13: Healing Candida And Building A Robust Immune System With Donna Gates — The Melissa Ambrosini Show

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This is episode number 13 with Donna Gates. Welcome to the Melissa Ambrosini Show. I'm your host, Melissa, bestselling author of Mastering Your Mean Girl, and I'm here to remind you that love is sexy, healthy is liberating, and wealthy isn't a dirty word. Each week I'll be getting up close and personal with thought leaders from around the globe to uncover the habits, mindsets, tools, and rituals that they have used to become world-class so that you can create epic change in your own life. And become the best version of yourself possible. Are you ready, beautiful? Donna is the international best-selling author of The Body Ecology Diet: Recovering Your Health and Rebuilding Your Immunity, and she is on a mission to change the way the world eats. The Body Ecology Diet was the first of its kind— sugar-free, gluten-free, casein-free, and probiotic-rich. And back in 1994, Donna introduced the natural sweetener stevia to the US before anyone else. How cool is that? She began teaching about fermented foods and coined the phrase inner ecosystem to describe the network of microbes that maintains our basic physiological processes, from digestion to immunity. Over the past 25 years, Donna has become one of the most respected authorities in the field of digestive health, diet and nutrition. I was first introduced to Donna through my husband because the Body Ecology Diet literally saved his life, which I talk about in the episode. I read her books, then did the Body Ecology training, and a few years ago I became a Body Ecology trainer, which is where I first met Donna in person and was blown away by her beauty and knowledge. She came to my book launch in LA last year and we've stayed really good friends since. This woman knows her stuff, and I'm so excited for you to listen to her today. In this episode, we chat about what the Body Ecology Diet is and the 7 principles that make it up, how to use food to heal, why we are all so unique and how our health and healing needs to acknowledge that, what is SIBO and how to fix it, why stress is detrimental to your gut microbiome, How our emotions can affect our health and happiness. Why you shouldn't eat all day long. Why you should stay away from kombucha if you have gut issues. What is Candida, why you need to fix it, and why antibiotics ruin your gut microbiome and suppress your immune system. How to prevent passing on Candida to your unborn child. How to build and strengthen your immune system. How we can support the pregnant women around us, why getting your genes tested is imperative to navigating your health issues, the power of time-restricted fasting and why it's important, plus so much more. Donna and I mentioned so many great resources in this episode, and you can get all of that information in the show notes at melissarambrosini.com/13. I'm so excited for you to hear this episode with the beautiful Donna Gates. Welcome, Donna. It is so great to have you on the show.

Oh, thank you for inviting me, Melissa. You know, we've been wanting to do this for a long time, so here we are.

Before we dive in, can you tell us what you had for breakfast this morning?

I often have the same thing because of course I'm You know, I wake up and I have a lot of things I gotta do, but I'm a big believer that we give our body what it needs, not necessarily what you want. So when we wake up in the morning, we're very dehydrated and we're usually very acidic. Pretty much, you know, count on that. So, you know, I thought about this and I thought, well, obviously you need to make balance and give your body what it needs, not necessarily what you want. So I have water first, and I put minerals in the water. We have these Ancient Earth minerals that I put a couple of drops, dropperfuls in each glass, and I have about 2 12-ounce glasses, and I just drink that first. Um, that's really important to do that because you're alkalizing and hydrating both. Then I think it's real good to put some bacteria in your digestive tract because you're going to start eating. So usually I'll pour a little, you know, shot glass of the one of our probiotic liquids or drink a little coconut kefir. Which is fermented coconut water. And then I have— usually have blueberries and grapefruit, and sometimes I have jicama. You know, do you have jicama over there in Australia? But we do here. And, um, and, and usually traditionally, um, in the Hispanic countries where they have a lot of jicama, they squeeze lime juice on it and a little bit of salt, mix that up. And so I love that because that's a great prebiotic for the bacteria, and it's a huge wonderful fiber. And, you know, I— that might sound a little weird, but if you're one of those people who eats cereal with milk on it, but it's actually just exactly, uh, what I need. Because, you know, your, your body does want something a little bit on the sweet side because you, you know, you're, you're opening up and expanding because you've gotten too contracted during the night. So that's a juicy, slightly sweet, you know, food. Over here in LA where I live, in the farmers markets, we can get these really great grapefruits called, um, it's pronounced mellow. And my favorite is this one called Oro Blanco, which has sort of a short season, but I always buy one of those for every day of the week, and I, and I, and I eat one. So that's pretty much what I, I do in the morning. I don't have a big appetite. I definitely am not ready for protein. I don't think most people are early in the morning. So that's giving you something and, and hydrating, which is really important, alkalizing.

Mm, sounds delicious. So you look absolutely amazing, and obviously the Body Ecology Diet is working for you because you are just glowing and you're such a goddess. So can you tell us, what is the Body Ecology Diet for people who have never heard of it before? What is it?

Well, you know, people always call it the Body Ecology Diet. There really isn't a diet. It's a real— really a way of life. And we have these 7 principles. I, I try to teach people about the principles, but they, they're so focused on diet, it's sort of like they can't see past the diet part. But, you know, these principles or universal laws are out there, um, always affecting us. We're always being influenced by them. We always have to live by them. And those 7 principles I use all the time to to know what to do. Like if a new problem shows up in the world or something new, like now we're getting into genes and, you know, it's a big complicated topic, but I just went back to the 7 principles and thought, okay, what do we do with this, all this great information about genes? So years ago, I met Dr. Crook. I realized I, he had written this book called The Yeast Connection. I realized I had yeast, a yeast infection from years and years of taking an antibiotic. You know, I took it for vain reasons. Like, I was a teenager with my skin broken out and started on an antibiotic, and I would take those all the time but without having any idea what I was doing. And so I had, you know, a really bad yeast infection systemically, and my whole digestive— my stomach was ruined from them. So, um, you know, I met him and I thought, this is finally what I— I know what I have now. But, you know, his diet really wasn't strict enough, and I'd had all this training up at that point, trying to, trying to get well. I'd learned a lot. And then I— so I just started from scratch. I took the condition and took what I knew about food at that point, and I started, you know, putting them together and ended up with something similar to his, but, but really much more accurate. So I put that out in the world years ago, and that's why people know the Buddy Konji Diet. But I really wrote that book for people with candidiasis. Now, lots of people have candidiasis, so that worked for a lot of people with all kinds of conditions. Um, And, you know, the problem's gotten even more worse. It's a— so it's a really a way of life, not a diet. And just right now we're launching a program for people who have viruses, which is just about everybody, because we're supposed to all have at least 10 viruses in our body pretty much affecting us quite a bit. And I have developed years ago an antiviral diet. I haven't promoted it much, and then I finally decided, you know, it's Past time for me to tell the world about how to deal with viruses in their body. And that diet isn't like the anti-Candida diet, it's stricter, but it's amazing, amazingly accurate. And once again, it's using food to heal. So you have to understand how to use food to heal and understand the condition that you're working with. And, you know, I mean, so the diet has to change. Plus, we're all unique, very individualized, and Really, that's where we're going for sure. Finally, after 25 years of me feeling like I'm the only one telling people that we don't need the same diet, all of us, um, finally more and more people are saying we don't. And so now this individualized approach is coming, you know, to the forefront. But that's probably a little confusing to people because they think, well, you know, how do I know exactly what I need? But It really depends on the condition that you have in your body. And if you're like— I work with children with autism and they might be 3 years old, and, and then I'll work with somebody who's 56 or something. So, you know, that person's— the older person is going to have hormone imbalances, um, that the 3-year-old doesn't have. The 3-year-old has other issues. So there's a lot of little variables. Like, let's say you live in Hawaii or, or you live in a freezing cold wintery climate like Chicago, um, raw doesn't work for you in Chicago, but it works well in Hawaii if you can digest raw foods. And if you can't, then you need to blend them into smoothies. But, you know, we teach that to people, and I love teaching it, and it's all learnable. So, um, that's the— that's what I think people don't understand, is that they're very unique, and celebrating that uniqueness is really an important thing that we need to do.

I couldn't agree more. You know, lots of people contact me on social media and they're like, they say to me, Melissa, tell me what to eat, or what, you know, what's right for me. And it is so incredibly important that we remember that we are all so unique. And when you look at what was going on for us, and like you said, our genes, it's a whole— you're opening Pandora's box. And I was actually chatting to my husband last night, and I was telling him that I was interviewing you today, and he reminded me that the Body Ecology— you and your work— was what saved him and pulled him out of being bedridden for 3 years with chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia and a whole other host of health issues. So why do you think the Body Ecology way of life is so successful?

Well, it's really hitting a lot of those important buttons that people need to hit if you want to get well. Thank you, by the way. Please tell him thank you for saying that and for getting well, because that's the greatest honor that anyone could give you, is to take the information, use it, and get well. But, um, you know, we're gluten-free, we're sugar-free. Those are really poisons. We're very focused on gut health. And of course, I'm sure you've heard this a million times, but problems begin in the gut, but that's— healing begins there. Too. So you always want to correct the gut and have a healthy gut and build from there. Um, you know, and then those principles— I mean, anytime— like I mentioned that anytime something new appears in the world, like autism, for example, I didn't know what autism was, nor did anyone else at that time years ago. And, you know, most parents were thinking they had found mercury in vaccines, that must have been the reason their kids developed autism, but I noticed that they had gut problems, yeast infections, a lot of heavy metals in their body. And I didn't think it was genetic. I thought, you know, these symptoms I'm seeing in a lot of people, let's at least use— so I just basically have always used the principles, and I did that for autism. And then our kids started getting well. They were the first ones to really start getting well. And then of course, you know, lots of people saw that what was working, and it's become a more common practice today. Not all children could get well just from diet, but a A lot of them did and do. So, and especially if you catch them early, but it was the principles. I just sat there for a while and I thought about each one of them and how to apply it. And then I taught that to our moms in our Bedrock group. That stands for Body Ecology Diet Recovering Our Kids. And they did it. I mean, these mothers are amazing and they did it 'cause they want, will do anything to get their kids well. And it started working and that showed other parents what to do. And I taught the principles, but of course, you know, they were more focused on the diet. Um, the kids all have yeast infections, every single one of them. They're born with them. But the principles were how I found the answers. So I think that that's, you know, that most of the diets out there don't have this really strong foundation. So, um, they kind of reach a roadblock and then they don't know where to turn. Like, let's say you're on the paleo diet and it starts to work for a while, and then it stops working after a couple of weeks, and and without the principles, they don't know where to go next. So those principles are really important.

And what are those 7 principles?

Well, one, we just talked about the principle of uniqueness. We're all very unique, so we can't all be in the same diet. And you want to start to look for the ways that the things in your body that are unique, um, what kind of condition you have at the moment, are you a man, are you a woman, what's your age, and so on. And you know, this is so— after a while, it just becomes just immediately you just know where to go to help that person. But there's also the principle of acid-alkaline. You've got to alkalize the body and you've got to eat a diet that's much more alkalizing, and that means you've got to eat a lot of vegetables basically, and fermented vegetables. And then another one is cleanse. You absolutely have to cleanse toxins out of your body. And I've always promoted enemas and colon therapy, uh, even with the children with autism. I I started teaching the moms because I saw how the kids were struggling, feeling awful and going through these difficult detox periods, and then they'd be much better afterwards. But I hated to see them go through that. So I started telling them about this old-fashioned thing called an enema. And some of the moms did it with amazing results. They would report back and say how toxic this material was coming out of their little ones, you know, 3-year-olds. The other moms started doing it. So you have to help the body cleanse today. We can't rely on our body to do it by itself anymore. Again, pulling in the genes, we— a lot of us have genes that make us poor detoxifiers. Now we're going through this very toxic time, and toxins are all around us in the air, especially in the air with the radiation. But especially over here in LA, we're being bombarded all the time with radiation from Fukushima. So, and you can't avoid it. It's been raining over here, and we have a lot of radiation in brain, and people can't see it, and they don't realize why they're sick all the time. But, you know, we have to be active cleansers today, and we can't just expect the body to cleanse itself anymore. Uh, so the principle of cleansing is one of them. The step-by-step principle is really, really one of my favorite. Um, that, that's like a roadmap to follow. So let's say that you have something wrong with you, or you don't, you just want to stay well, or you want to have beautiful, healthy baby, you have to start somewhere. And this principle gives you, uh, tells you where to start. So it's about time. And, uh, so I started thinking about this principle and how to apply it, and I thought, well, you know, this is where people are making a lot of mistakes, and doctors aren't really being able to help people because they don't understand this principle. But where do you start? What do you really have to do? And the very first thing is you've got to create energy. So I look at a person and, and say to myself, well, how is this person's energy? Are they sleeping okay? Are they waking up at 4 o'clock in the morning? Or they can't fall asleep at night? Um, do they have poor sleep habits? Because that's going to affect their energy. What about their thyroid? What about their adrenal? Have they had their thyroid checked? Is it healthy? Do they have adrenal fatigue? You know, um, stress— what kind of stress is in their life? Because that's going to be a big factor in draining their energy. So just pointing that out to people, making them aware of it so they can begin to realize that they're kind of in a hole and they're not going to go anywhere. They'll never get out of that hole and never stop healing unless they create energy. And then another thing that you've got to do in the very beginning is you've got to conquer any infections in your body, and the inflammation that they cause are behind all diseases. So that, that bringing those infections under control is very important. That you do with diet. And, and, you know, the case of the yeast infection, uh, the anti-Candida diet that we have, or in the case of a viral infection, a little bit stricter version. But we can get them under control. And when they're back under control, even if they're still in the body, the immune system has got them under control and they stop causing the inflammation. And then the third thing is you've got to correct digestion. They're all important. All the three other things create more energy, like correcting digestion creates more energy. Um, conquering the infections creates more energy, but you've got to fix the gut. That can be something as simple as having more hydrochloric acid in the stomach and pancreatic enzymes in the small intestine. It can be chewing enough so that you're really chewing your food before you swallow it. It can be, you know, make sure that you're digesting your protein because undigested protein creates ammonia in the body, and that wrecks havoc everywhere in the body, but especially the brain. It's a very nasty toxin that the body makes, an endogenous toxin made inside the body from, from not digesting your protein. And a lot of people don't digest protein even though they eat a lot of it, especially as we get older, especially if you're blood type A or AB. As and ABs lack an enzyme in their small intestine called alkaline phosphatase. They don't digest proteins and fats. So helping that A and AB and person who's aging and begin to understand you're not digesting protein. If you don't digest protein, your cortisol goes up and your glucose goes up, um, and that causes, you know, blood sugar problems. So I teach people all this so they can understand what's going on. But correcting digestion, uh, could— you could have SIBO, you could have the wrong mix of bacteria in your gut, the wrong— not enough diversity, uh, not enough healthy bacteria going in because you're eating any fermented foods. You know, we fix the gut, or help people know how to fix the gut. And then of course looking at the toxins and, and, you know, finding ways to get rid of those toxins and, uh, teaching people about that. So if you can do those 4 things— create energy, conquer those infections and bring that inflammation down, correct digestion, and cleanse out those toxins— that's your roadmap. And if you do that, you will get well. I promise you, you will get well, because we've been doing it for years and years, helping people that haven't been able to get well anywhere else because nobody teaches these simple— the simple roadmap to practitioners. Don't— doctors don't know to think this way.

Yeah, it's more about, here's a pill, or here's a, you know, something to help, but they don't actually work on helping you thrive and really be the best version of yourself without all the inflammation, without all the gut issues. We've been friends for quite a few years now, and coming and doing the Body Ecology Certified Training a couple of years ago radically changed my health and my life. Um, I'm— you'll probably remember that, but I turned up to that training a bit of a hot mess, um, and you opened my eyes to the power and the importance of genes and also SIBO. And from there, from doing the Body Ecology Certified Training course that I did with you in Australia, It changed my life and, and has radically improved my health. But I just wanted to go back and chat about something that you brought up, which is the gut and the microbiome. And microbiome as a field of study is relatively in its infancy stages, and in its nature it's incredibly complex, and there's more to be discovered all the time, and there's more being uncovered all the time. So how do you personally stay up to date with all this new information?

Most of the time, all this new information is mostly interesting. It's fascinating. For me, it's verification of something I started teaching long, long ago, a couple of decades ago. And it wasn't information available, and I was the only one saying it. And, you know, I knew it was true, but it's so nice to have the scientific backup now. That's great. So I'm always reading. I listen to webinars all the time. I'll buy books on the gut. You know, there's some really great books on it now, on the microbiome. And, um, I love to, you know, hear how other people teach about the gut. I like to stay up on that latest information, but it kind of always boils down to the same thing. We need a healthy diversity. The bacteria in our gut should be hardy. Um, every once in a while something wonderfully new comes along. Like Dr. Leo Galland and I were chatting and over, over an interview that I did with him for a gut summit that we did, and he was like really excited. He emailed me and said, I've got something really exciting to share in our interviews. So we were talking and he said that in the gut there are certain bacteria that are leaders to the others. And I thought, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I mean, you've got trillions of bacteria down there. It would be pure chaos unless there was a system set in place and obviously some leaders. So there are leaders and they tell the others what to do. And so he used the term Alexander organisms after Alexander the Great, because he was a great leader and everybody just followed him because he was the designated leader. So there's certain bacteria in the gut like Lactobacillus plantarum, Rutherfordii, Johnsononi, Christian, let's say Christian Sunella, John Sony, uh, they have been identified now to be, uh, the, the bacteria that other bacteria listen to and follow. And that's kind of cool. I didn't know that. So when there's something great like that, I like to share it with people. Um, but it really boils down to the fact that, um, we, uh, you know, we, we need to constantly be nurturing this microbiome and feeding them and realize we're kind of walking around with this world inside of us that we can't see. We'll never really have a sense that it's there unless it's not working, and then we— things start to happen. And when we put it back together again, things start working properly. And then so you know it's real. Um, but there's so much information today. You can spend every day, every hour of every day, every day of the month looking at research because it's out there in enormous amounts today. It feels like every researcher in the world is looking at the microbiome, but they're not. Some of them are looking at genes. Lots of them are looking at genes too.

Do you think you have to look at both genes and microbiome?

Definitely, definitely. If we get a chance, I'd like to talk more about genes later on.

Yes, absolutely. Um, what are 3 things though that people could cut out of their diet right now, or their lifestyle, that absolutely ruining their microbiome?

Well, stress for sure. Just immediately, in a day's time, anytime you're stressed out, you start killing bacteria in your gut. Sugar, you know, the refined high-sugar diet that we all eat— the microbes don't like, uh, sugar like that. They like a little bit of sugar that you'll find in, in vegetables and fruits. That's why we have plants like that and why they have sugar in them and why certain times of the year they're more available so that we can keep these microbes alive inside of our gut. So they like a little, little bit, but we, we eat way too much, and it's a refined sugar, so it's just like poisoning them to death. And then, um, well, I definitely would want to put gluten and flour products on that, on the list, because, you know, most of us are eating, uh, if they eat gluten, they're eating gluten that's been sprayed with Monsanto's Roundup or glyphosate. So that's very deadly to the gut and to the bacteria. But, um, you know, a high-fat diet too. I know that a lot of people are out there right now promoting high-fat ketogenic diets, but there's also quite a bit of research showing that a high-fat diet destroys the bacteria. For example, uh, Bifidus is destroyed and another bacteria called, um, Wadsworthia is allowed then to flare up. And Wadsworthia is very irritating to the gut lining and causes leaky gut. So, you know, there's research showing that too much fat can hurt the gut, the microbes in the gut. The fat's a big story. I mean, we could do a whole entire interview just on fats. Then when you look at the genes again, you can see there are certain genes that eating a lot of fats is a big, big mistake. So, so it's— I don't like to see that. I don't like to see this you know, rampant promotion of fats for everybody, because again, we're damaging people to put that kind of information out there.

And it comes back to, like you said, every single person is so unique and different, which is why it's one of your principles. And we have to remember that. I think when I started on this journey, you know, I would just pick up books and I'm— and I would think, well, if that works for that person, it must work for But when I got all of my tests, I got blood tests, I did hair analysis, I did my gene tests, I did saliva tests, I did BioScreen tests. And when you kind of have every piece of information in front of you, you can then work with what you've got. But until you've got that information in front of you, you're kind of just running around in the dark. And I'm a massive fan of the BioScreen testing. Which can tell you the exact strains of bacteria, parasites, and fungi that you have and don't have, which was absolutely fascinating for me to find out. And it's helped me a lot on my journey. How have these sorts of tests shaped the way you work with people and your— and your company and the Body Ecology lifestyle?

Well, if you get the test results and it shows that you have too much of the wrong kind of bacteria living inside of you, you're going to the same thing that I would suggest you do if we never had the test. But it's good for a person to see that because I think anytime you see tests, you, you're gonna be more compliant and make changes. It's like the tests make it real for you. However, it's always about shifting the gut back to the good bacteria, the good microbes. You know, let's say you have a lot of archaea living inside of you. Well, you know, you're a methane— they produce methane. Methane causes a lot of gas and bloating. So you want to do things to bring them under control. Then I don't think they ever go away, but they'll be there, but well, well under control. So, you know, I think you can adapt your, uh, strategy a little bit if you know that. But in that particular case with the archaea, but mostly it's if you change your diet, within a day you're beginning to change your microbiome. And if you add in the fermented foods like we, um, suggest, you're really making rapid changes in putting in the good bacteria. So a lot of people don't have the money to do all the testing that is available. Uh, it's really great that we have that available, and if you want to do that, wonderful. But, uh, I guess I just assume right away that everybody that ever calls me has a gut problem, and I, I just start, you know, helping them fix that.

Another thing you mentioned, and something that seems to be on the tip of every progressive holistic practitioner's tongue, is SIBO. And I personally had never heard of it until I started to break out in hives all over my body after my best friend passed away. The stress completely changed my microbiome and allowed other things the baddies, the bad bacteria to take over. So what was going on there? And can you tell us what the heck SIBO is?

You know, first of all, that's a really painful thing to go through, to lose someone you love and see them suffer. That's really, really stressful. And stress, we know without any doubt, changes areas of the brain. There's this big connection between the brain and the gut. Uh, and then, and stress affects the gut too, and it's supposed to because, you know, nature's got our bodies set up where if something stressful happens, the gut shuts down. All of our energy goes into our outer limbs and muscles so that we can run away from the lion or whatever. But, you know, we have ongoing stress all the time, and that's a huge stressor, which you went through. So of course, and it was long. I mean, I don't know how quickly it took her to die. If it was like a long, you know, someone has cancer, it could be a long process. If suddenly someone leaves literally overnight, that's horribly stressful. You know, not as long, but shocking and awful, and our body shuts down. So yes, it's absolutely going to change the microbiome, and they're going to feel that stress very strongly. Uh, you know, it's a situation where you can't fix it. You can't— you have no control over what's going on. You can't— this is a very awful situation to ever be in, and a lot of people are going through that. We are losing a lot of people today. There's millions of baby boomers that will be leaving in the next 10 years or so. And a lot of people going through a long, stressful time with their loved ones who have dementia, Alzheimer's, cancer. Um, this is a fact of life, sadly. And absolutely, uh, you can tell the person, please take care of yourself too, but they're usually not focused on themselves. But if they could at least be eating fermented foods, uh, and, you know, simple, simple foods, lots of vegetables, and on while they're taking care of this other person or dealing with their own emotions, it definitely helps a lot. I, I think a lot of us will— that's a really good question. I'm glad you brought that up because our emotions do affect what's happening in the gut, and then the gut affects our emotions.

Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's something that we forget about. We forget that our emotions affect our gut, they affect our brain, and that was definitely the case for me because it was very, very sudden shock to my system, and my body went into complete fight or flight. Hives all over my body that stayed for over a year. And, you know, my eye swelled up, both of my eyes swelled up. My whole body was just in complete stress. But one thing you wanted to touch on— when I was in that state, I was having the fermented foods and the bone broth, but was actually— and I found this out later— was actually doing me a disservice because of the state of my gut. And it comes back to that individual— individuality and the uniqueness. So what are your thoughts on that? You know, I see a lot of people that embark on this health journey and they go and eat copious amounts of fermented veggies and coconut kefir and bone broth, but it's actually not serving them at that time because their gut's that's in such a bad state that they can't even break that down. So what do they need to do before they get to adding the fermented veggies in, and how do they know if they're not serving them?

Well, that's another great question. Um, that takes me back to many years ago when we were beginning to work with the kids with autism, and most of them thrived on the fermented foods— the coconut kefir, the fermented vegetables. But every once in a while, a mother would write in and say, you know, my son can't do these, his ears get red, and he breaks out in hives or whatever. And I thought, why? You know, what's going on with this one little guy? And, you know, so I started trying to— sometimes I pray for answers, sometimes I just ask the universe to lead me to the right answers. But strangely enough, I came to find that it wasn't called SIBO back in that day, but problem in the small intestine. And I began to realize that— so people who have what is today called SIBO, small intestinal bowel overgrowth, that's a time when they cannot do fermented foods because they have bacteria growing in the small intestine that's not supposed to be there. It's not even necessarily bad bacteria. It could be, but it's in the wrong place. It would be okay if that bacteria were living down in the colon where it's supposed to be. Now it's made its way up into the small intestine, stressed is one of the things that can do that. Eating out, uh, we travel a lot and we eat out a lot, and, and, you know, you can have a reaction to food and, you know, not really know that you're having a reaction that much. You might feel just a little off or maybe a little nauseated, a little diarrhea, whatever. But then next time that happens, it's like an autoimmune response. This time you're going to develop an autoimmune reaction. That's what SIBO is. So, um, it's very common today because we are traveling a lot, we are eating out a lot, and we are under a lot of stress. And also a lot of people eat all the time, like they're grazers instead of eating. That's a whole interesting story about when you should eat, but we definitely don't wanna eat all day long. You don't wanna graze. In other words, you wanna leave several hours between one meal and the next one so that this little motor, well, in our gut, we have the peristaltic muscle like motor movement that pushes through, you know, food all the way through the digestive tract called peristalsis. But there's another little mechanism happening in the small intestine called the migrating motor complex, and that's like a little muscular contraction. Sort of imagine a little broom coming alive between meals about 2 hours after you've eaten that's sweeping bacteria out of the small intestine and its way, making sure it gets down into the colon. So if you're eating all the time, the migrating motor complex doesn't work. And the other really important time it works is when we're sleeping at night. So we're not supposed to get up and have a snack or have a snack just before you go to bed. 'Cause you know, that keeps that little migrating motor complex from working. And then bacteria can grow in the small intestine. But if you are reacting to every time you eat some healthy fermented vegetables, and I don't mean kombucha 'cause I'm not a big fan of kombucha for people with gut problems. Maybe it's fine for some people if they make it right and there's not a lot of sugar in it, but usually it has a lot of sugar in it. But if you have a gut problem, if you've had yeast growing in your body, your body is going to recognize the yeast that's in wild fermentation like beer and wine and kombucha. They're going to see that as— the immune system is going to see that as another yeast, another enemy. So people reacting to wine and beer and yeast kombucha, you know, because of the yeast in it. So I'm not a big fan of that, but fermented vegetables are great. And then the other thing that could cause a problem for— with fermented foods is if a person has a problem with histamine. Now, histamine is naturally made in the gut. It's supposed to— we make a protein called histidine, and that, that ensures that we have enough stomach acid. And then, uh, you know, so some histamine is definitely naturally normal, but some people make too much, and those people will have certain genes. And you can look at those genes, the DAO gene in the HNMT gene, that, that tells you right away that person is going to tend to have a lot of more histamine, and they then, you know, it could be a problem for them. However, one of the reasons I encourage people to make fermented vegetables with a starter like we, we've provided people for years— our starter has Lactobacillus plantarum. Plantarum is one of those Alexander organisms. It's a leader in the gut. It makes folate, which we really need. If you study the genes, folate's a very important B vitamin. Um, plantarum also degrades histamine. So it's the first— you know, you can first go on a low histamine diet, and then you want to get back to where you can eat some, some healthy fermented foods, at least something to put the bacteria in your gut. So this is where we encourage people to go, is, uh, with the fermented vegetables. Very simple recipe with with the starter in it. And so the starter will degrade the histamine. It also degrades oxalates. Plantarum is a great oxalate degrader. It's antiviral, it's antibacterial. And so in other, in other words, it survives most antibiotics, which is a big deal because we take antibiotics, they wipe out all the good bacteria. If you've been eating Lactobacillus plantarum in your your fermented vegetables. And but by the way, the plants— plantarum comes in the word plants because plants like cabbage, for example, that we're fermenting, they have plantarum all over them. We're just greatly, greatly increasing the amount. So the plantarum will not die. Well, they'll still be alive after you take the antibiotic and, and then you don't get an overgrowth of yeast and in your, uh, in your gut. Now you can have yeast growing in your gut, and that's not so hard to get rid of. But then you can get yeast in your bloodstream, and that's systemic, and that is more difficult to get rid of. I'd like for people to know the difference because most people have systemic infections, so they won't see, um, whether they have candidiasis or not, yeast problems or not, on their stool test. But Uh, so, so it's important. So many people, you know, they call and say, oh my gosh, I had to— like just last week a woman called me and she has little twins that were— she ate really well when she was pregnant. Little kids are beautiful. She couldn't get pregnant. We fixed all the things that were wrong, and now she has these beautiful twin girls. Well, one got an ear infection, and her husband gave the little daughter, uh, an antibiotic, and she was really upset. And I said, that's okay because she's been, you know, they're over a year now. So they've been eating the fermented vegetables. They had the juice of the fermented vegetables when they were born. And so they, there's a level of protection there.

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We have to have these antidotes, I call them, because there are times when you need an antibiotic.

So you've mentioned Candida quite a few times, and everyone seems to have it. Is it good? Is it bad? Let's break it down. You're the queen of Candida, although that's probably not a very lovely title. Um, can you give us a little rundown on Candida? You know, we've all got it, and, and I didn't know that it could actually get into your bloodstream. So can you give us a little bit of a breakdown on that?

Well, Dr. William Crook, when he wrote his book, really did a great service to the world because he's— when he was an older man, he went all over the place you know, small groups of people, large groups of people, anyone he could find, people with chronic fatigue and so on. And he told them about it. And I, I was very grateful for that. But I don't think he told me then that they didn't think there was a cure for it. And now I agree with them. At first I thought, oh, of course there is. Very naive. But, you know, because it is naturally present in the body. And so he had a hard time convincing any of his colleagues that it was something real because they said, "Oh no, yeast are naturally present." They are, but they're in a non-pathogenic, harmless form and, you know, even do a little bit of good. They're part of the commensal makeup of the microbiome in the gut. But it's when they, uh, when you kill all the other bacteria living in the gut that they get out of control and totally become greedy, grow tentacles, burrow into the gut wall, uh, create all these infection sites. Things move in through that now leaky permeable gut wall and get into the body, causing a lot of havoc, a lot of autoimmune reactions. Um, it's a big deal. And I, I see, you know, doctors mentioning it all the time, really good functional medicine doctors. I, I wish they understood it better because I feel like you don't really get what we're dealing with here. Because years ago, I don't think candidiasis was as big of a problem. I think, um, you know, we can create yeast, pathogenic yeast. Like, let's say you became an alcoholic or, uh, became diabetic, which, you know, years ago people were drinking a lot of alcohol. I don't think they had a lot of sugar to eat. But let's say you became an alcoholic or diabetic. So you're going to have a really big problem with yeast there. The sugar in the diabetic is feeding the yeast. The alcoholic, huge problem with yeast. Um, so they are going to, um, they're going to have candidiasis. Those people will. But most of the people, you know, would probably be healthy long ago. But here's what's happened. We have had antibiotics now for a 70 years. And we have got generations of people that have had antibiotics. So what's happening— this is an issue with our young mothers having babies, and this is what I realized when I started working with the moms whose children were autistic— is that, you know, a mother, when she's pregnant and she's had, uh, antibiotics in her life, her— she's going to have a yeast infection. It might be low-grade. Her immune system might be nice and strong. She's pretty healthy. Now she gets she gets pregnant, her immune system will be suppressed. That's nature's way of making sure she doesn't attack the baby and her immune system doesn't attack the baby. And then so she has a suppressed immune system, and then she doesn't know, you know, that she has a yeast infection. She's eating the wrong foods, and the yeast, uh, during the pregnancy, her progesterone goes up, her sugar goes up. It's supposed to. All these things are really important for a healthy brain, for sample. So they naturally go up, but they also naturally feed the yeast in the body. So she's got a more acute infection now than she ever had. And, um, whether she realizes it or not, like if she might not even have a vaginal problem, it's in the bloodstream, she will pass that infection on, uh, to her baby. And we just automatically assume and encourage our mothers to just assume your baby's born with the yeast infection because we can throw that off. That is part of our protocol for preventing autism. So for over 15 years, we've consistently prevented autism. This is a message that really needs to get out into the world. You don't have to have autism. It can be prevented. So what we encourage our moms to do is assume the baby has a yeast infection. A lot of times it's very apparent. They have thrush or diaper rash or lots of, you know, their gut's just not working right there. We'll call colicky. And this— they've been eating the fermented foods through the pregnancy, which is great, but they can just take a little bit of that juice and dilute it, put it in a dropper, and squirt it in the baby's mouth. Or they can do that with the coconut kefir. And within a matter— you know, then the babies don't get colic. They're happy little, little creatures, and they nurse well, and everything starts off right. And that's a big deal emotionally for mom and baby to have a happy beginning like that. But, you know, the immune immune system is now beginning to be built in those early days. And the immune system is recognizing the microbes that are safe and that are friendly. And they would be recognizing the— later on, if they're infected, the immune system knows that's an enemy and they should attack. So it's— immune system's being trained and educated in the very beginning to know what's friend and foe. So we make sure that we have friends in there. And the bacteria, we also encourage them to take Bifidus bacteria. That's a really important bacteria in the beginning. We have the mom taking it. We encourage the babies to take, you know, to give it to the babies. And, you know, we just want everything to start off right because that's hugely important. Even if the baby's born by C-section, it's not, it's not as drastic as it's painted out to be because you can help correct that problem. And a lot of babies are being born, unfortunately, by C-section. Hopefully that will stop as we get healthier and healthier babies. One of the things I find and tell moms all the time, if you're expecting a healthy— if you're pregnant, you've got to rest through that pregnancy, and you've got to be ready to go into labor feeling fantastic and full of energy, because that's what makes labor difficult— when the mom's too tired to muster up all those forces that, you know, open her up and push the baby out. And moms run around at the last minute and do everything. And, you know, one mom I know, she's a super-powered real estate agent. She's at the last minute, you know, selling homes. And 3 days later, she— I mean, she went into labor 3 days later. It wasn't going anywhere, and she was cramping and couldn't sleep and really miserable. And, you know, so I went over to the house, took— started doing these special acupuncture points that you can do in the leg and the feet. And then she started dilating and a couple of hours later, she was on her way to the hospital to have the baby. But it's really, it was a really good confirmation to me how important it is that we should take care of our moms when they're pregnant and give them, our culture should realize how important it is when a mother creates a baby for all of us to have a beautiful, healthy child. 'Cause I can say without any question, Children are different. They're bright, they're happy, they're smart, they're loving. They're just what we want. We need a lot of in our world today. And, and, and you, you can do that. That's the power women have when they create another human being's body and brain too. You know, even their behavior and brain, they're just, they're this consistently bright, happy, very easy to raise children. And they're just a delight to their parents. It's like there's no rough beginning to life. That is just from the very beginning, having a baby is a joy. And that's what every woman should be experiencing right now. And that's not happening, unfortunately.

Yeah, it's definitely built in our culture to kind of push, push, push and go, go, go right up into the last minute.

Well, it's a generation thing that I'm ashamed to say was created by the baby boomers because we didn't want to be like our parents and there was a big push for us, even commercials on TV, you know, you would, you were supposed to be like a doctor, a lawyer, or some high-powered realist, you know, executive, and then have a baby, get out in the tennis court a week or two later and show that you had your body back. And then you raised your children. And we tried to do all that, probably did an awful job, but certainly put out a really bad message to the next generation, our daughters, who now think that's the only way to be. And it's just another thing we need to change in our culture right now. I have a lot of hopes for this millennial generation that everybody's criticizing. I think that they're so smart, so spiritually elevated, even though they don't know that about themselves yet, that they can see things aren't working. And I think they're going to be the generation that really turns things around. Um, it's very doable, and we have to do that. I have a lot of hopes for this so-called lazy millennial generation.

I agree. I think we're going to see some big shifts, which will be awesome. Now, when I had SIBO, which we were talking about before, I also did the gene testing, which I know you wanted to chat about. Um, and to be honest, I don't know how I would have navigated the complexity of my own healing journey without that raw data, I uncovered some huge things. Is gene testing something that you incorporate, and if so, why is it so important?

Absolutely. I mean, I'm one of the many thousands of practitioners that have been bitten by the gene bug, and once you're bitten, you're just— you become obsessed. So you can't— I can't get enough information, and I'm always learning. There's a lot of genes, 23,000 of them. One day along the way, I started thinking, this is really complicated. I'm sitting in a room with a ton of doctors who are supposedly way more trained than me in science that I didn't really get a chance to learn, and they're just so dumbfounded. And I'm thinking, you know, this is overwhelming. So I went back to one of the principles, that step-by-step principle I was explaining in the beginning, and I thought, you know what, the way to put a structure to all this is very simply use the step- step-by-step principle. So now I, I have the genes that are related to energy, which includes sleep and stress, uh, and so then I have, you know, I know a whole bunch of genes that are related to gut health, to detoxification and your ability to cleanse, um, inflammation. You know, you gotta calm down the inflammation in a person's body, but what if they have genes like CRP, C-reactive protein, CRP gene, and TNF-alpha gene, that's a tumor necrosis factor gene, and interleukin-6. So you can look at those genes, and there are others, but those are the most well-researched ones. Uh, it's all you need to look at really, and you can say, wow, this person's really got a problem with inflammation, we need to help them with that. So this structure that I put together, which is what I teach now in the, in the, in the Bodycology trainings, uh, because I want to get people people, well, lay people, but also especially practitioners, comfortable with this brand new technology. It's going to be with us the rest of our lives, and it's extraordinary. Like, all the many hundreds and thousands of years that man's walked on the earth, or millions or whatever, we have never had technology like this. And we're just being— it's just a gift, an unbelievable gift. You can tell so much about the person. I have, um, also a bucket, you know, I like to put them in buckets. So the energy bucket and the, um, the bucket for detoxification and for gut health, for example, but also the personality bucket. So do they have COMT and MOAA? Because that tells you if— and then glutamate, GABA genes, and those are your serotonin and dopamine You know, that's very much affecting so much about our personality, what we think and feel and do and choose to eat. There are certain genes that if you have a certain gene, one gene in particular, you're drawn to eating sugar. There's genes that cause you to put on weight, like FTO, for example. Well, if you've got that gene that you're drawn to sugar, sweet taste, and you've got an FTO gene, now you're in trouble because you're going to want to eat sugar and the sugar is going to make you— is going activate those FTO genes. There's a whole bunch of them, and, and you're going to put on weight. So there's so much you can tell people about themselves. And for me, over and over again, I hear people say, oh my gosh, this is so much more than I ever expected to, uh, learn in this talk, consultation, or whatever. And, um, you know, it's a lot. Like, you can't remember it all. But, uh, I always record everything when I talk to people so they have it to listen to. And, and also, you know, again, there's thousands of genes. They're going to keep learning about more and more of them. But if you stick with those particular buckets that create energy, that conquer infections, to cleanse out toxins, your personality genes to show, kind of understand yourself— did you like— one of my favorite genes to check is called GAD, and that gene converts glutamate into GABA. I see this, uh, there's quite a few GAD genes, and I see a lot of SNPs there. A lot of people have at least one variant, quite a few of those GAD genes. And so I'll look and I'll say, wow, this person has trouble converting glutamate to GABA. Right away I know that person's really smart. They have a very hard time calming their brain down and getting relaxing. And if the glutamate glutamate doesn't turn— so glutamate makes us really intelligent, but if you have too much glutamate, you have a lot of anxiety because with this GAD gene, you can't turn the glutamate into GABA, which is calming and relaxing. And a lot of people have that gene. And of course, that's going to affect their sleep. Maybe that makes them drawn to the sugar, so they're running over there and eating more sugar or whatever. Or they can even be drugs that draw them to alcohol 'cause alcohol has a calming effect. I think that's one of the most fascinating buckets to teach people about. And it's gonna be a big focus in the training that I'm doing in June this year in Brisbane. I hope people listening will come, particularly practitioners, 'cause it just changes everything about how you can help people.

And we'll put all the details for the training this year in the show notes. So everyone can get all of that information. But I just wanted to know, 10 years from now, what's the future of the microbiome and the work that you're doing?

Um, I think more of the same. Um, and then that's where I think it's really important to have these principles. They never change. We're, we're live under them at all times. We're human beings that But there's certain laws and they rule us. And so yes, we'll learn about more genes, we'll know more about the microbiome, there'll be more amazing tests, there'll be more therapies helping us, stem cell and all. But, um, it always goes back to those buckets. Create what— find the— look for the things that help you create more energy. Time-restricted feeding is really important, a new technology that I encourage people to look at. We, we've been doing it in Body Ecology for years. I didn't have a name to it. I've been doing it personally and I know it's important for anti-aging, but that means that you leave in actually a pretty long time from— so you eat within a short, shorter time period. There's a time for feeding and a time for fasting. And I've always done that. So I eat within a certain time frame and then I go at least 14, sometimes 16 hours before I eat again. But of course, you're sleeping a lot during that time. So it's not that hard to do. But if you leave long periods of time where you feast and fast, that has been shown to be so powerful because when we're sleeping and fasting, we have more stem cells out in our body. The body's repairing itself and it's building muscle, actually building muscle while we sleep. And then we start to feed again and now our body starts to regrow. And so it's repairing at night, it's growing when we're feeding. It's repairing when we're fasting, it's growing when we're feeding. So that's a new technology that, uh, with a lot of fascinating science around it, um, we should adopt anything like that that we can. I can't imagine— I mean, it really shocks me that the world isn't addicted to becoming healthy. I know some people are, but most of the world's still not even awake yet, and, and they, and they're still feeding their kids awful things in spite of all the work so many of us have done to try to wake people up. I can't imagine why they're not fascinated by all of this. I mean, it's just fascinating to, to know about yourself and about this new technology. Unfortunately, there are millions of researchers all over the world helping us, but you know, you've got to, you've got to stay in there, stay and be swimming in the right swimming pool. There are too many people swimming over in the wrong pool. They're not getting any help. Um, there's lots of answers available today and people need to take and use those answers. I like to refer to Body Ecology Today as the Gut Smart, Gene Smart Diet because once I knew, I know about the gut for a long time, but then I started really getting to know the genes and I realized, wow, what a blessing I have been allowed to learn and teach, use it myself, teach other people about this way of life. Because it's hitting all the right places. To answer your husband's sweet question, you know, it's, it's a gut-smart way of life and diet, and it's a gene-smart way of life. And so we're, we're there, you know, we, we do what the body needs and we adjust it for each individual person.

Coming back to one of those main principles, which is the uniqueness, which I love, and it's so important. So now I've got a couple of rapid-fire questions. What is one thing that you are working on or would like to improve within yourself at the moment? Like, is there a health concern that you are currently working on within yourself?

Yes, this has been a lifelong struggle, and now that I know my genes, I know why. So I have, um, genes like COMP and MAOA, and they make tend to be like, in the extreme, it would be OCD, but in a lesser extreme, it's like a perfectionist. And, you know, I get onto something and it's really hard to get me off of it. Like, I find myself, I look up and it's 2:30 in the morning. I thought it was like 11 because I can't pull myself away. So then I wish I used my time better. And also I wish that I exercised more. Like, some people are the best exercisers in And I, I compensate by getting on my rebounder. I have this little Pilates machine in one of my bedrooms and I use that several times a week. And I walk, I love to walk. If I start walking, I like wanna walk for forever. I've got the endurance gene. So endurance gene, people like to, they get, once they get going, they don't wanna, they just go and go and go forever. But you know, getting me out to exercise is a big deal. I love to stretch. Like a lot of times I just stop and stretch 'cause I'm really limber. Fortunately, I don't have to have a hip replacement or— actually, I'm very fortunate because there's not anything wrong in my body yet. I plan to keep it that way, but that, that's my biggest thing. If I could just, if I were a different person, I would exercise more, not get lost in my little world of research.

I'm kind of secretly glad that you do because you are always putting so much great information out there and you've helped me on my journey. Me so much. So I'm very grateful that you do the work that you do.

Everything has a front and a back. We do, and everything does. But it's about balance. By the way, I didn't mention that. It's another one of our principles. It's really, really— you should have balance. And I'm not balanced in that way. Maybe next year. I take on too much because I, I have this expansive personality, and I, you know, I love learning and I love teaching, and I just try to do too much. I can never say no. And I'm sure many people are saying, wow, that's me, I'm just like that. Um, so I think there's a lot of us with these same common genes. They're survival genes, by the way. We're here today because we have that kind of persistence.

Let's pretend you have a magic wand and you could put one book in the school curriculum of every single high school around the world. Now, besides your books and all of your amazing information, if you could just put one book that every single high school student would read, what would that book be?

Oh my gosh, that's a really tough one. Maybe Sonnenberg's, um, they did a book on the gut. I can't remember the exact title, but it's a really good one, easy to read, on the gut. Maybe a cookbook, because I'd love to see people cook again. Or maybe a garden book to teach them how to garden, because I don't think people know how to garden, and we have a very precarious situation looming ahead where we could need to grow our own food again. And so maybe that, maybe teach him how to garden, maybe.

Love it. Do you have any particular books in mind or just any sort of gardening book?

No, that's on my bucket list too, is to learn how to garden. I don't know how to either. Someday I'm gonna retire hopefully and, and have a garden. I think I'd like it. Go to the mountains maybe with the spring and learn to garden. But, um, I don't know, I'm getting older and older every year and I don't see any, you know, sign that I can retire yet.

I don't reckon you would, Diana. You've got too much to share. So let's talk about how your day looks. Now, you mentioned how you start your morning with your beautiful Ancient Minerals and your Hecama in the mornings. I think that's how you pronounce it. Do you have any other morning rituals that you do every day? I am fascinated with how people that I love and admire prime themselves for the day. So what are some of your non-negotiable daily routines?

Oh, well, then I'll have a smoothie because I think that it's very smart, obviously, to eat a lot of vegetables. So a smoothie is a great way to get a lot of vegetables into your diet, even if they're the same ones every day— cucumber, zucchini, celery, throw in a carrot, you know, You know, just get lettuce, lots of different types of lettuce, you know, a little bit of healthy oil like some MCT oil, even avocado, even olive oil. But some people do, you know, if you have a histamine problem, then, then you need to stay away from avocado. But some people are fine with avocado. You know, David Wolfe and I just did a video and probably soon be up on YouTube, but it was so much fun. We were in the studio for the veggie The Magic Bullet people. But they have a brand new machine called the Veggie Bullet, which I'm so excited about. It's really, really well made. I'm sure it'll be over in Australia if it isn't out already, 'cause we have different currents, electricity over here. But it helps you, it shreds vegetables. It helps you make a whole bunch of jars of cultured vegetables in a really short period of time. So that's great. Um, you know, it sends them down. You put them through a tube in the top and it comes out in a chute, and you go through lots of cabbage and carrots and fennel and all kinds of things really quickly and mix those together with a brine, pack them in a jar, and you've got fermented vegetables. They just sit out for a week. And but this, um, Veggie Bullet also shreds, and it, um, uh, so besides shredding, I mean, it also slices beautifully, really beautiful thin slices. You can do zucchini and cucumber and yellow squash and anything, anything really. Even broccoli stems, you know, they're often thrown away, but if you peel the outside a little bit and stick them down through the, um, into the Veggie Bullet, you can slice them. Or, uh, and actually you can spiralize them. So that's the other thing that the Veggie Bullet does— it spiralizes. And that's so much fun to see these cool spirals come out. Um, and then you can do it like every once in a while, like once a week, let's say. And, uh, you put them in the refrigerator or even freeze them, and then later on you're in a hurry, just take them out of the refrigerator, put a little olive oil in the pan, sprinkle in some herbs like, let's say, Italian seasoning, and then plop in your noodles, to say zucchini noodles, and, um, like cover them for a few minutes, stir them a bit, cover them again, a couple more minutes, and they're done. And they're— so for people that love pasta, they'll love this. A lot of times you can't even tell you're not eating pasta. So I'm very excited. And so David and I were doing, um, some fun things together in the kitchen over there, and right here in LA actually. And, um, I hope people find that and look at it because that's a great, uh, a great way to get more veggies in your life too. So I always start the morning with vegetables. And liquids and alkalizing, and then, and fiber for the gut. It's, to me, it's all about that and the setting up your gut for the day. Then lunch, middle of the day, and that's, I think, when we really need our animal protein, unless you're a vegan. But, uh, most people really do well with some animal protein. You don't need a lot. Like, we have at the 80/20 rule where we encourage people to eat 80% vegetables, 20% would be your protein. And then, and then have fermented vegetables. And, you know, a really fast meal could be scrambled eggs or very softly poached eggs where you use, mostly get the yellow part. That's where the healthiest part of the egg is. I love it if people can get fertile eggs 'cause they're the easiest to digest. And then, so protein and vegetables midday. And then I like for people to go vegetarian for dinner. It, it's, it sets them up for sleeping deeply. Um, they'll make more serotonin and turn that into melatonin. But it's also easier on your liver and on your gut to eat a vegetarian meal at night. And that can be lots of different kinds of vegetables, a wonderful vegetable stew, or we have great— we have a great recipe book and it has, um, great, you know, pureed soups in it. Um, so, so go vegetarian. And then quinoa and millet are on the Body Code G. They're not on the antiviral diet. They are in the any Candida diet. But I now tell people to boil them as if you were gonna cook noodles. Uh, so you get a pot of water on and you get it boiling and you put in your quinoa and then boil the quinoa for about 11-12 minutes. If it's millet, 15 minutes. Bring— turn the heat off, let them settle to the bottom, bring your pot over the sink and drain off that water, catch them in a strainer, and you've just thrown a whole bunch of oxalates down the drain because I'm really big and telling people to avoid oxalates, particularly if they have Candida in the gut. And then, and a lot of people have issues with oxalates because they have candidiasis, and the yeast we now know actually make oxalates. They're very damaging. They cause stones in places, not just kidney stones and gallbladder stones, actually, they're now being found, a lot of them, in the bones. So they displace our stem cells, they weaken our bones, they're found in the lungs, they're found in the brain. So we're really being damaged by oxalates. We don't have the bacteria anymore to eat up those oxalates because we've destroyed them with antibiotics. And so I, um, I'm careful to teach people about that. And that— you mentioned bone broth in the beginning, Melissa. And so yes, there's many wonderful, you know, benefits. So everything has a positive and negative, or front and back. But, you know, collagen— the gut bacteria, uh, the pathogens, the yeast— well, I mean the yeast, just yeast— they'll use the collagen to make more oxalates down in the gut. So they're not— bone broth is not a good thing. Uh, so what I tell people to do is instead make an amino acid broth. Where you take, say, the chicken boneless thighs— you want to get rid of the bone because that's where the collagen comes from— and then, you know, cook that, make a chicken soup with the chicken or lamb or whatever, you know, meat you're using. And then that's been cooked to death, so it's too hard to digest, so take that out. But you have this wonderful amino acid broth that's a very strengthening and a very good thing for people to eat that need, um, their protein— malnourished, and they need something like that to, to build up the, you know, to build their protein up. We also have a protein shake that's become really popular. We just put it out about 6 months ago, and it's our best-selling product. And because people see amazing things happen— but I'm bringing out a new one for us because our current one has mushrooms in in it. And there's one mushroom, turkey tail, that Australia authorities won't let in the country for some strange reason. It has 8 medicinal mushrooms, one of them is turkey tail. So, um, I created a new one that's absolutely delicious, and this one we call our probiotic protein shake, and it's powered by megaspore biotics. So that's a really interesting kind of, uh, microbe that can live in the gut, the bacillus family. They, they're not soil bacteria, They're very unique. They stay in the soil, but they don't— they're not alive. But once they get into you, they use the soil to get into the human being. And once they get into the human being and down the colon, they become alive and they do great things down there. So we have our new product. We're doing a joint venture with Megaspore because they have great research showing how the Megaspore biotics because excellent for healing the leaky gut. And that's why people start taking MegaSpore and suddenly foods that they never could eat before, they can begin to eat again. And I really was inspired by the people in Australia, my CBEs over there that just really wanted a protein shake that they could eat. I'm really proud of this one, so I can't wait to get it over there, probably by July. Awesome.

I can't wait to try it. So I'd love to know it now. What are 3 things you're most recently grateful grateful for in your life?

To be alive at this time, to have my family, my friends, to have this wonderful opportunity to teach and learn, to be healthy. There's millions of things I'm grateful for every day. I'm just constantly thanking God, the universe, whatever, for, uh, to be alive. I think there's probably a lot of souls right now that would give anything to be in here right now. I feel sorry for the people that are not that are depressed and aren't healthy and don't appreciate what a gift it is to be alive, I guess, you know. And, and just, I have so much love in my life. I was one of these little kids that grew up and didn't think anyone ever loved me, and there wasn't any love really. But one day, somewhere along the way, I began to realize that I really am loved, and that was a real game changer for me because because, you know, it's a good thing to learn is that there are people out there that love you. And now I just, I'm just really grateful for that. I know that's what I'll take someday when it's time to go. I'll take all of this, this with me is the love that I've had and the other stuff probably won't matter at that point, but the love will.

Yeah, I agree. And in your opinion, what is the one of the most important things, you know, just one that you can do for your health today, just one thing that people could do?

I would start by adding fermented foods because they change your taste buds and your desire for foods. They take away your desire for sugar. They're changing the microbiome and they're changing your brain and your behavior. That's where I would, you know, unless you have SIBO, I'd get over the SIBO and then that fermented foods. I mean, particularly the cultured vegetables and the coconut kefir, they're the best of all the fermented foods.

What's one thing that people can do today for their wealth, which is, you know, their career and their finances?

Well, I think be positive. And again, that gets back to the microbiome, because depressed people, uh, they don't draw the positive things into their life. But once you become happy, once you become grateful, it's like the universe just gives you even more. One of the most important spiritual lessons I think I've learned is that you have to give to others, and then the abundance that comes back to you is amazing. I think a lot of people are— you know, it's natural. You become sick, you focus on yourself, you're scared, you're just always thinking about the pain or whatever. But the real trick is to forget about that and think about others and find all the ways that you can start to give, then the answers that you need, you know, to become well, to become happy, they just naturally come back to you. That's the law of balance in the universe. Another one of those universal laws, because, you know, if you're happy then and you give, then you receive. It's just the law of balance.

I love that. And what's one of the most important things that we could do today for love?

Give. I mean, I think anytime you're there for people when they need you, that they just love you. And then that's such a gift again, to be loved like that. It's like when your husband said that I helped him get out of bed and feel better, that, that is a huge gift to me. Mm.

So beautiful. Well, I just wanted to, before we wrap up, just thank you so so much for your wisdom today, but also for being such a beautiful friend to me and supporting me and just all the work that you do in the world. You are changing so many people's lives and you are helping so many people get well and thrive again, which is just so amazing. And I'm so grateful for all the work that you do. You are just such a light beam and a light worker, and I absolutely love having you in my life as a dear friend. And, um, you teach me so much, you know. Every time I come to one of your trainings, I, I learn and I walk away with so much knowledge. So I'm very, very grateful.

Well, thank you, Melissa, because, um, I can tell you that those of us that have been in the field for a long time. You know, Anne Louise Gittleman, I know, feels this way. She's been around for a long time, and she's kind of, you know, back. She's got a new book out and all. And I can tell you for sure that it was a lonely path back in those days. People were not receptive to what you wanted to teach, uh, back then. But now there's this amazing generation, and all of you are working together. You have all these great skills, you know, on the internet, doing podcasts like this, because It's, it's really in a crisis time, and our children are paying the price for, um, the way we live today. And everybody's needed. And so I'm very grateful to the next generation under me that, uh, has picked up the baton and carrying it on. I, I think it's— I have hope now, where once before I actually went through periods where I think, I don't think we're going to make it, not in time, not fast enough. Now I know I know we will, thanks to you and everybody who's doing what you're doing. And we need everybody. Like, even if you think, well, I can't, I can't do a podcast, I don't have that kind of personality. You can get yourself well. People will come to you. You'd be like a magnet. You help them, share with them what you know. That's how we're gonna change the world. And we have no time, no time at all. We have to do it now and as fast as possible.

It all starts with us, doesn't it? Thank you so, so much. You know, I'm just so grateful and we could talk for hours and hours. I feel like we've only just scratched the surface, but I will put—

Come to the training.

Yes.

Lots of things. I'm always working on things I want to put into it. I love— I can't wait to get over there and teach. I love coming to Australia. I love Australian people. They're beautiful people. They're so humble and grateful. And, you know, I love going there. So I have lots of good things to teach every year. And I'm really excited about what I'm going to teach this year.

And we will put everything that we have mentioned. I mean, we have mentioned so many amazing resources and I'll put everything in the show notes. All you have to do is head to melissarambrasini.com/13 and you can get all of those resources there. So thank you again, Donna, and we'll speak soon.

Definitely. Thank you, Melissa.

Isn't she amazing? After I finished recording this episode, I walked out into the kitchen and my husband was there, and I just looked at him, was like, gosh, she's amazing. She's just so beautiful and generous, and I am so grateful for her time. There's a couple of things that I really love that she said, and one of them was how you change your microbiome in one day with your diet. I know it can feel really overwhelming and stressful and like we've got such a huge journey ahead of us on our health journey, but just know that what you do today, what you do right now, matters, and you can turn it all around in this moment. So don't forget that. I hope you guys really loved this episode as much as I loved doing it. I could have spoken to her for hours. If you loved it, please subscribe and leave me a 5-star review in iTunes because that means I can get more epic people on the show for you. And don't forget to tell me on Twitter who you would like me to interview, and make sure you tag me @mel_ambrosini and the person you want me to interview using the hashtag #themelissaambrosiniShow. And for everything that we mentioned in the episode today, You can get all of that at the show notes, melissarambrosini.com/13, and you can also check out all of my other amazing interviews there. Thank you so, so much for being here, for wanting to be the best version of yourself, and for showing up today for you. You seriously inspire me so much. Now, if there's someone in your life that you think would really benefit from episode, please share it with them and do it right now. And until next time, don't forget that love is sexy, healthy is liberating, and wealthy isn't a dirty word.

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