Unlocking Optimal Health: From Pharmacist to Plant-Based Guru with Stephanie Velez

Have you ever considered that the right diet could revolutionize your health? Stephanie, a pharmacist turned plant-based nutrition wizard, joins us to unravel her eye-opening journey. From the aisles of pharmaceuticals to the fields of functional medicine, she draws back the curtain on how changing what we eat can be the ultimate prescription for combating chronic diseases. Dive into her story as she shares practical tips on personalizing nutrition and crafting delicious, healthful meals that please both the taste buds and the body's complex needs.

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Transcript

Nika Lawrie: 0:00

Hey everyone and welcome back to the show. I wanted to give you a quick heads up before we dive in today. The audio quality on today's episode isn't the best. Think of it like you're sitting poolside and you've got some water in your ears and it's a bit echoey, but no big deal, because the information and content is pure gold and I really wanted to share it with you. So I hope you'll understand and bear with me and my guest With that. I promise the content is worth it and I hope you enjoy the episode. Thanks for understanding. Welcome to the Inspired with Nika Lawrie podcast. Stephanie, welcome to the show. I'm so grateful to have you here today.

Stephanie Velez: 0:49

Hi, good morning, Thank you. Thank you so much.

Nika Lawrie: 0:52

Yeah, Afternoon morning, yeah, so. So tell me a little bit. We're going to get into kind of the plant-based vegan diet, kind of diets for specific lifestyles and stuff, but before we do that, tell me a little bit about yourself. What sparked your interest in kind of changing the way you eat and what you do?

Stephanie Velez: 1:13

Sure. So I am actually a pharmacist and when I started I practiced. When I started practicing in my career I worked in retail pharmacy and as soon as I started working I saw childhood depression, childhood diabetes, yeah, and I never experienced that before. You know, they don't teach the few of those in pharmacy school, or I've never seen that under my eight years of practice. So I thought, you know, kids are usually supposed to be very healthy. I mean, their bodies are growing, and so I didn't understand that.

Stephanie Velez: 1:50

So then, later in my practice, within the past three years, I've seen a rise in cases of heart diseases, strokes, dementia, alzheimerheimer's cancers. I mean, within, I would say, the last few years, I've seen I've lost five people, patients of mine, that, yeah. So I'm like what's going on, you know, and you know behind that, the high price of health care, medicine to treat these are outrageous. Yeah, even insurance, yeah. So even you know, at the beginning you have a deductible to meet before they can actually help you pay. And behind that it's diabetes, people with diabetes. They get insulin and it ranges from $300 for a box to $1,000. Yeah.

Stephanie Velez: 2:44

So then I got involved into plant-based as a continuing education, something that we have to do for our life, and then functional medicine. But this became an obsession for me, yeah, like most of us, yeah. So then this obsession grew more of okay, I want to learn. It's like I want to learn and then educate people that we can actually treat our bodies. You know, we can actually help our bodies thrive. You know, plant-based nutrition, for example, we can eat, in a certain way, less of the processed foods, more of the veggies, and it doesn't have to be leave the meat, you know, but it's more plant-based, rich, yeah, your legumes, your roaches, your greens, your color of the rainbow on the fruits, because each veggie, according to their color, has each nutrition. So then in functional medicine, it's looking at the body as a whole, because the body is our own doctor. It tells us oh okay, I don't feel good, I'm not clear-minded, I have migraines that might be hormonal imbalances or gut.

Stephanie Velez: 4:02

Something's going on with your gut flora. So these are things that got me involved into this realm. Then I got into plant-based chef. As a plant-based chef, because I love cooking and I love eating who doesn't? Yeah. But I also wanted to make delicious meals for my kids. For myself that I wasn't a plant-based eater. I would look at a salad. I said how boring, yeah. And kids would also say, ew, broccoli or kiwi, what is that? But I wanted to bring home these delicious meals that they would want to eat. Yeah, and so, yeah, and these kids, you know being burly, they eat a lot. So I wanted to make more fulsome foods and teach them about fulsome foods so they can grow healthily. You know more. You know depression and mental problems or diabetes and, uh, less of the processed food, absolutely that's how I got into this room.

Stephanie Velez: 5:04

I love it, yeah and then yeah, sorry. In the future, that's what I want to bring to the public, and more personalized meal prepping for people according to their nutritional need.

Nika Lawrie: 5:17

Yeah, man, it's so important, it's so needed and I think you know I I was speaking to someone earlier about this and it's I think the biggest thing that we run into is the education around this. That is my biggest thing is, even as a functional nutrition counselor and and all the things that I'm doing to help. First and foremost, I want to be considered an educator. I really want to just go out and teach people. You know, these are the things to understand and this is how it's affecting your body, and so I love that you've found this and that you're doing it to help your patients and clients as well.

Stephanie Velez: 5:52

Yeah, and then when educators, we don't have that many, especially in pharmacy school or medical school, this was new. Yeah, this was very new to me.

Nika Lawrie: 6:02

I think, yeah, I think that in in the standard um medical education for like physicians, I think the the high end of nutrition education is like 18 to 20 hours. That's the high end. When you think of you know four to eight years of schooling that they go through they're getting 18 hours. Most aren't getting any nutrition education whatsoever. No, yeah.

Stephanie Velez: 6:28

It's heartbreaking it is. And then, yeah, I mean all they know is, uh, just just cover. Uh, what's ailing you? You know, just put a bandaid on it. Let's not look at your diet. Let's see. No, it's very um, let's, let's get your patch up and go. Let's see an exclusion. You know, we need educators like yourself to help out in the medical field.

Nika Lawrie: 6:53

Yeah, well, you, you as an educator too, I think there needs to be an army of us as many as possible teaching people these things. Yeah, absolutely. So I want to talk a little bit about, um, kind of vegan versus raw, versus plant-based. We hear all of these terms all the time. A lot of them have been kind of the hot, trending terms in the last couple of years, so can you kind of explain the difference between them and specifically why you've opted for kind of a vegan diet or a vegan approach? Sure?

Stephanie Velez: 7:25

So veganism, plant-based, they fall on. They're the same in. They are very in animal plants, okay, anything that comes from the animals they try to avoid. That means milk. That means any dairy yogurts. That means milk um, that means any dairy yogurts. Um, yeah, ice cream, even cheeses.

Stephanie Velez: 7:52

But veganism can be also processed foods. So, for example, I had a friend that actually just opted for potato chips and, um, what else? You know? Rice and bread. You know they didn't touch meat. Yeah, and it's great. You know it helps with the climate change, it prevents hurting animals. It's great to think that way.

Stephanie Velez: 8:15

But is it nutritious? Is it helping your body? So we have to think of more thorough some foods, which, that's what plant-based is. You look at your nuts, okay. Your fruits, again, color of the rainbow. Your vegetables, each vegetable, each color of the vegetable, like eggplants, they each have nutrients. Your herbs, all of that, and that's plant-based Grain. You know legumes, now, raw comes into the realm of just eating the food without cooking or steaming it, keeping it intact so you can get the most benefit of it. Now, I became more plant-based because of the benefit of it and I, like the portion of you know, climate change, reversing climate change and not hurting the animal. Yeah, then this is where personalized or individualized nutrition comes in, because most of that stuff, I learned quickly that I couldn't like the grains and legumes, so that's something that most people wouldn't, you know, tolerate as well, like just being vegan.

Nika Lawrie: 9:32

Yeah, absolutely so. So when you kind of leaned, kind of plant-based and and kind of looked at that vegan diet originally and really moved to the plant-based, how did? How was that process? How did that change affect you? Was it difficult, Was it hard to give up meat? What was that like for you?

Stephanie Velez: 9:54

It is actually not too hard. The only problem from being vegan and plant-based, or being vegan at all, is you have to be careful of how much carbs you take right and, like I said, some carbs can be really good your sweet potatoes, your plantain, your brown rice down the rice. These are carbohydrates or complex sugars that it takes the body slowly to break it down and it doesn't spike your sugar. Okay, they also contain vitamins and minerals that your body feeds a good, good flora in your gut, so it's good to eat it. Now sometimes, and at the time that I was starting, I was also doing the rice, the white rice and the bread, so I was feeding too much carbs and so I was gaining weight. You know, and especially if you're not active, you can gain weight, you know, in parts of in the belly.

Stephanie Velez: 10:59

Yeah yeah, and so this is why I became more, less vegan and more plant-based. I started introducing more grains in my diet so, like at nighttime, I will do more like beans or lentils, which have iron and ferrate, and it takes. They are a little bit of carbs but also protein, and so it takes the body slowly to break down.

Nika Lawrie: 11:26

Yeah, so yeah, absolutely, I think you know. I love that you really talk about how you know one diet doesn't fit all, cause I know for me I still eat meat. I'm very particular and specific about the types of meat that I eat. I only eat, um, you know, carefully grown, grass-fed, grass-finished beef I'll eat. You know, when I do eat it, it's a side dish, it is not the main course, and so I'm really careful about that. I love your conversation about sustainability and limiting our growth of climate change, because we're kind of already past that point a little bit right, and so really trying to kind of rein that back in, especially as it relates to agriculture and the meat industry, I think that's really important. But I like that you say that one diet doesn't fit all, because even though we're both concerned about the same thing and we're coming from it from different perspectives, we can both still be eating healthy and supporting a healthy diet and doing what we can to reverse climate change with having two different diets.

Stephanie Velez: 12:33

So I think that's a powerful, powerful thing to keep in mind and choosing grass-fed food is great because they actually take care of the animal and they don't force them into or force feed these chemical grains to them and they're not in-house in cages or you know, contaminating their food or contaminating the field around it. These grass fed are actually allowed to roam and they provide healthy food and nutrition for them, so that they put soil or fertilizer natural fertilizer in the soil.

Nika Lawrie: 13:11

Yeah, it's a huge thing for the soil. It's such, you know, people don't understand the crisis that we're facing with dirt versus soil and being able to, you know, grow fruits and vegetables long-term because we've killed the soil and all the microbes and stuff that live within the dirt. Correct, I mean the native Americans.

Stephanie Velez: 13:31

They used to do this. Yeah, they used to haunt the animal but they used to send to them and provide they wouldn't stress the animal and the animal would run around and fertilize the soil, wouldn't stress the animal and the animal will run around and for life's the soil and so they eat, you know, vegetables and they eat their grass, fed meat and they they didn't hurt the climate, they didn't hurt the. It wasn't a climate change back then or climate, yeah, problems with the climate.

Nika Lawrie: 14:00

Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah. I love you know one of my one of my big things is always talking about environmental toxins. I love you know one of my one of my, um, big things is always talking about environmental toxins. I love that you brought up the feed for these animals, because I think so often, um, people don't understand that the feed that's going to these animals has been covered in pesticides and herbicides that's been grown. You know there was, um, there was a uh research article that came out several years ago now, but how they were feeding candy, like ground up with the wrapping and everything, to these animals. I mean, think about all the chemical toxins that are in the plastic and the wrapping, let alone everything else Right, and when we eat these animals it's coming back and that those toxins end up inside of us too.

Stephanie Velez: 14:46

So yeah, and that's what's causing the cancers are, you know, are hormonal imbalances, young girls starting their menstrual cycle early and menopause, you know, early. That's, that's what's causing all of this.

Nika Lawrie: 15:02

It's. It's a huge, huge issue, absolutely. I think my question, kind of leading off of that too, is I wanted to talk about conventionally grown versus organically grown produce and kind of get your thoughts on that, and then also if you could talk about regenerative organic farming, because I think that's such a key thing to to consider or focus on, especially when it comes to sustainability too, can you share your thoughts on organic versus conventional?

Stephanie Velez: 15:33

Yeah, so I am starting to learn about this realm too. Organic may not mean that they're treating the animal correctly, but may, you know, have a stamp of organic. But they may put your animals or use some type of pesticide in their veggies or fruits. The new term of regenerative organic I guess it's been out for a while now it does just that. It goes back to how we used to farm, with less pesticides. It's just more natural. It takes care of the soil.

Stephanie Velez: 16:14

So you have the difference between dirt and soil. Dirt does not hold water, unless we have these. What is it called when it rains a lot and then there's a lot of problem with the rain? But soil holds it, it soaks it in, it feeds the bacteria in the soil. It feeds the bacteria and we can actually thrive from that. Yeah, and so we have the meat, or the buffaloes or whatever we eat as a meat. They are grass-fed, they fertilize this naturally, without pesticide, our soil, and we are able to benefit from that, you know. And then this also doesn't contaminate our rivers, because we're not polluting. We're not giving the soil artificial um killers or whatever with that have chemicals in it that go run off into rivers or oceans, causing the pollution. You know that's not regenerative organic yeah, I love.

Nika Lawrie: 17:24

I saw something, um a couple weeks ago.

Nika Lawrie: 17:27

Talking about it was the frog specifically, but they also mentioned fish and their the, the change in their hormones and how that was affecting their reproductive system, and what they were finding was a lot of the chemicals specifically PFAS, but other chemicals as well that were being pumped into the water systems and they were making it.

Nika Lawrie: 17:51

So you know, they they had showed in the presentation I saw one frog that had multiple female reproductive organ organs and multiple male in one frog, so it was like three or four ovaries and three or four testes in one individual frog, and this was linked back to the chemicals that they were releasing into the water. And then they've seen, you know, a lot of um degradation with like uh, uh, freshwater fish, um, specifically, that are not reproducing at the levels that they used to because of the hormones and the chemicals that have been pumped into the water or they've been captured through runoffs, so it rains and it runs through soil that was sprayed by chemicals and ends up in the streams and then these fish aren't reproducing and not only is that a sustainability issue, but that also becomes a food issue for people as well, for humanity.

Stephanie Velez: 18:51

Those who love sushi or you know, they love fish.

Nika Lawrie: 18:55

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it can be heartbreaking, for sure.

Stephanie Velez: 19:00

Yeah, we got to think about, you know, our kids. They're going to grow up in this problem, and so we got to make this world better for them. I think that that's that's my motivation, like educate others, because we want our kids and hopefully see our grandchildren, you know be able to have water.

Nika Lawrie: 19:21

Yeah, absolutely. They have to have no day. Yeah, no-transcript. You need to understand that planet earth is going to be here forever. You know it's not going anywhere. Humanity is the one that's going to be killed off. Humanity and all these other animals and life on earth, like the rock that's going to be killed off. Humanity and all these other animals and life on earth, like the rock itself, is going to be here.

Nika Lawrie: 20:10

It's us that are going to die off, and so you know that should be your motivational factor for your children or your grandchildren, your great grandchildren. Like I, still want them to have the gift of life Right.

Stephanie Velez: 20:22

And so.

Nika Lawrie: 20:23

I think that's the motivational factor people need to start really considering yeah, I actually read not too long ago about maybe to 2050. That water is going to be super hard to get yes, there's several major companies in the world that have already bought the vast majority of water rights, and so it's going to be a huge, huge crisis going forward. Yeah, I mean it already really is in many places in the world.

Stephanie Velez: 20:56

And most of our kids are going to be our age by then. Yeah, absolutely.

Nika Lawrie: 21:01

It's very shocking. Shifting gears a little bit, I want to talk about gut health specifically with you and the importance of it. Can you share you know why? Why do we need to be aware of gut health and what are a couple of things that we can do to help support our support a healthy gut, sure, so I am actually learning about this functional medicine field, but I've also tried to test it on myself.

Stephanie Velez: 21:28

So, like I said, the veganism didn't work for me, because I knew that some things didn't work. I know, you know, flaxseed wasn't working and it was a lot of fiber that I was seeing that affected me. God help, in reality, is kind of like a second brain. Okay, yeah, so 60 to 70% of our immune system Okay, this is where we eat and most of our vitamins, nutrition, minerals, break down your gut and it goes to the areas we need it Brain everything. It goes to the areas we need it brain, everything.

Stephanie Velez: 22:12

So if someone has overgrowth of bacteria or is not getting the adequate nutrition that they need, especially like vitamin B12, or vitamin B is produced in the gut, then we can't function, we're going to be sick all the time, we're going to feel tired because we're not getting the minerals that we need. So the reason for gut health is that we we just need to break down and we need to take care of it by doing, you know, probiotics, you know feeding the right, the gut, the the right bacteria, and that was what I said plantains, sweet potatoes, the right carbohydrates, so that the bacteria can grow, and then you know. Some of the things that you could also do is lab work to see what's going on. If none of that is healthy Are you intolerant to gluten or processed foods? You know, right? So we just got to make sure that we have a very good gut so that we can function the best.

Nika Lawrie: 23:14

Absolutely. Yeah, I think it goes back to kind of that educational piece. I think people are starting to when I say people, the general population is starting to understand that gut health is important, but I don't think that they fully grasp the the um profoundness of how important our gut and our microbiome is to our overall health. And you know, and you can see that specifically in the overuse of antibiotics and people not understanding that every time you use the antibiotic, you know this is a great thing for you as a, as a pharmacist, to share is you know, um, every time we use the antibiotic, it's not only killing off the bad guys, the bad germs, you know the bad bacteria, it's also killing off the majority of the good bacteria as well, and that can be extraordinarily detrimental to a whole host of things in our body.

Stephanie Velez: 24:10

And the overusage of antibiotics can actually cause the diarrhea that's hard to treat. Yeah, and then at that point I mean there's a limited amount of antibiotics that you could use, or even a fecal transplant for cure the patient.

Nika Lawrie: 24:29

Yeah, I mean, the thing I've seen the best is fecal transplant. But you know who honestly really wants to do that. I mean, if it works and you're at that point, by all means.

Stephanie Velez: 24:40

But like, let's prevent needing to get to that point, right, yeah, let's prevent needing to get to that point, right, yeah, and so yeah, like the processed food is the one that's hurting us, because we're not accustomed to eating this way. Our ancestors didn't eat this way. They ate plant-based legumes, some meats if they could catch it, and so that's how we were made. Our guts could tolerate that. Now that we have potato chips or these oils that our body doesn't recognize and then we keep on wanting to eat more because they lack that nutrition. So it's good, but the body's seeking more and more and more.

Nika Lawrie: 25:23

So we overeat on these things, we end up being starving yeah. I think the other thing to address there, too, is a lot of the processed foods are chemically designed to make us crave them and love the texture and the flavor and the smell, and they're designed to keep us eating them.

Stephanie Velez: 25:44

And keep buying them. Yeah, and it does take about three weeks for the body to adjust right. If we want to continue a healthy diet or a type of lifestyle, it takes about three weeks 21 days to adapt to the new life. If we're continuing to eat processed foods, our bodies are going to crave that junk. Our bodies are going to crave that junk. Our body is going to create that ice cream or the chocolate or the cheeses. So it takes commitment and discipline to make the change and to think okay, well, this is for my future self. I owe it to my future self to be healthy and to be the best.

Nika Lawrie: 26:22

Yeah, so you mentioned it can take about three weeks, but how long does it take to really like stick to that, that certain lifestyle change? Is it the three weeks? Is it different for everybody? What's your thoughts on that?

Stephanie Velez: 26:35

Yeah, I think it's, for. I think it's a first, to be honest, because I actually have a client who is trying, but then she goes back one day and then she reverts. It takes, like I said, it takes that discipline. At first you won't have it, you're used to a way of life, so sometimes it might take three weeks of pure commitment. Sometimes it takes three months. You know, for me it took a couple years trying to understand how my body works. You know, I'm trying to learn what I learned in practice. Put it in my body. You know. Okay, this doesn't work. And our bodies, like I said, it's our own job, you can tell. We are the only ones that can tell. Is this working for me? Right? And it is not, you know. So everybody is different, you know. So we can just um tailor it to, to our personality or person.

Nika Lawrie: 27:31

Yeah, I, I. I think that's so important too, because I had the same kind of experience. It took me probably probably about two years to really kind of understand, to learn enough about food and nutrition to kind of just get a general idea of like, oh, this stuff really is garbage, even if it says low calorie and low fat and all these things like. You have to learn all of those kinds of steps. But from there too, then you have to understand specifically to your body what makes you feel good and what doesn't. And you have to understand specifically to your body what makes you feel good and what doesn't. And you have to learn how to listen to your body enough to identify the things that are triggers for you. Yeah, yes, so so you know, we kind of already know the, the obvious answer to this. But what really happens if we don't take care of our bodies? What's going to happen if we don't change the way we're eating and don't change our lifestyle habits?

Stephanie Velez: 28:25

Sure, so if we continue the way we live eating processed foods and all that we do, we're like cars. If we don't take care of our cars, what happens? We break down, okay. So, but you know this analogy of the cars, it's not the same, because we can always go buy a car if we can, you know right, but we only are given one body, okay, and then the body is able to interact with our loved ones. Yeah, and what shocked me was that I had my mother-in-law. She actually suffered a stroke and we have all these plans to take her on vacation, you know, go to Europe with her or Canada, whatever, so that we could bond more with her and the grandkids could bond with her. But that may not happen.

Stephanie Velez: 29:16

So that's why you want to start educating and treat your body right. You want to measure and see if everything is going okay. You want to eat less processed foods, take care of yourself with stress management, lifestyle modifications, just because. But also healthcare. The healthcare cost is rising. Yeah, yeah, mean I work.

Stephanie Velez: 29:41

Everything is, uh, it's not on the insurance formulary, they won't pay for it. Yeah, yeah. So I mean why I have insurance, like at this point, it's like, why am? Why am I paying so much? I have insurance, yeah, but in reality it's cheaper to take care and educate yourself right now, when your body can do it. You know absolutely, and we're actually going into what uh alzheimer's alzheimer's believed to be a type 3 diabetes due to inflammation. We're living right now. We're always on the go, never taking time for ourselves or you know our foods or bonding with friends talking, and you know another thing that I see in practice with my fellow co-workers is they're always stressed and what I see their diet in sodas, or you know, just a little bit of popcorn or gummies and that's their lunch. Yeah, so you know, even with our profession, we lack this understanding of proper nutrition and stress management.

Nika Lawrie: 30:51

I see that a lot, especially like physicians. You know they're on the go nonstop and so they eat quickly. They usually don't eat all that well and they haven't had that nutrition education, and then they are stressed and overwhelmed and tired and then potentially making you know health mistakes, which can be very detrimental in that sense too. And so I think it's that key is like we've got to get everybody to start to understand you feel like crap because your body is starving to death from lack of nutrients.

Stephanie Velez: 31:23

that are like a sleep yeah, that too, our jobs demand. You know like, I used to work 13 hour shifts and I've gone for my nine and I would have to wake up at five.

Nika Lawrie: 31:35

You know yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love that you met it. I love that you brought up um, alzheimer's disease and dementia Cause I used to work for the Alzheimer's association for years and that really was one of the big um kind of eyeopening moments for me that really got me into health and wellness was. You know I I'd spent years working with all these world renowned dementia researchers and having the opportunity to learn directly from them. And the two things that I took away from that job was one I don't think there's ever going to be a true treatment or cure for the disease.

Nika Lawrie: 32:14

Just the way the brain works and how the damage that's being caused in the brain, I mean it'll be a miracle if that actually happens. And if it does happen, I don't think it's going to come in a magic pill form. So I think that's something that people really need to be aware of. But the thing that I really took away was the prevention side of things All of the researchers that were showing any type of actual improvement in cognitive decline or the ability to prevent cognitive decline. It always related back to food and lifestyle. It was always the Mediterranean diet, which was clean, whole, healthy foods. It was a relaxed lifestyle, good sleep, quality, social time, you know, lack of stress, living off the earth, those kinds of things is really what we saw prevent cognitive decline and I think that was just so key to me wanting to move into this field.

Stephanie Velez: 33:13

Alzheimer's disease is. It's very sad to see someone that way. Yeah, and, like you said, medicine the medicine that I, that I see set in soul it doesn't work. Sometimes it makes them more agitated. Yes, yeah, unfortunately so, and they get, they can get worse and it's a very sad disease.

Nika Lawrie: 33:36

Yeah, and I think you know the the few medications that are out there, um, those can be highly debated on whether they actually really do anything. I you know the few that they prescribe right now. I think most of those will help kind of put a bandaid on some of the behavioral issues, but they don't do anything for the underlying disease. The disease continues to progress and so you know you, you see this, once that person comes off the medication or the medication is no longer working, you see this like huge dive in, you know, less cognitive ability than they had before because the disease had just continued to progress.

Stephanie Velez: 34:18

Wow.

Nika Lawrie: 34:19

Yeah.

Stephanie Velez: 34:20

Sad.

Nika Lawrie: 34:21

Super sad. Well, on that very sad note, I have a couple quick fire questions as we wrap up here, but before we get to those, I wanted to ask if there was anything specific that you want to share with the audience that we haven't addressed today, as it relates to eating healthy and taking care of our bodies.

Stephanie Velez: 34:40

Sure. So one of the things that I wanted to put across too as this regenerative, organic farming is becoming more in tune and being more out there, I think that people should actually start looking into that and start buying more, because this way, we are promoting farmers to work this way absolutely, and less with the chemicals and pesticides which hurt us in the end. Yeah, so, um, I think that that's something that we should. We should also, uh, educate ourselves on absolutely sure, especially we're into climate change. Yeah, it's helped a lot.

Nika Lawrie: 35:23

I love that because I think too, you know, it's so important to understand that we, especially as women and mothers too, we have the buying power. You know. We have the right to say, you know demand what type of products we want. In the stores, we vote with our wallets, our pocketbooks, right, and so demanding higher quality, better food, nutritious food for ourselves and our family. It's key, sure.

Stephanie Velez: 35:47

Yeah, I think I will be putting on YouTube some videos about how to cope with regenerative organic farming, so that will be soon a project that is in mind.

Nika Lawrie: 35:56

I love that.

Stephanie Velez: 35:58

Share that with me, because I'll make sure we share it out with everybody I will yeah, and some of my projects will be coming together and providing meals through organic, regenerative, organic farming. I know that there's some wine from this farm, so I am still working on that little project on how to put it out there for the public to enjoy.

Nika Lawrie: 36:17

I love it. Well, share it all with me once you get it, and I'll share it with everybody too, because I think it's so so important and such a needed service too.

Nika Lawrie: 36:27

Well, stephanie, I first, before I get to the quick fires, I want to thank you and commend you for the work you're doing. I think it's so powerful. I love that as a pharmacist, you're doing it, because you have that specific view into prescription medications and how that's affecting our health too, and so I think it's really profound that you've kind of made the shift to the dark side. I guess, if you will, to. You know natural health and food as medicine, and you know the functional medicine world as well.

Stephanie Velez: 36:58

I didn't say to the dark side. I know I say you know the functional medicine world as well. I don't want to say I didn't say it in the dark side. I know I say you know the light side?

Nika Lawrie: 37:03

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, awesome, well, thank you. So my my first quick fire question for you is what is your favorite or most impactful book, podcast or documentary, and why?

Stephanie Velez: 37:23

book, podcast or documentary, and why? Oh um, the? The rhyme book I'm reading right now is by dr hyman. It's uh, fix the planner. What? What the heck we do we eat? Because they're caught about this which I, you know as a pharmacist. I didn't know, and so, um, it talks about retention of organic and how processed food is hurting us and how we have hormonal imbalances. So um that and his podcasts are super like mind-changing yeah, farming has one of my favorites, for sure absolutely, yeah, yeah um, I, I love it.

Nika Lawrie: 38:06

I mean, I I'm so grateful for dr mark hyman and all the work he's doing, especially kind of leading this movement. I know there's lots of other people doing it too, but he's become such a big, um uh, voice in functional medicine world.

Stephanie Velez: 38:21

So, yeah, for sure, very knowledgeable and so many years behind it. You know research and writing books about it. Absolutely yeah, and his own personal experience with getting healthy and overcoming a pretty major toxic exposure, and so yeah, major toxic exposure, and so yeah, it's also one of those doctors that would just go without sleep and stress, and then cookies and ice cream.

Nika Lawrie: 38:46

Yeah yeah it's, it's powerful. It's so, so important to really understand how it's affecting us. Yeah, yeah, so you've given several already, but my next question for you is what is your best toxin-free or eco-friendly living tip?

Stephanie Velez: 39:03

Um, well, you know I like again, try to go regenerative, organic. Um, I detox, try to use herbs. Herbs is a great, oh my goodness.

Nika Lawrie: 39:15

They make such delicious sauces and great soups and flavors for stops and soups and they're great to detox yeah that's the biggest thing in the sense of detoxing our body are specific herbs that really help get you know the liver, uh gut, uh, kidneys, all those functioning again at optimal levels.

Stephanie Velez: 39:37

Mm-hmm and also things like ginger anise, all those seeds too. They help out with gut inflammation and such. That's what I currently use too. And then, if you don't have regenerative organic nearby, try to grow organic if you can, because they you know these pesticides right. Yeah, yeah.

Nika Lawrie: 39:59

For the listeners who want to connect with you. How? Because they you know these pesticides right. Yeah, yeah For the, for the listeners who want to connect with you, how can they find you online when? Where can they connect?

Stephanie Velez: 40:06

Sure. So I have my own website. It's Rx, the number four, vida V, as in Victor I-D-A, and that means light. So prescription for life, love, that yeah. And then I do have my Facebook or Instagram, which is Dr Stephanie Willis, and I'm also on LinkedIn as the same name.

Nika Lawrie: 40:27

Perfect, and I will link to everything in the show notes just to make that as easy as possible to connect with. So, stephanie, my last question for you today what does living consciously mean to you?

Stephanie Velez: 40:37

Last question for you today what does living consciously mean to you? Living consciously is being present, knowing what you're doing at the moment, being present for your kids, for your family, being present to have a wonderful chat with a wonderful podcaster. That's living consciously. What are you putting in your body? Are you, uh, living your lifestyle? You know, um? Are you helping others?

Nika Lawrie: 41:10

yeah, I totally agree. I love it. Thank you well, cindy. This has been phenomenal. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to connect with you and all of your wisdom you've shared with us today thank you, thank you so much yeah.