Pursuit of Wellness - Toxins Exposed: The Ultimate Expert Mashup

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

Ep. 196:  Welcome back to POW. Today we have an amazing episode all about non-toxic living. You’ll hear from top experts sharing practical advice on addressing mold exposure, microplastics, and hidden household dangers that can affect your health. Having this podcast and speaking to incredible experts like Allison Evans, Mike Feldstein, and Dave Asprey has truly helped me embrace non-toxic living in a balanced way. Whether you’re curious about improving air quality, balancing hormones naturally, or seeking clearer skin, this episode is packed with insights to help you create a healthier sanctuary at home. Tune in for inspiration and actionable tips to enhance your non-toxic journey! Leave Me a Message - click here! For Mari’s Instagram click here! For Pursuit of Wellness Podcast’s Instagram click here! For Mari’s Newsletter click here! For Allison’s Instagram click here! For Mike’s Instagram click here! For Dave’s Instagram click here! Sponsored By: Upgrade your kitchen with Caraway’s non-toxic cookware. Visit http://carawayhome.com/WELLNESS10 or use code WELLNESS10 for 10% off your next purchase. Get better sleep, hair and skin with Blissy and use POWPOD to get an additional 30% off at http://blissy.com/POWPOD The first 1,000 to join at http://functionhealth.com/POW or use gift code POW at sign-up get a $100 credit toward their membership. Maui Nui delivers wild-harvested, nutrient-rich venison straight to your door. Order now at http://mauinuivenison.com/POW. Supply is limited so don’t wait! Breathe easier with Jaspr, the commercial-grade air scrubber that’s quiet, powerful, and sleek. Get $400 off with code POW at http://jaspr.co/pow. Show Links: Support your gut, skin & immunity with Colostrum & Collagen Peptides, a 3-in-1 formula featuring probiotics and grass-fed collagen. Topics Discussed 00:08 - Introduction 02:20 Understanding preservatives in baby products (Ep. 110: Allison Evans) 04:03 What’s in Branch Basics & how to use it 06:50 Pregnancy, mold exposure & candida 10:32 Coffee enemas 12:40 Clean eating 17:24 Clean living for kids: eczema, epigenetics & detox tools 21:07 Where to start with Branch Basics & removing hidden toxins 22:37 Getting sick from toxic air: respiratory & autoimmune flare-ups (Ep. 145 Mike Feldstein) 23:39 Mold exposure & mycotoxin testing 25:35 Air awareness: indoor & outdoor pollution 28:30 Ventilation tips & how cooking pollutes indoor air 34:35 Pets as a source of indoor toxins 38:15 How bad air quality affects people differently 40:32 The rise of mold awareness 47:48 Early mold exposure, food mycotoxins & the mold–Lyme connection (Ep. 100: Dave Asprey) 51:30 Coffee mold toxins & how to find mold-free beans 56:26 How mold exposure disrupts hormones & weight 59:30 Animal protein & why quality matters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Pursuit of Wellness podcast and I'm your host, Mari Llewellyn. Hi guys, welcome back to Pow. Today we have an amazing episode all about non-toxic living. This is something that I have really evolved into over the past couple of years. I think having this podcast and speaking to some amazing experts has really helped me lean into that and really embrace non-toxic living where I can in a balanced way. I think there's definitely two ends of the spectrum, like full non-toxic living where you avoid every chemical possible and live in the middle of nowhere. And then there's the other spectrum where you are like ingrained in toxins every day. And I think that there's a middle ground.

And I think by listening to the experts we have on the show today, you'll be able to decipher, okay, what can I actually do comfortably? And for me, it's a few things. For me, it's, you know, not having fragrant candles in the house, not having air fresheners in my car, using clean cleaning products, eating organic foods, using red light bulbs in my bedroom. I guess I'm a little more on the far end of the spectrum, a little more non-toxic, but I think there's something we can all learn from this episode and it's really important

because it's having a significant impact on our hormones, our endocrine system. We're seeing it affect us. I mean, even me, like microplastics are affecting us and heavy metals and it's affecting our fertility and our health in general. So I think where we can, embracing non-toxic living can just only help us, our future children, the kids you have now, our pets, whatever it may be. So I really think you guys will enjoy this episode. We have some amazing guests on the show with amazing advice for products you can use

for non-toxic personal care and household products, even improving air quality in the home. That's been huge for me and Greg. Filtering water, there's so many things you can do. I think creating a sanctuary in your house allows you to go out into the world and be exposed to toxins, but allow your body to reset and cleanse those toxins while you're in your own home. So without further ado, we are going to hear from some

top experts on the topic of non-toxic living. Let's get right into it. Wet wipes have preservatives. So you're using a dry wipe that you spray the bronch basically all purpose on and you can use that on skin. Exactly. And so y'all I've done this for three kids. People will say, oh my gosh, it's just one extra step. But I'm telling you, I'm in this industry.

And it's like, when you know better, you do better. There is no way that you can take a cleaning product and apply it to a substrate like a cloth, which is what a wet wipe is, and not add a preservative that is at a certain amount, which is a pretty high amount to be honest, because if you don't, you'll get mold. There's a reason that you don't get mold. If you were to spray range basics on a dry wipe and leave it there, within two to three days, there's gonna be mold, okay?

So you have to add benzalconium chloride, you have to add methylisothiol, as I know. They're all these pesticide preservatives. And like I said, even in a very small amount, is going to epigenetics, shows that they could actually turn on and off genetic expression. And think about the amount of times you're using a wipe.

If it was just a once in a while thing, I'd be like, okay, whatever. But this is on a very tender absorbable area of your child, going pretty much straight into the bloodstream, super thin skin, multiple times a day. So I use Honest Company organic dry wipes, and I literally just spray it with water a little bit of all-purpose and my kids have never had a diaper rash or anything like that. It's insane to me that those ingredients are in kids products.

I know. Well, and the non-toxic ones. And it makes sense though. Why would a wipe remain moist and perfect and mold-free? It has to have that preservative. Tell us what's in branch basics. How does it work? What's the magic?

Because I know there's not a ton of stuff in there, but what is in there? I love that you're asking this. No one really asks this, and I'm not a chemist. I did not formulate our product, but who did actually formulate our product were the thousands of clients that Merily has worked with for 35 years. They were the ones that were really our testing group. And so we worked with many, many people over we did over 100 iterations, about 18 months it took to come out with our concentrate. And essentially it is a natural surfactant.

So we have cocoa, glucoside and dechol glucoside. All of our ingredients are rated either one or a two on the EWG, but those are just general surfactants. We have sodium phytate, which is almost like a binder that binds minerals and chemicals, and then sodium citrate, which is a natural salt that acts as a water softener. And then we have chamomile, which is our preservative. So yeah, it's, I, people say, what's one thing you can't live without? You can take everything else away, but don't you take my concentrate. Guys, I use branch basics. I have hand soap in every bathroom, dishwashing the tablets.

We use it as detergent. Like I use it all over our house and it's so effective. It doesn't smell like anything, which I really appreciate. And it's, it's good. I feel good about using it. I have two dogs. I have a husband who's eating off of everything. The pet thing is huge.

The pet thing is huge. They lick and they get everywhere. My dog's climbing pets. Fleas I'm not going to say anything about. Claims fleas hate branch basics. Hate branch basics. So when we used to have a dog, we would take the dog to Petco with the big foamer. This was back in the OG days. We had like a huge like 24, 32 ounce foam, 24 ounce

foamer. And we would drop off the foamer bottle already ready to go. And I would pick my dog up. We were living at our in-laws and so we were required to clean our dog a certain amount of times. I finally had to turn to Petco and And they were like, what is in this stuff? The fleas were just literally just flying off of your lab. Oh my God. Because they hate soap. I mean, when you think about it, it's an exoskeleton reaction.

It's not a neurological reaction. So soap is what a lot of non-toxic gardeners use to keep pests away because it actually breaks up the exoskeleton. Had no idea that I could wash my dog. No claims being made here. No claims are being made. Thank you.

But I will be trying that. That sounds really good. That's great. It's great for their skin that gets so itchy. And if you really look at what we're putting in those quote unquote natural dog shampoos, the fragrances and you know. I know. I feel bad when my dog smells like a papaya because I'm like, this really shouldn't be the case.

It's not good for us, it's not good for them. Yeah, it's not cute. Outside of a clean home and not using chemicals, how do you go about living your healthiest life possible? I know we spoke about enemas. Oh yeah. Can we talk about enemas? Oh yes, we can definitely talk about enemas.

Because you've struggled with your skin, you've struggled with PCOS. I know recently you struggled struggled with your skin. You've struggled with PCOS. I know recently you struggled with lime and mold. So, I was telling Mari before the podcast, being pregnant is such a blessing and we keep getting pregnant. And so, it's been about eight years and I nurse my babies usually until the next pregnancy. But it has definitely stifled my ability to release toxins. And so everything I do is obviously very gentle.

I'm not using infrared sauna, but I still have Candida and I still have mold. So when I hear about your story, I'm thinking, oh, wow, you're really cleared out. Your heavy metals and such, my heavy metals are very, very, very low. But that Candida can be super persistent. Yeah, that was a tough one. Yeah. But that's not to say that I don't have other gut things now.

Right. So I'm dealing with that now. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes Western medicine has to come into play. And that's something that I've had to realize. Even things like SIBO. I mean, sometimes you have to bring out the bigger guns for sure. But just, you know, it's kind of like what I said a little bit earlier. We just have to know that when we do, it's usually not isolated to fixing that one issue. And so if we can support our body through the castor oil packs and the coffee enemas and the grounding and the removal of toxic pesticides and the not being addicted to our phones, which are just making everything so much harder.

Practitioners these days, it's like the protocols that used to work, Mary Lee says, gosh, I can't tell you in the past 35 years, it has gotten so much harder for the same supplement and the same protocol and the same treatment plan to work. She's like, it's a hundred percent because of the electromagnetic fields. That's a whole other subject. I think for me and my lifestyle, people look at me and what I eat and what I do, which it's been 15 years now and it's second nature. People will say, gosh, how do you eat that way?

How do you avoid refined sugars? Are you taking the time for this? For me, it's not a restriction. These are boundaries of my freedom. I've never felt better. And so people can say, you know, oh, well, I need more balance or you need more balance. And for me, I'm like, well, guess what's not balanced? Chronic pain and muscle relaxers and painkillers and living at a pharmacy and, you know, being told I would never get pregnant, like that's

not balanced or having a child with chronic illness. So I get a little bit fired up on that topic because yes, I think that when we are feeling our best and we're not fighting a health issue, sure, go have that hamburger and fries and this and that. And listen, people, I have struggled with emotional eating. I understand that there's definitely a time and place for restrictive eating, but I'm more just talking about the bigger picture of choosing healthy products. If the eating thing is a big thing, maybe put that aside and think about the things that you're cleaning with, that you're washing your hair with.

Think about finding a person to dye your hair that doesn't use ammonia and formaldehyde. You can start anywhere. Start at the place that causes the least amount of stress. Take the pesticides, mildewicides, fungicides out of your home. That can't be that stressful. They are the biggest underminer of our health. Open our windows. Take our shoes off.

It's not just about bringing dog poop in the house. It's about lowering the pesticide exposure in our home. Filter your water. Get a filtrate filter from Home Depot and put it on a box fan and filter your home air for 20 bucks. Meet yourself where you are. But there are things nowadays that I just do. I love, yeah, back to the coffee enemas. I love them, I will say.

I've been doing it for 15 years. I did one this morning. I am five months pregnant. If you're listening, do not start them when you're pregnant. But our body produces glutathione. And so when you do a coffee enema and you are, especially with the coffee and the caffeine, it goes up the hemorrhoidal vein and it basically instigates your natural glutathione production by almost 100%. And so it can up-regulate your metabolism. It's amazing for skin. It's amazing for brain health, gut health. I could just go on and on about, I've gotten so many of my friends

addicted, people are leaving voice texts. Okay, now what do I do now? That's going to be me. That's going to be me after the show. Me and Fee are going to do it together. Sitting on buckets. What's the bucket for? Well, you have to put the coffee in a bucket and then you hang it on a hook. And then you have like a small tube. It's nothing scary.

Because it has to travel down. Yep. You got to work with gravity. Get on all fours and play your favorite song, read whatever you're going to do. And I'm telling you, even just like once a week, once every other week, it's one of those things that detox habits that actually you can see the biggest difference in a short amount of time. I'm one of those that really likes like that quick.

Don't we all? Yeah. Like you have a dusty table and you just see where you're wiping. I like the satisfaction of vacuuming. And that's how I feel about coffee enemas. The castor oil packs are amazing. And the sesame oil pulling in your mouth You know, like I like the satisfaction of vacuuming and that's how I feel about coffee enemas. You know, the castor oil packs are amazing and the sesame oil pulling in your mouth and the oil cleansing, you can do all these amazing grounding, but I see the most bang for my

butt with my coffee enemas. And you saw an improvement in your skin. That was honestly one of the biggest things. Wow. Yeah, that was one of the biggest things. Because if you really think about it, I mean, up in glutathione, you're master antioxidant, you're upregulating so much of your body, you're helping your liver.

And I will say, I think the skin and like that brightening eye and the energy was the biggest, plus obviously gut motility, were the biggest pluses of the coffee enema. I love what you said about eating the way that you do gives you freedom. And I feel that way as well. Like finding whole foods about eating the way that you do gives you freedom. And I feel that way as well. Like finding whole foods and eating the way I do allows me to live my life to the best of its ability.

And I feel like there is some judgment around clean eating and it's like, are you really enjoying yourself? Like, it gets a little tricky. And I feel like when you've had a health issue, like chronic pain, like PCOS, like acne, food can be medicine. It can be so healing. And there's a time and a place. Like I'm going on a trip for my birthday.

I will be having tacos. I will be having margaritas. Tacos are part of my boundaries actually. Oh. Boundaries of my freedom. You can do a clean taco. You can do a clean, mad clean taco. Wait, how do you do-

Welcome to Texas, girl. How do you do your tacos? I like to do the 100% organic corn and we'll steam the corn tortilla. I've just started reintroducing cheese after two years and I'm really enjoying this cheese journey. Oh, I can't wait. But I do raw, organic, I don't do much.

But that, and then, great force of nature or primal pastures or whatever meat. I mean, we get very ancestral with our meat at my home. Liver? Lots of liver, maybe not my tacos. Although force of nature does a liver ancestral blend. I know. It's really wonderful. You wouldn't even know. You can hide it in those tacos.

Your kids, yeah, they never know. Yeah, got to add some cilantro and guac. It's really wonderful. You wouldn't even know. You can hide it in those tacos. Your kids, yeah, they never know. Yeah. Got to add some cilantro and guac. Yeah. So you guys recently moved from Houston to the countryside. No, opposite. So we actually, I grew up in Houston. We moved to Salado, which was north, which is north of Austin.

Lived there during COVID and our house actually got taken, the house we were building got taken by a tornado two years ago. And so we moved back to Houston and that's where we are with our three girls and almost boy. You guys know Greg and I love to cook at home. We cook dinner every single night and I'm obsessed with my carraway non-toxic products.

Seriously, when you're cooking, you wanna be so careful with the pans you're using because those materials are leaking into your food, which is something you really wanna avoid. There could be things like PFAs, PTFEs, lead, cadmium, and other harmful chemicals, which is not in any of Carraway's products, which helps with guilt-free cooking.

I'm also obsessed with their wood cutting boards, knowing that zero plastic is getting into my food. That is such a problem. They're finding plastic in so many people's bloodstreams and other places, and it's having a really harmful effect. Plus, Caraway's products are just so gorgeous. I love having my sage green pan out on the stove. It's such a vibe and makes

me want to cook more. If you have been eyeing their internet famous 12 piece cookware set, now is the perfect time to buy. You can shop Caraway risk-free, enjoy fast free shipping, easy returns and a 30 day trial. Plus if you visit carawayhome.com slash wellness 10, you can take an additional 10% off your next purchase. This deal is exclusive for our listeners, so visit carawayhome.com slash wellness 10, or use code wellness 10 at checkout caraway non-toxic cookware made modern. I have been really focused on my hair health lately. I want it to grow, and that's why I now use a silk pillowcase by Blysee. You can see healthier skin

and hair in weeks. It's much better than satin which is made from synthetics and is rough on hair and skin and cheap for a reason. It has anti-aging properties, it reduces fine line and wrinkles over time and eliminates frizz and preserves hairstyles and protects color-treated hair. It's dermatologist tested and recommended and it clinically is proven to not clog pores which I love as someone who has acne prone skin. It has naturally hydrating silk fibres keeping skin moisturised all night. It's antibacterial and hypoallergenic. It also is naturally cooling and breathable which I need because I tend to run really hot and have a sweaty night. It promotes better sleep.

It's easy to care for and machine washable. There are over 70 colors, including a new Wicked and Harry Potter line. I'm a big Harry Potter girl, so I really love to hear that. It's voted the most loved gift of 2024 with over 3 million sold. Because you're a listener, Blissey is offering 60 nights risk-free plus an additional 30% off when you shop at blissey.com slash pow pod, P-O-W-P-O-D. That is B-L-I-S-S-Y dot com slash pow pod and use code pow pod to get an additional 30% off your skin and hair. We'll thank you. We live in a neighborhood that doesn't have a mosquito truck and that's very intentional.

And my kids are barefoot a lot. We have a guy that comes to our house once a week for heavyweight training and he's like, do your kids even own shoes? I'm like, no, but they don't wear them. They take them off immediately when they see grass. So they've been well trained and there's just there's, you know, I've thrown my kids in the infrared sauna and it has done wonders for their health. So yeah, yeah.

Okay. What did that do for them? So my first born was born, you know, healthy and strong and on time and at home. And then all of a sudden at six months old, we have this huge eczema issue and I'm like, oh no, no, we do it all right. My kids don't have eczema. What is this? It was a very humbling experience.

And thank God I didn't go straight to the cortisone creams and the typical route because I ended up doing genetic testing and the poor girl, I mean, double MTHFR from her parents and really weak detoxification system. And she is the one that actually had me read Ben Lynch's book on dirty genes, which really convinced me about the power of epigenetics and how we are not victims of our genetics. My daughter has no eczema. We went through, we did herbals, we did binders.

We stuck her in the sauna for 10 minutes, slapped some Curious George on, three years old. And she is, her skin is perfectly clear. And we just didn't, we took a different route. And I'm so thankful because instead of taking the batteries out of the fire alarm, we really got to the fire and it took time. It took like two years for her.

It was really bad eczema. But now there's not even a sign of it. And it's been really cool to see how epigenetics, which is basically the power of our choice and our lifestyle, it's called the science of hope. It has totally trumped the genetic deck that she was given because I had the CEO actually, or CMO of this genetic testing company reach out to my health practitioner who then forwarded me the email and said, this child is going to need a lot of support throughout her whole life.

This is a really, really weak detoxification. I mean, I was just weeping as I'm reading this email and my child is so strong. She's rarely sick. She, yeah, so it just shows, it does help. That's so inspiring to hear. I actually just did my own genetic testing and I could see that I have a hard time detoxifying.

I don't have the M... What is it? M-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H- just know that going forward. Yes. Genetics loads the gun. Choice is pull the trigger. Yeah. But great to know that we can put our kids in the sauna for 15 minutes. Oh my gosh. And kids, they heal so quickly. I remember being so jealous because we moved into a home with mold when my second child was one.

And Lyme disease that I had had my entire life and didn't know about was activated and I gave her lime through my breast milk, which of course I felt horrible about She was just constantly crying and just vaginal redness and she was just a mess So we ended up taking her in positive for lime pretty high markers We put her on some herbals again put her in the sauna ten minutes curious George Maybe some Peppa Pig. And within six months, tested negative for Lyme. And you know, I'm still over here like testing very positive. Like, gosh, it's just amazing. You know, and even we were still living in some mold and the kids just are so resilient. Wow. It's inspiring for us though to see, okay, if my child can do it, I can too.

Yes, absolutely. It just takes us a little bit longer. We have more baggage. For anyone listening who maybe wants to start their non-toxic journey and purchase Branch Basics, what would you recommend as like the starter product? Yeah. Well, I always tell people this, please don't buy Branch Basics thinking that this is your ticket and, okay, I'm going to be healthy because this journey is not about actually buying anything. It's about removal. So when I send Branch Basics out, which I do a lot, I meet someone and I'm like, give

me your address, but I say, please get rid of X, Y, and Z from underneath your countertop and please get rid of your great plugins and please, I hate to name brands, but please get rid of your pesticide guy that's coming, you know? Yeah. And then bring in the non-toxic, you know? So our starter kit's great. That's where to start. And just know that it's really about removal. We have a Toss the Toxins online course that is essentially taking Marilee's almost 40 years of client consulting and putting it into a course where Marilee, Kelly and I are basically sitting on a couch. And we break down in 12 different modules where to start. So pesticides, cleaning products, laundry room we go through.

Everything from filtering your water at a budget friendly rate all the way to emotions because emotions are toxic. So if something here that I'm saying is making you feel overwhelmed, don't start there, you know, because it's toxic. So yeah, just power of removal and then buying Branch Basics, I will say it does work and it does make the process easy. What does it look like when someone is sick from toxic air? Everybody's stuff was exasperated.

So if someone had asthma, they were having asthma attacks for sure. Yeah. If they so if they already had like respiratory stuff, it was going to be way worse. If they had autoimmune stuff, it would be very flared up. Kind of like what I like to explain is most of the things that are bad about eating bad food or drinking bad water are very similar to breathing bad air. It's just this another toxin source that you introduce to your body that kind of triggers everything. So yeah, respiratory stuff was the most heightened. And then anyone elderly that was like on CPAT machines was really struggling. Babies were really struggling. So like the most vulnerable

populations were put over the edge. And then people who were generally healthy were just like, unwell. So if it's a wildfire smoke, like your lungs can burn a little bit skin stuff, itchy eyes, rashes, autoimmune flare up. So it's really like across the board with mold. I have heard and I've experienced my own mold issues, but doesn't mold stay in your system for a really long time? It's kind of like heavy metals and stuff. Like, yeah, if you don't have a detox protocol, then it can stay in there and be a problem. And mold is not usually one of those things that is acute.

It's more of like a chronic long term thing. Yeah. So if you sleep in a moldy hotel room one night, it's definitely going to mess you up for the night. You know, you'll have a bad sleep. You might get headaches, brain fog, a little bit of rash, but you'll be OK. A couple of days later, it's definitely gonna mess you up for the night, you know, you'll have a bad sleep, you might get headaches, brain fog, a little bit of rash, but you'll be okay. A couple days later, it'll clear out. But when you're living in a moldy environment, then it's just really gets gets inside you. I've almost never seen someone who's done a mycotoxin or a mold

test from like a urine or blood analysis that didn't have some amount of mold. It's just like it's omnipresent. but yeah, it definitely stays in you for quite some time. Did you have high levels of mold from your work being exposed to toxic environments? Yeah, I didn't realize it at the time. Cause my, I mean, when I'd go to these like disaster zones, we were working like 18 hours a day and living a pretty unhealthy lifestyle for a few months at

a time. Yeah. And yeah, mold, but also for us, heavy metals were really bad too, because it wasn't just the 5,000 homes that burnt down or it wasn't just the million acres of trees that burnt or the 5,000 homes, but everything in every house was gone.

So when you would drive down a street after a wildfire zone, all you see is chimney stacks, piles of ash and chimney stacks. So where's the WD a street after a wildfire zone, all you see is chimney stacks, piles of ash and chimney stacks. So where's the WD 40? Where's the paint cans? Where's all the cleaning chemicals? Like, literally, the cars, the fuel, everything in everyone's homes, the factories, kind of got into the smoke and makes it like a toxic plume of smoke. Yeah, I got like, I still have a little bit of it. It gets

triggered now by like gluten, I have a bit of psoriasis, and that got triggered after this wildfire in 2016 and, like, living in that environment. Did you go on a detox protocol after that? I have, and I probably am due for another one now. What are some major things, like, for people sitting at home who have maybe never had an air purifier, have never noticed or thought about air quality, why do they need an air purifier? What are some of the things that they could be noticing that they're missing? An air purifier is one of the tools, but there's actually a lot of stuff that people can do

for free at home immediately. I think the main thing is just starting from air awareness. Broadly, there's outdoor air pollution and there's indoor air pollution. So outdoor air pollution is your mold, your pollen, your allergens, the rubber from the tires, the chemicals, the factories, just like general pollution. Then indoor air pollution is all the off gassing from the furniture, the carpets, the flooring, the paints, pretty much anything manufactured has an off-gassing period, pets, cooking, cleaning products,

the list really, really goes on. And if you think about homes, we've since the 70s in particular, we started building our homes, optimizing them for energy efficiency. So the problem is we're trying to keep the cool in in the summer and the warm air in in the winter, but the problem is we keep everything in. So we summer and the warm air in in the winter. But the problem is we keep everything in.

So we have all the outdoor air comes in, the pollen, the allergens, the mold, the pollution, then we all have the indoor pollutants. And our homes are basically like Tupperware bags. Like they're like little plastic bags or Tupperware boxes. So everything gets trapped inside. Here in Austin, when we do allergy testing in the spring, if we test someone's carpet or even like a couch material,

there's typically more pollen inside than outside, even on a bad allergy day. So you see like a bad allergy day, they're like, stay inside, stay inside. You're like, you have just as much, if you weren't filtering your air and cleaning your surfaces well, you have just as much allergens, if not more, indoors than outside. And outside, we have the sun, UV light,

we have the wind, the rain, and the trees. Those four things make up nature's air purifier, which is the real air purifier, which is also why our logo is a tree. Because we should not need air purifiers. If we built our homes better and we polluted less and we didn't cut down so many trees, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

So should we be keeping our windows and doors open as much as possible? Yeah, and I think the same way people check the temperature, like people think about whether has the temperature, sun or cloud, and will it rain. I always look at air quality, and you could Google wherever you like, now Tesla, Google, Apple, everyone's starting to report on air quality. Is that accurate though? It's pretty good.

Really? Yeah, it's pretty good. Okay, I don't know why I never believe it. You can. starting to report on air quality. air is horrible, maybe we'll go for a walk, Obviously in Austin in summertime, we're not opening our windows, it's too hot. So if it's not too hot, not too cold, and the outdoor air is relatively clean, then yes, open your windows, like get fresh air, and especially when you're cooking.

And on that note, people should test their range hoods. More than half of people's range hoods don't actually work. So if you take it, just take a tissue, do a tissue test, turn your range hood on, hold it up to the vent, and make sure it's actually pulling the tissue up. And then make sure it's venting outside, because often that thing is venting into the crawl space, it's venting behind your wall, it's like a little microwave one

that's like venting in the cabinet above or in your attic. It's not actually venting outside, it's just putting it in another room. And if you can, when you're cooking, especially if you're boiling stuff, use the back burner, because the range hood does collect much more from the back burner. The shower, when you're using your bathroom fan, run it for like two hours after your shower, because all that humidity and make sure that vents outside too, those often vent into attics, because you shower,

think about how much water a towel can soak up. So when you're done showering, there's like a gallon plus of water, just like on your towel, in the shower floor, and then if it's not exhausting outside, that just goes inside and that contributes to your mold growth. Why is cooking creating toxins in the air? So a few reasons. Definitely like a nonstick pan is worse, not clean food is worse.

But even if you're using your grass fed grass finished steak with organic oils and everything and you know seed oils and you're doing all the things right. High heat and protein creates a lot of byproducts. So there's chemical compounds that are created like PAH, which is polysilic aromatic hydrocarbons and a bunch more stuff, same stuff that we'd be testing for after wildfire smoke. So there's a lot of like chemical compounds that aren't the food and aren't the oil that get created from the proteins in the heat. And that's and then that gets embedded in your carpets and your furniture, anything in your home that can get wet and absorb water also absorb air.

And then the other thing to consider is just because you can eat something, it doesn't mean you can breathe it. Because when you eat something, you get your digestive system to break it down, pull out the nutrients, filter out the rest. When you breathe it, it's really harsh. Our respiratory system is not as robust as our digestive system. So like just because you can put something in your mouth doesn't mean you can put it in your nose. Yeah. Um, which is why when someone's cooking, if they can, yeah, doors and windows open for sure, or, you know, if you don't have that, that's, that's when purifying your air becomes much more mandatory, but there's still no substitute for

fresh air and ventilation. So I should put a Jasper in the kitchen because we make a ton of red meat. Living room. It will be the craziest. make a ton of red meat. Living room, it will be the craziest. I love Function because it's the only health platform that gives access to the kind of data people never see and the insights to actually take action.

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Why are pets creating toxins in the air? Pets have allergens. So just right off the bat, the pet dander, their fur is problematic. And a lot of people actually who think they're allergic to cats end up being allergic to cat litter, not cats. So I thought I was allergic to cats. allergic to cats end up being allergic to cat litter, not cats. So I thought I was allergic to cats. I wasn't. I was allergic to cat litter.

Why? Well, go look at the chemical sheet of like a dust-based clumping litter. It's literally like the worst chemicals ever. Wait, I didn't even think about that. And then kitty goes, there's like a plume of kitty litter smoke, and then you smell it throughout your whole house. So I don't have cats, but I'm also not allergic to anything. So I don't think about this kind of thing.

This is good. Mm hmm. This is good. So yeah, cat litter messes up a lot of people, myself included. Okay. Then purifying the air helped. You can also switch to like a grass pellet based litter. I was going to say, are there like organic ones?

There are. Then the downside is it tracks all over your house, but now they make these little mats that are like, they almost look like foam. They're textured. Yeah. So by the time the cat walks away from the litter box, most of it's fallen off. Okay. And then dogs, on the other hand, they go outside.

Right. So take this picture for a sec. Would you ever take a blanket, go outside. eating roadkill because that's like his favorite thing. He'll like run up to a dead squirrel and just yeah, that's probably why I have H. pylori. Yeah, that sounds like a likely cause. No, you're so right about that. I didn't even think in that way.

I mean, my question was more so is the Jasper also benefiting my dog for sure? Yeah. Yeah, dogs get allergies too. Yeah. So yeah, the dog is like this sponge that you put out into the world, soak up all the beautiful glyphosate and then wring it out in your bed at night. Most people sleep with their dogs. So on our air quality quiz, it's like, do you have any pets?

If it says yes, dog, cat, or both. And then if they say dog or cat, we're like, do you sleep with your pet? We know you do. And then if they say yes, we'll like email them about that. Because yeah, that's like a huge source of introducing allergens into your bedroom. So keeping your dog groomed is going to be super helpful. But I always tell people you can either keep the dog out of the room. And if the dog is in the room, that's like a mandatory situation to filter the air. Because it's not like you're eating the stuff.

Same with mold. We can go back to that after. Like you're not eating the mold, you're not drinking it, you're not rubbing it on your skin. The dog, you might be kind of rubbing it and maybe making out with your dog after it eats roadkill. So maybe that is the culprit here. You're like, you need to figure that out. But like my question is with the grooming, I feel like they use all these crazy chemicals on the dog. Like the dog comes back smelling like a coconut. Eek.

You know what I'm saying? I never had a dog. That doesn't surprise me at all. I don't like the fragrances of it. I'm sure there were in Austin. There's definitely like a holistic wellness dog groomer. I'm sure. At least brush it, maybe have a vacuum a little.

Yeah, you're right. Like more of like, I don't think maybe have a vacuum a little. Yeah, you're right. More of like, like, I don't think you need a chemical potion up the dog. But I feel like just like a mechanical clean would be beneficial. Yeah, at least at least the groom. Yeah. I'm not I'm not a big germaphobe. And I think sometimes that's to my detriment. I kind of like, whatever, there's dirt here, dirt there. But like the air purifying, I think, makes such a big difference, especially if you're someone who struggles with acne, or you have other symptoms. Could bad air quality symptoms show up differently in different people? Oh, yeah. Okay. Same way mold shows up differently in different people. Yeah. When I did mold

consulting and testing and restoration for a decade, I could go to a house to let's say a family of five, two of them could be like, deathly ill, chronic migraines, fatigue, like beside themselves, quality of life destroyed brain fog. One or two of them might have like a rash and one of them might be like, I'm fine. It's kind of an allergen. Same way, like you said, different things impact people differently. Yeah. So it impacts people so differently. Some people it's like debilitating. Also it depends on you know how well you you naturally detox. Yeah, certain people have certain genes or don't have certain genes that change their ability to like, methylate

and detox properly. And then, you know, maybe someone's drinking more water than the other. And then but yeah, it definitely varies depending on the person dramatically. And if they've had a big exposure event, and then, you know, it kind of is an everywhere problem. If you live coastal, there's a lot of humidity. Yep. Here, there's a lot of mold in Austin.

There's still humidity and high heat. In Arizona, there's also a ton of mold. People think there's not. I see some of the worst mold toxicity in Arizona anywhere. Because they are so dry, they don't have a natural like... They're not used to it. So then if you get a leak in your house, it ravages you. But also, all that desert sand used to be underwater.

So if you sample the desert sand, there's ancient molds that have been there for who knows, thousands or millions of years. So often when people have big mold toxic exposure events in Arizona, it's like after a wind storm or a boob, they have this big exposure. And when they get their mycotoxin and their blood and all their testing done, the same species of mold in their dust is the same that's in their blood almost unanimously. That's insane. So it's kind of like an everywhere problem.

Wow. yeah. And do you think that the awareness around mold has gone up? Because I feel like- Oh, massive. Yeah, more people are getting their homes tested. Do you feel the same with air quality awareness? Or you think that's still a little lagging? It's lagging. So mold is kind of like a,

it's sort of like the new lime. Yeah. It's like a thing that if you're sick and you can't figure it out why, it's like a, it's sort of like the new lime. It's like a thing that if you're sick and you can't figure it out why, it's like a common culprit. But because it's everywhere, it's way more prevalent. You're not like, it wasn't like through a bug bite or something or a mosquito or a tick or something.

If you look at the surge volume of anything mold related, it looks like a hockey stick. It's like the Nvidia stock. It is going crazy. So the mold awareness is going up. Mold is much scarier than air. Even though anyone who's having a mold problem, it's an air problem. It's not usually the mold on your strawberries. You can see that stuff. Like right now we're breathing some amount of mold and that's okay. There's a certain amount of reasonable mold in

the environment. It's inside, it's outside, it's kind of omnipresent. So this like black and white approach to mold is a little bit intense. It's like, if you drink tap water, it has chlorine. So do you rip out your pipes or do you filter your water? Yep. So mold is something that outside, it's not nearly that problematic because with the sun,

the wind, the rain and the trees, it's when mold is indoors that it's a big problem. Mold's not any happier inside than we are or our pets are. It's pissed off and it wants to get back outside and it will wreck havoc on us to do so. So yeah, mold awareness is going up a lot, which I think is a blessing and a curse. It's not a curse in the sense that like people were already impacted from it by for a long period of time. It's not like mold, it's not like it's more humid or hotter

and that's creating more mold growth. It's much more mold awareness. And I mean, humans spend 95% of our time indoors in this part of the world. So it's a blessing and a curse. It's a curse because you gotta get outside more. That's too much time inside. It's the blessing though,

because you can turn your home into your clean air sanctuary. You can have clean water. You can make your bedroom a sleep sanctuary. It's the one place where you can turn your home into your clean air sanctuary. You can have clean water. You can make your bedroom a sleep sanctuary. It's the one place where you can like dial it in and have it like this wellness sanctuary for not very much money. So I think investing in that is wise. Air quality was lagging water quality awareness by about 20 years. And I think since COVID, it's shrunk into about 10 years. Like the gap is closing. And this is the way I look at air. Like you

could go three weeks without food, three days without water, and only three minutes without air. You can, you eat, let's say two pounds of food in a day. You drink like two liters of water and you breathe like 17,000 liters of air. People don't really realize that it's the thing we consume most of by far. Just like water, we drink it and we pee it out. Air, we breathe it in and we exhale it. It's very similar. So there was a study recently in the UK that showed the average human breathes a credit card worth of microplastics each week. So sometimes to me it's staggering that people are like really looking at their food and really looking

at the water and you should be, but the amount of stuff that you're getting from the environment and the amount of toxins you're getting from your home and from the air is far more than water and food, exponentially more. So it's not about neglecting those other things. And air is also, it's the first thing we do when we're born. It's the last thing we do when we die.

It's the only thing that keeps us alive all night long. I call it my sleep fuel. Finland just did a study in these daycares where just by putting a not even good air purifier in the classrooms, 18% less absenteeism right away. So 18, 20% basically less sick kids right off the hop. So yeah, when you go from breathing in and the most amazing thing,

so remember, I don't tell you this part, but I created Jasper originally just for wildfire smoke. I thought I was gonna just, when California would be on fire, we would go there and sell air purifiers and help with that situation because that's the background I was in. When COVID hit, we were gonna launch June, 2020. We ended up launching May, 2020. For the first year, we only sold to doctors and dentists. because that's the background I was in.

we were moving into because I over engineered the product. I made it for toxic smoke and mold, which makes it and it had to be beautiful. It's even more effective. It's even more effective. It had to be beautiful and had to be effective and made from steel. That was very important to me. So when all of a sudden what I didn't think though with allergies, so people who are struggling from seasonal allergies, often their allergies are gone. Like not just reduced, but like 99% just gone. Because if someone has seasonal allergies or whatever it may be that's impacting them allergy wise, they're getting bombarded 24 hours a day. Human body very adapt to handling stresses and trauma and bad air and you know, we can handle some stuff. But when it's 24 hours a day, it's like a chronic beat down.

So when you look at the mold and the pallet and the cedar fever and all that, you're breathing it outside, and then you're breathing even more allergens inside. So when that mold and the pallet and everything is hitting you 24 hours a day, you don't have any time to rest and recover. So all of a sudden, when you turn your bedroom or your home

into a clean air sanctuary, you really reduce that stress load. So now your body, which is like a healing machine, if you just let it do its thing, it can recover. But when it's like, it can't get parasympathetic and it can't do its own healing process when it's constantly under attack. So when you turn your home into a clean air sanctuary

or your bedroom into a sleep sanctuary and you're breathing 99% filtered air all night long, all those toxins and stress loads come down. And I love the quote, you can't detox your body if you don't detox your home because it's like running on a treadmill in a gas chamber. You're doing all the stuff to detox, but you're in a toxic environment, so you're re-toxing as fast as you're detoxing. So it is massive for sleep. So if you know me and you've been to my house,

my house is full of Jasper air purifiers. It's my favorite air purifier. It actually isn't just an air purifier, it's an air scrubber. It has commercial grade power, but it's quiet and beautiful. I am such a big fan of the founder, Mike Feldstein. He's been on the show. You have to listen to this episode. Thousands of listeners who heard him on the podcast already bought Jaspers and are loving

them. It was one of my most popular episodes and I think one of the most bought products from any episode we've done on the show, which is really saying a lot. I have a code that's going to give you $400 off. And I have to tell you investing in clean air is one of the most important ways to invest in your health. It gives you better sleep, more energy, clean, fresh air. Jasper is the world's best air scrubber for your home.

And my home is equipped with them. I'm about to add another one to my nursery. So use code POW, P-O-W for $400 off. It's an exclusive deal. Get $400 off with code POW at checkout. Go to jasper.co slash POW. That's J-A-S-P-R dot co slash POW. That's code POW at jasper.co for $400 off your Jasper air Scrubber. I want to talk about mold toxicity because I've spoken about it a ton on this show. I personally struggled with it for a while and for me it came out as acne, which is something I still deal with, but I managed to get rid of the mold.

I also had Candida, staph, heavy metals. And as someone who's been living a healthy lifestyle for a long time, I was shocked to find that out. So tell us- Where are you living a healthy lifestyle? That's the thing that I reflect on. Yeah. You know, because I was doing hit workouts

every single day, no rest. Oh, an over-trained woman who would imagine that that might wreck your hormones. It does it to guys too, it just takes us longer, right? Tell us about your mold experience and how you cleansed from that. I grew up in a basement in Albuquerque, New Mexico that had been flooded. And I had mold exposure from an early age. We didn't know it at the time, you know, it was a nice house with a nice basement, like

who would have known? So I had nosebleeds like 10 times a day it's a frequent frequently occurring symptom with toxic molds I also had rashes I had asthma and a lot of behavioral disorders I was diagnosed with ADHD and ODD you know that one is no oppositional defiant Disorder. Oh. So think of the Rage Against the Machine song that fuck you, I won't do what you told me.

Like pretty much you have that running all the time in your brain. That may have served you though at some point. It probably did, but it does come with just a lot of anger. When you discovered the weird mold from these symptoms, what was your first step? Because I know it can be a really stubborn toxin. Oh, wow.

Well, let's talk about what mold does. I did a documentary called Moldy Movie, and it's free. Moldymovie.com, just go watch it. If anything I'm saying, like that can't be real. Got a dozen top doctors and a dozen people like you and me who were just taken out by this. What mold does is it grows and houses when there's water damage, including condensation.

And 100 million homes, according to the experts in the documentary, homes or businesses or cars and things like that, they have toxic mold right now in the US alone. So it's a massive problem. And mold is the cause of Lyme disease. What? Yeah, I've been diagnosed with active Lyme.

When I say I've been diagnosed, I mean, I owned the lab company that did the diagnosis of my Lyme disease. So that doesn't have to come from a tick. You can get bitten by a tick and you can get Lyme disease, but the people who get chronic Lyme, 90% of them have toxic mold that took their immune system offline

and Lyme is a symptom of mold. You fix the mold and the body gets rid of the Lyme. Now this totally triggered some Lyme people who identify as only Lyme. This information comes not just from what I've seen in 20 years of working in the mold and Lyme and chronic illness space, but on my podcast, I interviewed an expert from UCLA

who did a genetic analysis and showed just comprehensively that although the symptoms overlap 90%, 90% of the time it's mold, not Lyme. So 10% of the time it could be just Lyme, and in which case go down the Lyme path. By the way, I did take antibiotics for a year to try and cure the lime, but you can't get rid of lime if there's mold on board.

Okay. So what does mold make? Mold itself, when you're breathing it or getting it on your skin, it is an immune system irritant. It can cause allergies. Just basically dead mold will do that. Mold also makes mycotoxins.

These are toxins separate from the mold itself. And when you're talking about something like coffee, the mold is long dead. It's been roasted and brewed, but the toxin is heat stable. And that's why Danger Coffee says mold right on the label. Some other brands I might've been associated with in the past don't say mold on their label anymore.

Mold-free meaning? Yeah, in other words, the coffee's lab tested for mold. Wow. And I think it's really important because along this journey as I was figuring things out, I gave up coffee for five years. Wow. Because one thing that mold does is it causes your immune system to go into almost like a fight or flight response when you're re-exposed.

People who have had mold, they walk into moldy building and their nervous system gets dysregulated. It's a cell danger response. So I gave up coffee because I noticed after I drank coffee, I would get jittery and anxious and then tired and I'd want more coffee. And I thought I was allergic. Well, I came back from that trip to Tibet

and I went to a place in Mountain View and I had a really high-end cup of single-state coffee. And it was like the lights turned on, the angels are singing, I'm like, oh God, I love coffee. That's crazy that you had to give it up for five years. I barely remember them. I mean, is it fair to say that a majority of the coffee you're getting at a regular coffee shop is moldy?

I love local coffee shops. And so I don't wanna pick on anyone in particular. I will say that in the US, there are no laws protecting us from mold, toxins, and coffee. But in Japan, China, Europe, and most of South America, there are government limits on mold, toxins, and coffee. And most people who don't think there's mold in coffee heard me on one of the three times I was on the Joe Rogan show.

He decided to say there wasn't mold in coffee after a company he owns started directly competing with Bulletproof. So there was a financial motive for that and the evidence is very abundant. And here's how you can tell if you're getting mold in your coffee. So some of the studies say 80%, some say 90% of coffee is moldy, it might be 70%, and the

degree and type of mold are also something that matters. So when you drink a cup of coffee and you have to pee right away afterwards, is your bladder full or not full? It's not full. So what system in your body is making you pee? I guess your kidneys, right? It's your kidneys and bladder and they're doing it to protect you

because the toxin that's most common in mold and coffee is called ochratoxin A, which is a kidney and bladder toxin. That's what I had. There you go, I had it too in my house, right? What that means is if you have most coffee that has OTA in it and you drink it, your body says, oh my God, get it out of here.

And then you pee right away and there's like a half a cup of pee. When you drink clean coffee, it actually hydrates you, especially when there's electrolytes and minerals like danger coffee, but it doesn't give you the pee response. So if you want to monitor how much OTA you're getting or one other toxin from plants, the frequency that you need to pee is a really big variable. You should pee when your bladder's full, not have to pee before it's full, unless you're getting rid of toxins.

Is there a difference between, I mean, this might be a dumb question, but like a cold brew, an Americano in terms of the amount of mold? No. Studies show that mold toxins don't survive the brewing process. The mold is long gone,

but the poison that's left is there. Think of it like penicillin is there, even though you're not eating the mold where penicillin comes from. So when you do cold brew, is it limits your ability to get the, actually a lot of the dissolved good things in coffee. So a heat extraction of any herb

is gonna get more out of it. And the reason people do cold brew is because it limits some of the bitter compounds, or you could roast the coffee properly and get higher quality coffee. So you get less polyphenols that way, but there's no studies, nothing I've ever seen that says you get less polyphenols that way, but there's no studies, nothing I've ever seen that says you get less mold that way.

You just get less coffee nutrients. If you do an Americano or a French press with a metal filter, then you get coffee oils. And there's two camps around coffee oils. One of them says, they might raise cholesterol, therefore they're bad for you. I don't worry about cholesterol unless it's oxidized because, well, that's what the science supports. There are some other variables like APOB that matter that are not cholesterol, but coffee doesn't affect those.

So coffee oils in multiple studies reduce inflammation in the brain. So they're plant essential oils. I drink Americanos when I'm at home almost exclusively. I would say to get the most benefits, look at French press or no paper filter methods or espresso. But if you're worried about cholesterol, it might be up. It might be down from that.

Just paper filters reduce the soluble fiber you get from coffee that's a prebiotic and they take away those oils that I think are good for you back to Mold cleansing did you do supplements diet all the above? I'll tell you the protocol in a minute Give us the process to understand what mold does okay, okay? So we have the mold itself is a strong immune system activator and then we have the toxins from mold They're called mycotoxins and the the toxins from mold are very, very small, fat soluble molecules.

They look a lot like cholesterol and the body can't see molecules that size. It's below the level of our immune system for most of them. So they directly poison mitochondria and they wreak havoc depending which of about 200 toxins there are in mold that really affect humans. And you can be suffering from an allergic response to mold or from mycotoxin exposure directly.

And what makes it even more complex is your immune system eventually can recognize some mycotoxins and have an immune response to the compound, but not the mold. So if you wanna get rid of mold, it's helpful to know what you have. In my case, I had exposure to among many others, something called xeralinone. Have you heard of that one?

No. This is my favorite mycotoxin, because anyone who still believes in calories in, calories out, including some of my friends and the bodybuilding community who believe You know that a KitKat is the same thing as an orange because calories like You can manage your body weight that way until your biology completely breaks well As a relinone is 10,000 times more estrogenic than human estrogen and it absorbs through the skin

So the dust in your house, or that musty blanket, or you could breathe it. So this is one of the things I had, is why I was so obese, why my testosterone was so low. Right? And in fact, why my- Because estrogen leads to weight gain, or weight retention. It does.

Okay. Yeah. And it also leads to, you know, basically softness in your muscles. I used to have man boobs and, know the whole nine yard industry is not dumb Like what could we do with this? They concentrate that mold toxin into a little waxy pellet and you put it in an industrial beef cows ear It soaks in through the blood vessels there and the cow gets fat on 30% less calories. Oh my god Wait, are we eating this moldy beef?

I don't. I eat grass fed. Yeah, right, but like this is what's happening to the grain fed. Yeah, it's not that the meat itself is moldy, it's that a very potent estrogen gets added to the cow. And is it still present in the meat? Well, it's fat soluble and there's extra fat in the meat.

But the important thing for those of us in the fitness area, if anything on the planet exists that makes you fat on 30% less calories, your story about calories in, calories out is bullshit. It is provably wrong. Now, might they be a variable that's worth tracking? Yes. Does it give you a license to say a Diet Coke

and a Snickers bar cancel each other out because calories? No, there are other factors at play. I have to know what your diet's like. Do you follow a carnivore diet or do you kind of like tinker it based on what's going on? My first big book was called The Bulletproof Diet and people lost a couple of million pounds on it. I think it's sold about 600,000 copies now.

And you see it echoed in a lot of newer nutrition books. They're on the same path. Chapter one of the book, avoid these plant toxins, including lectins, phytic acid, oxalates, histamine, and omega-6 fats. So if you're going to do keto, this is all from the Bulletproof Diet, do keto for short periods of time,

come out of it, and when you're doing keto, protein quality and fat quality matter, right? So the whole clean keto thing, first book on that. And that's still what I do. You're keto all the time? No, use keto as a scalpel. And I'm 6% body fat, what the hell business do I have being keto, right?

I don't want to get any leaner. I'll go in ketosis if I want to deal with a certain issue or I want to lose a little bit of weight, which isn't an issue. On a typical day, when I'm not fasting, I will eat 200 grams of animal protein. And I do that because, funny enough, I weigh 200 pounds. And that equation works.

In my longevity book, I went through all the research saying you might want 0.6 grams of protein per pound of body weight. And they say, but as you get old, you should go up to 0.8 because you start losing muscle. But when I go to 0.6, I start losing muscle and I don't feel good, right? So maybe some people do all right on that,

but I think between 0.8 and one gram of protein per pound of body weight is good, except even saying that is nonsense because have you ever heard of sarin nerve gas? No. So back in some of the very early terrorist attacks in populated cities, in Japan, some terrorists made sarin nerve gas

and put it on the subway. Sarin comes from beans. It's a plant-based protein. Uh-oh. So when plant-based people tell you, don't eat animal protein because this one animal protein is bad for you, we could say, but, but sarin nerve gas.

You could also say snake venom is a protein. You probably don't wanna eat rattlesnake venom because it has this weird spike-like protein in it. So maybe the quality and type of protein is an important variable. And if you say 200 grams of protein per day, that would give you license to make me eat crickets. Okay, and to make me eat soybeans,

which might be worse than crickets, I don't really know. I'm not eating either one of them. So that's why I always say animal protein. Because animal protein, whatever source it is, whether it's dairy if you're not allergic, beef, which is the best, or lamb, or not as good but still okay, chicken or eggs, right? Those are the things that actually have the amino acids

that your body needs and a lot of other cofactors. If you do 200 grams of those kinds of proteins, you get results. If you do 200 grams of industrial processed plant proteins, you get results. If you do 200 grams of industrial process plant protein, you don't get the results. So the idea that calories matter lets you sell junk food. The idea that protein matters lets you sell junk protein. The reality is that it's the quality and type of protein

and the availability in the body that says what works. You can eat the way I'm talking about, which is a low toxin quality protein, quality fat. You can eat surprisingly affordably, especially if you tolerate eggs. Like white rice and eggs cooked in butter is cheaper than McMuffins and it's so much better for you. And if you can't afford the grass-fed ground beef,

then what you would do is you would get the non grass-fed ground beef, which isn't as do is you would get the non-grass-fed ground beef, which isn't as good, but it's still way better than anything else. And you can get that stuff for 99 cents a pound if you buy it in bulk and you look around for specials. You can also go to restaurant supply stores, and they will sell you ridiculously cheap things.

Like my lamb chops, the good ones, not the shoulder chops, but the rib chops, they're 679 a pound. I love that you're pointing this out because it's a comment I see over and over again. Yeah. You know, about the exclusivity of health. So I think it's important that we're transparent on that. Thank you for joining us on the Pursuit of Wellness podcast.

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