Where we're spending more on healthcare than any other
country in the world, and yet we are the sickest.
Today on Grounded Wellness, I'm joined by my friend Alex Clark,
host of the Culture Apothecary podcast.
Alex is known for passionately challenging the Wellness
narratives that most women have been sold. 60 to 70% of children
are eating a diet primarily of ultra processed food.
Their palates are completely. Warped.
She speaks boldly on everything from birth control and informed
consent to raw milk and the ongoing fight against pesticides
in America. We're talking about 10,000 or so
chemicals that are allowed in the United States and our food
that are not allowed elsewhere, Alex.
Shares about her history with Botox and fillers, how she's
planning on raising her future kids, and what her life actually
looks like when the cameras are off.
But I didn't even know I was feeling sick.
Some of these women that have severe Botox poisoning, their
life is ruined. This episode offers a real
glimpse behind the curtains. It's very scary when the White
House is Maddie. One of the top scariest feelings
I've ever felt. 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 guests 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
let's get back into it. OK?
Alex, I told you I have a surprise for you, so close your
eyes. I brought you something.
Do. I need to have my.
Hands out. Yeah, put your hands out.
OK, I brought you gluten free seed oil free.
No way. Cast your bird chicken Nuggets
for the Chicken Nugget Princess. Holy crap, right now.
It has been so long. Can I really eat this?
Yeah, it has been so long. What's this sauce?
So that's honey mustard. Homemade honey mustard with
honey from the farm. Clean mustard.
Oh my gosh. You like them?
You're bringing me back. This is.
When's the last time you had a chicken nugget?
Years. Have you had any healthy ones
yet? No, because I can't find any
healthy ones. All of the healthy ones, at
least if they're pre made or pre packaged.
They all have seed oils. Yeah, these are so good.
OK, well meet up and make it so. My brother-in-law did it.
He makes this often and he made it the other night and I was
like I need you to make these for Alex when she comes to the
farm. These are the best chicken I've
ever had. Wow, Chick-fil-A.
Whoa, OK, that's big. Feel free to keep munching and
for anyone who isn't familiar with Alex and her journey, she
was formerly the Chicken Nugget Princess, ate a standard
American diet, lived a conventional lifestyle for most
of her life, and now she has one of the most popular health and
Wellness podcasts on the Internet.
Alex, you are truly walking the walk in your everyday life.
Is there anything that you miss about your past life as the
Chicken Nugget Princess? When I think of my life BM
before ma ha, you know, I don't miss anything.
But people ask, you know, do you miss eating that food?
Do you miss going to Chick-fil-A five times a week?
Do you miss Doctor Pepper? Dr. Pepper?
Maybe not Mr. Pibb. I could get a hankering, you
know, twice a year. I usually allow myself like 2
Mr. Pibbs a year. I think I did 3 last year, but I
really don't miss anything when I eat that food now.
It doesn't taste like food. I mean, and I, I haven't
honestly tried it, but when I even think about eating it, so
nasty to me. I mean, when you think about
Chick-fil-A, even the ingredients of the Chick-fil-A
sandwich, they've got ingredients in there that are
basically Silly Putty the kids play with.
I mean, that's not food. So, so my brain knows that and I
just do not desire or crave it at all.
What I do miss is the convenience.
Obviously I travel a lot, I'm working a lot, I'm filming for
long days for my show. It's like when I'm driving home,
it's very tempting and easy. Like man, I wish I could just
swing through a drive through right now.
Instead, I'm going home. I am dog tired and I am putting
together a meal and then I got to wait, you know, 30 minutes to
eat or whatever that isn't convenient.
It takes time, it requires patience and it also requires
self-discipline that I know that I'm going home and I'm going to
make my food instead of going and buying it out.
And so I think that's what I miss if I had to choose
something. Have you started doing pot
roasts yet? No.
And that's funny you bring that up because you have like, this
award-winning pot roast. I mean, it's so simple, it's
crazy. Like there's not anything
special about it honestly. See, my problem is when I'm
buying a crock pot, I don't know what is actually non-toxic.
Yeah, I'm not even sure what brand ours is.
It's ceramic though, and I think our place has a good one.
Yeah. So I need to get a crock pot and
then I just, you just throw in these ingredients in the morning
and then it's ready. Throw in the roast, throw in
some carrots, some onions, some potatoes, like 2 cups of water,
salt. That's it.
Now water. Or could we elevate it with some
beef bone? Yes, I mean that would be even
better. I think that's what I would
probably. But if you do a bone in roast,
if you just add the water, even that does kind of create the
brothy experience. See, that's what I need to do.
I need those little tips and tricks, which I think once I'm
married with kids, I think those are the things that I'll figure
out. It's a little bit different when
it's only me. But yeah, if I'm trying to plan
for multiple kids, I can't just wait till I get home and then
figure out what am I going to eat.
You know it's easier to make a plate for one person or two, but
that's about it. Yeah, I mean, it's seven.
I timed it one time, 7 minutes in the morning.
By the end of the day, you have meals for the whole family.
And even if it was just you eating, you could put the rest,
you know, save the rest and heat it up the next night or
whatever. But I want to know what your
diet looked like back then? Like how bad was it really?
And what does your diet look like now?
Like what foods are you loving and gravitating towards now as a
healthy eater? In high school I would go
through the line and I would take like 6 or 7 Rice Krispie
treats and I would get a red 40 fruit punch, Hawaiian punch shop
and that was my lunch. No.
That's all. I would eat all day.
Wow. And I would go home and I would
crash. I would sleep for two to three
hours, wake up in time for dinner and then maybe, I don't
know, get on my computer or or watch a show or something.
I'd watch Gossip Girl and then I would go to bed and then I would
start all over again. And that was that was how I
sustained myself. I mean, it was it, it wasn't
sustaining myself. I was absolutely crashing out.
Had no idea why I was so tired and just didn't eat enough and
also just didn't even eat food. And once I had moved out of my
parents house and I was living on my own for the first time, I
had no idea how to cook. It was me going to the grocery
store and this is what I would get.
I would get multiple cans of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, fish
sticks, loved fish sticks, pigs in a blanket that were already
premade prepackaged with like a little Crescent roll around them
and some Chips Ahoy cookies. And that was what I would have
for dinner. Oh my gosh, OK, this is worse
than I thought. I thought I was bad.
I would, I had like my, my mom would cook sometimes and we had
a lot of time and we had semi nourishing foods, I'm sure laden
with seed oils and gluten and stuff.
But then I would have all these like little treats that I loved.
Like after swim practice, I would come home and make an Ice
Cream Sandwich with mint chip ice cream in between two Eggo
waffles. And that was like my after
school snack. But I was still eating like some
nourishing things, you know, some some meat and stuff for
dinner. I have that.
Because my mom would always cook homemade meals.
I mean, but we definitely didn't know as a family at that time,
we didn't know anything about GMO's.
We thought organic was a scam. It was just a way to overpriced
food, you know? And I think a lot of America
still thinks that about organic food.
And so I would get a good dinner.
I would usually skip breakfast though, or I would take a pop
tart to school. I would take a brown sugar
cinnamon pop tart. That's the only.
Part Did you ever do the the toaster strudels the.
Pill cherry, I didn't like that because you know what, those
were too healthy for me because they had the fruit filling and I
hate I still to this day, I don't like I'm not a fruit.
Oh my gosh. And so I wouldn't do toaster
strudels. I was like, that's nasty.
That's healthy fruit. And so then I would do the.
Pop tarts so funny. OK, So what does your diet look
like now? Now I make like this 5060 gram
protein beauty smoothie in the morning every day.
It's got two different scoops of protein powder in there.
I've got collagen powder, goji Berry powder, raw beet powder,
pumpkin pie spice. There is avocado, of course, a
bunch of frozen fruits, strawberries, Peaches,
pineapples, cherries. There is.
I mean, I can't even. There's 100 million little
supplements and electrolytes and things I put in this thing.
It's absolutely. Not a lot going on.
This is not realistic for most people but again, I'm single,
have no kids, have time on my hands and and and money to spare
so I just do this special smoothie thing.
I'm sure I will tweak it as life goes on and chapters change but
that's how I start my day. Lunch.
I'm still bad about eating lunch because what ends up happening
is I'm filming or something through lunch and I often times
skip it. I need to get better about that.
I've got people in my ear telling me, make sure you're
eating lunch. I'm really working on getting
three meals a day in. And if I am eating lunch,
usually, like, I'll go to the store.
And this is another thing that I do that's kind of bad.
So people want to know, like, what is Alex Clark doing that's
not totally clean? And what I do is I love a
rotisserie chicken. Sue me.
Soaking up the microplastics like it's a hot tub and I, I eat
that. So I love a rotisserie chicken.
I, I RIP it all up. I put it in the fridge.
I put that in a lunch. I get, you know, applesauce or
apples and, and cashews and I put together a little thing.
So I usually take that for lunch and then for dinner, that's when
I try to do something a little bit better.
You know, I've got sauerkraut or asparagus or carrots or
something, some sort of vegetable or a couple
vegetables, Potatoes roasted in the oven.
Love a little paprika, even some cinnamon and honey situation on
sweet potatoes that's so good. Salt and pepper.
And then I pick some kind of protein.
It could be steak, it could be it could be chicken thighs.
I love a crispy chicken thigh salmon or even, you know, some
hamburger patties that I just, I just whip up and season really
well. It's very, very simple dinners
and meals because I am out and about and working a lot.
If it's a Saturday or Sunday and I have some extra time, then
I'll like take out a recipe book and I'll be creative and try
something new. But, you know, eating healthy, I
thought it was going to be super complicated and it, it really
isn't just having, you know, a healthy fat on the plate.
You know, obviously I'm cooking and only butter or olive oil
duck fat. I love duck fat on potato,
potatoes, beef tallow, That's what I'm using to cook with.
And then, you know, sourdough bread.
Sometimes I try to get some freshly milled sourdough bread
and I'll do a bunch of grass fed butter on that.
And then having something fermented, having a vegetable,
you know, having fiber, whatever.
And then I do at the end. Love to cap it all off with some
Strauss organic gluten free cookies and cream ice cream.
OK, that's my time. I mean, that sounds very similar
to our dinners. It's always like a protein, a
veggie, maybe like a potato or a rice for a carb.
And we do fermented foods as well.
So it's really not that complicated for people that are
unsure of what to eat when they start eating healthy and you
just kind of start craving protein, especially if you're
doing protein every meal, you feel a difference afterwards
when you are filling up on that and making that kind of the the
prime staple of of your meals. So I love that.
I would say the most frequent protein that I'm making is lamb
chops. Really.
I have never even tried cooking a lamb chop.
I feel like that's intimidating. No, because this is what I love
about it. It's so fast.
It's the fastest protein that you can make.
So you serious? Yeah.
You just get these individual lamb chops here it and I coat
them. You want them to sit out for
like 20-30 minutes, that you want them to be room
temperature. And then you just seize them
with salt, pepper, thyme and Rosemary and some garlic powder.
And then you just put them like 4 minutes on each side.
You want them to be about 140° kind of rare.
And it it's so quick to make. I mean, you can make these in
like, I don't know, 10-12 minutes.
OK, I love that because that's like my kids favorite food at
restaurants. They always order the lamb chops
and the waitress is like, are you are you serious?
You want to see the kids menu? They're like, no, we want the
lamb chops. So that's a family favorite.
And I I think you've inspired me to start cooking it at home.
So was it knowledge or health issues that made you decide to
go all in on healthy eating? It was knowledge and I think
that's pretty unique for people that kind of come into this and
and want to start living this more non-toxic healthy life.
It usually is. You were super sick.
You know, something was really be wrong and you were desperate
for answers, which is the case for most of the people that I
interview on my show. But for me, I was so ignorant.
And even as a conservative, I grew up in a openly conservative
family. You know, we were so used to
questioning all of these other industries or institutions.
Like, you know, we question mainstream media.
We questioned big tech, we questioned the Department of
Education and the advice that they were giving.
But none of us ever questioned pharma or food during the
pandemic when we were mandated to take the vaccine.
I was so disturbed by that. And I was standard American diet
had always said my kids will be fully vaccinated.
They'll be going to public school.
I don't want them to be weirdo homeschool kids.
You know, I had when it came to those sort of decisions, a very
stereotypical way of thinking about it.
I, I was absolutely not in the camp that I am in now and I, I
would have thought that who I am now was a crazy person.
And so I wanted to know if the FDA had ever been wrong before
on just different advice that they had given or saying that a
certain pharmaceutical product was safe or medical product was
safe. And of course, they had been
multiple times. And one of the biggest ones that
stood out to me was what had happened with Oxycontin.
And I'm reading about Oxycontin, the Purdue Pharma scandal and
how, you know, all of these people knew that it was
addictive, even though they were marketing it as the first non
addictive opioid. And at the same time that I'm
learning all of this, this show Dope Sick comes out on Hulu and
it was award-winning. It was such a fantastic show.
And it was, you know, actors portraying the real story of the
Oxycontin, Purdue Pharma scandal.
And I'm watching this like this is the greatest American true
Crime Story ever told. Blown away by this.
Like how, how did I not know this story?
I, I feel so stupid, you know, and so many years you're taking
these products and you're thinking they're safe.
And so I just kept digging and I wanted to know what else, what
else have I assumed in my life has absolutely no consequences,
no risks, no side effects. And it led me to hormonal birth
control. And so I'm looking into hormonal
birth control and I'm learning about that.
My mind is getting blown and I'm sharing that with my audience
and their minds are blown because like me, they were, they
also a lot of them were conservative, really trusted
pharma and food and just didn't think, you know, anything of it.
Like if it's being sold in a grocery store, surely it's safe.
That was my thinking. Well, there's got to be so many,
so many rules and standards and things that are the food being
sold to us has to go through. Could not believe that we're
talking about 10,000 or so chemicals that are allowed in
the United States and our food that are not loud allowed
elsewhere. And I just start listening to
every podcast that I can listen to on this reading every book
I'm reading about Monsanto and the American Beverage
Association and all of these different lobbying groups and,
and, and companies. And I just felt like I need to
completely change my life. I went through, I remember this
vividly. It was one day, I think I, I
waited till I had a Saturday. So I had a full day at home and
I went through every single cupboard in my kitchen and I
took out every single thing that was non stick Teflon.
I took out every single thing that had seed oils or food dye
or wasn't organic. And I mean, that was everything
I had. I had garbage bags that I was
taking to the trash room in my apartment complex.
And I went to the container store and I went to, you know,
Target and, and Whole Foods and I just completely redid my
entire kitchen from the pots and pans that I had to the, to the
not plastic Ware, but to the, to the baking Ware or the utensils.
And the food that I had that was, you know, in my freezer or,
or it pantry food, you know, noodles, spices.
I even did redid my entire spice drawer, the flour that I was
cooking with. I, I really went all in.
And that's just my personality. Yeah, I was going to say, you're
probably like part of the point, 1% of people that actually do
that all at once. So, people.
Don't and and nor am I saying people have to do it this way.
This is who I am. I'm either all in on something
or I'm out. I'm very when I make a decision,
I'm very decisive and I stick with it and I dig my heels in
and there's nobody that could possibly change my mind.
No, I love that. That sounds like how I was with
my bathroom once I started learning about the toxins in
household products, skin care products, personal care
products. Same.
I always thought that everything in the store, there were checks
and balances in place and that everything had been tested for
safety and purity. And then learning that wasn't
the case was like a poof, like light bulb moment for me.
And I was all in kind of like you.
Yeah. And so, you know, I spent a lot
of money doing that, but then I was like, OK, I've got now all I
have to do. It was easier for me to just go
all in and spend a lot upfront so that when I start to run out
of things, whatever, then I'm just replacing here and there.
I wanted a clean slate. That's what I felt.
I felt dirty, I felt used, I felt lied to.
I felt manipulated by these corrupt government standards and
I wanted out. I was opting out and I wanted to
start fresh and give myself a clean slate to start over on.
And and so I did, and I signed up for this box meal prep
service that like, gives you a recipe with pictures of how to
do things. Because that was the other thing
I realized. I don't know where my food comes
from. And when you don't know where
your food comes from, you have no stake in what you're eating,
pun intended. Like, you know, it matters how
it's being farmed, how it's being raised, and all of that,
you know, contributes to what you're eating and the quality of
what you're eating. And so I had questions, but
first I knew I needed to learn how to cook and I didn't know.
So I, my idea was to get this box and use the step by step
directions. And it worked.
I wouldn't recommend those box services.
Now I got to find one that's truly regenerative organic seed
oil free. I'm still looking.
If it exists out there, you should contact me and let me
know. But I used this one and, and
that was how I got the confidence to say, OK, now I can
look at any recipe online or in a cookbook and I can follow that
and I have the confidence to keep cooking.
And I think that is a problem most people in America have.
They lack education on cooking and they lack confidence.
We don't, you know, we don't have home at classes anymore and
and everybody's doordashing. In fact, they're going into debt
to DoorDash. They're using Klarna.
No, Yeah, that's an option for door.
Action. Yeah, you can.
Literally put, you know, on a pay pay system to pay off.
It's like the IT. Like breaks it into chunks and
then you pay monthly. That is crazy.
No, it's I. Didn't know that absurd,
straight up absurd. And so that's how America is
eating now. And and so I just wanted to
completely redo my life. And so I have been doing this, I
would say hardcore, like really all in for the last two years.
And do you feel better? Like I know you said it was more
knowledge, not health issues that made you, that prompted you
to make these changes. But now that you're doing it,
are you like, oh, this is how I'm supposed to feel?
Versus like, you know how, how you describe before you were
eating like a lot of carbs, didn't have that, didn't have
that sustained energy from eating like whole balanced
meals. Nine day difference from how I
felt before and and here's what's interesting.
So I didn't I was sick and I was feeling sick, but I didn't even
know that I was I thought that that was normal because it was
common and I felt it everyday. So until you completely opt out
of this system and you break free from these chains, you
don't realize you're sick. And that's how 70% of America
is, is that they are so sick. They, they have brain fog,
they're tired, they're, they're achy and have no energy and
sleep like crap. And they think this is normal,
this is common, or it's just part of getting older.
It's not. This is an exclusively American
feeling. And so once I totally changed my
life, then I noticed the difference.
And then the light bulb went on that I, I was totally messed up
before. And I would say now I'm still on
the journey, I'm still learning. I'm, you know, I'm interviewing
people and I'm learning new things every day and trying to
figure out what I should implement.
Worlds away, still have much to improve.
When I first made these changes, I think at first I was almost
too hyper vigilant. I had like really shrunk down
what was an option for me to eat because I was trying to figure
out like what was causing problems.
And not like no gluten, no eggs, no dairy, no this I, I had like
3 things to choose from to eat and I don't think that I was
eating enough. And so I wasn't feeling better.
I was opting out of bad food, but then I wasn't totally
feeling better because I wasn't eating enough.
And so it's been kind of the last year, I would say the last
year has been me re strategizing and figuring out the right foods
to eat as well as the right amount to be eating.
Yeah, I think a lot of women struggle with just eating enough
on a day-to-day basis. Forget like ultra processed food
versus real food, all of it. In general, I don't think
American women on average, especially busy moms, are eating
enough. And I think it's normal to
continue to make tweaks and figure out what works for you,
especially in different seasons. I mean, I'm, I don't know, about
15 years in to eating healthy and ditching processed foods,
I'm still making little tweaks here and there.
So I think that's like kind of a lifelong thing.
And it's important to tune in and figure out, OK, what does my
body need? What is my, what am I missing?
What do I need more of in this season?
What should I avoid right now? Not that you have to like stress
about it and be neurotic about it, but just kind of assessing
that to assess it. You have to kind of change
things up if you're breastfeeding versus not
breastfeeding, right? So there's different things like
that that I think you have to take into consideration.
You're now one of the main people spearheading the Maha
movement. In your opinion, is Maha doing
what you hoped it would do? Are there any big wins or
potential disappointments that you've had with Maha so far?
There's been a lot of big wins. There has also been some
significant disappointments. Big wins.
Obviously phasing food die out, that's been huge.
Looking into baby formula with Operation Stork Speed.
We have states that are banning fluoride from their water
supply. We're going to be starting to
put labels in grocery stores on ultra processed food like Danger
labels. We're also getting soda off of
SNAP. That's been big.
We've had a lot of states commit to no ultra processed food in
school lunches, revamping school lunch in different schools, of
course, revamping the dietary guidelines, that that's got to
be one of the biggest. And, and another thing that's
really exciting and super cool is a lot of people don't realize
this now, but they are, they've redone our military food.
Our men and women on military bases were actually leaving and
going and getting fast food because the food that we were
serving our soldiers was so utterly disgusting, unedible.
It was so bad that they were like, I guess we're going to
McDonald's. And that's how our soldiers who
are defending our rights are eating.
And, and, and you've got like 70% of young men are not
eligible for the military now because of a different chronic
disease, autoimmune disorders, obesity. 70%.
Yes, nearly 70% of young men in America are not eligible for
military. That is a national security
issue. So this problem that we have
with food in America really touches is everything poverty,
our military, you know, our kids, how much they're able to
to retain and learn in a school setting.
It affects everything about American life.
And of course, just the health crisis that we're in where we're
spending more on healthcare than any other country in the world.
And yet we are the sickest. I think anyone that follows me
and has been listening to me for the last couple months knows,
you know, the biggest I think mistake and backward step that
we took was this executive order protecting glyphosate as a, as a
national security issue. And glyphosate is a pesticide
that is sprayed on our crops and food.
You cannot wash it off. You cannot rinse it off.
It's it's on there. And what was the rationale
behind that executive order exactly?
I think the rationale is if glyphosate were to be banned,
our entire food system would collapse, which I agree with.
That's absolutely true. You can't ban it overnight.
You've got to, to pump in probably we're looking at about
two or $3 trillion into regenerative farming and, and
helping farmers transition slowly and strategically off
conventional farming using those pesticides on to regenerative
farming. It's not something that can be
done overnight. And, and I none of the Maha
activists that I work with, you know, or am advocating with
belief that that should be done. However, how the public took
that statement in that executive order was we are protecting
companies like Bear. We are protecting pesticides.
This is the White House making this big declaration that we are
the pesticide White House. And so that absolutely ignited
Maha moms. They were furious.
Well, because they're, they've also protected these companies
from any legal ramifications from injuries from their
products. Right.
Yeah, so, so at the same time this executive order comes out,
you have the biggest chemical companies, which by the way, are
foreign chemical companies, okay.
Bayer is Germany, Chem China, China.
These are foreign chemical companies where these products
are banned in their country, but they make it and they sell it to
us and use it on us. That's biochemical warfare #1 #2
the pesticide companies are going and lobbying in different
States and asking for a pesticide chemical liability
shield. The pesticide liability Shields
would protect over 57,000 different chemical products.
Some items that are inside your home like Ant traps or cleaning
products or even chemicals found in our clothing to pesticide
sprayed outside of the home or in crops or fields near your
home, they're drifting. So much more than just
glyphosate. It's.
So much more than just glyphosate And so if you know
what happened in the 80s with with the vaccines and how you
know we're prevented from suing them, right that the vaccine
manufacturers have this protection around them where if
you get harmed, it's extremely difficult to sue a vaccine
company. That is what these chemical Agri
chemical companies are advocating for.
And so at the same time that the White House makes this
glyphosate executive order, they're going through the States
and they're trying to put these up.
Now it did pass in South Dakota and in Georgia.
A lot of people don't know this, but in northwest Georgia,
they're making basically all of the carpet for the world.
It's like the carpet capital of the world, carpet manufacturing
capital of the world. Yeah.
And so the the carpet companies were dumping forever chemicals
into the environment to get rid of them.
This is a it's a very dark waters Erin Brockovich
situation. In fact, Erin Brockovich is now
involved in this case. The carpet the company was was
dumping forever chemicals. The entire community babies are
being born right now with birth defects.
Whoa. They.
Haven't heard anything about this.
It's huge. PBS just did a massive story,
investigative story on it. People have insane forever
chemical levels in their blood. Cancer is going crazy.
This is a it's a teeny tiny town and they've got like 2 cancer
centers because the cancer is exploding.
Pediatric cancer, thyroid issues, infertility problems if
for the people that aren't able to get pregnant and it's all
stemming from the chemicals. Now what's absolutely tragic,
there is a family that has AI don't know a 20 acre farm in
northwest Georgia. All of their animals are dying,
their family members are dying. They're burying the family
members on their farm property and they have basically no legal
recourse because Georgia passed a chemical liability shield.
Horrible. So this is coming to a state
near you. If you're not calling your
legislators and saying you better not be supporting this
legislation or we will primary you.
Maha moms have been calling. We've killed bills.
This bill in Florida, we killed it in Tennessee and in Kansas.
And it's coming to all the other states.
It's in oh, it's in Kentucky, OK, but only applies in Kentucky
to to pesticides in glyphosate farming chemicals.
OK, not the other household chemical products, but in South
Dakota and Georgia, it applies to all of this chemical
products. OK, so this is something that
all of us need to be aware of as this bill continues to make its
way to other states across America.
Tell us what's happening at the White House next week.
So we are staging a massive protest at the Supreme Court.
There's actually a Supreme Court case right now, Monsanto versus
Darnell. And, and essentially this is
going to decide a lot of things when it comes to Americans being
able to sue chemical companies if they are made sick by their
products, including Roundup and glyphosate.
And we're hoping for, I mean, thousands of Maha moms and
families and children to be marching.
And it's looking really good and impactful.
But it's important to show up to things like that.
And I know I get asked a lot like, well, how can I be
involved in Maha? It is genuinely, it's calling
lawmakers and it's showing up to rallies like this because what
happens is those lawmakers, those politicians, the people in
the White House, they see with their own eyes how much this
matters to people. And when there's not a lot of
buzz on things or it's only 5 people that are making noise on
Twitter, for example, about some sort of issue, it's not taken
seriously. But when you've got hundreds of
people calling, you know, your representatives, you've got 10s
of thousands of people showing up for marches in Washington,
DC, people start to pay attention.
So we're calling it the people versus poison rally.
Which is so sick, so good. It's it's, it's really going to
be incredible. We've got like 30 plus people,
politicians and and regular people.
I know there's a farmer who is made really, really sick from
glyphosate. We've got a lot of people giving
little speeches. It's it's going to get full
blown news coverage. Are you speaking?
Exciting. Yeah.
Nice. OK.
And so that will already have happened by the time this goes
live, so people can can check in on on how that goes when they
hear this episode. Yeah.
Maha is very much associated with the conservative movement,
which is funny because back in the day, alternative health used
to be a liberal thing. How do we make health and
Wellness a bipartisan conversation?
And do you feel like that's truly possible?
It's crazy that this entire health and Wellness conversation
has been kind of attacked onto the conservative movement.
And the reason that has happened is because, one, it was
Democrats who were shilling the vaccine and mandates all
throughout the pandemic. If they wouldn't have done that,
they probably still would have had a.
We've got a farm dog visitor. Farm dog visitor.
OK, we had to remove the chicken Nuggets or else the dog would
have been all over us the entire rest of this recording.
The chronic disease epidemic is nonpartisan.
Everybody is touched by this. Every single child in America is
touched by this. If you're making it political,
you are a bad faith actor. You have activists who've been
fighting for these issues for decades that are now refusing to
come to the table because President Trump is who's talking
about it. I'm sorry, but then you are not
principled and you never actually cared about this issue
because to me, it doesn't matter who is talking about it.
I'm going to support those initiatives to get things done.
That's why you have Bobby Kennedy, who's a lifelong
Democrat, was willing to work together with President Trump so
that these, you know, positive changes could be made.
We have to recognize the time that we're in, the season that
we're in. We're all on the Titanic.
We're on a sinking ship. We're all going down.
So we have to take whoever we can get that's willing to get
things done. Now, is there going to be such a
thing as a perfect president for any party?
No. Do I wish that President Trump
would have not made that executive order protecting
glyphosate? Yes.
What I was able to do was take my concerns all the way to the
top. The White House very graciously
opened their doors and allowed myself and glyphosate girl,
Kelly Ryerson, Courtney Swan from the Real Food Ology
podcast, Doctor Casey Means and some others to get together and
share our concerns on this issue.
And also help with messaging and some olive branch ideas of how
we can rally back Maha and get them re energized and the vibes
up again so that we can stick together because we still have a
couple years left. Were you surprised that that was
something you were able to do, and have there been any like
ramifications that you faced about speaking out about this?
People don't know this, but there were several months of the
White House being very unhappy with those of us who were
speaking out about glyphosate and pesticides.
I think the strategy at first was how can we get them to stop
and shut them up? And then it moved to, OK, maybe
they're on to something because the executive order is released.
Everybody freaks out. And I think that was when the
lights turned on again. Your voice is so powerful.
When we have big numbers, then it gets attention.
So when it's only a couple of us raising alarm that this is going
to be a problem, you need to be watching out for this.
When it finally becomes a problem and then everyone is
mad, then it was like, OK, maybe they're on to something.
Let's invite them in. Let's hear what they have to
say. And so we were able to get this
face to face meeting. Now, has anything come of it
yet? No, it did just happen a week
ago. So I'm, you know, I'm being
giving grace and and hoping that that something's going to come
of it. But we gave several ideas of
things that could strategically be done that we think would make
Maha voters very happy again. And how do you feel like those
ideas were received? I think the ideas were received
very well. I mean, they were taking notes
to everything that we were saying.
They sat with us for two hours. They had us meet with the
president himself. We're sitting there with all of
the people that write the executive orders, as well as the
chief of staff, Susie Wiles, Stephen Miller, Bobby Kennedy
himself, Caroline Levitt, press secretary.
So everybody was very interested in how can we repair this
faction of Maha that is unhappy. You know, what could we be doing
better? And that that was, that showed a
lot of humility and also has never been done before.
There's been no administration that has literally opened the
doors to activists and said, tell us what we're doing wrong.
So that at least shows something.
I, I think that should count for something.
Of course, there is a possibility that this is all
smoke and mirrors in a way to pacify us and to stop talking
and complaining because, you know, we've got to go to the
White House and sit in the Oval Office and hang out with the
president. Of course, I'm not dumb and time
will tell you know if anything comes of this.
But if it doesn't, two things. One, Maha voters have to
understand, even if you're unhappy with Republicans right
now, when it comes to Maha issues, the Democrats don't have
any alternatives for you. They're not offering any other
solutions. They don't have better ideas.
So what do you have to lose here?
2 Even if nothing comes of that meeting, I know and the other
people that were with me know that we took it all the way to
the top, that we fought tooth and nail, that we've been
killing bills. We've been calling our
legislators and we literally took it to the president himself
so we can sleep at night knowing that we have fought our absolute
hardest for these families. For the stay at home mom who has
a kid with asthma and eczema and has gone through every single
pediatrician and has been dropped because she won't
vaccinate her child anymore who she is convinced is vaccine
injured. I know that I have fought with
everything that I have in the season that I have been given
and with the resources that I have working at Turning Point
USA and having, you know, culture pop carry the podcast
that I have. And I know that if I would have
gotten my wish, which would have been to be married by 19 years
old and had, you know, four or five kids by 26, then I probably
wouldn't have been in this position to help get all of this
done. Yeah, I'm so grateful for the
work that you're doing as a mom with three kids.
There are a few things that matter more, I think, for the
future of our country and the next generations than this
issue. And so super grateful for
everything that you're doing to change the trajectory of health
in America. Thank you.
Your podcast Culture Apothecary has grown significantly in the
last year and a half, and so has your personal platform.
What parts of being known publicly do you genuinely enjoy,
and what parts do you wish that you didn't have to deal with?
I think it's fun, you know, being known publicly and, and,
and in this space in particular, it's not what I'm doing is not
to be self-serving. And, and I'm not saying it's
wrong. If you have a podcast and it's
named after yourself and it's all about your life, that's
fine. It's just it wasn't for me.
I never wanted my show to be about me.
I didn't, I never wanted to be an influencer.
My career started in in radio broadcasting and I was talking
about pop culture and entertainment news.
That's where my background is. And then I got into this because
I grew up in a conservative home and it deeply mattered to me,
you know, the the direction that the country was headed.
And with young women in particular, I wanted to try to
sway them to swing right. And, you know, I know not every
guest on the show is conservative or every listener
is conservative. And this is just, this is just
my story. And so it was always about
fighting the culture war. That's why I left radio to work
for Turning Point USA and have a show with Turning Point USA.
It was always about that for me. I didn't want my legacy.
You know, when my kids and my grandkids look back about what I
did or what I accomplished in this life, I don't want my
legacy to be that. I talked about Selena Gomez.
I, even though it's very fun, I wanted my legacy to be that I
left the country better than what I had inherited and for my
kids and, and my grandchildren. That being said, it is so fun
for me when people come up that listen to the show and say your
podcast, The information that I learned completely changed my
life. It changed my behavior.
I'm homeschooling my kids now. I know who my local farmer or
rancher is. I have, you know, swapped out
all of my beauty cabinet to be non-toxic.
I I've switched out my cleaning products or and, and going
through and making sure that all of my clothing is natural fiber
clothing like. And I feel like that happens a
lot to you. I mean, happened every time I've
been out with you in public. Really.
Yeah, yeah, it it happens frequently.
And so to me, I'm like, okay, that is a real example of how my
show is changing culture. So it's not about, I mean, the
show is very successful, but but even if it wasn't, if I had this
very small niche following, which is how it started out, you
know, as if I would have only stayed there, but I still had
women coming up and and saying, you know, this has changed my
life and and my family is healthier because of it.
It would have been worth it to me.
What is not fun is and, and a lot of this is self-inflicted,
so I'm not even blaming the audience, but I've learned my
lesson is, is sharing too much about my personal life and then
it's weaponized and used against me.
That isn't fun because to me, I like having what feels like a
real relationship with an audience.
I want to share about my life. I want you to share about your
life. Yeah, you.
Answer all of your DMS yourself. DMS myself.
It's so impressive. It is me.
And so when I when I snap back at somebody and I have a weak
moment where I'm not a my best Christian behavior here, then
yes, that was me. I apologize.
I'm a human being, OK. And so, you know, there are
times when, yeah, maybe maybe I'm not as nice.
And they're like, you know, if this isn't Alec, she needs to
find out how I'm being replied to him.
Like it's me. You're speaking to the manager,
honey. But anyway.
With that, it comes like the good and bad is going to come
with that, you know it's genuinely you.
It's genuinely me and and so I, I try my best to answer
everything or at least hard and knowledge, acknowledge that I've
read it. I would say it's difficult when
I try to open up and really share a lot about my life, my
personal life, my dating life, etcetera.
And then, you know, that's like taken apart and pulled apart and
judged and or manipulated into being something it isn't.
So I'm being vulnerable and I'm sharing something and then, you
know, it's completely twisted into, into something that it's
not. Or, you know, they're, they're
messaging a boyfriend that we've broken up and now they're
messaging him and attacking him or demanding answers, answers
for what happened or even their family members or, or or
friends. It's like that stuff is out of
control. So I don't enjoy that.
So I had made a decision after my last relationship.
I am not posting about a man again until I am engaged or even
maybe married. I don't even know if I'll post
once I'm engaged. It might be when I'm married.
I'm undecided, but I'm not doing that again because a myriad a
myriad of reasons, but you're just inviting people to get into
your head and tell you things about your relationship that may
or may not be there. Like I I need to figure out for
myself. Yeah, how how I'm feeling.
I don't, I don't want to be told this is right, this is wrong.
I don't like what he did here. I I do like what he did here.
Like, I don't want that noise. Yeah.
You don't want every little move dissected by people that aren't
even in the situation with you, but they feel like they have a
say in it because they feel so close to it because they're
seeing it and they're they're close to you.
They feel close to you because they've been listening to your
podcast. But really, there's so much
context to everything that people aren't seeing.
And I think what's funny, I think what's funny to me is, is
watching people like they, they're literally so convinced
that they have something right? Like, well, I, you know, was
around Alex in, in, in 2014. And so I know exactly how she
operates now. Or I, you know, was, was
friendly with her at one point. And and so at that time, you
know, this happened, this relationship.
So this is what happened in this relationship or even just like,
I don't know, putting pieces together, they think are pieces
that aren't like people are so convinced that they are right
about certain things and and they couldn't be more off the
mark. And so it's kind of interesting
to me to like read online forums or things or, or what people are
saying. And I'm like, either this
literally never happened or you have it completely wrong.
Like the opposite is true, you know, So that's.
Frustrating. What forums are these?
Are you spending time sifting? I don't spend.
Time, but like people send me screenshots like like, hey, you
should be aware somebody is saying this like is this true?
Things like that like the people send stuff to me.
I mean, I can't get away from from it, you know what I'm
saying? So like I'm not in them but it
it all gets sent to me at some point anyway.
I know you've had serious boyfriends in the past.
What do you feel like God has taught you from those past
relationships? One thing from my last
relationship that really opened my eyes, and this really falls
back on me, I didn't have my priorities right.
How so? I think for many years, not just
last relationship for many years I accepted a man telling me, oh,
I'm a Christian, I believe in God.
I grew up in the church. I went to private school that
weren't totally walking the walk or able to you know, be a clear
cut example of this man could lead me spiritually like that's
who I want to marry. And so I would make compromises
like, well, they're really successful in business or
they're, they're really attractive or they're so funny.
Like I laugh with them more than anybody else.
Or this person is literally my best friend.
We never even argue. We never have a fight.
And so I feel like I need to just, you know, hope that one
day he's going to get there spiritually, eventually because
he's dating me. And then I'll be able to get,
it's like the I can change him. But but to me, I was like, well,
I'm not, it's not, I can change him because he's saying he's a
Christian. And so, you know, when somebody
isn't being discipled or sharpened by, by other men in
their life that are super solid believers, I think when they're
not pouring into the word every single day and have that
self-discipline, there are ways that insecure behavior kind of
seeps out into the relationship and makes it very difficult to
move forward. It, it, it, it makes it, it
makes it hard for them to lead you.
It makes it hard for you as a woman to be receptive to them
trying to lead. And so I just think you start to
see this like chain of command, like everything just gets all
topsy turvy and completely messed up.
I think that's a really important lesson, especially for
any single people listening, because growing up I always
thought if someone says they're Christian, like, that's it,
check the box. But there's actually, like a lot
of range in your walk with Christ and where you're at in it
and how serious you are about it.
And I think that's a really important thing to consider when
you're choosing a boyfriend, a spouse, for sure.
Yeah, it's more than just making sure that box is checked.
Yeah. And I, I just, I want to be
completely transparent. I'm not, but I'm also not coming
into this like I, I was a perfect Christian and he isn't
or you know, any cast boyfriend of mine or anything like that.
I still kind of like, I still cuss like a sailor, sailor and,
and have to ask for forgiveness on like I need more
self-control, like praying for self-control, but like that's
the sanctification process, right?
So it's like, OK, if I look at my life today compared to two
years ago, do I see growth there?
Yes, 100%. Do I still see a lot of growth
that I need to hit 100%? But it's like, where has, where
has any guy that you've been dating, not just my last
immediate relationship, because I know everybody's going to be
looking at that. I mean, I'm talking about my
entire history of dating here, You know, have they shown
growth? Like has there been any
improvement or difference? You know, can the people around
them say, wow, you're dating him now?
Like you should have seen him five years ago.
It's amazing the changes that have been made.
It's the it's amazing the growth that we have seen.
I know that my friends can say that about me.
And so that's what I'm looking for.
I'm not looking for Mr. Perfect because I'm not Missus perfect.
What I am looking for is can you walk with me in the season and
can we grow together and can you lead me to what that next step
is? I can't lead you as a woman.
And so think that was the biggest thing that I learned
from that relationship was you've got to prioritize a man
who not only says he's a believer, but also has seasoned
believers around him that are constantly challenging him,
holding him accountable, asking why weren't you at church today?
That is, it has a disciplined time in the word every single
morning. Who is telling you what he's
learning lately so that you can tell him what you're learning
lately? Like this?
This in an entire relationship that has got at the center,
Never had that. Not my past relationship, not in
any other relationships prior to that.
So I think that is what I came out of it like this is what has
to change. You don't have any children yet,
but you do interview a lot of experts on parenting and raising
healthy kids. What shocks or saddens you the
most about how kids are being brought up these days?
And how do you plan to do things differently when you become a
mom? Oh, let's just piss off all of
the Internet. Let's do it.
Do it you're. Like, I don't know, I know you
get pushed back on this, but I feel like you're allowed to have
an opinion and thoughts on this. Oh, I am.
I mean, as a mom, I feel that way.
I know that that maybe isn't how everybody feels, but it's
something that I just think like, it's like you're in this
world. You're getting in touch with so
many prominent experts on these things.
You have a lot of mom friends and I think it's interesting to
hear like what resonates, what doesn't resonate?
What do you, what are your hopes and dreams and aspirations as a
mom? And and how I think it's
important for people to think about that before they become a
parent, not just when they're a parent.
Well, I think the same thing that this is the most
controversial thing about also, I've never told somebody how to
parent. I say like what I think of what
I would like to do. Like this is my opinion on
something. Knowing that every family is
different, every child is different and that's everybody's
still mad. Like they genuinely think that I
should not ever voice any opinion ever.
I'm like, OK, so if the the rule is you cannot say anything about
you know what it what is or isn't best for children
objectively. I think there's a lot of things
in this life, whether you are a parent or not, that you can say
is objectively good or bad for children.
Is it objectively good for a child to touch a hot stove?
No. Do I have to be a parent to say
that? Do I have to have had an
abortion to say that abortion is wrong?
No. You know, do I have to do I have
to eat McDonald's everyday to say McDonald's isn't healthy?
No. It's just like stupid stuff like
that. I don't understand anyway what I
think what saddens me about how children are being raised today.
So many things, but I would say biggest is parents that just
don't want to parent. And so they're they're
relinquishing parenting duties to screens and having screens
raise their children. I cannot stand being at a
restaurant where a child is is on an iPad at the restaurant and
and mom and dad also to be fair, mom and dad are also on their
phone. Everybody's on a screen and
nobody's interacting with each other.
Why even be out? Yes, but even worse is when you
have a mom that takes her child out for a one-on-one date and
the child is sitting there because they're way too young
for they're like 3 years old and they're sitting there and
they're just like looking around.
And then the mom is in a screen and, and even like editing a
photo of that child to post online or whatever, but she's
not even engaging or interacting with the kid.
That upsets me and saddens me. I think just the fact that 70%
of, of, of children, 60 to 70% of children are eating a, a diet
primarily of ultra processed food, that their palates are
completely warped, their microbiome is completely wiped.
You know that they're, they're just little babies and they're
struggling with being sick all the time and severe eczema and
asthma and and rashes and, and all of these different things
that that is basically completely preventable.
Largely that is largely completely preventable.
And, and so I think that's so devastating that there is a
better way to live that that would make everybody happier in
the family. Let's OK, how would I parent?
That's really going to make everybody mad.
These are my hopes and dreams. Let's hear it.
OK, now listen again. Here's my my caveat and my
warning before I say this. Once you become a parent, every
child is different and you might decide, OK, this is what I
wanted to do, but because of this child's personality, I have
to change it up. I have to say that I have to say
this like everybody's a baby and hold their hand because
everybody can't handle another opinion.
OK, a few things. You are just saying some of my
craziest hot takes that I want to do as a parent.
No fruit till two years old. OK, OK, that is that is a hot
shake. Because it's still sugar.
Yeah. And I, No, I get it.
I get. Where you're going?
It's it's warping the palate. And so you know we.
Held out as long as we could, but I don't think we held out
until 2. Yeah, and maybe I won't and
maybe I won't like first. Foods were liver and sardines
and egg yolk. Exactly.
That's exactly so. And they loved it.
Whipped. Whipped bone marrow.
Yeah. Sardines, egg yolks, you know,
raw milk, all those different types of things.
I just wonder to try to, to stave off fruit as long as
possible and then bring that in, obviously.
But I would say that's one thing.
Another thing is homeschooling non negotiable probably till I'm
going to say 8-9 years old. And then I'd love to to put them
in a classical Christian evangelical private school that
were heavily involved in and know what's going on.
I think. I think that's important.
A lot of unstructured play, just a lot of there's no plan today.
You're going outside. You're not allowed inside.
Which is rare these days. The average child spends more
time indoors than a maximum security prisoner.
That is sick. Horrible.
I didn't even know that. Couple other things, no food
dies at birthday parties, which hopefully it's going to be
outlawed anyway by the time I have kids so I don't have to
worry about that which it is possible.
I don't care what anybody says because you, all of my friends
that are parents do this. My kids have never had food
dies. Exactly but people but I am told
I'm cussed out in my Instagram DMS that I have no idea what I'm
talking about. I'm not a parent so I don't
understand. I'm sitting here with dozens of
mom friends who are all doing it, so I know it's possible.
Yeah, it goes back to like what you were saying earlier, it's
just not food. And so like, I don't see those
things as food and I've just trained my children to also not
see them as food. They don't care.
Like I bring them a treat that they can eat.
I'm not like, you can't have anything, but they still get
something that they love and enjoy and it's not the same as
everyone else. I don't want them to think they
have to be the same as everyone else in order to enjoy life and
feel comfortable with themselves.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, no screens, obviously,
except I think once a week. Family time, family movie, you
know, something slow paced. Let's watch Wizard of Oz.
You know what I'm saying? Like I I don't want my kids to
be like underground moles who have no idea what's going on in
pop culture. OK.
Would you do screens on airplanes?
No. OK.
When they're older, maybe like. That's the area of the digits
that we that's where we let them.
So that's AI think no, I think no.
And and with little little kids, and I guess it depends, you
know, if we're going on a international flight, then maybe
we're bringing that in at some point.
But I'm going to try to bring a kit with so many things to do
and books and and games. And you know what it requires is
it requires the parents sitting there also the whole time to be
playing with the kid and and doing stuff.
So I can't be sitting there on my phone doom scrolling
Instagram and then expecting my 4 year old to also sit there and
just do nothing. Like that's unfair.
And I do think. Me to do something.
And I do think it's possible, like as someone who doesn't do
that, like I do let my my kids use iPads on airplanes.
It's like the one place they know they're allowed to do it.
But I do have friends that don't like it's possible.
I guess I'm just lazy in that area.
But it doesn't make me mad to hear you say that you I don't
want to do that. And that's.
Something I could see myself changing my mind on of.
Airplanes only great. I think it's great and I I wish
that I was more that way. I wish that I had like thought
ahead on that more over the years and planned ahead.
It does require some planning ahead, making sure that you have
enough things to keep the kids busy.
And that's just an area I've been lazy and you know, I don't,
I'm not like beating myself up over it, but I think not doing
it would be. More optimal, yeah.
And that's the thing like, you know your families, you know
that your kids aren't on screens 90% of the time.
I think that's the other problem I have is that a lot of the the
parents who who are chiming in my comments and DMS and saying
that I don't know anything, that I'm not a parent.
You don't know how hard it is. You need to let your kids live
8020 is that the reality is, is that you're not living 8020 in
your family. You're living 9010 and 90% of it
is crap. That's the reality.
But they don't, they're not thinking about all the little,
these little micro decisions. The Chick-fil-A multiple times a
week after soccer practice. The, the, the, the chemicals,
you know, all over the home that the, the toxic wet wipes that
you're using and the baby has a baby rash.
Then you're putting Destin on it.
I mean, there's like 100 things and and I don't know what where
people are getting this 8020 number, but the reality is that
almost no Americans are capable of living true 8020 true.
It is a very small circle of people.
I think a lot of people that kind of come at me with that
criticism is that they don't live their life that way.
And so they don't like the convicting feeling when when
that's pointed out, they they don't like to be told.
That is what it really boils down to is because it requires
then hard work, actual parenting and change and being
uncomfortable. As Americans, we are too.
We are so coddled and and and used to living so comfortably
that anything outside of our comfort zone, it's like, sorry,
we refuse to do it. We cannot do.
It yeah, it's like the whole fear mongering accusation over
health things. It's like I hear something I
don't like, so I'm just going to accuse that person of fear
mongering rather than actually thinking about what they said
and deciding for myself if it has merit.
Like you don't have to just push things away if they make you
uncomfortable comfortable. I think like we all need to
really think about the things that we feel uncomfortable with
and sit with it and decide if this is an area that maybe I
could grow in, maybe I could learn something and change
something, or maybe not. But it's still OK that that
person shared that thing. Right.
I think there's also like a lack of common sense.
Like I'm, I speak, I'm a very hyperbolic speaker and I will
speak in hyperboles a lot just to get attention, to draw, to
draw attention to a bigger point.
So I made this real at Disney, Disneyland and I was, I was
complete. I mean, obviously this is a
joke, but to get attention on, on the issue at hand about food
dyes and, and all this Disney food is, I said, do you hate
your children and wish they were never born?
Then you should give them this. And it was like one of those
Disney suckers that it was, was high fructose corn syrup and and
food dye. That's what this was.
It was no, there was no, it was all chemical.
And so do I really think a parent giving their child that
sucker hates their kid? No, but I I got your attention
right now. You're paying attention to the
real. It's like, it's like, but people
get really, I'm unfollowing you. This is so mean.
You know, I'm like we need help. Silly.
And also, there's so many things that I want to do when I'm
pregnant that I know will make everybody mad.
OK, tell me. Sauna's raw milk.
Wait, wait, wait. Sauna.
OK, tell me about this. What?
Like sauna while being pregnant? Yes.
OK, so this is another one of those like made-up American
rules that we can't sauna. But if you look at Finland, it's
like recommended really. They're all, first of all saunas
that like came from Finland. They're all sauna ING.
They're they're doing it while pregnant, but they are only
doing it for about 5 to 10 minutes.
They've got it at a little bit of a lower temperature than than
typical. And it really helps them with
circulation, getting better sleep.
They've also had an entire life where they've been building up
tolerance and using saunas. So it's a little bit different
than an American woman who's never done it before.
But there is a lot of health benefits while pregnant that
they talk about in Finland. I mean that feels like a very
common sense approach rather than just it's bad avoid it
completely. Like OK maybe you can still do
it, but lesser frequency, lesser amount of time, less
temperature. That makes sense to me.
You know who who saunas while pregnant is the really tan man's
wife? Olive Oil Queen.
Masa chip founders olive oil queen Mia.
She saunas while pregnant, talks about it a lot.
She knows more about it than me. But yeah, sauna, raw milk, raw
oysters, basically, you know, beef liver, whatever.
I'm not following. Yes.
I'm not following any of these dietary guidelines, which have
not been updated for decades. They've not been updated at all.
And also when people say like you can't have fish and all this
stuff, I'm like, it totally matters the source of where
you're getting it. If you look at Asian countries,
I mean, they're primarily eating raw fish.
You know, those pregnant women are, are, are, are eating this
to the heart's content and and they're completely fine and
totally healthy. So it's not even realistic.
Some of these guidelines in certain areas of the world, you
know, to be implemented. Different cultures do different
things. I really like looking at all the
different cultures and what they do in Scandinavia versus what
they do in Asia. And I like taking just a little
bit, you know, hunt, gather, parent, you know, that book.
I like taking a little bit from all of these different groups
and being like, OK, what would I like to implement into my life
when I'm pregnant, when I'm raising kids?
That I think is super cool. What do you think about the
outdoor naps in Finland? I know.
I am obsessed with that. And you know, my family's from
Indiana, so I'm like when I have a baby baby because it's I live
in Scottsdale, so it's like always summer.
So it won't work there. But when I go home and visit
family, you better believe I am taking the little stroller and
my kids going to be all bundled up and and they're going to be
out there taking a nap in the snowstorm.
You be careful, you may get CPS called.
On I know we'll. Put it didn't happen in New
York. A woman from Finland like napped
her baby outside of a coffee shop in the in the cold or the
snow, and I think it caused this huge.
Uproar. Yeah, it's terrible.
I mean, again, this is the kind of stuff I, I hate how involved
the state is in parenting in the United States.
Like the fact that you're, you know, there will be
neighborhoods that will call the police on your child or call CPS
because they walk around the corner at 9-10 years old to go
to go get a, you know, a drink or whatever at the convenience
store. I mean, this stuff should not be
happening. This is why you've got this
entire generation of kids who are too scared to get a driver's
license. They're living at home until
they're 32 years old. Like, this is the stuff that I
want to avoid. And so we're not giving children
any opportunity to build independence at all.
I'm a firm believer that children are capable of a lot
more in the United States than American parents give them
credit for. I think that we coddle our kids
too much. I think that they are completely
they're they're too sheltered. They are prevented from from
truly growing, gaining confidence.
They have to struggle. They have, there has to be risk.
They have to go through hard things.
That's where that confidence is built and that ability to kind
of go out on their own. And I think that's why we're
seeing all of these kids that are afraid to get their driver's
license or, you know, they don't leave the house till they're
like 30 years old. That's like my biggest fear.
And so as a parent, you know one thing that I really want to do.
Is more people need to have that fear I.
Think so too, and it's a. Very healthy fear to have
people. Are like this is important how
can you have an opinion on this without a kid I'm like again,
it's common sense looking for opportunities for your child to
build independent skills to me and assess risk is so.
One of my favorite things to see my kids do also, I mean, I sent
you a video the other day of my kids walking to their homeschool
pod and they're like hiking up this like big hill slash like
small mountain. And they, they just come back
from experiences like that, like so full of life and so like
confident in themselves. And it's just so cool to see.
It's like an instantaneous way that you can help them to grow
as a human being. And it's really is like instant
the effects of that. So I love that when you think
about the next generation, especially these Sephora
obsessed teenage girls, what would it take for them to
actually care about clean living and see it as something that's
aspirational? Well, I'm going to tell you one
thing right now, if you are 10 to 13 years old, haven't even
gone through pre beauty yet, you're using all of these
endocrine disrupting products. You're using products that say
fragrance or perfume in them and it is going to contribute to you
starting puberty early. You are dramatically increasing
your risk for breast cancer issues like that.
The earlier that you start puberty, the worse off you are
later, and when you're using a lot of those chemical toxic
makeup and skin care products, you are almost certainly
increasing your risk to have puberty early.
Absolutely, because they mimic our hormones and they attach to
the hormone receptor sites of our cells and the body doesn't
always know the difference. Is this a estrogen mimicking
compound or is it real estrogen? And so you're getting this
imbalance in hormones. It's such a young age, it's such
a vulnerable time. And I agree, I think it's super
dangerous. Also they've talked about how
starting puberty early can lead to infertility later on as well,
so it's just screwing everything up.
Yeah, I did a reel on this and talked about how for us, when we
were growing up, I mean, I'm a little older than you, but it
was all about Bath and Body Works.
And we would give lotions from Bath and Body Works to each
other and candles as gifts for holidays.
And, you know, we aren't doing very well.
Like millennial women are not doing well health wise.
There's so much infertility, so many other issues.
And why are we letting this now happen to our girls in the next
generation? Like, we should have learned by
now that that is not the way to go and correct course.
But unfortunately, we haven't. And it's a dream of mine to just
make clean living and clean personal care products cool for
the next generation. I'm still trying to figure out
how to do that. You are doing it.
I think you guys are on the absolute cutting edge of that,
at the forefront of that and have been for a long time.
Thanks. It's cool to see my daughter and
her friends really into it, but I think we could be doing a
little bit better job with making certain products maybe
more appealing to the younger generation, and that's something
that I want to work on in the future.
So switching gears, we've been friends now for about a year and
a half, and during that time you've experienced some really
devastating blows, one of which being your dad passing away a
little over a year ago. What did the death of your
father reveal to you about the medical system?
And that was so tough because I knew that my dad was sick
because of his diet and lifestyle.
My dad was diagnosed with glioblastoma, brain cancer.
He also had heart failure. He had type 2 diabetes.
He had suffered multiple heart attacks and had a life of being
addicted to ultra processed food.
It was constant White Castle, Pizza Hut, going out to eat at
Denny's or Chick-fil-A Nuggets. And I mean, this is a grown man
in his 50s. My dad was 56 when he passed
away. And, you know, most of my
childhood was was obese. And then once he started having
all these heart attacks, got very, very, very thin just
because of of all that trauma. It was frustrating for me going
through that, interviewing the people that I interviewed,
talking to all of these experts, you know, integrative cancer
specialists, what have you. And I knew that I could offer my
dad a better path or an alternative path.
He was probably for sure too far gone to completely save.
I'm not saying that if my dad would have stopped eating ultra
processed foods suddenly that he would have survived.
I don't think that, but I because it was just too late.
But I, I do think that we could have bought maybe another six
months being in the hospital the night before he was to have
brain tumor surgery and having the, the nurses, you know, bring
in case after case of orange Fanta soda at my dad's request
infuriated me. And, and I talked about this on
Twitter and it went viral and everybody attacked me, said I
was the worst daughter on earth. That if that if they were my
dad, they would have been glad to die to get away from me.
Because I talked about how I had asked the nurse to stop bringing
in soda and if he could have water instead.
And they were like, if your dad is dying and this is his dying
wish to have it, let him have a soda.
What they don't understand about the situation is that that, yes,
my dad was on track to die. He wasn't immediately dying.
OK. So like, we still hadn't even
removed the brain tumor yet. We didn't know how successful
the surgery was. He could have had, maybe he
could have had two more years of life.
I don't know. I mean, at that point they were
telling us maybe he had they, they did say 18 months.
So, you know, about a year and a half or so.
It is what they thought he had left.
He didn't make it quite a year. But that's why I, I'm convinced
that if he would have started eating differently, maybe we
could have, you know, taken down the inflammation a little bit.
People still do not understand in America that the food we're
eating is contributing to inflammation, which is allowing
all these diseases and cancer and autoimmune, etcetera to
thrive and expand and get worse. So food is medicine and people
do not realize that food is either harming you or it is
helping you and healing you. And I wanted my dad so badly to
take a meeting with Doctor Connealy from Irvine, CA, who
who's helped our friend Taylor Dukes.
Love Doctor Connealy. I want, she even offered she was
like, I'll do a Zoom call with him.
I'll get him on a couple different supplements and talk
to him about a keto diet and all this with brain cancer.
It's really, really good to do a keto diet.
And he just, he absolutely was not interested.
Like wouldn't even do a free phone call with one of the most
expensive, probably cancer doctors in America.
And so at that point, I just had to make a, a decision as his
daughter of yeah, that's when it's like, OK, I'm just going to
love my dad where he's at. And that's all I can do.
You know, he's an adult. I cannot force him to do
anything if he is not interested in experience in, in, in trying
out any alternatives, any hearing, any alternative
opinions? My dad wanted to hear one
opinion. It was his doctor in Indiana.
And that was that, that was the law.
So you, it's really hard when a loved one is making decisions
like that. It's, it's genuinely like
watching an addict because I do believe my dad was addicted to
this food. I mean, I would come home to
visit like on a holiday or whatever.
I live in Arizona. My parents are in Indiana.
I would go home for the holidays and I would visit them and my
dad would be frying up Johnsonville sausages.
And I'm looking at the back of this, you know, ultra processed
sausage meat, whatever, and everything in it basically is a
carcinogen. And I told my dad that.
I said, dad, everything in this sausage right now, first of all,
it's like not even real and it's chemicals and carcinogens.
And he was like, the sausage is going to kill me.
You know, he make fun of me and then, you know, a year later
he's dead. So my thing was going through
that is like, I don't want anyone else to go through what
I've now had to walk through with my dad.
Like this is everything that has happened to this 56 year old man
is completely preventable if you start the building blocks
earlier to to live a a healthy, clean, active lifestyle.
And it doesn't have to be complicated right.
It's eating real food, it's getting out in the sun, it's
it's getting fresh air, being in nature, being around community.
That is really all it takes. And so it was so sad to have to
lose my dad in that way so early.
And it was sad for my mom. I was, I was honestly, when my
dad died, I, it wasn't even, I don't even think that my
immediate emotion was sadness. It was anger because I was like,
how could you let this happen? How could you do this to your
family? Like my mom has so much life
left to live. Like how could you abandoned her
like this? Like, it didn't have to be this
way. And so I think I walked through
a lot of anger at 1st and then, you know, came other feelings of
grief. And, you know, it's just that's
the whole thing. Everybody, it's like so trite to
say, but everybody does grieve differently.
And you go through different waves and different seasons of
it. And, you know, sometimes it just
hits me like, I'm just like, going throughout my day.
And I'm like, oh, my gosh, my dad would think this is so
funny. And like, you can't text them.
So. Yeah.
Yeah, super hard and and I think almost everyone has, you know,
know someone who has died of of cancer at this point.
I mean, I have several family members were kind of not a
parent, but similar situation in the sense of in the beginning, I
was so motivated to, you know, let's let's fight this, let's do
these things, you know, talk to this person.
And I think it's really hard for people to see outside of the,
the world that they're living in and the doctors that they're in
touch with who they see as the end all be all experts.
And it really is tragic because there's just so much outside of
that. There's so much outside of the
conventional oncology protocol that people can do, even if they
do decide to do a conventional treatment of some sort.
You know, there's, there's things that can be done in
conjunction with that. I know this is something that
Susan Johnson, who who we both know talks about a lot and she
gets a lot of heat for talking about, you know, the food that
that they feed to kids on the oncology floor.
And people say the same things that they said to you, like, let
these kids have their last dying wish.
And her response is like, it doesn't have to be a dying wish.
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
And and that was something else too, that I'm so elated by with
the Maha movement is that we've now said, if you're going to
continue to serve this crap food to patients in a hospital,
you're not going to be getting federal funding to some of
these. So so yeah, these these are you
cannot say like, is the Maha movement perfect?
Have we accomplished everything in one year and a half that, you
know, we want to accomplish? Absolutely not.
But I would say the things that we have accomplished are, I
mean, beyond our wildest dreams that no other president, no
other administration would have ever touched.
Several months after your dad passed away, your boss, Charlie
Kirk, was assassinated. I know that Charlie was a mentor
and a friend to you and someone who you really looked up to.
How has your faith helped you get through these tragedies that
you faced so close together? Knowing that God allows these
painful moments and trials and tribulations, and he uses them
to sharpen us and make us better and grow our faith and rely on
him more. And so when I feel like giving
up or it feels like it's impossible, or I'm, you know,
hit with some other devastating, heartbreaking situation like
Charlie's murder after losing my dad or going through a breakup
or what have you, it's like, OK, God, what are you teaching us in
this season? You know, how, how can I learn
to love you more and trust you more?
I mean, jeez, Erica is a prime example of that.
She's absolutely going through the wringer.
First Charlie's murder and everything that has happened
after that and the way she's being absolutely torched and
treated. It's like the Salem witch trials
with Wi-Fi. When I see what she's walking
through, I mean, I'm like, I can, I can get through anything.
She's still waking up every day, taking care of her kids, leading
this organization, you know, and she does that because she feels
like I need to honor my husband in this way.
This is, this is what he would want.
She is, she is the ideal, prime example of what a wife should
be, even in his death, what a wife should be.
It is the most heartbreaking, sad thing and beautiful thing
all at the same time that I've ever seen in my life.
How is Charlie's legacy continuing to inspire the work
that you're doing now? Charlie had a lot of integrity
and Erica has she shared with me a story about, you know, there
was a time that Charlie kind of didn't totally go with what his
audience felt on an issue and he went with the president instead
and greatly regretted it. Like felt like, oh, I let my
audience down. I can never let that happen
again type of a thing. And that has given me so much
encouragement and strength walking through the season when
I, I know what I'm doing, standing up against these
pesticides is the right thing, despite, you know, whether it's
people in the White House or what have you being angry about
it. I know that I have, I have to
maintain that integrity with my audience, what they would expect
of me, what they, what they need from me to, to fight for them on
that issue. And I think that helps me be
courageous because being courageous doesn't mean you're
not afraid. It's very scary when the White
House is mad at you. I can imagine it's a.
Very scary feeling, one of the top scariest feelings I've ever
felt. It's very scary when the White
House is mad at you. So it's not that I don't ever
have fear. I have fear, but courage is
action in spite of fear. And so Charlie really help set
the building blocks for like to know what to do in those types
of situations and maintain courage.
And integrity. What's something about you that
only your closest friends know? It's so hard because I have
shared my entire life publicly since I was 18 years old.
I mean, just working in media and whatever.
I really do share everything. Maybe somebody doesn't know
this, but I absolutely hate cheese.
I do not eat cheese at all. That includes pizza.
So none of that. OK, I didn't know.
That Yeah, yeah, I absolutely don't like cheese.
So really not a lot of Italian or Mexican food.
Yeah, I have. I've shared, I've shared this
before, but maybe if you're new to following me, you don't know
this, but when I was in morning radio, I had to wake up at like
4:00 in the morning and be on the air by 6:00 AM and I had to
go to bed at like 7:00 PM, which was super unnatural.
It's still light outside. And I started taking Ambien.
And so this is the one and only pharmaceutical drug that I am
still on. It is so hard for me to get off
because my body basically has no idea how to sleep without it.
And so I I desperately want to get off of this and have made a
commitment that this summer I'm going to start strategically
cutting down my milligrams and slowly weaning off because I
don't like being reliant on this to sleep.
My body has no idea how to sleep without it.
Yeah, that's going to be a challenge.
Some people may not know that, but like, I also, I did
successfully get myself off Lexapro.
I was put on that for absolutely no reason.
My doctor asked me during the pandemic, like, are you stressed
at work? And I was like, yeah.
And she's like, well, you should take Lexapro.
I'm like, OK, this is right before I learned everything that
I know now. It was like the year before I
had this whole health transformation.
It's like birth control. Back in the day, do you have
period cramps? Do you have acne?
OK, just take this. Exactly.
So I got off Lexapro that I mean, most people have a really
hard time getting off of that. Praise God.
It was easy for me to get off Lexapro.
I I still did it strategically taper off, but I need to do the
same thing with Ambien. For some reason Ambien has been
way harder for me to break. So I would say that's something
people may not know. Pet peeves.
I cannot stand when people flake out on plans.
I cannot stand it. Like even just saying like
overarching things like I'm, I'm, you know, let's plan to go
to this concert over the summer and then summer rolls around.
It's like, oh, well, actually I made plans to go do this or
something. I'm like, I am very serious
about like when I make a plan or things like that and like, we're
going to do it. So I don't like last minute
cancellations. I actually feel like that's a
big problem nowadays with like this whole protect your your
peace narrative. It's rude.
Protect your own boundaries at all costs.
It's. So rude.
I can't stand that. I can't stand.
I don't like having people like that in my circle.
OK, something else that people don't know about me for sure.
I guess I've never talked about this is I have an art.
I have mastered the art form of boarding a plane walking on as
they're boarding. So if I have a carry on.
I will literally show up to the airport 10 minutes before
boarding or even sometimes as boarding is starting and I will
get through TSA cuz I have I clear and pre-check and I zip
through and then I just walk on the plane as they're boarding.
Has that ever backfired? If there's like a long line in
in check in not never missed a flight.
Never missed a flight yet? That's that's impressive.
So right now a lot too. It's my magic trick.
Yeah. And it drives my assistant nuts.
She's always clenching her butt cheeks like, is she going to
make naked? And she could have to be on the
next flight. So yeah, it drives her insane.
But I'm known to do that. What culture apothecary episode
has stirred up the most controversy or backlash amongst
your audience? The nicotine episode.
I was. That was what I was thinking.
The nicotine episode was so viral.
I interviewed Doctor Brian Artist last April or May and
that went crazy online. And I mean, people were either
furious that I did it said that that, you know, the episode was
total medical misinformation needed to be taken down type of
a thing. Or it was like, this episode has
changed my life. I finally can smell again after
having COVID five years ago, or my chronic joint pain has
completely disappeared. You know, I have Ms. symptoms
that's cleared up, Parkinson's symptoms, that's cleared up.
Like people are acting like it's a medical miracle now.
I have still never tried it. So I have not tried nicotine at
all, the patch or whatever. That's going to be my next
question. Yeah, I haven't.
I've been 2 chicken and I also don't have anything.
I'm like, I don't know if this will help me.
Like I don't have anything right now that I feel like I need it
for. But I know that our friend
Taylor Dukes likes the patches. She cuts those up and uses those
and she posted about that recently.
Are you anti? No, no, I, I've used it.
So I've used nicotine on and off for about the last five years,
maybe six years. And 1st, I became interested in
it because I was hearing about how it helps to prevent
Alzheimer's and dementia. And there's actually real
research on that and how it just gives mental clarity.
And it for sure does. And so I enjoy taking it from
time to time on small doses. I have gotten in in seasons
where I've taken, I think too much of it for me.
But if I stay in that like 0 to 5 milligram range, I can have
it. I cannot have it.
It's fine. I don't feel like I need it, but
I don't. That's not the range that most
people are in with it. Most people are taking a lot
more than that, like in the 20, thirty, 4050 milligram range at
least. Most people I know that are
doing nicotine are doing a lot more and become super reliant on
it from what I've seen. And I've experienced that it can
be addictive personally as well. So I know Doctor Artis would say
that it's not, but I do feel like it does have an addictive
pull similar to even something like coffee, maybe even a little
at this point now with my low dose of nicotine, Like I feel
more addicted to coffee than I do nicotine, but at higher doses
I think it can be like wildly addictive.
I think marijuana is addictive. Yeah, I mean, I think almost
anything can be, you know, exercise can be addictive as
well. So I don't necessarily think
that's a reason to not do it. But I do think that it's it's
something people need to tread lightly with and kind of be
aware that it can become addictive.
And it's not completely benign. Like it it it spikes cortisol a
little bit. And, you know, there there's
it's it's a stimulant of sorts. It's not like coffee.
It leaves your body more quickly.
So you don't, but you still don't want to take it like too
close to bed. But I know people that fall
asleep with a pouch in their mouth.
Oh my God. I don't know how they do it.
But I think that a lot of people do have an unhealthy
relationship with it. And I've had an unhealthy
relationship with it at times. But I feel like I'm I'm good
with it right now. I can take it, I can leave it.
It benefits me when I need it. And then when I don't need it,
I'm fine. I love that.
What episode or episodes of Cultural Apothecary does
everyone need to listen to? The circadian rhythm episode
with Thaddeus Owen is so good, it's probably one of my top
favorites ever. The clean clothing episode with
Hannah Dunning. OK, the gluten isn't the
problem. It's the flour episode with Sue
Becker. You got to listen to all the
Taylor Dukes episodes I've done. You've got to listen to my
episode with Allison Evans from Branch Basics and then you.
I've interviewed you. So people that listen to this,
they can go back to my podcast and listen to my interview with
you. Tell us the most regrettable
health trend you've ever tried. OK, I would say it's more
Wellness than health, but putting toothpaste on a pimple?
I didn't even know people did that.
Yeah, it does nothing. It like dries your face out so
disgusting. And people say it like it'll
help, it'll help cure your acne. It doesn't.
Yeah, interesting. OK.
What's a health trend or habit that you have 0 interest in,
even if you know it would be good for you?
Cold plunging, absolutely. Get out of here with that.
I will never. If it's not bathwater, I'm not
getting in it. It has to be warm water.
I don't do that. I can only do a cold plunge if
I've done the sauna first and then the sauna after.
Yeah, but I do enjoy. It I just I'm not convinced that
cold plunging is good for women. That's a hot take.
What does a day off look like for you?
A day off for me is rotting. It is rotting.
I want to binge watch shows. I want to lay out by the pool.
I want to do nothing. I want to talk to nobody.
I don't want to leave my house. I just want to stay home.
That is a day off to me because my job, everybody's like, what
do you do for fun outside of work?
I'm like, no, you don't understand what's fun outside of
work for me is doing nothing like that is fun because my job
is so exciting and so cool and I'm very blessed and I love it
so much. But I'm constantly traveling.
I'm going to cool things. I'm, you know, I'm at the White
House, I'm, I'm doing this, which is it, which is just
phenomenal. It's, it's a very blessed life,
but it's a very busy life. And so to be a normal person
that has no plans is, is the best day ever for me.
And if I can sprinkle in a spa day or a massage, then that
takes it to the next level. That makes sense to me.
Tell us about your relationship with exercise, because I think
you've said historically that you are.
You were not someone who worked out a bunch.
But then I know you did strength training for a while and I think
recently you stopped and went back to Pilates.
Yes, I go through seasons, so I'm never going to be something
that loves physical activity. I'm not athletic.
Exercise doesn't doesn't do it for me.
I don't get happy after working out OK.
I don't get those endorphins. It's miserable from start to
finish for me. It's just I've never liked it.
I don't think I ever will like it.
I did go through a majority of last year.
I did strength training, weight training with a personal
trainer. It was so excruciatingly hard.
I was really proud of myself for doing it, but I needed a break.
I think, you know, I started going through what when Charlie
was murdered and stuff and I was trying to do that.
It was like every time I try to work out because it's so
physically hard. I was like crying throughout it
like it was so embarrassing. There's other people in the I
was like, I can't do this. It was because like the, how
hard it was physically was like taking out like all these
emotions out of me. The whole whole thing was
draining and it was embarrassing.
I just didn't like it. So I was like, I got to take a
break. I think it's incredibly
important, especially in your 30.
So I know that I need to get over this break very quickly.
But then I've, I've, I try to do Pilates twice a week if I can,
if I'm home, if I'm traveling, then I'm not doing it.
So I'm all over the place with my exercise.
I'm not super disciplined with it.
I know that I should be. It's a non negotiable for me
when I'm pregnant one day, God willing, that I will be doing
strength training. So I'm going to be weight
lifting then because I think that will help in labor.
Yeah, that's smart. Well, Pilates gives you some
resistance. Have you tried walking like
weighted vest walking at all? Haven't tried weighted vest
walking but I do walk every day twice a day.
Long walks with my dog. Nice, OK, I'll have to give you
1 of mine to try. Maybe we can go on a weighted
weighted best walk while you're here.
OK, I know our audience will also want to hear about your
history with Botox and Filler and your decision to stop doing
both. I started getting Botox and
filler in my mid 20s and it was really marketed to me as this
way to be preventable. It was, it was preventative
Botox, it was anti aging, you know, and, and to some extent I
think they that maybe it does work because you are preventing
your, your face from settling into these, you know, different
frowns or whatever that kind of start the, the fine lines from
appearing. And so 2021 or 2022, I stopped
getting lip filler completely. So there was no more filler.
And then in August of 2023 was the last time that I got Botox
and I just did a little tiny bit in my forehead and then a little
bit at the corners of my eyes center, you know, between the
eyebrows and was so sick after like a fever, chills, shivers
for an entire week straight. And I thought this is not a good
sign. Maybe I need to take a break
from Botox for a little bit. Took a break.
A month later, my hair colorist is washing my hair and starts
noticing that I'm, I'm losing all of this hair.
And she's like, I think you need to go get your thyroid checked.
So I go get my thyroid checked, find out I have Hashimoto's, or
at least I'm very close. Like if, if Hashimoto's, you've
got, you know, level 1, level 2, Level 3, full blown Hashimoto's,
I'm level 2. So I'm like, I'm at a place
where I can kind of keep it curved before it gets worse.
And so, you know, they told me they were like, if you go get
Botox, you are completely flaring up your autoimmune.
Like it could get worse. You could end up with with
Botox. Poisoning.
This is a conventional Dr. that told you.
No, no, this is I went to, I went to somebody else, but that
was their advice and that was all news to me.
So I was like, OK, no more Botox and I have not gone sense.
So I use Frownies. I'm not.
I'm not even as disciplined on that as I should be, but I do
use Frownies. How many times a week?
I would say realistically, it's probably like once or twice, OK,
and you're putting them like. Forehead.
Like it's just, it's just forehead is all I'm doing.
And then a little bit, yeah, I guess corners of the eyes,
forehead area. And so that's all I do.
And then I eat real food and people think that I'm lying, but
I'm not lying. Yep, it starts internal.
I yeah, I don't really know what else to say.
Like I think on social media and different lighting and videos
and professional lighting on podcast, maybe it looks like I
have no lines or that I'm not moving my face, but I am
absolutely. I have lines that I move my
face. Like you can tell in person.
So yeah, there's no Botox at all.
And I was really scared to do that after several years because
I just thought, oh, I'm going to start looking super old.
But I feel, I feel good. I feel good about it.
And I, and I'm, you know, feel even better knowing that I, I'm
not going to end up poisoned or, or whatever.
Like some of these women that have severe Botox poisoning,
their life is ruined completely. Yeah, and the stories are not
that rare anymore. I feel like I'm hearing about
that on a weekly basis. I think it's possible the
quality is getting worse. There's the corners being cut.
Who knows? But I've opted out.
And so, you know, we'll see. We'll see how the real food
experiment goes. It's going great so far.
You look incredible. What are your top three favorite
podcasts right now? Well, obviously grounded
Wellness I love Well by Arielle Laurie.
I'm obsessed with her. Have you ever interviewed her?
No, and I am like, I feel like I'm her biggest fan, like
something about like being so filthy rich and so chill and
cool. Like some people are like I
don't like listening to things or following people that are
super unrelatable. I love unrelatable people
because to me it like gives me something to aspire to and it's
like very, it's, it's inspirational and and I'm like,
wow, like I could be doing better.
Like she's kicking ass. You know what I mean?
And so to to me, I, I watch her like she is the coolest ever and
I'm like obsessed with her little skin care and she's not
doing everything totally non-toxic, but I just think
she's interesting. I think her life is interesting.
So she's a favorite. She had Botox.
Poisoning, right? She had Botox poisoning and now
she's not doing Botox anymore. She just turned 40 and and she
looks phenomenal. And then, oh, and then I love
the toast. OK, yeah, I haven't listened to
that one. Yeah, it's just pop culture,
like entertainment news. They're hilarious.
Two sisters, I I've listened to them for years and years and
years. So I would say they're a
favorite. After a year and a half of
hosting Culture Apothecary and asking guests this question, I
want to know your answer. If you could prescribe one
remedy to heal a sick culture physically, emotionally, or
spiritually, what would it be? I think right now, right now I
really think my remedy is is natural sunlight.
So it's so nice for me to be out filming here today because I'm
usually under studio lights and it's horrible all day long.
And so this is so beautiful when I started waking up with the
sunrise and doing my sunset walks and then going to bed
shortly after. Completely changed my life.
I don't know how to explain it, but my sleep is better.
I don't even rely on an alarm unless I have a flight or
something. I don't need to use an alarm.
I I'm on this exact clock. I wake up every single morning
between 5:30 and 6:30. I've got like an hour window of
it somewhere in there. I'm waking up, which is usually
plenty of time for whatever I have to do, and I think my sleep
is is deeper. Even with Ambien like I I
they're still sleep struggles that I have and it's definitely
improved. I think if I am weaning off of a
sleeping pill while keeping my circadian rhythm in check,
that's really going to help me out.
I love that. I'm absolutely obsessed with
circadian biology right now as well, and I think that it's
something people are not paying enough attention to and not
benefiting from. People are losing weight
thinking they're circadian. Which makes sense because it
impacts are hormones. So there's even a verse in the
Bible, I posted it this morning, Malachi 4 two, I think, and it
talks about how the sun will rise with healing in its rays
and something about providing like healing and nourishment to
the people. So yeah, I think that just in
creation in general, God provides us with so many tools
for healing and sunlight. It's one of the most powerful
ones. It really is and.
Including as well as grounding like we're both doing right now.
That's the other thing. As soon as we got out of the
airport, I walked barefoot and I and I said we're hugging this
tree for extra credit. It sounds so lame and super Lib
and I'm not, but but genuinely, there's science behind this,
right? It's it's touching these things
that are rooted in the earth, in the ground.
You're getting so many good energy, so much good energy and
not in the woo woo sense, like like scientific energy that's
just healing your cells and energizing you.
You know what I'm saying, people when I say that like you got to
walk on the earth and you're getting this energy, they're
like, OK, what are you going to do next?
You know, yoga, blah, blah, blah.
It's like, no, no, no, I don't mean it like that.
Well, it's like, if you have faith in God, why is it, why is
it such a leap to believe that God would create the world that
we live in in a way that nourishes and heals us
naturally? Like to me that shouldn't be a
woo woo concept. Exactly how I feel.
Alex, this has been so wonderful.
Thank you so much for coming on Grounded Wellness and thanks for
being a trooper and trying to deliver Smoothie.
Tell our audience where they can find you and connect with you.
Yeah, so you can follow Culture Apothecary on any platform that
you listen to podcasts. You can also watch the show Real
Alex Clark on YouTube, and you can find me on Instagram at Real
Alex Clark. OK, And guys, be sure to check
out my episode on Culture Apothecary, which is going live
a few days after this one. Thanks so much for listening and
thanks for being here, Alex. Absolutely.