Welcome back to the reverse Autoimmune Disease Summit series everybody. This is the Autoimmune Detox iteration of this series. And I am so happy to bring to you dear friend and colleague of mine, Meredith Ducey.

All right. I don't even think I know where DC comes from. Where does it come from? Oh that's interesting. Yeah. So my husband's family is Belgian. Okay.

I've never asked you that question, so I just wanted to like, ask that all of a sudden. So I'm introducing you to the ingredient guru. She's the author of the book The Pantry Principle How to read the label and understand what's really in your Food.

A holistic nutritionist and a popular public speaker, she knows that it's not just what you eat, but what's in it, what you eat. Mehra is a board certified holistic health practitioner who's been working for clients.

I said for clients that you put with in your bio and I like for for clients or whatever it is, that is a nice change. I like that because you're right, I am working for them to write for them and support them.

Yeah, I kind of like that little stumble for over 14 years and supports them in reaching their health goals through holistic nutrition and lifestyle modifications and chemical cleanup.

Welcome to this series. You know, we're going to talk about reversing. Autoimmune disease by detoxing your pantry. And I know I've been in talks with you where like for national associations and things where you've really put slides up and you've shown labels and you've come and I've spoken to, my health coach certification group about this to you know, just your, your, your knowledge about this is really, really detailed.

And I think when we say detoxing your pantry to reverse autoimmune disease, I'm wondering as some people sort of roll their eyes back in their head, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't have sugar.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. But there's so much more to this than that. And so I wanted to start, you know, like I your Vedic medicine says the microcosm and the macrocosm match.

Right. And so let's let's dial in on the microcosm of the label first and then expand out, if you don't mind. Sure. But before we do that, I have one thought that I really just want to share with you.

Okay. But part of the reason that I absolutely love that you are doing this is because I know that I am a living, breathing example of what that kind of detox looks like.

So the the way I got into this whole profession because I did something different in another lifetime, I say, is that I got really, really sick and I wound up being diagnosed with a lot of health conditions.

My primary was ulcerative colitis, which is an autoimmune disorder, and in the process of learning how to reclaim my health, I began that process of detoxing my pantry, detoxing my home, and the last colonoscopy that I had, my doctor told me that there is absolutely no evidence of ulcerative colitis in my body area.

That is what detoxing can do to support. It's interesting because I usually start off these interviews asking about your personal story, and I just ran right over it for you that my apologies.

No. No worries. So when you asked me to be part of this, I was like, yes, please, because I it's such a powerful thing and unfortunately, it's something that the mainstream, you know, medical establishment does not take into account at all.

Most people are completely unaware of this level of how to support their body and how to reclaim, you know, what's going on with their health, on their wellness journey.

My mom has ulcerative colitis and is on the map IV infusions and and over time I've gotten her so that she's off of them and she's doing really, really well because she's eating really, really clean.

And then she'll revert back. My dad used to make homemade bread, and he just passed away about three weeks ago. And I think because in her genetics, she is incredibly, incredibly I've never I've never seen anyone not be celiac but be this gluten intolerant.

She's like one little half a snip off of celiac. And, you know, I just I told her one time when he was out of town for a month. Just try it. Like dad's bread won't be wafting through the air, you know, fresh baked bread.

And just see what happens. You know, she dropped 15 pounds in a month of puffiness. You know, and I know, like, still last night we had dinner with her, and we had picked up some salmon and some things, you know, and, when my husband, we were on San Juan Island and we like to support the local restaurants.

And so we had said, let's just now get some food here, and then we'll bring it over to mom's he hadn't checked in with, like, my salmon came with fries and, it when my mom opened up the container, she grabbed one and ate it.

And my husband was like, no, no, no no no no, no. They put flour on their fries. Like, that's not gluten free. And I just remember my and I was like, oh no, mom, you know, and and she was so nonchalant about it.

And I realized like, oh, she doesn't have that level right of that throughout poison, you know, that we have. And yeah, I think part of the challenge is, is it's more than just an interim thing.

This is a lifestyle of change. Lifestyle change. Yes. And we are surrounded by all of these different things that can impact our dietary plan, our health choices, etc..

And so learning how to make those changes is a process. It's it's a long process. Yeah. I mean, I did have to get to that point. And it took probably five years to say the bread that is in the basket that gets just dropped on the table that I have to say, please take that back or please don't bring it.

You know that it's not even it's not even a temptation anymore, you know, because I do think of it as rat poison, like, oh, that's rat poison. You know, I had it.

I had rheumatoid arthritis. I don't have rheumatoid arthritis now. I don't want it back. And I could get it back real easily. And so watching my mom kind of go in and out of having to do infusions and not infusions for ulcerative colitis, you know, has been that's very interesting.

She's not 100%. And you know, yet and it's been probably 15 years since she was diagnosed. So, yeah, she's just not to that point where, oh, that's rat poison.

Right? Yeah. Because when I said let's throw those away, she was like, oh, well, then we also have to remember, you know, there's that whole cultural aspect of it.

And you know, our parents are of a generation where thou shalt not waste food like they would over eat simply to avoid my mom's, like she's they're only 75.

They weren't part of that. Her mother was. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They're they're part of the Vietnam War generation. They were not like that. Yeah. Yeah. But but even so, it's still, you know, if you're used to seeing French fries as comfort food because let's face it.

Exactly. And her husband just died three weeks prior. You know, she was probably like, oh, fries, that sounds really good. You know? And here I'm like, oh those away.

So yeah, you know, and yeah, so I, I appreciate knowing your story and, and I was telling my moms to juxtapose same diagnosis. Hey if you don't get to the point where you're really looking at the micro level, then it doesn't go well.

You don't get a colonoscopy, clean bill of health. Well. And and the other thing is unfortunately, like there are a lot of wonderful things that medical science can do for us.

I for one, I've been the recipient of some very wonderful care and fabulous providers. However, it is my experience that rarely, if ever does it come down to talking about not only what you eat, but what's in what you eat, which you know, comes back to what you were talking about.

Looking at that ingredient panel is one of the most critical things that you can do when you are on a journey to reclaim your health. Yeah. Knowing what's on your fries.

Absolutely. If you're going to have the comfort food, make sure it's not coated in flour. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, and I think part of the challenge too, is that there are so many things that are used in food.

There are thousands of food contact materials, thousands of approved ingredients, all of which have some really serious negative consequences. And unfortunately, those people who are more prone to have autoimmune disorders, I, I call us the canaries, the chemical canaries.

You know, a long time ago they used to sink canaries down in the coal mine because they, they sort of passed out like the miners knowing that there was gas fumes and they should maybe book it to where there was more oxygen.

Well, we're the ones that are eating the food and we're getting sick. We're getting all of these immune health conditions, autoimmune health conditions, because our bodies are responding and there are other people going, it's fine, won't kill you.

The answer is, you know, sometimes it might. Yeah. So you really have to come in. Not even my butt does. Well. And and even more than that, it's really like I remember when I first began to remove things from the label.

And you have to do it a little bit at a time. You and I have talked about this before, but it would be really fabulous if you could throw out everything in your pantry and grocery store, buy perfect food, come home, and when you're done, like, it just doesn't work that way.

You you have to start a little bit at a time. You have to master one piece of that journey and then move on, you know, each time. So if it's getting rid of gluten, it's understanding all the names that it hides under all the places that it can be.

For example, gluten can appear in things like a rotisserie chicken. It can appear in spice mixes. It can appear in a lot of things that if you're not looking for it, you would never think about it being there.

But you know, as you're removing these things, you're also running up against, unfortunately, social shame. It's really hard when you have, you know, family members who go, what?

Like you're so hard to feed or, you know, you go to a friend, you're so hard to feed. That's why a lot of people I've heard that before, too. You're so hard to go to a restaurant with.

It's embarrassing. And and I my feeling is I'm. I'm responsible for myself. And when I work with clients, I teach them to take responsibility for their food choices.

But that also means standing up and saying, I am not going to do this simply because you want me to do my health and my commitment to what I'm doing is really important to, you know, and and if there are times when all I've had at a meal is some salad, that's okay.

Like it's not the end of the world, but it is. It is a commitment. It is. And I was kind of the one that you described earlier of going through and throwing everything away and going out and buying everything now.

So there are different personalities. And so the, the for those of you that said, oh, you know, you're that other personality, you can do that. And you know there are people who can I will say, I think for a lot of people, they those who can't, and I count myself among those who can't.

For me, it was definitely a step by step process. It's there are methodical people, and then there are people that are a little bit more like, okay, it's all done, you know, and I'm an all or nothing.

And, you know, part of it too is knowing yourself, knowing what you can do, what you can handle. But it's also about remembering for those of us who do the step by step process, it's about remembering that every single step, every single change that you make, is one thing more than you were doing before.

You can't be frustrated because it's not happening overnight, right? But then six months, 12 months, two years later, you look back and you go, wow, look at how much better I feel, how much improved my diet is, that kind of thing.

You know, when I started this journey, before I became a nutrition educator and eventually became the ingredient guru, I was living 20 hours a day on a sofa.

I could not walk up a flight of stairs. I was deathly ill. I knew where every bathroom in a, you know, two mile radius was. It was unbelievable. And now I don't have to do that.

But I remember I still remember what it felt like to be like that. And, you know, people who have other autoimmune health conditions, that's where learning to recognize that when the body is that inflamed or that overwhelmed, it takes a while for it to calm down, right?

Yeah. I went in with trauma healing right away. And so I connected to my little kid self and I was able to say, oh, we're not feeding you that anymore.

And now I know that's not yeah, that's not what I'm going to feed my little child self. You know. And I had four children who also resisted this. So, you know, when you're, when you're making these changes and you are, you know, a member of a family, I know that that comes up as a challenge for a lot of people.

And that was very gradual for me of just sort of like thinking one thing away and replacing it with another, and then listening to the squawking was, you know, and just, like, being unflappable.

Yeah. Nope. This is what we're going to be having from now on. And here's why. You know, and you can go ahead and do a hunger strike. That's okay. And yeah, there's nothing in the pantry that matches what you know.

So then, yeah, I just didn't even buy things any longer. So then eventually, as I learned on my learning curve, how to cook so that it was delicious. Yeah. Right.

Then slowly, slowly, the kids started because I remember my son saying when I, when I got rid of our microwave, like, I'm going to have two microwaves when I go away to college.

I said, you do that for me. You know, and so there's, there's like or I want to eat at my friend's house now, okay. That's fine. You can have dinner over there tonight.

You know, just just letting them have that autonomy and saying, okay, you can be upset. You know, my friends don't want to come over here because we don't have good snacks. Okay?

Right. Eventually all that comes down, and then I'll never forget, you know, friends, mom's calling me and saying, what is this that you sent over with her?

It is so good. I must know how to make this, you know. And then my child becoming, she became a caterer because she was telling her friends mothers how to cook sugar free, gluten free, dairy free in this delicious way.

And they were they were wanting to know the information. And her friends came along to like, oh, I feel better. My asthma is gone. You know, like all these things started happening as a cascade.

But I had to sit my daughter down and say, you can either be a leader or you can be a follower. My body's asking you for something very specific right now, you know, and so let's let's listen to what your body is saying, right?

No. Absolutely. And I think part of it too, you know, as as we were alluding to at the top is learning how to really read the label and understand it, because truthfully, if people even look at a label, which doesn't always happen, they're typically looking at their nutrition facts.

And, and a lot of people skip the ingredient panel altogether. But that's where the critical information is hiding. And when you learn how to understand and navigate some of the simple rules on how to avoid the garbage that goes into food.

And and that's not all of it. There's, you know, because there are a lot of people out there who go, oh, well, I just don't buy anything packaged. Well, that's great, but there's still things that you need to know about.

What is the quality of your meat if you're eating, you know, meat. Where is it coming from? How is it raised? What is the pesticide load on your produce?

What is the genetic modification of you know, level or glyphosate exposure for whatever you're buying? Like there's lots of other things that you need to know is right.

But when it's coming for packaged food, for a lot of people, their families may be eating more of that. And until they learn how to make that shift, like you were talking about, to how to actually make delicious, nourishing, wonderful food at home, it's learning how to how to read those labels and understand where some of the the no no ingredients, if you will, are hanging out.

Well let's start. Yeah, absolutely. Well so one of my one of my favorite rules actually for, for this is if it has a number though don't buy it because if an ingredient has a number after it.

So that would be something like, you know, blue number two Polysorbate 80. Those kinds of things that number is code for a chemically lab created ingredient.

And I'm here to tell you that there is no bananas. 16 there is no kale cause like it doesn't happen that way. So real food is real numbers. Just like real food is without numbers is what I meant to say.

So that's definitely. But we do want to look at numbers like on your produce, because if it starts with that line. Yes, absolutely. If it starts with a nine, it is it's organic.

If it starts, if it's and that's a five digit number, if it's a four digit number and it starts with a 3 or 4 that's conventionally grown. If it's a five digit number and it starts with an eight, it is genetically modified.

However, I will tell you that in all the years that I have been doing this, I have only once seen a number eight on a label because although the nine is mandatory, the eight is not.

So they are not. I've never seen an eight. Yeah, they are not. And unfortunately I did not think to save that label and I wish I had. So I'm still on a hunt for another one.

But, you know, it's just important to know when you're looking at your produce, that you know, the, the pesticide load is the 12 most chemically contaminated fruits and vegetables.

Those are the dirty dozen. Those are the ones that you definitely want to make sure that you're getting organic. It was a very sad day a couple of years ago when kale made that list.

But, you know, it's just doesn't have a covering on it. I know nothing to peel. I know. Yeah. Well, and and the thing is, prior to that, they weren't using a lot of chemicals on kale.

But kale became such a popular food in smoothies and kale chips and snacks and everything else that all of a sudden they were growing a lot more of it.

Mass production means more chemicals, right? Absolutely. So, and then, you know, one of the other things is if you don't know what an ingredient is, if you're reading that ingredient label and you don't know what it, I guess they just don't buy it.

I personally don't feel you should need a degree in biochemistry to understand what you're eating. Just if you can't understand what if you don't see it and eat it?

And so here's the thing. You know, you have to think about it a little bit, because you may get exposed to new ingredients from other cultures or other cultures, that kind of thing.

So go home, find out what it is. But if it's real food, then the next time you go back to get it. But if it's something that you're like, I don't know what it is and wait till next time, make sure you know what it is and make sure that you understand it.

Another one is if if something has four or more syllables and this one is one of those, you kind of got to think about because macadamia, has five and we love macadamia nuts.

They're delicious. But there are a lot of things that have polysyllabic words. And those typically tend to be chemical in nature. So we just want to avoid those, you know, and part of the reason we want to avoid these things, and especially all of these chemicals, is they have no nutritive value whatsoever.

And the more of those that we ingest, the more we can increase an inflammatory response in our body. And so by avoiding them, we're helping to soothe our system and not have it in this high alert state that eventually can trigger autoimmunity.

And then we wind up having a more significant issue than occasional belly bloat or something you know, because it adds up. Yeah. So if it has as many cells as supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, so you're not.

You don't it. Definitely. Well and so that actually comes to the next thing, which is if you can't pronounce it, don't even you know, and that's another one that you kind of got to think about because, you know, obviously the first time anybody saw quinoa, you know, when.

Whoa. Like, he, he knew. Oh, well, what is that? So you figure out what it is, how to pronounce it, and then you're like, oh, it's a pseudo grain from South America, high in protein.

It's delicious. But if if there are things on there that you can't pronounce, you should not be eating it, because chances are, again, unless you look it up, it is probably chemical in nature.

Yeah. We really just want to want to avoid those things. Another one, another. One of my favorite rules is if it ends in 80, don't eat it. Now again got to think about it because pomegranates end in 80 and I love them.

But so do Gelli Sorbate nitrates you know those kinds of things. So yes you have to think about it for a second. But most of those are chemical ingredients that are in there either because they're preservatives of one kind or another or they're stabilizers or they do something to the food.

So it makes it better for the manufacturer. And that necessarily is the word that does not necessarily equate to better for you, for the cell. Right. Yeah, absolutely.

And you know, again, it kind of comes back to it's a lot to remember. So generally I encourage people pick one rule and go with that until you've kind of got that one down pat, especially some of them like numbers.

That doesn't take very long, you know, or getting into the habit of looking things up so that you understand what they are. But to take that time to look at the label is really, really important, especially because food producers typically will use the front of the package to put all kinds of fabulous buzzwords and health and high in natural.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. Natural is my favorite. I know. Natural. Yes. Absolutely. I, you know, I think one of the things that I really struggle with is there are some terms that they can use, like natural or wholesome, that don't really mean anything, but they trigger us to believe that they do.

And natural flavors, you know, let's talk about that one. Oh yes. Okay. So natural flavor. One of my favorite not favorite. So natural flavors actually there's a whole legal definition.

And I'll send it to you so that you can include that in the notes. But it's very complicated and it can be from a whole bunch of things, including my, my superstar natural flavor, which is something called Castor Ram.

Now, you almost never, ever, ever see the word castor ram on the label. I did discover that there is a liqueur over in Scandinavia, where they do actually include the fact that it is made with castor ram, but over here they hide it under the term natural flavor because if people were to look it up, they would be disgusted.

Castor Reum is the anal gland secretion from beavers, and it apparently has a vanilla or strawberry flavor to it. Not sure who figured that out, but. So sometimes, and I will be totally true that there is not a lot of castor ram in the food supply because we no longer have a big beaver beaver trapping industry.

But there is still some. And so if you see natural vanilla flavor, you just kind of got to go. Who? Yeah. No, I don't think so. Not today. I don't use vanilla.

I know. Right. So I, I don't like the fact that when they use terminology like natural, it's hiding something. You know, they're disguising what it is.

Because if vanilla is good enough, just use the menthol. Right? Personally. Just apply another one which those who are following a gluten free lifestyle aren't going to get exposed to.

Very often, although it's technically, I suppose could happen, is the word enriched. We we really want to watch out for that. And so there's a difference between enriched and fortified.

Enriched usually happens with whole grain products. And what it means is they've stripped out a whole bunch of the nutrients. I believe it's 22 of them.

And then because back in the 40s, they discovered that when they when they milled flour to get the finest, whitest, fluffiest, nutrient depleted flour that they could, people got sick.

Imagine that. And so they had to add back in some B vitamins, and sometimes they add in a little iron and a little calcium, but they are only adding in a few things.

All the rest of them are not added back in that. I went here to talk, and the medical provider that was giving it said, it's kind of like if you get mugged out on the street in front of the store and someone says, give me your purse and you have $100 bill in there, and then they take $100 bill and they give you a dollar back, would you feel satisfied with that right now?

Oh yeah. No, that is a great way to look at it. And so enriched anything is not good for us. Essentially it's code for nutritionally depleted right now.

The flip side of that, because it is confusing for some people, is the word fortified. And fortified is where they take something that doesn't belong in a food.

And they put it in there because somebody decided it was a good idea. The biggest one that gets me every time is calcium in orange juice. Oranges do not have calcium in them.

I'm not sure who decided that it was a good idea for kids to get calcium by drinking a sugar, but that's okay. You know, the other thing that you have to watch out for is a lot of times nowadays with omega threes and everything else, you know, being so prevalent, people are talking about we need more omega threes in our diet.

So we have omega three enriched milk or a three enriched peanut butter, etc.. If you read the label you will discover that most of that omega three comes from sardines.

And, so I personally just the idea of sardines and peanut butter is not that great. Me I sardines all the time. I what right do you put peanut butter on them?

I don't eat him with all my crackers. Yeah. There you go I think so that's you know, that's definitely a good thing to do. And I know a lot of people make, like a sardine paté, which is great veggies and all kinds of things.

But I just remember one time I was doing a pantry clean out with a client and she was like, oh, look, we got, you know, it's all natural or not all natural.

We got, omega three enriched peanut butter. And I was like, yeah, let's see where that omega three comes from. I'm like, you know, that comes from sardines, right?

Let's we had the talk about how peanuts are not actually a nut. They're a fatty little legume. Maybe not so good for you, but, you know, she was all excited because she thought she was doing something fabulous.

Right? And again, this is that step by step process learning what you don't know. And food producers will take advantage of you. Honest to God, if they thought it would sell, they would probably make omega three enriched shoe polish.

You know, because everybody knows that or knows that we need more omega threes. But they're not talking about how to get it in the diet in a healthy and supportive way, how to nourish your body.

And let's just throw some in this food or that food. So that's definitely something. And then the last, you know, ingredient thing that we look for is if it's all capital letters, that is not a word and usually is short for a long chemical name.

So for example, DHT is butyl ated, hydroxy tellurium. And so instead of putting that on a label that just put three little letters, you know, but EDTA cubed, those kinds of things, if you see that it's not something that you might think that might be healthy, because I seem to remember.

DHEA Datta EPA those are all things that I think my provider told me I need to be taking with me pretty well, so you can get confused in the alphabet soup, you know.

No, absolutely. You know, and and so when we learn how to read the label and how to understand that, that's just that sort of deeper level in addition to everything else that you're working on to help calm that, that autonomic response, that flare for whatever your autoimmune health condition is.

And as we detox our pantry and and refill it with nourishing foods and nutrient dense foods, our body responds more positively. So this is a really helpful.

So you know like where to start and how to progress through the label reading. Yeah. Let's talk about other parts of the pantry. Sure. In the refrigerator.

Yeah absolutely. The larger things now. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So you know, I think one of the things that people tend to forget is when we're thinking about our food supply, we're thinking about what what we store mostly in our pantry or even what we're buying at the grocery store and putting in the refrigerator.

But our food system in our house is everywhere. It's it's your refrigerator. It's your freezer. It's your pantry. Good gracious. If you store food under your bed for an emergency, that counts, you know.

And so we have to look at the whole food system and how we are nourishing or feeding ourselves in our families when we're engaged in this process of learning how to detoxify what we're bringing into our home.

That's where, again, we look at each of those areas and determine what what works for that area of the pantry, what works for what we're doing. And so for example, in the refrigerator, you're going to have things like eggs, you know, so there's not really much of a label on eggs.

And that's one of those things where it becomes important to know where did those eggs come from? What were those chickens being fed. And, you know, there's a free range.

It does not mean a happy chicken. Oh, I know, cage free. Oh my gosh. So there's this really horrible example online where it turns out that in order. So Cage Free is admittedly far better than battery raised chickens, which is how most conventional eggs are raised.

And this is where chickens are in this little tiny cage stacked on top of each other. And there's like a little conveyor belt that goes by it with food and water.

It's horrible. Cage free means that they're actually on the floor and there's one layer of chickens, but unfortunately what they do is they keep them all inside.

For the first few weeks, and then they open a door to a little three by three yard. And the chickens are so conditioned to being inside the barn that they don't go out into the fresh air.

They're not running around. And the other thing is that, you know, it's so this is where we learned when I first began doing this work, I was like vegetarian fed hens.

That's the silliest thing that I ever heard of. Chickens are not vegetarians because they like bugs and things like that. Well, it turns out that you really do want vegetarian fed if you're getting them from a commercial operation because you don't want your chickens being fed things like bovine nerve tissue and meat scraps, that can be dangerous for them.

But really, the best thing is to get your chickens from someone who is raising chickens or ducks. Ducks are good too, you know? I have a friend who's a duck farmer, and they they raise their ducks.

They're very happy. They have their own little pond. They have their own place to run around in there scratching in the dirt while the chickens are scratching.

Ducks don't scratch. But, you know, so it's about knowing those things. And then as we talked about with the, the produce that's in your refrigerator, looking at what is the pesticide load for that, what are those crops?

Fortunately for right now, there are not many, genetically modified crops that are in the produce arena. There is some zucchini, but it's not widely available yet.

So we're not too terribly worried about that. But more importantly, it's just about being aware of the pesticides and where they're coming from. I don't know if I told you this story before, a lot of years ago, my 30 year old son and, my 32 year old son, I do have kids that age now.

We're more like 12 and ten. And we were at Disney World and Epcot Center, and they were, beckoning to the kids. Actually, I think they were younger than that, you know, come over here.

We want to show you something. And and there was a whole thing set up, that was Monsanto. And it was the first time I'd ever heard of them. They weren't a household name yet.

And they had these giant carrots and then these little wimpy, you know, bendy, rubbery, very dirty looking, normal carrots. Which one would you rather have, son?

You know, and and I walked up and I said, hang on, hang on, hang on. They were about to give them to eat, you know, and I said, what? What's happening right now? Like what?

What's the difference between these carrots, what's going on? And so they started telling me about all this amazing breakthrough in science for genetic modification.

It's going to help drought, you know, starved countries. And then at a and I said, but what are the longitudinal outcome studies on this kind of material on a human body?

Has that been studied? He turned directly from me. He's on to another guy over here, another little kid. Which carrot would you prefer? Like totally. And I went, all right, kids, come on, you know, and I've never forgotten that because it was just like, I just was curious, like, okay, that's cool.

And what what's the interaction in the human genome? Do we know that? You know, I wasn't suspicious, I wasn't antagonistic, I just really wanted to know if they had some studies totally ignored me, went to another child, but they were beckoning to children.

Yeah, right. Which carrot would you rather have? It was amazing. Well, in in one of the things that people tend to forget is especially genetically modified crops, although other crops outside of that, one of the biggest challenges that we have is that they are heavily sprayed with glyphosate.

Yeah, which is an antibiotic, which is a key later, which binds nutrients in the soil. So crops that are grown in glyphosate laden soil are not going to be as nutritious.

And because of the varying nature of what it does as a chemical, destroys the microbiome. So not the food. Pretty. Yeah. Yeah. I just remember walking away from that Epcot table and and just starting a rant with my husband, and my husband was looking at me like, what?

You know, this is going to help drought, you know, starved countries. I said, no, you're not seeing what I just saw, like the implications, the implications of this, you know, and, years and years and years later, when we started talking about this, I said, do you remember that day at Epcot?

And he was like, yeah, you were right, you know, didn't even see it. It's challenging because unfortunately, you know, if if they're going after the children or if they're presenting information in a certain way, not a lot of people will do what you did, which is to stop and say, wait, what exactly does this mean?

Yeah. And what are the downstream effects of incorporating this? Well, we ate that day in a restaurant that had been overhauled for Monsanto with all Monsanto produce.

And it was like this look at the beauty of this food. And, you know, and I hadn't realized it until afterwards. It it had a whole thing that we we were seated in an area where I didn't see and I went, oh, great.

And it was like a little film reel about, like how this was going to save the world. You know, and that's how it was being presented and rolled out, you know, to I think about like one little minute, Epcot Center in Disneyworld.

I don't know how long they were there, but Epcot does invite in, like scientific breakthroughs, right? That was a scientific breakthrough. And just these questions had not been asked or were being ignored, you know?

So what's the ramifications of this? Right. What are we going to see? And of course, we've seen an increase in autoimmune disease. Well, and part of the challenges, if you're someone who's struggling with an autoimmune disorder or you have a family member who is struggling with that, you're already behind the eight ball, if you will, because there are so many health implications emotional, spiritual, physical, all different kinds of impacts on your system.

And so then be asked to stop and examine what's going on and look at everything in your environment as critically as you were just talking about. It's very difficult if you don't have the knowledge and the support of understanding what you're doing, which is why I love that you're doing this because you're bringing in so many people who can address all of these different areas of autoimmune disorder and how people can take back control, essentially.

But what you're naming is something that's relatively exhausting because, yeah, it's kind of like the moving the matrix. Right. And and if you're in the matrix, the belief system has is that the government has your back.

It's watching over you. The FDA is the stamp of approval that says, okay, this is safe, right. And there's a belief system that goes back on. Yeah, that goes back like yeah for decades, right.

That this is our safety mechanism. If the FDA says it's okay, then it must be safe for us. Right. And that that level of, clarity about that and truthfulness of that is also exhausting.

Yeah. Right. So there's a there's a there's a whole sense of safety and security that gets taken out from underneath you. You know, when you have this realization like, oh, I have to be completely, 100% responsible for my own research.

When I thought I had these government organizations that were doing that for me. That's discouraging. Disheartening, right? Depressing food is such an integral part of our company.

Yeah. I mean, if we're fortunate, we get to eat three times a day, right? You know, and so when we think about, like these vending machines that are FDA approved, right, in kids school systems, you know, this is all FDA approved.

I know, I know, right. Or even the vending machines that you see in some gyms or athletic clubs or other places like that. You know, when I look at these people who are sitting there pounding away on a treadmill or, you know, massive amounts of weights or machines or something else, and then they go in, they they get a junky beverage and the sugar laden Starbucks thing.

Yeah. Do you know what's in this cup? This is homemade chai, like whole organic. And then start anise, whole organic fennel seed, whole organic coriander and cinnamon sticks and nutmeg that's graded on my grater.

All of it's organic and it's all mixed in a great big jar. I have four of them I make at a time. Big liters of it. A scoop gets put in there, and then that's what we drink.

You know, it's got organic rooibos tea in it. And it's more delicious and packed with flavor than anything you can buy at Starbucks. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely.

And I love that, you know, there there are options like that to me. Yeah. No, I mean mine right now the, the tea I'm drinking is a it's got like dandelion and nettle and it's basically an herb tea and it's got several different herbs and I buy them organic and I write myself.

And then I have a whole big jar that I can steal from. And these were just vegetables that all started with a nine on their label and, you know, and and again, I think it it sounds challenging in the beginning because one of the other things that has happened with our food industry, and this actually started back in like the late 40s, early 50s, is this idea of food as convenience items?

Yeah. We handed away our authority over our food, right. To the food producers. And so learning to take back control of our food and we it seems overwhelming because they've made it sound overwhelming, but.

Right. Really isn't I mean, this was ripping the tops off of packages and making them go into a big glass jar. You know, I mean, it was that simple. So, so easy.

And juicing vegetables like I use a breughel juicer. It's so simple, you know, it's easy to clean up after. Have it every day. I don't have to think, you know what I'm saying about I don't have to sit and chop vegetables.

I just have to rinse them and put them through the thing. And I have juice. So it's it is. It's like, faster than making toast. But then the other thing that I will say is that as you begin to like.

So I again, just coming back to my story because I have walked that personally. I mean, I've helped love other people, but I my own story, the very first change that I made was to get rid of artificial colors.

I and you know, back then I, I thought I ate better than probably, you know, 80 to 90% of my peers and people would tell us we were the healthiest house they knew, and we still had junk in our house, you know?

Yeah, we got rid of artificial colors. And I couldn't believe the change in how I felt, how much better I felt just from getting rid of that. And that really made me start going.

What else is in there? Yeah. And then you and you have to look at your toothpaste and, you know, like artificial colors and not just. Yeah, exactly. Your supplements, your. Yeah, absolutely.

And and it becomes one of these things where the more you find, the more of a detective, you're like, okay, where else is it hiding? You know, because once you've started to feel better, once you've begun that journey, the last thing you want is to go back to the sofa and and that becomes a huge motivation to stay on that path, you know?

And the funny thing that the thing that I absolutely love is in the beginning, you know, I would try and educate my husband and my kids about that. And they were telling me, I'm a mean. That's great.

And and now, like the other day, my husband and I were at the grocery store and he went to get something. And on his own, he actually flipped it around.

He went, Jiminy Cricket, why is there carrageenan in that and put it back on the shelf? I'm like, yes, you. Well, it takes time. But then eventually you begin to realize there's no need for that stuff to get in there.

Yeah, the kettle chips still wind up in my household. My husband has this dirty little things that he likes to bring in every once in a while, he's like, look, they're organic, honey.

All right. So so the the let's talk about meat just a little bit before we, before we go, because meat is another one that has a lot of smoke and mirrors around it.

So when I mean meat, I mean fish all the way to bison. So. Yeah. Absolutely. And so what I'd like to do is modify that by saying in addition to meat, because we'll be talking about cow, I would also include dairy product.

So, you know, one of the, one of the things that's really challenging the local grocery store that I go to has a sign that drives me crazy. It says organic salmon.

And I'm here to tell you there is no organic label for salmon. It is not approved. I don't know how they get away with saying that. I ask them about it and they said it comes from their supplier and, you know, so I just kind of shrug, I actually get my salmon from somewhere else because I don't tend to get it at the grocery store.

But when it comes to fish, the two most important things that I encourage people to be aware of are the fact that it's better for it to be wild caught rather than farmed.

Farmed fish, unfortunately, is raised in, you know, in confines. They're given antibiotic laden feeds so that they don't get sick. They're not given the diet that they're supposed to have.

So they're they're whole, you know, omega three balances off their system is not where it needs to be. So watching out for that. And there's a side subject we'll come back to in just a second.

And then also being aware of heavy metal contamination. And so that's why making sure that you're not like I it's so funny when you work with people sometimes and they go, oh, I'm eating lots of salmon now.

I'm like, that's great. What about sardines? What about. And so these are brown herring and they're like one. Like try it. You know, sardines are this big, salmon's this big, right.

And the, the big fish eat the medium fish, you eat the little fish, and there can be an accumulation. So it's. Well, it's not bad to have some and it's better to get mercury tested fish so that we know what those levels are.

Having smaller fish can reduce your load. So that's definitely important. Now unfortunately genetically modified salmon is a real thing. And they are allowing it now in grocery stores.

I have not seen it. I don't know if it's going to be clearly identified. The manufacturer is a company called Aquabounty, and they essentially crossed the DNA of the salmon with the DNA of an eel.

And these fish get fat faster, which is not good for their omega three status. They actually have lower omega three status than the conventionally or sorry, than the wild caught salmon.

And they're farmed, you know, so they're raised in confinement with not great food. They're trying to figure out how to feed corn to fish, because if they can only be so happy.

Yeah. All our excess. You guys can watch the, the, documentary called King Corn and you'll learn all about why corn is being stuffed into everything and everything.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, when you're going to eat fish, it's the, you know, wild caught, cold water, mercury tested. And please eat the smaller fish.

You know, because that's really important. And then as we go up the food chain, it's about where is it coming from? You know, I really it's it can be very hard sometimes to find animals that are raised the way that they're supposed to be, because most of the people who are doing that, for example, in my area, there is a farmer who lives like an hour and a half from me who is raising them the way they're supposed to be raised, but he's an hour and a half away.

It's not exactly close when you have to go grocery shopping, you know? And so that's where sometimes you may have to look at online sources, or you may have to look at other, other ways to acquire it.

But you want animals that are raised without being in confinement, without being fed genetically modified, being pesticide laden feed, that kind of thing.

I'm on Aquabounty is website right now. It's horrifying. I know it's exactly how Monsanto approached. I mean, these guys have probably had a booth at Epcot Center.

It says Meet the Safe, fresh and Sustainable Choice, their land based farms, and they're saying there's due or global stewards because they're leaving the ocean alone.

But oh my gosh. Well, so the way that it's being spun is just an challenge is what they're not they're they're promoting it because, oh, everybody knows salmon is such a great source of omega three fat salmon.

Right. And and the other thing is I personally believe that somewhere down the line, we're going to discover that some of those fish escaped. It's just kind of happened. Yep.

And then they will breed. Yeah. Not not good. And unfortunately I can't really I am saddened by human hubris where we think we know better than nature.

And, you know, it's it also makes it very, very challenging. I, I don't claim to be the one who has the authority to make decisions for other people on how they nourish themselves, unless they ask me right.

But, you know, everybody has the right to make their own decisions. But I feel like those of us who want to eat a cleaner, more sustainable, more regenerative diet, that choice is being made harder and harder to find because you know, essentially what runs the agriculture industry is conventional methods.

And it's very difficult. And, you know, a number of my friends are regenerative farmers, and they are essentially stewards of the soil. They are all about regenerating the earth and living in, in cycle with nature and making sure that everything goes together well.

But yeah, we everyone look for those, look for those CSAs as community, you know, co-ops that you can become a part of for biodynamic farmers, regenerative farmers.

And we're luckily in Washington state to have a few of them. And I mean, they're all over, and, and one of the interesting things is, you know, if you think about it, those farmers there are farming the way, you know, I believe farming is meant to support a community, not to support a country, right, where we have regional farms that grow, what grows well there, and they support their community.

You're not meant to be big enough that they are mono cropping or monoculture, ruining and shipping extras over to other countries to make the stock market happy.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And then, you know, the reason I wanted to fold dairy in is because for those people who do eat dairy, it's really important to have, you know, if at all possible pasture.

It doesn't even have to be organic. It just has to be, you know, cleanly raised either, whether it's sustainable, regenerative, however you want to label it where they're not giving the animals added hormones and they're not overwhelming them, you know, with their feed.

I saw one horrible example of a and this was years ago, but there was a farmer who was experiencing a grain shortage. And so he was creating his own silage by mixing candy with like literally sugar candy with the grain to feed to his cows so that they would continue to eat in that horrible.

That's horrible. And so this is where that how chocolate milk is made mommy is it comes from chocolate cows as I'm feeding them chocolate bars. So and so.

And then again this is where sometimes you, you have to do the best you can until you find a good solution. Like I said, you know, locally I, I live in Texas.

And so for us, if I want to have, you know, seafood for, you know, somebody I will order it from somewhere else because it's not necessarily available here in terms of getting the quality that I'm looking for.

I know that there are people who like, oh, for example, one of my absolute favorite things, there's a company that I love which makes a beef liverwurst that is, you know, from cows that are very well and lovingly raised on pasture the way they're supposed to be.

And it's amazing. But I can't get it here. I have to order it so, you know, it's where it's where do you make a difference or sorry, where you make a choice, what you can get locally.

You get locally, what you can't. You can buy sustainably. I used to order my free range bison that way too. And now they're local places. But yeah, I used to have it shipped in from Wyoming.

Yeah, on dry ice. But I don't do that anymore because now it's lower, it's available, and and this is where, you know, when it when we talk about detoxing your pantry, one of the things that we look at is, you know, a detox.

Like I said, for me, I'm a very methodical, Step-By-Step person, but it's about looking at an area and going, okay, this section, this this food source, this food supply, what are the issues here?

How is it raised? How am I getting it? How supportive is it, how sustainable is it? And then what are my options. And then, you know, once that's addressed then you move on to something else.

But also sometimes it's about okay, now I got this. What do I do with it? How do I use it? Do I make sure that I'm incorporating it in a way that my family will agree that.

Thank you so much. Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything we haven't touched on about detoxing your pantry that you wish that we would say? So the one biggest thing that I would really like to encourage people, as you're detoxing your pantry and learning where to source everything, please don't store it in plastic.

Oh yes. Thank you. Yes, another public service announcement. Please don't put hot things in Ziploc bags and Tupperware containers. Yes. And then don't stick them in the microwave.

No, no, no. But I'm a fan of glass jars. We use my canning jars, I use this is a reused one. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. There. That's a great storage container. Yes.

Thank you for that. For adding that one in. All right. Thank you so much. So much for having me on it. As always. It's great to chat with you. All right everybody, until next time. Be well.

Detoxing Your Pantry for Reversing Autoimmune Disease

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

Mira Dessy

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