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Redesigning Life with Sabrina Soto
Redesigning Life with Sabrina Soto is a podcast dedicated to inspiring intentional living, personal growth, and transformation. Hosted by design expert and lifestyle guru Sabrina Soto, each episode dives into conversations about wellness, mindset, home, and self-improvement with leading experts and thought leaders. With a mix of practical advice, heartfelt storytelling, and empowering insights, Redesigning Life is your go-to space for creating a life that feels as good as it looks—one thoughtful choice at a time.
Redesigning Life with Sabrina Soto
Transforming Health: Chef Whitney Aronoff's Journey with Whole Foods and Healing
What if the key to healing chronic pain lies not in a doctor's office, but in your kitchen? Join us as we uncover Chef Whitney Aronoff's incredible journey from enduring undiagnosed stomach pain to transforming her life through whole foods. Whitney takes us through her story of healing, detailing how attending a health supportive culinary school equipped her with the skills to alleviate not just physical pain but also enhance her emotional and intuitive well-being. Learn how seasonal, natural foods and proper preparation techniques can lead to profound health transformations.
Navigate the complexities of modern food choices with Whitney, who sheds light on the often deceptive nature of industrial oils and the importance of selecting seasonal produce. We discuss the impact of industrialization on our diets and the growing awareness of real, nourishing foods. Discover the highly individual nature of dietary choices, particularly concerning dairy, and how listening to your body can guide healthier decisions. Whitney also shares her insights on balancing grocery shopping between supermarkets and farmer's markets to ensure you're consuming the best quality foods.
Finally, delve into practical tools and practices that support a healthy lifestyle. Whitney reveals her journey with mindful wine choices, the benefits of organic and non-irradiated spices, and the significance of high-quality kitchen appliances. From remedies for common issues like bloating to the vibrational energy of the foods we consume, this episode is filled with actionable tips to enhance your well-being. Explore Whitney’s Starseed Kitchen spice collection, designed to help you cook healthier at home, and discover how these unique blends can elevate your culinary experience.
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Hi, I'm Sabrina Soto. I believe the best conversations are with friends who are really able to open themselves up and share their lives, both the good parts and the bad. You're going to be listening to some of those candid conversations and hopefully gaining some insight to help you redesign your life from the inside out out. Today, on Redesigning Life, we are joined by Chef Whitney Aronoff. She also owns Starseed Kitchens, which is a spice company. I want you to talk about it, but I'm so excited, whitney, that you're with us today, because I have so many questions about the connection with food and living a very high vibrational life, and it doesn't have to be this like woo-woo talk, but just living, how it affects you, and I know that you're as passionate about this topic as I am, so I really I just want to get started. First of all, thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:My pleasure. It's so exciting to connect.
Speaker 1:as you know, and before we, started, whitney said that we have a mutual friend, a friend of mine since I was 10 years old, that her name is Nicole, that Whitney worked with. So I'm so excited that we have this weird connection. So okay, so let's get started. I know a little bit about your background, that you got sick, you had stomach issues and you realized how important food is, but why don't you tell listeners a little bit about how you even got started on this journey?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. When I was in high school I'd have stomach pain every night right before bed. That's when it would be activated. It was always when I got into bed at night and it was always in the same spot, on, like the lower right side, and I couldn't get to the root cause of what was causing the pain. And I kept trying to figure out what is it in my diet, what am I eating that's causing it and what can I get at CVS or a pharmacy to cause and ease the pain? And then I went to so many different doctors trying to get to the root cause. They would always just tell me to eat more fiber, eat more broccoli, and stained broccoli has always been one of my favorite vegetables. So that wasn't it. And same thing through high school, college, in my 20s.
Speaker 2:Just it was always at night that I was getting the stomach pain and that led me just to explore every type of diet under the stars, trying everything, nothing quite working.
Speaker 2:And then you know, just as we get older, just weight fluctuations, stress fluctuations, you know all the things that women deal with as we age and kind of move through life.
Speaker 2:And I finally just figured out after all these doctors, I went to, no one was able to help me that I could heal myself with food, that I'm in this body, I know what I'm experiencing and something's not right. And I decided to go to a health supportive culinary school where I would learn and get just as much information from a registered dietician as I would get hands-on experience cooking food. And I thought maybe if I dive into like ancestral cooking or learning how to properly prepare ingredients, that that would heal my issues. But what I ultimately found out is I figured out the foundation how to eat real whole foods and prepare those foods properly and that helped immensely. But ultimately, the healing required for me to heal and remove all the trapped emotions for my body, it that was the root cause of the pain was the trapped emotions, past lives, all this other stuff. But I wouldn't have ever gotten there, I wouldn't have been able to um uncover that if I hadn't cleaned out my body and upgraded my diet and built that as a as a foundation.
Speaker 1:And so you were saying that the pain started to come about during, right before you went to bed. Was that anxiety?
Speaker 2:No, isn't that interesting. No, anxiety at all. I never. I when that, that, when that buzzword, I feel like anxiety is kind of a buzzword. The past few years, when people first started talking about that, I couldn't even understand what that was. I was like, do you mean stress? Because it wasn't stress, it was literally physical pain, and when I would put my hand on the pain I would see movies, I would see past lives and ultimately, 10, 15 years later, when I would do past life regressions, those same images and storylines that I saw when I was 16 are what came up in those sessions.
Speaker 1:So you're saying that this pain that was coming out of your stomach right before you went to bed during your high school years or at least it started then really was a manifestation of all of the trauma that you were holding into your body?
Speaker 2:It could have been past life stuff. It could have been just what I was going through in high school. It could have been that I had stuff down when I was in elementary school and middle school. I think it's very layered, but I don't think I would have ever been able to free my body of that pain If I hadn't upgraded my food lifestyle and my and how to prepare foods and what I was choosing to eat.
Speaker 2:It kind of all goes hand in hand. You know people want to better be able to use their intuition and you can better tap into your intuition and trust your gut feelings when you can feel yourself. And you can better feel yourself when you improve your diet. And that's not a diet, that's not health food, it's real food. It's fruits and vegetables and things that are in season and learning to wash our rice and wash our grains and what needs to be soaked overnight and how to build a balanced plate and using fermented foods. And it's kind of learning these basic life skills that we all deserve to have. And it's kind of learning these basic life skills that we all deserve to have. And when you build a foundation of just real whole foods, kind of everything else opens up within you.
Speaker 1:I had stomach issues as a child too, but mine were like it was connected to anxiety. I just remember now, like doing all the work that I've done in healing I just started I had stomach pains all the time but I was always really worried about schoolwork and going to school. I just it was always some level of anxiety that was underlying you know, like that was causing it. But I do believe that you it's not a one size fits all. It doesn't mean like you go to narrative therapy and then all of a sudden it all goes away. You have to it's mind, body, spirit connection to really take care of any problems. So you're saying you realize that it was trauma that you restored in your body, but that you could start the healing journey also by assisting your body using whole foods.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think we have to really work on creating a good foundation so we can start to let the other stuff go. So, as someone that you know works in interior design, I'm sure you focus on getting certain basics taken care of first before we work on the other stuff.
Speaker 1:So you're going to focus on the basics before we go out and get all the accessories Right, I wouldn't start buying throw pillows when, like, we have to tear down a wall.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly. And so I find and I really recommend to people like upgrade what you're currently eating. So, if you're going to Costco and getting your protein, start to look for different labels a hundred percent grass fed grass. Finish, find a different place to get your chicken. Make sure your chicken is, you know, not given a vegetarian feed. That it's actually that it's actually moving around pastures.
Speaker 1:Okay, wait, I have questions about this because there's so much information out there, why I understand people have a problem understanding what to eat, because I feel like one day organic matters and the next day it doesn't. I remember so many people say supplements matter, especially as we grow older, especially as women. But then there are certain doctors that say supplements don't, you don't need to take them. So let's start with what you were saying grass fed, organic, wild caught fish. Why does that matter? Is it because of the chemicals that these animals are being fed to grow larger and then you're ingesting that? Why do those things matter? Because there is a cost difference there and I think a lot of people are a little hesitant in spending that money because they don't necessarily understand if, at the end of the day, protein is protein.
Speaker 2:Well, the number one thing that matters is what your food ate, is what you eat, whether that is protein or vegetables. So, whatever your animal protein consumed is now what you're consuming. Whatever the nutrient density of the soil was within the water and the soil of the plants that are growing is what's in you. That's. That's, I think, the easiest way for people to get the mental image. So, if your chicken is supposed to be eating what chickens eat, chickens are supposed to eat worms, bugs, you know different, different little vegetables and scraps that are out in the fields. But if they're not eating that, they're eating a processed grain mixture full of GMO corn and soy. Now, you're GMO corn and soy and that is going to lead to gut issues, weight gain, hormonal imbalances, right, because that's when you go and you look at, okay, like where's my family from? Like where's my mom's side from? Where's my dad's side from? What have they been eating for the past few hundred years? And you, you create that blend for your body.
Speaker 2:And then you also have to check in and see, like, where do you live now? What's available in your environment, what's available seasonally, and then also, yeah, what works for your budget. But I will tell you this everything goes on sale. So if you want to start shopping at Whole Foods, ultimately everything will go on sale in the center aisles Because when you get your product on the shelf in those type of health food stores, your product will have to go on sale two times a year. So you can wait and buy your organic, non-gmo single origin in a glass jar olive oil on sale. You just know when you have to stock up. But when it comes to the perimeter of the store, if we're looking for our eggs and our fruits and our vegetables, whenever something is in season, it's going to be a more affordable price. Whenever something's out of season, that's when the asparagus price is like $6.99 a bunch and it's from Mexico, that's when you pass, or you have to learn to be flexible when you show the grocery store so you can work with your budget.
Speaker 1:You just brought up olive oil. I didn't know until recently and I'm talking about the last month that the olive oil that you see on the shelves isn't necessarily 100% olive oil, even though it says it on the label. I thought that there's probably some viral video that I just saw can't be true, and I just could not believe my eyes, when I actually went to the grocery store, that a lot of these olive oils aren't pure olive oil, and I think that is something that people are seeing a lot about seed oils and how dangerous they can be. What is the deal with seed oils? Just tell me, like I am a fifth grader, why shouldn't we be eating it? What should we be eating?
Speaker 2:So, when it comes to the fats that we eat and what we cook with, we always want to go with what our ancestors use. What have we, as people, been using and preparing for the ages, and that is animal fats and cooking with lards and fats. Butter, you know, olive oil, coconut oil these seed oils that everyone's talking about are new industrial oils, so I think avocado oil is the easiest example, and you can Google it. Avocado oil was created in the late nineties in New Zealand.
Speaker 2:You know that was the time when you would start to see more shelf stable guacamole, you know, because they're using citric acid and it can sit on the shelves for for a few weeks instead of just five days. But whenever you have, you know, large industrial commercialization of a food product, a company is always looking at its waste to figure out how to make more money and just instead of just throw out the waste. And so they created the opportunity to press the skins of the avocado and create an oil, an avocado oil. Avocado oil is not good. Avocado oil is not like an ancient oil Like no one's been.
Speaker 2:You know, they always try to say like oh, the Aztecs were using avocado oil. Well, if you start to study the Aztecs and where the Aztecs were from, there was no avocado trees. Where the Aztecs originally from and ultimately migrated down to Mexico so, and nowhere were hundreds of thousands of people eating avocados. They're saving the skins and pressing them, so avocado is a modern seed oil, just as canola oil is. Canola oil is a genetically modified oil from a plant that's native to North America and was genetically modified by the Canadian oil company to create canola oil. All this information's out there. It's all part of history but they aren't real.
Speaker 2:So we want to use things that are real and natural and something that our ancestors would have used, and I always try to tell people it's like not what our what, not what our grandparents use, not what our great grandparents use. We really need to go back to like the 1850s, to early 1800s.
Speaker 1:Oh, so now I have to do like a 23 and me to figure out what I need to eat. I mean, what are we doing here?
Speaker 2:I think it's it's. I think what's going on with our food system is ridiculous. I'm at a different space because I've been to culinary school and I've moved through all the layers of anger and grief when it comes to understanding our food system. I'm kind of out the other side now and really like where so many people are. I was 10 and 15 years ago, so what I see now is so many people are so much more aware. We're now at a part where people are ready to have the conversation. Like 10 years ago, I tried to talk to people about this and they thought I was like a weird conspiracy theorist and, like you know, I was overanalyzing our food system. But everyone's starting to understand that it's more complicated than it should be for us to have a healthy meal.
Speaker 2:Everyone's starting to understand that it's more complicated than it should be for us to have a healthy meal, and I think we're almost at the tipping point and only good things are going to come after this. You know we had to get people to wake up, to stop choosing snack wells and to choose just like a real homemade cookie.
Speaker 2:You know, the diet food is never going to nourish you. Homemade cookie. You know the diet food is never going to nourish you and what we're looking for is getting people comfortable with understanding that food is nourishment and food is a transfer of energy. You know we need energy. One of the ways we gain energy is by eating. It's also just like one of the joys and pleasures of being a human, so we have to find a way to nourish ourselves. Being a human, so we have to find a way to nourish ourselves, get energy, gain pleasure from it and also be able to indulge at times without guilt and create balance through all of that.
Speaker 1:Now, you mentioned earlier butter. So for me, I knocked out dairy from my diet about eight years ago and I feel so much better. I'm less inflamed, I've been able to maintain my weight pretty easily. But you're saying it's like some people can eat dairy and some people can't. I mean, how do we know other than looking at my great, great, great, great great grandparents? How do I know what's right for me? Because I think you see a lot of stuff in the news about how dairy is not good and it causes so many gut issues and inflammation. So what's the deal with dairy?
Speaker 2:I think you need to find the best that's available in your area, see how it makes you feel and go from there. So the first thing I would try is raw milk. So certain health food stores. You know raw milk works and you'll find with raw milk it's sweeter and actually has a better taste than the nonfat milks or the pasteurized milk. So you go to your health food store, you buy raw milk, you buy raw cream, you add that to your oatmeal or you make raw milk ice cream, play around with it, see how it makes you feel.
Speaker 2:If that doesn't work for you, you can also try A2 milk. So Alexander Farms, which is based up in Northern California if you live in California, you'll see the A2 milk at the grocery store and that's yeah. It just means that it is a cow that has been genetically tested and it still has the A2 case. It has the A2 casein, not the A1 casein. So it is a cow that essentially hasn't had its DNA modified and the protein casein is better digested and absorbed by your body and you're not going to have the inflammation and the reaction.
Speaker 2:So you can try that, and if you're finding that you're eating when you have raw milk or A2 milk or A2 milk yogurt, you're fine, then dairy works for you. If you're fine and it's not fine, then you might need to pass for a while and only have it as a treat.
Speaker 1:But isn't it? But there's so much literature that says like we are the only mammals that consume another mammal's milk. I mean, we weren't made to digest another mammal's milk, and there's also alternative belief to that.
Speaker 2:So, like I'm a big fan of the Weston A Price Foundation, which has all these incredible studies that show how much raw milk, raw cream you know butter is a fat, it's a brain food how much that supports kids and adults health, you know when you have raw milk and raw cream and butter it creates healthier teeth, less cavities. So there's both information out there. So you really have to figure out what works for your body and what's available in your current environment.
Speaker 1:That's another thing. We both live in California and we're so blessed because there are so many outlets for us to get healthier foods. But I travel a lot and I think for a lot of people and a lot of people who are listening now, it's just impossible. And now even in this conversation there's just so much information that you just don't even know which way to go. Like I don't know, am I supposed to drink this? Am I supposed to eat this? So I mean I now know that the oil, especially just even refined oils, we all know that's not good for you. So eating whole foods obviously important.
Speaker 1:Talk to me about organic produce versus non-organic produce, because I do listen to a lot of people and I get a lot of feedback, especially people with bigger families that have a hard time digesting, paying so much more for organic. And does it really matter and we've heard about the dirty dozen with the vegetables and fruits of these are the worst ones not to buy organic. So does that mean those are the only ones that are important and the other ones we can get away with just getting normal conventional produce?
Speaker 2:So, for those that aren't familiar as to why you need to look for organic or locally grown or regenerative farmed, I highly suggest watching the film Common Ground. You can find it really anywhere online right now. It's outstanding. It's done by the same people that did Kiss the Ground and it's going to help you understand why, and I think you know. Within this timeframe, it's going to give you all the information you need, but basically give us the cliff notes, in case nobody wants to watch it.
Speaker 2:The cliff notes is right what your vegetable consumed in the field is what you're consuming, so what it absorbed in the soil and what it absorbed with the water and then what it absorbed in the air, right, because the wind blows.
Speaker 2:So that's another thing you know is we want to make sure that we're choosing our food from farms not next to farms that are using pesticides, herbicides, insecticides because the wind blows. So it's what our food consumed is what's going into us and what do we want? We want fruits and vegetables and grains that were never sprayed with pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and have never been genetically modified, because that's going to affect our body.
Speaker 2:A lot of people are suffering with inflammation. It's not the food that's causing the inflammation, it's the stuff that's on it and in it that's inorganic, and so that's why we're looking for organic food or regeneratively farmed food, because we don't want that stuff on it. It's it's not. It's not good for us, okay.
Speaker 1:You can feel, of course, so like, if we are. I was listening to another podcast and they were talking about, like a lot of us go to eat and we think, okay, we're going to have a really healthy meal, a salad but if you're at a restaurant and it's not organic produce, you're basically ingesting a bunch of pesticides and insecticides, so it's probably healthier for you to eat a sandwich or something else. With that said, what I mean? Do you ever eat out? I mean, what do we tell me like? What do you have today for breakfast?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, today for breakfast I had two hard-boiled eggs with a little avocado, and before that I had a peach that I picked up at the farmer's market this weekend.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you that. So do you get most of your produce at the farmer's market?
Speaker 2:I don't, because I'm a personal chef and I go to the grocery store five days a week for my clients. That's when I pick up my groceries for myself and I kind of only go to the farmer's market about once a month, maybe every other week, and I like to pick up my fruit there because there's a particular vendor I can go to and I know nothing's been sprayed. And that's what I'm really looking for with my fruit, right, because a lot of our fruit has a soft flesh and so it's not something we can necessarily peel and I want to make sure it was grown without herbicides, insecticides, pesticides, all that. I want to make sure it's not in the plant as well. So I do go out of my way to buy my fruit at the farmer's market, but because of just my lifestyle and my job, I get most of my ingredients from the grocery store, from Whole Foods, from Mother's Market, from any other grocery store I'm having to visit for my job. So I do the best I can with where I am.
Speaker 1:And what about eating out? Do you ever eat out?
Speaker 2:So I really believe the healthiest meal you can eat is the one that you make at home. But I think you also. I'm a really big fan of the 80-20 rule. So, yeah, I eat out occasionally because I need inspiration and I like the ambiance and experience. So I go back and forth. But when I do eat out I try to just surrender. It's about the experience, it's about the connection with the person that I'm with, it's about the ambiance. So I do surrender in the moment and just try to make the best choice for me for where I'm at, but it's not something I do very often. I kind of leave it to just travel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so let's let's shift over to a little bit more of the woo conversation, because I really do believe in vibration and frequency and how, if you really take care of yourself, mind and body, that you will attract better opportunities, better people and I know it sounds a little out there, but I have used myself as a guinea pig and I know that it's true, and so I do believe there is a connection between the things that you ingest, whether it's what you're eating, what you're drinking, the people youest, whether it's what you're eating, what you're drinking, the people you're hanging out with, what you're watching, what you're listening to it all matters. I know that you're also equally as passionate about this. What are your thoughts behind the vibrational match between what you're eating and your life?
Speaker 2:That's really interesting. I think you don't need to think about it, because you just feel it or are pulled towards it. So purchasing fruit is a great example, right? So you walk up to the peaches at the farmer's market and you'll feel a few before you choose the ones that it has a really nice, you know, dark, peachy, warm color, because those are the ones that are going to be most ripe, that you're going to take home. You're going to feel them out, right, because you don't want it to be too soft or too hard, but ultimately there's something that you're feeling within the peach as to why you chose that one. It's a vibrational match, right? It's just like when you walk into a room. There are certain people that you see or feel that you are more drawn to than others. There's some like everything about you changes in a good way, but you, you do move in a more up spiral fashion, and the people that aren't making those same choices, they can't stay connected to you and it's hard.
Speaker 1:But I have a friend of mine who is in phenomenal shape and he is even in the medical field, but he, I mean it's a semi obnoxious, but that he gets to eat whatever he wants and I'm talking about like frozen pizzas at night, just not great choices and he truly believes that it doesn't like food doesn't affect him in that way. Are there some people that are a little bit more sensitive to what they're ingesting and other people's, whoever like? I guess for lack of a better word thicker stomach skin.
Speaker 2:I think it'll catch up to him. Unfortunately, I have had people in my life with the same mindset and then I watch it catch up to them, and that's I don't enjoy watching that. But there are some of us that are just more sensitive to others because we've just evolved a little faster on our journey. But everyone's going to get there. Everyone's going to hit a point where the process and the microwavable foods are suddenly going to make them not feel good.
Speaker 1:I'm there and it's actually I think it's obnoxious because I used to be able to eat more junk food or even candy. Let's just say candy for an for an. As an example. I have an eight year old daughter, so there are times that we have candy in the house. Example I have an eight-year-old daughter, so there are times that we have candy in the house and if I have a bite of her, whatever it just tastes synthetic and not. It doesn't taste good, because I'm used to eating dark chocolate and now I do when I'm. When I have like a cheat day or whatever, not even a cheat day, but when I just go out to eat and I have something that's probably not as healthy, I do feel it Like I feel lethargic and not so great, whereas before I don't know if I would have noticed that I felt bad. Do you see that in a lot of clients?
Speaker 2:Well, it's really interesting because I cook for my clients and many of my clients I've been with for many years so I even have one client I've been with for eight years and for me because I'm so intentional with how I cook for them and I practice a very strong spiritual health and wellness practice, so I know the energy that I'm preparing with my hands is going into their food.
Speaker 2:So I watched them evolve over the time that I cook for them and work for them, and I do notice their consciousness evolve, their ability to be more open-minded about alternative subjects, about our food, our food system, about their health and wellbeing, about wanting to upgrade food, our food system, about their health and wellbeing, about wanting to upgrade, you know, their, their wellness, um, and the other thing is they become more sensitive to sugar as I work for them. So a lot of my clients ultimately hire me because they they want desserts, but they can. Now their body can only handle honey, maple syrup, maybe dates or date sugar and occasionally coconut sugar. All the other sugars make them sick, and that's what happens to me too. I can't go to an ice cream shop and have a scoop of ice cream. I'll crash and I'll be sick in bed for days, but I can make my own ice cream out of raw milk and honey and I'm fine. So I noticed that, yeah, their their ability to consume certain foods definitely shifts, just as mine has shifted.
Speaker 1:Do you consume any other like alcohol or anything else that do you that? Also, people say that are low vibrational foods.
Speaker 2:So it's really interesting. I went many, many years without having any alcohol, I would say over the past 10 years I very rarely even had a sip of wine, even when I went to wineries on vacations with family. I was dating someone for the past few months and so I tried to lighten up and occasionally have a glass of wine, and I was really surprised that, after all these years of removing it, I was okay, but I was very mindful of the wine that I chose. It doesn't have to be organic and it doesn't have to be biodynamic, but basically what you're looking for is a wine that they didn't use any sulfates or any chemicals to speed up the natural fermentation of the wine. So is that considered?
Speaker 1:a dry farm wine right.
Speaker 2:Essentially. Yeah, so you're looking for a wine that was done, where they filtered the water or they didn't use herbicides, pesticides, insecticides, and they traditionally fermented the wine. I found that after removing wine and alcohol from my diet, I mean for years, for years, I didn't have a sip of anything that. When I brought back just a glass every now and then but was very mindful about where I chose it from, I was fine. Um, did I feel a shift energetically in me over the past few months from doing that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I noticed my ability to.
Speaker 1:I take it he didn't take you at a sports bar, cause if you're at a sports bar, you're like excuse me, do you have any biodynamic wine? They're like girl, get out of here.
Speaker 2:I did. I did decline going to certain places.
Speaker 1:You got to go. You just have a sparkling water. You probably?
Speaker 2:don't, absolutely.
Speaker 2:But, I don't even enjoy the vibe of those places. That's the thing is. Um, I don't even enjoy how I feel in those places. Um, but I've just become. You know, you just become more selective of what you choose to put in you, and when it doesn't work, you just don't do that one again, and when you find the ones that work, you make note.
Speaker 2:But I think it's the 80, 20 balance, right. So I think there's times in your spiritual journey where you have to be hyper clean and you really go inward and you really work on yourself, but then you ultimately have to come back out into the real world, because we're here for this human experience, right, and we have to all be able to interact with one another, and there's so many lessons for us to learn. We're not meant to hibernate and be by ourselves. So, um, I feel like I've just come out of that hibernation and have been having the experience this year of, like taking all my lessons, all my spiritual lessons, and embodying them and operating in the real world with people that aren't necessarily in the same place that I'm at, but that's part of the duality of this life.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm for people who are listening to this and not watching it on YouTube. I'm looking at you and you're glowing, like your skin is glowing beautiful. So how have you seen, just physically, the the way that you eat actually show itself in a physical form?
Speaker 2:So for me, I noticed it immediately Like I wear my emotions on my face and on my skin and what I eat. So I feel it every every day Like. So I have to be really mindful and you know I'm also someone that feels a lot, so I get very affected by the moons. I don't do well with full moons and new moons, like the few days before I swell up. I feel puffy sometimes and I share this, because sometimes it's not the food. You know I'm so you know I'm an expert at choosing my ingredients of health, supportive cooking techniques, of you know traditional ways of preparation, and I can still feel heavy and bloated, despite the fact that I know I didn't eat anything that should be causing that. So what?
Speaker 1:happens when you feel bloated and I'm asking like for a selfish reason, because I'm extremely bloated today. So I know a lot of women my age are going through that where all of a sudden they just feel bloated. What is your remedy for that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we have a new moon in two days and that's part of the reason why and it's a cancer new moon. So cancer is like the most emotional sign. So I've been crying for the past few days and I'm like, what is going on? I'm not a crier, I'm like, oh, this is coming up and I also feel swollen and puffy. But nothing in my diet's changed and I've actually eaten a lot of fish recently and a lot of bone broth. So what's going on?
Speaker 2:So when I have those experiences, I take a dip in the ocean, I go to the infrared sauna, I walk. I have to get away from technology. The more tech I'm around, those invisible frequencies make you swell up. Those are the things that I do. Sometimes it's just like mental affirmations reminding myself that I am safe, I am at peace. You know all the I ams that can help me turn the corner, and then, ultimately, I think it's just surrendering to like this is just what's going on with my body at the moment. Um, I'm, I'm okay. And then some of the other things that I like to do is I love a castor oil liver pack.
Speaker 1:I just started doing that. Queen of Thrones. Castor oil yes, that's the one. Okay, for people who are listening, I actually was going to do a reel about this because I went to a naturopathic doctor to check my hormones and she had mentioned that this was really powerful for detoxing, and you basically put castor oil on your liver, like outside, like your tummy, and then you wrap it around it. You could get it on Amazon. I'll put a link to it in the show notes and I've been doing it every night, but I'm going to tell you the truth, I don't know what it's, what does it do and how does it work. A castor oil pack.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then so after you put it on, I put like a warm compress, like a warm little pack on it for an hour like watch a TV show or a movie or read a book, and I always get the best night's sleep ever after I do it, and then I also wake up slimmer. So it just helps flush the water, weight and the hormones out of my body and basically it comes out of your urine, basically Um but, um. But it's what's happening with the castor oil is it's almost acting like remineralization. So it's remineralizing your body, it's nourishing your liver and it's allowing your liver to detoxify. Because as we get older, as women, we really store our estrogen, our excess estrogen, in our liver and then that turns into fat. So we have to flush that stuff out of us so we don't gain weight and we don't gain melasma and all the other skin and health issues. So that's what the castor oil is helping the body do. It's helping the liver just flush out all the excess estrogen and toxins that it's storing.
Speaker 1:How often do you do it?
Speaker 2:I just do it like three nights a week, two to three nights a week. How often do you do it? I just do it like three nights a week, two to three nights a week. And then another thing that I love that I do weekly is I have one of the foot ion detox machines and that helps get like all the excess lymph out of my body and just again move, move fluids that are making me feel swollen. And you know, I've kind of figured out writing this down.
Speaker 1:If this helps, yeah, if this helps.
Speaker 2:You know, I think kind of figured out, writing this down. Yeah, If this helps. You know, I think everyone needs to build their library of tools at home. Right, we got to figure out a way to have this stuff at home so we aren't driving all over town um seeking all these remedies, because that's going to exhaust us and ultimately not refuel us. So you figure out the remedies that you have at home and then you apply them when you need them.
Speaker 1:Okay, last question, cause we're all over the place, cause I've I mean, I could talk to you for hours because, like everything about what you're talking about, I'm so curious about what. How do you feel about the new thing that I've noticed that people are saying that it's bad for you as air fryers and an air fryer. To me it's just air circulating, and now everyone's saying it's toxic, it's a toxic, toxic way of you preparing a food. Is that true that air fryers are bad for you? Please say that they're not, because I use one all the time.
Speaker 2:So this is the best question. And if you have a convection oven at home, you have an air fryer. So if you have an oven that has the convection setting, all you have to do is turn your oven on, press that button and your oven will be preheated and ready to go like a air fryer in 15 minutes.
Speaker 1:But what's wrong here? But this is why it doesn't work, because you don't have an eight-year-old. No, I understand Two nuggets. I'm not going to turn on the entire oven, heat up the whole kitchen for two little nuggets. So what is another way? And why are air fryers so bad?
Speaker 2:So what people are referring to with the air fryers being toxic, it depends on the air fryer you buy. So if you're buying an air fryer that's all plastic and silicone, and so you're dropping the food into something that's plastic and silicone, you're cooking your food in plastic and silicone. So now you're going to be absorbing all these chemicals that are the hormone disruptors, which is the root cause of so many people and children's health issues right now, and so we have to get away from eating food in plastic and cooking food in plastic. And you know, silicone is kind of dicey too. We really don't know the long-term effects of that. So if you can find an air fryer where it's at least stainless steel or metal, you know that's a little better.
Speaker 2:I'm the type of person you know it's just little old me at home so I turn on the oven in convection setting when I'm reheating.
Speaker 2:You know, two little pieces of chicken or two little meatballs, um, you know, because I just put it in as I turn on the oven, set it to 400 convection setting, give it 15 minutes, and it just is what it is for me, just because, as a chef, I have a lot of tools. I just can't bring in any more tools into my house, um. But if you're someone that really you just don't have a proper oven and you're really relying on the, on the air fryer, because that's really all you got, um, that's when you just have to buy quality over quantity. You have to invest in the best version of that item that you can. So don't go cheap, don't go for the cheapy one because it's the better deal. Really, take your time in choosing a higher quality version. So that's like with people who love crockpots I always recommend buying one that has the ceramic insert, not the stainless steel insert, because ultimately there's going to be a reaction with the metal and your food's just going to taste better.
Speaker 1:Wait, I thought that stainless steel cookware is what you're supposed to get for health.
Speaker 2:It is great, but not when you're slow cooking food for like six to eight hours. So if you're using a crock pot because you're making a slow cooked pulled pork or a stew or anything that's cooking for hours, you really want to do the ceramic, and I did side-by-side comparisons to help understand this. Where is this? This is just what I did for myself.
Speaker 1:I thought you had like something that you have on your website.
Speaker 2:I'm like I know I literally took one recipe and I made it in a ceramic pot and made it in a stainless steel slow cooker and it tasted completely different. Same exact recipe, did it side by side, simply from the stainless steel to the ceramic.
Speaker 1:So, um, it's just fine If it's a. It's a pan, stainless steel is not good. If it's a slow cooker, stainless steel is fine Is if it's an air fryer, silicone plastic not good If it's an air fryer.
Speaker 2:Just think so. When we are heating up anything, it's one thing if we're heating it up for a short period of time versus a long period of time, and with everything we decide, it's always quality over quantity, right? So when we choose our blender, we want to take in time to choose what blender we're using and find one that's really going to give us our best bang for the buck. Same with our pots and pans, same with all of our kitchen tools. Um, I really recommend people. You know, it's not about having more stuff in the kitchen, it's about having the quality stuff that can really last a long time. But that's that's good for you.
Speaker 1:That's good for your health. Okay, before you go, star seed tell me about star seed kitchens.
Speaker 2:So I started making my own spice blends with my dad when I was in high school, just, you know, because we like to create our own flavors and it was more cost-effective. And then, after I went to culinary school and I learned how important organic and non-irradiated spices are, and also I just wanted to have spice blends that didn't have sugar, msg, citric acid, anti-caking agents, real salt, and I couldn't find that on the shelf. So, you know, I kept making them for myself, but I started to use them on my personal chef clients and they really loved the flavor profiles of my 11 magic herbs and spices and my adobo Uh. So I wanted to share them with more people, because my passion is just really helping people eat healthy meals at home. Because they may not believe, but I know that when you start cooking at home and you improve the quality of the food that you're eating, that everything in your life will come into balance. You know you'll have more. You'll have a balanced physical, emotional, spiritual and mental body. You know your, your third eye and your intuition will open up and expand. You know your, your third eye and your intuition will open up and expand. You know your physical health will improve. Like you'll look better, you'll feel better, your mindset will shift, like a lot of people suffer with depression and anxiety and like fear of connecting with other people you know and being social. And when you change your diet, when you improve the quality of the food you eat, that stuff kind of falls away, you know, because so much is connected between our gut, our heart and our brain.
Speaker 2:Um, and a lot of people are waiting for the science. And the science is there if you want to read about it. But why not just like feel it and experience it yourself and just look at the foods that you're buying and just make little tweaks and upgrades? But along the way, meals should still be delicious. So you shouldn't just be cooking a plain chicken breast and steaming some vegetables and thinking that's healthy. Like go out and buy some chicken thighs, bone and skin on, cover them with my 11 magic herbs and spices, like it should be crazy, delicious and delectable. Have it with a roasted sweet potato, have your steamed vegetables if you want. But um, food should be delicious and fun and pleasurable and that's part of um, what makes us feel good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree. Oh, my gosh Whitney. Thank you so much. I'm going to get those spices and keep it posted. Oh, there are air one now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you're in LA, 11 Magic Gryps and Spices is in Erewhon, but my anti-inflammatory adobo isn't there yet. Hopefully this fall. But if you go to any Erewhon location in LA, if you go down the spice aisle you'll see a little Starseed Kitchen. Oh my gosh, there's one next to my house.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go get it, oh good, and then I'll put the link to your website, your Instagram Starseeds website, too. Thank you so much for being here. I, I, I well, you're going to have to come back because there's so many more questions I have.
Speaker 2:You ask great questions. This was a blast. I love chatting with you, thank you.