The Meat Mafia Podcast

Alli Schaper is the founder of Super Mush, a company dedicated to promoting the benefits of functional mushrooms. She is a passionate advocate for mental health and functional mushrooms. Alli's story is one of self-discovery, healing, and a deep understanding of the interconnectedness between gut health, brain health, and overall well-being. Through her studies of psychedelics and involvement in the mental health community, Alli has emerged as a thought leader and advocate for the healing potential of functional mushrooms and psychedelics.

Key topics discussed include:
  • The parallels between faith in God and psychedelics, and how both can lead to a sense of connection with a higher power and a greater understanding of the world
  • The fascinating nature of the mycelium network and its similarities to the internet and AI algorithms
  • The interconnectedness between fungi and soil health
  • Functional mushrooms, including Lion's Mane, and some of their benefits
  • The impact of ancestral DNA and how trauma can be passed down through generations
  • The process of outsourcing health and learning to trust one's own intuition when it comes to making decisions about diet, relationships, and lifestyle choices
Timestamps:

(00:02) Exploring Psychedelics and Religion
(06:50) Exploring Psychedelics and Functional Mushrooms
(11:12) Fascination With Fungi and Soil Health
(20:18) Navigating Health and Intuition
(28:29) Birth Story and Healing Journey


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Creators & Guests

Host
Brett Ender 🥩⚡️
The food system is corrupt and trying to poison us... I will teach you how to fight back. Co-Host of @themeatmafiapod 🥩
Host
Harry Gray 🥩⚡️
Leading the Red Meat Renaissance 🥩 ⚡️| Co-Host of @themeatmafiapod

What is The Meat Mafia Podcast?

The Meat Mafia Podcast is hosted by @MeatMafiaBrett and @MeatMafiaHarry with the mission of addressing fundamental problems in our food and healthcare system. Our concerns with our healthcare system can be drawn back to issues in our food system as far back as soil health. Our principles are simple: eat real foods, buy locally, and cook your own meals.

When you listen to our podcast, you will hear stories and conversations from people working on the fringes of the food and healthcare system to address the major crises overshadowing modern society: how do we become healthy again?

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Part 2

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[00:00:00] Should we hit it? Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

There's so many things that can create neuroplasticity in your brain and make us ask bigger questions.

meditation cold plunging breath work they help you deeply trust yourself.

I feel like it's kind of pre programmed into a lot of women that they should avoid red meat. Do you feel like you have an explanation as to why you were, Afraid to eat meat previously?

​

I've heard you use the word nuance a few times in regards to psychedelics, which I think is a great term. And I've also heard you describe it as a tool. And we were talking about this, I think a little bit at Sun Life, and you correct me if you think I'm wrong or if you have strong feelings about this, but I actually see some parallels between.

Like, faith in God and psychedelics. And I think I was explaining to you that Harry and I both made the decision to get re baptized at the church, the Christian church that we go to in town, which has been an amazing experience. And it's very interesting to share that experience [00:01:00] with people because a lot of people that are in the millennial demographic have experienced what's called like church hurt.

Where like you went to a church, maybe it was like Catholic, Episcopalian, traditional, where you either didn't have a good relationship with God, maybe you had a bad pastor, a bad priest, something happened to you, maybe it was someone at the community that did something to you. And so you like harden yourself towards faith in God and religion in general.

And the response to that is like, what you experienced, that wasn't actually God. Your heart shouldn't be hardened towards God. That was like a person's incorrect interpretation of God that did something to you as well. And then in the nuance that you're explaining in the psychedelic community is very interesting because we were explaining that Austin is a very interesting spiritual city where There are people like you that are ultimately using it as a tool and taking a very, like, incredible approach, healthy approach to the way that they use psychedelics.

And then there's also people that I think view these drugs as God, it's as the master versus the tool. And I think they give it a very bad rep for a lot of other people. So [00:02:00] I think the nuance is there. But the way that you were explaining, Your journey with psychedelics just kind of reminded me of just some of the stuff that we've gone through the last year with like our Christian faith, so I don't know if you've ever explored that connection or you think there's validity there But I just wanted to share that cuz I think that's pretty interesting.

Yeah, it's it's fascinating I mean, there's the the thing that comes up for me and it's an amazing book if It's not, it's not an easy read because it's a pretty dense book, but there's this book that this guy Brian Murawski wrote, it's called The Immortality Key. And it is essentially a history of psychedelics.

And the concept like thesis behind the book is essentially the reason why we have 27 ish percent of the world that identifies themselves in this spiritual but not religious category is because we. Um, originally used psychedelics as part of religious sacrament, like every Western religion that has been documented.

He went in and found like the artifacts that have been like fossilized [00:03:00] cups and things and basically proving through like taking the archaeological remains of these cups that they were infused with ergo infused barley essentially was the remains aka psychedelic beers and wines. And the process of stopping to use those psychedelic sacraments as a part of religion is where you see this drop off in religion.

So why this relates back to your, back to your point is, um, a lot of taking psychedelics out of the church has caused this rift and then people have kind of refound psychedelics but without the church. And there's this, there's this really great poem that I love. It's called Don't, Don't Trap God in Church.

And so a lot of people have now found God out of church. And then I was actually, I was talking to Mike and he, he said, you know, you don't want to trap God out of church either. So it's like, how do you kind of bring it back together? And people are finding that people are, you know, so a lot of people identify as a spiritual but not [00:04:00] religious.

And I think the point that you're kind of making clearly is a lot of times a concept and a, you know, an ethos is so good and you have one person that's not embodied that kind of ruins it for you. Like if you go to a church and you don't. connect with the pastor that's speaking or they don't feel like they're an embodied representation of, of that ideology, you kind of turn away from it altogether.

And that's a lot of what, that's even what happened with my experience with religion. I kind of refound it through psychedelics. So, you know, my, my teacher, one of my, one of my teachers that I've sat with in ceremony many times, like really emphasizes the point. Of exactly what you just shared, that they're tools and they are not, you know, they're not necessarily like, you know, God themselves, like we kind of have a reverence and we're getting, we're like outsourcing our [00:05:00] divinity in a lot of ways when we're, when we're looking at psychedelics.

So they're tools to like awaken that within you. And you know, there's, there's a lot of people that are, um, you know, people call it pseudo shamanism, whatever you want to kind of use the term as where, um, people are taking their own neuroses into psychedelics world and like kind of sharing, sharing the wrong message.

And there's so many beautiful people that are, that are using these tools and helping share them in the right way. So you can find like. You can find all of it everywhere. Yeah, well the history of it too You guys made me think about this. There's It was the 60s and 70s when there was like this liberation of a lot of psychedelics drugs in the u.

s specifically, but then there was also like on the back side of that like a religious and spiritual revolution as well So it makes me think that like we can't I don't necessarily separate these two things from each other. Like when people [00:06:00] do have a psychedelic experience, I've seen it more time than once.

They end up starting to talk about God in a way that like, you know, might not be the same way that we would talk about God, but like they start to have this higher level experience where they realize that there is a higher power out there, like there is more to the story than what they were experiencing before.

So, I do think that the history of these two things. Like, are kind of one in the same in some ways. Um, like, there's a movie that came out recently called The Jesus Revolution. I think it was in the 80s or 70s. I'm not totally sure. 70s. 70s. And like, that coincides exactly with, like, a lot of the Revolution that was happening in psychedelics.

So I don't know. I feel like they're we're kind of experiencing that now where people are starting to Explore consciousness in different ways after having gone through Covid might have been the wake up call for a lot of people where they started to reframe their thinking about you know What are we experiencing?

What? [00:07:00] You know, is there dark? Uh, evil out there. Is there good out there? Um, I think that it's forced a lot of people to start to question, um, some higher level things. Yeah. And it really, I think COVID and that time period made people ask different questions and kind of like removed a lot of surface level conversation where people were getting to like the root of, um, of what's going on in society quicker.

And what it pointed to is, is a lot of, you know, a lot of COVID but it's specifically like. it isolated us. So like it pulled us away from each other. Um, the biggest takeaway, like the most common phrase, you'll hear people that have gone through psychedelic experience say, and this is like documented in all the clinical trials is we are all one.

And what that means is they're experiencing this kind of like connection with other people and in a more profound way than they have before. And realizing, like we are all part of one thing where like so much of what COVID did was isolate us and literally draw borders across like where we're able to cross.

And, um, Um, you know, both, both, [00:08:00] you know, invisible and like physical borders were, were created. And so a lot of what psychedelics can do is like reconnect us with the collective consciousness and make our, like, make us ask bigger questions. The other thing I think is really, you know, interesting and important to note here is if someone's listening to this and they're like, okay, I'm not ready to explore with psychedelics.

There's so many things that can like create neuroplasticity in your brain. and create these, like, same feelings and these same, like, awakenings without having to do psychedelics. Like, a lot of what my world is is actually functional mushrooms. Lion's Mane is such an important tool. If you were to just put everyone's brain in the world on Lion's Mane, we would have such a better planet because it can create.

It can create neuroplasticity in the brain, it can grow new, new neural connections, a lot of what like is actually happening, because a lot of this, it might sound like maybe that's a good thing to talk about. It might sound like kind of, [00:09:00] um, esoteric or like tough to wrap your brain around because what's actually happening, like if you're just to talk about psilocybin, when psilocybin goes into your, into your brain, it's converted to psilocin, so it opens your visual cortex, you're able to see more of what's actually there around you, um, and it removes you from your default mode network.

Where all of your habit loops and decisions and basically like this autopilot that we create throughout our lives lives. And so it, you know, Michael Pollan describes it as fresh snow powder for, for the brain. So like, you know, instead of going down the same ski slopes every day where like that groove is, is already built in, it's like the feeling of when you talk to your mom on the phone and you like have this crazy reaction and you drop back into being 12 years old again.

Like that automatic response. is able to be refreshed in a way and you're able to think differently think differently You know, a lot of people are scared of losing their mind changing their mind That is like the entire point your mind will change and you will [00:10:00] grow new neural pathways in your brain Um, the brain scan images are so cool and a lot of that Same thing can happen with use of functional mushrooms.

Lion's Mane being one of them. Do you, do you credit a lot of your experience with psychedelics to being like the catalyst for starting Super Mush? You know, it's actually, no, no. Um, it's inspired by, like if you look at the branding, we have this, the brand for people that are listening, it's called Super Mush.

And it's a very 60s and 70s inspired brand. Our vision is like, you know, kind of be Red Bull of Mushrooms, but healthy is the way they're approaching the marketing model. So it's super fun, like festival focused and it looks like, you know, Woodstock brand. It's really 60s Inspired, but functional mushrooms are such a huge part of my journey and feeling incredible.

And I worked with them for years before I ever really started working with psychedelics consciously. Um, so really [00:11:00] functional mushrooms was like the primary. And then I started to educate myself on, on psychedelics in a more conscious way. And then realized how important it was to use supermatch as a platform to educate holistically around fungi.

Cause one of the things, one of the things that is so fascinating to me, that a lot of people don't know. It's like, actually, like, fungi, if we're just talking about fungi, it's like this whole kingdom. And we're more closely related to it as humans, the animal kingdom, than we are even to plants. We share most of our DNA with mushrooms.

And there's so many fascinating things. That I wish that this would be taught in school. Like if there would just be a class taught in elementary school about mushrooms, I think it would be incredible. Because there's so many lessons you can learn from how fungi operate. Like if you guys ever heard of the mycelium network, or do you know what that is?

I've heard of it, but I don't know what it is. Yes, there's a really interesting, uh, paper by one of my buddies and he wrote it, like, the mycelium network and how it [00:12:00] relates to Bitcoin, and it's, like, incredibly fascinating. Yeah. You can use, people are using fungi If anyone wants to just, like, go off on a deep rabbit hole.

No, and it sounds crazy, but it's not. So if you look at, like, the way that, the mycelium network is basically this vast interconnected web of fungal network that lives under every single step you take across planet Earth. It goes like 300 miles down. So every single living thing that comes out of the ground across planet Earth is connected by this mycelium web.

And so it is this mass like, you know, giant organism basically. And if you look at the way that we share nutrients underground, the mycelium shares nutrients, like collaborates with all these diverse species. There's like so much wisdom in that that humans can take from mushrooms. And also, like, everything that dies, like, mushrooms literally come out of the ground and eat it and return it to the earth.

Um, and so a lot of the, a lot of the concepts and, um, like, deep concerns that are really real around [00:13:00] the planet and the state of our environment. It kind of points to the fact that the humans are the ones that are actually in danger like the planet is going to be fine because mushrooms will just decompose, um, everything that happens and kind of start over.

They're the digestive system of the earth. So the mycelium is fascinating and to the, to the point around, you know, Bitcoin and the internet. It varies, like it operates very similarly to the earth's internet. So it's actually like AI algorithms that are using fungi to inform AI to make it more conscious.

Hmm. It's really interesting. Yeah. It's, it's, um, I think a lot of amazing technological advancements just mimic nature, like whenever you see some massive transformative technology like the airplane, it's like two guys trying to figure out how to design something that is already existing in nature. And I think we've tapped into that with the internet and things that are being built on the internet by looking at the mycelium network is how do we understand network effects, which is really interesting.

[00:14:00] is ultimately kind of like what the internet is being built into. Um, so it's, it's really interesting. I feel like we're not even close to fully understanding either of those. Um, but one of the things you said that really was interesting to me is like the soil health and how, you know, we'll, we will, potentially cease to exist, but the earth will be fine.

Um, one of the most impactful episodes of the podcast that we've ever done this with Taylor Collins who started Epic bar and now he has a ranch out in Fredericksburg, Texas, Texas called Rome Ranch. And one of the things he said to us was, um, I asked him, I forget the exact question, but it was essentially like What's the difference between soil health and human health and he goes they're one in the same like the health of the soil Will directly over a long enough period of time decades Be something that funnels into the overall health of everything that's on top of it I think it was like a pretty profound way of saying what you said earlier, which [00:15:00] is you know, we're all one and As humans, we can think that we're different, that, you know, we can exist in these, like, narrow, um, industrial mechanisms, but if we forget about the fact that, if we keep using chemicals to grow all these crops, and it kills all the life in the soil, we're eventually going to be sitting here one day and not have any soil to, you Create the food that we need so Yeah, I just think that there's a lot of value in like making that connection Like they're the soil health is our health like we can't live without life in the soil And I think a lot of it just comes down to like we don't you know, we're so disconnected from understanding nature We're so separate from that understanding like I you know, I grew up without any of this knowledge and And then understanding of the history because we were just, I just grew up with processed food and in a processed environment and everything that just felt normal to me.

And then the more that I started to understand it actually a huge connection point for me and maybe [00:16:00] people on this that are listening to this, um, it's one of the most common things that people deal with is, is mold poisoning and the wisdom around mold poisoning of like going through that experience.

Basically like when, um, When you get mold poisoning, it's usually from a home. It can be from food, but most people get it from living in a moldy home because the way that we build homes in the United States is outrageous. We're basically just building, like, um, boxes that trap moisture in and create mycotoxins that we're then breathing in all day.

Um, so mold is a huge, huge issue that a lot of people deal with. And I. It was also comical because I got mold poisoning while I was building a mushroom company. So I was like, Oh my God, they're literally inside of me. I can't escape it. But my lesson from, from mold was like understanding that my, you know, mushrooms are literally eating the buildings because they're trying to decompose this, you know, non natural structure and return it to the earth.

And then I just, you know, I spun off on like the spiritual meaning behind this and, um, [00:17:00] the lessons like mushrooms are always trying to teach us lessons, whether it be the mycelium Um, or the mycotoxins that are eating the buildings or the psilocybin that's in our brain or the lion's mane that's in our brain.

I think they're always kind of trying to inform wisdom in, in humans. And so I had a lot of lessons from mold, but one of them was that, you know, now after have got, having gone through it, I'm so sensitive to being in a moldy environment. So my system recognizes that and I would, and most people that have gone through it where they would never sleep in a moldy home because they're like, Oh my God, I realized how.

How much this affects my my health and then I had all these awakenings around like understanding that people are also like mold so as Important as it is to protect our physical environment the things that we eat and all the things that you guys probably talk about on The show like people are equally Um, as impactful to us.

So if you sit next to someone that has a certain type of energy because their nervous system, um, is operating in a certain way, or like [00:18:00] even as simple as someone being on like a high stack of pharmaceutical drugs, just as when you sit next to someone and you can feel that they're like highly caffeinated.

Mm-hmm . And it creates this like almost anxious response in your own nervous system that's happening to us on like a subtle basis, day over day over day. And so, a lot of the illnesses that we develop are like a slow burn. You know, they're developed after like every day of doing something in like a micro amount.

And it just made me hyper aware of around like the energies that I surround myself with. The energies that I'm bringing to other people. The mold was like that that wake up call for me because I realized how sensitive my nervous system is after that experience well Yeah, that's why I think what I think one of the most impactful points that I'm taking from this conversation It's just your willingness to study history because I think when you actually study history you realize that like The, the secret to the future is really learning from the past too, which seems very counterintuitive, but it's absolutely true.

It's like, I think you said anything that you thought was a drug was [00:19:00] actually medicine. Anything that you were being pushed as medicine was actually a drug, and it's absolutely true with our food system too, right? It's like, you know, I was basically told that, hey, I shouldn't really eat large amounts of meat and saturated fat, et cetera.

That's ultimately what cured my stomach. You've been following like a paleo animal based diet and you feel the best that you've ever felt, even though you're basically told that this is poison, this is what's ultimately going to kill you. Yeah, and that's what, you know, originally what we talked about, we, we were riffing on like what to call the episode and you were like steak and sex gummies.

Yeah. Because those are the things that I've like, that have been really incredible for me lately. Yes. Um, and for context, we make sex gummies for super mush. Um, the sex therapy background makes more sense too. I realized upon, upon reflection, accidental, um, accidental, uh, synchronicity there, but yeah. So my, and again, a part of what my journey was, was, was diet, so I cured a lot of my illnesses through food and originally that was just like removing all processed food, but I, it was like when the vegan craze was, um, really present.

So I was, [00:20:00] I was vegan probably for five years or so. And then I was vegetarian, but then I started to have, you know, like the very classic issues that a lot of women have where like my hair was falling out. And I wasn't getting my period. I was working out like a guy, essentially. Like doing Barry's Boot Camp type workouts.

Um, I was also like in my modeling era. When I was working in fashion industry in New York. So like all of that was like, you know, leading to a very specific outcome. And it wasn't what was making me healthy. Like my body was literally not getting a period. And not cycling to show me that like my nervous system was out of alignment and like I wasn't in accordance with my circadian rhythm.

And so one of the things I started to do actually as a result of mold poisoning of going and seeing a few different practitioners was they were like, you need to start eating meat or you should explore to start eating meat. And I did and very quickly my body was like, yes, this this works for me. And it was very [00:21:00] against what I had been told.

learning and reading about the people that I was following at the time. And everyone's system is different. So this isn't obviously a prescription, but like really what worked for me was starting to eat meat again. And then I got a little lazier with my diet. And one of the things that happened to me at the beginning of the year is I had someone read the stool test for me and the stool tests are really interesting, but basically I had this doctor read it and he told me that I needed to stop eating all meat.

Okay. Um, basically all the things that were making me feel good and it didn't feel right to me. So it was also like me learning to listen to myself and be a citizen of my own, you know, be a citizen doctor of my own health journey. And I was like, actually, this doesn't, this doesn't feel right. I'm going to go like totally opposite way and just be basically paleo and need a very specific diet of essentially meat, sweet potatoes.

Like a few other, like, avocados, like, very basic foods, and I feel the best I've ever felt. Yeah. [00:22:00] I feel incredible, and I'm eating, you know, I'm eating meat for almost every meal, and I, like, I've gotten a lot of different signals from my body that this is working, and it might not always be the thing, but right now it's, like, really working for me.

And it's funny that I was very, um, anti that for a long time. Yeah. Mm. Go ahead. Well, I was just going to say, you're not, uh, you're not the only one. I feel like it's kind of pre programmed into a a lot of women that they should avoid red meat. I'm, I'm interested to understand, like, what, like, do you, do you feel like you have an explanation as to, like, why you were, Afraid to eat meat previously and like I just think a lot of people could benefit from Trying to understand like where that comes from and like what ultimately gave you that Like inclination to be like already like I should I should definitely just explore this It was I mean it's the classic like documentaries and the the kind of the cultural zeitgeist around like the veganism [00:23:00] trend like I was just I just, I caught wind of that and followed that and there's a lot of amazing truth to what happens to your body, mostly from the removal of processed foods.

Right. So of course you're going to start feeling better once you stop eating package processed things and just start eating whole real foods and that really worked for me for a little bit. But I think on like a long term sustainable basis, like my body was not hormonally balanced. And does do really well with meat.

I think it's also, there's so many factors around, like, what your ancestry is, like, where your family, like, lineage is from, like, what foods they ate and the cultures they were, you know, for hundreds of years. Like, so much of, I think, what people don't understand is, like, how much of our DNA is passed on.

They're literally, they're literally doing studies, specifically in the psychedelic space right now, Which I think points to this really clearly because there's not, there is not one size fits all for anything. But [00:24:00] they're doing studies to show that symptoms of trauma can skip a generation even and show up in the DNA of Our grandchildren, our children, you know, they did this really interesting study with women and survivors of sexual abuse where the daughters and the granddaughters are showing symptoms of PTSD from sexual trauma even though nothing happened to them in their lifetime.

But it lives in the nervous system and the DNA of the mother. And therefore, you know, you're birthing this child that carries your DNA in your nervous system and so it's carrying on in your lifetime. That's crazy. It's really fascinating because a lot of things that we can't figure out, we know that we have, you know, we're affected by our parents, but I don't think we really understand how much.

Um, and so I think that's a really good parallel to draw with, with food, where so much of, you know, your gut imbalances like mine for sure came from, you know, when my, yeah, when I, like when you're in the [00:25:00] womb, um, and, and prior to. So. A lot of things that I needed to cure, um, were, were really helped through, through that process.

Yeah. And you develop such amazing intuition by giving your body the right nutrients where you can have a doctor that's telling you to give up meat. And then you end up developing the right perspective, which with your, the right relationship with your doctor, where it's like, I'm viewing my doctor just as a consultant, not the CEO of what I'm ultimately supposed to be doing with my own body and my own health.

And so many people don't have that confidence and it's a shame that a lot of people in this, this person seems like they were functional, so I'm sure they were probably like, well ahead of the curve of most Western medicine. Um, but a lot of people just feel like, Hey, if my doctor tells me to follow this type of eating or this type of prescription, I just blanket do it and I don't question.

Where it's like if you probably gave, gave up meat, you would go back to your hair falling out, not feeling great, not having a period, which is like, you should just intuitively have like a great hormone cycle, great hair, great skin, all from giving your body the right nutrients that actually needs to thrive.

It's [00:26:00] so the thing that came up for me as you're talking is I kind of mentioned this at the beginning But it's the process of outsourcing your health in general Like we're always looking outside for the answers and a lot of what? psychedelics do a lot of like and you know, whether it's spiritual work that doesn't have to necessarily be psychedelics, but Things that give you a psychedelic like state meditation cold plunging breath work Um, is they help you trust yourself, like really deeply trust yourself because you have the own, your own, you know, the entire context and the entire vantage point.

I was one time, um, this woman came up to me, I was at Burning Man. This woman came up to me, I was like, I want to pull a tarot card for you. And you're like, of course, at Burning Man, this is, um, you have to say yes to this moment. She pulled this, this card for me and it was a photo of a broken mirror. And the analogy that she gave me and the reading behind that was really impactful.

Based on things that I was contemplating in my life at the time where she was like you have the full picture [00:27:00] You have the full mirror Everyone else is giving sees a little shard of glass of this bigger mirror Even someone who like it knows you so well and is so deeply ingrained in your journey Still doesn't have a hundred percent of the full mirror.

Like you have the full context. I think it's a really good analogy of Trusting yourself and being able to be intuitive with what to eat who to be around what to do with your time You And that process is like a slow understanding and a peeling back of a lot of these layers. And most of the layers, for me, have been pharmaceutical drugs, you know, maybe toxic relationships, food, whatever it is, and like peeling those back.

And then when your system is clear, your nervous system is aligned, then you can really be intuitive and directive with, with your path in a way that you could not have the clarity to do so before. Um, I've been. Interested to ask this question since you mentioned it, but how has how has Uh, being a triplet [00:28:00] kind of helped you contextualize the world because I feel like you always, you just said like everyone's a shard of glass while you have like two other mirrors who kind of understand almost exactly kind of like who you are, where you're coming from.

You guys literally came into the world together, so like are probably experiencing life in your own individual ways, but it's very interconnected. So curious, like how has that been? And are they along for the same journey as you are? Um, would love to just like dive into that a bit. We have a really weird birth story.

Do you want to hear it? Yes. Okay. Um, so, my mom had trouble having children. And she was about, you know, she had two miscarriages and was about to, they were in the adoption process. So my, my, she thought she could never get pregnant. She was told she could never get pregnant. They were in the adoption process.

My aunt had a dream, said God spoke to her, went to my mom and was like, I want to have a baby for [00:29:00] you. I think I'm supposed to be a surrogate for you and have a baby for you. My mom was like, what? Um, And they ended up doing it. They ended up going down this path. And at the time this is in Missouri, found a doctor, my aunt searched all over the country to do in vitro fertilization, which was very taboo at the time.

It was very still like messing with the hand of God, um, where we are from. And they did it, they did in vitro and they made six eggs and a Petri dish. All my parents DNA, my mom and my dad's DNA. They put three eggs into my aunt and they had these three leftover eggs. They put them into my mom. They both got pregnant at the same time.

So. Our triplethood is, like, we're triplets because we were conceived at the same time, but we were born in two different moms, two different years, exactly a month apart. My siblings are born on Christmas Day. I'm born the next month on January 25th. Wow. And so, that was, like, how our life started, and I feel like it's important context to the story of, like, we didn't share a womb, and that's, um, interesting.

But, [00:30:00] I guess, the journey of Of being a triplet is like a therapist dream in so many ways because you get this like relentless feedback that a lot of people don't get at a young age and It's like an ultimate case study in nature versus nurture and we're all so different I love my siblings and we're you know, best friends and incredible but like so so many different archetypes of humans within this like, you know, within the three of us.

Yeah. But it's been an amazing, amazing journey and like such a, a cool, reflective point throughout your life because you also see how deeply your environment impacts you when you have two other humans that were raised in the same little pod as you. Yeah. Same year, everything. I've never heard a birth story like that before.

That's incredible. Super weird. Super weird. And the best, the best part of the story too is they were like these tiny, cute, preemie babies because they were born a few weeks early and they were five and a half [00:31:00] pounds. And then I come out, they're like so cute, the photos of them, they're adorable. I come out, I'm 10.

7 pounds, I was like, I was like emergency c section, I have a giant cone head, it's really intense, I'll show you a photo of it. Um, yeah, so I was literally double their size. It's just a unique, it was a unique start. Who was born out of your mom and who was born out of your aunt? My aunt had me. Okay. My aunt had me, yeah.

There's something to that. I mean, especially your, your mom, your parents not thinking they were going to be able to have kids and then your aunt has this amazing vision and you're able to give your mom like the ultimate gift, the gift of motherhood. That's so incredible. It's beautiful. It's beautiful.

Thank you to my to my aunt. Um, and then something else interesting, which also relates to the, the food system is we grew up in, we removed, my, my dad got a job over in Taipei. So we actually grew up over in Taiwan for the first seven and a half years. And so the hormones are so different over there. Like, cause you're not exposed to the same, you know, hormones in milk [00:32:00] and a lot of things that are creating this early puberty and a lot of women specifically over in the U.

S. And so my parents, when they brought us back over, you know, we were, I think, second grade, first grade. And the kids looked like, like teenagers compared to us. Like, they were just, they were just, like, So much more like developed really. And my mom was like, what? Like, what the hell? When she was like walking, like watching us come out of school one day.

'cause she was like, you guys, look, we looked so young because like we're expediting the puberty process through the early development and injection of hormones into a lot of our foods over here. That was also an interesting, like parallel wow. To look at. Do you have any memories from Taipei? Mm-Hmm. . Like stand out as I mean you were seven when you left.

Yeah, I came back to the States. It's early I mean, it's it's very full circle, but there are a lot of things but the [00:33:00] thing that feels Most relevant to this conversation and probably what planted seeds of a lot of what my current obsessions are around around death Is that they have a reverence for death in a really unique way their process of praying before You know blessing their food You know, I remember we would, my, my nanny in Taiwan, we would take out all the food of our pantry and, and bless it, like wave sparklers around it, like super interesting rituals that do not happen over in the United States.

And we would, um, they have, you know, this thing called tomb sweeping day. So over in Taipei is where we grew up and it's like exactly what it sounds like. They would literally dig up the bones of their ancestors. Clean them and then rebury them, which was like a normal process. I remember walking to school and like watching this process happen, which is so different from how we treat and like have a connection to death and Western [00:34:00] cultures.

Like if you walk to school in America and saw someone like digging up bones and cleaning them, you'd be like, we need to call this person and get them arrested. Um, yeah, it sounds like a scary movie, you know, but that was like a part of what their process was of respecting, you know, their, their deceased.

It's cool hearing you talk about these stories because it's easy to see you now and understand who you are and what you're working on because in the context of your whole story, it just makes a lot of sense. Um, I don't know if you've heard that before, but, um, yeah, your story is, is really, really powerful.

And I think that like so many people are going to take value from it, not just from you starting super mush, but also just. The learning from history and applying it to your everyday life, I think is a big takeaway for me. So just appreciate you coming on the show and, uh, excited to call you a friend going forward.

Likewise. I'm so, I'm so grateful to be here. And I think that the more conversations that people can share around, [00:35:00] you know, a lot of what I see you guys doing is like sharing what people's stories around being their own citizen doctor, whatever you want to call it, like taking ownership of their, of their own health.

And, you know, we were talking about it at Sunlight the other day is like, The things that have healed me is hearing stories that resonated with me of people that were similar or they had, um, you know, similar illnesses or similar, even just like contemplations about their life and looking at what works for them and taking grain of salt from it.

And so the more stories that can be shared of people and their healing journeys, I think it's, it's really important. I'm stoked about what you guys are doing. I love that you call it Meat Mafia. Now I understand. You're in the mafia now. Is this the, is this the indoctrination? This is indoctrination, yeah.

We'll do steaks next time you're in town. Love it. Or we'll visit you in Southern California. We're supposed to be there. We're supposed to come out to do some shows this spring. So we'll definitely do something fun. Come to Venice. Yeah. I have an amazing home. I live with two of my best guy friends. We [00:36:00] have Like a whole, it's just basically like open door.

It's a community home. We have a ton of fun parties and dinners and a lot of really interesting social experiment events, so you guys should come. Sure, that'd be great. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.