Crunchy Stewardship
In this podcast we are taking a deep dive into what it means to steward our lives as God originally intended for us with the resources that God has given us. We will look at topics like food, medicine, finances, mental health and lots more through a natural lens with a biblical foundation.
Crunchy Stewardship
Fertility Nutrition: A Food Guide for Pre-Conception & Pregnancy
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In Part 4 of our Fertility Series, we are shifting our focus to what is arguably the most impactful aspect of your overall health and fertility: Nutrition. Chrissy kicks things off with a fascinating look into Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), explaining how our physical organs are deeply connected to our emotions. We also have an honest conversation about navigating holistic practices like TCM and muscle testing as Christians.
Then, we dig deep into the ancestral wisdom of Dr. Weston A. Price. If you want to prepare your body for a healthy pregnancy—or if you are just looking to heal your body from the inside out—this episode is your ultimate guide to the "Fertility Diet." We break down the generational impact of our modern diets and the specific, nutrient-dense superfoods our ancestors used to build strong, healthy babies.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- The Emotion-Organ Connection: A look at TCM, and how our bodies physically manifest emotions like anger, grief, and fear.
- The "Church Snack" Dilemma: Katie’s honest struggle with the processed foods we feed our kids and how to balance holistic health with grace and budget.
- The Pre-Conception "Big 3": Why Vitamin A, Vitamin D, and Vitamin K2/Activator X are absolutely essential for fertility, hormone production, and preventing birth defects.
- The Generational Diet: Why crooked teeth and narrow jaws are actually a sign of inherited nutritional deficiencies, not just genetics!
- Fertility Superfoods: The science behind why we should all be consuming cod liver oil, high-vitamin butter, pasture-raised egg yolks, and organ meats (and how to hide them in your food!).
Resources mentioned:
- Book: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price - https://amzn.to/4bZJXfK
- Resource: Weston A Price Foundation 11 Dietary Principles - https://www.westonaprice.org/11-principles-overview/
- Product: Pluck Organ Meat Seasoning - https://amzn.to/4bZJXfK
- Product: High-Vitamin Cod Liver Oil (WAPF Recommended) - https://www.westonaprice.org/cod-liver-oil
- Product: Thousand Hills Renegade Blend https://thousandhillslifetimegrazed.com/products/grass-fed-renegade-blend-ground-beef-with-organs
Chapters:
00:00 Fertility Series Roadmap
01:39 Why Nutrition Matters Most for Fertility
02:57 Random Revelation - TCM and the Emotion-Organ Connection
11:12 Christian Discernment for Eastern Medicines
21:36 The "Church Snack" Dilemma
26:48 The "Big 3" Pre-Conception Vitamins
27:56 Vitamin A - The Architect
28:53 Vitamin D - The Pro-Hormone
30:15 Vitamin K2 - Activator X
35:07 Vitamin A Deficiencies
37:25 The Nutrient Chain & Eating for "Bodybuilding"
43:27 Vitamin D Deficiencies And Dental Health
46:39 Refined Foods Change Generations
53:36 Fertility Superfoods List
01:01:32 Prenatal Supplements
01:04:49 Budgeting Health
Remember, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for t
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
Welcome to Crunchy Stewardship. I'm Chrissy Rombach.
Speaker 2And I'm Katie Fiola Jones. We are cousins on a mission to honor God by stewarding our health spiritually, mentally, and physically.
SpeakerFrom ancestral nutrition and natural remedies to biblical finance and holistic health, we are digging deep into how God intended us to live.
Speaker 3So grab yourself a raw milk latte and join us as we unpack the ins and outs of crunchy stewardship.
KatieHey there, crunchy friend, and welcome back to this next episode in our fertility series that we have been going through. If you're just tuning in for the first time, we, and I are going through a series all about fertility. We actually started talking about our own fertility slash infertility journeys and how God has just been with us the whole time and and what he's been teaching us through our own journeys and experiences. And then we looked at women's fertility and men's fertility, and now we're actually diving into kind of the next stage of our fertility series where we're going to look at how to increase our fertility or how to like bolster it, how to to become more fertile. And where we wanted to start was honestly where we believe. Is the most important place to start slash the most impactful place to start when it comes to our fertility and our general health. you can look at this whole series as just a general health series if you're not into the whole fertility stuff right now, because fertility really is a sign of overall health of your body. And so nutrition really is that one stop shop that is going to make probably the largest impact for the majority of us because is so much that we can be improving upon when it comes to our food and nutrition because we have strayed so far away from our kind of how our ancestors were eating and, and I'm, I'm talking like decades ago too, because even just a hundred years ago, um, like even 150 years ago, that's when kind of like the fall of. and nutrition and health kind of started happening. And so we really wanna take a look back further on like, how can we stay healthy without always needing medications and different things, like even vitamins and, and, um, taking supplements and stuff. Like we can really get all this stuff from our food. And so we're gonna take a, a, a deep dive into that today, specifically from a fertility perspective and what we can be eating for better fertility and all that good stuff. But getting too much into that, we're going to take a pause and start our episode off like we do all of our episodes kick it off with a random revelation. And if you're tuning in again for the first time, a random revelation is basically something that one of us has learned that doesn't necessarily pertain to the topic at hand for the episode. But it is something fun that we've learned. Usually it's crunchy, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's just a totally random fun fact that we've learned that we wanna share with you. But it's just something fun to, or it's a fun way to start our episodes off, and it usually gets us talking and we get, we have lots of good conversations off of it. I feel like. I hope you enjoy them. If you do, let us know over in our Facebook group, crunchy Christian Mamas on a budget. We'd love to see you there. this week, Chrissy is going to be sharing the random revelation for us. So Chrissy, what have you got for us?
ChrissyYeah, so I have started to become a lot more interested in traditional Chinese medicine. It's one of those things that, uh, Asian cultures have been using it for thousands of years and they still use traditional Chinese medicine, and it still proves to be effective for them. And so I'm kind of looking at the, the longevity of traditional Chinese medicine and like they have so much more longevity behind their science of treating illnesses and diseases than we do here in the western hemisphere with conventional medicine. And so I see a lot of value in looking into it and learning about it and seeing how we can implement it into our lives on a daily basis. And one of the things that I learned is the connection between our organs and our emotions. So. Katie and I have made it pretty clear on this podcast if you've been listening, that like our digestive system and our gut really is kind of the source of everything in our body. It impacts our mental state, it impacts our mood, it impacts, um, like bodily functions, aches, pains, vision, taste, smell, like all of it is all impacted by. Our gut. And so one of the things that I learned is the connection between certain emotions and certain organs. So for instance, anger is associated with the liver, fear with the kidneys. Joy is associated with the heart. Sadness is and grief are associated with the lungs, and worry is associated with a spleen. And at first when hearing that, it's like, okay, so if I am worried, does that mean I have a spleen problem? Or if I'm worried, does that mean I'm going to develop a spleen problem? And that was my original question also, like, which comes first? The chicken or the egg? The worry or the spleen problem? I'm not really sure. But traditional Chinese medicine uses these emotions to give us insight into what could be going wrong inside the body at any given point in time. And so when they are assessing a person and, uh, say the person comes in, they're extra worried, they're dwelling a ton on certain topics, things like that, they have some loss of appetite, they're tired. Usually this is what we would call anxiety. You know, oftentimes anxiety comes along with di uh, digestive disturbances, like some diarrhea, some constipation, maybe. Um, they might feel kind of weak because they're anxious. Well, traditional Chinese medicine will say. That this actually has to do with a spleen deficiency or spleen qi deficiency, or spleen qi descending, or a spleen yang deficiency, essentially saying there is a disunity or imbalance within the spleen. So along the same lines with the lungs, if somebody has a lot of grief or sadness or detachment or some physical symptoms that come along with those emotions, such as shallow breathing, sweating, fatigue, coughing, depression, excessive crying, even dry skin and allergies, a lot of those can be associated with lung chi deficiencies or lung imbalances. And so. If somebody comes in with some of those symptoms, um, traditional Chinese medicine physicians will look at the lungs and see if there's an issue going on there. Similarly with the liver, the emotions for the liver are anger, resentment, frustration, irritability or bitterness and quote unquote flying off the handle. So if you ever know someone who like, just kind of goes off the wall when you say something that is like the slightest bit offensive or disturbing or they don't agree with, or something like that, that can often be associated with a liver imbalance, which physically can present itself as headaches. Um, inappropriate anger, increased menstrual pain, which is fascinating to me. Dry eyes, um, other eye conditions and tendonitis. And so they say that this is with, um, liver cheese stagnation or liver fire, which. If I were to interpret that in conventional medicine terms, it means your liver's not working hard enough or your liver's working too hard, and the results of that could be just increased anger and frustration and irritability. Going on from that, the heart is associated with joy, um, or the lack thereof. And so it could be a lack of enthusiasm, a mental restlessness, depression, insomnia, um, sometimes comes along with the physical symptoms of it would be heart palpitations or excessive dreaming, or poor long-term memory, and sometimes even psychological disorders. And they say that this is associated with heart yin and heart fire. So, um, essentially with when there's an imbalance in the heart, it expresses itself as either too much or too little joy being expressed. Then the last one that has a connection with emotions is our kidneys. As I said earlier, the connection with the kidneys is a fear, so weak willpower, insecurity, feeling isolated. Um, and some of the physical symptoms with that could be frequent urination or urinary incontinence. Um, night sweats, dry mouth, short-term memory issues, lower back pain, hearing issues, or even hair loss in osteoporosis. Um, and they say that this is a deficiency either in the kidney yin or in the kidney yang. So all of these are very, very interesting to me. I would love to look more into it to understand what exactly yin yang chi and fire actually refer to, because I don't know for sure. Um, but I do just think it's fascinating that like, you know, God created our bodies so interconnected and so beautiful that. Like our organs and our hormones affect our emotions, and we can, we have insight into what is going on inside our body based on our emotions and our mindsets and things like that. And so I just think that's a really fascinating thing that I've learned and I wanna learn more about. Um, so if you know anything about traditional Chinese medicine or you've taken a TCM class, uh, let us know about it in our Facebook group. We would love to hear about that because I know Katie's very interested in TCM also. And uh, yeah, I just think it's very beneficial to integrate into our lives.
KatieYeah, I, uh, I mean, you, you know, Chrissy, Dr. Josh Acts obviously talks about, uh, TCM in his books and in his podcast and everything, and I do, I find it very fascinating it comes to some of the more Eastern culture medicine practices and, and that health stuff. I feel like people in the Christian space often link any of those things to this I this like woo woo idea. You know? It's like, oh, it's, it's Chinese medicine and it's like witchcraft or something. And I stumbled upon, uh, like a post that someone made in one of my crunchy, it's like a. Christian crunchy, something I don't even remember. It's like a faith-based crunchy group that I'm a part of on Facebook and someone was like, I'm looking into muscle testing and wanna know like what people's beliefs about muscle testing and kinesiology and things like that. And, and what you think of it from like a Christian perspective. Is it something that we should be staying away from? And there's people on both sides of the board that have very strong opinions on it. But the way that I kind of view testing and even chiropractic care and acupuncture and Chinese medicine, like even just like the herbal practices tinctures and all this stuff, homeopathy is also another one often gets thrown under the bus too, as, as being like witchcraft and woowoo e Um, the way that I like to think about it, when you really dive into a lot of these things, they actually are. Backed up by scientific evidence. There's, there's not as much many studies on some of these things as there are on like the quote unquote traditional sciences and, and health practices that we have here in our western culture. But there's, there, there are more and more studies coming out even about things like homeopathy and a lot of people now jump onto the, the wagon of chiropractic care. Um, it's becoming a little bit more common, I would say, and more widely accepted. But things like Chinese medicine and even acupuncture and muscle testing, I feel like tend to really get pushed under the bus in the Christian cultures.'cause they're like, oh, it's witchcraft and it's, um, what is the, what is that one word? Um. It's, it's in, I, I usually think about it because it's in Harry Potter, it's one of the classes that he takes divination or something. Um, and people are like, oh, that's what these things are. It's, it's basically, yeah, like being able to see into the crystal ball and, and interpret things about the world and really, I mean, things like muscle testing, it's, it's simply just your body is telling you something. Like, it's really fascinating when you start learning about muscle testing and kind of the science behind how it works, and it starts to blow your mind, how your body can start to tell you things just by simply how you press on it and how it responds when you're holding certain elements and different things. And it's, I would say it's just simply a tool that God has given us that we can tap into. And I at this point have not found any evidence for. Staying away from any of them. Um, and I, I still like, I still try to search for the answers because I wouldn't even say that I'm totally on the side of like, yes, it is so good for us and we need to dive into it wholeheartedly, because the, the reality is any of these things shouldn't become the end all, be all with our health. So anyway, this is not what this episode is about, but Chrissy.
Chrissythink biblically when we are looking at traditional Chinese medicine or more, uh, you know, homeopath, homeopathy solutions or strategies to help with ailments and things like that, one of the best things to ask is what is the. Reason that they are saying that these things help with these ailments. Um, for instance, when I went to Southeast Asia a few years ago, um, one of the common practices there if you have a cold, is they take snake oil and snake oil helps to relieve the cold. They also say that you get this cold if you ride a motorcycle without a jacket on, or if you're not wearing mittens, mind you, it's a hundred degrees where in Southeast Asia. So, and they wear like winter jackets and mittens on their motorcycles because they don't wanna catch the cold air. And catching the cold air has like a spiritual effect on your body in their tradition that it like creates opportunity for. Like impure spirits to come in and to cause a cold illness. And so they use snake oil to then like cast out those impure spirits.
Katiemm.
ChrissyNow that is something that I would raise a red flag to because I would say is the, the reason we're using this strategy, is it one to cast out impure spirits or is it one to merely just rebalance the liver hormones or digestion or something like that. And using the signs and symptoms that we see from the body in order to rebalance what exactly is going on from the body. So I think it's important to be very knowledgeable
KatieMm-hmm.
Chrissythe, um, tinctures and homeopathy strategies and Chinese medicine. Strategies that we use and to know, like the foundation of the thoughts and to understand, okay, is this more of like a spiritual foundation of our thought or is this a physical foundation of our thought? And with that, it can help us determine, is this something I should partake in? Because if it's a spiritual thing, then maybe we should hold off on it.
Katieyeah.
ChrissyBut if it's merely just like, okay, I'm looking at the tongue and it's helping me to understand what could be wrong with my liver or my spleen, well that's not really anything spiritual that quite literally is a physical display of something that's wrong inside of our bodies. And so I think it's something that's really important to keep in mind when you are learning a lot of these things, to kind of take everything, um, cautiously and do your research in order to be intentional. Now we have to be gracious that like God says, he. Holds it against, he does not hold it against us if we do something accidental that we didn't know about. Um, I think it's in the book of Acts when Paul is talking about eating foods sacrificed to idols and he quite literally says like if you accidentally eat a food that was sacrificed to an idol, like don't worry about it. Like God's not gonna hold that against you. It's not on your conscience. But if you intentionally eat a food that has been sacrificed to an idol, well now that's on your conscience and you should be worried about it. And so it's one of those things like if you mess up and accidentally do something that might have some spiritual implications, praise God. He is a gracious God and he is loving and he understands that we have limits in our knowledge and he's not gonna hold us against this'cause it's beyond our conscience. But if we are aware of spiritual implications like that and still. Against the Lord in that and going towards other spiritual realms in order to search for healing and things like that, then that is something that the Lord would hold against us, so
Katieit
Chrissywell,
Katiethat like
Chrissycovers it, but.
KatieEven like, I mean, I had a friend who the first time that I was going to get acupuncture done, she actually sat me down and she's like, okay, I just wanna let you know. I have gone to some acupuncturists who have been really great and some who have been really not so great. And so she explained her one experience with an acupuncturist who literally, when they were doing like muscle testing stuff, they're like, we're going to speak to your body, and your body is going to tell us, like, so we're gonna speak into your soul. And this, she, she said that the acupuncturist woman would like put her ear to like my friend's chest, to like listen to her soul. And she was like, it was so, like in that instance it was very spiritual. Very, yeah. Almost like woo woo feeling of like just your, your soul doesn't speak like that to someone. You know? It's, it that's so, but. My friend, my, another friend of mine was the one who actually, um, told me about the acupuncturist that we had then gone to in Colorado. And she's like, these people are Christians. In fact, we actually found out one of them is a pastor's wife, and then the other one goes to the, uh, church and things like that. And, and they like literally talk about Jesus during their practices and things like that. And that doesn't necessarily say it's a hundred percent good, right? Because anybody could say Jesus. And you know, even the enemy thing like knows that Jesus exists. We know that. But it was just to say that yes, it depends on the intentions of the practitioner that you're going to. And, um, yeah. I mean our, our chiropractor that we go to here in Michigan has talked about like the miracles that he's gotten to be a part of and how it's just so cool that he's like, God uses me to heal people. And he's like, I literally have been a part of someone. Uh, getting their hearing back, like they, they had lost hearing completely in one ear years ago. And through our chiropractic care, he's like, this man was like, what? I, and he like, came and he left and he came back one day and he was like, I didn't tell you this at our last appointment, but a miracle happened and my hearing is back. And so the, our, our chiropractor didn't even know that it happened until the guy came back and was like, I didn't believe it until I had to like, go and like, experience it out in the world. And like, he's like, oh yeah. It was just, it's wild. I mean, God could do so many cool things through so many people. However, it is interesting that now, okay, this is the, this is my segue into today's topic.'cause we're like already like 20 minutes into our show and we're still not talking about our actual topic. But I actually am going somewhere with this because it's kind of one of those things that when you. How was I thinking about it? When, when you start to know, it's like the, the whole idea of accidental sins. When you are doing something and you're, you, you don't realize that it's sinning until it is explained to you through study, through prayer, through a sermon at church. When you're like, oh my gosh, I did not realize I was living this way. Your job now, your responsibility as a believer is to repent and to turn and to do something differently. One of the things I've been kind of struggling with as a Christian who now been studying a lot of this health stuff, and especially when it comes to food and nutrition, is, and I literally asked this question to Wes earlier, if you knew something was causing cancer in would you continue to give that thing. To people, and especially like your loved ones or even just to strangers, like, would you continue to give that thing to people if you rightfully knew it was making them sick? And this is like, this is the point of like, contention that I'm at in my life is like, I'm starting to realize that all these foods that we often feed in church making people sick. They're, they're causing things as simple as, uh, and behavioral challenges with children all the way up into, you know, causing people cancer and diabetes and heart issues and all, all of the challenges that we face now. And yet it's something that we continue to feed to our families or feed at church events and, and give out to the public. And I, I'm at a really tough place because. We've learned so much about nutrition and how certain things, like all of the foods that we eat, lead to certain deficiencies, and, and yet we continue to do this. And especially when we know, when, when people know like cookies are unhealthy, and yet we still continue to give children cookies on a weekly basis. And I'm like, this is, this is really hard for me because I really, I know, I know what this is leading to ensure that one single cookie right now is not going to harm you in this very instant. But the of eating it regularly and then not eating any nutrient dense food on the other hand too, it's like. It, it makes us sick. Um, it makes our immune systems weak, but then it also can cause severe deficiencies that then lead to really intense illnesses. And even like infertility, obviously, like this is what we're talking about today, is like nutrient deficiencies do lead to infertility ultimately. And it's hard because, I, I don't know that the right, there's a right answer because West brings it up in conversations at church and staff meetings and they're like, well, cookies are cheap. It's, it's easy to buy cookies when they're gonna be a couple cents per cookie to feed to the children versus fruit or vegetables or something. And kids also like cookies more than fruits and vegetable oftentimes. And it's what they're, they expect and, like. But still, what is that teaching? Are we, are we teaching people that the body is a temple, that God is calling us to steward and to steward well, and that now we're feeding our kids these endocrine disrupting cookies that will impact their health long term. And now we could potentially make them infertile to have their own children one day. Ugh. And it's like this dilemma that I have in my head. Anyway, that's my, that's my intense transition into health and nutrition and fertility. But maybe Chrissy, you can just go somewhere else with it, because I feel like I'm in this doom and gloom space in my head and I'm wrestling with God about it. And I don't have the right answers at this moment, but it's just something I've been praying about of like, what is my, what is my role in this and how, how do I proceed? Where do I fight? What, what, what sword do I pick up? And what battles do I fight when it comes to food and nutrition, specifically within our church and what we feed our children? So
ChrissyI know what sword you can use.
Katieha ha ha.
ChrissyThe sword of the spirit. Ha ha ha. Which is the word of God
KatieYes.
ChrissyAnd did you know that? Because the word of God is the sword of the spirit That makes a study Bible a great sword and it means a pocket Bible. That's your dagger.
KatieYou are so funny.
ChrissyI didn't come up with that. Someone in my small group came up with that and I just got myself a new dagger and I'm very excited about it. It makes me happy. It's my dagger. Pull it straight outta the pocket anyways. Um, yes food. Ha can have a very negative effect on our bodies, especially when we are eating not good food. But the beautiful thing is that God created perfect food and good food for us that has really good impacts on our bodies and helps to contribute towards fertility and, um, contributes towards the improvement. Of these chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease and even like eczema and asthma and things like this, like so many of these things can be related back to our food. And so going through, when it comes specifically to fertility, there's a few vitamins and minerals that are very, very important for preconception. Um, and those, the three of them are vitamin A, vitamin D, and vitamin K two. So vitamin A, um, Dr. Preston a a price refers to this as the architect of our, um. Fertility or our bodies. So it pretty much tell it works inside of an embryo, um, and works on the differentiation of our cells. So pretty much tells one cell, you're going to become a heart and this cell, you're gonna become a brain and this cell, you're gonna become a bone and things like this. And so vitamin A is super, super important because it has to do with the differentiation of cells. It helps to prevent birth defects from forming. So heart defects or um, leg, arm and leg defects and things like that can all be prevented through the ob, uh, through taking in enough vitamin A, vitamin D, Dr. Pres wein a price calls it the pro hormone, which essentially helps to regulate the immune system. And is crucial for hormone, hormone rejection and hormone production. Goodness gracious. And prevents the body from rejecting the embryo. Because if you think about it, like in the first trimester of pregnancy, like women are so sick, they are nauseous and they are tired. A lot of them vomit a lot. As Katie mentioned in one of our previous episodes, she was sick for like the first 16 weeks of pregnancy
KatieYep.
Chrissyand that's just not fun. But vitamin D plays such a big role in that, in decreasing illness because it that. That illness that women feel in like the nausea and the, the, the ick is our body is trying to reject the new embryo because it's a foreign substance. Like it wasn't there before and now it is, and it's kind of taking over a lot of space in the abdomen and we need to get rid of it, you know? Um, and so it helps to prevent our bodies from seeing it as a foreign substance and from attacking it. So that's another reason why vitamin D is very important for fertility. The last one is vitamin K two, which Dr. Price calls the activator X. Um, it's essentially the quote missing links because it acts as a shuttle that brings the minerals that you drink and eat, so such as calcium and magnesium and things like that brings them into the bones and the teeth, and so. Vitamin K two, aside from a fertility standpoint, is really, really important for also preventing cardiac disease. Because if you have enough vitamin D and you have a lot of calcium, well the vitamin D helps to absorb the calcium into your body, but the calcium is kind of just stuck in your arteries and in your veins until that K two comes in and tells it to go into the bones. And so sometimes that calcium can build up and cause plaques and things like that inside the arteries and the veins, which is not good. And that's where we get a lot of heart disease from. But when we have K two, it tells that calcium and the magnesium and the manganese to go into the bones or go into whatever hormone or whatever organ needs to use it, um, in order to, uh. Maximize the nutrients that we are actually taking in. And so, um, and specifically in men, it actually also helps with testosterone and sperm production. Fun fact. So helps to regulate the testes and make sure that they're doing their job properly so that we can actually make new babies.
KatieYeah, the vitamin K two is really interesting because, so if, if any of you go and read the book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, which yes, I do mention like every week wein a price actually in his book only says Activator X. So they didn't actually have, they didn't, they have, they had not identified, um, vitamin K two yet at that point, they just knew that there was something different about that was. Uh, made and produced by cows who were pasture raised basically. So a cow that lives in an ice cream pasture, lots of sun gets to roam around all this stuff versus the cows that were being fed, um, you know, soy based products in a feedlot and never got to go outside. There was something different about these butters and the fact that the butter that was from these pasture raised cows was helping people stay healthier than the butter that they were getting from these sick cows basically. And what West Egg price basically called it was Activator X. And it's just really interesting when you compare certain foods to one another. Like not all butters are made the same. And that's why it's really important that when you're feeding yourselves and your family certain foods, you really want the higher nutrient dense food because. He had discovered, and this was a hundred years ago, this is over a hundred years ago, that they had discovered this. That a difference between the way that certain things are made and the nutrients that the animals themselves are eating and what we receive then. And we need all like this kind of rainbow and perfect selection of all these vitamins and nutrients in order for them to actually be absorbed. And so a lot of like in the crunchy space know that if you're going to do vitamin D, you need it to be like the vitamin D, you know, plus K two when you, when you get that bottle. if you just take a regular Vitamin D supplement, not going to be absorbed into your system. It basically just kind of is like a waste of money in a sense. And so you need to have the K two one, but Weston a price, like even takes it a step further. And he is, and, and he talks about not doing any, like his whole thing is obviously getting as many of the vitamins, nutrients, and supplements and all the things from Whole Foods that are prepared properly. And so he talks about making sure to have lots of, uh, like the nutrient rich butters and the cod liver oils because cod liver oil is basically a perfect form or perfect, um, mesh of vitamin A, vitamin D and his activator X. Um, same with certain like nutrient rich butters that are from cows that are specifically grazing on grasses grown in early spring or um. Types of certain times of the year, um, in the fall of, or I guess certain areas where the grass is growing at certain points anyway, spring butter is actually the best butter based on his findings, but it's, really, yeah, activator X is one of those ones where I, like, it took me a while'cause in his book he just talks about activator X and it, so I had to google like, what is this activator X? Like, where do I find it? And it's like, oh, vitamin K two. And I'm like, oh, I knew that now, In, in his book, he also talks about how a vitamin A deficiency. There were lots of studies done on pigs. And the pigs that had, um, like a, they were given a vitamin a deficient diet. All of their babies were born without eyes, like literally no eyeballs. So Chrissy just talked about how vitamin A helps, like it tells your body to produce certain, uh, organs in the babies that you're growing in your, in your uterus. And A is one of those ones that's like, yeah, make eyeballs. And so Vitamin A deficient pigs like the moms, all of their babies were born without eyeballs. And they actually did it. They did the experiment on both moms and, um, or like the, the male and female pigs and the female and male pigs, both of them who were nutrient deficient, produced the same outcome. So if the mother still had a, a vitamin A. Um, non deficiency. What is the opposite? Like they were, they had vitamin A.
ChrissyThey were adequate in their vitamin A levels.
KatieThey had vitamin A in their diet, but then the male pig did not. The babies still were born without eyeballs. So it's not just the woman who needs to have a good diet. It's the men too. Obviously their role is done after the egg has been fertilized, but that's why it's really important to start doing these things before you ever plan to get pregnant, because the men do play a role before they, before you find out you're pregnant. So it's really important to do these things ahead of time, so,
ChrissyAnd as we mentioned last week, remember it takes three months for sperm to be created from the initial, um, cellular differentiation or, um, cellular multiplication of a immature sperm cell until maturity. When that sperm cell is regu ready to be ejaculated from the body, it is about a three month process, and so that means that. The man's vitamin Defic, vitamin deficiencies or vitamin Adequacies three months before conception is what's really important for the quality of their sperm.
KatieMm-hmm.
ChrissyAnd you know what's funny, Katie, is you're talking about this about like what pigs eat and what cows eat and things like that. And I don't know why, but it's making me think back to elementary school when we were learning about the lifecycle. And I don't know if you also had to do this, but we had to draw the lifecycle and it starts with the sun. And you have the energy from the sun goes into the grass, and then the energy from the grass, it gets eaten by a grasshopper, and then the grasshopper gets eaten by a bird and then the bird gets eaten by. A whatever, predatory animal or whatever. And then the human eats that predatory animal and the human gets all of the energy from all of those different layers of the, the lifecycle or like this energy chain, I forgot what it's called. Something chain,
KatieMm-hmm.
Chrissyenergy chain,
KatieThe, yeah, I, I think there's different phrases, but yes, the energy,
Chrissylike that.
Katieremember
ChrissyYes. And what you're saying, it's like we, we literally learned about in elementary school, like the energy flows originally from the sun and through all of these different steps until it gets to the human, which is the end point, unless a shark eats you or something like that. Because some kids of course put a shark at the end of the line because you have to, right? When you're talking about life cycles and things like that. But I. Um, all this to say is like, we are, we gain the nutrients and we gain the energy from the culmination of all of these different plants and animals in every single step of the way. Um, so another important thing to keep in mind when you're choosing what you're going to eat.
Katieand this is, so that actually brings me to another point that Westin, a price made very clear in his book is humans and animals are very different in the way that they eat food. A lot of times, and I, and I learned this, I had a, a discovery channel moment in our backyard, um, with our chickens and, and all sorts of stuff. So we had chickens in Colorado. We plan to get them here soon. Um, now that it's springtime here in Michigan or coming up on springtime, Ugh. Anyway, what's interesting about animals is that they always eat for, um, what Western a price kind of talks about as like bodybuilding or body repairing purposes. You know, they eat specifically what they need. Like they know when they're deficient in certain nutrients and vitamins and, and foods. Like they know specifically that they need to eat the organs of a chicken in order to the bodybuilding products that they need in order to grow and be able to reproduce and all these things. So. It's interesting, like when our chickens were attacked by, um, I think at one point, I think it was like a, we think it was either a raccoon or like a rat or something. But what they did was they literally, this is so gross. They just like burrowed into the chicken and ate the insides and left the entire chicken. So then the chicken looked whole, but you could just see that there was like, like a, a hole in its stomach and all of its insides were gone. And so it's like the animal knew that it needed those organs in order to survive. Were you gonna say something?
ChrissyYeah, I've seen that a lot with birds.
KatieYes.
ChrissyLike if you act, if you come across a dead bird laying on the sidewalk, it's usually still like. Fully intact
Katiebut then
Chrissyexcept for a small spot. And as a kid I was like, oh my gosh, someone shot the bird.
KatieMm-hmm.
Chrissylived in Texas and it wasn't too crazy for someone to shoot a bird.
KatieSo that's
ChrissyBut yeah,
Katiethan animals is
ChrissyI
Katieare actually eating what they need for bodybuilding. And that means like for you to function properly, it's not just for energy purposes. We as humans focus more on just energy, like producing food, but not necessarily body building food because a piece of bread is going to give you energy for that moment. It's going to sustain you enough to let you go on for the rest of the day. A bag of chips will do the same thing. It'll give you a boost of energy and you can keep going. is that
Chrissydon't know. A bag of chips really just leaves me hungry. Not gonna lie.
Katiemaybe chips was a bad idea. Well, but, but even at that, like
ChrissyBad example.
Katiethey fill you in the moment and you kind of like, okay, I get like a full feeling. I don't feel starving anymore. Right? And so you're like, okay, I could keep going on, but then. that bag of chips actually going to like build muscle and, know, help cells regenerate and all this stuff maybe to a very, very small degree, but not to the degree that will continue to keep us healthy long term. And so that's what he's saying is like very different between humans and animals is like, we kind of just eat for pleasure and for energy. We just want things to taste good and want it to just kind of like satisfy us to be able to get to the next meal versus eating in order to build ourselves to be healthy beings who can withstand illnesses and and, know, fight against cancers and be robust for then building new humans like when we're pregnant. And so very interesting, just the difference between us and humans and that. Yeah, like a a, a fox is just gonna eat what it needs. It's not gonna eat the whole chicken when it's like, I don't need the feathers, I don't need the meat on this. I just want the organs because the organs are really what's going to me long term, not the rest of the chicken. So, um, yeah, that's hard. But when it comes to vitamin D deficiencies, um, that's, that's one of the ones that I did find kind of interesting was he kind of talked about, you know, vitamin D is probably one of his favorite things to talk about in his book. Um, nutrition and physical degeneration, because for him. West a price is a dentist. And so he looked a lot at bone structure in the mouth and the jaw. And when he saw people with vitamin D deficiencies, those people had softer bones. They had, uh, poor dental structure including, um, like narrowing of the jaw, um, crowding of the teeth. So if you've ever had braces or had your wisdom teeth removed, you actually have a deficiency. But it wasn't something that you, created or caused. It's actually something that your mother and then your grandmother before you caused in a sense. And I'm not saying like, oh, it's all mom and grandma's fault that you now like, that you need braces or that you had to get your wisdom teeth or wow, I guess you could say that, but we didn't know. People didn't really know that you needed these things and that's what's causing these problems. But before. were eating all these refined foods. Nobody had their wisdom teeth removed because their jaw was wide enough to have their wisdom teeth come in. And nobody needed braces and nobody needed teeth pulled because their mouths were crowded. They had sufficient nutrients, diets that allowed their bone structure to grow to its proper intended size. But now, since we're all so vitamin D deficient, our faces are narrower. Our hips as women are narrower. So it's harder to give birth as women. Um, you know, people need their teeth removed or they need braces. And it's just very fascinating to me'cause I'm like, I had braces, I had my wisdom teeth removed, and it's like, that seems so normal, but it's so normal now. But a hundred years ago that was like brand new and it was wild that like people had to get teeth pulled and that their teeth couldn't grow properly. And it's all because of a vitamin D deficiency that started. From their mothers eating deficient diets. It's like, whoa.
ChrissySo you're saying crooked teeth, that even though it is genetic technically as in passed down from one generation to another, it's not actually. On the genes, it's in the vitamins and it's not, it's not genetic, but it's still inherited.
Katieexactly. Yes. Okay. You,
ChrissyOkay.
KatieWhat you just said at the
ChrissyI.
Katieit isn't technically genetic. There is no like gene that says you're going to have a, skinnier mouth. It's simply the pattern. So, and, and I didn't believe it at first until he showed countless examples of people across the world who were from certain that had the same, like you would, you would see them and they'd have the same bone structure, same bone structure, and then all of a sudden. What he calls the white man's food, which is refined flowers. So white flowers, it's refined sugars, it's vegetable fats, um, and then it's anything like sweet, like and or, uh, jellies and jams. So basically taking all the nutrients out of like fruits even, and just doing the sweetness of it. And he's like, when we have diets that are more based on refined flowers, like they're taking out all, like they take out the germ from the flower when they're making it, then doesn't have vitamin D in it and it doesn't have a vitamin A in it. And so we are nutrient deficient. And then all of a sudden the next generation of children, like you would see this whole tribe. Nobody ever for decades had any crooked teeth or malforms their mouths. And then all of a sudden that next generation. Started having, uh, squished teeth like their jaws and like their, their front teeth would be sticking out or they'd have, the bottom palette would be above the top palette and just all these crazy things. and it's interesting because it could be reversed, but now we're at a point that in order to reverse it, it's going to take like basically like three generations. Because what you and I talked about in our episodes specifically, I think it was our female one, about the eggs is like us women are born with the eggs that we are going to have for the rest of our lives. And like, so the babies that we have are already being like pre-made in our mother's wombs. And so. What, what my mom Jan ate during my pregnancy is now it has affected how Malachi turned out because that egg that produced him was being formed in my own mother's womb. And so it's just so crazy be so now to reverse that so that we have properly structured jaws and everything is going to take like several generations. So it
ChrissyThat's fascinating.
Katiebecause yeah, maybe our moms and dads had braces, but it's just because of what generations before them ate and it's, it's wild when you start learning it and you're like, oh my gosh, we're all nutrient deficient.
ChrissyAs you were talking, I was thinking, I was like, what is some people group that I know of that's still pretty like untouched by quote unquote white man's food? And so I just Google searched images of tribal African people and if you Google search churches, uh, images of tribal African people, they all have straight teeth. Like all the images that I'm seeing of them smiling. None of them really have crooked teeth,
KatieMm-hmm.
Chrissyat all.
Katiehave braces, obviously, so
ChrissyObviously they don't have braces. And I also like, this might be kind of weird, but thinking like as a kid of like my African American friends, so few of them. Actually had braces, you know, and a lot of them do have really straight teeth. And I kind of just have to think like, okay, if they came over to America, if their ancestors came over to America maybe four generations ago instead of six or seven generations ago, like our ancestors might have. Um, I wonder if their vitamin deficiencies are different or if they don't have as many as we do. That's fascinating.
KatieI just went on Google and like for anybody who's really curious on what I'm kind of saying, because again, I really didn't believe it until I physically saw it. And so in his book, he does have images of like, you know, there'll be like several generations of people who all have like beautiful teeth and then all of a sudden that next generation, so the littlest kid that's in the picture has like crooked crazy teeth popping out everywhere. And then granted, they, they didn't have dental care in general. They, they had white man's food, but they didn't have dentists in their town. So they didn't really have a way to repair these things and to pull teeth or straighten them out with braces or anything like that. So these kids would just suffer with like these malformed faces that have teeth just kind of sticking out. And sometimes they'd be coming out on the top of teeth. So literally if you go on Google and just type in like photos from nutrition and physical degeneration, a lot of pictures from them. Any of those pictures that are black and white are pictures from the book. And you will start to see like, okay, there's kids and, and maybe like if you click on them, they might explain it, but in the book they explain like, here's certain things, like this is what's going on in this picture. But then you'll see like people who like this is again, it's like hundreds of, or not hundreds, it's like 800 years ago. So 100 years ago people who had like perfectly formed teeth and they look immaculate, like something from like a dental commercial or something like that. And it's like, how did they have such perfectly beautiful teeth that also, so his big study was. Finding the, the cause for, uh, cavities. And so they, none of them had cavities and they had perfectly straightened teeth, and they're not people who are brushing their teeth because they were not introduced to brushing their teeth. And really the only reason we have to brush our teeth is because our diets are so poor and they're filled with so much junk these days that if you don't brush your teeth and take good care of them, you will end up getting worse cavities than any. Yeah. It's, it's just wild. It's so fascinating to me that really everything is related to our nutrition
ChrissyNow that you're saying that, it makes me,
Katieso strongly about it.
Chrissynow that you're saying that, I'm thinking back to last year when I went to the dentist last summer, I was told that I had four cavities, and that's like more cavities than I have ever had in my life. And I was really mad about it. But I did not put two and two together that a month prior when I had gone to my primary care doctor and she tested my vitamin D, I was deficient in vitamin D. And now I wonder now that my vitamin D levels are back to a normal range. I wonder if I would have any cavities this year. When I go to the dentist, I don't feel like I have any.
Katieone of the books I want to read next is, is that a guy who kind of took a lot of Wes a prices and then he created a plan on reversing. Uh, cavities. And so if you have a cavity that's like very small, um, you know, it's not like impacted or anything, there are now ways in which you can remineralize basically your teeth. Like they can regrow, like the minerals can kind of fill in those small divots that you have. And so that's the next book I wanna read because I'm, I'm so curious because again, it really is all food related and Yeah. Anyway, when it comes to food for infertility, um, and what you want to be focusing on though for, for health obviously, but fertility specifically as well. Um, some of those things that I've mentioned, and then we'll add onto it, that Western Egg price specifically recommends as fertility. Super foods are like a high vitamin cod liver oil. That's actually, I would, that's one of those things that I. Would probably recommend for everybody, like no matter what your diet is, what you're eating, we could all highly benefit from a high vitamin cod liver oil because the rest of our diets these days are so nutrient defen deficient. Um, even if you're eating like really solid butter or milk or meats from pasture raised cows and things, again, like Chrissy was saying, it's this whole energy trail now that like whatever the cow is eating is what we then eventually eat as like the nutrients and everything. And our soil is now so depleted of all of the vitamins and nutrients that we need as humans. That getting that from the soil into the cow into us is so difficult now because of our farming practices over the last, um, and. All that to say cod liver oil is definitely something that we could all benefit from, but especially if you are trying to get pregnant or are pregnant, I recommend it. Um, Western a Price has a whole article on their website with the cod liver oils that they do recommend. Um, what's great about it is that it's a whole food. It's not a synthetic vitamin that you're taking to get a and d in it. Um, but cod liver oil has the proper ratio of a and d that you need, um, to stay healthy. And so it's really great, especially like through the winter when you're not getting as much sun and stuff. Um, I recommend it, but I, I plan on taking it year round. We started taking it, um, in the winter, but I'm gonna just keep doing it'cause it just makes a lot of sense. other thing is, um, butter and what's interesting too is so West Egg Price actually talks about like high vitamin butter. Um. But then he actually talks about this process of getting it to an oil form that when you get it to its oil form, so like when you melt it with very low heat and then let it cool and then kind of like take it as an oil versus just the butter for some reason when you like, like melt it down, it makes the K two in it more available. So that activator X of it. So basically it allows your body to absorb more of that vitamin D properly. So, um, butter, I just, I mean, I would just recommend getting a really high quality butter in general. Um, ghee is also good. So ghee is GHEE if you're not familiar with it, it's clarified butter, um, which is also, it's, it's really good for you. And then, so I'll, I'll say the maybe less. or weird things first, and then I'll get to the weirder ones. So egg yolks, um, like specifically from pasture raised chickens are very important. They're high in choline, which Christy and I were talking about. And choline is just really good for all sorts of health things. Um, but especially for brain development for babies. And so like when your babies are little too, like one of the first things that we fed Malachi was actually egg yolks. And I know that people like will get all up in arms about it because, um, they're like, oh, what about egg, uh, allergies and stuff. And, uh, we didn't really worry about that at all, um, for other various reasons. But, um, yeah, so he, he eats eggs every day. He eats more eggs than I I do, but egg yolks specifically have, um, the choline in it that's really good for you. Now here's where maybe people will be like, Ooh, I don't know about this. Organ meats are so important for our diets, and it's one of those things that I'm saying to myself as well that like, okay, we really do need to eat more organ meats. And we've been trying as much as we can ourselves to incorporate as much organ meats as we can, but specifically, liver is so important as well as heart, um, like cow heart and, and uh, chicken heart, um, is really good, but liver is really, really good. Um, it's a really high, uh, source of vitamin A. But also what's really interesting is that a lot of the organs and animals have, um, oh, what is it? What is it that prevents, um, what is it scurvy that pirates would, or like,
ChrissyVitamin.
Katieon C. Thank you. Thank you, Chrissy. Um. Uh, meats are very high in vitamin C, which is interesting'cause in his book I learned that Eskimos, you know, that live in basically a frozen tundra, they don't have access to fruits. Like they just, fruits just cannot grow there. They don't, they're not imported there easily. And so he wondered how people were able to survive up there and not get scurvy. And they were, they, you know, he a, he was talking to the Eskimos and described scurvy and he's like, they, they basically showed Weston a price, like this is what we eat. And it was like, I don't remember if it was specifically the liver or a certain organ, but basically it was an organ meat that is also high in vitamin C. And that's how they knew, like they knew that if they, we, they ate the organ meats, that they wouldn't get scurvy. And so. high in vitamin C, but organs are so good. We egg price specifically recommends eating three to four ounces of organ meats per week. Um, I highly recommend incorporating it into like a ground beef recipe. And so we've actually, we purchase, um, it's called the Renegade Blend by, uh, I forget what company right now, but if you, if you Google that. I, I'll, I'll try and find a link to it too. But we, we get that and they, it's basically half organ meats and half ground beef. And then we usually add like a pound of ground beef on top of it, depending on the recipe.'cause some recipes, it hides the organ meat flavors. Um, and you just don't notice it as much. But some of them, you really can tell that it's made with organ meats'cause it's got that like metallicy flavor to it. So it's, it's hard. We also use pluck seasoning, that's P-L-U-C-K that is made with organ meats and we put it on top of most of the foods that we eat. So it just adds a little extra organ meat to our diets, um, without necessarily tasting it and noticing it as much. And then the last thing that Weston a price recommends are fish eggs. Um, this is not something that we have gotten into too much, um, but traditionally in a lot of the cultures that he. I visited, especially those that were near the water Eggs were specifically like scavenged, I guess, and then given to women were getting married. And it was basically like they, it was like a fertility, super food that women, when they would get married would go through these special diets and it would usually consist of things like fish and fish eggs and organ meats and things, because they kind of knew that this would help produce healthy, strong babies long term. And it's just like that ancestral wisdom that we've kind of lost over time. And it's, it's one of those things that I'm like, again, it's kind of like that idea of like getting back to the way that God originally intended and designed all of this. It's like he, he produced food so perfectly that we shouldn't need to taking supplements and vitamins and things. However, our food is so nutrient deficient now that even if we follow a lot of these guidelines, we still kind of need. Like extra on top of that because our soil is so d depleted from all the nutrients. And so on top of that, I still recommend doing like a prenatal vitamin, um, if you're planning on getting pregnant, but obviously, especially as you're pregnant. Um, yeah, it's still very much needed because even if you try to follow along, it's really hard and it's hard to get the proper nutrients that we actually need.
ChrissyYeah, max and I have been taking a lot of this in supplement form, so, um, especially the organ meats because we. Even sometimes the texture of the ground beef with the organ meat in it is like a little softer. Um, and you can kind of tell it's there. So we've actually been taking organ supplements, um, which I personally don't mind. Like some people don't love them because they make'em burp or things like that. I have not noticed anything with these supplements, but we've been taking that. And then we've also been taking, um, juice plus supplements, which is pretty much made from just fresh fruits and vegetables. It's like a concentrated, dried version of a lot of the vitamins and minerals that are found in fruits and vegetables. So we've been taking that, we have been taking, um, just regular fish oil because we had it, and we need to finish it before we buy more because that is one of my, uh, toxic qualities of my non-toxic,
KatieYep.
Chrissyuh, journey, is that I can't throw things away. Although I did do a fragrance purge a few weeks ago, and I took every, all the fragrance things out of my bathroom and put it in a bag, and it was sitting in the living room for like three weeks, and finally Max came over. He's like, what are you doing with this? And I said, well, it needs to go in the trash, but I can't get myself to throw those away because most of them are still mostly full. He said, we're done with it. And he put them all in the trash for me and I said, oh, thank you. I couldn't do that myself. So. I finally got rid of all my fragrances, but we're still working on the fish oil. And then we've also been taking a vitamin D three K two
KatieMm-hmm.
ChrissyI have been taking a multivitamin that my naturopath has recommended for me, and the multivitamin has a lot of things that a prenatal vitamin would have in it. Um, and then he told me pretty much whenever I do end up getting pregnant, just to add like folate and choline on top of it, um, just to get it in there. Um, but ultimately, like what we are taking now, even though it's not a prenatal vitamin, like has all of these vitamins and minerals that are going, would be in a prenatal or would be really important to have on a daily basis. So, and Max even says like he can notice a difference when he doesn't take his supplements and when he does take'em. So they are really important, unfortunately because our soils are so depleted
KatieYeah. Yep. Yeah, it's, it's a hard battle. It's not easy, and again, it's like. Sometimes it's, it, it's like a blessing and a curse to have all this information because yeah, it's, you're like, I wanna be healthy. I know my body is a temple and I want to treat it that way, and I want to take care of myself, but now I'm in this predicament of needing to spend extra on my groceries and on my health expenses because I know that I need these things in order to treat my body like a temple. So it's, and, and even like wrapping it fully around to the beginning of our conversation of me just like being frustrated with how we feed people within the church. It's like it's not easy because yes, it is more expensive to, to buy healthier foods, and that is that we have come to a place where. The crap that we eat is less expensive than the things that are really going to keep us healthy long term. And there's a lot of conspiracy around that as, uh, you know, like if, if everybody is in on it to like keep us unhealthy and maybe yes, and maybe no, who knows? But there's, there's still a lot of hope that with whatever you have, you know, the resources that you have, you just have to do the best that you can. And if your budget does not allow for you to go and buy organ meats, which traditionally are more expensive than buying conventionally grown ground beef, ground beef is still better than like, I mean, even just going to McDonald's and getting a hamburger. Um, and so have to kinda play the good, better, best. when it comes to a lot of these decisions, because it's hard to then all of a sudden be like, yeah, I'm gonna start spending thousands of dollars on my grocery bill because I need to buy all these expensive foods and supplements and things. And so wherever you're at with your nutrition journey, just take that next level up step. You know, if you, if you are eating fast food every day, stop eating fast food and start making your meals. My guess is that if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably not a frequent goer of fast food places. Maybe you are, and we're not judging you, but my guess is you probably aren't, you're probably
ChrissyIf you are still going to fast food places frequently, um, this is your warning and I encourage you to repent and turn from your sinful ways.
Katierepent, uh, No judgment, but. Uh, just figure out what the next best step is for your nutrition journey and start eating that thing. And then, you know, what we've found is that we haven't had to increase our grocery budget a whole lot now that we've kind of evened it out from, I mean, we, we actually, we had a budget date, uh, this weekend, Chrissy. It was really cute, super romantic. Uh, Wes and I went to a
ChrissyThat's so fun. Max and I have a budget date tonight.
Katieoh, look at us.
ChrissyI love it. Maybe it's the the end of the first quarter budget date.
Katieexactly, see? Yes, that's it. And, know, it's, it's just that thing where you're like, what is the most important here? And how, how can we rearrange our finances? And so we realized that we had been budgeting. More money for eating out than we actually ever use. Like we just don't eat out very much, like at all anymore. And it's really because when we start choosing a place to eat, I'm like, I bet they cook with seed oils. Oh, I bet everything is just full of like junk. And, and I just get into my head and I'm like, I like the food here better and I know it's going to satisfy me more and, and all this stuff. And so we play this whole game of like, we very rarely eat out. And if we do, it's usually because we have a gift card and we wanna use it. we don't spend a lot of money on eating out. So we actually increased our grocery budget a little bit more now because we're like, that's just something that we don't need to do as a family and we actually don't find that much enjoyment and we find more stress in it now than we do joy. And so just like one of those things that you have to just kind of figure out what's important to you in that time, because maybe you're a crazy busy family and eating out is the only way that you're surviving. So just pick whatever is the best in your situation. And find peace in that, like don't stress too much. So anyway, we have definitely come to the end of our time. Chrissy, why don't you wrap us up as you do so wonderfully.
ChrissyYep. I actually love that this episode we really, we did touch on the, um, part of scripture where our closing comes from. It's when Paul is talking to new Christians and he's talking about, um, a. Eating foods sacrifice to idols. And he says, if you don't know that it was sacrificed to an idol, then it's not on your conscience and you can feel free to eat it. But if you know it has been sacrificed, um, to an idol, then don't eat it because that will then be on your conscience. And then he says, whatever you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. We'll see you guys next time on Crunchy Stewardship.