I want to dive deeper into that story a little bit.
If you want to share some of the feelings
and the things that you went through
when you were going through this process with your daughter
and what was going through your mind,
how did you come out of it?
I'd love to hear that side of the story.
Yeah, so when she was initially diagnosed with autism
at the age of like three and a quarter,
I was working in biotechnology and I had science background,
but I really didn't understand a lot about autism.
What I could see was some of the symptoms
that she was exhibiting that seemed very uncalm
in her body, just throwing tantrums for hours.
I mean, and it wasn't like your normal kind of
toddler tantrums, it was blood curdling screams
for like up to four hours where she would be kind of looping.
I want this, I don't want this, I want this,
I don't want this.
Anybody, any parent, any family member, sibling
who's ever gone through this,
especially the person who's obviously afflicted
with the autism, it's just not a calm centering feeling.
So as a mother, my heart was just bleeding,
like what can I do for my child?
How can I improve her quality of life?
The scientist in me was like,
what is in my power to start researching
and just started to look into gut brain connection.
I really was like looking at her foods,
like this is not a child who's eating healthy yet.
Anytime I try to put broccoli on her plate, it was a battle.
Blood curdling screams for hours.
It was as if I assaulted her by trying to give her broccoli.
And so I didn't know, what's the battle worth fighting?
And so I started to say, okay, I'm going to take this battle
on with that the gut brain connection,
the nutrients are what's going to help heal cells
if there's some sort of inflammatory chronic condition.
And she had a lot of chronic inflammatory symptoms,
puffy face, redness, kind of the bumps on the skin,
just lots of allergies.
So she had a lot of inflammatory symptoms
that made me think, okay, can we improve inflammation
through eating better foods?
And so I started to just start diving into it.
And so initially I took out gluten, I took out casein
because that was a lot in the autism community at the time.
And this is back in like 2009.
And I saw some improvements.
And so as a protein chemist,
I just started diving deeper and deeper and deeper.
And that's where I came upon glutamate.
So MSG or glutamate are synonymous in the foods.
And I saw that it was highly associated with inflammation.
It induces inflammation because it's a neurotransmitter.
It actually excites the neurons in the nervous system
for the fight, fight, fear, fawn response.
If you think about or ever have been with somebody
with autism, they're very vulnerable
to that fight, flight, fear, fawn response.
A lot of the neurodivergent groups are not just autism,
but like ADHD, OCD, ODD, whatever acronym,
anxiety, panic attacks, they're very vulnerable
to that fight, flight, fear, fawn response.
So when I went and started to research glutamate
association with these conditions,
I was like, wow, okay, let me try this.
And so that was my why.
I deep dove to say, okay, what foods have glutamate
as part of the processing?
Of course, my PhD in protein chemistry helped tremendously.
And it was a game changer, a game changer.
Within one week of me going hardcore,
taking out glutamate sources that I identified
based on Google patents on foods
and my protein chemistry background, unbelievable game
changer where I could see the channels,
the learning channels more aware in her body, more calm.
It just, you know, she didn't catch up with speech
in that first week, but I could see that the learning
channels for speech were opened up.
She was trying to communicate more.
She started to ask why questions for the first time
in her life.
And now we're at, you know, about three and a half,
three and three quarter age.
And most kids are asking questions by that age
with language development.
So I could tell I was on the right track
and I just kept going deeper and deeper and deeper.
So my why was really to try to help my child.
And I started to do the same foods for myself.
So she wouldn't feel isolated.
It was a game changer for me.
40 years of pollen allergies went away.
You know, I had, you know, so much lower
of an inflammatory load.
I couldn't breathe through my nose often at sleeping
cause I was so congested, gone.
So it was a game changer for me too.
But my why was to improve the health of my daughter,
which just helped the whole family.
That's awesome.
And how long did it take for the first day
you're trying to figure out like, you know,
what exactly is that causing that
till you landed on glutamate?
Yeah, I'd say with six months,
cause I started with like removing gluten,
which is the protein associated with, you know,
like wheat and barley,
casein, which is the class of proteins found in dairy,
you know, and it was recommended by the medical fields
like applied behavioral analysis, also known as ABA,
sound therapy, speech therapy.
So there was so many other things going on at the same time,
getting her into special needs school,
seeing psychologists and such.
And so, you know, so there was a lot
of other things going on.
So six months from the time that I first started foods,
started getting smoothies in to the point
where I identified glutamate as potentially being a factor.
And then once I, you know, identified glutamate,
everything else fall off, but, you know,
the speech therapy, you know, special needs school,
she got kicked out of, everything else was falling off.
I mean, that was what was really important for her brain.
What tips do you have for people
who are maybe going through the same
or some similar experience
or something they don't even know what's happening
because of their gut health or...
Yeah.
Go ahead.
No, so, I mean, that's why I wrote the book
because I was like, I wanted people to have a guide,
you know, the why in there, you know,
really trying to resonate with people who are afflicted
with chronic inflammatory conditions.
It's not just autism, it could be cancer,
it could be Alzheimer's, it could be chronic pain,
or even dealing with obesity.
You know, it's just, you know,
really trying to resonate with the masses
that we need to be evaluating
and thinking about what we're eating.
So the book is called,
Fat, Stress and Sick, MSG Processed Foods
in America's Health Crisis.
And the last chapter, I have a lot of guides
about how to go through your kitchen,
your refrigerators, your pantry items.
But the tip, you know, number one tip is,
we are what we eat and really think about what we're eating.
And so if you can't identify the ingredients
or really don't know why it's in there.
So yesterday I walked into a grocery store and, you know,
and I'm in like hippie Santa Cruz area
where there's a lot of good, you know, health food stores.
So this was one of those good health food stores.
And I'm like, hey, I'm just looking
for a quick healthy snack here.
And he was like, oh, I've got this popcorn
with nutritional yeast.
And I go, oh, that's loaded with MSG.
And he's like, oh, no, it's not.
And I said, oh, yes, it is.
And I said, you know, they take these yeast,
they culture them, they lyse the yeast cells
to deplete the yeast with its contents.
And a lot of that is glutamate.
That's why it tastes so yummy on popcorn.
And he's like, oh, I could eat the whole bag of that.
And so, you know, he's kind of debating me.
So I take every opportunity I can,
but it's like really, you know,
questioning like what is nutritional yeast?
You know, like most people are thinking it's nutritional.
And so I have a whole list in my book
of these various ingredients where MSG is disguised.
It's not labeled as MSG in the food supply.
So eating all whole foods is an incredibly first step
where, you know, it's the fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds,
you know, happy meats before,
or happy animals before they end up on our plate.
So wild caught, pasture raised.
What's another one?
Pasture raised, grass fed.
You know, those are some of the, you know,
better quality of the meat sources.
And then you have, you're assembling these whole foods,
herbs and spices.
And that's a huge tip is that's where a lot of these
MSG sources are coming in is through
the processed food industry.
They're not after health for us at all.
They're, they want money
and they wanna keep you coming back.
And so MSG keeps you coming back
because it's so highly addicting.
It is, right?
It's almost like sugar.
Yeah.
Well, it's just as addicting as sugar.
And that's where, you know, I'm trying to raise awareness
because many people know sugar is very addicting.
What they don't know is the nutritional yeast
and the popcorn is also having you come back.
That's not a sweetness.
That's a savoriness that they hijacked your taste receptors
on the unami for the MSG.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Thank you for sharing that.
One more thing I wanna ask you on these tips that we read.
Apart from your book, I know it's very hard
to find good reading material to get yourself educated.
And what sources do you recommend people go to
if they wanna find more about this
or they wanna go find more about topic in general
and what things can they search
and where can they go to find more information
that's actually trusted
and is backed up by maybe some studies.
Yeah, so the book does have a thousand references in there.
So as a scientist, you know,
I'm trying to back these up with studies,
you know, population studies, animal studies,
all sorts of different studies
showing the effects of glutamate on the body
associated with inflammation, autism,
all sorts of other chronic illnesses, even cancer.
So fat, stress and sick, MSG, processed foods
and America's health crisis
definitely has the Bible of the glutamate.
Russell Blaylock is another person, MD.
He wrote, the taste that kills or yeah, excitotoxins,
the taste that kills.
And that was written and published back in the 90s, right?
So this is not new information.
And Russell Blaylock actually tried to come up
with like blogs and working with the community
with late onset inflammatory conditions
like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
He's also, you know, tout the whole association
of glutamate with autism.
So his book also, you know, contains those references.
And if you have that inquiry mind
and you go onto Google Scholar and type in the key words,
glutamate and whatever condition you might be researching,
you know, obesity, autism, Alzheimer's input,
glutamate and autism,
you'll see all of the scientifically peer reviewed articles
with these associations.
Because glutamate is in our body,
actually the issue is when it's at elevated levels,
it sends a stress response,
that fight, flight, fear, fawn response.
With autism, for example, you know,
what we call neurodivergent is really a class
of where the brain neurons are more neurologically wired
with glutamate neuron, you know,
capabilities of exciting those neurons.
So neurodivergent meaning there's more glutamate receptors
in the brain that are almost prone to that,
you know, fight, flight, fear, fawn, ready to take off.
And so that makes that person, a group of people,
much more vulnerable to glutamate in the foods,
much more vulnerable to stresses.
And it's good to know your own body.
Good to know if you're in that category.
If you're a chill bill, no worries, you know,
but if you're not, you want to listen to your body.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Well, thank you for sharing that with us today.
I have one more question for you
before we end today's segment, Katie.
Is seeing where you are at right now with your vision
and if you can see the future where you're taking this,
where you see your vision going in the future.
I would absolutely love to be on like lecture panels,
even on TV where we're really raising the consciousness
of our society through better choices,
better thought choices, better eating choices,
guys choices, lifestyle choices,
and we're raising the beauty and vibrational frequency
of the entire humanity through better lifestyle practices.
And I would love to be part of that revolution.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is gonna get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show
and thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a vision pro yourself.