Latest / Two Girls and a Cup of Wellness / Toxic Load: The Hidden Toxins Stealing Your Vitality | Ep 11
Transcript
- Crissy Florio: Welcome back to another two girls and a couple wellness chat. My name is Chrissy. And my name is Marie. And today we are, well, I am going to let Marie do the majority. we're gonna talk. We're both gonna talk about this. this is, I know I'm going to learn so much from Marie and her brilliancy. Today we're gonna be- brilliancy? I make up words as I go. Today we are gonna be kind of focusing on the endocrine system, endocrine disruptors, and some new things that have come up in our ⁓ health world, some updates kind of talking about fruits and vegetables and stuff like that. So I'm really excited about this interview. And I know that you are going to not only really open my eyes to a lot of things, but all of our listeners as well. And this is a topic that I think we're going to have to wrap around a few times throughout the podcast. And if anyone's listening that's an expert in some of these areas, please contact us. absolutely. Because this is, you know, there's the thing also too, is science is always changing. We're always getting new research. So what we say today may change in a couple of months or, you know, a year or so. So we'll always come back to new conversations with updated research and information as we get it as well. here we are today. So I'm going to start just talking about, want to talk about some of the farming chemicals in this country, because there's some things happening that are coming up in the Supreme Court this month of April. We are in April. I just want to create awareness and I guess empowerment so people can make I talked to Chrissy before about purchasing power and we'll talk a little bit more about that. But I've always loved to garden. My grandmother was Italian, so there was always a small garden. My mom's father always had, my grandfather had a huge garden. So I grew up in this gardening world and flowers and I have a really deep appreciation for the earth and watching, you know, someone put a seed in the soil and watching it grow, glow, grow and glow. Blossom and becoming this beautiful vegetable or food that you can share with others and be proud of growing. there's a special part in myself for gardening and planting. So When I was traveling, I'm gonna tell you the story. We were blessed to travel and pull a camper on America and visit a lot of national parks. And when we were in Washington, what comes to mind and think about Washington as far as food? ⁓ food, fish. Fish, okay. Yeah. And I think they grow some apples there too, the cherries. There's a lot of cherries. Okay, I did not know that. in the farm world, you know, out where nobody is away from the cities, it's just tons and tons of cherries everywhere. And So we stopped at this cute little stand and there was a family there running it and it was a little red shack on the side. Something what you envision just picking up something. And so we got some cherries for the kids, me and Paul, we rinse them off with water and they were the best cherries I have ever eaten. And we were just in the car driving to our next can, saying we're eating them, we're eating them, we're eating them. And all of a sudden we're in this big farmland and we see all these perfect rows of cherry trees. They're a tree, right? Yeah. And we see all these guys out on the cherry. field and I felt like I was in something on ET because they were covered from head to toe and white hazmat suits with like Ghostbuster backpacks and they're like spraying and where we have like my kids have cherry juice dropping, dripping down their face and me and Paul were like, because all of a sudden we're like, what are we eating? What are we putting into our bodies if they have to wear a suit and cover? I mean, you can see their faces or anything. They had the big, ooh, sorry. microphone, did the big like things on the side breather things and I'm thinking what the heck are they putting on those trees? And then they're the cherries and then they're selling them. And then then there's a little bit of a misconception there too. If you are purchasing it from a cute little farm stand that looks like it's organic or right, like they just grew it right then and there and then boom, they're being sprayed with everything and you just you're eating them naturally, right? Of washing them and doing everything. That we're supposed to do. bottles of water over them. I hope that that cute little farm stand, maybe they use conventional, but maybe they use less than what a commercial farm would use as far as chemicals go. Yeah. So in February this past year, there was an executive whatever order signed and a defense act signed by the president and everybody. I'm not a political person. I'll just say that right now. we're not going to talk about politics. But it's empowerment just to let people know kind of what's going on. And there is an ingredient that is the main ingredient of Roundup and it is? Glyphosate. Glyphosate. And I always pronounce it glyphosate, glyphosate. Again, we make up words, but I'm pretty sure it's glyphosate. So this is, it was allowed, the order was allowed that says that we need it for our society. And you listened to what Chris Wark had to say the other day. So what did you kind of get from that? how you can wrap our heads around why we need this chemical? Well, the chemical is found everywhere. And there's so many avenues and people utilizing it that if they were just to completely take it out of our world and our industry and our country and all of the different avenues, it would leave a lot of people really scavenging for business. It would definitely put all of our smaller businesses out of business. And if we are really focusing on trying to get this out of our foods, it has to be a very detailed process. It has to be very strategic and phase it out. So, ⁓ it's not something that they can just take it out of everything right here, right now. we really need to kind of have a little bit more of a strategic move into doing that. So it's not going anywhere right now. So we want to talk about kind of what some of these chemicals are, how they can interrupt our body and our hormones and the way we show up in the world and things that you can do to possibly, we can't necessarily limit. We can't avoid it. We can't avoid it. do the best that we can. We can detoxify our body and practice a little bit better in our lives to limit our exposure, I guess is the right way to work that. So just to give you a little history. So the producer of glyphosate is a company called Monsanto, which has been around since the 1900s. And they really became popular early on with Saturin. Am I pronouncing that right? I'm bad with pronunciations. That's a sweetener, like in sweeteners. And that was the first time in our country where scientists were saying, this is bad, but the politicians stepped in and pushed it through. So you can go and read all about that whole movement. So that was one of their first steps into the chemical world. And then they got into the plastic world. And in the seventies, Monsanto produced, I think it was the seventies, this main ingredient in Roundup, which is the glyphosate. So glyphosate is a weed killer and it is sprayed on weeds to stop an enzyme that helps the plant grow. Basically, so now they couldn't just spray this because it's gonna kill all plants So what they did next is they made GMO seeds genetically modified seeds and Those seeds were what is called round up already So they mess I don't know exactly what they did But they messed around the proteins and the seeds so that those seeds when the glyphosate is sprayed those crops are not affected They still grow they still grow so genetically modified in theory sounds wonderful because They are resistant to chemicals, they are resistant to drought, they're resistant to too much sun or different pests. And so it was a way to help the world have a food abundance. And there's a lot of controversy around those seeds as we know when you purchase a product, you'll say non-GMO. So it's a little history for you. Yeah, that's it. It's a little intense. Well, I think a lot of times when they start messing with nature, maybe not initially done out of harm, right? They're trying, they're coming from a good place, but I think in time we start to realize how harmful all of this really truly is for our bodies and how, you know, the thing is, when we think about our ancestors and we think about our grandparents and even our parents maybe and our great grandparents and the foods that they used to eat from the earth are nothing like They are now. ⁓ It's just there's way more people on our planet. And how do we feed everybody? Right. And then now we also have greed coming into it as well with some of the larger organizations, which again, we're not getting into politics and not getting into all of that, but just calling it like it is. This is what it is. And so what we eat now is so different. than what our ancestors have eaten in the past. 100%. And how it affects our body is so different. let's kind of go into maybe how it starts to affect some of these chemicals. And we'll talk about glyphosate also, but how do some of these chemicals really interrupt our body's own rhythm and flow and the way that it's Well, first we're seeing a lot of rates of autoimmune disease. Some people will have elevated autoimmune markers with no actually links to lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, or they do. We see a lot of Hashimoto's, a lot of messing up with the thyroid. And then you have a lot of what they call like an estrogen dominance. These, some of these chemicals in the farming industry, as well as a lot in the plastics are they call them endocrine disrupting chemicals and they'll go on to, let's say you have, think of your hormone more as a lock to open up the cell, guess. And because they open up the cell. like insulin as a lock to open up the cell to let the sugar in, right? So they will bind to the receptor and they're very volatile, these chemicals. they'll take, say this is your cell, my fist is a cell and it has endocrine disruptors or endocrine holders all around it or locks. and it'll actually pop our body's natural estrogen right off that cell and place itself right on. And that bond is stronger than our natural hormone. Very interesting. And then it creates a result that is undesirable, not what your body would do with that. it wrecks havoc. So that's where you kind of get into the whole endocrine world. Also, it's horrible for our gut. And we talked about gut lining before and dysbiosis. These chemo, mean, think about, I don't know, just think about spraying this stuff and would you ever ingest something like that? It's like fire down your throat. So as you're getting some of this residue in your foods, over time that consistent buildup and if you're eating it throughout the day, because it's in our food, it's in our food, it's in our soil, it's in our water, it's in our air. And when you test urine of patients, it's in the urine. So it's crazy. Yeah. And if then if you're not, If you're not moving your body, if you're not sweating, if you're not doing, you know, stuff for your lymphatic system, your cardiovascular system, you're not going to the bathroom regularly, then guess what? Then it's staying in your body even more. So again, we're always going to come back to our body as a whole. And all of these things matter in living your most optimal and healthy life. So let's come back to the endocrine system. in general. So the endocrine system is basically our body's hormonal system, right? And it's very closely tied to our nervous system as well. Right. And the nervous system right now is like a really big thing. But how many times have you heard that word, ⁓ endocrine disruptors? And you're like, what does that really mean? I remember for me, somebody mentioned it to me as I was just out of my cancer journey. Well, I mean, I'm always in my cancer journey, but just out of my protocols, right? And when I started thinking about what I'm putting on my body and in my body, they kept saying endocrine disruptors. And I had to literally go and Google that and research it and try to figure out what does that really truly mean? our endocrine system, like we said, is basically our hormonal system. And some of the glands that are associated with it is the hypochondriac. Thalmus, your pituitary gland, thyroid, adrenals, and pancreas. then your gonads, your sexual organs as well. Okay. Great. Right. so, you know, kind of we don't, those aren't like very sexy glands of our bodies that you hear, you know, people talk about all the time, right? But they're very important. My pineal gland is such a melaton producer. Yeah. No. Yeah. But they're so, so important. when we start eating all of the regular foods, if you're not eating organic foods, if you're not eating grass-fed or pasture-raised types of eggs and dairy and meats and stuff like that, then you are just over-bombarding your system even more. So it's working even more over time. And the liver, I mean, is just like the number one, I think, organ of our whole body that's the hardest most amazing organs. Ooh, I do like the kidneys too, though. Yeah, true. I think like the liver takes like the number one kidneys maybe underneath it. You know, obviously we talked about the adrenal glands. we're seeing, have you ever, you've heard of fatty liver, right? And so a lot of, for many, many years that was associated with alcoholism. But now in the last two decades, you have this non-alcoholic fatty liver. And I can't tell you how many times we'd see that in the clinic. Non-drinker is getting fatty liver and it's totally accumulation. It's the food. Same thing as, you know, non-smokers getting lung cancer. Right? Where does it come from? It's gotta somehow come from the toxins that we're putting in or breathing into our bodies. And so endocrine disruptors in particular are that they disrupt the hormones in our body and how our hormones are speaking to our brain and vice versa and how they're secreting and how they're releasing and how they're working. Right? You were saying when you were going through a cancer journey and they were talking about putting stuff on your skin, that's your parathens and your phthalates. mean, that stuff just penetrates right into your skin. Really, really good. Your skin is an amazing organ to get it protecting, but it can just go right through and then it mimicking and playing games. some of those chemicals are what we call forever chemicals. Like glyphosate comes out of us. We urinate it. It excretes our bodies really good at getting rid of it. But some of those other chemicals actually get stuck in our fat tissue for up to nine years. ⁓ wow. And that's scary. Yeah, it is. Really scary. That is. when we think about endocrine disruptors, right? So you said the phthalates, the sulfites, right? Or sulfates? Sulfates? Phthalates and parabens. Yes. OK. Which are a lot of paraben free products now, right? There's a lot. But remember, we like to replace things with other products. Like BPA is gone out of our plastics pretty much. But what do we have now? BPS and bisphenol F and we don't know what those do yet. Yeah, it took us 50 years to figure out that BPA was bad for us Wow, So, you know, it's like doing your homework and doing the best that you can too because as we've said time and time and time again, you can't change everything all at once, right? So if you are in the market right now and you're like, wow, I really am appreciating what they say and I find it very interesting and I want to start kind of minimizing some of that disruption in my body, maybe you do look for products that are have no parabens and no palates. actually PY. It's a weird spelling. PHY soap, but that's not pronounced. So in your shampoo and conditioner, in your soaps, in your skincare, your beauty products, those are really great. and I think easy way to start to minimize that. Some of the exposure. Yeah, absolutely. So big ones also, you get away from the skincare, are going to be our water. The EWG website. ⁓ my goodness, my phone's ringing. Hello. Hello, somebody. Note to self, we should always silence our phone. It's such a pretty ring. We're not perfect over here. Okay. So anyways, we got what was I even talking about? ⁓ water. Water is huge. If you go and we are both huge advocates for the environmental working group. If you go to the environmental working group website, you can actually put your zip code in and you can read your water supply. And if you want to think that our people are out there without being political to protect us. No, we have to we have to you have to get out there and get knowledgeable and make better choices, whether you're purchasing from a local water source or you're using a Berkey filter. There's all sorts of great filters. My Christmas present last year was the whole house filter. Yeah, that's what we're kind of looking into right now. Which Paul changed it. It's supposed to be done every 12 months, the filter inside, and it was disgusting. My dad said it smelled like a dead animal. He couldn't believe the stuff that came off that filter. So now I think we're going to set up a six month regimen instead of the 12 recommended because It was just so disgusting, filthy. I'm gonna take a picture of it next time for you. Very interesting. But that's the thing, they're everywhere and we can try our best to minimize the amount of chemicals and toxins that are around us, but nobody's going to ever be completely perfect, right? And completely sound from not having any exposure to it all. So it's just the little things that we can do, changing what we eat, what we put on our bodies. Because the truth of the matter is I have said this so much since my cancer diagnosis that there's a lot in this world that I cannot control. But what I can control is what I put on and in my body. And if I can choose to maybe purchase some other organic foods and then just say, okay, yes, I'm still going to have these chips. That's my choice. I know I'm bringing in, I mean, inhaling. But even just doing that little bit of butter, think is better than not. Than nothing, right? Absolutely. what else do you want to talk about? Go right into how people can really clean up their life a little bit? Or do you want to play around with the cytochrome P450? No, I don't know if you want to know about that, but that's our detox system. And these chemicals really mess up with our liver. You're talking about the liver detoxification pathways. I think with all the increase in different autoimmunity, Hashimoto's, lupus, all these different diseases, I think that plays a role. The glyphosate is heavily, heavily researched, backed and linked to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. There is right now over 100,000 lawsuits against Rhonda. They've already paid out 11 billion. And that's why I wanted to just mention the Supreme Court hearing that's coming up because depending on which way it's ruled, It is going to protect. So Monsanto was purchased by Bayer, which isn't the Aspen, right? It's going to protect them from liability, from lawsuits for the future. Very interesting. Which is very interesting. it's again, again, I don't know how much control we have. What we do have is purchasing power, which is letting people know and then they make the purchases to live a better and healthier lifestyle. So it's choice, right? We have the we have the ability to choose. what is best for our own lives. I had that situation, and I probably have mentioned this before ⁓ on the podcast. I know I mentioned it in my book. And I am never, and I think you and I both are the same way, we will never tell somebody what to do, right? It's your life, you make the decision. It's all about education. Great. And that's how I am with my patients. want, to have a cup of tea with my patients. I want to have a relationship. I don't want to be like, this is what you're taking and this is what you're doing. I'll say, these are your options. What would you like to do? That's how I like to work with people. Like, let's try to work at this. Let's try to work at that. Do you want to lower your cholesterol with medication or do we want to try to do lifestyle and diet because that is just as effective? Well, the sense of empowerment, think, patient empowerment to people empowerment is amazing. We need to tap back into that. Right. And the power that is within us. But for me in particular, I remember talking about the purchase power or feeling somebody is telling you what to do rather than your own choice. Going through my own diagnosis, there was an opportunity at one point where my whole team of doctors was saying, you need to take this medication. And when I tell you, down to my core, my body was like, hell no. This is not for you. It is not for you. It is not for you. And I'm not saying that it's not a great drug and it's not for some people. I'm not at all, but it was not right for me. wasn't. And I had to make that decision. And it was a really hard decision because when you feel like you're going against your team of doctors, you don't know how they're going to respond. And they don't always make you feel very good about your own decision because it's a little bit more fear-based. ⁓ but like I had to make that decision. But I also knew for me, I was already doing a lot of other things naturally or holistically, working with a naturopathic doctor, changing my diet, not drinking as much wine, making some of these changes that now that the cancer was out of my body, okay, well, this is how I'm gonna. do my best to keep it out. This is what feels right for me. And again, it's not what's right for everybody. So take all of this information with a grain of salt and listen to that gut intuition within you and that inner voice. Educate yourself more as much as you can. And empower yourself and learn as much as you can. And I guess this kind of would probably be a really good segue into One very easy thing that you can start to incorporate when you're at the grocery store outside of downloading the EWG app is you may have heard of the Clean 15 or the Dirty Dozen, right? So our fruits and vegetables, a lot of them are tested to see how some of them are absorbing or how many pesticides are literally on or within the fruits do rigorous testing. It's released every year. The 2026 guide was just released last week, which is so exciting. Yeah. And it's on the app and you can, you know, we'll go over some of them. number one. Yeah. So for the dirty dozen. this means that when you're in the grocery store, the dirty dozen, you want to try to buy these as organic as possible, All fruits and vegetables, I believe we still need to get a good wash. I've heard. washing with baking soda and water. about that because I've seen that a lot in social media. too. I really don't know much about that. I don't do that, but it's something that I'm starting to really feel connected to and I might start to do. I'm going to do some research and we'll talk about that. So the Dirty Dozen right now as of April of 2026 is strawberries, spinach, kale, collard green and mustard greens, peaches, pears, nectarines, apples. bell and hot peppers, cherries, blueberries, green beans, which I thought was interesting, and grapes. wow, grapes, cherries, yep, those are the cherries. Yep. I those cherries. That means that 12 of those different types of fruits and veggies tend to hold onto or are sprayed much more with the pesticides. And I'm going to give you a tip for people because it is very expensive to buy organic. especially like I have three children and they're growing and they eat so much food. They go grocery shopping and they need to go again in two days. So- strawberries, even spinach, and let's see, cherries, blueberries. They're cheaper, organic, frozen. Sure. And we live in Florida, so you can just put them in a cup and eat them or throw them on some yogurt frozen or throw them in a smoothie. ⁓ frozen blueberries is one of my favorite nighttime snacks. Instead of going for ice cream or gelato, I'll just pour a bunch of blueberries, frozen blueberries in a bowl. It's so good. The other tip that is really, I think, very smart, ⁓ and seems like, why wouldn't we do this, is go for the fruits and vegetables that are in season. So eating with the season, right? Strawberries in Florida, which we can still get even in November and December, are going to be super expensive. They're not going to taste as good. They're not in season, right? So eating with the seasons too is a good tip because they'll be less expensive. And look out in your area and see if you have a local CSA. which is a farm you can join. can either pay a weekly fee or monthly fee. Some of them, there's one that just opened up in Palm City that I want to go check out. Let's do that. Yes. And they have opened it up to public on certain days of the week so you can get whatever's over what they haven't sold with their packages of people that belong. But that's a great way to get what's in season, what's grown locally. Supporting local is huge. we've been talking about this for 15 years in this country, but really supporting your local farmers is huge. Yeah. Yeah. So the clean 15, avocados, sweet corn, pineapple, onions, papaya, frozen peas, asparagus, honeydew melon, kiwi, cabbage, mushrooms, which I thought that was interesting. I would think mushrooms would be dirty, doesn't, but clean 15, mangoes, sweet potatoes, watermelon and carrots. We'll put this link up also in the show notes so that you have it. I'm sure you would probably... I was reading them too fast. I'm going to mention two things too that glyphosate, they spray it in between the rows, but they also do what's called a pre-harvest spray. And the two things that are heavily affected by the pre-harvest spray is wheat and oats. So there was a study recently that was done on all the oat milks on the products on the market. And Oatly, which I loved at the time, had so much glyphosate. in the carton. It's insane. if you're really looking at avoiding that, mean, yes, the dirty dozen definitely is a great way to start. but those are two and look at your weeds. all your cereal, all your granola bars. mean, everything. Yeah, it's a lot. So it's very, very overwhelming. But making those small choices, just little baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, because you can't do it all in one day. It's insane and overwhelming and extremely expensive. But having that empowerment and having that purchasing power is going to shift. I think the movement, and I really believe that we're gonna start seeing products on the market glyphosate free. I do, you know? ⁓ absolutely. Non-GMO and organic, it's gonna be non-GMO organic glyphosate free and people are going to purchase those because they don't want non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I don't really want that either. No, I unfortunately know way too many women that do have it and no. And that's only what it's directly linked to, never mind what else it could be causing. Exactly. You know, the inflammation in our bodies and just, just because they're not also not only physically with the inflammation or possibly some disease in the body, but I mean, just think about even headaches and brain fog and hormonal imbalances, just feeling off. another thing I wanted to say, I'm full of ideas today is that Everybody in Florida, except for us, my son's my landscaper. So if you see my lawn, don't judge. But you can just have your landscaper instead of using Roundup, which is what they do, or they're using other chemicals, alternatives, which just by the way, a lot of those alternatives have Agent Orange ingredients, you know, give everybody cancer during Vietnam. Just have them, I purchased a vinegar and we'll put that in the show notes on Amazon. And everybody knows what I'm spraying at my neighbors because it's my yard smells like an Italian salad, but it really works. It's like a high concentrated vinegar. It really works. You have to do it in the morning and it has to be a sunny day and it's not going to rain, but it will kill those weeds. you know. Yeah. Yeah. So little changes like that. changes. Yeah, absolutely. That's what it always comes down to, right? Is the education and making the small changes because we're worth it. Our health is worth it. Our earth is worth it. Our You know, ⁓ children. We're worth it. Our children are worth it. I'm scared for my kids. Our future. really am. Absolutely. Our future is worth it. So the more we can get this information out into the world and just again, we're just using it as a platform for you to then make your own decisions. And I think we'll all be better for it if we start showing up for ourselves a little differently every single day. This was fun. Yeah. And there's so much more about this, but yeah. We gotta go. Which that leads me to, like, we would love to hear from you. We want questions. We want ah-hahs. We want suggestions on what you want to hear. coming up and we have a lot of exciting interviews coming out. A lot of really. people, wonderful people coming on the show. From all over the world, which is super excited, right? We're really excited. Yeah. But yeah, we had both had from separate people said that they want to see products. Like, what are the products that we use or what are the products that we recommend? Definitely download that EWG app though. Yeah, absolutely. can start looking at your products up on there as well. Yep. Well, this was definitely fun. So thank you so much for all of your brilliant information and history and all the things. I always learn something. So hopefully, hopefully you all do too. And until next time, my friends, we'll see you guys. Bye. Thank you.