126- How to Minimize Our Impact in the Outdoors with Jonathan Jarodsky

Bryan Carroll: [00:00:15] This year with so many different activities. getting shut down. One type of activity has remained open for most people to enjoy, which is exploring the great outdoors.

However, with so many people heading outside, who haven't had much experience in these wild places, it can cause quite a bit of issues from destruction of natural habitats to increased search and rescue calls. What's up everyone. I'm Bryan Carroll and I'm here to help people move more, eat well and be adventurous.

And today I have Jonathan Jarodsky, who is a wilderness ranger for the national park service on the show. His passion is to protect these parks for this and future generations. So we'll be diving into different ways. We can minimize our impact while exploring these beautiful places. Now, I'll be honest. Some of these questions, we both are stumped on what the best solutions are.

The park service for years has been wanting more people coming to the parks to see their beauty, which helps give them a reason to protect these places. But no one expected it to happen all at once. And while it is great that so many people are interested in these places. Now it is tough to come up with ideas on how to completely minimize human impact.

I will have resources in the show notes summitforwellness.com/126 About leave, no trace principles and a news story about how social media has impacted different regions like horseshoe bend. And the best we can come up with is to educate people as much as possible. Also, if you are heading outside, make sure you are prepared for any type of situations and always pack the 10 essentials.

Even on day hikes. We always have backups scenario packs for makeshift shelters and warmth just in case something happens. We've been on backpacking trips where the weather changed from the nineties to snow overnight, and the mountains are unpredictable. And right now, I live in an area that rarely sees helicopters in the last two weeks.

I have had search and rescue helicopters, fly overhead every single day. So be careful out there and always be prepared. And also a quick, thank you too, Jonathan, for helping to fight the wildfires that are all over the West coast. He did this interview right after he got back from a couple of weeks in the field and he was scheduled to go back out a couple of days after this recording.

Now let's dive into my conversation with Jonathan. I am here with Jonathan , who is with the national park service. And it was, about two months ago. Now that I ran into Jonathan, when we were hiking around in, Mount Rainier national park and just as passionate about the park and, the impact of people going through and all that type of stuff just really caught my attention.

So, Jonathan, thank you so much for coming onto the show. 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:03:10] Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:03:12] Of course. And, what I wanted to know is what got you into being with the national parks and how long have you been with the national parks? 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:03:21] Yeah, well, I grew up outside Chicago and with a family. I was pretty active, outdoors, camping trips with them.

And, growing up outside Chicago, I kind of just noticed, The urban sprawl that was taking place were outside my neighborhood. There was like a forest I used to play in and that forest quickly turned into a subdivision and, kinda just realized that, you know, wilderness areas are, I mean, that's not really a wilderness area, but a natural landscapes there now as promised.

And when I was in high school, I was on this boy scout trip up in the boundary waters and. I kind of just had this aha moment. I was trying to, I was like, what am I? I'm in high school, I'm supposed to go to college. What do I want to do when I grow up? What do I want to study in college? And when I was out there, I was like, no, this is it.

You know, protected wilderness areas. It was just such a special experience for me that I was like, I want to make sure that these places exist, I want to help protect them. So then I did a little research and I found that student conservation association, and I went to Yellowstone for a month as a, on a high school work crew.

And then through that, I kind of learned about a. Yeah. Being a back country ranger. And that really just sounded like an awesome job to be able to patrol the back country and help protect the resources and help protect people. shortly after that, I kinda, I got recruited by my college. I went to Northland college in Northern Wisconsin, which is a environmental liberal arts school.

And I got a degree in environmental studies with an emphasis in ecological restoration. And in order to graduate though, I needed an internship. So I applied to them CA gun and, Mount Ranier picked me up as a volunteer back country ranger. And that was in 2006. And I've been at Mount renew ever since, working seasonally.

Bryan Carroll: [00:05:11] Yeah, Mount Rainier is a little bit different than Chicago. Isn't it 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:05:15] just a bit different. We had a ski Hill outside or near where I lived and it was an old landfill. That's the kind of topography mirror over there. So 

Bryan Carroll: [00:05:25] yeah. Yeah. It's a lot different than here. So, Before we dive into more about the national parks.

Can you just talk about, you know, Mount Rainier itself? How much different is that compared to like what you see in Chicago? Like you mentioned, the ski Hill Mount Rainier is not really a Hill. So talk about that a little bit. 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:05:43] Oh, it's just, it's a big difference. you know, the trees here are humongous.

the mountains, you know, we have glaciated volcano here, which is nothing like you'd find out I would in the Midwest. and the snow, we get a private snow out, you know, in Chicago, but snow around here lasts there into July. And, I can snow again in September, so much shorter season, summer season up here.

But, yeah, everything's bigger out here. Bigger rivers, bigger, bigger scales. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:06:15] Yeah. And one thing about Mallory near is pretty much anywhere in Washington. If you have a clear day, you can see Mount Rainier and as what, 14,000 for 11 feet, is that correct? That's correct. Which if you're in Colorado or something that might not sound too crazy to you because you have a lot of fourteeners, but in Washington, you're going from sea level to 14,400 feet.

So that's a big difference. 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:06:38] It's pretty dramatic. That's for sure. Yeah. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:06:41] So, you talked about, you know, wanting to conserve land and I'd try to figure out how to help with that. Can you talk about what is the purpose of national parks and do you know how many national parks there are in the U S. 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:06:53] Yeah, well, I guess we can just start with the mission statement of the national park service, which pretty sums it up.

It's a, the national park service preserves, unimpaired, the natural and cultural resources and values of the national park system for the enjoyment, education and inspiration of this and future generations. So, yeah, we're just setting aside land, whether it's wilderness or a historic site, just to be left alone, left to be enjoyed.

So. Oh, future generations can enjoy the same thing we're enjoying. And yeah, some of it's set aside for wilderness and wildlife. The ecosystems are involved and others, cultural significance sites. and there are 419 national park sites, about 84 million acres. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:07:36] Jeez, 419. How many does Washington have? I know Olympics North cascades, Mount Rainier.

Is there more than that? There has to be. 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:07:45] Yeah, there's a, well, they have an office for a Klondike gold rush, national monument national park. it's a site up in Skagway, Alaska, but Seattle was a jumping off point for that. So, I think, yeah, just the three big ones though. National parks are yeah. Olympic North cascades and not right near.

Bryan Carroll: [00:08:08] And then what is the largest. National park. 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:08:13] I want to say death Valley is the 

Bryan Carroll: [00:08:14] largest death Valley. 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:08:17] Yeah. I'd have to, I'd have to look into that. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:08:20] Okay. So I'm with them mention of the national parks that came from, was it Roosevelt that installed that or 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:08:28] actually a Woodrow Wilson? He. He signed an act that created the national park service in 1916, August 25th, 1916, is the organic act, which is purpose, was a conservative scenery and then natural historic objects and wildlife, and, you know, preserve it for future generations.

Perfect. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:08:51] Yeah. So with you wanting to preserve these wild places. Yeah. A lot of times they are wild, right? We're coming into a natural territory of other animals or just species in general. And we're kind of encroaching into that space. but one of the things about that is, you know, the national parks, they create a dedicated trails, but then people.

Kind of start to create their own type of systems in there as well. So when it comes down to that, do, is it better for, you know, the population to be going in and following the dedicated trails? Or is it okay if you kind of go off trail a little 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:09:28] bit? Yeah, I think there's a time and place for both. I'd say you'd really want to know kind of where you're going before you get out there.

What kind of impacts you're going to have. So, with us, I'm not Ranieri. We have some really fragile stuff, the Alpine ecosystems, and it's a whole Kanick Ash composition soil, and the vegetation has really shallow roots. So going off trail, if you're not staying under surfaces, you can quickly damage, that ecosystem and the new that vegetation.

And. You know, a couple of footsteps off trail, it kind of impacts the area and the next people come through where they kind of see it's already impacted and then just grows and grows and grows. but there's definitely safe ways of going off trail. You mentioned traveling on durable surfaces. So staying on large rocks, staying on logs or on deep snow.

Or looking at veggies, you know, kind of assessing the vegetation, seeing what can handle, more impacts, you know, like grasses, like in are way more durable than something. I would say like mountain Heather, which is a kind of a coarse Woody plant. We step on that. It just snaps and breaks and a plant like that I've heard of takes about seven years for, to grow one inch when you're up the subalpine.

Yeah. So, but people, you know, You should get off trail sometimes and really go explore and get out there and test yourself. But you also have to think where you're at and some places may not be the best choice. If you're going to like a high use area in a fragile ecosystem, it's it's best to stay on trail.

My 

Bryan Carroll: [00:11:00] opinion. Yeah. And if you do go off trail, or just in general, there are some like leave no trace principles that are really good to follow. Can you kind of walk us through what those LMP princes 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:11:13] well, there's seven LNC principles, plan ahead and prepare, travel and camp on durable surfaces, dispose of human waste properly.

Leave what you find minimize campfire impacts. Respect wildlife and be considerate of others. And so, yeah, when you're going off trail, you want to plan ahead and prepare where you're going. And that means just, you know, knowing like what what's the right kind of equipment that you want. you know, if you're early season, Charles might be really, really muddy, really wet.

So making sure you have good footwear where you can walk through those wet areas. So you're not going off trail and doing damage. knowing the recommendations and rules before you get out there can really help you protect those areas. But as far as going off, off trail and practices and leave no trace, you know, like I mentioned, those durable surfaces is a really big thing.

you can also consider when you go off trail to go off the trail in one location and then come back on trail at different location. That way you're not walking, creating a new path. And if you're traveling in a group, instead of walking single file, you kind of walk side by side and that will lessen your impact.

Bryan Carroll: [00:12:22] Oh, that's good to know. So try to spread out, what you're trampling on now. There's, places like, I'm trying to think, like Mesa bear day, that would probably be a little bit more durable surfaces. is there a different regions of the country that. Typically have more durable surface surfaces or does that just change from location to location, 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:12:45] location, location, for sure.

And that's why we really want to plan ahead and prepare and kind of learn before you go out, you go to places and like a Southwest and they have a cryptobiotic soil and, you know, one foot step on that really damages that. And that's, it's kind of a living soil and, It's really important for like water retention and erosion control, and you can really damage that really quickly.

But, yeah, I mean, rocks and gravel, deep snow, those are your kind of your typical durable surfaces. just staying on trail. The trail that's established is a durable surface. Right. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:13:19] And then one of the things I was talking to you about before we started recording is, last weekend, we went to go backpacking.

And by the time we got to the trail head, there was about 200 cars and everybody was going a different direction than we planned on. But, and. Every single person we saw was backpacking and the direction they were all going is to one Lake. So that many people going to one destination that only typically has like three established camp sites.

what's going to happen is people are just gonna pick random spots and throw up their tent because they put in all that effort to get there. So what can we do? Especially in the time, like right now where there's not much to do, except for getting outside, what can we do to limit our impact and maybe make different choices if places are busy?

Yeah. 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:14:07] it, it's absolutely getting really busy out there and, Unfortunately, people kind of are on the same schedule. Most people just have the weekends off, but if you can plan your, your camping trips for time of less high use, that would be ideal, but not everyone has, you know, that option, but really planning ahead and preparing, you know, before you get there, there's so much information available and make sure you're going to the source.

You know, if you want to come to Mount Rainier national park, Go to our website. Our parks spends a lot of energy on putting a really good information on our website, which will help you plan your trip. And so a lot of these places know they require permits. so you want to make sure that you're getting your permit beforehand.

And the reason we have hermits is so we don't get that overcrowding. So there isn't that impact on the ecosystem. and also there's a certain social impact. You know, a lot of us go into the wilderness and we want to be in. Yeah, the wilderness. We don't want to be, you know, being up against a whole bunch of other people and hearing parties going on.

So we do limit the amount of people that go into our back country as far as for overnight use, but that's just the maintain the integrity of your wilderness experience. but just planning ahead, you know, and doing the research on, you know, what's what's needed, before we get out there and see, you know, Avoiding it at times of high use, which, like I said, it can be really hard for most of us.

It was only, you know, having the weekends off. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:15:38] Yeah. and you know, people aren't just getting out to national parks. That is one area, but we also have national forest areas. we have state lands, all sorts of stuff that people can get out to. so. I mean, it would be great if people could spread out and maybe it's just an isolated area out here in Washington where we're seeing a lot, or maybe it's happening all over the place.

I don't know. So, you, when you and I ran into each other, you were talking about the impact of creating trails and cutting off, different sections of all those acreage that's preserved. So, you kind of drew us a diagram and you showed if you cut a trail or a road or anything through here, And then you're basically putting people through this area, which we all have smelled dolls and animals can smell from whatever distance away, but yeah.

Can impact to them environment in a, a greater distance because of ours or unintentional impact on the animals. So can you talk about that a little bit deeper, kind of like what you talked to us about and then. How that also plays into people, just cutting their own trails and establishing trails that shouldn't be there.

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:16:48] Sure. Yeah. So, you know, if you look on a map of Mount Rainier, it's just a, pretty much a giant square and it's surrounded by national forest and some private land and outside the park, you know, it's, it's different, it's different rules. So there are clear cutting there's hunting, there's all kinds of things, which doesn't, you know, it.

Those areas, some of them are designated wilderness, but there's, you know, different impacts out there. essentially my morning is kinda like an Island, a bio Island, a geography kind of, so to speak. And what we've done though, is we've, we've fragmented. Like you were mentioning, you know, we've put roads through it.

We've put in trails and we've fragmented the habit tap that's already out there. and loss of habitat is the greatest start. Okay. Any species including our own, and. Essentially Mount Ranier is kind of a wildlife refuge. So when you start fragmenting it with trails, you know, you're absolutely right.

We, we, you know, we leave scent behind and we're essentially scaring these animals and we're stressing them out or we're habituating them and food conditioning. And I'm with you, you know, other important things is proper food storage. and am I park my we're near park, her park. We have bare poles in the back country, which is essentially just a pole on the ground, where you can hang your food anytime in your food's not with you.

The problem we have here is people think that's just at night. so they'll leave their backpacks on attended or even within their campsite, they might leave their food unattended and just a few weeks ago, Some folks were camping on more popular camp sites and they were in their sight, but their food was on the other side of the site, away from them and a mama bear and her Cubs, they stole their food.

And this bear was rewarded with salami and she's an almond butter, just, you know, a super delicious spread. And now we have this bear and her two Cubs who have just been lingering around and the campsite and, you know, are they're becoming habituated. And we've been up there trying to do some adversarial bear conditioning, trying to scare it away.

but that's really bad. For animals to start getting into human food, it alters their behavior, elders, their diet, and you don't really know what's happening to when you're going to give some of these animals food. And I see people, feeding grey Jays for instance, and. Gray Jays are a member of the Corvid family, which are essentially, you know, crows and Ravens, that kind of thing.

They're really smart, but they're aggressive birds. So when you start feeding these animals, feeding the grey Jays, you're concentrating on these gray Jays in that area. And then those birds, they prey on the more timid songbirds, and they'll pray on their nests. So you're essentially driving those songbirds from that area.

because we have had these animals and, you know, with the trails that lead us out in the wilderness, we're concentrating that use there. So all those animals are supposed to be there. Their behavior is being altered by just us being there or us feeding the animals. you know, another thing was with the grey Jays is they don't essentially eat all their food right away.

They'll cash their food and tree bark. thousands of locations there year round residents. So in the winter time, they always have a food source because there's cash their food. Now, if we're giving them Cheetos or something like that, that food can spoil their food cash. and same with like the ground squirrels and chipmunks, you know, they cash their food as well.

So by giving them, you think you're doing well by giving them some of our junk food, but really you might be destroying their food supply for the winter time. I 

Bryan Carroll: [00:20:29] didn't even think about that and spoiling their food. That's, that's really interesting and very sad actually, 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:20:38] but everyone has a, I see it all too often, just, you know, Instagram photos of, you know, people feeding the grey Jays and in one way, they are, again, connected with nature and no.

Which is great, but it's, I don't think that a lot of people realize the adverse impacts that they have by feeding the wildlife. So, keep your food secured on your back or immediately in front of you under your command, making sure it's a properly stored and, a bear can or hung from a bear pole or in a bear locker.

and that's not just for the bears. It's all probably other critters too. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:21:14] Yeah. So that brings up an interesting point as our populations increase and we started taking over more and more land. are, are we going to start having more of this interaction between us and the wildlife? And, do you think is going to become such a problem at a point where, I mean, Like the gray Jays are going to be able to get food from us whenever, because of where does all over the place.

And we're, I mean, we're kind of slobs. We leave food all over, we drop food, whatever. what type of issues do you see coming 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:21:48] from that? I mean, like I said earlier, just kind of loss of appropriate habitat, animals being habituated, food conditioned, just not. Doing their normal behavior. but ultimately is, you know, the more we spread out, the more we are destroying.

Habitat and healthy ecosystems and just, you know, taking away important places for these critters to live. So just seeing probably like a decline in species. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:22:13] No. we were in Yellowstone a couple of weeks ago and or about month, month and a half ago. And, they have signs talking about what can happen when if a bears get to your food.

I think it's actually in their little map pack that they hand you when you enter the part where they're talking about, you know, if they get so accustomed to going up to human campsites or anything like that, to get food, then those become problem bears. And, The things you have to do for problem, mayors is probably not what most people would like to see done to them.

So, 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:22:47] yeah, no, absolutely. And it's about altering our behavior, not so much altering the animal's behavior, you know, we want to make sure people are practicing safe, food storage and Yeltsin. They've got grizzly bears and they've been known to, you know, they have taken some people out because they had food in their tent, or, you know, a Snickers bar on our pocket.

I've heard that story before. Luckily out here, at Mount Rainier, you know, we only have black bears. These blackberries are they're mostly, you know, they're omnivores, but they mostly have a vegetarian diet. So they typically don't want anything to do with us. They're just out scavenging, eating roots in flowers, you know, digging up anthills.

But once they start associating, Camps or people with having no food. that's yeah. When we have the problem bears and that's, we'll actually get aggressive at that point. otherwise yeah, if they're just doing their national behavior, they don't want anything to do with us. Right. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:23:41] Perfect. yeah, another thing that we saw while we were in Yellowstone is there was a, teenage bear right off the side of the road.

And of course, over in Yellowstone, if you've ever been there, people always stop and they want to take photos. but what happened is people jumped out of their vehicles with their dogs and they're within. A hundred feet, if not less of the bear and their dogs are going nuts as a bear is trying to run away and it's panicked because now it's cut off by cars and it's trying to figure out where to go.

And it's got dark dogs barking at them and it was, it was a bad situation. 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:24:14] I mean, that's definitely how a lot of these bear attacks happen, with the blackberries, especially is they're instigated by. By dogs and then dogs trying to protect their people, or people are trying to protect their dogs from there.

But yeah, there's no bueno. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:24:29] No, not at all. And I understand like, you know, if, if you grow up in a city type environment and you don't really know. How things will react and you drive to a beautiful place like Mount Rainier or Yellowstone or anything like that. And you have your animals with you. Like I know it's not the first thing on your mind, but it's definitely impacts things.

Right. It definitely makes a difference. 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:24:54] Absolutely. And yeah, I mean, I try coming with the mindset too, that I don't know where these people are coming from. it's public land. They absolutely should be there. I'm happy for them to be there, but not everyone has the same background. as far as understanding, leave no trace or outdoor ethics.

And, I mean, I remember growing up where are my leaving? No trace training was, you know, take only photos and leave only footprints. And now I'm like, don't even leave footprints, you know? And most people just think, yeah, like leave, no trace is just packing out everything you pack in and it's. It's more than that, but yeah, with, with the animal thing, a big part of it is just planning ahead and preparing, Knowing the rules and regulations.

Before you go out to one of these wilderness areas, we specifically do not allow dogs on our trails. again, because you know, we're concentrating people into these areas and when your dog goes out on trail with you, it's going to Mark its territory. You know, it's gonna be, and dogs and wolves share 99% of the same, DNA.

They're you know, dogs are just domestic wolves. And so when your dog marks a Marxist territory, the animals who are supposed to be there, they smell a predator in the area and they'll flee the area. And so, again, we're fragmenting this habitat and essentially losing habitat by. No concentrating dog smells in these areas.

you know, a month ago I was out there at one of our sub Alpine Meadows and a person with their dog came in and before they got there, there's, it's just in the, you know, in the meadow eaten Lupin, just hanging out. And as soon as that dog showed up, they, they, they screamed, they didn't gave their whistles alert alerts, and they all, they flood the area.

but that's just one example. So. But yeah, it's all about, you know, us concentrating, our use in certain areas and really having an adverse effect on that ecosystem without typically knowing what you're doing. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:26:56] Yep. And it all comes back to education, which is one of the things that you practice a lot out there.

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:27:02] Absolutely. Yeah. that's one of the biggest parts of my job is just chatting with people and trying to, trying to educate specifically, like leave no trace. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:27:13] Well, Jonathan, is there any other things that you want to touch on with, leave no trace and how we can minimize our impact as we go and explore these beautiful areas?

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:27:22] I would just suggest everyone to, to look into leave no trace, and kind of do their own research, but. You know, like I keep mentioning the biggest thing is just planning ahead preparing. you can really minimize your impact out there. It's by being prepared. you know, if you're lost, for instance, you can cause it cry quite an impact.

if you have a hundred people out there searching for you with helicopters coming in. so yeah, just really planning ahead and preparing, And we can go over all the different principles if you want. And we can talk about them specifically, but, I think the big one is just planning ahead and preparing.

Bryan Carroll: [00:28:01] Yeah. I know SAR search and rescue has been very busy this year, trying to find the lost people. So, yeah, definitely know where you're going. the leave, no trace principles. A lot of that can be found at, is it lnt.org? 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:28:15] Yes, sir. Yeah, that's a, yeah. Great resource, a lot of good information on there. Great.

Bryan Carroll: [00:28:21] Then we'll have that in the show notes so that people can go over and learn more about, just all the different principles within leave. No trace. So that. You know, you can go into the outdoors knowing as much information and education as possible. Well, Jonathan, thank you so much. people can find more about what you and the national park service is [email protected].

thank you so much for coming on and talking about L and T and just helping people to understand more about how to properly go out into the outdoors and leave minimal impact. 

Jonathan Jarodsky: [00:28:53] Well, it was my pleasure and thank you for having me. And I hope everyone gets out there and has a great time and stay safe and enjoys our public land.

Bryan Carroll: [00:29:02] As you can hear, some of these questions are very tough to answer. We don't know the best options, so all we can do is educate the best we can and to see different resources available, to minimize the impact and always be ready for anything outside. Go to the show [email protected] slash one, two six.

Also, if you find this information valuable and important, please share it around. We want to make sure as many people as possible are educated. And if you liked this episode, then head on over to your podcast app and leave a quick rating as it really helps the show out next week, I have dr. Angela Cortel on the show.

Let's go learn who she is. I am here with dr. Angela court tall. Hey, dr. Angela, what is one unique thing about you that most people don't know? 

Dr. Angela: [00:29:51] I am super into mushrooms. I love foraging mushrooms in the wild. I'm trying my hand at cultivating some oyster mushrooms and having variable success. And my living room is, or my, dining room is plastered in mushroom posters.

Bryan Carroll: [00:30:09] And these are like edible mushrooms or these, some spiritual trip type mushrooms. 

Dr. Angela: [00:30:16] so the, the posters are from David Aurora. If anyone is into mushrooms, they will know that, that name. And, let's see, I have one, one of the posters is all culinary mushrooms. One is medicinal mushrooms and one is poisonous and psychotropic mushrooms.

And as far as what I collect out in the wild. I'm out in rural Oregon, in the foothills of the coastal mountains. And out here we have,  coming up in a couple of months in the fall, and then we go out to the coast for, bullied and, gosh, what else? lobster mushrooms, but I'm not, I'm not adventurous.

I want to stay around and not harm myself. So I have a small number of mushrooms that I can identify with. I actually collected, bring home to eat. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:31:00] Yeah. I've never gotten into a mushroom foraging because I know that one wrong mistake could be very bad. 

Dr. Angela: [00:31:08] Yes. Yes. And we've actually had mushrooms growing on our property that go by the common name of destroying angel.

So yeah, you, you know, there's some not great ones out there. 

Bryan Carroll: [00:31:19] Well, what will we be learning about in our interview together? 

Dr. Angela: [00:31:24] How joint pain is not just pain coming from your joints, where, how my approach to joint pain is that you really need to look at the whole person systemically and figure out all the different factors and influences that could actually shift a joint that is, currently degenerating into a 

Bryan Carroll: [00:31:43] process that is regenerating.

And what are your favorite foods or nutrients that you think everyone should get more of in their diet? 

Dr. Angela: [00:31:51] I'm a big meat eater. I love just having it big stake. and yeah. And so that's, meats, meat and eggs are my primary sources of protein. I think, protein is a very important nutrients getting some healthy sources of fat.

So not just super lean meats and a low fat diet. I am. I'm not of that mindset. I think that. Well, I know that you need to have some good, good, healthy sources of fat onboard and build up your physical body to build up your heart. so getting some, let's see, avocado and egg and olive oil are probably the most common ones that I use.

And. And also that collagen is really important. collagen has it's own unique amino acid structure and is very integral in the building blocks of our cartilage of our joint councils, ligaments, tendons, all of 

that. And actually bone tissue as well is more. Percentage collagen fibers than anything else.

So, so even as never, as people in the U S tend to not eat much collagen in our diet, we think that like pork knuckles and chicken feet are icky. so it takes me a little bit into, intentional to get, to get some college. And in your diet, 

Bryan Carroll: [00:33:05] in what are your top three health tips for anyone who wants to improve their overall wellness?

Dr. Angela: [00:33:10] I see how much good clean water you're taking in. Like, let's just start with making sure that you're not dehydrated. How has your digestion going? If you have problems, let's figure out if we can sort that out, you need to be eliminating everything that your body is trying to be eliminating. And are you moving?

Are you moving a little bit every day? Are you having fun with that? Do you like that? We need to find. Ways all of us do to, to move through life, to be more active. A lot of our, our daily work and otherwise sort of interests can be very inactive if we let them. So we need to counter that intentionally and an increase the movement just in our day to day lives 

Bryan Carroll: [00:33:56] about more causes for chronic pain.

Make sure to listen next week. So until then keep climbing to the peak of your health.