Why Iron Supplements Aren’t Helping and What to Do Instead, with Samantha Chandler

🎙️ Episode Hosts: Amanda Golightly & Kate McDowell

💡 Special Guest: Samantha Chandler, aka Wellness and Womb

Feeling sluggish, battling stubborn weight, or experiencing hormonal chaos after 40? This episode is a must-listen! Samantha Chandler, a wellness coach specializing in iron regulation, shares her groundbreaking insights into the hidden factors affecting women’s health, including iron movement, liver function, and mineral balance.

🎧 Highlights of the Episode

•The truth about “low iron” and why movement matters more than levels.

•How iron dysregulation affects periods, fertility, and energy levels.

•Why liver health is central to weight loss, skin clarity, and hormone balance.

•Actionable tips for improving health with whole foods and mineral balance.

•The role of copper and retinol in overcoming fatigue and aging gracefully.

🔗 Connect with Samantha Chandler (Wellness and Womb)

•Explore Samantha’s wellness resources and guides: Website

•Watch her practical tips and insights: TikTok

•Follow her journey on Instagram: @wellnesswomb_

🔗 Find Amanda & Kate (Aligned Natural Health)

•Learn more about Amanda & Kate: Website

•Stay inspired with daily tips: Instagram

✨ Call-to-Action

Curious about the connection between iron movement and your health? Dive deeper into Samantha’s resources or book a discovery call to kickstart your wellness journey. Be sure to follow her on TikTok and Instagram for practical insights and tips that can transform your health!

📌 Keywords

#Anemia #LowIron #HormonalBalance #WomenOver35 #FertilitySupport #IronMovement

*** This podcast is for information purposes only. By providing the information contained herein, we are not diagnosing, treating, curing, mitigating, or preventing any disease or medical condition. Before beginning any type of natural regimen, it is advisable to seek the advice of a licensed healthcare professional.

Transcript

Amanda Golightly [00:00:00]:
You ever been told you need to take iron pills if you're feeling low on energy? What if the real issue isn't how much iron you have, but how it moves in your body? Today, we're thrilled to welcome Samantha Chandler, also known as Wellness and Womb, to the show. Samantha is a wellness coach who specializes in helping women unlock the secret to better health by correcting the movement of iron in their bodies. From infertility and weight struggles to anemia, hormone imbalances, and fatigue, Samantha reveals how many health challenges trace back to iron's inability to flow where it's needed. Get ready to challenge everything you thought you knew about iron and discover a new path to wellness.

Kate McDowell [00:00:41]:
We believe in growth and continuous learning.

Amanda Golightly [00:00:43]:
We believe in educating and sharing knowledge.

Kate McDowell [00:00:46]:
We believe the body is miraculous and is able to heal with proper nutrition and support.

Amanda Golightly [00:00:52]:
And we believe the right mindset is key to your success.

Kate McDowell [00:00:55]:
I'm Amanda Gilitely.

Amanda Golightly [00:00:56]:
And I'm Kate McDowell. And this is limitless health.

Kate McDowell [00:01:00]:
Live well naturally.

Amanda Golightly [00:01:03]:
Welcome to the show.

Samantha Chandler [00:01:03]:
Thanks for having me.

Amanda Golightly [00:01:04]:
Will you tell us what's the core mission of Wellness and Wound, and how do you aim to empower women with that?

Samantha Chandler [00:01:11]:
I came through my own experiences. I was pregnant. I was in the last month of my pregnancy with my second child, and I was told that I had low iron. And it was a discussion that my midwife and I or, my doula and I had had frequently throughout that pregnancy and even before trying to figure out why low iron was an issue for pregnant women. So I took iron supplements at the last month of the pregnancy. I had a hemorrhage during birth and everything was fine, but my son was born into a pool of blood. You could not see anything. The water was dark, dark.

Samantha Chandler [00:01:51]:
And I my midwife is like, are you sure you don't want Pitocin? I said, no. I'm fine. I had my herbs there in case there was a hemorrhage. So that was what I used. And then when I was breastfeeding him in the postpartum period, I had no milk supply, which was not an issue for me. That was completely new for me. And I just knew that iron had a role in that. So I began to research things.

Samantha Chandler [00:02:14]:
I began to I mean, I was already, I would say, holistically minded. But what I began to understand understand about iron's role in copper was just really quite mind blowing, the impact that it can have. And, you know, when we're talking about women struggling and being told that, well, some women just don't produce breast milk. I really think that that has a lot to do with iron's lack of movement. And so that is really what set me on this path. And now I work with women of all ages looking to improve Iron's movement because it connects to so many different things.

Kate McDowell [00:02:48]:
This is a very common thing that we hear from a lot of women as far as going to the doctor, being put on a supplement. I talked to someone this week who I know personally, and I think I've looked at some of your stuff already, and it's more about iron dysregulation Mhmm. Rather than we don't have enough of it. Can you tell us more about that and what is the actual issue as opposed to just being low iron?

Samantha Chandler [00:03:11]:
Yeah. Absolutely. So that's a really key distinction between the 2. So, like, when we're looking at our blood work, and I mean, I say our blood work because it's largely where women are getting the idea that they're low in it. Because we're looking at things as, like, black or white. They're high or they're low, and that's not how iron moves in the body. It can be 10 times higher in the organs than it is in the blood. And there was actually, again, my doula, she's a doctor of Chinese medicine.

Samantha Chandler [00:03:40]:
And one of her clients, she had told, they had just had 3 iron infusions. Their ferritin went from, I wanna say, like, a 6 to a 12. It wasn't higher than 15. And she said to them, you need to focus on the iron's movement. So start taking beef liver and making an adrenal cocktail. She did both of those things, and her ferritin went up to above 350. And the doctor just about had a heart attack when he saw her levels. And they were like, well, I guess that iron infusion really worked.

Samantha Chandler [00:04:09]:
And she was like, no. Iron is moving. So it can be stored in our tissues. One of the first places that it goes is the liver. And so that is really stressful on the liver. The liver has over 500 enzyme functions in the body. So if we're, you know, really stressing the liver out with having to harbor all of this iron, then when we test the blood, then obviously, it's not going to come back in the blood because it's being stored in the tissues. So we're it's kind of like a game of hide and seek with the toddler.

Samantha Chandler [00:04:42]:
Like, the way where iron is moving right now, it's in the room, but it's just not where we're looking. And so it's kind of like that toddler hiding behind the curtain where you can see its feet and it's giggling. It's right there. But if you're not looking for it, then you're going to miss it, and it's in Plainview. It's just not moving. So when we're looking at blood work and looking as things as, again, this gray definitive black and white higher low, we're missing the overall picture. And so when I look at blood work, I'm not just looking at one thing and saying, you know, this is how it functions. I'm looking at where the stress is in the body.

Samantha Chandler [00:05:19]:
How is the body handling stress? How is it handling its minerals? And when we look at things like that, it's not just I mean, it's kind of like if you went to see a symphony and you show up and it's just the conductor. It would be like you're missing the whole rest of the experience. But if you go to that symphony and everybody else is there, then you have a better idea of what's going on. It's, you know, it's not just a high or a low. It's how they're all working together. And I think that's really important when we're looking at iron's movement. So we aren't deficient in iron unless somebody's had some serious trauma where there's been massive blood loss. We have iron, and it's just being stored in our tissues.

Amanda Golightly [00:06:04]:
Interesting. Mhmm. So the massive blood loss, a lot of the clients that we see are women that have really heavy periods. Is there a correlation or a connection, or is that kind of the claim that they have low iron because they're, like, bleeding to death once a month, every month, is that legit, or is there more behind that?

Samantha Chandler [00:06:26]:
Yeah. There's more behind that. So that's not what I'm considering, like, a heavy blood loss. Like, that would be, like, they're in a car accident. They need, like, a blood infusion because they've lost the majority of their blood. Like, that would be where we're having true iron deficiency. Our periods are a signal of our body as to our overall health. So a lot of women don't realize that the period clotting that we have is actually a sign of the liver.

Samantha Chandler [00:06:50]:
So if there's clotting in our period blood, that's a sign that the liver has too much iron that's being stored in it. Same thing as the heavy blood flow, iron is regulated through blood loss. So, you know, where all of these women are struggling with their periods, they're really heavy. They don't feel good. They're having cramping. It's all a sign that iron isn't moving properly. Now there was a study that was done. I can't remember the year.

Samantha Chandler [00:07:13]:
It was either in the 19 twenties or the 19 thirties. So give me a little break on the the time frame of it. But what they did was they wanted to see what happens what happened when they blood birds almost to the point of death. So they studied these birds and what they found that there was a six times and a 3 times increase in the amount of ceruloplasmid that the body's created in order to move iron. So the body is much smarter than we think that it is. It's not out to get us. It's not trying to, like, bleed us to death when we're having our periods. But what it is trying to do, it's trying to create a bus that moves iron, and it's trying to create it at a higher rate so that iron can move out of the tissues and into the blood.

Samantha Chandler [00:07:55]:
And that's why there's a heavy blood loss. It's because iron's dysregulated in the tissues. And through a heavy blood loss, the body's gonna produce more ceruloplasmin, which are the buses to move iron.

Amanda Golightly [00:08:07]:
That's sorry. I'm jumping back in. So a lot of women too, they'll see, a, they take the birth control pill and it's like, oh, well, I can I can just skip the, like, the sugar pill week and then skip my period? How does that play into things down the road if they're not bleeding on a regular basis?

Samantha Chandler [00:08:27]:
So even with the birth control, we're having a synthetic flow. So it's not even our true flow when we're having it. So that's an issue in itself.

Kate McDowell [00:08:34]:
Mhmm.

Samantha Chandler [00:08:35]:
But I think that a lot of it comes down to we are we are not smarter than mother nature. Like, we cannot just take a pill and things will just go away. That's not how it's gonna happen. It's gonna come back, and we are going to have to revisit that issue later on. So, you know, if we are synthetically muting our body signals, then one way or another, that's going to come back up and we're going to have to revisit it. So it might not be now, but it'll come back later. And the reason that we live longer than men, it's two reason. 1, because we're smarter and because we have a monthly flow.

Samantha Chandler [00:09:13]:
So those two reasons allow for us to live longer. So I think that we are going to see, you know, an interesting shift in what happens with women that are, you know, aging right now because, you know, these generations have largely, for the most part, all taken birth control and reduced the amount of menstrual flow that they've had. And that in itself is a huge issue. So I'm not a fan of birth control. I get that, you know, some women feel that it's the best option. All the power to them. It's not something that I like.

Amanda Golightly [00:09:46]:
Yeah. And the medication side of things, you said it's basically muting what the body is trying to do now. What medication isn't?

Samantha Chandler [00:09:53]:
Yeah. Yeah. Because, I mean, if you think of because I've heard people be like, well, herbs do the same thing. You know? If I take a herb, you know, for, say, chamomile that's muting, you know, maybe I'm feeling a little bit more relaxed and stuff. But herbs do not react the same way that we're talking about pharmaceutical medication. When we're talking about pharmaceutical medication, we are talking about things that are synthetic and that are imitating I mean, really, they imitate minerals and they give us artificial hormones. Our bodies cannot produce minerals. So when we are getting herbs or whole foods, things that we have evolved with, we are getting the minerals.

Samantha Chandler [00:10:31]:
And so it's not the same at all. And pharmaceutical medication has been made to mimic herbs largely for the most part. So, you know, there are 2 completely different aspects when you're looking at 1. One has an energetic component to it, and another one has really a I mean, it it's just synthetic. It's just synthetic for what it's trying to do. So we can either support the body and understand I think a large part of it too is there's been a lot of wisdom that we've lost over the years from generations. You know? Like, what our great grandmothers would have known about our bodies. We don't have that wisdom anymore because it's been lost thinking that I mean, if you think of I'm trying to think of what it's called.

Samantha Chandler [00:11:13]:
OxyContin with Purdue Pharma. You know, they had that big pain, and that was their big thing into having people take their pharmaceutical medication because people shouldn't have pain. It's not that we should have pain, but we shouldn't be muting the signals that our body is showing us. And our body is gonna communicate with us. And if we have lost the wisdom that our body has, through, you know, intuition, that's how our body's communicating is through intuition and through symptoms. And if we are muting that, then we are, you know, disassociating ourselves from our body. And that's why we don't know what our body's communicating anymore because we've become so disconnected from it.

Kate McDowell [00:11:51]:
Yeah. Absolutely. Makes a lot of sense, even in regards to emotions that get stored in the body. And if you're just really pushing yourself and just separating yourself from everything, including the symptoms, and and it's just information. And it's a basic, like, no positive negative. It's just information. And it's just a matter of what do you wanna do with that? I can go back to the iron dysregulation. Is there a way I know there's a big as far as regulation of it, I know copper is a big thing when it comes to energy and regulating iron.

Kate McDowell [00:12:25]:
Are you able to expand more on that?

Samantha Chandler [00:12:27]:
Yeah. So I kind of I like to picture it like a bus. So the bus is called ceruloplasmin, and color is important when we're talking about how our bodies function. And we all know that intuitively. We just don't think about it. So if you picture when you were shown the effects of smoking and somebody was trying to show you the negative effects, there's always on one hand, there is somebody who was smoked, and it's their lungs. And then on the other side, there's always a picture of a set of lungs with somebody who didn't smoke. When we're looking at the lungs, we can't taste it.

Samantha Chandler [00:13:02]:
We can't smell it. We can't touch it, but we can see it. And we can see that the color is not the color that our lungs are supposed to be. So we all intuitively know that our the color of our organs is very important. We just don't think of it like that. So ceruleaux means baby blue, and it is a conveyor belt that moves copper to the mitochondria. So your mitochondria are called purple bacteria. I hope I'm not losing any of the listeners.

Samantha Chandler [00:13:29]:
I'm trying to break this down. So we all know that in order to make purple, we need red and blue. So that means that's why red light therapy is so beneficial It's because it's activating the ceruloplasmid when it hits the mitochondria. And that's what's, again, the color has a role. So we can't have color without copper. So you have this baby blue bus. There are 7 doors for iron to get on. So say, for example, we have a lineup of people.

Samantha Chandler [00:13:58]:
The people aren't iron. Say there's 20 or 30 people waiting to get on this bus. We first need somebody to come around and unlock the doors. So that person is vitamin a in the form of retinol, which is different than Medicare team. So we want an animal source of vitamin a. And then we need somebody to man the doors. That person is copper. Copper is the doorman.

Samantha Chandler [00:14:18]:
So there's 2 really important parts where it gets 3. 1, we need a bus. The second is we need retinol to be present. And the third is we need copper to be present. If we don't have those, then that lineup of iron instead of there being 20 to 30, say now we have a 100. And now we have that's where we're gonna end up with the issues of iron being in the organs and being trapped. So with that being said, there's 7 doors to let iron on, and there's one to let it off. So if we don't have copper that stays on that bus or we don't have retinol that stays on that bus, then iron can't get off of the bus and get back into the bloodstream.

Samantha Chandler [00:14:56]:
So that process is how iron moves. So we a large a lot of the time, we're thinking about things again as that high or low. You know, if, iron isn't in the blood, then it means that it's not in us. But that's not true because it's in the organ, same thing as a vitamin d deficiency. It's actually a magnesium deficiency. So if we don't have enough magnesium, then that's where we're gonna run into a low vitamin d. So it's not that we're low in these nutrients, it's that that things aren't just not balanced from a mineral perspective.

Amanda Golightly [00:15:28]:
It's so common when people have iron deficient I mean, I was on iron pills in the past and it's always those, like, little I think they're green, but it's you end up constipated and your iron doesn't really get that much better in your blood. And it's, like, so interesting how you talk about if it's not moving out of the tissues, it just, like, builds up there. What so what in terms of support for the system, like, how can people help their bodies? The little get rid of the little iron pills. What can they do instead?

Samantha Chandler [00:15:58]:
So there would be a few key things, and I honestly, I can't stress getting rid of the iron supplements the most because or iron infusions. It honestly makes me sick thinking of the women who are pregnant and getting iron infusions or taking iron supplements. If anybody wants to read something, they should and they're open to not being scared. They should read Jim Moon, iron the most toxic metal. That'll really open your eyes to the toxicity that iron really is. But if you're looking to getting iron moving and you you really have to stop with consuming more iron, we don't need more of it. So that is, affecting iron's movement. Vitamin d supplements, we don't need vitamin d supplements.

Samantha Chandler [00:16:42]:
We need it naturally occurring. I think a large part of this, what it comes down to is, like, how have we evolved? We have evolved with a variety of nutrients. There was a study that I was just reading because I'm gonna do a post on folate coming up. And, you know, everyone's concerned about folate during pregnancy and not having enough. And the study looked at giving women folate, and they were looking at a hormone in the blood to see if that hormone was reduced or not or that protein. Sorry. If that protein is present, folate's role is to reduce it. And so it's considered a success if folate does reduce it, and that's what we think leads to or that is what leads to the birth defects.

Samantha Chandler [00:17:25]:
So, anyway, the study looked at it with 17% reduction with just folic folic acid. But when they added more nutrients to it, it went all the way up to 77% that it reduced this protein by. So it's not that we just need one nutrient. It's that when these nutrients occur naturally together, it has a huge harmonious harmonious effect on the body. So when we're thinking of, well, I'm just gonna take some vitamin d because I don't actually get enough of it. Well, you could take cod liver oil. Cod liver oil has a bunch of nutrients in it. It has vitamin a and vitamin d occurring naturally together, and that is actually what we wanted in.

Samantha Chandler [00:18:03]:
When we are taking, like, things that are heavily marketed that are I'm trying to think of, like, a nice way to say it. I think that the creators of them have good intentions, but they're still making a supplement that is taken out of the context of what is, like, a whole natural form of something. So, like, when there are these omega blends, you know, that are marketed to children that have all of these crazy flavors for kids to to take, a lot of people think that their kids won't take them. But I I feel like I surprised everyone. My 4 year old and my 1 year old both gobble down cod liver oil like it's nobody's business. My 4 year old isn't super keen on it, but he gets to take elderberry syrup afterwards. So as long as I make that deal with him, then he's going to take it. So if we're looking to increase iron's movement, we need to stop with the synthetic things and add in as much really whole food substances that we can.

Samantha Chandler [00:19:00]:
The ones that I always like to start off with are like an adrenal cocktail. I love cod liver oil, and I love beef liver. But when you're getting those, it's important to know where you're sourcing it from because just because they say that doesn't mean that it's actually good for you. And, that can be a really great start. Cut or adrenal cocktails are difficult to get in Canada. I'm actually making one right now. So that will be out sometime soon because I don't like having to bring in everything from the United States. I feel like Canadians should have an adrenal cocktail here.

Samantha Chandler [00:19:32]:
That would

Kate McDowell [00:19:32]:
be handy. We know what the, we know the problems of getting things across the border sometimes can be quite quite frustrating in that way. Yep. Just going back to not necessarily too high iron, even though that's what everyone thinks is a problem or it's too low. What are some of the most common symptoms that women over 40 might experience with that?

Samantha Chandler [00:19:52]:
I would say everything. At least 50 so people can identify. Hair loss, fatigue, cramping around their menstrual cycle, inability to lose weight, like struggles with weight loss, that's a huge one. Blood sugar imbalance, gray hairs. Again, think we need color for we need copper for color, so gray hairs is a sign. I'm trying to think of some other really common ones. I'd say those are, like, pretty much the foundational ones from the women that I've worked with. There's a few kind of other ones.

Samantha Chandler [00:20:25]:
But, like, if you have struggled with PCOS or endometriosis throughout that your life, that means that you have dysregulated iron because that's iron that's in the womb space. So, you know, as you continue the reason that we age is because we accumulate iron. So if we are looking to, you know, reverse aging, we all know the importance of you look at expensive skin care, it's gonna have retinol in it. Mhmm. Now or vitamin c is another good one. Like, these are things that companies know are important. They just don't they might not understand that it's iron's movement that they're actually helping with. Keeping our skin looking youthful, that's a huge part in it too because in order to produce collagen, we need vitamin c.

Amanda Golightly [00:21:08]:
And, like, what depletes those things?

Samantha Chandler [00:21:11]:
So we are up in a big battle for our minerals. So there was a study that was done from 1941 to 1991, and they looked at the mineral status in the soil. And because, I mean, you know, logically speaking, if it's not in the soil, it's not getting in our foods, and we're not getting the smell of it. There was a difference in those years of 76% of copper loss that had happened just in vegetables alone. So that is a huge number. Like, if we think of fevers, for example, we know the impact that a small percentage can have on how our bodies function. Mhmm. Now if you're thinking over a 50 year period where we've lost 3 fourths of the minerals that we would have been or copper that we would have been consuming from that vegetable, that has a huge toll on our body.

Samantha Chandler [00:21:59]:
Mhmm. Along with that, in 1941, ironically, of all years, they began fortifying our foods with iron. So we began consuming more of it. And another reason why I know that iron supplements don't work is because of that. So it was the UK, the US, and Canada that all began to fortify their foods with iron in 1941. Then in the 19 seventies, as if it was some kind of, like, cruel April fools joke, they went on April 1st and said, listen. Anemia still exists. So in order to combat anemia, we have been fortifying our foods with iron.

Samantha Chandler [00:22:36]:
We actually need to do it 3 times harder because it hasn't worked yet. Wow. Now you can tell me anytime that a positive outcome has happened from something not working and then deciding to do it 3 times as hard, let me know because it doesn't make any sense to me. But that was what they proposed. Yeah. They didn't get it at 3 times the amount. They increased it by 50%, but now we don't know how much our foods are actually fortified with ironness. So we have this bolus of iron that we are exposed to.

Samantha Chandler [00:23:07]:
4th generation antibiotics have a huge detriment on our copper status. Even glyphosate, glyphosate is huge. It chelates copper. So there was a study that was done in France. They looked at, this was when glyphosate was illegal there. They wanted to see what the residents were exposed to for glyphosate, and they were shocked because it's illegal, and 99% of them were explode they had glyphosate in their urine. So glyphosate is around us even if it's not being used directly beside you. It's in our air.

Samantha Chandler [00:23:38]:
It's in our water. It's all around us. And that has a huge toll on our copper status. It affects other minerals too, but it does affect copper. So we're in this battle where, you know, we are being exposed more and more to iron and less and less to other nutrients that we need. And that is why, you know, like, even people who haven't had iron supplements or things like that, well, even for example, the time frame that you're born in. Because when we are born, there is a huge download of copper that happens within the last 6 weeks. And so if you are born premature, then you miss out on that copper download.

Samantha Chandler [00:24:17]:
So one of the clients that I'm actually working with, it's a he. I've worked with a handful of men who have come to me for help, and he doesn't have enough copper. But he wasn't born into this world with enough copper. So, you know, his journey to health and wellness really is going to be a long one because he's gonna be correcting about 50 years of mineral imbalance.

Amanda Golightly [00:24:37]:
Wow. Yeah. That's crazy. So what can people do for the copper prop? Because we don't wanna take things in isolation. Right?

Samantha Chandler [00:24:49]:
No. No. We don't. So there are a few ways to go about it. They're like I said, I I like to stick to 3, like, really basic that I think are really foundational, and then you can kind of go from there. Mhmm. The adrenal cocktail adrenal cocktail is great because it's whole as long as it's whole food vitamin c. So a lot of the questions that I get are like, well, you know, this vitamin c says ascorbic acid.

Samantha Chandler [00:25:12]:
Is that good? No. Ascorbic acid blows up the ceruloplasmid. Instead of the ceruloplasmid having a life of 6 days, it lasts 6 hours. So we don't want ascorbic acid. We want whole food vitamin c. And as long as it has a name that you can pronounce and it looks normal, then that's a good one. But they're hard to find. They are hard to find with whole food vitamin c.

Samantha Chandler [00:25:32]:
So an adrenal cocktail is sodium, potassium, and whole food vitamin c. Sodium and potassium are really important, especially when we're talking about women who are struggling with constipation because we need sodium and potassium to help move water through the body. Same thing as magnesium. Magnesium is needed for our muscles to relax and contract. And so if we don't have, enough salt, we don't have enough potassium, and we don't have enough magnesium there, you're not gonna get the water flowing properly, and you're not gonna get your muscles relaxing and contracting. So an adrenal cocktail, for sure, you can make that super easy on your own. The best one that I found, and I'll say this since mine's not out there, but is jigsaw. Jigsaw is really great.

Samantha Chandler [00:26:15]:
And then a magnesium supplement for sure. I love magnesium biclisonate, but it doesn't even have to be like a a capsule that you consume. You can get tallow whipped butter that has magnesium flakes added in it. You can apply it topically or magnesium spray. So that's also really helpful too. And then beef liver or an organ blend, I find really helpful because while we know that iron gets stored in the liver, it also gets stored in other organs too. So an organ blend is gonna be really helpful because it's gonna help it's gonna help support those organs. So in Northern Canada, the indigenous people, when they first killed an animal, the first thing that they used to do would be to eat the eyes of that animal.

Samantha Chandler [00:26:58]:
And while that sounds probably not super appetizing to the most of us now, they did that because it supported their eyes. So when we eat the organs of other animals, it supports our organs, and that is the wisdom of that's been passed down. So if we get an organ blend, then it's not gonna be as high in copper because beef liver is one of the highest forms in copper. But we're gonna get a blend of other nutrients, and that's really important. That or cod liver oil. Like, I like those 4. I mean, aside from magnesium, magnesium is just lost at an exponential rate, So we have to have some kind of supplement for it. But even when we're consuming that, we can consume them with other whole food supplements so that the other nutrients are there.

Samantha Chandler [00:27:44]:
And it's not just the vitamin a that we're taking. It's not just the vitamin d that comes from these natural sources. It's the blend of everything together that our bodies have actually evolved being able to absorb and use properly. Mhmm.

Kate McDowell [00:27:57]:
It's good you highlighted the magnesium because whether people want to admit it or not, everyone's under stress and depleting all their minerals. For us, well, I guess, I don't know where you are in Canada offhand.

Samantha Chandler [00:28:09]:
I'm in Fort McMurray.

Kate McDowell [00:28:10]:
Okay. Okay. So we're kind of a little far. We're more in Ontario near Toronto. And we have a local farm that we go to and get nose to tail, ground beef, which is basically kind of covering that as best as possible grass fed, which is another great option. So if anyone's listening and they wanna figure out what kind of options they have, if you can look for a local farmer who does that, that can be a a great option.

Samantha Chandler [00:28:31]:
Mhmm. Absolutely. Yeah. I get, actually, one way that I sneak in beef liver is I I get it from a farm, and then I put it in a grinder. I grind it down into a paste. And then I have, like, I originally bought them to make dog toy or dog treats out of. They're just little tiny dog bones. But I put the liver paste in them, and then I freeze it.

Samantha Chandler [00:28:52]:
And then whenever I make ground beef or ground pork, I take a few cubes of that, throw it in, and then there's liver in it, and nobody nobody knows.

Kate McDowell [00:28:59]:
Nobody eats their arms. Very nice. That's perfect.

Amanda Golightly [00:29:04]:
So what was the this is kind of an aside question. Just thinking of the ascorbic acid and, like, what was so a lot of people took a ton of that. And And when it comes to getting vitamin c, especially through COVID, right, it was there was so much fear about immune system and the giant Costco bottles of vitamin c were flying off the shelves. People are taking tons of that. Does it have a negative impact if you're taking too much of that or too consistently?

Samantha Chandler [00:29:31]:
So ascorbic acid in comparison to whole food vitamin c, a lot of people will say they're the same, but they look the same on the outside. It would be kind of like if I had a twin also named Samantha, and I would be like, yeah. No. She's she's identical to me. But you would know that inside, we are not actually identical. There are differences whether we are going to like different things or whatnot. There's going to be something that's a little bit different. It's not going to be 100% the same.

Samantha Chandler [00:30:01]:
And so the difference is with with it being synthetic, ascorbic acid misses an enzyme at its core, and that enzyme is called tyrosinase. Tyrosinase is very, very important, has a bunch of different functions. But it's kind of like if you went to a car dealership and you were looking at cars, and there were 2 cars identical sitting side by side. You went and looked at the one that was for ascorbic acid, and the interior and the engine is missing of that car. The engine can't go. So what ascorbic acid does is it absorbs iron into the tissues and helps, prevent it from moving. So it's not our trend, and that's part of the issue for it. Tyrosinase is just it it's really central in making sure that whole food vitamin C functions properly.

Samantha Chandler [00:30:49]:
And it's kind of like, again, where we think we're smarter, we're cherry picking these different things that we think are the same, but it's it's not completely identical, and that's the issue.

Amanda Golightly [00:31:00]:
It's it doesn't seem like a priority. We need to be looking for sourcing, as you mentioned, especially for liver or for whatever. But it's important to make sure you know what you're putting into your body just because it says Lexus on the outside. If there's no engine, it's not gonna be very good for you. Right?

Samantha Chandler [00:31:19]:
No. And that's the issue. I have I honestly like McDonald's more than I like a lot of the supplement companies because at least when people go to McDonald's, they know that they're not getting good food. Yeah. But when people are purchasing these supplements, they think that they're doing something good. They are taking these prenatals thinking that they are helping their bodies. They're taking all of this folic acid or folate, whatever one they decide on thinking that it's the solution. But it's not actually what the body is needing.

Samantha Chandler [00:31:48]:
And so that is the issue that I have with all these supplements is there's a whole bunch of them that are marketed as if they are clean, and they aren't. And people just think that they're doing something good, and they're not.

Kate McDowell [00:32:01]:
So true. There's just so many different names for things as well. You really have to be your your best advocate and research what's in what's in all the items that you're purchasing. Could you share some resources or tools? I know you have some items on your your website, wellness and womb. Could you just share any of those that you think, the women might be might benefit from having?

Samantha Chandler [00:32:22]:
Yeah. So I have one on irons movement. That one's really key. I think that that one's really, like, foundational to understand how iron moves. So that one's really important. I have another one on supplements. So, like, you know, if you're looking for ones to get started with, when in doubt, just know that 99% of the supplements on the market are junk. So so if you're wondering if that one's a good one, probably not, But I do have a list of someone that I do really like.

Samantha Chandler [00:32:50]:
And, I have a bunch of different ones like PCOS and fertility, and then I have another one on balancing energy. And the next one that I'm working on is a free adrenal cocktail one, so that can be really helpful. Like, my TikTok is full of videos on how iron moves and so was my Instagram. Those are the probably the 2 biggest ones where I'll talk about different things.

Kate McDowell [00:33:12]:
And we can note all that in the show notes for everybody so they can find

Amanda Golightly [00:33:15]:
you. Yeah. Make sure you send us when you your new adrenal cocktail is available, and we'll put that in the show notes as well. Because it's so good to have resources for people that that aren't crap, aren't garbage. Right? And that yeah. I've been following you for a while, and it's like, oh, this is really interesting. Do you have what's one final piece of advice that you would like to share with our listeners that you think is really important?

Samantha Chandler [00:33:38]:
I think that if you're struggling with something and you're not sure if Byron's movement is involved, then it probably is. So whether it's autoimmune, whether it's your cycle, whether it's your brain fog, your migraines, your fatigue, all of those different things all come back to iron's movement. Iron can be trapped in different parts of the body, not just the liver, and that is a huge part of it, whether it's insulin imbalance or insulin resistance, all of these different things. Our bodies can't make they can't make minerals, but they can make hormones. So if we have any kind of hormonal imbalance, then our body is trying to compensate for a lack of balanced minerals to get our bodies back to balance. So if you feel like you are just not quite where you need to be, then I highly recommend looking into how iron moves as a really great way of getting started.

Amanda Golightly [00:34:28]:
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Samantha, and I hope that everyone got a ton of value from this. Make sure you check out the show notes because we'll put all of Samantha's information in there and check out her TikTok. I've been watching you for quite a while, and I find it fascinating, the stuff that you share. And I love how you break it down to make it really easy to understand for people because it is a complicated topic. Mhmm. And so it's important to have someone who makes it so it's something that you can understand. So, again, thank you for joining us today, and if you're listening, enjoy the rest of your day, and we'll see you on the next one.