Guest Episode
January 31, 2022
Episode 41:
Supplementation, Mental Health & Medicine with Ken Peters
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Ken Peters is a natural health author, researcher, and nutrition expert. Ken has been working with Lifestyle Markets in Victoria for 23 years, and has significant experience with all things nutrition.
Today we are going to discuss Ken’s experience with EMPower Plus, and discuss the natural health industry.
All right.
Good morning,
Ken.
Good morning,
sir.
Welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for being with me today.
How are you?
Very good.
Just waking up,
but I'll do my best.
Awesome.
Well,
I'm sure we'll get through it together.
Why don't you just kick off?
Tell us a little bit about your backstory in the
natural health world.
All right.
I started off as a macrobiotic.
So my father was a bit of a health food nut,
you know,
the kelp and lecithin kind of thing.
But my father had epilepsy when I was a child and
ceased to have epilepsy until maybe 75 when he
showed a hint of it.
And I think that was absolutely due to his being
a health food nut,
because in those days,
there wasn't a lot of options.
And,
you know,
defeating epilepsy is a pretty big thing.
Certainly.
So he kind of skewed me a little that way.
And then I was out in Toronto,
and I ran across some East-West journals and was
fascinated with macrobiotics and went to Boston for
a little bit.
And studied that.
And I still am a pseudo-macrobiotic.
I mean,
the macrobiotic principles are fairly basic: you eat
what grows locally,
what's in season,
about 10% animal protein,
because you have 10% canines,
and a lot of plant-based foods and grains.
I'm now quite a believer in the blood type diet.
And it turns out a lot of Japanese,
the vast majority,
are Type A or AB,
and that diet's very suitable to them.
Whereas the West Coast diet is very suitable for
them.
Justin Price people,
for example,
he studied all the indigenous peoples who tend to
be Type O blood.
And so,
you know,
animal-based protein is more suitable for Type O
blood.
Nonetheless,
I went from macrobiotics to eventually ending up in
a health food store.
Starting off as a bulk guy and working my way
through grocery,
and then eventually a store in town needed a
sports guy.
A sports guy?
Yeah.
I'm not a sports guy.
But I knew neurotransmitters,
and I knew amino acids,
and not too many people back then,
30-some years ago,
did.
So that got me into that department.
And then from that,
it was vitamins and learning in the field.
And a fellow named John Fitzpatrick from NutriStart
was just starting his business here with these
vitamin pods.
And he used to come in and pick my brains.
And I'd say,
well,
you know,
the beta carotene's synthetic.
Synthetic beta carotene's not that great.
Perhaps you could go for a natural beta carotene.
Eventually,
he hired me part-time to help him design product
and write product material,
and eventually newsletters.
Blogs.
At the same time,
I was working in health food stores.
And about 23 years ago,
I went to Lifestyle Markets,
which was the biggest store I'd been in.
And I've stayed there that long.
Have you been?
So this is Lifestyles on the island in Victoria.
Yeah.
They've got three locations,
I believe,
still,
right?
Right,
right.
One is Sydney,
Douglas,
and Cook Street.
Yeah.
And you've been working for 23 years between the
three,
or just at Douglas?
I was at Cook Street for a couple years,
part-time.
But mostly the Douglas Street store.
And 23 years is a long time.
Yeah.
And it's gone by very fast.
But I wouldn't stay in a job that long if I
couldn't enjoy it,
if I didn't feel personal and political freedom in
the sense that we don't upsell people.
If anything,
we downsell people.
We get to spend the time with them to help them
find out what the solutions are,
the best approaches to their problems.
And management's so easy that it's really a fun
job and educational and always emotionally
responsible.
It's very rewarding.
That's the thing.
You're helping people.
It's very emotionally rewarding.
That's great.
And so,
through that 23 years,
you've done different jobs within lifestyle?
No.
I started straight up at the vitamin department.
Okay.
Except at Cook Street,
you end up being a bit of everything because it's
a small store.
That's right.
Yeah.
Amazing.
So,
23 years working for Lifestyle Markets.
And obviously,
it must have been a very...
To stay for 23 years must have been an amazing
experience,
and still is.
Well,
yeah.
It's because you watch young people come and go
and come back with children or grow off into other
fields and,
you know,
I'm constant and they're all usually changing.
There's a handful of us who are constant there,
but it...
So,
you always have interesting people to work with,
people who are there because they want to help
people,
right?
So,
it's a very heartwarming environment,
ultimately.
Everybody's kind of there for the best of humanity,
best they can do.
Well,
I think there's a really interesting chain of
individuals when it comes to getting products.
You know?
We've got the consumer,
kind of the far end,
and then we've got manufacturers,
and there are many people in between,
whether those are reps or,
you know,
other people working for these different
organizations,
these different brands,
different supplement companies.
But in my opinion,
the most important people are the people who are
on the floor in these retail stores,
day to day,
having conversations with existing customers,
brand new people to the whole supplement natural
health industry or the game.
And that's really interesting.
That's really interesting,
because you must see patterns within the individuals
coming to talk to you about what they're
experiencing and what they can do about it in a
natural sense.
Oh,
absolutely.
I think over the decades,
that's part of my abilities,
is built from the feedback from these people,
because they come back to you,
and then you have regulars,
and they come back to you for five,
10 years,
and they tell you,
well,
this was really helpful,
this made a difference.
And,
of course,
you register that,
and it goes on to the next person.
So,
yeah.
In the field,
it's never gotten boring.
Okay.
Yeah.
Have you seen the change?
Have you seen the,
not necessarily the industry change,
because obviously there are going to be evolutions
within the industry itself,
but have you seen the clientele change?
Do you have a lot of,
I mean,
you have new existing people who come in,
they speak to you,
and then whenever they have another issue,
whether it's for themselves or maybe somebody else,
they'll come and talk to you about it to get some
advice.
But have you seen any changes?
Any trends or changes over the last,
like,
20 years?
Well,
I'd say the demographics widened from the health
food nut to the average citizen,
who's a little floundering when they walk into a
store like that and overwhelmed.
Yeah,
definitely.
So,
it's broadened.
It's definitely broadened,
and that's because every,
you know,
Walmart sells vitamins and London Drug sells
vitamins,
and so people are more aware of it,
but eventually they need some kind of tailored
advice,
or they give up on their doctor.
That happens a lot.
Like,
they've been to countless doctors,
and their symptoms are ignored or told that they're
not real.
Doctors are not renowned for listening to people,
and it becomes like a medical mystery in a sense.
You know,
somebody comes in and,
well,
one thing I see a lot of is low ferritin.
It's like a plague of low ferritin,
your iron storage.
So recently,
I discovered that that in part was due to vitamin
A deficiency,
which I found out at a PubMed study.
And so I've been doing that.
I wrote a newsletter about that,
but you know,
vitamin A is found in liver,
which no one eats anymore,
so everyone's A deficient,
so I'm a big A proponent.
But this lady comes in,
and she's got low ferritin and low blood iron.
I always ask them,
what's your white blood cell count,
or do you have any infection present?
Because the body withholds iron,
excuse me,
if one has an infection.
Well,
she had high white blood cell count.
I mean,
she had a test.
Her doctor saw the test.
It said high white blood cell count.
Still sent her off to get more iron.
Well,
iron feeds that infection.
And for example,
you have a root canal,
the nerves are gone.
You don't feel the pain signal for the infection,
but the body's withholding the iron to protect you.
Interesting.
Yeah.
So you kind of hunt these things down through Q
and A.
That's really cool.
So there's a bit of an investigative process going
along with being on the floor and having
conversations with people.
Yeah,
very often.
And that keeps it kind of interesting too.
And then you have coworkers who,
you know,
are more adept.
They're more adept at herbalism or Chinese medicine
or homeopathy.
And then you can draw upon their knowledge as
well.
So there's like a little bit of like a referral
within the lifestyle team.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
People pass them off to each other based on their
strong points.
That's amazing.
I think that's really,
really important.
Yeah.
A good team is a good thing to have.
And usually what we do is we have somebody with
some Chinese medicine knowledge.
We've just gotten some homeopaths on now.
One of the other stores had a homeopath for a
while and herbalists,
fairly general,
but yeah,
that way everybody kind of rounds each other off
and you can cover all the bases because each
thing's got its value.
Yeah,
certainly.
And is it important for lifestyles to,
especially in the supplement section,
to have some,
to hire somebody who's got that maybe prior
experience?
Well,
yes,
but of course the education is,
I mean,
there's no legal system.
There's no status for this sort of thing outside
of a dietician.
So people take courses and they mostly do it
because those are the people who learn.
That's how I learned it.
I was interested.
I was learning it long before I got the job
because I was interested in it.
And so once they've got a base of knowledge,
they pick it up pretty quick.
You get,
you get lectures from the different companies,
right?
You know,
True Hope will come in and they'll,
they'll do a seminar or they'll do an education on
the floor.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And over a few years you get that from a variety
of companies,
you really,
you pick up your information base pretty fast.
Interesting.
I'd love to go back to what you were talking
about with those individuals that have kind of
experienced the conventional system for maybe decades
and then they decide that that's not quite for
them.
And then they step into a health food store to
look for something more natural.
Is that really common with maybe an older
demographic of people?
Or do you see that with younger individuals as
well?
I would say older,
um,
younger people will tend to already skew this
direction or not.
Um,
right now the divide is such that,
excuse me,
yeah,
no problem.
People have already kind of chosen their side.
Okay.
Where they'll go first.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
You're either pro-medicine or you're pro-natural
alternative.
Yeah.
I had a young lady who was in a couple of weeks
ago with a vaccine damage or a doctor just
wouldn't believe her.
Okay.
And he kept giving her different drugs and it
wasn't helping.
So,
you know,
we had to take a more natural approach to
elevating glutathione because that's your bottom line
for clearing out most toxins and you know,
rebuilding up her system,
detoxifying,
and things like that.
And she was pretty grateful to have somebody here
just actually just to be listened.
I think it's really important not to have your,
your own internal sensations.
Be like washed away by an opinion of somebody else
who isn't you,
who's not feeling those things and to not feel
validated or listened to is a really like that's a
crushing blow to anybody.
Yeah,
absolutely.
There's a natural doctor up in Nanaimo called Dr
Klein and a friend of mine edited his book and he
said that when Dr Klein sees a patient,
he just talks to them for a couple hours and lets
them talk and they usually break down crying
because nobody's ever actually listened to their
story.
Doctors will dismiss your symptoms or check it off
on a list and you got your 10 minutes with them.
He doesn't know your story.
Illness is too a good portion psychosomatic.
There's often emotional components to it.
That's why you like to have herbs and homeopathy
stacked on top of vitamins and minerals because
it's sort of like three layers of being and you
want to address them all.
Yeah,
that's,
that's so true.
And you know,
to try and figure out somebody's whole experience
in 50 years.
15 minutes is just,
you know,
kind of impossible.
Yeah.
Um,
when I started practicing nutrition,
my,
um,
initial consultation is 90 minutes and I would have
so many people come in and they're so used to a
10,
15 minute chat with their doctor or dietician,
but to sit with me for 19 minutes and have a
conversation and you know,
as a practitioner,
you're asking,
you know,
hopefully you're asking good questions and you're
getting a lot of,
lot of feedback.
You know,
you're trying to do maybe 20% of the talking.
And a lot of clients,
patients,
whatever you want to call them,
we'll figure out what their issue is just by being
able to have a sounding board and to,
um,
verbalize their own thoughts and connecting them
with feelings and I'm kind of maybe guiding them
in a,
in a specific direction,
you know,
like why is maybe,
why is your digestion acting like this?
Is it because you're consuming three meals a day
in your car while you're driving,
you know?
How do you connect these things together once
you're able to have that conversation?
And that's really,
really powerful and it's just something that
conventional model,
unfortunately with the limited resources that they
have cannot really ever,
unless you've got a,
um,
an alternative practitioner who kind of stepped away
from that conventional model and is able to create
a practice that you can create this much homey
environment,
which is hard for them to do really hard.
Yeah.
Because pretty much they,
they lose their license if they step outside the
standard,
uh,
medical association recommendations.
Which should be a red flag in regards to,
you know,
we want to be helping people.
We want to be getting people off harsh medications
and making people feel better and living longer and
not being reliant on alternative means,
medications,
surgeries,
et cetera.
We want to be getting people to feel great because
it's not that difficult to do it.
No.
Really.
Um,
but harsh medications are going to most likely
maybe temporarily bandaid the real issues,
but never really get to that root cause.
No,
not at all.
And that keeps them coming back for the,
for the drug.
Right.
I mean,
I,
I think it's pretty much now the pharmaceutical
companies have taken over the medical industry and
the medical industry is in my opinion,
become the new religion.
Yeah.
And I think that you,
you can look at where that money goes and it,
and it goes as far as to the educational
institutions as well.
So these practitioners,
when they even begin their studying,
a lot of what they're studying is very much
dictated by the,
you know,
the,
the financing that comes into those education
education,
educational institutions.
And that's,
that's really important to understand.
Yeah.
Um,
we could do a five hour podcast on that.
No problem.
No problem.
But,
um,
so yeah,
23 years at lifestyle markets,
obviously a lot of experience with working with
people face to face and building those relationships
with individuals.
So they keep coming back.
I think that's amazing.
Can you tell us a little bit more about your work
with NutraStar?
Well,
um,
it's a small company,
uh,
a handful of products,
um,
but amazing feedback,
like especially the adrenal starts,
uh,
amazing feedback product.
People tell me it's been life-changing.
Because so many people.
People's adrenal glands are shot through a lifetime
of stress and stimulants,
and you know,
and they have some joint products and a variety of
uh liposomal products.
So right now liposomals are huge um with COVID
fighting liposomal C is as good as intravenous C,
and liposomal glutathione is as good as intravenous
glutathione.
And so those are pretty powerful things.
Um but most of the time I write newsletters and
blogs for them because to get a product out in
Canada it's going to take six months to get a
license even if you have one ingredient.
So you don't know what the market's going to do
in the six months between you coming up with a
good idea and other people beating you to the
punch which you can't know.
And so they really cripple the business by setting
it up that way.
And these things,
it's very difficult to get the license,
right?
You have to prove that the thing has got clinical
studies and that human safety studies and many of
these things have already got a license.
But you have to go back to the beginning and
reapply as an individual; they will never draw upon
the preexisting database that they have.
So they're deliberately making it hard for us.
So we don't launch a lot of new products as a
result of that.
Uh,
but I do a lot of writing and they allow me to
stretch into a wide range of topics without having
to be too narrowly focused on new-to-start products.
And like I said,
told you earlier,
we have about 40 pages on treating COVID naturally,
both prevention and,
and treatment.
And it's all linked to PubMed,
to scientific studies,
like the idea that,
um,
there's no science behind vitamins and nutrients.
People will come in those aforementioned older
demographic that have given up on the medical
system and they'll say,
well,
my doctor tells me there's no science,
this is just all hooey.
We'll go to PubMed,
look up any vitamin,
any mineral,
you'll find 50 years of data on this.
Yeah.
It's all well researched.
I believe when Health Canada started to license us.
Yeah.
That they thought they were going to shut us down
by holding us to these standards of clinical proof.
Okay.
But every single product you see on a shelf in
Canada has got a license that had to go through a
process of proving clinical effectiveness and human
safety.
Significant process.
Yes.
Expensive process.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Amazing.
That's,
that's great.
And it's awesome that you're able to,
that Nutri,
NutriStart gives you the,
the space and the,
the time to create those types of blogs and
protocols.
That's really cool.
Yeah.
Education,
education.
That's the primary thing here.
That's important.
And that COVID protocol that you're talking about,
is that available like free on the website?
Yeah.
Under education,
it's under the newsletters.
Okay.
Awesome.
Yeah.
It's called the COVID files and that COVID files
collects all the newsletters below.
And then there's some new ones that are above.
Amazing.
Well,
I'll make sure that that's linked so people can
get access to that because I think that's very,
very interesting.
When did you first hear about True Hope?
It's kind of funny.
Yeah.
Well,
I remember hearing how they got driven out of
Canada by,
by the government for making claims,
I guess.
And so they had to operate from the United States
for a while,
but I didn't know much about the company at that
point.
And then eventually they were back in Canada and
they were legally licensed and they showed up in
our store.
And I didn't really think much of the product.
It was mostly EMP.
I think that was the first product.
That's the primary.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And,
uh,
when you look at the label,
it's not really that impressive.
And one day a young man comes in and he says,
Oh,
what do you,
what do you think about this?
And I tell him,
I'll,
you know,
when you look at the label,
it's kind of an overpriced multivitamin.
It's not even that impressive.
And it turns out he's Steven,
is it the son of the owner?
David.
David.
Okay.
He was,
yeah,
he was in town for a seminar or a conference.
And so he was just testing me out.
So he went on to explain to me how they process
the minerals and how it's primarily effective.
I patented or a proprietary mineral processing
approach.
And so that made more sense to me because minerals
are critical to so many functions in the body and
brain functions.
And eventually he,
uh,
I,
um,
started to get the feedback.
People come in and ask for it specifically.
People come in and tell me how I kept them off
pharmaceutical antidepressants.
And so the feedback started to build up where I
realized this,
this thing was a lifesaver.
So generally anytime I have somebody,
ranging from autism to schizophrenia and it kind of
bipolar,
heavy depression,
anxiety stuff.
I always start them off with that as their base,
and,
um,
I'm very happy to recommend it to people.
I've definitely had people come off pharmaceuticals
as well as prevent themselves from going on
pharmaceuticals.
And that's amazing.
It is amazing.
There's very few products that can make that kind
of claim.
Amazing.
Yeah.
That's wonderful.
And is there a typical type of individual who you
would recommend?
Empower?
Plus,
for example,
you mentioned those like quite significant
psychological disorders,
not about stuffing for just like,
like maybe a mild anxiety or like mild depression
or stress.
I tend not to go there for that.
I,
I tend to think of it as a heavy gun.
Okay.
Yeah.
Uh,
primarily,
uh,
the others for a person relatively good health,
I think they absorb other multivites just fine if
they're processed correctly; it is a little more
expensive product.
So,
yeah,
I tend to use it for people that are sort of an
intense emotional distress.
I don't even like to use the term mental illness
because I think it's a flawed paradigm; sure,
but for lack of a better terminology,
yeah,
anything along those lines,
okay!
And we were just talking before we started
recording this about your passion for iodine,
yes?
So why don't you tell us a little bit about that
and um,
you know,
do you recommend the nascent iodine that we have,
that we have,
for True Hope?
I recommend either nascent or uh Lugal solution,
okay.
Lugal solution has the advantage of being better if
you're trying to eliminate bromides from the body,
uh halogens,
okay!
So flame retardants and uh fluoride and chloride
because it has the iodide in it; nascent is easier
to uptake into the thyroid so I think of it as
ionic.
In the sense that Lugol's is a crude formulation
that requires process and celery nutrients in order
to to use it,
like requires selenium and possibly other trace
minerals.
Nascent just enters the cell easily,
yeah,
just gets it,
yeah.
And so for people in a more delicate constitution
or people more concerned with direct thyroid
treatment,
I'll go with the nascent because it's so powerful.
Um,
I do tend to recommend three to four drops a day,
okay?
I think it's 0.4 milligrams per drop,
I think you're right,
yeah.
And I like to get rid of that and I think it's
a good idea,
I think it's a good idea,
I think it's a good idea to get people up into
Japanese territory,
which I believe is two to three milligrams of
iodine,
it's really high,
yeah,
yeah,
by Western standards it's huge,
yeah.
But as Dr.
Dairy from here pointed out,
the breast cancer rates are extremely low as a
result of that,
and you know there are lean people.
Uh,
Dr.
Dairy used to use iodine,
I think it was Lugol's,
and he would treat his obese patients and thyroid
patients with iodine and he made the mistake of
going in the newspaper,
and within six months his his license was gone,
even though there were probably hundreds of
testimonials of individuals who were who who would
uh,
but they weren't allowed to testify.
At his judgment,
of course,
that they had one complaint and then they just
used that,
that was shut him down because you know they want
you on synthroid for life; they don't want your
thyroid gland being healthy at an early age.
Yeah,
but because of iodine deficiency,
everybody ends up on synthroid by the time they
get older,
because they've not been feeding their thyroid and
then every cell of the body is going to be on
synthroid,
and then every cell of the body requires iodine.
So people,
what they put in salt in the old days was only
potassium iodide that just just helps the thyroid
but it doesn't help the rest of the body,
right?
So that.
was not sufficient iodine for for health and part
of my protocol for most people is a rebuilding of
the mucosal lining in the body which requires three
elements iodine being one of the critical ones i've
had two guys avoid surgery for post-nasal drip
with just adding iodine i've had two guys avoid
surgery for post-nasal drip with just adding iodine
to the regimen but the three are vitamin a vitamin
d and iodine okay yeah and together those with a
couple ancillaries they rebuild your entire tube the
sinuses the lungs intestinal tract the bladder all
the way from top to bottom amazing yeah and so i
give that protocol to
Probably 80% of people with serious ailments
because,
usually,
they need internal rebuilding.
It's your filtration system,
right?
It's what keeps stuff out,
keeps those little hairs that keep everything moving
out and trapped stuff so it doesn't get through.
Prevents leaky gut,
which then prevents autoimmune conditions.
So,
yeah,
iodine to me is one of the top probably five most
important things a person should take.
Yeah,
it's a really really powerful product.
Yeah,
I've personally used it and it's done some pretty
wonderful things.
And then topically too,
oh certainly!
Yeah,
I mean,
I'm sure there's a there's some seriously old
traditions in regards to using it topically for
many different things,
yeah,
in large amounts for like cysts on boils but even
ovarian cysts and breast cysts; if for cancerous
states they used to,
in the old days,
just put it directly on the skin.
But I will point out the only way you can
overdose on iodine is topically.
Okay,
so when you take it orally,
there's processes in the body that forbid that from
happening.
So all cases of iodine overdose have occurred
generally post-surgical when they used to paint the
whole chest with it to prevent infection.
Small amounts,
judiciously used,
occasionally,
I mean it's great for abscesses.
And bug bites and cuts and all sorts of things
like that,
but you don't want to go crazy on it without some
research,
so taking it orally,
there's some deliberate processes in the body,
primarily in the digestive system,
that wouldn't allow that.
Yes,
yeah,
because you can use high amounts for cleansing
purposes,
yeah,
even if nascent doesn't remove the halogens,
it will remove it will kill yeast and bacteria and
so you can use as a cleansing program for for
that sort of thing and prevent colds and flu's by
pounding it when a person comes in like you know
three four drops,
three times a day,
you can shut down a lot of those infectious
things.
Yeah,
it works,
it works fast as well,
yeah,
yeah,
especially nascent,
yeah,
they work especially fast given its molecular size.
Do you have much experience with our free amino
product as well?
Not much,
okay,
um,
I know that some people have a very difficult time
in digestion and of course amino acids are the
building block for pretty much everything.
Certainly so,
have any other things that you can do that will
help you an easy accessible form of amino acids if
you're not well and you're not digesting well,
you're not absorbing protein,
I can see the value of that,
and of course,
neurotransmitter production,
so to back up the EMP,
you need to have the building blocks for the
neurotransmitters and the vitamins and minerals are
part of that amino acids are the other part of
that equation and then you know we have the
technology we can rebuild these neurotransmitters we
don't need a ssri to prevent our serotonin our
limited serotonin from landing we we need to
generate more serotonin absolutely yeah and we do
that by providing our body with the building blocks
to produce it itself and in its more endogenous
way yeah i mean we're we're more scientific than
the medical industry prozac was showed to be three
percent more effective than placebo a fact that
They hid for a long,
long time right with their numbers games.
I ran into a young woman who said she got off
crystal meth easier than she got off Prozac as far
as suicidal feelings go.
And you won't find a shooter in the U.S.
that wasn't on some pharmaceutical drug or another.
It screws with the brain seriously.
I mean,
as far as I'm concerned,
the medical system is practically criminal at this
state.
The way they bowed to the pharmaceutical industry.
Yeah,
I think that it's very important to discuss the
political side of our medical systems.
And you know,
you've got a lot of experience in the health
industry and you can't have too many Experience in
the health industry without kind of seeing what's
happening with like government involvement and then
even above that with with big industry involvement
as well,
and you just mentioned about Prozac there,
and there's so many,
there's so many examples in my even just my
experience I've only been practicing nutrition for
like seven years,
there's so many if you really dig deep into it,
examples of what's happening in the health industry
and what's happening in the health industry,
there's so many examples of where statistics and um
data has been manipulated with for a you know for
a certain result or a certain goal and in many
many cases the the result is already determined
before the research is done absolutely do you have
any like big examples of that in in your in your
experience uh nothing big in in in the book i
wrote with furniture start the health secrets
surviving the modern age there's a chapter in that
book calledalth chapter called death by medicine and
it's based on research that was done in the early
2000s and then confirmed on the 2010 i think
showing that the medical industry is the leading
cause of death so death by prescription drugs
bypass death by accident car accident which used to
be the leading cause of
Death outside of heart disease and cancer,
right?
Then when you add doctor error,
hospital error,
super bugs,
and then prescription drugs,
well the most dangerous thing you can do is walk
into a pharmacy or a doctor's office or a
hospital.
I mean they've sold the idea that they are the
last bastion between us and death,
right?
The only option,
yeah.
And back in the 70s Robert Mendelsohn wrote
Confessions of a Medical Heretic in which he
pointed out this tendency that as religion became
less important,
medicine took over that psychological function and
to the point where the doctor is the priest,
the hospital is the church.
The nun is the nurse,
the host is the drug,
the surgery is the ritual mutilation.
If you want to go back a little further,
do you know that placebo knee surgery is as
effective as real knee surgery both for torn
meniscus which is highly structural and
osteoarthritis?
You put them under,
and you cut their knee and do nothing so
important!
The rate of response is the same.
There's factors going on in healing and medicine
they're absolutely unacknowledged by the Newtonian
view that we are just machines and one part is
interchangeable with another part.
And they're quite aware of the psychological aspect
of medicine.
Because the motivating drive for human nature is
fear of death,
as was pointed out by Ernest Becker in 'Denial of
Death',
it's something that's been confirmed through studies.
I believe that,
yeah,
certainly so.
Originally,
you had religion and the church was between you
and God,
and death.
And now that that's gone,
that fear needs some place to be located.
Well,
the man in the white coat is the one who's going
to protect you from death,
and the more fearful people are,
the more they bend to this narrative as we can
see with the whole COVID story because what the
media is saying is not what the science is,
I mean it's not even what the CDC says.
And they're not even that reliable; there's so many
conflicts there,
and it blows my mind that people aren't taking a
step back to take a look at all of these things
and connecting the dots.
You know,
in my experience,
the reality of what people see on TV - I choose
not to watch the news,
but that reality that is out there is just not
what I see day-to-day in my own reality when I
step out my front door.
I agree with you absolutely; they're owned.
I mean,
when you follow the trails of the people who are
running the pharmaceutical companies and own the
hospitals at least in the for-profit system in
America - and own the media.
Yeah,
it's all the same corporate masters up there so
they're all on the same page but no one's using
common sense because the first thing they did was
hammer fear incessantly and the more fearful you
are,
the more you recede from the frontal lobe and you
start operating from the reptile or mammalian brain,
and and you stop thinking as much; you literally
can't right,
you actually can't access that part of your brain.
So,
you think that you're thinking as you normally
would,
yes,
but you actually can't access that part of the
brain and I think that's where a lot of people
struggle in regards to looking at what they're
thinking feeling and doing as a as a rational
thing right and the more prone they are to being
fearful the more easily they'll fall for the
narrative and then you see how vicious they become
against people who aren't part of the narrative
yeah that's the dangerous part that's where we're
looking at scapegoating and marginalizing a group of
people people and possibly even worse certainly yeah
no absolutely yeah i think that um i think we
could certainly talk about this topic for for for
a long time i'd love to get your opinion in
regards to but we've had a lot of practitioners on
this podcast more recently who we do discuss
Like the last 18 months and last couple of years,
and how it's been just anxiety through the roof,
fear,
depression,
suicide,
mental illness.
I know you don't like that word,
sorry,
yes,
um,
but are there anything like are you seeing
different different groups of people or an increase
in something pathological in the store over the
last 18 months?
You mean like signs of a pandemic?
I mean more like,
I mean,
I'm on signs that there are people responding to a
pandemic,
yeah,
I see the fearful,
the fear,
yeah,
and then I see those who don't understand that are
being pressured by the family and they're not being
pressured by the family and they're Not being
pressured by the family and friends who are the
fearful,
um I don't see signs of a pandemic,
I don't see countless people talking about all the
people they know who've died of COVID.
I i see a 90-year-old man who who got it from
someone properly diagnosed and shook it off with 10
grams of vitamin C a day,
right?
Um I see people who've gotten ivermectin and had
some of the alternative treatments and and found it
extremely helpful.
Um so what I see is the further polarization of
society mostly,
i i see people who people have actually said this,
it's like coming to the church and I'm like the
vicar because they're they're assaulted on all
sides,
their employers attacking them,
their families attacking them,
they can't see the grandkids,
a sister won't see them,
yeah,
they,
they,
their friends won't talk to them and they come in
and they talk to a group of people who don't feel
the same way,
people who are encouraging and saying you know
there's natural ways for your body to function and
they don't feel the same way to cope with this we
can help support you should anything to prevent it
and should anything happen there are countless
scientific approaches to treating this naturally yeah
and so they get a little reassurance when they
come to a place like that's Big right now,
yeah,
absolutely,
yeah.
It's such a delight,
uh.
The greatest trick the medical profession and and
the COVID promoters ever did was to convince us
that they're scientific.
So,
otherwise rational people,
I know people trained in Chinese medicine and such
have bought this narrative.
But it's not scientific,
as with Prozac being three percent better than a
placebo.
All the statistics are skewed in favor of the
result that they want.
And like I said,
with those COVID files,
everything goes back to Pub Med; everything's
clinically referenced that I talk about.
So,
there's more science yeah on the common sense side
than.
there is on the fear side but the fear side owns
the media and that's the big that's that's the big
key thing yeah certainly yeah if you can put the
message out you can put out whatever message you
want absolutely and that's been that's been evident
throughout history yes yeah it's nothing new nothing
knows the same playbook for sure absolutely um i'd
love to get your opinion big change of topic here
but i'd love to get your opinion on the
supplements that i might be able to purchase from
lifestyle markets and the supplements i might be
able to purchase at costco or walmart well canada
one thing we do have going aside from
the over regulatory difficult process of getting a
license is uh site licenses every every manufacturer
has a site license so someone does come in and
inspect for hygiene some of these drug companies i
don't know if you heard they were like rat
droppings all over the place and they were totally
unhygienic yeah it's easy for a factory with lots
of raw materials to become an unhygienic place and
canada's very strict on sanitation quarantining of
raw materials with pulling anything that had adverse
reactions so if it's made in canada you're kind of
ahead of the game as far as safety goes okay no
they're never checking
to see that what's on the label is in the pill
but at least what's in the pill is clean because
they're part of back to the do no harm thing at
the very least some of the big companies they have
in-house labs and they retest all the raw
materials and when you buy a cheap walmart product
it's often made in china okay and then again it's
not just hygiene it's the contamination of so much
with heavy metals and toxins and where those
ingredients are actually coming from yes yeah even
the nature of the minerals you know china's fairly
industrialized country so there are some spots where
they grow organic stuff and there's some
pristine locations but if you don't have a company
that has been around for a while that's built a
reputation for trust i i'm not necessarily sure
that i an ascorbic acid's an ascorbic acid but how
is it made how clean was the factory that's a big
point yeah yeah that's that's perfect i think yeah
the next thing is well you might not methylate and
you need a methyl folate not a folic acid is
anybody going to know that are they going to hear
your your circumstances go well there's a good
chance you're not methylating you perhaps need
methyl folate therefore we're going to steer you
towards the b complex that has the new forms
Of these bees,
uh,
you're not going to get that kind of advice,
uh,
you know,
a centre or something with artificial colors and
insignificant amounts of of vitamins and minerals.
They're they're kind of a joke.
You're just just they're a psychological yeah
multivite; they're not really doing much for you.
So it's it's quantities,
it's the form of the vitamin mineral and then it's
the hygiene and the quality of the raw ingredients
that that are the difference between going to
professionals and going to just a box store.
And would you would you say looking at where the
product is made is one of the first steps you
would take?
Yes,
yeah.
Again,
because Canada has very strict manufacturing rules
now,
80% of most raw ingredients come from India and
China,
because North American manufacturers can't compete
with them.
Yeah,
so you want a company that does raw materials that
ensures that there's no contaminants and that's you
know got quality on the mind,
and usually those are companies that have stood the
test of time.
Yeah,
absolutely,
yeah,
because they obviously have to go through these
safety protocols on a continual,
continuous basis.
Yes,
probably on spot check,
spot checks as well where these these regulatory
agencies are coming in and you know checking.
The safety,
yes,
in the uh,
in the lab and in the testing facilities and
manufacturing facilities as well.
Exactly now you know again,
you can't do too much harm with vitamins; people
never die from them,
that's why the idea of over regulating us is kind
of ridiculous,
ridiculous.
Many of the warnings on the labels are also kind
of ridiculous because they want us to look like
drugs.
You know,
don't use beyond three weeks without a doctor's
advice and don't take if you're breastfeeding or
nursing...
or sorry,
not breastfeeding or pregnant.
But in most cases,
even the cases with blood thinners,
there's very few things they've given ginkgo and
vitamin.
e and garlic to people on warfarin and it never
potentizes it because they're categorizing something
that prevents platelet clumping like their drug
which is a blood thinner,
right?
And they don't function the same at all so they
make us put these warnings on that make us look
like we're a drug when in fact we don't have the
same effect at all absolutely and there's so much
research to actually,
absolutely to quantify that's what I mean.
We are,
I know there's this idea that Health Canada is
looking at it as a drug but it's not a drug,
it's a drug,
it's a drug,
it's a drug,
it's a drug but we're all looking at re-regulating
us again.
And about a year ago I read in the Globe this
article about Health Canada talking about how
vitamins were making claims and they were thinking
that maybe it's time to put a stop to that.
Well,
that was the most absurd thing I've ever heard.
They required us to make claims in order to get a
license.
We'd rather not make a claim because a herb does
15 different things,
but you have to pick one.
So people pick that up and they go,
'Oh,
this is just for menopause.' Why would I take it?
Well,
it does many,
many other things.
It helps your memory,
sage,
for example,
which is good for menopause.
But you have to pick a claim,
and then you have to prove that claim.
It has to be on your label.
And for them to say that is to ignore their own
mandate.
Yeah,
the reductionist look within medicine and the health
industry is kind of mind-boggling,
especially when we've got thousands of traditional
uses of these natural organic compounds that have
grown around us quite deliberately,
and we've evolved with them forever.
And again,
they don't have just one specific purpose.
You can just take a plant,
for example,
and you've got the flower,
the stem,
the petals,
whatever.
All these different parts of the plant could have
very different effects.
And to ignore the thousands of years of experience
that herbalists have and have passed this on
through trial and error,
and to ignore that,
it really blows my mind.
But I understand that it's about money,
right,
and controlling that.
And if you can control the language,
that's very,
very important as well.
Well,
you know,
when it was religion,
they had the Inquisition to get rid of the
herbalists.
And now it's the medicine religion,
and they want to get rid of the existing
herbalists again.
They want to marginalize it to the point where it
won't be,
it won't be a threat at all to their sales.
Again,
it's nothing new.
We've seen this type of thing before.
Yeah,
the Inquisition is coming again,
unfortunately.
Yeah,
unfortunately,
it certainly is.
You've spoken about the science behind products and
obviously how important that is.
And as a researcher yourself,
you do a lot of research.
How important is it that a product that comes into
Lifestyles is going to potentially go on the shelf?
How important is it that that product and that
company has done their homework?
Because,
yeah,
sorry,
just to finish that question,
I get people send me links to products and
websites all the time and asking my opinion on
them.
And the first thing I do is I'll go and try and
find,
like,
where's their research and where's their science?
And nine times out of ten,
these companies have none.
They've just got really beautiful websites and it
looks amazing.
But they don't really actually have any good data
to say the things that they're saying.
Right.
So what's your,
in your opinion,
like,
how important is it to have that research behind
you before you even think about putting a product
on the shelf for your customers?
Well,
I can't say that it's that cut and dried because
we are a business.
And so on the one hand,
we'll have gummies,
which I hate gummies.
Okay.
Everybody is so infantile these days.
They want their vitamins in gummies,
right?
And so you end up with a whole bunch of sugar
that wedges into your cavities.
Right.
Like eating raisins is the worst thing.
And the amount of nutrients is so low.
But there's a customer demand for gummies.
So you're going to provide the customer demand
because you're a business.
You have to follow that,
yeah.
But it's also hard to get on the shelf with new
products that don't have a pre-existing demand for
them.
That's where the science comes in.
So you come in,
like,
somebody came in with NAG,
N-acetylglucosamine.
And I've always just thought of it as for healing
the gut lining.
We don't have that much of that product,
just a couple of them.
Right.
But it turns out it's extremely good for arthritis.
And it's an anti-inflammatory,
too.
So they brought in their research.
And they got their label claim for that based on
the research.
So here's a new value to NAG,
an old supplement that's sort of been fixed on one
area and not that well-known.
And we brought it in because they had some good
science on how it was going to be helpful for
joints and helpful for arthritic inflammatory
conditions,
as well as helpful for leaky gut.
So that's a twofer.
And,
you know,
they got in with this one product because they had
the science to back it up.
So now the staff is going to walk you over to
the NAG.
I'm not going to walk you over to the gummies.
Right.
But you want to go buy gummies,
that's your right as a citizen to do so,
right?
So that's kind of the difference.
If you want information,
if you're healing something,
well,
then you want to get the information.
And the staff can bring it over to the product
they think is more valid.
And show you the science.
And so to break into the market,
if you're not selling something every day like a
multivite or a vitamin C,
you pretty much need some good science behind you
because the market's flooded.
And we just don't need a whole lot more products
unless they can prove they're of value or they
fill a niche that has nothing in it at the
moment.
Absolutely.
We've spoken quite a bit about Health Canada and
their involvement in Canadian,
health,
and medicine,
and even the natural health world.
And we've got this self-care framework that's kind
of coming into the light again.
I've done a couple of episodes with Sean Buckley,
natural health lawyer,
and he's very concerned about how this is going to
affect the natural health industry.
Have you experienced a significant overreach from
Health Canada in regards to people's,
you know,
access to supplements and natural health products?
No,
no?
Not at this point.
No,
okay.
No sign,
really.
But because Canada is,
in essence,
a lapdog to America and America FDA,
which is totally in bed with the pharmaceutical
companies,
I mean,
all the presidents have swapped in people from
Monsanto to the FDA.
Yeah,
it's a big revolving door.
And it happens in Canada,
too,
right?
I could see there being something on the horizon.
Yeah.
Because the outlawing of NAC,
N-acetylcysteine,
in America,
when people started using it to mop up after
vaccine damage,
because it's a glutathione precursor,
the very fact that after 30 years of safe sales,
they moved to quickly outlaw it,
A,
tells me that it works,
and B,
tells me they're going to start cracking down on
stuff that works.
Certainly very specific things at work that people
start using,
certainly.
And I think in the States,
like supplements and these natural health products
are actually classified as like a food,
rather than a health,
natural health product that we have here in Canada.
So I think they have a little bit,
they have different protections.
Right.
But when you're talking about something specific
that's being used and is actually getting a bit of
traction,
it will certainly be taken out of the game,
I suppose.
Yeah,
it's easier for them to take it out based on that
than here,
where you've already made them license it.
Yeah.
But they change the rules as they want,
so,
yeah,
I could see them,
definitely,
coming for this industry and sort of bastardizing
it to the point where it's rolled back 20 years
and we didn't have certain amino acids,
we didn't have melatonin,
we couldn't sell kava.
There were so many things you couldn't sell before
the licensing.
Yeah.
And that could come back.
But are you familiar with Healing with Whole Foods
by Paul Pitchford?
I know,
I've heard of Paul,
but I've not.
Yeah,
it's a huge,
huge text.
Okay.
The synthesis of East and West.
Okay.
And it's mostly food-based and herb,
very little in the way of synthetic vitamins and
minerals.
And we have recourse.
Like,
the principle of macrobiotics is all diet to cure
everything,
right?
And different foods prepared in different ways and
the way you consume them have medicinal properties.
And so,
I believe we will always have the modalities as
long as the knowledge is still around.
Yeah.
Things,
pretty much,
everything you need is present already on the
market.
Now,
I could see a product like EMP being shut down,
but ostensibly,
it's a multivitamin.
They're not going to shut down multivitamins.
And so,
it's kind of hiding in that category.
Right.
Whereas,
N-acetylcysteine is,
you know,
laboratory-produced isolated chemical.
They could kind of go for that.
Right.
But we may still have things that go under those.
Right.
You know,
radar under the wire that can be used.
Again,
I have reversed asthma on more than one occasion
with vitamin A,
vitamin D,
and iodine.
And you can run around naked and dirty in the sun
to get vitamin D and avoid eating tropical fruit
in the winter so that you actually store and use
it.
Okay,
you can eat liver and you can eat copious amounts
of seaweed.
And so,
those principles will still all be available to us,
but it's probably is good for people to really
understand diet.
And the herbs available to them,
and the superfoods because they may end up having
to rely more on those in the future than they do
now.
Yeah,
that's a really good point.
I think that we certainly have access to a lot of
wonderful healing foods.
I think that just how we've been programmed to
kind of want a quick fix or take one product to
kind of help or heal us.
Yeah.
I think people would be a lot more attracted to
taking three supplements.
Rather than changing their dietary habits.
Yeah,
absolutely.
Even though,
you know,
you're getting even just like the whole process of
shopping for different foods and learning to cook
with them and then doing that and then actually
consuming them.
It's like a really amazing healing process.
I agree.
In and of itself.
But we kind of love to be able to just,
you know,
pop our capsules and off we go.
Which is a really amazing thing because you can
have either or,
I suppose.
Yeah.
And if you're using the right supplements in the
right dosages,
in the right combinations for your specific concern,
then you can absolutely do wonders.
I just get concerned when Health Canada tries to
put these initiatives that are supposed to be in
our best interest.
But they seem to be,
one,
controlling the language in regards to like what we
can say about our products.
Even though we have for Empower Plus with 36
peer-reviewed journals,
papers that show how a product can support bipolar,
ADHD,
anxiety,
depression.
But we can't say that on a bottle or put it into
a specific bipolar section because we're not allowed
to do that.
So we just go into the multivitamin,
multinutrient range,
which really regulates us.
And,
you know,
if you just go into a health food store and
you're looking for something for bipolar or
schizophrenia or something significant,
you're not going to be able to find it.
You're going to pick up Empower Plus and be,
oh,
it supports my mental health.
It supports mind and body health.
And it doesn't really stand out.
It's not highlighted.
And you might actually put that product back.
But that could be like the one thing that could
really help you help yourself to do wonderful
things.
Well,
they're not going to let you say that.
No.
And that's concerning,
especially when we've got so much evidence and so
many testimonials and a lot of traditional evidence
as well.
Which,
apparently,
in this new self-care framework,
you will not be able to,
like,
call on that old traditional evidence to be used
to validate your product for,
like,
relicensing or if you want to create something new.
I think Sean uses the example of scurvy and you
wouldn't be able to use the traditional,
like,
naval records as any evidence in the future.
Which is really concerning because,
you know,
we've been using these things for thousands of
years and we know that they work and that's why
they're here.
But to put more red tape onto something.
That's just,
like,
natural,
healthy and organic and,
you know,
when it's done properly can be absolutely
life-saving.
Especially when it can be somebody's only position
to turn to.
Yeah.
It's dangerous.
Yeah.
So it's quite tricky because you have to have
staff that knows that product.
But staff technically can't even say.
No.
They shouldn't.
They shouldn't.
All I can say is,
you know,
if I were in a situation of an ailment like that,
this is what I would do.
So even then they have to be walking on eggs as
far as advising people for anything that,
basically anything that a drug can be sold for.
You're on thin ice when you sell a supplement for
it.
Right now,
nobody's checking into that too heavily.
But there could come a time when it gets a lot
worse because,
again,
the pharmaceutical industry is pretty much taking
over.
Yeah.
Practicing medicine without a medical license.
Yeah.
That's kind of like where they would get.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Well,
Ken,
we're just coming to the end now.
How can people connect with you?
Well,
I am at Lifestyle Markets during the week.
My newsletters are at NutriStart.com.
There's blogs there.
And then under the education button are the
newsletters,
which are more frequently posted weekly.
I would say there's a lot of good educational
information there.
And,
you know,
that's primarily the two ways to get in contact
with me.
There's an email address through NutriStart.
Amazing.
Well,
I'll make sure they're all linked up so people can
connect with you and connect with that information.
And I'm personally very interested to check out the
COVID protocols,
the COVID files.
And I'm sure a lot of people are probably very
interested to check that out.
And as you say,
it's referenced and to PubMed and all the articles
there,
which is really important,
which unlike CBS or CTV or anything that comes out
of those guys.
Yeah.
Well,
Ken,
I really appreciate your time today.
Thank you very much.
The sun's coming out now,
which is awesome for the afternoon.
I appreciate your time.
Thank you so much.
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you.
Awesome.
Well,
thanks very much for listening,
everybody.
If you've yet to subscribe,
please make sure you do so.
This is True Hope Podcast,
the official podcast of True Hope Canada.
We'll see you next week.