Dr. Deanna Minich: The Colors of the Rainbow and Detoxification | The Sakara Life Podcast

Welcome to the podcast, Diana. We are so, so honored to have you here. Thank you for being here today.

Oh, it's a delight to be here. I'm excited for the conversation and where it's going to go. So lots of different topics to talk about.

Well, we like to start off every podcast with a question around your mission. So what is your mission here on Earth? What are you here to do?

Wow, that's a heavy question. Some people spend their lives to figure that out. Yeah, I know.

What do you got figured out so far?

Well, actually I think I'm fortunate in that regard because I had a really strong sense of mission and purpose when I was really young. So when I was seven, I wanted to be a nun that was a journalist. And so if I look at where I have been since then, I feel like, you know, science and spirituality and using communication strategies like writing books, speaking, educating, you know, I feel like my mission is to connect science and spirituality in the health field. I really feel like that's the essence. So I've done a lot on the science and I feel like I need to now bring in more of the spirituality aspect and what that actually means for people and how to quantify it.

I love that so much. And I can honestly say, you know, as I'm finishing up my master's and Whitney and I have been in this kind of wellness world, like the science, not just wellness, but like the science behind nutrition and well being. And there's no one like you, like, there's no one that really connects science and spirit as well that we've come across as well as you. Like, I'm so grateful for. You can really feel your, your anchor in both science and spirit. Like you can feel that from all the way from your research PA and the things that you publish too. I was lucky enough to have you as a professor and how you teach and connect the dots and it's really something Whitney and I have tried to do with Sakara is help people understand what it means to eat well and why. Because if it's just another diet, then it's just another diet and you're not going to do it and you're not going to feel good doing it. But connecting to your spiritual self, that thing that brought you to this planet, that what you want to feel, how you kind of want to manifest your being and connecting that to your, why you choose what's on your plate. So yeah, we're just personally so grateful for your work.

Yeah, thank you.

I'm curious. I think a lot of People would maybe say that science and spirit are very different from each other, that almost conflicting, that they couldn't be the same thing. You either believe in science or it's all just God, and that's the end. So how do you think about science and spirit and how they intersect?

That's a great question. You know, to me, as a scientist, by training, to me, science is a tool, it's a method, it's a human construct. In order for us to understand our reality, spirituality is a sense of that we're connected to something greater. And I think that for human beings in our microscopic world, it's really difficult to get our arms around the expansiveness of consciousness and everything that we're connected to. So we use science as a way to divine our process into understanding our reality. So I think, you know, as I remember being in graduate school, and you would see that there would be all these very philosophical conversations behind the scenes or in the laboratory, because I think scientists being steeped in testing and measuring something, you can't help but feel like there's the presence of this. This great mystery, this great miracle, this amazing life that we're enmeshed in. Right. So I think as a scientist, you can actually become very spiritual. I look at Albert Einstein, you know, I look at Bruce Lipton, you know, I think he has brought together science and spirituality in a really beautiful way. You look at Joe Dispenza, who's also been linking and studying consciousness and studying meditation. So I think we're doing more of that in the 21st century because this is the age of integration. This is the age of dismantling and recreating and revolutionizing our reality. So I think that there's no better time than now to really be looking at how we connect these two. I think we're moving away from silos, we're moving away from categories, and we're starting to see, like a Venn diagram, like how we're all overlapping into all of these different arenas. So that's kind of my. My feeling of it.

I know it's going to be really hard. You know, we really. I was fortunate enough to take your, you know, detoxification and biotransformation class. And so we really wanted to kind of bring you on for that. But it's going to be really hard to go from the conversation we just had to detox. But I do think about it in terms of. In the way we've always kind of tried to talk about. The idea of detox here at Sakara is, you Know, this idea of like the holy vessel, like this idea of treating your body as something that is deserved, of, you know, being at its best. And its best is kind of self defined. But we all know it when we feel it. And I, we've all seen how this sense of detoxes and cleanses is kind of been taken over by the diet industry. And, you know, this idea of short term, quick fix. You know, my personal story is I started Sakara because I spent a lifetime through my adolescence and 20s dieting, hopping from diet to diet, looking for something that would finally give me this body I thought I had to have. And it wasn't until I came to nourishment as the foundation of how I looked at my plate every single day. And in order to do that, you have to feel worthy of nourishment, otherwise you don't make those choices.

Right.

If you don't feel worthy of nourishment, you make the choice of like, less is better. Let me count calories. Let me, you know, decide what's on my plate based on this kind of nutritionism lens. And I really got that from learning detox and biotransformation from you, is that it actually is such a nutrient dependent process and nobody talks about that enough. It tends to be so hyper focused on what's taken out, what's taken away, what you shouldn't do. And a lot about, you know, the science we learned was actually what is required and that a true detox, a true kind of cleanse, is really giving your body what it needs. So how do you think when you think about the word detox? What do you think?

You know, it's a polarizing word because it does conjure up exactly what you're speaking to, this sense of withdrawal, avoidance. It feels very emotionally devoid of any kind of like connecting into it. It feels heavy. It feels like the word itself feels.

Opposite of what it's supposed to be.

Totally.

Yeah. And in fact, and so I, it, I think that there's a lot within nutrition that we have to detoxify from our language around it. We have a lot of nutritionisms. And so I really like what you're saying, Danielle, about nourishment and how do we replenish because there are two sides of the equation within detoxification. It is what is going in and what is coming out. And I do think that we focus a lot on what is coming in and we get hyper, I would say sensitized and afraid and project a lot of fear and stress into. Is my water Pure. What about my food? Does it have to be organic? I mean, we do have to have some general recognition of looking at what is on the input side and be smart about that. And then I would say equally balancing that conversation with how do we move things out. You know, I'll just give you a quick example. And I know many people who have this mold phobia. It's kind of like there should even be a word for it. But I have some. Some people that I know where it's like everything is mold. They won't even travel to certain places because they're afraid of mold. And I know that mold can present a true health issue. However, what I say to these people is the best way to deal with mold, because mold is never going away, and it's always been here. It's just part of our planet, Right? It's just part of the decay system, much like mushrooms and other things. What I would say there is we need to bolster our inner reserves. We have to become nourished, we need to become fortified. We have to focus on what is within so that we can balance what is coming in. Because what is coming in we don't always have a lot of control over. So we do our best in order to nourish the inside in a variety of different ways. And, you know, I just want to toss this into our conversation too, just to kind of connect us from what we first started talking about. When I first started talking about detoxification, I was kind of thinking that, wow, is this like a new thing? Is, you know, some people see it as woo woo or, you know, I mean, there are so many different ways to slice and dice it, and I think that's why it's become woo woo. But if you look over religious and spiritual traditions of all types, there has always been a need to cleanse. As long as humankind has been in existence, whether we're doing a fast or we're giving up some something, we have an intention, we're doing a meditation, we're clearing, we're withdrawing. And I think that one of the scientific ways that we have started to talk about the spiritual aspects of detoxification is talking about intermittent fasting. You know, people are really getting into talking about the letting goness. But, Danielle, what you said is very important, that the letting goness needs to be balanced with, again, the colorful aspects of nature and what you focus on within Saqqara, right? Eating the rainbow, getting the colors of nature, infusing our own rainbow with the rainbow on the outside. That's really important, and plants can be our divining rod to helping us do that.

Better talk to us about the Rainbow Diet, because I know that is a topic near and dear to your heart and your book. So what. What is the Rainbow Diet? Because it was one of the reasons I remember sending your work to Whitney when I was in your class, and she was like, oh, my gosh, this is so Sakara. It's like you have such a voice that we so appreciate because it's been. It's been something we've been trying to talk about it, and then the, like, the. The scientific lens you bring to it has just been so fascinating to us. So, yeah, talk to us. Like, what is the rainbow diet and how does that connect to detoxification? So when you say plants can kind of be that, rod, what do you. What do you mean by that in terms of detoxification?

Yeah, well, I had noticed that being a nutrition for as long as I had that there was always something polarizing and the pendulum was always swinging. It's like meat, no meat. Soy, no soy. Gosh, name anything. Eggs, no eggs. You know, it's like there's always a hot button within nutrition. Always. It's a very. It's an interesting field to be in, I can tell you that. So one of the things that I realized in science that was irrefutable, more or less irrefutable, was the preponderance of data to support fruits, vegetables, whole foods. And when you drill down deeper and you start looking at the science and the pattern recognition, what you see is that it wasn't so much about protein, carbohydrate, or fat. I mean, yes to vitamins and minerals and fiber, and all of that is very helpful for detoxification. But underneath that, you have what I call the underdogs of nutrition. Phytonutrients. Right. And when I was in graduate school, I studied a class of these phytonutrients called the carotenoids. Carotenoids are what make foods pretty red, orange, yellow, green. We have them all throughout our bodies, and our bodies can't make them. We need to actually ingest them. So how do these different colors help with detoxification? You know, maybe we go through each of the colors. I think that that might be an interesting exercise. Let me just ask both of you, what is, at least for today, what is your favorite color or what color do you feel drawn to, like a nutrient?

Well, I was just eating our little superfood breakfast bowl here with sweet potato so orange. And it has some blueberries in there too. So orange and blue.

Orange and blue. Okay, how about for you, Danielle?

Carrots lately and beets. So that, like deep, deep red and bright orange have really been calling to me.

Like, sunset colors. Okay. Okay, good. Let's go through each of the colors, and you can see if there is a more metaphorical or symbolic meaning for each of these for you. So let's start with red. Red in the way that I did this color code through the rainbow diet was I was just basically looking at the literature and I was trying to make sense of, like, is there a rationale for each of the colors of the rainbow? Like, why is it important to get every color? And what I soon came to realize was that there were different phytochemical signatures for each color. Each of those signatures translated into a function. So in functional medicine, many times we're talking about how to help the body to restore functionality. Right? So the same thing with phytochemicals. How do we use them to restore and promote healthy function in the body? What is their color signature in us? So red. Red is an interesting one. Red, from a psychological perspective is the color of reaction. It's the color of the adrenal glands. It's the color, it can be of stress. We think of a red stop sign, an ambulance, you know, the. The whirling of an alarm somewhere. It evokes a response, adrenals alert. Right. And, you know, we could say red is also passion, but that's a lot of a response. It can be anger, it can be reactivity. So that's more of the psychological connection to that color. And everybody has their own personalized connection with a color. Of course, in the body, red associates with the inflammatory immune response. So some of these red colored foods can connect to healthy immunity and helping to reduce inflammation, while others of them can actually promote inflammation. So things like nightshades, you know, red foods like tomatoes are not great for everybody. Sometimes they actually create inflammation for an individual. So red is, you know, when I think of red foods that are nature based, I think of, you know, anything from last night. I was eating pomegranate. Somebody just gifted me with 18 pomegranates. So here I was trying to de seed these pomegranates and finding all of these different hacks to do that. But red in pomegranate, you know, I think of ellagic acid, great for detoxification. It's actually what's called a bifunctional modulator. It's helping in the liver, both phases. It's helping in the gut through the production of things like urolithin A, which can help the mitochondria with cleaning up mitophagy. So red to me is. And also a lot of these different red colored foods can be high in vitamin C, which helps with stress response. And if we're talking about detoxification, that's not only toxins in the environment, it could be the ones that we internally generate, like stress. So when I think of red, I think of stress, adrenals, calming, that response, using red to calm red in the body. So that's red.

I love that. And it's pomegranate season. I was just home in Sedona with my mom and her pomegranate bushes are just exploding with these pomegranates that are so delicious. So I carried some home in my suitcase with me. And so I will be thinking of you as I eat those.

They are so beautiful. When I was in Cyprus a year or so ago, one of their acts of like when somebody gets married, they throw a pomegranate into the house as a way to bless the house with fertility and abundance. Because of all of those seeds, right?

Yes.

So it has a lot of different connotations. But then you also have strawberries. Strawberries can be great for some people and not so good for other people. Can generate a histamine response, a reddening response. Right. Watermelon, high in many different things, like lycopene, which can be very protective. Guava, you know, so many different red colored varieties of things as well. Even a red bell pepper is pretty decent in vitamin C. So. And also red just tends to be, you know, tends to have higher polyphenols in some cases. So red. Red is a very interesting color. So should we move on to orange? Because I think orange is the one that most people don't have this recognition of the beauty of orange. So orange. What is the psychology of orange? Orange is actually kind of a sexy color, I've got to say. And the science of orange, if you look at. It's a warming color. It's kind of like red, but it's not so in your face. It's a playful color. It's a sensual color thing. Yeah.

Of joy or something.

Yeah. Yellow is definitely optimism. And orange just. It's between that red and yellow of like. Yes. The joy and the optimism with some kind of movement to it. It's playful. Also when guppies, if you look at animals, certain animals like flamingos or certain Birds or even certain fish, when they are wanting to mate or, you know, they're not thinking this, their bodies just do this, but they tend to have more of these carotenoids that appear in the skin to give them more of this flashy, kind of orangey look. Kind of interesting. So how does that translate in terms of the human body? Well, the human ovary contains between 13 to 14 different carotenoids. And these orange carotenoids I think are especially important for women's health. There's at least one study looking at orange colored foods, helping with things like reducing the risk for ovarian decline. So like our ovaries actually concentrate these carotenoids. We also find them in the skin. We find them in anywhere that's kind of rich in fat because many of these carotenoids are fat soluble. So when we talk about detox, the reason why this is important is because many toxins are fat soluble, they're fat loving and so they're going to hang out in fat. So this is why they disrupt hormones and. Well, that's part of the reason. So these orange and other colorful carotenoids could help with reducing a lot of the oxidative stress, a lot of the free radical damage that some of these fat loving toxins can cause. So orange is something. You know, I have a friend and if she's listening, if she's going to listen to this, she'll laugh, she'll know who she is. But she just says, deanna, I can't eat orange foods. You have to help me eat orange foods. So it's like, it's almost like, you know, everybody kind of has their issue with a color. For me, it was also orange. I had a lot of reproductive issues when I was growing up. So I had endometriosis. I had a blocked fallopian tube and I would never want to wear orange. Even though I had the orangey hair. It was like it was all around me, but I couldn't wear it.

Interesting. I, I remember one, one time we were doing, I think it was like aura photographs in our office and our chef Tyler, she had her picture taken and she had so much orange and she was pregnant at the time.

Oh my goodness. Yeah.

And I remember being like, oh, isn't orange kind of the color of the womb area chakra wise Y so it all, it all makes sense. You know, it's funny that people have been studying and talk, teaching about the chakras for thousands of years and yet even today, you know, you're Connecting the science between these carotenoids and ovaries and putting pieces together.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, as a scientist, I have. So my first book was called Chakra Foods. And I remember people saying to me, they're like, Deanna, people are not going to understand what you're talking about. And that wasn't my choice, that was the publisher's choice to call it that. But I was thinking, you know, what are chakras? They're actually the endocrine system. So when we talk about the sacral chakra, we're actually talking about the ovaries, the uterus, the reproductive tract. When we talk about the root chakra, what are we talking about? The adrenals, the adrenal response mechanism, the stress response, our survival response. So I saw that there was this pattern because I was also studying yoga, doing yoga, I'm a yoga teacher, and I saw that there was a parallel between the science of this endocrine system and the chakra system. And again, to me, the chakra was just our neuroendocrine glands are the entire circuitry of this.

Yeah. So interesting how it's all connected. And this is like back to that point that you were saying of the science and spirituality. And I love, I just love how you connect it to food. So we know red is that, orange is that. And you've been talking about the antioxidant capacity and polyphenols before we get to the next color, just so people know, can you briefly just help people understand how polyphenols play into detoxification? Because I think people tend to think, okay, maybe they're anti inflammatory or carrots help with your eyes. Like I think helping people understand just how vast detoxification is, that our body's doing it all the time. And so when you talk about even, you know, anti inflammatory foods and these polyphenols that also plays into our detoxification pathways.

Yes. And in fact, polyphenols hammer on many different mechanisms related to detoxification. The biggest one that they play a role in is the gut. 90 to 95% of polyphenols that we take in through foods are not taken up by the body. They're actually worked on by colonic microorganisms. So they make their way into the colon, they become metabolized, and then whatever they create can have an effect throughout the body. So they can have an anti inflammatory effect, they can have an antioxidant effect, and they can have a very immediate gut effect. And the gut is primary. It's Very central to detoxification. Right. We start with the gut, actually. So they do foster that healthy cellular and microbial milieu in the gut. That's, I think, what polyphenols are most responsible for. But they have many different functions throughout the body. And there are 8,000 different polyphenols. So, you know, we just talked about one pomegranate ellagic acid. I mean, there are thousands upon thousands. And that's why I call them the underdogs, the whole phytochemicals, because we're talking, you know, upwards of. It's hard to quantify, but maybe, you know, we're looking at maybe up to 25,000 different phytochemicals. And that's just based on what we know. That's not even the ones that we're creating from the metabolites. So it's pretty complex. But we need polyphenols. They're. They're integral for detox. Yeah.

And before we hop into yellow, one more question. So you talked about antioxidants. Can you explain why that's so important for the body?

Yeah. So we're constantly going rancid. We're constantly producing free radicals from our metabolic pathways. And one of the biggest ways that we're producing these free radicals is through our mitochondria. So every time we eat, we're actually creating damage if we don't have a healthy mitochondria and healthy cell. So antioxidants are quelling and scooping up a lot of this free radical spray that we create through cellular processes. So that's why antioxidants are essential. But you want. It's like you've got to take the Goldilocks approach to antioxidants. Not too little, not too much, just right. Because if you just start hammering on a beta carotene supplement and it's too high and you don't have a very healthy inner body milieu, you can actually create pro oxidant activity. And that has been shown in studies with smokers. So what I would say here is like going with the complex array of different antioxidants that nature brings in through the rainbow. Right, that's.

And through food, first and foremost.

Yeah, and through food. Absolutely. Because then you have what nature has designed in its intelligence in order to best protect the body. But yes, antioxidants are protective. They help to scoop up a lot of those damaging aging free radicals.

So really important for anti aging, longevity, staying healthy as we age. Absolutely. So orange. We have my orange sweet potatoes. We have Danielle's carrots and her carrot juice. We have oranges, tangerines, orange bell peppers. Like so many great ways to get orange into the diet.

Yeah. Thank you.

Yellow.

Well, let me just say on orange real quick. Persimmons, mango, if you think of a lot of the circular orange fruits. So tangerines, they're high in a carotenoid that not many people know about. It's called beta crypto xanthin. And I posted this on my Instagram about beta crypto xanthin helping with ovarian health. So I just want to mention that anything like, if you think it's like ovaries, right. If it's round, if it's orange, chances are it will have beta crypto xanthin. Yeah.

Unfortunately. Unfortunately, the raccoon got all of my mom's persimmons this year. I know.

I guess they're about to reproduce a lot.

They must have pretty stellar ovaries.

Yeah.

Okay, on, on to yellow. Now yellow is a little bit like red where it's a double edged sword. So with yellow, I think that when we focus on yellow, I think of the digestive tract and yellow represents the fire element. So I didn't mention this, but you know, when I think of red, I think of the earth element. When of orange, I do think of the water element, the flowing aspect of reproductive health. When I think of yellow, I think of the fire element digestion. So this is bringing in a little bit of the traditional Chinese medicine aspects a bit. So I think we eat a lot of processed yellow foods, cakes, cookies, crackers, waffles, bagels, I mean, you name it, ready to eat cereals like first thing in the morning. We're actually, when, when I think of yellow, I think of we're looking for joy, we're looking for optimism. There was a study in Manchester, Manchester, England, like years and years ago. And basically they showed people all these different colors and then they asked them about their mood state and people who had a, I would say a more normal mood and you know, feeling good, they chose yellow. So I think that perhaps even subconsciously what we're searching for is the joy of food, the joy of being in balance with our, our work life, balance our way in the world. And think of how many people have digestive issues and how they're burnt out. If we just take that fire analogy and say, being inspired, transform. Burnt out. Many people are over here and burnt out. So they keep eating the process yellow and that just leads to more and more burnout. Right. We're burning out our beta cells in our pancreas, which produce insulin because of all of these processed foods. So there are healing yellow foods for detoxification.

What about, like whole yellow foods like bananas? Do you think that has the same kind of effect or different?

So bananas, pineapples and plantains score out of 85 different foods, highest in serotonin, which is really interesting to me. Now, just because we eat serotonin containing foods does not mean that that translates into happiness. But you just look at a banana and you just. Don't you see like a smile? I mean, it's like, don't you feel kind of energized? I mean, a banana also, depending on its ripeness, can contain good, healthy amounts of prebiotic fiber. So that's a good thing. Other yellow foods, I think of lemons, citrus foods that are rich in bioflavonoids, which do help the liver. When I think of yellow, I'm thinking of bile. I'm thinking of, you know, the. The yellow digestive juices. Yes, all of that. Absolutely. And so. But I'm also thinking about things like quinoa and, you know, healthy whole grains for people. For people that do, do eat whole grains. Right. Certain legumes, dal, lentils. So when I talk about yellow in the rainbow diet, there's like a spectrum. It goes yellow, tan, brown. Because even though brown is not outright one of the rainbow colors I do include, and we're going to talk about black and white as well, because they belong as part of this whole rainbow. But when we talk about yellow, it's a spectrum within. Just like within orange, you can have a peach, which can be different colors. Right. Like a softer melon color all the way to like a very dark, I would say like orange, red, carrot. You know, just lately I had a butternut squash. Butternut squash are high, very high in beta cryptoxanthin, by the way. And it's so interesting because it kind of looks like a uterus.

And would those be good for. For women that are going through perimenopause and menopause, yes.

The bottom line is yes.

Yeah, you're basically good for fertility. Also good for perimenopause and hormone balancing.

Overall, yes. We could take that away from the studies. And there is animal work suggesting that beta carotene in the blood tracks with blood levels of progesterone. Now, that's an animal study.

That's why there's all these kind of creams and things that are made from sweet potatoes, wild yam for progesterone, perhaps.

You Know, there is this. We've heard of phytoestrogens, but there's also phytoprogestins. And so some of these compounds work as plant progesterones. So it's kind of. Kind of interesting. But anyway, yellow. Yellow is a. It can be a good color when it's in balance and can give us additional fiber. If we look at a pineapple, we get proteolytic enzymes, so we're giving a catalytic activity. We bring in acids, you know, apple cider vinegar. If you think of like a tablespoon or a teaspoon in water, you know, it's yellow, brown. It helps us with insulin and glucose balance. So this is the seat of, you know, healthy blood sugar, healthy metabolic function, healthy liver function. And some of these yellow. Like dandelion. Dandelion tea. You know, dandelion. Just even the. The yellow flower, you know, just bringing in a lot of that essence of helping with the bitters and stimulating bile flow, bile formation. So that ties right into detox, right, Danielle?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

So we make. In our Level 2 detox program, which is new. It'll be released in January. We have. It's kind of a coffee replacement because so many people drink coffee all the time. It's hard to give up that ritual when you're doing a cleanse or a detox. And so we have one. It's made with fig and burdock root, and it's just.

Yeah.

Really a nice morning beverage.

That sounds amazing.

Yeah, but. And burdock root, I think I actually read that on one of your blogs. Helps to stimulate bile production as well.

Yeah, it's definitely good for the liver, good for bile. You know, burdock, it just. It's known to be more in botanical medicine, like a blood purifier. Just overall, just a good cleanser detoxifier.

And what about chamomile? So we have an evening beverage that's made then with chamomile.

So yellow and white flowers, you know, kind of calming, soothing, helpful for the nervous system. This is more, I would say, like the gut brain access. Right. Doing the calming and the mood modulating. So that's perfect. It sounds really good. Like you're bookending the day with like a good start and a good end.

Exactly. So what color would you.

How about going into green?

Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah.

Oh, good.

Us too.

Yeah.

And I know that's a big one for you. You talk about in the detoxification pathways.

Well, if you look at all of the different foods, I Mean, goodness. Like, it's pretty rare that people don't eat a green food on a daily basis because the amount of green foods relative to red, orange or yellow foods is, like, up here, you know, we have a lot of choices. So, you know, leafy greens, sulfur containing veggies, cruciferous veggies. So many different choices here. So green is the color of the heart. And I'll tell you why. Many people think red is the color of the heart, but in my world, green is the color of the heart because if you look at the nutrients that you have in green foods, you have nitrates. And many people used to think, oh, aren't nitrates bad? No, they're actually naturally occurring. And we find them in things like celery, arugula, you know, a lot of like, even beet greens. And yeah, you're going to find nitrates and other colors of food as well. But you tend to find green foods being a supply of those. Vitamin K. Vitamin K is needed for healthy coagulation. Folates, which is needed for healthy methylation, which keeps your heart and your circulation healthy because you lower homocysteine with folates and other B vitamins like B6 and B12. So in general, you know, greens are good. They contain chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is just a wonderful antioxidant overall. And so, yeah, green foods, I would say, you know, I had an uncle who, you know, he was very challenged with trying to stay healthy. And so I remember my dad, who is not all that healthy, and he doesn't really resonate with a lot of the health things, but I remember him saying to his brother, my uncle, you know, just have a green smoothie. Like, the least you could do is have a green smoothie. The bare minimum where you're green, dad. Yeah, just green. It just feels healing. Green is the color of. Just like yellow is the color of joy and optimism and orange playfulness. You know, green is the color of healing, nourishment. Nature. Yeah, nature. Many people associate green with the color of healing. Yeah, harmony.

Yeah, yeah.

The cdc, you know, who I wouldn't normally quote, but they just did a study recently looking at lots of different foods and seeing which are the most nutritious, like the most nutrient dense and watercress came out on top.

Yes, I have seen that.

Yeah.

And also for detoxification.

Yes. And what's interesting is, you know, Hippocrates used to set up his clinics, his kind of, you know, hospitals, if you want to call them next to Streams and creeks and things where they could grow watercress because it's such a powerful food as medicine.

Absolutely. I'm so glad you mentioned that. That's a perfect detox food. It is very seasonal, and that is an element of detoxification that I think is worthwhile to mention that we need to tap into foods at the seasons that they're grown to maximize their nutrient content. So certain foods that are seasonal will have different levels of polyphenols and certain other sulfur compounds. So I definitely think about that with watercress. I only see that in my grocery store. I have a couple that I go to, but one is very much a local seasonal store. And when watercress shows up, it's like, okay, now I know I need this time for spring cleaning.

And so when are. How often would you say somebody should be doing a detox or some form of additional cleansing for their body?

Well, I have advocated at least twice a year when the seasons are, you know, when you have a more dramatic turn of seasons. I mean, ideally four times a year, if people can do that. But I do think that the transition into spring and the transition into fall are really pivotal times. So the. I think if. Because our body's needs are changing, it's a great resetting. And again, if we can make it more seasonally focused, even better, so that we are establishing a healthy chrono rhythm or circadian rhythm, which very much aligns with detoxification processes. So, yeah, I think at least twice a year. But ideally, you know, what I see out there with detox programs is that many times people think, oh, I'll just detox and then I'll retox.

Yeah.

And I say, you know, that's not really the goal. The goal is you want to bring down your toxin load and try to keep it low. So those two times a year is like a more dramatic lowering. But every day you either want to keep it where it's at level or you want to keep bringing it down a bit. You don't want it to continue to climb to where now you become symptomatic again. So we talk about that a lot. The goal of detox is not retox. Exactly.

And we talk about it like, you know, if you're going to get your teeth cleaned or a deep, deep facial, like you don't want to then get out of your facial and then, you.

Know, get all congested makeup.

Yeah, exactly.

You don't want to, like, get your, you know, you're not going to not brush your teeth in between your cleaning. So it's like, how do you keep clean? And then, yeah, of course, we have a, you know, something we call eat clean, play dirty, which is, you know, really bringing in that yellow, which is eat clean, keep clean, keep your toxin level low. But then also, like, have fun if that's a glass of wine for you or some french fries when you're out with friends, like to, like, learn how to say yes to life, but also do the work to keep your body high functioning and clean in between those times as well.

Right. We really say you are what you do the majority of the time. So the majority of the time, if you're eating these foods and, you know, supporting your detox pathways, then you can go out and you can have that. That yellow french fry. The bad yellow.

Yeah.

And. And then come back and your body should be able to process that and. And get back to its place of being clean.

And I really like what you're saying there about enjoying, you know, if that's where you're, you know, what you would like to do. The more that you stress yourself out and say, oh, I can't do that. But I think what I've also seen with people after doing detox programs all these years is that eventually people are like, you know, I don't even want the fries.

Yeah, you don't crave it as much.

I should still go out with people, but I just don't feel like I want to partake. I know how I feel when I have the fries. And it's not worth a couple of bites to have that feeling.

So you're less willing to trade it. We talk about that all the time. We're like, you know, because our program, it's all whole foods, all organic, all plant rich. And, you know, a lot of times, you know, if you're talking about the SAD diet, the standard American diet, just our signature program can be a big change for people. People, much less our level two, which is in the next level up. And so we talk about your first three days to. Sometimes two to three weeks, depending on where you came from, can really feel like a heavy detox. And like it's hard. But then you get to this place where. And it's really hard to explain unless you've experienced it yourself. But you get to this place and it's exactly what you're saying, Diana, where you feel so good that you're less willing to make the choices that would, you know, take that away from you, that would take you away from feeling as good as you feel in that moment. So it's almost like what brings you joy is it might shift the longer, you know, you're really like learning how to take care of yourself and change your gut microbiome and really change your biochemistry.

Definitely, definitely. And that's really the goal is to make this more sustainable and part of everyday life. Because, you know, our environment is increasingly becoming more and more toxic. You know, microplastics are everywhere, even in the remote parts of the world. Right. So I think rather than focus on that, just, you know, through our locus of control, whatever we can do, we do the best we can with what we have available to us.

Yeah, exactly. What's our next color?

So I did want to just ask quickly about sulfur. You mentioned sulfur. Why is that something that people should be aware of and thinking about?

So sulfur can be a double edged sword again. Sulfur is part of our bodies actually, like our cells, our enzymes, things that are high in protein will contain sulfur. So there are also certain sulfur rich foods. So when we think of onions or garlic, you know, sometimes for certain people, they can't digest that well, or then they get some stomach upset or digestive upset, bloating, they don't react well to sulfur. So that might be part of how they're digesting. So there could be first and foremost, just how are they digesting protein? Do they have adequate stomach acid, hydrochloric acid? Do they have adequate proteases or do they have dysbiosis or an unhealthy gut microbiome which is not able to process the sulfur? Well, there are also certain gene variants and this is getting into kind of a bit of too much science perhaps, but there are certain gene variants that create more of a challenge to process some of the sulfur. So these individuals may need certain minerals or certain other agents to help them do that better. So that's, it's a good thing that nature has a wide palette of different foods. I kind of think of like nature having an artist palette. You know, like an artist has all of the paint, Nature has all of these colors. So even for some people that can't tolerate sulfur, you're still going to get it, you're still going to have it in protein containing foods, just perhaps not in the format that is less digestible. Whether it's because of, you know, some people would say that that's because of fodmaps, you know, all of these kind of indigestible carbohydrates or is it really sulfur? Yeah, it's one of those things that Remains.

And how is it beneficial too?

Yeah, because sulfur is part of detoxification. So sulfur containing compounds are part of the detoxification, especially the phase two part that occurs primarily in the liver. So stinky sulfur containing cruciferous vegetables. Really good for detoxification.

Great.

And that's why even if we think externally about skin care products and about going to like a sulfur rich mineral bath and people going to spas and sitting in sulfur, you know, for some people, it's like it helps with their skin conditions because it's very cleansing, it's very detoxifying. So it's all about, you know, the person, the dose, the amount of sulfur, how it's assimilated, how it's brought in. But yeah, sulfur in general is required.

Great. Okay, so now are we at blue to my blueberries moving up to the throat?

Well, there are two kinds of blue. There's a blue green, which is kind of the color that Danielle and I are wearing. And then there's a blue purple, which is more like your color, Whitney. As best as I can see there. Yeah. So let's start with blue green, because there aren't many blue green foods. So when I talk about blue green, I talk about the green plants that grow in the blue ocean. Then we talk about thyroid health, we talk about metabolic health from the aspect of metabolic rate, thyroid hormone. We need a lot of different minerals actually to help with the thyroid producing adequate thyroid hormone. So we need things like iodine, zinc, selenium, we need vitamin A, we need vitamin D. So if you look at the Japanese diet, one of the features that makes their diet very unique and very medicinal is the concentration of sea plants. And sea plants can be rich sources of fiber and minerals. So during a detoxification, one of the things that I like to have people focus on is mineral rich broths and making sure that they have enough in the way of minerals to bind things like all of those fibers that are in sea plants, like nori, dulse, wakame, you know, just some basic ones. But I think for the average person, at least in the United States, they're not very accustomed to having a lot of those.

There's also here in Central America, they have this blue green spirulina. And it's not like the one that I've had in the States. It's like, I can't. It's like teal. Like you put it in your smoothie and it is like the most tropical blue green color you can imagine. I love it so much. We have a Lot of it down here.

Yeah, I'm glad that you mentioned that. And spirulina has great detoxifying properties as well. It's kind of one of those. It's like a whole food. It's got essential fatty acids, it's got some amino acids, it's got vitamins, minerals, you know, in smaller amounts, but still it's kind of this. It's a beautiful blue green food. Then the blue purple. There's a lot of science on blue purple. So when we think of blue purple, at least I do, I think of the brain, I think of cognition, memory, learning, our mood states in general. In fact, I just posted on my Instagram a study on anthocyanins. Anthocyanins are the compounds that you typically find in blue purple foods that associate with helping with cognition and memory and other things.

Or like, what is an example?

Blackberries, blueberries, figs, raisins. Anything that's blue purple actually. So even a purple variety of cauliflower, a purple variety of a carrot.

Yeah, I'm very into purple sweet potatoes.

Yes.

I think purple is a highly under consumed color.

You're right about that in the diet.

Purple cabbage.

And it's because I, I'd like to say the phrase purple is precious. It doesn't always appear in nature. It's kind of a rare color, It's a regal color, It's a royal color. Right. Purple is also associated with royalty, intuition, wisdom, the brain. So yeah, you don't see it a lot in nature. And when you do, it's very kind of just comes along and then it disappears. So you gotta get it when it appears. But yes, you're right about that, Whitney. There was a study, a survey done on the colors that people were eating. 88% of people neglected to fulfill their blue purple color in the diet. So and if blue purple is for the brain and very integral because of those phytochemicals, then that can be problematic. You know, what if we had children to have blueberries in schools, you know, just even acutely, that can help them with cognition. Oh, by the way, black is on that spectrum. So blue, purple, black. So then that speaks to things like olives, like black olives. Some olives are kind of purplish in color too. But then also blackberries, boys and berries, black seeds, you know, kind of, you know, again, like that deeper hue. Which one?

Black sesame. We actually have a meal we designed, we call it like the film noir bowl, but it's. Everything's black and white, so it's made with black sesame. Like tahini. And then it has.

Black.

What's the other black. It's black radish. Black radish. Black lentils. And then. But then, like, white cauliflower. There's one other white thing. Yeah, it's really cool.

That sounds really nourishing. That sounds good. And what creative name, too.

People don't talk about, you know, black and white being part of the rainbow of foods.

No, no. And when it comes to white, you know, I grew up with a health nut mom in the 1970s, and she would say, you know, that was like the age of Wonder Bread. And that was like, when Wonder Bread was, like, cool. Right. So all the kids at school had wonder Bread, and I did not. I had the brown bread that my mom was baking at home, not with peanut butter and jelly, but with peanut butter and banana or honey. So my mom used to say, the whiter the bread, the quicker you're dead. And that was, like, supposed to be making me feel better about having a brown bread sandwich, and I didn't want any part of it. So when we think of white, you know, there are healing white foods. You just named some Danielle, like with the cauliflower or looking at coconut. That's also become very highly popularized. That has a probably a plus and a minus. But much like yellow, we get way too much in the way of white, refined foods. Right. White sugar, white salt, white flour. So those are the things we'd want to let go of on a detox program. And the other part of white that I think of is a clearing or a gentle fasting. So within my detox program, the whole detox program, towards the end of the 21 days, I start to whittle down the amount of food so that it's not that there is no food, but there is less in order to, again, just clear and just have less attachment. Yeah, physically, yeah.

Very cool. And is that the last color? So we went from the purple to, like, then black and white is how it goes.

Where does pink fall in, like, a pitaya or watermelon radish?

That's a good question. So pink would fall in between the red and the orange, basically, kind of with certain compounds that would track to carotenoids and polyphenols, especially, like, the red kind. But, yeah, pink is kind of unique. It's not very common. But if people do shrimp or, you know, they often ask me about that. And how did the shrimp become colorized? From eating algae. Right. And so astaxanthin, that would belong. That's a carotenoid. So yeah, typically in that red orange area is where pink would go.

So we've talked about inputs. Can you just briefly, kind of maybe as the last question before we go into light work, talk about some of the things that you suggest people do during a detox to make sure all their pathways are working effectively. Like you're going to the bathroom every day. Do you suggest like sweating? So can you talk about the outputs of detoxification and why it's so important to keep things moving?

Yeah. So before we start to fuel those inner pathways, we need to be sure that all the portals of excretion are open. So when I think of organ systems in that way, I think of the gut making sure we're pooping and we have regular bowel movements, which for most people they don't even really have a sense of what that means. But it's like one to two bowel movements per day. Then we think of kidneys and making sure that we're urinating, we're drinking enough fluid and that's a big one. Most people are not hydrating through the day and so they've got brain fog. They don't, they can't even sleep well, they have no energy. So hydration is a big one. The third one is the lungs and making sure that we're breathing and expelling a lot of air particulates. Many of us are shallow breathers. So there is the whole aspect of having like an air purifier and all of that. But we have to like really create that catharsis and that deep breath to expel the lungs of any residue. Right. So that's another point of output. The other one is looking at the skin. So skin brushing, sauna ing, cold therapies, using temperature in order to facilitate the excretion of things through the sebum, which is the oil, which is very important actually because again, a lot of toxins are fat soluble as well as the sweat. And then rehydrating and repleting with minerals. And then I think of the brain actually, you know, the brain detoxification, making sure that you're sleeping well. Like you wouldn't want to start a very rigorous detoxification program if you're highly stressed, not sleeping, not pooping, you're forgetting to hydrate. You know, I would say just focus on getting energy, get your mitochondria in check. Because if you tend to that, get your energy flowing and your systems open, then you're ready to kind of move it forward and take it to the next level because otherwise we create toxins that can escape the body.

Right. And then we can reabsorb them, right?

Yeah, yeah, we reabsorb them. We actually could feel worse if we did a detoxification program without making sure that all of those portals of secretion were open. Right. We can actually be harboring more. So sometimes people feel worse.

What are we detoxing when we detox?

About 80,000 different chemicals.

Can you list them all, please?

It really depends. Well, no, I say that, I say that a little bit in jest, but it's known that there are 80,000 different chemicals in the environment. And I think that that's probably a short list. And again, it doesn't account for interactions. But you know, if we think of in general like a hierarchy of toxins, I think truly the worst are things like mercury, arsenic, cadmium, lead. You know, looking at a lot of what we would call toxic metals can be pretty problematic because, you know, they get into the brain, they get into the kidney, they get into the liver, they get into our organ systems and they start to do a lot of damage, a lot, a lot of oxidative stress. Then I look at other ones that kind of move through the body faster, like parabens, phthalates, plasticizers, you know, plastics are, are an issue. But we can also, if we've got all of our portals of excretion open, we can also move them out of the body quicker. The problem is that people continue to put them into the body, so we never get a reprieve from the plastics. So that's a bit of the problem with that. Right. So there are many different offshoots, you know, endocrine disruptors of various types. But the big ones, I would say are going to be found in our personal care products, in our water, in our food, in our home environment, through carpets, paints, bedding, the air that we breathe. And some people, they just start to feel really overwhelmed when they start to think about all of those things. I think that the biggest one that we can control is water. I don't think we can control air very well. You know, we can get an air filter for our bedroom, our sleeping room, our living room, we can aerate the kitchen when we're cooking, we can do that a bit. But still air is like amorphous, like we can't really put our arms around it. But water, we are mostly water and we are engaging in water based activities, especially Danielle, on a constant basis. Right. We're showering, we're bathing, we're drinking, we're washing things, right? I mean, we are. Our planet is mostly water. We are mostly water. So if we can get our water straight and pure water.

Do you drink?

What do you do?

So we do have a whole home filtration system. So we live in a rural area in the Pacific Northwest. And so we have had our water tested. It is, you know, devoid of a lot of the microorganisms and the metals and things that I would be concerned about. The thing about purified water is that you're taking out the good things with the not so good things. So you do have to replenish with minerals. And so for some people who do things like reverse osmosis water, they have to remineralize. They have to bring in magnesium and calcium. So, you know, many times what I'm doing is I drink water with minerals in it, whether it's Himalayan crystal salt or it's some kind of magnesium. I think it's one of the oversights that people have. And minerals compete with metals. So if you are properly mineralized, you're not making way for the uptake of different toxic metals. They kind of compete. So minerals are the name of the game.

I love that.

Really important.

This has been amazing. You are just speaking our language with all of the rainbow colors and science and spirit. It's been so wonderful to get to talk to you today. We like to end every podcast with asking our guests for some light work for our listeners. So can you share a light work for our Sakar light listeners today? So when you say it's like a homework or a challenge or what do you. Or an exercise, what do you want our listeners to do to take what we've talked about today and start to put it into action?

Okay, I would like diversity, more diversity of what people are eating and doing. Diversity is one of the principles that I use. So I have four principles. Color, creativity, diversity, and rhythm. And I think for this conversation, what we didn't touch upon, and so that's why I want to leave everybody with it, is the whole idea of diversifying our food, because when we do that, we lower toxins, we increase nutritional status. So there's a lot of great science about dietary diversity and how beneficial that is. And also, it just cultivates better health because when we change our routines up every day, we get better neuronal plasticity. When we are kind of, I would say, dealing with different life circumstances, we create better heart rate variability. And when we are good in our gut and feeling really robust, there we have metabolic flexibility. So diversity, to me is one of nature's principles and really important for our health. So changing it up and getting out of our ruts. And that's what detox programs do. Like yours.

Yes, big time.

Exactly. Pull you out of your norm. Exactly. Well, thank you so much, Sienna. We'd love to. We'd love to have you back on the podcast. I know you're doing a lot of research on melatonin right now and circadian rhythms, which I was actually thinking about doing my capstone thesis on, but actually changed it to longevity in the microbiome. But maybe we can have you on another time to talk about circadian and melatonin because it's so interesting.

Well, it's been so great to talk to you.

This has been great, Great having the conversation.