555: Medicinal Aloe Superfood: Boost Immunity and Gut Health

Nourish your gut, strengthen your immunity, and soothe your body from the inside out with Dr. Haley’s medicinal aloe — learn more at LearnTrueHealth.com/aloe.

In this episode of Learn True Health, Ashley James talks with Dr. Michael Haley about the incredible healing power of aloe vera and how it supports the body’s ability to heal itself. They dive into the connection between gut health, nutrition, and overall wellness, revealing how what we eat—and even the soil our food grows in—affects our vitality. This conversation blends science, nature, and faith to remind us that true health begins from within.

Highlights:

• The healing power of aloe vera. Aloe supports digestion, reduces inflammation, and helps the body heal itself naturally through its rich nutrients and enzymes.
• Aloe’s unique anti-cancer property. Its polysaccharides attract cancer cells but inhibit their growth, effectively starving them while supporting healthy cells.
  
• Transition to Guatemala farming. After their Dominican Republic farm retired, they partnered with Guatemalan farmers who produce an even better, more vibrant aloe crop.
• Soil health determines plant health. The life in the soil—bacteria, minerals, and organic matter—creates nutrient-dense plants with stronger healing properties.
• Gut health influences the mind. The GAPS diet reveals that healing the gut microbiome can dramatically improve mood, focus, and even behavior.
• Nutrition affects eyesight and aging. Clean eating and antioxidants can reverse vision decline and make people look decades younger.
• Processed foods lack true nourishment. Modern diets are filled with empty calories that fail to meet the body’s real nutritional needs.
  
• Whole, plant-based foods heal from within. Eating unprocessed, nutrient-rich foods rejuvenates skin, energy, and overall health.
• Cravings come from both emotion and gut imbalance. Changing diet and reprogramming gut bacteria can shift unhealthy habits into nourishing ones.
• Faith mirrors nutrition. Biblical wisdom reminds us that when we’re spiritually and physically nourished, we no longer crave what harms us.

Intro:

Hello True Health Seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. Today we have back on the show Dr. Michael Haley. Please, when you have some time, go back and listen to episode 401 and 474 as we dive deep into medicinal aloe. Can you believe medicinal aloe needs three episodes? We cover new stuff today on medicinal aloe, but it’s an amazing continuation of the conversation.

I love this stuff. It is so great for so many different ailments and for helping you get to the next level in health. If you’re stuck in inflammation and pain, or skin issues or digestive issues, it is so great to help you get a leg up and help your body to heal itself. So we’re going to dive into that, dive into gut health, and just have a wonderful conversation today with Dr. Michael Haley.

Please check out learntruehealth.com/aloe. That’s learntruehealth.com/aloe. That takes you to the special landing page that he created for you guys, where he gives you a great deal on his medicinal aloe, which is fresh from the farm. They freeze it the day they harvest it, and he talks about that in his previous episodes. We got an update today because he found an even better farm and with even better soil. It’s like volcanic soil or something.

What they do is they go out into the field. It’s all organic, and they harvest it. That same day, they remove the inside, the special gel of the aloe, without the skin. There are a few layers of skin around the gel. They call it a fillet, and that would cause irritation. That’s why some people who buy store-bought aloe end up having diarrhea—because that’s the juice of the whole aloe and it’s actually been highly processed. He talks about that in episode 401 and 474.

Today we learn more about his new farm, and they put it into a machine that just grinds it up just enough so that it’s easy to swallow as a drink. There’s nothing added, nothing taken away, nothing filtered, and in fact, all of the polysaccharides are preserved. The enzymes, which make it very enzyme-rich, are preserved and immediately fresh frozen and then shipped to him and then shipped to you when you order it. So it is preserved fresh from the farm.

He talks about why that’s important versus just getting any old aloe. It makes a huge difference. He talks about the studies as well. So go back when you have some time and listen to 401 and 474. But if you haven’t listened to those episodes, or maybe you need a refresher because it’s been a while, don’t worry. This episode is a standalone. It’ll all make complete sense.

We have a great conversation, so make sure you go to learntruehealth.com/aloe. He also gifts us with his wonderful medicinal cream. That’s an aloe cream, and it’s great for bruises, burns, or bumps, or even just having moist, vibrant skin in the winter. I love it for burns. If you burn yourself in the kitchen or spend a little too long in the sun, it is wonderful for that.

Excellent. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Enjoy today’s episode. Please share this podcast with those you care about, especially those with digestive issues, those wanting better immune support, and those who may be struggling to have vibrant hair, skin, and nails. This is such a godsend. Even within seven days of drinking it, people notice that their skin is glowing—and that means if your outsides look great, your insides are doing well too.

So that’s learntruehealth.com/aloe for Dr. Michael Haley’s special that he’s giving us. Enjoy today’s episode.

Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 555.

Ashley James (0:04:25.612)

I am so excited to have Dr. Michael Haley back on the show. He was here for episode 401 and 474. So it’s been a hot minute.

Also, he was discussed very happily at episode 475 with Dr. Patrick Vickers. He’s the doctor who has an amazing holistic cancer center and uses Dr. Haley’s medicinal aloe drink, with great success.

That’s the cool thing—medicinal aloe helps with so many things very quickly. We’ve talked about it before. We’re going to talk about it more. We’re going to go in depth. We’re going to catch up because a few things have happened since we had you on the show.

So welcome back.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:05:14.024)

Thank you so much for having me again, Ashley. Yes, it’s my third time on the show, so if people go back and listen to the other episodes, they’re probably going to hear some repeat.

I’m going to put it out there. The last episode we had was so good, they should just go listen to that.

Ashley James (0:05:30.500)

Oh yes, just stop listening to this one. Don’t listen to this one, just go back and listen to 474, you’re good.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:05:37.436)

I had to listen to it just a little bit, kind of wondering what we had talked about, and I learned some things from myself listening to it. So I must have forgotten some things since then.

Ashley James (0:05:49.442)

I do that too. Isn’t that funny? Isn’t that funny? When I go and listen to old episodes that I’ve done, I wonder what I’m going to say.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:05:59.248)

I was actually talking about chewing your food and feeding your microbiome. It was just something so silly that I said—you have to chew it down into bite-sized portions for them.

When I heard myself say that, I said, that was me? I don’t remember saying that, but thinking back on it, it makes so much sense.

Ashley James (0:06:28.054)

Yes, that’s so good.

Yes, if you do look in the toilet after a BM and you see you can recognize your food, you didn’t chew enough. That’s a giveaway. That’s a gimme. You have to chew it to the point where you don’t recognize it on the other end because your microbiome needs to be able to digest it. Just actually relaxing while chewing. Your jaw will get sore. Honestly, my jaw, when I have salads, gets sore because of the amount of chewing.

But I’ll massage. You could do a little massage on your jaw afterwards and you get used to it. Your jaw gets stronger. Your face will look sexier if you chew more. This is the thing. It’s called mewing. That’s a whole thing where you strengthen the muscles of your face, neck, and jaw. One of them is to chew your food more. So do that. It’ll strengthen all that in there. You help your microbiome and you help your digestion. 

Coming back to the aloe drink that you sell. It’s medicinal. There’s nothing like it. There’s nothing sold in stores. Yes, aloe, I can buy that at whatever health food store. Or yes, I’ve seen aloe at Trader Joe’s or whatever. No. If you listen to the past episodes, we talked about the industry and how they produce it, and it is not medicinal at all.

It’ll cause irritation. It’ll cause diarrhea. It’s not helpful. It’s minimally helpful, whereas Dr. Michael Haley’s aloe, which he ships fresh and freshly frozen—well, I want to talk a bit about your new farm and how cool it is and what’s happened since we had you on the show last. But this stuff is so neat.

I know I told the story before. When my son was probably about four, he had an upset tummy—coming out both ends kind of thing. I can’t remember whether it was food poisoning or some kind of stomach flu, but we gave him the aloe and we put a little bit of lime. He loves lime. He loves that flavor. We put a bit of lime juice in it, a little bit of stevia in it, and mixed it up with some ice and served it to him, and it immediately calmed everything.

Then I was on the phone weeks or months later with a friend. I was in the car, driving, and it was on the speakers in the car. My son was in his car seat in the back—he was again about four. She was saying, “Atticus is throwing up and he’s feeling really sick,” and that’s her son. Brave yells from the backseat, “Give him aloe! Make sure he drinks the aloe!”

It's so cool growing up with a son who, we’re giving him all this natural stuff, some kids would go, “Give someone Pepto-Bismol,” which masks symptoms instead of helping the body heal. But he’s growing up knowing how to support his body’s ability to heal itself, which is really cool.

In the past, we’ve talked about many things. For those who are new to listening to this episode, can you run down the list of everything that drinking medicinal aloe helps?

Dr. Michael Haley (0:09:48.869)

Yes, that is funny. Yes, and without doing the list, let’s simplify something. What if you did something that helped one thing, like sleep? Let’s say you could sleep better. What can that have a benefit for? What conditions? Everything heals better when you sleep.

So it’s one of those things—can you name anything that would not benefit from better sleep? I’m not saying that aloe is a cure for bad sleep, but when you consider a diet that is good for your gut, for instance, and all of a sudden your gut is functioning more like it’s supposed to, what is there that can’t do better?

People use aloe vera for all kinds of gut conditions—acid reflux on the front end, Crohn’s on the back end, and everything in between. If you can deflame those things and have them absorbing your nutrients like they’re supposed to, and not leaking so you’re not having autoimmune problems, what can get better?

Literally everything. But I don’t look at it like that. It’s not a cure for anything, but it can be beneficial for everything. Just like a good diet in general. You consume things that are healthy for you because everything works better. I like the concept when it comes to healthcare.

I recently looked up a definition of mainstream medicine. I believe the definition came from cancer.gov, and it was something like: a system in which doctors, nurses, and healthcare practitioners treat symptoms and disease using medicine, radiation, surgery—whatever it was. That’s kind of the definition, almost word for word. I remember it very well. I wish I had it in front of me, but if you search for “definition mainstream medicine,” that’s what popped up number one from cancer.gov.

Now contrast that with functional medicine or with natural healthcare, where healthcare professionals don’t treat symptoms and they don’t treat diseases. They treat people. They give them things that are good for their life so that their life works more like it’s supposed to. We’re tapping into the wisdom of the body, the knowledge that formed every tissue and every cell of your body that continues to work today—even turning your bad food choices into more of who you are, replacing dead, damaged cells.

I’m going to call it the knowledge of God, the life that’s in us. Some people might say universal intelligence or talk about quantum energy, or whatever it is to you. That knowledge is a whole lot smarter than any doctor that can prescribe a chemical to try to get you well.

With aloe vera, we’re really just feeding that system so that our life can work better.

Ashley James (0:13:30.093)

The results we see are pretty profound. I talk about how if you have gastric upset, how quickly it can calm that. But not everyone’s walking around every day suffering from that. What people see within days of taking it is their skin starts to glow, hair, skin, and nails start to get even better. Inflammation in the body goes down, pain goes down. It’s really cool how aloe is a supportive herb, it is a supportive plant. It’s supporting the body’s ability to heal itself.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:14:09.607)

First one that you mentioned, I’m sorry, I have to jump in here because I like tapping into that first. Sometimes new customers will say, how much should I drink? Or what dose should I take? It’s not a dose, it’s a food. We have serving sizes. Well, how much? Sometimes there’s a point of diminishing returns, but what if we had more than we needed just to make sure you can know what it was doing in your system, what it might be doing for you?

So I like my new customers to drink a full bottle in the first week, which is like, say, eight ounces a day. I have suggested to many, and yes, they come back and have confirmed. Not everybody. Some people might not even have this much room for improvement because their diets are already fantastic. But I’ve seen it enough times to know that a lot of people will experience this, where people start saying, what are you doing for your skin?

You’re glowing in just a week. Your complexion is glowing. I remember for myself, the first time I actually started drinking three glasses a day just to see—can I have too much? I did it for about a week. I remember looking in the mirror and thinking, who is that? Because to me, I looked different. I already thought my diet was so super that how could changing one thing make an improvement? But I saw a difference in my face, in my complexion, when I looked in the mirror, and people started saying things to me.

That’s when I suggested to others—you might actually experience this. People might say things about the way you look. They would say, you wouldn’t believe it, but just like you said, everyone’s asking me at work or people in church are saying, what are you doing? Not everyone’s going to have that experience, but I like that example because it’s easier to tap into the vanity than the health of someone that might take longer to see results.

Ashley James (0:16:16.743)

I just went to Nordstrom. I took a family member who wanted to get some new hair, skin, and makeup and stuff like that. We spent over $400 on three or four products. In looking at all the anti-aging creams there, they were between $100 and $200, sometimes more than $200. Drinking your aloe—there are so many more benefits to drinking the aloe than just amazing skin, but it’s cheaper.

So if you’re spending hundreds of dollars on your cosmetics to cover up or to try to improve the health of your skin, to prevent aging, the mechanism that occurs, is it helping with collagen production? What is the mechanism behind aloe for healthier skin?

Also, we have to remember that skin isn’t just on the outside of us. Skin is on the inside of us. This tissue, this type of tissue, lines from our mouth to the other end. It lines our digestive tract. Aren’t our lungs also a form of skin? The interior part of our arteries is a form of skin—the epithelial tissue. So there’s this type of tissue that is dramatically improved through the use of medicinal aloe.

Your aloe is not the full plant. That’s important. We talked about it in past episodes, but it is the gel, and it’s how it’s harvested to preserve the medicinal benefits. Can you get into the science a bit? Is there any kind of mechanism of action that you could explain or explore with us?

Dr. Michael Haley (0:18:04.225)

I don’t know, because it works in so many ways, and I know science shows a lot of different things about it. But one that might explain the improvement of our appearance might be—and I think you titled one of the episodes on this fact—that healing is accelerated. That is, if you can heal things twice as fast, and now they’re healing faster than the damage is being done, it should look better.

As we’re consuming these things and it’s healing our guts, for instance, the research I believe was done on sunburns where they saw them healing in half the time—the sunburn that had aloe vera applied to it. Well, what if we could do that on the inside, where the inside of our intestines is very much like our skin?

As we’re healing that, we’re healing that whole organ, which happens to be on the outside as well, because it wraps around from our anus to our outside and back through our mouth again. It’s kind of like one big organ. So if we heal it on the inside, wouldn’t it be apparent on the outside? I think that might be the mechanism where people are getting results just by the increased healing that happens.

The other side of that equation, of course, is cut down on the things that are doing the damage. If we’re not doing the damage, then we probably don’t need to heal as fast. But if we keep on doing the damage and you take the aloe away, then maybe the damage is being done faster than the healing again, and you’re back where you started.

Ashley James (0:19:49.254)

There’s something really exciting about cancer, which Dr. Patrick Vickers talks about in episode 475, and I think you also talked about it maybe in 474, where there’s a polysaccharide, a component to the aloe, that the cancer cells perceive as food, but they can’t digest it. So it stuffs their mouth, kind of like a pig on a spit would have an apple stuffed in its mouth. It ends up starving the cancer.

So in holistic treatments, or where people are going for the conventional cut, burn, and poison, but then they want to explore holistic options to help mitigate the side effects of the chemo, for example, they would choose aloe. That’s really the medicinal aloe drink, because it’s going to help them with the nausea and the gastric upset.

But it’s helping to actually fight the cancer. That’s just scratching the surface when it comes to how much this plant helps us.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:21:00.730)

Yes, the study was done on aloe or mannose. I think it was mannose. I think the study is called Mannose Impairs Tumor Activity or something like that. There are a few studies. Some were done with actual aloe. But mannose is the simple sugar molecule when you break down the mucopolysaccharides. Mannose is that one sugar.

When we eat it, it actually lowers our blood sugar levels instead of raising it, which is interesting. The way I understand it is that cancer cells will bind to it because they love sugar and want to ingest sugar for energy, but they can’t with that mannose sugar molecule. Since it has an affinity for it, it’ll stay attached to it, which makes it not able to consume the sugar it would rather have.

So it starves that particular cell. The research that was done on this, I believe, was done by a chemotherapy company that kind of came to a conclusion that aloe starves cancer while the chemotherapy kills it. I question that, and they didn’t give much aloe to those patients. I think there were 240 stage four cancers. I believe 119 of them only got one ounce of aloe per day, if I recall. Yes, we recommend much more than that.

Wouldn’t you want a lot more of that sugar molecule circulating so that you can increase the odds of all the cancer cells attaching to them? I wonder what kind of results—because they got great results—but what kind of results would they have had if they were consuming the amounts that I would recommend, or that I personally would take if I was in that situation?

Not that I would only take aloe. Aloe is not a cure for cancer. There is no cure for cancer. Only you can cure cancer—your immune system. Aloe is just one of those things that can help your immune system work more like it’s supposed to. But apparently, while it’s attached to that mannose molecule, that’s a signal because cells communicate, and that’s one of the ways they communicate—a signal to the macrophages to come destroy that cell.

Ashley James (0:23:22.406)

See, when you look at cancer—correct me if I’m wrong—I’m a big Star Trek fan, and some ships have cloaking devices. Cancer hides from the immune system. It’s like it has a cloaking device. The white blood cells will just go right past it and not see it. We want to figure out how to alert the immune system that the cancer is there. When the immune system sees it, it goes gangbusters after it.

There have been recent studies about how cancer has its own microbiome. It has its own type of bacteria, and they think it creates its own biofilm, and that’s what cloaks it. There are all these theories about what the cloaking device is that hides cancer from the immune system. Now, not all the time.

Everyone has cancer in the body all the time. Maybe one single cell goes wrong, and then the immune system clears it up. It’s when the immune system stops being able to see it that it becomes a problem. So why? Is it because we’re compromised? Is it because the immune system is busy handling other stuff? Is it because we’re nutrient deficient and overstressed? Is it because there are parasites? Is it because there are viruses? What’s going on?

For some people, it manifests, and for others, it just clears out. So anything we can do that reveals the cloaking device to the immune system is what we want to do.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:24:57.882)

Yes, a potential answer to the actual question, though, is that there are chemical mediators in our body that, when there are more of them, our immune system better recognizes those cells. As you well said, I have cancer cells, you have cancer cells. We’re not diagnosed with cancer because those cells aren’t at a point where they’re overwhelming our immune system. But if they were at some point, we would call it cancer.

For now, our immune systems are saying, that cell doesn’t look like Ashley James. That doesn’t look like true health. We need to deal with that one. That looks like Ashley, even though it’s not. Let’s leave that one alone. The immune system is having a hard time identifying whether or not that’s a good cell or bad cell. It sees it as a good cell, so it goes right by it.

In the presence of tumor necrosis factor, interferon, and interleukins—these chemical mediators—our immune system better sees which cells it has to get rid of. It just so happens that aloe vera increases all three of those. So there are definitely some different mechanisms in which it would be beneficial.

I’m going to say it again, you’re going to get sick of hearing this in the next hour or so: aloe is not a cure for cancer.

Why am I saying that so much? The last thing I want people to do is find one thing to change in their life and expect everything to get better. That is the medical approach.

Ashley James (0:26:34.818)

Yes, we have to train people. We have to help people have the mindset of holistic health, which is you’re not looking for a silver bullet. There is no silver bullet. I’m sorry. All the things I promote, it’s because I know they work. They help. But they’re not silver bullets. You have to take into account a whole lifestyle.

Sometimes it’s overwhelming. But one thing at a time. This week you’re working on hydrating. Next week, you’re working on not eating fried food. The week after, you’re significantly reducing or eliminating alcohol. One week at a time, you can choose one thing to clean up your life. That’s why I love my little plug for my book Addicted to Wellness. Every single week for 13 weeks—there’s a bonus week, that’s why it’s 13, but it’s a 12-week program—this little surprise bonus week at the end. So it’s 13 weeks where you are exploring the foundations of holistic health and health habits in a really fun way.

Make it super fun so that you become addicted. You actually excite that addictive part of the brain. You start salivating like the Pavlovian dogs to the bell being rung. You’re going to start salivating at kale, or the thought of going for a walk, or the thought of drinking more water with lemon in it. It gets exciting for you and fun, but it’s one step at a time.

When we think, man, I need to quit cigarettes and alcohol and fried food—that’s just too much. That’s just too overwhelming. Or I have to start going to bed on time. Where do they start? For people on the standard American diet who want to make the change, it’s too overwhelming. So it’s one step at a time. But you have to take into account your lifestyle. You can’t out-exercise a bad diet. You can’t out-supplement a bad diet. The foundation of your health is what you eat.

There are things you can augment, like the aloe drink, which immediately speeds up your results. It supercharges your results because, as you had mentioned, it is speeding up the healing. So now we’re mitigating the damages from your lifestyle as you are making the adjustments. You’ve got to make the adjustments.

Some people are really healthy, but they’re doing really extreme jobs—super stressful jobs—or they’re a mom of a bunch of kids, homeschooling, which can be stressful. Or maybe they’re bodybuilders. They’re healthy, but their body is in a pro-inflammatory state. Or maybe they’re recovering from major surgery or recovering from chemotherapy. Their body is in an inflammatory state, but they’re still managing to do as much as they can for their lifestyle. What they really need is a leg up, and that’s why I love the aloe. It’s such a simple leg up that most people, especially if they’re motivated to try this, will see something within those seven days.

I’ve had clients on the aloe who’ve told me it is life-changing for them. But as you said, if someone’s super healthy already, they don’t have a lot of stress or are eating super clean, they’re going to notice just a little bit of a change, not a huge change. But for those who are suffering, it’s a major change. This is why I love it.

I always run out. I have it in my freezer. I have a deep freezer with a few bottles, but I always end up giving it away to friends and family. If you’re one of those people like me who just keeps a few bottles of something to help your friends and family, you’re going to want to have this stuff in your freezer. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve given a bottle away to help someone, and it’s made a difference. It’s worth doing.

I haven’t even mentioned this yet. You give us a gift—thank you. Your cream is amazing. I do go out in the sun a few times a year, sometimes more than I should. I have very fair skin, and I lobstify pretty fast. Then I take your aloe cream, and it’s so soothing, and it does speed up my recovery. The next day I’m not a lobster anymore, and I really do appreciate that. That’s LearnTrueHealth.com/aloe. So LearnTrueHealth.com/aloe gets you to the aloe drink that we’re talking about.

Since we had you on the show, though, you had a change of farms, and that was big. I’d love to hear the story in the last two or so years since we had you on the show.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:31:12.756)

Boy, that was a long period, a long dry spell for us. Our farmer had retired. He was gradually winding down his business. Actually, the father retired years ago, and the kids had taken over. But aloe’s grown really on four different farms for pretty much all of the aloe vera companies. There’s more than four farms, but four big ones are serving most of the aloe vera companies.

We were actually using one of them to grow our aloe, but we had our own set of procedures and our own equipment installed on their farm so that they would produce specifically for us in a very unique way. Uncertified organic property and everything was great. But most aloe companies are actually getting their aloe from one of the big four farms, and it really doesn’t matter which one because they do it all the same. Whichever one you get it from, it’s in these big either 55-gallon drums or the 500-gallon IBC containers, and it would come pasteurized, filtered, preserved, shipped to the United States, probably to a main facility that would distribute to all the other aloe companies, where it would get reprocessed, repasteurized, represerved, and maybe flavors and thickeners or whatever else added. That’s what usually happens in the aloe business.

For us, we had one that we convinced to do it our very unique way, and we installed very unique equipment on their farm. What would we need special equipment for? I thought it’s just hand-fileted and frozen. The only purpose of the equipment was to get it frozen faster.

Yes, they eventually retired. So we were stuck until we convinced another farmer to produce it for us. They love what we’re doing. So instead of producing in the Dominican Republic, we’re producing in Guatemala, and they’re turning out an even better product for us.

It’s one of those things. I’m sure you’ve felt that when you’re challenged, it’s an opportunity to grow, and you’re probably being challenged and stretched because it’s going to get better. That’s what we’re experiencing right now. Good stuff. We’re on the other side of the challenge. We went literally six or seven months without having any aloe to sell, to ship.

My wife and I went to a small local farm and did a lot of in-house processing to meet a very small demand locally. We couldn’t meet our entire customer base. But now we can. Now we have the truckloads coming in because we have a farm big enough that can actually meet our needs. So a real great relationship.

I haven’t even been there yet. Most of the processing has been done by remote supervision. But in the next couple months, I’m actually heading to Guatemala to give everyone big hugs and thank them for what they’re doing. I’m excited.

Ashley James (0:34:44.692)

Now the soil there, how different is it from the Dominican Republic? Is it volcanic soil, or is it something else? You had mentioned that it’s an even better product. So what is different about Guatemala or the specific location?

Dr. Michael Haley (0:34:59.310)

What’s probably the best about it is they’re not over-processing it. What I mean by that is it’s being grown the same. But when you hand-fillet these leaves and put them in a grinder, you can over-grind it. That breaks down the mucopolysaccharides, making them thinner, which is necessary. We have to make it drinkable.

The enzymes will keep going. The more you activate them, the more you grind it, the more the enzymes are released, which means they can continue digesting more and more. By not over-processing it, you end up with a slightly thicker product that you can keep intact by freezing. As soon as you take it out of the freezer, the enzymes start lighting up again and start breaking down the mucopolysaccharides until eventually you don’t have any more.

That’s why we suggest people drink it within seven to 10 days, because the aloe will self-digest, breaking down the mucopolysaccharides. It’s interesting. There was one brand—I don’t have to mention brands—but I’ll just say it was a very thin brand that was very clear and splashed like water, tasted like water. They even said on their website they do not have mucopolysaccharides, which I knew to be an accurate statement. But it got me thinking, wait a second, neither do any of the other brands. I actually found a statement to that effect on the International Aloe Science Council website talking about mucopolysaccharides.

When I spoke to you on 474, I don’t think I fully realized this yet. The mucopolysaccharide is the miracle nutrient of aloe vera. When it’s broken down into the simple sugar mannose, yes, we have all those things that are scientifically demonstrated with mannose. But having it in the full mucopolysaccharide, it’s almost like a time-released aloe that you’re consuming, where the mannose is being released on an ongoing basis as it digests in your digestive tract and the enzymes continue to break it down versus like having a spoonful of sugar so to speak.

It’s like the difference between eating a fruit or beets that have sugar in them and eating processed sugar. As we’re talking about sugar, a lot of people are scared by that, and they say, wait, aloe’s sugar? When it’s broken down, it’s like beets or bananas full of sugar. Yes, but it’s a specific sugar molecule that lowers your blood sugar levels, that cancer cells can’t eat. It’s a unique sugar. It’s different.

Ultimately, I’m confident that because we keep it frozen, we’re the only brand that actually has the mucopolysaccharides. I think that’s the coolest thing.

Now, as far as the soil, it seems that aloe grows well in Mexico and further south, the tip of Florida and further south. So you’re going to find the big farms in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, in those areas. I think it’s the limestone bedrock type of mineral-rich soil that it’s being grown in.

Ashley James (0:38:41.547)

That makes sense. If you Google benefits of mucopolysaccharides, it’s pretty neat what comes up. It confirms everything. Not that I believe the first thing Google says. We always have to question everything. But it immediately says benefits include improved skin hydration, reduced cartilage deterioration, and a role in wound healing and tissue regeneration.

It talks about helping with eczema and inflammation. It goes on and on. Everything we’ve talked about—digestive health, helping with scars. 

Dr. Michael Haley (0:39:26.153)

Now let me do another fun search. That’s going to be sources of mucopolysaccharides.

Mucopolysaccharides, also known as glycosaminoglycans, G-A-G’s, are long chains of sugar molecules found naturally in the body and in various external sources. In the body, they serve several important roles in connective tissue, joints, and mucus outside the body. Specific plant-based foods like oats, which we get a similar nutrient in the oat beta-glucan, okra—that slimy okra stuff—and aloe vera.

Along with other animal sources, which I haven’t had in probably 30 or 40 years, such as oysters.

Ashley James (0:40:13.689)

I’d rather drink aloe every day than eat some oysters every day, to be honest. Probably safer for you, but better for your health. I can’t handle oats. Some people can, I can’t. It has gliadin in it, which is similar to gluten. I think I’m saying that right.

Okra, I love okra. I can’t find okra every day. I don’t live in the South, but when I do, sometimes I buy it frozen. I do love a good okra though. I love putting it in stews and stir fries. It’s delicious. But I’ve never heard of people healing their body with okra. Maybe it’s the concentration of the mucopolysaccharides in the medicinal aloe drink versus those foods.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:41:03.495)

Yes, I’m confident that okra is a good source of it, probably not as much as aloe vera, but it’s probably more common. People probably have more okra than they do aloe vera. Although not in my circles, of course.

Ashley James (0:41:17.101)

Yes, not everyone loves it but I love it. I don’t know. I’m one of those weird people. I want maybe exotic or different mouth feels. I like the surprise. That was slimy. That’s interesting. Some people are totally turned off by that when they eat okra. I embrace it. I’m weird like that.

I also love mushrooms. Some people can’t stand the texture. I love eating foods I know are healing for me. That just gets me off. Mushrooms are so healthy for you. Cooked mushrooms and raw onions. We’ve got the G-bombs from Dr. Joel Furman, who has that Nutritarian diet, a very science-based healing diet where he geeks out on explaining the thousand different kinds of polyphenols in broccoli and how they support your overall health and well-being.

He talks about how every day we should be eating cooked mushrooms, raw onions, berries, nuts, seeds, beans, and leafy greens. These should be in your diet every day. Doesn’t have to be truckloads, but half a cup to a cup of each one every day is so important. For people who are like, I can’t stand raw onions, what you do is you blend it. Blend a raw onion and make a salad dressing. Don’t put any oil.

Blend an onion, put an orange in, or just pick another flavor. Put some ginger in—ginger, lemon—and just make a salad dressing. Or put some miso in. You will make an amazing salad dressing, oil-free. You can put some basil in, but blend an onion. Now you’ve got your raw onion, but when you pour it onto a salad, it’s freaking delicious. You could put a garlic clove in there too. Just blend it. It’s so amazing.

All of it, the G-bombs, he calls it—that’s the acronym for all the foods I just mentioned—are anti-cancerous and healing. Someone’s got to knock on his door and tell him medicinal aloe. He’s got to add G-bombs to it, for the aloe.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:43:33.107)

It’s crazy how many people do not know about aloe vera and its use in helping people with cancer. Blows me away

Ashley James (0:43:39.583

Well, that's why we're here today. That's what we're doing.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:43:43.389)

Yes, and I just learned something. So I have to rethink how I do things because I've been having my mushrooms raw and my onions cooked. So I got it backwards.

Ashley James (0:43:59.925)

Yes. You got to reverse it.

The super health healing properties in the mushrooms. I always go for the exotic mushrooms. I love shiitake. It’s so delicious. But in fact, just the plain old, obviously organic. Never buy mushrooms that aren’t organic. Just trust me on this one.

So the plain old white button mushrooms, the most affordable, inexpensive mushrooms, actually contain the most of the healthy healing properties. So you don’t have to go exotic to get the health benefits. You could just go plain old white mushrooms, chop them up, put them in a stir fry. You don’t need to add oil to stir fries, by the way. You don’t need to add fat. You just add a bit of spoonful of water at a time or broth, and you’re good.

Mushrooms release their own water. So I do that, or I put them in the air fryer to cook them either way. There are so many ways to cook them. But yes, cook mushrooms, raw onions. That’s what Dr. Joel Fuhrman says. He explains why. Really interesting. One of the things it does when you eat these is it stops the production of new vasculature, which as an adult, you don’t really need to build. You just need to maintain your vasculature. You’re not growing another arm.

So you don’t have to build new vasculature. What in your body would want new vasculature as an adult?

Dr. Michael Haley (0:45:25.501)

Yes, well, things that are growing faster than they should.

Ashley James (0:45:29.837)

Things are growing that shouldn’t be growing there—cancer. I think cancer is, there could be weird skin things, like skin tags or weird skin things, but for the most part it’s cancer.

So when we stop, block the ability for the body, it’s a signal that says to the body, nope, don’t build new vasculature. We don’t need any new vasculature. Then even if cancer is trying to take hold, it cannot build the superhighway-like vasculature to give itself nutrition.

So it’s one of those things—on how many levels could you prevent disease? So you look at your food, your food is your main healing mechanism for both prevention and reversal. That’s why aloe should be in there, because aloe is a food. It’s a medicinal food.

Yes, I know this ends up feeling like it’s three in the morning and this is an infomercial for aloe, but I’m so excited about it. It’s a fun thing to talk about.

So now you’ve got this great new farm. There was a time that you guys weren’t selling. I know my listeners actually started reaching out to me, saying, I can’t get it. I can’t buy it anymore. Just wait. Be patient. It’s not over yet. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. Now we have an even better aloe, which is exciting. So that’s good.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:46:46.979)

Yes, we had some crazy challenges though. I mentioned it took six or seven months. Sometimes you just have to laugh at the things that go wrong. Our first container that we got from Guatemala, it was amazing aloe at the end of its shelf life. Imagine you harvest a whole big freight container and you’ve been out for a few months.

Two things went wrong, actually. One was that somewhere on the other side, they wrote the wrong container number on a piece of paper that had an extra character in it. That was one thing. The other thing was someone confused Fahrenheit and Celsius. So yes, here’s what happened. It was set at zero degrees Celsius instead of Fahrenheit.

We got it corrected on the other side before it left Guatemala. But someone failed on a piece of paper, and somewhere along the line, when they were taking it off the truck and putting it on the boat or taking it off the boat or whatever the case was, they switched it back to what the paperwork said, which was Celsius. Still wouldn’t have been a problem, except when it got into customs here in Florida, there was a container number error.

So they held it for an additional three weeks, for which I paid over $700 a day for their storage fees. Then they finally dropped it off here, and I realized it was refrigerated instead of frozen. I immediately opened up a bucket and said, oh my goodness, it’s completely melted. It’s absolutely delicious—the best aloe we ever had—but we had to dump it down the drain.

Ashley James (0:48:46.391)

Did tell me you took a bath in it. Tell me you did something, brought all your friends over, filled a pool, one of those Walmart blow-up pools. Tell me you guys used it.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:48:58.138)

Yes, we could have. We could have filled up a much bigger pool than a Walmart blow-up pool. We could have had all our friends in it at the same time.

But so we had to completely throw away that first container. We went through our challenges, and it is what it is.

Ashley James (0:49:19.216)

But okay, so you guys worked out those bugs. How was the second container? Much smoother that time?

Dr. Michael Haley (0:49:25.692)

Much smoother, yes. Just like butter, everyone's attention was perfect.

Ashley James (0:49:34.768)

Ever since, it's been good.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:49:38.244)

There was a funny experience, after waiting so long and then thinking, my goodness, this aloe is so good. I remember calling my wife over, you got to try this. She lit up. It’s so tasty. Yes, but we can’t sell it, because it’s at the end of the shelf life. Well.

Ashley James (0:50:00.780)

Man. Well, I’m so glad that it all got worked out though. That’s great. I can’t wait to have the new product to try it. That’s exciting. That’s LearnTrueHealth.com/aloe. Listeners can get it, the newer, more tasty aloe from Guatemala. Please tell me you’re going to take videos and post it on social media or something or email it out of the new farm when you go to visit it.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:50:33.316)

Absolutely.

Ashley James (0:50:35.592)

Yes, I want to see it. It's really neat.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:50:38.128)

We have such a good time in those settings and the whole farming and processing. It’s a passion of ours. In fact, even here in Florida, we’re in our backyard, in our home backyard nursery that has hundreds of aloe plants that we’re continuously separating, dividing, repotting, and eventually sending them out all over the United States right from our backyard. We absolutely love working with the aloe.

Ashley James (0:51:08.464)

You guys sell low plants too.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:51:11.070)

We do. We’re shipping them specifically. I think that people should be growing their own aloe. It’s one of those things that if there was one plant you should have, it’s aloe vera. Now, it’s not going to grow everywhere, or it’s not going to grow like it grows in Florida, and it’s especially not going to grow like it grows in the Dominican Republic or Guatemala or Mexico. Even in Florida, it grows slower, and it goes dormant in the wintertime. It's like, wait, you're in Florida and it goes dormant? Yes, it almost stops growing.

Ashley James (0:51:42.876)

But it could be a house plant. It could be a house plant though. I have aloe in my house, a little pot of aloe. You can have a house plant.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:51:48.552)

Yes, you can. You can definitely use it for small applications. I was thinking of this earlier when you were talking about the face creams that people are putting on their face that are so expensive and they have some really cool effects. You can put it on and it has your skin tightening effect almost instantly. It’s like a temporary facelift until you wash your face and then you wash that stuff off and it goes away. You can actually do the same thing with an aloe vera leaf.

Where you cut it and you just get the gel and you kind of—I like to leave one side of the skin on so that it’s easier to hold. So if you cut a one-inch section and you then put the knife through the middle of that, you have the skin kind of between your fingers, but the gel on the other side, and you just wipe it on your face and let it dry. It gives you that temporary facelift without chemicals on something that’s anti-aging.

Now it’ll wash right off, but when you let it dry there, you’ll actually feel your face tightening up from the clear gel.

Ashley James (0:52:43.094)

Yes. It's healing. It's on the outside. I mean, it's great to put on the outside, skin applications. I'm a klutz. I burn myself in the kitchen. I love cooking, and I'm a klutz. So it's like I regularly either have a burn or a knife cut or something. Anyways, I love cooking, and it's dangerous. The kitchen is not a safe place. I love putting a little aloe on a burn. It's great. It really does help the skin heal nicely.

You could put it on scars. You could put it on your face. You said you could put it if people have eczema or psoriasis. But here's the thing. The better thing to do though is have it be inside your body. It's good to have the external applications for emergencies. But if you drink it, then all the tissues on the inside are being nourished. Then it appears on your skin within seven days, because it's from the inside out.

That's holistic medicine, looking from the inside out. I was just looking at a social media post. There's this special whole-food, plant-based vegan conference—I can't remember the name of it. It just happened. Everyone I've had on my show is there. There's pictures of Chef AJ and Dr. Goldhammer, and I have Dr. Lisle on my show. I want to get him on. But a bunch of holistic, more of the whole-food, plant-based variety of people. They're all in their mid-70s. They do not look like they're in their mid-70s. They look like they're in their mid to late 50s.

You look at any of the plant whole-food, plant-based—not just vegan, because vegan can be junk. You can go to 7-Eleven and eat Twinkies and slushies. That's vegan. So vegan doesn't necessarily mean whole, holistic, or healthy. But a very specific subsection of vegetarian where it's whole-food, plant-based—no oil, no alcohol, no processed sugar, no processed flour. We're talking about whole foods, meaning single-ingredient foods. That sounds boring to some people. It is freaking delicious. It's awesome. It does take a mindset shift to do it.

In my book, I talk about how to start doing it, how to start incorporating that way of healing using food. Every single expert in this genre, in this field, looks 20 plus years younger, with healthy, vibrant skin. It's the coolest way to do anti-aging. It's through what you're putting in your mouth.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:55:44.344)

Do they look 20 years younger or does everyone else look 20 years older?

Ashley James (0:55:48.950)

Probably. Yes. I mean, I have a friend who's 10 years younger than me and he smokes. He doesn't drink anymore, but he smokes cigarettes. It's kind of weird. I'm still surprised that cigarettes are still a thing. What I mean is, in this day and age. But now it's very expensive. I think it should be more expensive. I'm sorry for those who smoke, but think about it this way. I wish, and I'm not a fan of taxes—I am so not a fan of taxes—since we do live in a society where taxes exist, I wish that things that really hurt us, like obvious stuff, things that are very, very high in sugar—not all sugar, but very, very high. Things that are clearly unhealthy for us should be taxed more.

Then that money could go towards something to do with helping people in the health space. I just think it would be cool if someone were to smoke, it's like they're paying $20 a cigarette, but they know that 10 of those dollars is going to go help someone heal themselves. That's my thing.

So anyways, he smokes. I'm getting off track. He smokes and he looks older than me. I am 10 years older than him and he is, like, he's got wrinkles. He's just—he is 35 years old and he looks older than me.

Dr. Michael Haley (0:57:14.692)

You can talk about him all you want here because he's probably not listening.

Ashley James (0:57:18.698)

He's not listening. No, he's not. I've shared my show with him. He's not listening. If he does, I hope he reaches out and says, hey, stop talking about me. That would be really funny. I'd be happy for him to listen because it means he wants to shift his life. The point is, and he did say the other day he wants to quit smoking. Good for you. I'm here to support you. But the thing is that everyone I know in my life who does very obvious things to hurt their body even eating fried food—and that's not something everyone knows—how damaging eating fried food is. It's as bad as smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol. 

There are certain foods that will age you so rapidly. I've told the story before. Stop me if I've told you. So Dr. Joel Wallach is my mentor. He's the one that did a 180 with my life. He helped me heal polycystic ovarian syndrome, infertility, type 2 diabetes.

He's the reason why I do this podcast. He turned my life around. He's the reason why I have a son and we conceived naturally after six years of trying. He helped me, and it was just with whole food supplements and with diet. He's my mentor. Actually, I studied under him. That's why I became a healthcoach, holistic. That's why I do this podcast. So Dr. Joel Wallach—I've had him on the show twice. You can go back and listen to those episodes. Go to LearnTrueHealth.com and type in Joel Wallach and his supplements, just a little plug.

TakeYourSupplements.com, absolutely amazing stuff, minerals or things that we're really missing. He's so cool. He helped me turn my life around.

So he has a friend who was actually Amish, a really neat story, and ended up leaving the Amish community to become a Navy SEAL. How intense. Navy SEALs, they're the cream of the crop. He has over 20/20 vision. Night vision. Dr. Wallach says never eat fried food. It damages so much of your body, but it'll also damage your eyesight, especially your night vision. He says absolutely never eat it. Fried food—you should think of fried food as like you're taking a cyanide pill. You wouldn't take cyanide, or you wouldn't give yourself heroin. Why are you eating fried food? So his friend said, I'm going to try, I'm just going to do this experiment.

Now he didn't normally eat fried food. He was eating just like Dr. Joel Wallach said to eat, to avoid the foods. He has a certain list of foods, and anyone who's interested, I can give them a list of foods. It's 12 foods he says to avoid that just cause damage and inflammation to the body. One of them being fried food and oil. All cooking oil. A hundred percent never eat any kind of cooking oil or oil in general. So this guy eats one thing of large fries, I think from McDonald's, every day for seven days.

On the seventh day, he's driving home at night. He lives outside one of the major cities in Utah at this time. He doesn't wear glasses, again 20/20, over 20/20 vision—he's driving home and he can't see. He can't read the signs. He cannot read the signs. He goes, what's going on? He lost his night vision from seven days of eating fried food.

It took him over a year. It took him over a year of taking antioxidants and eating super clean to get his night vision back. Now I've done this experiment with my husband. Not in eating fried food, but taking the specific supplements that support the antioxidants and really good stuff for eye health. My husband, who's turning 57, he does not have to wear readers.

You get in your 50s, you start to need to wear readers to be able to see something close to you. When he eats super clean and he takes some antioxidant-type support supplements, he does not need readers. When he kind of goes off the farm, eats whatever he wants, doesn't take his supplements, he needs to wear readers. He has done this over and over and he's like, this is amazing.

Now, if you look at the anatomy of the eye, there's a ton of vasculature in the eye. Well, you've got vasculature in your brain. That's the number one thing to support. So anytime you're eating fried food, you're damaging your brain. You're damaging your heart. You're damaging all the organs. But we see it from our eyesight first. You may not become aware of the cognitive decline from eating fried food, but you'll be aware of needing readers or losing your eyesight.

It's a shame eye doctors don't teach this—that nutrition is so important to eye health and to the health of the brain and the rest of your body.

Dr. Michael Haley (1:02:16.128)

I still wear readers.

Ashley James (1:02:17.204)

You might need to wear a stronger one if you ate fried food, is what I'm saying. You might need to continue to get stronger and stronger readers if you're eating foods that are damaging 

yourself.

Dr. Michael Haley (1:02:32.281)

I think mine's from not actually sleeping enough because some days are better than others. The other thing I did notice is nutrition definitely makes a difference. A quick funny story about this. I saw one of those advertisements about fixing your eyesight in a week or something like that. One of those real long adverts that you see where you can't speed up the video and it takes you forever to figure out what they're selling.

I was actually recording it because I was going to expose them for being frauds. That's how disgusted I was at this video. So I thought, well, I'll buy the supplements and then I'll put it on YouTube, my results, and I'll challenge them on their guarantee and everything. Well, come about the end of that period of me taking their supplements, which were just a bunch of antioxidants, kind of fruit and vegetable capsules type things with compounds that would be used for eyesight, like Lutein and Zeaxanthin.

I like watching the news in the morning. I have my organic cup of coffee, turn on the news, and I'll read the ticker on the bottom. I caught myself reading them without glasses. I said, this actually is working.

Yes, and I eventually called up the company and challenged them because I wasn't sure yet, just to see if they were going to honor their guarantee. They said, well, why don't you wait just a few more weeks and keep on going and stuff like that. A few weeks later, I ordered more.

So there's definitely something to proper nutrition and eyesight and rest. I’ve got to say rest is definitely important too because if I don't get enough sleep, I'll still notice the challenge reading the tickers. But the fact that I can at all is phenomenal because a year ago I couldn't.

So yes, I like Dr. Joel Wallach. As you were talking about him, I'm thinking about times that we shared a stage together in some debates, some nutritional debates, because no matter what, when you're in the nutrition profession, you're never going to find two people that agree 100%. It's just not going to happen. At the time, we had very differing opinions. But I love Joel Wallach. I think back to how we were all introduced to him on his cassette tapes, Dead Doctors Don’t Lie.

Ashley James (1:05:12.383)

Yes, which I heard when I was 11 or 12 years old. I have the memory—she plugged it in, someone gave it to her, and I was sitting in the back of her car and I was listening. I remember him saying, I grew up on a beef farm in Missouri, and it changed my mind. It completely shaped how I saw the world because he was exposing this concept that animals are given nutrition adequately enough to prevent disease, to keep your steak cheap. Humans are not given nutrition adequately enough to cause disease, to fund the pharmaceutical industry and this whole juggernaut of a medical system.

That's his message. Nutrition matters. That's the 30,000-foot view. Then he goes into how minerals are the thing that's missing mostly from our soil.

Yes, he does believe that the healthiest people would be steak and vegetables. That's his shtick. But without minerals, we would be just as unhealthy as the person eating Twinkies. So that's his thing. It's like the body needs nutrition. There are so many advancements in understanding nutrition. I love Dr. Michael Greger.

He's got the three books: How Not to Die, How Not to Diet, and How Not to Age. Honestly, the audiobooks are my favorite because he records them himself. He is so funny. I've had him on the show too. So nutritionfacts.org, just a little plug for him. Great website if you want to dive into understanding the science behind your food choices. I don't 100% agree with everything because he has some opinions, but what I do love is that he says, this is my opinion versus this is what 20 studies have proven. Let's not argue with the results of 20 studies. But he does look at the validity of those studies to make sure they're not funded by Snickers bars or something.

We have to also question the money motive sometimes. But let's look at nutrition from many different sources. I don't believe in diet dogma either, because I have seen so many people heal with different diets. But every diet that I've seen heals people has been a whole foods diet. What's the commonality? The commonality is removing the alcohol, the processed sugar, the processed flour, the chemicals, and just getting back to nature. Then we take it another notch, and adding the medicinal aloe drink and adding other healing plants, we can support the body's ability to heal itself. That's the main thing.

What can I do to support my body in healing myself? What can I do to remove what's blocking it? If you remove fried food today, that is a plus. If you remove alcohol, that's a plus, especially those foods that we're using as a coping mechanism. I'm all about looking at the underlying emotional reason why we eat certain foods or why we're reluctant to remove certain foods.

If you're reluctant to remove something like ice cream or fried food or alcohol, you don't physically need it. You're not reluctant because you depend on it. You're reluctant because there's an emotional component. So that's where we have to do the emotional and mental healing. We should be organizing our diet in a way that supports our body's ability to heal itself.

Dr. Michael Haley (1:08:50.776)

Can I disagree slightly while agreeing at the same time?  this is a perfect example of how two people can completely agree except for–

Ashley James (1:09:04.448)

Yes. Sure.

Well, I'd love, Yes, please clarify and I'm all for it.

Dr. Michael Haley (1:09:07.584)

No, and I agree so much that a lot of what we eat is emotional or habitual. So we just think, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to have a cigarette because I always have cigarettes after I eat. Or I'm going to have a drink because this is what I do after I eat, or before I go to bed, or when I wake up in the morning. Everyone's different.

I believe that not only have we programmed our brains, but we've also programmed our second brain, so to speak, our gut. Our gut flora has probably become dependent on certain things and influences our thoughts and our habits. They have some say and control in it, and sometimes we need to reprogram them.

Ashley James (1:09:56.320)

I love that you're bringing this up. You're one of the things you do is you're certified as a GAPS practitioner. I had Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride on the show way back in episode 385. Can you explain this from the GAPS standpoint?

Dr. Michael Haley (1:10:17.392)

Well, gut in psychology is gut and mental. It's the concept that our guts have a tremendous effect on the way our minds work. The quickest way to demonstrate this is to put something in your gut like booze. In seconds, your mind can feel different, maybe more relaxed, maybe more carefree, maybe less guarded instantly because we're so much under the influence of the chemistry in our bowels.

Yes, sure, it's getting absorbed into the bloodstream and traveling everywhere. But we've seen this in a lesser form when we've given kids sugar. I see this in the church, in the Sunday schools, when the kids are being fed all kinds of candies and cookies and sweets and they start getting crazy, or in the schools. So we can affect our mind based on what we eat and how we program our guts.

In the same way, let me get even more controversial here. Vaccines. Do vaccines cause autism? Well, wait a second. Are we asking the right question? What if vaccines, what if they potentially damage the gut? What if a damaged gut causes autism? We don't know. I'm not suggesting that that's the cause of autism, but it is possible that autism is really a response of an out-of-balance gut, or ADHD, hyperactivity.

Ashley James (1:12:20.468)

You're not just saying this. Yes, you're not just saying this out of the blue. This is actually backed by thousands and thousands of people through the GAPS diet working on healing the gut. Then the kids are either no longer on the spectrum or have significantly reduced symptoms.

Dr. Michael Haley (1:12:40.344)

Yes, so Dr. Natasha McBride, medical doctor, experimented on her own kids who had not perfect behavior, and she healed them with diet by reprogramming the gut. So that's where the GAPS diet came from. GAPS, G-A-P-S, Gut and Psychology Syndrome, but that P can also be Physiology Syndrome, and there's a whole other book that she wrote dedicated to the Physiology Syndrome.

That's the whole point of the GAPS diet. Although it's not just for healing the mind, it's for healing in the physiology sense. It's for healing the body and making the gut work like it's supposed to and not leak, which can not only change the way your behavior is, but can also have an impact on your immune system so that maybe you're not having autoimmune disorders, maybe not thyroid issues, or arthritic issues, or whatever your autoimmune condition is.

Skin conditions, there are so many of them. So that's kind of the skybox view of the GAPS diet.

Ashley James (1:13:55.950)

How many times have I heard someone with eczema or psoriasis go, I changed my diet and it cleared up. Some people, it's tricky. It might be, I removed the chemical cleaners from my house and I got a shower filter and it got a little better. Then I took out gluten and it got a little better. Then I started eating berries and it got a little better. They noticed that over time when they focused on gut health, things cleared up.

Then when they went back, they're like, I went home for Christmas and I got a huge flare-up. Okay, well there could be an emotional stress component there, but they ate all the Christmas food or they ate all the Thanksgiving food that they normally don't eat. Then they got a big flare-up. It's the gut. It's all about the gut.

Dr. Michael Haley (1:14:50.826)

I'm kind of chuckling right now, and you can't see me because we're not on video and this is audio only, but I'm laughing because I'm thinking about a lot of things we talked about. From Joel Wallach to not having the minerals or the nutrients in the soil, we're talking about GAPS and Gut and Psychology Syndrome, and really what this whole discussion comes down to, you asking me about the aloe and what's special about the soil that it's growing in.

This whole discussion is really about— you don't swear on your podcast, so I'm going to call it poop. That's what it's about. The reality is, and Joel Wallach, I was thinking about this when you mentioned his name, he was way ahead of his time because those tapes came out in the 90s, in the late 90s, I believe, maybe early 90s.

Ashley James (1:15:46.162)

Early 90s. Well, it was 91 or 92 when I heard it.

Dr. Michael Haley (1:15:49.438)

Okay, and he's talking about soil depletion already, which really is probably a mass farming, possibly GMO situation, where as we change the crops and we spray them with pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and all kinds of stuff to kill the soil. Now the soil is actually dead. But what is soil? Soil is feces. It's poop. It's poop from the smallest elimination from bacteria all the way up to worms, bugs, and big animals consuming things, turning them over into nutritious soil. Without that life, you don't have the nutrition.

In the scripture, there's something to the effect of, Lord God formed you from the dust of the ground. When I think about that, I'm formed from the dust. Well, that's poop. Maybe that scripture is not such a compliment. But the reality is everything is soil. When we're bringing it back to the GAPS diet, it's about the soil that's in us that we are making from the things that we consume.

That soil is either healthy or it's not. It either has parasites in it and toxins and heavy metals and all kinds of toxic material, or it's nutritious soil with a microflora that is kind to us and good for us and beneficial.

As you were talking, just thinking this podcast might be titled, You Are the Shit.

Now, if you got to beep me on that. But every life, the whole part of us is essentially from the soil. That's what it comes down to, the nutrition in life. There's a few things we need. We need soil, we need water, we need light. Everything comes from those things, with the life that somehow organizes it into living things.

Ashley James (1:18:24.289)

In the past, I've talked about the garden because we look at what's a healthy garden. A healthy garden has a diverse and healthy microbiome. We used to think the soil was dead. We used to think, okay, it's clay and decomposing vegetation and there are some minerals. But now we know that the most important thing in soil is what we can't see. That's the healthy microbiome. 

When you eat a raw strawberry, this is the coolest thing. I learned this a few years ago. I think it was 2017, I went through the IIN Institute for Integrative Nutrition health coach training program. A little plug for that—if listeners go to learntruehealth.com/coach, they can get a free sample class. 

I'm going to give you an abbreviation. You pick a strawberry from your very healthy garden and the microbiome, the healthy bacteria on that strawberry, if you were to have let it just sit there, the bacteria would start to break it down, start to digest it, so it can become healthy soil.

There's no soil on this planet that is healthy that doesn't contain healthy bacteria. Healthy bacteria is the measure of healthy soil. Of course, minerals have to be there for the plant, but plants can grow without minerals. Plants don't make minerals, animals don't make minerals. You can eat spinach and have zero iron. You can eat Brazil nuts and they contain little to no selenium, however you want to say it. Point being, we think we're getting certain nutrients from food, certain minerals and elements, just because that food usually contains it. The plant has to be in soil rich enough to have it.

With the microbiome, when you eat that strawberry, that bacteria helps you break down that strawberry. Then it joins the colony inside your gut. You have prebiotics, meaning the food you eat that feed the bacteria. You have the probiotics, meaning the healthy bacteria. Then you have the postbiotics, which is the coolest thing to study. That's the pharmacology made inside your gut that actually passes the blood-brain barrier and makes you crave more of what that bacteria needs.

It's almost like a symbiotic relationship, but it can be a parasitic relationship in that if you eat fried food, the unhealthy bacteria—what I coined as the Homer Simpson of gut microbiomes, which is the standard American diet, not diverse at all, and feeding off of really unhealthy foods, high-end candida, high-end unhealthy gut bacteria—their postbiotics, the poop they poop out that we absorb, causes inflammation to the heart, causes damage to the body.

So not only is the food that you're eating unhealthy, the bacteria that breaks it down in your gut further produces things that agitate you. I did a microbiome test once. I was having heart palpitations, and I determined with the help of one of the scientists there, this was a long time ago, that eating eggs for me was actually the cause of my heart palpitations. My unique microbiome, which changes over time based on what you eat, was turning the eggs I was eating into a pro-inflammatory chemical that caused my heart to skip.

When I removed the eggs, it stopped. When I added eggs, it started again. Over and over, I could turn heart palpitations on and off by adding or removing eggs. It was my final straw to go whole-food, plant-based back then because it was clear—this was no longer serving me, and my gut microbiome was clearly telling me.

The more you eat healthy foods, the more good bacteria you cultivate. You want to eat a combination of raw and cooked, or if you feel like it, go 100% raw. It's not meant for everyone all the time. You have to check in with yourself. That's why I don't want to preach any diet dogma because everyone's at different stages. But when you eat raw, especially if it's fresh from your garden or a friend's garden, somewhere reliable, you're consuming probiotics on that food.

Then the postbiotic, the thing it's pooping out because it's eating your kale and then giving you nutrition. Like you said at the beginning, chew your kale. For example, chew it to the point, or you could blend it if you want to throw it in a blender. Go ahead, make a smoothie. I'm all for using the tools that you need. Some people are pro smoothies, some people aren't. What matters is if this gets the kale in you, then do it.

But you get it in you, and then the postbiotic is pooping out this healthy stuff. This healthy stuff is good for you, it's healing for you. These chemicals are really great and lower the chance of heart disease, and they go into your brain and tell your brain, crave kale, this is our food source. We're actually just being controlled by the six pounds of gut bacteria in our gut. What you eat controls what type of bacteria you have in your gut.

So when you add, coming back to your medicinal aloe, when we do that, we are supporting the healthiest of gut microbiomes. It's so neat to be in control and choose what kind of microbiome you want. What kind of six pounds of gut bacteria do you want to be? What kind of signals do you want it to send to your brain to crave? I'd rather crave strawberries and kale than Twinkies. We can turn this on and off based on our food choices.

Dr. Michael Haley (1:24:21.206)

I completely agree. I completely agree. The aloe, by the way, if people do go to the website and they start checking out our products and you're thinking you're not ready for the drink yet, pick up a plant. If you don't pick up one of ours, make sure you just get an aloe vera. There are lots of different aloes. With the aloe vera, we have the Barbadensis Miller Stockton variety, which I'm certain is best. But use that in your life and grow your own aloe. It is absolutely amazing.

I think of this one video that I made not too long ago. The title is a little off, but you won't forget it, and you'll end up looking it up. Most of the people listening to this will. Is that all right if I do a little self-promote on a video? What got me thinking about it was when we were talking about the serums that people are putting on their face, and I mentioned that you can do the same thing with aloe.

In this particular video, I actually demonstrate how to cut an aloe leaf so that you can use it on your face. Although I think I demonstrated on my arm, I showed how I could cover my whole arm in about two or three seconds using this method from cutting a little piece of the aloe leaf. My daughter actually does this. She uses an aloe leaf on her face. She finds it helpful for her acne. I know there's a leaf in there from a few days ago because she asked me if I'd go out in the backyard and get one. She's cutting about an inch section off of it per day and using it on her face because it helps her with her acne. Tremendously helpful.

Now, the title of the video—because I get a lot of questions about aloe and when I started making this video, I intended to answer this question and I address it. A lot of people ask if they can use raw aloe vera in their vagina. So the title is, Raw Aloe in My Vagina. You'll see me in my kitchen. You'll see me standing there in my kitchen with my aloe leaf.

Ashley James (1:26:32.342)

I mean, it's 2025. It's 2025. It could be anything. It's anything. Yes.

Dr. Michael Haley (1:26:41.478)

We talk about a lot of things in the video, but you'll get a good demonstration of how you can use that aloe leaf, whether you get it off your own plant or you purchase one in the grocery store. When you're on that channel, actually, if you go to that YouTube channel and sort the videos by popularity, up on the front end will be some of the best videos about how to take that one plant and turn it into a whole bunch and even start your own little aloe vera farm.

Ashley James (1:27:12.684)

Yes. Yes. My little aloe vera plant loves to reproduce. It's very fertile. It's constantly, they're even falling out, these little tiny aloe children are just falling out. It's great. It's great. I really need to repot. I want to get some of yours, though. This was given to me years ago by a friend. I want to order some of yours. So listeners can go to LearnTrueHealth.com/aloe to get the drink.

You're going to get some of the cream when you buy the drink, which the cream is awesome. You could also buy a plant if you're not ready.

Dr. Michael Haley (1:27:50.890)

I have to check that. I'm going to fact check you. I think you're right. I'm going to LearnTrueHealth.com/aloe. Let me see, because there's a particular page it has to go to, since not everyone gets the cream. 

OK. Yes, it is. It's resolving on that one hidden page. Meaning if you go to HaleyNutrition.com and you look for aloe that includes the free cream, you're not going to find it. It is hidden.

Ashley James (1:28:18.096)

Yes, my listeners get a free cream. I love it. It's great. Yes. It lasts a really long time. It's very nice. I only use it when I need it, and when I need it, I'm so happy I have it.

Dr. Michael Haley (1:28:29.902)

Yes, so learntruehealth.com/aloe. 

I used it while we were on this podcast. No, it's true. The other day, believe it or not, I cut myself. I kind of cut a chunk off my knuckle. Aloe promotes. I use it on my hands anyway, because I'm a chiropractor. I'm always washing my hands, abusing them. I use it regularly.

Ashley James (1:28:51.438)

I'm using it right now. I used to have it on my desk.

Yes. Yes. Yes, my chiropractor touches my feet. I mean, I go in there, and I wear sandals, Birkenstocks, and I run into the car. I'm going to the chiropractor later today. I'm so excited. She's been on vacation. I woke up, and the first thing I thought of this morning was, I cannot wait to see my chiropractor.

A little shout out to Dr. Claire Russell. She actually told me one of my listeners reached out to her because they're local. She's amazing, but she touches my feet. And then I'm just like, how many times do you have to touch people's feet? I always feel bad for it. My feet are fine, but some people just don't like touching feet. And she's like, no, it's fine. It's okay.

Man, she must have to, like, every 15 minutes be washing her hands. You know what I mean? One would hope. I'm pretty sure she does. Yes, so your hands get dry, you need something to protect them. Yes. 

So the listeners can go to LearnTrueHealth.com/aloe. Also, I don't know the link to your video, but I will make sure that your channel is in the show notes of this podcast at LearnTrueHealth.com. Also, wherever you're listening from, just click on notes and it's going to be right there. If you're listening on iTunes or Spotify, wherever you're listening, right there in the description of this episode, we'll make sure that the “Aloe in My Vagina” video or the channel to get there will be listed. Make it easy to go watch that.

I think that's hilarious. I should have you name my podcasts more often.

Dr. Michael Haley (1:30:24.174)

I'm sure you've said vagina on your podcast a lot more than this episode. Let's be healthcare professionals, Ashley. Come on.

Ashley James (1:30:33.450)

Yes. It's Vulva. Thank you very much.

I love it. That's so great.

I want to make sure we touch on everything that you came here to touch on. I think we've touched on a lot. Is there anything you want to address or teach or say to wrap up before we wrap up today's interview?

Dr. Michael Haley (1:31:01.056)

I'm going to sum it up with an old proverb. “The satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb, but to one who is starving, even that which seems bitter is sweet.”

I think about the things that you had said when it comes to nutrition and how we're craving things that aren't healthy for us, and we're in that pattern until we make a change. Then we become satisfied nutritionally. When we're satisfied, the satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb. After you've just eaten a good, nutritious meal, the last thing you want to do is have a spoonful of honey. But when you're starving, Skittles will look good. Things that aren't good for you will look good. It's one of those things that just makes a lot of sense. I know that scripture is used in other ways as well.

Some people use it for married couples in intimacy. If you're starving, then you might look outside of that relationship. Something that is actually bitter and damaging might seem attractive. But nutritionally, when we think about it, as you get in the patterns and you start making the changes, and you become nutritionally satisfied, all of a sudden your appetite is now more in control, and you're not in this sugar craving where you just can't satisfy it and you just keep on eating.

I don't understand, why do I keep on eating? Because you're not satisfied.

Ashley James (1:32:46.732)

Not the nutrition. It's just empty calories. Say empty calories. That's what it means. It's calories. There's macros, but you're not getting the vitamins, the phytochemicals, the minerals, the essential fatty acids. You're not getting what your body needs—the healthy bacteria, the healthy fiber, all the polyphenols. I'll say it again if I did, but all of those healthy healing compounds are missing in processed food.

We are walking around just hungry for them while still eating food that's void of nutrition.

What I love about the Bible is that one parable, one verse, could hit you on so many layers. Every time you read it or hear it, it can apply to your life in a different way. It's so neat. It's really beautiful. It's almost like a kaleidoscope. Every time you look at it, it's different, and you get something new out of it. I love it. It's so cool. They knew that thousands of years ago.

This isn't new. This is how we're built. This is human nature, and we can learn so much from our nature by studying the Word of God. So I love that. That's cool. Thank you. Thank you so much. I know. I know. Amen.

Dr. Michael Haley (1:34:19.529)

I feel guilty for swearing earlier. 

Ashley James (1:34:25.648)

It’s okay. I cut it out. You didn’t swear. I don’t know what you’re talking about. 

Dr. Michael Haley, it's been so much fun having you back on the show. Three times a charm. 

Please, listeners, go check out episode 401 and 474. We go in even deeper in different directions, but today was super fun and it was so great having you on the show. Please come back. We'd love to have you. This was great.

Of course, listeners can go to LearnTrueHealth.com/aloe, and I'm going to go get one of your aloe plants. I can't wait. I want to see what happens when I grow one. My son—he's homeschooled—he's currently on a plant kick. Last week, he was all about dinosaurs. The week before, it was all about hermit crabs. This week, it's all about growing plants.

He can't get enough of it. He keeps taking seeds out of everything. My lemon, and he took seeds from a mango and an avocado. He just keeps collecting all the seeds, and then he starts sprouting them. And a jackfruit—he took jackfruit seeds and actually planted them. I don't know how well it's going to grow here in the Pacific Northwest, but he's going to freak out if I get an aloe plant. He's going to be so excited to grow it because he's really into growing plants right now.

So get yourself an aloe plant for your kids and teach them that they can use it medicinally, topically on their skin to help them. What a great family activity and fun learning event.

Dr. Michael Haley (1:36:03.159)

Yes. I love you, Ashley. You're awesome. I love your show.

Ashley James (1:36:06.932)

Awesome. Thank you. Same to you and to all the work that you're doing. It's very exciting. Thank you so much for teaching us how we can support our body's ability to heal itself. I look forward to having you back.

Outro:

Hi, my name is Jennifer Saltzman, and I am the head coach at TakeYourSupplements.com. I wanted to share with you a testimonial that I received from a client of mine—one of the many success stories that I have—but this one was very close to my heart because she's young, has struggled so much to regain her health, and has had such a phenomenal, overcoming testimonial that I really wanted to share it today.

She writes:

My name is Angela. I am 25 years old. I have been on a health journey that consists of an autoimmune disease, fibromyalgia, and other issues that left me feeling defeated and debilitated every day. For 15 years, I have seen eight different specialists and many doctors, and have been in and out of physical therapy, dealing with symptoms I thought would leave me wheelchair-bound and in diapers by the time I was 30.

Well, I am now 25, and after everything I've learned through Jennifer at TakeYourSupplements.com, that definitely won't happen.

Some things doctors have said to me have crushed my hopes. I was told to lose weight and that my pain would go away. So I lost 90 pounds—and the pain was still there. My days were short, and after a five-hour work shift or even a day of running an errand or two, I was left debilitated. So the doctors told me the pain was all in my head because I was previously diagnosed with fibromyalgia—the only diagnosis so many doctors agreed upon because they couldn't think of anything else. Despite me having some form of an immune disease, I felt hopeless and as if life was going to pass me by.

There were times when I tried hiking one or two miles and I was unable to walk or function for days after. I was missing out on trips and adventures, and as embarrassing as it sounds, I was having BM bathroom emergencies so frequently it was ruining my daily function. I could go on about the ways I was ill and what it kept me from, but honestly, after the progress I've made, a long list of symptoms I used to have has become a blur of the past.

When I finally decided to check out TakeYourSupplements.com, recommended through the Learn True Health podcast, I was immediately connected with Jennifer, who kept track of my overwhelmingly long list of complex symptoms and thoroughly created a personalized, step-by-step plan.

Her recommendations have changed my life, and the changes were practically instant. She put me on a complete digestive activation complex that has taken away all of my stomach pain, unnecessary bloating, and gas. She explained to me that the formula supports every stage of digestion—from breakdown to absorption—designed to optimize stomach acid, bile flow, and nutrient assimilation.

She recommended a cellular repair-focused diet, which not only has helped my stomach, but the food gives me energy and makes me feel really good. It reduces inflammation in my body—something no doctor ever told me about.

When I first started with Jennifer, I took the TakeYourSupplements.com health evaluation and scored a negative 32. I just retook it and scored a 69. That's 100 points better in five months.

Still room for progress, but my life nevertheless has been changed, and I am so happy. My days have been much longer and full of adventure. I have hiked the 4,000-footer mountains of New Hampshire—something I never thought I would be able to do. I have had successful days of workouts, errands, and work.

The Learn True Health podcast and Jennifer at TakeYourSupplements.com have done more for me than any doctor ever has, and it all started with validation.

I am now 25 and feel my life is just now starting. It's really hard to put into words just how much has changed for me, so I'll keep on living as actively as possible and learning as much as I can so I can finally take part in the beautiful things of life.

I can't wait for the adventures to come with the hope I've been given through this program. If anyone out there hears this and feels their doctors are taking more than they're giving, give this a try.

Thank you, Ashley and Jennifer. Your knowledge and expertise is a gift I cherish every day.

Learn more and book your free health consultation today by visiting TakeYourSupplements.com.

Get Connected with Dr. Michael Haley!

Haley Nutrition

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

YouTube

Recommended Readings by Dr. Michael Haley

The Maker's Diet  by Jordan Rubin

The GAPS Diet by Dr. Natasha Campbell – McBride

---

---

Order High-Quality Supplements

Visit Our YouTube Channel