Jenny Bradley’s life changed in an instant when she heard the three short words none of us ever wants to hear: You have cancer. The holiday season was just around the corner, and Jenny had spent the last two years with a lump in her breast that her family doctor had declared benign. Now a specialist was telling her it wasn’t. This unexpected news set Jenny on a path that transformed her health, led her to cook and begin a business that supports cancer patients and their families.
A life-altering diagnosis, collaborative treatments and living with cancer
Jenny’s breast cancer was hormone driven and, based on her pathology results, chemotherapy was off the table. Radiation was a no-go, too. Surgery was possible, but not for at least six months. A single drug offered potential, yet it had several dangerous side effects (including an increased risk of several more cancers). Jenny asked her oncologist for some time to think about her treatment path.
This interlude allowed Jenny the bandwidth to launch into research mode for additional options that could help. Her career as a pastor and college-level instructor in Christian education meant she was familiar with reading, analytical thinking and interpreting dense texts. She applied those skills to anti-cancer research, while also connecting with an integrative clinic near her home in Kansas.
“I knew I wanted to bring in a holistic perspective and support my body in addition to the allopathic recommendations,” she says. “I was intentional about building a team with a variety of perspectives.”
Jenny was only in her 30s at the time of diagnosis. Over the course of six months, she tried a litany of treatments as well as supplementation based on deficiencies in her blood work.
She also began incorporating therapeutic anti-cancer foods, as well as avoiding certain foods that could potentially contribute to tumor progression and overall poor health. With very little background in nutrition or cooking (she grew up eating meals that came from a can or a box), Jenny soon discovered the vast impact food could have on her cancer journey.
“I wasn’t ever taught the importance of nutritional choices until my diagnosis,” she points out. “I began to make intentional dietary choices, choosing to nourish my body. I always consider, ‘What can I eat in my next meal to give my cells information to help with healing?’”
At the end of her six-month self-imposed trial period, the results were so impressive Jenny decided to continue along the path she was on, adding new alternative therapies as indicated along with some medical treatments like cryoablation to keep her cancer at bay.
Four years on, while Jenny is not considered in ‘remission’, her cancer hasn’t spread or advanced – something Jenny and her entire healthcare team celebrate.
“People are so used to the traditional story of diagnosis, chemo, radiation, surgery and then getting to say ‘I’m cancer free’,” she points out. “Yes, I’m thriving, but I’m still living with a chronic disease.”
Her journey prompted Jenny to consider traditional cancer narratives and how she could help people navigate through the experience.
“It seems like people hear the word ‘cancer’ and think it’s a death sentence. In reality, it’s more like an opportunity to reboot one’s life and learn how to better care for ourselves,” she says. “I don’t want to battle myself. That sounds exhausting. So, I am on a healing journey; not a battle. How we frame our disease is just as important as the treatment we choose.”
Pursuing culinary education and discovering her own potential
Jenny enrolled in Everyday Herbal, one of the short online courses offered at the Academy of Culinary Nutrition, because of her interest in herbs and a desire to learn more about their health-supportive properties. She was hooked on the learning and soon signed up for Everyday Culinary Nutrition, which teaches students how to cook simple, nutritious meals from scratch.
After the confidence she gained in those two courses, Jenny knew she could successfully handle the 14-week Culinary Nutrition Expert Program certification.
“I had almost zero cooking skills before I joined the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program. I knew I shouldn’t cut my fingers off,” she says laughing. “I had already started to learn about nutrients and why they matter, but I needed someone to show me how to do things better.”
Jenny relished the program modules, tackling new recipes and culinary skills, gathering instantly applicable knowledge, and working with her program coach (who she stays in touch with to this day).
“You reap the rewards of what you’re learning every week and this course is definitely not boring,” she says. “Since I like to learn, I’ve been in a lot of online courses. The way you do things is unlike any other course I’ve ever been in.”
Jenny completed the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program in 2020 alongside her treatments. Some days, she would drive three hours one way for specialized therapies, lugging along her laptop to watch modules, work on homework or participate in live classes. Amid the hard work, Jenny discovered an unexpected source of inspiration: the Academy of Culinary Nutrition community.
“There’s so much of a personal touch in the program. Our whole community is really supportive and there’s a lot of camaraderie,” she says. “I didn’t know I was looking for community – but I found it.”
Jenny didn’t join the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program to start her own business. A few weeks in, she recognized she had an immense amount of knowledge, tools and insights that could help others on their cancer journey.
“The program assignments helped me realize this and create content that I could use in my business,” she says.
“There’s so much of a personal touch in the program. Our whole community is really supportive and there’s a lot of camaraderie,” she says. “I didn’t know I was looking for community – but I found it.”
Launching Shrink The Mutant School, resources and coaching
Jenny has fielded numerous questions from friends and family about living with cancer over the last few years. Shortly before joining the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program, she launched her website Shrink The Mutant to provide resources that empower people living with cancer, and to teach friends and family how to support their loved ones during the process.
By taking the Biz Rocking Insider Program, an optional add-on component to the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program, Jenny was able to crystallize what she had to give, refine her services, and explore ways to showcase her personality and make it fun.
In the Fall of 2021, Jenny launched The Anti-Cancer Meals Workshop, an online, on-demand course that teaches patients how to make easy recipes, particularly ones they can have before, during and after their treatments and appointments.
Plus, as cancer health care can be expensive, she has a Fundraising Framework workshop that teaches tips and strategies to raise funds for treatments.
On the horizon, Jenny is planning for a lengthier online course called The Confident Cancer Thriver and hopes to launch her own podcast. As a cancer thriver herself, navigating the disease and its challenges day to day, Jenny knows how crucial support, hope and advice can be.
“In my coaching, I empower people to nourish their bodies, and help to filter information and guide them to evidence-based supports,” she says. “Seeing a cancer patient smile when they realize there is hope and they can thrive is so rewarding.”
The topic for this week’s note comes from a friend and someone I hugely admire – Laura Dodsworth. I did a podcast with Laura here (Ref 1). Laura wrote, in my view, the most important book of the Covid era. It was called “A State of Fear: How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic.” It was published in May 2021.
When something new and uncertain emerges, (Covid-19 in the case of early 2020), the role of leadership is surely to reassure and unite populations. UK politicians and health officials initially adopted this stance. Chris Whitty has been Chief Medical Officer for England since 2019. In this video from spring 2020, Whitty said, “The chance of anybody watching this dying of coronavirus are (sic) actually low. Over the whole epidemic, even if we have no vaccine, a high proportion of people will not get this…” (Ref 2). Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Government Chief Scientific Advisor Patrick Vallance were similarly calm and reassuring in the early days (Ref 3).
The reassuring narrative sadly did not last long. The position of politicians and government officials shifted overnight to a deliberate strategy to instil fear. Back in 2020, I was reading minutes from government coronavirus meetings as soon as they became available. A document dated 22nd March 2020, entitled “Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures”, written by the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B), said the following: “A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened… The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging” (Ref 4). This was reiterated in an academic paper, published online in May 2020 (Ref 5).
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Well, hello my friends, and welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, aka Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show about a rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis that no longer exists.
We’re talking to my friend Aline McCarthy. She is a fellow Functional Diagnostic Nutrition practitioner, except she is all the way across the pond, and I mean all the way, in Sydney, Australia. So pretty cool that we get to talk to someone from Australia. This is probably the third or fourth time it’s happened on the show in almost 200 episodes now, which is absolutely crazy to think about.
But one thing that is not so cool about these conversations is the fact that I’m talking to someone who is thousands and thousands of miles away from me, flying, and yet they have the exact same problems in terms of healthcare problems in their country as we do in the United States.
How can it be that I talk to people from Europe, from Canada, from Australia, all over the world, and yet they have such similar problems to the ones that we have here in terms of this. Because there’s more socialized healthcare certain places, there’s private healthcare, some places. I’m not saying it’s those problems, I mean, each of those systems has its own problems, right?
I’m talking about the problems where people have mystery symptoms and don’t get answers. I’m talking about the problems where someone goes into a doctor and gets told that nothing’s wrong with them. I’m talking about the problems where the client or the patient finds themselves in the cycle of trial and error that we describe in the FDN course.
Help Us Get the Word Out
Just going from doctor to doctor, trying pill after pill, after pill, perhaps supplement after supplement, and even diet to diet. How is it happening all over the world? It leads me to believe, because I don’t really know what else I would believe with this knowledge, that there’s a bigger issue here, right? This stems way higher up than we might initially realize.
I don’t mean that in some strange conspiracy way necessarily, although I love a good conspiracy. I’m saying it in the sense of we need to think bigger if we actually want to solve these things. One of the best ways to do this is to be on the ground as well, right? You can start super small, but also think big.
It is amazing to be able to do what we do as FDNs and get to just work with the average person one on one. We’re going to need a heck of a lot of FDNs to get that done though. If you really want to help this while you’re working with these people one on one, while you’re helping people with coaching or programs or courses, it’s also good to share this message as much as possible.
Start your own podcast. Spread this one. Spread another one that you like, whatever it might be. Because to really solve these issues, yes, we need to do the groundwork right now, but we need to constantly be pushing up higher and higher and higher. Because that’s probably where the issue is actually stemming from. I digress.
Figuring Out the Arthritis Diagnosis Independently
We’re talking to Aline today about her own health journey. You know, she got diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in her early thirties and it didn’t really make sense. She was a pretty healthy person. No one could tell her why she got this. No one was able to help her. It got so bad, actually because RA can be pretty debilitating. It got so bad that she couldn’t even play with her own kid. That’s an issue.
So, like many people that get on this podcast, she decided, although this is noble, it sucks that people have to do this. She decided that she was going to take matters into her own hands and figure out what was going on with her. Well, we’re very thankful that she did because it led to her not only becoming an FDN, but also helping other people around the world.
At the time of recording this, she has over 30,000 followers on Instagram, like real followers because of the information that she’s sharing. So, I highly recommend going and following her. Her Instagram is at the wellnesswitches, and you can find her at thewellnesswitches.com.au if you are in Australia.
I know I don’t normally shout out the websites and handles and stuff in the beginning of the episode, but the reason I’m doing that today is because it is kind of a rare opportunity that we get someone from Australia on. And when I look at the analytics, I believe Australia is country number four in terms of our most listened places.
I think it’s United States, Canada, UK, Australia in that order. So, we see you guys. We appreciate the other countries that are coming up and along here. We hope you guys enjoy this episode.
Screwing Up People’s Health Universally
Without further ado, let’s get to it.
All right. Hello there, Aline. Thanks so much for being here with us today.
[00:04:24] Detective Ev: Yeah, you as well. This is cool because I was saying to you before we started recording, if I’m not mistaken, this is only the third guest we’ve ever had that was actually physically in Australia during the time of recording.
I’ve met plenty of people from there, but it’s interesting to be talking to someone, completely different time zone, morning time your time, right? 5:00 PM here in Pennsylvania in the United States. So, it’s cool. It just shows too that what we’re doing is a global thing and it’s a global need. This is not just something limited to America. I think we’re doing a very good job of leading the way of screwing up people’s health. But it’s not limited to America. It is other places as well.
I’m excited to hear more about your story today and learn about you. This is one of those times guys, for those of you that are regular listeners, it’s my favorite type of podcast because I have a fellow practitioner with me and yet we don’t really know much of anything about each other. So, it leads to a super honest and natural conversation.
The first question I’d like to start with today, Aline, is what we typically always start with in this podcast. What did your health symptoms look like? I know that’s an assumption, but usually people don’t get into this space by accident. I’m going to assume that maybe you had some health issues starting out. And if that’s correct, what did those look like?
Terrible Pain and a Rheumatoid Arthritis Diagnosis
[00:05:33] Aline McCarthy: Yeah, you’re correct with that assumption.
Well, throughout my twenties I had recurrent thrush and UDIs, anxiety, mood issues, and would sort of get panic attacks and stuff like that. That was still in Germany, so I’m actually German, but I then moved to Sydney in my late twenties and started working here.
I was still in a different industry, in the film industry back then. I started having babies and then, as it often is, the stress, the sleepless nights, the hormonal ups and downs of pregnancy and childbirth and postpartum time accumulated to me having absolutely debilitating chronic back pain.
There was a little bit of a structural issue, but then in the end, no one could really explain why the pain wouldn’t improve, why it wouldn’t go away. I saw every doctor that I could get access to. In the end, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called rheumatoid arthritis. I was put on the steroid drugs and treatment.
I still didn’t get any improvement. So that diagnosis was kind of revoked because nobody really knew what was going on with me. I was basically just put on long term, incredible, disruptive painkillers to manage the pain, but there was basically no help from the conventional side. Nobody wanted to see me anymore, and I was absolutely desperate because I had tiny children.
I couldn’t pick them up, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t sleep. I then started to see some integrative doctors and it kind of pushed me into the direction of investigating very deeply what was actually going on with me. That’s how I found functional medicine and fell in love with it. I am absolutely pain free now.
An Arthritis Diagnosis: The Autoimmunne Epidemic
[00:07:23] Detective Ev: Awesome. The thing that people don’t realize with rheumatoid arthritis sometimes is a stereotype in their head of the old person with some pain in their knuckles. I’m not lessening that, I’m sure that’s not fun either. But rheumatoid arthritis is a lot more than that.
It can be debilitating for some people as it sounds like it was starting to become, if not actually did become for you. I mean, the fact that you can’t even interact with your children, that’s serious. And I’m sorry, I may have missed the timeline. So, by the time you got the diagnosis, are you in your twenties still? Are you in your early thirties?
[00:07:54] Aline McCarthy: I was in my early thirties then. This was after I had my second child. Everything, just my whole health sort of started collapsing. I still don’t know what actually was going on other than I obviously started to discover I had gut issues and hormonal issues. I had to start working my way through that to get better.
[00:08:12] Detective Ev: Yeah. That’s the thing. That doesn’t meet the stereotypical picture of this at all where someone might think of like some old person. It’s like, okay, you were in your early thirties. You should be in basically the prime of your life in many senses. Yet here you are with this. I find this is so common in America as well, the autoimmune epidemic.
I mean, cancer is something that everyone talks about, right? We know it as a serious thing. If someone in our family that we love gets diagnosed with cancer, it’s immediately taken to a hundred percent. You’re like, whoa, we need to take care of this person.
An Arthritis Diagnosis: Possibility of Decades of Suffering
Cancer can be more deadly than a lot of autoimmune diseases, generally speaking. But autoimmune disease is an epidemic. There are so many different types. A lot of the people that have autoimmune diseases end up getting more than one. And it can be debilitating in its own sense, right?
There’s usually, thankfully, not this ticking time bomb over the person’s head where they’re wondering how much time they have left. Some autoimmune diseases, that can be. But the difference is for this person that if you don’t get the help, as you know, because Western medicine was not able to help you with this, even with their treatments, you can suffer with these things for decades and never get any relief.
So, when you started to study this outside of yourself, I have a question. I’m curious about this and the regular listeners know, I’m kind of obsessed with this question. I’d love to know what was going through people’s minds at the time. You started doing your own research. I get that. I want to know why.
What I mean by that is, Aline, there are so many people that I know, and I don’t know if this is a common theme in what you’re seeing in Australia, but I would assume this is universal, there are many people that I know that are like you. They get the diagnosis, the treatment doesn’t work, but then they quit for maybe a variety of reasons.
Maybe they just don’t believe that they could possibly know more than the doctor, they don’t trust themselves, whatever it might be, but they quit. They don’t keep doing their own research. So, why did you believe that you could even figure this out? Why didn’t you just throw in the towel?
There’s More Than Just Taking Prescription Drugs
[00:10:05] Aline McCarthy: Well, first of all, my upbringing in Germany there was a lot of access to homeopathics, homeopathic medicine. Even GPs in Germany back in the eighties and nineties when I was a kid were quite open to, particularly with children, first try an herbal cough syrup or something herbal rather than giving prescription meds to children. There was still a lot of antibiotic use going on even back then.
But then also my husband is an osteopath here in Australia. So, I was already on the side of integrative medicine and other options. I was already open to that, I suppose, compared to other people. I already believed that there is more to it than just taking a prescription drug.
[00:10:54] Detective Ev: Fair enough. I was curious about that. That’s interesting because I’ve interviewed a few people from definitely European backgrounds, but especially Eastern Europe. I find that not only are they very into the Eastern medicine, no pun intended, but they are almost like rebellious against Western medicine sometimes.
We have a local business here in Pennsylvania, and the one woman that comes in, her mom is Ukrainian. I’m not recommending this, right. We all know that we should be using Western medicine when we can and then using functional medicine when it’s appropriate. But she does not want to use a dang thing Western medicine wise. It is like, I only want to do the natural, and I respect it. There’s a time and place for both.
But I find it interesting that America has become the exact opposite. Even if people know that there might be natural ways, they still just want to take the pill and see what can happen. There’s no personal responsibility in the mix.
Osteopathic Treatment, Acupuncture, and Other Body Works
So, I give anyone, especially you, a lot of credit for taking that journey and just saying, hey, you know what? I think I can figure this out, I’m going to try to.
What were some of the first things in your research that you came across that maybe worked for you? When I say worked for you, it’s not like it had to work a hundred percent. But typically, how these stories go is we do our own research, we start experimenting with different natural things, and we find something that maybe gets things moving a little bit. Then we get inspired and become more confident.
So, what was the first one or two things that you remember working for you for this condition?
[00:12:15] Aline McCarthy: I was obviously receiving osteopathic treatment and acupuncture really helped. Obviously, I was exploring all of the different body works to get out of pain. But then I also started working on my gut health and my nutrition.
You know, I had to wean myself off the pain medication as well, so it slowly all started to come together. But it did take time and it did take work.
[00:12:43] Detective Ev: Cool. How did this eventually land you into the world of becoming a practitioner yourself? That’s a whole nother level. You know, you have the people that are sick and never research, sick and do research and get better, then the people that say, hey, I want to go do this as a job, I want to do this with my life.
So, when did you make that decision and how did you find it?
Finding Purpose in Life Through an Arthritis Diagnosis
[00:13:01] Aline McCarthy: Well, funny enough, as a child, I remember walking around saying, I am going to be a doctor, but not a normal doctor. I remember that inherent feeling of knowing it so deeply that that was my mission in life but I kind of lost it later. You know, like how you get sidetracked by what society wants from you.
I studied engineering for media, and I ended up in the film industry, which was part of the things that was making me really unwell actually, the stress and the pressure and not being in alignment of what I was actually meant to be doing.
When I did find I was getting better, I was just endlessly fascinated. Everything in me clicked. Every light bulb went off and I just, to this day, still can’t stop learning and learning and learning because it’s endlessly fascinating to me. I really feel like it’s my mission and my purpose in this life.
I’m actually very grateful that I had to go down this path. It was horrible, it was a very hard time, very challenging time to be physically that sick. But I am very grateful that it’s brought me to where I am now.
[00:14:15] Detective Ev: It’s so cool how many times this is a part of someone’s story with the health stuff where they just feel like this is their path, they know it’s in alignment. That’s certainly true for me and many of the people that I interview. It sometimes makes me wonder like, are there not just a bunch of people and souls just coming here to get sick and then help other people get well? Like, I don’t know.
Knowing Functional Health is the Right Path
But I feel like the fact that you had that knowing at that age before you even had the diagnosis is crazy. It makes you wonder are there just certain things that we can see before they happen?
If it was my first time hearing it, I might just think, okay, well that’s a cute thing and you know, that’s nice, but maybe it doesn’t have a lot of validity. I mean, Aline, I’ve heard this hundreds of times at this point. People just felt like they knew that this was their path and I’m one of those people. So, I get that. That’s cool.
When you were going through your studies and taking different stuff, cause obviously you eventually did FDN, but did you do any other courses?
[00:15:08] Aline McCarthy: Yeah, I did. I did a mentorship in functional medicine. I am still enrolled in the Kharrazian Institute for Clinical Mastership of Functional Medicine there. So yeah, I’m still doing a lot. But FDN brought a lot of the pieces together that initially I didn’t have.
[00:15:27] Detective Ev: Nice. So, when did you go through the FDN course? I should word it as, when did you graduate?
[00:15:32] Aline McCarthy: That was actually this year. I graduated this year.
[00:15:36] Detective Ev: Nice. Do you remember how long it took you to get through the course?
[00:15:38] Aline McCarthy: I was pretty quick. I already had a lot of knowledge in functional medicine, so I think it took me about six months.
A Short Time of Training to Earn a Huge Opportunity
[00:15:45] Detective Ev: Nice. I like to ask this question sometimes. I don’t ask it nearly enough. But I want people to know that one, there are a variety of different amounts of times that it takes people to get through this. There’s some people it takes the full 12 months, that is totally okay. But people that put their heads down and really focus, yes, this can be done in five, six, or seven months.
It’s kind of amazing the opportunity that we have here, because half a year flies by, that’s nothing. I mean, the older that I get, really past the age of 18, I found every year seems to fly by. It’s kind of nuts. It’s almost scary, like you realize how short your time is here and so six months is nothing. Then you could be done, the course, and like literally ready to charge very good amounts for what we do, and you can genuinely help other people.
You said that you had a good amount of knowledge before you got into the FDN world. That makes sense. I find that happens with a lot of our practitioners. We would love if they found FDN before they knew all this stuff, but unfortunately, we’re still in a place where people, they kind of have to dig through some of the stuff to find us, that’s for sure.
When you were going through the course though, certainly you learned a few new things. What were some of the coolest things that you learned in the course? It might have been even the lab tests that you got to run on yourself. What were some of the findings that you got?
The Power of Lab Data
[00:16:52] Aline McCarthy: It was a lab test that brought it all together for me, which I didn’t have access to previously.
I found out that my hormones were starting to decline because I’m in my early forties now. I still had some gut dysbiosis to clean up, which was a little bit surprising because I had been working on my gut quite for a long time. But it just comes to show that things do take time and you need to continuously keep working on it because our environment still exposes us to stuff.
It was that bringing together the knowledge but then being able to actually see it in a variety of different labs, and really helping people see the big picture rather than just vaguely thinking, chasing symptoms, and potentially leaving some healing opportunities hidden.
[00:17:45] Detective Ev: I think that’s probably the best part about FDN in many ways is when we do finally see the labs. It’s very validating to many of us, for those of us who have been through symptoms for a while.
It’s empowering too because to know that we have access now for the rest of our lives, as long as we’re in good standing with FDN, which is pretty easy to do, all you have to do is be a half decent person and you can do that. You will always be able to have these in your back pocket to figure out what’s going on with you health wise, if something comes up or for a family member or friend. It’s pretty amazing.
So, did you utilize the FDN trainee community a lot? Was that something that you were engaged in when you went through the course, or did you kind of do your own thing?
AFDNP is a Think Tank of FDNs
[00:18:23] Aline McCarthy: No, absolutely. I found the Facebook group with the live trainings and support going on even almost the best part of the whole training. And I continue to find it after graduation to be part of the professional group. I find it to be absolutely invaluable and the continued expertise and education and support that’s going on there is absolutely outstanding, I think.
[00:18:48] Detective Ev: Yeah. The professionals’ group, I always say this, and I stand by it. I would pay the cost of tuition just to have access to that group.
It’s a think tank of FDNs. There is nothing that I couldn’t ask in there that someone could not help me with. It applies to business too. That’s the craziest part. It’d be one thing if it just did the health side. I could ask any business question, and someone would be able to help me out with that too.
I’m so jealous of you guys for having the FDN trainee group. When I went through five and a half years ago, we didn’t have this group of people that were actively training. So, you kind of just worked with your mentor. There was a few less sessions. You really did FDN quite independently.
At the time of recording this, my girlfriend, one of my best friends, and his girlfriend are all actively training in the course right now. It’s awesome that they get this trainee group and get to really just interact with a lot of the FDN mentors prior to having ever graduated.
Now, one question I did not ask you so far is, were you in business for yourself? Were you working with people prior to going through FDN?
Confidence is a Business Game-changer
[00:19:48] Aline McCarthy: Yes, I was. Not for very long, but I had been working with clients already.
[00:19:54] Detective Ev: So, when you finished FDN and now you have the labs and this extra knowledge, how has that been able to help you on the business side of things?
[00:20:04] Aline McCarthy: Well, it sets me apart from other cultures in the industry to be able to run labs and be more science based.
But also, client to client base, I find again compliance with clients has skyrocketed because they can now see it in a lab what’s actually going on with them. They actually are more likely to stick with the program, to retest, and see and reap the rewards.
Before I had people sort of not be really committed, still doubting things when things weren’t improving as quickly as they wanted to. They would go like, oh, this isn’t working, and they might drop off. Whereas now they have seen it in a lab. They are like, okay, I need to address this, I need to fix this. It’s been really helpful from that side.
But also, the confidence has just grown for me. That is always incredibly helpful for business. The more confident you are, the more tools you have in your toolbox, obviously as well, really helps business wise.
[00:21:00] Detective Ev: There’s two really great points there.
The confidence thing matters so much. It’s very subtle, it’s an energy type of thing. I don’t think people are thinking about it consciously. But if I go up to someone and I have to quote/unquote “sell them” on my services or what I’m doing, we can sense this in people when they believe what they’re pushing or not. You know what I mean?
Compliance Grows When Lab Data is Utilized
When I went through other programs prior to FDN, they were good programs. But like what you’re talking about, I didn’t feel I had the confidence to help every person. I’m not saying I can get every person to a hundred percent right now. I’m not a miracle worker, I’m not a doctor. But there is literally no one that I have ever met now in the last five and a half years that’s sick or dealing with chronic symptoms that I do not believe I can’t help in some way.
When you genuinely believe that, when you see what happens to your own health as you go through the FDN program, you are able to talk to people with this level of authority and level of confidence that you cannot fake. It’s genuine. Does that mean you’re going to sell everyone on your services? No. Is your percentage of sales going to go through the roof compared to when you don’t have the confidence? Yeah.
Then the second point was the compliance thing. This was a really brilliant point. I had this acupuncturist that I go to locally. I love this guy, it’s a good friend of mine. But he brought up to me one point. He said, Evan, don’t you think that running the labs on people, he doesn’t utilize labs, well now he’s changing it up a little bit, but he didn’t before. He said, don’t you think that running these labs with people, don’t you think it just scares them once they get the results?
What I said to him is, my friend, I am so glad that you have never been sick enough that that’s what you think goes through these people’s heads when they get the results. They are not scared, they’re happy.
Giving Clients Hope and Empowerment
And like you said, they’re compliant. I’m sorry, happy might be the wrong word. They are empowered and hopeful now because someone has finally been able to tell them what is wrong with them. And by the way, not only can we tell you what’s wrong, we have a plan for you. We can help you get past this and get through this. That’s never a bad thing, it’s a great thing. Of course, it encourages compliance.
That’s so true with like the food sensitivity testing. It’s a lot easier to remove gluten when you know you have a gluten sensitivity on a test versus when some practitioner just tells you to remove gluten.
[00:23:17] Aline McCarthy: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I have people crying in some of the sessions because finally somebody has at least some hope and an idea for them what might have been going on for them sometimes for decades. They’ve been suffering for decades, and they didn’t want to give up hope, but they couldn’t find a solution.
Then you show them on tests what could be causing this, like the metabolic chaos that’s going on in their body. They’re actually relieved and as you say, empowered because they’re like, oh my God. Finally, somebody’s giving me some glimpses into what can be worked on to maybe improve some of my symptoms and help me feel better.
So, I don’t feel like they’re hopeless anymore. That’s an amazing thing for people to feel.
Was The Rheumatoid Arthritis Diagnosis a Misdiagnosis?
[00:24:05] Detective Ev: When I ask this question, we are never, ever expecting someone to come on and be a hundred percent. Most people aren’t. We want just their truth and how they’re doing in their journey.
So, I have to ask, I’m curious, how is the rheumatoid arthritis going? Do you still get symptoms? Are the symptoms better? How’s it been going?
[00:24:21] Aline McCarthy: No. Well, I do think it was misdiagnosed. One of all, because I don’t have it anymore. And after I didn’t respond to the drugs, the prednisone, all of the things that I had to go on for an autoimmune condition and I didn’t get any improvement, I went to more rheumatologists.
Then they were basically debating is it a correct diagnosis or not? So, I doubt that I actually was diagnosed with an autoimmune. It was probably a false diagnosis or a misdiagnosis at the time. But also, I have normal pain. I can lift weights; I lift heavy weights. I feel great.
[00:24:56] Detective Ev: Nice. That’s so cool. This is also an interesting side point about like the possible misdiagnosis.
I think two things happen with autoimmunity. Ironically, when people do have an autoimmune disease, sometimes that doesn’t get diagnosed ever. Then on the flip side, yeah, sometimes symptoms, especially the pain related ones, can get diagnosed as an autoimmune disease because that’s all Western medicine has, when it’s really not that at all.
It is, it’s metabolic chaos in a sense, right? There’s other things going on that are leading to the pain that aren’t necessarily fibromyalgia or rheumatoid arthritis. Those diagnoses do exist, that’s for sure. But it’s not always the case.
Who is Aline’s Ideal Client?
At the very least, I 100% believe autoimmune disease can be put into remission. I’ve seen it a million times. Regardless of what it was that was causing it, it’s just great to know that you’re feeling better now and have went from someone who could barely manage the kids to being able to lift heavy weights early into her early forties. I think that’s just a true testament to what we’re doing in the functional space in general, not just FDN.
So, when you work with clients now, do you have a specific type of person, like a niche that you like to work with, or is it more broad? Who’s your ideal client?
[00:26:02] Aline McCarthy: An ideal client is a mom in their forties because I can obviously really relate to them. I know what stage they’re in with the hormones usually, and what kind of age their children would be in.
But my niche online is more gut health. I do think when working on gut health, your hormones, everything else downstream definitely improves. It doesn’t matter if it’s thyroid or whatever people are struggling with. You do always need to work on your gut health. That’s what fascinates me.
We can always improve people’s nutrition. I truly believe food is our medicine. Heeding all of those foundational pieces of the D.R.E.S.S for health protocol, your diet, rest, exercise, and supplementation for me is obviously something that we need to jump into to address the stuff showing up in the labs. But if we don’t have that first part of the D.R.E.S.S protocol in place, the supplements are going to do very little. So, I love working on gut health because it includes all of that nutritional piece.
Changing Basic Stuff is Powerful
Often, I can get people feeling crazy amounts better just by them actually having better food on their plate every single day.
[00:27:12] Detective Ev: I don’t want to insult anyone that’s listening that is super sick. I would hope that this is taken as a good thing. It’s actually kind of crazy how fast you can make people feel better by doing what in our world is very simple things.
I mean, the labs are great. We can get very fancy if we need to get fancy with someone. But the end of the day you give me the standard American, which I would assume is pretty similar to the standard Australian, and you have someone that we can help within a matter of days, really just by changing very basic stuff that they’ve never been taught about.
Obviously, one of the perks of being an FDN and working online is we have access to labs all around the world. I mean, we have FDN practitioners in over 50 countries and counting. Do you work exclusively with people from Australia, or have you taken clients all over the world?
[00:28:00] Aline McCarthy: Yeah, I’ve got a pretty big Instagram profile, so I do see people from everywhere. I had a person from Jamaica jump on a call. But mainly it’s obviously English-speaking countries because I do speak English on my social media.
It’s funny, I haven’t ever had a German client because I obviously don’t speak German on my profile. Maybe I should start doing that to connect to my home country more. It’s usually UK, US, and Australia.
Follow the FDN System
[00:28:29] Detective Ev: I feel like it would be pretty darn hard to do the lab analysis in a language we might not be familiar with. So yes, definitely sticking to English and German for you would probably be a good idea.
I actually should know this as staff and I’m pretty sure this is correct, but I couldn’t list off what they are. Are you using different lab tests?
[00:28:47] Aline McCarthy: Some of them are slightly different, but not a crazy amount. We also run the DUTCH test, stress hormone, saliva tests and stuff like that. They sometimes just look different when the report comes back, even though it’s a DUTCH test. It looks a little bit different here in the printout, but otherwise pretty the same.
[00:29:08] Detective Ev: Got it. This could be personal to you. I mean, listen guys, if you’re listening to this, I don’t want to confuse anyone, but I always mention this. If you go through FDN, we teach you a system. I highly recommend that when you graduate, you don’t reinvent the wheel.
Try it for a little bit, and then you can customize it how you want. I mean, we have access to over 60 labs for a reason. No one’s stuck in a box. You can do what you’d like to do. But especially if you don’t know where to start, don’t reinvent the wheel. Do what we have known has worked for years and years.
But the better question that I could ask then is, when you are working with clients, I’m sure maybe you have packages and stuff. So, let’s just assume we’re talking about the fullest and biggest program that you have. How many labs will that person run, and which labs are you using?
The Functional Blood Chemistry Test
[00:29:51] Aline McCarthy: Oh, I got you now. So yeah, usually what I do is I run functional blood chemistry because everybody here has very good access through Medicare to get their blood taken. I kind of specialize in that. I did a lot of work, intensive training, on blood chemistry.
I love that it is even accepted in conventional medicine and Western medicine as the most valid test. It opens up the opportunity to also collaborate with doctors and stuff more once you can show them that you are knowledgeable enough to assess that.
I also usually run a GI MAP or what we call here, complete microbiome mapping, obviously, because I do specialize in gut health.
I very often would run a SIBO breath test because a lot of the ladies that come in are extremely bloated and I do suspect SIBO when they check a couple of the boxes. Then we usually run a hormone test as well. So, either the DUTCH or a stress hormones. I’m kind of marrying between the two.
[00:30:47] Detective Ev: That is pretty cool and a little different. That’s what works for you in your practice. Because the functional blood chemistry, it’s something that FDNs can learn. I do encourage people to consider that if you’re going to do one of the advanced courses. Because Advanced Blood Chemistry is awesome since it is US based.
When you have a client that runs blood work, which most of them will with their doctor at some point, especially the basic markers, even in America, almost all health insurance that we have here is going to cover those basic markers. You can now analyze something that they got for free at their doctor, I mean “free” quote/unquote, you know, cheap enough.
Be Intelligent with the Client’s Money
Now you can help them in a way that was really cost effective.
That’s the thing as an FDN, we’re always trying to be intelligent with the money because we’re not making money off the lab tests. We’re not lab salespeople. We don’t get some kickback at the end of the year, and we get a free vacation.
That’s the pharmaceutical reps, right? They get to do that, but not us, unfortunately. Just a little pun. I’m not making too much fun of our pharmaceutical friends. We have plenty of pharmaceutical reps that are FDNs.
[00:31:44] Aline McCarthy: We’re open to the holiday at the end of the year if anyone wants to give it to us. Right?
[00:31:50] Detective Ev: Yeah. For real. If they want to start doing it, I’m all for it.
But yeah, we have to be conscious of the money that we’re spending and so the blood chemistry can be a great thing. And like SIBO testing, that’s interesting that you’ve started utilizing that in your practice. I actually don’t know many FDNs that do that as kind of a straight up thing.
So, with your clientele, let’s call the average client of yours, that 40-something-year-old mom with the gut health issues. What are some common patterns that you might be seeing in their lab tests? Like, are there certain bugs that are coming up more often than not? Are there certain hormonal patterns? I’m really always curious about this cause it does vary from demographic to demographic.
Finding Certain Patterns in This Demographic
[00:32:27] Aline McCarthy: Obviously, most people nowadays probably doesn’t matter which age, but I’ve definitely seen dysbiosis across the board. Just a general sort of depletion of the microbiome and then other opportunistic bugs or not so good bugs taking the hand and running the playground show.
Definitely a lot of parasites and H. Pylori going around for sure as well. Australia is quite heavy in Blasto and Giardia and things like that. I’m not sure if that’s because of the waterways and people swimming a lot and those sort of critters obviously being in waterways and stuff as well. But it’s definitely a thing here.
Then with the hormones, for women in their forties who are already in perimenopause, we often see that their progesterone is quite low. They’re getting all of the symptoms in their second part of the cycle where they might not be sleeping well. They might be starting to get really crazy headaches just before their period. They might be getting heavier periods and stuff like that.
I can definitely see that in labs. Their DHEA, their progesterone might be low. Estrogen looks high in comparison, but it’s actually not because it’s obviously also on a decline.
A lot of women just are not aware that it can start that early, actually in your thirties already. You know, we’re not being taught that. Our doctor basically dismisses us when we go. I’ve done this myself. I’ve been to the GP many times and they always say, oh, come back to me when you’re in your fifties. They don’t want to hear about it when you’re in your early forties.
It Takes Time and Work
Then they wanted to put me on a pill, right? I was like, I do not need to go on a pill. I’m actually genuinely asking for help for my hot flashes and my sleepless nights the week before my period and stuff like that.
Then when I run the SIBO breath test, I only run that when I have a strong suspicion and a person sort of ticks all of the boxes with their bloating, diarrhea, constipation, sort of symptoms. We can kind of see methane bacteria in a GI MAP as well. But when I do run it, I obviously then often see either a methane or an imbalance there with the bacteria as well.
We can also see how long it will approximately take for them to be on an antimicrobial protocol to see those levels come back to normal. It’s empowering to decline because again, we can kind of say, well, you know, you’ve got really high levels. It’s definitely going to take two or three rounds of antimicrobial treatment, and then we are going into the maintenance protocol. So, it’s not going to be done in a month.
Like you’re looking at six to nine months just to get on top of it, right? And then we still need to investigate the root cause of it as well.
FDNs Go Where No One Else Wants to Go
[00:35:09] Detective Ev: It’s interesting that you mentioned the parasites being a really common thing. I’m not saying that I don’t see them sometimes. Every one of my clients has always been US based. But it’s interesting to see this from the Australian perspective, that it’s much more prevalent, it sounds.
In five and a half years of doing this, even though we learned about Giardia, I have never once seen Giardia actually show up on a test that I ran with a client. Blasto comes up occasionally, but it’s really those two.
The only other thing I’ve ever seen, and he shared this publicly so I can talk about it. My friend, Eric, he’s actually a business partner of mine, but his other business is, he owns a dog training facility. He had a very specific parasite that one of our clinical advisors, our clinical advisors are people that we actually have access to as FDNs. When we run certain tests, we get consults with them, and we can get a second set of eyes on our client’s test results. I always use those. I love talking to those guys.
It was Dustin that I worked with for this one. Dustin said to me, I’ve only seen this parasite in one other person. Of course, this is a guy that looks at tons of these tests. Guess what? Her job was a dog trainer. She also trained dogs just like my friend. We found out, sure enough, it is a parasite that’s very common in dogs, not the worst one in the world.
No one would even think to look for this thing or test for this thing, let alone actually be able to find it and do something for the person. That’s really about all I see.
Seeing Quick Improvements
It’s interesting to me that that comes up so much in Australia. Then yeah, those people are going to have to be dedicated cause that can be a half a year to a yearlong process.
But as we mentioned before, people start feeling better though within a matter of a couple weeks. By the time we’re at month six or nine, they might feel what, 50%, 60%, 70% better. Now we’re just doing the rest of the work.
[00:36:55] Aline McCarthy: Usually, we see symptoms improve relatively quickly, as you say. If I don’t see some of their symptoms improved within the first three weeks, I’m starting to get a little bit dubious. Then I kind of might have to zone in a bit more on their diet or ask them more questions about are they ticking the other boxes off the D.R.E.S.S for health protocol and stuff like that.
But that’s sort of around the time where I usually expect to see some sort of improvement. Saying that, if I do see people with autoimmune conditions, sometimes we don’t see that, that quickly, even with them completely adhering to an autoimmune paleo diet and stuff like that.
Certainly, when they’re in a complete flare up, it’s going to take quite a while usually to get them to feel significantly better. They’re actually saying, oh yeah, I do feel different. But then I’ve also had people where I very hesitantly took them on and kind of was like, oh my gosh, you know, you’ve had this for so long, you’ve been so chronic, and they have all of these crazy symptoms including neurodegeneration and stuff like that.
Never Give up Hope
I don’t really tell the client, but in myself I’m thinking, the prognosis to get this person better is very limited. You know, like they have tried a whole range of things, and no one has gotten them better. They’re already taking a whole range of drugs. In my mind I’m like, I’m going to try everything that I can for this person. But I’m not sure how much I can get them better.
Within three weeks, they’re basically a transformed person, which then is a massive surprise as well. So, both things can still happen, it doesn’t matter how horrible people feel. I just want people to know, to not give up hope, even if they’ve had something very chronic and something terrible going on.
[00:38:46] Detective Ev: Nice. I fully admit to that as well, by the way. I still to this day have these issues where if someone comes to you and they know their stuff, right? They’ve done research and you’re like, wow, and you still don’t feel better. They’re like, no. Then you get a little bit of nerves. It’s like, can I actually help this person?
This just happened recently. But what’s amazing is our training is very thorough. I couldn’t believe what some of these practitioners missed in these other people. The woman that I’m working with right now, she had Mercury that was through the roof on an HTMA test.
The practitioner said it would go away over time. They didn’t even do a protocol for it. It was literally off the charts, Aline. I’m like, okay, yes, I guarantee it’s going to go down if you stop doing the things that you’re doing. But that’s not something that disappears in six months or even a year.
A Client Testimonial
You have to be conscious about that. You have to do something about it. I made a deal with her. I was kind of joking, but I made a deal. I said, how about we do a retest and if it’s still high we work through the protocol, and if it lowered to where that practitioner said it would, I’ll pay for your test.
Sure enough, the test was nowhere near where it should have been. It’s kind of funny, like these other people really do miss a lot of stuff and we have a lot of options for helping practitioners. So never doubt that as an FDN. That’s a great point.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s not like you’ve been doing it that long, but it does sound like you’ve worked with plenty of people at this point. You mentioned you’ve had some success on like Instagram and stuff, so that’s probably a great way to draw in clients. I’m curious, is there any client testimonials?
I know that you probably can’t share names sometimes, I get that. But I’m just curious if there’s any stories of clients that got a lot better working with you that really just stick out and that might be fun to share with the audience. I always love hearing other people’s stories.
[00:40:22] Aline McCarthy: Yeah, absolutely. For example, that lady with the neurodegenerative issues, she was put on ADHD medication, on anxiety medication. She had to quit work. She couldn’t even work anymore. She was so tired and debilitated by her chronic pain all over her body. Gut issues, like so much stuff going on. She had seen every doctor under the world, she had seen naturopath and stuff like that.
Success After Just Working Mostly on Diet
Basically, I picked up that she had three different massive head traumas from when she was a child and a teenager. She had terrible falls onto her head. Then she had a motor vehicle accident a couple of years ago, which is the last thing that kind of threw her over the edge. It was actually the accident that changed her life.
Then I was like, this is not a gut issue. It’s a brain issue. Your brain cells are primed. We need to first and foremost, calm the brain inflammation down to get your other symptoms to get better. Pretty much just started working with diet because she lives in New Zealand, her supplements take ages to arrive. It’s a bit of an issue since COVID as well, just to get supplements to people over here.
So, it was mostly 95% just working on her diet, stabilizing her blood sugars, eating enough protein, going in on autoimmune paleo, that sort of stuff. Within three weeks she was out hiking, off her meds. I didn’t tell her to come off, but she didn’t need to take them obviously. She just was like, I feel great. I feel like I’ve got my life back. My partner is absolutely blown away.
That is obviously a beautiful story of how quickly we can get people better that even had to quit work and had zero hope of getting better.
[00:42:09] Detective Ev: So cool. It’s one thing to hear about people like us who are practitioners. Obviously, we live very different lifestyles than the average person. Then maybe people hear those stories and they’re like, well yeah, they’re super passionate about this. Of course, they can do it.
Powerful and Effective FDN Principles
But then no, there’s clients of ours too, man, that they are otherwise normal people. They have jobs that are not related to this, and they do get better doing this stuff.
What’s fascinating about that story, I understand there was a lot more to it, but the fact that the car accident was this huge issue, right? Yet FDN and the principles can still help someone recover from even something like that indirectly. Right? That’s just amazing. There’s really no limitations to what the body can do when it is truly healthy. That’s awesome. Great job.
One other thing, because we have a little time, I think I have enough time for this question. I was wondering because it seems like compared to some people, you’ve had a decent amount of success on the business side. Are you doing this full time, can I ask?
Aline McCarthy: Yeah, yeah. Pretty much full time.
Detective Ev: Well, for someone who graduated this year, even though it’s the end of the year, I get that, but you only graduated this year. You were taking clients a little bit before FDN, like you said, but it was pretty slow. For you to be full-time now, that’s amazing to be able to do that.
What is maybe one business tip that you have for people that are just starting off like that led to your success over these last couple of years?
Business Tip – Be Confident
[00:43:23] Aline McCarthy: Whew. What would be the number one tip? Yeah, be confident. You know, you need to be confident enough to put yourself on social media to speak to people to know that you can help people. That’s where it all starts. Because otherwise you’re going to hold yourself back, you’re going to doubt yourself. You’ve got so much support from the AFDNP community and the mentors and stuff still ongoing.
So don’t doubt yourself and just actually go for it.
[00:43:53] Detective Ev: And if you need any of that extra confidence, find something like FDN or find anything that has practitioners that are able to go do this work. Because you’ll be able to tell. The reason we have so many practitioners running around doing this is because they feel like they have the confidence with the system that we have to be able to help people. It’s a beautiful thing.
Aline, where can people find you if they’d like to work with you? I know that you said you take clients all over the world, but this is a unique opportunity for people that might be in Australia, just for the sake of the time zone thing.
I mean, look at what we’re doing right now. This is almost 5:00 PM, 6:00 PM on a Sunday for me at night. Then you’re sitting there in the morning. So many of our people listening probably don’t have the opportunity to always work with someone from Australia. So where can they find you?
Where to Find Aline McCarthy & The Signature Question
[00:44:48] Detective Ev: Excellent. My final question for you today is the signature question on the Health Detective Podcast. This is how we always finish. It’s nothing too complicated, but it’s just a fun one that I like to do.
The question is this, if I could give you a magic wand and you could wave it and get every single person in this world to do one thing for their health. So, you can choose either one thing that you make them do or one thing that you stop them from doing. What is the one thing that Aline would get them to do?
[00:45:18] Aline McCarthy: Prioritize sleep. I think that is so undervalued. Every single cell in your body has a circadian clock. We are all exposed to screen light. We don’t spend enough time in nature anymore. I think the health disruption from not sleeping enough and having too much blue light and not enough sunlight is absolutely massive.
[00:45:43] Detective Ev: Thank you so much for coming on with us today and for being like our third or fourth Australian guest ever.
[00:45:48] Aline McCarthy: Amazing. Thank you so much. It was good fun.
Conclusion
[00:45:51] Detective Ev: All right guys. That’ll do it for today’s episode with Aline McCarthy. Always fun, again, talking to someone from way across the pond. It’s going to be interesting over time to see how many different countries we can get on this podcast. I’m going to have to go back one day and start keeping track of that. I’ve never really thought about that prior to this, but it’ll be interesting to see how we can stack them up along the way.
If you are looking to work with someone in Australia, then this is a rare opportunity to get to do so from this podcast. You guys know where to find her. You can go into the show notes and see her website there. I encourage you to reach out if you feel so inclined.
I am looking forward to talking to you guys again soon, though. I will be back with a pretty interesting video interview episode where we’re actually analyzing some live lab results. But until, please take care.
Poach chicken until cooked through and then shred (I shredded mine in the Thermomix on the reverse function for 5 seconds speed 5)
Add carrot, sweet potato and lentils to 250mL water and bring to the boil and then simmer for ten minutes until all the water has gone. Mash until relatively smooth texture
Microwave pea and corn mixture for 2 minutes in the microwave
Add all ingredients except pastry and one of the eggs into a bowl and mix through
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees celsius
Cut pastry lengthwise to make 4x lengths. Split mixture into four and put it down the middle of each sheet. Brush the edges with water and seal. Cut according to your desired size.
Scramble egg in a bowl and then brush over the top of each sausage roll and sprinkle with sesame seeds
Cook for 20 minutes and then grill for 2 minutes
Enjoy with a fresh garden salad with plenty of avocado, juicy cherry tomatoes, cranberry and feta cheese!
Pan fried snapper with warm tomato fennel asparagus salad
The colours in this dish are literally exploding and I’m feeling very excited about it all! Pan fried snapper warm tomato fennel asparagus salad all made in the same pan within 10 minutes of cooking – how easy is that? A great range of nutrients including:
protein and zinc in snapper for growth, immune function, and cell communication
Vitamin C and lycopene in tomato to support / reduce impacts of stress and support cardiovascular health
potassium in fennel for heart health, muscle contraction / relaxation, cell communication, and folate for protein metabolism, synthesis of DNA/RNA and to reduce risk neural tube defects in pregnancy
quercetin (flavonoid) in red onion for antioxidant activity and to help reduce risk cardiovascular disease / cancer…it goes on but you hear me when I say this dish is abundant with nutrition!
A few extra cooking / ingredient tips for you…
Use your choice of white fish in this recipe – whiting, blue eye or barramundi would also be delicious.
Add some olives, anchovies and any herbs of your choice to this dish
Swap baby rocket for shredded kale or baby spinach.
Find the full recipe below and be sure to tag @brownpapernutrition on instagram if you make it!
PAN FRIED SNAPPER WITH WARM TOMATO FENNEL ASPARAGUS SALAD
Prep time: 10 minutes Cook time: 10 minutes Serves 4-6 Ingredients 4 x 200g snapper fillets, skin on 2 tbsp olive oil 1 red onion, thinly sliced 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 2 tbsp baby capers, rinsed, 1 long red chilli, thinly sliced 300g baby tomatoes, halved 1 bunch asparagus, trimmed, cut into 5cm lengths 1 baby fennel, thinly sliced, fronds reserved Zest and juice of 1 lemon +extra wedges, to serve Baby rocket leaves, parsley leaves, to serve
Pat fish dry with paper towel. Using a sharp knife, cut three slashes into the skin side of the fish and season with salt and pepper. Heat a large frying pan over high heat and add half the oil. Place the fish skin-side down in the pan and cook for 3 minutes. Turn fish and cook on other side for 2-3 minutes or until the fish is just cooked. Set aside on a plate loosely covered with foil to keep warm. Heat remaining oil in same pan over medium high heat. Add onion and cook for 1 minute. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add capers and chilli and cook for a further minute. Add tomatoes and asparagus and cook for 2-3 minutes or until warmed through. Remove from heat and add fennel, lemon zest and juice and baby rocket to the pan. Season and toss to coat. Serve fish with tomato mixture, fennel fronds, parsley leaves and lemon wedges.
What happens when you add massive amounts of carbohydrates in the form of whole grains to the daily diet of people with type 2 diabetes?
Why are macrobiotic diets apparently so effective at reducing blood sugar levels in diabetics within just a few weeks’ time? The diet is centered around whole grains—brown rice, barley, and millet—so might the high fiber intake improve the gut microbiome, the friendly flora in our colon, which then leads to a reduction in insulin resistance? Or, perhaps it’s because the diet is also rich in vegetables, so that corrects some kind of low-grade acidosis from the high levels of animal protein in their regular (non-macrobiotic) diets. Regardless of the reason, researchers found a significant difference after just 21 days. Can macrobiotic diets also help with longer term blood sugar control? I examine this in my video Flashback Friday: Benefits of a Macrobiotic Diet for Diabetes.
How about a six-month dietary intervention with wildly out-of-control blood sugars? As you can see at 0:51 in my video, hemoglobin A1c offers a sense of one’s average blood sugars over the previous few months. An A1c level of 5, for example, would mean that your blood sugars have been in the double digits most of the time over the last few months, indicating that your sugars have been at a normal, healthy, non diabetic level. But, an A1c of 6 is prediabetes territory and 6.5 can be a sign of full-blown diabetes; an A1c under 7 is considered controlled diabetes—what diabetics are striving towards with pills and insulin injections—and a level over 7 is considered out-of-control diabetes. In the macrobiotic diet study, the average A1c level started out off-the-charts at 12.6. The subjects had been averaging blood sugars in the 300s for months, despite all having been on insulin injections.
What happened when the study participants were placed on the so-called Ma-Pi 2 diet, a strictly plant-based macrobiotic-style diet centered around whole grains, vegetables, and beans, with some sesame seeds and green tea? After just six months on the diet, their A1c levels dropped from a wildly out-of-control diabetic 12.6 to averaging a non diabetic 5.7. What’s more, although the subjects were getting daily insulin injections when their A1c was an astronomical 12.6, they achieved non diabetic 5.7 on the diet after they had all been able to eliminate their insulin. Within only six months, 100 percent of the study participants started out on insulin with out-of-control diabetes and ended with 0 percent on insulin and averaging non diabetic blood sugars. That’s the power of plants. Also within those six months, three-quarters were off all of their diabetes medications completely. Any side effects? Their bad LDL cholesterol dropped by 20 percent and their triglycerides dropped by nearly 40 percent. (And, of course, let’s not forget that anyone starting a strictly plant-based diet must ensure a regular, reliable source of vitamin B12.)
All we needed was a randomized, controlled trial, and we got one: Type 2 diabetics were randomized to the macrobiotic diet versus the recommended American Diabetes Association-type diet. You can see an example of a typical day on the macrobiotic diet below and at 2:59 in my video, which includes a savory whole-grain cake for breakfast; brown rice sesame balls for a snack; a vegetable millet soup with a brown rice salad, a lot of vegetable sides, and adzuki beans for lunch; more whole grain snacks; and, similar to lunch, a dinner of vegetable barley soup with a lot of vegetables and chickpeas; and green tea throughout the day. On the more standard diabetic diet, participants might have low-fat milk and whole-wheat bread for breakfast; a Mediterranean lunch with vegetables and beans; fruit for a snack; and a bean and vegetable soup, whole-grain bread, agretti (a green leafy vegetable), and baked fish for dinner. I have to say, that’s a pretty healthy control diet. The researchers could have compared the macrobiotic diet to a trashy one, but they wanted to stack it up against the diet diabetes groups recommend. So, what happened?
The macrobiotic diet won out on every measure of blood sugar control. You can view the numbers in the graph below and at 4:00 in my video. At the start of the study, participants had fasting blood sugars in the 120s. That’s bad, but they were diabetics, after all. Normal fasting blood sugars, like when you wake up in the morning before having breakfast, should be at least in the double digits and under 100. When subjects were put on the relatively healthy, more standard diabetic diet, their blood sugars got better over the three-week study, dropping from the 120s down into the 110s. (That’s the best the American Diabetes Association-type diet can do.) Compare that to an isocaloric macrobiotic diet, meaning with the same number of calories. On the macrobiotic diet, subjects improved within days and achieved normal fasting blood sugars within a week. A full 100 percent of those on the macrobiotic diet got their fasting blood sugars under 110, whereas less than half of those on the diabetes diet did. And, that was achieved while on fewer drugs. In the control group, one participant was able to reduce their oral hypoglycemic medications, whereas five of the seven on such drugs in the macrobiotic group had to stop taking them. Otherwise, if they had continued taking the drugs, their blood sugars would have fallen too low. So, the macrobiotic diet gave better results on fewer drugs. That’s the power of a really healthy diet.
As an aside, what a poke in the eye with a sharp stick this study was to the low-carb crowd! Researchers took diabetics and put them on a 73 percent carbohydrate diet, adding 100 grams of carbs—in the form of grains, no less—to their daily diet. And what happened? Did their blood sugars skyrocket out of control? No, they got significantly better in a matter of days, with average fasting blood sugars starting out at 129 and falling to 95. And, in just three weeks, their bad LDL cholesterol plummeted down to 62, a nearly 48 percent drop.
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Well, hello my friends, and welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, aka Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show on dealing with light.
We are doing a short and sweet episode today. But it’s one that I love doing because I’ve done this before, around this time of year. It is one of my favorite passions, it’s all about light. And specifically today, how you can manage light and use it to your advantage during the winter season.
Now, first things first. I acknowledge that we have a worldwide audience and so not everyone is experiencing winter right now. I fully get that. But when I look at the analytics, I mean, we are US based for sure on this podcast with Canada being our second most listened to country. So, in those places we are coming up on the winter and experiencing at the very least a cold fall for sure. It’s definitely much colder here this time than it was last year. So, we need to know how to manage this.
I’ve done episodes before where I’ve talked about the importance of light, and I’m sure that’ll naturally be sprinkled in today. But that’s not really what I’m here to sell you on. I’m more here to talk about how I manage this during the winter, how I try to feel good, how I fight seasonal effective disorder, and just how I keep my energy as high as it is in summer. I’m sure it’s not identical, but it’s pretty close to being up there. I’d like to be able to do that for you guys as well through what we’re going to talk about today.
Dealing with Light by Catching Sunrise
The first easy one, something I’ve discussed many times before is catching sunrise. Now, the sicker you are, the more this is probably going to have to be something that you’re quite compliant with. So, the sicker that you are, you’re definitely going to want to be out in the sunrise.
Of course, don’t be silly, if you’re healthy, you don’t want to take it for granted. But I’m the first one to admit, I do the speaking in schools, as many of you guys know, and a lot of these are early. Now, thankfully because of daylight savings, that actually helps me because it puts the sunrise back in like the 6:00 AM range instead of 7:00 AM. So, there’s always this couple week stretch during the year, which I really do not like because the sunrise might be at 7:30 AM.
I might be starting to speak in the schools at 7:30 in the morning, even though I was driving there for maybe an hour or two, there was really nothing I could do to get light. I’m in an interesting position. I love my job, and I am also thankfully no longer sick enough to say, hey, I’m not going to sacrifice something that I know is a good idea for something that I love. I’m able to do that now, but when I was at my sickest, that isn’t something I was doing. I mean, I was out there religiously 30 to 60 minutes every single day, facing east, no glasses, no contacts.
Dealing with Light: Sunrise Hacks
You just walk around, figure out something else to do. If you like biking, that can be a good thing to do. Obviously, it’s winter, that might not be practical. We can always walk, just throw on a jacket.
It’s amazing to me how many people complain about it being cold. I’m like, do you know that there are people that hike places like Mount Everest? Do you know that there are jackets and hats and gloves that are designed for Arctic temperatures, like very, very cold places? I think you can find something to wear in your 20-degree weather.
I’m not saying it isn’t cold, I’m saying that there’s plenty of jackets out there that will keep you warm in that weather, and you can walk around and still be out in the morning.
So, you want to be even more compliant with that, again, the sicker that you are if you are feeling good. If you’re doing better, it’s still something that in a perfect world you would do every single day. But there’s kind of ways to hack this, right?
Tomorrow morning, for example, as I’m recording this, when I go to do a school, I’m going to have to be there fairly early. I have my windows cracked a little bit when I’m on my way there, and I do my best to just kind of glance out. Or if I’m stopped for a second, I’ll do my best to just make a point to really look at the sun, not directly at the sun, that’d be ridiculous. Let my body know that it is mourning.
Dealing with Light and Plunging in Cold Water
It is time to wake up. It is the beginning of the day. I’m going to need you, body, to produce melatonin for me hours and hours later in accordance with the fact that it is now mourning, right? So, we’re going to wake up now, you’re going to suppress melatonin for me, and you’re going to help me produce it later in the day.
You can kind of get away with stuff like that. I don’t think that’s going to suffice for someone, again, who is in the midst of a health journey. You won’t necessarily feel the same benefits. But for me, I’m kind of amazed how stable I can stay just by doing that. Then on the days that I’m able, always getting outside.
This might not be for you, but my girlfriend and my friends and I, we are very all into the plunging in cold water type of thing. We have a river near us, and we go there plenty of times in the morning. Not every time, but you know, we’ll go there. I mean, just today we did this.
We’re driving down, the windows are cracked. We’re obviously outside on the river. We’re grounding. I mean, it’s kind of amazing to get to go do that. You feel alive, but that might not be for everyone. So, you do what you can when you can.
Dealing with Light: How Much Sunrise?
If you got a back deck, great. Sit there. If you can walk with a warm jacket, walk around. If you can only crack the windows right now, that would be a good thing to do. Opening your windows to your house. I mean, your heating bill might go through the roof, but opening the windows to your house can be another way to do this as well. The screen kind of filters light, but you’re good for the sake of this podcast.
The window itself though, does filter light, so keep that in mind. That’s not something that you want to have closed when you’re looking at it. You definitely want to go out there and do that. So, catch sunrise every single day in some way. If you could only do a couple minutes, you are better off than nothing. Just make sure your body got some opportunity to realize that it is in fact morning.
People always say, well, okay, if two minutes is good, then how much should I aim for? As much as you can. It’s one of those things where more is, in fact, better.
Water? You kind of have to find the right amount. If you drink too much water, you can end up literally drowning yourself, right? You could die from drinking too much water. Too much of a good thing is not always a good thing. With the case of light, it’s not really the same.
Now, I’m not suggesting that you sit out in summer sun and bake yourself to death and literally get all burnt up. That’s not what I’m suggesting.
Is Your Job Hindering Your Health?
But in terms of your eyes being in tune with natural light. Let’s say it was this summer, hypothetically, and you’ve already exceeded the amount of time based on your complexion that you can last out in that sun. Well, you could still be under the shade of a tree or a house or have the windows open and be exposed to that natural light without it directly hitting you. That’s what I’m talking about.
In terms of using natural light as your guiding source of light to get through the day and to see things, there is never a time where you’ve exceeded the amount of that that you should do. It is always a good idea to use that light instead of artificial lights. So minimum, minute or two, bare minimum. But ideally as much as you can and make up for it on the days that you have the ability. There’s gotta be some day or days of the week where you have the ability to do this, please take advantage of it if you can.
If you are working night shift, you guys know me on this one, you need to get out of that job as quick as possible. With clients, I’m a little less aggressive in that. With someone who’s perhaps going to be a fellow practitioner or listening to a podcast like this, you need to get out of that as quick as possible. The money is not worth your health, period.
Okay, so first is sunrise. The next part would be sunset. And this one isn’t necessarily one I’m super diligent with. Admittedly, I hadn’t ever been really religious with this one, and I still found great benefits. But it’s something you try to do.
Dealing with Light: Catching Sunset
What the sunset thing looks like is just making sure your body gets out at the times when it’s become dark, or the sun is starting to set.
There are unique parts of the light spectrum that are penetrating the atmosphere at that time that are going to trigger for your body to know that it is time to sleep. And so, it’s always a good idea if you can get out there just for a little bit to let it know that it is in fact nighttime. That’s awesome. Then when you come back indoors, you guys already know, you use your blue blockers. Is that a perfect hack? It is not, but it’s one of the best things that we have right now.
So, at nighttime in my apartment, we have the Himalayan salt lamps. They’re pretty good, usually. Some of them are a little worse than others, but generally speaking, those have a deeper red. You could use the red-light bulbs from boncharge.com, formerly known as BLUblox.
I don’t know why we’ve been procrastinating this. We’ve been meaning to order these, so we’re going to get a few of those ourselves soon. I cannot wait to have the red bulbs in my house. But the glasses are always a good start, and then filtering the technology.
If you look up how to put a red-light filter on your phone on YouTube, it’ll come right up. Then if you buy the program, Iris, not sponsored, but Iris. I think it’s iristech.co. Search that on Google if it doesn’t work on the URL. You can actually filter your screen to make it red at night. Is it going to be as clear as when you don’t have that? No.
Dealing with Light: Preparing for Bed Using Technology
Of course, if you’re doing graphic design, that would not be the time to do graphic design. But this is a great time to, I don’t know, if you watch movies or TV shows, whatever you do. I like reading stuff. I’m like someone who will chill out at the end of the night, one or two hours with a video game if I’ve had a really long day. That’s just something that works for me.
I can play the video game, you can watch the TV or movie I’m assuming, or YouTube with the red light. It’s not as ideal as normal, but it’s something that can be done. So great, you get to be entertained and you get to do that as well.
A third option is buying a book clip light. Bon Charge, again, sells those. You can also find them on Amazon. They’re not as deep as a red as I would like, but they’re certainly better than nothing. And so now you’re really doing a good habit.
You’re reading in the nighttime; you’re reading before bed. You have the red light on there so you’re not completely messing up your circadian rhythm. It’s been shown that only five minutes of reading actually dramatically calms the mind. It’s probably a great way for most people to actually get to bed if they’re people that have trouble sleeping.
So, that’s what you gotta be careful about with this time of year. I know for most people, and I don’t even do this every day, but I did while I felt my worst. To be clear, I did this for a couple of years straight. Not everyone likes the idea of throwing the blue light blocking glasses on like the red ones right after sunset.
Dealing with Light: UVB Affects Insulin Sensitivity
I mean, for some people, sunset here right now is like five o’clock, right? So, you have probably four or five hours still a week where you gotta operate with those. I’m telling you, if you’re not feeling so good right now, if you feel sick, mental health issues, skin issues, all that stuff, I would put them on as soon as possible because that’s what really kills us this time of year.
We are completely eating wrong in terms of seasonality of food, but we’re eating sugar candy, holiday stuff, right? Stuff that should not be eaten really any time of year, let alone winter. The body is not designed to be eating high amounts of carbohydrates in winter. This is actually true, by the way.
There’s been studies showing that UV light, particularly UVB, which is only possible in high amounts in spring, summer, and fall, that actually creates insulin sensitivity, which is the good thing. Remember, you don’t want to be insulin resistant. You want to be insulin sensitive.
Think about that. Why would UV light, something that’s available in spring, summer, and fall for most places around the world, be something that when it hits the human skin, it makes them insulin sensitive? It’s almost as if the body knows that, oh, wait a second, the crops are going to grow in summer. I should prepare this person to eat a larger amount of carbohydrates than they would the rest of the year. Interesting, right?
Dealing with Light Using Red-Light Therapy
Going back to the original point, we’re completely eating out of season in the winter. Then on top of this, artificial light is terrible for us, and we spend 5, 6, 7 extra hours in complete artificial light because there is no light coming from outside. There is no natural light, right? So be careful.
This is not a time of year to mess around. If you are sick, there’s things that you can do. We’re talking about those today. Just make sure to be really routine with them, to feel as good as possible.
I got two other things I want to mention today. I got my little list here. One is red-light therapy. I’m a huge advocate for red-light therapy. It’s not a replacement for the sun. Remember, the sun is the original free red-light therapy. When that sun is coming over the horizon, it’s near infrared and red light. That is true all the way until the sun sets. It doesn’t matter the time of year, red and near infrared light is going to make up about 42% of sunlight. That is great.
So, free red light with all the other benefits that the sun gives us is coming out every single day and most of it penetrates the clouds by the way. That’s brilliant. There are obviously reasons and hurdles in our modern lifestyle that prevent us from getting the amount of red light that we’d probably want to get.
Dealing with Light: Red and Near Infrared Light
When human beings isolate light, we know that there are consequences to that. For example, isolating blue light has not worked out favorably for us at all. We know what it does to human beings. We’re still learning, but I mean, already it’s terrible.
We know what isolated UV light does, right? If you isolate UVA, you can get someone very tan very quick. But you could also pose a risk for skin cancer if you’re not taking other precautions. So, isolating light in general has proven to be not always beneficial.
Red and near infrared, thankfully, are two of those parts of the light spectrum where it seems like there are almost no side effects to this, the side effects are very minimal if anything, and the benefits are huge. So, as long as you are doing everything that you can to get the light from the sun and you’re putting an honest effort in, I’m all for the red-light therapy.
I’m not sponsored by these people, but I do like PlatinumLED. PlatinumLED is what we use at my in-person business in Pennsylvania. We trust them. They are comparatively cheap, and they still have a greater output than a lot of the main ones on the market. I’m not going to get into the main ones on the market.
I’m not here to debate that or cause any trouble for myself. But you gotta remember, I’ve said this on the podcast before for a different reason, and I will say it today. My parents had a small restaurant when I was younger. They sold, you know, cafe stuff. There were burgers, there was lunch stuff, breakfast stuff, whatever.
Do Your Research for Quality Products
Across the street was a McDonald’s. McDonald’s, even though my parents were not health freaks by any means, no way are you going to tell me that McDonald’s did not have a worse quality burger than the ones that my parents sold across the street. Yet every single day of the week for every day that my parents were open for 14, 15 years, (well, they’re still open, but they sold the business), every single day of those 14, 15 years, McDonald’s outsold them, burger wise.
Is it because they have a better burger? Nope. We just said it wasn’t. It’s because they are better at selling the burger than my parents were. So just keep that in mind. Just because someone is good at selling something does not mean it is a superior product. It means that they are better at selling it. It could be a superior product. That’s one of the ways that you could sell something. But it’s not equivalent.
And the red-light thing, I’m not hating on any brands. I’m all for people doing whatever they can and need to do to make money ethically, but you really gotta do your research. There are a lot of panels out there that are much cheaper, that are actually stronger. They’re not even equivalent. They’re stronger than the big brands and you don’t hear about them as much because maybe the marketing isn’t as good.
So, PlatinumLED, if you guys hear this one day and want to sponsor me, I’m all for it. Let me know. But at this time, no, I’m not paid to do that. They don’t sponsor me for anything like that. We just choose to use them in our business.
Dealing with Light: Get Meaningful Amounts of UVB for Vitamin D
We’ve seen phenomenal results with this for complexion, pain, hair regrowth, or faster growth of hair. If you get a really crappy haircut, something like that, you can use the red lights for that.
Finally, I want to talk about vitamin D. We can’t talk about light without the vitamin D aspect. For many people that are living in the Northern Hemisphere right now, the issue is when you go above the 30th parallel north, there are certain times every single year where you cannot get Vitamin D.
Now it’s going to vary the closer you go to like the North Pole from that 30th parallel. And this is also true with the 30th parallel South, by the way, and the South Pole. It’s just, I’m talking about the north one right now. In the United States, it’s, I forget what it is, right off hand. If you look it up, I mean, it’s a simple thing to find.
I’m sorry, I misspoke, but I’m not going to edit that out. That’s 37th parallel North. I don’t know why I said 30th. It’s 37th parallel North. What I was confusing it with is that the sun does not go 30 degrees over the horizon when we live above or below the 37th parallel north or south respectively.
At that point it means that there are sometimes during that year where we cannot get any meaningful amount of UVB light and thus vitamin D, because the sun does not go 30 degrees over the horizon. For where I live in Pennsylvania, my window is late November. It just started for us actually a week ago, and this will last all the way until late January.
Boosting Vitamin D Up with K2
With that said, something to use common sense with, just because the window is gone from late November to late January, does not mean I’m somehow getting meaningful amounts of vitamin D in October and February. That really doesn’t make sense. In fact, the lowest month for vitamin D status in United States of America is March.
So, if it’s March, we can use common sense and say, okay. Obviously, just because the vitamin D window is back does not mean people are actually getting vitamin D. You would have to be out taking your clothes off. You’d have to be out at the right times. You’re probably working a job or you’re on a call with a client. There’s a million different reasons that you might not be getting it.
So, how I handle vitamin D in the winter is, one, go get tested. Figure out what your levels are at, that’d be a good place to start. Then after that, there might be a time and place, especially if you’re really, really low, to use vitamin D supplementation with K2 just to boost it up.
The reason you want the K2 is to avoid hypercalcemia and most people are deficient in vitamin K2 anyway. There’s been some studies showing that eight weeks of vitamin K2 supplementation increased like max VO2 output by like 12% in people. So that’s kind of cool if you’re an athlete or someone who just wants to stay fit, on a little side nerdy note there. So, definitely use the K2 anyway.
But I don’t like to get it from a supplement. Boost your levels if that’s what you gotta do, fine. Test it again. Awesome. But I prefer to get this from light and there’s a couple of reasons.
Dealing with Light: Making Vitamin D
One is just common sense. Because I could get, for example, 15,000 IU of vitamin D from the sun every single day, and I’m assuming I’m not supplementing. I could get that from the sun every single day and I would never overdose on vitamin D.
Well, it’s not that you overdose literally on vitamin D, but I would never become hypercalcemic, which is technically what happens when you quote/unquote “overdose on vitamin D”. But if I took 15,000 IU of vitamin D every single day as a supplement and did not take it with K2, because K2 actually helps you get the calcium where it needs to go, as opposed to just stacking up in your blood, hypercalcemia, then in theory, I mean, I could potentially get hurt from this or even die from this.
I think that immediately shows you the difference in how the body handles this. So, if I supplement with it, the exact same amount that I could get from the sun, I need to take extra nutrients to make sure I don’t become hypercalcemic. Yet when I get it from the sun, the body knows how to work with that so easily that I don’t need any of those extra nutrients. Just something to think about.
The other thing is too, when you are using supplemental vitamin D as opposed to sunlight derived vitamin D, you’re not utilizing cholesterol in the way that you are supposed to. The body synthesizes vitamin D. It makes it itself when UVB light hits the skin and uses cholesterol for it. You do not get that same effect when you supplement directly with vitamin D.
Dealing with Light Using a Vitamin D Lamp
It makes you wonder, do people actually have a cholesterol problem in this country and countries around the world, or do we have a light deficiency problem? Just something to think about. Those are the main things I would worry about.
And then in terms of getting the vitamin D itself, it’s like, well, how do I do this Ev, if there’s no vitamin D window? Again, not sponsored, but if they ever hear this, I’m happy to take a commission. I would get a Sperti Vitamin D lamp. They’re not cheap, but they’re affordable. It’s something that’ll last you a long time.
The machine’s not going to go anywhere unless you like throw it across the room and you shouldn’t be doing that. The only thing you’d ever need to replace is the bulbs. So, it’s a very good investment, in my opinion. It could be a good investment even for rainy days in the summer when you can’t get out. Just get a little extra dose what, three-to-five-minute treatments even if you’re someone who has very dark skin.
I mean, you’re talking about something that’s insanely quick, easy to do, not inconvenient at all. You just gotta basically expose your back or your front to it. It’s not going to tan you. That’s not what this does. UVB light gets you the vitamin D, UVA tans. I would highly recommend getting it.
Summary for Dealing with Light
In summary, we want to make sure in this winter and every winter that we are catching as much sunrise as possible for as long as possible. But Ev, it’s cold. Okay. There are jackets for people who go to sub-50-degree weather. You can find a jacket to handle your 20-degree winter day. You’re going to be fine; I promise you. Catch sunrise as much as possible.
Do the sunset thing as much as you can. At the very least, get out just for a few minutes and then put those blue light blocking glasses on so that your body understands that it’s nighttime.
Utilize Iris, utilize Himalayan salt lamps. Utilize the things from Bon Charge and get the bulbs there, the reading lamps that’s really cool. Then you can just read and have the red light. Make sure that you are utilizing some type of red-light therapy, PlatinumLED. I love those guys. I would definitely recommend looking into their panels. Then finally, last, but certainly not least, is using a vitamin D lamp such as the one offered by Sperti.
If you really want a pro-tip here, I recommend using the red-light therapy after using the UV light because UV does damage our skin to some degree, especially if we do it in excess. Red light and near infrared light have been shown to repair that skin.
So, use the vitamin D lamp and then use your red-light therapy right afterwards to help repair any possible damage that was there. Red-light therapy has been shown to benefit some skin cancers. Look into that yourself, I’m not making a claim, that’s actually true. So that would be my pro-tip is use one and then the other.
Conclusion
With that all said, I hope you guys appreciate this short and sweet episode. Try to have a healthy winter. Be smart about what you’re doing, all right? I’m sure I’ll have some more episodes coming up with additional tips for this time of year regarding diet supplementation, different things like that. But here is the light side of things, if nothing else.
I will be back next time with a cool interview. We’re actually going to be analyzing some more lab test results since you guys seem to love that so much the last time we did it. This time we will be analyzing my poop. I’m sure you guys can’t wait for that. Have a good week and I will talk to you guys again soon.
There is a plethora of information available about food, health and wellness – in our fast-paced world, content is everywhere. When it comes to learning more about food, where it comes from and its impact on our health, we don’t always feel like opening a book or delving into scientific studies on PubMed. This is where food documentaries come in.
The best food documentaries tell incredible stories about food and the people who grow it, educate us about what’s in our food and how we can eat to support our health, shine a light on corporate corruption and inspire us to take action.
Food documentaries can frame complex information in a more interesting and active way, especially for visual learners. As our society’s interest in food grows, so has the number of food documentaries. Today we’re sharing our 28 Best Food Documentaries to Watch. Pop some non-GMO popcorn and settle onto the couch for some fascinating, groundbreaking and life-altering viewing!
28 Best food documentaries to watch
Gather
What It’s About: Indigenous communities in the United States who are working to reclaim their land, grow ancestral foods and fight for their food sovereignty.
Why We Like It: This film showcases the incredible resilience of Indigenous cultures who are reclaiming lost knowledge and sharing it, and why it’s important to listen to them.
What It’s About: Into The Weeds chronicles the journey of groundskeeper Dwayne ‘Lee’ Johnson, who goes after Monsanto after a terminal cancer diagnosis from years of using their herbicide RoundUp.
Why We Like It: This film shows the tenacity of a single individual with the bravery to challenge an enormous corporation, and how one person can make a big difference.
What It’s About: When Joe Cross is told that there isn’t anything that can be done about his excess weight and chronic autoimmune disease, he decides to take matters into his own hands. He trades the junk food for a juicer and films his road trip across America as he drinks veggie + fruit juice for 60 days.
Why We Like It: We love this heartwarming tale of one man who doesn’t give up on his pursuit of wellness and we appreciate that this movie inspired thousands of others to turn to food to support their health.
What It’s About: This film tells the story of the California food rebellion against big agribusiness to launch the local organic food movement.
Why We Like It: We love hearing about muckrakers who are brave enough to buck the conventional system and create their own food movement that brings health, flavour and variety to our plates.
What It’s About:Food Inc exposes the deep and unknown parts of the American food system – especially factory farming – and how it impacts our health, farming and the environment.
Why We Like It: This film is disturbing and scary at times, but it lifts a veil on an industry we don’t often get to see. Consumers experience a disconnect between the food they buy at the grocery store and how it gets there – and this movie will show you the ‘how’ in an uncomfortable, yet much needed way.
What It’s About: The Biggest Little Farm chronicles a city-dwelling couple with zero farming experience who move to the country and spend years building a thriving farm.
Why We Like It: This film is incredibly heartwarming, and it’s inspiring to see how biodynamic farming and respecting the connections in nature can bring the land back to life. But – it also shows the hardships, and the ups and downs, of exploring alternate ways of farming and living in harmony with your local ecosystem.
Why We Like It: We appreciate it when documentaries cover unconventional diets and shed new light on how these nutrition protocols can be effective in certain health situations.
What It’s About: Heavily featuring the work of Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, this film outlines how a plant-based diet can prevent and reverse many modern diseases such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
Why We Like It: We enjoyed seeing the real patient stories peppered throughout the film that invigorated our passion for plant-based cooking and eating. Vegans will love this one!
What It’s About:Genetic Roulette offers a detailed look at the health risks of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and how they’re linked to rising disease rates in America.
Why We Like It: This film is frank and honest about the dangers of GMOs and will make you carefully consider how the actions of corporations are affecting the food supply, our health and the health of the environment.
What It’s About: Ever been on a diet? You’re not alone – millions of North Americans go on one every year. Hungry for Change exposes the diet and weight loss industry and how they manipulate us to keep their industry thriving.
Why We Like It: This movie will change the way you view dieting (especially the industry’s use of addictive, sugary products) and offers practical solutions for those of you who’d like to get healthier.
What It’s About: This documentary delves into the obesity problem in America and how it affects politics, culture, health and future generations.
Why We Like It:Killer at Large is an emotionally compelling film that you’ll take to heart. We appreciate that it shows that obesity isn’t just one individual’s challenge or problem – it’s something that impacts all of us.
What It’s About: Two college best friends go on a road trip to America’s heartland to learn about where their food comes from. What they discover – that everything is made from corn – shocks them.
Why We Like It: This film truly shows how ubiquitous corn is in our food system. It’s everywhere – from drinks to bread to pasta to salad dressings and more – and once you learn corn’s wide reach, you’ll spend a lot more time decoding food labels.
What It’s About: This documentary follows one man’s quest to learn more about GMOs and how they impact his children’s health.
Why We Like It: While this film isn’t as in-depth as some of the other films about GMOs, it puts a singular and relatable human face on the issue that makes us consider our own health and the health of our families.
What It’s About: Bees are vanishing all over the world and this food documentary follows two beekeepers as they strive to protect their bees and raise political awareness about the problem.
Why We Like It: This film illustrates how even the smallest living things can make a grand impact on the environment and our health. We appreciate how The Vanishing of the Bees highlights the importance of bees and what they mean for our future.
What It’s About: This food documentary follows three meat and cheese lovers as they go vegan for 6 weeks and learn about factory farming, health and the environment in the process.
Why We Like It:Vegucated‘s tone alternates from comedic to serious, and the movie’s protagonists are relatable to many people on the standard North American diet. If they can change, anyone can!
What It’s About:Sustainable is a film about the land, the people who work it and what must be done to sustain it for future generations.
Why We Like It: We love the message of hope in this food documentary. All is not lost – and there are solutions and actions we can take every day to preserve our health and the health of the planet.
What It’s About: This film, made by Joe Cross of Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, examines childhood obesity, our lack of knowledge about food and food insecurity.
Why We Like It: This documentary shows some pretty amazing kids who are taking the lead and becoming forces for change.
What It’s About: This four-part Netflix documentary series by Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and one of our top 50 food activists) looks at the history of food preparation and how cooking plays an enormous role in cultural tradition and connection.
Why We Like It: We like that each episode is themed on an element – fire, water, air and earth – and the cinematography in this food documentary is just stunning.
What It’s About: This alarming documentary, narrated by Katie Couric, investigates the sugar industry and the government’s complicity in the obesity and diabetes epidemics.
Why We Like It:Fed Up will make you think twice about reaching for a candy bar and will motivate you to take companies to task for their role in manipulating children and adults alike.
What It’s About: In the vein of Supersize Me, Damon Gameau embarks on an experimental diet that illustrates the impact of added sugars found in foods that are considered ‘healthy’.
Why We Like It:That Sugar Film uncovers how dangerous hidden sugars are in foods. We expect to see sugar in ice cream or cookies, but what most of us don’t realize is added sugar is found in a wide variety of foods – like dairy-free yogurt, pasta sauce, granola bars and more.
What It’s About: Billions of dollars worth of edible food is tossed into the trash every year by farmers, retailers and consumers. Filmmakers Jen and Grant decide to stop grocery shopping and only eat foods that would be otherwise thrown away.
Why We Like It: We love that this film shines a light on our misguided quest for ‘perfect-looking’ produce and makes us reconsider expiry dates. With so many people in North America who are hungry, food waste is a huge problem and this film inspires us to be part of the solution.
What It’s About: This disturbing documentary shows Monsanto’s corporate domination over farmers, governments and scientists to the detriment of our health.
Why We Like It: It’s a well-researched movie that illuminates the challenges of GMOs and the dangers of one company’s power over us all.
What It’s About: This food documentary delves into the organic food industry, separating the truth from the hype and examining how large corporations are co-opting the organic label to boost their business.
Why We Like It: We like that this film not only examines the true meaning of organic but also highlights that organic food and nutritious food aren’t always the same thing.
What It’s About:Ingredients draws attention to the local food movements in the United States and how farmers across the country are working to strengthen and increase our connection and access to homegrown food.
Why We Like It: One person or small groups of people truly can make a difference – and this food documentary is living proof of that.
What It’s About: Filmmaker Kristin Cantry, a mom of four, examines how small-scale farmers are bullied or raided by government officials for growing and providing access to nutritious foods.
Why We Like It: This shocking documentary exposes the hypocrisy of a government that will legally allow us to eat foods that are harmful and crack down on the farmers that are growing foods that support our health.
What It’s About: This Netflix documentary series profiles world-renowned chefs and how they achieved their success.
Why We Like It: Each episode of this series will inspire you to be more creative, resourceful, entrepreneurial and never give up on your goals and dreams.
What happens when you put diabetics on a diet composed largely of whole grains, vegetables, and beans?
The American Medical Association has described macrobiotic diets as “one of the most dangerous dietary regimens, posing not only serious hazards to the health of the individual but even to life itself.” Macrobiotic diets “are predominantly vegetarian with great emphasis being placed on the inclusion of whole-grain cereals.” What’s wrong with that? Well, they also used to tell people that “fluids are to be avoided as much as possible,” which isn’t good, and to avoid fruit so much so that it resulted in modern-day cases of scurvy.
Thankfully, as I discuss in my video Flashback Friday: Pros and Cons of a Macrobiotic Diet, “the macrobiotic diet has evolved over the past 30 years.” As you can see below and at 0:46 in my video, the more contemporary version emphasizes whole grains, vegetables, and beans, and minimizes most meat, eggs, and dairy. I don’t like that it restricts fruits and I don’t like all of the added salt, but compared with the standard American diet, it has a lot going for it, as you can see below and at 1:04 in my video: It has only a quarter of the saturated fat intake, less than half of the sugar intake, and a respectable fiber intake—two and a half times the national average. However, it includes more sodium. It also has a negative Dietary Inflammatory Index score, as opposed to the pro-inflammatory typical American diet. Some of the most anti-inflammatory foods are herbs and spices, so instead of adding sea salt and soy sauce, the macrobiotic diet, which is already anti-inflammatory, could be improved by using natural seasonings instead.
Has the macrobiotic diet ever been put to the test? Yes, it has been for diabetes. Higher plain water consumption is associated with lower risk of type 2 diabetes, yet the macrobiotic diet restricts drinking water. Part of the beneficial link may be because people on a macrobiotic diet drink less soda, though. What about the restriction on fruit intake? That probably isn’t helpful either because “higher fruit or green leafy vegetables intake is associated with a significantly reduced risk of type 2 diabetes.” But, green leafy vegetables is where the macrobiotic diet can really shine: It includes a lot of greens. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study of kale show that it suppresses the after-meal increase in blood sugars. As you can see in the graph below and at 2:19 in my video,eating a meal of white rice, chicken, and eggs produces a big spike in blood sugar, though it is significantly less when just a tablespoon of dried kale powder is added to the meal, as opposed to a placebo powder.
Macrobiotic diets also include whole grains, which can significantly improve insulin sensitivity compared with refined grains, possibly due in part to all of the wonderful things fiber can do to help our good gut bacteria thrive, potentially lowering inflammation and decreasing diabetes risk, as you can see below and at 2:43 in my video. You don’t know, of course, until you put it to the test.
After only three weeks on a strictly plant-based diet composed mostly of whole grains, vegetables, and beans, participants got about a 10 percent drop in blood pressure, a whopping 35 percent drop in bad LDL cholesterol, and a 38 percent drop in fasting blood sugars. Were these changes statistically significant? Yes, the changes were significant in every possible way.
Similarly, short-term interventional studies of people with diabetes on these so-called Ma-Pi 2 macrobiotic diets have been performed across four continents. “Ma-Pi,” named after the person who came up with the diet, Mario Pianesi, is a strictly plant-based diet of mostly whole grains and vegetables, with legumes, some seeds, and decaffeinated green tea as the preferred beverage. As you can see below and at 3:54 in my video, participants in one of these studies had a nearly 40 percent drop in fasting blood sugars and almost a 27 percent drop in LDL cholesterol in just 21 days. The study subjects did lose weight—a few pounds a week—but those kinds of results were much more than one would expect with weight loss. What’s more, that 40 percent drop in blood sugars was after cutting their insulin in half! So, those numbers greatly underestimate the effects. Better results, on fewer drugs—that’s the power of plants. All we need now is a randomized, controlled clinical trial to really seal the deal, which I cover in my next video, Flashback Friday: Benefits of a Macrobiotic Diet for Diabetes.
My first day in Bali was spent at InterContinental Hotels & Resorts. Their beachfront views for lunch and dinner are breathtaking! The views elevate the vibe!
For dinner, at the InterContinental, I had the barramundi. It was fresh and delicious. There truly is nothing like wild Australian fish. If you are someone who loves fish, you must give this a try barramundi!
The next night for dinner, we went to Mason Bali in Uluwatu. Their food was incredible! We had lamb, barramundi, and broccoli salad.
Mason Bali takes pride in their high-quality seafood and meat. Their menu focuses on a variety of Mediterranean-inspired snacks. So delicious!
Another night, we had dinner at the best Japanese restaurant in Canggu (according to my sister who has lived here for 5 years), and I have to admit it was sooooooo good!
Another great spot I tried was Yuki Bali. Their food was fantastic! My favorite part was that it is just footsteps away from Batu Belong Beach.
We ordered the pumpkin in truffle oil (divine, this is a must!), charred green veggies with garlic chips, octopus, and grilled calamari. This was a must-order, wow.
They use truffle, sesame, and sunflower oil. The Earth Diet does not approve of sunflower oil, however, they don’t use canola which is a step in the right direction.
There are no rainbows without rain. It’s rainy season in Bali and the rain is showing out! It was raining when we left for dinner, but then it cleared up for a beautiful blue sky!
Another night, we had a lovely sunset dinner at Mari Beach Club! The vibes were chill and relaxed. The food was great – especially the seafood! Such a lovely place to hang with friends and enjoy dinner. This is one of my sister’s favorite beach clubs in Bali!
On one of my last few days, we went to the island of Lembongan and wow! Bluewater and clear skies all day – it was beautiful! While on the island, we went toSeabreeze Ceningan Beach barand restaurant and it was one of my favorite spots on theisland.
I received an approach to do a debate on animal vs plant-based diets. It wasn’t the right time for various reasons. Then I spotted in a forum, of which I’m a member, that Ivor Cummins was going to be doing it. That was a great result in my view.
The debate was due to be held on GB News, on the Bev Turner show (Monday to Thursday 10-noon). Bev introduced the debate as “This section is a two chart challenge. I’m going to get two experts and they’re going to answer the big issues from a factual point of view. The question today is ‘What diet is healthier – is it a vegetarian or a meat-based diet?’” (Ref 1).
Ivor’s opponent was Dr Michael Greger. Dr Michael Greger is a strident vegan. I’ve covered Greger’s recommended diet in this 2018 post (Ref 2). The Daily Mail ran a series of articles to promote Greger’s book. The book was called “The How Not to Die Cookbook.” The first rebuttal clearly needed to be “we’re all going to die.”
Helpfully, Greger summarised his diet as a “Daily Dozen” – the foods that we should eat every day. (Servings were approximately 60g as a general guide). The “Daily Dozen” were 3 servings of legumes, 1 serving of berries, 3 servings of other fruits, a serving of cruciferous vegetables, 2 servings of greens, 2 servings of other vegetables, 1 tablespoon of flaxseeds, a handful of nuts, 1/4 teaspoon of herbs/spices, 300g of cooked oats/rice/pasta, and 5 glasses of water/tea/coffee. That adds up to 11. The 12th item in the daily dozen was nothing to do with food. It was to do 90 minutes of moderate or 40 minutes of vigorous exercise daily, which is a very healthy thing to do.
The first article in the Mail series claimed “Yes, this really is food to help you LIVE LONGER!” The article questioned: “What if you ate a diet composed solely of plant foods and avoided processed and animal foods?” I analysed the diet to answer that question and found that consumers would be deficient in B12, retinol, D3, heme iron, and omega-3 in the right form (DHA and EPA), just for starters (likely calcium, zinc and more too).
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Well, hello my friends, and welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, aka Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show on energy healing. We are taking a bit of a different route today. We’re talking to Christi Clemons, someone who is very developed spiritually and we’re gonna get into some interesting topics and subtopics.
With that said, I always preface this if someone is coming on and has a lot of talk regarding God or spirituality or whatever. I don’t preface it if someone just mentions it once or twice, but when it becomes a core part of the podcast, this is something I always need to mention.
As a podcast and as a podcast host, one of my jobs is to be open. I have to listen to a variety of people, and I want to listen to a variety of people. I am not so arrogant as to assume that I have all the answers to this earth. However, you have to stand for something, otherwise you will fall for anything, right? I do believe in that as well. So, there’s certain things that I stand for. There are many beliefs that I have, and some of them overlap with our guests today. Some of them do not overlap.
The bottom line is we’re always going to bring in a variety of people because that’s what we want to do. We want to let you decide for yourself what you think is correct and what you find resonates with you. That’s not our decision to make. What we are caring about are people who have overcome health challenges regardless of how they did it.
Promise to Not Be Dogmatic
If this was a religious podcast, sure there would be certain things that I would omit depending on what religion I am, but that’s not what this is. This is people who have gotten healthy, and we honor their stories regardless of how they did that. I hope that you guys enjoy this today. I think it will resonate with a lot of our practitioners. But if it doesn’t, just remember, it was a cool story. You’re glad you got to hear it, probably, and then you can move on to the next thing.
But what I cannot do is ever allow myself, I promised this, and if you’ve been listening for a while, you know, I’ve actually mentioned this promise that I made to myself many, many years back. I was never going to let myself become so dogmatic that I started to create the same problems for others as many Western medicine practitioners unintentionally created for me.
What does that mean? It means that people, especially those in Western medicine, but this is not exclusive to them at all, they find something that works, they learn only one thing, and because of that, anything else is gibberish. It means nothing. It’s not even worth investigating, and that’s why it’s very hard sometimes to convince Western medicine practitioners of what we’re doing, despite having clear evidence and science on it.
Now, we’re lucky in our community. We have a wide variety of people, including many Western medicine people, including medical doctors that choose to go through our program. That’s amazing. It is hard to have that shift in paradigm. But we gotta be careful about that on the functional side too.
A Little About Christi Clemons
How many times have you heard someone that went paleo and got better and so that’s all they promote? How many times have you heard someone that went vegan and got better and now that’s all they promote? I don’t care what you did. I want to know; did you get better?
That’s what happened to our guest today, Christi Clemons. So, that’s why we are going to talk about her whole story in its entirety. It’s something that’s actually a sub passion of mine. I’m very interested in the topic, and I had to hold back a little bit. This is a health podcast after all. I think you guys will see that passion and that itch that I wanted to scratch come out throughout this episode.
So, a little bit about Christi. PRS Radio Guest of the year and co-author of the bestselling book, The Gap, Simple Steps to Reclaim Your Health and Reverse Most Chronic Diseases, Christi Clemons Hoffman, MA, CHt, is a lifelong intuitive, channeler, teacher, coach, and consultant whose passion is assisting others to see who and what they truly are.
Using the tools of Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique, otherwise known as QHHT, and other forms of hypnosis, Reiki, Angel Readings, medical intuition, channeling, mediumship and Akashic Records, Christi helps clients with questions about their spiritual growth, unlocking answers about life purpose, past lives, health, relationships, and more.
Christi loves all things history, languages, art, and culture, and is located in the Kansas City metropolitan area where she lives with her daughter, their dog, and two cats. Definitely a different type of episode today. One that is, regardless, again, of your beliefs, pretty hard to not listen to. I hope you guys enjoy it.
The Energy Healing Chapter
One more quick thing before we start. I just wanted to thank you guys because I looked on Apple Podcasts today. I realized we had 70 perfect five-star reviews for the time that we’ve been doing this podcast. My goal is to get us to a hundred perfect five-star reviews.
I know there will be some hater eventually. But hopefully we can get to that a hundred mark before that happens, and we are seven tenths of the way there. So, if you like the content that we’re sharing, we’d greatly appreciate if you took a second to leave us a review on that Apple Podcast platform. All right, now to today’s episode.
All right. Hello Christi. Welcome to the Health Detective Podcast. How are you?
[00:05:06] Christi Clemons: Well, thank you. Thank you for having me. I’ve been thrilled for this.
[00:05:09] Detective Ev: First thing that we have to address today is you are an author with Reed actually, and a few other amazing people. You guys actually all collaborated to come up with a book. I normally shout things out at the end, but this is something we had to talk about in my opinion in the beginning.
What is the book called? What was your inspiration to be a part of it? I’d love to hear more about this for the audience.
My part of it, my chapter is about energy and how energy affects your health. Energy being emotion, as well as our energetic system.
Studying Energy Healing
[00:05:57] Detective Ev: Awesome. I looked at your background and then I know Reed’s. I realized that you guys had collaborated. If you two alone did it, it’d be an interesting dynamic, let alone add a few other people in. I’m excited to kind of dive into that myself. Of course, for those listening that will be in the show notes in our podcast. You can get that on Amazon.
With that said though, I want to move to the first question we normally start with on this show, and that’s kind of how did you get into this space? You serve a unique role from my understanding, but still, no one gets into this space by accident. It’s not necessarily one’s dream job at five years old. So how did this start for you?
[00:06:32] Christi Clemons: Well, I had always been interested in the metaphysical, the esoteric, the woo-woo, if you call it, from a very young age. But I never knew what to do with it. I never knew that you could do anything with it. I never knew that you could help others or do healing or make a career of it or any of that.
About 2010, the bottom fell out of my life. I had one of these dark nights of the souls. Everything kind of fell apart and I knew that there had to be a bigger reason for it. So, I started investigating karma, past lives, energy, all of these things. I started to learn what it’s all about, that there were much bigger truths behind everything that I was experiencing.
Then couple that with some health issues. I know that much of your audience are people like me who’ve had mysterious health journeys that they’re just trying to figure out.
Energy Healing: Energy is Running the Show
Couple the metaphysical and the energetic and the karmic type of things I was finding out and learning and taking a deep dive into with the physical stuff. At that time, I didn’t understand how the metaphysical played into the physical health. So, I was looking at the traditional health things, the tests and the labs and all of these things.
But as I kept diving deeper into the metaphysical and the esoteric into it, I realized what was really running the show here was energy. Everything in the body responds to energy, and energy is the basis for everything we see around us. The emotional component even drives the energy behind it. So that was fascinating. It was eye opening. But you find these bigger truths and suddenly nothing else makes sense.
[00:08:32] Detective Ev: I’ve had a few experiences so far in my life where I feel like I know what you mean when you said that last part there. I had not admittedly, always had an interest in this stuff. I was not only an atheist most of my life, but extraordinarily and almost toxically dismissive to anyone else’s beliefs.
No one taught me that admittedly. I was a very “see it to believe it” person. And obviously once you get deep enough into the space, oh no, there’s plenty to see. It’s not that you can’t see it to believe it, but it’s not something that you necessarily walk down the street and see as readily as you see someone walking their dog. It’s not that type of thing.
Talking to Things Not Seen
When I first had some experiences that opened my eyes to this whole different world, really a part of our world, but a whole different world in my eyes, I was kind of amazed and also humbled. It was one of the more humbling things I’ve ever dealt with because I was so adamantly opinionated one way about this. Then I’m the one that gets the experience like, oh, there might be a little more here.
So, you said you’ve always been interested in it. Was that even from as a kid or was it a teenager? When was really the first time you truly got into this?
[00:09:31] Christi Clemons: Well, really as long as I can remember. When I was a baby, I’d say 18 months old, I was talking to ghosts. My dad had a job as a night watchman in a huge like WPA, 1930s era high school here in Kansas City. My mom was an x-ray tech, she worked nights. So, my dad would take me and my crib and go roam the halls of this huge school at night. He was a college student, so he would take his books along and study.
He said I would stand up in my crib and babble and talk to people. One night I said, hi, Mr. Man, and was just talking very happily to something he couldn’t see. Then later, I was seeing ghosts. About the age of 10, my cousins bought this very, very haunted house in Kansas City. I was seeing ghosts there and I was always interested in it.
Remember the little Scholastic weekly reader catalogs you could order the books from in elementary school? I was ordering books on ghosts and UFOs and monsters, and cryptids and all those things.
The Healing Energy That Creates Everything
But I was also considered really weird. The other girls in my class just thought I was too bizarre because I was interested in all of these things. So, more or less, I took those interests underground. But yeah, I’ve always been into it.
It’s interesting you said that you were raised kind of this agnostic/atheist type of background. I was raised Unitarian and then unity and not really understanding what it all meant anyway. Then one day I was in my teenage years and the Unitarian minister rode a motorcycle into church to talk about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persik, which is an awesome book. It’s not about motorcycles and it’s not really about Zen, but somewhere in between.
But he was talking about the concept of Zen and Buddhism and reincarnation. All of a sudden, it’s like a light bulb went off and everything made sense, whereas Christianity didn’t really make sense to me. So, I identified for a really long time as a Buddhist. Now I’m Unity, which was also founded here in Kansas City. But yeah, the religious aspect is a part of it, but not all of it.
Because you know, the energy that we respond to and the energy that goes through our bodies and well actually creates everything we see around us is what I consider God, although I might not call it that. But I would say that’s probably more accurately descriptive of my spiritual journey is energy.
I hope that makes sense.
Searching for Answers
[00:12:18] Detective Ev: Well, it does. And I want to take this to the health side. But I appreciate, first of all, your transparency cause it is a hard thing to talk about. It’s not well received by everyone.
This is a health show, like this is something I almost never share. But I’m happy to do it cause I appreciate your courage with it.
[00:12:33] Detective Ev: Again, I wasn’t into it when I was younger, but the things that I experienced and then the things that I started studying, everything that you listed off admittedly, still gets several hours of my week dedicated to legitimate study of this, trying to figure this out. I don’t talk about that much. The people close to me know. I know just enough now to know that some of this is real.
Then the question for me becomes, and I think this is this allusive question that lingers for most of us no matter how long we’re in this. I almost believe that we can’t ever fully figure it out while we’re here, that’s kind of the point. You might get closer.
Everyone, especially actually the people that are in your position that have studied it for longer and been involved in it longer, I find that you guys are the ones that, yes, you might have a label or two, but you are usually typically the first people to say, well, this is what I think. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I feel pretty good about this. Because it’s a continuously humbling experience studying this stuff. You think one thing one week and then the next week, well, that disproved that. It’s wacky and it’s fun. It’s exciting actually to study and try to realize what it is.
Energy Healing: Emotions Are Our First Line of Knowledge
[00:13:34] Christi Clemons: Exactly. It’s kind of a mental exercise. And I don’t think any of us really has a beat on what the truth is. We have our ideas. But I also know that my thoughts create a reality. Everyone’s thoughts create their reality. So, just keeping on the purest form of thought is most essential.
And bringing it back to the health because this is a health show, of course. I feel like that has to do with our bodies as well. And my chapter in The Gap is all about that. How the beliefs that we’re brought up with, the reactions that we witness as we’re growing up from our family of origin, the thoughts that we have, especially the repeated thoughts, are what affects the body.
So, our body becomes, in a way, a message system that our higher self, the higher consciousness part of us, some of us might call it our soul, our higher mind, what have you, but that higher part of us knows what we incarnated for, knows what we came here to learn and experience and grow from.
When we are going off on a tangent that is not going to be in our highest good, that higher part of us will let us know and just like say, hey Dummy, you need to look at this. Maybe think of it a different way. Maybe your beliefs about this thing are not where you intend them to be. Are you really wanting to create this? Probably not.
So, our first line of knowledge that something is off is our emotion. We might feel a negative emotion, sadness, grief, shame, guilt, something like that, just to let us know that maybe we’re not looking at this in the right way.
Energy Healing: Our Energy System is Affected by Our Patterns
Of course, we have free will because God loves us very much and wants us to have free will. So, we can change our course of action. We can change the way we think about something. We can change the way we’re looking at something or not. And if we don’t, that’s fine, but then the knock gets louder. When we’re continuing in these thought patterns, the patterns of belief, the patterns of reaction that we may have been practicing for decades or just years, the knock gets a little bit louder and then our energy system is affected.
What I mean by the energy system, if anyone is curious, is our chakra system. We have a system of seven main principle energy centers within the body. Then there’s also minor chakras that are associated with all of our organs and they report to the seven principle chakras.
In the book, I do break out which chakra is which, and what physical organs that each chakra corresponds to, what thoughts and beliefs that each corresponds to as well, as well as a few instances of disease or physical illness that might correspond to these thoughts and beliefs and this energy.
Anyway, our energy system begins to be affected by this pattern that we’re expressing. Then we might feel off, we might begin to have some maybe digestive upset, maybe some coughing, maybe some headaches. We may begin to have some of these, but definitely we’re feeling off and we know something’s going on.
But again, we have free will and we can either change course, we can stay the course. If we choose to stay the course, no harm, no foul, but that knock gets louder.
Energy Healing: Physical Vs. Energy & Emotions
Over time we can experience true disease, illness, even injury if we’re not paying attention to what’s going on energetically within the body. So, when we have something we’re trying to figure out, for me, it was infertility and digestive issues. I’m now a Reiki master and I’ve been a Reiki master for a few years. But that’s something I picked up along the way was harnessing the power of Reiki.
I see in women primarily the sacral chakra, which governs fertility, reproduction. All of these things are our sexual drive, our sexual organs. Then the solar plexus chakra which controls digestion. I see these two things primarily in women that are out of whack just because of how we tend to function in society. For that reason, I do see that the physical structures correspond to the emotional structures and the background, the emotional background that we have, the belief structures and the beliefs background that we have.
In the book, I drew a little diagram. The diagram is of a mountain. Now, I used to live in Switzerland. We have lots of tunnels through mountains in Switzerland because you pretty much have to. Anyway, I see an illness or disease as a mountain we’re trying to dig a tunnel through.
What we hope to do is meet in the middle. We’re drilling through on one side with all of the physical things that we would do for health, scans, treatments, medicines, physical therapy, and all of those things. But on the other side, we must address the energy and the emotion that created the illness or disease in the first place.
Both Energy Healing and Physical Healing for Lasting Results
Again, the illness or disease is the mountain. On one side, we need to attack it from the physical perspective. I never tell anybody, don’t see a doctor or don’t believe doctors or don’t believe medicine. I think it’s necessary and it’s useful. But we also have to address what’s creating the issue and hopefully we’ll meet there in the middle.
Because for only doing the physical things, the tests, the medicines, the scans, the physical therapies, the surgery, if necessary, if we’re only addressing it that way, we’re going to achieve some results. However, they may not be lasting because we are creating them as we go with our thoughts and beliefs.
Commercial Break: Health Space Unmasked
[00:19:39] Detective Ev: Hey there, friends. Just wanted to share with you an awesome event that we have coming up. If you’ve been listening regularly, you might know about our Health Space Unmasked events. What that is, is a deep dive for two hours. It’s usually Reed Davis, the founder of FDN, featuring a special guest who is an expert in their particular topic or topics in the functional medicine space.
We have a fan favorite. You probably know this guy; you might follow him. His name is Ben Azadi. It’s going down December 3rd, 2022, from 8:30 AM PST to 10:30 AM. For those on the East coast, that is 11:30 AM until 1:30 PM. The topic is tapping into the innate intelligence with ketosis.
Ben Azadi is a keto expert. He’s a personal friend of mine at this point. I’ve seen him lecture many times at conferences that we’re at for FDN that he’s also at. He is an FDN himself if you didn’t know that about him. So that’s kind of cool. When he talks, this guy also has the gift of being a speaker in addition to an educator. And of course, it’s perfectly okay to hear from educators. I hear from them all the time. But it is a very special thing when someone can combine education with speaking ability.
His stuff is just content that you remember. It’s stuff that you want to hear about. And the best part is these events are completely free, so you get to hang out with like a hundred plus other nerds on a Saturday morning and get to really learn about some great topics.
How you can sign up for this is go to fdntraining.com/unmasked. I will have that in the show notes for you.
Our Physical Bodies Still Need Nurturing Care
All right, now back to today’s episode. I appreciate your objectivity greatly with that, I mean this. I’ve talked to a lot of people who, I mean, no one’s exactly the same, but you know what I mean, they’re into similar stuff. You could put them in a similar category with someone like you, and they won’t acknowledge some of the physical sometimes. But to me this seems silly.
Because if I ask these people, well, okay, so I’m a spirit having a human experience, right? They say yes. I’m like, so am I gonna live forever on this earth? Oh, no, no, no. You live forever somewhere else.
Okay, so I still have a physical body that needs to be taken care of in this world, right? Like your spirituality cannot prevent me from being shot and dying. Like I’m still going to physically, I’m going to die. I can buy into that, right? I actually do believe that at this point that there is something separate from my physical body.
But I just think it’s common sense that the bottom line is we are still in this physical 3D world that some would say we’ve been subjected to, others would say we had the privilege of being able to enjoy, to actually learn something. I think it’s a mix of both. It’s a pretty intense reality for sure when you think about it.
But my point is it’s like, okay, clearly there’s a physical aspect. Then I think it’s equally as ignorant, at this point in my life, to ignore what you’re talking about, which is this entirely different side of the human being. Yeah, if we don’t get that stuff resolved. And we see this sometimes, Christi.
Energy Healing: Healthy Body and Mind
I see people that have done every single lab test imaginable. They are the most regiment people you can imagine. They’ll spend all the money, they’ll do the supplements, they’ll do the diet, they’ll go to bed on time. Yeah, do they get better? Sure. But do they always have that lingering, that stuck aspect? Yes.
In fact, I was kind of one of those people where, okay, cool, I got myself to that 80, 90%. I’m still probably in this process to be clear. But until I learned to let go of certain things and forgive myself and others for certain things that 10% was pretty hard to get rid of. And once I opened up, it’s like all of a sudden, I can eat foods that I was sensitive to again and I can get away with getting a little less sleep when I had to be so regimen before.
It’s kind of amazing how when we address that, the physical stuff can actually become less strict. Have you found that to be a common theme for people?
[00:23:10] Christi Clemons: Absolutely. First of all, we need to get to a better state of health so that we can continue improving. But we also need to be in a good mind frame.
When we are healing and we’re feeling better, it’s easier to stay in a positive mindset because the mind-body connection is so fricking strong. We just keep snowballing and building on it. So yeah, when you’re doing all the things and you’re seeing some results, but still not quite there, it’s important to keep up with it.
Energy Healing: Putting it All Together
We have to address the energetic and the emotional aspects that contributed to creating this illness or disease. Because if we don’t, we’re just creating it as we’re going along. No amount of supplements, no amount of sleep, no amount of anything is going to completely resolve it because we’re still creating it as we go along.
If somebody has, for example, diabetes, they would be remiss not to be taking insulin, but also addressing where they’re lacking sweetness in their life, and how they may be resisting sweetness in their life. But if we don’t have a physical body that’s healthy, we’re not gonna have the energy to address the emotional and energetic things we need to address.
So yeah, I really feel like that needs to go together. There is definitely a place for the medical.
[00:24:30] Detective Ev: Right. I still have to do all the things that I choose to do with FDN and the labs and all these things. But I also noticed too, when I got into, like the last year, I’ve been very lucky enough to have a wonderful partner in a super healthy relationship.
To be clear, it was very much my fault that the relationship was unhealthy. But I could make an argument that this is probably the first healthy, intimate relationship I’ve ever had in my life. It was amazing the benefit that that had on me physically, psychologically mentally, which could go with the psychological. It became obvious that, oh yeah, I can cheat on the diet a little bit. I can stay up a little later. These are things that normally would’ve just wiped me out, immediately led to a breakout. Acne was part of my story. Immediately would’ve led to that.
A Healthy Relationship Yields Energy Healing
It’s like, how am I getting away with this? Well, I think there’s two things. One, the fact that I was even capable of having a healthy relationship implied that I had done some healing that was really useful before that. But then the healthy relationship is healing in and of itself for both her and I for things that we maybe we don’t even realize need healing. So it’s kind of beautiful. I think it’s a relatable example for most people.
Think about the opposite, a toxic relationship, it destroys us. You get headaches all the time, you feel sick, you feel depressed. So, if a negative relationship can do that, why would the opposite not bring an abundance of good health? Right? That’s purely energy. That has nothing to do with eating food or going to bed on time.
[00:25:50] Christi Clemons: Exactly. You’re feeling good.
Well, and there has to be something said about the hormones that are going through your body as you’re feeling good. Because when we’re happy, we’re releasing certain hormones into the bloodstream that keep us feeling happy.
And when we are in shock or trauma, then we have other hormones that race through the body that keep us feeling shocked or in trauma. So it does, it all goes together, doesn’t it? It’s fascinating.
[00:26:14] Detective Ev: Yeah. Relating this to your health struggles and stuff, I appreciate you actually doing that organically in your story. But you mentioned the things with fertility and then how the certain chakras could be associated with that. You notice that now doing the Reiki.
Energy Healing and Medical Modalities
So just to be clear, when you had these health issues, because it doesn’t sound like you were doing the Reiki at the time, what were the first objective action steps that were leading to the positive results for you? Because from your bio, I now know obviously the fertility thing did end up getting resolved. So, what ended up leading to that resolution for you?
[00:26:46] Christi Clemons: Actually, the fertility thing did not get resolved. I adopted a beautiful daughter.
[00:26:52] Detective Ev: Okay. Well then, go figure.
[00:26:56] Christi Clemons: Who is meant to be mine.
But you know what? You are absolutely right. I was not a Reiki master or a hypnotherapist during that journey at all. So, that was like pretty early on before I really even started having the full awakening. I kind of call my awakening a slow role, but that was a long time ago. I wish I knew then what I know now.
But after I really started taking a deeper dive into all of this, I resolved my childhood trauma. My digestion is so much better. I can’t even tell you how much better that is. Did I see specialists and get scans and things like that? Absolutely.
Being a Reiki master, I do feel like I have a little bit of a cheat on my side, a little bit of a ringer. Because honestly, when you practice Reiki or any form of energy healing, you’re getting it as well as transmitting it. So, every client I see, I am getting healing along with transferring healing to the client.
Energy Healing: Continue with the Physical and the Mental Work
So, I have a little bit of an edge, but still, I’ve gotta do my work. I mean, it’s a daily thing. I’ve gotta do my work, say my affirmations, talk to my vision of God and what that means. I’ve gotta do my meditation and I’ve gotta get my mindset on right. So, it’s a continual process, I have to say.
It’s not something, like you clean your house once and you know, like six months later you gotta clean it again. Or maybe every week you’ve gotta keep it clean. But it’s one of these things that we really have to keep up on, along with our diet and everything. We can’t just get clean in our eating for one month and then forget it for 10 years. It’s something that we continually have to come back to.
[00:28:34] Detective Ev: Right. And first I want to say on a side note. I should not have assumed that everything worked out. So, thank you for responding to something that I shouldn’t have assumed and actually could be a sensitive thing just lightheartedly and positively. I appreciate that, seriously. That’s my bad.
I also want to talk about Reiki specifically. You’re one of those people where I like it to flow naturally if I can. But you have so many parts that I just gotta know more about the specific things. I’m almost jumping my questions. Reiki is the next question for me, because I’ve had Reiki performed on me, if you will, three times.
One of the times I did not feel anything. Two out of the three times though it was unbelievably obvious that something was happening.
Energy Healing: Feeling the Heat
For those listening, the way I can describe it is, I was with this woman named Sharon. She had me lay on a table and she was like a friend. She’s like, hey, I’m just learning this stuff. I’m still getting better. Like, it’s free. I’m like, okay, cool. I’ll give it a try.
I probably laid in there for about 60 minutes. Maybe 45, 50 minutes in, it was pretty late into the session, I haven’t felt anything, but I’m super relaxed. I’ve been laying down, eyes closed. They got the good music playing in the background, so I’m not thinking about anything. I have no worries in the world.
Then I feel an overwhelming, not in a bad way, just so strong and obvious feeling of warmth in my feet to the point where at first it tricked me. Then it got to the point where it woke me up almost out of my relaxed state. I look up and sure enough, she is right at my feet, not touching them physically, but right outside of them with her hands. Exactly where she had her hands is exactly where I was feeling the heat.
I was just left in awe by this. I was amazed by the fact that we’re so far into the session, there’s no way this could be a placebo. I’ve lost track of where she is in the room. I’m barely even conscious. And then I snap out of it and see her, feel her right there. I know there’s something to this.
In your definition, what is Reiki doing and why does this lead to people having these sometimes incredible stories of healing? I’ve heard people report that their cancer got cured because of going to a Reiki master.
Allowing the Energy Healing to Come Through
[00:30:28] Christi Clemons: Well, I’ve seen remarkable things happen in my sessions as well, remarkable healings, and not just physical healings, but even emotional healings. People feel like their grief lift. People feel their stress and their anxiety just lift. So, what’s going on with Reiki?
Reiki is a Japanese word, and it means universal life force energy. Ki, we’ve all heard of as chi, because chi is the Chinese word, ki is the Japanese word. Reiki is universal life force energy, and it originates in Japan, at least this form of flowing energy originates in Japan with a fellow named Macau Sui. He went and meditated for 21 days on health and healing, and he received this Reiki energy and then started teaching people how to harness it.
So, this is the energy that’s going through life all the time. All the time we were not even aware of it. You first start with Reiki one, then Reiki two, then Reiki three, and then Reiki master. When you get attuned to each step, then you can harness more of this energy. And I know it sounds really woo-woo, but it works as you can attest.
What happens is, in a Reiki session, the practitioner opens up their channels for this Reiki energy and then flows it through the practitioner. So, we’re not actually doing anything. We’re not doing healing. We’re allowing that energy to come through.
It’s Not Imperative to Feel the Energy Healing
This is something that parents know very, very naturally. When one of our children is not feeling well, what do we do? We pat them on the back. We rub their tummy. We pat them on the arm. Even on ourselves, if I have a headache, what do I do? I put my hands to my temples. Oh my gosh, I’ve got a headache. Stomachache, we put our hands on ourselves. We do this naturally because we know that that energy transfer is helpful and healing.
But when we’re talking about Reiki, then that’s even more universal. All I’m doing as a Reiki professional is to allow that energy to flow through me into the client. And that’s what Sharon was doing on you, Evan, is just allowing that energy to flow through.
Now Reiki energy is very intelligent, and it knows where it needs to go. It finds the things that are blocked, works through them to resolve those blocks. It finds the places that the energy is low or insufficient and evens that out. Anywhere that it’s overactive because we can have overactive energy as well, then it will go through and just reset things.
The body can heal itself if we just let it, and that’s what Reiki energy does. It allows the energy to flow through the body and intelligently reset it to where it can heal itself. I hope that makes sense. Then we do feel it as a receiver as well, but even if you don’t feel it, that’s fine. It’s not necessary to feel anything during a Reiki session to receive benefits.
Feeling Energy Healing Where Healing Was Needed
[00:33:30] Detective Ev: Yeah. Well, what’s interesting looking back is I remember one of the reasons I had even humored this, cause I was admittedly a little skeptical. I also had a lot of free time at that specific time of my life because I had just broken my foot recently. I actually went into her office on crutches.
It is interesting to me, looking back, that the place I felt it was the feet when I had a broken foot on the right side that desperately needed some healing. It wasn’t doing so well. I mean, again, I’m going on crutches just to get into the place, so that’s fascinating.
Looking back, the first time she had done it on me, I can’t be sure if I needed any healing here, per se. But they had like 10 of us, it was like a group thing. It was very interesting. There was like 10 of us all seated in chairs. Everyone has their eyes closed and there’s multiple practitioners walking around.
I remember two at once, one was on like either side of my head. They had their hands outside my forehead. Now to be clear, I was aware. When you’re sitting up and you’re in a room, it’s more obvious, of course, where people are standing. You have like an idea even if your eyes are closed.
Sharon, at that time when I was laying down, I had no idea where she was at in that room. I was pretty far in a trance of sorts.
Energy Healing Felt Good and Loving
But the forehead, when I knew that they were coming to me, I can’t say that it wasn’t placebo then. But given this other experience that I had; I don’t think it was. I just remember, Christi, seeing these brilliant mostly white but brilliant lights flash across my forehead. It was beautiful. It was cool. There wasn’t any images. It wasn’t a picture of anything, but normally I’m not someone who really sees pictures. I kind of can, but I actually see like numbers and letters more.
When we are talking here, I could actually almost just like a black screen that a programmer would use and then they type in the information, I can kind of see the letters go across for the words that you and I are saying. But I can’t even see like my own office at my apartment if I was not there for a week. It’s like pretty hard for me to see that.
So, when I start seeing colors and white lights and all these things, it’s almost impossible for me to believe it was a placebo because I can’t see that normally. That’s just not how it is. I don’t have any comments for that. It’s just I thought it was another fascinating experience. It was just wonderful to feel, it felt good. It felt loving.
[00:35:33] Christi Clemons: Yeah. All kinds of things can happen on the table. The way that I work is a little bit different and every person who practices Reiki practices it differently.
QHHT Energy Healing: Deep Diving into the Client’s Life
I bring in guides, they’re spiritual guides, but there’s always loved ones who want to show up as well. So, I’ll tell the client, oh, you’ve got your mom here, you’ve got your grandma here, you’ve got an ancestor here. I don’t know who they are, but they’re showing up and they’re helping.
Sometimes some of these guides will help with the healing as well. Someone will say, wait a minute. I know you’re at my head cause I feel your hands on my head. But there’s somebody at my feet. It’s like, oh yeah, that’s Archangel Shamu. Don’t worry about it. Many, many things can happen. Symbols can come up, memories can come up, emotions can come up, all kinds of things.
[00:36:20] Detective Ev: Okay. Well, transitioning again, kind of rough transitions, but just because this one was fascinating to me. I saw the Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique and the fact that this needs to be done in person for those listening. So, just something to keep in mind. But what the heck is that, and how does that work? This is of interest to me for sure.
[00:36:38] Christi Clemons: It is the most amazing thing. Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique, of course, it works on the quantum level, which means the energy and the thoughts. But it also works with our higher self.
In a QHHT session, well, the whole session is about six hours. We spend a lot of time deep diving into the client’s life. Who are the most important people? What are the most important events in their life? What are their health concerns? Because we receive healing with QHHT, all of the things that go into making you, you. Then the session itself is about two hours.
QHHT Energy Healing: Talking to the Subconscious
The first portion of that, we’re going to other lifetimes that have a direct relevance on the current lifetime. Since we’re talking about health, we can carry over health concerns from another lifetime that we didn’t resolve, either through a traumatic death or lessons that we wanted to see through, but that we didn’t for whatever reason. That will show up in the current life. So, we want to go to other lifetimes, and that could be past, many times it is.
Could be future life, could be between lives, could be a concurrent life, which is really crazy to even think about. But because all time is happening now, it can be literally any lifetime that has bearing on the current lifetime. So, first of all, we go to whatever lifetime we’re still dealing with in the current life.
Then we switch over to talk to the client’s higher self, their higher consciousness, right, their soul. There’s many names we can call this. We’re going right to the source of all of the information. When we pull in, we call it the SC or the subconscious, which is not the most accurate term, but that’s just what QHHT practitioners call it. It’s the higher self.
We call in the SC and ask, first of all, well you could have shown this person, you could have shown Evan any lifetime out of hundreds. Why did you pick that? We find out more what that has to do with the current life. Then the client gets to bring about 10 or 12 questions, what they would ask your higher yourself. Like, what would you ask your higher yourself if you could ask anything? We’ll ask those questions.
QHHT Energy Healing: Looking for Resolution Opportunities
People usually ask about their life path, their relationships, next steps, their career, that type of thing. But health is a major component as well, and many people will come in because they want physical healing.
So, part of the session when we’re talking with the subconscious, I ask that higher self to look through the physical body and tell me about anything that needs to be resolved. What needs to be healed? What is blocking this person? What can we understand about this accident they had and why they got injured the way they did? So then here, direct from the source, what is being held in the body.
Then I simply ask, well, would it be in his highest and best good to have this healed? 99.9 times the higher self says, sure it can be healed. And then they go about doing it. Sometimes they will say, we can try. And whenever they say, we can try, I know it’s going to be done.
Then I always want to ask, well, that’s wonderful. How’s it being done? What’s happening here? Sometimes they will show a client a scenario from their life, what may have caused it. For example, in the book I talk about this case. I had a woman come in with allergies, severe allergies, to just about everything year-round. It didn’t matter what season.
Well, her higher self took her back to when she was a kid. She was the only girl in a family of five older brothers. So, six children total. Her higher self said, well, she feels nobody listened to her, that nobody paid attention to her. Nobody wanted to hear what she had to say.
QHHT Energy Healing: Witnessing Resolutions
We’re here to tell her that they love her, they adore her, and showed her several scenarios from her life where her family really did listen to her and treasured what she had to say. I’d say about 80% of her allergies got resolved from that. She’s still working on the other 20%, but most of her allergies got resolved just from that. It’s amazing. Which I will say that allergies are a throat chakra issue, which has to do with communication and being heard. That’s me geeking out. So, we can receive healing through this.
Then I always want to ask the higher self too, well, what else do we not ask? What else does this client need to know that we haven’t even addressed yet? And we receive so much from these sessions. It’s amazing. I’ve seen remarkable physical healings. Most dramatically cancer.
A woman came in, she had seen two different specialists and just to get a confirmation, she wanted to have a second opinion, right? So, both said, yes, there is cancer. I can’t remember if it was ovarian or uterine or cervical. It was something like that. Then after the session, she went back to her doctors and they said, well, I don’t know what happened, but it’s no longer there.
Then I’ve also seen ulcerative colitis get healed. I can’t really say healed. I’ve seen it resolved. Shoulder pain, hip pain, gut pain, many, many things just resolved.
A Question About Energy Healing Not Turning Out So Well
[00:41:51] Detective Ev: Well, and you kind of led into my next point cause I wanted to ask about these testimonials. Cause I know there’s probably incredible stories.
I’ve had some hesitancy about asking the next question I want to ask, but I want to ask it. Cause I think if someone listening this far into the podcast, they are probably open to what we’re talking about, and you’ll understand what I’m getting at. It’s not a question I can start off with if they think it’s just a normal health podcast.
So, I told you I’ve studied this quite in depth. I have plenty to freaking learn, don’t get me wrong. But I dive into it and the interesting part about coming at all of this from an atheist perspective is I don’t have any known or particularly strong biases towards any particular religion or religious beliefs of any kind. Like, I just know, okay, something’s real. What could this possibly be? One of the things, cause this has happened to my friends, I’ve seen this. I’m curious for those out there before they start messing with it. It sounds like it’s going very well for you. So, I’d want them to approach this in a proper way.
I think, you know what I mean when I say sometimes people get into this stuff, they are working with something, and the outcomes are not always as beautiful as the ones that you’re talking about. To the degree that we can keep this appropriate for a health podcast, I feel like you probably know what I mean.
Why Energy Healing Sometimes Doesn’t Turn Out Well
If you do, why is it that sometimes people have these really not so great experiences with working with whatever, we’ll refer to them as the higher beings? Versus others, I have heard these too, where there’s miraculous healings and everything about it was wonderful. Do you know what I mean? Why do you think that’s happening?
[00:43:20] Christi Clemons: I do. Honestly, I don’t see that very often with QHHT, but I know it does happen. I’ve heard from many people that this has happened.
Okay, a couple of things. First of all, I believe that all healing is faith healing. All healing is faith healing. If you have faith that the surgery is going to help you, it’s probably gonna help you. If you have faith that this medicine is going to help you, it’s probably gonna help you. If you have faith that QHHT is gonna help you resolve these things, it’s probably gonna help you resolve these things, right? I believe that healing is faith healing. We must believe in the process.
Another thing is that sometimes we hold on so strongly to our illness or disease as a way of identifying with it. This may be very difficult for some to really even process, but sometimes we don’t want to let go of the story of being sick. Sometimes we’re not really ready to let go. We think we are, but it’s like, who would I be if I did not devote all of this time to my illness? So, there is that.
Occasionally and very rarely will, even in QHHT, the subconscious might say, it’s not time for their healing. They need to experience more of this for whatever reason.
Energy Healing: Sometimes Our Sickness Is Not About Us
Be it karmic, be it a lesson that they just were not getting or who knows what else. But for whatever reason, it might not be appropriate at that time.
I always do ask the SC, the subconscious, would it be in the client’s highest and best good to have this resolved? And like I said, most of the time they say yes, or at the very least, we’ll try. But there’s an occasion where they will say, no, the client needs to experience this more.
There’s also the fact that occasionally our illness is not for us. It could be for someone else. Let me explain that. This could be a contractual, a karmically contractual condition between a person and perhaps their mother, a spouse, or a sibling to where they needed to have this experience together. I do hope that makes sense. So, it’s not necessarily just for the client, it could be for someone else’s growth, learning, or healing as well.
[00:45:56] Detective Ev: First of all, there’s some fantastic answers that you’ve given. I appreciate this. I hope that there are people listening that have this area of study, at least somewhat under their belt, in addition to the health, because this is refreshing. I’ll put it that way. It’s not dogmatic, it’s open minded. I just really respect it and love it.
That does make sense what you said at the end. I do believe that there are many things that happen. It’s not just one person. You’re not here on an island. You’re here with a bunch of other human beings at this time. And everything that we do, that butterfly effect thing, has some impact on the world. I definitely believe in that.
Thoughts on the Not So Great Entities
The one other question I want to ask about, all the reasons listed, which I think are very valid. The one thing I didn’t hear, and it could be because it’s not true, so I want to know. These entities that are being communicated with that are helping out or saying, hey, this person needs it longer, do you believe that it is ever possible, just like there are great human beings and human beings that do some not so great things, do you believe that some of the entities do not actually have the best intentions? Or is that not your understanding of the subject?
[00:46:58] Christi Clemons: That’s not been my experience, not with what we’re contacting through QHHT and not what I’m reaching through, through even opening myself up through the Reiki. I’m also a medium and I do angel communication and spirit guide communication. There are ways to protect ourselves so that those can’t come in during a session. So, no, I don’t believe that happens.
[00:47:18] Detective Ev: Got it. You do believe it exists, but you believe there’s ways to protect from it.
Christi Clemons: Oh yes. Yes.
Detective Ev: That makes a little more sense. Awesome. What a cool chat. Definitely different. We’ve done almost 200 episodes, and this is fun.
Christy, it’s taking everything in my power to not go completely off the rails with this, because I gotta keep it in my job. Right? I gotta keep this on health. But man, you and I could probably talk for hours and hours and hours.
I want to bring it in here and wrap it up to some degree.
Where to Find Christi Clemons
Where can people find you and what is it? We’ve talked about a lot of different things. Some are in person, some things I believe are probably not necessarily needed to be done in person. Let’s be concise. What do you offer and where can people find you for those things if they’re interested?
[00:48:03] Christi Clemons: Thank you so much for that opportunity. Yeah, my website is radiatewellnesscommunity.com, but it’s not just mine. There are two other practitioners with Radiate Wellness. There is Kathy Lesmeister. I can put a shout out. She’s an energy worker extraordinaire. I do Reiki only and she does like all of the other stuff. She’s amazing.
Then there’s also Mary Jane Staudenmann, who’s based in Geneva, Switzerland. She does astrology and tarot. She’s been my astrologer ever since I was a kid. The three of us are Radiate Wellness, and so radiatewellnesscommunity.com.
Personally, I offer readings, Reiki, and regression, but Radiate Wellness as a whole offers so much more. I also want to put a shout out for our podcast, the Radiate Wellness Podcast, which Reed Davis has been a guest on, actually he was a couple weeks ago. So that’s available wherever fine podcasts are downloaded as well as on YouTube.
And then yes, most of our sessions can be done online, virtually, even over the phone, except for QHHT. That’s the only thing that must be done in person, in my office, in Prairie Village, Kansas.
[00:49:10] Detective Ev: By the way, guys, I always have to say this in case it’s first-time listeners, obviously we’ll have this all in the show notes, so you guys don’t have to memorize all of it or click rewind. You can check out the links below.
Health Detective Podcast Signature Question
With all this said, I want to finish up today by asking you the signature question that we have on the Health Detective Podcast. This one’s going to be interesting for someone like you. I can’t predict the answer at all.
The question is, if I could give you, Christi, a magic wand and you could wave it and get every single person in this world to do one thing for their health, whether that’s you actually get them to start doing one thing, or maybe you get them to stop doing one thing, what is the one thing that you would get them to do for their health?
[00:49:48] Christi Clemons: I’m having a hard time choosing between resolve your trauma and forgiveness. I’d probably say forgiveness cause that would resolve a lot of trauma.
Detective Ev: I was about to say.
Christi Clemons: So, practice forgiveness. It doesn’t matter what they did, who they are, whether they’re living or deceased, forgiveness is not for them, it’s for you. Resolve it and just let go.
[00:50:12] Detective Ev: Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on today and just bringing me such an interesting topic. I love hosting anyone, but I admit this is a wonderful, fresh thing that I didn’t even fully expect. I read your bio, but I didn’t know how deep this went. You’re definitely my type of person, so thank you so much for coming on today.
[00:50:28] Christi Clemons: Thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity. It’s been fun. We’ll have to do this again sometime.
[00:50:34] Detective Ev: All right guys. That’ll do it for today’s episode with Christi Clemons. I know this was a little different, but I hope you guys enjoyed it.
We’d Love Your Feedback
And you know, we always appreciate your feedback one way or another. I’m constantly trying to provide content that I believe or know that you guys will enjoy. I even said recently, we will be doing a lot more episodes.
I have some cool things that are being recorded very soon after this, where people are coming on and analyzing live lab results. Because you guys seemed to love those episodes that we did with Ryan Monahan regarding the thyroid markers. So, we will have more of those coming in soon with completely different labs.
But if you liked this or did not like this, just let me know. Two ways you can do that. You can leave me a comment on Podbean, which would be a public thing. You just search for the Health Detective Podcast on Podbean.
Another way to do this is simply going to our Instagram at FDNtraining. Just shoot us a message. Say, hey Ev, you know what? I really liked this episode. Or, hey Ev you know, I don’t really think I’d want content like that in the future. I’d more like XYZ type of content. Totally fine. Now with that said, I hope that you guys have a great week.
Conclusion
I hope that you’re planning for the rest of your year here. We’re almost done. 2022, it flew by. I feel like the last few years have. This is the time to kind of restore, get prepared, and get planning for the next year. The January and February season in the world of functional medicine and healthcare is a great time to be in those industries. I will tell you that.
There is something to the New Year’s resolution thing. There is something to just a new year. People want to start over, engage in new habits. The holidays are done. There’s no more distractions. There’s very few excuses that can be made. People are ready, man. And they’re usually feeling pretty crappy by this time, depending on where they live, because their light window might only be like 10 hours each day, right? So, they’re not feeling good because of that.
They’ve been eating like crap all winter and now they want to feel better. You can be that solution for them. So, I hope that you’re prepared, and I hope that you’re planning for it. Because every single year, all of us see an influx in clients around the January time.
With that said, again, have a great week and I will look forward to talking to you guys again soon.
Be creative with your next batch of Mexican bean chilli – enjoy some as usual and save some to whip a batch of these delicious Mexican Bean Sausage Rolls with Salsa together for a fun lunch or cool entertaining option for friends and family. They’re full of wholesome legumes and plenty of spice!
We love Careme Butter Puff Pastry which comes in Wholemeal Spelt and All Butter Puff (not sponsored) for our pastry, but you could make a pastry or buy one that suits your needs.
Option to serve with salsa, and if time and ripe avocados allow, some guacamole would be all kinds of awesome too.
Full recipe below….
MEXICAN BEAN CHILLI SAUSAGE ROLLS WITH SALSA
Makes 12-16 small sausage rolls // Vegetarian
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 small (100g) brown onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 small (100g) red capsicum, diced
1 cobs (1/2 cup kernels or 100g) corn
2 tsp smokey paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
good pinch ground chilli flakes, or to taste
1/2 bunch fresh coriander, leaves and stalks finely chopped
200g cooked kidney beans or tinned, rinsed and drained
200g cooked lentils or tinned, rinsed and drained
200g cooked black beans or tinned, rinsed and drained
200g diced tomatoes
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
375g Careme Butter Puff or Wholemeal Spelt Pastry
1 free range egg, whisked + 1 additional for egg wash on pastry
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
sea salt and black pepper
Heat a large frypan on medium heat, add olive oil, onion, garlic, corn, capsicum and cook for about 4-5 minutes. Add spice blend and cook for a further 1 minute then add remaining ingredients (except for pastry) and season with salt and pepper. Bring to simmer for 20 minutes. Allow to cool then add breadcrumbs, grated cheddar and 1 whisked egg. Mix together. Heat oven to 180C and line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper. Lay pastry on chopping board and slice into 2 equal pieces. Divide the mexican bean mix between the two pieces, making a log / sausage down the middle of the pastry. Give the mix a squeeze with your hands to bring the ingredients together and shape it. Bring one side of the pastry over the top of the sausage and tuck in tightly. Bring the other side over and tuck it over tightly. Slice into desired number of sausage rolls and place onto the baking tray. Wash the top with egg using a pastry brush and place in oven to cook for 40 minutes. Serve with spicy salsa and guacamole if desired or enjoy just as is!
Hot smoked salmon, asparagus, pea, bocconcini salad
This bright, fresh, delicious combo on repeat for summer. Full of vibrant flavours, super satisfying to sink your appetite and diverse in nutrition. A few extra tips and tricks to consider:
Swap hot smoked salmon for rainbow trout, plain smoked salmon, good quality tinned tuna in oil
For vego option swap out the fish for tinned cannellini or butter beans
Use your favourite green vegetables in this salad – green beans, snow peas, avocado, kale and baby spinach all work well.
Swap bocconcini for feta, goat’s cheese or ricotta or omit cheese all together for a dairy-free salad
1 tbsp olive oil Zest and juice of 1 lemon 2 tsp honey 1 tsp wholegrain mustard 1 bunch asparagus, cut into 4cm lengths 150g sugar snap peas, halved on the diagonal 2 small zucchini, peeled into ribbons 80g baby rocket 300g hot smoked salmon, skin removed, flaked into large chunks 100g bocconcini, torn 2 tbsp pepitas, toasted 1 tbsp baby capers, rinsed, drained (optional) Dill sprigs, micro herbs (optional), to serve
Combine oil, lemon zest and juice, honey and mustard in a screw top jar. Season and shake well to combine. Place asparagus, sugar snaps and zucchini in a large bowl and blanch with boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Rinse under cold water and drain well. On a serving platter arrange baby rocket, blanched vegetables, salmon and bocconcini. Drizzle with dressing, season and toss gently to coat. Sprinkle with pepitas, capers (if using) and herbs and serve with lemon wedges.
Wondering whether or not to fast after a binge? Keep reading to learn why it’s not a good idea, and what you should do instead.
Experiencing a binge eating episode can be very overwhelming. Just after realizing what has happened and what took place, you may feel overwhelmed, confused, or even ashamed. As a result, a common human reaction is to try and fix it or erase it. This often leads to fasting.
Unfortunately, fasting only perpetuates the situation. It leads to recurrent episodes of binge eating and fasting, with no end in sight. If you’ve experienced this cycle before, you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about.
Thankfully, there are five steps you can take to stop this cycle and move forward after a binge.
What is Binge Eating?
Before we discuss what should happen after a binge, it’s important to establish what binge eating really is.
Binge eating is characterized by the consumption of exceptionally large amounts of food in a short period of time with little to no self-control. Afterward, participants often feel guilt, stress, and shame. Binge eating is different from overeating in that it’s completely mindless and often recurrent. It also usually involves larger quantities of food.
Should I Fast After a Binge?
The short answer is no, and here’s why. Fasting ensures that the cycle will continue. You’ll eventually hit your breaking point and feel so hungry that you simply can’t take it anymore. The result? More often than not, another binge.
To prevent this from happening and move past this cycle for good, start by implementing the five steps below.
5 Steps You Should Take After a Binge Instead of Fasting
Lead With Compassion
Compassion is so important here. It sounds silly, it sounds like it’s not really that important. But in the context of binge eating, it’s very important. Binge eating and guilt go hand in hand. One often can’t survive without the other in this scenario.
By leading with compassion, you can start to slowly but surely remove the guilt. After you’ve engaged in a binge eating episode, it may feel natural to beat yourself up. But instead, try out utilizing compassion next time. With compassion and without judgment, ask yourself what happened and what went wrong. Empathize with yourself as you would a friend or a family member. Guilt propels the cycle, compassion ends it.
Eat in Accordance with Your Hunger
Fasting leads to extreme hunger, and extreme hunger can lead to binge eating. Smaller, more frequent meals lead to sustainable satiety and manageable hunger. This prevents extreme surges in hunger which lead to larger intakes of food and that overly full feeling. If we can remove extreme hunger and extreme fullness from the equation, you’re much less likely to engage in binge eating again.
In order to do this, touch base with your own unique hunger and satiety cues. And do so frequently! Periodically throughout the day, stop and pause. Ask yourself, how hungry am I? How full am I? Would eating something help to reduce my hunger pangs right now?
Over time, this will become easier and more natural. It will start to feel like second nature!
Ditch the Diet Foods and Eat Balanced Meals
Just as we discussed earlier, a common human reaction after binge eating is to try and fix it or erase it. Alongside fasting, diet foods are another common perceived solution. You ate too much, so now you should try your best to eat as little as possible, right?
You might think low-calorie diet foods are a good idea, but these will prevent you from feeling satiated and satisfied after eating. Which in turn will make it easier for you to mindlessly overeat. If on the other hand, you consume meals filled with rich nutrients that not only satiate you but also satisfy you, you’ll be much less likely to mindlessly overeat.
Stay Hydrated
Just as we need food for fuel, we need water as well! The body craves it. If we’re constantly dehydrated, this can make it more likely for us to seek out hydration through food. Be sure to keep water nearby throughout the day and stay hydrated as best as you can.
Move Gently and Don’t Overexercise
Back to that solution-based mindset. Exercise is another common perceived solution. “I ate too much so I’ll just exercise to compensate!”.
I’m sure you guessed it at this point, but this again perpetuates the cycle. Exercising, especially overexercising, utilizes more energy and exhausts us. What does the body do in response? It asks for more energy so it can recover and recuperate!
Instead of overexercising and attempting to punish yourself, gently and compassionately move your body in a way that feels good to you. That could be a brief walk or even a short yoga flow. We don’t want to cease movement altogether, but we certainly don’t want to push ourselves too hard and overexercise.
The Takeaway – Don’t Fast After a Binge
The main takeaway here is that fasting is not the answer. There are so many other viable options instead! Be kind to your body and yourself, and before you know it you’ll be on your way to breaking the cycle.
Do You Want to Experience More Balance with your Food Choices?
Then find your balanced eating type!
Take this 45-second free quiz to find out which balanced eating archetype you are, and what your unique type needs to maintain balance with the way you nourish yourself. That way, you can finally be free from food and diet obsession, maintain a balanced weight, and cultivate a positive relationship with food and your body.
Add some green to your Black Friday with 20 percent off all merchandise on DrGreger.org. The sale is site-wide, so it includes all clothing, video downloads, outreach materials, and more. If you’re heading into winter, cozy up with our sweatpants (back by popular demand!), hoodies, or a crewneck sweatshirt. Sale ends November 28. All proceeds go to keeping NutritionFacts.org running!
Key Takeaways: Walnuts
The Global Burden of Disease Study calculated that not eating enough nuts and seeds was the third-leading dietary risk factor for death and disability in the world. That is why I recommend a daily serving of at least ¼ cup nuts or seeds or 2 tablespoons of nut or seed butter in my Daily Dozen checklist. So, which nut is healthiest? Walnuts really seem to take the lead due to their high antioxidant and omega-3 levels, and they beat out other nuts in vitro in suppressing cancer cell growth. And, of all the nuts studied in PREDIMED, the largest dietary intervention trial to assess the effects of a Mediterranean-type diet on cardiovascular disease prevention, the researchers found the greatest benefits associated with walnuts, particularly for potentially preventing cancer deaths. Check out all of my videos on walnuts on the topic page.
Recipe: Baked Apples with Walnuts and Goji Berries
After reading about the benefits of walnuts, I bet you’re ready to snack on some! Here’s a delicious fall treat from The How Not to Diet Cookbook that tastes like apple pie, but without all of the sugar and butter. And as a bonus, it will make your house smell divine while it bakes! Check out the recipe, and watch a video on how it’s made on our Instagram.
Volume 60 Is Out Now
I’m excited to release my 60th volume of videos! Sixty! I’ve created more than 2,000 videos in the lifetime of NutritionFacts.org and have no plans of slowing down anytime soon! This new volume includes a series on tongue scraping, the controversy around cholesterol, whether vegans suffer more bone fractures, my popular webinar video on vitamin K2, and more.
Each video in this new volume will be released online over the next few months, available for free, of course, but if you don’t want to wait, you can stream all of them right now.
If you are a $15+ monthly supporter and opted in to ourdonor rewards, you’re likely an expert on these new topics by now, since you already received a complimentary link to the new download. If you’d like early access to new videos before they’re available to the public, please consider becoming a monthly supporter. Without your generosity, we wouldn’t be able to continue our work. Thank you!
And, remember, if you watch the videos on NutritionFacts.org or YouTube, you can access captions in several different languages. To find yours, click on the settings wheel in the lower-right corner of the video and then “Subtitles/CC.” (You can also watch our new video about changing your settings.) Happy viewing!
Volunteer Spotlight:Laura McClanathan
I love everything about volunteering for Dr. Greger! I’m a part of the wonderful Article Retrieval Team where I help track down articles he needs for his books and videos. It’s incredibly fun detective work that really appeals to me as a reference librarian. What is most satisfying about it is that I feel I am making a tangible contribution to the body of evidence-based information about the incredible—and positive—power of plant-based eating. And it’s an honor to give back to someone who has helped me learn so much.
My favorite recipe is Dr. Greger’s ranch dressing. It is so delicious and versatile—cashews, unsweetened soy milk, a tasty spice blend, lemon, vinegar, red onion, dates, white miso, parsley, and dill.
Most bad breath is due to the decay of sulfur-containing proteins.
Thank you so much for the wonderful birthday messages and donations last month. My 50th felt truly special thanks to your kindness and your support. I enjoyed celebrating with the NutritionFacts.org team at our annual staff retreat this year! If you missed my live Q&A last week, you can watch the recording by going to our Live Q&A page. And I recently did a fun interview with Tami of Nutmeg Notebook. Check it out!
Amid a busy week, it’s usually not realistic to cook and prepare three meals and two snacks every single day. Meal prepping and batch cooking play an enormous role in establishing healthy habits and getting food on the table, but knowing how to jazz up those leftover meals and ingredients is a unique skill that can save you an immense amount of time and money. Plus, transforming leftovers into something new helps to vastly reduce food waste.
If you’re wondering what to do with your leftovers, here are some common leftover ingredients and how you can breathe new life into them.
What to Do with Leftovers
Cooked Rice + Other Gluten-Free Grains
We actually like to cook extra rice and gluten-free grains specifically so we have some left over! If you have leftover rice on hand, use it to:
Almond Pulp
We like making nut milk from scratch, so we end up with a lot of leftover nut and seed pulp! Save the pulp in a bag or jar in the freezer, and when you’ve got enough here are 9 ways to use it.
Cooked Chicken or Turkey
A common leftover ingredient, especially around the holiday season. Here’s what you can do with cooked chicken or turkey leftovers:
Burgers
Veggie or meat burgers are great recipes for batch cooking, but sometimes you don’t want to have them the same old way in buns or lettuce leaves. Instead, try serving leftover burgers:
We like to eat lots of veggies here at the Academy of Culinary Nutrition, and roasting them really enhances their flavour. With any leftover veggies you have on hand, you can:
What would happen if you stopped brushing your teeth but ate more healthfully?
Experimentally, when study participants stop brushing their teeth, plaque starts to build up and, within a few days, their gums start to get inflamed. Though nothing may be visible just yet, if you take a biopsy at the gum line, you can see the inflammation beginning to spread. Within a few weeks, overt gingivitis becomes apparent with gums that can get red and swollen and bleed easily. If you don’t do anything about it, you can develop periodontal disease, where the inflammation creeps down into the supporting structures of the tooth—the bone and ligaments—setting you up for tooth loss.
How did we get along for millions of years without brushing our teeth? “Dental disease is almost universal” these days, but skulls from thousands of years before the invention of the toothbrush have perfect teeth. Admittedly, that was also thousands of years before the invention of candy bars. Does food play a role? You don’t know…until you put it to the test, as I discuss in my video Best Food for Periodontal Disease and Gingivitis.
How do you get people to stop brushing their teeth and also stop eating processed junk? Researchers designed a study where participants were forced to live under Stone Age conditions without “toothbrushes, toothpaste, dental floss, toothpicks, or other oral hygiene products” for a month, and “security guards ensured that all subjects maintained the appropriate lifestyle for Stone Age humans.” They could use a twig or other natural material to try to clean their teeth, but were pretty much on their own. (The participants didn’t get any candy bars either.) The researchers were attempting to replicate the diet from about 4000 BCE, so the subjects got a lot of whole grains with supplemental “salt, herbs, honey, milk, and meat from domestic animals (goats and hens),” and were allowed to pick berries or see what they could catch. What happened?
With no oral hygiene, their plaque built up, as you can see in the graph below and at 1:53 in my video, but their gums got healthier, as measured by bleeding on probing. (Gums bleeding when poked with a dental tool is a measure of gingivitis.) In almost every case, the participants’ gum health improved. How is it possible that their gums were actually healthier despite buildup of plaque? Many of the more disease-causing bacteria seemed to have disappeared from their mouths. The researchers suggested this could be from the lack of refined sugars, but the participants were eating honey, so they weren’t on a sugar-free diet. They were, however, eating a lot of whole grains and berries rich in antioxidant phytonutrients with anti-inflammatory properties. So, maybe it was restricted sugar intake combined with the intake of really healthy foods. Thus, all of those experimental studies where people stop brushing their teeth and their gums inevitably get inflamed “may only be applicable if the subjects maintain a Western diet rich in sugar and low in anti-inflammatory foods,” such as whole plant foods.
What about the role of nutrition in periodontal health? Gingivitis can lead to periodontitis, an inflammatory disease of the supporting tissues of the teeth, which, if left untreated, can lead to the progressive loss of the bone that holds our teeth in place. Part of the development of periodontal disease may involve oxidative stress, so not only do we need to reduce our intake of pro-inflammatory foods, such as refined carbohydrates and saturated fats, but it may also help if we seek out foods that are antioxidant-rich.
Is there an association between periodontitis and dietary vitamin C intake? Apparently so, as you can see in the graph below and at 3:34 in my video. Increased risk of periodontitis has been associated with lower levels of vitamin C intake. What effect might vitamin C depletion and supplementation have on periodontal health? Researchers provided controlled amounts of vitamin C to study participants for three months and found that measures of gum inflammation were directly related to the subjects’ vitamin C status. On about one orange’s worth of vitamin C a day, their gums improved; down around only 5 mg a day, though, their gums got worse. On ten oranges’ worth of vitamin C a day, they got better and then worse once again when the vitamin C level dropped down to five oranges’ worth, as you can see in the graph below and at 4:01 in my video. The study was pretty convincing, though 5 mg a day is down at scurvy level. We know our gums start bleeding and our teeth can fall out if we have scurvy, but that doesn’t mean taking extra vitamin C helps.
Indeed, 1,500 mg of vitamin C a day did not seem to help prevent gingivitis and even 2,000 mg a day failed to help periodontitis sufferers. Is it possible that vitamin C is just too weak an antioxidant? What about lycopene, the powerful antioxidant pigment that makes tomatoes red? Lycopene worked! But that was from injecting it directly into the gum pocket with a syringe. Does it still work if you simply eat it?
A randomized, placebo-controlled, clinical trial investigated the efficacy of lycopene in the treatment of gingivitis. After two weeks of standard dental treatment with either a single daily tomato’s worth of lycopene or placebo, the placebo group had a 10 to 20 percent reduction in gingivitis, but the lycopene group had a nearly 30 percent improvement within just one week. How much lycopene? The amount found in just one and a half teaspoons of tomato paste a day. So, tomatoes may help with gingivitis, but what about periodontitis?
Another randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial again treated subjects with a typical dental cleaning plus either one daily tomato’s worth of lycopene or a placebo for two months. Researchers found significant improvements in the lycopene group in plaque, gingivitis, and bleeding, though not probe pocket depth and clinical attachment. You can see the difference in how much better their gums looked as you can see below and at 5:59 in my video. The researchers concluded that “supplementation with lycopene seems to have augmented the healing sequence of inflamed gingival tissues,” but that was with a whole tomato’s worth a day. How about half a tomato’s worth or just three quarters of a teaspoon of tomato paste’s worth of lycopene a day? Neither worked. There was no difference. It looks like you have to go the whole tomato.
It should come as no surprise that healthy foods can benefit all parts of the body, but I still love to see the data!
My first recollection of buckwheat flour was when I was a child in the 70s. It was a decade where buckwheat flour was making a comeback due to its compelling nutrient profile. I recall it as a ‘hippy’ grain and a bit alternative. I heard about buckwheat pancakes occasionally, but we were a solid Bisquick family. Buckwheat wasn’t something that made its way into our house. Now I love it – and buckwheat flour truly gets the chance to shine in these orange-scented buckwheat chocolate chip cookies.
Buckwheat flour has appeared in an increasing number of baking recipes lately, from muffins to cakes to cookies. It adds a deep, earthy flavour profile, and a slightly sandy texture to baked goods, making it much more interesting than one-dimensional white flour. And it happens to be gluten free.
What Is Buckwheat?
Buckwheat is an ancient grain that was used in colonial times, and was popular in America from the late 1800s. Like other hearty, nutrient-dense plants such as dandelions, buckwheat can thrive and even spread quickly in poor soil conditions.
Health Benefits of Buckwheat
Buckwheat is considered a pseudo-cereal, and is part of the Polygonaceae family. Its health benefits include:
It is also rich in high-quality carbohydrates, protein, amino and fatty acids, and is loaded with B vitamins for energy, vitamin K for bone health, and choline for the brain.
More Ways to Use Buckwheat
I’ve used buckwheat flour in the following cookie recipe. The flour is also wonderful in pancakes, bread and it’s used to make noodles (soba). Whole buckwheat is easily enjoyed in:
Granola (use instead of oats, or use half oats/half buckwheat)
Creating the Ultimate Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies
I hadn’t paid much attention to buckwheat flour until lately, when it captured my attention in a cookie at the Volunteer Park Café in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. This sent me on a mission to try and duplicate their delicious buckwheat flour chocolate chip cookie. Its buttery flavour and dark chocolate flecks, with a bit of heft to it, seemed like the perfect cookie.
In my recipe experimentation, I veered off course from my objective, but with nice results in their own way. I found that the orange flavour naturally complimented buckwheat and dark chocolate, so I wanted to be sure and include it.
This is the perfect cookie for a fall or winter day with a cup of your favourite warm drink. And, with all of the buckwheat health benefits, and no refined sugar or gluten, it’s a treat that will make you feel good, too!
1 cup dark chocolate chips, or your favourite dark chocolate bar, chopped
1 tsp orange zest
In a medium bowl, mix together buckwheat flour, almond flour, baking soda and salt.
In a mixer bowl, beat ghee, butter or coconut oil with coconut sugar on high for about 4 minutes. Add vanilla and egg. Stir in dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips and orange zest.
Chill dough for a few hours, or even better, overnight. This allows the buckwheat to mellow. You can also bake these immediately and they will still be good!
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Scoop 1-inch dough balls onto sheet. Flatten a bit, if desired.
Bake for 12-13 minutes. Cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a cooling rack. Enjoy!
Notes
These cookies are best when the dough can rest a few hours, preferably overnight, to allow the grains to soften.
Ericka is a graduate of the 2021 Culinary Nutrition Expert Program, and owns Fittersweet Cookie Dough, a nutrient-dense cookie dough that features premium dark chocolate. She is also a certified chocolatier and loves combining her new knowledge of culinary nutrition with chocolate. She spends her free time finding ways to incorporate chocolate into a healthy life.
Ericka teaches piano in Seattle, and lives with her husband, Stephen, and two daughters who are in college.
Looking for some nourishing holiday recipes to include on your menu this year?
We’ve rounded up a few of our favorite options that are made from nutrient-dense whole foods. All of our recipes are also free of dairy and gluten for those with sensitivities who need variations of some traditional recipes!
It’s great to enjoy the original versions of these recipes — no matter what the ingredients are. But sometimes, you need a nourishing option for one reason or another. It’s about being intentional and having a balanced mindset!
Find that area right in the middle — where you’re nourishing yourself and also having space to experience joy around your food experience.
Here you’ll find a few holiday recipes that are great nourishing choices. These are all easy to make and store well for leftovers!
How to Make Balanced Meals Throughout the Holidays
One way to bring more balance to the holidays is to build a balanced plate at each meal.
The way we do that here at Nutrition Stripped is using our Foundational Five system. This
The Foundational Five are the five elements of a balanced meal: non-starchy carbohydrates, starchy carbohydrates, healthy fat, protein, and what we call the flavor factor.
By making a Foundational Five Nourish Meal, which aims to include all five of these on your plate, helps to support your digestion, stabilize your blood sugar, and provide you with the steady energy you need to feel your best.
Our Foundational Five Nourish Meals can be found as smoothies, yogurts, oatmeal bowls or breakfast bowls, nourish bowls, salads, soups, stews, and many more. Not every meal needs to be a Foundational Five, but if you are mindful to get most of these five elements on your plate at most meals, you’ll feel the difference.
The holidays are often a time to slow down and often when we have more days off and slow mornings. Starting the morning off with a nourishing holiday recipe that you can look forward to either sharing with your loved ones or simply appreciating the slowness and peacefulness of a morning where you don’t have much on your to-do list is one of those little daily moments that we often overlook or take for granted.
This Baked Raspberry Porridge has just the right balance of sweet and savory! An added bonus of this recipe is it uses pantry-friendly foods and frozen fruit, making it affordable and easy to make. You can also store the leftovers in the fridge and reheat them all week!
Frittatas, in general, are one of the easiest nourishing holiday recipes you can make with incredible amounts of flexibility. This Caramelized Onion and Pear Frittata combines the sweet and savory flavors of sweet caramelized onion, pear, and protein-rich eggs. It makes for a great breakfast, quick lunch or dinner reheated, and even a meal on the go!
If there’s one thing we know about the Nutrition Stripped community, it’s that you all love smoothies — year-round! This smoothie tastes like fall in a glass!
Smoothies may not be the first thing you think of when you think of fall and winter recipes, but they’re so convenient and you can make use of seasonal flavors to change it up from what you were drinking all summer.
Main Course
During the holidays, the main course tends to feature an animal protein like turkey or ham. But if you either don’t enjoy those types of protein, or you’re eating more plant-based, these protein-packed plant-based holiday recipes will be a great addition to the menu. These recipes make a smaller portion, so they’d be easier to manage for 1-4 people if you’re having an intimate celebration this year.
One of the common questions, we get around this time of year is how to make a substantial, hearty, delicious, and non-laborious vegetarian entree for the holiday. I listened, and we served it up today.
This healthy entree for two makes it simple to celebrate several seasonal flavors with a satisfying blend of wild rice and nuts, along with a medley of warming herbs. Not to mention, the delivery of this recipe is basically chef-worthy status.
This easy recipe puts beans at the front and center for plenty of plant-based protein and energizing carbohydrates. It quickly became a favorite of the Nutrition Stripped community and it’s one of those recipes that anyone would love, especially since it takes minimal effort! Serve this alongside greens and you’re good to go!
Side Dishes
Sides are one of the most fun parts about the holidays! You can load up your plate with one or more of these sides that incorporate super nourishing and filling ingredients into these traditional recipes.
No matter what time of year, this healthy and easy to make Plant-Based Green Bean Casserole is sure to please any crowd.
Fresh green beans and herbs, and creamy plant-based mushroom soup come together to create the perfect side dish. Pureeing steamed cauliflower creates a creamy and rich texture without the need for dairy.
These Mashed Roasted Sweet Potatoes are the perfect nourishing holiday recipe that is packed with nutrients and easy to make!
By roasting the sweet potatoes in the oven, you get smooth and tender potatoes and a caramelized flavor profile you can’t get from boiling. Adding fresh thyme to this dish gives a savory festive fresh taste. Using gluten-free miso adds a rich earthy flavor pairs perfectly with the sweetness of the potatoes.
Cornbread is one of those comfort foods you can eat all year long feel nostalgic. It’s warm and delicious and if you have an oven and a skillet it really couldn’t be easier to make. If jalapeño peppers are too spicy for your taste, try something else like bell peppers or sundried tomatoes.
Dessert
There are so many dessert options available, and you may already have a favorite in mind. If you’re up for trying a few new recipes, you can’t go wrong with one (or more) of these!
A warm fruit dessert brings those cozy vibes to any celebration! You can serve these stewed apples alone or with a scoop of your favorite ice cream! Top with pecans for a little extra crunch and healthy fat too!
Adding things like strawberry puree, a shot of espresso, key lime juice, cocoa powder, and vanilla to the base recipe will make a variety of raw chocolates within minutes that are all completely indulgent and delicious. You can also experiment with fillings like nut butter or fruit preserves. All in all, you can have multiple different assorted raw chocolates to find your favorite!
These cashew butter cookies are so easy to make, requiring just a few ingredients that you likely have in your pantry and fridge already! The fun thing about this cookie recipe is you can easily swap out the cashew butter and raspberry jam for your preferred nut butter and jam flavor, making it your own!
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My first day in Bali was spent at 
For dinner, at the InterContinental, I had the barramundi. It was fresh and delicious. There truly is nothing like wild Australian fish. If you are someone who loves fish, you must give this a try barramundi!
The next night for dinner, we went to 
Mason Bali takes pride in their high-quality seafood and meat. Their menu focuses on a variety of Mediterranean-inspired snacks. So delicious!
Another night, we had dinner at the best Japanese restaurant in Canggu (according to my sister who has lived here for 5 years), and I have to admit it was sooooooo good!
Another great spot I tried was 
We ordered the pumpkin in truffle oil (divine, this is a must!), charred green veggies with garlic chips, octopus, and grilled calamari.
They use truffle, sesame, and sunflower oil. The Earth Diet does not approve of sunflower oil, however, they don’t use canola which is a step in the right direction.
There are no rainbows without rain. It’s rainy season in Bali and the rain is showing out! It was raining when we left for dinner, but then it cleared up for a beautiful blue sky!
Another night, we had a lovely sunset dinner at Mari Beach Club! The vibes were chill and relaxed. The food was great – especially the seafood! Such a lovely place to hang with friends and enjoy dinner. This is one of my sister’s favorite beach clubs in Bali!
On one of my last few days, we went to the island of Lembongan and wow! Bluewater and clear skies all day – it was beautiful! While on the island, we went to
