Episode 187: Navigating Toxins in Our Modern World w/ Madalyn Tavares Navigating Toxins in Our Modern World

Introduction

[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Hey, what is going on my friends? 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 navigating toxins in our world and the crazy things that get put into many of our household cleaners and foods. A lot of the household cleaners will be brought up today.

We’re talking to Madalyn; she is a certified integrative health practitioner and vibrancy life coach, founder of The Clean Bee Holistic Health Page, and host of the Clean Bee Podcast. Please go check that out as well. I’ll put it in the show notes. She is a passionate, clean ingredient advocate, driven to help educate and empower others on how they can reduce their toxic load, both body and mind.

Through educational content, newsletters, podcast episodes, and more, Madalyn shares her nearly 10 years of experience, education, and learning to guide others on their unique journey. During her quote, “time off,” you’ll find her reading, studying (she loves to learn), working on creative projects, any kind of movement (especially dancing), cooking, traveling, or spending time outdoors with her loved ones.

I always really love the topic of toxins. Not because I like hearing about the toxins themselves, but I actually find these kind of empowering. We can learn about alternatives and things that we can actually do to deal with the toxins. There are ways to navigate this in today’s world.

Navigating Toxins & Making Small Changes

I also find that this is one of the topics, I’m not a hundred percent sure why, but it’s one of the topics that people that aren’t into health are rather receptive to. If you tell people about things that are in their detergent, their soap, or their hand soap, they are willing to make those changes. You just have to tell them about it. They’re willing to pay .50 to .75 cents more for something that works just as well, or maybe only slightly worse in terms of the actual cleaning but doesn’t harm their bodies. Because they don’t feel the pain of this as much as losing a food, right?

When you tell someone that they need to take away gluten or maybe dairy or whatever it might be, there is some pain associated with that. There is a social pain because maybe they can’t eat the same way they would’ve before, like going out to restaurants. There is obviously the addiction aspect that comes with wheat especially, it does tickle our opiate receptors. I don’t think it literally tickles them, but that’s a good enough word for today.

There’s pain that’s associated when we lose the food. Whereas with this, I think if people know about it, this is the reason why they’re receptive to it. I have found that to be the case, and so I encourage you to either share this podcast with people or just tell them to look out for ingredients.

Maybe you’re talking to a friend, and you remember an ingredient from this specific show. Just tell them about that ingredient. Tell them to look out for it and give them the alternatives. I think we can make a really big change just by starting with something so simple.

Health Space Unmasked

I need to tell you guys about our Health Space Unmasked event. This is something that we do every first Saturday of the month. It is a deep dive into one or more topics with some experts. It’s Reed Davis, the founder of FDN and his guest for the day.

This one you do not want to miss. It’s going to be happening this weekend, November 5th. That’s assuming that you’re listening to this podcast closely after it comes out. But it’s November 5th, 2022, Saturday, 8:30 AM to 10:30 AM PST.

We have none other than Dr. Aron Gonshor. If you do not know who that is, it is the man behind a few of the labs that we use in the FDN certification program. Now, of course, you get access to a bunch of labs once you graduate, but we use Fluids IQ for multiple things while you are training, and Dr. Aron Gonshor is the guy behind that, he is absolutely brilliant. He and Reed will be talking about oral health, sleep, and metabolic balance.

At the time of recording this, we get a little over a hundred people on these lives, which is crazy because it’s Saturday morning, it is nerdy as can be, and it’s for two hours. Yet, we get a live audience that is around a hundred and sticks around the entire time.

It’s great to connect with people, it’s just really fun, again, you get to nerd out. So, if you want to get the link for it, and by the way, this is completely free. It’s just something that you can join in and hop onto. It is fdntraining.com/unmasked. That is U N M A S K E D fdntraining.com/unmasked. That’ll be in the show notes.

The World of Functional/Natural Medicine Calls Us

Okay, now let’s get to today’s episode. All right. Hello there Madalyn. Thanks so much for being here with us today.

[00:04:31] Madalyn Tavares: Absolutely, Evan, thank you so much for having me.

[00:04:33] Detective Ev: Glad to have you on.

I know that you had done some stuff with Reed, so that’s pretty cool. I should have asked this before we went live, but I might as well now. Is that episode already out at the time of recording this or will it be out relatively soon? When will his episode on your show be out?

[00:04:48] Madalyn Tavares: It will be coming out in November of this year. So not out yet. I’ll definitely keep you posted. It was a really good one.

[00:04:54] Detective Ev: Awesome. You guys can check that out and we’ll talk about her podcast and stuff and where you can find that later, of course.

But today we are going to start off in the same way we typically always do on the show and it’s diving into the person’s health journey. We had already alluded to this topic before you and I went live, but I don’t even need to allude to it to know that no one gets into this space by accident.

It’s not something that you sit there as a five-year-old and can’t wait to get into this world of functional natural medicine. It’s not really how it goes. Usually, it calls us rather than the other way around. So, I’m curious, what did your health journey look like? I mean, when did symptoms start? Let’s start from the beginning.

Navigating Toxins: A Staph Infection

[00:05:28] Madalyn Tavares: That is the common thread that I find as well. Amongst every conversation, someone has found their purpose through their pain essentially.

But my story started back in 2013. I just graduated from university, I moved to the Caribbean. That’s a whole other story of how that happened, but I was living and working. And about six months in, after moving, I noticed a bump on my shin that I just was like, oh, it’s a mosquito bite. Thought nothing of it.

A couple days later it got a lot bigger and was really painful. So mentally, I went down the spiral of thinking, oh no, it must be a spider bite. They’re going to have to cut off my leg. I started freaking out. Go to the ER and it turns out it was a staph infection.

At this point, I’m 21 years old. I’m like, staph infection, What? What even is that? I’m like, isn’t that something that you get when you’re like 90 years old in the hospital? Apparently, it’s actually quite common to happen in the Caribbean just because of the warm climate and things just being a lot more moist.

They basically said, Here’s some antibiotics. If it doesn’t go away in a couple days, you’re probably going to have to have it drained. See you later.

So, I do the antibiotics and it doesn’t go away. Eventually I have to get it drained, also a very painful experience. Then a couple weeks later, I had another staph infection pop up, but this time it was a swollen lymph node under my arm.

Navigating Toxins: Staph Infection #2

I go to the doctor, a different doctor this time, and they say, okay, we’re going to need to cut it open and drain it. And they’re like, here’s more antibiotics.

Well, thankfully I had already a fairly intuitive sense that another round of antibiotics back-to-back probably wasn’t the best idea. So, I just had this curiosity strike me. I was like, what’s going on inside my body as to why I’m not able to fight off these infections? What is going on?

So, I went down the proverbial rabbit hole or wormhole as you can say, and I researched how to heal staph infections naturally. That was kind of like my starting point. To make a long story short, I was able to heal them naturally. I did not take that second batch of antibiotics.

What I realized in that research process was that despite my best intentions, what I was putting in and on my body was, in fact, quite toxic, not really that supportive to my overall health and wellbeing.

That was really the entry point in my journey of getting curious about what’s in my food, what are in my cleaning products, what’s in my makeup, skincare, and all these other components that we can unconsciously not even think about. So that was really the process in how I got started into being more mindful and then now sharing that journey and process with others.

[00:08:23] Detective Ev: Well, I’m curious about this because there’s a few things here. Anyone that listens regularly knows I’m obsessed with the mindset that goes into thinking about things more naturally, because it does take a certain type of person to be able to go away from what the mainstream is pushing.

Mom’s Influence of Navigating Toxins

Where I’m exceptionally fascinated with this is that it seems on the surface that this ability to go away from that paradigm was so early on, so I’m curious. And maybe this wasn’t the case cause you did use the word intuitively. You knew that kind of wasn’t the best idea to be taking a second round for this.

Did that come from somewhere? Did you have a family influence of natural health? Were you already involved with it? I mean, surely you have to understand why. Most people, especially at 21, are not necessarily thinking like that. So, was there anything that led to that?

[00:09:03] Madalyn Tavares: That is such a great question and yes. I mean, my mom was definitely ahead of her time. She’s, for sure, still a part of the more conventional kind of paradigm. But she did have some of her own thoughts and feelings about things way ahead of her time. Did not come from a holistic background herself or anything. But she was involved in the medical field, more of like an office perspective.

But I remember from a really early age, my mom always saying, never take antibiotics unless you absolutely need it. She told us that from a really early age. So, I already had that in the back of my mind, even though we really were your typical like nineties era family, eating the Kool-Aid and the other things. So, I do think that, for sure, played a part.

Navigating Toxins & Chemical Smells

But I will say that from a really early age, and I don’t know where this came from, but I had an aversion not to quote/unquote “germs” and what I perceived to be dirty, but I had an aversion to chemicals. I remember from a really young age thinking, if somebody just wiped this counter down with bleach, I don’t really think I want to put my food on it and then eat it.

I didn’t like the smell of things like Pine-sol and bleach, which is like my mom’s favorite cleaning materials back in the day. I don’t know if it was just a little bit of that. It’s just kind of wired like a little bit differently. But yeah, that’s such a good question. I never really thought about that before. But yeah, it started quite young, I guess you could say.

[00:10:28] Detective Ev: Well, and it makes sense now because that was the seed that had been planted years and years before. And it just so happens that the perfect, well or imperfect, depending on how you look at it, circumstance occurred where this antibiotic thing comes up. It could have been any medication, and you wouldn’t necessarily have thought about it in the same way.

But I’m always curious, especially with someone that does it so early on. I mean, almost as early as it can be into a health journey. The most common answer I get that’s interesting is these people will be sick for, you know how it goes 10 to 15 years. They will say whether or not they use these words or not, it’s a little different, but it’s like their gut feeling, intuition, they just knew.

Navigating Toxins & Autoimmunity Connection

At some point they’ve had enough, and they realize this doesn’t make sense what I’m being told, because I’m doing exactly what I was told. It’s not working. And in fact, when I look back over these years, I think I’ve gotten worse. So that I can understand. But this is pretty impressive to get it that early.

So regardless of your mom’s influence, that’s still years later. That’s cool that you were thinking like that. And I have to laugh at the Pine-sol and bleach thing because, well, I hated that too. My mom was a total nut with it.

It’s interesting because countries, you might know this already, but countries that have more chemicals used, also have higher instances of autoimmunity, which is no surprise to anyone in our world. But it’s kind of ironic, you think, oh, we’re cleaning more things, so shouldn’t that be better? It’s like, well, that’s not how we were made. You know, we are animals, people forget that.

What’s interesting too is despite someone who didn’t necessarily have like the most insane story, you’ve made this your life and created a passion around it. So how did we go from, maybe a more natural treatment for this staph infection and never having to take that second round of antibiotics to doing what you’re doing now? Where did you decide, I maybe want to go help people with this?

[00:12:08] Madalyn Tavares: To be honest, I had always had an interest in health and wellness, but at that point it had been very conventional, you know, like my Yoplait yogurt, and I’m going to have broccoli and counting calories and very millennial and previous generation mindset.

Researching & Navigating Toxins

Especially I think as a woman and growing up in the heroin chic era of Kate Moss, and just being ridiculously thin, this kind of ideal that we were striving for back then. So, I came already to that point with an interest in health and wellness, but I’ll be totally honest, at that point in time, it was purely aesthetic.

It’s your typical mindset when you’re young, you think you’re invincible. You’re not worried about something long term necessarily; you just want to look good in the moment. Then I realized the information I thought was actually helpful for me, my body, and my health; and here I was spending X amount of dollars every month on supplements from Walgreens, trying to take my multivitamin and thinking that I’m doing all of this good.

I’m also a big fan of reading, so I think that’s a part of it. I realized in a lot of the research, I was like, this isn’t even actually that helpful for me. And I remember the very first vitamin that I stumbled upon was actually, I’m sure you and your listeners know, but just the synthetic form of B12, cyanocobalamin.

When I read the research around how that’s not even bioavailable and it’s this synthetic version; and how there’s these other options that are actually more beneficial to the body and more likely to absorb, I thought, well, one, I’m kind of wasting money, and two, this is really frustrating. Why has no one ever explained this? So, I think it came from a little bit of just indignation or frustration in my own journey. Then I’m like, I gotta tell people about this.

Navigating Toxins & Trying to Explain the Insanity

[00:13:58] Detective Ev: And it’s tough too, especially, I mean, we’re not that far off in age, I’m 27. So, I think as young people too, when we get into this, sometimes, not always, and this was not universal in my family, but there can be a little thing of like young kid syndrome, or like nephew or niece syndromes. Like, what do you really know about these things? It can be a little tough to explain it to people.

Everyone in the audience I guess knows this already, but when you explain some of the injustices and the insane things that go on in the health industry and the marketing behind it, and you tell it to other people, factual things, it almost sounds like a conspiracy because it’s so nuts. Of course, if the person doesn’t sit down and actually read the stuff for themselves, they’re like, well, that’s insane. I’m like, well, you’re right. It is insane.

But the conclusion should not be, oh, it’s insane, it’s not true. It’s like, no, it’s insane, and it actually is true. I mean, we have companies like Monsanto still out there. I know that they were bought out by Bayer, but like they exist, they’re operating. They have had people at Stanford ghost write studies for them that were not even real. And then what do they do?

Oh, they pay their little fine, but they’ll make more on the next round, so they don’t care. I mean, man, I’m someone who appreciates the business freedom in this country for sure. But that’s where a line needs to get drawn. A company like that should never be able to operate again.

Navigating Toxins & Shiesty Marketing

If there’s such a lack of integrity amongst multiple people to allow people at major universities to ghost write studies for them, you do that once you’re done in my opinion. If I was ruling this, I’d be like, yeah, that’s never happening again. Your company’s done. But I digress. You don’t need to get us started on that; I suppose.

But that’s my point. Some of the stuff like you’re even talking about, the B vitamin thing, this is crazy. They’re marketing this like it’s so great. Like you said, it’s not even bioavailable. I actually, honestly, off the top of my head, would not have known that one. But I trust your word for it, so it’s like, that’s crazy enough.

Then you really get into the deep stuff, you’re like, no, they’re literally poisoning people. We know that it’s kind of poisoned, but eh, you know, we’ll take the money first and then deal with the consequences later. It’s like, wow! Yeah, a little nuts.

You’re reading and you’re studying and clearly a well-versed person, did you get any specific certifications or degrees in this stuff that led you to do what you’re doing now?

[00:15:59] Madalyn Tavares: Yeah, I totally touch on that. I just want to pull on that thread that you said cause I totally agree with you.

[00:16:04] Detective Ev: I can’t do that to you. I can’t put that out there and then not let you respond.

Navigating Toxins Started with Different Kinds of Self-Teaching

[00:16:10] Madalyn Tavares: I’m just feverishly nodding my head because it’s just funny that you went in that direction. Because that’s a big piece of what I am really passionate about now. Specifically, it is kind of sharing that information with people, not only what choices can you make to best help you right now, but also just building that awareness of getting comfortable with also just asking questions and getting curious about your health.

Also, just curious about how the systems that are in place operate so that you can be the most informed patient, person, client, whatever. So, I could not agree with you more on everything that you just said. And, yes, it started with years of medical journals, podcasts, books, PubMed, and just all of these different avenues of kind of self-teaching.

Then, at this point, maybe like four years ago or so, I did an integrative health practitioner certification. You know, I learned a little bit about lab testing, functional testing which is totally something I actually want to continue to develop. Which is an amazing reason that I connected with Reed. So, that is something coming down the pipeline as well to just continue to develop that skill. But yes, it’s just a fire that doesn’t seem to get dimmed.

[00:17:27] Detective Ev: Yeah, it’s hard for it to get dimmed when you walk around and I don’t mean it in a pessimistic way, but you constantly see the problem, right? All you gotta do is go to your local grocery store or Walmart or whatever, and I’m reminded, okay, we need to do something about this. So, I find a healthy passion and a healthy fire that comes from that.

Navigating Toxins & Helping Others Do the Same

It’s not like I’m like, oh my God, we can never beat this. I actually feel very optimistic about this problem specifically. Now there’s a million problems our generation is dealing with, and that’s another story. But the health one, maybe it’s because of the bubble that you and I exist in and I’m thankful for it. But when I go on my Facebook, I see a bunch of FDNs. When I’m on this podcast, I hear about people doing the work and saving other people’s lives, so I am optimistic.

I’m like, you know what? There’s going to be some messiness until we get to our destination. But man, there are so many people, intelligent, well versed, knowledgeable and beyond dedicated out there pushing right now. Like there’s people listening that might just be listening from the health perspective. They’re not interested in doing the courses or anything like that and that’s fine.

I hope that they realize that there are literally millions of people right now sacrificing their life and their time just to help people that don’t even know that they exist yet. That is pretty inspiring and pretty cool. And we’re lucky enough to be two of those people, right? It’s hard for that to get dimmed when we see what it did for us, and then we know what it can do for others when so many people need it.

So, how did this lend into, I guess, like a business or whatever, or whatever you do? When you were at 21 going to the Caribbean, I missed this in the beginning, was that for a job or was that like, hey, I’m done college, I’m going to go for fun? What was that for? Then how did that transition into now?

Navigating Toxins Evolved from My Own Experience

[00:18:56] Madalyn Tavares: I went for a job. I graduated, ended up going down there for a vacation. Very serendipitously, I always feel that the universe, God source, whatever your audience is comfortable calling it, there’s this like everything happening for a reason. I truly don’t think that if I hadn’t moved there and had that experience, I don’t think that things would’ve transpired as they have until this point.

So moved down for a job. Obviously, getting out of your comfort zone and being in basically a new country, a completely different environment, just figuring things out as a young 20-something. I also realized how expensive things cost and the Caribbean is expensive anyway. But just like developing this passion for taking care of myself and then realizing that so many people have no idea of exactly like you said. All you need to do is go to the grocery store and you can see the problem all around you.

[00:18:56] Madalyn Tavares: I went for a job. I graduated, ended up going down there for a vacation. Very serendipitously, you know, I always feel that the universe, God source, whatever your audience is comfortable calling it, there’s this like everything happening for a reason. I truly don’t think that if I hadn’t moved there and had that experience, I don’t think that things would’ve transpired as they have until this point.

So moved down for a job. Obviously getting out of your comfort zone and being in basically a new country, a completely different environment, just figuring things out as a young 20-something. I also realized how expensive things cost and the Caribbean is expensive anyway. But just like developing this passion for taking care of myself and then realizing that so many people have no idea of exactly like you said. All you need to do is go to the grocery store and you can see the problem all around you.

I try to stay optimistic as well and come from that place that it’s not that there’s anything wrong with anyone, it’s just that there’s a lack of knowledge. To be honest, this path has just truly been so organic. There was never like, this is going to be my business. I’m going to do this and make money. It truly has just been like an evolution of my own experience.

Talking and sharing about it on a blog since 2013. Then, that kind of evolving over the years, me becoming well known for that just in my own circle, my own little sphere of influence with my friends and people saying, Hey Maddie, what do you think about this? What do you think about this supplement? Or how can I wash pesticides off my vegetables?

Market to Yourself in a Different Body

Just sharing my knowledge and trying to help empower other people. Then truly in 2020, I think like a lot of people, probably a lot of your listeners, I just had this epiphany moment where I was like, at that point. That’s when I launched The Clean Bee, basically.

I was like, you know, I’m going to take this as my passion and actually separate it from just my normal blog that I was doing and things that I was just sharing. I was like, I’m actually going to make a separate dedicated space where I can really make this about how to help others. That was how it’s evolved since.

[00:21:08] Detective Ev: Sweet. So, you had been blogging for seven years, if my math is right, then at that point, 2013 to 2020?

[00:21:15] Madalyn Tavares: Yeah, Instagram, WordPress blog. I mean, my background from my bachelor’s degree is multimedia journalism and production. So, I think that I’ve just naturally been inclined to enjoy those things and enjoy writing. I’m a big avid writer, avid reader, and so it was just like a natural progression from there, and then the podcasts.

[00:21:34] Detective Ev: I was only asking cause I think people still to this day really underestimate the power of blogging particularly in our space, and I’m sure it applies to others. But in this space, I mean, guys, when you’re doing marketing (because we have a lot of people starting their businesses or working on it), you have to think from the perspective of the person you’re trying to talk to. A lot of the times that’s us in a different body in a sense.

Don’t Underestimate Blogging

So, when we’re looking up health stuff, think about how many times, oh gosh, I gotta ask this question. Or what does this supplement ingredient do? When you go on Google, then you’re what? If you’re in the supplement store, you’re not watching a video, you’re reading. A lot of the times it’s the blogs that are going to come up or whatever.

I read all the time still, different blogs. I don’t even mean to go there, but I end up there organically. So, I think, people, don’t underestimate that because even if you’re not the best writer, first of all, there’s a million apps out there now that can help you. You could hire someone very cheap on Fiverr or Upwork to edit it for you for the grammar if you really feel like you needed it.

And a lot of people are nervous to be on video. Like, what we’re doing right now, it’s not for everyone and that’s fine. It wasn’t for me for a long time. And you don’t even have to do that. So, it’s actually something you could, once you have it perfect (there’s a lot of perfectionists out there in our FDN world), you could click publish and submit and it’s good to go. Definitely don’t underestimate that.

But I like that this evolved into a podcast and stuff, because you strike me as someone who just, some people have the personality, and they should be going and doing that and using it with the world.

So why Clean Bee? Like what does that mean?

“Life Is Messy, But It Shouldn’t Be Toxic”

[00:22:50] Madalyn Tavares: That’s a fun question. It actually struck very intuitively, it just kind of hit me.

I was working in a cafe one afternoon. Working through just actually reviewing some modules from a previous year and just kind of like refreshing some of my information. I got up, packed up, walked next door to the grocery store. And as I’m walking into the grocery store, all of a sudden, I got this idea.

It was like, Queen bee, clean bee. And it’s like learning to be the clean bee of your own home, was kind of like the initial sort of iteration. I immediately left the grocery store, turned back around, went back to the cafe. I was like, I feel really inspired about this. I’m just going to make this a domain name and an Instagram handle right now before it’s taken somewhere else.

Then pretty much a couple weeks after that, I had this, my tagline is, “Life is messy, but it shouldn’t be toxic.” That’s really the basis of and the pillar of what I like to do. Whether that’s the toxins in your food or makeup products or the toxic mindset shifts or patterns or habits that maybe are not supporting you anymore. Learning, you know, how to kind of cut free of that. It’s just been a little bit of an evolution from there. But yeah, it just totally came out of like a random inspired moment.

[00:24:11] Detective Ev: I feel like a lot of FDNs have this. Maybe, again, this work just kind of calls for it. But the way that you describe these things, like it hits you. I mean, to anyone in the moment it sounds so impulsive and like almost irresponsible.

Following Your Intuition

But then I just tell them like two years later after it worked out and they’re like, wow, how’d you do that? I’m like it literally just came to me. Then I said, okay, I’m going to go do that because it feels correct. There’s no other way to describe it.

I was someone who was very skeptical of that stuff as a kid. I mean, I grew up like an atheist. Not only skeptical, I was honestly, very cruel to people who claimed to be able to do things like that or receive messages in that way. I’m like, this is insane. Yet I’ve seen myself struggle so badly with the things that I tried to do logically. On paper, this looks great. This is a solid, good financial plan and I struggle with that.

Then the thing that comes to me out of left field that seems totally impulsive, doesn’t even make sense, I go do that and it’s like everything I’m touching just turns to gold with it. At a certain point in your life experience here, you just have to accept that. I try to plan it out perfectly, I got all the steps and that didn’t work, and it was a struggle. It’s like, you know, pushing this boulder uphill.

Then I do the thing that makes almost no sense, it’s completely impulsive, it seems it came to me outta nowhere, and it’s like, I’m rolling with the boulder downhill. It just moves outta the way for me. It’s really cool how that kind of works out.

So, if people listen to your podcast what can they expect? They can learn about toxins and things to avoid and what else can they learn?

Breaking Down Navigating Toxins Info

[00:25:29] Madalyn Tavares: It’s very much a mix of tangible tactical steps, like actually avoiding toxins like glyphosate, like you touched on earlier from Monsanto now owned by Bayer, understanding how to support that process. But also, we talk a lot about mindset. There’s some spirituality episodes. There’s a lot about habit building. A lot of, you know, very health specific episodes.

My audience is mostly female, and there is a big hot topic right now for the community of just birth control and actually coming off of that, if that’s a choice. Which I actually kind of touched on with Reed in our episode, which will be going live you know, in the future.

There’s some specific health concern episodes as well as my own kind of personal insights and downloads that I like to share, just like things that I’m working through in real time.

I find that in the health and wellness space, I don’t think that this ever comes from a malicious standpoint, but I do think that oftentimes health and wellness can feel quite exclusionary and inaccessible to a lot of people. They feel like, oh, I don’t know what those words mean, or you know, I’m just not interested in it.

I’m really just passionate about trying to parse things down and make it digestible and also hopefully entertaining, so that people that aren’t necessarily interested in it can still glean insights that can help them in their day to day.

[00:26:55] Detective Ev: That’s really cool. I appreciate that. I don’t know if I would’ve worded it that same way, but I mean, you’re a hundred percent right.

People Learn Through Others’ Stories

I feel like that’s what we try to do on this show, because we do have nerdy episodes where we get like technical. But a lot of this is stories. Because I believe the facts tell and the story sell. It’s not like we’re selling anything in particular. I’m not talking about the course. I mean that’s great if you want to do it.

But I’m trying to sell you on the idea that there’s this whole other world. And perhaps, despite what you might have been told, the chronic health issues or symptoms that you have might be avoidable. It’s not a claim. I’m just, how many times do you have to see it on this show?

We have everyone. Cancer, lichen sclerosus. What am I looking for? Do you know?

Madalyn Tavares: Yes, I know.

Detective Ev: I’m missing that one. I will not edit that out just for integrity. That’s the point. Diseases that you can’t even pronounce, and we’ll get them better. So, there you go.

But yeah, people need to know this through the stories that this is even possible and that this is something that they can truly do. So, if you can bring that in a digestible way that’s practical, I think that matters. Cause it does intimidate a lot of people, especially in your world if you’re going to touch on chemicals and toxins. Some of those words are very hard to cover. That’s just pretty cool. Yes, as I know all too well.

[00:28:02] Madalyn Tavares: It’s so true. And I love what you shared about stories. I think hearing healing stories is so important in the process.

Successful Healing Stories Lends Hope

For instance, I am actually recovering from knee surgery, which is why I’m not in my normal podcast space, actually. I can’t fit in there cause I have to have my leg propped up. It’s been a wild few weeks.

But in this process, I’ve been finding myself gravitating to stories of people that also had knee surgery that also have overcome this. Just hearing their success brings me this sense of hope and trust in the process. So, I think what you’re doing by sharing these stories, it’s such an integral part of the process for healing, for literally anyone, for anything.

[00:28:45] Detective Ev: Now I’m curious about what it is that you offer people. I would guess it’s more than just the podcast, right? Like are you offering a one-on-one service or what?

I am asking this genuinely, cause I know I have you send over the bio and stuff. But I think the guests know this, but if they don’t, I like to go into the episode with a healthy amount of ignorance. I don’t mean negligent ignorance where it’s like, I don’t know anything about the person. But I want to ask authentic questions.

I want to ask them in a way that an audience member might be thinking about asking a question like that if they were in front of you. So, I don’t even fully know what you offer. I’d love to hear about that.

Navigating Toxins: The Pantry Audit

[00:29:16] Madalyn Tavares: I do offer one-on-one services. I will say, you know, the main pillar is the podcast.

Then I offer something called The Pantry Audit, which is essentially a program that was birthed out of, cause I was doing one-on-one coaching. What I realized is that while I absolutely love that for long-term support, I was realizing that I think for a lot of people it can feel a little bit intimidating.

They also feel like, I’m not even really sure what I need help with. What I thought was, what is the question I’m getting asked the most? And that is, Maddie, what do you think about this oat milk? Or what do you think about this supplement? Or how do I read labels? Or how do I understand what the best products are to help support my health and my family?

So, I created The Pantry Audit to be essentially this more short-term kind of support where it’s very tactical, it’s very tangible results. It’s me essentially walking you through your pantry of course, the fridge, basically all of the cabinets and drawers and doors in your kitchen, and helping you understand how to read labels, understanding what your health concerns are, and how we can actually support your transition into something else that’s more beneficial. Really just giving people the tools so that way the next time that they’re going to the store or shopping, they feel more empowered.

It’s not this, oh, well, someone told me to get this, so I’m just going to get this. It’s, I know why I should get this because of X, Y, Z.

Shorter Program to Get Quick Results

[00:30:46] Detective Ev: That makes a ton of sense. It doesn’t always happen because you can’t really control the client per se. But that’s clearly the goal of FDN, right?

Reed always says this, we don’t want a revolving door practice where you gotta come back to us every year just to make sure everything’s okay, or like, because you got sick again. We want you to understand, maybe not as much as us, but enough to go out there and, like you said, empowered.

Like okay, I can look at this and I can make an informed decision as the consumer as to why this is bad or good for me. Then I can maybe even tell my friend that’s with me at the store that day that this is something that’s good or bad and why?

You’re right. There’s a huge difference between, oh, someone told me to get this, so I search for that, and I get it. Versus, I understand why I’m getting this or not getting this rather for certain things, you know? I think that’s very important.

So, just to be clear, you do still work with people one-on-one, but offer that? Or is the one-on-one and done?

[00:31:32] Madalyn Tavares: That is the one-on-one capacity that I’m doing at this time. So, if anyone’s interested, I’ve got all the details I can send your way.

Instead of a longer program, which is what I had done previously, this is more like a short-term and then we can always consider working on a long-term setting after that. But I think that it’s a great way to get your foot in the door and get started and see some results, straight out of the gate.

Navigating Toxins: The Goal is to Develop Knowledge

Just to echo what you said, in social media in particular, it’s a beautiful thing in a lot of ways. But I also think that it can be a little bit overwhelming cause there’s so many products out there, right?

So many people get really excited about a product and I mean, I’m just as guilty as anybody else. But there is this kind of like promoting of something and then people buying it without knowing why. So that’s really the goal is to develop that knowledge.

[00:32:18] Detective Ev: Well, we ended up having more time than I would’ve thought, so I have some final questions for you that are like ones that’ll probably take us plenty of time anyway.

From your one-on-one stuff, I’m always really curious about client testimonials and I’m always talking something where you can actually share it. If you can’t use their name, that’s fine. Obviously respecting privacy. But I’d love to know if there’s just maybe someone had a health transformation with you, or you found some like crazy chemical in their house that they never would’ve thought about. Whatever it is for you that just seems like a really cool testimonial. I’d love to hear like one or two of those that sticks out.

[00:32:49] Madalyn Tavares: That’s such a fun question. The one that came up initially was, and I won’t say her name, but she is someone who had historically really struggled with eating disorders in the past. Which I am not, claiming, I’m not an expert in that specifically.

She had overcome that with the help of a therapist and some other people and was then at the point where she was wanting to just get a better understanding of her health and wellbeing in general.

Collaborating With Someone Who’s on Your Side

One of the things that ended up being such a random sort of discovery is, she was struggling with migraines. She would get them here and there, so we took a look at her supplements. We were including some different things like magnesium to try to support her body.

But then we realized that she was actually wearing AirPods for a big chunk of the day, hours and hours and hours wearing these AirPods on walks, on work calls, just listening to music around the house. I just suggested to her, and this is obviously I’m not going to go down the whole wormhole that is the science and information behind, are things like EMFs harmful to our health.

But it was just a suggestion that felt for me, quite intuitive. I was like, you know what? Let’s actually switch that up. I would like for you to try for one week, don’t wear those and just listen to a speaker or use wired headphones if you need to.

She actually noticed, she felt a little bit more calm, like in her body, she said. And she wasn’t having as many migraines. Obviously, that is so anecdotal, and I don’t have a hard data set to prove that that’s what it was. But that’s what I think is so important about having someone just on your side who’s invested in your health and your journey.

These are things that you just might not consider. Just through conversation and having that support in place, you can uncover that there might be some weird little triggers that you never even thought of.

Navigating Toxins: EMF Effects on The Sick

[00:34:46] Detective Ev: That one’s tough for me because I feel like, one, I do believe that they’re having an effect on our body to be very clear. I appreciate you labeling it anecdotal, but that’s kind of the point of the client testimonials, right? I just love to hear the anecdotal things.

It is tough for me cause I feel like the healthier I get, the less it bothers me. Whereas before when I was super sick, I remember going to like Miami for about a month, at one point for job stuff, and I was getting destroyed down there. Like two weeks in, I’m like, Dude, this sucks. I do not feel good despite better sun. And you know, I know how to use the sun properly. You’d think I’m doing better and honestly; I’m not doing well at all. Again, this is my anecdotal experience. I’m not making a claim on it one way or another.

But it almost seems as if the EMF stuff worsens people who are sick, to me, rather than maybe being inherently causal. Although I’m sure for some people it does cause it. My biggest argument for that is that, well, everyone in a major city, like I live 50 minutes outside of Philadelphia. Now there’s trees in a field. Beautiful right here, right? So, obviously it is a dramatically different amount of EMFs hitting me in the center of Philadelphia.

If it was that bad by itself, like why isn’t everyone just dropping dead? I mean, that’s dramatically different. That’s not even comparable to what I’m getting right here where I can lose service if I drive two minutes down the road. And that’s a fact. I could actually lose service there. So, I don’t know.

Navigating Toxins: The Overflowing Cup

But then again, the people that get sick, they get really sick in the city, it seems. There’s higher rates of mental health issues, there’s higher rates of cancer. So, I don’t know. I haven’t figured that one out yet. But I think that’s pretty cool that you were able to give her that insight.

Certainly, I mean, my phone, yes, you’re right. I always call on speaker. I basically just started using the Bluetooth again for the first time in like six years as of a year or two ago. And I felt comfortable with it. So that’s still amazing that, that did that for her.

[00:36:25] Madalyn Tavares: I totally hear you on the anecdotal evidence and also, I really just want to highlight the part that you mentioned about feeling like that was more of a trigger when you’re in a less healthy state.

I do fully agree with that. I think that you can look at that from literally any perspective. Because I do like to think about, let’s say we have a cup, for instance. Every single toxin is another input into this cup. When that cup is full, it starts overflowing. I feel like that’s the manifestation of symptoms. So, little things like heavy EMF exposure can send you over the edge.

Just like you can think this with allergies and autoimmune. I mean, so many different avenues that we could go down. But yeah, I fully agree that it can be more of an issue if you’re in a less healthy state.

Navigating Toxins: Start with Your Water

[00:37:15] Detective Ev: Now, it’s actually somewhat rare that we get someone who is almost like centered around the toxin stuff and the chemicals. Of course, you branch out, but this is the center. It’s normally the opposite where they center somewhere else and maybe this is one of the branches.

So, I’m curious. Maybe we’ll start with three, if you want to go to five, you’re more than welcome. But I’m sure you can do a lot with three. What would be some of like the top three chemicals or toxins or whatever that people are getting exposed to maybe that are easy to avoid or that you believe that need to be avoided?

I guess a better way to word it so I don’t give you five questions in one, is what are the top three chemicals you would love to see people avoiding and where are they typically getting it?

[00:37:54] Madalyn Tavares: Oh, great question. Yes, this could be a long list.

When I speak with anyone, the first thing that I always suggest is, filter your water. Municipal water, as probably all of your listeners know, is not the best source. Depending on where you live, you can actually just pop in your zip code and get a full water report from your municipality. They’re required to give you that. I always suggest doing that first, so that way you know what you’re dealing with.

Then you can choose the best filter that fits within your budget from there. Because I’m not somebody that’s going to say, go and spend $400 on a water filtration system that you cannot afford. Do what you can with what you have.

Navigating Toxins: Deodorant and Detergent

But if you have the knowledge of knowing what’s in your water, which for most people they probably know. But things you know, like fluoride, chlorine, obviously all of the VOCs and these other chemicals that run off in our streets and then end up in our water supply. Definitely filter your water.

And then the other two I would say is, let’s talk about deodorant and let’s talk about your detergent. I call it like the two Ds.

The deodorant, we can stop exposing ourselves to aluminum, because that’s another thing that often shows up in water. And as often if you live like me, I live in a city, so I am very cognizant that I’m breathing in these chemicals. If you can reduce just one extra exposure, I think especially for women. With the information out there of the link between aluminum-based deodorants and increases in things like breast cancer, it’s just, we gotta stop that.

Then detergent would be the other one. I think we forget that our skin is the biggest organ on our body. And everything that comes into contact with our skin is getting absorbed. I feel like I can smell Tide or Gain down the hallway when my neighbors in my apartment building are washing their clothes.

If you can find something that you still love, that still works for you, that’s going to be a lot less toxic to your body and your skin, go for it.

Navigating Toxins: Washing Clothes Without the Soap

[00:39:55] Detective Ev: This was a little different when we first started dating, but my girlfriend was a little hesitant. Listen, someone’s going to kill me on this show for this, but it’s not dirty. I would never do this if it’s dirty. But like I wash my blankets and sheets regularly. And a few years ago, I’m not saying I’ve never done it in the few years, cause I do it every now and then to keep it going.

I have a good washer and dryer, I just put it in on heavy duty, and I see what the water does and it’s on warm. It’s not like I’m doing it with cold water, like I do it with warm. My blankets and sheets come out smelling just fine every time. They’re not dirty anymore. They’re all good to go. If I had a real stain or, gosh, if I was eating on the bed. I try not to do that, but like if I’m rushing around doing something crazy for whatever reason it might be, and something spills, yes, of course.

But I think we also sometimes overestimate like what actually needs to be done. I understand that the soaps, they do things and I get that. But I’m also like, guys, it’s a washer. Like they did not invent this so that it does nothing without the soap. That doesn’t even make sense. Like it does a good job at thoroughly cleaning your garments and stuff without that.

Navigating Toxins: Soap Nuts is an Option

So again, it doesn’t smell, it’s clean. Like, are we in agreement that this is good? Because I’ll like go to the gym and sweat. I mean, you could smell that it’s different. It’s not like, you think it didn’t get cleaned. It smelled before I went to the gym and now it does not smell. So obviously, something happened.

I know that’s not for everyone. I know I’m not going to get most people on board with that. But to me, I’m like a minimalist in that sense. I want to minimize the exposures as much as possible. And I’m sure there’s natural ones that are great. But like at the end of the day, I mean it is a lot of chemicals.

So, my follow up question to that was going to be, do you have any like favorite Clean Bee approved brands that you like for maybe detergents and stuff like that?

[00:41:29] Madalyn Tavares: Great question. I mean, depending on budget and if there are so many other concerns from the individual.

But funny story. I actually really love soap nuts which is extremely minimalist. If your listeners know, I mean, it’s literally a nut and then you put it in a sache with like essential oils.

Detective Ev: Was that on Shark Tank?

Madalyn Tavares: No. It literally comes from a tree. Like this is from nature.

[00:41:50] Detective Ev: Oh, definitely not on Shark Tank.

[00:41:51] Madalyn Tavares: It’s actually where the word soap comes from because it’s saponin. And when you get these little nuts wet and they move around in the washing machine, they actually do produce like suds. So that’s an option if you want to be extremely conscientious.

Navigating Toxins: Supporting the Healthier Option Companies

But then there’s brands like Better Life. There’s brands like Molly’s Suds. There’s brands like, Hive. Obviously, Dr. Bronner’s is a huge one that a lot of people are aware of. But lots of different avenues of companies.

I really love to support brands and companies that are out there doing the work to try to bring a healthier, better product to the world. And just being mindful that those companies don’t get bought out by bigger companies that then change the formulation. That’s the little caveat I’ll say. But yeah, lots of different options.

[00:42:39] Detective Ev: Well, I hope these people listened all the way through and thankfully we do actually have a high retention rate. But I hope they listened all the way through. Cause I feel like some of the stuff that we talked about at the end here, between the things to look out for and then the brand recommendations, I mean, there’s a few brands there.

Again, since I take this minimalist approach, I don’t typically have to worry about a lot of these things, but I’ve never even heard of a few of those brands, and I’d like to be educated on it. I will go check those out myself.

Where to Find Madalyn Tavares

I have two more quick things for you, Madalyn. One is where can people find you if they’d like to work with you or see what you do?

[00:43:06] Madalyn Tavares: Thank you so much. Well, I’m at theecleanbee.com and that’s T h e e Clean Bee.

Pretty much on every social channel. But the main space where I hang out is Instagram @theecleanbee. Lots of daily life behind the scenes, but then a lot of information. Be sure to check out the highlights. There’s tons of good stuff on there.

As it relates to like product recommendations, I have a series called Simple Swaps where I do exactly as it sounds, showing kind of a conventional option and then giving a few different swaps that are easy to do. So, Instagram is the main space.

At also The Clean Bee Podcast and then theecleanbee.com, which is kind of where everything is at if you’re interested in working together. I’ve got all the information there and how to get in touch.

Health Detective Podcast Signature Question

[00:43:51] Detective Ev: Thank you. All right, final question, I promise. It’s the signature question on the Health Detective Podcast. And this will be a fun one cause I’m not sure which route you’re going to take with this.

The signature question is, if I could give you, in this case, a magic wand and you could wave it and get every single person in this world to do one thing for their health, that could be you’re either getting them to do one thing or you’re getting them to stop doing one thing, either or is fine, doesn’t matter to us really. But what is the one thing that you would get them to do?

[00:44:18] Madalyn Tavares: Wow. Oh man. I’m going to go with the first thing that came up to my mind, which is get outside, get your bare feet on the earth.

I know that sounds a bit woo woo. But if you can just breathe some fresh air, spend some time with people that you love, spend time outside, roll around in the dirt with your animals, like, just allow yourself to be exposed and in nature. I think we spend a lot of time inside. I’m extremely guilty of this. Most of my work is inside.

But if you can get outside, get that fresh air, get the vitamin D from the sun, and just enjoy being in nature.

[00:44:54] Detective Ev: Excellent. Thank you so much for coming on with us today.

[00:44:56] Madalyn Tavares: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. This has been awesome. I really appreciate it.

Conclusion

[00:45:00] Detective Ev: All right guys. That’ll do it for today’s episode with Madalyn Tavarez.

If you enjoyed this episode, let me know, because I’m kind of getting some ideas recently. We had Ryan Monahan on a few weeks back and he did a live lab reading with us. So, we went over my thyroid results from like two and a half, three years ago. You guys really enjoyed that one. We got great feedback. And right now, it’s actually a pretty well viewed video on our YouTube. We still have a lot of work to do on the YouTube, but people were viewing that one, so it’s cool.

I’m kind of thinking toxins could come on again because we could talk about toxins all day. I mean, Madalyn has a whole podcast on this, right? But not only could we talk about it all day, we could actually do video versions of this where we go over some labels or have actually real things in our hand where we show you guys what’s hidden in these products. I think that’d be kind of cool.

Let me know if you would like that. You can always send a comment to us by going to Podbean and then searching for The Health Detective Podcast. I am looking forward to talking to you guys again soon. But until then, take care.

You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com.

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