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Improve Your Quality of Sleep With the World’s First Lightweight Wool Sleeping Bag

patrick-clarkMy guest today is Patrick Clark, creator of Lucky Sheep, the world’s first lightweight wool sleeping bag. We’ll be talking about how wool can improve the quality of your sleep and his new wool sleeping bag that can be used indoors or outdoors. Patrick graduated from University of Kansas with a major in Outdoor Recreation. He spent a few years in Wilderness Leadership work and then moved into the Organic Bedding industry. He loved to invent and he saw a wide open field of opportunity. He also saw a huge riff in principles in the Outdoor Industry. People are going outside to enjoy nature but they are bringing their plastic with them. Patrick wanted to make a dent in the burgeoning plastic burden that was afflicting the planet. He then proceeded to research, invent and blog until he created a mini-revolution in the Paleo Diet and Lifestyle movement. His article Sweet Dreams on a Hard Surface went viral to become the landmark work on the subject of minimalist sleeping. Eventually Mr. Clark decided to combine his work in outdoor leadership with his work in the organic bedding industry to come up with the world’s first lightweight wool sleeping bag. www.woolsleepingbag.com

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transcript

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Improve Your Quality of Sleep with the World’s First Lightweight Wool Sleeping Bag

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Patrick Clark

Date of Broadcast: December 08, 2015

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic-free. It’s Tuesday, December 8th 2015. I’m here in Clearwater, Florida where it’s finally cold today! It’s cold. It’s 68°. But when I went outside, it felt really cold after 85° for months and months.

Anyway, I’m so glad it’s getting to be winter. I’m so glad it’s getting to be the holiday season. And today, we’re going to be talking about something that relates to winter and the whole idea of hibernating and getting good sleep and rest.

We’re going to be talking with the inventor of the world’s first lightweight wool sleeping bag, 100% wool sleeping bag. He’s going to tell us about sleep and about wool. I just can’t wait to hear all of this.

Hi Patrick! His name is Patrick Clark. He’s the creator of Lucky Sheep Sleeping Bag. Hi Patrick.

PATRICK CLARK: Hi Debra. How are you doing?

DEBRA: I’m good. How are you?

PATRICK CLARK: I’m doing great. It’s good to be here.

DEBRA: Good! Good. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

First, I’d like you to tell us how you thought about of this. But before you even do that, tell us. I know that you have a Paleo viewpoint. And it’s not just Paleo food, but a whole Paleo lifestyle. Why don’t you tell us about that first and then you can tell us how the sleeping bag fits into that.

DEBRA: Yeah, that’s a great idea because that’s actually where it started. So, they call it Paleo diet and lifestyle because diet is too simplistic. Diet alone doesn’t do anything really. Let’s just call it ‘ancestral’, an ancestral approach to health. I like that.

PATRICK CLARK: What that is, that is how humans lived before we had civilization. There are certain things about civilization that take us away from the health-enhancing qualities of nature and the earth from where we evolved or from where we came before there was civilization.

DEBRA: I’m totally in agreement with that. There was a time back in 1987 to be exact where in 1985, I was looking around at the world that we live in and I was saying, “Wait a minute! This doesn’t work.” I really found out about toxics and I said there has to be some other model besides industrialism. I went to live out in a forest for two years (it turned out to be two years) and I came to the same conclusion. We’re alive, we’re part of nature.

And I say “part of nature” because it’s not like nature is nature and we’re something separate. It’s not as “and nature.” We’re an integral part of the whole natural world. We have forgotten that.

And as I started looking at, “Well, how did people live before there was industrialization?” they lived very much as nature is.

And that’s the context that this wool sleeping bag that we’re talking about fits into.

DEBRA: Exactly, exactly. And the thing that we didn’t realize until recently (that science and medicine didn’t think about), we didn’t think about certain things like sunlight, like earthing and grounding, like water. Water gets destroyed by civilization basically, all the important things that we used to be connected to and now, we’re separated from.

DEBRA: Right, exactly. And all those things (the sun, the water, the earth, the food and everything) all contribute to our health. Now, we have this idea of health that is completely separated from that.

PATRICK CLARK: Exactly!

DEBRA: So within that context, what led you to the sleeping bag?

PATRICK CLARK: I was actually working in an organic bedding company called Carolina Morning Designs. I had multiple chemical sensitivities. This is about 10 years ago or so. I was detoxing my home environment and my work environment, getting rid of all the plastic and cleansers, everything. I was rebuilding an entire house that had only natural ingredients in it.

So I got all that figured out. I knew all about organic bedding from working in the industry and engineering and manufacturing. But the thing is, I’ve always been an outdoor adventurist. I have a major in outdoor recreation and I spent just lots and lots of my life backpacking and camping and exploring nature. I couldn’t do it anymore because there was nothing organic, there was nothing non-toxic.

DEBRA: Right, right. I know! If you want to go outdoors, then you wrap yourself in a plastic sleeping bag and put yourself in a plastic tent. And that’s not being connected to nature.

PATRICK CLARK: Exactly! And it’s almost worse than a toxic – it is, it’s worth than a toxic house. The chemicals that are on those materials are more volatile than in a solid material.

DEBRA: So tell us something about those materials that are in a sleeping bag and a tent.

PATRICK CLARK: The toxic kinds?

DEBRA: The toxic kinds, yeah.

PATRICK CLARK: Okay. They have to make light and water proof. Let’s just go with sleeping bags. Tents are pretty obvious because they just spray them with crap. They just coat them with the most toxic, volatile things. It’s almost like paint.

It’s so volatile, most of it.

DEBRA: Well, it’s a waterproofing agent. A lot of those are very toxic.

PATRICK CLARK: Exactly! And flame retardant. They’re very strict on that because of the fire that you might be around when you’re camping.

DEBRA: I was going to ask you about that because it seemed to me that they would be – and then, oh, my God! I haven’t been camping in a long time. But as a child, I was a girl scout and I had spent many times sleeping in a tent. You zip yourself in this plastic tent. There are no open windows or ventilation. You go out into the wild where the air is clean. And then, you zip yourself into this plastic bag.

PATRICK CLARK: Yeah! You get it, you get it. It’s a real contradiction. It’s like we have this phobia to nature. We don’t want a bug in or this or that. Yeah, we go out there and we put ourselves in the same bubble we were already in.

DEBRA: Yeah, a fire retardant plastic bag. Oh, my God! Anyway, I was just looking at the clock and I thought we were almost on the break and we aren’t. Go ahead, keep going.

PATRICK CLARK: So, as far as the sleeping bag, you’ve got your plastic fabric, then you’ve got your inside insulation material. So those, they’re usually not as toxic as the tent. But the problem is your skin is right next to them and they stop your skin from breathing and they collect moisture. And when they collect moisture, they do two things. They become moist, so they hold moisture right near your skin. And they also stop the electrical flow along your skin called hypo electricity. They short circuit that electrical flow.

But between those two factors, they’re interrupting your sleep quality, so you can’t even have a natural sleep.

So you’re going out into nature on the ground. You could have fresh air, you could have grounding, you could have non-toxic things and you can’t even go into a natural sleep. That’s exactly what ancestral health is, trying to put us into the natural environment so our body can go through its natural rhythms and processes so it can achieve health.

DEBRA: Wow! When you say that, it so resonates with me that I want that for my body. When I think about times that I’ve attempted to do just that, it’s like sorting that out and figuring it out as something separate and different from our industrial way of thinking. It requires some research and some understanding of what that might be.

But we’re going to talk about that today on this show when we come back. We just need to go to break in just a few seconds. But when we come back, Patrick, let’s just start with talking about the sleeping bag. And then we can move in to all those other things that are so important that it fits into. We’ll find out what is a sleeping bag and why should you sleep in one.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Patrick Clark. He’s the creator of Lucky Sheep, the world’s first lightweight wool sleeping bag. You can go to his website, WoolSleepingBag.com and find out more.

He’s got a great video there where he’s in the sleeping bag and you can see it out in nature. He explains how it works. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Patrick Clark, creator of Lucky Sheep Wool Sleeping Bag. He’s at WoolSleepingBag.com.

So Patrick, tell us what a sleeping bag is. How is it different from a blanket? I think we should probably say that we’re talking about sleeping outdoors, but you could sleep in a wool sleeping bag indoors as well.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. Yes, you certainly can. And it has a big advantage. First, I want to talk about that. It has a big advantage sleeping indoors because basically, you could save on your heat. We heat our houses at night. It’s really not necessary. It’s a huge design flaw in basically our mentality. We think we have to have the air warm. Well, we don’t. We just have to have enough insulation around our body and our body can generate enough heat. I actually thought about that a lot before I designed the sleeping bag. I was asking that, “Why am I heating the house at night? I’m not using the air.”

DEBRA: I actually agree with that. I actually sleep in wool. Obviously, you’ve just invented the sleeping bag, so I don’t have one. But I have a wool mattress. I have a wool comforter. I have wool blankets. I have a wool pillow. It’s all wool. And so I can get nice and cozy in my bed and have it be – well, it doesn’t get that cold here in Florida, but it could be like 50°.

I like it cold outside. I know that when we go to my in-laws house at Christmas time and I’d stay overnight and they’ve got the whole house heated (and I don’t), it would just be too hot.

DEBRA: Yes, exactly. It’s stuffy.

PATRICK CLARK: I couldn’t sleep. It’s stuffy.

DEBRA: We know! You’re good. I know you love wool and you know wool. And that’s the thing. It’s a huge design flaw. If you’re saying, “How can we create the best sleep?” well, science knows that you sleep better when it’s cold. It’s part of this whole ancestral approach. You sleep better when it’s cold.

So if you can get inside something warm, a blanket or a sleeping bag, and have the air cold, you’re breathing the cold air and you’re letting your body generate heat instead of allowing the air to be hot or warm and your body doesn’t have to work against it, first off, it increases your quality of sleep even indoors because you can cool the air down and you save on energy.

But as far as why a sleeping bag versus a blanket, a sleeping bag, there are two things to it that make it a sleeping bag.

One is that it’s not a blanket. There’s a difference between a blanket and a comforter. It’s a comforter, it’s not a blanket. A blanket is denser and it’s not as warm as a comforter. We know that, you know that. That’s an everday kind of thing. So it’s got to be a comforter to be a true sleeping bag.

And then, the shape of it, it needs to be something that you seal up in so that there are no drafts. There’s no place that the air can come in. One little, tiny draft is going to affect the performance.

So the reason you would want a sleeping bag indoors instead of a comforter indoors is because you can get the air even colder than you could. You could be warmer. A sleeping bag is going to be warmer than a comforter any day because of the draft issue, the draft coming in.

DEBRA: Right! I was noticing that usually when you make your bed really carefully the way you’re taught, you tuck in the sheets and blankets all very carefully around all the edges and then you put the [inaudible 00:17:51] and stuff. I was noticing when I took my comforter out this year that I just kind of threw it on the bed and then I snuggled it around my body. I really noticed that it was like I was wrapping myself in it instead of having all these cold air in the bed. You know what I’m talking about? I think you know what I’m talking about.

PATRICK CLARK: Yeah, exactly. Exactly! That’s what you want in a sleeping bag. And yeah, you naturally tend to try to make a blanket through that, which you can do.

DEBRA: Yeah, but a sleeping bag just wraps around you.

Now, here’s a question that I have for you because I have slept in a fair amount of sleeping bags of different types. Yours doesn’t have a zipper. Am I correct? Yours doesn’t have a zipper?

PATRICK CLARK: Yeah, exactly.

DEBRA: And so I’m asking that because the worst part of sleeping in a sleeping bag is the cold zipper.

PATRICK CLARK: Oh, yeah.

DEBRA: So tell us about your design with the sleeping bag.

PATRICK CLARK: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a really good point. Once I figured out how to make it out of wool and then before I put it on the market, I tried different designs. I tried the zippered one, the traditional zippered with the hood and then I found out about this way of doing it where you can just wrap it around you and it doesn’t have to have a zipper. But the funny thing is there’s no draft. There’s absolutely no draft coming in.

It has these flaps on the side that you tuck underneath you. And when you’ve got them tucked in like that, you’re pulling the bag around you tight and it’s actually less draft than the kind with the zipper.

There’s a whole lot of reasons why this is more comfortable. The main thing is you don’t get trapped. The problem with zippers is you’re like in this straightjacket. You get in there and then you’re in that mummy shape and you can’t move. You can’t even move your legs. You can’t get into a side fetal curl position, which, pretty much, people love to sleep that way.

DEBRA: Yeah. Well, what’s it like to sleep in your sleeping bag?

PATRICK CLARK: It’s delicious. It’s unbelievable. I can’t believe. It’s way better than I’ve even envisioned it was going to be. I can go out, it can be 15° and I could go out, just plop down on the ground and be toasty warm and have that incredible air and not have any worries. It’s so light. You forget that it’s cold outside.

DEBRA: Yeah, I understand what that’s like, yeah.

So when we come back, I know that you have some things you want to tell us about wool. So when we come back, let’s talk about wool and how it helps you sleep.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Patrick Clark. He’s the creator of Lucky Sheep, the world’s first lightweight wool sleeping bag. You could go see it WoolSleepingBag.com. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Patrick Clark, creator of Lucky Sheep Wool Sleeping Bag. His website is WoolSleepingBag.com.

Patrick, tell us why wool.

PATRICK CLARK: Why wool? Wool is the best outdoor fabric. For centuries (more than centuries, I don’t know. Centuries, whatever), people have used wool. It’s the only thing that actually works, period. When it’s cold, if you try cotton, it’s good.

Cotton is good, linen is good. There are other fabrics that are good, but they don’t work when it’s cold. So it has to be wool, period.

And the reason why, looking at the science, is because other fabric pulls moisture. It collects some moisture. And that little bit of moisture causes your skin to be cold right there. So if you have a cotton fabric, you have wool on the other side of the cotton fabric that comes out, it would compromise the warm ability and would actually be dangerous. If you backpackers know that cotton is a big no-no, you can’t wear cotton. Your life will be at risk for hypothermia if you used other fabrics.

DEBRA: One of the questions I was thinking of when I knew we were going to do this show is – again, I’ll say I’ve done a fair amount of camping in the past. I haven’t been camping in maybe 25 years. And one of the reasons being, I didn’t want to wrap myself in plastic. But what I remember is that when you’re sleeping outside (this is one of the reasons why I think that you need to use a tent although I don’t think you’re using a tent, but you’ll explain after I ask the question) is moisture and dew. That’s why you have to have a tarp and put a tarp on the ground and put a tarp over the sleeping bag, so that you don’t wake up sopping wet. So how does this all work with your sleeping bag?

PATRICK CLARK: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a great question. And that’s something that I had asked that question and I’ve experimented with over decades. I’ve gotten some answers for you there.

The tent, in the old days, people used canvass.

DEBRA: I remember that, yeah.

PATRICK CLARK: Canvass is an excellent tent material for natural camping. And I’ve used it. I actually designed a really nice tent that’s canvass that I can carry in my backpack. I don’t have it. Eventually, I’ll have that available for people too.

But the problem is it’s still actually not quite perfect because it’s a little heavy. It actually could do, but it’s a little heavy. So what I recommend, if it’s raining, you have to have a tarp. I use a tarp or a tent when it’s raining. When it’s not raining, I sleep under the open sky. So you can do that.

So under the open sky and it’s not raining and you have dew, you have fog, the wool sleeping bag, it wicks moisture. It is weird. It’s like magic kinda.

DEBRA: Well, it is. I know that. I know that because that’s part of the point of sleeping on wool indoors like sleeping on a wool mattress or sleeping with my comforter.

I know that my body is perspiring. I’ve read that. You lose a quart of water. I had a doctor, he used to tease about that every morning, he’d down a quart like a car, that the first thing you should do is drink a quart of water because you’ve lost the quart overnight. That’s a lot of water. And yet, my bed is perfectly dry. If you sleep on polyester sheets (as I occassionally do in a hotel), cotton polyester sheets, they get clammy.

So I know that wool has this wicking ability and just breathe. That allows all that moisture to pass through the bag. And so I would imagine that even if it got wet on the outside, then it would still evaporate.

DEBRA: Yes, exactly. That’s exactly what happens. Because the heat of your body is responding to that heat (so it’s going away from the heat source), the dew or even if rain lands on it on the outside, it tends to migrate away from the body.

Just like it does on a sheep.

PATRICK CLARK: Yeah, exactly.

DEBRA: Yeah, yeah.

PATRICK CLARK: That’s why I wanted to talk about it. I think of it as fur. It’s like a human’s substitute for fur since we don’t have fur.

DEBRA: Yeah! The sheeps are out in the rain all the time, the rain and the snow. They’re outdoors. And yet their bodies are very protected by the sheep wool. And so when we use wool on our bodies, it has that same protective factor.

And I think that if you do what’s called felting where you put it in water, all the pieces of wool, they’re in little coils. That’s part of what makes it so resilient and to repel things. If you wet it, they come together. That’s called felting. And if you have a felted jacket or something, the rain just won’t go through that. It just won’t go through that.

PATRICK CLARK: Yeah, exactly. And actually, the vikings in the 17th century, they made their sleeping bags out of felted wool. They actually had linen fabric and the inside was felted wool. You can imagine they knew how to stay warm.

Back then, I don’t think they knew how to make batting. The batting is fluffy. It’s the same as felt, only it’s fluffier and it’s also warmer. They have felt.

DEBRA: Yeah. I didn’t know that. Actually, what is the history of sleeping bags? Where do they come from?

PATRICK CLARK: As far as we know, the eskimos invented them. They’re another ‘coldest place in the planet’ type of people. And what it was, it was a full bag. They didn’t have zippers back them. They made a whole bag. It’s like a bag bag.

You crawl into the bag, then you crawl out, you went out.

The fabric they used was seal skin. The seal skins are actually waterproof and breathable, of course. They filled them with fur from an animal hide. They were great. They totally worked if you had a dog sled to carry them because they were…

DEBRA: They’re heavy!

PATRICK CLARK: Yeah.

DEBRA: We need to go to break. But when we come back, Patrick, let’s talk about why sleeping outdoors is good for your health. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Patrick Clark. He is the creator of Lucky Sheep Wool Sleeping Bag. He’s at WoolSleepingBag.com. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Patrick Clark, creator of Lucky Sheep, the world’s first lightweight wool sleeping bag. So Patrick, tell us about why we should be sleeping outside. I come from Northern California and as you probably know, there are a lot of forests in Northern California. I particularly live in a forested area.

And one of the things that a lot of people have there and maybe in your area too is that they build these outside rooms. It’s like a room with a roof and a floor, and yet it’s open on one side. They have a bed in there and they’re protected from the rain and the elements, but there’s this big open space of a wall missing, so that it’s just like being outside, except that it’s protected.

So that’s not the same as quite sleeping in the ground, but it’s so different than sleeping in a house. So when you talk about sleeping outside, what are the benefits and how exactly do you do that?

PATRICK CLARK: And actually, you’re getting most of the benefits when you do that depending on where you live, of course. Fresh air, you’re getting fresh air. It has way more oxygen, so that’s going to enhance your sleep. We all know that.

It’s just obvious. That’s the first thing. And you’re actually getting cold, you’re getting cooler.

DEBRA: Yeah, especially in Northern California.

PATRICK CLARK: Yeah, exactly. And negative ions is another thing. And then, grounding. I don’t know which type of house you have, but when you’re on earth, of course, you would be getting more grounding if you were on the earth. If you’ve got a room like that, you’re getting some of that grounding effect.

But yeah, as far as getting totally away from the house and civilization, period, a sleeping bag is your ticket to freedom. You can’t really do it without a sleeping bag and it’s just nice to get away from the shackles of modern life sometimes. We know there are tons of toxins in the air. There’s electromagnetic radiation that’s upsetting our bodies. We live indoors. We have an indoor culture. We live indoors. We don’t get exercise. We don’t move. We don’t get the sun on our skin. We don’t get good water, we don’t get good air. You go out on nature, it’s got a built-in health spa.

DEBRA: I love that! Yes, I would agree with you.

PATRICK CLARK: So it’s just a good thing for people.

Most people think if they want to go on a vacation, they go to a warm place where it’s tropic. You have to get on an airplane and go away from home. With getting out and sleeping out in nature, going to some natural air near where you live any time of year, to me, it’s way more comfortable to just learn how to adapt to nature than to try to run away from nature.

DEBRA: Yes. I totally agree with that. I think people, we’re so accustomed, as you said, to being indoors all the time that we don’t even know how to be out in nature.

PATRICK CLARK: Exactly! And it’s been hard. And that’s actually my main mission in life, to be a bridge, to help people learn how to get back to nature.

And some more really powerful things that very few people is that the cold, exposing yourself to cold weather during the winter is extremely health-enhancing. We don’t know that because we’re afraid of the cold. It hurts. At first, it kind of hurts.

And actually, we’re recommended by health care professionals and it’s common. Our assumption in our society is that cold hurts you. It hurts your health and you should stay warm so you can stay healthy. Well, it’s exactly…

DEBRA: Yeah, but every child is taught to “put on your jacket. Stay warm or you’re going to get a cold.”

PATRICK CLARK: Exactly, exactly. And they know, it’s interesting to know, they want to expose themselves to cold.

DEBRA: I love cold.

PATRICK CLARK: They always do that. You think it’s to make you angry, but it’s like children know how to do it. So cold, what it does, here’s a few things it does. It reduces inflammation body-wide, in your whole body.

DEBRA: Really?

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. I’ll try not to get too technical. It burns fat. It burns fat. So if you expose yourself to the cold, it’s just going to burn fat and actually, you get almost all the same benefits you get from exercise.

DEBRA: Wow!

PATRICK CLARK: …just by being cold. It increases your metabolism. And when it burns the fat, it does it really effectively.

And actually, I don’t know if you know, but fat stores toxins.

DEBRA: Yes, it does. It does.

PATRICK CLARK: So you’ve got toxins stored in your fat. So if you’re burning fat, you’re burning toxins. You’re throwing the toxins out of your body at the same time.

DEBRA: Yes, but I would also add that you actually have to be careful of that because you’re releasing the toxins into your body and you can over-release. You also need to be careful about the fact that you might be releasing heavy metals or something and make sure you’re drinking a lot of water and doing things to move those out of your body.

PATRICK CLARK: Yeah, I totally agree with that. There’s more than one step to getting the toxins quickly out of the body.

DEBRA: I just wanted to make sure that people didn’t think that they would just go out in the cold and that’s all they need to do. It’s certainly a step.

PATRICK CLARK: Yeah, yeah.

DEBRA: It’s like if you go in a sauna, you’re going to be releasing toxins. But you have to then drink the water and flush them out. It’s the same thing with cold. You could actually drink some nice, warm fluids.

PATRICK CLARK: Yeah, exactly. You would have to balance out to keep it moving in the right direction.

And the other thing that cold does is it optimizes your circadian rhythm. It lets your body know what time of year, what time of day. So when you’re optimizing your circadian rhythm, you’re in complete synchronization with the way that nature designed your body to work. That alone, the cold alone is going to increase your sleep quality.When you synchronize your circadian rhythm, you also optimize your sleep cycle.

DEBRA: That’s right. I know a lot about circadian rhythms, but why don’t you talk a little bit more about that because I think that most people haven’t a clue what a circadian rhythm is.

PATRICK CLARK: Yeah, that’s a good idea. Circadian rhythm, it’s like your brain is like a microchip and it’s dictating or orchestrating what happens in the rest of your body with all the processes that go on in your body. There’s a neurosignal for everything that happens.

So if you’re out of sync with circadian rhythm, if you’re disconnected from the earth, from nature because you’re exposing yourself to artificial light, electromagnetic field and a diet that’s not appropriate for your climate, then the timing of your circadian rhythms is going to be off. There’sa mismatch between what your brain is programmed to know that that’s the way it needs to be and what’s actually happening.

So people who have problems with sleep, you can actually deal with by looking at circadian rhythms and finding out what’s throwing off their circadian rhythm.

DEBRA: Life is throwing off all of our circadian rhythms. I have been very aware of circadian rhythms for a long time. And yet to completely shut out all the things that affect them and be as if you were in a natural environment so that your body is responding to the light and the temperature and the food that we would be eating in our natural environment and all of that is very difficult. But I think it could be done if one chose to.

You know what we need? We need a retreat where we could go to on a mountaintop and we could handle the circadian rhythms. We could sleep properly. We could eat the food and just know what it’s like to live that way.

PATRICK CLARK: Well, actually, I lead those retreats. I’m also a wilderness guide.

DEBRA: Oh, good! Well, yeah, that’s a good thing to do. We’re almost done with the hour. Is there any final words you’d like to give?

PATRICK CLARK: Let’s see, just one more thing about the cold. The cold, if it’s winter time and you’re putting yourself in a warm house all the time (or office or whatever), then your body is going to think that you’re in the tropics. And that’s an example of how your circadian rhythm gets thrown off because your body needs to match the environment. You need to put yourself in the natural environment so that your brain is synchronized with that environment.

DEBRA: Yeah, yeah, such an important thing.

PATRICK CLARK: Let’s see, just another thing, a couple of cool things. People think sleeping bags, it’s like you’re ticket to freedom. It’s like having a home away from home. You can travel anywhere as long as you have somebody’s porch or yard to sleep in…

DEBRA: But even in a hotel. I mean, one of the worst thing about a hotel is sleeping on those sheets. You can just bring your sleeping bag with you.

Anyway, we only have just a few seconds left. So I want to say thank you and give your website again, which is WoolSleepingBag.com. You can go take a look at these beautiful, purple wool sleeping bags. You’ve been listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Be well!

Dusting electronics

Question from Liz

Hi Debra,

Recently you’ve been talking about electronics. I have a big problem with dust. I was using damp flannel and then washing it then I realized my washer must have the chemicals now. I probably should dust with disposable wipes. Do you have a suggestion?

Debra’s Answer

I wouldn’t use disposable wipes since they are often scented.

Maybe damp paper towels?

But the problem is bigger than this. Those chemicals from electronics are also getting into the air in your home. You would need an air filter to handle that.

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Iphone Case

Question from Steve

Hi Debra,

Have you done any research on iphone cases? If so, I’m looking for a healthier version to use on my newly purchased iphone 6s.

Debra’s Answer

I have been researching cases for the iPhone 6S because I need to get one myself.

I haven’t looked at all the regular cases because I want to get one that protects against radiation.

I’ve had a Pong case on my old phone that I am happy to see that Pong Research now makes one for the 6s

I wouldn’t use my cell phone without the protective case.

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Vaccines: Harmful or Necessary?

Pamela SeefeldMy guest today is Pamela Seefeld, a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. Today we’ll be talking about vaccines. I asked Pamela tim address this subject after seeing a scary commercial on TV trying to get grandparents to get a vaccine so they don’t infect their grandchildren. We’ll discuss the dangers and find out when and if they should be used. Pamela is a 1990 graduate of the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, where she studied Pharmacognosy (the study of medicines derived from plants and other natural sources). She has worked as an integrative pharmacist teaching physicians, pharmacists and the general public about the proper use of botanicals. Pamela is the owner of Botanical Resource and Botanical Resource Med Spa in Clearwater, Florida. www.botanicalresource.com

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transcript

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Vaccines: Harmful or Necessary?

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Pamela Seefeld

Date of Broadcast: December 02, 2015

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic-free. It’s Wednesday, December 2nd. Wow! The year is almost over. It’s Wednesday, December 2nd 2015. And today, we’re going to talk about vaccines, which is something that we haven’t talked about on the show before.

My guest is Pamela Seefeld. She’s on every other Wednesday because she has so much knowledge about drugs and natural alternatives and how things work in the body that we just talk about something new every other week.

She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. However, she is a pharmacist. She’s a regular pharmacist. She works in a pharmacy in a hospital and she also works in her natural pharmacy which she owns here in Clearwater, Florida. She works with people all over the country. So if you want to talk to her, you can pick up the phone and call her. We’ll give her number later on the show. But she also is right in the midst of both traditional pharmaceuticals and alternative pharmaceuticals.

So today, we’re going to talk about vaccines with Pamela. Hi Pamela!

Pamela Seefeld: Hi! It’s great to be here.

DEBRA: Yeah, great to have you.

So I asked you to do vaccines as the subject on this show because I was watching television (I do watch television, there’s actually a lot of good stuff on television) and there was an ad for a whooping cough vaccine. It was a very scary ad. It was wanting grandparents, seniors, to get a whooping cough vaccines, so they wouldn’t infect their grandchildren and their grandchildren will die if they got infected.

And then, once that got my attention and we decided to do this show, I saw another one the other night for pneumococcal pneumonia vaccine. I don’t even know what pneumonococcal pneumonia is.

So what is going on now that in addition to these commercials for drugs that make it look either scary or desirable and with all these beautiful music in the background and they tell you all the side effects, that it’s going to kill you, what is going on with advertising vaccines like drugs?

Pamela Seefeld: Well, that’s a good question. What’s happening is vaccines (especially the pneumonococcal penumonia vaccine and the whooping vaccine), there’s a huge a market for these vaccines. So the way that they’re building awareness is by having these ads, these controversial ads that make people all scared. And especially when you’re talking about the whooping cough, it shows the grandparents turning into like wolves as if they’re going to eat their grandchildren. It’s very frightening. It’s basically insinuating that you’re harboring this really dangerous organism and you’re going to kill your grandkids if you don’t do something about it.

These advertising, let’s face it, is meant to motivate people. And if you’re motivated, you’re going to call your doctor and say, “I want this vaccine.”

There’s a lot of money in vaccines. And once the research has already been done and the production is inside the factory, there’s a lot of mark-up. You have to realize you have the pediatric population, they’re all forced to get all these vaccines.

So the adults are an untapped market, right? A certain percentage of the population is pediatric, those people have to get the vaccines.They have no choice. They can’t go to school. That market has already been tapped about. And if you think about it, a lot of people are refusing vaccines for tehir kids, so they have to start looking for somebody else to market to.

And who are they going to market to? The elderly people.That’s an untapped market – and a market that’s very lucrative.

A lot of them have Medicare. Medicare does cover a lot of the vaccines. And even if it doesn’t, there are a lot of retirees that would be willing to shell out the money if there was some sort of a payment that they have to co-pay in order to have these vaccines because they think they’re protecting their family.

DEBRA: Well, tell us what is a vaccine?

Pamela Seefeld: Vaccines, I want to explain something interesting. Vaccines are kind of like homeopathy. Now, homeopathic pharmacy is really what I do. And homeopathy was developed by Samuel Hahnemann in the late 1800s.He was a German doctor. And in the time that he developed homeopathic medicine, they were doing a lot of pretty barbaric stuff in medicine. They were doing leeches and things like that.

He came along and he discovered that like cures like. Basically, when you take a vaccine – this is really important. I use this example when I give a lecture to physicians or to people that are skeptical about homeopathic and the relevance and how well it works. What I’ll do is I’ll mention to them, “Look, people get vaccines all the time and they work. They provide immunity.The reason why a vaccine works is because it has a small amount of causative agent (whatever the vaccine is supposed to be against) that they put in this formula and they give it to you as an injection and basically, they’re inoculating you with a small amount of vaccine.”

What happens is your body makes an immune response to it and that can impart protection where you actually come in contact with the organism.

So that’s how the vaccines work. But I like to think of it as being a good intro into understanding homeopathy. If you don’t believe in homeopathy, you think it’s all bogus, then why are vaccines working? I use that case in point all the time. It makes the people think. They’re like, “Okay, I see what you’re saying.”

I’ll give you an example. In homeopathy, say someone has a lot of histamine and they have rashes and allergies and things, well we treat them with histamine. Low dose histamine is basically inoculating them against it so you don’t have what’s called mass cell degranulation and this massive histaminic release when you come in contact with the cat or the dog or oak trees or whatever they might be allergic to.

So this is a good intro when you think about it. People think, “Well, how would a vaccine work?” it’s exactly the same principles of homeopathic medicine. It’s exactly the same.

DEBRA: So is there any difference between homeopathic medicine and a vaccine?

Pamela Seefeld: Oh, by far…

DEBRA: So what would be the differences?

Pamela Seefeld: With the homeopathic medicine, it’s obviously encompassing a lot of different things. We use plants. We use toxins in some cases, things that work in the body to mimic a certain type of response. When you have a vaccine, all it is is some kind of a carrier fluid and specifically, the causative agent of whatever you’re going against. So say it’s pneumococcal pneumonia, say it’s a whooping cough, say it’s a papillomavirus virus, whatever virus it is, that’s all it contains. It contains nothing else.

And homeopathic remedies, it’s usually a combination of things. Most homeopathic things we use here, I can get injectables, but I don’t use those. They use more of that in Europe. Everything we use here is oral.

DEBRA: Yeah, yeah. So you just put a few drops under your tongue and it’s a very different experience. But what you’re saying is the basic idea of like curing like applies to both.

Pamela Seefeld: It does. And that’s why I like to bring that as an example to your listeners because the people that are listening to this show, they’re going to be possibly more inclined to use homeopathic medicine and use alternatives. I mean,

I’m very busy and I’ve been very successful at doing this and helping people with homeopathics in Europe. In Germany, I know for sure in Germany, they actually cover homeopathic medicines with your health insurance. You can get to the pharmacy, you can get regular medicines or you can get homeopathic and they’ll cover it either way.

So the rest of the world does embrace homeopathy quite a bit. In America, it’s coming around. I think it’s really great because a lot of my clients have done very, very well with taking homeopathic remedies.

But it’s important to know that a vaccine and a homeopathic remedy is kind of somewhat similar as far as their modalities of action. So if somebody doesn’t believe in homeopathic medicine, the best argument to use is that’s how vaccines work.

That’s what a vaccine is, a small amount of a causative agent to elicit a certain type of immune response. It’s important for people to realize that. If you have doubts about homeopathy, you really can’t after you bring that point up for the people.

DEBRA: We’re almost to the break, but tell us what happens in the body when you get a vaccine, the causative agent goes in your body? What happens?

Pamela Seefeld: Your body makes antibodies. Your body sees this foreign entity in the bloodstream and it says, “Oh, my gosh! We need to mount an immune response.” This immune response allows for these antibodies to be formed. So it imparts immunity in that sense. You body thought that it went through an actual infection, but you didn’t.

DEBRA: And so then if you’re exposed to it, say it was a chicken pox vaccine, then if you were exposed to chicken pox, you would not get the chicken pox because you now have an antibody to it?

Pamela Seefeld: Correct! You have antibodies in the bloodstream that are against chicken pox. It’s specific to that strain, you have to realize. But yes, you have impartial immunity.

DEBRA: Great! We need to go to break. But when we come back, well talk more about vaccines with my guest, Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicine plants and other natural substances. You can go to her website at BotanicalResource.com. You can also call her on the phone. We’ll give her number when we come back.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who also dispenses medicinal plants and other natural substances at her natural pharmacy called Botanical Resource.

Pamela, why don’t you give your phone number so that people know where to call you?

Pamela Seefeld: Okay, very good. You can call me here at my pharmacy. All consultations are free. I would be glad to help you if you have any questions about the medications you might be taking.

The number here is 727-442-4955. That’s 727-442-4955. I would be most honored to help you and your family with any question you might have.

DEBRA: Yeah, if you have a question about a drug that you’re taking, if you want to get off of a drug, if you want to take a natural remedy for something that’s going on in your body, those are all questions that Pamela can answer very well. She’s very highly respected by doctors here in Clearwater, Florida where I live.

How long have we known each other now? A couple of years I think.

Pamela Seefeld: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely! It’s great.

DEBRA: Yeah! Yeah, yeah. And she’s helped a lot of people. I, in fact, first met her because a friend of mine referred her to me.

Anyway, back to vaccines, it seems like that the idea of vaccine itself just sounds very logical. But why are some people against vaccines?

Pamela Seefeld: Oh, this is a good question. What happened is a lot of the controversy really started with Dr. Andrew Wakefield and he is a British physician. He did some studies and published information, the Study in the British Journal of Medicine. He concluded that he looked at these 12 patients and his statistical of analysis of the data showed that autism was the result of the vaccines that were used on these children.

So there’s been lots of controversy about that. He lost his medical license. There are lots of stories as far as what he did to create it. They tried to recreate his data and they weren’t able to do that. So there was a lot of controversy. But really, it started this movement of non-vaccinations for children because people were scared of autism.

We now know that autism in the past was affecting not as many children as it is today. And we look at this – I mean, I don’t have the statistics off the top of my head. But it was like 1 in 56 kids or something – it’s a lot that have some kind of spectrum disorder. They might not have full autism, but they might have some type of spectrum disorder that’s related to some kind of unknown cause and they don’t really know why there’s this high propensity.

We do know that autism is directly correlated with the age of the father and there’s also infections in utero and a lot of other things. It’s the same thing with schizophrenia. We know that now too.

And actually, with schizophrenia, we now know that schizophrenia is directly related to the bacteria you get from your mother. And if you’re missing some of the vaginal bacteria when you’re born (like in a C-section), you’re going to be at much higher risk for schizophrenia. So it might be bacteria as well.

I don’t think all the answers are there quite yet. This is the problem because it’s overshadowed, the vaccine “hysteria” so to speak.

DEBRA: But there are some things in vaccines that are pretty toxic like mercury and aluminum, some other ingredients that might not be a good idea. Whereas the idea of a vaccine might be okay, what about some of these other additives?

Pamela Seefeld: Excipients, yeah. That’s the right word, yeah.

DEBRA: The excipients in there are controversial. And also, too, the fact that so many vaccines are given in such a small period of time.

So when you have children, you’re launching this immune response with a lot of different infectious agents in a short period of time because a lot of times, we get several vaccines in one visits. I understand why they’re doing that. They have a sequence of vaccines that they need to instill to these kids. I understand all that.

I think really what it comes down to is that I don’t think vaccines are going to necessarily be the one that’s going to be labeled as the cause of a lot of these problems. But I think there’s a lot of things going on in children (and even in adults) today that they just don’t know exactly what’s happening. And their cell signalling bacteria, like I said, are going to the front and foremost that we know are being linked to a lot of different diseases, especially colitis.

If you think about colitis, I mentioned schizophrenia. They’re showing that the bacteria that you have can predict whether you’re going to come down with these diseases.

DEBRA: You know, when I was a child (and I haven’t looked up any data to confirm this, I’m just going on my memory), I don’t know when they started requiring vaccines for children to go to school. But when I was a child, I remember that the big health problem for children was polio. They had posters up of kids in braces and all these things. Every child had to get a polio vaccine. I don’t know if it was required by all, but I remembered going to get the polio vaccine. But I don’t remember getting a lot of other vaccines. So, I don’t know what I actually got. I’m sure I got a polio vaccine.

But just in general, are vaccines being overused?

Pamela Seefeld: Well, that’s a good question. Polio actually has been eradicated from the U.S. very much. But we now know that there are hot spots in Afghanistan and in India and in Pakistan. I’m actually in Rotary International and we do a lot of for raising money with Bill Gates Foundation to try and vaccinate these kids in these poor areas because over there, polio is very debilitating. They still had people there being crippled.

So I don’t want to come out against vaccination in itself. I think that the excipients in some people, I would venture to say (and I may be incorrect, but this is my theory and I think I read this from other people), my theory is that the time at which you receive a vaccine, where your immune system is standing at that particular time does effect the type of response it’s going to launch.

And if you have a vaccine and your immune system is having some problems and it’s not working correctly, I think you’re going to have more chances for adverse effects.

And not only that too, talking about adverse effects. I was looking at one study here that they were talking about just Australian immunizations in the course of the year and what the side effects were, they actually had four deaths and they couldn’t directly attribute it to the vaccine. But I’m telling you that we’re talking about the whole country of Australia. It’s a lot of people. So what percentage?

They couldn’t really directly put it to the vaccine, but these people, maybe they had an anaphylactic reaction or something, but they did report causes of death. And the most common side effects are injection site reactions, rashes, fevers, dizziness and light-headedness. And you would expect that these would happen. You expect rashes because they’re probably reacting in a poor manner. And if a person’s immune system is compromised at the time or they have some other issues (maybe like we were talking about the excipients, the other factors in there), they might have a reaction.

DEBRA: Yeah. Yeah, that’s interesting. Well, we need to go to break. But when we come back, I have a question for you about the immune system and vaccine.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who also dispenses natural remedies. She’s on every other Wednesday here on Toxic Free Talk Radio because she has so much information. We’ll be right back!

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who also dispenses natural remedies as well.

So, my question is I first got interested in toxic chemicals because I had an immune system problem where toxic chemicals had made my immune system in effective. And so what you said about the condition of the immune system affecting how vaccine might respond in the body is very real to me. And I also know that a lot of toxic chemicals that we’re exposed to in our daily lives can affect our immune systems and damage our immune systems. And then I’m thinking about the excipients in the vaccines adding even more toxic stuff like mercury and formaldehyde and aluminum. It just seems like a whole lot of other factors going on rather than just a healthy body getting just a vaccine.

Pamela Seefeld: That’s exactly right. And what we have to look at is the baseline properties of your own immune system and if it’s suppressed. And this is another theory, I guess, what I’m saying. People are under a lot of stress today. I’m not just saying that just in general. But we know that chronic stress depresses the immune system pretty much a lot.

I’m just trying to think back. When I was little, I think things were a little simpler time. Maybe I don’t want to play Pollyanna here. But I’m just trying to say that today, people have financial problems, a lot more homelessness, a lot more chronic illness. And also too, I might mention, that we have a lot of viruses they’re finding in the blood supply that we didn’t really know existed before. They don’t even have names for them yet.

So there are a lot of other things going on that are affecting our immune system. And chronic stress and chronic depravation of sleep, I think in the past, people slept a lot more, there are a lot of other things that are going on that I don’t know if we can peg it on one particular problem. But you’re exactly right, the chronic exposure to chemicals, toxic chemicals, contaminants in our food and environmental contaminants in the air and in the water are definitely affecting people’s health and they’re probably affecting their immune system.

Actually, what I do, because I have to get the flu shot where I work at the hospital. It’s required. I drink the Body Anew while they’re giving me the shot.

DEBRA: Oh, good for you.

Pamela Seefeld: Yeah! I tell all my clients to do that. You want to do the detox at the same time.

DEBRA: Yeah, I think that that’s a good idea. Somebody else was telling me the other day just in an email, she said, “When

I’m exposed to something, I take…” – and I’m not going to mention what it is because I haven’t researched it. But if she has an exposure, she knows to take something. And so I think that’s a great idea if you have to do something like if you’re forced to take a vaccine.

Now, weren’t you telling me that – what was it about people that are in hospitals, everybody gets vaccinated?

Pamela Seefeld: That’s exactly right. Part of the mandate for the hospital— and I really think it possibly even in ObamaCare, which I could be wrong. What has happened is these vaccines are offered to the patients, everybody gets the vaccine. It’s basically an automatically launched order. The doctor doesn’t even have to order it. It’s an automatic launched order. It’s for influenza vaccine and pneumococcal pneumonia. People are getting these vaccines when they’re in the hospitals.

And a lot of it is all the hospitals in the country get money based on what percentage of the population they vaccinate because while they’re there, they’re kind of like a captive audience. They can get these people all vaccinated before they go out into the communities. This is in the guise of, “Okay, we don’t want them to spread illness. There’d be an influenza outbreak. We don’t want there to be a pneumococcal pneumonia outbreak.”

So it’s kind of like a herd vaccination. That’s what they call it. They’re trying to get as many people as they possibly can. So they try and keep their vaccination rates up I’m sure close to the nineties. I’m not even sure what the benchmark is. But each place will have their own benchmark as far as their goal.

And I know that once they reach a certain threshold of people being vaccinated, there’s a financial incentive involved that is directly paid to the hospital.

DEBRA: Okay! So aside from the polio vaccine when I mentioned earlier many, many years ago, I haven’t been vaccinated for anything. I don’t get flu shots, none of those things. I’m not perfectly healthy. But the things that are going wrong with my body are not things that you can get vaccines for. So, it’s not from lack of vaccines. I usually go through the winter and I don’t get the flu.

But I’m also living in a very non-toxic home and probably control my exposure to toxic chemical as much or more than anybody that I know myself personally.

And so I’m wondering if – what it looks like to me is that vaccines are being used as a way for people to not get an illness instead of all of us doing things that promote health. You see what I’m saying?

Pamela Seefeld: Oh, yeah. No, absolutely. And that would be the ideal situation. But I can tell you just from my personal experience being in pharmacy (as long as I’ve been in pharmacy and also having my alternative pharmacy here) that a lot of people, we know what’s good for us, but we don’t always do what’s right. And a lot of people, they’re not sleeping enough, they’re around sick people, they don’t take care of themselves. Maybe they’re prescribed vitamins or medications, but they don’t take vitamins.

And so really, in the hospital setting and in the community hospital setting, we see the same people coming back all the time. Every month, they’re back or every two weeks, they’re back. They’re the same people coming back because they didn’t take care of their infection or they didn’t care of whatever they’re supposed to do. So this readmission rate, and really, I think the flu –

And I’ll tell you about the flu. I had the flu shot two years ago and I got influenza A and I got the bird flu at the same time from working in the E.R. I was actually in the hospital for two days and I was very sick. So even if you have the vaccine, they’re guessing which strains are going to be popular. And some years, they’re totally off and they really have no idea whether they’re picking the right vaccine excipients to have immunity.

So it’s not that the vaccines are bad. I don’t know if I agree so much with the hospitals putting everybody being vaccinated and I don’t think the patients understands sometimes (but they do need to have consent and everything). But the idea that every person needst to be vaccinated while they’re there is important to the country, but it seems to be that they’re not really thinking about the consquences of the shot when they’re there. [Inaudible 00:34:02] that everybody gets it.

DEBRA: Well, I would just like to say before we go to break that I think that there’s so much attention on vaccines and not enough promotion of doing the things that strengthen your immune system. And then if we were to all learn what those things are and do those things, there would be much less need for a vaccine and we could then choose whether we wanted to have it or not.

But still, having a strong immune system is the thing that really protects you against these things, vaccine or not.

Pamela Seefeld: That’s exactly right. Absolutely!

DEBRA: That’s what we need to be having, strong immune systems.
We need to go to break. But when we come back, we’re going to talk about flu shots. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, registered pharmacist, but she also works with natural remedies, and in fact, prefers them.

One of the things that I found interesting about Pamela because I’ve been talking with her for a couple of years is that she will recommend a drug if she thinks that that’s the right thing to do. But she will also tell you what the dangers are of drugs and she will also find something natural that will heal your body instead of just alleviating symptoms.

So if you want to talk to her, her phone number is…

Pamela Seefeld: 727-442-4955. That’s 727-442-4955.

DEBRA: Thank you. Okay! So, let’s talk about flu shots. We actually did a show I think it was last year or the year before. I have to see how long we’ve been doing these shows. Maybe we’ve only been doing it for a year. But anyway, I know we did one on colds and flu. We talked about flu shots and things that you can do to help your immune system. Remember that show?

Pamela Seefeld: Yeah!

DEBRA: And so I will actually put a link to that show next to the description of this show on ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com so that those two can go together. But in this last segment, let’s just talk about the flu shot as a vaccine.

Pamela Seefeld: Okay, good. The flu shot as a vaccine, like I said, we’re trying to have a large portion of the population be vaccinated. This is the government’s goal, which is try and prevent against the flu. I thought it was kind of interesting. We were talking before prior to the break about what can you do as a personal responsibilty to try and help your body be more acutely aware and be able to launch an immune response. The flu shot is not necessary for a great majority of people.

And really, we know certain things that depress the immune system, lack of sleep, chronic stress, adrenal fatigue. You know the gamut…

DEBRA: Toxic chemicals…

Pamela Seefeld: Exactly! No, toxic chemicals. And during the break, I went and looked on the Library of Medicine. There’s a brand new study that was published concerning the flu shot in the Journal of Epidemics (it’s just coming out this month actually) where they did a 10-year performance looking at influenza and looking at the populations and what puts you more at risk for having influenza.

It looks like the regression analysis shows that somebody, of course, that has a chronic disease (say someone who has COPD or just some kind of chronic disease), they’re going to be more at risk for it because their immune system is already depressed. Being with a child and living with children, being female, smoking and pets at home were predictors that influenza may be a possibility.

But get this. The things that can prevent and help your risk assessment go down and help your immune system (and these were associated with less chance of flu) were participating in sports, walking, bicycling or some kind of locomation, moving around a lot, a person that’s very, very busy.

It’s not even necessarily cardio exercise, but if someone is active and moving around a lot (and let’s just focus on exercise for one second), what happens when we work out? What happens in the body? Well, what happens is these white blood cells, normally, if you were just sitting down, watching TV or on the computer, sometimes, they hang out. And this is just the way I term it. They’re sticking to the sides of the blood vessels and they’re not really doing anything. They’re laying low because there’s nothing going on.

So if that happens, what’s going on is you have less circulating white blood cells to recognize and attack an invader (a virus, a bacteria or whatever it might be). That’s why sedentariness is associated with poor outcomes for disease.

And when you exercise, say you take a brisk walk or you’re doing housework, you’re running around and you’re really working up a sweat, when you are active, what happens is we get what’s called ‘demargination of the white blood cells’. And this demargination basically means that you get this transient increase in white blood cell activity because these cells that were loafing around and not doing anything and hanging out to the side of the blood vessels, they’re forced because of the blood flow to start being active.

That would explain why activity is associated with a better immune response and a better immune system and in turn, less chance of getting the flu or getting any kind of illness that you might come in contact with. So there are things that people can do that help the body other than just taking vaccines. if you’re in poor health, vaccines aren’t going to do anything.

DEBRA: Yeah. I was a looking at an article because it’s this time of year when it’s flu shots and vaccines and things and so I get a lot of this in my email inbox. One was talking about that vaccines have very low level of effectiveness. It was something like 18% effective. That’s very small. That’s very, very small. All these people are taking it and only 18% are actually getting any kind of help.

This is the way I think. I think that the best thing to do is to just be as healthy as possible to do those things because they’re the things that are always recommended for good health anyway – exercise, drink water, eat good food, staying away from toxic chemicals. Well, people aren’t always saying that yet, but they will. They will. I’m working on it.

So, to just recognize that there’s a basic handful of things that are going to give you good health. And if you do those things, then that’s your vaccine. That’s the thing that’s protecting you from anything. You don’t need to have a specific vaccine because you’re protected from everything.

Pamela Seefeld: That’s exactly right. And it’s important to say this. We were talking about it’s your own responsibility in managing your care. And like I said, these people, I feel bad for them. It’s very, very sad. But constantly, the same people are coming to the hospital every month, every month, same people. It’s not about brain.

Especially people that are smoking, there’s a high percentage of the population that ends up in the hospital repeatedly from smoking. And that is a preventable problem.

DEBRA: It is.

Pamela Seefeld: Smoking, not just all the lives that were lost. If you think about Europe, they even have more people that smoke over there. But the effects on your immune system, the effects on your respiratory system, even people with COPD and asthma, smoking is robbing a lot of people out of quality life.

And actually, there are new studies that came out not that long ago talking about – this is just maybe local to Florida. But certain areas of Florida have a higher morbidity/mortality than being in areas that are more affluent. And what they were saying is that like in Pinellas County where we live in, if you lived in Pinellas County, you have a very good chance of making it to 77 years old. But if you live in Hernando or Date County, you lose 14 years off your life.

DEBRA: What?! That’s a lot!

Pamela Seefeld: Fourteen years…

DEBRA: That’s a lot!

Pamela Seefeld: Fourteen years, yes. Fourteen years. They went to the epidemiologist that are in charge of the health department in Hernando and Date Counties, they said, “Well, why do you think there’s such a huge skew. Basically, that’s a big difference in your lifespan that’s being cut short up there” and what they found is those areas have high rates of smoking and high rates of readmission of people coming into the hospitals and just not taking care of themselves.

So, just smoking alone and also, just diet. The food that the people eat in these areas, it’s a poorer group of people, lower socioeconomic, they don’t eat as well. These are directly correlated to behaviors and the fact that if they just would eat a little bit better diet, have a little bit more activity – and the smoking was a big thing! Apparently, those areas have a lot of people smoking – much more than Pinnelas County.

You think about it, 14 years. If you told somebody you were going to die 14 years younger than you normally would just by where you’re living or what you’re eating and what are the bad effects of your smoking, I think this would change a lot of people’s behavior.

DEBRA: I think so too. I mean, 77 minus 14, that’s 63. I mean, there’s a lot of people who are approachign 63 and they could be living longer.

Pamela Seefeld: This is the thing. The statistics were in the paper, but I don’t even know if that’s even brought up to the general population so much. I think people need to realize that they can literally peg it down to the zip code you live in.

And what is the difference between the people that are living in a better zip code versus a zip code where there’s more impoverishment, they probably eat better. They probably do some exercise. They maybe have some better stress-reduction activities. It really comes down to the things you do every day.

I always say it’s not like a marathon.It’s all the little things you do every day that add up. You’re trying to eat right, you’re trying to sleep enough, detoxing the toxic chemicals out of your body. I can’t emphasize it enough.

I know you’re a big fan of Zeolite. I think it’s an excellent product. I’m a big fan of Body Anew. And there’s also a detox product that…

DEBRA: I take both of them.

Pamela Seefeld: Yes. Yeah, that’s good. That’s perfect. And there’s a detox product by Desbio that’s called Comprehensive Detox and that’s even stronger. I think of Body Anew as the kindergarten and then the Desbio Comprehensive Detox which has six different bottles, that’s almost like the college. That’s even a lot stronger.

DEBRA: Oh, I have to look at that. I have to look at that.

Pamela Seefeld: No, it’s excellent! But detoxing and getting the chemicals out of your body, those are things that you can do something about – and the fact that smoking really would prevent a lot of this. And the fact is they just found that just in our local area. If you think about Florida, if you think about Florida, that’s pretty statistically significant, the fact that if you lived in Date or Hernando County, you would have 14 years off your life just from doing that. I think it’s unbelievable!

DEBRA: Yeah. It’s amazing. It’s just amazing. And I think that people should take those statistics to heart.

I was talking to somebody on the phone this morning and I had to give my birth date. I kind of joked, “I’m so old.” She knew exactly how old I am because she was looking at my birthday and then she said, “Oh, you don’t sound old at all.”

Pamela Seefeld: You don’t look your age at all. You look great. But you know what? What you’re doing, it shows.

DEBRA: It does show.

Pamela Seefeld: If you tell people to take care of themselves, I know some people might feel overwhelmed. “Oh, I just don’t have the… I’m tired. I don’t have a lot of money. I’m working a lot.” It’s the little things you do every day.

Even like the detox, putting some drops in your water doesn’t take a whole lot of time.

DEBRA: No, it doesn’t. And it doesn’t even cost that much money.

Anyway, we’re coming to the end of our time here today. Thank you so much. Why don’t you give your phone number again really fast.

Pamela Seefeld: Yes, absolutely. If there are any questions I can help you with, please call me here at my pharmacy. It’s 727-442-4955. That’s 727-442-4955. I’ll be very honored and happy to help your family.

DEBRA: Good. Thank you so much.

Pamela Seefeld: Thank you.

DEBRA: You’ve been listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. You can find out more at ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com. Be well!

Samina Healthy Sleep System

SAMINA was designed to incorporate everything we now know the human body needs for a good night’s sleep. It is a complete sleep system made of natural materials—imported from Austria—that includes a wool mattress topper, grounding pad, latex rubber mattress, wood slat frame, and even an adjustable bed frame made of wood, plus support pillows. In addition there are orthopedic sleep pillows, duvets stuffed with “100 % organic virgin sheep’s wool obtained only from sheep that run wild” in a 100% organic cotton case, and metal-free, sustainable wood bed frames in all types of wood. “The natural materials used by SAMINA have a positive effect on recuperation and sleep quality. Much consideration is given to sourcing the valuable raw materials so that only the best quality, eco-friendly, sustainable and healthy materials are selected to create SAMINA products.” These include organic virgin wool from free-running sheep, natural untreated ash wood, 100% natural rubber, and cotton and wool fabrics. These beds are found in many upscale hotels in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. SAMINA has 50 retail stores in the German-speaking markets (Austria, Germany, Switzerland) and is now available in the US through SAMINA North America.

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Polder’s Old World Market

Gorgeous, gourmet wooden spoons, scoops, measuring spoons and cups, handmade by members of a family that live on a farm in Tennessee. “We use local fallen hardwoods almost exclusively. It is a delight to us to be able to utilize a resource that would otherwise decay and waste on the forest floor and it is so incredible to open up a log and find such a beautiful variety of art inside. We are continually amazed that God has hidden such beauty underneath the rough bark of the tree. This creative way of sourcing wood allows us to offer a really stunning variety of wood types, grains and colors…We finish all of our wooden products with our signature blend of olive oil and beeswax. Over time, we’ve come to call it wood butter, and the younger members of the family especially love to hand finish our products with the cream. It is amazing to watch a piece of dry wood burst to life when wood butter is spread over the smooth surface and rubbed in. It’s one of the most enjoyable parts of the whole process. “ Expensive.

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STRUCTUREbags

“ Unique bags made with great resources from great people….When you choose a STRUCTUREbag purse or accessory, you know you are getting a bag not only hand-crafted in the USA, but eco-friendly as well. The canvas on your bag is 100-percent organic. The vintage button on your bifold is often upcycled. The high quality, 100-percent wool fabrics are hand-felted by a one-woman-shop in South Carolina. We source our labels and printed canvases from other small businesses around the country.”

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Red Duck Organic Ketchup

Classic and flavored ketchup made from organic ingredients. Contains organic cane sugar. “The three of us met as MBA students at the University of Oregon, where we discovered our shared passion for food and experimenting with new flavors. For a class project, we decided that conventional ketchup just wasn’t cutting it for us. So we decided to make our own.”

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What “Natural” Means to the FDA

Last week the FDA announced that is is requesting comments on the use of the term “natural” on food labeling.

Currently there is no legal definition of “natural,” though it is used on many labels and even for whole groups of products such as “the natural foods industry” and the “natural cosmetics industry.”

I have always thought “natural” means there are no artificial ingredients in the product, such as artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. But it has never referred to the basic food ingredients themselves. So I product can be labeled “natural” but still have pesticides and other artificial and toxic chemicals on the basic food ingredients.

Now some are saying that GMO foods should be allowed to be called “natural.”

The FDA stated

Although the FDA has not engaged in rulemaking to establish a formal definition for the term “natural,” we do have a longstanding policy concerning the use of “natural” in human food labeling. The FDA has considered the term “natural” to mean that nothing artificial or synthetic (including all color additives regardless of source) has been included in, or has been added to, a food that would not normally be expected to be in that food. However, this policy was not intended to address food production methods, such as the use of pesticides, nor did it explicitly address food processing or manufacturing methods, such as thermal technologies, pasteurization, or irradiation.

 

Since the FDA is asking for our opinion, I gave some thought to this, this morning.

The term “natural” related to foods began to be used I think in the 1970’s, as a way to distinguish foods with additives from foods without additives. I remember this. At the time, consumers were beginning to be concerned about artificial colors and flavors and preservatives, just as we are now concerned about GMOs. There was just no awareness of pesticides on foods. And so “natural” made sense because there was the basic food supply and then there were these additives and “natural” meant that the foods didn’t contain these additives.

It wasn’t until much later that the term “organic” began to be used, first by small local certifiers that wanted to distinguish their foods from those with pesticides. Eventually the organic certification and labeling became the National Organic Program that we have today, with the USDA Certified Organic seal. This goes far beyond what “natural” ever intended.

GMOs are a whole other category. Since “natural” doesn’t address the food itself, but only the lack of additives, a “natural” food could be GMO without additives.

But the term “natural” also has another use with regards to products.

“Natural” can also mean that the base materials used come from nature. A natural food, for example, would basically be an apple or a pig and the like. A natural cosmetic would have all it’s materials come from nature, and no synthetics. Natural fibers would be cotton, linen, silk, etc, and not polyester. However, it did not include how these materials from nature instead of a factory were grown or processed. So you could have natural cotton with pesticides and toxic dyes and finishes and it would still be called “natural.”

Ideally what we need and want is a natural material in it’s natural state. An apple should not have pesticides or waxes. It should just be an apple and nothing else. Just apple as nature intended. No pesticides. No GMO alterations. Just Mother’s Nature’s apple.

And we already have a label for that: “organic.”

It’s fine with me if “natural” is used as described above. The problem is that most consumers don’t understand the terminology.

I don’t think “natural” need to be redefined, I think more people need to understand where it comes from and how it’s commonly understood in our culture.

“Natural” can distinguish materials made by nature from industrial materials made by man. “Organic” can be used to distinguish those natural materials in their natural state, uncontaminated by synthetic materials in growing or processing.

Those are the current definition in common use, they just are not widely known.

I do think, per the FTC “Green Guides,” that if the term “natural” is used, it should be further defined on the label or webpage, as it could be false and misleading without further explanation.

FDA: “Natural” on Food Labeling

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Hidden Toxics

Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, I received an email with the subject line: “The Google spinoff tracking toxics in buildings.” Google tracking toxics? What is this?

So I clicked through to the article GreenBiz: Google, thinksetp, Flux and their database of building materials’ enviro impact

I had to see this. www.quartzproject.org

The Mission:

The Quartz Project is an open data initiative that promotes the transparency of building products. Our goal is to drive market transformation towards less toxic, lower-impact materials for better buildings and healthier communities.

It’s an interesting site. They’ve analyzed 101 common building products. “For the first time, both life cycle impact and health hazard data are integrated into an open database>” Read the Methodology page. It’s pretty interesting.

I’m going to walk you through it because it took me a while to figure it out.

I went to a product (acoustical ceiling panels) . You’ll see a general description and then there are 5 big headlines. When you click on the headlines, they open to give more information.

I clicked on “General Composition” and saw two components: gypsum and PVC. There’s a column called “Health Hazards” that drops down to a list of hazards with colored boxes next to them, but I’m not sure what this means.

Then I clicked on “Impurities.” Impurities? Apparently these are all the chemicals that are in the two components. There are 27 impurities listed for the two components. Things like formaldehyde, mercury, lead, a few radioactive materials. 

Then there is a “Health Profile” and an “Environmental Profile”, and a comprehensive “Sources” list, with each title linked to the actual source material.

But what interests me most are these impurities. I’ve never seen this disclosed before. This is a whole new level of looking at toxics. A whole new level of disclosure. It turns out there is a whole field of “toxic impurities” that we never see as consumers. I’m starting to research this and will be writing more about it in the future.

This level of data kind of makes current product labeling look really inadequate.

But I have to say, knowing about all the impurities didn’t make a difference for me in terms of evaluating the toxicity of the product. It just reinforced my earlier decision not to use this product. I rejected it years ago because of the PVC. I don’t need to know all the impurities in PVC to know it’s toxic. PVC has already been established as a toxic plastic. But it does need to be known to formulators, so they can work to eliminate them.

Great start. I’d like to see this data for every product. It’s like looking through a toxics microscope.

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ARE TOXIC PRODUCTS HIDDEN IN YOUR HOME?

Toxic Products Don’t Always Have Warning Labels. Find Out About 3 Hidden Toxic Products That You Can Remove From Your Home Right Now.