The Pesticide Problem: How Glyphosate Disrupts Your Hormones and Fertility

Welcome back to Crunchy Stewardship! As we near the end of our Fertility Series, we are welcoming all our new listeners and tackling a massive topic that affects almost all conventional food in the United States: Pesticides.

Specifically, we are zooming in on glyphosate (the main ingredient in Roundup) and how this chemical acts as a major endocrine disruptor. We know the topic of toxic food can feel incredibly heavy, but our goal is to empower you with the knowledge to protect your family's health and fertility without letting anxiety take over. We break down the science of how pesticides act like "fake keys" jamming up your hormone receptors, and why swapping your food choices has a profound generational impact—affecting you, your children, and even your future grandchildren all at once!

Because we believe in being wise stewards of our finances just as much as our bodies, we also tackle the big question: How do you actually afford organic food? We share practical strategies for making the grocery budget work, prioritizing the right items, and viewing high-quality food as "health insurance you can eat."

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The Toxic Receipt Rule: Why Chrissy's random revelation will have you saying "no receipt, please" to avoid unnecessary BPA exposure at checkout.
• The Messianic Seder: A beautiful realization about Jesus being the ultimate sacrificial lamb at the Last Supper.
• The "Fake Key" Effect: How pesticides jam the cellular "locks" in your endocrine system, scrambling hormones and directly impacting sperm morphology and "swimability."
• The Generational Blueprint: How traditional ancestral wisdom proves that our nutritional and toxic loads impact three generations at once.
• The Toxin Bucket: How glyphosate acts as a neurotoxin, crossing the blood-brain barrier to cause brain fog and memory issues.
• The Dirty Dozen & Clean 15: A breakdown of the Environmental Working Group's (EWG) list so you know exactly which produce to buy organic and which is safe to buy conventional.
• Health Insurance You Can Eat: How to shift your financial mindset so that funding a higher-quality grocery budget today helps prevent costly medical interventions tomorrow.

Resources mentioned:

• Resource: EWG's Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 - https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/
• Resource: CDC Live Births Map - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/state-stats/births/fertility-rate.html

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome to Crunchy Stewardship
00:33 Fertility Series Updates
03:09 Random Revelation: Why You Shouldn't Touch Store Receipts
08:08 Crunchy Friends and Passover Talk
16:01 Pesticides and Glyphosate Risks
27:34 Birth Rate Map Findings
29:51 How Pesticides Disrupt Fertility
34:49 Egg Signals and Generational Impact
43:17 Neurotoxins and Food Experiments
46:48 Affording Organic and Final Encouragement

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

Transcript

Speaker 0:03

Welcome to Crunchy Stewardship. I'm Chrissy Roach.

Speaker 2 0:06

And I'm Katie Fiola Jones. We are cousins on a mission to honor God by stewarding our health spiritually, mentally, and physically.

Speaker 0:14

From ancestral nutrition and natural remedies to biblical finance and holistic health, we are digging deep into how God intended us to live.

Speaker 3 0:22

So grab yourself a raw milk latte and join us as we unpack the ins and outs of crunchy stewardship.

Katie 0:34

Hey friends, and thanks for joining us for another episode of Crunchy Stewardship. We are continuing our fertility series this week. We are almost done. I think what we're on episode eight and we've got a couple more after this so it feels crazy. Like I feel like we've been doing this a long time, but I also am like, wow, I can't believe it's almost to an end. I hope that you've been enjoying our fertility series. If you have, please let us know if you have been enjoying it and what episode has been the most enlightening to you. we would love to hear from you about what topics and what podcasts we should do next. We are always looking for ideas. Actually recently we had an influx of new members in our Facebook group, which is super exciting. It, believe, happened through somebody mentioning our podcast in another Facebook group randomly, or maybe our Facebook group was mentioned, or our podcast, I don't know. Something was mentioned and we had probably 50 or so new members to our Facebook group, which basically doubled our Facebook group because we only had about or so people in there. And that was really exciting. So if you are one of those new people who have joined our Facebook group, and maybe you're checking out our podcast for the first time, we wanna welcome you. Thank you for joining us and being around. And I do look at all of your submissions when you join the Facebook group to say, there's a question when you join the group that asks what topics you're looking for to like. Learn more about, and those give us ideas for new episodes to do. So I have collected all of those and Christy and I will talk about them in the future to decide maybe if there kind of like another series that we should do on a certain subject. I don't know. I think at this very moment we don't have an exact plan for what we're doing after the fertility series, but we have the next few episodes least planned out. So there's that for you. And yeah, we're just really excited. So with that, we will, well, I guess before we jump into our topic for the day, which will be pesticides, one of the most exciting topics, I guess. I don't know. I don't know where, what I was gonna say about that. Before we get into our episode, we always do a random revelation, which is basically one of us shares something that we've learned this past week or maybe recently, and we've written it down that we wanted to share. it typically doesn't have to do with the podcast episode, but it's just something fun that we've learned about. Literally it could be anything. And so this week is Chrissy's turn to share her random revelation. So Chrissy, why don't you share that with us?

Chrissy 3:37

Yes. So my random revelation today is actually the danger of receipts, like the kind of receipt you would get from a grocery store or from a department store or whatever kind of store you go to. They print out that receipt with the heat transfer paper and. Those receipts can actually be dangerous for our endocrine systems. So they have a chemical in them that's called bisphenol A or BPA as a lot of people know it. Um, it's pretty much what is in microplastics and this chemical can seep through our skin very easily, especially the skin on our fingertips, which is very porous and very absorbent. Um, I don't know. Obviously most people have probably seen if you go swimming for even like 15 minutes, if you're in a hot tub, your body doesn't really wrinkle, but the pads of your fingers and your toes will wrinkle. Or even sometimes if you take too long of a shower, this'll happen. And so that shows that those that skin, the parts, the skin on your hands and on the bottoms of your feet are very absorbent. And so. Um, touching these receipts can actually, um, the chemicals in the receipts can be absorbed into your body very quickly and can disrupt our endocrine systems. So, um, some things that, there obviously are always something that you can do. Well, most of the time there is something you can do about environmental hazards or risks that could impact your, um, endocrine system or just your health in general. And so for receipts. Often, I think the best case scenario is just to say no receipt and just don't get one. You have the bank statement on your computer, um, or in your phone, and you can easily look at it that way. If you do need to get the receipt though, um, a lot of people will say like, only touch it for a short period of time, like, touch it, put it straight into the bag, or just, um, try to pull your sleeve down and hold it with your sleeve that way so you don't actually end up touching the receipt directly onto your skin. So there are some strategies to avoid touching these receipts. Um, I have definitely used some of them. I'm very much in the camp of touch it quick and get rid of it. Um, throw it in the bag or throw it in the trash as soon as you can so that you don't have to hold it for more than a few seconds. So that's, that's my random revelation of the day is be careful about touching receipts.

Katie 6:15

a true fact. I have known that one before and Wes and I joke about it because he, he like believes that it's a thing, but ignores that it's a thing that we really shouldn't be touching receipts. And so. Like, we'll get a receipt back from whatever the grocery store, you know, it'll come out of the machine when you're doing the automated or when you're doing the self checkout. And I'm always like, you take it. And I like force him to do it. And he's like, whatever. And he grabs it and throws it in the grocery bag. And I'm like, no, don't let it touch our food. And it's funny, and I actually, I found a meme. So we moved here to Michigan almost exactly a year ago. It's, we're, we're getting close to a year. We're a month away from a whole year, which is

Chrissy 7:06

Has it? It's really already been a year.

Katie 7:09

wild.

Chrissy 7:10

my

Katie 7:11

So

Chrissy 7:12

gosh.

Katie 7:12

moved here, I stumbled upon a meme, um, probably on Instagram or something. And it was one of those ones where like, it's like, oh, you hear someone at the grocery store who tells their kids not to touch the receipts and I forget what the like person, it's like a, a silly. Like quick video thing of, of like a person, like with their eyes, like bulging, trying to figure out who's saying that because you're like, oh, I wanna be friends with you. And I sent that one to my girlfriends back in Colorado and I was like, this is how I'm gonna make friends here in Michigan is just listening for people to talk about crunchy things like this, like not touching receipts. So it was just funny. I'll, I'll have to see if I can dig that up and throw it in our Facebook group.'cause it was, it was pretty cute. And I was like, me over here trying to make crunchy friends hard way, just sitting and listening for people to say, don't touch your receipts.

Chrissy 8:06

I've definitely made friends that way. We went to a, uh, Seder Passover dinner this year right before Easter. Yes. It was so fun. We have a friend who does it, um, it's like one of her annual traditions, but I met a woman there and she was talking about health and nutrition. I looked at her, I said, wait, are you crunchy? She goes, oh, am I crunchy? I am probably one of the most crunchy. And then turns out she was more crunchy than me and we just talked all night long about crunchy stuff. And then her friend and my hus and Max were talking about theology books all night long. And it was like these two conversations of like, Max's greatest interest is theology books. My greatest interest is health and wellness. I'm like, we both found a little buddy at this party to talk about our favorite thing.

Katie 8:54

that easy because sometimes it's really hard and mean, you, you also get the people who they start learning that you're crunchy. They're like, oh, you're crunchy, and they kind of get turned off by that, and that's not fun.

Chrissy 9:08

Right. You have to be kinda careful. Like what kind of things do you share? At first, like, I'm not gonna come right in and be like, all medications are bad. You shouldn't be taking any medications because then I get a lot of flack for it. Um, which I don't fully believe that actually. Um, I believe somewhat that, um, medications are not always the answer, but um, I think it's easier to lead with. Yeah. I mostly eat just like real food, you know, the food that God created. If God created the food, then I'll eat it. But I usually try to stay away from processed things or anything that was created by people. And usually when I say that, people are like, oh yeah, that actually, that makes a lot of sense. Of course that would. That's what everybody wants to do,

Katie 9:58

I have always wanted to

Chrissy 9:59

yeah.

Katie 10:00

like, a Passover dinner kind of a thing. And we were talking about it this, just this past Easter, that there actually is a, like a local one that happens that's put on by, I wanna say

Chrissy 10:15

Hmm.

Katie 10:15

in the area. actually don't know, but it was like very quietly advertised at our church this year. And I saw it in the bulletin, but then it landed, it was, it's supposed to be at a park and it landed on a day where it snowed. And I was like, that'd be cool to do that, but it's snowing. And I've always really wanted to maybe host one. And so maybe now that we're in our own place, maybe next year we can do that because I, I just feel like that'd be a lot of fun and just getting to walk through a dinner that Jesus would've had right before he did what he did for us,

Chrissy 10:49

Yeah. And my favorite thing, um, my favorite thing, especially doing like a Messianic Passover Seder is having the Jesus focus the whole time where like the Passover meal was the Israelites awaiting their savior and. Throughout the Messianic Passover meal or Passover Seder, we are able to await the arrival or like, feel the anticipation of waiting for the arrival of our savior and then glorifying him and praising him and resting in the fact that like he's here and we already have a really good, uh, relationship with him. And, um, we've already had salvation through Jesus Christ, the, the savior that the world waited for for 2000 years. And so, um, that's my favorite thing about especially doing like the Messianic Seder, is it has like the, the post resurrection perspective throughout the entire thing.

Katie 11:55

have lamb at the meal or did you not have lamb?

Chrissy 12:02

a lamb shank. Like the lamb shank, like the, the bone representative. But then I think for meat we had brisket.

Katie 12:15

this is just something that

Chrissy 12:16

Yeah.

Katie 12:17

in the more recent years of reading like a reading about that dinner in the Bible is that there actually was no lamb at the dinner and. Just the idea of instead of having a'cause, it's supposed to represent, you know, the sacrifice that they're making to atone for their sins and everything. And obviously Jesus is ultimately that lamb, he is that sacrificial lamb for us. And so it's kind of cool because they didn't have a sacrificed lamb at the dinner, but Jesus

Chrissy 12:54

the last Passover with Jesus. Wow. I didn't know that.

Katie 13:00

Yeah, that, I think it was last Easter, but then I was reminded about it actually in the last couple weeks. I've been going through Bible recap, like year plan, like reading through the Bible in a year. And I'm currently at part in the Bible recap is going through that with where Jesus was at and. During the recap video, she mentioned that again, and I was like, oh yeah, I remember learning that, but I kind of forgot. And it's one of those things that you don't really think about until somebody else mentions it and you're like, oh wow, that's really beautiful, that is the lamb at the dinner. And so they didn't need the lamb for the food, which is just kind of cool. So, yeah,

Chrissy 13:46

You know, I could just imagine Peter sitting there and being like, yo, where's the lamb? Like you got these bitter herbs and horse radish here for me to eat and an egg, and I, I need some meat. Dude,

Katie 14:05

Oh, that is too

Chrissy 14:06

I could just picture that conversation happening specifically with Peter. None of the other disciples would be bold enough to say something like that.

Katie 14:16

I mean, actually Wes and I really like eating lamb. It's one of those meats that we have. Had more often restaurants, specifically we love Indian and Thai food and they often have lamb as one of the options. And we really like lamb. It's really good. And we recently got lamb hopefully make like we got lamb like some kind of, I don't even remember what part of the lamb. I don't know what cut we got, but we got some. So that way we could hopefully make our own Indian food since where we live is super rural and we don't live around a lot of really great Indian restaurants anymore, which is a huge bummer. But there is one really good one, but it's about an hour away and that's

Chrissy 15:06

Oof.

Katie 15:07

that's

Chrissy 15:07

That's like a very intentional date night kind of place.

Katie 15:12

for a date night, which was, I think it was our one year, or not one year anniversary. My goodness. It was our 10 year date of anniversary. So it was the, day that I think it was that. Yeah.'cause it was in the wintertime, not in the summer, which our anniversary, like our actual wedding anniversary is in the summer, obviously June, yay for June weddings. Um, but

Chrissy 15:33

Love June it. We're both biased for June weddings.

Katie 15:36

yes, first date happened in November and so I, yeah, when we went on this specific date here in Michigan, it was November. So hence I'm putting the pieces together that, that date was our 10 year date anniversary. anyway.

Chrissy 15:54

Wow.

Katie 15:54

Not

Chrissy 15:55

That's awesome.

Katie 15:56

details, but there all have it.

Chrissy 16:00

I love it. Well, with all of that, let's actually transition into the real topic for today's episode, which we are going to be talking about pesticides, which we already kind of mentioned at the beginning of, um, the episode. So a lot of people probably already know a little bit about pesticides. Um, they are used in most of the food in the United States, especially conventional fruits and vegetables. Um, bread products, uh, snacks. They're used with animal feed. They're kind of used everywhere.

Katie 16:42

the most pesticides or basically, well, it's interesting. There's a, there's like a duo thing. There are. Crops that are genetically modified and then they're, most crops that we have in America do use pesticides on them. But when they are genetically modified, then they like have to have pesticides on them. And so the, the main crops that if you don't buy them they usually are also genetically modified, are So you know, grains, so any breads, crackers, all that stuff. Corn and soy. And I think there's one more. I always feel like I, when I use that, when I talk about it, there's four, but those are the ones for sure I know. So those three things are typically genetically modified, which means when you go to the store and if you're buying something is non-organic of that that has like that food in it, will also almost a hundred percent be genetically modified versus like if you buy green beans that aren't. Organic. They likely, they may be genetically modified, but it's like a tossup because sometimes they're just not, in fact, it's like more like a 50 50 kind of a chance. But if you buy bread not organic, likely also genetically modified ingredients in it. So that's also not the best,

Chrissy 18:09

That's true. Yes. So the main, um, pesticide that is used is glyphosate. And so a lot of people in the health and wellness world, the crunchy world, have picked, like, created this like, oh, I don't know what to call it. Just,

Katie 18:34

or something? Is that what you're trying to

Chrissy 18:36

Yeah. Yeah. Like a stigma against glyphosate. So glyphosate is the main ingredient in Roundup. Um, Roundup is the weed killer that your grandpa uses to spray the weeds in the driveway or spray the weeds in the lawn or in the flower beds and everything like that. And it works great for killing weeds. It's designed to kill living things, and so when we put that in or on our food, and then eat this product that is designed to kill living things by disrupting the cellular metabolism. Uh, we are proposing a huge risks to, a huge risk to ourselves by essentially eating poison. Pretty much. Um, now the United States does have regulations as to how much is considered, quote unquote safe, um, specifically with the grass characterization. So if something is grass, GRAS, it is generally recognized as safe in certain doses and things like that. And so unfortunately, glyphosate and pesticides in general have been considered, generally recognized as safe, but they have also done plenty of research to find that exposure to these chemicals, especially a um, high concentrated exposure or long-term exposure. It can cause significant issues with our health long-term. And so when I'm talking long-term exposure, I'm talking like eating pesticide ridden foods every single day for 60 years of your life, which many people in the United States, that is a reality for them. They're trying to eat healthy eating fruits and vegetables, but oh, I don't really trust that old organic stuff. You know, it's just a label. I've heard that 10,000 times. You know, it's just a label. You don't actually know, like if it's actually organic or if it had runoff from another field. But the reality is. If you're not eating organic food, then you can guarantee it has glyphosate and other pesti pesticides in it, which can and will disrupt your health in the long run. So we're gonna go through some specific health disruptions that can be caused by these exposures to pesticides. The first one being cancer risk. So as we said, pesticides are designed to kill living things. Cancer is formed in the body when a cells reproductive cycle gets messed with. So cells in general have a checks and balances system. Um, so we're going back to ninth grade chemistry or. Ninth grade, no, ninth grade biology. Here we go. Going back to ninth grade biology with cellular reproduction. Okay. When cells are replicating in the body, they replicate their DNA, and then through mitosis, if you remember that big word, they split and create two new cells and then they grow a little bit more, replicate their DNA split and create more cells. So there is a checks and balances system in the body that tells the body, Hey, in this section where there might be a scrape or an abrasion or an injury, we need to create more cells to heal it. And so the body will create. Fast, create more cells faster in that area, in other areas of the body where there's not an injury, there's no abrasion, there's no scratch, no broken bones, anything like that, the body says, all right, we're just gonna keep going. Just a continuous turnover to replace the dead or dying cells, because our cells are living things. They don't live forever, right? They're dead and dying cells on our bodies, in our bodies all the time, that our bodies use the hearts of these dead and dying cells to help to create more cells. And so when there's not a problem, the cells are supposed to only replicate at a consistent rate to replace the dead or dying cells. Obviously, as we age, that rate changes because skin gets wrinkly, and that's just the reality of it. What happens with cancer is the. Checks and balances system that controls the speed at which these cells replicate gets destroyed. And so the body can no longer tell these cells, Hey, it's time to slow down. We need to stop replicating. And so these cells take over and they just go, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, over and over and over again. Now, I have to be honest, this is actually a very normal phenomenon for most people. If you look at the replication of cancer cells over and over and over again, there is bound to be some cells that just don't replicate properly. In which case our bodies have a checks and balances system to kill the sick cells, the ones that could be cancerous, the ones that didn't replicate properly, the ones that have DNA malfunctions to them. And our bodies are designed to recognize that and kill that sick cell so it doesn't cause illness throughout the entire rest of the body. But when we have ingested pesticides and like glyphosate that, and we've ingested them for a long term or have been having high exposure to them, our body loses that checks and balances. So it can't kill the six cells and can't regulate the speed of cellular replication. And so these cells just replicate themselves. Without any sort of checks and balances. And we have seen in the government, when the checks and balances go out the window, we got problems. And so same thing happens at the body. There becomes a problem, a tumor grows, and sometimes that tumor splits off goes other places. And we end up with cancer all over our bodies, that our own bodies, our own immune systems that were designed to kill the cancer to begin with, cannot fight it off because it's been destroyed that much in the process. So cancer is the first of, um, Menti many, uh, issues that can arise from pesticides, specifically glyphosate.

Katie 25:37

I think that pesticides are probably the scariest like risk factor for cancers. When I like what, the more I've kind of gone into it, I feel like. The pesticides are, are typically one of the larger reasons that we see cancers. And there's a lot of documentation now about like, especially like the people who are spraying the pesticides and the farmers who are in the fields with the pesticides. Those areas typically have larger amounts of cancer. you can Google it because you're our Google King Queen. I almost said king, you're not a king, you are a queen, you're our Google Queen. But there's, I think it's like Iowa has the largest amounts of cancer diagnoses in America, and obviously like it's somewhere in the middle of the United States somewhere farmland. And it's one of those things where you're like, oh, you put it together and you are like farm pesticides, cancer. Yikes.

Chrissy 26:45

Hello, not Iowa, Kentucky.

Katie 26:48

There you Hmm.

Chrissy 26:50

With approximately 503 to 519 new cases per 100,000 residents. Yeah. Which the, the state average. Uh oh. Other states with high cancer race include Iowa and Louisiana and Virginia. Mm-hmm.

Katie 27:15

I too? I'm curious are like, I wonder if they have information on this, but like states with the highest levels of infertility or however they would use that information or collect that information. Do you know what I mean? Like I wonder if

Chrissy 27:32

Uhhuh,

Katie 27:33

if that I'm just

Chrissy 27:36

California, Texas, and Florida.

Katie 27:40

Huh. I

Chrissy 27:41

But I wonder if, I don't think that's a percentage based. I think that is, it looks like it's not giving me a percentage. It's just giving me an overall number. Fertility rates in the Northeast and higher fertility rates in the Southern or western states like South Dakota. Alas. Oh wait, nevermind. Disregard that.

Katie 28:03

yeah. I'm just curious. I, so obviously

Chrissy 28:07

Ooh, here we go. The CDC actually has a map of live births per 1000 women ages 15 to 44. Um, so backwards from your, uh. Uh, South Dakota actually has the highest rate of live births per 1000 women between 64 and 80. Um, and it looks like kinda the Midwest region has pretty high live births, like that whole region going from like Texas to Minnesota all the way up, um, including like Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky, have pretty high live birth rates. The lower birth rates seem to be in more populated countries like New York, um, like New England States, California, Oregon, Washington. So, you know, this is just an observation. This map looks very similar to a political map, but that's just

Katie 29:08

interesting.

Chrissy 29:09

like the, the state colors kind of not like they're not consistent, fully consistent with a political map, but like, it's not that far off. The purple states are very much in the middle. so funny.

Katie 29:26

We'll so people can take a look at it too, because

Chrissy 29:30

Yes. If you would like to.

Katie 29:33

it's

Chrissy 29:34

Mm-hmm.

Katie 29:34

of fascinating

Chrissy 29:35

this is the CDC website. So this is not like it out of crunchy landia, like it's considered quality research in the grand scheme of things for the most part.

Katie 29:51

Well, so yes, so definitely are linked with cancers. But then on the fertility side, uh, so I, the way that I like to see it, there's, there's a few different ways that pesticides impact our fertility. And so of the first ones has to do with the endocrine system, like Chrissy said. So if you imagine your body is, like, your body's hormones are like keys, and then your cells in your body are like locks. the problem is that pesticides are like fake keys made of like, like a cheap plastic. You think of like the cheap plasticy keys and they can slide into a lock so they can slide into your cells, but they don't necessarily turn the cells. And so. When the right key, such as, you know, the hormones like estrogen or testosterone fit into the lock. They, they turn them on properly, but the fake keys, like the, uh, any, anything that's endocrine disrupting, kind of like what we've been talking about,

Chrissy 30:55

or, um, like we've talked about in the past, parabens that can act like PEs estrogens.

Katie 31:03

get in there and then they don't turn the cell on properly, and that cell might be telling your body to produce sperm a certain way or to release an egg or to, to do, to do its job properly. But when they're told to do something different or they're not told to do something specific, then message is not being received to the body properly. And so it's kind of like jamming the lock into the. Or jamming the key into the lock and then breaking it, and then that cell's like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. And so it kind of glitches. And so that's like one of the first things. And one of the things that can happen with that is it can ultimately impact the sperm health. And so if they, if the cells aren't telling the body to produce sperm a specific way, or they're telling it to, to produce sperm the incorrect way, then you're going to have a lot of problems with being fertilized when the sperm isn't coming out properly. I talked about in our male episode, um, about like sperm morphology and how sperm can like look different. Like the heads of the sperm can look different, the tails of the sperm, they could be misshapen and everything. And so when that happens, it's, you have a, a less chance, less likely chance of actually fertilizing an egg. And so if the sperm isn't. Being told to grow the right way, then it, it can't happen. And so pesticides ultimately do that to sperm. Um, and they, they also act like, like if, if you think about like sperm are going through, you know, the women and they, it's like trying to get to the egg, right? Chrissy talked all about in our, both our

Chrissy 32:52

You know what's funny? My mom made fun of me. She called me today. She goes, Chrissy, I was just listening to you. I said, really? She said, yes. I was listening to you talk about swimability of the sperm. I made that word up, but it's so true. Like the swar, the sperm need to have good swim abilities.

Katie 33:11

like, they're like little explorers, right? They're like going through all these caves trying to figure out like how to get to the, like, treasure at the

Chrissy 33:18

It is the ultimate cave with plenty of ridges and stalagmites and stalactites and,

Katie 33:28

little sperms like we talked about. It's like they're all trying to race

Chrissy 33:31

and they're also battling a against a huge current that's pushing them the opposite direction.

Katie 33:39

whichever one wins is just a

Chrissy 33:42

Strong swimmers, man. Strong swimmers.

Katie 33:45

they, so they're They need to have like a clear map basically to get there and they need strong, like a strong motor like swim ability, like Chrissy's saying, like they really need to be strong in order to get there because if they're weak, if they're built, like if they're, if they grew improperly because the keys weren't fitting into the cells right. Then, you know, the, the pesticides ultimately act kind of like an interference on. map of where they're supposed to go, and they scramble this map up to make it really confusing for the pesticide or for the, not the pesticides to get there, but for the sperm to actually get to the egg. Um, so it's kind of like they're stalled because of the pesticides. Um, get lost and they go in circles versus like knowing clearly where to go. Um, and then interestingly enough, we, we kind of talked about the placenta, what that was last

Chrissy 34:47

say something about that?

Katie 34:49

Mm-hmm.

Chrissy 34:49

Um, one thing I learned through getting lost in Instagram landia is apparently the egg. So when the woman's body releases an egg, it actually gives off like little signals. I guess we could call'em pheromones, but it's probably some sort of hormone. I don't know exactly what hormone, but that like brings more sperm towards it. And so the sperm are like naturally attracted towards that specific direction of where the egg, like the smell of the egg is in the body.'cause you know there's two fallopian tubes, they gotta choose one and half of them do go the wrong way. But yeah.

Katie 35:33

the of mice where they like put them in the maze, you know, and they put the cheese at the end of the maze and they're like, okay, get to the end of the cheese. And they have to like smell their way through the maze. Okay. That's silly, but, okay. That's a really good point that you said that it's a hormone that ultimately is produced by the egg in order for the sperm to figure out where to go. Because again, if the endocrine system is not working properly and you have something like pesticides impacting it, or the microplastics or the tth thalates or fragrances and all, all of the things that we've been talking about these last several episodes, if any of them are throwing the endocrine system off. Then I'm sure that that specific hormone that's supposed to be released in that process is also impacted just as many of the other hormones are.

Chrissy 36:24

Oh, for sure. And I think that goes back to Egg health too, which, you know, like the, the quality of a woman's eggs. Are somewhat determined before she's born, um, because the eggs are formed in the womb when a baby girl is, what did I say, eight weeks gestation or something like that. Um, but nonetheless, they're not completely mature yet until they're released. And so as a woman, we have control over that final maturity stage of, um, our own eggs to make sure that we are releasing quality eggs that are going to be able to survive, um, and create a baby.

Katie 37:09

so that, that's actually one of the points that I had written down. Um, one of the most mind blowing of all of this is kind of like the generational effect that all of these have on our bodies and on humans it's kind of like, I think it's about three generations. So yeah, when a woman is pregnant a daughter, specifically, that daughter is already developing those eggs and then like the ones that she's going to then eventually produce babies with. And so that means if that pregnant mom is exposed to heavy pesticides or all these other toxins, she is potentially affecting three generations all at once. is, is included in that. And then the, her growing baby and then her future grandchildren, like, or like the, the blueprint of them, right, because it's the eggs. And so it, that's one of the like points that I had. And we've talked about that a little bit, especially with the nutrition, because that was one of those things that, um, Weston A price found out when he was doing his studies was that the impact that nutrition had on humanity is like threefold. It's like that person specifically who's eating the food, their babies that they're pregnant with, and then the babies that are in the baby's womb, basically it's like craziness that we have this long-term

Chrissy 38:46

The babies, the half babies that are in the baby's ovaries, they're not in the womb yet.

Katie 38:53

That would basically. Yes. So it. feels like a really heavy weight, especially for us women because like if when we're pregnant it's like, okay, do we have a baby, like a baby girl in there who, you know, then we're impacting the eggs of that baby who will then eventually have babies one day. And what's so the point I was going to share right before that, the placenta specifically is, supposed to be kind of like the world's best guard or something. You know, they're, they're supposed to be this impenetrable filter that really only lets the good guys in, which would be things like nutrients and. Oxygen and all that stuff. Like they're, they're supposed to let that good stuff in, but the placenta's supposed to keep all the bad guys out, including the toxins and diseases and germs and infections and stuff. Supposed to, right. The problem is, you know, we, we used to think that the placenta was like completely impenetrable to anything because it's supposed to house this baby and be kind of like, know, you think about like a bomb shelter when you're like trying to escape bombs, because that happens often. I don't know what,

Chrissy 40:22

It's a very common concern here.

Katie 40:25

you think

Chrissy 40:25

Maybe we'll think of a tornado shelter. Tornado shelter that's more relevant.

Katie 40:32

to be impenetrable to something like a tornado, but. There are certain toxins to the placenta that can cross that barrier. Um, and research is showing that are chemicals that are able to cross the placenta. We talked about the microplastics last week and how microplastics are, have shown up in basically a hundred percent of the placenta that they have been testing. And same thing with these pesticides, is that, I don't have data on it specifically, but I do have just the fact that like more and more placenta are showing up that there are pesticides in them. Um. And that's really quite scary because of the impact that we know. Like, so again, going back to now, Chrissy, starting off with like the, the, that pesticides can lead towards, or they're linked to cancer, they are carcinogenic. And so if a baby is being exposed to those before they're even born, you kind of think like, well maybe they're, they, they're weakened or they might even ha be a little bit more slightly predispose, predisposed to getting cancer. And so you think about things like childhood cancers that happen and question like I question I'm, I'm more just saying like I, I don't know, but it seems to me that it could be the case that the pesticides, exposure to them in the womb could. Predispose babies to getting cancer at younger ages along with all the other toxins, right, because it's, it's a toxin bucket kind of effect. It's not like one and done silver bullet is the, the thing. Sure, it could be at times, but I believe that it's more so like this toxin bucket because really our bodies are designed perfectly by God to out toxins. We've talked about that in previous episodes of just the idea of how our bodies are supposed to drain and do all of the detoxing of these things. Like they really are designed to do that. when there are so many toxins coming in, you think about a bucket with a, just a small hole at the top, and the the hole is letting the toxins out. But not at the same rate that toxins are coming in. And so if you have this overload of toxins in your body, it can lead to all sorts of disruption starting with us in the womb and leading to fertility challenges and then pot, potentially even something like a cancer one day. Um, yeah.

Chrissy 43:17

yeah. One other thing that, um. It can, uh, exposure to pesticides, can lead to is neurological effects. So glyphosate is known as a neurotoxin, which means it crosses the blood brain barrier. So the blood brain barrier is exactly what it sounds like. It is a barrier between the blood and the brain that protects the brain and the spinal cord from. Toxins that could be in the blood, which is why a, um, spinal infection or a brain infection is incredibly difficult to treat. Same ideas like an infection inside a uterus is super difficult to treat because these areas are protected. But glyphosate specifically is a neurotoxin, so it crosses that blood brain barrier and can cause damage within the neurons in our brains. And so this can very quickly lead to, um, brain fog, memory function, coordination, things like that of like, oh man, I, I could remember the, like, have you ever heard of, um. You probably have when people get older, even like women who are 50 or so, and then they just start losing their minds and they're like, I cannot remember anything right now. Now some of that could be an a hormonal issue, but I would be willing to bet that a lot of that is also environmentally linked to pesticides in their foods. Because I even noticed with myself now, this is probably what Katie was talking about with the toxin bucket. You know, so many of these toxins are constantly overloading our lives. But I noticed particularly when I was focusing on changing the food that I was eating. So I got rid of dairy, I got rid of gluten, I got rid of sugar of all forms. Um, well, um, white sugar, like processed sugar. I still ate like fruits and stuff. Um. So when I got rid of all of those things that are very inflammatory to my body and focused really on eating just meat and vegetables and what did God create straight from the earth, that's what I ate. My memory sharpened so quick and I noticed it. Uh, I don't actually know remember exactly when I noticed it, but um, I can say like when I fixed my diet and I got a lot of, I've started eating more organic and I got a lot of inflammatory foods out of my diet, my memory got speci significantly better. And so, um, it's one of those things like, it's not, you guys can test it for yourself, look into it, you know, there's a lot of, I. Ways that you can use your own body as a test subject to see like, is this really a thing or is it not? Like, eat a bunch of conventional fruits and vegetables for a day, see how you feel. And then for the next three days, eat all organic fruits and vegetables, see how you feel. And then compare the two. You know, I'd be willing to bet you'd feel 10 times better on the days that you eat organically grown fruits and vegetables and grass fed meat and pasture raised chicken rather than, the conventional stuff. So.

Katie 46:45

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think, I mean, we're, we're coming to a point where I'm sure you're hearing from us that organic really is the best option, and maybe you're wondering like, Hey, how am I supposed to afford organic food? Because Yeah. Unfortunately, in many of these situations, the healthier options are typically the more expensive, and there's a lot of conspiracies out there about it of like, okay, if everything is so unhealthy for us, why is it so affordable? Why are they making these things so cheap? And there's a lot of subsidies out there that make these products cheaper, even though it, you'd think that it would be more expensive to grow something with pesticides because you're adding something to it. But it's cheaper because of all the subsidies that farmers get from the government to grow things with and. There are people who argue that pesticides are helping feed the world because they help more crops grow. And there's, there's a lot more I could say about that. Um, and I don't, I don't feel like right now is necessarily the right place or time to say it because there is a lot, there's a lot of studies out there that the pesticides ultimately impact our food supply negatively over the long term. Yes,

Chrissy 48:12

Ultimately stay tuned. We will get to this conversation, I'm sure in another episode. It will c, it will come out eventually.

Katie 48:22

there's a lot to be said and there's a lot that I, of information that I have collected about. The impact of pesticides long term on our general food supply, because there is that debate and we, we actually have people here in Michigan who work in the pesticide industry, which is very fascinating to me. Um, talking to people one-on-one and just trying to hear what they believe to be true about pesticides, um, compared to what I've been learning from other sources about pesticides. And, you know, many people believe that pesticides are helping the food supply. So it's, it's a tricky, a tricky, tricky subject. And I'm not here to necessarily put down all food that is used with pesticides because yes, they are growing food and I do believe that having Whole Foods versus. foods is going to be healthier on your body, even if they have pesticides. So it's kind of like a good, better, best situation. Um, or maybe like a worst, better, best because anything processed is not only going to have the pesticides in it, but it's going to have all these other toxins in it as well, um, including the seed oils and um, could even be laden with microplastics and different chemicals to make them taste good like MSG and things. And, and those are all problems, but if you had the option between that and just conventionally grown of food would be better than the processed piece of food like processed. Mac and cheese or something like a box, mac and cheese, or even pasta or bread, or a lot of these things that are heavily processed compared to something made with Whole Foods. So if you cook up your own dinner, if you're in a place where you're buying lots of processed foods, the next best option would be to buy the conventionally grown piece of food. And then the next best option would be to do the organic thing. So it could be something where you work your way towards that. Otherwise, um, Chrissy, maybe you could talk about the Dirty Dozen list. And I know that you're a little bit more familiar with it, um, than I am, but they have a dirty dozen list out there to talk about the foods that have the highest levels of pesticides. So if you're going to buy organic, those would be probably the best things to focus on, um, to get the best bang for your buck in a sense.

Chrissy 50:51

Yeah, for sure. So actually, so the Dirty Dozen is, um, a list that was created by the EWG, the Environmental Working Group, which is a group that works to limit toxins and toxic exposures in our environment. And they do a lot of research. If you get on their mailing list, they're constantly sending out, um, petitions and getting people to sign things to make for a healthier. Environment. And so the EWG has created a Dirty dozen list. They also have the Clean 15 list. Um, the Dirty Dozen is essentially a list of a dozen fruits and vegetables that were most contaminated by pesticides when they did an analysis on 47 items. So, um, this list, they just came out with a new one. I don't, I believe it was this, yes, 2016. 20 20 16. Wow. We are going back in time 2026, clean 15 and dirty dozen. So the list does get updated semi-frequently depending on different con different conventional farming practices and things like that. So it's not, uh, this list actually I think just came out, uh, maybe March of 2026. So it's still very, very fresh, um, and very. Relevant to us. So the number one product on the dirty dozen list is spinach, number two, kale collared greens and mustard greens, strawberries, grapes, nectarines, peaches, cherries, apples, blackberries, pears, potatoes, and blueberries. Um, so these are the dirty dozen. So if you are going to be going shopping and you want to shop organic, but it's not quite in the budget yet, I think a best first step would be to shop organic, specifically with the Dirty Dozen list. If you are making a 4th of July fruitcake and you want raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries or blueberries for this cake, I would buy those organic because those are on the dirty dozen list. Well. Oh yeah, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries. Maybe not the raspberries, but I'd be willing to bet they're pretty high up there. Um, I feel like raspberries were on the 2025 list, if I remember correctly, or they just like make sense to have been on the list anyways. So those are ones that would be more reasonable to buy. Um, organic. Now they have another list. It's called the Clean 15 list. So these are the 15 food items that you are probably more okay buying them conventionally because in general they have less pesticides on them. So these are the 15 items I'm reading directly from EW G's website that has the lowest amount of pesticide residues according to their analysis. So, um, pineapples, sweet corn, avocados, papaya, onion. Sweet peas, asparagus, cabbage, cauliflower, watermelon, mangoes, bananas, carrots, mushrooms and kiwi. So those all had the lowest levels of pesticides in them. So if you're going through the produce aisle and try to figure out what do I wanna buy organic? What do I wanna buy conventional, start there. You know, clean 15, you can be more confident buying conventionally, uh, dirty dozen. I would not buy conventional at all whatsoever. I would stick with organic 100% of the way. And then as we've said before, you know, changing our food, changing our lifestyles, changing our toxin. Exposure is a process. This is not an overnight switch. This is something that will take years. Katie and I have been on our crunchy journeys for years. Swapping out personal care products, swapping out foods, and the strategy is slowly but surely. Every little step counts. Everything you do is going to impact your health for the better or for the worse, but hopefully for the better if you're making good choices. And so I would just encourage you, don't get overwhelmed by all of this. You know, it's a lot to take in. It's a lot to change. When you look in your pantry and you see Scooby snacks and gushers and you say, oh Lord, where am I even gonna start? You know that, that's okay. You know, starting slow, starting one product at a time, we're not going to go in and rate our entire pantry, get rid of everything, and change it all out. We're gonna replace things slowly but surely as they run out and make better choices when we buy items in the future that we run out of.

Katie 56:05

And I do wanna also mention the, just like a, an encouragement of, you know, if you're trying to think of it from a budget and financial standpoint of, I know that organic can be pricey, but if you think about it in this way, that organic, for the food, like systemic foods or the, the systemic problem foods such as like corn and wheat, and then like the dirty dozen that Chrissy is talking about isn't necessarily just a luxury. It's also like buying health insurance that you can eat because it's feeding your body to build it up to have a better immune system to fight off diseases and fight against things like cancer and to build up your fertility. And so. It's cheaper ultimately to buy these quote unquote clean foods now than it is to pay for things like your fertility treatments later, or to go to a specialist doctor later for cancer treatments. Or when you're just getting tired, your body's getting tired and older and it's breaking down if you feed yourself these things that are going to build your body up. Now, it ultimately is cheaper in the long run, and I know that that doesn't necessarily solve the problem today with the budget, but if you start to think about it that way, it also kind of helps you to reprioritize other areas of your life. And that's what we have done with our budget is our grocery budget has grown over the the last few years. And yes, we've added people to our family, but we've also. to learn more of the importance of buying these foods, these healthier foods for our body that are going to build our bodies up so that we're not going to the doctor as often in the future and we don't need to, um, have as many interventions later. So you can think about it that way. Again, it doesn't solve the problem today, but it, it at least helps to build that mindset up for a long term approach.

Chrissy 58:18

It's interesting. So. when I was at, well, one of the things that we say frequently on this episode is you're going to on this episode, goodness on this podcast, is you're going to pay for your health one way or another. Do you wanna pay for your health now in grocery bills? And healthy living, or do you wanna pay for your health later in hospital bills? And that unfortunately is the reality we're looking at. It's funny, I was at a patient's house today, um, just because I work in home health, I, I go to patient's homes and he had the TV on and there was a, an ozempic commercial that came on. So, um, the Ozempic commercial, which for those who don't know Ozempic was originally used as a diabetes medication and then they found out that it can be used for weight loss. And so now it's like the number one prescribed weight loss medication in the United States right now. And it's heavily subsidized, um, and also has quite a few side effects to it. Um, as I have learned speaking to a lot of my patients who have been prescribed ozempic, it's not a fun drug to be on. All in all the. Commercial was advertising ozempic and they said, Ozempic, only$75 a month, you can get it easy. And I just got to thinking, I said, man, if we could increase our grocery budget by$75 a month, instead of buying this medication, that is going to make you lose weight, but also make you lose muscle mass and bone density and potentially have neurological side effects to it. Like if we could spend that$75 that we would spend on a medication and spend it on our groceries or buying higher quality food, or maybe a gym membership or something like that, like those, that$75 a month is going to go so much farther than the$75 a month that you would spend on any medication. Ozempic is just the example that I heard today. But really it's any medication, if you think of like how much money a month, how, yeah, how much money per month do you spend on your medications? And if you were able to take that money and instead spend it on your food, like how much would your health benefit from that? Obviously it's going to be a transition'cause you can't just hold Turkey your medications because that's dangerous in and of itself too. So it's all a process and I just wanna encourage you that it, it's a process that's very doable and manageable and it looks different for everyone also, like, yes, Katie and I are the ones talking about this, but Katie's crunchy journey looks completely different from my crunchy journey. Mine started with bread,

Katie 1:01:17

Mine started probably just in general with when I was pregnant and just trying to

Chrissy 1:01:23

Okay,

Katie 1:01:23

Okay, consider like, how do the healthiest that I can? So,

Chrissy 1:01:29

Yeah. my mind started with eating bread because I love bread and I realized it was not good for me. So, um, yeah, everyone's journey looks different, sounds different, um, has a different rate, different speed, different, um, implementations. You know, Katie has a garden. I live in an apartment, I have herbs, you know, and so I am doing my darnedest to grow what I can, and she has more land and is able to grow more and praise God for that, you know? So our crunchy journeys look different and everybody's crunchy journey is going to look different. And so I just wanna encourage you guys with that, that comparison is a thief of joy. So don't compare yourself to us. Don't compare yourself to other people. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday. And strive to be a little bit better tomorrow. And so with that, I think this is a pretty good place to end the episode. So, um, just remember that as you're going through this, take a deep breath. You can cast all of your anxieties on the Lord because he loves you and he cares for you. And with that, he also cares about your health and wellness because it is easiest to do the will of the Lord when you have the physical and mental capabilities to do that. So with that, just remember whether 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.