127. Allison Evans: Hidden Household Toxins That Are Making You Sick

Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21 and trained in board-certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We're living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system no longer focused on disease management but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world-renowned experts, offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease and most importantly, extend your health span. In today's episode, we're going to uncover one of the most overlooked root causes of chronic symptoms, the invisible toxins that are hiding inside your home. What are the products that you use every day? Your soap, your detergent, your disinfectant, even your perfume, we're quietly affecting your hormones, your metabolism, brain, and energy levels without even realizing it. Today's guest is Allison Evans. She's the co-founder of Branch Basics, which is a company built on one mission to help people detoxify their homes and reduce everyday chemical exposures. In this episode, we're going to break down the science behind the hidden toxins inside your home. How they're affecting your hormones, metabolism, brain, lungs, and your long-term health and the swaps that you can make that can dramatically lower your toxic load. From pesticides and synthetic fragrances to cleaning products, plastics, and personal care items, Allison explains why these chemicals are so harmful, why they're still allowed on shelves, and what you can do today to make your home a safe, low-toxic environment. This conversation is full of practical science-based changes that anyone can make without fear, overwhelm, or perfectionism. Allison, I've been stalking you for a year and you're finally here. Thank you for joining me today on Extend. It's funny people will say, oh, I feel so creepy. I'm like, creepy, I'm the one putting myself out there. You're not creepy. I love that you're following us. Yeah, so I'm excited to be here. It's such an honor to have you. I know you're super busy. You're an entrepreneur. You are building something great. It really was a game changer for me personally and also for my family. For the listeners of this podcast, I went to Houston to do a talk. One of the ladies who was an amazing, obvious health and wellness advocate could not wait to raise her hand and tell me, do you know Allison? I said, no, who are you talking about? She's in Houston and she has the most incredible company because I spend a lot of time talking. You should. You really should. She is like a post-it note for very basics. She is. He's incredible. That's awesome. I just finished talking about toxins and to be honest, I felt like an imposter because after I researched what you do in the company you formed, I was like, I'm not doing any of this. Oh, please. Why am I not doing this? Because I realized is because I just didn't know where to get the options. Someone else was taking care of it at my home and so I didn't really think about it. I just feel that what you've brought into my personal health journey and the journey of my family. Oh, well, thank you. It's such a monumental change that the changes we make in our habits and our routines, they stack up over our lifetime. Exactly. It can completely change the trajectory of where things might have had it. You and I, I feel like we compliment a lot in terms of what we do because I'm trying to lessen the toxic burden of people, but then you're an expert in getting those toxins out and helping the body re-regulate and just amplify and all the biohacking things. Gosh, if we can just marry what we're doing. Yeah, absolutely. It's a perfect marriage. Yes, I love it. We found out last night we had dinner together and found out we have daughters, basically the exact same age, which I think is so sweet. It's so sweet. It's such a sweet age. And they both turned nine. Yes, it's like a month. In a few weeks. So to fill everyone in on what we're talking about here, Allison has created a company through her own personal health journey, kind of the same way I did, to help people detoxify their lives. And you've heard many times in this podcast, me say that our level of toxic exposure is the fourth leg of the stool of foundational health. And the biggest problem that I see when I talk to patients in our clinics is that because this fourth leg of the stool is the invisible leg, people are just completely unaware. And then when people become aware, they become overwhelmed and then they get paralysis by over analysis of all the information. And your messages is not that hard because you change your own life through your own research as well. Yes. Now, I love that you brought that up. And the last thing we ever want people to feel is overwhelmed. We want people to actually feel excited and empowered and full of hope because we have so much more control over our health than we are told. We think, oh, well, my mom suffered from this or all my friends have horrible cramps or are going through horrible menopause or whatever stage of life you may be in. And we don't have to be the victims of those diagnosis. We don't have to have that identity. We don't have to be like the rest just because it's common, doesn't mean it's normal. And as long as we're breathing, we can heal and we can make changes. Yeah, I love that. I love that. And you kind of happened along this journey because of your own family's journey. Yes. And so I love that because it's like you had this reason for making this happen for your own life. And then you translated that into something that benefits everyone else now. And so I'd love to hear kind of like how you discovered toxins in your life and their impact. Yeah. No, I would never have chosen this path. I was not an entrepreneur at heart. We never set out to sell soap. I really, my best friend, my aunt and I became so passionate about educating people and the importance of identifying toxins and the things that we're putting in on and around our bodies, removing those things and allowing our bodies to heal because that's real healing, right? Real healing is giving the body uniquely what it needs and then taking away uniquely what it does not need. Exactly. Versus finding a symptom and giving a treatment or giving even a supplement or a surgery to basically cover or make that symptom go away. The symptoms actually are our friends. We should partner with them and say, what are they trying to tell us? So that's, I guess that kind of leads me into my story. So I grew up in Houston, Texas, Standard American Diet, Soy Formula because in 1985 that was the absolute best my mom was told she could do for me. So I wonder why I had ovarian cysts by middle school and body odor and acne. I mean, I was so estrogen dominant and all the different synthetic perfumes that my mom brought into the home. Of course, now she cringe-ed. She's like, if only I had known. But again, the body can heal. So I had my first period when I was in sixth grade and then I never had another one. So I went to this top endocrine doctor in Houston, Texas when I was in high school and he said I had one of the worst cases of polycystic ovarian syndrome he had ever seen. I mean, you literally could not see my ovaries on the sonogram. They're just full of cysts. And I'll never forget asking the nurse practitioner, can I do anything about this? And she said, no, it is just genetic and it's becoming really common. One in nine women are getting PCOS and take birth control. You'll never be able to get pregnant naturally, but we will be able to help you get pregnant when you're ready. Because honestly, they were telling me the very best that they knew at the time. How old were you? So I told no fault. I think at that time I was about 14. Oh my God. So I started birth control then. That's devastating for a 14-year-old to hear that. It is. And so I owned it. I mean, if you had a white coat and you had authority, I mean, that was my identity. So fast forward to college. I was at the University of Texas in Austin. I met Kelly, my best friend who's my business partner now. And my body started to break down. I mean, at first it was like, gosh, I must have studied or slept the wrong way or studied too hard. And then by my sophomore year, I am riddled in pain. I have neurological symptoms, loss of motor skills. I remember reaching for, back when I used to drink conventional cow's milk, reaching for the gallon of milk and it falling to the floor. I had arthritis. I had insomnia. I was on by the end of that year, steroid injections in my spine. I had twice a day hydrocodone, muscle relaxers, sleeping pills, antidepressants. I was traveling all over the country trying to figure out why my body was crumbling. And I was registered as a student with disabilities. I couldn't sit through class without an ice pack. I mean, when my ice melted, like I had to go back home. So it was pretty miserable. And the only diagnosis you had was polycystic ovarian syndrome at this point. Yes. And at this point now we're being thrown out hypermobility, early stage MS, potential, and juvenile arthritis. I mean, all these different things. All the things where doctors really have no idea what's going on. You thought it was syndrome, you know, just to say I really don't know what the heck to tell this woman. Right. By the way, you know, if anyone listening to this has a syndrome or just a constellation of stuff and you're struggling with figuring out what's going on with the traditional medical route, really we need to start looking elsewhere. And that elsewhere is where you started looking next. Yes. No, that's actually the perfect segue because my aunt comes along and at this time, I mean, I knew her as kind of my hippie aunt lives out in the Texas Hill Country. She actually lives in Hunt where the Texas floods were this summer. And she starts asking me questions that no one else had asked. And I thought she was crazy because she's asking me about my diet. How crazy is that? What we put in our body affects our health. What? Who are you? And but really it was like, give me a three day diet diary. Had you recently been exposed to mold? Had you remodeled your home? So think about all the different. I had recently moved into a brand new apartment complex. We ended up connecting those dots. So I mean, you have the formaldehyde ridden cabinetry, the conventional carpets, the windows that don't open, the high VOC paints. I had just gotten back from Africa where I was taking all the malaria pills and the vaccines. I later found out I had Lyme disease. I mean, none of these things were brought up during my two years of seeing literally the top specialists in North America. So at first I thought you're off your rocker. I've been eating the same things. My hundred calorie packs and my Splenda and my snack wells cannot be causing this issue. My repainting my dorm room every other month cannot be that bad for me. My gel nail, whatever it was. You know, but I thought I have nothing to lose. And at this point I'm miserable. I mean, I'm scared and I'm miserable. So I did. I started changing my diet and I found that even within a few weeks of getting rid of, I don't want to say names, but basically the really toxic disinfectants that I was using, the perfumes, the body lotions, the artificial sweeteners. I mean, you name it. Merrily basically said, we all have a threshold of strength and resiliency, right? But there is a spillover at some point and that can be colic and eczema and fussiness as a baby all the way to ADD, ADHD, allergies, you know, then cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. I mean, this is where you could come in and speak to that. And these things don't just happen for no reason. So I was intrigued because my body was responding and I thought, I'm going to go live with Merrily upon graduation in the Texas Hill Country and see what this woman's about. Oh, so you moved to the Hill Country with your aunt, your auntie aunt. I did. I did. And so I'll veer off for just a minute and tell you Merrily's story because it really just adds so much context to why our company even exists and why her home was so healing. So Merrily is in her 70s. She had two catastrophic events that happened in her life that really opened her eyes to the impact that our diet and our environment play on our health. So one, their first one was in her early 20s. She was diagnosed with basically kidney failure. She was told she needed dialysis. She needed a kidney transplant. She'd always been a really sickly child. They did exploratory surgery. She was a pre-med student in Houston and she woke up from her surgery and the doctor said, you know, we've got to get your kidney out. We need a transplant. And she had this feeling well up in her and she had so much respect for these doctors but she said, I am so glad you're not God. And then I am not a victim to what the medical community has to offer me today. What if there is an answer in 10 or 20 or 30 years? And she basically said, no, I'm going to see if there's another answer within a few days as God usually does. His timing is always perfect. But this idea of using food as medicine comes across her plate. So for 10 days, she went on a very strict and specific medicinal diet and within, so 10 days later, all of her kidney numbers are normal. She avoided dialysis. She has not been on a prescription drug since. This was almost 55 years ago. 10 days. Yes, 10 days. She ended up leading a macrobotic resort that does medicinal food, cooking in Jamaica. I mean, she has had this whole history since then. Fast forward to in her 30s, she has a 10 year old son. This is my first cousin. They live in Hunt, Texas. He drops him off at school one day. He has coordinated. He is brilliant. He is obedient. He's athletic. Picks him up from school that day and he cannot walk a straight line, spell a three letter card. His lymph nodes are swelled up like BBs. It turns out he was exposed to a band pesticide called Chloridane. Oh my gosh. At school, along with other children, they were in the auditorium and it had been applied and then the rain had come up. There was a flood. So she took him to some of the best top post war doctors that treated all of these victims of agent oranges. They've had amazing knowledge about chemical exposures and they said his brain is too severely damaged. He will never regenerate. His immune system is so shot. He will be a bubble child, give him 16 shots a day, keep him in a safe place. He will never recover. Again, that same feeling. This is before we knew about neuroplasticity, but Mary Lee said, absolutely not. I think God, you're not God. My son will completely heal. This is before the internet. This is before any other. Not all she knew was about food. Takes him back home. She was told to get rid of the toxins in her home. She puts everything in a little box, like her cleaning products, her perfumes, her lotions and stuff. He was so sensitive they had to sleep outside in a cot for two years. Under the stars, because every time he would come inside the house, he would react. So one night she's laying out underneath the stars and she's like, God, what is it? And she had this vision of this box. She thought there's no way this is affecting him. She goes inside the next day, takes it out, and it was that day that he was able to come inside and stay in for more than the seven to 10 minutes where he would typically get really agitated. He would have to go outside and he said, Mom, what is it? What have you done? She didn't say a word. So it was that box of all of her cleaning products. Was that box of all of the very fragrant, very high, yes, exactly. And she thought there's no way this really did what I think it's doing. She goes to the cleaning aisle the next day. She's the grocery store and she had an aha moment. She thought, okay, these bottles are sealed shut and unused and you know that smell when you go down the cleaning aisle, right? And she thought the cleaning aisle is that box for my side because he's so severely damaged. He's the canary in the coal mine. He is reacting to the parts per million, billion, even trillion level. And it is literally setting him off and triggering his immune system in his brain. So that was really the crux of his healing. He was able to spend the night inside after she removed that box. He was the first homeschool child to be accepted into the U.S. Naval Academy, graduated top of his class, far from a bubble child, he has three kids, it is mid 40s. So this is the house that I'm entering that summer, right? She had since gone on to become an environmental and dietary health consultant for thousands of people during the time, you know, between him, his story and my story. So there's no fragrances, there's no pesticides, there's no dryer sheets, there's no raid, pet, you know, all of those things. This is the home I'm entering. We're drinking real juice. This is the summer of 2008 when people were drinking orange juice. And she's like, no, this is a kale. This is a machine you put it in and this is the juice that comes out of the kale. I'm like, what? I didn't even know what a kale was, but it was juice from a kale. So this is what we did for eight weeks and after that, that eight weeks in that summer, my life completely changed. So I went in with all the pain, all the medication and I left completely unmedicated, completely symptom free. I went back to that original doctor that I had seen in 2002 when I was in high school. The cysts on my ovaries have now disappeared. He comes in holding my sonogram. He said, what did you do? I said, well, with all due respect, I got off your birth control and I started eating real food and I got rid of the toxins in my environment. Well, he's since opened an entire arm of his clinic that teaches about the lifestyle impact and how endometriosis and PCOS, all of these things. So we joke by husband and I that we've tried three times and got pregnant four times. We had a surprise baby. Incredible. But then, you know, what's interesting is my best friend's story. She comes to hunt with me that summer and we joke that you either have to be sick or smart to get on this train. Okay, so I'm the sick one. I'm being forced into this, right? Kelly's just coming along for the ride. Her body odor leaves, her menstrual cramps leave, her dry skin, her itchy eyes, you know, all of these things that we thought were normal, but they were just common, you know. And the very first day we arrived, Mary Lee said, we need to take off all your clothes and put them in the sun. We're like, what's wrong with our clothes? By the time we left, we couldn't even be around. I mean, our clothes, we could smell all those things because our body had been unmasked. You know, we had been dumping and detoxing all of these chemicals and so we can now be aware. So, they smoked their whole lives, they stopped smoking and they're like, oh, how did I do that? Exactly, yeah. So really that's why we started Branch Basics. We couldn't unknow these things. We wanted to tell people how to identify and remove toxins. You know, I want to highlight one thing there real quick. So you mentioned like the spillover effect, right? And so the way I like to paint this analogy for patients is that you have this bucket in your body of the amount of toxins that you can handle and when it gets too full, it's going to spill over and you're start getting symptoms. Now it seems like to me, your aunt, your nephew, right? My first cousin and then my best, yes, the name. You're all in the same family. So maybe there's something genetic there where your bucket's a little bit smaller. No blood related though to my aunt, but yes, exactly. I agree with you. We are predisposed. Some people have strong constitutions. Exactly. Some people are predisposed to things. But listen, I'm so thankful that I had that spillover early because I can almost promise you that I would have been one of my friends that could not have gotten pregnant when I tried. You know, like I almost feel like I would have just been kicking the can. Yeah, for sure. And my, the PCOS, I never even tried to heal that. It was just a byproduct of me getting out of pain. Right. And so like, you know, like to your point, like a lot of people kick the can down the line. You, I mean, it's almost like a blessing in disguise that you did not have as big of a bucket maybe and then you spilled over early. And then I would say like some people, like your, like your best friend, they're having weird symptoms, but they don't know what's causing it. Like we talked about this earlier. If you're a person that has a lot of weird symptoms, eczema, you know, stuffy nose, like all these things that no one can really figure out what it's from. And then you get all these weird syndrome diagnoses. You probably have a bigger bucket, but you're experiencing a spillover. Exactly. But then some people have a really big bucket. They just don't get any symptoms. Right. Like I'm one of those people. Like I have no idea if there's anything going on in my body. Like maybe I'm just unaware, you know. Right. Still, those toxins are affecting you from the inside out. And the toxic burden for me personally was causing chronic disease. And I had no idea I was causing chronic disease. And once I started eliminating toxins, all my biomarkers got better. My blood does got better. So my point there is that, you know, you might be one of these people that are having massive symptoms like you did, right? From a young age, or you might be- Your detox pathways are not as strong. I mean, if you look at my genetics, I'm like lit up like a red Christmas tree. Ah, so you saw it in your genetics, right? You know, in THFR, CONT, my, you know, lymphatically I'm backed up. And so I was forced to become aware at a young age, you know. But you wonder all the people, exactly. You wonder all the people, like even just my friends. And I'm like, okay, you say you're healthy, but you're taking sleeping pills, thyroid medications, birth control, you have menstrual cramps, you're missing work, and you're cranky, and you're fatigued, and you need that cup of coffee. You know, I'm thinking like, how much have we normalized feeling poorly? Yeah, that's exactly right. And like to your point, like, you know, MTHFR, for example, like if you're, if you have an MTHFR gene disorder, then you will not detoxify the way other people can. I think in Mark Hyman's story, he's a great person that talks about that. He talks about that. You know, I had to force myself to look at these things early and look through his pain has come so many people's game. Exactly. And so the message out to the listeners of this podcast is just because you're not feeling anything doesn't mean you're not having an effect, right? And if you are feeling symptoms that no one can figure out what is coming from, look at the level of toxic exposure. And then, you know, obviously for you, it was like, get your genetics tested. Like everyone should know your genetics anyway. Absolutely. And vibrant, vibrant does a really good total tox burn and test, which is really interesting as well. Okay. Amazing. Amazing. You're looking at your P-POS and your phthalates and your, you know, and it's, it's really again, Kelly came that summer saying, I just want to learn. She had no idea that the cramps, the dry eyes. I mean, we have eczema. We go when we run and we get a steroid cream. We shut the symptom up. We don't, we don't know how much these toxins affect us until they're removed. Right. Exactly. And so that's such a great point. Like covering up the symptoms with like corticosteroids, for example, you're not treating the actual problem. You're just covering up your body screaming. It's like you're putting a piece of duct tape over your mouth of your body screaming for help, right? Exactly. You're not, you're not taking care of the issue. And so it's such an important point for people to understand. And this is actually like scientifically shown that everyone has a different level of resilience to toxins, right? Exactly. It has to do your microbiome. It has to do your genetics. It has to do with other predisposing chronic diseases you might have. Yes. All of these things add up to some level of resilience. Exactly. Well, your audience is so smart. So maybe we go into this for a second because some people say, well, okay, how are they actually affecting me? Like I don't feel them. They're all around me. And I'm like, okay, so science shows government hasn't quite caught up to science, right? Because the government allows these things. And so we think that they're safe because why in the world would they be on the shelves? That's the biggest problem. Let's look at history, right? I mean, pregnant women were told they could smoke. Yeah. We had asbestos. We had x-rays used for shoe fitting devices, you know, thalidomide. I mean, all the things that we have said were okay. But in the end, science shows that these toxins are causing oxidative stress. They are damaging our DNA. They are reducing glutathione. I mean, when you look at people that are living the longest that have the least amount of disease, they have the highest amounts of glutathione. They displace our bodies or minerals. So like take lead, for instance, you know, we think, oh gosh, like, I don't have lead paint. Well, first of all, lead, you can be exposed to lead in so many different ways besides just lead paint, right? As an example, lead paint paint, as you know, displaces calcium. So whatever enzyme needed that calcium, you now have lead, you have the lead that is attaching to that receptor site and throwing off all of those things. The same thing with synthetic fragrances. We know I had to come up with an acronym because I was like, gosh, these things do so much damage. So I came up with the acronym ocean. Okay, they're obesogens. They can literally cause us to store fat. They are, let's see, C, they are carcinogens. They are endocrine disruptors. They are asmogens. They can literally trigger asthma and they are neurotoxins. So when you have a house full of these scented candles and you have dryer sheets and when you think about your laundry, you don't escape your laundry. So whatever you're washing your kids clothes in there, it is in systemically in their bloodstream, right? And they go to school and they can't focus. They can't behave and we're putting them on, you know, ADD medication. What if all the candles that we're burning in our homes, the dryer sheets, the fabric softeners, what if we actually took science for what it says? And it's showing that these are neurotoxins that affects behavior, it affects the gut, you know, and when we remove these things, the amount of stories we hear from parents where all of a sudden their kids are able to cut back on medication, they're being more respectful. They are not as hyperactive, you know, the mom does a cleanse because her child is having some issue, but then she, you know, by default loses 11 pounds, calls Mary, why am I losing weight? Well, because your body doesn't have to sequester these toxins anymore. You know, I mean, our bodies are so amazing created by God. And we actually will create fat cells to sequester toxins from our vital organs, you know, and so all of these things again, that I mean, I'm kind of going off and this is I've kind of gone off on a tangent, but it just shows you that they are affecting all of us in some way. Yeah, I love your analogy. I mean, your acronym, Ocean, right? I'm like, it's an ocean of problems. It's an ocean of problems. So let's just go through that one more time. So these toxins, we're going to go over all the toxins here in a little bit and then where you can find them, but they cause obesity, obesity. They cause cancer. We always say we go, is your shower curtain making you fat? Because think about the valley in the BPA. I mean, it's an extreme comet, but, you know, anyway. So true, though, right? It's so true. And it's plastic, too. Right. Totally. Yeah. And then you're heating it up and all that microplastic. Yes. OK, so obesity, cancer, right? Yes. Endocrine disruption, that's a really important one that we should highlight for you would manifest it as PCOS. They can be endometriosis. Endometriosis. Early breast-butting. Right. Right. Girls that are, you know, moms calling us their six-year-old has pubic hair and they wonder why she gets rid of all the fragrances in our room and the pubic hair falls out in six weeks. So I wanted to talk about that because it can increase and mimic estrogen but really decrease testosterone, too. Right. So men have low testosterone now early in life, like, you know, adolescents when your testosterone is supposed to be like skyrocketing. Right. We see really low testosterone levels even in like 20-year-olds. What's that study? It shows a chart where the higher the BPA, the lower the sperm count and the inverse relationship. And I think it was, I think it said that the top 10% highest BPA when taken in this mass study of men correlated with zero sperm. I mean, when we think about infertility, we were blaming the women. I know. I think A-5, you know, takes two to tango. It really does. I mean, I think now when I talk to fertility doctors, it's so amazing to me because they do realize that fertility is definitely a male and female problem. Equally now. It's 50-50. But also there's still a lot of learning that needs to be done as far as like how does toxin exposure expect fertility? And so that's like a massive point to bring up. So if you're having trouble getting pregnant, you know, whether you're a male or a female really look into how many toxins you're exposing. That endocrine disruption is critical. Exactly. And it's only going to support whatever path you take. Let's say you're doing in vitro or IVF, like there is zero judgment. I'm not saying go and live in a hippie farm and just like wait till you get pregnant. Right. But whatever path you choose by removing toxins from your home, you are only, it's a catalyst for healing. You're only supporting yourself. There's no negative impact. And the beautiful thing is there's so many amazing alternatives these days. There are lotions. There's mascara. There's candles. There's, you know, swaps for snacks. There's good oils. I mean, it's so many companies are rising up and doing it right. Why not take advantage of that? 100%. And so, by the way, it's a lot cheaper to do that than it is to get IVF. Oh, don't even talk to me about the cost. I mean, that's one thing people will think, well, it's so expensive. And I'm like, it is proof it's in the pudding. You're going to pay for this. It's much more expensive to not do this for sure. And by the way, you know, when you look at, for example, branch basic products compared to other products, we're saving money at our house. Right. So I want to talk about that a little bit later, but what was the A again in ocean? Asthmogens. Asthmogens. I mean, gosh, now there's something. Think about, you know, we do this thing called the 10 day stay at Branch Basics. It's basically this on boots on the ground experiment where we remove someone from their environment for 10 days. Okay. We divorce them from their clothes. We give them all, you know, organic cotton, washed in Branch Basics. We put them either in a hotel. We recently did one at Calv-E, the spa. Oh, cool. I love this. And we cleaned their room with Branch Basics. We give them all Branch Basics approved body care and skincare products that eat an all organic dye for 10 days. Okay. Day one, we take their urine. Day 10, we take their urine. The results are wild. I mean, we have things like 97% decrease in BPA. These are transient chemicals. We don't need to be scared that for entire lives we've been using them. As soon as we stop using them, our bodies, unless it's basically PFOS, but, which are forever chemicals, but most of these chemicals are transient pesticides. A body wants to get rid of them. They do and they run a retomio stasis. So they're going to dump them through our urine, through our sweat, through our bowels. If our women, we get to have our blood, breast milk, whatever thing is going to come out of our bodies, those chemicals are going to dump. Yeah. And so, I mean, we're seeing in these, this urinalysis, you know, between basically 85% and to 97% decrease in phthalates, total VOCs, the total toxic burden. But what's amazing is back to the asthma gym point. This one woman that did it, who's now become the director of our social media, because she was like, that's it. I'm selling everything in my life and just jumping on the branch basics train. She had been on an inhaler five to seven times a day since she was five years old. When she came to the branch basics, 10 day stay, she was 39. Okay. Day two, she was off her inhaler. She has not taken it since. Wow. So what she thought was asthma. Yeah. We believe were all the synthetic fragrances that she was using. Yeah. And I mean, we have story after story, people who couldn't climb the fly to stairs without using their inhaler or had anxiety. And then once they did the 10 day stay, they're like, I don't even know I had anxiety. And I thought I'd always had asthma, you know, but I'm not anxious anymore. And all of a sudden I don't need my inhaler. So what, again, what are we thinking is genetic or owning as our identity from a diagnosis from an early age that we don't actually have to deal with? So I grew up with asthma myself. Okay. And it really was a major Achilles heel in my life because I couldn't do sports. Totally. I would be scared to get into a run, you know, because if I have an asthma attack, how embarrassing is that? And I just remember like it was such an. Well, the emotional toxins that come from that. Right. Exactly. It just, just a lack of confidence and all of that. And, you know, it was crazy to me because when I moved away from home and I went to college, my asthma went away. Hmm. And I really believe we were using a lot of toxin. My parents were really, really like forceful about us cleaning our rooms, right? We had to keep our rooms clean. Yes. And that included using the myriad of sprays that you buy, you know, there's a spray for your windows and then there's pledge spray. Surface and carpet. We use so much pledge. Yeah. And they say, I think they say after a conventional clean, your home indoor air is up to a thousand times more toxic. Now, what is the irony of that? I know. We bring these products in to create a safe environment and they're actually the thing that is undermining our health. And destroying our health. So I moved to college. I didn't clean like that anymore. Right, right, right. And so I was like, I'm not buying pledge. He's dirty, but not sick. Exactly. And I got better at my asthma when I stopped using my inhaler. It was crazy. And I'm like, and I remember now, like now, if you, if I'm around any pledge, because we use a ton of pledge, I get asthma. I'm like, it has to be that. That's your achilles heel, that trigger. Right. And for years as a teenager, I suffered with this and I had to leave the house and the cleaning products to get better. And so I just think like, you know, if you have a child or if you're suffering for asthma, like this is the problem is not that you have asthma as a diagnosis. Like this is not something that is a medical issue that is something that you're going to live with for the rest of your life or you're born with. You know, I think for most people, there is a trigger and you have a amount of resilience and you move the triggers and you get under your resilience level and it can get a lot better. Exactly. It's not true for everybody. It's not true for everybody. Our choice is pull the trigger. So of course our genetics are at play. I think it's so important to have your, you know, genomics like there and you know what your Achilles heels are. But we can be predisposed to something, but the science of epigenetics actually proves, really it's the science of hope. It proves that our choices are so powerful. They can turn on and off genetic expression. I mean, I'm preaching to know about the flood. You get this, but I mean, who was it? Ben Lynch that wrote Dirty Jeans. Yep. And it's actually so promising, you know, because if you look at my jeans and my kids' jeans, like my daughter, who's the same age as your daughter, she on paper, according to her genetics, does not have a good stack. She does not have. I mean, if you were to just look at her genetics, you would think this is a sickly child. There's no way she is not on, you know, total like learning disability. You know, issues, and eczema and all the things. And yes, she doesn't suffer from any of it. Not one of those genes has actually manifested. And but when we kind of veer off of our diet, if we're traveling, if she's not sleeping well, she's been exposed, pink eyes, one of her things that comes up, her eyes start getting red and eczema will flare. So those are her red flags, you know, and her genetics actually will speak to that. So it's really wild. And my second child, her genetics shows me that she's really susceptible to food dies and sugar and stuff like that. So we are, we have a hard no when it comes to food dies in our home, they're banned in Europe and they're banned in my house, you know, until the U.S. can figure it out and knock them all out of the country. But I see with her, you know, my oldest daughter versus her, they can eat the same sugary treat. My younger one is going to go berserk, climb up the walls, you know, I'm not going to punish her for that. She can't help herself. So what I do is the most loving thing I can do is put boundaries to her freedom with her diet. You know, people say, oh, that's so restricting or don't your children feel weird. No, no, no, they feel the way that they're made to feel. They feel in control. They feel focused, you know, and she actually starting around five or six years old, she, it's like she knows what her body needs and what it reacts to. So. Yeah. And you teach kids this early, like in our house, we do the same thing. And they grow up not craving, you know, really colorful food with food dyes. Like our kids could care less if they have like, you know, a colorful cereal or something. Absolutely. Like their mind doesn't. Highly palliative foods where there are so many natural flavorings, which really is kind of an MSG, but they're, they're such extreme taste. And so when my kids do have that, like a birthday party, they're like, I don't even like that, you know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I, I, you know, I'm not bragging about my kids. It's hard not to brag about it because I'm so proud of them. So they'll go to a birthday party and most of the time, like they won't even like want the cake and they won't want all the, they go trick or treating it Halloween, did any of their candy because they don't just don't have a taste of it. They eat some of it, but they're little, but they don't have a taste for it. You know, and they don't, they don't mind it. Hi, Dr. Shaw here. I want to take a minute to talk to you about cellular health. So in my clinics, I've actually seen 30 year old people with cells that look like they're pushing retirement. And I've also seen 60 year olds with cells that look like they're 40 years old. So what's the difference? It's really about how fast their telomeres are breaking down. Your cells, you see, are like phones and they have limited cell phone battery. Poor sleep, stress, processed foods, all of these things can drain that battery way faster than it should. So this is the reason why I partnered with IMA. IMA powers that cellular battery. It's not just another multivitamin. It's a comprehensive 92 ingredient formula designed specifically for cellular health and longevity. I'm talking 900 milligrams of vitamin C. That's like 20 oranges worth of DNA protection. The clinical dose of CoQ10 that you need to power your cellular engine. You also get zinc, selenium, vitamin E, alfalfa, and poc acid. All of these works synergistically for cellular repair and protecting your telomeres. So instead of taking a handful of pills every day and all these supplements, IMA actually gives you everything that you need in one scientifically formulated system. And this isn't just a theory anymore. IMA had partnered with Oxford University, the International Space Station, San Francisco Research Institute, and they've done studies and they've gotten this NSF certified to truly power your health. Most people are aging twice as fast as they should, unfortunately. You don't have to be one of them. Try IMA. I actually have a discount secured for you if you go to drshaw.com. Slash IMA or go to imahealth.com. Slash discount slash drshaw and you can get 20% off with my discount code drshaw. You can also find the link below. Okay, so this is such great information. I want to highlight one thing real quick. You said there is a urine test for toxins. I think this is a game changer. It is. So I actually, we do it for our patients here at Next Health and My Clinic on our patients because we want to know 90% of the time that people getting the test have no idea that they had exposure to these toxins. So then it's kind of like the impetus to start working on toxic exposure. Exactly. The second thing I did was because I feel that it should be available to everybody. So I put on my website at drshaw.com slash tox kit. Okay. This is so good to know. Yeah. So people can go to my website and get one of these direct to consumer to your home and it's a urine sample. She just peen a little thing. I took mine three days ago. Once a year I do it through Vibrant. Well, now I'm going to switch to you. I'm going to put your link to yours. This is awesome. Oh, amazing. Thank you so much. Yeah. So I really like it because then we have a health coach get on the phone with you and tell you how to start avoiding the toxins and what it's kind of confusing because most people aren't used to reading like all these hundred chemical names or what they are. Right. It can be overwhelming. You really do need someone to kind of help quarterback your care there. Absolutely. And you'll be very happy to know I also have a free guide to removing toxins from your life in 52 weeks. That's at drshaw.com slash toxins and Branch Basics is in there with a link to your website. I love that. Yeah. I give it to everybody. Like I go all over the country speaking to audiences. I tell everyone like this is such an important thing and here's a free guide to do it because you know all the things that you can do most of them are free that to remove toxins from your life. I'm so glad you're bringing this up because people will say well I'm just not. I don't have the means to live this healthy life. I'm thinking no it doesn't. Sure the infrared saunas and the hyperbaric chambers and the IVs and all these different add-ons and ways to biohack. I mean of course they're amazing and they have a place and I wish that everyone in the world had access to them. But honestly I would rather see people go home get back to basics remove all of these toxic chemicals remove the dryer sheets the pesticides the life shampoos the synthetic fragrances like all of the body lotions the hotel samples that you collect I'd rather those be removed from your home than pile on a bunch of expensive treatments but keep your home toxic. Yes. Right I mean it's crazy open your windows take your shoes off and free medicine is everywhere and it's really the most powerful thing you can do and then start up regulating and biohacking and putting these add-ons. I even tell people don't even biohack if you're not going to remove the toxins from your environment. It's a waste of time. You're running on a treadmill. You're not getting anywhere. You're not getting anywhere. Exactly. It's waste of time and money. So that's really important and I think not you don't have to do a urine test for toxins but it is good to know that way you know kind of where to focus your attention but in reality there's some simple things that everyone can do at their home that will really really make a major difference. Yes. Obviously like that's where let's give people take home maybe top 10 things that you can do at home let's try to think about what those are. Yes. Maybe we go from like free to you have to start spending a little bit of money right. Can we do that exercise? Let's do it. All right. Like I said I send branch basics out to so many people. I mean if you're my Uber driver if you're stuck with me in a carpool line you're getting a branch basic start okay. But I tell people please do not go set this next to your I never name names but the disinfectant wipes and these brands that are very smelly and have been around forever because again you're just it's like you're canceling them out you know I'd rather you see remove these toxins from your home that are creating a low level chemical soup in your home's air by doing that your entire family has gotten a liver cleanse and they don't even know about it. Right. You know you don't need to go crazy and put your whole family on a parasite cleanse if you're going if you're still using toxic dryer sheets. Exactly. You know I mean so number one is pesticides they are they are the number one under minor of our health they seek lipid dense areas what is the fattiest area of our body our brain. I mean there's study after study after study showing that they are they're they don't belong inside of the home when we introduced toxins into the home there was a 28% increase in childhood cancer anything with the word side at the end the suffix side side means to kill. So you have your like I said your life shampoos your roach killers your ants you know sprays whatever it may be all of those pesticides but not only that the conventional cleaning products that actually contain EPA registered pesticides so if it's a disinfectant and it's not alcohol-based you can be pretty darn sure unless it's something like force of nature which is awesome that it has an EPA registered pesticide in it. So this is a really key thing for people to hear today if you take away one thing it is that removing these things can can really change the health of your whole family so when we're attacking germs and viruses in the home we should be removing them with a plant-based surfactant a mild soap we can even use things like hydrogen peroxide and high-proof alcohol just go to the bar you probably have everything you need to remove germs exactly alcohol you have there but you do not ever need to have a conventional disinfectant in your home okay there is no need for it when we use them as sanitizers we're decimated the microbiome not of not only of our hands but it's it's systemic it gets inside your body and it creates dysbiosis it creates allergies so get all of those harsh disinfectants out of your home the pesticides next I would say a synthetic fragrances so again I've said it a million times but the bath bombs the you know synthetically fragrance candles all the laundry products that have synthetic fragrance I mean I have three daughters they come home with scratch and sniff stickers for doing a good job you know the shoes now some of those jelly based shoes are smelly I'm like get these things out of the house yes can we also get people replacements too like let's talk about that so number one was pesticides yes and we had a ton of pesticides at our home roach killers and ant killers we live in Malibu you know they when it gets hot out they all come in absolutely but then it's like oh you know what do we do about these hands I love that question okay so we have actually an entire pdf on our website it is free and it is it lists pests in alphabetical order oh wow okay and we have for roach spray for instance I mean listen I live in Houston Texas we got roaches we got those big old water roaches but if you mix equal parts cornmeal boric acid and powdered sugar mix it up in a jar put it in little water bottle caps throughout your home you know underneath your fridge and stuff it will take those things away so I mean that's just one example that's awesome you guys to maceous earth I mean there's so many things that we can do integratively to approach pests without just killing peppermint too peppermint that's incredible they hate it so that's what we do we just got a peppermint we just got a water bottle peppermint and water and we spray that anytime the ants come in yes they hate it they don't come in there are so many things that you can do without and then you almost look like peppermint and not roach spray and ant spray right exactly exactly okay so pesticides is number one I want to say I just want to say one quick thing about pesticides also if your gardener that you have or say you live on a golf course is using pesticides for the grass and the plants definitely talk to them about changing to a non-toxic form of whatever they're using there recently was a study published about be aware of this the rate of Parkinson's goes up like like by 30% or exponentially when you live closer to golf course yes my aunt Maryl actually has worked with a few men one story in particular where he his Parkinson's and Alzheimer's it was so bad but he was he was basically a lifetime golfer and so he kept him off you know the golf course because he was just so disabled from it and once he got off that golf course started working with Maryl removing the pesticides from his home almost all of his symptoms went away now did he go back and play golf I don't know but it's it's it is a sad thing and listen the alternatives that they say are non-toxic which are basically the permethrin based pesticides are not much better and I do think there's going to be a day when those are banned right now they're touted as safe they're in the mosquito misters in my next door neighbor's yard she says oh they're just permethrin based you know they're like spraying my kids in the face and I'm like oh my gosh just permethrin based I'm like this is going to be the next name it as best as fill in the blank you know we're just not there yet so right and you know you and I talked about this was worth mentioning on the podcast is don't think the government is there to save you from these things it's actually doing the opposite they're allowing everything out into the environment yes there's no precautionary principle none yeah they have that in Europe but we don't have anything in the U.S. totally we have tort law they're basically saying okay you're mad you're you know in your sue us well it's a David Glyde story right you know their pockets are so deep we can't rely on tort law we can't rely on the government to advocate for our children and they just pass a law I think protecting Monsanto from lawsuits right and so I mean it's even worse than tort law like you really can't do anything which is really ridiculous except I have a couple patients that found we found a ton of glyphosate actually in their urine yes and they both lived at the same golf course here in LA and they went to the they went to the people that run the you know run the country club and showed them this and they did their research and they found out it was coming from the people that are grounds keeping and they demanded a change they all all the members got together I would love to know the alternative that they're using yeah I don't know what it is but something changed and and they were really happy about it because of their the group came together that gives me so much hope I love that because I know there's alternatives it's just a matter of how do we get that in the mass market and accepted by you know places like country clubs yeah I think number one is being aware number two like obviously this country club didn't want to lose this membership totally I get there side I do you know you understand when you do something a certain way for so many years and you're making money and members are relying on it I mean listen you you you're kind of between a rock and a hard place but the country club didn't even know like the people running the country club they were just as alarmed like wait what are you talking about yes and so they all got together made a change so I think it's awareness is critical here right yes so okay so number one was pesticides number two was household cleaners and I learned something really incredible from you which was you know we went to the story by furniture cleaner and a glass cleaner and then you know bathroom cleaner like all these cleaners we need a different cleaner for every different job it's not true right it's not true I mean when I'm on the other side of it it's like Wizard of Oz like a peek behind the curtain you're like okay guys like the game's up I mean it's just they're not that you're oven cleaner your toilet bowl cleaner are not that different I mean in the end it's it's a bottle of water that has some drops and some toxic chemicals and preservatives and for so many years we relied on saponified plant oils lie you know now we have these more gentle surfactants like products like range basics and there's other companies that are doing I mean even like Dr. Bronner's you know you have the concentrated soap like this is how even the CDC has said during COVID removing germs is way more effective than killing because what people don't realize is when we disinfect if you read the fine print your disinfecting product only works after a surface has actually been cleaned so first you're supposed to clean then you're supposed to spray the disinfectant and then there is a dwell time well we just get our disinfectants out we spray and we just think it's all done spray and wipe done exactly not even doing his job exactly and let's say it does do its job and it kills 99% of the germs what's that 1% the strongest ones and what are they doing they're multiplying and replicating and they're the ones that leave us resistant to antibiotics they're the ones that create these superbugs we might as well remove if you have you know a germ or virus like they have a negative charge you have a microfiber cloth that has a positive charge it's like a magnet so if we can just go back to basics spray a surface like we used to do in the olden times you know wash our hands with soap and water instead of just on the on the go spraying it with the sanitizer you know take that extra step take that extra time and that's really how you can create a safe environment it was a microfiber cloth also helps with it because the the charge difference the charge difference it really it makes a huge difference otherwise you're kind of displacing yeah just kind of moving stuff around exactly it's like dusting you know and can you just say like how you guys do this because you know you have one product that you just put into three different bottles of different concentrations right what is that product exactly so we we have a non-toxic cleaning concentrate it's human safe and it's in a 32 ounce bottle and it is a liquid form you know of a mild surfactant so it has you know the coconut oils the deco glucosides camomile so we don't use any of the harsh preservatives that you would find even in like the green cleaning aisle of say whole foods or target we are in target but most of our competitors are using preservatives that we never would allow in our formulation process so it took us over a hundred iterations over 18 months to come out with our current formula back in 2016 and it's because we refuse to give in to the mesoethylethyazolanone and the potassium sorbate and the phenoxyethanol and the sodium benzoate I mean these are these are ingredients because I don't even know I have no idea what you just said but but I'm glad that you figured this out for me that that work took me a while about 10 years ago now it just kind of rolls off my tongue but you know again these the epigenic shows the small amounts so even though it's the last ingredient on the list right you know we used to think oh we put rats in a lab is it between zero and 50 or 50 and a hundred that they're reacting it's between zero and one you know and so it does those small ingredients especially when they're in the daily use items they add up and so we did not want to compromise on any of that so we have it like I said a concentrated soap and it's so multi-purpose that you can then put it in our empty bottle so we have an empty all-purpose bathroom spray streak free which is for window and glass we have a foaming hand wash and we have a laundry bottle all being used with the same concentrated different solutions which is so it's such a game changer because you just buy this one bottle right and then you have your empty bottles of the uh to fill in and you just do different concentrations yes and you think there's no way this is going to work it's fragrant free that's a really big thing for us if you want to add essential oils we recommend highly you know high quality wildcrafted no solvent but you can add essential oils to our product and then we actually have an oxygen boost which is a like a sodium procarbonate based solution that whitens and brightens grout and toilets and porcelain you know um sinks and you can put it to your laundry in your laundry get stains away we just came out with a laundry powder because people did not like using the liquid and the boost there's two steps everyone wants one step these days like okay fine but our laundry our laundry powder kicks but yeah yeah we use all your laundry stuff so that was I would say that's number three is like what you're laundering your clothes and it's so big you don't escape it it's just massive I mean the only time you think you're escaping it is when you're naked in the shower and you have a washcloth you don't you don't ever escape it yeah I mean it's in your it's on your pillowcase at night I would say if you made one change besides the pesticides go to your laundry room yeah yeah get rid of all the stuff you're using I mean the worst of the worst of those little like packets that come with like three different colors of stuff they're full of phthalates which give them that staying sticking power so they're literally designed to impregnate into the fiber of your clothes your sheets I mean they're in your sheetrock your upholstery I mean I can walk into a home and I know if they're using toxic detergent yeah yeah and so that's that's like a like how many times are you going to change your detergent right like once you find the non-toxic detergent just you just end up using that forever because you get used to it it works great exactly there's no diminution in quality of how well it works like in fact I feel like it works better to use a non-toxic stuff than the toxic stuff yes this episode was also brought to you by Vitaboom Vitaboom is a revolutionary company that sends you a custom supplement protocol based on your needs using blood-based biomarkers you could either send them your latest blood test or they will send you a finger stick test for blood analysis Vitaboom then curates and ships you an extremely convenient monthly box of daily supplement packs that have your custom protocol in them what's great is that they also provide all the best brands like Timeline, Trunyagen and many others for your custom daily packs I love mine especially for travel since I don't have to bring 10 bottles of supplements with me and just open up a daily pack for every day that I'm taking my vitamins and supplements go to vitaboom.com and check it out okay so laundry change your laundry detergent right um let's talk about dishwashing yes that's a big one we think about the plasticizers we think and again once you switch you could be using I'm not going to name names again but like the most conventional dish soap right for your dishwasher and you never think twice about it you switch to a product like Branch Basics or even like seventh generation or you know some of these cleaner brands and you go back home to your parents house where they're still using the stuff from childhood and you can taste it on your food you're drinking water and you can smell the dish the dish liquid or like you know I just I had to borrow a baby bottle for my baby from my neighbor across the street and um I'm trying to remember the situation but anyway I had the baby bottle at my house and I was like I cannot have my son drink out of this I mean I could smell it you know so I think that's a huge one because there's microplastics and there's those you know synthetic fragrances and then next I would say food storage I think this is a huge one you know and we're so caught up on this BPA free trend but guys if it is plastic it if it's there's no PPA there's BPB there's BPF there's BPF right they're they're gonna go down the alphabetical list of bisphenols because there is not a plastic that's truly safe they're all plasticizers they all plastics do not adhere tightly they're not tightly balanced or they're going to ingress into whatever you know thing that they are touching you even have things like free bisphenols which is like the powdery stuff that comes off of a receipt but even the hard plastics like they are going to ingress into your food especially if your food is hot if it's acidic any food and sitting around you can't have your food sitting around in plastic containers for storage and you definitely cannot heat up the plastic containers because that's going to release even more of these chemicals into your food exactly so the solution here is just throw away all your plastic containers don't even there's so many great alternatives we have ceramic steel ceramic glass I mean it's they're everywhere to me there's really not an excuse to store food in plastic anymore and definitely not heat up and don't use those plastic um utensils in your home especially to cook with cutting boards I think people don't talk about that and what they're cooking with you know the Teflon um so you know and again this is where it can get overwhelming we have a toss the toxins course that's now free that's on your website right yeah on our website it's broken up into 12 modules and we go through everything from like I said pesticides all the way to emotions because listen the fear of toxins can be more toxic than the toxin itself right we do the best that we can people ask all the time well how do you go into a restaurant or a gym or you know all these things that you can't control it's like you don't worry about it because you know you're coming back home to a home that is free of toxin chemicals because that's what you can control your liver and your gallbladder they clear at night your kidneys I mean your organ health really has so much to do with where you're sleeping at night so make your home a safe haven and do not give in to the toxin of fear about the things you can't control right I totally agree it's all about the predile principle right there's 20% of actions you can do to detoxify 80% of your life and those 20% of actions are at your home and then 80% of your life is detoxified and guess what for most people your physiology can handle the rest yes your body is made to detoxify exactly but you just can't be living in it constantly right exactly get it out of your you know your home as much as you can you have full control over your home and then maybe have some control over your office and when you spend some of your leisure time too right right so we can we can work on all of your golf course right I mean listen I mean we don't know until we ask right right okay so let's go down okay that's I think we're on number five now what's another one that we can do oh my goodness let's talk about the shoes wearing shoes at home I mean honestly just taking your shoes off and and that alone we think about filling up with gas at the gas station I mean walking through grass the pesticides playing golf you know I think about men sorry to stereotype but I do think about men on a golf course all Saturday and then coming through their home walking into their kids bedrooms that are with carpet that doesn't usually get vacuumed with a hepa vacuum I mean you are literally bringing that golf course into your child's nursery or into your bedroom or whatever it may be exactly so I think that's a really big one is removing the shoes opening the windows just 10 minutes a day okay that's number six open your windows yeah I think a lot of people don't realize is in general for most people the outside air is so much cleaner than the air that's trapped in your home right yes so get your windows even in cities like Los Angeles and my city Houston these studies are done in major polluted cities and they're saying our indoor air is up to two to five times more toxic than our outdoor air it's because of the furniture I mean if you're going to start going a little more extreme but if you have the resources to make sure that your furniture is you know I would say that those the flame retardants are some of the biggest ones you know the VFCs and there are amazing certifications that are not coming out even places like pottery barn and Ikea and Creighton barrel are starting to rise up and get these flame retardants out when we think about our children's car seats I mean there is no need in my mind to choose a car seat that uses flame retardants there's no need I mean we don't there's not even a law that may forces these manufacturers to use a flame retardant to meet fire standards they're only using it because it is the ease of manufacturing you can use wool and different sorts of blends of fabric to meet that fire standard rating versus spraying down these car seats with flame retardants okay I love it okay that's that's that's I think number seven that we're on which is if you're going to replace your furniture or you're going to buy a car seat for your child make sure you insist on the next time you buy furniture it does not have chemicals exactly and it's super easy nowadays just go on the internet and research what you're buying totally and just switch it and you'll find a lot of times that the couch that you without the chemicals on it is cheaper and looks better than the couch with the chemicals on it right that's exactly right I mean okay so if you had to start with one piece of furniture what do you think I'm going to say is the most important piece of furniture in your house the mattress the mattress right I mean if guys if you think about it all those chemicals we can't control like I said our liver and our gallbladder are clear during the night that is how God designed our bodies to work and so if we are spinning the night breathing in a mattress with toxic fumes and foam our liver and gallbladder is going to spin its energy doing just that instead of clearing all the things that we were exposed to during the day it's going to have to expend its energy on the dryer sheets and the mattress and things like that so really making sure your bedroom especially your bed is the safest you can be invest there first 100 and people should be changing the mattress every couple years anyway yes it just you get better sleep anyway mattresses fail after a couple years and so next time you change your mattress I'll buy one that is 100 yes and I'll tell you what if it is 100 organic mattress you don't have to change it as often and so you really are making a huge investment and um it's yeah you you just don't have that kind of turnover because the integrity of the materials the wool the you know 100 cotton I mean wool is naturally a pesticide you know mite deterrent yep and so yeah in antimicrobial it's it all is naturally inside the wool so you just don't you're not going to attract the dust mites you're not going to have the same issues okay I love that yeah okay so since you just mentioned wool why don't we make number nine your clothing right how should we think about what clothing okay before clothing yep before clothing I would say going into your bathroom and looking at personal care products oh my gosh because you're a guy so you don't think about this but I mean most women I mean every morning I I probably have nine different products on my body right now you know and that is a daily offender we think about our mascara we think about what's on our lips I mean again ilia and tubes and co and RMS I mean there's so many makeup clean makeup brands that are doing it right there's no reason to reach for the conventional makeup anymore that's high in the heavy metals high in micro plastics endocrine disrupting chemicals when the alternatives can do just as good of a job so I think for women I think that's a really big one deodorant you know things like that for men that's huge I mean you're putting it directly into your lymphatic highway every single day no need to have any sort of aluminum based deodorant anymore primarily pure shout out okay I'm gonna get that one yeah it's amazing they're they're made here in California and then I would say for clothes it's about what you sleep in listen I can't sit here and tell women to go wear all synthetic free stuff during the day I mean some of it's just too cute we got to reach for our synthetics when we leave the house okay but there's no reason to sleep in synthetic materials yeah makes no sense silk wool linen I mean there's a plethora of beautiful brands out there that are doing it right and so I would say clean up the way you sleep yeah such a great piece of advice I mean that's eight hours a day maybe your body gets to breathe again your skin is your largest organ and so we the absorption rate is really high so we are going to soak in whatever it comes into contact with especially our children that's so that polyester nightgowns yeah no need for no need for him yeah okay on number nine two by the way I just want to mention what I did for all my products was I just scanned them with the yucca app or think dirty there's a couple of apps eWG kinko has a great one with the skin deep database yep exactly and it's so easy you just scan the barcode yeah it tells you how toxic it is it gives you a replacement yes buy a couple of the replacements and try them right whichever one you like that'll be your product from now on absolutely yeah it doesn't have to be overwhelming it's really kind of a one-time finite process I would say the most overwhelming part of switching to a clean lifestyle is probably your food because that is a daily choice you're making every day what snack am I having in two hours you know but when it comes to what you're cleaning with what you're shampooing with your sheets and stuff that is a finite it is not hard it is worth doing the extra research and it's a one-time thing and then you switch and then you know what you what is clean for you and your body and your family and that's what you that's what you use from now on it's it's it's such a game-changing advice mainly because as we said at the beginning of the podcast once you switch now you've switched for every day every week every month every year of the rest of your life and your family you know usually not again to stereotype but like the moms are really the biggest decision makers in the home you know if you're just living in a kind of standard american household and so you your whole family is benefiting and they don't even have to get involved they don't have to say oh gosh moms on our clean craze throwing everything out no just make it fun make it easy find some fun alternatives you know right exactly probably most families won't even notice when mom makes a change anyway totally totally you start messing with the kids snacks they start noticing but do everything else first and then go to the pantry right so true so true you know i think we have to add number 11 just real quick is all the home fragrances they need to be eliminated right yes well honestly that's kind of part that's partly in that number two category of like this all of them i mean really there is no need to have a synthetically fragrance candle in your home if you start i mean just sitting there without being lit it is contributing to the toxic load in your home and your body burden but once you like that i mean you could speak to this more than i can but those particulates in smoke form are so dangerous for our lungs and like i said they're they contain such high levels of phthalates which give them that staying power that sticking power and that's how they're embedding themselves into like i said our sheetrock and our upholstery so there's no need to have those synthetic fragrances in your home right those plug-in fragrances those are all terrible and in your car as well you don't need a little hanging trees those are oh my goodness terrible they're so bad uber i wish i could just get ahold of them this is why i pay more for uber black because my or a taxi yeah because the track record is when i do pay more they i don't get those trees i've ever had uber rolls up with one of those trees i'm like oh no oh my god i was just um outside of the country and we were taking an uber and this uber had 20 trees in their car like it was why why do you have 20 of these it smelled horrible i had to like i had to like knock it out the window and i just didn't get in i'm like i can't do this yeah i i will say that's happened to me three or four times where i have like open or sometimes i've smelled the uber as i'm approaching it and i'm like i can't do it i'll make up something like oh actually i'm so sorry i actually have something else i'll pay the cancellation fee sorry totally i can't do it i know yeah so i have a funny story about that a few weeks ago i took an uber and i was late for my flight uh heading to minneapolis for our team retreat and i got in this uber someone had spilled cologne that had ridden before me and i realized okay there's no way i can get another uber i'm gonna miss my flight so i just sucked it up it was like a 40 minute drive i have the windows down but i'm wearing a like a cashmere a very like absorbent you know outfit i go through the security line and i set off they did a they did a pat down with me because i opt out of the large scanner a surprise surprise um they're doing a pat down and they they do the thing where they you know get i set off the machine and so i set it off three different times they had to get their manager to come out and after i set it off the third time they said ma'am we have this issue when it comes to women who really like fragrances they wear strong fragrances it sets off our machine because the toxic chemicals so you you should try not wearing fragrances next time i thought if you only knew who you were talking to it was my uber my uber set off the security system at the airport that's horrible i mean that's just mind blowing yeah of all people this happens to is you literally have a company that teaches people not to wear fragrances i know i know i love it and you know um we talked about a lot in this last hour and it might seem overwhelming to people so what's like the one message you want to leave to people yes okay my one message is start where overwhelms you the least and what actually gets you excited because it's contagious like you'll start feeling better and you'll want to know the next thing wait till then you know my personality is once i know something i'm not going to wait till i finish my toxic lotion till it's done to buy the new stuff i'm like first of all i wasn't a lot of pain i was miserable so either i'm going to continue to get steroid injections and take my hodocotone and be miserable or i'm going to throw out all my toxins and i'm going to feel better pretty much overnight but some people that may not have those symptoms are not as motivated right so they're like well listen i mean i believe you but where do i start and this is sounds expensive start opening your windows get rid of all the products you're not even using that are collecting dust in the backs of shelves and stuff those are creating like i said that low level toxic soup that is undermining your entire family's health and showing up in different ways asthma eczema you know afternoon slump stuff like that so start where excites you if it's your pantry if it's your fridge if it's your emotions like i said we have our 12 module program and you don't have to start an order we found that if we opened up all the modules and let people start where they wanted to what if it's food storage you know there's a sale at target now and they're selling the elo brand the glass elo brand so maybe go take advantage of that start with your food storage you know so start wherever least overwhelms you and remember that we cannot control everything and we have to trust that our bodies are made and they're designed to be exposed to these things they're designed to detoxify be gentle on ourselves don't give into fear it's toxic but know that if you've been diagnosed with something you do not need to own it if you are breathing there is room to heal there is room to improve yeah that's such a great message and people so much hope and i think the awareness is so critical and i really you know appreciate that you're not just out there selling these products what you're really trying to educate the public and just the 12 module course is fantastic yes and um you know i really appreciate you coming on this podcast and talking you're such an incredible expert in this oh thank you so much i'm so honored i'm all over our social media too my best friend kelly and i we run our social media yes and um we're just constantly getting on stories and showing day to day you know things that are real and relatable so that's been a really fun way to connect with our social media just branch basics on instagram yeah and then um your the website's branch basics basic calm and we're sold at target now so our concentrate is just under 10 dollars our pre-filled all-purpose bathroom and streak free sprays are under five dollars so we their price point is really great at target target dot com is so incredible so incredible yeah thank you for changing my own life the life of my family and for everyone listening to this podcast i love being your cleaning lady i'm honored that's awesome well i can't wait to have you back someday when we have more to talk about thank you before we wrap up here are five t takeaways that i had from today's conversation with alison evans number one the ocean of toxic threats this include obesogens carcinogens endocrine disruptors asma gens and neurotoxins these are hiding an everyday home product from soap sprays to laundry detergents and fragrances number two your normal symptoms they're not normal cramps fatigue brain fog skin issues constant headaches these are often signs of toxic overload some people spill over earlier than others but everyone is affected internally number three your home air is more toxic than outdoor air even in polluted cities open your windows take your shoes off at the door and rethink your cleaning products disinfectants and synthetic fragrances are major offenders number four pesticides are the number one health disruptor they actually settle in your fat especially in the brain and are strongly linked to neurological diseases like Parkinson's removing pesticides and disinfectants is the single most impactful first step that you can take number five you don't need disinfectants microfiber claws physically remove germs better than disinfectants which kill bacteria but leave behind harmful chemical residues removing germs is much better than killing germs thank you so much for listening to the podcast today please remember to subscribe if you like this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends it really helps to support all of our efforts i also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice diagnosis or treatment please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications your doctor knows your personal health situation the best and is always important to seek their guidance