166- These Foods are Non Negotiables For Improving Health with Dr. Aaron Hartman

[00:00:15] Bryan Carroll: When it comes to food quality, there are just some foods that most people should avoid at all costs because it can impact. And your overall energy. And then this episode with Dr.

[00:00:27] Aaron Hartman, we'll be discussing what are some non-negotiables when it comes to clean eating and what you can do to really make sure the quality of your food is as top-notch as Paul. What's up everyone. My name is Bryan Carroll and I'm here to help people move more, eat well and be adventurous. And Dr.

[00:00:46] Hartman actually reminds me a lot of, some of the stuff that I like to do. He raises a bunch of his own food. He's very. Particular about the way that he raises his family and supports his own family's health and all that type of stuff, which is in line with a lot of the stuff that I also would like to do with once I have a family as well.

[00:01:07] So we'll be diving into that. We'll be diving into some non-negotiables when it comes to food and how to test for different food, sensitivities and whatnot, that could be impacting your. So Dr. Hartman is a physician and he really got his first taste of functional medicine. When it came down to figuring out his daughter's health problems and discovering that there was a lot of dietary issues that were causing some of the symptoms that she was experiencing.

[00:01:35] And now he helps patients identify leverage points and key areas of their lifestyle and health that harness their body's remarkable power to heal and begin living the vibrant life they deserve. So, if you want to learn more about Dr. Hartman, you can go over to Richmond functional medicine.com and let's dive into my conversation with Dr.

[00:01:57] Hartman. Thank you, Erin, for coming on to the. 

[00:02:01] Dr. Aaron Hartman: Bryan. It's 

[00:02:01] Bryan Carroll: great to be here. I'm very excited to chat with you because you have a lot of non-negotiable foods that we should not be eating in our diet. But before we start talking about clean foods to eat, let's learn a little bit more about you. What's your journey and what got you really interested in changing people's food.

[00:02:19] Dr. Aaron Hartman: Well, can I start with my family? And I'll start with my oldest daughter, Anna. We adopted her back 2006, 2007, and she has cerebral palsy. And so one of the first things we encountered was the one of the specialists, the GI doctor telling us to put a feeding tube in her stomach. So you can pour a formula down and get her to grow.

[00:02:36] And it, my wife, who's a pediatric OT who works with kids with special needs to explain to me how. The feeding tube would affect her speech and effect her crawling and our development. So we just opted not to do that and just work on feeding her. And so we got in trouble with the specialists and got reported and all that kind of fun stuff happens.

[00:02:53] But in the, in the meantime, my wife found a. Pediatric growth chart for kids with CP. And my daughter was right in the middle. And that was the first time that I realized, wait a second, there's more out there than, you know, the standard of care, so to speak. And that's what also got us down this whole, whole food route, because we were giving a real food.

[00:03:10] We're making real new nutrient dense food. And we kind of watched how over the years it's changed. Her health has changed all of our kids. You're my son, when we got him and he was six months old, he had bad eczema and bad allergies. Terrible greasy skin. And that's what happens when you feed a kid donut holes.

[00:03:26] And so we changed his diet, made homemade formula. My wife made homemade formula and totally changed the trajectory of our kids. As far as my practice has evolved and changed from a conventional family practice clinical research company. Now you're doing functional medicine. I've realized that all these really cool bio-hacks and cool tricks and blue lips and muzzle and all this kind of extract and all kinds of stuff, it's all built on top of diet.

[00:03:50] If you don't have a really clean diet, that's nutrient dense that's with healing foods, healthy fats nutrient dense foods. That's tailored to the individual based on their testing and their condition. Then all these other. Flourishes, they can be helpful, but they're not gonna be as impactful if you don't.

[00:04:06] The foundation build things are foundational. The main is still the main thing. And so I've kind of learned about that. How strong, how powerful diet is, but also how powerful all these other things can be on top of a really good foundation. So 

[00:04:18] Bryan Carroll: you said that you noticed some health changes were happening with your daughter and the son you talked about with eczema and whatnot, but for the daughter, how did you know what was changing?

[00:04:28] What, what were some of the things that changed. 

[00:04:31] Dr. Aaron Hartman: Well, okay. So when we got our daughter chef's rule severe cerebral palsy, and we were told she had really bad mental retardation. She was never supposed to walk or talk or crawl. And so initially it was just, she'd sit in the Bumbo and like hunched over.

[00:04:45] And just wouldn't talk and just would be there. And so we sell slowly, she got more responsive, had more eye contact and she's 15. Now she walks with forearm crutches. She loves playing chess and card games. She, to be honest with you, won't stop talking. It's kind of, it's like, please give me a sec, your break.

[00:05:02] And she's still getting better. And, and for a kid with CP to be 15, I never have had a surgical. Never been hospitalized before. Never had a cavity and up, had one antibiotic in her life. That's unheard of, and all of our kids are adopted at different stages between all three of them. There's been no hospitalizations, no significant infections, one antibiotic between three kids and no cavities.

[00:05:24] And that that's not because they came from these amazing pristine backgrounds. It's been basically the nurse isn't nature and nurture in our case. It's been 

[00:05:32] Bryan Carroll: That is unbelievable. That's amazing that changing diet and a couple other things can make that much of an impact for someone. And just with her own progress, how much more progress do you think that she'll be able to make?

[00:05:48] Dr. Aaron Hartman: I don't know her vision, I, I also do with crazy biohack stuff. I started using different peptides and cerebral ice, and we've done hyperbaric and all the cool stuff, you know, there's not probably a cool thing. We did. Ponds therapy, went up to Canada to mom to Toronto did ponds therapy, which is, which is an oral neuromuscular stimulation device that activates your midbrain through your tongue.

[00:06:08] That's being used with NS and a bunch of traumatic brain injuries. So we've done a lot of cool things like that. So, So it's not just diet, right. It's diet plus all these cool tricks. But you know, I don't know. I mean, my goal is for her to be able to live independently with minimal health. To live a vibrant life, to have meaningful relationships, to get a basic job, whatever that means to create value and impact those around her.

[00:06:30] I don't know exactly what that's going to look like for, for my daughter, but that's my goal for her. And she continues to progress. She's now actually writing. She can actually write her name now which again, she was never supposed to do. So I just, I don't, I don't know what my end goal is. Main goals for, for those things.

[00:06:44] And I'm just not stopping, learning and stopping, doing new things. And ultimately it affects my patients because I learned things and like, oh, this works for them. I'm doing, you know, Thomas now for one and TD four and CHC Maryellen with di Hexa for activation of, you know, beat in increasing your BD net 10000% with dye Hexa, which is a peptide and know all these cool things and like, wait a second.

[00:07:03] I can use these for other patients as well. So. 

[00:07:07] Bryan Carroll: So you had mentioned that you removed a lot of the processed foods out of your kids' diet, and then you started adding in some real foods. Is there any specific dietary type that you follow more to, or is it just a mix of whole real foods? 

[00:07:22] Dr. Aaron Hartman: It's a mic. It depends, you know, it's a mix of whole real foods.

[00:07:25] It depends on the person's physiology. Like my daughter is a little double joined, a little hyper mobile and people that are hyper mobile need more vitamin C more trace minerals, more kind of caveman kind of stuff, which means more organ meat, more healthy fats. So we do a lot of Crock-Pot cooking stuff.

[00:07:40] I make bone, I have bone broth in the fridge to be used for any soups or anything. So it depends on the time of the day. What time of the year you're in the winter time, you want more fat, but where I'm at gets really cold. Well, not, not super cold, like maybe 20 or 30 degrees, but it's, if you wanna stay warm in the winter time, you need enough fat for your body to burn and create heat.

[00:07:58] And so your diet should change throughout the year. So I kind of, the diet here too, is probably more like a whole food, like a real food diet plant forward. If I was to give a title, I'd probably call it paleo ish. You know, trying to think what to call it, then you give it a fancy name and trademark it.

[00:08:12] Right. You know, but it's just real food. The changes of the seasons variety, nutrient dense, and then certain tweaks based on the person and with my daughter. And it's been really lots of organ meats, lots of nutrients and stuff, bone broth, because ultimately with my kids, I'm healing brains, I'm trying to remodel innate things.

[00:08:28] I'm trying to fix guts. And that requires alive a lot of healthy fats to flush out toxins, which is one thing I think with kids, we all overlook all the time is how much. Healthy fats are for brain development, gut health, immune function. Those, those are like the UN in many ways, the unsung superfood that people just overlook are actually healthy fats.

[00:08:48] Bryan Carroll: Are your kids homeschooled or are they in other 

[00:08:51] Dr. Aaron Hartman: school? They're they're homeschooled. We've my wife decided to stay home with them and homeschool them. For many reasons. In hindsight, you know, we've, it was actually a really good choice. We've been able to, to sail through a lot of COVID stuff and all the other things relatively with my kids' education and unscathed and their sense of security and wellbeing.

[00:09:09] And they're, they're, they're happy kids and that's something I'm in my office. I'm seeing a lot of kids with anxiety and stress and it's, it's concerning. 

[00:09:18] Bryan Carroll: The reason I was asking that is a lot of times people might have healthy foods now. But if their kids are away from them, you know, seven, eight hours a day and they're at school, they have access to all these other types of foods and all sorts of products.

[00:09:33] So in those situations, if you're trying to, you know, get your kids to eat the best type of foods possible, how do you manage their access in a more public spaces like school? I 

[00:09:46] Dr. Aaron Hartman: mean, you know, when we send them places, which we do, we would pack stuff with us. We take snacks. I mean, he got to the point in time when we'd go places and they have the little kitty snacks and we'd actually bring our own organic Newman's own reasons as a snack because we didn't want them given the other reasons, the reasons that actually had the corn syrup put on, I mean, bulbs, you put corn syrup on reasons.

[00:10:05] I mean, they're right. And so we just we'd just take stuff with us. Pre-pack it. When we go on vacation. We tend to like cook food and take it with us. It's a big investment, but it's an investment if that pays off, especially if your kids health. 

[00:10:20] Bryan Carroll: Yeah, another question I had is when it comes to, you know, people picking on them because they always bring you know, like home lunches and et cetera like that, or does people bullying other people based off of the foods that they're eating your kids might not experience that, but maybe some of your other patients have, what do you do in those situations?

[00:10:39] Dr. Aaron Hartman: You're going to turn into a game, you know, to be honest with you and just educate your kids, why they're doing what they do. Cause ultimately kids can be really mean regardless. I mean, kids are gonna pick on kids because that's what kids do mean I'm about you. I was picked on as a kid actually realized a couple of years ago around the bond as a kid actually realized a couple of years ago around elementary school.

[00:10:58] And I just kind of went with the flow. I didn't realize that that was, you know, I was oblivious to it and it just happens is that's where you prepare your kids. Educate them, say. You know ultimately you're educating them so they can make, when they move out the home, they can make their own personal decisions.

[00:11:12] Model's daughter is 15. My second is 14 and my 14 year old is now going out and doing things with friends. And it's like, we have to hope that she has learned enough to make really good decisions. That's really interesting with our daughters, like when they eat really good their cycles are great. They have like a three-day cycle.

[00:11:28] No problem. Then when they eat. They have painful cycles, lay in bed for a couple of days. And it's sometimes when the kid, when you educate your kids, they kind of see the correlation. And so they say, wait a second, ate bad. Now I'm having a lot of pain for the next couple of days, you know just educating them and doing the best we can and just realizing that we're all gonna be picked on some point in time, we just need to have enough resilience to kind of take it with stride.

[00:11:52] Bryan Carroll: Now Tran transitioning into working with adults, adults at the point, you probably see them. They've already formulated opinions. They already have certain dietary habits that are really ingrained in their daily routines, et cetera. The patients that you're working with. I don't know if they're coming to you after seeing a lot of different people or if you're their general practitioner or what it is, but how difficult is it to get them to make dietary changes?

[00:12:20] Dr. Aaron Hartman: It's difficult for a lot of people, you know, you you have a family, you have a spouse. And so someone comes to me and they're like, well, I'm all in. But my spouse isn't my kids. Aren't my kids are 15. They gonna bring what they want to bring. I've got a patient who everybody is. Brings Coke and pop into the house process food.

[00:12:36] It's like she's got chronic fatigue and fibro and not some autoimmune issues. And it's like, it's hard. And so that's where idea of the whole family would be involved. And that's where if you have you start young with the kids, when they're young enough, they don't know any better that, you know, Hey, you know, homemade granola is actually great.

[00:12:51] Let's do that. You know, which is the Colombian Grinnell I make is grain-free, it's like all nuts and stuff, but it gets hard. It's difficult. It's educational process and people have to believe. That when I say half of all chronic disease in our country can be directly related to eating processed foods.

[00:13:05] You know, I try to lay out the information to educate people, but it's not just the, not just the head knowledge people ultimately have in their heart have to know and learn and experience how they feel and ate real food. And some people unfortunately will have that experience. And won't accept that.

[00:13:20] They'll kind of go back to their, what they want to do. What's easier. I have, I have one patient who has rheumatoid arthritis and, you know, she has. It just it's she'll do great. Like do like a seven day juice, fast eat really great. All the rheumatoid symptoms go away. Her RA factors coming down or anti CCPs coming down and every three or four months there's coming down or anti CCP is coming down and every three or four months.

[00:13:45] Craving, go eat a bunch of donuts and have a flare. And that happens pretty like clockwork every three to four months since like, and she's seen the results happens pretty quick, clockwork every three to four months since like, and she's seen the results once, some doughnuts since like, So those people and just be like, be there and give them a plan.

[00:14:03] It worked with them. My concern is there might be a point in time when a simple seven to 10 day juice fast. Won't get her out of the rheumatory. Now I have other patients like that who it's like we're doing harder core stuff to calm the immune systems down. So it's just education and being there and just guiding people and realizing everyone makes their own decisions, their own choices.

[00:14:20] And people's consultant and their guide, you know, I just kind of do the best I can and I'm there. I think that's one thing with patients. They realize I'm not going anywhere. I'm not judging them based on their choices. And I'm going to do the best I can regardless to help them with their health.

[00:14:32] Bryan Carroll: Awesome. Now, when it comes to people coming in regardless of where they're starting at, what are some absolutely non-negotiables when it comes to food that they should take out of their diet. 

[00:14:44] Dr. Aaron Hartman: You know, process food, fake food, you know, so that, which is a big, big category, right? So within that process, fake food thing, the first thing I see is processed a worlds.

[00:14:54] If I was really looking at, you know, you look at grains and carbs and look at how harmful trans fats are hydrogenated orals, you're thinking about it. With my computer's plastic. What is plastic? Plastic is liquid petroleum that we plasticized. We turn it into a solid object. That's where hydrogenation is.

[00:15:11] That's what trans fats are. They're partially plasticized liquids, right? That's insane. You get those in your cells. It makes your cells not vibrate as well. It makes your CEP does not work as well. If I was to pick one thing to work on first, it's going to be like, And orals, and it depends on the patient.

[00:15:27] If you're more inflamed immune, I might do the sugars. First, if you have gut issues, if you have more immune dysregulation issues, I might do more of the, the fats first getting the healthy fats and the bad fats out. That's kinda where I start. And once you get the healthy orals and the bad rules out, and you remove the sugar and you start working the PR the next process level, which is.

[00:15:46] Drains the carbs, the wheat, the soy corn, you know I will, you know, right. You can't, you can't get, she actually get good quality rice and do it, do it better, but some is trying to heal themselves. You want to remove all inflammatory foods which I know is difficult. So in that case, if we're kind of working on things, I'll focus on again, the fats sugar, then like your big process grains, like the big wheat, soy corn, and then kind of like get to some of the other.

[00:16:11] Depending on where the 

[00:16:11] Bryan Carroll: patients are. Have you seen that? The, how it's made video on how canola oil is made? 

[00:16:18] Dr. Aaron Hartman: I've not, I've not heard about that one, but I've seen multiple different videos about oral in general and you know, it's called rapeseed oil and they deodorize it with a solvent. I mean, and I think I, thing that people talk about about these orals is when they, they typically process and they use a pressurization process.

[00:16:36] I'm not sure if the video you're referring to shows like the smoke coming off of it. Does it show that okay, well, that, that is actually you're burning the. It's like, you're cooking with butter at your stove top, any kind of smoked smoke point. You're hanging the smoke point for these omega-3 sixes. So you basically have turned them into burn to charge fared film.

[00:16:56] They're very fancy and very toxic to Penn. So literally in that process, it's not just separating in the oral out. You're actually burning it before you even consume it. And that's what makes those things even more. 

[00:17:07] Bryan Carroll: Yeah. In the video I'm talking about you see, at some point the by-product is just absolutely this nasty gunky paste, and that's essentially what could be going on inside of your body.

[00:17:18] If you're consuming a lot of this stuff, as you're getting all this gunked up junk, that's very hard to process and push through your system. 

[00:17:26] Dr. Aaron Hartman: There's one, there's some study I was looking at and I was looking at heart attack incidents, and there's a close correlation with a large consumption of processed oils the night before a heart attack.

[00:17:34] And it was looking at people eating out and having heart attacks a day after eating out. Because most of the oils that are used in the restaurant business are canola soy that's processed. Even olive oil is usually cut with some kind of . It's not a hundred percent extra-virgin Virgin. 

[00:17:50] Bryan Carroll: Yeah, and it's cheap to make.

[00:17:52] And so restaurants are typically going to use something cheap because they're going through a lot of it too. 

[00:17:56] Dr. Aaron Hartman: Well, all there's, a lot of these worlds are under deodorized. They don't have a flavor, so it makes it for the chef. The chef actually doesn't have to be a specific, you know, when you use olive world where coconut world, it has a flavor in it and you have to use it the right way, right?

[00:18:10] Like using a coconut oil with a white fish, gets a nice flavor, you know, taking your vegetables with. You can spice it up with Curry, right? When you have these deodorized orals, all of a sudden the chef doesn't have to be as exacting with the science because he's using a deodorized D D D tasted product.

[00:18:28] Bryan Carroll: Yep. Kind of along the same lines, but just changing products from how they should be. Honey raw honey is not always what you would expect it to be. A lot of times, a lot of those commercial hunting products are cut with high-fructose corn syrup in what they do is they put out giant barrels of high fructose corn syrup out into the fields and let that the bees go in.

[00:18:50] Harvest it, bring it back to the hive. Once it's in the hive and they extract it, it's considered honey. It doesn't matter that it was originally high fructose corn syrup. So. 

[00:19:00] Dr. Aaron Hartman: Let's do, we've got stuff like that. And you also have the whole thing. I didn't realize the honey, world's almost like the olive world olive world.

[00:19:06] We have like, you know, the really good stuff. And you got these, like these black market stuff, and there's a huge amount of mixed high-fructose corn syrup and Honeywell coming from China that gets shipped to the Philippines and other countries. And then it becomes not from Chinese origin, but from the Philippines or Taiwan or Vietnam.

[00:19:23] And so I think Huntington those things, I don't trust it and like, I mean with honey. I'm like, you know, I want to know where's the farm in that state over those Canadian honeys that are coming from a farm, because it's so easy to adulterate it either. I knew I wasn't aware of what you're referring to.

[00:19:37] That's even a better way because you can have organic wild-caught honey. That's literally, you know, I actually have bees myself. I have some hives and so I just got my fruit. And so somebody, I got two on the hives I'm building up right now. So I am supplementing them right now, but to get them through the first winter, you know, and, and you'll use.

[00:19:55] Sugar that you melt with water. And so the honey and those Combs literally is just, that's all it is, you know? It's, it's hopefully in the spring, we'll get some yummy honey though. So 

[00:20:06] Bryan Carroll: yeah, it's a, once you harvest your own fresh. It's unbelievable. And the amount of work and time that you put into it and the extraction process, you just really appreciate it.

[00:20:16] But yeah, a lot of times to help them get through the winter, you have to supplement and, you know, give them a little boost. And then like my bees, I even, I've got a couple boxes of. A couple of brood boxes full of honey right now on them. But then I also throw like a sugar Patty on top as well. So if they do eat through all of the honey, which they shouldn't, but if they do then they're snacking on that as well.

[00:20:39] But that's just one of the byproducts of us taking some honey from them. 

[00:20:44] Dr. Aaron Hartman: Yeah. Yeah. I need to make actually a couple sugar pies myself all this week, so I haven't done it yet. 

[00:20:51] Bryan Carroll: So you, you said you have bees and I'm assuming you have a decent amount of space or land that you're living on. Are you also growing your own food?

[00:21:00] Dr. Aaron Hartman: Yeah, we we're, we're weird. We my wife and I, we take things a little to the extreme and I recognize that. So we actually have a little farm outside of Richmond. We've got like some land and we have cows, we have chickens, so we do our own eggs. We do own beef. I supplement my cows. I've actually studied appropriate agriculture for cows as I supplement my cows with kelp.

[00:21:18] So use as a mineral supplement to maximize their health. We have some fruit trees. Haven't been super successful with that just cause I haven't spent the time. I did do some mushroom foraging. We actually have lion's mane pretty readily, readily available on our property about this time of year.

[00:21:31] So so we just kind of, my kids are just learning like, Hey, this is how this is real, real food comes from, you know, this is how it works. And so they kind of have a appreciation for real food, you know, which is, it's amazing how many people don't know how to cook. These days, you know, I remember watching a leave when I was a kid.

[00:21:48] I'll leave it to beaver on episode and Joe, this was back in the day in the fifties. I know. And I think times have changed. I recognize that, but Jim was getting ready to start dinner. And so three o'clock in the afternoon, she went into the fridge, pulled out a big old thing of a bone put in the pot and started boiling water.

[00:22:02] I'm like, that was normal enough in the fifties, you could put that on a TV show and no one would think twice about it. You know, now no one knows how to cook. We're so used to like processed foods. It's just a different. I want my kids appreciate that. And I think that by itself was worth all the stuff we've done to give our kids this interesting experience.

[00:22:21] Bryan Carroll: So you said that you supplement kelp with your cows. Is that for like iodine or what's that for? So, 

[00:22:26] Dr. Aaron Hartman: No. So one of the things I do as a learn from everything, right. So I learned from my cows and it's interesting. There's. About 98 plus or minus Theresa minerals in fescue or grass that are critical for cows health.

[00:22:41] And if you have a cows fed the grain, so it gets the cows, not only does he get become pre-diabetic and get the marbling, which is yummy, but. Prediabetes, right. Fatty infiltration of near livers called fatty liver disease. You see it in people with metabolic syndrome and a cow, we say, Hmm, yummy. Right. So I kind of learned that was a bad thing.

[00:22:59] And I learned also about the trace minerals. And so sometimes when people do getting. Cows, they won't give antibiotics and the cows can get like an eye infection from flies and they'll go blind. Right? Well, what I learned from him, Joe Salton, who's like one of the premier organic farmers in the news speaking world, he's actually lives here in Virginia is that he started supplying with kelp, which is a nutrient dense product of trace minerals.

[00:23:23] Let's get all the trace minerals because it's basically the land bringing the minerals into the water. It concentrates than the kelp concentrates in there. I mean, that's, that's kinda how that, that whole process works, that he has not had a cow go blind in over 20 years. So I'm like, well, let me, I know I don't want to afford an expensive vet bill on my cows to be happy and healthy, and I want the byproducts of their, of, of them to be healthy.

[00:23:43] So I started supplementing with kelp and our first calorie processed. I've noticed how deep red the was. And so the reason we are, I supplement is one for the health of the cow and two it's the bi-product ultimately you, you eat what you ate. And the more healthy the cows and chickens are the more healthy the eggs and the meat is going to be, or the dairy or whatever.

[00:24:03] It depends on what you're eating. So so I've also carried that into my human health because many Americans are trace mineral deficient because our foods are processed because we eat processed, but drink process water. Everything's processed. And we talk about magnesium potassium, but who talks about strontium for bones and silica and boron and all these crazy trace minerals.

[00:24:21] We didn't even know what half of them do. We just know if you don't get them, you increase your risk for chronic. 

[00:24:27] Bryan Carroll: That I was going to ask you if you've gone over and hung out with Joel Salatin at all, because you're right there. So, 

[00:24:34] Dr. Aaron Hartman: oh yes, yes, yes. He's actually come to Richmond and he's got his little farm, you know, and when we run out eggs, I'll actually order eggs from up into Mount Polyface and pick them up locally.

[00:24:42] He actually does a drop off in Richmond, 10 or 20 of them put him in a freezer to last us for. So 

[00:24:48] Bryan Carroll: you got like a whole little homestead going on there. Do you also have a greenhouse where you're growing food? 

[00:24:55] Dr. Aaron Hartman: No, that's I I've this, this is my hobby. So, so so like, you know, we have a garden and basically halfway through every summer, the garden gets overgrown with stuff.

[00:25:04] Cause I get on called I work too long. We take a vacation and come back, it gets overgrown. So we have yet to have like an amazing. Garden, you know, we usually have tomatoes and that's about it. Maybe some squash. So hopefully I'll have a little more spare time as I get older to have a good garden, but the greenhouse is like the next level of on work, which I just don't have the margin for right now.

[00:25:25] That that'd be one of my dreams is to get older, have some spare time so I can start doing that stuff then. 

[00:25:30] Bryan Carroll: So unfortunately not everyone on this planet can have, you know, a little bit of land to raise their own cows and all that type of stuff. So what are some good strategies where people don't. Get good quality foods and pretty much know that it's coming from a healthy sources without all these extra processing and drugs and antibiotics and all that type of stuff.

[00:25:53] Being added. 

[00:25:55] Dr. Aaron Hartman: I mean, you really need to research your local environment. You know, for my patients, I've actually put together a food sourcing guide for the Richmond marketplace where it's like, if you want beef is where you be from, this is where you get chicken from. You know, there's a place called Faultline farms here, which, and they look for your local CSA, you know, look for what's your local community support agriculture as a, you know, local farmer's markets.

[00:26:15] I don't assume all of them do things the right way, but that's a really good starting point. And you talk with your farmer, Hey, you know, with your chicken, everybody's supplements their chicken with. You can't have eggs or meat without what kind of feed you supplement with? Is it mainly a soy based as it, you know, isn't organic versus non-organic you would visit a fish meal, you know, that we use sunrise farms is our, our chicken feed and they actually have chicken feet with it.

[00:26:39] Fish as a sort of basic ground fish. It's this little small macro like thing that's actually called down south America and they it's a throwaway fish, but they'll grind it up and put it in chicken feed and animal feed. And so like, I'll get that in my chicken feed. You know, you can talk with your farmers and find out what they're doing there.

[00:26:53] If people are doing things the right way, they're proud of it. And they will tell you, you know, Al Alfredo, who's a, who's a big guy around here, you know, asking about. You can be there for 30 minutes. And he talks about those little bees and how beautiful they are and they do their dance. And he's from I think he's from Argentina maybe.

[00:27:08] And he's like passionate about bees and people that do things the right way are passionate about. So just find those local resources. And then there's also things like, you know, Costco is a great place to get Alaskan salmon that's affordable year round, you know they actually have a really good source for organic, like you can actually get Raul, you know, Conte as a free, as a draw French cheese, you can get Swiss Gruyere, which is another really good European cheese from, from Costco.

[00:27:35] So they're just find your local resources support your local agriculture, but also realize, you know, olive oil can be kind of pricey. You know, we. Local place, thumb the valuable taproom while get like the really high quality stuff. But when I run out, I will, you know, Costco has a really good tenacious.

[00:27:51] Olive oil. They they've sauced into a gun job with as well. So just find your local sources and research it. And you know, it took us a year and a half to figure out where to get stuff from. And so that's a starting point, you know, starting with the most important things. And we have resources that we provide patients online and things like that for how do you do that?

[00:28:06] And there's all your thrive markets, one place where people can order stuff, but you have to get educated, you know and just know your local environment, you know, it's, you gotta be careful though, because. You can get paid kind of pricey. So if you find one place and I want to make any mention any names or you in one shrimp, so no, your whole paycheck, just Syria.

[00:28:26] So. But that's where also growing stuff at home, you know, you can, everybody can grow something, you can do tomatoes, they, these upside down tomato plants, you can grow that just you can do tomatoes, you can do something. Herbs are really easy to do at home. We have in the winter time, our plants in the, in the windows, you know, so everybody can do a little something just to get started and that, and, but you want tomatoes to go with that?

[00:28:46] Bazell. To get a little tomato plan, meaning like wasteland, this was easy. Can do some squash and you'll, it'll kind of naturally kind of grow with some simple stuff. You know, it's super easy to have a rugala in your backyard or an a little side, do a re a raised bed garden. You'd have a small six by a three by six or three by nine raised bed garden, and you can grow a lot of stuff.

[00:29:09] Bryan Carroll: Yep. Yeah, we have one of those little arrow gardens, which is those hydroponics that you just plug in and the light comes on 16 hours a day and you can grow food right in there. And then we use organic fertilizers instead of the stuff that they give you. I have fresh some fresh veggies that way all year long.

[00:29:27] And so we usually use that with veggies that when we put it outside, the deer and sup will come and just demolish it, the slugs, especially. So we just grow that stuff inside. So there's that doesn't take up that much room inside either. So there's definitely ways to grow stuff inside if you don't have the room outside.

[00:29:44] And there's more and more options to do that in an easy way. Like, I, I almost. Never touched the arrow garden. I just have to clean the water once a month and it does its own thing. So it's pretty nice. 

[00:30:01] Dr. Aaron Hartman: Yeah. And I think just using, also just supporting your local farmer's markets and your local agriculture, cause ultimately the about is these businesses acquire people to buy their products in order for them to be successful.

[00:30:11] And so if you want really high quality food, I mean, you go to Spain. You had a France, like they're like, this is where this is the fishmonger. This is where you buy your fish. This is the cheesemonger. This is where you get cheese, right? This is the bakery. This is where you get your fresh bread and France, you know, you don't ask for a croissant in three o'clock in the afternoon.

[00:30:29] Don't ask for an old one because they're like, no, yesterday's croissants are for yesterday. Today's croissants are for today. They take pride in that stuff, you know, but it's coming from very low. And so it's thinking more locally and supporting these local businesses as best you can as well as you can.

[00:30:43] We'll just make that available, not only to yourself, but others and probably your kids in the future as well, hopefully. 

[00:30:48] Bryan Carroll: Yep. And not only that, but you're also supporting your local community, you're reducing your carbon footprint and all sorts of stuff. So it's a lot better to stay as local as possible.

[00:30:59] Plus your body is adapted to your local environment. So if you're getting stuff locally, too, that should be more beneficial to. Your body and that the climate that you're 

[00:31:09] Dr. Aaron Hartman: in as well. What's interesting. We mentioned that like the whole idea of the bacteria and the swirl, like if you pull stuff out of your garden, you're going to be getting bacteria in the soil and your local soil.

[00:31:18] And that, that actually gets in your gut. And there's this interesting entries to tell you, looking at women who are breastfeeding. But eat fresh on cooked vegetables would actually secrete the bacteria from the food there and the breast milk to go to the baby. And like, there's this really super close connection with us in the, in our environment and soil, you know, there's a guy called sarabah Howard.

[00:31:37] He was a I think it was a British entomologist as part of the British empire before world war II. And he wrote a book called soil and health and he goes across like, Soil bacteria and fungi in the healthy store results and healthy plants results in healthy animals that help the humans who eat those things.

[00:31:54] And so this whole process, you know, It's actually fascinating. It's crazy, crazy, ridiculously complex. And if you do things the right way, it can be super great for your health as well. 

[00:32:05] Bryan Carroll: Well, Erin, are there any final things you want to make sure we cover when it comes to clean eating and just eating really good foods, 

[00:32:12] Dr. Aaron Hartman: start where you can, you know, people get often get overwhelmed by why can't get, I'm not going where you can, you know, people get often get overwhelmed by why can't get, I'm not going well weird.

[00:32:22] People can, can choose healthy orals. They can start there. They can give it to sugars. They can, or they can use real shit. I use real honey raw honey use real, real brown sugar. Use the screens. They can do these things slowly and just picking one or two things and doing it slowly. I think that's the, the the the, the biggest message to people's.

[00:32:40] Don't get overwhelmed. Don't let it get to you. It took you. It took me. This is my job. This is my calling. It took me a year and a half just to fit where to buy. So if it took me that long to figure it out, it's going to take a bit for the typical person. So just go with it, you know, the, the tourist wins the race, right?

[00:32:56] And so you don't want to start fast. You, when you want to, you want to stay, stay, even burn clean, Steven. And that's how you'll, you'll slowly over time develop healthy habits that will last with you for life. 

[00:33:06] Bryan Carroll: If you're on a limited budget, what are some of the first things you should swap? 

[00:33:11] Dr. Aaron Hartman: Limited budget pilot that I would say like your your microwaveable meals, those kind of things.

[00:33:16] You swap them out and you can, like, I know people want carbs, like say they want to swap that out, but what I do now, and you can get, you know, organic, brown rice, you can get keenwah, you can get lentils. Those are. You get it. We're getting spinal lentils. Aren't expensive. Take your leftover bones, make your own bone broth.

[00:33:33] And now you've basically got mineral infused, whatever rice keenwah lentils, the now avid plots of fiber, lots of protein. Okay. Those are, those are some basic things you can do, or if you're on a budget because people typically do lots of carbs in their budget and then spend more of your money on your clean meats, you know, spend your money to clean meats and then just be smarter with your carbs.

[00:33:56] Bryan Carroll: Aaron, my final question for you is what is your vision of what healthy looks like and what are three things you do daily to reach that vision? 

[00:34:04] Dr. Aaron Hartman: My vision of healthy is having the energy to do what I want to do. The strength to withstand your life stressors and the ability to be there for my family.

[00:34:12] Long-term and so daily I try to do is try to get enough sleep. Cause that's a huge thing that we all need to work on. Try to eat real food and do something like meditative prayer contemplated on a daily basis, just to kind of keep myself balanced. That's your stress, your sleep and your diet. I call it my triangle of health is what I call it.

[00:34:32] These are the things that if you do consistently and regularly, you almost guarantee. Maximal health in the future. I mean, if you look at blue zones, this is what people in blue zones do. This is Polynesian island in the middle of the Atlantic where 80% of the adults smoke there, no heart disease, no cancer, you know, healthy living is so literally so powerful.

[00:34:53] It can counteract the badness of smoking. And that just blows my mind. That's how powerful stress sleep and food can be. You're done, they smoke and they drink, but they don't have an increased risk of heart disease. Why. All these soft, soft things that you got to do every day on a regular basis. So Barry might be my thought on that.

[00:35:14] Bryan Carroll: Awesome. Well, people can find [email protected]. You're also on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and you also have an ebook that's available for people and it's free. Can you talk about. 

[00:35:26] Dr. Aaron Hartman: Yeah. So the book I'm actually spurned out of the whole COVID thing when people were like, why are people getting sick?

[00:35:30] What can you do? So I put something together remapped resilience, like what things can you do to prepare your immune system to maximally withstand the stress of life? So basically took the foundations of functional medicine and put it into an ebook that walks people through diet, stress, sleep, all these basic concepts.

[00:35:46] And it has reference has references to resources on my website. So it will refer to like an elimination diet. If you have gut issues or whatnot it's a nice starting point for people to start starting to try to wrap their brain around. How do I make myself maximally resilient? You know? 

[00:36:00] Bryan Carroll: Awesome.

[00:36:01] Well, Aaron, thank you so much for coming onto the show and talking us through all of this. You're a good human you're in it for the people and helping people out. And I really appreciate that and I hope people will listen to this and start looking locally to get very good clean, healthy foods. 

[00:36:17] Dr. Aaron Hartman: And buying early.

[00:36:18] Appreciate invite me on the show to share with them, share with our bodies. 

[00:36:23] Bryan Carroll: I hope you were able to learn quite a bit from Dr. Hartman. We had a really good conversation after this episode about raising your own food, growing your own food honeybees, all sorts of stuff that you can do just to help your own food quality and to help out your local area as well.

[00:36:39] So if you do have a space, you do have the room in the land to be able to do that. That should make. Your access to high quality foods, a lot easier than some people that might not have that space. So just keep that in mind that you can definitely utilize the land that you have to grow high quality food for you and your family.

[00:37:01] So, if you want to learn more about him, head on over to Richmond, functional medicine.com and we'll have resources to everything we talked about in this episode. Show [email protected] slash 1 6 6. Next week, we have Devin Burke on the show. Let's go learn who he is and what we'll be talking about.

[00:37:18] I am here with Devin Burke. Hey Devin, what is one unique thing about you that most people don't know? 

[00:37:23] Devin Burke: I got through college being a bar mitzvah dancer. 

[00:37:29] Bryan Carroll: You're going to have to explain that one a little bit more. I'm sure there's lots of people that want to know more about that one. So 

[00:37:34] Devin Burke: technically I was a, I was a professional dancer.

[00:37:37] That I would be hired to go to these high-end, you know bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs, sweet sixteens, and, and dance with the older ladies as well as the, the younger ladies and get the party started. So that was, that was a fun job. And not a lot of people know that, but now they do. 

[00:37:55] Bryan Carroll: Now they do well, what will we be learning about in our interview today?

[00:38:00] Devin Burke: So th th this interview is really about how to optimize sleep. How do you, how do you make the one-third of your life that you spend in bed make the other two thirds extraordinary? And we talk a lot about, you know, the techniques, the strategies, the tools, the mindsets around how to do 

[00:38:16] Bryan Carroll: just that in what are your favorite foods or nutrients that you think everyone should get more of in their diet at greens, 

[00:38:24] Devin Burke: greens, greens, greens.

[00:38:25] I think that's the number one thing missing. Is there anything green bok choy, kale chard. Spirulina, chlorella you know, anything that's green. I think people that we just don't eat enough green food. So I try to add something green every day, whether it's broccoli or spinach or a big salad, or, you know, some kind of supplement with it's green.

[00:38:44] Anything green, green juice, green smoothies. Just get the 

[00:38:47] Bryan Carroll: greens then. And what are your top three health tips for anyone who wants to improve their overall wellness? 

[00:38:54] Devin Burke: I would say optimize your. That's you're going to before anything, whether it's nutrition or exercise, focus on your sleep, because if you're not sleeping well, then you're sacrificing in those other areas.

[00:39:08] Number two, I would say, get support. Don't try to do this on your own. Find somebody or a group or a person to learn from the accelerate, the process, or potentially work with, but whatever area of health that you want, don't try to do it by. A big mistake. Cut the learning curve. There's people that have studied this for a lifetime and can help you accelerate the process.

[00:39:31] Number three, I would say have a mindfulness practice. I think just having some type of meditation daily meditation practice is life-changing it'll change your life. If you committed to. And 

[00:39:43] Bryan Carroll: and those are my three. I have said that many times in episodes before sleep is extremely important for our health, but it also seems like it's one of the first things that we neglect, which can lead to a lot of health outcomes.

[00:39:56] So until next time, keep climbing to the peak of your health.