Autumn Smith: Ancestral Diets, Nutrient Dense Ingredients + Whole Foods for Improving Overall Health

I connected with GI specialist when I talked about IBS and leaky gut syndrome. His advice? You're not going to believe this. You know, stop reading so much online. Leaky gut isn't real is what he said. And this is like a current doctor. This is just last year that I went to see this doctor. Sometimes medication is a perfect cause. You're in need of medication, but the medication should come with an action plan for healing. Would you agree?

Oh, my goodness, absolutely. Yes. It should feel like a friendship, right? And we have to acknowledge that doctors don't receive much nutritional training unless they go about it themselves. And also, doctors are very busy and they can't necessarily always stay abreast. A very new research that's emerging. It doesn't mean they're a bad doctor, just means they're seeing patients all day. They're not necessarily seeing the research. But, yeah, if someone is dismissive, we need to find someone else. We want doctors to say, oh, I'd love to learn more about that. Show me that research. I want to be able to share that with somebody else next time. And if you don't get a response like that, I think just keep looking.

The following is an operation podcast production. Welcome Autumn Smith, founder of Paleo Valley. Someone who I'm insanely inspired by. I feel like when parents hear more of your story, you're so mission driven that there is just no choice than to want to follow along and kind of fuel your mission. So we're going to dive into all of that today. Thank you for being here. I don't take it lightly.

Thank you for all of your support since you reached out the other day. I can't even tell you. I don't know why, but it was just like such a bright spot in my day, and I can feel that you. You mean it. And. And that's exactly why I do what I do. So thank you for having me.

Amazing. Yeah. One of many. I know. So we're going to dive right in. You know, this podcast is all about ancient wisdom in our modern world and really about just figuring out how we can become more rooted. And this means more rooted in. In our health, in our life, but also awakening this inner wisdom that I think that we all have to heal and feel our best. So I'd love to start off like you've been on this amazing healing journey, but what are some, you know, three things, let's say, that help you feel more rooted in yourself and in your life and why?

I love, love, love this question. So I've recently had to. I did some somatic therapy. I don't know if your listeners know or you've spoken about it, but. But I've been in talk therapy since, you know, I was a teen, on and off. And somatic therapy is of the body, right? So learning what state is my nervous system in and how do I change that state if I need to, right. How do I regulate? So that has been the most impactful thing. But little things I do every day is slowing down, right. I am somebody who likes to move quick. I want people talking fast, I want things to happen fast. And I found that it just takes me out of alignment with, with my own feedback and maybe makes me not as great a listener. And so if I just do things a little more slowly, I feel rooted, I feel grounded. So moving more slowly is number one. And that includes actually, you know, eating slowly too, because I was someone who just ate as quickly as I could. I saw it as just like another to do. But we can listen to the feedback, you know, and that actually helps us absorb more nutrients better. And so there's lots of benefits for that. The other one is movement. So I've been a ballerina Since I was 4 and there is just something about movement, yoga, dance. It's something so deep that I can't even describe. I don't think words even do it justice. But it really became a practice of embodiment for me when I started teaching yoga. So I always moved. I didn't know how beneficial was. But once I learned why we need to listen and that we should work in cooperation with ourselves, then I could then take that to every other movement, you know, every other form of exercise. And that was a really powerful shift for me. And then the last thing is a really fun tradition that my son and I have. And I really. I've heard this quote that parents give great parents give kids two things, its roots and its wings. And so we spend a lot of times talking about his ancestry and who his family is. And so every night before bed, I will tell him a story about someone who came before him, who is a part of him, usually something that went wrong. Those are his favorite stories, the ones where people make mistakes. And I've also had them. A lot of his family members create a book where they wrote about a story to him about a painful life lesson, about a life altering moment. And sometimes we go through that book together and sometimes I just kind of free flow and come up with something. But I think learning about where you came from and working that into the day is really powerful.

That is magic. And I'm so gonna borrow that because I think, like, you know, when we think about our ancestors, they lived in these villages or then they lived with their extended families and you know, my, my father did the exact same thing. But we're losing that connection to like the wisdom of people that lived around us or even the ability to be able to learn from the things that they were witnessing or the mistakes, or how to do things the right way or how to process emotions. So that is brilliant. Brilliant. I'm going to borrow that. The other thing that I think is really special for you as a dancer, to be finding somatic therapy now, and this is something that you and I have in common. I feel like I've worked with so many different types of therapists, but this is the first time that I'm working with somebody who's really teaching me about embodiment. And it's like we understand these concepts. I know if I were to say to a woman, like, you're aware of the wisdom that exists within you, but, but to truly, like, live from that space and have daily practices that allow you to tune in, there's just a shift that happens. You operate from a different perspective and it's like stress and anxiety just lifts. So do you feel like now you've been able to process things a little bit differently?

Oh, a hundred percent. And I think interestingly enough, dance took me away from alignment, right. For a lot of reasons as a youngster, because it was all about how it looked and, oh, it was painful, but you push through it anyway and you get blisters and it doesn't matter. But no, when I brought yoga and I was like, oh, oh, we need to be listening, right? And it's a good thing to listen and life can look different. And honestly, like, if I even take, I just do sun salutations, right? Like sun salutations. Just the very beginning of a yoga practice. That, that is a promise I've made to myself. Like, I'm going to do just that five minute exercise. I swear to you. Your life changes in that moment. It does. When you just allow yourself to just be. Remember, it's okay to just be here wherever you are, in the middle of a mess or, you know, killing it, whatever it is. But yeah, the rest of my day unfolds so differently when I can just slow down and give myself that, that reminder and that gift.

Such great insight. So. And to that point, I think that, you know, I think people who listen often see people like you and I, we've worked with, you know, clients over the years through nutrition and wellness and you with personal training and stuff like that. It's almost like, oh, well, they. They think it's easy for us. It's like, oh, it's easy for us to. To practice these things. And so when they try to adopt these modalities that they think are healthy, I think there's a lot of people out there who are adopting these habits that they might not even notice are uprooting them. So they end up becoming the source of their inflammation or their stress or their anxiety because they're treating wellness like this checklist of things that they have to accomplish every day and it' not actually serving them. So if you were to point out three things that cause you to feel uprooted in your life and not those beautiful, grounded feelings that you have, what would those be?

I think number one is forgetting why I do things, right? Because let's take for instance, like an interview. Oh, I could get all worked up and it could be a source of tension and. And then if I don't remember, okay, well, my only goal is that someone takes one small step, that it just doesn't have to be about me at all. But when I get in my head and think too much about me or how I'm perceived, that makes me feel uprooted. Another one is over scheduling and just trying to accomplish way too much and not doing a good job at any of the things. Right. I've had to really work hard at like, okay, let's do three or four things a day. Well, rather than 15, you know, that maybe I'll have to go back and do later. So those ones and then the other one. And this is more of like, I mean, I could. There's so many, too many screens not being outside enough. But this one is about something I learned. This is a real game changer for me. Caffeine. I'm one of the few. I don't do caffeine because it revs me up and I feel like I'm borrowing from tomorrow and it just makes me a little irritable and more tired the next day. So those are a few of mine.

You're the first person to say caffeine, and I absolutely love that because I often joke like, I'm this one nutritionist that will never take caffeine away from you, from you. Because I feel like for me it's the ritual of the coffee. But we can replace it with other rituals. And I think that, you know, when I ask an audience of people if they feel anxious or stressed or if they're busy or if they're tired. The one common denominator to support them would be removing caffeine. So I love that you called that one out. That's a good one. Yeah.

And I don't think it's right for everyone. I'm a naturally very energetic person. I'm prone to more anxiety and irritability. So for me, it's not working with a system. But that doesn't mean it's true for everyone.

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Yes. So I had stomach problems, like you said my stomach would hurt. And in hindsight, now I can see some of the reasons which we'll talk about. But when I was 11, 12, it became so bad that it was regular enough that we went to see the doctor. I would wake up in pain. I felt like there was a ball in my stomach. Sometimes I would be extremely bloated. And the doctors just told me, oh, well, you have irritable bowel syndrome. And it's basically a wastebasket diagnosis, meaning we don't know what it is, but we've ruled out more serious pathology. And they said it's stress based. Your intestine is just not coordinated. It's moving in a different rhythm than most people's. And so you should take some beno and some gas X. That was their advice. And I thought, okay, yeah, I'll try those things. And I think it like 10 and 11. I don't think we know what stress is or how to really manage that. So, yeah, it didn't help me at all. And as I went on to become a teenager, we now know there's this gut brain axis. But my mental health started to deteriorate and there were good reasons for that, but I think that my gut was also part of it too. And they put me on antidepressants and talk therapy. Like I said, I've been doing therapy since I was a teenager and that didn't really help either. And then I became kind of hopeless. I thought, okay, I'm in physical pain. Emotionally, I'm struggling. I don't see a way out. And so I'm just going to numb it. So I became really interested in substances and, you know, drinking whatever I could get my hands on to kind of take me out of my body, I suppose, is what I was Trying to do. And I did that until I got kicked out of high, kicked out of my parents house and, and when I was even in high school, I know it was pretty, pretty dramatic. But when I met my husband and he got close enough to me to see past the smile that I was wearing despite suffering, he wanted us to look for options like what can we do if a doctor can't help you? And he is such a brilliant man, such a patient man. And he found that people were using diet as a therapy, which I thought was crazy because I had seen so many other doctors, but. But we changed our diets and in 30 days all the digestive stuff went away and I'm still feeling great. And the mental health stuff, it was, you know, probably about a year after I started to notice, whoa, like I'm a different person. I'm not just not in pain, but I'm completely different. So that was the start of Paleo Valley.

Wow. Okay, so let's dive into that a bit more. So when you were 11 years old, do you remember other factors in your life that could have been causing your IBS looking back?

Yeah, I mean, ballet, I think is a kind of a stressful thing. And I was very immersed in ballet since the age of four and so I think. And I was, you know, dancing all the time, going to school. I was also, you know, there were girls who were really mean to me, you know, really mean to me in my small Montana town. Not all the girls, right? The girls in my class were pretty nice. But I do remember feeling a little bit afraid at school. So I think, yeah, I think. And I'm just a person who puts pressure on themselves too. You know, I'm a perfectionist in certain respects. And I think I didn't know that that wasn't a good way to operate necessarily. And so yeah, I think all of those factors just came together and a lot of tension.

I'm a big believer in when there's symptoms within our body that they're not often of the here now that they're often symptoms that accumulate over time. And like with everything that's unfolding around the gut microbiome and like just how many factors are attributed to our digestive health? I think back to when I was little like you, it was the same types of feelings. Like I remember driving to school every day. The anxiety that I had was that I never fit in. Like I was just so scared to get to school because I would not fit in. I remember just wanting to do really well and get the best Grades and the stress that I put on myself, obviously, because of that. And the flip side of that is, at the time, the doctors that I was seeing put me on antibiotics. So I was on antibiotics every single year from the ages of three until about 15 years old. It's like, yeah, God bless, Dr. John. Every time I came back in, oh, she's got tonsillitis again. Let's give her another round of antibiotics. And this would happen sometimes, like, twice a year. And so you can just think about the things that we were going through then and how that led to the downfall. We'll talk about the gut brain axis also, but it's just fascinating because now flash forward, right. When we talk about IBS professionally, when we think about the amount of people in the world that are suffering, the latest stat was that IBS affects 20, 25 and 45 million in the U.S. like, this is wild. Yeah. And two out of three of the IBS sufferers are actually women. And I think that there's a correlation there also with autoimmune disease. Right. Like, digestion is everything if there's something that's impacted. And we'll talk about how this kind of bled out into the other areas of your life. But tell us a bit more. Like, how were you able to cure within 30 days? What were you doing? You had this amazing husband who helped guide the way. He made some big changes. What were those changes?

Yeah. I want to start by acknowledging that I do think he is so calm and talk about a grounded individual. I think being so close to someone like that was also like a portal into a new way to relating to life. Right. So there's that. I think that he really helped me cultivate a healthier emotional state. And also we literally just did high quality animal products, fruits and vegetables. We went to the farmer's market every week, and we just cut out all processed foods, all sugar. At that time, we didn't eat grains or beans either, even though sometimes, you know, it's evolved a little bit for us. But we just went as strict as we could, just paleo. And I think in the beginning, it was really, really dramatic. At the end, I realized I was still eating way too much dried fruit for me. But. But that template, if ever I start to have digestive issues again, if I just go back to that place, it's really dramatic for me. I think gluten was a big part of it, but there could, you know, processed foods, emulsifiers, all these other things that we don't even really think about. But. But yeah, that template worked like magic for me.

So what do you think about, you know, the amount of people that are going to their doctors today? They're talking about ibs. What do you think their doctors are telling them?

Oh, I'm a little bit afraid. Right. That, you know, I don't know, food has nothing to do with it. That you, you know, there's. You really just need to take Beano or that, you know, there's nothing they can do and that there isn't a root cause. And you, you know, I'm afraid. I know there are great doctors out there, but I just know my experience, my experience, they're probably not acknowledging the many paths one could take to improve their digestive health, because there are, in fact, many, many paths.

Yeah, I agree with you. Like ibs, you have this incredible story. I think removing processed foods is essential because you're taking the stressors away from the body. But I think that there's. There's so much more that could be contributing or manipulating IBS that doctors, they're just not trained to talk about. Right, right. And I think, like, to your point, there's some incredible doctors out there, and I think with the rise in awareness around the gut microbiome, they're slowly learning. They're slowly learning. But recently I try to do my best. And sometimes I went to visit the standard American medical system and I connected with a GI specialist. And this was a GI specialist who told me, I prefaced with, I'm a nutritionist. I've healed myself from, you know, this heart condition that I have. I really focus on the quality of my digestion and all of these things. And when I talked about IBS and leaky gut syndrome, his advice. You're not going to believe this. His advice was, you know, stop reading so much online. Leaky gut isn't real is what he said. And this is like a current doctor. This is just last year that I went to see this doctor. Yeah.

So, wow.

You know, and I share this story because I think that hearing stories like yours and mine is just to ask more questions. And I say this all the time. The goal now is to try to find a doctor who's your partner in healing to help you take away the suffering. Right. Sometimes medication is a perfect high. Sometimes we are in need of medication, but the medication should come with an action plan for healing. Would you agree?

Oh, my goodness, absolutely. Yes. It should feel like a friendship. Right. And we have to acknowledge that doctors don't receive much nutritional training unless they go about it themselves. And also doctors are very busy and they can't necessarily always stay abreast. A very new research that's emerging. They say it takes like 10 to 15 years for what's happening in researchers labs to trickle down to medical practice. And so there's a lag time. Doesn't mean they're a bad doctor, just means they're seeing patients all day. They're not necessarily seeing the research. But yeah, if someone is dismissive, we need to find someone else. We want doctors to say, oh, I'd love to learn more about that, show me that research. I want to be able to share that with somebody else next time. And if you don't get a response like that, I think just keep looking.

Absolutely. And you shared before, you know, when you were moving into things like alcohol, things to numb the pain. I think what a lot of people are missing and not talking about is this gut brain axis and the fact that if you're somebody who experiences a lot of sadness or depression or anxiety or worry, that that could still be a symptom of ibs. So do you want to share a little bit more about that journey and like the mental emotional healing and that gut brain axis?

Absolutely. So we used to think, right, that our brain was just sending messages to our gut, like when we got butterflies or we start to feel nervous. Obviously everybody has probably experienced that. But we now know is that as many if not more of the messages go from our gut up to our brain via the vagus nerve. Right. We can have immune, like the microbes in our gut, they can actually produce compounds that activate our immune system, that can result in inflammation. We've seen people, well, there's a subset at least of depressive people or people with major depressive disorder who seem to have inflammatory reactions at the root. Because when we give these people anti inflammatory medications, their depression can be lifted. Right. And they've shown in animal models that you can give, you can create inflammation and that would make someone or the animal feel depressed. So it could be like an immune modulation happening. We also know our gut bugs, they produce neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin, and not just small amounts sometimes and short chain fatty acids that can reduce inflammation. Or there are just so many bidirectional things happening in our gut. And we see populations with mental health issues. Anxiety, depression, autism, they have a different microbiome. And so there is this link. And I don't think all of the details have been fully elucidated yet, but in my case, you Those gut issues, they seem to be at least one main contributing factor to my deteriorating mental health. It was kind of like I couldn't. I couldn't shut my brain off. It didn't. And it didn't feel like something. It wasn't necessarily born only of my experience, my experience as a teenager. It was very hard, but it seemed harder. Right. It seems like there was some. Some other fuel on the fire, so to speak.

Right.

Probably a lot of inflammation that was just making me less able to cope. Less. It just severely limited my bandwidth. And so, yeah, I think once I was able to dampen the fire, dampen that inflammatory state, I still had emotions. Right. Things were still hard, but I could take them in stride. Right. It wasn't overwhelming. There was a time in my. I kicked a wall in. You know, like I kicked a hole in a wall. Like, when I was a teenager, I used to punch the punching bag. And I mean, I had very intense emotions, but I was able to kind of control and regulate in a way that I wasn't prior to that. So. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. Growing up, you know, with this foundation of Ayurveda, we really do understand the power of digestion as, like, the root of optimal health, optimal living. It's like the source of proper functioning of your entire body. And I think that there's a lot of misconceptions that exist out there around ibs. One of them, to women and men is that it's not a big deal, you know. Oh, it's not a big deal. It'll pass. But what are some of the misconceptions that you remember or feel about ibs?

Yeah, basically that nobody knows what causes it, you know, because it is. It's just like. It's not a series of distinct, you know, disorders or symptoms. It's kind of, like I said, it's being ruled out. Okay. You don't have inflammatory bowel disease, you know, you don't have celiac disease disease. Okay. You must have ibs. And so some people are going to have problem with FODMAPs, for example. Right. You know, or some people are going to be sensitive to gluten. Right. So it can be caused by many different things, but it doesn't mean you can't find them. Right. So there's that. And the other thing is that it's like a lifelong condition. It doesn't have to be. Right. It's not something you need to tolerate. I think that was my. And I think a lot of women suffer with this. The belief that this is just how it has to be. This is just what I have to cope with. I'm just gonna have to make the best of this and I'm gonna make everyone else's life great. But I'm not going to take the steps or I'm not gonna allocate the bandwidth to what I deserve, you know. And so I think just making feel, helping women feel empowered around take the steps. You can find the root cause there are often is one and then the other one is I don't want to discount, I think food is a huge piece but I also think the state of your nervous system ibs when they said it was a stress based condition, I mean they weren't all wrong. Right. And so a lot of times I see women trying to eliminate all the food groups. Right. And sometimes that will help. But also learning like you said, to kind of drop in and be present and eat slowly and, and mindfully. That sometimes that's all it takes. That's usually where I start with people when I work with them is like learning how to eat when you're not on the go, when you're not watching something else. Just being fully present, chewing, swallowing, enjoying. That can be really, really impactful too.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. I think what we've lost is this awareness that digestion takes up a tremendous amount of energy from the body. It needs our presence to be focused. And it's like that, that story of when people go away on vacation, they think, oh, and I'm on vacation, it's the food and all these places. Which I think could be the case since a lot of ingredients that are banned in the US that aren't banned in the US are banned in other countries. So I think there's that. But I think it's also when you go away on vacation, you're in this like rest and digest state. You are present, you're sitting down for longer meals, you or with people that you enjoy their company with and all of a sudden your body is digesting your food again and you feel pretty great.

Yeah, it's amazing. I don't know if you track or wear an aura ring or anything like that. Of course you do. Yes. And what I found is like obviously I take all the dietary steps to do all of those. But the thing that is most impactful for me, face to face interaction with someone that I love. You know, it's the time I go out to meals, I go to a play, I prioritize social time with my authentic relationships. That's, that's the most Healing.

Don't you just love watching your kids eat? Like they're just, they're present, they are taking in and savoring everything and the flavors and moving their food around. Like it's just, it's such a beautiful experience that we, we lose as adults. So I wanted to just tie into something that you brought up. So here you are, you went on this healing journey. And I think that another big misconception is that people have to go on this hardcore restrictive program in to heal their ibs. Can you unpack that?

Yes. Gosh. Like we said, I think that there is no perfect diet, right? And you always have to stay tuned in. So I think that's the number one thing, like we said, learning to be calm and drop in and listen to your body's feedback. But also I started in an extreme way, but I've seen people, my neighbor for example, came to me the other day, debilitating issues that he was in the emergency room and on and off and this had been going on for decades. And I told him, I just want you to do one thing and that's just try gluten and dairy free for 30 days. Try for 30 days. And he did. And he said, you changed my life. He went and had a colonoscopy. You know, they thought, you know, pretty serious pathology was what's happening. He was very, very desperate. But he looks good, he's got a clean bill of health. And it also, it's, you know, for some people it is, it's easier for me to do, to go all in, right? To just do everything, do the hard thing. But for other people it's just a step at a time. So if you need to go and make horizontal swaps, right, Instead of eating this kind of bread, I'm just going to try a gluten free version. That's a step, right? And then you go to a cereal or whatever, just upgrade that cereal the next week and take one small step each single week. That can be incredibly impactful as well. And you don't need to necessarily be carnivore, you know what I mean? It's just like there's different diets that are going to work for everyone. And for me, I believe as much diversity of whole foods in your diet is the best case scenario. But you can get there through a restrictive diet for a period of time. But I don't think that should be the end goal. I don't think we should all live like that for long periods of time.

I love that so much and I really Want people to hear that. Because what happens when you make these small incremental changes? You're giving your body permission to feel the shifts that happen. And intuitively, when you're trying to notice the changes, you're like, oh, wow, I cut out gluten. I feel a little bit better. My bowel movements were better. I wasn't bloated. At the end of the day, I don't look pregnant by six o'.

Clock.

Right. So it's like tuning into these small things and that brings the motivation and the inspiration to be like, oh my gosh, like, there's something to this. Let me keep going.

And you know what? If you're some. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

No, go ahead.

I was just going to say. And if you're someone who's triggered by restriction, I start with, okay, we're going to add 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. You don't take anything out, you just add or, hey, let's do 100 grams of protein. That is your goal. Now if you do that, you know, it's going to be hard to eat a lot of the other things. But yeah, you can always just come from the addition approach too and make a lot of progress.

Oh my gosh, absolutely. You're talking my language, trusting in nature, eating more fiber, doing all of those things. And I want to talk more about what does an ancestral paleo style diet look like for my clients who are diagnosed with any type of autoimmune disease? I have to say, like, they're living your story. They see the inflammation melt off, they see the power of their digestion improve. They see their sleep score increase because their body's no longer fighting all the time and feeling this inflammation, they actually can get into deeper levels of rest, which is helping them heal. So talk to us a little bit more about this diet shift and what a paleo diet looks like and how you implemented that for your healing.

Yeah. So basically it is just the exclusion of all processed foods. And my husband and I's versions are very different. Right. I'm very plant heavy and I probably have a third for animal products, which are very, actually really were important for me. But, you know, mostly half of it is vegetables. Right. And then a little bit of a high quality animal product and then probably some fruit for dessert. And my husband is the opposite. He needs about 50%, like really high quality protein and animal products and very little vegetables, actually, and more fruit. So he's like, more so starchy vegetables and fruit and animal products and a little bit of veggies, where I am just the opposite. But I think what it is, is it's whole foods. And traditionally there's no grains in the diet and there's no beans and there's no processed foods and there's no refined sugar. And that is a place that you can start. But I don't think everybody needs to live there long term right now that we're like 10 years into it. You know, there are cultures, you know, many of the cultures known for their longevity, they eat beans and sometimes we will have beans and you know, that microbial diversity. Sometimes we'll eat a gluten free grain and now that it doesn't bother our stomach anymore. But initially, yeah, I just. Half of my plate is vegetables. About a quarter is an animal product and then another quarter is a fruit or a starchy carb of some sort. And that's all it is. It's pretty simple.

We need more people like you or we need to just blow up your message out in the world. Because when my clients come to me and they think Paleo, it's like, my God, how much meat do I have to be eating every single day? And it's like, no, that's not the point for me, in my perspective, I see it through the lens of eating more like our ancestors did. That's it. You're taking away these ultra processed foods, you're eating what our ancestors did prior to the onset of a lot of these diseases that exist. And you brought up an interesting point. I know why you did it, but to understand the differences between the way that you should eat and your husband eats, what did you do? What gave you that insight?

It was just immediately obvious, right, because we would go to the same restaurants when we were cutting things out and we would try to eat the same thing. And even in la, because the vegetarian and vegan movement is pretty loud there. And so we would go to like Gratitude Cafe. I don't know if you remember, I love Gratitude. Anyway, for me, yeah, I feel good for Chaz. He's like, I'm hungry. An hour later, it was just he could not get enough vegetables or fruits in his body to satiate him without a really high quality animal product. And even he and my son do very well with dairy, right? So Paleo, we get raw dairy from a farm right down the road. And I know we're Paleo Valley, but I just, I think that diversity, once you've kind of healed, you know, the inflammation or whatever might be triggering your symptomology. I think trying to regain that diversity is a great idea. And then they thrive on dairy. It gives me a runny nose. I'm still not there. But for them it's a regular thing.

It's such a key takeaway because I think that what we need to lose around when we're talking about a paleo diet is that someone is going to go on a diet. It's not about going on a diet. You're adopting a new way of eating to see how it feels for you. And it's up to you to make the modifications that you feel necessary to help you feel your best. And in doing that, you have to listen to your body. You're sharing about how you would tune into your symptoms. Your husband would tune into his symptoms to kind of guide you into what to eat. It wasn't about following a fad, finding another practitioner or another protocol. You literally are tuning into the wisdom of your body to help guide you in making decisions like magic. Yeah.

I think that's the only way you can do it long term and live in harmony. Right. You just have to. And I know the struggle, right, for some people are like, listen, but what does that even mean? Right? We have so much stimulation, so many things taking us out of alignment with our body. But I started with the aura. And if you can't find that feedback right now, get a tool, right? Get some technology that you see your hrv, you see your heart rate, if it's elevated, if your HRV is going down and your heart rate is elevated, something you're eating could be contributing to that, the way that you're living. And just over time, it helps to create a very clear picture. So, yes, like mind bleeding. Great listening, great noticing where your energy levels are throughout the day. Really, really important, right? Because a lot of times if you don't eat the right thing in the morning, you don't feel as great in the afternoon. But don't feel afraid to like lean on technology or bring something else in that can help you get that fine tuning that's not always so obvious to everybody.

Absolutely. And going back to gratitude, look, I know that there's going to be some vegetarians and some vegans that listen to this. I work with a lot of vegans who are thriving. They're absolutely thriving. But the one thing that they're doing very differently is they're eating very, very limited processed foods. They're focusing on getting amounts of protein from beans and legumes. They're eating a ton of veggies and fiber. And we're Also looking at their biomarkers at least every six months to catch their deficiencies ahead of time so that they're ahead of the game and feeling their best. Right. Some people thrive on a vegan diet and that's okay. Some people thrive on Paleo diet and that's okay. There's no need to fight about it. It really is deciphering what helps you feel best in your body.

I love that. Yeah. And I have so much in common with vegans. I feel like they're usually so educated, such smart people. Right. And they're so on it and they, they are tuned in a lot of times. But yeah, it just didn't work for me. I realized my mental health and my energy levels are all over the place. The place. Animal protein is very grounding for me and I do have friends. I have a great friend actually. She's such an amazing fitness trainer too. She looks great. She seems to be so happy and she's been vegan for years and so I know it's possible and especially if you're going to track and make sure that you catch those nutrient deficiencies. I don't know if you know, but we, we. I'm just finishing up a Rethink Meat docuseries and one of the episodes is about, you know, the nutritional shortcomings of vegan. Vegan diets. And, but that's, and really the only reason I felt compelled to do that episode is just for children or, you know, pregnancy. Aside from that, it's like I think everybody, you know, you can navigate it and you can do it well and it takes more education and a lot more vigilance. But, but yeah, eat what you want. I'm not here to tell anyone and I don't think there should be wars. And I eat mostly plants. Like my diet is very plant based. Even though it's, it's technically a paper.

My lens is the same as yours. And even in showcasing that, I love that you're putting that into a docu series. I think it's just a highlight. We also live in a world where we are normalizing the intake of highly processed foods. And those highly processed foods are labeled healthy. They're labeled keto friendly, they're labeled gluten free. And so as somebody who doesn't work in wellness, as, you know, a busy working mom or dad, when I see those products, you know, I'm often just. They grab them. Right. And we have to really, really educate consumers on the fact that if it's coming from a box, it's Dead fruit food. You're not taking in the variety of nutrients that are going to help your gut microbiome thrive or give you the energy that you need. And to your point, you mentioned children, right? So many busy parents who are feeding their kids these hyper palatable processed foods that might not be contributing to their growth and their health.

Yeah, I think it was 68%, 67% of our child's calories today come from ultra processed foods. Right. And it's so normal. Right. My son goes to school and he's like, mom, do not send that healthy food with me, you know, because I'm the only one who's eating it. It's so weird. And I'm like, you know, we obviously still do it, but it's sad that that's the norm. Right. And also this was interesting. My someone I'm working with on my dissertation, his name is Dr. Van Vliet and he did this analysis of a regular burger and a plant based burger. And you look at the nutritional labels and they're identical. Right. But when you break it down, he does what's called metabolomics. It's where you look at thousands of compounds, hundreds of thousands of compounds in a food. He says, I think it was something like 90% of the metabolites are different.

So.

And that food is information. Right? And so yeah, I mean I just think the more whole foods we can get into those little bodies, obviously the better. And just because something looks the same on a nutrition label doesn't mean it's speaking the same language in your body.

I am such a hard stop, hard no on all of these fake meats that are coming out.

I know. Well, a lot of them are using extractive types of agriculture. And I know vegans, vegetarians, they love, you know, environmental health or many of them do. And yeah, these aren't the answer. Right. It's corn, GMO corn and soy, pesticide laden and then some genetically modified ingredients that may require more testing. And yeah, I just don't think another manufactured food is the answer to our health. I think we need to reclaim our local sustainable food supply, our regional food supply. I don't think billionaires making these burgers, you know, I understand the intentions can be good, but I do think a return to whole foods and sustainable food supplies that are in our bioregions. I think that that's the answer.

I agree with you. And look, we'll dive more into, you know, buying quality meat. And a lot of people are just looking for what they think is a healthier Solution. But bottom line, if you don't know what an ingredient is on a label, neither will your body. And, you know, share your insight, please, on shifting to this paleo style way of eating and healing the gut microbiome. Like, how is this beneficial for gut health? Taking out those processed foods, processed meats, you know, a lot of the frozen processed dinners that people are consuming. What does that do to gut health?

Yeah, well, I mean, there's good research. You have to remember when you're eating a manufactured food. We wanted to be the company that prioritized health right over profits. Most food manufacturers don't. They prioritize shelf life, convenience. Right? The flow, how things flow through their machinery. And so you end up just getting a ton of unnecessary ingredients, like you said, that your body doesn't recognize one in particular. Emulsifiers like carrageenan or polysorbate 80. They've been shown to harm the gut lining, for example. Also, we're going to find high levels of refined carbohydrates and sugar, which may contribute to the growth of less beneficial bacteria. And I just finished Alessio Fasano's book. Did you? Have you. Are you familiar with it?

I ordered it. I just ordered it.

Oh, good. Yes.

So good.

And the fact that gluten is a very complex protein. Right. And no one in his book, he says this, no one digests it thoroughly. Right. Some people can still eat it and not have symptoms. But I think for a lot of people, just having a diet without it for a period of time to just see if maybe that is contributing is really, really powerful. So I think the processed ingredients that are potentially harming your gut lining, or the gluten that could be potentially doing it, or eating refined, simple foods that have been highly processed that could lead to the overgrowth of less beneficial bacteria. I think those are three really powerful ways. And then on the flip side, what are you getting instead? Right, you're getting the fiber, right. You're getting those polyphenols. I always try to do about 30 different plants in my diet every single week because they're all leading to the growth of a different type of beneficial bacteria. And then you can do bone broth. If you're into a paleo diet, there's a lot of really cool evidence to suggest the glycine content helps to, you know, rehabilitate the gut lining and make sure that you have a nice healthy digestive tract. And then there's fermented foods, which I was a slow adopter of fermented foods because I love that sweet flavor, but they are so powerful. There was research out of, I think, Stanford where they looked at fiber versus fermented foods. Did you hear about this study? It was really cool. And they had predicted that the fiber would be a more powerful modulator of inflammation, but they actually found the fermented. Fermented foods were. And so. And, you know, I just have a scoop every day, you know, of sauerkraut or. And I find these really great, different flavored ones. Our beef sticks are also fermented. And so there's a lot of, you know, food. Not only are you taking out the foods that could potentially be harming your digestive health, but you're also adding in so many foods that our culture has lost touch with, you know, bone broth. Also colostrum. I don't know if you've ever talked about colostrum, but. But colostrum is something that we've used as well. And fermented foods, things that most Americans aren't consuming, are absolutely critical for a healthy microbiome and a healthy gut lining.

One of the biggest tips that I love giving to my clients is just every night at dinner, pull out sauerkraut or kimchi, if that's your thing, and treat it like an amuse bouche for the family. Just have a tablespoon of it, get it down whether it goes with your meal or not. Treat that. That's the food is medicine. Right. But it's such a good point. And we've got to pull up these studies because, like, it's the variety and diversity. Right. Of, like, colonizing your gut microbiome with things from nature, again, that help you thrive. And again, you pointed out something that wasn't about going on a diet or going on this restrictive protocol. It literally is just using the tools from nature that she gives us in order to help us thrive. We just have to make it a consistent habit.

And I love that you do that pre meal. We do that, too.

And you know what?

I've worked with, or I've interviewed someone who says that she. Even if the kid has to at first put it in their mouth and spit it out, she lets them because she says it changes their taste buds. And over time, if you just continue to have them do that simple thing, that their taste buds will shift and they will be less reliant on that sweet, sugary flavor. And sometimes kids love that, right? Oh, I can spit it out. Great. Okay. You know, so it's kind of a game, too.

Totally. And it's like that whole thing, just expose it to them. I remember for me, when I grew up, oh, I remember my mom used to serve all these veggies when I was little. And it doesn't mean that I always ate them, but it's like it's adopting food behaviors for your kid. You're imprinting these behaviors on them. They'll adopt when they get a little bit older. So that's really powerful. All right, so give us a snapshot then for your son. It sounds like he's got this incredible diet. I'm sure parents listening are just going to want to say, how do you get the veggies in? How do you create a simple paleo dinner for you and your family?

Yeah, and they are simple. Let me just say that we got into food manufacturing because I don't like to. I'm not a great cook. But for mav. Okay, so the one thing that we, we use the super greens powder and we call it is Ninja juice. So we just made it really fun. And, you know, we tried different veggies. Like he, you know, loves like carrots, like glazed carrots, but he doesn't love everything. And so we just say try a few bites and then you only have to try it once. And so we have most recently been doing this thing called a blushy. Which is what? It's really cool. You take frozen blueberries and you put it in a cup and then you add milk of your choice and you stir it really quickly and it becomes like a slushie, like a blueberry slushie. And so, yeah, his meals are that they're really high quality animal products and veggies or some sort of whole grain or like a gluten free grain because he doesn't, he doesn't have gluten or a starchy potato or a bite of broccoli or two. He doesn't love vegetables. I wish I had that kid. I don't. But he does have a little bit of them every day. And a very clean diet. We don't bring sugar and processed foods into the house. And it's not like he never has them. Obviously he does at school, but it's just not at the house. So dinners look like usually we have a steak or something and we make homemade potato chips. We just slice the potatoes, we put a little olive oil, a little salt. There you go. Or sometimes it's shrimp. He loves shrimp. So shrimp and a simple cocktail sauce and a vegetable medley or something like that. It's really, really simple. And then of course, the blushy for dessert. He also loves our bone broth protein powder in a milk that's like a hot chocolate or a chocolate shake. We do a lot of chocolate shakes where we find like a pastured egg yolk or egg that we can just put in with a really high quality protein powder and zip it up in the morning. So our meals are as simple as they could possibly be, but it's just centered around high quality protein and a vegetable and some sort of starchy carbohydrate for him every time.

So incredibly simple. I'm going to make a Ninja juice and a blushy for everyone to see also.

So.

I'm also a nutritionist that just like, it's not that I'm, I'm a good cook when I have the time to commit to it, put it that way. And I think that a lot of people are just over complicating eating healthy. It does not have to be complicated at all. It can be so incredibly simple. So yeah, I will point out a lot of those so our listeners can start making them. All right, so, so part of the diet that you keep mentioning is high quality meat. And I think some people still don't know or the sad part is that we just can't trust the people who are providing our food. So even for example, shopping at Whole Foods, we assume that something is grass fed. But what you gotta love at Whole Foods, they've got that like animal welfare grading system, the five stages. And I'm just like, oh my God. So now I've gotta learn how to read these. I'm looking at the meat every week as they come in. But talk to us about the difference between grass fed or going grass fed, how to do that easily. And also grass finished.

Yeah. So there is. Oh yeah. So when you walk into a grocery store, you know, 95% of the products all come from factory farms. And in my Rethink Docu series, we go through the many, many problems with factory farms. I think people understand that. Right. And so grass pasture based animals, they are night and day, right. You don't have the animals crammed on top of each other, receiving hormones and antibiotics and producing large amounts of manure that pollute our planet. Right. They look like they did before 1850 when animals were just raised on pasture. Right. A lot of times in diversified systems, right, where there's cows, there's chickens, there's goats. And when it looks like this, animals are not destructive because animals are not inherently destructive to the environment. Right. They can actually help improve the environment, but they have to be in grass based systems. So as when it comes to beef, for example, as of 2016, there's a lack of regulation around grass fed. So all animals, all cows are fed grass for the first part of their lives. But it's really kind of the finishing profile. What did it eat in the last 30 to 90 days of its life? That's kind of what ends up on your, your plate. And so you want to find 100% grass fed and grass finished. Grass fed won't always mean that, but you can inquire about the practices. You can go to farmers markets, you can call the company. We also have a service called Wild Pastures Delivery, which is only from regenerative farms and always grass fed and grass finish. And then when it comes to chickens, you see things like free range and cage free. And this, this is very, very tricky, right, because a lot of times cage free chickens raised for meat aren't usually put in cages anyway. So that doesn't really mean what we think it does. And they can be in a huge warehouse with hundreds to thousands of other chickens and not actually be outside. And sometimes when you see free range, they only have to have a door somewhere that is access to the outside. It doesn't even need to be a pasture and they might not even ever use it. So you actually want to pastured chickens, right? Chickens that live outside you also see vegetarian fed. Okay, well, chickens, they're, you know, opportunistic foragers. Right. So if they're vegetarian fed, that almost guarantees that they're going to be raised in a warehouse, that they're not going to be pastured. And so, and the same thing goes for pork. Pork. It's funny when you look at like there's something called the omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acid ratio and I'm sure you've talked about it, a lot of people think we need a really balanced 1 to 1 ratio or 4 to 1 ratio of omega 6s. But, but pork has a ratio of like 35 to 1. So it's a very, very skewed ratio because of the way that we're feeding our pigs. We work with a farmer and he did his own experiment and he was able to, just by putting the pigs on pasture, which doesn't always happen, and letting them eat grass, he was able to bring that ratio back into balance. Pigs that are out on pasture also have higher levels of vitamin D. They live healthier, happier lives. And so, so yeah, just look for pastured and look for 100% grass fed and grass finish and there's something called the American Grass Fed Association. This is a third party certification that comes in and actually visits the farm. A lot of these claims are based on affidavits or just like, oh, this is what I'm doing. But no one is really checking on it. And so I always, if you're really passionate about it, go to the aga, find out where their farmers are. Or you can, like I said, use wild pastures, because we do that homework for you. And also if you are local, you know, go find your local farmers market and talk to the farmers. Because we also want to be supporting the farmers in our bioregion and incentivizing them to use the kinds of practices, to use these practices. Because farmers can't take the leap from that conventional system into a more regenerative system without a consumer demand. And so it's important.

Absolutely. I love that you call those out. We'll link them out for sure. And you know, I think for some people, this reeducation, it might take a little bit of effort on your part to just do the research, have a conversation with the butcher, understand where your food comes from and the quality of life of these animals. Like, this past weekend, we drove to Bakersfield, California. I'd never been there before, but we're driving by like tons of cattle farms and looking in, I remember driving by one specifically. There was like massive signs saying, no visitors allowed. No visitors allowed. But peeking through, you could see hundreds of cows literally locked up in these small cages divided by rows of, like, they couldn't even move from left to right. I'm thinking about this, okay, so if these are being bred for people to consume, they're not getting sunlight, they're not outside. There's no exposure to real grass. God knows what they're eating, but what they're consuming and how they're feeling is also part of the nutrients that you're gonna be taking into your body. It doesn't stop there. Like, it goes into you. And this is where, like, I wish that we could put faith into our food system and trust where our food comes from and trust that it was safe for us and trust that it was nutrient dense. But it really is gonna take this education, but also advocacy for us to demand higher quality products. And this is where, like, I admire you so much. The difference in the quality with wild pastures is just incredible. It's night and day, the taste, the everything. My husband was like such a massive, massive fan and just noticing the difference. And like, you really do notice the difference, right? Bottom line. And you will never go back once you taste the difference.

Oh yeah, that is the number one thing we hear because people are always like, oh, is it going to taste different? Because there's a, this perception that's not going to be good. But people love it. It's so flavorful. And Dr. Van Vliet has also done a lot of research, I was talking about that, the metabolomics. And he finds that grass based systems create animal products in some cases that have as many phytonutrients as plants, like as eggplants. Right. So the diversity and the array. And also this is really interesting. Dr. Fred Provenza does this research on satiety and saying like perhaps us simplifying our animals diet so much led to a decreased intake of these phytonutrients that then somehow they're what make us feel full and satiated. So that's why you can eat far less grass fed steak and still feel really satisfied potentially as opposed to being able to eat much larger amounts. So yeah, it's just this, it's this tie to the land, right. And the plants and everything growing in that environment that you're missing out on in the cafo. And potentially as moms across America just did this, this research and they found, you know, veterinary hormones and antibiotics in residues in our fast food meats. And that is also equally concerning. So it's not only about what the animal's eating, but also the hormones like ractopamine, which is banned in 160 countries but still can be used here. Antibiotics again, if we continue to use 73% of the antibiotics used are used in animals and there is regulation but a lot of people are still using them and they still end up in our meat and they still allow those pathogens, pathogens to mutate and maybe create a day where we can't use antibiotics anymore. They don't work for simple and routine procedures. So yeah, we really need an awakening around how we're creating our food. And we have to remember as consumers we drive the market. Right. So we don't need to settle, but we do need to participate every single time because we're the ones driving that change.

And the more that we participate, you know, when we're thinking about the costs that are associated with purchasing higher quality products of all types, they have to come down. If the demand is there, then they have to come down over time. I think that we need to direct these big food companies into just creating safer products for us.

Yeah. And that was one of the, that was literally the Major inspiration in wild pastures because as a nutritionist I was like, oh, go get grass fed meats. But then I had to come. I came face to face with the reality that most people, people a couldn't find them and when they did, they're too expensive. Right. They're just far more expensive. And so we had to be so creative, right? Like whole animal utilization, you know, solar powered facilities. I mean it's 40% cheaper but we work really hard at that because we think everybody deserves to be able to make this shift and participate in this. Who wants to do it. So yeah, I think it can be done. It's really hard. And even through the inflation, like we haven't raised our prices really. So. So we're really, really committed to that. Because it isn't fair. Right? You shouldn't have to pay way more for high quality food, even though you do now. But like you're saying the more of us that choose that, the better it will become and more readily available.

It's happening.

Yeah, it is.

And when you think about these cows, you know, grass fed, being out in the land eating what's under the sun, what is grown in these like nutrient dense soils. Can you share a little bit? I know you're such an advocate in this world also, I think the source of life for all of us is, you know, the source of our food and the impact of conventional farming on our soil system and what that's doing to the quality of produce but also the quality of feed for our animals. Can you share the difference between also like let this be something that drives your decision to purchase more grass fed or like high quality pasture raised protein. Like talk to us a little bit about the quality of soil and what you're seeing. Because I know that this was also a big inspiration for wall pastures also.

Yes, because we heard and now people have said this quote isn't necessarily entirely accurate, but two years of topsoil left, we have 60 harvests and we thought our son could see a day where he can't grow his own food. But what is true is that our, the nutrient content in our food supply is lower than at any other time in history. And this isn't, you know, there's many theories, but this isn't necessarily because the nutrients aren't in there. It's because the relationship between the microbes, the plants. Because the microbes actually make the nutrients in the soil available to the plants. They're like a little taxi system. But these microbes are decimated by chemicals, right? Pesticides, insecticides, Herbicides by tillage. When we take a piece of land and we till it up and turn it over, that destroys these microbial relationships. And so we're depleting our topsoil at rate maybe like 10 times, it depends on the region, but 10 times faster than we're actually building it. And so this is an existential threat, right? If we don't have topsoil, we don't have food, 97% of our calories, they come directly from the soil. If we don't have soil, we don't have water security, right? A lot of water is, is held in our soil. We have carbon issues, right? Because a lot of the carbon that's in our air and atmosphere should be in the soil. But practices like tillage and killing that microbial biology, they lead to carbon being emitted. We don't have biodiversity, right? We know we're kind of the only species that's come along and said we want to make just a huge plot of land grow one thing, right? Nature is diverse and diversity is resilient, right? So we have to use these chemicals because we're trying to grow one thing, and then, and then we try and kill all the things that are attacking that one thing. But we're working actively against nature. Whereas when we embrace that we need to cultivate these populations underneath the soil, that leads to the explosion of life above the soil, and then that leads to resilient and sustainable source of food and soil that's going to hold our water, that's going to create every. Literally everything we make, right, is coming from something that we grew in the soil. So we don't often think about how important it is that our soil is being depleted really quickly. But it, like I said, is an existential threat. And I think it's some. It's like it's the task of our generation to rehabilitate, to become aware of the soil and how what we're doing and what we're buying is either contributing to deteriorating our soil or contributing to the rebuild of soil. And that's what regenerative agriculture is all about. And that isn't always the same as grass fed. You know, it's a different. There's like three types of agriculture happening, right? There's conventional downward trend, we're making something worse, we're taking more than we're putting back in. Then there's something like organic, right? Sustainable, it's not making it worse, but it's not always making it better. But regenerative is looking at a plot of land, looking at the soil and taking it from where it is to a higher or more worthy state. And because we're in this position where our soil is being depleted so rapidly and the dominant forum from agriculture is conventional agriculture, we don't have a choice but to choose the upward trajectory and to support those farmers and ranchers who are moving in that direction, because that is a gamble for them a lot of times, because the conventional system, you know, they have more like controls and supports and subsidies. And people who are choosing regenerative are doing it a lot of times because it's in their heart, like, they want to participate in something that they find inspiring and that they see future generations benefiting from. But I think it's really important that we. We support those farmers and ranchers who are doing things that are working with nature, because what nature, humans, plants, we're all one indivisible. Right. We don't get to treat the earth poorly and then expect to have good health. We can't.

Ultimately, we have to do this in order to save the future of our food.

Yes, yes, yes, we do. For our kids and.

Yeah.

Even for ourselves. Yeah.

In my mind, I honestly see farmers as our first line of defense when it comes to our healthcare. And yet they're not giving the attention, the funding, the tools, the recognition that they deserve. Right. Like, I really do pray that the future is seeing farmers on a pedestal because they really hold the answers to a lot of the issues that are causing our imbalances and disease. Do you agree?

Oh, my goodness. Farmers are my people. I come from Montana, and, you know, they're often thought of as, you know, I don't know. But what I'm seeing is they're scientists, they're experimenters, they're leaders. When I meet regenerative farmers, they are captivated and so inspired. And you see them, young people are coming back. Right. Farming has had one of the highest rates of suicide because it's been a system where nobody wins. Right. Everybody is losing in that current system. But regenerative agriculture is reigniting a passion and just like the. This, like, curious spirit I see. And they're really some of the most remarkable people I've ever met. Yeah. Okay.

I don't. I really want to, like, pin that out. Find regenerative farmers. Find companies who are supporting this regenerative movement because you are creating impact for the future of our food, period. I think that that's, like, one of the biggest takeaways that you can act on right away. And like, farmers, if they just had the Tools and resources to undo the damage from the tilling, which is possible. And I think that there just needs to be more tools for them. You know, in your meeting with farmers, would you say that this process of going regenerative, does it seem too out of scope for them? Does it seem like there's a big expense? What are you hearing from farmers?

Yeah, I think, yes, definitely. And that's why we tried to help farmers transition and provide that demand. Right. That's why we knew so many of these farmers and ranchers. And that's where they're saying was like, I'm so passionate about regenerative ag, but I can't do it and go all in because I don't know that someone else will be on the other end. And so we're more marketers, right. And we thought, okay, well, we will help create the demand and ensure that you have people who want your products on the other side, so. So you can go ahead and transition. So, yeah, we've helped a lot of them transition this full time, but otherwise, yeah, it's a gamble. Right. If you say, well, my family's been doing this for 10 years, I know there's going to be subsidies. If it's a bad year, someone's going to cover us. But those subsidies go away when you choose to kind of go outside the system. And there can be years, many hard years in between going conventional and then having a very profitable regenerative system. But there's really cool people like Dr. Alan Williams, Gabe Brown at Understanding Ag, and they say it can be profitable almost right away once you know what to do. And so if you're someone thinking about it or, you know, a farmer wanting to transition, I highly recommend you speak to them quickly and right away because they can expedite your process considerably. But I do hear constantly that it is a far more rewarding system and that the struggle will be 100% worth it. And I believe with every fiber of my being that that's where it's going. It is the future. And so we just have to help them get over that little hump.

I think that this could be one of the most profound industry changes. Right. And for people listening, I don't know about you, my parents both had access to farms, put me on a farm, and I wouldn't know what to do. I can grow things, but I could not grow food to sustain my family. And that's a problem. Right. I think if I had a choice, I would love to source out farmers and interview them and like, just making Farmers, cool again, you know, even taking our kids. When my son saw how broccoli was grown, he was then interested in broccoli. When my daughter could pick strawberries and raspberries from, like, in the wild and just pick them off the branch and eat them, she was so much more inspired to understand, like, oh, my God, this was grown in nature. And giving them that connection to food is so powerful and empowering for their health in the future.

It really is. And I feel we're in a bubble. We're in Colorado, so we go down and we get our milk and we have a farm right behind us. And so we do have that connection. But it's amazing, right? We all. I hope that can find a small part of that, right? Even if it's a community garden, even if it's. You get out of town a little bit, even if it's. You go to a farmer's market. But I think we have. We've completely lost touch with how our food is produced. And I think it is the root of much suffering. And so if we can just become more connected and remember that every time we're buying something, a food, we're voting for it, essentially, even if it's unconscious, that, yeah, we become really powerful agents of change. And, yeah, my son, he wants to his business to be when he's old enough eggs, he wants to raise chickens, he wants to sell local eggs. And I just think it's beautiful, right?

It's amazing feeding people. Oh, my gosh. And just knowing how to do that. I'm going to come visit you.

You should. I would love that. Please do.

I would love that. Just expose my kids to as much of this as possible. And something that I just adore about you and this concept that we keep touching on is trusting in nature, trusting in what nature gives us and, like, the tools that are within nature to really help us thrive. I wanted to touch base on, like, the amazing supplements that are created with Paleo Valley. As a nutritionist, I can tell you, like, the supplement world is a hot mess. There are so many products out there that are being pitched and advertised that are funded by, like, so much money to put out the sexiest marketing campaign. And I've been taking your turmeric complex and vitamin C now for about two months. I noticeable difference. And I want to share this because on one podcast, I remembered I couldn't get my wedding ring on after a little accident that I had. I've been taking those two, and I really believe that the synergistic approach around Lowering inflammation in the body and the high dose of antioxidants that I'm getting have really been a contributor. So I just wanted to shout that out. But can you share a little bit about the inspiration for you to go into the supplement world and the difference of Paleo Valley and what exists out there?

Oh, I love that. Thank you for sharing that story. That makes me so happy. So really our supplement line was born out of. I don't like organ meats. I don't want to eat them because when I got pregnant I heard about liver and its ability to help with iron related issues and I just felt energized whenever I consumed it, even though I, I hated the taste. So we went and did an organ complex supplement and then I realized, wow, there's a lot of these foods, these medicinal foods that so many people don't have access to. Right. And many people don't want to consume on a regular basis. Right. Turmeric every day. Turmeric is one of the most well studied anti inflammatory foods, substances, spices on the planet.

Right.

But you don't want to eat turmeric every day. And so all of our supplements are just foods and they're all food. You'll see nothing synthetic. We're not going to have an isolated synthetic ingredient anywhere. And they're always organic and they're always encapsulated so that you know, no matter who you are, where you are, or what you love to eat, or where your palate is, you can still experience the benefits of these ancient foods. So we have organ meats, obviously, medicinal mushrooms, like you said, turmeric. We even do an apple cider vinegar complex and we have a lot more coming out. A fish roe, that's another one. Fish roe was used historically for pregnant moms and developing children. And it's literally nature's multivitamin. But who has access to fish roe? I mean, who is consuming roe on a regular basis and who is consuming organ meats on a regular basis? That's the other nature's multivitamin. So yeah, they're whole food. Because as Van Vliet is so brilliantly elucidating, foods contain hundreds, thousands of compounds that we are just beginning to understand. And so if we could find a way to get people to consume them regularly, clearly I think it could be a huge needle mover.

I'm a big believer in food first always. But to your point, you mentioned the quality of the foods that we're getting today are just not as nutrient dense as they used to be. And so this is where I really think that you can be very strategic about the supplements that you're taking in terms of helping your optimization, in terms of helping you feel great. You noticed a difference when you started using organization meats and shifting that to a supplement. Is this a supplement that you take pretty consistently?

I take the organs almost every day. Almost every day. Because I do, I notice. And if you look at our reviews, there's people, and I see this a lot in the 50 plus crowd. They're like, whoa, it's like my stamina, my endurance, it's so different. And they do. There was a rat test in the 1950s and they identified an anti fit fatigue factor. And it isn't B vitamins because they fed the other group B vitamins, but these mice who got the liver swam like eight times longer and some of them never even stopped swimming. So yeah, and athletes use them. And iron related issues. It's the copper, it's the vitamin A, it's the iron, it's all of them working together. There was a Nobel peace Prize in 1934 that went to the scientists who discovered that liver could actually cure pernicious anemia. And it's not the same as just taking iron. So, yeah, I take organs every single day. I don't take everything we make every single day, but the organs is one that I definitely take. It's one of the richest sources of B12 in the human diet. And Dr. Thai Beals research has shown it's literally organ meats are the most nutrient dense foods in the nutrients most people are deficient in. And so, yeah, it's just kind of my insurance policy.

I love it. And I feel what I feel when reading the supplement label on your brand is like a completely different ball game than reading from, you know, a lot of big supplement manufacturers. And it's that same truth. It's like, oh my gosh, I understand what these ingredients are, so you should feel safer about putting them into your body. So Paleo Valley is definitely a brand that I just, I love and I trust also because obviously I felt a massive difference. So, so grateful for you. Just like being an advocate for this. And I think that a lot of it, why it's so powerful is because of your story. Like you are living and breathing the essence of health optimization. Because like you like when you get to a point where your health is compromised, like, nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. And so, you know, would you say life is busy? Tell us a little bit about when you feel yourself drifting from your optimization plan. What do you do? What does that mean for you?

Well, yeah, and I just want to share too. I did not even share this, but I used to be a celebrity fitness trainer. I worked for Tracy Anderson for years and I went on a tour with Jennifer Lopez and I looked so fit and I was not well. It was like I was really struggling. And so it's just different. Fit and well are really different. And now when I see myself veering, luckily I don't veer a lot because it's just the results are so clear. Right When I don't take care of myself, I'm not the kind of mom I want to be. I don't have energy. I just feel like a dim version of myself, like soda with no bubbles. But when I do, and sometimes I do, I usually just give myself a date. I'm starting here and I'm just gonna slowly get back. A lot of times I actually use fasting too, because it's a really quick way to bring me back into alignment with myself. I find that I don't. I listen to myself a lot more easily when I do a little intermittent fasting or just like I do a 24 hour fast like once a month, probably just dinner to dinner. And so I'll do that. And sometimes I just focus on more high quality animal products, right. As kind of the basic. And that keeps me so satiated. Sometimes I'll do a bone broth day, right? We take our bone broth powder and I'll consume that just during the day and just kind of get my cravings under control. So I have a lot of different tools and it kind of just depends on where I'm at and how I'm feeling, which one I use. But it doesn't take long for me to want to go back. This is a dramatic difference for me.

Yeah, I know a lot of people are going to be really inspired by your story. And I think that the biggest obstacle for the majority of my clients is just losing food addiction. You know, we're consuming a lot of foods that are highly palatable that we adopt addiction to, and we think that we can't give them up. But you said it yourself, you go through this transition where your palate just shifts, you start craving different foods. And to own in on what you just said, once you start feeling incredible in your body, there is no going back. And it's not to say that you can't have fun foods or enjoy. I mean, there's a time and a place for that, but your body can handle it from a Place of balance. Right. Versus a place of inflammation where you're just fueling the fire. Your body can handle it from a place of balance. And you're making better options, too. I'm sure you're making pretty safer options when it comes to the splurge category.

Oh, definitely. That's my goal. I'm going to have a food. All the foods I love will eventually be Paleo Valley products. And yeah, when it comes to cravings, I think simple things. Right. Just spirulina. I don't know if anyone's ever. I mean, spirulina will take my cravings away. Apple cider vinegar, even just you had the complex. Or in a glass of water or really high quality protein. Right. So, you know, just drinking more water. So, yeah, there's a lot of ways, a lot of simple shifts, a lot of, you know, just tiny, small steps in the right direction that you can take. Take also amino acids. I don't know, we don't even sell one.

Right.

But there's one by. What's it called? Janessa. I love Julia. Not Julia Roberts. I've forgotten her name. Do you know who I'm talking about? The amino acid. Oh, Julia Ross. Julia Ross. She creates a great amino acid supplement that will help with cravings as well. So that I have no affiliation to that, but it's just something I've seen be really popular, powerful for people who are having trouble taking that first step.

Amazing, amazing tips. Okay, to wrap things up, I'm going to take you through just a few rapid fire questions. Ready?

Okay. Yeah.

So how do you think people are making healing and health too complicated?

They're looking to someone else to tell them what to do.

Amazing. What is your favorite ancient healing remedy?

Authentic relationship.

Ooh, connection. Yeah. Connection.

Yes. People you can be all of yourself with.

I love that. If you had to pick something about modern medicine that excites you, what would it be?

Oh, longevity, health span. Increasing health span. I want to see my son turn 100 so bad and having that quality of life. I've seen so many people I love deteriorate and have a long life. But not a long life with. With quality. Not a long life where they're moving around and thriving. I'm really excited about when we can live till we're 80 and all of us are biking and doing ballet classes.

I want to be hiking with my grandkids. I say that all the time.

Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. On that mountain. What are the top three things that we can start doing right now to optimize our health.

Ooh. I think Whole Foods, obviously Whole Foods. Slow down and listen and get outside.

Beautiful. If you could leave our listeners with just one takeaway that you are most passionate about right now, what would it be?

I say I hope that everyone understands that food can be medicine. And that is especially true when it's raised regeneratively, because it's medicine for you. It's medicine for the planet. It's medicine for your grandchildren. It's just. It's medicine for everyone.

I hope you hear this, Autumn. You are just really inspiring people to make such big changes that could impact their health. And it just means a lot to me. Gosh, as a woman, as a mother, to see you doing this and to own in on this foundation of trusting in nature, looking at the source of where our food comes from, building relationships with farmers. Farmers. Knowing where all of your foods and supplements come from. And not only that, being a thought leader in the space of creating products that are actually serving our health is a big deal. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'm so grateful for your time, and I'm cheering you on. I'm gonna come visit you so that we can go take our kids to farms together.

Oh, my gosh, yes. We have to be friends. I gotta say, your voice in this podcast was memorable. One of my favorites ever. And I can tell that it means something to you. And I'm a huge fan of your work, too. So thank you, Mona. This has been amazing.

Amazing. All right.