Episode 265: Healing from the Inside Out with Katie Green, HHP, NMT

Hi and welcome to episode 265 of the Untethered podcast. Today we have Katie Green, HHP, NMT, joining us. Katie is the owner of a holistic health clinic in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Green Living Holistic Health and Therapy. She treats patients for chronic pain injury, spinal discrepancies, nutritional ailments and more. She's an avid advocate for children and always finds joy in speaking the truth when it comes to the system like the government, pharmaceutical and medical systems. Quick Disclaimer all information, content and material of this podcast are the opinions of the speakers and is for the informational purpose only and not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis and or medical treatment of a qualified healthcare provider. Welcome to the Untethered Podcast. I am your host, Holly Balkan. I'm a certified myofunctional therapist, feeding specialist, podcaster, business owner and mentor. This podcast is all about getting your questions answered and collaborating with colleagues to bring you the most up to date information in the orofacial myofunctional therapy, airway tether, dural tissue and pediatric feeding therapy space. If you're new here, I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to spread this message far and wide. If you've been around since June 2019, thanks for being a loyal listener. As we jump into today's episode, remember to listen with correct oral rest posture, tongue up, lips closed, teeth apart, breathe through your nose. Let's get started. Katie, welcome to the podcast.

Hey, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

I'm excited to chat with you. This has been like a long time coming and it's, you know, not our like, traditional topic that we talk about on the podcast, but it is so highly related to all of the work that everyone who listens to this podcast does. So, so like, so overdue to be having this discussion. So I'm, I'm just excited. But I'm going to turn it over to you and let you share with us. Like, you know, they just heard kind of a little bit about you. But share with us, like, what is it that you do and how did you get into this line of work?

Yes, definitely. So I own my. It's a private holistic practice in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It's called Green Living Holistic Health and Therapy. I am a holistic health practitioner and a neuromuscular therapist. So it's me and two to three. We have one osteopath that commutes from Lafayette, but that's me and two other therapists there Every day. And we treat a lot of athletes, mostly patients dealing with chronic pain. But what separates us from traditional PT or certainly the medical system dealing with chronic pain is that we focus very heavily on nutrition, which is. I know where your interest comes in. I was. How I got into it. I was a collegiate athlete. I ran track my whole life and then at Louisiana State University. And I was always injured, just plagued with these reoccurring injuries and headaches and stomach issues also. That was sort of a side issue. So my poor mother had me in and out of doctor's offices and I grew to just despise going. And the same white room and the same. It was just very clear that it was a symptomatic care and release. You know, we were. It was like a chasing symptoms and it wasn't working. And let's see. I guess it was my sophomore year at lsu. My mom calls me and she's like, okay, I heard on the radio back then about a holistic clinic in Baton Rouge. Let's just give it one last. Because I was ready to give up. I was like, clearly nothing's working. I should just throw in the towel. And so I said, okay, I'll do it for you. I know that you, you want this as badly as I do. So as cliche as it sounds, I. This, it was a woman. She was also an HHP and an nmt, which is exactly my titles today. She opened my world. She changed my life. We focused on whole body approach, the imbalances in my body, and absolutely focused very heavily on nutrition. So I was free of all my issues. And then I actually was running faster than I thought I was capable of. So of course I was like, okay, lay out every. I want to know everything. How do you know what you know? Why do you know what you know? Why is nobody else telling me these things? I've been desperate for years now. What. Where did you come from? And so she sort of like laid out the, the literature and the, the educational path. And I was like, this is what I'm doing. I have to. Because I was in, at lsu. I was majoring in psychology and advertising. So I mean, you know, we. When you're in college, it's like, no idea, right?

Yeah, I don't want to be. Want to be when I grow up. Yeah. They say like, everyone changes their major like at least three times on average, I think, in their college years. And I think I. I was like, I'm not going to do that. And then I totally did that, actually.

I mean, you're 17, 18 years old. How are you supposed to know what you want to do with your life?

Yeah.

So that sort of peaked this intense passion for me and I went down basically. I had to go back to school and learn about the human body in a, in a very, you know, roundabout way because they don't teach that in the traditional system. But yeah.

Wow.

So my practice, I. We're about to hit 10 years now.

Congrats. My private practice, it will hit 10 years on June 1st. So I'm right there with you.

Congratulations. We should celebrate together.

That's right. Yay. That's, it's. And that's no easy feat. You know, they always say, like, businesses tend to like, if they're going to succeed, you got to get past that like three year mark. You, you got to get past the five year mark. And so like, you know, when you're at 10 years, like, it's a solid, you got a solid thing going. But that's really incredible. And yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm so excited. I know we were chatting before we hit record about like the Weston A. Price foundation and how you even kind of followed, you know, a little bit of that with your own child when you were basically transitioning to solids and everything. And so, you know, while we're going to talk about like food and vitamins and, you know, nutrition and all the fun stuff and you know, the lies that the government tells us too, there's all that.

It's all tied together.

Yeah. I think that what's really cool is I was mentioning to you is like, I'm hearing more dentists, especially like in the airway world, talk about the Weston A. Price foundation and talk about how we need to get back to chewing our food and developing our orofacial muscles. And so like, I know we're not going to dive into like that side of the conversation, but like, I'm excited to learn more about the food side of it and like what we should be putting in our body. On our body. Like, who are we even supposed to listen to these days? And you know, like, what do we trust? Right. So.

Right.

I don't even know where to start with that.

There's so much fear out there too. Because of course, like you and I were discussing earlier, I started my first, both of my babies on egg yolk. That was the first solid food that went into their bodies. And you have so much fear with eggs and it's going to give your baby salmonella and cholesterol and there's so I mean, the fact that parents are just in a sort of a limbo, like, who do we listen to? And that's where all the soft foods, I'm sure, come into play because they just rely on the, on the couches and the. Yeah, yeah. Because they're scared. Everybody's scared, right?

I mean, I, even as a feeding therapist, I wasn't working with infants, right? But I was working, I was working like toddler on up. Like, kids who were still on these very soft food diets who really weren't chewing, weren't, you know, their tongue is not lateralizing. They don't have their jaw moving very much outside of just kind of mashing or munching up and down. And then I have my own kid and I'm like, I didn't even know as a feeding therapist, like, what do I feed my kid? Like, how do I start?

Right?

And so much of what you find online, outside of maybe like baby led weaning, so much what you find basically says rice cereal. No. And I, like, I knew, like, that is not where we are starting. Like, I had done enough research to know that that was not going to be supportive to, like, their gut development and to their overall health. But I was confused. I was like, well, is it better to start with fruits or vegetables? Is it, does it matter? Like, should I be starting with a protein? Like, what, what fruits and vegetables? Like, what protein? Right. And so I, I didn't even know about Weston A. Price, you know, eight years ago when I was doing this with my first child, you know. Eight, yeah, eight years ago. She's eight and a half. So it, it was, it was stressful. And I also feel like even asking other people in my space, like, I wasn't getting the information I was seeking.

Right.

And now we've made a whole, like, turnaround to like 360 almost to like, everyone's just like, baby led weaning. Baby led weaning. Baby led weaning. And I'm like, okay, that's good and great. But also, we do also eat purees in our diet. And culturally, maybe someone does want to feed their kids. So, like, can we modify it and find like a middle ground and make sure that, like, this works for the family, but also we're supporting the child, like, right. From a, from a health standpoint, from a nutrition standpoint. Right. And so anyways, I'll kind of turn this over to you because you're the expert here, but.

Well, I'm sure you probably looked at the research with different, you would probably know more than me. But different cultures, the way their jaw and face actually develops because they are chewing the food that's available to them. They don't have the processed pureed foods. So they're actually forcing their muscles to.

Yeah.

Simply because that's what's available.

Or third world countries that don't have peanut allergies. And they're actually using peanut as life sustaining treatments for some children. Like it's peanut powder. I'm like, okay, that, I mean that when I learned about that a number of years ago, I was like, I need to know more. This is mind boggling to me.

What are we doing wrong here?

Yeah, yeah. So, so like when you get patients into your practice, are they coming to you usually for help with nutrition? Are they coming. Is that just like a piece of the puzzle? Like what is like a traditional patient that you see?

Yeah. So when I started it was mostly chronic pain athletes, a lot of athletes. Because that's sort of what they saw that I did prior. And it was, I was always a last stop, like it, like a desperation. I've been to the doctor, I've been to the massage therapist, I've been to the pt, I've been to the Cairo. Like holistic might just be weird enough to, you know, it was always the last stop shop, which I was fine with because they were so desperate enough that I knew that they were, they were in so much pain.

Yeah.

That I knew that they would listen to me and you know, follow my guidance. But I always, no matter what, nutrition was always a part of it. Like we cannot fully heal any physical ailment or systemic ailment without both the physical, the breathing, the mental and the nutrition, you simply can't. And nutrition is what's left out of 99% of practices. And I really truly believe that's the missing link. But now it's funny, like, I mean, like I said, I've been doing this for 10 plus years, but ever since COVID I feel like I've become kind of like a first stop for a lot of people. And people want to, they come asking about nutrition because normally before it was like, yeah, I know, the silver lining, I guess. But yeah, people are far more interested in nutrition now than I'm seeing it. I'm seeing it happen because I would educate on nutrition in the beginning and you could tell people were like, oh well, you know, I didn't really come here to learn about nutrition and I'd have to explain why it was a necessary part of the healing process. But now I get phone calls and inquiries from patients wanting just nutrition, you know, education.

That's amazing. I do feel like the world woke up a little bit, you know, following 2020 and everyone started to question things differently. And after you saw like certain repetitive patterns happening, I think that even the people who are kind of like not on board with some of the questioning in the beginning, about like two years into the pandemic, they were like, okay, this is enough already. And like then they start, you know, more people started questioning at that point. It's been really interesting like as a, you know, crunchy mom kind of to like sit back and like watch the evolution of like what's happened. Just even just like on social media to see. It's been like such a wild ride.

That's what I was telling. I was talking to another mom yesterday and I, you know, we were talking about different diseases that are pushed, pushed so much on our children. And I said think about, we don't know the history. We weren't present during that time when those so called diseases took place. But think about COVID We, we witnessed that. We witnessed the lies that formulated and the, the insaneness from the government and the system and we, and now 15 years down the road, if we read about it in a textbook, we're going to go, oh, LOL. That's not all, not at all what happened. You know, so we got to actually live through a huge societal lie.

That's a very, very good perspective. I had not actually thought about that. That like this is the, I mean, yes. That this is the first pandemic we've lived through and this is the first time we've had this like new kind of disease process, if you will, like kind of evolve in front of our eyes. But to think back to the prior ones where we were not there and what do we base it on? We base it on whatever's in the medical textbooks basically. Right. And what the doctors know and we know how often research, you know, they say research is basically 17 years behind. And so how much longer does it take to then publish and get caught up before you're already behind again? It's. Yeah. So I feel like there's a lot of people really waking up to that as well and starting to like just lean in and like trust their own intuition and trust like their own bodies. Right. And like listen to their own bodies, which is something that I've always tried to do. And like I'm doing like a lot of deeper work with that now with like someone who's guiding me. And it's incredible to like listen to your body respond to it in a actually supportive way and to then like, reap the benefits of that. And I think nine times out of 10, if I don't feel well, like, I just have to look back and be like, what did I eat today? It's not, it's not the stress from work, it's not this. There's everything else. Right. But it's like, how much load, like, what is the load incoming today and how much can you handle? And I feel like when my nutrition is on track, like, everything just seems so much easier.

Yes. I love that you said that. Because I get so many patients that come in and they've been dealing with, let's say chronic migraines or digestive issues or bowel issues for 10, 15 years and they're on so many different medications. And I forget sometimes that you have to educate people that that is just simply your body's way of communicating to you. Our body is always trying to maintain a level of homeostasis and which is just complete and serene perfect balance. And it's going to do certain things in order to try to compensate to get to that balance. And a headache and a stomach ache and constipation or irritable bowel syndrome is just simply our body's way of talking to us. It's trying to tell us something. It's not deficient in, you know, whatever medication they're on. It's deficient in vitamins and minerals and proper digestive foods. And it's just. And learning how to fine tune that awareness and like you said, be able to actually listen to the communications our body, the signals that we receive is that that is a one, that is the first step in healing.

It's very interesting.

Yeah.

It's watching children as well. Obviously they're going to eat the foods that are put in front of them to a certain extent. I know. You know, I'm a feeding therapist. I know sometimes it's not that easy. I'm not trying to downplay, you know, children with feeding struggles, but working with a lot of children who had, who are autistic early on in my career, I started to note patterns and they tended to gravitate more towards those like, you know, single color foods or the beige foods we call them. Right. And the easier to process in their mouth, not necessarily in their gut.

Right.

But in their mouth, they could, they didn't have to chew as much. They didn't have to, you know, manipulate the food as much. They could more easily swallow it back if it wasn't as processed because it didn't hurt your throat as much because it would go down a little easier. And a lot of them also struggled with constipation. And I started to see these patterns. And then I learned about, like, the GAPS diet and SED diet and like, all these, you know, and I was like, huh, okay, the gut is like the second brain. And there was like this whole discussion around that, and I started going, why is nobody working with these kids and teaching them how to chew their food properly and how to swallow? And, you know, I know that there may be some challenges, but, like, are we present. Have we just stopped presenting them with the other options because they melt down or they won't tolerate it, or it's, you know, aggravating to their nervous system? Where are we not addressing their nervous system so they can accept these foods? And like, you know, because at the end of the day, I started to learn. I was like. And that really threw me into. Deeper into, like, the pediatric feeding world, because I became fascinated with how do we get these kids to even tolerate these foods being presented to them? How do we get them to, you know, their nervous system to be in a place where they can take a deep breath and be okay with it being on their plate, even if they're not going to touch it right? Then how do we get them okay with touching it? And like, you know, and there's a lot of sensory approaches and everything in the feeding world, but I was like, there's more to it than just like, your sensory system. Like, this is like, the entire nervous system is wrecked, and we have got to figure out how to bring their nervous system back online so that they're in this rest and digest state before they go into mealtime or snack time, you know, otherwise, what are they doing? They're walking around grazing all day. They're just grabbing some goldfish and grabbing some of these crackers and eating a piece of bread, and maybe they'll do a yogurt, but only the one yogurt with a certain label on it from a certain grocery store. And mom is having to drive 10 miles out of her way to find that where they won't even eat that yogurt. And I was like, this is like, this is literally running these parents lives.

And then it's just adding to the.

To the issue, like, the toxic load, right? Like, I'm like, it's basically not supporting their language development, their sleep, their airway, their digestive system. Like, everything.

Yeah. Yes.

And, you know, and I started to notice. I was like, when the kids were becoming a little bit more accepting of different foods and we could work other foods in. Behaviors changed, sleep changed. Like, certain things started to change. And when you can point that out to parents, when they see it happening, it's like, this is. How is this also interconnected? It's kind of like when the body moves, I get more language out of a kid who's running around on a playground than when we're sitting at a table. Well, everything's connected. And, like, different systems in the body impact how other systems work too, you know? And so, in layman's terms. Right. But, yeah, children just fascinate me.

One system does not work without the other. System doesn't work without the other. Yes. And it all comes down to the nervous system. Just like you said. There's so many children, as you know, that they're dealing with ADHD and ADD and autism and just not being able to focus or sit still. And it's always a dysregulated nervous system. They are these poor babies of. Just like you're saying, they've inquired so many toxins that turn into oxidative stress in their bodies at such a young age that their systems are literally developing in this constant fight or flight. And then they go sit at a desk all day and it doesn't work.

Yeah.

And then what do we do? We put them on medication and. Yeah, it's sad.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it was also very eye opening to me. I've talked about this a couple times on the podcast, but a year or so ago, we got a kid, 5 years old. He was on three medications for his ADHD. And then it was sort of like two stimulants and then an antidepressant or something. I was like, so good. We're putting this kid on, like, two uppers and then a downer, like. Or whatever it was. I was just like, he's five. And I said. I was like, has anyone looked at his airway? Has. Has he had a sleep study before we considered putting him on medication? Did we do, like, a full body evaluation to, like, see what else we could possibly do to help this kid? And so this kid did end up, like, coming to us for Mayo, and, like, the goal was kind of like, can we get him. Can we wean him off of this with the help of the doctor? And hopefully not have to be on meds for life, because, hi, if you're not sleeping, you're starting your day on like two buckets of energy. Right. Like you don't have all 10, so you're going to be shot by the time you get to school. There's just, there's nothing left.

And then. Yeah. And then they're asked a lot at school. Those poor babies are today, in today's school system, they are. Their little bodies and brains are required to do a lot.

Yes.

And when they're in that horribly dysregulated state, it's just.

Yeah.

And the teachers get frustrated, so then they push the parents to Medicaid and it's, it's a. Just a. Yeah. Hamster wheel.

That's a whole nother conversation. Just like the cognitive load, like as a speech pathologist watching how everything is like, backed up. Like what we used to learn in third grade is like, it became second grade and now some of it's first grade and it's sort of like kindergarten is now like the three, four year old year in a lot of the preschool programs. And it's just like they are not cognitively or developmentally ready if everything is intact to be doing this. Like. And it's just, it's not fair. So let's expect these little children to be mini adults and sit at a desk all day and basically. And like, I, as I like wake up more and more to this. I keep talking to my husband. I'm like, so maybe we should like, you know, world school them. Like, maybe we should go, like, move to another country for a couple of months and like, do one of those programs. Like, maybe.

I know, I'm like, I know I'm with you. It's a constant. Every single day when I get to work, I'm like, oh, my goodness. I. I love what I do, but at the same time, I just. There's such a huge part of me that would love to. To homeschool. Even though I don't know the first thing about it. It just.

I did it for a year.

They love being social and they love sports, but school is, it's just.

Yeah.

The way it's designed, especially for boys. It's just, it's.

Yeah. One of my, My youngest is just like thriving and doing amazing. And I've always said, like, as long as they're happy and they love it and it's good for them. Like, I am good with it. My oldest is still. Is doing very well academically, but there's certain things that I don't like about her school. And so I'm p. And like, literally trying to figure out where to send her next year because she's like, wait listed. Just so many people have moved to South Florida that everybody wants to send their kids private. Even if you want to send them to a good program, that's not, you know, where they are now. Like, it's just tough to get them in. And so I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing in the fall, but she's not going back to where she is. And I did homeschool her for. In the pandemic because that was her kindergarten year, and our schools were shut down for the entire school year. They did not reopen until, like, the last month. And I don't think that most of the kids actually physically went back in person. Even that last month of the school year, it was all virtual. And they wanted her 23 hours a week on Zoom. And I was like, you have got to be out of your effing mind. Like, she is five. Not only is there research to demonstrate this is actually harmful to her brain development, I was like, my kid is melting in the chair after 30 minutes. Rightly so. And pre K had, like, moved, and she was doing that in her pre K year. So I kind of just, like, from the get go, was like, we're not even going to try it. Like, I'm just gonna homeschool her. And that was. I was like, one and done been there, done that. If we do this again, I'm have to, like, hire somebody to be the homeschool teacher. It is not gonna be me.

Yeah, that's what my best friend and I talk about all the time. Because, like you said, it's like, as long as they're happy and they're doing well, they're succeeding. I'm good with it. But the second that they're not happy, I could talk about, like, we're gonna.

Start a co op.

We're gonna hire. We're gonna hire teachers that want to, you know, come into a different scenario. And. Because I don't know if I could do it entirely on my own.

And it's not even that, like, I don't. Like, I'm like kindergarten, I feel like I could handle. I bought, like, a curriculum, and I piece things together. And, like, that was all fine, but, like, by the, like, three quarters of the way through the school year, I feel like we were both kind of, like, done. And so we would sit down on a Sunday, and I would do, like, four hours straight with her, and I'd be like, you're done for the week now. You get just to go. You get to go play like a normal five year old. Like, enjoy. I gotta go work. You go play.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh. So going back to like the nutrition side of things. I think one of the really things that I'm so fascinated now about, that I'm even trying to learn, even just by like following your account on Instagram, is the whole like vitamin and like mineral side of things. So like, I'm just curious and obviously I know you can't like sit here and tell us, like everybody at this, you know, stages of their life needs X, Y and Z because it's going to be individualized. But is there a place where like, if someone's like, well, what should I be taking? Or is there, you know, is there a test I should do that'll tell me what my body needs? Like, do you have recommendations for those kinds of things?

I always say if I had to pick three or four vitamins, supplements for everyone to be on. The goal is to minimize or mitigate oxidative stress. So anytime we eat something that's either not digestible or full of chemicals, and then our environment, what we're breathing in every day, everything turns into oxidative stress. And it's up to that biomolecule to either turn into something worse, like an illness, disease, or something even farther down the spectrum than that, like cancer, or it can self regulate and turn into more of a physiologically functioning cell. And so that being said, vitamin C, which I talk about a lot on my Instagram. Magnesium, vitamin E, which down regulates estrogen, which is a huge part of our body's way to compensate all of the oxidative stress and desiccated liver.

Okay, awesome.

Yeah, so those. That's always my top. It doesn't matter. In my very strong opinion, it doesn't matter what's happening at any given moment, at the time or what, you know, how, what does. I guess it matters your age because kids are different but you know, past say teen years, everyone should be taking those things in order because of the world that we live in because there's no more minerals in the soil and that means there's not as much vitamins and minerals in our food. And then we're eating completely deprived food unless you're able to, you know, spend all kinds of money to buy local and, or live on your own farm or, you know, it takes a drastic. So my thing is like, okay, I'm going to do the best I can. I'm going to buy organic and I'm going To provide for my family. But I still have to take things to make sure that I'm getting enough nourishment because nourishment turns into energy in the body. And the only way to generate health is to create enough energy every single day. Every single day. We need to wake up and make it a goal to create energy to minimize the toxins in the world. And that's. There's so many accounts like mine now that. And I don't think they're doing it purposely, but it's just fear all around. You know, there's fear from the medical side, there's fear from the holistic side. But I like to say, look, yes, there's a lot of poison in the world. Yes, we're breathing in all day long. Yes, they're poisoning our skies and our water. But there are ways that we can mitigate those effects and that it won't be. It's not like a. You're not destined to have issues because of it. You know, we can work. We can take the steps and take the time and make the effort to still be healthy despite our catastrophic society.

I think that's why I'm drawn to your account, because I feel like you're very, like, real world. You're like, this is what we have here. Here's how you can support yourself. L. In the world that we currently exist in. Like, let's not all stress over this and have a, like, all day long anxiety, you know, which I think that like. Like what you've said. I've seen these discussions, and I honestly don't follow enough accounts to, like, see it all go down firsthand. But I've seen just discussions around how toxic some of these, like, holistic accounts have become online because it's like they just cut out another holistic account owner of their little circle if this person all of a sudden does something they don't agree with or they're a little less holistic on this one decision. And it's like, oh, you can't possibly be a part of this journey. And it's. I'm like, the amount of anxiety and stress and energy that goes into being so perfect all the time I think is probably more harmful than the opposite, right? And I'm like, to what extent? And so, you know, I always say, like, I like to call myself Scrunchie because I'm like. I like to believe I'm like a hundred times more crunchy than I was like, a couple years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, for sure. I'm Like. But also, like, we live in a real world society where I'm like, I can't worry about every little thing. I've always said, you know, I am not an anxious person. I am high energy. And my digestive system always tells me, like, when I need to get myself back in check, like, that is like my. You know, that's where I can check in, right? But I'm like, I know there's so much more for me to learn. Like, I don't know the half of it, you know? And at one point, I was taking vitamins, and I felt like it wasn't really doing anything, so I stopped. And so I literally, like, right now, I. The one thing I was even trying to figure out about myself was we went to. We went up to DC the last week of December to, like, see my grandmother. I took the kids. My husband, like, actually went on a trip with a friend instead. And we came back. I came back and I either had Covid the flu, one of the two. I just felt awful. I was sick. And, you know, and I just did all my holistic things to treat myself. And, like, I was fine. And, you know, a couple of days, my kids didn't get anything. But they also do nasal rinsing every morning, which I had stopped doing. And I started doing it on this trip because I was like, oh, I'm gonna end. I'm totally sure this is why this happened. Which other people think I have five heads, but I'm like, I started doing it. So I was like, I'm on an airplane. I'm gonna nasal rinse. When we get to the hotel, just, you know, I somehow messed up, like, the salt water ratio and burned the crap out of my nose inside. And so I'm like, not only did I now nasal rinse for the first time in a really long time, so my body was, like, not used to it. I'm like, I also probably fully introduced all the germs from the airplane right into my system. And my body was just like, well, that was dumb.

You did it to yourself.

I did it to myself. And I like, I take these, like, little immunity shots that have, like, some vitamins and, you know, some other, like, turmeric and some stuff in it or whatever every day. And we switched hotels, and so I had it for the first day, and then I left them by accident in the hotel. And I just was like. I just was like, whatever, it's only a couple more days here. I'll be fine. And so I was, like, off my regular Routine. And so I was like, I literally did this to myself because I did not have, like, Whole Foods Deliver me my 16 immune shots for like, the next remaining couple of days. I was there. Like, I didn't want to spend the money again. I was like, oh, I'm fine, whatever. Like, yeah, next time. Yeah.

I love that you just said that because that's one of the things I have to stress so much in my practice, is that it is. It's the consistency. If you skip just one day, unfortunately, it sets you back week, two weeks. I mean, the body has to recognize something for a few months that is consistent every single day in the system in order to actually utilize it. So it's, you know, I have to. Oh, yeah, I take my magnesium a.

Couple days a week.

I'm like, well, it's not doing anything, unfortunately. It's got, like, brushing your teeth, like, taking a shower. It's got to become part of your. It's got to be consistent because we're eating every day, right?

Yeah.

So we have to take the vitamins and minerals.

Yeah.

And that's, you know, there's. There's so many accounts that'll say, oh, you know, people take too many supplements and don't focus on food. And other accounts say it's all about the supplements. But I will say in order for the supplements because that's. It's easy to pop supplements and think that we're doing good, but the foundational diet does have to be there. I want to say that. That it's, you know, we have. We can't eat processed food every day and then take supplements and think, you know, there is. We do have to put a little bit more effort into it. Yes, I think the supplement. Supplements are necessary, but so is a wholesome diet. Gotta eat breakfast every morning. Gotta have our protein, gotta have our fruits, Gotta have our root vet. You know, there's. Yeah, there's other steps that have to be.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And it's.

It can become high maintenance. I mean, my poor children, that's all they know is mommy giving them coconut oil and vitamin C. It's like, I.

Feel like the weird one is still, like, people will say to me, oh, do your kids eat the school meal? And I'm like, what. What kind of a question is that?

How dare you ask me that?

No, so I just, I just, I actually started, like, with my youngest one who's gluten free. Now I'm like, oh, well, Mia's gluten free. So, like, I've always just sent Lunches. Like, I'm like, where is this conversation going? I just met you. I don't know, like what, what we're gonna talk about here. So let me just, you know, normalize this a little bit. But, you know, I grew up not really eating the school lunches. I was a kid who was like, mom, like, let me eat some school lunches. And like, they would, you know, they'd be like, fine. Like once in a while, like, we'll give you something. But my mom always made my lunches, like had like actual foods. People were always like, oh, you've got the best lunch. Like, we'd have like dinner leftovers or even takeout leftovers from like a salad place or something, you know, and it's like, that was normal. Like, I grew up eating proteins and vegetables and a carbohydrate at dinner. Like, so even though I've had my own like, struggles and everything digestive wise, like, I'm like, I feel like I had a good imprint of what a structured meal looks like. And you know, I'm like, while I still struggle as a parent to basically put dinner on the table. Cause life, like, I'm like, I know what it should be, right. And so I try to do what I can to make that happen or have somebody help me make that happen.

Yeah.

But I do have a question. Yeah, I have a question about the vitamin C. So is there, is it important if it's like a liposomal vitamin C or like thoughts on.

Yeah, there's. Dr. Levy is who I have really done a lot of research through. His books are phenomenal and he really, he believes that the most absorbable form of vitamin C is going to be ascorbic acid, which you'll hear some accounts say it's got to be whole food vitamin C. I've done the research on both and I honestly think that both are necessary for the system. I think obviously whole food vitamin C taken from natural foods sources is fantastic. But the ascorbic acid is going to be a little bit stronger and help to, like I said, downplay that oxidative stress that's going to then boost the immune system. So I talk about Mido life all the time. Some people say me do life on my account. His Matt Blackburn, he's got a Instagram account too. His products are phenomenal. He takes a while to ship because he's sort of like a one man, you know, he's really. There's no additives, no fillers. His product. I always say that I like to test a product on myself for six months.

Yeah.

I research it for six months, and then I test it on myself and my family for six months before I recommend it to patients or friends or family. And his. His products have. I mean, his vitamin C to me, is far beyond anything else I've had.

Amazing.

Because it's hard. You know, there's so many supplements out there that are made just like food. It's the same concept.

Yeah, well. And sometimes you find, like, good ones, and then all of a sudden, like, Hershey buys up the company, and you're like, oh, there's no way that these, like, clean supplements are going to remain clean at this point. But they're not going to tell you that they're changing them. You know what I mean? It's like, what is the source of these? I don't trust this anymore. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, Yeah. I think that happened recently with one of my favorite brands. I can't think now, but somebody like Kellogg's or something took over. And I can't remember what it was.

But it was like, well, there goes that.

Yeah, exactly.

So on that note, are there, like, certain nutrition myths that, like, you hear a lot of the times that people like, you know, I feel like the government, you know, kind of feeds us certain nutritional information, which I believe not to be totally accurate, but I'd love to hear your perspective on this.

Oh, God, yes. That's what I'm. I feel like that's what I'm on the defense every single time I talk about nutrition. It's the biggest lies are saturated fat. So government will tell you saturated fat causes heart disease and raises cholesterol. They say that sugar is bad, and they say that salt is bad. And all I have to say is if an individual is depriving themselves of those three things. Saturated fat, which is like, you know, butter and coconut oil and red meat and protein, Sugar. Real sugar and real salt. They are slowly killing themselves, and that's all there is to it.

Yeah.

Salt these days is one of the most demonized substances on planet Earth. And our cells, like our cellular makeup, quite literally does not exist without sodium. Same thing with sugar. Yeah. Now, and when I say sugar, obviously, like, processed sugar is an entirely different ballgame. I'm talking about fruits, sugar from fruits and potatoes and carrots and, like, whole foods, even raw, organic cane sugar, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that.

Those are the myths I'm debunked because people say, what about cholesterol? And I'm saying, well, it's. Cholesterol is actually not A bad thing. Cholesterol is keeping you alive. If your cholesterol is, is, is raised, it's your body's compensative pathway to fix something else that's happening. So let's look deeper. Are you dehydrated? Are you magnesium deficient? Are you not eating, not taking in any vitamins and minerals throughout the day? Well then of course your cholesterol is going to go up. You know, it's your body's way of surviving. And then we put them on medications to just down regulate that. And it's not. And you wonder, we wonder why America is so ill. Yeah, the sick cycle.

It's a sick cycle. Yeah. We treat the symptoms instead of looking at the root of it. And that's such a big like, you know, we talk about that just in as it relates to like tongue ties in the mouth and how our fascia is even like interconnected. Like I always say, we're connected from the tip of our tongue to the tip of our toes. And just because your tongue appears tight doesn't mean you have a tongue tie. Function has to be impaired. But also, have we done other body work? Like have we keyed into like what may be presenting as tight fascia in the floor of the tongue or in the mouth and or in the face, you know, based on the neck, like how, what's our posture? Like, what is our, you know, there's just so many like, where, what's our pelvis like? I, I do this like fun little activity when I do this free like training. I have it coming up in a couple weeks actually before we reopen doors to like my 12 week feeding course for SLPs and OTS. And I always have everybody put themselves into pelvic tilt, like anterior, posterior. And then I have them like tilt their pelvic straight and I make them drip, drink a sip of water in every position and, and I can't tell you how. And I'm like, I'm not a pt, right? But I like think about all these kids who are sitting there without, you know, maybe they're low tone, maybe their chair is just not supportive. Maybe they're not old enough yet or maybe they're trying. You're feeding this four month old who can't even sit up yet and we should really not be starting solids just quite yet because that probably means their gut is not really mature enough to be eating some of these foods yet either. You know, depending on what it is. Yeah, yeah. It's just, just, it's so fascinating. Everyone's like, it's like a light bulb moon. Everyone's like, yes.

Oh.

And I'm like, yeah. You see how everything's interconnected? And so people start to go, oh, okay. And then I teach like the tots, the oral tissue and the myo modules, like in the peed feeding course, which are like the hot topics and everything. And it's just, you see so many light bulbs go off because nobody's talking about like root based medicine and, you know, really trying to get down to like, what's at the bottom of all this. Like, let's stop treating the symptoms, which is basically how our entire medical system works. Like, treat the symptoms, slap a band aid on it, see you again next time. Because we know this is going to happen again or it's going to be worse next time because, you know, now we're just putting more toxins in your body to try and fix that toxin.

And yes, I love that you talked about fascia, because I don't really talk about that on my Instagram account, but that is what I do in my practice. Fascia is my number one focus in all of my. Every single patient that comes in, we first because I always tell them the fascia. For people who don't understand what fascia is, it's literally the. It's like a spiderweb, like material that lays right underneath your skin. It encompasses every organ, every muscle, every bone, every vertebra. It is the health of our fascia dictates our entire physical health. And it's also instrumented by what we eat and how much water we drink. And what blows my mind is that in the medical system, when they dissect a human cadaver, the first thing they do is take the fascia and they throw it in the trash can. At least that used to be the case. And so where my field and obviously your field, we're studying the fascia and how crucial it is to our, to our health. So, yeah, I put my patients in different fascial stretches because I always like to like the rubber, like take a rubber band ball if you have a muscle, which a lot of people are trying to heal physical ailments by just stretching, typically stretching a muscle. But if you have a fascial house that encompasses that muscle and it's restricted because it's trying to protect that muscle. You can stretch the muscle so you're blue in the face, but if you're not addressing that specific fascial chain, you're not going to get anywhere. Yeah, I've learned a lot, have you heard of him? You would love his work.

Who is it?

Dr. Guy Voyage. It's spelled Guy.

You know, it may be. That sounds familiar now that you're saying it. I'd have to go look him up, though. One of the things that we did.

Make sure my volume is still.

Can you hear me okay?

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. One of the things that really was eye opening for me was when I got introduced to the Postural Restoration Institute and one of the physical therapists that I started seeing because I was in some adult expansion for my upper and lower palate and everything. Or not palate, my upper palate and my lower jaw, upper and lower jaws, I should say. And I went to this physical therapist who he had all kinds of different training, and he does what he calls, like, modern counter strain techniques. So he's like, it's not your traditional counter strain. But I always told people, I'm like, I would go see Manny. I would, you know, he would do whatever his magic was. I would feel like he barely, like, touched my body, and I would leave there feeling like I had this full body massage, and I was just like a new human being, and everything was flowing and moving the way it was supposed to. And so his whole thing was like, unlocking. Basically, he's like, unlocking the fascia in a sense. Right. And I also learned that having a child who kind of presented with torticollis, my second one, I learned that a lot of times in more traditional pt, like you said, we're typically trying to stretch the muscle, and we're kind of going against it. And they sort of switched how I was looking at this, and they said we should be going with the tension to release it. And so just also opening my eyes to different modalities and approaches and things that, like, hey, if that's not working, maybe we should try this. I was like, oh, yeah, yeah.

It's not. I think the system takes such a black and white approach, and the human body is just nothing but gray, you know, and so, like, you dealing with the tongue ties, and that's gotta be. That put. Got to place such an enormous fascial strain on babies, you know, and that's. That's really cool. I feel like that's becoming more of a thing now that parents are recognizing.

Yeah, yeah. And it's. You know, it's become such a thing, though, that you sometimes have to reel it into because you're like, okay, yes, maybe we do have tight tissue. If you run straight to a release provider and the body's not Prepared, we're going to have bigger problems. And so there's been a lot of discussion around, like, team approach and really prepping the body, prepping the child, making, you know, our goal is obviously to improve tongue, posture and sleep and feeding and all these things. Like, that's only going to happen if we're preparing the body and that body is ready, if we are going to go into a, like, actual surgical release. And so that's like, oh, I love that.

Because I do feel like a lot of parents are doing exactly that. They're now they're just rushing to snip and thinking that's going to fix the issue. So I love that. Yeah, it's not that simple because even.

With that, like, feeding often will get worse before it gets better. Because you have a baby or a child now who's uncomfortable, there's inflammation in the body because you just had this procedure done. You know, there is things that need to be addressed. And so, you know, just based on how inflammation happens following you know, surgical release, like, we know, like, what the peak days are and we'll tell parents, okay, day three may be really bad, and it could happen again around day seven to 10 or, you know, just so they're like, they know what to expect. And we say it's okay if it happens for a couple days. If your child's, like, resisting and not wanting to eat, it's not that we've gone backwards. It's that they're responding to their body right now. And like, let's lean into that. And maybe that's the day when we go and we see the craniofacial, you know, the cranial fascial therapist or the chiro or whoever it is, you know, the physical therapist, whoever you're going to be seeing, maybe, maybe schedule an appointment around that time just to make sure. Sure you're supporting the healing process. So it's a whole big conversation. But, you know, I think Ron Ruska from PRI was one of the ones who also opened my eyes to. He was like, you know, you basically have ties throughout the body just based on that whole conversation of, like, how the fascia is all interconnected. And, you know, he was kind of. It was kind of like the ties within us that happen throughout the body. And I was like, that is a very fascinating way to look at it. And you kind of mentioned the whole fascial thing.

What's amazing with children is that fascial ties, like that restricted or hypertonic fascia can create what looks like a dysregulated nervous system. So if my boys have had a long week and they've been at all the sports and I can tell they kind of look dysregulated. There's a one specific stretch that I get them to do, and it's a fascial stretch. It's a spinal decompression stretch. And we make it fun and we partner together. And they. Once they do the stretch, it's like they're. They're different children. So I try to do it every night with them before bed because it does calm and sedate the nervous system and help them regulate and it helps them sleep better. And it's. It is the most simple 22nd hold stretch. You know, it's like if only more people, more parents realize how crucial the inner workings of the fascial system were.

Yeah. I'm like, well, now I need to know if the stretches especially my. My one hits like her head hits the pillow and she. She's out. The other one could, you know, could run miles around her head for five minutes before she finally calms down. And then she's still up for 30 more minutes before she falls asleep. So I'm like, I have to send you the stretch. Yes, I need that. I'm like that. And I got to get her back on her. She used to do like a little magnesium thing on her belly from like one of the, you know, I forget which company makes it, but the magnesium cream, I'm like, I got to get back into doing that again with her. So are there like other things, like just lies out there that you hear often? Like things that are. People come to you and they're like, but the doctor said this. Or the common themes that we haven't talked about in the health space.

Yeah. I mean, obviously, I think the biggest lie that we are presented with today is vaccines. And I think a lot of people woke up to that during COVID I am very comfortable saying that my boys are not. They've never had a single vaccine. And you and I were talking before that. They're 7 and 5. So when they were babies, when I was pregnant, I was terrified to tell anybody. I hid it from people for a very long time. And even my, you know, my husband is obviously very supportive of everything I do, and he knows how passionate I am, but it still took a little convincing to get him because all you hear is what you hear.

Right?

And we were the only ones, one of the only ones not vaccinating. And now I get phone calls almost daily, messages, emails, Coming out of the woodworks for desperate mothers, asking me how to help them navigate, to not vaccinate their babies. And it's what's. I think, the most eye opening for my husband is seeing the health of our children. And compared to others, they are never sick, or I should say, rarely sick. Getting sick is, you know, occasionally is actually a good thing. They've never had an ear infection. They've never. They've never been on antibiotics. Neither of them. Not one. Not once. Wow. And, you know, people used to always say, oh, your children are. They're so advanced. They're so. They're so coordinated for their age. They're so bright and smart. And I'm like, no. I think, like, yes, they are. But I also think this is how children are supposed to be, that we keep lowering the markers.

They just did it again. The CDC did it again for speech and language skills. And I was like, what is going on?

Yes. We keep injecting them with more and more toxins that are destroying everything. Their systems, their cognitive ability. I mean, and then. Oh, okay, we'll just. We'll just go down to the average child now and keep it. Keep lowering the markers. And it's. It's. It's sad. So, yeah, that would be. You know, and then they're innocent babies. They're coming to the world perfect, Absolutely perfect. And then they're shot up with a bunch of toxins, and then they grow up and go into the world. And that is how they are. You know, that's how they started their life. So I think, to me, that is the biggest.

Well, and I think what's been very alarming to me is how many more are being given to young children compared to just 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. It's absurd.

Like, how we're at, like, 76 now before they're 18 years of age. It's.

It's kind of scary.

Crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yes.

I'm like, there is a place where I do draw a line. Like, there is. You know, I'm like, yeah. I mean, look, I'm like, do whatever you want to do for your own family. Right? But at this, at a certain point, like, because I do think that a lot of, like, Lily's skin issues that she's had were a result of vaccines that she had. She's had. Her skin issues have gotten a lot better, but she hasn't had any vaccine since she was 4. And she hasn't needed to. She had everything she needed to enter kindergarten, and then that's When I kind of woke up to this whole conversation, and I was like, I really need to consider and research every single thing I'm putting in my kid's body. Mia was 2, and she's my group kid, and I always kind of joke about it. Not joke about it, but after she had it nine times in a year, and they put her on a steroid every time, and we didn't really know how to help her, I was like, we are so stuck in a cycle. She's been to pulmonologists, she's been to, you know, she's been to some of the best doctors. And, you know, where we lived in Maryland, I was like, and no. And everyone's just kind of like, oh, well, she seems fine now, so if it comes back again. Well, it's like, it's that treatment module, right? Or model where it's like, we'll just treat it if it comes back. And I'm thinking, like, right, no, let's.

Get to the root of this.

And. And so I did what I knew, which was, okay, let's expand her airway. Maybe if her airway is extreme expanded by expanding her upper palate. Since the research shows that that happens, maybe when she does get some inflammation in her airway, it won't be so constricted to lead to, like, croup. Maybe she'll just be like, can you get a cold? Right? Like, because every single time she would start to get cold symptoms, I'd go, oh, crap. Like, I know where we're headed every single time. Without a doubt, that's exactly what happened. And like, you're in preschool, you're exposed to germs, you're, like you said, it's like, good to get sick once in a while. It's how you build your immune system.

It's an immune. Immune system upgrade. It upgrades their immune system every time they catch something. But at the same time, their little bodies should be able to fight it off, effectively offset that virus and. And allow it to be an upgrade and not something more. Yeah, but when their immune systems are so compromised with all these toxic shots, they. They don't stand a chance.

Right. And so I feel like that's this, like, interworld they live in right now between, like, Eastern and Western medicine, where I'm trying to navigate it. So it's like every time they get. Get sick or let's say they get a fever, I'm like, it's fine. You don't treat a fever. You, like, ride it out. I mean, if they're not like, do.

What it needs to do.

Yeah. I'm like, I've learned it's okay for that and that their fever is going to be higher than mine. They're a child. Like, I'm an adult, you know, so it's. I've started to like, trust some of these things a little bit more. And I'm like, I also researched, like, what can I do through homeopathic means? Like, how can I use. And I actually took homeo in 2020 and 2021, I dove into homeopathy. I started taking courses for my own knowledge. I have an entire drawer of homeopathy in our back. Yes.

That's amazing.

And my husband.

Homeopathy is what medicine used to be.

That's. I learned that and I was like, oh, well, it doesn't make anybody money. So of course it was put to the side and demonized. Okay, now it all makes sense.

Now it all makes.

Now it all makes sense. But it's amazing. It's incredible. I mean, I treated my family using homeopathy, like for Covid, for flu, for just the common cold. Like, you know, what are your symptoms? Like, what's the root behind it? What's the dominant symptom? Like, let's try and treat that person. Let's see, you know, And I will tell you, like in. Sometimes it works beautifully and other times it takes a little longer for them to heal. Because one, I'm like, I'm not like a homeopathic expert. I am connected to some people who are so like, oh my gosh, can I pay you for a quick consult? Like, I need, I need to get on this like asap. Or you just don't have like the exact match for what you want, like in your homeopathy drawer.

Right.

But. And we've started to move away from that. And I'm like, I went from basically a couple years ago having a child who was constantly on amoxicillin or dexamethasone or, you know, using their inhaler to basically looking like a kid who was going to have like ongoing asthma. Like, we were growing into that instead of moving away from it to a kid who no longer has asthma has. I think maybe she had croup one time last year as a five year old. She's not had it in over a year, I think. So we went from basically needing these medications because we were kind of stuck in that cycle in a sense to break out of it. To me starting to take it into my own hands and being like, screw the system I'm gonna do this myself. And now it's like, we don't need antibiotics anymore. And it's very rare where that I'm like, I get to the point sometimes where I'm like, maybe the system's not totally cleansed enough to kind of do this itself. It's been long enough. Things are getting worse, not better. Like, let me call the doctor. Right. And I think I've done that once in the past year instead of multiple, multiple, multiple times like it used to be. And it's, it's wild. It's absolutely wild to me.

Yeah. I mean the, the medical system is literally owned and operated by the pharmaceutical industry. So that is what they're taught. They're taught pharmaceuticals and it is obviously specialists or you know, surgeons are taught a little bit more than that. But it's up to the doctors themselves and the nurses themselves to step outside of the system and educate themselves if they want to truly, truly help their patients. And what I would love to tell your listeners, if I like to encourage parents when they go to the pediatrician, if they do vaccinate their children, to ask the pediatrician for the vaccine insert and have them request that they show them every single ingredient listed in that vaccine before they inject it into their child. Because they don't do that. Which means they're not providing full disclosure, informed consent.

They say that they are. And you sign a forum that you like.

Ha.

You know, usually you get a shot, you sign a form that you were given all the information and that you, you know. Yeah, very, it's a very good point.

So, and then some books that I would Dissolving Illusions and Turtles all the way down, just like we were discussing earlier, to sort of educate them on the history of all these so called vaccine preventable diseases. I think if you're a parent, no matter what your belief is, you should still. Those are two books that every, every parent should read.

Yeah, I'm right. I'm over here writing these down. So thank you. I love things like this. I'm like, can I go, go, can I download that on audible and like go walk and listen to it. So in today's world, I know we've talked about like the overarching, you know, things that we could be doing kind of help the oxidative stress within our body. Do you have, are there any other tips that you give like for people to just kind of combat stress in general that you know, you're working with? Because I just feel like we live in such a highly stressed out society.

Yes. I think one of the things I see a lot, especially with women is that they tend to skip meals and that is very, very, very harmful. And that fasting unfortunately is sort of like a trend right now. And I am no amount of research paid by no amount of government could convince me that fasting, at least to the to a habitual extent is helpful. But yeah, I would say just make sure you're eating. We need to eat breakfast. We need to nourish ourselves, especially women. We do well nourishing ourselves, eating every two to four hours. You know, it's important that we're constantly because the more you nourish yourself with the right kinds of foods, the better you're going to be able to combat that stress.

I love that.

And you know, foods that are wonderful for breakfast are eggs and even orange juice and fruit. And I like mostly it's I like to educate on digestive foods, which is foods that we as humans can, we were physiologically designed to digest because if we're not digesting a food, we're not absorbing the vitamins and the minerals from that food. So digestible food. And there's foods that cows and goats and sheep and birds and rabbits can digest and then there's foods that humans can digest. So we are equipped to digest animal protein, fruits and root vegetables, meaning like vegetables that grow like potatoes, carrots, onions, beets are fantastic. We one of the myths that are it's not as not as popular in the nutrition field is that we are told that greens, like raw greens are helpful and beneficial. And that is actually not the case. Raw grains are very, very hard on our digestive system simply because we don't have a. We're not built like a ruminant animal is. So we're lacking that physiological component, a rumen to digest the raw broccoli and the lettuce. And I like to say the cows are designed to eat the greens and we're designed to eat the nourished grass fed cow.

Got it. Interesting.

Women, females who live off of salads are typically who I when I in my practice I the most immunocompromised digestive compromise and I have to educate them. It's okay to eat fat, it's okay to eat animal meat. It's okay.

You know, that was me like probably 10ish years ago. And I remember I actually Katie developed like food sensitivities to some of these foods. Like I was eating salads all the time and I did a food sensitivity test that looked at like different Chemicals in my body that looked at the different foods, you know, and my reactive response was like a blood based test and everything as part of it. And, and it came back that I was highly reactive to a lot of the foods I was eating, which were whole foods and they were raw vegetables and some fruits and stuff. And so the goal was, let's reintegrate some of this stuff back into your body. But we're kind of going to do a reverse thing instead of, I think some people will do an elimination diet. It's like a reverse elimination where we start you on a very strict, certain types of foods that your body responds really well to the first week. And then after the first week, week, we will then start like day by day to add like one food. And so if you do react to something, you know what it is. And I feel like that was like the best thing I ever did for myself because it was so eye opening. And you know, now it's like if I eat a salad or something and it is raw, it's typically smaller and it's like my veggie with my protein and my complex carb or something. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, so. And I feel like I do a lot better with that than constantly eating these like massively large salads, which was what I used to do. It was like a protein on a salad. I mean, that's what you do, right? And then I was like, my body apparently hates that, so go figure.

I'll never forget, I had a GI patient, a doctor who was my patient. And he was, I think it was like a neck injury he was seeing me for. But I was asking him, I said, do you educate in your practice, do you educate your patients on food nutrition? You know, logically you would think that would be like the first thing that they are talking about. And he, you know, he said no, but he did say, he said, I will tell you that. What did he, how did he phrase it? Okay, he said, I will tell you that I make most of my money off of women who live off of salads. Huh.

Well, if that doesn't tell you something.

Right?

Wow. Yes, wow.

Well, I appreciate you admitting that. And then it was, you know, we kind of had the conversation of like, like, why don't we dive deeper into why that might be. And maybe it's destroying the gut and the digestive tract. And yeah, saturated fat is very, very, very, very protective. So coconut oil is another coconut oil. And vitamin C is sort of like what I've talked about. My Research the most on my Instagram. But coconut oil is a, is a very nutrient dense form of saturated fat that's incredibly protective against like we're saying, all the different toxins and stress. And especially for kids, it can help to sedate the nervous system and calm their mind so that their little brains aren't overwhelmed with different things and they can better focus on what the task at hand. So my boys get. My 7 year old gets a half a teaspoon morning and after school. So a half a teaspoon twice a day of raw coconut oil off the spoon and my 5 year old gets one in the afternoon.

Okay.

And they have been doing that since they were five months old.

Wow.

Licking raw coconut oil off of my finger since they were five months old. If I could, if I could give parents one piece of advice, it's because vitamin C, when we are, when we're little, we can actually facilitate our own vitamin C. But as we, there's research that shows around our 20s, we completely stop making vitamin C, which is why supplementation becomes so important. Well, children can, can produce their own vitamin C, especially when there's a virus. It'll sort of uptake to protect them like it's supposed to do. And if we start them at a young age with raw coconut oil, it protects that ability to formulate vitamin C for a longer period of time. So that's one of my. Back to what I was saying, my best piece of advice for parents would be start your children young on raw coconut oil. And that way they're used to it. Because now my kids, they don't know any different. Like here's your raw coconut right off the spoon. They're like, okay, I know, but the texture is different. So you know, if you start your kids when you're older, it's, they may not want it and you have to work to hide it and all that.

Yeah, no, that's, that's amazing. Thank you. So I know you also, before we wrap up, I know you have a children's book. So I would love for you to share about your children's book, where they can get it and how they, where they can find you online and everything.

Yes, yes, thank you. I, when my oldest was a baby, I started writing that book. I was home with him and I was holding him all the time. And I just started slowly writing the book because it was like, Kylie, there's nothing out there that besides Weston A. Price, they're amazing. But there was nothing out there that taught parents in a fun way that they could learn with their children about food and nourishment and how important it is. And I thought, how can I come up with a way that the parent and the child can learn together? So Gregory's Digestible Alphabet is my children children's book and Gregory is a goat. He started off as a monkey and then I was advised to change the kids. There's too many monkeys in the kids world. So I thought a goat eats everything, right? So yeah. And it, every letter of the Alphabet is a different food and it sort of teaches you and the your child what's beneficial about that food. And in the back there's a long list of recipes that incorporate all the foods from the book. Oh, that's so you can get paperbacks on Amazon and then on my business website you can order a hardbacks.

Amazing. This is actually I started to look at it the other day and I was like, this is so good for feeding therapists to know about because you know, I mean really everybody, right? Anybody who works with children or any parents out there. But when we can make it fun and we can like integrate different things and especially if they are hyperlexic or they really love letters and we can start to bring food into that conversation with some of our children, you know, I think it's really very cool. And then when you. One of the biggest tips that we always have is involve children in the kitchen. Take them to the grocery store, let them pick out the food, take them to the farm and let them pick some food. Get them involved in handling the food outside of when they're expected to eat it and they're going to be much more inclined to do it then have them help you cook without any expectation that they're going to actually bring it to their mouth or their face. I did this with my own 8 year old a couple years ago in the pandemic because we needed, you know, I was like, well it's cooking. It's like math and science and like real life stuff. I'm like, it's all this stuff integrated, right? And so I signed her up for a cooking class and she was a kindergartener so obviously I had to be in the kitchen helping her. And so we were doing it together, which was a lot of fun. And she started just like as she was like cooking things or cutting things with her own little child. And I start like picking up like a pepper and putting it in her mouth. And child would never touch peppers before, you know what I mean? So it's just like that different experience with like Your anxiety's down, your, you're interested in digest because nobody's forcing you to try something or eat something. And you're kind of like, oh, now that I've touched it, I've smelled it, like, I wonder what this tastes like. And just, she just picked things up and she was more inclined to like try the foods that she was cooking as well. So I love that there's like recipes in the back to integrate the knowledge.

Because like you're saying the recipes are so simple. It's, it's, it's designed, they're designed for you and your children to do together.

Amazing. Yeah, I'm excited. All right. I'm like, I gotta go buy the book. I was like looking at your, like I saw it pop up the other day and you had like something on your Instagram. I think about it and then I just kind of like clicked away and didn't like look any further. But I was like, I know we're talking, so I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna find out about it. So I'm excited too.

I think it's fun. I think it's a good way too to try to get parents away from simply saying, like, this food is good for you, this food is bad for you. It's more about like, why is this food gonna help you to feel your very best and be your happiest, best version of yourself? You know? So in the book, I was very careful about refraining from saying, this food is good, this food is bad. You know, it's about, this food gives us energy and helps our brains to thrive.

I love that that's what we do. In my house, I try to be very, I always say, try to be very cautious of demonizing like certain foods because also when you take something away from a child, what do they want? They want that more. So I always try to talk about like, well, how much energy is it going to give you? And if you eat an egg in the morning before school over like cereal, which like we really don't do at my house, but somehow it's, you know, one of the grain free ones crept in here and that's, you know, they had it once and it's like, oh, give me more. And I'm like, that was like a like one time thing. We're not doing that all the time. And, and I feel like it's easy. So it's like for my husband, it's like a go to or I'm like, no, let me make them an egg. It's Actually, faster for them to eat and for me to cook and them to eat the egg than it is for them to eat a bowl of cereal, actually, at least in my house. But I. I have this conversation with them. I'm like, how do you feel at school, like, after you've had eggs for breakfast? And I'm like, do you feel like you have more energy? And they're like, I don't know. And I'm like, okay, well, today when you go to school, I want you to. It's almost like an experiment. Like, I want you to tell me, like, were you hungry before lunch? Did you feel tired? Like, did you, like, tell me what you were feeling? And, like, they've actually started to recognize that, like, if they eat eggs in the morning, that they don't get hungry before snack time. They feel like they're. They're not tired. Right. And that's huge because I'm like, I know they're getting good nights of sleep, but, like, also, you put crap in your body, you're going to. You're going to have that sugar spike, and then you're going to nosedive, and then you're going to be ravenous at snack time, like, one hour later. So I started that.

You said that because my. My friend of mine called me the other day and she said, I have to tell you, her first grader in class, every day, they get like, a green dot, a yellow dot. This is a different school for my boys. Or a red dot meaning, like, you know, you had a good day or bad day. And she said, you know, her son, she likes to, like, she would say, like, he lives on a yellow. Like, he just lives on a yellow dot. Doesn't always have great days. And she was like, my husband and I can't get over it. We have been giving him eggs and fruit every single morning. And he's. He's coming home with green dots and, like, and he read. The little boy was able to recognize that, too. And I'm like, isn't that magical? You support their little brains and their bodies before they go and, you know, conquer their day. And it just, I mean, think about us as adults, too. Such a tough time if I don't eat enough, you know, it's the same concept.

Yes. Yeah, 100%. Well, beautiful. This has been amazing. I so appreciate you coming on the podcast. We're going to link to your social media. We'll also link the book in there so that they can go directly to, you know, your site and get the book and everything as well. But Katie, thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you for having me. I had so much fun. I appreciate it.

This was so fun. Thanks for listening to this podcast. If you found value in this episode and want to hear more of these Myotots, Airway and Feeding related episodes, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode on your social media platforms. You can access free resources and all I offer@hallie balkan.com or pop over to Hollybulcan on Instagram to get all the latest updates.