Crunchy Stewardship

Beyond Genetics: How Your Toxin Bucket Affects Chronic Illness

• Katie Jones • Season 1 • Episode 27

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In this episode, we dive deep into the "toxin bucket" theory and explore how managing your daily exposures might be your best defense against chronic illness. We discuss epigenetics—the idea that while you can't change your genes, you can influence whether they "turn on" and lead to disease.

Join us for a room-by-room tour of hidden toxins in your home, from paint and flooring to personal care products and cleaning supplies. We'll talk about your body's natural detox systems (liver, spleen, colon, and more) and practical ways to support them.


Chapters: 

00:00 Welcome to Crunchy Stewardship

00:38 Random Revelation of the Week: Contagion Theory

09:47 Deep Dive: The Toxin Bucket

32:50 Identifying Toxins in Everyday Life

33:52 Detoxifying Your Home: Room by Room

46:38 Practical Tips for Reducing Toxins



Resources Mentioned:

🎙️ Wise Traditions Podcast (Mark Gober on contagion theory)

🎨 ECOS Paints (Low/Zero VOC Paint)

🧼 Dr. Bronner's (Natural Soap Alternatives)



Key Takeaways:

  • Your toxin bucket represents your body's total toxic load
  • Focus on what you can control: food, personal care products, and cleaning supplies
  • Support your body's natural detox organs
  • Small switches make a big impact over time

Remember: You can't eliminate every toxin, and that's okay! Your body is designed to detox. Start with easy wins and don't let overwhelm stop you from taking action.

Connect With Us:

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

Follow us on Instagram @crunchystewardship

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 Roach.

Katie:

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

Chrissy:

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's already given us. We look at topics like food, medicine, finances, mental health, and tons more through a natural lens and with a biblical foundation.

Katie:

Now it is time for our random revelation of the week. In this segment, one of us shares something that we've learned this week that is something kind of crunchy it doesn't often have to do with the topic that we are going to be discussing. this week, Chrissy is going to be sharing her random revelation of the week. Chrissy, what have you, randomly reveled. Is that a word?

Chrissy:

I don't know. Um, yeah, so this week I was listening to a podcast while I was driving, and this podcast in particular was sharing about the theory that contagion is not real. And I think that's a little crazy, but the, the whole premise that this guy was going off on. Was the fact that, you know, you think of a quote unquote super spreader party, uh, back from COVID. You know, everybody goes to a party and then everybody ends up with COVID at the end of the night or the next morning or something like that. His theory is that rather than there being a patient zero that everybody caught this illness from, instead this illness is rather acquired through a toxin or something in the air, something in the water, something that was touched at the party. Um, and that like the source is not patient zero, but rather something that was already there that each person was then exposed to. Um, I personally think that's a little crazy. I agree with the patient zero standpoint that. Somebody's sick and you're around them, you will get sick. How many times have I been babysitting and the child sneezed on my face, and then the next morning I wake up with a stuffy nose. I'm like, well, I know exactly where that came from, you know? Or like last week for instance, crazy enough, I listened to this podcast like literally the week my entire small group got sick. We had small group last week and one girl came and, well, obviously everybody came, but one girl in particular had a little bit of a scratchy throat and a stuffy nose, and she was coughing during small group and we were all just like, oh man, that sucks. Feel better, you know? But then literally over the weekend, all the rest of us got sick. And this week for small group three people were out because they were sick and. So I just have to wonder like, hmm. Like we've all been in this environment all together before the environment had not changed and yet the consequences of being in said environment changed. So I think patient Zero is still the right way to go. This guy, when he was talking, he said when he started this research, he thought, thought the idea was so outlandish, he would have to convince himself because he didn't actually believe it, and now he's fully convinced and he is written a book. Do you know the name of the book? I don't know the name of the book.

Katie:

Um, no, I honestly, heard of this only a few times talked about by other people. Um, so I'm not like super, super familiar with it myself. I'll have to definitely check that out. Do you wanna share what the podcast was that you listened to it on?

Chrissy:

Yeah. Yeah. So if you're interested and you want to listen to the podcast, it's uh, wise Traditions podcast number 500 something, something in the five hundreds. And it pretty much talks about, uh, contagion. Like contagion isn't real. Um, so yeah, go to Wise Traditions, listen to that podcast. Let us know what you think about that, because I still think it's crazy, but

Katie:

It's interesting.

Chrissy:

know.

Katie:

really, really like wise traditions in like for a lot of things. They have a lot of really great wisdom about, uh, food and like natural eating and whole food diets, kind of like what we've been talking about. They, wise Traditions is a part of like the Western, a Price Foundation, which kind of talks a lot about all of these whole Foods. I've mentioned them before. Also listened to an episode on their podcast. It was actually from a while ago. Um, it's while I've been doing research about water filters and water filtration systems, uh, since we bought this house that we have now. And I wanna put in a really good water filtration system because we live in a heavily farmed area with lots and lots of pesticides and we have a well in our backyard. And so, um, we're, we're wanting to get out any pesticide residue and, and anything else. So I went through and searched their podcast for anything that they had on the topic of water and water safety and water filtration. I listened to a few of them. They were really good. And then I came across this episode. That was probably one of the strangest things I've heard, but now I've been seeing and hearing a little bit more about it. And it's like. I, I was trying to explain it to my dad and I literally, it's like one of those things where I was like, I started sounded crazy. So there's the idea that you can filter out your water from all the bad residues in it, you know, fluoride, if you're in the city, like in with city water and chlorine, um, pesticide residue, pharmaceutical residues, you know, all this stuff. You can take out all the bad stuff. However, your water might still not have like the right charge to it. And there's like this whole thing of like the water structure that is completely invisible to your eye. And you would never know when you like look at a glass of water, whether it has this, the right molecular structure or not. But there's this whole idea of like charging the water and it's like this idea of like living water and that the water is alive and it carries memories and. literally, she was going, I don't even remember who this girl was. She was going all into it and it just sounded so strange. And even the way she talked about it was like the water and it needs to be in a specific way so that you have this, it has this memory to give you good things. And if you speak to the water, good things, will be good for you if you tell it. Thank you. And I was like, what? I'm not gonna speak to my water. But there was, I've been seeing more scientific evidence, like backing this up just slightly and it's like, there's not a lot out there. yeah, if you look up like water structure or something.

Chrissy:

Science, wait. Scientific evidence. About encouragement towards your water,

Katie:

necessarily talking to your water, but that water holds

Chrissy:

like the charge.

Katie:

because it's like, it's charge, it's, it's really odd, honestly, but it. It kind of like, it sounds woo woo in the sense that like, yeah, you wanna go stand on the grass to get like the energy, basically the, the charges from the earth. So in a sense I'm like, I, I kind of, I can kind of see she's coming from, but I think the way that she was speaking about it really threw me off because it was her voice that was like, the water and it's living. And I'm like, ugh.

Chrissy:

So I could definitely understand like the negative ions, positive ions. You know, your body is positively charged. You want water that's negatively charged in order to balance out the charge in your body. Like that makes sense. But the whole, like, water has a memory thing, like that's woo woo,

Katie:

So.

Chrissy:

and we, we sound borderline woo woo sometimes on this podcast, but that is woo woo.

Katie:

It was pretty strange. So there's apparently like water filters that put in this charge so that water has the right charge to it, and then it's considered. Like living water, which also I was like, I don't know how I feel about that because Jesus is living water, So anyway, I, I don't know where I stand with it, but my point is that with that podcast, with Wise Traditions, I have often come across many really awesome episodes and a lot of really good content. But then there's occasionally an episode or so where I'm like, what this is, so like who are, who is this person talking? You know, they have just some strange guests, but I mean, as Chrissy mentioned, the episode she listened to is like episode 500 and something, something. So you think like at a certain point there's only so many people you could have on to talk about all these things and new, like bringing new ideas and new things to the table I'm sure occasionally they have to bring on some people that are a little bit like there in order to keep going. I don't know, that's just my thought.

Chrissy:

That's. But anyways, let's talk about today something that's not completely out there. Um, not totally woo woo, but something that makes a lot more sense. And so today's topic, we are going to be talking about the toxin bucket. Essentially taking a step back from all of the nitty gritty, clean this, clean that make my life toxin free. We're gonna take a step back and look at our lives from a zoomed out perspective to say, okay, what have I ex, what kind of toxins have I exposed my body to in the last year? And to kind of help us see what are some parts of our toxin defense that we need to ramp up and what parts of our toxin defense are doing really well? And so this is, this episode is just gonna be talking about the places in your life where you receive toxins. And let me tell you, they are everywhere. And so there is absolutely by no means any way that anybody can get rid of every toxin in their life, even if they live on a homestead 50 miles from the nearest neighbor, like you still can't do it. It is not possible. So, um, with that I want you to be encouraged by this episode rather than, discouraged by this episode because yes, they are all around us. But be encouraged that we're going to help you identify what those toxins are so that um, you can have a clear direction and a goal towards. That you're working towards in your, um, process in becoming healthier, so.

Katie:

Yeah, the toxin bucket can be super overwhelming. And honestly, the way that I like to think of the, the toxin bucket is the way to observe your chances of a chronic illness. So let me explain that because I'm like, I'm hesitating as I say this because I'm not saying that if you completely eliminate all these toxins, then you will never get a chronic illness. But rather, if you are really trying to go on a journey of living as toxin-free as possible in order to stay healthy and stay away from things like cancers or any other like autoimmune disorders, like this is probably. From, from my research and my understanding from all the books that I've read is like, this is the best way to do it. Actually the phrase that I wanna share today is epigenetics. I, we may have talked about epigenetics in the past, but for a quick refresh on what epigenetics is, is basically we are all born with a certain set of genetics that we've received from the generations ahead of us, specifically our parents and our grandparents. You know, we, everybody knows about genetics, we've learned about them in school, genetics are like the gun that you have. Um, and gun is not necessarily dangerous, but it's what you load into the gun and whether or not you actually pull the trigger or anything. So. If you want to make sure that the gun pointing at you isn't going to shoot you and kill you, you want to not load it with all the toxins that will cause your genetics to spur out of control and cause some kind of cancer or something like that. Cancer's probably the easiest like chronic illness to pick on because so many of us know it and so many of us understand that there does, like our genetics play a role in that oftentimes. And so you may have good or bad genetics from your parents or your grandparents. You know everybody in your bloodline, you can work as hard as you can in order to try to avoid that illness that they suffered from. If you live a as best as you can, a toxin-free lifestyle. Again, Chrissy mentioned it is impossible to be a hundred percent. Toxin free because it's in our air, it's in our water, it's in our food. Um, even stress is one of these, like chronic, um, or one of these toxins that we're going to talk through. Um, and so you can even bring on those toxins yourself. It's not always necessarily in your environment. So my whole is that this is probably from my understanding of all the books and all the podcasts I've listened to and everything, is probably the best way to fight against chronic illnesses. And this is extremely important for those who maybe do have. A poor set of genes. If your parents before you suffered from, um, different cancers or high blood pressure or, um, different autoimmune disorders or just like any, anything that you've seen them suffer with chronically and you maybe even saw your grandparents suffer with those same things and maybe your aunts and uncles suffer with those same things, your job is to try to live as toxin free as possible so that way the genetics that you were given don't on to create that chronic illness in yourself. Um, I know that this kind of sounds controversial because a lot of people like to blame. Chronic illnesses on their genetics and, and just say like, well, it's just bad luck. Like this is, like, these are just the genes I was given. It's, it's inevitable that I'm going to get sick. But what I've actually been learning is that there's a lot of hope that doesn't have to be that way, and that God actually created our bodies to actually like help to fight off these chronic illnesses. And that's kind of what we're going to go into is this idea of the toxin bucket, that it can be, you wanna keep it as low as possible. You think of an actual bucket being full. If you're filling it with a hose you're getting close to the top, what happens if you keep going? It overflows. And if you think about that in the idea of like toxins in your system, if you keep flooding your body with all these toxins they are in, it's like going to overflow and create all sorts of havoc inside of your body. So. Our job to keep the toxins as low as possible. Again, it's, it, it's impossible to be a hundred percent toxin free, our bodies are designed to clean it out. Um, if anybody lives in either the Midwest or maybe in the south where water levels rise quickly underground, um, you, you probably are familiar with a sum pump system and a sum pump system is supposed to help get water out from, um, your basement level so it doesn't flood the house. And so it's, the sum pump is actually supposed to keep a level of water in it at all times in order for it to actually work. Um, but you don't want it to overflow'cause that's when your house floods and that is bad. And so your sum pump works to kind of filter out as much of the water as possible before it does overflow. And so that's what we wanna do avoiding. Toxins and yeah, they lead to chronic illnesses.

Chrissy:

So we're essentially turning our bodies into very good sump pumps.

Katie:

a sum pump

Chrissy:

So the, I think it's important to touch on the. Uh, organs in our bodies that are most utilized for,

Katie:

pumps.

Chrissy:

they are the detox organs in our bodies. Um, there's, I, this is just me thinking off the top of my head. There might be more that I'm just not thinking of, but the number one is the liver. It is literally the filter of the body. When we, in medicine, when we're talking about the efficacy of a medication, um, we have to talk about the liver bypass effect of essentially means that when you eat something or take a medication or something like that, the very first place it goes, once it's been absorbed out of the small intestine, the large intestine, the stomach, wherever it, it gets getting absorbed. Very first place it goes is the liver and the liver detoxifies it before it sends it to the rest of your body. Now our liver is also very sensitive and so when it gets overloaded with tons and tons of toxins, it starts to produce scar tissue. Its functions start to go out the window and it's not able to detoxify as well as if it was working properly. So liver's a good one. It's always important to make sure you are eating, um, like liver support foods, I guess so to say. I don't know exactly what foods support the liver, but do you know of any, Katie,

Katie:

I actually think that organ meats well

Chrissy:

I think you're right.

Katie:

if you look into Ayurveda, like Chinese medicine stuff, they actually talk a lot about like if you find certain foods that resemble body parts, um, they often. Help support that specific body part. So a really easy one, and what most of us know, this is that carrots support your eyes. Um, if you cut a carrot like down the middle and you look at it kind of like at the ring, you notice that it's kind of has a circle and, and I mean it literally looks like an eyeball when you like cut it. Um, like chopped carrots, if you have like a big carrot, you know what I'm talking about. Um, another easy one are that broccoli, like broccoli looks like trees. And when you turn it upside down, it actually looks like your lung, um, the way that your lung kind of like the veins go through your lung. And, and so, uh, broccoli is really good for your lungs. So I, I actually, now that I'm speaking this out loud, I do know that if you eat the certain organ meat that is exactly that organ in your own body, um, so liver for example, is really good for your own liver. Um, but I'm also thinking that maybe something like. Well, no, I think like a lot of beans are probably also, oh, beans could probably be a lot of different organs. Like kidney beans probably look like your kidneys, I guess.

Chrissy:

Legumes are just really good for you in general.

Katie:

So I don't

Chrissy:

Yeah.

Katie:

but I, I do know that if you see a piece of food that sort of resembles a body part, it often, like, it's, it's like God originally, like, it's like he designed it that way. It's so incredible. Um, that, you know, your carrots have, uh, I don't even remember what it is, betacarotene that's really good for your eyes and stuff. So it's like, oh yeah, then it is good

Chrissy:

That's what makes them orange.

Katie:

exactly. So anyway, it's, fascinating, um, when you start learning about that. So find something

Chrissy:

Yeah.

Katie:

a liver

Chrissy:

Also a fun fact about the liver. The liver is the only body part that can regenerate itself. It's like, you know how starfish, if you like chop off a starfish leg, it can like regrow it's starfish leg. The liver is the same way. So if somebody. Donates their liver. For a liver transplant, they only donate half of it. And then so the donor is left with half a liver and the recipient gets half a liver and then give it a year. Both of them will have a full liver

Katie:

I did not

Chrissy:

the liver regenerates itself. Yeah, it is cool. It's the only body part that does that. I mean obviously maybe someone could say skin does that, but

Katie:

what about

Chrissy:

not,

Katie:

if I

Chrissy:

in the same way.'cause skin also leaves a scar. The liver will do it with less scarring, I don't know about perfectly, but less scarring at least.

Katie:

That's so

Chrissy:

Um, so anyways. Liver is your number one toxin defense for your body. Keep your liver healthy and you're on a good track. I'm actually, so part of this program that I'm doing the, the six month gut reset that I'm doing, um, one of the supplements they have me taking is literally called the Liver Assist. Um, and it pretty much is there just to support our livers and make them work better, I guess. I don't know.

Katie:

Um, the

Chrissy:

the second organ that I'm thinking of that helps with detoxifying the body is the spleen. And I often refer to the spleen as the red blood cell graveyard. Essentially, it's the place that filters out all of the old dead and dying blood cells and breaks them down and then sends down the broken. Pieces into the body to be replenished into new red blood cells. Um, so that is really important because if you have a bunch of blood that isn't working, um, then you're gonna have a lot of problems because blood's main job is to carry the nutrients and carry the oxygen to your vital organs, to your muscles, your brain, everything like that. And so. If you have old dead and dying blood cells, they're not gonna do their job very well, and you're gonna get sick. So that's the spleen. And then the third one I'm thinking of, I think is quite obvious to all of us, we, uh, experience, hopefully we experience this organ on a daily basis, is our colon. Um, it is the one that is responsible for quite literally expelling the toxins from our body. Um, and if you don't know it, we've, we've said it on previous episodes, but I'm gonna say it again. The best practice for knowing whether or not your digestive system is working properly is you should be having a bowel movement after every single time you eat. Um, that is for people who, well, most people eat enough food, unlike most of my patients who eat half a donut all day. And that's about it.

Katie:

Like

Chrissy:

Um.

Katie:

are you saying like after every like major meal or like literally every time you eat a granola bar.

Chrissy:

Oh, probably more so after major, every major meal. But essentially what happens is, um, the act of chewing. So when you're chewing your food, it stimulates all of your digestive hormones. So it stimulates your stomach to create more stomach acid. It stimulates your gallbladder to release some bile into that small intestine. It stimulates your intestines also to start kinda moving around a little bit more. And with that comes, the large intestine gets what called, what's called a mass movement, which is essentially a large movement of peristalsis through the large intestine, which should inevitably push out whatever is in there. And so if you have been eating and are eating well, then you should be pooping after every meal, which is great. Um, I don't know of anyone who actually does that. I have yet to reach that point. What about you, Katie? I know we've talked about poop before on this.

Katie:

have, um, I'd say it's not a, like a consistent everyday kind of thing, um, but I, it's something that I've been noticing a lot more, um, just

Chrissy:

Mm-hmm.

Katie:

account of it it, it makes a lot of sense why doctors are very concerned with your bowel movements. I like, I just remember that as a kid when they would like ask you like, are you pooping and stuff? And you're like, why do you wanna know? Like, it, it just felt so weird to me. But again, the more I'm learning, I'm like, yeah, it is. You want to make sure you're having regular healthy bowel movements because it is like getting all of the bad stuff outta your system. But also it, I mean, it, it literally is just like the stuff that was in your system. And so if. Your bowel movements aren't like a good healthy It's like clearly something you're, you're not putting good stuff in there. It's like your body's literally machine you, what you put into it results in how it functions and what comes out of it because even as you're saying like, like the liver regenerates and obviously skin cells, like the, what I've heard and what I've, um, read somewhere, and maybe you can just give me a, like an proving saying yes, this is right in health, is that we literally become what we eat because all of our cells in our body regenerate And, um, like you think of like how your skin sheds and so you're like losing skin cells, but then your skin regenerates because it's like creating new cells. Same thing with your hair as it falls out or your hair grows, like obviously it's creating new cells. You, and you can physically see it like on the exterior of your body, but all of your organs on the inside are kind of doing that shedding as well. And so. They like regenerate, but the cells are literally made out of the foods and the, the, the source or like the, um, what am I saying? Like the, the things that you're putting into your body. So whatever that fuel is you're putting into your body, it not only turns into the energy that you have during the day, but it literally turns into your body. And so are you eating lots of junk, which then results in your body turning to junk? Or are you eating good, healthy, nutritious foods that then result in a strong body that will continue to work properly to eliminate the toxins? Um, you mentioned the three major parts that really make up kind of your, defense system, but I mean, really each. of our body is kind of designed to start to eliminate that. I even think of like skin. Um, I've been learning more about like the lymphatic system and just like drainage and how important it is to be sweating on a regular basis. Because sweat is literally like toxins leaving your body as well. And so you want to get moving regularly to get toxins out from your skin even. And so I'm like, wow, every part of our body really is designed to. Eliminate bad stuff and like keep the good stuff in, but then get all the bad stuff out on a, a consistent basis. And if one part of it isn't working, like if you're not sweating, then the toxins are also staying trapped in your body and then it's making other parts of your system like your other parts of your body not function properly. Um, gosh, wow. This is really even bringing me even into like, the biblical references of like, we're, each of us is a part of the body of Christ and if one person isn't doing their job, it kind of puts everybody else on a halt. So it's like, Hey, if God gave you a gift to go and teach people about medicine and you're not teaching them, then all those people aren't learning. And anyway, I've, I just got excited.

Chrissy:

Going back to, uh, the, the poop part of the conversation, it's also important. This is gonna sound really crazy, guys, but it's also important to recognize the smell. Now it smells bad, like point blank poop does not smell good, right? But there are times when it smells worse or it smells less worse, I guess so to say. And working in the hospital, I smelled a lot of things. And there were two populations that I knew exactly how their digestive system was going based on the smell of their poops. The first one was drug addicts. The second group of people is people whose diets were mostly fried food. Um, people who ate a lot of, uh, fast food and things like that. I could be able to smell the bathroom after they're finished going. And then I'd talk to them about what they like to eat and I would expect them to say a bunch of fast food and then they'd respond with a bunch of fast food. It just tells you so much about your body, how hydrated you are, um, how well your bowels are moving, how much fiber you have in your diet, um, whether or not you are sick. You know, like if we're having diarrhea, that's evidence that we're sick. That's the body trying to purge whatever's inside. Um, so yeah, it's important to know about your bowel movements. Read up on them. I'm gonna stop talking about poop now because I can tell that I'm making Katie very uncomfortable. She's just sitting there with like a disgusted look on her face. But it's such an important topic of conversation that needs to be talked about more. Everyone kind of is like, oh no, that's my private zone and I don't even share that with my husband. I'm like, talk about it with your husband, because I bet you he's got some room for improvement in that area too. So,

Katie:

I deal

Chrissy:

um.

Katie:

a lot too, Chrissy, but not from people I don't know. Not strangers. I deal with malachi's poop every day. But it is, it's so

Chrissy:

I've worked a lot of strangers, but

Katie:

Yeah. I, that's unfortunate, but I, I mean, I think about all the times. Early on when we were, like, when we'd go to the doctor and all this stuff, and one of the first things they would always ask would be like, about his poop and if he's pooping regularly and what does it look like? And I mean, I literally had, yeah, doc, my, his doctor would be like, send me a picture of it and stuff. And I'm like, okay, here you go. Gross. you want it.

Chrissy:

we can learn a lot about it.

Katie:

I totally

Chrissy:

You learn a lot. You know what's other, another crazy thing that you can see from the outside that tells you a lot about the inside is the tongue.

Katie:

Okay, well that's another area actually as, as you were talking about, the smell of things. Um, I was thinking you can tell when people are actually pretty sick if they have like this rancid breath that doesn't just smell like bad morning breath and honestly like. It, it just, it's very different. Like you can just tell like in the middle of the day and somebody has this like, uh, you know, almost like, you know, when you walk by a sewer and like you could just smell the gases kind of coming out from it. It's like almost like that where you're like, oh, it just, just smells like there's something wrong down the tubes and stuff. And so that's another area that yes, like you can easily tell if somebody's toxin bucket there is overloaded, um, because literally coming out of the system. Like you could just smell, like, you just think of a sewer being toxic and the smells coming out from that. So, yeah.

Chrissy:

Maybe another episode we can talk about tongue mapping. I think that'd be a fun one.

Katie:

yes. I, I,

Chrissy:

Yeah.

Katie:

I think Chinese medicine is so fascinating and there is just so

Chrissy:

Oh, I wanna learn it.

Katie:

so cool. So yeah, if anybody is

Chrissy:

I should

Katie:

go

Chrissy:

to China

Katie:

Move to China. Do it.

Chrissy:

and learn about it. All right. Well, let's actually talk about, now that we've talked about all of the detox pathways in our body, and probably a lot more that we didn't even touch on. Let's talk about where are those toxins coming in? Because we have so many detox pathways in our body. How in the world are we still walking around as giant toxin buckets? Um, so I think we should probably just like go through the house, you know, let's do a little tour through the house and identify where are these toxins coming from? And I think, Katie, you're gonna have a really interesting perspective on this, especially since you're trying to build a, or renovate a low tox home right now. And so.

Katie:

I think before we go through the house itself, I think the two areas or Yeah, maybe, maybe two. The top two I think I wanna just give people right away are like, food. Would you agree? Like food is probably your biggest, just, it's like, not even just in your house, it's like everywhere. It's your, it's like your daily things. And even with that, like you think of anything that you use on a daily basis, um, would be things that you're putting on your body. So like skincare products or soaps and things like that. And so I think if you just of those two areas primarily you, you hit like the, like 90% almost, maybe not 90, but like a good majority of it. So if you're just looking for like a good win. Food and your, whatever you're putting onto your skin.'cause you think your skin is the biggest organ we've known. Like most of us know that fact. so it's absorbing everything all the time. So you just gotta be careful. So with that, let's go through the house because if you think about your skin as an organ absorbing everything, there are so many things in your house now that actually like, they contribute to the accumulation of toxins coming into your Fortress.

Chrissy:

Yes. So number one, you're opening the front door and you are using your hand to do so. So, um, there's probably germs on that, but we're not really concerned about the germs because germs are good for you. Eating dirt creates a strong immune system, but it is possible that there are toxins on that handle. If your door has been painted, then that paint might have toxins on it. You don't always just touch the handle when you open the door. You then close the door and what do you do? You touch the door to close it. So,

Katie:

Oh.

Chrissy:

any sort of lacquer or stain or anything that's on that door is now in your hand skin.

Katie:

So paint, I have to now talk about paint. It's the bane of my existence right now is picking out paint samples. We ha we literally have like 50 different paint samples just sitting on our counter because just keep going through, I just can't decide. It really, the color of your walls really makes or breaks a home sometimes. Most of the time if you just pick a color it'll go. But there are definitely times where like there are undertones to certain colors that, anyway paint I've been learning a lot about, and I don't remember if I talked about it as much when we, when we did our update, um, episode a couple weeks ago, but. There are so many toxins in paint, and there is a brand right now that I have found that is probably the most toxin free, it's called Ecos, ECOS, and we're, uh, I keep going back and forth. I haven't ordered anything. And so that's why it's still like a, ugh, I just paint right now. I really wanna use it. It is so expensive. It's something like$88 per gallon. Um, and usually like the, the brand that you can get at Home Depot called Bear, um, BEHR, um, that's only like 44 ish dollars depending on the like. of the type of paint that you're gonna get, but like a middle of the road one is about 44, so it's like double the amount than just your really average paint from Home Depot. Um, and so you just think about that and like, we have a very large house, so the square footage of all the walls, and so you think about like the toxin bucket, you think about paint or something like that. From a toxin bucket standpoint, we really are considering doing like those, the non-toxic paint in our bedrooms because that's where you would spend a lot of time. Um, and especially like consistent, like consecutive time, um, sleeping overnight. And so putting the non-toxic paints in the rooms at the minimum instead of the entire house. So that's, that's like one way that we're trying to view it is like, okay, what, what can we, where would it make the most impact? And that's one of those areas. But if you're looking to really do the non-toxic where they're, they have a, a very low VOC or this one has a, a a hundred percent zero VOC, which is, um, organic compounds, and it's like the gases that are being admitted because even after you paint it, yes, you, you everybody knows like the smell of like paint fumes and things like that, but even admit gases even after the fact, like even after you stop smelling them. so that's why it's important to consider that kind of stuff. So anyway, paint there. said it.

Chrissy:

That's a big one. Now you're walking through the house, you take off your shoes. On the floor is either carpet or a rug or hardwood floors or laminate flooring. And if you haven't washed your floors in a while, like me, who hasn't washed my floors in a while,

Katie:

Dito.

Chrissy:

whatever else was on everybody else's shoes is now on your feet. And um, that can include anything that they stepped on outside, including pesticides, if they're walking on the grass. Um, that can include dog poop, that can include

Katie:

Yeah.

Chrissy:

mold

Katie:

speaking of poop, um, I learned that your shoes have, uh, more like fecal, uh.

Chrissy:

matter.

Katie:

Matter. Thank you. Fecal matter on, there's more fecal matter on your shoes than on a toilet seat.

Chrissy:

That does not surprise me at all. Toilet seats are actually very clean

Katie:

So there you

Chrissy:

because, well, the way you're supposed to use a toilet seat is you sit on it, and I don't know about you guys, but the back of my legs are not very dirty all the time unless I've been like outside in shorts and like playing flag football or something, you know? Um, I don't play flag flag football. I don't know why I said that. That was very weird. Whatever. Um, yeah, toilet seats are actually very clean, which is a crazy thing, but. Anyways, moving on from the entryway. We've already got our hands and our feet dirty. Now we're gonna walk into the kitchen and you lean your hands on the countertop that was cleaned with, uh, granite cleaner. And then you go into your refrigerator and you touch the stainless steel handle that was cleaned with stainless steel cleaner. And then you look in your fridge and you grab out the bucket of ice cream. Well, I guess no, you're gonna go in the freezer and you grab out the bucket of ice cream, but you haven't washed your hands yet from touching the door and the countertop and the refrigerator door. and so you eat that ice cream, and let's say you accidentally get a little bit on the countertop, and so you just take your finger and yeah, wipe it up with your finger and then lick it. Now you have that door lacquer in your mouth. Well, okay, so you finished your ice cream. Now you gotta go to the sink and wash your bowl. And you wash your bowl with dawn dish soap, which often dawn dish soap. They have a lot of advertisements about how good they are for the environment. They're not actually very good for the environment at all. They have a lot of endocrine disruptors in them. They have coloring, they have fragrance. Just it's not good. So if you are still using Don dish soap, there are other alternatives. Dr. Bronner's is fantastic alternative. It might not bubble as much, but it still gets the cho done. Okay guys. Um, and while you are washing your dishes, you are using one of those. Yellow and green sponges that your mother has used for 50 years. And that yellow, green sponge is, uh, releasing microplastics onto your bowl that you are washing and also releasing microplastics onto your skin that can then be absorbed into your skin. You finish washing your bowl and then you grab the dish towel that was washed with tide, laundry detergent and some bleach, and you dry your dish using the tide laundry detergent and bleached towel, and you put it away in the cabinet. All right, so you finished your bowl of ice cream. Now you're gonna go upstairs and you're gonna take a nap. And so you walk up the stairs and the stairs are carpeted. And this carpet specifically your mother decided that she wanted flame retardant carpeting because carpet is very flammable. And if the house catches on fire, then um, we got a bad situation if the fire gets on the carpeting. So she got flame retardant carpeting, which is also a huge endocrine disruptor. And so that is now on your bare feet as you're walking up the stairs. So you get into your bedroom and you lay down on top of your bed because you're just way too tired before getting into your bed. And your comforter just so happens to also be moisture resistant. And so there's another thing that is now touching your skin that has toxins on it, and that's moisture resistant. But you lay down, you sit there for a minute and you say, Ugh, if I'm gonna take a nap, I really gotta take my contacts out. So you walk into the bathroom and you turn on your LED lights that you have in the bathroom. And those LED lights immediately start affecting your sleep cycle, your hormones and everything that's released in terms of wake sleep cycles. You take out your contacts and put them in contact solution, which, uh, crazy enough guys, oftentimes eyedrops contact solution, things like that, has this thing called polyethylene glycol in it, um, which is derived from natural gas, which is the same stuff that MiraLax is made out of. So there you go. MiraLax and eyedrops are made of the same stuff derived from natural gas. So you got that now in your eyeballs.

Katie:

Yeah, I didn't know about the eye drops and contact stuff. It's another, I actually, I don't know if you noticed, I'm wearing contacts today because we're gonna go work on the house after this, and I've been wearing my glasses primarily, but every time I put them into my eyeballs, I'm like, I'm putting more microplastics into my system. But now I'm gonna be thinking about all the contact solutions and eye drops and things too. Oh my goodness. It's everything. It's everything. Literally.

Chrissy:

Oh, and by the way, your contacts were probably stored in a plastic container that you had'em in overnight. Anyways, so take your contacts out. You go back to your bed. Mind you, you haven't washed your hands yet because who washes their hands that frequently throughout the day? Let's be real. Unless you're a nurse, then you wash your hands 10,000 freaking times. But anyways. You go back to bed, you get yourself nice and cozy under the covers that were also washed with that tide Laundry detergent and dish soap. And you just love the smell of your bedsheet so much. You even had Downey Unstoppables in that load of laundry. And so those endocrine disruptors are having a game with you.

Katie:

Well, I think our tour is, that is a really good tour. I think we should give it a summary as far as like where these toxins are kind of coming from. Um, you know, I mentioned the food, so anything that's coming into your system, you think the, the primary things are sugar and seed oils. I think, um, anything that's refined also is, is really bad. So if you're thinking about that ice cream, Chris, you talked about that likely has. Both sugar and seed oils and all sorts of preservatives and additives, and maybe even some food dye and all sorts of nasty stuff. Maybe natural flavors, which natural flavors are also made of lots of chemicals that we just don't know everything that's in it. And so food is like the biggest thing because we're putting it into our bodies. Again, it our, the food becomes our body. And so we really wanna be careful with that. Same thing with water. Water is a, a huge source of, um, toxins. I actually don't even know if you mentioned that on, on the tour because we didn't wash our hands, so we weren't getting the toxins from the water. So that's, that's a big plus. But unfortunately, even if you think that you have nice clean water, which granted. to lots of the world, we are very fortunate that yes, you can drink the water straight from your tap and it's not going to kill you right at that moment. But oftentimes your water is full of other things such, like I mentioned, um, pesticides, herbicides, um, there's fluoride, chlorine, um, there's pharmaceuticals, birth controls in water. There's, there's just so many toxins in water, um, that you really wanna be filtering it. Um, then you think about like the air in your house too. The air in your house I have learned is actually more toxic than the air outside of your home. Your house is often super sealed up where we live in the, this era where they make houses extremely, um, eco-friendly in the sense that we're not using a lot of energy to heat and cool them because there's no like, uh, gaps in anything. Like it's your, your house is just sealed so tightly, but because of that, there's not a lot of movement of the air in your household, which allows everything to just settle in there. Um, so you just think about all the dust that settles everywhere, and that's like in your air and it's getting into your lungs, your lungs. Actually, if you think about all the detox like organs, your lungs tend to be another place that doesn't, I guess it doesn't necessarily detox, but it actually kind of cleans the air.

Chrissy:

You wanna know a crazy thing about lungs, so I think it's. Either Italy or France or something like that. Cow's lung is a delicacy

Katie:

Hmm.

Chrissy:

they, they cook like a lot of pasta dishes with cow's, lung and things like that. And it is illegal here in America to consume cow's lung because they found mold spores in it.

Katie:

You,

Chrissy:

Now I just want you to think, I just want you to think about that because like the only way that a mold spore could get inside of a cow's lung is if the cow breathed it,

Katie:

Mm-hmm.

Chrissy:

means that there's mold spores in the air. And that's just the reality of it. If you're walking outside, like they're kind of everywhere. And I just think it's kind of ironic that it's illegal here in America because of something that's completely naturally occurring and it probably just grossed out somebody in the FDA and so they decided that it should have been illegal.

Katie:

But I mean, that's a good point too, you think about like when, when something gets wet, you wanna dry it as quickly as possible so that mold doesn't occur. But if your house is super closed up and you don't have a lot of air flow through it, you likely have mold. In fact, actually I listened to a podcast episode where, it, I think it was for an air filtration system. The guy, uh, does them anyway. said it's almost to do a mold test in a home he's like, 98% of the time it comes back positive. like, don't waste your money on actually getting a mold test for your home because. The chances that you have mold spores in your air so high because of the way that we live here in America. Just having everything so closed up, he's like, you might as well just get the air filtration systems. I mean, again, maybe he is just saying this because he sells air filtration systems, but it also, I, I kind of believe it in a, like, there's no like draft right now in my house. Like it is just stale, like stagnant air. So anyway, Air is one of those areas that has a lot of toxins. I mean, even outside, there's a lot of toxins in the air, but it is just the way that we breathe or the way that we use air inside tends to be very toxic in our own homes, which is unfortunate. You think about even like cooking all the air, like all the oils and the, if you have a gas stove, like the gas getting into your house. So if you, you need to be using one of those vents to be taking all of that cooking stuff out. Um, you even think of like, you burn your food and now there's smoke in the air. So there's just a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of toxins in our air, which is unfortunate. But then obviously when you go outside, you have the fumes from cars and from factories and all, all the stuff.

Chrissy:

I, I did this the other day. Um, so I was driving and the inside of my car just smelled kind of meh. I don't know. It, it just, it was getting kind of stuffy in there. And so I, I pressed the button that's like the air circulation button so that it would circle the outside air to come into the car. Now, I was driving on the highway during rush hour, and it was worse. Like my car immediately smelled like tar and gasoline, and I was like, oh my gosh. And so also be careful on where you filter your air from because it could be worse than just the. Stale pasta that you accidentally left in the backseat last night after dinner,

Katie:

Is that from

Chrissy:

which has happened. Oh, no, no, no. I am just a queen at forgetting my leftovers, actually. Okay. Pro tip, this is totally unrelated pro tip. If you're going to a friend's house and you have leftovers that you need to stick in their fridge, and you don't wanna forget them, at the end of the night, put your keys in the fridge with them.

Katie:

Ooh,

Chrissy:

You will not forget your leftovers because you need your keys. And so if you put your keys in the fridge with your leftovers, you won't forget them. Okay. I'm done.

Katie:

because your keys are probably a source of toxins.

Chrissy:

Yeah. Okay. Don't touch your keys to anything in the fridge. Just put'em on top of the Tupperware dish. Okay.

Katie:

I've seen so much about like, don't let your kids

Chrissy:

In a paper towel.

Katie:

with car keys because you just, you know, you think about all the places you've set car keys down and stuff. And then last night Malachi was playing with Wes Car Keys, and I was like, you're entertained. You can play with them. And I was just like one of those moms at that moment.

Chrissy:

You know, at the same time though, like they have to be exposed to something otherwise their immune systems aren't going to develop. So it's a balance. Like, we're not gonna be able to get out all these toxins and we, we also say eating dirt is good for you. It improves your immune system. And that's the truth of the matter of like your, your liver still needs a job, you know? And so it is okay to have toxins in your life here and there and you know, do your best to minimize them. But ultimately at the end of the day, like if there's still some, it is okay and you will survive. And God created your body to be this beautiful detox mechanism that. There are so many organs in our body that are designed to get rid of toxins. And so it to focus on supporting those organs in the areas that you just can't, you have no control over the air that you breathe outside, you know? Um, you have no control over the drywall that was used to build your house 20 years ago. Um, you have no control over the material that was used to make your sweatshirt that you have to wear for whatever event that you're going to, and everybody has to wear the same thing. You know, a lot of these things we have no control over, but we can maximize our body's ability to detox itself and then ultimately decrease the amount of toxins that stay trapped in our bodies. So I just wanna send you out with a little bit of encouragement there. Katie, do you have any encouragement before we close out?

Katie:

Um, I think encouragement is, I mean, kind of on the idea of like. Yeah, I, I let Malachi play with all sorts of things that probably have different types of toxins on it. I am not actually a huge fan of washing my hands that often because I actually believe in like, keeping around the, um, microorganisms, more and things and the, the good bacterias and things that just like help your immune system build up. Um, but because of that, I do choose to eliminate other toxins that might get on my hands, such as like the soap that we're using. We try and use like very natural soap instead of using very chemical based soap. Um, same thing with like what we clean our house with, what, what I put on my, my hands, like lotions and the soaps that we use. So my point is that I. If you can try and find alternatives to the things you're using. So obviously if you're gonna wash your hands, wash it with things that aren't going to harm you as badly as like the super chemically stuff. So my encouragement is just like looking for those things that are easy, um, to make switches with. And I think the easiest areas are the ones that we frequently buy new things for. So that's food. We replenish our pantries and our refrigerators very frequently, but also all of your personal care products that you're using on a daily basis, that's going to make the largest impact. So those, those are just like, if you're looking for good, like next steps, those are the two areas that I highly recommend being your first. Place to tackle. Um, and then look at all of the other very specific stuff if you can. And, and get a air filtration system. Get a water filtration system. You know, do but start with the easy stuff and then move forward and, and consider like the sheets that you have and whether or not there are organic cotton or not, or if they're something made from plastic so

Chrissy:

Oh, I. Wanna get bamboo sheets.

Katie:

sound so good.

Chrissy:

I know, I've, I've heard really good things about them. My sister actually just got bamboo sheets and she loves them. I know. I'm like, well, you live with mom and dad, so you don't have to really pay rent. So I get it.

Katie:

choices.

Chrissy:

too.

Katie:

So yeah, just look for the areas that make the most sense, things that you're using on a daily basis and, and whatever's. Easiest, but don't go like thinking about everyth. I mean, you could overload on stress just by looking at your house and being like, everything's going to kill me, because it's all adding to my toxin bucket. No, just, just find the

Chrissy:

Yep.

Katie:

that make the most sense for you, um, and, and do that, and then kind of look for the next thing after you tackle that. So just little steps. Um, yeah, eliminate that stress. Do that too, but don't do it with one of those fragrance bath bombs. Okay.

Chrissy:

Definitely no, just some Epsom salt guys. Non, no, no fragrance without Epsom salt. Just straight Epsom salt, which, uh, newsflash, that means Dr. Teals is out. Unfortunately, made me very sad when I realized that one, because I love Dr. Teals, but nope, they all have fragrance in them. So

Katie:

We used to use their

Chrissy:

unfortunate,

Katie:

kids, but didn't, we don't have it anymore.

Chrissy:

not anymore. I've actually found that, like the only place that I was able to find pure Epsom salt with no fragrance and nothing added to it, was just like the generic brand from my grocery store.

Katie:

Yep.

Chrissy:

That's the only one that I could find.

Katie:

Yep.

Chrissy:

All right. Anyways, with that, uh, we thank you guys for tuning into our conversation today. We pray for each of you, and we hope that these episodes will be helpful in your journey to becoming a better steward of your body, your mind, your soul, your spirit, your finances, and your families. We're praying this episode was helpful for you.

Katie:

Before

Chrissy:

you leave, make sure you go over and subscribe to us and join us on your, our Facebook group, crunchy Christian Mamas on a budget where we will be continuing this conversation to hear what are some, um, things that you have done in your house to decrease your toxin load and, um, to e increase your detox effect effectiveness, effectivity effectiveness, detox effectiveness. Yep.

Katie:

Yep,

Chrissy:

Um, we would love to hear what resonated with you on this episode. Until next time, my name is Chrissy.

Katie:

and my name is Katie.

Chrissy:

And thanks for listening to Crunchy Stewardship.

Katie:

See ya.

Chrissy:

Bye.