Written by Christopher Kelly
March 17, 2015
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Julie: Hi, everyone and welcome to the Paleo Baby podcast. I'm Julie Kelly and today I'm excited to be joined by Arsy Vartanian who is the blogger behind Rubies & Radishes and the author of two amazing Paleo books, The Paleo Slow Cooker and The Paleo Foodie Cookbook.
Hi, Arsy! Thanks for coming on.
Arsy: Hi, Julie! Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Julie: I'm excited too. So I've met you a few times now which is really fun. It's also great that we live in the same hometown so we have that going for us. But I really didn't know and I haven't done a ton of reading into your background and your story and I'm sure not all of our listeners have heard about it.
I'm always curious to know how people, why Paleo, why not something else? Why not the Mediterranean diet or the Cookie diet or…?
Arsy: I tried the Cookie diet.
Julie: But I am really curious because what I do know about your story is that you have had kind of a foray into Functional Medicine working with Chris Kresser and that's what we do at Nourish Balance Thrive. So I'm always excited to hear kind of how you got to health and how Paleo kind of helped you get there.
Arsy: Sure, yeah! It was really a long process so I'll try to give you a debriefed version.
I was in college and I remember the first time I went to the doctor. I'm like I just really don't feel well. I feel tired all the time, I have really bad headaches, I can't focus, I just have a foggy brain. I guess I may be a sophomore in college and they were just like "Oh, there is nothing wrong with you. It's just stress from school", whatever. So this kind of started getting worse and worse for years and I was just in and out of doctors' offices and no one had any answers for me and no one was running any lab work to figure out the answers. It was just basically they were trying to prescribe me antidepressants or just tell me nothing was wrong. And I knew deep down it was not a depression issue; it felt very physical.
So I kind of ignored the meds and sometimes they'll give me medications for my headaches and I would try those. My headaches would be so bad and the medications would just make me feel worse so I would just only take those for a couple of days. So this went on for several years. There were ups and downs. There were times when it was better and I could like power through and there were just times where it was really bad.
And when I started my first serious corporate job, I went through this really bad period of probably the stress from work and I had been given rounds of antibiotics and it just got really bad. It was like I was just constantly not feeling well. And for some reason, I decided to start CrossFit then because that's really what somebody that's super sick should be doing. But I had heard a new CrossFit started at Santa Cruz, I had a couple of friends that did and that always intrigued me.
I was following a very standard -- I was trying to eat healthy. I was like all whole grains, like low-fat. I never was into like low-fat, it always grossed me out like I would never buy low-fat salad cream but I would just like avoid fats. And so I was just trying to eat well and I thought maybe I need exercise, maybe that's what's going to help this foggy head feeling. And it actually did help a little bit but…
So I started CrossFit, this was I think the end of 2008 and around that time, Paleo was kind of starting to take their CrossFit community by storm. And I remember a couple of guys were talking about it at the gym and I was just thinking "These guys are crazy. How do they not eat any bread or wheat?" But I was really determined to feel better.
So one of my trainers that I was close friends with, he got into. And when we had breakfast one morning, he told me all about it and how to do it and I was like "All right, I'll try it" and I picked up Dr. Cordain's book. I remember it was around the holidays when I got his book so then by early 2009, I'd decided to try it and it was like immediately the first couple of weeks I felt so much better. It was like the foggy head was gone, like completely gone. The headaches were getting better, my energy was getting better.
And yeah, so I was kind of doing Paleo on my own for about a year and I was feeling really good and at that time, I was kind of more about avoiding foods like grains, legumes, dairy but I hadn't added in any of the more nutrient-dense foods that a lot of us do today like broth and liver. But yeah, I was feeling great with removing those foods from my diet but it also made me a lot more in tune with myself and I could tell I could feel better. I was like there were still some things wrong with me even though I feel so much better than I did a year ago, I just knew there were more issues. And that's when I knew I couldn't go back to a regular doctor because I knew they were not just going to be able to help me. And I actually tried it and I told them that I felt I had thyroid issues and they were all like "No way, you're not overweight." That was kind of the only symptom they look for.
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So that's when I started working with Chris Kresser and he did a really comprehensive panel and was able to identify… I did actually still have some underlying deficiencies and I'm really glad I was able to work through those before I ever got pregnant.
Julie: Yeah, that's huge. I talk about that a lot on the show with other people. And I'm always curious, especially moms who have done Paleo prior to pregnancy or during pregnancy and the idea of like preconception nutrition. I just randomly accidentally happened to turn to Paleo six months before I got pregnant and I feel really happy that that happened.
But I feel like a lot of people could make that choice. Like people are waiting longer to have kids and they could spend a year of six months or even three months, I feel, like could make a huge difference in terms of like being replete in all those nutrients instead of like trying to just fix it after the fact.
Arsy: Definitely, definitely. Yeah, I'm very grateful for that too.
Julie: So how quickly did the Functional Medicine give you that last kind of percent of your health that you feel like you were missing?
Arsy: It's so funny at that time it felt so long but now when I look back and I know so many people with their health struggles and health journeys, it's really not that long. I would say it was maybe nine months of working with Chris that we were able to resolve everything.
Like the main issues that were going on was that I did have a little performing thyroid but it was not the common pathway that you would see that a traditional doctor would just test your TSH. We were surprisingly able to resolve that really quick with… I mean I already had the diet piece and with Chris is when I started adding things like the broth daily. I grew up actually eating liver, it's part of the Armenian cuisine but kind of reconnecting with that and making it myself instead of eating it every three months when I went home to see my parents.
So then with my thyroid he was able to treat it with supplements really quickly even at that point I had started working with a local Functional MD too and she was really surprised with how quickly my thyroid issues resolved. And then I also had an issue with really low B12. I had B12 anemia even though I was eating meat. I've been a vegetarian for nine years when I was trying to eat really healthy and I was eating like all the whole grains, low fat, no animal protein and that's actually -- I forgot to mention that earlier. After doing that for a couple of years is when all these symptoms started. Because I grew up on a fairly healthy diet compared to standard American diet. It's more Mediterranean food, everything made from scratch. There's bread on the table every night but the meals are actually more white rice-based for the carbs and a lot of stews with broth. So I grew up eating that food but I ditched all that to eat a lot of processed soy and that's when I started to get really sick.
And the missing link, it was actually really interesting because it was basically Chris Kresser and I found a great MD at that point at the same time. So he resolved the B12 anemia and the thyroid and my B12, it wasn't coming up. It just looked foggy and I was still getting some foggy head feeling sometimes, just not feeling exactly perfect yet. And then my MD noticed that my homocysteine was up and my B12 was low and she thought that I may have an MTHFR mutation. So when she checked me for that and I had one copy of each gene and then actually gave me the folate and that was like the missing link.
So there were kind of several different issues going on and it was a matter of finding professionals that were willing to dig deep and figure out what those issues were.
Julie: That's so, so important. It's important especially for people in the Paleo community to talk about that because I think a lot of people come to Paleo and they find even if it can solve 50% to 60% to 70% of the problems that they're having but then there's still that nagging last 5%, 10%, 15% of feeling really great that I hope they don't blame on the diet. "Oh, I tried Paleo. It didn't work for me."
I think it's really important to recognize that it starts with food but I don't think it ends with food. Especially if you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s and you come into this, you had a long time to do quite a bit of damage to your metabolism, quite a bit of damage to your… you can just become very nutrient-deficient. So I think it's great that you did that digging and you weren't dissuaded by it taking kind of a long time. I think a lot of people also want to have like the silver bullet, the magic pill that can get sort of everything all at once and yeah, it's not realistic so kudos to you for figuring that out.
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Arsy: Thank you. I mean because you do get those people that do 30 days and they're like "Oh, my gosh. I feel like a million dollars." But yeah, it's like you said, we've done decades of damage and for me Paleo just made me so much more in tune of recognizing what I am eating is affecting my body and starting to recognize that lifestyle choices were affecting how I felt. And so it was just kind of I felt better and then I could understand that I can feel even better where before that I just power through. I basically always felt pretty junky but I just learned to live with it where now I was actually like I don't actually have to feel this way.
Julie: Yeah. I think also people feel that things because everybody suffers from them, they're common but that doesn't mean that they're normal.
Arsy: Yes! Exactly, exactly, and that's what it helped me recognize too.
Julie: It's really a struggle. So when did you have Indy in all these? You have a lovely daughter, Indyanna, so how did your pregnancy come into all of these?
Arsy: Yes, I had been Paleo for about two years and it was actually the last phone call I had with Chris in my treatment was telling him I was pregnant with Indy and he kind of told me the next couple things but I was feeling great. So it was at the end of doing that kind of functional work was when I got pregnant.
So it was about two years into my Paleo journey and the pregnancy was awesome. Like really, really easy, I felt really great through the whole thing.
Julie: No morning sickness or anything?
Arsy: No, actually I had no morning sickness. Yeah. It was kind of odd though because I didn't feel pregnant for a really long time like it was hard to connect to actually being pregnant because I didn't have any symptoms. You know your first pregnancy you don't really show for a long time? So it wasn't until like six months in where I was like "Okay, I'm pregnant."
Julie: I can't quite say the same for the morning sickness thing. But once I got passed that, like the first 3 or 4 months were pretty difficult but after that, I felt great and I l felt really lucky to have like had my health and also to have kind of been nutrient-replete and been really healthy before I got pregnant. So those few months where I couldn't really eat anything or couldn't eat my best that kind of got me through that time and I think kind of stayed me all the way through the rest of my pregnancy which was much better.
So how has it been kind of creating… is your whole family Paleo? How was that with your husband as well or are you a split household, how does that work at your house?
Arsy: So my husband, he eats Paleo when he's at home. He's not quite as strict as us. He could benefit from eating Paleo more often. And honestly the first couple of years, I nagged him so much because I knew it would really help him. He has issues with eczema and I just knew it would really help him but at one point, especially when I got pregnant it's like "I don't have energy for this." He's an adult and it was…
But it was interesting, he decided to do his first whole 30 when he saw me pregnant. Because I was pregnant and I felt so good and he had people at work that were pregnant and that were just the whole pregnancy feeling terrible and he was like "Oh, so maybe there is something to how you eat." And he did that and he felt great but he's kind of on-and-off but he is totally on board with Indyanna eating that way and he eats that way at home. But he goes, like right now he's kind of on the Paleo kick but he'll probably be off of it like next month.
So I just don't bug him. Because we mostly eat at home so if he goes out at work, he might like hog a burger or something. So yeah, Indyanna and I eat that way. That's all she knows so that's really nice because I'm sure you have the same experience. I think it would be really hard if you had a child that was 4 or 5 and they're used to these certain foods they're used to eating and now you want to remove them. So yeah, it's been really nice so that's how Indyanna has eaten since she was little. She loves liver, she has broth most days and she's totally cool with that.
Julie: How was it starting off when you started solids and everything like that? Were you nervous about it? Did anybody give you any kind of kickback about "Oh, you're not going to give her Cheerios" or "You're not going to give her yogurt" or you're not going to give her the typical first foods?
Arsy: No. We followed a book called Super Nutrition for Babies. That was cool because the author had connected with me, a couple of months before I was going to start Indy eating solids. It was like perfect timing. Yeah.
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No, I mean people didn't… It was actually interesting because a lot of my girlfriends had babies around the same time so they were all like coming to me for advice on how to feed their kids. So I think it's just really cool because I know a lot of people now that do actually take this approach with their kids that they don't take for themselves. People really want to do what's best for their children so if they have the right knowledge in their hands, they're willing to do it even if they're not really willing to change their own diets.
Julie: Yeah, definitely.
Arsy: Yeah. So no, she was just a really easy baby and I think that had a lot to do with the dietary choices I had made. She's really calm, she really didn't really cry a lot when she was an infant. And I remember like a couple of years ago even before I got pregnant, finding some study on pop med that was saying that they did some… I can't remember how scientifically perfect it was because I probably didn't know to look for that stuff at that time, but I just remember the conclusion was that it was moms that had higher levels of B12 in their diet, they had children, the infants that cried less which really made sense because B12 that's the nervous system.
So yes, she was a really calm baby. So I think people were like kind of "Oh, what are you doing? Okay, I'll do what you're doing." She never had any digestive issues. Yeah. So that was really easy and with introducing solids to her, we started around six months but we just took it slow. We just really kind of tried to follow her signals and not push it too much and try foods and not push her. It was something like sauerkraut, she had to try that about ten times and now she loves it and she eats it every day.
But we didn't make a fuss about it. We would just offer it to her; we would just add it to her plate with something else that she did like. And she would take a bite and if she didn't touch it, we didn't say anything about it and try it again a few days later. And some foods she took to right away but things like sauerkraut, olives, took her a really long time but now she loves those foods. So we just try to take this really calm approach to introducing solids because I think just as important as what you feed them is the habits you create around how they eat.
Julie: Yeah, I think that's really important. It's like a lot of people would ask me, "Are you going to kind of try to wean her at the same time you're starting foods?" or people will ask the same kind of question, when to start solids.
My opinion, I mean from everything that I've read and everything that I've seen, I was just really surprised about how instinctual I felt about the whole food process when it was time. I felt like, Okay, she should be able to sit up which is kind of common knowledge like she should be able to sit up and she should show interest in actually eating. There's no definitive rule for starting babies at six months that they need to eat food.
Arsy: Absolutely, yeah.
Julie: I think that's really important to remember. And then the other thing is that just letting them kind of figure it out, like figuring out the textures, playing with the foods, smelling it, developing a palate for lots of different things. And I think that's one of the reasons why everybody eating the same thing or her eating what we eat I feel like has been really important since the beginning because I don't want her to ever feel like… I don't want to have to be a short-order cook. So it's really important for me to have her see that she's eating the same thing that Mom and Dad eat all the time.
Arsy: Yeah, absolutely. And I think they're more likely to try it when they see the people around them eating it. It's funny because people always ask me, "Oh, can you do a baby food next?" and I'm like "What do you mean baby food? There's no baby food."
Julie: I know, I'm the same thing. I'm working on that at the moment, trying to just talk about feeding Paleo babies and that's the thing. Everybody says "Do you have any baby food recipes?" and I just like "Take a couple of scoop whatever's on your plate and put it on there. There you go. It's the recipe."
Arsy: Yeah, definitely. The culture I grew up from, there was no kids food. You see little Armenian kids, like they're eating stew and rice just like everybody else is. They're not eating thighs and chicken nuggets. It's just not…
Julie: I just saw this morning on I don't remember if it was Facebook or whereby I saw a link to an article that said that the last like 15 or 20 years, we've created -- did you post this? Was it you?
Arsy: No.
Julie: I can't remember who was it.
Arsy: It sounds interesting.
Julie: It was like the last 20 years, we've kind of created a culture of like really horrible food culture, like people with horrible palates because of kids' menus. Even in really fancy restaurants, all they have is like chicken nuggets and pasta and whatever so it's like a really bland palate. And so there's this whole generation of kids that have horrible food etiquette or just food understanding or in the palate because they've never grown up with eating normal adult food.
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Arsy: Absolutely, and it makes it really impressionable at that age. Yeah, I think if you kind of give them that message, "This is kid food and yeah, you can have these things and I'll keep some frozen chicken nuggets in the freezer and whatnot."
So for us, it's like the one thing we have had to curb is my husband and I like really spicy so that's kind of been hard with cooking is I've had to learn how to cook less spicy food. Bu Indyanna is so funny; this is what she tells me. She says "I don't like spicy now but I might like it later."
Julie: Cute.
Arsy: I'm like "Yeah, that's true. You might like it later." And it's kind of the message she's gotten from us is that it's all right if you don't like something right now but just keep trying it; you might like it later. We actually never even talk about her not liking food. It's just yeah, try it and if not, don't eat it. Just try it.
Julie: Yeah. Fine, move on.
Arsy: Exactly. We just try not to make a big deal about what she's eating. Another thing that's been really important to me is we never say things like "You're a good eater" or tell her "Good job."
Food eating is something we do and I don't believe in praising kids for the things like we naturally do like going to the bathroom and eating food. I think when we give them these connotations and we teach them to do these things for rewards instead of you just do, like you eat because you're hungry. And that's the only reason I want her to eat is because she's hungry and she's spending time with friends and family not because she feels rewarded for it.
Julie: Yeah, that's a really good point. It's funny how difficult it can be to not do that because Chris and I have that conversation. He's my husband, I would say he's much more type A when it comes to just how we feed Ivy. I mean I'm just having much more relaxed approach about it. I don't mean like I'm relaxed and like she can have whatever she wants. Relaxed in terms of like outside of the house and around other people whose very concerned about what's going to happen when she kind of goes out into the world and surrounded by people that eat a standard American diet.
But it's funny, we talked about the food reward thing and it's interesting how ingrained that is. Because that was how I was raised, it's like if you cleaned your plate you're a good kid; if you didn't, you were bad and you had to sit at the table or whatever. I didn't have to eat things but I had to try everything which I think was a good rule. At least try it and if you don't like it, that's fine.
But yeah, the food reward thing is important and I think it's great that you brought that up because that's something that we strive for a lot but it's funny you find yourself saying things like "Oh, you tried it. Great!" or "You finished that, awesome!"
Arsy: Yeah. Because they are kids and they are so amazing, it's like you just want to… I mean for me, I've had to really practice not saying it too because you just want to say "Good job" every second because you're always so proud of them.
Yeah, it's a process. I've had to be conscious about it and now like I don't have to be conscious about anymore but I remember like when she first started eating, it was like "Oh! You like liver" like made a huge deal out of it because I was so excited, I was like "Oh, my gosh, that's so cool." And another thing is my husband, he doesn't always like liver. He takes like the desiccated liver capsules instead so I had to like tell him "As a food that grosses you out…" I think this is also important for parents too that are introducing food to their children that they don't necessarily eat because they're not eased to it. But kids are really, their palates are really impressionable. Most kids that try liver like it. so to ask him to not -- and he's really good about it, to not ever say things like "That's so gross" or "Yucky", not have an opinion about the foods she's eating that he doesn't eat. Because she eats like [0:24:21] [Indiscernible] is her favorite, it's in our freezer, she asks for it all the time. Those are things he won't it.
So I think that's just kind of important too is kind of keeping those opinions about food neutral and letting them decide what they enjoy and what they need.
Julie: Yeah. I think another important thing that you just brought up was not avoiding introducing things that you don't particularly like because your kids might really enjoy them, like we're a big liverwurst and Braunschweiger fans. We order it from U.S. Wellness Meats and Chris usually has that for breakfast most mornings with broth. It's also just a really convenient food to have for a child because it's already cooked. All I have to do is heat it up, she even likes it cold.
[0:25:04]
I was pretty surprised because they kind of have a pretty strong flavor. It's like it was one of her first foods and she's loved it from the beginning. But if we didn't have it in the house, I probably wouldn't have thought to "Oh, I need to buy some liverwurst for my baby to try." So I think it's important to be cognizant of the things that we're avoiding as adults and not keep our kids from trying them because we don't particularly like it.
Arsy: Yeah, absolutely.
Julie: Well, that's cool. So I wanted to make sure to talk about your books because I love The Paleo Foodie Cookbook, I've had that for a few months now. I went and saw you and Michelle Tam at Whole Foods and got that one from --
Arsy: Yeah, that was fun.
Julie: That's a great one. How is it writing a Paleo food cookbook? Is it as stressful as everybody makes it sound?
Arsy: Yeah, it's stressful because it's a ton of work. It's like you're cooking all day and for me I was on pretty short timelines. The first book I did I was pregnant and working a full time corporate job and the second book I did, I had a young baby and I was still working a full time corporate job. And I think I had left my job in June when my manuscript was due in August so it was really, really hectic.
So for me, it was hard because I always had multiple things going on so I don't know how it would be if I had to just focus on the book if it would be stressful for me. But yeah, because of those other elements because I was always still working and I commuted like three hours a day so it was really hectic. But it was super fun though. I loved it, I love cooking, yeah, that was really fun. But it's funny that now that I'm a parent, I'm so busy like I used to spend all my time in the kitchen coming up with new recipes. Now I'm like I don't know if there's something in the crockpot and hope it turns out okay for dinner. I never knew how much busier life could get.
Julie: Yeah, I know. It's definitely eye-opening. Where do you feel like you get most of your inspiration from? Is it trying other recipes from other blogs or just reading recipes from kind of your heritage or…?
Arsy: Yeah. I get a lot of inspiration from the food I ate growing up, like on both my books, you'll find a lot of Middle Eastern, Mediterranean type of recipes. I've always loved cookbooks; I have a lot of more traditional cookbooks that I get inspiration from, just like flavor combinations. And food magazines, I get BON APPETIT and Food & Wine here. And I don't like read them cover to cover because I don't have time but I always flip through and like jot down ideas.
It's everywhere, like eating out. I don't know it's like… I think when you love to cook, you're just always no matter what you're eating especially if you didn't make it yourself, you're like "This is interesting" figuring out what works, what didn't, what you would want to try. You just get more versed and you're able to kind of throw the things together quicker than just get a good idea of what flavors complement each other.
But yeah, a lot of culinary I learn from my mom and my grandma, they cooked everything from scratch. My grandma lived with us until all through high school. My grandma actually grew up in a village in a farm so it was cool learning from her. She's like a very traditional cook but it's been interesting watching my culture evolve over the last decade and seeing a lot more… Because the way I grew up, a lot of the moms were at home, they worked in the home, they took care of the family and cooked a lot.
Armenian food really takes a lot of all-day cooking. But now a lot of the women work outside the home as well so what I'm seeing in our community, just a lot of shift towards more convenient food. It's really sad. When we have family functions a lot of the kids are overweight and that really wasn't the norm when I was growing up. Just taking a lot of shortcuts in the kitchen, sometimes they're still making some traditional foods but obviously they just don't have time to be over the stove all day so it's more like packaged broth and things like that to speed up the process.
Julie: Yeah. What are some of the things that you recommend for busy people that are trying to make this work? Because the one thing that I like about The Paleo Foodie Cookbook, I think The Slow Cooker book is probably in the same vein is there's a lot of pretty quick recipes and thing that don't take an ungodly amount of time to put together. So I guess if you're somebody that's kind of overwhelmed or not that proficient in the kitchen, what are some things that you typically recommend to people that are just getting started?
Arsy: For me the biggest tip is just keep it simple. It's really tempting to be on all these blogs and find all these interesting fancy dishes and want to make them all. If you like to cook, give yourself one night a week on the weekend where you're going to try something interesting. But I'd say for the most part, just make really simple meals. Your slow cooker is your best friend, like I would not have been able to make this transition.
[0:30:09]
I was gone like 12 hours a day basically when I started Paleo between the hours I work, the hours I commuted. So I make really simple things in the slow cooker. I will poach a chicken -- this recipe's on my blog -- but I'll put a whole chicken in there and I'll cover it with water and I'll put like a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar then I'll cook it for about hours and then take it out, pull the chicken meat apart, put the bones back in. So you basically have broth after eight hours but you could cook it a little longer to get more out of your broth. So I'll kind of do stuff like that and you already have chicken made and like toss it with some Paleo mayo, make a chicken salad, top it over some salad with some veggies.
So I find, for me, having proteins like making proteins in bulk makes it a lot easier especially if you work full time and you just come home and you could easily whip up some vegetables to go with it but spend time to prep. When I worked full time, 9:00 to 5:00 job, I would always prep on the weekends, get a couple of things made to get you through the week mostly.
So another recipe that was one of our go-tos is Nom Nom Paleo's Kalua Pork. I mean it's so easy, you get so much pork out of it. Yeah, I just do really easy stuff. Like I have another recipe on my blog for Paleo Teriyaki Chicken in the Slow Cooker and its super tasty and flavorful, so easy to make so just things like that. If you go on my blog under my Recipes tab, you could go to the Slow Cooker tab and basically those are the recipes I make mostly because it's just so simple.
Julie: Awesome, that's really good advice. So before we wrap up, what are you working on no, what's next for you? Or are you in like a blogging mode now, what's up?
Arsy: The big project I'm working on coming down that pipeline hopefully later this year, so that I will share more about later but it's kind of in the infant stages. But I'm also just ramping up a project, another cookbook project called The Paleo Community Cookbook so that's going to be really awesome. It's going to be 1,000 Paleo recipes from ten different bloggers. That will be fun. We're just kind of in the design phase for that, we've all our recipes in. So that will come out in September so good to partner up with some really awesome chefs and bloggers to work on that.
And yeah, just working on my blog and just random projects here and there. What else am I doing? All that stuff. Essential oils, I'm super into the oils thing.
Julie: Yeah, you are. That's really fun. I like being part of your group. I just started kind of dabbling in essential oils a bit so it's nice being part of the group because I kind of read all the other people's [0:33:01] [Indiscernible] to everybody's questions and kind of developing my knowledge that way.
Arsy: I know, totally. I learned so much from the people in that group. Yeah, it's been fun. Before I was a mom, we never got sick or anything like that. We're eating Paleo and now Indyanna is like in preschool, it's like constantly fighting something off. So it's been really fun to kind of have that, to be able to treat things myself naturally for her when she gets a little cold and stuff like that. Yeah, it's been really, really fun. I love making like DIY stuff.
Julie: Yeah, that's really cool. I may have to have you back on. We may have to do an essential oils podcast.
Arsy: Yeah, that would be fun.
Julie: Also, it's been really fun talking to you and as always, I think people should definitely go over and check out Rubies & Radishes. There's tons of great, great information, recipes and all kinds of wonderful advice and information and definitely check out The Paleo Slow Cooker and Paleo Foodie Cookbook.
Arsy, it's been a pleasure talking to you.
Arsy: Thank you, Julie.
Julie: All right, talk to you soon.
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