Non Toxic Living – Tips For A Healthier Life

➡ Lisa Schermer Horn interviews her friend Amy, an organic farmer and green living educator, on her show ‘Where Truth Lies’. Amy shares her journey from growing up in New York City to becoming an organic farmer and her passion for educating people about healthy, non-toxic living. She discusses the dangers of toxic chemicals in everyday household and baby products, the misleading nature of product labels, and the importance of holistic health. Amy also emphasizes the interconnectedness of food, household products, holistic health, and organic farming.
➡ The text discusses the dangers of plastic use, especially in the kitchen, and its connection to health issues like Alzheimer’s and heart disease. It emphasizes the importance of avoiding plastic, particularly in microwaves and dishwashers, as heat breaks down plastic, creating harmful microplastics. The author also talks about her course that educates people on creating a non-toxic kitchen and making informed decisions about their health. Lastly, it mentions the benefits of organic farming and the author’s farm tours in Vermont, where visitors learn about organic farming and maple syrup production.
➡ The text discusses a retreat in Massachusetts that offers various activities. These include a farm-to-table lunch, an herbal experience, and a unique horse experience where participants learn to communicate with horses and establish themselves as leaders. The retreat also offers workshops on organic gardening, green living, and nervous system recalibration. The goal is to help participants ground themselves, reduce stress, and make better decisions.
➡ A woman who had experienced trauma in her past found that her body started reacting negatively to various things, even certain types of air and floor materials. She realized these reactions were linked to her past traumas and began a healing process to overcome them. The story emphasizes the importance of addressing and processing emotional trauma, as ignoring it can lead to physical symptoms. It also highlights the need for effective communication and truth-speaking in dealing with emotional issues.
➡ A free kitchen assessment is available on the website, which also enters you into a contest to win a $197 course. If you miss the contest, you can still purchase the course. The website also offers beginner and advanced gardening courses, including tips on organic gardening and using the right fertilizers. If you’re in Vermont, you can visit the farm for more learning opportunities.

Hi, Lisa Schermer Horn here with the Grassroots Warrior Network and you’re on my show Where Truth Lies. And I am thrilled and excited to introduce you to an actual real friend of mine. She was one of the first people that I met when I moved to Vermont. She and her husband co own this amazing organic farm. She’s got quite a bit of history. She’s actually about to do a TED Talk, which I’m really excited to hear about. She’s a green living educator for 30 years and she’s also a podcaster and really amazing when it comes to what to eat properly, how to eat toxic and non toxic things in your kitchen, things that are really going to surprise you.

And Amy, welcome. I’m so excited to have you here. Oh, thank you, Lisa. It’s always a pleasure. So I want to talk to you about, we’re saying how you, you started basically growing up in the Upper east side in New York City. I did. And your dream was to become a farmer, Organic farmer, necessarily to be a farmer, but was to live in a beautiful landscape where I could grow my own food. I didn’t necessarily need to do it on the scale that we do it, but. Right, right. So you’re, you’re quite the manifesto of how this.

But I’d love for people to hear about your journey of how you got to where you are now. And yeah, it’s quite an interesting journey. Thank you. Yeah. So I did have a very unusual start. My mom was a big into nutrition. She loved Adele Davis. So she was making us drink things like Pep up that had brewer’s yeast in it, which was just disgusting. But we had no junk food and my stepfather was a chef. So I learned to cook at the age of 8 and really started cooking from scratch from that point on, still to this day.

And then one of my other early inspirations was my great aunt Jojo who came over from the former Yugoslavia and she grew most of her own food. And I loved going to Morgantown, West Virginia to visit her and her husband Harry because I get to tour the, you know, the gardens and I saw herbs drying in the basement and she, I pretty sure she made her own soap. She basically was self sufficient and whatever she didn’t have, she traded with her neighbors. And that really stuck with me. Like even the taste of her beefsteak tomatoes with a little bit of salt, I can feel like I still taste that on my tongue.

And so I moved from that beginning to my first summer job at 16 was working at a health food store on the Upper east side and learned about vitamins and organic food and little bit about household products. But it wasn’t until I was pregnant in 1992 that I found this little non toxic baby book. And I couldn’t believe, first of all that there were toxic chemicals legally allowed in everyday household products, including baby products. And what was even worse was nobody was talking about it back then and nobody was really protecting us. There’s so many loopholes that these, you know, corporate entities can use to not have to tell people what’s in their products.

Like perfume, the fragrance of all of these different products is, can be up to 200 different chemicals that they don’t have to disclose because it’s proprietary. Well, I, you, when you talk about baby products, you have the, Was it talc, Johnson, Johnson and Johnson, the baby powder, asbestos and formaldehyde in their baby shampoo. And we were putting this on our baby’s scalps. Yeah, yeah. It’s just, it’s, it’s hard to imagine how this was allowed. And you see like in Europe, they have so few types of, you know, toxic chemicals in their products compared to us. And actually we are only one of two countries that allow pharmaceutical ads on tv.

And that was not the case when we were younger. Right. I remember when they legalized it. Yeah. It was just kind of overwhelming. Yeah. And now it’s almost all you see. Yes. And I don’t know if you find this to be the case, but for me, you know, you see all these images of happy people doing things outdoors with their kids and their dogs, but then you listen to the words and it’s like, wait, may cause a stroke, death. If you’re allergic to it, don’t use it. How the heck would you know if you’re allergic until you try it? And always ask your doctor.

It’s like defer everything up to the expert instead of, you know, trusting your own body. It’s true. Absolutely true. So, so I’m curious because. So you then became, you know, enamored with your, with your great aunt. I mean, what an amazing thing. I grew up on canned vegetables. So I, I can still remember the color of the so called green peas that were like a brown navy, you know, like a weird army kind of green color. Yeah, I mean that’s, that’s what I was raised on. So I remember, you know, coming up to Vermont and seeing farm to table and, and also your, your dressing.

I know you’ve been, I keep telling you to bottle it, but. Yeah. So, so how did this journey continue? So when you started reading this book. What happened then? Right. So then I started to do a ton of research. And, you know, it was a lot harder back then. There was a few people who had written books which, you know, I bought all of them and read all of them. And I’m the type of person that once I’ve learned something, I have to share it with other people. I want to make, you know, everyone’s life better.

And so I started writing letters to the editor. I was living in Marblehead, Mass. At the time, and this was a little bit unheard of at the time, talking about toxic chemicals and everyday products. And I got a lot of people sort of waking up, but I also got the better living through chemicals crowd that were attacking me. And then it kind of turned into a community action thing. I thought, well, let me do a big Earth Day celebration and sort of showcase all of this stuff. So we had green living workshops and vendors and organic food and live music.

And I brought my CSA farmer up from wherever the heck he was and he sheared a sheep just to bring that kind of connection. And one of the things I realized early on was that I wasn’t just about the food. I wasn’t just about the household products. I wasn’t just about holistic health, because I have. This is a whole nother story, but I have a bone deep fear of Western medicine based on some experiences that happened to me. So I wanted to empower myself to prevent ever having to go as much as possible. And so that’s where the holistic health came in and then the whole growing piece.

So it’s like these four different pillars that I combine together because they’re all interconnected. And as I said to you before we got on, it’s like teaching from the ground up, right? I’m teaching people even how to grow their own organic food and then talk about, you know, what are good choices for healthy food and how do you avoid all the greenwashing on the labels, Right? Because there’s so many different labels that have no meaning. And I went through about 100 of them at one point and wrote an e book about it just to let people know which, you know, which labels actually were verifiable and had some sort of independent entity checking them, which ones were somewhat useful and then which ones, like natural, which are completely meaningless, have no real definition.

I was just going to say, I had heard that when you see all natural, it means nothing. It absolutely means nothing. The frustrating part, I think, is that people assumed that meant no pesticides or Organic or no, gmo. But that is not the case. No, no. And, and then I just saw something about grass fed beef. Unless it says grass finished, it doesn’t mean anything. Yeah. So what that says is grass fed is great. But oftentimes if it doesn’t say grass finished, it means they’ve been finished on grain for, I think it’s about three months before they’re slaughtered.

And that grain doesn’t have to be organic. You know, it could be GMO corn, which is what a lot of, you know, dairy farms and beef farms are feeding cattle and. Yeah. So it’s, it’s really tricky. And then there’s even a whole thing about grass fed from other countries and do they have the same, you know, rules and regulations? Is grass fed, grass finished from somewhere else the same or worse or better than us grown? So there’s a lot of weird stuff that’s going on with our labeling. And, you know, I even saw something where they talk about when, when a company will say we don’t have phthalates, you know, these hormone disruptors in them anymore, but what they’ll do is they find another chemical.

Yes. And replace it. Yes. So, so that is such a disturbing piece. So, yes, there are cans that will say BPA free. But you’re absolutely right that what they’ve used to replace it is oftentimes even more toxic. And people don’t realize. Right. And then, and then the whole thing about plastic, we are totally inundated by plastic, as you know. And one of the things that I’ve been teaching people about is how to eliminate plastic. And one of the first things I say is do not drink from any more plastic bottles. Yeah, those are one of the worst.

And that is where we get one of our largest exposures to microplastics, which, you know, is in every part of our body, including brain and arteries. And there’s connections to Alzheimer’s and heart disease, you know, that they’re exploring. And one of the things that I don’t think people realize is microwaving plastic or putting plastic in the dishwasher. And these are things that I talk about in my new your non toxic kitchen reimagined course. Because I think that people don’t really know what’s going on necessarily, and they’re making changes, hoping for the best, but if they don’t have a framework for making the decisions like, okay, well, which decisions are actually going to make a difference and how do I evaluate all these things in my kitchen? So I know the next time a New study comes out or some influencer says, do this, do that, or swap to this, do that.

I want people to feel like they can become their own best expert, not to have to depend upon me or anybody else. I’m curious because you just said plastic in the dishwasher. Right. So you don’t really hear. So what happens when you put plastic in the dishwasher? Because I noticed that whenever I empty my dishwasher, anything that is plastic in there isn’t dry. Everything else dries, but it’s always still wet. I always have to set it aside and let it. Let it dry. Yeah. So it’s kind of like what happens to plastic clothes in the washing machine and dryer.

And what I mean by that is, you know, like nylons and all those different recycled plastic fleeces and all that kind of stuff. But what happens in the dishwasher is similar. It’s in contact with heat and so heat is going to break down the plastic and create those microplastics and it actually makes the plastic more brittle. So I don’t know if you’ve noticed over time maybe some of the lids get, you know, a little bit cracked or they don’t, you know, fit as well onto the like. I use glass containers to store food mostly, but they do have plastic tops.

Right. And, and I talk about how I deal with that in that course. But yeah, the whole issue of the microplastics that are getting washed out of the dishwasher and onto your dishes and glasses. Right. Because whatever you’re using, even for dishwashing detergent is going to be leaving a residue. And so you have that plus the plastic, when you put plastic in there. Sorry. For some reason my lights are going on and off over here. Oh, are we being visited? We might be. That was a confirmation. So I’m curious because there are apps out there that people use to check that are things that are non toxic.

What are things that you offer above and beyond that if people already have those apps? Yeah. So I think the biggest thing is the framework. So the apps will kind of analyze certain products and tell you what the problematic chemicals are. And then maybe it, some of them might offer swaps. I don’t really use the apps too much because I’ve done all the research myself and I know how to read a label. But so I’m teaching people how to read labels and how to understand things like natural being meaningless. And if there’s no, you know, certifying agency, even wild caught doesn’t mean anything.

And that was one of the biggest. Really? Yes. What? Unless it has a. To go to the grocery store anymore. Seriously? I know I’m actually going to do a walking tour of a supermarket, but I have to get permission in order to be able to do that. So that might be tricky. I might have to go to a food club, but somebody’s gonna hopefully let me walk through and kind of talk about the things that I look for when I go shopping. But I teach people in, you know, these courses that I have through the podcast, the Green Living now podcast.

I am interviewing all kinds of other experts that are. A lot of them are holistic, health focused. So they’re talking about unbelievable stuff. So many people that have come back from nearly dying and found their own way because western medicine failed them. And so they’ve used holistic tools or they’ve, you know, cleaned up their food in their homes and done holistic things that they had to figure out on their own. Right. And then I’ve got, you know, some of these guys and gals who have all these cool products like red light therapy and somebody that teaches self massage.

And there’s just so many different neat folks that I’ve talked to on there. Yeah, I use the red light therapy. I have a mask that I use. Yeah, Yeah, I really love it. Yeah, yeah, neat. Have you noticed a difference? I just started using it about two weeks ago, so I’ll, I’ll keep you posted. Yeah. But I was at my daughter and son in law’s and they had one and my son in law was saying he was with someone at work and he said, what are you doing? You look much younger. He said, I’m using this therapy mask.

So the one I use has four different lights. Not just red, it’s got a purple light, it’s got a blue light and a yellow light. Like one’s for acne and killing bacteria. One is for repairing, you know, for. For youthfulness, for wrinkles. Yeah, they all do. All the lights do different things. Nice. Is that the same one your son has? No, I did some research and got a different one. Yeah. Okay, I’ll have to find out which one. I’ll get it for you. Nice. Yeah. Well, I. I missed part of the journey of how did I get to Vermont on a Nordic farm.

Right. Yeah. So I finally moved to Vermont in 2001 and was hired by the founder of 7th Generation to non profit or the executive director of this new nonprofit that he started, the Household Toxins Institute. And that really kind of immersed me into the world of household toxins. And then I joined this coming clean network and then I got invited to do tech editing for the Green Living for Dummies book, which is really fun. And so I’ve just kind of continued on and moved forward with all of this type of work and, and just, you know, coming up with the courses or the farm tours or retreats, you know, doing personal growth and wellness retreats for women on the farm, which I’m doing again this summer.

But just to. Just to stop you. So. So we live in this beautiful area called the Mad River Valley in Vermont. I think you’re the only organic farm. Correct. In the valley. There are others now. Oh, there are. First. Okay. He was the first. So if you just want to come to Vermont to see the area, it’s beautiful. But I’ve done the farm tour with Amy. It’s fascinating and it’s. And you have people who come from all over. Correct. Out of the country even. Yeah, yeah. So talk about what’s involved with the farm tour. Like, what do you, what do you do with people? Okay.

So it’s. It’s both educational and experiential. And so what that means is I actually take people through the fields and they’re tasting green beans off the vine or cherry tomatoes that they’re plucking themselves and learning about what does certified organic really mean? And what do we do in order to, you know, work in harmony with the land to grow this incredible nutrient dense vegetables and fruits? So we cover the organic farm, then we do the maple sugar house. Because Dave, my husband’s been a sugar maker for five generation, or he’s one of five generations of sugar makers.

And so we talk all about how does maple, you know, turn from SAP from a tree to this incredible liquid that we use? And then we do a little bit up here at the house because I love having my own gardens. I’ve got a little house garden and some other, you know, herbs and flowers and things in the hat in the front of the house. And then we end at the back with the big hydroponic greenhouse that Dave was one of the founding members of. We sold his shares six years ago. I guess it’s very cool to see how everything’s grown.

It is, it’s really. It’s really wild with all the lights and what. They have basil in there. Basil, green leaf lettuce and watercress. And actually they added a fourth one. Now they’re doing Thai basil. Oh, wow. For some reason, yeah. I guess that’s a big thing at the Whole Foods. I Think mostly in Massachusetts. There are probably a lot of people who are making food that needs Thai basil in that area. Nice, nice. So, and then. So that’s a one day or do you have things that are more than one day? Right. So that’s, that’s a 90 minute tour, give or take, depends on how many questions.

And then there’s the option to have lunch. So then I make a farm to table lunch with as much stuff that’s in season on our farm as possible. And so that it’s worth it for her dressing. Thank you. Yeah. Because usually a big salad is part of it for sure, but dressing. Yeah. And then as far as longer term things, I’m bringing back the retreat. So I. I’m going to be doing a five day retreat in mid to late August. I actually have a description for a shorter retreat on my website, but it’ll be expanded to include things like an herbal experience and probably the signature Horus experience.

Where did you ever do that? I can’t remember. No, no. So for years I have taken people to have an experience with horses where the horse is really like a life coach. Oh, with Janice. So with Janice part of the time. But I started off with my friend Peggy, who I consider a horse whisperer. Janice is a coach like me. Yes. Who has some training, excuse me, in working with people and horses. But my first retreat 11 years ago, we went to Peggy and we did. Do you know Monty Roberts? No. So Monty Roberts is this amazing man who the Horse Whisperer movie was kind of modeled after a little bit.

And he does this sort of natural horsemanship work where it’s working with mutual trust and respect for the horse, you know, to the horse and from the horse. And so one of his powerful things that he does is he teaches something called join up. So if you imagine a round pen, which is basically metal gates that are forming a circle and everybody would have a turn by themselves with Peggy and one horse. So the people would be standing in the middle. The horse is kind of on the outside of that inner circle and with this little carrot stick thing, which is basically, you know, a stick with a string at the end of it, which you wiggle, you move that horse around you and you tell that horse which direction to go.

So if they’re going, you know, one way, you’re going to want to stop them and make them go the other way, because that’s one of the ways that we establish ourselves as the leader is whoever moves the other person, the other creature’s feet is the boss. So that Means like if you’re standing next to a horse and the horse nudges and you’re thinking, oh, that’s so cute. He’s, you know, trying to get my attention. No, that horse is saying, oh, I moved your foot. That means I’m the boss of you. Oh, I didn’t know that. Yeah.

So what this experience with join up does is eventually the horse starts to show signs of, hey, I want to be a part of your herd. Because in the wild, horses by themselves are the ones that get plucked off by mountain lions and whatever. And so the horse will start to drop their head and start doing this licking, licking and chewing movement with their mouth. And that’s the moment where you realize, okay, now you stop driving them around. You, you turn your back to them and you literally let them join up with you. So what happens? I’ve never seen it not work in the times that I’ve done this with Peggy.

You’ll feel the horse come up to you and start, you know, breathing on your neck and maybe like nuzzle you a little bit. And then you turn around and, you know, you give it love and. And then without any lead rope or halter on, you can walk around that pen and that horse will follow you. And so that means that horse has taken you as their leader and says, I want to join up with you. It is so incredibly powerful. Like, I just got goosebumps thinking about what happened. Especially, I mean, anybody that’s done it, but especially that first group, because I was working with some female veterans that had some awful trauma from being in different, you know, wars and the healing that came especially from that horse experience.

Even this woman who’s my co leader for the retreats this year, Andrea was one of my clients in my retreat and she’s, she’s a therapist and she said she got more out of that horse experience than years of therapy. It is so profound because you’re, they’re reading your body language, they can even detect your heart rate. They know when you’re nervous. And I have a perfect example of that because, you know, this thing that happened a bunch of years ago. So my daughter had this life threatening brain tumor experience and she’s fine today. But I had just come back from all this time in the hospitals and whatnot and was pretty stressed out.

And I was going to do this session with this horse by the name of freedom, this giant, white, strong looking horse. And as I was looking at him inside the pen, he’s running around like a crazy man. And I’m thinking, I don’t want to go in there. And I had horses at this point, so I had a fair amount of horse savvy, which I. That’s a whole nother story. I said to Janice, I’m not comfortable going in there when he’s acting like that. And so she said, yeah, yeah, I get it. Let’s just turn around. Keep your back to freedom for a minute.

Let’s talk. So I think we spent maybe five minutes talking about what I had just been through, and then I just kind of took some deep breaths, grounded myself, let go of all of the worries that were in my head. I turned around, and then there’s the horse just staring at me, blinking. I’m like, wow, I know this stuff. And it was still so powerful to see. I change my energy. That changed his energy. Yes. Right. So I walk into the pen. He follows me around. I’m petting him. That he lies on the ground and puts his legs up in the air, like in a total submissive position.

This is amazing. Yeah. So, wow. That’s incredible. I. I’ve done a little bit of. Of work with Janice where we had to use our energy to get the horses to move. Yeah. They had to detect our and sense us. I haven’t. I’ve spent very little time around horses. I’ve had some. Some. Some in my childhood and then a little bit as an adult, but I know of. I have friends who are involved in nonprofits that work with veterans with ptsd. Yes. Autistic people, children and adults today. How calming and how much they heal. I have a friend, Lydia Kalashnik.

Kalishnik. She’s gonna kill me. I can’t pronounce her last name. Sounds like a tricky one. Was. I know. She was in the movie with me, Zero Limits, but she does a lot of work with. With horses as well, and healing. So that’s really profound. So now the. The. This retreat you’re doing. So there’s experience with the horse. What else do people get? All right, so. And then organic gardening. So they’ll learn about organic gardening. We’ll talk about the green living stuff that I do, like how to eliminate toxins from your food and your household products. Oh, the herbal piece.

We’ll have a workshop with this fantastic herbalist that I’ve worked with before. And then Andrea brings in her work as a therapist. And so one of the things we’re going to be doing is nervous system recalibration. Right. Because we’re all. Most of us, I would say, are pretty stressed out and we’re, you know, one headline away from freaking out about whatever is going on in the world. And, and so we want to help people just kind of ground themselves, like I did with the horse. Freedom, really ground ourselves. Let go of all this outside stuff, come back to who we are inside that.

That soul, that higher, you know, higher, higher consciousness, part of ourselves. Right. And if we can operate from that place. We make such better decisions when we’re so stressed out. As I know, you know, from your own work, when we’re stressed out, we don’t make the best decisions. Not only do we not make the best decisions, but our bodies can’t heal because all the energy is going into fight or flight. Yes. That your body can’t go into any healing. And so whatever’s going on exacerbates in your body. So, and. And when you’re focused on, like, something that’s going on outside of you, you know, and.

And all this stress, you have no energy to manifest what you want in your life. Absolutely true. I had recently one of the most intense conversations with a woman who had suffered three type 3 incidences of sexual abuse. The first one was at the age of six, that she didn’t even remember that one, but she did know about the two when she was 14 and 15. She never dealt with all of that because she thought she got away unscathed. She actually had a pretty good life. She was a mom, she had a business, she was married.

Things were good. But then all of a sudden, her body started to become allergic to everything, like even certain types of, you know, humid air or certain types of floor materials. All of them related to those incidents of trauma. And she went through such an incredible process to. To actually heal from those traumas so that she no longer has these symptoms that almost killed her. Like she was swimming, she were. I think she was water skiing in a lake with her family and did not realize that there was some runoff from farms that were toxic in that lake.

And she went into anaphylactic shock and almost died. Wow. And so it was. It was just an incredible journey. And so that tells you how much the emotional part of what happens to us, in some ways it protects us because it walled her off from that trauma. But then the body starts to show up and say, excuse me. I was literally. I was literally working with a client yesterday, and she said, I know that I have a lot of physical issues that are based on trauma. And then we started to talk about it, and she said, well, I don’t talk about this one incident.

I keep it in a box. And I said, well, that’s interesting, because just because you have it in a box tucked away someplace as a memory, your body knows it’s there. Yes. And it has somebody. Yes. And it. And so we did some major, major work of pulling all that up and helping her heal it. So for the people who stuff stuff down, it has to go somewhere. And the body takes 90 seconds to process emotion if it’s. Process properly. If you ignore it. Because we are meant to, though. Okay, I’m going to feel sad now.

Okay. Now the sadness is gone. I can let it go. Right. When we hold on to it, it changes our physiology. Our body adjusts to it, and then it starts to break the body down. So this kind of work is really important. And people like, I’m afraid because if I touch it, then I’ll cry. I’m like, your body’s already crying. Well, that was the interesting thing that she talked about, was the fact that she had to kind of go through the trauma on a different level than when it happened in order to get through it, which is difficult.

You have to be ready for that. And I’m sure you, you know, work with people in a way that they feel safe to be able to process. I should interview you on my podcast, by the way. I can’t believe we haven’t done that yet. Yeah. So I think our minds think, oh, I’m fine. I put that in the past. Like the woman said, it was in a box. But it can lead to other kinds of health problems, and we don’t know why. And that’s where I think Western medicine is not able to get into that kind of stuff.

Take a pill. Treating symptoms. Yes, take a pill. And you know what? I don’t want to dis it, because I know people who have had their lives changed, who needed them, and. And that’s fine. Yes. My issue is I think it’s most important for people to do a deep dive and figure out. And. And sometimes you don’t even know where it’s come from because it’s unconscious or it’s inherited. Right. Because. Yeah. Let me just say something about the inherited, because that is such a powerful one. I think I grew up in a family where my mother did the S training.

Oh, yes. Yes. And so I ended up doing it at the age of 13. I have a book by Marcia, who was one of the people who was behind the whole S training. She actually wrote there. Yeah. With Werner. She was behind the scenes with him. Yeah. I’ll share that. With you. Oh, I’d love to see that. Yeah. Well, so. So what that taught me. Well, I did all kinds of workshops after that on, you know, topics like relationships and money and this and that. So I learned about speaking up, speaking my truth, and, you know, communicating.

And I’m. I’ve always been interested in how to communicate effectively, you know, especially when it comes to my feelings. And not everybody grew up that way. I know. And so those of us who didn’t have that kind of early upbringing, a lot of times we had to suck in our feelings and, you know, maybe that we had an abusive parent and we had nobody that was really there protecting us. And so there’s so many different pieces that can cause problems, whether it’s just emotionally, which then can become physical, too, that make it difficult for us to have relationships with other people or difficult for us to speak up and speak our truth.

And. Yeah, just. It’s so far reaching especially hard for men because men are raised with big boys don’t cry. There was even that song. Was it that in the 80s, big boys number 70s. So, yeah. It’s important for us to process our emotions and let it go and speak our truth without hurting. I mean, there are ways you can do it because people go, oh, I’m empowered now. And then they’ll vomit up everything that they. Yeah, yeah. No, we want to be respectful. Yes. But I will say that if you speak your truth to somebody that’s not used to having truth spoken.

Yes. May not go well at first. Yes, That’s. That’s true. Yeah. So. So these. These retreats that you do. Because I want to get back to that. Yes. You. You. You work with the h. You’re doing the mental, emotional, the organic gardening. Anything else that people should know about. That’s a lot. Is it on its own? That’s a lot. Yeah. We want to also factor in time for just relaxation, like journaling. We’ll do. We do these cool walks through nature and just observe things and write them down and then talk about it afterwards. Could swim in the river.

If people want to hike, we can hike. So there’s also that sort of vacation feeling of taking a break from the world and eating really good food that’s made by our favorite caterer around here that uses a lot of our stuff. I think I’ve covered all of those things. Yeah. So you’ve got the retreat, and then you had started talking about in the kitchen, not only just the food, and you talked about plastic, but even cookware. Yes. Yeah. So the non Toxic kitchen reimagined course that I did is, it was great. I got some fantastic reviews from people who said, oh my gosh.

One naturopathic doctor said, I’m recommending this to all my patients because I don’t have the time and, you know, wherewithal to do all the research that, that, you know, you, Amy, have done. I have done, yeah. And it, I made it easy and fun because I made five short videos that are under 10 minutes each with a little bit of accompanying text with a, an optional exercise to do at the end. But it shifts the way people think about the choices in their kitchen. So you’ll be talking about how do you make a decision about what cookware? Right.

We see these cookware, non stock, non toxic cookwares that are marketed as green pans. But a lot of times they’re not really non toxic. They have some other substances that it’s like a polymer in the coating. And so the whole idea behind this course is not just to give people swaps and information, but to teach you how to use different criteria for making decisions about. Okay, what’s the most important thing that I should tackle first? Like, I used to think microwaves were really unhealthy because back in the, you know, early days when I was researching that’s what the experts were saying, that, oh, it chemically changes the food.

Well, apparently there’s studies now saying that that’s not necessarily true. So is microwaving my food such a bad thing? I’m still not going to get a microwave. I don’t have one either. Yeah, I just don’t like the. They were just an expensive timer for me. Right. But I mean, that kind of a decision versus am I putting hot food in a plastic container? Right. Those are the kinds of things that we need to look at because a lot of women that I talk to are overwhelmed. They don’t know who to trust or what to trust. And they don’t know if the decisions that they’ve made are actually the right ones and if it’s really moving the needle forward, like, are they really protecting their family? And so I think that’s a great course to start with.

And so I can’t remember if I mentioned that I’m doing a contest. Yeah, no, you didn’t mention it before. So your contest ends. Would you say April 18th, Saturday, April 18th, at midnight Eastern. So if people enter my free kitchen assessment. Do the, do the free kitchen assessment, they’re automatically entered into the contest to win that course. So one person will win access to the $197 course. So now let’s say someone. Because this is going to go up today, let’s say someone sees this next week and they miss that deadline, they can still take the course.

They can still reach you. So how do they go about taking this course? So they can just buy the course by itself without doing the kitchen assessment? The kitchen assessment is on my website, and it’s free all the time. The course itself, you know, has a fee. Has the $197 fee. So if somebody says, I really need this, I’m not going to wait and see if I’m the winner. They can purchase it if they want to. Exactly. Yeah. So that’s@greenlivingnow.com. exactly. Okay. Okay. Anything else going on that we didn’t cover or anything that’s important for people to know? Oh, gosh, let me think.

I think we covered a lot. Lisa, is there anything that you can think of? No, I was just wondering. So also, if people are in Vermont and they want to, you know, learn more, learn about organic gardening, organic farms or anything like that, can they just contact you and come visit your farm? Yeah, they can come visit. They can take the tour. I even have two gardening courses on my website. One’s for, like, beginners, and then the more advanced one, I have a ton of video footage that I took of Dave doing all kinds of tasks, like how he makes, you know, the onions grow so big or the tomatoes are so wonderful.

All of his little tips that he’s learned over 35 years, I’ve been able to capture on these little videos. So that’s in the advanced course. There’s a little bit of those videos in the beginner course. But if you want the deep dive to really, you know, start growing more of your own food, which I think these days is a good idea. Yeah, yeah. It always hasn’t been. But, yeah, there’s so much going on with a food system that’s scary. What about fertilizers? Because even, like, people want to go and. And do their own garden. I have a funny story.

My first garden ever, I decided to grow, and my friend said, oh, go pick up this particular organic fertilizer. So she didn’t tell me how much. So I put this gigantic bag. I put the whole thing in. So she said, how much did you put in A cup or two cups? I’m like, no, the whole bag? Oh, no. And she said, one of two things is going to happen. Either all your roots are going to burn or you’re going to have this crazy garden. Giant green. I had a giant green, crazy. I had cucumbers growing down my yard.

I had zucchinis, growing them everywhere. I was, I had a new zucchini every day. Like literally I was like overnight. I was like, what’s happening? But I haven’t had a garden like that since. Wow. Do you remember what fertilizer it was? It was at V’s, I think, or whatever. I don’t remember. Probably a pro grow or something that organic farmers use. Maybe, maybe. I don’t know. Some of the. One of the differences about organic and what kind of fertilizers we use versus the conventional farms is instead of using the petroleum based fertilizers, which are very fast acting.

So that’s like the miracle grow, would you say? Exactly. You do not want miracle grow or anything like that. What you do want though is things like compost, composted manure. But then that gets a little tricky because it depends on what the animals are eating. And then you know, what’s in their poop. Oh, I didn’t even think about that. Yeah, things like seaweed and fish emulsion fertilizers are really good. We use dehydrated chicken manure a lot of the time. And compost, compost has gotten very expensive. If you can make your own, that’s great. It’s a little tricky when you have bears or other creatures because we have lots of nature running through here.

But so those are slower released. And one of the, I mean, one of the things I talk about in my tours is what you want to achieve with an organic garden is you want to grow a healthy soil to grow healthy plants. Right. That’s really the bottom line. So we keep about a third of our fields in cover crops like winter rye or. Gosh. What were some of the other ones he did? Well, I can’t remember now the names of it, but those grow and then they die back when the frost comes, they pop back up in the spring and then he plows it into the soil because it’s building the organic materials because you really want to keep growing that soil.

All those healthy microorganisms that are eating all that stuff, they’re the ones that produce the nutrients too for your plants. And so that’s a really important thing to do. But if you, if you have a small garden, it’s a lot more affordable to, you know, purchase those types of good fertilizers. Yeah, well, that’s awesome. So I encourage people, if you see this before Saturday, you know, enter the contest. If not, if it’s after, then, you know, just, I encourage you to take this course. I. Amy is so knowledgeable, and she’s got an incredible amount of integrity.

I’ve known her for 10 years. She’s one of the first people I met here, and she and her husband opened their arms and their hearts to me. And I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you and what you do for this community. And I want to thank you so much. And please look into taking this course because I think it’s really going to benefit so many people. A. Thank you so much, Lisa. You’re the best. A. Well, thank you. And I can’t wait to hear about all the people taking your program this summer. Thank you.

Yeah. For that. All right. Take care. You, too.
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