Transcription
You’re right, and it’s like that sometimes. It gets people overwhelmed. So, okay, I guess everything is going to kill me. All right, let me just live my life. So you’re saying even this healthy thing that I’m getting from Whole Foods or whatever is going to kill me? All right, I’m overwhelmed with everything that’s going to kill me. I’m just going to live my life. But obviously, what you’re saying is the common-sense approach. It’s the nuanced approach, which is to do your best, think about these categories that you covered and that you talk about on social media, find the one that maybe you have the most exposure to, or start with your water and your air, and do the basics. You know, don’t drink from the fire hose. I like that advice, but sometimes, as simple as it is, as common sense as it is, people need to hear it again because there are a lot of well-meaning people that are trying to hack the algorithm that is giving people anxiety that everything is going to kill them. I’ve definitely seen posts like that, and the content that gives you this immediate sense of angst, anxiety, fear, and stress, more often than not, I brush to the side. Yes, there’s a legitimate concern with natural flavors being overused; I totally agree with that. But do I think that because there’s one less optimal ingredient on an ingredient list, I’m going to just not buy anything, not eat anything, and just live under a rock? Absolutely not. It just doesn’t make sense anymore. When I look at food labels, I think, why is there natural flavor in here? Does there need to be natural flavor in here? For example, like you said, you have a supplement. The supplement is more benefit than risk; that’s the idea, isn’t it? So if you have a natural flavor in a supplement, you’re adding that as part of an overall healthy lifestyle. So maybe that flavor isn’t really going to be a big issue, as opposed to, I saw in the store almond milk that just has flavor but is unflavored almond milk. I thought, what is this for? I know exactly what it’s for; they’re masking the off chemical taste of whatever they’re putting in this almond milk. That was absurd to me that it was an unflavored almond milk but it had flavor in the label.
So just to understand, you think that they’re adding flavor in an unflavored product to cover up like emulsifiers or kaolin or something like that? Yes, I know it happens, and yeah, masking flavors, masking scent, masking odor—it happens all the time. But you just have to check the label, and if it’s something that’s in there that just strikes you as, “Why is that in there?” then maybe try to look for a different option.
As a mom, you have one child? I’ve got two kids. Two kids? So as a mom of two, do you want me to ask how old they are? They are four and six years old—girls. So four and six years old—amazing! What are some of the things that are most important for you for them at their age right now? Obviously, they live in your home, so they’re getting the better quality water, they’re breathing the better quality air, etc. But just as they’re sort of living life and are in school and other stuff, what are some key priorities for you for minimizing their toxic exposure?
The first thing is letting go and releasing what’s happening at school. I cannot control what they are exposed to at school besides their water and their school lunch. Those are the things that I can influence. I cannot control if their teacher is using a scented plug-in or if they’re using some questionable chemicals to clean the classroom facilities. I can’t necessarily control that. I can encourage and perhaps suggest better options, which I have done, just providing the teacher with a gift basket. Here’s some low-tox hand soap that the kids can use when they use the restroom, or here are some wipes that you can use for the kids, you know, that aren’t scented and fragrance-free and all that kind of stuff. So I do provide that for the teachers as much as I can, but there’s only so much that we can do. So I release what’s happening at school for the most part and just really focus on what we’re doing at home because that’s where you have the most control out of anything in your life is in your own home. Naturally, your two girls being in your orbit, I’m sure they’re around school saying, “Uh, I don’t know if we should be using this thing.” They might be. I mean, they come with me; they see me scrutinizing products, reading ingredient lists, and I make it a habit to tell them, “Hey, between these two,” or, you know, quiz them, “What do you think is the better option?” They know to avoid the brightly colored toothpaste with the glitter in it, with all the animals on it and the characters. So they’re pretty keen already on what the red flags are.
Really just a high-level overview on how to navigate what’s happening in store aisles—that’s fantastic. And ultimately, at the end of the day, whether it’s for young children you have or for adults, that goes back to the core message, which is it’s just about education—getting that education and having that awareness. I want to come back to your story. Did your health improve as it sort of went downhill a little bit at the flavoring house that you were at? Were you able to recover from that, or were there any sort of lasting impacts?
I, for the most part, have been able to recover from that, from what I can perceive fully. I don’t have the same issues that I had whatsoever. I had brain fog, fatigue, energy issues, sleep issues, skin problems, and adult acne all over my face. It was horrible. Once I started working with a functional doctor, we started pinpointing what some deficiencies I have, which helped significantly. But the last piece of the puzzle was really me detoxifying my home, and that’s when I saw the next jump in improvement in my health—was getting rid of, like you mentioned, the candles, the plug-ins. I was the person that loved working in the flavor and fragrance company because I got free fragrances; it was the best! You know, I loved it. But then, you know, untangling myself from that stronghold that it had on me was a really, really, really big way to improve my health, which I still to this day don’t use fragrances, and I minimize scent. I don’t necessarily avoid every single scent; I don’t see any issue with essential oil-based products like candles. Like you mentioned, beeswax candles—I really dove into the scientific literature to look at the types of waxes that produced the least amount of pollutants into the air, and thankfully, it was beeswax that came out on top.
Huge! Dr. Burkart, as we’re winding down here, thank you so much, first of all, for making the journey up here. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been a huge fan of your work, and when I saw you were on my buddy Sean’s podcast, and he had mentioned you to me, I thought, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t actually even know where you lived.” The fact that you were here in Southern California, I thought, “Wow, this is incredible! I’d love the opportunity to chat with her.” So, number one, thank you for doing what you’re doing. Thank you for putting your content out there because I could imagine, in addition to all the people that you’re helping, there are probably also, every so often, people that are experts in the industry who try to come after you and say that you’re fearmongering and try to discourage you. Whether that’s what they truly believe or whether they’re nefarious, you know, there are big companies. Pharma has been known to hire; GMO companies have been known to hire PR houses and have people that look like they’re everyday normal people to leave crazy comments on people’s pages. So I appreciate you stepping into your hero’s journey and saying, “Look, even if people are going to push back, the world needs this information. My daughters need this information. My daughters’ future kids need this information.” So I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge you for going down this journey and for putting yourself out there publicly for the world’s benefit.
Oh, thank you so much for mentioning that because being trained classically as a toxicologist, my colleagues and I butt heads. My friends from grad school don’t understand why I’m speaking about the things that I’m speaking about. There is a huge pushback from the toxicological community because we’re trained to think in a certain way—that the dose makes the poison, that these small exposures don’t matter. But there are trailblazers; there are people out there who are doing the work to get this evidence. So yes, while there is a significant amount of pushback, I come with the receipts. I come with the evidence. So you can argue about the data; let’s look at the numbers, let’s look at what’s being published, what’s being studied. Even though there’s very little, it’s still enough to make meaningful conclusions about what’s happening in consumer products, what’s happening with our daily lives, and how we can make better choices that will benefit not only us but future generations, like you said.
Powerful! Before we leave people with a few resources, which we’ll get to in a second, is there anything else that you wanted to get a chance to talk about that we didn’t cover?
I think we pretty much covered it. I mean, you asked some really, really excellent, very detailed questions, so I think that’s a really good place to leave people with and just let people think on it and give people action items on things that they can do right now to reduce their toxic load.
Beautiful! Okay, resources—we have your Instagram, which, if you can share on social media, how people can find you?
Yes, I’m Dr. Ivon Burkart, and I’m also on YouTube. You can watch some of my longer-form videos there, where we get really deep on one subject at a time. So I did a really in-depth diaper investigation; I’m now doing one about baby wipes. I’m really trying to help especially parents navigate the aisles because, with our children, more often than not, when we start taking action is when we find out, “Hey, we might be pregnant; we might want to get pregnant,” so let’s start purging our home of all of these toxic products. So that’s a great place for people to get help with that.
And a little spoiler alert on the diaper investigation—there were, I think, 40 companies that you looked at?
Thirty.
And out of them, only like four of them?
Three.
Just chat about that.
So 10%. So 90% of diaper companies that were marketing themselves as non-toxic, claiming to be free of X, Y, and Z chemicals, either didn’t respond to my inquiries or could not furnish some sort of proof or evidence or test reports of these claims.
Wow! So 90% of non-toxic diaper brands are making unsubstantiated claims.
Crazy! You mentioned a couple of certifications that are out there, and obviously, the Swell Score is a group that you’re involved with. You’re the head screening expert there. Are there any that you feel that you would trust—these certification groups that are there, these databases that you have experienced in the past?
Yes, I actually would go to the Clean Label Project—CleanLabelProject.org. It’s a nonprofit organization that actually has several different levels of certifications, and their Purity Award being the highest. So especially for parents, what they do is they will test categories of products and publish the reports for you to see. A company that gets certified means that they have met certain criteria. The Purity Award is the highest that you can achieve, and so thankfully, they are focusing a lot on baby foods at the moment, which is huge because, as you know, there were high levels of heavy metals in baby food that came out recently. So there’s actually a new bill that was just signed recently that requires baby food manufacturers to test and publish their heavy metal reports for their foods in California. Yeah, that won’t go into effect, and you won’t see that until 2025. So the Clean Label Project is a great place for parents who are looking for cleaner baby foods. Again, these are processed foods, so still not fresh unprocessed foods, but let’s say if you choose to want to give your child some food like this, the Clean Label Project is a great place to start.
Beautiful! Amazing! We’ll link to that in the show notes, as well as some of the other resources that we shared. Dr. Burkart, thank you so much again for being on the podcast, and thank you for your incredible work that you’re doing to make the world a less toxic place.
Thank you so much, D. It’s been a pleasure.
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