The Toxin Nobody Checks For (It's in Your Clothes & Bed) | Alex Clark

Your clothes, your mattress, your cleaning products — they're all off-gassing chemicals into your body 24 hours a day, and most people have no idea. Alex Clark has spent the last year on the front lines of the MAHA movement, testifying at the White House on glyphosate, exposing what's hiding in cotton tampons, and building one of the most-followed health podcasts in the country — and today she's bringing all of it to this show. **In this episode:** - Alex's viral $60 morning smoothie — every ingredient, the science behind each one, and whether it's actually setting her up for a blood sugar crash - Why glyphosate is lurking in places most people never consider: tampons, clothing, and baby products — and what $16 billion in Bayer settlements tell you about the "safe" science - The problem with polyester blankets, synthetic socks, and fast-fashion baby clothes — and why your skin absorbs what sits on it the same way your gut does - What really happened when Alex and her coalition were invited to a White House roundtable to confront the current administration's handling of glyphosate policy - The truth about freshly milled flour, sourdough, and why the last two weeks of ripening are when most of a food's nutrition actually develops - How to clean your air, replace your bedding, and swap your cleaning products — practical first steps that cost less than you think Uncover what’s really going on in your body with advanced biomarker testing for hormones, thyroid, and metabolism— plus a 1-hour consultation with a Senior Health Advisor! → http://mybloodwork.com *Disclaimer: The bloodwork our team runs at mybloodwork.com covers a handful of the biomarkers listed in the guide above — including critical thyroid and metabolic markers — plus a 1-hour consultation with a Senior Health Advisor, but does NOT cover all 25. You will want to consult your primary or functional doctor for the entire list. Thank you to our sponsors! Sunlighten Sauna: https://get.sunlighten.com/axepodcast Manukora Manuka Honey: https://manukora.com/axe Watch The Dr. Josh Axe Show every Monday & Thursday on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@drjoshaxe?sub_confirmation=1 🎧 Early Access! Our listeners enjoy every episode before anyone else! Tune in below and join our exclusive group of listeners → Spotify: https://bit.ly/DrJoshAxeSpotify Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3JDvWcS Pre-order my NEW BOOK, Heal Your Cells → healyourcellsbook.com Watch my free training on how to naturally balance your blood sugar and reverse your symptoms → http://DrAxeDiabetesClass.com Discover practical steps you can take today to start healing your thyroid naturally → http://DrAxeThyroidClass.com If you’re ready to start feeling like yourself again and balance your hormones, take my free class → http://DrAxeHormoneClass.com CONNECT WITH DR. JOSH AXE Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/drjoshaxe/ Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/DrJoshAxe/ TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@thedrjoshaxeshow/ X → https://x.com/drjoshaxe/ LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshaxe Website → http://thehealthinstitute.com Sign up for my newsletter → https://bit.ly/4oE9Jf3 Ask Dr. Axe → http://speakpipe.com/drjoshaxe CONNECT WITH GUEST Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/realalexclark Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/realalexclark TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@cultureapothecary X → https://x.com/Realalexclark YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@RealAlexClark 0:00 The $60 Smoothie That Made Fox News 3:10 Every Ingredient — and Why 6:13 Blood Sugar, Protein Timing & CGM Testing 8:04 Glyphosate: Where It's Actually Hiding 9:04 The Pesticide Liability Shield Nobody Is Talking About 13:24 The White House Roundtable 16:02 The Monsanto Supreme Court Case & Rescinded Science 19:48 Tampons, Clothing & Baby Products Saturated with Chemicals 22:28 Why Wool and Cotton Beat Every Synthetic Fabric 24:19 Sourdough, Freshly Milled Flour & Nutrient Bioavai

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  We shouldn't be farting.

• 0:01Josh Axe?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  If you're passing gas, it's a sign that something is not right in your digestion and you've got some gut issues that need to be worked out. I thought tooting was good.

• 0:12Josh Axe?

  They gave you a smoothie recipe. You took it to a whole nother level and news channels started saying that you're a little bit crazy for the smoothie recipe.

• 0:18Speaker 00

  I do something kind of crazy, which is every morning I make, I think it might be like a $60 smoothie.

• 0:23Josh Axe?

  Wow. You have done so much for speaking out, especially against glyphosate, how it's lurking in so many different places that people wouldn't realize.

• 0:30Speaker 00

  Clothes and tampons. Those are saturated with chemicals and heavy metals.

• 0:35Josh Axe?

  And microplastics.

• 0:36Speaker 00

  And microplastics. They did a big test on baby clothes from Shein. They were filled with lead. So again, trust the science that we paid for, you know, that we controlled. Trust that science, but don't trust any other science.

• 0:49Josh Axe?

  What is the thing that you've implemented in your life that you feel like has had the most profound and positive impact on your own health?

• 0:56Speaker 00

  I think a couple of things.

• 1:10Josh Axe?

  The biggest myth about inflammation and chronic symptoms is that they're all separate issues. In reality, your symptoms behave more like a chain of falling dominos. When one goes down, it triggers several more. And before you know it, everything feels off. This new test completely changes things and I know exactly what to look for. I'm currently offering a simple at-home blood test that actually tests for the right things, targeted biomarkers that reveal the very first dominos impacting your hormones, inflammation, your thyroid and your metabolism. Plus a full hour with one of my senior health advisors to review your results and show

• 1:53Josh Axe?

  you exactly how the Health Institute can help you stop the chain reaction and finally balance your hormones and heal. If you want to check it out and grab one before they're gone, just go to mybloodwork.com now.

• 2:08Josh Axe?

  Hey, everyone. Dr. Axe here. Welcome to the show. Today I have Alex Clark on the show. I'm a big fan of Alex. She has one of the world's top health and wellness podcasts. Today we're going to talk about everything from her superfood smoothie recipe, which is, it was actually so popular and crazy that Fox News covered it. We're going to dive into the benefits of raw milk, of sauerkraut. We're going to talk about her daily health practices and really a lot more in terms of alternative and natural medicine. Alex, welcome to the show.

• 2:37Speaker 00

  Thank you so much for having me again.

• 2:39Josh Axe?

  Yeah, but round two.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  Round two.

• 2:42Josh Axe?

  All right, I want to start off with this because I was on your show and you were on my show, this is maybe about a year and a half ago, and we were talking about smoothie recipes. I gave you a smoothie recipe. You took it to a whole nother level and it went to such a, you know, a stratosphere that news channels started saying that you're a little bit crazy for the smoothie recipe.

• 3:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I do something kind of wacky, which is, I do something kind of crazy, which is every morning I make, I think it might be like a $60 smoothie.

• 3:10Josh Axe?

  Wow.

• 3:10Speaker 00

  And I know this is excessive, but hear me out. So what happened was, I blame you and I blame you because you were talking about with my Hashimoto's, different foods that I should be eating and not eating. And so you kind of gave me some ideas for morning smoothie recipes. And so the bones of it that you gave me was some protein powder and then you said to do goji berry powder and then beet powder.

• 3:37Josh Axe?

  That's right.

• 3:37Speaker 00

  And so you gave me some of those things and then I, oh, and pumpkin pie spice.

• 3:41Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  So I took that and then I added some stuff. So my morning smoothie that has gone completely viral and Fox News has covered it because they think it's obscene is a scoop of strawberry protein powder from Taylor Dukes Wellness, a scoop of unflavored protein powder, the Agent Natura Holy Main Collagen, the Camu Camu Vitamin C Powder, pumpkin pie spice, goji berry, beet. I do some, oh, I do some creatine.

• 4:16Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 4:16Speaker 00

  I do some cowboy colostrum.

• 4:18Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 4:19Speaker 00

  I do a avocado, one avocado and water. I also do aloe vera juice because I've heard that aloe vera juice is really good for Hashimoto's.

• 4:31Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 4:31Speaker 00

  And maybe you know why. I don't even know why. This is just something I heard, so I'm like splash that in there. And then I do a little bit of lemon and I do a, about a cup of frozen strawberries, some frozen peaches, frozen pineapple and frozen cherries. And I blend it all up and it's like 55, 60 grams of protein.

• 4:54Josh Axe?

  Wow, yeah.

• 4:56Speaker 00

  So some health practitioners tell me this is out of control. This is too much potions and powders. You don't need all of this. It's too much protein. You don't necessarily need to start your day with that much protein. I'd like your thoughts.

• 5:11Josh Axe?

  Well, here's my first question for you is, how do you feel?

• 5:15Speaker 00

  Well, I feel fine. I think I definitely feel better than having nothing in the morning, which I was usually a skip the breakfast person.

• 5:21Josh Axe?

  Yeah, right.

• 5:21Speaker 00

  Because I'm filming, I've got to get to work. I have a million things going on. I don't have time in the morning to sit there and cook a steak.

• 5:26Josh Axe?

  I mean, listen, I've, you know, we've hung out a few times together. I think you're the healthiest I've ever seen you.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  Well, thanks.

• 5:32Josh Axe?

  I mean, maybe it's because you have a wedding coming up and you've got the glow. But overall, I mean, you look, I think the biggest thing there is, is listening to your body. If you feel like your body's responding well, I mean, that's, you know, that's the thing. Of course, and by the way, I don't have a problem with doing a lot of different things in a smoothie. I mean, because they're food. I mean, most of what you said to me is food. Colostrum in a way is a food, doing a collagen powder, doing plant protein powder, doing goji berries, doing fruit. I mean, these are predominantly foods. I mean, the only thing that's really not considered maybe a food food is creatine, but creatine is found naturally in red meat and liver and heart tissue, right? So, so overall, it's a just, you know, it's a lot of foods that I think all have a lot of benefits.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  But is it setting me up for some kind of crazy blood sugar crash?

• 6:17Josh Axe?

  Well, I think that's the only thing that you'd have to be concerned with. Here's what I would say.

• 6:20Speaker 00

  Oh, I also do a scoop of glyphosate free oats.

• 6:24Josh Axe?

  Yeah, I would say, you know, you could probably get away with, because you have a fairly, with your body type, a fairly high metabolism. I mean, very similar to mine. So all that being said, you know, I think that, so there's two ways to find out. One, do blood work. You could do your fasting glucose, fasting insulin, and that'll tell you. I mean, that'll tell you pretty quick or wear a continuous glucose monitor. So that's the fastest way, really doing a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor, you would know really quickly. And I would say that smoothie, there's nothing wrong with it if you're working out around that time, within an hour or two of doing that.

• 6:59Speaker 00

  Oh, I'm not doing that.

• 7:00Josh Axe?

  Now, if you're not working out, it sounds probably like a little too much carbohydrates. But at the same time, you know, it's probably likely maybe around, I don't know, I'm ballparking here, 60 grams of carbs. And I would say if you are going to have it, the best time to do it's breakfast. So that's the only thing and you might play with that. Hey, what if I back down just the fruit a little bit? But outside of that, I think it sounds, you know, pretty, pretty excellent.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  I will take it. I will take it that I've got the Dr. Axe stamp of approval on this because it's so controversial. Now, I don't expect everybody to be able to spend that much on all these stupid potions and powders. And I know that's completely unrealistic. Listen, I have a disposable income. I'm not married yet. I have no kids. And so this is just where I've chosen to spend my money and blow my money on this, on this morning smoothie. But I think there's still plenty of benefits. You could do just a protein powder. You could do an avocado and a couple, you know, things of fresh fruit.

• 7:52Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 7:52Speaker 00

  And still get a nice little protein smoothie before workout. And that's, you know, a fraction of the cost of what I'm doing. And that might change once I have kids and I got other mouths to feed, you know? We can't always be spending that much on a smoothie. So I understand. I just want to put that disclaimer out. I know I'm going to get mean messages.

• 8:05Josh Axe?

  Well, one, I just want to let you know, I'm proud of you because a lot of people, you know, I give them health advice and they don't do it. You did it and took it to another level. So bravo. That's, that's what I have to say. One thing that I've really respected about you is you've been on the very front lines here of Maha, helping change things. I think you've got such an amazing heart and our friends like Courtney and, you know, Swan and Vani Hari and so many people in the movement, Dr. Will Cole. And this is something I've been honored to be a part of as well. But you have done so much for speaking out, especially against glyphosate. And one of the things I've heard you talk about on your show before is how it's lurking in so many different places that people wouldn't realize. Talk to me a little bit about glyphosate, sort of what you've learned over the past year about it and even some of the stuff you've been doing on the, you know, on the, on the government front.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, so let me start with this. In July of 2025, it was the very, very first time that I had heard that different chemical companies, they're foreign by the way, were working to pass pesticide liability shields in different states across the country. A pesticide liability shield essentially would prevent citizens, farmers, families, children from suing foreign chemical companies if they are made sick or get cancer or tumors, what have you, from their products.

• 9:17Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 9:17Speaker 00

  I thought this was terrifying.

• 9:20Josh Axe?

  It is.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  It was completely un-American. It was protecting foreign companies over American citizens. I was very upset about it. And I went to Charlie Kirk and I said, we've, we've got to do something about this because one thing about the Republican Party, which, you know, I'm openly conservative, Turning Point USA houses my podcast, that's not a secret. I worked for Charlie Kirk for seven years. Republicans are captured by big chem and big ag.

• 9:46Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 9:46Speaker 00

  The Democrats are captured by pharma. And so what I mean when I say captured is that these different entities lobbying groups, companies, corporations are funding a lot of campaigns for these politicians. And so they're going to vote accordingly.

• 10:02Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 10:02Speaker 00

  And be in lockstep to protect those companies. And Republicans, because you know, we're all about the farmers and all of that. It's all kind of convoluted with, you know, the Farm Bureau and, and all of these different companies that are really just shields for people like Bayer and Chem China. And Charlie had me on his show at the very end of August of 2025. This is like a couple of weeks before his murder. And I was just saying, this is the number one thing that we need to be looking at as conservatives and be wary of are these pesticide liability shields coming down the pipeline. And we've got to start sounding the alarms to people in Congress and saying, we are not

• 10:45Speaker 00

  voting for you and going to keep you there if you are going to protect these companies. Like, like I, and he was in full agreement, was very concerned by this. Fast forward to January of this year of 2026, and we have the pesticide liability shields going crazy popping up in Tennessee, where you live.

• 11:04Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 11:04Speaker 00

  And, and Florida, in Kansas, a bunch of states. And so myself and, and Vani Hari and Dr. Alexandra Munoz, who is a toxicologist and Courtney Swan, all of us, we're all doing the best that we can to sound the alarms on this and alert people.

• 11:23Josh Axe?

  And I put out something and we got so many signatures. It was crazy saying, we don't want this. And, um, but you know, things didn't go the way we wanted in terms of when it got to federal.

• 11:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. So in your state in Tennessee, we were able to kill it. We killed it in Florida. Florida was in particular really scary because what almost passed in Florida was going to be a shield that not only protected the chemical companies, if someone was made sick from their products, you wouldn't be able to sue them. It also was going to prevent free speech. You would not be allowed to criticize ultra-processed food companies or chemical companies. So the Florida situation was really scary and people are like, well, I was going nuts on this on social media. I was calling into Florida news, radio shows, alerting Floridians about, do you understand how anti-free speech this is in the red state of Florida? And they were like, well, why do you care? You don't live in Florida, so this wouldn't affect you. That's where you're wrong because there's going to be a loophole there where basically

• 12:19Speaker 00

  they can say, oh, Dr. Axe, do you have listeners in Florida while you're, while you're criticizing sugar and ultra-processed food? Sorry, we're coming for you. Can't be talking about this. So it was going to affect anyone who spoke out about, you know, these different ingredients or food products, uh, which was really scary stuff. And that would have set a very, very dangerous precedent for the entire

• 12:38Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 12:39Speaker 00

  country.

• 12:39Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  Um, because of course they were going to try it anywhere if they can pass it in Florida. So that being said, we really started speaking out about this. The White House was not very happy. Uh, there were a lot of very angry phone calls made, um, in regards to me in particular.

• 12:55Josh Axe?

  I mean, you guys got like semi-banned from

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:57Josh Axe?

  For, for a period of time.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  We were getting banned from events, um, just told like, you know, for me in particular, because I work in politics, like she's never going to be allowed to be involved in anything political ever again, if she doesn't stop. Um, and, and I said, I'm not beholden to a political party. I am beholden to American families and my future children and their health. And this is what I'm worried about. So I don't really care if I piss off, uh, the current White House admin, the future White House admin, like I, this is the truth and I, it's important to me. I will not be able to sleep at night if I don't speak out about this. Um, now this did end up, because we wouldn't shut up, it did end up with us getting invited to a roundtable meeting at the White House to meet with the president and basically

• 13:42Speaker 00

  everybody that's top in the admin from Susie Wiles to Caroline Levitt and Stephen Miller and of course Secretary Kennedy, to kind of lay out what the problem was with, um, how the current administration has handled glyphosate matters as well as the recent executive order that called protecting glyphosate a national security issue. And, you know, people were very upset. I have never received so many angry messages from conservative voters as I did when that executive order went out.

• 14:11Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  Um, and that's because the president and Secretary Kennedy really campaigned in 2024 on, we're going to look into, you know, lots of things, but pesticides were mentioned.

• 14:19Josh Axe?

  That's right. Yeah.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  And so a lot of these moms were outraged by this executive order. And I'll tell you why. It's because we do have a certain amount of, um, control over what our kids eat or what vaccines our kids will take, right? There's certain decisions as a parent that you can have a say in. When it comes to glyphosate exposure for your kids, there is nothing you can do really to completely protect them from glyphosate.

• 14:46Josh Axe?

  Let me say that this is such a problem because glyphosate, it absolutely disrupts and harms your gut microbiome dramatically. I mean, there's a study that came out saying, I want to say it's like 52% of the microbes in your gut are disrupted. That's half of them of your good guys are, are damaged by glyphosate. I mean, so it's really, really toxic, not only the gut microbiome, to the liver, to the kidneys. I mean, it's been associated with cancer. I mean, so it's really, really not, obviously really unhealthy.

• 15:15Speaker 00

  Very. Um, and by the way, people say, well, there's no proof that it's dangerous, it causes cancer. If there's no proof that it's dangerous, uh, why has there been over 16 billion with a B dollars in settlements?

• 15:27Josh Axe?

  That's right. Exactly.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  Exactly. Don't, what are you settling? If it's not a dangerous product, where's, what is this money for? What are all these cancer cases for? But that's what they'll say. They'll say, well, it's never been proven. That's what they'll say.

• 15:38Josh Axe?

  Well, and what the government came out with is basically, they basically said, hey, we're giving you immunity. It reminds me of the Fauci thing and Biden was like, hey, you've got to like, you, you help, you know, you were responsible for lying to the public, killing a lot of deaths and a number of things, but I'm, but I'm going to give you immunity. And that's essentially what was done by the government and Trump for the, towards the, these chem companies.

• 16:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. So there was a Supreme Court case this spring called Monsanto versus Dernell. And, uh, essentially the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Monsanto, Bayer.

• 16:11Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  And so it is going, it is going to be very difficult to sue them if you are harmed by their product, unfortunately. So we did lose that case. We protested at the Supreme Court. We rallied, uh, we really tried to drum up a lot of media attention, but those, but those companies are just so great at fudging science. By the way, all of the recent science that they do have that Monsanto has put out there, Bayer has put out there saying that, you know, there's no proof that our, our product causes harm. The science that they used was rescinded in November of 2025 because it came out that they had bought and paid for the science.

• 16:47Josh Axe?

  Yes. Yeah.

• 16:48Speaker 00

  So again, trust the science that we paid for, you know, that, that we controlled. Trust that science, but don't trust any other science. Um, so the White House did hear us out. They wanted to know why we were so upset. We laid out all the facts and, uh, essentially we told them, we're not asking for glyphosate to be banned in the United States. We understand that you would have a complete food supply collapse overnight because so much of our crop, uh, so many of our crops are reliant on this chemical to farm. This is really a multi-year, probably 12 trillion dollar process of helping American farmers transition over to regenerative farming, which would be ideal. It's not an overnight thing. Uh, it's got to be baby steps slowly over time.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  That being said, there are certain things that we could be doing in America that would still make these products at least a little bit safer for American usage. For example, Roundup in Europe has completely different ingredients than Roundup in America. Would I say that you should use it at all? No, I would not. Just like I would not say that you should eat Fruit Loops just because it's the European Fruit Loops that are diet free. I still don't recommend Fruit Loops, but the point is some people are going to use it, right? And so Americans should have the same standard as everybody else in the world. And for some reason, of course, these companies cut corners on Americans, but they abide by these rules for everybody else. And so, you know, one suggestion we had was for the, for the Trump admin to come out

• 18:14Speaker 00

  with an executive order saying, we will, uh, say that, you know, Roundup in the United States has to have the same ingredients as elsewhere. Uh, another one was, you know, focusing on regenerative farming, um, ending pre-harvest desiccation. We're like extra spraying our crops with glyphosate in the United States that other countries are not doing, which is unnecessary. That's just more glyphosate exposure. We said, let's just make this announcement. This will be a nice olive branch to the people that are upset about the original executive order, right? Well, um, they did come out recently with an executive order essentially saying there's going to be help for farmers that do want to transition to regenerative farming. That's about it. I'm very interested to see how this plays out in the midterms. So just, you know, as a conservative who works for Turning Point USA, very, very, um,

• 18:59Speaker 00

  supportive of the Maha movement, heavily into the Maha movement. My audience on my show is mostly Maha Moms.

• 19:05Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 19:05Speaker 00

  And my warning was if we botch the pesticide stuff, beware of how these women vote in the midterms, if they vote at all.

• 19:13Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  And what I've heard is a lot of women saying, I'm not even sure that I'm going to be voting because I'm so upset. Not that they'll vote blue, but they're just like, I'm not voting at all.

• 19:22Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  Um, and so that's what my concern is. So it'll be really interesting to see how that plays out. But, um, you know, play, as far as places that glyphosate can hide that a lot of people don't think about, clothes and tampons. You know, when you're using a feminine product in the most absorbent area of the body.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  Those are saturated with chemicals and heavy metals.

• 19:47Josh Axe?

  And microplastics.

• 19:48Speaker 00

  And microplastics. If you are not using organic cotton.

• 19:52Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 19:52Speaker 00

  What do you think that cotton tampon is sprayed with? So that's all really important to know and, and your vagina is more absorbent than your mouth. And a lot of people don't realize that. Um, another thing is clothing. So when it comes to clothing, we have not updated our chemical clothing laws and the chemicals that are allowed in our clothes since the 1940s in America. I believe the only thing that's not allowed in, in clothing is lead. But if you're ordering clothes from Shein or Amazon, who knows where some of this stuff is coming from. They did a big test on baby clothes from Shein. They were filled with lead. Uh, socks in America have BPA in them. Um, it, it, it's astronomical.

• 20:35Speaker 00

  We have this label that we find on food ingredients that has every single thing that's in your food. We should have the same thing for our shirts. Your skin is an absorbent organ of the body as well. So whatever is sitting on your skin, that's being absorbed. The underwear that you're wearing, you know, whatever's on that's being absorbed. So it's very important. Obviously, if you can only afford just cotton, not necessarily GOTS, 100% organic cotton, um, which would be ideal, cotton is still better than polyester plastic. That's also contributing to hormone disrupting, um, you know, endocrine disruptors and all of that going on. So if you can do 100% organic cotton, that would be ideal. Um, but it's sad. This is how we used to dress.

• 21:17Speaker 00

  We, everybody used to wear these natural fibers and then we started to melt down plastic and make clothing.

• 21:23Josh Axe?

  Yeah. I mean, that's essentially what polyester is. I don't think people, people realize that.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's plastic. And if you're using those giant throw blankets that, that women love, they're super viral on Instagram that influencers are always promoting, that have all the fur on them. If you look at those, they're 100% polyester. Now, what do you think happens to those little fuzzes? These are microplastics and nanoplastics that are, are spread all over your home, in the air. You're breathing it in, your pets are breathing it, your babies are breathing it, and you're just covering your body in it. Um, and you know, it's a blanket, so your body is warm and heating it up. And, and, and it's being absorbed. So to think that this stuff isn't adding to our toxin load would be ignorant. Now, people will say, I have a 99-year-old grandma. She's worn polyester all her life. Okay.

• 22:10Speaker 00

  Of course, but if all, when you are taking into consideration all of the exposure of all of the chemicals, um, and unnatural things that, that, you know, we touch and eat and drink and absorb on a day-to-day basis. That stuff is all adding up to, to be harmful.

• 22:29Josh Axe?

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely agree. You know, I think when I look at the original, I mean, it's people were wearing mostly wool. And then along with that, you know, in, in, you know, after that cotton. So I mean, I think that that's where people should be. I mean, I actually switched to wearing almost all wool all the time. I mean, there's a few things I have that don't, that, that are more cotton, but for the most part it's, it's wool.

• 22:47Speaker 00

  Well, remember when people used to talk about, uh, mothballs? Like you would open a cedar chest of wool sputters and you would smell like this mothball smell? Nobody talks about that anymore because the bugs don't want to eat the cancer clothing. So you don't ever hear about moss eating clothes. It doesn't happen because we're not wearing natural fibers.

• 23:09Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 23:09Speaker 00

  And, and I think that's like a huge sign, you know, um, if you're eating things that animals or bugs or whatever, like I wouldn't touch that. Or like mold doesn't grow on it. Like, you know what I mean? Like you have a loaf of bread on your counter for a month straight and like there's no mold. It's not real food.

• 23:25Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 23:25Speaker 00

  Real food, real clothing, this stuff goes bad or, or, you know, animals want to eat it or bugs want it. Like if, if nothing is being touched, you have to wonder, what is this I'm eating or putting on my body?

• 23:37Josh Axe?

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• 24:17Josh Axe?

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• 24:43Josh Axe?

  Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned, you mentioned bread. My mind, of course, immediately went to sourdough. I'm curious for you, what are your favorite health trends that you've seen over the past, past couple of years?

• 24:55Speaker 00

  One of the biggest episodes I ever did was with Sue Becker. She's this grandma from Georgia and she teaches people how to make their own bread with freshly milled flour. She is all about milling your own flour because she says it's not necessarily that everybody is, uh, allergic to gluten. And it's not even necessarily the glyphosate, which isn't good. But the reason so many people cannot eat conventional bread anymore or gluten anymore is really because of the types of flour that we use in America. What we do to flour to have it be shelf-stable, um, the things that we're putting in it, things we're taking out of it, all of that is not ideal for the body. It's not the way that God intended us to eat bread.

• 25:39Speaker 00

  So she talks about how, you know, bread, the Bible says it's supposed to be the bread of life. Like it's not supposed to be peasant food or something that nobody could have. It's supposed to be a very, very nutrient-dense, um, food item on your plate. And, uh, when she talked about the health benefits of milling your own flour, everything from warts being healed, um, to, uh, yeah, she, she says there's a vitamin in freshly milled flour that you don't get elsewhere, that usually when you have a war explosion, there's like a vitamin deficiency.

• 26:10Josh Axe?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, potassium is really high on that list. There's a number, number of other, you know, uh.

• 26:15Speaker 00

  I don't, it's vitamin E or A, but I can't remember which one.

• 26:18Josh Axe?

  Yeah. I mean, it's, well, I mean, they're both important for the immune system. But I mean, vitamin, vitamin A is actually the most, now this is more in third world countries, but it's actually the vitamin that we're most deficient in, uh, across the globe, along with vitamin D. And the vitamin A is critical for immune health and skin health. So that would, it would make sense. And this also reminds me of, you know, when, when I looked at, when you look at all the research on, you know, foods being sprayed with things like pesticides very early. A lot of foods are harvested sometimes one month or at least two weeks before they're actually ripe. And what that does is, I mean, a lot of these foods only, that lasts two weeks or month of ripening is when so many of the vitamins and minerals and the antioxidants like polyphenols are coming to, uh, are really developing.

• 27:02Josh Axe?

  So a lot of these, and then you bring it home and you may not eat it for another week. So a lot of these foods, by the time we're eating them are completely depleted. But it makes, that makes sense with flour too. I mean, a very similar thing where if you're, if you are milling, milling it yourself there right then, that that's when the nutritional bioavailability of the nutrients are going to be by far the, the highest.

• 27:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. And you know, I think a lot of people hear that milling my own flour, like, oh my word, I don't have time for this. They think of it like washing your clothes with like a scrubber in the backyard, you know? Um, and she says, no, it takes literal seconds. You, you just mill whatever you're going to need for that particular recipe. So if you're making, I don't know, cookies, then you're just going to mill the amount of wheat berries that you need. And she's like, it takes like literally 10 seconds. It's just poof, there it is. There's your flour and you stick it in the recipe. She's like, it's not this intensive, long process, but by doing that, you're just giving your body so many nutrients that it's not getting from modern food and bread. Um, so that was a mind-blowing episode. And then, you know, if you're interested in the clothing stuff that I just briefly talked about, I interviewed this girl Hannah Dunning, which you have got to have on your show.

• 28:05Speaker 00

  Hannah is an activist on clean clothing. And the stats and the truth bombs that she drops about modern American clothing will have you, your, I mean, your mouth on, your jaw on the floor, basically.

• 28:19Josh Axe?

  Wow.

• 28:19Speaker 00

  Um, and so that was a super viral episode that I did. And then of course, like, I mean, one of the most controversial episodes I've ever done, and I have no idea how you feel about it, is I had Dr. Brian Artis on to talk about the benefits of nicotine patches.

• 28:33Josh Axe?

  I've got, I've got a strong opinion on it.

• 28:34Speaker 00

  What's yours?

• 28:35Josh Axe?

  So, so nicotine, and by the way, for me, this isn't like, like this is a principle of, I'm sharing Chinese medicine, it's 3,000 years old. So nicotine, it, here's, here's, here's, let me just give this summary first. If you're using nicotine once a month in a small dose, that's fine. But if you're using it daily, it's creating heat and, and it's actually in a similar way to THC. So we know CB, if you look at hemp or cannabis, uh, CBD is known in Chinese medicine as the yin. So it's very cooling, it's moistening, it helps you sleep better, it calms inflammation. THC is sort of the opposite of that. It's the counterbalance to that. It's more yang energy. It's more going to drive heat in that way.

• 29:14Josh Axe?

  So if you're doing a lot of THC over time, the danger there is excess heat, especially in the liver, causing inflammation. Nicotine's the ident, nicotine's the very same thing. It's a stimulant that's very driving and causing heat long-term. It's going to dry up your fluids is my point. That's, that's going to be the big problem there. Now, again, if you do that once a month and your diet's clean, or even once a week in a small dose, your body's probably going to get away with it. But for people doing nicotine pouches, if they're doing it daily as a sort of natural, you know, like you'd use coffee or something like that, you're going to dry out your fluids over time. It's going to cause your, your skin to age more quickly. Uh, it's going to cause dehydration. So again, I think there's this, there's, there's this quote, and I use it for almost everything is,

• 29:58Josh Axe?

  the dose determines the medicine or the poison. So I think nicotine done occasionally is not a problem for almost anybody. But I think doing it as a daily habit, I, I don't, I don't think it's healthy.

• 30:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's fascinating. He, he talked about just how it can help chronic pain issues. And he was talking about, by the way, the smallest dose. It was a patch that you wear on your skin. You can order on Amazon, you get like seven milligrams and then you cut that seven milligrams into like three or four pieces. So it's like a sliver. I mean, it's very small. And he was saying long COVID symptoms that people struggle with, um, or, you know, joint, chronic joint pain, things like that. And I, I will say. I have received hundreds of messages since that episode came out of members of my audience saying like, for the first time, I don't have this, you know, severe back pain or whatever, which is, which is great. I'm happy for them. Now, I've been too chicken to try it.

• 30:48Josh Axe?

  I want to say this though, too, about that. You know how many people could take a steroid and be like, wow, I don't have this pain. I haven't had this pain in years. So I, my point is, I'm not worried about it for short-term use. I'm worried about it for just daily, long-term use.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, that's fair. So I haven't done it, but that's been a huge one, something shocking that I learned. And then recently, I did this episode with my friend, Amy McDalia. She's a health practitioner, and she says that we shouldn't be farting. And that if you're passing gas, it's a sign that something is not right in your digestion, and you've got some gut issues that need to be worked out, that you've got leaky gut, or, or something else going on. And so that was the first time I ever heard. I thought tooting was good. I thought, you gotta have a meal and then walk around, and then that's, that's a sign of health. But she's saying the opposite.

• 31:40Josh Axe?

  Yeah, well, really, really what's happening there is, is your body, if you're, if you're having gas, and to a degree bloating, there, there, there is, you don't have the right balance of microbes typically, or enzymes, to break down the food. And that's what's causing gas. Now, I'll say this, let's say somebody is going from a low fiber diet to a higher fiber diet. Let's say the average person does 15 grams of fiber a day. That is way too low. That's not good at all. You want to be closer to 30 to 40. But when you're increasing your fiber dose, you are going to have gas because your body, over time, is going to say, oh, I need, you're, you're eating more fiber now. Well, now I need to, you know, we need to change what's in this gut microbiome in order to better digest

• 32:24Josh Axe?

  and break down this fiber in the future. The same as protein. Anybody knows that's ever in their life switched to a higher protein diet, knows they're going to have gas at first for the very same reason. Oh, we all have all this protein now, we need more of this certain type of bacteria and enzymes to break down these, this protein and amino acids. So here's what I, here's where I would agree with her. Here's where I would disagree. Let me say that first, is it can be normal and healthy if you are changing your diet and making your diet better. However, it's not healthy if, for, this is just a continuous long-term thing, and you're dealing with gas and blood. So I, I agree with her. If you're dealing with a lot of that over time, your body doesn't even, either have the acidic,

• 33:07Josh Axe?

  the proper pH in your gastrointestinal tract, or it's missing microbes, or you're not producing enough enzymes, that there likely is some sort of problem with that.

• 33:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:16Josh Axe?

  That long-term.

• 33:17Speaker 00

  Another, another fascinating thing that I learned recently in the last few weeks was cradle cap is not normal. It's, that's not an anomaly. Like, it's not nothing. It is saying that there is some stuff going on, probably just that the baby has inherited from you and, and your mom, and, and whatever is passed down in the toxin load bucket. But it is a sign of some sort of disruption.

• 33:42Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 33:42Speaker 00

  Which I thought cradle cap just happens, and that's just, I don't know, stuff that is gooped on the baby. I don't know anything. I've never had kids yet. But that was crazy to learn.

• 33:50Josh Axe?

  We had, our, our, our oldest daughter had that. And Chelsea changed her diet to, I mean, I felt bad for her because she pretty much changed her diet to beef and, and sweet potatoes, or beef and rice, and some steamed vegetables. And that's all she ate. Because when she ate other things, it would cause, you know, it would cause some gas, or it would cause, you know, we had the cattle crap. By the way, topically, for cradle cap, now you obviously don't want them to eat it under one years old, but manuka honey topically fixes that faster than anything, anything else. If, if a parent is having that issue, and you want to know the right thing to do topically, very, very effective.

• 34:27Speaker 00

  So what is it? Because I forget now. What is it that is going on that causes cradle cap?

• 34:33Josh Axe?

  Yeah, so it's, it's a fungal issue. And, and so it typically starts in the gut, right? So I think, you know, doing everything you can to, I mean, the other thing we did is, we did probiotics internally. And, and it's so important for kids. I mean, this is another thing. I mean, this is something I've seen, just chronically over the years, is so many kids today have gut issues, which is causing food sensitivity. I mean, food sensitivities now, compared to 100 years ago, are radical.

• 34:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:59Josh Axe?

  I mean, I mean, so many kids today, of course, we know, and there's other reasons for this, but issues with, with, you know, with autism, with ADHD, with just kids having, you know, autoimmune conditions.

• 35:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, eczema.

• 35:13Josh Axe?

  Eczema is chronic and serious for so many. And, and this is where personalized medicine's really important, and figuring out and finding a practitioner that can really work with families and kids to find out exactly what the root is. And typically, you need to change the internal environment, right? So one thing that, uh, this was maybe the most surprising thing to me, when I first started practice, this was nearly 20 years ago, is that, you know, what you're taught in school, what, what a lot of leaders did for a long time, and this still happens predominantly, it's always in conventional medicine. First off, they don't even think diet helps that much. In functional medicine, some doctors will still say things like, oh, every patient that comes in, I'm going to put them on keto, or carnivore, or vegan, or just gluten-free. What I found is, though, everybody is unique,

• 35:58Josh Axe?

  and we need to customize something for them. So like, if I have a child, typically a child with eczema, in Chinese medicine, we would call that damp heat. And so we need to reduce, and so like, bananas are very dampening, eggs are very dampening, um, sugar in general is very dampening, so like dried fruit, that would be problematic. And so, and then you want to do things that are a little bit drying. Now, of course, kids don't like this, but bitter foods would be the best thing they can do. You know, if you could do some steamed veggies that are a little bit bitter, uh, like broccoli rabe, or, um, uh, anyways, there's a number. There are artichokes and that sort of thing. So I mean, those are hard for, but my point is, is that there are things that will clear out and change that internal environment that'll then help clear up the eczema. But you gotta be, I mean, again, it takes a level

• 36:41Josh Axe?

  of being pretty diligent there. By the way, I remember before we were about to start recording here, uh, so you're very close to getting married. You guys have already been having discussions about your kids. And did I hear something like, you guys are not going to feed your kids, like, you know, a specific type of produce for their first two years of life?

• 37:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. So my fiance and I have an idea, and I know that once you become a parent, things change, and you go in with these great goals, and then, you know, life happens, which is totally fine. But this is just an idea that we have, you know, as something we would like to try to adhere to as much as we can, which is not giving our kids fruit for the first two years of life. The reason is, and this is his belief, so he has put this into my head, and I'm like, I, I mean, I'm down to try, is he really thinks focusing on, you know, substantive food, like, like bone marrow, and, and meat, and, and

• 37:38Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 37:38Speaker 00

  veggies, and things like that, or, or fermented foods, like sauerkraut, um, pickled onions, whatever. It would be better to start a kid liver. It would be better to start a kid on those foods and set their palate up than adding in sweetness, even natural sugar. And he kind of has the same mentality even around music. He's like, you know, for the first few years of your kid's life, like, if you were only exposing them to the greats, uh, you know, of classical music, and, and beautiful, you know, instrumental classical songs, like, you're setting up, you know, their taste for music, too, without adding in all this junk, you know, Jojo Siwa, whatever. He's like, you, you honestly are, are creating

• 38:19Speaker 00

  what their palate will be for foods, for music, for, for entertainment, all those things. And so he's like, if we can, if we can avoid fruit for the first two years, then introduce it in, it's just, even though it's natural sugar, you're getting your kid to just prefer the sweet type of sugary foods over the more bitter, fermented types of things. What are your thoughts on that?

• 38:40Josh Axe?

  Well, one I would share, first off, I think from a philosophical standpoint, there's a, there's a lot of wisdom there. Now, I'm not going to totally agree with it, but I will say, I think there's a lot of wisdom. And, because here's what I found as a parent. So I have a two-year-old and a six-year-old, and then I've taken care of just thousands of kids in my practice over the years. And, and there is no doubt that what they eat when they're one and two years old, they tend to like later on in life. Like, our kids right now, like, like, they will sit down there, and before they'll eat anything else, they're pounding zucchini, and carrots, and broccoli like you've never seen. I'm like, like, honestly, my daughter started having stomach cramps at night because she ate way too many, way too many raw, way too many vegetables that we would steam. And I'm like, hey, we need to, you know, back down because this specific type of fiber is causing you

• 39:23Josh Axe?

  to have some stomach pain. And so, um, we absolutely see that. Like, our kids, they love salmon. They love grass-fed beef. They love, they, they love fruits, you know, too, but they, they love these foods. And they also love sour food. Like they'll sit there and sometimes eat a lemon and you're like, what? Just because they started doing that when they were, you know, or just after one years old.

• 39:45Speaker 00

  So he's like, let's do liver pate, let's do oysters and bone marrow before we do, you know, grapes and bananas.

• 39:50Josh Axe?

  But let me say this, I generally agree with that part of things. I mean, I want to say the first foods for our daughters were things like carrots and green beans. And then we did, I even think egg yolk, we did salmon, you know, we did avocado very, very early. That might've even been the first, that was up there with carrots and green beans. So, you know, and we do, we do a mono diet. We start with one at a time for, for quite a few months and then add a second, you know, every maybe three days or week or something like that. So we had a protocol there. By the way, we even expose our kids to peanuts early on so they wouldn't have these allergies. Cause a lot of this stuff acts as natural immunization over time. That way they don't have allergies. There are actually kits you can get for that. I would say this, you know, and this is a little bit of a ancient Asian perspective.

• 40:32Josh Axe?

  I would want to expose them to all five flavors and have them crave all five flavors. You want them to crave the umami. So even to your point, I mean, liver pate, of course, is going to be in that, that, that realm. Certain types of milk are going to be in that realm.

• 40:47Speaker 00

  Like kefir and stuff?

• 40:48Josh Axe?

  Yep, exactly. So, so I think, I think you're covered there. The sour, of course. Now you can get that from pickled foods to your point, like sauerkraut. You want them to do the salty, of course, that's, they're going to naturally get that everywhere. And then you want them to do a little bit of the, you know, the, the, you know, some savory foods and you also want them to do, or bitter. And then you want them to do a little bit of sweet. Now, of course, they can get a little bit of sweet from beets and from carrots. There is a little bit of natural corn sugar in breast milk as well. So, you know, I would say that, and listen, that's going to be better than what 90% of people do with their kids.

• 41:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. No, I like that idea about all five flavors. I think he'd like it too. He's a big fan of yours. If you say it, he'll be like, I'm on board.

• 41:30Josh Axe?

  But I think if you do, yeah, introduce those fruits wisely. I mean, I think generally speaking, some of the easiest to digest and, I mean, blueberries, of course, would be just a natural sort of grapefruit. Cause you're getting sour and sweet and high polyphenol intake, which is great for the gut microbiome. So I mean, I think you could, you know, sprinkle on a few there.

• 41:48Speaker 00

  He also said, in all of life, our kids will never be allowed to have pouch things. No pouches sucking on yogurt and applesauce and all this. I guess because he thinks there's tons of sugar just sitting on your teeth.

• 42:01Josh Axe?

  Well, let me say this. So two things here, and I've discovered this even with our, the reason why I'm a little bit conscious of food packs as well. There's plastic and even if it's BPA free, there's quite a bit of plastic there. But yeah, I mean, you know, I do think it is, it is higher in concentrated sugar. I mean, I would prefer a whole piece of fruit to a food pack in most cases.

• 42:20Speaker 00

  It's crazy even like mashed banana baby food and stuff, like in a jar at the store, how much sugar's in it. There's all kinds of sugar in this stuff.

• 42:27Josh Axe?

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is why just mashing up the fruit yourself, I think there's an element of it still being better. And so the other thing that I think I'm conscious of that I'm seeing is dried fruit. Cause like, you know, if you're buying dried strawberries and other things, that they're a big cause of cavity because they stick to your teeth. Eating fresh strawberry is amazing. Do it all day, you know, but some of the dried fruit that's fully dried, you're seeing it stick to teeth. And I think this is a reason why it's increasing calories. Now, now, I do want to say this. It's way better than feeding them fast food or conventional fruit juice or eating Lucky Charms, right? I mean, conventional cereal. So do dried fruit before that. But overall, I do think if you're doing it all

• 43:09Josh Axe?

  the time and high amounts and not doing the fresh stuff, it's, it's not quite as ideal as doing the, the fresh.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm into it.

• 43:19Josh Axe?

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• 44:04Josh Axe?

  principles and also 40 incredible longevity recipes. You'll get all now that's $500 worth of content for free. If you go to healyourselfbook.com and get it today. Now there's one other bonus I want to give you. You can also get an at-home blood work kit that goes through cellular markers. So you can actually see what are your levels of inflammation? What's your blood sugar? Are you deficient in key nutrients like vitamin D? All in that blood kit. In fact, this blood work can typically cost anywhere from double to triple this amount. If you want to do this now, it's only $79 for a very limited time. It's our lowest price ever. And with it also comes a one hour consultation. So you'll have real answers in hand. Again, that's healyourselfbook.com. Just want to say thank you so much. I appreciate

• 44:49Josh Axe?

  your support.

• 44:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. So we, I mean, there's definitely some controversial things. I think that we kind of have ideas of like what we'd like to do, but we know that life comes fast, right?

• 45:02Josh Axe?

  Oh yeah, it does.

• 45:03Speaker 00

  And you'll see me and I'll be like, look at all of our applesauce pouches, you know? So I'm, I'm fully aware of that. I mean, all my friends have like five plus kids. All of my best friends have very large families. I know all the goals you go into it and then how you change your mind. So we're not, we're not too proud to, to, you know, admit like, of course, that that can happen.

• 45:23Josh Axe?

  Yeah. What is the thing that you've implemented in your life that you feel like has had the most profound and positive impact on your own health?

• 45:34Speaker 00

  I think a couple things. One, really making a conscious effort to read more than scroll.

• 45:44Josh Axe?

  Wow.

• 45:45Speaker 00

  And I am totally addicted to Twitter. So I, that is a really big thing for me. I love to read, but you can just get in this trap. And I mean, that's what the algorithm is for. It sucks you in and you like can't set it down. Sometimes I have to put my phone on do not disturb so that those notifications are not popping up and I can set it down and I can read. And man, I feel so much better, more productive, even if it's just a fiction book, okay? By reading than scrolling. So that's, that's one thing. Another thing I would say is changing out my bedding to be all natural fibers has been so impactful.

• 46:29Speaker 00

  There is a reason we, we used to say phrases like healing linens when we talked about like hospitals and we would say like, we need to put healing linens on. There is power in, in natural, true, you know, linen and cotton to really heal the sick. And, and I think that I have the best sleep of my life, sleeping on all natural bedding. It's just made, it's made a big difference, I think, than having like a polyester down comforter or something.

• 46:54Josh Axe?

  I'm certainly understand. I mean, one, the mattress you sleep on is incredibly important and the sheets are too. I mean, think about this is like eight hours. You're rubbing against this thing. You're laying on something. I just had Gary Breck on my podcast and we talked about this for a while. It's something like 98% of mattresses are covered in flame retardant material. I mean, that's a whole nother topic that I think is, you know, kind of interesting.

• 47:17Speaker 00

  No, it totally is.

• 47:18Josh Axe?

  Similar to the clothing, you know?

• 47:19Speaker 00

  So that's something I haven't done yet. That's on my to-do list. Once we get married, because I want him to come pick out a bed with me. So I'm like, let's, let's go pick together. But we'll probably get something from avocado or something like that.

• 47:29Josh Axe?

  Yeah, it's a great brand.

• 47:29Speaker 00

  So that's one thing. And then another is natural light, you know, in the morning.

• 47:36Josh Axe?

  Yes.

• 47:36Speaker 00

  As, as much as I can help it, you know, take my dog for a walk, getting out within 30 minutes or so of waking up has been, that has been exponentially life-changing. Just the way I feel. I feel like I'm crazy, but I just feel like it also helps with like curbing cravings.

• 47:54Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 47:55Speaker 00

  Am I nuts?

• 47:56Josh Axe?

  No, no, no. I think, listen, it's balancing cortisol. I mean, cortisol as a hormone is going to impact insulin maybe more than any other hormone in terms of, and then impact your hunger hormones. So no, I think that's absolutely accurate.

• 48:07Speaker 00

  Better sleep at night. And then, I mean, full disclosure, shout out, they desponsor my show, but I'm obsessed, obsessed with my Jasper air purifier. And

• 48:16Josh Axe?

  We have four, we had, so in January, we, this happened in Nashville, we had an ice storm and lost power for four days. I had all the, all the sink dripping, everything went back to our house, turned the heat on, went back the next day and whole house flooded. Whole house flooded. And we had just remodeled it and moved in six weeks before.

• 48:38Speaker 00

  Oh my gosh, I'd be freaking out about the mold.

• 48:40Josh Axe?

  Oh yeah. So, so we were, so we had people there and we, I literally have, I might have eight Jaspers in my house going all the time. Air filters. And we had other big, heavy, heavy ones going all the whole time too. So I mean, we were very obsessed about not having mold. But to your point, that's a, what a great product.

• 49:00Speaker 00

  Such a great product and I won't travel without it. So now if it's one night, I'm not worried about it. But if I am going to be somewhere for a couple nights, I will have a Jasper either mailed or sent to the hotel and then I leave it there and I gift it. I did, I tell the hotel, hey, this is like a really life-changing product. Everybody deserves clean air. I'm gifting it, gifting it to you. If you want to take it home or if you want to have it available for, for people when they check into the hotel, do that. But I just, you know, call myself the airy godmother. So I do that. Or I check it, you know, when I'm flying and then I, and I bring it. But like, if you're going to be staying, you know, on a family vacation for a week, Airbnb, people in my audience do the same thing. They're like, oh, we packed the Jasper in the car with all of our other

• 49:44Speaker 00

  stuff and our groceries and everything to go to Florida. Like, You, when you do not have that fresh, clean air, you notice it.

• 49:52Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 49:52Speaker 00

  But I sleep so much better. Um, I love that my house doesn't have a smell. Um, unless I'm lighting my primarily pure, you know, natural candles.

• 50:01Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 50:01Speaker 00

  Non-toxic candles. That's the only smell like. My team has to come to my place and, and do social media content with me. I, I'm always like, what's my, what does it smell like in here? Cause does my house have a smell? Cause growing up, like, I would always know, like that friend of mine, like her, I know what her family's house smells like. It's like weird. Cause all the chemicals that you're using and, and whatever furniture off gassing and all that cleaning products. And, you know, with the Jasper, they're like, your house doesn't have a smell unless you're lighting a candle. It smells like nothing. And that is honestly ideal. That's what everybody should be striving for. We have been conditioned by cleaning companies. That your house isn't clean if it doesn't have a clean smell.

• 50:34Josh Axe?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 50:35Speaker 00

  Synthetic fragrance. That's not, that has nothing to do with being clean. You can get just as clean of a house. With something that is completely fragrance free, you know, whether that is branch basics or Molly Suds, or I don't know, whatever you're using. Um, I, I am a branch basics, um, freak. So that's what I'm using, but. You, it's plant and mineral based. You can wash your produce with it and literally eat it. You're not going to get sick. If your kid, you know, obviously you don't want to just sit there and chug. This stuff, but I'm just saying, if your kid accidentally got a little bit in their mouth, you don't have to call poison control, right? Like, and, and what people don't realize is your, your cleaning products in your home, even capped. So let's say you go to Target, you buy branch basics, but you still have Clorox and bleach and all that under your sink capped.

• 51:18Speaker 00

  It is still off gassing chemicals into your environment. So without having an air scrubber or whatever, I mean, that stuff is floating around. You're still breathing it in and. There are families where their kid has severe eczema issues. They realize they've changed everything in the house, but they still had a box of old toxic cleaning products. They take the box out, they set it outside. They're like, we're just going to do an experiment. Let's put the cleaning products in the garage. Let's see what happens. Within days, that kid's, uh, skin completely clears up.

• 51:44Josh Axe?

  Wow. You know, the, this is, there, there are numerous studies on this, but on average, our indoor air is at least two times, if not. Five times more toxic than the outdoor air. So it's so funny. It's like, especially if you're in California, no offense to Californians in, in the summer. But, you know, you go outside and you're like, oh, you know, or they have the things like, don't, you know, don't, you know. Air quality alert, you know, in these areas. Well, your indoor hair is like that all the time.

• 52:08Speaker 00

  All the time.

• 52:09Josh Axe?

  Way worse. So overall, yeah, cleaning air is so important. You know, you know what it reminds me of? So when I was in college, uh, this was when I was working on my, my doctorate and I was, uh. Probably a year before I went out and opened my practice in, in Nashville. I went and started doing blood work. In fact, one thing, one thing I did a couple of years before. Uh, in school, before I even opened my practice was, is I went into a clinic every week and I would do all the blood work there and go over all the nutrition consults and the blood work reviews. And I ended up doing blood work on myself and I had a couple of markers that were absolutely through the roof of toxins. And I'm like, what is going on here? And I finally, you know, was able to search online and find, okay, well, what is this exposure from?

• 52:51Josh Axe?

  And it was from dishwashing detergent. So like, I'd be in the kitchen and, you know, cooking food while, you know, the dishwasher, you smell the fumes coming out from the dishwasher. Well, at the time, I mean, I had switched to a lot of natural things, but I was still using conventional dishwashing detergent. That dishwashing detergent was causing me to have incredibly high levels of toxicity messing with my brain, causing low. Yeah. I mean, so, so there are, so to your point, I mean, there are. These toxins can really, really damage your cells and body. And so really going through your whole house. And by the way, it's not that expensive typically to switch over to a brand like, you know, branch basics and some of these others.

• 53:27Speaker 00

  It's literally cheaper.

• 53:28Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 53:28Speaker 00

  What people don't realize is it's one product that does everything. Cause you know, they have their, it's called the concentrates orange.

• 53:34Josh Axe?

  Yep.

• 53:34Speaker 00

  And you just, um, for different areas of your house, so windows, floors, um, all purpose spray for your countertops, whatever. Bathroom cleaner, they just have you fill it with different amounts of water. So it's one product with water.

• 53:45Josh Axe?

  Yeah, we've used the brand. It's excellent.

• 53:47Speaker 00

  So that's it. So it's like, it's one product, taking one space in your sink and it does everything and it's completely non-toxic. Uh, people use, I use it as windshield wiper fluid. You, you can use it for anything. Wash your car, inside of your car.

• 53:58Josh Axe?

  It reminds me of like, so also when I was in college, I had this, uh, Dr. Bronner's thing and I want to say.

• 54:04Speaker 00

  Oh my gosh, he's a weirdo. That guy's a freak.

• 54:06Josh Axe?

  Okay. Well, well, I, I've never met him. I do know though, that there was a product at the time and it was like. This might be overboard, but I did something like brush my teeth with, with it, wash my hair with it. Like it was sort of one of those things that kind of had everything.

• 54:19Speaker 00

  The product is great. So don't freak out if you're using it. Um, he's just a person, like read the bottle. He's also like a furry. He's just a strange guy.

• 54:27Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 54:27Speaker 00

  He's a weirdo guy.

• 54:28Josh Axe?

  There, there are some strange, especially the old school people that were in the natural health space.

• 54:32Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:32Josh Axe?

  OGs there. There, there's some strangers there. Okay. I want to ask you about this. How has getting blood work done? Cause I, I've seen you post and talk about this. How has getting blood work done improved your health and life?

• 54:44Speaker 00

  Well, it just gives you a window to understand what's actually going on. It's like, oh, first of all, before I did that. The biggest mistake that I've ever made with my health. Well, there's been many. One of the biggest mistakes I've ever made with my health was spending. $1,200 a month on supplements before doing blood work.

• 55:04Josh Axe?

  Hmm. Yes. Wow.

• 55:06Speaker 00

  I was drinking herbs here, herbs, this, herbs, that. Who, who knows?

• 55:11Josh Axe?

  Yeah, right. You're, you're.

• 55:13Speaker 00

  You're throwing stuff at the wall, seeing with sticks and you have no idea what you actually be, need to spend money on. And so getting blood work done, testing, you know, 90 plus biomarkers, being able to see, okay. Exactly where do I have problems? What needs fixing or what needs a little help here? A lot of it you can get from a food.

• 55:31Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 55:31Speaker 00

  You don't have to use a supplement either. You can just change some of your diet. You need, you need a little bit more of this vitamin. You need to eat a little bit more of this, you know, you're all about that. It is so helpful and I think a money saver to spend a little bit of money on blood work versus hundreds, even thousands on supplements. I think we are too, we're, we're too reliant on supplements in America.

• 55:50Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 55:50Speaker 00

  It's just too much. It's like overboard. I can't stand it. Um, and so that was a huge thing for me. Uh, other mistakes I've made, you know, flu shot every year, fully vaxxed, birth control for almost a decade. Uh, ultra-processed food exclusively almost my entire life until like five years ago. Yeah, there's been a lot.

• 56:08Josh Axe?

  Yeah. I mean, yeah, five years. You just had a total, you know, epiphany and turnaround. It's pretty amazing.

• 56:12Speaker 00

  I just like went through my pantry with a garbage bag and I was just throwing everything out. This spice isn't organic. It's out of here. This, this spatula is plastic. It's out of here. I just had to do the whole overhaul. Cause if I don't, I'm black and white. If I don't go all in, I'm not doing it.

• 56:26Josh Axe?

  Yeah. You're, you're, you're an all-in personality. Yeah. I've loved, blood, blood work is something I've done with so many, every patient now almost because it's one of those things where. It's test, don't guess. Cause if not, you're guessing on so many things and being able to pinpoint, oh, this is the thing I need is so valuable. And I have more and more people, uh, you know, groups of people that maybe weren't focusing on blood work in the past that are doing it. I have a lot of women before they want to conceive or get pregnant. They want to make, you know, they're doing blood work, especially knowing. What certain nutrient levels are can prevent all the more, you know, the morning sickness, the nausea, of course, it's, you know, better health for the baby. And then, and then really just every group can benefit from knowing what, what, what, what, what are my nutrient levels?

• 57:05Josh Axe?

  Also having it read from a functional medicine standpoint, not conventional of looking at, hey, what are optimal levels, not what are average? Is important. So anyways, I think it's been, um, just so incredibly beneficial that more and more people are doing blood work. I think you want to do the right markers. Cause a lot of these more traditional markers like LDL cholesterol, they're just not as helpful as the more. Advanced newer markers like APOB. But anyways, all that being said, I agree. I think it's incredibly, uh, beneficial for, for, for, for so many people. Rapid fire. Okay.

• 57:37Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 57:37Josh Axe?

  All right. Butter or olive oil?

• 57:40Speaker 00

  Butter.

• 57:41Josh Axe?

  Well, okay.

• 57:42Speaker 00

  I have to say that my fiance's Substack is running on butter.

• 57:46Josh Axe?

  Okay. Okay. Makes sense. All right. Raw milk or pasture raised eggs?

• 57:54Speaker 00

  Oh, that is such a good one. I'm going to say raw milk because I have an egg allergy, but both are fantastic.

• 58:01Josh Axe?

  All right. I, I agree. Air filter or water filter?

• 58:07Speaker 00

  I'm going to say.

• 58:11Speaker 00

  Air and then I'm spending money on glass bottled water.

• 58:15Josh Axe?

  Okay. All right.

• 58:17Speaker 00

  Obsessed with Lunin, by the way. Oh, wait, can I just say this?

• 58:19Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 58:20Speaker 00

  I know it's supposed to be rapid fire. Have you heard about, and I'm not sponsored by them. Have you heard of this company called Lunin?

• 58:25Josh Axe?

  I don't, I don't know.

• 58:26Speaker 00

  Okay. It's a glass bottled water. I mean, they're brand new, but what's really cool, and I'm just like hype about it. First of all, it's like adorable packaging. It's like super chic. And so I'm obsessed. I'm like a sucker for cute aesthetic. Um, but this water has never touched plastic. Like even how they store everything, it's tested for BPAs, heavy metals. There's no plastic exposure. It's like the cleanest water. So I love it. And you know, even Mountain Valley, they're coming after Mountain Valley with heavy metals or something. I can't keep up. Um, I still drink Mountain Valley too. But anyway, I just had to say that. So yeah, I'm obsessed with this Lunin water brand. Even the Wall Street Journal just came out with a post yesterday, at the time of recording this, um, and said like, this is like, this Lunin water is, is blowing up. It's like the ultimate status symbol. Cause it's like the, the cleanest water.

• 59:08Josh Axe?

  Oh my gosh. All right. Salmon or grass-fed beef?

• 59:13Speaker 00

  Salmon. If I could eat one type of seafood, uh, if I could eat one type of food for the rest of my life, it's seafood. I am a seafood freak. Which I know you disagree with, cause I love my oysters and my mussels and all those things.

• 59:24Josh Axe?

  No, well, no, I agree with the salmon. In fact, if, if there's one perfect food, I think the healthiest food on the planet is, is, is sockeye salmon or king salmon. And I think it's the healthiest food on the planet. Yeah. The mussels, shellfish, you, you know, my stance on that from biblical diet, but overall it's, uh. No, I, I like the salmon. It's a grass-fed beef is great, but I love salmon. Well, thanks so much for coming on.

• 59:43Speaker 00

  Thank you for having me again. And you're going to be on my show too.

• 59:45Josh Axe?

  I can't wait.

• 59:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:46Josh Axe?

  It's going to be awesome. Hey everybody. Thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Axe Show. We're each and every week, we're diving deep into the science and principles of how you can heal naturally. Thanks so much to Alice Clark here for sharing just her amazing experiences. I mean, she's interviewing some of the top people in the world. And trying a lot of things on herself, including her $50 to $70 smoothie and so much. And we'd love to hear, hey, if you're watching on YouTube. What is the biggest thing you learned from the episode? What is something that maybe surprised you, something you agree with or disagree with? We'd love to hear from you there as well. And don't forget to subscribe. It's the number one thing you could do to support the show. And share this with a friend. You may just change and transform their life. Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you on the next episode.