In this live episode of The Health Sensei, hosts Brendan and Rowan discuss two main themes. First, Rowan shares a brief coaching framework for New Year’s health resolutions, emphasizing that lasting change comes from self‑acceptance rather than guilt, and encouraging listeners to adopt a positive, growth‑oriented mindset. Second, the conversation shifts to water quality, where they explore the myriad home‑filtration options (reverse osmosis, ceramic, carbon, UV, electrophoresis, hydrogen generators) and their trade‑offs, especially regarding mineral removal versus pathogen elimination. They debate whether filtered water or mineral‑rich bottled water (e.g., Vichy Catalan) is preferable, and introduce the concept of “structured” or energized water that may enhance mineral uptake. The hosts also caution against over‑cleaning the body, using oregano oil as an example of a natural antimicrobial that can indiscriminately damage gut flora if used without probiotic support. Throughout, the tone remains informal, conversational, and coaching‑oriented, with moments of technical detail and personal anecdote. Technical glitches interrupt the stream briefly. The episode ends with a promise to revisit these topics throughout 2024.
Chapters
Hello everyone, how are you doing? Happy New Year for all of you joining us on the Health Sensei. Happy New Year again to everybody who joined us last night and again tonight for Raw Pet Medics. But I have the wonderful Rowan with me tonight.
Oh, Happy New Year!
I feel like, I feel like you're a man with many mistresses, Brandon. Actually, I have to say that in context.
Anyway, committed to the cloud.
Don't do that.
It's one-way traffic.
Don't do that.
Yeah, it's very exciting. Welcome to 2024.
Yeah. So we are going to, I think tonight, You know, so many people make New Year's resolutions, and we talked last time a little bit about maybe dropping some alcohol and doing some other things for our health. And I'd really like to maybe touch on, you know, what we should do more of, what we should do less of, you know, things that we should bring in, things that we may want to drop, things that you feel are you know, great for health, you know, things. What would you like to talk about? Anything that, you know, is really grabbing you for the 2024? What's your—
Well, funny you say that, Brendan.
What do you mean? It wasn't planned?
No, no, I am— bad double take. I am more excited about this new year and what is in the hopper than I have ever been before. So there's that. But I'd like to reframe this because obviously, you know, whilst you've been busy saving animals' lives, I've been working in, you know, functional medicine and nutrition space, but also doing a lot of coaching. You know, for performance coaching and health coaching. And I've always found that the changes people make are far better and far more sustainable when they come from a place of self-acceptance. So I'm just going to share with you what I mean with you about that. Okay. It's far better to actually say, do you know what? I totally accept myself for who I am. Good and bad, or whatever that is. And, and it's got me to where I am, but it's not going to get me to where I want to go. So what do I need to change to take me from where I am now to where I would like to be? What am I really excited about? And when you see it through that framework, people tend to actually make change because they're incentivized and they feel positive about it rather than doing it out of guilt or duress or what they feel that they should be. This whole what you should be and what you shouldn't be and shouldn't eat and clean and dirty and this way and that, it's actually a load of fucking psychological baggage. Absolutely. And it'll just weigh you down. It will weigh you down 100%. You need to kind of release all of that chat and just go, do you know what, I'm great, I'm a nice person, and I would like to evolve, and this is what I'm going to do. So there you are, that was my little 3 minutes of free coaching that nobody asked for. Hopefully it resonates though. It comes from a good place, and you will be surprised at the difference it makes. And I've seen people go from hobbyist to world-class, whether it's actors or poker players or whichever, just by accepting that point. So that's why I thought it was worth making.
And from a point of view, so we had an interesting comment because we talked a little bit about hydration because you're picking up the water as I am, um, and We had a comment last week with regards to somebody wanting to really know about how they can assure themselves of water. They're seeing filters left, right, and center. We talked a little bit about Giardia last week.
Oh, yeah.
And how to avoid it. Realistically, there are some filters out there, but they may take out a lot of minerals that are within that water if you've got really strong filters that take out just about everything. So purification to the nth degree.
Yeah.
There's some filter systems they've seen available in the US. You know, is there anything in the UK that's equivalent? What sort of filters are we looking at? Why would we even filter them? And is there anything that we should add back if we are filtering our water? So I know that you've looked into this a little bit on the human side. You know, anything, any little shots for that very base layer of filters for water? We know how important water is.
Well, I think we're going to go back to the first question, which is what we're excited about in 2024. But I know I've been ushered through this corridor of questions, so yeah, yeah. Here we go, because I want to know what you are excited about, Brendan. This is, well, key, you know, turning around in the interviewer's chair. But on water, I've got to say my information's a little bit out of date. Why? There's only so many things I can keep up with, and at the moment we're in rental accommodation, and I know we're going to be in rental for another year. So all of these things, it's such a fast-evolving landscape, and it really depends on several things. But the last time I looked, which was about 18 months ago, reverse osmosis was generally accepted as the best way to go. There is not a single definitive answer. It's, for instance, I was looking at home purification machines and there was a guy who had launched one in the US for air purification. and it was incredible. It neutralized viruses. It was a small tower. It was about $400. It was actually technology which they'd used on one of the space shuttles. And not only would it neutralize odors, it would send out negative ions. It would identify that. It was amazing. They stopped making it. There's nothing as advanced anymore. So the landscape— my point being, the landscape is constantly changing. When I last looked for water, reverse osmosis was the way to go. I would be interested to look into that again, and I will start. And once we buy a house, I will also invest in a hydrogen, hydrogen machine for water, you know, like one of the Lourdes, um, to get into that. So water critical at the moment. I've settled on the Vichy Catalan. Because it's absolutely replete with minerals and has small trace amounts of bicarbonate of soda, which has numerous benefits. And it's in a glass bottle, which isn't necessarily as planet-friendly as we would like, I accept. But for the moment, in terms of all of the decisions, it's, it's the best one I can take right now. What about you?
Yeah, well, I've looked into various filters and I agree with the questioner that, you know, there is that element of are we going to be taking out as much benefits in the water as putting in? Now, energetically, we were talking about structured water a few months ago with a friend of ours and, you know, how you can place an energy frequency back into water, which actually improves the uptake not just of the water but also any minerals within it, um, through into the body. Now, it's really interesting because actually when you then look at a lot of the filter systems, initially, yes, there's the reverse osmosis, there's ceramic filters. There's then the carbon filters. There's then, um, usually at some point there is some electrophoresis stuff to take out some of those horrible bits. There's putting UV light through them to take out the viruses and bacteria. Each of those stages has the potential to restructure the water without any true understanding of what we're putting into that end result. So yeah, as with you, it's interesting, sparked up, you know, a new interest in, wow, there's all of these filters. And I can totally understand, especially, you know, as you were saying, if it comes from a local borehole that constantly gets ridden with stuff from the mountains that, you know, or a lake where there's loads of birds and it's just barely filtered to get to you and there's issues there, then of course filtering out those bacteria, those Giardia, the protozoal diseases is essential to help health. But actually there then comes a point beyond that which you then start to question Actually, what are we doing to that water in the end result? So you sometimes then think, actually, are we just better getting bottled water, you know, that's assured for us? But then we still don't know what they've done to get to that.
No, agreed 100%. I think you've hit on what should be our first manufactured product where, as the health sensei, which is an advanced filter which has with it at point of dispensation a structuring device which you can actually set to either hydration or detoxification. I know we don't like that term, but I'm saying it. Excuse me. And I think that would be a one-step unit that people could actually put into the house because You know, where we live is one of the world's largest migration sites. You know, we're surrounded by natural park. Everybody says natural, amazing, away from pollution. Things which are really inimical to health don't just have to be chemical or synthesized. You know, parasites, bacteria from birds, from vultures. We've got a huge, huge colony of vultures here. You know, they're not known for clean habits, you know.
Wow.
Um, so we, we do have to be very careful about just associating it's natural with it's good for us, you know. Yes, I like things as least processed as possible, but let's not conflate all of these points and lose sight of it, or let it become a tribal kind of, yeah, you know where I'm going with this.
Yeah. And I love actually, you know, when you start to look into this, there's actually some companies that not just look at re-energizing the water, but look at remineralizing the water with, you know, certain minerals to go back in. So, you know, improving the potential that water has for health and hydration. So, question, there's so many things to look at. Yeah.
Question: Do we know that reverse osmosis— ignore the energetic discussion for a second— do we know that reverse osmosis actually demineralizes the water?
I don't think it's the reverse osmosis that demineralizes. I think it's the further down the line. If you do the electrophoresis stuff to take out impurities, it's like, how much does that also affect the mineral content? So people will say detoxes it. It's to there to remove any mercury, lead, you know, all of those sort of pollutants that come in. And I think your then question is, if you're starting to remove those elements, what other elements come with it? You know, what happens to the calcium? What happens to— yeah, they're all metals too. So, you know, you're not, you're not sort of necessarily leaving the good ions behind and taking out the bad ones.
So, you know, as ever, you're setting off a whole chain of analogies here. And one of them is quite often, you know, people will use, oh, you know what, I'm going to have a total cleanse. And they go into the oil of oregano to kill out bacteria, viruses, and parasites. I'm sure I must have picked something up on my last trip to Egypt, not realizing that actually they're not just killing the bad bacteria. Oil of oregano doesn't go out and selectively target bad bacteria. It will decimate your gut flora if used unjudiciously and without an intelligent probiotic. So in our quest for cleanliness, there is a downside.
But out in the ether somewhere, somebody must have been thinking that you were going to say exactly that, because appeared on my social streaming the other day was exactly that, making an oregano and lemon tea as a way of enhancing your health. And I was thinking, wow, that's, that's quite, you know, a broad-reaching herb to be taking in teas on a regular basis. Um, of course, you know, if you're suffering illnesses from your friends and family that come to visit And I was thinking, wow, I wouldn't want to be taking that nonstop because there's going to be consequences.
Yeah, 100%. And of course, it's great to have a strong immune system, but just as important, you have to have this flexibility and one that's reactive. If it's constantly being stimulated, it can become either hyperreactive or you can actually drain yourself. So, you know, all of these things are the subtleties of health, which we'll be diving into much more this year. But Brendan, let's go back to the outset point.
Well, before we do that, I'm just going to stop and start again because for some reason it's just detached ourselves from the server and has just warned me that we've stopped online, which we truly have. So I'm just going to stop and restart and it should come back up.
Okay, because it did say host joined a couple of moments ago. I was like, oh, what's happened there? Hmm.
Well, let's just have a look and see.
