Welcome to Grounded Wellness, your go to podcast for
simplified and trusted information on how to live a
more non-toxic and holistic life.
We're your hosts. I'm Bethany McDaniel, founder of
primarily pure, biohacking enthusiast and mom of three.
And I'm Courtney O'Connor, holistic esthetician with over
15 years experience in the healing power of touch and
holistic skin care rituals. Living in a world full of toxic
products can be stressful, especially when you're trying to
keep your family healthy. We're talking with Doctor Yvonne
Burkhart, a toxicologist with 22 years of experience and a mom of
two. Doctor Burkhart will give simple
tips on how to lower your toxic exposures and help your body
detox naturally. We'll also cover topics like
Botox and forever chemicals. She believes even small changes
can have a big impact, and I couldn't agree more.
Let's dig in. Hello, everyone, and welcome to
Grounded Wellness. I'm here at the farm with Doctor
Yvonne Burkhart. Thank you so much for joining
us. Thank you for having me.
It's amazing to be out here on the farm.
Yeah, of course. Have you tried your drink yet?
That I made. For what is it?
I'm excited to try it. I've been staring at it.
What is it? It's a liver smoothie.
Have you ever had raw liver? I've tried.
Tiny bits of it, but never in a smoothie.
Form OK, so this will be a good end be able to taste it if I if
I did my job correctly. It also has berries, mint
leaves, some raw milk. So yeah, it should just taste
really crazy. Sounds really nutrient.
Dense. I want to hear what you think.
I don't detect liver at all. That's amazing.
Yeah. Wow.
Is this your own risk? A lot.
To mask it, Yeah. Well, I'd love to start out by
giving our listeners a little bit of background into your
story and how you got into the world of toxicology.
I actually stumbled on toxicology when I was in
undergrad and I joined the lab as a dishwasher and I started
observing the professor. She was running all kinds of
experiments and I just got really interested in what she
was doing and I could have the chance to join as a research
student. So I jumped at the chance and
it's been just an amazing journey ever since.
Wow, as a dishwasher that's wild.
And you have your own health journey, your personal journey
of healing. Can you share a little bit about
that? Yeah, of course, this probably
started about 12 years ago when I started having increased
stress due to my work life. I had just joined a flavor
company working as a toxicologist.
So that was my first real experience as a toxicologist in
the chemical industry and IT. Was just real quickly, what does
that look like in that world? Like now I know as a
toxicologist you are talking about you're inspiring people to
live cleaner lives and you're exposing the toxins in different
areas, but what about in, in that type of a, a setting?
Like what are you? What does the toxicologist do
when you're working in the flavor industry?
That's a really good question. There's actually toxicologist in
pretty much every industry you can imagine.
So the main ones that you might think of would be in the
Pharmaceutical industry. There's actually toxicologist
who are running safety studies to make sure that the drugs are
supposed to be safe. We know that doesn't always
happen according to plan, but the role of a toxicologist is
really to determine what are the risks and what are the safe
doses and levels that humans can consume.
OK. And ideally it would be long
term and for most products it's actually you should be looking
at long term data, right? But unfortunately there isn't a
lot of it and so it's kind of like a toss up and a human
experiment at this point. Yeah, that's so interesting.
OK, sorry to interrupt. So you were working as a
toxicologist in the flavour industry?
Yeah, so in the flavour industry, it was my job to make
sure that flavour chemicals were safe before they were added to
food, OK, before they were sold to other food manufacturers to
put into their products. I also worked with the fragrance
division of the company as well. So flavour and fragrance
chemicals actually overlap. They're pretty much the same.
Interesting. Yeah.
So if you think about it, the chemicals that give rise to a
strawberry flavor also give rise to the strawberry scent.
Yeah, makes sense. Yeah.
So when I was working in the flavor company, I was really
stressed out. It was high pressure, high
intensity environment and I just started to notice that my health
was deteriorating. Before that, it was totally
conventional lifestyle. I grew up eating all of the
stuff that you see in the grocery stores, using all the
products. Yeah, just living a totally
conventional lifestyle until I was faced with fertility issues.
And I just knew that I had to figure out what was the root
cause of this. I knew that something else was
going on. Doctors told me that IVF was my
only option and I wasn't willing to accept that.
Yeah, that's amazing. And that is not a unique story.
The Scientific American published an article discussing
how in the last 50 years, infertility has gone up 1% each
year. Can you touch on the role that
toxins are playing in this epidemic of infertility?
I believe they're at the root. They're definitely at the root
of it. I mean, when I was an undergrad
studying chemicals in the lab, we were looking at how
environmental chemicals impact infertility and cancer.
So it's, it's not a surprise at all.
It's, I'm 100% convinced that the chemicals that we're being
exposed through to food, air, water, consumer products, those
are absolutely at the root of why we're experiencing so much
disease and infertility especially.
And the rise in cancer is just astronomic.
And how were you able to overcome that?
What sorts of changes did you make?
I first started with working with a functional Dr. So I had
gone to several conventional allopathic doctors and they all
told me the same thing. IVF is your only option.
Don't do anything else. You don't have to change
anything else. And then I said, this doesn't
seem right. Something is not sitting right
with me. I did my own research, found
functional medicine. I found a practitioner in my
area who started running tests and they found that there were
imbalances. I had gut, leaky gut, extreme
leaky gut. Actually, it was really, really
bad. I had a lot of acne, dark
circles, I couldn't sleep, I really couldn't function in life
and the first thing they had me do was change my diet.
Yeah, we were talking about this a little bit offline.
You you transitioned to an autoimmune paleo diet for, I
think you said six months. It was.
It was in total about six months.
Yeah, and that's a long time. That's, you know, that's a big
overhaul for someone who came from eating a standard American
diet. Was that hard for you?
And what changes did you notice after doing that?
It was definitely challenging at first, but I just said, you know
what, I'm going all in on this. This is, I know I need to do
this to give my body the best chance it has to regulate and
heal. I just knew I had to do
something and I didn't want to go the route of taking
medications and you know, just being reliant on those things to
just barely survive. I want to thrive.
So I really started cleaning up my lifestyle.
Food was first. I did the autoimmune paleo
protocol for about 6 months and I worked with closely with the
functional Dr. And they were helping me to monitor my
symptoms and inflammatory markers.
And we started seeing things go down, numbers were improving.
And then, yeah, things just went uphill from there.
Wow. And what other changes did you
make? What other areas of life did
you, you know, change or make swaps?
Oh, it was as soon as I started feeling better with my gut, I
said there's still something that I know is not 100% healthy
for me and my environment because I at the time I was
still using a lot of cosmetics, perfume.
I was in that environment. I worked in a company that helps
to make those types of products and so one of the things that I
swapped out next were were all my beauty and personal care
products. Immediately I just said I've got
to scale back on this. I switched out all of my
shampoo, my makeup, especially things that are sitting on the
skin that I was using day in and day out.
I love makeup, I love products, so I needed to make sure that
they were as low tox and clean as possible.
Yeah, that's amazing. I think that's how it how the
journey works for a lot of people.
I know it was for me too. When my family started this
farm, I started eating differently, eating Whole Foods,
avoiding ultra processed foods. Noticed a huge difference with
that, not only and how I felt, but in the health of my skin.
And then that prompted me to look into same as you, beauty
and personal care products, switch those out next.
And then it was like cleaning products.
And then from there you're just, you're finding all the little
things, you know, 'cause there's, there's so many other
things aside from those like major categories.
And still I'm finding like, you know, toilet paper was a more
recent one for me that I switched out and, and so there's
always more and more and more to do.
But at what point were you able to then conceive naturally after
making all these changes? I'd say it was about nine
months. Wow.
After, after the initial, you know, venture into functional
medicine and just really taking care of my body and finding the
root cause. It was it was pretty, pretty
fast and I was amazed and still so thankful to this day that it
happened. Yeah, that's incredible.
And are you still working in the toxicology industry, in the
flavor industry at this point? No, I left as soon as my
daughter was almost one. It just was an ethical
misalignment. It wasn't where I wanted to use
my knowledge and expertise. I knew I could make a bigger
impact by informing the public about what I had been learning
about for 1015 years up until that point.
So you mentioned you had an ethical misalignment in your
career. What were some of the things
that you were noticing that made you kind of start to question
the line of work that you were in?
It was really the fact that it was a prioritization of profit
over everything else. OK.
So as a toxicologist, were you finding things that that you
spoke out about that that were not?
Were you finding things that were not safe for consumers that
were being ignored? Was there anything like that
going on? Not necessarily that made it
onto the market, but there was definitely concerns that I had
voiced that maybe weren't given enough priority as it could have
been. Yeah, thankfully those didn't
make it to market because they didn't work out anyway.
But I can't speak on what's happening now.
Right. It's kind of sounds like it
might be a little bit of a free for all.
You know, I know when we think about fragrance and how that's
protected by the FDA as a trade secret, it's a blanket term and
can include any number of different chemicals combined.
Is the same thing true for like natural flavors and and that
label when it comes to food? Yeah, it's a you have, it's a
total mixed bag. You have no idea.
It's a black box. You have no idea what's in
there. Even some of the people who are
buying flavors and putting them in their foods don't know.
Only the flavor company knows. Yeah, 'cause they outsource that
completely, right? What is the difference between
natural flavors and artificial flavors?
Natural flavors must. Have been at least identified in
nature somewhere. OK.
But it doesn't necessarily have to come from the source that it
says it comes from. So for example, vanilla vanillin
doesn't have to come from vanilla at all.
In fact, a lot of vanillin at the time that I was working
there was produced from cloves. So it still came from a natural
source, it just wasn't from the actual name source.
And artificial flavours are those that are not found in
nature at all. They're completely synthetic and
man made. OK, So what if a what if they
make a synthetic version of something that is in nature?
Would that be classified as a natural or an artificial flavor?
Natural. Wow.
Even though it's made in a lab? Yes, wow.
As long as the as long as something similar to it exists
in nature, it can be called natural flavor.
To some, to some extent. I mean, there are different
percentages. It it gets pretty nuanced.
It's pretty complicated. It's complicated.
But in general, yes, it can happen that way.
So do you eat anything with natural flavors now?
I avoid and minimize as much as I can and I just find that
flavors are overused. There's a lot of products that
don't need flavors in them that it doesn't make sense to have it
in there. So I won't, I won't choose that
product. Yeah, let's transition to
personal care a little bit. What are some of the biggest red
flags that you see in personal care products these days?
Well, you mentioned it. Fragrance is probably at the top
of the list because it's pretty much in everything.
It's also easily avoidable, so. Fragrance.
Perfume that says that on the label?
Don't get it? Right.
It's a no go. It's a no go because more often
than not, there are endocrine disruptors in there.
Phthalates are listed on the industry the fragrance industry
website as one of the possible ingredients and there's been
studies showing that a large number of fragrances contain
phthalates. And what is a?
Phthalate. Well, phthalates are, they're
technically plasticizer chemicals, but they have a lot
of different uses in consumer products.
So one of them, specifically for fragrances, is to prolong the
sensory experience of the of the scent.
So you don't really ever see fragrance without phthalate?
Would that be an accurate assumption?
We. Can't say that across the board,
but more often than not there are phthalates in there.
OK. It really depends on the
product, on the company. You can look for products that
contain fragrance that say they're phthalate free.
So it's up to you just being able to.
You just have to trust that company if you want that
product. And if you're not comfortable
with that, that's something I'm not comfortable with even if it
says phthalate free unless I know exactly what's in that
fragrance. If it's essential oils, then I'm
OK with that. If it if they won't tell you
what's in it, but they say it's phthalate free, I'm still don't
avoid that. Pfas are getting a lot of
attention lately. What risks do they pose to the
consumer? So PFAS chemicals are known as
PER and polyfluoroalkyl substances.
That's what the acronym stands for.
They're basically these fluoridated chemicals.
There's nearly 15,000 of them. Wow, that are known.
Anyway, there could be more, but they basically impart a
waterproof nonstick stain proof stain resistant property to
whatever product they're applied to.
So they're found in nonstick cookware, in rain gear, yoga
pants, like anything that's sweat wicking stain guard on
your furniture. You can find them in cosmetics
too unfortunately. What?
Use do they have in cosmetics? Why would why would a cosmetic
manufacturer put pee fuzz in their products?
They want the long lasting waterproof.
Effect. OK.
Yeah. And what are the risks of them?
Well. There's several risks there.
First of all, extremely persistent.
So once they enter your body, it can take years, if not decades
for them to leave your body, if that.
But the fact that we are being like exposed continuously,
they're actually accumulating in our bodies.
So the problem with PFAS are that they are not only endocrine
disrupting, but they are also carcinogenic.
And is it possible to detox from them in a shorter amount of time
than I think you mentioned like 10 plus years they're they
remain in the system. Is it possible through detox
optimization to get rid of them more quickly?
Or do we not really know? It's not really clear yet at
this point according to the research.
I haven't seen any evidence that you can speed that up other than
living as clean and low tox as you can just to give your body
the best chance it can to detoxify.
Yeah. What about period products?
This is another hot topic. What is the problem with most of
the period products on the market today?
Most period products contain contaminants, right?
So there was a recent study came that came out talking about
heavy metals. I hate to spoil it, but heavy
metals have always been in period products for a long time.
This is just now coming out into the mainstream.
And how, how do they get in there?
What? What's the purpose of heavy
metals in period products? They're not necessarily
intentionally added because they don't impart any benefit, it's
that they are contaminating the materials that are used to make
the tampons and pads. OK.
The the actual manufacturing materials.
Yeah. So the raw materials like the
cotton, the plastics, things like that.
They just get in. There they're, they get in there
just because. So heavy metals in the are
naturally occurring in the environment, but they can become
more concentrated if you're in an area that has more industrial
processes like mining, fracking, any area that uses leaded fuel
that's going to spread lead into the environment, for example.
So there can be a concentration of heavy metals in certain
plants as well. So some plants will just.
They take in more. They'll take in more.
Yeah. What else are in period products
that we don't want in period products?
Phthalates, as we mentioned, OK, usually from the fragrances, any
scented period products are an absolute.
No go the worse. Unless it's like a scented trash
bag. You're like masking an odor with
something that's even worse than the odor itself, right?
So if you can avoid that at all costs, that's the way that I go.
Unless it's an emergency situation, I will not touch a
scented period product. Yeah, But not only that, there
was benzene. There were other contaminants in
there. There was a study that found
that women who use conventional tampons had higher levels of
heavy metals in their body and oxidative stress.
So that's a sign of toxicity, right?
Oxidative stress. That's something that we want to
avoid. And there's just a lot of risks
if you're not aware and if you don't know how to choose the
safer period products, there are brands out there that are
testing for this. What are some of the brands that
you like? The one brand that I would go
for if I was using a disposable. I personally use reusable period
products, but if I were to choose a disposable it would be
natural care. OK, so I've I've.
Seen that? Yeah.
So they're organic? Cotton, right?
You want the organic cotton. You want to avoid the plastics
like the applicator tube. If you're using a tampon, you
can't really avoid it altogether.
But if you're choosing disposables, just know that
those are going to be higher risk in general than than
reusables. And it's such an absorbent area
too, right? Exactly like you're it's, it's
in. You're putting something not
only onto your body, but into your system.
Exactly. The vagina is actually a route
of drug delivery because there's a lot of blood flow down there.
The cell does the the lining of the uter of the vagina is
actually quite thin, so chemicals can get in, and then
once they get into your bloodstream, it's almost a
direct hit to your reproductive organs because they're not
getting detoxified by the liver. Right.
And so when you mentioned reusable products, tell us a
little bit about that and what are the options there?
So personally I use reusable period underwear and there's
also period pads that are. Brand I.
Use. I use.
What is the brand? Revol Cares is the brand.
And how does that work? I've always wondered this.
I haven't tried period underwear, but it just it
absorbs, absorbs all of it and then just for a full day.
It can depending on depending on your flow.
I mean, if I have like a heavier day, I might have to change them
out once. Yeah, but they do hold a lot and
it basically works by they have some absorbent fabric and then
there's a layer of polyurethane that, OK prevents it from the
the liquid from coming through the other side and getting on
your legs. Yeah.
So that's how they work. But the ones that I found are
very comfortable. They're made out of bamboo.
They have the least amount of synthetics.
OK. So I found those to be optimal
for me. I love them.
They work great for me. They might not work for
everyone. So if someone wants something
that is not necessarily allowing the the blood to come out, then
you can try a period cup, a menstrual cup.
Yeah. Tell us about those.
Yeah. Those medical grade silicone or
platinum cured silicone generally is on the lower end of
the risk spectrum. But we don't really know long
term what they're doing. Yeah.
So even though they might seem safer right now, I can't say if
a study isn't going to come out in a few years that says the the
opposite. Right.
What about the disc? How is that different than a
cup? I think it's similar.
It depends on the material really.
There's some discs I think that are made out of plastic, but you
can also find silicone discs. OK.
And speaking about just products that we use in these highly
sensitive areas, tell our audience a little bit about
toilet paper and the risks of conventional toilet paper.
So similar to what we were talking about, there's a lot of
blood flow down there. And with toilet paper, we use
it, some people use it multiple times a day, right?
You don't necessarily go to the bathroom once a day.
So that's already having an increase in the frequency, which
will impact how much of the chemicals from that paper get
absorbed, but also the fact that there's friction that can also
increase chemical penetration. So these sensitive areas, we
really need to be careful with what we're rubbing or putting,
putting there because the amount of chemicals that are getting
in, we don't know if they're impacting our health and if they
are toxic chemicals like formaldehyde and dioxins, right?
Bleach, dioxins, chlorines. There's actually studies that
show that if you're using conventional toilet paper, you
can actually get a lot of irritation down there.
And why is recycled toilet paper a no no?
Well, not only is it more expensive, but people throw
receipt thermal receipt paper into the recycle bin and that
ends up in recycled toilet paper which.
Is really high in BPA. Exactly.
So you're essentially applying BPA to your private parts?
Yeah, so it sounds like a really good eco friendly option, but
not something you want to do, right?
Wow. So and what's your favorite
toilet paper brand? It's called plant paper and it's
made out of bamboo and it was. There are a lot of bamboo toilet
paper brands out there, but this one I found was not bleached,
which it was a plus. And they also shared all their
contaminant test reports with me.
So it's been tested for one for dioxane, formaldehyde, different
things. So that really gives me a lot of
Peace of Mind. Yeah, OK.
And we'll put all of these links in the show notes because you
are just like a library of information on on non-toxic
living, which I love as a non-toxic skin care company that
started with non-toxic deodorant.
I'd love to do a deep dive into deodorant specifically and why
conventional deodorant, specifically antiperspirants,
are making this infertility epidemic and just poor health
epidemic so much worse. Well, let's first talk about
what those are, right? So an antiperspirant is
something that blocks perspiration, and they do this
with the use of aluminum salt. So they physically block the
sweat ducts and prevent sweat from coming out, which come to
find out, sweat is actually a detox pathway.
So this is not a good idea. They don't want to get in the
way of that. Right.
You don't want to block your detox at all.
You want to enhance your detox of anything, right?
So first of all, the aluminum salt, so the aluminum can
actually get absorbed into the breast tissue.
It's been found in breast cancer samples.
Aluminum, a lot of people don't realize actually has estrogenic
properties. And there have been studies
showing that people who use, especially younger girls who use
these antiperspirants, have an increased risk for breast
cancer. Well and parabens too, I think
have studies have shown that 9097% of really high percentage
of tumors sampled breast cancer tumors have had parabens in them
also. Right.
There's parabens. There could be many ingredients
in that one antiperspirant that are increasing your risk of
cancer. Yeah, and I've heard you talk
about how conventional deodorant, specifically aluminum
deodorants, actually make you smell worse over time.
Can you touch on that? Yeah.
So there was actually a study that found that when you're
using antiperspirants and you're blocking sweat ducts, you
actually change the microbiome of your underarms and that can
increase the smell, the odor. So you might end up having to
use more and that of course, yeah, the worst possible
outcome. I think we see that a lot too.
People will say, you know, I just have, I'm unique.
I have really bad body odor and I'm, I know that some people
maybe are genetically more prone to have worse Bo than others,
but I think a lot of people think they have worse Bo than
they do just because they've been using antiperspirants for
so long that are blocking their detox pathways.
They're putting all this junk up there, nothing's getting out
because they're not sweating properly.
And then when they transition to natural deodorant, they might
smell really bad for a couple of weeks, but then things kind of
normalize and level out and they find that they have much less
body odor than they did before. Yeah, that's what happened to
me. Yeah.
So I stopped using all of the the aerosol deodorant that I
used to swear by. And then.
Oh my. Gosh, I saw an ad the other day
for an aerosol full body deodorant.
Like what? What world are we living in
where we think we need to spray deodorant all over our entire
body? Yeah, actually I have some
thoughts on that. I don't, I don't get it.
Just how about just bathe? Yeah, I mean, I don't really.
I don't see what the reason is. What is the purpose of an all
body deodorant? I think it's ridiculous.
These are the types of products that really just completely make
my blood boil because I can't stand it when people are being
deceived and manipulated into buying a product that makes zero
sense. 0. Sense no one has ever needed
this before. No, don't use it now, don't buy
it. It's just a waste of money.
What are some of the other problems with deodorant aside
from aluminum? The.
Fragrances, they also have PE GS in them.
They also, so which PE GS by the way are a type of glycol and
they actually increase chemical penetration, their penetration
enhancers. So imagine you have a deodorant
that has aluminum, salt, fragrances, parabens, and these
PE GS. You're just driving all of those
chemicals into your bloodstream. And how does a how does a P/E G
show up on a product label? It'll say PEG, it actually says
PEG and then maybe have some numbers next to it, right?
Like a PEG. Dash 8 or something like.
That and then parabens, just so people know, like those will
show up as it'll say paraben, but it'll also say like methyl,
yeah, different, it'll have a different thing, a prefix in.
Front of it, ethyl, methyl butyl, there's a bunch of.
Different ones, right? And then for PFAS forever
chemicals, how would someone spot those on a product label?
You wouldn't. That's the crazy part.
So there was a study that showed over 90% of products that were
detected to have high levels of PFAS didn't have them on the
label. So that's almost all of them.
Wow. Which is absolutely insane.
It's a major loophole in labeling.
The cosmetics industry clearly doesn't have our best interests
if they're intentionally leaving things off the label.
So how would someone know? Well, you can look for telltale
signs like the waterproof long wear yeah, smudge proof, those
types of products, I wouldn't touch those let's.
Shift gears a little bit and talk about something else that
can have long term contact with your body.
What are your thoughts on these beautification treatments like
Botox and fillers? So first of all, Botox comes
from the bacterium Clostridium botulinum.
It was day one of my toxicology class that I learned that
Botulism is the most potent toxin naturally occurring to
man. So I thought to myself, OK, let
me file that away. Fast forward a few years later,
people start injecting themselves with it cosmetically.
So there are case use cases when people have migraines or
debilitating pain where maybe that's the only option they
have. That's not what I'm talking
about. I'm talking about the cosmetic
use of Botox. There are so many studies coming
out, case studies, people coming forward saying that they've had
horrible adverse effects because of cosmetic Botox.
It doesn't just stay in your face.
It can get absorbed into your bloodstream.
It travels different parts of your body.
There's different symptoms that maybe clinicians aren't
recognizing as being connected to the Botox.
I mean, you're injecting a toxin in your face.
I don't understand how this is considered safe or how people
can ignore that. I personally wouldn't do that.
Yeah, I, I totally agree. And Botox apologists would argue
that like you mentioned, oh, it stays concentrated just to the
general area. But just logically that doesn't
make sense. We know the products we apply
get into our bloodstream when they absorb through the surface
of our skin. So when you are injecting
something even deeper, it would only make sense that it just
does not stay concentrated just to that area.
And we talked about this on our social media quite a bit.
And every time without fail, we get flooded with messages,
anecdotal stories of people who have had adverse effects from
getting Botox injections. And so I feel like Botox is
going to be the breast implant illness of the next 5 to 10
years. You know, now we are becoming
aware of the negative effects of having breast implants.
And I think that that will happen with Botox.
I think it's starting to happen but hasn't like fully become
well known yet. Yeah, I would probably agree
with you on that, because I think the issue is really for
me, staying away from the invasive procedures unless it's
medically necessary. If that's your only option,
that's a different story. Again, if it's a cosmetic, it's
surface level. I think you can get really far.
I mean, I know you can. This is how biology works.
You clean up your insides, it's going to show up on your face.
The aging, the toxins, I mean, all of this, it's all connected
to each other. So once I actually cleaned up my
lifestyle, I reverse aged myself.
I have photos of myself when I was sick that I look 10 years
older than I do now. Wow.
So it's, I mean, you can reverse age if you just clean your
lifestyle up, yeah. What are some of your favorite
non-toxic like quote Botox alternatives?
I like doing gua sha a lot. Yeah, I like gua sha.
I like doing massage. I do, I like putting avocado
like yogurt masks like food based masks on my face.
Just mix avocado and yogurt. Yeah, and you can add turmeric
in there for brightening. And I've noticed that helps
brighten my dark spots. So as a kid I had chicken pox
scars and my mom would take a piece of fresh turmeric and just
rub it on there. Wow.
And it lightened all the scars. I don't have permanent dark
spots anymore. So you can really.
Go the simplest thing, yeah. Exactly such a big.
Difference I used to make those kinds of masks as a kid.
I was just thinking the other day like I need to start doing
some of that again, like, you know, egg.
I think I would do like egg whites did the avocado thing.
Like there's there's a lot of fun you can have playing around
with like putting food on your face.
I wonder what would happen if you put some liver in?
I know I've wondered that too. I want to try it but the smell I
feel like would be a little. That's true.
Challenging, yeah.
Good point, Good point. When it comes to finding truly
non-toxic products, why are you a firm believer that you don't
need a scientific background to understand labels even though.
A lot of ingredient labels may seem like a foreign language.
You don't need to study chemistry to know what you're
buying. And I think that it becomes a
lot easier when you can recognize ingredients on the
label, similar to looking at a food label if it's something
that you just like. If you see BHT, you're like,
what is that? That's not a common food, right?
Same thing goes with your beauty and personal care products.
If you can recognize the ingredients on the label, then
you're already in good shape. Yeah, it's kind of just knowing
those red flags to look out for. And then we've talked about some
of them. We talked about, you know, how
parabens will show up on labels, avoiding anything with fragrance
or parfum, avoiding things that say waterproof, long lasting.
What are some other common things to to watch out for?
I would say so anything that says just the word organic or
natural or if it says non-toxic without actually being matching
with the ingredient like list. Yeah.
So you always have to read the ingredients.
List anyone? Don't say that right?
If you have the most toxic product ever, you can put
non-toxic on there, right? No one's, no one's gonna punish
you for that. Right.
You can put plant based, I mean there's no definition of that.
What does that mean, right. So you can put all kinds of
stuff and there's so many greenwash brands out there,
right? So just read the ingredients
list and that's how you'll know what you're buying.
Yeah, OK. What about toothpaste?
What? What do we look for when it
comes to toothpaste? What do we have avoid and what
do you like to see in a toothpaste?
So first I'll start with the avoid.
So I avoid fluoride, yes, just because of the neurotoxicity
concerns and the fact that studies have found that
hydroxyapatite is just as effective at preventing
cavities. What is Hydroxyapatite?
It's. Actually similar to a substance
that we have in our teeth naturally occurring.
So it helps to re mineralize the teeth and it doesn't come with
the neurotoxicity risks that fluoride does.
Are dentists using that yet? Cuz I remember as a kid going to
the dentist and just having fluoride like smear my TPS at
the end of every visit. Is that still happening or have
they kind of wised up to that? It's still happening, so parents
have to be diligent. I myself look for a dentist that
isn't doing that and who's open to other alternative options.
So other things that I like to avoid in toothpaste are sodium
lauryl sulfate, which is actually known to destroy the
tissue inside of our mouth and gums and cause canker sores.
Wow. And it's in like a lot of two
things, it's. It's to provide the foaming
action, because people associate foaming with cleaning, right?
You don't actually need that. It's like the sudsy soaps.
People want that like sudsy, squeaky clean feel.
But really, that can wipe out your skin's microbiome and have
a really negative impact on the health of your skin, right?
Exactly. What about sunscreen?
What do you avoid in sunscreen? I avoid the synthetic UV
sunscreen filters like Avobenzone, aveobenzone,
oxybenzone, homosalate, octosalate, things like that,
Octocrylene because those have been shown to absorb into the
bloodstream and we don't know the long term health effects of
what that's doing to people. And not only that, if we're
using aerosol sunscreen, most of it's not even getting on your
body. If you ever see anyone applying
it, most of it's just flying. It's just a big.
Cloud, big, big cloud of right aerosol spray and you can smell
it from like 20 yards away. Yeah, it's become a real issue.
Even going to the beach or public places, that's all you
can smell sometimes. Offensive.
It is. I think.
I think we should really put some restrictions on that
because I agree, it's not even effective if it's not getting on
your skin and people don't rub it in, so you're not getting an
even layer anyway. Right.
So then you're just inhaling so much, right, too?
Which is a huge issue. Yeah.
So you're just, you just end up using more.
So I think cosmetic manufacturers are genius, you
know, if they're trying to make profit, which they probably are,
to just make a product that people have to use a whole lot
of just to get some kind of production.
Yeah, yeah. What sunscreen brands do you
like? Oh that's a good question.
I have been using Dakota tallow. It's a type of tallow based
sunscreen that I found I really like.
Cool, we're coming out with a tallow based.
Sunscreen perfect yeah I'm excited we'll.
Send you some design. Great.
We have a lot of moms in our community with young children,
and how are children at a disadvantage when it comes to
detoxing from a lot of the toxins that are in the products
that they use and just the products that all of us use?
Kids are just smaller than adults, so already, pound for
pound, the amount of toxins that get into their system will
disproportionately affect them. So meaning that they #1 they're
small and they can't detoxify and they're.
Growing just because they're detox pathways aren't fully
established yet. Yeah, exactly.
They're not fully developed and they're still growing, so any
toxic insult that happens can change their DNA and 'cause
their bodies to change permanently.
That's terrible. So even more important to avoid
toxins in the home with young kids around.
What are some ways that you can try to optimize detoxification
when it comes to young kids? Definitely avoiding the
processed foods I see with so many kids.
They're just constantly eating processed foods with the
artificial flavors and the dyes and excess amounts of sugar.
Probably more kids eat more of that than adults do because all
of the products that are marketed towards kids are just
filled with sugar and food dyes and everything that they
shouldn't be eating. Exactly.
Everything that they shouldn't be eating.
So avoiding processed foods, giving your kids whole,
nutritious, nutrient dense foods, that's key.
And then of course, avoiding the endocrine disruptors in their in
their products. And a lot of young kids get
hooked on these fragrance laden, you know, sparkly, you know,
products that you see marketed to children their.
Palate so that they don't want to eat the Whole Foods right to
become addicted to these processed foods exactly at a
young age. Yes, and they also get addicted
to fragrances. Scented this, scented that.
I see that all the time. Interesting.
It's actually a big challenge with my kids who are now school
aged. Yeah, being amongst their
friends, seeing hell, my friend has, you know, scented lip balm.
Scented this, scented. Why can't I have that?
Right. Yeah, that's hard.
I like to give my kids like Epsom salt baths sometimes.
Sometimes I'll let them come in the sauna with me just for like
10-15 minutes because in my mind, I just want them.
I want them to be able to at least kind of give them a chance
to sweat, you know, and at least detoxify that way because a lot
of the more advanced, like, detox methods are just not
appropriate for kids. But there's some things that
that we can do to help with that too.
Yeah, just. Let them run around.
That really just helps with so much.
Yeah, being in nature. Being in the earth, Being in
nature? Yes.
Getting natural sunlight. Water instead of juice, Yeah,
those types of things help so much.
Yeah, they make a big difference.
What about the fire retardant epidemic?
There is fire retardant in a lot of things, sprayed on rugs in
our homes, sprayed on even a lot of clothing.
I think that it has to be sprayed on kids pajamas or there
has to be a sticker, A tag on it that says that there is a risk
of like there has to be a warning label if fire retardant
is not sprayed on it, right, right.
And so I always love it when I see kids pajamas with that big
tag that that big like warning tag that, you know, it's, it's
flammable or whatever. I'm like, yes, good.
That's the one that I want. I don't want the one that has
been sprayed with fire retardant.
But why is fire retardant sprayed on so many things?
Yeah, it's basically just a liability thing that companies
just want to cover themselves in case accidents happen.
They don't want to get sued and that someone comes back and says
I caught on fire because this couch was not treated.
So it's it's mainly just to protect themselves, the
companies. Really.
Yeah. And I think there was a lot of
lobbying that the fire retardant manufacturers did in order to
make it a law that it has to be sprayed on your couch, on your
rug, on your car seat in order for them to sell more of it.
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that, that it's happened so
many times in various industries, salt, sugar,
lobbying. Because I don't think at the end
of the day, any lives are being saved because their couch wasn't
sprayed with fire retardant. Yeah.
I don't know the exact stats or numbers on that, but I mean, I
don't know anyone who's, you know, Couch has caught on fire
or is that spontaneously combusted?
I don't know. I personally know.
No, Yeah. So totally.
What about some other toxins in the home?
How? What are some things to look out
for in terms of creating a healthy home?
We'll definitely get your water and your air quality right,
because those are the basic fundamentals that every person
needs. We need to have clean air so
we're not inhaling a bunch of toxins.
We need clean water. Yeah, that's just everyone needs
that. And how do you optimize air
quality in your house? So first of all, removing the
sources of air pollution like fragrances, cleaning products
like you said, the flame retardants, those types of
additional chemicals, things like synthetic pressed wood
furniture that off gases and releases formaldehyde.
Try to minimize those things because when you don't create
the pollution, then you don't have to remove the pollution,
right? Yeah, opening your windows,
that's massive. Most people don't open their
windows. Especially take much, right?
Right. It's just like 10 minutes in the
morning, 10 minutes in the evening or something like that.
Any amount, yeah, is helpful. I mean, I have relatives in
Germany and even in the dead of winter, it's freezing outside.
You open your windows after a long night because the air is
stale to refresh the air. And it does so much for your
health and well-being to just have that bit of fresh air.
Yeah. What about air purifiers?
Do you have a favorite brand? Yeah, I like Air Doctor a lot.
So I have a few of those units in my home and they're really
effective. I I find that I think they're
great. Do you ever recommend the box
fan method? You can, yeah, if you're on a
budget. If that's all that you can get,
then a box fan with a HEPA filter attached to it is just as
effective. Yeah.
And what about plants, house plants?
Do you believe those have a big impact on air quality?
They don't have as big of an impact as people might think
because again, I read all the studies.
Yeah, there was a study that found you need a large number of
plants in your home to actually purify to the extent as an air
purifier would. OK.
Not saying that they're not helpful, right?
But they're not as helpful as people think.
They're not the magic bullet, right?
Right. So having house plants is
amazing just for health and well-being, but it's it isn't
necessarily, like you said, the magic bullet.
Yeah, what about when thinking about non-toxic cleaning
products for the home, What do you what do you avoid with
household cleaning products and and what do you like?
I avoid most things that are in pretty much everything that's in
the store because they usually have a lot of fragrances in
them. They're releasing toxic
chemicals into the air. If something smells very strong
of a chemical smell, then that's a bad sign, yeah.
And even when they're closed, they're still releasing VOC's
and impacting, negatively impacting the air quality in
your home. Yes, exactly.
So even just having them there is not good.
And you can, that's obvious. If you walk through the cleaning
aisle at the store, you smell everything.
Everything's closed, but you're still smelling it.
So it's powerful stuff, not in a good way.
I love branch basics. Do you use branch basics?
Yes, I like branch basics. I also use another brand called
Miliora because it's entirely plastic free.
How do you manage non-toxic living and doing everything
within your control to optimize your health without obsessing
over things that are out of your control?
Well, first, I think it's important to remind ourselves
that you can't control things outside of your home.
Like, period. You just can't.
There's so much happening outside that the only place you
really have most control is inside your home.
I really think that people can, it can get to a point where we
become orthorexic and start becoming fearful of things that
shouldn't necessarily cause fear.
So fearing a Whole Foods should never be feared.
You know, that that type of thing, I think is something
really important to remind ourselves of because it can be
easy to think, Oh my gosh, this bottle, this cap, everything,
you know, and it you just can't live then and the stress itself
is toxic. Right, right.
So what are some like free things that people can do to
optimize their health, optimize their detox pathways?
I know that you, you've talked about, you know, taking your,
your shoes off when you get home is a really easy thing that you
can do to improve the health of your home.
Like what are some other just like easy simple hacks that
people can keep top of mind? Yeah, the first one would be
taking off your shoes. The second one would be opening
the windows. And I would like to even get
outside, do some grounding, get in touch with nature and really,
you know, try to regulate your hormones in that way.
Because if you are being exposed to endocrine disruptors like
most of us are, we can't avoid everything, Then you're at least
giving your body a better chance at stabilizing itself.
Because I feel like we're constantly bombarded by all
different types of stimuli, substances that we can't
control. So I think the things that we
can do that are very basic and almost.
And they're free. Yeah.
So getting sunlight, getting your feet on the soil, drinking
enough clean water, getting enough sleep.
I think a lot of the basics are kind of overlooked sometimes.
Yeah, when you take care of the basics, a lot of the other
things kind of start to fall into place.
Exactly. And just like having a less is
more mentality when it comes to a lot of things, when it comes
to the products we use, when it comes to food, just like the
simpler the better. Yeah, I love that perspective so
much because I think things can get really over complicated with
those unnecessary products like body deodorant, right?
Yeah, you don't need those. Yeah, just stick to what you
need. Right, Exactly what are some
things that you like to do to optimize detoxification for
yourself? I like to do sauna.
I love sweating, just I was doing hot yoga for a while, but
that got kind of tough for me. So I like to just do sauna at
home. I love sauna.
I like doing yoga on the grass barefoot.
That's really relaxing for me. That also helps, you know, with
detox and everything like that. So those are the main things I
like to do and I like doing weight training, weight lifting,
those types of things. Weightlifting is amazing and it
doesn't get enough credit as like a health practice.
I feel like a lot of people think of weightlifting as as
purely like body composition related, but it is so good for
your hormones, so good for just supporting your body and
longevity. As we get older, it just feels
really good. Yeah, it actually increases our
glutathione production. So glutathione is a master
antioxidant detoxifier. When you exercise, glutathione
goes up. OK, I didn't know that.
Yeah. So supplement with glutathione
also. I don't.
So you just get it naturally. You just prompt your body to
make more of its own glutathione.
Right, so I reduce and remove toxins, right because toxins
deplete glutathione. So if you prevent the loss of
glutathione then you're already in better shape.
And then if you provide the building blocks like sulphur
rich foods, green tea, eggs, I like meat, dairy, those types of
things help to increase school design too.
Love that. OK, now I'm really excited for
this next this next part. So I'm going to give you a this
or that quiz. Are you ready?
OK, and this is all preferences. There's no right or wrong
answer. OK, sounds good, but I'm I'm
excited to hear your answers. Would you rather live in a moldy
house or in a house with lead paint?
Oh, probably. Oh, it's hard to say.
I would, I mean definitely neither, but I guess lead
because the effects of mold can be really, really long lasting.
I think with lead at least there are are ways that we can help to
support our body, but that's a really tough one.
I mean, I don't want to choose either of course.
I'm trying to just like, give you like paint out your worst
nightmare. With all these questions.
Would you rather use non organic tampons or non organic toilet
paper? Non.
Organic toilet paper because it's not going internally.
Yeah, would you rather wear fragrance every day or use a
toxic laundry detergent? Oh, they're the same thing.
It's kind of the same thing. Yeah, a little bit.
I guess the laundry detergent because in yeah, that's really
hard. Neither you can't say neither.
I no I'll. Say all right, all right.
Probably the laundry detergent one, because actually you can
put your clothes in the sun and it'll.
Get rid of that kind of neutralizes that.
So you would like use the non, you'd use the toxic laundry
detergent, but just like go outside at the beginning of
every day, Yeah. I'll try to air it.
Out. OK, fair enough.
Would you rather wear red lipstick every day with red dye?
Of course. Or use toxic toothpaste with
fluoride. Well, I can't, you can't avoid
using toothpaste. You need, I mean, I, I use
toothpaste, I don't necessarily wear lipsticks.
So I guess I'd I guess I have to choose the toothpaste one
unfortunately. Yeah, that's a tough one.
Would you rather burn a pumpkin spice candle or drink a pumpkin
spice latte? Oh, these are really hard.
Questions. I hate it was so.
Fun coming up with these. God.
OK, I'll probably drink the pumpkin spice latte because
inhaling stuff is much worse than ingestion.
OK, why is that? Because you can get things
directly into your bloodstream and they'll go to your brain
through the lungs. So I mean can I open a window?
Nope, no window. OK, then it'll be the Pumpkin
spice latte. Would you rather drink water out
of a plastic bottle or drink standard tap water in a glass
cup? Oh, probably the water bottle
maybe. Yeah, I think I would too.
Yeah, tap water is just really bad.
Yeah, tap water is bad. It's really bad.
Would you rather wear outside shoes into the house or never
clean the dust in your house? Oh, those are really bad.
You really stumped me on a lot of these.
I mean, it's I cannot just, I can't wear shoes in the house.
I just cannot. There's just every fiber of my
beak I. Cannot wear shit now.
Yeah, Yeah. Would you rather eat eggs cooked
on a nonstick pan or eat bacon cooked on aluminum foil?
Probably the eggs on the nonstick.
Yeah. Because unless there's a crack
or a chip on the nonstick then they shouldn't.
Then the Teflon shouldn't go into the food as much.
OK. But the aluminum for sure would
be leaching. It would definitely leach.
The aluminum would definitely leach.
Although, yeah, I don't know. Those are tough.
What kind of cookware do you use
in your home? I use pure ceramic cookware, so
it's not coated, it's a solid piece of ceramic.
What brand is it? It's extrema.
OK, forgot to ask you that earlier.
Well, thank you so much for joining us.
You are just, you have so much knowledge on non-toxic living
and not just the problems, but also the solutions.
And I really appreciate that perspective and I think our
listeners will too. So thank you so much for coming
on the show. Where can people follow along
with you and continue to learn from everything that you're
doing and sharing? I'm on Instagram, I'm on
YouTube. You can find me at Doctor Yvonne
Burkhart and you can also check out my website
doctoryvonneburkhart.com. Amazing.
Thank you. Thank you so much.