Raw Milk, Healing Hashimotos, & the Public School Lunch DISASTER | Alex Clark

Public school cafeterias are the largest fast food business in America. This is levels of evil that the American people cannot even wrap their head around because you want to believe the good in people. You want to think surely nobody would compromise our kids' health in this way, but they are. You know, if you're bawling your eyes out crying every single time you drop your kid off at daycare, don't worry, just keep doing it. You'll eventually get used to it, or your child will stop crying. Guess what? Your child isn't stopping crying because now all of a sudden they're happy to be at daycare. Your child has stopped crying because they're not attached to you anymore. Some Sometimes common sense will trump the studies. When I think about the future of America and what my future kids— God willing, I have them— what my future kids will be growing in, the food that they will be eating, the environment they'll be living in, this is the number one issue for me. Because we do not have voters in the future for any of these other minor issues if we don't have kids alive to vote. We talk about abortion a lot as an example. This is like a very hot topic, right, politically. Guess what? Abortion doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if you're pro-choice or pro-life. Abortion doesn't matter if you are too sick to get pregnant in the first place. Our medical professionals, we are hiring them. So if they are not working for you, fire them.

That's right. If you've been doing everything right, eating clean, exercising, but somehow you're still not feeling your best, your energy's dragging, your memory is slipping, and it's frustrating because you know there's more to your potential. Well, what if the issue isn't just in your routine, but it's deep down inside your cells. You know, you're investing in the best supplements, working out regularly, and sticking to a clean diet, but if your cells are stuck in what's called cell danger response, all the hard work might not be paying off as it should. Think of your cells like a house under renovation. You can bring in the highest quality materials like the best supplements and clean foods, but if the workers inside the house are on lockdown because of a storm, nothing gets done. The materials just pile up unused. That's what happens when your cells are in CDR. They can't fully use the good stuff you're giving them. Getting out of CDR, the cell danger response, is the key to unlocking your body's full potential. When your cells are no longer in protective mode, they can finally use the nutrients, hormones, and energy you're working so hard to provide. That's when everything starts to click. Your energy improves, your workouts become more efficient, and you start to feel like yourself again. Go to beyondbloodwork.com to learn how to break free from cell danger response and make the effort pay off. Hey everyone, welcome to Dr. Josh Axe Show. I am your host, Dr. Axe, and each and every week on this show, we dive deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, and spirit and take your health and your life to the next level. Today we've got a special guest. Alex Clark. Alex is the host of the phenomenal podcast, The Culture Apothecary, and she's been leading the charge recently in health and wellness. In fact, recently I met up with her in the state of Michigan where we connect with people like Vani Hari, Kelly Means, Jason Karp, and we took on Kellogg's to say, Kellogg's, we want you to get the chemicals out of our kids' food supply. And so we've got a great conversation that's gonna happen today. We're gonna talk about how to heal things like Hashimoto's. We'll talk about her view on raw milk, school lunches, and so much more. And so, Alex, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

It was so fun hanging out with you and everyone else at the Kellogg's event. Now, I know we were there because— and we're still going strong on social media, by the way. I mean, Vonnie and Jason and Kelly, everybody keeps posting because we don't want to let up on these companies that are taking care of— taking advantage of children, and it's not okay. But it was really great getting to see you and your passion for helping people there and And one of the things I'll say, it's interesting, is there was a really a mixed group of thought leaders and influencers in the health space. However, one of the things I can tell you about all of those people in the way they vote is, is that they're all going to vote the exact same way in this next election. Even though before this event 4 years ago, I can tell you a lot of those people were, it, it might've been split down the middle between left and right Democrats and Republicans in that room up until you know, 4 years before, I almost guarantee it.

I totally agree with you. And I have such strong opinions on this. You can tell who in the health and wellness space truly takes to heart this issue of poisoning our children, the chemicals in our inner— in our environment and in our food, and who is willing to, quote unquote, join the other side in order to get this issue taken care of. I have been so disheartened and honestly pissed to see people like Senator Cory Booker— yes, I will name names— who have made this a cornerstone of their fight as a politician, who have refused to endorse Trump even on the Maha aspect, even on the Make America Healthy Again aspect. You can't come together and say, all right, I am putting down every— all my other, you know, swords, I'm putting down armor, I'm, I'm ready to to join together for this issue and they won't do it. And to me, that brings up a lot of questions of how much do you believe in this issue and this cause? Has it always just been— has it just been politics for you, or is it real life? Because it's real life for me. When I think about the future of America and what my future kids, God willing I have them, what my future kids will be growing in, the food that they will be eating, the environment they'll be living in, this is the number one issue for me because We do not have voters in the future for any of these other minor issues if we don't have kids alive to vote. We talk about abortion a lot as an example. This is a very hot topic, right? Politically. Guess what? Abortion doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if you're pro-choice or pro-life. Abortion doesn't matter if you are too sick to get pregnant in the first place. So it won't even be an issue if we don't fix these, these problems that we have now.

Well, you know, infertility is on the rise and you look at the number of men now who have low testosterone levels. I mean, it's, it's, it's the lowest we've ever seen in recorded history. We look at the number of women, and I, I've cared for so many women who have struggled with infertility issues, and we just continue to see these conditions climb up. You know, one thing in, uh, hearing one of your talks I thought was so interesting is you hit on a number of the number of men in our military, or actually the number of men who are unable to serve because of physical health issues.

Yeah, we're basically at 70%. About 70% of 21-year-old men in America are ineligible to fight in our military because of, uh, weight problems or other metabolic issues. That is terrifying. That is a national security issue. So let's— beyond all these other things, we do not have a safe country if we do not have a healthy country.

Yeah, it's true. It's true. Maybe they need to drink more raw milk.

Maybe they do, you know, double the amount of vitamins and nutrients and all of that that's getting zapped away.

So I'm following you. I'm following you on social. One of the things that I see you post on constantly is raw milk. Talk to me about this epiphany, because 3 years ago you weren't drinking raw milk. No. Now and now I see you posting when you're going to other cities, you're literally going to like whatever city you're going to, you're looking for the raw milk farmer. To get your raw milk. Talk to me about how that, that happened.

Well, what's funny is I'm not even really a milk drinker. I'm not somebody that's like having a glass of milk ever, but the one time I do drink it is whenever I'm making my iced chai latte in the morning. This is my drink every day. I don't drink coffee. I'm not a coffee person, but I love my iced chai tea. So I put milk in that and just diving into the space. And I really, I really attribute this to learning about the Weston A. Price values and more of an ancestral diet. And so it's really because of people like Hilda Labrada Gore and Weston A. Price that I learned about the benefits of, of raw milk and, and basically, um, I mean, I don't have it all memorized, but when you're talking about different enzymes and vitamins, minerals, you're getting maybe half in pasteurized milk. You're getting double that whenever you're drinking, uh, unpasteurized milk. Um, now I learned this too from a raw milk farmer that I interviewed on my show Culture Apothecary this season. Not all raw milk is created equal. So when people are scared about, you know, how safe it is and things like that, it really matters and depends on who your farmer is. For all foods, your meat, It all depends on who the farmer is and how they're farming. So would I just trust any milk because it's raw? No, I'm still going to be asking questions about your farming practices, grass-fed, you know, all of those types of questions before I'm drinking it. But I just added that little thing, little— made that little switch in my morning routine. And oh my gosh, you know, the amount of protein in that and just everything, it's been fantastic. It's such an easy switch. And I've gotten like my entire audience on this now. So many people people listening to my show are like, I never would have known who my farmer or rancher was if I, you know, if you didn't start talking about this. And that's the— that's a whole nother— speaking of national security, when we— and I'm saying when, not if— when we have another pandemic, if you do not know who your local farmer or rancher is, there may come a day where you do not have food. We saw this when the grocery store supply chain basically halted and we were running out of food. If the If the food supply chain is shut down for more than 3 days, we will have people starving in this country because it will take 3 days. Everybody basically only gets their food at Walmart, and that is how short of a time it will take for Walmart to run out of food. So you have to know where to go locally. That's going to be the person who's going to have all the canned stuff and, you know, all that if you're not doing it yourself. So those are the people you want to make a relationship with now. You don't want to wait till the sky is falling and then you're knocking on their door along with 150 other people, you know, asking them for a handout or for help or, you know, a favor. You want to know who they are now. So, um, that's been a huge priority with me, uh, is finding out that kind of stuff now where I live in Phoenix. And it's a desert climate. I'm in the middle of the desert, so I have really— it's strange farming. Yeah, it's like really hard to find people with grass-fed cows and things like that because, uh, we don't really have grass. So, you know, it's going to look different for everybody.

I've been a huge raw milk fan for years. In fact, my business partner, one of my best friends, Jordan Rubin, he cured himself of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease by just drinking raw goat's milk kefir. Pretty much it was almost the only thing he did. He did a few other things, did some like steaming, you know, carrots and carrot juice and a few other foods, but for the most part healed Crohn's colitis and IBS from just drinking raw goat's milk kefir. And so, and what's interesting about milk is I still believe there are some people that still have sensitivities to it, just like any healthy food. So some people, milk may not be a great thing, but if it's raw and it's organic and it's grass-fed and it has the right genetics, there are several things that Alex, as you're talking about here, that are important factors. But it can be an incredible healing food. I mean, you know, if people know what's in it—

go ahead. Well, people get scared because there's bacteria in it, and they think, well, there's bacteria, that's bad for us. But we actually need a healthy amount of bacteria, right? So it's important you're getting a little bit of that in that, in that glass of milk. But I always advise my audience, people that have never drank raw milk before, you shouldn't just start with a whole huge honking glass of it because there is live bacteria in there. You got to get your body used to it and your gut used to it, or you really have diarrhea or whatever. Yeah. So I always say start with like a shot glass a morning, just do a quick little shot glass and then work your way up.

Yeah, that's great. One thing we used to— Jordan and I, we own about 4,000 acres of land in Missouri, and so we raise water buffalo, goat, sheep, all this stuff. So whenever we're out there, when we first bought— when Jordan first bought the farm and then I invested, became a co-owner, we would go out there and we'd do raw shots of raw milk and eggs. We felt like, you know, like, like we took, you know, took it up one notch on Rocky. You know, it was, it It was, uh, um, it's a lot of fun. So yeah, but a lot of people are afraid of raw eggs, raw milk. I mean, these are things that people have consumed for a long time. What are some other health practices and things that you do now that 3 years ago you just, you know, you never even thought of doing?

Well, I'm doing red light therapy every morning, and I try to every evening, um, but that is something I'd never even heard of before.

And Have you experienced any, any improvements or anything? Oh my gosh. With red light?

Oh my gosh. Skin clarity. I— one of my Hashimoto's symptoms that I really struggle with that was so bad for me is joint pain, especially in my knees. I can, I can almost like start feeling it. I can, I can tell when I feel like I'm starting to get like vitamin C deficient and then also just needing the, you know, anti-inflammation properties from the red light therapy. But I try to really get in there. Um, and so that's been a huge game changer for me. I also never would have thought anything about hot tubs. Um, so one thing I learned is that hot tubs can be really horrible for people with Hashimoto's. Um, something to do with— is it iodine or something? And thyroid?

Yeah, well, especially if there's chlorine in there, right? But yeah, yeah, it can be an issue.

It's like depleting me of stuff. I don't know, this is like your forte, but I, I, I have a hot tub on my roof of my apartment complex, and I would always go up there and I'd see these beautiful mountain views, and I'm like, oh, this is so relaxing, this is so good for me. But I did notice every time I would go in the hot tub, the next day I almost feel like more tired and weaker.

Yeah.

And I had no idea what I was doing, so that definitely never would have crossed my mind.

Yeah. Well, one of the things that happens with Hashimoto's and hypothyroidism both is your body temperature lowers. Now you'd think that hot tub would help, but it tends to, um, because some of the chemicals in there, especially the chlorine, interfere with iodine and other, other minerals that you really need. One of the things that's a great replacement to that though can be infrared sauna or an infrared sauna blanket where you're doing some of that red light that you're talking about, warming the body a little bit. So, so that could be a good thing instead.

Oh, I love that. Yeah, I've also, um, tell me if I'm crazy about this, but is it true if you're constantly craving salt that you might be potassium deficient?

You You can, yeah, you know, because you have sodium-based salts and potassium-based salts. But a lot of times people are just generally electrolyte deficient. So hydration isn't just water, it's water plus electrolytes.

Yeah, so that's another thing I wasn't doing right. So now I've, I've tried to really make sure I'm taking my magnesium, I'm taking potassium, and I can tell I like have to keep eating chips. I like— and it's the saltiness that I need it. And I'm like, I think, I think I'm struggling with like potassium. But, um, so the— all these little different things, um, knowing that nature has nature has a solution for every problem, that I don't have to necessarily take a pharmaceutical drug for every issue. So like, I've totally revamped my entire medicine cabinet for things like when I have a cold or whatever. Um, I've really tried to go to like natural herbal remedies and different things like that. And oh my gosh, I was so sick last weekend with a really bad cold, and I'm basically completely over it now. Um, and I was— oh, I didn't take any, you know, NyQuil, DayQuil, which is normally my whole life, that's the kind of stuff I would take. Ibuprofen, you know, things like that. I had a fever for a little bit. I would have taken Tylenol. Old Alex would have taken Tylenol. Nope, I didn't do any of that and got over it, I think, quicker. Yeah. And making sure that I was, you know, having bone broth every morning and going out and getting sunlight and all that, just things like that. Little simple things, simple solutions, simple switches have made such a difference. And And that has been such a point of contention for some of my audience is that I interview these people and a lot of them, you know, they have a product or a supplement or they sell this, this item. And so my audience gets very bent out of shape and they're like, okay, so what? So now I'm supposed to shell out all this money so that I can live this nontoxic, healthy life? And I'm like, no, you don't. Guess what? True health, almost all of it you can find in free things like sun. You know what I mean? These are free things. The extra stuff. Buy this pan set or whatever. These are extra things you— that are not necessary. You don't have to buy this fancy toothpaste, you know. You can make your own toothpaste with like, what is it, baking soda and all that?

Coconut oil.

These are like— people make, you know, convenient swaps that are more expensive. Yeah, but if you really want to live this non-toxic, healthier lifestyle, you can make your own laundry detergent stuff. I'm going to tell you right now, that ain't gonna be me. I'm not doing that. I would rather pay somebody and have my work, you know, the hard work done for me. But some people, if you are really on this budget and this is your priority and you wanna get healthier, you can do that. But I think sometimes women get very caught up and overwhelmed chasing perfection when it comes to health and wellness. And perfection isn't the opposite of good.

Can I, can I tell you some of the toughest cases I've had, um, were, were, were because the person overthought things and they became so obsessive about their condition. It was the only thing they thought about. And so it just created more worry, more anxiety, and their body could never get out of the fight-or-flight state. I mean, it happens. I mean, so people want to strike this healthy balance between, I am seriously— want to honor God with my body, I want to make good choices, I want to do the right things and grow and get better, versus perfection. So yeah, I mean, that sort of perfection mindset will actually make people worse.

And I also think— I think this is interesting too because you're a Christian, but one thing from— and my audience is primarily conservative Christian, although with the— with me focusing in on health and wellness, I'm getting some other people that are more moderate and stuff, which has been very unique. I've predominantly only been Christian conservative audience. But one thing with them is a lot of times they'll say like, well, you know, God is sovereign, he knows when I'm gonna die anyway, so me making all these changes and prioritizing health and not eating this food and all that, like, why does that even matter? Um, and so I think what you bring up is so important. It's like honoring the body that God gave you. And not only that for yourself, but just thinking about outside of yourself, your community, and all these things. When you are shopping, when you are buying meat from your organic regenerative farm, for example, and you're, you're supporting people who are putting those nutrients back into the soil, who, you know, it's, it's, it's transforming this entire, like, circle of life for the animals, the environment, the environment that God has gifted us, all this beautiful nature. I mean, all of this to me is a very God-honoring practice.

You know what I think is interesting? Well, first off, whether you eat, whether you drink, whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God, right? I think that's 2 Corinthians 10:31. And I— and so I think, you know, Paul, I think Jesus, I think they're calling us to live at a higher level. You know, when you look at the Bible as well, it's interesting, we all start off in a garden, a regenerative food forest farm, essentially. And when you— that's, you know, early Genesis. We look at the last two chapters of Revelation, we end in a garden city. I mean, so I think that we are up until the last 150 years, I want to say, I believe it's nearly 50% of jobs were connected to some form of agriculture.

Oh, and that's that too. Crazy. So all of these things that like conservative Christians talk about, you know, the importance of like a woman prioritizing her family Um, you know, she can work outside of the home or whatever, but the family has to come first and all these things. We used to be so family focused because our family was running a business and it was usually all everyone working together for a business that stemmed from the home. And then we started taking everything outside of that. And then we, we, instead of living multi-generationally, we moved to nuclear family, which is like mom, dad, kids away from grandparents and all these things. I mean, all of these little different decisions have separated us so much from our family, our ancestry, and from a biblical way of living, I think.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. And I know I keep making these biblical references, but because— and by the way, I love talking about this because I don't always get to talk about this on the show. The first letter of the Bible is B, which is bet, which actually is the word for family or home. Home alludes to family. And so like part of what God created us for is to have a family. And so this is something that when you look at other countries— Chelsea and I lived in Puerto Rico for 3 years, and one of the things I really noticed there was much more family-centric than here in the United States. I mean, it was rare for— I mean, you pretty much always had the grandparents around, both sets around the family if they're around. I mean, almost, almost always. And so I think that's one of the biggest things that we've lost today. I'm so grateful for, uh, my parents are still alive. Chelsea's mom is here, and, and her dad just passed last last year, but he was with us every moment, almost every day. In fact, he lived with us for, for a year. And so we, um, to me, that has been such a blessing, and having people you can trust help raise your kids, people that have so much wisdom that are older than us. And so I, uh, I do think that that is something that we are missing today. And, and, you know, like, I look at a lot of moms today, and you mentioned this earlier, Think about the average mom, and especially in what percentage of them are divorced, that's very high. So you've got a mom a lot of times that has 2 kids, 3 kids at home, maybe a husband that's, or maybe not, that's around, and then her parents aren't around, versus if she had that support where both parents were close by and a husband.

I think so much of the postpartum depression that women face today could be, could be annihilated by going back to this multi-generational form of living, um, or at least living in the same town vicinity as some extended family that they were meant to help.

One of the number one causes of somebody being depressed is loneliness. Yeah. And if you feel like you are alone in raising kids, it's—

well, you've— I'm sure you're familiar with that book, like, the first— is it The First 40 Days or whatever after pregnancy? Like, you're not even supposed to leave your bed. You're supposed to have people bringing you your meals after you give birth. You're supposed to have this, this community who is taking care you, taking care of your home, all of these things. Women were not meant to give birth in this sterile, this sterile, awful hospital atmosphere to then go home and be completely left alone to their own devices. Um, you know, most of the time now healing from C-sections, whatever. I mean, yeah. So all of these things, I feel like every aspect of health and wellness from like the way I wanna give birth and all these things I never ever had thought about till a couple in the last couple years. Yeah. And now I'm I'm like, I'm full, full in on all of this.

You know, one of the biggest reasons why I think that people object to things, because by the way, I listened, I listened to your daycare episode. And by the way, I did an episode on this and we got a lot of people, we, I got, I got a lot of positive comments, but I got a lot, a lot of negative comments. And, and I do want to say this too, when it comes to women, um,, you know, working when they have kids. And listen, I think before you have kids, I think that, you know what, and especially when you're younger, there is, you know what, women and men can do many of the same careers, though I do think men are built more for certain things. I mean, if you look at the percentage of men, for instance, that are in construction, it's almost 99%. Like, the number is very high. And if you look at the number of women nurses, Well, there's a lot more women nurses, and part of that I think has to do the way God created us is men tend to be physiologically almost always stronger to do more physical labor, and women are created to be more nurturers, hence the word nurse, nurture. So all that being said, I, I, but when, when kids start coming around and you start having kids, I mean, there is, you know, what I hear from a lot of people is, is that Like the daycare thing. You're making me feel really guilty about daycare.

Good. And it's also, by the way, it's not you or I, Josh. It's not you or I that's making them feel.

Oh, I'm just, I'm just quoting the study. Exactly. Bible verses.

And the, so I, it doesn't offend me because you know what? Because I know, I know the truth, the, the science is there. So, you know, and everybody's like, follow the science, whatever. They feel convicted. That is their own conscience challenging them to be better and that it's going to require changes that might be uncomfortable and, and require immense self-sacrifice, you know, quitting or putting on pause the career you love, for example, downsizing your home. So when I first came out with that episode, and it was with— if, if you're listening to this and you have no idea what we're talking about, it's one of my most popular episodes ever. I interviewed Dr. Erica Komazar, and she is, um, that's her whole specialty is like childhood development and attachment. And so she's going through and talking about how about how the first 3 years of a child's life are unbelievably, maybe the most important in their development for their entire life, and how they need to be primarily with the mother, even above the father. And we talk about how, you know, important fathers are and all that, but in those first 3 years, it is really the mother who we— who needs to be around when they are crying and all of that, um, changing diapers, bottle feedings, all those little moments you're building attachment. And so if it is a nanny or if it's a daycare worker that changes every, you know, 3 months, that is breaking the attachment with the child. When she— when I first did this episode, I had, I had lost, oh, I probably lost a couple thousand followers, um, just angry, angry messages. I can never listen to this show. How dare you? You, you're not even a mother yet. How can you even be saying this? I'm like, I don't need to know a mom to look at the, to look at the data here. Same thing with homeschooling and public school, how kids aren't re— learning to read or write, um, or learn arithmetic in public school right now. You don't have to have a parent in public school to see, you know, see how bad everything kids are testing. But so sometimes stuff is just, you just look at it and you just know. But I, I put this episode out, it was like 3 to 4 months went by after that episode, all these people angry with me. The same women messaged me and said, I owe you an apology. I really thought about what you were saying, what Dr. Erica was saying. Not even me, but it was my guest. I really thought about what Dr. Erica was saying. I talked to my husband. I am quitting my job. I'm going part-time. We are downsizing our home. We are moving closer to parents so that I don't have to utilize daycare anymore and I'll have my parents help. It was like crazy life changes that these women were willing to implement. Sometimes you're just not ready to hear it in the moment, but you're planting that seed. And then like it takes a little bit and then they're, they're more willing and they sit on it and they think about, why am I so offended right now. Um, and Dr. Komazar talked about that, how our guilt is so important, um, and, and feeling shame or, or whatever, that, that helps be the catalyst for change sometimes, important change. If you ignore those feelings, which is what women are telling other women, you know, if you're bawling your eyes out crying every single time you drop your kid off at daycare, don't worry, just keep doing it, you'll eventually get used to it, or your child will stop crying. Guess what? Your child isn't stopping crying because now all of a sudden they're happy to be at daycare. Your child has stopped crying crying because they're not attached to you anymore.

Yeah, you know, I, I think, um, I think culture has really led us in this direction in terms of when, when I think about like, most people want to do their best. Most moms, they care, they want to do the best, they want to be the best. If they're married wife, they want to be the best mom. They want to do the most with the gifts they've been given. And society has prioritized and elevated monetization and influence above, above other things, above God, above family, above. And so I think for a lot of people, they feel like, well, in order for me to be successful, I need to have a certain amount of followers, or, or for most of them instead, it's make a certain amount of money or reach a certain position in my career versus, you know, in a lot of more traditional societies, the thing that was priced the most was you know, were you a great mom, how many kids you have, the family, the sort of family and kids you raised, was, was tended to be more of a, more of a, more of a status symbol than even, you know, your, your career and financial income.

I feel like in biblical times, the status of a true status of wealth was as an elderly person, how many people are sitting at your family dinner table, you know, how many people are sitting there, how many different generations. Generations are sitting there with you. Um, that is— that, that's huge to me. And I also want to say this: I do not tell— obviously I work full-time. I do not tell women nobody should— no women should work. But what I do think, and this is what I've learned from different experts and people that are way smarter than me at this that have been on my show throughout the years, is that with women, there are seasons for different things.

Yeah.

When I one day hopefully have a family, when I get married and have kids, am I going to be flying around the country speaking here, doing this, going on this show, uh, you know, recording all these episodes, being away from my home for weeks at a time? Absolutely not. Um, I will probably— well, I will either I will quit, or I will completely dial back my show to where I'm bulk recording an entire month's worth of episode in, you know, 3, 3 days, 4 days max, and then I'm home the rest of the month full-time with my kids. So there are seasons for things, and women, we can do it all. But the caveat to that is that nobody is telling young women when we're making decisions about college and career, when we're about high school age, graduate graduating from high school, the conversation we should be having isn't that, can women do it all? Of course we can do it all, but the truth is we can't do it all at the same time.

That's really good, and that's how I feel about it as well. I think, I mean, you can only do so many things. And, you know, a lot of this, the history coming out of World War II, but it's so many women feel like they have to be super mom, super wife, super career woman all at the same time. And it's, man, men couldn't do it, women can't do it. It's like you can't, it's trying to do the impossible.

Well, I interviewed Lauren Bostic. She's the co-host of the—

Oh yeah, Him and Her. I was on there a few weeks ago.

Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, the Skinny Confidential Him and Her podcast. So I interviewed her and I asked her, I said, do you feel like you are able to be 100% mom and this like high-powered career woman together at the same time? And she said, and her and her husband Michael both said, absolutely not. When we are killing it at work, we're not killing it at home. And anytime we're killing it at home, we're not killing it at work. So when you really talk to career women who are mothers and you, and you talk to them, when you really boil it down, they're all admitting, oh yeah, like something is always falling short. But I believe, especially young children, that the, the thing that falls short cannot be your family. Um, now every family's gonna be different. Maybe you're putting them in private school or you're homeschooling or whatever, But once they're school age, and Erica Commissar talked about that, once they're school age, then you can have those conversations of, okay, now is it time for me to go to work part-time or things like that? But, um, I think for the most part, except a few careers, uh, you know, nursing is a great career if you wanna go part-time and only work certain hours and things. Yeah. There are different things that are gonna lend themselves to motherhood more than others.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, you know, th— this is a topic that I think gets to be so, um, gets people so fired up. But, but I think if people would step out of the emotional state when they first hear it and would actually have a conversation and think about it, I think, I think it's something that we should all be talking about because I think the conversation you're bringing up and, and the— I think the psychologist you talked about there or the expert is that, hey, we want to, you know, We want to raise healthy kids. We want you to be happy. That's the whole thing. We don't want you to be unhappy. We want you to be doing exactly what God has called you to do in the right season. If you think about it, maybe it's stepping away for a few years. We're not saying forever, and we're not even telling you what to do. We're just trying to bring the facts about, you know, like, like I think about this for myself right now, and I, I try and spend as much time as I can with my 4-year-old, and I try and think about this: will I regret that I didn't work more? More versus will I regret that I didn't spend that time with my 4-year-old, you know? Because these are— this is such a sweet season. Like, I've, you know, I, I used to take care— I have a family practice and took care of so many little kids. And it's like, especially those ages of 0 to 5, you know, when they can't— when they're not saying their words fully. And they'll still— like right now with my 4-year-old daughter, like, I still get in bed, sleep with her. She just started sleeping around the past 2 weeks. And so, but I still get in with her until she falls asleep. I tell her a story every single night. And those things I will never forget. Taking a day off to go to, you know, a water park, whatever. Like I'll never regret those things versus, well, I regret that I didn't fly across the country, do another podcast. I'll forget that. Yeah. I'll probably would've forgot it. This or these other things I won't. Yep. One of the things I've heard you talk about recently is school lunches, which by the way, have been driving me absolutely crazy for years. I mean, there is almost nothing worse on the planet than school lunches for these kids. I mean, I think about when I had grown up, it was like— I mean, if you think about what are all the worst things you could give kids: white flour products that are bleached and, you know, made with GMOs, check. Um, really pasteurized dairy products, check. Loads of sugar, check. Seed oils, check. I mean, that is what is— that's what's in school lunches today.

The public school lunches, public school cafeterias are the largest fast food business in America. The people supplying our school lunches are the fast food companies. There is a reason why we have Coca-Cola machines and all of these different things inside the school cafeterias. And what really, really shook me was learning that the panel, this committee that just gets to decide what is going to be in our school lunches, almost everyone on this panel is accepting money from Novo Nordisk, which is the company making Ozempic. Ozempic is the drug, the weight loss drug that they're now trying to get approved for kids as young as 6, 7 years old. Yeah. And so don't you think The people deciding what food is allowed to be served to our kids, if they have a personal interest to make money and kickback from a weight loss drug company, they're going to make sure that your kids are getting as fat as possible, as sick as possible, so that magically this other company they have their hand in can provide the solution. This is levels of evil that the American people cannot even wrap their head around because you want to believe the good in people. You want to think surely nobody would compromise our kids' health in this way, but they are. The milk— if your kid is suffering from asthma, allergies, eczema, and they're going to school and they're drinking that TruMoo milk every day, that which is in every public school, that's the brand, that TruMoo milk has carrageenan in it. Uh, you see these kids that have this like red ring rash around their mouth sometimes. Look into if the milk they're drinking at school is, has carrageenan in it. Um, I mean, the amount of chemicals and then even artificial food dye, because their idea of a complete breakfast is have, have them come in, have them have Lucky Charms or Froot Loops or whatever, and then they're having behavior problems. They can't sit still in class. Well, of course nobody's saying anything about the food that they're eating when primarily most of these American kids, the majority of the food they eat on a day-to-day basis is coming from the public school system. It's not coming from at home, especially inner city kids basically not eating at home at all. So then they have these behavior issues, and of course then they say, uh, well, you need to be on Adderall, we need to get this kid on Ritalin. And then you're starting this pharmaceutical treadmill between the Ozempic, which we're now wanting to prescribe younger and younger, to the Ritalin, to the Adderall, and then they're on these drugs for life. Dr. Axe, I am out in the dating world the amount of guys that I meet that have all of these health issues are like, I just don't feel anything, I just don't have passion for anything, I have no drive for anything. And then I say, hmm, well, have you ever— are you on any prescription drugs? Oh yeah, I've been taking Adderall since I was 8.

That's right.

And they're all numbed out. These girls are zombies operating the world on birth control. The boys are zombies from the Adderall and the Ritalin and all this. It's, it's the insane thing you've ever seen. And then we wonder why nobody can like meet, nobody knows how to like get it together and raise a family, and everybody's just like, uh, you know, on autopilot through life. It's because we're all jacked up on so many pharmaceuticals that we're like just— we're seeing the world through gray when we're supposed to be seeing it through color. Young men and women, and especially kids, are now being taught that any any range of emotion is bad, that emotions are bad. So when you talk to kids, you'll notice that they don't say things like, oh, I'm sad today. They say, I'm depressed. We've completely medicalized even our normal range of human emotions so that kids, when they're expressing that, then we can be like, oh, let's get you on Lexapro. You've got groups of teenage girls in high schools now talking about how they're Lexa hoes, and they're so excited and proud of that. We are telling kids that it is too dangerous to feel super high highs and super low lows, even though that is a normal human experience. Mm-hmm. And so that's, I think that is why we have so many kids struggling with anxiety and depression, is that even life's great moments that they should be experiencing, they don't even fully get to experience those to the highest extent because even their joyful, happy moments as a kid are just— they're just half— they're, they're half the capacity of what they should be emotionally, of what they should be experiencing.

Yeah. You know, when I first opened my practice, I remember certain conditions like childhood obesity, diabetes, cancer, autoimmune disease, hypothyroid— they were continuing to be on the rise. The conditions that have most accelerated over the last 7 years have been mental health issues. I mean, I mean, they have grown, just grown an enormous amount. And a big part of it is, you know, there's this idea around— I saw the psychologist do this lecture on, on this lecture I watched, and basically they said it's rumination. What we— one thing we teach people to do, we're living in this sort of, uh, this, uh, counseling culture where any problem at all is something that you need to go and get counseling for and sit there and think and talk and just kind of sit in your problem all day when And good psychologists know and doctors know that no, that's the worst thing you can do. Actually, one of the greatest things you can do to help your own anxiety or depression is to focus on serving other people and sort of remove the focus from yourself. Now, that doesn't mean you shouldn't care for yourself, you should. But having this thing where you're constantly ruminating on your problems, it's sort of like what you get, what you focus on. If you get, if you sit in this state of gratitude versus if you sit in this state of, uh, woe is me, I'm a victim, everything's wrong. Oh yeah. It's that— that's part of the problem.

It's coming from therapy culture. It's coming from the, uh, critical race theory, diversity, equity, inclusion lessons that they're teaching in school, that everything, everything has been done to you. You are a victim. You are at a disadvantage in today's America. You will never get ahead. Um, the amount of Gen Zers who have been in therapy since they were children— okay, you cannot convince me that we were supposed to be in therapy be for life. But this is what is advertised to my age and younger, that it's very normal, that all of us should be having a therapist and always constantly in therapy no matter what. Therapy should be last resort. This is my unpopular opinion, I guess, but therapy should be, I think, a last resort. I have gone through immense trauma, immense trauma, you know, some sort of sexual abuse or something like that. I think that can help, you know, PTSD, if you've just been in a war or something. But as far as like putting some 6-year-old that's throwing tantrums, probably because of the food, by the way, in therapy, and then they're— they continue in that through the 30s, 40s. And then, yeah, those are the, the people that are the most ill-adjusted. The, the teenagers who say, I don't, um, I'm too scared to walk across the street to go to Chipotle, or whatever. Um, that's something that Abigail Shrier told me that the kids she was studying that have been therapized since they were children, that these are 16, 17-year-old boys who are scared to get a license and scared to walk across the street to go to get a meal.

You know what most of these kids need is they need church. Yeah. I mean, I mean, that's where they need to be. I mean, I think about— it's sick. Can I tell you how bad— and I'm not saying Christian counseling is perfect, but how bad most counselors are today. I mean, there's a lot of really bad ones out there. Like, I always give you an example. I had a friend who generally had a good marriage. They were just— they just had disagreements. And I know both of these people. And basically, the counselor was like, yeah, you know, you might just consider getting a divorce. It's like, that was almost like their first piece of advice. And I'm not even kidding. I mean, it is absolutely crazy. But when somebody has a worldview that is non-Judeo-Christian, it's you know, they were probably raised a victim. They were probably taught to just quit. They were probably taught that, hey, well, if it's not working out at start, just go ahead and, you know, throw it to the side of the road. So there are so many issues today. We are making so many other things idols. The government is an idol. The latest social movement's an idol. Doctors or, or, you know what, your doctor— I can tell you this about my grandma growing up. If her doctor said it, it was absolute truth. I mean, it didn't matter if, you know, if, if, if her family or someone else really knowledgeable, if her MD told her, you need to get on these 17 drugs. And I say that because actually at one point she was on around 17 drugs at a time. I mean, she would just do it. But there are a lot of idols in the culture today, and I think that's leading to a lot of, a lot of sickness.

Well, sometimes, you know, You know, people will say like, but the studies, but the studies, the studies say this though. I'm so confused. Why does this— the studies say that Lucky Charms are healthier than ground beef? So it must be true, you know. And then you're not thinking about, well, who's funding these studies, whatever. Yeah, sometimes common sense will trump the studies. If the study just absolutely goes against what normal common sense would say, of course ground beef is going to be healthier than Lucky Charms, but the sheet of paper is telling you otherwise. Consider the study may not be exactly correct.

That's right.

We are so obsessed with following that. Um, and you know, causing moms to doubt their own intuition. That's a huge thing. If you're going to see a doctor, if your pediatrician is trying to tell you that you as the mother don't know what's best for your child, that, you know, you're, you're crazy, you're, you're just, uh, imagining things are not right with your child health-wise, that they know best. It has to be impossible. There's nothing wrong, but you know your kid is being different. You know. There is something wrong with your baby, then find another doctor. By the way, our medical professionals— let me just say this— our medical professionals, we are hiring them. So if they are not working for you, fire them.

That's right, that's right. And listen, there are some incredible doctors out there, but there's some bad ones, and we could look at that in every industry. So you really want to go and be very conscious about who you allow to speak into your life and your kid's life in terms of who your doctor is, you know, one thing I see doctors constantly doing is breaking the Hippocratic Oath. I mean, this is one of the first— this is one of the ways to know if you have a good doctor or not. If your doctor actually sits down and listens to you and recommends, with whatever condition you have, nutritional changes, lifestyle changes, and they do everything they can for a fairly long period of time before they would ever give you a medication, that tends to be a good doctor. Or when they put you on it, they try and get you off it as quick as possible. But if a doctor's just saying you need to be on this drug the rest of your life, or they just put you on a drug and maybe they see you for 5 seconds and, you know, put you on your way, that is not a good doctor. The Hippocratic oath, first do no harm, is really— every medication for the most part does harm. There's not a single drug that doesn't deplete your body of nutrients. I mean, you could— we could go and look this up now. So, and I truly believe actually if we removed— I I think drugs are overprescribed around 90+% of the time. Yeah. I'm not saying 100. I think there are times when somebody has a serious infection. I had one in my spine and had to take an antibiotic. Now, that was probably one of the only times in my entire life I would've needed to have one prescribed. But I think for the most part, they're grossly overprescribed. If somebody has inflammation, there's turmeric. Yeah. You know, if, if somebody has hypothyroid, there's rhodiola and ashwagandha, and there are, Cordyceps, and there's fenugreek, there's all kinds of stuff. Men have low testosterone, there's Panax ginseng. There are a lot of natural things that we can do that don't have the side effects, that you're going to get better results in the long term. One thing I want to ask you about is, so you have been dealing with Hashimoto's the past couple years. Is that something I can help with? What are some things you're doing, doing for that?

I don't know, it must— well, I guess it's Hashimoto's related, Dr. Axe, but I have my— okay, my estrogen, my estrogen and my progesterone are basically both at zero. My testosterone is normal. So this is something hormonally that is still super out of balance. Now, I only learned that I had this in January of this year. So this is— I'm on the journey. It's not like I've been dealing with this for years. I mean, we're, we're slowly making changes and trying to figure out what works, but I'm on a crap ton of supplements. But my estrogen and progesterone are very, very low. Like on the Dutch test, they're like at the very bottom, which has me really scared. So that's something that like I haven't totally been able to figure out yet.

One thing we can do, and I'm not going to make you do this on the show, but if you take a picture of your tongue or I take a look at your tongue, I can tell a lot there because here, here's a few things that happen when you have low progesterone and estrogen. And I'm going to use some Chinese medicine language. Language because I think it's actually more philosophically correct than the Western ideas. And you tend to have what's called a low yin and a low yang. Both are low and typically a qi deficiency. We want to get that up. And basically, when somebody is sick, we'll talk about like a cell. Your cells tend to be lacking— there tend to be 3 issues: lack of cellular energy that actually run your cell in your body. It's like the workers if you're remodeling a house, like your toxicity, and then nutritional deficiency. So there's toxicity, deficiencies, and lack of energy. And what you're describing tends to be a lack of cellular energy.

So that would be— that be vitamin D?

No, I mean, now vitamin—

because my vitamin D is also dangerously low, like I'm like 20.

It would tend to be vitamin D and also B vitamins would be the most common, maybe zinc in there as well.

I am taking B12.

That's one of them. But have you ever taken an MTHFR test, like methylfolate? No.

Is that the next test I need to do?

I would do that, and I would maybe do a micronutrient test. And a micronutrient test, it's also known as an organic acids test. It will actually tell you all of the different vitamins and minerals you're likely deficient in and low in. And so that's one of the things that's really helpful, because if you're low in certain B vitamins and some of the other nutrients like vitamin D and zinc, your body can't properly create hormones. Okay. And so that's really important.

Apparently what's going on is my body is making them, it's not converting them.

Yeah, yeah. And, and that's where the MTHFR— and if your body isn't converting— because this is how it works. When you eat food, okay, it's almost like sometimes your body is given a car without wheels. And there's one in methylation, your body could take in something like folate, so you're getting plenty versus the meat you're eating and the dairy and all, and all healthy foods, but then your body needs to attach on something called, um, uh, something called, uh, like a methyl group, and then your body can utilize it to create cellular energy and do all the things it needs to do. Some people genetically don't attach on that methyl group well, and so what happens is your body never utilizes the folate, so it can never create cellular energy. So then your body becomes very poor in actually creating hormones. And I think that's probably what's going on, is that you are getting some healthy food, your body just isn't— as you're saying, it's not converting things very well. And that tends to be— and that tends to happen with thyroid hormones as well, which of course is also going to be linked to some of the issues you have with, with Hashimoto's. Yeah.

And I'm not on any thyroid medication. I really don't want to be, so I'm not yet. I'm trying to avoid that and get things like to a good spot.

Well, I, I think we can do it without it. I think we can do it without it. 99% of the time I can.

I should have sent you all my— I should have sent you, I mean, all of my tests and everything.

We can do it after this. We can work on it. And, uh, and I want to say, for people with hypothyroid and Hashimoto's, most people tend to think— and I, I think you realize this isn't the case— but most people tend to think there's something wrong with my thyroid. It— that's almost never the case. Most the time in Hashimoto's, it starts with your adrenals and your, and your, your colon and your gut. And if you can start to fix those issues, the immune system and the adrenal system, then everything else will start to get better as well. But a lot of times it is, it's just a conversion issue. And there are actually a lot of things you can do to support conversion. Methylated B vitamins, that's really important though. They actually have to be a very specific type. High-dose probiotics.

What is the, like, brand, or what is it called exactly?

There, there are several, so I don't want to mention. There are probably 30 brands that have methylated B vitamins. So there are several brands, but it'll be called like methylcobalamin or methylfolate. So that's the type of folate you'll look for, is a methylfolate, um, that, that would be already, already converted for you.

Okay, perfect. I'm gonna get that.

Yeah. And then lots of warming herbs and spices. My guess is, is your body temperature— do you tend to get cold easy?

Oh my gosh, yes.

Yeah. So, so, and, and by the way, the thing that you're already doing with the red light, that's fantastic. I would have said that is one of the top things you should be doing. But also doing infrared sauna. Like, you want to get to the point where you just start breaking a sweat, but you don't sweat profusely. Like, you need to keep your body warm, especially your lower extremities. So there's a, there's a great product by a company. It's called BonCharge. They do an infrared blanket.

I love BonCharge.

Okay, well, they've got a great infrared blanket. They need to send you one. So, yeah, so I would do that regularly. And the other thing would be acupuncture.

Okay.

I—

this is something I have been dying to try and I've never done it. I, um, selected, which is probably not gonna be the type of place I probably need to go to, like a literal Chinese medicine place, but I set up a little spa day for myself tomorrow so I could have a little break and a little rest. And I did choose the acupuncture facial for the first time, but I've never done any acupuncture ever. But I know I probably need to do like the medical version.

You, you know what, I, I'm actually right after this, I'm gonna text the person I see to see if he has an open appointment. And if he does, I'll get you in. If not, it'll have to be the next time you're in Nashville, but we'll find somebody in Arizona. I know there's a lot of good, great acupuncturists and oriental medical doctors that are out there that could, that could treat you. But what acupuncture will do is they'll move energy to different areas of the body. I mean, they— if you find a really good, like, one of those top 10% of acupuncturists, they are incredible at treating autoimmune disease, hypothyroidism, a number of those issues. So it'll— it really should move the needle for you.

Yes, this is my next little treatment fun thing I want to do really bad, so I'm glad that you brought that up.

Well, I'm excited to continue to watch the journey on social media. By the way, that's one of the things I've enjoyed most about following you in your, in your podcast, in your, in your social channel, is that you bring people along the journey with you. Again, you just started making these changes 2, 3 years ago, and now you've started a whole podcast around this called Culture Apothecary, where you've brought on raw milk farmers and you've brought on people talking about, you know, the chemicals in our food supply and so much. And so it's been really fun fun being able to kind of watch, you know, the rise of your show and all that you've done and making the switch for more, you know, more I'd say culture and politics over to, you know, mind, body, spirit, health, which is a big part of what this show is about too. But it's why I wanted to have you on to talk all things health and body, mind, spirit.

Thank you. No, and we're gonna have you on too, which is going to be super exciting. But yeah, every— the, the idea behind the name Culture Apothecary is, you know, apothecary was like the original place you would go in your community for natural remedies. And so every guest that I have on provides their own natural remedy for healing a sick culture. And so that could be physically, you know, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. So every episode falls into one of those categories, um, and it could be an episode on theology, or it could be— it could be an episode— because all of these have to do with wellness, right? Wellness is so much more than just literal food, um, I mean, which I do cover a lot, but, um, I have such a wide range of different episodes. So if you don't like one episode, you're bound to like the next. But I do 2 episodes a week, Mondays and Thursdays, 6:00 PM Pacific, 9:00 PM Eastern, anywhere you get your podcasts or Real Alex Clark on YouTube. And, um, it, it's just, it's been an absolute blast. I, I was actually worried. So we just rebranded my show to a different name before September of this, of this year, 2024. And before this, I was telling my team, you know, we're trying to switch and talk about health and wellness and make this a focus in an election year. 2 months before the election, people may not care. I literally said this. And then like a week later, RFK Jr. endorses Trump. And then it was just like, make everyone get healthy again.

What a perfect time.

The entire, like, cultural zeitgeist became health and wellness. And I was like, oh my gosh, okay, God, like, this was totally your plan because I was scared Nobody would care. And now it's so cool that everyone has cared. And my audience especially, which it's— this is most of my episodes, I would say 99% of my episodes are completely nonpartisan, apolitical. We don't even talk politics. But once in a while there will be something, you know, on abortion or whatever. And so then I think it is cool that I am an openly conservative health and wellness podcaster. So that is like a little unique thing. But yeah, yeah, 2 episodes a week, Culture Apothecary.

Well, you're doing a great job with it. There's been some really interesting people on there. And I want to encourage everybody to check out Alex's podcast. Again, it's Culture Apothecary. Also, you can follow her on social. Is it just Alex Clark?

Real Alex Clark on Instagram.

Real Alex Clark on Instagram. And really enjoyed the show today. I want to encourage everybody, uh, thanks so much for tuning in to The Dr. Josh Axe Show, where each and every week we cover the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level. Hey, make sure to subscribe and share this. And so many people need to know the truth about a lot of what Alex talked to, talked to us about today, about how to heal and prioritize family, our health, our— in, in health, in body, mind, and spirit. So thank you to all of you who are on mission with me. We'll see you on the next episode. Episode.