Glyphosate and Leaky Gut: What You Need to Know
Glyphosate is no joke. It’s a widely used herbicide that was patented as an antibiotic. It’s in our food. It’s in our soil. It’s in the air and it can wreak havoc on our bodies. Is there any escape? Can we counter it’s effects?
In this episode, Ed talks a little about the history behind glyphosate, some of the consequences of continual ingestion of this chemical and what we can do to help protect ourselves.
Some Topics We Discussed:
What is glyphosate and why is it important? (1:06)
What foods are exposed to glyphosate? (5:14)
Why should we avoid folic acid and how does that relate to the issue of glyphosate? (8:33)
What are some nutrients we can take to help counteract the disfunction caused by glyphosate? (10:25)
Are there ways to make eating cleaner and healthier more cost effective? (24:26)
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
Glyphosate is killing pests by a different method than just poisoning something. It is killing it by blocking this pathway, the shikimate pathway, and the one thing it blocks is the amino acid tryptophan. (3:58)
Every single food today is exposed. (5:26)
Products & Resources:
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Brian Strickland 00:43 Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the holistic navigator podcast. I'm the producer of the show, Brian Strickland in here with me in the studio today is Ed Jones. Ed, how are you doing today,
Ed Jones 00:56 You really want to know I've got terrible jetlag and not sleeping well. But overall, I am not a complainer and I'm here fully on.
Brian Strickland 01:06 So today we want to take a little time and talk about glyphosates. Now, this is a topic that many people may not be aware of because of the recent lawsuit, it's actually gaining more and more attention. Ed, can you talk about why glyphosates are important, where they come from, and why everyone needs to know about the consequences of using them?
Ed Jones 01:33 Absolutely. I have been a career built person who is focused on nutrition, holistic health, and helping I think, hopefully many, many people over my 40 year career. And it requires actually a tremendous amount of self study, because the consequences of what this world has created. And the options that many of us are really unaware of that is destroying our health today. But something happened in approximately 1978 that there is no turning back from. And this is the use of the weed killer Roundup, also known as glyphosate. So what is glyphosate? And why is it different than, say, the old weed killers of before? You can take something like alcohol, and many other types of chemicals to kill pest. And the reason it kills is because it's very caustic. It's very damaging to the physiology of things that grow. And that was the kind of chemicals that have been used throughout history. And they weren't perfect, they did have some health issues associated but they work radically different than what we are experiencing that glyphosate is, is creating by its molecules and the way that it makes pest die. And the reason that it's so devastating is because they figured out in the 70s that this thing called glyphosate can block a certain pathway in the body called a shikamate pathway. And this pathway, like all things in the in any living creature, we had these biochemical doorways that have to be like the doorbell has to be rang and then the door has to open and things have to go through it for the next level of production of what we run on. And we run on amino acids, on fats, on vitamins, on calories. All of these are having to be manipulated in the physical body so that you can turn the raw materials of what you eat, drink and put into your body into everything. Well, the issue with glyphosate is that it's killing pests by a different method than just poisoning something. It is killing it by blocking this pathway, the shikimate pathway, and the one thing it blocks is the amino acid tryptophane. And so by blocking these certain amino acids, you are absolutely disabling the immune system of the human body. And when the immune system is disabled, we know what can happen. We know the increase in so many diseases, and I can almost guarantee anyone listening to this knows someone who has an autoimmune disease, like Crohn's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, there's a whole list where the immune system actually turns on itself. Well, one of the bigger reasons that we are experiencing all of the health issues that we all know are happening and we almost have become believers that it's the norm is the use of or the exposure that you are getting from eating foods that have been sprayed with Roundup, this potential poison is blocking is truly blocking the ability of healthy foods to do their job.
Brian Strickland 05:14 Are you saying like even outside of what we would deem healthy foods, so even in the the junk food categories, are there actually foods that are exposed to glyphosate in that category as well?
Ed Jones 05:26 Every single food today is exposed. And what's scary about glyphosate is it's water soluble. And when something is fat soluble, it actually has a very difficult time being moved around in the in the world and is in our body doesn't really absorb it too easily. But watersoluble is everywhere. I did a test about three years ago as a urine test for my level of glyphosate within my own body. And mine was on a scale of one to 100. If 100 is the worst, and one was none, I was about 70 on this list, the average European is about 40. So in Europe, they are not exposing themselves quite to the level that we are. But it is, you know, this is all brought about by a lot of greed and a lot of misinformation. Because if you go to Web MD, where the date is the incorrect place to find any of this factual information on things like this, because they're bought and paid for by the bigger companies, so they're going to not present the big, true picture of what's going on. And actually, glyphosate was first patented as an antibiotic. And we all know that the chronic use of antibiotics is another devastation to our long term health because it destroys your gut function. Glyphosate destroys your gut function, and the amount of prescription antibiotics per year. Now, believe it or not, these are the true numbers out of 1000 people, there are 800 prescriptions written per year for that 1000. Can you believe that 800 prescriptions are written for each 1000 persons in this country. Now, that doesn't mean 80% of people are taking it because there's many people who are on five different prescriptions per year, and people like me Don't take any. So but that still massive quantities. So on top of the prescriptions. We are then adding glyphosate to the food, which is another antibiotic. And on top of that, did you know that 1/3 of the weight of a cow is how much they are prescribed antibiotics. So if a cow weighed 1000 pounds, they're going to have about 300 pounds of antibiotics in one year. That's what they're going to eat. So if we all realize how the devastation of and chronic antibiotic use is, what do we do about this? I mean, number one is we need to be very cognizant of not being prescribed antibiotics unless it's truly truly necessary. We can't get away from glyphosate, you can do better by choosing organic foods. But here is the only option that I can foresee is to build your body's own physiology up with a protective armor. And this protective armor will help compensate for the damaging effects that you cannot get away from. What are some of these protective armors? Well, one of them is methylfolate. methylfolate is a type of folic acid that is food derived is it's a totally different type of molecule than the synthetic folic acid. And what I want to say to people right now see if you are taking a multivitamin or a B complex, and you turn the bottle around, and it says the word folic acid. My advice is to throw it in the garbage. Because what's happened without getting too complex is folic is actually making glyphosate do more damage to you. And it's under this heading of mthfr, which is a type of genetic issue that we're learning more and more about that about 60% of the people have, and if you have a gene that is expressing mthfr the folic acid actually is causing great damage to your body. Now, in 1998, there was a law passed that required folic acid the synthetic version to be added to bread cereal, flour, pasta and rice. So if a person has this gene and the chances are at least 50% you do when you eat these foods, you are disabling the healing capacity you are causing your body to not be a to detox these harmful chemicals, because it turns this gene on? Well, what do we want to do is we need to not be using any nutritional supplements with folic acid, that is a blanket statement, that will not change. Because the the evidence is totally there, we know it, we're completely convinced. And it will not be anything changing on that, because this is concrete knowledge. So folic acid, never again, what you do need to know is that you have to consume methyl folate, I know they sound similar, but you have to understand just totally different ingredients. Now you can buy certainly nutrients now with methyl fo late as the ingredient, or B complex. And what this will do is it's going to up regulate something called methylation. And when you are methylating correctly, you are protecting your liver, you're protecting the armor that can prevent a lot of the damage from any kind of chemical, hey, if you're riding a bicycle, and a car passes you that has some fumes coming out, because they were maybe an older car, they're not you know, has some mechanical problems. Well, there's, there's a toxin you just breathe in something that is damaging, potentially to you. But the reason that it doesn't damage young people, at least apparently, unless it's long term is because they have the armor, the protective antioxidants, they have the Bluetooth ion that is taking these molecules like the fumes from the car, and disabling them on a level in the liver that then makes them water soluble, and you basically urinate it back out. That is what we are wanting to achieve. Now as we age, this system becomes less and less effective. So make sure you are taking methylfolate every day. Do you take methylfolate Brian?
Brian Strickland 12:01 I do. I take a complex B vitamin that has a methylfolate in it.
Ed Jones 12:06 And the dose should be somewhere between 800 micrograms and 5000 micrograms. But the other ingredient that I'm a huge fan of is something called restore. Restore has an ingredient in it called Aqua humic substance and restores a liquid. And what you do is you actually take about a teaspoon before eating your foods. And what it's going to do is create a temporary type of what we called tight junction. And a tie junction is I will use the analogy of basically a screen door. If you lived in a in a very hot environment that was very bug infested. And you had us a small house or cabin and you had a screen door on your front door. And it was new, well, you could probably watch the bugs come to your screen door, but they won't come through it because there's no big enough holes to do that. Well what glyphosate does, and antibiotics is it actually goes in and creates big holes in the gut lining. And it would be like you going in and sticking a screwdriver about 50 times in your screen door. Well, all of a sudden, despite the fact you can say you have a screen door, it doesn't really matter anymore, because the bugs are coming in the mosquitoes, the flies, and anything that can find their way through those holes will find their way through. And they can then create problems. I mean, we know even mosquitoes and others potentially can carry many different diseases. So what restore does is it would be like if you temporarily could patch all of those holes in your screen door will all of a sudden you're going to stop the influx of these bugs at least temporarily. Well, restore can't do it permanently. But what it the good part of this is if you can patch that screen or those holes, at least for an hour, you're going to prevent the glyphosate from going in through these holes because that's what's happening is leaky gut. And so I love using restore before meals in order to block it. So that's point number two methylates one restores number two, then choosing wisely your foods now, we can't get away from the store. But as all things in life, there's a way that we can at least do the best we can hopefully which is choose organic as best and as often as you can. Make sure that if you are using or eating packaged foods for you or your family that you look on the label to see if it says folic acid and then also if you can find the foods that say non GMO, that is a another step up. That's going to help reduce the amount of glass First Sight in your foods, you know, moving back into putting together a program and I talk about a program called the core for often. And it's really where we distilled down, if you had, if you walk into a great nutrition store, and they had 12,000 items, and you don't have a clue where to start, you need to pick core four items. And what that is, is a multivitamin, of course, with methylfolate, not folic, and from a company who truly is focused on quality, not advertising it but really, truly does this and you need to find trustworthy partners on this, the people you buy these things from need to be experts in this field, not the big box stores. Secondly is omega three, and omega three, if when I look at a lot of blood work, the omega three has now been regarded as the number one predictor of mortality, the level of omega three. But the thing about fischels, which is omega three is you have to be very informed as a consumer. Because if the fish are swimming in polluted waters, again, with mercury and heavy metals, you are going to be adding to the toxic load of your body. And so choose wisely, find people you can partner with that you know, and can trust that can lead you down this pathway. Thirdly is on the core fours probiotics, the thing glyphosate, number one destroys as your probiotic, your microbiome, the gut bacteria, we can use all these words, your gut bacteria is responsible for at least 60% of your immune system. And at least 50% of your brain chemicals, it now is regarded as the second brain, what we're doing is we're actually disabling half of our brain chemistry, brain chemistry, not meaning, basically IQ but brain chemistry, meaning the serotonin, the Ale, the dopamine, the pleasure types of neurotransmitters and the anxiety levels are skyrocketing today, partially because of this and depression. So doing a probiotic, again, you know, the let the buyer beware because many probiotics are simply not that effective. And we're learning more and more about the brands that seem to implant better and last longer. One thing about probiotics is you need to feed them. The food we have to allow the probiotic to eat to maintain themselves are called prebiotics. Well, what is a prebiotic, a prebiotic generally can be fiber, a healthy fiber, that means if you're eating a very good, varied mixture of all your colored vegetables, and fibrous content, and chia seeds and flax seeds, and that's what I add to my drink in the morning, so I get it with my morning breakfast. That's going to help the probiotics to last longer and live longer because they are living organisms that need to have food. And the only foods they really do well on is prebiotics. Now you can purchase prebiotic tablets and powders which are great. And I highly recommend those to add further to this stability of the microbiome. And then lastly is the superfood drink. And a superfood drink consists of the good brands consist of a combination of multiple choices of colored vegetables, and sometimes mushrooms and a whole array of organic, non GMO concentrated foods that you and I probably will not eat on a daily basis. And what will this do for us actually, as far as the vitamin and mineral content, it's a it's very little, most people think, well, I'm eating my vegetables in order to get my vitamins. And that's really a mistake. What you're getting is something called phytochemicals and phytochemicals are what a plant actually has in it to protect itself from disease, pest and maintain a type of, of sturdiness in nature that will give it the best chance of living as long as it can live. Well when we take in these phytochemicals, it tends to give us the same protection that it would give the plant now many brands are producing green foods and green drinks and there are questionable, very questionable because just because a drink looks green does not mean that that maintained its phytochemical content. I went up to Canada and just a few months ago and watched a farm that grows the foods that go into one of these drinks. And to talk to the farmer and scientist, I was blown away about the the type of steps that actually have to be taken in order to produce a quality product that will be effective. Keep in mind everyone, we're not talking about buying paper towels, if you buy the really cheap paper towels, you know what, they're still going to clean up that water spill on your sink. If you buy a super cheap nutritional product, it's going to do nothing, probably, and it actually could have some contaminants that could be negative. So this is where your investment, this is where you're going to hopefully decide, instead of putting my money a lot into Starbucks and drinking my coffee every day, maybe I could drink less of that, and then spend more on my long term health. And how many people have said, once I turned 50, it all fell apart. You know, I had, I had the ear infections that started and then I started having gut issues. And then I started, you know, having diarrhea, and then blank and blank. And then eventually there's a medical crisis that occurs. And it's just their whole last two decades are spent managing poor health and disease. And that's what we don't want. And we don't have to have it if we're informed. And that's why we're doing this show. That's why we do everything that we do is help people to arm themselves with necessary knowledge to to make wise choices. Does that make sense? Brian?
Brian Strickland 21:42 It does. And there's two things I wanted to hit on and ask you. The first I know, we touched on the core four, I was wondering why supplementation is so important? So I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking or wondering, is it possible for people to eat all the right foods and actually get the necessary nutrition that they need? So is it possible to get that amount of nutrients from the food that we eat?
Ed Jones 22:10 It is possible, it is unlikely? And that's where it would be like saying is it possible that you really don't need health insurance, and you could save that money? Well sure as possible. But what happens when you step off the curb and you you know, tear your ankle or you get seriously sick? Well, then you've got a devastation happening because you didn't take the right steps, in order to build this retirement account, I would err on the side of using nutrients that are found to be safe. not that expensive, actually, in the long run, and would be given or taken every day for at least five days out of seven. And this is going to be your insurance, this is your insurance policy. And you know, the food choices that you would make or have to make, in order to have the diet that could create the level of nutritional adequacy that I do believe in would, you basically could not work a full time job, there's no way because you're going to spend so much time either growing at yourself, or shopping forward and fixing it properly, that you really could not have a full time job. And then you're gonna have to have a lot of extra money. Because of all the effort involved with this. And, and the fact that these foods are, you know, two to three times higher priced than then the cheap foods and sometimes more even more than that. So yeah, I've seen a few people who have been able to do it, but it's been very few. And we all lead such a busy life that we want efficiency and the fact that you know, we I totally never give the impression that you can eat junk food and take nutrients to compensate. And that you're okay, it is a big picture. You have to be addressing the exercise the sleep, the nutrient intake, your food choices, and leaving a clean life, you have to do that, or else it's gonna fall apart eventually. So make all the right food choices, then add the protocol for the nutritional supplementation on top of that, and you've got a perfect Partnering for long term health.
Brian Strickland 24:26 Yeah, that's great. I also wanted to mention that, I think one of the largest complaints that we hear about at least, and then you hit on it just a little bit earlier is the cost. Now, there are options right. There are options of very good quality supplements that you know are outrageously priced and I think the same can be said for food too. If you shop wisely, you can find organic, non GMO whole foods at a cost that you know Isn't extremely high and is, in my opinion, really doable. My wife and I have just recently began shopping a little more for those ingredients and in that way, and I think the biggest thing that it costs you is time, it takes preparation, it takes thought it takes not only planning your meals, but but then actually preparing the ingredients, you can't just tear open a box and a baggage throw in a pot and be done. I'd rather spend the time now I'd rather spend the money now and take steps to you know better my health in order that I can save on those costs later in life. So
Ed Jones 25:39 It's probably more costly for the amount of effort and time we're having to devote more so than actually purchasing the product. Because I'm, I can go by the foods, that's really the simpler and easier part. It's everything else involved with that, which is getting there, getting back to home, fixing it, clean up, bang, bang, bang all of them together. And if you're super busy people, it's costing you a lot on the amount of time, it could be the time that you're giving up for family activities. It could be the time that you could have had for exercise, relaxation, stress management, if you're fixing, you know, spending an hour a day for two meals a day, that doesn't even count the travel. It's expensive to do that. Well, again, how long does it take to take the right supplements and to drink a drink. If you can just do those two things, you're, you're just putting the odds in your court significantly. But you have to prioritize, and every one of us will shift our priorities and decide what we're going to spend money on this month or this year, as opposed to what we might not have done the year before. And most of us have a part of our our financial plan that is a luxury or AI type of option, that if we reduce just something small, we can then add something good like the supplements. I mean, if you spend $1 a day on you could do a basic protocol on $1 a day. That's nothing in most people's minds, especially if you consider I spent $2.85 this morning at Starbucks. So it's all about priorities. And I just want to encourage everyone to if they're listening to this and they truly want the best for their, their own health and their family is is consider the core for the multivitamin, the omega three the probiotics, and the superfoods. And you know, the World Health Organization declared only in 2015 that glyphosate is a carcinogenic molecule. The World Health Organization, no one ever disregards their opinion on things like this. Well, that's done it for this week's episode. And just so you know, you can now find us on iTunes. I'm so excited. And if you don't mind leaving us a review and subscribing that would really help us get the word out about this podcast. And if you have any questions, be sure to visit the holistic navigator comm drop us a note and we would love hearing from our listeners. And until next time, I am Ed Jones and remember Hippocrates said, whenever a doctor cannot do good, p must be kept from doing harm. Thank you very much.