Glyphosate Lawsuit, MAHA, & the New Food Pyramid | Courtney Swan

What are some of your rules in teaching people how to read food labels?

Whenever you're trying to decide if you're going to put something in your cart, just simply ask yourself, if my great-grandmother was to time travel and join me in the grocery store right now, would she even know what this is?

What are your thoughts on the new food pyramid?

My first initial thought was, I cannot believe that our government just said eat more real food. People are taking that and saying, okay, now the dietary guidelines are saying just have a total free-for-all, just eat all the red meat and eat all the butter and eat all the eggs that you want. And that's actually not what the dietary guidelines are saying. We never heard Obama say it. Trump never said it his first 4 years. Biden never said a word. And I just kept sitting here going, Americans are really sick. And this is a big deal. We're talking 74% of our youth, 18 to 24, are ineligible for military service. Like, we're starting to talk about national security threat. And everyone ignored it until finally Trump and Bobby Kennedy got on a political stage and they said, Americans are sick and we're gonna fix it. And I mean, just that alone to me, what do they say in the step program? The first step is admitting we have a problem.

On today's episode, I've brought in an expert nutritionist. She's a master's in nutrition, Courtney Swan, and we're gonna be talking about how to how to heal your hormones, how to get pregnant if you're so-called geriatric, which is 35 and older. She's 41 and pregnant, which is so amazing. Some of the things she's done and the wisdom she's bringing there, how to balance women's hormones. We'll get in that today. We're gonna talk about the most dangerous chemical in our food supply and what you need to know about it. We'll talk about reading food labels. This is really important.

They're sneaking some things in, even in health food stores.

You need to be aware of and so much more. Welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show and Courtney, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

Well, it's so fun. You know, we're on a text thread together with, you know, Kali Means and Vani Hari and just a number of other, you know, health influencers, Alex Clark, where we're constantly— it's probably the text thread I'm on the most. It's kind of like beeping on my phone. But there are so many changes constantly happening in healthcare today. You know, we've talked about everything from— I want to talk about glyphosate today. I want to talk about, uh, a lot of the changes that have happened and what the Maha movement has done so far this year, what the up-and-coming changes are gonna be, some of the things we think RFK Jr. is going to be working on changing here, and, uh, just also, you know, some of the health myths. I also want to talk about, um, women's hormones. I know you're pregnant.

Congratulations. Thank you.

So excited for you there as well today too. So, so there's a lot to discuss though, but I want to start off with glyphosate. Because this is a chemical that is, uh, really harmful to everybody, yet it's still something that's rampant and being used everywhere. And I know right now that a lot of these companies— most people don't realize this— that there is a push right now for glyphosate to be protected, these companies to be protected against the side effects of glyphosate. Tell us more about that.

Yeah, so I, I keep saying that we're in the fight of our lifetime with this right now. And this has been an ongoing fight for a long time. Just to be clear, just to dispel some myths, I'm seeing some stuff online from people saying, oh, you know, of course the administration would let this through. Unfortunately, we've been fighting this for a long time. So I started Real Foodology 14 years ago, and one of the main reasons that I started my platform that I started on were two things. One, we need to be eating real food, more real food. And the second one was my concern about glyphosate. So this has been a fight that we've been fighting for a long time. Um, there's a company called Monsanto and they were bought by Bayer back in 2018 and they create their hero product, which a lot of people know is Roundup, but Roundup is essentially glyphosate. And in 2015, the World Health Organization, um, International Agency for Research on Cancer actually sounded the alarm on glyphosate and said that it's a probable human carcinogen. Now, just to be clear with that probable thing there, when they put that on there, they're not definitively 100% saying that it causes cancer. But what they are saying is that we have enough data to show that we are pretty positive that it does. Yeah. So it basically, what that means is it was essentially a statement in 2015 that we know that this causes cancer. Now fast forward to when Monsanto was bought by Bayer in 2018. Shortly afterwards, they found themselves in litigation after litigation with many farmers that were claiming that they were getting non-Hodgkin's lymphoma by using these products on their farmlands. And just to back up a little bit, glyphosate is an herbicide that's widely used in our food, and it's so ubiquitous now— you mentioned this— that we are finding it in women's placentas, we're finding it in breast milk, we're finding it, um, in sperm, we're finding it in, um, Americans' urine. In fact, there was a study that was done a couple years ago, and they found that around 81% of Americans have glyphosate in their urine. Wow. We're finding it in rainwater. And, you know, we can get to this later. I don't share this to scare people because I don't want everybody to put their heads in the sand and be terrified of it. But this is a really big deal. And what's happening currently right now, and what I said is that we're in this fight of our lifetime, is that these companies, primarily Monsanto, Bayer. So what happened when they were going in, you know, getting involved in all these litigations with the farmers that were suing them because that they're getting cancer. These farmers are winning time and time and time again. So Monsanto has spent about $11 billion— Bayer spent about $11 billion now in these litigations. So they finally decided last year that they were going to go to the federal government and look for immunity. Now, what this means is, if your audience is aware of what the 1986 vaccine liability shield is, it's essentially the exact same thing. So in 1986, the vaccine companies were getting caught up in a lot of litigations, and they went to the federal government and they said, hey, We are not going to be able to continue making these vaccines if you do not give us some sort of immunity shield. So what that means is that if your child or yourself gets harmed by getting a vaccination, you cannot help— you cannot hold these companies liable, so you can't sue them. So now in 2026, uh, we have several chemical companies that have all gotten together. Monsanto Bayer is kind of leading the charge on this, but there's also, you know, ChemChina, Syngenta. It's all these major manufacturers of these chemicals that we're using on our farmland. They are going to the federal government and they are looking for an immunity liability shield, liability immunity shield, meaning that if I or you or a farmer using their chemicals were to get cancer from their products, we cannot hold them liable.

Yeah.

Wow. And it has ramped up so much recently. And just the last— I was literally before we recorded, I was checking my, my text thread that I'm in with a bunch of really amazing women that I'm working with right now in this coalition. Um, on this. Kelly Ryerson, Glyphosate Girl, Alexandra Munoz, uh, who is a toxicologist, Alex Clark, Vani Hari, we're all working tirelessly to try to block this. Because what's happening at this very moment is they, they tried to slide this into the Appropriations Spending Bill last week. It was under something called Section 453. We were actually able to successfully block this. Now, I think people, a lot of people probably understand this by now, but A lot of companies will slide in a little thing into, you know, a really big bill. So let's say it's like 200 pages in hopes that it will just get voted through. They don't even know that it's on there and then it gets voted through. So one of the things that the chemical companies are trying to do right now is they are trying to be very sneaky and slide into bills where people don't know. So we were able to successfully block it going into the spending bill. There is wording in the farm bill right now that's going to be voted on and probably I'd I don't want to be quoted exactly on this, but I think in February is when they're going to vote on the farm bill. So that's already in there. Another way that they're doing this is they decided to go to the Supreme Court. And last Friday, they took this to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court voted on whether or not they are going to just take the case on themselves, meaning that Bayer Monsanto is going to present their case to the Supreme Court. And then the Supreme Court's going to decide whether or not they're going to give them this liability shield. So as of right now, it's now Monday. We were supposed to find out the results of it, which is why I was checking my texts, but we have not heard back yet on whether or not the Supreme Court is gonna take that case.

Well, I think it's important to understand that I, I, I know I've done entire shows on this. I've talked about it frequently. Glyphosate, it is incredibly harmful to the human body. And probably the area where it's the most harmful is the gut microbiota. Yes. You know, it actually changes and alters your gut microbiome in a very negative way. It's very toxic to the liver. So your liver and your gut are gonna be harmed by that. And I wanna mention this. I also, I care for a lot of patients with, a number of different issues. Hypothyroidism, one, you know, in order to convert T4 to T3, this active form of hormone, you need your liver and your gut. That actually is what's converting T4 to T3. So people with hypothyroidism, it's gonna hurt dramatically. People with gut and GI issues, increased risk of cancer. So glyphosate is the mo— it's in Roundup. I think it is the most commonly sprayed chemical herbicide used in all of the United States today on things like corn and soy and a lot of food supply. And anytime you're eating produce, for the most part, that's not organic, there it's going to be sprayed with Roundup, which is, which is glyphosate. Yeah. So it is absolutely everywhere. I think they also use it today on, uh, on golf courses.

Yes. They're spraying it in children's playgrounds or in schools.

And so it's incredibly toxic. And so what's happening, as Courtney's mentioning, is These companies are trying to get immunity to where you can't even sue them and they're completely protected. And so it's something we all need to be aware of and speak out on. And if you, in watching this podcast, I'd encourage you to share this so people know what's actually going on here with Glyphosate. And Courtney, thanks so much for just being on the front lines of trying to block it and make changes. So grateful for that.

Thank you. And actually, there's one more thing that I actually forgot to mention, and this is probably the most important part of this case, actually. So there was something that we are referring to as the Monsanto paper, the Monsanto report that Monsanto— it was just retracted actually by the journal that printed this because we— they were able to prove that Monsanto ghostwrote this report. Now, what's really important to know about this report is this is the report that the EPA used as their Evidence that glyphosate does not cause harm to the human body. Now again, I'm gonna repeat that Monsanto ghostwrote this report to make it look as though glyphosate is not as detrimental to our health as it actually is. And then they took this around to all of our, you know, governing bodies, for example, the EPA, and they said, look, like, here we are, we're proving that it doesn't cause cancer, it doesn't cause harm. And this journal actually retracted this a couple months ago and they said that, you know, they found out that Monsanto ghostwrote this and it's actually not correct science. So if the Supreme Court decides to take this up, they are taking up a case based on fraudulent science. Wow. It's a really big deal.

And one thing people don't realize, you know, there is a study on studies and it said that about 50% of studies are false. And the reason being is they— there, there's been so much cherry picking of data, too small of groups, but also just a bias placed into that of paying scientists or hiring people that are going to make the study says what it wants. So, so when we even hear that glyphosate has been shown to likely cause cancer, the fact that it's not absolutely that it causes cancer is only because so many studies have been funded by these pharmaceutical companies to try and prove that it doesn't. Exactly. By using biased research.

Exactly. And I would say that when you look at the results of all of these court cases that they've been in since 2018, every single time they've sided with the farmers and the people that are claiming that they got cancer, because in the court of law there has been enough evidence to prove that these cancers were caused by glyphosate. That alone tells you enough that we need to know.

Yeah, yeah. Well, this is obviously something big that we'll all be, uh, be, be fighting with you on. So thanks so much. You know, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has done so many great things in the Maha movement. I've been really encouraged to see some of the things he's done. One of the things that recently came out was The new food pyramid. What are your thoughts on the new food pyramid?

My first initial thought was, I cannot believe that our government just said eat more real food.

Yeah, for context.

Yeah, praise God. For context, for people that are new to me and my work, I created my brand Real Foodology 14 years ago. I made up that name simply because I was in school getting my Master's of Science in Nutrition, and I needed an outlet to share everything I was learning. And when I was coming up with ideas of what I wanted to name my business, I just kept coming back to real food. Because I kept thinking, what's going to be longevity forever in the nutrition and, and nutrition and health space? What am I always recommending to people? Get back to eating real food. So I just was blown away that we have a government that's now saying we need to be eating more real food. That has been my guiding force for the last 14 years, and it really is my overarching message to everybody, is that just at the end of the day, if you're eating more real food, you're going to see amazing effects in your health. So that was— I was very, very excited about that. And actually, overall, I really don't have very many large criticisms about the food pyramid or the new dietary guidelines.

It's pretty good.

Um, I love that they came out and that they said that there's no amount of added sugar that's healthy for people, and especially for children. Um, in fact, I don't know if people know this, but in the prior dietary guidelines, they actually said that a certain amount of added sugar is healthy. For children under 2, which I just think is crazy. Um, let's see, what else did I love? You know, one thing that I wish that they would differentiate between— so they came out and they said that they're not villainizing red meat anymore, which again, I'm, I'm really excited about that. They also came out and said they're not in support of ultra-processed foods and we need to be limiting that, which is amazing because the dietary guidelines before that, uh, they really were a marketing playbook for the ultra-processed food companies. And in fact, if you look at the 2020 Dietary Guidelines, the committee had— 95% of the committee had conflicts of interest with Big Pharma and Big Food. And then when you look at the dietary guidelines, they were written largely by industry, and there was no wording whatsoever about avoiding ultra-processed foods. In fact, a lot of the guidelines, one of them being, you know, eat low-fat, really gave the food companies, uh, what's the word, I guess, leverage to create all of these low-fat products that then had emulsifiers and fillers and other things to make up for the fact that there was no fat in there anymore. There was lower in fat. So all of those I'm very excited about. I do wish that they would differentiate between quality of meat and say, you know, move away from conventional versus grass-fed organic. Yeah, exactly. So I think there was—

it's hard to do everything on a food pyramid, but I'm with you.

It is. Yeah. And I've seen some pushback as far as the guidelines around saturated fat. Yeah. People have been fighting about it.

That's been the single biggest pushback is that.

Exactly. And I've been seeing from some people saying, oh, well, it doesn't make sense because they're saying to eat red meat and they're saying to eat more eggs and they're saying that butter is back on the table, but then they're saying limit under 10% of saturated fat. And I will admit, I'm not an expert on this specifically, but I would say go check out Max Lugavere has been talking about this a lot. And I don't know if you've been seeing his posts, but he actually outlined what a week's worth of eating would look like if you're eating eggs, butter, meat, and still trying to stay around 10% saturated fat. And he showed people what that looks like. And I think that what the discrepancy here is, people are, are taking that and saying, okay, now the dietary guidelines are saying just have a total free-for-all, just eat all the red meat and eat all the butter and eat all the eggs that you want. And that's actually not what the dietary guidelines are saying. They're saying within this realm, be careful about your saturated fat, which I have a little bit of a different opinion on that. Um, but I think it's nuanced. They're just saying you don't need to avoid them entirely, which before we were saying, you know, avoid red meat, avoid butter. And what happened is that then everybody was going to ultra-processed foods instead, and they were going to things like canola oil.

That's right. Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, I, I, yeah, I'm a fan of it as well. You know, it's interesting, your brand's Real Foodology. The first book I ever wrote in my, my— when I really started my career, my first year was focused on eat real food. So I wrote a book called The Real Food Diet Cookbook because it really is one of the most basic of like a lot of people, they're not eating food today. If you're going to a fast food restaurant, you know, I remember, um, there was a, uh, a lot of these fast food chains, they were putting out certain, um, like milkshakes. And I remember looking at a what's in a like McDonald's strawberry milkshake. Here's the crazy thing, there were not strawberries in it. Zero strawberries at all.

It's like strawberry natural flavor.

Yeah, exactly. So You know, these things aren't real. And so anytime you're eating something that's not real, it's going to be detrimental to your health. So I do think that's the first step in the right direction is you're eating mostly food, getting rid of ultra-processed food. So this is just a major, major upgrade here to the, you know, food pyramid of eating 6 to— think about the old food pyramid, 6 to 11 servings of grains a day.

It's crazy.

And then sugar being actually on there is something you should be eating for certain demographics. And the fact that people are criticizing what— again, the saturated fat thing is debatable. That's the only thing, and that's the one little criticism. Outside of that, it's, uh, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty wonderful.

Yeah. And, and you said this on, on my podcast that we just recorded, and I'm gonna reiterate this: the saturated fat one is really tricky to put an overarching blanket statement for every single person. Yeah, you just, you need to work with practitioner that knows what they're doing and that can do blood work and know exactly what your numbers look like and then tailor the diet to you because it's going to look a little bit different for different people. And if your CRP is really low and your A1C is really low, that's right, then it's not going to be as much of a concern for someone that's maybe, you know, overweight and diabetic.

Yeah, yeah, you hit on those markers. Yeah, it's really— it's, it's, it's CRP, it's, uh, ApoB, and it's A1C. If those are fine, you can eat more saturated fat.

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You know, the Maha movement's been really It— I don't think people realize how impactful it's been. It's been incredibly impactful. And people like you and Vani Hari and so many others have done such an amazing job. Will Cole and many others. And I've really— I've been really blessed to be a part of it. And, and so what are the things that you're most encouraged about? That's what's happened in the Maha Movement has been able to impact. And what are the things in the future you think we're also going to be able to make changes with RFK and that partnership over the next 3 years?

Yeah. So things I'm really excited about. One, the food dyes. And I want to speak to the critics for a minute here because we also did get a fair amount of pushback in this. And what I keep reiterating is the food dyes should have never been there in the first place. And I understand the criticism that we're getting because many people are saying, well, okay, if you take the food dyes out of Froot Loops, it's still going to be ultra-processed foods. Yes, that is very true.. And we're not saying that Froot Loops are now gonna be healthy without the food dyes. But what I keep going back to, and I think people are not understanding the direct impact that this is gonna have on so much of our population. Over a million, over a million children are being fed every single day with our public school system that are getting food dyes. And we know that food dyes are having an effect on hyperactivity in children. Talk to any person that is teaching right now and they will tell you that the kids are bouncing off the walls.

Yeah.

And it's a combination of things. It's the sugar and it's also the food dyes that they're getting every single day. So that's gonna have a remarkable difference on just, if we can just limit the amount of toxic burden that's happening on these little bodies, I see a win regardless. Like just getting the stuff out of the food and having them be exposed to less things. That's a huge win. Nursing homes, same thing. Hospitals, same thing. Military food. So it's going to affect actually a lot of our vulnerable, not calling the military vulnerable, but everybody else, a lot of the vulnerable of our population, we're going to be getting the food dyes out. So I see that as a huge win. They should have never been there in the first place. And I'm very excited about just seeing that we're having some real things actually happen in the government. We talked about this on my podcast, but you know, I think people forget that we got into this mess in 70 years. We're not going to clean this up overnight. And I get it because I'm a similar personality where now that we have Bobby in there, we're all kind of like, yes, we've been waiting for this opportunity for so long. But I kind of have to taper my expectations a little bit and remind myself that, you know, the government is a little slow with this kind of stuff.

A little. No, they're very slow with this stuff. Very slow.

Yes. And I will say this is the fastest I've ever seen them move.

Oh, yeah.

And that I'm very excited about.

Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, and I would be remiss to not say this. The thing that I was really impacted by was right when Bobby Kennedy and Trump, you know, got into office. I've been doing this work for 14 years. I have been sitting waiting for a president just to admit we have a problem. Just someone stand up on stage and say, we are sick. We need to change this. We never heard Obama say it. Trump never said it his first year. Yeah, he never said it his first 4 years. Biden never said a word. And I just kept sitting here going, Americans are really sick and this is a big deal. We're talking 74% of our youth, 18 to 24, are ineligible for military service. Like, we're starting to talk about national security threat. And everyone ignored it until finally Trump and Bobby Kennedy got on a political stage and they said, Americans are sick and we're going to fix it. And I mean, just that alone to me, what do they say in the STEP program? The first step is admitting we have a problem.

That's right.

We admitted we have a problem publicly. Yeah, so that I'm very excited about. Um, what else? The dietary guidelines, absolutely amazing win in my personal opinion. I think we've already gone over that. Um, some things that I'm really excited about that I am hopeful will get fixed. Bobby Kennedy was talking about how the formula has not been reevaluated since—

oh, infant formula.

Yes.

Oh my gosh, one of the, one of the absolute worst. I mean, think about the most important time of your entire life is developing as an infant. And these infant formulas are toxic. Oh, it's horrible. They're terrible.

Terrible. I mean, the first two ingredients are generally, when you get away from water, it's corn syrup solids and canola oil.

That's right.

It's just crazy. And then it's a bunch of synthetic vitamins, most likely not bioavailable for the body. Not to mention they're putting folic acid in there. And if the baby has MTHFR, they're not even going to get folate from that. So it's a mess.

Yeah, yeah. I, I, I, I have frequently talked about how important breastfeeding is, and if you can do it, do everything you can. If you can't, try and get breast milk. And if you can't, Weston A. Price had a really great formula they put together. It was like, you know, goat's milk and then all these other ingredients to make your own at-home formula. And, um, that's a— that is just such a better option than what today's infant formula is. I'm so glad you brought that up because it's just It's a travesty.

Yeah. Well, and you look at too, so we were just talking about the dietary guidelines. Um, so the dietary guidelines are going to have a huge ripple effect on what we do with WIC recommendations, SNAP recommendations, funding, where we put the funding, what kind of foods that we're going to really like push forward. And, you know, I look at, cause when I talk about formula a lot on my page and I'm similar as you, I'm such a proponent for breast milk and I get in trouble every time I say this, but I just believe that breast is best. I just do. I think it was God's perfect design. It works perfectly with— in sync with you and baby. And there's this hormone exchange that happens where your breast milk creates certain properties that your baby needs.

It was funny, I was sitting down with my, uh, my— we were spending Christmas in Florida, and my sister was there, and Chelsea was there, my wife Chelsea. And, uh, Chelsea was nursing our 2-year-old. And then, uh, my, uh, my sister had said, oh, like You know, I miss that because she hasn't breastfed for about 6 months now with her because her oldest is like 3 and a half or 4, or her youngest. And, um, because they were just sharing like, you know, that oxytocin, that just connection you feel to, to the baby at that time.

Well, and I think, you know, it's, it's unfortunate because we don't teach this a lot. I didn't learn any of this in school, by the way, and I took nutrition courses, I took prenatal nutrition courses, and there were certain things that they just didn't teach us at all. But there's this symbiotic relationship that happens where at night breast milk actually has melatonin in it to help baby go to sleep. Wow. And if you're— if the baby is sick, your body can sense it and it creates more antibodies to help their immune system. Like, there's certain things that happen that, that science just— we will never be able to replicate that.

Yeah.

And so that I just feel like with formula and, you know, I would be remiss to not say this. My heart goes out to— I'm so empathetic to women that are unable to breastfeed. And that's a real reality and it's horrible. And I know that women feel guilt over it and they really struggle with it. And I pray that when my baby's here, that I'm going to be able to breastfeed and I'm going to fight like hell to be able to do it. So formula needs to be there, but we really, really need to clean it up.

Yeah, it needs to get so much better. And by the way, we don't say this to make anyone feel guilty. If you can't breastfeed, Listen, all we're called to do is do our best. Yeah. So if you can't, then let's find the best formula for you. The problem is the formulas are so bad today that they've got to get better.

Exactly. And, you know, and this is not women's fault. You know, I think they feel so guilty after they find out later. Oh man, like I get all these messages from women that are just like, I'm kicking myself because I gave my baby this formula and I wish I hadn't. And, you know, hindsight's always going to be 20/20 and your baby's going to be fine. You know, it's just like we have to move onwards and upwards. And once you know better, you do better and you just have to forgive yourself. That's right. The past, you know, but so that's another thing I'm very, very excited about. Um, cause we need to clean up formula and I brought up WIC and SNAP and, you know, a lot of the, the issue that I'm seeing right now is, you know, lower income families that are on WIC and they, they aren't able to breastfeed for whatever reason and they're getting this formula that's recommended by WIC. And I mean, it's the worst of the worst. Yeah. And I don't think a lot of people know this, but the reason Bobby Kennedy is doing this re-evaluation is because we have not evaluated baby formula since 1984. It was the last time that we evaluated the standards for it. And if you think about what we were doing back then, we were really demonizing animal foods.

That's right.

And we were propping up, you know, canola oil and margarine and saying that this is heart healthy and it's really good for us and we need a higher amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids. And now what we know is that too much polyunsaturated fatty acids can actually cause inflammation. So we really need to go back and restructure Yeah, how we build baby formula and really put an emphasis on putting healthier fats in there.

Yeah, that's good.

So very excited about that. Um, another thing that we had brought up, we talked about briefly, Bobby Kennedy is, uh, hopefully going to change the requirements for doctors where they're going to need to take some sort of nutrition course. Yeah, I've heard him talk about this. Just to be very clear, I don't know that there's any standard put in place or any plan as of yet, but I hope that that's something he's going to tackle. Yeah. And I really hope that we start pushing medicine towards a more root cause preventative model versus the sick care, you know, model that we have right now.

Absolutely agree. Absolutely. Because right now it's just so pharmaceutically focused. I mean, really, that's it. Doctors learn how to diagnose condition and prescribe a drug for that condition. That's all. That's, that, that's what they learn.

Yeah, exactly. So really hoping that gets changed. And then you asked me what I'm not excited about right now, uh, so kind of in alignment with what we talked about at the very beginning with what's happening with these agrochemical companies. Unfortunately, we are having a bit of an issue with the EPA right now. Just, there's a lot— there's been a rollback of, uh, PFAS, which is known as forever chemicals, in our drinking water. So they're rolling that back right now, the regulations on that. Uh, they just— they said they approved two new forever chemicals, or PFAS-based chemicals, that we can be— that we can spray on our food. Another one we're really not excited about, and it's very confusing because the EPA is coming out and saying, well, we're, we're Maha and we're doing this for Maha and we're trying to create all these Maha regulations. And they're telling us that these new pesticides that they're approving are actually not PFAS. But what they did was they actually just went back and they redefined what a PFAS is. And so now they're saying, oh no, these don't actually go into the classification under it of it. And so I, myself and many other activists have been very critical of what's happening at the EPA right now because they're telling us one thing and they're doing the opposite. And then they're kind of telling the general public, oh no, but we're not doing that. But they're just redefining what it means to do that. So I've been very critical and not happy about what's happening with the EPA. And you think about, you know, I was thinking about this really heavily over the weekend with the dietary guidelines. There is, it's amazing that we're pushing for more real food. Food, right? But what that is ultimately going to look like is, as we start steering people away from ultra-processed packaged foods and we're steering them more towards more whole, unprocessed, real foods, they're going to be exposed to more pesticides if they're not buying organic. And I, again, I don't say this stuff to scare people. I say this because the EPA needs to regulate this more. Yeah.

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You know, one of the things I think you've done a great job at Real Foodology, especially in the early days, is teaching people how to read food labels. I'd like to talk about that for a minute because I think for a lot of people, This is— I used to do, um, shopping tours with patients. So I would go, we would go to, you know, Whole Foods. We'd go up and down every aisle and I'd say, hey, here's what to look for. Because even a place like Whole Foods, sometimes I'd go like, okay, animal crackers, these are not healthy. White bleach flour, canola oil, this other junk in there. And so what are some of your rules in teaching people how to read food labels?

I also want to mention too, I, I always find it's funny, the veggie chips where people think that they're vegetables and they're actually just like potato starch with like some spinach dusting on top.

Yes.

It's just, you know, they really try to trick us. Okay, so I will tell you, so I have a couple little guidelines that I utilize that have made it a lot easier for people to navigate the grocery store. The first and foremost one is that I would say whenever you're trying to decide if you're going to put something in your cart, just simply ask yourself, if my great-grandmother was to time travel and join me in the grocery store right now, would she even know what this is. And I think that's a great indicator of just number one going, okay, so a Twinkie, my great-grandmother is gonna go, what is that? Like, I don't even— is that food? I don't— is this like food for the livestock? I don't know. So that would be number one. Um, second of all, don't ever take what the front of the label says as the end-all be-all. You have to think about that as a billboard for the company. This is an ad campaign that they are trying to use to sell you the product, because you'll see things like low fat, low sugar, gluten-free. And, you know, if you have to eat gluten-free, that's fine, but I'm just saying don't use that as a guiding force that, oh, this means it's going to be healthy, right? So then you want to turn around the back, and the first thing you want to do is you want to read the ingredients. Your first red flag is if it is really long, chances are you're probably going to want to put that back on the shelf.

You know what they do in a lot of those really long labels too? Like, I I did, there was a, we were at a health food store in Park City here this last week and I flipped it over and it's like, and he, and, and this was, you know, they're, this was still even a brand that was trying to be healthier, but it was like, um, uh, coconut sugar and honey and maple syrup. And so they had all of these others in there, but, but they do this a lot where it's like 3 different types of sugar to push it lower on the label. So it's not the first ingredient.

Yeah.

They do that all the time.

Yeah, because the, the order of the ingredients on the label are based on how much of that ingredient is in there. And the— this is what's unfortunate is these food companies have gotten very sneaky and they know that consumers are starting to catch on to some of their tricks. So they're trying to come up with new ideas because a consumer— because if I, if I look at a package and the first ingredient is sugar, I'm going to want to put it back.

That's right.

But to your point, exactly what you just said, But it's like, oh, it's, you know, I don't know, brown rice first. And then they have all these other sweeteners underneath. But, you know, it just— it tricks your brain to think that it doesn't have a ton of sugar in it.

I mean, everything I buy, I read the label. Yes. I mean, there's not a single thing I read where I don't look at the label.

Everything. You have to now. You can't trust that companies are doing greenwashing. I mean, they will put a picture of cows grazing in grass on the front and try to trick your brain into thinking, oh, this is healthy. That's right. Exactly. And then you turn it around and it has natural flavors, it has canola oil, and it's It's just, so you have to just disregard the front of the package. You have to read the ingredients. And then I would say this is my number one easiest tip to follow and will never steer you wrong. When you're reading that ingredient label, you don't even, you don't even have to know what some of these things mean. If there is an ingredient in there that you could not physically go buy while you're in the grocery store, if you're looking at this and you're going, okay, this is BHT. Am I going to find that in aisle 6? No, you're not. That is a clear indicator that you want to put it back on the shelf. You always want to make sure that every single ingredient in there is something that you would either have stocked in your kitchen or something that you know that you could readily buy in the grocery store already.

So, so what do you think?

So like when you think about a health— I want to talk about health food stores specifically today.

Yeah.

What are the least healthy things that people typically buy today in the health food store?

Well, a lot of packaged stuff. So I would say packaged crackers, packaged cookies. You know what? Bread. So bread is a really big one. Um, we have been conditioned to just think bread is a loaf of bread, right? But if you look at the ingredients in most store-bought bread, it is loaded with, um, whether it's preservatives or, um, they add a ton of sugar in there. There's a bunch of different ingredients in there usually that do not even deserve— they don't need to be in bread. And this is another thing too, is you've got to take a step back and think, Okay, what is bread made out of? It should be, you know, maybe, maybe 4 or 5 ingredients, right? Flour, yeast, salt, maybe some honey. I mean, that's about it.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then if you look and you read it, all this other stuff in there, and I mean, we can go into enriched flour if we want to, but there's, there's so many things that we're adding that are unnecessary. And that's when you start getting into the realm of ultra-processed, which I think we should talk about. So there's different ratings. Obviously there's completely unprocessed whole food, which would be, you know, let's say an apple, for example. And then if you're looking at something that's processed, that would be, let's say, applesauce. Exactly. Almond butter. Exactly. Where it's very close to the original thing and maybe they've added a little bit of honey or something, right? And that's okay. I think a lot of people start getting confused when they start hearing processed and they think, oh my gosh, I can't have this. Bread, a loaf of bread that they would've made in biblical times would be considered processed. Yeah. Because there was a making that, there was a process that had to happen in order to make it into bread. When you start getting into ultra-processed foods, that's what we want to avoid. That's when you start seeing things like natural flavors, BHT, mono and diglycerides, which are an emulsifier. You start seeing all these additives in there that if you were just cooking this at home, you would never use these ingredients. You would never recognize them.

What's the problem with emulsifiers or also things like carrageenan and a lot of these thickening agents? Why are those an issue?

Yeah, well, okay, so a lot of people will maybe remember this. A couple years ago, food companies were required to take out partially hydrogenated oils because we figured out that they were trans fats.

Yep.

And they wreak havoc on our metabolic system. Um, so they took those out, and what companies started doing is they were replacing the partially hydrogenated oils with mono and diglycerides, which are essentially another form of trans fat. And what these emulsifiers do is they take a food like, um, let's say like mayonnaise, for example. If you've ever made homemade mayonnaise and it sits in your fridge for a couple days, it'll start to kind of separate, right? Like certain things that they start to separate. So these companies put these emulsifiers in there so that when it sits in your fridge for a month, it stays intact the whole time. It's like, you know, when you're trying to put water and oil together and it doesn't fully mix, you add an emulsifier in there and it makes it mix.

Yeah.

And this is a symptom of a larger issue that I think people need to understand, is that a lot of these things that we're putting in our food products are more beneficial to the food companies and to these food products that are sitting on the shelf all the time. It helps them stay shelf-stable for longer. There is no health benefit to you whatsoever. In fact, it's just so that these companies can make more money and they don't have to worry about their products sitting on the shelf. And we've also created this unrealistic expectation for Americans that our food needs to be absolutely perfect. God forbid I have to stir my mayo before I put it on my bread, or God forbid I have to, you know, mix something a little bit because it's separated. But we've created these unrealistic expectations. And what's happened is that now We have created what normally would be a typically decent, healthy food like mayo. If it's just, you know, the, the standard ingredients, I would say it's pretty healthy. But then we start adding in things like monodiglycerides to emulsify it, and we add in canola oil, and we add in a preservative. And then that's when you start getting into the ultra-processed territory that you want to avoid.

So, so what was eating like for you growing up? Like, did you— were you kind of born into this? Were your parents pretty healthy, or is this something you had to kind of kind of learn along the way? Because I know, like, my health, my family growing up, um, my mom, she brought in this, at the time, Juicy Juice. At the time was only 10% juice, so we thought, like, we tried, so we thought, oh, we're drinking all this fruit juice, we're doing really good right now. And, um, and then we did some home cook, you know, Western or Midwest, you know, casseroles, that sort of thing. So, and tried to get some veggies and things, but it was mostly like iceberg lettuce.

Yeah.

So, you know, I, we, we grew up trying, but definitely was not hitting the mark at all. But how, how was it for, for you and your family growing up?

I love sharing this actually, because so growing up I was very fortunate to have a mom that was, I mean, my mom was maha 30 years ago, 40 years ago before it was even a thing. Yeah. In fact, I actually remember as a kid complaining to my mom because she would take me to all these, um, cuz I mean, you know, you think about, I'm 41, so I'm, you know, 30 years ago. She's taking me to these little health food stores that I used to tell her all the time, I'd be like, oh Mom, these like stink, and like all my friends are getting Dunkaroos and you're taking me and getting me these weird like off-brand cereals.

I had this conversation with Will Cole because his dad was a functional med doctor growing up, and so like he was talking, he was saying the same thing, like my parents were having me do like green juice shots when I was 5 years old. I always love hearing, because that was not me, but I love that this was Jordan Rubin too. His dad was like that.

Yeah, it's so funny.

Well, and it was, it was, um, you were like the 1%, because then, I mean, now a lot of people do this, you know. Then there was nobody doing this.

There was nobody doing this. In fact, like, I was kind of embarrassed to have like friends over and stuff sometimes. Sorry, Mom. Um, because I would go to friends' houses and they would have a full pantry. I mean, you think about, like, I grew up in the '80s, and I just think of like peak Dunkaroos, Pop-Tarts, Doritos. And my friends' pantries would just be loaded with all this stuff. So I would go over there and I would like binge on all of this. Not proud of it now, but you know, as a kid, like, you know, 13 years old, all you want is sugar. And so, so I had this interesting dichotomy where I was actually pretty unhappy with my mom growing up about this because I had a very close girlfriend, my best friend who lived in an exact opposite lifestyle as me. So when we'd go to her house, I would love to have sleepovers there over there because I mean, we'd be eating all the junk food all weekend, you know, and watching movies, eating junk food. And her parents would get us Burger King for dinner and she'd get Burger King 2 or 3 nights a week for dinner. And I would come home and I'd be like, mom, I want Burger King. You know, they have the new toy that I want and I want the chicken nuggets and you know, whatever. Right. And we would get in these huge fights over it actually. And my mom now, it's so funny cuz my mom, this is her favorite thing, not in a rude way, but it's her favorite thing to bring up now where she's like, aren't you glad that I didn't let you eat all that Burger King? And now you know what you know. Yeah. And I am, I mean, I'm forever grateful. And I always, I like to remind parents, cause I know a lot of parents are really struggling with this right now because their kids are going to school and they're getting fed God knows what, and they're going to birthday parties. And I just feel like parents and kids right now are just under assault with these ultra-processed foods and they're really fighting these battles. And I think so many parents are concerned that they're going to create like an eating disorder in their child or that they're depriving their child. And I will tell you that I am one of those kids that despite getting in fights with my mom and being upset about it, I had a come-to-Jesus moment in college where I grew up not sick at all. I mean, you talk about like, I, I think maybe I had antibiotics once my whole life growing up. Never had ear infections, never had issue, like just never had any issues. I go to college and I just have a free-for-all. I'm like, woohoo, I'm out of the house. I'm eating fast food. Because at the time I had not fully made the connection, right? Like, yeah, for me it was more like, oh, I'm living in this household and my mom's not letting me have these things. And I didn't fully grasp the concept of it. And by the way, my mom was making everything from scratch. I have memories of myself sitting on the kitchen counter and my mom hand-cranking pasta that she made with like Italian flour. I mean, just incredible. Like making her own bread. Like she really, I mean, she made everything from scratch. That's incredible. In fact, when I went to college, there were fast food chains I had never even tried before. Just because, you know, when you're, when you're a kid, I didn't really have money to go out. So I'm not saying I never had fast food, but it was just rare because my mom would be like, no, you're coming home. We're not going to give you money to go to, you know, Taco Bell or whatever. Yeah. Like, you're going to eat at home. So there was a stark difference from when I went to college and I just had this total free-for-all. I mean, I gained so much weight within a year. I was so— I mean, I look back at photos, I was so inflamed. I had cystic acne I'd never had before. I started dealing with just little things I'd never dealt— I couldn't focus in school, like. And I'm so grateful because I had the opposite effect that many people go through, which is I think many people finally start waking up to, oh, this is not normal, I shouldn't be feeling sick all the time, where I never got sick. And then all of a sudden in college, I'm like, oh, I do not feel well. And I know what it's like on the other side to feel better. And I started making this connection with what I was putting in my body. And I started realizing, okay, I think my mom might actually be onto something here and did a full 180. And so I'm just here to remind parents that it may feel like a battle right now. And you may, your, your kids might be fighting you and, and just know that you're up against a beast of a marketing campaign with these ultra-processed foods that really want to get your kids addicted to these foods. And I'm just here to tell you that it may be hard right now, but your kids are going to be to be so grateful when they grow up and they realize that they're not dealing with the issues that a lot of other kids are.

I can't think of, like, you know, I know a few, you know, several people that kind of grew up— Jordan Rubin, one, Will Cole, yourself— that grew up in those sort of households, and all of them are just eternally grateful, you know, even though it was hard when they were, you know, kids. I know because I, you know, having a, a 2-year-old and our 5-year-old now, you know, we, uh You know, we send, you know, we send, we pack her lunch every single day. You know, it's extremely healthy. And it's not to say, you know, we're— I will say schools are a little bit more conscious now, at least the one that we send her to, because like if they're having a certain birthday party, sometimes, you know, parents are conscious of that and they actually have healthy cakes or cupcakes or something or better options. So yeah, but it's, it's a, you know, I applaud all parents out there who are navigating it because it's more work. It's work. It's tough. It's definitely work.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm about to enter into that myself and I'm my husband. I've started having conversations. I mean, you know, we're down the line from that, but like, how are we gonna, how are we gonna face this? You know, because I hear from parents now that, I mean, they're getting it at birthday parties, they're getting it at school, they're getting it, you know, everywhere at afterschool activities, at sports activities. It's hard.

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So another thing I wanted to ask you about, because I see this a lot more now, I was having this conversation with my parents and, um, you know, I'm, I'm 44 and, uh, I, I have a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old. So I, I, I, I had kids, you know, a little bit later in life. And I know this has hap— I mean, on on— I don't know that this is statistically accurate, but I would say, I don't know, a lot of people are having kids much later on in life now. And so I have so many women I'm friends with that I know that are, you know, trying to or are having kids in their, in their 40s. Yeah. Um, how's that been for you being 41 and about to have your, you know, or on your way here to have your first, your first first baby?

Yeah, well, I first want to say, you know, so there was a couple things I felt like that happened to me in my 20s and 30s that I, I have, I have no— let me be very, very clear, I have no regrets about what I've done in my life. Um, I'm very passionate about speaking out about this, where I feel like women in my generation, we were really pushed into our careers and really given this narrative of like, your worth is based on your work and, you know, climb up the ladder. And it could have been different for, for different upbringings. And, you know, maybe if you're brought up more in the church, which I was, but I just— I really— there's a whole other story there. But basically, I really threw myself into my work, and I'm so grateful. I mean, I look around at everything I've been able to create, and I mean, I, I'm so grateful for it. But there is a part of me that I would say around 34, 35, where I started kind of going, oh, Oh man, why didn't I really try to focus harder on finding my partner? Because I was so focused on my career that I think some of the other stuff kind of went to the wayside, right? And so I unfortunately— and two, I just unfortunately, I just, I was unable to find my partner until a little bit later in life. And so, because a lot of people ask me, well, why did you wait so long to have kids? And I— it was not my, my purpose.

Well, the other thing is you got to find your right partner, right? I mean, you got to find your spouse. Like, and Chelsea and I, like, we have we have about a 6.5-year age gap. So she's 37, about to turn 38. But that's the other thing, right? You have to find that because when did you get married?

We got married. We got married last year in June.

Okay.

So, yeah, but it was one of those things where we just, like, knew, you know? And I really— the last couple of years, I really— I mean, I just— I did so many things differently. I mean, and I prayed so hard. I put myself through therapy to really deal with a lot of, like, things that I felt like maybe were were hindering me, and I just was really surrendering to finding my partner. And, and this is kind of what I mean, and I think everything happens for a reason, but I was so, I was so hyperfocused on my career that I gave no space for my person to even come in. And I think that was part of what I needed to shift some of how I was working and showing up in the world. Yeah. To really allow my partner to come in. And I'm so grateful and I would never take any of this back. I mean, I found the most amazing man and I'm so happy. And I'll tell you that part of my upbringing and finding health and wellness when I did, and my mom really setting the foundation for that— I say this all the time, I am so incredibly grateful that my mom gave me that gift and that I never went on birth control. I, I did a lot of things for my health where I look around and I see so many women are struggling to get pregnant right now. And I want to be very clear because I know this is really sensitive subject. I am by no means saying that it is anyone's fault that you're doing something wrong. I'm just saying that I, what I've noticed now being older and being pregnant is that the medical system treats you, they just put a blanket statement on you and they just treat you like you're geriatric. There is no, there's no, um, room for, okay, well, what does your health look like? What is your metabolic health? Um, are you overweight? What does your blood work look like? It's just automatically they're just like, oh, you're geriatric just based on your age. And I've really been pushing back on this.

Do you know the number ages of being geriatric?

35. Yeah, that is insane.

I've had some doctors say it's 30, which is even crazier.

Oh my God. So, and then there was a famous singer, was it Kelsey Ballerina? I think it was, that just had a post, okay, or I guess she wrote a song and then I saw an Instagram post about it. I believe she's 32. She's 32 or she's 34, and she just wrote a song about how she, she missed her opportunity to have kids. And I'm over here going, I just got pregnant at 41 and I'm having a baby. I just, I'm really pushing back against this narrative right now. There's this, there's this narrative in the medical system that at 35 you're geriatric, you're gonna have a horrible pregnancy, you're gonna have a really hard time getting pregnant. Also, the narrative is, oh, good luck getting pregnant after 35. And I'm here to tell you that if you do the right things, you really take care of your health. Again, you can't control everything. And who knows, there could be other things happening that you just have no control over. But I really believe that if we, if we tell women how incredibly important it is to take care of your health and make sure that your metabolic health is in order— yes, really take care of your inflammation and your A1C and get off birth control as soon as you possibly can, regulate your hormones— there are so many things that you can control and that you can do.

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. You know, my perspective in working with a lot of women in fertility is We just really need to nourish your body. Like I tell them, we got to do everything we can to allow your body to feel safe, secure, warm, just, just really well-nourished. Yes. And keeping those stress levels low is so key as well, because I think some women are so busy every moment of the day. Yes. They're doing something. So if you can create some margin and really just to, to your point, nourish your, your health, you know, your odds go up incredibly.

And I'll, I'll tell you too, I want to say this, something that I noticed if you are going into pregnancy a little bit later in life. Um, once I shared on my social media that I was pregnant, it's really interesting. I've been noticing so many women have fear around it because the medical system is hammered into them that after 35 you're geriatric and you need to be concerned about this, that, and that and that. And I actually avoided the allopathic conventional medical system entirely. I don't want to deal with it at all. I have a midwife and we're doing it very— we're doing that route, the midwife route. I don't even have an OB-GYN and I'm probably— people are going to freak out.

We didn't. We just had a midwife. Chelsea and I, we've done two at-home pool births. Yes. Yeah.

And I just want to tell women that for me, this has been the most amazing experience that I've had. And I am blown away by the messages I've been getting. And this is not a judgment. This is purely an observation. Observation is that I think the medical system really preys on women's insecurities and fears. And when you're pregnant, you're incredibly vulnerable because you are so concerned about this life that you're growing and you want to do the best that you can and you want to have a healthy pregnancy, you want to have a healthy baby. And I can tell you that avoiding that medical system and just going the midwife way, my age has not come up once. There has not been a not been a single concern that— there has not been a single, um, well, because of your age, we're concerned about this, that, and that. Every conversation we've had has just simply been, okay, next step, you know, we're gonna monitor you, we're gonna do blood work. If we see anything we're concerned about, we're going to deal with it then. But there's no like ramping up to, well, you know, just because of your age, you could be concerned about this. And I live in such peace, and I don't have fear around all of this because I'm not having the medical system tell me that something's wrong with my body just because of my age.

It's so powerful. It's so powerful. One is very much aligned with God's design, and one is very much aligned with them thinking they are God. I mean, one of the issues I've had with the entire mainstream medical industry is they have a God complex. Yeah. I mean, we've seen this with so many doctors, with so many people in the industry. They literally have a God complex. They feel like everybody should worship and bow. Versus what you're sharing is a lot more aligned with, hey, let's let God's amazing design do its work. Let's support it. Let's live with hope. Let's live with peace, as the Bible talks about, versus living in a state of fear and anxiety. I mean, this is something I saw through, through the whole COVID thing. It's like we're going to strike fear into the heart of everybody. A lot of times I remember when my mom was diagnosed with cancer, it was, you have a 40% chance to live, a chance to live, you know, or my brother-in-law, a 1% chance chance to live. So all that being said, you know, I see this all the time with people, is these sort of, um, you know, the medical, the medical industry is this sort of fear-based tactics versus hope and love and encouragement, which— so I'm so encouraged to hear that's been your experience with the midwife.

It's been amazing. And I just want to be very clear because I don't want people to take things out of context. It's not— I'm not saying that we're not monitoring me and doing anything. I mean, we still do everything that you do. I mean, we I was just talking about, I'm going in for an anatomy scan next week. Like, I'm getting scans, I'm getting blood work, and she's told me many times, if something comes up and you happen to be high risk, we'll deal with it then. So it's not like we're just going la la la, like we live in, you know, rainbow land. We're taking it seriously, but there's no fear being instilled in me just because based on my age. And I just— I— the messages I was getting from women, I just— it made So sad because the medical system is really instilling a lot of fear that I think in many cases is unnecessary. Yeah. And I think women too forget, because the medical system really hammers this into us, we forget that this was how— this is what our bodies were designed to do.

That's right. That's right. Right. That's powerful. Yeah. Yeah. I think living with that in mind and knowing God is for you, not against you, you were designed to be healthy. You just need to align your lifestyle and your diet with the Bible and what we know to be healthy. Yes. All right, I want to do some rapid-fire questions here. Here's the first one: What are the 3 ingredients people need to most look out for when they're reading food labels?

I would say first and foremost, look and see what type of oil they're using. If they're using something like canola oil, cottonseed oil, soybean oil, chances are that's going to be an ultra-processed food just by nature of having that oil in there already. You want to look for things like olive oil, avocado oil, butter, um, even coconut oil would be great too. Number 2, uh, this is kind of a blanket statement, but I would say really just be cognizant of how much sugar is in there.

Yeah.

And be cognizant of what type of sugar it is. You really want to avoid the ultra-processed forms of sugar like corn syrup, corn syrup solids. Look for things like, um, I mean, this might be a little bit controversial, but just if it's cane sugar, that's way better than having corn syrup. Maple syrup would be— maple syrup and honey would really be your top options. But just see how much sugar is in there. And then number 3, I would say monodiglycerides. These are an emulsifier that you see in a lot of ultra-processed food-like products, and they, uh, they essentially are trans fat.

What are your top pieces of advice for women trying to get pregnant in their 40s?

First and foremost, I would say this is what I did personally. Cancel out all of the noise. You are going to hear so much from experts in the medical field. They're going to tell you that your chances of getting pregnant are really low. They're going to tell you all these scary stats. They're going to tell you, you know, what it looks like for a woman in their 40s and, you know, average population. Anytime I came across information like that, I would turn it off and I would tell myself, that is not my story. And I would repeat that over and over again because I did not want to let that noise get in the way of what my personal journey was, and I really didn't wanna let fear in. Also, remember and trust your body that your body was designed to do this and your body was meant to do this. So just remember that and trust yourself. And then I would say too, really just focus on eating whole real foods as much as possible, really nourishing your body because a really nourished body that doesn't have nutritional deficiencies and it's really getting the nutrition and exactly what it needs. Is going to be more fertile, whether or not what the medical system will tell you, that nutrition and diet has nothing to do with it. It has almost everything to do with it.

What are the top 5 foods you'd recommend for women looking to balance their hormones?

Yeah, so if I think balancing hormones, I'm definitely thinking really good healthy fats that are going to support healthy hormones. So extra virgin olive oil would be a great option. Butter is actually, I think, a health-promoting food. Um, if you do okay with dairy, I would actually say dairy I think is a fertility promoting food if it's organic, grass-fed, A2, from really good sources. Um, and I'm not just saying have a free-for-all with dairy, but I really think that it can have some hormone and fertility supporting properties. Uh, salmon. I think salmon would be a great one because it's really high in omega-3s and omega-6s, and it's a good fat that's also really satiating and full of protein. And I would say avoid refined carbohydrates and go for more things like, um, oats. Sourdough would be a great option. A little bit of rice. Avoid really starchy carbohydrates and go for things like sweet potatoes would be another great option. Because one of the things I think that really is going to make a difference is your blood sugar, your A1C, and really making sure that you're not spiking your glucose throughout the day and sending it on a roller coaster, you want to make sure that you're avoiding those refined carbohydrates. And then lastly, I would say— you know what, I would say meat. I think red meat would be great for hormone balance and for fertility.

That's so helpful. Well, Courtney, thanks so much for coming on today. It's been a pleasure. I just, you know, I, uh, again, I've been so inspired by all the things you've done in, you know, trying to, trying to get glyphosate banned and getting the food dyes banned and all the things you've done and and, uh, just so grateful for you and all your hard work and the things you've done.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, let, let people know where they can find, uh, find more out about you and all the great things you're up to.

Yeah, so I'm mostly active on Instagram, which is @realfoodology. I also have a podcast, which you were just recently a guest on, so definitely go and check that out. It's, uh, on all major podcast platforms. It's called Real Foodology. And actually, you can find me Real Foodology pretty much across the board on X, TikTok, uh, website realfoodology.com. And yeah, that's it.

Thanks so much for coming on today.

Thank you so much. This was so fun.

All right. Hey, I wanna say thanks to everybody for tuning into this podcast. Remember, each and every week we're diving deep into the science and principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually, and take your health and your life to the next level. Thanks again here to Courtney Swan for sharing all of her wisdom with us today. And if you're watching on YouTube, let me know what is the biggest piece of advice or the thing that Courtney shared that you walked away with, maybe something surprising, which is when she talked about glyphosate in the Supreme Court or infant formulas or getting pregnant in her 40s. Would love to hear from you. Again, thanks so much for watching and taking part. By the way, the number one thing you can do here to support the show is to subscribe. This is— this allows me to bring on really high-profile guests like Courtney and others. And sometimes the show can get shadow banned because we talk about things that are very controversial like cancer and even things like glyphosate actually sometimes can get shadow banned. So do me a favor and subscribe so it always shows up in your feed. Thanks so much for watching. Thanks for sharing. I'll see you on the next episode.