New Normal Big Life

Aging Poorly Has Nothing to Do With Genetics

• Antoinette Lee, MBA - The Wellness Warrior • Season 1 • Episode 43

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The future version of you is being built at your next meal, your next bedtime, and your next workout. We sit down with author and “glam grandma” Lynne Bowman to rethink what 80 can look like and map out a clear, joyful strategy for aging with strength, clarity, and community. No lectures, no fads—just the essentials that move the needle: cut added sugar, protect deep sleep, and train your muscles so your bones stay safe.

We go beyond the plate to the pillars that protect longevity. Resistance training builds the muscle that stabilizes joints and accelerates healing, turning a femur fracture into a comeback story. Sleep becomes a superpower — deep rest repairs tissue, balances hormones, and sparks insight.

If you’re ready to trade resignation for agency, this conversation hands you a friendly but firm blueprint. Start with one change—no added sugar, a lights‑out bedtime, or a simple strength session—and build from there. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs inspiration, and leave a quick review to help more people age on their own terms.

Chapters

0:00

Redefining What 80 Looks Like

4:23

The Big Three: No Sugar, Sleep, Move

6:12

Sleep Culture, Creativity, And Joy

18:18

Aging With Purpose And Strength Training

30:11

Grow Food, Teach Kids, Forage

33:02

Greens Three Times A Day Hack

35:07

Diabetic Eating As Anti‑Inflammatory

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SPEAKER_00:

We had this idea about what 80 looked like or felt like. And you know what? No. It's all about being healthy. And then your question was, what got me on this path? And I have a pretty simple answer for that, too, which took me a while to figure out. But my mother died when I was 18. And she had been chronically ill. She had uh kidney disease. And at that time, there was really nothing that could be done much for her. So I experienced caring for her and watching her die and watching her disability. And as many of you out there, I know, in some way or other, have done with people you love. But at the age of 18, I not only lost my mother, but because of the circumstance of how much that costs over the years, I lost my home. My dad went off into another life. My two older siblings were gone. So I was literally on the lawn with my luggage. And that was that was that.

SPEAKER_02:

Hi friends, welcome to the New Normal Big Life Podcast. We bring you natural news and stories about nature that we hope will inspire you to get outside in an adventure, along with a step-by-step plan to help you practice what you've learned and create your own new normal and live the biggest life you can dream. I'm your host, Antoinette Lee, the Wellness Warrior. Imagine this. That's one in every 12 million human beings alive right now. Grandmas in Lagos, grandpas in Tokyo, great aunts in Tulsa, who can't button a shirt, climb a stair, or remember their own phone number because chronic illness has quietly stolen their independence. In this episode, you're going to discover the one number that should terrify every taxpayer, every parent, and every 30-something pretending that old age is somebody else's problem. Are you ready? 58 million Americans, over 65, enough people to fill every NFL football stadio in the country 900 times, already live with at least one debilitating disease. That's 93% of everyone who qualified for Medicare. And it's not just America's problem. Asia is hiding 320 million silent sufferers. Africa, the youngest continent on earth with a median age of 19, just crossed 33 million cases, and that's with half the diagnoses missing because reporting is spotting at this. These aren't statistics. These are the people who taught us how to ride bikes, who survived wars we'd only read about, who are about to cost the global economy$47 trillion by 2025 if we keep pretending the tsunami of sickness is normal aging. But here's the twist: nobody's telling you. They're decisions, decisions about salt, sleeplessness, and sofas that started 40 years ago. What proof this can change in just one generation? Japan just dropped heart disease deaths 60% in 20 years, while America's climb 12%. Same lifespan, different lifestyle choices. Our guests will help you change how you're aging, whether you're 8, 18, or 80 years old. Today we're talking with glam grandma Lynn Bowman, author of Brownies for Breakfast, a cookbook for diabetics and people who love them, to find out how to eat, move, and sleep for good health and longevity, even at age 80. I'm so excited to have you here. Can you tell us, this is the question that I've been wanting to ask you since we connected? What are the lifestyle changes that people can make starting today that can give them a better chance of improved health and aging, whether they're 8, 18, or 80? Because we all want to reach 80 and live our best lives and not be debilitated. What are the three lifestyle or four lifestyle changes they can make?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, I love that this is such a simple answer. It's so easy to answer this question. Because, hang on, here it is. No sugar. Quit today. Stop. And when I say sugar, I don't mean whole fruits and you know, real natural things. I mean the sugar that we're eating and drinking every day in our coffees, in our sodas, on our cereals, whatever. Stop it. Stop. Okay, so that's number one. Number two is figure out how to sleep. Get your sleep. Because so important, and I can't believe I was kind of old when I learned this. Your body only heals when you're in deep sleep. We need to heal every day. So no sugar, good sleep. And of course, and is this a show where I can say ass, move your ass? You must. And we'll talk more about how to do that and what kind of movement to do. But those are the things. And you know, I go on to say, okay, read labels. You must read the label. But that's about quitting sugar and don't eat crap. Eat real food, whole food. You know, that's really it. If you can manage to do that, you're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02:

It's so simple. But you know what? So many people find that so difficult to do. So let's talk about what it was that got you thinking about health and longevity. And and if you don't mind telling us, and I'll go first, I'll be 58 next week. How old are you, Lynn?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, and you're a baby. I I which I love saying that to you. I am in my 80th year, which I like to say, and because 79 sounds kind of funky, but I will I will have my 80th birthday in March, pretty coming up.

SPEAKER_02:

And fantastic.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I love talking about this, Antoinette, because we had this idea about what 80 looked like or felt like. And you know what? No, it's it's all about being healthy. And then your question was, what got me on this path? And I have a pretty simple answer for that, too, which took me a while to figure out. But my mother died when I was 18. And she had been chronically ill, she had kidney disease, and at that time there was really nothing that could be done much for her. So I experienced caring for her and watching her die and watching her disability. And as many of you out there, I know, in some way or other, have done with people you love. But at the age of 18, I not only lost my mother, but because of the circumstance of how much that costs over the years, I lost my home. My dad went off into another life. My two older siblings were gone. So I was literally on the lawn with my luggage, and that was that was that. So it completely changed my worldview, of course, as those things do. And I somehow determined that I was never gonna do that. I was never going to leave my children. I wanted to be a mom, I wanted to have a home and a family, and my dog had been taken away, given away as a result, you know. So the idea of having all that back meant good health. It it was inextricable. You had to be healthy to have those things that I wanted. I started young and and plus I never had any money, and so I learned how to entertain, you know, on no money in my kitchen and do it with healthy food. And this is we're talking 60s, 70s here. And so my friends were so grateful that somebody knew how to cook and somebody knew how to set a table, and and that was my kind of secret sauce for a social life. I opened my door, people came in, they ate, we drank, we had a good time, and it was cheap and it was fast, and it was easy, and I'm still doing that. I love it to be cheap and fast and easy because it's the company that I want. You know, it's not slaving in the kitchen, and I don't want it for you, I don't want it for anybody. I want us to know how to do this simply, and so I've been doing it pretty much since I was 18.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow. And you know, you touched on something. So many people forget that one of the keys to longevity, especially for people who we see living in places we call the blue zone, like in Japan, for example, where people not only live longer, but they live healthier into their older ages. And they get together face to face with people. They serve nutritious foods like you're talking about. And that's something that I do with my friends here in the woods. We don't see each other often, but we are intentional about getting together once a month, just as Northwoods women, and then once a month with our families all together. And it's so beautiful. And sometimes it's as simple as having mold wine around a campfire like we did a few weeks ago.

SPEAKER_00:

For you, and I'm fond of saying that if you're eating out of a bag in the back of a car by yourself, whether that's a kid or you or on your stringle, that's that's not eating, it's never just about the food. Food is connection and communion and and society and friendship. Food is all those things. We are like wolves. We we have evolved to share food and eat together. It's safer, it's more interesting, it's more fun. And your body actually receives the nutrition in a different way when it feels safe and comforted and embraced in whatever way that's happening.

SPEAKER_02:

Um you're with your pack.

SPEAKER_00:

With your pack, exactly, or you grab a pack, you know. I I have a substack too, and I recently found myself writing about flirting, Antoinette, because people think that's a bad thing. It's not, it's how we reach out to people, how we get eye contact, how we say, How are you doing? You know, and mean it. What's wrong with that? And I I I would like to encourage people to do that with food, you know, knock, knock, knock. Mrs. Johnson, I made soup. Can you come over? You know, whatever it is. A couple of kids on your block that you like, ask your mom if you can come bake brownies with me. I mean, you know, that's so beautiful. Well, people are suffering from loneliness. We know this. We've read all the statistics and and we know it's out there. And food is medicine for loneliness.

SPEAKER_02:

If you're a listener and you haven't caught our episode on the epidemic of loneliness, make sure you listen to that and you'll know what Lynn and I are talking about. So, Lynn, I'm sure many of your friends and neighbors and people that you come into contact with in the internet on the internet admire how you live your life. I know that I do personally. What would be some of the advice that people would be surprised that they would receive from you who admire your health and vitality at 80?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm a grandma. I have so much advice for everybody, right? And all the time about all kinds of things. But of course, I've already talked about sleep, which is huge. And we uh we live in a culture that denigrates sleep. Like if you're really somebody, if you're really working hard, if you're really president of the United States, you don't need to sleep, you know, wrong. And that sleep can be a way that we solve problems. And if you do any reading about inventions and the history of science and so on, you know that some of the great minds have received their inspiration in sleep. Think about that. So sleep not only renews yourselves, but it renews yourself in many ways and and gives you information that you need that you're too busy or can't see or whatever. But when you get quiet and still and sleep, the information comes to you. And you asked me another question. You asked me kind of like what would be the one thing?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, some some surprising advice that people who say, Lynn, I really admire how you're aging with vitality and youthfulness and vigor. What additional advice would you give them?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, don't worry about it too much, just do it. I I don't journal, I don't count calories, I don't I have a was given an Apple Watch, but it drives me crazy. I don't look at what my heartbeat is, whatever. What I think is the most important thing you can do is enjoy when you bring joy to everything that you do that you can possibly bring joy to. I mean, I know there are things that you can't, but the little stupid things, just putting a simple meal on the table, riding somewhere in a car with a friend. I mean, all these things that we do, if you can just stop and go, am I am I as joyful as I should be, as I could be, because I'm liking this. This is good. Being conscious of joy and giving joy and bringing joy, which with food isn't hard.

SPEAKER_02:

It's in creating something that's made from whole foods and bringing it to someone or inviting them over is really a forgotten, not I don't know if it's forgotten, but not a skill that we practice anymore. And, you know, I'm really grateful that my neighbors, for example, will hike to my house with something that they baked. Like I made a pumpkin cake and I hiked all the way over here to bring you some, and that's just such a beautiful thing. Or, you know, when I make some Madeleines for someone who's recovered from surgery and I hike them over to their house while they're still warm, or I'll go ski, cross-country ski to check on a neighbor. These are all activities that get us outside even in the winter, even when people don't feel well, get us outside in nature, visiting people, giving an expression of love to them from something that you made with your own two hands. And it feels really good.

SPEAKER_00:

Another thing, Antoinette, talking to you, I realize that we should share with everyone who wants to listen is that by becoming professional women, as you and I did, and and I shared with you that my first real big girl job was in 1966 at an advertising agency in downtown Los Angeles. We spend so much of our life and our energy in that career, in that job. But the most valuable thing you have as you grow older, as you raise a family or not, but the thing that we must have is a network of women, the support of women. I mean, I love men, and I'm, you know, have a husband and he's great, but they already own the world. That's you know, that's done. We must allow ourselves to give our energy and our love to our circle of women. And I I recently, I think I think I told you that I broke my femur in May. And so I was laid up. I mean, if any of you have had experience with that kind of a, it's the biggest bone, it holds your body up, and when it's gone, oh, you know, it's bad. And I fortunately had a good surgeon and I had good care and so on. But but I was down and doing relatively nothing for months, for three months. I could do nothing. I just had to lay there. And the silver lining was that many of my girlfriends, particularly, came and sat with me. You know, they brought maybe some food, whatever. And I would have an hour or two or three, just them, just talking, nothing else happening. Just me over here and them next to in the chair. And I came to realize that as much as I love these girls and do things with them, we don't have this opportunity to just face to face, uninterrupted, share. And I learned so much about them, you know, that I didn't know their history and their background. So then they learned something about me. But that is true joy, I think. And in this case, here I was, you know, in pain and down and out and so on. But being cared for in the best possible way that didn't cost anybody anything but some time.

SPEAKER_02:

You bring up such a great point. It is very important for human beings to be amongst their own gender, whether it's men with men, whether it's women with women. It's just something about feeding off of that energy that just boosts you. And it's not about disliking anyone or, like you said, we can have great men in our lives and we still need girl time. Men can have great women in their lives, they still need time when they're just with their male friends. And I want to encourage women to not feel like you're losing out on something when your guy wants to go do something on his own. If he wants to go golfing or fishing or hunting on his own, give him that time and space to do that, either alone or with his friends. And the same for yourself. Take that time for yourself, especially uh women with children who often don't get a minute alone, unless there's a child standing outside the bathroom yelling for you, you know. So make sure that you're spending some time alone with yourself and alone with your friends.

SPEAKER_00:

And appreciate that you women are the ones who transfer information. You are the ones, and it used to be called gossip. It was denigrated. It's it is the heart of the community. It's what's it's the news, it's what's happening. And I listening to you talk about your your guy going off. This is a story that we all know, is your husband has been fishing with his friend Ray for 50 years. And finally you you say to him, So is Ray's wife okay? And he says to you, Oh, is Ray married? I rest my case. And y'all out there have had some experience with this kind of a thing. Because men do not communicate about the same kinds of things that women do. Now, you could have asked him about Ray's carburetor, and he would have known exactly what the problem was and how long he'd had the problem and how he was going to fix it.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, right, exactly. So I know a lot of people who reach even like 65, and they pretty much just give up on life. And what I mean by that is they retire, they're going to their home, and they hardly ever go anywhere except to run errands. They give up their hobbies, there's or they may have never had any hobbies because they were so busy raising children and having careers and so forth, or taking care of their parents, like in my case, too. So I wonder why you continue to focus on or center health-focused lifestyle choices when you're at a time in your life where you could say, Well, you know, this is the normal aging process, and I'm gonna slow down, I'm gonna lose my cognitive abilities, I'm gonna use my lose my mobility, stability, and flexibility. Why do you continue focusing on your health at an age where most people are like, I don't have to worry about that anymore? It's fun.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm having a blast. I mean, first of all, look at us talking, you know, from coast to coast. I this never would have happened if I hadn't forced myself to finish this last book. It's my fourth book, Brownies for Breakfast, but it's what I like to do. I've always done it, writing and and illustrating and so on. And I feel like I have a message that needs to be out there. And I don't because I've been doing this a long time, Antoinette. When I first knew I was diabetic in my 40s, the medical community was like, well, you know, try not to gain weight. They had no information for me at all. So it began this project of researching in whatever way I could. And still today, I am astonished. I mean, the figure is something like 80% of the people in the United States are pre-diabetic or diabetic. It's a huge number. And people don't understand how they got that way, what it is, what to do. And it's what I've already told you. It's not difficult, it's simple. You just have to commit and do it. And the other reason, besides good health, that you should commit and do it is because you'll eat better food. It tastes better, it looks better. It's it's all good. It's better for the earth. There's no downside except you have to get your rear end in the kitchen and do a little food prep because you cannot be healthy eating in restaurants. I mean, and yes, I cheat every once in a while, you know, and I like to go to a restaurant where they cook in a way that I don't, you know, Thai food that's really interesting, or you know, Peruvian food or something, which I can do because I'm in California. I'm at this still because I want people to see what a difference it makes in your life when you do these simple things. I'm I'm gonna say a word here. It's a funny word. Allulose. Ever heard of it? No. See, I'm here to tell you I'm gonna be Glinda today. I'm gonna say, okay, your life is about to get better because there is a there are a couple of sugar substitutes that you can absolutely enjoy immediately today, this week, and you forget sugar. You don't need it anymore, because allulose is a natural product called a rare sugar. It's made out of squishing a food down and just pulling the sweetness out of it, no chemicals, no cooking, nothing. And it caramelizes like sugar, it tastes exactly, doesn't give you a tummy ache, it's great. And with a few tricks like this, and then in three weeks, by the way, another thing I want people to know in three weeks after you've quit eating sugar, really quit, your saliva changes chemically, and it doesn't taste the same to you anymore. And you don't crave it anymore like you craved it. So with a few little tweaks to your lifestyle, you can be rocking out with granny here. Now, I have an advantage that I've been doing it for a long time, and I want you, you youngins in your 20s and 30s and 40s, listening to and 50s, listening to this, do it now. Because the sooner you do it, the better you will age, the healthier, stronger you'll be. I also lift weights. I do resistance training, and so I'm totally on my soapbox about that, because they told me what literally on the table as I was about to be surgically filled with titanium, as I have titanium from my knee to my hip now. I love it. I'm so bionic. They said, we don't see women in your kind of shape. And this used to be a death sentence, and now you're gonna heal, you're gonna be fine, which I have healed, I'm still healing, I'm fine. But but when particularly women would break a hip or a femur, that was always, well, that's Granny's done for, you know, she just can't do it anymore.

SPEAKER_02:

I have noticed that. Before we cover the next topic in this episode, I want to introduce you to the adventure sports lifestyle with what I call a micro story about an adventure that I've had. The adventure sports lifestyle and my deep connection to nature is essential to my good health. So here's the story. One summer evening on North Carolina's outer banks, I went bodyboarding with friends. The water was as warm as a bathtub, so I decided to catch one more wave while my friends looked on. As the wave approached, I turned my board to point it towards shore and rode the wave. Before long, I felt the bump of fish hitting my body as I looked to my right and my left. There was a school of 10 to 15 inch fish riding the wave with me. My friends couldn't believe what they saw. I did that. I hope this inspires you to get outside and adventure alone with friends with the people you love most. I've noticed that a woman over a certain age goes in for surgery, and then next thing you know, she has some uh staph infection, and then maybe pneumonia, and then there's not long before she's in a nursing home, and then no longer with us very shortly after that. I was going to ask you, what does your daily health regimen look like? You've already told us a few things, but could you sort of go through it, you know, maybe hour by hour? I wake up at this time and I do whatever the things that you do.

SPEAKER_00:

I made a big fat exception for your interview today because normally Thursday morning is a workout for me, but you and I were trying to get together on the time. So here we are. So, yes, I go to a local gym, and I love this. It's in a goat barn. It's it's and I like I live in a small town in the country, and so my gym that I go to with 10, 12 other women, and I have privates with two or three other women and this great trainer, but it's in this wonderful old barn on an old farm in Pescadero where I live. It's about seven minutes down the road, which is great. Highly, highly recommend that you find a group, a class, some way to have a social life that involves you moving and training yourself. And weight training, as you probably know, everybody's reading about it now, resistance training, particularly for women, because we haven't done it. So build up your bones and not only your bones, but the doctor explained to me, yeah, Lynn, everybody's bones age, you know, so on, as he's on the operating table with me lying down there, you know, drugged and happy. He said, everybody's bones age, mine do too, yours do, but you need the muscle around your bone to be holding you up and balancing you. So, in addition to all the stuff you're doing, and I'm sure you are, aren't you? Yes, right. Okay, in addition to all the stuff you're doing to strengthen your bones, eating well, doing resistance training, building your muscle is what's going to keep you safe, safer, much safer. So, and plus you'll look better. You know, absolutely, yeah, and and you will feel much better, much, much better. So, yeah, resistance training, good food. Here's the bad news no more cocktails, no alcohol. Do I cheat? Yeah, sometimes. Little bourbon and branch, you know. But basically, all of that about alcohol being good for you in a small amount of the right.

SPEAKER_02:

No, no, it's not. Sorry. Well, I'm not a big drinker because I had a brain injury, and it's actually very hard for me to have alcohol. It affects me in a way that makes me less social because I get too sleepy. So I could, I'm usually actually I'm almost always the designated driver because I don't care if I drink or not. So that's an easy one for me. You know, I used to be a competitive bodybuilder and power lifter. And yeah, with a 200-pound bench press, a 350-pound squat, and a 500-pound deadlift. And on our rural property, we have a homestead. I lift 100 pounds by myself on a regular basis. But I don't lift heavy weights anymore. I use exercise bands, I do yoga and pilates, and then I'm an avid outdoors woman. I'm actually a sponsored adventure sports athlete. So I hunt and fish and kayak and uh surf and all the things. So yeah, I a hundred percent agree.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, but and I don't have all that to say. And you wanted to know what my daily schedule was. I wake up early with the birds and I read. I love that quiet reading time and I drink my coffee. And then two or three days a week, I'm working back up because of this femur break that I had. So I'm now up to three days a week doing my going to the gym for my exercise. And then on those same days, or in addition, on the days that I'm not in the gym, I try and walk down the end of my lane and back, which is not a big fat walk, but again, it's part of the healing process for my leg. And the doctor was very specific and said, I know what kind of a woman you are. You're gonna push too fat, you're gonna push too hard. And I'm warning you, I don't want you to wreck this beautiful titanium thing I put in your leg. So, okay, okay, okay. So I'm gently moving back into being more active with my body on my leg. And I spend a lot of the day doing things that that I never had time to do. And you'll laugh. Okay, you'll love this one. I iron my pillowcases. I mean, I the the whole idea of being able to really be, you know, Harriet housewife. I never could do that. I had three kids, I was a single mom, I had a career that was crazy, so on. And so now at this stage of my life, to be able to place my things carefully in my house and keep everything, you know, dusted. And I love it. I mean, it's meditative, it makes me happy. I love gardening.

SPEAKER_02:

You are my, you are definitely one of my people, Lynn, because I am the same way. This is my actual cabin. If you're watching us on YouTube, this is my actual cabin family room. And one of the things that people say right after I say, Welcome to the cabin and welcome them inside, they go, Oh my god, it's so clean in here. I don't know what they were expecting. I don't know, dust and cobwebs and I don't know, my dog's hair. But you know, I have always been a very clean, organized person. And I was a very busy kid, you know, with academic programs and uh uh student athlete programs. So I was always very busy, and I just felt like if I was organized and my room was clean, I think better, I function better, I can be go, go, go, and then easily, you know, shut down for rest and rest in restorative health. And I learned that as a kid, and I've kept that through my entire life. And I think it's one of the secrets to my good health.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. I agree with you. It's it's got a bad name right now. You know, I tease people about being a an elderly trad wife. Um, but I to me, the ritual of keeping your space in order and you know, clean and having things where you need them, I don't waste time that way looking for things and wishing I'm and it's an old habit, I think, from from professional life where you didn't have a choice. You had to have the right stuff and you had to have it in front of you, and you had, you know, but yeah, my mind demands order in my space. And then because I'm a writer essentially these days and all along, I'm finally just admitting it. That's what you are. Okay. All right. I need quiet time, I need to have my stuff in order, and then I need to sit. But sitting at a computer writing is a health challenge. And so because I do that, I have to get up, I have to walk around, I have to go up my stairs a few times, you know, take a load of laundry, iron something, whatever. So it's a balance between those things. And I feel lucky to be able to do that now after so many years of crazy. I mean, this is how crazy it was, and my children don't believe me. But I would get up at five in the morning and put on a full set of lashes, full makeup, because I worked in an office in the advertising business. I had to be there before the men got there because none of them believed that a woman with three children could do this work, and so I had to do it better, faster, and look better while I was doing it, you know, or it wasn't good enough.

SPEAKER_02:

We have to do it backwards and in high heels like Ginger Rogers, and with lashes stuck on. Yes. So if we could go back and talk about food for just a moment, because food is so essential to your good health. You wrote a book with a fascinating title, Brownies for Breakfast, a cookbook for diabetics, and the people who love them. Tell us about your book.

SPEAKER_00:

Right here. It it came about because people asked me to do it. I kept talking about these recipes and talking about how to eat for and there wasn't at the time anything out there that I believed was really helpful to people. It was all about, you know, the the sort of microbiology of it all in the blah. No, no, no. Tell me what to do. Tell me how to fix it. Give me, you know, right? Make one step by step, step by step. So I I I just went about it in the way that I knew how to go about it with my iPhone, taking the pictures, because I wanted you to be able to make what I was making in my kitchen with no stylists and no special lighting, and uh, you know, just here's the food, here's how you do it. And I've I've been so happy that I, and I had a wonderful designer friend, Elise Huffman, uh helped me put it all together. But we need we need a guidebook, you know, we need a simple, enjoyable, and I've got stories in there, and I promise a couple little laughs for you because food can be funny too, very often in my kitchen. Yes, because I'm impatient, right? I'm messy in the kitchen because I'm doing it like this. And and I don't, I'm not good at measuring everything, Antoine. And I I have to assume that there are a lot of people out there who also don't particularly want to measure things. So there are recipes in this book with two ingredients that I promise you you will love, or three or five ingredients. I'm not gonna send you down to the grocery store in the middle of the night to buy something you don't have. I tell you exactly what you need, and it's simple, it's ordinary stuff, but so often it's things that people just don't think about. And here's a quick example. I have a recipe in here for takeout tacos. I don't know if I can open the page up to it fast enough. And this is not just sweets, by the way, it's also uh savory food.

SPEAKER_02:

But I love that you include whole foods, plant-based ingredients, sugar-free, dairy-free, gluten-free.

SPEAKER_00:

I love it so much. And you can use it if you're vegetarian, if you're vegan, if you don't care, it's all in here. You just add meat or don't add meat, or you know, whatever you feel like. No dairy, fine, use this. Because it's not, you know, nuclear physics. It's pretty easy, really, to make a good plate of food quick if you've got some good whole food in your house. We also grow food, and I and I really encourage people to have whether it's just a little pot full of stuff out in your porch or a little pot on your sink. And if you have children or grandchildren, you know that kids love nothing more. And I don't care what fancy school or you know, again, nuclear physics, you're fine, kids love to grow things and they love to eat what they grow. You want you want them to eat veggies, let them grow veggies. They will eat those veggies if they've grown them. And you know, I have a four-year-old grandson that is here fairly often. He lives a few hours away in Reno, but he and his papa, my husband, grow fava beans. And this child, you'd think it was the most expensive, elaborate toy in the universe. Being able to grow fava beans and then eat them. I love that.

SPEAKER_02:

We take kids to camp. We developed in adventure sports camp. We take kids to the mountain and we teach them about things that they can do at home to practice being stewards of the land and water around their homes. And so we teach them about gardening, about growing your own food, but also about how a plant that you might see at the nursery can become an invasive species in your community. And then they go back home and they're teaching their parents and grandparents, and these are kids age six to 16. They're telling their parents, you can't buy that plant unless you're going to have it indoors because it will be an invasive species here where we live. And they can actually explain what that means and they talk their parents out of buying things they would have ordinarily bought bought.

SPEAKER_00:

I love too that we're teaching kids herbalism. We're teaching kids how to forage for food. You know, we kind of lost this in our because women, it's our fault because we have to work in offices, but because there's so much to be gleaned in every sense from just walking out and where you live and where I live anyway, walking out the door and seeing what's growing. I mean, it's a miracle, it's all right there. It wants to be there for you.

SPEAKER_02:

I hope if you haven't, listeners, caught the episode on the return to wildcrafting and foraging, which are two different things. Catch that episode when you get a chance. I give you step by step how to get started, from what tools you need, what skills you need to develop, and how to go about it step by step. And I hope you'll also try my dandelion gummies for your good health.

SPEAKER_01:

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SPEAKER_00:

And your question actually was kind of referring to the book and you know, how do you how do you make food every day? Here's a quick one that will illustrate for you what I talk about. We have a takeria not far away that's wonderful. It's fresh, you know, fish that is local and a lot of vegetables and wonderful people. And a favorite thing is to come home with a shrimp burrito and you cut it in three pieces. Don't eat the whole thing. Cut it in three pieces. Put it on a bed of greens. Because one of my first recommendations is eat greens three times a day. And people go, How am I going to do that? Here's how you do that. Here's one way. So instead of just working down that burrito, cut it in three pieces. So now you've got three meals. You put a bed, just you pull a bag or a thing out of your fridge and you sprinkle some lettuce or spinach or or arugula or whatever on the plate. You put down your one-third of a burrito, you put a little more salsa, I put Trader Joe's green salsas, excellent, made from good food, tomatillos. Put that on top, put some either real cheese or cheese substitute on top, stick that in the microwave and nuke it. And now you have this beautiful thing with all this green underneath it and the cheese melting and the stuff. It's so much better than just with a burrito. And now you can have two more, or you can have a friend or husband or a daughter eat with you out of that one burrito. And I'm here to tell you that at the price we now pay for our burritos, you kind of need to stretch it. I mean, it's I I don't deny anyone getting what they need to get for their food, but it's it's twice what it was.

SPEAKER_02:

Three times where I live, three times what it used to cost. And I love this idea of stretching out that meal. If you're single, you have three meals. If you're sharing it with a friend or a family member, then you have two meals for the two of you and as another meal for yourself left over. I love adding the greens. It's okay to eat out once in a while, like you're saying, but you bring it home and you add a little something extra to it. I love that so much.

SPEAKER_00:

I also ask for no rice. So what happens is I get more beans and more veggies in the burrito. And of course, as a diabetic, and here's another thing: once diabetic, once you you always are. You don't like yes, and you will reverse it and you will get and your hemoglobin A1C will be better, but you have to always think like a diabetic. And I suggest that for everybody, because the same diet, let's say, same way of eating that works best for diabetics is best for heart patients, kidney disease, preventing, you know, cholesterol. I mean, go down the whole list, it's the way we should all be eating.

SPEAKER_02:

The diabetics way of eating is also a low inflammation diet. And inflammation is one of the hallmarks of many chronic illnesses from heart disease, diabetes itself, obesity, some forms of cancer, lymphedema. And even if you've had a brain injury like me, you really have to control your widespread inflammation possibilities. So eating this way is great for everyone, not just someone who's pre-diabetic or diabetic.

SPEAKER_00:

Glad you brought that up too, because guess what is responsible for possibly most of the inflammation in everybody's bodies now? Can you guess? White sugar, white flour, white sugar, sugar, sugar. And people are getting it in the form of soda pop. I can't believe people are still allowing their children to drink soda pop. And the diet coke that is no, no, no. Read the label on that, puppy. You know, read the label. Do you really want to be good? And it kind of tickles me in a gruesome way that people are so much more aware and careful of what their cocker spaniel eats than what their child, their human child, is consuming or what they themselves are consuming, right?

SPEAKER_02:

For those of you who don't know, one of the main ingredients in your soda is also the main ingredient in the cleaner that the United States Navy uses to clean its ships. Think about that for a moment. I rest my case. So, Lynn, what would I be surprised to see in your home?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I've just removed them, but I had two real bearskin rugs. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02:

That just sounds like a story right there.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it comes with a story. And it was my father-in-law was a hunter in the Northwoods. You know, he would disappear for months at a time and come back. And the he passed away a few years back, and we we got this barrel of stuff. And and my my husband's mother passed away not long after he did. So we found ourselves with all this stuff, as many of us do, not knowing what to do. And we opened this big container, and it was full of fur stuff from Bob's hunting. And so not knowing, I didn't want to put it back. I mean, what do you do with an actual bear skin? So I used it as a rug, and then and now I've put it away again, and I'm I'm thinking again about where it might go. One of my kids, maybe. And then I had a a wonderful old antique pear wood settee that uh my sister-in-law had given me French old piece. It was just wonderful, and I had it recovered with deer skin, which ended up being beautiful. This poor creature died. I I want to give it meaning. And it's death, right? So so I see it every day in my room on this beautiful little settee. So people might look at me and go, well, really? You're not not eating meat. No, and I actually do eat meat. I don't eat a lot of meat, but I do eat meat. And we live in an area, as sounds like you do too. This is kind of a hub for regenerative agriculture. So I have a number of neighbors who are raising goats and pigs and geese and cattle in a very, how shall I say, emotionally well adjusted kind of way. I mean, these are happy cattle.

SPEAKER_02:

In a florative kind of way, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, and and they're not wrecking the land. You know, they're very, very cautious of maintaining the health of the earth, too. So in that case, I'll tell you the story quickly of having some friends over from down the street. I just said, Come on, over, bring your kids. And they're so happy when you say, Can we bring our kids? Yes, bring your kids. And we had a wonderful dinner. And to thank me, the husband sent me a note and said, I put a gift for you out in our mailbox. So when you when you drive by, as I do every day on my way to town, just it's in there. It's it's a roast for you to cook. And it turned out to be a goat leg. Wow, yes, please. And I thought, okay, I've never cooked a goat leg, but I quickly looked up a couple of recipes and there was a French one, and that's kind of the way I lean. So it took a whole bottle of Pinot Noir and a beautiful La Chambre pot. And that's something else we can talk about too. Those clay pots from Colombia that are so wonderful. And it was heavenly with some vegetables in it. It was so, and I never thought I'd be eating little, you know, Lucy or whatever the goat's name was. But I thanked her and blessed her. And and and that goat leg was, I gotta say, absolutely lovely food. But this is not something that we eat every day. You know, this is a thing that's kind of a special occasion thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, I yeah, definitely. You brought up a couple of a few interesting points as a hunter and as a person who has a homestead that I I want to talk about. So, first of all, there is some research from Germany, Japan, several other countries that are showing that people genetically are predisposed to have a preference, a metabolic preference of either being completely vegetarian, mostly vegetarian, or vegan or meat eaters. And it's important to know your type. And there are tests that you can do to kind of figure that out. I explored different things in terms of styles of eating, and I realized as a brain injury survivor, and I've been told this by several neurologists, that because my brain is injured, it requires more animal fat than maybe the average person. And some people, like vegans who can thrive on no animal protein, they are just a unique kind of human being that can thrive on that. Then there are some people who can thrive on very little animal protein, and then there are people like me who need a significant amount of animal protein. So I will we grow a lot of our own vegetables, and I also do a lot of foraging. So vegetables and herbs are essential to our diet every meal. I even have figured out how to incorporate kale for breakfast, if you can believe that. So that's something important for people to know is that there is no one way of eating that's going to be right for everyone. So explore, keep a, I like to keep a food journal of how do I feel when I eat a little animal protein, a lot of animal protein, or no animal protein at all. And that's how I figured out what was best for me. And then my neurologist just confirmed it. The other thing to keep in mind is some people get very upset when you talk about harvesting animals for meat or for crafts or for warmth. For example, some people might use that bear skin to make a coat out of it, or they might use it for decoration like you did with a rug. But here's the thing to keep in mind: if there are no natural predators for those animals, and you create a herd of deer, for example, that needs when the herd is small, they need this amount of resources. Food, water, shelter, space to roam. When the herd is bigger, they'll need this amount of resources. As the herd grows, they need more and more resources. And as the herd grows and resources don't increase, then the herd gets sick and the herd decreases until it could almost die off. And we've seen communities where they have limited or stopped hunting, and then they lose an entire herd population because there aren't enough resources to support the number of animals in that community. So here is a natural order of things to be able to hunt and gather. And I know there are some people who believe that you should never harvest an animal for any reason. And you're fine to believe that, but the reality of it is if you're going to be a steward of the land and water in which you on which you live, you have to understand resource management. Just like I have to manage the forest, the trees in my forest, if I want the forest to thrive, we have to manage the animal population as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, all of that. And I'm glad to see more and more coming out that way. And taking it back to a nutrition thing, for example, if you're Inuit, you don't thrive on the same diet as a northern European person or South American person because of, yeah, hello, natural selection. I mean, you know, we've we've evolved to eat what was available to us. And and I know I talk a fair amount about the difference in the proteins in goat milk and in cow milk. And there are huge populations that really cannot happily drink or eat cow's milk products.

SPEAKER_02:

It's just not my family's from Nigeria and Africans, we tend to not do well, especially as we get older. We tend to have some lactose intolerance. For me, I did not have an excess amount of dairy, and so I never developed lactose intolerance.

SPEAKER_00:

And lucky you, but also a lot of dairy, even for someone like me who tolerates dairy just fine, it's not a good idea. I mean, you know, too much fat, too much, you know, it's just not something, and and it has to do with where the dairy is coming from. You know, uh, did you know the cow? Well, then it's a different deal. If you don't know the cow, we would all be eating a little differently if we could actually see the process of where our food is coming from.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

That RBST that you might find in your dairy products is also an endocrine disruptor. So think about that for a moment. So, Glynn this has been such an insightful conversation. I definitely have to have you back multiple times. We're going to do a conversation just on diabetes. That's such an important topic. But what more would you like to leave listeners with today?

SPEAKER_00:

And the thing I want people to always remember is to eat with joy. I I really want you to enjoy every bite, every word of the other people at the table, whatever. I want you not worrying and stressing about what you're eating or how much you're eating. I want you to arrange it so you can relax, eat what you want, and enjoy every bite. I love that so much.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you so much for joining me here today in the cabin. Thank you, Antoinette. Until next time, friends, I'm Antoinette Lee, your wellness warrior here at the New Normal Big Life Podcast. I hope one day to see you on the river, in the backcountry, or in the horse barn living your best life. Struggling with health problems or seeking natural health solutions, we've got you covered. Don't miss our latest podcast episodes, exclusive blog posts, and free ebooks packed with life-changing wellness tips. Be sure to help others find this great information by leaving us a star rating and a review wherever you get your podcasts.

SPEAKER_01:

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Antoinette Lee, MBA - The Wellness Warrior

Host
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Lynne Bowman

Guest