Cyndi O'meara on Ancestral Eating for Optimal Health

This episode is brought to you by Nourish Me Organics, your Gut health superstore in Victoria, Australia. We are going through some really tough times here and many of us may be struggling when it comes to mental health. And Nourish Me Organics. I pretty much founded the company on the premise of improving my mental health by focusing on gut health. And a particular product that I use myself is milk kefir. And it's really easy and cost effective to make at home. And we also have this brand new revolutionary product. It's a bioactive hemp oil with specific compounds in there to help with mental health. So, guys, head to www.nourishmeorganics.com and check out our range. Hey, guys. Cribben Govender from the Gut Health Gurus podcast. I've got a background in food science and today I have a fascinating guest, Cindy o' Meara from an amazing company called Changing Habits, who's all about clean eating and taking chemicals out of the food. Is that right, Cindy?

Yeah, you got it right. And chemicals, and chemicals that are renamed and a whole lot.

Absolutely. Firstly, Cindy, I just want to say huge thank you, huge gratitude for you coming onto the show today.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

My absolute pleasure. And what I do at every podcast at the start is to get it from the horse's mouth. Who is Cindy o'? Meara?

Well, I'm a mum, first and foremost, mom and a wife. And my main thing when I first started all this was I wanted to do the best for my kids. So it was, it started when I got pregnant, I guess, and even before. But I wanted to understand everything that was going to happen through the birth process, through even my pregnancy. What were all the medical things that they wanted to do to me then? What do they do? The baby afterwards. And so my education stem from being a mother, but my interest was always in nutrition. I went to the University of Colorado in Boulder and I studied anthropology, loved it, saw the connection between human survival and food, so thought, oh, I'll come and I'll go and be a dietitian. So I came back to Australia, started my or finished my Bachelor of science, majoring in nutrition, about to go and do dietetics and thought, I don't even agree with any of this. I had nothing to do with anthropology, had everything to do with margarine, low fat, artificial sweeteners, there's no saturated fat. And I'm thinking there's a disconnect here. So, you know, in those days, I was only 23. And I thought, well, I can't go against the grain per se. So I went back to university to become a chiropractor, but did two years of that with human anatomy and all the ologies under the sun and thought, you know what? I know what the human body needs. It's not the margarine and the low fat and everything like that. It's something very much like what I'd learned in anthropology. And that's why I am the way I am today and why I teach the things I teach today and why I became so interested in old birth processes. And did we need to have vitamin K? Was that an important part of that? A baby needed it. I remember I had to do a paper on it because I was told two months before my baby's born, my first baby's born. I said, right, no drugs, nothing. I'm not going to have anything. And they said, oh, except for Kinakin and Syntamy. And I went, pardon, what are they? So then they explained the two of them to me. Syntimetrine for the mother and Kinakin for the baby, Vitamin K. So being at university so long and in the old fashioned days, I used to have to go to La Trobe University and hunt through the cards to find the information on why were they giving vitamin K to babies. And once I kind of figured it out, I wrote a paper and gave it to the hospital and said, this is the reason why I won't be taking caffium for my baby and this is the reason why I won't be doing centimetrine for. So yeah, I'm a bit of a researcher and I've continued to do that. You know, my babies are all grown up, very healthy and now I continue to research food.

Wow, what an introduction. That's so inspiring that you're almost. And I watched you at the Wellness show recently up in Melbourne and it was so inspiring to watch you talk about clean eating. Is that something that I've been so passionate about for so many years as well, coming from the food industry? I was in the food industry for about 20 years and I was one of these, I wouldn't say bad guys, but one of the guys in the background that were developing products. And so I resonated deeply with what you're saying is. Because initially I would say I was part of the problem. I was the one putting all the nasty stuff in the food. But now it's so inspiring to see someone like yourself who's an activist to educate people that these Products can be quite damaging. And what really inspired me to bring you onto the podcast is to talk about clean eating, but from a perspective also because there's this massive trend in terms of veganism and vegan type products. And so what I wanted to discuss in the show is your thoughts on the rise of veganism, number one. And then people who choose to go down the vegan path. What are some of the watch outs when it comes to processed foods and the perception that they might be healthy, but are they really healthy? That's the question. So where do we start?

Look, I think probably start where I became a vegetarian. I decided to be a vegetarian, not vegan, because vegan. I didn't hear a lot about veganism back in the 70s. So I started when I was 14. I said to my mother, I'm not eating meat anymore. So she just left meat off the plate. And if I look back in hindsight, I was a vegetarian for 16 years and I look back in hindsight at that period in my time and I realized that my health wasn't good. I started to get, I needed glasses to see distance. I lost my cycle for three years. I started to put on weight, so I started to get those health issues, but didn't think that it had anything to do with me not eating meat. So I think that's where it all started to me is that I trialed it and I did it. It wasn't until I was pregnant that I had an unbelievable craving for me. And I had known enough about nutrition at that point that I thought I'm going to go with that craving. I don't know what it is, but I'm going to listen to my body. So, so I then look at my anthropological background as well. So where in the culture of the human species was there a vegan diet? There was a vegetarian diet and that was the Hindu. For 5,000 years they ate a vegetable based diet with the holy sacred cows product and probably eggs, I'm not really sure. But I do know they had the cow products so they would ferment it, make ghee and do all of those beautiful things. There was never ever a culture that survived for 5,000 years on a vegan diet, but rather a vegetarian diet. And I know you've had Dr. Jack Cruz on and you know, Jack talks about they were on the equator. Anybody above the equator, towards the Himalayas, where it was colder and not as much light, they needed to eat meat. And that's why we have lamb, roganoche and all the beautiful curry foods of the Indian population. So for me, I was thinking that way anyway when this vegan movement came about. And there seems to be a real push. And there's an amazing woman by the name of Belinda Fedkey's, the wife of Dr. Gary Fedke. And Gary Fedke is an orthopedic surgeon.

Who.

Was silenced by his regulatory body, Abra. And Belinda did a lot of research and she researched the beginning of the vegetarian diet in Western society as opposed to the Hindus, and then now the push towards veganism. And I think her research is really worth listening to. So what she has done is she has taken it year by year and person by person as to why there is this push at the moment. And you see it everywhere. And I don't have a problem because we live in a society where we can be vegan. We can because we're privileged. But if you take the Hindu in Namibia who live on a desert plain, there is no plant foods or very little plant foods unless there's been rain. They have to live on meat and dairy. There is nothing else for them out there except for a few roots and a couple of small plants. But mainly they live on root and dairy. They're not a privileged society. You put them on a vegan diet, you're gonna kill them because that food is just not there. The same with the Kagiyas in Premier, they're in Afghanistan, they live at 14,000ft. There is no plant food, it's meat and dairy, you know, depending on, you know, what they have. And I think that when we as a Western society are saying the whole world needs to go plant based, it's just because they think we're privileged. Well, we are privileged. And I could go on and on about, you know, there's other tribes out there, the Hadzas in Tanzania, the Maasaia in Kenya, the Catawba's in Papua New Guinea. They all, they do eat plant based, don't get me wrong there, but they also have, they need to have fish and other products in their life. The fact that with the vegan diet there is this thing, and I don't know how true it is because this is what I learned in the 80s, is that you must take supplements. So if we look in anthropological ways, supplements wouldn't have been available. You had to eat food to get your nutrition. So this is where I find that the philosophy and the ethos of the vegan diet falls down. The other thing that's happening is that people who would probably never ever go vegan are hearing this message over and over and over again. We've got to feed the world. Plants are the only way we're going to feed it. Cows produce way too much methane. They're contributing to the, you know, the planetary destruction of climate change and so on and so on. And so they're thinking, well, I probably need to do something because most people want to do the best thing for themselves and they want to do the best thing for the planet. So they see these meats that taste like meat, look like meat, smell like meat and they think that they're okay. Or they see these cheeses that look like cheese, smell like cheese, tastes like cheese, but aren't cheese or isn't meat. It's all plant based. Now when I was a vegetarian, TVP was available. So TVP is a textured vegetable protein and I used to look at it and think, how could anybody eat that stuff? But what we're doing is that we have just sophisticated the TVP which is an exuded food, which means it's forced through something and all the shapes change and we don't know what it's doing to its protein structure, but it's just something that people start to do. And now we have very, very sophisticated meats where it's not only like, let's say a lentil burger would be something that I would agree with or a chickpea burger or something like that the old fashioned way. We did vegetarianism but now you can have the impossible burger. You can have beyond meat and there's so many of them coming out and that's. And the cheese is also. And that's where it starts to get really scary in my opinion. And unless you are reading the ingredients then you don't know what you're eating. So if you don't mind, let's first address is vegan diet, a plant based diet going to save the planet? Because some people go, well it's about saving the animals and I do, I have a few vegan friends who want to save, you know, the animals and they won't eat an animal. But there's a new book out and I do not remember the name of it but it's by the gourmet farmer who lives in Tasmania and I wish I could remember the name of it. I have his article anyway. His book talks about how many animals are killed in a monoculture. Not only the vermin, but you know, it's either through mechanical destruction or chemical destruction. So it's not only animals that are being killed but or displaced, but it's also insects. When they spray chemicals over it. So they might be spraying clopirifast or some sort of insecticide, or they might be spraying Roundup, which not only affects plants, bacteria, but also affects yeast and then affects the microbiome of the, of the, any animal that's within reach of it and therefore destroying its immune system and therefore killing that animal. So I don't think we're saving the animals by being a monoculture, but I also do not agree with modern day meat production. I disagree with it entirely. So we have this dilemma. You know, there's the way that we do agriculture with plant and there's the way we do agriculture with animals at the moment. And in both those terms, I can't agree with them. Which kind of leaves us nothing to eat, really.

Yeah, exactly. What do we do?

Well, then we look at, we look at, and Dr. Zach Bush, and I know you've had him on, you know, then Dr. Zach Bush talks about regenerative farming. And in Australia we have Dr. Charles Massey. Yes, Dr. Charles Massey, who wrote the book Call of the Reed Warbler. We've got Charlie Arnott. We have so many people that are talking about regenerative farming, which is all about using animals to fertilize the land, to grow the plants, but not in a monoculture, more in a permaculture or a permanent culture. And these people are revolutionizing the way Australians and the world are thinking about where they're getting their food from, how their food is being produced and what they're consuming. So I think that addresses saving the planet because we know that when a cow is not eating grain, then they're not producing the methane. And I have to address this because I hear this all the time. So there are 1.5 billion cows on the planet. Now, if they're producing methane, let's look at the humans who might be producing methane as well. So there are 8 billion people approximately on the planet. And if they have fructose malabsorption, which is becoming a big problem amongst people who are decimating their microbiome through the chemicals in our agriculture, as well as antibiotics, we are now seeing a huge production of methane being produced by bacteria and then you have to release that. So I'm not sure whether the cows are the problem or the humans are the problem there. So, you know, I did really, when somebody gets on this and then they start talking about it, I kind of go, well, let's put this in perspective, guys. If we start eating foods that are from our anthropological times and if we start producing Foods that are through regenerative agriculture and they have shown that this will feed the planet. Now, I saw a statistic just recently that humans take up, I think, 10% of the planet, something like that. I wish I'd written it down. It could have come from Zach's page or Charlie Arnold or somewhere like that. But 10% of the planet, and I can't remember how much brain takes up and anyway, it got down to that. We, we are at the moment able to feed 10 billion people based on the way it's being done at the moment, but we're making them sicker and they're wanting more food. Because if you're, you know, you're not basing your, your diet on proteins and meats and you're basing it on carbohydrates, then there's going to be an issue. You're going to want more and more and more and more and more food. Whereas somebody who bases their food on nutrient dense or their diet on nutrient dense foods, you need less and less and less. My daughter said something to me, she said, you know, my ultimate aim, Mum, is to see how much, how little I can live on and still feel amazing and maintain the weight that I am, rather than. Yeah. And I thought that was so profound from her, from anybody's mouth, that's profound. And so she eats organic, nutrient dense foods. And I have actually followed that lead and to just see how much food that I can live on and still feel absolutely amazing, rather than I want to eat two and a half thousand calories, therefore I have to go and exercise and I have to go and do this. It's just a, you know, if I eat that, that dessert that has so many calories and I'm going to go, have to run, but I'll do that. It's just a crazy concept. It is, yeah. I love the thought of how little do I need to live on. How dense can my foods be and how amazing can my foods be that they can nourish this body to take me beyond the years that most people become chronically ill. And we know in Australia that in 1965, 2% of the population had chronic illness. It's now 2019 and it's 38 to 40%. And this is from the Australian Bureau of statistics. Between 38 and 40% of our children under the age of 17 have one or more chronic diseases. By the time you reach 65, you have an 80% chance of having one or more chronic diseases.

I'll pause you there for a sec and let's underscore a couple of points that you raised before we move on to this fascinating issue of chronic dysfunction that's happening in our societies. So, first thing, I love the concept of eating for your footprint and also the whole premise of overconsumption that we're seeing in the West. Firstly, we are incredibly privileged to be able to have the choice to pick our food choice, and many cultures don't have that luxury. And if we go back to prehistoric times, I think if I could put myself in a time capsule, I would imagine prehistoric humans driving around in little tribes and pretty much eating whatever they can, whether it's a bug off the ground, whether it's an animal that they hunt or buried, that they forage or a tuber or root. And I think for them, in our ancestral roots and the way we've evolved, if I could guess, I would say it's to be as flexible as possible. So if the world all of a sudden just fell apart, I think the ones that would thrive would be the ones that have flexibility in their microbiome to actually digest different types of foods, whether it's protein, whether it's carbohydrates, whether it's fiber, it's that flexibility. And many of the experts in the microbiome space have spoken about this concept of being flexible in terms of our metabolism and the microbiome. And then we'll come back to the point of potential overconsumption. I think my view is that we eat far too much. I mean, you raised the excellent point that potentially because we're consuming so much processed foods that we're essentially malnourished, so we need to consume more to get the required level of nutrition and vitamins for my food. But I noticed myself when I, many years ago, transitioned towards an organic, clean eating style of eating, the hashtag jerf, just eat real food. I noticed my consumption level diminished substantially. Like going from eating consistently three meals plus all the snacking in between, which is very typical of our Western society. In Australia, it's like you've got to have your breakfast and it's your morning tea, and then it's your lunch and then afternoon tea and then dinner and then supper and all these snacks in between, and then the whole concept of eating more because it speeds the metabolism and potentially you lose weight from that. And I think it's totally wrong. I mean, it's just pure overconsumption. And the whole concept of fasting, I think, which is becoming really popular across the planet as well. I think there's a lot to be said for fasting and also metabolic flexibility. So let's talk about that before we go into the chronic diseases. Like, what's your thoughts on fasting? It's becoming super popular.

Yeah, it is becoming very popular. And that's the wonderful thing is that. But let's look at anthropological principles. We would have definitely fasted because food wasn't always available. So in the winter of the hunter gatherer, it would have been a time where there were lean meats around. Let's say there was snow on the ground. There wouldn't be a lot of plant matter around. They might have been like, if they had tools and things like that, they would have preserved some of their foods and kept some of their foods that were high in concentration. And then in the summer there would have been lots more food available. The animals would have had more fat on them, so they would have eaten fatter meats. And so there was this amazing change in our metabolic rate and how we changed what we use. So in the summer we would put on weight with the help of the fat and the sweet fruits or the carbohydrates that were available. Then in the winter, the calorie count would have been low, but we would have stacked that weight on and then we'd go into that state of ketosis, which would allow our fat cells to give us approximately 2,000 calories per day extra over and above what we were eating. And if we were eating like the 500 grams of lean bit of meat and maybe the dried something or the stored something that we had, we would survive. It was a survival rate. So we'd go through sugar metabolism and then we metabolize fat. And that's why I think ketosis is becoming so popular at the moment is. And I don't want to say the ketogenic diet, because I don't think there is a ketogenic diet. It's ketosis that we're in. And how we get there can be many reasons. We might be sick and not be able to eat. Our body will help us survive. We may be eating less calories than we normally would. We may have slept through the night and fasted until 11 o'. Clock. And then we go into a state of ketosis and then we've had a banana and then we use the sugar in that. So to me, it's not a diet per se, it's a state. And how you get into that state can be through fasting, less calories, no carbohydrates, but you still have to Have a calorie countdown. So, yes, I believe that fasting was always a part of our anthropological times. I do it yearly. I actually do what we call mimicking fasting diet. I cut my calories down to around 500 calories, and I don't count calories in any way. What I do is I go, I'm going to have 100 grams of meat, going to have a whole bunch of greenery for lunch, and I'll do the same for dinner. And usually I strip fat, strip toxins. I do it in the winter, so it's mimicking what we would have done in the winter. And then in the summer, I love the fresh fruits. I love the mangoes and the bananas and the papaya and all of those foods that are available to me, and I eat them. But then I calm it down in the winter, and I only eat apples and citrus. So for me, fasting or slight fasting, so where, you know, you only eat small amounts of food or mimicking fasting diet, a two brilliant, absolutely brilliant ways to help you have you called it metabolic adaptability. Is that what you called it? You called it flexibility? Yeah.

Yeah.

So it is metabolic flexibility. And we should be able to do it on a daily basis and also put ourselves into it on a yearly basis, but we don't because we're always in the summer. Food is available to us from all over the world into a grocery store 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And then we panic the day before Christmas and we go crazy chopping everything up, and then we eat ourselves silly and then fall asleep in the couch. People just aren't thinking. And I think when you start to think, then you will realize that that cyclical movement in our lives as hunter gatherers, with our evolutionary lives, we need to mimic now. And I know you talked to Jack and you know Jack talks about all of those things that we are evolutionary bodies, we must have that sunlight in the morning to tell the melatonin to stop and the serotonin to start. So this is not just about diet. This is about going to bed and making sure you do not have bright lights and television and screens and everything in front of you. Getting that melatonin to, you know, to work up. And then in the morning, seeing that sunrise and. And you can be in a modern world and do this, but you have to tell this anthropological, evolutionary body, you have to give it its. Its resources that it needs, otherwise it will be sick. People aren't getting this. They aren't getting that this is a, that we, we haven't modernized. We haven't modernized for the light, for no sunlight, for not moving, for non connection, like you know, social media, we're not having that connection. All the food that we're now eating and you know, and now these plant based foods which just. I don't know what's going to happen in the next 10 years and to the next generation. It kind of scares me because I've watched.

Yeah, I'll pause you there for a sec. There's a concept that I like to explore and I know Jack Cruz is big on this as well. And it really blew my mind when he spoke about this because I've been following his work for a while and he talks about the concept and I'm sure you'd be aware of this, Cindy, about the. It's pretty advanced for most of the listeners, but bear with us. He talks about the light programming of the food that we eat and it's quite a revolutionary concept because we just look at vegetables and fruits as being vegetables and fruits. But then there's also this innate programming that happens from the light source that it's actually hitting that plant. So do you want to speak to that just a little bit just to explain to I guess the listeners what Jack's on about in terms of that concept?

I have a farm, So I have 60 acres. And we do holistic farming and I don't call it organic because we're not certified organic because we just don't use any chemicals because certified organic means you can use some chemicals. So I see the blossoms coming up, it's spring now, and I watch all the blossoms come up and then they turn into fruit. And I'm in awe, in absolute awe that these trees just keep giving and giving and giving. You know, it's like it just blows me away. And it's light, so it's sunlight, photosynthesis, but it's also the ecology of the soil. So the soil and the microbes, it's like our gut bacteria, the microbes are in that soil and the light hits that plant and between that there's this amazing just synchronicity that works to produce food for us or for maybe the ground because it might need some mulching or whatever it is, it's there when you produce a vitamin, a mineral, a food additive, a fake food like Legohemoglobin, which we'll talk about when you produce these, there is no light and there is no ecology. You're in a chemical laboratory and I'VE had scientists, and I know that you may have thought this way, who say, there is nothing different, Cindy, between a vitamin E that is from food and a vitamin E that we can make in a laboratory or a B2 and a B2 or. And I would go, but B2 is never by itself. It's always got a carbohydrate, a fat or a protein with it or a mixture of them. It always has other nutrients with it. It has phytonutrients with it. It has all sorts of amazing things. And I remember when I started university, they didn't know about phytonutrients. So it used to be, here's your multivitamin and mineral capsule. It's got everything in there that you'd want. And then all of a sudden they went, oh, my gosh, there's these things called phytonutrients. We better add that to it. So I'm with Jack. I agree with him. When it comes to, we must get our food from real food. Jerf, as you said, just eat real food. Because supplementation, except in an emergency, okay? Just like medications, except in an emergency, I think should be coming from our food. And when we eat by the principles as I've already spoken about, which is nutrient dense food production, and that's not necessarily certified organic, there is a group of farmers out there that love their soil more than they love anything else because they know if that soil is working, their plants are working, their animals are working, they're resistant to disease, there is no need for chemicals. So, yeah, so for me, I eat nutrient dense foods. Yes, I'm lucky. I have a farm. But there's farmers out there that want to sell to you, that live like what I live like and that grow food like I grow food. And you must have light, you must have soil ecology in order for that to work on the mitochondria, as Jack talks about, you know, he's a thinker from, you know, he's Einstein thinking.

Absolutely.

And people kind of sometimes go, oh, he's way up there. But I listen to him because even how he, how he speaks, I'm not sure. And I've said this to him, you know, Bedside Manor is a little bit tough to take, but he knows and I think wake up and listen to him. And, yeah, I've been following him for a long time too, and I just find him a real thinker and I like to see where he's going. But as he said, I interviewed him in 2012 and interviewed him again this year. And as he said to me, Cindy, I hadn't changed. It's still all about leptin. That's all it's about.

And I went, okay, I'll just underscore a couple of the points that you spoke about. The soil ecology is so important because essentially what we've done is we've stripped a lot of the mycorrhizal fungi, these almost these communication networks that are in the soil. So that's hugely detrimental to the nutrition of the food. So that's one huge problem that we can't really do much about unless we put mycorrhiza back into the soil. The other thing is I wanted to underscore is the soil as a probiotic. You know, there's all these organisms in there, there's this soil based probiotics that are in there. There's other types of organisms that have been shown in studies to improve mood just by being in the garden, out gardening, there's that aspect of it. And then if you're having organic foods and you're able to not use pesticides and chemicals and you don't have to overly wash the products as well. So there's that natural inoculation that's going to happen when you're going to consume the food. So that's that element. And then finally when you spoke about the light shining on the food, Jack talks about this like almost like a GPS signal that goes into the food product. Hence I highly encourage people to consider eating local to their region because it's tied into firstly the cycles of nature, but also the light that's hitting that food is almost geotagged to the location that they're eating. If we're consuming a lot of imported fruits and vegetables, it's incredibly confusing to the mitochondria because it doesn't really know where this actual food is coming and how to actually probably extract the energy efficiently. It's just very confusing to the mitochondria. What's your thoughts on that concept?

Most definitely, because if you're eating a mango in the winter, then you are confusing the body's ability to understand its time in space and in time. It's placed in time and space. And I agree with that. I think that local, as much local food as you can get. So let's look at anthropological times. So there would have been a movement. So the Himbas we know about 400 years ago came from the north of Africa where it would have been more tropical. But then they had to move south. And as they moved they may have Bought foods with them that were important for their survival. Which meant that there are some foods that do move, such as salt. Salt has been something that has been moved and traded for thousands and thousands of years. Spices, things like that. We have had that little bit of movement happening there. So you can eat locally with the local herd, local fruits, the local vegetables. But I also think that you can at least add those spices that are not grown in your area or that salt that's not in your area. Because if you live in a place where there is no salt but you need salt, then it's an important part of what you need. So I agree entirely with your local fruits, your local vegetables, your local nuts, your local meats, your local dairy. Those foods that can be produced locally. But remember, they would have been travelers and there would have been foods that were moved around the world, you know, for thousands and thousands of years. I'm actually rereading Clan of the Cave Bear series. So it was, I read it in the 1980s really when I was doing anthropology. And I'm re going through it again and realizing, you know, because this is a, even though it's fiction, it's actually based on a lot of research that this, that Jean did, the author and you know, they did, they would, they would travel for a year, but they had to bring some of their foods with them. So I still agree with some of the foods being able to be used, but make sure that they do come from good sources. And yeah, and it's the same with vertical, not vertical, but gardens that are in pipes now with water. There's no ecology there. And that always worries me. And the other thing is that when you buy packaged lettuce, they're now putting, they're doing a process to them where they sanitize them and all the soil based biology. So when I my lettuce, I don't even wash it. You know, I have found a few grubs every now and then, but I don't wash. It goes in my salad. All the soil borne bacteria is our probiotic. So my salad is a probiotic. And you know, and I think everybody wants to sterilize instead of realizing no soil based bacteria can actually heal a gut, you know.

Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. Absolutely. I mean the package, it's so deceptive when you go to a supermarket and you think that you're buying something, a fruit and vegetable to set the context and you think this is a fresh product. But a lot of these packaged products go through an extreme processing because you think about it if there's 300 odd supermarket stores across Australia, they've got to have distribution, they've got to have shelf life. These things are absolutely nuked in sanitizers. If you look at the process, it's almost industrial based when it's going through heavy sanitation to maintain the shelf life and keep it fresh for a certain period of time. Because shelf life is money.

And you know what else is that? We've had listeria outbreaks. And with these outbreaks which are, you know, and Jack, not Jack, Zach Bush would talk about this. With these outbreaks we have a chemical which is not only a herbicide and a descaling agent or chelating agent, but it's also an antibiotic. And there are a couple of bacteria that are resistant to this glyphosate. It just happens to be the pathological soil bacteria, which Listeria is one. So we're spraying Roundup and glyphosate desiccating tomatoes and all the strawberries that, you know, we had a problem with last year were all desiccated. With this desiccation means drying or death. Wheat, oats, legumes, you know, all the vegan foods are being absolutely drenched and not drenched because it only takes parts per billion to destroy your microbiome in this herbicide and antibiotic. And so now we're having these listeria outbreaks. So now they're saying, well, even cantaloupe or rock melon has to be, you know, sanitized on its outside. And I don't think people don't realize this is happening. And it all starts with monocultures and genetically modified corn and canola and corn. What I say, oh, and soya. So it started there in 1995 and then it was Roundup ready. Corn, not corn, but Roundup ready Soya, Roundup ready canola, Roundup ready, sugar bait, Roundup ready, whatever it was. Now they're producing dicamba ready and 2 4D ready genetically modified crops. I don't know what that's going to do to the health of humans.

It's a disaster.

And it's not just Roundup ready, but it's Roundup ready and dicamba ready. So it's a combination that they can put those two severe chemicals on the food supply just even before harvest. That is then in parts per million and parts per billion in our food. We then consume it, kill the microbiome. It's already killed the soil ecology. And what's really interesting is Dr. Don Huber, he's a plant pathologist. In the US and he said the way that glyphosate or Roundup works is that it stops an enzymatic pathway called the shikamate pathway. And that is not what kills the plant. What kills the plant is that it becomes immune compromised and then the soil based pathological bacteria come up through the plant and kill it. To resist these soil based bacteria or pathological bacteria, but because their immune system has been absolutely decimated as a result of the destruction of the shikimate pathway, which produces their folate, their enterobactin, their tyrosine, tryptophan, phenylalaniline, their vitamin K, there's all these things that are disposable, being destroyed within that plant and makes it. And it's like us, we then we. And he said to me, he said this, he says it gives the plant AIDS and acquired immune syndrome that allows opportunistic, you know, pathological bacteria to kill it. And it is, it is staggering. And I have to tell you this story, because I think this will help people understand why I have such an amazing passion for this, is that I had. I had six uncles who had hemophilia. So hemophilia is a bleeding disease. In the 1980s, a new drug, I think it was the 70s, a new drug came out and it was Factor VIII, which helped them live a normal, a fairly normal life. They didn't have to go into hospital for three weeks in a bleed. They could just inject themselves at home. And of course, HIV was in that, in the serum. And they all got HIV and they all died of aids, as well as two of my aunts and one of my cousins. And that was Bayer. That was Bayer. Now Bayer has bought Monsanto and they are now in the courts with glyphosate, causing non Hodgkin's lymphoma. And when Dr. Huber said that to me, I just got this, oh, my gosh, Bayer killed my uncles. And now Bayer is killing. And by the way, they conceded that they did and they paid my grandmother. Wow, you know, what's a life worth? You know, it's just, I was not happy with that. But when he said that to me, I went, isn't that interesting that I'm now, one of my biggest things at the moment is to stop these GM foods, stop these monocultures, stop the desiccation of wheat and legumes and oats and other grains with Roundup or glyphosate. And let's get back to our basics, you know, back to a great soil Ecology, let's look at our soil, let's get nutrient dense foods, let's get back to real foods. And then this plant based movement started. And you know, I just. What's next?

Absolutely. Let's come back full circle. I mean, I think people hopefully are getting the message that, that antibiotics are not great for the gut and certainly not great for the gut microbiome. So meat being the biggest source of antibiotics in terms of people that follow just a normal diet, but for people that are vegetarian, for vegans, Cindy's highlighted so eloquently that there is these antibiotics that are in these vegan type foods. So glyphosate being one, you've highlighted some others. Food preservatives, chemicals, a lot of these operate like antibiotics, they kill bacteria. So let's talk about this particular issue that you raised during the Wellness Summit where we've seen this explosion of soy based products that are almost mimicking what meat looks like. It bleeds. And there was one particular compound that you highlighted in that talk. Let's talk about that. So what's happening in that space, Cindy?

So there's a lot of venture capital going into this and not only in the cell mates, but also the plant based meats. And the money is going into the patents of the chemicals that they're making that make meat taste like meat, look like meat, smell like meat, but isn't me. And one of them they figured out is this heme group that grows on the root of legumes. And so they've called it Lego hemoglobin. And they've taken the gene out of the soya plant that makes that Lego hemoglobin because heme iron meat. So they've taken it out and they've inserted that gene into a yeast. And I'm pretty sure it's a yeast that they've inserted it into. Always got it. Because some are mold, some are yeast, some are E. Coli. Yeah, it's genetically modified yeast. So they've inserted it into this yeast, then they ferment it on a substrate and produce lots of it. Extract the heme group out of it. I think it's called a hemoic group. So they extract that out of it, they then put it on a substrate and that can be anything between 2 and 100. And they include proteins and amino acids, but not food based ones, but ones that the industry has made. So maltodextrin or succinic acid or valine, they might put some amino acids in there or it could be a fat flaxseed oil or a canola oil or something like that. So they'll put the product and they'll add it to. They're called flavor precursors. Then what happens is these volatile chemicals come off it. And these volatile chemicals can taste like or smell like bison, chicken, lamb, beef. So it's a completely fake sensation to the body. And when you read the ingredients of this food, like. So what I did was I wrote down all the ingredients in this one meat that has the soy o hemoglobin in it. So it's. The first ingredient is water. That's pretty cheap. Then a textured wheat protein. Now, what's that? You know, you have to think, well, it'll have to. If it's been. If it has glyphosate in it because it's been desiccated, the wheat's been desiccated with it, then number one, you may have some glyphosate in there, which is an antibiotic and a chelating agent taking metals out. But how do they make a textured protein? You know, And I go to patents to figure this out. You know, I'm reading a painting is like watching paint dry, watching grass grow. Oh, my gosh. You know, and they are confusing, too. You know, they're very confusing. And then it's got coconut oil. So is it a coconut oil that's a good quality one or absolutely purified? Deodorized one. I would put it on the deodorized side. A potato protein. How do they produce that? Then there's natural flavors. So there's 48 chemicals in a natural flavor. There's nothing natural about natural, you know.

Exactly, exactly. A side note there. When I first started working in industry, I was actually a flavorist in the way.

Did you work for iff?

No, I've done work with iff, but I actually used to work for the product makers. That was my first job out of uni. So I hear you. I used to develop natural flavors, normal flavors. And there was like, yeah, about 40 odd chemicals that are in there. Most of them were carcinogenic. And I was wearing a mask and full suit to compound these chemicals. And you read the MSDSs, most of them are carcinogenic. So there you go. Straight from the horse's mouth.

I have to interview you because I'm sure people listen to me talk about natural flavors and natural colors, and they just think I'm. But if we have someone from the industry, you know, and that's what I love. Is it like, I've been the first time I was alerted to this was from Eric Schloss's book Fast Food Nation. I think it came out in the 90s, did it? Or somewhere around there. And he listed the ingredients of strawberry flavoring. And I just went, oh my gosh, you know, I never did the flavors, I didn't do colors, I did nothing. Whether it was natural, artificial, because that was my philosophy. So sometimes philosophy, living by a philosophy is a really good place to be. Especially if that philosophy says you will not eat anything which has a number, you'll only eat real food and that real food will be nutrient dense. So that, you know, I live by anthropological and vitalistic philosophies. That's it. So when you live by that, you don't have to go, oh, I didn't know, you know. But anyway, I read his book and this is this Lego hemoglobin. So one of the things we're starting to learn about is that the ferritin, which is our heme or our iron storage in our body, if you have too much iron storage in your body, that it's a really good indicator of heart disease and heart attack. This new product coming on the market, I think it was painted in 20, it was 10 years ago or more, maybe more 2003. But we have this product on the market that is going to, I don't know, it's not in a meat modality, it's in a plant based modality. We wouldn't eat the root of a soya plant.

Yeah.

So I'm just wondering what's going to happen. I'm waiting, I'm just waiting. I don't know, I'm guessing, but I'm really wondering is there going to be an association between these vegan meats? I have no science behind this, but is it going to be an association between these vegan meats and the rise in heart disease or heart attacks?

Wow, that's a real problem. I mean anytime you tinker with nature, it's kind of fraught with danger, I think. But the most worrying part for me is I think most consumers, especially in that kind of the meat free space, might be confused as to the health benefits of these products, thinking that it's going to be good for them. But what's your recommendations like?

I mean if I look at that, I don't think there's any light in that. It is like it's B2, B12, zinc. There's no light in this. This is mined minerals made up vitamins. Xanatham gum is a genetically modified mold where's the light in this?

Where's the language, the programming? Right, nature's programming.

Where is that coming from? Is that coming from the us? Is it coming from China? And I live in, you know, Antarctica or New Zealand or Australia, like, so we. It's confusing. It's confusing to the body. Number one. I've never seen this before. For hundreds of thousands of years I've eaten meat, fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, grains, but I've never eaten this. And so what does the body know, how to deal with it and what to do with it? And how does it construct a human body with great eyesight and energy? And how does it get into the mitochondria to produce our ATP? And how do we get rid of it out of the body through all the, you know, the way we get rid of waste? These are things called, and you've already said some of them are carcinogenic, but these are generally regarded as safe grass.

Yeah.

Where are the safety studies on this?

It takes time, isn't it, to establish these studies before it's kind of released into the wild, for want of a better word, till you start to see the potential impacts and then at that point maybe it's too late. That's the worry. And that's why I think we're both in line with the philosophy that it's all about going back to nature, eating as nature intended, taking all the chemicals out, just eat real food, preferably as much as possible from your local environment. And I have zero problems with. If you choose to go plant based, that's your personal choice and people do it for many different reasons. But I think, correct me if I'm wrong as well, that it's all about eating as nature intended. Clean food, real food.

Yeah. If you want to be vegan and you can be in this society, but watch your health. At six years, you know, there's, you know, there's a lot of. I remember listening to Lyra Keith, I don't know if you know of her, but she was a vegan for 20 years and she was strict vegan. And at 20 years she went, I can't, I don't know if my body's coping with this anymore. And she started to eat meat again and she actually believes the only vegans that last, the ones that cheat. That's her belief. That's what she says in her books and in her podcasts and things like that. And it doesn't matter whether you are vegan, vegetarian, carnivore, trying to be keto, going into ketosis or whatever it is, whatever your philosophy is there, or whatever your food selection is there, just make sure that it is from nature as local as possible, that you have questioned your farmer, that they're not going to the Rockley markets in Brisbane to get a whole bunch of chemical based foods and then go to the farmers market. So you question these guys. You can't. Food security so vital in this day and age, especially when you don't want to be duped by somebody being at a farmer's market that isn't actually a farmer. They've just seen the potential in going to the Rockley markets, coming to you and saying, yes, yes, this is my farm food. You know, how come you've got a mango sitting there and it's not even mango season yet, you know, so you have to. You have to become incredibly savvy.

I think 100% agree, totally agree. You've got to ask the questions. You've got to ask where your food's coming from and think logically. That's such an underrated thing. Ask yourself the question, does this make sense, Cindy?

Some people will do it and some people won't. And. And I know that now because I've seen people really, really sick and I say to them, this is what you should do. They don't want to change, and that's okay, you know, but I'm here for the people who want to change.

Absolutely. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. So people have to be responsible for the choices that they make. 100%. We're pretty much up to time, Cindy. That's going incredibly fast. It was such a cool conversation, but I always ask at the end of the show, and it is the Gut Health Gurus podcast. So what are some tips that you have for people, potentially stuff that you're doing yourself as well for people to improve their gut health today?

Well, I think, number one, what we've been talking about, stay away from genetically modified foods, stay away from monocultures. Eat foods that are local and in your environment and as clean as you can. And watch out for packaged foods because sometimes they have a stamp of approval and then they shouldn't be there. So I'm the one ingredient pantry girl. So everything in my pantry is one ingredient. And from that I can make thousands of recipes. And it's a very basic pantry, it's very small. I don't have this huge pantry with packaged foods everywhere. It's all in glass jars. It's those few basics. But I can make a lot of food out of it. And then what I'm finding though, and I've been in this for 40 years, is that once upon a time in the 80s, I could say let's just get off the SAD diet, the standard Australian diet and let's just eat real foods and they would improve. But what I'm finding now is that that's not happening because people are becoming allergic to foods. So that's when we go into crisis care and in crisis care we, we basically eliminate all plant based foods and we consume broths and slow cooked meats and we can bring the plant based foods back in but we've got to get the microbiome right again. So while we're trying to decimate the pathological bacteria and soothe the gut, we then need to give the body those pre and probiotics that will then feed the good bacteria. And that's all of our kefirs and our yogurts and our, all of our beautiful fermented foods that have been in every culture. I've just been in the Solomon Islands and they were telling me about all their fermented foods. This six month pudding, then Mari, there was one called Mari. So they have all these amazing fermented foods and it's time we go back to our tradition, back to our cultures and this is the way to bring back that the soil based bacteria is those lettuces that you pick from your garden and then you, and they're your ancient bacterias and then your other bacterias that are in our cultures are really important too. So. And I know that that's what you do, you know.

Awesome.

I just, I love what you're doing and there are so many people that are bringing back these beautiful cultures and traditions and cultures meaning two things. In order for us to heal what we've damaged, so we, first of all we've got to remove everything that's damaging us and then now we've got to put everything in that's helping us. So, you know, I know it's more complex than that, but that's my summarization of how to get people well and you know, the GAPS diet. I'm a GAPS practitioner. I love Dr. Natasha Campbell McBr. I think she is another forward thinker and you know, and it all started with her with being a mummy of a kid that was diagnosed with autism. So I love mum, I love mums that are so passionate and dads that are so passionate because they have these children that are ill and they want to get them well, so. And a lot of autistic and ADD and ADHD kids have bad guts and got to get them going again.

Isn't it funny? That's exactly the same point I started as well. I suffered with anxiety and depression. I still do. It's still a battle, but it was the GAPS book that actually changed my life. Isn't that funny? Yeah, we started at the same point. So, Cindy, someone's listening to this podcast. They're totally inspired, they're totally blown away by what you've had to say today and they want to work with you. How do they find you?

Just go to changinghabits.com that's my website on Instagram. We're changing habits. So we're Changing Habits Farm, Changing Habits and Changing Habits Headquarters or hq. The same on Facebook. We're changing habits. It's all about changing our habits. And whether we start with breakfast cereals and get them out of the diet and we. Or the salt or your sugar or like, I'm someone who, I don't want to remove the food. I want to show you a better alternative. And then if you're really sick, then we have to do other things. But you know, if you're just wanting to make some changes, we do it step by step, bit by bit. So changing habits is where you find me.

Awesome, Cindy, Huge gratitude. Thank you so much for coming onto the show. You have yourself a great day. Thank you so much. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Gut Health Gurus podcast with the amazing Cindy o'. Meara. If you enjoyed this show, please share with your friends and family members and leave us a kind review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. You can also find the show notes in at www.podcast.nourishmeorganics.com Nourish Me Organics have some amazing products when it comes to improving your gut health and also your mental health. So head to www.nourishmeorganics.com and check out their range of amazing products, including the brand new Bioactive Hemp oil. And you can get 10% off by using the code Changing Habits. Guys, until next time, thank you so much.