Episode 003: Empowering Your Water Choices: Hidden Toxins and Affordable Solutions

In this enlightening episode of Crunchy Stewardship, cousins Chrissy Rombach and Katie Jones explore the vital topic of food quality and its impact on our health from a biblical perspective. 

The discussion focuses on food cultivation, the dangers of pesticides, and the benefits of organic eating. They highlight the Environmental Working Group's (EWG) Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 lists, explaining the hazards of pesticide-laden produce and offering practical tips for buying healthier food without breaking the bank. 

The episode also dives into the concept of regenerative farming and God's design for farming outlined in the Bible, emphasizing the importance of allowing the soil to rest. Chrissy and Katie invite listeners to join their Facebook group for further discussion and community support in the journey toward better health.

Episode Takeaway: 

Considering your current food consumption habits and the information shared in this episode, what is one small, manageable step you feel inspired to take this week to better steward the food you and your family eat?

Mentioned in this Episode:

• EWG's Dirty Dozen List: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty-dozen.php

• EWG's Clean 15 List: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/clean-fifteen.php

• Documentary "The Biggest Little Farm": https://amzn.to/42MxHvE

*Links may provide affiliate commission. We thank you for your support of our show!

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FREE How to Afford Non-Toxic Living Workbook: https://crunchystewardship.com/how-to-afford-non-toxic-living 

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Transcript

Chrissy: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Crunchy Stewardship. My name is Chrissy Rombach.

Katie: 0:05

And my name is Katie Jones. And we are two cousins who are super passionate about learning and sharing the knowledge that we have to equip others like you to steward their spiritual, mental, emotional, financial, and physical health in order to honor God in every aspect of their lives.

Chrissy: 0:27

In our podcast, we are taking a deep dive into what it means to steward our lives as God originally intended for us. With the resources that God has given us, we will look at topics like food, medicine, finances, mental health, and lots more through a natural lens with a biblical foundation. In this episode we're gonna give a broad overview of just some topics on food. We're gonna go a little bit deeper into the topic of food, specifically in food cultivation. We decided to. Focus on food cultivation today just because, you know, Hippocrates said about 2000 years ago that all disease begins in the gut. And so what better way to begin healing the disease than by changing the gut? And we put food into our gut every single day. So, I think it's really important to focus on how we can change the foods that we put into our gut to then impact our health for the better. So today we're talking about food cultivation, which is pretty much how is food mass produced here in the United States and how can we as a consumer ensure that the food we get is actually good for us and doesn't have extra toxins and chemicals added to it. That is unfortunately so common in the food industry here in America. Um, Katie, do you have anything else to add onto that, that you think is important about this before we get started?

Katie: 2:08

Yeah, I think this topic is fascinating, and it's something that I've been learning a lot about recently, because I always considered myself a pretty healthy eater and compared to a lot of America, I, you know, if you looked at our dinner plates you would definitely see that my husband and I, we focus on eating pretty healthy. But what I have learned and what, you know, you and I will discuss today is that just eating kind of like fruits and veggies and even just, eating meats and things like that isn't always the healthiest option. And maybe hearing that for the first time. If, if you're on the other end of this podcast, you're like, wait a minute, what are you gonna say? This is crazy. Because, yeah, like growing up my family focused a lot on eating like a quote unquote balanced meal, right? We had lots of, vegetables in our meals. We had, you know, Turkey sandwiches and we had lots of fruits like berries and nuts and things. And generally speaking, these are healthy things. But again, like as we're going to dive deeper into, it's like there is actually a range, like a scale of these items and their impact on us in regards to. Yeah, whether they're actually healthy or not. Granted, yes, eating these things is better than eating boxed mac and cheese every night or something like that, or ramen noodles. Absolutely. But again, what I didn't know was that like some of these foods actually weren't as healthy as I actually expected them to be for me. It's been

Chrissy: 3:50

crazy. Or rather, the food in and of themselves is healthy for you, but the way that the foods are prepared for us here in America is not healthy for us. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The way

Katie: 4:03

that they're like grown and produced, um, and, and the way they get to us makes them very nutrient deficient.

Chrissy: 4:12

Exactly.

Katie: 4:13

And poisonous.

Chrissy: 4:15

So we wanted to focus on what are those things that, are toxic for us that unfortunately are in the quote unquote healthy foods. And so, amazingly enough, there is plenty of resources out there on this topic as our government actually starts to look more into regenerative farming and what that looks like. And the American population is starting to. Kind of push back on big ag and big food and demanding better quality food, which is really important for us. There is more resources out there because of this. So, one resource that I really wanna focus on, first off, is the EWG's Dirty Dozen list. So this list they have developed, they have looked at a broad spectrum of fruits and vegetables and developed a list of 12 fruits and vegetables that are considered the quote unquote dirtiest of the bunch. These ones are most likely to have the most amount of pesticides on them. And are the most important to buy organic. So some of the things that they mention in their list of the Dirty Dozen is that they found a total of 209 pesticides in these 12 fruits and vegetables. And more than 50 of these pesticides were detected on every single crop on this list, except for the cherries, which is. So heartbreaking for me to hear that over 50 pesticides are used on my favorite fruits and vegetables that I, ugh, it just hurts my heart. So the 12 that are on this list, in order from worst to not as bad. Number one is strawberries, which I genuinely think hurts my heart the most.

Katie: 6:10

That's so sad.

Chrissy: 6:11

I know, but it makes sense. You know, they have a very rough surface to them that the pesticides can get in and kind of get stuck. And even if you try to wash it off, like it's already gotten into the fruit, you know? So strawberries number two is spinach. Number three is kale, which those are leafy greens that again, have that rough surface and is very easy for stuff to stick to. Number four is grapes. Number five, peaches. Number six, pears. Number seven, nectarines. Number eight, apples number nine, bell peppers and hot peppers. Hmm. Number 10 was cherries. Number 11 is blueberries. And number 12 was green beans. So essentially I've kind of realized this.

Katie: 7:01

Yeah.

Chrissy: 7:02

Seems like a list of a lot of summertime fruits and vegetables, you know, that are

Katie: 7:07

Yeah. A lot of things that have like really soft skins and it makes sense that like they would be penetrated by a lot of these things. Mm-hmm. Chrissy, I wanna ask you a question about these. So you're, kind of explaining like, okay, these are some of the foods that we need to be slightly afraid of are potentially poisoning us. And so can we back up and will you explain what, so EWG is like they've done testing to find these pesticides. Why should we be afraid of these pesticides? Like why does it matter? Like why, you know, okay, we've been eating them for years. I'm not dying instantly when I eat a strawberry. But why does it matter that we avoid these as non-organic foods?

Chrissy: 7:52

Yeah, so pesticides have a lot more health impacts than we really truly know about, as the general American population, just because they don't want us to know about it. And so they make the research really, really hard to find. It is out there, but you have to click a lot in order to get where you wanna go. And these pesticides have actually proven to be neurotoxins and neurotoxins affect the brain processing, they affect thought processing and these pesticides have also been proven to be endocrine disruptors and can be somewhat responsible for infertility rates that we are seeing in the United States. You know, infertility rates are through the roof right now, and, I genuinely think that part of it is because of the pesticides that we have been putting on our food are disrupting our hormones and creating an infertile environment for the reproduction of life. Which if you think about it, it makes sense. Pesticides are designed to kill living things.

Katie: 9:03

Yeah, to kill life.

Chrissy: 9:04

Exactly. And so if we put it in our body, and then try to create a new living thing, the pesticides really do get in the way. And one of the most common pesticides that is used is called glyphosate. Katie, I know you've done a lot of research on glyphosate and its impacts on the human body. You wanna just go through like, what are some of the general overviews of glyphosate and the dangers in using it?

Katie: 9:36

So glyphosate is, I learned, the main chemical in Roundup, which many of us even use around our own gardens. Like, so if you're using Roundup, you are spraying glyphosate onto your your own home garden. And so glyphosate has been linked to a lot of different chronic diseases. There are studies now that show that pesticides, such as glyphosate might be leading to things like brain cancer. Even seeing, the reduction in fertility, like you mentioned, other cancers, gut imbalances, autoimmune diseases are a big one that often get linked to glyphosate poisoning. And then one of the ones that I've been learning a lot more about recently as a foster mom to a little girl who has really intense autism is that glyphosate and, like all these processed foods even and, food dyes, everything that you'd find in a processed food. So whether it's a pesticide or some sort of additive to our food is that they can potentially lead towards the exacerbation of certain symptoms of autism or even like ADHD. So when you see kids who are like intensely acting out, whether it is, like the symptoms of autism or ADHD, it oftentimes is linked to like an increase of glyphosate in their system. And so there's a lot of these issues that we're seeing, chronic issues that we're seeing in our kids, in adults everybody across the board, I mean, you think about. Like how sick we are as a culture. I literally, Chrissy listened to this statistic the other day. It's, it was so sad. It was, a podcast episode about health insurance, but they shared this statistic that was just so mind blowing to me that on average, in a given year, we as Americans are dying at greater rates today from chronic diseases than on average we are dying from the past American Wars that we've been involved in. So the given year on average. We lose like 1.4 million people to wars like from centuries past and now today, on average, we lose around 1.7 million people to chronic diseases. And you're like, well this is,

Chrissy: 12:08

How horrible is that?

Katie: 12:08

Huge! This is a giant epidemic that we're facing. And it's a tragedy when we lose people. Like lives to wars and things that we're involved in. But why aren't we talking more about these chronic diseases that are killing us I mean heart, any kind of heart diseases. Those are some of the top ones. But then autoimmune diseases impact lives like so dramatically that, it's almost seen as like normal to have like an autoimmune disease. I was part of a conversation where everybody was talking about their autoimmune issues, and I'm like sitting here like, oh my gosh, I'm the only one here that doesn't have an autoimmune disease. But they're talking about it as if it's like it's just a normal day.

Chrissy: 12:53

Which if you think about it. The human body. So we have cells in our body that are designed to kill off dying or sick cells. They're called phages. Phage means to eat, and, the specific ones are autophages, so eat self means the cells that eat parts of the self that are sick or dying or dead. But, with these pesticides and additives that have been added to our food, they are working and reprogramming the autophages to then attack good, healthy cells. And that's actually where a lot of thyroid issues come in. Because many autoimmune diseases are also related to the thyroid and thyroid cells look very similar to some of those dying or sick or cancerous cells that the autophages would attack. And so the autophages then start attacking the thyroid. Which handles a lot of metabolism and food processing in the body and energy levels. The thyroid is responsible for a vast majority of the hormones that are released into our body, and that's where those autoimmune issues come up is from the thyroid not working properly because of the body attacking itself.

Katie: 14:22

It's so crazy. And I even think of just like how sick we are. Like not even on like a chronic level, but like you think about how often we see people just coming down with the common cold or the flu and all this stuff, and you just ask why. And I know like people are like, oh yeah, like kids, like they have lots of germs and blah, blah, blah. They're gonna get sick. Yeah. Okay. We know that. But even as adults, like our immune systems in general are so weak because we just don't have the nutrients in order to fight off these sicknesses as easily as we should be able to. I mean, we shouldn't be chronically sick with the flu or, a cold or a cough or anything like that. Mm-hmm. But the issue with using a lot of these chemicals like glyphosate, so I know like we kind of talked about, just like the impact of these chronic diseases, but just like our day-to-day. Like we aren't getting the nutrients that we need to because the soil is so depleted of, good, healthy bacterias, and nutrients, and minerals, and vitamins because we're spraying the crops with this nasty stuff. We're not giving the soil any kind of compost like we're doing fertilizers that have more chemicals in them, which then in turn kill off like all of the, the good bugs, we need worms and all the other little creatures that are in there because they help to bring value and nutrients to our soils. And so, yeah, if you're wondering like, why am I always getting sick? Well, it's probably because, that apple that you're eating. Like it was sprayed with glyphosate. I mean, some of the reasons why people think that we need these chemicals is because it, it helps our food last longer, and so the apple that you're eating or the cucumber that you just cut up for lunch, it might have been picked from the field like weeks ago, potentially even months ago, but it's sprayed with these chemicals that will make it so that they don't deteriorate as quickly, and then by the time that it gets to you, it's lost all of its nutrients.'Cause the, the moment that anything is cut from the vine or that that plant that it's growing from, it starts to degrade and lose its nutrient value. And so by the time that it actually gets to your plate, it probably has no nutrients. And I think we may have touched on that in that, like from a perspective of like wheat and like wheat grains and why like even, you know, like, like all the bread that we have literally has like no nutrient value and then they like pump it with fake nutrients. You know, when you see fortified with vitamins, you're literally eating processed vitamins. Like things that are made in a lab, like these aren't naturally occurring nutrients, that are good for your body. They're like synthesized stuff Our foster daughter who I mentioned who has autism, unfortunately, it's a really big problem that she really only wants to eat Cheerios. Like that is her main food. And she's lived with us for two years and that's one of the only things we can ever get her to eat consistently. And I had a friend who's like, well, at least they're fortified with vitamins. And it was around that time that I was learning about like why the fortification of vitamins just wasn't good. And I was like. Oh my gosh, you're right. She's eating all these synthetic vitamins that they're just like, lab produced chemical, blah, blah, blah. You know? It's just, I was like, oh, it's just so sad because yeah, there's, there's no nutrients in them. It's hard, so, yeah. That's why we're sick.

Chrissy: 18:03

You mentioned that it's important to have soil that is nutrient dense. That we have been depleting our soil, of the really, really important nutrients that it has. It actually, it made me think about a passage in Leviticus, you know,

Katie: 18:19

Ooh.

Chrissy: 18:19

Conveniently, God actually told us how to farm. You know, like he laid it out.

Katie: 18:26

Please do share

Chrissy: 18:26

in the laws of Leviticus. So Leviticus, 25 verse 3-4. It says, for six years, sow your fields and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops, but in the seventh year, the land is to have a year of Sabbath, rest a Sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. And that is very clear. It is a command to the Israelites. Do not sow or reap in that seventh year of Sabbath rest. You know, God created six days of work and one day of Sabbath. That Sabbath is designed as a refresher, a replenishment of energy. It is put there that his people can sit and be refreshed in the presence of the Lord. You know, humans are, we as Christians are commanded to observe the Sabbath in order to be refreshed, to prepare us for the week. And having a Sabbath for our crops is just as important, you know? To let the soil rest so that it can replenished and rejuvenated to then give you better crops in the years to come. And I think we have totally failed as a society in following that, I never once have I seen a field resting for a whole year in order to allow the soil to regenerate its nutrients.

Katie: 20:04

Yeah. I wonder if farmers if they do that. I, I'd be curious to know, I, I'd be willing to bet if are small farmers or something, I don't know.

Chrissy: 20:12

I would be willing to bet that some farmers do. Those farmers who really take into account God's word and in another place in the scriptures, I can't remember exactly where it is, but God promises to bless the Israelites with enough food to sustain them for that year that they are not sowing and reaping, you know. Just as when the Israelites are wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, God provided the manna for them every single day. He provided all that they needed and they were not to take more than what they needed. And in the same sense, like God will provide for us if we treat our food the way God has commanded us to treat our food by taking a rest for a year from growing crops. Every seven years, God will provide for us the food that we need for that seventh year during the sixth year, he has promised that, and God does not break his promises. You know, that is one thing that I am so thankful for, that God does not break his promises. Amen. And we can be confident that he has told us this and he will go through with what he said.

Katie: 21:30

It's so fascinating. I, I always find that there's so many like unique similarities between us as human beings and our food and crops and everything. And I don't know why and I just feel like sharing this, but you know. Thinking about Sabbath our culture is so saturated with this idea of like hustle, like this hustle culture, right? Mm-hmm. Of like, we need to work, we need to keep going and going and doing and doing in order to get money to, in order to, to get this lifestyle that we're wanting to get. But then it ends up leading to burnout and stress. And then again, like all these things end up leading to chronic illness because when our bodies are so stressed, we like our body's like literally in this fight or flight mode and can't relax in order to replenish itself, and it's just so beautiful. You just think back to like the Garden of Eden and how like we too are similar to this idea of a garden. Like we, like our bodies need to be tended to and watered and filled with the Holy Spirit in order to do what we were made to do. Like, uh, right. It's, it's so beautiful how God really did create us to be sustained in this balanced way. I know you and I were kind of talking before this podcast recording of like the, the idea of like regenerative farming and how wonderful and like symbiotic it really is. Um, my mom and I watched this beautiful documentary called the biggest little farm. it's all about regenerative farming and how, honestly, like the way that I saw it, and I don't think that these people were Christians, but it's just so cool how you can just see God kind of working in, in all these like unique ways, but I think just seeing that he really did create everything to work perfectly together, but we as humans, like sin just entered the world and we just kind of messed it up. And we think that we need to fix something that God designed as perfectly to work together and so we think we need to bring in glyphosate and fix the farming and agriculture ways that we produce food. When really like, I think one of the coolest examples was. That they, in this documentary, they had these fruit trees and they were being overtaken by snails. And they're like, well, how do you get rid of the snails without bringing in any kind of pesticide? We don't wanna, take, chemicals to them to kill them. And they found out that ducks really like to eat snails. And so they. Brought their massive hoard of ducks to this orchard. And the ducks just like had a field day like eating all the snails off the trees and they're like, oh my gosh, this is great. So now the ducks are fed, the trees aren't getting eaten by these snails. And then. The ducks are pooping on the, on the roots of these trees. And so they're getting fertilized by the poop. And it's just so funny, like it's just like one of those silly little things that when you actually take a step back and like observe to see, okay, how does this actually work? Like how did God design it to work together? And can we just trust him to kind of work these things out without needing to come in and fix something that wasn't broken.

Chrissy: 24:56

So who knew it could be such a simple,

Katie: 24:59

a simple solution. Yeah. They didn't have to like,

Chrissy: 25:01

very simple,

Katie: 25:02

do anything new.

Chrissy: 25:04

Yeah. So if it's so simple and kind of straightforward, why can't all farms be like this? And focus on using natural ways to get rid of pests as opposed to focusing on using pesticides. Like why can't it just be used across the board?

Katie: 25:24

I think that's when we can start talking about this idea of like big agriculture, which a lot of people just use the phrase like big ag, A-G, to talk about this phenomenon that kind of goes on with our industrialization of the agriculture system. I think America kind of came in and they're like, you know, we need to figure out how to feed the world. And it's so they had this like really great idea of like, we need to figure out how to feed everyone on a large scale. And so they came in and basically said like, oh, all these small farms aren't doing it as well as we think we could. And so they come in and they want to industrialize this whole system and this, this, now this system that we live under kind of dominates the way that we produce food. I mean specifically here in America, but in, in a lot of developing nations. And so. They have this mass production of how we make food, and so they create a system of bringing in stuff like glyphosate and only making like, like having only one crop be their main crop in this area for the soil, which is actually really bad for the soil to have the same crop mm-hmm. Year after year in, in that one place. Because like corn wants different types of nutrients and vitamins from the soil than something like zucchini would, um, or any other,

Chrissy: 26:50

I think that that kind of goes back to the command in Leviticus of rotating.

Katie: 26:57

Yes.

Chrissy: 26:57

Year after year. You know, if the same crop, that's a good point, is stealing the same nutrients from the soil year after year, then the soil's gonna be completely depleted from that. Whereas if you rotate different crops throughout the years or throughout the seasons, different crops are gonna pull different nutrients from the soil and also put back different nutrients into the soil. You know, when they pick the crops, they do leave behind pieces, like it's not just soil that's left behind. You'll have the stems, some roots, yeah, some leaves that are left over and those disintegrate and they decompose and feed the soil again. You know?

Katie: 27:36

So I think like big ag, like they kind of came in and decided we know a more efficient way of doing this, so that we can lower our production costs and we want to be able to do this like on a really large scale. And so they, they came in honestly, with the main goal of making profits. Like they, they say that it really is about like feeding the world and everybody but, what it really boils down to is like, how can they make the most money, as quickly as possible. And so there's a lot of concerns. Like we've kind of talked about, like there's a lot of environmental concerns for the soil. It honestly, it leads to a lot of water pollution too. Like when you think about all the chemicals getting into our water, which we talked a little bit about, water before. And then, honestly, it's really interesting because it gets into really big things like, the people point fingers at like, like the greenhouse gas emissions. But a lot of it actually is linked to the way that our agriculture system works specifically. And, and it's really interesting that we point fingers back and forth at who the big culprit is, but when you look at all the benefits of something like regenerative farming, it starts to eliminate a lot of these big world issues like greenhouse gases or water pollution and soil degradation and stuff like that. But ultimately, I think what it comes down to is a lot of, we don't realize what the big agriculture systems are doing to our public health. Mm-hmm. We think we're eating healthy when we're just eating fruits and vegetables, but. Yes. Again, on the scale of what you could be putting into your body, it's definitely better than a lot of the packaged processed foods, so it's a step above that. But what's even better for your body if you want to get the full nutrients and vitamins and minerals that you really need in order to thrive and to live a long, prosperous life and to really take care of your body the way that God wants us to, like to value it and what we're putting into it, we need to examine all of the benefits of eating something like organic food. We need to get back to just the way that God really designed it, right?

Chrissy: 30:03

So. Katie, throughout this podcast, we've talked a lot about the dangers of the food that we have in our grocery stores the dangers of pesticide use, the specific foods that are generally not recommended to buy unorganic because of the risk of pesticides. So what are we supposed to do about it? What is your biggest tip in relation to food quality and buying good food that you have for us that is not going to break the bank?

Katie: 30:36

Yeah. I was actually talking about this with some girls in my Bible study the other day because. I was trying to tell'em like, yeah, organic food is really the best way to go, and so we need to be shopping for organic food. And they're like, well, that's so expensive. It's so hard to switch. And, and I've actually found that if you start focusing on buying whole organic foods like, think ingredients, you know? Okay. Just your fruits and veggies rather than buying like the organic processed foods.'cause if you go and you do buy like organic pasta sauces or organic cereals or all the boxed pre-made stuff for you already. Those are definitely going to be bank breaking, like they're going to wreck your budget. They're so expensive when you buy the pre-made stuff. And so as challenging as it might be if you are someone who is used to just buying like the pre-made stuff, it really will be, pretty equal in your grocery budget to switch from the pre-made stuff to buying the ingredients to make the stuff. It does require, obviously then cooking. So it might not always be the best solution for people, but we have found that now that we are switching away from like all the pre-made snacks, like we, we've now don't really buy as many snack foods in general, which tend to be the more expensive items at the grocery store. So we actually like make our own snacks or just in general, instead of. Making a snack. We just like chop up a bunch of organic fruits and veggies. And that's like the main thing that we buy at the grocery store now is just whole foods versus the pre-packaged stuff. So that's like my tip. It does require a little bit more planning and thinking. But Chrissy, what about you? Do you have any other tips maybe even if people don't necessarily have the time? Because I know like you're busy. You work a lot too. And don't. Have the ability to always do a lot of the planning and cooking and stuff for yourselves. Yeah. What are you kind of doing or what is your tip?

Chrissy: 32:46

Yeah, so I work 12 hour shifts. I'm gonna be completely honest. After a 12 hour shift, cooking a meal, then eating said meal, and still getting eight to 10 hours of sleep before going to my next 12 hour shift is just not a reality.

Katie: 33:00

Totally.

Chrissy: 33:01

There is not enough hours in the day if you do the math. One thing that I have learned is, you have to choose what is best for your family. Each person's situation is going to be different. And one thing that I've learned just to help with the timing situation of it is I will buy organic of specifically the things on EWG's dirty dozen list. You know, those fruits, the peaches, and the berries and the leafy greens, you know. But EWG has also published a list called the Clean 15 which is really great and really beneficial if you do need to buy food that is not organic in order to not break the bank or if you wanna see a a little bit more of a processed form of the food. But like we said, the processed organic foods are super, super expensive. So if you're gonna buy a processed food that's not organic, maybe focus on the processed food that has Clean 15 ingredients in it or is more focused on that angle. And so the list of foods in the Clean 15 list are avocados, sweet corn, onions, pineapple, papaya, frozen peas, which again is one of those a little bit more processed foods, but is less likely to have those pesticides on them. Asparagus, honey dew melon, kiwi, cabbage, mushrooms, mango, watermelon, and carrots. Hmm. And so if you're gonna buy ingredients that you need, but organic really is breaking the bank, these clean 15 are some that you can be a little bit more confident that you're not going to be consuming as many pesticides when you are consuming them. And, you know, I, I understand the time aspect of cooking, unfortunately, in the American lifestyle, it's very difficult to create time for rest and create time to cook and prepare food. Sometimes I would even argue that that is a luxury it's becoming more of a luxury of a higher class, rather than something that lower middle class people can appreciate, which is incredibly unfortunate and breaks my heart. Yeah. But with that being said, you know, if processed foods need to be bought for the sake of time, focus on looking at the ingredients that you can understand. There are processed foods that are not organic that can still be good for you you just have to look at the ingredients. I've mentioned it before. My Ragu Simply Eight pasta sauce has eight ingredients, and it is all food ingredients. It's like tomatoes, onions, spices, peppers, that that's what's in it. And I think focusing on foods like that, you know, some pasta. Look for pasta where the only ingredient is Durham wheat, you know, or wheat flour rather than pastas with flour and niacin and folate and this and that, and all of the added vitamins and minerals, you don't need those. Those are those synthetic vitamins and minerals that are not going to be used very well by the body. So focus on looking for ingredients that you understand that, you know. So those are just my little tidbits that I have as a recommendation. Katie, do you have anything else that you think would be important to talk about in this episode before we sign out?

Katie: 36:56

Yeah, I. Just wanna reiterate as we have in some of the other conversations we've had that it's, it can be really overwhelming and I think it's also a little bit jarring when you like, feel like you've been doing the right thing for a while and then you now kind of run into these realities of our food systems and it really feels like we've been duped. It can be really frustrating. I mean, I literally sent a video to Wes the other day to show him like how our chicken is even processed and stuff. And he's like, well, now you've told me that I can't eat this kind of stuff. And what are we, like, basically, what are we supposed to eat? Like we are, we're just gonna supposed starve ourselves. And, it really does feel extremely frustrating and I think if you have the opportunity to buy from a local farmer, sometimes it can be more expensive to do that, but also at the same time it might not be, you might be surprised that you can find really well priced products from your local farmers. So I would just encourage you, I'll drop a link in our Facebook group to how you can find local farmers near you who can sell you, meats, like really good grass fed meats. And even, the types of fruits and veggies that you are hoping to buy, you know, the organic stuff. And so anyway, I'll drop a link to that and how you can find local farmers in our Facebook group. It's called Crunchy Christian Mamas on Budget and we'd love for you to continue this conversation. Let's band together to, you know, fight this good fight. We want to take care of our families, we wanna take care of our bodies, take care of our health and do it all for the glory of God. And so that's kind of what we're doing over there in our Facebook group. And we'd love to get to know you and just see how we can better encourage you, equip you as well as like, let's, like we need equipping and encouraging too, right? Help us. And so let's all do this together. So join us over there. We'll have a link to our Facebook group in the description for this episode.

Chrissy: 39:06

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