What are you passionate about right now, and what are you doing about it?

My passion is optimizing health and vitality naturally. I would say that that's probably always going to be my passion.

Sleep has been a huge issue for me since being a teenager. People don't realize how important being outside and exposing your body to daylight is.

So the risk from pasteurized milk is basically nothing, and the risk from raw milk is a little more than nothing. When you've got to make 37 new health decisions, it's like, “Forget it, I'm just going back to In-N-Out.”

I'm not interested at this point in my life in hormone replacement therapy.

What does regenerative farming look like in the pecan world?

We're working with the Noble Research Foundation in our area. They're also doing some studies on pecan orchards.

Hi, I'm Stephanie.

I'm Seth, and this is... The Forever Young Show.

The most powerful force in this world is a woman who knows who she is, why she is here, and what she wants to accomplish. And that's where self-care comes in.

As a woman, it is my opportunity and my responsibility to take care of me.

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Self-care for your body.

Self-care for your money.

Our mission is to serve women as they fulfill their irreplaceable roles in families, society, business—the fabric of humanity.

So let's get this show on the road.

Anne Bennett is a holistic health advocate, homesteader, and homeschooling mother of three, who is passionate about helping women reclaim their vitality naturally.

She empowers her audience to optimize health through nutrient-dense food, low-toxin living, and intentional lifestyle choices. Alongside her husband, Anne operates a regenerative pecan farm in Northeast Oklahoma, where she lives out the values she teaches — real food, intentional living, and connection with the natural world.

Through her growing online community, she inspires women to step outside mainstream health narratives and embrace the path to true wellness.

Welcome, Anne.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Just right off the bat, I have to say I’m jealous because you have a pecan farm. Oh my goodness, I was so excited.

I’m thinking the same thing.

Do you love pecans?

Yes.

I’ll have to send you a bag.

Oh my goodness. I was thinking how dreamy. We have a walnut grove.

Oh yeah. You know, it’s small, but we love it. And they’re beautiful. They’re probably, what, 80 years old?

Yeah. Mature English walnuts. Beautiful. They’re delicious. But pecans.

But they’re not pecans. I mean, let’s just face it.

Oh my God. I’m thinking of all the things I could even make with pecans.

Oh yeah. Anyways.

The fatty butteriness of pecan butter is incredible. Like, just eat it off the spoon. So good.

Yes. I’ve never even heard of pecan butter.

Okay, I’m going to send you a pecan butter too. You’re going to have to try it. I’ve done cashew butter and I love that.

It’s nothing compared to pecan butter. It’s just so creamy.

Yes. Like in the stratify, you know, when Jesus talks about “there are many mansions,” you know that the upper mansions are getting pecans.

Macadamia nuts.

And macadamia nuts, right? Those are good too, that’s true.

We’ve actually thought about — we actually planted some pecans. So when we bought our property, we’ve got horse pasture, cow pasture, right? We raise our own beef and our horses graze. They’re grazing out here this morning.

And really beautifully, we had like 28, 29, 30 mature, probably 80-year-old English walnut trees. I mean, these are fully developed, big, beautiful trees. So half the pasture’s not wooded, and the other half of the pasture is fully wooded, fully shaded. We get owls and barn owls always coming in there. You know, it’s just a beautiful little—

And raccoons.

And raccoons.

Yeah, raccoons live up there, decimate our chicken flock, you know.

Yes. And I grew up on a farm. We had a big, massive walnut tree. I remember climbing it as a young boy, so I love walnuts.

But they’re aging out, right? And so we’ve, you know, through — we’ve had a couple of crazy storms over the last 10 years and literally uprooted the entire tree.

And, uh, and, uh, and so we’ve actually been able to take some of that wood. We live in a log home, right? You can kind of see some of that. But, uh, so we’ve been able to take some accents here and there and incorporate that wood. Our brother-in-law, LaGrand, amazing, amazing craftsman.

But we’ve got to replace them with something, right? I love a wooded pasture and a clear pasture. And so we thought, let’s do pecans.

So we’ve worked, but have lost, you know, we’ve found a couple of hardy varieties, but just haven’t been able to keep them. So we’ve got to decide because I’ve got to cut two more trees down over the winter that we’ve just lost to attrition.

And the thought was, wow, wouldn’t it be amazing if we could grow pecans here? And 30 years from now, our grandchildren can eat them.

Yeah, takes a while to start producing. But I don’t think I’ve heard of any orchards in Utah. It might be not the right climate.

It isn’t. We’re a six. I think we’re a six, but we’re on a banana belt here on this mountain. We’ve got lots of orchards surrounding this little mountain, kind of out in the middle of a valley. So it gets a little milder winter, even though it’s a Utah winter.

Yeah. But apparently, I can’t remember what they are right now. There’s a hybrid out of Texas called a peewee, a peewee hican. So it’s half hickory, it’s part hickory, part pecan. Those were good pollinators for the — I want to say the Johnston or the John’s brand. I can’t remember.

There was a hardy pecan that was supposed to be able to grow in a zone six. But anyway, we’re just salivating here thinking. So it’s true.

Anyway, anyway, well, let’s jump in. Let’s jump in with the big, the big fat question that we really, really want to know that’s going to determine everything else we talk about today.

All right. Hi. So, Anne, what are you passionate about right now and what are you doing about it?

Okay. Currently, my passion is optimizing health and vitality naturally. I would say that that’s probably always going to be my passion.

But right now, in particular, natural hormone optimization with, I would say, nutrient-dense foods, with daily movement, with quality sleep, stress management.

And I am passionate about learning about these things and then sharing what I have learned with others.

Because I am one of those people that I just jump in, I do all the research, I read all the books, and there are a lot of people who don’t have time or don’t want to do that. So I share what I’ve learned to try to help others.

And I would say also along with that, we’ve got the passion for regenerative farming. And that sounds like it would be two completely separate things. But what I have found, especially with talking to my husband about this, is that soil health is like our microbiome, essentially. Like soil health is to the tree what our microbiome is to our body.

And making sure the trees have all the nutrients they need protects them from things like fungus and insects and things that you would think maybe aren’t related to the health of the tree.

It's just what happens, but it's not. It is related to the nutrition of the tree. So just like with people, how our nutrition impacts our ability to, well, produce our hormones and balance our hormones, but also our immunity and all of that. It all comes back to nutrition and lifestyle too, you know, but primarily nutrition.

Well, I've never, like, I've never even thought about that. And that's crazy. I mean, like, we live on the land. We homestead. I grew up on a ranch, you know, we go, duh. Regenerative farming is like holistic health for nature.

It is. And it is the precursor. There is no holistic health without regenerative farming because the soil, the soil health, the soil variety, the soil depth, right? That is your nutrition. It's just got to pass through whatever sort of vegetation or, you know, my preference, beef. Yeah. Right. Which is vegetation. Right. Like your gut. I've never thought about this. Like tic tac toe, connect the dots. Your gut health is connected to the soil health.

Yeah. Your gut is your soil. It is. Yeah. Wow. All of our ancestors right now who are watching this are like... Duh. It took them that long. Finally. Finally. Bless their hearts. Bless their hearts. There's a lot of noise down there, but yeah, thanks to Anne's doing this. Wow.

So tell us about what does regenerative farming look like in the pecan world and how is it different? They are still learning. Yeah, so it's not done much in the pecan world. We're kind of like pioneering this a little bit. We're working with a Noble Research Foundation in our area. They're also doing some studies on pecan orchards. But up until this point, it really hasn't been done.

So some of the biggest problems with pecans that would cause you to lose your crop are a fungus called scab, a pest called weevil, and then, of course, just nutritional deficiencies in irrigation and water. And we have always been told, you can't grow organic pecans in Oklahoma. You can't grow them without fungicide. You can't grow them without insecticide. It's not possible. You have to do this schedule.

And we're sitting here thinking it's possible. They're native to the state of Oklahoma. They did just fine back when we didn't mess with things. So we are in a slow transition process. I would not say we're 100% regenerative organic farm. We're not. We're slowly trying to get rid of sprays and use of chemicals while building up our soil health because we can't lose our crop in the process. We can't lose our business. We can't go years without a crop while we rebuild the health of the soil.

You can think of that as some really good nutrient-dense supplements to help you get off of your medication, but you don't want to just stop your medication if you've been on it for a while. We're in the middle of that process.

Right now, that looks like cover crops. We do cover crops twice a year to help build up the soil and to help keep the ground covered. And that was — we used to spray Roundup because what the conventional wisdom is, is clear the ground so that nothing's competing for nutrients with your tree roots. But what we have found is have as much diversity as possible because all of that is enriching your soil. And even if there's a little competition with your tree roots in the short term, the long-term gain is so much more beneficial.

So we went from completely sprayed, cleared rows between the trees to our orchard has like grass above my head right now. So grass and all kinds of things because we're planting a huge diverse mix of cover crops. We're also spraying biological products that have mycorrhizal fungi and like basically probiotics. We're using natural soil fertility things. So we're using some ocean minerals and we may be even doing like zinc from oyster or something. I don't know for sure.

My husband is all into this. He's working with AEA, which is Advancing Eco-Ag, for some of their biological products. And we're doing some mechanical things like we are pruning more aggressively for better airflow, which helps with the fungus. And we are working towards having a herd of cattle on the orchard to also help improve the soil with like full regenerative daily moves. But right now our herd is eight, so it's not going to do much, but we're building it up and we're even thinking about maybe we've got a friend that does ultra high density grazing that we might be able to buy some steer from next year and just kind of finish them on the orchard and give it a try and see how that impacts our soil and our ecosystem.

I love it. Something came to my mind and it left because we were on to the next thing. But you talk about the diversity of vegetation now growing in that pecan orchard, which is historical, right? I mean, they didn't grow up, the cows or whatever was grazing, didn't just graze around the pecan trees solely. And we've just become so — what do I want to say — same in medicine, but we've become so focused, so specialized in doing one thing that we forgot how everything works together, right?

And we've seen so many, like, such a variety now of insects and birds and just life that wasn't out there because we were spraying insecticides and things that, like, they kill off your ecosystem. And when those things start to come back, it brings balance back to the system in ways that we maybe don't even understand, but we trust that process.

I remember what I was going to say. You were talking about the transition. You've seen some light, right? You've seen a vision of where you want to go, how things should be. And that's some way station far in the future, but you're making changes. And that's exactly the exact same thing you're doing and we're doing with your health — is you may not be where you want to be. You may not be able to eat completely organic right now. I know we're not, like, I mean, we probably could actually if we just... but, but, you know, it's pretty close. You know, I mean, all the things that we're doing, it is a step-by-step process, layer upon layer, while building as opposed to, "I got to cut ties. I've got to do everything perfectly."

And that gets overwhelming for people, right? When you've got to make 37 new health decisions, it's like, forget it. I'm just going back to in and out. That's just a recipe for failure. Yeah. It is. I mean, it's burnout. Yeah. For sure. That's kind of, I think, how I started on my health journey just a few years ago, trying to optimize my hormones and stuff and working with a doctor. And she's like, okay, going through all the different things. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to do all of them, get it all in.

And then I just have really been working on changing my black and white thinking and realizing I can't do all of them. And this doctor is phenomenal. I love that she celebrates any small win. Like, you know, I'm used to going to doctors and they're like, well, why aren't you doing this? Or, you know, being upset, but she's so wonderful. She's like that best friend that's going to cheer you on for each little win. And, "Oh, great. So you did dry brushing and the sauna today. That's wonderful. Okay, what can we do this next week?" You know?

And it's really helped me to add one little thing in at a time or two if they're small enough to really, really build up my health. Yeah, she's great. Cheers. I'm so excited for pecans. You just, like, like you have just — you've just found super fans, right? If you've read, if you've read Superfans, we are your super fans.

Awesome. I'm just thinking about pecan butter right now. Pecan butter on some lightly toasted three-ingredient, well, four-ingredient seed sourdough with, with some... Yeah, with nothing. Oh, man. And also French toast, on French toast with that same bread. Phenomenal. Like just the best breakfast. Giddy up. Giddy up. And a 12-ounce T-bone. But yes.

Well, let's talk about hormones. Yeah. So what are the biggest natural ways that women can optimize their hormones without going to replacement therapy? Okay, awesome. Yeah, so I think that I'm not interested at this point in my life in hormone replacement therapy, but my hormones have needed some help and I've made a lot of progress.

And I think that the truth is that our bodies are designed to thrive when we give them the right inputs. It might take some time, but I think the foundation is always going to be real food and nutrient density because hormones are built from the raw materials that we eat. So like if we're living on processed foods and seed oils, our bodies literally don't have what they need to make and to regulate those hormones. So prioritizing nutrient-dense foods like quality proteins and animal fats, organ meats, properly raised animal products when possible, it gives your body the building blocks that it needs for hormone health.

The second piece I think is huge for me was food timing to optimize insulin sensitivity. Because insulin is like the master switch for so many other hormones. I think this is maybe one of the most underrated tools for hormone optimization because if your insulin is chronically elevated, you're going to see problems with estrogen, progesterone, and even thyroid hormones. So if you eat in a way that supports insulin sensitivity, like prioritizing protein, eating your healthy fats, and not snacking between meals, that can have an enormous impact on hormone balance, for sure.

And then there's sleep. You can't not talk about sleep and stress when you're talking about hormones. You can be eating the best diet in the world, but if you are not sleeping, your hormones will not be regulated. Growth hormone, cortisol, melatonin, thyroid hormones — all of them depend on sleep, and not just sleep, but a deep restorative sleep. So that's essential.

And then, of course, managing stress. Chronic stress is going to keep your cortisol high, which is going to steal resources for progesterone, and it's going to throw your whole system off balance. Simply just like finding some practices to reduce stress as much as possible and let go of the things that you can't control, not stress over the things that you can't control, and learning to say no are huge. And hard. And hard, yes.

Yeah, I feel kind of called out. Sleep has been a huge issue for me since being a teenager. And I just turned 42. So it's something that I'm really trying to do and to manage stress. And you probably know this, but I'm going to go ahead and mention it since you were talking about sleep being an issue. People don't realize how important being outside and exposing your body to daylight is to the sleep cycle and your circadian rhythm.

So like getting that morning light on your skin and in your eyes and then going out at some time during the day to help your body just see at what point in the day it is, helps your body convert that serotonin to melatonin, and the melatonin is going to help you sleep. So, and grounding too, I think, has benefits. I don't know, I can't explain that. I just believe it — like getting your bare feet on the ground and the sunshine in your eyes and on your skin, I think, are really important.

So what are your thoughts on red light? Because I've heard a lot of people use red light to help with adjusting their circadian rhythm. Yeah, I am a big fan of red light. Yeah, I have a red light device that actually also has UVA and UVB for the wintertime. I think that red light is free if you just go outside in the early morning and in the evening, but it's not always practical depending on where you are or what the weather's like or what time of year it is.

So I think a red light device is a great fallback option for the days when you can't do that. I have one. I use it religiously in the winter, and I use it some in the summer too, just on days when it's convenient for me. So how do you use it? Yeah, you got to talk to Steph because I don't know that there's anybody in this world that uses red light more than Steph. It's always pasted on some part of her body at all times.

Like I'll walk out and there'll be this big bulge with her loom cube. And I have my own too, right? Because I had to ask her to buy one for me. No, you didn't ask me. I didn't? No, you made a comment and I was like, okay. So the next time it was 50% off, I'm like, honey, I can buy you one. It's like being at the old-school Baskin-Robbins — I gotta take a number.

When I walk in the house, can I get on the loop cube and you're number 101? Number of 101 when I'm the only other adult in this house, you know, that's going to use this. She's like, I'm sorry, I already took the first hundred numbers. Okay, that's freaking hilarious. And at the same time, I'm going to call you out on it because I didn't know that he wanted to use it all the time because he never expressed it to me.

So this is the thing — no, he needed a number and that's why he was number 101. The thing in marriage we call communication. Yes. You know, but anyway, just to say that Stephanie really is getting all of the benefit out of her loom cube. She uses it all the time.

Oh, I definitely — girl math — I've definitely gotten my money's worth. So I use it just for 10 to 20 minutes per section of my body. I have a pretty big one now, so I do 10 to 20 minutes on my front, 10 to 20 minutes on my back first thing in the morning. Mine has a pretty powerful — they call it a COB — in the middle that you don't want to use in the evening. But really, I think red light is better in the morning for regulating circadian rhythm.

So I try to use it in the morning when the sun would be giving me the red light. Okay. And I'm very careful to always get it on my face because within like six weeks of using a red light, I was like, oh, my skin. Like it makes a big difference, I think, for my skin. I think it's got some anti-aging benefits for sure. I noticed it within a matter of weeks.

That's one thing I haven't done. And I think partly because I've also read warnings about how it can create spots on your face. Like some people do, some people don't. Really? Yes. And so I've been like, I don't know that. I mean, like, if I have a headache or something, that's one thing that I will do is put it on my face. But I really try not to read the latest research.

I have a good friend who he and his wife now have these... I don't know what to call them like. Darth Vader masks, have you seen these? Anne, I have one! Oh, it's a full-on red light mask with little holes for your eyes and to breathe out of your nose and maybe a little mouth hole. It looks like—you look like Jason from Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s true, you do—red light emanating from, you know.

I mean, if I had that, I would wait till the teenagers came home from their dates or whatever. I'd be in the mudroom with all the lights out, and I'd be like, “You're late.”

So the one that I have also does green and amber and yellow light, which have different benefits. Like one of them—I can't remember which one at the moment—actually helps reduce melasma, reduce spots on the face. So there are different light spectrums that have different benefits for skin. And one of them is kind of calming, so it can really help with acne and skin irritation.

Just another thing to put on my list of what to buy. Just go out in the morning. You can get it for free. Just go outside in the morning. You get the full spectrum of the sun.

It's true. I've been—oh man—I've been having a hard time sleeping. Like I said, trying to shift. And I've always been a night owl. And so waking up in the morning, like I've never been a morning person. There have been, you know, a few days where I've been able to, but...

You'll get up for flights and for fishing. It's true. If it's Alaskan fishing. That one time. That one time. That one time we went to Alaska.

Well, let's talk sleep then. Just a little blip on sleep. And you talk a little about sun. If we were to say, okay, top three—what do you need to do to really, really enhance circadian rhythm and proper restful sleep? Boom, boom, boom. What are the three things? I'm all ears.

Okay. I'm probably going to surprise you with the first one—but adequate protein. Because when you get protein in your diet, protein has tryptophan. It's only in complete animal proteins for the most part. You only get it readily from animal protein, and your body converts tryptophan to serotonin.

Your body needs vitamin B6 and magnesium in order to convert tryptophan to serotonin. Serotonin is your feel-good, happy hormone. You've got energy, it's great—it kind of helps you wake up and have your fuel for the day. And then sunlight signals your body to convert that serotonin to melatonin.

So you've got tryptophan, serotonin, and melatonin. So what you eat impacts how well you sleep. Being in the sun impacts how well you sleep. And that all just—like, I love to see how that works together. So there's that. I'd say get adequate protein.

Two, stay away from the blue light when the sun goes down. Wear your red glasses—or even the house lights, your computer screens, your phone. I've got mine set to where I can turn it totally red. It's really horrible to look at because you can't hardly see anything, but I do it because I don't want that blue light at night, and that's important.

And then making sure your sleeping space is nice and dark. If you've got the smoke detector that has that green light that's really bright, maybe you could cover that up with a piece of black duct tape or something like that. Sleeping in a dark room.

Yeah. We live out in the country, so I don't know if natural—if a full moon—I think that's probably a normal thing for your body to experience at night. But my husband likes to shut the curtains anyway. So yeah, as dark as you can in your sleep space.

I would add to that, like in my bonus thing, winding down at night—not doing anything super important, not having any important discussions or arguments. Doing things that relax your mind, drinking maybe some chamomile tea, like doing some soothing things the hour or so before bed.

And then a bonus number two is I wouldn't eat within two or three hours of going to bed because that also—like, if your digestive system is working, it's going to disrupt your sleep a little bit.

Wow. Love it. I always—so, I've, boy, since I was a missionary in Japan, you know, what, 30 years ago, I remember learning, “Hey, don't eat before you go to sleep.” Right. But I read something recently—I don't know if you've read this—is that eating a little protein, and this kind of flies in the face of everything I used to think, but actually eating some protein before bed doesn't interfere with sleep, which blows my mind because I don't know how that's possible because protein is requiring, like, major GI work, right?

But anyway, I don't know. I don't know if you've read that, or we might start seeing that. So sometimes I'll actually—I won't have a steak typically, but I might have two boiled eggs before I go to bed.

I wonder if that's just because it doesn't spike your insulin. I wonder if that's their reasoning. And I still like, I'm a big advocate for metabolic flexibility. So not snacking and just eating meals when you eat meals and not snacking when you're not eating meals—mostly for the significant benefit of metabolic flexibility and maintaining insulin sensitivity.

I think that's the new... You know, we go through genres, kind of like in the greater—in the greater health world, you know, natural integrative supplementation—like, just kind of put it all together.

You know, you'll go through the, you know, the year, the decade of whatever we're going to—you know, whatever's like on everybody's mind, right? For sure. Yeah. Now let's start saying that I forgot about the last couple of things that we've done.

But, you know, we kind of went through the antioxidant phase, where everything—you know, antioxidants in Pampers diapers, right? And antioxidants in your Pepsi, right? And things that just totally don't even make sense. It's an oxymoron.

And, you know, different movements within the biohacking. Hey, this is the decade of—oh, probiotics, right? You know, ten years of—and of course probiotics are super important. It's called life.

But I feel that we may, we may shift into the metabolic health—like, that’s going to be... And you've got all of these differing opinions. We've got the metabolic health and/or unhealth, right? The GLP-1 agonist drugs—not GLP-1 your hormone—but like semaglutide, right? The synthetic pharmaceuticals—all aimed at what? Diabetes, fastest-growing disease in the world, which has everything to do with what? Metabolic health, right?

So I just, I think that the things you're talking about and snacking—wow. Are we going on a war on snacking right now? Oh yeah. My husband has lost like five pounds, and I'm pretty sure it's just because he quit snacking with me.

When I started like a hormone optimization program with a coach. And so he's just kind of like doing what I'm doing most of the time because that's what I'm doing. And he's lost more weight than me and gained more strength than me just kind of doing my program. So frustrating.

Yeah. So what is the premise of that program—of that metabolic health program? Yeah, I'm pretty much telling you everything that I'm telling you today is pretty much directly from my coach. This is what I have been learning. So I'm passing on what I'm learning.

His name’s Chris Kruger. So let me give him the credit for what I’m sharing. But yeah, I’m doing his hormone optimization program.

It’s the basic premise. The only thing I haven’t mentioned so far is doing some kind of exercise before you eat, which was something I had not heard of before his program. And that’s a big thing. He says that that will optimize insulin sensitivity, but it also will promote a surge of growth hormone.

So I do like a 15-minute video that he sends me. It does not take long. I was doing it in my living room. We kind of have a home gym in our garage now. My kids do it with me most of the time, and it just takes me 15 minutes, and I do that before my meals.

I’m eating two meals a day and not snacking between. So I do the little workout video, and then I eat. And that’s then the prioritizing sleep, reducing stress, and not snacking.

Wow. So do you do that twice a day? Like you do the little 15-minute—

I do the 15-minute workout twice a day. That’s all that’s like required for this program.

And then I’m also wanting to build strength. So the 15-minute workout is primarily mobility, balance, and core strength. So you’re going to work on your back, your abs, and your glutes for strength, but it’s not like building muscle.

So I’m also doing a little muscle building. One of those workouts, I add on four strength movements at the end, and he just sends those to me. So I do like leg day twice a week and upper body twice a week. And so I just do—but they don’t take another, maybe another 15–20 minutes at the most. And I do that usually once a day as long as I have time.

Wow. Love it.

Yeah. Sounds very doable.

Yeah, that’s the best part about it. I keep telling my husband—and he’s on board with it now, too—but I’m like, this is so stupid easy. I’ve done so many things my whole life to try to keep a healthy weight and get stronger.

I’ve tried all the different exercise programs. This is at my house and so easy. Why have I not heard of this before? It fits into my busy life. It’s perfect.

Yeah. That sounds like something you’d do.

Yeah, it does. It does.

I want to go to like a yoga studio because I love being social. I love the collective energy there, the focus, and I love that my kids don’t want me—you know, like they can’t come to me and “Mom,” or, you know, try—and I’m the type where when I work out, I have to have just complete focus on what I’m doing and not have distractions, which is hard with children, right?

So the studio is where I like to go for yoga and the mindfulness and everything. But man, it can be hard to carve out, what, an hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes? Because by the time I drive there, do the class, set up for the class, do the class, take down, and drive back—it’s almost a good two hours, which is kind of crazy.

That’s what it’s like for me too. We’re like 30 minutes from anything. So just to go to a fitness facility is 30 minutes to get there and 30 minutes to get back, and then you’ve got your workout.

I fit it in for a lot of my life, but you have to sacrifice something else because that’s a huge chunk of time. So this being able to fit into my life at my home has made a big difference for me. I love it.

Well, and this just seconds the thing that we’ve kind of been doing—we started—and that is doing squats before we eat cheesecake.

I love it.

Before?

That was after. I don’t know. It’s sometime around there.

I’m just thinking about cheesecake and squats in the same thing, but—and pecans. Oh, have you ever had pecan pie cheesecake? It’s like cheesecake with a small layer of pecan pie on the top. Oh, it is so good. It is like my specialty. That’s what the fire—my husband’s a firefighter. They always ask for that.

If he’s working Christmas or Thanksgiving, “Send us the pecan pie cheesecake.” Oh my goodness. I’m sorry, I can’t send you one of those. That won’t go in the mail. I can send you my recipe.

When we’re driving through Tulsa, you know that we’re going to be knock, knock.

Yeah, give me a heads up. Oh my goodness.

I used to make a really good chocolate turtle cheesecake, which is delicious and full of sugar. But it does sound great. And the great thing about it is—I don’t like pecan pie the way that 99% of people make pecan pie.

And that is just—

I don’t either. With a bunch of Karo corn syrup, right? And then a thin layer of pecans. What I want is pecans that have been—I want pecans, right? I don’t want jelly, right? And I want caramelized—like I want naturally caramelized pecans with a nice, beautiful crust.

Not, you know, some layer of lame pecans with a bunch of jelly in the middle. So just hearing about this... that sounds so gross.

I make my pecan pie with maple syrup, but even then, pecan pie is not my favorite dessert. Like, I use a ton of pecans and I use maple syrup and it’s good—it’s really good—but it’s not my favorite dessert. It tastes almost like candy, like candy pie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.

What is your favorite dessert?

Hmm. Oh gosh, I feel like you’re putting me on the spot. Okay—homemade vanilla ice cream with pecan butter and like melted chocolate drizzled on top.

Oh, we are so in. We’re so in.

I think we will tag you when we go, when we go Instagram Live—just, you know, as we do promote the show, re-promote this episode—and we’ll eat it in front of everybody. We’ll make all the things that you’re telling us.

Sounds good.

We actually have a wonderful—we’ll get off of the subject here in a minute—but a wonderful gourmet cheesecake small business, Momo’s. Momo’s Cheesecake here in Utah. We actually had her on the show last year, and so we brought her cheesecake on the show with her and ate.

But we need to talk to her about this alliance now that we have with Anne and have her come up with something like an amazing—pecan pie cheesecake.

Yeah. I can just give her my recipe. All she needs to do is buy pecans from us.

That’s right. We will tell her. We will tell her. For sure.

She’s actually working—she’s formulating—we told her, “You need to make a baklava cheesecake.” And so that’s coming up. They’re kind of like, you know, the cookie craze that’s going on right now, right? The diabetic cookie craze that’s going on right now with Crumbl all across the United States, where, you know, there’s more sugar in a Crumbl cookie than a human probably ought to consume in an entire day.

It’s probably more like a week. And I’ve consumed plenty of those cookies. Like, listen, I’m not—but I have not had a Crumbl cookie in—well, I stopped buying them. Yeah, we used to have a punch card if they had a punch card, right? But I just—we just—we kind of just stopped.

Well, for me, it’s been like, you know, being on this—well, I’ve been on a health journey, let’s be honest, for like decades, right? But on this part of the health journey and really focusing in on more things and the nutrient part of things.

I bought some cookies there because they have the rotation, and I’m like, “Oh, okay, they have my favorite one.” I think one was a churro one. I can’t remember what the other one was. I was like, “Okay, I can’t eat it right now, so I’m just going to throw it in the freezer and I’ll eat it some other time.”

I did that. It was a little while later, but they were still good. I took a bite and I was like, “These taste like chemicals to me. I cannot eat this.” I’m like, wow, I’m changing. This is kind of cool.

Yeah.

But at the same time, you know, mourning the fact that, well, I won't be buying their cookies anymore. That's not a bad thing.

I'll send you a great pecan chocolate chip cookie recipe. It's like won several awards so you can make those at home.

Okay. Done. You know what? You know what this means? I'm just going to do more squats. You just got to do more squats before the cookie.

So how do you personally measure success or progress when it comes to your health?

That's a great question. I would say that there are multiple metrics that I would use. It's not just one number. I think that's about how a lot of different pieces fit together.

And the very first thing that I pay attention to is how I feel is going to be progress for me. If I'm waking up with energy, if I'm clear-headed instead of having brain fog, if my mood is good, my stress is low, like my digestion is feeling good, not bloating, especially if I'm not getting headaches, those are big. Those are big signs to me that I'm doing something right.

Obviously, as a woman, this is going to vary some with my menstrual cycle because our hormones shift and vary, but it shouldn't be so exaggerated or dramatic that it is disrupting my day.

I also use some objective measures, especially like with this new program that I'm doing. I do a fitness test every Sunday. So I get the test that I'm doing; you can get a maximum of 400 points. And when I started, I think my initial score was 185 and this week it was 385.

So just having those wins along the way — that was eight weeks ago. So eight weeks progress. And I'm working my way towards the 400. So I have that really fun, practical way to measure my success and my strength that I've been gaining.

And then I would say that I do also track my lifts. So that's another thing. I do the fitness test and I also track my lifts — how many pull-ups, how many push-ups, how many bicep curls, bench press, and at what weight. And when I go up in weight, I track all of that and I try to get at least what I got the week before, if not a little bit more. So I track that.

And then I would say, I know it's a little controversial, but I think... I do use the scale because I think that a healthy weight matters. It's not the only thing that matters, but it is a piece of the picture.

But as a woman, and this is another amazing thing my coach taught me, I do not compare the number on the scale to yesterday or the day before, or even last week. I compare it to exactly 28 days ago because that's the same place that I was in my cycle last cycle.

So if I am the least little bit lighter than I was 28 days ago, that's a win. That's all I'm worried about. I'm not worried about the variations day-to-day or any of that.

And then I would say the last measure would just be the quality of the sleep. If I'm getting deep restorative sleep, I know my body's in a good place. If my sleep starts to slide, usually that's a sign — stress, nutrition, something is going to need adjusting.

So yeah, it's a combination — how I feel, how I perform, what the data shows me, and if I'm resting well.

Wow. Well, congratulations on the 385 score.

Thank you. So eight weeks ago, I could only do two push-ups and this last weekend I did 17.

Wow.

I know. Just eight weeks. Isn't that so fun?

That's incredible. And I think that having those little wins helps. It just helps your mindset. It helps feeling those wins and having different things that you can measure to see your progress.

And especially like with the weight being from 28 days ago, it's not too hard to have the win there. So having those wins is encouraging and uplifting, and I think all of that helps.

Absolutely. One of the things I think is so important is having metrics, right? And without overwhelming yourself. So you're just incorporating, hey, every Sunday I'm going to see, I've got Tulsa American Gladiator going on at home and seeing where I am.

But starting with a baseline of where you are, you talked about the scale, and we deal a lot with metabolic health and weight loss. And one of the things that we've done is the scale is only one of seven metrics as opposed to the number one metric — because that is dangerous.

We actually have a friend out in Michigan. She was working with a woman, coaching a woman. I think the woman was something like — it's going to be crazy — like 16 inches.

Oh, wow.

Cumulative in different parts of the body. It was 16 or 21, like it was some big number. The scale didn't move at all.

And that's because when you lose fat, which takes up more area, and you gain muscle, which is more compact, you might not have a difference in the scale, right? You might not. Like, I've seen bodies do that.

But at the same time, it's not completely irrelevant. Like, it is relevant. If there were only one — this is my personal opinion — if I only had to choose one outward measurable metric for metabolic health or weight loss, it would be waistline.

I would say the same thing.

Yeah. Right. Our waistline is absolutely connected. Research bears this out to — I don't want to go as far as saying all-cause mortality — but let's just say causation and connection to all negative outcomes in our life.

So anyway, thanks for sharing.

Yeah, that's another thing. The way my coach puts it, I think it's kind of fun, is jeans. Do your jeans fit? The jeans that you're supposed to wear — your forever jeans — do they fit?

Like, you don't even have to put a measure around your waist if your jeans fit comfortably.

Just have to say, as I've been — we've been on a journey for the last nine, ten months really working on metabolic health, right? Natural hormone production, nothing pharmaceutical, nothing crazy.

And, you know, I'm in — I had to buy new cinch jeans and a new pair of Wranglers. Okay?

And they were — it was because of waistline. Like, why are my pants... I love these pants, but they're feeling a little baggy. I'm not a baggy pants cowboy. Like, I just don't like baggy pants.

And I felt like, man, these are a little looser in the leg, and I'm pulling out here on the waist. And sort of, sort of get those Wranglers. And I think Steph likes it too, because they just fit a little tighter, you know?

But I haven't — I've not been in that waistline. I've not been in that, you know, waistline for, I don't know, 10, 20 years.

Fantastic. Congratulations.

Thank you. Feeling my absolute best at 50.

Yes. Amazing.

It's possible, people. It's possible.

For sure. I've seen some friends who have been working on their metabolic health and just seeing how they've had their transformation. They're, like we've been saying, the waistline and different things like that.

And it's really inspiring to see people work on that and that it's a journey. You know, it's like we've said, it's not just going to happen tomorrow, but we can do one thing today and tomorrow and then add upon that.

And it's really helped to encourage me to keep working on my things as well. So you never know who you're compound-effecting.

Yeah. Yeah.

Man, there's so many things I want to ask right now, and I'm looking at our counter.

Just talking about snacks. We've literally experienced this as we've been working on our hormones, right? Internal — specifically GLP-1.

Again, not the drugs, folks. Again, you know us. We don't support those. But your body makes GLP-1 anyway, like it's supposed to if you feed the gut right — what Anne's talking about.

But we experience that with snacking because — and you talk about, you've mentioned snacking over and over and over, almost like it was a snack, Anne.

But Stephanie is the snack queen. I should say she was the snack queen before really focusing on metabolic health and your natural hormone and insulin sensitivity, right?

Yeah, it's — I'm just laughing about bags of snacks. Literally, we would go on trips, or I still take some, you know, if we can't stop somewhere or we don't have the food we need, but I am making better choices on what snacks I'm buying.

But even our little kids, you know — “Mom, what snacks do you have?” And I'm like, “I don't have any.” And they're like, “No, really, what's in your purse? Can I look?” And I'm like, “No, I literally don't have snacks.”

And then at church — “Do you have snacks, Mom?” “No, I don't.” “No, I know you have snacks.” “No, I really don't have snacks anymore, remember?”

And one of our kids was like, “I don't really like what you're doing.”

Well, you save a lot of money by not buying snacks too, especially if you're trying to do healthy snacks. So I've done the same thing with my kids. I'm not super controlling. I want them to have freedom.

So whatever — if you want to go grab some carrots, they're in the fridge, but I'm not buying snacks.

And for the most part, you need to eat your meals and you need to eat your meals to where you're full enough that you're not going to be hungry until your next meal.

And so we've been switching to that as a family. And then if you absolutely have to have something, there's some carrots in the fridge, but that's about it. I don't put effort into snacks.

Do you know how much this would rock Costco if this... like, that entire section...

It should rock! This has rocked our lives because we used to fund Costco on that front section, you know — you know what I'm talking about — the front section of Costco.

Yeah, that half a football field of row after row after row of everything there. The, you know, our little mini trail mix, right? Like every prepackaged snack on the planet.

Change the world.

And even the healthiest of those are probably not going to be anywhere near as nutritious as a nutrient-dense meal.

Like, even those good quality beef sticks still have citric acid and added ingredients that are not in your ground beef, you know?

What about Paleo Valley?

I've never had one.

They're big on advertising right now.

Do they do the naturally fermented beef sticks?

They might be. Okay. I don't know enough about Paleo Valley.

I get naturally fermented beef sticks from Rep Provisions. They're actually out of Bixby, Oklahoma, but they ship nationwide, and they have the most delicious naturally fermented beef sticks with really clean ingredients.

So when we do beef sticks, that's what I do. I buy them by like 30 at a time and have a box shipped to me.

If Paleo Valley does the same thing, I think that's a good option if you're going to have snack sticks, because that avoids the artificial — the citric acid and lactic acid — that they add to mimic that flavor.

And it's the natural preservation method, so they don't have to add preservatives.

Gotcha. Yeah, because we obviously focus on protein when we snack.

I'll tell you, our meat steak — and this is not something that's going to be very duplicatable — right?

And that is, I get our beef, or we have a buffalo ranch not too far from us that we occasionally buy buffalo.

And I'll — Indian Native American style — strip it and I'll hang it out in the sun. I won't put anything on it.

Like, I don't put salt. I don't put any flavoring. And I just let it sit there and jerkify in the sun.

Air-dried beef.

And then I literally don't even smoke it because — I mean sometimes, but you don't have to. You just cut it thin enough that the flies won't lay eggs in it. That's the whole key, right?

It just sits out there. The wasps like it and that's okay too. And then I put it in a linen sack.

Like, that's old school. That's my beef stick.

Yeah, we do something not quite so old school, but I get a primal blend of ground beef and a jerky gun, and I make jerky strips and do that in my dehydrator.

Can you add that to the list?

Yeah, absolutely. Love it.

All right, we got 30 things to talk about with Anne. Like, if a woman could only change three things tomorrow for her health, what would you recommend?

Three things. Okay. If I had to narrow it down, the first would be just eat real food, nutrient-dense food.

And that's such a big change. But if you're giving me three things, that is number one. Working your way towards that would be the very first thing. I think that alone will change everything because when you cut out processed foods and we cut out seed oils and you start fueling your body with nutrient-dense foods, your hormones and your energy will have the building blocks that they need.

And that is absolutely essential, very underrated. I don't think the doctors are telling you this. It is the number one thing you need to do before trying anything else.

The second thing, I would say don't snack between meals. Snacking, it sounds small, but it's really huge for hormones, especially for insulin, which is like controlling a lot of the hormones below it. It's kind of at the top there.

And every time you eat, your insulin goes up. And if it doesn't have a chance to come back down or if it's up and down and up and down throughout the day, it's going to throw everything out of balance. So giving your body that space is going to help restore your insulin sensitivity, which is foundational for your hormone health, for your metabolism, and even just for your energy, having stable energy throughout the day.

It might feel at first when you stop snacking that you have energy crashes, but your body is just adjusting and once you level out and you have that optimal insulin sensitivity, you'll have energy even when you haven't eaten in hours and hours.

Oh, and there's three. The third, I think, is probably sleep, quality restorative sleep. That's when your body rests, that's when your hormones and your immune system are resetting, your brain is resetting.

You can be eating perfectly, you can be not snacking, but if you're not sleeping, you're not healing. Your body needs that time. So if you were only to change three things, I would start with those three — eating real food, not snacking, and getting quality restorative sleep.

Dang, I feel like we're doing pretty good. We're doing pretty good. We had a sleep doctor on the show a year ago, and she just did an amazing job.

And it was a really wake up. It was a wake up call. It was a go to sleep call for me. Anyway, it was a change your life because whatever ingrained in me, I'm super ambitious, we're building a business. I don't know, just like, you got to go.

I equated going to success. Go, go, go, grind. And I don't necessarily like getting up early in the morning, although I would say I probably like when I do. I am a morning person, right? I'd rather get up early and get moving than stay up super late.

And, you know, since we've been married, you can guess who's winning on that. But we're shifting. We're shifting. We are. But I made a decision after just the research about sleep.

If you're chronically sleep deprived, we're talking about shaving off years of your life. And we're talking about sleep deprivation at less than six hours of sleep — chronically is sleep deprivation.

And my ability to always fall asleep like this was one of the symptoms that I was sleep deprived because I could literally lay my head down and be gone.

Not even lay his head down. I would just start talking and I'm like, did you hear me? 13 seconds.

What do they call that? Latency, I think, is the term. Latency. How long does it take you to go to sleep? There was no delay.

And I've really worked hard the last year. And it's made me shift. I exercise in the mornings, typically. I'd rather lift weights in the mornings. I like to do yoga at night before I go to bed.

But I play basketball multiple times a week at the gym with guys. 5:00 a.m., I'm getting up at 5:20 in the morning. But if you went to bed at 11:30 or 12 and you get up at 5:30, not enough sleep.

And then when you start tracking, you track your sleep — we're using Oura Ring — you realize that there is an hour probably for anybody, at least an hour where you're not getting sleep. Like even if you're a healthy sleeper, it's not super deep, restful sleep.

And so I was finding that, oh, I might be in bed. And bedtime and sleep time is not the same. I might be in bed for six hours, but on any given night, that's only five to four and a half hours of sleep.

And I couldn't sustain. That's the other thing. The biggest indicator is could I sustain it? And there were days like I could get up, I could run. Man, I ran with the guys. We ran for two hours.

I came home, I lifted, I went to work, and I might make it through the day, but then the next day I need like 10 or 11 hours of sleep. That's an indicator that, dude, you are not getting the sleep.

Do you know what I've realized is ever since you have shifted that you don't take naps as much on Sundays? Every Sunday he would take a few hour nap.

My husband's the same way. He used to nap, and it was not every Sunday. It was almost every day at like two or three o'clock, he'd lay down on the couch.

And granted, he is a firefighter, so he cannot control his quality of sleep sometimes. But since getting these other things under control, he's not been a napper at all, even on days that he doesn't get as well.

If he doesn't get any sleep, it's different. But then he doesn't get as good of sleep at the fire station. Even then, he's not needing a nap as much anymore.

Wow. It's another one of those, I can't believe we didn't know this. We've only been on this earth for like 6,000 years, whatever. And it's like, hey, the sleep thing, duh.

So do you wake up to an alarm or do you try to wake up naturally? Good question. So this was part of the 10-day sleep test that the doc had us do.

And again, if you're listening, go back to last year to the sleep issue — my sleep issue on the sleep episode. And she said, “Seth, don't use an alarm clock for 10 days.”

I'm like, freaking no way. Like, I got to get up and there's no way I'm going to make ball in the morning. And ball is important to me. Like that is very important to me. It's exercise, it's social, it's a lot of things, right?

And so I pretty much did it. And it was revealing that I didn't get up with an alarm clock. Now, sometimes I get up without, well, I should say, most of the time I don't get up with an alarm clock.

I still will use an alarm clock if I want to make sure that I'm up by six. But here's what I've done. Instead of telling those guys I'm going to be on time, because they start at six o'clock, I just don't show up on time.

Like instead of being the first guy in the gym, one of the first guys, and being in that first game, I walk in after they've already been playing for 20, 30 minutes.

And they're like, “Seth, what's going on? Are you going to be here tomorrow?” I said, “Yeah, but I'll be there at 6:30.”

And they know. Some of them would know like, “Oh, you got to get your eight hours of sleep.” And I said, “Yeah, it's a non-negotiable for me. You can't rob yourself of perhaps the number one.”

And all of these things are connected. So, you know, again, here's what we want to do in the West is make everything the number one, where they're all — the routine is the number one.

But yeah, it's been a change. So I don't wake up to an alarm clock unless I know I have to be up. I'll tell you, we stayed up watching a movie last night about World War II, and I slept.

I didn't get out of, I didn't wake up until 9:25 today. Welcome to homeschoolers. We can do that. Yeah.

Yeah, I've just kind of basically given up the alarm clock unless I have to be up for church or unless I force myself to go to bed at a good time.

Here's what happens. I miss ball a lot because Miss Night Owl over here invites me. But it's not just me. It's you too, honey.

Oh, I get it. How many times he'll be like, “Okay, we can start a movie and we'll watch it for like 20, 30 minutes.” And for me, it's like, why are we even starting a movie then?

But I've been like, okay, let's do that. And only once out of the last like three or four times had like, I've even said, “Well, I thought we were doing 30 minutes.”

It's okay. It's okay. I get connecting with you, chilling, you know. No, this is not — that has not happened since last night.

Well, the reason that I ask about setting an alarm isn't necessarily the amount of sleep that you get, but when you wake up to an alarm, you spike your cortisol.

So if you can try to avoid waking up to alarm, like if you can have an alarm set but train your body — like my body, I have a rhythm now, and I'm usually waking up at six o'clock naturally.

I just turn it off when I wake up. So that if I have to, if I sleep too late for some reason, I've got that alarm as a backup. But you don't really want to spike your cortisol first thing in the morning.

You don't want to wake up to that. Holy cow, that's right. It makes sense. That's a revelation.

That's, I think, why — and I'll speak for myself — I hate alarms 'cause I'm like, it like jerks me awake. And then your heart's racing.

Yeah. Yes, and it makes me feel grumpy. Yeah. So I don't typically do it unless, you know, like today we had a podcast. I'm like, I know I have to have this amount of time.

We have to be up by 10:30 and ready to go. But I have noticed that lately I have been naturally waking up. Like it's not a jerk or, you know, the light's right in my face and I just am forced awake.

You know, I'm in a very dark room and I allow myself, like, if it takes 10 or 15 minutes to really get up out of bed, like I'll close my eyes and leave them closed if that's what, you know, whatever my body's telling me it needs to naturally wake up, I actually have been doing that.

So, research on this has changed the way that they do this at fire stations. Now, my husband's—Oklahoma's probably slow to adapt—but my husband's fire department just recently changed to a more gradual sounding of the alarm.

And the lights don't shine on regular lights; they're red. So it helps their health because spiking your cortisol in the middle of the night every third night for 20, 30 years can really impact your health.

And they know that now from research. So it's a slightly more gentle way of waking the firefighters up, but still so that they're able to get out quickly. But they've changed that a little bit.

Wow. I'm going to change my alarm too. I'm going to change my alarm to do some sort of...

Something more peaceful. Yeah. Or to start with the mute, because you can set your iPhone—pardon me—so that it can play music. And maybe I'll, you know, maybe I'll do like one of Beethoven's things.

You know, so if I don't get up, finally, like, I think it's symphony number 40. Crescendo. Surprise. Bom. You know, if you're not, we're coming at you.

It's perfect. My kids, I remember our oldest son used to say, “Dad, man, it's just crazy how you can just—like literally—my alarm would go off and I would spring out of bed.”

Are you talking about you? Yeah. Like he was talking about you. He was talking about me. Yes, this is true.

But in the last year, do you know what I've noticed? I don't know, because I haven't been in the same thing. Because she has a snoring problem. She does have a snoring problem. It's me.

But I've noticed that I kind of come into an awake state. You know, as if I don't jump out of bed—wow—you know, running for the alarm, you know, like in firefighter mode. That just totally... That’s great. That’s great. Every morning making proud.

And you can imagine, you know, him getting up three or four times a week, at what, 5 or 5:30, to go to ball—and what that does to my sleep. When he's like, boom, like the whole bed shakes because he literally jumps out of bed.

Yeah. Alright, segue, lightning rod. And you're like a lightning rod. Okay, you're like a lightning rod because—and I mean, I've seen some of the comments, you know, following you guys, you on social—like not everybody likes what you're doing.

No, surprisingly. What is the hottest, what is the biggest lightning rod topic that you discuss that is driving people crazy?

There are several. My handle is Simply Unconventional because I'm pretty unconventional and pretty against most of the conventional things. Because what they have been suggesting conventionally is not improving our health and wellness.

And so I think if you want different results, you have to do things differently. So that’s what all of my time and energy and hours have been spent looking into.

So I would say one of the hottest topics, of course, is raw milk. I do a lot on raw milk because it has made a pretty big impact on our family.

I had my two boys—had pretty bad asthma when they were little babies and toddlers, to the point where they would need albuterol and steroids regularly.

And within months of switching to raw milk—we have, like, that was five years ago—we have never used an albuterol or steroid with either of them since.

So that's just my personal testimony when it comes to raw milk. There's research that supports that, but it's not, you know, it's not fully scientifically backed.

There's just research on farm kids and, you know, they can't fully attribute it to raw milk.

I read Weston A. Price’s book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, and he used raw dairy, high-vitamin butter, and cod liver oil—and healed all kinds of ailments with nutrition.

So raw milk is a hot topic. I get a lot of flack for raw milk.

Another one is seed oils. I've done a lot of looking into the seed oils. I really like Deep Nutrition by Dr. Kate Shanahan.

It really dives deep into the science of why these could be wreaking havoc on our body over an extremely long period of time—which the research doesn’t really cover.

Because over time, they actually change the composition of your own lipid profile—of your body fat.

So consuming seed oils over your lifetime, you are getting high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids in your own body fat—which cannot be good.

And then I would say the last one—just, you know, red meat and animal fat. Like, I’m not saying we need to eat animal fat because it is healthy.

I’m saying that it’s the healthier alternative. It’s the better, more natural alternative.

We don’t need to be like drinking tallow—it’s not like it’s a vitamin—but choosing that, and then just that it does not have negative effects on your cardiovascular health when you do that in moderation.

Some of the science has shown that, but not adequately—or I don’t think accurately.

They say that switching to industrially refined, bleached, and deodorized seed oils is more heart healthy—and I just call total BS on that.

There’s no way that what God gave us is not what is best for our bodies.

And I think that we’re looking at the wrong metrics when it comes to cardiac health. We look a lot at, you know, the bad cholesterol—your LDL.

But what’s even more telling is going to be your HDL and triglycerides.

So I think they’re really looking at the wrong thing a lot of the time—and putting a lot of people on drugs that they might not need to be on.

So those are probably my most hot topics that I get a lot of criticism for—from people who stumble upon, you know, more viral reels and have strong conventional opinions.

So interesting. Your handle is Simply Unconventional. Yes, on Instagram.

And what’s so interesting to me about that is—it’s contextual.

You’re only unconventional because of the last 50 years, 80 years—not even a hundred years—of history.

I mean, humans have been eating pretty much since the Garden of Eden, right?

And last I checked, I don’t think that any of the fruit or the foods in the Garden of Eden were made by Nabisco.

I don’t think the Cool Ranch Doritos were there, folks.

They didn’t need industrial refining, that’s for sure—not to be safe and edible.

So you’re conventional, even though you’re really doing just a lot of the old ways—a lot of the traditional ways.

One thing that I have to mention—I want to ask you about raw milk. You were talking about your two boys who had asthma and you make a lifestyle change to—again, I think something is…

We could do a whole podcast on raw milk, and I think maybe we should at some point because it is becoming a hot topic, right?

We used to have milk goats, right? I used to make, you know—I used to love—and in fact, I need to get that.

We’re not doing dairy right now because it’s a lot of work to do your own milk—but making our own raw feta and whatnot. Man, good stuff.

But you talk about a lifestyle change and putting your boys on raw milk. And I'm assuming this is cow's milk.

Doesn't really necessarily matter—it could be goat's milk. We've done goat's milk a few times, but mostly cow's milk.

Yeah. And several months later—right, that's so different.

Like, we need to be willing, especially in the health conversation, to say, “Several days, well, not just several days—several weeks, several months later,” instead of simply looking at our health outcomes as,

“I got my pharmaceutical intervention so that I could have a different reaction or a different symptom within minutes,” right?

Like, it is the complete impatience.

This was several months down the road that you’re recognizing this—not over, like, raw milk didn’t heal your kids—but it changed the environment in their gut, right?

Yeah. So talk about safety in raw milk. And I know you’ve talked about absolute risk.

Can you just cover that concept and just, because frankly, we have been scared. We have been absolutely scared.

You're stupid. I mean, they did this with the shots over the last couple of years, right? With COVID, you're basically stupid, dangerous, reckless human beings, parents, if you're giving your kids raw milk because it's dangerous.

Yeah, I have had some of the most insane comments, almost scary. Sometimes people have said, you know, you should be arrested for child endangerment and like all these things, you know, the absurd comments from people who are just not knowledgeable. But they have—the institution has instilled so much fear around raw milk.

Now there is risk. There is risk involved in eating most foods, and the risk is higher in things like raw milk or raw fish or anything that’s got, you know, a higher chance of having some bacterial contamination.

But what they're telling you is the relative risk. What they tell you is that raw milk is, I think, 840 times more dangerous than pasteurized milk, because what they're comparing is the number of people who've gotten sick from pasteurized milk to the number of people who've gotten sick from raw milk.

And it is—that number is 840 times more. But that’s because both of those numbers are insanely small numbers. So the risk from pasteurized milk is basically nothing. And the risk from raw milk is a little more than nothing, right?

But that's 800 times more than—

That's 840 times more.

The actual number, I believe, is 0.006. So you have a 0.006% chance of ending up hospitalized from a bacterial infection due to raw milk when you drink raw milk. And that is of raw milk consumers, that is not of the general population.

Of the number of people that drink raw milk, it's like one in 14,000 or something like that will get sick or hospitalized. So there is risk involved, but it's not—They inflate it, making it sound like you're 840 times more riskier.

It's totally dangerous. More people get sick. The fact is that more people get sick from produce, but more people eat those things. So they will point out, yeah, but everybody eats that.

Well, if you're going to find a pretty equal comparison, about the same percentage of people, the same absolute risk from deli meat and raw milk—they’re very similar if you look into those numbers.

So if you're talking to a parent, saying they're absurd for giving their kids raw milk, well, do you give your kid sandwich meat? Because that's a similar risk profile.

Meanwhile, their kid is eating Lunchables.

Yeah, and that’s the other thing to me. It’s like, if you give your kids processed food on a daily basis, their risk of chronic disease over the course of their lifetime is your average American risk.

I think that’s one in—I'm not going to spit out a fake number—but it's like 60% of Americans, I think. I think that's accurate. I think it's 60% of Americans will have at least one chronic disease. It might even be higher.

But if you're giving your kids foods that end up contributing to chronic disease, that risk is so much higher. It’s just over the course of their lifetime. And it's a chronic risk.

There's an acute risk with raw milk. And I wouldn't give it to somebody who's got a severely compromised immune system. I wouldn't give them raw fish either.

But for healthy, happy, strong children and families, I think it's a really good option.

Can we just be really transparent here? What is the nutritive profile on pasteurized dairy—on pasteurized milk?

So I’ve looked at this several times. I don't have numbers in front of me, but I do know that the people who say raw milk and pasteurized milk are exactly the same—that's not true, but it depends on the nutrients that you're looking at.

It denatures some vitamins. Pasteurization denatures some vitamins, but those vitamins are not a significant number in milk. The biggest difference is going to be on your enzymes and your probiotics.

It denatures enzymes. And so if you set out a cup of raw milk and you set out a cup of store-bought milk on your counter, a week later, the store-bought milk is going to smell horrendous. You're not going to want that in your kitchen.

It has spoiled. And the raw milk will have fermented. So you can't tell me they're exactly the same.

The raw milk contains natural, beneficial bacterias, and you can turn that into cheese. The spoiled milk will make you sick. The raw milk—you can turn into cheese.

So there's a huge difference there.

Interesting. It just baffles my mind that something as old as dairy, right? Like, I mean—

It’s so controversial. Nomadic tribes, you know? Making, you know, drinking camel's milk, right?

And I don't know where that came from, but—

Camel's milk is supposed to be really good for you.

That's what I've heard. And you know, essentially small dairies, right? Small families, small operations, homesteads—sustaining life on, you know, in part, raw milk, dairy, yogurt, kefir, you know, making your own fetas and cottage cheeses.

And it’s just so—there’s always a risk to waking up and walking out the door. There’s a risk to getting food poisoning.

But there is just this vehement attack on something as simple as raw milk, you know?

Yeah. Crazy.

I will say that I recently made butter from raw milk and it was so easy and it was delicious and I was so proud.

You were.

That’s awesome.

And it was bright yellow without any food coloring. It was amazing.

Yeah. Amazing.

So thank you for being the lightning rod.

Yes. Take the hits.

Just a quick question as we wrap up—Anne, when did you start taking this message social? I mean, you’ve got a healthy Instagram profile, Simply Unconventional. How did you do that?

Yeah, it was kind of an accident. My husband was on TikTok and he was like, “No one's talking about pecans on TikTok. I'm going to be a world-famous pecan farmer because people might want to know about pecans and no one's talking about it.”

So he started on his TikTok, and I was like, I'm not interested in that. Over time, he convinced me. He had some reels go, you know, a little bit viral and he’s like, “This could be beneficial for our business. Why don't you share some of your recipes and stuff?”

So last November, I did a couple videos on pecans and they were way more controversial than I ever imagined because I explained the difference between fresh and rancid pecans.

Pecans have a high oil content—higher than almost any other nut—and oils go rancid. So after the pecan has been out at room temperature for so, so long, the oil will start to go rancid. It's not going to make you sick. It's not rotten. It is rancid.

But that just went wild. And we, I think, maybe five times the number of customers we would typically have in the fall.

We couldn't do the farmer's market. We weren't going to have enough nuts for the farmer's market this year, which freed up our summer in the most glorious way.

I love the farmer's market, but we got to spend time with family. We got to go to the lake. It changed our lives.

And I'm not the farmer. I can't talk about pecans all day, every day. But I am super passionate about health. And so once we saw the potential there and what it was able to do for our farm business, I was like, okay, well, I'm going to go on with this and I'm going to do it for health and wellness and just share everything that I've learned and try to spread that message.

So that was just last November and it's just kind of spiraled since there.

Yeah. What a happy little accident.

Yeah. And it’s been wonderful.

I've always had a little bit of income to contribute to our family. I've always done something. I was actually a photographer for 10 years, and then I did a network marketing business, and then I baked goods for the farmer's market when we were doing the farmer's market.

I've always brought in a little bit to contribute to our income. And this has been a lovely way to do that with a lot of flexibility with something that I'm really passionate about and can get excited about.

Yeah. When you're good at it and your content is fresh—and I don’t want to say controversial, I mean, you can choose whether it’s going to be controversial to you—but it’s just good. It’s like, it’s just good down-home common-sense stuff, you know, but in a fun way.

Anyway, thank you. Really appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks.

So a lot of—you know, this episode, we've been on for an hour and a half, and thank you so much for your time.

Yeah, you bet. Generous.

And cut. It’s a wrap.

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