helping to change the quality of people's lives. You don't know who you know that last night went to bed crying themselves to sleep because they're suffering. You don't know. A lot of times when we find out a loved one has ended their life, we were unaware of how desperate they were and how much pain they were in and how much they were hurting. You just don't know the people who are closest to you. You don't know if they're suffering. So, first of all, love them, hug them, ask them how they're doing, then ask them how they're really doing. If they're suffering from physical issues, mental, emotional issues, any aspect of health—because true health is mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, and energetic—then, sharing this episode and our other episodes. We have a lot of episodes on mental, emotional health and healing that you can use the search function on learntruehealth.com. I was that person. I was that person sick and suffering. I was that person lying in bed in my 20s feeling I was dying, having these just horrible episodes, where I was gripping the bed, feeling I was about to just disintegrate into the world. I remember feeling so sick and crying, literally crying myself to sleep, begging God to help me. There's too many people out there that are going through that right now, and you could be. You don't even know that you could be the person that is delivering the answer to their prayers. God works through us. If you feel any inkling to share an episode, maybe it's with your boss and you're like, this is awkward, I don't. Ashley says to share with your loved ones. I don't want my boss to think I love them. Or this is awkward because this is so personal and I know they're going through health stuff, and we got to keep it professional. Listen, come from a place of caring, come from a place just of heartfelt caring and wanting to end suffering, and it will be delivered in a beautiful way. Say hey, I don't know why I thought of you, but when I was listening to this I thought of you and I just wanted to share. Maybe it's for you, maybe you, maybe my intuition is for you, maybe it's for someone you know. Just have a listen to this because it really is impactful and just share it. If you feel any inkling to share this episode or one of the episodes with someone you care about, if there's any intuition to share, do it, because you could actually be creating a ripple effect, changing one person's life and that one person. Then it changes their family's life and their family goes on to change multiple generations and all the friends and family they know. It just takes that bravery, that deep level of caring and bravery, which I think we need more than ever right now to reach out because we're so disconnected from each other. To reach out and say, hey, I listened to this, I care and I want to share this with you. This episode is going to make a profound difference in so many people's lives. I'm so excited that you're sharing it. Let's reach over a million people. Actually, we've had well over many millions of downloads, but let's really reach millions of people. Let's get this to where we're actually making a difference. If you reach 10% of the population, it's a tipping point. So that's my next goal—10% of the world's population. Let's get to that tipping point and share it with as many people as possible to learn true health. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays. Welcome to the Learn True Health Podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode 536. Ashley James (0:19:03.829) I am so excited for today's guest and I know you're just going to love that I'm introducing you to Dr. Ellen Kamhi. Thank you so much for coming on the show. You are naturalnurse.com. You have two podcasts and you've been teaching holistic and herbal medicine and you've been practicing since 1964. You are a wealth of knowledge and I love that you've published 18 books. You teach regular courses, including, and I understand that you also teach a continued education eligible certification for practitioners in the holistic health space. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:19:43.641) Well, actually, any practitioners, they don't have to be in the holistic health space. Anyone with a license who needs ongoing CE units, so that might be nurses, massage therapists, naturopathic physicians, acupuncturists, anyone with one of those licenses where they need CE units can take classes which have a natural focus, because that's what I teach, and use them towards their regular licensure, but people can take it just for their own knowledge. They don't have to need CEUs to take our classes. Ashley James (0:20:17.585) Love it. I've watched videos of you and I definitely recommend listeners go and check out. There's so many videos on YouTube. When I look at you, you're who I want to be when I grow up. You look so vibrant and so healthy and you walk the walk, you talk the talk. That's what we really want to see in our practitioners, in our mentors, we want to see that they're teaching us the path, but they're also walking the path. Now you have a PhD and you're also an RN and then there's this alphabet soup after your name. It's wonderful. I love it. You specialize in herbal medicine and also homeopathy, energy medicine, essential oils, which to me essential oils are herbal medicine, but it's that wonderful branch all into itself. I love that you teach in such an eloquent way how we can support our body's ability to heal itself and to maintain optimal health. I'm really excited today because in doing our pre-interview talk, we're like, okay, what do you want to talk about today? There's so many things you can talk about. You started listing off some things that I'm like, yes, I want to talk about that. I want to talk about that. So we nailed it down to three things, although we could dig into each one of these for hours.  You have really effective herbs for pain which I think is really important, especially because a lot of times pain is exacerbated by inflammation. So as we know, herbs are so wonderful at helping the body regulate that inflammation. Then you have an amazing immune protocol that you've dialed in in the last four years when people were really up against it. I don't have to say what happened in the last four years. Everyone knows the last four years, but you've had over 5,000 people successfully do this herbal protocol. When they were struck with a cold or flu and had great results.  Then I love that you also teach how we can nourish the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis and really help our body to get into that healing mode and out of that constant stress mode, which then helps regulate so many of our functions of our body. I believe women, we suffer because we drag our bodies through the mud and we believe the lies the MD tells us, those symptoms are just because of your age. I rebel against that because you can be super healthy at any age and don't tell me I'm unhealthy because of my age. That's just total cop out BS. So I'm really excited to dive in, but I'd love for you to share a bit about yourself so the listener can start to learn how you came about loving herbal medicine and loving to share it with the world. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:23:10.300) Sure, well yes, going back to years ago, I really was loving just nature in general. I was teaching horseback riding at a camp. Then what happened was I fell off the horse during teaching horseback riding. It was very, very severe. I was told by, again, the doctor, and I don't think they were lying, and I don't think the doctors are lying to you either. I think that's just the best knowledge they have, which is incorrect. I was told that I would not walk again unless I had surgery. That's what I was told. That's the only way out of this, and I'm going to have to have surgery in order to walk again. However, I just was always into, some people might call it talking to God, but basically, doing deep dives spiritually. I actually got a very clear message that no, that's not the case and you can use various plant medicines and natural medicines to be able to walk again. So I started looking around and what I did was go to the library and at the time we had something which some people may not remember. It's called the card catalog. Do you even know what a card catalog is? Ashley James (0:24:43.852) Is it the Dewey Decimal System? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:24:45.458) Well, I'd say it's related to that. Basically, it's in the libraries. That's the only place they were. They actually had a drawer. You pulled out the drawer. There was, you could look up things. So in fact, I was looking up natural remedies for an injury, a back injury, which is what I had. There was so much information. Right away, I was taken aback. I said, how is it possible that there's so much information that the doctor did not recommend any of these things? How is that even possible? Nonetheless, what I did was I dug into it and I got in touch with a lot of the people who wrote books that were in the library about what to do, for instance, a castor oil pack. It's interesting that I learned about a castor oil pack from Edgar Casey's Institute, which is still there in Virginia Beach. He taught all about how to use a castor oil pack. Just recently, over the last year or so, it's become all the rage. It's tik-toking on TikTok and various places. Everybody has to have a castor oil pack. Truthfully, I do think that it's an excellent idea. To have castor oil packs available, to learn how to use them correctly, and they are extremely, extremely useful and helpful. So that's one of the things I did. Then I also learned about various really well-known herbalists at the time, such as Dr. Bernard Jensen. I started getting all his books and writing away for many of the herbal therapeutics that he discussed, such as White Willow Bark would be one. Each and everything I did, thank God I had a dad. He didn't believe in any of this, but more or less I knew how to kind of manipulate him, how kids do that with their parents. I wasn't going to leave him alone unless he helped me out. Because at the time, there was no internet. There were no credit cards. Okay, this is another world. A lot of people don't remember. So the only way I could access any of these things was to call them on the phone. Then my father, God bless him, went along with me, not so happily, but he did it. He had to actually write checks and mail the checks to these various places. There were no health food stores yet. Then I got all those things mailed to me. I used them. With each thing I used, I felt better. I felt a little less pain after a while. I was able to stand up. After a while, I was able to walk. When you're going to get surgery, you cannot schedule it right away. There has to be a cooling off period. So by the time I went back to the doctor, I walked into his office. I also wrote down all the whole entire protocol that I had developed on my own to get rid of this issue that was supposedly going to need surgery, which was a very severely injured back from a horseback riding accident. I thought he would be so happy, so happy that I walked in so I wouldn't need surgery. He was not at all happy, quite the contrary. He looked very upset to see me walk in. Of course, I didn't know anything about how much you get paid to perform surgery or any of these things. I think that's how he was looking at it. That's not good. We can't schedule her. Then I showed him this whole list of everything I had developed that really helped. I thought he'd be so excited to see it so he could tell all his patients how they can get out of doing surgery. Truthfully, that was not the case. He was rather upset, I would say. Then he held that paper where I wrote the protocol far away from his eyes and sort of looked at it. This is really awful. He just dismissed me, basically dismissed me. It was what set me on the path that I am on to this day, every day, all day, and what I have done my whole entire life. Which is to learn about natural remedies. It's taken me all over the world. I've lived with indigenous cultures in many different places in the world. Then, since I am also scientifically oriented, I have taken those natural therapeutics into the laboratory to not prove that they work. I know they do. Anything that is really a herbal remedy, an old-fashioned herbal remedy, it wouldn't get to be that if it didn't work. So I don't question if it works, but I do want to show through science the mechanism of action of exactly where the various receptors fit in, let's say, to that inflammatory response and lower it. Where does it bring it down? Is it reducing one of the immunomodulatory cytokines that cause pain, or is it just turning off receptors? How does it work? So I've done a lot of work in various universities around the world with that. So I've been very, very busy with herbal medicine for really my entire life. Ashley James (0:30:43.369) I love that. I love that so much. You do eco tours for cures. That would be amazing to travel with you where you take participants to indigenous areas to experience the ancient healing arts of the traditional cultures. How do we find out about the eco tours for cures? Would that be on your website, naturalnurse.com? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:31:05.375) Well, a good place to go is naturalnurse.com and then look at classes and events. Under that, we have the Eco-Tours for Cures listed where you could click on that and find out all about them. We've been doing that. Maybe this is perhaps our 40th year of taking people into live actually in indigenous areas around the world for a week and study with not only ourselves, but indigenous healers. We also do local tours like that, for instance, in Long Island, we do many walks in the summer where we take a walk. This is only a one-day event. We gather wild, edible, and medicinal plants and then make them into medicine. We also do eco-tours right in Chinatown in New York City to learn about Chinese medicine. So we have a vast array of ways people can work with us to learn more. Ashley James (0:32:02.647) My gosh. That would be the best for me. That's an ideal vacation. It does. I now put that on my bucket list. If anyone wants to send me a gift, send me on one of these eco tours because that sounds so much fun. I love that. I've had a few walks with naturopathic doctors here, there's forests around Bastyr then certain forests locally to where I am in the greater Seattle area up in Snohomish County. I've had some experiences walking with naturopaths and they'll pick herbs and tell me about it. I just think it looks, they all look like plants to me. They're just, it's a big green mess of weeds. They're, no, this is so good for you and try this and eat that. Yes. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:32:48.325) Well, they are plants. They certainly are plants. Weed really, that's an interesting word, because weed really kind of means a plant that you don't know what to do with it. It's interesting, because last year Bastyr actually had our event through them. So we did it in coordination with Bastyr, and we took a lot of people on that trip, and they got course credits through Bastyr for attending our Eco-Tours for Cures. Ashley James (0:33:18.861) Nice. That's so cool. It's so empowering to learn about your local foliage and learn that you can go outside, go walk in a forest close by, and you can start finding your own cures, finding your own medicinals, wildcrafting obviously being best. If you don't live in an area that close, you can start growing your own herbs. I know there's a naturopath here. I had her on my show and her name is escaping me for a moment. I'll remember, but I had her on my show years ago and she has a huge garden in her clinic, beside her clinic, and her patients grow their own therapeutics. They talk together about what they need. They go out into the garden and she shows them how to plant their own herbs and tend to them and then come and pick them and harvest them and make their own medicine.  I love that, getting right back to the earth because God gave us the therapies that we need. God gave us the nutrition we need. We, when we go back and look at the way modern medicine came about, they really did this wonderful 100 year, wonderful meaning, horrific, a hundred year PR campaign to make us forget, to make us lose touch with, so that they could just sell us drugs and tell us that that's the only answer when we know our great grandparents, our great great grandparents had more of a grasp of natural healing than we did. Because they've made us forget, we've all fallen asleep. So we have to wake up and start remembering and start learning before this is lost. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:35:11.413) That's true. That's one of the assignments that everyone gets. I do teach a class called Natural Nurse Herbal Certification Course, and that's one of my favorite courses. It has 18 CEUs for anyone who needs CEUs, but anyone can take it. Once you complete that, you are on your way to be an herbalist. By the time you complete that course, you can actually know the right way to use herbal remedies for yourself and your family. As well as being apprised of our herbal language, what's a collar gargle and what's a demulcent and what do those words mean that herbalists would use to discuss a variety of things about plant medicine. It's super affordable and super accessible. So that's a good class to take if you want to start on a path of knowing herbal medicine. That I teach once a year. You can find that at naturalnurse.com under Classes and Events as well. Ashley James (0:36:14.549) Love it. Love it so much. Okay. So let's dive in because I want to just squeeze your brain out and get as much out of you as possible.  I'm really excited for us to start talking about herbs for pain. We're going to talk about that immune stuff later and also get into the HPA stuff. So touching on something that everyone needs to know.  What I love is where it all started for you was healing your back, but also I'm sure managing the pain that came from your injury. So these are some of the herbs you've been using and improved work to yourself first. Then you see how much they've helped thousands of people to get out of pain. Of course, when we're talking about pain, we're also wanting from a holistic standpoint, we're wanting to help the body heal itself.  So it's not just taking an Advil or taking a Tylenol just to suppress it. Herbs aren't just a bandaid. We want to help the body come back into balance. Of course, we want to take people out of suffering. So I'm excited to hear what you have to say about herbs for pain. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:37:19.609) Well, certainly that became a very large focus because that's what really brought me into studying all of this. So two of the main books that I wrote about that, one is called Arthritis, the Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide. It's reversing underlying causes of arthritis with clinically proven natural therapies. Of course, that involves relieved pain naturally without drug side effects, as well as actually rebuilding joints that are damaged from osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, Lyme disease, and other problems, as well as regaining an active lifestyle.  So those are all very important things, and this book is a best seller called Arthritis. Then what we did is just to make an easier, quicker reference journal, we also wrote a shorter book called Supplements for Pain, and that's also available as an e-book. That's really comprehensive natural help for all these inflammatory processes. What's so amazing and wonderful about all these natural therapies is the amount of scientific inquiry, because I am very active now with the NIH. The NIH is the National Institute of Health, and they have an office for complementary and integrative therapy. Every month, by the way, people can join this for free. You can actually listen in on these amazing presentations that are done by top doctors at major universities throughout the United States and the world about these topics. They are recommending that because the evidence shows that natural therapeutics are not only just as efficacious, they often work better, but equally or perhaps more importantly, with a much higher level of safety. While the pharmaceuticals really can be very helpful in the short-term situation, but often bring your overall health and wellness down and sometimes are deadly. So there really should not be the first and only choice which conventional medicine seems limited to. Ashley James (0:39:47.627) I think some people have a significant mistrust. There's mistrust for doctors, there's mistrust for organizations, even the NIH has increased in the last four years, just given what we've seen, and it's really frustrating because so many doctors suppressed or poo-pooed the natural remedies or even there were some long standing drug-based therapeutics that were helping people get over COVID in the last four years. There's a lot of misinformation.  What I would say for those listeners who feel they have a distrust of doctors and of organizations, there's a coalition of holistic healers, yourself, who are educators, and they're just taking the word doctor, which the root word is doserian, that means teacher. Our doctor is supposed to teach us, we're supposed to learn how to support our body's ability to heal itself. The modern MD is not living up to that. They're not living up to even their Hippocratic oath. There are people, like you, even in these organizations, that are doing good. So don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, find these amazing healers and listen to them, especially you, because it's all integrated. It's just this big clump of different therapeutics. The more we can get the mainstream people to start listening to this and going, hey, don't just run to the drugs. This is actually quite dangerous to only go to drug-based medicine.  Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:41:35.612) It's fast and easy. If only it really worked. The vision is to do whatever I want, not eat healthy, not exercise, not pay attention to any of that. Do whatever I want and when something starts to break down, take yet another pill and it'll all be fine. That would be great if it worked, but it doesn't, unfortunately. Ashley James (0:41:58.548) Yes. It's the Jetsons. You think back to the jet. It's just like the Jetsons, you live in your little spaceship houses and you have robots do things for you and you get to be super lazy and then just pop a pill for your nutrition and pop a pill for if your back hurts and you're good. That's just not how it works. It's not how health works. We've been really fed this PR campaign of lies and medical myths.  Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:42:21.381) However, it's also true with natural therapeutics. Since I've been in this field, as mentioned, since 1964, and I was also the head nurse at a major integrative medical center in Manhattan on the corner of 57th and 7th, right next to Carnegie Hall, a big fancy place. I was the head nurse there for 23 years. The doctor was Serafina Corcello. We actually literally saw many thousands of patients. Everyone who came in got a lot of testing. I think that there's under testing done in mainstream medicine. Everybody should really have a complete analysis of their nutritional status, every nutrient, because that's where you can then actually put together an excellent diet that supports those things that you're low in, as well as using targeted supplements when needed, which is a very different approach than do whatever you want and then take a drug. Ashley James (0:43:21.923) Right. The amount of micronutrients that we get in those phytochemicals that we get from herbs, you can measure in labs, but you see the results.  Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:43:32.017) You can measure it in labs. That's why it's so good. You have to get the right kind of laboratory that does a full micronutrient assessment. A regular laboratory will often not do that. Truthfully, it costs money to do it because it's not going to be the kind of test that's under health insurance. You can get quite an intense view even down to what micronutrients are missing from your Krebs cycle from a lot of these modern laboratories. So it's really worth looking into because sometimes you can find, wow, that's the missing link. I'm low on this micronutrient, which is not found in a conventional drug, not drug test, but blood test. Then you can use herbs, foods, et cetera, that actually fill in those missing links. Ashley James (0:44:25.693) Love it. Let's get into the specifics of using herbs for pain. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:44:31.899) Great, there's so many and I know people know some of them, but I'll let you know some information about ones that might be a little bit more obscure, but that I have actually done case studies on how well they work. So one I would talk about is the green lipped mussel. Actually it's an edible shellfish that's native to New Zealand and it's very high in a very unique kind of fatty acid known to reduce inflammation.  It's a previously unidentified omega-3 fatty acid. So a lot of people have not heard about it. Green lip mussels also contain amino acids, trace minerals, glucose amino glycans, which are all things that fill in joint tissue because it's a component of cartilage. It's a really, really good thing to incorporate if you're looking for pain reduction. People don't know about that one too much. That's a really interesting one. Ashley James (0:45:32.775) So how would they take it? Is that encapsulated? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:45:36.251) Yes, nowadays, yes, absolutely. If you have a kind of area that has traditional Chinese medicine nearby, which I know Seattle does, as well as New York City, we have a very in-depth Chinatown area, as well as in Flushing. So that's an easy thing to get in those kinds of areas because they're familiar with it, green lip mussel. Nowadays, as you said before we went on, you can get anything on the internet. It's actually a very easy thing to find. Ashley James (0:45:36.251) Really interesting. So I'm surprised because I think of herbal medicine and being only plant-based or vegan and your first thing is an animal, is a crustacean. That's just looking for our nutrients in our food and supporting our body's ability to heal itself by finding whole foods that contain the healing properties our body needs. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:46:37.063) Well, certainly, lots of plant-based nutrients are. For instance, bitter melon, which is also called memortica torrentia. It's also known as sericea. A very interesting thing, because sericea, the leaves on that plant, bring down blood sugar. So it's often used for things like diabetes and also arthritis. So it's helpful for psoriatic arthritis in particular. When we dig into that mechanism of action that I mentioned before, we find out that it slows the rapid cellular proliferation that causes that buildup of scaly skin that people have when they have psoriatic conditions, such as psoriatic arthritis. I would combine that with homeopathics too, because I always use in my protocols homeopathics, foods, exercise, herbal remedies all together. Some people just use herbs, or some people like to use just food, et cetera. I'm someone who really looks across the board. Also, I don't develop protocols for individuals at this point. I've done so many thousands, and I find my time is better used to teach other holistic or just conventional people who are already using remedies for people. How to integrate natural therapeutics, which are so much better, so much safer, and actually better outcomes. So you have a happier client, and then you have a happier professional who feels really good about the information that they're sharing, as well as seeing people get better, which is very exciting. I would say almost every doctor and nurse went into that field because they wanted to help people. But because of mostly the influence of the pharmaceutical companies, and this, by the way, in my book, The Natural Medicine Chest, I have a full chapter on the history of natural medicine, and it's very focused on the politics of natural medicine. It didn't just happen, happenstance, that doctors do not know about natural remedies, other than, of course, naturopathic physicians at Bastyr and others at naturopathic colleges are highly trained in natural remedies. It's not a mistake. It was actually a specific coup and takeover of even medical schools so that the only thing doctors learn about really is very little. They just mostly learn about pharmaceuticals and surgery, of course. So those two things are great. I wouldn't say we should throw them out, but I would say they should be used very little. My own parents, my mom's alive, 96, never took a pharmaceutical. My father lived to 95, never took a pharmaceutical. So it's not that he didn't die. He died in 95 one day after running around all day, which he always ran around all day, after going out and drinking, out to eat and drinking and driving, which I kept telling him you shouldn't do. He told me when I get older than him, that's when I can tell him what to do. Then he did have a sudden stroke and passed away, so it's not natural things will make you live forever. The thing is it extends your wellness, because he was well till that day. Then, bye, good way to go. So the thing is there's so much overuse. Almost every individual I know is on five or six pharmaceuticals, and they all interact together and make you overall less well and do very little other than cover up whatever symptom you're taking it for. So I'm not a big fan. Ashley James (0:50:33.269) In the last few years, a lot of people participated in the mass medical experiment known as the COVID vaccine. It was an experiment and you shouldn't even call it a vaccine. It manipulated our own RNA. I'm close friends with several people who dropped dead. I know several children whose parents just thought they were doing the best they could with the information they had and now their children are permanently damaged or so far permanently damaged. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:51:07.099) It is sad. If we're going to go there, my own children who are in their 50s were never vaccinated. Ashley James (0:51:13.035) They, I'm guessing, stayed away from the medical experiment? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:51:18.519) Yes, I'm saying they were never vaccinated, even as children.  Ashley James (0:51:22.942) And they are healthy and happy? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:51:22.942) So the thing is not necessarily. It doesn't assure health and happiness. It's just that I never actually was too thrilled about those vaccines. Now, there's so much information about why it's a really bad idea, in particular, the new varieties that they are developing. Ashley James (0:51:47.148) I just think we need to really take it slow and use critical thinking and not be so trusting with the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:51:54.554) That's true. Well, it can be helpful sometimes.  Ashley James (0:52:00.690) No, of course not, not throw it out. You said, don't throw it out, but don't be so trusting, especially when they want to provide something that they think is a prophylactic, when what we have is a rich range of natural medicine and herbal medicine that we can use to support our body's ability to heal itself and protect itself.  Going back to pain, because I want to get into the immune. I know we're easing into that immune topic and I want to talk about it, but I just want to make sure for anyone listening that's in pain. You've talked about bitter melon, you've talked about the green lip mussels, which is super interesting. I hadn't heard about them before. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:52:33.896) Well, know what is funny? There are some of these things on TV that say it's going to get rid of all pain. When you look into it, they're super expensive. Then when you actually read the supplement facts box about what's in there, they'll call it something super pain away or whatever they call it, a lot of illegal names and facts. Then when you look in there, it's a green mussel. Then you can get just that from a much more reputable source, much less expensive as well. So it's always good to read those supplement facts boxes to find out. Then there's so many things, Boswellia, which is a tree sap. That's one of the most effective natural remedies to bring down inflammation. Ashley James (0:53:21.464) How do people take that? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:53:24.740) So, Boswellia is the same thing, if you've ever heard of frankincense and myrrh, that's what it is. What it is is a tree sap. So, they have to have you gather it, unless you have a Boswellia tree, you're not going to be gathering it by your house, because how you do it is you actually slice the tree, and then this white sticky exudate comes out, and then that is scraped off and dried. That is frankincense that was used thousands of years ago. Boswellia contains high levels of gum resins and they are really, really useful, and have been used for Ayurvedic medicine, which is a wonderful system from India, specifically for arthritis. It contains Boswellic acid, which is a very powerful anti-inflammatory and analgesic. So that really brings down that whole experience of pain while it's healing the joints or whatever irritated area that you may have. So that's another really, really good one. Ashley James (0:54:27.152) So how do they take it? Do they chew it or make tea out of it? How do they take that? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:54:32.181) So, Boswellia is widely available and now they just ground that resin and they either make it into a liquid herbal extract or in a capsule. So, it's a very, very easy thing to find. Ashley James (0:54:44.787) Okay. Got it. Before we move on to the immune, because I'm excited to get there, is there anything else you want to make sure that you mention about taking these remedies for pain? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:54:55.793) Well, one thing is it's really better to work with a holistic provider, which if you can find a naturopathic physician and be sure they actually went to a naturopathic college or someone else who you get good news about them, that they are very knowledgeable. Because if you're already on a lot of medication, particularly drugs, and you just start popping all these other pills, albeit that they're natural, it's really not a good idea because these things can interact with each other as well. Ashley James (0:55:30.469) Right, so if someone's not on any medication and they're in pain or they had an injury, they could try one or more of these things, but better to connect with a holistic practitioner that can help them navigate this. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:55:47.405) Yes, it's always better to do that because then you have somebody on your side who's knowledgeable. Whether you are on medication or not on medication, you don't have to worry so much. But truthfully, natural remedies, although they're not free of side effects, have a much lower incidence. For instance, pharmaceutical drugs used as indicated, and this is right from the New England Journal of Medicine, is the fourth leading cause of death, I mean, of death in the United States. That's pharmaceutical drugs used as indicated.  Ashley James (0:56:27.617) It's worth saying again, that the doctor tells you how to use it, you use it, and it's the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. I'm sure around the world has similar results, because many countries follow the quote unquote modern medical system that the United States started. It is not off script. It is not off-label. I've seen doctors regularly prescribe off-label.  I had a neighbor once, with this was years ago. Young woman had Lyme disease or sorry had lupus and her doctor was giving her chemotherapy off script chemotherapy to try to get her lupus under control. I just wept for her, she was 21 years old. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:57:07.530) Yes, that's usually methotrexate is used that way quite a bit. Yes, and it has this huge litany of side effects. It's amazing. It's worse than the disease that it's treating. Ashley James (0:57:16.072) Right. We're not even talking about off script. How many times doctors use off script. We're talking about as prescribed. These are drugs that are approved and every drug that's been taken off the market for killing too many people, including my mom, was once approved. So we have to remember that all drugs that have been horrific at hurting people were all approved and then they eventually get taken off.  Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:57:42.478) Anyone can just get it if they have it at their house while they're listening to our podcast today. They just go if they have Tylenol, or any other over-the-counter nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs on the label now, there's a horrendous black label warning about liver damage and dropping dead from taking it once. This is on the labels. That's how bad it is. So it's not something to play with. Ashley James (0:58:16.48) I love that you're pointing this out because it's so important to recognize. I feel as adults, we have a very child, almost nursery rhyme relationship with the medical system. It's the big protector that when I get sick, it's like having parents when we're kids, I'm just going to go to them and they're going to make me all better. They're just going to give me the right drug. I'm having an infection. I just need to get some antibiotics and I'm going to be good. Yes. The medical system, the emergency medicine, drug-based medicine has its place, but to trust it blindly is where we really lose our health, is where we really go downhill. So to recognize that it is the fourth leading cause of death when it's used appropriately. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (0:59:02.960) So I just want to read this. Anybody can look it up. I'm looking it up right now. Black label warning. This is for any kind of NSAID, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory. Causes an increased risk of serious gastrointestinal adverse events, including bleeding, ulceration, and perforation of the stomach or intestines, which can be fatal. These events can occur at any time during use and without warning symptoms. This is from the NIH. I told you the NIH is doing quite a bit. So, hey, do we really want to pop those or do we want to take some Boswellia, which is super safe that we just spoke about, or white willow bark is another one that you actually can get yourself, which is a great pain medicine, or making a ginger tea and then also using it as a ginger compress. These are all things we talk about both in our book Arthritis and in our book Supplements for Pain and how to use them and how to use them safely. Because, not that you maybe want to never use drugs, maybe you want to as a last ditch, not as a first choice. Ashley James (1:00:16.228) Exactly. I love that. Thank you for pointing that out. Before you went into that library and took the catalog card and started looking through it and before you had that big revelation, why didn't the doctors tell me about these remedies? Why didn't they even know that this world existed? It's like pulling back the curtain. I think about that moment in The Wizard of Oz when it goes from gray to color, when it goes from black and white to color. It's this whole world that we don't know about because we're never taught. It's not taught in mainstream. It's not taught in movies, TV shows. It is always about drug-based medicine in movies and TV shows. Not to get super into conspiracy, which I will. The pharmaceutical industry funds Hollywood, funds all the media you consume, unless it's independent media like this podcast. What you've read, what you've seen on TV, what you've seen in newspapers, your entire life has been shaped by this giant PR campaign. It is Orwellian. It is like big brother. There's this whole world and luckily we don't live in a country where it's banned and it's hidden from us. I feel we're constantly fighting for our right to continue keeping this information available. There's this whole world you're pulling back the curtain and showing that we could have in our medicine cabinet these herbs and tinctures. If you have a headache or you have a bruise, a bump, an injury that you could reach into the medicine cabinet and find your natural remedies and support your body's ability to come back into balance. Then reserve those over-the-counter pharmaceuticals for your last ditch, I'm sick of being in pain and this isn't working. So many times I've seen that these natural remedies work so well and then you don't have the very scary side effects of sudden death. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:02:27.992) How about that? It's true. Ashley James (1:02:30.998) Get into the immune. I'm very, very excited. I hate to feed into the propaganda, but we're coming into flu season as they call it. I just want to point out that people get the flu all year round. This isn't just because we're indoors a bit more and have less sunlight. That doesn't mean you have to get sick for sure. Please don't buy into the mass hypnosis that you will get sick. I'm just using the term flu season, but I'm not buying into it. I believe that we can all be healthy and maintain our health all year, all winter long. I'd love for you to share what can we do first preventively? What herbs should we want to take starting now and all through the winter? What are the most important things to do to prevent, to keep the immune system very healthy and keep ourselves healthy.  Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:03:28.734) I actually believe that everyone should create for their home, I have a book by this name, the name of the book is The Natural Medicine Chest. I actually think everyone should have in their home a natural medicine chest already set up. Because many of the remedies we're about to discuss in terms of offsetting things like colds and flus, you have to use them at first sign. So it's not like if any of us have ever experienced that little sore throat at night and you go to bed and when you wake up in the morning, now you're coughing and sneezing. When you have that first little tickle, that's when you have to start this stuff. By the time you get up the next day and get in the car and drive to the health food store or the store is closed or you have to ship it from Amazon, it's not going to get there. I guess they're pretty fast by Amazon. I might get there the next minute, is what I find. Nonetheless, you're better off having this in your house. That's when it works best at the very first sign. So we will talk about some of those things that people should have in their natural medicine chest. This was actually the protocol I put together during that very challenging time. Thousands of people used it and actually had basically no problems at all, which is great. So the first thing is a very easy remedy to have around, and that's vitamin C. Vitamin C is super easy to get. I would actually recommend that people get powdered vitamin C, because then it has no additives, it doesn't have the capsuling agents, it's just pure vitamin C. There are vitamin Cs around that you can get that are sourced from natural things, such as rose hips. In fact, you can make your own vitamin C by collecting rose hips. Rose hips are the fruit that's on roses. After the flower falls off, there's a round ball there. That's the rose hip. So you collect the rose hips, let them dry completely till they're really dry. Then you can just pound them with a mortar and pestle. All herbalists have to have a mortar and pestle. Use that powder. Just mix it into a little water or any other kind of drink. You also, of course, can very easily just buy vitamin C. That's usually going to be ascorbic acid. Ascorbic acid is usually sourced from corn. It might be GMO corn or it might be non-GMO corn. Some of the brands will list that it's non-GMO, which would be a better choice. Nonetheless, vitamin C. Now, taking about 500 milligrams of vitamin C daily is a great idea. But when you think that you're starting to come down with something, you can take up to 10,000 milligrams a day. In fact, you can check yourself how high you have to go by seeing when you get to bowel tolerance. Bowel tolerance means you've taken so much vitamin C that you're starting to have loose stools. Then you back off a little bit. That's not something you do ongoingly all the time. That's only for when you feel you're being challenged. You need to have it around. So that's one of the best remedies to have around all the time, vitamin C. It's a great place to start. Now another remedy that I would never be without is sometimes called elderberry syrup, but it's from a particular plant. The genus and species of the plant is Sambucas nigra, which is black elderberry and grows in many areas. If it grows by you, you should actually collect it, but you have to collect it when the berries are there. Because if you go to collect it in the middle of the winter and there's no more berries there, you're out of luck. So that's not the time to get it. It's so widely available now. So many brands. I definitely have my favorite brands. I don't like to name favorite brands when we're on a non-commercial podcast, but if anybody wants to know. You can just email me through Natural Nurse, all one word, naturalnurse.com, and I'll tell you some of my favorite brands. There are several excellent Sambucas on the market, and they're just called Sambucas Liquid. Sometimes they're called Sambucas Immune. They have various names. Something to determine which ones are best is read the supplement facts box, because you can get Sambucas, which has tons of sugar in it.  You can find Sambucas that have artificial sweeteners in it that I don't recommend. You can get Sambucas that are very thick and black with no negative additives and where you get a very high level of concentrated berry in every teaspoon. Normally you don't take this every day. At that first sign, you take about a teaspoon of this. It's actually delicious. So it's great to use for kids too. Every two hours or so. You don't have to wake up at night to take it, but for every couple hours and then you could go to sleep and if you wake up at night, you throw it, store it, you take it again and that can really stop you from ever getting sick ever. Ashley James (1:08:55.916) Love that. When we look at the supplement facts, sometimes it'll say how many milligrams of it, a concentration of the Sambucas. What would you say, 500 or is there a number we're kind of looking for? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:09:13.922) Well, it's really widespread out over the commercially available products. So in general, when you need it, high is better, because you can't just get a few milligrams of this. This has to be concentrated. Some of them have up to 12,000 milligrams per dose. Those are some of the better ones. You see the difference, because instead of being a watery liquid with preservatives and sugar in it, it will be a thick, black, herbal liquid. That's what you actually want.  So also, as I mentioned, I'm very into herbs, we can get back to other really special herbs specifically for this, but I also want to recommend homeopathics, because in this case, nobody should not have right now within our listening audience, everyone should have this in their house, in their purse if they're a woman or a guy who carries a purse. In your glove compartment if you're a driver who goes places in your car, and this is called Oscillococcinum. Oscillococcinum is one of the most important remedies to have on hand when you need it. It literally stops the development of any kind of flu infection in its tracks but the trick is you must take it at the very first sign. You can't wait, not three days later, and then you're coughing and sneezing and a runny nose. It's not that helpful at that time. If you catch it right at the beginning, Oscillococcinum, that's a homeopathic, not an herb. Super to have on hand. It has become so popular. When it first came out, we were importing it into my clinic directly from Germany, where it was being made. Now you can get it at Walgreens, CVS, anywhere. It's not an odd thing to get. It's super easy to get, super inexpensive, and super effective. No one should be without that. Ashley James (1:11:14.264) I love that. So they take it, they put some of the pellets under their tongue. We should never touch homeopathy. Just put it on your tongue away from food. You can drink water, but it can get a few minutes away from food and let it dissolve under your tongue. How many times would you want them to take it? Is it every 15 minutes? Is it every hour? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:11:33.800) Okay, so with that particular thing with Oscillococcinum, if you purchase it or if you have it, you will see the directions for use printed on the box will say, take a whole tube, and it'll say something every few hours, but you don't need to do that. All you have to do is it comes in little tubes. You can unscrew the plastic top off the tube and just pour from the tube. However many of those little teeny balls, which is what they are, tiny pellets, fit in the top. Then you dump that under your tongue. You pick up your tongue and you dump it in the well under your tongue and just let it dissolve. I would say you could do that every two or three hours until you forget to do it. Because after a while you go, was I getting a cold or flu? I guess not. Because it just goes away. Then, I would not again say, it's two hours and I have to wake myself up at two in the morning to take it again. No. Just while you're up and then go to sleep and then in the morning if you're still having issues or if you do wake up in the middle of the night, you do it again. In most cases, that's going to be the end. You won't get the cold or flu. That's how phenomenal Oscillococcinum is. Ashley James (1:12:55.206) I love it. I love homeopathy so much. Obviously you want to talk to your own pediatrician, hopefully a holistic one. My son only sees naturopathic pediatricians unless he's in an emergency situation, you're going to a children's hospital. Other than that, he's only seeing naturopaths and we've used homeopathy since he was an infant, since he was a baby. That's what I love. There's no placebo effect there because I have a colic baby crying from gas pain and I put something, a little homeopathy under his tongue and he just smiles. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:13:35.316) Homeopathy is definitely one of the best interventions and it works very well along with herbs and it is currently being massively attacked by the FDA and FTC. So if you think that you might want to learn about homeopathy in the future, I suggest you purchase. I'm not selling them, I'm just saying, find one, buy a homeopathic first aid kit today because they're really aggressively making it not available anymore. Why? Why not? Because they're saying if you take apart a homeopathic remedy and it says, let's say, from chamomile flowers, which might have been the original mother tincture, and if they take apart the homeopathy, there's no chamomile in that pill. That's right, because that's the definition of homeopathy. It's not a substance. It's beyond substance. It's within the realm of energy medicine. It's just being not allowed and it is so inexpensive, so super effective and excellent for children.  I don't know that I could have raised my kids who are getting to be 50 year old age now without homeopathics. It's really great and not only that, children take them more easily because it's little teeny sweet sugar pills rather than herbs. Sometimes it's hard to get them down. Thinking of my kids running under the table when I was trying to give them herbs. They wound up getting them anyway because my house was a benevolent dictatorship, not that the kids get their way. I got my way and they had to do what I wanted. When they were teenagers, I put a sign on the refrigerator saying, move out now while you still know everything. Nonetheless, they managed to grow up somehow. Ashley James (1:15:24.123) I love that. I love that you mentioned homeopathy. It's not molecular medicine, it's energetic medicine. That is pooh-poohed by the mainstream medical system. First of all, you can see that it works, you just see that homeopathy works. There's around the world so many, so many studies, but I've personally seen it in my own life.  What is so great is that it is so gentle on the body. Talk about side effects, very, very minimal, if any. There's something called proofing, in which you can prove that that wasn't the right remedy. You might experience some discomfort temporarily. It's very rare. I actually have never seen it personally. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:16:08.935) Very rare, not with the dosing that you would get in a homeopathic first aid kit. When you start to get into, and we're not going to talk about what this means, but maybe you'll know. When you start going up into the 200C range of things, and you're going after very deep genetic issues, then that's where those proofing often come out. You don't have to worry about it. Just get simple homeopathics that are widely available. Of course, one amazing, amazing thing, how old is your son? Ashley James (1:16:35.565) He's nine and a half now. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:16:37.371) So he might be the right age, because if you're a soccer mom at all, you should never go to any sport without arnica cream. Because I can't tell you on the soccer field, as not only my son, but all the kids would run over every time they twisted or bumped something and they had black and blue whatever, you put arnica cream on it and everybody's amazed to watch it disappear in front of your eyes. Ashley James (1:17:00.707) Yes. When I played softball, I got a softball to the eye. I feel really fortunate that my mom was into natural medicine and I grew up seeing a chiropractor and a naturopathic doctor. My chiropractor had given me arnica cream and I put the arnica cream on and I got a softball in the eye. It was a fly ball. I should have had the world's biggest black eye. I put arnica cream on that and you wouldn't have known that I got hit in the face with the softball. It was so amazing. It's so amazing. Attached to my purse is a little first aid kit and I have Arnica pellets in there and a few other homeopathics. I definitely have the cream at home. My son runs up to me and gets the Arnica pellets if he ever bumps himself. It's so wonderful and so easy to use. It's so cheap. It's so effective. The thing with homeopathy is if you didn't get a result, go to a practitioner, get them to help you. Because sometimes it just takes a little bit of knowledge, just a little bit of diving in and learning. Then you really start to get results with it. I have a friend who has a family and three kids, none of them are vaccinated. She was never vaccinated. Her mother was never vaccinated. Her mother who passed away a few years ago, very, very old, had a wonderful healthy life, helped bring homeopathy to Washington state and the entire family. That's the first thing they go to. They just, they blow any time a little cold comes on, they just blow it right out. Take, take their homeopathy, blow it right out. Any bumps, bruises, take some homeopathy. Just it brings the body back in about so that it comes back to frequency medicine. We have to acknowledge that we're not just physical matter. We're not just meat sacks, that we are more energy and that we are more vibration and more frequency than we are molecules, than we are solid.  Homeopathy works on that plane. So I think it's brilliant. I think it's more brilliant than the pharmaceutical industry, than those synthetic drugs. I think it's more brilliant. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:19:09.578) So do I, it really should be just commonly available, commonly used. Every physician, this is what the NIH is now saying. By the way, the first line of intervention for every single patient should be food, exercise, some kind of relaxation technique to support healthy sleep, and the use of botanical medicine first before any pharmaceuticals are prescribed. That would make everybody feel so much better. It would really bring down the cost of healthcare as well as much more positive outcomes for everyone. Ashley James (1:19:50.184) Let's say someone didn't reach for their elderberry or their homeopathy and they feel they've got a full on flu. What do we do? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:20:05.526) Well, there's other things where we go with that. First of all, besides those, there's some very good herbs that actually are antibiotics, okay? Yet, it is illegal to say herbs are antibiotics. Ashley James (1:20:19.893 Isn't that wild? Isn't that kind of gross? That's why I say it's so Orwellian. It's such a manipulation. We've been using herbs for thousands of years, that they're natural antimicrobial agents in them, that they help us to kill bad bacteria in our body. Yet a synthetic man made patented product can only be called a cure. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:20:43.029) That is true. Then comes another thing that I do a lot besides teaching other practitioners how to incorporate natural remedies into their protocol. I work a lot with natural product companies because they are so regulated by the FDA and FTC about what they can say. Especially when somebody might make their own herbal remedy and it works really well and they get excited so they decide to offer it to others, let's say on Etsy. Before you know it, the FDA and FTC are pounding on their door with a $3 million fine, taking their computer, all the herbs they made. They really wind up in terrible trouble. I suggest you do not do that. We might not agree with this overregulation, but you better believe it's there. The thing is, you can say something—oil of oregano, echinacea, and goldenseal—we're going to talk about now.  I can tell you right here on our podcast today that these actually kill microorganisms as well as increase the speed that our white blood cells move through our system, recognizing and gobbling up any kind of invading bacteria or viruses. I can tell you that in an educational way. I can write about it in my book. I can have it on my website because I do not sell it. As soon as you are selling it as a product, let's say Echinacea or Goldenseal, or an Echinacea-Goldenseal combination, you have a nice little bottle of it, and there you say on your website that it's antimicrobial, that's when it becomes illegal to say it. If you're not selling anything, you have a lot more latitude in terms of sharing this information. So that's one that's really good to have in your house that does what you just mentioned, actually kill microorganisms once you're already having something that's beyond that first issue. So echinacea and goldenseal are excellent. Another one is oil of oregano. Oil of oregano is a very strong antibiotic. Now, as an herb company, people can't say that on their label. So they say, it supports immune function, even though it doesn't do one single thing for the immune system. It kills microorganisms, but you cannot say that. So that's why so many things will say immune support on them, because that's a fairy dance. We find that the FDA does not go after that immune support word, so they just slam dunk it on everything, even though that's not what it does. Ashley James (1:23:32.324) I'd love to understand. Is it kind of a nuclear bomb that just kills indiscriminately all the bacteria inside us, wherever it touches or so?  So our good bacteria is also harmed. Okay. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:23:49.530) Yes, yes, it does. Will also be destroyed. That is right. You can go ahead and then replenish with different kinds of microorganisms that are more healthy. You certainly can do that. Yes, that's one that really does actually kill microorganisms, as does garlic, as a matter of fact. Garlic doesn't make a decision about whether this is good bacteria or bad bacteria, it kills all the bacteria. So if you overdo it, while it's good to do heavy amounts while you have a cold or flu, you may also want to do something with probiotics or prebiotics. A good way to do that, I think the best way to do that is sauerkraut. Ashley James (1:24:31.436) Yes. Live culture though, fermented live culture. Got to look on the label, make sure there's no vinegar in there. That's not the real stuff. You want the real probiotic, just water and salt. So brine, usually a refrigerated section. You can make your own. So easy. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:24:50.642) Yes, making your own is pretty easy. They have these really good makers of it that you can get again anywhere. They're just a heavy, old-fashioned ceramic. Then there's a heavy weight that you put on top of your cabbage if you're making it out of cabbage. It's really not a big deal to do that. Sauerkraut really, I think, is really one of the best ways, rather than buying all these very expensive dried probiotics or prebiotics, that might be okay, too, but I think it's really preferable. Another thing I really love is BioStraft, which is an old-fashioned Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It's been on the market since 1962, and that really acts as a postbiotic as well as a prebiotic. So, reestablishing that healthy microbe is important, but that's not our first consideration when we're dealing with an immediate cold or flu. That's going to be the plan later. Ashley James (1:25:49.400) Right, the rebuilding. Yes, so the rebuilding. I think it's really important to talk about that there's a rebuilding after you're sick, whether it's a little bug, a little head cold or something greater, a virus or a bacteria, that there's a period of time where you're focusing on the acute issue. You're kind of throwing everything at it, supporting the body, but also taking some natural killers, garlic and oregano, natural killers. Then we have to acknowledge that when you start to feel better, just when you start to feel better, you have to be your mom telling yourself, no, you have to still go to bed early. I know everyone listening has had this, you start to feel better, you go back to your regular routine and then it relapses and you start to feel tired again. You're not done. Just because the acute symptoms have diminished does not mean this isn't again, we're not in the Jetsons. You didn't just take a pill and all of a sudden you're better again. So there's that rebuilding phase. So actually, I feel it's three phases. It's the acute and then it's the okay, you feel better, but actually you're still, your body's still fighting it. You might not have these massive acute symptoms, your body's still fighting it. So give yourself a few more days of grace, just give yourself permission to be more restful. Maybe go for gentle walks or something, but rest. Don't eat sugar. Don't eat dairy. Eat whole foods. Nourish your body. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:27:10.352) Well, here's some great food. Another one that we haven't mentioned, which is really helpful to have in the house, is colloidal silver. Colloidal silver is strongly antimicrobial. It's not something you really want to take lots of every day, some of them recommend. No. Have it in the house because it really is a very effective antimicrobial. Then, you said, food is so important. In my protocol that I gave to so many people, homemade soup is really important. If you're vegan, you can just make a vegetarian soup. If you're not, you can use organic chicken in the soup, which of course has actually been scientifically studied, to reduce the length of colds and flus. You can limit solid foods, especially dairy and wheat. In fact, it's a good idea to not eat much of that ever, as a matter of fact. The less you eat of it, the less aggressive the infections are to begin with. Always have lemon around because you squeeze about a half a lemon into a cup and then you can add garlic to that as well, just crush some garlic in it and a pinch of cayenne pepper and honey to taste and you have about a cup of that every two to three hours and it gets rid of that entire infection super fast. You can feel your sinuses opening up and your throat not being as sore. So there's a lot that we can do with self-care and these natural remedies that really make a huge difference, much better than anything they have, pharmaceutically. Ashley James (1:28:45.628) My mom, she wasn't much of a cook, but whenever I had a sore throat, she would boil water with fresh ginger, crush the fresh ginger, chop it up, put it in there and boil it, boil the ginger for a while, put in a few sprinkles of cayenne. I was a kid, so I couldn't take that much cayenne, but she'd put some in and then she'd turn the heat off and then she'd squeeze lemon in there and stir some honey in. I would drink that all day and it would just blow that sore throat right out. I just loved it. More recently in the last few years, I think the last 10 years, I was turned on to thyme. I started getting fresh thyme from the grocery store, but I take a whole handful of fresh thyme and take hot water, have it boil, but then take it off the stove, put it in four cups of water, put it in and leave the lid on for 10 minutes. Then just drink that with a little bit of honey when you're congested. Because of how congested you are, I can't believe it. Just all of a sudden you are draining. It's amazing. One thing I learned the hard way, don't do it too late at night because it would cause me to cough because it was draining so well, but I'm lying down because I'm sleeping. So that's more of a do it during the day, but not late at night. It's amazing. It was better than, I really do not do over-the-counter drugs, but I have in the past a long time ago and it worked for me, better than any over-the-counter pharmaceutical decongestant. It worked faster. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:30:20.046) Right, well there's a difference, like you said Ashley, sometimes when we're dealing with coughs, we need to know even in terms of herbs, which we teach in our course, of course the Natural Nurse Herbal Certification course, is this a decongestant or is it an expectorant or is it a cough suppressant? Even herbs have different actions along those lines. Sometimes you take something that is natural and has something to do with coughs. When you take it, it's actually an expectorant, something like a horehound. That's going to make you cough more because you're coughing up that congested solidifying mucus, which is great, but maybe not overnight when you're trying to sleep. You're so right about that. Ashley James (1:31:03.382) So at night, what would you want? You want to help sleep, but you want to kind of almost dry out a bit.  Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:31:11.394) Yes, you want to take something that's not going to be an expectorant. You want to take something that's going to be a relaxant, even chamomile or some herb that relaxes all the muscles so you don't cough as much overnight. Ashley James (1:31:26.400) Thinking magnesium. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:31:28.806) Well, magnesium's a great, a very, very good relaxant, even when people have muscle cramps or, almost everybody could use some magnesium. Of those, I really prefer magnesium glycinate if you're going to take a form of magnesium as a supplement. Ashley James (1:31:45.155) You mentioned, so the echinacea and goldenseal. Do you like that better in a tincture, pill form, dry form, or tea form? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:31:54.231) My favorite kind is a liquid extract, which is very different from a tincture. The only people who would know that difference are herbalists, because the word tincture has to do with extracting out using alcohol as what's called the menstruum, which is the soaking agent that you put the herbs in. That will make a tincture. A tincture will usually give you a certain milligram amount per drop or full if it is one of those little liquid bottles. If you get an extract, a liquid herbal extract, that means every dropperful has 1,000 milligrams of concentrated herb. So I would prefer a liquid extract in terms of Echinacea and Goldenseal. Ashley James (1:32:37.707) Wonderful. How often would they take that thousand milligram dropper while they're sick? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:32:43.319) So if you're well, not at all. It's not something that you want to do daily. If you start to come down with something, you can take that much, maybe three, four times a day. If you're already in the midst of it, a dropperful an hour ongoing all day. You don't wake up and do it again, just while you're up. Ashley James (1:33:04.255) Got it, love it. Any side of, sort of overdose or negative effects? If you take too much, you get diarrhea, that kind of thing? There anything we should know? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:33:16.191) Yes, that's the main of most of these specific things that we're talking about today in terms of using it for an acute cold or flu. Yes, if you overdo it, a common effect of that, which we'll call an unwanted effect, would be loose stools. On the other hand, sometimes that's exactly what you want because you get rid of the infection more quickly. You can determine, well, I don't want to go that much. Then all you have to do is back off and that reaction will be gone. Ashley James (1:33:45.667) Got it, so don't be afraid of it. If you get loose stools, tone it down a bit. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:33:50.473) Exactly. Then you definitely do decrease the amount as you're getting better and then there'll be a certain day you kind of forget to take it and that's when you're done. Ashley James (1:34:02.071) I love it. I love it. We talked about oregano oil of oregano, but we didn't really talk about how much that is that nuclear bomb that we should have when we're done taking it and we're in that recovery phase of building back. My thing is no matter how long you were sick, take a few weeks, even though you feel good, take a few weeks after you've recovered to just be more gentle with yourself and rebuild. So eat that prebiotic, wonderful prebiotic foods, eat some probiotic-rich live culture fermented foods. It doesn't have to be a lot, just a spoonful with each meal. It doesn't have to be a huge amount. I know some people don't like the taste of sauerkraut. It's okay. There's other foods you can ferment also, but the variety, the better the variety. I've been told that there's more prebiotic probiotic culture in one spoonful of sauerkraut than there is in a whole $50 bottle of probiotics. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:34:52.714) Yes, not just more, but much more bioavailable. It's so far better than taking anyone a pill, truthfully. Ashley James (1:35:01.590) So good. I interviewed an amazing man a few years ago who has had HIV since I think the '80s. He says that because he eats fermented food every day, because his gut is so rich and so diverse, the microbiome, he knows his immune system is so much better off than all his other friends who unfortunately have passed away from it. He says it's, when we support ourselves with this food, we're supporting our immune system as well. I love that. We can see it. We can clearly see it in his health and in others. How do we take the oil of oregano? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:35:40.746) So oil of oregano, you have to get a really good brand. Again, then you're not going to be just getting oregano and distilling it yourself unless you are. That's another whole distillation process. Most people will be purchasing already available oil of oregano. They vary greatly in terms of quality. So that's another one. If you want to give me a call or text me or email me through naturalnurse.com, I'll give you some really good brands. But it's usually a little teeny bottle with a dropper top. It's often a liquid. Much better to take that as a liquid than a capsule or a tablet. Then you just turn the bottle upside down and let two drops fall out onto your tongue. I would say around every two hours when you're ill, not all the time, because this is something that's aggressive against good probiotic type bacteria as well as negative. But it's a really good thing to use for that cold or flu season. Ashley James (1:36:41.688) Love it. Is there anything else that is really important that we are aware of? I think if we did all of this, we'd be really good. Everything you just mentioned, I think we're set. Is there anything else that you want to make sure we know about? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:36:58.295) Wonderful Chinese herb that I have found amazingly reverse any of these things, especially if used early on. That's a Chinese medicine called Gan Mao Ling. It's G-A-N-M-A-O-L-I-N-G. It is an herbal, and it is a mixture of several different Chinese herbs, including Isitis which is strongly antimicrobial as well as supporting the immune system. So I would say those are a very, very good thing to use. Ashley James (1:37:32.307) Is this  a compressed herb pill?  Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:37:35.843) Yes. They have it in Chinatown. You can get them with no coating. Sometimes they have a coating, but they often don't. It would just be a black combination of herbs. That really works amazingly well if you catch it at the beginning. Ashley James (1:37:51.179) How much and how often will we take it? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:37:54.715) So usually those come in little pellets or tablets. So you actually take five per dose for an adult, and you would take five every two hours or so. Again, you don't wake up at night and do it until, basically the symptoms go away. Now if you're already in the raging state, that's not too helpful a remedy. Ashley James (1:38:16.372) Got it, got it. So yes, a lot of this is catching it early and I love that. You had mentioned colloidal silver. I interviewed Dr. Keith Moeller, who's a naturopath that talks about nano silver and the difference between colloidal silver and nano silver, which is really interesting. A good, good interview to go back on. There's over 400 studies on nano silver and supporting immune function and also just how wonderful it is at killing even MRSA. They have great results with it. So I love that. then you'd mentioned vitamin C powder. What do you think about acerola cherry powder?  Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:38:50.001) Great, good choice. You have to check the brand because some people might have acerola cherry powder but then they're adding in maltodextrin and all these other additives that you may not want. That is a good choice. I said, if you make it yourself, because acerola cherries, we can gather them here in Florida. They remind me a lot of rose hips, which are also very high in vitamin C. Ashley James (1:39:12.386) Nice, love it. So, a lot of this is safe for children. Are there any warnings or what wouldn't we do for kids?  Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:39:26.965) Well, oil of oregano is a little rough. I wouldn't necessarily drop oil of oregano into a child's mouth. I mean, in fact, a lot of people, even an adult, once you're going to try good quality concentrated oil of oregano, I would just use one drop and put it in water first. It's very intense. It does kill microorganisms. I have seen more than one person have to be hospitalized because they had a sensitivity or an allergic reaction to it in which their entire mouth blew up, very serious. So it's not something to play with and I would not use that for children. Ashley James (1:40:03.292) What's up with the elderberry? Usually that's all I have to pull out for my son. That thick elderberry, not the gummies, not the little candies that they call, the things you suck on. Why am I forgetting the word for that? Lozenges. Not those. Give them the syrup. Just go straight for the good stuff. Yes, it's expensive, but that's just it. You want to get the good stuff. Usually shoving that in my kid's mouth a few times a day when he's first starting to have flu symptoms. That's usually what kills it, what brings us right back. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:40:45.939) Well, we know why, again, that mechanism of action. What elderberry does is it is not an antibiotic, like oil of oregano and some of the other things we discussed, goldenseal. How elderberry works is it interferes with viruses having a mechanism of reproduction. Because why do you feel a little not so okay first, and by the next morning if you don't do none of these things we talked about. The next day you're all swollen in your throat, it’s because overnight, in particular viruses, reproduce a lot. So now there's millions of them instead of a little of them but it's amazing, the research has shown that elderberry specifically interferes with viral duplication. That's how it works. Ashley James (1:41:36.577) I love that. I think that's how zinc works also. They talk about increasing zinc. It does something. It interferes with the virus in some way, whether it's getting into the cell or replication. Can't remember which one. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:41:48.274) Zinc is amazing and there's actually been so many studies on it now that you actually can claim that zinc is antiviral, which is amazing, but it has been so well documented. Ashley James (1:42:00.750) I love that. This is my frustration. The doctor, as in the lie we've been told, not your doctor specifically, but the lie we've been told is, wait to get sick and then come get a drug or let's give you a shot of a bunch of chemicals and that's going to train your immune system to be healthy. Both take away your power and both train you to believe that your body cannot heal itself, you cannot trust your body. It's almost anti-God. God gave us the ability to heal and He gave us everything on this planet to support our body's ability to heal itself. I'm not saying never go to drug-based medicine, but learn about what you can do and then you will almost never, if not never need that type of medicine, the drug-based medicine, because almost all the time, everything you need in this natural world, which is so much more diverse and supportive. So I'm on my soapbox. I get excited because I suffered for so many years. I was sick for so many years. I was on constant antibiotics for so many years and it was food. Then it was natural medicine that got my health back. That's why I do the podcast, because I suffered for so long and I reversed all these health issues. I want to help those who are suffering needlessly to know that this information is out there.  Also I'm really excited about your courses. I think my listeners will be as well. I'm very interested in taking your herbal medicine course. I've just been self-taught for the most part. I like to pick people's brains, as you can tell. I just think that this is something we all should dedicate time and energy to learning, especially moms, because we're the head of the household, especially when it comes to everyone's health. I was just reminded this week, as a wife, I am kind of in charge of my husband's health. I know I cook, I cook healthy for him, but I also kind of have to check in on him, a mom does a child. That's what we do. We have to take care of each other. So it's good for us to know, to know this information. Do you have anything else you want to say about the immune before we go to the next topic?  Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:44:35.492) No, other than that, I have no more time today. Ashley James (1:44:37.262) Okay. Well, we can wrap it up then. That's no problem. I would love to have you back on the show. I would love to dive in deeper. Thank you so much for spending all the time you did with us. I know we had some internet issues that we had to overcome, which cut into our time, unfortunately, but we did go through some great information. Some of these things you talked about are those that we take temporarily, just while we're sick. Then there's certain things we could take all the time. You said, you could take vitamin C, you could drink acerola cherry powder every day, 500 milligrams every day just for overall health.  To wrap up today's interview, is there anything you would want us to know about what is good for us to look into for general overall everyday health? What are some things that are just really important to have kicking around that we use every day? Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:45:33.014) Yes, I would say a very simple thing is first of all, eat whole food. For instance, in my refrigerator, there's nothing with a label on it. So what's there? Food. Not packaged food, not processed food, not ultra-processed food, none of that. Cut down on wheat. Almost everybody, they eliminate wheat, except maybe once a week as a little treat or even not at all, will feel better. Because it reduces inflammation. Remember, we started our conversation with pain. Pain is usually due to some kind of inflammatory process. So that would be a really good place to start, as well as looking at your spiritual life.  How are you connected to joy? What supports your overall healthy brain in a way that just makes you happy? Do more of that, even if you have to not do some of the other things that you think you have to do. So those would be good places to start. Ashley James (1:46:34.750) I love it. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. I would absolutely love to have you back.  Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:46:42.626) Thank you for inviting me, Ashley. The best place for people to find me is just naturalnurse.com. Ashley James (1:46:48.432) Wonderful. I'm very excited. I'm definitely going to dive in and check out your courses because I am always looking to learn more as my listeners are as well. I'd love to have you back on the show. This has been wonderful. Dr. Ellen Kamhi (1:47:01.768) Thank you. Have a great rest of the day. Outro:  I hope you enjoyed today's interview. It was just so mind-blowing. I absolutely love Dr. Kamhi and we're going to have her back on the show for part two. In this episode we got to talk about pain. We got to talk about helping the body to repair from injury and, of course, cold and flu. The next time we have her on we're going to dive into helping the body to get out of fight or flight and to go deeper in healing mode through stimulating the HPA axis and the vagal nerve and all the things that I don't even know because we haven't done the interview yet, but we're going to go. We're going to dive down those rabbit holes and see where we land, and I know I definitely want to talk to her more about her courses that she teaches and I'm so excited for her upcoming course. Definitely check it out. I want to let you know that if you haven't already made an appointment it's a free consultation with Jennifer Saltzman. Go to TakeYourSupplements.com. Jennifer Saltzman is absolutely phenomenal and the supplements that she works with are the same ones that helped me get my health back 13 years ago. Coming on 14 years, they're the reason why I was able to conceive. I was told I'd never be able to have kids. They're the reason why I don't have type 2 diabetes, chronic adrenal fatigue, why I don't have infertility, why I don't have PCOS and just got my life back. So go to TakeYourSupplements.com. She has a wonderful program and she works with you. It's an individualized system. Now they do have wonderful protocols for immune support for people who are suffering with more chronic immune issues and chronic digestion issues—anything from hair loss, from skin, hair, and nails, to supporting your heart health, your brain health, your liver health. They have wonderful programs, wonderful supplement programs and also recommendations with how to adjust your diet to best support your health. I really like their immune support stuff and especially bigger immune things that you're facing. They have some pretty cool, pretty cool things. So check her out. I know if you thought that this episode was interesting, you would think talking to Jennifer Saltzman would be very interesting. So go to LearnTrueHealth.com. It's wild that she gives a free session and it doesn't cost any more to buy the supplements than if you bought them on your own. But these aren't in the stores directly. She helps you order the right ones for you based on your needs, based on your budget, based on your weight. It's all measured by body weight and dosed by body weight, and she gives you a wealth of resources as well. So it's a really great rabbit hole to go down. So I highly recommend going to TakeYourSupplements.com and chatting with Jennifer Saltzman. She's absolutely phenomenal. I hope you have a wonderful rest of 2024. Of course, you might be listening to this eight years or ten years in the future. I've been doing this podcast. We're coming up on ten years and I still have people listening to episodes I did ten years ago and this is evergreen. This content, this is true health content. So wherever you are in your life, whatever year it is, I hope you're having a wonderful, wonderful, blessed, amazing experience, and thank you so much for being a listener and thank you so much for sharing my podcast so we can end needless suffering of millions and millions of people, and you are a part of that by sharing. Thank you.   Get Connected with Dr. Ellen Kamhi Website – Natural Nurse Facebook YouTube Instagram   Books by Dr. Ellen Kamhi The Natural Medicine Chest Arthritis Supplements For Pain

FINAL CYBER SALES UPDATE! Get these 5 holistic cyber sales before hey are gone!   Analemma Structured Water Devices (whole house unit, gardening unit, personal size unit) End of the promotion: Friday 6th, December https://learntruehealth.com/structuredwater Discount code rate: 25% Discount code: lth25 (applicable to all products)   My Two Interviews About This Structured Water: Listen to Episode 498 https://learntruehealth.com/rejuvenate-cells-with-structured-water-mario-brainovic Listen to Episode 508 https://learntruehealth.com/healing-waters-science-of-structured-analemma-water-with-dr-eric-laarakker   MY FAVORITE DETOX & RECOVERY SAUNA: Use coupon code LTH at https://learntruehealth.com/sunlightensauna Cyber Week December 2-6 Up to $1,000 off, including FREE shipping Listen to Episode 245: https://learntruehealth.com/sunlighten-saunas   BEST ORGANIC MATTRESS FOR THE BEST SLEEP OF YOUR LIFE! Organix Bed's Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale 20% off mattresses + free white glove delivery (up to $2,018.60 in savings). 30% off bundles of 4+ accessories with free standard shipping. Discounts auto-apply with this think organixbed.com/learntruehealth Sale Dates: November 27th - December 4th   Life Spa Ayurvedic Supplements: Starting Wednesday, November 27th through Thursday, December 5th will be 20% off site wide at https://learntruehealth.com/lifespa   Listen to Episode 505: https://learntruehealth.com/quantum-healing-bridging-ancient-wisdom-with-modern-science-dr-john-douillard   IIN: Institute For Integrative Nutrition HUGE CYBER SALE! Get 30% off when you enroll in any IIN course using LTH discount code! https://learntruehealth.com/coach   535: Good Fat vs. Bad Fat: Cooking Oils Explained https://learntruehealth.com/good-fat-vs-bad-fat-cooking-oils-explained/ After a personal health crisis in the 1980s, Udo Erasmus went deep into the science of nutrition and came out with a radical revelation: not all fats are bad—in fact, some are absolutely essential for life. In this episode, he shares how essential fatty acids impact everything from brain function to skin health, why most of the oils on our supermarket shelves are doing more harm than good, and what it really means to nourish the body at the cellular level. If you’ve ever been confused about what’s healthy when it comes to oils, or if you’re on a journey to feel more energized, focused, and well—this one’s for you. Highlights Udo Erasmus, is a health educator and author of Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill, shares groundbreaking insights on the importance of healthy fats in human nutrition. Udo emphasizes that good fats—particularly omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids—are vital for brain function, energy, skin health, and overall cellular integrity. He explains that essential fatty acids cannot be produced by the body and must come from the diet, ideally from unrefined, cold-pressed oils. The modern diet often contains damaged, toxic fats due to processing methods like refining, bleaching, and heating, which compromise health and contribute to disease. Udo describes how his personal experience with pesticide poisoning led him to research fats extensively, eventually producing his own line of health-conscious oils. He advocates for oils to be stored in dark glass bottles, refrigerated, and protected from light, heat, and oxygen to prevent oxidation and maintain nutritional quality. Udo criticizes the food industry's treatment of oils and urges consumers to be more informed about the fats they consume. He discusses how fats are foundational for mental and emotional well-being, and that fat deficiency can lead to mood disorders and cognitive decline. Udo believes health starts at the cellular level, and by consuming clean, undamaged oils, people can significantly improve their quality of life. His mission is rooted in a holistic view of health—nurturing body, mind, and spirit through proper nutrition and conscious living. Intro: Hello True Health Seeker and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. I am so excited for you to dive into today's episode. I want to make sure you know about the amazing cyber sales that are about to wrap up. They're about to end, but you still have time to jump in and take advantage of these really great savings. So I'll be really quick, I'm going to let you know about them and I'm also going to put the details in the show notes of today's podcast at learntruehealth.com and wherever you're listening from, whether it's Spotify or iTunes, wherever you're listening from, there should be a little area that shows the details, more details, and you click on that and you should see all this information there. So, number one, we have Analemma, the structured water device that I use daily. I have some interviews about it, interview 498 and episode 508. So go back and check those ones out. If you're , huh, structured water, that sounds interesting. Let me tell you, it is. It increases your gut microbe health. It increases your cardiovascular health. They've done studies and it increases the health of plants, and they actually can see that it increases the output of the mitochondria, so it helps our mitochondrial health. It's really fascinating. I noticed after the first three days of drinking the structured water that this low-grade depression I had experienced for a few years after losing our daughter. It dissipated. I just noticed it was replaced by this constant low-grade humming of happiness. I'm like, wow, that's really interesting. What an interesting shift to have,  an emotional shift, from integrating something as simple as just taking 90 seconds every time you fill up your water bottle, taking 90 seconds to structure it with the device. You just have a plumber install it into your house, and then all the water coming into your house is structured, or the gardening unit if you are an avid gardener. My plants, my house plants, doubled in size really quickly after I began to use it. I had to move them. I had them by the window, and they grew too big too fast. It was pretty interesting, but the health of these plants went out of control—out of control in a good way, super healthy, when I started using the Analemma structured water device. When it structures the water, it doesn't then go chaotic again. It's really interesting. So listen to those two episodes, 498 and 508. But right now, until Friday, the 6th of December, we have a special promo code. It's LTH25. So when you go to learntruehealth.com/structuredwater, that's all one word, learntruehealth.com/structuredwater, and then use coupon code LTH25, as in Learn True Health and then the number 25, you're going to get 25% off all of their products. So the whole house unit, the gardening unit, or just the little personal size unit which is affordable. It's also a really, really cool gift to give at Christmas. So if you have a friend who's a biohacker, into health stuff, this is one of those easy things. It's also a fun magic trick if you have guests over, you have friends over, or you're going over to a friend's house. I love doing it. I take my little Anilema structured water device and I structure a glass of water and then have a glass of water that's not structured and then I tell them okay, don't look, I'm going to switch them up and only I know which one's structured and I have them sip each one and a hundred percent of the time people can tell a difference. They say it tastes different, it feels different. In my mouth it feels better, it feels like it's easier to drink. It just feels silkier. It's really interesting. I've had friends say this feels like my body's absorbing it better. It's really interesting that you can actually feel the difference and you can even see the difference as you use the device. You stir the device in the water for about 60 to 90 seconds and you can watch the water change viscosity. It actually shifts and changes. It's really interesting. There's a lot of really cool science around it. Go listen to episodes 498 and 508 and get the coupon code LTH25 happening right now for 25% off. They normally do give us a bit of a discount, so use coupon code LTH if it's after Friday, the 6th of December. If it's after that date, don't worry. You can still use coupon code LTH all year long and get the nice discount that they give us. But right now it's 25% off, which is really cool. My next favorite thing is my sauna. I have my sauna right here. I don't know if you can hear that, but there's a nice wooden sauna in my small office. It's quite a small office, and what's cool about the Sunlighten sauna is it's kind of like a TARDIS. If you ever watched Doctor Who, it doesn't take up a lot of room on the outside, but you sit in it and you're like, wow, this is really roomy. It doesn't look like it's this big. My husband and I can both fit in the single-person sauna, and it's a three-in-one sauna, meaning it's far infrared, near infrared, and mid-infrared. That helps your body produce collagen, it helps with skin health, it helps with recovery, and it helps with pain and decreases inflammation. The reason why I got it is because I had heavy metal toxicity and I had liver problems. I wanted to detox and get rid of the gunk out of my body through my skin because your skin helps you detox all those obesogens and forever chemicals and microplastics, all the processed crap that is out there, all the chemicals. Your body sweats it out, so I use the Sunlighten and I get rid of it through the sweat. It also has all these other benefits, including cardiovascular health. I have episode 245. I have several episodes with cardiologists talking about the benefits of the Sunlighten Sauna. You can type in “Sunlighten Sauna” on my website, learntruehealth.com, to find those. Episode 245 is with the creator of Sunlighten Sauna, and she's wonderful. They're giving us such a cool special from now until December 6th—$1,000 off, including free shipping. You can go to learntruehealth.com/sunlightensauna. That's learntruehealth.com/sunlightensauna, and you can purchase it through that, or you can call them and talk to them. They're wonderful people, really great. They also do payment plans. That's how I bought mine, and I was able to do it on a payment plan, making it affordable. You can have a wonderful sauna, and they even have a personal-sized one that packs up, so you can put it in the closet when you're not using it. That one's also a great choice if you don't have a ton of room. Mine takes up just a very small fraction of my small office, and I love it and highly recommend it. I use it all year round. Wintertime is super nice to get into a hot sauna. It's also very easy to breathe in there, because of the way the near, mid, and far infrared work. You feel hot, but it feels comfortable. It's not one of those saunas where it's 160 or 180 degrees. It's 130 degrees, but it actually is really comfortable to breathe in there and sweat because it's heating your body up on the inside. You also have light receptors, and we talk about that, so it really feeds the body that light that we're missing. My next favorite thing is the organic mattresses. You will get the best sleep of your life. We got one. I think it's been seven years now, seven or eight years, and I absolutely love the Organix mattress. I am in love with it. I've had three interviews about it. It's wonderful, and they're giving a massive discount. They also have a really great return policy because I think this is the big question—if I'm ordering a mattress online, what if I don't like it? What if I lie on it and I don't like it? They have this amazing return policy, and I think it's something like 180 days. It is a very long time that you are given to try it out. Let yourself get used to it. Give it a few weeks. I fell in love with this mattress. It is absolutely amazing. My husband and I joke that we don't like going on vacations because we miss our mattress too much. We even had an RV once. We brought our mattress in the RV with us because it's that comfortable. We just don't want to be without it. They're doing a great sale right now, so if you're thinking, oh man, the mattress we're sleeping on is making me stiff every day, by the way, mattresses usually deteriorate after five years of use. Most people are sleeping on a mattress that is in some way unhealthy for their back. It's bent, pushing on their pressure points, and doing more damage to their back. If you're in that position where you're thinking, I really wish I could have a better mattress that's actually healthy for me—20% off the mattresses plus free white glove delivery, that's $2,000 in savings. They also have 30% off bundles with four accessories with free standard shipping, and it just depends on which mattress you're buying. Go to organixbed.com/learntruehealth. That's Organix with an X, organixbed.com/learntruehealth. You can also give them a call. They're really sweet people. They're really great. I love their bed. I highly recommend it. That sale is ending soon, so you want to give them a call. No matter what time of year, they offer a great discount, a great savings for my listeners. Even if you're listening to this and the sale's ended, they offer a really sweet deal, and it's worth trying because, in the next five years, your mattress is going to start wearing out. Think of your next mattress. Get the Organix mattress and let me know what you think. Every listener that's ever gotten one told me it was life-changing, and it's life-changing for me. It's also fun when other people report to me, saying, oh my gosh, I love my Organix mattress. Check it out—organixbed.com/learntruehealth. Okay, two more left. Lifespa Ayurvedic Supplements. Learntruehealth.com/Lifespa is now, until December 5th, 20% off site-wide. I love their Ayurvedic herbs, the turmeric blends, and they've got wonderful herbs for digestion. Just check it out. You can listen to my interview, episode 505, about using that ancient wisdom and modern science to help the body heal through these healing herbs.  Okay, last thing I got to let you know about is the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. That's where I went and got my year long health coach training program. Absolutely love them. Well, they have more than just health coach training they have. So you don't have to become a health coach to go take their trainings. You can go take their trainings if you just want to learn how to balance your hormones or heal your gut or manage your stress. They have these micro classes that are phenomenal and I love the teachers there. You can go to learntruehealth.com/coach and get a free sample class, learntruehealth.com/coach, and right now, they have a 30% off site wide.  You want to check that out soon because that is definitely going away, that cyber sale. So jump in. If you're like, man, I would love to learn how to correct my gut and take my gut health to the next level, or I'd love to balance my hormones. Just look at they have at least 12 different courses that are super interesting, in addition to their flagship, which is the health coach training program. So a lot of people take the classes just for their own personal benefit or just to add more tools to their tool belt. So you can check that out 30% off right now and use the coupon code LTH to get that discount. So 30% off coupon code LTH.  Thank you so much for being amazing listeners, sharing my episodes with those you care about. This is going to be one of those episodes you're going to want to share with your friends and family. Share this episode with those you care about, because it is definitely a life changer. So thank you for sharing and have yourself a wonderful rest of this holiday season.  Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is episode 535. Ashley James (0:12:14.786) I am so excited for today's guest. We have kind of a celebrity on our hands today. Udo Erasmus, you've been in this industry for, I think, over 40 years. Back when I was first exploring health on my own as a young adult, I think it was in my late teens. When you're around 18 years old, 19, 20, you start making your own health choices. I worked summer jobs, so I had my own income, and I gravitated towards the health food store—those really authentic health food stores where you walk in and smell herbs, and that musky herbal smell hits you. I haven't found one of those true health stores in many years, but this was up in Bracebridge, Muskoka, in Ontario, Canada. I walked into the only health food store in 100 kilometers, and I loved that smell. Right there in the refrigerated section, they had the Udo's Oil 3-6-9 blend. I was newly into discovering what I wanted to do to rebuild my health because I had torn down my health through making really bad choices as a teenager, eating the same way all my friends ate. I was starting to try to reclaim my health, and I found this Omega-3 oil. I ended up making curry dressings with it—not heating it, of course, but making salad dressings with it. In my mind, I can still taste it. It tastes so good. There was something that just buzzed for me. I don't know if it was that flax oil taste combined with the curry and turmeric, of course, it's a healthy flavor—but my cells started buzzing. Over 20 years later, I can still taste it in my mind, that flavor of me first attempting to get my health back, the beginnings of my own health journey. Through the years, every time I see your product in the health food stores and grocery stores that I go to, I tend to go to the grocery stores that carry your line because I'm looking for local, organic, and more healthy choices. It always just brings a smile to my face. When I found out I had the opportunity to interview you, I thought that would be really fun. I think there's a lot of confusion around oil. I've interviewed a lot of doctors, and one of my mentors who helped me so much with my health tells people to stay away from oil. But what he's referring to is cooking oil. When it comes to Omega-3, 6, and 9—flaxseed—he doesn't say stay away from it. He says we have to make sure that it's not exposed to oxygen, that it's not damaged by that exposure to oxygen and light, and that it hasn't gone rancid. Oil, the moment we remove fat from fiber, can begin to oxidize as it's exposed to oxygen. There are a lot of nuances when it comes to using oils, but I think that the majority of Americans, and those around the world—not just America, but Canada and those around the world—are using oil in an unhealthy way. We definitely still have a nutrient deficiency epidemic going on where we're consuming calories but not nutrition. I can't wait to dive into this topic with you today about how we can nutrify the body and make sure we're getting enough of the omega fatty acids without damaging our body from the more damaging oils. Udo, welcome to the show. Udo Erasmus (0:16:16.928) Well, glad to be on. It's going to be fun. Ashley James (0:16:20.134) Yes, absolutely. I'm really curious about your journey. Take us all the way back to the beginning and what led you to want to create the Udo's Choice brand? Udo Erasmus (0:16:33.476) Well, the long story is I was born during the Second World War, and I was a war baby. We were refugees, and I was an orphan for a short time because of all the craziness that is still going on in Europe and the same craziness that goes on everywhere where people don't pay attention to peace and cooperation, and then they drift towards war. That really formed me to always be asking questions, to question everything, and to try and understand how can you make life better. I started that when I was six. I listened to people arguing, and it just made me really uneasy. I was very, very sensitive as a kid. I listened to an argument, and this thought came and said, there must be a way that people can live in harmony. This little cocky voice of a six-year-old who doesn't know how complicated everything is—I’m going to find out how. So I was a born scientist, always figuring out how things work. It was also good for security because I was pretty insecure. I never knew what I could trust. Didn't feel safe.  Science is really good because it gives you predictability and control. So I got into science, and long story short, got into science, then biological science and psychology, then medicine. Only lasted a year because we were told to lie to people. They said a doctor should sound as though he knows what's going on even when he doesn't. We call that lying on the farm. I thought I was going to learn about health and life and soul and all of that because that's what those words mean—biology, psychology, medicine is about healthcare. Never learned about life, never learned about soul, never learned about health in university. I spent eight years there. Then I left. Then I took a whole lot of different trade jobs because I wanted to know what it was like to be in the shoes of the people doing those jobs. So I got a lot of practical experience—carpentry, painting, logging, mining, and all that kind of stuff. Eventually, I got married, and we had three kids. My marriage broke up, and I was really angry. So I took a job as a pesticide sprayer because the only reason we make pesticides is to kill living things. I wanted to kill something. So I took this job, and three years later, I was really careless and I got poisoned by pesticides. At that point, because I had a really good background in biochemistry, genetics, and biological sciences, I got really interested in health. When I went to the doctor and said, what do you have for pesticide poisoning? She said nothing. So I said, okay, I'm on my own. I used my background to dig into the research about nutrition and health, nutrition and disease, because the body's made out of food. It's also water and air, but I was just thinking food at that time. If the body's made out of food and something goes wrong, then if you raise your standard within one year, you can have rebuilt 98% of your body to a higher standard.  That's what healing is. That's what healing is. That's why healing is possible because your body is always turning over. The atoms in your body, 98% of the atoms in your body today, will have been removed and replaced if we meet on this date next year. 98%. The body is a major construction site, and you improve the construction by improving the building material. So I was looking at everything—minerals, vitamins, amino acids, fatty acids. Those are the essential nutrients that the body can't make and has to get from outside. There are 42 of them. I got stuck on fats because it was really contradictory, just like it is now. People saying, don't use C-DOLs, don't use omega-6s. I got a study that said omega-6 is an essential nutrient, which means you can't make it, you have to have it, it has to come in from outside. If you don't get enough long enough, you die. These are really important building blocks for health and body construction. But if your health is deteriorating because you're not getting enough, and you bring enough back before you die, then all of the problems that come from not getting enough are reversed because life knows how to use them to build a body that works, provided we take responsibility at our mouth to make sure they land in our body so life can use them. That's what essential means. The very next study I read says omega-6 gives you cancer and kills you. Literally, my head exploded. I was like, wait, it's essential for me to take so that it can give me cancer and kill me? There's got to be something wrong here. You can't have it both ways. So it was that contradiction that made me say, I must be missing something. This can't be. How can those both be true? There's something going on here. That made me look deeper into how oils are made. I found out that when oils are made, the way industry makes them, and this is true for all of the colorless, odorless, tasteless oils that you buy everywhere, they treat the oil with harsh chemicals, and then they heat the oil to frying temperature for half an hour. So this oil has been fried before it goes in the bottle, before they put it on the shelf for you to buy.  In that process, they treat them with sodium hydroxide and phosphoric acid, which are very corrosive—base and acid—then they bleach them with bleaching clays and deodorize them to get rid of the bad odor that develops. They do that at frying temperature for half an hour. So about half to one percent of the molecules of the oil are damaged by the processing. That was news. So I called the Oil Chemist Society, which is the umbrella organization for the oil industry, and said I want to talk to a researcher. They put him on the line, and I said to him, when you know that the way you process oil does damage to it, why do you do that? He said, well, one of the reasons we deodorize the oil—that's the high-temperature process for half an hour—is we can get rid of half the pesticides in the oil. My head exploded again because I got poisoned by pesticides, so this is not good news. I didn't even know at that time that there were pesticides in oils. Most people probably don't because they don't think about it. So I'm thinking to myself, what do you mean, the other half of the pesticides stay in the oil? I didn't say that to him, but I said, why don't you start with organically grown seeds? Then you don't have a pesticide poison problem that you need to deal with. I got a long silence at the other end of the phone. I waited. I don't know, it might have been only three seconds, but it seemed like three hours. Then he got back to me, and he was really angry. He said, I don't know what your problem is. The oil is 99% good. It's only 1% damaged. If you got 99% on an exam, you'd be damn happy, wouldn't you? He just went on a total power trip. So now I'm back in my office thinking, well, it's only 1%. Maybe I'm overreacting. I decided we had a saying in science when I studied it. When in doubt, do the math. Numbers don't lie, right? So I said, okay, if I have a tablespoon of an oil that is 1% damaged by the processing, how many damaged molecules will be in that tablespoon? I want to ask you that question because most people don't have a basis for making the estimate. Ashley James (0:25:14.528) I don't know how many molecules are in a tablespoon or a teaspoon of oil. Udo Erasmus (0:25:21.264) Exactly. And so give it a shot because you'll see why this is going to be very useful. Ashley James (0:25:26.800) Okay, ten million. Udo Erasmus (0:25:31.076) Okay, good job. 10 million has seven zeros, right? Okay. Would you like to know the actual number? You would have to add a six in the front and then you would have to add another 12 zeros. So it's 60 quintillion damaged molecules, which amounts to more than a million damaged molecules for every one of your body's 16 trillion cells in one tablespoon of an oil that is 1% damaged. Now, people use two to four tablespoons a day. There's pesticides in the oil. There's plastic in the oil because oil swells plastic, and plastic leaches into oils quicker than into water. Then if you use the oil for frying, you have to multiply that number by another three to six times because in the frying pan, you damage the oil further by oxygen, light, and heat all at the same time. Then you do that for 30 years. So you have to multiply that by another 11,000, the number of days in 30 years. That's how many damaged molecules that did not exist in nature you introduced to your body in those 30 years. Then the research says this damage increases inflammation and the risk of cancer. Then you get something and you say, I don't know why I got that. I always ate good. Because you never knew that, because the industry has never given that airtime. Nobody talks about the damage done by processing. So then out of that comes, we use these oils to do research—these damaged oils, the 1% damaged oils, right? Then we get negative effects in some of the research. Then instead of blaming the negative effects on the damage done to the oil by processing, people who haven't done all their homework blame that on the seed oils or the omega-6s. Then they go around and say, don't use seed oils, don't use omega-6s. Now, there's a lot of people saying that. None of those people have ever talked to me, and I have not been hiding. They make assumptions about what I'm doing that are completely off the wall. Then all the people who don't know either hear what somebody says who's loud. There's some very big loudmouths in the industry. They make noise, and then everybody who hasn't done their homework will parrot them. That's why right now everybody's saying don't use seed oils, don't use omega-6s. There haven’t been any books about them. Over the 40 years that I've been doing this work, there have probably been 15 books like that. Right now, there are several books like that, and they're making a lot of noise.  Fundamentally, you have to say these guys are blaming the oil for what should be blamed on the damage done either by processing or by food preparation because we wrecked them ourselves in a frying pan. None of these people have done their homework to look into why they're getting these negative effects. There's other issues too. We've lowered our omega-3 intake down to 1 sixth of what people got 150 years ago, and we've raised our omega-6 intake at least double, but maybe even 10 times as much as what people got 150 years ago. And so the balance between those two, they're both essential. You have to have them. The balance between them has to be right because they compete in your body. The body converts them into a whole bunch of really important molecules. But they use the same enzyme system to do that. So if you get too much of one, it will crowd out the other. Then you'll become functionally deficient in the one that's being crowded out. It's called function deficiency, which means you have it, but it ain't doing the work because it's being crowded out. It's being prevented from doing its work by the other one that you have so much of. If you have too much of the other one, then it'll crowd out the one. So they both have to be in the right ratio. Ashley James (0:30:18.118) I want to slow down for people who don't know what EFAs are, what essential fatty acids are. We've mentioned essential fatty acids. You use the word essential, and you said there are nutrients the body needs. There are 90 essential nutrients. We need omega-3 and omega-6. Those are the EFAs, essential fatty acids. The body can convert, if it has enough omega-3 and 6, it can convert to 9. I know you've got 3, 6, 9 as the EFAs. I'd love clarification on that because this is my understanding. Udo Erasmus (0:30:50.078) Essential fatty acids are two, omega-3 and omega-6. They're called alpha-linolenic acid—that's the omega-3—and linoleic acid—that's the omega-6. Out of those, the body makes a whole bunch of derivatives that we call essential fatty acid derivatives. Those include EPA and DHA that you find in fish oil and krill oil.  Fish oil is seriously damaged because those omega-3 derivatives are even more sensitive to damage by light, oxygen, and heat than the plant-based essential fatty acids themselves. The body makes omega-9 out of sugar and starch. The body can make saturated fats out of sugar and starch. So those are not essential. That's why they're not called essential. Ashley James (0:31:39.539) Got it. Essential because the body isn't deficient in it because those are something that's going to be in your diet no matter what, so it's not something you can become deficient in. Udo Erasmus (0:31:49.075) Well, no, no, no, no, no, it's not like that. It's that the body can make them out of other stuff. Essential, essential, yes, essential, exactly. Essential means that your body can't make it from anything else. So you have to get that thing from outside. Ashley James (0:31:56.538) Okay. So if the body can synthesize it, it's not as essential?  Udo Erasmus (0:31:59.731) Exactly. Essential means that your body can't make it from anything else. So you have to get that thing from outside. Ashley James (0:32:08.566) Vitamin C, like, cats, goats, and wolves can make their own vitamin C, and their body makes vitamin C. They'll never have scurvy. They're not going to be deficient in vitamin C. They don't need to get it in their diet. We can't make vitamin C. It's an essential vitamin. We have to get it from our diet. Udo Erasmus (0:32:25.572) Correct. And I was just going to say that plants don't need essential fatty acids because they can make them from scratch. They make them out of carbon dioxide and water. That's all you need, right? Carbon dioxide and water to make fats and plants make them from scratch. So we depend on plants to get them because we can't make them. Ashley James (0:32:47.578) Yes, and that's an important point because a lot of times people think, well, I get it from my salmon, but the salmon don't make them. The plants the salmon eat or the smaller fish. The smaller fish eat the algae, so the algae is a plant, and the plants in the ocean, and then the smaller fish eat that, and then the bigger fish eat them, and so on. The animals don't synthesize these omegas, they get them from the plants. So let's skip the middleman, go straight to the plant. Udo Erasmus (0:33:20.790) Yes, there are some fish that can make EPA and DHA out of alpha-linolenic acid, out of the plant omega-3. Those are usually plant-eating fish. The carnivorous fish get them from their diet. It's algae at the bottom of the food chain that make EPA and DHA. The krill eat the algae, the little fish eat the krill, and the big fish eat the little fish. The EPA and DHA made by plants work their way through the entire food chain by getting eaten by different creatures. The plants actually are the foundation of most of the fish oil too. Ashley James (0:34:14.487) There are other essential nutrients. You talked about minerals, vitamins, and amino acids, but you settled on oils because there's so much controversy and confusion. I want you to explain what the body does. Why is this so important? What does the body use these oils to make, and why is it so important that we make sure we get the healthy forms of oil and not the unhealthy forms of oil? We don't want to gunk up the system. You said if you eat the wrong kinds of fat, you end up starving your body of the healthy fats because it uses up the same enzymatic system. So what does the body need this fat for? Udo Erasmus (0:35:06.763) Okay, so let me go through that. Eighteen minerals, thirteen vitamins, nine essential amino acids that come from proteins, and two essential fatty acids are the forty-two essential nutrients. Again, you can't make them; you have to have them. They have to come in from outside. If you don't get enough for long enough, you die. If you're missing any one of these and you bring them back in adequate quantities while your health is deteriorating from getting too little, then all those problems will be reversed because your body knows—or life knows—how to make a body that works, provided you optimize your intake of all the essential nutrients that it requires, that life requires to make your body workable. So that's the essential nutrients. I was looking at all of that, but I got stuck on oils because of the contradictions. There was just so much misinformation, confusion, and I felt I needed to know it to get healthy. So what the body does with the essential fatty acids—once you have alpha-linolenic acid and linoleic acid, undamaged, made with health in mind, in the right ratio—your body makes derivatives from both of them. Some of them are hormone-regulating substances called eicosanoids or prostaglandins, prostacyclins, thromboxanes, and leukotrienes, and they regulate cell activity on a moment-to-moment basis from conception to demise. These are super important in the regulation of functions in all of your cells.  Not only that, the body also, especially out of omega-3s, makes substances called resolvins, which are very powerful anti-inflammatories. Resolvins resolve inflammation, meaning they make inflammation go away. Also, protectins, which are antioxidants that protect your cells from damage done by free radicals. Then there are maresins, which play a role in immune function, and endocannabinoids, which play a role in mood regulation. If you get your fats optimized—your intake optimized—and you get the essential fatty acids in the right ratio, they've been shown to increase IQ by three to nine points. They are required for mineral transport in your cells. They make your skin soft, smooth, and velvety because together, when you get them right, they form a barrier in the skin against moisture loss, which makes your skin soft, smooth, and velvety. If your skin is dry, you need more oil. You need more oil in winter than in summer because people notice their skin gets drier in winter. This happens because you burn more of these oils for heat in winter. Brain function—they're super important in brain function. If you take the dry weight of your brain, which means your brain with all the water pulled out of it, more than 60% of what remains is fat and it's omega-3 and six derivatives. DHA is the omega-3 derivative and arachidonic acid is the omega-6 derivatives. And those are part of brain structure and brain function. Let's see what else. They are super important in vision. The retina has a lot of DHA in it. That's the omega-3 derivative, and those are important for vision. Important in sperm formation. Super important in pregnancy because when a woman is pregnant, she needs to build  two brains. She needs to maintain her brain, and she needs to build a new brain in her womb because there's so much fat in the brain, if a woman isn't getting enough omega-3—and 99% of the population does not get enough omega-3 for optimum health—what happens? Women who don't get enough omega-3 in their diet, the child will take them out of her brain because nature says the child is the future, and mom is the past. So if we have to sacrifice mom for the kid, or the past for the future, then we will do that. And so that's one of the reasons why women get baby brain after they have a kid, or they get depression. And they've shown that every child depletes the mother further. Each child gets less than the previous child. That's why they think the oldest children, on average, have the highest IQ, and IQ goes down with birth order. And they also think it's why women get two to fifteen times more depression, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, collagen, inflammatory, and autoimmune diseases than men do. They think the depletion of essential fatty acids, particularly omega-3, that is the reason why women get those conditions so much more often. So they say it's super important for a woman to have enough essential fatty acids in her diet, both for her own health and for the health of her children. So it goes on and on. It makes your hair and your nails grow better. They'll grow about 25% faster if you optimize your intake. We've worked with athletes. If you give them a tablespoon per 50 pounds of body weight per day of the blend that we did the study with, which is Udo's Oil, within a month—within 30 days—if they did their sport to exhaustion, their performance improved by 40 to 60 percent on average. Then we took them off the oil to see what would happen, and they lost that extra edge. Then we put them back on, and they got the edge back. Then we were going to take them off again one more time, and they quit because they liked the energy they were getting—because they were competitive athletes. And so that ended the study. So we ran it, and we saw it twice—how taking the oil improved their performance, and going off the oil made their performance decrease. Especially in endurance sports, you want to run those. You want to do those on oil because if you carb load for a marathon, for instance, the carbs will only get you 20 miles, and a marathon is 26 miles. The person who did the most miles run in 24 hours—which was, I think, 152 miles—that's six marathons. One guy did that in 24 hours. He did that using that oil. Let's see, what else do they do? They're good for bone strength because they inhibit the bone breakdown cells. They help people build muscle faster. They increase stamina, but they also speed healing to a third to a half the time. They decrease inflammation very consistently. When people have joint pains, they get benefits from it. They increase energy metabolism and oxygen turnover. That's what gets you most of your energy, and your mitochondria. So they're super important for mitochondrial function. And if you damage the oils—and this is why the idea of making oils with health in mind is a big deal. The industry doesn't do that. But when you damage the oils, the damaged molecules never existed in nature. So they'll go where these oils are supposed to go in your body, and wherever they take up space in your body, they interfere with what's supposed to be going on there. And because they're everywhere—in your cells, in your cell membranes, in your organelles, and as an energy source—they're everywhere in your body. So they interfere with everything when you damage them. And 1% damage gets you more than a million damaged oil molecules for every cell in your body. That's a lot of cells. That'll change gene expression in the direction of disease. That's what oils do. The essential fatty acids also regulate gene function—probably 10% of the genes. So that’d be 2,300 genes. And when you damage the oils, you regulate gene expression in the wrong direction. So, I don’t know, have I missed any part of the body? Ashley James (0:44:56.246) Yes! Every cell wall in the entire body is made of this healthy fat. We have to think about the body—the body, as you said, makes the brain. It makes the myelin sheath, which is the insulation of the nervous system. Udo Erasmus (0:45:12.322) Yes, yes, yes. It's part of it. It's not the whole thing because you get saturated fats and monounsaturated fats in your membranes, in your myelin sheath as well. They play a very important role in all of that. Ashley James (0:45:24.022) Well, without it, it's incomplete. The body can't make healthy myelin if we're deficient in the omega fatty acids. Then the cell wall. So if you think about how, you said, if you're consuming the standard American diet, or even if you're just trying to consume a healthier version of the standard American diet, and maybe you're eating out once a week, and you're still eating some processed and packaged foods, you're going to be eating canola oil and safflower oil and some other soybean oil, whatever, all these oils, they're damaged. These damaged oils, if it is a million damaged molecules, we're going to put aside, we're just wiping aside the fact that there is a tremendous amount of manmade chemicals in these oils, plastics, hormone-disrupting, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, obesogens, all that stuff, we're just going to put that aside. Also, these chemicals drastically negatively impact the immune system and cause cancer. So we're just going to put that aside. Just let's talk about, let's say you're being health conscious and you focus on organic. It's organic canola oil. Okay. Well, still it goes through this process that they do when they make this canola oil or whatever, soybean oil, all these seed oils. Even I want to bring up avocado oil, but I'm going to finish this thought first, and that's that you have a cell, and I'm imagining one of your 37.2 trillion cells in your body. I'm just imagining one beautiful, brilliant cell in your body. Maybe it's a heart cell, maybe it's a liver cell, but the cell is really important. Here we have the membrane that the body needs to make. Make the membrane, and it needs to make the membrane, which is the outer shell of the cell, to protect the cell, make it healthy, keep it healthy. To keep a cell healthy, it has to be able to have those healthy receptors that it can take in the groceries and it can bring out the garbage. Cells that can't take in the groceries and bring out the garbage, and cells that can't have insulin attached to it and other hormones attached to it because the cell wall is damaged or inflamed because for every cell, there's a million damaged oil molecules floating around that it's trying to build. I love that you said construction site, because that's how I describe the body too. The body shows up every day and the workers show up to build the body. But if you don't bring the materials to the work site, the body is just going to build whatever you give it. It's going to try to build healthy cells. If you give it McDonald's, you're building the Homer Simpson of a body. You're building the stupidest, the worst health possible because you gave it, you gave it silly putty instead of lumber to build your house. Udo Erasmus (0:48:18.698) Yes, or you sent the workers to the construction site without the tools they need to do the construction. Ashley James (0:48:25.834) They just don't. They showed up, and the materials weren't there, and the tools weren't there. So you have the cell, and then there's the unhealthy fats. Back in episode 475, I had Dr. Patrick Vickers on. He has a cancer clinic, and he specializes in more holistic lifestyle medicine for supporting people who are choosing to go that route. A lot of times, unfortunately, people go the cut, burn, poison route, and it didn't work. Then they're a Hail Mary, they go to his clinic. But it's better to clean the body up first before you get that diagnosis. He talks about how important it is to choose the right kind of omega-3. He actually talks about flax oil and that flax oil has the correct charge that when you make a cell, when you make the cell membrane, and you give it, for example, unadulterated flax oil, it's never been heated, it's raw, hasn't been exposed to oxygen, really healthy flax oil, that it has the correct charge that the cell pulls in nutrients, but that the unhealthy fats have the opposite charge and they repel nutrients. I know I'm not being very scientific in my description of my memory of his explanation, but can you speak to that? I'd love for you to maybe explain that in a deeper sense. Udo Erasmus (0:49:46.246) Yes. So, okay. So one thing I forgot to mention, the essential fatty acids, especially the omega-3 that's too low in 99% of the population, also makes hormones work more effectively at the cell receptor level. They increase the speed at which the transfers of the hormones are done to have their regulating effects in the body. Also, that means when a person gets older and their glands become less efficient, they still maintain normal function for longer because with the essential fatty acids, the hormones just function better at the cell receptor level. That's actually a pretty big function.  The issue of the right and wrong fats, I want to say it differently than the way he said it. They're part of the structure of the membrane. They also, by the way, improve the absorption of oil-soluble nutrients, and they enhance flavors of foods. So it's another good reason why you want to have oil in your food. But you don't want to fry them. You want to add them to foods after they come off the heat. By the way, flax oil was the first oil I developed in 1986 after I developed a method for making oils with health in mind. That's really my claim to fame. I developed a method for making oils with health in mind so that light, oxygen, and heat don't damage the oils while they're being pressed, filtered, settled, and filled. Then we put them in glass bottles and put a box around them to cut the light out, and they're in the refrigerator. So we're giving oils that need the most care, the care they need. What we usually do with oils, the most sensitive nutrients, we throw them in the frying pan. So we actually give them the least care of any of our nutrients. Ashley James (0:51:54.252) Well, you and I don't throw them in the frying pan, but the average person uses oil to cook. I've been cooking oil-free for 13 years. I have so many friends ask me, how do you do that? They'll come over to my house and watch me cook dinner. They're like, how do you do that? How do you cook with no oil? It's so easy. Back when I started doing it 13 years ago, there weren't a lot of YouTube videos teaching you how to cook with no oil, but now they're everywhere. Just Google oil-free and then whatever recipe or oil-free cooking on YouTube. There are tons of recipes, but it's super, super simple. You can cook, yes, you can. I sauté, I get a good caramelization on my onions. I sauté, it's just a medium heat, and then you can add a spoonful of water at a time, and then you stir. There's just a way of getting the right heat, whether you're using cast iron, stainless, or ceramic, getting the right kind of heat. I don't use any kind of nonstick. I'm sure there are listeners who've never heard this before. You want to throw out, humanely recycle, or donate your nonstick pans. Anything that says nonstick or nonstick coating is incredibly unhealthy. It's better to use stainless steel, cast iron, or certain types of healthy ceramics that don't off-gas negative things. Udo Erasmus (0:53:18.639) Yes I tell people, get your frying pan, turn it upside down, hit yourself up the side of the head with it, then throw that stupid thing out, go back to cooking in water, and add oils to the food after it comes off the heat source.  Ashley James (0:53:34.375) Yes, or you could put it in a salad, or for the people who are athletes, they probably were just taking spoonfuls of it, drinking it right out of the bottle. Udo Erasmus (0:53:44.781) I don't recommend that because oil is usually with foods, but there are lots of people who take it by the spoon. I tell you why I don't recommend it. Occasionally, somebody will get in touch with me and say, I don't like the taste of your oil. I say to them, okay, how'd you take it? Well, I take it off a spoon. So then I say, when was the last time you took cooking oil off a spoon? I never do that. Well, why are you doing it with mine? Oils will never taste like ice cream. Ashley James (0:54:14.057) That's funny. I mixed it with a little bit of curry powder, and it was the most delicious thing ever. I can imagine putting it on a potato would be really good. But if you're putting it on hot food, isn't that hurting the oil, or does it matter? It's all going to the same place, your stomach. Udo Erasmus (0:54:30.263) Well, yes, the idea is you put the oil in the food just before you eat it. The heat of the food is not enough heat to do damage. When you do high temperature without oxygen and light present, if you do frying temperature, you actually turn the oil into trans fatty acids. But the heat of your food when you can eat your food, when it's cool enough to eat, you don't create trans fatty acids from that heat. All you do is speed up the rate at which light and oxygen damage the oil molecules. That's why you put it on before you eat it. You don't let it sit around. You don't keep it. You could make a soup and have oil floating on top of the soup, and you could keep it on the stove, and the oil would be damaged by the light and the heat. So you don't want to do that. You cook your food in water, then you take it off and put it in what you're going to serve it in. Then you put the oil on, then you serve it, then you eat it. Ashley James (0:55:41.339) The concept is that this is you're supplementing with a nutrient that your body is missing. But it's derived from food. It's a food source. So I'm going to be a little bit controversial and ask, cause this is what I, when I coach my clients, I say, try to get your healthy fats straight from a whole food source. Take flax, eat flax, chia, and eat some healthy seeds. So I'm just going to be a little controversial and ask, why take Udo's oil? Why not just eat flax seeds or chia seeds? Udo Erasmus (0:56:14.988) I have the perfect answer for you. People have said to me, we should just eat whole foods and we shouldn't do oils because that's how nature did it. Nature knows best. So then the question becomes, well, is optimum health nature's mandate? You can argue that. Here's how I looked at it. Nature wants you healthy enough to grow up. It wants you healthy enough to have kids. It wants you healthy enough to take care of the kids until the kids don't need you anymore. When the kids don't need you anymore, nature doesn't need you anymore. So you might be 40 at that point. If you want to cheat nature and live longer, then you might have to high-grade some of the essential nutrients. In order to test this thought, somebody saying, nature knows best, nature mandates longevity, so you do it with whole foods, I did a test on myself. I was in California for the summer, and I decided to get all of my oil from whole foods. So I was taking five tablespoons of flax and about three tablespoons of sunflower and sesame seeds. That gave me the same ratio that we have in the oil. But I was getting it only from whole foods, and I couldn't eat more seeds than that because flax will actually absorb water and swell to six times its size. So my five tablespoons or 30 tablespoons, that's a meal. Then I had my other three tablespoons. So I was getting the oil from that. Even in summer, when I need less oil than in winter, my skin was getting dry from just doing whole foods. So my deal is, listen, I'm not saying you should all take my oil and stop eating seeds and nuts. Seeds and nuts are good foods. Eat them. But if your skin is still dry, then add the oil to that. In winter, I couldn't even do it in summer. Some people might be able to because people's metabolism is different. But I couldn't even do it in summer. In winter, I need about four tablespoons. In summer, two to three. Even in summer, I couldn't keep my skin from drying out. If your skin is dry, you need more oil. You need more of the right kind of oil because skin gets it last and loses it first because it has super important functions in your heart, your liver, and your brain.  They get priority on the oil, and only when you have enough in all of those organs does it make it to your skin. So skin gets it last and loses it first. It's a good way to measure optimum. If your skin is soft, smooth, and velvety, you got enough. You don't need any outside gunk. People who use oil that way have remarkably beautiful skin. There are a lot of people in the beauty industry and the acting industry that use the oil just because it's really helpful for beauty as well as health. Ashley James (0:59:49.524) You brought up that the skin gets the nutrient last and loses it first because this is what I observed. I've been doing health coaching for 13 years, and I was mentored by two amazing naturopathic physicians and worked underneath them for the first few years with clients. What we observed was that when we took someone who was sick, for example, a heart condition or liver condition, and then we gave them all the essential nutrients and got them eating a healthier diet, their hair, skin, and nails did not improve immediately. It would be three to six months before they began to see any improvements in their hair, skin, and nails. It was consistent that we'd always see this. I thought that was interesting in how what they described to me was that the body does triage work. The body is so intelligent. It's this beautiful, innate intelligence. I love how God made us, that the body is not stupid. I mean, we're stupid. We think we're smarter than our body. We go out and eat McDonald's. I always pick on McDonald's, but honestly, if it has a drive-through window, don't go there because there's no place that's serving you homemade soup and steamed broccoli through a drive-through. If they were, I would be the first in line. There's zero healthy food you are going to find. I like that Wendy's has baked potatoes. When you try to build your body—and I love, I love—I almost started crying when you said at the beginning, you go, the body is made out of food, raise your standards. That is the most impactful thing out of over 500 episodes that anyone has ever said. You just summed up what true health is in one phrase. So what we have is we're going around thinking we're smart, thinking we're smarter than the body, and the body does this beautiful triage work. So when you start giving it the essential fatty acids, it's going to repair the heart first. It's going to repair the brain first. It's going to repair the vital organs first, and then the leftovers afterwards are going to go to the hair, skin, and nails. Skin's an important barrier to our health, but it's not beating our heart. It's not doing the work of the liver, the heart, or the things that are keeping us alive right now. So when all the vital organs have been fully saturated, have been fully bathed in these nutrients, then the leftovers get to the skin. The skin is this amazing mirror of what's going on. When your skin starts to get better, that means all the other organs got it too, got all those nutrients too. With skin, I like to talk about how there's skin on the outside of the body, but think about all the skin on the inside that we don't see. Our lungs are made of epithelial tissue. Our entire digestive system, from our lips all the way to the other end, is made of epithelial-type tissue. So if you have this kind of dermatitis or you have rashes and inflammation and scratchy, itchy skin on the outside just imagine what's going on the inside. I've actually had a client. We 100% reversed her out-of-control adult-onset asthma by increasing her omegas, increasing her omega fatty acids. That is the true testament to increasing your healthy omega-3 and, as you said, the healthy ratios of three, six, and nine.  The body didn't have a deficiency in drugs. The body had a deficiency in the raw building blocks. When we get those raw building blocks back in, then the body can come back into balance. But if you go to an MD, we have to remember they've been trained by the pharmaceutical company. The pharmaceutical companies developed their education over the last 100-plus years. Udo Erasmus (1:03:48.618) Yes, they write the medical curriculum, and they basically train doctors to be drug pushers. But no one has ever died of a pharmaceutical drug deficiency. The body in nature was always made out of food, water, air, and light. That's it. There were no drugs. How did the plants stay healthy? How did the animals stay healthy? Because the plants made the protective molecules. When you eat the plants, you get the protection that the plant made for itself. They didn't know that it protects you as well. We came out of nature. We're still part of nature. That's never going to change. We are never going to be adapted to get better health from unnatural molecules than from natural molecules. That's crazy. Going to say something about the skin. Dry skin—skin gets it last and loses it first. Yes, the reason why the skin gets it last is that you can live with dry skin, but if your liver, kidneys, or heart dried out, you'd be history. So you can live with dry skin. That's why the skin gets it last, and that's why the body dies from the outside in, in that sense. Optimizing intake is so easy to measure. How does my skin feel? Skin feels good. Yes, I noticed the cold weather came. My skin is dry. Okay, take a little more oil. It's always by that that we measure optimal intake. Ashley James (1:05:39.512) Now, not all fat is created equal. We've sort of scratched the surface of that. But there are people who are doing the carnivore diet, which I'm just going to say, if we really look at the history of dieting, it is a recycled Atkins diet. Every 20 years or so, we kind of recycle this concept of low carb, low carb. We also have in the diet movement, again, at least 10,000 diet books out there. It's just madness. I really love the book How Not to Diet by Dr. Michael Greger because it's not a diet book. He goes through about 5,000 studies, and it is wonderful. I've spent months going through this book. I'm still not done because it is so detailed and so wonderful, but it's all about, let's look at the science. Don't listen to fads. Let's look at the science and let the science do the talking. Let's also compare the science when the science doesn't make sense. When there are two opposing studies, let's go deeper. That's what he does with that book. I had him on the show a few years ago, and a really good book to dive into—is Proteinaholic by Dr. Garth Davis. Wonderful, very cathartic for me to go through. It cleared up a lot of misunderstandings around the diet industry. There are some people who are finding that, for example, keto, Atkins, restricted paleo, low-carb paleo, and now carnivore are all very similar. Majorly restrictive, not 100% restrict, anything to do with plants, and eat 90 to 100% animals. They're getting a lot of fats. They're getting a lot of animal fats. They're cooking sometimes on high heat—think barbecue or roasting—these animal fats. Because you're an expert in understanding fats from the nutritional standpoint, what's the difference between an animal fat—taking a steak and maybe cooking it on a somewhat high heat with butter and getting a nice caramel, how you can get those heterocyclic amines and acrylamides going with the high heat—so eating that, or eating that bacon and those eggs, cooking, maybe getting the eggs a little crispy, getting the bacon a little crispy. So you're eating that fat versus a cold-pressed organic flax oil that hasn't been adulterated by heat, oxygen, or light. What's the difference to the body? Udo Erasmus (1:08:20.196) Well, first of all, if you get your fat from steak, it's mostly saturated and monounsaturated. Steak is not a good source of essential fatty acids. A cow has some essential fatty acids in her brain, but you're not eating the brain. You're eating the muscle. So that's not a good source of essential fatty acids. The thing is, you can live without saturated fats because your body can make them and the monounsaturated because your body can make those, the omega-9s, your body can make those.  To me, the carnivore diet and the high-protein diets, I know some people who claim that that's all they eat and that's what keeps them healthy and that's what cured them of some problems they had. I don't argue with that. If it gives you results, go for it. But I'd like to talk to those people who claim to do that. First of all, I'd like to see if they're really doing that. The second thing is because people lie about stuff too. The second thing is I'd like to see them in five years or 10 years or 20 years because it might be for a short time that might actually be useful and could be therapeutic for certain people with certain conditions. But long-term sustainable, I have some doubts. I know I can't do it. But I don't argue with results. If they're getting results, good for you. People are different in how well they metabolize protein and how well they metabolize fats and how well they metabolize carbs. I would say that the keto diet doesn't work long-term sustainable, mainly because they don't pay attention to the essential fatty acids. Because all the keto diets, and even the coffee fat diet, yes, what are they using? They're using butter, which is mostly saturated, monounsaturated, and then they're using coconut oil, and it's a fraction of it. Those fats are okay, but not instead of essential fatty acids, because essential fatty acids are the only thing from fats that you have to have. So you need to give that priority. Once you've optimized your intake of the essential fatty acids, undamaged and in the right ratio, then you can add other fats, and they just become fuel for you, but they're not required. If you look at nature's mandate for creatures that eat fresh, whole, raw, organic, local, and probably for human beings, more plant-based than animal-based. That wasn't true everywhere in the world because where they had herds of buffalo, they ate a lot of meat. But generally speaking, the high-animal food diets are not associated with longevity. Ashley James (1:11:35.411) The important point is how our ancestors ate. Why do we think that how we ate 2,000 or 5,000 or more years ago is somehow better? Maybe because they didn't have McDonald's then, but that doesn't mean that they were living longer or they were living with less disease. Udo Erasmus (1:11:56.710) Well, the Inuit had a pretty short life, and they were eating pretty much just meat diets. But in those meat diets, the animals had a little bit of vitamin C in them, but they had no plants. So they probably died of strokes and heart, burst blood vessel strokes. Well, vitamin C is very important to make your connective tissue strong. So they died from scurvy basically. What is a diet that works? When we were subsistence living, we were just starving half the time. You had to learn to be able to digest whatever you got. Plants were easier to get than animals because animals run away or they fight. When the hunters had only rocks to hunt with, they came home without meat most of the time. So then if they came home without meat, they ate vegetables because vegetables don't run away, they don't fight, so they're easy to hunt down and kill. So you have to take into consideration what life was before we became food affluent. Now what we do is we're stupid. 70% of the food that people eat in North America is ultra-processed food. Ashley James (1:13:26.186) It's not even food. It's so weird. You look at the packet. I dare you to bring your reading glasses. I'm sorry I'm calling you guys out. My husband has to wear reading glasses now. I have needed glasses since I was 16 to see long distances. I am so grateful that I can see close up because I am the label reader, and I challenge you, if you need to bring a magnifying glass with you to the grocery store, just attach it to your purse or whatever, attach it to your keychain, bring it into the grocery store with you. If anything you put in your cart has more than one ingredient, for example, this is a bag of broccoli. I don't need to check the ingredients. It's broccoli. So single-ingredient foods, you don't have to check anything. In a package that has more than one ingredient, look at the ingredients. If you don't know what that is, if it's monosodium glutamate and hydroxy, lalalala, and just these weird words, if there are weird words that your eight-year-old can't pronounce when they're reading the label, don't put it in your cart. Why are we eating things that we don't know? These are like Latin words. They're not describing broccoli in Latin terms. These are chemicals that were made in a factory. Why do we think that's okay to give the workers in our body, to give the carpenters these building blocks that the body doesn't know what to do with? The body's like, what is this? It kind of looks like that, but it doesn't function like that. Okay, well, we're going to put it there, and then the house falls down. Udo Erasmus (1:15:08.393) I'm 82, so I should be an old guy who's drooling onto his lap. I'm not. But I pretty much have gone gradually in the direction of fresh, whole, raw, organic. I eat most everything raw. Not everything. I eat lots of seeds and nuts. So I don't just use oil, I use seeds and nuts, but I tank up with the oil. I actually mix it in tahini, my oil in tahini. I dump the tahini oil, and then I put a ton of spices in it like cloves, and you were talking about curry, cinnamon, and cayenne. I have all kinds of herbs and spices because they are nature's medicine. Some of those spices—turmeric, cloves, amla, garlic, I use them all the time. Some of those spices are anti-inflammatory, anti-cardiovascular, anti-cancer, anti-diabetes, and antioxidant. I mean, they have so many health-giving properties. Antiviral, antimicrobial, antibacterial. I mean, honestly, dare the medicine. I only came to that much later than I came to oils. But my God, I have lots of energy, and I still work all day, and I have these conversations all the time, and I'm still doing research, and I'm actually writing two books—one on the nature of human nature and the other one on total global sacred sexy health. Ashley James (1:17:19.935) My gosh. I want you to come back on this show. Got to have you come back, and we got to talk more about your books. Udo Erasmus (1:17:28.071) Yes, based on nature and human nature. It's always from health is based on nature and human nature. If you live out of line with nature, you're going to not do well. If you're going to live out of line with your nature, you're not going to do well. That's where illness comes from. It's being out of line with nature and or your nature. We've been here for 200,000 years. We still do not have a teachable field of health because our healthcare is actually not healthcare. It's disease management misrepresented as healthcare. So when I was in medical school for that one year, I went to the Dean because we were only learning about disease. I went there because it's healthcare. I want to know what health is. Because if I know what health is, I know what to do to help somebody get healthy. Seemed a pretty good way to spend your life, getting people healthy. I said to him, what is health? He said, we don't know, we're working on it. But they're not working on it because they're always focused on disease. Ashley James (1:18:35.283) Because that's where the money is. There's no money in making and keeping people healthy and preventing disease. I grew up in Canada. I know you're in Canada. It's socialized medicine. My gosh, there are people in America that want socialized medicine. I got to tell you, both systems are broken and on purpose. In Canada, the whole system is how do we save the most amount of money? So they might reject certain procedures. For example, anytime I had an accident growing up that we suspected a break. Once I broke my growth plate in my ankle when I was 12 or 13 years old, and I think I was about 12, I had to get some x-rays. I got two x-rays, two only. In Canada, you only need two x-rays. Anytime they suspected a bone break, because I was a very active kid, being active, so of course I fell down, I got bumps, I injured myself, and I bounced back really fast. I got a lot of x-rays as a kid. I just loved being physically active. I was hanging upside down on the monkey bars and doing all the stuff. So anyway, the point being, anytime in Canada that we thought it was a break, it was two x-rays only, never three, never more than three. Came down to the States. I was in my early twenties. I tripped in a gas station. It was really weird how all the hoses were everywhere and I didn't see the hose. I tripped. I felt really bad, twisted my ankle, and thought, for sure, this is a broken ankle. It's so painful. This is in the States now. They took me to the hospital. I lost count of how many times they took x-rays. It's just an ankle. I grew up going, two x-rays. One, you get the top side, and you get the side. That's all you get. They must have taken over 12. I was like, what is going on? Then it occurred to me, okay, America's for-profit system, they're going to profit off of how many x-rays they take of my foot. It's not about getting the appropriate amount. It was really the 12th one that we figured out it wasn't a break. In Canada, it's how can we save money, also not necessarily serving the person because they're looking at cutting costs. Neither system helps you because they're not putting you first. Udo Erasmus (1:20:56.146) I think there's another issue. Okay, so we have socialized medicine in Canada, and in the U.S., some people want socialized medicine. But the thing is, it's not healthcare. It's all disease management. We don't need socialized disease management. We need healthcare. If it was real healthcare based on a definition of health that is practical and can be put into action, then I think socialized medicine that keeps everybody healthy and when somebody gets some big problem, everybody helps to make them healthy again. I'm comfortable with that. It's a socialist thing. But honestly, there are certain things. Education is kind of socialist anyway. But I'm good for certain things that everybody gets covered. But it's got to be the truth. It can't be some bullshit that parades as truth. When disease management is called healthcare, you're getting lied to by the people who do disease management. Ashley James (1:22:07.758) When the drug companies are the ones that can lobby, and I've seen, I don't know a ton about politics, but I loosely watch it. I remember when Bill Clinton came in and his wife, Hillary, tried to do something good around children's health and getting the school lunches healthier. She tried. Then all of a sudden, all the lobbyists came in. How dare you try to take pizza and chocolate milk? How dare you reduce sugar and candy from the diet of these school children? It got vetoed. I saw it happen again and again. I know Michelle Obama tried to do it, and every single presidency, they try with good intentions. Someone tries to lower the sugar that's being sold to children in the school lunches, and the lobbyists come in and make sure that all the sugar stays in there. We're not serving our population. We're not actually helping our population because we allow for corporations where profit comes first over health. Why do we have to have commercials for food? That's something that I brought up. You'll never see a commercial for broccoli, right? Broccoli is so good for you. No, it's always “milk does a body good.” We have been lied to. I grew up taking in this information without question, without a critical faculty to block it. Children take in this information, and they go through the aisles trusting that what's in their cereal box is good and what's being served to them—this ultra-pasteurized milk is good. What's being served to them in the schools is healthy when it is absolute garbage. It's destroying their health.  The same goes for our healthcare system when we can't know the truth about our health because there's lobbying. That's why we have to come to the podcast and listen to interviews like this with guests like you to start Learn and question. We can't trust what we're fed by the media and by the government because the corporations that profit from us buying what they sell and profit from us staying sick are going to push that information.  Tell me about how we can dive deeper with you. You have your website. I wanted to ask also, do you have any recipes? Because you talked about what you do with tahini and your Udo's Choice Oil. The Omega oil, and you mix it with your tahini and add some seasoning. Do you have recipes on your website? Do you have other books that you'd recommend? What other kind of resources can we start to go down this rabbit hole with you? Udo Erasmus (1:25:07.500) I have a book that's called Omega-3 Cuisine: Recipes for Health and Pleasure. I worked with a chef to put that together. He did most of the work, actually. But he made recipes using Udo's oil. I think there's 140 recipes, and only one doesn't use Udo's oil. So that book is the only book I have that's easily available. I kind of just tinker in the kitchen. It's play. The only advice your mother gave you that you should not follow is “don't play with your food.” Because if you don't play with your food, how are you going to find out what works for you and what doesn't work for you? So play with your food. If you mix two spices and it doesn't work, your tongue will let you know. Then you won't do it twice. Ashley James (1:26:13.436) Don't give up; I think that's really important because I love the Instant Pot. It's my favorite kitchen appliance. I think my second favorite is the Vitamix. I've been using Vitamix since I was eight years old. We had the original one growing up in our household. I love my Vitamix. We had the metal one. I don't know if it was the very first Vitamix, but it was the 80s version. I remember making soups in it. I just loved it. I love playing with it, but I have a Vitamix today and the Instant Pot. I love the Instant Pot. I tell people, get it, try it. So many people come back to me and say, I burned something once and I just gave up. I burned things too when I started, but I didn't give up. It's okay, you just find different recipes. Try it. Just start with something simple. Try making lentils. Go find a recipe. Make lentils, just do something simple, and then you can build from there.  I've made the coolest stuff in that Instant Pot. For me, I'm multitasking, and then I walk away from the stove, and all of a sudden, I smell burning. No, I forgot we were cooking something on the stove. With the Instant Pot, that doesn't happen because you set it and forget it, then you've got a meal. At one point, I had three Instant Pots back when we had a bigger kitchen, a bigger house. I had three Instant Pots. I did most of my cooking because I had a whole grain in one or a starch, I should say, because I do sweet potatoes, potatoes, yams, brown rice, white rice, millet, quinoa. I'd pick a starch, so I'd rotate all the different kinds of starches. Then I'd have a protein in the other. It could be any kind of bean or any kind of lentil. Again, dozens of varieties, so it never gets boring. Then the third, I would quickly steam some kind of vegetable or sauté some kind of mixture of vegetables. Then I would have some kind of topper. You could mix some Udo's oil with some tahini, lemon, garlic, cayenne, and ginger and call that good, or add a bit of curry powder and call that good. There are all kinds of different things that I'd top it with. That was it. That was called bowls. We would open up the Instant Pots and have some kind of topping. Maybe the topping was just salsa. I do a three-day fermented pico de gallo. The recipe's in my book I'm Addicted to Wellness. I'll send you the recipe if you want. It's amazing. But I would top it with something like that. It was the easiest way to cook dinner. Usually, what I would do is make enough for lunch and dinner. You don't get bored of it, especially if you have a few options for toppers. But that was it. All you have to do is have a smoothie or some fruit for breakfast, then throw things in the Instant Pot, and you've got lunch and dinner. Then you've got some leftovers to travel with the next day if you're leaving the house. It was the simplest way. I ended up losing 80 pounds doing that. It was the quickest, easiest way to cook in the kitchen. I didn't have to use my brain. It didn't take up a lot of energy, yet the whole family loved it, and it was super nutritious, super dense nutrition. I didn't have to buy packaged foods.  So there's a way that you can figure out how to cook that serves you, but you have to be willing to burn a few things. You have to be willing to play in the kitchen. That doesn't taste good? Okay, I'm not going to do that again. It's okay. Don't let that failure dictate your future. Let it motivate you to find the flavors that are good together. I was prone to burning things in the kitchen until I dialed it in. You can too. It's just a matter of playing. I love that you said that. It's funny—my son does that. He plays in the kitchen. He invents things. Udo Erasmus (1:30:10.986) Cooking is like learning to walk. When you were a little kid, first you were just rolling on your stomach, then you turned over on your back, then you got on all fours, then you started to stand up, and you fell down. You didn't quit. So cooking is like that. You're going to fall into schnoz. I saw one of the television cooks. She made something on the show, then she tasted it and said it didn't taste good, and she just dumped it in the garbage. On the show! Why is there so much variety in taste? Well, it's for your entertainment. Nature is so kind to you that you can play with it. Play with it. Different people have different preferences in taste. You figure out what is yours. In India, everybody has a different curry recipe. Every family has their own curry recipe, and some of them are really very different from each other. Ashley James (1:31:23.062) So true. You'd mentioned that you're 82. I just want to say that my mother-in-law, my dear mother-in-law, and we moved to live close to her. We were a three-minute walk from her house. She is turning 82 today. So I'm just wishing her a happy birthday. We're actually, after this interview, going to go and spend the rest of the day with her. But I just love that you guys are the same age, and that I'm going to have her listen to this episode because I want her to hear wisdom. I'm definitely going to gift her a bottle of your 369, the Udo's 369. So the only product I think I've ever used of yours is the Udo’s, the Omega blends, but you have different products. What are your most favorite that you have observed make the biggest difference in people's lives? Udo Erasmus (1:32:22.738) Well, after I did oils, I said, okay, what's next? I went to digestion because everybody's got stuff going on with the digestive system. So how do you make it work? Digestive enzymes, probiotics, fiber, and bitters. That was the next thing that I looked at. I work with digestive enzymes and probiotics, and take them every day. Even though I eat raw food, I still take enzymes because even people who eat just raw foods found that when they took enzymes with their raw food, they worked better for them than if they did the raw foods without enzymes. Raw foods already have enzymes in them that do part of the digestion for you. So that's why it's good. Ashley James (1:33:04.890) I like what you're pointing out is that there are two ways of thinking. One way is don't think at all, just go eat McDonald's, and then you live to maybe 65, have a heart attack, die. I tell my listeners, if you want to be a statistic, look at what people are dying from, look at how, and before they die, look at the quality of their life. I have a friend whose husband is in his early 40s. This year, he suffered a heart attack and then he just broke his hip. He's in his 40s. He also has unmanaged diabetes and he's miserable. He's miserable. The doctors were really scared. They're saying, you're not recovering. You're acting like someone in your 80s or 90s, someone really sick. You're a very healthy 80-year-old. This man never took care of himself and he has a food addiction, unfortunately. But this is what's happening to those who are just not thinking—the unconscious. Udo Erasmus (1:34:08.152) Yes, well, when I was 38, I got poisoned by pesticides. That was 38. Literally, if I walked around a city block, I had to sit down and rest. I was an 80-year-old at that point. I had arthritis in my knees. I got no problem with any of my joints. I'm 82 now. What came from it when I got poisoned, that was my wake-up call. So I started paying attention and put things into practice over the course of a few years. Now I pay attention to what my body tells me and what I know about how nature works. I'm 82 and I have no pain in my elbows, no pain in my shoulders, no pain in my knees, no pain in my hips. You can be 82 and not have any degenerative conditions, any pain, or any inflammation. I have lots of energy. Still do gardening jobs. I take trees down. In the city where I live, I have quite a bit of—it's a co-op that I live in. I do quite a bit of the gardening whenever it's needed. Ashley James (1:35:19.358) Love it. So the three schools of thought around food. Don't think about it. Just eat the way everyone's eating and basically suffer the way everyone's suffering. Get on a bunch of drugs. That's the unconscious people or the people who say my doctor knows what's best. Udo Erasmus (1:35:32.551) Or the people who think that suffering will open the door to heaven for them and  maybe we shouldn't close the door on them. Ashley James (1:35:40.357) Well, I think there's something to learn from our suffering, but I think we need to make better choices because suffering is optional. The second choice is, well, I should eat as close to nature as possible because that's the key. Your third choice, and I love this idea, is to eat as close to nature as possible and then optimize it. You bring in the enzymes, bring in the minerals and the vitamins, bring in the things that optimize. The bricks are the food, and the mortar is the addition of everything we can do to optimize. To call it biohacking, I'm sure you've heard that term, but optimize without adding too much that it then hinders the body. I have a friend who for years had to avoid gluten only to find out she wasn't allergic. She had highly allergic reactions. She finally figured out it wasn't the gluten; it was the folic acid, the man-made synthetic folic acid that she was incredibly allergic to. She can eat wheat berries, for example. Organic wheat berries have zero health problems, but if she ate some fortified bread, which most flours are fortified with, even gluten-free flours, they're fortified with folic acid, then she'd become very unhealthy. We have to take into account that if we're adding things, even if we're buying processed food that has additives, even though it's quote-unquote fortified, it can be fortified in a way that's not helping you.  Udo Erasmus (1:37:15.493) Yes, and some gluten sensitivities, some wheat sensitivities are actually from the glyphosate that they put on the grains. Ashley James (1:37:23.369) Exactly. Yes, we have to understand that sometimes there are things in the product that aren't necessarily on the label, like glyphosate. They're not going to disclose how much Roundup is in your flour, or there are anti-caking agents, like bromine or bromide. They don't necessarily disclose that because it's an industry standard. In ice cream, when you buy ice cream from the store, there is a food-grade antifreeze that they add to ice cream. That's why, have you ever made your own homemade ice cream and you put it in the freezer and it's rock solid? You're hammering it with a spoon, and you have to leave it out on the counter before you can scoop it. Whereas if you go to the grocery store, even out of a deep freezer, and you start scooping ice cream, even if it's coconut ice cream, it's going to immediately turn into this beautiful scoop. It doesn't freeze. That's because they put food-grade antifreeze. Well, I don't want to eat food-grade antifreeze. That doesn't sound like something my body 5,000 or 10,000 years ago went through, like the garden of Eden, picked an apple, and then drank some food-grade antifreeze with that. The body doesn't know what to do with all this crap. We're basically trash pandas. If you think about how we treat our body, we're dumpster diving. The cells of our body are, what, are we in a dumpster? We're just dumpster diving, just random chemicals. But this is how we eat. If we come back to eating as close to nature as possible and then supplementing, I love that you talked about enzymes and bitters. I love bitters. I love how my body reacts to bitters in such a positive way because it gets that liver and the pancreas going, gets the digestive system activated. I love that you brought up enzymes. I've helped so many clients get their digestion back simply by adding enzymes and then getting in the minerals and adjusting the diet. Then everything comes back online. A lot of times, heartburn goes away because it was a lack of the body's ability to make pepsinogen and excrete pepsinogen. So when you get everything back online, then the heartburn goes away. Udo Erasmus (1:39:32.175) Yes, well, how it goes. It's health. Health is the result of living in line with nature and your nature. When you get out of line, it shows up. When you get back in line, you get your health back. It's not that complicated. Ashley James (1:39:45.451) There's a big craze. We talked a little bit about how the MCT oil, that's coconut oil, is fractionated, and it's not a great source of omega-3s, but avocado oil. Udo Erasmus (1:39:57.387) There's no omega-3s in it at all. Ashley James (1:39:59.463) Right. So avocado oil has come on the market the last few years, and now everyone's saying that's the new olive oil. You got to cook with your coconut oil. Can you speak to what avocado oil is and why we shouldn't be cooking with it? In general, why we shouldn't be taking in avocado oil? Udo Erasmus (1:40:17.939) We shouldn't be cooking with oils because oils cook at a high temperature. You burn the food. The burnt is toxic. So if you burn carbs or you burn protein or you burn oil, all three of them get you increased inflammation and increased risk factor independent of each other. Okay. So overheating food is bad for you. So fried oils fry health. That's my slogan. Fried oils fry health. You go to a football game and you chant, fried oils fry health, fried oils fry health, fried foods fry health, fried foods fry health. That's why I say to people, bang yourself on the head with your frying pan and throw that stupid thing out because it's going to kill you. Frying is the worst thing we've ever invented to do to food as long as we've been on the planet. It is the dumbest thing we've ever invented if health is the goal. Obviously, then people say, I love the taste of burnt food. No, you don't. If you scrape that burnt stuff off of the food you burnt and you eat it, it's bitter, scratchy, acrid, and it tastes disgusting. When you fry your foods, usually, how do you get the taste into those burnt foods? Well, you add spices that are mostly from vegetables. I think it's really dumb. Raw is nature's mandate. If you cook in water, you already lose something. If you fry, you not only lose some of your nutrients, you actually create poisons that never existed in nature. So frying is the worst. Then head in the direction of frying less, cooking more. Cooking, by the way, when I was a kid, meant in water. Now when we say cooking, we usually mean in oil. One was called frying and deep frying—that was with oil. Cooking was with water. It's now that when you say cooking, it includes frying. So go from frying to cooking in water, and then go from cooking in water to more raw. Make sure it's not contaminated because if it's contaminated, you have to cook it, or you should throw it out.  Ashley James (1:42:46.702) What do mean by contaminated? Udo Erasmus (1:42:48.343) Bacteria Ashley James (1:42:50.819) How do you choose what you cook and what you don't cook and what you eat raw? Udo Erasmus (1:42:58.295) What I do is I get organic and I wash it under water. If I have broccoli, I eat my broccoli raw. I dip it in the tahini, and I run it under hot water. So it gets a little bit of heating that actually improves its nutritional value. A short, short heating. And if it's organic and I've washed it under hot water, I've never had a problem with contamination. But if you have—especially meat—when the cows stand in their own feces and urine in a feedlot and only get corn for food, and then they get antibiotics and pesticides and other gunk that they put into the animals, then the meat is very easily contaminated. So meat is more of an issue for making sure that it's not contaminated. Ashley James (1:44:07.701) There's an amazing documentary to watch on Netflix called Poisoned: The Dirty Truth About Your Food. It came out last year. I saw it with my family, and we were in shock. It's really, really worth watching. I know it sounds kind of depressing, but it was actually really interesting. Udo Erasmus (1:44:24.437) It's always better to know than not to know. Ashley James (1:44:27.243) Absolutely. I've never had food poisoning from vegetables. I mean, knock on my sunlight and sauna. It's made of wood here. But in my past, I've had food poisoning from seafood or pork. I eat plant-based now, and it's been years. Again, I'm going to praise God that I have not. I am staying healthy. I'm not having food poisoning, but yes, there's always a chance. They talk about some spinach being taken off the market or something, and you have to wash your food. There are ways of doing it. I did an interview a few years ago with a woman who sells these, and I bought one. It's great. I use it. You can make your own ozone water safely and then rinse your plants in ozone water. There are different things you can do. I kind of do what you do—I rinse my foods, and then that's it. Udo Erasmus (1:45:28.995) Yes, and again, the spices that I use with the food help also, right? Yes. Ashley James (1:45:34.331) True, because when you think about India, there's definitely a medicinal reason why the food is so spicy there. There’s such depth of flavor, and so many medicinal spices. Is that because they're antimicrobial? So should the meat have some bacteria overgrowth, you're combating it with that. It's kind of like if we were to take antibiotics every time we ate some food. You ate some pork, and then you took some drug to counteract the potential bacteria or the bacteria's toxins. But instead of going drug-based, I'm so glad that pharmaceutical companies haven't figured that out yet—how to insist that we need to take some drug every time we eat meat to prevent food poisoning, because you know they would, because they love to sell you some kind of drug every day. But that's what India does, right? They use all these wonderful spices that enhance. Udo Erasmus (1:46:30.073) Yes, and India never built the hygiene that we built in the West, so they're much more prone to it, but they live,  they don't have outbreaks of food poisoning, and why is that? Because of the way they prepare their foods. It's simple. It's lentils and dal and lots of vegetables and lots of spices. Turmeric is probably the world's best spice. It's in the ginger family. So turmeric and ginger are huge.  So avocado, my view is to eat the avocados. Try and get them organic if you can. The oil is very popular now. I think they make it out of rotten avocados, and there are no standards for it. There are standards for oils, but they're bad standards. If you read the research, standards have been suggested for avocado oil, but the avocado oil industry has not set standards.  Ashley James (1:47:44.730) Do they still do the thing that you talked about where they heat it for half an hour and add chemicals to it? Can you talk about that? Udo Erasmus (1:47:50.206) Yes, yes, well, it's the same with all the oils. They treat them with sodium hydroxide, which we know as Drano in our house. That's what we burn the clogged sink pipes with. So sodium hydroxide, then phosphoric acid, which is used to clean windows commercially. Then we bleach them with bleaching clay. So then they go rancid and smell bad. Then we have to deodorize them or de-stinkerize them because they smell bad. Then you have an oil, colorless, odorless, tasteless. You can't tell what it came from because all the flavor molecules of whatever made the oil, whatever seed or nut made the oil, the flavor molecules are gone. The color molecules are gone. Colorless, odorless, tasteless. Then they say, yes, and you can use it for frying. So it's already wrecked, and now you wreck it more. So I eat avocados pretty much every day. I really love them. I never use the oil. I don't have, actually, the only oil I have in my house is my oil. Because I know what's in there. I know what it is. I know the quality. I trust the quality because literally, nobody takes care of oils the way we do. And it's just, why is that? Because they need the oil. If you want a really good oil, you need to care for it, to protect it from light, oxygen, and heat. In glass, in a box, in the fridge, in the factory, in the store, in the fridge, in the fridge at home, and you basically use it on foods after they come off the heat. Ashley James (1:49:32.825) You have three different oil blends. Can we talk about the difference between the three? Also, I don't know if this is a patented process, but could you walk us through what you can share? Could you share what you do differently that other supplement companies don't do? For example, do you do it in a nitrogen chamber? Do you process? I understand there's probably some proprietary information, but get into the details of what you can share. What makes Udo's Oil different from other supplement companies? Udo Erasmus (1:50:03.501) When I realized how much damage is done to oils after I got poisoned, I said, I can't get healthy on oils like that. We should make them with health in mind because the industry makes the oils with shelf life in mind. Oils by nature have a short shelf life because they're super sensitive to damage by light, oxygen, and heat. So they figured out if they take out parts of it, they can stabilize the oil. Then they nitrogen flush it. Everybody does that. So you don't have oxygen in the headspace in the bottle in the oil because the oil will react with the molecules and make them rancid. The industry did that. I said, well, I can't get healthy on damaged oils. We should make them with health in mind. How do you do that? Well, if they're damaged by light, oxygen, and heat, you have to make sure that no light, oxygen, or heat or high temperature is— I can explain that in a second— gets to the oil from the time it's close to the seed in nature's packaging, which is pretty good. They found flax seeds 5,000 years old in caves in Switzerland, got those oils out, planted them, and they grew into flax plants. 5,000 years. So nature's packaging is pretty good. So from the time it's in nature's packaging through the whole process until it's in the brown glass bottle, nitrogen flushed with a box around it in the fridge, no light, no oxygen should be able to get to the oil, and the heat needs to be low. The reason for that is that you have to get to 160 degrees Celsius or 320 degrees Fahrenheit before the heat damages the oil and starts creating trans fatty acids. Then exponentially makes more of them as the temperature goes up from there. So you want to keep it below 160, and we actually do it somewhere between 60 and 80 degrees Celsius. But no light and oxygen is present, so you're not doing damage with that heat. So fundamentally, what you have to do is produce a really, really tight system. The industry doesn't do that because what they say is, we can make a mess at the front end and then clean up the mess with chemical processing at the back end. We said, why don't we not make a mess at the front end? Then we don't have a mess to clean up at the back end. Why don't we start with organically grown seeds? Then we don't have to heat the oil to frying temperature to get rid of half of the pesticides. Ashley James (1:53:02.310) And the seeds, I'm guessing the seeds are raw, they're organic, but they're also raw, right? Udo Erasmus (1:53:07.116) Well, they're always raw. Ashley James (1:53:09.818) They're not roasted? Udo Erasmus (1:53:12.509) No, hell no, hell no. No, God. No, no, they have to be raw. They have to be fresh, raw, organic seeds. Then you put them through the thing, but you have to have it so tight that no light, no oxygen, and no temperature over 100 gets to the oil anywhere in the process. That requires a very tight system. So my claim to fame, I'm in the Canadian Health Food Association's Hall of Fame for starting the industry of making oils with health in mind. It requires that kind of tightness simply because the oils are so sensitive to damage done by light, oxygen, and heat. So I created that. We started making flaxseed oil because omega-3s are too low in 99% of the population. Then I became omega-6 deficient in flax oil because it has a lot of omega-3, not enough omega-6. That's what prompted me to make the blend because you have to get the balance right, and that's important. Ashley James (1:54:21.845) Would you say though that people who are still eating meat, if they want to add your oil but they're still eating meat, are getting a lot of Omega-6? So you don't strictly sell flax-only oil? With someone who's still eating, maybe they're eating more whole foods, but they're incorporating eggs, chicken, meat in their diet, they're getting more Omega-6. Is your blend going to help them? Udo Erasmus (1:54:51.327) The Omega-6s in meat, they're not in beef, they're not in sheep, they're not in goats because those animals actually knock down the Omega-6s and Omega-3s in grass and turn them into saturated, monounsaturated, a little bit of trans fatty acids. So that part is not true. Pork will have Omega-3s in it, but only if you feed it a source of Omega-3s because pork doesn't make Omega-3s, neither do the other animals. Chicken, most of the Omega-6s in chicken are in the skin, most people throw that out. The meat itself doesn't have a lot of Omega-6s in it.  Ashley James (1:55:39.453) So what in the average American diet is omega-6? Udo Erasmus (1:55:43.389) Most people get their omega-6s from all the cooking oils. They all have omega-6s in them. They all have omega-6s. A few of them have a little bit of omega-3. Most of them just have omega-6s. Most of the oil that people are saying is coming from the foods is actually coming from the oils they fry them in. That's another mistake that the people who say no omega-6s, no seed oils are making. They're doing half the homework. They're not doing all the homework. So they're blaming things on the oils that should be blamed on the damage done to them. They’re even inaccurate about the source of omega-6. It's mostly from seeds, nuts, which people don't eat that much of, but mainly from oils. So, in that sense, they're right if you say don't use those oils. But they're wrong when they say that omega-6s cause cancer and kill you because omega-6s are essential nutrients. Ashley James (1:56:52.312) What's causing cancer? So it's correlation, not causation, because what's causing the cancer is eating the burnt meat. When you say burnt, it's more caramelized. They go, ooh, that char on the meat. Udo Erasmus (1:57:06.788) Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. When you turn it from green to yellow, from yellow to light brown, from light brown to dark brown, from dark brown to black, and from black into smoke, you're doing damage to it all the way along. Ashley James (1:57:19.270) So getting that char, that caramelization on the meat is the acrylamides, the heterocyclic amines, or even the potatoes. Udo Erasmus (1:57:28.876) Yes, then the industry says, what do they call it? We're something in the flavor. We're frying in the flavor. No, you're not. You're burning the damn meat. You're turning the meat into poison and you're poisoning yourself with the poisoned meat. Ashley James (1:57:46.352) Yes. So the correlation between high omega-6 and cancer is the high omega-6 cooking oils, cooking in high heat, and especially cooking meat in high heat, but also certain vegetables in high heat, potato skins, frying potatoes. Udo Erasmus (1:58:05.358) Yes, the burnt part is burnt. Yes. But anything, you can get cancer. You can get cancer from thinking stupid too, from negativity and depression. So anything that knocks down the immune system. But in the physical realm, any molecule that doesn't belong in the body, that isn't natural to nature, could. They don't all, but could interfere with the immune function because the immune function goes in there and says, what the hell is this? Then it swells, it lowers circulation to try and isolate while it's trying to figure out, can't figure out what to do about it because we don't have genes to break down burnt oils. Then it figures it out, figures it out, and you get chronic inflammation, chronic circulation problems, and chronic lack of oxygen. And that's what cancer cells like. So any molecule that is not natural could have some effects like that. They don't all do that, but any of them could. And the ones that are burnt clearly do—acrylamides and all of those molecules. Those are being isolated and studied, and we know that they cause cancer. They've done studies, they've given them to animals, and they cause cancer in animals. So we know a lot about that, but we're not acting on it and doing what we ought to be doing, which is don't do that to your food and don't eat food that's been done to. Ashley James (1:59:50.164) I think a really important thing to remember, and I love your perspective because you've been around the block long enough to have observed this shift. Udo Erasmus (2:00:03.068) Is there an F in that word you just said? No, no, shift. Yes, take the F out and then it may be more accurate. Ashley James (2:00:14.680) Well, it's definitely gone down the toilet the last 30 years. I have this unique perspective. Hey, we're a family show. Okay. So I have this unique perspective where I remember life before, and I guess living in Canada kind of happened a little later, fast food wasn't as big of a deal. When I moved to the States in 2005, 2006, I was a kid in a candy store. Couldn't believe how much accessibility there was to fast food. It was definitely a shift. It wasn't on every single city block in Canada, it was down when I moved down to the States. If we go back in time, and of course you remember this, but I think we need to learn from that wisdom of time. There was a time when food wasn't convenient and fast, where we had to think ahead when it came to cooking because we really had limited processed food. Most of our food was whole food. Also, if you think about it now, they call it organic versus conventionally grown. I hate that Orwellian marketing. Udo Erasmus (2:01:35.422) When I was a kid, organic was not even a term. All the food was organic. Ashley James (2:01:41.410) Our old food was organic and that was conventional. They're using the term conventional to make poisoned food sound good. It's ridiculous. Udo Erasmus (2:01:51.816) Yes, just like they do in medicine. Conventional healthcare is the doctor and the pharmaceuticals. They call the other one alternative healthcare. No, no, no, no, no. Ashley James (2:02:02.492) Alternative medicine or complementary medicine. No, this was the original medicine and what you're doing is chemical crap, right?  Udo Erasmus (2:02:07.427) Exactly. So, even the way the words are being used, we're being lied to and being misled. Ashley James (2:02:14.503) We have to start to question our own belief system because we've been raised in the milieu of marketing. Udo Erasmus (2:02:24.109) Yes, or you look at nature, how was it in nature? If you ever see a squirrel with a frying pan, then this is a natural process. You might see a squirrel in a frying pan, but you're never going to see one with a frying pan, cooking its nuts.    Ashley James (2:02:42.267) I hope not. So when we go back far enough though, I remember when cigarette companies got to advertise and then that sort of changed and they made it illegal for cigarette companies to advertise. The cigarette companies saw their profits going down as people became at least marginally health conscious. Smoking went from “my doctor recommended it” to “my doctor doesn't recommend it anymore.” What the cigarette companies did back in, I'm thinking it was around the 90s, is that they began to invest in food companies. A lot of people don't understand this history, but those of us who are old enough remember before the cigarette companies owned food companies, our grocery stores, there were a lot fewer options. There was a lot less processed food. There was a lot less convenient fried food on every corner.   They invested in food companies and they took their same scientists, whose entire job was how to make us addicted to things. They took food scientists to figure out how to make processed food addictive, creating these cheap oils, using the cheapest ingredients to make the largest margins, and they don't care if they're hurting us. If you open a package, you have to think this was made in a factory. This didn't come from the farm. It came from a factory. So opening a package, and if there are ingredients you don't recognize, these are man-made chemicals that food scientists were paid to figure out how to trigger your dopamine receptors and make you highly addicted to these foods and snacking. The disease epidemic we've seen, since the 90s, has taken off largely because we are just now, instead of buying cigarettes, we're buying from the same companies, but you're doing a pack a day, but it's Doritos instead. Udo Erasmus (2:04:43.729) Yes, there's two problems. They're lying, and we're not thinking. Those are the two problems. I always go back to nature. What was it like in nature before we got civilized? How does nature work? Nature's mandate for every creature: fresh, raw, local, that's it. That's a stand. That's nature's standard for health. For the creatures that eat in nature, fresh, whole, raw, organic, local, and then probably seasonal, sun-ripe. For us, probably more plant-based than animal-based, and you can argue some of that, but you can't really argue that in nature every creature except the animals we feed got all its food fresh, whole, raw, organic. You can't even argue that. Why is it? Why? with all creatures in nature, are we the only creatures that supposedly can be healthy frying the hell out of our food? Or frying the heaven out of our foods? Ashley James (2:05:57.205) We're the only animal that cooks our food. One of my mentors, and he helped me recover my health. I had type 2 diabetes, chronic adrenal fatigue, chronic infections. I had polycystic ovarian syndrome, and I was infertile. He helped me reverse all my health issues. Udo Erasmus (2:06:12.020) You were 80 pounds overweight, right? Ashley James (2:06:14.062) I had a lot more health issues going on. I had liver disease. I had a lot of stuff going on, but the major thing is that he helped me clean up my diet. He got me on some supplements, cleaned up my diet. That perspective of the foods and how we've been raised to think about food really needs to shift. I want to ask about two more things. I want to go to olive oil because I feel people are thinking, well, isn't olive oil healthy? This mentor that I had, one of the first things he had me do is cut out all cooking oils, 100% no cooking oils, not even a drop of cooking oils, even olive oil. He said, eat the olive, don't eat the olive oil, and for many reasons. Then he had me stop cooking in high heat. It's kind of crazy to think that we're the only animal that cooks food on a regular basis. Can you think of the last time, not you, but the listener, when's the last time you ate a fully raw meal? I'm not saying you have to be 100% raw, but very few of us choose to eat a percentage of our foods raw. Eat a cucumber, eat an apple, eat some sprouts. Eat a tomato, have some just raw, like what you do with the wonderful broccoli. just eating it raw. I love it that way. I love dipping broccoli into a dip and eating it and preserving the enzymes in it. Most people go years without eating a fully raw meal or adding some raw foods to their meal because they just don't think about it. We've been raised in a system, so we have to start to question the system we were raised in. Udo Erasmus (2:08:06.738) So what happens is if you eat your food raw, there are enzymes in the food that when you chew it properly, they will do on average 60% of the digestion of the food for you. It's from 10 to 90% depending on the food. So 60%. If you cook it, you destroy those enzymes. Now your digestive system has to do more than twice as much work. Because now that 60% that the enzymes self-digest, your body has to deal with it. Your body was made for raw foods coming out of nature. So you more than double the load on your digestive system. Then your immune system has to get involved. Your immune system is not as free to go after its other jobs, knocking out cancer cells and dealing with viruses and bacteria. So you've put a huge load on your digestive system. There are some people who say all disease starts in your digestive tract because of that. Fundamentally, if you're going to cook your food, then replace the enzymes you destroyed when you cooked the food and replace the probiotics that you killed when you cooked the food. In nature, creatures get their probiotics on plants. That's where a cow gets them, on the grass. There's probiotics on it. So the cow doesn't need to take a probiotic supplement as long as it eats raw grass. If you kill the probiotics and you destroy the enzymes when you cook, you need to replace them. Otherwise, you put a load into your digestive system that it can't handle, and that will catch up with you. That's why people have so many digestion problems. Then you add fiber for bowel regularity and stabilizing blood sugar and feeding the probiotics. Then you add bitters that help with digestion and liver function. The liver deals with a lot of what you absorb from digestion. That solves most of the digestive problems. I said, people who eat mostly raw foods still get benefits from adding enzymes to it. Now they're getting more enzymes than they would have gotten in nature. They say that works better for them. This is just about taking steps to get back in line with how it was in nature before we got civilized. Ashley James (2:10:44.706) We have to remember, we have to start to question everything we've been taught, at least test everything we've been taught. We've been marketed to that olive oil is healthy. They talk about how the Mediterranean diet is the healthiest diet. They say it's because they drink a lot of olive oil. Can you talk about that? Udo Erasmus (2:11:03.182) No, it's not. The Mediterranean diet is healthy because there are lots of good vegetables in it. It also comes from a time—the Mediterranean diet wasn't invented yesterday. That's a long historical tradition. So their meat was cleaner, because they weren't fattening them up with grains and they weren't shooting them full of probiotics, antibiotics, pesticides, and hormones. In Europe, they tend not to do things as crazily as we do in North America either. They're a little bit more, and maybe it's the culture, because they have that culture. They still remember some of that stuff. So olive oil is good because it's not damaged by the processing. If it's an extra virgin olive oil and they're not lying about it. I'll tell you why I say that in a second. So that's a good thing. Because there are two issues. One is you got to get the essential fatty acids undamaged in the right ratio and you need to get them both. The other issue is you need your oils undamaged. While extra virgin olive oil, if it's really extra virgin, hasn't been damaged by processing because they squish the olive, it comes out of the flesh of the olives and it floats off on water, and they don't put it through the chemical feast. The chemical feast or the heating. That's right. So it's good from that perspective. But from the perspective of essential fatty acids, it has no omega-3s in it or less than 1%. It only has 10% omega-6. Those are the two essentials. 80% is monounsaturated, and your body can make that out of potatoes. So you don't need that. The other 10% is saturated, and again, your body can make that out of potatoes. Ashley James (2:13:01.356) The medicinal benefits—just eat actual olives. Because they talk about the flavonoids and all that. They're throwing most of that away. That's in the water. If anything, they should be selling olive water and let us drink the stuff they throw away because that's where the flavonoids and the medicinal stuff—it's in there. Udo Erasmus (2:13:21.583) Yes, you would get more of that, although you will get them in extra virgin unrefined olive oil. You will get some of those benefits. So that's okay.  Ashley James (2:13:31.119) But you can't heat it, and you have to make sure there was no oxygen and it was stored in a glass bottle with zero oxygen. Udo Erasmus (2:13:37.255) Well, that mostly is not so bad. You get a little scratchy taste that can be from rancidity or free fatty acids. But the other thing is that hasn't gotten as much attention is that olive oil became very popular 20 years ago and the demand for olive oil skyrocketed. But olive trees grow really slowly. So what happened is the demand exceeded the supply. So what many olive oil makers started to do is they started to dilute the olive oil with canola or soybean oil and then called it olive oil. Then you're talking about all the processing damage again. The way you find out, the way I do it, is if you get a bottle of olive oil and you stick it in your fridge, it should go solid or it should at least form crystals. But even it should really go solid. If it doesn't go solid, there may be something else in it. Ashley James (2:14:49.870) I noticed that recently at the local health food grocery store called PCC, the Puget Sound Co-op down here. PCC probably, because your products are there. Well, the next time you come down to give talks, I want to shake your hand and give you a hug. So here with PCC, the local grocery store, healthy grocery store, they, I'll read, sometimes I'll look at the, it looks healthy packaged food. They'll make it there in-house. I'll be looking at a lentil soup. I'm so I'll grab the lentil soup and I'm reading the ingredients to see if I want to take that home if I'm really busy. I noticed, because if it says oil, I won't buy it, but I noticed it used to just say olive oil and I put it back on the shelf. I'm not buying it. Okay. So, because sometimes once in a while they do oil-free stuff. Then I picked it up lately. It says olive oil, canola oil. Right after olive oil or it says olive oil blend and then in brackets it says olive oil, canola oil, something else. I'm like, are you kidding me? They're cutting costs, but they're at least putting it on the label. I noticed that that canola oil was being wrapped up in and they call it an olive oil blend, which sounds so innocent. They're just cutting corners. Udo Erasmus (2:16:05.146) Yes, right. By the way, the olive oil is pretty expensive and canola oil is really cheap. So they're doing it for that reason as well. I think that started because there was a supply issue because a lot of people started talking about olive oil being a good oil, and the deal was it's because it's not damaged by the processing, but they didn't make that clear. Ashley James (2:16:30.682) Well, it's going to get damaged when you start cooking with it. People use olive oil, they start cooking on high heat. They're going to create the negative health effects because they're cooking with olive oil. Udo Erasmus (2:16:43.570) If you're cooking with oil or fat, if you use hard fats, saturated fats, coconut butter, that kind of stuff, you get less damage, but you still get damaged because you're still burning the food. So you're still turning, making toxic molecules. But the more omega-3 and 6 you have in an oil, the more damage is done in the frying pan to that oil. So the more toxic those oils become. So if you're going to be stupid and fry, then use the hardest fat you can find and use the shortest time possible. But my view is people say, well, what can I fry with? Yes, that's the Russian roulette question. You want to know what you can get away with. You don't get away with anything. So when they say, is there a good oil to fry with? No, but there's a less bad one. So the saturated fats are less bad, but they're not good. And if they're rich in omega, no, of course, because you're not getting the omega-3s and 6s. You're not getting the omega threes particularly. Single most omega-3 deficiency, the single most widespread nutrient deficiency of our time. 99 % of the population does not get enough for optimum health. Ashley James (2:18:05.140) That's from both ends because they're not consuming things that are high in omega-3 and healthy omega-6, but they're also eating other types of fats that are then preventing the body from absorbing and using healthy fats. Udo Erasmus (2:18:27.416) Yes, can get function deficient from having too much omega-6. Ashley James (2:18:30.492) Functional deficient. So that's why you want a supplement with the omega-3 and the omega-6 blend, but at the same time, you need to decrease or eliminate the other types of fat, the processed fat, like canola oil. Udo Erasmus (2:18:45.098) Yes, we tell people to get off those oils because they're toxic. So you want to get your omega-6s also made with Health & Mind. So when we do the blend, the omega-3s are missing. So we're bringing the omega-3s in, made with Health & Mind. We're saying to people, get off those cooking oils and get your omega-3s also made with Health & Mind. We're doing both in the blend. Ashley James (2:19:11.574) You have three blends. Can you explain? Udo Erasmus (2:19:15.986) Yes, I use the basic one, 369. The second blend has DHA in it. There's some research that says that people over 50 or maybe pregnant women might be able to benefit from having DHA pre-formed. Ashley James (2:19:35.722) Especially women and men too, they notice they have lower progesterone or estrogen or testosterone, DHA is that wonderful precursor that the body can use to help balance that out, as well as support the brain. Udo Erasmus (2:19:57.336) DHA is not DHEA, DHEA turns into testosterone and progesterone and DHA is an omega-3 essential fatty acid derivative. Ashley James (2:20:10.342) So the body can make DHEA from omega-3? Udo Erasmus (2:20:14.574) No. The body can make DHA from alpha-linolenic acid. DHEA is a precursor. It's a steroid precursor for testosterone. They're completely different things. The body does not make DHEA out of omega-3s. Ashley James (2:20:33.850) Got it. It does make it out of cholesterol. And the body needs healthy fats to make cholesterol. Is that correct? Udo Erasmus (2:20:42.152) No, the cholesterol is made, you can make cholesterol out of sugar. Ashley James (2:20:46.688) I want to have you back on the show because I love that topic because a lot of people, they’re told they have to take cholesterol medicine. Why didn’t your doctor tell you that you can balance and get a healthy balance from diet? Udo Erasmus (2:21:01.720) The problem with cholesterol is? Your body can make cholesterol out of two carbon fragments and then you can get those from fats and you can get those from carbs. But the body can't break it down once it's made. So if you don't have enough fiber to escort it through the liver, through the gallbladder, into the gut, into the toilet, then up to 94% of the cholesterol can get reabsorbed and you lose your exit mechanism. Then you get stressed, that increases cholesterol production and between not enough fiber and stress is the most simple, probably the most widespread reason for why people have high cholesterol. Ashley James (2:21:44.463) Yes, start eating more plants and see what happens. Udo Erasmus (2:21:47.959) It's always about being out of line with nature. Okay. So now the second blend has DHA in it. That's for older people. I don't use it because they say that your brain shrinks after 50. I don't think my brain is shrinking. I'm letting my body make the DHA itself but I make sure I take enough oil for that to happen. Then the third one is called high lignan and that has some seed material in the oil. They don't let the seed material all settle out. That was a copy of something somebody else did. They gave you less oil and charged you more for it because they said they got lignans in it. But if you want lignans, just eat the flax seeds, grind the flaxseed up and eat the flax seeds. So I use the basic blend. It's the least expensive and it does the job. Yes, don't take it off a spoon, mix it in foods. It enhances flavors and improves the absorption of oil-soluble nutrients. Ashley James (2:23:02.435) And we just have to remember that not all fat is created equal, not all oils are created equal, and that we're using a food extract basically as a nutrient that we're highly deficient in. Udo Erasmus (2:23:13.577) Yes. By the way, it's not a supplement. It's a food oil. You use Udo's oil instead of the cooking oils, but you don't cook with it. You use it. You use it in food preparation and you take about a tablespoon per 50 pounds of body weight per day in winter and maybe a half to two thirds of that in summer. You need more in winter than in summer. Ashley James (2:23:39.513) It has been such a pleasure having you on the show. I really want to have you back, especially to talk about your books and just to go deeper with you. I just think it's really important that we understand the nuances of nutrition and that we start to question everything we've been taught. Because if you're not happy with your health, and a lot of people aren't, 70% of adult Americans are on at least one prescription medication. That means at least 70% of the population is unhappy with their health. Udo Erasmus (2:24:06.983) That's the same percentage that's eating ultra processed foods, isn't it? It's the same number of people who are overweight and obese. I wonder if that means something. Ashley James (2:24:21.259) So there's a lot of complexity, but there's also a lot of simplicity in that. You've definitely cleared up some things today. Coming back to nature and being willing to start to question our own belief system around food. Don't have diet dogma. I think it's really important. I even say that—don't have diet dogma. Start to question how you eat and also just begin to make certain changes, start to add and take away. Get closer to nature and then notice what happens and check out Udo's Oil. Your website, the link to your website is going to be in the show notes of today's podcast. Udo Erasmus (2:24:58.315) Yes, udoschoice.ie and udoerasmus.com are my two websites. But I'm on Facebook and Instagram and I got a YouTube channel and I mean, I'm not hard to find. Ashley James (2:25:08.321) Yes, we'll make sure all the links are in the show notes of today's podcast at LearnTrueHealth.com. Thank you, Udo. It's been such a pleasure having you. I can't wait to have you back. Udo Erasmus (2:25:17.663) Okay, let's do it. Thanks Ashley. Outro: These are the same supplements that I have been using myself personally, my family and my clients for the last twelve and a half years. This is the same supplement that helped me to overcome my chronic diseases. I used to have type 2 diabetes, chronic adrenal fatigue, chronic infections, polycystic ovarian syndrome, infertility, and I don't have any of those things anymore infertility, and I don't have any of those things anymore. The holistic doctors that informed these supplements discovered that the root cause of disease is a lack of key nutrients. There are 90 essential nutrients the body needs and we're not getting them from our food anymore because of the farming practices of the last hundred years. So, no matter how healthy we eat, we're still missing what our body needs to create optimal health. Because you listen to this health podcast and you're looking for health solutions, you will love working with the team at takeyoursupplements.com. These are health coaches that overcame just like me, overcame their own health issues using, of course, eating healthy, healthy lifestyle. But the key, fundamental thing that they added were these supplements. These supplements encompass all 90 essential nutrients and when you talk to your health coach, they will help to customize a plan specifically to your needs and your health goals. You will start feeling amazing right away. Within the first month of taking these supplements, everyone notices better sleep, more mental clarity, better energy, overall sense of well-being that takes over their life, and they are so happy that they got on these supplements. I want you to give it a try. There's a money-back guarantee and there's amazing health coaches waiting to help you at takeyoursupplements.com and it's free to talk to them. So what are you waiting for? Go to takeyoursupplements.com right now. Sign up for a free consultation and in a month, you could be feeling on top of the world, just like I did.  I was so sick, I felt so horrible and I overcame that. I had to obviously make healthy choices around every area of my life. I had to change my diet, I had to change my lifestyle, but I needed to fill in those nutrient gaps, and that's where takeyoursupplements.com comes in. They help you to make sure that you're getting all 90 essential nutrients, so every cell in your body, all 37.2 trillion cells in your body, will be bathed in all the nutrients that they need so that you can live an optimal life full of health and vitality at any age. Go to takeyoursupplements.com and talk to one of them today. They can help you right now to begin to make that health transformation. That's takeyoursupplements.com.    Get Connected with Udo Erasmus Website – Udo's Choice Website – Udo Erasmus Facebook Instagram   Book by Udo Erasmus Fats that Heal, Fats that Kills

Get my ebook and audiobook here: https://learntruehealth.com/op/addicted-to-wellness-ebook.   Get my course, The 7 Foundations of Health, here: https://learntruehealth.com/sp/7-foundations-of-optimal-health   Get a physical copy of my book here: https://learntruehealth.com/addictedtowellness.   The Vibe: https://learntruehealth.com/vibe coupon code LTH - LearnTrueHealth.com/vibe   Get the NEW free IIN sample class and health coach experience: https://learntruehealth.com/coach Enroll in the next Health Coach Training Program! Use coupon code LTH when signing up to become a health coach.   Dr. Jodie Meschuk's Website: www.thewarriorcenter.com   534: Getting Off The Spectrum: Jodie Meschuk’s Path to Helping Kids Overcome Autism, ADHD, Allergies, Heavy Metals, and Vaccine Injury https://learntruehealth.com/getting-off-the-spectrum-jodie-meschuks-path-to-helping-kids-overcome-autism-adhd-allergies-heavy-metals-and-vaccine-injury   Is autism really a lifelong condition, or can it be reversed? In this episode of the Learn True Health podcast, Jodie Meschuk shares her powerful journey of helping her child recover from an autism diagnosis using holistic methods. She reveals how brain inflammation, heavy metal toxicity, and gut dysfunction are often misdiagnosed as autism—and how detox, nutrition, and natural healing can bring incredible results. Jodie also exposes the flaws in conventional pediatric care, the hidden dangers of vaccines, and the importance of informed medical decisions. If you're looking for real answers and hope beyond mainstream medicine, this episode is a must-listen! Highlights: Jodie Meschuk shares her journey of helping her child recover from an autism diagnosis through holistic healing. Autism is often misdiagnosed when the real issue is brain inflammation, heavy metal toxicity, and gut dysfunction. The rapid rise in autism rates suggests environmental and medical interventions, not genetics, are to blame. Vaccines contain harmful ingredients like aluminum and formaldehyde, which can contribute to neurological damage. Parents are often gaslighted by the medical system and not given informed consent about vaccine risks. Conventional pediatric care follows a rigid “standard of care” that prioritizes pharmaceutical solutions over holistic healing. Jodie emphasizes the importance of detoxing heavy metals, healing the gut, and strengthening the immune system. Natural healing methods, including dietary changes and detox protocols, helped her child regain speech, eye contact, and social skills. She advocates for parental empowerment, informed medical decisions, and questioning mainstream health narratives. The medical industry profits from chronic illness, making it crucial for parents to seek alternative healing approaches. Intro: Hello, True Health Seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health Podcast. Strap on your seat belt. Today’s going to be a bumpy ride. It's an amazing conversation. I'm so excited for you to hear today's episode. Before we do, I want to let you know that if you are struggling with detoxing, especially heavy metals, I have some amazing interviews for you to listen to. Also, I have some amazing resources. You can go to learntruehealth.com, type in heavy metals. You can also type in vaccine or vaccines. Use the search function on my website, learntruehealth.com. You’ll find some really great interviews. Kellyann Andrews comes on several times, talking about heavy metal detox. I have Dr. Klinghardt on the show as well, a great heavy metal detox expert. He regularly takes children who are on the spectrum, gets them so healthy that they no longer are on the spectrum, and then we question whether that diagnosis was accurate in the first place. This is one of the things that we discussed today, that so many children over the course of the last 34 years went from one in 10,000 kids being on the spectrum to one in 32, between 28 and 32. That’s not genetic. Something genetic doesn’t just, within four years, become that prolific. So we have to ask ourselves, what’s really going on? This discussion today answers that question. As far as answers are concerned, there are so many holistic ways to support the body. It’s constantly trying to come back to homeostasis. That’s why I love some of the tools that I have. If you’d like to know some of the tools that work really well with my clients, with heavy metal detox, especially in myself personally—if you've been a long-time listener, you know that I struggle with heavy metal toxicity and I have overcome it using several different modalities—I’d love to share them with you. Please feel free to book a free phone call with me. I want to talk to you. I love talking to the listeners, and we have so much fun on our phone calls. Just go to learntruehealth.com, in the menu, select Work with Ashley James, and it’s the very first thing that you click from there. It’s a free 20-minute or so phone call. Sometimes the phone calls go longer. If you have more questions, I will stay on the phone with you and answer them. We have a really great time. I highly recommend the phototherapy patches that I've talked about on the show with Trina Hammack and David Schmidt. I’ve had clients use them successfully. We have a detox protocol, and it works so well because it increases the body's function to produce more glutathione. Within 24 hours, you will produce 300% more glutathione. There’s actually a study out of South Korea with several patients of this doctor—I think it was 40 or 60 patients—who, over the course of 12 weeks, used this particular patch to increase their body's ability to create glutathione. What they found was a 75% improvement in their cognition, quality of life, and all their symptoms, and this was rated by the parents. So the parents saw this. Some children went from nonverbal to verbal, from not making eye contact to making eye contact and hugging, from rocking and holding themselves or being held against the wall to playing with the other kids. This is wild, and this is just one of the many things that we can do naturally. It’s non-invasive, no negative side effects. There are gentle things that we can incorporate to support our body’s ability to heal itself. That’s why I’m so excited to introduce this to you. If you are new to this world of holistic medicine, there are so many little things that we can add, and each one is profound. Together, they help us gain true health. As our guest today shares, she helped her child get off the spectrum. Here’s the thing—is it truly autism, or is it heavy metal toxicity and damage from pesticides, from environmental pollutants, from the chemicals that are injected into us? So that’s the question—what’s going on? If you’re here and you're listening because your child has been sick and has been socially poisoned by some form of chemicals out there, whether it’s injected or through food, we can support the body's ability to heal itself. That’s the exciting thing. The power goes back to your court. We feel so powerless when we go to the MD and they write us prescriptions, and they just don’t have answers for us when it comes to chronic illness. They do not have the pathway to true health. We have to take it upon ourselves to learn how to eat to heal our body, what we can do throughout our day to support our body. This is holistic lifestyle medicine. That’s what we’re here to teach you by listening to the Learn True Health Podcast. So please sign up for a free phone call with me. I’d love to talk with you and share some of the resources that have made a huge impact on the thousands of clients that I’ve worked with over the last 13+ years. I’m in this to help people and to help people get the true health that they deserve. So go to learntruehealth.com, sign up to talk with me. I’d love to help you. Use the search function on my website to search for the things that you are most interested in. So go to learntruehealth.com, sign up to talk with me. I'd love to help you and use the search function on my website to search for the things that you're most interested in, because we have wonderful episodes. We have over 500 episodes, and so many of them offer real step-by-step activities that you can do today, that you can start doing today to immediately improve your health and to feel the improvement right away. If you're not feeling full of energy, having great sleep, mental clarity, if you're not feeling amazing every day, then take on the challenge of listening to these episodes and doing the activities. Another thing you can do is get my book, because I have over 500 interviews in. I wrote my book a few months ago and published it. It's called Addicted to Wellness. You can go to learntruehealth.com/addictedtowellness, and it's a compilation of the most effective steps, and it's done in challenge form. So you take on between one and four challenges a week, and you get to journal what you learn from it and how your body feels going through the process of these challenges. It's an accumulation of the most important steps, the fundamental keys to true health, and if you're missing these, these are the pillars of health. If you're missing them and then going out for a prescription drug, your body is missing what it needs, and then we're just drugging ourselves. I know you don't do that, but this is what a lot of people do and a lot of doctors do—we're missing the foundations of health. So please check out my book Addicted to Wellness. You can get it on Amazon or go to learntruehealth.com/addictedtowellness. Sign up for a free chat with me. Love to chat with you, love to help you, and point you in the direction of some great resources. Use the search function on my website, learntruehealth.com, and find the specific episodes for the things you're really interested in so that you can start feeling amazing. I've been on an amazing health journey. I've healed over five diseases, and that's why I do what I do—because I don't want you to suffer anymore. The needless suffering, needs to end. We're turning our health around as a nation and as a world. Please share this episode with all those you care about so that we can turn this ripple into a tidal wave and help as many people as possible to learn true health. Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode 534. Ashley James (0:08:26.066) I am so excited for today's guest. I have Jodie Meschuk, who is a board-certified naturopathic doctor, author, activist, coach, and just amazing, amazing. I love your story. I love that you are here to help parents navigate this crazy world when their child has an illness or has a diagnosis, is on a spectrum. Just pick a spectrum, any spectrum. You are there to help and to navigate. I just interviewed a doctor yesterday. She's unfortunately more allopathic than I'm used to interviewing. She used the word need drugs when it came to something that wasn't like a life-saving thing. She said need drugs. I'm like, Hmm? and then I brought up herbs. I'm like, well, what about this, this, this, and that? What about these other options? This is how MDs, medical doctors, go through an indoctrination system throughout their college, throughout their university, and they're taught how to use drugs as their tools. They're not taught how to help the body get so healthy that it no longer has these symptoms or that it gets to the stage of absolute optimal health. They have not been taught that. Now they have their place, obviously, emergency medicine, saving lives. When it comes to chronic illness, they are horrible, and their tools are horrible. Not they themselves are horrible, their tools are horrible. What they've been taught is horrible. So I'm so excited to have you on the show today because you have an amazing track record of helping parents get their kids so healthy that they're no longer on spectrums. So welcome to the show. Jodie Meschuk (0:10:16.547) Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Every day is a good day to just speak truth and give parents hope. As you mentioned with doctors in the system, or as I like to refer a lot of times to the system, kind of quote-unquote, the system is, it's very one-dimensional. You would think it would be the opposite of the way medicine was years and years ago with house calls, and you had one doctor who could handle many different things that were going on in the body because they looked at the body holistically.  Unfortunately, now we are in a day and age where everything is compartmentalized, and you have 10 or 20 or 30 different specialists for different parts of the body, and nobody's speaking to each other. Anyways, all of that just creates a whole lot of, I think, paralyzation and confusion for parents, especially when you're dealing with maybe a new diagnosis that their child has received.  I think also, we can look and just kind of call the elephant out in the room, which is that this autism epidemic and really the chronic illness epidemic in children that we see today, it doesn't have to be that way. There's actual truth behind what's really going on. But unfortunately, a lot of these parents just don't have a chance to hear that truth because everything is so censored or relying on the system. So you're relying on those doctors who aren't really looking at the body holistically. All that to say is I'm very passionate about this kind of topic because we have lived it, we've gone through it, we've seen the other side, and I just want to do everything in my power to help end this epidemic that we see happening today. Ashley James (0:12:06.089) Absolutely. I'd love for listeners to know why I found you, why I think you're so amazing is your story, your initial story about how you helped a child of yours to reverse a diagnosis. Would you care to share that story with us? Jodie Meschuk (0:12:27.965) Yes, absolutely. I will say the story has kind of, the way that I share it obviously has changed a little bit over the years because our children get older. There are things that we reflect on. There are things that we look at. I think that's just part of the process. But the foundation of that story, it's interesting because it still holds very true today. If you would have asked me 15 years ago,14 years ago, even 13 years ago when we were in the depths of this reversal and healing the body and just kind of reversing all the damage that had happened to my child, I would have thought that many years ago this would not still be an epidemic today but the sad part is that it still is, and it's actually getting worse. So that's very alarming to me in terms of like how did we even get to this place as a society where, for example, with autism, you have this term that has just become this umbrella for basically inflammation happening in the brain and body. I think it's really important that we call things what they are, but what you're going to find is that when you take a new parent, or even when I go back to the beginning of my story with my own child, you have these symptoms and these things happening, but they want to just lump it into this label or this diagnosis to make you feel better. But it doesn't really make you feel better because all you want is for your child to be happy and healthy. So if I go back to when it first started for us, I was a new mom. It was my first child. As a new mom, you're trying to figure everything out, and you're trying to listen to the experts and have the best pediatrician and do really the best things that you can for your baby.  I think if I look back when I was even just pregnant, you want the best for your child. So you go and you find all the things that are supposed to help your child be healthy. At the end of the day, the ironic part is our babies actually really don't need anything at all. They don't need these interventions or vaccines. They don't need a medicalized birth. They don't need the eye gel. They don't need all this stuff that has been basically shoved down our throats for years, that if you don't do these things for your child, your child is not going to be healthy. I never realized that. As a new mom, I just trusted the system, and you're feared every step of the way that if you do not vaccinate your child, for some reason, your child is just going to die of measles. There's so much fear put into you. So that's really where I was caught, honestly. I was trying to do the best I could for my child. I wanted them to be happy and healthy. But because of that blind trust that I had in the system, we ended up paying a really big price for that. So I can kind of take you back to the beginning if you want and sort of set up our story, which I think is probably very similar to what a lot of women go through, especially when you're looking at the medicalized birth system that we have in this country today. It's also in a lot of other countries. Because a lot of things in the U.S. end up bleeding over into other countries as well. But it's very prominent here if you think about how people want convenience. They want quick fixes. They don't want to feel pain. So you have this medicalized birth system, and I'll kind of say, the first straw that sort of led up to the straw that broke the camel's back is when I was diagnosed with strep B. So a lot of women are diagnosed with strep B, which is a pretty normal bacteria that exists. Whether or not that actually causes problems, the data is not actually super clear on that. But of course, the standard of care is that you just get antibiotics, and that's it. That is literally the standard of care. So when you're looking at the standard of care, that means there's no deviation. That's really important for mothers to understand, that standard of care is just all the system has been taught. It's their way of medicalizing everything. If you ask a question or if you try to see if there's another option or another way, you're often met with a lot of gaslighting, a lot of shaming. You're an irresponsible mother, an irresponsible parent. So that was me. I was told I had to get antibiotics, which means that while I was delivering my child, they also got exposed to antibiotics. I had no idea the repercussions that would occur in my child's health with having an immediate exposure to antibiotics before they even entered this world. I think that was just really one of the first things that if I look back on, I go, what? That's such a simple thing to reverse. That's such a simple thing to look at differently, where you don't have to necessarily take those antibiotics if you don't want to. There's another path, but you're never given that choice. You're just told what to do, and you have to fall in line, or again, you get shamed, and you get all the nasty things said at you. So that was really the beginning of the birth. It's the epidural, it's the strep B, the antibiotics. My amazing, healthy, beautiful baby is born, and it's the Hep B shot immediately within minutes. It's the eye gel. It's the Johnson & Johnson toxic baby wash on the skin. It's cutting the cord within seconds. It's all of this medicalization that, if you think about it, doesn't set up the baby for health. Your baby is not born deficient in hepatitis B vaccine. They're not born deficient in eye gel. They don't need that stuff. So I kind of went along with it. There was something inside of me that felt very uncomfortable, but because I didn't have my confidence at that time, I just didn't know how to speak up. I think again, what is often so ignored is the fear that they have sown in mothers for so long that you truly do not know how to even use your voice in a setting like that  because all they do is fear you, that something's going to happen if you don't do what they say.  So that was kind of the beginning, which, basically again, looking back, I don't know that my child was necessarily set up for health at that point because they already had three or four assaults to their body. Every assault it takes time to come back from. Every assault could cause a domino effect in something else. I don't know that a lot of parents realize that hepatitis B vaccine is full of a chemical that affects the liver, which can cause jaundice and the kidneys too. So you think about all these babies that end up with jaundice, and there's an absolute connection between what is in that hepatitis B vaccine and how their baby is responding to that. But they're never told that. They're just told, well, that's normal. We'll just put them under some lights and we'll watch them instead of maybe they're having a reaction to that hepatitis B vaccine. So it gets ignored. It gets pushed under the rug. Ashley James (0:21:12.048) And they get to make more money because they get to do more interventions. Jodie Meschuk (0:21:15.384) Yes, absolutely. It's just all about the money. I mean, think about the amount of babies that end up in the NICU simply because they had a reaction to the hepatitis B vaccine, but now they're in the NICU.  Ashley James (0:21:15.384) Well, let's just pause the story to talk about this because you and I know the hepatitis B vaccine. So those who listen who have been told and believe, and I, at one point in my life, I was one of them. I just want to say I hate the term. Hate is a very strong word. I hate the term anti-vaxxer. I just want to be very clear. Everyone who is an anti-vaxxer was once a pro-vaxxer, and then they had the negative experiences, and then their eyes were opened. So don't call anyone an anti-vaxxer. Call them an ex-vaxxer for a very good reason—because of the experiences we've had, but also because our eyes have been opened and we see the truth. Tell us about this particular vaccine they give a baby on their very first day within hours of being born. New baby, six, seven, eight pounds, and they give them this vaccine. This vaccine, only a decade or so ago—maybe two decades ago, but I just remember it. I'm from Canada, so our schedule is a bit different, but I live in the States now. I remember that the vaccine was made available while I was in high school. It was newly made available to teenagers. I remember getting it, and it was not given to babies. This is in the late nineties. It was not given to babies, before the late nineties, it was only available to sex workers, nurses, doctors, and people who would be vulnerable or have exposure to hepatitis B because it spread through sex, sharing needles, and dirty blood transfusions. Which one of those three things is your newborn baby participating in? Is your newborn baby having unprotected sex? Is your newborn baby having dirty blood transfusions? Is your newborn baby sharing needles with someone down the street? No? Why is your newborn baby being given a vaccine for a disease they would have zero exposure to? Sorry, I'm getting a little angry there. There's my soapbox—getting off of it. This is ridiculous. But here's the thing—we question it, but people who haven't been given that little set of information go, “Of course, I want to protect my child from hepatitis.” Of course, yes, but they have zero chance of exposure. Why are we giving this one vaccine? They're not giving them the polio vaccine on the first day of birth. They're not giving them measles, mumps, or rubella on the first day of birth. Why is it so important that that baby not leave the hospital on the first day of birth without being given a vaccination for something that they have zero chance of exposure to? Jodie Meschuk (0:24:26.932) It's called standard of care, and a lot of money is the reason why. I mean, again, it's such a simple answer, but I think it's something that's very hard for the majority of the population to comprehend. I think we're getting there. Obviously, there's going to be, in my opinion, so much that's going to come to the surface in the next few years. That's really exciting because, for me personally, I've been fighting for this ever since it happened to my child, ever since my child sustained a very severe vaccine injury. I'm sure we'll get into that. You just look at the hepatitis B vaccine, and again, it's standard of care. History-wise, instead of going and trying to identify the mothers who maybe are at risk, they have a drug history, or they were sexually active, a prostitute, whatever, they're in the high-risk category. Instead of taking the time to identify those, they decided, let's just give it to all babies. Think about how, on just a common-sense level, how ridiculous that is. But what they realized was that it was also a lot of money and profit that they could make. One thing that I find to be so interesting is how people will blindly accept. Again, I was one of those. So you're right. We believed in vaccines at one point until our eyes were opened, and now we see the truth, and now we reject those vaccines. But I think if you think about the average person, it's very hard for them to comprehend that there would actually be an evil entity behind all this that actually really doesn't care about the health of your child. They only care about the bottom line, and they care about profit. That's really where we are today. That's why the vaccine schedule has blown up the way that it has—solely because of profit and a lot of evil behind that industry. Parents just need to understand that these vaccines have other things in them. When you're looking at what's in them, especially hepatitis B, you have things like formaldehyde, you have sodium borate, you have sodium chloride, which, by the way, sodium chloride is not like taking Celtic sea salt. This immediately messes up the electrolyte balance in your baby and can cause jaundice because it's affecting the kidneys, it's affecting the liver. You have yeast proteins in it. We wonder why we have the amount of allergies that we have today in children when that never existed 20, 30 years ago. They're getting injected with yeast proteins. They're getting injected with vaccines that have been grown in eggs. Why do we have such a huge egg allergy? All of these things are because of the assault that is happening every second of every day in this country on babies with needles. You have aluminum. I mean, not in hepatitis B, you don't have mercury—that's still present in flu vaccines, certain ones. So we have to understand what's actually in these. If you think about your minutes-old baby, why are they so excited to inject them right away? To your point, why would a baby be sexually active? Why would a baby be exposed to a dirty needle, drug abuse? Instead, identify those people, and maybe they need something if there's a risk, but not 100% of the babies in this population. Ashley James (0:28:17.355) Well, let me ask you a question. Have you ever heard of a pandemic of babies having this illness? In the United States in your lifetime, anyone going, oh no, my baby has hepatitis B? Ever, ever, ever, ever before. It shocks me. Then the amount of aluminum, because they say it's for the adjuvant, we have to aggravate the immune system so it takes it, so it takes hold or whatever. But the amount of aluminum is, it was something not even safe for a 200-pound man. It was crazy, it's really high. Then there's an eight, this is a little eight-pound baby. You're immediately injecting them with a heavy metal that harms the brain and harms the kidneys, harms the nervous system. It's just, yes, it is, it's barbaric. Well, remember, standard of care a few hundred years ago was not washing your hands and bloodletting, losing leeches.  You talked about your experience being in the hospital and that they have this standard of care, but what they're not practicing, which is, in my opinion, it's unethical. They're not practicing informed consent. True informed consent is explaining to you the benefits of that procedure, all the risks of that medication or procedure, and all the alternatives. When was the last time a doctor sat you down, especially while you were going through the birthing process, and said, okay, well, here's the benefits, here's the risks, here's all the alternatives. Never. They're just, no, you need this. Your baby needs this. Jodie Meschuk (0:30:15.015) Right, exactly. I do have hope that hopefully that will change soon. I think unfortunately the change is going to come because they're going to be forced to change. That's where you look at the medical system and you look at, obviously, I'm very passionate about babies and children and autism and these labels and this chronic disease epidemic and all of these things that can be prevented. I want parents to remember that it can be prevented. Now, if somebody's in that position and they didn't know, trust me, I know exactly how you feel. You also can heal, your child can heal. But we have to also educate and continue to talk about this so that parents who are just starting this process know that they have a voice. They're the ones that hire and fire these doctors. They're the ones that make the choice of what route they want to go. They're the ones that, if let’s say your wife is on that table and they're giving birth and you have specifically said, do not cut that cord for 20 minutes, your husband is there to say, do not cut that cord for 20 minutes. We mean it. Being an advocate is incredibly important. Unfortunately, we are in a day and age where you would think the advocate would be the medical system, but it's not. The advocate has to be you. So you have to know what your rights are. You have to know what other options there are. It is hard to find some of that information nowadays because of censorship, but that's why your platform and these podcasts are so important because you can't censor them. We have to be able to get that information out to people.  Ashley James (0:32:10.351) Well, YouTube still censors me. I put my podcast out everywhere, but YouTube will take down. I mean, I can't put any kind of vaccine episode, they will take down. So I'm looking forward to that no longer happening because they're being watched now.  It's unfortunate. It's unfortunate. Yes, it's unfortunate how they've been. You've heard of last month, a five-year-old—he had never gotten any vaccines before. This is in Tennessee. I'll link it in the show notes of today's podcast at learntruehealth.com. I'll link this article. Five-year-old develops autism after being forced to get 18 vaccines in one day as part of a custody battle. A Tennessee judge ordered a family to vaccinate all three of their children, all whom had never been vaccinated. Five-year-old Isaac immediately became ill and was eventually diagnosed with severe regressive autism. People say, well, there's been studies that prove that autism is not caused by vaccines. Yet we have this child who did not have autism until he was given 18 vaccines in one day, and now he has severe regressive autism. There's the proof right there. This is standard of care—18 in one day—there are no safety studies on that. Jodie Meschuk (0:33:41.711) Correct. So there's a few lessons I think that this story brings up. There's quite a few actually. The first one is, I'll play devil's advocate here. I'll play the shoot. I'll pretend I'm a standard pediatrician. So let's say I'm a mom and I go into my well visit and I've got my little toddler with me, let's say, and it's ready for the next scheduled vaccines. Number one, parents remember, your well visits line up with the vaccine schedule. So you need to think about that first. Why are the well visits spaced out the way that they are? Because it lines up with the vaccine schedule. It has nothing to do with keeping your child well. It has everything to do with getting them in and getting them a vaccine. So that's number one. But you look at this and let's say I were to go in and we're there for our scheduled appointment and I ask a question of the pediatrician and I go, hey, I heard this story. I read this thing on the news where this child got vaccines, got 18, and they got autism. What’s that pediatrician going to say? First of all, that pediatrician's going to say, well, they could say, yes, that was a one-off thing. I mean, they got 18. I don't know if the story's true. I haven't read it. They're going to deflect. But it's very well possible that that pediatrician could say, well, I mean, if they got 18, that's kind of a lot or your pediatrician most likely is going to say, yes, I don't know about the validity of that story. I think it was probably made up. I mean, what did you find on social media? They're going to basically gaslight you. They're not going to say that that is valid. They're literally going to gaslight that mother. The next thing that will happen too is, when you come into these studies that supposedly have proven that vaccines do not cause autism, if you look at those studies, they weren't even done properly. Look who funded the study. You have to always look at who funded the study and what was the outcome that they were trying to receive from that study. A lot of people don't realize that most of the studies done across the board are funded by Big Pharma, and who is the one making the profit from vaccines? Big Pharma. But if you take a step back and you look at just as a common sense, hey, this family over here, they never vaccinate their children. Their kids are always healthy. This family over here, they follow the schedule. Their kids are always sick. You can literally do your own double-blind placebo just right there. You know what I mean? I look at my children and obviously we've learned so much since what we went through with a vaccine injury. One of my children has never been vaccinated, never has received a round of antibiotics, never has been to a well visit. By all intents and purposes, the medical system would say my child should be dead. But my child who has never received any of that is the healthiest one of the entire family. So a lot of it is just common sense. Now, the other lesson I think that we can learn from this story, and this is kind of a sad part of it, but I think it's where we are at as a culture is, there's a lesson here that we need to really be on the same page with our spouse when it comes to vaccines before we decide to have children. What I have seen happen a lot in my own practice when I'm working with clients and I'm helping children heal from these labels and I'm walking hand in hand with these parents through the ups and downs is, the worst stories, meaning the hardest ones, are the ones where all of a sudden the mom decided to do her research and the husband refuses to believe it and wants the kids to get vaccinated. It creates such a wedge in that marriage and that relationship. Before you got married, you just wanted to make sure that you had the same goals and dreams and maybe the same faith or whatever. But I'm going to tell you right now, you better have a conversation with that future spouse and make sure that you are both on the same page with vaccines because so many of these stories end up in the courts. You know what the court's going to do? Side with Big Pharma. Period. They're going to side with the standard of care because that's what a court does. So that's also just a really sad part of the story. Whatever happened in the court system, whatever happened with custody, all of that stuff, it's something that we need to be very aware of before we enter into having children. Ashley James (0:38:43.788) Yes, and hopefully be able to have those deep conversations with your family, with even your in-laws, because that's the thing where maybe the parents are 100 percent, but then the in-laws or the grandparents are freaking out and just be able to ask them to keep an open mind and not be so naive and so trusting of the mainstream medical system. It's a for-profit industry. It's not this parental figure that loves you, that wants the best for you. This is what we do—we put it on a pedestal. When we start to go down this rabbit hole, the cognitive dissonance, some people just can't, it's so uncomfortable for them to accept because they were raised to believe that government agencies are their friend, are their loving, caring, almost their God, their loving, caring deity that wants the best for them. My pediatrician's so nice. They want the best for me. They wouldn't hurt me or lie to me. The thing is, it's bigger. It's bigger than the nice man or the nice woman you've been seeing. It's bigger than the one doctor. It's a huge juggernaut. The industry is financially driven, and they suppress data, and we've seen it over and over again. You just have to be willing to go there. You have to be willing. You can't find this in the mainstream media because the legacy media is funded by the pharmaceutical industry. If you don't believe me, go watch regular TV and count how many pharmaceutical commercials you see. It's pretty crazy. It's a pharmaceutical commercial because, at the end, they talk about anal leakage and death. It's always death. Okay. It's always death. There's your clue. So you can't trust your news source from any legacy, any company that gets money from Big Pharma isn't going to rat them out. We've seen this. So you have to go deeper. You have to dig deep. I love the Children's Health Defense. I love the documentaries they put out. But you have to be willing to kind of go to alternative media, this podcast, to be willing to go and seek out information. Yes. Jodie Meschuk (0:41:18.264) Well, I think we've definitely seen that shift. I mean, if you look at even the most recent election, it was only because of independent media that things had a chance, even had a chance versus without that independent media, there would be no chance. You look at COVID, look at how much was suppressed in COVID. I wrote about this the other day in one of my stories. I don't know that the population, and we can relate this to parents. We can relate this to what that experience is like when you're in a pediatrician's office. When you're trying to navigate this medical system, which by the way, I would say don't even try to navigate it. Just exit it because you don't need it. If you're worried about a broken bone, you can go get urgent care and emergency care anytime you want, but you need to exit that system. That's a trap. Basically, what's happening is that the entire population, it's almost as if they are married to a narcissistic, abusive spouse because that is exactly what the media has been doing to people for years. It's interesting because you saw this so clearly in 2020. I mean, I was the only one without a mask. I was the only one going opposite sides of the arrows on purpose. I was the only one. My children never put a mask on. I'm not going to do it. You look at how many people fell in line, and it was as if they were in a relationship with an abuser and they didn't know how to get out of it. They didn't realize that they were actually being abused. That's the thing. I don't think that parents as a whole realize, unless you're awake to it already. But if you're just the average person moving through life, you do not realize that the very system is just mentally abusing you every single day to keep you in line. Until you realize that, you're not going to break free of that relationship. Ashley James (0:43:24.751) But what might make you break free is how much you love and care for your children and want them to be healthy. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a vaccine injury. I've had so many friends where their first child was vaccine injured, and then that's what woke them up. But they had to see it with their own eyes. They had to see the gaslighting over and over again. “Hey, my kid was walking, and now they can't walk anymore after their well visit.” Or, “My child was making eye contact, and now they can't. Now they're just a floppy baby after their well visit.” Really, really sad and scary. I know this is a very complex answer, but give us a bit of the rundown. Why do vaccines cause neurological issues? Jodie Meschuk (0:44:21.487) So I'm glad you bring this up because I want, number one, we're gonna kind of take this back to autism for a second because it is an absolute exploding epidemic and it should not be. You can look at autism, you can look at ADHD, you can look at sensory processing, you can look at eczema, you can look at asthma, you can look at insulin resistance that we are now seeing in six-year-olds, obesity, all of these things. Yes, they wanna put six-year-olds on Ozempic, just wait, it's coming. It's already in the works. Big Pharma wants to make their money. So I want people to start looking at things for what they really are. This took me time, by the way. Again, I had the blinders on, I blindly trusted the system. We paid the price for that. So I never trusted it again. Now, caveat, if I need emergency care, great. That is what they're good at. Save my life, then let me take care of it from there. But this whole system of healthcare is corrupt at its core. Going back to your question with the vaccine, if you look across the board at this epidemic of autism, for example, what really is it? This is the question I want people to ask because if you go to the neurologist, what will happen is your child will be vaccine injured. Maybe you don't realize it's a vaccine injury at the time because there's sometimes a slow regression that happens. Sometimes there's a quick regression. It depends on how many the child receives. It depends on their body's ability to detox itself, their body's ability to have a strong defense system. So every child's a little bit different in how this can show up. But what we see most is that it shows up right around 20 to 24 months. A little bit right at that age two mark. So what really is it? It's brain inflammation. It's body inflammation. Why are we calling it autism? Because it's easy to call it that. Because it's easy for that neurologist to just look at that parent and say, “Your child has autism. I'm so sorry. Here's resources for you. All we can do is just hope that they get a little bit better and maybe talk one day.” You're literally given no hope either, by the way, no hope whatsoever. There's no talk about healing. There's no talk about what the root cause was and what the trigger was, which was the vaccine. Also could be environmental issues, damages. Look at our environment, look at our food supply, look at what's in it, look at the fluoride, look at all of the assaults that happen on the population. Vaccines being one of the most and the biggest because if you look at the vaccine schedule, it's massive and it's massive what these babies and these children are receiving. So what does a vaccine do? Well, it's supposed to help, they say, to prevent disease. But what else is in there and how is that acting in the body? Again, you go back to those ingredients. You go back to formaldehyde, aluminum—aluminum being the most common over mercury nowadays, but again, mercury is still present in some. You have preservatives, polysorbate 80. You have formaldehyde like I mentioned. You have aborted fetal cells. Some people will go, “That was a long time ago.” No, no, no. They're still using aborted fetal cells. They still are. Do you know what gender that aborted fetal cell is that's being injected into your child? Is your child a boy and they're getting a girl? Is your child a girl and they're getting a boy? I don't know. Think about that for a minute and how many they receive and how many assaults that are to their body with aborted fetal cells. But what happens? I want to take you guys through, okay? So I'll take you through a little piece of my story to kind of highlight this, which is here I am with my about 13-month-old child, and I'm pregnant with my second, very pregnant. We go in for the well visit. Now, standard well visit, I was supposed to see our standard pediatrician, which we had an agreement at the time that I was going to be spacing out vaccines. So in the very beginning, when I first became a mom, I felt very uncomfortable about vaccines, but I just didn't know how to advocate for myself. Then over the course of the first year of my child's life, after repeated ear infections, repeated, 10 rounds of antibiotics, chronic illness, chronic diarrhea, all of these problems, which absolutely pointed to vaccine injury. So I started to space them out because something inside me was screaming, but I just didn't know how to say it. I just didn't know how to stand in my power enough to walk away from it completely. So we were kind of half in the system, half out of the system. So we went in for a well visit, and the normal one, the normal pediatrician we had this agreement with wasn't there. I didn't know that. So the on-call pediatrician came in. Still to this day, I have such guilt and shame over not just getting up and walking out because something felt so wrong. But again, I just, I was paralyzed. I didn't have the confidence then that I have now. So the pediatrician comes in and looks at my child's chart. He's like, “Boy, they're really behind, really behind on their vaccines.” I go, “Well, that's fine. We're spacing them out. I don't want to do too many.” He launched very quickly into this fear and gaslighting routine, which is what most parents will experience. Now again, I'm very pregnant with my second, did not have my husband with me. So maybe it would have been a different story if he was there, but I felt very backed into a corner. He proceeded to say things like, “Well, you wouldn't want your child to die of measles or polio or these things.” Imagine that question from a pediatrician. “You wouldn't want your child to die, would you?” How do you feel as a mom? So I go, “Well, no, but I just don't know that I trust all these. I don't know that they're safe.” Then it's, “Don't tell me you're one of those moms. Don't tell me you're one of those moms that goes to Google and listens to quack doctors, and all of a sudden you think vaccines are unsafe. I'll tell you right now, vaccines don't cause autism.” It's the line that they've been taught to say. They all say the same thing. We kind of had this conversation back and forth, and I'm sweating, literally sweating in this freezing cold pediatrician's office, holding my child. He then says, “Well, it's really irresponsible of you not to do this, and you have to do this. We have to catch him up today.” I was like, “Well, I don't, I just, don't know.” “Would you give your child that many vaccines?” Because he was talking about giving my child nine vaccines, nine. Now, that's not 18, but I want parents to remember nine. Nine is not okay. Nine is not normal, but nine is very common today. It is not uncommon for a child to receive nine at a well visit because a three-in-one is three shots, you guys. It's not one shot, it's three. So if you have the MMR, that's three shots, but they make it sound like it's just one. So you could very well get a three-in-one, a three-in-one, and a couple other ones. So he said, “Gosh, no, if I was you, I mean, I would give my child this in a heartbeat. They're totally safe. I would have no reservations whatsoever.” I just kept hemming and hawing, and I'm sweating, and I'm like, I feel like I want to throw up, and my child's crying already. He says, “Well, if you're going to continue to give me a problem, then I'm going to have to call child services on you for being a negligent parent.” Yes. People think that's crazy. The amount of mothers that I speak to and have spoken to in the last 14 years, it is very common for a pediatrician to threaten that. He threatened me. That is another reason why mothers cave, because they're threatened, and they don't know the truth, and they don't know what else to do, and you're backed into a corner. That was me. That was me. I got backed into a corner. Everything in my body told me this is wrong. Just get out of the office. Just walk away. But I was paralyzed. I felt like I was in an alternate universe and I couldn't move my body. Of course, then the nurse comes in, because the doctor doesn't inject your baby. No, no, no, no, no. The nurse does. The nurse gets to do it. She comes in with her tray of vaccines, and she proceeds to inject a three-in-one, a three-in-one, and then three separate ones. Nine vaccines.  Meanwhile, my child is screaming bloody murder on the table. It's very common. Because what does a baby do when a needle comes at them and something hurts and it pokes? They scream. So this is what I want parents to understand, this visualization, which I had no idea was happening to my child on that table at that time, which was when that child is in fight and flight. I want you to think about when you're in fight and flight. When something happens, a car stops in front of you, and you slam on your brakes, and you get this flush of blood running through your body, and you get this tingly feeling. That's fight and flight. That's cortisol. That's protecting your body so it doesn't die in that moment, basically. When that happens, the blood-brain barrier opens for a very specific purpose to flush. I want you to picture that little baby or that toddler on that table, and they are screaming, and that blood-brain barrier opens. Where do we think that aluminum is going to go? Where do we think that formaldehyde is going to go? It's going to go to the brain. And that blood-brain barrier that is supposed to stop that from happening, it can't, because that child is screaming, and they don't know what's happening, and they're scared. This is exactly what happens as a precursor to these neurological issues that we see in epidemic proportions today. This is autism. We need to stop calling it autism. I'll be honest with you. I'm very passionate. I'm very passionate about this topic, and in fact, the book I'm working on right now, because I'm redoing my original book Autism Reimagined, the book I'm working on right now, which is going to come out next spring, goes into this in great detail, which is the entire population is being lied to and manipulated right now as to what their children really have. They don't have autism. Your child does not have autism. Your child has brain inflammation. Your child has metals in their body. Your child is not proficiently detoxing this poison. So once you understand what it really is, all of a sudden, it makes sense. This bucket, this label, all of these labels, they come up with new labels every day, Ashley. Every day, there's a new label, because it takes the responsibility off of them.  It puts the spotlight on this label of autism or whatever it is that you're going to call it so that it takes the guilt off of the mother, and it's just genetic. It's just the way it was. Then you're just told it's genetic. It's not genetic. How do genes change in epidemic proportions? They don't. It's impossible. Down syndrome never changes. Genetic malformations never change in their percentages. How is it then that autism is genetic when it has exploded from one in 10,000 years ago to one in 22? How is that genetic? So we have to really start going back to the drawing board and looking at things for what they really are. That's how it begins. It begins with that child on that table getting injected when they're in fight and flight. Where do we think that poison's going to go? Ashley James (0:57:30.305) Well, I had Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride on episode 385. I’ve had several other doctors on the show who talk about doing a very specific healthy diet and heavy metal detox for the children who are diagnosed with autism, and they get so healthy now they're not on the spectrum. Was that ever truly autism? You can't—true, true, true autism, the one that was one in 10,000 kids, the one that was the savants you'd hear about, a Rain Man—though, you can't just heavy metal detox that person, and they're no longer autistic. But when we take dozens and just hundreds, hundreds and thousands of kids who've gone through the GAPS diet, who've gone through these heavy metal detoxes, then they're no longer on the spectrum. They're no longer in pain. They're starting to talk. They're starting to hug their parents. They're starting to look them in the eye. That's why they call it spectrum, not every child with autism has this level of brain inflammation that they're beating their head against a wall or punching their head or rocking, but their brain hurts so much. They're in so much pain. Their brain is on fire. What was described to me, really interesting, the heavy metals that get in the brain, they vibrate with certain frequencies like WiFi. WiFi is at a frequency that vibrates the heavy metals, heating the brain up. It's like you're putting the brain in the microwave. So if you take a child with heavy metals in the brain and you put them in a no-WiFi environment, they're much more comfortable. It doesn't get rid of the problem. The heavy metals are still there, the inflammation is still there. Immediately remove them from a WiFi environment, immediately get them on a healthier diet, for example, the GAPS, and start doing gentle heavy metal detox. I have so many episodes on that, where we talk about all the ways that you can support a child in detoxing. First of all, the human body was never designed to have that many chemicals be injected at any point in your life, no matter how big or small you are. But then some are more susceptible than others because MTHFR, just one example, the liver’s ability to detox or their detox pathways are compromised because foods are fortified with chemical artificial vitamins that are not great. They're the opposite. What is it? Folic acid actually blocks folate absorption. So if you're feeding your kid Cheerios, and there's folic acid in it, it blocks folate, which is the natural form. Then your liver has problems detoxing. Glyphosate is really high in these cereals. Glyphosate binds to heavy metals and then releases them in parts of the body where pH changes. So it actually helps deliver heavy metals. So if you got an injection of aluminum or if you get the mercury from a flu shot or whatever, it's going to grab onto these heavy metals and then release them in the kidneys and in the brain. It is a delivery system. So we have to clean up everything. Clean up the diet. Stop feeding processed food. Stop everything that feeds that inflammation. But as early as we can, start to question the standard practices because tell me, as a doctor, how many safety studies have you seen any pharmaceutical industry or the CDC produce or any company produce? Showing the safety of incorporating multiple vaccines, of taking one vaccine and putting three together? Any safety studies on taking three or more vaccines at the same time? Jodie Meschuk (1:02:08.393) That's just it, there aren't actual legitimate studies that show there's not a single study that follows the schedule the way that it is. That's a really big problem because they try to isolate things. So what they do is they isolate one vaccine, and they take a very small sample size, and they do it for a very short time. We watched them for a month, they were fine. What they're not studying and they refuse to study because they know what it will show is the bioaccumulation. It's the long-term ramification of the way that the childhood schedule is set up today. There's also some really good studies that show unvaccinated versus vaccinated populations and how much healthier the unvaccinated population of children are. But those aren't the ones funded by big pharma, of course.  So they're hard to find, the really good ones, because they don't want you to find them. But then when you look at the studies that they try to shove down your throat all the time, or you go into that pediatrician's office as the typical mom and you just want the best for your kid, and you're asking some very normal questions that any mother would ask, which is, hey doc, are you sure these are safe? I heard these could cause autism, or I heard that my child could have a reaction. What they will say is, I've never seen a study that shows that because all they've read are faulty studies. All they have been fed is this garbage that vaccines are safe. So they believe that. I really truly like to believe, though, that there are good pediatricians out there. I know that there are because obviously I know who some of them are. What you're gonna find, first of all, is that most of those pediatricians, if not all of them, don't operate within the insurance industry. They don't take insurance for a reason because the minute you start taking insurance, you're beholden to what they deem to be appropriate healthcare.  So what you'll find is a lot of these good, well-meaning doctors, they actually are forced out of the system because if you speak up, you're fined. If you speak up, you get your license taken away. Look at California. You have doctors who are literally scared for their lives and their livelihoods because they can only write a handful of medical exemptions a year. If they go over that, they get their license taken away. They're under fire. So are these doctors, are these pediatricians actually operating from a place of truth? Are they operating from a place of fear? Unfortunately, a lot of them are operating from a place of fear. So they just toe the line and they just do what they're told. But again, you'll find the good ones. It's just that most of them don't take insurance, and that's why they don't take insurance. But yes, I mean, across the board, you have to really understand at a very deep level what goes on behind the scenes. Even the fact that pediatricians get bonuses for vaccines. If you ask a pediatrician that is very deep into their love of vaccines, there's a couple that will come across my desk from time to time with things that they say, information that they're promoting out there. It's just so clear how brainwashed they are, that they literally are acting like the legacy media. You watch the news during the election cycle, I watch it, and I go, do they even realize the lies that are coming out of their mouth? The fact of the matter is, I think they do, but they do it anyway. It's the same thing with pediatricians who are very deep into the system. You go and you observe, and you go, they just said that vaccines are safe and they don't cause autism. Do they even realize what they're saying? Do they even realize what a lie that is and how it's very clear because it's literally listed on the insert as a side effect? So why are they saying this? At the end of the day, we can never really truly get into the mind of someone other than the fact that I think a lot of them are in fear. Some of them actually really believe this stuff because they've been taught it in medical school. It's too hard to believe that they've been lied to. So they just continue to lie. Ask pediatricians, well, don't you get bonuses for having this fully vaccinated childhood population in your practice? No, no, no, I don't get bonuses. Really? Because I'm kind of looking at Blue Cross Insurance right now. You actually do get a bonus if you have a certain percentage of children who get vaccines in your office. So why are you lying? But it's just an interesting landscape out there. We just go back to, it's up to the parents. It's up to us to really see the truth. It's up to us to do the digging. It's up to us to stand up and advocate for our children, because at the end of the day, the system will not. You might come across a diamond in the rough, needle in a haystack, maybe. I mean, we did. We eventually came across a pediatrician who actually believed me and who helped me in my early years of healing my child and doing some things that were well outside his experience, but he was willing to do it because he believed me and he understood the heart of a mother. He was willing to put his practice on the line to help me heal my child. They're far and few between. So at the end of the day, we just have to know this information and know how to stand up for our kids. Sorry, I got off track there a little bit. Ashley James (1:07:59.399) No, no, not at all. You're absolutely right. Okay. We went down a nice side conversation because we had to unpack this whole, you were there in the hospital feeling uncomfortable. They were doing all these things, and we talked about that vaccine. We just had to unpack that vaccine. It's kind of the most ridiculous, of all the vaccines they give your child, they give it at the most ridiculous time. This has to wake you up. This has to wake people up. It's a vaccine, it was only given to prostitutes and people at high risk. Was it even available to the public? They're giving it to a newborn seven-pound baby. That doesn't make sense, and it's standard of care. We have to start questioning the standard of care.  Jodie Meschuk (1:08:57.405) Not only that, but a week later, what do you get? The DTaP, the Hib, you get more. Literally a week later, then a few weeks later after that, then a month later after that. You guys just take a step back and see. You have a vaccine schedule that is upwards of 90 vaccines at this point, almost from birth to age five. They just quietly added the COVID vaccine without telling anyone, without telling anyone. So if somebody were to do all the optional ones, flu vaccine, which again, depending on who you go to and what climate you live in, meaning what kind of area type of thing, flu should be optional, but it's not really told to you that it's optional. But if you look at the entire schedule, plus COVID now, you're looking at upwards of 90. That's a hell of a lot of injections into a child. How is their body supposed to process that? This is interesting because we'll always have the people that say, well, I was fine. You mentioned food quality, all of the garbage that's in food, the glyphosate, the hybrid wheat, the atrazine, the food coloring, all of the preservatives, all of this stuff. Now granted, I grew up on some of that stuff. But I also only received about four vaccines in my life. I mean, my mom probably could have done more, but I think my parents were probably just kind of, yes, we'll do a few. They weren't overly medical, meaning they didn't fear things. I didn't go to the doctor for every cold. We see what is happening today in kids. A lot of stuff was just, drink some chicken soup and watch The Price Is Right and lay on the couch. Even if you grew up eating garbage food, we're trying to basically make a straw man argument here, which is number one, the vaccine schedule wasn't the same as it is now. Even in the 90s, it wasn't the same as it is now. Even it was ballooning in the 90s, but it's still not the same. The amount of chemicals in food were not the same as today. So any person saying, well, I'm fine, I had vaccines, I ate garbage food. It's not the same. That's the problem, it's not the same. You can't compare an orange to an apple. Ashley James (1:11:25.980) If the grandparents of your kid are going, well, I'm fine. I got vaccines. They got three. Polio, smallpox, and DTP. That's it. In 1962, they got five doses in total. They had five doses. Now it's, you said, it's over 70 doses. Back in 1983, it was 24 doses over the period of 15 years. Jodie Meschuk (1:11:53.297) They also didn't have chemtrails. They also didn't have fluoride in their water. They also didn't have glyphosate, and they didn't have food dyes. Ashley James (1:12:00.773) Yes, 80,000 man-made chemicals created in the last 40 years that are in our air, food, water, soil. Jodie Meschuk (1:12:08.249) We wonder why we have an epidemic today. I'll also get parents that will say, well, my child didn't receive any vaccines and they have autism. I go, okay, tell me about all the other stuff. Because although vaccines are a very big root cause for a lot of the things that we see today, there's also, what was the mother's state of health? Did they get a flu shot? Did they get a Tdap? They pushed that Tdap like crazy on mothers. Now COVID and flu shots together. What was the state of their oral health? Did they have metal fillings in their mouth? Did you know that it leach into their bloodstream and cause a problem with their baby? We live in a world where they want so desperately for you to just look at one thing and that's it. Autism isn't genetic at all. Vaccines don't cause autism, but what about all the other things? So there's just so many factors at play that although I will say it's a lot rarer for a child to have autism when they have not received any vaccines, meaning a child who is on the typical schedule, they're just waiting for something to happen to their body. It can be a wide range of things. It can be chronic eczema. It could be ADHD, could be sensory processing, could be gut dysfunction, or just gut dysbiosis. It could then go into autism. There are so many things, but all they care about is that the entire world thinks autism is genetic. That's literally all they care about, but they can't prove it. Ashley James (1:13:53.855) My gosh, if it's genetic, then how common like three generations who went from one in 10,000 to one in every single classroom. Jodie Meschuk (1:14:04.061) Right. The data doesn't lie, but they want you to look at skewed data.  Ashley James (1:14:10.549) Okay, so there you were. Your child received nine shots. Then what happened? Your child was crying. Then what happened? What did you first notice that made you think there was something wrong? Jodie Meschuk (1:14:32.485) The first thing was honestly, it's one of those traumatic memories that never goes away. I've done a lot of work, emotional healing, obviously. I have been willing to look at the truth and all the anger that I had back then about what happened. The most important thing that I look back on that I did was instead of sitting in that anger and not doing anything, I used that anger to heal my child. I used that anger to prove the system wrong. I put myself back in that place, and I can still see it very clearly today. That trauma will never go away. Meaning that guilt I feel as a mother will never go away, that I allowed that to happen to my child. Which is why I wake up today, every morning I wake up and I go, I've got to save all the babies. That's literally my mission in life. I want to save all the babies. One day, when I die, I want my legacy to be that I played a hand in stopping this autism epidemic because it's so brutal. It's so brutal to watch children go through this. So there were nine vaccines and crying, which is obviously any child is going to cry when they get poked, but I just remember feeling paralyzed, crying. I was literally crying as the nurse was doing it. How sad that that nurse just kept doing it and didn't stop and go, honey, what's wrong? How sad. What a terrible bedside manner. But there I am crying, quickly picking up my child, and I run out of that office because I knew—I just knew that what I did was wrong, and I couldn't take it back. I think that's another thing that if parents can just remember that once you do it, you can't take it back. It's not like trying to flush an antibiotic out of the system, which is obviously a lot easier than a vaccine. You literally can't take it back. There's no “oops, now get it out of the system.” No, that's not how it works with a vaccine. So I got in my car, and we were supposed to go to a playdate, a park playdate. There I am just driving, crying in the car. I think I called my mom and just felt horrible. What's my mom going to say? She's the best mom in the world, but she's just like, “It'll be okay, honey. They'll be fine. Everything's okay.” She's just reassuring me. But I just knew in my heart of hearts that what I did was going to have consequences. He just never stopped crying. I know for a fact that brain inflammation started pretty quickly. I went to the park. My friends also tried to console me, like good friends do. It was interesting because I would say at the time half of my friends—we were all in the same stage of life, having our first babies and starting families. We were in MOPS together and Bible study. We went to the park all the time. Half of them were not vaccinating because they were already awake to it. Half of them were. I do remember distinctly having some of these conversations with my friends, and I know that they were trying gently to kind of open my eyes, but I just wasn't there yet. So we got to the park, and my child just never stopped crying. That night, there was this shrieking cry. So it turned into—you think about your child crying, and there's the normal fussy cry, there's the “I'm hungry” cry, there's the “I'm overly tired” cry. This was a shrieking cry that I had never heard come out of my child before. It got so bad that night. I called the urgent line for the pediatrician, and I said, “I think my child's having a reaction. I don't know what to do. They have a fever. They're having the shrieking cry.” They just said, “Give him Tylenol and Motrin. Just rotate Tylenol and Motrin.” So that's what I did. Yes. Ashley James (1:18:55.970) Okay. Let's pause. Let's pause. You're a naturopath. Now, is there a class action lawsuit against Tylenol? So, OK, why is it the worst thing to give a child after a vaccine? Why is Tylenol the worst thing? Jodie Meschuk (1:19:18.828) Well, the most simple explanation, I always like to keep things very simple for people because I don't think that the average mother needs to go into the weeds. You just need to understand why something is bad. So I know, I know, simple, yes. Ashley James (1:19:35.696) I want to go into the weeds. Okay, so keep it simple. if you could  go, go, go deep, feel free to go deep. We have a lot of very, very intelligent listeners here. All the intelligent listeners come to this podcast.  Jodie Meschuk (1:19:43.302) That's awesome. Well, I think really one of the simplest explanations and what is most important to remember is that when you dose Tylenol and even when you dose it for a fever, it's doing a kind of fake effect in the body. So it's fake bringing that fever down or making that child feel more comfortable, but it's not actually doing anything to heal the root cause. So if you look at brain inflammation and if my child was, their body is going to go into a natural fight mode because that's truly how God has designed our bodies. Our bodies are designed beautifully and intelligently with no mistake to fight a fever, to fight pollutants that come into our body. Now, yes, we're going to have those very small percentage of times where we may need some emergency care, but you guys, you have to remember, that percentage is so tiny. They just want you to believe that it's everything. Go to the ER when your child has coughing, go to the ER when your child has 104. We don't have to do that. But anyways, I digress.  So when the body is trying to naturally fight something, which is the case of my child, probably going into, how do I mitigate this? How do I get rid of this metal? So we go into the brain inflammation, the encephalitis basically, and you dose Tylenol. What Tylenol does is it depletes the body's glutathione levels. Okay, so glutathione is just really important when it comes to this natural response that the body has with its immune system to help clear infection, to help clear toxicity. So if that is diminished from Tylenol, now the body doesn't have that natural ability to be able to do what it needs to do. It's hampered. Without the proper amount of glutathione to be able to clear what was going on or at least help it in some way. Now again, I can't go back to my story and go, well, if I didn't do Tylenol, everything would have been fine. I think the damage was done, honestly. I think dosing the Tylenol made it worse. So anytime that Tylenol is used, we just have to remember that your body's glutathione is its natural ability to fight infection. If that is depleted from Tylenol, then the body can't naturally fight what it wants to fight.  Glutathione is important. It's an antioxidant. It's important for cellular repair, disease prevention. It's your basic immune support antioxidant, but it's also for brain health. Glutathione protects the cells of the hippocampus. It's responsible for memory and learning, but it's also responsible for your brain cells in general and keeping them healthy. So that was a very, very detrimental thing that I think. Again, I can't go back to my story and go, well, they would have been fine, but it certainly didn't help. It made it worse in terms of how my child's body was unable to try at any measure to try to repair itself and to try to repair the brain. Ashley James (1:23:08.920) So they said give it Tylenol, which then suppresses the ability to detox further. Did your baby stop crying? Jodie Meschuk (1:23:28.796) No, it was days and days of this kind of shrieking cry. Now the fever, again, here's what a parent's gonna be told. It's totally normal after a vaccine for your baby to get a fever. It's just the body building immunity to the infection that it was injected with. No, my friends, the fever is because there's poison in the body. The fever is because the body does not know what to do with this foreign stuff that has come in. Now, it'd be great. You wanna try to make a vaccine that supposedly spurs an immune response in the body, try to make it without those poisons. I think more people would probably be open to, like okay but what that is? That's homeopathy, basically. That's homeoprophylaxis. So that's kind of your way that you gently introduce these diseases to the body to help build immunity because we're also in a state as well today where children are not getting natural infections. They're not getting chickenpox like they're supposed to. They're not getting measles like they're supposed to. They're getting these fake infections. So that response that happens in the body is not because the body's just trying to make some antibodies. It's like, what the hell is this aluminum? What the hell is this formaldehyde? What do you want me to do with this? We need to understand that too, because you're going to be gaslighted at every angle when you take your baby in or you call. I called. I was not told that that was a vaccine reaction. I said on the phone, I think my child's having a reaction. No, it's normal. Your child's not having a reaction. It's very normal to get a fever. It's very normal for them to be fussy. Just give them Tylenol and rotate Motrin with it. You're not even told the truth that it is a reaction. All of this eczema that we see pop up in babies, that's actually a vaccine reaction. But you're gaslighted into, no, it's normal, babies get eczema, here, slap this steroid cream on it. It just happens all the time. So that was us, which dosed the Tylenol and the Motrin. Over time, obviously, the fever started to get better, the screaming started to get better, but it turned into a brain injury, basically. It turned into my child was never the same until we got my child back and we healed them. Loss of words, unable to have eye contact, just all of those classic symptoms that again, what are they gonna do? They're gonna go, it's autism. We've made this list of symptoms. So if they fall into that, it's autism. No, it's brain inflammation. It's poison in the body. It's heavy metals. It's the body cannot detox very well. Now, oops, you have gut dysfunction. It's all of that, but let's just call it autism. It's crazy. Ashley James (1:26:34.985) So. How did you find the answers? To helping your child heal from this and now no longer be on a spectrum. Jodie Meschuk (1:26:51.661) Yes, so it took a while, but I will say my turning point. So my first turning point where I opened my eyes was when I was in that pediatrician's office. I vowed at that point, I will never be in this position again. It took time to gain my confidence with that, but I never went back. Okay, that's very important. It's when you are in those moments, that's a teachable moment. We need to listen to that voice inside of us. We need to heed that warning and we need to stand in our power. So it was when I took my child to see the neurologist, because at that time where I was at in California, it felt very apparent that you needed to have something on paper in order to get help. Now, I didn't know what help that I was looking for at the time because it was all new to me. So it was kind of like, okay, let's take one step at a time here and see where the road takes us in the system. All in the system, because I wasn't yet very awake to, I could actually reverse this damage in my child. That was kind of in the back of my mind, but I didn't really believe that that was possible at that moment. So I went to the neurologist and this was the turning point. So I'm there with my child and my newborn that I had recently, because remember I was pregnant when all this happened.  So I have my newborn baby and I have my other child. She goes in and does all the testing on him and all the standard things. I'm sitting there waiting and I'm kind of looking through the mirror, because it was one of those two-sided mirrors where you can look into the evaluation room. I kind of chuckled a little bit because my child wanted nothing to do with this neurologist. They knew that this person was bad news. So they just wanted nothing to do with them.  Anyways, did the testing, comes out, we sit down, and she looks at me very matter of factly. She goes, well, looks like, everything on the checklist, everything that I went through, I think it's safe to say we can just give your child this diagnosis of autism. Very matter of fact, no emotion, no feeling, no empathy, nothing. So I go, okay. I mean, it really wasn't a surprise to me because obviously I saw what happened to my child. I saw what happened from the point that they received those nine vaccines to where we were at that point. At that point, he was almost two. So I said, okay, I just have a question though, because I've been doing a little bit of research. She rolled her eyes at me, research, here it comes. I said, I've kind of been looking at changing the diet. Do you think it would be valuable to remove gluten, maybe do some probiotics? Just very basic stuff that I was researching. Very basic things, by the way, that would help any child be healthy. They're not like controversial things. Don't eat hybrid wheat, take some probiotics. This should not be controversial. She looks at me and she says, well, you're one of those, huh? First of all, all that stuff you're reading is garbage. I'm kind of summarizing here, but basically she told me what I was reading was garbage, that I can't go to Google to find information. That changing the diet will do nothing, that this is genetic. There's just nothing I can do. I go, okay, well, I mean, it might be worth a try at least. She's, well, yes, I mean, I guess if you want to, but honestly, don't waste your time. I mean, she was just so rude, the worst bedside manner. She then went to say, well, I have two sons. I have two boys, they have autism. Let me tell you, it's genetic, there's nothing you can do. Then she points at my newborn and says, you really should be prepared that your other child will probably have autism too, because it's genetic. My baby was four months old, maybe I'm, what? What do you mean? Then she pointed at my belly and said, you really should consider not having any more children. So that's when I really woke up. That's when the anger came over me that I wanted to punch her. I'll be honest. I wanted to do bodily harm, but I would never do that. But I was so angry that I left that office and I drove home white knuckling my steering wheel, crying like I've never cried before. I got home and that is when I vowed to prove her wrong. So really I can thank her because she was the reason we are where we are today. If she did not tell me that, if she would have said, yes, I mean, you can maybe try a few things. I'm so sorry you're going through this. Here's some options for therapy. It maybe would have been a different story. I don't know. But she crossed the line and it was exactly what I needed to have happened in that moment for me to turn that anger that had been festering inside of me for months, because I was angry. I was angry at what happened in that office when he got nine vaccines. I was mad at myself for allowing it to happen. I think this is a part of the story that so many mothers are in if they have a child right now that has a child with any type of label, but in particular autism, because it's just so, it's just so detrimental walking through it. It's so hard. It's so difficult and emotional. I felt shame. I felt literal shame for months that I could never really point the finger that it was shame. Shame is very interesting because it's not guilt. Guilt is, oops, I did something wrong. So I think I felt guilt first, but then the shame consumed me that I was a bad mother for what I did. That's not talked about enough. You have so many mothers who are in this position and they're paralyzed because they feel shame. They feel they are the worst mother in the world because they allowed this to happen to their child. Then at every turn in the medical system, they're just gaslighted, which only makes the shame worse and paralyzes them more. So for me, there was something inside of me that was, screw you, lady, I'm proving you wrong. That's what I did. Then I vowed at that moment, I will uncover everything I can. I will turn over every rock. I don't know how many sleepless nights I had researching stuff, trying different things, changing our lifestyle, just completely becoming an entirely different human being and family and never looking back. But the good news is, it took about five years, but my child is back. They are amazing. They don't have that damage anymore. We reversed it. We healed them. You would never know the history of what we went through. So it can be done. But I think the problem is, I always ask myself this question too, why are more parents not doing this? Why are more parents not believing that they can heal their child? Why do I have parents, mothers come onto my social media, let's say, and say nasty things? You're crazy, it's genetic, there's nothing you can do, my child was born this way, I celebrate this diagnosis, I celebrate my child. Why do they do that? Because they're in shame. They literally don't feel there's any path forward and it's too hard to look in the mirror and say, okay, I didn't know, but now I know and I'm gonna do something about it. Then every turn that they go, the school district, the neurologist, the pediatrician, big pharma, every article they read that is carefully crafted on Google, says it's genetic and you should celebrate the diagnosis. So what do we expect? It's just such an evil system. Ashley James (1:36:22.343) Once you become awake to this, then you start to see it everywhere. Then you start to see, there's no corporation that's out for my health. I have to start to really question everything. Every food product, you have to take responsibility and start to question everything and start to learn how you can protect your family. This is a very toxic world, and you have to learn how to navigate it in a way that protects your family. Jodie Meschuk (1:37:03.250) I think that can be very overwhelming to people, honestly. I think that's actually another reason why I observe that there's parents who don't do anything when they could be doing something is that it just feels too hard, which I understand that. It's easier to understand the, don't do anything because it feels overwhelming versus the, I don't do anything because I refuse to, and I just want to sit here and believe that this is genetic and celebrate this diagnosis, wear the blue puzzle piece, and put the sign in the front lawn and all of that stuff. We're in this culture that literally celebrates disease.  Literally, you go onto these social media sites and it's gross what you see out there. The adults that are, my gosh, I have ADHD, ha ha ha, no. Why are we celebrating this? Why are we wearing these diseases like a badge of honor? It's gross. But I think you have two different camps. You have the ones that just don't know what to do, and they're overwhelmed. So we need to just make it easier for them to understand that and say, okay, start here like literally start here. Let's start with changing the diet. Let's start with making sure that you get the right therapy because if you're doing ABA, you're in the system, honey, and your child's not going to improve. ABA is training a puppy, and your child is not a puppy. So let's get you the right therapy. Let's make sure you have an advocate for the right IEP so that you can fight the school district. They're giving you one hour of speech a week. No, honey, you deserve five. We're going to fight for you to get that. Start somewhere. Start with simple things. Then you have your other camp, which just wants to celebrate because they get attention. Ashley James (1:38:52.056) Yes. How about getting attention from a different community that wants to celebrate you winning your child's health back? Because I will be right there to celebrate with you. Jodie Meschuk (1:39:07.132) Exactly. I will celebrate that too. I get to do that. Mean, that's the cool, for years, I mean, again, I'm in a different place today because it's been years down the road, but there were many, many years that I kind of just sat in like, why did this happen to me? Why did this happen to us? Why did we have to go through this? I finally realized it's because God, first of all, doesn't give us more than we can handle. Second of all, God does give us hardships in life so that we can use that for His good. So for me, my passion is now helping other kids heal, walking with parents. I get to see these kids heal firsthand. I get to get the texts and the phone calls and get on a Zoom session with these parents who are, Jodi, I never thought my child was going to talk again. I get to hear the tears from mothers who are like, my gosh, my child just said mama. Do you know what that feels like to a mother to have your child say mama? You've never heard that before? That will break you. I get to see these kids thrive and heal and change. Instead of just staying where they were. But it's the fact though that these parents were willing to do it. These parents were willing to do the hard. They were willing to buck the system. They were willing to just say, you know what? I've got nothing to lose. That was me. I told myself in a very dark moment, I think my child was probably about three at the time and we were maybe a year into doing some healing stuff. I told myself, I will not look back 20 years from now and say, I could have, I should have, but I didn't. I won't do it. That's when I really got serious about healing. Ashley James (1:41:17.280) Yes. So obviously you can't give us all the answers in just sitting down in a podcast, but guide us in the right direction. Of course, we want to make sure we read your books and follow you on your great social media, great Instagram account. You've got this wonderful website. Where's a good place to start? What are some key things that parents can do right now, starting today, to help their child detox, to help bring down the inflammation, and help their brain heal? Jodie Meschuk (1:41:55.886) Yes, so here's what I would say. Keeping it very simple, because I think it is important to keep things simple initially, because small things actually make really big impacts. So the first step is we have to turn the tap off, which means no more vaccines. It's really hard when I'm working with parents and they're still one foot in the system and one foot out. It's, well, I'm spacing them out now, or I just did one. It's, nope, they're literally all poison. Nope, turn the tap off. If you're really worried about disease, let's have that conversation and talk about terrain and talk about what disease really means and talk about, hey, if your child were to happen to get something random and maybe their body had a difficult time with it, okay, great, let's talk about emergency care and what can happen there. But we gotta turn the tap off. So that means, doing an overhaul of the home. What toxins are in the home? Let's get those out of the home. No more well visits, just turn the tap off of the poison coming in. Then, let's take some steps now to see where we can make the biggest movements based off of the child. So with the autism spectrum, and I know we're using this one as an example a lot today only because really my passion is very much into autism healing and telling the truth about it. But you can apply this across the board to any chronic disease or illness.  So there's a wide range of what some children experience. Some children are very, very picky with what they eat. So we have to start there. Some children are not as picky, but they're struggling with more verbal language or they're struggling with eye contact. You have to start with, what's the thing and the door that is a little bit open right now that we can work with?  So I will say when it comes to food, this can be one of the most challenging pieces of a healing program. Here's why, if you think about it, you have a child that is very self-limiting with their diet. Now you have Dr. Natasha on, I love her. We did the GAPS diet. I will tell you right now, the GAPS diet is the gold standard, literally the gold standard. If any child with any chronic illness did the GAPS diet, they would heal. Hands down, no question about it. The problem is, you have a mother, and I know how this feels, because my own child was eating yogurt and McDonald's chicken nuggets, and that's it. That's it. So put yourself in the position of a mother that is, they already feel guilt and shame, regret. They're emotional, they're in fight and flight. They're just trying to survive. Their child won't eat anything but McDonald's chicken nuggets and yogurt.  This is the first barrier, is it's this emotional barrier we have to break through with the mother, because if I'm in fight and flight and I have all these emotions, and I try to give my child a cup of bone broth, and they throw it across the room, because of course they are, and why are they gonna do that? They have brain inflammation, they have gut dysbiosis. They're like a cocaine addict. They literally want their next hit of gluten and dairy and MSG. Ashley James (1:45:30.202) MSG, we have to remember it's a high glutamate. A lot of times it's a high glutamate diet that exacerbates it as well. Any fast food you're going to get, there's MSG in it. That includes Chick-fil-A. There's actually three different kinds of MSG in Chick-fil-A. It was crazy. Read the ingredients. The biggest thing that helped me go eat super clean and feed clean food to my child is, if you can't read small print, bring your readers, bring your little reader glasses or whatever you got from the dollar store, from the pharmacy or whatever.  It's worth it to sit and read the ingredients. If you're going to eat out at a fast food restaurant, all the ingredients are online. If you read the ingredients, you are more likely to say, no thanks. I actually don't want that. There's multiple kinds of sugar. There's multiple kinds of oil that are incredibly unhealthy oils. The MSG that is crack cocaine to the brain. It's an excitotoxin, it is not healthy, especially for children on the spectrum. You're right. They have a food addiction. But very quickly, you will be able to detox, and you can detox a child very quickly. Take screens away from a kid. The first three days, they're so pissed off at you because they're detoxing. The fourth day, you have a little angel on your hands. It really is just hunker down for the first few days if you're going to help your child detox from food or from screens, and in seven days off of those processed foods or seven days off the screens, you're going to see such a shift in their mental well-being and in their emotional well-being. It's really worth that detox. So it's kind of like in Trainspotting, I think it was, where they have to lock themselves in a room. That heroin addict locks themselves in a room with two buckets basically. They have to ride it out. That's you. You have to ride it out, but it's short. It doesn't take that long to detox from the food you're addicted to. So, okay, it does take sitting down going, I'm just going to just try it, just try it. It's not going to be as bad as it is on the first day. I promise you it won't be that bad on the seventh day. You know what I mean?  Jodie Meschuk (1:47:49.026) That's just it, it's willpower. I think again, you take a mom who's already in such disarray, their child maybe just got a diagnosis. They've just gone through all this trauma. This is why it's so difficult for parents and mothers especially to break through that diet wall or that food wall is because the first few days are going to be horrendous as your child is basically having a withdrawal of gluten. But that needs to happen. So, I mean, I remember our story, it was the first three days I was, my gosh, this is torture. I don't know if I can do this. Then all of a sudden, magically put that bone broth down, they start to drink it because the brain is letting go of those addictions. It's again, think about a drug addict coming off of a withdrawal.  The first, however long, is horrendous, but then it's like, the veil lifts. So that piece is very important. I cannot stress enough the GAPS diet, the healing piece of food, but again, we have to help. This is what I especially love is helping walk parents and mothers through, you can do this, I promise, stay strong. Here's what you can give your child in the meantime. Here's how we're gonna get them through this. You're going to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but so many people that I've had conversations with, the very first thing they say to me is, well, I've tried that diet, it didn't work. Okay, explain to me what you mean by you tried. Well, my child threw a fit on the first day, they didn't want to do this, and I felt they were gonna starve, so I quit. That's not trying, that's not trying. But I get it because it's very emotional. So I understand and I empathize with that. I've walked through it but this is why we have so many people out there also, well, there's no healing. I've tried it. It's genetic. Now I'm just gonna believe what the system says. It's genetic. It's because this wall is so hard to break through, but it is possible. So food is very important. Again, I can't recommend the GAPS diet enough. Just get the book and read her book. It's incredible. It opens your eyes so much to stuff. Then the next piece is therapy. So the very first thing a child is gonna be ushered into is ABA, Applied Behavioral Analysis. This is the most wretched form of therapy in my opinion. It's basically abuse in my opinion. You're training a child like they're a puppy. They're sitting down and you're saying, do this, knock, knock, here's your treat. Do this, knock, knock, here's your treat. This is not how we help a child heal.  So when it comes to therapy, a couple of things that parents need to understand, which is you're going to get what the system determines that you deserve, which is going to be the bare minimum. It's going to be ABA because it's cheap and it has become the standard of care. So what you need to do is you need to fight back. Oftentimes you have to have an advocate to do this that really knows the legal language, knows the system. It'll probably cost you a few hundred bucks, but it is well worth it to have that advocate type up a letter for you in legal language. That person on the other end of, let's say it's the regional center. So most states have something called a regional center, which is where the child will be put first before they turn three. That regional center will often test them and then they will determine what they qualify for. Again, you're gonna get the bare minimum and you're gonna get ABA. So what you need to do is you need to fight back and say, nope, I actually want five hours of speech therapy and I actually want floortime therapy. Ashley James (1:51:31.883) What kind of therapy? Jodie Meschuk (1:51:32.449) Floor time. Stanley Greenspan is the father of floor time therapy, and it's phenomenal. It literally helps bring the child's personality back out. It gets on their level of play. It's play therapy. So it brings skills out, and it develops their brain versus ABA, which is rote. Total difference in therapy in terms of the approach for a child. So I always tell parents, no, you need to get floor time therapy.  So that's going to be, again, it's going to take a little while because what you're going to have to do is you're going to have to keep fighting with the system. You're going to have to keep looking for therapists. You're going to fire some therapists along the way, but you're going to find that really good one that understands floor time therapy. That's where your child needs to be. So therapy is kind of a beast in a bucket in itself, but what I would recommend right off the bat, is to know that you are the one as the parent that drives the conversation, not the other way around. You as the parent are telling them what your child needs and what your child deserves. You do not stop until you get that. So when you're looking at healing across the board, you're doing some of these other building blocks like changing diet, healing the gut, probably doing a little bit of a detox. The detox is totally different depending on what the triggers were, what the poison is basically in the body. But when you're doing those things and therapy that actually matters, all of those things kind of come together, and they support each other. There's a happy domino effect that happens. I've seen children who have been in ABA for years, years they've been in ABA, no other healing that they're doing, meaning no detox, no diet changes, they're still eating garbage, they're still getting vaccines, they're still getting antibiotics for every ear infection. They get worse. They get worse.  I've also seen kids who are doing some healing stuff, but they're still doing ABA, and they're not making any improvements. So that therapy piece is still very, very important. I'm a huge fan of it, but it just has to be the right kind. You gotta hit it really hard in the beginning. So those first years, up until a child is about five and a half or six, matter a lot when that brain is open to receiving information, and the brain is still developing and doing a lot of leveling up in that timeframe of the child. That is one of the most important periods to hit it really hard with good therapy. But those are kind of the buckets I look at. So there's the first bucket of turn the tap off, stop with the toxicities coming in. Then there's the detox. Again, that's going to depend upon the child. I do different detoxes depending on health history, all that stuff. There's no single one detox that every child is going to heal on. There are some pieces that are the same, but you just kind of adjust it slightly for the child. Then there's the food piece, which to me, the food piece is incorporating the gut healing part of it because food and all of that stuff really do make a difference in terms of sealing the lining of the gut. So that leaky gut or that gut dysbiosis, that's where the GAPS diet is really crucial for that. Then outlier things. Most of these children are very deficient. They're deficient in minerals. They're deficient in crucial vitamins, antioxidants because of gut dysbiosis. Their body is not processing anything. So there is a supplement-type regimen. There are important pieces there. But I'm also really a big fan of not overwhelming parents. I don't think that a child needs to be on 50 different supplements. I think that it needs to be a very intentional program where you're gonna get the most bang for your buck, so to speak. So that's really where you're looking at those core pieces, most important for the brain. What does the brain need? The brain needs fats and minerals. Again, that's where the GAPS diet comes in, but then that's also where minerals come in. So they're very deficient in minerals, which means their brain's not really going to respond as well to things if they don't have enough minerals in them. So just, yes, things like that. Ashley James (1:56:07.281) Yes, absolutely. We are all minerally deficient because of the farming practices of the last hundred years. Now, even if you did eat a vegetable, there's so many, I get iron from spinach. I could bet you money there's no iron in, excuse me, there's no iron in your spinach because it's grown hydroponically. Plants can grow in water, hydroponically with unnatural sunlight, with artificial sunlight, with NPK and that's it. They can be absolutely void of the 60 essential minerals.  It's really sad. A lot of the farmlands have been over-farmed, and the farming practices, the chemicals they use, and the way they till have leached all the minerals out of the soil. So we are, as a nation, minerally deficient. Then you take a child who has been stressed. The body, when you put a stressor on it, has to use up its resources, use up its nutrients in order to combat that. So you're a child who has gone through that, who's gone through vaccine injury, is nutrient deficient because their body has had to use up whatever it has. Then you're feeding them chicken nuggets and yogurt, not just you, but it's common. They're very particular about what they eat. So then they're just being given a mono diet that is really void of the 90 essential nutrients. But we don't want to overwhelm them by giving them a bunch of synthetic supplements. I believe in supplements, but I believe in natural plant-derived supplements, not in the synthetic kind. There's a lot of chemicals in these supplements, especially over-the-counter, store-bought, you go to Walmart to buy your Flintstone vitamins for your kid or the chewable gummies. They are solvents. Jodie Meschuk (1:58:07.123) Yes, I call it expensive pee. It's toxicity, but also, if the body is not actually absorbing things, even if somebody is using a good quality supplement, it can just end up being expensive pee. So we have to work on those core basics of gut health. Especially when you're looking at children across the board, that root cause is that their gut is just simply unable to absorb nutrients. So we have to work on that for sure. Ashley James (1:58:39.259) Well, that'd be utilizing the nutrients. If it was in their pee, they absorbed it. They absorbed it in the gut. It bathed their body, but it didn't maybe necessarily get utilized because there need to be the cofactors in the right ratios. A lot of times these vitamin companies, the store-bought vitamin companies, they're high dose, but they're not in the right ratios, and they're not dosed by body weight. I believe in supplements. Supplements really helped me, but the thing is, supplements are the mortar, not the bricks. So if you're going to go build a house, like build your body, like you're building a house, and the only thing you have is mortar, you're not building a house. The bricks are your diet. Every day your body shows up, the carpenters show up to the work site to build the house because we are always breaking down. From the moment we were conceived, our body is building up and being broken down at the same time. Our goal is to help our body build up more than it's breaking down. But our lifestyle has been breaking our body down more than it's able to build up. The carpenters show up every day to rebuild and build your body. If you're feeding it frickin' McDonald's nuggets, the carpenters are there, but none of the building materials showed up to the site. So they're like, well, I don't have all the materials to build the house. Simply put, we have to clean up our diet so that every day we bring all the materials for the carpenters to build the house, especially for your child. The thing is, we get emotionally attached to food, and there's definitely food addiction, and it's like alcoholism. If you were to tell your friends you're stopping drinking, how many of your friends would be angry or offended? The people who are angry or offended that you're stopping drinking, those are the alcoholics. Same with food. If you told your in-laws or told your friends and family that you're no longer feeding cow dairy to your children, for example, or you're no longer feeding ice cream or sugar or McNuggets to your kids, the friends and family that get angry might come across as concerned or belittling. “Your kids need dairy, they need that. That's unhealthy to take that away” or “They're not going to have a normal childhood. What do you mean they're not giving them sugar? That's not a normal childhood.” Those people who are defending processed food have food addiction, just like the alcoholic got offended when you said you're going to quit drinking. So that's about them and their food addiction. They don't have a nutrition degree.  Jodie Meschuk (2:01:22.972) Well, most nutritionists are trained by the system and they're still following the food pyramid. So that's a whole other issue. Ashley James (2:01:28.308) I went to a nutritionist once. It was sort of down the hallway from my OBGYN. This is when I was pregnant with my son. I'm okay, fine, whatever. It's paid by insurance. I'll go entertain this idea. I sit down and I go, I don't eat any processed food. I eat all organic. She proceeds to pull out a pamphlet of how I can eat healthy at McDonald's. I'm looking at her. I'm gluten-free, I'm oil-free, I eat all organic food. She did not comprehend how to guide someone how to eat. She couldn't improve what I was doing because she wanted me to eat at McDonald's. So point being, when you start to change your child's diet, you have to bust through your own negative beliefs or belief system. But then you're going to deal with the world out there that is going to be angry because you're triggering their addiction. Jodie Meschuk (2:02:34.320) Yes, I'm so glad you brought that up because the one thing that I do want to let parents out there know is, they may have already experienced this and we experienced it, is you get the backlash from people who should be by your side. The family, the close friends, the ones that just don't understand. What I find is it's oftentimes it's either with food. So if you are like, hey, mom and dad, Grandma and grandpa, from now on, this is all my child can have. What do you normally get back? No, they're my grandbaby. No, of course, I'm going to spoil them. It was just a little sugar. It was just a little gluten. It was just a little goldfish crackers. It's not having that understanding of, no, no, no, this is actually really important. We're trying to heal. There can be none of that. Some of it is they just don't understand because they're not down that rabbit hole that you might be, and they don't take it seriously. You're taking it seriously. But I find that the worst is when all of a sudden you stop vaccinating and then all hell breaks loose. Because if they think totally differently and they are still so bought into the system and they fear illness, they don't understand terrain, they just don't get it.  It's really hard. What I'm saying. You have to be prepared for that, and you have to stand your ground, and you have to take a step back and just go, what? That's fine. If you want to get that COVID shot, obviously don't come around me anytime soon if you're going to get that, but that's not what we're doing. I need you to respect what I'm doing for my child.  It's learning how to use your voice. It's learning how to stand in your power. So I think what is missed most in this conversation of healing children is there's the practical, which is, okay, Jodi, just tell me what to do and what supplements to give them. Great, I can do that all day long. But if you are not willing to move through that emotional stuff and get stronger and more confident and really work through that shame and guilt, it's going to be a lot harder. Because then what happens when grandma's like, I just gave them some goldfish, they'll be fine. We have to really be respectful, but it's, no, these are our boundaries. This is what we've decided for our child, and we need you to respect that. That's it, conversation over because it's my child. Ashley James (2:05:24.802) With enforcing boundaries, you don't have to enforce boundaries with emotion, anger, whatever, but there has to be a consequence. Otherwise, they're not boundaries. People will try to bulldoze your boundaries. That's the thing about boundaries is when you enforce them, the first thing people are going to do is, and I say people because children do it all the time, but adults do it too. They're going to test them. Not only will they test them, they will bulldoze straight over them.  You have to show a consequence in a loving, respectful way. It's, hey, if you keep doing this, this is the consequence. So, hey, grandma, if you do this, if you keep doing it, you don't get to have unsupervised time with my children. You don't get to be with your grandchildren unsupervised if you keep feeding them something that hurts them. This is the consequence. You have to show me that I can trust you with my children. Jodie Meschuk (2:06:17.338) It sounds really harsh. Again, there's people. It's worth it though. Ashley James (2:06:25.344) It's worth it though. It is worth it because you will have a child come out on the other side healed. That is worth it. That is worth fighting for.  Sure people are going to be angry, but what? Those are their emotions, not yours. They need to own their own emotions. You're being loving and you're being the mama bear or the bear dad or whatever the dad version of mama bear is. You're being the protection for this child.  I think what's the hardest part is the beginning. But when you get momentum, when you start to see all of a sudden your kid stops rocking or starts looking in the eye or starts talking again, when you start to see that they're out of pain, a neurological pain, it's the lights come on again and they start connecting with the world. That is going to motivate you to be stronger, to keep fighting; but in the beginning, you don't have any evidence that your choices are right. So you have to look at other people's stories—like your story. Jodie Meschuk (2:07:23.686) Yes, and you know what? We went through a lot of that with relationships and I always just came back to, get one shot at this and this is so important to me and this is my child, that this is the way it's going to be. There's no, again, you're saying, it's my boundary and I need you to respect that and you may not agree with me, but it was interesting too because some of the people in my life at the time who I would say I was most closest to, they were very skeptical at the beginning, which I understand, because somebody who doesn't know is going to be skeptical. Somebody who has only learned one train of thought their whole life is going to be skeptical. Somebody who Googles is going to be skeptical because they're just going to Google information that is highly censored and crafted.  But it's interesting because as we got about a year and a half into our healing program and my child started speaking and eye contact and they started to see these changes. Now, I will say it was harder for me to see the changes because I was in it. It's always harder for the mother because you're so close to it. So it was really cool that some of these people would say things to me like, my gosh, Jodi, they are so different from when I saw them last. I cannot believe it. What are you doing? That is just the ultimate compliment and the ultimate affirmation that a mother needs to keep going. You may not get that. I will say there's going to be people listening to your podcast. You may not have a supportive family. You may not ever experience that. You need to continue to push through because it is your child and we get one shot at it. But it was kind of cool. They came around after seeing what I was doing and they became believers. Now guess what? Some of those people, now they don't vaccinate. They didn't get the COVID shot. They didn't fall for it. So that impact we can have on other people through our own story, we don't always have to verbalize it, but there's people watching. The family members, they're watching and seeing the improvements. It's something where you never know that impact that it can have on them. Ashley James (2:09:37.260) I love it. I lost really close friends who got the COVID shot. One of my best friends died of it. I have a friend, she's so intelligent. She's a lawyer, really, really intelligent people fell for the hoax, really intelligent. She gave her daughter the COVID shot and her daughter spent a month at Children's Hospital seizing more than 30 times a day, just having these horrible seizures, brain-damaging seizures. They would not admit it. The top pediatric neurologist in Washington state would not admit that it was due to the vaccine and that she's vaccine injured. There's just, these things happen sometimes. She, well, she didn't have epilepsy before. She traveled America, going to several other top hospitals for this. None of them had answers other than more drugs. But none of them, actually, I had to say to her, this was vaccine injury because no doctor would admit it. I had to show her what VAERS was. She didn't know what the vaccine adverse events reporting system was. She didn't know about that. Most families don't. We've seen so many kids, so many teenagers die of the COVID shot and they're still pushing it. I'm so looking forward to the next few years and seeing the changes. We're going to see positive changes and hopefully, cognitive dissonance. I still feel that people, there'll be some people who believe the old ways and this is why it's like we need to think for ourselves. We need to really look, dive down and look at the facts. I did two interviews with Dr. Paul Thomas and I definitely recommend listeners go check that out. Go to learntruehealth.com. You could type in vaccines and listen to all the different episodes. I have over 500 episodes, but I probably have 20 where we're specifically talking about vaccines, detoxification and supporting the body and other professionals who help children in one way or another heal.  Dr. Paul Thomas is a pediatrician who has clear, clear evidence that vaccines actually damage 100% of children. It's not always autism. That's the question, why?  Do you have a good explanation? Again, this is such a deep, we could spend hours and hours, we could spend multi-day unpacking this, because you love to simplify things to help people really begin to grok it. Do you have an explanation as to why? Why do vaccines affect different children in different ways? I understand that everyone's at a different nutrient level. Of course, there's genetics. But there's also nutrition, there's also what stressors the baby was under in the womb or whatever, nutrients. But is there a clear way of understanding why one in whatever, what, 32 kids or something get autism, but other kids get asthma, peanut allergies, eczema, psoriasis, ADHD? There's all these different issues that come up. Now, because of vaccines, we see a huge rise in autoimmune issues in children. Then we put them on, and this is what Dr. Paul Thomas said, which just blew my mind. He goes, so you give people, you give babies and children something that ramps up and kind of hyper, makes their immune system hyper-reactive. Then we put them on something that suppresses the immune system to calm it down. Then we develop childhood cancers. It's like the system gets to triple dip. They get to make money from the vaccines. They get to make money from the steroids and then they get to make money from the cancer treatments for children. Of course, this is standard of care. The standard of care makes the pharmaceutical industry more money and the CDC makes money from vaccines. How is it ethical that the government agency that's supposed to oversee our health is profiting from pushing the thing that's causing us to be sick? Give us the idea, why is it that not everyone has sort of the same side effects from vaccines? Why do we have different ones? Jodie Meschuk (2:14:39.516) Well, your first thing is any vaccine is basically playing Russian roulette. So it's really important that parents understand it's like a poke and pray. I call it a poke and pray. We can't poke and pray. Literally, you're playing Russian roulette. So to lead up to it, it's like, are there different things that happen with different kids? Because it's Russian roulette and you don't know. So a lot of it to me and what I see, comes down to how adept their body is at clearing things out, how open their detox pathways are, how robust their terrain is in the very beginning, how adept their immune system is in spurring into action. I think when you're looking at the different vaccines, there are a lot of factors at play because you could have people who follow the schedule completely. I know kids who technically have followed the schedule, they've gotten everything and they seem healthy, but are they really healthy? I think that's just it. When you look under the hood to Dr. Thomas's, what he was saying, which I agree with, there's actually, 100% of the people out there who have received vaccines that have a side effect inside of them. They just may not know it right away. So there's a reaction to every vaccine. It's just when is it going to show up and how is it going to show up? Sometimes it doesn't show up until years later. Sometimes it does show up earlier. Sometimes these kids have immediate regression and you see it immediately and they're gone, just from one set of vaccines. Sometimes it's eczema. So you look at just how the human body is made and it's like, how do we answer the question of why some people live to be 120 and they have a garbage diet and why some don't? They have a garbage diet or they eat healthy. You could take somebody who is a health nut, wheatgrass drink, yogi, all the things, and they are more sick than somebody who eats garbage, and treats their body poorly and they drink and all the things. At the end of the day though, if you look under the hood, there are certainly things happening, but are they apparent enough for somebody to be able to connect the dots? Then also I think something that we don't look at is we don't look at emotions and emotional trauma enough. That really does play a role. Somebody might say, well, how does emotional trauma play a role in a baby? Well, it does because they're a product of their environment. Ashley James (2:17:21.816) Well, but also we've seen genetically emotional trauma passed down five generations that they can actually detect trauma in the descendants of those who were in Auschwitz and survived or those during the Holocaust. They've done this in mice studies where they traumatized mice to be afraid of this certain scent. Then they would breed them with mice that had never been hurt when they smelled this scent, it took five generations of diluting it 50% each time before the fifth generation was—the sixth generation is no longer afraid of that scent. We can see it in humans too, that there is an amount of emotional memory that holds onto trauma. We have to heal generational trauma. So that baby could be sort of, their baseline stress levels are higher. Jodie Meschuk (02:10:11.552) Absolutely, and that's why when you think about how there are some kids that display these symptoms of autism, now again, I want everyone to go back to what we talked about in the beginning. Stop calling it autism, call the symptoms for what they are. That alone would change the landscape of how we look at things if we just called things for the symptoms that they are versus labeling them autism or a diagnosis. But think about what kind of emotional health the mother had. If they are carrying a bunch of generational trauma, if they themselves are dealing with emotional trauma or self-regulation issues or any of that, that is going to impact the baby. So now again, maybe that baby is born into an environment where maybe they don't receive any vaccines, but there's still that emotional trauma there. So their body is not going to respond in the same way to things that a child who isn't exposed to that would. I laughed in 2020 when you had all of your health nuts, like the vegan community. They were the first to line up for the COVID vax. I mean, it was mind-blowing to me because you're supposed to be healthy and into all of that. But to my point though, you can take somebody who supposedly does all the right things and they end up getting breast cancer and dying. There's an emotional root to that. That's not talked about enough and mainstream medicine won't talk about that because you can't see that under a microscope necessarily. Ashley James (2:20:07.362) Well, Dr. Hammer proved it. Dr. Hammer, a German doctor, did over 30,000 case studies and proved the root of cancer and other illnesses was in trauma. He proved it, and they call it German New Medicine or Meta Medicine, but it's worth looking into. Yes, so that's Dr. Hammer, Dr. Hammer's work. It's worth looking into because we have to understand, we don't live in a meat sack. God gave us this amazing temple we live in. We want to take care of our temple, but it's not just physical because when we look at quantum physics, every atom, every molecule is both a particle and a wave. So we are both frequency and matter. Inside of us, we have our emotional body, mental body, spiritual body, energetic body, and physical body. If we're just looking at physical, you're missing four other parts of your body, like four other layers of your body. So you're saying that understanding why certain toxins affect others. I know a man who's an ex-husband of my friend and a good friend of mine. He is breathing alcohol. I have never seen someone drink this much alcohol. He wakes up at seven in the morning, cracks open a beer. I have never seen him sober. He is drunk. He drives drunk. He drives his kids drunk in the car. He is always drunk. He looks so healthy. This is what drives me crazy. He never gets sick. All he eats is garbage. Apparently, he is super healthy. He is not mentally healthy. No. Emotionally healthy. No. He is incredibly unhealthy mentally and emotionally. But physically, all he does every day is drink alcohol. He hasn't drank water. He just drinks alcohol every day. It's going to catch up to him eventually, but the thing is, if I drink even one beer, I would feel so gross. I can't do that. It's a blessing that I have more of a sensitive constitution because I take care of myself. Jodie Meschuk (2:22:16.974) I think also there is this piece of it, which is that there's a lot of people out there, and you could even say with kids too, because of this epidemic rise of illness and labels and all these things in children. 50% of children have some type of chronic illness today. People have been so used to how they feel, they think that's normal. For us, I remember what I felt like before I changed my lifestyle and before I started learning about things. I thought I was healthy, but I was inflamed. I was sick all the time. I'd get strep throat. But again, what does culture want you to believe? That's normal. It's normal. It's just common. Everyone's getting sick, strep throat all the time. It's just normal. It's because it's common. So you start to believe that, and then you don't realize that you're actually very sick until you start to change and you detox. Now I'm the same as you. If I have one sip of alcohol, which I don't drink at all, if I have one sip, I feel absolutely horrific. But that's not how I felt when I was in my early 20s. I thought that health felt normal, to feel yucky all the time. I think you have a lot of people that are in that position where they just think that that's how health feels because they have no idea what it feels like to really be healthy. Ashley James (2:23:44.450) Health is symptom-free, and health is also how quickly you bounce back from a stressor, from an injury or illness, or from a more stressful event like running a marathon or something. Health is how quickly you bounce back, but also, day to day, you should have no symptoms. You should wake up, bounce out of bed, immediately feel energy, and have a good amount of hunger. You should be able to have sustained, healthy energy and mental clarity through the whole day. Then you should feel tired at night, go to bed, and fall asleep within 20 minutes of lying down. You should not wake up in the night to pee. You should be able to go four hours between each meal. You should have three bowel movements a day. You should not have headaches. If that doesn't sound like you, then you don't have health. That is what we all should work towards. That is what health looks like. Jodie Meschuk (2:24:34.398) Yes, apply that to kids nowadays. I mean, again, you have the kids with the chronic ear infections. It's normal. Now get your tonsils and adenoids out. That'll fix it. Ashley James (2:24:43.674) It is not. It is not. I rage against this. This is when I hear that it's normal for a child to be sick. It infuriates me more because I've got that mama bear. I want to protect these children. I want to help the parents understand that having your child go for major surgery, they have to be put under. I know a 12-year-old that died. Died. It is a needless death. It's so sad because she died of the anesthesia. Most of the time just removing cow dairy from their diet stops the infections. That's one of the big things. Obviously, remove sugar, processed sugar, but cow dairy is another big cause. Before the doctor recommended major surgery for your child, why didn't the doctor recommend any dietary intervention first, which we've known is proven that cutting out sugar and cow dairy is 90% of the time or more decreases or eliminates those chronic infections? Jodie Meschuk (2:25:42.610) Exactly. Yes. So I guess the answer to your question is, I firmly believe every vaccine causes damage in the body. When that shows up and how that shows up is going to be dependent on a wide variety of factors. But you can't discount how emotions play into it, how energy plays into it, all of that stuff too. So I think there's a ton of kids walking around with vaccine damage. It may not show up in a full-blown neurological problem, but just go around and start looking at kids' mouths. If you see a little droopy side on the mouth, that's a vaccine injury. You have a ton of kids walking around with that. It's part of a vaccine reaction. It's a nerve reaction. It's called a crooked mouth. You just literally go people-watch and look for people with crooked mouths. That's a vaccine injury. It's insane the amount of people and then, well, the amount of kids too. But yes, even the little things. Guess what? If your child receives a vaccine, a week later, two weeks later, maybe three weeks later, they have an ear infection. That's actually a vaccine reaction. But we're not connecting the dots because they don't allow you to connect the dots. Ashley James (2:27:04.946) Yes. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I mean, I just want to have you here for hours and hours. This was so wonderful. Jodie Meschuk (2:27:15.282) It was, I mean, it's three hours. It's awesome. We were having so much fun. Two and a half hours. Ashley James (2:27:20.818) Yes, this is so great. I definitely want you to come back. So you're right now revising your book and you're going to publish it soon. Come back? Please, please, please come back. I'd love to continue to go down this rabbit hole. There's so much to talk about. But I love what we covered today. See, I never know what we're going to actually cover. This is just that wonderful weave of the conversation that we get to have. But what I really do feel that there's divine intervention. I really feel God guides us and guides me in my questions and guides us in our conversation to reach the people that need to hear this, the answer to our prayers, because God uses us.  God uses all of us to answer the prayers of other people. So be willing to sort of follow that little nudge when you get it and to speak up, because sometimes God's asking you to speak up to help. I've had that experience where it's like, no, go talk to that person. I get this hit, go. You have this message to deliver to this person, go do it. Don't let yourself be a coward, go do it. So if you see someone who's about to go vaccinate their kids, expose them to this information. The worst that can happen is they get upset at you, big deal. No one got hurt really. But the best thing is that you could be actually helping them protect their kids. What we covered here today was the mindset piece of going into helping your child heal after they've been vaccine injured, which is everyone who's received a vaccine. But going in to help your child, have that courage to make the changes, to go down this rabbit hole, to make the diet changes, to clean up the environment of the house, to help your child support their brain and stop being on fire, bring down the inflammation, help them detox the heavy metals. Help them heal their gut because there's known gut dysbiosis that happens with vaccines and often people who follow the traditional route of getting vaccines also have had a lot of antibiotics. So we definitely have dysbiosis, but helping their child be healthier. Along the path, the first steps are the hardest because you're making new neural connections. You're also having to establish boundaries, but it is so worth it. You will be encouraged by the health you see reflected in your child as they get brighter and brighter and healthier and healthier and more vibrant and they feel better, and you will be rewarded by that. So it is worth doing. I definitely recommend going to Jodie Meschuk's website, which is thewarriorcenter.com and checking out her books. Then of course, we're definitely going to want to have you back when your latest book gets published. Jodie Meschuk (2:30:14.206) Thank you so much. This was such fun. I just love getting this information out there. You summarized it perfectly. I mean, I just have such a heart and a passion for helping parents to see that there's another way and literally saving one baby at a time, literally saving one baby at a time. It's worth it. Ashley James (2:30:33.812) It's so worth it. It's so worth it, those children, I'm sure it's such a moving experience when you get to help the parents help their children and then get to see the outcome. I've had that in a lesser extent. I've helped a few friends help their children detox and I've watched the children begin to speak clearly again, just the lights come back on. It is so rewarding and it's so worth it. So yes, just fight the fight, help your children to be healthy. Follow Jodie to learn more about what you can do. Of course, you can also, I said, type in autism in learntruehealth.com and you'll see all the episodes come up and listen to my episode 385 about the GAPS diet and listen to the Paul Thomas episode and follow Jodie and listen to all her stuff too, because there's answers out there, but the answers won't be found in the mainstream media. It will be found at your doctor's office unless you're seeking a holistic doctor. So that's why you have to do your own research and you have to do your own digging. Jodie Meschuk (2:31:45.894) Amen to that.  Ashley James (2:31:47.700) Yes, thank you so much for coming on the show. This was great. Jodie Meschuk (2:31:50.140) You’re welcome. Outro: These are the same supplements that I have been using myself personally, my family and my clients for the last twelve and a half years. This is the same supplement that helped me to overcome my chronic diseases. I used to have type 2 diabetes, chronic adrenal fatigue, chronic infections, polycystic ovarian syndrome, infertility, and I don't have any of those things anymore infertility, and I don't have any of those things anymore. The holistic doctors that informed these supplements discovered that the root cause of disease is a lack of key nutrients. There are 90 essential nutrients the body needs and we're not getting them from our food anymore because of the farming practices of the last hundred years. So, no matter how healthy we eat, we're still missing what our body needs to create optimal health. Because you listen to this health podcast and you're looking for health solutions, you will love working with the team at takeyoursupplements.com. These are health coaches that overcame just like me, overcame their own health issues using, of course, eating healthy, healthy lifestyle. But the key, fundamental thing that they added were these supplements. These supplements encompass all 90 essential nutrients and when you talk to your health coach, they will help to customize a plan specifically to your needs and your health goals. You will start feeling amazing right away. Within the first month of taking these supplements, everyone notices better sleep, more mental clarity, better energy, overall sense of well-being that takes over their life, and they are so happy that they got on these supplements. I want you to give it a try. There's a money-back guarantee and there's amazing health coaches waiting to help you at takeyoursupplements.com and it's free to talk to them. So what are you waiting for? Go to takeyoursupplements.com right now. Sign up for a free consultation and in a month, you could be feeling on top of the world, just like I did.  I was so sick, I felt so horrible and I overcame that. I had to obviously make healthy choices around every area of my life. I had to change my diet, I had to change my lifestyle, but I needed to fill in those nutrient gaps, and that's where takeyoursupplements.com comes in. They help you to make sure that you're getting all 90 essential nutrients, so every cell in your body, all 37.2 trillion cells in your body, will be bathed in all the nutrients that they need so that you can live an optimal life full of health and vitality at any age. Go to takeyoursupplements.com and talk to one of them today. They can help you right now to begin to make that health transformation. That's takeyoursupplements.com.    Getting Connected with Jodie Meschuk! Website – Warrior Center Facebook Twitter Instagram   Book by Jodie Meschuk Autism Reimagined

Get my ebook and audiobook here: https://learntruehealth.com/op/addicted-to-wellness-ebook.   Get my course, The 7 Foundations of Health, here: https://learntruehealth.com/sp/7-foundations-of-optimal-health   Get a physical copy of my book here: https://learntruehealth.com/addictedtowellness.   The Vibe: https://learntruehealth.com/vibe coupon code LTH - LearnTrueHealth.com/vibe   Get the NEW free IIN sample class and health coach experience: https://learntruehealth.com/coach Enroll in the next Health Coach Training Program! Use coupon code LTH when signing up to become a health coach at https://learntruehealth.com/coach.   533: The Hidden Cause of Flu Season https://learntruehealth.com/the-hidden-cause-of-flu-season   Is flu season really just sugar season? In this eye-opening episode of the Learn True Health podcast, Ashley James uncovers the shocking effects of sugar on our immune system, metabolism, and overall well-being. From hidden sugars in processed foods to how a single tablespoon can suppress immune function for hours, she breaks down the science behind why sugar is at the root of many chronic health issues. Ashley also shares her personal journey of overcoming illness through holistic nutrition and challenges listeners to go 30 days without processed sugar to experience a true health transformation. If you’re ready to reclaim your energy, boost your immunity, and break free from sugar addiction, this episode is a must-listen!   Highlights: Ashley challenges the concept of “flu season,” linking it to increased sugar consumption during holidays. Consuming sugar suppresses immune function for 4–6 hours, making the body more vulnerable to infections. Hidden sugars in processed foods contribute to chronic illness, including diabetes, hormonal imbalances, and gut issues. Childhood exposure to sugar can lead to long-term health problems and increased reliance on medications. Cutting out sugar for 30 days can significantly improve energy, sleep, immune function, and mental clarity. Sugar triggers addiction pathways in the brain, leading to cravings and overconsumption. Many chronic diseases, including cardiovascular issues and neuroinflammation, are linked to excessive sugar intake. Ashley shares personal experiences of reversing health issues through holistic nutrition and eliminating processed sugar. She encourages listeners to take control of their health by reading labels, reducing sugar, and prioritizing whole foods. Welcome to the Learn True Health Podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode 533. Hello, Truth Seeker. Happy Halloween. It's the start of sugar season. They say it's flu season. Well, I'm here to tell you that I think I have a sneaking suspicion that the term flu season was made up by, and I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I just have this feeling that flu season was a PR campaign to sell flu shots, and here's why. You can get the flu any time of year, and I happen to know people that got sick this summer who were pretty upset about it because it's like, hey, they're ruining my summer vacation. There is something that happens though, right around halloween. I don't know if you saw going into offices, hanging out, even the chiropractor there's bowls of candy that start to appear in the public. Anywhere you go, there's bowls of candy. Somewhere around October, it starts, and it doesn't stop until after January. We've got Halloween, we have Thanksgiving, and it's in the opposite order. If you're from Canada, Thanksgiving happens in October, but still, it's sugar season nonetheless. So we come into a period in the north, for us in America and Canada and all across Europe, where we're having less sunlight, less vitamin D. Many people spend less time outside, so there's less physical activity, and then there's more sugar, more processed sugar, and we call it flu season. Something really interesting happens, and I experienced this firsthand. When we consume even a tablespoon of sugar, we have white blood cells that essentially go to sleep for between four and six hours. It creates this window where our body is very vulnerable to infection. I don't know if the word is ironic, but people were really, really stressed out about getting sick the last four years. People were wearing plastic bags on their heads. They were wearing giant plastic get-up garb so they could hug grandma. Triple masks, wearing a face shield and masks, wearing gloves. Everyone had multiple containers of hand sanitizer. They were so cautious. Social distancing, spending time away from friends and family, isolation, six feet apart, and yet there's not much stress or focus on what we can do to support our body's ability to fight off infection. What negatively hurts our immune system? The number one culprit is processed sugar. When I was 13 years old, I was actually really healthy between the ages of 6 and 13 because my mom, when I was six years old, took me to a naturopath. This was Dr. D'Adamo, the man who wrote Eat Right for Your Blood Type. He had a center in Toronto, that's where I grew up, and he looked into my eyes and my ears, took my blood, examined me, and said, “You are allergic to milk, yeast, wheat, and sugar. Stay away from them.” I was told I was O blood type and had to eat the O blood type diet, which is a lot like paleo. Minimal grains, lean meats, lots of vegetables, and no processed food. From the ages of 6 to 13, I also took supplements daily. I had to learn how to swallow pills because they weren't like fun liquid supplements like TakeYourSupplements.com has. They tasted pretty gross. I tried opening the capsules of supplements and taking them, and that was like B vitamins, raw B vitamins. They're disgusting, especially for a 6-year-old. So, from the age of 6 to 13, I ate super clean, no processed food. The only time I got to have processed food was on my birthday. I chose pizza and ice cream, and then, of course, I got extremely sick because I never ate it. But that was it. That was it. I was eating really clean, super healthy, and my mom was so strict, though this is the problem. She was so strict that I ended up rebelling, and I remember my mom did something. I mean, I'm sure I did something. I was being a teenage brat. I was 13, and I said something, she said something. She said, you're grounded, or whatever, and somehow I convinced her to let me go trick-or-treating one last time with my friends because I'm 13 and probably never going to do it again. So all my friends went out, and we had a blast that night. But I had this intention of doing something I knew she wouldn't want me to do, and that little defiant teenager lives in all of us. We really need to do a little come-to-Jesus talk with ourselves sometimes and catch ourselves and go, am I making the best choice right now, or is that little defiant teenager just wanting to eat what it wants when it wants or drink what it wants when it wants and kind of screw the consequences? That's exactly what I did. I was 13 years old, and I ate pretty much all my Halloween candy. It wasn't a ton because actually, a lot of houses turned us down. They were like, you're too old to do this. But I came home with a good stash, a good bowl of candy, and I pretty much ate it within less than a week. I finished that off. Now, what you don't know about me is I had never been on a single drug my entire 13 years. I had never once been on a prescription. I had never been on an antibiotic, and I got so sick from eating that Halloween candy. I ended up with an infection that lasted from just after Halloween. The infection was so bad that by Thanksgiving, I had to get on antibiotics for the first time in my life, and I stayed on antibiotics until after Christmas. The infection kept traveling from different parts of my body to different parts of my body. Now, remember, for the first 14 years of my life, I was pretty healthy, and this was my first real run-in with the mainstream medical system and being sick. I did it to myself, and I didn't learn. Then, at that very moment, I did not learn my lesson. I continued to eat unhealthy food because I had access to food at the cafeteria, so one out of three meals a day was complete garbage. I began to deteriorate my own health, and as a result, by the time I was 19, I had blood sugar dysregulation. I had polycystic ovarian syndrome, infertility, and then into my 20s, I developed type 2 diabetes, chronic adrenal fatigue, and constant infections, for which I was on antibiotics constantly. It wasn't until 2008. I wasn't eating garbage at every meal, but I was definitely letting sugar sneak in. Sugar was in the processed bread, the pasta, lots of processed food. If you don't read labels, just go to the grocery store and grab any random tomato sauce. If you don't read labels and just grab one, I would bet you there's sugar in it. Because without reading labels, most of the cans of food and processed food are going to have some form of sugar. I was eating the standard American diet. I was eating out a lot, and I just continued to get sick and sicker and sicker until I was done being sick. Then I started going to doctors, and they didn't have anything for me. They had drugs. That was very scary because I was in my 20s. In your 20s, you're supposed to be healthy and vibrant, and I felt every day like I was dying. I was trapped in a sick body. You might have heard my story, but my husband and I started watching health documentaries and talking to functional medicine practitioners, eventually finding some naturopaths. As a result, I was able to reverse all those health issues. I was told I'd never have kids, and we were able to conceive naturally. Wonderful. We're so blessed. That's why I do the podcast, because I learned from so many holistic practitioners how to use holistic lifestyle medicine. Your food is your medicine, and supplements are the mortar. Food is the bricks. But our food system has been compromised. We're really missing a lot of the minerals. If you're missing chromium, vanadium—these are trace elements or minerals. There are 60 essential minerals. If you have less than what you need for those, you actually have insulin dysregulation. You have blood sugar dysregulation when you don't have those. I have many interviews about magnesium. Magnesium is the most needed mineral in the body. It's required for 1,800 enzymatic processes, and zinc is required for 800. Calcium is not even in the top two of the most important minerals or elements your body needs. They're all important, they're all needed, and they're not in our food anymore at the levels that we need because of the farming practices of the last hundred years, and especially more recently with hydroponic farming, the chemicals they use, and the way they till the soil. Everything they do depletes the soil of minerals, and they do not add the 60 minerals back. Even if you eat super clean and lots of vegetables, you can accidentally get the 16 vitamins and the 12 amino acids. A lot of times, you can even accidentally get the two essential fatty acids a lot of times, but it's really hard to secure the 60 minerals. That's why I highly recommend going to TakeYourSupplements.com, because the supplements they sell and the protocols were developed by the naturopath who helped me to reverse all my health issues. He designed them, and they're liquid, they're delicious, they're bioavailable, they're plant-derived, and they turned my life around. What I noticed is that I didn't get sick anymore. Well, I also cut out sugar. That's why I wanted to do this quick episode for you. I wanted to share because right now we're going into sugar season. No longer shall it be referred to as flu season. That is the fear-mongering propaganda that they use to try to tell you that flu shots will make you healthy. Please explore and dive deeper into that. I'm not here to tell you what you should or shouldn't do. I just want to give you the information because that information is power for you. So if you're sick of getting sick every year, if you're sick of your whole family, the bug, the flu bug going around or getting colds and flus and coughing and sniffling and all that, if you're sick of that and sore throats, consider doing no sugar. Now, for some people, that is just like blasphemy. Would you rather have a moment of bliss from that sugar? Would you rather have an entire winter season with zero health problems? It is that big of a deal. When I went sugar-free, I challenged myself a few years ago to 30 days with no processed sugar, and I could not believe it. I began to read all the labels. I just could not believe that sugar really is hidden in everything and that there's all different names for sugar. It's not always obvious. It doesn't always say just cane sugar. But I invite you to explore this concept of going sugar-free. That doesn't mean you eat artificially sweetened things either because I'd say, if you ate an apple or a banana or some sweet potatoes, they're very sweet, especially if you stop putting sugar in your beverages like coffee. If you gave up caffeinated bubbly drinks like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, that kind of thing, and instead cracked open a LaCroix, cracked open a Spindrift, something that has some flavor to it, some bubbles to it, but has no added sugar, try that. Give yourself a challenge to say no. Because as you go deeper into this, you will see that within the first five minutes of eating sugar—so the Halloween candy that is available to all of us right now—your taste and reward centers become activated. Your taste buds, the reward centers, trigger in the limbic system of the brain and the nucleus accumbens. Dopamine floods your brain and the pleasure centers, and it creates a strong urge for more. More addictive substances as well. People who notice that they crave more unhealthy things after consuming an evening of these chocolatey goodies, whatever your kids bring home or whatever you bought for Halloween, have a negative effect, immediately, within five minutes of eating it, you get a blood sugar spike. Within 10 to 20 minutes, your pancreas responds. You have an insulin surge.  We want insulin. Insulin is a good thing, but when we have high surges of it, it becomes unhealthy. It's a metabolic tug of war. Your cells are bombarded with glucose, especially if you've eaten processed sugar. It's just way too much. It's a flood. The body has to put it somewhere, and it will turn it to glycogen and store it in your liver and your muscles, which is good at first. But then there's an excess because this isn't naturally occurring sugar. So the body converts the excess and stores it as fat, and chronic sugar intake can gradually lead to insulin resistance and can lead to fatty liver disease. This is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. But if you're like, oh, I'm just going to eat on Halloween, okay, but in one to two hours, your brain is actually cognitively disrupted, especially in children. You'll see the crash in children. You're going to see in the next few days children's behavior. If you're around children, their behavior will be dismal. They'll be having little tantrums over spilt milk, and they'll be tired and wired. They'll have problems with sleeping. The high sugar intake can impair their neurotransmitter function, particularly acetylcholine, which is vital for learning and memory. So jacking up your kids with basically legal cocaine and then shipping them off to school—you've not set them up for a healthy learning environment. The immune system suppression I talked about is noticeable, particularly in neutrophils. For up to five hours, I said like four to six. It really just depends on how much sugar and the way the body processes it. But studies show that sugar suppresses the immune system by reducing neutrophil phagocytic capacity. Suppresses the immune system by reducing neutrophil phagocytic capacity. That means the immune system cells become lazy at attacking pathogens. They basically fall asleep. This is something that was described to me by one of my naturopathic mentors is that the immune system just falls asleep. You can see it. You can see it in. They take blood and they watch the different white blood cells and they see that the white blood cells that are there to attack it and control infections just go to sleep, and so your opportunistic infections are more likely to take over as well. Now, within four to six hours of eating that Halloween candy, you have cellular damage and oxidative stress. The advanced glycation. Glycation is where blood sugar is caramelizing the proteins in our body. The glycation, the excess sugar in the bloodstream will bind to the proteins and these compounds accelerate cellular aging and damaged tissue, especially blood vessels. So over time, this can lead to heart disease and other chronic diseases that are affected by blood vessels, by blood vessels aging rapidly. I’ve had cardiologists on the show that have shared that children younger and younger and younger are experiencing cardiovascular disease. This just makes sense because think back, now I’m in my 40s. I think back to when I was a kid and yes, of course, we had access to sugar. It was in a much more limited capacity. Now sugar is readily available and we can see this. Just Google how much sugar do kids eat now versus the 80s kind of thing, and there’ll be all kinds of charts and you can see it. Our children are developing cardiovascular disease and diabetes and inflammatory issues at a younger and younger age due to the amount of constant oxidative stress from the sugar in their diet. Now the mitochondria are the energy factories of our cells and there’s a mitochondrial strain that happens when we have high glucose. It’s because it has to respond quickly to the large amount of energy production. This process generates reactive oxygen species (ROS) as byproducts, causing oxidative stress and more cellular damage if the body doesn’t have enough antioxidants to squelch the fire that basically sugar causes in the cells. Now the highest concentration of mitochondria is in your brain, is in your nervous tissue. So we’re lighting the brain on fire by eating the high amounts of sugar that comes from sugar season, no longer calling it flu season, sugar season. Now, within six to 12 hours, your gut microbiome is disrupted. This reminds me that back when I was almost about to give birth to our son, he came at the end of March and this was six weeks before. I was so good the whole pregnancy at eating super clean, and on Valentine’s Day, which is which Valentine’s Day is part of sugar season, right? So we’ve got Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and Valentine’s Day, and it’s just like sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar that whole season. So it was the end of sugar season. I almost made it through sugar season without eating one candy that whole pregnancy, and my husband brought home a big box of chocolates because, you know, he was being sweet, and he was saying how much he loved me, and he didn’t think he should eat. He should bring home like carob or some kind of like dark chocolate with no sugar in it. That would have been nice. Him and I sat there, and we ate that whole box, and you want to know what happened? I was so upset at myself, so I just want to share my lesson so hopefully you don’t go through it. But pretty soon after that, I developed a UTI, and I tried to mitigate it with homeopathy and with all the other good stuff that you can throw at UTIs, but it was a rager, and unfortunately, I had to get on an antibiotic during my pregnancy. Luckily, it was a safe antibiotic for pregnancy because I have a great doctor. But there really isn’t any safe drug out there. There are effects. We call it side effects, which kind of sounds innocent. We’re like, oh, it may or may not happen, but there are effects. 100% of the time, when you take an antibiotic, it wipes out your good microbiome. This is fact. We do not dispute this. So if I had just learned my lesson back when I was 13. But I want to pass this knowledge on to you because when you eat the sugar, within six to 12 hours, you have that disruption, that window, that immune window where you become more susceptible and your microbial imbalance shifts. Think about it. We’ve got the gut microbiome, but we also have microbiomes throughout our whole body. The microbiome that we want to keep in check is candida, for example, and it loves sugar. It ends up overgrowing fairly quickly. There are other microbes, yeasts, and bacteria that we really want to keep in check, and when they go way out of proportion, it’s called dysbiosis. That can lead to further inflammation, cardiac inflammation, leaky gut, and mood swings. It’s something that we want to keep in balance because our microbiome helps us keep everything in check. It’s part of our immune system, and it also helps digest and absorb our nutrients. So when we consume anything during sugar season, starting with Halloween candy, we’re throwing off our microbial balance. The next thing that happens between six and 12 hours is we have inflammatory cytokine release. You’ve probably heard of the cytokine storm that happened when people experienced COVID. Well, this also happens when we eat sugar. The immune system releases pro-inflammatory cytokines in response to this gut imbalance and the advanced glycation end products (AGEs) that are created from consuming sugar. This inflammation isn’t just isolated—it’s systemic, meaning it affects the whole body, setting the stage for chronic inflammation. If sugar intake becomes habitual—which it tends to, because sugar begets more sugar—you say, oh, I’m just going to do this for Halloween. I challenge you to write down every single time you consume processed sugar, even if it’s a teaspoon. That Starbucks drink, that Coca-Cola, that processed bread, that pasta sauce—it doesn’t have to be savory or sweet, but processed sugar is processed sugar. Even just a teaspoon is enough to create negative effects in the body. We have to be careful, but usually, we go overboard. Usually, we downplay it. I’ve got a great book for you. Oh my gosh, I’m still in the middle of reading this book. It’s so packed full of awesome information. I interviewed Dr. Greger a few years ago. He wrote the book, How Not to Die, and he has a whole section on this and how, studying human behavior, we really do downplay the negative things in our diet. We overemphasize, like, “I ate a kale salad, look how great I am,” and then we really downplay, like, “but I drank six Coca-Colas this week.” We really downplay unhealthy things and behaviors. So I challenge you to be honest with yourself. Write down, take notes in your phone every single time you have even a teaspoon of processed sugar, and just look at how often it sneaks into your diet. That cytokine release, that cytokine storm, can actually be happening more times than you think. I can’t tell you how many people come to me and say, “I really want to heal my gut. I have gut dysbiosis. I just don’t understand.” Then when we examine their diet, they thought only about 30% of their meals were processed food, but it turns out it’s more like 80%. So it’s really good to be honest with yourself and to write it out, take note, and track it. Take inventory, just like you take inventory of your credit cards and your bank statements. Take inventory of what you’re consuming over a week and really look at it. Now, within 24 hours, the long-term implications begin. The 24 hours of consuming that sugar that you maybe decided to consume either every day or just on these holidays, your liver fat storage goes up especially if sugar becomes more frequent, these sugar rushes. Liver begins converting excess glucose into fat, and over time, that leads to fatty liver, which we discussed a little bit. But it also impairs the effectiveness of the liver’s ability to detoxify the body, making it vulnerable to toxins and increasing the risk of insulin resistance even further. Now here’s the scary part. I think this is scary. So, woo, spooky, scary—it’s Halloween! Here we go, bringing in some spooky Halloween health information. Sugar, after 24 hours of consuming it, starts to alter gene expressions. Studies show that high sugar intake can lead to epigenetic changes, turning certain genes on and off, especially upregulating genes that increase inflammation and downregulating those in fat metabolism, glucose regulation, and even affecting cancer gene expression. So downplaying the immune system to be able to fight off things like cancer and genes that turn on or make us more likely to create tumors. So this is very scary. We're aging the body, we're increasing inflammation, we're disrupting the gut, we're disrupting the brain. Why do we need that five seconds of pleasure? Really, consider it is a drug. Would you give your children cocaine? Why, when we can create pleasure in other ways, especially because what you're doing is you're tearing your health down for a long period of time for only moments of pleasure. Isn't that the same as drugs? If you think about it. Over time, it creates dependency and addiction. Now, the people who are truly addicted probably aren't listening anymore. Coming from someone who's battled food addiction, and right now, I feel like I'm winning, but for me, this is a lifelong understanding of how my brain works in addiction. Your brain will not let you take this information, and it will justify the behavior. It will say, well, I don’t want to take away from my children. I don’t want them to feel weird or not feel like they’re having a good childhood or whatever. Whatever the dependency or the addiction needs to say in order to continue doing that bad behavior. But I just want you to imagine that instead of handing your children candy, you're handing them little packets of cocaine or methamphetamines. You wouldn’t do that. There's a line in the sand eventually. You're not going to hand your kids bags of drugs, but we are because we understand the negative impact it has. Now, there are a lot of healthy options. This is a thing. You can get healthier candies. You have to look for them, but stuff that doesn’t contain high amounts of sugar and processed sugar. Overall, think about other things you can do other than consuming sugar. What I do with my son, and this might not work for all kids, but I feel so grateful that I’ve had really open conversations for his whole life, he’s nine, turning ten, and we have a deal that I buy back his candy, and he’s like, cool, money. That’s awesome. I also found some healthier candy. So he’s not going to get zero candy, but he’s definitely not eating the amount that the average child does. It’s definitely a lifestyle change. That is what holistic lifestyle medicine is. The first step, though, is awareness. I want you to be aware that there are other options out there. If you have felt resistance as I’m talking because this sounds too hard, I was there. I know exactly what that feels like. The resistance should be a red light for you because if there’s any part of your brain that’s justifying eating sugar, knowing what it does to the body, then that is the addiction. That’s the dopamine-seeking behavior. Just like asking someone to go completely off of alcohol, 50% of people are like, no problem, I could take it or leave it, I don’t really care. If you say, okay, go totally alcohol-free for a month, they’re like, no problem, don’t care. Then there are people that go, wait, I can’t. No, no, no, I need to have it. Do you? Do you need it? That’s when we start having the hard conversations with ourselves. Ask yourself, why can’t I go sugar-free? When I say sugar-free, I don’t mean going for processed, fake sugar. I mean completely sugar-free. Your life will still be sweet. I promise you. Eat more fruit. For me, half the time, apples are too sweet. I have to put cinnamon on them, and it makes them less sweet to my taste buds. But you can still feel wonderful feelings eating sweet things, sweet foods that are whole foods, so they don’t have the same impact. Eating a fruit does not have the same impact as eating processed sugar like we’ve discussed. Over time, your metabolic flexibility declines when sugar is part of your daily life. This means that your ability to switch between burning carbohydrates and burning fats diminishes. People tend to gain weight over time, even if you’re just drinking one Coca-Cola a day or one Pepsi or Sprite or whatever it is. I’ve known people who’ve lost 50 to 80 pounds, and I said, how’d you do it? They’re like, all I did was cut out sugar. All I did was stop drinking. I just traded out my alcohol, my sugary drinks, and my Starbucks. I traded all that for water, and it all just came off. I didn’t really make that big of a change other than that. If all it takes is making that one choice and you get this great outcome, that’s amazing. We talked about how it causes chronic inflammation. What's interesting, though, is that it increases subclinical hypoglycemia. Subclinical meaning, with MDs, when you get blood work, it's like, oh, it's not bad enough for me to put you on drugs yet, but it's still not great. So people with subclinical hypoglycemia can still notice that they have energy crashes, irritability, cravings for more sugary or refined carbs, and that they often will reach, and I remember that when I was in my early 20s, I remember needing caffeine in the morning with sugar, needing, right, like quote, unquote, needing. I didn't actually need it, but this is what I told myself. Then falling asleep around 2 pm in class and going to the store to get some kind of sugar, some kind of chocolate bar or something to pick me up, to get an energy boost. That is unfortunately the cycle that we go through. We do caffeine in the morning to artificially wake us up, especially there's a lot of times they include sugar in that. I know diabetics who will drink straight-up black coffee from Starbucks and they get a sugar spike from it, but not other companies, and they say there's something in the coffee at Starbucks they feel is like there's some kind of sugar they add to it. I mean, I haven't verified that, but I've heard it from enough people. But people will jack themselves up and then they'll crash and then they'll jack themselves up again in the afternoon with some kind of sugar. It might be a pastry, muffin, or sugary drink. Then they come home and they're tired, wired, and they hit the alcohol to kind of calm their nervous system. They're self-medicating all the time throughout the day, and the body's going through everything we discussed—liver fat accumulation, the disrupted gut-brain axis, which I didn't discuss a lot, but we discussed the disruption of the yeast, the candida, the bacteria, the dysbiosis. That doesn't just stay in the gut, that actually affects how the brain works as well. Lowered cognitive sharpness, and then at night we have a disrupted circadian rhythm. Especially I can see this in children. But we don't realize just how much sugar impacts our sleep. As adults, we often get poorer quality sleep, and if you go sugar-free, seven days of being sugar-free, come back to me and tell me how you feel and tell me how you sleep. I bet you sleep like a baby. Just make sure that you really listen to your energy, because when people go sugar-free, especially if they go sugar-free and caffeine-free, they go, wow, I'm tired all the time. I'm like, okay, you're actually, you're not medicating anymore. So now you're feeling your health. Your health might be a four out of 10, but you've been medicating so you thought it was an eight out of 10. Eventually, that's going to catch up to you if you keep medicating. So then we build you back up holistically with nutrition to the point where like me, I used to be that sick all the time. I used to feel terrible all the time. Now I wake up and I have energy throughout the day, and I don't need those pick-me-ups, and I want that for you as well. On a vein level, sugar ages the skin rapidly, so you'll see more visible fine lines and wrinkles and your skin will become dull. For teenagers, sugar feeds the bacteria that create acne. You get rid of sugar, acne most of the time clears up. Sugar and cow dairy are the two biggest things that contribute to acne and cystic acne. Remove those from your diet and watch your skin clear up. Most of the time, that is all it takes, and I have interviews with skin experts and doctors. You can look up on my website, learntruehealth.com, so that you can learn more, because obviously, there's more to it, but start there. Start by removing those two things and just watch. If you have acne, watch it go away or significantly improve. Overtime, we end up having diminished cellular repair and longevity. The self-cleaning mechanism in the body called autophagy really is stunted when we have the continuous exposure to sugar. Plus, we have increased oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction as we talked about, and of course, it's weakening the body's energy factories. So the entire cellular repair is diminished and our ability to handle stress diminishes as well. For some people, they experience hormonal disruption, which I shared. I had hormonal disruption as part of it, but everywhere, from leptin resistance to weight gain to your stress hormone cortisol being out of whack, your insulin being out of whack, your sex hormones being out of whack, cognitive and emotional blunting. Over time, moderate sugar intake can also contribute to dementia by way of neuroinflammation, chronic low-grade inflammation in the brain that is strongly now associated with cognitive decline. So I have a lot of people come to me with brain fog. This is like, how long have you had brain fog? Really think back. It could be years, but over time, that's causing Alzheimer's. I studied with an amazing guy, Dr. Daniel Amen, and he does studies with the brain. He's done that for over 30 years, I believe, and he does these scans where he sees these pockets of low activity or low oxygen to the brain, and he calls it Swiss cheese brain, because it really does look like a brain with Swiss cheese. It looks like just these holes. Have you ever seen Swiss cheese? You know, there are holes like bubbles, right? He'll take someone and get them on a diet that is no processed sugar, lots of great supplements to supplement, so they're filling in the nutrient gaps, really clean diet, a diet that is healthy for the heart because it increases oxygen and healthy blood flow to the brain, also decreasing stress, getting enough sleep, getting enough movement every day. Then he has them come back years later and do the scans, and he will show that he reverses the age of your brain. That Swiss cheese brain goes away. Those holes in the brain go away. He's had people even as early as in their 40s come to him with early-stage dementia, and they're able to reverse it. But he looks at the brain and goes, you have the brain of an 80-year-old, you're 40, and look, your brain is twice your age. The good news is we can reverse it. But it's going to take something radical. It's going to take you going against the common thing that everyone does. If you want to be a statistic, look around you. Look at what people are suffering from. 70% of Americans are on at least one prescription medication. 40% of Americans are on multiple medications. Medication means, for the most part, for most people, medication means, that they are so sick that they're trying to force their body to do something that it's not doing. Being on medication, and of course, there are exceptions to the rules always. I'd rather someone be alive and be on medication, like antipsychotics, of course. So this isn't an absolute. There are no absolutes in life, but most of the time, most medications—I really feel like we're an overly medicated population because we don't have a medication deficiency. Let's just put it that way. The body is missing what it needs. We're giving it what it doesn't need. We're not giving it what it needs. We're really getting in our own way, and we are highly medicated. We are not healthy. We are not healthy as a nation, as a world. There are these outliers, and I want you to be an outlier. I want you to go against the grain. I want you to be the black sheep. I want you to be the salmon going upstream when all the other fish are going the opposite direction. Look around you. How many people are sick and suffering, and they're eating the way most people are eating? So say no. Say no to processed food, say no to sugar, say no to alcohol. Significantly reduce those and say yes to whole foods. Eat whole foods, lots of plants, lots of leafy greens. I love Dr. Joel Fuhrman. I had him on the show, and he talks about the G-BOMBS, right? Greens, berries, seeds, beans, mushrooms, onions. He wants to see you eat lots of leafy greens. Get more plants, get more fiber. I have great interviews where we talk about fiber. Just type in “fiber” at learntruehealth.com. The goal is to get 50 grams of fiber or more a day from a variety of sources. Drink more water and less sugar and notice your health improve. I made a health change back in July. I changed one thing and I cut my triglycerides in half. I had my blood work taken and I had my blood work just recently taken. So for three months, I did this one health change and I cut my triglycerides in half. I was really impressed. I did not expect it to be. I thought it would definitely, I'd see some improvement in my blood work, but that just goes to show, like, you make one change and stick with it and then notice over time how things go. I'm going to say the last thing I'm going to say is, the most important thing to do is to keep track because you will forget how, when you start feeling really good, you'll forget how bad you felt and then you'll eventually go back next sugar season. It happens every year. The sugar season comes every year, and you need something to remind you how good you feel when you're off sugar because the brain wants to. The brain wants what the brain wants. Everyone's got this little rascal inside them that wants what it wants. What we need to do is stay grounded in the health that we want to build long-term. So stay focused and grounded in the results you get by making these changes. Challenge yourself, do a 30-day no-sugar challenge, and take notes on it. If you want, I have a symptom inventory checklist in my book, LearnTrueHealth.com/AddictedToWellness. Please get it. LearnTrueHealth.com/AddictedToWellness. Please get it. If you'd like me to just email you the symptom inventory checklist, I can. Just email me, Ashley@LearnTrueHealth.com. You can also set up a free phone call with me. I'd love to talk to you. I love talking to my listeners and helping you. I do health coaching. If you want to hire me, I'd love to work with you. I also do blood sugar coaching. I have helped many, many people to get so healthy that their doctor takes them off their medication. That's my goal, as long as it's your goal. I had one client that's like, my goal isn't to get off meds. I'm like, okay, you tell me what your goal is. My goal is always to get people so healthy they don't need meds. I've met one person in my life who didn't want to get off meds, but she wanted to be healthy. I'm like, all right, you're in charge, you're the client. But my goal is to get you so healthy that you don't need medication and or you need a reduced dose, just depending on the issue. But if you want to talk, I can. You can set up a free phone call with me, 15-20 minute phone call, and I can give you some resources. So you can go to LearnTrueHealth.com. In the menu, it says “Work with Ashley James,” and you can select the free chat with me. I'd love to help you. I can point you in the direction of some great stuff, some great books, some great supplements, some great devices that can help you. If you have health questions, let me know. This is such a big thing, doing this challenge, going sugar-free. This is actually a whole chapter in my book, the Addicted to Wellness book. I'd love for you to get it. LearnTrueHealth.com/AddictedToWellness. It's a wonderful book, and it'll help you to get to where you want to go because you're listening to this show. Clearly, you're not where you want to be, and I'm sure you've been on a health journey for a while, but if you're not happy with something, with some aspect of your health, let's get you there. You can, and I can't believe I did. That's where I'm turning around, and that's why I do the podcast because I was sick for years. Then, when I learned how to get better, I just immediately went, oh my gosh, I have to help others who are sick and suffering. So please share this episode with those you care about so we can help as many people as possible to learn true health. Have a happy Halloween and a very, not-so-sweet sugar season.   Get Connected with Ashley James! Learn True Health Facebook Group Facebook Instagram YouTube TikTok X/Twitter Book by Ashley James Addicted to Wellness

https://learntruehealth.com/vibe coupon code LTH - LearnTrueHealth.com/vibe   532: Scientific Leap In Restorative Health Tech Innovation: Affordable PEMF & Frequency Specific Microcurrent https://learntruehealth.com/532-scientific-leap-in-restorative-health-tech-innovation-affordable-pemf-frequency-specific-microcurrent   Feel better naturally with The Vibe! Experience pain relief, better sleep, and more. Get yours now at https://resona.health/general-wellness-lth. Imagine a device that could help relieve pain, improve sleep, and boost mental clarity—all without medication. In this episode of the Learn True Health podcast, we sit down with Mark Fox, the brilliant ex-rocket scientist who created The Vibe, a groundbreaking PEMF (Pulsed Electromagnetic Field) device. Unlike traditional machines that cost thousands, The Vibe is portable, affordable, and designed for everyday use. Mark shares the science behind PEMF therapy, its impact on conditions like PTSD, anxiety, inflammation, and even ADHD, and how this technology is changing lives. Whether you're seeking natural pain relief or a way to optimize your well-being, this conversation will open your eyes to the future of holistic healing.   Highlights: Mark Fox, an ex-rocket scientist, developed The Vibe, an affordable and portable PEMF (Pulsed Electromagnetic Field) device. Traditional PEMF machines can cost thousands, but The Vibe is designed to be more effective at a fraction of the price. PEMF technology helps with pain relief, mental clarity, sleep improvement, and emotional balance. Studies show PEMF can aid PTSD, anxiety, depression, ADHD, fibromyalgia, and even asthma. The Vibe has over 70 programs, including sleep, inflammation, detox, and brain balancing. Many users experience deep relaxation, reduced stress, and faster healing from injuries. Hydration is key to maximizing the effects of PEMF therapy. Clinical studies on blood sugar regulation and PTSD have shown promising results. Mark envisions PEMF technology integrated into smart devices for effortless healing. Regulatory challenges make it difficult to promote PEMF’s benefits, despite its proven effectiveness. Intro: Hello True Health Seekers and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. We're going to jump right into this interview, but before we do, I have to tell you one thing. The website is https://resona.health/general-wellness-lth, https://resona.health/general-wellness-lth, That is the discount that our listener today is giving us, which I was so excited to find out he was giving us a discount. That's all set up for you. He's giving a great discount. This machine, which we spend a good hour talking about, has testimonials and stories of success that I've had, both personally with several of my friends and several of my family members over the last three months using this machine. I am really grateful that he made it affordable because these machines are normally thousands of dollars, and he made it so affordable. It's so neat how I came across this machine, and it's really cool what this guy is doing. He's been in the PEMF and frequency-specific microcurrent space for several years now. With his background in the sciences and in developing machines, he was able to figure out how to create this to be portable, simple, affordable, and actually more effective. In my personal experience and my experience with several of my friends and family members, his machine is more effective than the other machines I have used on the market. I have even used a machine that was $40,000. I don't own it. I went to a clinic and got almost nothing using those PEMF machines, the $40,000 machines. I've used the $10,000 Beamer mats. I've used frequency-specific microcurrent before and other machines that were thousands and thousands of dollars. His is just a few hundred dollars. Plus, he gives us a great discount, and I get better results from it because he rethought the whole technology. So he comes in sharing today, a good half of the conversation is talking about our experiences with it, and then he gets into the science of it. What I'm really excited about is where rubber meets the road, the studies, so he talks about the studies and the ongoing studies he's doing. We're definitely going to have him back on the show because he's continuing to do clinical studies, gathering that information, and bringing it out to the masses. His goal is to revolutionize health and help people get out of pain and suffering, and I can see it working. I'm really excited. If  someone has PTSD, anxiety, depression, sleep issues, or insomnia. If  someone has any kind of pain issues, low back pain, chronic pain, migraines, gut issues. If  someone has MS or fibromyalgia, any kind of chronic pain. If  someone has ADHD, any kind of anxiety issues, sleep issues, or anyone who's just feeling uncomfortable in their own body, mentally, emotionally, or physically, there are over 70 programs you can run using this machine. I have run through them and gotten some really cool results, mentally, emotionally, and physically. If you have a friend in your life who you think of when I mention that, please share this episode with them because together we are helping end needless suffering. My goal is to help over a million people to learn true health, end needless suffering, and gain true health. Please help me in doing that by sharing this episode with those you care about. The link is https://resona.health/general-wellness-lth, that's https://resona.health/general-wellness-lth. If you ever reach out to Mark Fox, my guest, when you buy one of his devices, if you ever chat with him, if you're on Facebook, he runs all his own Facebook posts. If you ever follow him on Facebook, if you ever happen to see him on YouTube or email him because you're chatting about The Vibe, just thank him. Thank him for his time. Thank him for all he's doing because what he's doing is amazing. He's helped so many, for example, so many vets to end their PTSD, end their depression, and end their suffering. That's just one slice of a small example of what he's doing to help humanity. Thank him and continue to share this information, share this podcast so we can help all those people that are crying themselves to sleep. I used to be crying myself to sleep, suffering. You don't even know the people in your life who are crying themselves to sleep because they're suffering, they’re losing hope, and they don't know a way out. This could be the answer for them. That's why I'm so jazzed, I'm so excited that together we can help people to learn true health. Enjoy today's interview. Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host Ashley James. This is episode 532. Ashley James (0:05:24.692) I am so excited for today's guest. You got to understand, I'm having a fangirl moment. We're having Mark Fox on the show, the creator of The Vibe, which has been probably one of the most interesting holistic medical devices I've ever used. Our entire family uses it daily. We kind of fight over it, which is really funny. We take turns using it. I've shared it with friends, and I have some amazing testimonials I can't wait to share with you guys. I've been thinking about you, the listener, for the last few months, because we've been using it for three months daily in my family and with my friends. We share it wherever we go because I always carry it with me. I keep thinking about how I want to share this with you guys because there are so many possibilities for how it'll support you in your healing goals and increase the quality of your life.  First off, tremendous help with pain on multiple, multiple occasions. So there's that, but not everyone's in pain, but it has helped me on an emotional, mental level so much. I'm very excited to get into it today. Mark, welcome to the show. Mark Fox (0:06:34.216) Thank you so much for having me. This is exciting. Ashley James (0:06:36.692) Absolutely. Well, I'm Christian, but beyond that, I believe in God. I believe in fate. I believe in that cosmic divine, just how it kind of brings order to chaos and brings us together. This was one of those answers to my prayers, and it popped up on my feed. I saw a video on it, and I immediately felt that I had to pursue it. I had to go down this rabbit hole. I see lots of videos on health stuff. I'm a health nut. I love it. But I don't always get that feeling. Sometimes I get that red flag feeling. I don't know if this looks a little too.. I don't know, but for The Vibe, I had this intense curiosity, this divine guidance that I needed to pursue it. So I bought one. I thought, you know what, okay, I think there's a return policy. It's actually affordable, but everything I'm seeing so far looks great. I kind of dug in for a few hours and started watching interviews of you and started watching testimonials. I got more and more excited. I told my husband about it. He got even more excited than me. So he was like, when is that coming? When is it arriving? When we received it, we immediately started using it and started having these crazy, fun results. So again, very excited for you to be here. I've been thinking for the last three months about this interview because I reached out to you pretty soon after we started wearing it. I was like, I have to get you on my show. We have to share this with all my listeners who are sick of being sick and who want a leg up, who want to start feeling better, or the listener who has been on their health journey for years and is constantly refining it and looking to improve health. No matter where they are, looking to improve every aspect of life.  What I love about The Vibe is that it hits on mental health, emotional health, energetic health, and physical health. It's hitting on these multiple layers of health. I've talked about it, but I still haven't said what it is. Mark, first of all, you have an extensive background, and I'd love for you to share a bit about your background and what about your background led to you creating The Vibe. Mark Fox (0:08:57.274) My background is kind of diverse and weird, but I would say that I was an ex-rocket scientist. I was a chief engineer on the space shuttle program for a number of years. Then I went into the computer industry and actually women's clothing. I owned, actually still own, a piece of a company there. You said something about red flags. When I first came across this, I'm a rocket scientist, and I'm skeptical. I still don't believe this stuff after researching and playing with it for 20, 30 years now, I think. I was very skeptical, but a very good friend of mine is a real forward-thinking veterinarian. His name's Dr. Oz Jackson. Our dog got arthritis in her spine. It was really bad. He said, hey, there's this lady who has this magic machine that can reverse arthritis. If you've had your dog for 12, 13 years, they're part of the family. You're kind of freaking out. I'll try anything. Unfortunately, she got so sick so fast. We didn't get a chance to drive her because it was all the way to Oregon. But that piqued my interest in the technology. What really motivated me was initially PTSD and trauma. I saw the amount of success people were having with it, but this was in clinical environments with doctors. The technology was kind of being held hostage without going through hoops to get the treatments. That motivated me, and then the machines were so ridiculously expensive. My undergrad is chemical engineering. I'm not an electrical engineer, but I'm going to grant myself an electrical engineering degree after this because it's burning things up and catching things on fire. This doesn't work, and physicists and engineers all tell me something, and then I go test it, and I go, well, that isn't right. What do we know? Okay. So that’s really what motivated me the most initially was, primarily, our military. The 44th suicide today. I'm counting first responders in there. So you've got 22 military vets, or maybe a little not much, 5 medical workers and 2 active duty. That's not counting me, you, and all the civilians. That stuff doesn't get counted. That frankly disturbed me, that this technology is available, it's just not affordable. So how do you make something that's small, convenient, and affordable? That was the primary thing I went after—PTSD and trauma. It's still probably the biggest one. In fact, we just had an independent agency. I think I've done the largest PEMF PTSD study in the country for sure. I just got a third party to validate all the data, which is really exciting too. So I mean, that's how I got started in it. There are lots and lots of different protocols in it. It's been an interesting path. Can you call it a job if you don't make any money? This is the most interesting job I've ever had and the most exciting. I get up in the morning and play with the stuff. We're a small startup. We're not making any money yet. Mark Zuckerberg has all my money because the ads are so expensive. It's going in the right direction. At least most pieces of it are. Long answer to how I got started. It was basically my dog, PTSD, and me being ex-military as well. That just rubbed me the wrong way. Soldiers didn't have access to it. The last point there that I didn't make was I thought it would be mostly military people, but it's not. At least half is civilian, and a lot of them are women. Trauma, divorce, miscarriages, bad husbands, bad boyfriends, life—all of that bringing trauma. It's really helped a lot of people with it. I know people don't believe it because I don't believe it. We have a 98% success rate with that PTSD protocol. I've got to be careful because the FDA will not allow me to say conditions. Even though it was a PTSD study that was based on the Veterans Administration questionnaires, we're just calling it a wellness study. It's five different categories—sleep, less stress, and those types of things—that the independent agency reviewed. It's still exciting to have a third party endorse it all. Ashley James (0:13:49.161) I love that you did the study and piqued my interest to try your device. We haven’t even talked about really what The Vibe is and you had mentioned that it's PEMF, which I want to get into later. But first, I want to tell you that my daughter died during childbirth. She was almost completely out. It was so painful, and I had PTSD from it. I didn't even know for months. I didn't know I had PTSD because I was also reeling from grief. I had postpartum. I had really bad COVID right after, which probably was more related to the grief than anything. Then we also had to move. We had our house for seven years, and we had to move suddenly. So it was just a big pile of emotional mess that we were gracefully navigating through. It wasn't until a few months later when I talked to another guest on my show, who him and I have become great friends, Dr. Glenn Livingston. He's been on my show several times. I had a conversation with him. I said, I just don't know what's wrong with me. I walk into the kitchen, and my mind goes blank. I have this brick wall in my head, and I can't even function. I don't know. If you told me to make toast, I wouldn't know what to do. I would just stand there. I had this big brick wall come up in my head when simple tasks became insurmountable. I would just cry every day. I've done a lot of stuff to heal, so I've come a long way. When I started using your Vibe, I turned it on to the PTSD setting. It felt really good. I just felt calmer, happier. I just noticed the day became easier. Again, this is three years after her death. So I've done a ton of healing work already. It's not acute. But what I did notice after a few days of doing that protocol daily is that I began to laugh. I began to laugh way more than normal. My son and I would just laugh together at silly nine-year-old boy humor. I think I started laughing 100% more, if not 200% more than I had been laughing previously. I just noticed I was smiling even more. I was calmer. Everything started to feel easier. I just swear by that protocol. You have way more protocols. I was going through all the different protocols. The sleep protocol has been a game changer. My son is very hyperactive. He has tons of energy. He could probably pull all-nighters. Just to get him to bed is a whole ordeal that starts at 6 PM. It's just this whole ordeal. Last night, he wouldn't fall asleep till pretty late. I gave him The Vibe. I'm like, okay, just put this on. He turns it on. He knows how to work the machine. It's pretty easy. He puts the sleep on. The second he puts it on, he goes, I feel tired. The second I put this thing on, I feel tired. That's what he said last night. I've watched it. We put it on him, and he falls asleep within minutes. Whereas without it, he'll lie awake for a really long time and keep complaining that he can't fall asleep. It's just amazing. It's amazing how using frequency can support the body's ability to come back into balance. Mark Fox (0:17:26.751) I was just going to say the sleep thing too. Back on PTSD, there's an important point I want to make because I learned this the hard way. So when I said we have a 98% success rate, what I'm using is the Veterans Administration. It's 20 questions, zero to four, highest you could score is an 80. If you score above 30 to 33, they will tell you you likely have PTSD. So when I say a 98% success rate, it means before and after 30 days, the person's score came down. Now, to be statistically and clinically significant, it needs to drop 11 points or more. Two out of three will drop more than 11 points. So that's all the good news. The potential bad news, and at first, I didn't know what to do about it. Almost a third, maybe even 40% of the people will tell me, yes, I don't know if it helped me. I'm like, really? So I started doing report cards, and I would get them on a Zoom call and say, so you don't think this helped you? And they go, maybe a little, not much. I go, well, you reported a 72, thirty days ago, and you just reported a 12. That is an insane improvement. Ashley, they start crying. They forgot how bad they felt. I'm a rocket scientist. I'm not a doctor. I'm going to say that probably 12 times on this. I can't give medical advice. I don't treat, diagnose, or cure at all. The feds pull up to the front door. Okay, so I talked to a lot of doctors and psychiatrists and friends of mine that are in that field. They're like, yes, Mark Fox, that's true of every intervention in the world. I mean, people forget where they were. So I almost started the report card so I didn't get a bunch of returns. I've had people do that, return it and go, yes, it didn't do anything for me. Then they call me back up and go, can I buy it back again? Because they forgot how bad they felt. So that's not a huge amount, but it's a weird phenomenon of the psyche. I talked to a friend of mine I've known since kindergarten. He's a chiropractor. He goes, Mark, I've videotaped all new patients because they come in on a walker. The next time, they're on a cane. The next time, they come in with a lap dog. They'll go, yes, I could do this. I could always do this. He has to show them videos. I know you couldn't do that before. Have your listeners think about it. Here's a good litmus test for that. Journal it yourself, okay? Or the strongest one that I've seen is go ask your spouse, family member, your kids, and your friends if you're acting differently. That's been the biggest indicator. That isn't a biomarker. Just people go, hey, you haven't come over to our house in a year. You haven't come to a picnic before. You've never joined that. You haven't come to the ball game in two years, and now you're doing that. So then people kind of go, that's right, I haven't. It's just kind of a weird phenomenon for people to think about because with ADHD and some of the protocols, teachers will call the parent and say, you switched Johnny's medication, didn't you? So the teacher will notice it. Hey, the kid is acting completely different. Anyway, just a little side note. It's some interesting psychology that's going on as people kind of forget where they were and how bad they did feel, and they kind of recalibrate, which is kind of what the protocols are trying to do anyway—get some of the garbage out of your head. Ashley James (0:21:01.423) Interesting. I've had two clients, I do health coaching, and I've had two clients forget that they came to me with migraines. Just completely forget. I had to ask, hey, how are your migraines? And they said, what migraines? What are you talking about? I had to go back to the intake form and say, remember when you had migraines every week? They said, I forgot I had those because for six months they didn't have any. So yes, it's true. We really do forget how bad it was. That might be a good thing. It's part of our healing, forget about it, move on. It's good that we kind of forget how much we suffered. But at the same time, we need to do journaling. I have here my notes for the last three months of some of the notable changes just from using The Vibe. I wanted to share it. But first, I wanted to let listeners know, as you're listening to this, you want to try it for yourself. It's actually quite affordable, especially compared to PEMF machines, https://resona.health/general-wellness-lth, thank you for giving my listeners a discount. I really appreciate that. Here's my list. Our son has allergy-induced asthma, and it's very rare that he has issues. When he's exposed to an allergen, we do everything we can to support him, and occasionally he'll have an asthma attack. Your asthma setting stopped dead in its tracks, stopped two asthma attacks before we needed to go to the inhaler. There was one asthma attack it couldn't stop, and that was when he was in respiratory distress, and we ended up in the hospital. That was very serious. Three times in his life he's been in the hospital. It can actually get really serious, really fast for him. But there were two asthma attacks. They were full-on, and within minutes of using the asthma setting on The Vibe, he was back to normal breathing. Of course, we were ready to give him the inhaler. He has control and can say, I want my inhaler. He gets to choose because he's been trained. He will go six months or more without ever having an asthma attack. So it's not often. It always surprises us because we're really good about keeping away from his allergens. But we have also been doing that allergy protocol for him, which I noticed subtly working. He'll go from a runny nose and dark circles under his eyes after he's been exposed to dust mites, which is a big trigger for him. He goes over to someone's house, playing on a couch, and then all of a sudden, you can just see his face. He just looks like he's about to hit asthma. The setting on The Vibe for allergies has helped. The PTSD program—I shared, I feel calm, focused, centered. I also noticed within the first month of using the PTSD protocol, because, now, again, I’m starting to forget how bad it was. It’s funny. It’s just been three months, but I typed out here, I was getting twice as much work done in the office on days that I would wear it while I was working or wore it right before I started to go into the office to work. I'd get twice as much done. I noticed that I'm able to stay focused and just bang out more work, which is great because I have to manage my time between homeschooling our son, the podcast, and everything. I also noticed it helped me overcome some major mental blocks, which is really exciting. Yawning within one minute of putting on the sleep protocol for all of us, all three of us. So we kind of have to time it because we let our son have it earlier in the day. Then we sneak up to him while he's sleeping and take the device off. Then we wear it in bed. My husband ended up getting a second one so he could have one, I could have one. My mother-in-law has bought one. So all of us have been using it. We noticed that we have even more vividly colorful dreams, which I thought was really interesting. I check my blood sugar once in a while, and I've been doing the insulin resistance protocol just to see, because I know you have a study. I'm excited to hear about how that's going. I do notice that my blood sugar is even better. So that was exciting. My husband did the DIA protocol without knowing what DIA was—the depression, anxiety, insomnia protocol. Thank you, thank you. I was tripping on that. Mark Fox (0:25:26.108) Diabiological syndrome. So just so you know, that's a word I made up because doctors get to make up words. So I get to make my own word up. I call it the devil's triangle because it's depression, insomnia, anxiety combined. Very few people have only one. Either can't sleep because you're depressed or depressed because you can't sleep or you're anxious because you can't sleep. So I just called it diabiological syndrome. I love it because when I present this, sometimes I can be in a keynote presentation, and somebody will go, yes, my dad was diagnosed with that. I just start laughing. I go, no, I made it up. It's a word that doesn't exist, but doctors get to make up words all the time. So I wanted to make up my own words. Ashley James (0:26:04.056) But it really fits. It really fits. When I started reading about the diabiological syndrome, I was like, that describes so many people I know and so many clients and so many people that suffer from that because you don't just have insomnia, but you're super happy all day long. I don't know why I can't sleep. I'm so happy. No, usually you have anxiety, depression, insomnia. They go really well together.  There's also, hormonally, we can see it. We can see it on labs. We can see that cortisol really high at night. We can see it. My husband did it, and his ears popped. It had some effect. I know. He goes, what happened? My ears just popped. He had craniosacral. It caused his skull to realign, his ears popped. Then he said he felt this positive difference. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, and he's like, wow, I feel different. He had no idea what the DIA was. But he he just wanted to go through every single frequency, every single program in the setting. So I told you before we hit record that I, and I promise I'll let you talk because I really want listeners to actually learn from you. But I'm so excited about these results. I wanted to share with listeners. I quit caffeine, and coming from someone who formerly had really bad, really bad chronic adrenal fatigue. I had insanely bad chronic adrenal fatigue. So coffee is a crutch. It's necessary, if you don't have coffee, you're not thinking straight. I have quit coffee using The Vibe. I am now doing the awaken program in the morning, and I am just, it is amazing. I feel so great. I'm like, I don't even need that stuff. I don't need coffee. I feel amazing. So I thought that was super interesting, and I noticed it would give me mental clarity and motivation first thing in the morning. So I love waking up and turning on the awaken setting. The relax is, I mean, that's kind of self-explanatory, but I actually really do feel relaxed and calm when I do that one. Mark Fox (0:28:15.085) So actually, the awaken on the 417, just so, cause you've hit on about 12 good points already. I actually didn't know anything about addiction with it having anything to do with addiction. I had several people contacting me going, hey, this 417 Hertz is doing, and I go, what are you addicted to? I'm almost ashamed to say some of the examples, but it's okay. They just said, I don't want it anymore. So I've been doing some research on that. Knock on wood, we're supposed to have a billionaire here in the near future that's going to fund a big addiction study with the device, but that has not started yet. A couple comments that I heard you say that I want to comment on is one reason it won't work is if you don't use it. So I'm going to tell you a story of a good friend of mine who has had severe asthma his entire life. I gave him a Vibe. Three months later, he called me from the airport and he goes, are you kidding me? I'm like, what? I ran this thing last night, and I'm not breathing like this since in my entire life. I'm like, you idiot. Are you just now using it? I gave it to you three or four months ago. He goes, yes, I know, I didn't get around to it. I'm like, so, so. If it doesn't work, this is honest truth, if it doesn't work for you, and nothing's 100%, everyone knows that, but the most probable cause if it doesn't work is you ain't using it, you lied to me, okay, or you self-diagnosed yourself wrong and you're running the wrong protocol, but even that isn't a whole lot because any PEMF is going to help. Even if it's not the right protocols. I've had people run the wrong one, and it still helps them. Hydration is, it will work if you're not hydrated, it just doesn't work as well. My theory is it's resonating with the water in your body. So people ask, hey, it's not a full mat, it's this tiny little pocket thing, it can't give you full body coverage. Well, it does. Because I've seen swollen ankles, broken feet, and stuff, the swelling go down when it's just in their top pocket. As I just said, we know it doesn't work as well if you're not hydrated. I believe it's resonating with the water in your body like a pebble in a pond. Because the magnetic field itself can't travel that far. There's only two guys that will tell you bigger is better in the PEMF world, and those are the guys that sell the big machines. But the smaller stuff works. So that's my theory. If you remember from science class, every alternating magnetic current is going to make a small electrical current that's alternating. Your body's electrically conductive. So just like wires, I believe the energy is traveling through the electrical conductivity of your body. Also, it's been recently discovered that humans have magnetite in their cells, like birds and sea turtles that can migrate, which would help transfer the energy too. So you get full body coverage. Even though it's a small kind of localized device. I don't know if you'll laugh at this or not, but as far as dreams, I'm going to recommend Ashley, try using it the hour before bed. Don't take it to bed with you for a couple reasons. I think it works better, number one. Number two, if you have tile floors like me, you're going to knock it on the ground and break it eventually. I, my entire life, have had awful dreams of people trying to stab me, kill me. I'm in a war. When I run this, I get Halle Berry. Yes, it's just completely different. It's actually a little weird. I mean, I've woken up laughing before. I don't know how, okay. Again, I'm still skeptical on this stuff, even though I've been studying it forever. But anyway, there's a lot of comments you made there. Yes, addiction, never knew anything about it, that it would help with that. My favorite story, and I'm just going to say it because it's on top of my mind right now, and if this doesn't raise the hair on your arms, your listeners, then you're not human, okay? A 17-year-old girl told me, Mark, I'll never have a date in my life because I have Tourette's. I'm a monster. I get bullied by everybody. She had migraines as well too. She goes, I ran migraines, they went away, and I ran the brain balancing. My Tourette's disappeared, and I have a date Saturday night. She's engaged to the guy now. Ashley James (0:32:37.292) My gosh. My gosh. I never thought of that. The brain balancing protocol for Tourette's. My gosh. That's so exciting. Mark Fox (0:32:48.433) I never thought about that. I didn't tell her to do that. Nobody even asked me about Tourette's before. What happens is, this happens every day. Again, you can keep count how many times I say this. I'm not a doctor. I'm not giving medical advice. I can't treat, diagnose, or cure anything. But I get bombarded with emails of will this help? Right before this call, Ashley, I'm looking at 15 emails today from this same thing as, will this help with RSPF? What is it? I never heard of it. Then I have to Google it to figure out what it is. It takes about 20 seconds to find the underlying cause. About 80% of the time, it's going to be inflammation of whatever. So I just tell people, run general inflammation. Is it going to be allergy related? A lady called me and goes, I get this itch on my arm. One week I'll have it, not have it. Then next week I'm bleeding. I can't stop myself from scratching myself to bleed. What is it? I go, what is it? She goes, the doctors don't know what it is. Said, well, run general inflammation and run allergy. It went away. So general inflammation is the go-to.  Brain balancing, I renamed it. It used to be called a concussion protocol, but it is what all the clinical practitioners will use all the time to mix it in with any other protocol just to put icing on the cake, maybe fix some other stuff. So that's why I kind of renamed it because it was too focused on a concussion. So that one's kind of a catch-all. Then common sense things—if it's toxicity, run the liver protocol. So we have two lists. There are 59 core protocols on the device. Then of those, five of them are brainwave entrainment protocols, which can be repurposed for 70 other things. So it really does 130 different things now. We got to be careful, very careful here because the FDA does not want this to exist. They just don't, and they've been after me for six months trying to shut it down. So I've had to take a lot of the protocol lists off the website, which is a challenge because then my customers go, hey idiot, where's the protocols you had there? I'm, yes, that is a battle. I go, what about all the other general wellness PEMF devices? Well, we don't care about them. We're picking on you. Okay. I won't go down that rabbit hole. That's what I get to wake up to every day as a fun thing to go think about. What do I do next? How do I stay out of jail and still help people? That part's sad. I don't want to go dark there. It made me think of it with the list as I'm having to pare things down of what I can market or say because they don't want you to mention any condition even though it helps with it. It's frustrating. Ashley James (0:35:58.837) That is so frustrating. We saw, especially in the last four years, how maniacal the FDA is and the FCC. In fact, I have interviewed a doctor that was successfully treating patients with COVID, and he had 500 patients survive. So he published on his blog, hey, for the world to know, this is what I'm seeing working in my clinic. Well, the FCC came after him and said, you have to take that down. He'slike, what do you mean? It's freedom of speech. They go, no, you have to take that down. Here's why. Because they needed to keep the emergency use authorization for the poison that they wanted people to inject in them. The difficulty with that is, from the government standpoint, the government and the pharmaceutical industry were hand in hand. They're just two lovers, interwoven. If there was a proven treatment that worked, that's why the media was saying all of the treatments that we knew would work, that were well documented, why they were poo-pooing them, why the media was trying to manipulate everyone and brainwash everyone. When we saw that these worked in other countries, they used these protocols, and these protocols worked. But if they lost the emergency use authorization, then they could not dole it out super fast. They wanted to do that. They wanted to control people. So we saw in the last four years that the FDA and the FCC were not after our health. Our health is not their number one priority. I applaud you. I applaud people like you who are going against the grain. They're like, I have something I know helps people. Unfortunately, the FDA wants to come after creators like you. I'll, we'll talk a little bit after our interview because I have some contacts if you want, for lawyers who regularly fight and win against the FDA. So I can share that with you. Absolutely. My mentor, Dr. Joel Wallach, has fought and won against the FDA, I believe, 13 times, and they stopped coming after him. But I know exactly what you're dealing with because I've worked with him for many years, and I know how difficult it can be when you're out helping people heal themselves. The FDA doesn't like that. Mark Fox (0:38:37.674) Your listeners, a lot of them probably do know that, but if they don't, I mean, 75% of the FDA's research budget is funded by the drug companies. It's like, how did that happen? We won't go down that rabbit hole, but I've done all that research. I know how it happened. Yes, it's the FDA, it's the FTC, it's the FCC. So, you know what a TLA is? Three-letter acronym. Three-letter acronym. So there's probably 10 more of them out there. I only know about NSA, whatever. It's super frustrating because I get asked every day, do you have anything for long COVID? I do, but I'm afraid to answer it because I don't know if it's an FDA agent that's sending the email. So all I can do is say, here's my two lists, use your own common sense. Which one do you think might be a good match? Then people get frustrated because, your customer service, come on, you can do better than that. My hands are kind of tied on how I can and can't say things. Ashley James (0:39:37.811) Well, my husband, he took this approach. He's like, I'm just going to try every single program. Every day I'm going to run three or four programs. You can run a good four programs before it runs out of battery. Some programs are half an hour, some are over an hour. Then he plugs it in, and then half an hour later he unplugs it and runs another few programs and he notes what he feels. Then he comes and tells me, and I definitely run at least two to three programs a day. But he shares with me what he feels. So when he did the Earth 14 protocol, he broke out into a thick, detox, sticky sweat. It was sludge coming out of him. It was weird, he's sitting there going, whoa, feel my arm. I felt it. It's the sticky, sludgy, detoxy crap that's coming out of it. Normally it doesn't just happen when you're just sitting in a room. Usually that's what happens when he's in the sauna. How neat is that? We just noted it. He told me he feels overall that he's more comfortable. He feels he's like gone through some emotional healing. We gave it to, and this is just by going through all the protocols. You said any protocol is going to have some positive effect, which I want to, I want to get into talking about the science and why that is. But I want to get through this list first so that you just know my experience. I have a friend with really bad cramps, a lot of pain. She was day one of her period, just a lot of pain. She came over and I gave her the PMS protocol. Within minutes she's, my gosh, my gosh, my cramps are gone. It was just so cool. The rest of the day, no cramps, total, total great experience for her. I thought that was really cool. Just how night and day that was. The general inflammation protocol I figured out was the one to go to if you don't know what to do. So I love that you said that. Within my first few days of doing The Vibe, I did the general inflammation protocol and I noticed that this is actually my first time. I have it written down. This is my first time doing it. I tasted heavy metals in my mouth. So I'm detoxing. This is interesting. The next day I woke up and I weighed myself and I'd lost three pounds and I know that that's not three pounds of fat. Get it. It's inflammation, but it was notable. I don't just normally just drop three pounds in 24 hours. It was, and I ate the same, I drank the same, exercised the same. So it was, wow, that was really interesting. Then also my ring is loose. Ever since using it the last three months, my rings are loose. So I'm just noticing, wow, that is less inflammation. My husband has trigger point pain ever since he had this botched dental procedure and we're working on it. We're intensely working on it with multiple practitioners, but it comes and goes and he uses the neck pain protocol, but he also noticed that the carpal tunnel protocol has completely turned off his trigger point headaches. So I thought that was interesting. Because it's, well, it's entrapped nerves. That's what his pain is, entrapped nerves. He's like, are you proud of me? I figured that one out on my own. Mark Fox (0:42:52.147) It was like my dental assistant. She had a really bad carpal tunnel. Dental assistants are picking at your teeth all day. So I go every six months. So I went back in six months later, go, how's the device working for you? She goes, well, it completely went away, so I don't use it anymore. I go, you couldn't send me a little 30-second test video? You promised to send me a video, and she goes, yes, I forgot, I don't use it anymore. Here's a weird thing too. Most customers are either in mental pain, physical pain, or both long term. When they feel better, a lot of them don't say, I feel way better. A lot of them say some of this phrase: something's not right. It's weird because the brain's trying to process, I've had this pain or whatever wrong, and now it's not there, but that's not me anymore. That it's getting into a psychology part of it a little bit. Part of me is gone, and they don't really realize they're feeling better. Some people don't until later on. I always thought that was just a weird phrase, something's not right. I go, something's, it doesn't feel good to you. Now they said that. So we're going to get into warnings and contraindications and all that. Why it's at the top of my head. If you're in severe pain, the first time you use it, don't be driving a car or operating a catapult. It can make you feel drunk and stoned. This has been measured. This has been measured in the bloodstream. It can give you an insane release of instant endorphins because your pain disappears and all of your body's going, yes, party. Okay. So I had a young woman that was in a car wreck here in my house, and she tried it for the first time. She started backpedaling and sat down in the chair. I go, you okay? She goes, no, I'm seeing double vision. So was, take it off for a minute. Then we went in a little bit slower. Then she made that comment that something's not right. Then, is your pain gone? Well, no, no. So we ran the session stuff, and she goes, yes, I feel way better. I said, so just kind of take it easy. That's the one precaution. The other one, of course, is if you have electronics on you, pacemakers, insulin pumps, and stuff, the industry is going to tell you, and Mark is going to tell you, don't use it. If you're pregnant, don't use it.  Now, there's no known cases of anything bad happening there, but that's what the whole community's saying for now, so that's the official answer we give to everyone. The other one is if it makes you feel sick, and I'm talking less than 1% of the people, it usually means you have an infection. Most people go, your device sucks, it made me sick. Or in the clinical environment, all the doctors talk about these stories. They get up and take the machine off, and they run out and they go, I hate your machine, bye. The doctors yell. You got an impacted tooth or an infected toe or something. It's probably an infection. Half a third of the people will go to another doctor and get a blood test. The rest of them just go, your machine sucks. They blame it on the machine. But if that ever happens, you may have some kind of infection. The theory is the general inflammation. Your body's holding all that bad, nasty, toxic stuff in a location. The general inflammation is releasing it. Because it's releasing the general inflammation. Ashley, if I could, and again, I'm just rolling on some thoughts as they come, because if I can break the code on this recipe, because I only knew what Lyme disease was a year ago. I have so many people contact me about Lyme disease that it's the most awful thing in the world. Listen to these descriptions. I'd rather have anything but that. It's awful. So I did a bunch of research on that, and found another study that was done. One to four hertz will kill it. Okay. The bacteria. So that's down in the Delta range. So we're running a study now, but everyone, everyone in the study stopped using the device because it made them sick. So my theory is it's killing the bacteria, and I've now learned that little sneaky Lyme disease, when it dies, it spits poison. It's its defense mechanism. So we're trying to come up with the right combination to kill it, then run liver detox or kill it at a lower power level. So it's not so energetic.  Then, but I'm working on that. If we find the right recipe for that, that might be the home run because I'm going to cry as I sit there trying to describe it. I mean, the amount of people who have had Lyme for 12 years, and their doctors can't help them. They can't give them anything. It's awful. That's one of the fun parts.  So the good news, bad news is the study so far worked, and it didn't work. It looks like it killed it, and we didn't measure that in the blood or anything, I'm not sure, I don't know how to, but that was kind of weird that every one of them got sick. It was like, okay, turn the power level back, then try alternating with liver. We're still doing that. That study is still going on. So we're not there yet, but so there's things that are super exciting.  A guy contacted me, and he's in the whole medical world and stuff. He's a sales rep guy, knows a bunch of doctors, and he's like, let's find something where there is no solution at all. So I think I have never even heard it in my life. It's I-C-B-P-S (Interstitial Cystitis/Bladder Pain Syndrome), I think. It's your stomach hurts like crazy, and they don't know what to do for you. So we got on a Zoom call with a doctor, and he's like a typical doctor. Hey, I need a double-blind study. You need this, and he doesn't find it. I get all that. I'd love to do that a million times. Mark doesn't have that. Mark already spent all his retirement. I don't have money to do that. So it's, like he said, it was a three, two-hour call that I got beat up about all the things I need to go do for. So we hung up. My friend calls me back, goes, Mark, be patient because he is the leading doctor probably in the world for that element. If we find anything that works, you won't be able to make them fast enough because everyone will do whatever he says. An hour later, he called for another Zoom call, and he goes, you know what? Forget everything I just said because we got no choice. We have nothing to send them home with but OxyContin or painkillers. So we don't want to do that. Give me a couple dozen of them, let's go try it. That's where we're at right now.  Now, your doctors that are listening, okay, and I'm going to pick on doctors. You guys need to quit being so awful when it comes to research because you don't finish it. I have sleep studies, blood sugar studies, I have all kinds of studies. I have four different studies that have been going on for two years that should have taken 60 to 90 days, and I still don't have the data, even though they tell me they're getting good results. Give me the information so I can share it with people. That's why I'm getting the next study that we're going to do. I don't know if you want me to lead into this. It's going to be on blood sugar. I got lots of anecdotal data from people with their fasting blood sugar coming down. The A1C is coming down. Not 100% of people, but if I had to guess a number right now, it's 80% or higher. So I want to do a third-party clinical trial. Think I have the right doctor now because he actually finished the one I gave him. That one will be super exciting. You'll never hear me say the word diabetes ever except bleep it out because I'm just going to say blood sugar. Then the other one is that I've stayed away, because I'm not a doctor, and most of the protocols in The Vibe are from 8,000 practitioners in 35 years playing with recipes. Think of the frequency pairs as chords in a song, and the protocols are songs. So I've stuck with the ones that have been most proven, but the vagus nerve stimulation is doing so much good stuff, and I call them competitors, but most of the people in the PEMF world, most of them, not all of them, the mindset of me, it's just the same as me. It's like rising water lifts all ships. They're not really competitors. We share information, we talk, we help each other, so they're, hey like Mark, what do you think would be the biggest thing for vagus nerve? Go, just from what I know, it'd be brainwave beta, 16 hertz. So Omni PEMF, you can go look at their research, they just did, I think, probably the largest vagus nerve PEMF vagus nerve study in the world, 450 people, and it was 16 hertz and 32 hertz, but mostly 16. So I'm afraid to even say this because when I do, people go, I'll just wait and buy one of those but I'm designing right now a necklace pendant that's going to run a unique vagus nerve protocol. The reason it's a pendant, and it looks kind of cool jewelry, but it's in a human. The vagus nerve comes from the brain, goes down both sides and necks. There's a large cluster of the vagus nerve at the sternum under the chest. So that was my rationale as to now I had a watch that I was going to build too. As soon as I tell people that, they're, wow, I'll wait till the watch comes out. Well, it may not come out because of the whole FDA thing. Who knows? As of this moment, to my knowledge, the FDA doesn't control vagus nerve. It's not a condition. For people that are listening that don't know what it does, it's heart rate variability, lower blood pressure, lower pulse, better sleep, your whole mental system. Does all this magic. So there's some fun things that are coming soon, hopefully. If I can get any more money out of my life. Ashley James (0:53:18.011) I have over 200 clients now using phototherapy patches. I have two interviews, one with the creator of them and one with the practitioner that introduced me to them. I have my clients put the patches right below each ear on their vagus nerve. With that protocol, I use three patches. With that, I had one client who was agoraphobic, who hadn't made a new friend in 15 years, didn't want to leave their house, couldn't sleep at night, anxiety all day, and was also drinking alcohol to calm them down. Within one month of wearing the phototherapy patches on their vagal nerve, they went from that to leaving the house every day, joining exercise classes, making new friends for the first time in 15 years, and going to social events. They chose to stop drinking. I mean, it was pretty wild. I've repeated this with other clients. That was my sort of most severe example, but I've had with other clients where they feel calmer, happier, especially it's really good.  Any vagal work is really good for A type personality. If you're an A type personality because you'll run yourself ragged. You're competitive, you're driven, you're definitely not putting your sleep and your self-care first. But a lot of times you kind of disconnect from your body. So you don't pay attention. Your head is not paying attention to what's below your neck. Until you're passing out. So that, or anyone with addiction, and it can be small addictions to just food cravings or feeling they can't really control themselves. They just go into the kitchen at night, and they can't. Once the sun is set, they feel like they can't control themselves with their food intake. That tends to significantly decrease, but people who are actively choosing to overcome addictions, I've seen it really help. Then, of course, sleep, anxiety, feeling any kind of stressed out or any kind of trauma, I've seen wonderful results.  So I'm excited for your device, which the pendant sounds like it would just be for the vagus nerve, which don't wait till one day maybe a watch comes out, get The Vibe now. I can't believe it's only been three months that my family and I have been using this machine because we can't see a world where we're not using this machine, just the phototherapy patches, which I'm in love with. We use them for many different things because we integrate them with traditional Chinese medicine acupuncture protocols. But The Vibe has been such a huge game changer. I have a few more points I wanted to share. We have a friend's child who had a tummy pain. He couldn't play. We were at a playdate. He couldn't play. He had massive tummy pain. We put on the general inflammation on him. Then within minutes, his pain was gone, which was super cool. I know kids are weird, and that could happen anyway, but he was kind of down for the count. He was not playing today. I'm in pain. Within minutes, he was out of pain, which was really exciting. We went to visit our friend's cabin in the woods, in the middle of nowhere, hours away from civilization. A bunch of her family came over. There were two people with headaches. Now we were high up, high altitude, very low humidity. It's hot. I'm sure everyone's dehydrated, and two people had headaches. There's a handful of people that had back pain. So we went around and gave them The Vibe, and immediately, immediately, of course, we're handing them water. Drink this. Because that's another thing. The Vibe doesn't work as well if you're dehydrated because, as you said, it is using your own body and the water in your body to send the frequency throughout your whole body. But we turned off two headaches within minutes and chronic back pain for several of the people. One of them had surgery on their back and just chronic back pain turned off within minutes. So I love sharing this with friends. I did have a friend, she has MS, and at the moment I gave her the general inflammation when she was standing in the kitchen cooking, and she said, I have to take this off. I feel super out of it, super dizzy. I'm like, wow, I've actually never seen a negative experience. So I thought, that's really interesting. But then the second time I had her wear it, she got twice as much work done. We hang out, and she does stuff in the kitchen, and she's unpacking because she just moved. She's like, this feels great. So it's just interesting that when people feel a bit out of it, you should take it seriously and lie down or sit down, rest when you're using the machine, especially for the first few times because you might feel a bit out of it. But there's all my stories I wanted to make sure that I shared with you guys because there are so many applications, and when you get one and start using it, then you can't help but want to share it with those around you. Mark Fox (0:58:33.207) No, that's awesome. One thing to your friend. Last summer, it was odd. You said at the very beginning to call something about serendipity and stuff. Within 10 days, three different doctors, MDs, called me and said, your device is kicking butt for MS. I don't have an MS protocol. What are you using? Fibromyalgia? All three said yes. Use that logic of looking at the two lists, even though there isn't one that's exact. Use some common sense and say, is it nerve-related? Can I do this? That might work. So just, you can try things. Here's another great one. It makes me sad when a pet owner sends it back without talking to me. Dogs, cats, and horses will tell you when you're running the right protocol, and they will tell you when you run the wrong one. They will come over and lay on it. A dog will lay on it. A cat—this is a picture I got last week—had severe allergies, came over, and put her nose on the coils. So pets, animals, first of all, animals are smarter than us. As long as you're not hiding water from them or keeping it away from them, they'll hydrate exactly how much they need to be hydrated. If you put it on a dog and they don't like it, that's not what's wrong with them. You're running the wrong protocol. Try something else. It'll stop. Okay, so there's that too. But anyway, yes, I would definitely have her try the fibromyalgia. We didn't go into much about what PEMF is, and I want to back up. We should've done this a long time ago. Start at the beginning. Magnetic therapy has been documented since 350 BC. It is not new. Pulsed electromagnetic fields, about a hundred years ago—110 years ago—were found to be much, much, much more therapeutic. So that's how it got into the mainstream-ish. Not in the mainstream. It's not there yet. NASA started using it in the 1970s. One doctor, I love this quote, said to me—because I'm talking about all the Facebook haters, and I get slaughtered every day—”Scam artist, scumbag, Hitler,” all kinds of stuff constantly. I get death threats. PEMF is not on trial here, Mark. If it is, that person is uninformed or misinformed. People ask me, why don't you call on Shark Tank? One of them is because Mark Cuban hates this space, and he thinks everything's a scam. I just watched again last night where he brutally attacked a guy because he wasn't looking at the information. He doesn’t care. There are 35,000 papers written on PEMF. If you go to PubMed right now and type in PEMF, you'll find about 6,000. There are tons and tons and tons of studies out there. So it's not magic and new, and you're engulfed in it. You already said, Earth 14.1, so 7.83 hertz, 14.1, and 20.3. It's the Earth's heartbeat. You can see it on an app on your phone. It's at about 0.4 gauss. So you're engulfed in it. If PEMF at low levels was harmful, we'd all be dead, and so would every living thing because the Earth puts it out. Having said all that, I will explain it this way. This is my opinion. It's energy transfer. Forget PEMF for a minute because it could be transfer with electrical current, magnetic field, light, sound, and vibration—any of those. So if you think about it this way, nothing in the world happens without an energy exchange. You don't cook food, you don't breathe air, you don't oxygenate your blood, you don't fall down and hurt your knee. So it's always an energy exchange. So if you look at it just that way, putting energy into the body, there's two sides to this. When I argue with doctors and they go, prove the mechanism of action, I tell them, dude, you don't know how aspirin works. You don't. If you think you know how aspirin works, I'll win that argument. I'll fight you to the death with a sword because you do not know how it works. You might have a theory, but you have not proven it. Plus, nobody knows how a slice of pizza is heated in a microwave oven either, but I won't go down that rabbit hole. Okay, so you don't understand it completely, but relief happens for a reason. My number one goal starting this was to make sure you don't hurt anybody. So I've studied that to death, okay? Number two is I don't want to sell voodoo. That's why I'm trying to do all these studies. The Vibe actually—here's the secret. It's an MP3 player without a speaker. So all the protocols are MP3s. I use a music synthesizer to make the protocols. Yes, they're all songs. It has a coil in there instead of a speaker. So it's driving the sound through the speaker, but there's no speaker. It puts out a magnetic field, okay? I went full circle three times after catching it on fire with engineers to figure out—that's really the smart way to do it. MIT has a study showing that flickering light at 40 Hertz is reversing Alzheimer's or at least the plaque in the brain. I told them, I go, dude, it's not just 40 Hertz. That's part of it. You need 40, you need 116. I gave them the whole Alzheimer's protocol, and they said no. So he goes, “What frequencies do you use?” I go, “One to a thousand Hertz.” He goes, “Well, you can't see anything over 60 Hertz.” I'm like, “Right, but you didn't tape the rat's eyes open, and the energy still got inside of them.” He's like, “Yes, we don't know how that happened.” I was telling that story to a good friend of mine, Dr. Lori Barge. She's one of the top pediatric radiologists in the country. She goes, “Yes, Mark. In 2001, we discovered that your skin has cones just like your eye that can absorb light.” So I went. Back to the MIT guy, and I got to school with a PhD and a double professor at MIT. Dude, he goes, that isn't true. So I sent him all the documentation. Yes, it does. So it can be light. It can be sound. It can be a vibration. I got my feet on an earthy mat right now that I want to make a device someday that's running it through my feet. Here's my end dream. If anyone that works at Philips, the light bulb company, will call me, we'll do it. So picture what I just told you—an MP3 player with a coil. Most phones and every new phone has a chi coil in it to charge it. I want to be able to write an app to turn your phone into the device. Instead of charging your phone, shove the signal the other way. But right now, I don't have that yet. Then the lights. So Philips was going to say, the smart bulbs that you have would have this already if, and here's the dream, Ashley—to go run dementia in the living room. It's going to run through the—excuse me, you're to talk to Alexa. Okay. “Hey, Alexa, run dementia in the living room,” and it's going to run through the lights, and nobody even knows they're getting the therapy. The reason I don't have that today or last year is because when you turn a light switch on, the light switch doesn't come on. It waits about 100 milliseconds and has a ramp so that it doesn't shock your eyes. But I need to be able to turn it on and off a thousand times a second. If somebody at Philips tells me how to get around that stupid bridge in software to flicker the light, I could take whatever it is—$50 billion worth of smart bulbs in the world—and turn them into therapeutic devices immediately. That'd be a dream. Ashley James (1:06:13.751) So interesting that that is a dream. Immediately, my thought goes to, well, are there frequencies that are harmful? Are there known frequencies that are harmful? Could they be using the smart bulbs and using the cell phones to hurt us? Just like, you could turn it into a healing device. Could you turn it into a hurt or hurting device? Mark Fox (1:06:32.085) Of course, and it's every day we get this discussion. The amount of people that are so scared about EMF. Well, It's PEMF. Yes, it's electromagnetic fields, but they're in the light spectrum. It's light. Now, the analogy that I use is when you go to the dentist and they put a lead curtain on you. Do an X-ray that's 10 to the 12th, the 13th power frequency. Billions and billions and billions and billions of Hertz. Your cell phone is a million Hertz. Your TV is 100,000 Hertz. The Vibe device is between one and a thousand Hertz. So it's actually zero on a logarithmic scale. You can't even read it. That's where the vast, vast majority of PEMF devices are. They're at that very low end. So I get asked every day from a customer, how much EMF does your device put out? It is EMF. It's the light spectrum. It's just very, very low frequency. So the analogy I use is to think of a surfer waiting for a wave. How many waves combine a second? That's frequency. How tall is a wave? That's energy level or amplitude. You multiply those two together. So if a one-foot wave comes every hour, there's not a lot of energy. If you have 20 tsunamis per second, that's a lot of energy. Cell phones and wifi routers and stuff put all that out. So all your listeners that have EMF blockers, I get calls every day, what is it going to work with my EMF blocker, my voodoo doll, my incense, and I don't know, my amorous crystal. I haven't tested all that, but I don't believe in EMF blockers unless it's something around your cell phone because it's light and it's bouncing around the room. It's hard to capture that, but they're going to get into scalar frequencies and all kinds of stuff that I don't know enough about to know if they're real. Anyway, so yes, it puts out EMF. It's in the magnetic field range. But again, go back to earth. You're living in it right now. You're in earth's heartbeat. There's say a half a gauss and The Vibe is going to be nine gauss max. An MRI, just to put in perspective, is 40,000 gauss, and all the fear of people dying in MRIs. To my knowledge, nobody's ever died from an MRI except one person. It's because a metal tank, I think it was an oxygen tank, flew across the room and hit her because it wasn't tied down. So that whole thing I said earlier about, you use it with a pacemaker? The official answer from Mark is no, no, no, no. However, doctors finally figured out, well, you got a pacemaker and you're going to die if we don't look inside of you with an MRI. Let's take a chance for a decade. For a decade, they had technicians stand there. To my knowledge, no pacemaker stopped working even at 50,000 gauss. Now I told people that they're going to use it, but nope. The official word is don't. I don't want to end on that negative stuff. Ashley James (1:09:26.546) No, of course not. No, we've got a lot more to cover here. Now you say PEMF, you're not saying P-E-M-F. Is that the same? Are these two things interchangeable, or are they different? Mark Fox (1:09:42.220) I am saying P-E-M-F, I'm just saying it too fast because I talk quickly. Ashley James (1:09:45.627) Okay, just checking. So PEMF, something I was introduced to a few years ago, went into this naturopathic office, lying down on a big mat. They put another big mat on me and they turn it up super high, and it almost hurts. They're telling me if it hurts, they'll turn it down one notch. It goes zap, zap, zap. My muscles jump, and they're saying the bigger, the better. We got to really crank this up. I honestly did not feel wonderful. I didn't feel worse. I kind of was just maybe a little bit exhausted because my muscles were jumping for an hour. But I didn't notice anything great. I'm like, wow, people swear by this stuff, and I didn't really love my experience. I went about five or six times just to see if maybe I'd feel something different. Didn't love it. This was a whole clinic, and that's all they do.  Then I have a friend who bought one. She spent $40,000, and she swears by it. She said it was life-changing for her. A giant mat she has to sit on. I have another friend who got a $10,000 one, and she says it has been helpful, not life-changing. I have a third friend who bought a used one. She likes it gives her more energy. Then I saw your device, and I'm thinking, yes, yes, please. This little tiny thing, the size of an MP3 player, that doesn't zap me, but I'm getting, as I shared earlier, tremendous results from this. I didn't ever really feel I got anything from the big expensive, $50,000-plus clinical PEMF machines. I also have been on a Beamer about 10 times. My friend has a Beamer, and I felt some good stuff from that. But I've heard you talk about how these giant mats that are thousands of dollars are sort of outdated. It's kind of older technology, and the whole PEMF world didn't really evolve. I'd love to talk about that in contrast to your pocket device. It's almost like homeopathy. It's so gentle, and yet I'm getting way better results with it. Mark Fox (1:11:57.623) So I get asked this quite often. How is it compared to a Beamer mat? Okay, you ready? And they go, huh? No, you ready? Yes, okay. Well, it's 25 times less expensive. It's one piece instead of eight pieces. It fits in your pocket. You can take it on an airplane, drive with it. It's super lightweight, and it's 152 times smaller. Just go through that whole pitch.  Now, Beamer mat was still great. What you were saying earlier about muscle contractions, and there's a medical word that I can't even remember right now, that you don't need to do that to get the therapy. It's the example I use because most people are going to be familiar with the TENS unit, which is electrical current, not a magnetic field. You can't do apples and oranges on an energy level. But for all the scientists out there, they're going to beat me up. This is close to the truth. A TENS unit is about a thousand times more energy than The Vibe. So it's very, very, very low energy. If you go to PubMed and look at the majority of studies, they're going to be at very low levels, very low frequencies, and very low energy. In the horse world, this is the bet gamble war I have going on right now with the horse people because they are the ones who are going to know what PEMF is more than anyone because they all know what a MagnaWave is. So MagnaWave is a big gigantic hoop that makes a horse's muscle flex. My theory is it's too much. You don't need that. So far, all the ones we've sold to horse owners, I think I've had one return, seriously. So it's working. I've made the argument, as you guys know, you own horses, they're more energy-sensitive than humans. Bigger is not better. Not going to mention his name because he'll get mad at me, the one of the two guys that's selling the big machines was on a Zoom call conference with me, and he's going on, bigger is better, bigger, and the logic he's using from a physics point of view makes sense.  The magnetic field itself doesn't travel that far. So how are you going to go through a whole knee? Well, you got to have a ton of energy. Yes, unless it's resonating, like I said, with the water in the body, magnetite, and electrical conductivity. So I got him on a Zoom call, Ashley, and I go, there's a study in this book right here that says pico-level gauss. Ten to the minus ninth power. Try to imagine how small, a couple of billion billion times less energy than The Vibe, and was still in the double-blind study, therapeutic. I go, you know what the guy's name is, and I hold up the book, and it's him because he wrote it. He hasn't talked to me again since then. I guess I'm not getting a Christmas card from him. Because I got tired of him saying bigger is better, bigger is better. You published this. Bigger isn't necessarily better. So it's working. There's actually some studies that show if it's too much energy, we're going to go into a deep dive, and people are going to call me on it. I don't know what I'm talking about because I can't prove it, and I can't. But there's some data that shows this. The energy is probably—let me backup a little bit. Everything happening in your cells, most of its happening at the membrane, at the surface. It's letting bad stuff out and good stuff coming in. So all the action is going on, most of the action is going on at the cell membrane. If you have too much energy, the energy goes straight through the cell. What you want it to do is kind of bounce around through the interstitial fluid and stuff between the cells, and it's, quote, massaging potentially the cell membrane. Lower may be better just for that reason, so that is doing that. Now, when people say, how does it really work? This is the theory. It is known that your cells have an electrical charge, a car battery. When it gets low, you get sick. Every one of your listeners knows that, I'm sure. So it recharges your cells' batteries, and that's been proven. ATP is adenosine triphosphate. It's the number one fuel that your cells use for food. I simplified that because there are a couple of steps in there, but it increases ATP up to 500%. So the simple answer is, recharge your cells batteries, and it gives your cells more food so your body can do what it does best, heal itself. Now, when you get into arguments about prove it, prove it, prove it, this mechanism of action stuff that every doctor beats me up on, that's where we're at. That's what the theory is. It's a lot of that's hard to prove, but go back to relief before reason. I don't care. You know what? Actually, I get, of course, this argument. That's all placebo. You idiot. I'm, hmm, probably not all of it, but there's some there. But what? This is true. I'm not making this up. When somebody has a gun in their mouth, they want to commit suicide, now they don't. I could care less if it's 100% placebo. I've got multiple cases of that. Ashley James (1:16:59.497) It is increasing the quality of life. I don't know. I've never experienced a placebo. To be honest, I have maybe a nocebo effect. You can believe something won't work so much that you can negate its effects. But I put this device on plenty of people who had no idea what I was doing. I was like, here, try this. You have this. Try this. I just put this on them, not explaining it. Then they like, my headache is gone, my back pain is gone, my PMS is gone. Little kids going, my tummy doesn't hurt anymore. My son is going, I immediately feel I can sleep. I put it on him without really the first time three months ago, without really explaining, here, let's just put this on you. We're going to bed. It's, boom, falls asleep within minutes as opposed to almost an hour trying to wind down.  Mark Fox (1:17:50.766) The nocebo thing, just to comment, and I'm going to offend every one of your listeners that has an AOL email address. If you send me 15 emails, skeptical as hell, before you ever buy one, and you have an AOL address, just don't buy it, because you're going to try it once, get mad, and send it back, because you've already made up your mind it can't work. Ashley James (1:18:09.758) Interesting that you saw that there's a correlation between those who still have an AOL address and their rigidity. I have a Yahoo address. Well, I'm also very skeptical of a lot of things, but there's something about this. God nudged me and said, just really keep an open mind, give this a try. I've been so grateful because it was an answer to my prayers. I feel I still haven't used it to its full potential. My husband has really gone through and played with every single, and now you're bringing up more programs, more ideas for programs. I'm getting excited as to other things I could use it for. That idea that it increases cellular energy production, that it's, what it's doing is it's supporting the body's ability to come back into balance, supporting the body's ability to heal itself. The body is so intelligent. We have to just acknowledge. We have this God-given ability to heal ourselves, that we grew from a single cell into 37.2 trillion cells that work in harmony together. Even though we drink Diet Coke and eat just absolute fried garbage as a society, we're eating mostly processed food. If you look around, the average person hardly gets a whole food, a whole just single-ingredient healthy food, that they're mostly eating just from packages and from factories and not straight from the farm. This is so sad that we're poisoning ourselves. Plus, our food, air, water, and soil have been poisoned with over 80,000 man-made chemicals that have been created in the last 40 years. We're just starting to now find out how bad plastic is. Plastic touches our food every day. No matter how healthy you try to be, Plastic is everywhere, and these obesogens, these endocrine-disrupting chemicals. That's just one thing. Then we've got off-gassing. Everything off-gases. Everything's trying to kill you. Paint is off-gassing, and your mattress is off-gassing, and your carpet and your furniture off-gases for 25 years. The quality of your air inside your home is 10 times worse than downtown, whatever city you live in. It's really crazy how our body is constantly trying to come back into balance, and we are just challenging it so heavily.  Unfortunately, the large majority of us have been brainwashed to believe that the medical doctor, the MD, is the only doctor to see and that allopathic drug-based medicine is the only medicine worth its weight in salt. So you wait to get sick and then go to the MD, and the MD, they're great at some emergency medicine. They really shine with emergency medicine. They completely suck at chronic disease. They fail us every single time because the body doesn't have a drug deficiency. The body is out of balance because honestly, our humanity's stupidity, really. I take responsibility for that too. I've done stupid things to my body in the past, and I'm waking up for it now. We're all waking up to realize that what we need to do is support the body's ability to heal itself. What I love about The Vibe is that it's doing that. I had a doctor on the show a few years ago, amazing man. He was dying in the hospital. He's a doctor himself, dying in the hospital. They said, go home and make sure you put your affairs in order. You're going to be dead in five days. He went home, and he's like, wait, I don't want to die. I'm not going to just give up. So he thought to himself, well, how does the liver work? How do cells work? He had this great analogy that every cell is a house. A house needs to have groceries come in and garbage come out. He realized that inflammation is kind of a flood. Unfortunately, we have thoughts in our mind of recent floods in our nation and in other countries, and we can see people standing on the roofs. Well, garbage isn't getting out, and in fact, it's just flooding in, and the groceries aren't getting in. Inflammation is a flood around the cells that are not letting these cellular processes happen optimally. If we could just take everyone and get their houses inside their body, the 37.2 trillion houses inside their body, get them so that the groceries can come in and the garbage can come out in a healthy way, and intake healthy groceries, stop eating crap, hydrate, and do what you can to get out of stress mode. That stress mode stops healing processes because it diverts all energy to immediate running away from the bear, immediate survival. We end up actually epigenetically changing how the body functions for survival. But if you're in 24-hour survival mode, this is why The Vibe is so great. If we could just get people out of that, they're stuck in that survival mode. They're stuck in stress mode. If we can use The Vibe, get them out of that and increase ATP, decrease inflammation, now your cells have a chance to be healthy. That doctor ended up healing himself, surviving. I think he lived into his 80s and wrote many books on healing. That simple analogy just helps so many people go, my job is to get the groceries in, and healthy groceries in the cell. Every bite that you put in your mouth, go, are these the groceries I want to give all my cells? Is that Big Mac really going to build a healthy body? But we've disconnected our brain from the responsibility of what goes in our mouth because we're looking for fun.  That is a large part due to the tobacco industry. Not to go down a huge rabbit hole, but when they saw their profits declining, they went into the food industry. That's one of the large reasons why food became so highly addictive and highly processed. You're just eating cigarettes. Basically, you're eating garbage that is highly addictive. So if we can get back to whole food, a whole food diet where it's single-ingredient foods that you can recognize on your plate, that's the food your body wants. Then do things like The Vibe so we can decrease that inflammation, get the garbage out of the cells, help the cells create more cellular energy. I'm so excited for this technology, and it's just in its infancy. What you're doing, it's so exciting. I love the prospect of turning cell phones and light bulbs, just daily devices into healing, bringing that healing frequency in.  I've read a book, have you heard of the book The Cancer Cure That Worked? This was 16 years ago I read this book, maybe a little bit longer than that. It was such a small book, you can sit down and read it in one sitting. It's about Royal Rife, the Rife machine, the creation of the Rife machine. So I looked deeper into the Rife system and this is over a hundred years ago, or right around a hundred years ago. He was working with frequencies and often it was cancer, but he got some amazing results. If anyone knows anything about the Rife machine and the history of it, the government raided his lab and destroyed everything. That's really sad because he apparently had some great success with illnesses like cancer. Of course, we want to talk about that. I know you're not treating, curing, diagnosing anything. We're supporting the body's ability to heal itself. We're supporting the structure and function of the body. This looks like it really helps with immune function. You're probably going to say, don't treat cancer, but I think I should let you say that. Mark Fox (1:26:14.359) We don't treat cancer. Let's say that crystal clear. Because we get asked every day, can it help with cancer? When they say can it help, the answer is yes. The side effects of depression, insomnia, anxiety, are in remission. Is it coming back? Then of course, everyone in your family members, your friends, and stuff have the same side issue. It can help with that, but it can't kill the cancer cell directly. You need more energy, a lot higher energy. So things like a Rife machine, probably two to three times a day I get asked, I'd say it's a Rife machine and Spooky 2 is the most affordable one that's out there. I don't have any affiliation with them, but I send people there all the time. It uses lower frequencies too, but to kill an actual cancer cell, as best we understand, it's got to resonate higher. So you got to have a higher frequency. Ashley James (1:27:05.404) Right. Directly for cancer cells. What I loved about Rife, it's everything is the frequency. Everything is energy. We often think we're solid. We're not. I loved getting into the understanding of quantum physics. Even just understanding physics and understanding chemistry that we are these vibrating molecules and that particles act as both a wave. So that frequency, a particle is frequency, but at the same time, it acts as it can shift and act as a physical particle. It changes based on observation, which is just mind-blowing, that concept that our reality comes together based on observation, but it is a potential energy until observed and then becomes this physical matter. If you imagine a wave just going up and down, that sine wave. That concept that the opposite, the cosine, that opposite would nullify it. That's how noise-canceling headphones work. But if we took that, and this is Royal Rife's, I mean, this is my very rudimentary understanding about his technology. I wish him and Nikola Tesla got together. Can you imagine what would have happened if the two of them had gotten together? They would have probably created The Vibe back then. So we've got these two waves that cancel each other out, that's noise-canceling headphones, but then take the actual wave, the frequency of that, for example, cancer cell. Then the Rife machine was, let's figure out what that wave is and then do the exact opposite to cancel it out. He'd have cancer cells explode. He did that with, my understanding is, he did that with bacteria as well. Super interesting that frequencies, that different frequencies, that different oscillations, different hertz have these really positive effects. The fact that your Vibe is so low frequency, it has, for me, I observe it a lot like homeopathy. I've had tremendous healing experiences with homeopathy when you have the right homeopathic, because homeopathy is not molecular medicine. You talked about aspirin, that's molecular medicine. Although everything has frequency, so we can't rule that out. But homeopathy is purely, there's no molecule of the medicine. It's purely energetic. It's frequency medicine. With homeopathy though, if you use the wrong one, you don't really get any effects. A lot of people poo-poo homeopathy because they didn't use the right frequency, whereas with The Vibe, you talk about no matter which frequency you're using, you're getting a positive benefit and that's probably because of the ATP increase. Can you talk a little bit about that, about why even if you got the program wrong, they could still have a positive effect? Mark Fox (1:30:10.758) Yes, I think it's just in a couple of people in the PEMF world, specifically when I was mentioning earlier, he'll make an argument that the frequency doesn't even matter, but nobody agrees with him. He might be partially right that as long as energy is getting there, it's doing something. But I want to go back to what you're talking about because what I call it is RFT, Resonance Frequency Therapy. Everything has a natural frequency, and everyone that's old enough will remember Memorex. Is it live or Memorex? Hit the resonant frequency of the glass, and it shatters. Why, when you hit your garage door opener, does it open your garage and not the neighbor's or your car key or a million other things? Why, when you turn the radio to 102.3 FM, do you not hear 103.4? It's because your antenna is resonating with the other antenna. Everything has a natural frequency. I mentioned microwaves and pizza earlier. The theory on how a microwave works is the rotational energy, the natural resonant frequency of water. I forget the exact frequency, but what it's doing is the water molecule is spinning on its own axis. So it causes friction to heat up the pizza. Now everyone's got a microwave oven and heated pizza, but nobody has ever videotaped or taken a photo of a spinning water molecule. So it's still just a theory, not a proof. Yes, there's a lot of that, and spooky distance and all those things are just some crazy physics like you said, as waves and particles at the same time. My understanding of what the Rife machine was doing is getting the right frequency, and the ones I know are millions of Hertz so that it shatters the shell. You can think about it. We have that with ultrasound now. We're breaking up kidney stones and stuff. It's the same thing. You're breaking up kidney stones with a frequency and an energy. This is going on a little bit of a tangent, but here's kind of the reaction I have a lot of times when we get into the “it's magic” type thing. So DNA sequencing, antibiotics, anesthesia. I can go down the list of the 100 biggest scams in the world that were impossible until they're not, because now they're all common stuff we use. But if you actually understood the magic behind it, this PEMF device and The Vibe are a million times more simple. I use the MRI as an example. There are millions of them done every year. It's magnetic resonance imaging. The Vibe is magnetic resonance therapy. I'm going to give your listeners just a short version. They can Google themselves how an MRI machine works. This is the most magic ever. So the protons in your body all have a North pole and a South pole like the Earth, and they're all random. There's no order to them. You get in an MRI machine, it hits you with 50,000 gauss, and all of your protons line up like a laser. They create their own magnetic field. So your body is now emitting a magnetic field. That's not even the magic yet. Then you take radio waves. I mentioned that earlier—102.3 FM, AM. It's actually in that spectrum, AM and FM radio. If you want to look at the liver, you turn it to one frequency. If you want to look at blood, you turn it to another one. So you hit the person with that radio frequency while the magnetic field's going, while the body is in laser harmony. Then you turn everything off. When your body emits all of that energy, you capture it in a Fourier transform imaging system. That's how you get an MRI picture. Ashley James (1:33:46.494) It is so wild that it flips the polarity of everything in your body, then it flips back, and then it captures an image. It is so freaking wild. How would they figure that out? They had to play around with so many things. Mark Fox (1:34:06.430) I think it had to be 5,000 people making mistakes at the same time because the magic part too is you turn the radio thing, you turn the frequency different to look at the liver versus the blood versus the heart or different frequencies for different areas of the heart or depth of the heart. Yes, that is millions of times more magic than an MP3 player that's simulating, in many senses, the earth's heartbeat. When I get called liar, liar, pants on fire—that's the name of the article I wrote—Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire. I just listed the top 100 medical technical discoveries in the last hundred years, and they're all magic. None of them should work. None. The MRI is the one that just attracts me the most. I'm like, really? There's one other story real quick. Carrie Mollis, who invented polarized chain reaction, won the Nobel Prize. He's at a wizard academy. It's a place where I'm actually going next week. I teach creative thinking there and stuff. But anyway, him and Roy Williams, who owns the academy, after he won PCR or did PCR, he was talking about how he could attach—we'll get into the chemistry part—but he's, again, a chemist, not a biologist. He could attach basically any ailment, anthrax, to a certain chemical and put it in a pill. You take the pill every day. If you don't get anthrax, you just urinate it out, and nothing bad happens. But if you do, what it's doing is taking the T cells in your body, attaching it, and giving it a signature. Let's use COVID because it's more relevant. The COVID virus, you could attach a signal to the atom or to the molecule. If you see COVID, get all the T cells rounded up and let's go kick its butt. So Roy goes, is this stuff for real? He goes, yes, I think it'd work. Roy goes, why don't you do it? He goes, cause you got to have money and lab stuff. Roy goes, well, how much does it cost? So anyway, they came to a number, and Roy goes, I'll give you the money. Go do it. He goes, is that legal? You just guess, work in government, and buy. So they researched it, and I'm not making this up. You can go Google it on TED. He got 23 times better results than he expected. But here's what happened. We're talking about the government coming in. A Navy Admiral showed up and said, show me what you're doing. He showed him what he's doing. He goes, you don't own that no more. You work for the government. They gave my friend his money back, and he's like, wait a minute. I invested in this. They go, we don't care. Tthat one, you kind of get a little bit. If you can take a pill and not have a disease kill you and urinate it out, you don't want the enemy to have that pill. So you can kind of see why the military gets involved. That's my understanding. That's a true story. I wasn't there for the whole conversation, but I've heard it multiple times. Ashley James (1:36:58.245) I just pray for protection over you and your work and Vibe that you just, you're invisible to these agencies while you continue to do the good work that you do. That’s my prayer over you. Mark Fox (1:37:14.471) Thank you. Two years ago, I was doing a keynote presentation before The Vibe even existed. I was just getting ready to come out with it. Somebody goes, well, how are you going to measure success? I go, when Pfizer assassinates me. I was kinda half joking. I was like, if I could actually put a dent in the drug companies, which I'm nowhere close to but that was my joke. Ashley James (1:37:35.549) I do have someone using The Vibe that is now off all their medication. I mean, you got one person, you have one success for sure. Mark Fox (1:37:48.185) I got more than one success, but not being the doctor, you tell them that Mark said, don't get off your medication until you talk to your doctor. Ashley James (1:37:55.521) Their doctor took them off all their medication after they asked to be taken off all their medication and that they're 100% healthy and they don't need to be on it. It's just, it's very exciting that something can help mental, emotional health as much as physical health. It's so affordable, and it's so easy to use. It's so easy to use. It's not a bunch of things you have to put in your mouth and swallow and remember. It's just, it's fun. It's fun. It's easy to use. Mark Fox (1:38:23.197) Think about putting things in your mouth though. Here's an example. So a good friend of mine, whose name is Bert, won't say his last name. He's type two diabetic, big guy. So his blood sugar immediately went down. He lost some weight, and then not a lot. Then he kind of gained a couple more pounds. I’m like, Dude, there's no way you're not losing more weight. He's , and we're on a Zoom call, and he's got the smirk on his face. What? Tell me. Well, now my blood sugar is low. I started eating donuts again. Bert—okay. So be careful of that because that's all gone now. Now I can start doing bad stuff again. Stay on the good path. Ashley James (1:39:03.962) Let's talk a bit about those studies that you have completed. The PTSD study with tremendous success. That's what got me super excited about it just to try it for the first time. But now you have a few studies out there. They haven't finished, but there's some initial feedback. Can you share about that? Mark Fox (1:39:24.601) Yes, on the PTSD study, just to be clear, it's still ongoing forever. When somebody buys a Vibe, you can sign up for the study. I'm just not giving the devices away for free anymore. I just can't afford it. But you can do the pre and post study, and I'll give you a free report card that shows you before and after stuff. I have sleep studies, some blood sugar studies, some other studies where I'd given up on those doctors, and I'm rebooting and starting with this new doctor who laughed at this too. He's an hour and a half away from me, so I can drive over and choke him to death if I don't get my data. He's over in Windermere, and I'm in Cocoa Beach, Florida. No, I know where you live. I can get over there. He seems like the right guy because he's excited. He's excited about the technology and what it's doing. That's his kind of expertise, running third-party studies. Blood sugar is the next one that I'm going to do. I got a hurricane tomorrow, and then I'm going to teach a class next week. The week after, we're going to meet and go through it. He's also got a lab that can do a bunch of things. That's one study—blood sugar—because everyone in the world is pre-diabetic, or it seems like it. Pre-diabetes. So that's a huge one. I've got lots and lots and lots of data where it's helping people. Blood sugar is coming down, the A1C is coming down, but back to the Facebook haters and getting assassinated and everyone beating me up, I don't want to really promote it much until I got another published document that a third party did the research on so I can stand behind it, okay? That's my goal with that. The next one's going to be the vagus nerve. The reason I hired this doctor, I'll tell you, is because, so blood pressure, heart rate variability, and sleep. That's how you measure whether the vagus nerve is getting better. He goes, yes. Which heart rate variability are you talking about? The HRV one. No, there's a whole bunch of them. You got to know which one to measure. He shows me all this instrumentation stuff that he has. So he's the right guy to help with that study. He goes, you have to have this device, and you need this. He showed me all his scatter plots, and he's got all the software and the IRBs. He's got people lined up. He knows how to go get the volunteers. Ashley James (01:40:27.407) Nice. For listeners that don't know what heart rate variability is, go to my website, learntruehealth.com, type in heart rate variability, listen to my interview. I actually have a few interviews, one with Forrest Knutson, where we dive into heart rate variability. It's fascinating. It was discovered by accident. My understanding is it was discovered by accident because of this super healthy Russian cosmonaut, they monitor them 24—I didn't even know this—for 24 hours a day when they're up in the space station. They monitor their health and their health metrics. He was sleeping, and they thought he was having a cardiac event because the variability is the heart rate difference between when you're taking an inhale and an exhale. The healthier you are mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, energetically, the whole bit, the healthier you are, you have a stronger variable between the heart rate when you inhale and the heart rate when you exhale. This is such an interesting metric that they've discovered that now life insurance companies are considering or playing around with using it as a metric to see if they'll measure your heart rate variability to see if you're going to die soon or not. They're considering using it to determine whether they should sell you life insurance. Mark Fox (1:43:07.089) I didn't know much about it a couple of years ago, and it's not intuitive. When you hear heart rate, a lot of people think of pulse. It's not. It's the variability, the time distance between the two. So the more variability you have in heart rate variability, the better, the more healthy you are. So I've learned a couple of things. Not being a doctor too, I've made mistakes. Just so everyone is clear, this is, I mentioned horses, but this is for people and pets. So dogs, cats, horses, and people. I ran a huge study with, I think it's the largest no-kill dog shelter in the United States, for sure. There's 850 dogs that's south of me. I made the mistake, so my logic was they all got PTSD because they're in jail. They didn't do anything wrong, and they're behind bars. They're in jail. So I made an assumption, wrongly, that cortisol levels would be really high, and if the PTSD helped them, then the cortisol would come down. Cortisol does not correlate to PTSD. Actually, people that have PTSD have very low cortisol to start with, so that is not the right metric. So Mark wasted a couple of months, some more of my wife's money, running a big study that I measured the wrong thing. So one reason to have this doctor since he said which heart rate variability, know what you're doing, is he started showing me four different kinds or something, different charts. I'm, hmm. Yes, I'll come over to your place. We'll talk about it. Ashley James (1:44:30.165) I  love it. Now you can take The Vibe. I mean, I like wearing it, but I've used it a few times on my water, and I drink filtered, pure filtered water, and have all the crap removed. I structure my water with an Analemma. Have two interviews about the Analemma and using structured water. Then I tried The Vibe with the love frequency and there was another. I just remember the love frequency. The water tastes different. It feels different in my mouth. It tastes different. Then, of course, I was with a bunch of friends at the time, so we were passing the water around, going, compare this water to this water and just tell me what you think. It's different. So you say that we can use The Vibe to actually change or enhance the healing property of that water or a body cream. Can we talk a bit about that? Mark Fox (1:45:29.637) Yes, we can. So the theory, anecdotal data is that you can infuse the frequencies in the water for up to six to eight hours and just drink the water, or you can put it in cream for up to 30 days and then just rub the cream on you. Now, I told you number one is I don't want to hurt anyone. Number two is I don't want to sell voodoo. So the voodoo part, I'm already selling voodoo with The Vibe, so I don't market the cream. I sell quite a bit of cream. But I don't really push the water infusion and the cream just because I'm still skeptical. I don't have hard data for that or even something close to it. I've got people tell me, well, how do I know it? I say, how do I know it keeps the back pain in the cream for 30 days? Well, because after 30 days or so, it doesn't seem to work anymore. Okay, that's not really scientific enough.  I love homeopathic guys. Anton, you probably know him in Canada. He has Infopathy. Great guy. In fact, he's the one that gave me the music synthesizer to make these things. He's one of the good guys. I don't have enough data on it to feel good about pushing it, but I do sell a lot of cream, and I get good feedback. I'm not a big research company. I'm literally spending my and my wife's retirement on this, so I got to be careful which research things I spend money on. I just haven't got to one testing cream, and I'm not quite sure how to do it except double-blind studies and things like that with cream. The weird part is, in this whole health medical industry, the gold standard on before and after is still an analog visual scale. I walked in at eight and I left as a two. Then we go do all this insane statistics and stuff to prove whether it worked off what somebody self-reported. So the more biomarkers and things you can get that are affordable. That's why the one I'm holding in my hand right now is a Fitbit 3. I don't get a kickback or anything from them. But the reason I like them, they're 79 bucks, and it's got sleep, heart rate variability. Those alone and blood pressure stuff, those alone, that one doesn't do blood pressure, but if you're getting better sleep and your heart rate variability goes up, that's probably two of the best indicators of whatever ailment, condition, thing that you were trying to fix is probably better. So yes, just the cream in the water. That's about all I do with it. I've got a Terahertz light that a friend gave me, and I put it in my water. I don't know if it's helping me yet or not or better, but I don't have any scientific data on it.  Ashley James (1:48:18.651) I like it. You're not a snake oil salesman. You're trying to sell it. You're just, here's the data. I'm going to be skeptical about it.  But I took the machine I've seen online and I put it up against my jar of water. I drink from a mason jar. I noticed a difference. I ran the whole program and we shared the water. We all noticed a difference. It was interesting. I prefer to wear it, but I can see that there's times when you'd want to do that to your water or do that to cream, let's say, you said, pain or eczema or some kind of dermatitis or maybe small children. Instead of having them wear the device, because it does come with the lanyard. We wear it with the lanyard, but you can also just put it in your pocket, which I thought was fascinating. Mark Fox (1:49:06.263) About a year ago, I gave up telling women to quit putting it in their bra. Because after 20 of them dropped it in the toilet, they called me to go, so what happens when you drop it in the toilet? Go, or what happens when it gets wet? I go, you dropped it in the toilet. What are you, a psychic? No, that's the only way it can get wet. So you're going to laugh at this, but on the coils, you have the device in your back. The new version, shipped three days ago, there's a water barrier on the inside of those vent holes so it can breathe air but water can't get through for that reason. Ashley James (1:49:40.871) Oh my gosh. Amazing. So you’ve recently updated it. I love it.  Mark Fox (1:49:45.236) Yes, trying to make it toilet-proof, and we changed some chips. People are rough on these things. There's dirty electricity in their houses, and we have all kinds of voltage protection on it. Ashley, here’s the number one complaint from people. Mine's broken. I need a new one. What's it doing? There's no power level coming out anymore. My wife said that is the dumbest invention you ever came up with. It's a little plastic tube with a magnet in it. So you can put it on there and a magnet jumps around. You can see it and hear it. My wife goes, nobody's going to want that. I go, that is the best little tester in the world. So when they put that on there and go, mine quit. I need a new one now. Immediately. I've only had it a month. I go, I am 100% positive you turned the power level down. I did not. Yes, you did. I did not. Send me a picture. I did not. Send me a picture. Nevermind. Ashley James (1:50:33.342) My power level's at 10. I'm not turning that thing down. But it's cool that you can adjust it for someone who's more sensitive. Maybe I should have done that with my friend with MS who started feeling weird. Maybe I should have turned the power level down for them. Mark Fox (1:50:47.822) Well, Gabby, who's VP of operations, so the company's me and Gabby, there's two of us, and I have a lot of gig people that help me too. Gabby's, why don't you just design it so it doesn't have a power level? Mike, because what you just said, it's three to five percent of the people who can't handle it. They can't handle a ten. They can't handle eight, five to nine gauss. So that's why the power is still on there. Ashley James (1:51:11.504) I love that. I love that. Thank you. Thank you for explaining that. So the next update, I got to just tell you, my husband really wants it to be so that when you turn it on, you can see the battery level right away. Because you have to wait till you turn on a program to see the battery level. Because we're always fighting over it. I wish—I know—we should just buy more. We should have more of them in the house because there are two of them for the three of us. Mark Fox (1:51:34.910) That one doesn't come up very often. The number one complaint that comes up from people is, I want it to go ding, make a sound when the protocol ends. I go, no, no, no, no, here's why. I already tested all that. Half the people want that, and half hate it. Half that hate it are more vicious. They're like, I don't want anyone knowing I'm running protocols, and I don't want it dinging and scaring me. Then another person puts a vibrating thing in there like your phone. I'm, no, because people are going to scream at the end because they forget it's in their pocket. I do. Customers are almost always right. Some of the stuff just isn't. Ashley James (1:52:11.716) So I know it's so funny. Actually, I'm very sensitive to energy, to frequency, and I know when it turns off. I can actually go, okay, my program's done. I pull it out of my pocket. It's still on. It's on for a minute or so after, and then it shuts down to preserve energy, to preserve battery. But I know when my program's over. I can feel it. Obviously, not everyone can, but I can feel it when it's on. I love it Mark Fox (1:52:39.522) Yes, yes, you're in that three to five percent. But so what it does, just so you know, is after 15 seconds of not touching anything, the screen is going to go into sleep mode. But the protocol is running. The reason is to save battery because that screen, when it's lit up, uses eight times more battery power. So when everyone goes, it doesn't last long enough, I want a 12-hour battery. I go, well, it's going to look like a football. So is that what you want? They're like, well, I want it smaller than that, but a 12-hour battery. The technology isn't there yet. Just so you know, if you do nothing at the end of the protocol or you hit pause, after 10 minutes—it’s going to power down to save the battery. What some people will do is, in their pocket, they'll accidentally hit the pause button and they don't know it. Then after 10 minutes, it'll just shut down. Yes, I don't know.  Here's one that I could tell by your personality—you'll appreciate this one. So I made it, and people go, it looks like an old iPod. Yes, I did it on purpose. I wanted it to have familiarity. Most people will not get this. The colors on the bars that are jumping are the same colors as a Star Trek Tri-Q. Ashley James (1:53:50.699) That does make me happy, I'm a big Trekkie. Mark Fox (1:53:57.575) Nobody has ever called me up and said, hey, I noticed that until I tell them, that's how I did the colors. Ashley James (1:54:03.451) I love that. I wear it with the lanyard. So the device is touching my skin. I put it underneath my clothing. But it works through clothing. Mark Fox (1:54:14.927) It works through clothing. It doesn't need to be against your skin, but you've got a big poofy ski jacket on. So it's interesting you said you're energy sensitive because this is. First of all, the return rate, I'm not going to tell you one, but it's very, very low. But the ones I get back, it's not because it didn't work. It's all kinds of weird things. But there's some people, two of them today, this device is screaming. It's so loud. I go, it barely makes a buzzing sound. Then they'll videotape it and send it to me. I can't hear anything or they'll send it back to me. There's nothing wrong with it. So I wrote an article on it a couple of months ago. Apparently, people have superhuman hearing. The other one is temperature sensitivity. So it'll get to 105 Fahrenheit. It's not hot. It's warm. But people will tell me it's burning my skin. It's not. I've never had one yet ever get above 105. Now if you stick it in a really thick bra with a coat and a shirt on, it's going to get a little warmer because it has no ventilation. Just give it some ventilation. It's interesting because I tell people to get a baby thermometer. After I got several back and I'm testing them, there's nothing ever wrong with them. I've had people on Zoom calls say, so that's actually burning your fingers right now, that you can't even hold it, like a hot potato. Shoot it with the infrared thermometer. They go, it's a hundred and one. I'm, hmm, I don't know what to do about that. Some people, a small percentage, are super sensitive to temperature and sound. Ashley James (1:55:50.480) Yes, I can hear it when I put it right up to my ear. I can hear it. You're right, it does sound like there's a song playing. It's just, it's so quiet. I have to put it right up to my ear. I like the warmth, and my son loves the warmth. When his program's over, I'll be like, okay, it's my turn. He goes, no, it's still warm. Don't take it away. I want it. I like it. It's still warm. So we like the warmth. Mark Fox (1:56:16.755) Yes, the majority of people do love the warmth. The first test I came up with, hold it arm's length from your ear. Can you still hear it screaming? I've had five or six people tell me yes. I'm like, really? Send it back. Then I get it. Of course, there's nothing wrong with it. So I've just concluded a small percentage of people are superhuman, sound and touch, or temperature sensitive. Ashley James (1:56:41.031) But if let's say someone is, but they also have PTSD or they have pain or for me, I can't hear it unless I put it right up to my ear because that's one of the first things I did because I wanted to know if I could hear the zap zap zap. The giant P.M.F. mats, and it doesn't do that. It doesn't zap me. It doesn't hurt, which I love, but if you're using it to help your body overcome something, to me, that's worth it. Put some earplugs in Mark Fox (1:57:16.439) Put it on the outside of your clothes, turn the TV up, wear some earplugs, don't put it straight against your skin, all the above. The other thing we tell people, again, turn the power level down to seven, but that, again, don't go above 3% of people that can't handle 10. Then I get the other extreme, of course, it's not nearly strong enough. I can't feel it. Exactly what you just said you don't want. I've gotten some returns. It's not jerking my body, and I can't feel it, so it can't be working. It's not supposed to do that. It's not a 10 unit. Do you feel better? Well, I only tried it once, so I sent it back. I was, OK, well, you can give it a fair chance. Ashley James (1:57:52.915) Well, I know my listeners will give it a fair chance. My listeners are very open-minded. They're sick of suffering. They're sick of the mainstream medical system lying to them, and they want to take their health to the next level. So I know my listeners are going to be eager to try this, and thank you so much for making it so affordable because these PEMF machines are thousands and thousands of dollars. I would have bought a Beamer, but it was over $5,000, and I once spent, I think, $2,000 on one of those infrared mats with 23 pounds of amethyst crystal inside. It's like lying on a sauna, right? We had fun with it, but it was such a stretch for us mentally to spend thousands of dollars. I bought a sauna. I have my Sunlighten sauna right here beside me in the office. I love it. It's really helped me. But that's a few thousand dollars. I did it on a payment plan, a credit card thing. Most people don't have thousands of dollars. They're sick, they're suffering. I can't tell you, I can't even count on my hands how many people I know that have Lyme disease. I've personally helped several clients to overcome it because it's all about supporting the body's ability to heal itself and help the body to wipe out those infections and co-infections. So I've seen people overcome Lyme, but I know so many people still suffering from it, and they get gaslit constantly by the mainstream medical system. It's really sad. I have a friend actually up in Canada who has been misdiagnosed with some kind of bipolar schizophrenia, some kind of thing. They want to do this type of electronic pulses to her brain, which makes her have amnesia. She has Lyme. She has Lyme. This is the problem. The doctors will not recognize that Lyme is the problem. They say, no, it's all just in your head. That is so infuriating. So people are sick, and they're sick of it. They're sick of the BS, and they want to support their body's ability to heal itself. So I know they're going to want to grab a Vibe. It's affordable. There's a return policy if you don't like it. I cannot even fathom not liking this. I'm so excited to tell the world about this machine and everything it's capable of doing.  Even if it was just one thing, but it's so many things. Even if we just looked at it for pain or just looked at it for PTSD, you said, if we can prevent suicide, if we can decrease that suicide rate, if we can increase the quality of life, especially for our servicemen and women. A lot of moms out there are traumatized. I was one of them. So that's why I'm so excited. So thank you for doing what you do.  I really want you to come back on the show when you've completed or at least have some information about these studies that you're running that you can come back and share. I would love for you to come back and continue to share the success you're getting. Listeners, when you write to Mark Fox, I want you to be nice to him, okay? When you see Mark Fox, when you see Mark Fox on Google or on YouTube, Facebook. My brain was running through a little Rolodex of social media words. When you see him on the interwebs, can you please be a supportive voice to drown out the hysteria of negativity, which personally I think are bots? I just have a whole conspiracy theory about that. So just give some positivity his way. Listeners, go to https://resona.health/general-wellness-lth. There's a discount when you buy two, which I recommend doing because if you have anyone else in your household living with you, you're going to want this for yourself. You're going to want one to let them fight among the second one. Mark Fox (2:02:04.698) There's a reason the 2-Pack is the best seller for that reason. Ashley James (2:02:07.174) Right, exactly. Yes, so I highly recommend that. Mark, we've had a great conversation, and I just love this. I'm sad to end this interview, but is there anything that you haven't said that you really wanted to make sure that you said? Is there anything we didn't touch on that you just really want to leave our listeners with? Mark Fox (2:02:29.050) It's probably not your listeners, but just in general. So, a guy named Rich Hall was a comedian in the 70s. He had a thing called Sniglets. They were words that don't exist but should, or they're not in the dictionary but they should. One of them is bozone. It's a combination of bozo and ozone. It's an invisible gas that surrounds people. It stops new ideas from getting in. So get rid of the bozone. Try it. I don't want a single person in the world to have one that they paid for if it didn't work for them. I'll give you your money back. I don't need any haters out there. Just think about that as, give it a chance. Go in with a positive attitude. It's not going to work for everyone. Nothing's a hundred percent, but we've got, as I said many times, a super high success rate, which is exciting. Ashley James (2:03:14.326) It is so exciting. It is so exciting. Please share this interview with those you care about who have any of the issues that we've talked about today. If you see a friend struggling, sometimes we lose friends to suicide and we're really surprised because we didn't even know they were suffering. So if there's any warning signs that you can think of, if any of your friends or family have sort of withdrawn, they're having sleep problems, if they're having anxiety or having depression, if they have been in active duty, please share this interview with them. Anyone you know who's looking to improve their health, please share this interview with them. Can you imagine how this is going to disrupt the space? How many people aren't going to turn to these useless drugs that cause more harm than good when we can support the body's ability to heal itself? So again, https://resona.health/general-wellness-lth. Thank you, Mark Fox, for coming on the show. This has been wonderful, and I can't wait to have you back. Mark Fox (2:04:16.683) Thank you for having me. It was fantastic. Take care. Outro: Wasn't that an amazing interview with Mark Fox? I love what he's doing. I can't wait to have him back on the show when he has more studies that he can share with us. Please share this podcast with those you care about. Share this episode. Christmas, the holidays, they're coming up around the corner. I know some birthdays, and this is such a great gift to give people. I think that would be so cool. What a unique gift. I'm sure you have those people in your life, like your dad or your brother or your husband, and you're just thinking, what do I get this person, this person that has everything, what do I get them? Well, I bet they don't have a vibe, get your loved one, like the gift of health. But also it's unique because people are kind of sick of putting stuff in their mouth, like protein powder. This smoothie and these pills and these tinctures and just everything, taking supplements, which I believe in supplements but people are kind of just like they're just sick of it and, at the end of the day, anything you can help people with that isn't just taking another thing to swallow that can aid them in their health.  If you're a health nut like me, you're like I've met my quota of capsules and tinctures and powders and potions that I'm consuming every day. I don't want to add another one unless it really makes a big difference or somehow eliminates some of the other ones. But then we bring this thing in and you just wear it. It's as hard as hitting three buttons, click, click, click. Find your program, hit go and just wear it, just put it in your pocket or put it around your neck and just go. That's it. Do it a few times a day if you want, and then plug it in like a cell phone and that's it. It's so easy. So it would make a really great holiday gift or birthday gift. First of all, gift it to yourself. I always say with this vibe though, get more than one, because I made the mistake of only getting one, and then we had to fight over it. The four of us had to fight over it and then I immediately bought another one, and then another family member bought another one, and now there's a little less fighting. I think I should buy a few more so we can lend one out to a friend and everyone in the house has one around their neck at all times. Go to https://resona.health/general-wellness-lth. Let me know what you think of it. Come into the Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group. Let me know about your experience, because it's one of those things where I was like, wow, it was just for the first few days. I was like, oh, this feels kind of neat. I know I'm pretty sensitive to frequencies, I've experienced from other things. But then all of a sudden I started laughing, started feeling happier. I just noticed I'd fall asleep even easier, even quicker. I noticed my dreams. Oh my gosh, he talks about that. My dreams are so detailed. It's more detailed than watching a movie now and I wake up remembering them even more. It's just really, really neat. Of course I talked about quitting coffee, I use the awake program in the morning instead of coffee and I'm just like boom, my everything comes online even more. Like I was already good to begin with and that just took it to another level. So it's subtle for some, for some things and then for others it's just like wow, that really worked. I can really feel that. So just keep notes of little health changes because over time you'll forget that you did, I know I did. I look back at my notes. I was like, oh yeah, I can't, I had forgotten that that happened. It was really neat. I had a huge breakthrough. It cleared up a mental block that I'd been struggling with and kind of wrestling with for months to overcome. I knew I'd overcome it because I was not going to let it go, I was going to keep working on this mental block. But just wearing it resolved the mental block. I was like this is amazing. So keep track of your results as you use the vibe and please message me on Facebook or email me, ashley@learntruehealth.com. Let me know what you think, let me know your experience. I want to hear about it. Come into the Facebook group Learn True Health Facebook group and let us know, because we want to hear about it as well, and together as a community, we can hear how you use the vibe for your own health journey and what kind of results you are getting, and we can learn from each other. Awesome, thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing this podcast with those you care about. It's because of you and your sharing of these episodes, especially this one, that we are helping end the suffering of people and that we are spreading this health information. It's so important that we do that, so I really thank you for that support. Continue to stay tuned. We got some awesome episodes coming up, so I hope you are enjoying it. Please feel free to leave a five-star review on iTunes and on Spotify. That really, really helps me. If you want to support my podcast, that really, really helps me and I really appreciate it. Awesome, have yourself a fantastic rest of your day.   Get Connected with Mark Fox! Website- Resona Health Facebook YouTube

Get the NEW free IIN sample class and health coach experience: https://learntruehealth.com/coach Enroll in the next Health Coach Training Program! Use coupon code LTH when signing up to become a health coach at https://learntruehealth.com/coach Check out Lindsey Baillie's website: https://www.saltoftheearthskin.com   531: Heal Skin From Within & Stop The Unknown Damage, Lindsey Baillie https://learntruehealth.com/heal-skin-from-within-stop-the-unknown-damage-lindsey-baillie   Welcome to the Learn True Health Podcast! Today, we’re joined by holistic skincare expert Lindsey Baillie for a deep dive into the truth about skincare, nutrition, and the beauty industry. Lindsey reveals how conventional skincare practices can accelerate aging, why stress and diet play a crucial role in skin health, and how using the right ingredients can support your skin’s natural barrier. We also explore the impact of environmental pollution, the dangers of social media beauty standards, and the mental health connection to self-image. Whether you’re dealing with acne, rosacea, or just want healthier skin, this conversation will transform the way you think about skincare—inside and out. Highlights: Lindsey Baillie shares her journey into holistic skincare, emphasizing skin health beyond beauty. The beauty industry often prioritizes aesthetics over genuine skin health. Conventional skin care practices, like excessive exfoliation and peels, can accelerate aging. Skincare should support the skin's natural barrier with physiological ingredients. Pollution and modern environmental factors significantly impact skin health. Stress management is the most crucial factor for healthy skin, followed by nutrition. A whole foods, plant-based diet reduces inflammation and improves skin conditions. Dairy and high-fat diets can trigger acne and skin inflammation. The skin reflects internal health—conditions like acne and rosacea can signal gut or hormonal imbalances. Social media and unrealistic beauty standards contribute to mental health struggles around skin appearance. Simple, balanced skincare routines focusing on hydration and barrier support are most effective. Green tea, chamomile, and aloe can provide natural skin benefits, but must be used appropriately. The mental and emotional aspects of skincare should be addressed alongside physical treatments. Intro: I graduated from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and became an integrative health coach, and it was a wonderful program, really transformative, life-changing program. About half the people that take this online course end up doing it just for their own personal transformation. So if you're someone who loves learning or you're sick of being sick and you want to learn about how to create holistic health in your life and you want to go deeper, especially with a community, you definitely want to check out the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Right now, I want you to go to learntruehealth.com/coach. That's learntruehealth.com/coach. It's a brand new sample class that they're giving away for free. Check out the new sample class, even if you've paid attention to the old sample class. It's free. You're going to learn something. Might as well jump in and check it out. So go to learntruehealth.com/coach. That's learntruehealth.com/coach. About half the people that take it either want to become a health coach or want to add these tools to their already existing repertoire. You will gain a set of tools that will deepen your ability to help people, to guide people, and coach them to better health. But if you don't want to work with people and you just want to dive in for your own personal benefit, that's cool too. It really is for both. Every aspect of your life will be enriched from this program, so I'm a big believer in it, and right now, you will get a huge savings. The class starts in September, so you want to jump on it. If you're interested, check out the free sample class, learntruehealth.com/coach. If you want to dive in, make sure you contact them. You can do it online, and you can also call them in person. If you do it online, make sure that you use the coupon code LTH, because you're going to receive a very large discount. I negotiated the biggest discount that they give anyone for my wonderful listeners. If September has come and gone, don't worry, because they start up new cohorts of students several times a year. Jump into the program, no matter when it is. When you're ready to sign up, they unlock the beginning of the course, so you begin your course no matter what. It is really a wonderful personal growth and transformation experience. Be sure to go to learntruehealth.com/coach, check out the free sample class, and remember to use my coupon code LTH. Thank you for sharing this podcast with those you care about. Enjoy today's interview. Welcome to the Learn True Health Podcast, I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 531. Ashley James (0:02:42.611) I am so excited for today's guest. We have an amazing, amazing woman on the show, Lindsey Baillie. I always want to say doctor, start with like, Dr. Lindsey Baillie. Not yet. Not a doctor yet. Incredible to have worked with you. Lindsey and I have gotten to know each other actually because of my podcast. She's an expert in the beauty industry, in holistic skincare. I don't want to go too much into your bio because I want you to explain your journey, but I love what you do because you and I are both so passionate about holistic health. As we were just talking, I wish I'd hit record while we were just doing our pre-interview talk because we were discussing how the beauty industry is more. Holistic health is more than just physical health. There's mental health, there's emotional health, there's spiritual health. One of your passions is the mental health aspect of the beauty industry. Of course, coming at it from a holistic standpoint, that when we heal the body on the inside, our outsides become more beautiful, and you do that with your clients. Lindsey, welcome to the show. Lindsey Baillie (0:03:52.605) Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. And don't worry, just get the passion picks right back up. So I'll go off about it again. Ashley James (0:04:02.548) Lindsey, your website is saltoftheearthskin.com. We're definitely talking about what you do because you work with people both in person and virtually around the world to help them overcome really difficult skin issues, really complex skin issues. That's kind of the plight of the holistic practitioner that you and I both have to deal with and naturopaths have to deal with. A lot of times, people come to us as a last resort. They had some skin issues, and they went to the doctor, and the doctor gave them drug after drug or antibiotic, and things got progressively worse and worse. Then they go, well, I've exhausted all my, quote-unquote, traditional medical, which is just a modern, drug-based route of handling it. They also noticed that their gut health suffered as a result. Their mental health suffers as a result, and the quality of their life suffers as a result, and they don't necessarily see that it's all connected. Then they start to seek holistic advice because they're sick of the side effects of the drugs. The MD has failed them. The drug-based medicine has failed them. Then they find you. They find holistic alternatives, quote-unquote alternatives, which is really helping the body come back into balance, supporting the body's ability to heal itself. Through working with you, they overcome, and their skin becomes healthy, but that's the end result because you help them to heal, help their body heal, and come back into balance on the inside. Did I paint the picture correctly about what you do? Lindsey Baillie (0:05:44.636) Absolutely, you hit the nail on the head. There are so many correlations to how we care for the skin and how we approach nutrition and just our general health as a whole. So you go through all those routes. I have this issue, I'm going to go to the doctor, I'm going to go to the dermatologist. Through the drugs they give us or creams and everything they give us, we still haven't got to our goal.  So, skin. My number one pet peeve about skin is that people look at it as just a mere instrument of beauty. It's a vanity thing. But what do we know about skin? Everything that happens on the inside of our body is going to come out on our skin. So we have to think of it as healthcare, but the beauty industry has absolutely kind of destroyed that image of what skin is. We're so obsessed with how we look. We have to remember that the skin is our largest organ. It's an organ. It's healthcare. But just as confusing as it is for consumers to figure out how to take care of their skin, it's equally as confusing for us practitioners because we're marketed to just as much as you guys are. So it's really difficult to find the right person with the right tools. It's not necessarily through the fault of the practitioner because, again, we're marketed to just as much as consumers. We're being sold the next great thing. It's like, ooh, I like this person. I like what they're saying. I'm going to use this, but why am I not getting the result with my clients that they're promising me? So it's a very, very interesting landscape out there. Ashley James (0:07:26.372) Let's go back. I'm curious to know what led you to become a holistic-minded aesthetician, a holistic-minded viewpoint of beauty care. You have so many licenses and certifications. Listeners can go to saltoftheearthskin.com/about, and we won't list off everything, but there are so many things that you have learned. I know you continue to learn and add to your tool belt. It's interesting that out of everything you've learned, it's been your own research that has led to shaping what you do with your clients. I just happen to know a little bit from what we've talked about, but take us back, what happened that made you want to focus on holistic skincare instead of the conventional skincare approach? Lindsey Baillie (0:08:33.648) Yes, so how I started this journey as a whole was an accident, because, like most young people, I had no idea what I wanted to do. So I just jumped into the beauty industry. You put makeup on every day. Can I make a career out of that? Through everything that I've done, which you listed where listeners can find what I've done and what I've learned, skin was always at the forefront and I have a very curious mind.  My dad raised me like that. We weren't allowed to be bored on road trips, driving through Montana or the Midwest and there's nothing there. I'm bored, met, hey, we're going to learn about cloud formations. We're going to learn about prairie grasses. So I have a very curious mind. I became really interested in holistic health when I moved to the UK. We get curious. I have this curious mind. Why am I sick? Why is my skin doing this? What am I doing that is not working? Why isn't it working? My brain is always thinking of this Why. Luckily for me I was in a place that had that mindset. It’s very difficult here to do in the US but it’s really easy to do over in the UK and in the EU because that’s kind of their ethos.   That's where the beginning of herbal apothecaries and everything happened. So I kind of went on that journey of discovery. And it just made me want to learn more about the skin. Ashley James (0:09:58.568) The US is sort of where that petroleum-based, drug-based medicine really took off. I don't know if it's exactly where it began, maybe, but I know that it is where it actually exploded. That's kind of what we're known for. Is drug-based medicine and that medical approach. We've been brainwashed for the last hundred years to believe that that is the only legitimate form of medicine, and that's how the AMA wants it.  There's actually proof to this. I'm not just saying this because it's an opinion. There's proof to years and years and years of misconduct by the AMA where they went on PR campaigns to bash every other type of medicine, and they did it for a hundred years. So if everyone takes in the media first, it was written media, everyone read the newspaper, and then you go to your doctor, the AMA told the doctors what to tell you. Then it was the radio, and then it was television.  For generations, we've just listened to and taken in what the AMA wanted us to, and that was to protect the interests of the pharmaceutical-based medical approach. They were threatened by natural medicine. It's just wild. Then when you are living in this, the milieu is constantly being bombarded by this, like you said, the ethos of drug-based medicine. Then you go over to the UK where it's, wait a second, it's actually acceptable to start thinking about what herbs I could take and the way I'm eating, and that they just allow it more in their culture. It's interesting. Lindsey Baillie (0:11:52.646) Yes. Well, this is what I tell people because a question that's on everybody's mind is, okay, if these practices and these ingredients, these treatments and modalities are so harmful, why do all skin professionals do it? I'm a licensed aesthetics instructor. I can never say my profession name. It's a tongue twister. Most people can say anesthetist, but they can't say esthetician. Really, I'm a corneal therapist as well, and I'll get into that in a moment, but it's what we're taught in schools. It's what we're taught about our profession. So I'm dual licensed in Washington state and in Idaho, and I've taught aesthetics. I really love teaching those basics—anatomy, the cells, just how the skin functions on its own, a little bit of cosmetic chemistry. That's my jam. That's what I love doing. But each state has their specific requirements on what they require to get your license to practice, even just to put cleansers and creams on somebody's face. There's always a level of safety and sanitation.  So we're taught basics that have been taught forever since the beginning of licensing. I think it was in the seventies, I want to say. Sixties or seventies, it was called a beautician, and you could do whatever you wanted to do in that realm. But we're taught a very specific way because the state is concerned about safety and sanitation, and it's not necessarily the correct way of caring for the skin. If you think, okay, I have to learn about safety and sanitation to clean my space, to use a modality, to use products, doesn't that mean that that might be harmful? If I have to learn if something is safe or not, could that possibly be harmful? So it's kind of a bummer because you spend thousands of dollars to go to school to learn these things just so you can spend a few hundred dollars more to take your state boards and get your licensing. If you really want to help people with their skin in a true way and really understand it, you have to spend thousands of dollars more to get the proper education, but it's very difficult to find. So it's very frustrating. I would love to change that process one day. But I can only do so much for now. All I can do is get the information out there in every way. Ashley James (0:14:13.598) So do you currently do that? Do you currently teach the proper way or the way that you've found to be the healthiest way? Lindsey Baillie (0:14:22.204)I teach to my clients. I do have professionals reach out to me, and I've actually published a list of resources for professionals on my blog on my website so they have more of an idea of where they need to go to learn the proper information. I'm on substitute lists for schools, so I do love teaching, and if they need a substitute, I am happy to do that. I also am an educator for my skincare line and own my own skin clinic and run that. So, if I can. Ashley James (0:14:53.410) Okay, I want some clarification because I'm not in this world, a lot of my listeners are not in this world. So we're kind of guessing what you meant by what each state teaches you to do, you discovered is unsafe. Can you be more specific? Lindsey Baillie (0:15:13.346) Yes, absolutely. So every state governs this list. They govern the list of what you need to learn to hold a specific license. That's in healthcare, beauty, anything. So in most states, it's the basics, safety and sanitation, because we clean with hospital-grade disinfectant, learn how to use machines properly, learn how to wax correctly, how to apply products on a person's face in a safe manner. All states have that kind of basic requirement, but every single state has either extras or an absence of that information that they don't require to be taught. They are all at different hours that we have to learn. So each state determines how many hours you have to go to school to learn all the requirements that they have deemed that you have to have to hold that license, if that makes sense. Ashley James (0:16:09.222) But you'd mentioned something about what they teach is not necessarily the healthiest thing. Can you be more specific about that? Lindsey Baillie (14:55.766) Yes. Most modalities that are taught in schools are to remove the skin. So we have, exfoliate to some degree, whether that's with a product or that's with a derma planing blade or microdermabrasion machine or chemical peels. I have to tell you that's the most horrible, horrible thing you can do for your skin. But again, when we're thinking of the realm, the state is thinking about safety and sanitation. It makes sense that they require you to learn that but it's not healthy for the skin. Ashley James (0:16:49.180) My mom used to send me to an esthetician, and this was in the late 90s. I was in high school. I actually didn't have bad skin. I was so grateful. Yes, well, no, but teenager. I was really grateful that we ate enough healthy food at home. I mean, that was my rebellion phase, so I was eating junk when I was at school, but at home, we ate super healthy. I was really grateful I didn't have outbreaks. My mom was super into this microdermabrasion where they would take it, they'd basically shave our face with this razor, not a man's razor. It's a different kind. Then they'd apply this acid that made my face look like Saran wrap afterward. My face was wet and had no texture. I was a teenager. My mom would send me there once a month because she did it and thought it was super cool. I remember looking at the bill and seeing that it was 120 or something. At the time, that was a lot of money for the 90s. I felt so guilty that my mom was paying for that when I didn't really need it that I stopped going. I just remember thinking this is weird. It tingled. It burned. It felt really weird to have someone shaving that peach fuzz off my face, the whole thing. I didn't really see a benefit. I didn't have bad skin to begin with. I was a teenager with no problems. Then I just ended up looking like I had wet Saran wrap on my face for a few days. Lindsey Baillie (0:18:31.786) Yes, that's your intuition. So many people have that intuition and they ignore it because they say, this is the expert, they know what they're doing. But then why is my face burning and stinging, and why do I not feel good about this? That's your intuition saying this is not a good thing for the skin. So many people ignore that. In the 90s, that's when we were peeling crazy, laser crazy. We wanted just the smooth skin. Now that trend has come back. So you say that kind of wet Saran wrap look, that trend has come back, and we call it glass skin. Yes, we don't want glass skin. Skin is supposed to have texture. Some people do have visible pores. Pore size is genetic. It's supposed to have a normal-looking skin texture. We're not supposed to have that baby smooth, super glowy, perfect skin. Social media has ruined that for us. We think that is normal. Ashley James (0:19:27.322) Did you ever watch the show Emily in Paris on Netflix? Okay, it's super funny. So just go watch it when you need to binge on something and just chill. This latest season actually has this feature where they're doing this product demonstration in a really ritzy mall in Paris, and it turns out that it's just repurposed KY jelly. They're walking around, saying, you can get glass skin, look how beautiful you are. They're all walking around, their faces are super wet. Then they look it up, and it turns out the product used to be a personal lubricant, and then it failed as a personal lubricant. The marketing failed, so they just turned it into a glass skin moisturizer. I thought that was hilarious, but it's not really healthy to apply a bunch of petroleum products anyway. Tell me, what's the downside to doing this kind of glass skin procedure where people are doing peels and the shaving of the peach fuzz and then the peels? What's the downside? Is it damaging our skin over time? Are we absorbing these chemicals? Is it having a negative effect on other systems of the body? Lindsey Baillie (0:20:44.868) All of the above. The funny thing is that people go in to get these treatments and procedures done because they want to chase that eternal youth. They want to have that young-looking skin. But what's actually happening is you're aging your skin faster. To understand what that means is to understand the skin cell life cycle. This is something that I teach my clients because when you can understand how skin is actually made, we can understand what might not be good and what might be harmful to our skin over time. So when we think of the skin, I want you to think of it like a house. The roof tiles are going to be the surface of the skin. The bricks of the house are going to be our skin cells. The mortar between the bricks is going to be the lipids between the skin cells. The flooring is the deeper layer of the cells. The plumbing and the electricity of the house is going to be your blood vessels, your lymphatic system. The foundation, how it's built, is going to be dependent on nutrition and fluid intake. When we're thinking of how skin is made, number one, what happens in this kind of bottom layer of your epidermis—and I'll go through some more layers of the skin too—but your epidermis is that top part of your skin, and it has five layers within itself. In that bottom layer of the epidermis, there's a mother stem cell that produces a baby daughter cell, which is called a keratinocyte, which is your skin cell. As the cell matures and migrates to the surface, it kind of goes through life stages like we do as humans. It starts out as a baby, there's a toddler phase, preteen, teen, and then it's an adult, and then it passes away just like we do. As the cell migrates to the top of the skin, it starts to dry out and flatten and squeeze out these beautiful lipids from our cell membrane, which are ceramides that are formed to create our acid mantle or our skin microbiome. In healthy skin, that mature cell will naturally fall off and desquamate. That's what we call exfoliation, basically, desquamation. This whole process takes about 28 to 45 days, depending on the health of the skin cells and the age of the person. The cellular life cycle is about 14 to 28 plus days. Once it reaches that top layer called the stratum corneum, that's when it starts to desquamate. It takes about five to seven days to naturally fall off. By removing the skin over and over and over, unnecessarily, it's like we're pushing our 12-year-old out into the world and saying, hey, I need you to go away. You're bothering me. You go out in the world and learn how to be an adult, but this kid isn't ready yet. That's what's happening with our skin cells. We're pushing it out of the house way too early. When we keep doing that, the whole skin cell turnover, that life cycle, we just form poorer cells and poorer cells. That's what leads to skin problems. But it's this vicious cycle that we get stuck in because if we don't do these procedures, then my skin looks bad, or I have pigmentation, or I get acne, or my peach fuzz comes back. So I have to do it. But you're stuck in this hamster wheel that's actually aging you faster. That's what we're taught in school to get our license, unfortunately. Ashley James (0:24:09.033) So you said the entire thing takes between 28 and 45 days. So from the birth of the baby cell at the bottom layers, stem cell kind of layer, to sloughing off naturally is 28 to 45 days. If someone has major skin issues and they're doing all these procedures and they want a total reboot, do you tell them, give me 45 days minimum? What do you tell them? Lindsey Baillie (0:24:42.673) Everybody's timeline is going to be different. So there's never a black-and-white answer with this. It all depends on what's the age of the person, how long they have been doing this treatment or using these particular ingredients. Then it's going to take a while. Usually, I tell people, I see most people my age. I'm 39. So around that perimenopause, menopause age, and we've done all the things to our skin. It can take up to a year to get your skin to learn how to function again on its own because it's kind of in phases. So it's basically trust me, trust the process, ask me questions. I will teach you and give you information along the way. If you need scientific studies, I'll send them to you because I want you to understand this process as much as I understand it because it's your skin, you're living with it. Ashley James (0:25:35.749) It's like the exact same process of health coaching. Trust me. Trust the process. Just do what I say. Lindsey Baillie (0:25:43.755) Exactly. Exactly. It's difficult. It's difficult for some people because we're always looking for that quick fix. We want it to be easy. I'm preaching to the choir. I'm my own problem too, but it takes a lot of work to do the healthy thing. Once you get through those steps and you go through that hard work and it becomes easy and you see the results, you're like, wow, why didn't I do this in the first place? But it's really hard to find skin care practitioners that practice that way. Ashley James (0:26:11.891) I found that when I “took care” of my skin more, and I always leaned towards the healthiest choices I could find—more organic, less chemicals, cruelty-free, vegan, no chemicals, just those kinds of skincare products—but still, back when I had more routine around my own skincare, I just found that my skin would be super dry. Cleanse in the shower, exfoliate, and then you get in the shower, and my skin feels like it's in the desert. It would just feel uncomfortably tight and dry. Then I'm like, why did I just take off all my natural oils to then replace them with something synthetic—not synthetic, but not of my body, exogenous—an exogenous oil or cream to put on my skin when I just took off what my body made? My body made sebum for a reason, made my own moisturizing layer, and I just stripped it in the shower. So I stopped doing all that. I stopped doing this skincare routine, and a few times a week, I'll put on a very light moisturizer. But other than that, I don't use a cleanser on my face. I just wash my face with water. I get compliments that I look much younger than I am. I felt like it's almost a very lazy approach to skincare. I'm like, I just look at myself in the mirror, I'm like, looks good to me, feels good to me, let's just keep going. The less I do, the better my skin and the healthier my skin looks. Have you found that? Lindsey Baillie (0:27:53.227) Absolutely. So you say it's the lazy approach because we've been taught that we have to do all these things all the time. So it's simple. It's like eating. It's very simple. If you eat whole foods, it's easy. It doesn't have to be complicated, but we've made it a complicated thing. Just hearing that from you, it sounds like I don't know if you know your skin type or if you've been told your skin type, which most people have been told the wrong skin type because we actually learned the wrong skin types in school. Surprise, surprise. It sounds like you weren't using ingredients that were for your particular skin. That's a very common thing. It's always interesting for me to hear people talk about their story and how they feel about their skin and what they use because we adhere that so much to a product, a cleanser, or I did this and I use this. But really, we need to be thinking about ingredients. There's so much misinformation in the marketing. We focus so much on labels—cruelty-free, vegan, organic, synthetic, lab-created—all those terms that are very misused. The most important thing that I tell people is more important than the origin of the ingredient is, is it physiological? So is the body going to recognize it? Does the skin recognize it? Will it use it? Because we can put whatever on our skin, and the body is going to use it how it sees fit or not. So we have to think in terms of ingredients. Ashley James (0:29:26.563) Okay, I'm so sorry to interrupt, but this really is, I think, how most people think it, so I just want clarification. We believe the skin, I mean, to some extent, we feel, as women, our face is impenetrable. Maybe we're placing a moisturizer on top, and maybe it sort of plumps up the very top layer of skin, but, I don't think we think in terms of does the skin eat what we put on or absorb. When I say eat, I mean absorb and use as raw building blocks, use the things we put on our face as nutrients. Is that how skin works? If you put on certain ingredients on your face, does the skin actually absorb and use it? Lindsey Baillie (0:30:17.369) Yes, the skin, that's how skin works. It absorbs what we put on it. But what is the skin made of? That's what people don't think about, especially skin practitioners. We're so focused on what treatment can I do? What does this label say? What is this person's skin doing? I'm just going to match things, but we don't think of what makes up the skin, what's happening in our skin barrier, and can the body recognize it? Where is this ingredient? Are there other things in there that the skin isn't going to recognize? We have to think of what's the exact recipe of the skin barrier. How can we match those ingredients? The skin barrier is made of things like triglycerides, squalene, nine different types of ceramides, sterols, and phospholipids. If our skin is making these particular ingredients, why are we putting all this extra stuff on it? Shouldn't we feed the skin what it already makes so it can function normally? I wish we could just leave the skin alone. Some people can because of genetics. Genetics definitely does come into play with skin health, but our modern-day environment exposes us to so much. Even if you live in a really clean, mountainous area with not a lot of people around, pollutants and particulates in the air circle around the globe. To some extent, because of how far we've progressed as a society, we're being exposed to something. So we've got to do a little something for the skin, but it doesn't have to be this super complicated thing. We're meeting the skin where it's at in that moment. What you're using now, once we heal that process, may not be what you use forever. Especially as women, we're going through all of these hormonal changes. The skin is going to change. So we have to say, what is it doing right now? What does it need? Ashley James (0:32:22.672) That's interesting to think that pollution, because a lot of us don't see pollution. We are so privileged to live in a place where you and I live in a part of the United States where we call this the Pacific Northwest. It has some of the cleanest air in the world, and we're privileged. Yet we are still exposed to pollution. I’d like to talk about pollution because a lot of people have been manipulated by politics to stop talking about pollution or even focusing on pollution and talk about climate change. Climate change is not the focus we should be looking at because climate change doesn't tell you about the immediate effects it's having on your body. I think it's more motivating. Also, there's so much political BS when it comes to climate change. I hate that subject because it divides us and does not have us take action. Really, we need something that's bipartisan to have both people go, let's not argue about some polar caps melting maybe 15 years from now, or 50 or 100 years. Let's talk about today. What is affecting your health today? Because we can all agree that pollution is a problem. Back in the 80s, they called it acid rain. They just kept coming up with different names for it. Do not let yourself be swayed by politics at all. Think about pollution, microplastics. It's ridiculous. Microplastics are so damaging that they're actually trending. They're showing that sperm count is plummeting, that fertility is plummeting, and they're attributing it to the endocrine disruptors that are in everyday plastics, plastic bottles, all the plastic in the ocean. This is pollution. This is what I say about pollution. So it's in our food. And then, of course, we have 80,000 new man made chemicals in the last 40 years. Your mom, your grandma did not live with these. Your great-grandma, you are the generation that is being exposed to new chemicals that your body does not know how to process.  When I say evolve, I mean, even if you are a creationist, within the confines of the creation model, our body evolves over generations to adapt to a new exposure. We can see that certain Europeans can digest milk better than the average person. Ten percent of the world is from this part of Europe that has been drinking milk for well over 5,000 years, and they adapted. Their body, their microbiome adapted to be able to take in cow's milk, and they don't have any adverse effects. Over 50% of the population is lactose intolerant and has immune problems, digestion problems from taking in cow's milk. This concept that we evolve over time based on our environment, based on our diet. When I say over time, I mean a matter of generations. But you and I and every listener has not had a chance. Our liver hasn't adapted. We also haven't adapted our diet to be able to increase the antioxidants and give our body what it needs to even have a fighting chance. So we're accumulating toxins from our air, from our food, from our water. It's accumulating in our soil, it's accumulating in our waterways, and it's accumulating in our clothing. We absorb dyes from our synthetic dyes and microplastics and bestegens from our clothing, from the receipts that we touch. It just goes on and on and on. Processed food, don't get me started.  Lindsey Baillie (0:36:17.986) I know that actually has a huge effect on skin health. Nutrition is such a huge thing. But you say dyes and fragrances and things like that. That's the number one sensitizer for skin, and we put it in skincare. It's one of the worst things. Even essential oils aren't that great for the skin too because they're so concentrated, and you may not feel the effects or see the effects right now. But over time, you're slowly causing and building this irritation within your skin. Then, if you don't know your genetic background, if you have histamine response in your family, if you have any sort of gene deficiencies, you're just contributing to problems later down the line, which is why we have so many incidences of dermatitis conditions as well. I love essential oils. Essential oils are especially great for aromatherapy. They're so great for aromatherapy, but we really don't think about what we put in products, and then we put it on our skin, and we don't think long term either. We are exposed to all these things that we have to think about now, but then with what we put on our skin, we have to be thinking long term with that as well. Ashley James (0:37:26.392) So what you're saying because of our environment, because we're exposed to all these chemicals, we don't see them. That's the problem. We don't, unless you are in LA and it's a bad smog day, which is crazy. Even San Diego, flying into San Diego this summer, you flew and you could see the layer of thick smog. I'm sure other cities have it too, but if you don't visually see it, you don't think about pollution. Pollution—we don't see it. We don't see the everyday pollution. They say that indoor air quality, once we close our windows for the winter, is 10 times worse than being outdoors in a city with cars going by. Everything off-gases, and there are chemicals in our air. I did an interview a long time ago, somewhere in the fifties. You probably heard it, but it was a really cool interview with a woman who takes a machine, puts it in your living room, and it filters the air. Then she sends it to a lab, and it gives her a readout of every single man-made chemical that is just floating around in your space, in your home.  She can tell you which brand of Mr. Clean is sitting underneath your sink. You didn't even use it while she was running the machine. It was just sitting underneath the sink in a bottle. It off-gases, and you're inhaling it. Everything under your sink that's in a plastic bottle—you are inhaling it, and your liver is processing it every single day. Not to mention what our carpets off-gas for 25 years and our mattresses. If you didn't buy an organic mattress, your couch and everything. So because of all this, we actually need to have a skincare routine because our skin is having to handle the stressor of pollution. But we need to know what our skin type is. We need to know what kind of things to put on our face that our body would actually want to have on our face to create healthier skin. Is that what you're saying? Lindsey Baillie (0:39:36.533) Absolutely. Then thinking of what is the state of my health? What is this thing? Where is it happening, why is it happening, and what can I do to help that process? I look at the skin in a 3D way. I'm looking at your skin all the way down to the cells. Let's say you come in and you have acne, and it's caused by you living in a big city and you're surrounded by pollution or even in our area where we have wildfires all the time. Those particulates that are in the air from wildfires especially sit within the skin as well. I see so much acne in the summer when we have these wildfires because of all the particulates in the air, but I'm not looking at, okay, you have acne, let's treat it like acne—number one, why is this even happening? I've got to go through this whole history. We've got to dig deep, figure out what's the issue, why this is happening, where it is happening, and what we can do to help this. What kind of ingredients do you need for this?  So there's some degree that you have to take care of your skin in our modern-day environment, especially depending on where you live. But it doesn't have to be as complicated as we're making it. Your professional that you go to has to understand what they're doing. Ashley James (0:40:52.438) I wanted the answer to be easier.  Lindsey Baillie (0:40:55.517) I know, I do too, trust me. Even though I love researching it, I want it to be easy too, but there's never a black and white answer. Ashley James (0:41:03.653) I just wanted you to tell us to wash our face with apple cider vinegar and then— Lindsey Baillie (0:41:11.259) No, don't do that, my gosh. Never put apple cider vinegar on your skin ever. You're corroding your skin. Ashley James (0:41:16.735) Okay, rub my skin with lemons.  Lindsey Baillie (0:41:20.008) No, don't do that either. It's an acid. That's what you just said is a prime example of our obsession about, okay, I'm going to use this whole food to put on my skin, but we have to think of the reaction that particular food is having. So take a lemon. That's a very common thing that I see dermatologists talk about on Instagram. I'm, no, no, I've got to jump in the comments and tell people not to do this and why because we have to think lemons are acidic. When you think of acidic, you think of chemical peels. You're essentially peeling your skin. I actually knew this in my head, but I did this by accident with my husband.  When I first started out, thought I'm going to create my own mask back bar. I'm going to have herbal powders. I'm going to do all this. I combined grapefruit powder, lemon powder, probably orange in there, all the citrus fruits. I thought this will be a nice enzymatic exfoliation for my husband.  His skin literally peeled, and I was, well, that makes sense because it's acidic. It's an acid, and that's a base of a lot of chemical peels too. It's acids, and it's removing his skin, and he didn't need his skin removed. I'm like, whoopsies. Thank goodness it was you and not a client. We don't think of these things. You have to think of the different chemical constituents of herbal ingredients too. The fact that plants come with their own defense mechanisms as well to protect themselves from being eaten by predators. It's how they've survived this long. How is that going to react within the skin? There’s just a particular constituent that's in that plant or that herbal ingredient that matches the skin, or do I need the whole thing? Ashley James (0:43:12.793) Thank you to husbands for being our guinea pigs. My husband is also my guinea pig for many, many things holistic, but you know what? Through the years he has been more open-minded, and now he kind of gets excited when I introduce him to new things, unless it involves vegetables. I know that's funny because he's vegan. He chooses to be vegan, but he always complains when I put a lot of vegetables on his rice and beans or potatoes. I'm like, no, you can't be the vegan that doesn't like vegetables. Lindsey Baillie (0:43:44.129) It doesn't make sense. That's my husband too. Why do I need this other thing? Then the next day if he doesn't do it, it's well, what can I do for this? I'm like, oh my goodness, I tried to give you the thing, but you didn't want another thing. So you just tell me when you want a thing and I'll help you. He looks amazing. He looks five years younger than his peers. He constantly will show me pictures of men his age and he'll be like, “How old does this guy look?” I'm like, “I don't know, maybe late 40s, early 50s”. My husband's 41 and he's like, “No, he's my age”. I'm like, “You don't look like that.” He's like, “I know, I look younger. I have healthy skin. So thank you”. “You're welcome”. Ashley James (0:44:24.423) Okay, so what do you have your husband do for his skin? Lindsey Baillie (0:44:28.029) Basics, he cleanses. I've made him a customized cleanser. He uses his toner for his skin type, and he uses his moisturizer. That's it. Men are very lucky because they have that 24-hour hormonal cycle, so they don't go through all the changes that we do. Women can have a little bit more tricky skin, and we tend to experiment a lot, which can damage the skin, and men just kind of are like, whatever. So it can be easier to take care of male skin, but he actually will experiment on his own, which is super fun. He's going to kill me for telling this story, but I tell it to everybody. So he's a blue-collar worker. He's a tradesman. He wears his work boots. It destroys his feet. I mean, it looks like he has an athlete's foot, but he doesn't have an athlete's foot. It's just so moist in his boots that his skin literally falls apart. He listens to what I say about ingredients and stuff and kind of knows the products that have the ingredient in it. He grabbed a couple things and just started putting them on his feet. He came to me two weeks later and said, “Look at my feet”. I'm like, “Wow, they look like they're normal. They're not falling apart like they normally do” He's like, “Well, I use this and this, and my feet are better. I'm like, “Wow, that's incredible when you're using the right things and taking care of your skin with the right ingredients, what can happen and so quickly”. He always says, “Do you want me to let my feet get bad again so we can take pictures?” I'm like, “Yes, but also no, I don't because I don't want you to make your skin bad again”. Ashley James (0:46:04.637) We've talked a lot about what you can put on your skin. Well, we haven't actually talked about what you shouldn't put on your skin. We haven't talked a lot about what you should put on your skin because we have this dilemma, which is we don't know your skin type, your age, what your needs are, where your health's at, what your skin challenges are, and all these things need to come up for us to really know what to put on the skin.  Again, I know it can't be a blanket for everyone, but what's the safest ingredients? You're like, okay, without knowing your skin type, without knowing your age or any of your skin challenges, what's really the safest, healthiest thing people could put on their skin? 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Remember the website to go check it out is learntruehealth.com/coach that’s learntruehealth.com/coach [End of Advertisement] Lindsey Baillie (0:49:18.585) The safest healthy ingredients that you can put on your skin are the ones that your skin already makes. So those are going to be your triglycerides, your squalene, ceramides, cholesterol, things like glycerin. I can get you a list because it's so many things that nobody is going to remember this. I just know it because it's literally in my head. So I can get you a list that you can share with your listeners too. Ashley James (0:49:47.461) Yes, I mean, you can. You can also say it because this is transcribed. But if you want to talk about some of your favorites, I know there's this fad that keeps coming back, let's put tallow on our skin. Let's take rendered duck fat. I don't know. I mean, I would love the smell of my skin all day. But people will take tallow, which is rendered beef fat. That's typically the droppings of a roast. After they've cooked the roast and all the fat that accumulates, they will take those and render it and then rub it on their skin or butter. Let's put ghee on our skin. Let's put butter on our skin. Is it okay to take animal fat? You just talked about cholesterol and triglycerides and those are the natural things the body makes. So is it a good idea to take beef fat and smear it on our face? Lindsey Baillie (0:50:44.906) No, it's a terrible idea, but it's very popular. So I listed a long list of ingredients, right? So we're just putting a singular ingredient on there. So our skin is making up these very specific ingredients and we're only giving it one of those.  So what happens when we just put one ingredient of the whole recipe, it tips the scale and can cause issues. Some people can see improvement if they have things like eczema, psoriasis and things like that because there's a deficiency in those skin conditions. And by putting something that's high in omega -6 fatty acids on there will correct that.  But then if you keep doing that and keep giving your skin an abundance of that one ingredient, you're going to tip the scales the other way. And that issue is either going to get worse or we're going to have another issue. So it's all about what makes up the skin barrier. It needs all of those ingredients together not just one thing that would be like, I know broccoli is good for me. I'm just going to eat broccoli forever. Well, we need a lot more variety of nutrients or the body can function. And that's going to cause some different issues in the body. It's the same with skin. Ashley James (0:52:01.238) So we talked a lot about putting stuff on skin. That's actually pretty interesting that the skin can actually take the ingredients. We want it to be in balance with what the skin already makes to protect the skin, to put it on the skin. But we haven't gone deeper than the skin. Your training and your certification is skin deep, but your research is far from it. Let’s talk about diet.  Lindsey Baillie (0:52:34.456) Diet and nutrition, what you put in your body, is so important for skin. But the topical ingredients, I always say that's the third thing you should think about. That's the last thing if you really want to heal your skin. Number one, you have to take care of your stress. Because you can be eating all the right things, you could be using all the right products, you could be drinking all the water in the world, but if you're stressed, it's going to show up on your skin. Nutrition is actually second. So I'll tell my clients, I mean, they go hand in hand, but really get your stress under control. Because you can do all those things, but if you're stressed, acne is a big one that I see, which leads to skin picking and other issues, all because we're so obsessed with looking at our skin all the time, any little blemish and everything. So I've actually turned people away when they're like, I can't afford to do all of this at once. First, go to therapy and work on how you're eating. Then, once you get that under control, come see me, and we'll work on the topical aspect. But nutrition is so important. It's half the battle, it’s what you put in your body. Ashley James (0:53:46.929) So give me the list of what's the worst kind of stuff you can eat for skin health and what's the best? Lindsey Baillie (0:53:57.605) Best whole foods plant-based. Even if you do eat meat, which I know some people do because right now we're kind of obsessed with this quote, ancestral way of eating—high fat, high meat, high dairy—that actually causes inflammation in the skin. Some people, because they have a good genetic background, are not really affected by that on the skin. Of course, we know what's going on internally. There's internal inflammation happening. But if you especially have things like rosacea, acne, high amounts of dairy and animal products, and gluten as well, that is going to activate something called IGF-1, insulin growth factor one, that triggers the inflammation cascade. That presents itself differently in different people. Whether that's the degree of redness that they see on their skin, which is inflammation, or acne, or if they genetically do have rosacea, what the degree of that is going to happen. That's a big hurdle for some of my clients that see me because they come in for skin, they want products, and they want treatments. But now you're telling me that I have to eat differently? I don't think I can do that. So that's a big hurdle. So getting that inflammation. Fried food, processed food.  Ashley James (0:55:15.881) This is based from an integrative health coach standpoint, not an esthetician standpoint. So I'd love your feedback. But I think fried food would be the number one. If you had to rate it, I think fried food would be, because of what you're consuming. Typically, you're going to be consuming—most fried food is gluten. By the way, probably not organic, non-GMO. So you've got high chemicals from GMO crops, glyphosate, which is Roundup. The process of frying—nowadays, people don't fry in animal fats anymore, which, although frying anything isn't healthy, frying in oil and seed oils is even unhealthier. It causes acrylamides and heterocyclic amines, cancer-causing compounds that are free radical bullets being shot through your skin, damaging your DNA, damaging your cells, and your body has to run around trying to repair it. Why would we do that to our skin? If you can smell fries, you're actually being exposed to it, and your skin is being exposed to it. Just go to McDonald's, hang out at McDonald's, and look at the skin of the fry cook. Just go around and look at the skin of people who have to stand by the fryer. It's not pretty. Plus, they probably also eat that way. Fried food decreases our lifespan by something like 10 years. There was a great book and a great interview—Dr. Joel Fuhrman wrote the book Fast Food Genocide. Amazing read. This is echoed by many other doctors I've interviewed. My mentor, Dr. Joel Wallach, I've had him on the show twice, talks about the dangers of fried food. If that's the one thing that you immediately cut out—fried food and seed oils—because of the pro-inflammatory nature and the cell degradation that occurs from that food, why are we eating food that destroys the health of the cell immediately upon contact. Lindsey Baillie (0:57:43.176) That's happening internally. We always think of all those things that you said—mitochondrial health, DNA damage, cell health—we are thinking about that internally, but we forget we have skin cells. The same thing that's happening on the inside is happening to our skin cells as well. Ashley James (0:58:00.512) We also have skin on the inside of our body. That's something I always wonder because they say in holistic medicine that the skin we see—the smiling face, the skin we see on your face—is a representation of your internal health. It's a mirror. Your skin is a mirror to what's going on inside. There's epithelial tissue on the inside of the body. Every single artery, on the inside of the artery, is a type of skin. There's skin within us. I just wonder if you have that eczema, that psoriasis, that rosacea, that acne, that inflammation showing on the outside, is it also occurring on the inside? Lindsey Baillie (0:58:44.438) Absolutely. It's definitely related to nutrition, but a lot of those have to do with hormones and genetics as well. Acne definitely can be genetic, and it's controlled by hormones as well. Things like rosacea, eczema, and other dermatitis conditions, yes, they can be caused by nutrition, absolutely, and topical products, but then there's also a gene deficiency that you're working with too. So that means everything that you put inside your body is even more important than somebody who just kind of has balanced skin and doesn't have any issues. Ashley James (0:59:24.644) My husband, and I've told this on the show before, and he gives me permission to talk about his health stuff. He had such bad adult acne from when he was a teenager, all the way up until when I met him, that he had to wear t-shirts to go swimming. He would never be topless out there. He's a really big guy, he's six foot seven. He's just a really tall guy. He stands out already, and he didn't want to draw any more attention to himself with, look at that guy's back, looks like a pizza. It was really bad. It was deep. It didn't look like acne. It looked like deep fissures, deep psoriasis, what do we call it? When the acne is really deep and it is cystic acne. I mean, not to get graphic, but it would explode. The shirt, as he wore the shirt, there'd be stains on it. I just want to paint the picture of how bad it was. Okay. So, not knowing that diet—because he grew up just going to an MD once a year, maybe, not knowing that diet played a role in anything. He had really no observation about what he ate and attributed it to his health. He says he was a typical guy, typical man. He was just a typical guy doing what he does. Typical American, not thinking that what you put in your mouth affects your health. Until he met me. We together cleaned up our diet, and I got him to quit dairy and processed food. Yes, I got him to quit sugar. He was highly, highly, highly addicted to ice cream. So he was getting the dairy and the sugar.  He pretty much gave up dairy and sugar at the same time. Within three days of zero dairy, zero sugar, but the thing is he didn't eat sugar every day. It was once a week he would buy a thing of ice cream and eat it over the weekend. But Monday through Friday, he wasn't really doing sugar. It was more a ton of dairy in his coffee and cheese. It was cheese and stuff in his coffee. That was it. But every day he was doing dairy, and then once a week he was doing sugar. Within three days of cutting out the dairy and not going to sugar, 100% of his cystic acne went away. 100%. It was weird how fast it went away. Then for fun, he had a slice of pizza, and it came back. Then he stopped eating that again, and it went away. Once in a while, he'd test it, and he'd put milk in his coffee, and he'd come back and say, crap, okay, no, no dairy, no dairy. This was a long time ago. This was many years ago, but to watch something that people suffer with for years—and he did, he suffered for years and years with it. It created embarrassment. There's a lot of emotions that I know we talked about at the beginning that we wanted to get into—a little bit of the mental health issue, not mental issue, but the mental health of the beauty industry, the mental health of our outward appearance. He's not a vain person, but he was incredibly self-conscious his entire life because it started when he was a teenager, and it shaped whether he went to a party or not, whether he went to a function or not, because he didn't want people to see it. This is a guy who doesn't care about what he looks like, but at the same time, he felt very embarrassed and self-conscious. Now, we take a woman who has cystic acne, and it's on her face or shoulders or somewhere people can see it. Take people who maybe do care about their appearance, or they work in an industry where it matters what they look like, or they're in the public space and it matters what they look like. There's a great mental health aspect of this. So when people come to you, how do you help them with that? Lindsey Baillie (1:03:38.109) I think creating that safe space to talk about it too. It's through education too because I said in the beginning, the number one thing is, okay, you're telling me all these things. So why does everybody else do all these things that aren't helping me? So getting that education out to them to help them understand why it's not necessarily the fault of the practitioner. It's literally just what we're taught, but holding space for them to talk about it. I know there's a lot of other great practitioners that don't practice like I do, but they also hold that space for them to just talk about it and get it out to somebody who understands the skin is a huge thing. But the clients that come to me, they just want to know why. Why have I done all these things? Why is this happening? To finally get answers is a huge thing for them. I will literally tell people if you are on Instagram or Facebook or whatever social media and you're feeling bad about yourself because of what you're seeing, you need to unfollow that account. I don't care if you know them personally and they're good people to you. If they're talking about something that's affecting your mental health, you need to unfollow it. You need to stop seeing it. Walk away from your phone. Stop looking at the mirror. Go outside. Go do something else. Go do something for somebody else because when we do for others, we stop obsessing about our looks. Not that that's a bad thing, but if you can do something for other people, that can kind of help combat that a little bit. It's such a big thing. Ashley James (1:05:15.325) Well, I think obsessing about anything is unhealthy. There's a difference between caring about your skin health because that's a part of your overall well-being, caring and being obsessed with. Being obsessed with is being in that vicious cycle of beating yourself up, guilt, and shame. As we learned from an interview with Kristen Bowen a few years back, she works with dozens of people in groups, she’d group coaching sessions, and she'd find out that the people who wouldn't get results from the very results-based, evidence-based health changes they'd make—10 out of 10 people should have a positive change from what she was suggesting they do. But there'd be some people that did everything right and they wouldn't get results. She figured out that those people all the time, and this comes back to your point about stress, those people had high levels of guilt and shame. Until they processed and released the guilt and shame, it was holding them back. Even though they were eating the right foods, doing all the right things, they still held onto their disease state because they were living in that obsession—whatever was creating the guilt and shame. So like you said, get rid of the social media that triggers you, that triggers the negative feelings. Don't constantly expose yourself to things that bring up guilt and shame. Lindsey Baillie (1:06:53.366) Yes. Walk away from the mirror. Our culture has created this. Unfortunately, in the beauty industry and the skincare industry, it's made to be a fun thing to do all these harmful things. You have this issue. Well, we can just erase this, and we can do this while removing your skin and making it worse and injecting you with all these toxins, and we can change your face. Most people have been led to believe that that's a normal way of caring for your skin because we've made it a fun thing, but it's not. It's super toxic physically, emotionally, and mentally, and we have to change the conversation around it. It's a big thing. 1:07:38.302 I look at that whole mental health aspect of this industry from a spiritual point of view as a Christian. One of my favorite quotes, and I'm going to put it on my landing page on my website because it's such a powerful thing. It's from St. Catherine of Siena, and she said, “What is it you want to change—your hair, your face, your body? Why? For God is in love with all those things, and he might weep when they are gone.” When I found that, I just realized that this is such a spiritual problem. Talking about Botox and fillers and that whole realm is a very passionate thing of mine to give people that informed consent. We all want to look our best. We all feel some sort of shame if we have that acne or we notice that we're getting these wrinkles, and that's a very alarming thing. I'm not immune to it either. I'll look at the mirror and say, ooh, what's that face? But talking myself to the education of that. If you look at this other side of the industry that's saying, come over to this side, we have these quick fixes, let me just get my needle, let me just get this peel. If you look in somebody's eyes, there's a loss of spark in their eyes. We've been obsessed with what we look like. We're looking at the skin as this instrument of beauty and validation. We have so much guilt and shame about it, and we're not realizing what the true root of the problem is. Ashley James (1:09:16.778) It's never good enough. You go down that path and it's just never good enough. And you know what? One day I will have laugh lines and I will have earned them. Lindsey Baillie (1:09:25.899) Yes. Amen. Yes. Because if you're not aging, you're dying, whether that's you're still physically here, but you might be spiritually dead inside. Ashley James (1:09:35.775) I can't wait to be this 90-year-old with the crazy white or gray hair, platinum hair, whatever, and the beautiful laugh lines. I'm just going to let my passion shine, and I'm excited to be that woman one day. Right now, I'm so happy that I do almost nothing to my skin and my diet. I guess I'm managing my stress because my skin looks great. Lindsey Baillie (1:10:06.117) You're taking care of yourself in a healthy way. Ashley James (1:10:09.993) I am. I focus so much on sleep optimization and nutrition that it comes through. My skin used to be oily and dry back in the day, but like I said, the more I used products, it just got worse. When I stopped using products, it kind of just got better. I like that minimalistic approach. Is there anything in the kitchen that is okay to put on the skin? Coconut oil? Is there anything people could just reach for that's not going to be harmful? It might sort of be helpful, but is there anything okay to put on the skin just in general that you can say is out there in the grocery store or in the kitchen? Lindsey Baillie (1:10:58.129) I'm not a huge fan of that. Because of what I said earlier about what else is in that ingredient and how that's going to affect the skin. But one of the things that I do tell clients to do if they're having a skin flare-up or something—oatmeal. Oatmeal baths are amazing. Oatmeal calms the skin. It's an amazing ingredient. I've yet to experiment with other things because I know oatmeal can trigger gluten reactions too. So I'm not speaking to people with celiac or anything like that. But if you make an oatmeal bath or let's say you have an eczema flare-up on your skin and you don't have the right product or whatever to put on your skin, you can create a paste of that oatmeal and water to put on that. Oatmeal calms down that flare-up. Ashley James (1:11:51.735) What about aloe? Lindsey Baillie (1:11:52.871) Aloe can be good if it's pure aloe. Pure aloe. I forget the name of the particular chemical constituent in the leaf between the gel and the leaf that can irritate the skin, but pure aloe gel can help. Absolutely, pure aloe gel, especially for sunburns, is excellent. Ashley James (1:12:13.347) It's important that you mention that there is a membrane between the gel and the skin. That's why you don't want whole-leaf aloe. Don't drink whole-leaf aloe unless you have constipation because that irritates the skin of the intestines and causes diarrhea. So it actually would be a great natural way to rescue yourself if your constipation has gone out of control. Aloe just in the gel is wonderful for skin, good inside and out. You can drink it. I have two interviews about drinking aloe and its benefits. Actually, we mentioned it in a third interview where we talk about the anti-cancer properties of it. Yes, just get yourself a giant aloe plant, tear it off, squeeze out the gel, and go to town. Is that something that you could say a hundred percent of people, no matter what kind of skin type, would benefit from aloe or is there any exception? Lindsey Baillie (1:13:14.575) Except for people with rosacea. Rosacea is a very tricky condition in the osmotic balance. So the balance of water and salt is very temperamental. If you use too many hydrating ingredients, it can actually cause the rosacea to swell, cause more inflammation, and make that condition worse. The same with too many lipids too. So we think of your cream-based skincare products or ingredients. There's this delicate balance with specific skincare conditions. But when I reach for things like, aloe or chamomile is another great herb for calming down the skin. Aloe, it's more of a medicinal purpose. Sunburn, number one, sunburn, or we have some sort of flare-up, or the skin is just really inflamed. So I tend to look at it more as a medicinal way. Ashley James (1:14:13.787) Could we make a chamomile tea bath? Lindsey Baillie (1:14:13.787) Absolutely—and green tea, green tea is excellent in a bath as well. Drinking green tea, having a green tea bath, it's really, really calming and excellent for the skin. Ashley James (1:14:28.799) I just learned more about green tea and how it helps our DNA and helps the mitochondria, how quickly it helps the mitochondria. So I'm now back to drinking my matcha lattes that I make every day. I'm back to drinking those because of how healthy green tea is. Dr. Greger, I had him on the show and he has an amazing library of knowledge for free that he provides where he pores through scientific studies and then he figures out which ones are legitimate because I can't believe how much BS is out there.  As a listener, you probably have seen some BS come out of the studies in the last four years that were debunked. But he goes through and he makes these great videos and blogs where he dives through this information.  Just recently posted, I think it was on X, one of his lectures, a little clip from his lecture on the surprising benefits of green tea. I knew how good green tea was before, but now I'm hooked. Because that's one of the anti-aging aspects of it, how protective it is of our DNA, of our mitochondria, of our cells. So if you want to protect your skin, green tea. Lindsey Baillie (1:15:48.207) Absolutely. Yes, green tea is excellent to drink. Everybody should be drinking green tea. It's so wonderful for skin health. It helps to actually create the proteins that make skin cells. So skin cells are keratinocytes, keratin, keratin is a protein and that's what our skin cells are made of. So green tea can help make healthy skin cells. Ashley James (1:16:10.213) What other foods or herbs are excellent for making healthy skin? Lindsey Baillie (1:16:17.019) Just getting a variety of nutrients. So getting your vegetables, cruciferous vegetables are excellent for those who suffer with acne conditions, getting your fruits, your whole grains, getting enough protein as well, just having a variety. So it's hard to pinpoint one food because just experiment with your vegetables, experiment with your fruits. Here in the U.S. especially, we do not eat enough of that at all and fiber too. Surprisingly, something that I talk about with my clients is your elimination. I ask them, are you pooping every day? Because if you're not, you're holding onto those toxins, and it's coming out in your skin. We need to be pooping at least once a day, if not more. We have to get that out. Ashley James (1:17:08.155) So some, some people can look some holistic practitioners can look at skin and map out the health of different organs based on the presentation of skin issues. So like, you have acne around your mouth. That means you are constipated. That kind of thing. Do you do that or can you look at someone's client's face and go, how's your blood sugar? You could just see it on their face that they're wearing their internal health issues. Lindsey Baillie (1:17:36.307) Absolutely. Especially you say your blood sugar, that type of skin will tend to have more of a sallow appearance, and it almost looks a little bit sludgy, which means that there's a slow cellular turnover. So there's kind of a backup of those skin cells. Especially acne along the jawline and down the neck is going to indicate digestion issues, hormonal issues. Acne on the forehead can be caused by hair products, touching your forehead a lot, or it can indicate mental health issues. Between the eyebrows and down around the sides of the nose can indicate thyroid issues or stress. Cheeks are usually stomach, lungs. You can definitely tell what's going on internally, and then I'll look at their consultation form and say, okay, yep, that's exactly what's happening here because you've indicated I don't eat well or I'm really stressed. I can see that because we have acne in this particular area. Ashley James (1:18:41.313) Let's go through some of the major skin health issues that people have. The whole world can't come see you, so what is your best advice that you can give? Let's just go down the list. I'll start with acne. Everyone listening who suffers with it, and there are different types of acne. So maybe you want to talk about that, but in terms of what advice you could give them. The do's and the don'ts. What you should do, what you shouldn't do that will really help clear up your acne that we haven't already talked about. Maybe even a mom is listening, and their daughter has it or their son has it, so teenagers or something. So what do we recommend specifically? What's the best advice you can give the world about acne? Lindsey Baillie (1:19:34.449) Acne is going to be nutrition. You say the teens, pre-teens, we're definitely starting to see acne a lot younger because of our modern-day world. We're starting to hit puberty a lot earlier, unfortunately, and so we're starting to see acne as early as eight or nine years old. It's pretty interesting. With young skin, especially, you don't want to do too much skincare. You don't want to take them in for regular treatments and things because this is such young skin. It's still learning how to form itself, it's still really susceptible to the environment, and it's learning how to form its skin microbiome. So we don't want to do too much to that skin. With those younger kiddos that are starting to get that kind of prepubescent acne, cleanse and moisturize your skin. That's it. Get the diet under control. Young kiddos tend to eat a lot of sugar. How much candy are they eating after school with their friends? Kind of getting that under control. With acne, dairy is going to be a big, big culprit. If we can minimize dairy or get rid of it altogether, that would be ideal because it's going to stimulate that IGF-1 production, that insulin growth factor one, that's going to stimulate inflammation in the body, which is going to show up on the skin. I'm a fan of hormone testing too, throughout these different periods, especially for women. I will actually refer them to a naturopath, or if they don't want to work with a practitioner and they don't have insurance, send them a link for the Dutch test just so we can get an idea of what's going on hormonally in the body to see what might be driving that acne. Ashley James (1:21:28.985) My mentor, Dr. Joel Wallach says most of the time acne is a blood sugar issue or at least blood sugar issues sustain the acne because acne is a bacteria that's fed by sugar. So think about you've got bacteria in a petri dish, but you only put bacteria in a petri dish. It's not going to grow. You got to give it food. And what we give it is a high process diet, which is high in sugar, high in processed sugar. And you're just feeding that bacteria that lives under the skin, guess, or in the skin. Lindsey Baillie (1:22:01.721) Absolutely. Yes, getting your blood sugar under control is going to help most skin conditions. Ashley James (1:22:05.997) But getting your blood sugar under control is eating a healthier whole foods diet void of processed foods. If you have blood sugar issues, please check out my three interviews I did on Mastering Diabetes. Go to learntruehealth.com and use the search function, search Mastering Diabetes.  Just outstanding, outstanding men, two men that wrote this book, Mastering Diabetes. Also, just listen to the audiobook, Mastering Diabetes. But I think the interviews give a great preface for it and explain how to heal the root cause, which is healing the insulin resistance. You said, if we cut out the processed food and start eating whole foods, cut out oil, cut out these processed high fat, high processed fat, high processed sugar, helps the body come back into balance. I've seen it. I've seen it with people that when they balance their blood sugar through diet, through a healthy diet, through a life-sustaining, healing way of eating, not a temporary diet, it is a reflection in their skin. Lindsey Baillie (1:23:16.621) Absolutely. Just like you mentioned with your husband, it can happen very quickly. I will tell you, when I started eating just whole foods and more plant-based foods, within two weeks, all redness was gone out of my skin. To me, that said, I could not believe the amount of inflammation that I had because we just normalized these things. I have a Celtic background. That's my ancestry. I have very pale, translucent skin. So of course, I'm going to have red skin. Well, actually, it's a lot of what I'm eating. You can see those changes very quickly, but it's sustaining those changes. That's going to be the root cause of healing your skin condition. Ashley James (1:23:59.957) Yes, a lot of my clients lose between five and ten pounds their first one or two weeks of working with me. I tell them really quickly that wasn't necessarily fat because they're like, “My gosh, everything's looser. My pants are looser.” They start noticing. I say, that's inflammation leaving your body. If we did a Dexa scan and we could see ounce per ounce what you lost, it wouldn't have been bone tissue. It wouldn't have been muscle. It was mostly that excess water from inflammation. Maybe you lost a few ounces of fat, but most of it was inflammation. That's the first thing to go when you get on a healthy diet. You can see it in the skin because the skin is the reflection of our internal health. Lindsey Baillie (1:24:47.716) Absolutely. Us as women kind of obsess about whether we are getting what we call turkey neck right under our chin. That's an accumulation of fluid and inflammation. You don't need surgery. You don't need an injection or whatever the treatment of the week is. You don't need that. It is inflammation, and it is fluid accumulation. Ashley James (1:25:15.992) What is that? What is it called? It's called Gosha. What's the name?  Gua Sha. Yes, Yes, Yes. I'm pronouncing it like a white person, Gosha. It's that thing where you take a utensil and you are moving the lymph to help drain it from the body, physical manipulation, physical lymph massage, which is great and all, but if the lymph influence is going to keep coming back because of your diet. So you got to do both. Lindsey Baillie (1:25:49.604) Absolutely. It can be as easy as the way that you're sleeping at night. I mean, we have to think very minuscule, where's this root cause happening? So one thing I noticed about myself is I noticed one side of my face is a lot droopier than the other. Normally we would think, okay, I'm just getting older. I guess I need an eye lift or I need Botox or whatever. I need something to lift the side of the face. But really, am I sleeping? A certain way or do I lean a certain way and I tend to sleep on one side of my face and I notice I kind of smoosh down my skin and that's what's causing it. So we have to kind of follow this investigative path. Why is this happening? Even I'm on the computer all the time. So I have an accumulation of fluid and I have neck wrinkles that are deeper because I'm always looking down because I'm on the computer or I'm writing. So if I want to change that, it doesn't have to be this dramatic thing. I have to change my neck position. Ashley James (1:26:50.378) Right, get one of those desks that architects have where what you're writing on is a little bit higher, it's on an angle. I have a really healthy fear of any kind of surgical procedure that is not life-saving. I have a healthy distrust. I think we should, I think we should. I don't think we should be, it's like going to the spa. Let's get a little eye tuck. No, dude, you're going under for general surgery. You're going to be put under anesthesia. You have a chance of dying. Look at Barbara Walters, we've lost so many amazing women because of just stupid vanity. I wish, I wish as a society, we could love women as they age. Maybe it's happening a bit more. I really wish we could just love women at every stage in life and respect them. Lindsey Baillie (1:27:54.314) Yes, that's becoming the thing. It's such a huge thing. We've made it a fun thing. We've made it a fun thing. I love that you sound like that because that's how I sound when I talk about it. I'm not trying to make you feel bad, but it's a literal issue. If you go to, there's an account on Instagram called Never Tox, and their website is toxsafety.net.  Ashley James (1:28:15.953) Is it like toxic, T-O-X ? Lindsey Baillie (1:28:18.718) Yes, T-O-X. Never T-O-X, they are huge advocates on bringing awareness to how toxic Botox and fillers are. There are so many people that have been injured by this. I don't know if you've seen, I think it was last year, there was this video that was being shared around of this teen boy who was getting Botox for his migraines, which is a bandaid approach, of course, it's not really getting to the root cause. He had always done it. Then just this one time, he got injured by Botox, and now he has severe migraines. He has uncontrollable seizures, and he has just graduated from high school. This is his life now. So you could get these things 99 times, and on the 100th time, congratulations, you've had life-altering poison.  Ashley James (1:29:11.553) For what? For what? For slightly fewer wrinkles? Embrace your fricking wrinkles. Okay, the healthier you eat, you're going to look younger. Go look at some raw vegans in their seventies. They look like they're in their thirties. It's insane. Go look at people, look at their skin, who eat incredibly healthy. But also, let's not care so much to the point where we're destroying our health. I just want a little side note. I got to share this story. I have a friend whose wife at the time really disliked the look of her face. And it's so sad because she's so beautiful. She's from a different country. Her face structure just doesn't look like the average American, okay? She has a very tiny chin. I'm not going to say she's Asian, but she's a very petite woman of Central America, South America, which might have some Asian in there. We’re all kinds of mutts at this point. We're all kind of mixed. But she has almost no chin, but I think she's so beautiful. She's petite, and she's got this beauty. Her skin is beautiful, and she looks very young for her age, again, the genetics. She goes in for surgery in LA to a plastic surgeon to have a chin implant to put in and she’s on the table and he’s doing something, she’s not asleep yet. He hasn’t put on her general anaesthesia but she changes her mind. The intuition kicks in. Her husband is out in the waiting room, and she gets this intuition to stop. She says, I don't want to do it. I've changed my mind. Now she's lying on the table. He hasn't given her the general anesthesia yet. She goes, I changed my mind, changed my mind. He doesn't listen to her. It's like rape. You're very vulnerable at that point. She goes, I changed my mind, changed her mind. He goes, no. He basically just puts the drugs in her, sends her off to sleep. She's yelling out for her husband. He can't hear her. She wakes up, she feels, she's kind of groggy. Doesn't really remember everything clearly until the anesthesia wears off when she's home. But she gets this pain in her neck, and it doesn't go away. It gets worse and worse and worse. Her chin gets worse and worse and worse. The pain is burning. It's intense. Her body's rejecting the implant. The unfortunate thing is, in order to put this implant in, he shaved her bone. She had a very tiny jawbone to begin with. She got it taken out by someone else, and now she has a deformed chin.She suffered from an implant illness, which I have a whole interview called Breast Implant Illness. This is where we really discovered it, because breast implants are more common than chin implants or calf implants. They're the most common sort of implants, cosmetically. At least, I'm guessing. I think that's a pretty educated guess. I just can't believe how many years it took for this to come to light, I guess because of social media. It's wow, I feel really crappy, and my doctor's gaslighting me. Wow, I also have a breast implant, and I also feel that way. My doctor's also gaslighting me. Then all the women's voices lit up on Instagram. This is actually a problem. Breast implant illness, although women have suffered with it for decades, is finally recognized as a thing. But many surgeons still haven't learned about it. You can go to learntruehealth.com, type in Breast Implant Illness, and listen to that episode. The reason why I'm talking about this is we go down this rabbit hole because it's so appealing in the public eye. Let's just get a facelift. Let's get a chin tuck. Let's get this filler put in our lips. Let's take the fat from my butt and put it in my lips. It's natural. It's my fat. Let's put it here. Let's do this. Every time you're doing something there to change, alter your appearance, first of all, you're telling your unconscious mind you're not good enough, and you don't love yourself or accept yourself the way you are. There's internal conflict. But also, there's a chance you could be doing damage that then you suffer from. I would rather you feel beautiful the way you are and focus on feeding your cells—every cell in your body—the deepest, richest nutrition you can so that you radiate with beauty on the outside as a result. If you want to go get those things done, I still support freedom of choice. I am one of those people. You do you. But I just want you to know the full extent of what's going on, because most women don't. Lindsey Baillie (1:34:24.221) Yes, it's that informed consent. It's that informed consent. That's such a heartbreaking story, and I've got one to tell you too, which is why I'm so vocal about it too. I think we need to, number one, rally around each other as women. If you're going to make that decision, that's fine, but you should have both sides of the story, and you should know the risks that come with that, and those aren't being talked about. Women are being bullied into this, whether the surgeon or injector means to do it or not.  Usually, it's a sign of their own issues that they have themselves, which is why they do what they do. It makes money, and they can do it because of their scope of practice. But they're not getting the informed consent out there because the companies that are making these products that are being given, they spend millions of dollars in marketing to make this practitioner believe that what they're doing is the right thing to take care of whatever issue that is. When I was teaching, I was substituting at the time, substituting teaching aesthetics. There was this young student, and she—lovely girl, just wonderful personality, adorable, beautiful, just a wonderful person. She had come in to school one day, and usually, she always said good morning to everybody, and she just kind of went into the classroom. I was asking the other students, what's going on? Has something happened? Is everything okay? What happened was she had gone to a filler appointment with one of her friends just as moral support. She wasn't going to do anything. She didn't want to get that thing. She didn't believe in it, didn't want it. She told me that the injector proceeded to ask her, you don't want anything done at all yourself? And she was, no, I'm good. Well, I can see this side is a little bit different than this side of your face, and we could put some filler here, and we could put some Botox here. She's young, and got talked into it. She was so upset that she did it and hated the way that her face looked. She was in tears. That moment changed me forever. That is the moment I realized that I need to be vocal about this because that was not okay. That is what is happening behind the scenes. It's either being looked at as this fun thing, and this is how you take care of wrinkles, or this is how you get rid of acne, or they're bullying people into getting these things. If you're aware of this and you're doing that, shame on you. That's terrible, and it's heartbreaking. Ashley James (1:36:57.827) I had a similar experience with an esthetician when I was getting my eyebrows waxed. This is again, 16 years ago. She's like, don't you want your chin waxed? Don't you want this? I'm like, no. She's like, I can see this. I can see a black hair. I can see—I'm kind of like—I'll just get it with a tweezer. It's just—I don't want to wax my entire face. She ended up just slathering. There was also a language barrier, but she ended up slathering my neck and face with wax, and I'm sure it was the wrong temperature because I was red for two weeks. My skin got raised and red, and it was so painful for weeks. All I wanted was my eyebrows done. I stopped waxing a long time ago because I kept having these really bad experiences. That's actually happened to me twice where the esthetician ended up just hovering from neck to eyebrows, my entire face, and then just peeled it. I'm like, I didn't want that. Once you're on the table, they're like, no, I see this. You have to do it. Then they charge you extra because they're like, I didn't ask for that. It's kind of wild. You've got to be really, really protective of yourself when you're around people that are pushing these services. Lindsey Baillie (1:38:14.445) Yes, that's poor professional practice. I mean, I get it, you want to stay in business, but that's not the way to do it. That's why you have to be an advocate for yourself. But again, it's hard to find the right person to help you with that. Ashley James (1:38:27.181) They're making women feel bad about themselves to sell your service. That's disgusting. That kind of sounds like most of the beauty industry. So we've talked about acne, let's touch on a few of the more common skin issues. Is eczema and psoriasis similar enough that you can kind of put them in the same category when it comes to dermatitis, when it comes to giving some general homework for those people? Lindsey Baillie (1:38:59.676) Yes, absolutely. So eczema and psoriasis, they're under dermatitis conditions. So it's the same. Number one, those are going to be a genetic issue as well. So you're going to be predisposed to have that. But that's going to be very common in dry skin type conditions. So making sure that you're not stripping the skin, your skin should never feel squeaky clean. That means you've stripped the skin of all of its natural lipids. We don't want that. Then making sure that we have adequate moisture. It's very simple to take care of those issues. Diet again is going to have a play in that. Gluten can be a big trigger for those conditions. But just kind of paying attention to what triggers those reactions. I know for me, I have eczema, it's genetic, my mom has it. Corn is a trigger for me. So I can have a little bit of corn, but when my legs start getting itchy, I start getting those rough patches, I've gone overboard. So it's paying attention to those triggers. If I'm shaving, it does it to me. So I just really don't shave my legs that often. I just don't really care about it either. It is what it is. Ashley James (1:40:16.358) Yes, yes, let's just grow our hair back and if enough of us do it, let's just shave. Women didn't shave until the razor industry wanted to double their sales. So they put out media to make a shaved woman, which at the time was actually unattractive because shaved women, hairless legs, and hairless underarms were associated with underage girls. That's kind of disgusting for a man to be attracted to, I mean, it's wrong and disgusting. So imagine you're an adult male, you're in your 30s or 40s, and you see a woman with no hair, they would associate that with a seven-year-old girl. So that's actually unattractive.  What they did was they had to change their minds. I think it was, I can't remember the exact timeline, it might've been the 50s, but they made commercials of women, we must have been, it was kind of in that whole movement, the same, the similar timeline of convincing women that smoking cigarettes was associated with women's liberty. So they wanted to double the sales of cigarettes while only men smoked because it was considered masculine and disgusting for women to do that. And then they put it on the media. And again, this is how much media manipulates us as a population to make us think that only drug -based medicine is effective, right? For example, they've been doing that for a hundred years, but now they had us go from women who had hair on their legs and hair on their underarms. That was a sign of you're now available, right? You're now a fully grown woman, right? And you're no longer prepubescent. And you're available to be sought after to be considered for marriage. And that was considered sexy.  I'm actually thinking of fashion where they tried to hide hair with leggings and stuff. Then they wanted us to shave. Maybe it was earlier than the fifties, but I'm just remembering the commercials and how it shifted. There were actually pictures in magazines in the early 1900s, where there were women with hair and that was normal. That was considered fine.   I think we should start questioning everything. Why do I do this? Why do I shave? Why do I wear this? Why do I use this product? Why do I put on perfume? We should question. We don't have to douse ourselves with chemicals that cause cancer to make people like us. There are alternatives, but we should start questioning the habits that we were just taught were normal. They're unhealthy. They're unhealthy and we should start looking at it. Yes. Lindsey Baillie (1:43:00.528) Yes. Why did they happen? I mean, there's a lot of sinister reasons for a lot of things. You talk about being hairless too. That is very much tied to the pornography industry as well. Making yourself, as a woman, be bright and shiny and perfect for those sinister reasons. That's why it's hard for me to think of it in a secular way because everything is such a spiritual issue and it's tied to a sinister reason. There's a lot going on behind the scenes in that realm that we just don't think of. I do talk to my clients about that too. If I could just plant that seed so you can just maybe have a think about that. There's a great book if you're interested in the history of just the beauty industry and cosmetics and everything. It's called Beauty Imagined. It kind of goes through the history of cosmetics and beauty. It's really interesting because a lot of things that we do today are tied to a medical purpose. It started out for a medical reason, as like, you know, the snake oil of the season, if you will, and then it's turned into what we have today. It's just interesting to learn how we got here. Ashley James (1:44:16.665) Would that be a good book for moms to give to their daughters coming of age or teenagers so that they understand what's behind things before they just go putting whatever makeup they see on TikTok on? Lindsey Baillie (1:44:30.960) Absolutely that one. There's also a book called Skin Side Out by Robin McAlpine that actually breaks down just the skin, makeup, everything in a very simple way, in a way that I've been talking about too, but it's in a book and there's even more. So those two books would be a great gift for anybody. Ashley James (1:44:53.836) The idea of chicken skin or keratosis pilaris, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, it's usually, for me, it's usually people see it on their arms, they feel their arms, it's all bumpy. I don't know if it shows up on the face. Lindsey Baillie (1:45:09.242) No, not the face, but it can show up on the neck and the back. My husband actually has that and it's all over his body and his flares up when he eats high amounts of meat. He drinks alcohol and doesn't moisturize his skin. Ashley James (1:45:21.648) So my clients through the years, it's been 13 years that I've been helping clients to go gluten free, which means cutting out barley, wheat, rye, and oats. Oats contain gliadin. So that goes out the door with the gluten and not replacing it with gluten free processed foods. So you don't, now that I'm gluten free, I'm going to eat in the gluten free section. Nope. You can have your healthy starches from whole foods. But it's actually easier. It was just so funny. You and I have discussed that once you eat whole foods, it's infinitely cheaper and easier and also the healthiest way to eat too because you're not opening packages, you're just chopping up something. I steam the potatoes, steam the vegetables or saute them or bake them and make the lentils and quinoa or brown rice or buckwheat. There you go. It's so delicious. Sometimes we can make a sauce to go on top and it's super yummy. But also it's super simple and it's much more nutrient dense. It's a void of all those chemicals and processed food. But what I see with my clients for the last 13 years is those with chicken skin. They don't even necessarily tell me they have chicken skin beforehand because someone with chicken skin is not going to go find a holistic health coach to teach them how to eat to get rid of their chicken skin. They don't even associate that with their diet. They just go, why does my skin feel that way? Feel your arms, feel your forearms. Are they smooth or are they bumpy? The bumpies go away when they cut out barley, wheat, rye, and oats and incorporate healthier whole food starches. That's been my experience for 13 years. That one change—cut it out. You can eat all the other kinds of whole grains, but cut out those four. It's really amazing. If we see skin on the outside of our body not forming correctly like dermatitis—that is not a healthy formation of skin on the outside. Same with chicken skin, not a healthy formation of skin on the outside. Is it also doing that to the inside? Is it also doing that to our intestines, which is skin? Our lungs are a type of skin, and most importantly, our cardiovascular system is a type of skin. The inside of our arteries—are they bumpy, inflamed, damaged, which then can increase cardiovascular death? We can go down that rabbit hole. How much is it similar? The skin on the outside, the health of the skin on the outside versus the health of the inside. I love that people come to you, women probably mostly come to you for looking more beautiful, looking their most beautiful self. What really needs to happen is a revamp to help their entire body, every single cell in their body, be the healthiest it can be. Lindsey Baillie (1:48:38.118) Absolutely. I always change the conversation. It's not about beauty, it's about health. When we're healthy, we just naturally look what we would consider beautiful. So the goal is healthy. That's the goal—healthy. Healthy skin is glowy, dewy, has good color, less blemishes, less texture because it's functioning the way that it should be. So the goal is health, not beauty. Beauty is just a kind of a “side effect.” Ashley James (1:49:09.254) Am I going to say this right? Melasma, which is always called liver spots. Lindsey Baillie (1:49:10.494) Those are different. Melasma is hormonal mediated pigmentation. I see that a lot in pregnant women. Hormone testing is key. We've got to understand what your hormones are doing. Pigmentation is really tricky because it depends on the degree of damage that's been done. When we’re thinking about our skin as a part of our immune system. Pigment is created to protect the body, and that happens when we are exposed to the sun. Sunlight hits our eyes. Melanin-stimulating hormone is stimulated to start pigmentation so our skin can be protected. This can go awry in so many different ways. Hormones with melasma are definitely a big culprit. But what happens is this melanocyte, your pigment-producing cell, gets over excited and tries to protect us. If something is going on internally or externally, it will actually overproduce pigment. That's when we see these abnormal age spots, liver spots, melasma, and things like that. This can be corrected sometimes, but if the damage has been done for so long, you might have that pigmentation for life. There are things we can do to lighten it and protect the skin, but the goal is how can we calm down this pigment-producing cell? When we heal the skin barrier, we get the skin in a healthy state that can send a message down through the deeper layers of your skin and down to that melanocyte: hey, we're safe, there's nothing we need protection against. That melanocyte can actually start to calm down. I've seen that in my own skin just from feeding the skin what it needs. A lot of my pigmentation has gone away without even trying to lighten it because I've just calmed down my immune system. Ashley James (1:51:23.882) And what about those age spots or liver spots? Usually  you see them on the hands. Is that the same thing? Lindsey Baillie (1:51:30.984) That's the same thing. That's just going to happen with age. It's going to happen with age. So a lot of what I tell people is acceptance. I mean, I'm doing it to myself. I'm starting to see the pigmentation on my hands and my arms. I noticed my grandma had that and everything. I think, Ooh, what did I do in my younger years to make this happen? I was in the sun all the time, drank alcohol in the sun, put oil on my skin, and I've done this permanent damage. This is why we need to talk about this, especially with the younger generations, because everything you do from birth to around age 25 is going to kind of solidify what you see in your health and on your skin later. I did all this in my teens and early twenties, so I solidified that damage. That's just naturally what's going to happen. Ashley James (1:52:25.790) So Dr. Wallach says that liver spots are a sign of oxidized fat and that he sees that removing oils, all oil from your diet, and he has a list of 12 foods that he wants everyone to avoid. One of them being those oils and the other one being the gluten grains we talked about. But he says increase your antioxidant foods.  Try to get 100 ORAC, stands for Oxygen Radical Absorption Capacity. It's one of the measurements for antioxidants, but 100,000 ORAC a day in your diet. This is from a variety of, it actually goes to another Joel, Dr. Joel Furman. He talks about G-bombs in the diet every day. Onions, beans, berries, greens, mushrooms, and seeds every day. Get a ton of them . You can also include very dark chocolate, small amounts and not at bedtime because there's caffeine in it naturally, but a small amount of dark chocolate every day, green tea, these other really high antioxidant foods. There's certain spices, obviously turmeric, and then including a little bit of black pepper with that every day, increasing ginger, clove, cinnamon. These are wonderful high-antioxidant spices and herbs. Through that, sometimes women see, you said, it lightens up, it goes away, but at least we're preventing it from further, further damage also. I've also had clients where skin tags have literally fallen off their body, stopped their body, stopped producing skin tags, and they fell off. Have you had that experience?  Lindsey Baillie (1:54:14.391) Yes, absolutely. When you increase your antioxidants, that can definitely help reverse some of the damage for sure. And it's interesting the changes that you see. Ashley James (1:54:24.528) Right. It's wild. Okay. So I'm sure that women that want to help heal their skin are kind of on the edge of their seat when it comes to, well, how can I work with you? So let's talk about that. You have your website, saltoftheearthskin.com, where you love to educate. So there's a lot of free information. You've got your blog out there. People can also work with you one-on-one and also in person if they're local to you. But can you talk a bit about what it's like to be one of your clients? Lindsey Baillie (1:54:53.732) Yes, absolutely. So I especially work with people in the Western US because we don't have a lot of people that practice like I do out this way. All you have to do is go to my website and schedule an advanced skin analysis, and we do everything over Google Meet. Once you schedule your appointment, there will be an intake form that you'll fill out that gives me insight on your diet, your lifestyle. Where you grew up for the first 25 years of your life, what medications, supplements that you're taking because sometimes those can be a cause of skin issues. Then we work over a video call to get that general advice for you. I craft a report for you to let you know what these habits that you are doing or foods that you're eating, how they might be contributing to the health of your skin and any skin issues you may be having. A starter skincare set is included in that as well. Then we just continue to work virtually on these lifestyle changes. It's a kind of health coaching, but for skin in a way. When I have people who have more complicated issues with nutrition, then of course, I just send them your way because that's your wheelhouse and my wheelhouse is skin.  Ashley James (01:52:19.31) That's my wheelhouse. If I have someone with skin issues, I will send them your way because you're amazing. We kind of talked about the more popular stuff, but are there any other skin issues you have not or diagnosis that you have? We have not mentioned yet that you get really great results with and you want to definitely mention. Lindsey Baillie (1:56:25.216) It's really all skin issues. Mostly what I see is people concerned with aging, acne, and rosacea. I can help most all skin conditions because the goal is to heal the skin barrier and just feed the skin topically what it needs. When you do that, a lot of issues start to heal on their own. There's a lot of education and just information that I give you. Ashley James (1:56:51.622) Nice. A really dear friend of mine was born with ichthyosis. 70 or more percent of her body was covered in acute ichthyosis, which means fish skin. That's what she looked like. There would be chunks of her skin that would just fall off of her. She looked almost like she was made of gravel, smaller kinds of gravel that would just fall off. Her dad had it so bad that he is actually in all of the textbooks. If you go look in medical literature, there are pictures of her dad because they studied him so extensively that they took so many pictures of him that his picture to this day is in the textbooks. She would eat very clean and she made all her own skincare, and she would have to spend hours massaging her skin, massaging it into her skin every day. Just so she wouldn't crack and bleed. She ate very clean, she took supplements, and she believed in taking care of herself in that way, but she still basically just had it. This was about 13 years ago when I introduced her to Dr. Joel Wallach, who’s my mentor. He was actually in Toronto at the time, where I'm from, and she was living in Toronto. He was, that very day, giving a health lecture. She drove a good, probably two hours in traffic to get to him on the other side of Toronto. At the end of his health lectures, now he does it online because COVID just started pretty much, he stopped. He’s also 86, but he's amazing. He gives health lectures all the time. He’s been doing that for over 30 years. He was answering questions as he does for hours until every single person has their question answered. She puts her hand up and she says, “I have ichthyosis.” He goes, “I bet the doctor said it was genetic. That's the reason why you have it and you can never get rid of it.” She goes, “Yes.” He yells at the top of his lungs, “They're wrong. They're lying.” He proceeds to tell her, “Okay, this is exactly what I want you to do.” He gets her off the 12 bad foods. One of them, we already talked about, the oils, the fried food, the gluten grains. He gets her on different supplements, and then he has her take a handful of higher doses based on what he knows to help. So higher amounts of A and E, and we watched her. She avoided the bad foods, still eating very clean, but she avoided the 12 bad foods. She added the supplements and a few extra with higher doses. Within three years, the worst her skin was, was slightly dry in the winter. We watched her skin transform, and she was in her 50s. She had had that her entire life, and it was remarkable to watch the transformation. The rest of her family, because it's “genetic,” all her family has it. But when I see genetics, genetics don’t pull the trigger, nutrition does. All her family has it, all her family related to her dad has ichthyosis to a certain extent, but they all have the same nutrient deficiencies. They all come from the same region, eat the same food, the same style. They all have the same nutrient deficiencies. She completely got rid of it. Her family didn't want to follow in her footsteps because it’s too hard to give up the bad foods, or they just want to eat junk food. I'm like, “Yes, but do you really want cracking, bleeding skin that just falls off your body?” Anyway, so some people just won't give up the junk food. They don’t want it. They don’t want to get better. They’d rather have their addiction than their health. That’s frustrating, but it’s also the freedom of choice. I mean, can you just imagine being God? “I gave you freedom of choice. What are you doing with it? What are you doing?” But when we have the information, at least we can spread the information, and then people can make informed choices. Yes, she was able to completely live without ichthyosis based on a few health changes, but it had nothing to do with what she was putting on her skin. Lindsey Baillie (2:01:42.098) Yes, exactly. That's such a prime example. Just because you have a genetic condition doesn't mean, “Okay, there's nothing we can do” or “Take this drug.” There's a nutritional deficiency or a gene deficiency, so what can we do to work with that? That's a prime example. That's amazing. It's also a great example of how long it can take to heal a condition. That's where patience comes in handy as well. Ashley James (2:02:07.200) It was healing over time, but by the three-year mark, all the worst it was, was at times she might have dry skin. She went from the worst ichthyosis you could possibly imagine to slightly dry skin at times, within three years. It got better from there, which was really cool to see. I think we've established that so much of skin health has to do with our internal health and our diet. I love that you also want to protect us and shed light on how many toxic things are in our life and in our habits, the misinformation that's being spread. I would never put on my skin what's sold at a local drugstore. You go down those aisles, most of those brands are actually made by the pharmaceutical industry. Most of those brands are, I'm just talking about body creams, face creams in general, just like things to put on your skin. Most of it has petroleum-based ingredients. I would not put that on my skin because it gets absorbed into my body. Why would I want to put that in? Would you take a bath in gasoline? Why would I put those chemicals in my body? You definitely take skincare a step further, but I love that you're looking at creating health as a whole. Wonderful. So, listeners can go to your website, check out saltoftheearthskin.com. Of course, the links to everything we talked about today are going to be in the show notes of today's podcast at LearnTrueHealth.com. Is there anything you want to say to wrap up today's interview? Is there anything you want to make sure that you shared with us? Lindsey Baillie (2:04:07.012) I mean, I think it's just stressing that God made you the way that you are. You don't need to change your appearance, get your stress under control, get your nutrition dialed in. When it comes to the topical recommendations, yes, the skin has its own recipe, but everybody's so individual. What works for one person or your friend or your mom is not going to be the same thing that works for you, but if you can focus on stress and nutrition, that just does wonders. Ashley James (2:04:41.064) What worked for you in the past might not always work for you, as you said. That's something that we need to be aware of. We also need to be aware of not beating ourselves up. That worked for another person. Why doesn't it work for me? The esthetician I went to said this would work for me. Why is it not working? The person on Instagram said it would work. Why isn't it working for me? I am wrong. Something's wrong with me. I am broken. No. They failed you. You didn't fail you. They failed you. Lindsey Baillie (2:05:11.113) Yes, absolutely. Get off social media if you find yourself getting down. Throw your phone down and go for a walk. Ashley James (2:05:17.849) Love it. Yes. Go for a walk. Hey, someone gave you that advice. Go for a walk. That's some of the greatest advice for clearing the head, clearing the cobwebs. Go for a walk, do some deep breathing, get 20 minutes of sunlight every day. Get out there and get small doses of sunlight is healthy for so many reasons. Yes, go for a walk, but try not to walk in a highly trafficked area. If you can walk in nature, walk in a park, or down by a river or lake or something, then do that. Well, it was wonderful, Lindsey, having you on the show. Thank you for enlightening us. I definitely learned some things today. This was a lot of fun. I know that you're going to be hearing from some of my listeners because it's so intriguing and also so individual. Well, I'll be excited to hear how that works for them. Also, hey, Lindsey's in our Facebook group. So come to the Learn True Health Facebook group. Sometimes you pop in and answer some cool skin questions. I always learn something from you, so I love it. Thank you for today. This was nice. Lindsey Baillie (2:06:31.525) Yes, thank you so much, Ashley. Outro: As you heard me share before, about the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, it's an incredible opportunity to check out their free course and also check out the class that is starting soon. If you're interested in becoming a health coach or just checking out the free training, go to learntruehealth.com/coach and when you sign up, use coupon code LTH. You're going to get a great discount. Even if you're super busy, you can fit it into your schedule. If you have time to listen to my podcast, you have time to become an integrative health coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and rock your world, bringing joy, clarity, and fulfillment to every area of your life. IIN is not just about what you eat. Life at IIN is not just about what you eat. It's about examining, uplifting, and bringing joy into every single area: mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, friendships, community connection. It really is about living a full life and then learning how to help others do the same. So if that sounds like something you're interested in, you're going to want to check it out. Help others do the same. If that sounds like something you're interested in, you're going to want to check it out. learntruehealth.com/coach, coupon code LTH.   Get Connected with Lindsey Baillie! Website – saltoftheearthskin.com Facebook Instagram

Get the free IIN sample class and health coach experience: https://learntruehealth.com/coach   Enroll in the next Health Coach Training Program! Use coupon code LTH when signing up to become a health coach at https://learntruehealth.com/coach   To Dye For The Documentary: Website: https://www.todyeforthedocumentary.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/todyeforthedocumentary FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dyefreefamily Instagram -@todyeforthedocumentary   530: To Dye For: The Documentary, Exposes Hidden Poison Harming Children https://learntruehealth.com/to-dye-for-the-documentary-exposes-hidden-poison-harming-children/   Class starts Sept 23—don’t miss out! 🎓 Try a FREE sample class at learntruehealth.com/coach. 💰 Use coupon code LTH for the biggest discount available! New cohorts start year-round—jump in anytime! What if a common ingredient in your food was secretly harming your health? In this episode of the Learn True Health podcast, Whitney and Brandon Cawood, creators of To Dye For: The Documentary, expose the shocking truth about synthetic dyes. After witnessing dramatic behavioral changes in their son, they uncovered the hidden dangers of these artificial additives—linked to hyperactivity, aggression, and even misdiagnosed mental health issues. Join us as we dive into the science, the industry cover-ups, and what you can do to protect yourself and your family. This eye-opening conversation will make you think twice before your next grocery trip! Highlights: Whitney and Brandon Cawood share how removing synthetic dyes transformed their son's behavior. Artificial dyes are linked to hyperactivity, aggression, and misdiagnosed mental health issues. U.S. companies remove dyes for Europe but keep them in American products. Synthetic dyes serve no purpose beyond cosmetic appeal yet contain harmful chemicals. California is moving to ban Red 3 and other dyes from school foods. Dyes are hidden in unexpected foods, medications, and personal care products. Many ADHD and epilepsy medications contain dyes that may worsen symptoms. Intro: Hello True Health Seeker and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. Today is one of the more relevant episodes I've done, especially if you have children, but really this applies to everyone. There is a hidden poison that serves no good whatsoever that is in our food. Through listening to this episode today, you will start to learn how to avoid this easily. You can easily avoid it when you know about it. Stay tuned. You'll want to be sharing this episode with your friends, your family, especially those who have children, especially for those who have children that have learning issues, behavioral. This actually affects the brain, and it's night and day. When we stop feeding this to kids, they become happy, calmer, able to handle their emotions, able to process emotions, able to learn, sit still, just be happier, more peaceful, and healthier in their body. Really, there have even been people misdiagnosed with mental issues, mental illness, and with things like bipolar, who actually had a sensitivity to this chemical additive in food. Can you imagine feeling like you're losing your mind and being misdiagnosed, all the while you've been poisoned by food that we trusted our government to tell us was safe? We go into that today. We go into talking about why this was approved in the first place, what we can do about it, and how we can easily, easily get rid of it. I graduated from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and became an integrative health coach, and it was a wonderful program, really transformative, life-changing program. About half the people that take this online course end up doing it just for their own personal transformation. So if you're someone who loves learning or you're sick of being sick and you want to learn about how to create holistic health in your life and you want to go deeper, especially with a community, you definitely want to check out the Institute for Integrative Nutrition right now. I want you to go to learntruehealth.com/coach. That's learntruehealth.com/coach. It's a brand new sample class that they're giving away for free. I've been promoting this link for years because they had an old sample class, which I loved, and they've updated their entire curriculum. They have all new instructors, and they've added a lot of information to their course. They're, of course, evolving as new health information comes out. Even though it's holistic health, new information comes out. We have to upgrade, we have to update, stay relevant, and stay current, and that's what they're doing. So check out the new sample class, even if you've paid attention to the old sample class. It's free. You're going to learn something. Might as well. Jump in and check it out. So go to learntruehealth.com/coach. That's learntruehealth.com/coach. That's learntruehealth.com/coach. About half the people that take it either want to become a health coach or want to add these tools to their already existing repertoire. So there's a lot of practitioners that listen to this group. Whether you're a nurse, an acupuncturist, a massage therapist, a counselor, mental health counselor, therapist, doctor, naturopath, or chiropractor, you will gain a set of tools that'll deepen your ability to help people, to guide people, and to coach them to better health. But if you don't want to work with people and you just want to dive in for your own personal benefit, that's cool too. It really is for both. You will grow—you and your entire family—because you'll start sharing things, the way you cook, and the lifestyle changes you make. Every aspect of your life will be enriched from this program. So I'm a big believer in it, and right now you will get a huge savings. The class starts September 23rd, so you want to jump on it. If you're interested, check out the free sample class at learntruehealth.com/coach. If you want to dive in, make sure you contact them. You can do it online, and you can also call them in person. If you do it online, make sure that you use the coupon code LTH, because you're going to receive a very large discount. I negotiated the biggest discount that they give anyone for my wonderful listeners. If September 23rd has come and gone, don't worry, because they start up new cohorts of students several times a year. Jump into the program, no matter when it is. When you're ready to sign up, they unlock the beginning of the course. So you begin your course no matter what, but then your whole cohort works together online. The biggest thing you need to know is that this was designed to fit within the very busy lifestyle of a working mom. Now, you might be a dad, or you might be a single person. Either way, a very busy working mom—which I am—we have almost no time for ourselves. They thought, who’s the busiest person in the world and has the most responsibilities? Then they designed it so that the busy working mom could learn, grow, and complete this curriculum. So it's about 20 minutes a day for a year, or sometimes it's a little bit more, a little bit less, give or take. Or you can do their six-month accelerated program. That is, I would say, dedicate 40 minutes to an hour a day. So that's more for what they call a full-time student, someone who can really sit down for an hour a day for six months. Good news is, if you're really busy, choose the year-long program. It's a year of transformation, and isn't that wonderful? There were times I was super busy, I missed a few days, so I would just take Sunday afternoons and catch up with all the lessons. So it's flexible, it fits within your schedule, and it is really a wonderful personal growth and transformation experience. So be sure to go to learntruehealth.com/coach, check out the free sample class, and remember to use my coupon code, LTH. Thank you for sharing this podcast with those you care about. It's going to make a huge difference, and I look forward to seeing how this ripple turns into a tidal wave and how, in the coming months and years, we actually will change the food industry. We will share this information, we will vote with our fork, and we will vote with our wallet. By doing so, we will force the food industry to make changes. Enjoy today's interview. Welcome to the Learn True Health Podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James, this is episode 530.  Ashley James (0:07:04.994) I am so excited for today's guests. We have Whitney and Brandon Cawood on the show. They are the creators of To Dye For: The Documentary. This is going to be so important for everyone to listen to, especially Americans, because we're one of the countries that has the worst artificial dye in our food. It's ubiquitous. It is crazy. I'm a label reader, and I'm surprised that there aren't more of us—food detectives out there. It drives my husband nuts. When we grocery shop, it takes me 90 minutes because if I go down the aisles to buy packaged food, I'm very picky. I read every single label, and I cannot tell you how amazing it is just how much absolute garbage—absolute garbage—people are feeding their children. People are feeding themselves, and we think it's a treat. “Why don't you just treat the kids?” I hear this from other people, other moms and grandmas. “Come on, you're hurting them. They're not having a normal childhood experience because they're not allowed to have the same food that the other kids have.” I look at disease rates. If you want to be like an average American—one in three diabetes, one in three obesity, morbidly obese, one in three have cancer—and it's growing. Look at what we die of. Look at what our children suffer from. Look at the health statistics. If you want to be like that, and if you want your children to be like that, then eat how everyone else is eating. But if you want your kids to have better health than the average child, if you want your kids to bounce back quickly from colds, if you want them to be able to pay attention in class and their brain not to be on fire from artificial chemicals in food, if you want them to be able to focus and enjoy learning and enjoy spending time with their friends and not be disruptive in class because their brain is on fire, then you need to read labels and be more discerning. You have to go upstream. You have to be the black sheep. You cannot have your grocery cart look like everyone else's grocery cart. This is where Whitney and Brandon Cawood come in. I'm so excited for your documentary. It's coming out in the next few months. Listeners, I want you to make sure that you go to todyeforthedocumentary.com. The links to everything the Cawoods do are going to be in the show notes of today's podcast at learntruehealth.com. Listeners can sign up for their mailing list. Definitely check them out on Instagram. We're going to make sure your Instagram information is in the show notes as well because your Instagram is insane. It's so relevant, so informative, and so educational. The visuals show, “I didn't know that—I feed that food to my kids, or my mom fed that to me—and look what's in it. Look what it's doing. It's harming us.” You're bringing light to something that so many of us are not aware of. I have a friend who would die if she ate yellow dye. She has an anaphylactic allergy to yellow dye. What is going on with artificial dyes that someone could actually die from eating them? I've spoken enough. Whitney, Brandon, it's wonderful to have you here. Welcome to the show. Brandon & Whitney Cawood (0:10:38.832) Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us. We're excited. Ashley James (0:10:41.908) Absolutely. Yes, so take us back to the beginning. A young couple in Georgia all of a sudden becomes producers of a documentary? What happened in your lives that made you become aware of synthetic dyes and how dangerous they are for our children, for our brain, and for our health?  Brandon & Whitney Cawood (0:11:04.314) Yes, we have two children. We have a six-year-old and a three-year-old. But when our oldest was around ages two and three, he was really having a lot of trouble with impulse control, aggression, hitting, meltdowns, just could not cope with anything that doesn't go his way basically. A lot of that sounds normal to parents that are listening. They're like, yes, I've had a kid that's that age, and that happens, but it wasn't normal in that, at the frequency that it was happening and the amount of issues that we were having. He was going to a Mother's Morning Out program, which is a half-day program from 9 to 11:30, and he was just going two or three days a week. I was having to pick him up every day. We were having notes home every single day. Every time we went to church, every time we went on a playdate, it was an issue that was really, really affecting our lives. It was really affecting him and his relationships with children and teachers. It was just really heartbreaking to watch. I'm a former teacher, so I was just mortified that I had a child that was struggling so much and that we didn't know how to help him. We were eventually asked to leave his half-day daycare, and around that same time, we were trying to figure out what can we do to help him? We had him in behavior therapy. We were doing everything that we could at that point, and finally, I decided to go on the internet and just try to find out if our diet could be affecting our mental health. I have several food allergies, so I have done an elimination diet before, and I've known how powerful that can be to your health. I found an article that suggested eliminating wheat, dairy, and synthetic dyes, and so I took those out of his diet, and just 48 hours later, the hitting and the tantrums almost completely stopped. I mean, it took care of 98% of our issues, and the other 2%, it was, okay, we could slow down, and we could talk through it, and learning happened, and things just started happening so quickly. We reintroduced wheat, and it had no effect. We reintroduced dairy, and it had no effect. We reintroduced dyes, and within 15 minutes, that child that we would occasionally see glimpses of whenever he was on the dyes, we would have days where it was really, really bad, and most of the days were really bad, but then we'd have days that were really good. So anyway, when we reintroduced the dyes, that child that we had that was really good on those days, we had that child for 30 days straight. So when we eliminated the dyes, yes. Anyway, the craziest part about that is the only place that he was regularly getting synthetic dyes daily was his daily allergy medicine. He also had chronic ear infections, so he was on kind of an amoxicillin red loop. But he was already doing mostly organic snacks and the good stuff, so we were really shocked that something that we were giving him could affect his behavior and his well-being so dramatically and so fast. Fast forward, he's done public school pre-K and kindergarten. Now he's in first grade, and quite literally, he has not had a time where he's hit anyone, where he has been upset. He's never cried at school. I mean, he is just the picture-perfect child. I mean, he's not perfect, of course, he's a little boy, but we don't have behavior problems. We don't have an RTI. He's just a normal, very, very smart, very successful, very, very kind and compassionate child. To go from a child that was having so many issues to a child that is doing so well and is so successful, we were shocked. First of all, we didn't know why. Why would something that we were eating affect your mind so much? So I went down this rabbit hole of trying to figure out what's going on, and I was looking into the research and digging in, and I was really confused. I have a degree in education, so I could not decode the jargon in these scientific research articles. I really wanted to go to researchers and ask the questions to try to figure out what was going on. My husband has a background in film. Well, not documentaries, but in short-form film commercials. So I asked him if he would be willing to document our journey and to go with me to interview these researchers and families, and reluctantly, he agreed. Also, I think I threw you off. She was in the middle of saying after the elimination diet, it was 30 days long, and she reintroduced wheat, and nothing changed, and reintroduced dairy, and nothing changed. But when we did reintroduce the dye, within 15 minutes, the bad behavior started back up again. So we knew pretty quickly that that was the cause. I think I threw you off when we were saying, when you were telling that part of the story. Ashley James (0:16:13.697) No, you did. You actually did say it was 15 minutes. That's something that I have heard. There was this doctor back in the nineties. There's this clip. It was one of those, the Donahue show or one of those daytime talk shows. This doctor came on. This clip I've found on YouTube, and if I find it again, I'll put it in the show notes. It's this doctor—I think she might be German. I think I seem to remember an accent. She took children and gave them something they're allergic to. Then within 15 minutes, they were biting, kicking, pulling hair, and screaming. It looked like they were possessed, and they went from super sweet to their brains on fire. We have to recognize that there are chemicals in our food that cross the blood-brain barrier, that excitotoxins that inflame the nerves. Then we just take the kid to the doctor, and the doctor puts them on meds to make them docile and behave themselves. We're just medicating this huge population of children that we're poisoning and then poisoning further by trying to suppress this behavior, these symptoms, when it's the food that's doing it. That is just so sad. Brandon & Whitney Cawood (0:17:36.842)  I think whenever we first kind of realized that he was having this kind of reaction, we thought it was probably kind of rare, and we thought that we were kind of on this island. When he didn't even think that people would believe her if she told this story. So around the same time that we started kicking around the idea of doing this documentary, we also started a Facebook group that we run. It's more broad-based about synthetic dyes in general. It's not necessarily about the film, but we started it, brought to you by our film page. We started that page, and within the two years that we've been working on the film, that page has grown from zero to five hundred and eighty thousand people. So as we're building this film and deciding how we're going to do it, we're getting all this affirmation that there are people out there who are going through similar things. This isn't as rare as we thought it is. We've just heard story after story after story, similar to ours or worse than ours. Some of them aren't as extreme, but just to see that there's so many people being affected really kind of fueled our fire. We have to get this information out there because if this many people are being affected, that's probably just a small fraction of the people that truly is being affected because they're the people who have figured it out. So how many people don't know this is affecting their child? That really kind of gave us some fuel to keep going through the tough times and the challenging times of creating a documentary with two people, but it all made it worth it. Ashley James (0:19:12.252) What you guys are also showing, especially through your social media, hey, if you want to feed your kids junk food, if you want to feed your kids processed crap, you can still feed them processed, you can still feed them sugar, you can still feed them artificial treats. There are a whole bunch of dye-free or natural dye alternatives. One of my son's favorites, he gets them once a year, is the No-Nos. They're little candies that have no dairy, no gluten, no dye. That's why they're called No-Nos, but they're these little chocolate-covered candies, kind of like M&Ms, a little bit like M&Ms. He loves them. I'm big at really limiting processed food and sugar. When you go down this rabbit hole, you start to wake up to, wow, maybe I shouldn't be filling my kids' lunchbox with foods that wouldn't expire in the next 25 years. If you just leave the foods out of their package, mold won't even eat it. If mold won't even eat the food that you're feeding your kid, their gut microbiome can't eat it for sure. You're not giving your children living food to feed their cells. There's that catch too. When you start to go down the rabbit hole of eliminating dye, you might also start limiting processed foods in general, which then has additional health benefits because what are you going to replace it with? Whole foods. Maybe just give your kid more fruit, something alive, something full of vitamins and fiber. There are over a thousand chemical compounds in fruit that fight cancer and help the body's immune system. That's nature's candy. So forget about dye. Let's feed our kids real food. But not everyone is willing to take that step, or they're just waking people up to it. Hey, how about instead of these Oreos, you buy these alternative Oreo cookies that don't have dye? It actually really surprised me when I saw that there's blue dye in Oreos. I'm like, what the crap? What are we feeding our kids? Start reading the labels of stuff, and it will surprise you. There's only one cereal I will give my child because there's nothing in it. It's just rice. There's nothing else in it. It's really hard to find, and it's organic, but it's really hard to find a good healthy cereal with no sugar, with no artificial crap in it. Then you start going down that rabbit hole of, wow, what have I been eating? What have I been feeding my kids? So I'm sure you've been diving down this rabbit hole. I do have a few more questions. Your second child, have you done this experiment? Have you run the experiment and fed your second child dye to see if they react in a similar fashion? Brandon & Whitney Cawood (0:22:13.022) We have actually, and she does not seem to react, at least not to the extent that he does. I mean, we've only tested, what, twice maybe, and she's three, but she doesn't seem to have the same reaction. But we know now, knowing what we know now, we don't avoid dyes just because of the neurologic impacts. They have dramatic impacts on our health in general. No one should be consuming synthetic dyes. Just the fact that some of them are linked to cancer, some of them, Red 40, can increase your susceptibility to colitis. Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 may contain carcinogenic components. Many people have allergic reactions to Yellow 5, Yellow 6, and red 40. Red 3 and Yellow 5 are genotoxic or can be genotoxic. Red 3 we know causes cancer in animals. Even the FDA says that. On the FDA's website, it says that Red 3 causes cancer in animals. It’s banned in cosmetics and externally applied drugs, but not in food. There are so many reasons to avoid synthetic dyes, and to your point that you were making earlier, in our group we do, we just only talk about synthetic dyes, and the reason why is because that's that first step, as you said, can be really intimidating for people.  Someone that has never read a label, this is a really good first step to looking at ingredients. Once synthetic dyes are a chemical, that chemicals can affect you in so many negative ways, you really do go down that rabbit hole. We've seen it time and time again, synthetic dyes are kind of a gateway drug in that you start really reading ingredients, and you become concerned about your health. Then you're eating more whole foods, and then you're looking at products that are applied thermally. Your eyes are really open to how the way we conduct our life and the things that we eat can really impact our health long term. So we think that it's a really great place to start, and although our film focuses on synthetic dyes, we do touch on the fact that there are thousands of chemicals in our food that have not been tested or have been tested by these companies. Although we know that there's more issues than synthetic dyes, we just really think that it's a great place to start and just a really good first step. Well, then also, synthetic dyes are a huge part of our story. So eliminating dyes changed our family's dynamic so much, and then kind of say how we feel. It kind of changes the trajectory of our son's life. But then also, you start looking at synthetic dyes. The crazy thing about synthetic dyes is they're completely cosmetic. There's no preservative value. There's no flavor. It doesn't add any shelf life. It doesn't do anything except make the food look different. It's hard to even think of any other additive that has no purpose other than something cosmetic. Aside from the issues and the dangers and all the problems they can cause, it's completely unnecessary. There's no reason for it other than just to use it for marketing and attract people, especially kids, and things like that. Then on top of that, dyes are often used to make unhealthy foods visually appealing so that we, as consumers, want to eat it. So if you use a natural flavor, that natural flavor is colorless. So then they use a synthetic dye to make it look like it's colored with real fruits or artificial flavor. Yes. I mean, it just goes on and on. The fact that dyes are in so many children's foods, and that it’s really pervasive, you can’t really just look at a food and tell that it has synthetic dyes. There are foods—marshmallows have blue 1, and Spinet traps. We had an incident with our son, and this was before I went down all of my little rabbit holes, but we had a Spinet trap, it was Mission brand, Our son was normally eating a wheat tortilla, but he ran out, so I was giving him mine, which I had never looked at the ingredients at that point, and it had Yellow 5 and Blue 1. So, we had such a rough week that week, and this was after six months of just really great behavior. Then it was just the same behaviors we were having before, and we were like, “What is going on?” It was the spinach wrap. So it really has permeated, you know, so many foods that you wouldn't expect. We had assumed it was green because of spinach, not because of synthetic food dyes, which, if you've ever used spinach to color something, it really colors really well. So that tells you how they're using very little spinach to color it if they're having to use synthetic dyes. Ashley James (0:27:08.319) That is so sad. That brings up another point that it's not just in children's food. They often will dye fish to make the farmed fish look more appealing. Even in seaweed salad, they use green dye. These are more adult foods. Not all kids eat seaweed salad, but just looking at going to the aisles of the grocery aisles of Costco and how many foods, adult foods, have dye in them as well to make them look more appealing. My mom was addicted to red jujubes, and she was very health conscious, very strict with her diet, but her weakness was red jujubes. She'd go to the bulk bin and pick out only the jujubes. For people who don't know what jujubes are, they're disgusting. I don't know what my mom saw in these things, but they're kind of like if gummy bears were just a larger blob. She would pick out the red jujubes, and she'd have this plastic bag of jujubes in her drawer, but she could only eat them at night because, and this is the wildest thing, she was highly allergic to red dye. When she ate red dye, she could not do math. She could not tell you what one plus one is after she ate a red jujube. She needed to do math because she owned her own business, ran a company, was very successful. Her brain would become inebriated. She could only eat them at night because by the time she woke up, the effects would have worn off, and she could go to work. She didn't binge or overeat them. This was her few times a month indulgence, but she was so allergic to red dye, she couldn't do math afterwards. I told my husband this years ago, 16 years ago, and he ended up eating some kind of artificial food and had this experience. He was trying to read blueprints at his job, and he started not being able to do math. It was artificial dye. There was something he ate with artificial dye, and he had the same experience. He came home and said, “I had to leave work early because I couldn't read the blueprints. I've read blueprints for 20 years, and I couldn't even read them.” Sometimes we get poisoned by dye that's in our beverages. Think about monster energy drinks. That's in our food or some kind of fast food or just a wrap. You might not have put that together. It might go like, “Yes, my brain, you'd just go, brain fog. Maybe I need a coffee, or I didn't drink enough, or I didn't drink enough water, or I didn't sleep well enough.” But if you start to trace the instance of, “I couldn't do math,” or, “My brain could not function after lunch every day,” what's going on? You start to trace back, and it might be those artificial chemicals, those dyes that they're putting in your food. My mom's experience as a child really woke me up to what is this weird stuff that they're putting in our food. Then, recently, at Children's Hospital here in Seattle—a great, great hospital, kids are flown in from all around because of how good this hospital is—they serve horrible dye in their food and in their popsicles. The nurses give free popsicles out, and I asked, “Please, please give me the list of ingredients before you give that cherry popsicle to my son.” It turns out there's red dye in it. They said, “That's weird because we stopped giving kids red jello because we thought they were bleeding to death.” So, we give them green and yellow. I'm like, “Why are you giving them dye at all? Why are we giving them a carcinogen in a Children’s Hospital?” Brandon & Whitney Cawood (0:31:05.336) I, for so many people, don't think they know. I think many people may have heard, “Okay, Red 40 may cause or may be bad for kids that have ADHD,” but it's been our experience. Even when we were going through so much with our son, we would go to the doctor and ask for help, and we would go to a therapist and ask for help. No one even suggested a diet change. We just had referrals to a children's hospital. I truly believe that we are witnessing a shift. We're witnessing a shift in our community. People are learning about it, and they're eager to learn. I really hope that our film will be a good talking point for a lot of people because, I mean, really, you obviously have done so much research and you are very health conscious and have a lot of motivation to learn about what's in your food. But for many people, they're just going to their job. If they haven't learned it in med school, they haven't learned it whenever they were going to school. This might not be something that they're researching when they go home. I really do believe that we can see a shift here. I think that if everyone in their own cities, if we wrote emails, if we talked about it every time we went to the hospital, we requested it. I'm a really big advocate of sending emails to make your request known because if they get enough emails, they will make the switch. I think that's a really good point to make. I also think the math comment you made is really important to note. The OEHA report, which is the most authoritative report on synthetic dyes, has 27 clinical trials and looks at animalistic evidence and vitro evidence. They've concluded that synthetic dyes cause hyperactivity, inattentiveness, restlessness, sleeplessness, irritability, and aggression. But just because that's what's on the report doesn't mean those are the only issues it causes. There are a lot of families that we've heard from, so many stories and so many emails, and so many people reaching out. They've noticed that synthetic dyes seem to make epilepsy worse or my child had rashes, and then we eliminated dyes and now they no longer have those little chicken rashes on their arms or my child had Tourette's and we eliminated dyes and now they don't. There are a lot of issues in our food that can affect people differently, and although there may not be a million-dollar study that has shown that, really, what we need to do is eliminate these foods that are not real foods. We need to go back to eating real foods because honestly, there's no telling what all the impacts that these synthetic dyes are having on our health.  The truth is, too, the dyes that we have in our food system now were approved to be in food decades ago, back in the '80s or '70s. Some of these have been approved since the '60’s. Science has come a long way, but the FDA is not required to re-evaluate. They can. They can re-evaluate any chemical anytime they want to, but they don't have to, and they just haven't. The whole reason that Red 3 is allowed in food is because in 1969, it was permanently approved for food use. At the time, all the dyes that we have now were kind of on this provisional list where they weren't permanently approved yet, but there was this loophole where companies could request approval for certain dyes. They could petition for it. The food and ingested drug industry did that and got approval, and Red 3 became permanently approved. For some reason, whenever cosmetics and externally applied drugs petitioned, they required them to do a whole bunch of testing. A couple of decades later, they had some studies that showed that when rats ingested Red 3, they got tumors. The FDA themselves said, “Okay, these studies show that they cause cancer.” This was in 1990. So we're going to ban them in cosmetics and externally applied drugs. But for whatever reason, they had already permanently approved it. For whatever reason, they didn't think they could ban it in food. At the time, they've been saying for the past 34 years that they're going to take steps to ban it, but they obviously haven't. We're finally starting to see some states, well, one state in particular, California, in 2023, decided on their own that they were going to ban Red 3 and three other chemicals. That bill passed and the governor signed it. Red 3, by 2027, will not be allowed in food and drinks in California.  We've seen about 10 other states that have followed suit with their own Red 3 bills. Also, now in California, they have banned, well, it’s on the governor's desk. If he signs it, California will be the first state to ban synthetic dyes in California public schools.  I feel it's this lack of responsibility because we also have the Delaney clause. The Delaney clause says that the FDA is not allowed, if they discover any food or chemical that causes cancer in humans or animals, that is supposed to be not allowed in food. Technically, they're legally obligated to remove this stuff from food, but for whatever reason, they just haven't done it. I think there is a public meeting coming up in September. The FDA has called a public meeting, and I think Red 3 is one of the things they'll be discussing. We'll see how that goes. But as of right now, it's still allowed in food in every other state, other than California. I mean, it’s still technically allowed in California until 2027, but it is promising to see states making these changes. If this school ban goes through, that's going to be huge because I think other states will jump on that. Children should be our main focus. We should be protecting our youth. The kids have no choice in what they're eating. They're trusting their parents or their schools to give them food that's healthy. I think that will be really cool. This bill is the first of its kind. A state has never done this before. We're excited to see the future of how this goes. Ashley James (0:37:48.808) Yes, pretty interesting. I mean, I'm really grateful that California is leading the way. I don't agree with all of California's politics, but I certainly love a lot of their political choices around health. Like they're the state that has notifications on the packaged goods, whether there's a substance that could cause cancer. So heavy metals, there's a lot of heavy metals and lead in packaged food. You're just trusting. People just go, the store sells it, it must be safe. I'm sorry, but these foods are banned in the EU. They're banned in many countries around the world, but they're not banned here. We're allowed to serve people poison in packaged form. That is wild to me. This is why we have to do our own research and read the labels if we choose to eat processed food. I love that you touched on some of the science, some of the research. You touched on a bit of the individual dyes and their health risks. Can we dive deeper into that? Tell us more about the health issues caused by each specific dye or talk more about the studies. Brandon & Whitney Cawood (0:39:09.614) Actually, most studies have combined the dyes. In the US, there really haven't been a whole lot of modern studies on each of these. The California report is the most comprehensive report, and what it's done is it's combined a bunch of studies to see its effect. Now in Europe, you had mentioned Europe, we were really curious about why their food standards were so different than ours and why they treated dyes so differently than we did. So in our documentary, we flew to London and interviewed the researcher that conducted the research that resulted in the warning label in Europe. That was really interesting to pick his brain. What was really interesting about that study is that it was government-funded. The government paid millions of dollars to have this study done so that they could make sure their citizens were safe. When they caught wind that these chemicals weren't necessarily safe, they put a warning label on all the Azo dyes. What American manufacturers and European manufacturers have done is remove the synthetic dyes, replacing them with natural dyes or real foods like turmeric, which you can use to color foods as well. What's really crazy is that these same American manufacturers leave the synthetic dyes here for us in the US. They have reformulated for Europe and then left them here in the US. When we went to London, London is actually no longer in the EU. We just anecdotally noticed that a lot of the American companies have chosen, since London has left the EU—this study was a study done in the EU—so London left the EU, and they no longer required the warning label. But the European manufacturers we saw were still synthetic dye-free, while the American manufacturers had put the synthetic dyes back in their foods. We were really excited to find M&Ms that were dye-free or a name-brand product that we had never seen in real life that was dye-free. That was pretty shocking. Ashley James (0:41:33.675) I wonder if we could go to a European food store. They have a lot of them around here and see if we could get some European M&Ms or European packaged food, the dye-free version. Growing up in Canada, I did not get to have packaged food. My mom was a health nut, and I'm so grateful for that experience I had. But when I became a teenager, I ate just like all my friends. In Canada, we have KD or Kraft Dinner. Here you call it Kraft Mac and Cheese. It looks radioactive. In the States, it's this really weird artificial yellow color, but in Canada, it's just turmeric, and it's a beautiful, natural shade of yellow. That is just one comparison of how you cross the border and you can have a healthier version of junk food. Why? Is it to save money? Is it because they make more money? Do they get more sales because there's artificial dye? Do they significantly save more money by putting a chemical man-made dye rather than just a tiny bit of turmeric in their food? Brandon & Whitney Cawood (0:42:55.638) They definitely saved money.  There are a couple of reasons. One, synthetic dyes are a lot cheaper. When you're thinking of the quantity they're using over the amount of food they're producing, they are cheaper. Most natural dyes are not temperature stable or pH stable. If you cook with a natural dye, a lot of times it will change colors or turn brown. Stuff that's naturally dyed doesn't stay as vibrant on the shelf as long. These companies really want their food to stay consistent. In our documentary, we interview Karalynne from Just.Ingredients, and she's telling us it's really hard to get a consistent color when you're using natural strawberries because every batch can be different. It's hard to get that consistency. That's another reason they want to keep things the same color—because that's what people are used to.   There's a story that happened back in 2015 or 2016. There was a small period of time when General Mills made a commitment to remove dyes from their entire portfolio of food. They said they were going to do it and tested it with two different products. I can't remember the other one, but the main one was Trix. They had already changed the shape of Trix. It used to be little fruit shapes, and I think they might be again now, but they changed them into little dog food-looking balls. That was strike one for consumers. Then they pulled the dyes out, and when they did that, people lost their minds about how they were ruining their childhood memories. They said it didn't look or taste the same, but dyes don't have a taste.   General Mills ended up having this big campaign—”The Bright Colors Are Back.” They put the synthetic dyes back in. They are really driven by consumers. That whole fiasco happened with General Mills, Kellogg's, and Mars Candy. A lot of these companies made commitments to remove synthetic dyes, but in the process of trying to get there, they ran into a bunch of difficulties. The consistency, some natural dyes might have a little bit of a taste profile because they're coming from real things.  That really can't be an excuse because they're doing it for other countries. Mars Candy does not have an excuse.  Consumers control their profits. If people are buying their food, they're going to do it. Originally, when they first made the switch, I think sales for Trix actually went up a little bit. But over the course of however many months, they started seeing their sales go down and losing profits. So they decided, “Let's revert back to what was working before,” and they put the synthetic dyes in. All these companies that made commitments portrayed it as a healthier option for people. None of them ever touched on the fact that these could be causing problems with behavior. I think the public would have been more receptive if there had been more awareness around the negative impacts of artificial dyes. If you don't think there's anything wrong with dyes. If the government is saying they're safe to eat, why would you care? Why would the general population not want them? If there's no education around why they shouldn't be in there, then of course they're going to get upset when you change something. Americans love bright stuff.  There's some validity to the fact that the European palate is very different from the American palate. When you go to Europe, you don't have aisles and aisles of sugary cereal. That's just not how they eat. Manufacturers consider what Europeans and Canadians consume. But there is also a responsibility to protect consumers. If there is something harmful in the food you're feeding people, you obviously should not be using it. One of my best friends, her father-in-law was the vice president for a very large American company that uses synthetic dyes, and he genuinely had never heard of these risks. There are a lot of people who don't know. Which is why we believe that when our documentary comes out, we need a call to action. People who have seen it and know the risks need to be writing, talking to these companies, and getting this information out there so we can make better decisions.  But at some level, somebody knows. Big food, big drink, big candy—all these companies spend tons of money on lobbyists. Anytime anybody tries to make some sort of change, they spend a ton of money trying to keep that from happening. I was on a panel discussion advocating not to use synthetic dyes. There were literal lobbyists. I can't remember what company they represented, but they were lobbying for the use of synthetic dyes. Their argument always is, “The FDA says it's safe. On the FDA's website, it says it's safe. On the FDA's website, it says it's safe.” Well, the FDA's website also says Red 3 causes cancer, but yet it's been in PediaSure all these years. It’s been in medication that children take daily. The reality is we should not have to police our own food, but we have to.  There's also an organization out there—one of the scientists we interviewed in our documentary showed us this. There's an organization called the International Association of Color Manufacturers. Their main goal is to promote and further the use of dyes. They also promote natural dyes, but their whole thing is proving that dyes are safe. There are studies that show they are safe, and studies that show they are not. If you go to their member page, their associate members include The Coca-Cola Company, The Hershey Company, Lonza Consumer Health Incorporated (which is involved in pharmaceuticals, including making capsules for pills), Mars Incorporated, and PepsiCo.  There is a lot of pressure there. We interviewed the senator who supported two bills in California. He said once the second bill came up, he had people coming into his office telling him, “You're going to run us out of business. We're not going to be able to afford to make this switch.” There's a lot of industry pressure. If he had been a weaker man or given in to that pressure, we wouldn't be here talking about this. He's the reason we have the California OEHA report. The report comes from the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, which is part of the California EPA. Ashley James (0:50:29.211) Interesting. In terms of how these dyes were approved to begin with, now, just remember every drug that's been taken off the market for killing too many people was first approved. So we just have to remember that we need to question everything and have a healthy distrust of every organization out there. Because organizations are out for their best interests and not out for your interests. They're just having said that, just have a healthy distrust of absolutely everyone, question everything. Question me, question everyone. Don't believe what people say. Look into it for yourself. Don't believe it just because it's on the shelf means it's safe. Just because it was approved means it's safe. Everything that has been taken off the market by the FDA that was once first approved went through the same criteria that approved these dyes. So tell us a bit, what did the FDA do? What was their approval process? Now you said it was quite a while ago, 60s, 70s. We definitely have more modern science than we did back then. What were the safety? Did they even perform safety studies on animals or humans before approving these? Or did they rubber stamp approve these dyes into the food chain? Brandon & Whitney Cawood (0:52:15.683) We just know that there was a process. We don't know what the process was. We just know there was a process where companies could petition for approval. It would be granted by the FDA.  These are researchers who were scientists for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. So this is part of their daily job. Was just that there was a method or a process where they could petition the FDA, ask for permanent approval. I don't know off the top of my head exactly what that approval process looked like, but I'm sure we could look into that. That'd be a good answer to know for future things. Ashley James (0:52:49.425) Yes, that's interesting to think about. In order to approve any of these dyes, these artificial dyes in our food, did they have to go through any level of testing like drugs? Drugs require animal testing and then human trials, so there are multiple trials that take a few years. When it comes to approving chemicals, man made artificial chemicals into our food, do they require the same amount of testing, or do they rubber stamp it? Like, you petitioned, okay, we'll let this in, we'll see what it does. If it kills too many people, we'll remove it.  That'd be interesting to know because if the people who are pro-dye, the lobbyists, are running around going, well, the FDA said it's safe.  Well, okay. But was it just someone with a rubber stamp back in the 70s that said, that sounds fine. Just take this petroleum-based chemical and put it in the food, and I'm sure it's fine or were there actual animal studies? And if there were, we would have seen cancer. So was it manipulated? Was it rubber stamped? It'd be interesting to go back and scrutinize the FDA for approving these dyes that we now know without a doubt are harmful. Brandon & Whitney Cawood (0:54:16.600) Right. Well, you said it's interesting that the FDA is viewed as the authority on all this, but the FDA is an organization that has a history of saying, “This is safe, this is safe, this is safe,” until finally somebody proves, it isn't safe. A lot of times, they will take steps to ban it, but you said, how can you trust that this company has done their due diligence in making sure these things actually are safe? What it seems to us is they're looking at it as, “Well, you're not proving that they're not safe, so I think we're going to allow them.” That's kind of backwards. I feel it should be proved to be safe before it's allowed to be in our food. Dyes are one substance, so they are highly regulated. Every single batch of synthetic dye has to send a sample to the FDA to be tested to make sure they don't have too many heavy metals or that they have the allowable amount of carcinogens and heavy metals. So they know that they are a potentially dangerous substance. Getting off topic of synthetic dyes for just a second, because dyes don't fall under this, there is a loophole called the GRAS loophole that CSPI is working really hard to try to eliminate. GRAS stands for “generally recognized as safe.” A company can introduce a new chemical, do their own studies internally, and then say that this falls under GRAS, the generally recognized as safe protocol, and that chemical never gets tested by the FDA. No, dyes are not part of that. I think sometimes people get confused with that. Dyes have never been part of the GRAS list, but there are thousands and thousands of chemicals that the FDA has never even looked into that are allowed to be in our food. It's because of this loophole, and it's pretty crazy. You can actually go to the FDA's website, and they have a list of all the chemicals that are part of the GRAS list.  Ashley James (0:56:25.806) No, it's just they rubber stamp that. They will go, “Okay, you put all these chemicals together, and we've approved all these individual chemicals, but we're going to approve this concoction without any testing because individually, or these chemical compounds are so similar to what we've decided is safe—that we're going to say this is okay without any testing.”  Brandon & Whitney Cawood (0:56:45.079) I think the general population assumes if this is allowed in products then it's been tested to be safe and I don't think that's always the case. Ashley James (0:56:58.411) No. Whitney, you were about to say something. Brandon & Whitney Cawood (0:56:59.817) I was just going to make the point that synthetic dyes were approved based on the studies of the time. So if they were approved in the 70s, then they're based on those studies. What the studies in the 70s looked like was very different from modern studies. They were not double-blind, placebo-tested. These were very archaic studies at the time. What the FDA doesn't do is weren’t seeing anyone going back and studying these unless a researcher or a college that has gotten a grant to study this. The government is not necessarily paying to go back and test these chemicals to make sure that they're safe. Dyes in particular have a history of being approved and then eventually being banned. Red 2 was one that was banned in the 70s. The reasons that it was banned are very similar to the reasons that Red 3 has the issues that it does. There was a story—I can't remember when it was, but I want to say the 50s or 60s—about some Halloween candy that made a lot of people sick. It turned out that one of the dyes they were using was the cause, and that dye ended up getting banned. I'm not sure what the actual approval process was when these were approved, but we're talking about decades and decades ago. Obviously, science has advanced, testing has advanced, and there is no requirement for them to be reevaluated. In modern studies, we interviewed a researcher, Dr. Joel Nigg. What's interesting is he's an ADHD expert, and he went into this expecting to debunk that synthetic dyes had an effect on neurobehavior. He was very surprised that the most sophisticated studies showed the greatest results—synthetic dyes did cause these neurobehavioral effects. The best-conducted studies are showing a greater result. Many scientists argue that we need to be funding more studies on synthetic dyes. But the reality is, we have 27 clinical trials on humans. That's plenty. We know that it causes hyperactivity. It goes much beyond that, which we've already discussed. But that alone is enough to ask—why would we want to do this to an entire population? For our child, it was a massive jump—from a child that needed a lot of help from teachers and a lot of patience to doing so well. He doesn't need anything extra. He's in the 99th percentile in the entire nation in terms of academics. He's doing so, so, so well. For many children, they might be right there, showing a lot of the symptoms of ADHD, and then external factors like diet and synthetic dyes push them over into the area where they're really struggling or you have somebody who might be gifted, right there on the line where they could be identified as gifted, and then synthetic dyes take them over the threshold where they wouldn't be identified as such. One of the researchers we spoke with connected it to lead exposure. It's similar—not exactly the same, but similar—in that lead affected the population just minutely, but nobody wants to lower IQ by even less than 1%. Nobody wants to lower IQ at all. Nobody wants to affect the entire population that dramatically. Not everyone reacts behaviorally. Our daughter, for example, doesn't react neurologically to synthetic dyes, as far as we know. But when you are affecting so many children and even adults, you're moving an entire population. There haven't been many formal studies on adults, but so many people, including myself, react to synthetic dyes. So many people think it's just a bad day or brain fog. There's a lot that goes on metabolically with the things that we consume, and I think some of our issues, even as adults, can be attributed to it. Ashley James (1:01:39.127) Yes. As you said, there's no benefit. It doesn't affect the flavor. It doesn't affect the quality of the food. If anything, the quality of food is improved by natural dye because you sprinkle a little bit of turmeric on everything. You can't taste it, but put a little bit of beetroot or whatever. I mean, this is just sprinkling a little bit of nature on things, and yes, sure, let people kick and scream a bit, but eventually things will settle down, especially if we bring up awareness. There are going to be a few people who just want to poison their bodies and they'll be upset about it. But I don't know one single mom who would willingly feed their children poison after being awakened to this knowledge. [Advertisement] Visit learntruehealth.com/coach to get the new sample class for free from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. It will come with five mobile-friendly interactive health videos as part of the masterclass introduction to the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. Lectures will be from Dr. Will Cole, I had him on the show. That was great. That was about his book about fiber and it is actually super interesting.  Naturopathic physician that helps support health through supporting gut health, which every once you start diving into natural medicine, you know it all starts in the gut.  Maya Feller, Dr. Andrew Weil and more. 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And when you use coupon code LTH, as in Learn True Health, or mention my name and say Ashley James sent me from Learn True Health Podcast coupon code LTH. You will get an amazing discount. They, in fact, will give you the deepest discount deeper than all their sales that they do and right now they're doing an amazing special for us. The September 23rd class is about to start, so if you're interested, check it out. You can call them and chat with them.  In fact, when you talk to them on the phone, you're talking to a graduate of their program, so they'll be able to answer questions. And if you don't want to talk to someone and you want to sign up, you can just go to their website and you can sign up there. Make sure you use the coupon code LTH so you get that huge discount. Remember the website to go check it out is learntruehealth.com/coach that’s learntruehealth.com/coach [End of Advertisement] Brandon & Whitney Cawood (1:05:01.142) That's what we're seeing, too. We really are seeing people who want to do the best for their children. I think we kind of grew up as a millenial—I can speak for the millennials. I grew up not reading labels at all. Luckily, I'm from Georgia, so I grew up with a garden and we knew where our meat came from. I had less processed food than many people, but we grew up in a time where we didn't really read labels. Now we're noticing we're sick. So many people around us are sick, and we want better for our children. We are seeing a shift, and I do think that can happen. Podcasts like this are a really good start. I think it's important—our documentary is focusing on synthetic dyes, but we feel that if you can lock in on something, get as passionate about it as we have, and really tackle one thing at a time. If somebody did something similar to what we're doing about artificial sweeteners or a lot of the other things that are harmful, it could have a real impact. It's really hard to bring a lot of attention if you're using a broad stroke. What's been powerful for us and what we've seen is that because we have focused on this one additive, we've seen a community build around awareness for that. I hope we can inspire people to do something similar to what we’re doing in other areas. I don't know what we're going to do after this film comes out. We don't have any plans for what's next, but we've really seen some powerful things happen by locking in and focusing on this additive and becoming advocates for taking care of this problem. I think I could see this method that we've used to do this and create this film, I can see that being done in other areas of the food industry, pharma, and all that sort of thing. Ashley James (1:07:02.586) I love it. Brandon, you had brought up earlier some instances in our past where children became very sick from dyes, and then they approved dyes. Dyes that were approved made children very sick, and then they took them off the market. Too Red 3 isn't just a little bit more poisonous. If it just made people a little bit sicker than it does now. It's just the perfect amount of poison that we can chalk it up to, you just have ADHD, let's put you on meds. That is so frustrating that we know these dyes cause cancer, cause hyperactivity, cause neurological issues, cause immune issues. But the ones that made people really sick, too poisonous. They got the batch wrong. Ha ha ha, I just imagine these evil deep food demons up in their high towers in New York or something, and they're going, we put a little bit too much poison in that batch. Okay, let's start again. We have to just make it slightly poisonous to keep people sick their entire lives, but not so much poison that they revolt against us. You have to remember, I actually interviewed a woman who was a food scientist who helped make one of the types of Doritos. She said every single packaged food on the market, all those companies have food scientists whose job is to figure out what kind of synthetic crap they need to put in to make your brain addicted to its excitotoxins. It shocked me when I saw that MSG is in a lot of foods that we feed our children. Maybe that'll be your next documentary because MSG is an excitotoxin. I've heard that people in the Air Force, before they go flying, certain pilots have a banned list of foods they're allowed to consume. Obviously, alcohol would be one of them, but there are a lot of foods that contain these artificial ingredients. If they're flying a jet at Mach 4, they can't have their brain hopped up on red dyes and MSG. My kid is not—I homeschooled—but our kid and everyone's kid who goes to school, you send them to school wanting them to be their best learner. Maybe we should take a page out of the Air Force or the military that doesn't let their pilots consume certain products because they know it hurts the brain. How wild is that? The government knows, but why do we let these foods be sold? This is why having a free market is both a blessing and a curse. I see the good and the bad in capitalism. This is the bad in capitalism. But here's the thing. We have to vote with our fork. We have to vote with our wallet. You shape individually, we shape as a collective. Millennials and everyone on social media, we can get together as a collective and actually change the food industry. There are examples of this when there used to be hormones in our dairy. The hormones got taken out of our dairy because enough of us stopped buying it. That is what got it banned. Enough people said, no, I don't want that one. I'm going to go for the dairy that doesn't have the hormones in it. Together, if we all stop, read the labels, go to social media—I'm going to make sure the social media links are in the show notes. But the todyeforthedocumentary.com social media. We scan through all of your graphics where you show, hey, throw this away and get this brand instead because this is the alternative flavor or whatever that doesn't have the dye. I'd love to know because for many people listening, they might not be aware. They may not have turned over the package and ever looked at the ingredients or looked for—does the word always say dye, or are there some caramel color or artificial something? Can you tell us what are the most common names or the names we should be aware of besides if the word dye. Tell us about the most common foods that really shock people. You had mentioned some marshmallows, but what are some more common foods that children eat? Brandon & Whitney Cawood (1:12:02.708) So synthetic dyes are required by the FDA to be listed with their name, the color, and the number. So we call them number dyes. The ones that are, there's nine that are allowed in food, but there's only really seven that are still used in food. They are Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3, Red 3, Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6. There are some other names for dyes—tartrazine and sunset yellow and stuff like that, but those are actual names for dyes, but those aren't allowed to be used in manufacturing in the United States. Sometimes you will see those in products that are manufactured in another country. So there might be something that's from Canada. I think some places in Canada will use tartrazine and stuff like that. But in the United States, as long as it's manufactured here, companies are supposed to follow those guidelines according to the FDA website. Some surprising foods that have synthetic dyes are marshmallows, fortune cookies, grain bars, some canned fruits, especially if it has cherries, obviously candies, chips, mac and cheese. Although there are a lot of dye-free options now. One really surprising place that we found synthetic dyes is in vanilla icing and chocolate icing. At the time that we eliminated synthetic dyes from our son's diet nearly three years ago, all of the vanilla and the chocolate icings at our local stores that you could just walk into, and we don't have a Whole Foods where we live or Trader Joe's or anything like that. So we would just walk into Walmart and Kroger, and we could not find a vanilla or chocolate icing that did not have dyes in it. Now you can, now that they're starting to diversify. Some pickles, cinnamon rolls, sadly, lots of ice cream, lots of baked goods, a lot of baked products that have berries in it. Oftentimes muffin products will not have actual berries. I mean, I don't know what they are, honestly, but they're colored with dyes. So pancake mixes, oftentimes, not all. Sadly, movie popcorn. That was a sad one. Many antibiotics. At the movie theater, what has dye is the little salt stuff that they use—that orange salt that they use to actually make it look like it's yellow. That's what has the dye in it. Then digging even deeper, mini hand soaps—even if it's clear—they oftentimes have dyes. Lots of toothpaste, nail polish, makeup, things like that.  Our daughter does dance, so we have to buy the super bougie makeup for her. A lot of people, why are you so worried about stuff like external exposure? We weren't at first. We didn't even think about it until we went out to eat one day with our son. This is a few months after we had realized that dyes were an issue, and he was doing great. We went out to eat at a restaurant, and they gave him a little temporary tattoo. We're like, this is cool. Let's put it on. He put it on, and then, while we were at the restaurant, he lost his mind. He got really upset because he was still little, and when he was going to take him to the bathroom, and he really didn't want to go to the girl's bathroom, he lost his mind and started hitting her. It was crazy. We're like, what is going on? So we checked his food. We were like, is there anything in this ketchup? Like, what is going on? Then it clicked—well, we put a big blob of ink on his skin. It is important to note that there haven't been any formal studies, just anecdotally, us along with thousands of other parents have noticed that. They have done those studies where it shows that sunscreen can get into your bloodstream from dermal exposure. None on synthetic dyes specifically. I mean, it would. But we have seen it. If he comes home from school and there's just something off, and you look at his hands—he got markers all over his hands. So we've seen that it definitely affects our son. So we assume that he's not the only one out there. Ashley James (1:16:02.922) This is wild. Yes. You got to be careful because we think our skin is impenetrable, and it's crazy. No, you absorb things with your skin. You really need to be careful with your cosmetics. Earlier, you had mentioned a few of the ingredients. You talked about heavy metals. What are artificial dyes? Are they petroleum-based? Are there heavy metals in them? We know that they're manmade, we know they're chemicals, but what are they? Brandon & Whitney Cawood (1:16:42.283) So I think originally, they were derived from coal tar, which is a byproduct. Then that's kind of shifted to a lot of them being petroleum-based. They're made from byproducts of petroleum. I think you have the azo dyes that get a little into the science, more above what I actually understand—how the actual azo bonds and stuff work. But yes, they're either chemically made or derived from petroleum and things like that. That's not something you typically would want to be ingesting. Ashley James (1:17:12.749) When you traveled around and did all these interviews for the documentary, which I'm so excited to watch when it comes out with everyone, tell me one of the most shocking things from each of you. I want each of you to hopefully have a different one. What is the most, where you said no way and your jaw hit the floor? What is the most shocking thing you learned while you were conducting all these interviews? Brandon & Whitney Cawood (1:17:39.555) Part of the reason why I did that is if we were going to create a documentary, I wanted to come at it from just an everyday consumer standpoint. So I didn't want to dig so deep into the research that I was asking higher-level questions. Once we decided to make a film, I stopped looking at the research at all so that I would have just these very basic questions because our documentary is not for people who are already super crunchy and know everything about reading a label. We really want the documentary to be for everyone, whether you have any background knowledge or not. So it was shocking to me to sit in our first interview and for the researcher to explain that synthetic dyes are a chemical. I know we just discussed that, but that was incredibly shocking to me. I had never even considered that there could be chemicals in our food. So that was definitely eye-opening. We're talking a lot about science, but our documentary is 50% or more, probably closer to 55% story. We flew around the US and interviewed these families, and the stories we heard were shocking. The stories kept flooding in. We had one mom whose son was seven, and he was suicidal because of synthetic dyes. I know that sounds crazy, and I'm sure I have a few people cocking their heads thinking, really? He was so sensitive to these synthetic dyes that it was wreaking havoc on him. That story was obviously crazy. Each one was different. One of our stories was about a little girl. She was very young, so they could not formally diagnose her as having bipolar disorder, but she was having so many issues that the doctor said, we're looking at bipolar disorder, and the only thing that's going to help you is medication. Each of the stories that we followed—to see them turn back around and say, we have a full, healthy child only because we eliminated synthetic dyes. Many of these families didn't even go deeper into eating very clean. Most of them just eliminated synthetic dyes. It was shocking that just this one ingredient could have such a dramatic impact not only on their health but on their family. Entire families were struggling. The moms were struggling. Their marriages were struggling. It was just hard to hear. Those were my shocking stories. The story she was talking about was Dr. Rebecca Bevins. Dr. Bevins actually has a TED Talk that is the gateway for a whole lot of people who have been part of our group. That was one of the first videos they ever saw—this TED Talk she did specifically about her son. She figured out synthetic dyes were an issue for him when he was around six or seven. She's a neuroscientist. You were asking earlier about what each specific dye does. There's not a lot of studies on individual dyes, but she did her own individual test with her son. If you listen to her TEDx Talk, at least for him and how he reacts, she kind of breaks down each color. So that's a good thing to listen to. Ashley James (1:21:16.059) I have a friend whose daughter had seizures, and they saw a neuroscientist and were prescribed a medication because seizures for children can cause brain damage. The more you have the seizures, the more you're really deteriorating. It's not one of those things where you just let them flop it out. It's fine. They'll grow out of it. No, we really need to prevent seizures. The dye was in the red dye. I just remember her saying there's red dye in her medication. She can't take this. We need to find a dye-free alternative. At the time, I was just give her the meds. I was almost just giving her the meds. We need to stop the seizures. I just was desperate for her to have a quality of life because the seizures were so bad for her. But that was just a little part of me, just give it to her. It's such a small amount. How could that make a difference? It's a tiny, tiny bit of red dye but what you're sharing is it doesn't matter if it's a tiny bit, especially for epileptics. It increases epilepsy.  Why would they put something in the epilepsy medication that increases epilepsy? This is how big pharma works. We're just going to say we're helping you, but we're really going to harm you at the same time. So you really need our meds. My gosh, that is so disgusting. That's so irresponsible. It's either maniacal or it's ignorant, but either way, we're trusting our health with a giant industry that is either, and I feel it's a combination of both, ignorance and those who know but don't care. They don't want to help. There's evil, and then there's the ignorant, and it can't be anywhere in between. But these are the people we trust our health with. Brandon & Whitney Cawood (1:23:07.828) You say that about the epilepsy medicine. I'm going to let Whitney tell a very heartbreaking story about that, but then also the same sort of thing. A lot of times synthetic dyes can cause—it doesn't cause ADHD, but it can cause ADHD-type symptoms. We do feel there's probably a lot of false diagnoses. Of course, there are people with ADHD, and dyes that can make their ADHD worse, but I do feel there are also some cases of people that maybe don't have ADHD that get prescribed ADHD medicine. A lot of the ADHD medication also has dyes in it. Even in the OEHA report, it says that eliminating synthetic dyes is more effective for treating ADHD than other non-drug treatments for ADHD. There's a lot of evidence for that. It was crazy you even brought up epilepsy and epilepsy medication because the most heartbreaking story I was sent— I think it was on social media. This mom was telling me that her daughter has epilepsy. If you know anything about epilepsy, it's nothing to mess with. Each seizure can dramatically impact your brain. Her daughter had an allergic reaction to Red 40. The only other medication had Red 3, which we know causes cancer. Every single day, her daughter is taking a life-saving medication that is also laced with Red 3. We know that it can be genotoxic. We know that it causes cancer in rats. The fact that she's consuming it every day, that just throws everything out of the water. These people that are just saying, oh, you can just take a little bit every once in a while—these poor kids are taking it every day. It can have dramatic impacts. I have really a passion for this. I mean, I have so many passions with synthetic dyes, but first and foremost, I really don't believe it should be in schools. I don't believe that it should be in school foods. I don't believe that it should be in government-funded snacks. I also don't believe it should be in medication. If candy can figure it out, if other industries can figure out how to naturally dye things, I think pharma has enough money and enough brain power to figure out how to do that naturally. I really, really would urge advocacy groups. CSPI—we've been working with them. I've sent so many emails. I'm like, can we work on this now? Because I really think the pharmacy side is honestly one of the most heartbreaking parts for me because these children can't take anything else. It is life-saving. You have to take it. Of course, I would encourage my friends, yes, your child needs this medication, but I would be sending a lot of emails. I would probably have a loop in my inbox, asking them to take it out and sending reports to them and sending research. It's crazy. It's sad. Ashley James (1:26:11.304) That is so sad. What you said, Brandon, about misdiagnosis, this is what I've seen so many times with mental health issues also, ADHD, but also you mentioned bipolar. One of my mentors is a naturopathic physician who saved my life. He's an amazing man. He is the reason why I no longer have all the diseases I had, and he's the reason why I went from infertility to having our wonderful son naturally. So I've learned a great deal from him over the last many years since I've been following him since 2011. A lot of times people come to him as the last resort. This is what happens with holistic medicine, naturopaths. People go the conventional MD route. I hate that it's called traditional because it's less than 100 years old, really. We call that conventional. Just like conventionally grown food is the pesticide-laden food, but organic is the alternative food. I'm like, no, no, no, no. Organic is what we used to do before you. Organic should be called conventional because that is how we used to grow food. If you read any of Orwell's books, 1984, you get the whole manipulation they use. Words in a manipulative way, especially this is a political year. You're hearing it from every politician, regardless of what side you're on. Really listen through the filter of detecting the linguistic fallacies and the linguistic manipulations. A lot of people would come to my mentor, Dr. Joel Wallach, after they have been lied to and gone through the route of the drug-based medicine and come out the other end sicker. Most often misdiagnosed, and he would help them through food and supplements to fill up their nutrient tanks where they're missing certain nutrients. Then their symptoms would go away. They would no longer be bipolar or they would no longer have ADHD. He's like, well, you weren't actually in the first place. You were misdiagnosed. You had all the same expressions that someone with that would, but you actually—this is how eating the wrong way—it's like you took a car and you gave it the wrong fuel and the wrong oil. You just gave it the wrong everything. Then you're like, my car has these symptoms. Your car must have this problem. So it's the same. We're giving our bodies crap and expecting ourselves to be healthy with crap. Most people don't think that every single bite they put in their mouth turns into cells. Do you really want to turn that Big Mac into your cells? Do you really want to turn that Frappuccino into your cells? Because that's what you're putting in your body. If you don't give the raw building blocks to your body, if you give the wrong ones, then your body just breaks down. There's inflammation. It just breaks down. It's like you're building a beautiful two-storey house for your family, and you've got all the crew, the workers show up. But instead of lumber, it's half the lumber you need plus a bunch of bouncy houses. It's just things that you don't need. That's what we're doing. We're feeding ourselves bouncy houses instead of the lumber it needs to grow new healthy cells. Why are we putting artificial man-made chemicals, petroleum-based chemicals, just microdosing them in everything? They're in everything if you eat packaged food, drugs, cosmetics, and the list goes on. We're going to learn so much more about it. I love that you came at it from a really fresh perspective as you dove into your journey. So we get to go on this journey with you. I'm so excited for your documentary. It's going to come out soon. Tell us about how this works. Listeners get to go to your website, sign up for your newsletter so they can hear about how it's coming out, where they can watch it. Do you expect that it's going to be in any theaters, or are you going to stream it online? Tell us about the process of how we'll be able to watch your movie when it comes out. Brandon & Whitney Cawood (1:30:38.710) Yes, so we are in the process. The film is done. Right now, our lawyer has the film. She's just going over it. We've kind of done a clearance check. We've gotten a little bit of feedback on it. Just a couple of little things here and there that we need to tweak. We're in the process of negotiating with a distributor, which a lot of people have no idea what that means. A distributor is basically a company that puts your film into the marketplace. You can self-distribute. We're kind of at max capacity of what we're capable of doing and the bandwidth that we have. We've been doing this for two years, and it's just the two of us. So we feel a distributor was the best route for us. Once we get that deal worked out, we don't have an exact date set, but our goal, what we envisioned for the film, is to release it early January. A couple of reasons behind that. We thought we wanted to release it in the fall originally, but this being a political year, We don't want to risk getting buried in all that's going on in the election and things like that. Then right after that, we have Christmas. So we're like, well, this film could really be a good New Year's resolution type thing. We feel January is going to be a sweet spot for us. I think that'll be a great time for people to watch it. So what you can do to keep up with it is we have a special subscriber spot on our website: todyeforthedocumentary.com/podcast. That's not plural, just podcast. It’s “dye.” So todyeforthedocumentary.com/podcast. You can subscribe to our email list. That's helping us keep up with anybody who discovered us through listening to a podcast. We can keep you updated. We have a bunch of resources that we send to you, and you can kind of keep up with where we're at with the film. We send out a newsletter. You can also follow the film on Facebook, follow the film on Instagram. We also have, like I said, that really big group on Facebook called Dye Free Family Swaps Recipes and Resources. You can also follow that. Ashley James (1:32:55.725) I love it. Yes. So you and I, before we hit record, we were talking about the timing. So I'm just, just launch it. Just go, just, just let us watch it now. Then you explained to me, well, political year and get buried and all that stuff. But I love that you said January health, everyone kind of has their minds on New Year's resolutions and being healthier. They have a hangover from two months of sugar from October 31st to January 1st.  It's ridiculous. We really overindulge. Here's a little thought for you to noodle around with. Flu season happens to coincide with sugar season. I just want you to think about that because a single teaspoon of sugar actually causes—I can't remember which white blood cell, there's names for the different white blood cells, but there's one particular white blood cell that actually falls asleep and does not function. When you eat even a single teaspoon of processed sugar and go down that rabbit hole. So maybe that's your next documentary, but go down the rabbit hole, process sugar and how it drastically negatively impacts the immune system. It just so happens that we have quote unquote flu season every year when everyone's eating the most amount of sugar possible. It ensures hidden in everything, all the holiday food. Brandon & Whitney Cawood (1:34:24.886) There's a great sugar documentary called Fed Up, I think it came out in 2014. Really good documentary. Ashley James (1:34:30.822) Yes. Yes, I love it. I just love health documentaries because actually it was a health documentary that really got me started on. I was sick and suffering for many years. I think it was Food Inc. back in 2008. It was something that the creator, the original founder of Whole Foods, said—shop the perimeter of the grocery store, buy organic. He said, vote with your fork. So my husband took that challenge on, and in one month, my chronic infections went away, and I got off of the constant antibiotics I was on. That was just one of my health issues. But if I'm, wow, I just did one thing with my—just shopped the perimeter of the grocery store. Didn't even—I was still eating dairy and meat and whatever. But I shopped the perimeter of the grocery store, ate organic, and I was voting with my fork. So I'm, okay, organic is good. I want to vote with my fork, and my chronic infections went away. Thought, gee, what else could I impact if I made more changes? That was back in 2008. That started me down that road. Here I am. That's why I'm doing this podcast, because I want to get this information out there because people are needlessly suffering. There's parents who, you said, their entire marriage, their entire lives are affected because their children are being poisoned by something that is right underneath their nose. They don't even know it. They don't even know that it's there. In the meantime, while we're waiting for January for your documentary to come out, we can go to your Instagram. We don't have to wait to start learning now, to start making changes now. Let's all become a success story of Whitney and Brandon. Let's go to their Instagram, go to their social media, and check out the posts because I've learned a lot. I didn't know that food had dye in it. I didn't know that had food dye in it. You'll see what you can do instead. You can trade this for that. You'll learn so much by going through their social media. Follow them. Get in their Facebook group. What's the Facebook group called? Brandon & Whitney Cawood (1:36:32.466) So it's Dye Free Family swaps, recipes, and resources. Ashley James (1:36:36.202) Wonderful. So we'll make sure the links are in the show notes of today's podcast at LearnTrueHealth.com. Follow them, whatever social media you are on, but especially get on their email list, and I'll make sure the link is there—todyeforthedocumentary.com. The thing is that even if you eat really clean or maybe even if you don't have kids, or your kids have grown up, you're going to touch people's lives. So just speaking to every single listener, with this new information that you have today, you could actually change the course of someone's life. There's a child who is not doing well in school right now or feeling suicidal, or the parents are maybe on the brink of a divorce because dyes are in their life. If you bring this information, if you share this episode with everyone around you, especially parents with young kids, you could actually change the trajectory in a positive way for every single person that listens. The parents will have a better time being great parents. The child will feel healthy and normal again and go on to lead a healthy and productive life and not be super duper medicated because they got misdiagnosed with something like ADHD, or they have ADHD, and now their ADHD is healthfully under control because it's not exacerbated by these dyes. So please share this with everyone. We need to, as a collective, get this crap out of our food because it is nothing but poison. It has no health benefits. It has no benefit at all. It is only a negative. Why are we accepting this as a species? Why are we accepting this as humans? Put your foot down. Say no more. I will not support it. Never buy something with dye. Don't vote for that. Put your foot down. Say no to those fricking cookies at the Chinese restaurant—fortune cookies.  I pop them open, I like reading the fortunes because it's fun, but I pop them open and I'm here, throw that in the trash. You don't need to eat that. But it's wild because even if people are choosing to be dye-free, it's the little things—the free cookie or the little free mint or the little cosmetic thing, or wash your hands. It's just the little things that can seep in. We have to take a stand and say no and get it out, especially for the children, because it really, really hurts them, their brain, and their immune system. Thank you so much for dedicating your time, your energy, your life for the last few years to this project. It's very meaningful, and it is helping millions of people. So thank you for what you guys are doing. Brandon & Whitney Cawood (1:39:41.189) Thank you for that.  Ashley James (1:39:43.265) Yes. Absolutely. Before we wrap up today, is there anything else you want to share, anything that we didn't touch on, a story you want to leave us with? Is there anything you want to make sure you share to wrap up today's interview? Brandon & Whitney Cawood (1:39:53.047) Well, I love what you were just saying about sharing this with people because when you really get down to the core of why we're making this film, one, we're Christians. We feel God has given us abilities for a reason to use those for good. Whitney started going down this rabbit hole. She was a public school teacher at one point. She taught in a high-poverty school. She really had a heart for those parents. She had kids in her class that multiple children shared a room or shared a bed or slept on the floor. She had parents that didn't even speak English or couldn't read. Parents like that, looking for synthetic dyes and reading labels, that's not even part of what they do. So we really feel we made this film, obviously, we want people who already know this information to get something out of it, but we really made this film to have something that's easily digestible, easy to understand, and something that you can share. Like you said, we hope for a domino effect. What's going to make this film successful is when somebody watches it and says, I know somebody that can benefit from watching this, and I'm going to pass this along. So I love how you gave everybody that call to action. I couldn't agree more.   Ashley James (1:41:16.123) Awesome. And Whitney, do you have any parting words for us? Brandon & Whitney Cawood (1:41:18.999) Yes, that was actually the point I was going to make. The reality is the demographics of people that are really looking into this and digging into the research with synthetic dyes, they're not families that are in low income. The higher the people that are in low income and women of childbearing age, this is according to the OEHA report, synthetic dye exposures are higher among women of childbearing age with low incomes. Additionally, non-Hispanic Black women of childbearing age and children of the same age group have significantly higher intakes compared to children of other ethnic groups. So the reality is we really need to be protecting not only our children, but all children. Our hope is that, as a society, we kind of go back to our roots and start protecting children, especially children that have no other option. We live in a very high-poverty area. We live in the carpet capital of the world. We have a lot of industry and a lot of people who are just making it. You work night shifts. Both parents are working two jobs, and a lot of children in our area are taking care of siblings or being raised by siblings. The reality is they're not reading labels. They're not ever going to see this research. We do need to be protecting those children. Those children matter. Those children are the most vulnerable. That is really our heart. That was the point I was going to make. I don't know why I'm getting emotional. Ashley James (1:42:59.405) No, it is. It's very emotional. Like you said, these are the most vulnerable, and it is really up to us, everyone. I'm also Christian, and I believe that it is our duty. We're supposed to protect the most vulnerable. We are supposed to protect those from these atrocities. It's a poison that is so ubiquitous and is not even seen. It's just hidden, and we need to bring it. We need to shed light on it. By those who can, those who are listening now, by our actions, we can help. You said writing the letters, taking action, voting with your fork, helping spread this information, getting informed, and helping spread this information. We can get these dyes out of our food. That would also help those children as well. The more we share this information, the better. The more we make it accessible to eat foods that are dye-free, the better. If you're donating to a food bank, donate foods that are dye-free. Call up the food bank, inform them. Call up all your local food banks. The churches that have food banks in them and let them know that this is important. A lot of churches, especially in my area, raise money and then go buy the food. One of my churchmates used to get food for free for their food bank, and then because of political differences, the company that was giving them free food said, we're not going to give you free food because you have Christian values. I'm like, okay, well, you knew it was a church, but whatever. These are well-meaning churches, well-meaning food banks. If you give them this information and show them and make it easy for them—okay, instead of buying this brand, buy this brand. Instead of buying this, buy this. You give them a list. Here's the list of foods that have these dyes that are hurting children. Here's the list of very similar foods, similar costs. Get this instead. It's going to make a difference in their lives. Reach out to local schools. Talk with the superintendent. Talk with the principal. Can you get your child's school to go dye-free? Take on this mission. Pick a school, pick a food bank, pick something you care about somewhere in your community, and go after it. Share this information. If we get enough people, you said in your Facebook group, it's a half a million people. Imagine if a half a million people went out and shared with three other people, and those people shared with three other people. It's doable. Just go share with three other people, and then charge them with the idea of sharing with three other people. It's doable. Share this episode with as many people as you can and ask them to share with as many people as they can. Even if it's just three people, that multiplication is crazy, and we could get this information out there. If you're moved by the concept that there are children suffering, especially in lower-income areas and children raising children, we need to help them too. Getting this information out there and getting the companies to stop it, stop it, then we can hopefully make a difference. I believe we can because I've seen it happen before. I've seen the food industry turn around because enough people said no. I think you are sparking a fire, but we have to take the ignition and run with it, all of us, every single one of us. That Horton Hears a Who? Do you remember that? This is the Horton Hears a Who. It's a wonderful children's story by Dr. Seuss. In order to save this entire civilization, every single person in Whoville or whatever they are needed to yell at Horton, the giant elephant. Their whole civilization would have died. They had to get everyone involved, every single voice. Luckily, it doesn't take the entire population to make a change. I bet if we got 10% of America, 10%, it would be enough of a yell, a loud yell to change the industry. We do make a difference when we share and get this information out there because no mother and no father would willingly give—no sane and loving mother and father would willingly give—a poison to their child, especially one that makes their life harder. Yes, I want my kid kicking and screaming and fighting with me and biting. Yes, here, eat this cookie. Thank you so much for coming on the show, and I can't wait to watch the documentary. It's going to be awesome. Brandon & Whitney Cawood (1:48:01.681) Thank you. Thank you for having us. I love that. That was great. Outro: I hope you enjoyed today's interview. It was so informative. Share this episode with those you care about. We've got to spread this information. It's a must. It's just a must that we know this, just like back when we learned that X-rays were not something we should just have in shoe stores. You may not know that X-ray machines used to be in shoe stores and people would just X-ray themselves all the time while they were trying on shoes. Then we found out that we might want to limit how many X-rays we get. Then there was the lead in gasoline. Then we found out that wasn't healthy and we got to take that out. Then there was asbestos. Then there was lead paint. So we think about it. There's DDT that we used to douse onto children, and it was so bad it mimicked polio symptoms. That's going down a whole other rabbit hole. But basically, if we look back 30, 40, 50 years or more, we will see where things were once acceptable, safe, and on the shelves, sold in stores. Then we learned some new information, and that information had to spread to the masses. Then change happened. Coca-Cola used to contain what is now an illegal substance, and that was a fun drink you could go to the Five and Dime and get yourself a nice Coca-Cola and  get some illegal substance served to you as a fun little treat.  We learn, we do better. Hopefully, we learn and do better, and sometimes it takes longer because we don't spread the information fast enough. Lobbyists happen, and companies fight back. Think about cigarettes. Honestly, there are substances still that we know better, and yet they're available to be sold. So we just need to spread this information so that we can save people and change lives doing it. As you heard me share before about the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, it's an incredible opportunity to check out their free course and also check out the class that is starting soon. So if you're interested in becoming a health coach or just checking out the free training, go to learntruehealth.com/coach, and when you sign up, use coupon code LTH. You're going to get a great discount, and this cohort is starting. Classes are starting September 23rd, and even if you're super busy, you can fit it into your schedule. If you have time to listen to my podcast, you have time to become an integrative health coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and rock your world, bringing joy, clarity, and fulfillment to every area of your life. IIN is not just about what you eat. It's about examining, uplifting, and bringing joy into every single area—mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, friendships, community, and connection. It really is about living a full life and then learning how to help others do the same. So if that sounds like something you're interested in, you're going to want to check it out. Learntruehealth.com/coach, coupon code LTH.   Get Connected with Brandon & Whitney Cawood   Website – To Dye For: The Documentary Facebook Facebook Group Instagram

  Details, free course sample, and more: learntruehealth.com/coach https://learntruehealth.com/coach Coupon Code LTH for all IIN courses gets you a BIG listener special discount!   Check Out My Latest Book: Addicted To Wellness https://www.learntruehealth.com/addictedtowellness   Get The Minerals Your Body Needs: TakeYourSupplements.com https://takeyoursupplements.com     529: From Burnout to Balance with Sarah Finger’s Chopra Yoga Training https://learntruehealth.com/from-burnout-to-balance-with-sarah-fingers-chopra-yoga-training   Unlock the power of yoga with the Chopra Yoga 200-hour certification! Listeners of the Learn True Health podcast get an exclusive 25% discount—just use coupon code LTH when you sign up. 👉 Enroll now and start your journey to balance and wellness!   Yoga is more than just stretching and striking a pose—it’s a powerful science of healing, balance, and transformation. In this episode of the Learn True Health podcast, we sit down with Sarah Platt Finger, director of Chopra Yoga at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, to explore how yoga impacts not just the body, but also the mind and emotions. Sarah shares how simple breathing techniques and mindful movement can lower stress, improve heart health, and create a deep sense of inner peace. Whether you’re a seasoned yogi or a complete beginner, this conversation will inspire you to integrate yoga into your daily life for better health and well-being. Ready to discover the science-backed benefits of yoga? Tune in now and take the first step toward a stronger, calmer, and more resilient you.   Highlights: Sarah Platt Finger, director of Chopra Yoga at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, shares insights on yoga's impact on emotional, mental, and physical health. Yoga is a science of balancing the nervous system, not just a fitness trend or religion. Breathing techniques (pranayama) help regulate stress, improve heart health, and enhance mental clarity. Scientific studies support yoga’s ability to lower blood pressure, cholesterol, and stress while improving flexibility and muscle tone. Holding yoga poses builds physical resilience and mental strength, training the nervous system to manage stress. Meditation is a core component of yoga, promoting deep relaxation, emotional balance, and self-awareness. Yoga helps individuals reconnect with their body, making them more mindful of their diet, posture, and daily habits. The Chopra Yoga 200-hour certification program teaches yoga foundations, breathwork, meditation, and how to integrate yoga into everyday life. Alternate nostril breathing (a yoga technique) balances brain hemispheres, calms anxiety, and enhances focus. Yoga is accessible for all ages and fitness levels, offering modifications for individual needs.   Intro:    Hello True Health Seeker and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. Today we have with us a very special guest. She's the director of Chopra Yoga at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Her name is Sarah Platt Finger. She's an author and an expert in yoga and a wonderful teacher. This was an amazing interview to converse with her about how yoga can help you on the emotional and mental level, as well as the physical level. She brings some great science to the table.    It’s really interesting how a simple practice of breathing and moving that you can squeeze into your busy day can affect in a positive way your hormones, your mental clarity, your energy, your sleep and even your heart health. So today we're going to talk about that and before we do, I want to make sure  that, if you'd like to study this program, it's an online course. It's a 200-hour Chopra Yoga certification and it's taught by Sarah Finger. There's a few other teachers, including Dr. Deepak Chopra and Dr. Sheila Patel, board-certified physician and expert in Ayurveda. When you take this course, you will learn Ayurveda, meditation, breathing, physiology and, of course, stretching, the wonderful practice of yoga. But there's science behind it, which is really cool, that certain positions that we get in and hold isometrically and breathe while we're doing it not only strengthen the heart, but it lowers and balances blood pressure and it strengthens our muscles, tones our muscles. It’s such a nice break from running on a treadmill or a bicycle or  going to the gym and doing the hamster wheel. It's such a nice break and what I love about it is you can do it anywhere. You can integrate it into any aspect of your day to improve, enhance your body's healing function. It's like a special golden button you can hit inside you that turns on super healing mode.    So I love that through taking this online program, you can learn the tools to access your own healing mode, and a lot of practitioners because I know a lot of practitioners listen to my podcast. You can integrate this with your clients, with your patients, and we talk about that as well. If you're interested in looking into it, you can even schedule a free appointment to talk about whether this is right for you and to learn more about it. You go to learntruehealth.com/coach. That's learntruehealth.com/coach. Of course, the links will be in the show notes of today's podcast at learntruehealth.com and wherever you listen to this podcast when you go to that link learntruehealth.com/coach, it's going to take you to IIN's courses. Not only will you see if you scroll down, it's in the third row, it's called the Chopra Yoga 200-hour certification, which is what we're going to talk about today, but you also see the course that I took, which is the health coach training program, and I absolutely loved it. It was wonderful.    It's such a phenomenal experience if you're looking for your own personal growth, for your own healing and health and ongoing healthy relationship with your overall life, health and joy in every aspect of your life. About half the people that take it take it simply for their own personal growth and health, and the other half take it because they want to integrate it into their business or that it practice in some way, or they, too, want to start being a health coach and taking on clients and they teach you how to do that. They hold your hand, teach you how to do the business as well. So if you are interested in becoming a health coach and actually doing it as a business, this is a wonderful resource for you. So go to learntruehealth.com/coach and check that out. But they also have other certifications. This is what I love, because the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, they actually coined the term health coach and it's the oldest school online. But before it was online it was in person. So they've been teaching for many years and they merged recently with dr chopra and all of his trainings and so together they offer so many wonderful courses. You could take courses on Ayurveda, meditation, mindful eating course, hormone health, gut health, and a lot of these courses actually weren't available to the public until you became a health coach, but now they have altered them so that if you're just interested in gut health or you're just interested in detox, there's a whole course on detox and it's very affordable, and for the larger courses they have payment plans. They want it to be accessible to everyone.    The most important thing that I want you to know is that they offer a really big discount to all my listeners all the time, no matter what. It's the biggest discount they'll ever offer, so you don't have to wait for a sale. If you're interested to take the courses, use my discount coupon code, which is LTH as in Learn True Health, or if you decide, instead of signing up online, which you can do, you can call them to sign up and speak to one of the health coaches there. All the staff that answer the phone have taken at least the flagship training program, the health coach training program, but many of them have dived into the other courses so that they can share their experience with you, and their sales staff are not in any way. They don't pressure you. They're just here to help and they can talk to you about your goals and answer questions you may have. But if you mentioned my name, Ashley James, the Learn True Health podcast or the coupon code LTH, you will get that great discount.    You can go back and listen to my interview with the founder of IIN, the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, Joshua Rosenthal. I've interviewed him. I've also interviewed the new CEO, although not new anymore, she's been around for a few years, but she's the CEO, the current CEO. I've had her on the show and I've had over a dozen of the faculty. The wonderful teachers and professors and doctors have come on the show and taught and it's it's just been such a blessing to work with them, because what they're doing is helping people to access true health through all the tools and everything that you can learn to find a balanced life to nourish your whole being, and so I encourage you to go to learntruehealth.com/coach and check it out.    You can just keep scrolling and looking at all the different really cool courses. You're probably going to go, I want to take all these courses but if you're interested in what we talk about today the Chopra Yoga 200-hour certification definitely sign up. It starts a few times a year. The cohort does it, you do it together as a group and no matter what time of year it is whether you're listening to this now or in December or in April or wherever it is when you sign up it unlocks the beginning of the course. So you get to actually start the course, no matter when you sign up, and then you get to do basically the pre-work and then the whole cohort takes off together three times a year. So no matter when you sign up, you'll be able to access the training and begin immediately, which is wonderful. If you're interested in becoming a health coach, like me, definitely click on the health coach training program, which is the very first option on the page. You'll see it and you'll gain access to learning more about it and it will take you to a free webinar that will teach you more about it. But there's lots of resources on that page. See a sample class as well If you scroll down the page. Once you click on the health coach training program option, you can scroll down, it'll say sample class and you can sign up for a free sample class. It's very inspiring and it'll give you a good idea as to what it feels like to take this course and what it looks like and how it works.  What I love about their trainings is that they hit every learning style.    School was really difficult for me. I'm an excellent learner. If you've listened to my show, you know that I retain a lot of information. I love learning. I'm an auditory learner, so for me, like if I hear something, I'm really going to remember it well, and some people remember things better by reading and some people remember things better by watching videos, whereas others remember by doing. There's different learning styles and  sometimes teachers, when we're in school they're not as great at hitting all of the learning styles, so some students fall through the cracks or feel very disenfranchised.    In IIN, I never had a problem as a student. I really struggled in school because the way the teachers taught wouldn't necessarily hit my learning style or if you struggled in school like me and then. But then as an adult you're like why is it? It's so easy for me to learn when I want to learn something, when I'm on my own, when I'm diving in and I'm doing my own research, but when, when I was sitting in a classroom with 30 other kids, it was like I could beat my head against the wall. It was so frustrating. So I know everyone has a different experience with school, but what I thought was really refreshing is I did not have any problems with learning when I went through the year-long health coach training program through IIN and they also have a six-month program, accelerated program as well, and it really fits into your busy life. It's about 20 minutes a day.    If you're going to dedicate 20 minutes a day for a year, then you will absolutely love their health coaching program, similar to the 200-hour yoga training program, the Chopra Yoga program. You can dedicate a chunk of time each day or a larger chunk a few times a week and you're able to be flexible to fit it into your life. We talked a little bit about that in the interview. But if you're interested, go to learntruehealth.com/coach, scroll down and see the title that says the Chopra 200-hour yoga training and click on it and from there it's a beautifully laid out website with wonderful information that gives you all you need to know. Like I said, if you want to check out the Health Coach Training Program, click on that, because you can gain access to videos and a whole sample course as well as a webinar. So there's lots of resources on that page. So enjoy today's interview.    If you have any questions about my experience as a student at IIN or what I've been able to do since graduating many years ago and how wonderful it's been working with them and interviewing them and them as a company, I just love them. There's just very, very high integrity and that's why I continue to share their message with you, because I feel that you, as the listener, would benefit from taking their courses. Of course, I'm not a mama bear, but I want to be very protective of my listeners. So there's something I don't believe in or don't trust. I'm not going to talk about it. I'm not going to bring it to the table. I really do trust them and I trust that they'll take care of you. Have yourself a fantastic day. Enjoy today's interview. Thank you so much for being a listener and thank you so much for sharing this podcast with those you care about. Together, we're helping to turn this little ripple into a tidal wave and help as many people as possible to learn true health.   Welcome to the Learn True Health Podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James, this is episode 529.    Ashley James (0:12:53.161) I am so excited for today's guest. We're going to have such a fun conversation today. Our guest is Sarah Platt-Finger, who is the director of Chopra Yoga at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and co-founder of Ishta Yoga LLC. Deepak Chopra called Sarah, our wonderful guest, an extraordinary teacher of yoga that has called enormously to my well-being. How amazing! You also co-authored a book with Dr. Chopra, Living in the Light: Yoga for Self-Realization. I've had some wonderful experiences with yoga, and I just want to say right off the bat, I am also a Christian, and I know some Christians want to stay away from yoga. So this episode, although it might not be for everyone, that's okay. Yoga really served me, and it actually really, really helped me. I'd love to talk about that. I think there's a place for practice for everyone. I don't think we have to say that it's a religion. Right off the bat, I think we can look at the health benefits of yoga. One of my closest, dearest friends—just love her—runs an addiction recovery center in Woodinville, Washington, Bajra Recovery, and she gets incredible results helping alcoholics and other people who have addiction to other substances recover. She gets extremely high results and she incorporates and attributes it to yoga. She says yoga is a big part of her system to help people fully recover from addiction and get their life back. I believe there's so much here for mental health, emotional health, and physical health. I think it's really important for us to keep an open mind and look at what we can gain from this conversation—what we can gain from yoga to support our overall well-being. Having said that, Sarah, I'm so excited to have you on the show today because we're going to learn more about what it is to take your yoga teacher training program, and it's online, so it's accessible to everyone around the world. Welcome to the show. Sarah Platt-Finger (0:15:07.992) Thank you so much, Ashley. It's really a pleasure to be with you. I'm excited about this conversation of redefining what the practice of yoga is.   Ashley James (0:15:18.604) Exactly. I think that like a lot of people if they haven’t experienced it they don't know. There's so much evidence to show we're actually going to get into the science. This is what I'm really excited about. We can talk the talk, but let's show where the rubber meets the road. You're bringing today some studies today to show the science behind the health benefits that we can gain from yoga. Before we do that, some people don't even know what it is. So let's start with: What is yoga?   Some people imagine, we all know like Lululemon, spandex. We know that, okay, we stretch and maybe some people sweat, but beyond sweating, stretching, and maybe some breathing, what is yoga?   Sarah Platt-Finger (0:16:00.603) Such a great question. Yoga is a Sanskrit word that means union. I don't think of it as a religion. It's not even really an exercise or a fitness trend. I really think of yoga as a science. It's a science and a lived experience of balancing the different aspects of our being, our nervous system. The more solar and lunar energies, sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, the physical poses, which are called asana, the Sanskrit word for it.    Yoga did originate in India about 2500 or more years ago, which is why a lot of the verbiage we use to explain the concepts of yoga comes from this ancient language, Sanskrit. It's this practice of unifying the different disparate aspects of ourselves to experience who we really are, who we are beyond or behind our physical body, our thoughts, our identity, our sense, our emotions. What is that seer, the witness, that is able to experience the whole, the rising and subsiding of life experience, and not be changed, not be afflicted, if that makes sense? So it is a practice of essentially returning back to the aspect of yourself that's unchanging.   Ashley James (0:17:57.085) When I was a teenager, I don't know if you remember being a teenager, but it was pretty intense. I just remember a lot of really intense emotions. My mom took me to yoga classes with her. I remember going in feeling angsty, stressed out, just very, very anxious, very angry, like just these bursts of anger, which I'm not an angry person, like hormones, man, puberty. Going in, just feeling all riled up, ready to kind of snap and start a fight and coming out back to myself, feeling back to my center. It really helped me through the mental, emotional turmoil of puberty.  I studied Hatha yoga, which was a really big shift from the regular yoga classes I was used to because my yoga teacher, who’s from India, told us to keep our eyes open. She said she was more, she was very militaristic. So you became very aware of your posture, how you hold yourself even outside the yoga class. It was this awareness of your strength and where you hold your shoulders, where you hold your neck, how you hold your shoulders back. How you breathe, how you can let sort of that strength and energy flow through you and have that strong calmness inside. When you say yoga means unity, I think of the unity where you come into alignment with yourself, where you're not scattered, where you're feeling like your emotional, mental, and physical body are doing really well together and in alignment together. That's what it feels like for me. Then I went to Kripalu and studied there. Spent over a month there and did Kripalu yoga, which is different. Every time I would choose a different type of yoga, it was very, very different, yet the outcome was very similar. I found more strength inside me, physical strength, but then I found more of this like being on a balance beam and being unshakable emotionally. So as opposed to feeling like someone could look at me the wrong way and I could cry. That would be me going into class, and then afterward it’s like, I am unshakable. That has a lot to do with calming the nervous system and tonifying the nervous system. So we're not caught up in that fight or flight all the time, which we really, really need to do on a daily basis to optimize our immune function and optimize our body's ability to heal itself.  We need to ask ourselves to come back into that healing mode, the parasympathetic rest and digest mode, which we are almost never in these days. We're always caught up in that stress response, and stress isn't an emotion. That's a really important thing to know. Because so many people go, "I'm not stressed." I'm like, I bet you are. When was the last time you were in rest and digest mode? Because we really don't feel it. We feel the effects of it. So then, down the road, you live in stress mode. Down the road, your body breaks down, and we have all these diseases that are really attributed to years of stress. So that's why I love that if we all took this training together, this online training, and we learned how to turn on healing mode, how to turn on rest and digest mode on a daily basis and did it, we'd be protecting our nervous system, protecting our immune system, protecting our mental and emotional health. There's so much we could get out of it. So that's why I see that there's value in this. Sarah Platt-Finger (0:22:03.613) Absolutely. This is the human nervous system and its real power. There's a power in our nervous system and that we are able to dial it up and dial it back down. These ancient practices that we have to adjust our energy, sometimes we do need to dial it up. Sometimes if you're feeling depressed and unmotivated, you might need practices to energize you and awaken you. Yoga can do that. It can also give you practices, which the majority of our culture need, which is to down-regulate the nervous system. So we start from a baseline of homeostasis. You're right, most people are not familiar with that state. It's almost like a foreign concept to be in a space where your heart rate is in its baseline, your brain waves are more slowed down, your blood pressure is in a healthy space, and you're able to explore the world and see the world as it really is. Sometimes we like to use this analogy of a lake, that your mind and your thoughts, the fluctuations in your mind, which in Sanskrit they're called vrittis, are kind of like ripples in a lake. As we become more hypervigilant, as our nervous system gets heightened because of external stressors, daily pressures, et cetera, those ripples become more and more fluctuating. Like a lake, when you have a lot of activity, you're unable to perceive the images, the reflections that you see in the lake with clarity. It's the same thing with the mind. When we have so much turbulence and fluctuation in our mind, we're unable to perceive things with clarity. So it's like you see a quarter in a lake and you think it's a big fish. It's the same thing with our relationships, with our decision-making processes. We're not always in a clear, coherent space to be able to take actions and make choices that are for our highest good because we're so busy fighting that sympathetic nervous response. Ashley James (0:24:46.619) The fight or flight is meant to keep us alive, but only for a very short period of time. We're only really meant to be in it when being chased by the bear, we run away from the bear, we're good. Or there's a fire, we get away from the fire, we're good. It's supposed to turn off. Then we're supposed to be, 95% of the time we're supposed to be in rest and digest mode, but it has actually been reversed. Now we're in that fight or flight almost all the time because you look at your phone, there's going to be a trigger. You look at the news, there's going to be a trigger. You look at your bills, there's going to be a trigger. You're driving. We're driving these death machines around. It's wild. We have no peace. I just came from the country. We went out, we drove out into the mountains, into the Okanagan Highlands of Washington and there's no cell service. This is just to give you, paint the picture. You can't see anyone. It's crazy. You're on top of these beautiful rolling, gorgeous golden mountains, sprinkled with forests and you can't see your neighbor. No, you see more cows than your neighbor. It's just gorgeous. There's no amenities, there's no restaurants, there's nothing. It's just you and the wind and your thoughts. I would sit there and think, our ancestors, this is how they lived. Even like the Bible, you think about like this is, we had our herd of goats or our sheep and we had our fields and we had our thoughts and we had nature and we looked up at the stars and we breathed and we were at peace in the world most of the time. Then if there was a wolf or a bear, that's when we went to stress mode. Now it's the opposite. Now we are not at peace with nature. We are not in tune with our body. We ignore our body. Then we wonder, where did it all go wrong? We don't listen to the whispers. Things just start to break really poorly. But it actually started 20 years ago when we entered stress mode and didn't leave it. So this is why we've got to stop what we're doing because what we're doing isn't working. When we look at the statistics of the disease rates, looking at one in three people will have cancer. One in three people will have diabetes, pre-diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity. 70% of adult Americans are on at least one prescription medication. Many people are on pain meds. We're sick. We need to look back at the root cause. What's going on? Our body is almost never in healing mode. When we're in stress mode, our body shuts down healing. It actually just shuts it down so that we could do immediate survival things. That's what I love about this practice, even just sitting there and breathing. I believe it's called asana, breathing. Is that it? Did I say that wrong? Sarah Platt-Finger (0:28:00.303) No, you said asana correctly. That's the asana's physical poses.   Ashley James (0:28:04.067) Okay. What's the breathing?   Sarah Platt-Finger (0:28:05.908) It’s Pranayama.    Ashley James (0:28:07.700) Pranayama, that's right. So breathing, which I teach breathing to my clients because they’ll come in hot, and I'm like, okay, I've got one thing for you to do. They're like, my gosh, I feel so much better. We just took eight slow breaths. We took eight slow breaths. It takes like two minutes, and they're like, I can't believe how much of a difference that would make. You don't need to carve out these 90-minute yoga sessions every day. How about just giving me two minutes of breathing? I’d love for you to guide us through a pranayama. This has been a bit like maybe 20 years since I studied yoga, but I'd love for you to guide us through one at some point in this interview because I want everyone to experience that. If you haven't ever experienced it, I want you to experience it. We don't need to use beautiful, fancy, foreign words. It is breathing with intention in order to bring calm to your body, in order to turn that switch on in your body that tells your nervous system you're safe and it's okay to go back into healing mode. Sarah Platt-Finger (0:29:25.317) Correct. The interesting thing about the breath is that it's really hard to tell our minds to be quiet, or tell your heart rate to slow down, or your digestion to start to function more optimally. These are all functions of our autonomic nervous system, and breathing is included, but the breath is one of the only maybe two functions of our nervous system that's happening but that we can also control. So we have the power to shift the way that we breathe. By shifting the way that we breathe, we automatically impact not only those other nervous system responses but our mind, the quality of your mind. I could say, stop thinking. Or stop thinking thoughts. By using thoughts to quiet thoughts, that's a very hard formula, but breath molds and shapes our mind and the activity of the mind. So in that way, it's really an immediate and very profound response and impact that we have to shift the present moment. Like you said, it really doesn't take a long time. You can do three to five breaths and, in a moment, re-regulate your nervous system and just change your whole outlook. Ashley James (0:30:54.729) You mentioned if every child was taught just simple breathwork to regulate their nervous system. Every child in day one kindergarten, we're going to do some breathing. Then every time there was a child who clearly was in anxiety, the whole class did two minutes of breathing. If everyone was just taught Math is important, English reading is important, and learning how to regulate your nervous system and calm your nervous system so you get full control of your mindset, your brain back—that would put people back into a learning state. What not everyone realizes is that when we go into fight or flight, when we go into that stress mode, you don't feel stressed, so you don't know it, but we actually lose critical thinking. We lose the higher function of our brain. Our brain goes more into that survival mode, and optimal learning does not happen there. But think of our children and the environment they're in. If your child goes to regular school, we homeschool, so it's a little different. I probably need to have a big reminder somewhere, like breathe, breathe. Just imagine if the children were taught this, how much of the time are children in stress mode and not in learning mode? Because it is a tumultuous experience to be in these very busy classrooms, very overwhelming, constantly feeling judged, constantly bullied. It's not a healthy place to be. It's not really a productive learning environment. That's where we came from. All of us survived that, or we have our scars and our wounds from our early childhood education. We never learned. We learned to cope. We turned to drugs. We turned to alcohol. We turned to addictions. We turned to other coping mechanisms. We turned to TV. Think about what you turned to when you got overwhelmed when you were a teenager. What kind of coping mechanism did you turn to to help regulate your nervous system? So many of us turn to even sugar, substances outside of ourselves instead of learning how to regulate our own nervous system. Can you imagine if the entire planet just learned to pause and breathe when they felt themselves come out of that rest and digest mode? When they start to feel like, my heart rate's kind of rising, I'm kind of feeling antsy and anxious, I'm starting to get tunnel vision. That they learn to just pause and breathe. Just that alone would shift the entire world. This is your ticket, this is your key to taking back control of your life. That's why my friend Jessica has such a high recovery rate with her clients when she does her coaching, when she does her mental health counseling for addiction, because she teaches the alcoholics and those addicted to substances when they come to her, she teaches them how to regulate their nervous system through yoga, and they walk out of there feeling strong inside, and feeling like they have control because now they have the button to push to down-regulate and control their nervous system. I want you to do some breathing with us for sure. Before we get to that though, do you have any studies specifically around your nervous system, around the effects of practicing yoga on our mental, emotional health, or our nervous system control? Sarah Platt-Finger (0:34:49.738) Well, there's definitely studies that have been shown of the heart benefits of yoga that lower blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, and there's another study that found that practicing yoga improved lipid profiles. Yes, as well as in patients with coronary artery disease, lowers excessive blood sugar levels in people who have diabetes. So there's all kinds of studies. One study, there were several small studies that found that yoga has a positive effect on cardiovascular risk factors. So it does help to lower blood pressure in people who have hypertension. They think that's because it restores baroreceptor sensitivity.  That's what affects what allows your blood pressure to move from high to low blood pressure. Some of that can be based on some of the asanas that we do. For example, when we go upside down for an extended period of time, it can open that baroreceptor and shift your blood pressure from an increase to a more decreased state. So that's an interesting thing. There's also been research that shows that small groups of individuals who are more sedentary, who hadn't practiced yoga before, that after eight weeks of practicing yoga at least twice a week, for a total of 180 minutes, participants had greater muscle strength and endurance and flexibility and cardiorespiratory fitness. So I think that aspect that you said about feeling strong is also a part of the practice. We've spoken a lot about the re-regulating of the nervous system and moving from that state of hypervigilance into more of rest and digest. But I think it's a really important key to recognize that the power of the physical poses and of being able to, and there's all kinds of benefits in holding poses for an extended period of time, that they do also increase your muscle tone, your cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, the fascia intelligence in your body, and that holding poses for an extended period of time on top of the physical benefits of it, it builds resilience in our minds, where we are able to kind of hold and experience, perhaps feelings that might feel uncomfortable or irregular or more challenging. If you think about holding a pose where you're in a semi-squat position for an extended period of time, that requires strength and endurance.  When we can hold that and breathe at the same time, we are increasing our muscle, strength and power, and at the same time using the breath to quiet and calm the nervous system down. These two components of strength and ease and surrender really create this resilient response in our bodies that we can move through challenging situations. Sometimes yoga poses are challenging situations that we experience in life. That's how I like to think of them. Any given situation can make you feel excited, elated, free, or you can have other situations that make you feel fearful or anxious or angry. Any shape that you create with your body can also evoke those different responses. It's not about how do you run away from those responses, but how do you hold that in your field of awareness and learn how to move through it and get on the other side of it? That is the experience that we take with us from yoga. The yoga experience is, yes the practice, the class is on the mat, so to speak. The yoga mat, that's where you do your downward-facing dog or any other type of part of the practice. But when you step off of the mat and into your life, you're carrying with you all of the residue of that practice. It's like information that you can recruit at any given moment, like that stressful talk you have to have with your child or your friend or a coworker. You hold this pose for an extended period of time and you get through that, then you can say to yourself, "What, I can get through this too." So it's really about applying some of the benefits that we receive on the mat, off the mat into our everyday life. Ashley James (0:40:22.263) I love that you said that because just recently I took my husband to actually his first yoga class, he had never done one. The next day I was like, wow, why are my shoulders so sore? What is going on? He looks at me, he goes, we were holding ourselves in a static pose, holding ourselves upside down. It wasn’t like I was holding my whole body weight. It's like you do a downward dog and then you're basically what that looks like for those who don't know what that is. You bend at the hips and put your hands on the mat like you're making your body into a triangle. Then, we were doing basically what looked like yoga burpees and doing these movements of pushing up and getting up and getting down and getting up and getting down. But the next day I was like, I feel like I just did some major weightlifting and I love weightlifting. I love seeing how much I can lift. I love that feeling of strength and I was surprised cause I hadn't done any weightlifting in the last few days. I feel like I just did some major kettlebells, what's going on in it. It was so cool how much I got out of that class because it's, it's just you and your body weight.    I noticed how much of my internal dialogue happens. Can I do this pose? Like, I don't know if I can do that. I'm going to try it. Wow. I'm doing it. Okay. Hey, I have more balance than I thought I did. You notice how much you criticize yourself, how much you doubt yourself. Then you notice, if you take on the challenge of something you think you might not be able to do, and then you're like, hey, I'm, I'm not doing this perfectly but look, I did some of it. Standing up on one foot, just increasing your balance. I mean, many of us don't do that on a regular basis and should. But when it comes to growing older, we need to develop and build and protect our balance now so that when we are older, we can prevent falls. It's a real thing. That's a real risk. Dying from falls is a painful and slow death. Falling and breaking your hip, for example. God forbid it happens to any of us. But if you could prevent that by honing and dialing in your body's ability to have strength and balance. I also love that yoga is really for any age, that it can be adapted to any age and to build us up no matter where we are. I know a lot of seniors do chair yoga. It's like wherever you are, it can meet you wherever you are, which is really cool. Sarah Platt-Finger (0:43:28.030) It can build wherever you are. It's so important that you said that because where it meets you, where you're at, and a good teacher will provide those different options for their class. Where you have a version where you can step it up or you have a version where you can modify or dial it down a little bit. This practice of self-study, like understanding yourself, really listening to the feedback you're getting from your body of how much is too much or not enough. My rule of thumb is if you feel something happening and you can still breathe, that's your edge. That's where we want to go and where we want to be in the practice where we feel something happening, but we can still breathe steadily in and out through the nostrils. That's where transformation happens. That's where growth happens. That's where great opportunity is where, like you say, we realize how capable we are. The body often has so much more strength and power and capability than our mind might give it credit for. I mean, just watching the Olympics, it's just incredible to see the potential of the human body. I'm certainly not a proponent of acrobat yoga, that's certainly not what I'm talking about, but it's more about, again, listening to what is your edge? What is your place where you start to feel like you did, the strength in your upper body or in your legs and just this sensation arising. In that sensation, there's so much information. We spend so much of our day up in our minds, planning tomorrow or reflecting on yesterday or last week and what am I going to do about this or that?  But to really be present in our bodies, that is a skill set and really a power that we can take with us as we age. As we notice the shifts or deteriorations, like understanding how to ourselves differently. There was another study about mindful eating and the correlations between yoga practitioners and their ability to just make healthier choices in life because you're becoming more aware. You're just in that connection with the physical responses that you're having in any given moment where you can listen, and then you respond accordingly. I often say in my classes that it's like yoga is a dialogue. It's a conversation you're having with your body. We're often like the dictator of our body. You've got to do this and you've got to do that and listen to me. But when we can have a conversation, we can let the wisdom of the body respond, and it creates a whole new experience for ourselves. Ashley James (0:46:43.159) I love that. The Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which we had mentioned at the beginning, I took their year-long health coach training program. I've also interviewed the creator of IIN, Joshua Rosenthal. I've interviewed the wonderful new CEO. I've had several, at least a dozen, of the faculty on the show.   I loved my experience with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I was surprised to find out that about half the people that take the courses there are just doing it for personal growth. The other half are doing it for the career they want to either enrich or get into. But I was surprised at how many people do the courses just for their own personal growth. But it makes sense because I got so much personal growth out of my experience there. Now IIN has partnered with Chopra, and so through IIN, yoga training is offered. Is it similar to the IIN Health Coach Training Program? Is your 200-hour yoga teacher training also for personal growth? Or do you find that people do it because they want their personal growth, and there's a percentage that actually wants to go out and teach yoga? Can you tell us a bit about that? Sarah Platt-Finger (0:48:11.495) Yes. I see this a lot, that people embark on a yoga teacher training not because they want to teach, but because they want to learn and grow themselves in their own practice and understand the practice in a more nuanced, intimate way. Folks who sign up for the training will certainly get that experience. But then this other thing happens where maybe 50% are doing it for their own personal reasons. Then by the end of the training, like 30% of those 50% decide, actually, I do want to teach. I'm getting the bite. Something sparks inside of you when you start to practice teaching, or maybe you practice teaching friends and loved ones. You see how the act of teaching is such an elevating experience. I'm sure you experienced this when you did your course and worked with your own clients. You see that in sharing the gifts of the practice and seeing other people respond in such positive ways, it actually fuels and feeds you. There's a real nourishment we can get from watching other people grow and transform from the practices you have shared with them. It restores a sense of meaning in life that many in the world have lost in the moment. To have meaning in feeling like I'm helping to change someone's life in maybe subtle ways. It could be something simple like, "I had lower back pain, and now it's gone," or "I wasn't standing properly, and now I have better posture." Like for me, it's sometimes those real micro shifts that make all of the difference. So once you experience the joy of, and I do call it sharing. I think sometimes the idea of teaching feels overwhelming for some people to think that they are going to teach yoga. That's why I say we share the practice. We share the teachings with other people because it's a shared lived experience. I can only teach what is my own lived experience, and I share that with people. They take from that what is useful to them and pass that on. So it's not about a hierarchy like, "I know more, you know less." It's like, "This has been my experience, and I share it with you, and you can take from that what suits and serves you." So yes, it really is an empowering experience. Ashley James (0:51:03.701) I like that you pointed that out because I've met so many wonderful, talented, knowledgeable people who don't believe in themselves and who say, "I'm not an expert. I couldn't teach this." I'm like, "Are you kidding me? You have so much to share. You have so much to give. People would be so blessed to learn something from you." But they're like, "Who am I? I'm not the expert here." We've been, I think, brainwashed or traumatized from the education system to believe that you have to have a PhD before anyone could even possibly listen to you. It's funny because you get there, like even people earn PhDs. They're still like, "I thought something magical would happen where I feel like an expert. I still don't feel like an expert." I'm like, "That's because it's all up to you." It's in your head. Like, if you don't believe in yourself, a piece of paper is not going to make you believe in yourself.  Sarah Platt-Finger (0:52:11.703) It's about connection; because there are some people who might have those high credentials, the PhDs, and are they then able to connect with other people in a way that helps them to understand? So it can go both ways. That's why, yes, I think this power of connection is really important, especially if you are in the field of wellness and you're wanting to share and help other people, that we do it in a way that's authentic. It is grounded in science and facts and a lived experience, but that we also do it in a way that is like we're seeing each other, we're watching, we're witnessing, and in this space of in it together. That's the healing.   Ashley James (0:52:59.554) Do you have any more of that science to share with us?   Sarah Platt-Finger (0:53:04.290) Since we were talking about breath, I think we can talk a little bit about nasal breathing and the importance of nasal breathing. There was a great book by James Nestor called Breath, if anyone has read that book. But it really substantiates a lot of what the ancient yogis knew, which was that breathing through the nostrils not only helps to extend and lengthen the breath, which calms and quiets the nervous system. There is also an air filtration that happens when we breathe in through the nostrils through these little hairs called cilia, which are in the nostrils. When the air passes through the cilia in the nostrils, it has a purifying effect, so it sort of filters through some of the toxins that are in the air that we breathe. Then it also increases the nitric oxide.    Nitric oxide is what helps the oxygen to circulate through blood into the different organs of our body. Nasal breathing increases the amount of nitric oxide that we're able to produce. So it helps with our blood circulation and the oxygenation of our cells and our organs. So that's really interesting as well.    Of course, we also know that from each nostril, this is more energetic, but then scientists found that nostrils correspond to an opposite hemisphere in the brain. So the right nostril corresponds to the left brain hemisphere, and the left nostril corresponds to the right brain hemisphere. When we balance the flow of air through both nostrils, it creates a balance in both brain hemispheres, which increases creativity and our ability to think outside the box and be a little more innovative. It helps to calm the nervous system and quiet anxiety as well. So really interesting facts around the benefits of nasal breathing.   Ashley James (0:55:38.962) I think everyone is feeling a little calmer because they all started breathing more deeply through their nose, closing their mouth if they caught themselves breathing through their mouth.  I think everyone's going, wow, I'm now breathing a little deeper through my nose since we started this conversation. I certainly did.   Sarah Platt-Finger (0:56:01.733) It will help with mental alertness too. Sorry to interject, but just that, your ability to concentrate and listen is also an effect by nasal breathing. So hopefully that helped as well.   Ashley James (0:56:13.139) Well, everyone wants that and yet they run to Starbucks or sugar or something for mental alertness when we could all just breathe through our noses. Look, we have this built-in system to regulate our nervous system, but I just feel like we all stepped away the last hundred or so years. We all stepped away from how we're supposed to live. We live such an artificial life that we're now coming back. A lot of people are now interested in coming back to learning about their body, learning about their health, because we have to, because modern, quote-unquote, modern medicine, like drug-based medicine, doesn't have the answers for helping the body heal from chronic illness. They just have more drugs. But they just suck at healing chronic illness because we don't have a drug deficiency. We need to come back to the root of healing, which is coming back inside ourselves, getting ourselves into that rest and digest mode, regulating our nervous system. I love that through the process of the practice of yoga, it can just be a few times a week. Busy people can fit it in. Listen, my friend has five kids and I think three or more grandkids. She's and she runs her own business. She does yoga on a regular basis. She is a busy woman. I know many very, very, very busy people who are able to fit it into their life because it gives them so much more than it takes. It might take a half an hour, a few times a week, or 45 minutes, a few times a week, but it gives so much more and it lasts like you can see the lasting effects of it. I love that then it helps people to become conscientious of what they're eating and they start to get more connected with their bodies. So they go, wow, that meal really served me. I feel really good. I'm going to eat more like that or wow, that I feel really bloated and slow and sluggish from eating that meal. I think I'm going to do less of that.  We come back into our body, have more, I keep saying awareness, but that's we're so unaware, we're so numbed out. When we turn to caffeine, sugar, alcohol, these are numbing agents. TV, we're just numbing ourselves. Social media, we're numbing ourselves. This practice allows us to come back in and then we get so much more. So the course you teach though, can complete beginners who've never done yoga take your course? Or do you have recommendations for them to go do some classes before they come? Tell us who can take your training and I'd love to hear the transformations that people go through when they take the training. Sarah Platt-Finger (0:59:12.359) Yes, I'd love to share about it. Well, the course starts with our Yoga Foundations program, which is just that. It's basically the foundations of yoga. What is yoga? What is asana? What does the word "Om" mean? What are these scientific reasons behind some of the practices, just sort of demystifying the practice to help give a better understanding. Again, I worked a lot with Deepak Chopra. He's a scientist and a doctor in his essence. So a lot of what we bring to the table are some of these science-based experiences and also how the practice is affecting us from that physiological perspective. So the Yoga Foundations is open to anybody, absolute beginners who have never done it before, anyone listening to this podcast like, "Yoga, what's that?" You can do that course, which is about a 15-hour course and includes some of the yoga poses and some of the philosophy and the breath pranayama practices, just to give people a basic foundational understanding of it. Then from there, they do the 16-week, it's a 16-module course. The foundations program is evergreen, so you just take it in your own time. There's no live component to it. But in the actual certification program, which is accredited by an organization called Yoga Alliance, they kind of oversee the standardization process of yoga schools throughout the United States and internationally as well. That is over the course of 16 weeks and people come in, there's an e-learning component that is self-paced. Then there are a few webinars that happen, two live sessions throughout the week, one of which can be done as a recording, one of which is live and in person. Those in-person live sessions are really where you get the opportunity to practice teaching with your peers. They're done in smaller groups. You can ask questions. You understand more the anatomical aspects of movement and biomechanics and what's happening in our joints when we do some of these shapes. Why are some things easier for some people and more challenging? Our bones are not identical. They're shaped differently. The way they move is different. So it's why it's so important that we say and share that yoga is not a one-size-fits-all practice. It's not the same for everybody. So understanding where your limitations are and where you might need to adjust a pose to suit your individual needs is really fundamental in your ability to come back to the practice and make it sustainable. So many times people come to me and say, "Yes, I tried yoga, but I'm not flexible enough or I'm not thin enough or I'm not strong enough." So I couldn't, it was always like not enough. It made me feel so truly sad because there is no measurement. If you can breathe and you have a human nervous system, you can experience yoga. It's really that simple. What we teach our teachers is to be able to share this practice with a larger population, and a multitude and a different range of anatomies and constitutions and backgrounds so that it's not just for a select group of people, but for a greater mass. So yes, there's a real range of studies that we bring into each week, both philosophical and anatomical and experiential. Week over week, we focus on a different focus or topic, a different category of poses, different breathing techniques. We also bring in some hand gestures, which are called mudras. Hands, interestingly, occupy about 30% of our motor sensory cortex in the brain. So what we do with our hands lights up different parts of our brain and can affect and impact the way that we feel. Ancient yogis, they knew this. So you can create different gestures with your hands to affect your concentration, to calm yourself down, to help you feel inspired. So that's part of the practice as well. Ashley James (1:04:12.885) I love it. At the end of yoga classes, a lot of times there's a moment where we can go within, have a few minutes of meditation. Meditation is so personal and there's so many different ways to teach it. One of my best friends is actually a guru in Kriya yoga, which is not stretchy yoga. It's all up in the head, but he's written a few books on meditation and it just fascinates me because you can hook yourself up to machines and you can measure it and you can go deep into the science of it. But we can see that by lying there and just breathing and just being at peace with yourself for a few moments that your brain enters these wonderful, healthy brain waves that show us that we're actually unlocking creativity, that we're unlocking our potential. We certainly are in that rest and digest. It's a superpower we have to go into that rest and digest mode where the body is in that super healing state. It's so wonderful for our emotional health and our mental health. I know I keep saying that, but it's like, this is what we get. So for those who don't have very much or any experience with meditation, it sounds boring. It sounds scary. People have different perceptions. I know in your class, you guys do teach some meditation. What do we get from taking your course? Do people end up feeling confident around their ability to have a healthy meditation practice, maybe you could talk a little bit about that, especially for people who don't really have an experience of meditation. Sarah Platt-Finger (1:06:15.298) I'd love to talk about it, and thank you so much for asking about it because it is sort of one of the limbs of yoga. Yoga has eight limbs that we talk about, and one of them is meditation, and it tends to be bypassed in modern Western society as something separate from yoga. We think of yoga as the poses and meditation as something else, but meditation is an integral aspect of yoga. To be able to merge, to come into union, you have to be able to sit and be still and be with yourself for an extended period of time. That's what meditation is. We do have a whole module on meditation, which is based of Deepak Chopra's lineage of meditation and what he learned from Maharishi Mahesh years ago. It's a mantra-based meditation. A mantra can be anything; it is like a prayer. If you say something over and over again for an extended period of time, whether it's om shanti or breathe in, breathe out, or peace or thy will be done, whatever words resonate with you, there is a physiological response. The relaxation response that happens when we attempt something over and over again, we do something repetitively, and we attempt to let go of outside distraction. Meditation, by the way, can also happen when you swim, when you walk, when you knit, when you run. You're doing something repetitive and keeping your mind focused on it for an extended period of time. But the yoga practice goes a little bit deeper. There's that state of meditation where you're kind of in the flow. That's where, yes, you're no longer distracted by limiting beliefs or thoughts that can make us feel inept or unworthy. These thoughts, whether they're in our conscious or unconscious, they kind of govern us. Sitting in meditation for an extended period of time, you replace those thoughts with something else, whether it's a repetitive sound, a mantra, a prayer, something that resonates with you. That triggers our nervous system to calm and quiet down, the healing response to happen on a physiological level, where brain waves slow down, the nervous system, blood pressure decreases, digestion increases, all of those great effects. But on a mental, emotional, dare I say spiritual aspect, what it does is helps us to understand ourselves as something other than our physical shape, form, body, other than our thoughts, other than our emotions, other than our fears, and return back to this all-pervasive, the word that you've come back to a lot, awareness. It's like coming back to yourself as the sky. When we understand ourselves as the sky, we then can see when stress happens and other perturbances in life that yes, it comes, but it also goes. It doesn't have to define us. We don't have to identify ourselves as the scared one, the stressed one. It's like I'm experiencing stress, and the stress will also subside, and I can come back to that sky-like nature. But the importance of doing it on a daily basis cannot be overstated because it's Pavlovian. I love that we're talking so much science because we can bring it in. When you do it over and over and over again, the mind then knows you can take one or two breaths and then come back into that state of peace and relaxation and then take that with you throughout your day. But just as we practice or have our habits of making the bed and brushing our teeth and other daily hygienic practices, yoga and meditation are like the mental spiritual hygiene that we have to do on a daily basis to take care of ourselves. Ashley James (1:11:03.366) You said something about when we meditate, we have this moment where it's a break. We have this moment where it's almost like we're plucking ourselves out of our human experience, where we believe we're so stuck in our physical body, we believe our reality is the reality. You can look at politics and how people react, and you realize like everyone really is walking around with the hubris that their version of reality is the reality and everyone else's reality is wrong. It's kind of ludicrous. We're all kind of crazy and stupid, what do I mean? Because your reality isn't the right reality. Everyone has a different perception through the lens of their experiences and their beliefs and their limiting beliefs, their negative beliefs. I'm so frustrated by the friends I have that believe in the bad things about themselves, like they're not good enough, they're not loved, they're not worthy of love, they're too this or too that or too short, too tall, too fat, too thin, whatever. When we're wrapped up in that, our self-worth is so poor because we believe the lies we've told ourselves or the lies other people have told us when we were young, we're walking around with this belief system like a prison. If just for a moment, we can pluck our consciousness out of that and have this other experience over here where you are not what your dad believed about you, what your mom believed about you, what your teacher, your first grade teacher believed about you. You are not the negative beliefs that you have. You have self-imposed limitations on you, your entire life, and you've put chains on you willingly and the suffering that you choose. We don't want it. We complain about the chains we put on ourselves because we don't even realize that the belief systems, that actually we can choose a different way because we believe our reality is the only reality. We believe in this prison we put ourselves in. When we learn, and this is through personal growth, dive into personal growth and you will learn that you are amazing. You can let go of these chains of limitations and you can grow. If you're not good at something, you can get good at it. Pluck yourself out of that experience of who you've been. People are living in a body that's hurting and that's there. They believe they'll always have that. It's not true. You don't have to always have that. Or it doesn't have to be your prison. But when you have that moment where you're somewhere else, like if I plucked a goldfish out of the water, I don't want to torture fish here, but just imagine for a moment this goldfish is not tortured by taking it out of the water. But if I plucked the goldfish out of the water and it saw the air, it saw the water for the first time and it went, "Holy crow, I live in water. I didn't even know that. I thought everyone lived in this. This is whatever was always around us. I didn't question it." Until we have a different experience. We look down and we go, "That's the reality I've been choosing to live in." So I love that experience of meditation, that it doesn't have to be this long like I have to sit there for 45 minutes and it's so boring. But when you have that moment, like breathing eight times slow and deep, if you have that moment where you are not living in that limited reality, that prison, that suffering, then you can go, "Wait. Why am I choosing that to be about me? Why am I choosing that? I don't need that. I can let that go." Sorry, go on. I was going to say that I also heard there's a growing concern for suicide. I just can't believe how many people jump off the bridges here onto the I-5 and it happens so often that I have to check ways to make sure that, unfortunately, I have to check to see if there's a giant backup because it's so common that someone's jumping off a bridge to kill themselves. I have a friend whose child killed themselves and I've been hearing more and more that suicide is on the rise. I just had a wonderful guest who tried to kill himself, and right as he was passing out, realized he didn't want that and he prayed, "Please give me another chance." He woke up in his own vomit and he said, "Enough is enough." Thank God gave me another chance. Most people who do survive suicide, they say like at the last minute, "I changed my mind." If we just had that tool, like the meditation tool, to know that you're suffering and it is so painful, you want to end your life, it is so painful, but I promise you tomorrow, it's going to be better. I promise you, no matter how hard it hurts and how much you cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel right now, I promise you that you will find the light again, that your life is worth living and there's people that love you. I believe that teaching this yoga, teaching the breath work, and teaching meditation gives people the tools so that they don't do something like end their life when the suffering is so hard. So that's what I'm hearing. I'm hearing that these tools are essential for children, that they're essential for all of us. Sarah Platt-Finger (1:17:31.358) Yes. It's one of the beauties of the practice that you are doing. There's a great quote from one of the classical texts of yoga called the Bhagavad Gita. It says, "Yoga is the journey of the self through the self to the self." It's like you are doing the practice. You are the map that you're exploring, and your expansive self, your consciousness, is the end destination. I think there's also something really empowering about that, where it's like nobody else can do it for you. You have to be the one that's going to choose to come onto the proverbial mat and do the practice. But at the end of the day, you are the one that's going to have that transformative experience, as you said, to get out of that cage. I thought of this—you inspired me—about this analogy that we use a lot about a drop. Each individual kind of spirit or soul or essence or person is like a drop from the ocean. Each drop seems separate. It has its own distinct location and shape and form, but when you look at a drop, you see that it has all of the qualities of the ocean within it. When a drop goes back into the ocean, it becomes the ocean. It's no longer a drop. That is the true experience of yoga. It's us as our own unique individual drops merging with this ocean of intelligence, which is actually the intelligence that we really are. To be able to immerse ourselves into this ocean of intelligence on a daily basis, to have that direct experience of it, and then take it with us as we go throughout our day. But we have to go back every day and experience it or on a regular basis to really know the true nature of our being. Ashley James (1:19:59.234) I love it. I can see that whatever religion we practice, we can incorporate that. Like for me, I see it even in church when we get into this rhythm. My church is one of the kind of churches where everyone stands and dances and puts their hands up. I was raised Anglican, and you don't do that. You don't do that in the Catholic church, Anglican church. Protestant—like, we're just kind of stiff and sitting there. But the church I go to now is alive, and the Holy Spirit is there. We get into this rhythmic singing where we are in this meditation, singing "Amen" over and over again, singing "Jesus" over and over again. Together, there's this union where it is 100% meditation. My consciousness of my grocery list, what I'm doing later that day—just everything—goes away, and you're just in the moment. Prayer is meditation. It doesn't have to look like someone with crossed legs, sitting there with their fingers together. It doesn't have to look like that. Your meditation can fit your life. I love that you said that knitting can be meditation. There are activities that you do that you love. Walking—we can do walking meditations where we're focusing on our breathing and focusing on the rhythm of the walking. When everything melts away and you're just being, then you're meditating. So I love it. I love that we're realizing that yoga isn't this weird foreign thing. It's actually introducing us to the skills that we haven't developed yet but that are part of who we are. Sarah Platt-Finger (1:22:05.010) Of humanity, it's like the technology of the human body. What is available to us? We say, there's an app for this, there's an app for that. In the technology of our human body exists the potential to adapt, to change, to expand. It's really phenomenal what the capabilities that we have. In this vessel, this technology that we have with us throughout our entire life, we're constantly trying to escape it and get away from it. But it's like, no, the miracle is here. It's this. So yes, it's quite different. Ashley James (1:22:54.762) I'm reminded of Romans 2:15, learn to be conscious of your own consciousness. This is where this isn't something foreign. That's the coolest thing. I wish it was the manual that we came with. When I studied neuro-linguistic programming and timeline therapy and NLP, neuro-linguistic programming is a combination of behavioral psychology and cognitive therapy. It's a collection of tools. Similar to yoga, it's a collection of tools. I was like, man, this is like the manual we should have come with. It is learning how to unlock our own potential. Then I studied acupuncture and acupressure and understanding the meridians of the body. It was this whole other layer of, wow, we have this nervous system we barely tap into in the West. We just don't even understand that we have the ability to affect our health through acupuncture, acupressure, through understanding our nervous system more. Then yoga is this other layer. It's like you tap into your own physiologic gifts. You tap into it. It's like the light switches. It's like, you want more mental clarity? Here, let me show you nasal breathing. You want more strength and balance, and the last 25 years of your life, the last 30 years of your life, could be filled with strength and balance? Here, let me show you this switch over here. Let me show you mental health, more emotional health. Here, let me show you the switch over here in your body. That is why I love that journey of personal growth. So anyone can take your class. Tell us a bit more about how these classes work. They're obviously online. You talked about how most of it can be done at your own pace, and there are a few live classes you have to attend, which is great. It's actually really rewarding to do that. But when does it start? How many times a year does it happen? If it's starting in a few months, I always tell people, if you want to do it, sign up and do it because they oftentimes will give you pre-study work to do to unlock some stuff. So actually, the course starts the moment you decide you want to do it. Sarah Platt-Finger (1:25:23.638) Correct. Yes, our next course starts October 22nd. We have about three courses with three cohorts happening per year. Once you do sign up, you have access to that foundations program, which is a great start. It comes with some classes and some digital learning of some of the yoga poses, some of the breathing techniques. Additional, as I mentioned, information about the sort of classical philosophy of yoga. So all very integrative and interactive for you to get started, to just chew on some of the information. Yes, then it starts in October. It goes over the course of 16 weeks. Although there are some additional months that you have to complete it if you need that extra time because life happens. We know that a lot of people doing our course are parents, they have full-time jobs, they might have multiple responsibilities, and sometimes things happen where they need to take a pause. We try to accommodate for all of that because really, at the end of the day, this course is about learning how to live this practice. We're not interested in necessarily creating yoga teachers that are not kind in the world or don't have a level of awareness in their everyday life. It's so much more important that you understand the gifts of the practice and live them. That's one way that you teach it. It's just like you embody it and you bring it into the strangers you meet on the street or who you buy your coffee from, et cetera. Yes, it's a very integrated practice. Was there another question to that? Ashley James (1:27:28.514) No, so it happens several times a year. When, if this sounds good to you, sign up and do it even so that you can get all the pre-study work, and it unlocks the stuff so you can start learning. There's a discount. Love that IIN gives my listeners a discount. I asked all the way back when I took my training seven or eight years ago. I think it was actually seven years ago when I graduated from IIN. I asked if I could get a discount code because I knew I would be telling everyone about it. So you guys are graciously giving 25% off, and that's with coupon code LTH. So people can actually sign up online. Of course, the links to all of that will be in the show notes of today's podcast at LearnTrueHealth.com. They can also call the Institute for Integrative Nutrition if they'd like, and they can ask questions and sign up there. I know that IIN does offer payment plans. Anyone can do it. Don't let limiting decisions stop you. If this sounds interesting to you and you want those mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual benefits, for me, it's personal growth. Personal growth checks off all those boxes. It's like, for me, personal growth gives me physical health, mental health, emotional health, spiritual health, and energetic health. Just knowing I can breathe through my nose and get more mental clarity. I quit coffee again, so I'm like, man, am I ever breathing through my nose right now? That's wonderful. So listeners know that no matter what, they can do it. Busy people can do it. If you're on a budget, you can do it. You make it accessible to everyone, which is wonderful. I definitely want to make sure that we give us enough time for you to teach us the pranayama, the breathing techniques. I want everyone to experience it. Before we get into that, was there anything else, any other studies or science, or anything else that you wanted to make sure that we touched on? Sarah Platt-Finger (1:29:42.369) I think I just want to also say that there's a lot of this, we went into a lot of the depths of the practice. But the two things that are so important that we have throughout our experience are how to stand and how to breathe. These are the two things that we do every day in our life that we don't always know or learn how to do.    One of the things that is a big part of this program is understanding what's called Tadasana, mountain pose. That's the template of every other pose. It's essentially standing anatomically correct, balanced in your feet, aligned in your spine, tall through your torso, spacious in your chest, and with your head and neck just floating easefully on the tip of your spine. If we can all learn how to stand in our own body and hold everything that arises in that experience, it's like we come back to our truth. We stand in our truth. We rest in our truth. Then we can communicate from that place and build relationships based on that. So just the importance of that, and that's a very simple yoga pose, but I think it's one of the most powerful ones—standing and then breathing.    There's lots of studies around how we stand affecting the way that we interact with other people and the different hormones that are released when we stand and when we take on a more empowered stance. It actually creates these feedback loops for us in our brain that enable us to hold experience differently and that other people respond to us differently. So I just wanted to share that as a closure around something so simple in the way that we hold ourselves up. It's also, just to add to it, it’s a choice. We can choose how we organize our bodies in space, how we choose to stand in the world. It makes a difference in how we move throughout the world. I think there's a real poetry in that. Ashley James (1:32:41.397) Wow, that is so true. Our confidence can be shifted by how we hold ourselves. There was a Ted Talk on that about the superhero pose where, like, surgeons would put their fists on their hips, pull their shoulders back, chin up, and just smile or breathe, and it would build their confidence. What's interesting when you study NLP, the first thing you learn is that your state—so your state is your physiology, your emotional state in the moment, and your mental state. Like, what are you thinking to yourself? Are you thinking, I suck? Or are you thinking, I love myself? What are you thinking? Your mindset. But your state directly impacts your behavior. Your choices directly impact your results in life. If you're walking around with your shoulders hunched, breathing shallow, just that physiology calls forth negative thoughts about yourself, negative thoughts about your life. When you pull your shoulders back and your chin up, you've changed almost nothing about your circumstances other than opening up your breathing. But because you changed your physiology, you now shift your mindset and your confidence, which will change your behaviors, and that changes your results in life. Something as simple as doing that mountain pose and being aware, conscious of your body in space—like, I am standing here, and wow, okay, I can pull my shoulders back a bit. I can bring my chin up a bit. I can breathe a bit more. Being aware— is your neck way shot out in front of your shoulders, or are your ears in alignment with your shoulders? Would your chiropractor be proud of you the way you're standing? Just coming back into that consciously shifts your emotional state, shifts your mental state by shifting your physiology. I love that you brought that up because that's such a powerful, simple tool to unlock—to understand that where we are in space, our physiology directly impacts our state. It's wild. Amazing. Okay, I want to make sure you do some pranayama with us, some breathing techniques. What it does is it makes your heart rate variability healthy and it turns on that healing mode. So if everyone wants that supercharged healing mode and also gives you mental clarity and gives you creative thinking, then you want to do this. I'm so excited. Let's do this. Take it away. Sarah Platt-Finger (1:35:46.211) Great. Okay, so perfect. Yes, I think since we talked a lot about nasal breathing, I'll share with you alternate nostril breathing, which is a really powerful breath technique that balances the flow of air through the right and left nostril. As I mentioned, it corresponds to the right and left brain hemispheres, which also energetically relate to our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system responses. So it's really creating this balancing effect of these activating, energizing, solar-based energies with these pacifying, quieting, lunar-based energies that we have in us. In addition to all the great benefits of nasal breathing, that it calms anxiety, quiets nervousness and restless chatter of the mind. It helps us to be more clear in our minds and to pull our sensory stimulus inward. We're no longer—80% of our energy goes through the sense of sight—so when we close our eyes and practice this technique, it actually allows all of the sensory stimulus that's moving outward to move inward. This is called prana, the name for the life force energy. The healing energy can go into our brain and heart and help fortify all of the systems of our nervous system activity, but also that healing response. What we'll do is sit comfortably on our chair. If your feet are on the floor, just make sure that they're evenly rooting onto the floor. If you're sitting on a cushion, you can place a cushion or a blanket underneath your seat if you're on the floor. Sit up nice and tall with your spine so that we have this balance and ease in the lungs and the diaphragm as we move through this breath technique. We're going to begin. Before we take the hand gesture, I'll invite you to take a slow breath in through both nostrils and breathe out through both nostrils. Just do that one more time. Breathe in through both nostrils and exhale through both nostrils, just taking a couple of reset breaths. Now take your right hand and place your thumb over your right nostril and your ring finger over your left nostril. We're using our thumb and ring finger to manipulate the nostrils. Then you can either keep your pointer and middle fingers folded down toward your right palm, or if it feels okay, your pointer and middle finger can press up into the space between your eyebrows and a little bit above. So again, the thumb is over the right nostril, the ring finger over the left nostril, and the pointer and middle fingers are either folded in toward your palm or pressing up to the midbrain region. Once you have that hand gesture, breathe in through both nostrils and breathe out through both nostrils. Then, blocking your left nostril with the ring finger, inhale through the right nostril, hold and block both nostrils for a moment, and then release your left nostril and exhale. Breathe in through the left nostril, keeping the right nostril blocked. Hold and block both nostrils gently, no force. Then release the right nostril with your thumb and exhale through the right nostril. Breathe in through the right nostril. Hold and retain the breath, blocking both nostrils. Release your left nostril and exhale. Inhale through the left. Hold and block both. Exhale through the right. You can take one more round on your own, breathing in, retaining, and switching to the opposite nostril. Inhale through the same side you just breathed out of. Hold and retain. Exhale through the opposite side. Now keep your eyes closed if that's comfortable for you. Rest your hands down on the tops of your thighs. Just notice the air passing freely through both nostrils. Notice any shifts you feel in your mind, your heart rate, and your nervous system. Gently drop your chin toward your chest and blink your eyes open to a point a little bit in front of you somewhere in your space. Take in that point with your gaze and then slowly float your eyes back up, taking in the rest of the room. You might notice shifts in how you perceive the world around you. That's alternate nostril breathing. Ashley James (1:43:06.617) That's wonderful. There are so many more techniques that are available and that they will learn from your 200-hour yoga teacher training through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Like I said, all the links to that will be in the show notes of today's podcast, learntruehealth.com, along with the wonderful discount that they're offering my listeners. So if that intrigued you, you're going to love the training. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your wisdom with us today. I would love to have you back any time you want to go deep into any of these topics. You talked about the eight legs of yoga. We didn't even get to go down the rabbit hole of all these other aspects. But I feel like we really touched on why someone would want to try this and practice it because it offers them access to control their body, control their state, increase their immune system, increase their heart health, and increase their longevity. There are just so many reasons why you'd want to have these tools in your tool belt. You are the master that teaches these tools, and they'd be learning from you. They'd learn from many wonderful lessons and teachers, and your teaching is so kind, gentle, and thoughtful. I really enjoyed this. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Sarah Platt-Finger (1:44:55.225) Thank you, Ashley. It was truly a real pleasure of mine. I'm really honored to be on your show and thank you for the wonderful conversation. I look forward to being with you again.   Ashley James (1:45:05.357) That would be great. Excellent. Well, thank you so much. Listeners, make sure that you check out the links that are going to be in the show notes of today's podcast, LearnTrueHealth.com.  We will see Sarah Platt-Finger again on the show soon.   Outro:   I hope you enjoyed today’s interview. Wasn’t Sarah wonderful? I can’t wait to have her back on the show. After we finished the interview, she started telling me more about the different areas of yoga that we didn't even go into and cover and how deep we could really go with this conversation. I felt today was a great foundational, just laying it all out, especially for those who didn't really know a lot about yoga or maybe just had heard about it through the media but hadn't experienced it. Maybe took a few classes, but there wasn't any real depth to the knowledge. I wanted to lay the foundation, then when she comes on again, we can go deeper with this discussion and learn more about the science behind it, the philosophy, the history, and the different aspects of yoga and how we can utilize that to strengthen our life and strengthen our healing, strengthen our emotional, mental, physical, energetic health, and even spiritual health. Thank you so much for being a listener. Please share this episode with those who you care about. If you are interested in taking the course, go to learntruehealth.com/coach. That’s learntruehealth.com/coach. You can use coupon code LTH. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me. You can find me on our Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group, or you can email me at ashley@learntruehealth.com   Get Connected with Sarah Platt-Finger Website – Institute for Integrative Nutrition Website – Sarah Platt-Finger Instagram – Sarah Platt Twitter – Sarah Platt Facebook – Sarah Platt   Book by Sarah Platt-Finger Living in the Light

Check Out My Latest Book: Addicted To Wellness https://www.learntruehealth.com/addictedtowellness   Get The Minerals Your Body Needs: TakeYourSupplements.com https://takeyoursupplements.com   John Gusty's websites: https://theredpillrevolution.com Special Audience Giveaway:   NaturallyBetter4you.com   Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the guest speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the host or podcast.   528: Reclaiming Health Sovereignty and Freedom https://learntruehealth.com/reclaiming-health-sovereignty-and-freedom   Mainstream health beliefs are crumbling under the weight of profit-driven agendas. Join us as we challenge the status quo with John Gusty, co-author of “Red Pill Revolution,” who exposes the hidden priorities of industries from healthcare to music. By embracing the radical philosophy of anarchy, John redefines personal sovereignty and health autonomy, encouraging us to break free from the societal structures that prioritize conformity over well-being. His journey, including working with music legends like Bon Jovi and Kanye West, reveals the double-edged sword of fame's allure and its darker undercurrents. Highlights: Challenging Mainstream Health Beliefs Navigating Fame, Fortune, and Integrity Examining Societal Narcissism and Anarchy Uncovering Medical Misconceptions and Realities Navigating Medical Misconceptions and Realities Navigating Healthcare Costs and Corruption Awakening to Systematic Corruption Choosing Natural Health Over Pharmaceuticals Uncovering Healthcare Industry Corruption Empowering Health Choices for Change Preparing for Systemic Vulnerabilities Building Holistic Health Networks Unlocking Optimal Health Through Supplements Intro: Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast.  Today we have a really interesting and fun conversation with John Gusty, co-author of the book Red Pill Revolution. If that rings a bell for you that’s because I had another one of the authors of that book on the show recently.  Episode 526, Proof Versus Toxic Propaganda: Navigating the Lies of Modern Medicine and How to Break Free to Achieve True Health with Dr. Jeremy Ayres. If you haven't already, check out that interview. This interview is a little bit of a different perspective. We have with us John Gusty, who is not a doctor, but he is  you and I and that he is disenfranchised with the mainstream medical system. He takes a little bit of a different approach to it. He's a proud anarchist, which I always assumed that anarchy meant violence, that it was disrespectful, that it was chaotic, that it was something that tore things down, that it didn't promote love and peace. My viewpoint of anarchy is, of course, what I have seen in the media, as we all have, and John talks about that from the philosophical standpoint of anarchy, which I think actually a lot of us could agree on a lot of the points that he brings up today. It's always good to do thought exercises. It's always good to stretch our own belief system, challenge our belief system or even strengthen our belief system by hearing what we don't agree with, and that's okay too. It's okay. It doesn't hurt us to listen to different viewpoints.  What John shares today, though, is about helping people have their anonymity, helping people have their sovereignty, especially when it comes to their health, and how the mainstream medical establishment, the pharmaceutical industry, the food industry, even the music industry, which is where he originally comes from how it all is designed to control you, to profit from you and, in many cases, profit from your illness. I know I'm preaching to the choir. He does have some great ideas for solutions, and you can check out his book, the Red Pill Revolution, as well as what Dr. Ayers discussed two episodes ago on the membership site, where they actually do have doctors that are holistic doctors that discuss natural solutions, their website being  naturallybetterforyou.com. I want to make sure you know about my book. It's not just any book. It's not going to sit on yourself, it's not going to collect dust. My book is where rubber meets the road. It's action. It builds you up and gets you quick results. So if you're tired of waking up cranky, sore, exhausted, if you're tired of having poor sleep, if you're tired of having brain fog, poor digestion, if you're tired of having that excess weight that kind of almost feels like water, just like your fingers might be hard to squeeze, your fingers and your toes and your ankles, at the end of the day, your body retains water.  There’s so many things that I could mention, simple, actionable steps in my book will help you to get to the root cause of and alleviate, because the actions taken in my book the 33 different challenges that you can take on even in a busy life, will support your body's ability to come back into balance and heal itself. You will have more energy, more mental clarity, better sleep, better digestion, better sex. You will feel excellent after going through my book and you can skip challenges. You don't have to do all 33, but I do recommend that you take on at least one of the challenges each week and you could take a week off. You could do one week a month. You could do it for eight days. You don't have to do it for seven, like it's up to you. I lay out what I have seen work after working with thousands of people for over 12 years, after I have interviewed over 500 holistic health doctors, and what I have seen work to support your body's ability to heal itself, I put in this book and I made sure it was an action-oriented book so that you can get results  away.    Go ahead and go to learntruehealth.com/addictedtowellness, or go to Amazon and type in Addicted to Wellness by Ashley James. Get the book and start doing the challenges. Please feel free to join me in my Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group, and share with me your experience, your journey. I'd love to hear from you and if you're looking for answers that are more personalized, please feel free to reach out to me. I do free 15-minute consultations. I do health coaching. I get results and if I don't feel that I'm a good fit for you, I will refer you. I've got a wide list of amazing healthcare professionals that are holistic, that get results as well in different specialties. If I don't feel like I can help you or I know someone who's better suited for you, I will send you to them.  So please feel free to reach out and chat with me. I want to help you. Go to learntruehealth.com and in the menu you can select Work with Ashley James and you will see the options at the very top for free consultations or, if you'd rather spend a 90 minute one session with me, you can do that. If you'd like to hire me as your health coach, you can do that there as well.  Thank you so much for being a listener and thank you so much for sharing this podcast with those you care about. Together, we're going to help as many people as possible to learn true health. If this podcast has made a difference for you at any point in time in your life, please consider leaving a five-star review on Spotify and/or iTunes. That really helps me. A written review as well, if you can, on any of the podcast directories that you listen to my podcast on, mainly iTunes. I know they let you leave a written review and I have hundreds of written reviews, but every time someone subscribes, downloads, leaves a five-star review and also a written review. It boosts my podcast, which helps me to reach more people, and that's my mission, is to help as many people as possible to learn true health.  So thank you so much for helping me by sharing and also by leaving a positive five-star review. Thank you, enjoy today's episode.  Welcome to the Learn True Health Podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is episode 528. Ashley James (0:07:53.282) I am so excited for today's guest. This is gonna be a really interesting conversation. John Gusty was in the entertainment industry for over 30 years, working with some of music's biggest names, and his wife was originally diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Was this a misdiagnosis, the way your bio says originally diagnosed?  John Gusty (0:08:18.184) Well, first of all, thank you for having me, Ashley. I think this is going to be a fantastic conversation as well. We could probably kill the entire episode just talking about the word diagnose because that's a huge subject. I think any diagnosis should be treated like an opinion because that's true, at least when we're talking about the medical industrial complex. If anyone is getting diagnosed within the medical industrial complex, I would take it as one man's or one woman's opinion. It's always best to seek multiple opinions before making an informed decision. Ashley James (0:09:03.422) We're definitely going to talk about that more. So you were in the music industry for over 30 years. Do some name dropping. What are some bands that I'd be impressed that you worked with?  John Gusty (0:09:13.228) Oh, my goodness. Well, I was blessed to be in the Bon Jovi inner circle for a good while. Worked on the Keith Urban team, worked a little bit with Kanye West around the Graduation album period, worked on the Dolly Parton team for a good while. I'm kind of the “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” of rock and roll. If I told you some of the people I've counted as friends and neighbors who went on to international fame, it would sound like I was name-dropping. I came out of a pretty vibrant music scene in Tempe, Arizona, so you've probably heard of names like the Gin Blossoms, the Meat Puppets, and the Refreshments. Then I moved to Athens, Georgia, which was another very rich musical scene. The guys from REM were very good to me, my projects, and my friends. The B-52s hail from there as well. I've seen it happen to many people. I've seen people go from unknown to internationally known, and it's interesting how that affects even the most stable people. The unstable people? I think we all know what happens to them. But fame and fortune is a funny thing. Ashley James (0:10:58.640) Well, and is it just the getting fame and fortune causes some mental hiccups, or is it also that the industry is incredibly toxic? It's both, yes.  John Gusty (0:11:11.966) It's both, yes. I think especially these days where society is just marinating in narcissism.  Sometimes you're just drowning in narcissism. It's hard to get away from it. Now everybody's a star, everyone's a public figure, but pre-internet, it was a powerful thing to stand up on a stage, do the Jesus Christ pose, and have thousands of people literally screaming for you. Even the most stable person—I'll tell you, the guys in REM could not be more normal, stable, just good people—and I watched the toll it took on them. It will mess with your mind, and how could it not?  Jon Bon Jovi started when he was 17 years old, and since the age of 17, he's lived the life of a good-looking, talented man who has had everything he's ever wanted. He's a good, solid dude. There's actually an interesting documentary series on Hulu  now that chronicles Jon Bon Jovi. I just watched it the other night, and I think he did a really good, honest job with it. There's a lot of that interview where he talks about the mental toll that fame, that kind of attention, and that kind of ego takes on a person—even the most sane people. So yes, fame and fortune is a weird thing. Ashley James (0:13:03.093) So that in itself, ? On top of that, you have a very toxic industry that's looking to profit off of these artists. I see what comes out of Hollywood, for example. Now we have a lot of actors who started as children talking about how they were sexually abused in order to get a role, how even teenagers or those in their early 20s, both women and men, were asked to perform sexual acts on the director or somebody else in order to get a role. It's coming out just how disgusting and sick it is. There's a lot of manipulation, and the carrot at the end of the stick is this fame and fortune they're holding out in front of them. So yes, I can imagine that the music industry is equally as corrupt.   John Gusty (0:14:02.969) Well, as is the medical industry, as is the food industry, as any. I mean, it really comes down to this, and this is something that, once I accepted it as a reality, it really helped me move forward in this wacky world that we live in without being angry all the time. The realization is this: anytime there's an audience, anything or anyone that garners an audience—whether it's a singer, a brand of lemonade, a TV show, or a band—anybody or anything that can command and garner an audience, that audience's attention is powerful stuff. I guarantee you  now, Ashley, you and I could make a blood pact and go, “We're going to try to garner an audience and keep the evil forces from attacking us or coming after us.” I swear, if we get an audience that reaches a certain size, dark—let's just call it dark—dark people and dark energies start becoming attracted to your power to pull that audience. They need that attention; they need that reach. So entertainment, by definition, is going to be filled with sick, dark, predatory energies, people, and intentions, by the nature of the fact that anything that pulls an audience is going to be co-opted or attempted to be co-opted by those dark forces at some point. Ashley James (0:15:59.245) I have a personal belief that we're in a spiritual war, and I've seen it. I see it in the medical industrial complex. I see it in every aspect. We are bathed in this milieu of trying to take over your life and your mind and have you vote. The evil of the world is constantly trying to gain your focus and get you off course. Their biggest strategy now is to get you to believe it's no big deal—it's no big deal that there are artists on stage at concerts dancing in demon costumes and performing satanic ritual things. It's no big deal, it's just for fun, it's no big deal. John Gusty (0:16:50.981) That's the essence of gaslighting. I'll tell you, years ago, I think I was probably born this way and just didn’t know. I didn’t know the terms or the directions to find these things. But earlier in life, I discovered an amazing community of people that identified as anarchists, and I really fell into that community. That was the first time I was around people who, if you refer to yourself as an anarchist, you're really just adhering to two principles: no masters, no servants—which I think we can all agree on. I mean, if you believe in masters and servants, then you believe in slavery, and I don’t think many people actually believe in slavery. So, no masters, no servants and you have to adhere to the non-aggression principle where unless you’re defending your own life or the life of someone else, there’s no reason to become physically aggressive with anyone. There’s always a better way to work things out than through force. When you are amongst other anarchists, the whole essence is you want to be accepted for your beliefs, and so you have to accept other people for their beliefs. Immediately, there's no walls between anybody, because you can have two people standing in a room, and if they're both anarchists and they just disagree on everything, they're going to peacefully disagree. When I started taking that more anarchistic approach to life, which was boiled down in modern-day terms, it's you do you, and I'll do me, and unless we're hurting each other, truly hurting, I'm not talking about offending or inconveniencing, I'm talking about hurt, if I'm causing you harm or you're causing me, unless that's happening, then you do you, I'll do me, and we can peacefully coexist. The only place that I see that happening is within the anarchist community. But it also let me let go of a lot of anger, because I think a lot of us are or were or will continue to be angry because we're just wanting to be heard and understood, and I think that's the essence of the narcissism that you see with social media. Social media by definition is narcissistic. Because I'm telling you, Ashley, let's go back 15, 20 years ago, if you and I were friends and I showed up at your front door at 10:30 at night, knocking on your front door, and you answered it, and you're what? I had a picture of my dinner, and I was, hey, I just wanted to show you this picture of the dinner that I ate tonight. You'd be, dude, it's 10:30 at night. I don't care. I love you, but I don't care what you ate for dinner. But people do that all the time on social media. It's, hey, look what I ate for dinner, look where I'm at that you're not. Look at my feet with the beach in the background, and you're not. I know people will go, oh, it's a great way to connect with family and stuff, and you're , it is. But that's not 90% of the reason why people put stuff up on social media. People put stuff up on social media because, if we're all being honest, we're wanting people to go read me, look at me, watch me. And, okay, sometimes in marketing you want to do that, but in everyday life, when you're doing that, that's just pure narcissism, and we're marinating in it. Ashley James (0:20:49.356) I've never thought of anarchy in that way. I always consider maybe I have to go look up the definition of anarchy, but I always thought it meant people who want to create chaos. I'm thinking the Dungeons and Dragons version of your chaotic neutral and your chaotic good, and I'm just thinking anything with the word chaos to me is anarchy. That's just how the mainstream media creates it. John Gusty (0:20:11.300) That's how your Fox News, your CNNs, your cable news religions, that's how they portray it. Because the last thing in the world that they want, and when I say they, I mean the statists, the corporate statists, their biggest enemy, is individuality and personal creativity. So they need you to conform. They need you to fall in line and do what they want you to do. You can't. Anarchy is their biggest fear or enemy, because in anarchy there isn't—again, I'll phrase it another way. I'll just ask you a really simple question, Ashley: do you think that person A has the right to walk up to person B and declare non-consensual authority over that person? No, of course not. Of course not. But we're going to watch it in just six short months. We're going to watch our friends and family all take part in the next season of America’s Next Top President and they’re going to willingly go back into this. It's an abusive relationship. It really is. Let's stick with the abusive relationship analogy—how many times does he have to cheat on you? How many times does he have to hit you? How many times are they going to talk about education, the economy, foreign policy? Nothing, ever. The religion of statism—I dare you to cite one example that the religion of statism has improved. Name anything that ‘s improved. Has food gotten cheaper or healthier? Is water cleaner or free? We're the only species that I know of that puts a paywall between us and water, which is essential to even be alive. But I mean, nothing ever gets better. But we're going to watch. We're going to watch our friends and family go and ask for more of that abusive relationship. Ashley James (0:23:51.496) When I was about 11 years old, I was sitting in the back seat. I actually have a memory of this. She popped this tape that her friend lent her, and it was a health lecture by this doctor, and my eyes were opened that day. My eyes were opened, and I didn't know this guy's name. For years I didn't know his name, but what he said stuck with me. He grew up on a beef farm in Missouri, and he watched as him and his family fed nutritional pellets to the calves and to the cows that contained many vitamins and minerals in order to keep those animals super healthy so they never got sick. He said to his dad, why do we give animals nutrition to keep them healthy, but we don't eat them ourselves? His dad said something like, shut up, boy, and get back to work. But he ended up actually putting the calf pellets in his pockets and munching on them, and he found that some of his health issues at a young age went away when he started to eat the calf pellets because he had a nutrient deficiency. He wasn't really aware; he was just going, well, if it's good for the calf, why can't I have it? Then he started to see stuff get better. He went on to become a naturopathic doctor and a research scientist and a large animal vet, and he has a degree in pathology and soil agriculture. Just a really amazing research scientist. I found him—this is God's path for me—I found him years later, and he became my mentor, but I heard his lecture when I was 11, and it shaped how I saw the world because he said the system is corrupt. It is designed on purpose. We keep animals healthy so that your burger only costs $2. If we treated animals the same way we treated humans, your burger would be $100. So it's a for-profit industry. Both systems are for-profit. Keep animals healthy for profit. Keep humans sick for profit. Everything is designed for profit, and as long as you understand that, if it's profitable to keep you sick, you will never find healthy food, you will never find doctors that are even trained to help you be healthy healthy, because, since over 100 years, doctors' education has been dictated by the pharmaceutical industry, and this isn't whack job. This is proven history. John Gusty (0:26:36.978) No, I mean Rockefeller. Rockefeller came in. In fact, if you haven't seen it, one of my favorite documentarians is a gentleman by the name of James Corbett and he has done many documentaries but he has one called Rockefeller Medicine where he meticulously goes through the timeline and it's all referenced. It's not conjecture. It's all factual stuff and you can go see it for yourself.  But I mean, he absolutely came in with the intention of setting up the allopathic system because, let's remember, these people were oil people to begin with, and the pharmaceutical industry is all oil-based products—it's all petroleum. He bought his way onto university boards to where, today, you will not find a university that isn't plugged into the Rockefeller system. So he kind of single-handedly created this allopathic system and squashed everything else—all the natural, homeopathic, traditional stuff that worked. That's the key  there: it worked. But he set up a system that has only three tools in its tool belt. They're going to cut you, they're going to burn you, or they're going to drug you. It's surgery, pharmaceuticals, or radiation. That's all they’ve got. You could go into a doctor today with a sore elbow and just say, “Hey, my elbow hurts,” and I guarantee you're at least going to get drugged. You may not get cut or burned, but they're going to drug you, as opposed to trying to figure out, well, why does your elbow hurt? Ashley James (0:28:36.348) They're not trained to support the body's ability to heal itself. Now, doctors—a lot of them have their hearts in the  place—but their training has shifted the lens through which they view the body and medicine. In college, one of my professors was a retired surgeon, and he up and down adamantly talked about how the body cannot regrow cartilage once you have arthritis. He got so angry, and I thought it was super interesting because, at that point, I didn't really have an opinion either way, but he was so adamant: “You cannot regrow your cartilage when you have arthritis. Just remember that.” I’m like, “OK, weird, but OK.” The guy I was dating at the time had a really bad injury when he was a kid. He shouldn't have been able to walk, yet he was. It was a biking injury that left him with no ligaments in his knee. He shouldn't have been able to walk, but he did martial arts and strengthened his legs so much that it was his tendons that kept him going. He could twist around on his knee, which was really gross. He had lost a lot of cartilage from that accident, but he took copious amounts of glucosamine, chondroitin, and any kind of joint support he could get his hands on. I watched him get better. I watched his knee get better. I'm, oh, that's interesting. Why is this doctor so angry about this and so adamant? You cannot heal yourself, you cannot heal yourself. He just, over and over again, wanted to pound into our heads that we couldn't heal ourselves. Then I watched it happen. Now I've had many, many of my clients over the last almost 13 years regrow their cartilage and their body. Your body can heal itself, but doctors are taught that your body cannot heal itself on many levels, and so they want to pass that on to you. John Gusty (0:30:42.573) Yes. They only know what they know, and they're coming at it. I take issue with the whole being told you have something. I mean, I got told you have arthritis. I don't believe that arthritis is a thing that you have. Everything is balance and toxicity. I'll give you another dumb analogy. If you had a wall in your home that you could tell was compromised, something was up with it, sagging or whatever, and you call in a professional and I come in as the professional, okay. Now, if I told you that your wall had termititis, and we had to go through this whole big protocol to address your wall's termititis, your wall doesn't have a condition, it doesn't have termititis, it has termites, and you have to go in and address the termites, which is not a long-term thing. You address the problem and then what. You don't have termites anymore, but a doctor would tell you that that wall has termititis, and so now, for the rest of your wall's life, you're going to be thinking of it as having this condition, and you see what I'm saying. That kind of circles back to the topic of diagnosis. People get told that they have these conditions, and I'm not saying that conditions don't exist, but I hope my wall analogy made sense. The wall didn't have termititis. Termititis isn't a thing. Having termites is a thing, but termititis is not a thing. It's just a word that I made up. Ashley James (0:32:30.455) We have symptoms. Actually, that's the language of the body. The body is expressing to us, “Hey, there's an imbalance here. Here's the symptoms,” and if you could read the symptoms—which my doctor that is my mentor, he talks a lot about this—the body speaks in symptoms, and we need to give it the nutrients it needs. We need to stop doing the things that are causing more damage. There's certain foods that cause more damage, certain lifestyle choices that cause more damage. We got to stop doing that. So stop putting fuel on the fire. Give the body all the nutrients it needs, healthy food, and start doing the lifestyle changes that support the body's ability to heal itself. Then get out of your own way because the body wants to heal itself. And don't identify—I think with diagnosis, the problem is we identify as the diagnosis. Like I'm an alcoholic. Well, how long was your last drink? Thirty years ago. OK. So if you have to wake up every day—I mean, if this keeps you sober, then keep saying you're an alcoholic—but you haven't touched alcohol in 30 years. It's saying, “I'm a diabetic.” Well, what's your A1C? Well, my A1C has been a 4.9 for the last 15 years, but I cured my diabetes 15 years ago, but I”m still diabetic. It’s not your personality. It doesn’t define who you are. John Gusty (0:33:51.263) I think it's even worse than that. Ashley, I'm sure you can appreciate, if somebody gets told they're ugly, rare is the person that can shake that off. For the rest of that person's life, it's always going to be there. That someone told them that they were ugly, and they're going to wear that internally, and some people may become obsessed with it and really start to believe that they're ugly. That's what happens when someone gets told, “You have cancer.” I don't advocate violence, but I'll tell you what: I would love to line up every doctor ever that looked another human being in the eyes and told them that they have X number of days or months to live or years to live. The audacity of putting that in somebody's head is beyond cruel, mean—I mean, it's, again, the audacity. So people wear that, and it’d be one thing to be told that you're ugly or you're dumb. Okay, well, that's going to stick with you a long time. But if you get told you have cancer, you’ve got six months to live, imagine. You’re never going to shake that. People will wear that. Any of us, and for being honest, we know how powerful the mind is. If you get told  something, that you have something, you become obsessed with it, and you can't shake it, and you start wearing that internally—you’re going to manifest it. If you believe that you have a stomach ache hard enough, you're going to have a stomachache. You'll eventually get a stomachache. So, again, it's so cruel that people get told they have things. That wall didn't have termititis. It had a problem with termites, and it's easily fixed, and you can fix that problem. Then what? That wall is perfectly fine. Using that wall as an analogy for a person—that wall doesn't have to walk around for the rest of its life thinking that it has something, because it didn't. It had a temporary situation that needed to be addressed, fixed, balanced out, and nurtured. Ashley James (0:36:17.119) When you went from working in the entertainment industry to having your wife be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. What happened that had you completely shift gears and now you work on in this world of helping people to to wake up, to choosing natural health?  John Gusty (0:36:40.534) I think I've always been the way that I'm wired. I'll put it this way—I just don't like BS. I really don't like it. If you're going to take part in the art of BSing, at least be good at it, because there are some people who are really, really good at it. There are some politicians, preachers, and others who are really good at getting up in front of people and just BSing them, and it's a gift. Salesmen have to do that all the time. I got to the point where I've been a relatively healthy person my entire life. I definitely would never go to a doctor at this point. I'd never put myself inside of a hospital. But earlier in life, I didn't have any issues, so I didn't interface with the medical industrial complex at all. Then, when I got involved with my wife, Dawn—she's my girl—we became a couple, and her issues became my issues. I'm also a digger and a question-asker. I'll get in and start digging and asking questions. My wife is completely the opposite. My wife is a used car salesman's dream come true, and I love her to death. She's very trusting. She just trusts. I started going to her medical appointments with her because she was walking with a cane at the time, and things were kind of getting progressively worse. Partly because I'm her husband, and partly because I am who I am, I saw her not asking questions. So, I started asking questions. I quickly became her general contractor. I went to every appointment, kept all the notes, asked the questions, and led the initiatives. It became very apparent, very quickly. You mentioned earlier that there are very good, well-intended people who work inside the medical industrial complex—I get it. I think there are very good, well-intended people who work inside the government school system that really just want to teach and take care of kids. But once you get inside those systems, you realize, “I'm not allowed to teach, I'm not allowed to discipline. I just have to read this script.” That's exactly what people inside the medical industrial complex are doing. They're just reading the script. You don't even see a medical professional anymore without a tablet in their hands because they sit down with you and go through these algorithms. If this, then this, then this. Their diagnosis is whatever that algorithm spits out. They have to for legal reasons, stay in certain lanes. They're not allowed to be creative, adventurous, or bold. They have to stick to these pre-drafted narratives and lanes. Mostly, it's for legal reasons because you can't just have doctors doing crazy stuff, and nobody wants to get sued. I saw that, and it just made me mad. When you take your car to a mechanic, the goal is to get your car fixed. We can all relate to that. We're all over that mechanic in the garage. Yes, I want my car fixed. The mechanic comes back and goes, “Well, I told you it was this problem, but once we got in there, we found another problem.” They can take you over, show you the carburetor, and you can make a decision whether you want to replace it. We treat cars and car repairs that way, but we don't treat our body and our body repair and maintenance that way. At least here in the States, we've been raised and programmed, if you will, to just blindly trust the people with white coats and letters after their name, as if they have some divine bit of knowledge that you or I don't have. I said earlier in this podcast that I wish people would treat diagnosis more as an opinion. Dr. A may diagnose you with this, but Dr. B might see something completely different. Ashley James (0:41:47.635) Misdiagnosis is very common. They've done studies on this. It's so common that you should seek multiple—not just a second opinion—multiple opinions. A really important thing to say is to go outside of the network, because a lot of times people get a second opinion by a doctor in the same clinic, hospital, or the same clinic or hospital network. That second opinion doctor will never contradict a doctor who is basically being paid by the same boss. John Gusty (0:42:19.711) Well, I'll tell you another trick too, and this is something that I've done for years: just go in as a cash pay. First of all, it's way cheaper. I mean, whenever you see dollar amounts on any sort of medical bills, those are insurance numbers. Let me tell you a quick story. I've got two boys, and both of them were avid soccer players. One of my sons, one time his knee got twisted up and we had to go get an x-ray. I knew where the radiology place was, so I called them up and said, “I need to make an appointment.” They asked, “Who's the referring doctor?” I said, “There is no referring doctor. You're a radiology place, ? That's the service you provide.” “Yep, okay, well, I want to make an appointment.” So they made the appointment. We went in there. First thing they asked me when I got in for the appointment was, “Can I see your insurance card?” I said, “There is no insurance card involved in this. This is an x-ray. Do you use your auto insurance to buy new tires or put gas in your car or get your oil changed?” No, the insurance is for major, catastrophic things. So we go and get the x-ray done. I come back out, go to pay the lady, and ask her for the price. She has to look up the price, because, of course, they don't have a menu of prices. They don't actually deal with the prices; they just pass it all on through the insurance. So she comes up with the price: $39.95 to get an x-ray done. Then, after I pay her, I said, “Hey, let me ask you something. If I had whipped out a Blue Cross Blue Shield card or whatever, what would have been the copay on that?” She said $75. It's $39.99 cash, but if you had insurance, it was only $75. I could tie you up for the next hour telling you similar stories that have happened to me. So, pay cash. Not only is it cheaper, but when you pay cash, you are in charge. Once you put something through insurance, you're not in charge. The insurance company dictates what you're going to have, when you're going to have it, how much of it you're going to have, if you're going to have it at all. So keep the insurance out of the equation. Pay cash, you're the boss, and it's cheaper. Ashley James (0:44:43.247) Oh my gosh, I've had that experience too. I called up a local clinic and started asking about their cash prices. I was amazed compared to what insurance charges, and then you're paying every month. I also like that there are health shares out there for big stuff. They're cheaper. I have a whole episode actually on health shares. It's definitely worth getting when you want to unplug from the corrupt system but also be protected in the event of big things. I'm very discerning when it comes to allopathic medicine. If, God forbid, I broke an arm, I want to get it casted. I want to get it. The hospital shine is putting you back together in the event of an accident. There are a few types of infections they do really good at. But the problem is that we're taking our bodies to them for everything, and they are not trained to help you get optimal health. That is not in their wheelhouse. So it's like you're taking your car to your plumber for everything. It's like you take everything to your plumber. Sometimes the plumber fixes it because it's plumbing problems, but we're going to the same type of doctor and type of medical system, in which they're only really good at emergency medicine. That's where they have the best outcomes, but they have the worst outcomes in reversing heart disease to the point where someone doesn't have heart disease anymore, reversing diabetes, reversing all kinds of major, major chronic issues. They don't do that, they just medicate. John Gusty (0:46:41.539) If you look up, use whatever search engine you prefer. If you look up, the leading cause of death, now, when you take out medical malpractice and hospitals, which are always going to be the leading cause of death, when you take those out of the list, whatever list comes up, look at what's up there. It's either heart stuff or respiratory stuff. If we—I'm not going to say we, because I'm not part of them and I don't think you are either—but if they're so gifted, if they're so knowledgeable, if they're so skilled, how come the leading causes of death are what they are? If none of this stuff is getting any better? They're just like the politician's state. Nothing gets better. In fact, it gets worse. We are in mass. Not healthier than we were 10 years ago.  Ashley James (0:48:05.848) As a society even less healthy, it’s going downhill.  I could use cholesterol as an example. Back when I was a kid, they started bringing out these cholesterol meds and started saying fat's bad, cholesterol's bad, must lower cholesterol. I watched an interview really interesting documentary. There were two doctors that were responsible for deciding what the new healthy level of cholesterol, total cholesterol, should be. What's the new healthy level?  They had to choose a number so low that they could convince the majority of the population, the adult population, to get on statins in order to perform the experiment in the United States. So they made an arbitrary number. They actually looked  much lower and they didn't go and say well, what happens if we lower someone's cholesterol too much? What happens then?  Because we've been brainwashed for over 30 years that cholesterol is bad, cholesterol is bad. Well, cholesterol is a catch-all phrase for many different types of lipids. There's good, there's bad. But what we don't understand is why is it bad and what causes it to be bad. There's this whole other area of cholesterol that if we don't have it, we gain dementia, because 70 percent of the white matter of the brain is cholesterol. The cells, every cell in your body, every cell wall is made of cholesterol. Your sex hormones and stress hormones are made of cholesterol. So to say that we need to lower all total cholesterol in order to prevent heart disease. Well, how did that experiment work? We now have way more dementia, we have way more neurological problems and we have more heart disease, not less. John Gusty (0:49:43.776) Ashley, are you suggesting that the corporate complex would do something intentionally to dumb people down.  They would actually. You talked about those two doctors, they were straight up forming a marketing plan. That was a marketing plan. A marketing plan to push statins. So that's a double win for them because they get to sell more product. But in doing so, they're literally dumbing and causing the population to take part in practices that damage their brain. Ashley James (0:50:23.877) Up until I believe it was 2012. So, I mean, 2012 was three blinks of an eye ago. People who were on statins either every three months or every six months, needed to get regular blood tests to make sure that the statins they were taking weren't damaging their liver too much. See how statins work if they bruise the liver. So, when you take statins, they're supposed to lower your cholesterol. Well, people, unless you're vegan, which I’m whole food, plant-based, along with my husband. So, we don’t eat animal fat. But here’s the cool thing: my body makes cholesterol, my body makes it, my liver makes it. I could go on a potato diet. There was this one guy who ate potatoes for a year. His body made cholesterol the entire time. So, we make cholesterol, whether we eat it or not. Your liver? It's so vital, it's such a vital nutrient to your body. Your liver produces it. We have these people who now, they're eating burgers, so they're eating eggs or whatever, so they're gaining cholesterol in their diet, also on top of their liver making it. Their doctor says, well, we need to lower your cholesterol. They could eat less cholesterol, but no, let's just continue eating the same amount. Here you have a pill. So, what the pill does is it bruises, it punches. Imagine just punching your liver to the point where your liver ceases to function correctly, damaging the liver so it stops producing as much cholesterol. They had to have you go back and get blood work on a regular basis to make sure that we’re not killing you too much. When I heard that, my brain exploded. Then, knowing that most people who are on cholesterol meds die sooner, die younger, have dementia way early on, and neuropathy is one of the very common side effects. Once you’re in your fifties, they start pushing the cholesterol meds on you regardless. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it pushed on people who had healthy cholesterol. Well, let’s prevent it from happening in the future. Let’s just lower your cholesterol more. It is one of the biggest scams that is right in front of our face. In the last four years, they didn’t even try to hide it. They’ve been so blatant. It’s been disgusting to watch them push experimental drugs on us and we see the results now, but they’re trying to cover that up and pretend it never happened. But here we have cholesterol, it causes the seniors. So after, let’s say, you're in your 60s, you're on cholesterol. You’ve been on cholesterol for five years, 10 years. You no longer can feel your feet because you have peripheral neuropathy. What happens when you can't feel your feet? You fall more. When you fall more, you break. Maybe you can break a hip and yay, then they get to make money off of you because they get to replace your hip. It just goes on and on and on. One intervention leads to another, leads to another. They’re banking on you having side effects that can give you more drugs for those side effects.  John Gusty (0:53:37.362) Another interesting thing, because we'll always end up back at talking about the pharmaceutical companies. Another interesting search that you can do is do a search for the top criminal fines paid of all time. Look at the list, and you’ll see I think Pfizer’s on there three times, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, it's all pharmaceutical companies, which by definition, pharmaceutical companies are criminal. Go and search for top criminal fines paid, and every single pharmaceutical company you see on that list is, by definition, a criminal organization, or they wouldn’t be paying criminal fines. I mean, Johnson & Johnson's talc powder has been causing newborn baby girls to have ovarian cancer since the '40s, and that stuff is still on the shelves to this day. It's cheaper for them to just pay those lawsuits off, the ones that are tenacious enough to even keep those lawsuits going, because after a while, most people just give up or they run out of money. But I don't understand how there can be many of us left. Ashley James (0:55:12.298) Who are awake?  John Gusty (0:55:13.904) I haven't bought food. I don't buy my meat, my produce, or my dairy from stores. I haven't bought food from stores in many, many years. It was a decision I made when I really wanted to start eating as clean as possible. But I do go into stores. You’ve got to buy paper products and stuff like that. So I go into stores quite often, and I always pay attention to the crowd at the pharmacy. I do not understand. I was just in there yesterday, and there was a big old line at the pharmacy. It's 2024. After what took place from 2020 forward, I don't understand how there can be many people left who would even want to walk up to a pharmaceutical counter, knowing what we know now. I mean, all of the lawsuits and how blatant they've become. They don't care at this point. They know that there are enough people out there—call it still being asleep, whatever term you want to put on it. They know that there are still enough people out there who feel that they need those pharmaceuticals to get them through the day. I don't know. To me, I've always noticed that the reason why most people take pharmaceuticals is for pain, for anxiety, or to sleep. Those seem to be the big three reasons. Ashley James (0:56:49.387) This really frustrates me because within one month, I can help my clients that come to me with those problems. We can get you within a month. You'll be either in significantly less pain or out of pain if you do what I say. I'm going to give you a list of things to do. You're going to go do them, you're not going to be in pain, you're going to be sleeping amazing, and you're going to have lots of energy. We're going to solve that depression problem and especially anxiety. I have a technique I teach. I can help you turn off your anxiety in less than 90 seconds. I mean, if you Google my name and anxiety, you'll find lots of interviews where I teach the technique for free. I have a whole system that can get people out of anxiety, feeling amazing, sleeping great, lots of energy, no pain, and there's zero drugs involved. But we're masking the symptoms. The body is speaking. Imagine if you took a child and the child was saying, “I'm hungry” or “I'm tired,” and instead of you feeding it when it's hungry and letting it sleep when it's tired, you told it to shut up and shoved a pill in its mouth. That's what our body is crying out—like a little child saying, “I need this, and I need that.” You're saying, “Shut up, take this pill.” We're going to suppress that symptom, we're going to suppress it and keep suppressing it. But the problem is people don't know. They don't know because they've been raised in a system, and it's Plato's allegory of the cave. If you're raised in a system where we trust the white coats, it's a really feel-good, warm, fuzzy feeling. It’s like we're still children, looking for a parental figure. It's such a warm, fuzzy feeling: “If something happens to my body and I'm afraid because I don't know what to do, I can just go to this doctor, and they're going to take care of me because they know what to do. John Gusty (0:58:47.933) Why do you think that there's still people at this point? I'm just curious if you had to put some sort of explanation. What do you think might be going through the mind of someone who still trusts that after?  Ashley James (0:59:05.470) I believe people choose what's cognitive dissonance. I believe they’re choosing their reality because the alternative is too traumatizing to actually wake up to—that every system of government, every system that we are surrounded by, that controls our lives, can’t be trusted. It’s too scary. When you start waking up to how corrupt governments are, and especially the military-industrial complex, it’s not just our government; it’s every government. It will bring you to tears if you really are fully aware of the atrocities to humanity, in education, and we can go down that rabbit hole, just like the medical complex, our education industry has been rigged for about 100 years as well. It is designed to separate the children from the family and have the government raise the children instead of the family unit. We’re breaking up the family unit on purpose because we are controlled sheep, we are controlled cattle, if they can take the children away, they are away from their parents and being taught in these brick-and-mortar buildings. They spend more time with strangers raising your kids than you do. You get to raise your kids and influence your kids. I have a friend who says, “I’m okay with putting my daughter in public school because we have a really good relationship, and I believe that the time I spend with her, I can help shape her.” Okay, so the hour you spend at night with her, the quality of the one hour versus the seven to eight hours she’s with strangers, and then your weekends where you’re doing chores and catching up on life—that’s when you get to influence your child, versus what they’re going to learn from their peers. It sounds like I’m going off-topic, but what I’m trying to say is they’ve replaced their God with worshiping this system that they live in. When you realize that everything is corrupt and everything is evil, for me, it’s like going to Mexico. Here, you’re innocent until proven guilty. You go to Mexico, and you’re guilty until proven innocent. You need to switch your thinking. Every system is guilty until proven innocent.. It’s a bit freeing once you come to that realization that you have to stand up for yourself. You have to be a label reader, an investigator. You have to research things. There’s this one guy—I don’t remember his name, but I love his videos. He takes pictures of aisles at Walmart or Target, and like for example toothpaste, he does this one video analyzing the toothpaste aisle. “Let’s see what is actually healthy versus pharmaceutical.” When you go through every single aisle, the pharmaceutical companies that you say are the criminal organizations that pay out the most criminal fines are the ones that are also producing everything you’re putting on your body—your shampoo, your conditioner, your lotions. Unless, like me, you shop with very independent and very healthy companies, you cannot go walk into Target or Walmart and buy anything to put on your body. It is made by a pharmaceutical company, and it is full of petroleum, and it’s disgusting. I’ll tell you a quick story that’s super interesting. My husband’s uncle is a PhD, was a professor, and he’s from Boulder University, he invented a mass spectrophotometer. I’m sure I’m saying that wrong. Let’s say add a company that’s making pharmaceuticals. There’s this powder, and they’re like, “Oh no, which powder is this? We don’t remember. Is this powder to make Tylenol pills? Is this powder to make statins? We don’t know.” It would be able to tell you. You could have it touch or read out any pill, and it could tell you what it was because it reads the molecular structure of it and could tell you exactly what it is. He designed it to sell it to pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies as a way to stop accidentally overdosing, misdosing, or giving the wrong drugs, because that is one of the things that kills people. They said after he met with the lawyers—literally every single pharmacy and every single pharmaceutical company—they all said the same thing: “We realize that if we implemented your machine, we would significantly reduce deaths and injuries because we will catch the mistakes. But we don’t want to because it is cheaper for us to wait until someone sues us and pay that than prevent the deaths.” When he saw that, it was like, “Oh, okay, the system doesn’t actually care about preventing deaths or helping people; they just care about profits.” He ended up selling it to the pulp and paper industry, and it significantly reduced the amount of chemicals they use in making paper. So he helped the environment, which was neat. But he designed it to help save lives, and the pharmaceutical industry said, “No thanks.” They’d rather wait for someone to die and then pay the lawsuit. John Gusty (1:05:11.037) Back to that Johnson & Johnson example I cited earlier with the talc powder. Since the 1940s, it's been known that stuff causes ovarian cancer, and it's just cheaper for them to pay the lawsuits. So why in the world? I will always go back to the abusive relationship example. Why would anyone want to continue in that abusive relationship? Unless, like you said, it's just easier to turn a blind eye to it and go, “He's not cheating on me, he loves me.” Ashley James (1:05:52.983) There's certain personalities who just couldn't be bothered. That sounds like, oh, not going to the store to buy your food. No, I'd rather just go to the store, buy my food. I know that I'm eating some chemicals. It's okay, I just couldn't be bothered. I have friends like that. Not a lot, most of my friends are like me, but I have friends like that. I have family members like that who are awake a little bit, but no, that's too hard. I don't have enough time, energy, or mental capacity. I'm okay living in this corrupt world and just kind of going about my business. You and I, there's about 10% of the people that we're called mismatchers. You tell us not to turn left. We feel compulse to turn left. You know what I mean. We're like the salmon swimming upstream. You have to be the salmon these days to not become a statistic.  I've said this dozens of times on my show. But if you're tuning in for the first time, look at the statistics. One in three people have cancer. One in three people have diabetes or prediabetes. Look at the rates of diseases. If you want to get that Darwin Award to become one of those statistics, go ahead and keep doing what the masses are doing. Statistics are what the average person is doing. Go through that drive-thru, go eat that fried food. Definitely don't exercise. Stay up late, drink beer. Do what everyone else is doing, and you will become a statistic. Congratulations, there's your reward. I can talk about that because I did it. I did all that, and I gave myself diabetes. Then I got to ungive myself diabetes and reverse it. I had five other medical issues that I resolved using lifestyle and natural medicine. I see that you can turn this quote-unquote diagnosis, this disease, on and off based on your choices. But you have to be a salmon, you have to swim upstream, you have to do the opposite of what the average person is doing. You are more likely to not become a statistic. Go to bed early and wake up early. Go for that run, jog, or walk. Drink plenty of water instead of coffee. By the way, if you drink plenty of water, you won't need coffee. You'll be on top of the world because reduced water intake leads to reduced energy production. Then we end up going for caffeine, alcohol, and sugar, which reduces our ability to produce energy even more. That keeps us on that vicious cycle of being addicted to these over-the-counter substances that are socially acceptable to be addicted to but that deteriorate our health even more. I know I'm on my soapbox because this is one of my favorite topics, which I see is yours as well—helping people awaken to the fact that they have the power. The power is in their hands. But this starts with our thinking. It starts with that mental shift that you are in control. Yes, it's hard, but you can. There's a wonderful actress, and it's funny, her name is escaping me right now. She was in Taxi. She has red hair and a photographic memory. I met her twice. She's amazing. It's so funny I'm forgetting her name because she has a photographic memory. She's red-haired, and she was in Taxi. She has this great speech about this: choose your hard. Sitting on the couch drinking your beer, you're choosing your hard. Your hard is giving yourself disease. Because if you're sitting there thinking, “I don't have enough energy to go for a walk,” Mitochondria produce more energy when they're stimulated by movement. If you go for that walk around the block, you'll actually be stimulating more energy, and you'll have more energy afterward. You might be fatigued from going for a walk, but if you do it every day, twice a day, for seven days, you're going to feel like a new person. It's also an antidepressant. So choose your hard. If your hard is getting your butt up and going for that walk, that's your hard. Choose your hard. If you're choosing not to do healthy things and just go with the status quo, the hard you're choosing is the diabetes or heart disease that you're choosing. You’re choosing your hard. If it's too hard for you to shop organic or to source healthy food, then the hard you're choosing is disease. There's always a hard. Choose your hard, and it creates mental toughness. I'm in the middle of doing the 75 hard, and it is amazing. I highly recommend it. It's choosing a transformation. So we talked about the mind shift. Now let's talk about, well, what can we do instead? How's your wife? Let's talk about this story. This opened this up for you. Seeing your wife's diagnosis opened this up for you, and you went down the road of how can we heal our bodies naturally? How can we take control and stop giving away our personal power to these industries that want to leech money out of us and keep us sick? So what happened? Tell us the story. What happened? How did you help your wife, and how is she now? John Gusty (1:11:13.664) Her situation is really complex because, unfortunately, for too much of her life, she was one of those people who trusted and listened. I do believe that a lot of what we are dealing with, even to this day, is damage caused mostly by pharmaceuticals. So we're having to go in on top of whatever was the original issue. We're dealing with a lot of damage caused by her not knowing better and just listening early on. It is breathtaking the amount of pharmaceuticals that were thrown at her. I started to save all the prescriptions that we never went and filled. I had a stack of them. It didn't take long for me to realize and see the abusive relationship that she was in with the medical-industrial complex. What I did was whatever I could to help her out of that relationship. We got to the point where she wasn't taking any of their pharmaceuticals, she wasn't seeing any of their doctors, she wasn't eating any of their commercial corporate food, and she wasn't drinking any of their commercial corporate water. Like you said—I love the whole “Choose your hard.” I think the hard that I chose was to go towards the simple and natural in everything. I'm in the middle of writing a piece now, and it's called Are You a House Cat? I'll just give you a brief summary of what it's about because it kind of answers this whole thing in one, hopefully entertaining, little story. Think about it. Let's use the example of a house cat. Do you know how many house cats there are in this world that have never been exposed to natural sunlight? The only sunlight they get is what's coming in through the windows, and the windows have UV coating on them, so they're not getting natural sunlight. How many house cats have ever in their lives, had natural, living water? If they're a house cat, they're only drinking tap water or, at best—or worse—bottled water. How many house cats have never actually touched the ground? Those cute little pads on the bottom of their paws aren't for fashion purposes. Those are connection points, just like the bottoms of our feet or the bottoms of anything’s feet. They've never touched the ground because they've been in the house all their lives and have never actually gone and touched the grass or some actual wet ground. So you've got situations where there are these animals that have never been exposed to natural light, never drank natural water, never touched natural ground, and, to top it all off, they're not eating food, they're eating feed. There's a difference. A cat would be eating meat, cartilage, muscles, and soft bones. It would be eating squirrels, mice, or birds. It wouldn’t be eating corn-based cat chow. Ashley James (1:15:15.591) What they would be eating would be raw and have the probiotics in it.  John Gusty (1:15:21.797) So using that example of a house cat that's never had natural light, natural water, natural food, or touched the ground, if you can imagine that house cat situation, imagine how many humans are in that exact same situation. We've been taught that the sun is bad, so we wear sunglasses, and we tint our windows. We've been taught that the sun can give you cancer—that's a whole other topic, and we don't have to get into that. But people aren't exposed to natural light, they're not drinking natural water, and they're not consuming natural food. We are walking human batteries. We are electrical beings. We have to discharge. We're holding charge all day long because we're like an antenna. We have to discharge, which is why anybody that's ever walked on a beach or stuck their feet in some water can almost feel their body just going, “Ah,” because you're discharging. You're gathering charge because of all the electronics and frequencies that exist in the airwaves around all of us at all times. Especially people living in really densely populated metropolitan areas are just in charge. For us, really, we chose our hard, and our hard was going passionately towards the simple and the natural. Do you want vitamin D? There's this thing in the sky called the sun, and we try to be in it as much as possible. We have lots of ground, and we touch it all the time. When we do eat, we eat natural things in their natural form. I don't eat things that come out of packages. I had a wise person tell me one time, before you shove something down your pie hole, take a look at the shape and the configuration. If you're about to put a triangle chip that is fluorescent orange, ask yourself, “Does that exist in nature?” Well, of course, it doesn't. So you probably shouldn't put it in your mouth because it's not natural. That's helped a lot by what we didn't do, improve her situation probably more than anything. It's probably the reason why she's still alive today—we stopped with all pharmaceuticals and we didn't listen to the corporate narratives. We listened to the natural narratives. When I say scientific, I know—that science is a discipline. Science is not a group of people. Science is no different than fidelity or honesty. It's a discipline, and there is a way to do something scientifically. So we run things through that metric: is it scientifically and biologically sound, what we're doing? We just don't listen to the corporate narratives—for food, for medical, for anything. Really, not listening to them. Or, I think you've heard this probably a million times in a million different ways: if you want to know what to do, listen to what they're telling you to do and do exactly the opposite. You will most certainly be better off for it each and every time. But in all seriousness, it was really what we didn’t do and what we stopped doing that started to turn things in a better direction for her. Ashley James (1:19:32.756) I love it and everything you said, though, because if someone's hearing this for the first time, you sound whack-job crazy because they're hearing it for the first time. But my listeners, this probably isn't the first time they've heard that we should get our bare feet out on grass and touch. We should actually be in contact with sunlight, direct sunlight, and be in contact with the ground every day because there's actual science behind it. I have several interviews, one with a cardiologist, talking about the benefits of getting in touch with the earth. We release excess electrons that are stored artificially when we are constantly grounded by wearing shoes, being on carpeting, and being in a car. We are so far removed from our natural environment, and we think our artificial environment is our natural environment because we were raised in it. It's like a lab rat trusting a lab more than it would a forest. We trust our artificially man-made environment, which is riddled with toxic things that are not healthy for us. When we look at EMF, we look at off-gassing. All our furniture, carpets, flooring, and paint are off-gassing for years. If you can't smell it—”Oh, I can't smell the paint anymore, so it's fine.” No. The stuff in your house is off-gassing formaldehyde and many other chemicals, and you're breathing it in. If you can smell something, your liver is processing it. If you inhale and smell a scent, like when you go through a nail salon, you're smelling acetone. Your liver, within 15 minutes, is having to break it down and having to process it. What you inhale through your nose, it's actually being absorbed into your bloodstream. So we have to understand that our artificial environment is hurting us. Like you said, the water we drink, the air we breathe inside our home, which is 10 times more pollution than being outside and in your downtown area, and then we've got mold. The list just goes on and on and on. We need to look at every aspect of our lives, become that detective. Choose the hard, but make it fun. It can actually be really fun to detoxify your life and question everything.  you said, question everything. In some cases, do the opposite of what they're telling you to do.  John Gusty (1:22:18.518) Well, I think you mentioned it earlier—the body does not know how to work against itself. All the body is doing is trying to recover from all the crap that we do to it and expose it to. So, again, if you move towards the simple and you move towards the natural—back to that house cat scenario. I think most people that have cats, when their cat starts getting to be about 10 or 11 years old, they start thinking of their cat as old. Most people get 10 years or so out of a cat. The cats that I have had—and I'm not a cat person; I'm definitely a dog person—but I have taken a few cats in my time, taken them out of bad situations, and brought them onto my property. They're indoor-outer. They come and go when they want to, and I'll tell you what—they're outside most of the time. They only come inside at night to sleep, and first thing when the sun's up, they're out. What they're doing is laying in the grass and, interestingly enough, facing the sun. That early morning sun is super healthy, and animals know it—dogs know it, cats know it, cows know it, insects know it. I haven't had a cat that hasn't made it. Well, the last cat I had made it to 24—nice—and probably would have kept going. But it was a cat that we had gotten from somewhere else, and if I'd had it since birth, I bet we could have been closing in on 30. Ashley James (1:24:03.994) So you started waking up when you were following your wife through her health journey and started making these changes. But now, this is what you're doing. You're helping awaken people to their body's ability to heal itself. Tell us about it. Tell us, what is your message? What are you here to share? You've got a few websites we want to mention. What do you do? Are you a consultant? Do people hire you? Or what are you to sell us? John Gusty (1:24:42.000) I'm not here to sell you anything. I am a content creator. I love to create content. I can do audio, video, and graphic design. I'm a writer, and that's just coming out of the entertainment industry. I just kind of became a jack of all trades because I got tired of waiting on creative departments to get stuff done, so I started learning the skills to do it myself. I love to create content, and I think we have to choose your hard. I talked about that. I think we also have to choose our purpose, and I've come to realize that my purpose is to help continue the art of conversation. Especially in the past three, four years, there's been a lot of us that have been made to feel that we're not allowed to talk about certain things or say certain things, and there's massive worldwide peer pressure—social peer pressure. A lot of people are afraid to express things that they feel, but they don't want to be publicly shamed for feeling these things. If they just let it out, they'd realize there's millions of others that feel the exact same way. That's why I think the whole worship of the state is very dangerous, because they prey on that dynamic. So I create content. With my wife's journey, I developed what's turned out to be a lifelong friendship, relationship, and business partnership with a gentleman by the name of Dr. Jeremy Ayers, who I believe you're going to be talking to, if my notes are correct. Jeremy's over in the UK, and he is someone that I encountered. I was at a convention in Acapulco years ago and crossed paths, and we just had enough common ground that when you meet somebody, and it just clicks. Well, we just clicked. He fully invested himself in my wife's situation and has never let up. It's probably been 10 years now that we've been together as friends and business partners, and he has helped a lot of people deal with dis-ease. A couple of years back, we started a company called Naturally Better. If you go to naturallybetter4u.com, and you can spell that however you want—however, I prefer the way Prince would have done it, with the number four and the letter u.com. But naturallybetter4u.com, there's a little taste of our world and what we do. Earlier, you'd mentioned what are some things that you can do to take back some of the sovereignty and individuality. If you go to that page, there are a couple of downloads there, and one of them is the Naturally Better Red Pill Revolution Anti-Dependency Suggestion Guide. I had a lot of fun putting this together, and it is chock full of things. My goal with this was to have even the most seasoned skeptic look at this and go, oh, I didn't know that, or oh, that's interesting, that's cool, I hadn't heard that one before. Hopefully there’s lots of that in this guide. It's just things that any of us can do in our everyday life to stop giving away our power, our attention, and our money. We are so much more powerful as individuals than a lot of us give ourselves credit for. I think one of the biggest things that people need to hear—they need to hear other people say it, so I try to say it a lot—it is okay to say no. It's totally okay to say no. You can be tolerant of lots of things, but tolerance does not mean acceptance. There's lots of things that I'm tolerant of, but I will not accept them. I'm tolerant of hospitals, but you will never catch me in a hospital. Not even if you were in a car accident. Ashley James (1:29:26.539) Not even if you were in a car accident? John Gusty (1:29:30.751) Then I would have to be unconscious, and someone else would have to bring me in there. Ashley James (1:29:34.087) I mean, on one hand, I think that might be a little extreme because you might be putting yourself in danger if you have internal bleeding or broken bones, stuff like that. But on the other hand, there's a part of me that's, yes, I get it, because you increase your risk of other interventions. You get put on that conveyor belt, and it's harder to get off—MRSA and all the kinds of things that you can catch while you're at a hospital. But also, I have watched hospitals kill my loved ones. It was the hospital that did it. But at the same time, if you are internally bleeding, I'd want a surgeon to try to save your life. It's better than just accepting death. But that's just me. John Gusty (1:30:23.132) Yes, if that was the case, then I would hope that my conscious self or maybe, if I was unconscious, those around me that know me would hire the services of someone to do that. Maybe those services would be performed in a hospital, but they would be performed in a hospital that I'm paying cash for. See, I think my biggest aversion to hospitals, and maybe this is new information to some of your listeners, is that when you enter a hospital, you're literally entering another legal jurisdiction, and you're giving up. You are literally giving up all of your rights. That's why you have to be discharged from the hospital. You are legally admitting that. You're admitting yourself into a hospital. So you are now there, you're in their care and their legal jurisdiction, and I will never give up. I will never give up the rights to me and my body and my decisions to anyone else. I would only enter a hospital if I had my legal ducks in a row and that the hospital was well aware of it before I even walked in through the front doors. Ashley James (1:31:38.345) More people need to know that I did an interview with, oh gosh, I'm forgetting his name, Grace's dad, Scott. Oh sorry, it's slipping into my brain, but it's Grace. If you google Learn True Health, or if you do an internet search or go to learntruehealth.com and search Grace, the hospital killed his daughter, and he has proof. He is now on a rampage to hold them accountable and to share this information because senior citizens and the disabled are far more likely to be killed by hospitals intentionally. I know that sounds crazy because it's like, who is out there killing grannies? It is proven. John Gusty (1:32:34.949) It's insurance company driven. You've already identified me to your audience as nutbag crazy, so why not continue in that direction? But I implore anyone to research this. The insurance companies—if you noticed during the nonsense of 2020 forward—the biggest casualty rate was in the older demographic. There is enough, and I'm sure that the gentleman you cited earlier, the Grace one, is aware of this too. The insurance companies—a very sound and logical case can be made—at least in part, used this event and have for a while now, although not as blatant as it's been lately, but have been using the hospital apparatus to see to it that the older demographic is killed off, if you will. They got paid because of the payouts. Ashley James (1:33:47.445) Yes, they got paid too. That's exactly what we talked about in episode 476. I looked it up—it's Scott Shara, episode 476 of Learn True Health Podcast. But that's not news to those who have had it done, who've seen it. You are so susceptible. Just like with pregnancy, you are more susceptible walking into a hospital than with a home birth. As long as there are no complications beforehand, you are more likely to have an intervention-free birth. But when you walk into a hospital in labor, one intervention is designed to lead to another, which is designed to lead to another, and it's all designed to make money for the hospital, not for the best outcome of the child. We spend the most on health care—the United States spends the most on health care—and we have some of the worst outcomes. Tell me how that is still even acceptable. But you and I are pulling our hair out because we see the truth. We've run out of Plato's cave, and so many are still entertained by the shadows in Plato's cave and unwilling to come out and break their chains and come out. John Gusty (1:34:59.136) You know what, Ashley? I have confidence that our friends and family, if they just vote a little harder in November, all of this will get fixed. I'm sure of it. Don't you have hope?  Ashley James (1:35:10.217) Now I'm starting to see why anarchy is so appealing. Not from the standpoint of the mainstream anarchy. I don't believe in violence. I definitely believe in being vocal and standing. Vote with your fork, vote with your dollar, use your choices to vote with where you want. So don't see an MD. See an ND, a naturopath, an old-school one, not one that's been trained in the last 15 years. Go find a 70-year-old naturopath, a 60-year-old naturopath. Find holistic doctors. Choose to set yourself up with, just as you would research and find the best plumber, the best mechanic. Find your holistic team that supports you and educates you. The root word for doctor is doceri, which means teacher. Your doctor is supposed to be your teacher, not the prescription pad holder. The word doctor doesn't mean drug dealer. It means teacher. When was the last time your MD sat down and educated you and taught you how to support your body's ability to heal itself? Well, that's why you're listening to this podcast. I'm not a doctor, but I just play one on TV, so I love this conversation, and I know you and I could keep talking for hours about it. But what I want is to have the audience walk away with some actionable steps. It's like the movie They Live where you take the glasses, you put the glasses on, you see the aliens. That's basically it. You're going to walk around and start questioning everything. I was raised watching TV in the 80s and the 90s and watching the commercials for fast food. If there's a commercial for the food you're eating, stop eating it. That's one thing. If they ever had to market something to you, stop doing it, stop buying it, stop eating it. I told my son, never, ever buy laundry detergents. If they have to spend money marketing something, never buy it. It's not healthy for you. There's no money in making you healthy and creating health things. So you have to, just for one, never buy something that they market to you. But think about the marketing that made you feel so good and that got into your subconscious as a child—Tony the Tiger and all the sugary cereals we got marketed to. We walk down those aisles and we have a trust. We look at General Mills and we look at Nestle Quick. We look at all these companies and we trust them. Why? Because they pumped garbage into our heads since day one to trust them. We have to start to question the marketing that they used when we didn't have critical thinking. So it got past our critical thinking into our subconscious. Now we're walking around trusting the system, and we have to pull ourselves out. So you have to start questioning everything. Don't eat or use products that are marketed to you. Broccoli doesn't need a commercial, so it's healthy. It passes. Give us some actionable steps now. We've got naturallybetterforyou.com. You've got some great giveaways—the anti-dependency and post-vaccine detox protocol. I know a lot of people want to know about that because I have a lot of listeners who have shared with me they regret getting a few of the shots, and now they want to prevent whatever or help their body detox. When people come to me and ask, “What can I do? I just got this shot, what can I do to detox?” I'm like, “A time machine.” Because, as far as I know, that's the only way to prevent the destruction that we allowed to our bodies—or those people did, not me. I would never let them come at me. They would have to hold me down, kicking and screaming, which they actually did to several children and teenagers. There are videos of teenagers kicking and screaming, and it's disgusting, and it's so sad. Then we want to just shut down, and we want to go back into our safe matrix. We want to go back into the matrix and stop questioning everything because it's too painful. It's too painful when you open your eyes to see the atrocities that are all around us. But we have to just move through it and go, “I have to choose, on a daily basis, everything that could support my body and the bodies of all my family, the ability to heal ourselves.” That is everything you eat, breathe, wear, drive—everything. Every aspect of your life can be looked at, and you can make healthier choices. Oh, you also have a Facebook group, the Red Pill Revolution Facebook group. I'm sure that would be interesting to go join. Tell us, what's some homework? Give us some advice on actionable steps we can take. I know you're not big into telling people what to do, but suggesting—giving some suggestions. John Gusty (1:40:38.956) No, I don't like telling people what to do, but I love sharing knowledge, especially knowledge that I know has worked for me, and if it has worked for me, then there's got to be at least somebody else out there that it would be helpful for. I would say this: two things. One, although it might sound strange at the moment, I would make it a goal to get to the point where you can someday walk into a grocery store and just be offended by what you're seeing. I'm not a prude or anything, and I don't spend time in adult bookstores, but you could put me in the raunchiest adult bookstore, and it still is not going to offend me as much as standing in your average grocery store and looking around at what is there. It's food porn—it's toxic food porn—and it's not even good. If it was good, that'd be one thing, but it's not. Then you see what people are putting in their carts. Look at the stuff, and I happen to think it is okay to be judgmental. It's human to be judgmental. We're judgmental all the time. You use good judgment, or you can use bad judgment, but being judgmental is a human quality. Look at the people that are pushing these carts that have soda hanging off the side and Little Debbie boxes and stuff, and take a look at the person pushing that cart. Again, it sounds a little rough, but usually, those two situations match up. The person pushing the cart full of crap usually looks like what you would think would be the result of putting all that garbage in you. Get to the point where you can walk into your average store and just be offended. This is probably one of the biggest things that shaped the way that I live, is to pick something—something easy. I think I've said it in the past. An easy thing would be eggs. Pick one thing. Let's use eggs as the example and just say, from this day forward, I am never going to purchase eggs from any store ever again. I mean eggs, regardless of where you live. You live around somebody who's doing chickens, and it's not that hard to find. So go and find the best eggs that you can find and pay attention to not just the eggs or how they're packaged or how cute the little shop is that you're buying them from. Go even further than that. What were the chickens eating? What were they raised on? Where are those chickens? What does the farm look like? Who are the farmers? Start really going to the source on things—produce, meat, eggs. When you do that, you absolutely will end up with a better, healthier product that you are exposing yourself and your body to. But the big thing is you are going to start forming relationships with the producers, the people who are doing the work, who are growing the food or raising the animals or making the soaps or baking the breads. You have a chance to go and ask them questions. Well, what are you using, or how are you doing that? You can get to the point where you are 100% confident. These eggs that I'm eating, I know where they came from, and I know that they are nourishing my body. There's no chemical. You know because you've gone and you've taken the time, you've chosen your path, and you've made those relationships. Those relationships, I'm telling you now—I don't buy eggs anymore. I go see my friends. Buying the eggs is just a secondary part of the trip. I go see my friends, I go to their beautiful farm, I see their children, and I pet their animals. You could just go into a Kroger and buy a pack of crappy eggs that are going to hurt you. Would you rather do that, or would you rather have this?  It's such a much more enriching experience. Buying eggs for me anymore turns into going to a beautiful farm and seeing these people that I love very much, that I've known for years, who have become family to me and I to them. What started out as an egg purchase has turned into just so much more in my life—new people, new friends, new family, new knowledge that I have. Just through the people that I buy my eggs from, I learned about beekeeping, which I had no knowledge of before, but they also have hives, and so I got to watch that process. Now I know that, and I would have never known about beekeeping had I not been purchasing my eggs from these people. You see what I'm saying? It's the gift that just keeps giving. At some point, whether it's a natural occurrence or whether our friends at the state do it on purpose, at some point those electronic devices that we all love so much and those little plastic cards that we have in our wallets—because nobody uses cash anymore—those things aren't going to work. It’s not going to take a natural disaster. It’s not going to take much; it's just going to take the systems going down, or what if they get intentionally shut off and you can't go get your crappy eggs from your crappy store or your crappy meat from your crappy store? What if you can't do that? I'll never have that problem because I know where my eggs are coming from, and the farm never closes. Ashley James (1:47:02.971) Exactly, and you've got those relationships. That's smart. It's smart. You don't have to build an underground bunker. I mean, you can if you want. You don't have to become a prepper. Just start building a community and stop relying so heavily on a system that is very vulnerable. Our our food system can break so easily, and we've seen it teeter a few times. All it takes is a strike—the truckers stop trucking. I've seen this in Canada twice. I'm originally from Canada. I live in the States now, but I've seen it twice in Canada in recent years where the ATM machines stopped working for a day. You could not use your card, you could not take money out, could not use your card for a day. There was a big system blackout or whatever. Americans aren’t really tuned in to what happens in other countries.You guys may not know but there's been a huge movement in Canada in the last year and a half where millions of Canadians went to Quebec, the capital of Canada, and were protesting—very calmly protesting. There were children. They brought bouncy houses. It was the coolest thing. Who brings bouncy houses to a protest? Canadians do. I was so proud of Canada. There were millions of people. There were over 100,000 truckers there. They brought all their trucks. They completely clogged up all of Ottawa. It was because the Canadian government was forcing vaccines on truckers. Truckers aren't ever around anyone. Even if you believed for a moment that these vaccines could prevent the spread of COVID—which we knew the whole time, those of us who were aware of this information, and I have amazing guests including PhDs, research scientists, and doctors who were all screaming from the rooftops and were being shot down and silenced. They were saying, “This is unproven, unsafe, and will not prevent the spread of covid and we’re saying it. We know now it’s true—the devastation is true, unfortunately. For the last four years, we were shut down and silenced for spreading the truth. The truckers and many Canadians stood up and said it's not fair that you force this upon us, it's not fair that you force this upon the truckers. There was this massive shutdown in Canada because Canada was protesting. John Gusty (1:49:59.410) What the banks did in fixing the money? Ashley James (1:50:03.978) This is exactly what I'm getting to. Trudeau, the Prime Minister, actually, at one point, he's on camera saying, “I know I'm going against the Canadian constitution, and I don't care.” He shut down. There are moms who donated. If you donated any money, it wasn't just shutting down the banks of the people who protested. If you were a mom who had a mortgage to pay—say, a single mom with four kids, had a mortgage to pay, donated $50 to one of the truckers for food or gas or whatever, just because she believed in the cause—her bank account and everything was frozen. This was thousands and thousands of Canadians who had their bank accounts just frozen overnight for donating to a good cause or for saying something on social media that showed they supported this. This is just what's happening with China. If you think it's never going to happen here, I want to say something so lovingly to you: please pull your head out of the sand. We can't blindly just trust. We see it in other countries happening, and it is coming our way. The only way it doesn't is if we stand up and fight. But we have to be awake enough to stand up and fight. So I love your idea of making sure that you have set up relationships that support you. I have naturopaths that, if I needed to go see them or text them or contact them, I don't have to just jump on an antibiotic at the first sign of an infection. I've got herbs and homeopathy. I've got a network of homeopaths, herbalists, acupuncturists, and naturopaths, and my system is set up there. I love that you set up your food system so you have relationships with people that grow food. So in the event of anything, you have a network. You're not just going to be completely reliant on the local grocery store that could lose their food supply for many reasons. It's a very fragile system. John Gusty (1:52:10.298) Yes, I think again you kind of get back to that whole concept. I keep pushing about being in an abusive relationship. I went through the entire nonsense of 2020 and forward, and I just kept doing whatever it was that I was doing. My life literally didn't change one bit. I kept a smile on my face, and I went wherever I would normally have gone. I did whatever I normally would have done. Interestingly enough, it probably was because I kept a smile on my face and I wasn't out looking for confrontation either, but to this day, I've never worn a mask. I certainly didn't get the MAGA jab or any of the Brandon boosters. I didn't play into any of that nonsense because I'm not part of that religion. So, in my mind, it didn't apply to me, and I just went on about my business. I don't have any Karen stories to tell you. I had one person, one time, ask me if I would put on a mask, and I just said, “No, thank you.” Ashley James (1:53:21.198) Well, I think you lived in a state in which that was much more easy. I lived in Washington. Washington and New York, I think, were among the worst. It was pretty crazy. John Gusty (1:53:33.126) I'm in Tennessee—in Middle Tennessee, so I'm outside the Nashville area. Nashville's a big city like any other place, and if you went into Nashville, you noticed people masking and social distancing and all, but Nashville's real easy to get out of, and so, you go 20 minutes in any direction, and you're in the wide open spaces, and this is just a simple thought, and maybe it's something, it's kind of a little nugget that I've carried with me since then.  Every single time that I looked around and watched how the humans were behaving, the staying six feet apart and wearing their face diapers and getting all jabbed up and everything, the birds kept being birds, the dogs and cats kept being dogs and cats, cows, everything, trees, everything else carried on as if just another day. Because what? It was just another day. It was all that. What we witnessed was proof positive of one, how powerful fear is and, two, just how easily herded some human beings can be, because it was very visual. You could see the people who were being compliant. I was in a Home Depot during the middle of this, and they had these big plexiglass barriers between the cashier and you, but there's a big hole in the middle of it so you could use the card machine. The lady that was ringing me up had two masks on, so she was real serious about this, and I asked her, I was joking, but I didn't think she caught the joke until after I tapped on the plastic thing and I said, “Hey, I said these are kind of handy. Do you guys sell these?” She goes, “No, why would you want one of those?” I said, “Oh, well, for fleas, flea control, flea and pest control.” She goes, “They're going to climb over the top of it,” and I went, “Exactly,”  I was trying to be sarcastic and jabber in a lighthearted way, but she answered it for herself, but I don't know that it ever connected. I don't know. Anyways, but we saw it. It was visual, and so it's again, going back, if I could leave the listener with anything, it's do your best to go back to this, try to get back to simple and natural, and you're going to find a lot of truth there, and you're going to find a lot of effectiveness there, and you're also going to find a lot of safety there, because most of the things that cause human beings harm or peril are toxic, man made things, and I've never heard of anyone dying of broccoli. Ashley James (1:57:00.851) Being offended by grocery stores, a good friend of mine texted me a few months ago, just angry, just livid, because she got it. She woke up in that grocery store that day and had that epiphany and was just pissed off. She was shopping for her kids and everything has sugar and artificial dye, everything is laced with MSG, everything has dairy, and she's just going down the list. When I say dairy, there's a big difference between getting raw milk from your neighbor's cow and what they process with the pasteurized process, homogenized, powdered, all that stuff. I'm sorry, but there's a certain percentage of people that can handle cow dairy or goat dairy, if it's from your own goat that you love so much and you raised and you have a great relationship with that goat and you want to drink its milk and you find you're healthier for it, then do it, go ahead. But thinking that the dairy you're drinking and getting from your grocery store is healthy, it's not healthy for the cow, it's not healthy for the environment, it's definitely not healthy for you. It's so disgustingly processed.  I have whole episodes. I actually have two whole episodes on that subject alone, but I can get off on so many tangents. She was livid by all of the chemical crap in the food. Most food in the grocery store is not food. It was Mary Lou Henner, by the way, who said, “Choose your heart.” I'm sure you could find a YouTube video of her if you type “Choose your heart” and Mary Lou Henner. She gives a great, great talk on that. So she got angry and she texted me. She goes, “How do you do it? I am livid, how do you do it?” I'm like, yes, I get it. You have to shop the perimeter of the grocery store. If you're going to be in grocery stores. I actually shop around to a lot of different, more natural stores. I also order a box from farms that gets delivered straight to me. So that's fun too. But shop the perimeter of the grocery store. Don't go down the aisles. Don't buy processed food. If you want to have bread, make your own. That's a big fad now. If you want to, I make my own yogurt with cashew. I make a cultured cashew. If I want yogurt, you get interested in making your own products. Think about the pioneers. They had to make literally everything, and it would be great if we started developing our own skills to be able to do more for ourselves instead of relying on a manufacturer to make the lowest quality product. Eating at restaurants is another thing. Restaurants choose the lowest quality ingredient. They're paying the least amount that they can pay and it's not healthy at all. It's designed to taste good and jack up your dopamine. It's a drug. It's  going into an opium den.  John Gusty (2:00:22.167) Regardless of what restaurant you eat at, with very few exceptions, it all comes off of a Cisco truck. All of it.  It doesn't matter whether you're at restaurant A or restaurant B, all that stuff came off of a Cisco truck. Speaking of gross, you were talking about pasteurized dairy. I heard somebody one time refer to once milk that you buy in the stores. Pasteurized, some of it's ultra-pasteurized. At that point, when pasteurization is just not enough, ultra-pasteurization. But you get to that point and it's just pus and mucus. I was never a big dairy guy anyways, but that's all I needed to hear is… hmm, yes, pus and mucus. Well, enjoy that and enjoy your nice tall glass of pus and mucus. Oh, thank you, Louis Pasteur, you just gave us so many gifts. Ashley James (2:01:22.776) Well, the industry ran with it, of course, because if they can shelf-stabilize something and make it last longer, of course killing all of the healthy microbes in the process, they're all for it because it makes them money. So we have to question everything, and that's the takeaway. Question everything. Do the opposite of what everyone else is doing. You'll probably end up living much longer and much healthier. John Gusty (2:01:50.275) It is okay to do that because I'll give people under 30 a break. But if you're over 30 years old, none of us have ever lived a day. We've never spent one day of our lives when we haven't known. We were literally born into the meme that we know corporations and politicians are dishonest, self-serving, and profit-driven. We've known that. The dishonest politician and the profiteering corporation, those are memes. Again, we were born into that, so we know it. We know it instinctively. Why do we continue to not just trust them, but we let them nourish us, we let them medicate us? We've turned over. I'm even against the term healthcare.  Ashley James (2:02:47.298) Oh yes. That's the marketing  there.  John Gusty (2:02:50.634) You know what healthcare is, being alive. Do you think a bird wakes up in the morning and thinks about its healthcare? Its healthcare is staying alive that day. Stay alive, get some water, get some food and stay alive—that's healthcare and it's that simple. Get some water. Make sure it's good water and doesn't come out of a tap or a bottle. Make sure it's good living water. Get some good living food and stay alive. You do those two things. Chances are you'll stay alive Ashley James (2:03:28.786) Thank you so much for coming on the show. So many directions. We could do this for hours and I have a lot of interviews that touch on these different topics, going down these different rabbit holes. So listeners can definitely keep listening to the episodes but also plug into John and go to his Facebook group. I find it ironic that you have a Facebook group. John Gusty (2:03:53.792) I don't. To be perfectly honest with you, I lead a Zuckerberg free life.  Ashley James (2:04:01.398) Oh, you don't. So who runs your group?  John Gusty (2:04:04.274) Well, we have a team, the Red Pill and the Naturally Better team. There are those that jump in that cesspool because there are still people that exist in that cesspool that are truly looking for good information.  Ashley James (2:04:23.750) Yes, exactly. It's okay to use the system as long as you understand. The system is evil, corrupt, and out to suck your money from you and your life force. Great, so listeners could go to theredpillrevolution.com or naturallybetter4you.com and check it out. Thank you for this fun conversation, in which I hope everyone remembered their tinfoil hat. I know I certainly did, and I say that jokingly. 2005 was when I learned about Codex Alimentarius, and that kind of sent me down this rabbit hole. In 2008, I learned about 9/11 and fluoride and kept going down the road, and then GMO, and it just kept going deeper and deeper. So, almost 20 years now, I've been awakening to the atrocities and the toxicity around us, and I see that this system is designed to suppress us, keep us sick, and keep us cattle, and I am not a cattle. I rage against that, and I hope you do too. I hope you become the salmon swimming against the cattle, and that you look into how to make every aspect of your life healthy and maintain your anonymity. So that's what we're going for. Yes, creating those communities to support each other, which I think is a good suggestion. John Gusty (2:06:10.974) Thank you. Thank you, and next time we talk we can dive into—I think tinfoil is a conspiracy because I've never seen it on the shelf. I've only ever seen aluminum foil. I've never seen tinfoil on the shelf. Ashley James (2:06:29.538) Awesome, John. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been fun.  John Gusty (2:06:32.357) Ashley, thank you so much. This has been fun. You run a tight ship and I love your show and I hope something in all of this was helpful to your listeners, and I'm just super proud to be a part of it.  Outro: Imagine a life where you feel vibrant and full of energy. Now make it a reality with TakeYourSupplements.com. Ditch the endless trial and error of supplement selection. Our trained health coaches are here to craft a personalized health regimen that truly works for you. Visit TakeYourSupplements.com and learn how easy it is to start feeling better today. Your health is an investment, not an expense. Visit TakeYourSupplements.com today and get a free health consultation. When I heard about these specific supplements over 12 years ago, I heard about them back in 2010. The first thing that went through my mind was that sounds too expensive, and at that time I didn't have a lot of money. But I also had a ton of health problems. It wasn't until years later that I finally gave it a try, and I couldn't believe that I had stopped myself, that I had limited myself because I had decided somewhere that it sounded too expensive without even doing the research. It turns out I was able to fit it into my budget and I started feeling better immediately. Within five days of taking these supplements, I began to get my energy back. My chronic adrenal fatigue began to go away. Within three months, I no longer had type 2 diabetes. Within two years, I no longer had polycystic ovarian syndrome, and I was able to conceive naturally. I was told I'd never be able to have kids when I was 19, after a battery of tests with an endocrinologist. So when you have these health goals and dreams, but they've been crushed by a doctor, crushed by family members, or crushed by your own belief system, I invite you to break through that and challenge anyone, including yourself, who's ever told you that you can't have perfect health, that you can't have optimal health. Because at TakeYourSupplements.com, we have some amazing health coaches that want to show you the way to support your body's ability to heal itself. Your body is amazing and miraculous. We grew from these tiny cells into 37.2 trillion cells. Your body has a God-given ability to heal itself, and what we have to do is give it the raw building blocks it needs to build healthy cells. That's what the coaches at TakeYourSupplements.com are here for. They're here to show you the foods to avoid and the foods to eat to nourish your body, and the supplements to fill in those gaps, those nutrient gaps, so that your body's getting, and every cell is getting, every key nutrient it needs to create optimal health. I've been working with these supplements for over 12 years now, with my clients, with my family, and with myself, and I can't believe how many illnesses and how many health challenges I have seen people overcome. You can, too. Go to TakeYourSupplements.com. Give it a try. The only thing you have to lose is all of your health complaints.   Get Connected with John Gusty Special Audience Giveaway: Giveaway Title: The Anti-Dependency Guide & Post-Vaccination Detox Protocol  Giveaway URL:  NaturallyBetter4you.com Website – The Red Pill Revolution Facebook Group – The Red Pill Revolution Book by John Gusty The Red Pill Revolution

Get The Minerals Your Body Needs: TakeYourSupplements.com https://takeyoursupplements.com   Check Out My Latest Book: Addicted To Wellness https://www.learntruehealth.com/addictedtowellness   Adam Sud's website: https://www.adamsud.com   527: Breaking Free From Addiction: Adam Sud’s 150lb Health Transformation   https://learntruehealth.com/breaking-free-from-addiction-adam-suds-150lb-health-transformation   In this episode, Adam Sud opens up about his inspiring recovery journey from addiction, obesity, and illness through the transformative power of a plant-based diet. He dives into the emotional drivers of addiction—pain, loneliness, and disconnection—and how a life-changing Whole Foods retreat with Rip Esselstyn sparked his lifestyle shift. Adam shares how understanding the “pleasure trap” concept, reversing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and shedding 150 pounds in just 10 months helped him create a healthier, more fulfilling life. His story highlights the importance of simplifying eating, building supportive environments, and fostering community connections in the recovery process. Tune in for an uplifting conversation on the power of resilience, gratitude, and the daily commitment to better health. Highlights: Adam Sud shares his recovery journey from addiction, obesity, and illness using a plant-based diet. Pain, loneliness, and disconnection are key drivers of addiction. A Whole Foods retreat with Rip Esselstyn inspired Adam's lifestyle change. The “pleasure trap” concept helped him understand addiction and recovery. Reversed type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and lost 150 pounds in 10 months. Simplified eating and supportive environments were crucial to success. Recovery is creating a safe, hopeful life that makes substance use unattractive. Community and meaningful connections are vital for resilience. Two-week dietary experiments build motivation and habits. Gratitude for the family's unconditional support shaped his recovery. Treat everyone as if it's their last day to inspire kindness and connection. Intro: Hello true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast.  Today is going to blow your mind. We have Adam Sud sharing his story. It’s something that so many people need to hear. I needed to hear it. It’s really wonderful getting his perspective if you have anyone in your life that is sick, that is suffering, that is struggling, please share this episode with them. I want to help end the needless suffering of millions of people and this is another episode that will help us accomplish that. If you are a new listener, welcome. I recently published a book called, Addicted to Wellness. This is a fun, inspiring, motivating, workbook that will help you to take your health wherever your health is. It will help you take your health to a new level. Check it out. Go to Amazon and type in Addicted to Wellness by Ashley James or you can go to learntruehealth.com/addictedtowellness.  I encourage you to buy it and go through the weekly challenges at your own pace. You will find that these simple and doable challenges bring you more energy, more mental clarity, better sleep, deeper sleep, and throughout the day you will feel more fulfillment, enjoy better digestion, the list of benefits goes on and on.  This book is an accumulation of everything I’ve learned working with so many clients for over 12 years as well interviewing over 500 health experts. So it really does have the key fundamentals that make the biggest difference. The smallest effort on your part to make the biggest difference to your overall health and well-being. And no matter how busy you are, it’s easy to implement into your life, 5, 10 minutes a day in the morning, 5, 10 minutes in the evening, and just watch as you get the results. So this is my labor of love to you, to the wonderful listeners, I love you guys so much.  I was sick and suffering for many years. I transformed my health and I turned around and said, I got to help others. This is why I do what I do. Together we can help as many people as possible to learn true health. Through sharing this podcast, sharing my book, together we can help those to stop the needless suffering. MDs have brainwashed us and the mainstream media has brainwashed us to believe that we cannot heal. That our bodies are stuck this way because of genetics or stuck this way, you will always have to be on these drugs. And they sell us this bill of goods that robs us of our vitality and joy and our true purpose in life. It’s actually quite maniacal. And I’m here to tell you that you have an amazing God-given ability to heal–that your body can heal. That you can get so healthy that you get taken off of all those drugs. Listen to today’s interview with an open mind and know that your body can heal itself. Check out my book, Addicted to Wellness. If you have questions, I’d love to see you in the Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook Group. Of course, go to my website, learntruehealth.com. You can use the search function there and search other topics you are interested in. We’ve covered so many topics about how to restore health and well-being to our physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and energetic body.  Check out my book. Share this episode please with as many people as you can so we can help them. And those you share it with can then share with their friends and so on and so on and we can really make a big difference.  One-third of the population is diabetic or pre-diabetic that means one-third of the people you know need this information. Just share it with as many people as you can so we can make a huge difference. I’ve helped so many people to reverse type 2 diabetes within months! And they were told they’d be on drugs their whole life and that they’d be sick and suffering their whole life, and it’s such a lie. Together, we’re going to help people to restore them to the health that they deserve. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for sharing. Enjoy today’s episode. Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 527.  Ashley James (0:05:21.588) I am so excited for today's guest. We have on the show a very special guest on the show, Adam Sud from AdamSud.com. It's spelled S-U-D—super easy. Adam Sud, I met you through a mutual friend, Robin Openshaw, who is amazing. I also know the guys who wrote Mastering Diabetes. I've had them both on my show, love them, and refer back to their program when coaching my clients. I’m so impressed with their work. If anyone is struggling with any kind of blood sugar-related issue, you’re going to love today’s episode. But also weight loss, hormone balance, getting your energy back, reversing and preventing heart disease. We’re going to cover some amazing topics, and also addiction, something near and dear to my heart. I’ve been very openly vulnerable on this show that I’ve struggled with food addiction for many years. I’m grateful that I don’t struggle with drug or alcohol addiction, but I can definitely sympathize with those who do because I’ve worked really hard to overcome food addiction. I adopted a whole-food, plant-based diet and, over the course of several years, I lost 80 pounds. I’m still on my journey, but I’ve reversed type 2 diabetes, chronic adrenal fatigue, chronic infections, and polycystic ovarian syndrome. I was told I’d never have children after a battery of tests with an endocrinologist. That should be illegal. It should be illegal for an endocrinologist to tell a 19-year-old woman she’ll never have children based on labs at nineteen, when there’s so much evidence that a diet-adapted lifestyle can completely change your life. And because of supplementing with certain nutrients that I was depleted of, especially minerals and adopting a healthy, whole-food lifestyle, I was able to reverse that. We conceived our son naturally, and now we have an amazing nine-year-old son, super healthy. I’m so grateful for that and for this health journey. That’s why I do this podcast. Today, we have Adam Sud on the show, who’s going to share his story of how he overcame some major challenges like many, many listeners are struggling with. I want you to listen not only for yourself but also for those you love in your life. You may not know that there is someone you care about who goes to sleep crying every night like I did. Crying because they feel like they're trapped a prisoner in their body. They wish for a better way, for answers, but the doctor only gives them drug after drug and the media is saying diets just eat the carnivore diet, go Atkins, or whatever the media is pushing and they feel sicker and sicker instead of reversing their diseases and getting back to a point where they feel healthy and some people never felt healthy, like I said go back to where you feel healthy. Some people have never experienced that. Five-year-olds that are now morbidly obese. It’s so sad that so many of us suffer needlessly. Adam, today you're going to share your story and you're going to share some answers, what people can do today to change their lives, to take back control and to reverse these major diseases just like you did, just like I did. So we can learn true health. So thank you so much for coming on the show today. Adam Sud (0:08:54.440) It's my absolute pleasure. I'm so excited to be here. Ashley James (0:08:57.316) Awesome. Well, let's start off. Let's go all the way back to the beginning. Tell your story. Adam Sud (0:09:01.852) Yes. Okay, well, let’s go back to the beginning then. I was born in Houston, Texas, in 1982. I am a seventh-generation Texan. I grew up eating burgers and barbecue every single day—it was the diet of my culture, my parents, their parents, my friends, and their parents. It was everywhere that I was. To be fair, I had a pretty awesome childhood. I was born with an identical twin brother, so I was born with a best friend. I got another best friend a couple of years later—my younger sister, Jewel. We lived in an amazing middle-class neighborhood with all our friends. We rode our bikes to and from school every single day. My mom was a person who really compelled me to lean into my creativity and to inspire my imagination. My dad taught me how to play every sport under the sun, and it was great. But around the time I was 11 years old. I’m not really sure what was going on, but things started to change. I can remember the summer, it was 1993 or 1994—I was 11 or 12 years old. Let me tell you what you did in Houston, Texas, in the summer of ’93, when you were 11 or 12 years old. You got up in the morning, put on a bathing suit, go outside, run through the sprinklers in your house, go to your friend’s front yard and run across their slip-and-slide, then went to another friend’s house to jump in their pool. You’d go outside, find another sprinkler, ride your bikes, do that until noon. You go and have lunch, you’d go and do it all over again until you can’t walk anymore because you’d had the best day of your life. That’s how I spent my summers. I remember one day I came running into the house, and my dad stopped me and asked me how and why I already had love handles. Now, I'm 11 years old. I don't know what love handles are. I don't know how you get them. I don't know how you get rid of them. But what I'm very aware of is that my dad is not approving of this about me. I can remember before that moment, I was very accepting of myself, both physically and emotionally. I had a very good relationship with who I was, how I felt, and how I thought I looked. In that moment, everything kind of changed because what I began to believe was that there were now conditions upon which I was allowed to accept and love myself completely. If there's one condition, are there others? Why do I not know what they are? My gosh, am I not meeting them? I remember that was the first day I felt anxiety, and it was overwhelming. I felt unsafe in the presence of my father. My dad, I will say, is my superhero. My dad is the most incredible human on earth. To me, when I was growing up, he was Captain America. Coming in running eight miles, shirt off, six-pack abs, and he would walk right past us at the breakfast table. He would go stand in front of the refrigerator, and I would listen to him criticize his own body in front of me. I'm going to tell you, equally as damaging as hearing him criticize my body, hearing my father tell himself that he didn't love himself—that weren't those words, but that's what he was saying. When he looked the way that he looked—when I'm looking at him, the person who I thought was the greatest human alive—and he doesn't even think he's deserving of loving himself, that really, I believe, planted a seed in me. My gosh, if that is not worthy of acceptance, I'm never going to get there. How shameful must I be to myself, to my parents, to my friends? So I began to hide who I actually was. That's where I really started to notice these feelings of inadequacy, these feelings of depression and anxiety. I became a class clown. I didn't want people to look at me anymore. I started high school, and I started to be very, very self-critical, very socially anxious, even though I had a lot of friends. So my parents took me to go see a doctor. I was acting up in school, and the school had suggested that I go meet with someone. This doctor diagnosed me with ADHD. Now I have a person of authority, a person in a white coat who my parents have taken me to for the sole purpose of finding out, is there something else about our son that's unlovable? Not what they were actually doing, but that's the perception that I had. It turns out they found something. These aren't the exact words that the doctor used, but the doctor essentially said, “Adam, we found something else about you that's broken. Something else about you that's unacceptable to the world. Something about you that no one wants to see. In fact, it's a burden to have this be a part of you and have you be around people like you.” But don't you worry about it because we're going to medicate you for it. We're going to put you on this pill. It's called Ritalin. What this is going to do is it's going to insult that part of you so greatly that no one will notice it. Let's hope that that makes everything okay. Again, that's not the words that the doctor used. However, that is how I felt. Now, we moved from Houston, Texas, to Austin, Texas, before I started high school. I had gained weight in middle school. I was shy, insecure. I was really looking forward to going to high school with my friends in Houston. But I got taken away from that, and I got put into this big Texas football high school where I didn't know anybody. I'm going to tell you, I was very worried. Number one, am I going to be able to make friends? Number two, is it going to be difficult for me to feel safe in this school? I experienced relentless bullying my freshman year. The bullying was so bad, in fact, that halfway through my freshman year, when my parents would drop me off at school, the assistant principals would have to get their eyes on me to make sure that I made it into the school safely. I'm going to explain to you what my life felt like at that time. I would get up every single day living inside of a body that I had been conditioned to believe wasn't a safe, secure, or hopeful place to be. I would find myself in front of parents who are, without question, the most supportive and loving parents on earth but I didn't always feel a safe, secure, and hopeful place to be. I would go to school where physically, verbally, and emotionally, it certainly did not feel like a safe, secure, or hopeful place to be. I always had the sense that tomorrow was going to be equally unsafe. Now, that experience is a breeding ground for depression and anxiety. That is the appropriate psychological response to that situation, but no one had told me that that's how I was supposed to feel. People made me feel, not intentionally, but it just happened—that there was something wrong with me for not being happy and excited about going to school. Something gone wrong with me that I was always nervous, anxious, and hypervigilant. But I really appreciate the perspective of a British journalist named Johann Hari. Johann Hari says that depression is a form of grief for your life not being as it should. I like the perspective of anxiety being a signal. It's an alarm bell letting you know that there's something in the not-too-distant future, likely some point today, certainly tomorrow, that doesn't feel physically safe. Doesn't feel like a safe place to be. In fact, you should be worried about it. In fact, you should be so aware of this that you should be trying to fix it to make sure that tomorrow finally feels safe. These are all psychologically reasonable responses, but to me, they were overwhelming. They were debilitating. About this time, my prescription for Ritalin got changed to a new medication called Adderall. I'm sure everybody who's listening to this has heard of the medication called Adderall. But if you haven't, it's simply a stimulant-based form of medication used to treat ADHD and other psychological conditions. I can remember I would take one dose in the morning before I went to school, and I would take another dose halfway through school. So, I'd have my pill bottle with me. I remember I would take it in the middle of class. As I walked out of that classroom, I would normally turn right because if I went to the left, I would go past some lockers that belonged to kids I didn't want to go past. As I walked out of the class, I'm trying to turn right and somebody grabs me and pulls me to the left. It's one of the students that would routinely bully me. Here I am. I'm waiting for them. I'm preparing for the worst. But this was slightly different when his arm went around my neck. It wasn't in a harmful manner. It was more of a “buddy, come on over here. I want to talk to you.” He says, “Hey, listen, I want you to know that all that bullying, the hazing that we've been doing to you, it's all over. I mean, listen, you're new. You understand this, right? Nothing personal here. In fact, why don't you come to this party this weekend? Just bring that Adderall with you.” Now look, I may have been an awkward freshman, which I was. I may have been shy and quote-unquote unpopular, which I was, but I was not stupid. I knew exactly what was taking place. Do you want to know what I felt? I felt relief because I thought perhaps maybe I had found a way to feel a little bit safer in a world that didn't feel safe. So, I went to that party. I brought my Adderall with me, and I gave it to the guys at the party. In fact, I remember that's the first night I ever used Adderall as a recreational drug. I'm going to tell you that the moment that that high dose took effect, it was, boom. I cannot explain to you the feeling that took over me in that moment. Adderall is amphetamine. As a shy, insecure, scared kid, being flooded with amphetamine makes you feel like you're in charge. It makes you feel like you have superpowers, unbelievable confidence, and it does this with ease and repeatability. That's attractive. I noticed that as the weeks went by, I was able to lose weight with ease and repeatability. That's attractive. I was noticing I was able to make friends. I was able to go up to people and talk to them. I was able to study in a way that I'd never studied before, with ease and repeatability. That's incredibly attractive. I also noticed that my dad was engaging with me differently. It's likely because, with ease and repeatability, I found a way for school to not feel unsafe. So, I wasn't complaining about going to school anymore. I wasn't trying to skip school anymore. I was studying like someone who actually cared about school. So, my dad was engaging with me as if I had figured it out. Believe me, I thought I had. So, what I want you all to understand is that more so than a chemical hook in the substance if your life looked and felt like mine, if you were me and your life looked and felt like mine and you were to use, what you would notice is that that use looked and felt exactly like self-care. That's what I believe addiction actually is. It is misguided self-care. It's extremely misguided, but it is. It's misguided survival instincts, misguided emotional signals, misguided psychological signals— all that stimulate a sense that somehow you figured it out. Somehow, right now, you feel safe and tomorrow feels like a safe, exciting place to be. When you can flip a switch from your life feeling unsafe, insecure, and hopeless to safe, secure, and exciting, you will bond with whatever it is that does that for you. That is exactly what I did. And it worked for me. I lost the weight, I had friends, I had girlfriends, I got a scholarship to the college that I wanted to go to. Everything was finally feeling the way I thought life was supposed to feel like. The more Adderall I took, the more life became what I was hoping it would always become. Until eventually, more just became never enough. This is the problem that most people who struggle with substance abuse find themselves in. Because not everyone who uses is a substance abuser. Some people are just substance users. So we're not in the same category, and that's okay. But as a substance abuser, I got to a point where more became not enough and not enough became an ever-constant overwhelming problem. How much do I have left? How long will it last? Where will I get more? How much is it going to cost? Where am I going to get the money to pay for it? These five things overwhelmed every single moment of my life. They displaced my ability to care for the meaningful bonds in life that give you the experience of feeling alive. This is where substance abuse became substance use disorder. As it completely disordered my ability to care for myself, I decided what I was going to do was drop out of school. Now, I told my parents that the reason I was doing that was, “Hey, listen, I want to take a year off. I'd like to come back to Austin, and I'd like to work for a year. The school thing I'm having trouble with, maybe I just need to get a little experience in the real world and see what's going on.” What I really wanted to do was move back to Austin and connect with all the dealers that I knew and start scamming doctors, and that is exactly what I started doing. I became a criminal drug addict. I was doctor shopping. I was forging prescriptions, both of which are felonies. I was buying and selling drugs on the street. I was stealing from people. I started to treat my family like absolute garbage. The only time I would really start to interact with them at this point was to get money or things from them or to blame them and shame them for everything that was going wrong in my life because it couldn't be the drugs. Because you don't know what it felt like when it worked. You don't know the relief that I got. You don't know what it felt like when I first used, and I can figure this thing out. If I could just get a little bit more, if I could just have a little bit more for a little bit longer, I can get it back the way it was. You just don't understand. That was the feeling, and I was insulted and offended if you ever suggested my drugs were a problem because you don't know how well they worked when they worked. My life fell apart. I was using so much that I would run out of drugs within two weeks. I needed some kind of substance that could disconnect me from the experience of being present because I couldn't bear to be present in my life. I found fast food to be a phenomenal substitute. Easy, accessible, repeatable. My goodness, what an attractive thing that was for my psychology. I bonded with that. I would get up every single day and I’d consumed somewhere between five and 10 thousand calories of fast food a day. I would do that for about seven to 10 days straight. Everything from McDonald's, Whataburger, Torchy's Tacos. I would probably drink 15 sodas a day. Then I would get a hold of my drug of choice, which was Adderall, cocaine, and opiates. The average prescription for Adderall is about 10 milligrams for every 24 hours. The last five years or so of my substance use problem, I was doing a minimum of 450 milligrams every 24 hours, upwards of a thousand milligrams a day, and I would do that for seven to eight days straight. Five or so of those days, I wouldn't even sleep or eat, and by the end of that, I would end up in the beginning stages of drug-induced psychosis. I'd be hallucinating, I'd be very paranoid, and I'd develop obsessive-compulsive tics that were very debilitating.  The only way I could get myself out of this was to convince myself to take massive amounts of opiates so that I could finally fall asleep, wake up, and start that whole process all over again. My life was completely falling apart. I was over 300 pounds. I was nearly broke. I wasn't talking to my family. My family had every reason to give up on me. This is when my dad came to me with an opportunity. My dad is the founding investor of Whole Foods Market. At the time, Whole Foods Market had partnered with a man named Rip Esselstyn. Rip Esselstyn is the author at the time of the Engine 2 diet, now called Plant Strong. Whole Foods had decided that they were going to work with this man, Rip, to create a six-day retreat that they could send 100 of their team members to in order to learn how to adopt a plant-based Whole Foods diet in order to take charge of their health.  So instead of just offering health insurance, offer their team members, their employees, the opportunity to learn how to never be dependent upon it. There were a few spots open. This was the first or second time they had ever done this with the company. My dad says, “Adam, I'm begging you to go. I'm begging you, please do this.” Now, I didn't know who Rip was. I didn't want to know who Rip Esselstyn was. I didn't know what a plant-based diet was, and I didn't want to know. What I was certain of was that if I could convince my dad that I actually cared about this stupid retreat he was talking about, and I could go to it, I could get him to keep giving me money. So I said, “Yes, absolutely. Sounds like a really nice thing to do, and probably right, probably could be very helpful.” He said, “Well, here's the thing, Adam, you’ve got to come to the headquarters of Whole Foods. You’ve got to meet with Rip because you're not a team member of Whole Foods, and this is technically his deal. So you have to tell him that this is for real, and he’s got to believe you, and then he’ll give you a spot.” So I go down to Whole Foods headquarters and go up to Rip's office, and there’s Captain America number two, my dad, standing next to Rip Esselstyn, who was a former triathlete, former firefighter, and a legend of the plant-based movement. I do what I did best. I do what every drug addict does really well: I lied. Listen, one thing I know about myself is that every single day that I went out in public, I was putting on a show. It’s very exhausting. It’s very effortful to be dealing with substance use disorder. Everything that you do and every time you interact with someone, you have to be completely fake. You have to fake it. So I knew how to put on a show, and I knew exactly what to say. “Yes, Rip, I actually read some of your book, and it’s really exciting stuff. I'm not sure if I understand all of it, but man, this really seems like it will be the thing for me. Gosh, I'd really appreciate it if I could have a spot in your retreat. If you give me this, man, I'm going to do this better than anybody.” So, being the amazing human that he is, he gives me the opportunity to come. What do I do? I show up high out of my mind. In fact, by this time, I was closing in on 320 pounds. I was very diaphoretic, which means I was flush red, I would sweat through about three shirts a day, and I was very toxic. I actually lived like a hoarder at this time. I wasn’t showering for months at a time. I barely brushed my teeth, so my appearance, my presence, was very disruptive. In fact, it was so disruptive that there were talks about whether or not I should be removed from the program within about 36 hours of being there. Now, I’m actually not privy to the conversations that took place, but I have a feeling that the reason why I didn’t leave and wasn’t asked to leave is because Rip is now a very good friend of mine. So I know who he is. I know his character. I can tell you Rip took one look at me and said, “That is the guy who needs to be here the most. He is not leaving. He can sit at the back, do whatever, but he’s not going anywhere.” I went to every single lecture. I listened to everything that was being said. I heard from luminary thought leaders, luminary researchers, people like Ann and Essie, Dr. Esselstyn, Rip’s dad, Rip himself, Dr. Michael Clapper, Dr. Doug Lyle, Jeff Novick—people who are spreading this message that there is a real opportunity that exists within reorganizing your calories. If you were to reorganize your caloric environment to look like a plant-based environment, you have the capacity for remarkable change. It all made sense to me. It really did. I wish I could tell you that after six days of this retreat, and even noticing some of the effects of living in this very specific caloric environment—like noticing the effect it had on me, feeling I’d lost a little weight, sleeping better, and obviously my digestion feeling a hundred times better—I was motivated enough to change. I wish I could tell you that that was day one of my journey of recapturing my health. But here’s the thing: I simply wasn’t willing to give up what was allowing me to escape a life that was too painful of a place to be, on the gamble that this diet might work for me in one year. I was lonely. I was scared, and I just didn’t have the courage to do it. So I left, and my life got worse. By 2012, it was the worst it had ever been. I was nearly 350 pounds. I was two weeks away from being homeless. My family had cut me off. I hadn’t talked to my sister in over a year. I had no friends, and living hurt in every single sense of the word—physically, spiritually, and emotionally. Every single day that I was alive was the worst day of my life. I lived every day in full confidence that tomorrow was always going to be worse. When you live there long enough, eventually tomorrow just isn’t a place that you want to be a part of. I had been battling suicidal thoughts for six months, but I never really had a plan. On August 21st, 2012, I’m in my apartment, I’m high out of my mind, and I’ve been up for five days straight. Not thinking straight, I don’t really know where I am. I just kept taking more pills. Now, I’ve been abusing substances for over 10 years, so I’d had overdoses before, but I can remember feeling something distinctly unique. I felt very unwell, and I tried to stand up off of the couch. As I did, it felt like I got stabbed in the right side with a hot knife. My entire side of my body cramped, and I started to fall forward. As I do, I can see my vision going black, and I can tell you in that moment, that the feeling that I had—I’m not talking about the physical description that I just described, I’m talking about the feeling of, I’ll say it like thisy: I don’t know what it feels like to die, but I do know what it feels like to believe that you’re dying with a life full of regret. That is the most painful place that I’ve ever been. I can remember thinking to myself, as though my vision went black, “Just give me one more second.” I woke up on the floor of my apartment in a puddle of vomit and a pile of fast food garbage, surrounded by empty pill bottles. After a couple of moments realizing what had taken place, I was overwhelmed with immense relief. To be honest, I found it confusing because I really believed that I didn’t want to live anymore. I really believed that life was something I was no longer desiring to be a part of. However, that relief that was radiating from every single cell of my body that could only take place if there was something about myself and my life that I loved enough. Something about myself, my life, that was meaningful enough that I was relieved to still be a part of it. I’m going to tell you that that was the moment that I realized I don’t need to know exactly why I want to be here. I don’t need to know exactly why I feel I should go another day. But I knew exactly in that moment that I didn’t want this to end. I was determined to reconnect to whatever it was that made me excited that I didn’t die that day. I picked up the phone, I called my parents, and I asked for help. Two weeks later, they helped me check into a rehab hospital. Now, I’m going to tell you, checking into rehab is a very difficult experience. I remember walking through the front doors. As you look down the hallway, there are these two big double doors, and above them, there are the letters M-A-S. Medically Assisted, I can’t remember what the S stands for, but they just called it M-A-S, but it’s essentially the detox wing. The doors open, and this nurse comes out. She’s walking down the hallway, and she’s looking at me. I know she’s coming to take me. I’d never been to rehab before. To be honest, I didn’t have any friends that had ever been to rehab before, but I’d seen in the movies the dramatic experience of what a detox is, and I was very afraid. I was also afraid for other reasons. I was afraid: What if I fail at this? What if I actually do find a way to be sober, and I don’t like life without drugs? All of these worries, these fears, were just begging me to turn around and run out the door. My mom and my dad were at my side. The nurse comes, and she grabs my hand and starts leading me down the hallway. I know that whatever I’m about to experience is going to be very, very difficult. I look back, and my mom has her arms around my dad, and I can see my dad crying. I had only ever seen my dad cry once in his life. That was when his mom died in an accident. Watching him be so affected by it, kind of forced me to reconsider who I thought my dad was for me, and maybe he wasn’t this horrible adversary that I made him out to be. Because I had made him out to be my enemy. I was entitled, arrogant, and mean. I was very cruel to him. This man loved me anyway. He never gave up on me.  I walked into the detox wing, and went through the whole experience. They searched for belongings. They searched you. It puts you through a whole host of psychological evaluations and medical testing. It's a very dehumanizing experience. I felt like a criminal. I felt like a science experiment. I felt embarrassed and ashamed. What I’m aware of now in what was taking place, is there was a group of people that was caring for me. They want to make sure that I don’t have anything on me that can harm me, or other people. Was I trying to bring drugs in with me? Because, listen, rehab is an extraordinary effort. Trying to go 28 days without using. I know how to not use it until noon. So of course, it would be very reasonable to assume these people might be trying to bring some drugs with them, not to be malicious or break the rules. Because that’s the thing that makes them feel safe in a life that doesn’t feel safe. So they’re just looking for that.  They want to find out if there is anything medically going on with you. Most people who engage in substance use disorder to the degree that I did are engaging in a lot of behaviors that put their health at risk. So they want to know what else is going on with you. They want to get a sense of where you are psychologically, emotionally. They want to know who and what they are dealing with so they can care for that person the best way that they can.  I got a note from the doctor about 72 hours later saying that I needed to come with him. I walked in, I’m the most arrogant human ever. I really believe I’m about to get a clean bill of health. I got diagnosed with advanced type 2 diabetes. My A1C is a 12. My cholesterol is over 300. My blood pressure was 210/120. My resting heart rate was 105 to 115, somewhere in there. I got diagnosed with erectile dysfunction which I knew that I had. Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, anxiety disorder, sleep disorder, attention deficit disorder, suicidal depression. I got put on a whole host of medication for life. I can remember sitting across the desk from this doctor. This doctor is listing off all the things that are going to happen to me. Adam, you know you have very advanced type 2 diabetes and we're going to put you on the highest dose of all medication. It’s very likely that before you leave here we have to put you on insulin. There’s nothing you’re going to do about this. It’s genetic. What you are at risk for is that you are at risk for losing your sight, hearing, and limbs. So, there is a very real risk for you in the future.  You have a cholesterol of over 300; this is likely due to both your genetics and your lifestyle. You have cardiovascular disease, and so we’re going to medicate you for it. It’s not a lot you’re going to do about this. You’re going to be on medication for the rest of your life. You are at risk for a cardiovascular event. We’re going to monitor you for that. You have class 3 obesity. The success rate around weight loss is miserable. What we're going to do is medicate these conditions and hope for the best here, and we're going to medicate you for all the psychological and emotional and behavioral issues that you have as well.  But Adam, listen, if you want your life to get better, you have to stop using drugs. I remember sitting there thinking, that's the worst advice I've ever heard in my life. I mean, I knew that my future wasn't pretty. But this doctor just painted a picture of a future that was far more terrifying than I had ever imagined, and he painted it with certainty. If that's the case, what urgency now do I have to care about changing anything about my life? If, regardless of what and how I do it, I am destined to that future, my gosh, I should double down on my use. That future that he painted is far more terrifying, unsafe, and unsecure and hopeless than anything I had imagined. I thought to myself, my goodness, if I'm really going to do this thing, if I really want to do well, I need to reverse engineer aliveness. I need to become the architect of a life that, over the course of time, will feel like such a safe, secure, and hopeful place to be that use will no longer be necessary. I didn't have the authority to believe anything differently about what they were saying about depression and addiction and anxiety, that it's a genetic thing and that the chemical hooks. Your problem is your drugs and to stop using drugs. It just rubbed me the wrong way. It really rubbed me the wrong way. I thought I'm just going to get radical and fanatical about solving this problem. I was immediately transported back to those six days that I spent with Rip Esselstyn and his team. I said, wow, sounds like a reasonable plan to start. Why don't I just start there? Why don't I start by changing what I put on my plate? I don't understand that much about addiction, depression, anxiety, but my goodness, one thing I'm really good at is putting food on my plate. Why don't I just put that food on my plate? They didn't allow me to change my diet in the rehab hospital, but I moved into a sober living facility in Santa Monica. After 37 days in a rehab hospital. In this sober living facility, you actually have the authority to decide what you want to eat. It's a great place on the beach in Santa Monica called Transcend. I was living there with about 12 other guys who were all trying to move forward in their recovery. For some people, this is step one. For most people, it's the second step. You go into a sober living facility after rehab and you do this in combination with some kind of intensive outpatient therapy program. The way that it works is: you live there, you have people that oversee you, they make sure to give you your medications if you're on them, they take you to your meetings and to your therapy, and it's like your next step into living your life. It's really where you learn how to care for yourself again.  Rehab Hospital is an enclosed, locked-down hospital that safely divorces you from your substance. That's what it is. The real work starts afterwards. I remember that the way that they did the food in this place was you would go up to the house manager and you would write out a list of foods that you wanted for the week. You would hand him this list and he would send a driver to the grocery store and they would get everything you wanted and everyone else everything that they wanted, and they would stock the kitchen for you and everyone in the house. I said, okay, well, there's probably some healthy stuff in here, and I go to the kitchen, open up the cabinet, and sure enough, it looks like it's been stocked by nothing but teenagers who've been watching Nickelodeon commercials from the 90s. I mean, this place was an absolute joke. Everything you can imagine: hot pockets, pizza rolls, Doritos, you name it. You know what it is. Everything was in there. I said that look I might leave here in 30, 60, 90 days, however long I stay sober. But if I allow this to be my environment, I will not leave here feeling any better about life, and I can't let that happen. So I started to think to myself, all right, what did they serve at that retreat? I couldn't remember any of the recipes. I just remember there always being these main foods. There's always oats in the morning. Rice and beans were talked about all the time. Potatoes were talked about all the time. Fruit was completely fine. So I said, all right, great. I wrote out a list: oatmeal, rice, beans, potatoes, fruit. That was the entire list. I walked up to the house manager, whose last name is actually Hamburger. And I said, here's my list of foods. He said, Adam, there's like five things on here. I said, I'm aware. Can you just get me enough of those to last a week? He said, yes, are you sure you don't want anything else? I said, here's the thing. I'm trying to do something called a plant-based diet. To be honest, the only greens I ever really eat are the occasional piece of lettuce they forgot to take off my burger at McDonald's. This is all that I can remember from this thing I went to a couple of years ago. So I want to try this. He looked at me and said, Adam, if this is what you want to try, then this is what we're going to get for you. I wake up the next day. I am the most determined human you have ever seen in your life. I walk into that kitchen. I am so ready for this oatmeal, and I open up the cabinet, and there it is. There's the container of oats that I asked for. They put it right next to a box of fruity pebbles, which is the greatest cereal of all time. I do not really remember what happened next. I know what they told me.  Apparently I went berserk. I started throwing a fit. I threw a towel at someone and I ran out of the house and I just started running down the Santa Monica boardwalk until the assistant house manager, an amazing guy named Luke Chittick, who is equally responsible for me being alive today, ran after me and he grabs me and he says, Adam, what just happened? Because let me tell you what we all saw. We were sitting at the kitchen table. Everyone was having coffee or eating their breakfast. You walked out of the bedroom, walked into the kitchen, opened the cabinet and lost your mind. Like you just started yelling. You're cussing at people. You ran out of the house. What just happened? I probably said something really mean back to him. I can't really remember. I'm sure if I did, I apologize. I was just so upset, but he calmed me down and he walked me back to the house. I go into my bedroom and I'm sitting there thinking to myself. I was thinking about that question. He asked me what just happened. I got very curious about that because here's what was making me upset. Why couldn't this whole thing be a matter of intellect and will? Why can't I just know what to do, want to do it, end of story. What was going on in between those things that made it impossible for me at that moment? That's when I remembered a lecture by an evolutionary psychologist named Dr. Doug Lyle. This lecture is called the pleasure trap and the pleasure trap explains the biological mechanisms that compel behavior, right? Essentially, he asks a question: why, if we know what to do to be happy and healthy, why is it impossible to do it? Why does it feel so difficult to do it? Inside all of us, we have a psychological and motivational architecture that compels behavior. This architecture is designed really well to work within a very specific environment. That is an environment that looks like the environment that we have spent 99% of our evolutionary story surviving. That environment is one of scarcity and competition. Where what we need to survive and survive well are scarce. We are not the only ones looking for those things. Some of those things that are looking for it as well can be dangerous. Scarce, competitive and dangerous environment. In order to survive well in that environment, we have to be very efficient. We have to have some way of figuring out what's the right move to make with unbelievable efficiency and accuracy. In order to do that, we have a guidance system inside of us. That guidance system is our dopamine neuro pathway. Dopamine is a phenomenal neurotransmitter because it's not just a neurotransmitter that gives us an excited euphoria of pleasure, but it is an excited euphoria of pleasure that signals to our psychology that whatever we've just done is good for our survival. It's rewarding our survival. It's letting us know that if we do that more often, tomorrow is a safe place to get to, that we're going to survive, we're going to make it to tomorrow. Does that make sense?  So, I want everyone to think about pleasure as a signal. It's a signal to your psychology that something is either good for your genes and good for survival or bad for your genes and bad for survival. There's a range of experiencing pleasure that is appropriate for our psychology. Meaning that when we do it, whatever it is, if it's good for us, it will give us just enough pleasure to be compelled and attracted to do it again when we need it, but not so great that we would risk our lives consistently to do it. So if we were in the natural environment, right? The natural world, Ashley, you and I were in a village. The village leader said, hey, Adam, Ashley, here's the job for you both today. I need you to go into that unexplored area of woods over there. I want you to find the best food in that area. Go. Now, here's what we're doing. We're walking out into a very unsafe environment. We don't know what's there. This is a dangerous thing that we're doing. It's also very expensive. It costs us a lot of time and energy to do it, right? So we've got to have some kind of way of figuring out what's the best food choice to pick up and bring home. We don't have a phone. We don't have Google. Can't look it up. This is 100,000 years ago. We go out into these woods and in a clearing, just for the sake of this argument, we're going to see two options. One is a blueberry bush and the other is a plantain tree. Now, we look at the blueberry bush. It's very low to the ground. That's already attractive to us. We walk up to the blueberries, we bite into them. We notice that there's a small lift in the dopamine circuitry. There's a signal that says, hey, these are calories that are good for our survival. It seems like a good idea. The plantain tree, we know there's food, but it's up in the tree. So it's going to cost us a lot of time and energy to get it. We don't pay attention to it. But then Ashley looks over to the right and she notices that some of those plantains have fallen on the floor. She picks one up and she bites into it and there's nearly 10 times as many calories per bite in that plantain than in the blueberry. The lift in her dopamine circuitry is 10 times higher. She gets a signal immediately that says, do not waste a second on those blueberries. This is clearly the better choice. You need to pick up as many of these as you can and take them back to the village. That's exactly what we do. The more calorie density option, the greater the pleasure response. But the calorie density is never too great that it's harmful for our survival over the course of time. So now let's fast forward to modern day, we find ourselves in Times Square. We are surrounded by an environment that has shifted so far away from what is indicative and what is representative of our natural history and our natural behavior. There are now foods that are far more calories per bite than have ever existed in human history, that exist with greater ease and repeatability than have ever existed in human history, and our internal guidance system, our psychology has no understanding that this shift has occurred. Our guidance system is still operating as if it is in that scarce and competitive environment and every instinct in you is looking for the greatest pleasure for the least amount of pain and the least amount of energy. When we do that in Times Square, we end up making really poor decisions, but we're thinking and feeling like they're very, very good. I'll explain really quickly with this analogy. I love the way that Doug Lyle explains this. Imagine if you were to go out at night and you were to leave your porch light on. What you would notice is that there are moths and they're attracted to the light. The reason why they are attracted to the light is because they are actually designed by nature to use the brightest lights in the sky, in fact, celestial objects for navigation. It's how they figure out how to survive, how to move through the night and make the right choice. But when the brightest light in the sky is no longer the stars and the moon, when the brightest light in the sky is now your artificial porch light, it confuses their guidance system. It confuses their survival instincts. They're attracted to it. They hit that light. They flutter down. They hit it again. They hit it again. They hit it again. Eventually they die. You would look at that moth and you go, my goodness, there must be something wrong with that moth. Something must be wrong with the psychology. Why in the world would I do that? Not only why in the world would that moth do it, why would all these other moths that just witnessed this thing take place do the exact same thing? This doesn't make any sense. But what you want to do is pause and consider from a subjective point of view, what's actually taking place inside that animal's mind. By introducing a supernormal stimulus, a stimulus that isn't supposed to be there, that was never supposed to exist, that animal will now always run the threat of making poor decisions, potentially even fatal ones, all the while thinking and feeling like it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do. That is exactly what is happening with the modern food environment. That is exactly what is happening with the modern drug environment. They are all supernormal stimuli. They elicit a dopamine response that goes way outside the bounds of what is appropriate for our psychology. They look like bright shining lights of salvation. Every instinct in you is designed to be attracted to that thing. Unfortunately, that thing was never supposed to be here. Once I understood this, I felt all of the shame lifted from my shoulders because I really thought that the reason why the minute I saw that fruity pebbles and thought all I want to do is eat those fruity pebbles knowing I was already sick it was gonna make me sicker, I thought that was because I was weak, I had no willpower, I had no character, I had no discipline. But the reality is the reason why I responded the way that I did is because that is the exact appropriate response my psychology should be having to a stimulus that is not supposed to be there, especially when my life is painful and nothing about my life feels successful. I'm going to look for any stimulus that can give me a sense of feeling biologically and psychologically successful. I also learned from Doug Lyle that if I want to reset my dopamine neurotransmitters, if I want to recalibrate my guidance system, I had to be willing to do one simple thing, be comfortable being uncomfortable. If I could simply decide to make the right choice long enough, I would give my dopamine neurotransmitters the opportunity to regain their sensitivity, recalibrate themselves to what is appropriate to my psychology. In fact, what we know is that the journey of regaining your dopamine sensitivity is about a four-month journey. However, 80% of that journey occurs within the first two weeks. So if I was willing to spend the next 14 days making the right choice, I would wake up and it wouldn't feel like a chore anymore. If I could go just a little bit longer, I might actually look forward to it. So why would I be willing to do this? A lot of people would say, well, that's pretty obvious. You were 350 pounds, you nearly died from substance abuse, had diabetes, heart disease, and erectile dysfunction. What else could it be? It's true. Every single one of those things was occurring. But none of them were my motivation and that is because human beings are not motivated by negative consequences.  Negative consequences do one phenomenal thing for people. They let you know that there are loving and meaningful bonds in your life that are being threatened. Those loving and irreplaceable parts of your life that give you the sense that life is something you want to be a part of. Those things that when threatened enough, you would fight like hell to protect. Whatever those things are, that's why you do anything that you do in life. It's why you do what you already do. It's why you're compelled to learn to do new things. It's why you're compelled to learn the things you do better. They are an act of service to whatever it is in your life that gives you the sense that life is meaningful. I told myself I was going to spend zero time focusing on what was the matter with me and spend every single moment of my day focusing on what matters to me. Let that be what guides me to choose one thing over another. I didn't want to spend a second avoiding meat, eggs, dairy, and drugs. I wanted to spend every moment of my day actively choosing a whole food plant-based diet, movement, and recovery.  I wanted those choices to be acts of service to me and my life because I had spent my entire life believing that my body was my adversary. Starting when I was a kid, unknowingly my parents conditioned me to believe that my body was an adversary. It was a shameful thing that I would have to restrict and over exert every single day in the hopes that I could finally make it something lovable. The bullies in my high school confirmed it again and then I confirmed it to myself later in life. But the best thing about surviving a near-death experience is the knowledge that the reason why you didn't die is because your body didn't let you. To realize that every single day you've been alive is because your body is your greatest ally. Your body has been fighting for you since the day you were born. Whatever it is you've gone through, whatever it is you're going through right now, the reason why you're going through it and are going another day is because your body is fighting for you. It's the greatest ally you'll ever have in your entire life. Once I came to realize that, all of a sudden, I decided it's my turn to take care of my body. My body wants me to thrive. My body wants me to be healthy. I didn't know how to take care of it. I didn't know how to be a loving caretaker of a body whose entire purpose for existing is to keep me alive one more day. I got up every single day, I prepared a meal on a plate. That was about health and wellness. It's an affirmation of recovery. It was an act of service to myself and my life. Within four months, I completely reversed my type 2 diabetes, my heart disease, and my erectile dysfunction. Within 10 months, I lost 150 pounds, and within one year, I was off of every single medication I was put on in rehab, including the antidepressants, the mood stabilizers, the sleeping medications, the anxiety medications, and the ADHD medications. I've been in active recovery. Continuous active recovery for 12 years I've experienced a lot of amazing things. I've realized that food is a vehicle. It's a vehicle that has allowed me to rediscover how unbroken I actually am. I've become very passionate about figuring out how I can design my environment to meet my needs. In the beginning, I really thought that this whole thing was a matter of willpower and determination. How do I out-compete the bad choices? That was kind of exhausting. Within the first three, four months, that's kind how I did it. What I realized after studying more of Doug Lyle's work is that, I came up with this quote, it's so funny, I gave this quote at a presentation and he was in the audience and he came up to me he said, I've been studying evolutionary psychology for like 20 years and I've been looking for a way to give people an answer in one sentence and you finally said it. I said, if you want to be successful, don't try to out-compete the wrong environment. Make your environment look like your goals. Make your environment look like the life you want to live by simply being in that environment. It will encourage the behaviors that will give you the life that you want. I became meticulous about that lifestyle. I became meticulous about that perspective. I crafted and cultivated a physical environment, the clothes that I wore, the place that I lived. A caloric environment, the foods that I've kept in my house, and the social environment.  This is really important for those of you who are starting your journey. You don't have to get rid of your friends that don't live the life that you live, but you might have to spend a little less time with them. It's very important that your social circle looks enough like the life that you want. They don't have to look exactly like it, but they need to look enough like it. The reason for this is what you want is to be in a situation where by being in their presence, they offer you the opportunity to engage in the habits you're looking for. Rather than having to explain your habits to people who don't agree with you. You should also be a person who offers your circle the opportunity to engage in the habits that they want. It's important that you all be a meaningful part of the goings on of what is important to each other. This creates a sense of being valuable, of having a sense of esteem within a community of shared respect. That is a very large part of what it means to be part of recovery. It's to see yourself as something important to the goings on in the world around you. I know that when I tell this story, it seems like I did this whole thing very easily and with no help. That couldn't be further from the truth. I'm very privileged to have a family that I have. There were a lot of days when I didn't want to go when I didn't want go another day in recovery. There were days where I thought about quitting. I would call my parents, I would call my dad, and I would say, I don't think I can do this anymore, this is too hard. He'd say, that's okay. If you knew how to do this, you would have done it already. It's not about getting it right. My dad said, if there's something about your life that you don't like, and you can't do anything about it, then it's not a problem. It's just the way things are. If there's something in your life that you don't like and you can do something about it, it's also not a problem. You just need to think about it differently. My dad really helped me reorganize how I thought about approaching recovery. I thought I had to get it right every single day. My dad gave me permission to learn every single day and he picked me up when I fell down. My brother would be there for me. My mom, my sister. I treated my parents terribly in recovery and now they are my best friends. My dad is a mentor to me and I'll tell you that how they treated me when I was at my worst is the model for how I want to treat myself. I can't imagine what it must be like to love someone so much that even though this person says the most horrible things to you, does the most horrible things to you, treats you the way that he does. You love him unconditionally anyways. My gosh, what it must be, what it must feel like to love someone like that. What if I could learn to love myself that way? I also know that I'm here because of Rip Esselstyn. When I met Rip, I was in survival mode. I would get up every single day, I put any toxic substance I could into my body, food or drugs, because all I wanted to do was numb myself up and escape life. That's an exhausting way to live. But from what RIP offered me in terms of nutrition, I've been able to stop surviving my day and start living my day. When I get to live my day, my life is something that I want to be a part of. Now, people see before and after photos of me and they think, wow, that's really some remarkable change there. I'm very proud of what I've been able to achieve physically. My physique and my health, I haven't reversed all the conditions, no medications, really excited about fitness. I work out five days a week, I play a lot of pickleball, that's great. But that's just before and after photos, that's not a profound change. Profound change is waking up every single day and knowing that I have the best friends in the world. If I was to pick up the phone right now and call any one of my friends, they would answer the phone. They would answer and they'd be excited to hear what I have to say. That's because they wanted me to be a part of the goings on of their life. I want them to be a part of the goings on of my life. I want us to share in a meaningful experience of being alive. In 2020, I had the opportunity to talk to this incredible naturopathic doctor named Dr. Laura Gouge. She is probably the smartest human I've ever met. She has an incredible understanding of neuro-atypical brains and things like mast cell activation syndrome, histamine intolerance. Absolutely brilliant. I also saw a photo of her. I was like, wow, that not only a brilliant woman, she's the most beautiful woman in the world. Like I could look at that photo all day long, but I don't have to because I married her in December of 2022. If you want to know what profound change really feels like, profound change is waking up one day, having spent half of your life being convinced that you're unlovable and that you could never imagine anyone truly loving you to knowing that in about one hour you're going to be standing in front of the love of your life and hearing her say I do, I love you so much, I want to partner my life with you. That's a profound change. And I can remember thinking to myself that day. Wow, I can't believe I almost ended my life before the best part ever began. To those people who are on that edge, I just want you to know I know how you feel. I want you to know I've been where you are. I'm going to tell you that there are far more solutions in making it just one more day than there are in ending it right now. I may not know what you're going through. But I see you and I'm rooting for you. I've lost six friends to suicide and overdose since getting into recovery. It's unfortunate. Recovery is a world that you get into and you make friends and they don't all make it out with you. One of the things I like to do is really honor my friends who wanted to be alive as much as I did. They just didn't make it. One of them had probably the best quote I've ever heard, and I try to live this way every single day. He said, well, you've all heard the quote: if you want to be happy, you should just live like it's the last day of your life. Ashley, you probably heard that quote. He said, that's really terrible advice because if you were to actually live like it's the last day of your life, you wouldn't really do anything important to care for your future. You probably wouldn't go to work. Probably wouldn't go to the grocery store. You wouldn't clean your house. You might not brush your teeth. You might not eat well. These are things that are important to your life, and you probably wouldn't care so much about them. He said, if you'd really like to be happy, just treat everyone you meet as if they're living the last day of their life. I try to carry that message with me everywhere that I go. I always end the story part of my podcast recordings with that quote so that he stays around a little bit longer.  Ashley James (1:11:48.114) When my mom passed away, my dad and I, we had a regular type of relationship, grew closer. I grew up afraid of him, sort of similar to you. I knew he loved me conceptually, but I was afraid of him. He was a really big guy, very loud, could get explosive and angry at times. After my mom died, it was just the two of us, and we spent six years becoming best friends. We both agreed that we would say everything that needed to be said and that we wouldn't have any regrets. When I got the phone call from the sheriff saying they found him not alive, it was devastating. I also lost my dad with no regrets and with everything said, and that was such a beautiful gift. My dad wasn't a healthy person. My mom was the healthy person, which was so odd that she died so young at 55, and he died of a broken heart six years later. We always expected him to go first because he never took care of himself, and she always took care of herself. But the gift that it gave us was that he and I said everything and became so close to each other. That concept of living like every single person in your life is living their last day means you will say the unsaid things and make sure they know you love them. You're not going to get petty. You're not going to be stupid and egotistical. That is such great relationship advice for friends, even for business colleagues. Don't take people for granted. Don't be petty. Don't be egotistical. Make sure that if you get a phone call tomorrow that they're no longer here on this plane of existence, yes, of course, you'll be sad, but you won't live with the regret of not saying what needed to be said and not caring the way you wanted to care for them. I just love that you said that. That is such beautiful advice to live like it's their last day, not yours. Adam Sud (1:14:28.368) Yes, treat everyone you meet like it's the last day of their life. Ashley James (1:14:31.374) Right. It really puts things in perspective and lets you treat them without regrets, as opposed to just being so freaking petty. We can get so wrapped up in our own stuff. We can be so me, me, me first. If that person's not going to be here tomorrow, then that really just snaps us back into our senses. Thank you so much for elaborating your story in a beautiful way and taking us on your journey. I want to go back to the first few months. When you were in rehab, the doctor placed you on all kinds of medication. I'm guessing it was blood pressure, cholesterol, metformin, insulin, you said maybe antidepressants, maybe some sleep pills.  So you've got maybe some proton pump inhibitors or something for digestion. He probably went down the list and prescribed you the 10 most common drugs. In the first few months, you're still learning how to eat this way. You're still very much learning, but the fact that you didn't reach for those fruity pebbles. I'm so proud of you because that's the one thing with addiction that people don't realize that when you're in recovery, alcohol, example, if everyone's ever gone to an AA meeting or if you've just watched Fight Club or some Hollywood bastardized version of what an AA meeting looks like, there's donuts. There's always donuts. There's never not donuts. In any kind of typical recovery program, you're going to see sugar. That's because they're just trading one addiction for another. You're not really sober if you're eating processed food. Adam Sud (1:16:34.288) So I'll say that the typical model for recovery is really a flawed one in my opinion. The typical model for recovery suggests that the solution to addiction is to not use. Well, yes, of course. I understand that the substance is a threat to this individual's life and is a behavior that is destroying their ability to care for themselves and their future. But let's just look at it from the perspective of what's actually taking place. Let's say someone was to walk into recovery, a rehab hospital, and say, I have a problem. I'm an addict. I'm suffering from addiction and I need help, and they say okay. Well, what are you addicted to? They say, Well, I use heroin every single day. This person who's in charge says, Well, okay. Your problem is heroin. So we need you to just not use heroin. What we need you to do is we need you to own the identity that you are an addict. That's who and what you are. You can't do anything about that. So what you're going to do is you're going to will yourself through your life. You're going to avoid and abstain from use for the rest of your life. We'll call that recovery. What we're going to hope for is that over the course of time, your life gets better as a result of just being abstinent.  Okay. Here's what I don't appreciate about that perspective. I appreciate abstinence has its place in recovery and that there's an important part that requires abstinence. But recovery isn't found in the singular pursuit of abstinence. When you tell that person who comes in, I have a problem, I use heroin every single day. You tell them that their problem is heroin. That the reason why they use it is because when they first use heroin, the chemical hooks in that substance grab a hold of them, and that's why they can't stop using it. There's a genetic problem. They have addiction in their genes, it's part of their history, it's who they are. What you're telling them is that their pain means nothing. What you're telling them is that whatever hurts them, whatever it is that makes their life miserable, whatever it is that is causing them to not want to be a part of life, is not a variable in this equation. When you do that, you also say what you love is irrelevant. That is a very dangerous thing to do. I want people to think about addiction not as an indication of biology and psychology gone wrong, but rather the appropriate and expected biological and psychological response to environments, physically, socially, and emotionally gone terribly wrong. Addiction makes complete sense. It is the appropriate response to things gone terribly wrong in your life, and you are seeking some kind of way through ease and repeatability to feel like you figured it out. Substances—heroin, cocaine, fast food—give you an immediate rush of a dopamine cascade that gives you some sense, it's not a complete sense, but it's a pretty strong sense, that somehow, you don't really know how, life just got better. It doesn't hurt anymore, and that's what you're seeking. I’d like to say it like this, when someone is in pain or when someone is suffering and they're suffering enough, they will do almost anything to be anything other than what they are, which is a human being in pain. Addicts are not criminals. They're human beings in pain. Depressed people are not sick. They're human beings in pain. Suicidal people are not crazy. They're human beings in pain. Maybe if we stopped so desperately trying to define everybody by what it is they struggle with, maybe we'll see that their pain makes sense.  I think that we need to approach recovery from the same perspective. If I were that person—that person who's out there now on the street trying to get a fix of heroin or whatever it is—if I was them and my life looked and felt exactly like theirs, would I be equally compelled to numb myself? Likely, yes. Which means their behavior isn't pathology. Their behavior is appropriate. Their life has gone terribly wrong. What we need to do is help them figure out how they can write themselves. They can correct the path of their life. They can get to a point where their life feels safe, secure, and hopeful enough that use is no longer attractive to them in the same way it is today. Unfortunately, these substances are very, very powerful. The draw to use will likely always be there to some degree—not the way it is now, but to some degree. Some sense of being a part of a movement of people who are equally excited about this thing. There's a great quote, another quote by Johann Hari, that says, loneliness is not the physical absence of people. It's the sense that you have nothing of value to share with anyone. Therefore, the solution to loneliness isn't necessarily more people. But it's being in it together, finding something that is important and meaningful to you and other people. Whatever it is, you can be a part of it together. I think that's one of the things that the recovery community does really well, is they create community. A sense that you're all in this thing together, you know exactly what it is, and it is important to all of you. That is how you have a sense of belonging, and that's something that recovery communities do really well. The story about addiction is terribly wrong, but that part I really appreciate about the recovery community. Ashley James (1:22:36.450) So, Johan Hari, I had him on the show back all the way back in episode 240. It was amazing having him on the show. He talked about his first book and his second book. I was honored to have him on the show. So I recommend listeners go back and check out episode 240. I also had the honor of having Rip Esselstyn on the show episode 448 and his dad, which really was, these are the life-changing episodes. You've quoted some of my most favorite episodes, Cadwell Esselstyn, episode 232. I have yet to have Dr. Lyle on the show, although I really want to. I have had his business partner, Dr. Goldhamer, talking about pleasure trap and fasting. That one was super transformative for me. That was episode 230. You'll hear if you listen. The only way I remember 230 is this: my husband's corny joke is, when's the best time to go to the dentist? Tooth hurting, tooth hurting. Like your tooth hurts, tooth hurting. Okay, okay. It's so bad. But that's how I remember that one episode. I can never forget 230 is the episode with Dr. Goldhamer. I've done over 500 episodes, and this was back several years ago. When I did my episode with Dr. Goldhamer, I was still very much in the keto diet is the healthiest diet out there. I had had several keto doctors on the show. Although when I did keto, it destroyed my liver and it almost destroyed my husband's kidneys. We had some major health problems arise from, we were doing doctor-led keto. We went to a naturopath every week. We were very strict, and my liver gotten so inflamed. You could see it. It was pushing my ribs, flailing my ribs out on my side. We were doing it, clean keto, quote unquote, clean keto. It made my husband's kidneys almost go into kidney failure. So this was doctor-led, and the whole kind of diet within a month. We were doing it less. It was about a month where we were maybe a little bit more than a month. It was around 30 days into that diet. If we'd kept going, we would probably have ended up in liver failure and kidney failure. That's not healthy at all. I've done over 30 diets in my life. A lot of them have studies around them, seemingly super healthy. Constantly searching for what's the best healthy version of how you're supposed to eat. Having him on the show, it was just a really great slap in the face because he said the right things that made me go, wait, what? Start questioning my belief system, which I believe we should always question our belief systems. Have your head so open your brain will fall out. It's a dichotomy though. Use critical thinking, but come at it with a beginner mind. Some people are better than others. Make sure you question your own belief system so you can learn. Because if your mind is closed, you've already made up your mind about something, you will not take in new knowledge. So that's in my seeking and my constant curiosity around health and wellness, I've discovered I don't have diet dogma. I just coached someone the other day who's been a raw vegan for many years, and now they can't feel their hands, they can't feel their feet. Hands are starting to tingle. I said to them, listen, as healthy as we perceive raw vegan to be, you should probably look into being fat deficient. It's unhealthy. Vegan isn't healthy. Oreos are vegan. Fried Oreos are vegan. Adam Sud (1:26:44.155) I tell people all the time, veganism doesn't tell you what you eat, it only tells people what you don't eat. The thing is, I went back to school, I studied nutritional biochemistry, I became an expert in insulin resistance reversal. I was the lead food addiction and insulin resistance coach for Mastering Diabetes from when they started the company, and I went on to lead the first controlled trial to investigate the effects of nutrition on addiction recovery outcomes. I published that in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine and then it was featured in Forbes and Psychology Today. I've coached probably a thousand people on how to take charge of their health and I have been plant exclusive for 12 years. Here's the thing, here's what I know to be true. First and foremost, I care very little about being right. I want to be helpful and accurate.  So in my pursuit to be helpful and accurate, when we look at the dietary patterns across the board and you look at human health outcome data, not mechanistic speculation, but looking at human health outcome data, what becomes very clear is that there really is no one best diet.  However, there are four very clear themes that we see in the dietary patterns that do the best for humans over the course of time. Simon Hill, who’s a very dear friend of mine, speaks about this a few times, and says these themes are very clear. First, high in fiber. The best dietary patterns across the board are all high in fiber. Number two, low in saturated fat. Now that doesn’t mean low in fat. Doesn’t have to be a low fat diet, but it certainly means replacing saturated fat-rich foods like cheese, butter, and animal products with either polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, so nuts, seeds, avocados, olive oil, or carbohydrate-rich plant foods or protein-rich plant foods. The third theme is prioritizing plant protein over animal protein. Right now in Western cultures, 70% of the protein consumed by each person per day comes from animal products and only 30% comes from plants. You should start by at least flipping that. At least flipping it and then trying to move yourself forward a little bit more towards maybe 90 or 100% if it works for you. The last theme is the removal of ultra-processed foods. However you organize your diet, whether you want to be slightly higher fat, slightly lower fat, slightly higher carbs, slightly lower carbs, slightly higher protein, slightly lower protein, depending on your preferred lifestyle and activities, as long as you meet those four themes, that is the best place to start. Get your energy balance appropriate and figure out what you’re fueling your life for. What makes you feel alive? What gives you the sense that tomorrow is somewhere you want to be a part of and you’re looking forward to it? When I did my research study and we noticed that the plant-based group, this is really interesting. This was the first time ever that a study was done on the effects of nutrition on addiction recovery outcomes in treatment centers. So we had a completely plant-based diet compared to the diet being served in the treatment facility, which actually was a very high-quality diet. It just included meat, eggs, and dairy and some processed foods. What we discovered is that by week 10, there was a statistically significant increase in self-esteem, resilience, and self-compassion within the plant-based group. We did every other measurable outcome you could: all biometric outcomes, microbiome study, vitamin levels, anxiety, depression, mania, obsessive-compulsive drug use. Our primary outcomes we’re looking at were resilience and self-esteem. That is because when you look at the biggest predictors for long-term recovery, resilience and self-esteem tend to stand out the most. People are always asking, why do you think a plant-based diet increased resilience and self-esteem? In fact, this was the first time diet has ever been linked to resilience. People always want to say, do you think it’s the microbiome? I said, well, I mean, of course, some of it, yes sure, why not? I mean, everyone wants to throw out the statistic that 90% of your serotonin and 50% of your dopamine is produced in the gut, but it’s important to remember that none of those transmitters cross the blood-brain barrier. They’re all involved in digestive processes. But your gut health does help in the manufacturing of short-chain fatty acids that do cross the blood-brain barrier that are important to your optimal brain health.  However, what I really think is taking place is you take someone like myself who checked into treatment day one, the sickest, most disconnected I’ve ever been in my entire life. I got diagnosed with metabolic conditions and chronic diseases while in rehab. If you were to ask me, how do you feel after getting diagnosed with all those conditions? I would have said to you, I don’t know what my future looks like. It doesn’t make sense to me anymore. I’m afraid to be there, and I’m not sure I want to be there at all. All of a sudden, what I’m going to start experiencing after saying those things out loud is huge amounts of depression and anxiety. I don’t feel like there’s anything I want to wake up and be present for. Being present in my life is difficult. I have to take medications. Being alive hurts physically and emotionally. When I think about tomorrow, it’s not a pretty picture. I’m actually anxious. I’m worried about what it’s going to be like because I can’t make sense of it. You put that person, me, into a plant-based environment and you say, live there. Just stay there. Live and eat in that environment and also practice gratitude. We’ll come check on you in three months. Come back and check on them. How do you feel? Well, I noticed that my body feels, for the first time in a long time, a good place to be. I’m not sick anymore. My diseases have gone away. The trajectory of my future has shifted.  I’m actually kind of excited to see what the next six months are going to be. I’m actually excited to see what my life is going to be tomorrow. Tomorrow feels a safe, secure, and hopeful place to be. That’s the biggest role, I think, that nutrition plays for people in recovery. It gives them the opportunity to correct the trajectory of their physical and biological future. If you don’t think that plays a role in you psychologically, I don’t know how else to convince you. It plays a massive role. I know sitting here now at 42 years old, that when I’m 82 years old, I have a pretty confident stance that I’m going to be okay. That I’m going to be mobile, that I’ll play with my grandkids, that my wife will be healthy, that my friends who take their health seriously will be there. That’s a safe feeling. That’s a sense of relief.  Nutrition is an act of service in protecting that future. I think teaching nutrition in recovery appropriately and accurately can do nothing but be an act of service to every single person who’s there. I think it should be taken seriously and not used as a moment of escape from a day that’s always going to be difficult no matter what you feed the person. That’s my thought.  Ashley James (1:34:12.977) I love that. Thank you so much for sharing about that study. Are there any other key takeaways from the study? It sounds like it was pretty comprehensive. Adam Sud (1:34:24.091) So what we noticed was when you look at the two groups, the highest performing group and the lowest performing group. First, let me just say, there wasn't a single outcome in either group that didn't increase. So that says two things. One. The diet that they serve at the treatment facility where we did it, Infinite Recovery, is pretty good. Number two, the program is really good. So that every single outcome, whether psychological or biological, everybody did well. Ashley James (1:34:57.897) You mean people who ate meat versus not meat. Everyone was doing well because their recovery program was good. Adam Sud (1:35:03.833) Yes, actually, the diet, while it did have meat, eggs, and dairy, was still a very high fiber diet. It was still really well done; it wasn't a traditional Western diet. So all their psychological outcomes got better while they were there, so everybody did well. However, the only group that showed outcomes that did better than the other was the plant-based group. The plant-based group, everyone else did really well, but the plant-based group was the one that did better. This says two things. Number one, first and foremost, that at the very least, a plant-based diet is in no way a hindrance to anyone's recovery. Number two, it might be the best dietary pattern for people in recovery.  The second thing is that when we compared the lowest performing group to the highest performing group, what we noticed is that there was somewhere around a 5X difference in fiber intake between the lowest performing individual and the highest performing individual. That's useful. What that means is instead of throwing down these diet dogma words—carnivore, keto, paleo, vegan—all these words that are just outfits that don't make any sense. Instead of doing that, just focus on how much fiber is this person getting per day? Are they getting any? If they are, is it coming from real food or is it coming from processed foods? How can we start to change that scenario? Because starting there isn't really that offensive to anyone. If I was to say to somebody, hey, you want to eat meat, eggs, and dairy? Okay, fine, but here's what I want you to do. I want you to do that while getting 45 to 60 grams of fiber per day. What happens is, as this person starts to approach that task of getting 45 to 60 grams of fiber from real foods, they notice that in order to do that, they can't eat very much, if any, meat, eggs, and dairy. They're so focused on the goal of eating fiber and seeing the benefit of fiber consumption that they're not offended by the ideas thrown at them on social media about what's the best diet. So I think that's a really good way to approach it. Ashley James (1:37:10.709) I love it. The variety of fiber. When you say fiber, you're not talking about Metamucil or some kind of real food, real whole. So, black beans are high in fiber, and if you take chia seed, I want you to be cautious. I have a friend who perforated her colon because she just took scoops and scoops and scoops of chia seed, put it in a smoothie, and immediately drank it. She gunged up.  The thing is don't be extreme. I have that built into my personality. Like I moved to Vegas from Canada before settling just north of Seattle. That's where I met my husband in Vegas. I was never a gambler, but I think addiction, personality and gambling kind of go hand in hand. It was far too easy to lose a lot of money there. So I quickly learned not to go to the casinos. I don't know if you've ever been in front of a gambling machine, where it's all the bells and whistles and things are spinning. There's a button there called Max Bet. That Max Bet might be $5, it might be $20, it might be $100. It's betting everything. So my husband and I have this joke in our relationship where we go max bet. You're going all in, but usually, it also could mean something unhealthy. You're overdoing something in an unhealthy way. We should really examine, hey, if you're max betting this, is that actually healthy? You can overeat something that is healthy. Two bananas are healthy, but 50 bananas could kill you in one sitting. Too much water and you die. So when you look for how much fiber can I get, it's how much fiber can I get from a variety? I think eating that rainbow—I love that analogy of eating the rainbow—really trying to fill your plate every day with as many colors as you can. Berries are high in fiber, greens are high in fiber, and it's not all just salads. We can make great oil-free stir fries. There's so much fun we can have in the kitchen, and we can make it delicious. My husband, he was a steak and potatoes person, only ate meat. I couldn't feed him vegetables. He would maybe have a beef burrito. He loved beef and cheese, and maybe there were some vegetables in his burrito. Or he loved carne asada nachos—that was a big thing for him. He would sit down and eat a quart of ice cream over the course of a weekend, or no, wait, a gallon? What are those giant tubs that are so big they need a handle? I'm sorry, I'm from Canada. I'm all liters over here, but it's a gallon, right? Four quarts. This was 16 years ago. My husband and I were dating, and he said, “Let me introduce you to this.” I was dairy-free at the time, and he brought dairy back into my life, which we have since, many years ago, stepped away from dairy it’s incredibly addictive. I have a great interview actually with Dr. Neal Barnard, and if that's the one thing you can remove from your diet, start there. Cheese is addictive. Start with removing all dairy products and see the transformation. He went from that, to six years ago, my husband woke up one day and said, “I'm never eating an animal again.” He just snapped. Something in him snapped. He said he'd been struggling with it internally for a while. He's a pacifist. He doesn't kill spiders for me. I took that as, “He doesn't love me as a husband,” but he carries the spiders outside. He's the six-foot-seven guy who always breaks up fights because people think he just stands between guys. I've seen him do it. He'll stand between guys fighting and stop them. He's such a pacifist, actively pacifist. He said, “I just can't, I couldn't come to terms with that. I'm part of murder. Who am I to take someone's life? Who am I to take an animal's life?” He loves animals. Animals love him. Something in him just snapped. So I had to learn very quickly how to cook plant-based. Because I was doing the podcast I was already learning and sort of implementing more and more fiber. I'd done interviews where they said, “Try to eat 100 grams of fiber a day. Try to eat 50 different types of food.” You're hard-pressed to even find a variety of fruits and vegetables. You have to go to the farms. There's a farm just north of us where you will find foods they don't have in the grocery store. You can pick and eat foods that are just amazing in variety. So very quickly, I started cooking whole food plant-based, and we were already oil-free for several years. He turned to me on day three and said—now this is a guy I could not get to eat a vegetable—”. He turned to me and said, “If you had told me that the food would taste this good, I would have done this years ago. It tastes so good. It tastes so much better than meat.” I mean, yes, you have to learn a little bit of cooking. There are plenty of guides out there, plenty of videos if you're willing to give it a try. I love your sole focus. You have to remember, though, when you increase fiber, you have to increase your water intake also because the fiber binds to water. You don't want to be dehydrated. People are chronically dehydrated. Just drink more water throughout the day, spread it throughout the day, and make your focus be how many grams of fiber you can get from a variety of sources. I tell people, you can give some advice around this, but don't go from five grams to 50 grams overnight because you're going to have a lot of bloating. Your microbiome isn't used to it. As you eat a variety of cooked and raw foods, you will actually impregnate your gut microbiome with new healthy bacteria that helps you digest and assimilate your nutrients. So I tell people, increase by five grams a week. If you're starting out at five to 10 grams already—the average American eats 15—it's hard for the average American, if you're eating processed food, to even get 15 grams in. Then if you could just increase by five grams a week, you will prevent that digestive distress that people get at the beginning if their microbiome is really shot. Adam Sud (01:38:42.952) Yes, another thing I would say is don't try to tell yourself that this is how you're going to live for the rest of your life. The reason for that is, number one, the human psychology can't conceptualize beyond about three to four weeks. So let's take, for example, Ashley, let's just say for the sake of this conversation that you're a new coaching client of mine. You come to me and say, I want to learn how to eat healthy, I eat a very Western diet, I eat a lot of processed foods, I don't know what I'm doing. I say to you, okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to put you on a whole food, plant-based diet, and that's going to be what you're going to eat for the rest of your life. Here's all the recipes, go. What is actually taking place inside of your psychology is that your psychology is trying to figure the amount of time and energy required to complete this task. How are you going to eat this way for the rest of your life? It's trying to figure out how to make this for breakfast. How do I do this for lunch? I don't know. How much food do I get? I don't know. How much of this do I get? I don't know.  As you go about your day trying to do this, every time you step outside the guidelines of a plant-based diet, your psychology is going to go, see, you can't do this for the rest of your life. I just showed you that. You just showed me that you can't do this for the rest of your life. There's no way we can do this. This feels impossible. If I was to say to you, hey Ashley, here's what I'd like for you to do. Every morning for breakfast, I'd like you to make a bowl of oatmeal with a tablespoon of pumpkin seeds, your favorite food on top, and if you want to put a little maple syrup on there, that's fine. What's happening now is your brain is going, okay, seven days, oatmeal every morning, probably need about two containers of oats, that's probably more than enough. Oatmeal takes about five minutes to make, unless I want to do it in the crock pot and I can do it at night. I could probably get all the other toppings at the store, and I know exactly how much to get. This will probably take me about 20 minutes to eat and maybe five minutes to clean. Your psychology has a very clear understanding of the time and energy required to complete this task, and now it feels safe. It says, I know what to do. This is very doable. So if we were to look at it from the perspective of saying, you're not trying to do this for the rest of your life, but say, what I want to do is run a series of two-week experiments. What you're going to do is you're going to slowly implement this lifestyle into your life over the course of two-week experiments, where what you're trying to do is discover the value that this is going to offer you. If I was to say, what I want you to do is eat a plant-based diet for breakfast for seven days. Just see how you feel. Then after those seven days, you're going to do breakfast and lunch, and it'll be whatever it is that we prescribe for lunch. Do that for another week. At the end of those 10 weeks, I just want you to take notice of what took place. Did you lose any weight? Did you sleep better? Did your energy change? Did your joint pain go away? Did anything positive happen for you? Blood pressure comes down, blood glucose comes down, does anything happen? You're going to take note of it, you're going to go, wow, I lost three pounds, my blood pressure came down, my blood glucose came down. That's really attractive. Seems I might be onto something here. I'm now motivated. I'm now motivated to run this experiment again and add a slightly new addition to it. I'm going to change dinner. I want you to think of motivation not as something that you get on day one, but it's a return on an investment. You actually can't be motivated on day one. You can be inspired. But motivation requires your time and energy. You have to put your time and energy into something and get a sense of the value available to you. Once you get a sense of what's possible, then you're motivated to find out if it's true. You're motivated to see how far does this go? How much more value is there? Taking it in these sort of two-week experiment modalities gives you a sense of, what? You're just trying to figure this thing out. You don't know what it's going to look like in four months, and that's okay. You only got to focus on the next two weeks. It's not that person's diet. It's not that person's life. This is your diet. This is your life. This is your race. You don't need to finish first, you don't need to finish last, you're the only one doing it. Enjoy it. You get to do this maybe once in your life. Figure out how to completely reorganize how you live, that's exciting. That's really exciting stuff. If you approach it from a perspective of a researcher or an explorer where you're, I'm just so excited to figure anything out. I want to know what works, and I want to know what doesn't work. I want to know these things, I want to understand them. If you can approach it from that perspective, it can be a really wonderful thing to do. Think about it as the 1969 Apollo mission to the moon. In 1969, we took humans and we trained them to be astronauts, and we put them on a rocket, we launched them into space, and they landed on the moon, and then they got out and walked on the moon. No one had ever done this before. That's one of the most extraordinary feats in human history. It's also a very dangerous thing to do. Very dangerous thing to do. They must have known how to do it. They must have known how to get there? Why would they go if they didn't? Ashley, do you know what percentage of the flight time they were actually on course to the moon? It was 2%. They were only on course 2% of the time. Now from a content standpoint alone, you go, well, my gosh, they spent 98% of the time going the wrong way. Another failure of a mission. Just must have been by sheer luck that they landed there safely. If you were to actually put it in the context of the subjective point of view of the person on the mission, what you would notice is they spent 98% of the time course-correcting. They spent 98% of the time figuring out how to get to the moon safely.  If you approach your journey in the same way, get up every single day, be excited to figure it out, hey, I need to make a little course correction here. We're going to course-correct today, we're going to course-correct tomorrow. In the beginning, the course corrections are bigger, but as we get towards the end, they're a little bit smaller. Once you get there, you've blazed a path and know how to get there a little bit better the next time. This is your extraordinary journey. If you approach it with the excitement and the thrill, and sure, the concern and the fears that it warrants, you can probably have one of the most incredible experiences of your life doing this thing, but you have to be excited about it. Ashley James (1:50:41.649) I love it. I love it so much. I want to come back to wrap things up. I want to come back to my question. I know I'd asked a few questions in there, and there's one that I wanted to cover, and that is when you first started this journey, you definitely had a lot of course corrections going on. Like you said, you just told him, fruits, potatoes, vegetables, beans, rice. He's like, this isn't a grocery list. You're like, I know, just bring it, just bring those things. I think I remember that's what's on the list. You were placed on a ton of drugs, a ton of prescription medication. Talk to us about those first three months, going back to, tell us about your first experience going back to the doctor and getting off the medications. Adam Sud (1:51:29.653) Yes. So, when it comes to the diet, I remember when I got the food, I was going to write a meal plan for myself. I even think about it now, writing a meal plan out of five foods. I was like, oatmeal with fruit for breakfast, rice and bean bowl for lunch with some kind of sauce on top. There was like a barbecue sauce. It wasn't the healthiest barbecue sauce, but I just put it on there. Then dinner would be potatoes and beans for dinner. Then I would snack on fruit. That was my meal plan. Then I was like, great. Day one done. I looked at the rest of the week. I was like, shoot, I have no idea what else to do. So I drew an arrow through the rest of the week, and above that arrow, I wrote the word repeat. I just said, well, what I'm going to do for the next week is just eat those meals every single day for seven straight days. At the end of those seven days, my blood glucose went from 390, that's where it was when it started, to 200 in one week. I was like, holy moly, this is amazing. This seems like I might have this thing figured out. Like I said before, I'm super motivated, super motivated to run that seven-day experiment again. So I just did that same meal again for two weeks. Now at two weeks, very similar results. My blood glucose went down to 150. I noticed I was losing some weight. My blood pressure was coming down. I was like, this is unbelievable. I think I've got this thing solved. I want to see how far this thing goes. So I literally ate those same meals every single day for 10 straight months, which people don't have to do. But what I realized was that I made it so simple and obvious to do the healing thing that it was nearly impossible not to do it. I knew exactly what I was going to do when I was going to do it, that it was easy to do. That's unbelievably valuable in recovery. I think that variety is a trap. It's a very attractive idea. It'd be great if I could have every recipe in the world, but remember, my goal at the time was not to eat every recipe in the plant-based world. My goal was to live a plant-based diet long enough to find out what my body was capable of.  So in fact, simplicity was a superpower for me. By about month two and a half, I started to experience something called hypoglycemia, where your blood glucose goes below 70 milligrams per deciliter, and you don't feel well when this happens. You get very shaky, you sweat a lot, you feel faint. It's not a good experience. This is because the medication that I was on in combination with the diet was too powerful. So the medication was not safe for me anymore. So I took myself off of the medication and made an appointment with the doctor. I go to see the doctor about a couple of weeks later, this was now about month four, and they do blood work. My A1C comes back 5.5. So my A1C went from 12 to 5.5 in four months, technically in five months, but four months on the diet. The doctor comes in and says, well, according to this, we're going to lower your medication. I said, well, hang on a second, doctor, I haven't taken my medication for about two and a half weeks. He says, well, then according to these charts, you're no longer diabetic. I remember looking at the doctor and saying, hey, doctor, I just want to thank you so much because as of today, I no longer need your services. I walked out of the office, and I felt this unbelievable amount of self-esteem rise in me. It's because it seemed like I had figured out something incredibly valuable that I could offer myself and potentially anyone else that I loved that needed it. That sense of value that can be shared within a community of shared respect. So I ended up getting off the blood pressure medications and the cholesterol medications and the antidepressants and the mood stabilizers. Over the course of some, those had to be taken off slowly. So some of them took six months, seven months, eight months to get off of, but I was able to get off of all of them within one year. I want to go back to one last thing about why it makes so much sense that at the end of this, drug use was not that attractive to me anymore. If you were to look at me 12 years ago, 12 years ago in October actually will be when I checked into treatment. So I'm not technically at 12 years yet, but I'm on my way. If you were to go back 12 years ago, you would find a person at the end stage of substance use disorder. He is a person who has no loving and meaningful bond with himself physically or emotionally that he wants to show up and be present for. He has no loving and meaningful connection with people in his life that he wants to show up and be present for. He has no loving and meaningful bond with a purpose that he wants to show up and be present for. He has no loving and meaningful bond with the natural world. He has no loving and meaningful bond with a future that feels safe that he wants to show up and work for every single day. This person is completely disconnected from the sense of feeling meaningfully alive. This person is very attracted to anything that can disconnect him from being present. Drug use is very attractive to this individual. You look at that person one year later. He has reestablished a loving and meaningful bond with himself physically and emotionally. He wants to show up and be present for himself every single day. He's reconnecting to people in his life in a way that he can actively want to show up and be present for every single day. He's discovering a purpose that he wants to actively show up and be present for every single day. He's rediscovering the joy of moving his body in nature that he wants to show up and be present for every single day. He's getting a sense that his future is a safe place to be, that he wants to show up and work for every single day. This is a person who has every reason to want to be present, and being present requires sobriety. When you look at it from that perspective, addiction makes sense, and you can see the role that nutrition can play in reconnecting someone to the experience of wanting to be present in their life. That's all I want to say. Ashley James (1:57:58.803) I love it. Adam Sud from adamsud.com. Anyone who's listening who wants to take that journey, you can reach out to him at adamsud.com. You do coaching and you help people. That's great.  I'm  also a coach and we have a lot of crossover, a lot of similarities. I feel  we could do some kind of panel together.  Adam Sud (1:58:23.902) I would love to do that. Just consider me a friend of yours. I'd love to do any and more things with you. Ashley James (1:58:30.046) Yes. That'd be awesome. Very cool. It was such a pleasure having you on the show. I do this podcast because I was sick and suffering for many years. You have a similar situation in which you know what it is to be sick and suffering. When you get on the other side of that and you build your health up and you look around, you go, my gosh, there's people who are needlessly suffering. That's why I started the podcast because I have to get this information out there. But this podcast has also been my journey as well. When I started the podcast, I had reversed many health issues, and I was still working on myself. I am still working on myself now. I like to say there's no Mount Everest, the peak of Mount Everest of health where you're like, okay, done, stick your flag on the top of Mount Everest of health and then you walk away. That's not what health is. Health is constantly emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, energetic, and we're working on it every day. Course correction. I love, love that metaphor that we are working on it every day and that if you're not working on it, you go unconscious. If you go unconscious, maybe you haven't had this experience, but some people have this experience where they go unconscious on their bank account and then they go check in on it, and they're really surprised. Either there's more money than they expected, or there's far less money than they expected. When we go unconscious with our health, it's the same as going unconscious with your finances. Most often times, we're pretty surprised with the labs. When we do get lab work, we're like, just, you kind of expected a clean bill of health when you walked in at 300 and something pounds and having eaten fast food and been taking drugs, and you kind of trick yourself into thinking, I'm healthy. We feel very sick inside, and we don't realize. Just like the fish can't see the water, we don't realize that there's this whole next level of health. No matter how healthy you are now or wherever your health is, there's always the next level of somewhere we can grow, expand, and learn. Once you've achieved this great homeostasis, it still is course correction because every day we're still working on it. You still got to eat. You still got to move. You still got to hydrate. You still got to love and communicate. Life throws oopsies at us. Stress comes at us, and then we have to handle it and work with it. As life happens, we're course correcting. I love the work that you do because you teach people how to navigate to optimize emotional and mental health and well-being through optimizing what's on their plate. Thank you so much for sharing your story and being vulnerable with us. Adam Sud (2:01:14.349) Yes. My pleasure. My pleasure. Anytime. Ashley James (2:01:16.871) This was such a pleasure. Well, please come back to the show. We'd love to have you back anytime you want to share more or teach more. We'd love to have you.  Adam Sud (2:01:23.138) I would love that, that would be fantastic. My pleasure. This was great. Outro: These are the same supplements that I have been using myself personally, my family and my clients for the last twelve and a half years. This is the same supplement that helped me to overcome my chronic diseases. 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I had to change my diet, I had to change my lifestyle, but I needed to fill in those nutrient gaps, and that's where takeyoursupplements.com comes in. They help you to make sure that you're getting all 90 essential nutrients, so every cell in your body, all 37.2 trillion cells in your body, will be bathed in all the nutrients that they need so that you can live an optimal life full of health and vitality at any age. Go to takeyoursupplements.com and talk to one of them today. They can help you right now to begin to make that health transformation. That's takeyoursupplements.com.    Get Connected with Adam Sud! Website- Adam Sud Facebook Instagram