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- [00:00]
Courtney Swan
Something like beef has all of the essential amino acids, has the entire wide array of protein spectrum and then on top of that, it has all the essential minerals and nutrients you need. It's really rich in zinc, selenium, B12. It has a lot of these vitamins and minerals that you can't find as bioavailable and plant based foods.
- [00:18]
Louisa Nicola
The best form preventative medicine that was tested against all the other drugs when it came to Alzheimer's disease was exercise. And I'm like, why isn't this front page news?
- [00:27]
Courtney Swan
We're finding glyphosate in the placentas of born babies. We're finding glyphosate in breast milk. We are also finding it in all the products on the shelf.
- [00:37]
Louisa Nicola
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show. It's Louisa Nicola. I'm a neurophysiologist and human performance coach. Today I'm interviewing Courtney Swan. Courtney is an integrative nutritionist. She is a real food activist on a mission to change America's broken food system. Team, today you are going to be learning everything that you need to know about what to put in your body and what not to put in your body. So we're going to be delving into some crucial topics around nutrition that you don't want to miss. Courtney is here to expose some common fallacies about what we eat and drink, including insights into the water we consume, how big food companies are impacting our nutrition, and the effects of certain oils and nanoplastics on our health. If you are tuning in for the first time, welcome. Make sure you hit the follow or subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And remember, you can catch all of these episodes on YouTube as well. We'll link all of that below in the description. Also, a quick note for all the coaches and practitioners listening. The NAC May 27 cohort is now open for registrations. You don't want to miss this. You can find the link below to sign up. If you enjoyed today's chat with Courtney, let us know on Instagram. Now let's get started. Hi, Courtney. How are you? I'm good.
- [01:53]
Courtney Swan
How are you?
- [01:53]
Louisa Nicola
I'm good. Whereabouts are you located?
- [01:55]
Courtney Swan
I'm in Santa Monica in Los Angeles, California.
- [01:58]
Louisa Nicola
Oh, nice. I'm over here in beautiful, sunny New York City. It's actually not too sunny today. I'm super excited to have you on the podcast. You know, the, the, the listeners know how not well versed I am when it comes to nutrition. I try and bring as many experts on as I can for Me to broaden my understanding, deepen my understanding when it comes to nutrition. But you're a bit different. I've seen you take a different spin when it comes to nutrition. And it's more so around, I guess, helping people understand. Yes, you. You cover a lot of misinformation, but also helping people understand things outside of nutrition. So we're going to go into all of that today, but before we do, why don't you give us a brief background on. On yourself and how you got to where you are today.
- [02:48]
Courtney Swan
Yeah. First of all, thank you so much for having me on. It's such an honor. I. So I had a not so traditional childhood for most American kids, which was my mom actually cooked everything from scratch. And I didn't know this at the time. Like, most kids don't know how good they have it or how bad. We don't have any reference frame, which way or the other. And I was really fortunate that I had a mom who was very into health at my entire life. My mom lived in Boulder for a long time. She learned how to cook when she was living in Italy, so she was making everything from scratch. When I went off to college, I had barely ever eaten fast food, which I know is, like, crazy to say out loud. I remember I had a girlfriend growing up who would get Burger King like, four or five times a week for dinner, and my mom would. I would fight my mom on it because I would be like, I want the Burger King. I want the toy. You know, I want, like, the fried chicken nuggets and all this. And she loves to remind me. Now she's like, aren't you so grateful that I fought you on that? I didn't let you have that. And I was cooking all these meals from scratch for you at home, and now I'm so grateful for it. At the time, I was like, you know, wanting to eat all the processed foods, wanting to eat the fast food and all that, because I didn't realize the importance of nutrition and feeding your. Your body a good, healthy, nutritious food. So then I get to college, and I gain somewhere around the range of like 20 to 30 pounds because I was, like, free for all. I was eating food from the cafeteria, which I know now is mostly like, Cisco, a lot of processed foods. And then I was eating Taco Bell. I was eating fast food, all the fast food that I couldn't really eat growing up. And I realized in that time period just how bad I felt in my body, you know, like, it was not so much about. I Mean, obviously, nobody likes to gain weight, right? But it was more about that I felt lethargic. I started to get acne for the first time. I just felt like crap in my body. And around that time, my mom was, like, subtly trying to get me into nutrition. She would send me books in the mail. She would send me, like, clips. She would physically cut out newspaper clips and mail them to me. I will never forget in. When I was in college, it was probably like 2004, she sent me an article about hydrogenated oils, which are now we know them as trans fats. How long ago she was on this. And so around that time, I started to make the connection with what I was feeding myself and how I felt my body. And I started to get really into nutrition. And the irony of all this is that when I was in college, I really struggled to figure out what I wanted to do for my major. And so I actually did my undergrad in communication. And then the very last class that I took is just kind of like a filler class I was graduating was nutrition. And I was like, oh, my God. I found my passion. I found what I wanted to do. But it was my last class, and I remember my dad was like, you just need to get out of college to graduate. We're not doing another major. So I actually, around the same time, I fell into working in music, and I ended up working in music for 10 years. But halfway through, I went back and I got my master's in nutrition. So master's of science in nutrition and integrative health, which is what we call an integrative approach, where we look at the body as a whole and we look for root cause, not just wanting to throw a band aid on people, not wanting to go to medication right away. It's more about really figuring out, okay, how is the body working as a system, system working as a whole, and trying to help people heal their bodies with food, lifestyle changes like, you know, diet, exercise, sleep, stress management, and all that. And so then I went back to school. I got my master's in that, and then I ended up working back in music for four years as a nutritionist for pop star. And then ultimately I left to start my own thing to start my podcast and do real foodology full time. So that's my background.
- [06:31]
Louisa Nicola
I love that.
- [06:32]
Courtney Swan
It's.
- [06:33]
Louisa Nicola
I feel like it's just the compounding every year of understanding more. I. I started off as a triathlete, and that's because growing up, my. My mother got me into swimming. Swimming led to getting into A triathlon. Triathlon led to me becoming absolutely obsessed with human performance. That then led into my first degree because I thought what could complement my triathlon career? And then that's how I, you know, eventually got into science and medicine and research. And it was all due to my upbringing. And it's, you know, so many people today ask me, well, how can I learn all this stuff that you guys said? Well, I started when I was like 10 years old. It's the compounding, right? It's experience plus academics that brings together what you do, you know so well and what I do as well. But the nutrition field. And I have to ask you this, do you also feel that it is. Why are they nutrition wars? You know, I'm an omnivore, I eat everything. But I feel like there is this huge, this huge disconnect between the vegans on Instagram and the non vegans and I don't understand why there has to be such a war. Effy.
- [07:43]
Courtney Swan
So I have actually, I've said this for a really long time. I, I really care about the quality of meat because I'm an animal lover and I really care about the quality of their life. And I've said this all the time with vegans. I'm like, I'm on your team, I'm on your side. We are going to get to a place where every single human on this planet does not eat animals. It's just not ever going to happen. Especially when you look at like lower income countries. Some of them, their, their most basic nutrition that they have access to is something like meat. And so you can't take away that nutrition from people. And so what you want to do is focus on the quality of it. So for example, like buying organic pasture raised, grass fed so that we know that the animals are having an amazing life. They're living out as nature intended on pastures and they're only essential essentially having one bad day, right? And so I tell vegans, I'm on your side, we all want better animal welfare because no one is okay with factory farming. I mean, I started talking about factory farming in like 2010 and I started to try to sound the alarms on it because I don't want to support something like that and I don't think any of us should be supporting that. And I completely understand vegans sounding the alarm on that. But it's also not realistic to tell everyone to never eat meat. And also if you're just telling people to completely abstain from meat altogether, what you're doing is you're actually taking away money from the companies that are actually trying to do right for the animals. And so it's actually, I think harming their cause more than if they were just to say, look like if you want to eat meat, just make sure that you're supporting companies that are actually taking care of the animals. And I know firsthand, I actually have a friend who owns a ranch, it's called Rome Ranch in Fredericksburg. It's outside of Austin, Texas. And I've been there and I've actually seen the practices that they've had. I've seen the way that the animals live their lives. And there are farmers and ranchers that are doing it the right way. You just have to find them. But it is tough because I, I was once once vegetarian. I was vegetarian for five years. I actually cried in my nutritionist office when she told me I went in there because I was so, I was so sick and I was looking for answers and she was like, you have to eat meat. And I was like crying. I was like, I'm never going to do it. So I very much empathize with are vegetarians and vegans for moral reasons. And that I really can't fight. If you are a vegetarian or vegan for nutrition reasons, I would say that nutritionally speaking for most people, it's probably going to do more harm for your health than good. But we are all bio, I really believe that. But we're all bio individual. You also have to look at ancestry, for example, like if you're, if you're Indian or if you come from a region where your ancestors all primarily ate plant based, then it might actually work better for your body. But if you come from somewhere like me, like I'm mostly Eastern European, Scandinavian. I mean, our diets have been mostly meat for a lot of history and so you really have to look at your ancestry in that too. But yeah, I would say overall, like, I think there is a lot of fighting because there's a lot of emotion behind wanting to protect the animals. And like I said, I can really relate with that and I can empathize with it and. But at the same time, you have to put your feelings aside and really learn to check in with your body and say, is this really working for me? Because I struggled for five years in my health and I wasn't asking myself, okay, but is this actually working for me? Because I was so emotional about eating animals and where it ultimately came down to was I'm so sick, I need to start fighting for my own life. And Started eating animals again. And just the compromise I made was I only eat organic pastures, grass fed so that I know that at least the where I'm putting my money into that they're taking care of the animals.
- [11:31]
Louisa Nicola
You mentioned that you don't think a plant based diet or a vegetarian diet is the best thing for a human in terms of nutritional content. Can we unpack that? What do you mean by that?
- [11:42]
Courtney Swan
Yeah, so if you look at the nutritional breakdown of meat, so especially red meat in particular, it is so full of vitamins and minerals. It has almost every single essential vitamin and mineral and amino acid that we need. When you talk about a lot of people will compare proteins in like let's say a good example is like quinoa versus like ground beef, first and foremost quinoa. Well they say that quinoa is, has all the essential amino acids but depending on your genetic makeup all those amino acids may not be bioavailable for your specific body. Whereas something like beef has all of the essential amino acids, has the entire wide array of protein spectrum and then on top of that it has all the essential minerals and nutrients you need. It's really rich in zinc, selenium, B12. It has a lot of these vitamins and minerals that you can't find as bioavailable and plant based foods. Not to mention if you were to get the same amount of protein, I can't remember the exact gram to gram, so we'd have to look it up. But you'd have to eat something like 2 to 3 cups of quinoa which is equal to I believe it was around like 600 calories versus a steak which is like 150 or something. And look like I'm not, I don't count calories, I'm not like super into like diet and calories and all that. However, you do have to look at eating in one day and if you are overeating carbohydrates like that you are going to see be less muscle mass and you're going to gain more weight ultimately. So it's all about getting more nutrition bang for your buck.
- [13:20]
Louisa Nicola
Well, you know, I think what I see is that a lot of the time the animal, the, the plant based community is more so focusing and this is my world. I'm in the Alzheimer's disease and neurology world. So what I see is a lot of people trying to protect themselves against coronary artery disease or cardiovascular disease and bringing down their LDL and apob. And therefore it's this fight against well, meat contains so, you know, so much saturated fat that it's going to end up leading to a higher ldl, C, a higher apob, a higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease. So where do you draw the line there and basically say you can still eat meat and not raise your LDL above the limits?
- [14:08]
Courtney Swan
So contrary to popular belief, actually what really affects our LDL and the APOB and all of that is sugar. Sugar is really the number one driver of all of this. There was actually a, there's a very famous study that came out in the 1970s. It was done with Harvard scientists and what they found was there was a link between overeating sugar and cardiovascular disease. However, the sugar industry got wind of this and they actually paid these scientists off the equivalent of like, I think it was like $50,000 or something. It wasn't even that crazy to say in a study that it was actually fat and not sugar. So. And this is very well documented, right?
- [14:50]
Louisa Nicola
What's, what's the study called? Because that is absolutely insane. However, it is not abstain because like I see, I see this in academic research constantly. You know, we, we see a lot of the large pharmaceutical companies funding studies just to get ahead on certain products per se. But that's why it's really important to understand how to look at the funding of a study and where it was and if it was a randomized control trial. So I'm really interested in understanding which study that was.
- [15:20]
Courtney Swan
So I'm pulling it up right now. And it's actually, and this is very well known now, NPR reported about this. So it's not, it sounds conspiratorial, but it is actually. But yeah, essentially. So that's the problem with nutrition studies is that there's so much outside funding happening that you really do have to be careful. Now you can read into studies and see at the very bottom and it will tell you if there's a conflict of interest and funding that's happening. But that's the problem. And you know, this is also what's happening in that you just talked about plant based versus eating meat. There's a war between that right now and there's a lot of funding. There was just that study that came out, the twin study with. It was on that documentary Health or no, not with health. What was it called? The more recent one, you are what you eat and it was funded by Beyond Meat was. That study was funded by a very well known plant based burger company. So you just have to be really careful. And I know it can be so incredibly confusing. Because what I know a lot of people struggle with. And I do too. Right. Because I really want to. I have a science background. I love science. I'm such a nerd for it. We want to have qualitative, quantitative evidence to back up what our claims are. But it's hard because there's all this conflicting data. You can actually find something to support whatever you want to say. Like I can support the data with a plant based diet. I can also support it for eating meat. What I really like to tell people, at the end of the day, we need to really encourage people to get back in tune with their own bodies and their own intuition. And I know that this sounds a little bit woo woo. But you have to remember we're primal beings and we're programmed to know what to eat. It's why, it's how we've been here for so long on this earth. And so I really like to encourage people that at the end of the day you need to figure out what really feels good for you and what feels best for you. And also get blood work. Get blood work like twice a year. More meat. You're seeing your LDL and all your numbers go up. Then bring it back down a little bit. You know, that's where you can really, you can monitor it with your blood work and how you actually feel. And the more just real whole foods that you eat, look at the foods that have stood the test of time. That's what I always tell people. What have we been eating forever as humans? Real foods, vegetables, fruit, meat, eggs, butter. And then just see how you feel on it.
- [17:39]
Louisa Nicola
Yeah, I think it's also, you know, from my standpoint, I think it's wildly ridiculous to think that you can save the earth just by eating beyond meat or these fake meat, fake eggs, fake cheese. I think that that is just completely ridiculous.
- [17:52]
Courtney Swan
It's also completely false. So all of these fake meats, the main ingredients are coming from what are called monocrops. Monocrops are if you've ever driven through farmland and you just see rows and rows and rows of the exact same food. We see it typically with soybeans, with corn. Well, what are the main ingredients in a lot of these plant based burgers? Soy, These canola oils. So all these industrialized ingredients, and a lot of them come from monocrop culture. Monocropping is spraying the soil with all these pesticides and herbicides that are completely destroying the soil, the ecosystem. And why does this matter? So the ecosystem of the soil, when it's really healthy, it does this mechanism called carbon sequestration? Carbon is actually food for the soil and when it's healthy and it's able to draw carbon from the atmosphere, it actually brings it out of the atmosphere back into the soil and its food for the soil. Now what happens there? Two things. One, it's pulling the carbon back into the soil so that we can get less of it out of the atmosphere, which is one of the big drivers of climate change right now. And then it's also feeding that soil. When you're health, when your soil is really healthy, you're actually going to have healthier plants. And so that's going to be a healthier food for us as well because it's going to be more rich in vitamins, minerals, nutrients. So if we are putting all of our money into these mono crops, we're actually destroying our planet and it's not doing anything better. And then on top of that, where do you think these plant burgers are being made? They're being made in industrial factories that are pumping out tons of carbon into the atmosphere. So it's a complete fallacy that plant based is actually better for us.
- [19:33]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
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- [19:46]
Louisa Nicola
Favorite red light panels.
- [19:48]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
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- [20:43]
Louisa Nicola
Yeah, 100% always. Yeah. Especially for the environment. I've actually just gotten into Maui Venison have. You know, we don't really eat venison in Australia. I live in New York now and Maui Nui I believe it is and I started researching more about regenerative farming and how they actually, you know, produce, you know, their Actual meat. And so when you think about it, right, so you were talking about like the way that, like, you know, the harmful ways that some of these, you know, cows are slaughtered, right? And we know that if they slaughter in a, in a slaughterhouse or I'm, I'm not sure what they're called, raises the cortisol levels. I can only imagine what else is that it's doing to the actual cow. And then we're ingesting that also the way it's been raised, hormones, etc. But then you see, you know, you look up the venison, right, and they, they, they talk about how they go out with these silent guns and they do it at night where they have no idea what it is. And that, and it's, it's. I know it sounds bad when I say it out loud. However, if you are going to be eating meat, you want to know that it's done in a humanely way, right?
- [21:54]
Courtney Swan
Yeah, exactly. Well, and so I was going to say too. So you brought up regenerative farming, which is that process that I just talked about. You animals are absolutely imperative to this overall ecosystem. We have gotten to a point in our farming where we're essentially trying to play God. Like we're, we're messing with nature. And if you actually, actually zoom out and look at the way that nature works when humans don't intervene whatsoever, it all has its place and animals play an important role in it. And when you apply animals to the land, they help to fertilize the land. It creates this really rich mineral soil that's also, again, it's good for the plants, it's healthier for us. And so they all play a role in all of this. And yeah, so if we're not allowing, if we're like trying to bring animals, because I know, like, where was it, I think it was in Ireland where they're like shooting all their cows right now because they're trying to get rid of the cows because they think that they're creating, they think that they're actually like creating climate change right now, which is just absolutely insane to me. We actually need them because like I said, they, they're a part of this whole process that actually keeps planet Earth in line.
- [23:07]
Louisa Nicola
I know it's. Look, that's, this is just one part of a larger issue when it comes to academic research putting out information out there. You know, we know that a lot of the, like you just mentioned, like a lot of These big, like PepsiCo for example, is funding, like they've got what's the. I don't know what the annual budget is for their marketing, but I know it's huge, and it far outweighs everything else. So it's just. It scares me. Like, people who don't actually understand the science of medicine, the science of nutrition. I hear it often. You know, I even look at my parents, for example, my mother rings me. She's like, oh, I just found this out. You know, this guy on YouTube said, this is good for you. I'm like, no. Like, it's just. It upsets me that there is so much out there that we don't know. And. But I'm glad we're getting into the bottom of it. And that brings me to my next point. We found, you know, we were just talking offline. There was a really great study that came out that really took Twitter and social media by storm. And it was a 24. 2024 study that found a link between microplastics and cardiovascular disease in humans. And we're now getting so much more information. I don't know what it is, but 2024, it's all about plastics. We're hearing about nanoplastics, which are the plastics that come from plastic bottles, plastic containers, you know, getting into our bloodstream, eventually getting into some of the arteries. And I know that you speak a lot about that. So can you take us through what all of that is? Like? Let's debunk that.
- [24:37]
Courtney Swan
Yeah. So plastics are a really big concern, and I've been trying to sound the alarm on this for a long time, because, again, to take it back to when I was in college, my mom also, one of the things that she got me on to was, do not heat your food in plastic. Because I was eating a lot of those. Like, oh, I'm horrified with myths like the Lean Cuisines, the microwave things, and they're just these plastic trays that you microwave your food in. And what we discovered even back then, but it's finally really starting to come to light, is that when you heat plastic like that, it releases these tiny little particles, and it also releases certain chemicals. Like, a lot of people will have heard of bpa, but there's also bps. There's also something called phthalates. Phthalates. I always mess the pronunciation of that. There's all these other chemicals that are leaching out of the plastic. And we know that this happens. Happens when it gets heated. So you think about on a large scale, everything that we're buying comes in plastic. Our lettuce, our peanut butter, our Milks. I mean, I could go on and on and on. Everything that we're buying is coming in plastic. Our water bottles. And you think about water bottles, even if you buy a water bottle sitting in a cold refrigerator, that water bottle probably sat on the back of a truck for two weeks and drove around in heat before, before it got refrigerated. So it's a really big problem.
- [25:56]
Louisa Nicola
And is it only a problem if you heat the plastic though? Like, what if you don't heat the plastic?
- [26:02]
Courtney Swan
I'm not entirely sure about this, but my understanding is that it still is a concern because over time plastic just degrades, just with natural, for lack of a better word, like aging of it, right, where it's just slowly starting to degrade and break down. But it's magnified when it's heated. And we know for sure when it's heated it's actually releasing these. But over time breaks down and releases these tiny particles. Tiny particles and also chemicals and also what's really concerning is we found recently that every American is eating a credit card size worth amount of microplastics every single week.
- [26:41]
Louisa Nicola
You know, how do we draw the line then? Because for me, what I'm struggling right now is water, right? I'm currently drinking out of an Evian bottle. I bought that today and I'm struggling with water because a, I'm thinking, well, what filter do I buy? You know, I've been told by a reverse osmosis filter. So I need to drink water. However, for me to actually get boxes of glassed Evian sent to me, it's quite a bit like it's, it's like it's going to cost me about, I'm not sure. I know that. I think one case of 12 by 1 liters is probably about 40, 50 bucks. It's like that's, that is not the best method economically. So how are we supposed to work our way around plastics, especially when it comes to water?
- [27:30]
Courtney Swan
I, I will admit this is something that I even struggle with too, because it's just, it's the reality of living in these modern times that we're struggling with. So what I do is whenever humanly possible and I'm out somewhere, I try to buy it in glass. If I can't find it in glass and I need water, I'm not going to go thirsty. Sometimes you just have to have it, you know, you have to buy the plastic water bottles at home. I use a reverse osmosis water system. I have one from Aqua. True. Now I will say the Filters are still plastic, which I don't love, but I have not found something that uses like a stainless steel or a glass water water filter. I've heard that they exist, but I haven't really looked into it yet just because, like you, I'm. I'm also trying to navigate this, you know, and so I have a system that goes through plastic filters, but then it ultimately lands in a glass pitcher and sits in glass for most of the day. So my thinking is, okay, it's touching the plastic for a second. It's the best I can do right now because, like you, I mean, I could have glass delivered to my house every week. It's expensive, so. And so there is. If people are interested, I'll have to give you a link to this because I don't remember the name of it offhand, but I do have a girlfriend who gets spring water delivered in glass, and it's some company that I can't remember the name of. But then there's another company called Mountain Valley where you can get it delivered in glass. Well, I will say I actually, this week, the timing of this is so funny. I did a podcast episode with someone named. Named Martin Reese, who is a water sommelier, and we did an entire podcast.
- [29:05]
Louisa Nicola
Episode all about water sommelier. Wow. Okay.
- [29:09]
Courtney Swan
So I actually laughed when I first heard about this. But then when I talked to him about it, he was like, we, we care about the taste of our wine. We care about the taste of our food. We care about everything else. And he's like the number one thing that we need to stay alive. Why are we not more concerned about the quality of it, the taste of it? And I was like, you know what? He actually has a great point. And also, I just will say he's such a funny. He's so funny. He's German and just has the most fun personality. And it was such a fun episode to do, but I asked him all these questions and we talked a lot about it. And so it was like, it was a full long hour. So I wouldn't even be able to get into all of it right now. But, yeah, I would say buy glass whenever possible if you can find a company that will deliver to you spring water in glass. Spring water, according to Martin, is the absolute best that we should be getting. Brands like Evian are really good. Actually, I was really shocked to find out Smart Water and Essentia are just tap water. Just filtered tap water.
- [30:04]
Louisa Nicola
Don't tell me that, Courtney. Don't tell me that I've got an Evian right Now, because I like the taste. I don't know what they do to their water, but I do buy essential as well.
- [30:14]
Courtney Swan
Well, he said the ones. The best ones to buy are Evian and Fiji. And then also there's a really good sparkling water called Gerald Steiner. And it is so full of calcium and minerals that he said that it could be compared to milk with the levels of calcium that has a milk.
- [30:31]
Louisa Nicola
Well, my next question would be. And I know that you're not the water expert, but it would be, what is wrong with the taps?
- [30:36]
Courtney Swan
Oh, God. What is not wrong with the taps? Okay, so there's so much. First and foremost, we add fluoride. We're all getting over fluorinated right now. We do not need the levels of fluoride that's in the water. There's also chlorine in there. What's the pharmaceutical drugs is a really big one. So if you look at the percentage of Americans that are on pharmaceutical drugs, we're now starting to find SSRIs in birth control in low amounts in tap water. And if you're drinking that all day, every day, you're getting exposures to that. There's also. They're finding pesticides and herbicides. Because we're spraying so heavily in our country right now, I encourage people to look at the map of the United States in the. See how heavily we're spraying things like glyphosate right now on our crops, which is a really, really big concern. And thanks to runoff from the farms, it's getting into our water. And so now we're also drinking pesticides in there. There's another one I'm forgetting right now. Oh, there's a lot of heavy metals as well, because same from, like, industrial farming. A lot of these heavy metals are running off and they're ending up in our water as well. So this is why it is so incredibly important that you get a good one water filter. And Brita won't cut it.
- [31:42]
Louisa Nicola
Oh, that's. I actually have a Brita, and I'm. It's actually scaring me because I saw something come out saying that Brita is actually. Didn't they get, like. Weren't they under. They had a lawsuit against them for, like, a billion dollars because they're lying about filtrating their. Yeah, the water.
- [31:57]
Courtney Swan
Exactly. Yeah. They're under lawsuit right now because essentially, Brita doesn't any. Doesn't do anything other than just, like, change the taste of it. It's just not a good enough filter. It's not filtering out all all the things that I just talked about.
- [32:08]
Louisa Nicola
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Louisa Nicola
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Louisa Nicola
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- [32:47]
Louisa Nicola
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- [33:16]
Louisa Nicola
I mean, look, I have to push back a bit on your glyphosate comment, right? So there is this huge uproar against glyphosate on things such as oats, for example. Don't have oats. They've got, you know, they're heavily saturated in glyphosate. I get that. But then I have to push back and say that the dose makes the poison. And a lot of the human randomized control trials that I've come across show that you have to have massive amounts of glyphosate to have any type of an effect.
- [33:44]
Courtney Swan
Okay, so dose makes a poison. But do you want to know how many pounds of glyphosate we're spraying per year? And you know, there was a study that just came out that found 98% of Americans have glyphosate in their blood. I don't think people understand how pervasive glyphosate is. It is so pervasive, we are spraying it so intensely right now. So I'm trying to find because I want to give you the actual number. So I think the problem is, is that, you know how we talked about earlier, there's such pervasive funding for these companies. I would encourage everyone to watch. There's a documentary that's coming out, oh, in two days on Earth Day. It's called Common Ground. And it's from the founders of Kiss the Ground. It was a documentary also. Everyone should go watch the documentary Kiss the Ground on Netflix. It's actually out. And then they recently came out with a new documentary that's coming out of Netflix in two days. And they go into how deep the funding goes for this, this, these agriculture companies and how they are funding. They're lobbying in Washington. They're funding all of the agriculture schools and big agriculture are the ones that are, are spraying all these. They're the ones that own all of these agrochemical companies like glyphosate. Dupont is another really big one. Monsanto is now Bayer. They own glyphosate, which is also known as Roundup. There is a lot of information about how much we are actually spraying right now. I mentioned that study earlier. There was a study done in I believe 2023. It found that 98% of Americans have some sort of glyphosate in their blood. We're finding glyphosate in the placentas of born babies. We're finding glyphosate in breast milk. We are also finding it in all the products on the shelves. There was a. I'm trying to remember who did this study. It was either a consumer report. I can also link this to you as well. I'm making mental notes of everything I'm going to send to you. They did a test of common products on the shelves that are grain based products. So think Cheerios, goldfish. They found 80% of these products had super high levels of glyphosate in them.
- [35:50]
Louisa Nicola
And what's the problem with glyphosate? What is it actually doing to us?
- [35:54]
Courtney Swan
So glyphosate acts like an antibiotic and what that means is that it's killing off not only all the bad bacteria, but it's also killing off all the good bacteria. And then you look at how many people are dealing with gut issues, dysbiosis, ibs. Everyone is dealing with varying levels of dysbiosis. Not everyone, sorry, that is a blanket statement. A lot of people are dealing with gut issues and a lot of these gut issues are stemming from. We have a dysbiosis in the gut between the good and the bad bacteria. You want a balance of good and bad bacteria, but if you kill off all the good bacteria and you let all the bad bacteria go rampant, that is a huge issue. And that's when you start seeing issues like IBS and dysbiosis and all of this stomach issues that we're seeing right now. So that is one concern. The bigger concern with glyphosate is that we are. The World Health Organization is recognizing it as a probable human carcinogen. Meaning. Meaning that we are pretty positive that we know that it causes cancer. There have been some really famous litigations that have been happening between. I mentioned Monsanto. Monsanto was bought out by Bayer. So now it's Bayer that's dealing with these litigations. There's a really famous one. A. What do you call him? A. He wasn't a janitor, but he was a grounds person for a school. And he was spraying glyphosate all over the school, and he had it in a little backpack, and it spilled, and it spilled all over his back. And at the time, he was told, like, oh, there's no concern about it touching your skin or whatever. He ended up with a really aggressive form of lymphoma and ended up taking it to court. I mean, it's crazy. Everyone should Google the photos of him. This poor man, he won. And he won millions, I believe. I don't remember exactly how much, but it was a really big, famous court case, and he won because they were able to link. Link his cancer to glyphosate. And now what's happening is Bayer is just getting destroyed in court right now because there are all these farmers, there's all these workers that are coming up and saying, I got cancer from glyphosate. And they're Time and time again, they're all winning because they're proving that this glyphosate is causing cancer.
- [37:53]
Louisa Nicola
Yeah. And then you have to push back. And then also think about, well, how are we supposed to get out? You know, for me, for example, it's easier for me. I go to Whole Foods. I. I dare say that there is a lot of glyphosate, even on their products. Sometimes I go to Wegmans. It just opened near me. If I can. On the weekends, I try and go to the farmers markets. I ask all of them, do you spray your crops? They don't, so you can lessen the amount. But I think it's very hard to live a life, especially in the United States, without consuming these, you know, these chemicals and these crops.
- [38:27]
Courtney Swan
I know it is. It's really concerning. I mean, it's why. It's why I do what I do, because I'm trying to sound the longest alarm, the alarm. I'm trying to be a part of this movement that's trying to change this, because it is. It's unfair. I mean, you think about people living in the Midwest that don't even have access to organic food and it's, it's absolutely heartbreaking. It, honestly. Yeah, it, it makes me feel sick. This is why buying organic is incredibly important, if you can, because by law, by federal law, they are not allowed to use glyphosate on organic crops. Now, that being said, with runoff and also the wind blowing onto other farms, glyphosate is showing up in organic food. It's lessened because they're not actually spraying it. That's why a lot of companies now are starting to come out with glyphosate residue free stamps on their food. And I look for that as much as I possibly can. But you're right, we have a massive accessibility issue in this country and it is, it's sickening, honestly, because we're, we're dealing with a, a government and large corporations that have so much money and they do not care about human health. It's all about profit over human health in this country. And that should make everyone listening mad. It should make all of us want to fight back and put money into companies and farmers that are doing right by us.
- [39:39]
Louisa Nicola
Yeah, it's like that in, in the Alzheimer's disease space as well. In fact, there was a study that I found in Nature that showed that the best form of, of preventative medicine that was tested against all the other drugs when it came to Alzheimer's disease was exercise. And I'm like, why isn't this front page news? It was just ridiculous to me.
- [40:03]
Courtney Swan
You know, you probably know this too. You know that they're calling Alzheimer's diabetes three, it's a sugar metabolic issue.
- [40:10]
Louisa Nicola
Yeah, I've got some things to say about that, but we'll, we'll leave that there. My, my, my community not knows how I feel about that. Okay, so I want to also talk about oils. Right. Seed oils. Oh my God. And again, the dose makes the poison. What are we not understanding when it comes to these different types of oils? What, what are they? How are they bad for us, where are we consuming them and how much are we actually consuming?
- [40:35]
Courtney Swan
Yeah, so the issue again, more than anything is. Well, it comes down to two things. It comes down to quality and how, how it's actually being processed and also how much we're being exposed to it, similar to the glyphosate. I don't think people understand just how much we are consuming these oils now. And when you look back comparatively, just even 50 years ago, they were Virtually non existent, I believe. I don't remember exactly when canola oil was made, but canola oil I think was only made in the 70s. And now our consumption of canola oil has completely skyrocketed. So if you look at the average person and you know, maybe someone listening is thinking, oh, I barely eat them at all. Do you eat out? Every single time you eat out, you are, you are consuming most likely large amounts of canola oil pretty much every single restaurant in the United States. Unless if they are outwardly saying we use olive oil and butter, we do not use seed oils. They are 100% guaranteed to either be using canola oil or soybean oil. So what are seed oils? Canola oil, soybean oil, safflower, sunflower, peanut oil, cottonseed oil. I mentioned a quality issue. So with canola oil, for example, it is a genetically modified seed that comes from the rapeseed. And what happened is the rapeseed is very high in something called uric acid. So what they did was so canola oil actually stands out for Canada, low acid oil, and it's that low uric acid. So they essentially genetically modified it so that it would be lower in uric acid, because uric acid is pretty toxic for the human body. So then we made canola oil. Now the issue with canola oil is that the ratio between the omega sixes and the omega threes is off. And what's happening is we are consuming so many of these omega sixes that it's actually creating more inflammation in the body. Now it's not to vilify you, just you want your ratio of omega 3s to omega 6s in a specific ratio. And if that ratio is off and you're consuming more of one of these omegas, it's going to create more inflammation in the body. So that's the biggest issue. Now if someone's eating out once a month and they're getting a little bit of canola oil and they're not buying at home, they're not cooking with it at home. I'm not super concerned about it, but it is the fact that every single packaged good you pick up and every time you eat at the restaurant, you're getting these seed oils. I mean, it's showing up in baby formula in the form of canola oil, rapeseed oil, soybean oil. So babies are getting it super early on. It's in a lot of these non dairy milks. Oat milk is really famously known for having either canola oil, sunflower or Rapeseed oil, which is canola oil. We're finding it in, I mean, everything. Soups, salad dressings. So I think the average American doesn't understand just how much of these they're actually consuming. And that's really what the issue is.
- [43:24]
Louisa Nicola
Yeah. I've now become really prolific with looking at the labels of everything because they can be hiding in things that you just unaware of and that you would never think possible. Why would they put sunflower oil in here? I'm, like, notoriously at the supermarket, if I'm buying anything in a packet, I'm, like, looking at the ingredients because there's just, like, hidden oils everywhere.
- [43:45]
Courtney Swan
They're pervasive. I just found them in my dog food the other day. I was like, oh, my God. It just. Again, it's like you said, we are finding it in everything. I saw it in ice cream the other day, and it's just. I mean, I even remember kid because my mom was always, like, reading about ingredients. We never had these oils in any of these foods as a kid. So that's really the issue is that we went from barely eating them at all to. It's now in literally every single package that you buy, basically. So it's. So it's very. They're very pervasive.
- [44:16]
Louisa Nicola
And then what's the. You know, what's your take on olive oil? So I'm. I'm. I'm hu. You know, I always say, one day when I retire, I want to make my own olive oil. You know, go to an actual, like, olive oil. I was gonna say winery, but I don't know what you call them. Farm. I would say I'm obsessed with it, but sometimes I don't trust a lot of the olive oil brands. I have to be really trustworthy of where it was manufactured, how it's being bottled. Is it cold press? Like, I'm. I'm still a bit skeptical about some of the bottles that claim that it's olive oil, but it's really not.
- [44:52]
Courtney Swan
Yeah. So this is a big problem. Back in 2016, actually, 60 Minutes had a segment on this, and they called. They called it the olive oil mafia. This is a really big problem that's been happening for a long time. What's happening is they are cutting olive oil with. With these cheaper oils to lessen the cost, and they're. They're cutting it with things like canola oil, soybean oil.
- [45:14]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
You're joking.
- [45:16]
Courtney Swan
No. And it's a real thing. Like I said, 60 Minutes did a whole segment on this, and it's a very well documented issue that's happening right now. And it's also happening with avocado oil too. And it's, I'll, I'll finish this. And then I want to give people a little bit of hope because I know I'm like, our food industry is really messed up. And the reality of the situation. Yes. But I do have a couple things to say about that. But I will say so about olive oil. You do really want to make sure that you're getting it from a good place. One trick that I tell people, if you're buying in a plaque, well, I have a couple tricks. First of all, if you're buying in plastic, it's probably not the highest quality. So look for bottles in glass. You want it to be a darker glass bottle because if it's just a clear glass, it's actually going to. It can go rancid a lot quicker from the heat. So they put it in a darker glass to protect the stability of that oil. If you look on the back of the label, you really want to make sure that it only has one country of origin. I'm seeing a lot of the cheaper oils now that'll say that I saw one the other day at the grocery. The grocery store literally had eight countries of origin, meaning that they were sourcing it from Mexico, Spain, Italy, like it was from all these different countries. You really want to want to make sure that you're getting it from just Italy, just Spain, just to Tanzania. That's a really high indicator. You also want to get extra virgin olive oil because extra virgin olive oil has a less chance of being cut with other oils. And then you can go online. A lot of people have started doing testing. If you want to go and Google and look up the different brands that we know for sure are not cutting, that would probably be your best bet. But with all those tips, I would say that's probably the easiest way to figure out if it's real or not. And then once you find your brand, you can just keep buying it because you know that it's a good one. Now I will say everything I've been saying today is really hard to swallow. And it makes a lot of people just want to put their head in the sand and just put their hands in the air and say, eff it, I'm already going to die anyways. Why even bother? It's about longevity and vitality. It's about feeling really good in your body on a day to day basis. Yes, we're all going to die, but do you want to have energy for your kids, for your grandkids? Do you want to have energy to do the things that you love, to show up for your job, to show up for your hobbies, to feel good in your body, to feel vital? So that's what we're fighting for. And also there's a lot of hope. Watch the film Common Ground. There's a lot of really amazing people that are really fighting for a change in our food industry right now. I think we're at a very interesting time right now where everyone is slowly waking up to the corruption of all of these large corporations that have a lot of power, have a lot of money, and we're waking up to the fact that our government and these corporations don't have our best health and our best interests in mind. So we have to take personal accountability, and it's really tough. We live in a hard time when you consider everything that's going on. But there's a lot of really amazing things happening. I also tell people, do the best you can. You can't do everything. There's no such thing as a perfect diet or a perfect lifestyle. You do the things that are accessible for you that you can do, that you have the budget for. And exercise, move your body. Make sure that you're sweating almost every day if you can, because a lot of these toxins, we can sweat throughout our body. If you have access to. To a sauna, great. If you don't, just draw a really hot bath with Epsom salts and create sweat in your body, go for a run, do an exercise. A lot of these are free. Doing things like that and just making sure that you are taking care of yourself as much as you can, getting good sleep, minimizing your stress. That's really the best we can do. And then I tell people, like, do the best you can, and then don't stress about it. You know, you also want to live your life, and you can't be living in this constant state of anxiety and stress.
- [49:04]
Louisa Nicola
Yes, that was perfectly said. Would you consider yourself a somewhat activist, then?
- [49:11]
Courtney Swan
Yeah, I feel like the term activist has kind of a bad. What's the connotation? But, yeah, I'm. I'm incredibly passionate about this because, you know, like I said in the very beginning, I. I learned what was going on in our food industry at a very young age and felt like I just wanted to sound the alarm because I'm. I mean, this is gonna sound so cheesy, but I'm team humanity. I just want to see. I want to see my friends, my family. I want to see every human on this planet just thrive and feel good in their bodies. And so many people are sick right now and so many people are hurting and they are confused because there's so much noise and confusion around how to be healthy, what to buy, what to do, and it sucks. I just want everyone to know the truth of what's going on because also I feel like if everybody really understood what was going on with our food industry right now and our government and all the corruption, there would be such an uproar, we would change it overnight. But there's so much noise and cloudiness and money being involved and skewing of data and people being confused. And everybody's fighting in these little corners about, you know, plant based versus beef. Meanwhile, like these large corporations are just laughing all the way to the bank, you know, and so I'm like, we're all team, we all just want to get better.
- [50:25]
Louisa Nicola
It's actually what I mentioned. I was on a podcast, I mentioned this on Sean Stephenson's podcast two months ago. And it was the fact that JP Morgan is also, you know, these large corporations are betting against us. They want us to get diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, so they profit off of the investments into the medications that are responsible for, you know, just helping us slow the progression of these diseases. And it's just when you can, you know, this disease is preventable via, you know, these modifiable risk factors such as good nutrition, such as good sleep, such as exercise. But we don't see that advertised, do we know? So we are at the mercy of these huge companies that you just cannot fight against unless you have the knowledge and the education. So that's why I love what you're doing doing. That's why I'm so mad that we have to end it right now because I think we could do so much more together and I think we should do this in person one day. So I'm going to point everyone towards your wonderful Instagram. Where else can we link you?
- [51:31]
Courtney Swan
Yeah, I would say I'm most active on my podcast, the Real Foodology podcast. It's on all major podcast platforms. And then my Instagram, I'm a little bit on TikTok, but I mean, are they being banned? I. I don't know. So I'm kind of like from that. But yeah. And I just want to say thank you so much for your time and thank you for bringing me on. I really enjoyed this conversation. You're a great interviewer.
- [51:52]
Louisa Nicola
Thank you. Courtney. And thank you for being part of the neuroexperience podcast. Thank you.