Feeding Our Own Biomes with Functional Medicine

Welcome to Season 5 of No-Till Flowers!  It's good to be back!! We're starting off with a fairly personal episode as I share what's changed for me and my health in 2024.  This past season was my 17th season farming and selling flowers. There has been a lot of wear and tear on my body, mind and spirit along the way.  I would wager heavily that no small business owner understands what they are signing up for at the beginning.  Or even many years into it.  The first 10 or so years are just holding on for dear life. The highs and lows of this rollercoaster ride lurch your emotions and mind all over the place.  For too long, we define success as making a sale and making a customer happy.  In most cases, we outright forfeit our own well-being.  At least that certainly was the case for me.  When our bodies are under chronic elevated stress and we're not eating well (which pretty much describes every farmer), our internal ecosystem starts to break down.  Our bodies host trillions of microbes that that make us surprisingly similar to soil biomes.  In this episode, we learn about how to better support our personal gut biomes so we can better support our farms and larger communities.    My guest today is Susan Brown, a functional medicine practitioner I've worked with over the past year to improve my own biome. If you'd like to work directly with Susan, her website is https://www.nourishwithsusanbrown.com/   Find a functional medicine practitioner near you with this site: https://www.ifm.org/find-a-practitioner   If you'd like to learn more about supporting your gut biome and supporting your body as a whole, here are a few links to podcasts that can help you learn more: Dr. Zach Bush interview on Feel Better, Live More Podcast Dr. William Li interview on Feel Better, Live More Podcast How to Control Blood Sugar on Feel Better, Live More Podcast The Dr. Hyman Show   Susan mentioned a supplement, Ion Biome, made from ancient soil.  Here's the link to that.   Please note that I have not tried this supplement personally so can not speak to its effectiveness.  Other Supplements she mentioned were:        Cytozyme-AD for adrenal support        Magnesium glycinate        LMNT for electrolytes and magnesium <li class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="t