The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - How To Detox Your Body & Get Rid Of What's Poisoning You In The Home

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

#710: Today we're sitting down with Marilee Nelson and Allison Evans. Allison is the founder of Branch Basics and this is her second appearance on the show. Marilee Nelson is an Environmental Consultant, Building Materials Specialist, Certified Baubiologist, medicinal cook, and is on the Advisory Board of Documenting Hope. She co-founded Branch Basics after years of working with chemically injured and chronically ill clients and realizing just how much harmful chemicals in our products and food influence our bodies. She joins us today for a conversation surrounding toxic products and how to audit your life. She discusses everything that could be affecting your health, including food, home and beauty products, and medications. To connect with Branch Basics click HERE To connect with Lauryn Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To Watch the Show click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential Head to the HIM & HER Show ShopMy page HERE to find all of Michael and Lauryn’s favorite products mentioned on their latest episodes. This episode is brought to you by Branch Basics Save 20% on your Starter Kit or their new Hand Soap when you use code SKINNY20 at www.branchbasics.com. Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her.

Aha! Potential, him and her. Epigenetics is now showing that even in smaller doses can affect the hormonal system. So we teach people how to be their own advocates instead of, you know, just reading the marketing claims. The minute you take your box of your pesticides out or your cleaning products or your fragrance products, take it out of the house. The air quality changes. You take a load off the body. I may or may not have harassed the founders of Branch Basics to come on the podcast. I have Marilee Nelson and Allison Evans back on the show. We are going to talk about non-toxic living in this episode. Marilee really opens up about her journey and working with chemically injured and chronically ill clients in this episode. She also talks about harmful chemicals in our products and our food.

And this is a wild story. I was on the edge of my seat during this conversation. You're going to learn about everything and anything that could be affecting your health. So we're going to talk food, home, beauty products, medicine, all the things. Allison and Marilee gave you guys 20% off on your starter kit for Branch Basics. You can use code SKINNY20 at checkout. I am such a fan of this brand and its mission and its ethos. And to be able to sit down and hear the whole story is a wild ride. On that note, Marilee and Allison of Branch Basics, welcome to the show. This is the Skinny Confidential, him and her. Welcome back to the show, Allison.

We have Marilee here too. Allison's show was one of my most favorite shows that we've ever recorded on this podcast. I truly feel like you changed so many people's opinion and addiction on cleaning supplies. So we invited you guys back on, but we had to meet the famous Marilee. So I'll let you introduce yourself Merrily to the audience. Well, my name is Merrily Nelson and I, my story actually just illustrates how I was and my family and my friends were really just in the dark and without a clue about many things. But one of the things was I had grown up very sick as a child. So the doctors didn't know what was wrong. My parents went from doctor to doctor. I was born in 1951,

and that is called the age of convenience. It started right after World War II. That meant that we were using more and more chemicals. We were introducing them into the world. And my mother was so fortunate because Similac was introduced, which was the first real serious commercial formula. And so it was not cool to breastfeed because everyone wanted to use formula. So I was in, my mother was in labor with me for 48 hours. It's always difficult. And then I came out and I did not like my formula. And apparently I was very sick, but I started having ear infections and I started having asthma and I had one thing after another. And my parents took me to doctor after doctor i was on antibiotics took

gg shots penicillin shots weekly my father was a chain smoker we'd go on vacations he'd be having the cigarette it looked like we were in a bar and i was back in the back seat with asthma and nobody is connecting the dots. So I had allergies so bad that my mother had this pile of rags and she called it my snot rag pile. And when we go anywhere, she said, get your snot rag because I either had a stopped up nose or I was just flowing freely with mucus. Did all the allergy shots. I did everything, but no medicine was stopping, you know, my symptoms. But the most unusual thing I had was what the doctor said was a fever of unknown origin, where I'd run a low grade fever for a long time, took medicine. It didn't cut it. But then all of a sudden I'd have about 105, 106 for a few days.

And they couldn't get the fever down. And this cycle went all through, all the way through my life. At 14, I started my period. And my cramps were so bad that my mother gave me her Percodan. She had cancer. And she had a lot of pain. And so I was taking no narcotic at 14. So I had a little bit of endocrine disruption. Anyway, I was very passionate about learning about biology, et cetera. And I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to cure my mother's cancer.

I was very idealistic and I wanted to help the doctor figure out what the heck was wrong with me. But by the time I got into high school, I was actually sick for six weeks my senior year. And my father came back to my bedroom and he had a tray in his hands of my medications. And he put the tray down. He was at my door and he comes running in and he grabs me up. He says, get out. My pillow was smoldering because I couldn't smell it. I couldn't even see the smoke. And it was like almost on fire. So I was in this toxic waste. Why did it go on fire? Well, because it was leaning against the lights you just couldn't smell that no i couldn't smell i'm giving you an idea of how serious my congestion was so after we got that all cleared out my father walked and handed me this tray of medicine and i shocked him because i

knocked that thing in the air and all the pills and everything just flew on the ground. I said, I'm not taking any more of this medicine because it doesn't help. I just had it. But anyway, my parents were about to go on a trip out of town. And so they decided to take me. I guess they didn't want to leave me. And so it turned out they were going to a convention in Key Biscayne, Florida. So the hotel was right on the beach and there was a cabana and we had a cabana room right on the

beach. And within about two days, I was a different person. I was just running. I was going crazy. I was so excited. And this was my first experience where my eyes were open to the idea, well, gosh, something happened from Houston, Texas to Florida, and I'm a different person. So of course, I didn't want to go back home, but I did. And the next year I was going to go to the University of Texas for going to college pre-med. But two weeks before school started, my mother really got sick. And I just told my father, I just can't go. So today it's different. I mean, this would never have happened, but somehow I got into the University of Houston just right at the last minute. And I went to school my freshman year. I was just deliriously happy, just loving my classes and everything. Actually was feeling better. And I think I was, for one thing, I really loved school.

And, you know, there were a lot of things about that, that I think, you know, your mental attitude is really important. But anyway, my mother passed away the next year. And as I mentioned, I was on her Percodan. And so when she died, I went and grabbed all her drugs and hoarded them because I wanted to have something for my pain. Well, I ended up running out. And since I was, you know, I couldn't get control of the pain, I would drink vodka. And anyway, I'm getting to a point here to explain, you know, my focus was really very medical. So I thought, what do I do? So I started studying because I knew that the birth control pill at that time was being used for hormonal issues.

So I studied all the birth control pills. And then I found a doctor. It was a woman doctor. And I went to her and I had to think, how am I going to tell her I want to get on the pill? So I sat there and I said, I'd like to get on the pill. And I told her why. And I told her what pill I wanted. And she looked at me like, what? And she said, she was very disgusted with me. And she said, I know why you want the pill. I said, no,

really, this is why I want it. And I want to take this one because I've researched it. So after we talked about it long enough, she finally said, OK. So she wrote me the prescription. And it was miraculous. It was just miraculous. I mean, I had had cystic acne. I had a lot of problems. I even took shots in my face.

I was on tetracycline. And everything just turned flipped. Why? Because of the hormones hormones you did enough research to know that that was a likely outcome and that's why i was desperate and i knew that they were using birth control for you know cramps and things like that and it really worked but there was a caveat and that is the fact that birth control pills deplete your B6, your folate, your magnesium. With my genetic makeup, which I understand now, it just crashed me. About three

months later, I crashed. Sometimes we do this show and I have these weird moments where we never talk about this particular thing on the show, but literally Dr. Josh Axe was just in here and he was just talking about birth control, depleting of these exact things. And it's like a weird, sometimes weird things happen where, I don't know, like we don't talk about it. And then it's just like,

now this is being brought up. Literally, Carson was just there. Two hours later, the same thing is being brought up. Yeah, it can devastate you. And especially, you know, it depends on who you are. Everybody's different. Everybody has a different capacity. What happened is, is I crashed, I collapsed, and I ended up having exploratory surgery.

And I had 11 doctors on the team. And I was literally excited like I was going to a party because these were experts. I love them. I respected them. They've been trying to figure out what was wrong with me and I thought, oh good, they're going to open me up and they're going to say, oh, that's what's wrong with her. So after the surgery, I'm back in my room and I see my favorite, my internist coming into the room, walks around to the side of the bed and really, I can't wait to hear what he has to say. So he grabs my hand and he said, Marilee, I'm really sorry. It just really didn't turn out like we expected.

And I said, well, what do you mean? He said, well, you're never going to be able to have children. You have endometriosis so extensive. We've never seen it so extensive. And there's just no chance. And he said it with such a definitive, you know, tone, but then he goes, and you need to, we're going to have to put you on dialysis because you're going to need to get ready for a kidney transplant. So I literally had a shift in consciousness. I mean, I cannot tell you how medically minded I was. I had my head in medical textbooks and this was the way I went. I, you know, I oriented,

but I looked at him and I said it with respect. I said, you know what? I'm just so glad you're not God. I cannot be subject to what the medical world knows today. What if next year we figure out what I need and I don't have a kidney? I said, no, no, I know there's a way. Well, I think he thought I was hallucinating and that I would come to my senses because I was on morphine and, you know, I would straighten out. Well, I never turned from that. And as he walked out the door, I really had sort of this, this ecstatic experience. I said, I know there's a way I'm this, I'm not going to have this happen. So I'm looking for an answer. The doctors think I'm crazy, you know, trying to talk me out of it. You know, I'm just I'm just intent on doing this.

So the answer didn't come right away, but something else did. And I went to my gynecologist and he was one of the doctors in the operating room. And so I'm up there for an examination and he goes, Marilee, you're pregnant. And I said, don't make a joke. You know, that's not funny. And he said, no, you're pregnant. And then he said, and we're going to have to terminate.

We're going to make an appointment right away to terminate. So I'm again, I'm sitting here hearing this and I'm going, okay, let me get this right. You all told me I could never ever have a baby because I had such extensive endometriosis. I couldn't get pregnant. And now you're telling me I have a baby. And now you're telling me I can't have this baby. And I said, no, this doesn't make sense. So I'm just in the shock. Well, the nephrologist and my internist were in the same building.

They were all good friends. So my doctor called them. They came to talk to me, to talk sense into me. But anyway, the bottom line is I did not get rid of my baby. And in fact, I went home and I started studying the medication I was on to see if there were any contraindications for pregnancy. And oh, yeah, there was. So I'm going back to them and say, I'm going to have to get off my medication. So they're telling me, you can't do it. You not going to make it your baby your baby won't live and you won't live so anyway I'm going to stop there and now I'm going to skip to where I did

find the answer because there's two parts of this story my son's story and mine but finally when I was really so sick I I could barely function. I was considering even going back on my medications. I got information about a doctor in a Boston hospital that was using food as medicine in his hospital. And so the bottom line is I changed my diet. I was told I had to stop eating that standard American diet and I had to start eating real food. And I mean, I thought he was out here because I was a junk food junkie. I was a sugarholic. I was a meataholic. I was a vegetable. Anything I could put in my mouth, I would eat it. And I was, my parents called me

the human garbage disposal. And so anyway, but I was, I was literally, I could tell I was on my way. I could barely get my hand to my mouth. It was, my arm was so heavy. And so I was so weak and unbelievably, it was so incredible. The very first meal that I had that was prescribed for me was absolutely the first meal I can remember where I wasn't thinking about the cake in the kitchen I was going to eat or the ice cream I was going to have or whatever was in the pantry because I was always eating. I was never satisfied. What was the first meal you had? Well, it was a medicinal meal prepared for my condition. Real food for the first time in your life. Yeah, real food. Do you remember, though, what it was or no?

Oh, yeah, I remember the exact meal. And do you think your parents just didn't know? You mean they didn't know that the standard American diet had, there was a problem? No, they just, that's how they ate? They didn't know. Did you ever find had, there was a problem? That's how they ate? They didn't know. Did you ever find out why your mom got sick or do you have any? Yes, I do.

And just one little thing she used to do, she used to swim in a irrigation ditch where they sprayed cotton fields. She grew up on the Rio Grande River near a farm, on a farm. Anyway, so yeah, she had a lot of pesticide exposure. It was so incredible because within 10 days, I was literally another person. Wow. I never had a kidney transplant. I've never been on any prescription or over-the-counter medication since. I was so dumbfounded that I wanted to climb up to the top of the Empire State Building, because that was the

tallest building in the world at the time, and shout, what are we doing? How is it that we are putting harmful chemicals in our food that impact us mentally, physically, and emotionally. And I wanted to tell the world. So I thought, well, I'll write a book. But instead, I changed my career. I became a medicinal cook. And I started cooking for people all over the country, actually. And I cooked for people with cancer. I cook for people that, you know, kids with autism, people with Crohn's disease. And I saw the amazing transformation that eating real food, I'll say multi-nutrient rich real food could do. When you say real food, can you give our audience exactly what you mean?

Do you mean vegetables, fruit? Do you mean meat? Do you mean all vegan, vegetarian? What do you mean? I mean, everything you just said. And so the food is medicine discipline that I learned about. You ate according to your condition, according to the climate you were in, according to what you did. Like if I go out and I work out every day, I'm going to eat a different meal than someone that sits in a desk every day. And if you have know a heart condition you're going to do something different so it's very very prescription oriented but the

main thing being that there's no chemicals there's no chemicals in fact the doctor said he said do you want to keep your kidney because i was kind of i'm i was medically oriented i thought this is going to fix me he said do you want to keep your kidney? And I said, well, yes. He said, then you cannot cheat. While you are recovering, you may not cheat. He said, you may not have any of the chemicals. And that's what he wanted me to avoid, all the processed food. So vegetables, fruits, grains. I had fish when you have been sick for that long and your identity is being sick and you've been around sick people it sounds like for cooking do you find that it's hard for people to get out of being sick because they're so used to being sick and sometimes that

when you're a little girl that's how how you get attention. Well, I should clarify that what would happen after I had those very high fevers, and this is illustrating the fact that, you know, we're looking, you watch something and you don't really think about it. You don't observe. And the doctors could have seen what was happening and discovered what was wrong with me a long time ago. But after I would have the high fever, like 105, 106 for maybe three or four days, I would be a new person. Fresh. Fresh.

I was fresh and I had a life. So you liked the fevers? Well, I learned to see that that was beneficial. Wow, that's crazy. Why is that that you would have that high of a fever and then feel fresh? Do you know why now? Yes. The body never does anything wrong.

It's brilliant. So if you have a fever, it's because one, you're fighting a virus, a bacteria, or there's something going on that your body needs to mount up heat. So what do we do? We try to suppress it. And this was the thing that was interesting about my situation. My low-grade fevers, they couldn't suppress it with antibiotics or anything. It just wouldn't, you know, I didn't respond.

And then my high fevers, it didn't. My body was intense. I'm going to have a high fever. I'm going to get rid of this. And part of my problem that i had that they discovered with the exploratory surgery so i actually was born with two bladders wow and one of the bladders does not have an exit so what does that mean and i was born with three ureters and so that means that I had urine going down to this extra bladder.

And it had nowhere to go. So it was just a bunch of infection, but they never cultured it. I never came out with cultured because, you know, there was no outlet. So you had like a low grade UTI. Yeah. Do you remember feeling like you had a UTI with the with the you know how you feel when you have a UTI it's so uncomfortable within your bladder? I never had a symptom in my bladder in that bladder in the bladder that you're supposed to

have there was never a symptom. So your body just couldn't tell? So I didn't know. Did they remove the other bladder once they it's still there? Okay this story, you have to go back to your son because you said there was two stories. So how does the, how does your son play into everything? I had learned how important it was to remove chemicals from my diet and watched people that I'd cooked for have spectacular recoveries. And so at age 10, my son had what was called a catastrophic chemical exposure. And he had been a very brilliant, very obedient, athletic, you know, just the wonderful child. And so that's one day. And then the next thing we know I picked him up at school and he has blue lips he has blue fingernails and he's actually asking me if he can go

to a friend's and I said have you been eating a blue popsicle and he said no he said I'm gonna go to my friends and come get me so i i just couldn't figure out what was going on so when i went to go get him i could tell that there was something wrong and as the night went on it got worse and worse and his eyes started tearing he started jerking and having like a little seizure type situation and as i watched him and i was trying to figure out what to you know what to do i was going to take him to the hospital etc and I was making calls I noticed that he reminded me of a sprayed roach oh my god that's terrifying no what I mean is I don't know if you've ever sprayed a roach but

the no I use branch basics I'm so roach spray my house. You told me to get rid of my spray. I don't know what that looks like. When you spray a roach, they twitch. When you look at your son and you think this looks like a sprayed roach, how are you feeling? You must be freaking out. Well, when I made that connection, I thought, I am crazy. This is nuts. But it was so weird. He was acting so strange. Anyway, I called the Austin Pesticide Control Board. There's a hotline. It's

an emergency. They tell me to go to the hospital. They tell me what to do, what tests to take. But anyway, the bottom line is we ended up taking him to the doctor that treats the Gulf War victims for poisoning. And the doctor who was an expert on the chemically sensitive, he was in Dallas. That doctor sat down with me after he examined my son. And he said, Marilee, your son has irreversible brain damage and immune system damage he is never going to recover he's going to be a bubble he's a bubble boy he is so sensitive to all the chemicals because his detoxification system has been destroyed so he told me you know he said you're probably going to need to institutionalize him eventually you'll be giving giving him a regimen of 23 shots a day.

We're supposed to go home, clear one room in our house and make a safe haven for him and told us what to do. So I'm sitting there listening to that. And I actually said the same thing to this doctor. I said, I'm just glad you're not God. I know my son's going to recover. What happened in the first place? He was exposed to a concoction of pesticides at school. How? Do you know how or no? Yes. There was a big rain, so the kids didn't go out to recess. So they put him in the auditorium. So some of the kids were down by the floor of the auditorium where the stage was and all and the water came up from under the school and i guess dirt and pesticides that

had been sprayed in the building came up into that building and my son was right there they're now banned and this is what's so sad because it's like innocent until proven guilty and this is you know i'm homeschooling after this honestly michael this is like a band now but yeah but how do we get branch basics at the schools too this is like oh my god school toolkit go ahead this is just horrible so so anyway um yeah it was jesus christ this is like i've never heard anything like this it was it was wild he told me to create a non-toxic to get rid of everything in my house that was toxic and only get non-toxic products. Okay, so then, just like now, non-toxic, create a non-toxic house that's not a clear cut. What year was this?

This was 1988. Yeah, so what do you do? You're like, what is that? You don't know the trash bags with the smell in them are toxic. That's not even there yet. That's not there yet. Yeah, we don't have the trash bags with the smell and that's not even there yet that's not there yeah we don't have those yet okay so we went home and i didn't really understand the the depth of what i just heard because we were dealing with the collateral damage of the exposure he was uncontrollable at some times he would go into this state where he would just look at you you'd ask him a question and he'd just stare and then two or three minutes later he would he would answer he would be so

hyperactive you i thought he could probably the ground you know run a circle around the the ceiling or he'd just be so lethargic lethargic that you couldn't even get him to lift his head, his head or his arms off the bed. So he would have headaches. He was sensitive to light. He would think we were screaming. We'd have to whisper, you know, various things. And what I didn't understand was all these different variations in reaction were actually he was reacting to specific chemicals. He would become belligerent or he would just have just his lymph nodes would grow. If you could remember, was there like,

say you use a specific product because you map that specific product and chemical doing to a specific behavior? Yes, I ended up having to do that because I didn't realize it at the time, but I had my own little canary. And that's what I'm saying. This could prove. Yes, it did.

It did. So we had stripped our house of everything and we just couldn't get him calm enough in the house to sleep in the house. I mean, we did sleep in the house, but it was uncomfortable for him, et cetera. So we went outside and we'd sleep on a cot, not in a tent because he would react to that. So one night I'm laying out on the, you know, outside in the tent.

I mean, not outside on my cot. I'm just thinking, what have I not done? What have I not done? Because our house was stripped. We had no carpet carpet we had a wooden table just beds it was nothing everything was gone and i had this flash it was like get up and go get that daggum box that you've got in your closet and i'm just talking to myself i thought that is. I had had a box of my favorite perfumes, my favorite, some of my favorite products that I put in a box in my closet that I thought I'll just keep these. And then when he gets better, I'll pull them out. Well, I took it out. I didn't

tell my son I did it. I didn't tell my husband because I knew that I wanted it to be an experiment. So the next day I was making lunch and he came in the house and he sat down. And I guess maybe after 10 minutes he goes, Mom, what'd you do? I said, what do you mean what I do? He said, well, I'm just not feeling so agitated. I said, really? Oh, well, good. I said, just stay here. Let's see

how you keep, you know, how you feel. Well, he kept staying in and he kept staying in and he stayed in and he said, I'm just not bothered. And he said, if we try to sleep in the house tonight and I need to go out, will you go out with me? Yes. So I thought, okay, well, he slept in the house. And I, the next day I thought, okay, I am crazy. I am a lunatic. This is insane. This is a coincidence. I can't tell my husband this because nobody would believe me. Why in the world would that box you know cause that much trouble well i went to the store i think a couple of days later and i was going down the grocery store aisle and i passed the aisle where the cleaning products and pesticides and literally i just went oh my gosh that's it those bottles are not only sealed closed but they're also sealed.

And I can smell them. The same thing's happening with my products in the closet. And it's creating this low level, low, low level chemical soup. And he's so sensitive that he's picking it up. And that was a turning point because we got our house to a point where he was actually able to start having a homeostatic baseline. And he would get, you know, calm down some and, you know, things were going forward. But I had to get products. And so I remember the first time I brought home one of the product that had non-toxic on the label, because they did have them then. We had Whole Foods back then. And I brought that in the house and literally within seconds, he is going into one of his head

things. He's holding his head. He's screaming. He's telling me to be quiet. He's telling me to turn the lights off. I'm going, what in the world? And I'm looking at this product. I'm going, I have to figure this out. Anyway, so I started investigating ingredients and I found out in all of the non-toxic products that I could find that they had as a preservative, a neurotoxin, which, you know, is going to immediately disturb the brain. So I started studying the rest of the ingredients, et cetera, and trying to figure out what I could use in the house. So this went on for quite a long time. But every time I'd bring something in and it had a problem, you know, he would show it. Did you try to use like baking soda or vinegar or did you not know? Absolutely could not use vinegar.

Why? Think about it. Acetic acid. Acetic acid. It's a lung irritant. Anything with a VOC, etc, he would just go off on. So what did you end up cleaning with? Well, I was using, I ended up using sodium sesquicarbonate, which is a powder.

And then there was a product that the doctor that we took him to had that some of the chemically sensitive people were using, and we were using that do you still have this problem with him now as an adult does he come into uh like say he comes in here like would he be able to know that they clean with chemicals okay let me tell you this is this you need branch basics this is a great I've watched him this is a great story because it really unfolds to something pretty radical and amazing. Back in the day, in 1988, the doctors, the medical world did not believe the brain was neuroplastic. The brain cannot recover. He told me, he said, Marilee, if your your brain damaged it will never regenerate because of the collateral damage from the chemical injury and all these explosive you know reactions he had

i did not yet know how impacted he was mentally i only knew how much you know i knew he would sit there and be sort of catatonic but when he, we got him into a point where I could think, okay, we're going to think about homeschooling here. The first time I had him write, he could not even write a three-letter word. He could not do anything. And I didn't say a word. He just misspelled the word I asked him to write. I just took the paper and he couldn't do math. And my son was like a math genius. Incredible. He was, he was multiplying and dividing it at age five and adding three digit numbers. And now he can't add one, you know, two plus two. And he was also a crack speller and he can't spell so i'm going okay now i'm going to have to see about the brain how he can recover from his brain damage so i started looking around

there was no internet so i have to do research nobody in the united States was looking at this. And so the Europeans were. And so there was a doctor. I mean, there was a man in the Ukraine and he wrote a book and it was called The Elusive Obvious. And that term is just such a picture of my journey, my son's journey. And so when you think of the words elusive obvious you know there's something right in front of your face that you're just not seeing and you just can't quite understand it and I feel like my journey and the journey with my son was so amazing because it

turned out that the solution to my problem was right under my nose, what I was eating. The solution to his problem was right under my nose, what he was breathing. And just the unfolding of very slowly learning about what to do to recover his brain, because there was nobody doing it over here, learned that movement is food for the brain. So I studied with the Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, who wrote the book about the elusive obvious. And he had a saying, I thought it was really,

it's really great at the beginning. It says, if someone tells you something's impossible, make it possible. If something tells you something's, if something's possible, make it easy. If something's easy, make it elegant and digestible. And I think that what I just said, what he said is what came to me very slowly through this process is that, hey, you know what? I was told it was impossible for me to have a baby. I was told I was going to need a kidney transplant.

I was told my son would never recover his brain or his immune system. And just as this all unfolded, learning the importance of removal of the harmful chemicals. And I mentioned at the beginning that I was born in 51, which is when the age of convenience started. All the chemicals started being used more and more and more in our products and everything, more and more and more through, you know, in our products and everything, more and more toxic. And I would have sworn at that time that if, you know, if I could have said in 2024, we're going to know what's toxic and what isn't, it's not true. We're still don't know. I feel like there's so much confusion. It's so bad. It's so bad it's manipulative it's greenwashed people are so confused you're right it's confusing it's like i'm i'm to the point

where i'm like i just want one product in my house and that's it it's or the the buddy that i mentioned the beginning of this episode will say like they'll hear these kind of conversations like you know they'll consider them friends like oh i don't i don't i don't there's no symptoms manifesting for me i've used this my whole life everyone else is fine exactly did you're autoimmune and did your cancer start yesterday it's not contagious it's something that grows from these low level death by a thousand cuts as lauren likes to say sometimes you know what and it's interesting because again dr josh actually was here we were talking about how men's testosterone levels are just picking this one subject because it was relevant, are like a 20-year-old man now has the testosterone of what a 60-year-old man had years ago.

Why are we plummeting so far? And I think now it takes a while. You don't notice, you don't notice. And all of a sudden you get a test like that. You're like, wait a minute, maybe I shouldn't do these things. But I just think it subtly creeps up on you. Can I ask you a question in front of everyone? Is this episode going to make you stop with the hairspray?

No, because I, I will tell you, it's like, we're not finished yet. We're not finished. We have a long, more, way more to cover. But when you're talking and you said your son could feel the, the box of the chemicals, I can smell when you use that hairspray upstairs. I don't know if you use it because i haven't been in the house all day but i can tell you 20 other times you did but i guess my question off what you said about the box with your son is is does that mean i'm chemically

sensitive or does that just mean that i'm using makeup and hair color yeah i know let's move the show along yeah but the spray is like all it's the spray everywhere the makeup's like i'm sending michael my hairspray yeah i'm listen i'm open to alternate but my point is is that i i think there's a lot of people aren't as chemically sensitive obviously or hasn't had the accents that your son had right and we've had people like darren roly and on the show've talked, he had an incident with his father. And so a lot of people go through life and they're like, oh, this isn't,

I'm not sensitive. These things don't affect me. But it's like, it's a slow creep where my buddy thought it affected him in no way. And now he's like, well, I got to get this out of the house because my testosterone levels are dropping. Well, I said this on the first show, but what's normal, right?

Are period cramps normal? No. Is body odor normal? No. Are messy wipes after a poop normal? No. But we've normalized all of these things. But our body actually can run, you know, just because it's common.

I told a friend of ours that she gets cramps. I said, listen, you better stop using tampons. And she looked at me like I was a nut. At least make them organic. Don't put that fragrance. She didn't want to receive that message from me. I can understand why. But I was like, listen, my friend of ours told me. I just don't want anything up my vagina all day. I can understand why. But I was like, listen, my friend, the artist told me.

I just don't want anything up my vagina all day. I don't get why that's controversial. It just doesn't sound good. My son is a medical miracle. And because of that, I started getting calls from people that had... He really is modest. He was the first homeschooled child

to get into the U.S. Naval Academy. He is healthy as an ox. He's piloted planes, knows several languages, you know, highest security clearance. I mean, he is a genius. He basically fully recovered after. Had you known from the beginning about the chemicals and removed the box from the beginning,

you could have spared many years. How many years did it take till he could recover like that? Okay. It was a slow, slow. It was seven years. We were like in lockdown COVID. Nobody could come to our house. If they did come, I had to give them the right clothes, et cetera. But it was a, I was learning a lot. I became what's called, has been called a material specialist. I became a biobiologist, biobiology inspector, studied EMFs, worked with all of these different modalities to get my son's brain back, which was not even possible supposedly. And so my point is, and I'm going to go to what you said, maybe you're not as chemically sensitive. That, I really want to say,

the canaries, like my son, you know a canary? The canaries were put down in the mines, and the miners would go down only so far as the canaries could be alive. But when the canaries died, they didn't go past it, because they knew there was danger. The canaries could be alive, but when the canaries died, they didn't go past it because they knew there was danger. The canaries are telling everyone there's danger. We have an emergency national healthcare crisis right now. Over 50% of adults and children have some sort of degenerative disease. This is impacting all of us. The rate of autism, the rate of childhood

cancer, it's the second killer. Cancer is the second killer of children after accidents. It is projected that in 2032, this is a conservative, aggressive projection, but they're saying one in two children will be born somewhere on the spectrum. It is getting more and more. If you really think about it, it's I hear the word autism so much more now than I heard it 10 years ago than I heard it 20 years ago. If someone is listening and they say, yeah, but I don't have any symptoms like what Michael just said, what would you tell them? First thing I do when someone says that is I'll ask them this question.

Do you take any over-the-counter or prescription medications? Almost everybody is doing, oh, yeah, I take allergy medicine or I have cramps or whatever. So that's one of the first things I ask. The body doesn't make mistakes. And so when we have a headache, we are not going to go. We should find out why we have a headache instead of taking that Excedrin or whatever you take for it. We need to respect these people like my son. And, okay, my experience, the food, the food is, the chemicalized food is, is hurting us.

We need to remove the chemicals from our diets, eat real food. And we need to remove these products that have these poisons in them. I mean, literally, if you sat at a table and you watch someone put poison in your child's food and they said, don't, don't worry, it's just a little bit. It's not going to matter. Well, you would take them to jail. But this is what's happening. We are using the dose makes the poison toxicology model. It's outdated, which says, oh, a little bit, you can use a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And it's okay because we're looking at a rat LD50 study that shows that this many rats die at 50, at this level. And then therefore they determine how much we can put in the products.

So you've got what? How many products in your house? With maybe some of the products you have may have 30 or 40 ingredients and they may be all toxic. If I have like a perfume in my house and the perfume's closed and I don't spray it, is that still seeping into the environment? Yes. Are you serious? So I have like a perfume that, by the way, I sprayed today and now as I'm listening, I'm like, why would I spray that? I barely ever spray it. Why would I spray

it on this episode with you two? There are healthier alternative perfumes we use henry rose yeah i mean that's definitely a lot better our friend shervine came on this show and he's amazing but he's you know he's got a lot of crazy ideas but a lot of them are really good and he shows himself films himself going through the airport into the fragrance sections and like just being bombarded he can't stand it but he said something on the show that I thought was really smart. He said, if you're needing all these deodorants and all these sprays to cover your body, like you said before, the body doesn't lie. The body's trying to tell you that there's something wrong. And I told my friend the other day, I haven't worn deodorant in probably 10 years. I just don't wear it ever. I'm saying if you need to be masking with perfumes and deodorants all

the time because there's a stench coming out like that their body's trying to tell you that you're doing something wrong or that you're ingesting something wrong it's like Febreze in a home with mold it's like well what are you covering here's here's the thing when I work with someone you know that you are your body's in homeostasis imbalance when you have no body odor, your bowels do not smell, and you hardly need toilet paper, if at all. Let's say you're working with me because I already want to hire you. What are you asking me when you're working with me? Are you saying what chemicals are in your house? Are you saying what makeup products do you use? How do you work with someone? Okay. I'll just describe how it worked with me with a client.

Okay. Most of the people that called me had been to many doctors, and I was sort of a last resort. And so by the time they got to me, they're saying, I eat healthy. I use non-toxic products, but I'm still sick. So then I start questioning them and absolutely without fail I realize that we have a real problem today just like me I was in the dark without a clue that number one we do not know what is truly safe and what is not and we have hundreds maybe of products sitting under our counters that we've had for years, maybe, you know, lipsticks, old shampoos, et cetera, that are all sitting under your counters emitting VOC.

So you've got this low level chemical soup. As my son was recovering, I was going, oh my gosh, Americans are all living in homes that have this low-level chemical suit. The reason I know that you're so real is I will leave my house and go to a hotel and I immediately, I can't explain it, I can just feel the difference. You know what else?

People who make their dogs sleep in laundry rooms with all those chemicals and the dogs get cancers. That's right. See, I'm involved now. Or the yard that's sprayed. Yeah, or the yard that was that's sprayed yeah the poor pets yeah and then the fragrant shampoo they use on the flea killer but a lot of people like think of that where you put your dog a lot of people put their dog to sleep in places they store most toxic room in the house is usually the longer room yeah our dogs and our kids but here's the thing that title the elusive, this is right in front of us. I mean, and if you think about it

with common sense, why would we allow harmful chemicals to be in our food or in our products? We should protest. And you know how we protest? At the cash register. Yeah, you stop buying. We have to educate people to where they are objective. They're not in fear. We want people to be empowered so that I can pick up, you know, a bottle and I can go, okay, and I'll just put it back and I'll find something that's safe. And when we stop buying these things, they're going to change. I mean, look at BPA. Moms got so upset about the sippy cups with bpa because apparently we got enough press out there for mothers to see how harmful that hormone you know that hormone disruptor is

and so what happens the industry changes they take bpa out well but they made a what's called you know a regrettable substitution. They say BPA free. And we now know, well, that really means they've got another bisphenol in there. So they're all, you know, that's deceptive, but we moved the market. And the more we know, the more we choose the right products because we know what is and what isn't safe. The problem is, though, is you get a label as a mom that says natural flavors, which is so manipulative and wrong because what does that mean? I mean, you guys would know.

What does that even mean? Yeah, that's why we have to educate people. It's actually one of the hardest ingredients to work with these days because it's so confusing. Yeah, it's really, really, really hard. It excites the brain. They're excitotoxins to the point of cellular death, basically. And I think a lot of the behavior issues have to do with these added things that we find in even kids' health products. Most of them have natural flavors in them.

My daughter had lemonade at school the other day. And I brought her home and she was a completely different child. I mean, I didn't serve the lemonade. The school served it. So who knows? I mean, you could have been, you know, Minute Maid or whatever it was, which is totally innocent. They want to have like lemonade. It's so cute. But I brought her home and it's dealing. I'm like, what's going on? And on and then I realized oh she's not used to this juice because we don't drink that juice at home and it's unbelievable to watch the change in behavior it's it's wild it is very wild and so I have watched a baby lose its crawl there's a

sequence that babies go through where they crawl you know in a certain way and so if they are on target and they're doing you know certain things and i was cooking for a mother and when i cook for someone in this in the past i'm not doing this now when i cook for someone they are not supposed to eat anything else but what I'm cooking. So for 10 days, we will do that so they can see the power. So anyway, I was in the home with this baby that I knew very well. And the baby had been crawling and everything was good. And the mother had just fed the baby and a few minutes

later she just started screaming and crying and you know really upset and the next thing she crawled off and her crawl was way off so I just said you know what I'm not the food police but did you eat something she said oh no it was just an organic bar. So she went and got it. And it had citric acid and citric acid is so disruptive to the nervous system. So she had breastfed and the milk. Yeah, came through the milk. But anyway, these chemicals are harmful. We need to learn what they are.

And it's really wonderful because when you know what's harmful, then you know what to do. And it frees you. You're empowered. I mean, I was in slavery to these chemicals because I was so sick. I want to talk about to the audience where chemicals are hiding that you wouldn't think about. And one I can think of right off the bat is hidden places that moms are listening to where they can fix right away. One I can think of right off the bat is trash bags with scent in them or those Glade plug ins. All synthetic fragrances.

Give us a bunch of different things. The reed diffusers. I mean, even things that are not being used, the gifts that you get, the candles, the bath bombs, all of these things. I mean, the number one thing we tell people to start is with pesticides. Just throw away the pesticides.

Fungicide, herbicide, none of them belong in the home. They all undermine, they're lipid seekers. The brain is 60% fat. They're the number one underminer of health. And then we go to the laundry room

and synthetic fragrances. And then once you've done that, your is what do you guys do for bugs in texas for your own homes well i was i was a avid raid sprayer but we have a non-toxic formula that we you can make at home it's like baking a cake you just get corn cornmeal, boric acid, sugar, powdered sugar, mix it in equal amounts, stir it up, put it in tops. Just with water? No, just dry. And just put it like in the top of a Coke or a top, you know. Water bottle top.

And put it under cabinets and around the kitchen or wherever. And in about two weeks, you're not going to have ruches. So the cornmeal and the sugar attracts the bug. And the boric acid. We have a PDF on our website that basically addresses every pest in alphabetical order and a solution for that. So we're definitely not saying go live with pests. But if people really understand the ramifications of pesticides, I honestly think it's one of those things you can't see or taste or smell. And it's almost like EMFs.'t see or taste or smell. And it's

almost like EMFs. You're like, oh, I eat clean and we have good products. We have organic mattresses and air purifiers. It's like, yeah, but is the exterminator coming? And do you have a, especially in Texas, do you have the mosquito, you know, system? Oh, it's just outside. No, no, it's inside your house. The problem is that you get the neighbors who do it, right? You control your home. You want it to be a safe haven. That's what I developed. I created a process that we're now calling Toss the Toxins that literally addresses this very inconvenient truth that we're all dealing with the unintended consequences of our modern world. It's a very simple, I had to make it simple so that people weren't stressed. I'm not asking people to throw anything away. So I'd get a

client that was sick and I said, let's go through your house category by category. And we're going to move first the pesticides. And then you get a box, take them out. Now, the pesticides, I say, take it to get rid of that in a responsible way. But then we go through the laundry, as Allison's saying, the cleaning products, fragrance products, personal care products, plastics, hard plastics, soft plastics, water, PFAS chemicals, and on and on. Emotions. And it's very simple because you just, it doesn't cost money. It doesn't take much time. It's a finite process. You only have to do it once. But you can start at any module you want. And this, it's really came from the Douglas effect is what we call it, is the idea of removal. Instead of feeling like to live a healthy life and to be on this non-toxic journey,

you have to buy a bunch of things. You don't. It's about getting things out and allowing the body that space to heal. You know why some people, though, have trouble throwing things away? It's because there are certain people that associate a value. So like I spent $5 on this, $8 on this, $10 on this toy, whatever. And it's almost like I can't get rid of something that I've spent money on because it's in their brain, it's wasteful. It's like kids that grew up and their parents make them eat every single drop

off the plate. And they kind of later in life, they're like, they have to do that. It's the same thing. I think that's what hoarding comes from, some hoarding, right? It's like, I can't get rid of this. There was a value. I worked for it. I spent money on it. You get so many toys in the house from birthdays or whatever and half the toys the kids are playing with and you guys could speak

more eloquently on this have all these plastics in them that they're touching. And fragrances now. And fragrances now and like on the dolls. That's weird. They put fragrances

in like the stuffed animals now. Oh, the little dolls have the vanilla scent. I'm like, I'll be throwing that strawberry shortcake doll away the second I get home. That's why I said, I say right at the beginning, you don't have to throw anything away. All I wanted my clients to do was experience the change in air quality. The minute you take your box of your pesticides out or your cleaning products or your fragrance products and take it out of the house, the air quality changes. You take a load off the body right there.

And we teach people how to vet products. You don't have to be a scientist. We talk about how you can go to the EWG and usually start with the last ingredient on the list. Those are the most toxic and epigenetic shows like you were talking about the toxicology model. Well, epigenetics is now showing that even in smaller doses can affect the hormonal system, like you were saying, Michael, even more so than the larger doses. So we recommend that every product either have a one or a two on the EWG Skin Deep database. You can go to Think Dirty, make sure it's a zero. So we teach people how to be their own advocates instead of you know just reading the marketing claims yeah it's very simple he's married to me you know what's strange he doesn't have to do anything i'm gonna go do all this you should wake up but he's open he's open

the way i explained this to my buddy the other day because i was also saying back to the testosterone i was like want to limit alcohol to your point like i think if there's not it's not health it's not healthy but i am better off going out and binge drinking one night every six months than having two or three beers every single night right until your point about like the dosage is like oh i'm not doing it that much i just have one glass of wine or i have the it's like that slow dose is worse than just never having it and then having a huge dose of it. Does that make sense? Yeah. Are you trying to justify you binge drinking on our last vacation? No one knows about that. Yeah. Well, no. What do you guys do when you

travel? Because that's been a real hard one for me to have to like, I mean, I call and say use non-toxic, but it's like Merriilee said, what's non-toxic? That's such a spectrum. So is there anything that you guys do that you could give us some tips and tricks? The hotel we're staying at, I called ahead and I said, please don't use chemical sprays. Just use for cleaning. I said, just use water if you need to. I use some vinegar and my room actually doesn't really smell. It's pretty amazing. But you, you know, you're coming home to a non-toxic home when you get home. We just can't control all of the things once we leave our homes. But I mean, for Airbnb and such, I mean, I'll call ahead of time and I can't stay in place with Glade plugins.

I've been starting to bring my own barefoot dreams blanket and I just wrap myself in it. I don't, or your own pillowcase. Why am I more sensitive now? Is that, do you hear that? Yes. I told you we're running this place in the summer and they're going to have branch basics there. I already told them it's already set up. Yeah. Okay.

So here's what happens. You asked me how long it took for my son to go out. It was seven years because he was, his, you know, this, his injury was so severe and I didn't know what I was doing. But I knew that I did not want to let him out until he was so strong that he could be out in the world. And that if he came home to a safe haven, then you can clear. Every night when you come home to a safe haven, your body can detoxify.

It dumps, you reject, rest and rejuvenate, and you can recover from what you got exposed to in the day. Your body doesn't lie. And as long as you are still smelling something and it is offensive to you, your body's saying, I really can't handle that that well right now. So don't, you know, as much as you can, just avoid it. And as you get stronger, you will be able to go more places without having noticing that. And plus you can upregulate your diet so that you are more able to deal with the chemicals.

And I will just make a statement right now that was really amazing. After I avoided the kidney transplant and all my allergies and everything were gone, I was still using pesticides and perfume and everything. I had no awareness of this arena, but my diet so upregulated my body's ability to deal that it was covering up. It was like everything's okay, but in the background, I was still dealing with this background chemical load, which is a stressor to everyone. Once I learned about the chemicals in the food, food i mean in the products and i did the whole process with my son both my husband and i had this exponential up kick oh yeah and our well-being so as you remove the body starts healing but you're going to have warnings you know you're

going to you're not going to want to be around something that's really toxic. And like, if I have to be around something, I make, you know, I stay as short of a time as I, as I can. Do you know why I love this episode? Because this episode people can send to their mom, to their dad, to their friend, to their husband. And I think it's a good way to show instead of trying to convince someone to subtly manipulate them it didn't take that much i will be sending this to some of my family members in a way that's like hey like this is important listen to this story and same with your episode when you first came on i told allison the first, like to me, the reason this is like kind of, if somebody points a better way to do something, because to your point, really, a lot of people think they're doing the right thing or hope that, and they're just, I think it's, we just don't know. Or you think like, oh, I got the good cleaning supply that's been greenwashed or I'm eating the good food. Carson, are you switching to Branch Basics after this episode?

Yeah, I already have. Mine didn't convince you? Lauren keeps saying it didn't take that much convincing, which is like, oh, this is bad and this is a much better alternative. So why would I not take the better alternative? Something that I want to share on this episode that really epitomizes everything that we stand for and the true power of removal is a project that we have executed now with four different people actually here in Austin. First one we did was actually during the episode that I was on back in September. It's called the 10-Day Stay.

So Merrily's 35 plus years of consulting, we made a course, people could take it virtually, all of our blog posts, all of our newsletters. I mean, as y'all know, we're an education company first, but we wanted to actually prove that if we removed people from their homes, from their toxic laundry, we gave them glyphosate free, a.k.a. organic food for 10 days. What would happen? And let's put some science behind it. So we started with my nanny who was 25 and someone that had chronic inflammation, celiac, extreme fatigue, asthma like symptoms.

But but quote unquote, I'm fine. No, I'm fine. I mean, because bad cramps. So we pulled her away. We gave her brand new organic clothes, laundered in Branch Basics, cleaned her hotel room with Branch Basics. She ate at a restaurant with all organic food. We took her urine on day zero and took her urine on day 10. In those 10 days, her phthalate level went down 99%. Her BPA went down 98%. Her glyphosate roundup went down 70% in her urine in 10 days. She is a completely new person to this day. This was 9, 10 months ago. No symptoms. She is now running in Houston Run Club five miles a day. She could never run before. Asthma symptoms gone. No stomach issues. Same thing with the next participant had been on an inhaler, right? Her

entire life, five times a day, her inhaler on day three, she dropped her inhaler. The one male out of the four was like, I have a clean poop for the first time in my life. I didn't know I could clean poop. You know, I mean, guys, it's unbelievable. I have a couple of friends who send you. The power of removal and people, we just documented this all over our Instagram, but we weren't like, oh, you got to use Branch Basics or you got to do this certain protocol

or you have to do functional labs. There's nothing wrong with any of those things. But if people can really understand that the body has the ability to dump these chemicals at warp speed, if we will just get out of its way. Most of these chemicals are transient and they're ready to just leave the body if we can remove them. This is an important episode. I really hope every single person listens to this.

I am so passionate about Branch Basics. It's truly my favorite company to work with on the podcast. I mean that. You guys gave everyone 20% off on your starter kit or on their new hand soap. I have your hand soap in my kids' bathrooms. It's the only hand soap that they use. You can use code SKIDDY for 20% off at branchbasics.com. I could have asked you 600 more questions. So I do hope you guys come back on because now that we have both of your stories, I think there's so much more to do. I have like just little random detail questions, but we'll have to do this again.

Where can everyone find both of you and the brand? Yeah, branchbasics.com, at branchbasics on Instagram. We answer every single DM, half are about health, half are about, you know, a new trigger sprayer stain that needs to get out. Perhaps the hairspray recommendation. Perhaps the hairspray. Karina is the answer to that. Karina.

That's the brand? I'll try it. Karina? Yeah, it's good. Karina. You better try it because all your shit's going to just be slow. I slowly disappear it. That's the tip, you guys.

It's got to go slow. And he's like, where's that? And I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about don't mess with my hair where can everyone find both of you if they want to say hi info at branch basics i mean literally every dm that goes through our instagram will be filtered down to us beautiful beautiful you want to find lauren you go lauren bossy if you go find me talk to lauren beautiful episode. Thank you both for coming on. You're so inspiring. You guys can save 20% on your starter kits or you get their new hand soap. It's in both my kids' rooms. It is the best of the best. There's no triclosan in it

when you use code SKINNY20 at branchbasics.com. That's code SKINNY20 at branchbasics.com.