#117 – 26 Nuggets of Ancestral Wisdom!

As you know, if you’ve been cooking ancestrally for any length of time, the ancestral mindset does not stay in the kitchen! Some of us come to this as part of a health journey, already thinking about our life as a whole…others of us start with food and find the wisdom of our ancestors seeping into the rest of our lives. There are things we just can’t not see any more, things we feel are wrong; things we know are right.

We have, together, been living this lifestyle for over 25 years. And we were both on health journeys long before then. Our lives, not just our kitchens, have transformed.

In this episode you’ll hear 26 nuggets of wisdom. They are things we’ve learned, often the hard way, and things we have to remind ourselves of again and again as we step forward. Join us, and our community of listeners, as we share some truth.

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One Earth Health make the grass-fed organ supplements we use and trust. Get 15% off your first order here and 5% off all subsequent orders here.

For US listeners, we recommend Grand Teton Ancient Grains. They sell regenerative, organic flours and berries that can satisfy all your baking needs. Stock up and get free shipping at AncientGrains.com

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The Fermentation Summit 2025 is a free, online gathering of top fermentation experts sharing their wisdom, recipes, and techniques—from sauerkraut and kimchi to miso, kefir, kombucha, and beyond. Whether you’re a curious beginner or a seasoned fermenter, this 3-day virtual summit offers practical, science-backed guidance and hands-on inspiration to help you master the microbial magic at home.

Name: Fermentation Summit 2025

Dates: October 21-23, 2025

Location: Online (Free Virtual Event)

Host: Holly Howe of MakeSauerkraut

https://ancestralkitchenpodcast.com/hollysummit

Resources:

50 Things an Ancestral Lifestyle has Taught Me

The Myth of Olive Oil Use in Italy

Episode 66 – 50 Ways to Save Money on an Ancestral Diet – Part 1

Episode 67 – 50 Ways to Save Money on an Ancestral Diet – Part 2

50 Ways to Save Money on an Ancestral Diet PDF Download

Episode 50 – 20 Small Steps to an Ancestral Kitchen

Download the 20 Small Steps ebooklet for free by joining our newsletter!

Episode 29 – True Historical Italian Food with Karima Moyer Nocchi, Author of Chewing the Fat

 

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Transcript:

Andrea:
Hello, Alison. How are you?

Alison:
Hi, Andrea. I’m well and looking forward to this episode. How are you?

Andrea:
I’m also well. I’m very excited for this episode because I think this is going to become one of those banner episodes that we send to people a lot when they ask questions. You know, I was thinking over the weekend, which we’ll talk about a little bit, that some of the episodes that we talked about the most that came up where the ways to save money and.

Alison:
steps.

Andrea:
To ancestral living those are extremely useful also interesting and helpful and I think this is going to fall into that category yeah.

Alison:
I hope so highly.

Andrea:
Referenced episodes yeah so why don’t I ask you though what did you eat.

Alison:
Before we got on yeah I had some lunch just it was leftovers but it was intentional leftovers you know yesterday yep I cooked a pork shoulder which I got a really nice um ceramic kind of I don’t know what you’d call it a dish not a roasting thing but shallower than that with a lid from Rob for Christmas he saw it in a second hand um store here it’s a Denby which is a particularly quite famous name here I don’t know if you have it in the states um but I wanted to cook it in there it was a bit too thick to go in there so we actually just sliced it in half so we had two sort of rounds of the pork shoulder and that went in an oven a slow oven I don’t know what that is an f but it’s not as high as which is my normal temperature um and that was in there for about three hours about halfway through I put some chopped red onions chopped cabbage and topped cavallonero in so all the fat came out of the pork and all those vegetables kind of cooked I put salt, pepper and fennel on the pork and so we cooked that, had it yesterday and then I just, once it cooled down I put the entire ceramic dish into the fridge last night and got it out this morning, reheated it at a low temperature in the oven and we had that with, I had a bread which was an experimental bread which was some heritage wheat which is called Square Hands Master Wheat which comes from Hobmodod in the UK, which is a week that Rob can eat.

Alison:
And I did a loaf, a sourdough loaf, which was that, and also some rye that I just kind of cracked in the mock meal. So it was still…

Alison:
You know you could taste the bitty bits of it was crunchy in the bread and some linseed, and cooked that yesterday so I had some slices of that with the pork and the veggies and there was so much fat coming out the pork that I just dipped the bread into that you know as I was eating so it’s lovely yeah how about you what did you eat last that sounds perfect you’ve eaten a lot as I’ve as I’ve seen pictures of the last few weeks what did you eat last yeah.

Andrea:
I feel like I’ve been eating for four days non-stop.

Alison:
Can you move.

Andrea:
Um this past weekend we had a get together on the farm and let’s see we people came from ohio california alaska um local area canada, And I mean, it was a wide range of distance that people came. So, some flew, some drove.

Andrea:
And it was kind of a mix of homeschool moms in the area from my church or friends that I know.

Andrea:
And listeners from the Literary Life podcast that I’d connected to who have also come over and started listening to Ancestral Kitchen. And then we talk about food and books which you know goes hand in hand and then supporters of ancestral kitchen who then have also started listening to the literary life so yeah kind of a lot of crossover but the connection was food we all love ancestral food so everybody brought things that they had made from or things from local farms so so the it was one of those if you can imagine events i think you you had a meetup in the uk allison that would have been like this where everything you see is food that you’re fine with eating or your kids you can eat you don’t cringe or kind of like i hope the kids don’t see that or have to tell the kids quietly you know don’t be rude but don’t take that you know none of that and i i don’t know how to describe but i’m sure you can imagine the way that that takes the pressure off it just feels wonderful just how freeing and and you felt all of us said many times how we felt you know oftentimes in our life we’re kind of the odd duck and here we just it never it never came up that we were weird we’re just normal together.

Andrea:
And I don’t know, that was a really…

Andrea:
Really revitalized me in terms of making sure that our community expands and that more of these local meetups can happen where people are because not everybody can fly out somewhere but we have so many listeners all over the place that I thought people could be getting together anywhere and having this sensation of you know you’re pouring lard on the griddle and everybody’s like oh yay lard is that from your pig you know casual no big deal not like oh my gosh could I have some canola yeah yeah so we felt really connected and uh Leah brought down giant boxes of fish salmon king salmon and cod and smoked salmon and smoked black cod so when I say we had fish at every meal. I’m not kidding.

Andrea:
And Kirsten, who is a listener and supporter in Canada, she brought down bags of oats from her farmer, which were amazing. And she made buns, like delicious buns, which we had. There was not one left. We had them at every meal until they were gone. And she brought pickles that she made and I mean just everybody turned up with the most amazing food oh and she and her husband left us bottles of wine.

Andrea:
So I know it was just amazing but Allison do you want I told you I was going to tell you something that might surprise you but what we did for our afternoon activity on Saturday, we’re under a burn ban right now so we couldn’t have like a campfire but But for my birthday, Gary got me a propane fire pit, which kind of gives you the sensation. The kids can sit around it. Everybody can get warm. But it doesn’t spark, so the county’s okay with it. So we were all sitting around the campfire, and I pulled out a stack of Allison’s O’s. Oh my gosh read essays out loud out loud oh my gosh I read it out loud and let me tell you everybody is their fingers hovering over the pre-sale button like everybody it’s gonna be saying I know but every all weekend everybody said what we need is Allison’s oat buck you know just couldn’t wait and um one of the gals who came her husband has a variety of um food restrictions and he can’t have gluten he cannot have um dairy he cannot have eggs, he cannot have coconut he can’t have apples he got you know there’s like kind of a long list of things he can’t have but we read through your recipes and he can have everything I just thought that list.

Alison:
I think he can have every recipe in that for us.

Andrea:
You’re right. You immediately went through the list in your head too. I did too when we were figuring out what he could eat. And I told her, his wife, I said, I think that your husband can have everything on this list. And she was reading it. And we kind of talked about how, you know, when you live in a world where gluten is like the dominant king, it feels like you’re the odd one out. But when you read about whales, you’re like, I could have lived there. Nobody would have known that I’m different. I would have eaten everything on the table. So that was just like a moment of freedom, reading about that and wow oh my gosh we read about the the the cake rolling down the hill and oh yeah um the the aged woman of the minds like yeah we loved that so much everybody laughed so hard when i read that you read it all out loud you read a lot oh like words gosh and then the book was passed around a lot like over the whole weekend people were just sitting and leafing through it um and just talking about how we just can’t wait and this is such an important work for so many reasons it’s not just oats it’s also you know it’s it’s history and connection and and yeah so your name was invoked all weekend long so i i imagine your ears were burning i feel.

Alison:
Very honored that you you would read some of the pieces out loud because um i’ve sent them to one supporter here Amelia but um no one else really outside this house has read them so it feels.

Andrea:
When I when I told people guess what I have I have parts of Allison’s oat book it was like putting a plate of cookies in front of kids where is it hand to me so yeah we’re we’re all and and when I told them, I said, you know, she, has to, I said, she’s not writing this by hand. She has to, I said, I said how you lay all those papers out and then you’re like, have to speak and everybody was just amazed. But speaking of amazed, I do, I want to get into the episode and so I want to read this review real quick before we go.

Andrea:
But I just wanted you to know, Alison, how special that book was and how valuable your work is and just, it is very much treasured by everybody that’s here. So, I know listeners. That book is going to be really, really good. Okay, let me read a review, though. This is from Gemma. And it says, thank you for creating such an illuminating and warm podcast. I love so many aspects of Ancestral Kitchen, but honestly, the most significant part for me is your ardent belief in fats, value, necessity and life giving qualities. I have many hallmarks of someone who will want someday develop Alzheimer’s. And while researching ways to stave it off, I became educated on the invaluable nature of fats in one’s diet. Many people around me still adhere to the notion that fats are bad, cholesterol is evil, and saturated fats will give me an undesirable body type. I wish I could say these comments rolled off me, but as someone who has battled an eating disorder since the age of eight, they still sting. Hearing you all talk about fat with unapologetic candor and enthusiasm not only makes me feel less alone, but also makes me love my body more.

Andrea:
Thank you for your indirect support of me and all others trying to stave off many truly frightening dis-eases. With love and kindness, Gemma. P.S. What I’ve eaten today? I ate two heaping meals of leftover beef bourguignon and mashed potatoes, reheated in lots of butter. Ooh, that sounds really good.

Alison:
Yum. Thank you, Gemma.

Andrea:
Oh, that’s… Well, you know how… Well, we both connect to this review very much. I know we… When we saw it, I think Rob sent it to us, right? Because it came in through the… Yeah, and he said, you guys have to see this. And yeah, we both felt very connected to this. So thank you, Gemma, for this. I share your concerns and I’m just really happy that we can all be weird together.

Alison:
Absolutely.

Andrea:
And everybody else can just deal with it. And Allison, speaking of being weird together, can you tell me a little bit? i know you’ve told me a.

Alison:
Bit about holly’s.

Andrea:
Summit but just give me a little update on where we’re at.

Alison:
Yes certainly so the time is drawing nearer holly’s summit um holly is holly howe who is at makesauerkraut.com who is a friend of the podcast and she’s running a fermentation summit on october the st to the rd which is all online you can go and have a look at it and sign up by going to a link we made which will take you straight there which is ancestralkitchenpodcast.com forward slash holly summit h-o-l-l-y s-u-m-m-i-t and that summit is three days of free online experts just sharing so much so many different fermentation ideas areas and recipes you know sauerkraut kimchi miso kefir kombucha and i i’ve seen the lineup and you know whether you’re a beginner or you’ve been fermenting for years i think there’s going to be something there for you and we just wanted to spread the word because i think what holly’s doing bringing all these people together is amazing andrea i sent you this the the lineup for it what do you think oh.

Andrea:
I looked at it i was happy to see some friends on there.

Alison:
That names.

Andrea:
I know people we’ve talked to on the podcast before and also I’m, Some of these, well, all of the topics just look amazing. And some of them are ones we’ve briefly touched on on the podcast, like the wild yeast water breads.

Alison:
Yeah.

Andrea:
And there’s just going to be a lot of good stuff in here. I’m personally really excited because, well, you and I have both been fermenting for a while, but we also know when it comes to fermentation, you’re never done learning. There’s always more to learn.

Alison:
We’ve not even scratched the surface. on milk kefir on ginger bugs on salvador starters on misos on hot sauce on kraut so whatever kind of floats your boat i think there’s something there so do i will put the link in the show notes if you want to um join in it’s being recorded so i think you can get the um the you can watch the actual actual sessions um later in the day you don’t have to be there at that exact time and I do believe there’s a package you can buy to get all of the recordings just to keep forever at your leisure so go and have a look at the show notes the link again is ancestral kitchen podcast forward slash holly summit okay okay so um what we’re going to be talking about today is um.

Alison:
Is the kitchen and beyond because both of us have been on this journey this ancestral journey for some time and I think what everyone we’ve spoken to realizes is once you start in the kitchen even if you start in the kitchen it kind of starts infecting the whole of your life and there are lessons that can be learned to do with health to do with family to do with environment that come from living and eating ancestrally and a couple of months ago for to coincide with my th birthday I wrote a blog post which was things I’ve learned from living ancestrally and I sent it out and Andrew was like there’s so much stuff in here and we chatted about it and thought this would be such a good thing to discuss you know because they’re just a couple of sentences each of the points in my email and yet there’s a world that can be talked about in each of those so we are going to dive into the first or so of those in this episode. Before we start, let’s just quickly go to an ad break.

Alison:
Okay, so things we’ve learned from living ancestrally. The first one is food heals. And it’s just two words, but there is so much in that. You know, most of the world, when they have a problem with their health, they turn to the doctor, to medicine. And, you know, the roots of medicine were in plants, but food in and of itself as nourishment, as, you know, honing on certain things that are wrong with you as crafting a diet that’s something that we know that food heals and every time every time I’m faced with something in my family every time I have been faced with something in my family since we started this journey like years ago the first thing I turn to is our food you know what what is it that we can do here that will affect the situation. Andrea, what do you want to say about that?

Andrea:
I agree. I say I agree. I think that’s why we have this podcast, because we both experienced healing through food and are continuing to. And that’s something we don’t want to keep to ourself.

Alison:
Yeah, absolutely. Let me segue into number two by saying, but there is so much more to health than food. You know, you can get your diet perfect and still be very unhealthy and it’s too easy to hide behind food changes and ignore other unbalanced parts of your life I speak from personal experience there because you know I have this ancestral kitchen and I’m particularly good in the kitchen and I’ve been doing it for so long whenever there’s something wrong I turn to the kitchen and I turn to food and that’s not necessarily a bad thing that’s a good thing but I know that I use my ability to make changes more easily in that area of my life to put off the changes that.

Alison:
Are harder to make in the other areas of my life so you know that might be well maybe there’s something wrong with my posture or maybe my breathing’s not as optimum as it could be or maybe I’m rushing around all the time and not actually ever resting or maybe I’m not going out and engaging with with other people and living like humans should do together there’s all these other things for me generally it’s that I’m working too hard and I won’t allow myself to fully rest or to create more of a balance and I will go right what can I do with my food how can I tweak this and that and rather than go to that horrible place where there’s kind of changing habits which have been ingrained for so long or facing fears that I don’t want to face um so health is important food is important in health and food does heal but there is so much more beyond food that plays into your health and Andrea I’d like to hear what you think about that.

Andrea:
This is something I’m learning more and more. And I think anybody, the more you improve your food, the more you learn this because you see how it’s not just the isolated molecules. They’re going to do a lot, but there’s actually a huge mental aspect as well. And a good example of this that is fresh in my mind was over the weekend, one of the friends who came out, she said, so she has, she lives very, very ancestral lifestyle. But she’s the only one in her area or community so in a way all the work falls upon her and she also farms and so it’s a lot it’s a lot and she said wow over this weekend I’ve been eating things that would actually normally upset my tummy at home but I don’t feel them here and we kind of considered maybe it was the reduced stress because she was around people who were in agreement she was around other people doing some of the labor and she was able to eat fruit fruits of labor that wasn’t purely her production and there weren’t a lot of demands on her so it made us think hey look at the the factors of stress in in life so i think that’s a really good um aspect to tease out.

Alison:
Yeah absolutely i feel like you know facing my s now the most important thing for me is to you know re-evaluate everything I do you know is is.

Andrea:
This important.

Alison:
Is this going to have the impact I want to do is this what I want to do where is my life different from how I want it to be and how can I be brave enough to face that and change that so yeah okay number three there are people who believe in the same things you do no matter how isolated you feel trust me you are not alone. The incredible boon of information technology, and I think it might be the only one, is that we can find these people. You know, I found you, Andrea, through information technology, and this podcast would not exist without information technology. I thought that I was alone, and yet I found thousands of people through putting my stuff out there and putting our stuff out there. And so I would say to anyone who’s feeling alone, put it out there. Talk to someone I know you believe that too Andrea I.

Andrea:
Do and and I know it, Feels like I’m just going to plug our supporter discord and everything.

Alison:
Go ahead.

Andrea:
There’s a reason. There’s a reason why we made it. Because for both you and I, the sense of relief and the pressure that starts to come off. And having other people you can ask who will, you know, instead of Google saying, no, sourdough, leaving your sauerkraut on the counter overnight is probably dangerous. having a community of people who say oh yeah i put it on the counter for you know five days and you know.

Alison:
Yeah this.

Andrea:
Is normal and not feeling like you’re just the only bizarro out there honestly that is wonderful.

Alison:
Yeah absolutely okay and number four is kind of about technology too as much as technology can connect us technology can also ruin our lives and i truly believe that most people in the world are sleeping through this unaware of the many many ways they are being manipulated and how much better and more alive their life could be if they just started by looking up from their phone so i mean for me the journey of ancestral eating has been a journey of ancestral living and guided by rob who has sensitivities around technology you know i gave away my iphone when Gabriel was one and a half and through stepping away from these things just like with food you know.

Alison:
We step away from a food and we realize oh my gosh this food was causing me problems it’s the same with habits and technology and other things in our life when you step away from having an iPhone you do realize what that was doing to you and you don’t just realize oh it was keeping my attention it was making my eyes hurt a bit you realize that it was making you do things you know because of the input that everything that is behind the large apps the large things that are pushing information at you and and actually you realize what it’s like not to have information in front of you all the time and how yeah you actually don’t need it and life just becomes so much better and creativity can flow more um the more you know the more.

Alison:
I create stuff myself, the less I can handle any form of input from other people.

Alison:
And it just, it feels to me like our world is just sitting there with input, input, input, screen, screen, screens, head down, thumbs all the time. And ancestral and ancestral lifestyle has, I’m so grateful that it has shown me that.

Andrea:
I agree. I think we both have talked a little bit about that too. And Megan has also on her podcast with when we got off of Instagram and neither you or I was necessarily on Instagram to get information, but it’s just constantly being shoved at you. And getting away from there and stopping getting the input from everybody. I know people say, oh, we go there for inspiration. Honestly, you have an active and creative mind. You do not need the inspiration from Instagram. Just get off of Instagram. Let your mind recalibrate. Sorry to use a machine metaphor there. Let your mind as a pond settle out from all the chaos. And then all of your creativity can bubble up. And it’s your own inspiration. And the inspiration from things you see around you and not what other people are doing.

Alison:
Yeah absolutely okay number five we’ve talked about this on several of the private podcasts that are part of the supporter community and it’s the fact that people who aren’t ready to change aren’t worth trying to persuade do not give your energy to them when that happens to me you know i automatically i think oh i want to i want to persuade this person i want to tell them i want to get them enthusiastic but really what’s important in those moments if they’re not ready to accept it is to focus back on what I’m doing what what am I doing that is impacting people what am I doing that I love what am I doing that’s changing the lives of my family my life and my friend’s life and by focusing back on that you you can fine-tune your instinct so that you notice the very, very precious moments when others are receptive because they are there. You know, the people who are just going to shout you down and tell you immediately that you’re wrong.

Alison:
They’re they’re not they’re a battle that is not worth fighting but if you can be quiet enough and work on what you’re creating and what you’re doing to listen to those moments when actually someone’s asking something and they really want to know and you can then step in with a little bit of information something that will help them um but it it is frustrating as as ancestral um converts to realize that there’s a lot of the world out there that just, doesn’t want to know and coming to peace with that is important i think.

Andrea:
Yes i i agree with you i would add a little nuance to the phrase.

Alison:
Yeah and.

Andrea:
Not necessarily saying that the the people aren’t worth trying to persuade.

Alison:
But that it.

Andrea:
Isn’t worth trying to persuade them, they will come to it, or they may or may not. But I focus instead on the relationship, instead of trying to persuade them, let me just have a good relationship with you. And I cannot tell you how, like, the number is high of how many people who have said, oh my goodness, I can’t believe I used to do this or that. And I thought you were so crazy or insane. And now look at me, you know, now I have a farm and I’m wearing linen and, you know. But you would have never thought that they would be the person who would get there. But they said, you know, you never sneered at me and you never made me feel stupid. I felt like I could come to you and talk about it. And some people will never be ready to and that’s their path. But you do want to have a good relationship with, you know, those around you when they are ready to come and talk about it. Yeah, yeah, thank you. I would put more energy on just the relationship than trying to change someone’s mind, because actually you can’t change anyone’s mind, only they can change it. And you can just keep, like you said, having the information out there in a beautiful and appealing way, and when they’re ready, they’re ready.

Alison:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay you’re gonna do number six andrea.

Andrea:
Okay i’ll read it one size does not fit all food wise it’s a good one allison it’s important yeah.

Alison:
Do you want to talk about that first or shall i jump in because i’ve got something else to say about that.

Andrea:
Well i’ll just say that it’s it’s just as easy to be dogmatic and be a food dictocrat in the good food world as it is in the industrial food world. And I would say, beware of, you know, when somebody’s saying that, you know, let’s close off avenues of information or aspects of history, let’s ignore, beware of that. And just look at all things with eyes wide open, ears wide open, heart wide open, and be willing and interested, even if something seems to challenge what you believe, because somewhere somebody had to be willing to look at lard again when we’d been told for two generations that lard was bad for us. Somebody had to be willing to say, hold on, I feel like there’s something fishy with these studies. I just want to say to beware. And if anybody is saying that everybody needs to do this one thing, you should probably run screaming the other direction. Unless it’s me and Alison, in which case, listen to us. We know everything.

Alison:
Or come on our Discord channel and tell us we don’t know what we’re talking about.

Andrea:
Yeah, yeah.

Alison:
I take this sentence right back to when Rob and I were raw foodies long before Gable was born. And very much the literature that I read at the time was like, well yeah everyone can do this diet everyone can thrive on a raw food diet and you know some of them were high fat some of them were low fat some of them were high fruit some of them would it’s all different types of it’s not just raw food there’s whole cliques within the raw food movement and you know they they said that everyone can do this and then I look at what happened to me after two three years of being on a vegan raw food diet and how I had no cycle at all and how Now, at the end of it, I struggled to hold myself up whilst teaching English in Italy because I just, I had no strength at all. I had to sit down to teach a class English.

Andrea:
Like you literally couldn’t stand. That seems like a bad diet.

Alison:
And so, you know what? One size does not fit all food-wise. And then I fast forward to now and, you know, there’s three of us in our household and we all eat so differently, really. Although the essence is the same. you know I I’m eating spelt and spelt bread and sometimes wheat bread Rob up until the last few months when we found this heritage wheat has not been able to eat wheat at all and so I’m cooking rye bread for him but rye bread you know I don’t like it that much you know I like it but I don’t eat it every day I prefer to eat spelt if I had to choose one bread um and Rob can’t eat buckwheat and yet Rob and I love buckwheat. Gabriel can’t eat eggs. I eat eggs every day. The boys can eat sweet things. I can’t eat sweet things at all. You know, so although our plates in essence are the same, really… On a lot of our meals, there’s something a bit different on all of them. And if you tried to just put one diet down for all of us, neither of us, none of us would thrive, not one of us would thrive. Gabriel would be ill from the eggs. I would be very unwell from the sugar. And Rob would just be a disaster from eating too much wheat and buckwheat. So I think that’s quite important. Then the next one kind of sort of fits into it. Do you want to read seven and eight, Andrea?

Andrea:
I’ll read seven and eight. Yep. There are some things health-wise that you just can’t get over. Expound on this one for me, Alison. This is one I’m curious to hear you talk about.

Alison:
Yeah. So I think there’s a lot out there in the kind of health guru world that says you should be able to recover from anything in your life. And I just don’t think that’s true. I think that some things take a long time to get over. Maybe we’ll talk about that when we get to number eight. But from my experience, you know, the fact that I cut fat out of my diet aged and then did not eat fat basically until, well, when we got to Italy and I was , probably until I was about .

Andrea:
Oh, my gosh.

Alison:
Really, I was terrified to eat any fat. So for years, I didn’t eat fat. And you know what? That has an impact on your system. It really does. And there are things that are not optimal about my health now that stem from me not eating fat for years. Another example is… I’m a lot of listeners now I’m hypermobile and I have some problems with my spine that really were ingrained when I was a very, very small child. You know, I was a round peg in a square hole of a home. And because of that, I did things with my body to be able to cope with being in the world. I pushed my body in certain ways. If anyone’s familiar with Katie Bowman and nutritious movement, she goes into this sort of thing quite deeply. and anyone who’s into somatic experiencing or work like that. And because of that, my body is shaped a certain way. And that’s kind of it. No matter how much work I do, I can’t take that back to ground zero, you know. And so I think it’s wrong if someone says you can recover from anything because I just, I don’t think you can. But if you read number eight, Andrea, I will continue with my sentence.

Andrea:
I will. And I will say on number seven, that I have heard some things where people say, you know, kind of what you’re saying, yes, you know, through this diet, this product, this supplement, this tool, you know, whatever I’m selling, anything, you know, you can recover from anything. And then I’ve heard some other people like Katie Bowman, for instance, when she talks about barefoot living and she says, you know, going barefoot as a child and squatting and moving and climbing develops shapes and changes bones and muscles in your feet and legs that if you don’t do that as a child, then as an adult, you can never, you can never gain that type of mobility. And she says, well, I’ll read number eight. Eight says, but you can almost always make them somewhat better.

Alison:
Absolutely.

Andrea:
So Katie does say that, yeah.

Alison:
When you work with Katie Bowman and what she does, you can make what’s happening in your body somewhat better. And, you know, when I think about my biome, you know, I spent…

Alison:
My entire childhood on antibiotics basically you know three four five six rounds of antibiotics a year and eating sugar to a to a place where I decimated my biome I just you can just imagine you know years of that type of antibiotics being overweight and addicted to sugar I don’t think I will ever get my biome where I would love it to be and you know what I’ve spent years working on it, doing all forms of diets and concocting all forms of probiotics and trying to work with them.

Alison:
And I’m still nowhere near where I want to be. And I know that because of the symptoms I have in my body. But I have made them better. I have made lots of other symptoms in my life much better through work and so you know if you do have a problem that feels intractable know that you can almost always do something to make it better it’s not necessarily going to be easy but you can you know and and when I think about that I think about you know the state that I was in the past and sometimes I’m just so grateful that I found what I found because i haven’t really i could create horror stories in my head about the position that i would be in now if i hadn’t done the things that i’d done um and so no matter i think where you are with, gentle application you can make them better do you want to add anything that to that andrew before we go to a break.

Andrea:
I’ll add the phrase from unlikely character bikram who’s.

Alison:
A hot yoga yeah evangelist.

Andrea:
If you will and he has this phrase he says never too old never too late never too sick never too sick to start again and he’s right.

Alison:
You can always.

Andrea:
Start at some point and get some improvements. And that’s kind of what Katie says, too, when she says, you know, you might never get the mobility that you would have had if you did this as a child, but you will have way more mobility than you’ll have if you just keep on locking your feet up and never doing any diverse movement whatsoever. So, that is true with the diet. There’s always gains to be made. And anybody who tells you, sometimes people are so adamant that, you know, you can fix everything with my product that then if somebody says well you know you actually can’t but I can help you make it a lot a lot better than people like well I don’t want to stop with you I want to go find someone who will tell me what I want to hear but the reality is what you said.

Alison:
Yeah yeah absolutely okay um before we go to number nine let’s go to an ad break, Okay, number nine, self-acceptance is the key to becoming softer, not harder as you age. This one is an interesting one. I feel like there’s two types of people who are older than me that I kind of notice and witness in my life. They’re the ones that are kind of softer and gentler and the ones that the problems that they’ve had in their life and the things that have happened to them, which really, you know, difficult. But life is difficult sometimes, they’ve made them tighten and get harder.

Alison:
And I’ve always, you know, since I noticed that happening in people older than me years ago, I just thought, I don’t want that to happen to me. I don’t want to become kind of tight and harder and more kind of angry and bitter about my life. I want to be open and curious and soft as I age and be able to give that to the people who are still around me. You know, as Gabriel gets older, I want to be open to whatever he brings into my life and anyone else who’s around. And so I feel like there’s been a difficult practice of self-acceptance. You know, self-acceptance is so hard. You know, particularly when we’re the type of person who wants to be better, which I think a lot of listeners to the podcast are, you know, they want to be better. They want to not have all the problems they have. They want to not be dogged by the habits they have. But I feel like it’s too easy to be harsh on ourself. And the more that we do that, the harder we get. And the answer really is love and self-acceptance. And if we can fully embrace that towards everyone and ourselves, then we can age much more gracefully. Andrea, what do you think about what I just said?

Andrea:
I’ll just throw back to number four, when you talked about technology, which is to say that it’s also hard to do what you described, becoming softer with self-acceptance. When you are constantly stimulated by people on the internet telling you ways that you could improve yourself and you could be better. And they can sell you the course, in fact, that will make you that thing. And they’ll teach you how to accept yourself in spite of all your failings that they’re also going to point out to you. So, yeah, that really, all of this really runs together. And getting out of that noise and chaos of the internet is probably going to help you with this one quite a bit. And there’s a saying that has lodged deep in my neuronal paths, and that is something somebody said when I was very young. I heard an older woman say that she said, I always noticed whatever you are, you become more so when you’re older. And so, she said the mean, vindictive ladies become old, mean, bitter, vindictive ladies. And the kind, thoughtful ladies in their elder years are just the gems of society, you know.

Alison:
What wisdom that is, gosh. So that says really look at our actions now in every day.

Andrea:
Absolutely, they’re going to expand.

Alison:
Yeah, do the ones that we feel good doing, which actually leans into number , number of our things, which is integrity. Truly being in alignment with the choices you make is one of the most worthwhile goals to aim at when enacted it feels so very good and also moves you forward in your life, This is a huge one for me out of the that we’re going to talk about. I feel like I learned this, really have learned this much from Rob, who has really always lived his life in integrity. And I spent a lot of my early life not living in integrity, being blinded by the things around me that I’d got used to because I grew up in a certain environment, you know. And really every choice that I’ve made that I feel has been in integrity has brought so much more to my life and moved me towards the.

Alison:
Person I want to be even if it’s been a painful choice something I’ve had to own up to or something that’s been harder financially something that I really didn’t want to do something that I knew was going to mean I wouldn’t get something else it just it feels like those things making the choice first of all is a healing thing saying this feels right to me I don’t care what else is telling me to do something different I’m going to listen to me and you know that that can go from choosing to come off Instagram choosing not to go back on Instagram to promote a book even though the whole world says she should be on there it can be making food choices it can be choosing to to not have children to have children it can be about the people you.

Alison:
Have around you the people who you let into your life it can be the work that you’re doing it it fits every kind of area of our life and and it really does show itself with food you know because I feel like I Rob and I always strive to make the choices in our shopping and in our cooking and in our patronizing that are the things that we believe and you know we don’t always succeed sometimes money is just too tight it’s the end of the month and we were like we really want to do this but we can’t sometimes we choose to go without because we don’t want to do it but it again and again I just feel like the more I can choose in integrity the more I just feel real and and whole and like me and happier and more at peace, I’m not.

Andrea:
Surprised that that one is one of your most.

Andrea:
Oh, significant out of the , because actually Leah and I were having a conversation about you, and I was saying, and she agreed with me, we both felt you are a person that probably out of everybody I know is the most actually embodying everything that you truly feel convicted about. Because there’s, including myself, a lot of us who we know in our head, ah, yes, I want to make this change, but we haven’t enacted it yet. And I was telling Leah how that’s one of the things that encourages me the most when I talk to you, because even if it’s a different decision that we would each be making, the fact that you always talk about making the choice, you know, when it feels right in your body and saying, you know, we’re going to move heaven and earth to make it happen if we have to because I have to live in that alignment or else I feel the disorder in my body, then it’s really helped me in a lot of my decisions to stay true to what I know, is where I want to be. And I suppose then Rob has to go on that list too. And that is what brought you guys back from Italy is those discussions. And so that was a really big change driven by that sense of integrity. Shall I read ?

Alison:
Yes, please do.

Andrea:
There is always another deeper layer than the one you’re working on now.

Alison:
Yeah. Do you want to read too? Because it goes with it.

Andrea:
Uh-huh. And to uncover it will probably take longer than you think.

Alison:
Yeah.

Andrea:
If there’s truer words than that.

Alison:
Yeah, it’s just true. Again and again and again and again in my life, it’s been true. You know, we think, oh, this is it. I’ve got it. This is going to change everything. And maybe it does for a little while. And then because you’ve got rid of that or you’ve cleared that or you’ve worked through that, you find something underneath. It’s like an onion. You know, you peel one layer and then there’s another layer and then there’s another layer. And you might think oh if I get through this and I can get through the rest of this and I can get to the heart of this matter or I can heal from this and and we all want to have healing in our lives as quickly as possible and as painlessly as possible and why not but in my experience it um to peel that onion and get further and further into that onion takes longer than we think it will take Ha, ha, ha.

Andrea:
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but I’ll say it in case you’re listening. There is no one product, food, book, course, supplement, or guru that will do all that for you. There isn’t. Some of them might be part of the layer, but if somebody’s telling you that they’ve got the magic key and after this diet, you’ve cracked the code, it’s not true.

Alison:
Shall i read because this yeah .

Andrea:
Fits in well patience can be learned through actions.

Alison:
You can see how when i wrote this list i thought of one and then another one just came to me from the last one you know because um things taking longer than you want them to requires patience and historically I’m not a very patient person I mean like I’ve really struggled with the idea of patience in my life um and I have to say that you me well yeah exactly am I more patient with you now than I used to be um I think that really the only way that I’ve become more patient is by trying to be more patient and in a way that makes sense because really you know if we’ve got a habit that we want to change the best way to try and change it is by actively.

Alison:
Kind of trying to do the opposite and maybe at the beginning we’ll only be able to be patient for another two seconds or five seconds but slowly through feeling the frustration of impatience and allowing that to be and acting with that I feel like my patience has increased, and you know if you’re looking at a healing journey which a lot of people listening are you’ve got that idea of an onion and you’re going further and further and each layer takes longer than you want it to you know why is why is this not done yet why am I not healed yet why do I still have these problems but if you apply yourself to it gently and just keep persisting, in a gentle way, then I feel like life rewards you back with patience because you, in the end, you learn that you can make things somewhat better. You can improve the actions as we talked about earlier. And along with that comes the patience because you’ve had that experience. Does that make sense?

Andrea:
It absolutely does. And patience can be learned through actions is a good response to why people say, don’t ever pray for patience, because God will not give you a magical gift of patience. He’ll send you people who will teach you patience through your actions. Somebody, people always would ask my mom, like, oh, you must be so patient because you have so many children. And she would roll her eyes and say, no, that’s how you learn patience and she said yeah um she defines patience as she said it’s just really just being concerned about the things that actually matter and learning how to not be concerned about the things that don’t it’s starting to delineate between the two yeah.

Alison:
That is so right and that’s something that Rob says to me all the time you know.

Andrea:
If we’re.

Alison:
In a situation where I’m getting impatient I will focus on the thing that doesn’t matter and I’m like and he’ll.

Andrea:
Say that’s.

Alison:
Unimportant Alison let’s You know, I’m focusing on this thing over here, which is the long game, you know, the end goal. Just forget about that. Let’s put our energies on this end goal every time. And that’s my lesson in patience, you know.

Andrea:
You know, maybe Rob is the one guru that can fix everything for us, actually.

Alison:
I take it back. One day I will write down everything he says and form it into a book.

Andrea:
The Rob aphorisms. I’ll take the book.

Alison:
Okay let’s do number all right you read this one clarity is a prerequisite to right forward movement question what you want again and again if there is any doubt whether it feels right circle back and start over um this one is a belief that i’ve had for a very long time and i’ve just seen it play out again and again in every change i’ve made you know my life has been full of quite dramatic changes quite a lot of them you know sort of going off in what seems like a completely different direction to where I’ve been before and there is a right forward movement and there is a forward movement that feels like it’s not quite as right and that teaches you something those forward movements that aren’t right but the right forward movement is.

Alison:
Literally a prerequisite to that is absolute clarity in your mind and all the minds of those who are making that right forward movement with you so for example at the moment Rob and I are making decisions around where we’re living and a very important part of this process is us just spending what feels like hours and hours and hours talking about what we want and why that’s important to us and why this won’t work and why that will work and is that really what we feel or is there something underneath that that thinks we actually don’t want it that way or we want it that way because we’re scared is that and it just every time we face a decision like that.

Alison:
When we can find the clarity that we feel like we’ve got to the bottom of it and that is really how we feel which is often quite painful and causes you know some discussions or some work that either of us has to do that’s when things shift with that clarity um and so i feel like if you’re trying to make a decision and you fit your you should question yourself again and again what do i want why do i want this is this really what i want and if you’re not sure and you think actually it doesn’t feel quite right then just go back and you know have some patience perhaps you know leave it come back to it a week later or however you know a month later depending on your time scale and just ask again ask again and um once that clarity is there that is the most important thing the rest of it even it feels like you’ve got to move mountains the rest of it can slot into place much more easily because you’re behind it i think that’s the best way i can explain that No.

Andrea:
I really like that. I almost feel like, The sentence, as you said, there can almost be three different points, but they do also go together. You do have to kind of pull off one layer, like you said, and then say, and why is that? And then pull back another layer and say, but why is that?

Alison:
Yeah.

Andrea:
Which is a lot easier to do when you’re not on Instagram. Yeah, absolutely. It’s all coming back to that. How about I read and then you follow right up with ? Because this is really interesting. Okay. All right. . It’s not about all or nothing.

Alison:
Okay. And . In fact, all or nothing can be very harmful.

Alison:
I feel like I am historically an all or nothing girl. You know, I was ridiculously overweight, age . And then it was like, right, I’m going to lose weight. I’m not really, I’m just going to do it this way. And yeah, I did. I lost half my body weight. by being all or nothing you know saying I’m not going to eat fat anymore and that all or nothing as I explained earlier in the podcast was quite harmful has been quite harmful for me I believe I possibly could have achieved the same result i.e losing half my body weight without having to restrict fat it might have taken longer and it might have been perhaps harder or maybe not actually because it was quite hard restricting fat probably it would have taken longer but i feel like i would have been a healthier person at the end of it and obviously i don’t know because i can’t go back and do the sliding doors thing um but another example is gaps you know i was like right we’re doing gaps and we’re on it and we’re on the intro for months on end and, I really, you know, I do it, if I do something, I do it in quotes properly.

Alison:
And I was on gaps for too long. You know, I lost way too much weight. I don’t metabolize fat very well. And I was struggling to sleep at all towards the end of it. I just was going, you know, weeks and weeks and weeks without having slept properly. I should have come off gaps a lot earlier, but I was like, no, I’m doing gaps. I’m doing gaps.

Alison:
And, you know, from obviously this, this list is subjective, because it’s my list but um I feel like you know if you have one of those all or nothing personalities, um it’s not about all or nothing I could have achieved the same goals without being all or nothing and again and again and again I’ve seen and it’s not just gaps and that weight loss again and again I’ve done things where I’ve just been right I’m doing this and then a few weeks a few months later i’m like oh i shouldn’t have done that there’s some consequences here that i didn’t know were gonna happen um yeah so yeah all or nothing can be very harmful um if you do engage with it so try and find another way if you’re an all or nothing person think about it before you go all or nothing i think i am do you have anything to add to that andrea yeah you agree i agree.

Andrea:
Yep well said.

Alison:
Okay should we go to an ad break then yeah all right yeah okay, okay we’re back with number which is really fits in quite well with the review that we had at the top of the episode and something that all believers will um i don’t know i wish we could have a banner with it written on saturated fat does not make you fat and number most of the world still believes that saturated fat makes you fat so that’s insane.

Andrea:
To me i think.

Alison:
We’ve lived in this bubble.

Andrea:
For so long that i don’t i don’t even that’s crazy.

Alison:
That that’s still the because anyone who’s been cooking this way or has has had any experience with saturated fat knows, that it is health giving and anyone who’s looked into ancestral traditions knows that for the most part of history humans have eaten saturated fats you know no matter where they lived in the world and what form of saturated fat they had available. But we still believe that saturated fat makes us fat. And here am I who struggled with weight for the first years of my life. And then having decided to not eat raw food and go back to an ancestral diet when i wanted to conceive in ish um being terrified of saturated fat it’s absolutely terrified that it was going to make me fat because i’d been the fat guy i didn’t want to be that yeah let.

Andrea:
Me ask you a question because i actually don’t know this did you think that, other fats like polyunsaturated fats or did you think that was okay to eat and it was just saturated fat or were you afraid of all fat.

Alison:
I think i was afraid of all fats um because you know when i’d lost weight i’d cut all fats out of my diet and i wasn’t eating like olive oil or anything like that that wasn’t you know that was a different type of fat and i think i was afraid of all fat but the fat i was most afraid of was saturated fat really the cheese and the butter and the fat on the side of the pork joint.

Andrea:
So in your head they were different. You’re like, there’s some distinction here.

Alison:
Yeah, because the world tells us they’re different, don’t they? They tell us, oh, they’re all like the good fat, you know? These fats are the good fats. And the fact that you get from meat and from cheese and from butter and, oh my gosh, lard, you know? That whole word is just a derogatory term, is bad. And like you said, when we’ve been in this world for a while, you start to realise that saturated fat is a health giver. You know, saturated fat brought back my menstrual cycle. And yet, living in Italy for, you know, years, knowing that the history of Italy is that really they ate lard, not olive oil, unless they were living in an olive oil growing area. And they have a lot of dishes that still have lard in them or have lardo, which is a cured fat from a pig, still people I met there every day say, well, this is just going to give me a heart attack, isn’t it? And inside our bubble, we forget that. Yeah.

Andrea:
This is interesting. So is the messaging that people are getting that, like, good fats, by good fat, they define it won’t make you fat, like olive oil or whatever they’re saying?

Alison:
I still think that you have to be sparing with it, you know? I still think.

Andrea:
And then the messaging is that, like, okay, olive oil is a good fat. You can eat it and you’re not going to get fat. And then saturated fat is going to make you fat, which is weird. That’s just kind of weird. Huh.

Alison:
Yeah.

Andrea:
And meanwhile, your brain can’t run without it.

Alison:
Well, yeah, exactly.

Andrea:
And I think people think that. You experienced your cardiovascular system has a hard time because you couldn’t pump your blood from your feet to your head.

Alison:
Yeah, I think that people think that fat associated with meats, with animals, is bad. You know, don’t have that.

Andrea:
And do we know where that messaging came from? That was gurus telling us that the product they sold could fix the problem.

Alison:
His Mediterranean diet, which was based on the premise that all Italians ate olive oil, which is why they were so healthy.

Andrea:
Which was also based on super selective cherry protein. From his own research.

Alison:
Yeah, exactly. Go back and listen to Karima’s episode way back in the annals. And I think we talk about that a bit there. I have a blog post as well on the myth of olive oil use in Italy, which is readable. I’ll try and remember to put that in the resources. Do you want to do the next two, Andrea?

Andrea:
Yeah, I was going to ask. Okay, number . Our biome is the master controller of our health. Can you talk about that one, Alison? And I’ll say number . It is very hard to change our biome.

Alison:
Yeah. So I think that really the world is now waking up to the fact that our biome is the master controller of our health. I don’t think the general public understand it as much as they will do in the future. I think more research will come onto how it is just it controls everything. Um and it’s very hard to change our biome i remember listening to a podcast like about years ago where some bloke was saying oh yeah i’ve been working really hard to change my biome and i’ve been having you know stool tests and i was having probiotics um and it took about seven or eight years of daily probiotic use for me to see um a consistent change in my biome and i thought what wow um and yet you know i slowly increase my probiotics for for a decade and still as i said earlier in the podcast my biome’s not where i want it to be um so yeah our biome is in control of our health and it’s very hard to change our biome um andrew do you want to say something about that if not you can do the next two as well yeah.

Andrea:
No i just i agree and and i think it’s it’s one of the things, or again, if somebody’s telling you they have a quick fix that’s going to change your life in this weekend course, just forget about it because it’s not. You need time over, Time over change continuously, you know, for a long time. All right, number . No one knows more about your body than you. By all means, take in information, but listen to yourself first. Yeah, you talk about that, Alison. This isn’t something I’ve seen you do many times.

Alison:
Yeah, well, I feel like I, in the past, I deferred to gurus often. And by painful experience really I’ve learned that it’s me that knows the most about my body not them and their their suggestions might have a positive impact on me but they might not and they don’t have access to the information that my body’s sending me they don’t have access to symptoms to the way I feel to you know how much sleep I get how my my body feels how my mind feels and so I think it is important to just have that as a truth in our heads before we take in information from other people because it’s easy to be swept away like you’ve said again and again you know this is this one thing that will fix you and this is what cured me and it can cure you this is what I did and it can cure you no it everyone’s different and the way we can heal ourselves is by yeah learning lots and lots i mean i’ve learned tons in my journey but it’s in listening to what’s going on inside our bodies um first and um do you want to read number because i feel like that goes on from .

Andrea:
Yes. And this fits with number four. In order to understand what your body is saying, take quiet time.

Alison:
Yeah and that really fits with um when i first started trying to change my body it was difficult for me to know what to do other than listen to other people telling me what to do because i wasn’t quiet enough to actually listen to what my body was saying it’s.

Alison:
And more and more like you’re saying in this world where we’re just distracted all the time by technology and people telling us what they want us to hear so they can sell us something or get us to do something then we don’t have access to what our body is saying um and you know you can’t just turn the phone off for minutes and then try and feel what’s happening in your body you need much more time of being disconnected and connected internally listening and feeding back I want to read and then we’ll come back to all of them you can trust your instinct but you won’t know what your instinct sounds like unless you test out your inclinations watch what happens and take time to reflect and that’s why I say it takes more than five minutes minutes of um saying right I’m going to have some quiet time to be able to understand what your body is saying I remember like a decade ago years ago saying to Rob but how do I know what my instinct is there’s all these things that are telling me to do things how do I know if it’s my body telling me or if it’s some kind of habit telling me or if it’s a craving telling me how do I know and he said to me you won’t know until you do it.

Alison:
And learn and so he’s he at the beginning he’d terrify me with his assertions of well look if you want to eat chocolate just eat chocolate but do it consciously don’t do it shoving it down being worried you know guilty that you shouldn’t be eating it or watching something else just sit with the chocolate be as absolutely conscious as you can be and eat it and see how you feel and I feel like the the way that I’ve learned to get closer to what I believe is my instinct is just by making tons of mistakes trying out what felt like the right thing to do and then seeing how does this feel what are the results of it what’s happened because of it how do I feel in my body because of it what feels on what feels off um and reflecting on that um i i just feel like in this world that we live in now where there’s all of these things bombarding us it’s very very hard to access what people consider an instinct unless we go through that process and try things out and see what happens what do you feel about that andrea.

Andrea:
Yes i think um sometimes people think humans don’t have good instincts in the way that animals have good instincts, but we have just been, like you said, told for a long time what we should or shouldn’t be doing. And then, oftentimes, people have even had very good instincts and they say things like, I should have listened to myself, but they did what somebody else told them or they thought was maybe like the culturally right thing to do or something, and regretted it because they did not listen to their instincts. So, listening to your instinct, is an innate skill that you can redevelop and actually following your instinct is a practice that you can work on for the rest of your life absolutely it’s good advice from rob though to do do it quietly and sit with it instead of listening to the clamor of people telling you all the biological makeup of cacao is this and if you do this yeah just try it and sit i was like what you’re telling.

Alison:
Me that i should just sit and eat all this chocolate and that’s you know i didn’t I didn’t want to hear.

Andrea:
It at the beginning, but I know he was right. Again, Rob is so smart. We discovered. Just eat the chocolate. Okay. All right.

Alison:
Okay. Do you want to take ?

Andrea:
Yeah. Let me read . The thing that you can’t do without, food-wise, is so often the thing that is messing you up. I don’t like this one, Alice, and I think we should strike it from the list.

Alison:
No one does.

Andrea:
Yeah. Based on my current experience not having gluten and all the good it’s doing for me, I don’t want to think about, no, it’s okay. It’s true. It’s true, though. And sometimes that is the, your instinct might be telling you what you need to drop and you’re resisting it. Yeah. I speak from experience.

Alison:
Yeah.

Andrea:
Because you don’t want it to be true.

Alison:
And I think scientifically or chemically, probably chemically is a better word to use here, the thing that is doing us harm, our body’s kind of craving for us to eat more of it because it wants to sort of perpetuate some status quo. And so it’s asking us to keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. And we think that, oh, well, I can’t live without my, enter whatever word you want to enter there. But actually… But psychologically and chemically, our bodies need a break from it. And so always look at that. If you’re looking at changing up your diet and you want to, look at the thing that you, well, what’s the thing I can’t do without? Oh, really? What happens if I try going without that for a little while?

Andrea:
It’s a good place to apply that practice you talked about earlier with you and Rob having your discussion about places to live and stuff. Why can’t I do without it? What is it that makes me think I can’t do without it? What is the actual sometimes I find just talking things out with you has helped me because it’s like it just all I needed to do was talk it out and try to explain it you know well why can’t you do without gluten well I feel like it might be too challenging why is it too challenging well I don’t know, yeah and I think chocolate and sugar just pulling back those layers have, things that are.

Alison:
Going on that are difficult or things that have gone on in the past that are difficult. And it’s easy to turn to something like chocolate or sugar or gluten to make us kind of in some sense numb out or make us feel like there’s luxury or make us feel like it’s a treat time. You know, I know I use chocolate for a very long time as a kind of, there’s some luxury in my life. There’s something that is beautiful and delicious and luxurious. Curious when I didn’t have that in my life and so asking those questions that you’ve just talked about Andrea well why do I feel like I can’t go without chocolate well when do I need chocolate why do I why do I eat it when when is it that it um that what is it you know that’s in my state of mind when I turn to it when are the moments that I think oh I’ve got to have it and then looking at those moments and going well what’s going on there I feel this emotion at those particular times Why do I feel that? Well, what can I bring into my life that will give me those things, but not have an effect on my health?

Alison:
I’m having a down on chocolate, and we’ve got an episode next month, I think, on why we should be eating chocolate. So I use it as in terms of you know when I ate the chocolate it was white chocolate which was like hardly any cacao at all if any just mostly sugar um good chocolate is a different thing and and not addictive in the same way that store-bought standard chocolate is I think but um it’s a good metaphor because I think most people listening will understand that feeling of I can’t go without that you know and gluten is another really good example as well.

Alison:
Hmm okay and we’re up to aren’t we do you want to do that one Andrea.

Andrea:
Number , changing something around in your diet, even if only for a couple of days, can be so revealing. Yeah, that’s a good one, Alison.

Alison:
Have you done that, Andrea? Have you kind of changed things up either on purpose or not on purpose and noticed some things from it that were revealing?

Andrea:
Yeah, sometimes you notice it almost right away or sometimes it takes a couple days. and then sometimes it takes longer i know there’s some things where it can take you know days to kind of work out of your system so it’s a long time to know yeah but with my most recent experience of toying around with going gluten-free yeah i feel like the i almost within a couple days i was seeing the difference okay and i was also only noticing that i suppose a little, sub text you could add to this number is documenting how I was feeling for a while leading up to it and then continuing on through just tracking a variety of symptoms, because I don’t necessarily know that I would have picked it up all the things that were changing you know because it’s interesting documenting.

Alison:
I find that very interesting because I have this kind of love hate relationship with it that I can quite easily and have done in periods of my life over documented everything and.

Andrea:
Just yeah just.

Alison:
It it reinforces all the neurosis that I don’t like um but I also know many times many many times I’ve something’s changed and I’ve gone oh maybe it’s because of this oh I wish I’d made.

Andrea:
A note when that happened last time.

Alison:
And I’m like oh I didn’t write it down you know and so there definitely is a place for documentation but i think there’s also a place for if we’ve if we over document all the time for looking inside and going am i doing this too much.

Andrea:
Or is this right that is a possibility need it i probably err on the side of under documenting and not paying attention to things too bad so then you need where i’ll have be completely oblivious to the effect of something and not not draw the connection yeah and i’ve always been impressed with you know you’ll say oh i noticed that every time after the third quarter of the waning moon if i do this on the fifth tuesday by the fourth tuesday and i’m like how did you notice that connection you.

Alison:
Know very often i know we talked about rob quite a lot in this episode but very often i’ll just say to rob by the way this this this and this happened i just want you to note it because I know you’ll remember and I.

Andrea:
Won’t.

Alison:
And always, and then a year later he goes, but you know that, that and that happened. I was like, really? Did it? I don’t remember that.

Andrea:
You know, I just realized, Alison, that’s why… You don’t need, well, we don’t need the, what’s that thing called that people get from Amazon, the Echo or whatever.

Alison:
Oh, yeah. That’s in their house and they say.

Andrea:
Echo, tell me what time it is or whatever. We don’t need that. We’ve got these husbands that just do it all for us.

Alison:
Yes, exactly. Oh, my sister’s got one of those things. And I went around to her house last year sometime and I was just like, oh, my gosh, no.

Andrea:
Did it talk to you the whole time you were there?

Alison:
No, they just, they talked to it and it told them some joke about something, then it told them some game and I was just like, oh, crikey, you know, can we just be a bit quieter?

Andrea:
Meanwhile, we’re like, Rob, make a note.

Alison:
Yeah, exactly.

Andrea:
Rob, remind me in one year.

Alison:
Exactly. What I wanted to say about number was, changing something around in your diet, even if only for a couple of days can be so revealing, is that because I’ve moved around a fair a bit and had to go back and forth between places. I’ve been forced to do that against my will often sometimes. And it’s, that’s why I put the word revealing because it’s just shown me things that I would never have noticed before. So, you know, there’s been a situation perhaps where I’ve, I’m going to stay with someone and all the cooking equipment’s different and I can’t have dairy or i only have access to olive oil or you know i i’m i don’t have my lard or i have to be off bread for a couple of days and because of those restrictions i’ve gone oh hang on that thing that i just thought was normal is not happening at the moment, And that’s made me see things that, you know, if you’d asked me to take that cheese out of my diet or take that bread out of my diet or make me live with that lard, I would have gone, no, no, I would have fought you for it, you know.

Alison:
And so I try to embrace that attitude on a daily basis when there’s something that I’m not sure about or when I want to see if something will change up. I try and think, okay, well, let’s just take this out for a couple of days and just see how I feel. Because I think it’s a very worthy thought to work with.

Andrea:
Well, that leads you right into number . You want me to read it?

Alison:
Yeah, go on, please.

Andrea:
Yeah. Okay, . You can survive without the thing that you think you absolutely need. I don’t like this one, Alison.

Alison:
I think you should leave it out. I don’t like it. I don’t like it. i think we don’t i think we don’t need this one they’re absolutely in there you can survive without the thing you think you absolutely need it could be you can absolutely survive without the thing that you think you need um yeah this one is just speaks to all that kind of um, using food for the other things that might be kind of a bit wrong in our life which is just normal, in the day and age that we live in and it’s too easy to lean into a food I think and think that you absolutely have to have it and I think we talked a bit earlier on the thing that you can you can’t do without is often the thing that’s messing you up and this is kind of a similar thing.

Alison:
That perhaps the thing that you’re craving is your body sending signals to keep that homeostatus is going um and then emotionally we don’t want to give it up um but i know through having done it and then everyone who’s you know gone taking a food out of their diet you’ve taken gluten out you’re taking your gluten out at the moment anyone who’s been on gaps or considered doing any form of restriction knows that you know you can survive without it you just can and at the beginning it’s hard you know um and it helps to put strategies in place in your head just like someone who’s giving up smoking might you know well when is it I’m most tempted to have that cigarette or what am I going to do instead what thoughts am I going to put in there what am I going to am I going to clean my teeth am I going to go out for a walk and so it can help to be prepared but it it helps mightily to just know that you can get by without it and once you get over that crunch at the beginning it gets easier and easier in my experience this.

Andrea:
Is where I feel like the support of people around you a community is really important for me anyways because when you’re the only weirdo in the.

Alison:
Room that’s.

Andrea:
Not doing something it can get a little old pretty quick.

Alison:
Yeah there.

Andrea:
Was a friend who came up for the camp out, um, a podcast listener who came up for the camp out and she, you know, when I, we, and I had been chatting before she came up and I had said, yeah, I’m kind of, I’m going gluten-free for a while and see, and then see how it goes. And she said, oh no, I’m sorry. And she came up, then we were just talking about my experience and the things that were changing for me. And it’s similar things that she wants to change and she was like oh.

Alison:
Interesting she.

Andrea:
Said I don’t she said I I think I might might be joining you on that you.

Alison:
Know but.

Andrea:
It doesn’t feel so odd when there’s a couple of you and you can.

Alison:
Encourage each other.

Andrea:
And she has a couple kids and I have a couple kids and so you know talking about you know the how we’ll be cooking and stuff you know we have that.

Alison:
In common.

Andrea:
In to share so.

Alison:
So important you know I think that it’s not that community is so important but the other end of it is just people thinking you’re absolutely kind of some weird neurotic crazy lady, for you know not being able to eat gluten not being able to eat lactose not being able to eat a list of random things it having been through that with many people with my family you know Because each of the three of us in our family has weird things that we can’t eat. You know, I don’t eat any sugar at all. And that’s unusual for people to get their head around. Rob can’t eat wheat. That’s a bit more understandable. And he can’t eat buckwheat. Gable can’t eat eggs and potato. And when you’re going to someone’s house and you’re trying to deliver all that information, well, you can’t, if you make anything with sugar, Alison’s not going to eat it. If you make anything with wheat, Rob’s not going to eat it. If you make anything with eggs, Gable’s not going to eat it. Oh, and don’t put potato in either. i can bring all this food that we can eat don’t worry about your food but still if you try and explain that to someone who’s not of our ilk and who hasn’t been through difficulties like that you can be made to feel like a complete nutcase and so not only is that community so important for helping you practically and helping you emotionally but it also gives you a space where you don’t have to feel like you’re going crazy or that you’re wrong or that you’re mad or you’re just some neurotic crazy lady.

Andrea:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. A little weird thing is when we had our, one of our campouts out here, then it was our church campout and… You know, we have different, like, marshmallows that we have the kids cook than most people buy.

Alison:
Yeah.

Andrea:
And sometimes I feel kind of like, oh, no, here we are. Let’s just make yourself weird again, you know. But one of the other moms pulled out all her weird organic stuff for our kids. And I was like, hey, look. As my kids were, like, running up to the house to get theirs because they knew that I would say no. And I was like, wow, we aren’t the only weirdos. And I just, I suddenly felt less odd, you know, even though it’s not really that big of a deal. But anyways, just little things like that can contribute to the solidarity. But it is possible. I didn’t like the idea of going gluten-free, but I think because I accidentally went gluten-free, you know, I realized it had been like two weeks and I still had it. i was just all the food i was eating kind of like you say when you go to somebody else’s house or something.

Alison:
Yeah you.

Andrea:
Know i was talking to a friend who’s also gluten-free and i said like if we were in thailand or something we wouldn’t even realize.

Alison:
Yeah because.

Andrea:
You know you wouldn’t.

Alison:
Come across isn’t or hasn’t.

Andrea:
Wasn’t historically as prevalent right so so it’s just having to constantly be different sometimes.

Alison:
I’m just going to give a shout out for the discord forum there because i feel like a lot of the community who are in that discord forum really do feel grateful that they can express what they want to express you know in their lives and what’s happening in their kitchen and with their health in a community that is so supportive where people will just get it you know and then they can move on to the actual question they’ve got or the problem they’ve got rather than instead of having to explain get through that whole stuff and then getting a load of stupid answers you know from the general community so discord is really beneficial for making you feel less alone i think if you’re feeling alone out there do consider coming and joining us on the discord forum which is that’s just the first level of the supporter community so just from five dollars you get access to that if you think it would be of benefit to you it’s a great place i.

Andrea:
Feel like we’ve said it like times but still it’s because you and I we both know how weird we felt before and yeah and then I forget.

Alison:
I forget that I’m weird.

Andrea:
Until I step outside.

Alison:
Of the bubble.

Andrea:
And and somebody you know we were somewhere and I had brought food for the kids and they said oh do you want me to put it in the microwave and I just.

Alison:
About fell.

Andrea:
Over and I was like oh and they just looked at me like, what, what did I say? And I was like, uh, I don’t know. We, literally never even crossed my mind i said we could just put it in the oven for a few minutes and they’re like or we could just microwave it yeah and i was like uh how do we explain this yeah exactly where where do i go from here, i panicked we did not microwave it but good yeah okay well.

Alison:
We are at the end of this episode there.

Andrea:
Are another.

Alison:
or of the things to come and we are going to put those in another episode because we’ve already gone to time or over time here. And so do let us know what you think about this. You can contact us via the website or if you’re a supporter, come and chat to us on Discord. And we will be back with the second half of this episode a bit later in the year. Thank you very much, Andrea.

Andrea:
Thank you, Allison.