Mold is smart. It's like the cancer of the
home. What if the reason your health
protocols aren't working has nothing to do with your diet,
supplements, exercise or discipline?
It's not the mold underneath the sink that's making you sick,
it's in the mold spores coming off and that's getting into the
environment. You start spraying bleach on,
it's going to piss it off and release mycotoxin.
Ryan Blazer is a building biologist and environmental
testing expert who helps families uncover the hidden
stressors in their homes. We're diving into how poor air
quality Emfs and indoor lighting can quietly keep your nervous
system stuck in survival mode. So.
Anybody that says EMF is not dangerous just doesn't
understand. Some of the biggest disruptors
aren't dramatic or obvious. They're everyday features of
modern homes that almost everyone overlooks.
They'll go in their house and they have Bluetooth speakers and
they have baby monitors and they're not thinking about those
devices. Once you start to see your home
differently, you can't Unsee it. Let's dig in really quick before
we dive in. We love getting your feedback.
So please take a second to leave a comment and tell us that your
favorite topics that we've covered or guess that you want
to see on the show in the future.
Also, by reviewing, liking and subscribing, you'll never miss a
single episode and we get to keep providing you with this ad
free podcast. OK, without further ado, let's
get back into it. Ryan, welcome to Grounded
Wellness. Thanks for making the trip out
to the farm. So many people struggle with
healing and they're following strict diets and supplement
protocols but still aren't getting better.
Could their home environment have something to do with it?
Yes, I can. The environment that we put our
bodies in can play a big role. I like to think of our home as
like our second set of skin. So we have the environment
inside of our body, but then we have the environment of our
house. And the things that we bring
into our house can get our its way into the body.
And we spend up to 90% of our time indoor.
So it's really important to look at our home like a living
biological system and really give us some attention.
When you test a home, you are testing for a lot of different
things. You actually tested our home
almost four years ago now. I was pregnant with our third
child at the time and now he's a little over 3.
So I think it was about four years ago and we've worked with
you since on a lot of different things, but you did a lot and
we, we were talking for a really long time.
You were at our house really late because we had so many
questions for you and we covered a lot.
But I want to, I want to camp out on mold for a bit because
mold is something that is a big issue.
We haven't discussed it a whole lot in this podcast before.
We've talked about Emfs, we've talked about lighting, but mold
is a big topic. It can be really confusing for
people. Why is mold a problem?
Like for anyone who isn't even familiar with with why mold
could cause issues for people, where does it come from and
what's the issue with it? Yeah.
So mold is on our planet to break things down South.
Its job is to decompose things that's in the forest and
breaking down things on the ground.
Right now. The problem is when it gets in
our house and starts eating our house, it's like the cancer of
the home. And when mold is growing and
reproducing, it's releasing mycotoxins and other harmful
substances that are poisonous to us.
So, so it gets trapped inside the home, it gets on our couch
and our bed and we breathe this stuff in.
And it's, that's just like a neurotoxin.
It's poisonous to us. So it can be really harmful also
depend on what substance the mold is eating.
It can also be more toxic because of that.
If it's eating like building material that has chemicals and
toxins in it, it's going to digest those and, and release
those out into the air. And then we breathe those in.
And some people are just simply allergic to mold and they can't
stand it. But just in general, mold is can
be very toxic to people. What kinds of symptoms can it?
So there's two different kinds. So from the mold spores itself,
there's going to be more of the allergic type response.
That's the respiratory issues like stuffy nose, watery eyes, a
cough. It just seems it won't go away.
Cold type symptoms. If you're always getting sick
and you don't realize, I don't understand why it could be from
mold triggering that. But then the second part, which
is more dangerous is from the mycotoxins and that's more of
just straight poison for the body.
So anything that you have a weak link in your body, that's where
your symptoms are going to start showing up.
So it could be a whole range of things from brain fog to
irritability to intestinal problems, not be able to keep
food down. It's just kind of whatever the
weakest link is in your body. Yeah.
So wherever maybe you're more vulnerable genetically, that's
what's going to, that's what you're going to feel first.
From mold, you're going to start seeing that first.
Yeah, have you ever seen mold manifest with any skin symptoms?
Oh yeah, absolutely. Especially if you're more
allergic to it and we can see a lot of skin issues for mold.
Like what does that look like for people?
Like skin rashes or if you have eczema that can flare that up.
Those are really the two big ones.
Or like if you're just kind of itchy on your skin, those are
all symptoms. I've heard a lot of people say,
well, my house was tested for mold when I bought the home and
they did the home home home inspection.
And so I think we're good. We don't have a mold issue.
Can you explain why that test isn't necessarily adequate to
properly test for mold? Yeah.
So there's lots of different ways to test for mold, just kind
of like when you're going to the doctor, there's lots of
different ways to determine if you're sick.
And the basic way that most mold testers do is with an air
sample. So they'll set up a little
equipment in the middle of your room and they'll collect air for
5 minutes. And they take that and look at
under a microscope in the lab and say, do we have an abnormal
amount of mold spores that are showing up in this or not?
And nine times out of 10, it's not going to pick up mold that's
behind the counter in the crawl space or in the attic.
It has to be active in the air for that to pick it up.
And so we can get a lot of false negatives with air samples and
it's the easiest and cheapest to do.
So your run-of-the-mill average mold inspector or even like a
house inspector that adds that on as an addition, is only doing
that test that was like 5 or 6 other tests and then other ways
to find mold that a lot of those testers aren't really dived
into. So you're really missing a small
piece of the picture with that. And some of the some types of
molds can only release spores like periodically right?
Like certain times of the day maybe?
Yeah. So mold is smart, and mold
releases the spores when it's time to reproduce.
So it's kind of like the trees and they release the pollen and
the seeds and that's how it reproduces.
So it's not necessarily doing it all the time, but also when it
feels like it's under attack, that's when it released the
mycotoxins. And there's some really
interesting studies about how Wi-Fi and EMF and some of these
things can trigger the mold to release some of these toxins
because it feels like it's under attack.
Wow. OK.
So what I'm hearing you say is if your home is more toxic, has
like maybe a higher chemical load, or if you have a lot of
Emfs in your home, you can have the same level of mold in a home
that has all of those things or doesn't have all of those
things. But the mold can be more harmful
if you're mixing in the Emfs and the chemicals.
Right, exactly. And if you have multiple species
of mold, they'll compete with each other kind of like gang
territory, like because if you have Aspergillus, for example,
it's it's strain is is not affected by its own mycotoxin.
But let's say you bring in Cladosporium, a different type,
and that mold starts to come to the territory and it senses
that. Then it releases all its
mycotoxins to kill off that other species of molds.
They're like, this is my territory, don't take this over.
Mold is so confusing. There's so much to it.
Like I remember when we had our mold issue, which we'll talk
about a little bit, I was just like trying to understand it and
figure it out and it's overwhelming.
It's and there's so many different types, right?
Like how many different types of mold are?
There, I mean, there's thousands of species of mold, just like
thousands of species of animals, and some are really dangerous
and some are not harmful at all. What's the worst kind?
So Stachybotris and ketomium, that's what's considered black
mold, the term for that. Yeah.
But we have like blue cheese and penicillin where it can be
helpful for us and it's good and it's not harmful at all.
So it just kind of depends on what type of mold it is.
It really matters. So when you test for mold in a
home, what types of tests are you running?
Really the biggest one is sitting down with the client and
going through the history of the house.
Let's talk about all the water damage, the leaks, the floods,
the toilet that overspilled from the kids playing in the bathtub
or whatever. Anything that we have a water
vent in the home because mold needs water.
Without water, mold's not going to grow.
And so we're looking for the sources of water.
So that's really the first thing.
Then testing is really used to confirm a hypothesis.
So we're going through the house, we have a leak over here,
we're seeing some water damage. The the drywall's bowing out a
little bit, OK. We have a high probability for
mold. So in this area, we're going to
do some swab testing or we can drill a hole in the wall and we
can pull air from that cavity sample to verify do we have mold
in this area or not? So we're not really using the
test, just come in and say, is there a mold problem?
We're going out and investigating and looking for
it. And we're using thermal imaging
camera. We're using moisture meters and
we're looking for the water damage, the source of mold.
When we find it, then we verify with sampling.
So it's kind of the reverse. What's the most surprising place
you've ever found mold in a home?
I mean, mold can be anywhere, but really some of the like in
the washing machine is one that a lot of people, if there's a
lot of mold in there, people just aren't thinking about that
in the disposal. Is it the washing machines like
not the top load one but the front load?
One front loaders. Yeah, the front loaders.
Are. Why is that?
Why are those so much worse? Because the water doesn't get a
chance to air out and it's the ring is airtight.
So when you close the door, it's not allowing that to air out.
More like a top loader, yeah. It's more it will still air out
even with the doors, even with the because.
It's not airtight. It's not going to be as quick,
But yeah. And then that rubber seal always
collects a bunch of gunk in there and then moisture and it
stays in there and gets wet. It can be pretty nasty.
So do you even recommend those for people or would you rather
that no one use those types of washers?
If you're going to get a front loader, you have to be more
conscious of the maintenance. You have to leave the door open.
I would wipe that out every time.
And a lot of people just aren't going to do that stuff.
And so I just recommend using a top loader.
We have this little at the house we're at now.
It's like a magnet thing and it creates a, it's like a, a rubber
thing and it creates A barrier between the washing machine and
the door so it can't close. So like the only time it's
closed is when we're doing laundry and then otherwise it's
like you just, you can't close it.
I like that. We like magnetize it and then we
take it off and we're not using it or when we are using it.
Yeah. So if you build that kind of
stuff into it, yeah, it can be OK.
What are the most common places where you find mold?
The toilet tank really is a big one.
A lot of people don't think about that because whenever you
flush, the toilet water goes down and it displaces and it
brings air in. And if there's any mold spores
in your environment, it's going to land in there and it's a
dark, damp place and it's going to sit there and grow.
And when you're sitting on the bathroom, you got this big
source of mold right there behind you, and that really
effects a lot of people, so. So it's not necessarily causing
the mold, but it's like attracting it if mold is already
present in that area. Right.
If we have mold spores in the area, it's going to pull it into
the tank and then it sits there and it's dark and it's damp and
it's a great place for mold to have party.
Yeah. And I've heard you talk about
how that's a good test that you can do when you, when you're
like at an Airbnb or something, or maybe if you're looking at a
home that you're interested in buying, like you can pull up the
toilet tank and see if there's mold there.
And then there's most likely a mold issue in the house if there
is. Right, right.
That's a really good test right off the bat to do it.
I'd say even better than air sampling or calling a mold and
just go lift your toilet tank up and see.
And if we got mold going there, that's a sign that we have a
bigger problem than that. Yeah.
That's a good one. When you find mold, what are the
next steps that you encourage people to take to safely remove
it? So if it's just surface like in
the shower around the sink or something, just clean it up with
soap and water, wear some gloves, maybe wear a mask.
But if we see it but it's in the walls and it's more of a bigger
issue or we have a leak involved with it, then you really need to
call in a professional to assess it.
So really step one is have an inspector come and locate all
the sources of mold and then they can write up a remediation
protocol and then you can take that and go to remediation
company and which should be separate from the tester.
You don't ever want to have the same company doing that work.
Yeah, I remember you saying that it's a conflict of interest.
It is. It's kind of like having your
kid grade their own paper. Yeah.
Like how do we do? Yeah.
Or like if it's, if it's a mold company that does remediation,
that's your primary source of income, a lot of times they'll
offer inspections for free, which is basically just a
salesperson in your house trying to get you to do the work.
So obviously they're going to be more motivated to find a problem
that isn't really there, and then you're spending more money
when you don't have to. Is there ever a situation in
which you would advise someone to use bleach on mold?
Not necessarily, unless like in the toilet tank, maybe if you've
cleaned and and scrubbed it really good and remove it and
there's a little bit of staining leftover, you can use it in that
situation. But you never want to use mold
as the reason to kill it off because to eliminate mold, you
just take away the water. Taking away the water will kill
mold because it's an Organism just like us.
It needs food and water. But in a situation like your
shower or the toilet tank where there's always going to be water
there, that situation just need to keep it really clean and your
regular maintenance. But if there is staining
involved, then you can use bleach to take care of the
staining but not to remove the mold.
OK. So and it's going to kind of
like aggravate it and make it worse if you try to do that,
right? Yeah, mold is smart, and if you
start spraying bleach on, it's going to piss it off and release
mycotoxin so it knows it's under attack.
Yeah, it's not going to kill that way.
Yeah. If someone can't afford to
remediate, or if moving also isn't an option, is there
anything they can do to lessen the harmful effects of mold?
Yeah. So if you're in a climate like
right now, it's beautiful weather, if you can open up your
doors and windows and get fresh air in and flush that out,
that's really the first step. If you can't do that, make sure
you got good air filtration in your house, good air filters so
that you're pulling those spores and microtoxins out of the air
and capturing, but also really good deep clean on your house.
Just go through a nice clean and behind the cabinets, behind your
appliances, places where you wouldn't normally do your
regular wiping because that's where all of these toxins get
stored and then they can get aerosolized back into the air.
So fresh air, filter your air and keep your house really
clean. Yeah.
And the molds can kind of collect on the dust, right?
So if you're not doing those deep cleans, you're not ever
like really getting rid of it. How often would you recommend
doing a deep clean? Definitely yearly, you know,
like if you're going on the summer or winter vacation, then
that's when you hire the cleaning crew to come in and
just do a top to bottom. And I mean, take stuff out of
the cabinets, wipe everything down, put it back, remove your
refrigerator, wipe behind the fridge, behind the washing
machine, really good. A top to bottom wipe down on
every surface and do that once a year.
Why is it that a family can all be living under the same roof
and maybe only one or two people react to the mold and everyone
else seems to do perfectly fine just.
Because all of our bodies are different, we have different
genetics, different makeup, different dispositions.
And if one person may be really good at detoxing mold and the
next person isn't, so that person that's not good is is
building up kind of like our body is like the bucket and
we're filling up toxins and eventually it's going to
overflow. And the spout on the bottom is
our detox mechanism. So some people detox faster than
others and some people's bucket overflows faster than others.
And so there's that. But also maybe in childhood
growing up like a husband and wife, maybe the wife grew up in
in the basement of grandma's home or whatever and it was
moldy and and they using toxic chemicals.
The other spouse wasn't. So they're coming into this home
where one load is already much higher than the other.
So it doesn't take much more to overflow that bucket.
Yeah. And just just to recap for our
audience. So when you tested our home, the
mold levels were pretty high. But at the time, none of us
really had symptoms. We were planning on remodeling
eventually. So we were just kind of sitting
tight for a little while, but then all of us kind of started
to feel a little off, like a little bit rundown.
I shouldn't say all of us, everyone except for my husband,
Jeff, we're feeling a little bit off.
We're starting to get sick a little bit more frequently.
But my oldest daughter was getting bloody noses.
And so that was not normal for her.
I mean, it's not normal in general, but it was starting to
happen like a few times a week. And at that point we were like,
OK, this is this is affecting us, this is a problem and we've
got to get out. But it was just an interesting
symptom that came up just for her.
And when we got out of the home, it stopped.
And then like I was telling you earlier, we ended up moving
back. We were living in some different
places and a tent in our backyard.
We were traveling a lot while we were remodeling our guest house
and waiting to move into that. And we had gotten back from our
travels and everything. We moved back into the house for
just a little bit, and we've actually already remediated at
that point. So the source of the mold was
gone. The sources there were multiple,
the sources of the mold were gone, but there was still mold
spores everywhere. And so we moved back in for a
short time. The bloody noses came back right
away, and then once we moved out again, they went away again.
So that was kind of wild to experience in in real time.
Yeah. And that situation is common
where people they remove the mold source and they think they
have it all, but they forget about all the contamination.
So if you think about like, imagine if you had someone in
your house that was smoking and they smoked in your house for a
year and then we removed the smoke, we say that's a bad idea,
let's not smoke in here anymore. So we quit smoking, but the home
is still going to smell like smokes.
You could come in three months later and know that the smoker
had been in the house simply because you're going to smell
that residue everywhere. So it's the same thing with the
mold stores. It's not the mold underneath the
sink that's making you sick. It's the mycotoxins in the mold
spores coming off of that's getting in the environment.
It's getting on your couch and your pillow and the walls and
your ducting. And if you don't address that,
you're still, you're going to have symptoms and you're still
going to get sick. But I like that you guys moved
into the tent for a while. That was an adventure.
Let's just show us how much you're dedicated to your health.
Like, hey, we're willing, we're going to step away from this
nice house and we're going to move the family out into a tent
and we're going to get better because we care about our
health. And I that's impressive that you
did that. It was fun.
It was. I still kind of can't believe
that we did that for as long as we did.
We did it for like 3-4 months. We'll never forget it.
I just, I still have vivid memories of, I mean, I had three
kids at the time. We had three kids.
Our youngest was just a few months old.
So we were just like bundled up in the tent every night.
We were using little foot warmers because it was winter,
which isn't that bad in California, but it was in the
30s at night, you know, it was pretty chilly.
But we'll all remember it forever.
And it worked. I mean, for us, like I think
just getting out of that environment, we didn't do any
intense detox protocols or anything, but getting out of the
environment was enough to help us to to feel better.
What is the most effective way that you found to detox the body
from mold? You know that it's a combination
of things. I like the Pompa program.
I work with them. They are really good at their
detox protocol. But it's a combination, you
know, moving your body, getting those detox pathways open,
sweating, making sure we're not introducing new toxins so that
the liver can focus on detoxing. There's supplements you can take
binders in the gut to collect the stuff when it goes into the
gut. There's things you can take in
the blood to help release it from the cells.
So it's kind of a combination of different things, but really the
biggest thing is getting out of the environment in the 1st place
and getting your body into a state where we can heal.
The body is really good at healing and taking care of us if
we put it in the right conditions.
And a lot of it with the stress too, the mental stress, making
sure you're taking that mental load off the body's more and not
in that fight or flight mode anymore where it can relax and
focus on healing. And that's really the best we
can do. Yeah.
How can we take mold seriously without being, like, living in
fear of it? Because it is this kind of
scary, mysterious thing and but it's also a big deal.
So how do you kind of like encourage people to manage those
two things, like taking it seriously, taking the
appropriate steps, but not like just shutting down and becoming
paralyzed and completely fearful of molds in every situation?
Yeah, we'll know that it's something that you can take care
of and you can fix, and it's a problem that's affecting your
life and not to put your head in the sand and ignore it.
And ignorance is not bliss when it comes to mold.
Educate yourself, learn about it, and then know where it's at
and then what to do about it. And I think just learning and
educating is going to empower you to make the right decisions.
Emfs are another thing that you test for.
Can you give an overview of the different types of Emfs that you
test for in people's homes? Yeah, there's three different
types of Emfs that we like to look at.
And the one category is things that are on our body.
So the smartwatches, the Fitbit, the Aura, if you have the
Bluetooth headphones, cell phones, if it's in our pocket.
So things that are on the body, that's really the first place
that we want to look because we're getting the most exposure
because on our body is touching us.
The second set are going to be the things that are in our
house. That's going to be any of the
digital communication type devices, the the TV, the Wi-Fi,
the Bluetooth speakers, maybe a thermostat on the wall.
And all of those things are going to be transmitting, but
they're not right by the body. They're kind of creating this
overall toxic EMF soup in the house.
And then the third category is going to be the things that are
outside the home. So the high voltage power lines,
the cell tower maybe got 5G tower down on the corner.
All of those things outside are still affecting us, but not at
the level of the things in the home.
So you look at those three different levels, that's really
where you want to focus on reduction, but start with the
things that are on your body first.
Those are the highest impact. Yeah, I remember when you tested
our devices, my cell phone, when you tested it, it was off and it
was still emitting Emfs. And then I turned it back on.
You had me turn it on and put it in airplane mode and then it
went quiet. Is that normal?
Yeah, especially if you have to find my phone feature on.
OK, I don't anymore, but maybe I did then.
Right. And so if you have that feature
on, even with the phone is off, it's still sending a little ping
out. So you can find your phone if
you lose it. So you can go into some of the
settings and create a shortcut button.
It's a true Wi-Fi and you want it to shut off the location
services, but also turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and then of
course, the cellular part of it. And then it's not going to be
transmitting. If someone lives close to a 5G
tower or a power line, do they have any options to protect
themselves or do they just need to like move?
It really depends on proximity. So if you got those big high
voltage power lines and you're within 200 to 300 feet, that's
the that's the danger zone where you're starting to get a lot of
effect from that. The magnetic fields, the
electric fields. I mean, you go walk underneath
that and your hair sticks up and you hear the crackling.
That's not good, that's affecting your body.
So and. Is that when you say high
voltage power line, is that like those over there?
So no, the, the neighborhood ones, they just have a couple on
the top and they're running through neighborhood.
It's not those, it's those big steel metal ones that are
running cross country. Sometimes they go through the
middle of town. The more power that's being sent
on the line, the bigger the field is going to be.
And so we want to stay away from those, the, the ones that go
through the neighborhood 50 feet and you're fine.
I mean, as long as you don't, you know, look out your window
and they're right there, you know, close to you and exposing
you, then you're OK. But like the 5G towers, you
know, if you're in the city or in some of these suburbs, we're
seeing more of those pop up closer and closer.
The thing about the 5G, though, is it doesn't penetrate very
good into the walls. So especially if you have a
stucco home that has the chicken wire in it, that's going to
block a lot of the 5G. And that's why they need to have
so many of them is because they don't go through trees, they
don't go through homes very well.
Yeah. And then you could probably do
the EMF blocking paint like in your in your house and block
some of that too. Or no?
You can, but I want to talk about that because people think
that I just paint my house and I'm all good and eliminates EMF.
But what it does, it creates a little Faraday cage around your
house and you can't use electronics in your home
anymore. So if you want to use your cell
phone, the cell phone now has to boost its power to Max power to
try to get out of that shielding.
And cell phones are smart. They vary their power depending
on how close you are to the tower.
So if you're only a mile away, your cell phone may only be on
10%. It's really low power, low
exposure. Now you put yourself in the
shielded box, it has to boost its power up really high.
But not only that, that signal now bouncing around in the room
like a microwave. Yeah, that's nowhere to.
Go took you more so you can't bring electronics into rooms
that are shielded. So if we live by a tower that's
blasting us, I always say, let's start with the bedroom and make
that a no technology zone or maybe like a library or the
nursery, places where there's not going to be technology, but
leave the office in the living room, the kitchen open so you
can still use your electronics. So that way we kind of have a
little sanctuary where we sleep, where we can get away from it,
but we're not totally living in the dark ages.
Like no technology at all, because that's not really
practical for most people. Yeah, but that's really good
advice. That's what you had us do.
We just did our master bedroom and that was the only home, the
only part of the house that we were remodeling at the time.
So we did that in EMF blocking paint.
And I feel like I noticed a difference, like I would sleep
incredibly. Oh yeah, it makes a big
difference for sleep. Now there are some people that
are sensitive or like ultra healthier were like I don't want
any EMF. Sure, let's do the whole thing
and they're using dial up phones and plugging in their laptop and
that's great, but that's not practical for a lot of people.
I'm not going to do that. What do you think about those
new? I haven't looked into this much
for the tin can phones that they're marketing for kids.
Have you seen these? I haven't seen that.
OK, I'll have to show them to you later.
But they're kind of cool. Like I was there landlines, but
they're like cool, kind of cute landlines.
And I think this company's mission is to give kids like
some of that independence that we had when we are growing up of
like I want to call my friend, but without using their own
personal device to do that. So I thought it was kind of
cute, but I just was curious if there were any just like the the
EMF implications of it. Yeah, and those are great.
It sounds good, especially if it's hard wired.
And I like the idea of you don't have the social media and all
that other stuff. So it's like here, you can still
talk and communicate, but you don't have just free access to
everything that's out there. Exactly, Yeah.
Talk a little bit about faulty wiring in the home, because this
was a big issue for us and we had to get a lot of things
rewired. Can you explain just what what
that is exactly and like how that can happen and why it's a
problem? Yeah.
So the wiring in our house, we have our outlets and we have
wires that connect all that and that runs through like veins in
our body and all that has an electric field that comes off
it, but also a magnetic component to it.
Now, if we have wiring errors and things are correctly wired
in the home grounds are off, then we can have that electronic
exposure amplify it and become a lot worse in the house.
And now you're laying in bed and you have the wires in your wall
and that energy is transmitted out into the wall.
It's getting onto your body. And so it's really important to
do a check up on the wiring and make sure that everything's
wired correctly. Some people even go a step
further and they wired in conduit, like what we're going
to do with your new house. We're going to put all the
sleeping areas in nursery and office area in conduit.
So it's blocking that electric field from coming out into the
room. What does that mean in conduit?
Like encased in metal and then that metal is grounded to earth
so that those electrical fields they contact the the conduit and
get shorted back down to earth nice before it gets a chance to
get on the body. Yeah, I'm, I'm so grateful that
we have you to advise us on all of this because this is like way
over my head. Yeah, the level that the level
of detail that you put into it. But I appreciate it.
What's the most surprising source of EMF's in the home that
people would be shocked by? I would say those Roomba vacuums
that the the wireless ones, cuz those can be in the living room
or the kitchen close by and they're battery powered so
they're always transmitting out a big source and they can be
pretty powerful like a Wi-Fi signal.
Wow. I've had some situation where
I'm looking for the source and I can't figure out what it is, and
sure enough it's a vacuum. It's underneath the couch or
something, but it's emitting a lot of energy.
Smart homes are becoming more and more popular and it seems
like now every device has Wi-Fi or Bluetooth capabilities.
Why is this a problem and what would you say to anyone who
pushes back on EMF's and says it's not really that big of a
deal? It's a problem because it's
becoming more and more prevalent in our home where all of these
devices are now starting to connect with each other and the
Internet of Things and talk to where the appliance is like
almost anything running off of electricity.
Now it seems like it has to connect to the Internet and be
able to control it by our phone. So now we're just adding all of
these sources in our house and also more of a data concern.
So if you're worried about people hacking into your home
and getting your data or getting on your Wi-Fi network, all of
these devices are are entry points to the house.
And so that can be a problem also, not just from a health
standpoint, but from a security standpoint.
I like the question about what do you tell people that don't
think EMF is a problem, because there's a simple way to really
demonstrate how EMF can be dangerous.
Is it? Would you put your head in the
microwave and turn it on? I don't think anybody would do
that. They realize that that's
dangerous, that's harmful. Well, that's EMF.
In fact, it's 2.4 gigahertz, which is the same as our Wi-Fi
and our Bluetooth headsets. It's using the exact same
frequency. It's just at a really high level
and it cooks our food rather quickly.
I mean, I don't know how long it would take to put your head in
there before you're cooking your brain and and dead, but it
wouldn't take very long. And so that's EMF.
So anybody that says EMF is not dangerous just doesn't
understand the the concept. Anything at a high enough level
can be dangerous. Problem is it's like, well, at
low levels, it's not, well, what if low level over a long amount
of time can be just as harmful as a short amount of time at a
higher level? It's just what's our overall
exposure? Yeah, it's just a slower
poisoning, right? Yeah, talk to me about sound
machines. What should parents be aware of
when choosing a sound machine for their baby or small
children? Yeah.
So there's this one device, I think it's the home or
something, and it has an actual fan in it and a motor, and that
puts off a really high magnetic field.
So that magnetic field can now radiate into the room.
And a lot of them are right by the bed on the night stand.
So the child's there trying to sleep.
We're putting a magnetic field into that room.
I think that's the one that we have when you tested the house.
Yep, and it's fairly common. It's more of a.
Common common one and it's like very it plugs in like it's not.
It just feels more old school. It doesn't feel like advanced or
super technological to where you would think it would be an
issue, but it still is. It is.
It is using a fan and a motor that has a magnetic field to it.
But there's others too that going back to the devicing where
they connect from Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
And so now it's like a little mini cell tower in your room
that's transmitted out, that's given high exposure to us and
our kids. Baby monitors are another big
one. Why are baby monitors putting
infants at risk? Same exact reason.
It's a source of EMF, it's a source of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
radiation that's sending that signal to the other end to the
monitor. So we can hear it.
But again, a lot of times it's right there by the crib, right
there by the baby transmitting. Even when they're not sleeping
or when we're not using it to monitor in them, it's still
transmitting 24/7. Again, it's like a little mini
cell tower. So it's funny, a lot of time
people call me out and they're worried about the cell phone
down at the park or the 5G tower down at the end of the street.
And I'll go in their house and they have Bluetooth speakers and
they have baby monitors. They have all these things right
there by them and they're not thinking about those devices.
They're just doing the same thing.
Yeah, people may hate that I say this, but I just think we've
over complicated raising children so much.
I mean, 100 years ago people did not use baby monitors and sound
machines. I did use sound machines.
Not anymore, but I'd never use baby monitors with any of my
three children and I just don't think they're necessary.
Like when my kids were young, very young, they slept on me or
near me. And then as they got older and
they were sleeping on their own, I would just crack the door
open. I mean, if unless you have like
a 5000 square foot house, you can kind of, you can hear your
child's cries from anywhere in the house.
So I just think we've overcomplicated raising children
and we have to remember that the baby industry is still an
industry and they are going to market new devices, new things
to us and we just don't need all of it.
Right, you don't you'd think you do and they tell us we do and
they mark it very well. But a lot of times if we're I
get that all the time, like I have to work or I got stuff I
got to do and I can't be right next to them.
Put the baby down where you're sleeping.
So maybe you work and the room right next to you is where the
baby sleeps. And So what like I said, you're
going to hear a baby cry. They get pretty loud you.
Can't hear them? They'll make sure you hear them.
What are some things that people can do to reduce EMF exposure in
their homes? A lot of it is being able to
identify the source. So maybe get an EMF meter and go
through the house and do like a call with someone like me and
just help go through just one time, like 30 minutes and go
through the home and identify where all the sources are.
And then I talked about practical avoidance.
So if we're not using the device, don't have it on our
body and don't have it near us, so we're doing this right now,
there's no reason to have cell phone on us with it on.
It can be on airplane mode, it can be over there on the table.
OK. Quick question on that.
What can guys do to not have their cell phone like in their
pockets? Like that's something that Jeff
still is not completely on board with.
Like he will put his cell phone in his pocket and like I know
you can put them on airplane mode.
Are there Shields that are helpful?
What do you do? So just being cautious, like if
it's going to be in my pocket, make sure it's on airplane mode.
But if I'm driving in the car, it's up on the dash or it's away
from me. If I'm at the office working,
it's not on my lap, it's not on my body, it's on the desk.
Just try not to have it on the body as much as possible.
Just being conscious about that. If it's next to us, next to our
parts that we don't want to cook, we want to make sure
they're on airplane mode. Do the cases work?
The EMF blocking cases. So it kind of goes back to
having the shielded house. If we're going to put a shield
around the phone, then it's going to attenuate its signal
and have a problem reaching the tower.
So now it thinks it's a lot further away from the tower than
it really is. It's got to boost its power up.
It can make it worse in some cases.
What else can people do in the home?
What about like their their Wi-Fi?
Do you recommend turning that off at night?
And where in the home is the best place to store your Wi-Fi
router? Yeah, So practical avoidance
again, at night we're sleeping, we don't need Wi-Fi.
Some people have security cameras that they connect to and
that's a different deal. But for the majority of people,
we don't need to have this technology on at night.
So putting it on a timer, like a Christmas light timer where
midnight it shuts off, 8 in the morning it kicks back on and it
does this automatically in the background.
So we don't have to think about it.
I. Think that's what you have let
us do? Like, we literally just used our
Christmas light, yeah, timer and used it for the Wi-Fi.
Yeah. And so if you have any devices
in the sleeping area, like if you have ATV in the room or an
Apple TV, put those things on timers as well so you don't have
to think about it. But also charge your phone maybe
in the bathroom, not right next to the bed.
So it's not make this 8 foot bubble around your bed.
Make sure there's no technology in there.
Can you tell us about smart meters?
Yeah, I think smart meters are over played, over worried about
because a lot of times the smart meter is firing away from the
house. So really, you want to worry
about your neighbor's smart meter that's firing towards you.
If you have make friends with them, go bring them some
cookies. And yeah.
Tell them that. Let's talk about your smart
meter. You can get these little cages
that go around it that will shield the signal.
OK. It will make it so it doesn't
send out. But honestly, when I'm doing
testing in the home and let's say we turn off all the sources
in the house, airplane mode on the on the phones and laptops,
and then we measure what's coming in, it's actually pretty
insignificant compared to all of your other sources.
Interesting. So yeah, it's important.
Yeah, it's a source, but not even close to what your cell
phone, your Bluetooth speakers, or your laptop is putting off
your appliances. Yeah, OK.
And you can call the electricity company too and have them shut
it off and just check manually. Yeah, most places you can opt
out. Sometimes they'll give you a
hard time about that, or they'll charge you an extra fee because
they actually have to come out to your house physically and
read it. But it's worth doing.
What about alarm systems? A lot of alarm systems aren't as
bad as people think because they only really transmit when
there's a problem or like a like a beacon signal to let it know
it's still there and it's still active.
The main brain of that can be very powerful because that's
always on. So making sure that that's in a
closet or away from high use areas.
So when I say high use areas anywhere in your home where
you're spending more than 30 minutes, like the kitchen, the
living room, office, bedroom, making sure that that main brain
of that is maybe in the mechanical room or out in the
garage or something. Okay, that's good.
Is there one that you like or recommend?
Any time you can do hardwire, I always recommend doing hardwire
physical connection, not using the wireless function.
Okay. You have a really interesting
background of doing sort of the opposite of what you're doing
now. You worked in the nightlife
industry and you manipulated sounds and lighting to create
environments that were like ultra stimulating and adrenaline
inducing. Can you tell us some things that
you would do to create those types of environments?
Yeah, one of the tricks we did there was this device that we
would put in in line before the speakers and we did this in
nightclubs and churches, and it would produce subharmonic
frequencies in the body or in the in the sound, which would
create alpha waves in the body. It would make us feel better.
So it's kind of like you listen to like acapella singing, like
boys the man, and they're singing different octaves, the
same note that's harmonizing. And so when you do that with
subharmonic frequencies, it doesn't really mess with the
sound too much, but it creates that that feeling that harmonic
tone and that makes us feel good.
And so that was a trick we were putting into all of our systems
And it studies show like, especially with the bars, like
there were less fights, people were staying, there was more
connection, they were spending more on alcohol.
So we could show that there was a number.
Same thing with the churches. People would feel the spirit, so
to speak more. They would feel that energy or
that vibe a lot better. So it's just manipulating the
sound waves and there's things like binaural beats and the
sophasial frequencies and all these things with these sound
frequencies that you can inject into the signal.
So how do different frequencies impact us?
Yeah, so some frequencies sound better to us, and our body feels
that, and we resonate with that more than others.
We all have a frequency. Like if you were to measure your
heart, your brain, your nervous system is all running on these
frequencies, and so is mine. But they're different.
We have a different signature, and so different frequencies can
interact with our bodies. That's why maybe your favorite
song is different than my favorite song because it has
those specific frequencies in it and your body just feels good,
whereas other songs may annoy the crap out of you and you
don't like that and so those frequencies are having a
negative effect on the body. Interesting, so it can be
individual. Absolutely.
Wow. Very individual, yeah.
That's so interesting that you kind of did the same thing for
churches that you did for nightclubs.
Was it literally like the same playbook, or were there any
differences between the nightclubs and the churches that
you worked with? Literally the same playbook.
Wow, same exact thing there. And it was the same concept, the
same idea. It's just one is selling one
thing and one is selling another thing with It's an experience.
Experience. It's a community.
And I'm assuming these were like really big mega church type type
places or were they or was that not the case?
Was it kind of more just the everyday, you know, kind of
probably a little bit bigger? I don't imagine that like your
neighborhood church would hire Someone Like You to do this.
But what was What types of churches did you work with?
It was a full range of churches. It really was.
And it was really cool because I got to see all these different
churches and learn about different churches, at least for
my own spiritual journey and and looking at all this stuff.
It was really cool to see all the different denominations, but
they were all the same. It was all the playbook and even
going to like we did even as far on this side, like strip clubs,
like the lights, the sounds of videos.
All of these places are trying to sell you an experience.
They're trying to get you to feel good.
You want to go to these places to feel good, to feel connected,
to be part of the community, and they're just using different
things that they're selling to you.
That's fascinating. We have to talk about lighting.
Lighting is something we've talked about it a lot on this
podcast, but it's so important and you have a lot of expertise
in this, so I don't want to gloss over it.
Why does the lighting in our home matter?
So as far as in the home goes, we want to base our lighting off
of the sun. So an ancestrally we lived
outside most of the time and we got our cues from the sun.
So it's no coincidence that we sleep at night when the sun goes
down and that we're awake during the day.
And so the cues that we're getting like from right now, the
sun is overhead, it's shining down, it's this natural, it's
full spectrum that's telling our body to suppress melatonin.
And to be awake now when that sun starts to go down and we see
the amber color, the red, the yellow, and eventually it goes
back behind the sunset. And then we use candles and
lanterns and fire, which is a really warm glow that would tell
our body to start getting ready for bed and to create melatonin
and so that we have a good night's sleep.
The problem is, is modern day lighting.
Now the sun goes down and what do we flip on all these bright
lights, these bright overhead lights or we're getting in front
of the screen or the TV or a phone that has blue light in it.
It's messing up our bodies in like internal signal that's
trying to control our sleep cycle.
And so it's completely throws that off because a lot of it is
light based. So how can people create a
circadian friendly environment in their home?
And one, being conscious of it and knowing like we're going to
mimic the sun. When the sun goes down, we
shouldn't have any overhead bright lights.
We should have eye level warm colored lights that are at lower
level. Not super bright, bright enough
that we can see what we're doing, but getting the blue
light out of it and going to more of the amber and the yellow
and the red colored lights. And you have a specific light
bulb recommendation that you have recommended for us and that
we're implementing. What is that?
I like the block blue light bulbs because they don't
flicker, they don't have the blue light in them and they're
not supposed to have dirty electricity.
Although I just got a text from somebody in the industry that
knows it says, hey, you need to look in it because there was a
rumor that they have dirty electricity.
Maybe we shouldn't be saying this until I verify it, But so
I'm looking at that and see, but there's really not a lot of
other really good options. You can go with film grade LED
incandescents are great, but they're really hard to find
incandescents now. They don't make those anymore,
at least on a commercial scale. So at least for now, we're going
with the block blue light. They're better.
Nothing but. And they're actually LEDs, which
I was surprised by, but why are they different than normal LED
normal LED's? Because the circuitry on them is
designed better for constant power supply mode instead of a
switch mode transistor in it that turns that on on and off
really fast. And that's they do that to save
battery power and, and energy. So it's on for like 20% of the
time, then off for 80 and on. And but it does that so fast
that it looks like a consistent glow, but our mind can tell the
difference. It can see that flicker rate.
OK so in the house that we are living in now and renting now
they just have standard LE DS and so I wear my red lens
glasses at night. I try to get my family to do the
same thing. But when we move back into our
home with these new light bulbs, will I still need to wear blue
light blocking glasses like late at night?
You won't. As long as you're laptop in your
phone has night mode on it and night shift where it's taking
the blue light out and all the bulbs are all dialed in so
there's no blue light, then you shouldn't have to wear the
glasses anymore. Nice.
Yeah, well, they look cool. They make you look like a
biohacker, like an official biohacker.
I mean, you got to have the red glasses.
I get made fun of a lot for them.
You've told me before that a green home is not a healthy
home. Can you explain what you mean by
that? Yeah, so green home came about
like in the 80s and 90s when they're worried about gas
shortage and we need to be energy efficient and save the
planet, which all this stuff is important, but the problem is it
comes at the expense of our health.
So what they did is they made the home super airtight.
They brought in the LE DS with the flicker where the homes
aren't breathing anymore. They're switching out some of
these natural building materials for synthetic materials.
So we're not chopping all the trees down.
We're using plastics and things. Now all of those things have
harmful effects on the body when the homes not breathing.
Now we're have built up of toxins in there and the the Poly
vinyl floors instead of wood floors are now off gassing
chemicals and then we have the flicker rate.
And so we're basically turning into a synthetic environment and
our bodies don't like that. And so green is about saving
energy, healthy home is about protecting our body.
So there is a balance there. Another thing that you test for
in homes is chemicals. So for homes that tend to test
really high for chemicals, what are the main culprits?
So in a brand new house, the chemical load is going to be
really high, especially if we didn't think about the stuff
when we're building the house. Like the paint is probably the
biggest one. It's the biggest surface in our
home. And if you're not using the
non-toxic VOC paint, we're going to be off gassing a lot of those
chemicals in there, but also the flooring and the glues.
And then you go in a new home like it has a bunch of carpet
and you smell that new carpet smell.
That's the formaldehydes and the glues and the VOC off gassing.
And then the cabinets are another big one.
So the compressed and fiber board is held together with
glues that can off gas for several years.
And then of course the furniture we bring in all that and then
the foams. So there's just a lot of these
new products that take several years to off gas.
Yeah, and the furniture often times is sprayed with flame
retardant, right? Right.
So then we have flame retardant and Scotchgard too, to protect
it from stains. The stain resistance, that's the
PFOA is the forever and they call them forever chemicals
because they don't break down. They persist in the body and in
the environment. Is there a safe like furniture
brand that you would recommend or anything that people can look
for when they're shopping for furniture?
Furniture is hard, you've really got to do the research.
I mean, IKEA has a bunch of really natural wood type stuff.
This is great. There's some futon companies out
there using sheep's wool and natural latex.
Organic latex, so. And wool's great because the you
don't that doesn't have to be sprayed with flame retardant,
right? Exactly.
It's naturally flame. Retardant because it's it's like
a legal not to. Basically these flame retardant
companies, they've like lobbied so much with the government to
create laws that everything has to be sprayed with flame
retardant unless it is like something that's naturally flame
retardant like wool. Yeah, but I remember learning
about that at one point. I'm like, this is crazy.
It is crazy just because one a person fell asleep with a
cigarette in their bed burned them up, which is unfortunate,
but not all the rest of us have to suffer.
And I would like to know how many lives have been saved by
spraying all of our couches and rugs with flame retardant.
Really. Versus how many people get.
Cancer. Exactly.
Like what are you going to do if there's a fire?
Just like shelter on the couch? No, right.
You're going to burn up. Like who is this helping?
No one, exactly. Yeah.
They're probably in cahoots with Big Pharma.
Like, we'll spray this everywhere so that people need
more drugs. Absolutely, I can get behind
that. What about cleaning products?
What are cleaning products doing to us in the home?
That's another big one. There's over 80,000 registered
chemicals right now in use for public and only half of those
has really been tested good on humans and none of those have
been tested in combination with each other.
And sometimes when we add these chemicals together, they can be
a lot more data. It's like ammonia and bleach mix
chloramine gas, which can kill you.
So we're talking about Windex and bleach.
How many people have that same thing in their cabinet right
now? Some of that could be mixing.
You open that up to get your products.
Now you're breathing that stuff in.
Now you're feeling a little light headed, a little dizzy, a
little got a headache, you know, after you just got done
cleaning. Why is that?
Will you just introduce more of these chemicals in our body?
So our bodies are chemical in nature.
We're electrical, chemical beans.
And so any time we messed up that chemical makeup, it's going
to throw off our balance and we're going to have issues.
Can personal care products and beauty products create high
levels of chemicals in the air when they are sitting in drawers
or sitting on a bathroom countertop, even if they're in
closed containers? Yes, they can leach out.
And a perfect example, next time I'm at Walmart or Kmart or
something, go down the cleaning aisle section and tell me if you
can't smell chemicals. At least for me, like I'll get a
headache by the time I get down the end of the aisle just
because it's it's leaching out through the plastics, leaching
out through the the lid. It doesn't all stay contained in
there. For people who want to improve
the air quality in their home, but they also have financial
constraints, what are some cost effective ways to improve indoor
air quality? The first thing is to eliminate
the sources. So go through your house and get
rid of unnecessary things that you're not using.
I can't tell you how many times I go into inspections, I open up
the cupboard under the sink or the cupboard above the laundry
room and it's just filled with toxic chemicals.
And I would say 95% of those they don't even use.
It's just sitting in there from one time they needed the
specific chemical. So get rid of all that stuff,
get it out of your house. If you're like, hey, I might
need this one day. At least put it out in the
garage or somewhere that's out of the breeding space.
So eliminating the source is the first thing.
And then the second thing is airing out your home, you know,
and very few K, like if it's super humid outside, we don't
want to bring in humidity or maybe it's fire season and it's
really polluted outside. But the rest of the time, get
that fresh air into your house, even if it's a little cold or
hot, Air out the home as much as possible.
Those two things are going to be your biggest ways to combat it
for free. What about next level ways?
For anyone who is really serious about this and wants to
radically improve the air quality in their home, what
would you recommend? Then the next is get a good air
filter, a good air scrubber. Jasper, Like the Jasper?
Yeah, we're a big fan of Jasper. Love Jasper?
Yep, they're my favorite overall because they have a lot of
carbon in them, a lot of surface space for filtration, and
they're quiet and they look good.
Good customer service, they're a little bit of expensive, but I
always tell people this is a lifelong investment.
They have a lifetime warranty. If something happens, they just
ship you a new one. You're going to have clean air
for life and it's really one of the biggest impact things.
You know, I have like 8 of them in my house.
They're all throughout my. House, how do you space them
out? Like where all would you
recommend putting an air filter ideally?
And then like, if you maybe only can afford one or two, where are
the most important places to have them?
So where you're spending the most amount of time is where you
want to have them within like 8 feet of you or so.
So definitely bedroom right off the bat.
I have two in my bedroom, one on each side, and I have one in all
of my kids bedrooms. And then I have one in my office
because I spend a lot of time in there and I have a couple out in
the main room. You know when we cook and we
have guests over and they keep that area clean?
And for anyone who maybe can't afford a good air scrubber like
Jasper yet, what do you recommend?
So real simple you can go down to Walmart and or on Amazon and
picks up one of those box fans, the old school box looking fans
and then buy your HVAC filter like a 24 by 24.
Tape it to the back of that with some good old duct tape.
Turn that thing on and you got yourself cheap filter DIY for
like 40 bucks. It's a great hack, and it's
especially good if you're remodeling or doing anything
where you're just going to like blow through air filters.
Like I wouldn't want to use my nice Jasper for a time when I
knew that the air was just going to be dealing with a lot of
particulates anyway. So when we were remodeling our
bathroom a while ago, we just did a bunch of the box fans just
to kind of like lower some of that particulate load and we
just like blew through those filters.
They were getting so so dark and dusty and gross by the end of
it, but it worked. Yeah.
Or if you got a basement that you don't go down often, you can
put a couple down there, put them on high cuz they're noisy.
They don't look the best, but they definitely work really
good. Is outdoor air always cleaner
than indoor air, even when you live in a city?
Not always, but the majority of the time outdoor air is cleaner.
If you think about it, where does the indoor air come from?
It comes from outside. So we bring this air in and then
unless we have a lot of air filtration, we're typically
adding to that. And so if we analyze what's in
the dust, what's flowing around, it's typically dead skin cells,
it's insect parts, insect feces, it's broken down foams and
fibers, pollen, mold, bacteria and microplastic.
So all of that stuff is creating this dust and that gets into the
air and we breathe it in and we're adding to that from the
outside. That's another reason why it
makes sense to do that deep clean at least once a year to
get rid of clean all that. Stuff deep clean air filtration,
bring it in fresh air, yeah. Why are conventional cleaning
products an issue, and what alternatives do you recommend?
So the problem with conventional cleaning products is they're not
required to disclose the ingredients on the label, unlike
the FDA and food. They're required to disclose
everything that's in there. But with cleaning supplies,
personal care products, those things is just all about
marketing. So they can say green and
healthy. And I have a picture of a lemon
on there. You know, I guarantee there's
not any lemon in there. It's a chemical that smells like
lemon. So going back to, you know, all
the different chemicals and how they're not really tested on the
body and they're not tested in combination with each other.
When we put those things on our body or in the environment,
breed those in, we're exposing ourselves to a lot of unknown
chemicals that are going to be very harmful to the body.
And a myth that I learned from my friends at Branch basics.
I love branch basics. Do you use Branch basics all?
I do, yeah. I like Branch Basics.
They have a lot of good options that you can just swap out and
get rid of your toxic stuff. Just go to them and they have
the full lineup. Exactly, and I didn't know this
before I became friends with them.
But you don't actually need a separate product to clean your
toilet than the one that you're using to wash your dishes.
Like soap is soap. And then there's just a bunch of
other junk added and marketing to make us think that we need
all these different things. But what I love about their
stuff is that it's 1 concentrate and you use it at different
concentrations for different parts of the house.
But it's just the same like simple cleaning solution that
that kind of works for everything.
I've also heard that just like water and vinegar works pretty
good for a lot of cleaning problems in the home.
What's your take on that? Yeah.
And that's I use the combination of both of those, but we have a
little mixture of it's half distilled water, half distilled
white vinegar with a little lemon essential oil and I bet we
clean 90% of the stuff with that.
I mean that's really goes a long ways and it's cheap and you
could drink it. I mean, it doesn't get more
natural than. That, yeah.
Can vinegar kill mold? So it's not just about really
killing the mold, but it's a good, it does a good job of
cleaning it up. But high string, yeah, high
string vinegar can definitely kill off mold, diminish it, but
you wouldn't want to. Like if you have mold growing,
you just don't spray it with vinegar and let it sit.
You would use the vinegar solution to clean it up and wipe
it up. I've heard that kitchens and
bathrooms tend to be the most toxic areas of the home in terms
of chemical exposure because we store a lot of these cleaning
supplies at the kitchens and then in the bathrooms there's
the cleaning supplies. Then there's also the the
personal care products and the skin care products.
What impact does all of that have on air quality?
Yeah, it it creates a chemical soup, chemical mixture in the
home. And we breathe that in,
especially if our homes aren't breathing and not getting a lot
of air flow that can build up. And so you go into the laundry
room or the bathroom and the kitchen and you can smell it and
you can smell there's something in here.
It's a combination of things. We breathe that in and it
affects our body. What about fragrance like
perfumes, even enclosed containers?
What impact do those have? Fragrances are kind of a
category that we want to stay away from just in general.
So anytime it says perfume or fragrance on the on the
ingredients, we kind of want to stay away from those because
they have the phthalates in them.
The endican disruptors mess with the hormones we breathe that in
affects us negatively. So if it says essential oil then
that's good as as a fragrance or just the fragrance free stuff?
Yeah. And it's a protected term by the
FDA. Companies do not have to
disclose what's in there. And so even if the bottles
closed, as we know, like when you walk through the cleaning
aisle or the skin care beauty aisle at the drugstore, you're
still smelling all of that stuff.
So those VOC's are still getting into the air and causing us
harm. Yep.
You've also told me one time that the walls in our home are
kind of like our second, like the skin of our home.
Can you elaborate on that? Yeah.
So we have the environment of our cell and then we have the
environment of our body and kind of the cell has a cell wall and
what's going on there is important and that's separate.
And then we have our body and everything going on inside of
our body is holding that in and this is a protective layer.
Then out here we have it's a nice environment.
So we don't need that second skin.
But if the weather wasn't good or if it was really windy or
stormy, we would want to have a house around us.
So that's like our second skin that protects us from the
outside environment. Now the stuff that gets inside
that environment gets in the body just like the stuff in the
body gets in our cells. So it's like this gradient.
So if we want to have a clean body, a clean cell, we want to
have a clean environment. So we don't want to bring things
into the environment that we wouldn't put in our body or put
on our body. And if you can follow that rule,
then you're 95% of the way there.
Let's talk about pesticides. How bad are conventional
pesticides really, and what are the natural alternatives?
So a lot of the more dangerous ones are known neurotoxins.
They're really bad for the brain.
Now some of the more natural ones use perethyrin, which is
from the. It's derived from the
Chrysanthemum plan. What is it called?
Perethium. Perethium.
I'm. Saying it wrong, I'm butchering
that. Yeah, something.
Something like that. Yeah.
And the problem with those, even though they say, well, it's not
a neurotoxin, it's safe for us. Where it does really affect is
the gut Biome or little bugs inside of us.
So if it gets on surfaces our hands and we eat and we get that
in our system, now we're killing off our microbiome kind of like
antibiotics and we all know how important the microbiome is.
Yeah, I think for our house you noticed that we had a lot of
spiders in the backyard and you recommended something.
I think it was like an essential oil based pesticide maybe.
Do you remember? Yeah, there is an essential oil
based one. Now, obviously it's not going to
work as good as chemicals, but we'll repel them and we'll get
them away so we can douse around the outside of the house really
good the property. And really once we start to
eliminate them and get them off, then it's more about just
keeping them out and for people to have a really bad problem
like scorpions or black. What are the things that we
really don't want biting us? You can use more of the harsh
stuff in areas where you're not going to be walking.
So maybe you have bushes along the fence, go behind the Bush,
do the fence where you know you're not walking over there,
the kids aren't going over there, the dogs aren't going
over there. And then we use that as a
barrier. But you don't ever want to be
spraying this stuff inside your house or like on your patio
around the OOL area laces where you're going to be walking with
your feet and get it on the body.
I always think about this when I'm somewhere tropical, like at
a resort and there's no critters.
I'm like, I mean, I, I like that, but also they're probably
just dousing it and. Absolutely, yeah.
And they're tricky because you can't smell them, like you can't
detect them just by, you know, surveying the property.
So you really sometimes I've even like called ahead and said
like, OK, please no spraying for the weeks leading up to when
we're going to be there at least.
So I don't know how much that does.
If they do that, that's amazing. They're probably like, yeah,
we'll do that. Or I've like turned them away.
Sometimes when I've seen them come with their sprayers, I'm
like Nope, just come back next week.
Yeah. And that's the thing.
If you don't see any signs of any wildlife, anything moving,
the the place is completely sterile.
They use a lot of chemicals to get in that space, kind of like
if you look at the lawn and there's zero weeds, it's like a
golf course. You'd probably don't want to
walk on that with your shoes on. Yeah.
Have you ever told a client that their living situation is not
salvageable and advise them to move?
Yes, I don't like doing that and I'm very cautious of giving that
advice because that's a big deal to uproot your family.
But if they're truly in an environment where it's affecting
their health and that's why they called me out for, then yeah, I
will give that advice if I feel like there's not much we can do
for the house. What are some major red flags
that people should look for when buying a new home?
Proximity to what is around the house, if you have high voltage
power lines, if you're next to a golf course or agricultural
area, if you're downwind from a factory, airport nearby, freeway
nearby, all of these things are high sources of pollution that
we just want to stay away from if we can.
Yeah, everyone's talking about this golf course study.
I can't remember the details. Rich, do you have that info
pulled up? Yeah.
So they did a study, population based study that found out that
people have a higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease
if they live near a golf course. How close do they have to be to
have that higher risk one mile? 126 higher odds.
OK. So that seems significant.
Do do you think that's because of the water that they're
drinking that is has been contaminated by the pesticides
from the golf course or do you think it's because of the air?
Or both. It's definitely because of the
air. A lot of times our water is
coming from a city municipal. It's coming down the pipes, so
it's protected from stuff on the outside.
It's the air. It's when they're spraying.
And that overspray goes into your yard, it goes onto your
lawn furniture, goes by your pool, on by your grill, their
table where you eat. And then you come out and you
sit on the. Stuff you lay on it or you could
just breathe it in as they're spraying, but it's typically the
residue that's being. And then also when water run
off, so the rain and runs off and if it goes on to your
property, then that's bringing all that.
Now if you have a dog, you go walk out on there.
You take walks yourself, then come back into your house and
you're not taking your shoes off at the door and you're tracking
that stuff in your home. Now you just spread it all over
the place. OK, real quick elevator pitch on
why people should not wear shoes in the home.
Yeah, because you're walking through so much nasty stuff.
Next time you're filling in your car up with gas, look down on
the ground and look at the stuff you're stepping in.
It's petroleum products, it's spit, it's oil, grease.
Now you got that on your shoes. Then you go into the public
bathroom and there's E coli in there and they're using toxic
chemicals. All that stuff is on your shoe.
Now you walk inside your house, walk on the carpet.
Somebody that I seen just kicking up their feet up on the
couch. It's ridiculous.
You're spreading all this stuff throughout your home.
You got to leave those shoes at the door.
You travel a lot. How do you take all of this into
consideration when you're staying at hotels and Airbnb's?
I've realized that there's can be a good amount of hermetic
stress. We can have a little bit of
exposure to this if we have a clean environment at home.
So when I go back to my house, ultra clean environment where my
body can heal and rest, and then when I go out and travel, if I'm
exposed a little bit one or two nights out of the month or
travel a little bit, it's not the end of the world.
My body can handle it. In fact, I want to have a little
bit of exposure because I want my body to adapt.
If I was 100% in a clean environment, my body would be
more desensitized to this stuff. And so by having a little bit of
exposure to this makes my body stronger and makes me adapt.
Are there any things that you do that some people may think is
like overboard, but it's important to you to protect
yourself when you're not at home and you are traveling?
I think like when I go into a hotel room, I'm always checking
to make sure there's more, like looking at the toilet tank.
I'm opening the windows, if I can get in the fresh air out of
there as much as possible, like the little lights that blink,
you know, covering those up. So we're getting a good sleep
environment. Yeah, You use the electrical
tape, right? Yeah, I started doing that too.
Yep, that's a good one because there's so many lights.
That drives me crazy. Yeah, in.
Other words, when you're laying in bed and you got that green
flashing light every couple seconds, you know, right?
Or the light coming in from even the hallway, like all stuffed
pillows over there, because it's like a tiny crack, but it's so
bright in the hallway that it can light up the room a lot
sometimes. Yeah, and a lot of time I bring
my own food too. That's another big one.
Like hotel breakfast food is greasy and all that stuff.
So I bring my own protein bars or whatever, bring my own food.
You know, what drives me insane is scented hotel lobbies.
Like this is a big problem. It's, it's so offensive.
Like we, we do a lot of travelling, especially over the
summer. We take a road trip every year.
And so we're kind of staying, I mean, we stay at some really
awesome places, but a lot of the places we're staying are kind of
like run-of-the-mill places in these bigger cities in like
middle America. And so we'll go into like
Sheraton, for example. Oh my gosh, their lobbies are
the worst. Like they, I'm, I smell like the
lobby after I leave the hotel. It's out of control.
And I guess they do this to like make you, I don't know, try to
make you feel good maybe or like create some nostalgia.
But it's, it's doing the opposite for me.
It is. Yeah.
And Ubers too.
Yeah, Ubers, they're horrible smells, Yeah.
Did you ever use scents to manipulate environments when you
were doing that? No, but we would make sure that
there wasn't a bad smell. So like sometimes bar smell can
get pretty nasty. So make sure that's really
clean. We want a neutral smell really
in an environment, want to have it one way or the other.
It should be very neutral. Yeah, whenever I smell a strong
fragrance, I just think like, what are you hiding?
Exactly. What are you trying to cover up
exactly? Just make it clean and you don't
have to worry about it. For anyone who may be feeling
overwhelmed, what are the three most important steps that people
can take to create a healthier home starting today?
I was, well, I would say clean water, clean air, clean food,
clean thoughts. If you can do those four things,
you're way ahead of the game. And so just be conscious of of
the things that you're putting in your body and on your body
and around your body and just educate yourself a little bit
and then work from where you're at.
Don't think that you have to do everything high level right now.
Even me, there's ways I can improve.
It's just like fitness or nutrition.
You can always do things better, but just as long as you're
making small improvements every day, that's what matters.
Then look at the decisions you're making every day.
You're either making getting yourself more healthy or you're
hurting your health. Even what you put in your mouth,
the food, the thoughts, all of these things.
So be really conscious of that and just making sure that is
this thing that I'm doing, is it helping me to be more healthy or
is it taken away from my health and be thinking about that and
conscious and that right there is really the best that you can
do. That's good advice.
And even like with us, you know, working with you fairly closely,
there's things that I mean not, not that you've missed them, but
that we haven't consulted you on.
Like you mentioned the clue with the cabinets and I'm like, Dang
it, like we definitely used just regular glue for the cabinets.
But I like that perspective a lot.
Like it's never going to be completely perfect, but when
you're on that path and trying to, you know, make as many clean
swaps as you can and do things the right way as much as
possible, everything's going to have an impact.
And we kind of look at skin care in the same way and how we take
care of our bodies. Like you don't have to purge
everything immediately. You can.
And some people can do that and, you know, mentally take on that
challenge, but it's not for everyone.
And so it's better to just make small changes over time than to
just feel defeated and like just give up on it completely.
Exactly. Yeah, 100%.
Ryan, thanks for your time today.
Where can people find you and learn more about you and work
with you if they're interested? Yeah, testmyhome.com, just go to
our website. It's pretty straightforward
there. You can book a call with me.
And then really that's the most effective way to start is we'll
get on a Zoom call and we'll go through your house and we'll
just kind of go through all the things and make sure that you're
making the right decision and make sure we're dealing with the
easy stuff, the low hanging fruit, the stuff that doesn't
take a lot of time or cost a lot of money or change the
convenience factor. And let's start with those
first. Then of course, we can always
come out in person and do the full walkthrough of your home.
But if you're building a home like you guys are doing, help
working with the contractor, the builder to make sure we're
making right decisions. There's simple things we can
swap out that really don't cost a lot of money or don't change
the whole outlook of the way that we're building the home.
And then we have our Instagram channel, it's at Test My Home.
So really those are the 2 main sources.
Awesome. You're the best.
Thank you so much. Thanks.
For having me this is great of. Course, your feedback has been
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