Realfoodology - Fighting Against Toxic Chemicals, Eating Organic, + Government Regulations | Ken Cook of the EWG

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

EP. 206: In today's episode, I'm thrilled to welcome Ken Cook, the president and cofounder of the Environmental Working Group, or EWG. You might know them for their Skin Deep database that helps you check the safety of household and skincare products, or their tap water database—both of which I've relied on for years. Ken and I explore how EWG is tackling the growing problem of toxins in our daily lives and discuss practical steps we can take to make safer choices. Plus, Ken shares some incredible actionable advice on how we can influence regulatory changes for the better. Don't miss this insightful conversation about safeguarding our health and making a difference! Topics Discussed 08:26 - EWG & healthcare professionals 10:45 - EWG’s databases  14:53 - Legal doesn’t equal safe  18:50 - The FDA & brominated vegetable oil  21:21 - It takes science 17 years to catch up  22:34 - Studying dangerous chemicals & industry pushback 25:34 - Centering people in the regulatory process  32:07 - Consumer impact and organic products  37:25 - The cultural impact of environmental health  38:38 - Products that you don’t know are having an effect on your health  42:11 - Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good  44:42 - Choosing safer options  50:05 - Regulation & lobbying  56:08 - Calling your representative  58:22 - Staying motivated and positive  01:02:20 - The people making change  01:05:51 - Ken’s health non-negotiables Check Out The Environmental Working Group Website Skin Deep Database Consumer Guides Tap Water Database Instagram Show Links: Dark Waters Film  Sponsored By: Qualia Go to qualialife.com/realfoodology for up to $100 off and use code REALFOODOLOGY for an extra 15% off Timeline Go to timelinenutrition.com/REALFOODOLOGY and use code REALFOODOLOGY for 10% off Organifi Go to www.organifi.com/realfoodology and use code REALFOODOLOGY for 20% Off Seed Go to https://seed.com/realfoodology and get 25% your first month with code REALFOODOLOGY Paleovalley Save at 15% at paleovalley.com/realfoodology and use code REALFOODOLOGY Check Out Courtney:  LEAVE US A VOICE MESSAGE Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide! @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com My Immune Supplement by 2x4 Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database  Produced By: Drake Peterson Edited By: Mike Frey

on today's episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. Yes, it's on the shelf. That means it's legal. It doesn't mean it's safe. And that's true of air, water, things that aren't on a shelf, but are in your life, fruits and vegetables, you name it. That basic concept is hard, I think, for people. But once you get it, you can't look away. Take stock, open your mind to sources of information, find the ones that you can trust, and then take some action on your own. You can't wait for the government to solve these problems. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. I am your host, Courtney Swan, and today I have the honor of having Ken Cook on.

He is the president and co-founder of the Environmental Working Group, otherwise known as the EWG. You probably know about the EWG. They're the ones that have created Skin Deep, which is a program where you can go on their website, you plug in household items, cleaning products, food, skincare, makeup, like you name it. They probably have the product in their Skin Deep database and you can actually plug it in and then they rate it and tell you if it's toxic or if it's a healthier product for you. It's an amazing database. I've been using it for years to make sure that all the products that I'm using in my

home and on my body and on my skin are healthy and safe. They also have their tap water database where you can actually go in and plug in your zip code and they will tell you all of the contaminants and the levels that they have found in your tap water. I moved to Denver recently and after I got off this episode with Ken, I was like, you know what, I'm going to plug in my new zip code. And I found that we have arsenic at 34 times the legal limit in our water. There was a ton of different stuff in there. So anyways, I highly recommend going in there, plugging in your zip code and seeing what your water looks like near you. They also are the company that came up with the Clean 15 and the Dirty Dozen. And these, we talk more about them in depth in the actual episode, but essentially it just helps you to navigate the grocery store.

And if you are really on a budget and can only afford certain fruits and vegetables organic, they actually give you a guide and they release it every year based on what foods are the safest to buy conventional if you have to and what foods you should absolutely buy organic because of the pesticide residue that shows up on these particular foods.

So this was an amazing episode. It really lit a fire under my ass. I have these episodes with certain people that just really leave me feeling so inspired. And this was one of them. We go into great depth about what EWG does. We talk a lot about just the accumulation of toxins that we're seeing just in our everyday life and how we can become more aware and become more empowered about the products that we are buying and putting on our skin, spraying in our homes, putting on our children, the food that we're eating. It's just really all about becoming a more aware consumer. And then what I really loved about this episode is that Ken gave us a really amazing, actionable advice about what we can do personally to hopefully move the needle with the regulations.

He and his company, EWG, spends a lot of time in Washington lobbying and they are really a force to be reckoned with in this world. Currently, they are trying to get Paraquat out of the US food system. It's banned in over 65 countries, and this is a toxic weed killer that's linked to Parkinson's disease, and it's still being used in the US. So that's just one example of something that they're working on right now. So I am just going to go into the episode because I feel like anything I

say will not give it justice to what Ken has to say. I was so honored to have him on. I've been following EWG and their work for a really long time. They have inspired me and a lot of the work that I've done with Real Foodology. And so I just was so grateful to have Ken on. And I'm very excited for you guys to hear this episode. Ken actually has his own podcast. It's called Ken Cook is having another episode and I'm actually going to be a guest on there in a couple months. So definitely make sure you guys tune in, especially if you want to learn more about his work and how you can be more involved with EWG. So as always, if you are loving the podcast, if you could take a moment to rate and review, leave a comment, it really, really means a lot to me and it really helps the show. And then of course, if you want to share about it

on Instagram, tag me at real foodology. I see almost all of your messages. I try my best to get back to each and every one of you. And I wish that I could just give all of you guys a big hug. So thank you so much for listening. It means a lot and I hope you enjoy the episode. I've got something seriously exciting to share with you. It's called qualia senolytic. And with this, we're diving into the science of healthy aging, and it's really fascinating. So as we age, our bodies accumulate these senescent cells. And we talk a lot about this on the podcast episode that I did with the formulator for qualia.

So if you want to check it out and get more into details, I highly recommend checking that out. So these senescent cells, they're kind of like those outdated apps taking up space on your phone. They can make us feel sluggish, achy, and just not really like ourselves. But here's the kicker. Qualia Senolytic steps in to help clear out those worn out cells, making way for renewed energy and vitality. Personally, I was blown away when I first tried it. Within a couple of months, I noticed a real difference. I felt sharper, more energized, and those little aches and pains, they just started

to fade away into the background. The best part, it's super easy to incorporate into your routine just two days a month. That's it. You only take it for two days a month, and it's made with all the good stuff, vegan, gluten-free, and crafted to complement your body's natural rhythms. If you are ready to experience the power of Qualia Senolytic for yourself, head over to qualialife.com slash realfoodology right now for up to 50% off your order. Oh, and don't forget to use code realfoodology at checkout for an extra 15% off. That's qualialife.com slash realfoodology. Qualia is Q-U-A-L-I-A-L-I-F-E. You can also find Qualia Senolytic at select GNC locations near you,

so there's no excuse not to give it a try. I'm always looking for ways to improve my mitochondria because our mitochondria are our life force. They are the battery of the cell, after all. My boyfriend loves to frequently remind me that that's the only fact that he remembers from biology, but mitochondria actually are so imperative to our overall health. When our mitochondria start to decline, everything else goes with it. That's when we really start to see signs of aging. So it's so incredibly important to support our mitochondria in any way that we possibly can, which is why I take Timeline Nutrition MitoPure to support my mitochondria. It contains an ingredient called urolithin A, and that alone

significantly increases muscle strength and endurance with no other change in lifestyle, according to the clinical studies. Timeline Nutrition has loads of studies. They are a global leader in urolithin A research, and their products are NSF certified for sport. If you want to go back and listen to the podcast episode I did with the founder, we go over in depth all about the research and we talk about all the amazing benefits of MitoPure. For example, maintaining muscle health, which is incredibly important to longevity and enduring good health. It also has postbiotics, the active nutrients your body makes during digestion. They're an emerging driver of good health. And urolithin A is one of the first postbiotics shown to have major health

benefits and it has become available to all of us in Timeline MitoPure. It also upgrades your body's cellular power grid, giving your body the energy it needs to optimize. Also, this is purely anecdotal, but I do have a friend who works one-on-one with clients for nutrition and she had five or six different women take Timeline Mito Pure and improve their egg quality and egg numbers when they were doing egg retrievals. So when I went and froze my eggs, I wish that I had known about this because I would have taken this before I froze my eggs. Again, that's just purely anecdotal. There's no studies to back it up, but it is something interesting. They come in soft gels. They also come in their protein powder, or they have just the simple powder that you can buy.

I get the ginger powder and I put it in my drinks every morning. Timeline is offering 10% off your first order of Mito Pure. Go to timelinenutrition.com slash realfoodology and use code realfoodology to get 10% off your order. That's T-I-M-E-L-I-N-E-N-U-T-R-I-T-I-O-N.com slash realfoodology. I recommend trying their starter pack with all three formats. Let's dive into it. It took us a while to kind of realize, and this is not a credit to me for sure, but it took a while to realize how important our work was or how heavily used our work was by health professionals. Mark Hyman was one. Harvey Karp's on our board, of course.

Bojana Weatherly is on our board, all MDs. And just over time, Andy Weil, all these incredible, not just leaders, but as it were, rank and file practitioners were using our tools, Courtney. And it took a while to realize what we should have known right away, that if you're spending a lot of time telling people about what they can do to protect themselves from all this toxic world we live in and make it actionable and so forth, that fills in for many medical professionals something they did not get in medical school. Just like, as I'm sure you've come across and preached probably for some time, they don't come across good nutrition training either. So, you know, importance of bad stuff, toxic chemicals. We found ourselves getting contacted by doctors. I would go to doctor's offices or go to events with them and they would talk about EWG and our material and how useful it was and how they shared it with their patients. So that, you know, when I finally met Mark Hyman, who, of course, is a legend and leader in functional medicine, it was really gratifying to see that something was practical. I mean, we like to think as environmentalists when we get a law passed or a regulation implemented or a new study out the

door, all important, vitally important. But the thing that separates EWG in a lot of ways is this direct to people connection with our tools. And I think that's probably how you came across EWG. That's what I was just going to say. I was so grateful that I actually came across you guys initially through your Skin Deep program that you have. And just for the listeners, if they are not aware of what Skin Deep is, you can go to EWG's website and you can plug in skincare products, laundry detergent, cleaning, baby care products. I mean, you name it, pretty much everything is on there. And when I first started becoming conscious and aware of not only the things that I was eating and like putting in my body, but also what I was putting on my body,

EWG was such a great resource for me to go in, plug in my product and say, and I could actually see if it was having a harmful effect on my body. And then after that, I found your water database, which I still, to this day, I reference everyone online all the time. Go to the water database. Go to Skin Deep. Plug in all your products. Plug in your zip code to figure out how clean or dirty your water is. It's such an amazing resource.

Thank you for shouting out those resources. example of how my thinking as a sort of classically positioned environmentalist where, you know, you conduct research, you go to Capitol Hill, you go to a state capitol, you lobby for a new law or a stronger regulation, what have you, never crossed my mind that personal care products and the ingredients in them were an environmental issue, but it was part of my journey to understand that EWG in particular, but I think everyone has a stake in this, we think of the environment in very intimate, personal, everyday terms. The environment's not your trip to a wilderness area. It's not driving by a smokestack. It's how you live your life. And you're struggling with environmental decisions all the time when you walk into the

grocery store or into the drugstore or go through your makeup kit and make decisions. And we came across a study. It was a wonderful dear friend friend and scientist worked for EWG for a long time named Jane Houlihan. She was really the founder of Skin Deep or what is now Skin Deep. And Jane read a study that came out of the CDC. And this is the kind of thing I think that really gets the attention of someone who's dialed in like you are and probably your audience is, Courtney, CDC scientists came up with a study that found phthalates at elevated levels in the blood of women of childbearing age.

And you don't want this stuff in anybody, but you certainly don't because of the implications for having a healthy baby, caring to term, and other aspects of maternal health. And they speculated in the article, they didn't know, they speculated that it might have been personal care products. And Jane brought, I remember the day she brought it to me, I said, well, how can that be? How can we not have known about this? And then we looked into it and it turned out you could pretty much put anything in personal care products, no pre-market testing of ingredients or products before they were allowed

on the market. So all these items you see with the brightly colored, heavily marketing-oriented packaging as you walk through life in the cosmetics aisle or personal care products, shampoos, you name it, is pretty much unregulated. And so she said, let's build a database. Let's find out. We started with finding out what phthalates, what products phthalates were in. And then when she saw it, she said, what are all these other chemicals on the ingredient list? So it's amazing from there. And it was a process of discovery, but again, also a reframing of what it means to be concerned about the environment. And it's really what you come in contact with and what shapes you and what you shape in your everyday life, no matter where you are. So I love this. And actually, right before we started recording, I went and looked this up because I wanted to know the exact number of chemical substances that have been banned

in the United States. And as of 2023, this was the most updated I could find. There's only 11 substances that are banned in cosmetics in the United States. Alternatively, in the European Union, they have outlawed the use of more than 2,400 chemicals. So I think there's this common misconception with people that if it's on the shelf, that it's safe and that it's been tested, it's been vetted for. But then, you know, as I started digging deeper into this, I mean, there have been so many makeup companies that have been tested by third-party testing. I'm sure you guys have done some of it where they found asbestos in makeup products. It's crazy.

On the shelf, what it means is it's legal, not that it's safe. And we make that distinction all the time. You know, a lot of pollution just generally, air pollution, water pollution, pollution that comes out of tailpipes. Levels are set oftentimes for economic reasons, technical reasons, political reasons that we know are still going to lead to harm. Sometimes premature deaths. Air pollution is a great example. We've been fighting EWG, among other groups, for years to reduce the level of particulate air pollution and other forms of pollution that come from burning fossil fuels primarily. And every time we lower the level, we know that still below that level, people are dying

prematurely from air pollution so yes it's on the shelf that means it's legal it doesn't mean it's safe and that's true of air water things that aren't on a shelf but are in your life air products fruits and vegetables you name it it's true of speed limits right We set the speed limit a few years ago, dropped it down to 55 miles per hour and saved thousands of lives. But there was so much pressure to raise the speed limit back up to 70 on interstate highways, in some places it's 75, that we looked at the before and after and realized, okay, well, now the legal speed limit is way up here but it's not safe thousands more people are dying so just that basic concept is hard I think for people but once you

get it you can't look away right you yeah wise then okay well what's going on there's political pressure there's economic forces sometimes there are there are practical matters. We can't figure out ways to eliminate some of these environmental issues or exposures. All of that factors in, but it really compels, I think, individuals, parents in particular, young women who are thinking of starting a family, young men too. It compels you, I think, to use your own agency, which is so much of, I mean, your contributions in this area have been enormous, Courtney. Take stock, open your mind to sources of information, find the ones that you can trust, and then take some action on your own. You can't wait for the government to

solve these problems. It's not going to happen. No. And in fact, if we look back in history, which continues to repeat itself, the government is very slow to put regulations in place. In fact, they oftentimes are pushing things that we find out later are actually really harmful. This is a great example that I love to use all the time. Look back in, what was it, like the 50s when doctors were telling pregnant women not only was it safe, but that they should be smoking cigarettes. And doctors were prescribing cigarettes to patients saying that this will help curb your appetite and it's great for the baby. I don't even remember everything that they were saying. And then of course, it came out later, the detrimental harmful effects that cigarettes

were having on our bodies. So it is up to us as individuals to recognize that the government is not always going to have our back. And sometimes they're going to put out harmful information that later on we find out is actually really harmful. So it's on us to do our due diligence and really make sure that we're protecting and taking care of our health. Completely right. And a more recent example, just in recent weeks, the Food and Drug Administration, and you're the ultimate foodie, so you know this,

declared brominated vegetable oil- I saw that. Rebanned, right? Well, right up until the day they said that, they said it was safe right and so it's been it's been you know under regulatory scrutiny uh since before you were born Courtney I'm pretty sure that's crazy and up and banding up and we we worked with uh CSPI a center for science in the public interest here in, and got it banned

here. It's also now going to be banned if it hasn't been already in a number of other states that are now picking up this momentum. It's sort of the Courtney Swan, Vonnie Hari, like, hey, pay attention to all these shitty additives, right? What are they doing there? Well, they're there for the convenience of the food companies. And so here you have a perfect example. It was legal. And your point is so important. The government stands behind the decision that if it's legal, it is safe. They're basically saying we've made it legal because we're saying it's safe. The evidence finally catches up after years of industry pushback and disputes, even though some companies took brominated vegetable oil out of their

products on their own because they were worried about reputational risk. They were worried about litigation probably in some cases, but the government just couldn't get it done. But people, by going to our website, listening to you, listening to others who are basically saying, look, there's always a lag between what science is telling us, if you look at real independent, you know, hauling balls and strikes, straightforward science, there's always a significant lag or almost always between what science is telling us we should not be exposed to and what regulations prevent us from being exposed to. Well, there's that statistic. I'm sorry to interrupt, but just so people understand this really well, there's a statistic that on

average, it takes 17 years for the science to catch up to what we already know logically true. And also you have to think about it takes time to get that information out to the government, you know, regulating bodies, to the scientists, to the educators, the teachers, whatever it is, it takes time to get that information out. And so oftentimes what happens is like, for example, with BVO, which is brominated vegetable oil, and it was most popularly and well-known to be in Mountain Dew sodas. I was reporting about this back in, I think like 2012, 2013, telling people to avoid this. And now we're in 2024. Isn't it 12? Pretty much you were in high school then, right? No, I'm just kidding. I wish. No, I'm older than that, but thank you very much. I turned 40 this year. See some ID.

Well, I like to hope that my healthy lifestyle has helped with that a lot. But yeah, so back in 2012, I was telling people, make sure that you are not consuming products that have this BVO. It has really concerning health effects. And sure enough, now here we are in 2024. I mean, that's like 12 years later that now they are finally taking it out of our food. Yeah. The thing that you notice over time is that the more we study some of these chemicals, the lower the safe level gets. It's true of lead. It was certainly true of lots of different pesticides where it starts off being legal at fairly high levels that we're exposed to.

Might be in food, might be in water, might be in air we breathe, coming off of consumer products. Could be a couch, could be paint, whatever. And over time, the more we study, the more we realize a couple of things. One, that some people are more vulnerable than others. Children in particular, we have to be worried about because they're not just little adults. They're developing rapidly, especially in their

first few years of life. And every dose they get per unit of body weight is much higher than the dose you and I get. Then you realize that some people are naturally more vulnerable by nature of something in their genetic makeup or something maybe that they've been exposed to and that has triggered a special susceptibility. And then, not to be forgotten, industry pushes back against efforts to regulate. And we see time and time again, the PFAS chemicals are the most recent example, perhaps, where companies like DuPont and 3M knew for decades and decades from their own work, their own health studies, that these chemicals were dangerous and they did not disclose it to regulators. Now, they claim they felt like they didn't have to disclose it or that

they weren't sure it was harmful. But I mean, you know, you look at, now that we look at their internal documents, that regulators never saw until trial lawyers prided out of them in court and sent it to EPA. And until you look at those internal documents, you know, you might think, well, yeah, they're probably trying to do the best they can, but they're not. They're looking at how much money is on the line. If they make a change, whether it's taking BVO out of a product or switching some other chemical to give that nonstick property to Teflon pans, whatever it might be, those factors are important.

And they're sending lots of campaign contributions to slow down the politics. They're sending lots of lobbyists, EPA to Congress, state agencies, state legislatures, way outnumber, unfortunately, the folks on the environmental and public health side of things. So those are factors too, right? And that's why we have to get you to Washington to lobby, Courtney. We need some of that star power because we can't compete dollar to dollar with these companies that make billions, in some cases, from individual chemicals. That was the case with DuPont and Teflon.

Yeah, the DuPont and Teflon story is incredibly heartbreaking. For people listening, if they have not seen this film, I highly recommend checking out the movie Dark Waters. And they do an amazing job of just really outlining exactly what happened there. And once you start to see how this keeps happening, you start to realize that it's kind of copy and paste in every industry, right? Like we saw it happen with DuPont and Teflon and 3M.

We also saw it happen with Big Tobacco. I know I brought them up already, but this is a perfect example. And something that people may not know is that once big tobacco was starting to fail, those large companies just went up and bought all the food companies. And now they're copying and pasting exactly what they did in the 70s, which was they were hiding information from the public. They didn't want it to get out that cigarettes were actually really harmful.

They didn't want the public to know that they knew that it was harmful and they were hiding all of it. And this is exactly what's happening now with our food industry. And like you just said, it's still happening with our everyday products and why EWG is so incredibly important. And I just love the work that you guys are doing so much because you are putting the power back into the hands of the people and giving us the ability to protect ourselves and inform ourselves so that we're not just blindly getting poisoned by all these companies that are,

I mean, quite frankly, they're more concerned about their profit than they are human health, unfortunately. It's just the reality of the situation. I mean, I think the advent of the internet age made a lot more of this possible in terms of satisfying the public's innate desire for transparency. People, you know, not every day, not every minute, not every item in your life, but there is an underlying, I think now cultural imprint that we should want to know where stuff comes from,

how it was made, who made it, what happened to the environment while it was being made, what happens to the environment when we have finished using it or throw it away. all of that really made it possible to center uh people in the regulatory process and make the you know make the the first agency to touch these issues is your agency your ability as a human being to make a difference in your life your family's life and your community obviously your friends and and not just the Environmental Protection Agency or the Food and Drug Administration or whatever. We have to take those steps on our own. And of course, there's lots of confusing information out there. There are lots of naysayers saying, EWG and Courtney, they're overblowing things, they're getting it

wrong. They're fear-mongering. They make money from scaring people, all of that. And so, you know, just put it out there and say, okay, take a look at it, see if that makes sense, see if that's the way you think we operate. And by and large, I think the tide is shifting in the direction of, you know, consumers thinking, people thinking, you know, I'm going to do a little more of my own work before I trust these companies

or the government. This is really exciting. Organifi now has kid stuff. They just released two kid products. One is called Easy Greens, and it's a refreshing green apple juice where kids will never know that it's packed with veggies. And the other one is called Protect. It's a delicious wild berry punch like the Kool-Aid that we used to have as a kid, but without any sugar. This is really exciting. And if you've listened to the podcast for a while, you know that I'm a huge fan of Organifi. And most specifically because every single product that they make is glyphosate residue free. So you know that you're going to be able to give these powders to your kids and know that they will be able to consume them safely without any glyphosate in it.

So let's break down each one. The Easy Greens is a nourishing and delicious blend of superfoods and veggies that provides essential nutrients, probiotics, and digestive enzymes to bring balance to kids' growing bodies without fillers, additives, or junk. It helps to fill in nutritional gaps, aids in growth and development, supports digestive health, has a rich micronutrient profile, and includes digestive enzymes. This would be a great way to sneak in greens for your little one without them actually knowing that it's healthy for them. And the second one, which is the wild berry punch similar to Kool-Aid is called Protect. And it is to support your child's daily

immune health with food derived nutrients that work to strengthen their body's first line of defense. I know just through girlfriends of mine that have children that when your kids are going to school, going to daycare, they're coming home sick a lot more often just because they're getting exposed to different kids and different viruses when they're out in the world playing with kids. So this would be a great way to help to support your little one's immune health. It's organic and it's also made with real whole food ingredients. It has a delicious berry taste and it's low sugar and it's gentle enough for kids to take every single day. And I really love the ingredients in this one. It's orange and acerol cherry, which is a powerful source of vitamin C and antioxidants, astragalus, elderberry,

and propolis. These are all really great for overall immune health. If you want to try the products that I talked about today or any of the Organifi products, go to organifi.com slash realfoodology and use code realoodology for 20% off. Again, that's Organifi. It's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com slash RealFoodology. I remember when I was in college and I really started paying attention to what I was using to fuel my body and just how much of a difference small changes can make to how you feel every day. Well, taking care of your gut is just another one of those small actions that can lead to huge benefits for your overall wellbeing. This is why I love Seeds DS01 Daily Symbiotic. It's been a total game changer for me. I've noticed

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That's Seed, it's S-E-E-D.com slash realfoodology, code 25 realfoodology. Take the first step towards better gut health today. Yeah. Which, I, thank God, because, you know, I remind my audience of this all the time that we have more power than we realize. I mean, organic, just the organic food movement in of itself is such a great example of this that, I mean, I don't know the exact amount of time, but what maybe 30, 40 years ago, organic food wasn't really anything. And now it's, how much of a percentage, do you know how much of a percentage now it is of our overall food system? Basically, my point is what I'm trying to say is that the consumer trends and us demanding better for ourselves and of our food system, we are actually the ones that are driving the trends because we are demanding better. And also, thanks to companies like yourself,

companies are now cleaning up their products. Like there's more than ever clean skincare, clean body care, clean cleaning supplies, stuff for babies, because the consumers are driving the trends. Like we do have a lot of power. No, that's exactly right. I mean, if you look at the overall food system and look at restaurant food and all the rest, organic is still pretty small. But if you look in some categories of fruits and vegetables, you know, mixed greens, apples, potatoes, a lot of healthy produce that we want to eat, everyone to be eating more of, organic has enjoyed some real gains just in the past 30 years. I mean, it's only been since the early 2000s that we had a a national organic standard in place it took it took a decade of regulatory back and forth in the 90s to even get there so you know my my sense is exactly what yours is that consumers people are are drive

citizen consumers are driving this process now smart companies are seeing this as an opportunity and they're not just smart they're ethical and let's not forget that right it's not just grabbing for market share of course that's the dynamic of business in a capitalist economy but there are people out there I meet them every day who are running small companies, are working in the, you know, in the midst of very big ones. They have essentially the same values that I have. They're working in the for-profit sector. And when I meet young folks these days, and they, you know, ask me advice about their career direction, maybe they're fresh out of college. We have quite fresh out of college.

We have quite a few of them who come to work at EWG as interns or their first job out of college. And I think the public interest sector is great. I think it's important to consider government service, civil service. These are all great. But the option that is out there now that wasn't there when I was coming up in the 60s and 70s and wanted to be like Ralph Nader, that was the only model. Now I encourage people to look at the private sector. Maybe you want to go into business.

Maybe you want to make change happen there. And more often than not, if you've got the right niche, you've got the right capabilities, the right product idea, if it comes down to a product or a service, you can make change happen deeper and faster than you can ever hope to today in the regulatory system, which is, it's kind of frozen, more than kind of, it's quite frozen. It's really difficult to make progress because the tribalism that's torn our political system apart goes right down into the regulatory system, deep down so that if it's an idea that Democrats support or an idea maybe Republicans oppose,

then you find people reflexively taking the opposite side instead of looking for common ground. So in a situation like that, again, it's really hard. It's hard for me to get up in front of an audience where I look out and I might see 20 pregnant women. I'm not going to feel comfortable saying, you know what the solution to this Teflon problem is? We need to wait for 20 years to have a law and regulations passed to get it out of your life. No, what I say is, look, if you're concerned about it,

there are many options and I'll go through them for how you can avoid those exposures. And you can avoid thousands and thousands of what we call exposure events, like, you know, an apple that has five pesticides in it. You buy that organic, it has no pesticides in it. So try and do that where you can. It's getting easier and easier. You said it just right.

There are more offerings out there. This environmental health economy is becoming more democratized, more accessible and available. If it isn't accessible and available, EWG is not interested. We're not into boutique, you know, elite accessibility and pricing. We need it to be democratically available, accessible to everyone at an affordable price, just like we don't want a few valleys in California to be organic and the rest of organic and we're not there yet but it's it's an exciting time because the cultural imprint of environmental health which is you know how the environment affects me i define environment as we started at the top it's everything i put on my skin in my house etc it's not it's not wilderness expeditions alone. Once that realization hits you, then there's all kinds of impacts on the economy, all kinds of impacts on your life. And things do begin to become more normalized where your choices get more plentiful i mean when we started working on our sunscreen work uh 15 years ago looking at

uh what are the safe healthy sunscreens versus the ones that have sketchy chemicals in them we we were not making any you know we were pioneers but now there are lots of offerings out there of mineral ingredients that don't have these sketchy chemical effects associated with them. That's just, you know, that's just the process of people making decisions that went kind of went around the regulatory log jam. Yeah. Great. Sunscreen is a really interesting one that you just brought up because what I was just going to ask you is what are some everyday products that people are using and probably have no idea that they are having an effect on their health? And I would think sunscreen would be one of them. I would also name toilet paper because it's bleached and fragranced and all that. But what are some other products that people should be more aware of that maybe they're not even thinking about? Certainly a whole array of personal care products that you use.

Men use six or eight a day and women use 12 or 14, 15 per day with thousands of ingredients in some cases over the course of a month or so. We decided some time ago to try and rate those and evaluate them in the Skin Deep database. And we have a healthy living app that conveys that same information on your phone. But personal care products are something where, yeah, just look, these are chronic exposure risks. Take a look at Skin Deep. If something you're using is sort of in the yellow or red zone, but you've grown used to it, you love it, you like it,

just consider trying something different. Personal care products, we never encourage people to throw them out. It's a chronic exposure issue. So, you know, use those last few tubes or whatever it is, bottles, and you bought them. Don't pour them down the drain or throw them in the trash.

Use them and then start experimenting with something that scores healthier. Same with food. You know, we publish the dirty dozen, the fruits and vegetables that have the most pesticides in them. We're taking a look at revamping that system now for evaluating those. But alongside those 12, where we say if you can find and afford organic, you should go that way,

we also published the Clean 15. I'm sorry. So the Dirty Dozen, go organic if you can. The Clean 15, these are fruits and vegetables that because of the way they're raised, when pesticides are used, the types of pesticides, if they're sprayed early in the season, a risk to farm workers and farmers, which for sure, but the pesticide doesn't end up in the flesh of the produce. So you can, you know, if you're concerned about pesticide, you can avoid it that way. Shift your pots and pans, you know, over to stainless or, you know, we have some new ceramic coatings.

We're not entirely sure, but they seem better than some of the old Teflon stuff, especially if you have an old Teflon pan with lots of scrapes on it. You know, the big choices like your sofa, be smart and shop, you know, look for non-toxic sofas. And there are lots of places where you can find them listed now, but they don't have the Teflon chemicals that repelled water and oil. Remember this? I know when I was growing up, if you bought a new sofa at the furniture store you weren't buying it online then and they would say hey would you like us to to uh treat this with a water and stain repellent and they'd pull out a teflon spray so first they were exposed at the furniture store and then they brought it here to with their truck to your home And of course it ended up in your, in the dust in your home and in the air.

So lots of variations. One thing I would say to people is don't punish yourself. Don't try and make all the changes at once. I'm sure you preach the same thing. Give yourself the same thing, right? Give yourself some wins. There are some things we have to have the government take on. We have to have air

pollution regulation, obviously. But indoor air, you can do a lot about. Ventilate your home, be careful about the products you bring in that might off gas, be careful to vent when you're cooking, especially if you have a gas stove. All these things you can do room by room in your in your life uh category by category they can add up but but take on one at a time i always i always say start with food you know take a look at that get out of the ultra processed game eat lower on the food chain reduce you know meat consumption get your protein other ways definitely get get out of the process meat game if you can all of these changes right they're so accessible now Courtney and they're and they're supported by culturally and by science right that the science came along but now there's

you know people that well maybe people probably think you and I are still crazy when we show up at a dinner party okay well that's not much we can do about that. That's Courtney. Careful what you put on the plate, right? I've been in that business for a long time. You know, with me, it's like, Ken, should I give you a urine sample now? Do you want to check my urine? But by and large, there's a much, much broader acceptance of the people that 10, 15, certainly 20 years ago were considered just whack jobs, crazy additives and these crazy

pesticides and enough already, just enjoy your meal. Well, now people are thinking, I can have a great meal without that stuff. And that's the breakthrough. So that exactly what you just said. And what is so important for people to understand is that you can still have your makeup. You can still have your body lotion, whatever it is that you want to use. You can still eat an amazing meal, but we now have safer options. So why wouldn't you change those safer options? And I like to remind people the same thing that you say, which is, you know, take it one step at a time. Don't, you know,

have a freak out and go throw everything out from under your sink and, you know, from your medicine cabinet and your skincare and everything. But when you run out of things, start slowly replacing them. And I would even say too, if you're wondering where to start first, start with the things that you are using every single day. That would be the most important thing because you sort of talked about this a minute ago, but for women especially, I'm so incredibly concerned because it is estimated that on average, women are exposed to 160 different chemicals every single day. We don't actually know what's happening when we accumulate all those in our body and what's happening when they are mixed together

in the body too. So that's something that is still- Such a key point. You know, we regulate chemicals if we regulate them at all, one at a time. Yep. And we never look at combinations of chemicals, chemical mixtures. It can be done, but it's at the vanguard.

And it involves computer modeling and all kinds of innovative methods. But you might have in your body 10, 20, 30, 40 carcinogens at any one time. Some of them are mild carcinogens. If they're known carcinogens, they wouldn't be on the market, but sometimes you're exposed to those in the environment and you can't help it. We did a study of umbilical cord blood some years ago that you may be familiar with, and we found an average of 200 toxic chemicals in each of 10 cord blood samples. Across those, there were dozens of neurotoxins, dozens of carcinogens, dozens of chemicals

that affect the immune system. And most of them weren't regulated, didn't have a legal limit. But we certainly don't ask the question, well, does the addition of one after another neurotoxin make things harder for us to keep our brains from getting scrambled or maintain protections against neurodegenerative diseases like ADHD or Alzheimer's? Alzheimer's, yeah. So in the blank. And we just don't know so all the more reason to just be thoughtful and take advantage of where we are now at least in this country most of us and there's one caveat i'll add to this to to make choices that don't have these exposures associated with them the one caveat is you know we still we still do have some price barriers, some cost barriers for

some of these categories that we need to be thoughtful about and push very hard to make sure that this environmental health revolution reaches and is available to everybody. And that the people who are shopping at dollar stores or at big supermarkets and are having trouble with high food prices now getting by, making ends meet, making tough decisions between medical expenses and food and rent.

We need to push the system to make these opportunities to avoid exposure available to everyone. That's the key. Snacks. Let's talk about snacks. Everyone loves snacks. And I feel like it's hard to find a good snack that actually fills you up and that you really crave and like to eat. I am obsessed with the grass fed beef sticks from paleo Valley. If you guys follow me on Instagram,

you probably saw recently that I went, I literally went to this show downtown and my girlfriends were making fun of me because when I met up with them, I literally had a paleo valley beef stick sticking out of my pocket. My friend goes, are you packing meat in there? I was, I always have a paleo valley stick with me either in my purse or I always shove a bunch, a bunch of them in my car and just leave them in there for, you know, emergencies for snack emergencies. I'm always bringing them places on hikes. You name it. I always have them on me because they are just, they're such a great snack. It's a great source of protein. They taste really good. They come from 100% grass fed beef and they're really high quality. It's only organic spices in there. You're not going to find any other fillers. And you know what I love so much?

Their beef comes from 100% grass fed cows raised entirely on natural grass pastures by family farmers right here in the US. And they also are committed to supporting regenerative farms, which is really important. If you guys are not into beef, if beef is not really your thing, they also have pasture raised turkey sticks and they also have pasture raised pork sticks. So they have a variety of different flavors and all different kinds of meats to serve your meat desires. And if you guys go to paleovalley.com slash real foodology, you're going to save 20%. Make sure you go to paleovalley.com slash real foodology. You're going to save some money. Also check out everything else

they have on that website. They have superfood bars. They have organic super greens. They also have bone broth protein. They have grass fed whey protein. They have essential electrolytes. They also have a superfood golden milk, which is going to be really good going into fall. So make sure you guys check it out. Use the code real food, and you're going to save some money. Yeah. And you bring up a great point and it's a great bridge into what I wanted to ask you about as far as lobbying goes, because a lot of people ask, you know, well, how is this possible? How do we have all these products in our, our skincare and how do we make them more accessible for people and make them cheaper? Because what I dream of is a world where none of

these chemicals are even allowed in our products. People can go to the dollar general store and the dollar product that they pull off the shelf has been cleared of all these harmful chemicals because there's regulations. Now, how are we at this point? And I know lobbying plays a big role in that. So maybe you can explain to people, how are these chemicals still on the shelf? Well, they're still on the shelf because when we've tried to strengthen consumer protection laws, specifically the law that pertains,

the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act that pertains to personal care products, we've only had very limited success. The industry pushes back very hard. If you're a company, you like to be self-regulating. If you have a choice, you decide what to do. Because you can get away with more. And especially if you're allowed to self-regulate and the government says right behind you, not only are they self-regulating, but it's perfectly legal and safe. So here's, you know, the story on lobbying is that, you know, we look for our

opportunities. There's a lot going on, and I would encourage your, you know, your audience to look at opportunities to work with organizations at the state level who are working on some of these issues. And they're in almost every state where people have, you know, decided that they're going to go to their state legislature and they're going to try and get things done that the federal government can't be moved to do. Just too much money, Courtney, pushing back public interest types and organizations,

too many campaign contributions that, you know, the threats are pretty real. Like, hey, I'd like to support you or I'd like to stay neutral. But if you keep pushing this legislation, you know, especially if it's, say, a moderate Republican, there aren't many who can comfortably say that that's where they are anymore. You'll get a primary opponent funded by the chemical industry. So, and Democrats too, it's across the board. And so it's very, very difficult to get things done federally. It's not a cakewalk at the state level, but I would encourage you to reach out. And most of these organizations have ways like we do at EWG here in California.

We have ways in Washington. We fly people in. We encourage people to come and join us for fly-ins. Go to Capitol Hill. Talk to your legislator. Now that you're in Colorado, right, we'll have, you know, acquainted with your senators and your representative there. But it's really just stepping out of your comfort zone a little bit, perhaps. Now, some people are comfortable going into a legislator's office

for the first time. Others need a little practice. There are groups that can help you with that and find a group that, for example, is trying to regulate pesticides or trying to reduce toxic chemicals in food or personal care products. These are groups all over the country that are doing that, and they're doing some great work. Oftentimes, almost every time, states are leading the way, maybe right behind consumer markets. And so that interaction is really critical. Washington is also, you know, but we don't get as many opportunities in Washington. Mostly they're regulatory opportunities to encourage the EPA or FDA to do something right. Occasionally there's legislation and we ask people on our website, hey, make a phone call, tell your legislative representative that we really want to control

these PFAS chemicals in drinking water. We want to make sure that if you live near an airport and they've been spraying these flame retardant substances with PFAS in them for decades, we want to make sure they clean it up. And people speak out. And you'd be amazed, especially if phone calls emails are okay the best thing to do is just pick up the phone the people the person you reach at the other end will be friendly they're paid to be friendly you pick up the phone and you say you know on this particular issue i just want just want you to know I'm paying attention.

Here's my position. I hope so-and-so can support that. And I would like to be able to stay in touch to track and see how my representative is doing. And if you disagree with me, I'd love to hear that. If you can help out and join in the campaign that I'm supporting, I'd love to hear that too, but I need to hear back. Once you get that initial familiarity, you'd be amazed at how human it is, especially if you're calling and, you know,

it's your representative in Congress, your little area of the, your little area of the map. They'll pay attention. And so I just encourage people to try that. It's not as scary as it seems. And there are lots of groups that can help you, give you tips and help you do it. That is amazing.

You are actually the first person in four years of doing this podcast episode that has given me real helpful, tangible ways that people can get more involved in their, with their senators and their, the legislature, because I get, I asked, so I get asked this all the time on Instagram. And then I, I often ask my guests, and that was such an amazing tip to give people. So thank you for that. And I hope that everybody listening will actually take advantage of that. I know it's encouraged me to make more phone calls like that because I mean, that's the thing. You know, we said this earlier that I think that we forget how much power we actually have.

And the more people that start to speak up and demand better from our skincare, from our food, from all of this, the more change that we're going to see happen. And now the scary thing is, is the lobbying that's happening. But the more noise we make, hopefully the more change we can make. That's right. You can lobby too. If you're picking up the phone, you're not a paid lobbyist, you're lobbying out of your, you know, civic time predictions. But, you know, you're making the same, you know, an impression. And there may be a lot more money on the other side. They may have hired but you're making the same impression and there may be a lot more money on the other side. They may have hired a former staff member

who's familiar with the office that you're calling. They'll have a lot of advantages but if you don't pick up the phone and make the call, then that opportunity to at least move the debate a little bit is lost. No one else will do it. They're not going to pick up the phone and call you from the office and say, hey, I'm just curious, how are you feeling about this pesticide thing?

That's not going to happen. But if you call and say, you know, I'm worried about that. I'll send you some science I've read. I'll send you an article I've read. Have you talked to so-and-so? It can be a two-minute conversation. That staff member taking that call will make notes. And if they're a well-run office, they'll keep track of the calls they get.

And it can be surprising to people that just five or ten phone calls to a congressional office will cause an issue to rise up a little bit. And if they're in a pro-industry deregulatory position, they'll see, well, there might be a downside to that. If they're on the fence, this might move them to say, well, you know, I've got constituents that out of the blue called about this. Who has time to do that unless they're concerned? And registers with these politicians. They're politicians, right? They have their radar on for these kinds of things. So make sure that they read your signal. Yeah, that's really incredible. And it's super encouraging. And I'm curious to know what your, maybe your words of advice to people listening would be as far as, you know, so a lot of what we've talked about today is pretty scary

and it is concerning. And there's a lot of amazing things happening. There's a lot of amazing people that really care that are doing work to change this and to move the needle. But, you know, when people hear things like the story of Teflon and dark waters and how involved all of our regulatory agencies are with this corruption, what would you maybe tell people to give them a little bit of hope that we can change this, that we can fix this? Well, it's taken way too long, but with Teflon, the Teflon chemicals, some of the major ones that are in drinking water, and you can go to EWG's website and find on the map if it's in your water system. If we have those data, we have it for a lot of communities. You know, we're finally going to regulate.

We have finalized regulations down to four parts per trillion. I mean, about as low as we could hope you could go. This is, again, this administration has taken a courageous stand. They've already been sued over the decision to stop. But over time, you know, I feel like we don't have much choice. It can be discouraging, but I feel like we don't have much choice to register our concern. And we can't just retreat to our purchasing behaviors and our homes and our immediate environment. We have to save a little bit of that energy for our civic muscles and exercise those,

right? And that means participating in the debate, reading up on the issues, connecting with people who are like-minded and maybe are making the case and can help you make the case in front of decision makers. But we are making progress on a lot of these fronts, but you can't expect industry to step back and surrender either because of money, right?

It's just so much money. And so I tell people, look, don't be too hard on yourself. Don't assume it's going to go away either. Take some small steps. Look for the good news that's out there uh don't not to you know not don't be a pollyanna don't don't assume that we can solve all of these problems with our purchasing behavior i'm not you know i'm not uh from the neoliberal viewpoint that uh markets

solve all these problems we don't need government government. We do. But recognize that, especially at the state level or even at the local level, your voice is a lot louder than you might think it is. And especially if you're well-informed, you're polite, you're contacting these folks at the human level and saying, look, I'm just concerned about it. And I know the government says it's safe. I know industry is saying it's safe. But what I'm reading tells me something otherwise. Why don't we find options so we don't have to even have this debate so that we know that there are healthy options out there and we're not worried about how much of this chemical is in my

kid and whether we want to get right up to that level with more exposures. Why are we doing that? Let's just, let's move away. Let's, you know, let's take a different, a different route. We've been impressed by how bipartisan it has been because there are so many water supplies tainted by these Teflon chemicals. Just to give one example, people, you know, you know, people from both sides of the aisle have come together more than once in recent years and said, you know, let's phase out these uses, at least, of these chemicals. We can do better.

Yeah. I mean, I will say what I'm really hopeful for, just having been in this world for a long time, I told you this before we started recording that I started Real Foodology in 2011. And that's when I really started to sound the alarm and learn about all this stuff myself. And since that time, I felt like in the beginning, I was the weirdo friend where everyone was like, okay, this girl, what is she going on about? This is insane. Yeah. Like she's crazy. And now in 2024, yeah, I have, I mean, I can't tell you how many people are coming out of the woodworks,

like old friends of mine that were like, oh, we're so sorry. Like you were right. You know, we're finally starting to pay attention to this. And so I'm hopeful that more and more people are talking about this. There's more and more information coming out. I mean, um, there's all these, all this, all these studies and research information coming out. I mean, there's all these studies and research coming out now, not to scare people, but just to list off a couple of things that have come out more recently. We're finding microplastics in human testicles. There was just a report that found that almost every single tampon tested had some level of lead in there. And the organic ones were a lot lower in lead than the non-organic ones. What else?

There's reports of glyphosate being found in human blood and placenta and breast milk. And so these studies and these reports were not coming out 20 years ago when I started talking about this. So people are paying attention. People are doing these studies. They're sounding the alarm.

So I think a lot of people are really starting to pay attention. And I'm hopeful that there's enough people paying attention and that are really caring about this and that are in different areas of the different industries trying to make change, whether that's their companies that are creating cleaner products, their people like EWG, like yourself, going to Washington and actually lobbying, also giving us resources. So there's a lot of really good, amazing things happening. And hopefully with this podcast, maybe we're encouraging more people to join our movement.

Yeah, I mean, look, it's, you know, if you're a runner, if you've fallen off your training for a couple of months, do you jump right in and do a marathon? No, you train, you know, you train. Well, it takes some time and you got to overcome all kinds of resistance, including sore muscles to get there. It's no, it's really that same idea. We, this is a long term, long haul thing. You want to, you want to maintain a level of civic fitness to stay engaged, just like you want to, you know, you don't want to go to the store one day and say, oh, you know, maybe I'll just buy conventional apples.

No, no, you're going to keep buying the organic ones, right? And every time you buy an organic, you know, bag of apples, you're supporting farmers in Washington State or someplace else to grow them. So it does take time, you take time to affect these changes. I happen to think right now, we're in a period where individual action adding up to marketplace change, sector by sector, product category by product category is the most potent force out there. I'm not necessarily thrilled with that. There are lots of shortcomings. I like to think that the government can protect us, but I'm not going to wait. And no one else should. So, you know, use your agency to make change happen. And we'll make the federal agencies take action as soon as we can. That was so amazing. I

feel like that's such a great place to end. That was incredible. I also, I just, I want to ask you a personal question that I ask everybody at the end, which is what are your health non-negotiables? So these are things that you personally do every day that you prioritize to take care of your own health? Organic food, unless I don't have a choice. I don't sweat it if I don't. Avoiding meat or animal protein. I do eat fish, but I'm a pretty devoted vegetarian. These are non-negotiable for me. I'll tell you a place where I'm struggling right now is exercise. I've had a real difficult time maintaining fitness. I'm someone who used to ride thousands of miles a year on my bike.

And I've just with travel and some, you know, illness, some other family things fell off the wagon. And so now I'm, you know, we all have these struggles, right? Yeah. Non-negotiable for me because I know the difference between how I feel when I've been active and how I feel when I'm, you know, sluggy or in front of a screen all day or whatever it might be. That for me should be non-negotiable and I've let it slip away and I'm fighting my way back

with a mountain bike ride this afternoon. Yes, I love that so much. Also, I just want to name, thank you so much for being honest about that because you're actually the first guest that I've ever had that was honest with something that should be a non-negotiable that you're actually struggling with right now. And that's so real. That's so real. If you're not struggling, you're not fighting.

Yeah. This is a healthy life is worth fighting for. And thank you for all you've done to equip people for the fight, Courtney. I'm just very grateful for you in our world, making the case that you make because you've reached an awful lot of people and it's invaluable. Thank you. I really appreciate that. And I want to extend the same thing to you. I'm so grateful for all the work that you've done with EWG.

And just to list off one more time for people, they have Skin Deep that you can go and plug in all of your hair care products, skin care, cleaning products, you name it. They also have the Water Database. I encourage everybody listening to go in, plug in your zip code, see what contaminants are in your water,

get a really good water filter. There's also the Clean 15 and the Dirty Dozen that we also talked about. And are there any other resources that I missed? Food Scores Database for processed groceries, things you'd find in your grocery store. We're updating the tap water database now. We have a lot of work to do there

to get the most recent data in. It's a little bit out of date now because there's no government source for it. So some of these things, you know, you said it earlier, and I think you're right. We would be happy to be out of business if the food supply and personal care products and everything else was as safe as the industries

that make them say they are, but they're not. And they're not as safe as the government swears they are. And until that happens, we're going to keep coming out with these consumer guides that are mostly accessible at ewg.org. I'll put in a plug or our Healthy Living app where you can look up personal care products, you can look up cleaning products, you can look up food. We're trying to do our very best to keep that up to date. It's a big effort, but we feel like over time, the pressure that we're able to apply because consumers are paying attention to both regulators and the regulated industries

is well worth it. So keep up the great work you're doing. Everyone out there listening, this is a marathon. You're worth it. Get in training. I'll report back to you about how I'm doing with my fitness regimen. And God bless. Yes. A great way to end. Thank you so much, Ken.

I really appreciate you and appreciate you coming on today. My pleasure, Courtney. Thank you so much for listening to the Real Foodology Podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Fry. Theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you liked this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com. See you next time. 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.