Good Day Google+ - A Day in the Life

I read the news today. Oh boy, 1,000 holes in Facebook's algorithm. And though the holes were rather small, they charged us for them all. And now we know our friends will never see what we post on our walls. Welcome everyone, it's Good Day Google+ and it's a day in the life. You know, sometimes I I don't even know where I'm going with these, so I have to think on my feet. And I just came up with that. It seemed like a natural way to start, but it's a day in our life. It's a Friday. It's a wonderful day to be together with your friends, especially on Google+ because we can meet here, we can talk here, we can engage and interact and just have a really good time. And I've got some wonderful panelists on for you today. One new one that I want to introduce to everyone and then 3 of my old friends. I actually got one out of semi-retirement from Google+ for this, Sunny. Sunny, I'm so glad you could make it. It's Sunny Cadwalader. Then I just stumbled over a little bit.

Where's the Mia applause when you need it?

I know, I know. Mia's probably still winding up her show. She had a Horrible Bosses show today. It was kind of fun.

Good thing she's her own boss.

That's true, yeah, because if she's got a problem and she just has to have a drink— actually, two drinks, one for her and one for her boss, and there you go, then there's no problem anymore. But thanks so much for coming in, and I hear that a little brrr is in order for where you are.

It is. We made it finally to 21 degrees just a few minutes ago. It was 16 probably a couple of hours ago up here in the Pacific Northwest. Nothing like what Heather Crafter deals with in Montana, but still bur parka bundle up weather.

Well, you know, I drove by my neighbor yesterday, and I'm still not quite a real Floridian, although I am getting there, and she had on long pants, a jacket with a hood while she was walking her dogs, and it was 72, 74. So, you know, everything in perspective, I guess.

It's cold.

That sounds like what my sister does. My oldest sister— all my family is down in Arizona, and once it hits to the lower 70s, she's got sweats sweats on and her jacket, and she's bundling up like what we do up here in the 30s and 20s and minus wind chills, whatever. So yeah.

I know. So I guess in Green Bay, that's a balmy 21 for them.

Yeah, probably shorts weather.

Shorts weather. Shorts weather. All right, and next to Sunny on my side, I have Nazim Beltran, and he is in Milan.

Milano, Italy. A very wet Milano, Italy. We've been flooded in the last 3 days in the sense that trains were delayed and we're 60 degrees, not that cold, but tons of rain. Tons and tons of rain. Not a good winter over here. In fact, if it would get colder, I was wondering, it would be blizzard weather. I mean, we would be like shoving snow every day probably.

That wouldn't be good. And you guys can see it almost from where you are. The Alps aren't that far.

No, no. You can see them. Well, remember that show we did on top of the Duomo where you could clearly see the Alps from the top of the Duomo? And over here on a clear day, you can see them also. They're relatively close.

I remember my first view of the Alps. We landed in Milan, and I'm looking at them going, ah, they aren't— we got the Rockies. And then we flew over them, and I went, oh my god, they go on forever.

Forever.

Impressive mountains.

You should post some pictures, Chef.

Oh, you know what?

You know the Chef's coming back to Milan. That's part of the deal. I do these Hangouts, I do enough of these, and I get the Chef to come over.

Yeah, I have.

Okay, I'll wait, I'll wait. So you're saying aspettate to me, right?

Aspettate. You know, Lisa wants to rent a place in Ocean City for next summer, and I said, that's fine, I'll go to Milan then. Her eyes bugged out and she says, "You will not." Says, "We'll go before then." Chef, don't get me on the S-list, if you know what I mean.

Please.

I'm sure Betty would be pissed at me if I didn't bring her along, so we can't go.

Good point.

Yeah, good point. Then next to Nazim, I have Dr. Gene Layton, and it's so good to see you again. I haven't seen you since ShiftCon.

I know it's been a while. I have to admit I drop into Google+ and hang out on a Hangout only occasionally. I'm just too busy otherwise.

I tell you, I have backed off a little bit too. I think everybody's just kind of taking a breather this time of year. Lisa thought there was something wrong with me because I hadn't been talking to Mia twice a day.

She's easy to talk to.

I know she is, but I said, "No, I'm just tired. I'm just taking a little bit of a break to recharge the batteries a little." and come back strong. But we just need that from time to time. And you, if you're busy, that's a good thing.

It's a very good thing. I'm actually launching a new business, so it's, you know, just all that stuff.

Excellent.

Congratulations, Jean.

Thank you, Sunny. Yeah, it's fun. I'm finally taking what I've learned in all this time in social media and starting to help other businesses get here.

Good for you.

Lots of fun. Lots of work.

You work very hard at it and you do a great job, so I'm sure you'll help a lot of people understand this process.

That's what I'm hoping. I think more businesses need to be able to share their story so that— you know, marketing is changing so rapidly and I'm so tired of the same old, you have to put up this many ads or you have to make this many comments. It's like, no! Talk to people, tell them your story, be real, and then you'll get your business. Preach it, sister. I'm just sick of the formulaic. It's like, no, people want to hear why you do what you do. Like Cece, I can't wait to hear the whole story, although I heard it, but I want to hear it on live. I want to be able to share that. Excitement and that joy. And you know, you work with people you like. That's the reality. So why aren't we all more like them?

I know. I spent an evening with some startup people Wednesday. I was so fortunate that I got to go to UCF again and speak to a group at Blackstone's Launchpad. And wow, I had such a good time. And to be around such brilliant young minds, I'm like, oh my God, this is so exciting. So I went to a meeting where some of the mentors and things were hanging out and doing stuff, and some of them were saying about making these really clean, precise, sharp videos, you know, with really done well. I said, no, no, no, people want to see a real person now. Those days are behind you where you're making these really beautiful products that aren't real. You can just do that and put it out, but if you want to connect with people, they want to see you. I said, it's live television. They want to see Julia Child drop the chicken, pick it up, take a drink of wine, and then move on. No harm, no foul. So don't let that stop you, and it saves you a whole bunch of money too in the process.

Slick is getting to be slimy. It really is. No matter how your intentions are, the slick production, people don't trust.

Yes, that's an excellent point.

Why waste the time?

Or the money.

Or the money, yeah. I mean, there's times and places for super slick, but It's not in day-to-day conversation.

No, no, we're not making a Lady Gaga video, so we don't need super slick, right?

Or Pentatonix. I mean, I love their production. My favorite, my favorite group, you know, an a cappella singing group. I love Pentatonix. And I love to see them live. I've been lucky enough to see 4 different productions of theirs. Yeah, and they've gotten more and more slick, which has started to detract a little bit from their fun interactions between, you know, especially the core 3. They've been friends since they were in middle school, and to see that interaction has always been part of the fun of their concerts. And now that they're getting a little bit bigger and a little more professional, now they're starting to tone that down. It's a shame because it's really fun to imagine these kids knowing each other since, you know, 6th grade or 5th grade, whenever they met.

Yeah, that's a lot of the magic of it, so maybe they'll realize that if enough of their fans tell them.

Hey, they're going to be on the Macy's Parade, you know, they're doing fine. I can't wait to see a cappella in New York cold, because New York right now, trying to sing live, ooh. The Macy's Parade is a tough gig.

Absolutely, absolutely. How is it in Bellingham? Are you guys any better weather-wise?

We are chilly. We've gotten our first frost in the last couple of days. Our high has been about 40, which around here is a little chilly.

Send it over here, Jean. Send it over here.

Yeah, the bicyclists are starting to pull on their wool socks. You know, but not much else.

That's like the caterpillars right there forming, they're getting that wooly underbelly.

Yeah, my chickens are really happy I have the light on in the shed.

So, it's like a Motel 6 for them, you keep the light on.

If I want eggs at this time of the year, I gotta keep the light on, yes.

Good.

Alright, well let me introduce our newest panelist, our newest member, and that is Cici Pandolf, and she is from Soapbox Soaps, which is an amazing company, and we're gonna let her talk about that in a little while too. But Cece, how are you doing?

I'm good. I'm excited to explore the world of Google+.

This is such a great format to use. We hope you embrace it and really enjoy your time here. Now, you're in Maryland?

We're in Alexandria, Virginia. Yeah, so also right outside of DC though.

Yeah.

Yeah, so proud local DC company. Our founders met at American University, but I recently joined the company about 6 months ago. So my first job out of college, I'm as young as I look. And it's a super fun company though. I mean, we're all just really hungry, you know, to make a change in the world and also to make a really excellent product that people love. So we get to do that every day and it's a ball.

Well, you do have a great product. I mean, I know firsthand because we got a bar of it in our, in our one of our bags from ShipCon. I love that black soap, it was really nice. Yeah. Had a good time. In fact, I'm just about done with it because I didn't start it until a little while ago, and I'm going to order some more of that online. I see you're having some holiday specials and things.

Yeah, yeah, we're kind of doing some marketing planning right now. I mean, you know, this is the first time for me to go into the holiday season with a CPG company, so if anyone has any good ideas, please shoot them my way. Just kind of figuring it out as we go.

Sounds good to me.

How old is the company, Cici?

It was founded in 2010, but the founders didn't quit their day jobs really until about 2 years ago. So we started selling in stores about 2 years ago.

I'm ignorant to it. What's the premise behind it? What was the impetus for it?

So it's a social mission soap company. So for every bar you buy, we give a bar, and we have liquid hand soap and body wash now too. But our founder, Dave Simnick, he worked at USAID and a couple other government organizations. He wanted to do aid work with the government. And he just kind of realized there might be a better way to do this. So social mission companies were starting to come around. And he had seen in his work with USAID that while clean water was being address that soap wasn't. So that's where he saw the need. And now we're, you know, all-natural soap company with a social mission.

Cool, good to hear.

Yeah, people are referring to you as the TOMS of soap now.

Yeah, and we are okay with that. They're a great company.

Now you guys do more than just soap though, and I know I read part of it, part of your mission statement, or part of what you're doing is you're providing soap to like homeless shelters too. For women, and you're doing other things with that. But in foreign countries, you're not just— it's not just about the soap. Didn't I read some other things you were doing?

Yeah, so for the soap in particular, we a lot of times will send money to local nonprofits to buy the soap in the local communities or start like a soap making business. So we don't ever like just send soap over there, except for recently with Ebola efforts, they've been asking for a lot of soap, so we've been sending soap over. But yeah, our hand soaps fund clean water initiatives, so we work with Raincatcher. And then our body washes, we work with Vitamin Angels to give vitamins. So it's kind of like the whole spectrum of health and hygiene. And a lot of those nonprofits also do handwashing education, so Global Handwashing Day was a big day for us. But yeah, trying to like, you know, do the whole picture and do it sustainably.

Well, that's excellent. And you know, I don't think people realize we take a lot for granted. What that feeling of being clean can do to change your whole perspective on life. I mean, for some people you may think, "Oh yeah, they're starving, give them soap." No, but you know, if you give someone a chance to make themselves feel better about themselves, and sometimes it's as simple as just washing their hands or being able to clean their bodies, you can give them a whole—

No, we work with this one organization called Urban Light, which is, I think, the most interesting organization we work with, but they work with boys in sex trafficking in Thailand. And, and that bar soap is a huge deal for those kids because, you know, like, you just want to take a shower, like, just to feel better about yourself. I mean, that's like a really real need that we're able to, like, you know, help meet. So it's, you know, tough story to hear, but it's really— it's, yeah, it's needed.

You know, Cece, I don't know if they would align with the company's core values or anything, but if you're looking for something around the holidays. Samaritan's Purse does the Operation Christmas Child.

Yeah, I used to give those every Christmas when I was growing up.

Yeah, I've heard of them.

Yeah, where the kids, you know, they shop for various items including soaps. So I don't know if that might be something that you guys could look into. If not this year, then maybe next year.

Yeah.

Provide the soaps for the places that they send those Christmas boxes to.

Yeah, yeah, we definitely probably look at the next year. I think it's probably a little late now. We've also— we're looking back at our numbers and we've given double the amount that we've sold as of like right now, just because of, you know, enterovirus and flu and Ebola going on right now. There's just like a huge need for soap.

So we're trying to like maybe partner with them to where you offer people discounted— discounted discounts so, so they can use it for their Christmas boxes or, you know, market it like that or something.

Yeah, that's true.

Well, you do have— your bundles were really nice, and they're excellent Christmas gifts to give people because you have your body wash, your soap, and what was the other item in it?

Hand soap, body wash, and bar soap.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really nice packages, and you get to choose from a lot of different things. So I mean, if you're stuck on giving someone, you know, what am I going to give them? What kind of thoughtless gift am I going to run out to make season's buy? Where you can give them something And you give them a little card, I'm sure, that explains what's going on with it, you know, that's going to make a difference in someone's life.

Yeah, yeah, this year we have like the new holiday bundles and we have a couple other bundles with different scents. But yeah, I mean, that's what we kind of marketed it as, is like, if you know someone who you don't know what to get them, like, this gift is really fun, it is thoughtful, and it also gives back. So kind of a 3-in-1. Yeah, and they're not very expensive.

Do you ship overseas to Europe?— I'm located in Italy.

I think we can, I think the shipping could be a little expensive because it is a heavy product, but yeah, I could look into that.

That's good to know.

What's the Twitter handle?

It's @SoapboxSoaps, and same thing with Insta and Facebook.

Pretty easy.

And our hashtag is #soap equals hope.

Are they only available through Soapbox Soaps, or can somebody order them from Amazon?

We actually just got our Amazon page up and running. It doesn't have the bundles on it, but it does have the individual products. And then we're also in over 1,500 stores around the country too, so you can find the products.

You're in stores.

Are you—

I forget where I've seen you. Were you in Whole Foods or—

Yep, almost full chain in Whole Foods. We're missing 2 regions, but yeah. And then here's a lot of, you know, all-natural products stores, Harris Teeter and Fresh Market around here. Obviously, you know, stores are regional. But we do have a store locator on our website if you want to check that out.

Were you present at ShiftCon by any chance? I'm curious about that.

Yeah, that's how I met Chef Dennis Littley.

I was wondering about that.

Yeah.

I tell you, I've been getting more mileage out of ShiftCon.

You have a way of getting around now, Chef. We all know that.

Yeah, but I not only drank the Kool-Aid, I was taking other people's Kool-Aid. It was like, oh, I had more WTF moments there when they were telling things. It's not that I didn't know it, it's just that all of a sudden I was sitting there and it wasn't just here on a Hangout talking to Leah, and I'm like, oh God, you're scaring the crap out of me, will you stop that for now? All of a sudden I hear it and I'm going, it really sunk in there. I think just being in that atmosphere really made it even more positive. It was life-changing for me. It really was. I can't wait for next year now. I'm excited.

Well, there's nothing quite like talking to the people who have been walking the walk for a long time, and ShiftCon was full of the people who created the products were all standing there and telling their stories. Incredible, incredible group. And I'll be there next year too.

Well, Sunny, thank you so much for stopping. I know you gotta go and We've missed you terribly. Please, please come back to us.

Yeah, yeah, I will.

I've been— when I'm on Google+, I've been living in the college football community because those are my people, man. Those are my people right now. But I will return to hosting my own show in January. If you want to know what's going on with me, find me in the social media universe @CadChica, C-A-D-C-H-I-C-A, or check out what I've been writing about covering football, covering social media, anything you want to know, CadChicaSports.com. Thank you, Sheff.

Always a pleasure. Have a wonderful weekend. I'll see you soon.

Adios.

Adios. Great to see you again.

Good to see you, Sonny.

Missed you.

Bye-bye. Well, that was such a nice treat. Thank you guys for welcoming me. So let's go back to SOAP and ShiftCon. Jean, let's talk a little bit about your experiences there. I know it was so nice to meet you, and I told Lisa, I said, I don't think I got a better welcome from anyone in my life than I got from you. You had a mouthful of food and you weren't letting go of me.

No, we met in the bar, of course, right? Where else do we meet? And it was so funny because I was sitting down with some other people that I had followed forever on social media. And, you know, it's a little nerve-wracking to walk into a big conference and not actually have known and met people in real life. You know, it's so different. But I've learned over the time to just tweet out where you are and see who can go do what you need to do. Let everything be organic. So that's what I had done, and I had tweeted out, "I'm hungry, who wants to go eat?" And had found a couple of people, and we were seated in the restaurant, and I saw Chef walk in, and it was just like, you know, we worked together for 2 years, 2 and a half online, you know, and this was the first time that we could actually like meet. And for me, ShiftCon was a lot of that. Because I finally met Mia and I finally met Rebecca and I finally, you know, all these people that I have known and worked with online finally manifesting. And in the brands, you know, I was meeting the people that I've been tweeting with or been emailing with for PR or whatever, and I'm meeting all of them as well. And then all the NGOs. So the people contacts of a conference for me is always why I go. You know, I'm a little isolated up here in Bellingham. I'm 2 hours north of Seattle, so kind of in the middle of nowhere. You know, online you get to meet people, you get to see everybody, but you don't get to have those hallway conversations or water cooler conversations or glass of wine conversations. You have to put yourself out there in a very different way. For me, ShiftCon was a lot of hugs and a lot of meeting people.

It was wonderful. I expect next year to be even bigger. I can't imagine any more swag bags though.

Oh my God.

Oh, crazy.

Yeah, Leo was just going haywire with the swag. How many did we end up with?

4?

5?

It was insane. 4 full ones though. They weren't like 4 little half bags like you get most places. They were heavy.

Let me tell you, I saw the presentation, I saw her, I mean, she is a powerhouse behind this event. She has really put something that I think next year it's going to exponentially grow and grow and grow. You can just— the feeling of what I saw you guys doing over there, you could tell it was just going on and on and on. And I think it's got a great future.

It was like a combination Girl Scout camp and the biggest networking event you've ever been to. I mean, it was just— because there was so much calm, peaceful, kind of, "Oh, I'm finally talking to the people I love," you know, in real life. And then there was the, "Here's what we've got to move." Here's the message and we've got to move it. And how do we move it? All the strategy and structuring and all of that in the background. The combination was dynamic.

And it was such a good feeling, like you said, people weren't off in their own little worlds, you know, their cliques. I mean, there were some groups that had known each other longer, and that's normal, but they weren't ignoring you, or they weren't like the mean girls in school, you know, they weren't that way. It was all a very calm, peaceful and you tell someone, "No, I still eat this." They may have been a vegetarian. They go, "Okay, well, that's okay." It wasn't like I was referred to burn a cross on your lawn, and that's what I expected. No one was that way. No one was judgmental. No one was backing away from you. It was really a nice, peaceful event.

I would say also from the brand side, I'm pretty new to the green movement, but the questions that people asked us about our products were really interesting and opened our eyes to what our consumers care about. So it was really valuable even on the brand side to meet the people that are buying our products and can be our advocates.

Leah has a huge network of women who have a very particular focus in their own lives, be it green or food allergy or—

Lead-free.

I mean, you know, the lead-free vegan BPA-free, bisphenol-free. Yeah, and people are going into like micro-niches, but Leah has managed to combine them all into Momovation and into ShiftCon people now. She's been working and it shows. She's got this network of incredible people who chat with each other all the time.

They are. It was a remarkable experience and she does an outstanding job. Absolutely is just the nicest person in the world. When I told her at the end when I was leaving, I drank the Kool-Aid. She went, "Oh, Chef, I love you." It was like, "Oh my God, what a wonderful experience." She has really done a great job. Well, Jeanne, you're here today, too, because Chef Dennis Littley is gluten-free.

I'm gluten-free. How are you feeling?

Yeah, I feel so much better, it's not even funny, and I haven't even cleared my system. I know that. I know it's too soon to expect much happening, but about a week in, I— it was like a fog had been lifted off of me. Not that I felt that I was in a fog before, but all of a sudden, my mind seemed clearer. I felt more alert. I noticed I wasn't getting as tired in the middle of the afternoon. Where I'd want to lay down. Even now, when I lay down, I'd lay there and go, "I'm not tired. Get up." That was the most immediate change that's happened. My cravings for sweets or baked goods has gone away.

The reality is, for a lot of people, their gluten response is exactly that. It's almost an addiction. And I don't use that word lightly, but the reality is the inflammation sets up a desire for more, which is crazy. I mean, you feel it. But that's the reality. That's what people have. That elimination of brain fog, that's the first thing for most people. The brain fog goes away first. Then all of a sudden, more and more things start happening, like the energy level. Then And it gets to be a little more complex. It depends on where you were manifesting your reaction to begin with. So for some people, it's digestive, and any digestive downstream problems they had start to vanish, and they go, "Oh gosh!" I mean, this is what I find for a lot of people is it's their realization that their continual experience as an adult is not common. They thought that 17 bowel movements a day was normal, and it's not. Hey, guess what? It's not. It's like this dawning realization. It's awesome. I love it when people go gluten-free. I have to admit, I encourage everybody, go get the blood test at least so that you can have the diagnostic beginnings of whether or not you truly have Celiac disease because there's always that essence of, "Well, I could cheat because I really don't have a diagnostic thing that tells me I shouldn't." I encourage everyone, go get the blood work and then realize that if you go gluten-free, it's 100% and for life. Don't cheat because if you cheat, you can actually create more damage. It sounds weird to say that, but when you have inflammation and you have it die down, when you take in what creates that inflammation again, it's like your entire immune system just goes on attack. The damage to the rest of your body because of that inflammatory response is really not pretty.

Dr. Pompa: When you said inflammatory, too, I will mention Well, my— first of all, my bathroom habits did improve greatly, much to my joy, because I don't think anyone likes having that type of bathroom habit, but I could be wrong. But anyway, but the other thing was that I've had disc problems, and I don't know if it's from that. I mean, because I've been getting acupuncture too and some other things, but my back doesn't hurt as much. I just don't feel the pain and it's easier to walk.

Very common. Very, very common. You know, if you think about it, when a cell is inflamed, it swells just a bit. That's part of the inflammatory cascade. And because the cells swell, you can impinge on nerves. You can impinge on even the smallest of nerves. For anybody with rheumatoid arthritis, once you've done the diagnostics on rheumatoid and made sure that you've got all the criteria met, I really encourage people, go on a gluten-free diet and see if you get enough of a change. When I say go on a gluten-free diet, it's not just 30 days. You have to go at least 30, but preferably 90 to be able to clear the complete reaction. That means 100% no gluten. Gluten's in wheat, rye, and barley. For people who aren't from— I always forget that there are people who are first hearing the words because I've been doing this a long time. Wheat, rye, barley, and you have to be very careful with oats because oats are processed on wheat-bearing equipment and transported in wheat containers so that unless they're labeled gluten-free oats, you are getting gluten. And it takes 20 parts per million to get a reaction. So 20 parts per million is like a tablespoon in a swimming pool. It's an incredibly small amount, and it's dust on a counter. It's flour on a counter where your gluten-free whatever gets placed and gets picked up. It's that— it's that level. It's a toaster that has a damp piece of bread that goes in it. And there's crumbs and they get picked up on your gluten-free bread when you pull it out of the same toaster. Crumbs are enough to make you sick. So you have to be really cautious and really careful and really understand how you can be gluten-free. So at ShiftCon, I have to be honest, at ShiftCon gluten-free was sometimes a bit of a challenge because, you know, there Because of the goal of organic and non-GMO, it was a dawning for everybody to realize that gluten-free food is a couple steps behind in that. Because there aren't gluten-free breads. They don't exist organically. Or actually, there is one, but it's really small and you have to mail order it. But like, Rudy's was there, and Rudy's has gluten-free bread, but Rudy's gluten-free bread is not organic., and it's not non-GMO. Leah couldn't bring it in because it didn't match ShiftCon. We were able to have plenty of breakfast, believe me. Nobody starved at ShiftCon. The food was amazing. There were some things that just weren't there for a gluten-free person. To me, that just means that Leah's going to keep working on those people because she has that community of organic, non-GMO.

Together.

It'll be fun.

I'd love to jump in on this. I've been gluten-free for 2 years now. I was getting really sick in college. I think it was just from stress, going to a new school and stuff, but it made me feel so much better all through my college career. I just graduated. I've been doing a lot of other tests because I still don't feel awesome. I think my My digestive system just isn't that great, but it definitely helps so much to do that. I don't remember how I felt before, if there were other symptoms that I am avoiding now as far as being sleepy and stuff, but I definitely would not go back even if I could.

Dr. Pompa: Yeah.

I don't see a reason right now to go. Elisa asked me, she says, "Are you going to stay on this?" I says, "Well, everything's good. I don't see a reason." not to stay on it. I am using Rudy's Bread, and I like a nutty, kind of grainy bread, so toasted, it's perfect. I know it's not GMO-free. It's not organic, and everything else I try to buy. There's two items that, for now, for me, it's still baby steps kind of a thing. I've gotten this far. Let me get a little bit further, and then I can take a deep breath and try and see if I can get another product in that'll suit me better. For now, the fact that I'm eating and I'm happy I think is important.

Both my parents went gluten-free when I did, and I know, to Nazim, my parents traveled to Italy and they were really pleasantly surprised at how the gluten-free options were there. I know you guys eat pasta and all that stuff.

Gluten-free here in Italy is just starting, I would say. You have to go to specialized stores.

Not always. You guys actually have quite a bit.

Yeah, that's what my parents found.

Yeah, well, what we do have is, I think, the GMO-free and the organic. That we have quite a lot. But gluten-free, I have a friend who was celiac here, and he had a rough time. But I'm talking about 2 years ago, maybe. Now he left and went to London.

Yeah, I don't know. They traveled, and they— at restaurants, you know, they always could find gluten-free pasta, and they were just really excited about that because my dad loves food.

Well, I've been using Barilla's new gluten-free pasta.

Yeah, I do have— yeah.

Barilla's is a good one. I like the Jovial gluten-free, and Jovial has an Italian base. They have a— what do they call it when you have a place to stay and a restaurant? And a cooking school? Is it like a pensione? I have never been to Italy. Okay, so they have a pensione, and they actually— I know Shauna Ahern, the Gluten Free Girl, she goes and teaches there.

Wow.

Like a week at a time.

Here in Italy? Yeah.

She's done it at least 2 years, so—

We gotta get her on the Kazakianzi Show.

She's not on the Plus.

Okay.

Shawna doesn't seem like she does as much social media as she used to, I don't know.

Well, she's got two very— well, her newest child is under a year and she's got a 5-year-old.

That will keep you off Google+ for a while.

Yeah, she's busy and all her social media is based off her blog, so in so many ways she stays visual, you know, Instagram and Pinterest and Twitter. She's big on Twitter.

I have one other question, Dr. Jean. Our soap is gluten-free, and I would be curious what you comment on for body products being gluten-free and how that can help you.

This is always fun. There's disagreement, as there is in lots of medicine, about whether or not you absorb the protein, which is what creates the reaction topically. I always look at people who say, "You can't absorb a protein that large," and say, "Have you ever seen a medication patch?" They go, "Yeah." I say, "How big do you think those items are that are going through your skin? Do you honestly think that the nicotine in a nicotine patch is tiny?" They go, "Oh, right." The reality is our skin is not a solid wall. It's cells. So if there's gaps between the cells for whatever reason— you've got dry skin, you've got a cut or a scrape or a burn, you bite your fingernails and you chew on your cuticles. I mean, people do all sorts of things, right? All of those places are places of entry for really large molecules. Especially for people who are inflamed to begin with, if you have any kind of psoriasis or eczema, you've got more than enough places to have all of that come in. It goes right into the bloodstream. You're going to get the reaction. Personally, with all gluten-free people, I say go completely gluten-free on all your topicals. That's shampoo. You want to make sure there's no wheat germ oil. Or wheat germ and/or oat. I love Aveeno, or I used to, but none of their oats are gluten-free oats. Although it's not a glutenful grain, you're getting a trace exposure. When you're talking about a reaction that goes down to 20 parts per million, if you use a lotion constantly that has Even that high a level, you're going to ingest some because there's nobody I know that washes their hands before they eat every single time. So you put on lotion 2 hours before, you still have that lotion when you pick up your moist sandwich or fill in the blank. You're going to get that in your mouth. Lipstick, huge source of exposure for women. Huge. Because we always eat our lipstick. If there's any kind of gluten in your lipstick, you've got a problem. There are gluten-free lines, and there are gluten-free lines that are really high quality, non-GMO, organic lines. Go for those. If you're going to eat it, you want it to be decent quality. Maybelline has had major problems in a lot of things, mostly with minerals. They've had high lead levels in red lipstick. Toxic. There's a lot of reasons to look very carefully at your topicals. But soap, yeah. I don't do oat soap of any sort unless I'm certain, but I love oatmeal baths. If you've got an irritated skin situation, oatmeal is one of the best things to help soothe that irritation. Grab the gluten-free oats from Bob's or one of those companies, Montana Oats. And make your bath that way.

I'm glad you said that because I had my old Quaker Oats, and I was thinking, "Oh, I'll use them for an oatmeal bath." No, those get fed to my chickens. Got to use the good ones. We did have a question here from Ann Brock, and she says, "I feel better when I just cut down on gluten—less bread, less breaded foods. Since I'm not especially sensitive to gluten, is this just my imagination?" a lesson that makes me feel better?

No, it's not your imagination. Here's what's changed in our diet. If you think about our diet 100 years ago, we ate a very broad array of grains. We did not eat a monoculture of wheat and corn. We ate things like barley. We ate things like oats, whole oats ground into flour. We ate things that were diverse because that's what was coming out of the fields at that particular time. We were way more connected to seasonal eating. In the 100 years, what's happened is we've had these monocultures grow, and then they become an exposure we get in everything. The daily diet 100 years ago, you might have had an egg for breakfast. And a piece of home-canned fruit. Lunch could have been anything under the sun from a piece of fried chicken from the night before to some sort of vegetable dish, but rarely a sandwich because somebody had to bake the bread to make your sandwich. Baking only happened once a week because it was such a job. Then the same thing with dinner. You may have had a wheat exposure at dinner, but you probably didn't. You probably had it once or twice a week. You know, on baking day, somebody got rolls, kind of thing. But since then, we've gotten to the point where we eat wheat in every single meal, every single day. Even if it's just enough to make a soup thick or a gravy, wheat shows up. And that's a huge jump in exposure. It makes people have a reaction to something that they eat constantly. Same thing happens with corn, another huge allergen that happens for an awful lot of people because they've got more exposure to it than they ever did. No, you're not crazy. It's not your imagination. You're just eating a whole heck of a lot more of it than your body has been able to change to adapt to. Our genes don't change that quick.

Well, your genes do change if you eat too much wheat because they keep getting smaller. You can't—

Let me tag on along to that. Is it also the fact that all these wheats and rye and what we're talking about now has been more processed industrially through time, and that's created some sort of reaction that's not good for human beings at the moment?

Well, since we're talking about shift time, part of it is with corn that there's a genetic modification in the corn itself. So the science of whether or not genetic modification of corn changes our cells has not been run. It just hasn't happened yet. And the problem is because the people who own the patents on the seeds don't allow it to run. So it's an unknown. But we do know that the pesticide The pesticides that get put on those genetically modified crops do create intestinal permeability. That means that the pesticides that you're eating on the genetic modification crops definitely affect the ability of your body to hold the food inside the digestive tract and not have it leak out into the circulatory system. Dr.

Pompa: Is that what you refer to as a leaky gut?

It's referred to as a leaky gut, and it's referred to as intestinal permeability. I'm a big fan of, "Let's use the scientific term," because first of all, it's a whole lot more accurate, and second of all, it tells you exactly what's happening. You're having a permeable surface created where there shouldn't be any permeability, and everything that can move through does. So now your circulatory system is dealing with intact proteins that it should never have been in contact with. It's dealing with vitamins and minerals that are coming in undigested forms. So what happens in the cascade from that hasn't been researched either, because somebody has to pay for the research, and none of the companies that are making the products are going to do that unless they're forced to. So there's that. The other side of it for the wheat realm, because wheat is not genetically modified right now, there's test plots that if you look in the literature, Oregon and Idaho had to deal with test plots of wheat that was genetically modified 10 years ago showing up in wheat last year. Ah, big problem with, gee, is there genetic drift? But otherwise it's hybridized, and when it's been hybridized, it's typical plant manufacture of the seeds that you want by general seed handling. It's not, it's not genetic modification, it's choosing what you want. And what they've been wanting is high starch, high endosperm, wheat, and they wanted it shorter so that you can harvest it without it having a problem. And doing that has increased the quantity of starch coming from each wheat grain, which means it's out of balance with its chaff and with its bran coat. The other thing is we take everything to at least unbleached, and most, most processing all the way to white, which means we've taken out all the wheat bran, all the germ, all of the bran coat. We've taken away all the nutrition. We've created this white, starchy, high glycemic reactive food that shows up in every meal. Yeah, it's a problem. That's what's feeding our bacteria. The wheat has changed.

I remember reading that the wheat we used to eat had 12 12 chromosomes or whatever, and now it's got 32.

That's part of the plant genetics as they've modified. It's changed drastically. Our bodies don't adapt to that change genetically that quickly. We can't. It takes generations.

I have to say that over here on this neck of the woods, I would imagine that Europe in general, but Italy especially, they're very— I tend to believe that we eat better than what I used to eat in the States when I used to live in the States. I left in 1992 when I married this wonderful lady here who brought me here. When she was in the States, I remember, she'd go to supermarkets, like, "This doesn't look like real food." The stuff that I'm accustomed to seeing in the markets, the vegetables and all the other stuff that we're talking about. I think the European community in this sense is still putting up quite a struggle, and they're still putting up the barriers, but companies are starting to try to get in the lobbying in here, too, to change all that.

Yeah, it's all about the money. Exactly. Nothing to do with nutrition. It's got everything to do with, "Can I get my product into a new market?" Yeah. It's market share. I get it from that standpoint. But when the entire world starts to react to the food, that's not a good situation. Good point. Yeah. Actually, Italy and Great Britain are the two areas that have done the most research in these— in celiac disease and gluten intolerance because genetically, they're the communities that started to have the reaction earliest. Even now, the biggest researchers in the celiac world are from Italy and Scotland. That's where they— the people I'm thinking of, they came to the States and said, "Where are the celiacs? Genetically, you guys should have this percentage of people reacting." They weren't seeing that diagnostics. The reality is American doctors didn't know to look. They didn't know that was an underlying cause.

I have one friend. He lived in Italy for quite a while, from London, but his parents were from India. All of a sudden, he developed it halfway, or he discovered that he had it. After that, going out with him was like, go to restaurants and ask each single question. Does this have this? Does this have— I'm sitting there going like, wow, you really have to— He goes, Nazim, you don't have an idea of what it is to have this disease. This disease or condition? I don't know if it's really a disease.

Well, celiac disease is something that got diagnostic criteria. There's a blood sample that's taken, indices that say go further with testing, and then they do an actual intestinal biopsy and look and see the visual damage. At this point, a lot of people aren't going to that level of diagnostics. It's expensive. It's unpleasant. Personally, in my clinic, I can't tell a parent to do that with a child. That means complete anesthesia in a 2-year-old. I'm not going there. But like I said, I always encourage people to get the blood work done because it shows the inflammation in the bloodstream. That being said, there are so many people who react and they do an experiment like Chef's doing and discover that they feel so much better and they're completely content to eat a gluten-free diet that dining out becomes the next challenge. Luckily enough, there's a lot of us now walking in and saying, "Is there any flour in that? Is there any—" Everybody knows you don't use the word wheat because to a typical waiter Wheat is a grain and not ground and turned into other things, so you can't say wheat, you have to say, "Is there any flour in that?" And they'll go, "I don't know, I'll go ask the chef." And you'll be like, "Wait, wait, 2 seconds. I need to know if there's flour. I need to know what kind of broth they use to make the soup, and if the chef is willing to come out, it would be lovely to have 5 minutes." Now, for me, I've got a background in restaurant work. I've got an AAAS in hotel restaurant management. I know what it means for the chef to leave the cake store. I use their time incredibly effectively. And I encourage my patients to go online. There are these little cards you can get that are from either the gluten intolerance group or the celiac awareness groups, and they even have them translated into in foreign languages so when you travel, and they'll have all the questions typed out on the card, and you simply give the card to the waiter and say, "Can you please ask the chef all these questions and bring back answers?" So the chef doesn't have to leave the kitchen. I encourage anybody who's brand, brand, brand new and doesn't know to ask questions, go early or eat late. Do not walk into a restaurant on Friday night at 8 o'clock and expect you're going to be able to get the answers you need. It's not going to happen.

I know I've read more labels in this past month than I think I have in my entire life.

We call it the celiac twist because you're turning every product to read the ingredient panel.

This must be a sight because most women do the shopping, not to be, you know, not to say that that's just because they're women, but it's really the truth. They— most of them cook and the men don't. Well, I'm the cook. Lisa wouldn't know what to buy first of all, and— or where to begin. But I'm in there and I'm looking at labels and thinking, oh my, what the hell's wrong with this guy? Or he, he must really be over the edge a bit because I'm stopping and looking and stopping and looking, putting things back. Like, oh my God.

I actually do a cooking and shopping trip with people. You know, if I can get 3 or 4 new patients together, I'll go to the local co-op with them and lead them through step— you know, especially areas like the bulk bins, because everybody wants to be able to save money by buying from the bulk bins because you can buy just a little bit. But the problem is that depending on the store, you may be getting completely cross-contaminated food. Like, I love my local co-op, I adore them. I shop there. I do a lot of work with them. But over the organic cane sugar, which should be 100% gluten-free and fabulous, the grain that's on top of that is barley. So every time somebody opens up the barley to pour it out into a bag, there's a dust that falls on the lid of the organic cane sugar. And it's got gluten in it. So when that lid gets opened and even a trace falls into the organic cane sugar, now I've got gluten on my sugar. And sometimes you can get things to change and sometimes you can't. And this is one situation where I have gone in with the people from the local gluten information group and I've said to them, "Hey, This is a problem. And they keep going, but we have to put it somewhere. And I'm like, if you took all the gluten-free stuff and put it in one section over, like, maybe over here, it would be beneficial for everybody. And they're like, but that's not going to keep it by stockkeeping unit. Like, yeah, I understand that because I've also got a background in retail. And I understand putting things in place by stockkeeping unit is really lovely for your reorders. It's not great for your consumer. And what are they trying to do? Sell? Or keep stock? So, yeah, it frustrates the heck out of me. There is a store though that is local here in town. The owner of the store's wife is celiac, so guess what he does with his stock?

Completely different. She's living that reality, so she understands clearly the detail that you're going into. Yep.

So I send all new patients to that store instead. I mean, that's a negative, right, for the big co-op. Big? It's not a big co-op. It's got 2 stores. It's cute. It's little. But I send everybody else to Tara because Tara gets it. So from a brand standpoint, if you get it, yell that you get it. Tell people, hey, I understand. We don't have any— I love this story. From Montana Oats, which is a gluten-free oat company. I met these guys at Natural Products Expo a couple of years back and got to interview them. They don't even allow their employees to bring in a sandwich for lunch into the facility because they're that gluten-free. Really. They make incredible oats, and they're not steamed before they're rolled. They figured out a whole different manufacturing process, so their oats taste different. So Chef, you need to get some Montana oats because they make oat cream.

I will. I'll look for them. Because I do love my oatmeal. I'm telling you. Yeah. And they have all of it. Well, one thing about shopping that I've learned is that— well, one thing I didn't know, someone had told me, Publix— we shop at Publix down here because that's pretty much what we have. They actually put a little blue dot with GF in it under all the gluten-free products. I wish they would do that with everything on the shelves. Of course, that would require a great time. I'm always in the vegetable thinking, "I don't see the blue dot. Are you sure there's no gluten in this?" I know it shouldn't have any, but I didn't think oats had it in it. I remember buying cornflake crumbs because I thought I'll be able to bread with them, and then I luckily read the They got weak.

Yeah, how about that? For people who are just starting out, I always encourage them to heal by eating as simply and as low on the food chain as they possibly can. You have to remember that a whole vegetable, like if you walk in and you pick up a tomato, there's no gluten on a tomato. There might be gluten on the sticker, but there's no gluten on the tomato. Anything in the produce aisle that's a whole vegetable is fair game. Anything in the meat aisle that is not seasoned or processed is fair game. Like a raw chicken, no worries. Ground beef— well, actually, ground beef would be the one thing because some places put stuff into it to stretch it. But normally when you're buying it in the supermarket, if it says it's ground beef, it's ground beef. And then the other place is the dairy aisle. As long as it's whole milk cheese, or not even whole milk, but as long as it's a whole piece of cheese, not shredded, you're good. But a container of milk will say it's milk. When you get into things like eggnog is where you have a problem. This is the eggnog season. Well, sometimes they use a thickener, and sometimes that thickener could be wheat or barley, or they'll sweeten with barley syrup. In the people who go shopping in the co-ops, that's the one I always— not a gluten-free cereal. They sweetened it with barley malt. Rice cereal, otherwise would have been great, I'm sure happy that wine is gluten-free.

Yes, wine is gluten-free.

Yay! And hard cider. So when you need something bubbly and alcoholic, hard cider.

Okay. Well, now, we like our wine, but we don't abuse it.

There was a concern, I want to say back about a year ago, that People in the older processing of wine would line the barrel of wine with a mixture of wheat flour and water to seal the barrel. It was called finding the barrel. There was a concern that people still did that. They actually went and did a couple of studies. You don't get gluten from the wine. It's like the first bare to the point that there isn't a reaction point. Same thing with blue cheese. Unless you're getting like super high-end from Roquefort kind of level of blue cheese, there's no wheat in the mold structure of blue, which is— that one was an old myth. I have a post up on a friend's site eating rules and/or the 10 myths of gluten-free. I think it's about a year old, but he's got a search box. You can find it. That one's a really helpful one because it's got all of the myths that wander the internet that never go away because somebody got scared 15 years ago and it's still out there as a possible problem now. So many of them. Caramel color. Caramel color is not gluten. Don't worry about it. Yeah, there's a lot of that stuff. Look at my site. I mean, if you're really worried, look at my site. You'll see 7 years' worth of information and recipes and, you know.

From the days when before there were so many gluten products available, too.

Yes, yes. Lots and lots of recipes. Just in case anybody doesn't know, I wrote Gluten-Free Baking for Dummies. The book, the little white— yellow thing. You can find that. It's been out for 3 years. You can find that in the supermarket, or bookstore, or wherever, library.

We did have a question here from Richard. He wants to know if you can— the test that you referred to for wheat sensitivity, if you can tell him that.

Okay. The celiac testing is a panel of 4 tests. At this point, most labs have what they call the celiac panel, and your doctor orders that. But if they don't, it's an IgA, IgG, tissue transglutaminase, anti-endomysial antibody. Those 4 tests are the ones that you want to have run. And your doctor needs to interpret them for you. If you need to, if you don't have access to a doctor who will order, there's a place online called DirectLabs.com. And as long as you have a LabCorp draw site, you can order your own test and the results will show up in your mailbox. You still need somebody to interpret them for you. I do that kind of stuff online for people lots of times. But you can at least get the test. It used to be like 3, 4 years ago that doctors wouldn't order the test. They'd say it's not clinically relevant and they simply refused. The wonders of insurance.

Got to love insurance. Oh well. Well guys, this has been a great show today. I'm so happy you all could come on. And real quick, I just want to jump through all the analysts for one last word. Cece, if there's anything you can put in to help us find your site, please leave it in the comments for our viewers or people to come back later. You can put your web address in and maybe where they can order your some of your holiday specials, anything you'd like to leave us with before we go?

Just again to say, Soapbox is a social mission company, and right now we're helping the Ebola efforts a lot. So if you're looking for a holiday gift, we have some great products and some great bundles. So check us out at SoapboxSoaps.com.

Thank you very much. And Nazim and Betty, so good to have you come on. Betty, I'm glad you joined. And you are always welcome. You do not have to ask, just Consider it an invitation for both of you whenever I invite Nazim.

Thanks a lot. Yeah, basically we'd love to just invite everybody to check out Casa Chiesi, as always, our lifestyle blog from Italy. And we're preparing a couple of nice things for Christmas HOA-wise, weather permitting, because it's been pouring over here. In fact, she's not a happy camper. And thanks for the invite. It's super great to be here.

My pleasure, and I look forward to your holiday shows. One of my fondest memories was being in Rome Christmas Day and going through the markets there. Of course, afterwards finding out that the cabs and buses weren't running anymore was not, because we had to walk all the way back to the hotel, but the markets were wonderful. And Jeanne, anything you'd like to leave us with before we go?

Well, thanks for having me, and you know, I just I appreciate being able to share my expertise. If anybody needs anything else, my site is glutenfreedoctor.com. Just fill it all out. What I always tell people is if you have a question, just pop it on a post somewhere on the site because then I can answer it publicly, and everybody else who had the same question can access it. Thanks for having me. My pleasure.

Thanks so much for coming on today. And everyone, thanks for stopping by. Thanks for your questions and your time. I really appreciate you guys coming to watch. And have a great week plus and enjoy your weekend. And I hope if you're not somewhere where it's warm that you can stay warm because I'm staying warm in Florida. Have a great day, everybody. Thank you. Ciao. Ciao.