Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - “Leaky Gut, The GAPs Diet, & The Issue With School Lunch.” - With Hilary Boynton

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

Chronic illnesses, unhealthy eating habits, and mental health disorders are spiking in elementary school children. Why? School lunch programs are serving fake, processed garbage. Seeing an evident need for change, Hilary Boynton created an affordable nutrient-dense meal program based on the ancestral diet at her kid’s school so that children can properly develop physically and mentally. She is the author of "The Heal Your Gut Cookbook," co-founder of School of Lunch, Inc., and creator of The SŌL Show - a podcast empowering parents to step into their kitchens and own their family’s health. Connect with Hilary Boynton on Social Media and sign up for the School of Lunch Training Academy | https://www.schooloflunch.com/Trainin... Website https://www.schooloflunch.com/  / school_of_lunch_    / hilaryhboynton    / hilaryhornorboynton   Get ticket details for Turning Point USA’s Young Women’s Leadership Summit at https://ywls2024.com and use code ALEX for 25% OFF admission! Interested in making a tax deductible donation to support The Spillover? ☕️✨ Visit https://donate.tpusa.com/donate to contribute to guest travel, set needs and more! . Get peace of mind with a medical emergency kit from The Wellness Company. Go to https://twc.health/spillover and use code SPILLOVER for 15% OFF. Ditch artificial fragrances for your family by switching to ALEAVIA organic prebiotic body wash and use code: ALEX15 for 15% OFF. https://www.aleavia.com/ Get 100% Organic tampons & now PADS! Try GARNUU today at https://garnuu.com/ and use code ALEX for 15% OFF. Elevate your skincare routine with NIMI SKINCARE! Go to https://www.nimiskincare.com/ and use promo code ALEXCLARK to get 10% OFF your order. Skip the seed oils! Try Masa's organic corn tortilla chips are made without artificial flavors, glyphosate or artificial preservatives and ingredients! Go to https://masachips.com and use code REALALEXCLARK for 20% OFF your first order! Support American farms and shop GOOD RANCHERS for FREE burgers for a year with code CLARK. https://www.goodranchers.com/ . Looking for like-minded friends? Join the Cuteservative Facebook group:   / 1234544066933796   Listen at 6 PM PST/ 9pm EST every Thursday by subscribing to ‘The Spillover’ on Apple Podcasts and Spotify ☕️✨ . Alex Clark Instagram | ⁠https://www.instagram.com/realalexclark⁠ Instagram |⁠ https://www.instagram.com/poplitics⁠ X | ⁠https://www.facebook.com/realalexclark⁠ Shop Real Alex Clark Merch! https://tpusamerch.com/collections/real-alex-clark

One of the top requests I've had for an interview on the show has been Jessica Krause, aka House and Habit. The tea that I am so excited to share with you is that I will be interviewing her. Live on stage at Turning Point USA's Young Women's Leadership Summit. San Antonio, June 7 through 9th, this is the biggest conference for conservative women in the country. You will hear from names like Megan Kelly, Emmys for Mama, Ali Beth Stucky, Candice Owens, Holistic Hilda, Suzanne Venker, Riley Gaines, Comazar, Dr. Jolene Brighton, and tons more. This is the best lineup that we have ever had in my five years now of opening this event,

and seats will be reaching capacity quickly. This event is for women of all ages. A mother's room will be available. Bring friends, come as a group, or come alone and make friends there. Get 25% off general admission tickets at YWLS. 2024.com with code Alex. You will also find all speakers announced so far, hotel details and more at YWLS. 2024.com with code Alex for 25% off general admission. Everything is in the show notes.

Today's guest is a mother of five who wouldn't take no for an answer when it came to her kids being served trash for school lunch. She began a relentless mission to change the status quo and eventually took over the lunch program at her local school in Topanga, California. She worked with local farmers and food producers to create an affordable nutrient-dense meal program that was based on the foundation of ancestral ways of eating. The results, as you'll hear today, were astounding. She went on to start her company School of Lunch with the goal of making real food accessible to everyone.

School of Lunch strives to inspire, empower, and connect to anyone that wants to make a change in their own homes and communities with an ancestral way of eating. School of Lunch also hosts a week-long intensive retreat that gives parents, educators, home chefs, really anybody, the foundation for making a change with their food in their own lives. There's actually one happening this July 28th through August 2nd, which she's going to talk about if you want to go. She's also the author of the heal your gut cookbook, nutrient dense recipes for intestinal health using the Gaps diet. Gaps addresses disorders including ADD, ADHD, autism, addictions, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder stemming from or exacerbated by leaky

gut and dysbiosis. It's the mind gut connection, baby. She's also an advocate for something called Regen Living. I definitely am going to ask about that. And fun fact, she is BFFs with Miss Holistic Hilda from the Weston A Price Foundation, Wise Traditions Podcast, who's, you know, one of my favorite guests ever. She came on in January. So isn't that fun? And Hilda, of course, is going to be speaking at YWLS this year. Watch this interview by subscribing to Real Alex Clark on YouTube. I am in the middle of a set refresh at the moment. This is not my real set. It's like very temporary like things to just have here until we can finally get it down. we are able to do that with donations from cute servatives like you.

The spillover is produced by Turning Point USA, a nonprofit. If you believe in the information that I'm getting out there for young people and families, consider making a tax-deductible donation to this show. Click the link in the show notes to learn more. And if you can't do that, that's okay. Another way to support us weekly for free is just a five-star review. It takes 10 seconds of your time or share the episode with your own followers. Encourage others to check out the show.

All right. Let's get into what the heck is really going on with the food in our schools. Please welcome School of Lunch Founder and your new favorite lunch lady, Hillary Boynton, to the spillover. I didn't even know this, Hillary, till we just sat down, but you were like, oh, I'm friends with so many people that you've had on your show. I knew that you were friends with Hilda, but I didn't know about the other people. Who else do you know that I've had on? James Berry, AJ Richards, love those guys, Sally Fallon. And of course, Hilda, yes, she's the best.

She's like a breath of fresh air. Just love her. And so that's, I think, I'm pretty sure, I've listened to so many interviews that you've done now. I'm like losing track, but I'm pretty sure the first time I heard you was on the Wise Traditions podcast, which makes sense, because I listen to Hilda's podcast religiously. So I'm pretty sure that's how I discovered you. And you're a mom of five. And you were just really disturbed by what you saw going on with the food being served at American schools. What did you notice? I actually got. into trying to change school lunches before my kids were even in school. I hadn't even woken up to food as medicine at that point. I had to come across the work of Jamie Oliver and Alice Waters

and was like, oh my gosh, kids need real food in school. They were doing farm to school. So I decided to jump in the ring and like try and change school lunches. I don't know. It was just that type of person. It was like it was an aha moment of seeing like kids need real food. I got introduced to a woman who had tried previously. This is back in Massachusetts in a public school system just outside at Boston and she was like, oh gosh, I tried for years. But if you want to try, I'll jump back in the ring with you and try again. And so I just knew that it wasn't what kids should be eating, you know, based on what I'd seen just with the eye-opening experience of seeing Alice Waters and Jamie Oliver. What did they notice? Well, it was just really bringing people back to real food. And Jamie Oliver

in England was seeing like just the junk and the processed foods and the white flour and, you know, all of that that wasn't from nature. And Alice Waters, of course, is tying people back to gardening and where your food is coming from and how it's grown. And so it was just, it was like so obvious just in watching that that's what kids needed. And so before you took over lunches at the school that you're at, which we'll get into that story, what, how would you describe the diet that your kids ate at home with you? Okay, so we had this big healing journey, which I can get into if you want, but we, we were

eating super nutrient-dense foods from raw dairy to fermented foods and organ meats and pastured meats and bone broths. And so we had gone on this healing protocol doing the Gaps diet as a family. And so I was so hyper-aware of food and the power of food is medicine. And so when my kids were about to be, you know, fed a more standard American diet, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, like I can't go back to that. What was it for you that prompted you to change your diet? Tell me a little bit about your health journey. I'm curious. Yes, so I will try and keep it really short, but I was that kid who fell for the fat-free craze back in the 90s, just like hookline and synchron. My mom, my sister, we all fell for it.

And I really developed an eating disorder around fat. I was afraid of fat thinking that it was going to make me fat and then it was going to clog my arteries and was playing soccer and burning my body to the brink and replenishing with just fat free. Like I was that, you know, I would look at the ingredient list and if it or the, you know, the nutritional facts and if it said zero fat, I would eat. it. And so I ended up with stress fractures in both femur bones and both tibias as a senior in high school. No one talked to me about my diet. Then went on to play in college, Division I, just like burning hard and it was like carboloading. And I think all of us on our team had some sort of eating disorder around fat. It was like putting mustard on our salads and really just like messed up in the brain. We were avoiding it. And fast forward, I got married at 25 and found myself pregnant

at 26 and then joyfully you know joyful surprise and then boom i had a miscarriage and i was just like in shock i didn't really know what a miscarriage was i didn't know anybody who had had one and it was super devastating to me um and i went on to have four more miscarriages over the next three years and that was really the most devastating time of my life and no one talked to me about my diet they weren't like hey this girl's so young i was like 26 to 29 and you know it was like don't stress and try and relax and I was just like oh my gosh if one more person tells me to not stress you know but they weren't like maybe she's deficient in something and what does her diet look like and why can't she hold a baby it was more just oh your eggs aged faster than your body and just bad luck

I guess so um I ended up going through in vitro and ended up with triplets uh after three years of infertility so it was like a blessing two boys and a girl super excited and um and life was good you know I started to wake up to wanting to feed them well and making their own baby food. But I was like still really not awake. I was nourishing myself with like balanced bars and coffee and wine and trying to just like survive at that point. And then but we were, you know, chugging along. And then when they were three, I decided like maybe be nice to have one baby. And we should go back to in vitro and see what it's like, you know, if we can have one baby.

And boom, I got pregnant on my own and he stuck. And then when he was six months old, I found out I was pregnant again. Is that, do you think, do you correlate that to a change in your diet was why you were able to get pregnant? I think, you know, I think that stress does play a role. I think the longer that my infertility went on, the more stressed I became and that I was just this ball of like, you know, I was just in my head of like, you know, is this ever going to happen? And so, I mean, I was eating a little bit better, but I don't think, I wasn't at this like level of nutrient density that I am right now. So, you know, I think it all is a factor. So then you have the kids and then what happens to make you do this full-blown transformation?

Right. So all of a sudden I had five kids under the age of four. I was like really running on fumes and I think I was headed towards an autoimmune issue myself. Like it would take 10 seconds for my right eye to open up in the middle of the night. I thought I had shingles because my whole upper body was all tingly. Like no one really knew what was wrong with me. It was just like, you know, I don't know. It was my fourth baby that was my impetus to. change. He was at two months old covered in eggs my head to toe. And that I was just like, oh my gosh. I didn't know what to do for him. And I was trying all these things and taking him to the allergist and I was breastfeeding him. So I was like eliminating certain foods and trying to

figure out what I could eat and what I could feed him. And, you know, anything holistic that I could do I was trying to do. I really didn't want to go too conventional at this point. But finally, a pediatrician friend of my family said, Hillary, you have got to put this poor child on steroid cream. He's suffering. And so I put him on steroid cream and XerTech twice a day. And boom, he was like sleeping through the night. I used to have to pin him to my body for two hours in the middle of the night

because he was just like scratching, scratching. So boom, he slept through the night. It was his eczema started to calm down. And then, like, slowly I started to see that it was just a band-aid. Like that mama intuition was like, if I don't put the steroid cream on, his eczema flares again. Like this isn't getting to the root cause. And so that was around the time that I had met the woman that was willing to help me

change the school lunches again. And so she said to me, when I first went to her house, my very first school lunch meeting, she's handed me all these Weston Price journals and Weston Price this and Weston Price that. And I was like, what is she talking about? And then I told her about my son with eczema and she's like, you got to put them on raw milk. I'm like, what the hell is raw milk?

I was eating my, you know, drinking my fat-free skin milk. And I was so desperate, I'm like, I'll try anything. She's like, yeah, my family would go to the co-op, we'll deliver it to you. So I put him on raw milk and call out the royal. And in like two months, he was healed. You're kidding. All the eczema gone? Yeah.

And the doctors said he may have asthma, eczema and allergies. They just run hand in hand. He might not grow. We don't really know. And all of a sudden, he's just like, perfect. And now he's 17 and doesn't struggle with any of those. Really? Yeah.

Does he still, is that like, because he keeps up, he still currently is drinking raw milk, you think? Oh my God. The amount of raw milk we go through in our house is like insane. I think my two younger boys are just like living off of it. I'm like you actually have to eat some other foods. Like it's just milk, milk. It's crazy. I love that. Oh my gosh. See, so that's what I mean by food really is medicine. It's so healing. There's so many things that God gave us that we have at our fingertips that people just don't know to use. We're so reliant on this system. Like the steroid cream, like just use this. And so we think we're doing the best thing. We think we're fixing it. and it's really not. It's really not. Why do you think an ancestral diet for kids is such a game changer? Oh my gosh. Well, it's the way we're intended to eat, right? I mean, like you just said,

like we're reaching for something. We're looking for somebody to tell us what to do, right? We're wanting, like, you know, with the doctors, when I had my kids, I was just like, I don't know, you know, with even with vaccines. I was like, I don't, I had this like intuition that I was scared about it. And I was like, what would you do? And he's like, I would do it. I gave him to my kids. I'm like, okay, you know, just trusting, trusting, trusting. But I didn't listen to my intuition. We're so disconnected. We don't have the remembering of food as medicine.

And I mean, some of us, I do. You may not because your generation is growing up on processed packaged foods. But like I remember my grandmother eating organ meats and chicken skin. And, you know, we didn't have raw dairy. But, you know, we're just, we're so disconnected. So we have to get back to the way we evolved to eat as a species. And so when kids thrive, it's because your body recognizes these foods. You know, they know how to assimilate it and absorb the nutrition.

And so it's natural for them to respond in a healthy and a good way. Both of my best friends have three or four kids now, and I have learned how quickly things can change at a moment's notice. One minute you're packing for vacation. The next, your kid gets a random virus or infection. Everything's going to have to be derailed because now you need to stay home or you need to wait to get in with the doctor before you go, losing precious vacation time that you or your husband took off work for. It's reasons like these that I love the medical emergency kit from the wellness company. This kit will provide your family with eight emergency medications like ivermectin, amoxicillin, and more. You can use these meds that

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60% of our kids struggling with a chronic illness right now. It's an epidemic. It's insane. They're starting out compromised. You know, if you think about, we can get into gut health, but if you think about when a baby goes through the birth canal is when they swallow their first, a big gulp of bacteria, which is like their first inoculation of their microbiome. And so my microbiome compared to my great-grandmothers is so much less diverse and less rich, right? So what they're inheriting is compromised. And when I wrote my book, the average baby had 287 toxins in their cord blood alone. So they're starting out toxic, they're inheriting poor gut flora, they get a vaccine day one of life. Most often, I mean, many times they're not breastfed.

Hopefully we're returning back to that. They're put on formulas. They're put on baby food. And then they might get an ear infection and get a course of antibiotics, which wipes out the gut. And then they might get another ear infection that, you know, so it's just like it's continuous. and they're trying to just catch up and they can't even get a leg up, right? So, and now, you know, they're entering into elementary school. I think that's when a lot of moms wake up is when their kids go to kindergarten and you start to see what your children are being fed and that around every corner, it's not even just at school.

It's like every soccer practice, every ballet performance. Every celebration is about sugar and treats. And, you know, I remember leaving a soccer game with my kids when they were like five and it was pouring rain and this mom is serving blue popsicles to these, like, like freezing kids. And I'm like, what, what? Hello. You know? Like, it's just so disconnected. I can so picture myself in the future being at a birthday party or something or a soccer game like that. And somebody's passing around this nasty, you know, red 40 food dye crap, sugar. What do you do? Because you don't want your kid to hate you and resent you for being like,

we're not eating that. But it's like awkward in the social situations. How do you handle it? It's so hard. It's so hard. And I've been that mom and we've been on a special diet with the kids. So it's like, you know, they knew they couldn't have certain things. But, you know, relationships are so important too. So you have to be careful as you wake up. And, you know, I was the one in my family that was like, oh my gosh. Like we all need to be eating like this. And then you want everybody to get it and they don't. Oh, that's happening to me right now. And so you're just like, blah. I'm the only one in my family, basically, that understands this and is so passionate about it and cares. And it's so hard for me to continue watching people that I love eat that way when I know it's killing them. I think what you have to do, my advice would be because I learned the hard way is that just keep leading by example. And I'm like, I'm no longer about convincing people because, you know, if they're not ready to hear it, they're not going to hear it. You know, I remember taking my in-laws and my parents to Food Inc, like, way back in the day in the very beginning, this movie about, you know, all industrialization, all this stuff. And I was like, this is it.

I was just sitting there. Like, they're all going to get it after this. And then it was just sort of like back to normal, you know. Like, it's hard for people to see and it's painful, right? It's really hard because you think, like, how could this be? How could we be being so deceived and be, you know, giving our kids foods that are toxic for them and poisoning them? and poisoning them. So it's easier to just kind of like put the blinders on.

And I think so many people your age and with young kids, it's just like the norm. Yeah. When you're not the normal one, you know, it's really hard. And for your kids, it's a struggle because they want to just fit in. But the more we can educate the kids and keep the conversation going. And that's the thing with school lunches. I say, we're at a point where you can't just drop off healthy food to kids and expect them to eat it. Well, you know, you go to the USDA's website.

and they have listed on there that our kids in public schools in America are being fed nutritionally balanced meals. Do you think that that's accurate? No, no. I think we need to like flip the food pyramid upside down and start over basically, right? And that's what I did. I kind of beat my head against the wall trying to change the public school systems for a long time. And then when I got my foot in the door at this tiny little private school,

I was like, I'm just going to show what's possible and hope that people you know, we'll see it and catch on. What is wrong with the diet that the average public school kid is being served? Like what are they being served? Because some people may not know if their kids aren't that age yet. They just have toddlers. Yeah. I mean, it's a lot of, like when I first started, I went into the school nurse and asked for the list of ingredients.

And because they have to have all that for allergy purposes. And it's kind of horrifying, right? There's like food dyes and enriched wheat flour, sugar, all sorts of additives. preservatives. It's just not real food. And it's not cooked from scratch. It's not wholesome. It's not feeding their brains. And I mean, these kids, they have one opportunity to grow their brain and their body, right? And so it's so vital to feed them, you know, nutrient-dense foods. They're going to give them the best leg up on life, right? We want these kids like graduating from high school and pursuing their dreams, not trying to figure out what's wrong with them. And that's what's happening to your

generation right now. They're all like sick and like I have IBS or I have anxiety, depression. Everybody has something, right? So, um, you know, the foods are just really neurotoxic and devoid of any real nutrition. So see, they feed them that. This is the part that floors me and it makes me angry and it should make you angry is that they give your kid all of this sludge crap at the one meal that they get at the school and then you sit them under fluorescent lighting all day, barely any fresh air. You're supposed to sit in a desk and then when they start misbehaving or not able to focus or pay attention because, you know, they're just being sustained on red gate raid. Then they tell you, oh, well, now your kid has ADHD. Now your kid has this, this and this. Let's prescribe them a prescription med. It's just,

it all starts really with the nutrition. And one thing I know is that a lot of the diets at schools are very high carb diets. Why is a high carb diet for kids not great? And what is that? Well, you want to keep their blood sugar regulated, right? You want to keep them stable. We had a kid in our little video that we did our little mini documentary who unprompted, a little sixth grade boy was like, I used to feel like this all day long, up and down, up and down. And now I just feel like this after eating our food.

Straight line. Straight line. And I was just like, that is our 30 second commercial. Because it's like, you know, they don't know what's happening in their body, but they feel it, right? And so when you're having a high carb, you know, carbs are going to break down to sugar in the body, right? So when it's going to spike your blood glucose level and then you're going to crash and then they're going to have a snack that's the same junk and then you're going to be

spiked and then crashed. And so it's up and down, up and down. So when you have proteins and fats and foods that satisfy you, you're satiated and you're just stable like that little boy said. I'm just even, right? Yeah. And now you are the lunch lady at one of the coolest schools in California. There's not, look, I'm going to say there's not a lot of good stuff coming out of California lately, but this school is one of the coolest things I think. So what is it where you're able to serve this ancestral-based diet to kids? Well, we don't have the handcuffs of, you know, government subsidies and anybody telling us what we, you know, have to do, really. We're able to be more free in our choices.

And so 80 to 85% of our food is sourced locally. And so, you know, we're able to serve up real home-cooked meals, you know, made from scratch that are, you know, with ingredients that we know we choke the system. You know, what comes in is only good stuff. So what comes out can only be good. When you take money from the government, you know, you're handcuffed and to purchase, you know, you're getting the food that they're going to supply. And this school, explain like what type of school this is. Yeah, so it was a little nature-based school. When we moved to California, we stumbled upon it, and it was like in its first year.

And I met the chef, and she was like, oh, the kids, like, caught their own fish today and cooked it up for lunch. And then she told me she really wanted to roast a whole goat. My cookbook had just come out, and I was just like, we have got to go here. And so, you know, we thankfully got aid for our triplets to go. and we moved to Topanga and started the school. But as the school grew, they outsourced the food. Yeah, so then what did the food start looking like? They went from wanting to cook a whole goat to what?

To more like hoagie rolls, like white flour with meatballs, and you might not know where the meat's from and just iceberg lettuce type thing. You know, just a little bit more standard American diet. And so what did you say first? Were you like, excuse me? So I just have some questions. I'm assuming you didn't think that you were going to be the one to take over the food initially, or were you?

No, no, I didn't at all. I just was like, whoa, this is not what I signed up for. And this is like not, you know, aligned with what I want my kids to be eating. And it's not aligned with nature. And that's, you know, your whole philosophy for the school. And so the head of school gave me the job of the snack coordinator and the consultant to the lunch lady. So I did snack every day for like 125 kids. And then once a month I got to do a lunch for the kids. And so. And how old are the kids at this school? They're now K through 12. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay, cool. And this is over 100 kids go? Now it's like 150 kids and 25 staff or 2530 staff. What is currently in my bag?

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oh, my gosh, for the kids, like, here, have a bumper crop of tomatoes or zucchini. And I would make, like, tomato soup or zoodles or I would bring in, like, you know, a whole branch of a banana tree and talk to the kids about these little, like, local bananas. And I mean, anything that was educational, I would be making homemade sourdough bread and put out sprouted nutbutters that it made. And the kids were like running to snack and doing like daffies off the stairs. Like, what's for snack today, Miss Hillary? And it just became like a scene. And it's all outdoors.

And so teachers and kids are all gathering around. And I put out signs of like what farm this is from and asking questions about the food. And so it was like this really engaging, beautiful scene. and then like two hours later would be the lunch that was more like standard American diet. And so it was sort of like so obvious that like and they weren't really even hungry for lunch after they would have this huge nutrient dense snack. And so around Christmas time, I was talking to the head of school and I was just like, these kids need nutrition now.

Like why would we wait till like next year to start, you know, start a new program? And he was just like, if I give you the keys to the kitchen, can you do this? And I was just like, oh, shoot, you know, inside shaking in my boots. Did you have another job, like, that you were working? No, I was stay-at-home mom at this point. Because I was going to say, if they were to ask you that and you were working some corporate job, you know, were you like going to quit your job. Okay, you were stay-at-home mom.

I was stay-at-home and I was just like, yes, of course. Of course I can do this. And so, you know, I was freaking out. I had one week to turn the kitchen around. And I was like in-home goods, like shopping for like cast iron and switching out all the pots and pans and stuff. And my friend called me and was like, I think I'm going to go to culinary school. I'm like, do you want to be an intern?

And she's like, sure. So she worked for six months for free. She'll never let me forget that. And then we got connected with a private chef who threw slow food. What's slow food? Slow food is an organization that was started in Italy as a protest to fast food and about bringing people together and supporting local and bringing back, you know, small farms and regenerative ag, all the good stuff.

And so they have chapters all around the world, much like Western Price. So my boyfriend was the head of Slow Food Ventura County. And so he introduced me to a chef. And she came in. And then we had another intern that had taken a key for making class with me who was in the school of gerontology. And she wanted to learn about feeding people right. And so anyway, we just sort of bootstrap this thing. And now we're like eight years in.

And here we are. We think we have like the most nutrient-10 school lunch program in the country. Why do this? Why not give kids just something easy? Spicy chicken sandwich, fries, a milk. there's your vegetable potato. You get your protein in the chicken sandwich, right? And then you get your dairy with the milk, build strong bones.

We're told that that's all that matters. We're like really changing the trajectory of these kids' health. We have their stomachs for six hours a day. So that opportunity to fill them with the most nutrient-dense foods is huge. Even if that's their only real great meal of the day, that opportunity to get organ meats and kefir and butter and all the healthy fats and all the good stuff into them. And then that moment of exchange where they're, you know,

you're looking them in the eyes and you're encouraging them to try new things. These little kindergartners, you know, the first couple weeks they can barely see over the table and they're just like, oh, you know, a lot of them are used to that, like chicken sandwich or chicken nuggets. And this is all foreign to them. Yeah, I was going to say, how in the world are you convincing so many kids to eat Oregon meats? Well, okay. Well, that's where pluck comes in. Yeah, because you use pluck seasoning at school.

Yeah. Which that is crazy. I mean, this is like blowing my mind. We'll put it out at snack and I'll be like, you know, it will be like hard boiled eggs or popcorn or broth. And it's this beautiful seasoning. And they're like, whoa, this is so good. What's in it? And I'm like, heart, pancreas, liver, spleen, kidney.

And they're like, what? I'm like, yeah, you think we're just going to eat steaks and burgers? Like, we honor the animal by using the whole animal. Like, this is, these are the sacred foods. This is a nutrient dense, you know, food that you guys need to build. your brains and some of the kids are like whoa and some of them they you know they don't really it tastes so good they're like cool okay but i mean do you remember the first big lunch first day what it was that you made the first meal oh my god the first meal we made chicken pot bye and we had purple potatoes and it

turned the whole thing purple it was purple pot pie we're like well i guess it's gonna be purple pop pie so you know we just when i look back at the pictures from the beginning i mean the story is so magical because it just really was out of love. It was just like we just knew that these kids deserved better. And so we just, you know, we just kept showing up every day. So what were some of the meals this week that you made? Oh my gosh. So we had, I'm trying to think it's like all a blur, but we have a basic system. Usually it's a nice beautiful pasta on a Monday, so like a pasta bolognais. We have really beautiful pasta that's just like one ingredient, non-GMO. Oh, wait, I like this idea. So you have a theme like Monday.

are always some sort of pasta. Usually not always, but typically. Mondays and Fridays are whole school. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, a cohort of the kids will go out on the land for the whole day. So they're in nature for the whole day, so they pack their lunch. So Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, at 10 o'clock,

we have to serve a whole school snack and then a sandwich bar for the kids that are packing their lunch and go out in the land. And we've got to bring all that in and then by like 12, we have to serve a sit-down lunch for the rest of the school.

So the systems are aware, like freedom comes because it's so complicated. It would be easier if it was just like 12 o'clock lunch every day. So, you know, we've developed the system. So it's usually typically a pasta with a boulinay sauce or some sort of sauce. And that's where we get organ meats in. We can chop up liver and heart and put that right in there. I always have to be careful about putting it on my Instagram because, you know,

there's some kid who will see it and tell all the other kids like, there's liver in here, you know. Oh, so you don't tell them? Well, I want the parents who are watching to know that, you know, or the people, you know, wherever they are in the world, that you can get liver and heart and, you know, all these good things into kids and they'll eat it. You know, it's just like it's like association, right? If they don't taste it.

Okay, so interesting. I thought you were like up front telling them we're having heart today or whatever, but you mix it into these meals so they're eating healthy, but they don't always know exactly what they're eating. Yeah. I mean, if they asked, I would tell them, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so Mondays is the pasta day, and then what are the other things?

So then Tuesday typically would be like chicken and rice and vegetables. and salad ferments. So, but the chicken, we roast all of our own chickens that are local, and then we pull the chickens, take all the bones and turn them into a bone broth that will roll, you know, 24 hours, basically. And so then Thursday is a soup salad facacha day. So Wednesday's more composed of like a shepherd's pie or enchilada pie or something that we put together. We're also making on Mondays making our own homemade sourdough bread with locally grown grains,

freshly milled in California. And so we make all of our bread for all the sandwich days. We make our own homemade sourdough discard crackers. We're in no waste kitchen. Wow. We're making our own in house roast beef, turkey breast. We have beautiful salami and ham. We make our own pesto and hummus.

So this is all for the salad bar or the sandwich bar stuff. So then Wednesday is more composed meal. And then Thursday soup salad foccia typically. And then Wednesday we will salt like a chuck roll or a pork show. to be put into the oven, like decorated with, you know, whatever seasoning and stuff on Thursday morning goes into the oven, slow roasts all day. So Friday, all we have to do is shred up that beautiful pork shoulder or chuck roll and they have like a barbecue beef, you know, meal. Are the parents just like dying to come and have lunch with their kids?

They are and we do this. We do a parent at lunch once a month. Oh, nice. Yeah, I'd be like, hey, listen, if I'm paying for my kid to go here, I want some of this too. Yeah. So that's what's so exciting is it's sort of, I just realized this this year, that it's this beautiful bottom-up approach where you get to the kids and they're like having their light bulbs turned on and stuff and they're just like, they feel good. You know, they get it and they're going home and they're like, mom, can you make fermented ginger carrots like Miss Hillary or can you make sour-edough bread? And the parents are like, what's going on? One of my all-time favorite movies, like top five faves is now and then. The sisterhood

that these girls have growing up as best friends, being there for each other as adults, It's one of the best coming of age movies, period. I just love that vibe of women looking out for each other and guiding the next generation in the right direction. We have the privilege to be that person now, the person that we needed as a teenager. We can be that for our daughters and our friends' daughters. Part of growing up as a woman is getting your period. And I don't know about you, but that was pretty much all I was told.

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description. A lot of the kids that go to the school, I'm sure, are not all eating like an ancestral diet at home or, you know, the Weston A Price way. So surely I thought that, that the kids were going home and telling their parents and then do the, have you heard any stories of the parents then getting into this way of life and this diet because of the kids eating that way at school? Yes. Yeah. So the parents come and they're super intrigued with like what's happening to my child and they will eat the school food but they won't eat at home. So it's like, really? Yeah. So we do a training academy now where we train, we do two week long immersion training academies in the summertime where we train anyone and everyone who wants to learn this way of living and eating. So a lot of the

parents have come to the training academy. And when they come for parents at lunch, we're typically inviting a farmer or a food purveyor and highlighting that that farm or that product at the lunch. So we're reconnecting the parents to their local food system, local regional and national brands. They're doing things right. And so it's like this, you know, they're all catching on. And now I feel like eight years in that people are coming to the school for the food. Was there a cost difference for the school to source all of this local food versus like the process, package, commodified food? Yeah.

I mean, I think in the beginning, the school lunch was, you know, the kids had to pay to, to participate. And then quickly we just realized, you know, we just want everyone to participate. So they rolled it into the tuition. So it's much, it's, it works. It's so much better that way. Were there any noticeable behavioral differences in the kids after they started eating this food? Yeah. I think, you know, the teachers will all say they're, they're all satiated and happy. I mean, they're outside, like most of the day, which is also really nice. They're not having to be like sitting under fluorescent lights, like you said, and having to sit still. They're hiking and doing all sorts of stuff in nature, which is huge. But they're, the thing that I notice that the kids are like engaged.

They look you in the eye. They're happy. They're jumping up and down. They're the way, you know, kids should be acting. You know, there's not a lot of like depressed, mopey, anything. So what happens when a kid does say, Ms. Hillary, I don't like this or I don't want to eat that. Then what you do? Oh, gosh, we have some of those kids. Well, we, you know, and it takes a while. Like I say to my staff, like they have to learn to trust us. And we want them to have a positive. experience. So at the end of the line, if they're really like standing there with an empty plate, I'm like, all right, you know, we have usually like salami or roast beef. We have like the sandwich bar stuff that we can offer them if they just want to have salami and cheese or, you know,

some sprouted nuts, whatever. We'll try and make sure that they have something so that they're satiated. But the more we, you know, often will say, like, just try. Just try like a dab of this and like dip their finger in it. And more often than not, their eyes light up and they surprise themselves that they like it. So it's this, like I said, you can't just drop off healthy food and expect kids to eat it. There's this really important relationship that has to happen every day where you're engaging the kids and you're talking to them about why you're serving this and what you're serving and what it's doing for them and dancing with them and singing with them and having fun and

making it this experience is so joyful that, you know, they want in, right? Yeah. Talk about the Gaps diet. What is that? What does that stand for? The Gap's diet is a diet that was started by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, who's a neurologist and nutritionist who lives in England. And she, it stands for the gut and psychology syndrome and the gut and physiology syndrome.

So the gut, brain connection, the gut-body connection, like your health lies in your gut. And she had incredible results with her child with autism through healing and sealing leaky gut. It's a two-year protocol potentially with like an intro diet and then a full Gavs diet. So there's a six-stage introduction where you can. I mean, we jumped right into the intro because we were sort of familiar with this type of eating already that I felt ready to go to bone meat stocks and broths and all of that. But then there's also full gaps, which is like a lot of people start on full gaps

so that they can just get acclimated to this way of eating and living. And then they go back if they really need to like heal deeper with an autoimmune disease or a child with autism and start on a very much more restricted diet. Yeah, I was wondering, because you have a whole cookbook here that is all about the Gaps diet. And I was wondering with me having Hashimoto's if the Gaps diet would be something that would be great for me. Like, is this cookbook something that I should look at? Yes, you have to do it. Okay.

Yeah, and I'm here for you. I'll help you. Yeah, I mean, that's why we wrote the cookbook is that when we started on this diet, I was familiar with it because I had heard Natasha speak at some of the Western Price conferences. and I was like, oh, gosh, like, this seems really intriguing. And then we had this medical intuitive tell us that, like, our whole family needed the Gabs diet. And I was like, oh, man. Like, it just seems like a lot.

And it is overwhelming for a lot of people. So I was like, at this point, I had been teaching cooking classes out of my home. And one of the women who was taking my class was a photographer, Mary Brackett. And she was also on the Gap's diet. And she's like, we need to write a cookbook about this. And I was like, we do. We wanted something that was, like, you know, beautiful and inspiring. And you could curl up in bed and be like, I can eat.

beautiful, nutritious foods and delicious foods and still heal. So it's really the way, it's the foundation of the way I feed my kids at home. It's the foundation of the way I feed the kids at school. I mean, that's what's so miraculous about the school lunches is that it's how I would serve, what I would serve at a dinner party. Are there ingredients or different types of foods that you avoid in the Gaps diet? Well, you're cutting out grains and legumes in the beginning, sugars, any processed packaged foods.

you're really going back to kind of starving off the bad bacteria in your gut. And I can talk about leaky gut if you not. Yes, please. I've actually never had a guest on. Explain what leaky gut is. How do you know if you have it and then how to heal it? We all have good and bad bacteria in our guts, right? But you want the good guys to outweigh the bad.

And what happens, you know, through modern day living with processed packaged foods and antibiotics and, you know, all the toxins that are just surrounding us is that you have these beautiful, like, grass-like villi structures in your intestinal lining. And the bad guys, when they're fed through processed packaged foods and sugars and all that, the bad guys start to proliferate and outweigh the good. And they wear down this beautiful villi and kind of like mowing down the grass. And so it gets to the point where there's no, nothing left, and it creates cracks in your intestinal lining.

And so what's supposed to go in one end and out the other seeps out into your bloodstream and your body sees it as a foreign invader and can launch an autoimmune response or can cross the blood brain barrier and cause neurological issues like mood disorders, anxiety depression, all of that. And so when you heal and seal the gut, you can, you know, heal those issues. Wouldn't it be nice to have radiant skin without supporting radical politics? Unfortunately, almost all skincare brands, both big name and drugstore, are sold out to the left. Not Nimi, though. Nimi's skincare is luxury modern skincare without the price or the progressive politics. They're openly conservative owned and proud of it. They founded Nimi skincare with a simple goal in mind, create exceptional skincare that makes

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Alex Clark for 10% off. That's Nemeyskskincare.com. with code Alex Clark for 10% off or click the link in the show notes. How do you know if you have that leaky gut? Well, if you're struggling with things like mood disorders or eczema, psoriasis, you know, Hashimoto, stuff like that and everything, basically, IBS. I mean, how many kids are struggling? Like, you shouldn't be going to the bathroom 12 times in a day, right? Or you shouldn't not be going to the bathroom for two weeks.

Like, you have to have regular bowel movements. And, you know, and feel, you should feel good. Like Sally Fallon says, you should feel like high on life every day, right? So the foods you eat, you should have this energy that's just rocking, you know, every day. And food isn't everything, but it's certainly foundational. And that's like what Hilda brings in is like, you know, sleep is so important. Sunshine is so important. Friendships are so important.

That's what I was saying, like, you know, relationships are huge. So you don't want to isolate yourself so much when you, you know, wake up to all this because it can be, you know, you don't want to be that bowl in the china shop because it can really offend people. And then then, of a sudden, you're isolated and you're kind of on your own. And so all these things play a role in your happiness and how your cells respond to everything in your nervous system. If you're starting with nothing, like you are completely on your own and this could be somebody who is wanting to take over their school's meals or they want to revamp what's being served in their own home or in their church, where do they start? Like, how do you even know what to make?

How do you get food like this? Walk us through it like. were five. I would say the very first thing everybody should do is find their local Weston A A Price chapter. And that's like so easy. They're all around the world. And that honestly, Sally changed my life. Like when I heard her speak and when that girl gave me those pamphlets, I was just like, oh my gosh. Like I was sitting listening to Sally just with my jaw, like looking at these indigenous tribes all around the world, thriving, free of disease. They had fertility diets. You know, their most important thing was that they ensure a healthy next generation. And I was just like, my mind was blown.

I'm like, I've been duped my whole life. So if you find, you know, the Westonay Price chapter leaders are designed to connect you to your local food system. So they will know the resources in your area and they'll connect you. So that's the very first thing I would do. And then I would say try and look through your cabinets and start to eliminate the stuff that you know is not serving you or your kids. you know, start to switch out stuff, your condiments, you know, if you can change your salad dressings. I was so disturbed when I found out that Ozempic, Wagovi, they're testing these weight-loss

drugs on kids as young as six now to start rolling that out. The thing is, is people are like, well, that's insane. I don't understand that. I understand it. You understand it. There is a connection between getting kids on weight-loss drugs and the food that they're being served in school. What is it?

Well, I mean, if you're serving kids, packaged, industrialized foods, and a lot of it is from the fast food companies, you know, dominoes and chick-fil-a and all that is in the schools. And so they're going to be sick. It's not if, it's when. You know, we're just driving kids into the medical system. I say, you know, every day that we get to feed a kid at the Manzaneda school is a day that we keep them healthy and strong and out of the medical system. These kids are being pushed straight into the medical system and they're a commodity. They're a customer for life, right? It's not just Zimpe, it's like, you know, Adderall and statins. I mean, they're going to be on several

medications by the time they graduate high school. And these are medications that, you know, unless they're taught how to get off of them, they will be on for life. Realistically, with costs, is there a way for a public school to feed kids the way that you are at this private school? Well, I think, gosh, it's so challenging. Like I said, with the government subsidies. I think the government needs to start subsidizing small local farmers. Yeah. Right? And doing things right.

But why won't they? Well, because money, right? I mean, it's so all intertwined. It's such a revolving door. And I can go like around and around in my head of just like, oh, we've got to change this. And it's got it. It's just like, but I could, I could die trying. You know, so that's why I'm like, I'm going to start with what I can change.

And that starts for all of your listeners. That starts with you, being the best version of yourself. that you can be every day showing up for your kids, showing up for your community, and then, you know, feeding your family, feeding your community. Choosing where you spend your money. And supporting local farmers is the best thing that people can do. We have to do it. If we don't have our local farmers, we're beholden to big ag.

And then we have no choice. What is your response to people that say, like, well, that's so great for you, Hillary, that you're able to feed your kids like this, but it's way too expensive. My family, we can't afford to do anything except processed food and chick-flaid two nights a week. Yeah. I think people, a lot of people are in that mindset. You know, even my mom will say Hillary, not everyone can afford this. And it's true.

But those of us who can need to support the local farmers and help those who can't. It's like, you know, a duty, a service to help those who can't. And the people who can, you know, you pay now or you pay later. It really is true. My family has been through cancer, had a husband with cancer, a dad with Alzheimer's. You know, I have a child with epilepsy. had kids with speech delays, ticks, you know, the eczema baby, my own infertility. You spend all your time and all your money chasing health.

And I'm telling you, when you get that frying pan to the head, my million dollar question is, how do we wake people up before the wake-up call, before that frying pan to the head? And I've come to realize that I think it's human nature to wait for that wake-up call. We don't change until we have to. Yeah. But when you get that cancer diagnosis, the most precious thing is time, right? and you lose it. You don't get it back. You lose the time that you want to spend with your family, that you want to coach the baseball team, you want to go to the parent-teacher conferences, you want to go on

a family vacation. You're spending all your time in the hospital, you know, and that's what's happening to our kids. And so it's just you have to vote with your dollar and you have to prioritize your health. It should be the number one concern for people to take care of this next generation, take care of ourselves so that we can model good health and then take care of this next generation. I mean, we have fertility rates going down. We're just in a real crisis. And I don't think people, you know, they're waiting for some larger wake-up call, which I don't know when you hear a stat, like, you know, nearly 60% of our kids have a chronic illness and some of them multiple. It's like, what are we doing? What's the wake-up call we're waiting for? I mean, how does it get worse than that?

But it's like if it doesn't personally affect you. But now we're just, we're going to be able to. But now we're at the point where it's like, you know, teachers can't control their classrooms. And every mom has a child who's struggling with something. And it's just not the way that we are intended to live. We're supposed to be thriving and happy and successful and in community. And, you know, we're separated. We're isolated. We're dependent on system that is not serving us.

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Find the link and the code in the show notes. I don't think that it's as expensive as people think it is to eat this way. Because, so I just learned last month. I don't know if you've seen this in California, but I was telling another guest of mine, Grace Price, that I was at the farmer's market here in Phoenix and they had a big sign that said, we accept EBT. We accept food stamps for your local farmers.

I'm like, okay, so what is the excuse? I mean, so I don't know if that's implemented in every state. I need to find out we should find out because that's so important for people to understand for, you know, produce and things like that and eating local. But also when it comes to a local farmer and getting meat and buying that in bulk, putting that all in your freezer, I do think it's less expensive. When I have a freezer full of local meat and I do one price like that to keep it all there versus every week, every couple days, you know, during a week going to Whole Foods and

picking up my meat, I'm spending a lot more. money when I buy my meat like that out of the grocery store. So I just disagree. And with the prices of fast food and everything right now, for a family four to eat at Chick-fil-A, I mean, you are looking at $60.70. Oh my gosh. You can have meals for so inexpensive. And like you said, if you go to your farmer and you get the cuts that, you know, you can't eat filet mignon every day. You know, you've got to eat nose to tail. And that is the most economical way to eat. You know, the organ meats are not going to be that expensive. And, you know, when you slow roast a pork shoulder,

you're going to have meals for the whole week, potentially, for your family. And so I think what happens is people don't know how to cook anymore. That's true. You know, nobody does know how to cook. People have to, we have to reclaim our kitchens, people. And they got rid of HOMEC. That's the thing. There is no home at classes in public schools to teach kids how to cook to do this.

But all of the seat, it's all by design so that we are reliant on the same. system to keep us sick for life. Yeah. But there's nothing more rewarding than literally stepping back into your kitchen and learning to cook. It's the most important thing, you know, we can do. And keep it simple. Like when I, when my book came out, I was in Los Angeles and all of a sudden,

surrounded by, like, people from around the world. You know, I came from, like, colonial town in Massachusetts. And all of a sudden, I'm like, oh, my God, like elders from everywhere. And I would show them my book and talk to them about how they ate growing up. And they'd say, this is the way we ate growing up. and we were never sick. And now our kids and our grandkids were seeing that they're sick. They've adopted the American way.

So one of my elders said to me, a French elder, she said, Hillary, do not forget, simplicity is gourmet. I know Hilda mentioned that. It's so true. Keep it simple, right? Like you have a healthy protein, a vegetable with some good butter on there, a salad with a homemade dressing. It's super simple.

It's not rocket science. And I think people are just so intimidated because there's a lot of, there's a lot out there on TikTok and Instagram and, you know, these beautiful food stylists and stuff. And it doesn't have to be this, you know, elaborate thing. Yeah. It's really simple. People used to, you know, throw some things in a pot and that was dinner. You know, it's just not.

And it's delicious. When you have real beautiful ingredients that are from the farmer's market, it doesn't take much of anything to make it delicious. Have any kids or families at your school told you that starting to eat this? This way has changed their life, like something with their physical health or behavioral health, like drastically. Yeah. I mean, we have a lot of teachers who have noticed a huge difference.

I mean, they value this so much. For many of them, this is like their main meal of the day. We had a dad who said his son was given an autism diagnosis and that he eats like one grain of rice at a time. And now he's eating like these most beautiful meals every single day. I mean, it's changed our family. It's changed our lives. Because, you know, a lot of times as parents, our kids don't listen to us, but they'll listen to others.

The head of school said to me the first day that we started there, he said to all the parents, your children need mentors other than you. And I was like, oh, brilliant. You know? And so it's like, it's so true that we need to be this united front for our children where we're all, you know, speaking the same talk. You know, we're all talking, walk in the walk and talking to talk. And so that it's like there is no compromise.

There is no, like, over at Johnny's house, I'm going to be able to get, da, da, da, da. Well, that's what I love. I'm so jealous of some of my best friends who have been able to, like, find a homeschool co-op locally with other mothers. And not only everybody's aligned, everybody's aligned politically, their religious views, everything, but also I know one of my best friends, she's in this co-op. All of the families are all about this type of food and nutrition and healthy living, non-toxic living. And so they can trust that all of the parents are aligned. going to be all feeding their kids the same way. If one of their kids goes to someone else's house, you know, you have this whole community that's doing this together. And they're taking

their kids to field trips on local farms and teaching them about, you know, regenerative farming and all this kind of stuff, which is so cool. And I mean, that's such a blessing for them to have that community and not everybody does. But I think you could be that person in your school, in your church small group, in your co-op to say, like, hey, like, nobody's really thought about food. I know we're just kind of doing what's fast, what's easy, what's convenient. But if you're a state-at-home mom, especially like Hillary, and you're like, I have the time to really sit and start meal planning and thinking about like what these kids are going to eat, taking that step and taking that initiative and just say, I'd like to be in charge. Do you have advice for that person who's like,

I think I want to do what you did, but I'm just scared of like how to tell them I want to do it. Oh my gosh. I would say, just do it. We need, we need everybody to just jump in and try, just start. And the more you find your people, like you said, like how fun. if you have everybody on board and like to be able to send your kids to someone else's house and not have to worry. Like it's a, it's a really hard thing as a parent when you're like, you have these values and then you know when they go other places that it's just being undermined. And so the more we can all, you know, rise up and collaborate and support one another is so huge. So I would say step in. I mean, I became a Western Price chapter leader.

I started teaching cooking classes out of my home. And I just started. Like I've never spent, you know, I'd never been to culinary school. I've never worked a day in a commercial kitchen. I just started. I started teaching myself. And some of the parents who took my cooking classes, this is like 15 years ago. So they would be like, I still have the little red book with all the recipes.

You know, like they just need a roadmap. They just need like a little direction. And when you start to explain the why, they get it. I mean, everybody wants to do what's best for their kids. But some people just don't know. And when you can slow them down, I think that's the other thing is that we're so busy, right? We're so busy. And I've had to learn this, you know, over the course of raising my kids that it's not like more is always better. It's just like sometimes you got to cut things.

You know, you've got to say no to others so you can say yes to yourself. You've got to slow down and maybe don't do that extra activity and take the time to cook and to nourish and to sit down as a family. That's one of the other most important things is have family dinner every night. If you can, I mean, maybe, you know, as my kids get older and they do have activities and stuff, sometimes it's later, but we always try and prioritize that. And that's what, you know, hopefully they'll remember. And so, yeah, if you're a mom or anybody who's interested, I mean, that's why we do our training academy.

You don't have to aspire to be a school lunch chef. We just want to, I will give you every ounce of information I can, and I will send you on your way. You'll be a part of the soul fam for life. So you always have people to bouncing off of, but go back into your community and just do whatever you want. We have people going to churches, hospitals, schools, just taking control of their own. own health. We have a lot of young 20-somethings who are like, I know there's a better way forward.

I want to change the world. I want to take control of my health. It's super exciting. So I just want people to be excited about it, you know? We say we're joyfully disrupting the trend of chronic illness in this next generation of kids. I love that. Because you got to have the joy. You got to dance in your kitchens. You've got to like, you've got to make it fun. And if you have a friend, you know, how many times you're just like, oh, it's like such a slog to like, what am I going to for dinner and what am I got a little grocery store you know but if you're like pick up your phone and you have a friend or there's like a class or something where you're all of a sudden infused with other energy that's viving high you're gonna be like good to go and when she says soul family

she's saying s-o-l school of lunch her her company so that's what she's talking about okay um one thing i do want to cover before we wrap here is what is regent living because on your website you say that that you ascribe to re-gen living. What does that mean? Well, what I've realized is that it's not all about food, right? I mean, there are times when you have to let go. Food is foundational. It's not everything, but it is super foundational. So that is like really, really important. But like I was saying, like sunshine and sleep, our nervous systems are so jacked right now. I think we're all just in fight or flight like most of the time. And I mean, I know I have been and it's my biggest lesson is just slow down and take care of myself.

You know, the Weston Price podcast of the tip I gave at the end, like if there was one thing you can do, I said radical self-love, like, fucking love yourself. Like we don't give ourselves enough appreciation. The most important thing the school has brought to me is that nature connection. You know, I came in just like totally food, food, food. And all of a sudden I was like, oh, there's this whole world around me

that I've never really paid attention to, you never thought about. But we look at things in nature and we're so in awe, right, of like a flower or a butterfly or a mountain top and it's so symmetrical. Everything's like perfect and perfectly designed to work. What if we could like turn the mirror on ourselves and unzip ourselves and see all the intricacies and all the systems that are working every second of every single day to keep us healthy and strong? And what if we had that reverence and that awe for ourselves every day, right?

I mean, one of my French elders said to me, you know, she thanked her feet for walking her through this life. She had like a super traumatic life. And then she thanked her eyes for being able to see all the beautiful colors in her ears to hear the noises of nature surrounding her. And then she's like, and my heart for beating every second of every single day without me giving it a thought. You know, it's like we don't think about what's happening within us, right? And I was saying to one of your staffs, like we're more microbial than we are human. And so all these microbes, you know, they, they respond to laughter and friendship and sunshine and sleep and good eating and community. So it's all of these things. And so you can't just, you can have the best diet in the world,

but have the worst relationship or a job you hate and you can get sick. Yeah, that's true. But you're militant about your diet, right? Right. So, and you can be like happy and eating crap. I mean, And you've seen it, right? The people that live to be like 95 and they drank a soda every day and smokes it. My grandmother and my great aunt, they smoke cigarettes and drank for like 70 years of their lives. Burgers are the most popular food in America. Unfortunately, Americans are almost always eating commodified, processed factory farm meat from fast food restaurants, which is filled with carcinogens known to cause cancer.

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this Memorial Day season. Find the link and code in the show notes. Good Ranchers, American Meat delivered. Regen living is coming from the word regenerative, which regenerative farming. Explain like you would to a kid. What is regenerative farming in the most simplest way? And why is that even superior to just plain old organic traditional farming? Well, it's all about the soil, right? We need healthy soil. It's like our microbes in our gut are like our soil health. And if you don't have healthy soil, that's filled with minerals and nutrients, then the vegetables that you grow are not going to be filled with vitamins and minerals, right? And that's what we're having right now. There's a lot of monocropping,

so you can have even organic produce that's just a monocrop where they're just planting carrots and carrots and carrots over and over again. They're not rotating their crops. They're not diversifying and bringing animals across the land. And so we need this like closed-loop system of, you know, ruminants on the land that are peeing and pooping and depositing all this good stuff. And, you know, stuff into the ground and then the chickens are falling behind and scratching the, you know, spreading the manure everywhere and fertilizing. And then it's just all so beautifully designed to work if we just step back and, you know, let nature do its thing, right? But we're getting all, we're just industrializing everything because it's all profit driven, right? It's like faster,

cheaper, you know, the more profit we make. And so when you think about harvesting, you know, corn and soy and these huge combines coming through the fields and, you know, it's just, it's so fast and destructive like wheat. You know, wheat was designed, you know, originally when we're harvesting wheat, we would be like cutting it down by hand with a side, I think it's called, right, those huge. And then it would like, I think Joel Salison said this, where it was just like fall into the ground and you didn't have time to do everything in one day. So then the morning dew would kind of sprout the grains a little bit and then the sun would

dry them and then the next day it would just sprout again a little bit more and so it's like we we've just industrialized everything to make a higher profit and so we're degrading you know the crops and the and the and the soil health and then of course with our animals in confinement you know it's just I mean I love that you had a.J. Richards on it's just so important to understand the process of you know where your food comes from and how it's produced and the importance of soil health and and regeneration so that that system keeps working. And I mean, you have beautiful soil. Like, your food will be beautiful

and you will gain the nourishment from that food. And, you know, it's all designed to work. Well, it's so funny you bring up Joel Salatin because I'm going there, maybe even this week. Cool. Oh, you're going to that? I'm going to the rogue food conference. I'm going to his farm.

And so I'm not only going to get to go and experience Pollyface Farms, which is like one of the biggest regenerative farms in the country, right? He's doing it right. He's doing it right. And so I'm going to interview him and I'm going to interview some other people there. But I'm so excited because I've never been to a regenerative farm before. You'll see it.

You know, he's got like the bunnies that are down, like pooping down and then the chickens are below the bunnies. It's just like he's just designed it perfectly, right? Oh, cool. It's so cool. And it's so beautiful to see. Well, that's something you can look forward to. By the way, that's like a really early tease. So that's coming in like several weeks.

So you can look forward to that if you're listening. But so I love this. You have this two-week program. Is it kind of like summer camp for adults to learn how to cook this way? How would you describe it? It's like the ultimate like cooking camp and beyond. Yeah, it's a five-night intensive where we're basically like dropping you into nature and Topanga. You're in the beautiful mountains of Topanga, which is between Malibu and Santa Monica at a beautiful retreat setting.

So it's kind of like designed to kind of let people let go over there every day and and, you know, just drop in and reconnect to. their local food systems and their community and sit down and break bread with other like-minded people. And it's really cool because we have like professional chefs and then like 18-year-olds and 25-year-olds and people who are wanting to change churches or people who are, you know, wanting to start a school lunch program. But it all works really magically because everybody, there's no ego involved. It's just about really getting back to what it means to be human essentially. So we have, we kind of go through those systems, like I said in the school. teaching you about fernents and sourdough bread and bone broths and soaking your beans and sprouting your nuts and slow roasting meats and organ meats and so we have experts that come in and

teach different things you'll have to come and then we do like cold plunging we have a breathwork specialist he's the head of north america he's amazing bob sullier and he comes and does um breath work with everybody because that tool is just like another tool in your toolkit to just like understand the power of your breath and calming your nervous system and we get people cold plunging if they want to and it just sort of like breaks the ice. Oh my gosh. Yeah, literally. Literally. And people are just like cheering each other on and kind of solidifies and bonds everybody. Is there a limited number of spots? Like it's only like 15 people?

It's like 15, yeah. Okay. So it's like you want to reserve your spot. Are there still spots open right now? Somebody wants to sign up? The first one is full. The second one is July 28th through August 2nd. And we take people to the local farmer's market. We teach them how to interact with their local farmers. I love. The questions to ask. I mean, we had a vegan who came in. And she said it was that moment that she, and she had blown out her thyroid, gained a ton of weight. And she was just like, I'm just going to come open. Like, I just want to learn. And she said it was at that moment that she shook her rancher's hand and saw the integrity and heard the story and saw the beautiful meat that she was like, this weight just lifted.

And she started eating meat again. Good. Morgan meat. She just told me she's made paté. I'm like, oh, I'm so happy. That's incredible. Yeah. Okay, and so I'm assuming the cost of this, it includes like your lodging, like you set people up.

Okay. And so what is the price? So it's $3200 right now. Okay. Okay. And if somebody wants to sign up and do this, where do they go? Schooloflunch.com, training academy, backslash training academy. And what is your cookbook called? The heal your gut cookbook.

All right. And then your Instagram handle. School of lunch. School of lunch. Yeah. And we're singing and dancing in the kitchen and having a good old time, showing what we're doing. We show the kids. And you post recipes, which I like.

I try to. Yeah, you do sometimes post recipes on there, which it's a beautiful page. Hillary, this is so fun, so inspirational. And I just, I love seeing women find ways in their community that can change culture for future generations. I mean, I don't know if you've thought about this, but what you're doing, like teaching kids at such a young age to eat this way, maybe not everybody's going to follow that for the rest of their life. But I'm sure some of those kids will. and then they'll teach their kids and they'll teach their kids

like what you're doing is so cool because it really will impact future generations and like everybody says they want to do that but I mean how many people can say they really are and you really are so well Dr. Natasha said to me because you know I'm at the stage where my kids are teenagers

and going out in the world and I'm like ah like it's so painful to watch like the food choices because they just don't have great choices out there or they're off with their friends or whatnot and she said you have given them the foundation you have given them a roadmap. She said they know what to return to.

And it's the same with these kids at school. They'll know what it feels like to feel good. Most kids don't know what it feels like to feel good. So they can always return back to it. You know, if they stray, which more often than not, they will at some point. But they really quickly recognize, like, I don't feel good eating, you know. I love that. My son's being tortured in college right now.

Just like, this is rough. Start the roadmap. I love that. Start your child's roadmap for healthy food, healthy living so that even if you're they stray for a little bit. They're like, ah, this stuff that mom made me do growing up, you know, that was so, that's not even worth it. They'll notice the difference in their health and they'll return. Thank you so much, Hillary, for coming on the spillover. Thank you so much. So excited, Hillary brought her cookbook for me because I actually ordered it on Amazon last night.

I was like, oh my gosh, this cookbook looks and sounds amazing. I need this. It's all recipes I can eat, and the recipes were freaking bomb. And then she brings them and sign them and wrote a sweet message and everything. So I will just be gifting my copy that I bought for my videographer, Simon, and then I'm getting the one that she brought me. But I can't wait to try that out. I think it is so cool that she knows so many of my previous guests and like gave the A.OK, like all of these people that you've had on, AJ, James Barry from Pluck. Like all these people are phenomenal. They're doing amazing things for food. And like I mentioned with her, I'm going to be in Virginia in May to visit Joel Salatin's farm, Pollyface, for his rogue food conference. We are talking all things

regenerative ag. If you liked this episode with Hillary, this conference is right up your alley. And so here's what's really fun. You go on this massive farm. It's like one of the biggest regenerative farms in the country. It's so beautiful. He has this amazing lineup of speakers that are all talking on this topic that are doing amazing things, fighting against big food. You get to sample some of the food that they're growing there. It's like this really beautiful. really cool experience, just like an hour outside of D.C. So as my listener, they are giving me a special discount for entry. And I wasn't even going to bring this up, but since Hillary brought it up in the interview naturally, and I'm like, well, I'm going to that conference and everything. And like, I ended up

announcing that I'm going to be interviewing Farmer Joel. I might as well just invite you to the rogue food conference. So if you want to go, you can use code Alex for $30 off your ticket. They've got farm tours, inspirational speakers, meals right off the farm. This is like, honestly, one of the most exciting things that I've gotten to do in all my years working at Turning Point is to go experience this. We're going to do a whole vlog of me like touring the farm, trying the food and all that kind of stuff as well as an interview. But you could be there in my vlog experiencing this with me. Okay? So check out the rogue food conference, all the details below and use code Alex for $30 off your ticket. Next week, I am interviewing a psychologist who

says that your 20s are the defining decade. Everything that we're learning from culture is that our 20s are throwaway years. They don't really matter. Well, she has up-to-date research on work, love, the brain, friendship, technology, and fertility that everyone needs to hear whether you're in your 20s or not, because this is info we need to get out there. It's the perfect episode to share with a recent high school grad or college student in your life.

You'll be able to watch that on the real Alex Clark YouTube channel and anywhere you listen to your podcast by subscribing to the spillover. It comes out next Thursday night at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific. Don't forget to click the link in the description to financially support the show by leaving a tax deductible donation. Thank you so much. That is how we're able to keep this show afloat. Donations from generous listeners who believe in my mission to heal a sick culture, spiritually,

physically, and emotionally. If you enjoyed this episode, leave a five-star review. Let me know what the first episode you heard of mine was that hooked you. I'm Alex Clark, and this is The Spillover. Love you mean it, bye!