Crunchy Stewardship

What Does "Crunchy" Even Mean? (And How Crunchy Are We?)

• Katie Jones • Season 1 • Episode 6

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Ever heard the term "crunchy" and wondered what it actually means? Join cousins Chrissy and Katie on this episode of Crunchy Stewardship as they pull back the curtain on the world of natural, holistic living. We're defining what "crunchy" means to us – a lifestyle focused on stewarding our spiritual, mental, emotional, financial, and physical health to honor God – and why it's more of a spectrum than a strict label.

From birthing choices and organic eating to homemade cleaning products and natural remedies, we share our personal journeys and reveal just how "crunchy" we actually are. Plus, get ready to play along as we take a fun personality quiz to help you discover where you land on the crunchy spectrum!


Episode Takeaway: 

Embracing a more natural, non-toxic lifestyle isn't about rigid adherence or perfection; it's a personalized journey of making intentional choices that align with your values for health and well-being.


Chapters: 

00:00 Welcome to Crunchy Stewardship

00:44 The 'Crunchy' Spectrum

03:27 Chrissy's Crunchy Journey

05:26 Defining 'Crunchy'

06:45 Katie's Crunchy Journey

11:10 How Crunchy Are You? Quiz

12:23 Ideal Birthing Scenario

15:25 Organic Choices

17:11 Breastfeeding Plans

19:29 Baby Carrying Methods

22:03 Produce

24:22 Drinking Water

25:37 Fermentation

25:49 Finding Clean Products

26:28 Essential Oils

27:19 Acupuncture

28:40 Bone Broth

29:33 Compost

30:00 Dream Homes

30:23 Coffee Additions

31:21 Farmer's Market Finds

33:22 Crunchy Checklist

35:34 Education

36:42 Crunchy Practices

38:46 Final Thoughts



Links & Things Mentioned in This Episode:


Connect With Us:

Join Our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crunchychristianmama

FREE How to Afford Non-Toxic Living Workbook: https://crunchystewardship.com/how-to-afford-non-toxic-living

Chrissy:

Hello and welcome to Crunchy Stewardship. My name is Chrissy.

Katie:

And my name is Katie. We are two cousins who are passionate about learning and sharing the knowledge that we have to equip others to steward their spiritual, mental, emotional, financial, and physical health in order to honor God with every aspect of your life.

Chrissy:

In this podcast, we are taking a deep dive into what it means to steward our lives as God originally intended for us. With the resources that God has given us, we will look at topics like food, medicine, finances, mental health, and lots more through a natural lens with a biblical foundation. So without further ado, let's get started.

Katie:

Yay. And today in this episode, I have come up with a kind of fun idea for what I'd like to do in order to help our community and audience understand a bit more about what we kind of mean when we say crunchy. Now, a lot of our listeners are our friends and family members who just kind of wanna tune into what we're talking about here on our podcast. And I have talked to many of you wonderful family members and friends who are like, what is this all about? What is it? What are you even talking about when you say crunchy? And how crunchy really are you? Because a lot of times if you start Googling the word crunchy, there's a lot of crazy stuff that comes up, I'd say about being crunchy. And the thing that I think that you and I both agree with Chrissy is that crunchy is definitely a spectrum and people can

Chrissy:

Mm-hmm.

Katie:

a little bit crunchy. Maybe they do a few things that are crunchy or they can be extremely crunchy and be all in on all the things. And you and I are at different points as well on the spectrum. I don't think we agree on everything or we're not at the same place and we have different things going on in our lives. So in this episode, I thought it'd be really fun to first off describe what we mean by crunchy and then let the listeners and our community and our friends and family know more about how crunchy we are on the spectrum. And yeah, like the little things that we think kind of make us more crunchy. The last thing that I wanna say before I have a few questions for you, Chrissy, is that I don't wanna like plaster a label of like, yes, we are definitely crunchy people and people have to think of us in this this way.'cause I also think labels can be very not great at times. You know, I, I don't wanna put us in a box in any sort of way, but it's just kind of a fun way to say that. Yeah, we are just kind of on this journey to become non-toxic. And so that's kind of what, for me, crunchy means is trying to eliminate toxins from my life. You know, I've kind of come to this awakening of the world and the news and the government and what we're being told isn't always the truth. It's just kind of like I've, I've become more aware of that and I'm trying to do things more holistically and more naturally versus always introducing a medicine or doing things a conventional way. And so I think for me, that's kind of what makes me more crunchy. So Chrissy, I wanna turn it over to you and ask you like, what does crunchy mean to you? And what do you think kind of puts you on the spectrum of being crunchy?

Chrissy:

So I guess let's start off with what does crunchy mean to me? To me it, it's less of a focus of eliminating toxins and more of a focus of feeding my body well. When I first started it was more realizing of like, I can have so much more benefit from better ingredients that I put in my body. And now as I've kind of continued, I've looked a little bit more at detoxifying, but at first it really was more of a motivation of merely just adding good stuff and less of taking away the bad stuff. And it's, it's a process, so I started with adding good stuff and now I'm in the process of taking away bad stuff from our household in cleaning products, in food, in just like, I haven't quite gotten to the clothing section. That part of being crunchy actually kind of scares me. We, we haven't gone down that rabbit hole yet. So I guess if you could say like, on the spectrum of being crunchy, how crunchy are you? Like you said, Katie, you and I have, different things that we are more likely to want to do in order to improve our health and decrease toxins in our lifestyle. So I consider myself fair to moderate. You know, I do read the labels of every single thing that I buy at the grocery store and everything that I put in my house. I've decreased seed oils, I've decreased additives in our food, extra sugar and things like that. But at the same time, I do still like my chocolate and I will still eat a donut, especially when I really wanna a donut. I will get a donut, you know? So it's, it's a balance and it's a spectrum.

Katie:

So quite a while ago I was talking to a mom and she was describing some things to me and I was like, oh, you kind of sound crunchy like me. And she was like, well, what does that actually mean? So I googled it and I actually thought this definition was, was pretty spot on. But take this with a grain of salt. So this is what Google said is that a crunchy mom is a mother who practices a parenting style that is centered around a natural lifestyle, typically avoids modern medicine, technology, and processed foods. The term can be used positively or negatively and is often contrasted with the term silky mom, which describes a mother who embraces modern technology and science. Now I wanna pause there because I think when people hear that phrase at the end of modern technology and science, you would almost automatically jump and be like, no, I do like modern technology and I like science and health, and healthcare, and all these things. And I think you and I both fall on the spectrum of we want to try to do things the more natural, holistic way to start with

Chrissy:

Mm-hmm.

Katie:

with, but there is absolutely a time and a place for our modern health technologies and science to come in.

Chrissy:

Absolutely.

Katie:

About a year ago my son was born and we both contracted a life-threatening case of sepsis. And in that instance, I was so thankful and so glad that modern health technologies and science Has gotten to the place where it is. Because what we had was considered child bed fever many many years ago, like centuries ago. And child bed fever was what killed many women and babies during birth. And so I'm so thankful that I wasn't born in like the 19th or 18th century where we would've had no chance of survival. But in today's modern technology era and all the science that we have, we survived because of all the interventions that they had. Now, however, when it's just day to day with like taking care of ourselves, and even when my son gets a fever, I don't pop Tylenol into him. The first thing I do is put him in a bath with some Epsom salt and lime juice and some peppermint oil. And I try to detoxify and allow the fever to work its course because, you know, fevers are trying to get the, the illness and the sickness out of the body we don't want to necessarily stop that process. So for me, I try to do the more non-medicine route for simple things like that. Or when he has a rash, I'm not using like Neosporin or Benadryl. I'm trying to look for a more natural route to curing whatever that thing is. And so, for me it's definitely looking at the long term effects of something like a medicine, and trying to do it in a way that's not going to cause more harm over time. Because I learned that something like Advil, Tylenol, acetaminophen, you know, all these over the counter medications for pain, they tend to ruin your gut lining and can actually cause things like food insensitivities especially too, for people who have lots of antibiotics, in their childhood. So of course when my son was born and had sepsis, the two of us were pumped with antibiotics because we needed them. We needed them at the time, and that was the time and place for them, And so unfortunately, because that was how his life started, his gut right now is something that we're working on repairing and healing and all this stuff. So all that being said, talk a little bit about what tends to make people more crunchy, because again, like yes, there's the medicine side and non-toxic side, but let's kind of like break it down into some little bits and pieces of like, this tends to make people crunchy versus makes them silky which is kind of the more just all in on everything that we have today, the conventional way. So I think one thing that I wanna throw out there, which tends to make people more crunchy to begin with, especially like as mothers, is wanting to do an unmedicated birth. So instead of using all of the medications, whether it's to induce labor or to reduce the pain of labor. One thing that originally made me crunchy when I kind of first started this journey was wanting to go through with an unmedicated birth. So I think a lot of times that's one of those big things that tends to make people crunchy.

Chrissy:

It's actually kind of funny, I was talking with my small group last week or two weeks ago, and, I said, yeah, I'm, I'm pretty crunchy. And one of the people in my small group was like, what are you talking about? Like, no, you're, you're actually quite normal. And so, I pulled out my homemade dish detergent and I said, am I really? And then I went to the laundry room and I showed them my homemade laundry detergent. I said, are you sure I'm normal? And they were like, oh, wait a minute. No, you're not normal. But it was more in like a loving manner, not necessarily the negative side of it. But yeah, sometimes like I think the unmedicated birth is the one thing that we really see. You know, more so than changing your laundry detergent or increasing your time outside. Changing the food that you're eating is a little bit less noticeable steps from people who are merely just observing your lifestyle.

Katie:

So, Chrissy, for everybody and for ourselves, I thought it would be fun today to go through some random online personality quizzes because those are so hilarious. And we are going to answer some questions about being crunchy. Now, I've found a handful of them and I thought we could go through and ask each other these questions. And I'd love for you as the listener to kind of play along and answer these questions in your head. Or even like jump in on the Facebook page and answer them and let us know, like, do you fall into this crunchy thing? Or are you not practicing this crunchy thing? And yeah, so we'll all together, see how crunchy we are. Okay Chrissy. So the first quiz that I have found is about motherhood and getting started with your journey into motherhood. So these are actually really good questions for you to answer because you are not pregnant yet

Chrissy:

That is correct.

Katie:

Soon. And so you need to kind of answer these questions for yourself as far as how you plan to bring a child into the world and what you plan to do in the beginning of their life. So first describe your ideal birthing scenario. So here are your four options. You either want to be at a birthing center with few to no interventions, a traditional hospital birth with whatever interventions your doctor recommends. You want to have a planned C-section or you want to do a planned home birth. And even, I wanna add to that, maybe a planned home water birth.

Chrissy:

I think I would definitely say my ideal would be a birthing center. I want to be surrounded by people who know what they're doing, and have done this time and time again. This is literally their life, but at the same time, I don't want a lot of the hospital interventions that happen when, people go to a hospital. Now this is actually like a hard one in terms of like our family just because of, the situation that happened with you and your son last year. so that is definitely a conversation that will have to be navigated when the time comes because I know a lot of our family members now are very gung-ho about hospital births only, and you shall not have a baby anywhere else. So that's a conversation I would have to navigate, but my ideal would be a birthing center for sure. What about you, Katie? If you were to do it over again what would you do?

Katie:

Yeah. For our family members listening, I, I still stand by my choice to go with a birthing center to begin with the situation when my son was born is extremely rare, and even when I've talked with all of my doctors and my son's doctors, like the chance of what happened to us was like a 0.001% chance, like it was so small and you can count how many people this has happened to within the last few years, like on, on your two hands. Like it is so rare basically for this to happen. So, if I could go back and, and do it again, I would still choose to do a birthing center with few to no interventions. I still believe having a baby and being pregnant is not a medical emergency and therefore doesn't need to be in a hospital however, I was very thankful that the birthing center I chose to go with had a relationship and, they had admitting rights, to the hospital. So that way in the case, like mine, I could just be whizzed away to the hospital when I needed it. And so it was only a few minutes away. We jumped in the ambulance and then I did actually give birth to my son in a hospital with some interventions you know, I had an epidural and, and all the things, which was crazy but, I was thankful in that situation that the hospital was close by. So still stand by it though. I, and I still recommend it because the birthing center was really wonderful up until the point that we needed to move. So, alright, moving on. Question number two. When it comes to organic, you plan to buy Now the four options are organic, diapers, bedding, clothing, toys, cleaning products, everything or option two, organic food and cleaning products. Option three, organic food when it doesn't cost much more than conventional, or the last option is organic or conventional, whatever is on sale.

Chrissy:

I think a year ago I would've said Option D, organic or conventional, whatever's on sale. But now I am definitely option B of organic food and cleaning products. And honestly, with cleaning products more likely to be homemade rather than organic and store bought. Just because of that cost piece to it. It's so much cheaper to make it homemade. So, yeah, that's my thing. Honestly, I don't think much about the toys and the clothes and diapers will probably be cloth diapers. But toys and clothes, I, it, it's toys and clothes, whatever's available. What about you?

Katie:

For me, yeah, I would say probably the same. Organic food and cleaning products. I am actually starting to jump more into over to that camp of organic everything. I'm trying not to get too crazy'cause it does cost more when things are organic, but it's just, they tend to be healthier and better for you. But I, I'm still kind of in that camp of organic cleaning products and food. Sometimes I jump down to the conventional, if it's more cost effective, especially when we're providing food for others. Because when you're hosting it can get really expensive. So anyway. The next question is when it comes to breastfeeding, my plan is one, to use Formula two to nurse exclusively for at least a year. Then follow child-led weaning after that to nurse for at least six months, and then see how it goes after that. And then the last option is to nurse and supplement with formula if I need to.

Chrissy:

None of the above.

Katie:

Oh.

Chrissy:

yeah. I actually really, like what you did Katie, with your son is, you know, nursing exclusively for the first six months, but then continuing to nurse up until the baby is ready to be weaned. But in addition to that, providing the baby with opportunities to try new foods as they develop and grow the curiosity and, ability to eat real foods so that the bulk of the nutrients is still coming from breast milk because breast milk is just so incredibly good for babies but yeah, just like continuing with breast milk while also allowing the baby to learn and be curious and experiment with additional foods. What about you?

Katie:

So at this moment in time, I'm exclusively pumping and I would have loved to like, you know, direct nurse my baby. But just because of the hospital stuff, I wasn't able to like nurse him. So we've been just pumping, but it is still considered being breastfed. But yeah, when he turned six months, we started introducing food. It's called baby led weaning. And it's basically like just giving babies every single food item that they can kind of like gum when in the beginning and then eventually start eating. And so we have totally skipped the baby food, like processed baby foods and baby snacks and all that stuff, which tend to be more expensive as well. But, there's, there's a lot of reasons and we can maybe talk about that in another episode of like, why baby-led weeding was the choice that we did. But that's what we did. And, and he is still, being breastfed, but now that he's a year old, we're gonna, we're just looking for that next step of what to do. But I have not, decided yet. All right. Last question about babies once your baby arrives, how do you plan to carry him or her? Number one is I'm going to wear like sling the baby when you are out and about option two is I'm going to wear the baby at home and when we're out, so basically all the time, option three is I'm going to use a stroller most of the time, and option four is slings are intimidating, but I'm going to try using a baby Bjorn or something similar.

Chrissy:

So, I'm gonna be completely honest, I've never thought about this before.

Katie:

Mm-hmm.

Chrissy:

Yeah, I'd probably just carry my baby in whatever way is most practical at the time. You know, like if I'm going on a run, I don't think a sling would be ideal. I think a stroller would probably be better for the sake of the bouncing in the baby's neck, you know? But if I'm out at the grocery store, I think having a baby like in a sling or a baby carrier is nice.'cause then I have both my hands free and available to do stuff. At home, whatever the baby wants. I don't know. I know some babies wanna be held all the time. Some babies don't wanna be held. Some babies are comfortable on the bed or a couch or the floor, and some babies hate it. So I think it really is determined by the baby, in my opinion. But that is coming from somebody who has zero experience with carrying babies all the time. So.

Katie:

So, you may or may not know this, but, what tends to be the more quote, unquote crunchy thing is like attachment style parenting, which is basically baby wearing, you know, even in some cases people have talked about things like co-sleeping or basically just the idea of like, baby, and it is, it's like this attachment style parenting and that tends to be the more crunchy thing. And so for this, you were to do the more crunchy thing, it would be basically to wear your baby all the time, or at least like, especially when you're going out and about. And the less crunchy thing, is to pop'em in a stroller or pop'em into like a baby bouncer in the house or basically just not wearing them and, and allowing them to be on their own. So, I've tried wearing Malachi when he was a baby. He didn't love it. We did use a baby Bjorn, which is kind of like a good in-between, like a, a sling and just holding them. And so he, he tended to like that. But these days, I mean, he's getting heavy and big, so I'm not wearing him all the time anyway Next questions. gonna talk more about your lifestyle, chrissy. Where do you get your produce? Option one, produce question mark. Like the pickle on my McDonald's Double Quarter Pounder.

Chrissy:

Oh boy.

Katie:

Option two. I buy a lot of healthy fruits and vegetables from Costco. I think they're organic, maybe. Option three, both at my local farmer's market or from a divine goddess named Crystal honeybee. Option four, I grow over 100 varieties of kale, beets, turnips, and tubers at a local community garden where I am known as Captain Rutabaga.

Chrissy:

Oh Lord, I aspire to be option number four. Captain Rutabaga fits me well. But if I had to choose one, I think it's probably closer to the Costco option, although I don't go to Costco. I do like a combination of Sprouts and my regular grocery store, just depending on which food it is and which food I care more about it being organic. You know, obviously a dirty dozen list, I'm gonna buy organic from Sprouts more likely. But if it's cheaper at the other grocery store, organic, I'm gonna buy it at the other grocery store. And then for like the Clean 15 or fruits and vegetables that have a peel, I'm more likely to be okay not buying it organic just because it has that barrier from the spray that I'm not eating. Granted, pesticides are still on the inside of it because of the soil that's grown in, but less so, you know, you can ease the stuff that's on the outside. You take it off easy. So yeah, I guess I'm a combination. I don't know. What about you, Katie?

Katie:

I really wanna be Captain Rutabaga and I definitely plan to be Captain Rutabaga so you guys can call me Captain Rutabaga once we move and I build my whole wonderful kale beat Turnup farm. I don't even know if I eat any of that stuff, but I really, I love gardening. But right now we do try to get a lot from the farmer's market, and at the same time, Costco has a lot of really good organic options and we get a lot of organic food from Costco and the grocery store. So anyway, it's kind of, I guess, a mixture of both. Moving on to the next question. Where does your drinking water come from? Chrissy? Option one is straight from the faucet. Option two is a basic Brita filter. Option three is a five gallon glass jug with molecularly distilled H2O, and option four is from your double reverse osmosis filtration system that you had installed in your house.

Chrissy:

I am a basic Brita girl. What about you?

Katie:

Nice. I, right now it's just from the filter from our fridge, but I would like to have a water filtration

Chrissy:

system

Katie:

We just

Chrissy:

need to save up The house wide reverse osmosis is a post mortgage decision, but while we're still paying rent, I am not paying for that on somebody else's house.

Katie:

Exactly, yeah. I'd really like to get the, system for our house. I also have heard that the, like burkey water filtration systems are really good. They tend to be expensive as well, but I have some friends who have it and really love it. But yeah, we'd love to have one for our house when we save up for it. Okay, Chrissy, here's some quick fire questions. Number one, have you ever fermented anything yourself?

Chrissy:

I attempted to make kefir. I failed.

Katie:

Hmm. We've only done some quick pickling We've never done true fermenting. Okay. Question two, do you pay attention to how quote unquote clean your products are?

Chrissy:

Oh, absolutely, 100% I have stopped buying, you know, actually I officially have crossed the line into having a completely bleach free home.

Katie:

That's really awesome.

Chrissy:

Yeah. So I'm really excited about that. And yes, so I definitely do look at my products and I read every single label that I buy.

Katie:

Yeah, and I think both you and I use the Bobby approved app and the EWG like apps to kind of understand how clean or not clean our products are. Those have been really helpful.

Chrissy:

Yes, they're very helpful.

Katie:

Okay. Next question. Do you use essential oils?

Chrissy:

I want to, but they're expensive. So the most I use is like lavender oil in a bath and the occasional lavender oil for bedtime, but not really.

Katie:

We,

Chrissy:

what about you?

Katie:

we've started using some essential oils. I've been slowly gathering some as I have different sales and things like that. As you said, they tend to be expensive, but they really can be helpful when trying to heal different ailments. Peppermint oil also can help with like just body aches and stuff. Instead of using acetaminophen or something like that, you can actually do some essential oil stuff in order to help like headaches and body aches and stuff. So,

Chrissy:

Peppermint oil is also very effective for nausea. If you put one drop in a water bottle and drink it in your water, it's very helpful for nausea.

Katie:

I didn't know that one. Okay, next question. Have you tried acupuncture?

Chrissy:

Ah, this is a funny one. Uh, yes. I don't think I did it for the actual reason of acupuncture, though. I did it when I was in high school because I wanted to be a nurse, and I had a tendency to pass out at the site of blood and needles. So I did it more as a method of systematic desensitization to get myself more okay with needles. Um, it worked. I, I don't pass out now. Mm. I do still get a little dizzy sometimes, but I haven't passed out in like three years, so I'll take it.

Katie:

We actually just started doing acupuncture, so I have been learning a lot about the benefits of acupuncture. And so all three of us, my son included, we've all had acupuncture done within the last couple weeks of this recording now, and we have appointments actually scheduled coming up, so we're doing it for allergy stuff as well as just trying to heal my son's gut and everything. And yes, so I have, I have crossed over to that side of being like, acupuncture is so awesome. So, but I was like, you, I hated needles and I've gotten over my fear and I've just done it and I've, I really love it. Next question, have you made bone broth?

Chrissy:

Yes, I did. I, bought a whole chicken from the grocery store and like butchered it myself. And then I had two breasts, two wings, two legs, and the innards, the innards went in the trash. Actually, no, I think I used the innards to make the broth also, but I, I kept like the bone carcass with the extra fat and skin on it and the innards that came with the whole chicken and made a bone broth with it. And then I used it in a, a recipe that I was making later. It was delicious. Smelled nice too.

Katie:

I have not actually made bone broth yet, but I plan to, especially when we become legit chicken farmers. I plan to do the whole shebang, but that's probably years in the making of getting to that where I can do it from my own chickens and everything, but okay. Next question. Do you compost?

Chrissy:

No. I throw a banana peel over the side of my balcony sometimes.

Katie:

Christina, that is so funny.

Chrissy:

But no,

Katie:

I don't know if that's considered composting. I think that's considered littering, but you know, everybody has their own

Chrissy:

things My property

Katie:

We have composted. We don't currently right now, but we will eventually once we move. So next question. Where would your dream house be? In a fun city, in the mountains, by the ocean, on a homestead, anywhere close to nature.

Chrissy:

homestead

Katie:

Ditto. Yeah.

Chrissy:

for sure.

Katie:

I think we both kind of fall in that. I think also just close to nature in general

Chrissy:

Mm-hmm. To be like within one hour of multiple different parks. Fantastic.

Katie:

Here we go. What are you likely to add to your coffee? One mushroom powder, two grass fed butter, three oat milk plus vanilla. Four, collagen. Five. Just black, please. And then the last option is just you don't drink coffee.

Chrissy:

I'd probably say collagen, although right now I am on the land flowing with milk and honey because that's what I put in my coffee is just milk and honey.

Katie:

None of these options actually, uh, are mine. I really like my just organic whole milk, so I guess maybe the oat milk plus

Chrissy:

Mm-hmm.

Katie:

vanilla option. But I do really wanna try the grass fed butter because I've heard a lot of good things about it. So, I don't know, we'll try it soon.

Chrissy:

I think my sister used to put lemon juice in her coffee to take the edge off the, the sharp flavor of the black coffee without adding anything really bad to it.

Katie:

Interesting.

Chrissy:

She said it was good. I don't trust her

Katie:

What are you most likely to purchase at the farmer's market? Flowers, raw milk, artwork, veggies, local honey or something from the food truck.

Chrissy:

local honey, for sure, 100%. It's so hard to find that in the grocery stores.

Katie:

Mine would be, yeah, local honey veggies. And I really wanna try raw, try raw milk soon. So we're gonna, where we're moving there's a lot of so I wanna try raw milk there.

Chrissy:

you know, yesterday at work there's, there's a farmer's market and I was walking through it really quick on my way to the cafeteria to grab something quick for lunch, and I saw a milk stand. I would love to go back out there to see if it's actually raw milk, because raw milk is illegal for human conception in North Carolina. So I find it very interesting that they would have raw milk at a farmer's market at a hospital. I don't think it was raw milk, but I hope it was. That would be cool.

Katie:

I'll have to post a link to the milk laws in all the states because it's interesting. There are certain states where it's completely illegal There are some states where it's legal for consumption, but in order to get it, you have to own the cow that the milk comes from. So there are things like herd shares where you can own a percentage of a cow and then you can get it. That's how it actually is in Colorado. You can like own a part of the cow and then you can get a certain percentage of the milk from that cow. And then there's others where it's legal to be sold from only like small farms, and then there's other states where you can literally just go and get raw milk from the grocery store. So i'll post a link to that in the show notes

Chrissy:

Crazy.

Katie:

and that way people can find out what it's like in their state. Okay. Let's ask just a few more questions and then we'll wrap up this fun episode. Again, if you are listening to this, feel free to pop in your answers in our Facebook page and let us know some of your own crunchy habits. Okay, Chrissy, of this list, let me know which of these you currently own. Subaru. Chickens, lots of plants, homeopathics, Birkenstocks, an EMF guard, a Burkey water filter, a kayak, mason jars, a homemade clay mug. An air filter.

Chrissy:

I own Birkenstocks, but that's just because they were in style, not because they are good. I didn't even know they were good for the environment or crunchy. I own lots of plants, but none of them are edible except for my new herbs. I just got new herbs and I'm very excited about them. I do not have an EMF guard, but I am in the process of learning how to turn off my wifi overnight to prevent the EMS from attacking me overnight. And I have some mason jars, but not because I intentionally bought them just because my peanut butter that I bought for a while came in glass jars and I didn't wanna throw'em away'cause they look nice and I can use'em for things. And I do have an air filter, but I haven't bought new filters for it for a while. So it's, um, not currently in use, but I do have one. What about you,

Katie:

So we have chickens. We don't have lots of plants. I am actually not extremely like an indoor plant person. We do technically have some homeopathics, though I didn't realize that a certain medicine of mine was actually a homeopathic remedy, but it is, which is kind of cool. We, don't have an EMF guard. I'm kind of in the same space as you where I, I'm just learning about it and it's really freaky and I'm trying to figure out what steps to take without blowing my mind up because it's freaky.

Chrissy:

but you don't wanna wear a tinfoil hat to bed?

Katie:

I might need to, we do have so many mason jars and we keep collecting mason jars because they're so useful. Especially when you're making things. We do technically have a homemade clay mug, but it was not something that I made. It was something someone made for me. And yes, we do have air filters and I really love them, and they have been wonderful. So I guess almost half the things on this list, which is kind of crazy that we do. Oh, okay. Chrissy, next question. How do you plan to educate your children? Do you plan to, one, send them to the closest public school? Two, send them to a private school. Three, do a homeschool co-op, or four pure homeschool. Nobody else involved.

Chrissy:

I've actually thought about this a lot because the school system here in North Carolina is not the greatest. So I'm definitely on either a homeschool co-op or a Montessori school, actually. Those are like my top two choices, but we'll see what my life looks like financially and. In terms of my own job. Whenever we get to that point,

Katie:

Yeah,

Chrissy:

What about you?

Katie:

I think we will likely homeschool and do some kind of a co-op. The place in Michigan, we're moving to, it's kind of just like the thing to do over there. But even if we weren't moving, I think we would still end up homeschooling Malachi. Okay, last question, Chrissy. Which of these things do you practice regularly? Grounding, looking into conspiracy theories about big ag, food, pharma, and corporations, red light therapy. Limiting your screen time slash exposure to blue light, getting outside to get your vitamin D. And lastly, hugging trees.

Chrissy:

Well, I do have a couple pictures of me hugging trees. Quite literally. I can't say I do that very often, but I do intentionally do grounding. I do intentionally track my vitamin D absorption when I go outside. I try to limit my blue light exposure, at home. But that's very difficult to do at work because I use a computer for the majority of my job. Um, and I don't really actually like looking into conspiracy theories because then it makes me feel very stuck. Like, I can't move and everything around me is going to kill me. So I try not to look at those actually. What about you?

Katie:

I do practice grounding occasionally when I remember. I, I actually love looking into conspiracy theories. It's like of my pastimes now lately. I. I have tried red light therapy, but it's not something I do regularly. Um, I have been trying to limit my screen time and exposure to blue light, like at eight o'clock. I've been trying to just like, turn my phone into airplane mode and just stop using it. I do get outside pretty regularly for vitamin D, which I'm again trying to just get better at regularly doing that. And I guess I don't hug trees, but it's, you know, something I guess I have done, I've definitely touched a tree in order for grounding to happen because in the winter, it's hard to ground when there's snow on the ground.

Chrissy:

That's funny. I actually never even thought that you could touch a tree in order to get grounding.'cause the ground gets very cold in the wintertime and so I think touching a tree is much easier to get that grounding time in. Um, anyways, this has been fun. I've actually thoroughly enjoyed going through all these questions and hearing your answers. Katie, I am looking forward to seeing the answers from our listeners in our Facebook group, Crunchy Christian Mamas on a Budget. Um, if you are a woman who is a mama, wants to be a mama, hopes to be a mama someday, has many children, would love to see you on there. Join us. Um, sorry guys, you're not invited. We love you though. You can continue listening to our podcast if you'd like. But yeah. Katie, do you have any other closing comments that you would like to share before we head out for the day?

Katie:

I just want to say that yeah, it's, it's a spectrum. You definitely don't need to jump in and do all these things, or you don't even have to practice any of these and enjoy this podcast. So we are just trying to share a little bit more about what we know about being healthy, eliminating toxins, glorifying God in the way that we are just seeing and stewarding our bodies, as a temple and, yeah. So just taking one step in the right direction with your health is just kind of the way that we would encourage you to go, and doing it in a way that's, you know, cost effective. We're not trying to break budgets here, you know, it's, it's a process, as Chrissy said in the beginning, that it's one step at a time. You know, don't. Do a whole overload and get into all this immediately, it's a little overwhelming. So if you enjoyed this podcast today, be sure to share it with a friend who has called you Crunchy maybe, or that you think is crunchy. Share it with somebody and be sure to subscribe to our podcast as well, so that you don't miss out on any of our silly, fun episodes about being crunchy. And we'd love to get to know you. So join us in our Facebook group, like Chrissy said,

Chrissy:

We pray over each of you guys, and we hope that these episodes can be helpful in your journey to becoming a better steward of your body, your mind, your soul, your spirit, your finances, and your families. Uh, we're praying that these episodes are helpful for you and we will see you next time.

Katie:

see you

Chrissy:

Bye.