Crunchy Stewardship

Building Your Immune System Naturally: Fighting Colds and Flu Without Medicine

• Katie Jones • Season 1 • Episode 24

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Are you tired of reaching for the medicine cabinet every time cold and flu season hits? In this episode, Katie and Chrissy explore how to build a robust immune system naturally—the way God designed it to work.

We dive into the science behind immunity, why our obsession with hand sanitizer might be doing more harm than good, and how gut health is the foundation of a strong immune system. Plus, we share practical natural remedies you can use when illness strikes, from bone broth to eucalyptus oil.

In This Episode:

  • Why microplastic exposure from contact lenses matters (and Katie's experiment with reversing poor eyesight!)
  • How leaky gut syndrome weakens your immune response
  • The power of bone broth, raw honey, and organ meats
  • Natural remedies: mullein tinctures, eucalyptus oil, and more
  • Why sunshine, sleep, and stress management are non-negotiables for immunity


Helpful Resources & Links:

Bone Broth Brands:

Essential Oils & Herbal Remedies:

Local & Healthy Food Sources:

Further Reading:

Remember: These natural approaches aren't about instantly stopping illness—they're about giving your body the tools it needs to fight effectively and build lasting immunity.

Connect with us: Subscribe for weekly newsletters and leave us a five-star review to help others discover natural stewardship!

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Consult with your healthcare provider before making changes to your health routine.



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Katie:

Hey, and welcome to Crunchy Stewardship. My name is Katie Fiola Jones.

Chrissy:

And my name is Chrissy Roach. We are two cousins who are passionate about learning and sharing knowledge to equip others to steward their spiritual, mental, emotional, financial, physical health in order to honor God in every aspect of their lives.

Katie:

In our podcast, we take deep dives into what it means to steward our lives as God originally intended for us with the resources that he has given us. We look at topics such as food, medicine, finances, mental health, and tons more through a natural lens and with a biblical foundation.

Chrissy:

Before we get started in today's episode, if you have been enjoying our podcast, please be sure to subscribe and leave us a five star rating. This helps other people find our show in the future. And if you haven't already signed up, go ahead and sign up for our weekly newsletters so you can keep up to date with all things crunchy that we are sharing now. To start off our episode for this week, we are going to share our random revelation. So Katie, kick it off.

Katie:

Yeah, this week's random revelation is kind of brought to you by some of my crunchy girlfriends. Um, I've mentioned that before. We have a text group where we literally talk all things crunchy every day, all day, like literally all the time. I've learned that people who wear contacts have a higher level of microplastics in like their blood system. And I, I, I read that fact somewhere and I literally, it made me very upset because I wear contacts and I was like, no way. And in my mind I'm like, okay, I guess that kind of makes sense because they're like a plastic. And I, I totally brushed the fact off. This was like maybe a month ago that I had learned this, but I was like, okay, whatever. Well, one of my girlfriends brought up something about eyes and contacts and reversing your poor eyesight with. A lot of like natural light exposure and some like eye exercises and not using prescription either con like glasses or contact lenses of the strength that they give you, like what your actual prescription is. So using like a weaker prescription, then what they say you need so that way your eyes don't get lazy and you know, they're, they're a muscle. Your eyes are made up of a bunch of muscles and so if you allow your eyes to be lazy and just use the lenses that you're given as your prescription, then they just continue to degrade more and more and more over time, which makes sense if you are someone who wears contacts or glasses, you know that every time you go to the eye doctor. They like knock down or knock up, I guess your prescription a little bit more. And so you're always needing like new lenses and contacts, all these things. And it's like every year they get worse and worse and worse. And so my friend has actually been like reversing her eyesight to be better. And I had no idea she had, she had never mentioned this to me and, and it's, she's been doing it for about a year and her prescription has slightly adjusted a little bit better. And so, Chrissy, you may have noticed the last few times we've recorded that I have been wearing glasses and a lot of people have been like, oh, you're wearing your glasses a lot more. Well, my glasses prescription is like much weaker than my contact lenses because I got these glasses many, many years ago and I don't update them every year because I don't have. eye insurance. And so it's expensive to get them upgraded every time that my prescription changes, And I usually don't wear glasses at all unless I'm at home and it's the evening and I'm like, oh, my contacts are just kind of bothering me. But even then, contacts don't bother my eyes, so I don't wear my glasses a lot. So anyway, I've been wearing them and people are like, what is this? Like you are wearing glasses. And so anyway, I'm slightly in the camp of like, I really want this to be true. I want to try it out. But I, I don't know, I don't know if I believe it, but my friend, it's working for her, so I'm like, well, she wouldn't lie to me.

Oh, and so back to the whole plastics in your blood system. So I learned that contacts like people who wear contacts have more plastic in their system, microplastics in their system, and now I learned that if you don't wear contacts and allow the natural light to hit your eyes and all the stuff. That it could help reverse your poor eyesight. So these two facts together have convinced me to not wear contacts as often. So that is my whole random revelation in not quite a nutshell, but that is it.

Katie:

And so, I don't know. Well, I, the, I'm still figuring it out myself. This is pretty new, but it's been going on for maybe two or three weeks. Um, yeah. So crazy.

Chrissy:

That's kind of funny that you mentioned that like. You can improve your eyesight and the issues with contact lenses. There's another issue I've actually learned about contact lenses is that it can decrease the blood flow to your eyeball, inevitably making your eyesight worse also, and leading to eye diseases and things like that. And so,

Katie:

And so.

Chrissy:

was it maybe four or five months ago, I decided to wear my, my glasses to work instead of my contacts because I didn't have blue light glasses and I didn't feel like buying them. And so I decided to just wear my glasses instead as like a, a barrier somewhat for the computer since I got headaches looking at the computer for so long on specific days, and I realized that my eyeballs could tolerate touching the air.

Katie:

That's so weird,

Chrissy:

yeah, just the day of my eyes touching the air. They couldn't tolerate. They got red, they got inflamed, they were watery all day long. I had multiple people ask me like, Chrissy, are you okay? Why are you cry? I'm not crying guys. It's just my eyes are touching the air and

Katie:

you know?

Chrissy:

handle it. And so from that point on, I've been trying to wear glasses once a week merely just to get my eyes used to touching the air. And let me tell you, five months in, I still have a hard time making it through the whole day wearing glasses because my eyes just get so tired and irritated.'cause they don't have that barrier that they're used to. So they have to work harder to keep the moisture in. They don't have that moisture barrier. And I mentioned that to the my eye doctor and she. Kind of congratulated me. She's like, maybe bump it up to two days a week wearing your glasses. So even that kind of told me that like even from an eye doctor's perspective, first off, glasses are better than contacts in terms of eye health overall. Um, second off, if we can make our eyesight better, by all means let's do it. Although I would have to question like how far that goes because I'm straight up halfway to being legally blind and for me to go back to 2020 naturally seems impossible, but I would

Katie:

Yeah,

Chrissy:

wrong. That would be fantastic.

Katie:

me too. I, I have a lot of hope in it because, I am also very pretty blind, like without wearing contacts or glasses, like I have a very hard time seeing

Chrissy:

what's your

Katie:

and so I, uh, negative one eye is like negative three point something and one is like almost negative three. It's like two point, I don't remember, but

Chrissy:

I'm like

Katie:

what's yours?

Chrissy:

and 4.5.

Katie:

Yeah. I You're a little bit worse. So it'll be interesting because one of the ways or one of the things that helps your eyes get back to a healthy state and to be able to start reversing this poor eyesight is exposure to natural sunlight. So going outside without contact lenses, without your glasses on, and just getting straight the natural light on your eyes, especially, um, at sunrise. Um, and so I have been waking up earlier and like trying to get that sunrise light onto my eyes, but I asked her like, are you, what are you doing throughout the day? Are you just like walking around? Not being able to see and like things are fuzzy. And she's like, yeah, honestly I keep my glasses with me. I use them for driving and I just kind of walk around like not seeing things fully as long as I don't need to. You know, as long as I'm not like actively doing something where I need to be able to see. Obviously driving is one of those. So I've kind of been doing that and every time I go outside now I take my glasses off because it's hard to see inside without natural light. And so I view, I wear them a lot inside and even sometimes if it's just Malachi and I playing, I take'em off. But then when I go outside and we're playing or whatever at the park, I just kind of park them on my t-shirt in front of me and I just go fuzzy. And it is, it's a really weird feeling. But like you said, my eyes have needed to take time to like adjusting to not wearing lenses all the time. My eyes are more sensitive to things. Um, like cutting onions The other day I used to never tear up cutting onions. And Oh my gosh. But West did say there are these organic ones that we've gotten locally. He did say that these ones are really, really strong. So it could just be the onions too, but like, I used to never tear up cutting onions and, and like a couple days ago I was like literally bawling from the onions and I'm like, I, my eyes feel so exposed to this.

Chrissy:

That's so funny. Well stay tuned to see how

Katie:

Yeah.

Chrissy:

eyesight and glasses journey commences. Um, it might be a years long journey, honestly, judging by the fact that your friend has been doing this for a year now and her prescription changed a tiny bit.

Katie:

Mm-hmm.

Chrissy:

maybe we can do it for 10 years and then we'll look back and see how it's been going.

Katie:

Deal.

Chrissy:

That's okay. Baby steps. Baby steps. But anyways, let's transition into the actual topic for today's episode. We are talking about the immune system specifically when it comes to fighting off our short-term illnesses, like a cold or the flu or little respiratory infections, sinus infections, kind of things that you just happen to get, you know, winter's

Katie:

You know.

Chrissy:

So gotta be prepared. And, um, Katie and I will also be sharing little, um, homeopathic tips and tricks that you can use during cold and flu season to help you get over these illnesses, um, when they do decide to attack you because. As winter comes, it is not an if, it is a when you get a stuffy nose, unfortunately. But we have methods. God has given us methods that we can use to combat that naturally and we don't have to use medicine. So first things first, we're gonna get a little bit of an understanding of the immune system. Now, bear with me, it has been many years since I took my college anatomy class, and so I did break out the anatomy textbook a few minutes ago to try to revamp my memory, but it's just not revamping very well. So we're gonna give a quick little spiel on the immune system. Here we go. Are you ready? Ready, set, go. things first, you got white blood cells. And that's like the main part of the immune system, and there's a bunch of different kinds of white blood cells. But essentially when there is a pathogen, which is a virus or a bad bacteria or a fungus of some sort that your body doesn't like, it kicks into gear. All the white blood cells, the white blood cells, find this pathogen within your body and attack it and eat it. Essentially in a process called phagocytosis, it quite literally means eating cells. The white blood cells eat the viruses or the bacteria or the whatever, pretty much break it apart and then disperse the parts of the virus or the. into the body to then be used because all made of natural things. Even the bad stuff is made of natural things. So your body uses the, kills the bad stuff and then uses the parts of the bad stuff to make good stuff. Anyways, so that's one part of it is, uh, the phagocytosis white blood cells eating the, um, pathogens. Another version that it might happen is pinocytosis, which is essentially when the white blood cells kind of attach and dissolve the membrane and then like through osmosis, absorb the pathogen, so to say. Um, that's another way that it works. There's also. Immunoglobulins. Do I remember what immunoglobulins are? No, but I know that there is I-G-A-I-G-D, IgE, IgG, and IGM and all of them have different jobs to protect you from pathogens, essentially. And oh, and one more thing.

Katie:

One more thing.

Chrissy:

has a

Katie:

system.

Chrissy:

And so that is one of the things

Katie:

of the,

Chrissy:

scientists have used in towards their benefit, especially with, um, are we going there, are we okay to go there?

Katie:

yeah. Well, I think, um, one thing that we should talk about is the difference between being immunized versus vaccinated, because I think that there is. A distinct difference between the idea of like, you catch something and your system remembers it versus having a vaccination. Do you know what I mean? Because it is slightly different even though people like using the words interchangeably. But it's technically a little different because if you get COVID naturally, like you just catch it from someone, your immune system builds more robust, um, antibodies to that illness versus getting vaccinated. You know what I mean?

Chrissy:

Yeah, but they, the vaccine is based off of the same sort of science that it gives you like a low dose concentration so that your body attacks it and then remembers it so that it can attack stronger when the actual pathogen comes in. At least that's pre mRNA stuff.

Katie:

Yeah. Well that's, yeah, that's, that's a good point because I mean, I think what's interesting now is that what coming out with a lot of the COVID vaccine stuff is that they, it, it's been shown that the vaccine actually makes it worse for you when you get COVID, you know? Yeah.

Chrissy:

but I think that's more mRNA and. Less of like, because this book was written pre mRNA vaccines. Um,

Katie:

Well, and even if you think about like the chickenpox shot, so if you get vaccinated against chickenpox versus if you actually catch chickenpox, the, if you catch chickenpox and you actually. Chickenpox yourself. Your body is now also immunized against shingles when you are older.

Chrissy:

Aunt Julie

Katie:

That's what I've heard.

Chrissy:

Julie got shingles.

Katie:

But did she ever have chickenpox as a kid?

Chrissy:

Pretty sure all four of them got, three of them had chickenpox at the same time.

Katie:

Hmm. That's what I've heard, but I, I guess, I don't know for sure.

Chrissy:

chickenpox when she was 30. That's that's totally a lie.

Katie:

Yeah. I don't know.

Chrissy:

don't know.

Katie:

Um,

Chrissy:

gonna go based off of what I know from this, and you can add whatever you want to it.

Katie:

cool.

Chrissy:

Okay. Back backing up. So think of it this way, when somebody gets the flu, get the flu multiple times in a year. Right? That's because they get the flu once their body fights off that flu pathogen and then is able to combat the flu virus when it comes into their body again and they don't get sick. Um, the getting sick part is just the body's reaction to it. It's kind of the body waging war and putting all of its. Coins into one bag to try to attack this pathogen that's coming in. That's why we feel all of these symptoms, um, with it. It's just how our body responds. and that is also the idea that vaccines actually are based off of, is the idea that if we give, if we introduce somebody to a very small dose of a certain pathogen or a va, a virus, then their body will attack it and create a memory of what this virus is like. And then so that way when a person is then naturally exposed to. This virus in nature, um, the body will then be able to attack it more smoothly and wouldn't, won't have all of the effects of the illness in and of itself. Essentially, it has a memory, it just the back, the infection in the bud rather than the body having to go through the full infection, like the chicken pox or the flu or something like that. Um, nonetheless though, the best way to be immune to an illness or something like that is to get your immunity from said illness. So that's why. in the fifties, sixties, seventies, you know, people would have chickenpox parties because if one kid gets chickenpox, let's get all the kids having chickenpox. They're never gonna get chickenpox again, kind of thing. Um, so that's the idea. They're playing off of that. Our, our immune systems have memory that they can attack more smoothly without problems as they start remembering. That's another reason why adults tend to get less colds than children. Children, especially daycare, kids get a lot of like sinus stuff going on, and adults just tend to not get it as frequently, mostly because our bodies have had the time to create that memory and to create a stronger immune system against it.

Katie:

Yeah. I, I mean, speaking of like all the memory stuff, um, oftentimes people. Want to get a vaccine in order to build that memory system up. What's interesting is that something that I've been learning, and we don't have to get into the debate too much here, but I just wanna give people a little dose. A little dose of just some research that you can start doing too, uh, when it comes to vaccines. But there was that measles outbreak, um, not too long ago, and I came across an article on, um, the children's health defense website. That the, there was that big measles outbreak, I think it was in Texas, um, that it actually was not a result of a failure to vaccinate. It was actually a failure of the actual vaccine, which then people were exposed to the illness and the, it kind of caught throughout the community. And so it, it's one of those things that there's a lot of debates on whether or not the vaccines are actually helpful. Um, and the idea that being immunized is actually kind of different from the phrase like being vaccinated. Um, Wes actually just shared a story with me. He's, he's watching this show on Aaron Rogers right now, and Aaron Rogers is known for like being very anti-vax. And there was this whole thing, I had no idea this was going on because I don't pay attention to sports at all. And so I, I didn't know, but apparently there was like a big deal. During COVID and especially when the, the COVID vaccine came out that, um, in the NFL you had to be vaccinated in order to play. And he very clearly, like when, when he was asked if he was vaccinated, he c very clearly did not say in interviews and stuff that he was vaccinated. He said, I have been immunized against COVID and so, and. I think what Wes learned in that interview or the show that he's watching is that Aaron Rogers like did get exposed to COVID and now has immunity against it because he got it naturally and his system now has those antibodies to fight it. Um, and so there was apparently a lot of like uproar about it. Uh, I don't know, I, because again, I don't really pay attention to the sports world that often, but he was just telling me about that and how it's just different there. Like there's a slight difference between the idea of being immunized versus vaccinated, and it seems as though when you are immunized naturally. Not with like an intervention, then your immune system responds and it, it, it is stronger against it because now what they're saying with the COVID vaccine is that, oh, the first vaccination you took isn't, isn't doing the job. You have to get several other boosters now in order for it to do its job. Versus a lot of people who never took the vaccine, maybe caught COVID along the lines and now have no issues with anything like getting COVID really badly. And, and what they're starting to find, um, is that a lot of people who have gotten the COVID vaccine, um, and a lot of the boosters actually are now having a weakened system against COVI. And so they're the ones who unfortunately are getting things like long COVID VI and stuff because it's, it, it's not working as well as it. Was intended to. And so, yeah, there's a lot of interesting stuff with the idea of immunization and vaccination and they're just, they're slightly different. Um, but yeah.

Chrissy:

I feel like the COVID vaccine in general is kind of just in a completely different category though than

Katie:

Yeah.

Chrissy:

of the vaccines since the COVID vaccine is made up of mRNA. Technology. The rest of the vaccines are either a dead virus or a live attenuated virus, which pretty much just means a weakened virus. And so they're, they're really exposing you to the virus itself. They're not giving you any sort of DNA changing or DNA altering technology, anything like that with a traditional vaccine. With that being said, though, it is important to be aware if your body is sensitive to live attenuated vaccines because it is still possible to catch the illness from those, um, you get them, if your body is just susceptible to it. If your immune system is not built up, that's one of the reasons they recommend. Don't get vaccines while you're already sick because your body's already fighting something. You don't need to give it another thing to fight, essentially. It's funny, I actually have a friend who got yellow fever from the yellow fever vaccine, which is very,

Katie:

my gosh, that's

Chrissy:

yeah,

Katie:

crazy you say that. I was just talking to someone. Well, the conversation actually come was going on today too, but yesterday I think it was, and talking about whether or not something like the yellow fever vaccine is worth it for certain people because certain individuals and, and, and all of us really anyone who takes it. Same thing with like the rotavirus, isn't that one a live virus like, um, vaccine?

Chrissy:

maybe.

Katie:

Like there are certain populations that are slightly more susceptible to having really bad, reactions to getting these live vaccinations. And so we were talking about whether or not. The yellow fever vaccine specifically is, is worth it, um, if they are in that population. And so anyway, that is, that's so interesting that you bring that up because I think they decided that they're not going to take that vaccine because of the risks of

Chrissy:

Interesting.

Katie:

sick. So

Chrissy:

Interesting.

Katie:

anyway.

Chrissy:

Well,

Katie:

Yeah. Yeah.

Chrissy:

is not meant to be an episode about vaccines, but nonetheless,

Katie:

No.

Chrissy:

immunity, we kind of just have to touch on it. Um, we know vaccines can be a very touchy subject right now, but the focus of today's episode is truly on how do we boost our immune systems in general to make them as strong and as aggressive as possible to prevent us from getting sick. Frequently, the, the most irritating thing in the world is just having a stuffy nose and you can't breathe out of your nose and you just want,

Katie:

Mm.

Chrissy:

isn't working and the sinex isn't working, and NyQuil can't do the job, and you just need something. So the point of today's episode is really to. Um, give information to our listeners about how can you prepare your body to fight against these things before they even really take root and take hold in your body. And if you do end up getting ill from a cold virus or flu virus or whatever, how can you then bounce back from it? And what can you use that got the resources that God has given us that have not been humanly manufactured? Um, what can you use from the earth to help yourself fight these illnesses? And so, Katie, you wanna kick that one off?

Katie:

Yeah, I think a great place to start is actually. From those germs and microbes and bacteria that a lot of people think are the enemy. You know, we've been taught to deeply sanitize and, um, disinfect everything around us to to kill all the germs and that they're the enemy and we have to get rid of them. But what is so fascinating is that we were actually designed to coexist with a lot of these microbes and organisms that are around us. Um, you know, way back when, like in Jesus' time they did not go around hand sanitizing everything and spraying Lysol everywhere and killing all the germs. Like they had robust immune systems because their bodies learned how to coexist with these, you know, quote unquote germs everywhere. So I think the first step is actually seeing these germs and these microbes and these organisms as beneficial because again, if we're talking about having a memory, we want small exposures, like little micro doses of these bacterias and, and microbes and stuff into our system. So that way our, our body recognizes them as a foreign thing that it just kind of needs to zap really quick and then we can kind of keep going on our day. So I think the first step is really to put the hand sanitizer down, stop disinfecting everything to its death and learning to like, instead of using the disinfectant, hand soaps and hand sanitizers. Try just rinsing your hands off of, of the dirt and not necessarily killing all of the germs on your hands and allowing yourselves to get it into your systems just a little bit. It's not like, don't go like licking something that somebody sneezed on. I mean, there are definitely moms out there who are like, yeah, go eat that like toy that they, this kid has slobbered on and they're clearly sick. Some moms are totally in that camp of like, just get them sick and, and really learn to fight it off. But I'm, I'm more just on the camp of like, you know, we're around it. If you happen to put something in your mouth that a kid sneeze on whatever, Malachi But I'm not like, I'm not gonna go encourage, like, getting sick. It's more just allowing those micro exposures so that way your system builds that up and, and it doesn't, you know, then that way if it does get in your system, it's not like, oh my gosh, I've never seen this before and it's crazy and now we have to freak out. It's like, no, your body knows what to do when it has. These little bad guys. And, and again, I don't even wanna use the word bad guys because I really think that they can benefit our systems in, in the sense that it helps to build our immune system stronger. So honestly, I think that's a first stop is just like, stop being afraid of all the germs around you and, and get friendly with them. You know, put your hands in dirt, like there's lots of good bacteria and stuff in the dirt. Um, and in your house, maybe stop using all the really intense disinfectants, like just use mild soaps and even at times, like, just use water, just rinse yourself versus like getting rid of all the good stuff. So.

Chrissy:

I think a really great rule of thumb, especially for like indoor cleanliness, is like, does it look clean? Yes. Great. It's clean, know, it doesn't have to pass the, um, the auger plate test to see whether or not it's clean, because auger plates will grow good bacteria and bad bacteria. Like we need bacteria in our environments in order to survive. We interact with it on a daily basis. It's necessary, and so. I think, yeah, just what you were saying of like cleaning with water and if you really need a little bit of extra to get a stain out or get in there and get that dirt, the visible dirt out of your grout or the floors or something like that, that's when baking soda and vinegar come into play and hydrogen peroxide, those are very powerful cleaning agents that do not kill every single living thing in sight. Um, I actually think it's kind of ironic that we spray many things around us that are designed to kill living things and then we wonder why our living bodies are malfunctioning. I just think that's kind of ironic to me and inevitably exposing yourself to. A bunch of little germs frequently, like the germs in soil. If you're gardening, try gardening without gloves on. Just garden with your hands. Get the dirt stuck under your nails, and then maybe use your tooth to get it out. And you know what? That's just how it goes. Sometimes you just have to,'cause the other fingernail isn't working, it's too short or whatever. Um, but you know, get the dirt under your nails. Get exposed to it. That's another thing that I saw this a lot in when I was working in the hospital of like super bugs that have become chronic infections. We've got MRA, we've got MSSA, we've got EBSL, like these are all resistant bacterias that have developed from a society that has Antibiotic themselves. I don't know how to say that properly, but we have been programmed to use antibiotics in every single area of life to clean our countertops, antibacterial, soap, um, hand sanitizer, all these things. And that's just not necessary. Those are the culprits that are truly responsible for these superbugs forming,

Katie:

yeah, I. Listen to a podcast too where this girl talked about how she had been on lots of antibiotics and growing up she just disinfected everything. It was just, you know, her mom carried hand sanitizer and they'd always be cleaning and she's like, I, my body was so depleted of all the good bacterias that she ended up getting. I can't actually remember what illness it was, but she was like hospitalized because she had this massive super bug but that's, I think that's the first step. But then as far as just like our general immune system and what we can actively be doing besides like. Getting in the dirt and allowing ourselves to be friends with germ. Um, there's a lot of ways that we can actually build up our internal systems to be strong, to, to fight, uh, when they, when it does need to fight. Yeah, I think.

Chrissy:

many, many years ago Hippocrates said that all disease stems from the gut. And I think that statement is so incredibly true, especially the more that we learn about the human body. And we learn about how the body interacts with our environments. I mean, the enough, the part of our body that ex is exposed the most to the outside world is our intestines. Our intestines are 40 feet long, right? Like they have more surface area than our skin, than our face. Our hair, like intestines, are the most exposed to the outside world because of what we put in it. And. There's these junctions in between the cells in our digestive systems, essentially where the cells are kind of stuck together and as we eat, um, foods that are not natural, foods that have a lot of seed oils in them, or a lot of preservatives or manmade artificial flavorings and colorings and this, that, and the other thing, those junctions in our small intestine start to loosen and we start to develop this, syndrome. It's called leaky gut syndrome. Essentially, it means that your gut, which is designed to protect you from all the pathogens that you might eat when you eat your dirt covered food, it opens up. And all of a sudden, all those pathogens that you've been eating that you don't know about, have free reign in your body because those junctions in between those cells are not tight and they're not allowing only specific things to come in. They're allowing everything to come in. That includes microplastics, that includes toxins, that includes pharmaceuticals that are in our water systems, that includes, MSG, maltodextrin, all these things that are in our food Teflon that have been proven to cause harm in our bodies. If our body is constantly fighting against these pathogens that accidentally make it through these loose junctions in our digestive system, it's not gonna have the manpower to go around and then fight off a cold virus and then fight off a flu virus and then fight off RSV. Let's fortify our gut. Let's tighten up those junctions in our gut by giving our bodies good, healthy foods, lots of good nutrients, organic fruits and vegetables, lots of high vitamins and minerals foods. We're talking. Meats with fat on them. Um, organic vegetables, lots of fruit is very good. Staying away from like lots of sugar, sugar is a huge irritant inside the digestive system. Whether you recognize it or not. It just causes inflammation everywhere and inflammation is part of the natural immune response. If sugar is causing inflammation, that means our bodies are responding negatively towards that sugar or towards any food that might cause inflammation, and so that's something to keep in mind is eating. Low inflammatory foods that are very high in nutrients. So one thing that's very, very helpful in healing the gut is actually bone broth. Um, I recommend this to a lot of my patients, especially ones who just need to get a lot of protein in and they have very little appetite. Bone broth is the way to go. They sell it at grocery stores. Organic, no bad ingredients. Um, specifically I think Kettle and Fire and Pacific are very good brands that you can use. But also another way to make great bone broth is buy a whole chicken, cut the meat parts off of it, cut off the two boobs, cut off the two wings, cut off the two legs. You have six pieces of really great meat, and then you soak the rest of it, the entire bone carcass with some carrots, some onions, some celery, some the jji stuff, you know, good vegetables and you can make your own bone broth. Those are very good healing things to your digestive system.

Katie:

actually as we speak, I have some, uh, beef bone broth cooking in my kitchen. Um, for this exact purpose, actually bone broth is also really, really helpful in healing your body like postpartum. And I very much experienced that. Uh, when after Malachi was born, one of my best friends brought me some homemade bone broth that I was sipping in my hospital bed. Um, I had a lot of other things going on besides just being postpartum. Um, and so just having some sipping broth not only does it just feel good in your system when it's like going through and warming everything up, but, um, I really do think it helped a lot with healing and, and getting me out of the hospital quicker and just restoring all of my body, um, much faster. But yeah, I've. Actually been getting bones from a local supplier here in town that I found. And so this is, this is my first time using the beef bones that, that I got from them. But I, uh, did make some like chicken bone broth a little bit ago, um, from a, a whole chicken that we got from a local farmer as well. That's another thing, like find someone who is local because then, the products that you purchase, whether it is like a meat product, so an animal, or if, if it's like a veggie or a fruit, it will be the most nutrient dense because it had a lot less travel time. Like once something is picked, once something is even butchered, like once something is basically cut off from its life source, it's nutrient uh, nutrient density, it, it starts. It starts getting depleted, um, as soon as it dies. And so the sooner you can eat it from the time that it was killed, um, the better. So trying to do that. So getting local stuff is the best.

Chrissy:

It's actually something really cool that I was just thinking about bones. I was thinking why is it that bone broth in particular, not just like chicken broth or beef broth where you like cook off the juice from the meat, but like the bones in particular, what is it about the bones that are much better for you and so much bigger of an immune boost booster than just the chicken broth or beef broth? And then I got to thinking, I was like, well, bones are much more than just the hard stuff that we see. Like thinking of the marrow, bone marrow actually has fat. It's where blood cells are created and it's where the body stores a lot of stem cells. so people have

Katie:

So

Chrissy:

stem cells for many, many years for healing in term to create

Katie:

like

Chrissy:

body parts to

Katie:

body parts replace.

Chrissy:

body parts and also to. Like they've been injecting stem cells somehow to like encourage the body to create better cells. And so I

Katie:

So

Chrissy:

much,

Katie:

I wonder how much

Chrissy:

I'm confident

Katie:

pretty confident

Chrissy:

that that has a

Katie:

that as

Chrissy:

that is a big

Katie:

that is a

Chrissy:

how effective

Katie:

how effective

Chrissy:

broth is in helping our immune system is the stem cells that are in that, those bones. And they might be dormant, you

Katie:

They might be

Chrissy:

they've been

Katie:

like

Chrissy:

off from their

Katie:

they been kind of fucking life.

Chrissy:

still alive, but

Katie:

not through alive.

Chrissy:

the

Katie:

People have

Chrissy:

them. And so, um, yeah, being able to extract that by just simmering for 10 hours in a crockpot is, um, quite fascinating. And if you're one who

Katie:

you're one, two really

Chrissy:

is really good about

Katie:

better.

Chrissy:

great way to use every single part of the animal that you're

Katie:

Yeah,

Chrissy:

we don't want anything to go to waste, like. Everything

Katie:

everything.

Chrissy:

been created and we have been give given dominion over the land and over the animals. And so we as humans are expected to use that dominion wisely. And to use it wisely is to use every single part. um,

Katie:

um

Chrissy:

part that I guess, um, that is really, really good for

Katie:

mm-hmm.

Chrissy:

is, um, organ meats. like eating heart or liver or kidneys or lungs. Actually, fun fact, cow lung illegal in the United States. You wanna know why?

Katie:

Really? Why?

Chrissy:

Because scientists found mold spores in the lungs, but. That kind of makes sense because like mold is in the air all the time, and so if the

Katie:

All the time

Chrissy:

then there would be mold spores in the lungs, the scientists were kind of

Katie:

scientists kind of,

Chrissy:

they made it

Katie:

so

Chrissy:

America.

Katie:

I wonder though if that is from like a conventionally grown and raised cow that's like more indoors versus like a pasture raised cow that's like getting all of the fresh air and sunshine and good, uh, grass to feed on. That's what's interesting about raw milk is that raw milk is actually less dangerous than pasteurized milk if this is a big, if the cows are raised like in a pasture and have a very healthy lifestyle. So if the cow itself is super healthy, then that milk that has not been pasteurized is much safer than pasteurized milk from a cow in a conventional farm because what happened was. They started conventionally growing cows and they were, they, I mean, everybody kind of knows of these like giant feedlot kind of farms that are just really terrible and that's why there's like the whole like going vegetarian because the cows are sick. Well, when you grow them that way, yeah, of course there's going, they're going to get mastitis, which is an infection in their s and so then of course that mastitis is going to get into the milk, and so that is really why they've had to pasteurize milk is to kill the infection that they already have because of the way that they are. Being raised, and it's like literally you think about us. So when we're thinking about the immune system, our immune system is the same way. We need to be outside. We need to get sunlight, we need fresh air, we need exercise and good foods. We need to not be in a stressful environment. Cows are the same way. They need all the same stuff. Most animals need the exact same stuff we do for a good immune system. And if we raise them in these really poor environments, of course they're gonna be sick. And then hence their meat, like the actual meat that they produce, their bodies are going to be sick. And then we're eating that sick meat, and then we're drinking the sick milk. So of course that milk needs to be pasteurized because it would be disgusting to drink otherwise because the milk is so infected, basically. And so that is why it's actually. Safer to drink the milk that is, that comes from like the raw milk that comes from a very healthy cow. Um, and they, they didn't need to pasteurize it because they're like, why would we, we'd be taking out all the good stuff, the, all the, the minerals that you'd get from the cows. So anyway, I had to get on my soapbox. It's like, it, it's just like, yeah, but we need to be eating healthy cows.

Chrissy:

Eat the healthy cows. Don't want the sick cows.

Katie:

They all, they also taste better. Like now that we have been like jumping over to this like grass fed organic stuff, it all just tastes better. And the next time I have like, we had like hamburgers from POSCO or something and they just are not. They're not good. They're, you're really missing out by just getting the cheapy stuff, and that's why you also need to eat like multiple burgers to feel full versus eating like a really good, solid grass fed organic meat, like burger from these happy cows that are healthy.

Chrissy:

Yes.

Katie:

Do it.

Chrissy:

Eat the

Katie:

You'll feel different. You need to eat less. Eat the happy cows.

Chrissy:

So now let's talk about what do you do if you do get sick? How do you make it through a cold or a flu without taking Mucinex or Sinex or Advil or Tylenol or whatever you would take. That inevitably does help, but also wreaks havoc on your gut and then creates an environment for more, um, illness to thrive. So one herb that I have learned lately that is very, very helpful in assisting with like congestion in your nose is called mullen. Mullen is like nature's Mucinex, and you can create a tincture with mullen. You essentially just get fresh mullen, put it in a jar, fill it with. A high proof alcohol like, vodka or something like that, and let it sit for How long is it, do you know?

Katie:

Because it's like making vanilla extract where you put the vanilla beans into

Chrissy:

Pretty

Katie:

alcohol and I think you have to let vanilla sit for like months maybe. I don't even know.

Chrissy:

four

Katie:

Is it that long?

Chrissy:

Four to six weeks. let it. You pretty much put the Mullin with the alcohol and you can add other things like, um, lung wart or thyme and peppermint into that Also, those also have a lot of immune boosting things in them. Peppermint especially is like really great for clearing those sinuses, as Katie and I mentioned in our previous episode with the peppermint soap. but yeah, essentially you

Katie:

But yeah, essentially.

Chrissy:

and you take like one dropper of it a day, maybe two droppers a day. If you're really feeling the sickness and it works like Mucinex, it clears those sinuses. It, um. It doesn't destroy your digestive system, which is really, really great. thing that is super helpful when you are sick is honey. Now honey is great. Pre sickness during sickness, post sickness. It's just great all the way around. It has a lot of immune boosting stuff, especially if you're getting organic, all natural. Um, local honey is really, really important to get the local stuff. Huh? I don't know what you're saying, huh? Oh,

Katie:

Saying, rah rah, honey.

Chrissy:

raw honey. I was like, fa,

Katie:

And then I was trying to say, rah rah, because I didn't have my hand near the mouse to click it fast enough.

Chrissy:

that's funny. yes, it's very important to get local raw honey because when you are getting the honey straight from the bees, it has not been processed at all whatsoever. It has a lot of immune boosting things that are particularly specific for the area that you're in. It has a lot of allergy prevention parts to it. I don't, allergen boosters, anti allergen boosters, I guess you'd call it. I don't know. The bees fly around, they touch all the flowers and they make the honey from all these flowers, and then that's how

Katie:

Yeah. Then it gets in your system.

Chrissy:

it's kind of like how anti-venom is made with venom. Same idea.

Katie:

Yeah.

Chrissy:

allergens are made with the allergens. Okay. That's just how God

Katie:

Mm-hmm.

Chrissy:

be. But so

Katie:

Which is why you should let your kids eat peanut butter.

Chrissy:

yes, that

Katie:

Oh my gosh. That is another soapbox I could get on. People were like, don't bring peanut butter into the schools, and I'm like, you're making it worse. Sorry. Okay.

Chrissy:

That's

Katie:

it.

Chrissy:

Um, yeah, so honey, one thing to keep in mind with honey though is you don't want to heat it above like 180 degrees or so because once it gets hot, a lot of those immune boosting parts of the honey really do start to falter and they fall apart. Just like any, most things, um, once they get to a certain temperature, they start to denature. And so all of these really good things in the honey do denature once they get hot. So you wanna make sure if you're using honey, don't make it any hotter than warm. Essentially you should be able, if you're putting honey in your tea or something, you should be able to hold your finger in your tea. And not have to pull it out because it's too hot that if you can hold your finger in or hold your finger on whatever you're touching, it's a good enough temperature that you can put the honey in, um, just so it doesn't get denatured when you put it in. Um, another thing that's really, really great for congestion and things is eucalyptus oil. And I'm not talking the eucalyptus oil that you get on the grocery store, that's like$6 for ounce. I'm talking the really good quality eucalyptus oil. That's probably more like$30 for an ounce, unfortunately. It's one of those things you gotta pay the bang get your buck's worth. You gotta pay the buck to get the bang. You need high quality eucalyptus oil, but with that you can honestly just put, put a little bit into boiling water and let that steam kind of come over your face is very helpful. Or even just put it in the corner of your shower where the water doesn't really touch all that much and the steam from your shower can help. Um, another thing that's super helpful is if you have access to organic eucalyptus leaves, you can get like a branch of eucalyptus and just hang it over your shower, um, out over your shower head. And that is also very helpful for clearing those in sinus infections and, um, clearing your passageway so you can actually breathe. Um, now mind you remember, just like cold medicine, you know, you don't take one. Mucinex and all of a sudden your cold is gone. Similarly with these things, you're not just gonna take it one time and your cold is gonna be gone. It's one of those things, you do have to take it multiple times while your cold runs its course. The idea of these things is to give your body the ability to, to be less irritated by whatever infection or illness that you have going and to decrease the length of time that you have this illness or infection. And so the goal with these. immune boosters or herbal remedies, things like that. It is not to end the illness right then and there it is to make the symptoms not so horrible and to decrease the amount of time you have. The sim the illness, it's not an antibiotic. It's more similar to Mucinex, where like you take the Mucinex, your cold's not gone. might just make the cold a little bit more tolerable. idea here we are trying to make these illnesses more tolerable. Not necessarily to kill'em smack in the bud, but if you have a really fortified gut and you're giving your body really great nutrients, nutrient dense foods, the leafy greens, the bone broth, the really high fat meats, things like that, then your body's gonna have the nutrients to build up that, um, the manpower to attack these illnesses more quickly and more effectively. And ultimately, they were not gonna last nearly as long as they would otherwise.

Katie:

Yeah, I actually, I really like what you talked about there is that we're not necessarily trying to stop the illness immediately because again, if you think about like an antibiotic goes and it just wipes out everything in your system, the good and the bad. But when we kind of allow the illness to. Sit in our system, we, we make it easier on ourselves. We kind of let our bodies learn that illness. So that way, again, yeah, like Chrissy said, it fights things off better in the future. And so it's kind of like, I think we talked about fevers a while ago, that when you get a fever, you don't necessarily want to just stop the fever from happening. Your fever is actually fighting for you. Like it's, it's trying to kind of like create a fire so that way all the bad stuff doesn't wanna keep living inside of you. So it kind of scares it away. It kills it off. And so you don't necessarily want to go and just stop things from happening. You don't wanna kill it all because you want it, your, your body to become slightly accustomed to it. So that way in the future it fights it even quicker. Um, I actually wanted to share one of my favorite ways to. Uh, build my immune system, but also fight off when fight off illness when we get it, is just a lot of sunshine. There are so many benefits to natural sunlight and the UV rays. You think about plants, like plants, like, like literally need the sunlight to grow. Well, so do we and. It is a really great way that your body builds vitamin D, which also is needed in order to have a nice, robust immune system. Um, and, and it just like all these systems inside of you really kick on and get into high gear when they are exposed to natural sunlight. And so you actually need to physically get outside, sit in the sun, especially in the morning. Like the, like we talked about in the very beginning of this podcast, the natural light at the sunrise is really good. There's like a lot of good red light that happens, um, right when the sun is rising. But then also in the middle of the day, that's when your body will produce the highest amounts of vitamin D. Um, and so you really wanna get sunlight at those two different times. Um, but I what's interesting too, with waking up early to get the sunrise, you also do need good sleep.'cause during. Uh, during sleep when you are sleeping, that is your body's chance to rest and shut everything off in order to go and heal. I mean, who hast experienced that phenomenon? When you go to bed pretty sick, you have a really good night's sleep and you wake up and you're like, oh my gosh, it's kind of gone like, maybe you have a stuffy nose left, but you, your sore throat is gone or your headache is gone, or your whatever. It's, your body needs that rest in order to rejuvenate. And so that for me is the biggest indicator of when I'm gonna get sick is when I am not sleeping well several nights in a row. Or if I stay up really late one night and get really bad sleep and all this stuff, I almost know my immune system is much weaker than, throughout my whole life, that is almost always when I get sick is when I am not sleeping well, I'm not getting outside, not getting enough, enough movement, and then in the next few days I'm boom, I'm sick. And that's actually what happened recently when I got sick was I just had some terrible sleep patterns and was just staying up really late doing stuff. And, and I knew, I knew it was gonna happen. Like I just always know, but sometimes I'm just not smart in those moments. So get really good sleep, um, and get outside, get the sunshine. We didn't really talk about the this a lot, this episode, but I know Christie and I want to talk more about it, but stress allows. All sorts of bad stuff to happen in your system because your body is in like a fight or flight mode when it feels stressed. And so it's almost looking at it, your body's focused more on external factors versus like your internal systems working properly. Um, and so reducing your stress really allows your immune system to stay strong as well.

Chrissy:

Yeah, you were talking about the fact that you always get sick after you haven't slept very long or very much. It reminded me every single year during high school and college fail, I always got sick the day after finals. Every single semester because I was so stressed, my body was so jam packed. I was. Studying and I was trying to be social and trying to get those last few minutes with friends and then studying some more and then trying to remember this, and then studying some more, and so stressed about these final exams coming up, that during all of that, I wasn't getting very good sleep, and so my body was exposed to all of these illnesses, these pathogens, I didn't actually start feeling them until the adrenaline crash. When after finals, my adrenaline levels went down and my rest and digest processes, my parasympathetic nervous system was able to start coming in and cleaning things up. That's when I started feeling all the illnesses because my body didn't even have the energy to tell me that it was sick because I was burning

Katie:

I was

Chrissy:

bad at both ends and so. And that's

Katie:

and that's another thing, there's like a little

Chrissy:

like cancer patients whose immune systems have been completely depleted. They might have a raging infection in their body, like a cold or a flu that has gone way out of

Katie:

on.

Chrissy:

but they have no symptoms at all whatsoever because it's our immune system that gives us these symptoms. And so if we don't have an immune system, we're not gonna have symptoms. But those diseases are just that much more dangerous for us and wreak even more havoc on our bodies because we can't protect ourselves. It's like the enemy is invading from the inside and there's nothing that you can do about it until all of a sudden you've been overtaken. You know, that's pretty much what happens when your immune system is not built up to protect you from your enemies.

Katie:

Think about that. That's kind. Freaky thinking. I guess that makes sense. I, uh, so after our wedding, right when we were on our honeymoon, it was like the, the day we got to Hawaii, I got sick and it was kind of the same thing as you go leading up to all of your, um, finals and stuff. It's like your body's just like, go, go, go. You're not getting a lot of sleep. And I just remember like, there's, there's stress, but it's good stress, but it's also you're anxious and you're staying up late because you're like, oh my gosh, I'm getting married and all these things. And the day we got to our honeymoon and finally relaxed and yeah, the adrenaline goes away. I got really sick on our honeymoon and it was rather unfortunate. Thankfully we had almost a two week honeymoon, which was great. So the first like few days I was like very sick. Um, but then after that it was like, okay, we can actually go and enjoy ourselves and stuff. But I, I definitely like still went out and actually, you know, now that I think about it, I didn't, I was not crunchy back then, but we, I did still go and lay out at the pool every day, even though I was sick. And I think that really helped. Uh, just obviously the sunlight.'cause we, I was just mentioning that and I'm like, oh, look at me. I didn't even know I was doing something for myself then. But that probably helped.

Chrissy:

Look at that. I love it. we are nearing the end of our time. So, um, just to close this out, we wanna let, let each and every one of you know that we do pray over you guys. And we are hoping these episodes are helpful for you in your journey to becoming a better steward of your body, your mind,

Katie:

body.

Chrissy:

your spirit, your finances, and your families. And we pray over all these episodes that,

Katie:

shows that

Chrissy:

learn something

Katie:

you learn something and

Chrissy:

you would learn

Katie:

not

Chrissy:

to better yourself and better your own

Katie:

yourself that know.

Chrissy:

your

Katie:

But also,

Chrissy:

Lord and how you strive to serve him. Um, so yeah, and hope to see you next time. Until our next episode, this is Chrissy.

Katie:

and this is.

Chrissy:

And thanks for listening to Crunchy Stewardship.