In this episode Dr. Troy Spurrill, owner of Synapse Center for Health and Healing, Dr. Joshua Wallert, Lead Practitioner, and Marque Gant, Clinic Director have a conversation about state of our health in the United States.
In this episode Dr. Troy Spurrill, owner of Synapse Center for Health and Healing, Dr. Joshua Wallert, Lead Practitioner, and Marque Gant, Clinic Director have a conversation about state of our health in the United States.
Speaker 0: Welcome to the Synapse SNP podcast where we explore the power of health and healing. On this podcast, we will be talking with health experts, professionals and leaders about hot topics in the world of health, whether it's tools to help you flourish. Successful stories to inspire or tips to optimize your health. Snaps is here to help you take the first steps towards living your best life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to synapse Snips. This is Dr. Troy, joined by Dr. Josh and Marquis. Today, we're gonna talk about food and let food be thy medicine.
So often attributed to Hip. This is such a big statement and I just wanna talk about a few things with that. Dr. Josh, you were thing an article that kind of spoke to this as far as the Us compared to other neighboring countries you wanna Listen in?
Speaker 2: Yeah. And food isn't the only. Thing factor here, but it's a big one, and it was basically saying that you know, the Us spends the most among high income countries on healthcare care. And out of those high income countries we have by far the worst outcomes. And so this is seen for anybody that goes into a doctor, they can't talk to you about being healthy.
They can talk to you about medication. And we spend a lot of money on medication when what we should be doing is teaching people how to eat good food. I have one other story about that because my mom and I were talking about this recently. When I was a teenager, I had some some bad acne. And for a time, we tried medications and antibiotics and all these things because we just went to normal pediatrician.
This was kind of the beginning of my journey into into this type of health care. We eventually found somebody who did some testing found I was sensitive to dairy. Cut out dairy and everything cleared up went back to that doctor. And he said there's no way it could be that. It's just as a coincidence.
We never saw that person again. Yeah. But that's a that's a very normal thing. Where doctors don't think that food and healthy lifestyle is gonna change anything. They think it's gonna be medication.
So that's why we spend a whole bunch of money and we don't get very good outcomes.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And not only does food matter, but also now let's get into the kind deeper conversation of the quality of the food. Mh. And I've said this for years and we have a saying here at synapse. If god made it, it's good, if man changed it, just beware.
And so we look at food, what some of the things that we've changed.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Everything. Yeah. But I tell my patience this lot too because there is, I think too much focus on the type of foods that should be avoided. I think this is a kind of a downfall of of our type of health care, you know, natural health care is that a lot of practitioners will put people on restricted diets.
Yeah. And I think very often like what you said, the quality of the food, the state of the gut is more important than avoiding a whole slew of different categories of foods. Yes. And case and points, I know people who can't eat wheat products here in this country. Whether it's because of the the gluten content, what it's sprayed with, but then go to other countries, Europe and eat wheat and be totally fine.
Speaker 1: The heritage grains, which is basically how they were started. Those have been altered and changed. That's one example of how they've been changed in the United States. And and even in Canada. And so we do see that as one example.
Also things like genetically modified food, they're okay here in the United States, but they're banned in certain countries in Europe. And so those are things we need to look look at. You were mentioning one another example of some people from the Uk that were commenting on stuff they can't eat here. What was it that they have avoid?
Speaker 2: One of my neighbors from from England. And she was saying that they can't get certain... I think it was as ka from the United States because the the food coloring that we use here are not allowed in in their country.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They're banned because they're toxic. Yes. So we actually look up some of the information it'll boil your blood a little bit. When you look at how we are.
I'm gonna I'm gonna say this knowing that it's not I'm not taking this lightly at all. We're literally being poisoned by our own food supply in the United States a little bit of a time because it's not good quality. And so the people who are in charge of our food and drug administration are getting an f in my books. They are failing us miserably when it comes to our health. I personally believe that we wouldn't have the highest output and expenditure in healthcare, if we improved food sources.
And then then we educate people on good choices with that food. So even fast food restaurants could actually be good for us if it was made with better quality ingredients and better food. Yes, we can get into the fried food things and stuff like that. But if you get real good quality clean food, it can be made quickly and still be good for you High nutrient, low calorie.
Speaker 2: That exists. I find it interesting and I was reading a bit about different types of diets recently. And one of the main predictor of diet success is just cutting out processed foods. It doesn't really matter. So much what you would to?
Yeah. Yeah. It's a high curve Is it low carb than my protein? And what is it? If you cut off the process junk, you're gonna be better off.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And really all that process... The the term process what that means is, man has altered it. Sorry. Changed it.
Usually to increase the shelf life and the shipping capacity
Speaker 2: and decrease the cost.
Speaker 1: And decrease the cost. Yeah. Which is great from a business model, horrible from a health model. So my role and our role here at synapse along with many, many other practitioners on this plant and especially in the United States is to start to educate the people that we need change. We need change with our food supply.
We need change from all the way from farming practices up to delivery. So until that happens on on mass, what are some solutions that we can offer up to some of our patients to say and the people listening as far as what what can you do to start feeling better as far as the food choices that you're making right now?
Speaker 2: Going back to the processed, foods even if you just eat whole food. Yes. Not from whole foods. But whole food, Yeah. Un processed food, whether it's fruits, vegetables meat, even starches if they're less processed are gonna be better than grip and open a bag chips or ordering a pizza.
I know it takes a little bit of extra work. But we'll talk about organic stuff in a minute. There are a lot of people who can't afford it, Yeah. Mh. And it's still better to choose un process options even if it's not organic, It's...
We talked we talked about this a little bit on our our last podcast about health choices after after the holidays. Yes. Where making incremental improvements or small improvements can still have a huge difference to huge impact.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. And I'm gonna reframe the the mindset for a law of you too who say that you can't afford organic. Because I think when you take a bigger step back a forty thousand foot view when you eat organic, it's a cleaner fuel source for your body and brain, and then there'll be less things less money. You have to spend on other things for your health down the road. Number one.
Number two, if you are eating processed food, I had a patient years ago, whose husband was a... Food engineer, their job is to create food additives that make you crave that food. That's what their task to do. If they're good at their job, they will help engineer a food source that has you be addicted to their food. That's what they want.
So if you have some food that costs two point fifty cents and you have an organic food that cost five dollars, and you eat the two dollars and fifty cent processed food that causes you to be addicted and eat more of it. If you have three of those, that's seven dollars and fifty cents. Compared to the five dollar organic food that keeps you healthy and at a better weight. Historically, when people switch to organic food, they eat less, because there's more nutrients in the food. If you have a whole food, that's full of nutrients and those nutrients get into your cells, your cells stop sending the signal to the brain saying I'm hungry, feed me.
When you're nutrient deprived, your cells send that signal to the brain saying, feed me. Feed me feed me. And we've never in the history United states seen it worse than it is right now where people are obese and nutrient deficient. And that exists right now. So that comes from the whole clean food component.
And so eating organic, I'm telling you right now is the cheapest it's ever been in the in the history of the United States since I've been alive, when I was part of starting the first organic coop op here in the cities that we live in, it was very expensive and we had to see search out different farmers and it was really hard to get. It's actually very, very easy right now to the point. Here locally where we now have manufacturing facilities in the border of Israel and Wisconsin that are sourcing local of organic farms and... There's an increased demand. So they're actually starting to do it more and more.
And I also... This is one of my pet peeve, but I don't think we should call it organic food. Because it's just food. It's the chemical laden food that should be called something different, like chemical laden food. Or processed food.
So food should clean organic food should just be food. And when we've altered and change it and sprayed it with all these chemicals, it needs to have the name toxic food or chemical laden food. It's absolutely backwards. Yeah. And so they're...
I'm going to challenge people and say, when you start eating organic, you will actually save money in the long run from many, many different factors, plus you can now get it very, very cost effectively. Here we have Costco and we have different stores even within target and stuff that are quite close to us that actually have it pretty reasonable rates and you get in bulk as well and it's very, very cost effective. And so in our house, we're about ninety six percent organic and happened for years. It's one of the first thing First things we did was clean up just the quality quality of our food and what we're eating.
Speaker 2: I'll switch gears a little bit, tell you one of my pet peeve. Yes. It's that especially with gluten free and some of these other diets. Is that people will switch to that and still eat all the process Yeah. Organic gluten free stuff.
Yes. You can still eat what's considered to be organic good food and still miss the market by eating that stuff still ultra process.
Speaker 1: Yes. Mh. Yeah. It's very, very true. One other jam I'd like people to kinda look into is supporting the local farmers, reach out to the local farmers whether they're they're part of a farm to table, and this is a new trend that we're seeing here United States, which is really an old trend that's being right back, but getting fresh local, organic clean food to the restaurants and using that to cook and prepare with.
It's awesome to see that. If you find a restaurant or any business associated with farm to table with clean organic food, support it. Get to know these people, get to know the businesses and and support them with by purchasing their products or by getting the word out or doing bulk orders with neighbors. A lot of these places will actually ship fresh fruits and vegetables or whatever they're making, two groups, If it if it actually works for them to to take the extra effort to ship it. They're going to ship it in large amounts and you can do these c and cost sharing programs to help get you fresh clean food throughout the year.
Just like you mentioned that the the poor manufacturing food processes driven by cost and all these things. A lot of
Speaker 2: this is is a supply demand. It is really And so if we demand better quality food and then hopefully, they would respond by giving us better quality for you.
Speaker 1: Well, we definitely know in the last twenty last thirty years since since we really saw the the change locally here, it has improved, the demand is just increased every year. When when we opened up the coop op, in Burns, Minnesota back in the nineties, it was the only one in town. Now we have multiple c in town, maybe over fifty as far as the trader Joe's and the the different companies that are out there. And so there's just a lot more and even has gone back into a lot of the things like cub foods and all these and targets and these are names of our local stores. That are offering organic.
They have an organic section now. And so that that didn't even exist years ago. That started from the grassroots effort of getting and demanding this clean food. So we we have to keep keep going, mash the gas pedal if you will and and just keep pushing forward when it comes to those demands because the impact on the body is huge. It's a it's a really an important part of it.
So one of my challenges to all those listening right now is if you had the excuse that organic food is too expensive. We talked about this last podcast, what's the lie you're believing there? I want to I want to prove to you that that's not true. I want you to un challenging you to go out and start buying organic and start looking at ways to do it cost effectively and start to to even pay attention to some of the financial outlay that you have and just compare it and then look for ways, if it is higher, look for ways to reduce that. And in the short term, it might appear that way.
But as you start to see changes with your health and things that you used to have to do like I've had patients who used to get sick every year, and then they'd have to to go to the doctor or put an outlay for whether it be supplements or prescription meds or things like that. In our countries where you don't pay for that stuff, there's an indirect scenario where it goes into your taxes and you pay it that way. So if you multiply one person by a million, and then you see the... It affect the tax rate later, that's what it wasn't. I grew up in Canada.
So a lot of people say, oh, we have free healthcare. No. You just get paid differently. And so it goes through your taxes and in other areas. You will see those those types of things start to decrease on mass when you're making good gains.
And we just know it just makes sense. If you're looking at a car, putting in gas, if the gas is cleaner, the fuel burns cleaner in the story. You don't have to do as much maintenance, on the car with a clean fuel. When you have dirty gas, all of sudden you've got to clean out a lot of the engine because of all of the contaminants that are left behind. We're the same thing.
We're just a more high powered vehicle. Some of us are like Lamborghini even.
Speaker 2: Nobody name is.
Speaker 1: No. No. I'm like a high class mop pin. I really
Speaker 2: functioning covid.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, it's it's really important because I do see this as a foundational principle of health when it comes to the food we're putting our mouth and educate yourself on what foods are good. And what foods have been altered or tainted. And so there is a great there's a lot of great resources out there that can talk about this. One of them is the is an Ec Was it Ec dot I'm gonna get environmental working group. There it is.
Environmental working group. Thank you, Josh. Yeah. They have great resources for you as far as things that are uncle clean and over in Europe and in other countries like New Zealand, and Australia, we've seen that they have some of their regulatory boards too. And they're actually quite a bit ahead of the United States when it comes to cleaner food than than we are over here.
But Unfortunately, we can see that as United States and their fast food chains get into other countries, the the bad habits and trends of obesity and inflammatory problems really start to impact those countries. Mh Looking at the research just in China alone and what happened when we saw fast food restaurants go there. Was pretty pretty interesting. They did not get obese like we did here in United States. But their stroke rates actually increased drastically too.
So what ended up happening is the fat deposits because of the genetics didn't go in causing obesity right away, but the fat deposits that's were deposited in different areas, including on the outside of arteries and it actually increased their their stroke rates on par with what was happening in United States. But over here, we tend to become more obese, but the cardiovascular compromise was still the same. So very, very important to to keep it clean. Keep it clean. Any other tidbits of information as far as food, clan, organic versus non organic.
Any other gems as far as what you've come up against with some of your patients for some challenges.
Speaker 2: Say one thing about water. Clean water is terribly important too. Yes. And I don't think we've ever had dirtier or tap water. And actually speaking of the environmental working group, if you wanna go scare yourself go to their website.
They have a tap water database. You can type in your Zip code and it'll show the different mean municipalities and their water supply. And the environmental working group has tested. A variety of chemicals certainly not exhaustive to look at what's the level of of this chemical in the water? Is it does it exceed legal limits?
Does it exceed health limits or is there just no limits at at all? Yeah. And there is... I've done that. Done this for areas around us.
And you'll find ten, fifteen different known chemicals, not to say you know, a whole bunch of other chemicals that aren't being tested for.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: High in the water. And so... And the nice thing too is that they'll show you then later on the page, what type of filtration is necessary to remove those types of contaminants, whether it's reverse osmosis or or like a be gravity, you know, carbon filter type of thing. And it's motivating too because you don't wanna be drinking that junk.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Generally speaking, want clean air, clean water clean food. Mh. And we've talked about this in the past podcast.
But for clean air, most people think about smog and things like that in the larger cities, but the number one hidden source for un clean air is mold in houses you're living in. So that is true across the world. And so twenty five percent of the population cannot detox the spores of mold properly. So it's important to look at that as a potential problem or challenge to. And a lot of people who are struggling with digestive issues actually and hormonal issues.
It can actually start with poor air quality and molding one of the main culprit
Speaker 2: It's a big deal here where we live in Minnesota where we don't. I have the windows open for six months out of the year because it's too cold, We don't get a lot of good circulation in our homes.
Speaker 1: Yep. And a lot of mold is just it's in the fungal family and it's a a high and neuro toxin for some people and depending on the type of mold too. Yeah. Yeah. The stack boy black mold scenario can be life threatening, but the other molds can also be life altering.
So I see that a lot. Yeah. We do say that a lot. And same thing with our our food to, keeping that food clean, from farm to to table is very important, but also how we maintain
Speaker 2: it. Yep.
Speaker 1: Alright. Well, thank you for your time. Listening here. We encourage you to send in your questions. Where do they send it to?
Speaker 2: On the... Yes On our website, official synapse, we have a media tab and go to the podcast. There is a section there where you can submit. Questions. Yeah.
I think that's the best way to do it.
Speaker 1: Yep. And we'll be going through many of those at our next podcast. So tune in. Thanks again. For tune in, and take care.
See you next time.
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