Kitchen Table Chats #55 – Vitamin D, Millet & The Thyroid, ADD suggestions

What we cover:

• risotto and rooster soup
• podcast gift announcements and our new supporter level
• do we supplement vitamin D?
• millet as a goitrogen, does it affect your thyroid?
• if we could time travel, where would we go?
• ADHD, what does Andrea do to help?
• doing less

Resources:

• Chris Kresser article
• Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms? When My Lab Tests Are Normal, by Datis Kharrazian
• Our new sustainable merchandise

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Transcript:

Andrea:
Hello, Alison, and good afternoon.

Alison:
Hello, and good morning. Yes, it feels like we’re sort of starting afresh, and little does anyone know that I was running outside the house to try and find Rob 15 minutes ago because there was a technical disaster.

Andrea:
But I feel like just the recording of a podcast is its own podcast, It’s own novel. Here’s Allison running down the highway, bootlaces flapping, Rob to come back and fix a SIM card, and Rob’s just obliviously enjoying himself in his afternoon.

Alison:
Where are you where are you he’s not answering his phone come on it’s like some film here’s the.

Andrea:
Thing everybody says i don’t have a cell phone on me for emergencies and rob actually had the cell phone on him and it never works for the emergencies so i don’t know.

Alison:
It rob has this thing with cell phones it’s like so i don’t have the mobile phone i don’t have the smartphone he has a smartphone but he never hears it ring no matter what he does it’s always coincidentally on some kind of silence or the volume’s down or it’s under something or and it always always it’s like an intentional you know kind of thing that he does without

Alison:
knowing it something else is taking control so yeah given yours and my time.

Andrea:
Zone difference it’s kind of hilarious you know if something happens you know like once you had a migraine or something so rob’s like discord message, email, handboard tasks. I’m going to hit you everywhere I can and hopefully something gets seen. Oh man, it’s so funny. But we’ve talked on the phone a few times actually, which is complicated but fun.

Alison:
Yeah, which is nice.

Andrea:
It has a different feel to it. A different ring to it.

Alison:
Very funny. So we are on plan B. Luckily we have a plan B. Plan A is supposed to work. It’s supposed to work. It just doesn’t all the time and you think after five years having just put out our episode that celebrates five years of the podcast you think after doing it for five years it would be easy wouldn’t you but no every time just.

Andrea:
Our reminder to stay humble.

Alison:
Yeah every time you.

Andrea:
Know what i notice allison and of course you can’t tell rob this although he’s going to see it in the um episode as he edits us but every time we spend more money it’s like the problems get.

Alison:
Yeah i know and so i think like you know what i think we’ll.

Andrea:
Finally jump on the nice software and then it just.

Alison:
Rob rob feels that at all he feels like you know because he’s a free software but he feels like you spend the money and then you just like he’s got a lot of people who are using mailing software that costs thousands of dollars oh my gosh they’re so expensive and the problems that they have you know he set me up with a free one and i complain when there’s a problem oh this isn’t user friendly this can’t do this and he’s like just remember my other client here is using this one which is costing her 1200 a month and she has still these problems too you know so it’s wild.

Andrea:
You think i think we might have talked about this on the episode that we just recorded but you think you just throw more money at a thing it’ll solve the issue but that’s actually not how it works i mean that’s how it is with food too how much money could you throw at food, that that cannot be better than just you taking the time yeah to make yourself

Andrea:
yeah and did you eat before we got on yeah yeah before your run feels.

Alison:
Like ages ago i’ve used up all the energy on the run.

Andrea:
Um i guess yes.

Alison:
We um i did a chicken carcass stock yesterday and.

Andrea:
So therefore i.

Alison:
Had some leftover chicken that i stripped from the carcass which i made into my now kind of signature risotto um which is um chicken stock and arborea rice and i had a leek so um i put.

Andrea:
A leek in it lovely and.

Alison:
Um leftover chicken and also purple kale which made the rice actually go a bit kind of pink pinky purple.

Andrea:
Gable said why.

Alison:
Is this rice.

Andrea:
Purple no that the color and the kale would i guess i just feel like it always kind of just a hint just.

Alison:
A little hint of kind of purple on the rice um and lots of garlic salt and white pepper and tarragon really.

Andrea:
Nice how.

Alison:
About you have you had.

Andrea:
Breakfast why do not i made yesterday risotto chicken tacos how.

Alison:
Did you well why not.

Andrea:
I actually had roasted a rooster and i was a little bit of a gamble because you don’t know how tough it’s going to be and it was a lot of work you know we couldn’t really cut pieces off the chicken so some of the kids are like half a bird on their plate just like chewing off but you know what everybody all the kids are like that’s good for your jaw it’s good for your teeth everybody knows it’s good for us to chew and adelaide little carnivore just she totally destroyed like she got it down to the bare bone it was pretty good so um we just chucked all those leftover bones back into a pot and made um.

Andrea:
Made rooster soup and then um all the meat any remaining meat on any of those pieces just slipped off and was tender and good so um there’s all kinds of vegetables starting to come in right now and we’ve been very closely just eating what we can get from around us as you know.

Andrea:
Not like we eat what’s around us but like I’m refusing to go to a grocery store like point blank yep and, it just feels like we’re not ordering from Azure we’re not not for any particular reason other than I just don’t, i just don’t want to i just want to that’s about a reason we could go yeah thank you thank you it feels valid to me but there’s no way to articulate it really but i don’t even have to articulate it with you because you completely understand and it just feels like you walk into the little veggie stand and you’re like oh my gosh there’s radishes the kids just about faint you know because it’s like they’ve asked every day one more radishes yeah yeah and i know there’ll be a different kind of excitement when we’re actually doing this growing ourself and that’ll be fun too but still it’s so exciting to see so anyways i’ll put all kinds of different veggies in there and spinach and parsley and potatoes and um chiyoga beets and i mean it just wow green onions oh no it just felt so good and rich so anyways i guess i’ll go with that That’s what I just ate.

Alison:
So did you eat it last night?

Andrea:
I did. Yeah, we had that last night. And I did have eggs this morning and Parmesan, or not Parmesan, Swiss cheese.

Alison:
Okay. Well, that sounds nice.

Andrea:
Super exciting. Anyways.

Alison:
I was going to say, I had a radish for breakfast and it was so hot. I couldn’t believe it. I was like, oh.

Andrea:
Really?

Alison:
I could only have half. I was like, a bit half. I was like, hmm. I better let that go down a bit before I do the other half. Yeah. It was just from the market on Thursday.

Andrea:
You know, we, they had two kinds of radishes in there. Well, they have daikon radishes, which we put in a lot of our ferments.

Andrea:
And those hang around all winter. And then we just got, they had French radishes, and then, you know, those round, different varieties of round radishes. And the French ones are really mild.

Alison:
Oh, okay. This one wasn’t French one.

Andrea:
Like super mild. Yeah. Well, that was or wasn’t?

Alison:
No, it wasn’t. It was very strong.

Andrea:
Oh, okay.

Alison:
Gable doesn’t eat them. He finds them too hot. Sometimes I roast them with caraway seeds.

Andrea:
Oh, yeah.

Alison:
Because then you lose that.

Andrea:
I wonder if you’d like them pickled. I love them pickled.

Alison:
I’ve never tried them pickled.

Andrea:
They’re very mild.

Alison:
I’m all excited about the pickle because I just recorded with Holly from Make Sour Kraut on an episode that’s not actually going out for another four months. That’s how organized I am.

Andrea:
You know, you’re just counting all of us.

Alison:
And we talked about pickles a bit in them and I was like, oh, I should really do some of those. That sounds really good. um i cannot.

Andrea:
Wait for that.

Alison:
Yeah she’s.

Andrea:
Such a good speaker and presenter yeah so it’s gonna be real i know it’s gonna be really good.

Alison:
So should we do some admin stuff before we get on to our questions for today some sort of what do we have on the admin slate today well we just this is going to go out i think around about my birthday possibly it is my birthday today

Alison:
in you know when it goes out.

Andrea:
On the 12th.

Alison:
Yeah there you go that’s my birthday so if you are listening to this podcast on the day it comes out it is my birthday today um which is a week after the episode that’s going on the main feed which is our behind the scenes episode so if you haven’t say happy birthday thank you that’s kind today if you haven’t listened to the behind the scenes episode yet go back and listen to it but i just wanted to talk a little bit more informally about briefly about what we um the announcements we had in that episode so um the one that comes to mind first is our merchandise which you can find at ancestral kitchen podcast.com forward slash merch and as we said on the episode we have wanting we’ve been wanting to do this for so so long and we tried really hard specifically on aprons now we got to the point where you were looking at screen printing gary was looking at the the different material you could get you were going to do them You can talk to somebody about.

Andrea:
Like, making them by hand. Well, okay.

Alison:
That got complicated. We really did try, and we figured out that just was going to cost way too much. And then I came across… Tea mill and the way i found them was because hobmadods who i talk about quite a lot, started doing some merchandise using you know their their brands and their designs and i thought well they must have picked a sustainable company let’s totally wear a hobmadons t-shirt yeah exactly they’ve got t-shirts i totally wear that things i.

Andrea:
Love that stuff you sent us that black barley i could live on that stuff.

Alison:
Oh it’s very nice that black barley so good um, And so, yeah, we’ve actually got round to it and we have gone in and chosen the clothes kind of in with some communication on the live a couple of months ago about what people wanted and what we kind of would want to wear. And so we have clothes we have an apron we have a bag we have mugs we have clothes for kids clothes for guys t-shirts things that are a little bit warmer and it’s all up there and it all looks gorgeous and I have just received an oat coloured sweatshirt which seems rather apt with the design on the back which I’m going to be wearing this weekend to represent the podcast at an event which is fun um so do go and have a look it’s our website address forward slash merch and we have some items on there which are kind of donation level so if you want to get yourself something that’s a bit different and you also want to support us a bit more then those have a higher ticket and more money comes to the podcast from that the throughout the store apart Apart from those special items, everything brings us round about 15% comes to us of what you’re paying.

Andrea:
Yeah, which is awesome. And then everybody gets to roll around on their ancestral kitchen swag.

Alison:
Exactly, and wear it.

Andrea:
You guys listening, definitely, if you can, if you want to, take pictures of yourself wearing the outfits or holding the bags or wearing the apron or whatever. Drinking tea from the mug or something um and we will put them in because we want to get rid of all the fake model pictures yeah and put real people wearing the colors yeah the moment it’s just me.

Alison:
It’s just lots of pictures of me wearing stuff.

Andrea:
Alison alison alison oh i’m a bit fed up turn to the left turn to the right um so yeah we.

Alison:
Would like to get some other pictures up we would also So, yeah, I mean, we just, we’d love for you to wear the apron in the kitchen and take the bag to the market. Because the best way of sharing the podcast is to tell a friend or, you know, for someone to see it like that. And I’m taking my bag every week to Stroud Farmer’s Market and kind of, you know, sort of putting it on my shoulder and turning around and hoping people will see it. Now I’ve kind of got used to it. We.

Andrea:
Will be waiting breathlessly for the email and reviews to start coming in that say i saw somebody wearing this.

Alison:
T-shirt yeah so i decided to look it up um and i think that will happen that could happen so it kind of feels like a you know an advocacy thing as well you’re supporting us not only through buying it but you then are doubly supporting us through wearing it which is really cool, yeah so yeah okay that’s the first thing and.

Andrea:
It feels so professional having gear.

Alison:
We professional we’ve.

Andrea:
Wanted it for so.

Alison:
Long yeah we have this.

Andrea:
Is a trip.

Alison:
We have we have um the other things that i wanted to talk about were if you would like to sponsor an episode of the main podcast you now can and there is an option on the podcast website menu called sponsor an episode where you can fill in some details and you could do that because you want to support us you could do that because you want to actually feel like you’ve given something tangible you know you can say I sponsored that episode on beans or that episode on um I don’t know beef or something that would actually be a tangible thing you might also do it because you’re working in a similar kind of area you have a business perhaps that aligns with the um the community.

Alison:
And you want to have a shout out we would we could shout you out on the podcast and we will if you want us to because we are so grateful but if you don’t want us to you can also be one of those silent silent and interesting people behind the scenes yeah um anonymous so that’s on the website also there is a new level in the community called the fellowship we actually thought of another name that sounds good and um that one is in between the companionship and the stewardship levels um and that has been put in because people were asking i want to give more than the companionship level how can i do that but maybe i can’t quite stretch to the stewardship level because that’s quite you know that’s higher substantially higher so we just put one in the.

Alison:
Provides extra funds to the podcast most people come in on the companionship level and at the moment that level pays for the tech pays for rob to do his work pays for ashley to do his work pays for the software we have um and then that’s all it pays for so it doesn’t pay for andrew and i to do work on the researching the episodes recording the episodes all the other stuff we do so if you are able to come up to the new fellowship level you will be helping put some money in the pot for for both of us and for us to go out and do things like um you know represent the podcast events that kind of thing so yeah that’s.

Andrea:
Gonna be really fun.

Alison:
That is just a drop down um and i sent out an email last week which explains how you can swap from companionship to fellowship if you want to you don’t go in and buy a new subscription because if you do that you’ll end up with two subscriptions you need to go into manage my account section of the website log in and when you do that you’ll see your subscription and there’s a button called manage my subscription you click on that opens another window where you can change the level you are so that’s that’s what you need to do go back and look in your inbox because there’s an email that will give you some screenshots and details of how to do that the last thing that i want to say is we now have a gift to membership which is fabulous um yes so if you know someone to the people who have been gifting memberships exactly people are doing it already very complicatedly with rob’s.

Andrea:
Assistance but i just think it’s a great and generous idea i suppose the people who gifted it might not be the ones listening or maybe they also got themselves one but um thank you for gifting memberships is such a special idea.

Alison:
Yeah the um i think the latest one we had was a mum gifted one of our um listeners a year’s subscription at the stewardship level which is just a fabulous present, and rob had like you were saying rob’s had to do some jiggery pokery to kind of make that happen until now because we have the option so there’s a little tick box if you want to buy subscriptions for someone you go into the usual place where you buy subscriptions a tick box underneath it says gift this membership opens up a little box where you can type in the email of the person who you’re gifting it to then they got all the information and you do the paying so that is wonderful so now you can actually gift all of our cookbooks and now you can gift our membership too which is really wonderful.

Andrea:
Yeah. So, just as a general, thank you to everybody who’s supporting at whatever level they’re at. And then also to everybody who was asking what else you can do. I feel like we’ve fulfilled that now with having this additional level, the option for sponsorship if you have a business or project or something you want to get shouted out extra on the podcast and then the merch. I feel like the opportunities are now there and they’re only able to be there because of people who supported us to this point and asked for ways and gave us ideas and suggested things. So, it all happened.

Alison:
Yeah.

Andrea:
It happened.

Alison:
Okay. So, should we turn to some questions?

Andrea:
Yeah, we have a good little collection today. As always, the questions are very thought-provoking, and you and I, you know, we look through the questions together

Andrea:
before we start, and then we start going off about them. We’re like, we just need to get onto the recording get started because we’re gonna discuss these for 30 minutes before we even record so yeah we’ve got really good ones do you want me to read the first one.

Alison:
Yeah you go.

Andrea:
This first one is from Laura, and she says, do you supplement with vitamin D in winter? I don’t like to take supplements and feel it’s better to get nutrients from food. However, I live in a northern climate with little sunlight at certain times of the year. I could really tell my family and I are low on vitamin D this year, as our summer was not great last year either, with smoke from wildfires preventing us from going outside as much. Any advice on how to get vitamin d naturally or should we just supplement.

Alison:
Do you want me to a good one do you want me to kick off you.

Andrea:
You you begin.

Alison:
Okay sounds good so the first thing that i remembered as i was listening to the question was that chris has a very good blog post on supplementing vitamin d and the levels about how you shouldn’t really just guess how much you should take and why that’s important and how you can find out so do a google search on chris crescer and vitamin d supplement levels and read his articles i like him i generally trust the stuff that he comes up with and i remember reading that and thinking it was a useful article um my my i myself don’t supplement we don’t supplement at all um i would say that’s partially because we don’t have the budget to supplement but i think if my supplement budget became available vitamin d would be lower on the list than some other supplements, um i think that you know there would be two or three other things that i would purchase before i got to thinking about vitamin d um i also think that vitamin d is in lard that just makes me think vitamin d is in lard so eat lard um.

Alison:
I really try very, very hard to get sunlight when I can. I know that even if it’s cloudy, you can absorb vitamin D. It doesn’t have to be, you know, kind of, you know, seaside, sunny scene. You can just go out in the clouds and you’re still getting vitamin D. I actually try quite hard where possible to expose skin whilst I’m out. Because very very often what happens is i get cold in the winter and then i’m covered up you know from head to foot i’ve got my gloves on i’ve got you know layers on i’ve got a hat on i’ve got, everything down to my ankles everything’s covered and i’m i’m going out and i’m thinking hang on a minute how am i absorbing any vitamin d this way because none of my skin is available so, if it’s very very cold i will start with more clothes on but then as i warm up because i’m walking i will try to take off things to allow vitamins vitamin d to get in i also you know really try and think if i’m out say i’ve taken gable to the park or something and i’m sitting on the bench and it’s it’s sunny or it’s not sunny i will try to roll my sleeves up you know to actually remember to go hang on a minute this is important.

Alison:
Um i i try to walk as much as i can even in the winter um because it’s you know it’s not just that vitamin d that i’m getting from that walk and going out you know it’s if i do it in the morning i’m getting the light which is helping my circadian rhythm i’m helping my eyes i’m moving my body you know i’m i’m lubricating my joints i’m getting air fresh air rather than being inside i’m having a mental kind of boost by being out in nature um so i i rely on going out and i try to organize things so i can go out more so if i’ve got perhaps a phone call with a friend planned i will try and do that when i’m walking or if i’ve got something i want to think about i would do that when i’m walking or if i want to just spend some time with rob talk to rob about something in particular or we’ve got time together we will go out for a walk so those walks kind of push their way in to the other areas of my life um i think possibly that’s all i’ve got to say how about you andrea.

Andrea:
Interestingly, last year, I did that blood test. And if you look at Chris Kresser’s blog post, then he has that chart that shows like vitamin D levels from high toxicity, as in too high, all the way down to very low. I was in the very low. okay which on the one hand yeah i’m in washington state we have a lot of cloud cover um it doesn’t really get very hot most of the time and so like you said i tend to be wearing seven jackets when i go outside yeah and however i get a lot of vitamin d rich foods i get liver every week various organ meats spread throughout the week Like, lard is our primary fat, but also grass-fed butter would be like the second.

Andrea:
And both of those are considered very good sources. We have wild mushrooms part of the year that we pick ourselves. We have egg yolks from chickens that are outside. You know, all of these things provide these nutrients when the animals are outside getting the sunshine themselves. And then now in the past year we’ve also added in the wild-caught salmon and halibut from sam and leah yeah and that is considered a very good source of vitamin d um wild or line caught only is considered a good source of vitamin d which is interesting considering how many northern countries have subsisted on that yeah as well as the fat you know other animals anyways um so you You would think that my vitamin D is quite.

Andrea:
High but um or would be you know quite normal but there’s another issue to consider which i don’t know if um this applies in laura’s family at all and that is when i was reading a book which i’m actually going to bring up for her second question too it’s called uh why do i still have thyroid symptoms when my lab tests are normal, and it’s by Datis Karazian. And he actually has a section on vitamin D deficiency, and this was one of the things that pinged for me that something was going on and also contributed to my decision to go gluten-free, because he talked about Hashimoto’s and that he said, studies show more than 90% of people with autoimmune thyroid disease have a genetic defect affecting their ability to process vitamin D so you could be getting it and in my case I am and I am somehow not processing it. Now I haven’t been tested for Hashimoto’s but you and I, Alison, we tend to.

Andrea:
Read a lot about things and then put things together and say, well, I could go get a really expensive test or I could just go gluten-free and see what happens. So I have another blood test to go in and take that we’ve already paid for. I just need to find a time to go without all the babies because they don’t let you take kids in, obviously. And I’m interested to see where my vitamin D will But that being said, talking to my chiropractor and then also Brittany, sometimes when you can’t absorb these things through the gut lining and I’m not getting enough of it by being outside, and possibly I wasn’t absorbing it through my gut because possibly the gluten was causing enough inflammation that I wasn’t absorbing as much as I should have, which is possible. But at any rate, sometimes you can take it transdermally, like through the skin, like patches and things. So I haven’t really explored that too much, although there is a company that Brittany’s recommended that I might look into. But at the moment, I’m just curious to see before I start that where my vitamin D levels are at again. So I guess what I’m saying is…

Andrea:
I do think supplementing needs to be done with some precision and care. The Chris Kresser article gives good indications that that would be wise. And then also getting it from those nutrient sources, foods, is kind of an obvious, you know, for you and I. You know, Allison, you could spend some money on additional supplements or you could get more lard. You know what I mean?

Alison:
Yeah.

Andrea:
And then, I mean, maybe somebody is super chronically low, like they were telling me. you need to get infusions and you need to like go get shots and stuff. So maybe, maybe it’s really low when you need like a temporary therapeutic to get back up, but that money could possibly in the longterm go towards better food. But then the other thought to consider is, um, does any, any autoimmune disease run in your family? And is it possible that you are not absorbing the vitamin D that you’re getting in your gut. Yeah.

Alison:
I think that non-absorption thing is very important. I feel like my own, a lot of my own battles with my gut.

Alison:
Have had that as a thread through them you know the fact that I find it you know very difficult to have probiotics and the problems that causes with my sleep in indicates kind of issues with dysbiosis that have been with me for you know for very many years because of my childhood but I feel like with a with my dysbiosis like that how I mean it’s probably pretty likely that even if i’m eating these things i’m not necessarily absorbing them or able to absorb them and that’s like a whole nother level isn’t it’s a whole nother layer you can think well i can take this stuff but if you’re not absorbing it then you might as well not be taking it and so that’s where they’re kind of doing anything and everything you can to support your gut like going gluten-free or like having digestive enzymes or like finding out what what you you know have allergies um, what you have what allergies you might have and trying to to deal with them all of those little steps are really important in the process because if they improve the ability for you to actually absorb what you’re taking then that’s another step to improving your diet you know it’s not just about changing what you’re eating absolutely, Yes.

Andrea:
There are so many parallels of that. You know, when you look out into the world, gardening or education with children, you know, you could be reading this book to your child on and on and on and on and on. And if they’re not listening, it’s not really doing you any good, you might as well just stop. And then you would say, well, this book did our fail. This book was useless to us or that supplement. I tried taking vitamin D and nothing happened for me. And I’ve actually seen people back some years ago before I got off the Instagram train, then I remember there was kind of a trend of people posting and saying like oh I took this vitamin for a year and I don’t feel any better so this this is pointless and I remember thinking you don’t even know what you’re doing yeah absolutely you saw their stupid advertisement probably on an Instagram reel saying you know the one thing your doctor doesn’t want you to know Or you want more energy, but you don’t have it. This gives me so much energy, some super ripped person taking the vitamin, you know, and sort of implying by inference that that’s why they’re super ripped. And I was like, I don’t know. There’s so much context to vitamins and supplements.

Alison:
Absolutely.

Andrea:
And they need, I think it’s really important for them to exist, and I think it’s really important for them to be made by very highly ethical and precise companies, but they shouldn’t just be flung at everybody and everything with abandon, like, well, liver’s good for energy, so I guess I’m taking that. Like, well, I don’t know, maybe know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

Andrea:
And if anybody on Instagram promises you anything, run. Oh don’t listen just run get off instagram okay that takes us to our next question which has a good link to this um so laura asked another question i’ll just read it she said i love using millet in my gluten-free sourdough bread oh look she’s already eating gluten-free however i have recently read that millet is a goitrogen and it affects your thyroid by binding to iodine in your body studies suggest that fermentation actually increases this effect which really surprised me. Is this something you guys knew about? If so, are you concerned? Or maybe since it’s a small amount in a whole loaf of bread, I shouldn’t worry. If you do a quick Google search, there are multiple articles about it. Just curious what your thoughts were.

Alison:
Okay, you want me to do that one first as well? Okay, well, I did just look up the studies very briefly before we hit the record button and there as we expected there’s a mixed kind of conclusion so some studies say that fermentation increases the effect but some studies say that fermentation decreases the effect i feel like.

Alison:
Really, you can find a study for anything, to back up anything somewhere. And, you know, unless you can kind of be a Hannah in Belgium and read all the studies and know how to kind of collate them together and what the different effects of the different people who were doing it and all the other factors that go into those studies, it’s very hard to really get to the truth. I mean it’s just the details of how were they fermenting them what did they ferment them with what was the temperature how long did they do it for it it’s um it might be completely different fermentation to how you’re fermenting your millet for your gluten-free sour bread and like we were just mentioning Andrea before we hit record what what type of millet was it there are there are loads of different millets where was that millet grown how was it grown did it did Did it get grown with pesticides and herbicides or was it grown in organic way? I mean, there’s just so many variables that potentially could affect that situation that I feel it very, I feel very hesitant to trust or believe studies.

Alison:
And I feel like when, you know, when I’ve done some research on various other things in studies, you, I come across something like, for instance, the idea that, you know, oats have phytic acid in. And therefore we have to do something about that well yeah that that is true but phytic acid is also an antioxidant and so it’s not all bad right and so i mean i know that information is available to us and it’s so difficult for us to we want to make the right decisions in the kitchen with our food and we see that information and particularly if potentially we’ve got a problem with our thyroid or maybe think we have a problem with our thyroid we might be tentative and i can understand that um i think, And I turn again to the example of nixtamalisation of corn and pellagra in northern Italy in the 1800s. The people who got pellagra in northern Italy, they were eating millet, they were eating corn, sorry, three times a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. That was what they were eating. and because of that they struggled with vitamin levels and they ended up with pellagra.

Alison:
But in a kitchen where we have the choice of a variety of grains and we’re potentially eating corn twice a week.

Alison:
And also eating lots of other nutrient-dense food, I myself am not concerned with nixtamilising the corn for the amount that I have it. So I feel like, I mean, if Laura’s bread was 100% millet and she was eating it every single day and she potentially had a problem with her thyroid, then, you know, maybe it’s an idea to look at potentially bringing in some variety. But as she says it’s a small amount in a whole loaf of bread um and from my perspective i i wouldn’t be concerned if i didn’t have a problem with my thyroid over that because i feel like you turn to some other grain you know you turn to quinoa you turn to something else and there’ll be some other study that says that grain does something else and then you’ll be like oh well i can’t use that grain oh well i can’t use that grain and then you end up with a with a grain free gluten-free sourdough bread and then you end up just with a with a bread made of air then obviously that air is wrong because we know what the pollution does to us so anyway that’s quite extreme but um I think from from my perspective I eat millet in gluten-free sourdough bread as a percentage and I eat that most days and I’m not worried about it um but maybe maybe What do you think, Andrew? Do you think I’m crazy and I should be worried about it?

Andrea:
I mean, obviously, you’re crazy.

Alison:
Yeah, well, I don’t think you should be aware of that. Okay.

Andrea:
No, I feel the same as you, and millet is one of the grains humans have been cultivating the longest. I mean, some evidence or archaeologists are saying, you know, upwards of 10,000 years, but even if you look at the most conservative estimates, it’s like 3,000 BC in India or something that people were cultivating millet. But, I mean, that’s something you and I have come across in our studies multiple times. You go way, way back and you find millet, you find lentils. You know, those just seem like they’ve kind of been around for a minute.

Andrea:
And so, I think that if people were consistently, you know, their civilizations were dying because of millet, they would have eliminated it sooner, if you know what I mean. And I’m going to turn again to the Dadas Karazian book because he actually talks about iodine specifically. So in the question, Laura said, and I’m curious if, um as laura said it affects your thyroid by binding to iodine in your body so i’m wondering if that was a phrase that was used in the article she said she recently read this um because, binding to iodine doesn’t necessarily um it does not necessarily follow that that would affect your thyroid. So I’ll explain that with the help of Datis Karazian. He has a section, it’s on page 27, if anybody’s looking in the actual book, where he says, if you have Hashimoto’s, so that would be.

Andrea:
Thyroid disorder to the point where your body is actually attacking your own thyroid gland and consuming it, breaking it down, possibly to the point that you lose it completely. So he says if a person has Hashimoto’s supplementing with iodine is like throwing gasoline onto a fire iodine stimulates the production of tpo or the thyroid peroxidase and it can increase the levels of tpo antibodies dramatically so if there’s thyroid peroxidase and you have Hashimoto’s, then your body is going to turn around and fire out the thyroid peroxidase antibodies, which is obviously a problem, which then would result in an autoimmune flare.

Andrea:
So… Too much iodine is also a problem. It’s kind of like the vitamin D, you know, it gets toxic at a certain point. And if you’re already a sensitive person and, um, if Laura is eating gluten-free, then I’m guessing she’s already put two and two together that the gluten also stimulates these flare-ups as for you. Sounds like it possibly does. As for me, it does. um and dadas goes on to share he has a lot of citations of studies not necessarily articles but studies that we could have hannah read but he said that in places where iodine supplementation is used to correct iodine deficiency then autoimmune thyroid disease increases.

Andrea:
So he says it’s it isn’t causing hashimoto’s but it is a triggering factor the iodine supplementation so i guess what i’m saying is that it may be interesting article title to say that oh no millet which is rising in popularity thanks to that podcast ancestral kitchen oh yeah is coming back to the center stage at least in the western world it has always been a popular grain the world over, but the Western world, for some reason, abandoned it. But we’re trying to bring it back to our tables. And, you know, things like cast iron pans or whatever, they’re going to, as they rise in popularity, some person’s going to say, wait a minute. It’s more interesting to say that it’s actually bad to you. So, yes, very likely maybe it does bind to iodine in your body. And, yes, maybe that is totally fine.

Alison:
Hmm. So i guess that’s what i’m saying yeah thank you that’s really just another idea to have that perspective okay yeah um should we move on to another question yeah i’ll read brianna’s yeah this one’s really fun okay if you could time travel return trip guaranteed where would you go thank you what year era would you go to watch something happen or go to meet someone go to learn something and she says i would learn how to make corsets with whale bones in the real 1860s way or would you go to stop something like making it sure that cedars don’t get into our foods,

Alison:
interesting question andrea you can go with this one okay.

Andrea:
I love this one this one brianna always asks these.

Alison:
Questions that.

Andrea:
Are like answer this in an hour we need to sit down and discuss this but um first of all i would say if this idea is all appealing to you the connie willis series i I think it starts with the book Doomsday, and has the book, the famous book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, then those books are really awesome if you like this premise, if this idea is interesting to you. Although I won’t say that the return trip is guaranteed, but I don’t know where I would go. I always think I would probably just go ancient history, like way back, you know, the, um.

Andrea:
The book of Genesis or something. Okay, maybe not pre-Flood, but just like way back, like, what was going on? There’s just so much we don’t know. And we try to put together the puzzle pieces, through archaeology and through trash heaps and through tombs and things like that. And then, of course, there’s things people wrote, like the Code of Hammurabi and things like that, where you’d like, you can get a perspective on it, but you and I both know that what people say isn’t always what actually happened. And so, the archaeology is considered, you know, well, the archaeology doesn’t lie, but it also doesn’t actually speak to us, so we kind of just have to interpret it. And I want to know, like, how are they making the bread? What really was it like? Were their teeth falling out? Were their teeth staying in? What were they wearing? I just have so many questions and I feel like it’s hard to know much about that and I always, feel frustrated reading things when they’ll say oh people did this or that and then you’re like how do you know that and then you dig deeper and they go well we think probably because of this maybe you’re like okay so nobody really knows yeah would you need more information would you would.

Alison:
You actually want to talk and interact or would you just want to be kind of a fly on the wall that went to the different places and watched?

Andrea:
Oh, I don’t know. Being female, most places in history go back. I feel like a lot of times it wouldn’t, you know. I’d probably have to stay in the tent or something. You know, like, would I really be an independent agent? But I feel like I’d want to actually interact. I don’t know, like, see Abraham or something, you know, that’s like, this, like, he’s the biblical Jeff Bezos, like, billionaire with armies, his own armies and stuff like that. Like, well, what does a rich guy who lives in a tent look like? Like, what’s that all about? So, I feel like that’d be really fun. What about you?

Alison:
Oh it’s such a question with like about 18 million answers isn’t it um yeah I think we had a question similar question from Brianna about this um previously and I talked about wanting to go back and see how ale was made in women’s kitchens but I think I mean where I am at the moment I would I would just want to go back to the kitchens where the women who came before me in the UK cooked with oats because I mean I just I can’t tell you this book has been my companion now for five years and I’ve read so much and tried to read between so many of those lines because yeah for most of the foods there’s no one alive who remembers eating or having it cook for them let alone cooking it themselves and so you know people can piece together like you were just talking information from diaries and archives and you know scraps of paper and letters and documents and inventories and.

Alison:
Etc but you’ve I I’ve had to use my imagination to fill in everything that’s missing between the lines to make those foods real and make them happen and you know when I make a a large crunchy oat cake and I’m kneading it in the kitchen I’m like am I doing this the way that my great great grandmother on my father’s on my mother’s father’s side did did she do it like this because I feel like I’ve made hundreds of these now and this is the most efficient way to do it and so this is the way I’m doing it but did she do it like this I don’t know that that’s gone and I want to know you know did she move her arms like this did she put her body weight into it did she use the heel of her hands and I want to see what was happening in her kitchen while that was working how was the How was the hearth working? What kind of temperature did she have it at? What was the thing she was using to cook it in?

Alison:
And that could be repeated in kitchens all over the UK for all of the different dishes. You know, like one of the dishes that I’ve been working on for the porridge chapter is oat jelly that was poured into tins and then taken out to the people who were doing the hay harvest as a meal for them to eat in the fields. And there’s a picture in one of my books from 1910 of workers who were just taking a break from the hay harvest sitting down and eating, and to actually you know go there and see some woman who’d made this tray of sukan as it’s just called in south wales and it had to be have no cracks on the top of it at all if it had cracks on the top of it then the woman would make a whole nother dish rather than take the cracked one out into the field because that a dish that didn’t have any cracks in showed her.

Alison:
Abilities as a potential wife and householder and she could be really really proud of that and if she took one to the field that had cracks in it she would be ridiculed and be told that she would marry an ugly fellow and you know i i want to see the women in the kitchen making it and taking it out into the fields and see what these people are eating and see what they’re talking about and and be part of that and that you know that just repeats for all of the other dishes you know the the gruel and the the Staffordshire oat cakes and the different porridges and I want to see it all happening because I’m filling this all in in my head and living this and writing about this and it’s my life now and yet I can’t I can’t speak to those women and I can’t see what happened in their kitchen and watch them show their daughters and see them eat it at the table I can’t do that and no one can you know it’s gone and so I would I would love to go back and do that.

Andrea:
I feel like if some genie is listening, yours is such a more reasonable, well-thought-out response than mine. So you’ll probably get your wish.

Alison:
Maybe.

Andrea:
Or they’ll send me back and say, yeah, no, just leave her there.

Alison:
Is that how genies work?

Andrea:
See how she likes ancestral living.

Alison:
Is that how genies work? If your response is thought out, then genies go, okay.

Andrea:
Then you can have it. I mean, in my head, that’s how the genies work. What do I know? What do I really know about genies?

Alison:
Well yeah exactly that’s.

Andrea:
That’s a good one Brianna that these.

Alison:
Thought exercises.

Andrea:
That she gives us are so.

Alison:
Much fun people who are on discord do feel free to um tell us what yeah place you would go to and what you would do because that would be really interesting to to hear and chat about yeah cool and.

Andrea:
You know like with you and me that definitive answer is going to change.

Alison:
Based on.

Andrea:
Whatever we’re reading.

Alison:
Absolutely absolutely we have another question if you.

Andrea:
Want me to read.

Alison:
I can yeah sure.

Andrea:
I was i was going to read the one from leah.

Alison:
Marie yeah okay i’ll read it because it’s about you okay so leah marie says um hello i hope my question isn’t too late no it wasn’t leah it is here for us andrea has mentioned adhd does she do anything specific for it or just eat well i have adhd and have not been managing it well i’m forgetful and unmotivated i’m personally not wanting to go back on the meds but i think i’ll need the help getting back on track any suggestions or wisdom would be greatly appreciated well.

Andrea:
Suggestions i can give wisdom we will have to wait on that, That takes more time. Oh, there you go. Okay, so this is another thing kind of like you and I have discussed with, you know, gluten-free or whatever. I haven’t been tested for this. I haven’t been tested for Ehlers Danlos. I haven’t been tested for POTS. You know, these are just things that I have found if I live like I have them, my life is better. So is that not the goal of getting the understanding of what we have? Yeah, so I couldn’t really say definitively, but all indicators are like, yeah, maybe so. And doing specifically?so an interesting thing that I’ve learned in reading about things like?I think they, if I’m getting this right, they no longer recognize the H, In the ADHD, it’s just ADD.

Alison:
Okay.

Andrea:
And it just is, some people think, oh, I don’t have ADHD because I’m not crawling up the walls, but it’s more related to thought processing and the way that you are digesting thoughts and ideas, and your executive functioning and how well you can switch tasks and things like that. So, anyways, but don’t quote me on this. I am not a doctor or a psychiatrist, and these are just things I’ve been picking up from reading and communicating with other people who are learning as well about themselves. I understand the forgetful and unmotivated. Just ask Allison,

Andrea:
how forgetful I have been in the past and still am at times. And the best thing that I can say to cope with that which isn’t foolproof but does help get in a different direction is setting up systems that work for you for cataloging and what I always say is removing things from my brain and putting them outside of my body absolutely because the more things that I have to try to contain and maintain in my head it’s um to use a machine metaphor you know it’s like a computer that’s using a ton of RAM all at once, please tell Rob that I used a computer as a metaphor. And.

Andrea:
So, it sucks a ton of energy, actual calories from your brain trying to maintain it all. And our bodies and our brains are very efficient. They like to be efficient. I think this is one of the reasons why computers are so addictive and screams because, you can get a massive amount of dopamine from clicking things on a screen and it takes virtually no caloric expenditure to get that dopamine and that’s unheard of in nature that doesn’t exist, usually if you want that dopamine rush you have to climb a mountain give birth to a baby learn how to read you have to do something kind of big significant spend a long time making oat jelly that doesn’t crack and then eat it with your future very handsome husband who would only be attracted to someone that would make an oat jelly that doesn’t crack and so it usually takes a lot of effort to get that dopamine and I may be wrong on this but I think generally speaking we can tend to be a people those of us with maybe neurodiverse traits or Brianna calls that neuro spicy which I love, that it sometimes is harder to get dopamine. And so then those things that give us the hits, I’ve sometimes said I had an addictive personality, and I think it’s possibly because of this.

Andrea:
Potential ADD or ADHD tendency that I know how to get dopamine and I will just keep hitting the button over and over and over again, and that’s how we end up with 300 chickens.

Andrea:
But that also feeds into the idea of the hyperfocus, which, If you know what I mean by hyper-focus, then you qualify. Allison’s on year five of an oat hyper-focus.

Alison:
Yeah.

Andrea:
But you know what I mean, Allison? We’re like, you just, you grab a hold of something and you just can’t let it go. And you read everything about it and you dream about it and you meditate about it. And everybody you talk to has to hear you discuss about it. And then sometimes with hyperfocuses, what happens is somebody’s obsessively interested in it, they’re getting massive dopamine floods from it, and then the next day they’re like, well, I’m done now. And then they just can’t even turn back to it again. And if you understand that, then we’ve been in the same place before. And then there’s other things that, like, ancestral food has been a long burn for me, you know, 15 plus years. And I’m like, well, this is one of those ones that’s here to stay. It looks like it’s not going anywhere. And then there’s other things, you know, that are really interesting to read about for a short time, and then you’re kind of okay with moving on, maybe integrating it into your life somehow, and then moving on.

Andrea:
So, for managing the forgetfulness and the unmotivatedness, two different subjects there. One is, like I said, systems. So, Allison, you got me using a calendar in my phone, ironically, Um, and that has been really nice because I’m able to, now you and I have a calendar that links up as well, so there’s like a podcast calendar that’s layered in with my regular calendar. And then my sister showed me where I can get this Lutheran calendar that sinks in like special saint days and feast days and stuff, so that’s fun to see pop up. And then I’ve got my regular kind of appointments, choir and stuff, because even for a weekly.

Andrea:
Leah, you understand. You still forget. You’re like, oh no, today is that day. I didn’t wash my hair yesterday, and so I forgot that today was the day after yesterday, you know? Like, all the little anchors that we set into place, if you unhook one of them, then the boat just floats away with nobody to control it. So, for being forgetful, I would say you have to plug into place systems, and those will be very unique to you. Those will be very unique to how you work, and they don’t do you any good if you set them up and then don’t use them. So, I also advocate for moving slowly. Instead of in one day getting your entire life scheduled, lined up and on track, and then from thenceforth trying to swear that you will maintain that, then maybe start integrating a few things slowly at a time. Like, I slowly was putting things onto my calendar. If I’d gone from not having a calendar to.

Alison:
The calendar.

Andrea:
That i use on my phone now i would have literally passed out i kind of absorbed the impact over time.

Alison:
It’s like a mirror in food with that you know we always say don’t try and do all the food things at once because you’ll just be overwhelmed and it won’t work any any change like that works so much better if you do it slowly so yeah i can see the wisdom.

Andrea:
Yeah. Yeah. I have pretty extensive wall calendar situation upstairs too, because we have campers. And so we have a huge wall calendar. I mean, it’s, it’s big enough that an entire family could lay on it. And it has like two months rolling. And then we, we don’t really put our life things on there necessarily, although sometimes we put significant things up there. But we mainly use it for managing campers and then putting down things you know if a camper says could I go into this specific site or could I check in early or check out late they might be asking that two months ahead of time and we need to make sure we make notes for that and then when they come out they might want a sauna at 7 p.m so we have to have that on the calendar so we know to start the sauna like you can just see Allison I would not remember any of these things and I I always say, you know, Gary says something to me or the kids, and I say, if you don’t see me writing it down, you didn’t tell me.

Alison:
Yeah.

Andrea:
It might as well have not ever happened. So if you don’t see me, take out my phone and put it on the calendar or go to the board and write it down. Just assume that you haven’t told me and you still need to be told. So… Capturing things at the point of Genesis, if you can, and immediately getting them, not being like, oh, let me remember when I get home to do that.

Alison:
Yeah, because that might happen.

Andrea:
You know, yeah, my mom and I set alarms sometimes to call each other or remind each other, or I’ll be leaving to go to her house and she knows I’m leaving at one and she’ll text me or call and say, remember to put the bag in the car. Or better yet, she and I do things when we remember them, like she’ll say.

Andrea:
Like, if I’m going to my mom’s house tomorrow and I have, say, a bag of clothes that I need to bring, I’ll go put it in the car right now. I’m not going to assume that tomorrow during the chaos of leaving, I’ll remember it. So, some people call this masking, but I don’t really think that falls under masking. It’s more strategizing and understanding. And this is where when you are very aware of your weaknesses and you accommodate yourself for them very carefully, like if I went in to get testing, they would probably say, you’re fine. Because I have so many systems set up that if they said, how often do you forget appointments? I could probably say almost never because I have so many fail safes. I have, you know, for big appointments, I’ll text like four people and say, call me and, you know, like if you don’t hear from me by then or whatever, I’ll have reminders set up. I’ll have multiple alarms set up, you know, so I probably won’t forget it, but it’s only because I’m keeping it in front of myself. But that’s okay. I don’t mind that I would never be diagnosed because I don’t really think I need to. All I need to know is that the strategies that people who are diagnosed say they use work for me and so I can plug them into my life. And for being unmotivated, I guess that I would, there’s.

Andrea:
Sometimes I have jokingly said, can somebody please say they’re coming over so that I can clean?

Andrea:
Because we get motivation from, well, what we interpret as motivation from cortisol. And Allison, I’ve talked about this with you before. Like when I said, like, give me a deadline, but make it before you actually need it. And so you’ve accommodated me in that way, which I’m thankful for.

Andrea:
And once you said to me, well, I need it by this day, but I don’t really. And I was like, don’t, don’t even tell me you’re going to turn off the cortisol. I need the cortisol. I need that adrenaline rush to get to the end line. And I’m, sometimes I’m, I find ways to manipulate that for myself. And other times I literally just have to put one foot in front of the other and say, keep going, even if you don’t feel like it, do something, even if you don’t feel like it. And sometimes it helps if I’ve put it on a calendar because, you know, then I’m like, Well, I wasn’t going to do this, but now it looks like I am. And then I would also throw in there, body doubling is enormously helpful. And body doubling is, you know, maybe just having somebody, like, when my sister comes over, say, and helps me clean, we’re not even always cleaning in the same space. But somehow knowing somebody else is working at the same time as I am, it’s like magic. I don’t know how to explain it. when Jacob got old enough that he became a body double for me it was like our production in the house tripled because suddenly I’d be like hey can we do this cleaning at the same time and then, and then he might finish and move on but I’m like I’m on a roll now that’s kind of a form of.

Alison:
Accountability isn’t it you know it’s like.

Andrea:
Well I’m gonna meet with.

Alison:
You at seven o’clock and go for a walk every day it’s a similar thing to that.

Andrea:
You know.

Alison:
That someone else is doing it and then that holds you.

Andrea:
Accountable. Yeah. So I don’t know anything about medication as I’ve never tried it, not being diagnosed, not having anything prescribed or anything like that. And I’ve never felt like I was quite to the point that I would, you know, really need that much support. But I will say that if you’re going the route without medication, you’re, then you have to be just like you do with the food. If you’re going to take the route of food as medicine, you have to be very aware of what’s working and what’s not working and be willing to change if it isn’t working and be open to suggestions. You know, if everybody says, well, what you do is you get up in the morning and do this first, if that does not work for you, then you have to be willing to throw that idea out and do something else. And I think that that has been probably the most helpful thing for me is knowing that what people say is the right way or the way they always do things is probably not going to work for me and I’m going to have to use my personally developed.

Alison:
Systems you know I wish that I’d had the confidence to assert that much earlier in my life you know not just in health but in work and in it just everything i wish that i’d had the confidence to say you know what this isn’t really working what do i feel what do i want to do let me explore that instead because just it would have it would have solved a lot of problems with a lot less hassle it really would have done.

Andrea:
Are you getting your electrolytes are you hydrated your brain won’t work your cells won’t produce energy without those things. So that’s worth acknowledging. If you’re able to sleep, are you getting the sleep you need? I mean, and are you, Are you conscious of what’s not working and then willing to develop a different system for it and change? Because this is, I feel like I’ve actually run into this the most with a podcast.

Andrea:
And I’ve heard people say that women are typically very late diagnosed when it comes to, you know, autism or ADHD, anything along those lines, because women are generally really good at masking, it seems. And that often it’s once we have children that it really starts to fall apart and we’re like, but I was a grade A student. Like, why am I unable to, you know, get my kid to a doctor’s appointment or whatever people do? And it’s often because now you have a whole bunch of other people’s schedules to manage. And so the podcast… Is, like, the first time that I’ve worked so intimately with somebody else where it’s not just my jam, if you know what I mean. Like, I can run things within my household and people are like, wow, you’re such a master in the household. Wow, this is so great. You really got your systems down. And I’m like, well, yeah, it’s because it’s only me calling the shots and it’s only me. If I fail, I’m the only one who knows. So, it doesn’t show up as obviously. But with a podcast, you know we have show notes that need to go in or recorded intros that need to go in and if rob messages me and says your deadline for this and then i just look at that and then look away i will never remember it consciously like it has to be that’s why it’s like built into my schedule and i think i’m doing better now oh yes i think i am the calendar has made a big difference.

Alison:
It really has and the.

Andrea:
Reminding of the deadlines.

Alison:
It’s made a huge difference to to my level of anxiety because I was always there going back but she hasn’t done it yet what are we gonna do what.

Andrea:
I know and then I would feel a reflexive anxiety like oh no I’m making Allison feel anxious because I didn’t do this thing and again like we have this huge time lag between us so it’s not like we could sit down and work together most of the time and so I have to you kind of have to trust that you’re gonna go to bed and in the morning you’ll wake up and the thing I said I would do would be done and um so So anyways, this is where some of the masking falls apart is when we have other people involved and we realize, you know, this is where the systems need to be in place. So still working on improving them.

Andrea:
Always but I imagine that’s a lifelong endeavor so.

Alison:
Wonderful thank you that was really full and and helpful I want to add a couple of things not necessarily from an ADHD perspective but just in general I think you’re saying be aware of your weaknesses is really important, because then you can prepare for them you know you can find systems for them and you know I.

Alison:
That idea of writing something down the moment it’s in your head or doing it the moment it’s in your head every time in this household if we don’t write something down or do it it just doesn’t it doesn’t happen you know so that’s why I’ve got lists and things everywhere because we all have busy lives and there’s more that we can hold in our heads and it is absolutely important to to have that out of your head like you said on the paper um the forgetful and the unmotivated for the forgetful I just wanted to add some kind of general kind of you know not specifically ADHD but for me when I’m doing too much I forget things I think everyone in this world is under pressure to do more than they can and I’ve been fighting for like 15 years to do less I think doing less is such a tonic for our souls, for our relationships, for our work, for understanding who we are, for bringing out things that we do really care about and for just staying sane and not forgetting things.

Alison:
And doing less is so hard because you look at your life and you think, well I can’t drop any of this.

Alison:
And again and again in my life it’s my body that’s made me stop because I’ve been doing too much doing the wrong thing and then it’s my body’s just gone that’s it not gonna let you do it anymore and then I’ve had to drop things and I’ve looked back and gone oh yeah you know I should have done that but I just couldn’t and then that came in and made me do it um and it doesn’t have to be like you know well I’m gonna drop a great big huge thing but just in every moment we have potentially a choice that we can do less when we’re in the kitchen and we’ve got a plan that we’re going to cook this this this and this well maybe we just cook this and this and this not the fourth this you know and and i think yeah that can make a huge difference to forgetfulness with the unmotivated i just feel like the the tech thing is just incredible you know the more things that we allow ourselves to be um bombarded by every day the more noises in our head the more we’re just like we we end up going insane and no wonder we’re kind of unmotivated because our, bodies aren’t in balance our brains aren’t in balance and it just feels like it’s noise to me and.

Alison:
We’ve had the example recently, Andrew, of your computer and the, you know, opening up a new browser tab and it’s showing you all the news and you’re trying desperately to get rid of it because you just don’t want to see it. And even if you don’t read it, even if you don’t read these things, they go in and they take up space. They push other things away. And I just think the less tech you can use in your life, the better. It can’t it can’t not help, you know, whatever the situation is. The last thing I wanted to say was you know if you are up Leah for doing experimentations in your diet there is lots of evidence that shows that you know the way that we eat and the state of our digestion is super super tied to our mental health and so if you’re in a situation where you can experiment perhaps with gaps or with just a part of gaps or with gluten-free if you’re not already or with taking something out that you think you might be sensitive to then, I would say jump jump at it you know do it gently but engage with it because, you will probably notice a difference.

Andrea:
That’s it so good points allison and when you were talking about doing less i think that, can we attribute this to getting older yeah maybe one of the little tidbits of wisdom that i’ve gained is actually knowing what my threshold is and i willfully stay below it and i used to just say yes to everything. And my mom always would say, look, remember that a yes to one thing is a no to something else.

Andrea:
And that was helpful to remember because you think, well, I should, you know, I want to make people happy and do the right thing and help everybody. And my mom was good at reminding me that, you know, I could say yes to this other person, but then I’m saying no to the kids, you know. Well, let’s keep that in order, you know. And somebody, I was offered an opportunity. If you have land, you’re going to be offered more opportunities to do things than you know what to do with. And so, just in the past month, I’ve been offered multiple, you know, animals, up to it, including a horse. And I have said no. I’m quite proud of myself for having said know. And I said, it’s not that I couldn’t, not that I don’t have the space, it’s not that I couldn’t come up with a time, but I’m actually willfully staying below my threshold of what I’m capable of doing. And I think we’ve, like, with just the land, for instance, we’ve sort of, we pushed up and beyond our threshold a bit. We, like, found what that marker was. And then we, when I got pregnant with Kenton, I just dropped way, way below. I just pretty much cut everything out that I possibly, I think the only thing I kept doing was the podcast. Literally. I wasn’t reading books. It was just tomatose podcast. Tomatose podcast. And that was good because it kept me alive.

Alison:
Yeah.

Andrea:
But, um, But now we’re slowly increasing and sort of like, I’m sort of pushing into and toying with finding what that threshold is, and we’re at a point where it feels very good. It’s enough to keep me up, moving outside, doing things, exploring, learning, stretching, but it’s not so much that I feel overwhelmed and I can’t sit down or take a break or rest, and that’s where I want to be it’s in um somebody said um to be whelmed not overwhelmed not underwhelmed just right the.

Alison:
Right level just right like the.

Andrea:
Porridge you.

Alison:
Know it’s just it’s not too hot it’s not too cold it’s just right.

Andrea:
Yeah it’s just right goldilocks and with the with the food definitely you know remember that your most of your serotonin production is happening in the gut and if your gut is um disordered then And you’re not going to have a lot of that kind of happy hormone that helps you get things done. So it’s a good subject.

Alison:
Thank you for that question.

Andrea:
I don’t even know that it, yeah, I don’t even know that we have to categorize it under ADHD necessarily. Although you can, and it sometimes is helpful.

Alison:
Yeah.

Andrea:
But it’s certainly just coming up with systems and acknowledging that the system somebody else uses probably and maybe won’t work for you.

Alison:
Yeah, absolutely. Wonderful. Okay. Well, thank you very much, Andrew. We should end there, I think.

Andrea:
I was going to say, how long have we been recording? I feel like we did a lot of questions, but they’re all so good and so deep. So, yeah, it’s good stuff.

Alison:
Okay. I will speak to you next time.

Andrea:
All right, Alison. Good to chat.

Alison:
And to you.

Andrea:
As always. Bye.