171. Courtney Swan: Why Your ‘Healthy’ Food Is Actually Harmful

was looking for answers, right?

But I was looking in all the wrong places.

I was eating slim fast bars for breakfast and thinking that I was going to lose weight and like get healthy, which is so ironic.

You know, in the States, a lot of our food is just not even food.

This is what many people need to understand is that the majority of the food on our shelves was not created with health in mind.

It was created with profits in mind.

I don't think that we got here overnight, and I think we just ignored the problem until we are at the point where the cost of healthcare could break the entire system.

What's going to stand the test of time when it comes to nutrition and health?

We always need to be coming back to eating real food.

These sinister things that have gone on for decades and the reason why the majority of people are just walking around probably 60% of their true state of normal and just believing that this is a consequence of aging.

Just because it's happening to a lot of people and it's becoming normalized does not mean that it's okay.

That does not have to be your experience.

So where does this go in a perfect world?

Where does your mission can you have the greatest effect?

That's a great question.

If I could just change one thing, that has been the basis of my entire business and my message is that we need to be

Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human podcast, where We go down the road of everything, anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between.

between i'm your host human biologist gary breca and today's guest Courtney Swan, you are going to love her.

We did podcasts before we actually got on the podcast.

We did a podcast while we ate lunch between the podcasts.

But I'm so excited to bring this woman on because

as young and beautiful as she is, she is an OG in this space because she's been in this space more than 10 years, really fighting for awareness and drawing people's attention to nutrition, our food supply, the corruption in our food supply.

She's a major advocate for public policy.

She is an advocate of the Maha movement, as am I.

And so you're really going to enjoy this podcast.

Stay tuned to the end.

I've got a lot of things for you guys, but welcome to the podcast, Courtney Swann.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so excited to have you.

This is so much fun.

We were talking earlier on my podcast about how we just felt like little kids.

We're just like so excited.

Just so excited to be in this industry and so excited to

the caliber of people that we get to associate with and the sincerity of the commitment of most of the people in our industry, our peer group.

It's just everybody wants to see the tide raise all of our boats.

And we're all on the same mission to just better humanity.

And I find that there's a lack of arrogance and a sincere fabric of authenticity in this community.

Everyone wants to see everyone else thrive.

And it's just very unique, I think, to a lot of, you know, different industries out there.

So we are both very, very blessed to be a part of this.

Yeah.

And you've had kind of an interesting journey, which I, I find fascinating.

And I really think that your influence is now beginning to be recognized to the point where you're able to have a bigger voice and potentially make a bigger impact.

So talk a little bit about

your journey to becoming this advocate for food.

Real Foodology is her podcast.

If you haven't seen it, you've got to check out Real Foodology.

I was just on it.

So at a minimum, watch my

episode.

But talk a little bit about the genesis of this.

How did it become your purpose, your passion?

Like what ignited it for you?

Yeah, it was a...

It was a journey for me to get there for sure.

We had talked about this earlier off camera, but I started out working in music, actually.

My mom had really planted the seeds for me when I was a kid because she was buying organic and natural food before it was even a movement or a thing.

And when I was a kid, like most kids, you don't realize how good you have it, right?

Like I, I was watching all my friends eating dunkaroos and getting Burger King every night for dinner, and I was upset.

And then I was going home to my amazing, organic, home-cooked meals that my mom would, my mom would be in the kitchen almost for two hours every night, making everything really good.

Which you despised her for at the time.

Oh, I despised her at the time.

You're like, what about Lucky Charms, mom?

Yeah, I was like, I want the McDonald's.

Like, I want a happy meal.

And now, I mean, obviously, I am so beyond grateful.

I went to college.

I started eating fast food.

And I don't even recognize who that person is anymore.

But, you know, I was eating in the dining hall, which is, you know, Cisco and Shamrock Foods catering.

And I gained a bunch of weight.

I got acne I'd never had before.

I was fatigued.

And it wasn't until I took a nutrition course.

And also my mom had sent me a book on nutrition.

It was literally just called, You Are What You Eat.

Wow.

And because I was looking for answers, right?

But I was looking in all the wrong places.

I was eating slim fast bars for breakfast and thinking that I was going to lose weight and like get healthy, which is so ironic, right?

And I found this book.

It's called You Are What You Eat.

And it really just, it was talk about a light bulb moment for me.

It made me really understand, oh, wow, the things that I'm putting in my body, the food that I'm eating is quite literally building my cells.

And it's going to either determine whether I have good energy and I'm going to be at a healthy weight and I'm not going to, you know, be inflamed all the time, or it's going to drive all of that.

Right.

And it's so funny looking back to that now, thinking how much of a light bulb moment that was for me, but it really lit lit a fire under my ass because i quite to be quite frank i was pretty mad that i had not learned that sooner because i was uh probably 20 at that point and you were in college and i was thinking why aren't we teaching small children this why doesn't every human know this and i was also thinking too looking at all my um you know my my parents friends and like older generations and a lot of them still hadn't figured it out and i was so flabbergasted for lack of a better word because i was like this is so simple right so simple um the things that we're eating and we're putting in our bodies are either fighting disease or fueling it, you know?

And so that really ignited a passion in me.

And then I just could not get enough information.

I found Michael Pollan back then when he was writing about food.

I found Dr.

Mark Hyman.

I think I read one of his very first books, Love Him.

And he introduced me to this world of functional and integrative medicine, which is, you know, root cause, disease protocol, where you're looking at the root cause and you're looking for the root cause and trying to mitigate symptoms with diet and lifestyle changes.

So that really affected me a lot.

I was in school or sorry, I was actually touring at the time.

I finally decided the music industry.

Exactly.

So I was with the music industry.

I decided to quit that and I went back and I got my master's of science in nutrition and integrative health.

Wow.

And then actually during that time, I got pulled back onto the road and I ended up being a nutritionist for four years for a pop star.

Really?

Yeah, which was pretty amazing.

So cool.

And it was very cool because it was, you know, I got to kind of blend both of my favorite worlds, which was nutrition and then being on tour and getting to work for musicians, which was so much fun.

But I did hit a point where, you know, we kind of talked about this on my podcast, that it was really starting to, to really like

tax my body.

Like I just was feeling the effects of not getting enough sleep.

And, you know, it is harder to eat healthy.

And so I finally in 2019 decided to no longer tour anymore.

And I had been building real foodology on the side.

And at the time, it really was more just of a hobby.

I really had no plan.

I had no like goals or plans of turning this into anything other than it started with a passion where I felt like this was information that people largely didn't know.

And I was seeing so many people suffer.

And like you just said a minute ago, I want to see people thrive.

Yeah.

And so I started Real Foodology as a blog and I was just kind of Instagramming my, my touring life.

And then in 2019, I was like, you know what, I'm going to pursue this full time.

Started my podcast in 2020.

Wow, 2020.

That's that's awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then it just kind of has exploded from there.

That's so great.

You know, I think too, that, you know, sometimes when we travel, we realize that, you know, you go to Italy and you have a bowl of pasta and a basket of bread, maybe a glass of wine, and you feel amazing.

In fact, some people will travel to European countries and lose weight, even though we're eating high carbohydrates.

Pizza, pasta.

I remember when the

research came out on the blue zones, and

I was watching the documentary on the blue zones, and I was reading the book on it.

And I read Dr.

Volter Longo's book on the longevity diet.

And I realized, you know,

there's continuity between diets that are helping people live to be hyper-centenarians.

I mean, it wasn't carnivore, keto, paleo, pescatarian, vegan, vegetarian.

It wasn't the hyper-dogmatic diets.

It was just whole food.

Yes.

Like just real food.

Yes.

And, you know, in the States, a lot of our food is just not even food.

And I wonder if we could talk about that for a minute, because without sounding like fear mongers, you know, a part of what I believe our industry and people like yourself are trying to do is just help people get around the system

and

just get to back to the basics almost, right?

I mean, I feel like if most people just got sunlight, touched the surface of the earth, focused on their sleep, hydrated, some minerals, made whole foods, I mean, just those basics would have such a dramatic impact on

their life.

And so I know that you're very connected to and an enormous supporter of the Maha movement.

We talked a little bit about it on your podcast.

I wonder if we might just delve into some of the sinister things that have gone on for decades

that are really leading to this chronic disease epidemic that we have and the reason why the majority of people are just walking around probably 60% of their true state of normal and just believing that this is a consequence of aging.

So that is one of the biggest myths in all of this, in the nutrition, wellness, and medical system that really drives me nuts is that people just think, oh, this is just what happens.

You start aging and then you don't feel that well and your energy plummets and then you maybe have to go on a couple of medications and maybe you get diabetes.

Oh, that's just aging.

I hear that all the time.

It's just, oh, well, it's just part of being human.

That does not have to be your experience.

Yeah.

And I think it's normalized, not to cut you off, but I think it's normalized too, because at certain ages, your whole peer group is experiencing the same thing.

They're like, Yeah, well, none of us really sleep well, and we don't remember anything.

I can't find my car keys and my belt and my wallet.

And they're like, Oh, it's normal because all my friends are doing the same thing.

I have a hair tire that I never really had, but all my friends do.

And I'm on three meds, but all of my buddies are on three meds, and my wife's on three or four meds.

And yes.

And I think that normalization almost makes it feel like it's just a part of quote unquote, what happens.

Exactly.

But just because it's happening to a lot of people and it's becoming normalized normalized does not mean that it's okay and that it should be happening.

And yeah, and you know, a lot of this is largely driven by the fact that we are, for the most part, not really eating food anymore.

60% of Americans' diet, Americans' diets are coming from ultra-processed foods.

60%, that's more than half of our diet.

What does it mean to be ultra-processed?

I think a lot of people don't understand what that means.

I mean, does that mean that we just take a cow and slaughter it and chop it into steaks and package it and send it?

No.

So that would be processing.

Yeah.

So there's a

there's a lot of discrepancy between like processing versus ultra-processed.

Cause I see some of these like RDs or dissenting voices out there that are saying, oh, well, applesauce is processed, bread is processed.

So that is absolutely true.

But there is a huge difference between eating applesauce that maybe is just made with apple and maybe they add a little bit of sugar and some water versus if you were going to go to McDonald's and get an apple pie.

So the difference between ultra-processed and just something simply processing that we've been doing since the dawn of time is with ultra-processed foods, you're adding adding a ton of additives and preservatives and fillers in there, and that food no longer resembles what that natural state of food once was.

I often tell people if your grandparents were to time travel, or maybe like your great-grandparents, like someone who's no longer alive, if they were to time travel and you just dropped them into 2025 and you took them to a grocery store and you showed them all these food products that were eating,

they probably wouldn't even know where it came from.

Like they wouldn't even tell be able to tell you just by looking at it, like, oh, I know that that is from potatoes.

They would be like, what is that right that would be something that would be ultra processed foods ultra processed foods are made with a bunch of ingredients that you would not normally have in your kitchen they're a bunch of ingredients that you find in factories and my argument and the whole reason that i started real foodology my whole thing was when i came up with that name 14 years ago is i sat down and i thought what's going to stand the test of time when it comes to nutrition and health we always need to be coming back to eating real food that's so true and that has been the basis of my entire business and my message is that we need to be getting back to eating real food.

And right now, more than or the majority of our calories are coming from these ultra-processed foods.

You know, what's amazing is I still remember going into my grandmother's basement, grandma Rose, who I named my daughter after.

So my grandmother, Rose Brecka, she in her basement, which was always like a little cool, were all these like canned vegetables everywhere.

And she would, she would, every year, you know, she would can vegetables and she would make like sauerkrauts and kimchis and pickles and all of this stuff.

I always thought it it was like a little weird.

But I really identify with it now.

And I remember I used to press the lid.

And if the, if the lid was still tight, she was like, yeah, bring it upstairs.

If the lid pops, throw it in the trash.

And I still remember it.

So I'm like, this is so weird.

Because I was here last Christmas and that pickle was right there.

You know, so something tells me I shouldn't bring this up and eat it.

But it made so much sense.

They didn't have preservatives and they didn't have the, you know, thickening agents and a lot of these artificial ingredients.

And so they preserved them naturally through the fermentation process, which actually made them more healthy.

And, you know, like fermented vegetables, one of the healthiest things you can put in your body.

I try to eat a lot of kimchi and sauerkraut and then get the soluble and insoluble fibers.

But, you know, I think we've, we've modernized things.

And I don't think that we got here overnight.

I think we got here really slowly.

And I think we just ignored the problem until until we are at call it pandemic levels, crisis levels, whatever you want to call it.

I mean, we are at the point where I think from a financial perspective, that, you know, the cost of healthcare could break the entire system.

Oh, yeah.

Right.

I don't think people understand how detrimental it is, actually.

I don't think so either.

I wonder if you might talk about that a little bit.

And I want to go into some of the chemicals specifically like glyphosate.

You know, we hear about these things,

but we don't really know how do they get into our food supply?

Why are they in our food supply?

Is there some kind of sinister profit motive behind it?

And if so, like, you know, what can we do to it to address it?

Yeah, so I largely believe that most of this stuff started with good intention.

The problem is, is that now that we have the data and the science and we know that these chemicals and certain processing,

you know, things that we're doing with our food, we now know that they are harming people.

And now it is to the point where it is becoming sinister, in my opinion.

But I don't think it started out that way.

Largely, a lot of what we're dealing with now, which is an industrialization of our food system, was started because of the war.

You know, after the war, there was famine.

People, our president was genuinely concerned about getting enough food to people, having it be cheap, accessible, fast.

So that's when we started paying subsidies to farmers because they thought, okay, what crops can we grow, just rows and rows and rows of, grow them really fast, and then

commoditize them?

Commoditize.

Commoditize them.

Why was that so hard for me to get out?

You actually said a word on the podcast last time.

It was the first time I'd ever heard it.

I need to.

Infantilize me?

Infantilize.

That was the word.

I almost fact-checked you on that because I was like, I've never heard of it, but the context, I got it.

Yeah.

So it is really a word.

It is.

Well, I say regardless and lots of other things that are not words, but

that's really good.

It's rare that I hear a word and I'm like, wow, that's a new one.

It's fun.

I've been trying to broaden my.

You're going to hear it start popping into my podcast, right?

I hope I use it well.

I'm going to be like, oh, Gary got that for me.

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So, historically, you think that, you know, obviously after the war, we needed to promulgate crops and we needed to have them less expensive and more readily available.

And there was also this notion, which we're still seeing today, is that they wanted to feed the world.

So, this is when we started introducing things like glyphosate, for example, which is one that I really am hyper-focused on right now.

I'm incredibly concerned about glyphosate.

Over 90% of Americans were finding glyphosate in their urine, and and it's coming up in placenta, it's coming up in breast milk.

I had it in my urine now.

I did the vibrant wellness test.

Yeah.

Even those of us that are eating organic and we're doing really hard and we're doing saunas and we're detoxing, we are all finding it in our blood, and it is so incredibly concerning.

So, glyphosate is an herbicide.

It's also known as Roundup, which was created by Monsanto.

Now, in 2018, Bayer, which is a pharmaceutical company, bought Monsanto, and now they are also an agrochemical company.

And they own a majority of our food system now because they have patented genetically modified seeds which are corn wheat and or sorry sorry we just started genetically modifying wheat recently but corn and soy are the majority of those now during the war what we did is we started paying subsidies to farmers what are subsidies these come from taxpayer dollars and it's money that we give to farmers in order to incentivize them to grow specific crops now some of the crops that we do with that are corn and soy now it's why I would encourage everybody listening if you have any ultra processed foods in your cabinet I would go and I would read the label and I would argue that almost every single one of them that you pick up, it's gonna say may contain corn, weed, and soy.

Really?

They're in everything because we are paying farmers to grow them.

So we have them in surplus and it's cheaper, it's more accessible, it's more affordable.

Again, we have it in excess.

So we're using it in everything.

And so not only is it being pushed into our ultra-processed foods in the forms of, you know, vegetable oils, all of our processed grains, corn syrup is a really big one.

Wow.

Yeah.

High fructose, corn syrup, corn syrup.

Yep.

We're also using that to feed our livestock.

So we're also getting it on the other end in our meat, our dairy, and our eggs.

And glyphosate is incredibly concerning.

It has very concerning backs, very concerning backstory.

So this is actually what I did my Senate.

speech on.

I was

so grateful to be a part of this roundtable, this nutrition roundtable was hosted by Senator Ron Johnson back in September.

And it was with Vonnie Hari, Michaela Peterson, Jordan Peterson, RFK Jr., Callie and Casey Means.

I remember that.

It was so amazing.

Yeah, some of the talks that you guys gave were so impactful.

I mean, thankfully, a lot of those videos have gone viral.

I've had the majority of those people on my podcast, and it was so impactful.

I actually remember seeing Callie Means

on the Tucker Carlson show with his sister.

Yeah.

And for someone that is.

you know, as woke, whatever you want to call it, and aware of the biohacking community and nutrition in general,

I was blown away because he laid out the sequence of corruption.

And I think that those two particularly have a really interesting skill set and background, even though now they have a shared mission.

You know, one coming from a very allopathic, I think she was a headneck surgeon from Stanford.

Yeah.

And then he came from highly educated

and he came from the

political side of things where he was literally a lobbyist.

Yeah, he was working as a lobbyist for companies like Coca-Cola.

Yeah.

So it's fascinating because he has a really, he had a look under the hood that many people are not actually revealing to the general public, which was fascinating.

I had him on my podcast a couple of years ago and same thing.

I was blown away because a lot of what he is saying, he's just validating what a lot of us have been trying to say for years.

And he came out and he said, yeah, this is all true.

I was literally in the boardrooms

a part of these conversations.

Yeah.

It was part of my job to influence politicians for these certain outcomes.

And I think he just woke up one day and was like, wait a second, this is all wrong.

I mean, when he started talking about the intentionality of it,

that's what really began to sway my opinion.

It's one thing to be doing something and not know.

It's another to know, intentionally continue, and intentionally and aggressively cover it up to the point where you're actually willing to ruin somebody else's life or smirch somebody's reputation, you know.

harm children.

You know, that's when you realize the sinister intention of it.

And one of the things he said, I'll never forget, was that his group had five lobbyists for every member of Congress.

That's nuts.

So I'm just thinking, man, so if you're a member of Congress, and this is only one group, you know, one lobbying group has five lobbyists assigned to you.

And he was like, it was our role to try to take up all their calendar slots, contribute to their campaigns, support their events,

wine them, dine them,

and to try to just overwhelm them with meetings and appointments and

and essentially try to take up as much of their bandwidth as they possibly could.

And that's when I realized, man, we have more of an intentionality behind this than I thought.

Just like you said, I don't think it began with sinister intentions, right?

You have famine, you need to feed the nation.

Yep.

And then it just grew into this big chemical agricultural industry.

a lot of which is wholly unnecessary now.

Exactly.

And humanity is paying the price.

Exactly.

Like, again, you know, at the time, I think it was great.

It was this modern technology.

Oh, my gosh, what do you mean?

We don't have to can everything now.

We can just add these additives and preservatives in there that will prolong the shelf life.

This is what many people need to understand: that the majority of the food on our shelves was not created with health in mind.

It was created with profits in mind because they want it to be shelf-stable so that it can stay, it can stay on the shelf for long periods of time.

I was doing this little like personal experiment at my house, still kind of ongoing.

And I've released two videos about this already, but I bought just a bunch of conventional bread loaves of bread from the grocery store in December.

I got Sara Lee and some other like December.

Yeah.

It's what, April now?

Exactly.

It's almost April.

Those bags have been open.

They've just been opened, sitting on my counter since December.

And there is not a drop of mold on any single one of them.

Nothing.

They smell quote unquote fresh.

Like it's still squishy.

It's not dry.

Really?

Yes.

Wow.

And I have like five different levels.

That's the preservatives.

That's the additives.

That's

the folic acid.

Yep, exactly.

All of those things.

So you're hyper-focused on glyphosate because,

you know, they call it a forever chemical.

And

I'd love for you to define what that means.

But why glyphosate in particular?

So glyphosate, well, first of all, the reason I'm most concerned about it is because it's become so ubiquitous.

So we're spraying it on all of our fields.

The backstory of glyphosate is they were using a lot of these chemicals in World War II.

Like, Nazis were using them as nerve agents and gas chambers.

They weren't using glyphosate specifically, but they were using known insecticides and pesticides.

And they'd have similar chemical components to glyphosate.

And then, same with the Vietnam War.

Agent Orange was created by Monsanto.

So, now, fast forward, these agrochemical companies need somewhere to use their chemicals and their fertilizers.

And so they pivoted to spraying them on farmlands.

And what happened initially is they said, oh, they're totally fine.

These are not harmful at all to health.

So the farmers are spraying down their crops with everything.

And the glyphosate was killing everything, including the plants that they were trying to grow.

So what happened was they genetically modified seeds.

They genetically modified plants to grow to where they could just spray the fields with glyphosate and everything would get covered in glyphosate and the plant itself wouldn't die, but it would kill everything else off.

Well, here's the issue with that.

And this is where I get super passionate about something called regenerative farming because the soil, we talk a lot about soil health.

So glyphosate also acts like an antibiotic, which means that it's not only killing off bad bacteria, but it's also killing off of the good bacteria.

Wow.

And we talked about how a lot of people are consuming glyphosate and they're getting it in their bodies.

And then everyone's having all these, you know, IBS and Crohn's and gut issues and antibiotic resistance.

Exactly.

Well, it's no wonder because all of us are consuming an antibiotic almost on a daily basis and we don't even know.

And on top of that, it's not labeled.

It doesn't need to to be on the label.

So people can be consuming it and they have no clue.

Now, where my passion really comes in in all this is that when we're spraying our soil with glyphosate, because it's an antibiotic, we're killing off the entire ecosystem of the soil that makes the plants healthy in the first place.

I don't know if you've heard this before, but I've heard this quoted often.

We are only as healthy as our soil is.

No doubt.

Because our plants are growing in our soil.

And if our soil does not have the ecosystem, the bacteria, the bugs, there's this whole ecosystem that half of what we probably still don't even understand what's going on there.

We're killing all of that.

The soil is barely hanging on.

And then we think that the plants that are going to grow out are going to come out with enough vitamins, minerals, and nutrients for us.

Absolutely not.

And when you leave nature to do what it is intended to do, what it's meant to do, which is a thing called regenerative farming, there's this, I love this,

there's this incredible process that happens called carbon sequestration, where carbon is actually pulled out of the atmosphere because a lot of people were super concerned for good reason about there being too much carbon in the atmosphere.

If we leave nature to do her thing, she pulls the carbon out of the atmosphere, and that is actually food for the soil.

And if we're not spraying it with all these chemical interventions, we're letting the soil thrive with the bacteria and the bugs and everything that it's meant to be and how it's meant to be there.

The carbon's in the soil and it's this really deep, rich, like beautiful black soil.

That's going to be food for the plants.

Yeah.

And we see so many articles now saying, oh, our food is losing, you know, it's devoid of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients.

You talk about this all the time.

Yeah, I talk about it all the time.

You know, it's funny.

I love the book that you read, We Are What?

What

You Are What You Eat.

But I think we're also what we eat eats.

Yes.

Right.

Exactly.

And which is getting you closer to the soil.

I mean, I totally agree.

When you have, you know, when we feed livestock,

you know,

if you've ever driven by a commercial feedlot,

it's really kind of a sad, sad place.

It's just acres and acres of dirt and mud, no grass as far as the eye can see.

Feed troughs, you know, which are very often corn, soybean, um millet these other things um and i've even there's a butcher in naples that i'm i'm friends with and they stopped buying meat from a certain uh farm and he said they were actually adding high fructose corn syrup to the feed

um and the meat was so full of pus because the because they were sick because the animals were dying of type 2 diabetes right before they were slaughtered they were on their way to dying from from um type 2 diabetes i mean where in nature does a cow run into high fructose corn syrup and he said it was actually causing the their teeth to rot all the way up into the gums because they so they would lose their teeth so they couldn't really couldn't really chew i love cows that actually breaks my heart yeah

i do too i love animals in general i mean but yes well i saw something online too and a farmer actually verified this to me um they're starting to feed candy to our livestock now too just to fatten them up they don't even think about the nutritional value anymore of like oh how can we feed them so that they're you know healthy and they get enough nutrients no they're just like how can we fatten them up as fast and quick as possible so they're feeding them candy bars they just throw candy bars in their feed and sometimes they don't even take the wrappers off i heard yeah it's yeah i mean you see a lot of those uh you know videos of the uh especially especially pigs that are eating yes garbage but a lot of it has plastic in it i mean they don't even take the take the plastic out of it so so where does this go so you know glyphosate is an issue and um

you know, for the first time, maybe in our adult lifetime, there is a potential opportunity to affect public policy because of people like yourself going and speaking in front of Congress

and the whole Maha movement, which I think is just phenomenal.

No matter what side of the aisle you're on, you've got to be pro-nutrition, pro-healthy food, because we all deserve, especially our children deserve

clean food.

So where does this go in a perfect world?

Where does your mission,

where can you have the greatest effect?

That's a great question.

I mean, look, if I could just change one thing, it would just be, can we just get these additives out of our food and focus on

real food?

I think a lot of it is, there's an education component there because there's a large portion of the population that's been eating so much foods out of packages that they one are scared to cook now or they feel like they can't cook or maybe it hasn't been passed down through generations through them anymore.

So I definitely think there's an educational component there.

So how can we really start like, and honestly, what I would love to see is we start doing this in schools with kids, you know, have them when they're in kindergarten, have them start tending a garden and teach them the importance of growing your food and then show them how that food is then ending up on their plates for lunch, you know?

And then how can we have them have a cooking class?

You know, I think this should start very, very early because there is a large education component there because now we're just telling, because this is, I have a huge issue about this.

I actually just talked about this on a podcast yesterday.

We are telling people, oh, you don't have time to cook or it's so expensive.

Don't even try.

So I think so many people are not even trying anymore.

They're not even attempting it because they just think, like, okay, well, that's that's one that's too expensive for me, and it's not going to be accessible for me, and it's super hard.

We live in the most amazing time of information.

You can literally open TikTok, open YouTube, and just type in any recipe you want to make, and you can watch a video.

Right.

So, you can very easily, and I think so many people are scared to cook, but it is so easy.

It doesn't have to be complicated.

Grill up a steak and then bake some sweet potatoes and then add a little arugula on the side.

Like, done.

It does not have to be so hard.

So, from a policy standpoint,

what we need to do is a couple things.

I think, first of all, we need to stop paying subsidies for foods that are driving our chronic disease.

Corn and soy, like I said earlier, are largely making up of the majority of the food-like products.

Is it corn, soy, wheat?

Those are the big ones, yes, or corn, soy, the majority.

Yes, so over 90% of our corn is genetically modified, and over 90% of our soy is genetically modified.

And those are a lot of what we're we're paying subsidies for.

And then wheat as well.

And then wheat is just now starting to be genetically modified.

And so that means that it's, it can withstand glyphosate.

So you hear all this, you hear all this talk online saying, oh, GMOs actually means less pesticides.

No, the pesticides are quite literally in some of those seeds that are genetically modified.

And if they're not, they're having to spray everything like crazy with glyphosate.

So it actually means more pesticides, not less.

Yeah, because if something is

genetically modified to be resistant to glyphosate, it's probably going to absorb and survive holding on to the glyphosate.

I mean, we already know that it not only, it not only makes it into our food supply, it makes it into our blood.

It made it into my blood.

Yeah.

And if it's getting in mine, it's getting in everybody's eye probably.

Exactly.

Because we're eating organic and we're going above and beyond.

I mean, I filter my water.

I filter my shower.

I'm eating all organic in my home.

The only time I don't eat organic is when I'm eating out and I can't control it.

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Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast.

You know, I've heard you talk a lot about too.

I actually want to come back to regenerative farming, but I heard you say something that, you know, organic eating is now no longer negotiable yeah um and i wonder if you might describe organic eating organic food labeling um because i think too that there is maybe it's not direct corruption but there's a lot of misinformation if you will on organic food food labeling so for the average consumer walking into the grocery store and it's like okay um

I'm going to sacrifice some other areas of my budget because I'm going to make sure that my family's eating the cleanest, you know, organic food.

Where do they start on that journey?

Yeah, well, first and foremost, the reason I'm such a huge supporter of organic food in general is because there's a lot of laws and regulations around what is allowed and what is allowed to be sprayed on organic food.

So, legally, by law, if it's stamped organic, it means that it was not allowed to be sprayed by glyphosate.

If it's meat or dairy, it wasn't allowed to be injected with growth hormones.

They're not allowed to give them pharmaceutical drugs.

There's a lot of laws around it.

Also, they can't eat genetically modified crops

with organics.

So, if you buy organic meat, exactly, you know that they're not eating this pesticide-laden grains.

Right.

So that to me is the biggest concern right now and why I feel like it's non-negotiable.

But what is so insidious about all this is that organic is just what we should be eating.

There should not be two different options.

What I would love to see is that we're just not using these pesticides anymore.

And organic is just the only option.

It's just food, right?

Because, you know, 50 years ago, what our grandparents were eating, they were eating organic, but they weren't labeling it organic.

It just was food.

It's so true.

You know, I heard Max Louis say on a podcast one time, if your grocery store has a healthy food section, what does that tell you about the rest of the world?

What is the rest of it?

I mean, it was just so simple, but I loved it.

I actually was in

Medellin, Colombia

a while back, and we were eating in this restaurant.

And I ordered a steak, and I asked the guy if the steak was grass-fed.

And he literally looked at me like I had two heads.

And because, you know, for him, he was like, what else do cows eat?

Like, why are you asking me that?

Of course, it's grass-fed.

And, and I was, it just dawned on me.

I was like, well, in the States, we have to ask this, right?

Yes.

We have to, we have to check.

I realize here, all they eat is grass because you guys got it right, you know,

which I think is part of the reason why you see our life expectancy has dropped.

We talked about this on your podcast, but, you know,

has dropped to 66th in the world, you know, beneath some countries that don't even have clean water and sanitation.

And I think in countries like that,

your only accessible food is real.

It's real food.

It's whole food.

And this is supported by Blue Zone Research.

They were all eating whole food.

They didn't eat dogmatic diets.

There was, you know, almost zero processed ingredients in the diets of these centenarians.

Plus, they moved and they had a sense of community.

But I want to work my way back to regenerative farming because there has to be an answer other than just stop poisoning the food.

Because what the chemical industry is going to say is if we stop spraying for glyphosate, or if we stop spraying glyphosate on the crops, all the pests are going to eat it.

This is an herbicide.

The weeds are going to take over.

And that's going to be worse for your food than what you're getting in this small amount of micro-poisoning.

What we have as the grass guideline, right?

They're generally regarded as safe.

And I think that a lot of these guidelines are based on single dose toxicity, meaning, yeah, if you go out and eat an inorganic piece of fish or chicken or, you know, a traditionally fed cow and some, you know, non-organic vegetables, is that going to kill you in a single meal?

No.

But it's the cumulative dose toxicity, right, over time

that our cellular biology just can't handle anymore.

Yeah.

And our immune systems can't handle it anymore.

Well, we're seeing a really concerning trend trend right now.

I would encourage people to Google this because you can actually look up photos.

So look, you can never outsmart nature.

Nature always finds a way.

And what's happening with a lot of these weeds that were initially being killed off by glyphosate, you're seeing these crazy glyphosate-resistant weeds popping up everywhere that the farmers don't really know how to handle because they're no longer

responding to the glyphosate.

Right.

And so it's, again, like nature always finds a way.

It's similar to like, you know, like the antibiotic resistance that we see when you're taking too much antibiotics.

And we're seeing it a lot because we're we're giving it prophylactically to our livestock so there is yeah there's a huge concern with that as well and um there's there's a lot of pushback against the organic movement from the agrochemical companies because they say well how are the farmers going to survive how are we going to feed the world how are we going to create enough food for everyone and what i always tell people is there's this amazing farming systems trial that's been going on for 40 years.

And what it is, it's been an ongoing study that's still happening right now.

They've been doing it for 40 years through the Rodal Institute.

And what they do is they have conventional farming on one side, and then they have organic farming on the other side.

No.

It's incredible.

And what they have found is that in this organic farming system, it produces the same, if not sometimes even more yield than what the conventional is yielding.

And then on top of that, it's sustainable.

Because what we're doing in our conventional model right now is we're getting to a point where we are desertifying.

the soil.

Yes.

And we're depleting it of so much nutrients that at some point you literally cannot plant there anymore.

anymore and you have to go somewhere else to plant.

And they are theorizing, and if we continue down this path and we keep ignoring this, that we have about,

depending on who you talk to, anywhere between like 52 to 54 harvests left where we will no longer have soil that's plantable for plants.

Wow.

So we need to do something because what we're doing right now, it's just a quick fix, right?

It's not long-term sustainable.

And our, you know, our grandkids are not even going to have soil left to plant in.

What is sustainable agriculture?

What is regenerative farming?

And can we do that on a mass scale and still allow farmers to be profitable and maybe clean up the food supply?

You know, I get a lot of my stuff here in Miami from this place called Southwest Ranches, which is right down the street.

And they're hyper

vigilant about where they source their meats, their line-caught fish,

their honey,

their maple syrups, all of their raw dairies.

I can can tell when I'm home and I'm eating that type of food.

And then when I go on the road and my choices are limited,

my wife can too, like instantly

feel it.

It's just like we were saying before: when you go to Italy and you have a bowl of pasta and a basket of bread and you feel amazing, you come back here and you have a bowl of pasta and a basket of bread and you blow up like a tick.

Exactly.

Yeah, you blow up like a tick.

But

do you have a hope that maybe under this Maha movement that the subsidies coming coming from the taxpayer will go towards quality foods?

I really hope so.

That is one of my number one dreams, like hopes that we get out of Maha.

I know Robert F.

Kennedy Jr.

is incredibly passionate about regenerative farming, and I know he knows about it.

And also, too, we know that it can be done large scale.

I mean, we have these farmers like Will Harris and Joel Salatin that have these huge regenerative farms, and they all came from the traditional conventional path, and they switched over to regenerative.

And they also provide a lot of resources for farmers that want to switch over.

It's also healthier for the farmers because they're not using all this glyphosate and all the other stuff that so many of these farmers, no one is really talking about this.

So many of these farmers are now getting non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Oh, yeah.

They're getting crazy aggressive forms of cancer from using these chemicals for 20, 30 years.

Exactly.

But, you know, part of the issue is that we need an entire reform of our food system here in America because right now we have, I don't know the exact number, but we have a small amount of just really large industrialized farms.

And then they're just shipping out everything across the country.

And what people don't realize is that an apple that you get at the grocery store has probably been, it was probably three weeks from being picked because

they picked it and then they sprayed it with something in the truck that makes it ripen while it's on its trip to you.

And then finally, by the time you get it at the grocery store, it was picked like three weeks ago and it was ripened in the back of a truck, not on a tree.

Right.

And we're doing this largely across all of our food systems.

So what we need to do is we need to incentivize farmers to go back to regenerative farming.

We need more local farms where we can get local produce from our communities.

And do you think that there'll be a point where we start to subsidize

regenerative farming and sustainable, you know, sustainable agriculture and we actually get back to taking good care of the soil?

Because I see it in

our clinic system too.

You know, so many human beings are just nutrient deficient.

You know, they're vitamin, they're mineral, they're amino acid, they're nutrient deficient.

And when you look at the importance of these nutrients in the human body, you know, how our calcium and phosphorus form hydroxyapatite to create bones, and that process needs 12 minerals.

When we're actually creating neurotransmitters, which form the basis of our mood, that process needs raw materials, vitamins, which used to be prevalent in our food supply, and they used to be prevalent in our fruits and our vegetables.

And now it's just so

depleted.

I wonder if there's, you know,

you know, an era where we're not subsidizing non-foods.

We're actually subsidizing, you know, that would be amazing.

Why can't we subsidize whole real foods and encourage more local farmers to want to get back into farming?

I think a lot of these smaller farmers that are super passionate about all this, they're all getting pushed out by these big industrialized farms that are taking over everything and then they're just ruining our food supply and they're spraying everything and they're conventionally farming and yeah and you're to your point um i mean you talk about this all the time the nutritional deficiencies americans are overfed and undernourished yes they're eating we're actually overfed because we're undernourished which is really interesting

exactly and we're not getting enough nutrients from our foods because we're really not eating a lot of real foods anymore and then when we are we're they're devoid of vitamins and minerals and nutrients that were there before.

And this is another argument for organic.

They do a lot of, there's been a lot of studies and testing done, and they find time and time again that conventional crops, you think that the organic food is lower and devoid of nutrients and minerals and vitamins.

The conventionally grown has like nothing left.

Right.

So at least with organic, it's higher in the vitamin minerals content, mineral content, and still a lot lower than generations before.

But at least in organic, it has higher amounts than the conventional does.

You know, and I think too, that

when you look at cellular biology, these, these deficiencies trace to very specific conditions and diseases.

And it's not like

all vaccines cause autism, all glyphosate causes cancer.

It's, you know, it's this multifactorial thing where, you know, our food system has become so corrupt.

And I wonder if we might even talk for a moment about the influence that the chemical industry has on our

government and public policy.

Some of that's happening right now.

Yeah.

And I want you to bring it up so that that you disappear and I can continue my podcast.

My fiancé.

I always tell my audience, I'm like, if I disappear, open an investigation because I'm really, really happy.

I'm like, I love my family.

I love my wife.

Yes, not suicidal.

I love my family.

I'm about to get married.

I'm very excited.

No, I mean, really, honestly, my fiancé recently was like,

are we good talking about some of this stuff publicly?

Like, are you going to be okay?

And I, you know, I'm very spiritual and I really believe that I came to earth with a purpose.

And my purpose is to help people thrive and wake them up to, I think it's greater than even the food system.

But I think right now, currently my mission is to help people wake up to their own innate power and knowingness about themselves and knowing how to feed themselves and how to take care of themselves and how to thrive.

Because

the human body wants to be healthy.

We just need to give it the right tools to.

And healthy can mean, it's so much more than just diet, right?

It's your mental state.

It's your community, how much sleep you're getting.

Like, it's more than just the food.

But I really believe that I came here with a purpose and I just can't shut up.

So like,

sorry, I'm not going to stop talking about it.

And so I feel like I have a certain question

I know.

He's like, Courtney, you're going to get,

but okay, so glyphosate.

So this is a,

this is where, this is where it does become insidious because now that they, they know that this is happening.

So I mentioned earlier, Monsanto was bought out by Bayer in 2018.

And then shortly after that,

or Bayer, but which was before Monsanto, started getting pulled into a ton of litigations with mostly farmers, but just Americans in general that were getting non-Hodgkin's lymphoma from glyphosate.

To this day, they have spent over $2 billion.

paying back farmers and other Americans that have gotten non-Hodgkin's lymphoma from glyphosate.

The IARC, which is the International Agency for Research on Cancer through the World Health Organization, says that glyphosate, it classifies glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.

Now, meaning that we probably

basically know that it causes cancer.

Yeah.

So this is why it's so incredibly concerning.

And now Bayer knows this, but they are currently working and they're going state by state.

It's actually on the governor's desk right now in Georgia.

They're going state by state.

They're trying to go through their legislators, through their senators to get immunity from being sued if someone gets cancer.

So, essentially, if this passes in Georgia, it would mean that if you or I were farming, or just in general, if we were using glyphosate in our lawn and we got cancer and the research shows that glyphosate is connected to cancer and we got the cancer and we're using the glyphosate, we would not legally be allowed to sue them.

It's actually the same thing that the vaccine companies went for in 1986, which is the immunity shield, where if you get harmed by a vaccine, you can't hold the company liable.

Right.

So that is mind-numbing to me.

I mean, it's insidious.

Why can't we just stop using the chemicals?

But instead,

they're pushing back even further and they want to get this immunity.

And if it passes through Georgia, there's a huge concern that then it's just going to, you know, pass like wildfire throughout all the other states.

Wow.

So we're currently trying to block it.

In fact, I post about it all the time on my Instagram.

I post numbers that you can call, emails you can call.

I'm going to do that too.

Yes.

Yeah.

Give me that information because I will stand with you on that.

So if I bring this back to the consumer, you know, I'm a mother or father.

I'm listening to this podcast.

I'm concerned.

You've sort of woken me up to this.

What do I do tomorrow, right?

I mean, how do I, where do I start in the grocery store,

you know, without really breaking my budget?

What are some ways to avoid some of the most sinister things?

Because we're not going to shift everybody's habits, you know, all the way overnight.

But I think a lot of people hearing this are like willing to make incremental change.

So where does that start with them around the kitchen?

Well, okay, I think first and foremost,

this is, I would be remiss without talking about this.

You have to reframe and understand that there may be a little bit of budgeting and reframing of priorities that has to happen.

Because unfortunately, we are living in a time right now, if you do not make time for your wellness, you will be forced to make time for your illness.

It is just that dire at this point.

And I'm not trying to scare anyone, but I just, I believe in telling people the truth.

And if you know this, then you're going to be way more inclined to actually want to take action.

So some of that is, okay, instead of, you know, eating out for every meal or post-mating everything or going to Starbucks every single morning, how can you make that coffee at home?

How can you stop getting food delivered every single night?

How can you have just dinner out one night a week and make it more of a special thing?

Yeah.

And start focusing on buying groceries and cooking at home.

It doesn't have to be these fancy, you know, five course meals.

It can be something really simple to make.

I think also too, people think that fast food is cheap.

It is no longer cheap.

In fact, I did a series on my podcast called Organic for Everyone.

It was so much fun.

Really?

Yes.

My producer and I would go and we would buy really popular fast food items and see how much the cost of that was.

Like we did Taco Bell cheesy gordita crunch, for example.

And then we also bought all the ingredients to make that at home.

Every single ingredient was organic.

We were buying it from super accessible stores like Walmart, Ralph's, Kroger.

Really?

Okay.

Every single ingredient was organic.

And then we made a copycat of that at home.

And every single time it was cheaper to buy all organic groceries and make it at home than it was to go through the dry.

That's so amazing.

I'm going on your Instagram and I'm going to reference.

reforward all of your videos and

put them up on my Instagram.

And if you want to make me collaborate on them, I would love to help you get the message out because I do this similar thing called lateral shifts where,

you know, I'll take anything that people like to eat and

I try to make them two promises.

One, I won't change the flavor profile and two, I won't add a dime to their budget.

And I had a very similar experience.

You know, so people would go to their, you know, refrigerator and, and sometimes these are on lives, you know, we got thousands of people on and they'll go to the refrigerator and they'll open the refrigerator and they'll say, what do you like to eat in there?

Like, oh, I love this.

I won't say the brand name, but this yogurt brand with fruit on the bottom.

And it's all the individual like peel-off fats.

Like, okay, well, let's spin that around.

And you look at the back, and it's like, ooh, 54 grams of sugar, high fructose corn syrup.

There it is.

Natural fruit flavor,

which means ain't got no fruit.

And,

and, and you say, well, which one of those do you like to eat?

Oh, I like the blueberry.

You say, okay, so what we're going to do is we're going to go to the grocery store.

We're going to buy a quart of whole fat Greek yogurt.

We're going to take a basket of organic blueberries and we're going to get a bag of monk fruit.

And you're just going to scoop some of that whole fat Greek yogurt in there.

You're going to throw in a fistful of organic blueberries and put a teaspoon, teaspoon and a half of monk fruit, mix it up.

And you tell me if, you know, how's that tasting?

Like, my gosh, it's amazing.

Yeah.

And when you actually look at the buying it by the court and the basket and the bag versus buying it in a lot of these convenience.

Exactly.

So a lot of times, like the crap food is packaged in a convenient way.

And so people are actually paying for the convenience

and getting the crappy food.

And I think that's

a big narrative that needs to shift is the expense of convenience.

Of convenience.

I say this all the time.

Convenience is killing us.

It really is.

And we think that it's so, I said this earlier.

It has been so hammered into us.

Oh, it's so expensive to eat healthy.

It's so expensive.

I am not, I'm by no means saying that I think that some of this stuff is not overpriced.

And I know if you really start getting into ins and outs of it, it can get really expensive.

But if you are dire straits, really on a budget, forget the organic.

Okay.

That is concerning and I focus on it.

But like, if you are dire straits and you were just trying to eat more whole real foods, just get ground beef, rice, beans, a big quart of yogurt.

Normally, eggs are well priced.

I think they're going back down right now.

They're going back down now.

I think so, right?

Yeah.

I heard they're like back like four or five years ago prices.

Oh, okay.

I need to, I've been traveling, so I haven't gone to grocery stores recently.

But, you know, focus on the basics like that.

And like you said, get fruit and get yogurt and just focus on eating as many whole real foods as you can and dump all the convenience because it's expensive.

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Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast.

You know, I see too that there's a lot of free apps out there right now.

There's like Seed Oil Scout

and I.

Trash Panda.

What is it called?

Trash Panda, where you can scan everything.

So people can go and scan everything in the grocery store.

And it's called Trash Panda.

Yeah.

It's actually kind of a cool name.

I know.

It's such a cute name.

I love it.

That's catchy.

Trash Panda.

Great job.

And so you scan the QR code on any food label.

Exactly.

And it'll tell you.

And then it'll tell you, it rates it.

And then they tell you all the ingredients that are red flag, why they're red flags.

And then it'll give you alternative options.

Really?

Yeah.

It's really good.

That is amazing.

Okay.

So I'm going to link these these in my show notes like Seed Oil Scout.

What is it?

Trash Banda.

Trash Banda.

It's so cute.

There's another one that will, and I'm going to figure it out.

It's just not coming to me right now that will tell you where your local farmers markets are.

And shockingly, when I look at the number of places where you can buy

locally grown food, nearly every state in North Dakota, you know, I mean, like colder climates, you know, there's a lot of places that have farmers that are that are growing foods and make it available to the public, and there's there's apps that you can use to help you find that.

Yep, um, I use one here called Southwest

Ranches, and raw dairy, raw cheese, you know, their bees, they're their honeys.

I mean, and it's and it's just

amazing.

And I think that we could have a shift.

And I also believe that

awareness is key because through people like yourself, myself, and all of our peers, if it becomes politically not cool to be siding with chemicals, synthetics, pharmaceuticals, highly processed foods, which is poisoning our children, that's a giant win.

And if the consumer,

you know, if their buying habits shift,

then there's no choice but for the market to shift.

Drive the consumer trends.

Actually, during our Senate speech, Jason Karp, who's the founder of Hugh Kitchen, he actually said this and he has,

he knows what it's like to be in those boardrooms with those companies.

And he said that a company like, for example, Kellogg's General Mills, if they see just a 10% drop in their sales, they scramble.

Just 10%.

Do you know how little that is?

Billions of dollars.

Exactly.

But I mean, from our perspective of like, if we all of a sudden just decide like we're not going to buy from their products anymore and we're going to buy from a smaller local farm or, you know, a smaller company that's actually doing right by us, that doesn't take that many people to see a huge shift like that.

Yeah.

And I mean, look at organic.

Organic has absolutely exploded in the last 10 years and it's all driven by consumer trends.

Yeah.

We drive that with our money.

I think people don't understand how much power we actually really have.

Yeah.

And I think that now there's an opportunity because of social media, which can be good or bad, but because of social media to kind of circumvent that system too, to circumvent that media narrative.

Cause it was really interesting, just as a crazy exercise during the Super Bowl.

This year, we sat, my family, and we were just taking note of all the commercials.

Yes, it was all junk food.

Oh my gosh, it's like and consumer does it doesn't even stand a chance.

If I like, I know the Ocembic jingle by heart now.

Oh, oh,

and it's like the choirs back there, like

singing along.

And, you know, and then

you know, the Dorita's commercials are so cool.

But, you know, what I find really encouraging, you know, we just banned Red Eye Number Three.

There are certain states like Texas.

There's a state recently, I want to say West Virginia just banned it.

Virginia

just

banned it.

And so this means now, if you're one of these major manufacturers or distributors and you just cut off an entire state,

they're going to be forced to make that change for everyone else.

We will start, you know.

And do you think that this is profit driven?

Because they've already made the changes overseas.

I think this is another thing that the public doesn't really, you know, Food Babe does a great job at highlighting this,

raising awareness to the fact that it's not something that can't be done because it's something they're already doing.

Exactly.

It's just they're not doing it here.

And these American companies are making these for other countries.

That's what drives me nuts about it.

It blew my mind.

I know.

That, you know, when you compare the labels of,

you know, again, I won't use a brand name, but a box of certain cereal here and the same box, identical box of cereal made by the same manufacturer in the UK or even in Canada in some cases.

The dramatic shift in the ingredients.

And I've got to think it's just got to be pennies per product.

But you know what that is actually?

So Jason Carpigan was talking about this at our Senate hearing, and he was emailing back and forth with one of these companies.

And the issue is, is that they have realized that the brightly colored cereals and, you know, brightly colored fruit snacks or whatever it is that they're adding those dyes into make them more appealing and addictive to children.

And so that's why they do it.

So Trix actually famously a couple of years ago, they took, they announced we're, we're taking out all the artificial colors.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they're like, we're going to use natural dyes, you know, to, to color them.

Well, they're not as bright because they're colors made in nature.

It's why when you see cereal, it's like fluorescent highlighter color.

It's not colors that you have.

Fluorescent highlighter.

It's not.

Mauve and chartreuse.

You're like, I don't see those in nature.

I do not see those in nature.

Yeah.

It's like highlighter colors.

They actually saw a dramatic drop in their sales because Trix was the only one that was doing it.

And so they brought them back.

So this is a large part of the issue is that these companies are digging their heels in because they're like, no, we're going to lose money.

off of the profit of these cereals.

But I think also if there weren't alternatives.

Well, exactly.

If everyone was forced to, then the kids will just have to acclimate.

And honestly, it will be so much better for them.

The reason why they've banned them in places like the UK and Sweden is because they have recognized that these dyes cause hyperactivity in children.

Talk to anyone who's an educator and who's been in the space for the last 20 years.

I can't tell you how many teachers DM me almost on a day-to-day basis and they'll say, I've been working for, you know, 20 years as an educator and I have never seen so many behavioral issues ever in my life.

Really?

Yeah.

And you hear this in schools.

I mean, and you, and again, it's multifactorial.

And I don't want to sound the alarm on any one thing causing everything, but

at some point, these skyrocketing rates of autism, skyrocketing rates rates of childhood cancer, the skyrocketing rates of obesity, it's scary the number of children now that have fatty liver disease.

Almost 15% of our teens and prepubescent teens have fatty liver disease.

I mean, that used to be reserved for alcoholics.

Alcoholics.

Oh, that condition largely didn't exist 50 years ago.

That one really gets me.

It gets me too.

And the, you know, autism, which again is multifactorial, but it's a neural inflammatory condition.

And we know that certain things are causing these neural inflammatory cascades.

And a lot of autism distance on the spectrum is related to the grade of inflammation that they have um and and and the amount of this neural damage and the the exciting thing is that a lot of this is reversible yeah um and i think you know people like myself that had a career in mortality coming together with people like yourself that have a career in nutrition and and other people that have careers in politics and medicine you know we're all starting to realize that, man,

we really need to do something, but the solution is very promising.

Like it's, it's really exciting.

It's not a restriction of the freedom of choice, um, because that is one way that this movement gets attacked.

I get attacked, you get attacked.

Yeah.

Um, is that, you know, we're just going to strip free choice away from everybody, which is not what we're doing.

We're not saying you can't have ice cream.

We're not saying you can't, you know, do all of those things that you, you know, are going to decimate your health but but there's no reason why we should consciously be allowing this stuff yeah into in into the the food system so um you know back to the average mom and dad um you know or you know baby biohacker that's that's just getting going what would you say because i love that you posed this question to me on your podcast you know what are what are two or three things that they could do tomorrow um not big shifts in their budget that you think could dramatically change the trajectory of their health.

I would say first and foremost, do an audit of your pantry and just start paying attention and reading ingredient labels.

If you can do that one shift and start slowly swapping out a lot of your normal everyday food products that you're buying for ones that are made with real ingredients, you're going to be off to a great start.

So I have a really, really simple hack for this.

When you're in the grocery store and you're reading a label and you see all the ingredients in there, you never want to just just look at the front.

The front is a billboard for the package.

They're just trying to sell it.

Oh, and they'll also often have the health claims on there, which is

something else that Max Lugavir talked about that I thought was,

it was also one of those just phenomenally obvious things that I never really thought about before.

And he was like, you realize that.

Most health foods don't make health food claims.

Like, there's not a claim on the avocado.

Really healthy fatty acids, you know, maybe mainly to longevity and a healthy heart.

But you go to the seed oils and it's like heart healthy, low unsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat.

You know, it's like

eight vitamins and

four nutrients, fortified, enriched.

You know, it's

a built-in.

Well, it's amazing how many non-health foods, they have to make health claims.

You're right, right on the front of the package.

So spin it around, look at the ingredients.

Yep.

And I would say the more health claims they make on the front is usually a really red flag.

So you're, you, you'll learn.

Here's the thing.

The first couple of times you do this, you'll probably spend a couple of hours in the grocery store.

Sorry.

But you get in a rhythm and then you kind of understand and then you know what foods you like and you kind of start to understand which ones or just leave until it's a red flag.

You don't have to do it again.

Exactly.

So my rule is if you can read, so read all those ingredients, if you could technically, if you wanted to make this product at home, I'm not saying you have to, but let's say that you were like, okay, if I wanted to make these crackers at home, could I buy every single one of those ingredients in the grocery store?

I always use Simple Mills as an example.

Simple Mills has rosemary extract.

It's made with almonds,

just all whole real foods.

You could technically buy every single one of those ingredients in the grocery store and put it in your cart and make those crackers at home if you wanted to.

Wow.

Whereas alternatively, if you turn around something like Cheez-Its, it has BHT in there, it has some preservatives and some other crap in there.

That you're reading that and you're going, I have no idea where I would find BHT in the grocery store.

Where would I find that in the grocery store?

It doesn't exist.

Wow, that's a great point.

So, that would be something that I would say, put that one back on the shelf, look around.

There's a lot of different alternatives now.

If you're looking for a cheese-like cracker, there's a couple of other brands now that that are creating ones that are just made with real food ingredients.

If you start doing something like that,

that is, you're already going to be off to a great start.

Another one that I love to remind people, real food tastes amazing.

Amazing.

It is so good.

Especially if you learn a couple of things that you love to make, you can repeat those, get, you know, follow some creators online that teach you how to make really simple whole real food ingredient recipes.

Also, you don't have to give up your favorite foods.

We literally had burgers for lunch.

Yeah.

I eat burgers a couple times a week.

That's so awesome.

Yeah, we had, and we had organ blend meats and we had the ground beef with it and we had some shaved goat cheese on the top.

Oh, it was delicious.

It was amazing.

It was delicious.

It was so good.

And this is what I remind people all the time.

You don't have to give up your favorite foods, but make sure that when you're eating those foods, they're made with whole real food ingredients.

So if you can't find a restaurant nearby that's using 100% Italian flour or whatever it is in their pizza dough, make pizza at home.

Make those burgers at home or find a really good burger place that has grass-fed burgers and beef tallow fries if you can find them.

So that would be my second one.

You do not have to be restrictive.

In fact, I have never had a healthy relationship with my food ever in my entire life.

Like I've never had a healthier relationship with it because as long as it's real food, nothing is off the table for me.

I don't feel like I'm like, oh, I can't have that cookie or whatever.

I'm like, is it made with real ingredients?

Great.

I'm going to have the cookie.

Love it.

That's my only restriction is that I want it to be made with real food.

Right.

Whereas before, when I was eating like slim fast bars and stuff, I was literally trying to like, oh, how many calories is in this?

And, you know, like trying to track everything.

And I don't even think of that way anymore.

Yeah, neither do I.

So I'd say that.

And then I would say the last one is try to eat.

Try to eat as many meals at home as you can.

Because when you eat out, this is when you're going to start seeing the additives and the seed oils and everything else.

So try to eat as many meals at home as possible.

I love it.

Courtney, you're amazing.

You're definitely coming back on.

I hope.

We have so many friends in common, and

it's an absolute honor, you know, and a blessing to be on this journey with you, you know, and giving the support to this Maha movement.

I have a VIP community, so they...

I let them know who's coming on the podcast.

And so they're waiting for you, and they've got some questions for you.

So we're going to jump into my VIP here in a minute.

And if you're interested in becoming a VIP, just go over to theultimatehuman.com.

And that's theultimatehuman.com forward slash VIP.

And you can sign up to be a member of my VIP community.

I'll even send you a free box of H2 tabs.

If you sign up to be a VIP, this is where we do live coaching, we do challenges, we have private podcasts.

This is where I really am pouring the best of what I'm doing in my research and in my travels around the world.

So Courtney, I end every podcast by asking every guest the same question, and that is,

what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

I think,

oh man, I have to think about this for a second.

How do I want to answer this?

I think to be an ultimate human is to

live with your soul's purpose and also to

live in integrity and always strive for the truth and to be the best you can for yourself and for your others or for everyone in your life and everyone that you love.

One of the main reasons that I got into healthy eating in the first place is because I knew what it felt like to feel really sick.

I think a lot of people largely walk through life not even knowing how sick they actually are and how sick they actually feel because they have no comparison.

And I went from feeling really good in my home, then going out of the home and eating like crap all the time, feeling really sick, and then coming back and realizing, oh my gosh, like this is what so many Americans go through every day and they feel this way and they don't even realize.

And so I think learning how to nourish my body, take care of my body,

and just to feel better.

And then as a result, I'm more clear-headed.

I'm more in touch with my innate knowing what's best for me.

And I can have better discernment.

And yeah, it just, it helps me live a better, more full life.

And also, I just, I want to live a full life.

I want to have fun.

I want to have fun.

I want to have fun with my friends.

I want to have energy.

I want to do all the things I want to do.

I have so many things that I want to accomplish.

And I think being healthy and taking care of my body allows me to do all of that and show up for others.

That's so amazing.

So for my audience that's not familiar with you, where can they find you?

online and where can they find out more about real foodology?

Yeah.

So I'm at real foodology foodology across the board on Instagram.

I have a podcast called Real Foodology.

I'm starting to get more active on X.

And

yeah, oh, also, I have a free grocery guide.

If you go to realfoodology.com and you just plug in your email, you'll get a free grocery guide sent to you and it goes over everything we talked about today.

And you can just take it with you to the grocery store.

If you're like, what did Courtney say on the podcast about X, Y, and Z?

Then you can reference it in that.

Amazing.

Courtney Swan, thank you so much for coming on The Ultimate Human.

And guys, until next time, that's just science.