Christian Healthy Lifestyle 

Marie Ruggles 0:00
When this spring hit with COVID, I was just so disturbed by the messaging that was going out to the public, there is so much you can do. We are equipped through the plants that God has put into creation, to take care of our bodies, and to strengthen our immune system.

David Sandstrom 0:24
Welcome to the Holistic Health Matters podcast where it's all about maximizing your health potential in body, mind and spirit, so that you can pursue the abundant life more effectively. I'm your host, David Sandstrom, Naturopathic, Doctor and Biblical Health coach. And this is episode number 26. You know, as we head into the cold and flu season, and with COVID-19 cases on the rise again, it's time to start thinking about strengthening our immune. I'm amazed that after all these months, our government's response hasn't changed, they're still telling us that all we can do is avoid contact with the virus, and wait for them to come up with a vaccine. And if you want to hear some more about that topic, I've recorded a two part series on a more productive approach to COVID-19. It's episodes number 12 and 13. If you want to go back and listen to those, it probably be worth your while if you haven't heard them. Today, we're going to be talking about nutrition, and how nutrition plays an important role in strengthening our immune systems or our internal terrain, making us more resilient to any virus we come in contact with including COVID-19. We're talking with Marie Ruggles, and she has a Master's degree in nutrition. And she's got a lot of tips for us as to what we should eat and what we should supplement with in order to strengthen our immune systems heading into the cold and flu season. So let's jump right into the interview. Today we have Marie Ruggles on the show. She is an author, a nutritionist, a certified diabetes educator. She has a Master's degree in nutrition and public health from Columbia University. And her book is called Optimize Your Immune System. Create Health and Resilience with a Kitchen Pharmacy. Maria, welcome to Holistic Health Matters.

Marie Ruggles 2:13
Thank you so much for having me, David.

David Sandstrom 2:16
It's my pleasure. So tell me, Maria, what was your inspiration for writing the book?

Marie Ruggles 2:22
Well, it's actually kind of interesting, because about a year ago, I was just setting out to update a publication that I had been using in workshops that I was teaching for years, I have been teaching people about being protected from the more common viral infections, colds, flus, respiratory infections. I didn't realize that people thought it was normal to get these two or three times a year. And for some people more Yeah. And so that's why I started to teach this several years ago. And so the update to this publication was basically just sitting on my computer as I was procrastinating. And when, you know, this spring hit with COVID, I was just so disturbed by the messaging that was going out to the public, that it really got me going to finish it and bring it to completion so that people could get the information that yes, in fact, there is so much you can do. Fear is not of God. We are empowered through his message. We are equipped through the plants that God has put into creation, to take care of our bodies, and to strengthen our immune system. So that's what got me going. And I needed a push to get it finished.

David Sandstrom 3:58
Yeah. Well, I did the same thing with the podcast. I've been talking about doing a podcast for the past couple of years. And in the spring, I said This is madness, what what our government is telling us to do just really doesn't make any sense. It flies in the face of our whole the way we're made our anatomy physiology is designed to handle stress and handle viruses, bacteria, whatever, potentially infectious agent comes along. But nobody's talking about strengthening our immune. All they're really talking about is avoidance, wear a mask, stay at home. You know, don't gather in large groups. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. But if that's the only thing we're doing, we've got a problem.

Marie Ruggles 4:36
Yes, yes. And I actually I was just listening to your podcast on COVID. The first one where you list the problems people are encountering from staying home. The you know, issues and relationships, mood, and it's profound it is and I just I'm so passionate about about empowering people with the message that you know what health begins when your feet hit the floor in the morning. Am I going to get some fresh air today? What am I eating for breakfast? Am I going to make peace? Yes, yeah.

David Sandstrom 5:14
Yeah. All good stuff. Excellent. So Marie. In your book you have in the author section, you talk about the book being written with divine guidance. What do you mean by that?

Marie Ruggles 5:27
Yes, well, just at the very, very basic level, books are a lot of work. And I certainly could not have brought this to completion, with out divine intervention. And so when I decided to write the book, or to bring my manuscript to completion, I started a journal just for this project. And I discerned what God wanted me to do with it. If he wanted me to continue, because I did consider quitting several times. There's just there's so much information, and I have a compulsive nature to my personality. And it got overwhelming. And so I just stayed in touch with the Holy Spirit and really tapped into that guidance. Ultimately, this book should bless the lives of those who read it. And I just I couldn't have done that without the Holy Spirit guidance.

David Sandstrom 6:34
I felt the same way. In writing my book, there was something about when I sat down to write, I felt inspired. And I felt the time seemed to just drift away. And you know, I thought it may be 45 minutes have gone by and look down at the clock, and four or five hours have gone by. And I really feel like that was the Holy Spirit empowering me.

Marie Ruggles 6:52
Yes, yes. And it really makes a difference between a book of words, and a book of comfort, compassion and inspiration. Yeah.

David Sandstrom 7:05
Yeah. So in your book, you talk about you're an advocate for food as medicine. Does The Bible have anything to say about food as medicine?

Marie Ruggles 7:15
It does. And one of my favorite scriptures is from a Ezekiel 47:12. fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river, their fruit will serve for food, and their leaves for healing. And I just love this, I also do a lot of work with essential oils, and a lot of our oils are actually distilled from leaves. So I just find this amazing that it's just such a powerful message telling us that God knew we were going to get in trouble. And let's face it, we we abuse our bodies. I mean, I live in New York, the air is what it is, you know, it's what I breathe every day. But God has given us tools to help us breathe to, you know, augment our immune function, to help us to be strong to heal. And it's right there in the garden, otherwise known as creation.

David Sandstrom 8:23
Yeah, we can look to nature. And you know, one of the things I say quite frequently on the podcasts and in my book is we maximize our health potential when we align our lives more fully with God's design for spirit, mind and body. And he put plants on this on this earth for our nourishment, but also for add to us as a medicine that he absolutely did.

Marie Ruggles 8:48
Yeah, man, I love that. I just love that messaging. And it just the lines, you know, with what I want people to know, these are tools that are accessible to everyone.

David Sandstrom 9:05
Yes. So what Marie, what is a kitchen pharmacy to you.

Marie Ruggles 9:11
So a kitchen pharmacy is a small grouping of products and literally mine is in my kitchen cabinet. Next to the dinner dishes in between the bowls and the dinner dishes and you could keep it anywhere you want. But if you have a family, you want these things to be handy. And the the whole point of the kitchen pharmacy is timing. If you have been exposed to a sick person, or you're starting to feel under the weather, you want to be able to react immediately. So just like when you're cooking and you have the peppers there, you're not going to go out and buy pepper. you're cooking dinner now. If you've been exposed and there happens to be viral transfer you whether or not you know that's happened, you want to go to that pharmacy, and just be able to grab one or two things, maybe it's a tea, maybe it's a little extra vitamin C or elderberry syrup, you want that to be at the ready. And you want it to be simple things that makes sense to you. I talk about a lot of items, but that gives my listeners an opportunity to choose what makes sense for them. And so you have these things on hand, because this is what I call your home inventory of natural wellness options. So all of my teaching is in the realm of prevention. And so that's something that we should feel very confident doing at home, when someone in my family wakes up with something going on. Generally, I have something to take care of it, because we're saying, well, let's nip this in the bud. So it doesn't go further.

David Sandstrom 11:16
Yeah, I do the same thing. You know, my listeners know this, but your listeners may not know this. I'm an airline pilot. So I go through the airports. And it's not the safest place to be these days, airliner is a pretty safe place to be the air is much cleaner than people believe. But the airport itself is still you know, you're picking up germs. And we're constantly fighting off germs. And if I have a scratchy throat or I feel something coming on, I will take a propolis spray. And I have a nasal spray, and a throat spray.

Marie Ruggles 11:45
Excellent

David Sandstrom 11:45
for that time when you feel that scratchy throat coming on, you take a few sprays of then boom, knocks it out. Yeah, of course, I would advocate that we should be embracing a healthy lifestyle every day of our lives, to strengthen our systems. But this kind of food pharmacy is a is a good thing to have on hand.

Marie Ruggles 12:01
Yep, well, I actually the heart of my teaching is the three phases of immunity. So phase one is what you do every day, to prime your immune system and to create that strong foundation. So that's how you eat what you drink. That is how you sleep, exercise and mood management. So that's what sets you up just to be more resilient from the get go. Phase Two is exposure. That's when you've been in that airport, or someplace where there are a lot of people, especially in this, you know, current and pandemic environment. Or if you're taking care of a sick child at home, or you pick up a sick child from college and you're in the car, while they're coughing for three hours. That's exposure phase two, there's a strong possibility for viral transfer. And that's a time to act and that's really challenging because a virus may be replicating for several days, but we feel absolutely fine. And that was a time. That was really it took me years to embrace that, that I feel fine. But I've been exposed and that virus might be replicating. Yeah. And then phase three is like you said your throat is a little bit scratchy. So I love what you said you take out your propolis spray. And you just say okay, something's going on. I want to get on top of this. Yeah, this isn't gonna take me down because I have some tools and apparently you carry that in your briefcase, right?

David Sandstrom 13:47
Yeah. I have a bag that I carry. I Well, since I I carry a lot of my food. I have a cooler and I take a lot of stuff with me on my trips.

Marie Ruggles 13:56
Okay, so you're a walking kitchen slash food pharmacy.

David Sandstrom 14:00
I get I get laughed at sometimes I get teased because I have so many bags with me. I have my recording equipment for the podcast. I have my cooler. I have myself supplements.

Marie Ruggles 14:09
Oh gosh, I could tell you just quickly a funny airport story. I brought my blender because when I say in hotel rooms I sometimes will blend a quick you know protein smoothie. And just ignorantly I put it on my carry-on bag. And you know you cannot bring a blender on the plane. Yeah, so yeah, naturally I got pulled off the line. But yes, I travel a travel with my tools. Yeah with them.

David Sandstrom 14:39
Yeah. The tools of the trade, right. Yeah.

Marie Ruggles 14:41
Yeah, absolutely.

David Sandstrom 14:43
Oh, good. Another question for you, Marie. We've all spent a lot of time in lockdown this summer. And most of us were not as active as we usually are. Most of the people I know have have gained weight. It's a rare person that hasn't. So you know, we've spent a lot of time on the couch with a bag of chips. On one hand, maybe doing 12 ounce aluminum cane curls and the other. So how do we reboot our immune system after after several months at lockdown.

Marie Ruggles 15:11
Okay, so this is important for everyone to know, the immune system, actually, the cells turnover every 100 days, completely renews itself. So we can start with our next meal, re reinventing our immune system essentially. And everything we eat and drink can either hinder our immune system or strengthen it. So even though the turnover takes 100 days, while you're in that 100 day process, things are happening. So start today.

David Sandstrom 15:55
So you've decided to make some improvements to your health and well being, you're listening to shows like this, we can get information that can help take your health to the next level. The trouble is, getting educated and implementing effective strategies is time consuming, and can be expensive, not to mention, overwhelming. That's why I wrote my book the Christians guide to holistic health. In my book, I've taken 20 years of research and experience as a natural and holistic health coach, and distilled it down to what you need to know, to maximize your health potential in body, mind and spirit. It's my contention that we maximize our health potential by aligning our lives more fully with God's designed for spirit, mind and body. My book, the Christians guide to holistic health will put you on the fast track to the vibrant health and vitality you've been looking for. By the way, many of my recommendations won't cost you a nickel, they're free. Because a lot of my message is simply aligning our lives more fully with the Word of God, that doesn't cost you a thing. So if you'd like to avoid, overwhelm, and get some biblically based holistic health information that you can implement right away, go to my website, David Sandstrom comm, forward slash book, and you can learn more, and pick up a copy today. If that doesn't work, you can go directly to Amazon. It's available there in paperback, Kindle, and audible. Let's get back to the show.

Marie Ruggles 17:22
And I actually just put onto my website, a Whole Foods quickstart guide with tracker. And it's actually just baby steps that people can take at their own pace to just make better choices and crowd out the process foods with Whole Foods. So it's not a deprivation thing. It's just easy action steps. Take one at a time. And eventually, there'll be less room for the processed food. I'm not saying you have to be perfect. I'm not perfect. I've been doing this for 40 years, and there's still room for improvement. But it's just a real easy way to start taking baby steps. So absolutely. If anyone is listening to this, I think you are already in a place where you're saying, Okay, let's see what I can do. You know, already there.

David Sandstrom 18:20
I'm really glad you mentioned that imperfection aspect to it. Because I found a lot of people will say well, I was doing great for a couple of weeks. And then we had the office party. And I had the the cake; I had the cookie; I had the wine, whatever it was, and then they feel like they had this kind of all or nothing mentality. Well I've blown it. So I'm off the wagon. So I'll just go Binge eat for the next week. What would you say to that person?

Marie Ruggles 18:46
Yeah, I would say you know, don't think of yourself as on or off. We're all imperfect. And, you know, I I love sweets, for example. And I've learned and I talk about this in my book, using natural calorie free sugar free sweeteners. But I just loves sweets, and it doesn't mean I'm off the wagon. It means I'm enjoying something. But I can still go ahead and have you know a healthy soup for my next meal. Yep. So don't be so hard on yourself. We're all human life is really difficult. And if you need something really salty and crunchy, go for it, enjoy it and then just move forward.

David Sandstrom 19:39
I totally agree. I think that's great advice. We all need a food vacation once in a while. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. And sometimes some of that food is very good for the soul. You know Yes, yeah. And in there, you know that's an aspect to our health is is you know self care and self love. If we can if we feel completely deprived with our eating program, that's going to create a stress that's not not at all health building.

Marie Ruggles 20:06
Right? deprivation,

David Sandstrom 20:09
and one meal doesn't make or break anybody's program.

Marie Ruggles 20:12
Right? That's great. Yeah.

David Sandstrom 20:14
Yeah. So Marie. What? What are your favorite superfoods?

Marie Ruggles 20:20
Oh, well, I have a long list. But I, I'd like to talk about, you know, just when I'm introducing somebody to items that have more familiarity. So, real simple green tea. It's an anti microbial, which means it's as antiviral compounds. So just have two cups of green tea a day. When your throat gets scratchy, you might want to increase it to four cups, keeping in mind that green tea has caffeine. Seems that most of the studies are done on the regular green tea not the decaffeinated one. Yeah. So you know, you could have the decaffeinated, but probably some of the compounds have been filtered out in that process. Another wonderful. We spoke about the elderberry top of my list, but that also in addition to syrup comes in capsules, and powders. As a matter of fact, one of the things that I do when I'm going to be out of the house, exposed to a lot of people is Gaia herbs makes a product called Immune Shine. And it's elderberry powder mixed with my other favorite immune superfood mushrooms, which they've made into a powder and it just makes kind of a flavorless purple drink. So there's elderberry mushrooms, I recommend cooked twice a week 1000s of studies on the compounds in mushrooms. They did they just literally derail viruses in their tracks. Ginger is a direct antiviral along with garlic. So those are a few of my favorites. Something that's a little bit less familiar to people, but it's super easy to use is nutritional yeast. And it can be used as a spice. As a matter of fact, some vegans think of it as a cheese substitute. But there have been studies showing that just one quarter teaspoon a day can support the immune system actually athletes, after a really intense bout of fitness training are more prone to getting sick. And there were studies done in athletes showing that just a quarter teaspoon a day keeps them healthy after those extreme bouts of training. And you could sprinkle that on vegetables into a soup into a meat loaf, vegetables. It's you know when you think about it, if you're cooking for for people, you're just going to sprinkle on a teaspoon. start slow so people can adapt to the taste. But for the most part, people think it's very tasty, loaded with B vitamins which we need for immune support. But it also has this yeast in it. Now we're not talking about Baker's yeast. This is an inactivated yeast. That is so powerful that I've just noticed that supplement companies are isolating that and just making supplements for immunity just with that yeast extract.

David Sandstrom 23:39
Yeah, that's that's very good stuff. What would you consider to be the most important nutrient for strengthening the immune system?

Marie Ruggles 23:48
Well, there are a few nutrients that are important because they might, for example, prevent viruses from attaching to our cells. But we even when we try to eat very healthy, we just don't get enough of them in our diet. So it starts with vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, selenium, vitamin A, I don't recommend supplementing on but I do recommend green leafy vegetables every day. And that will fill in a lot of nutrient gaps. The vitamin D I like to see blood test at least twice a year. It should be around 60 if you're prone to respiratory infections, I would test that three times a year. And by the way, you don't need to make an appointment with a you know practitioner to get a blood test they can just electronically put in your labs wherever you go for your testing. So I recommend when you call them a go for your yearly appointment, just say hey, just you know, please put in one for you know, four months from now. I'm proactive than my health and keeping And I on this. So it's really the only way to know is to actually look at that. And then there's a research site, I think it's based out of Canada, that actually has a dose calculator. So you can put your blood level in, and it tells you how much vitamin D-3 you should be taking each day to get to the desired range. So that's grass roots. health.com.

David Sandstrom 25:25
All right, very good, good resource. There's a place by me, in the Atlanta area, that's called any lab. And you can just walk in without a prescription in order any lab you want. Of course, that's not insurance, not going to cover it. But, you know, a vitamin D test is not a real expensive test.

Marie Ruggles 25:41
Oh, that's nice.

David Sandstrom 25:42
Yeah, yeah. When I was a practitioner, when I had my practice, people would get tripped up along the way they would, they would find ways to not implement. So what have you found in that as far as that goes,

Marie Ruggles 25:54
Right. So and this is important, and it's something it took me a long time to learn. The first one is that you need to act when you've been exposed, you need to act immediately. And this is so challenging, because you feel fine. But meanwhile, that virus is setting up home in your throat, or, you know, maybe making its way down to your lungs multiplying, you feel great. But this immediate activity upon exposure is actually critical, especially right now, because the COVID is a particularly radical virus. And it could take over, you know, in a matter of hours, so you just want to prevent that mass viral replication. And the other mistake is, I call it saturation, taking vitamin C in the morning, and doing nothing else for the rest of the day, probably isn't going to do very much for you. When you look at the kitchen pharmacy items, I recommend, you want to have one or two of those on board all day long. So that means taking them at least three times a day. So for example, if you're starting to feel under the weather, that's the phase three, I recommend taking 500 milligrams of vitamin C, every two hours. As a matter of fact, animals who still make vitamin C will make 1000s of milligrams throughout the day, until the infection is gone. So I call it saturation. And it's a mindset. Because again, you're you're still in the preventive phase here, you're feeling pretty good, you're busy. But you do need to take time to make sure that your bloodstream has something in it all day long. And especially when you go to bed because that's when our bodies heal. That's going to the boosting immune activity, or having direct antiviral activity like the elderberry, vitamin C, the zinc. Yeah, oh, and one of my favorite foods relating to Selenium is Brazil nuts. You can get all the Brazil, the Selenium you need from one large Brazil nut a day. So that's a great thing to just do every day, I actually have those in my kitchen pharmacy, I have a little bowl, it's full of Brazil nuts, and everyone knows that they just take one every day. So like I take my vitamin C every day, I just move over to that little bowl, and I grab a Brazil nut.

David Sandstrom 28:49
Excellent. I'm assuming that you have these listed in your book,

Marie Ruggles 28:53
I do I have these I have, you know, in my book, optimize your immune system, I actually have a chapter six kind of summarizes everything. In sort of phase one, this is what you do. Phase Two, here are the items. Here are the steps.

David Sandstrom 29:11
Okay, so again, Marie's book is called Optimize Your Immune System Create Health and Resilience with the Kitchen Pharmacy. And where can people get that?

Marie Ruggles 29:21
It's on my website, MarieRuggles.com. It's also on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and probably a few other places. Okay,

David Sandstrom 29:33
very good. And is your website, the best way to get a hold of you?

Marie Ruggles 29:37
Yep, there's a contact form up there. So anyone could feel free to reach out. Okay. And I also just put more detailed blog posts up there on probiotics and vitamin D. So if you missed any of that information, you could grab those two blog posts.

David Sandstrom 29:57
Okay, very good.

Marie Ruggles 29:58
Um, one thing I do want to I mentioned in Dave is that, you know, people often are concerned about the cost of all this. And I do in my writing address immunity on a budget. But I just want to say nothing like a big pot of soup, and it's the perfect platform. To add in the superfoods. You can add mushrooms, oregano, garlic, ginger, all in one pot. If you're vegan, make it a vegetable soup. If you love chicken soup, get your grandma's recipe and just enhance it. Put in a little sprinkle of nutritional yeast. So I want this information to be accessible to everyone because we've seen in COVID, that there are food deserts, people who don't have access, and they've really been the most vulnerable. Yeah, but you can really do so much of this on a budget. And there's no I mean, grandma knew what she was talking about with, you know, the chicken soup. Let's face it, it's just so healing. And you don't even have to make your own chicken stock these days. I used to do that. But I don't have the time now. There's a company called Kettle & Fire. And I have grilled them before I recommend a product I really grill and I test and that's the real deal. They are making a real chicken stock. And

David Sandstrom 31:29
Yeah, I've researched them myself. They're very

Marie Ruggles 31:32
You have

David Sandstrom 31:32
Yes.

Marie Ruggles 31:33
Did you come to the same conclusion?

David Sandstrom 31:35
Yes.

Marie Ruggles 31:35
Yeah, they, it gels when it's called the gels, which means they've really extracted all the goodies from inside the bone. And the bone marrow is where we generate our immune compounds. So if you can start that soup with a little bit of bone broth, all the better. And you don't have to use bone broth for all the liquid, just one eight ounce container along with your other superfoods will make a really, really powerful nourishing and healing soup.

David Sandstrom 32:12
You know, in addition to soup, I would also recommend a slow cooker.

Marie Ruggles 32:15
Oh, okay.

David Sandstrom 32:16
Throw, cook chicken in the slow cooker with some potatoes in there, whatever vegetables, you want onions. And, you know, do that in the morning, come home from work and you've got a dinner or healthy dinner waiting for you. And that's one of the ways preparing food at home like that is one of the ways you can really protect your budget, you know, it's eating out is what really costs us a lot of money. Yes, buying organic and eating healthy does cost more and supplements cost money. But we can fight back by changing our eating habits and not driving by the drive thru on the way home and actually planning our meals and cooking at home. It's really a cost saving measure.

Marie Ruggles 32:52
Yes, and thank you for that reminder, I do have a slow cooker instance on it spends a lot of time in my cabinet. So thank you for that gentle nudge, it is really a super way to get a good meal on the table with less effort. Yeah. And when we talk about the cost, I also want to highlight that there is a long term cost to living on processed foods that you will pay not only in dollars, but in loss of vitality, loss, really in functional ability loss in time, because you'll be spending a lot of time making visits to practitioners. So that is the you know, kind of the the long, this is sort of the gift that keeps on giving when you decide to take care of yourself. Yes. And you know, we all have gifts, and when you take care of yourself, you're so much better equipped to walk in your purpose. And you know, that's really what we're talking about here is being well and sharing what you have to offer to make somebody else's, you know, world a better place.

David Sandstrom 34:10
Yes, absolutely. I've got a couple of things to say to that in in one is some people object to what I what I tell them to do. And my recommendations, I say it's so hard. I don't know if I can do all that. And and I say my recommendations are far easier than going through life with compromised health. Because life just becomes easier and more fun and more joy filled when you have your health. And another thing about the cost is is this and this is a good one. You can pay the farmer now or you can pay the doctor later. It's your choice. And there's a lot of truth there.

Marie Ruggles 34:47
Yes, yes. I like that. Right. We have to take care of our farmers. And anytime you have an opportunity to get locally grown food. Definitely grab that fresh produce and support your local farmers we need them. They are part of the fabric of our wellness.

David Sandstrom 35:07
Yes, Absolutely. And yes, you know, eat healthy food does cost more to produce, but it's it's an investment in yourself. It's an investment in your future.

Marie Ruggles 35:16
Yes, you know, I have been encouraging people to look at these companies I use misfits, it's on my website under products Marie loves, but they're all over the country, these companies that are getting food that would have been thrown out organic food. And it's actually reduced. They're saying by 40%, they deliver it right to your door. So every other week, I get a delivery of reduced cost, sometimes funny looking, organic produce, and it's fine. As a matter of fact, a lot of the stuff I buy in the store isn't so great. Yeah. You know, I'm paying top dollar I, you know, open up an avocado on the inside is brown. Right. So we're not getting perfect food from our grocers. So check out what's available in your area. These. They're growing, it's becoming a very popular trend.

David Sandstrom 36:17
What's it called, again?

Marie Ruggles 36:18
The one I use is misfits market. Okay. And there are, they're actually spreading all over the country, actually. And there are some other ones but misfits is organic.

David Sandstrom 36:35
Alright, Marie? That's about all we have time for today. I thank you for thank you for sharing your wisdom with us. It was a pleasure speaking with you.

Marie Ruggles 36:41
Thank you so much for having me. And my hope is that all of you will move into a place of just absolute wellness. Walk in your purpose and do lots of good because people really need other people right now. We need we need each other. We need to be strong and healthy. To be there.

David Sandstrom 37:02
Yes, I couldn't agree more. Thank you, Marie.

Marie Ruggles 37:05
Thank you, David.

David Sandstrom 37:09
Well, I hope you enjoyed that interview with Maria Ruggles. She's a wealth of information, I'd like to give you a summary of some of the points that she made. She talked about the three phases of immunity. Phase One was when we're feeling well, and we're going about our daily lives, and it's what we do to maintain our excellent health. And she talked about a few key ingredients in phase one, we should focus on what we eat, what we drink, how we sleep, our exercise, or movement, and our mood management. Those are all things to look at during phase one when we're feeling well, and we're building health margin into our lives. Phase two was exposure. When we know we've been exposed to something such as taking care of a sick child or going to the airport and flying on an airliner. So we if we know we're exposed, it's time to ramp up our efforts a little bit, we may want to take some supplements and start focusing on some superfoods, which I'll get to in a moment. And then phase three is when we're symptomatic. And when we're symptomatic, we have much less wiggle room, much less margin of error, if you will. And she talked about taking a food vacation once in a while and enjoying a cheat. And I agree with that, but only when you're feeling well. If you're already experiencing symptoms, that's not the time to take a food vacation, you have much less margin at that moment. The superfoods that she likes, she likes green tea. She likes a product from Gaia Herbs called Immune Shine. I'll put links to all these things in the show notes for this episode. She likes medicinal mushrooms. She likes ginger and garlic for boosting immune. And she also likes nutritional yeast and green leafy vegetables. And she suggested making a soup is an easy way to incorporate some of those superfoods into your daily regimen. The supplement she likes is vitamin D. And she wisely recommended that you consult with your physician because you can get vitamin D levels too high. Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin and your body doesn't eliminate it very well. So you do need to watch your levels. And you need to get tested probably a couple times a year and do that with a with a doctor. Generally speaking, most people would be well served by supplementing with vitamin D, because I found that probably 70 to 80% of the population is deficient in vitamin D. And that includes during the summertime, she likes Selenium. And she recommended a website called grassrootshealth.com and again, I'll put that in the show notes as well. And that website helps you to determine the levels of blood levels of those nutrients that you need for a strong robust immune system. And I mentioned a lab called any lab that will do vitamin D testing and other any other test that you want as well. She also mentioned a food supplier called Miss fits market. And again, I'll put all this in the show notes. And she also suggested staggering of supplements throughout the day, so that we experience more of a steady supply of those nutrients throughout the day and night. She also recommended eating one large Brazil, nut a day, it's a good way to get your usda of selenium from one large Brazil nut. And she lists all these supplements and superfoods in her book and chapter six. So please do go to my website, DavidSandstrom.com. This is episode number 26. If you want to check out the links to any of those things that we mentioned, and I always post a full transcript of every episode there, you can read it online or download it for free, put it on your device, take it with you and read it later or share it with somebody if you wish. And for this episode, I'm going to put a content upgrade on the show notes page. It's going to be a free link to get a free copy of my ebook, Top 10 Tips for Healthy Eating. If you enjoyed this episode, I'll bet you'll enjoy that ebook that I wrote as well. And speaking of sharing, if you're enjoying the podcast, share it with your friends. You could send them a link to the show notes page or you could share it on social media. I'll bet they'll thank you for it. Well that's it for now. I appreciate you giving me some of your valuable time this week. I enjoyed serving you and I'll talk with you next week. Till then be blessed.