Realfoodology - Digest This with Bethany Ugarte and Courtney Swan

Episode Date: August 17, 2022

107: This weeks episode is actually from an interview I did on my friend Bethany Ugarte's (@lilsipper) new podcast, Digest This.  We loved the interview so much, we wanted to share it on my channel too.  On This Episode We Cover: Regenerative farming  Issues with the food industry in the US Subsidies  Rise in Obesity Metabolic disease  Types of Sugar  Benefits of fat  Pesticides  Endocrine disrupters  Fruit concentrates  Canola Oil  Oils  Best butter to use  Mansanto and Bauer Dangers of Pesticides Gut health  Eating organic in a budget  Vegan and Vegetarian diets  Check Out Bethany Digest This Podcast Instagram Check Out Courtney: Courtney's Instagram: @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter Further Listening: A Chat With The Gut Health Guru

On today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast, sadly, food is made with dollar signs in mind, not the health of the people. And this is something that we all need to come to recognize because I think a lot of people have this misconception that because it's on the shelf that it's safe to eat. And unfortunately, we don't have, the USDA and the FDA are not regulating in ways that we think that they are. Hi friends, welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. Today's episode is a little bit different because I am actually being interviewed by my good friend Bethany. You probably know Bethany as Lil Sipper on Instagram. I also had her on the podcast a couple months ago. It was a great episode. If you have not listened to that, make sure you go

back and listen to it. And I was recently interviewed by her for her new podcast. We really liked the interview and figured that you guys might enjoy it as well. So I wanted to release it on my channel too. So hope you guys enjoy it and let's just get into the episode. So hi, Courtney. Welcome to the show. Thank you. It's so good to see you, Bethany. Well, welcome to the show. Thank you, it's so good to see you Bethany. Well, see you via Zoom. Yeah, I mean we do live relatively close. I mean we are both in LA, LA County.

And not only are we friends, which I don't even know how many years it's been now, but I really do feel that our friendship has grown just through the pandemic and just different things happening in the world that are coming to surface and things that, you know, unfortunately, you know, obviously no one is enjoying what's happened the last two years, but I do feel like there has been some good that has come out of it. So let's just kind of dive in and this is going to be an amazing episode. So why don't you just share and introduce yourself to my listeners and tell everyone who you are. Awesome. Hi. So my name is Courtney Swan. I am the creator behind Real Foodology. I started Real Foodology about 12 years ago when I was getting my master's. I got my master's of

science in integrative health. And at the time I was so, I mean, I still am, but I was so excited and passionate about everything that I was learning in school. And I just needed an outlet to share everything that I was learning. And so when I first started Real Foodology, I was still in school. It was just a food blog. I was sharing mostly recipes and just information like about Monsanto, which I know we're going to get into. That was something I was super passionate about, that I was learning about all the pesticides that were spraying on our food, the importance of organic food and all that. And I was like,

why is this not mainstream? Why do more people not know about this? So I just started writing about it. And then over the years, it turned into my Instagram, which is now a place where I educate on all the things that I talk about and that we're going to be talking about today on the podcast. And now I also have my own podcast as well where I talk about it. That's awesome. I mean, you just have so much to bring to the table and I really just want to get right into it. So let's talk about regenerative farming for a second.

So what is that, first of all? Because a lot of people don't even know what that is. Yeah. So it's basically a form of farming where we are working with nature instead of against her. And what I love so much about regenerative farming is that it's solving all, like three of the major issues that we're dealing with right now in this country, which is human health, the ethical treatment of animals and their health, and as well as environmental.

So the health of the planet, it kind of comes together and solves all these problems in one amazing package. And what is happening with regenerative farming and why it's so important is that what we're doing right now with conventional modern agriculture in our farming, we're tilling the land, so we're destroying the topsoil, and the topsoil is what's needed for the overall health of our soil. And then we're spraying it like crazy with pesticides and herbicides. And what's happening is that we are killing off

the ecosystem of this soil and it's having detrimental effects on our bodies, our health, the health of our planet. And this is one of the driving contributors to climate change right now. And what's cool about regenerative farming is that we are getting back to this place where we are working with nature.

And when we do that, we're not tilling the topsoil we're not spraying everything with all these heavy herbicides and pesticides and when we're doing that it's allowing something called carbon sequestration which means that it's pulling the carbon out of the atmosphere and bringing it back into the soil and what's cool about that is that you know we have a lot of carbon in the atmosphere which is driving climate change right now. And on top of that, this carbon is food for the plants. So it's kind of a win-win situation. That's amazing.

And so what or where can we find resources for regenerative farms? There's a woman on Instagram and her account is The Sustainable Dish. She's amazing. I had her on my podcast. She was also on Joe Rogan. She wrote a book about this. She has a ton of resources about regenerative farming. There's also a documentary called Kiss the Ground that people can watch.

It's on Netflix. It's amazing. I've watched it like three times. And it goes into depth everything that I was talking about and the importance of regenerative farming. You can also literally look up, just Google regenerative farms and you can find different resources for places that you can support regenerative farms. I know there's one called Alexandra. It's with an E at the end. So Alexandra, I think, I don't know how to pronounce it exactly. That one's in California. And then there's another one called Force of Nature. And I buy those meats and they are sent

to me from Texas. They just send them on dry ice. I also buy those meats and I love all of their meats because they ground like the, you know, other organs and like good essential nutrients into the ground meat and you can't even taste it. And yeah, it's awesome. And then kiss the ground. So I've been actually meaning to listen to that. So thank you for reminding me, or excuse me, watch that.

So that's just something that I think we should all be aware of is regenerative farming. But what do you see happening though in today's food industry with obesity and just stuff in the US that may not be happening in other countries. Yeah. So there's a lot of stuff that's happening. I would say first and foremost that sadly, food is made with dollar signs in mind, not the health of the people. And this is something that we all need to come to recognize because I think a lot of people have this misconception that because it's on the shelf that it's safe to eat. And unfortunately, we don't have, the USDA and the FDA are not regulating in ways that we think that they are. And for example, like I'll give you guys a perfect example of this. So Europe is notorious for really,

they ban a lot of ingredients in their food. And Kraft macaroni and cheese, they use artificial dyes here in the United States, but they're banned in the UK. And so they have reformulated Kraft mac and cheese for the UK. And they dye their stuff with spices. So like turmeric, paprika, it's a much healthier product. And the problem is, is that we create so much confusion in this country with marketing. And we allow these companies to put all these different ingredients in our food because there's not really anyone regulating all of this. Unfortunately, these companies have massive amounts of money. If you look it up, there are, I can't remember the exact number.

It's between seven and 10 different companies that own the entirety of our food system. So as you can imagine, there's a lot of money involved. And so there's a lot of lobbying to politicians in Washington to get certain things approved and to have them turn a blind eye on things. Yeah. And so our food is, we have a lot of things in our food that are not allowed in most other countries, which is also why people, when they go to Europe, they're like, I can eat anything and I feel so much better and I lose weight. And then I come back to the US and I'm on this like strict gluten-free, dairy-free diet and I gain weight and I feel lethargic. It's because we are literally, yeah, I mean,

we're slowly poisoning our people. It's sad and I couldn't agree more, Courtney. And I was also looking, I think it was even this morning, I was just like doing some research and, you know, like McDonald's in Europe versus McDonald's here, the French fries, same French fries, Europe, they use very minimal ingredients to make the French fries. Here in the US, it's like chemicals and flavorings and all these other extra stuff for the French fries. I'm not promoting McDonald's French fries here, but what I'm saying is, you know, it's the

same fast food chain and they're making it completely different in another country. Yeah, exactly. Well, and you have to think too, like the people that are regulating these things. So they're creating the laws around our food are politicians. These people don't have any schooling in nutrition or about the human body. And so we have a lot of people in charge making all the rules that have no idea what is in our food, nor the implications of it. They're just seeing the money because they're getting paid off by these corporations to turn a blind eye. There's also another thing happening where these large corporations are funding studies. And so then we're even more confused because, you know, a study will come out saying there was a really notorious one, Coca-Cola did

one saying that there was no contributing factor to obesity when drinking sodas. And then you look and you see that it was funded by Coca-Cola. So of course, they're going to come out with those results. There's a lot of meddling that people don't understand. And like you said, with McDonald's, those ingredients are not allowed in their french fries over there in Europe because they're literally banned, but we don't ban them here in the US. Yeah, it's ridiculous. And that you bring up a good point, Courtney, is when you do look at studies, they have to disclose, like it's funded by, you have to go down in the fine print, but funded by whatever company or it'll say this is an independent study,

not funded by whatever, right? And so it's really important to see because obviously if it's funded by a company, it's going to be in their favor. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, and there's one other thing that I forgot to mention that's also really important for people to understand. So this started as an initiative to get us out of famine during the war. So it started out with really good intentions, but we started paying subsidies to farmers to grow certain crops because we wanted to encourage

them to grow more of these because at the time we thought they were really healthy and we can make food cheaper and more accessible for people because in the United States, we're feeding a lot of people. But what's happened is that now it's 2022 and we're still paying farmers subsidies to grow corn, wheat, and soy. The majority of that goes back to our livestock so that we can fatten them up. But it's also why when you look at the back of any sort of ultra processed packaged food, almost every single one of them says contains corn, wheat, and soy. And it's because we have made it so cheap because we are paying with our own tax dollars. We're paying these farmers to grow all this stuff. And that's the only reason

why our food is cheaper here. That's another thing is that people don't understand that we don't actually have a concept of what food really costs. We have all this cheap stuff because of the subsidies, but we're paying it, we're paying a really large price in our health, in our doctor bills, in our quality of life, in our overall life expectancy. And it's, yeah, it's destroying our health. So what do you think the cause or what is causing the rise in obesity now? Okay, so it's multifaceted. So stick with me here

because there's a couple different things that we started doing around the same time actually that I believe and many experts believe are really perpetuating the rise of obesity and metabolic disease in the US. So in the 1970s, there was a study done by Harvard. And what they found was that sugar leads to heart disease. It causes cardiovascular events. The sugar industry got wind of this. They paid off these Harvard scientists to say that it was fat. And this is real, guys. You can look it

up. NPR did a piece on this. So that was the first thing. So that spurred the low fat movement. And what happened when we took all the fat out of food, fat creates that mouthfeel. So fat really contributes a lot to the taste of things. So when you take the fat out, you've got to replace something or else it tastes like cardboard. So then we started putting a ton of sugar in everything. And that just perpetuated basically anything on the shelf now that you pick up has some form of sugar in it. Everything. I mean, salad dressings, bread, crackers, beef jerky, everything, peanut butter, nut milks. So that first and foremost, and then also when you take fat out of foods, we no longer have that satiety.

And so what happens is that your blood sugar goes really high at peaks, and then you crash, and then you crave more sugar because your body is looking for really quick energy. But the problem with that is that, and well, now we're also scared of fat, but if we're eating more fat, we're actually more satisfied. We end up eating less calories over time because we're satisfied more fat, we're actually more satisfied. We end up eating less calories over time because we're satisfied. We're not having those sugar crashes. So too much sugar, that's a really big one. We also replaced healthy fats and started fearing healthy fats like butter with seed oils. So we started putting canola oil, sunflower, soybean oil, safflower oil in everything.

These are higher in omega-6s, which lead to inflammation. Omega-6s are good in a balance with omega-3s, but when you have too high of omega-6s and not enough omega-3s, it leads to inflammation in the body. So that's another thing that's happening. We also have really highly palatable food products now, processed foods that have this bliss point where you literally can't stop eating them. And so people are eating more calories. We've gotten to a place where it's more about quantity and less about quality. And so we're eating more. On top of that, we put a lot of women on birth control. And this is an endocrine disruptor. And we can talk more about this later if you want to go into that, but it's messing with our hormones and

our hormones regulate our metabolisms along with a slew of other things. Also pesticides. Pesticides are also endocrine disrupting and we have exponentially, we have been exponentially spraying our crops and it's more and more every single year. And then also growth hormones in cows. So we are injecting our cows and then, you know, selling milk and the meat from it as well as dairy with these growth hormones that cause these cows to get really fattened up. And then we're scratching our heads wondering why we're all getting fattened up. Well, because we're putting growth hormones in our food. So those are kind of the main, I would say that's the main reasons. And then, well, I kind of already said this, but there's something called obesogens that Dr. Mark Hyman talks about a lot. And

basically what this means is these are chemicals in our foods that are literally causing us to gain weight. So the pesticides, endocrine disruptors, plastic, if you're heating up your food in plastic, it's leaching into the food. That's an endocrine disruptor. It's messing up our hormones. So there's a lot of things happening. So much, Courtney. And I mean, I want to dig deeper into what you just said. And obviously, I know sugar is a huge component, first of all. And sugar has so many names and it's so misleading when a consumer is looking at a product and they're like, well, it doesn't say sugar, it doesn't say corn syrup or whatever, but I mean, dextrose, that's a name for sugar.

I mean, there's a huge list. I mean, I know you know. What are some other names that are disguised as sugar? Yeah, there's dextrose, there's maltodextrin. God, you know what? I need to look this up because I can't even remember all of them anymore. Sorry, I just put you on the spot. No, it's okay.

But it's important for people to know this because you're right. Because what's happened is that, so this happens all the time, right? The public will catch wind of what's happening and then they try to avoid these products so then the companies get smart and they rename stuff. So for example, if you guys remember, maybe five years ago everyone started talking about high fructose corn syrup.

Well then they just started rebranding it. So they started putting agave in things instead, which is essentially high fructose corn syrup. And they got sneaky and then they started breaking down different sugar names and then they were in different points in the ingredient list. So you'd miss half of them.

But yeah, there's a lot of different names. So like- Sucralose, I know even coconut sap. Yeah, coconut sap is like, you would think, oh, it's great. It's coconut sap, but it's basically just extracted. It's sugar.

Exactly. I mean, at the end of the day, sadly, sugar is sugar. There extracted. It's sugar. I mean, at the end of the day, sadly, sugar is sugar. There are better forms of sugar that you can consume, like maple syrup, molasses, honey. Honey is the best one because it has so many other nutritious properties to it that are really good and healing for the body. But yeah, it's still sugar at the end of the day. Cane juice crystals. There's maltodextrin. The cane sugar one really gets me a lot. And look, I want to say this for everyone listening. That doesn't mean that I never

eat things that have cane sugar, but I'm very, very conscious of what I put in my body and the times that I do have sugar. And I would rather have a little bit of sugar in a cookie and actually enjoy it than have it be in like my salad dressing or something like that. Right, and something that, like there's sugar in crackers even, you know, like savory crackers. I know, I'm like, this doesn't need sugar. It's gotten out of control.

Oh, another one that tricks people a lot is fruit juice concentrate. So people read that and they're like, oh, fruit, this is really healthy for me. Fruit juice concentrate is one of the worst things because basically what's happening is they boil that down so intensely that it basically becomes a sugary syrup and it no longer has any of the nutrients that the fruit once had, the enzymes, the vitamins, there's nothing in there. And all that's left is just a super sugary syrup. Yeah. Yeah. And I do want to put like a, you know, just mention that I am not like anti-sugar also. And I love honey. Raw honey has tons of enzymes, living, you know, other benefits. And then I love fruit. I eat fruit like nobody's business. right? So even dates,

I mean, I know dates are high in sugar, but they have potassium. They have other things that really help you. And if it's in its natural form, it has fiber, it has all these other things that you're meant to eat it as a whole, you know, just like, well, even just like fiber, if you see something in a package and it says artichoke fiber or something, well, the artichoke isn't in your protein bar, it's the fiber extracted. So now it's not meant to be eaten the way it was meant to be eaten. Yes.

I say this all the time because we think we know a lot about food and about our bodies. Guys, we know nothing really. In the grand scheme of things, we are still learning so much. And what we have decided is the one shining factor of this. So for example, like you said, the artichoke fiber, we have decided like, okay, the fiber from this is what's really good, but we're not taking into account that everything that's in that artichoke that works symbiotically together, all the vitamins, the minerals, all the things that we're not even aware of in that whole food that comes together to provide something super nutritious for you. So that's why it's always really, really important to eat everything in its whole real form. Totally, 100% agree with you, Courtney.

And just one more thing that you had mentioned previously, and I just wrote it down because it's so important that you were talking about how they switched to vegetable oils, right? And substituting that for the healthier fats. And when someone, at least I think back in the 80s, 90s, whatever, vegetable oil, it sounds healthier, right? It's a vegetable, like what? Like this is better than butter or ghee or whatever. And it's simply just not the case and it's just being misled. And you just kind of hit the nail on the head there. Yeah. Well, it's not natural.

I urge everyone listening to go to YouTube, type in how canola oil is made. It is frightening. There's bleaching agents. They have to deodorize it. It smells so rancid. Apparently it smells so rancid in those facilities that people can barely breathe.

And they have to deodorize it because people wouldn't consume it otherwise because it smells so rancid in those facilities that the people can barely breathe. And they have to deodorize it because people wouldn't consume it otherwise because it smells so rancid. And it's heated up, so it's oxidizing and it creates super inflammatory oil for you. I mean, it should not ever be in the human body. We're talking about, this is like car oil basically by the time it's done being refined. Yeah. And especially you, especially when you go out to restaurants, they reuse those oils. So you're just eating rancid oils unless they specifically say, you know, and so you have to keep that in mind too. And that's why you may think, well, why did I get sick? Like the food was, you know, it wasn't rancid or whatever, but it could be just the oils. But so what are

some better oil options then? Can you share a bit? Yeah, I would say first and foremost, above everything else, olive oil. Olive oil is like a superfood. It's so good for you. I do everything with it. So I had learned a couple of years ago that olive oil has a certain smoke point and you're not supposed to heat it up past a certain point. But I had learned a couple of years ago that olive oil has a certain smoke point and you're not supposed to heat it up past a certain point. But I recently learned in an episode on my podcast, I had an olive oil expert on, and it turns out if you have extra virgin, 100% clean olive oil, it actually has a lot higher of a heat index than we originally thought. It's funny you mentioned that podcast. Cause I was, I listened to it and I was like, Oh,

you know, so it's. Yeah. And I had, I had switched over to avocado oil. So basically what I was doing is I was doing olive oil on all my cold dishes and then avocado oil to like fry eggs and roast veggies and everything. But I've gotten wind more recently that it's harder and harder to find pure 100% avocado oil. And actually this is the same for olive oil as well. So there is a lot of fraud going on in all the oils, but specifically in olive oil. And this is not a conspiracy guys. 60 Minutes did a special on this and you can actually look it up and YouTube it if you want. But what's happening is that in order to cut down on costs, they are cutting most olive oils with canola oil, soybean oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, just to make them cheaper and more accessible. So you need to make sure that you are getting 100% extra virgin olive

oil. And I would say organic too, to avoid the pesticide exposure. So there's that. And then with avocado oil, the same kind of thing. I didn't realize I was just buying avocado oil being like, oh, this is so good. I thought this was a good brand. You need to make sure that you're buying it from a company that is actually like using 100% avocado oil. So yeah, I would say those for the oils. And then I use a lot of butter. I literally eat butter every single day. It's so good for you. Butter, ghee, tallow is another good one. I love ghee. Ghee is amazing. What's your opinion on coconut oil? I like coconut oil. I think coconut oil should be used a little bit more sparingly than the rest of them.

I would say do olive oil for pretty much everything, but coconut oil is great for baking. And I like it. I still think coconut oil is very good for you. And I've looked at it. There's a lot of studies that show that it's really good for you. Yeah. I think, so there's number one, olive oil, avocado oil, butter, ghee, make sure it's grass-fed, butter, you know, and what are the ingredients when you're looking for butter

that you should look for? So with butter, if you can find it, you want to get organic grass fed pasture raised butter. And the reason for this is because then you know that the cows were grazing in pastures, eating as nature intended. So they're eating grass. If you're not paying attention to those labels and you're just buying any butter, it means that that butter came from a factory farmed cow. So not only are you supporting an insanely corrupt industry where we are basically cramming cows into very tight quarters and feedlots, feeding them genetically modified corn, wheat, and soy. So they're not creating as much of a healthy butter either. Their omega-6s and omega-3s are gonna be off because they're not eating

what their stomachs were designed for. And so they're sick. And then on top of that off because they're not eating what their stomachs were designed for. And so they're sick. And then on top of that, because they're not eating what their stomachs are designed for and they're sick, so then we have a lot of them on antibiotics. They're also being injected with growth hormones, like I said earlier.

And they do this in order to fatten them up. It's, yeah, it's pretty nasty. And you don't want any of that. And also, I don't want to be contributing to that industry at all. So if you're getting organic grass-fed pasture-raised, it means by law organic is not allowed to use the antibiotics, the growth hormones. They're not being fed genetically modified feed. And if you get pasture-raised, then they're eating grass.

And then on top of that, sometimes they also add additional ingredients like salt is okay. If you're looking at the list, it's like salt, sometimes they'll add enzymes that I'm assuming is okay. Yeah, to be honest, I haven't looked into that really because I've never seen that on a label where they add enzymes. Yeah, I've seen it on a couple, it'll say like cultured or something. But you have to still look, you can't just say, oh, butter, grab it. It's even if it's grass fed, because sometimes they'll add gums or like, you know, it's grass fed and then they'll add oils to it. Yeah. That's a great point. I recently was in the grocery store doing one of my grocery store reels. I go to the

grocery store a lot and do these videos on my Instagram where I like point out various products and the ingredients and what to look for, what to put back on the shelf. And I picked up an organic grass-fed butter and I turned it around and it said natural flavors on there. And I was like, what? You know what's funny? I think, I hope I'm right in this. I think it was the unsalted. And so they were making up for the lack of taste from the salt. Guys, buy the salted butter. It tastes better and it's good for you. Salt is an electrolyte.

You need it for your electrolyte balance. Yeah, yeah. All right. I mean, we can go on and on about this, but I kind of want to, you did mention Monsanto. Can you give us a little bit of an insight on that? Okay, this is one of my favorite things to talk about.

What? Okay, no. And for those that maybe don't know, maybe they're a younger age and just are new to the health space or whatever, going back to basics, what is it? Yeah. So Monsanto was a chemical ag company, a chemical agriculture company that was most famously known for creating Roundup. Roundup's also known as glyphosate. It's an herbicide that's widely sprayed on our crops. And about six or seven years ago, the EPA classified it as a possible human carcinogen, which basically means we know it causes cancer. They got such a horrible reputation

that a couple of years ago, Bayer, the pharmaceutical company, bought them out to try to bury the Monsanto name and then create like a new, they basically tried to rebrand glyphosate and Roundup. And it totally backfired. So basically what happened is a ton of farmers started suing them. And Bayer is completely screwed right now. So actually last month, they tried to appeal to the Supreme Court and they rejected Bayer's appeal to shut down the thousands of lawsuits that are claiming

that Roundup causes cancer. Because what's happening is all these farmers have been using it for years and they're getting all these crazy forms of cancer and they're winning, by the way, in court right now because they're proving that it causes cancer. And the problem is, is that even though we are aware of this right now, glyphosate is still one of the most widely used herbicides on our food. And this is why it is so, so important to buy organic, because organic food is legally not allowed to use glyphosate. Now I say all of this,

but we're still finding glyphosate on organic food, unfortunately, because we are spraying it so heavily right now, you guys, that the wind is picking it up. So it's, you know, getting blown to other farms. It's ending up in our water from all the runoff. And this is a great point too, to know that you can't just wash these pesticides off your food, guys, because it's in the soil. So it's literally in the water that is growing our produce. And again, this is why organic is so imperative because even though we may still be getting glyphosate in other areas, it's in our water, it's being sprayed. At least with organic, you are minimizing your exposure to it

because they are not allowed to directly spray it. Like for example, organic wheat, one of the most sprayed crops with glyphosate, they literally spray it after they harvest it. So you're getting actual glyphosate in your food when you're buying non-organic wheat. Cheerios has glyphosate in it. So they did a study a couple of years ago and they tested a bunch of really popular foods like Cheerios. I'm trying to remember what else was on that list. I'll get back to you. I'll send you a link.

I can't remember, but Cheerios was like the number one that had the most on there. And it was devastating because think about all the parents that feed their kids Cheerios. Cheerios. I think it was like oatmeal,

like Quaker Oats. Yes, Quaker Oats. Yeah, there was a number of things that like it was just everyday household, Cheerios. I think it was like oatmeal, like Quaker Oats. Yes, Quaker Oats. Yeah, there was a number of things that like it was just everyday household. And the weird, I don't want to say weird thing, but the sad thing is that a long time ago, our ancestors, of course, they were eating oats and nothing was happening because they weren't doing this practice long ago. Yeah.

And so people are wondering, well, why now all of a sudden is just people are getting more and more sick as years go by. And it's because things have changed. And it's just going back to basics. If you can grow your own food, I mean, that's even better. I know not everyone has a garden. A lot of people are living in apartments and so that's not always an option. But if you can grow your own food, I mean, it just tastes so much better.

And you don't have to worry about all these exposures. And I was going to say, too, outside of a cancer piece, another reason why glyphosate and all of these pesticides and herbicides being used are so frightening is that they are so part of their mechanism is they act like antibiotics in the soil that's how they're like killing off all the pests because for anyone that's very very new to this we're using these pesticides and herbicides to get rid of all the insects the pesticides and the weeds but what we didn't realize and take into account is that all of these bugs and insects, while we find them annoying and we want to get rid of them,

they're part of this whole ecosystem of the soil that keeps the soil healthy. They all play a role in this. And when we come in and decide that we know better than nature, we're screwing everything up because we didn't understand the role that they played. And so what's happening is they're killing off the bugs in the soil. They're also killing off all the bugs in our body. We're more bacteria than we are human cells. That's what fuels everything in our body. And sorry if that sounds scary, but it's true. It's why we take probiotics. That's why we need to have a very flourishing microflora or microbiome in our gut. And when we eat these pesticides, they're killing off those good and

bad bacteria that we need for literally everything, our immune function, our mood function, the way our gut functions, our brain. And so it's wreaking massive havoc on our guts. And then on top of that, it's also wreaking havoc on our endocrine systems, which I keep stressing. And that means that it's messing with our hormones. Yeah. Yeah. And going back to the regenerative farming, that's, I think that that's why it's so important because they really care about every part, even the soil. So imagine that. And I think too, that's why, you know, you always hear about, well, you know, our food doesn't have as much minerals and nutrients because the soil is so stripped and depleted. And so it's completely different.

It may taste the same, look the same, but the nutrient content is completely different because the soil that these vegetables are being grown in is just stripped. It's depleted. And I would argue it doesn't taste the same. There is such a difference between the tomatoes that I buy at the farmer's market versus the tomatoes I get in the grocery store. Because something that a lot of people don't think about as well is that we are, because we're growing food on such a massive scale and we're having to feed so many people,

we're plucking fruits and vegetables before they're fully ripe and then spraying them to keep them from ripening. And then they're traveling on trucks all the way across country. And so this is also why it's super important. If you have a farmer's market near you, buy your produce from there. Because most of the time that produce is being grown within an hour radius of your house. And so you know it's fresh. They just picked it. I go every Sunday and I love it. The farmers are always like, I go to this one farmer that I'm obsessed with. All their food is like, oh my God, it tastes so good. And it's organic. And I love going there because they're like, we just literally picked these yesterday. And I'm like, that's incredible. I love it. And

you know what? I do stand corrected. You are right. They do taste different. So I do stand corrected. And not only that, but I'm sure you've experienced this, Courtney. When you buy, let's just say, for example, organic strawberries, not only do they taste so much more sweeter and vibrant, but they go bad so much faster. And if you've ever bought a a non-organic strawberry, you know, like two weeks later, they're in your fridge. You're like, wow, these still look pretty good. I know. It's kind of scary, actually. Well, and it's crazy. I mean, you know, part of the problem in the U.S. is that it's going to require a massive reframing of the way that we shop, cook, view our food. Most other countries go grocery

shopping like every other day because they buy their stuff fresh when they need it. And in the US, we're shopping maybe like once a week, once every two weeks. And look, I don't want to be insensitive to people that are in situations where they live really far from a grocery store, or they're in a food desert, or they're working so hard, working two jobs that they're not able to go more often. And that's a sad reality of what's happening. But I think we need a massive revolution in this country with everything. I mean, the way that we work, we work ourselves to death. We are not prioritizing time with our family and time alone

and having time to cook nutritious foods and go grocery shopping. And I don't know how we fix it, but I just want to name it because you look at European countries and the majority of them, I was just in Italy, and starting like 1 p.m., all the shops close. And then they come back and they open at like 5 because literally they go home, they make lunch with their families, they take a nap, and it's just a different way of living. Everything is so much slower there.

Yeah, less stress. And to kind of go rewind a little bit, I know you had talked about things messing with your hormones and all of that. And I personally, I know everyone has seen a spike since the pandemic. It's been two years now of just anxiety and more health issues. And I can't help but wonder with the increase of antibacterial wipes and more cleaning, it's definitely messing with our hormones. And now there's more anxiety. I can't help but wonder if these cleaning products are really causing anxiety and and stuff, you know, I don't know.

Yeah. Well, we have a direct link from our guts to our brains. It's called the vagus nerve. And this is why our gut is often referred to as the second brain. And we're not paying enough attention to this because we have always been told that our stomachs and our bodies really have nothing to do with our brain. So like, for example, when it comes to mood, and this is why if people, if someone has like a chronically inflamed gut, they have a higher propensity to have depression, anxiety, mood disorders. And instead of having the doctor ask you what your lifestyle is like, how's your stress? How's your diet?

Are you sleeping? We're just immediately putting people on these really heavy psychotropic drugs. And oftentimes, not always, oftentimes, if you can address that root cause, address that chronic inflammation, get that gut flora back in balance, stay away from the bacterial wipes and everything that's killing off all of our bacteria and maintain a good healthy microflora, it completely drastically improves your mood. Because also serotonin, which is our happy hormone,

70% of it is made in our gut. Yeah, yeah. I mean, just wealth of information. Yeah, I definitely thank you for pointing that out. And okay, so now like fast forwarding to where we were again, I know I keep jumping around. No, I love it. Can you help the listeners here?

Like what are some tips and tricks when you're grocery shopping and what advice can you give people and how to, like what do you look for? And also if you are on a budget, you know, what are some helpful tips if you are, you know, really strapped? Yeah. Okay. So I'll start out with the budget thing just because I feel pretty passionately about this. So like I said earlier, a little bit of it requires a reframing, but again, I don't want to say that and sound insensitive to people that are really struggling, but to give, to give people a little bit of it requires a reframing. But again, I don't want to say that and sound insensitive to people that are really struggling. But to give people a little bit of a perspective,

when I first started getting really into health, I was the brokest I've ever been in my entire life. I was working three jobs. I was literally barely making my rent. At the same time, I was learning how important it was to fuel my body. And I was learning about all these crazy things happening with our food industry. And so I made it a priority. I stopped eating out. I was making all my meals from scratch and bringing them to work, which saved me a ton of money. I was also going to a couple of different grocery stores. So I knew where to get the cheapest, you know, X, Y, and Z at Trader Joe's. And then I would go to Sprouts for the cheapest of this and Target for the

cheapest of that. And while I know that may not be accessible for everyone, if people are taking a bus or they can only go where they can walk. So I also want to point that out. We are living in a great time where a lot of these foods are becoming more accessible. Costco is one of the highest seller of organic foods now. So Costco is a great place to get foods on a budget, organic. Trader Joe's has a ton of organic food now. I know Target sells some of it. I know a lot of the popular grocery store chains, like we have Kroger, Vons, Ralphs,

all of them are creating their own organic lines. Walmart even. Yes. Yeah. And if you go for the brand, so like O Organics is, I can't remember which grocery store it is, but basically. Vons. Yes. Okay. I think you're right. That brand alone is significantly cheaper than the more well-known organic brands. So look for that type of stuff. And also put an emphasis on more highly nutritious foods that are going to give you more bang for your buck. So like, for example, organic red meat. Also, if you can't afford the organic red meat, I still would rather you buy red meat than not eat it at all because it is a super food. It is full of so many bioavailable nutrients for our body. And so you want to be buying things that you know are going to be highly nutritious. So buy the ground beef instead of the box of processed cereals. Focus on buying

whole real foods and don't be intimidated to cook. We live in an age of information. You can go online and you can YouTube anything now. You can look up recipes. I mean, I think a lot of people are really scared to get in the kitchen because they're scared to fail and they think they're gonna like be horrible at it. It's really not as hard and complicated. And if it's really a struggle for you, fry some eggs, you know,

like saute up some veggies and ground beef. I think we make it way more complicated than it needs to be. And then also it is a reframing of where we spend our money. So once I think people realize how significant to our overall quality of life our food is, we start to prioritize our food. And so stop eating out. Eating out is so expensive. And I can't tell you how many of my friends postmate stuff like four times a week. I'm like, how do you afford that? It's so insanely expensive. Stop postmating, stop eating out, buy more groceries at home. My podcast producer and I, we share, we have the same producer. We started a series on my podcast called Organic for Everyone.

And what we were doing, we need to do another one. We're going to do another one soon. We would, for example, go to McDonald's and buy a meal at McDonald's. So it was like a quarter pounder with cheese, French fries, a soda. And then we went to a accessible grocery store like a Ralph or Vons or something. We bought everything organic to make that meal. And we compared the price. It was cheaper to make everything organic at home than it. And we compared the price. It was cheaper to make

everything organic at home than it was to go to McDonald's. So it's all about the education. So there's that. And then the tips and tricks for when you're shopping, I have three kind of little guidelines that I use. I try to make this really, really simple for people. First of all, first rule of thumb, if it was once alive, it's fair game. It means it's real food. That can be applied to plants, animals. If it was once alive, it's real food, you can eat it. Another one is we are fortunate that we live in a place where a lot, or in a time where a lot of companies are making healthier processed foods.

And I buy some stuff in packages. I really try to avoid it as much as possible. But the rule of thumb is if you look at the back and you read that ingredient label, and if you could technically buy all of those ingredients while you're in the grocery store and make this at home, then that's fair game to buy. If you're looking at that and you're like, where in the world would someone find TBHQ? Put that back on the shelf. You're like, I couldn't buy this in the grocery store. I I'm not going to buy this. But you know, for example, like Simple Mills, you look on the back and you're like, oh, I know what rosemary extract is. I know what almond flour is. Like when you

recognize the label and you could technically make it at home, then great. You can buy that packaged food. And then the last one I would say, if what you're eating, your grandmother would have no idea what it is, like a Twinkie. Like my great grandmother would be like, literally, what is that? Like, what is that even made out of? Like, how did you make that?

And it's unrecognizable from a grandparent standpoint, put it back. That's not real food. Those are great tips, Courtney. I love it. And going back to for if anyone is on a budget, frozen produce is actually, it's a lot cheaper and, you know, it can save you some money too. Frozen produce as actually just as fresh, if not perhaps fresher, because they pick it and then

they freeze it right after they harvest it. And even if you food prep or you chop up different things, you can freeze it yourself. And you're like, man, there's no way I'm going to eat all this. It's going to go bad. Just freeze it. Yeah, that's a great point too. It's a really good one.

Yeah. So I have to ask, what is your opinion on oat milk? I love talking about this. Okay. So I have a big issue with oat milk and it's for a couple reasons. First of all, oats are one of the most heavily sprayed with glyphosate. So if you're not getting organic oat milk, you are drinking glyphosate in there. Not to mention oats it basically just becomes liquid sugar. And if you're having that first thing in the morning with your coffee, you're going to spike your blood glucose levels, and then you're going to crash, and then you're going to crave sugar the whole day. So I would rather save my carbohydrates for eating in a meal than drinking it. On top of that, the majority of these oat milks on the shelf have seed oils. So they have rapeseed oil, which is also just another

word for canola oil. They also have sunflower oil and this is an emulsifier. And this is why oat milk is so creamy and why everyone loves it. But guess what? When you heat those up, you oxidize those oils and make them rancid and then they become highly inflammatory. And what are we doing in coffee shops every day? We're heating that oat milk up. So that's also another reason. And then not to mention oat milk was falsely marketed to us as better for the environment. But guess what guys, it's not any better than the rest of them because oats are grown as a monocrop and monocrop agriculture farming, which is what I didn't go specifically into monocrop farming earlier,

but basically what it means is that we are planting one seed for miles on the farmland. And like, for example, if anyone's ever driven through, I want to say Idaho, but it's not Idaho. What's the other, the corn state? Iowa. If you've ever driven through Iowa and you just see rows and rows and rows of corn, that's what monocropping is. And the reason why this is so bad is that in nature, there's supposed to be a biodiversity of all these different plants living in one place and they all feed off of each other and it feeds the soil. Think about if you were just to eat kale and kale only for the rest of your life, your gut would be like,

what? Our soil needs biodiversity just like, what? Like we need, our soil needs biodiversity just like our bodies and our guts need biodiversity. And so this is part of what is causing the soil degradation and causing climate change. So the fact that we have been marketed that oat milk is better for the climate, this is the one that drives me the most nuts because people are like, oh, I'm doing this for the environment.

I'm like, it's literally not any better. It's not any better. We're still spraying it to all hell with pesticides and it's contributing to climate change. So, no. And not to mention how it's processed and the machinery that goes into it and the fumes and all that that takes to make it.

And at least I know a lot of my followers know and I'm sure you do too, is you can literally make your own nut milk by just getting some organic like cashew butter. I love Artisana, that's a great brand. And just blend it with water. Yes. Done.

Yes, exactly. And it saves you money too. So now I know you love your meat and I do too, but you used to be vegan at one point, right? I was. And how do you feel now? I, oh, okay. Um, I personally am very against a vegetarian diet.

And I will say for many reasons why. But I do want to preface this by saying the way that I practice nutrition in general is that we are also bio-individual. That what works for me in my body may not work for your body and vice versa. And part of the challenge of finding real true health is that you and you only have to figure out what works best for your body. The problem I have with vegetarianism, and I experienced this because I was vegetarian slash like, so I kind of went in and out of being vegan, but I was like straight vegetarian for four years. And then I was pescatarian for the last year of it. And I was not honest with myself about the health of my body, but I was also being tricked into that because

what happens a lot of time with veganism and I'm pointing out veganism, but this also happens in all the other diet camps. It happens in keto. It happens in carnivore. It happens in paleo. It happens in all of them. But I experienced this directly with vegetarianism where I was being told I just wasn't vegetarian enough, but my body was massively suffering. And I was ignoring the signs and symptoms that I was not doing well. I was 20 pounds heavier than when I started. I was hormonally all over the place. I had insane cystic acne that would not go away on my chin for all five years. Like it was crazy. I would literally have one cystic pimple go down and one would come up the next day. I was just exploding for five years.

It was crazy. My hormones were completely out of whack and I was really suffering. I was chronically starving. I could not ever get satisfied in full for like five years. It was crazy. But I kept being told that I just wasn't vegetarian enough. I just wasn't doing it right. I needed to take more vitamins. I needed to eat more X, Y, and Z. And so this is why I feel so passionately about it. Because if someone is truly genuinely thriving on a vegetarian diet, I have no problem with that. But I think many people are suffering in silence and they don't realize. And many, many, many people end up coming back from a vegetarian diet saying, wow, man, that destroyed my health. Not to mention when I was in school, so this is when I was

getting my master's, I had several professors tell us in different various nutrition classes that, and all of them, most of them had previous experience having clients, being practitioners. And they told us that every single woman that they had ever treated that had a history of being vegetarian had hormonal issues. So it's drastically affecting our hormones. And we are being told right now that meat is terrible for the environment. This is not true. It's the cow, or I'm sorry, it's the how, not the cow. So it's what we're doing with the

cows. It's what we're doing with the factory farming and the tilling of the land and all that that's leading to climate change. It's not the cows themselves and we've been vilifying them. Wait, so you're telling me cow farts are not destroying the planet? No. What? Oh my goodness. You guys, we have the same amount of livestock on this planet right now that we've had for thousands of years. And in fact, they think that we had more because when all the bison were roaming the US

back in the day before they killed off the majority of them, we probably had more livestock on the planet then. So it's not the cow farts, guys. Sorry. I actually laugh at that all the time. I know, it's so funny. And if you go to the EPA's website, I'll send you a link so you can put this in the show notes.

We've been told, like it's being hammered into us right now. It's the cows, it's the cows. The EPA's website, you guys, literally says this. There's a pie graph and it says agriculture is only 11% that's contributing. You know what is the most contributing right now? It's transport. It's cars. And I don't know what the solution is to that. Electric cars maybe for everyone, but then that's pulling off fossil fuels by charging. Anyways, we're not going to go down that rabbit hole. But I'm just saying that we have been sold a lie.

And this goes back earlier to these companies have massive marketing budgets, you guys. So we are being told right now in mainstream media that fake meats are the way of the future, which I have to talk about this because I feel very passionately about this as well. Do it. The same thing with oat milk is happening with these fake meats. So they are being marketed right now as better for the environment. This is complete BS, you guys. If you look at those ingredients, they're all monocrops.

So canola oil, soy protein. Soybeans are one of the most genetically modified crops in this country. They are being sprayed to all hell with pesticides. They're monocropped. So there's rows and rows and rows of soybeans. This is what is contributing to climate change. And then we're throwing them into a fake meat burger that look, the ingredients are the same as dog food. A challenge. It's ridiculous. I'm so passionate about this. I challenge everyone listening right now to go look at the list of ingredients and dog

food and then compare it to Beyond Meat or Impossible Burger and then get back to me. You can't tell the difference. No. And I wanted to just point out, you are talking about fake meat that is supposed to look like meat, not a veggie burger that is obviously vegetables. Because there are some good brands out there. I think Hillary's is one. It's obviously they're vegetables, but they're not marketing it as meat. You know what I mean? There's is one. It's obviously they're vegetables, but they're not marketing it as meat. You know what I mean? There's a difference. That's a great point. That's a huge difference.

I'm talking specifically about like Impossible Beyond Burger, the ones that are like pretending to be fake meat. And then you look at the ingredients or they're pretending to be meat. And it's like soy protein, pea protein, canola oil. Yeah. Yeah, I know. But, you know, and not to mention, let's just say oil. Yeah, I know. But, you know, and not to mention,

let's just say if it was, I don't know, better for the environment. But I mean, just the ingredients and the gums, you know, that are disrupting our gut and causing IBS and all of these different things, it's just, I mean, it just amazes me. There was this one, I think it's methancellulose, I can't even pronounce it, which is not a good sign. Methancellulose something, and it's in the Beyond Meat or Beyond Burger.

And it's horrible for you. Oh my gosh, you would not believe. I know you're probably looking this up right now. I'm looking it up. Yeah, it's methancellulose something. And if you look at the side effects from it, it's like you'd never want to eat that again. Oh, methylcellulose.

Methacellulose. I wonder if it has, I know cellulose itself comes from wood pulp. So if you ever see that on an ingredient, guys, you're eating wood. But I don't know what methyl cellulose is. But again, this goes back to what I was saying earlier. If you have to Google what an ingredient is on your label, chances are it doesn't belong in the human body. You know, there's always exceptions, of course.

Whenever I say that, people fight me and they're like, well, I didn't know what acai was. I had to Google it. I'm like, okay, like's exceptions. It's not everything's black and white, guys. I mean, we could go on and on, but I do want to touch a little bit on this because you had mentioned this at the beginning of the show about birth control. And I know you're passionate about it. I know I am too. So let's just kind of dive right into birth control for a sec. This is another topic that I'm very passionate about. So first and foremost, there is a documentary that just came out from Ricky Lake

and Abby Epstein. It's called The Business of Birth Control. And they go into the dirty side of this industry. And guys, it's not great. I know this is a really extreme statement, but I stand behind it. I think birth control is literally the worst thing that has ever happened to women. It was marketed to us as freedom and empowering. And look, I don't want to devalue the fact that it is amazing that women were able to then have the choice, whether or not they wanted to start a family right away, we could delay it. Also allowed women to go into the workforce. I want to recognize all those are super amazing things. But guys, it is horrible for our health. So it depletes our body of necessary

nutrients like B vitamins, as well as minerals like magnesium, selenium, and zinc. We need these minerals in order to have babies. so a lot of times what happens if women are on this pill for 15 years and then they come off of it they struggle for years getting pregnant because their body has been depleted of these nutrients for years not to mention when they approved this birth control initially it was only meant to be used for a short amount of time and i have friends that are coming off this pill and And like I said, they've been on it for 15 years. That was never what its intended use was. Not to mention, our doctors don't tell us this, you guys. It is classified as a class one carcinogen. Do you know what else is classified as a class one carcinogen? Asbestos and arsenic. So we know that this causes cancer.

It wreaks complete havoc, again, on our endocrine systems, which I can't stress enough, are a cornerstone of our overall health. Women can only get pregnant between six to seven days a month. And we have other methods of knowing where we are in our cycle to abstain from pregnancy. So we're not balancing our hormones. Our doctors are telling us like, go on this pill because you have an imbalance of this hormone and this is going to balance you out. It's not balancing you out, guys. All it's doing is putting a Band-Aid over the issue and it's shutting down our ovulation and then replacing it with synthetic hormones. And we have been told that we only need ovulation and fertility just if we want to have babies. But babes, this is not true. Ovulation and our period

is our report card. It's our monthly report card of our overall health. If our period is out of whack, if our hormones are out of whack, that's not just telling us whether or not we can get pregnant. That's telling us our body is literally telling us that something is not right. Exactly. And we are masking it. And then there's one more thing. Sorry. I'm so passionate about this. It messes with your ability to pick a good partner. So when your hormones are being flooded with these synthetic hormones, you are picking up on different pheromones from men than you would if you were in your own natural cycle. I have had two girlfriends, so this is anecdotal, but they also have studies on it now. But I've had two girlfriends that

were with their partners and they had gotten with them when they were on birth control. When they got off the birth control, they started smelling different to them. They were completely disgusted by their partners. They were repulsed by them. And this is because you pick different people when you are on hormonal birth control than you do when you're not. Totally. It's crazy.

And just a little, I don't know if this is TMI, but I'm just going to say it. Nothing is. Let's let it rip. So when my boyfriend and I, we started dating, right? And he doesn't wear deodorant like he doesn't wear deodorant. I don't wear deodorant and you know, whatever. But then later on, as we got like more comfortable with each other

and he's like, he told me, he's like, yeah, like when we first met, like I really picked up on your pheromones. And I was like, wait, what? And so I just, it's funny or I don't know, not funny, but it's just interesting that birth control can contribute to so much. And I have never taken birth control except I think it was for maybe just a month when I was like 13 and they gave it to me for my acne, right? And that's what they did back then. They were like, oh, you have really bad acne.

Here's some birth control. You're 12 years old or whatever. But I also know that if you have, thankfully it was just like a month, right? But if you have taken birth control for a long time, it actually causes anxiety. And there's studies that show that. As well as you have taken birth control for a long time, it actually causes anxiety. And there's studies that show that. As well as you have to think...

Depression, like so many things. And obviously it's messing with your hormones and you're thinking, if I'm trying to eat right, if I'm trying to eat clean, I don't want to eat anything that's been injected with hormones, then well, birth control is doing the same thing. So if you're really trying to do the whole nutrition part of it, you know, birth control is, you know, I would really, really recommend, I know you would too, just to really look into that, you know. Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's a huge point of it. I was going to say something else and it totally left my brain.

Love when that happens. Sorry. No, no, no. No, it's good. We go off on tangents, you know. I love it. This is why I love you. But yeah, it's messing with our hormones.

And there are other ways to do this. Oh, I know what I was going to say. Because they put you on it for acne. We're not addressing the root cause. And our doctors are telling us like, oh, this will fix all your problems. But what women are realizing is that, okay, the second they come off of the birth control, all these symptoms flood back in because the birth control never fixed the problem. It was only masking it. It was acting as a Band-Aid. And so what we need to be encouraging women to do is when you're dealing with that acne, when you're dealing with that

painful period, when you're dealing with the PCOS, instead of masking those symptoms, find a doctor that will work with you to get to the root cause so that you never have to suffer again. You don't want to delay it 15 years and then come off the pill and then be trying to get pregnant, dealing with acne, dealing with this cascade of all the issues that you had before. And then they're usually tenfold because you've been blocking your body's ability to show those signs and symptoms for years. Yeah, I 100% agree. And I mean, we can go on about how, you know, sick care and all these different things. I'm going to have to have you back on the show, honestly. But I do know that you just launched your own supplement products.

And I think we can both agree that supplements, I feel like we need some supplementation these days just because our soil is so depleted. I do agree that we need to get a lot of the things, minerals and things from food, like whole food sources. But our whole foods, like we previously talked about, is just depleted now because of the soil and things that are happening in our environment. So thankfully, we do have good supplement options. So congrats on the launch. Thank you. And so tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah. So like we've talked about a lot, our produce in general has less

amount of vitamins and minerals and nutrients in it than it did even 50 years ago, just because we're killing off that ecosystem that provides the nutrients for the foods. So this is why, at least right now, I'm a huge proponent for supplementation, because we have to fill in those gaps. So my supplement is called Real Defense. It's liposomal. It's more easily available. It's bioavailable and more easily absorbed in the body. And if you want to learn more about liposomal, I'll just say go listen to my podcast episode about it. I have a whole episode about it. But yeah, I created this just after everything we dealt with in the last two years. It was more important than ever that we take care of our immune systems. And so that's really why I wanted to create this. It has things like vitamin D, which is a hormone

imperative for overall immune health. It has zinc and quercetin, which work together. Zinc is really good for immune function. It's kind of the gatekeeper of immune function. And then quercetin is a zinc ionifer that pushes the zinc into the cell wall so that it can really attack whatever it is that you're dealing with, whether it be a cold or a virus or whatever. It also has a luthro root, chaga mushroom, and astragalus root. These are all very well known in Chinese medicine and they've been used for centuries for overall immune health. And they're just super powerful immune modulating ingredients. So I'm super proud of it. It's non GMO. It's sugar-free. There's no natural flavors. I worked so hard with this company to not do

natural flavors and still have it taste good. So we use the real extracts of the fruits and yeah, I really love it. And it's a liquid, right? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So that's awesome. I mean, I'm just so happy and proud of you. You've come so far. And what is the website again for the supplements? It's a two by four. I give you the actual um link afterwards but it's two by four so it's 2x4.com it's a collaboration with the company two by four awesome um well i mean you you talk so much about health and wellness and nutrition and really what goes on in the food industry. And if you guys are, you know, wanting more of that, you definitely need to check out Courtney's podcast, which is Real Foodology. And I am a personal listener myself. But where else can people find you?

Yeah. So I'm mostly active on Instagram actually, which is the same name, Real Foodology. And yeah, I have a website. I don't really use it anymore to be quite honest. You can mainly find me on Instagram and my podcast. Okay, so Real Foodology. Definitely check out her Instagram and her podcast. And thank you so much, Courtney, for being on the show. Bethany, thank you so much for having me on.

This was a really fun conversation. Yes. We're going to have to have you back very soon. I would love that. Thanks for listening to today's episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. If you liked this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know. This is a resident media production produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Chris McCone. The theme song is called Heaven by the amazing singer Georgie, spelled with a J.

Love you guys so much. See you next week. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider-patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.