Katie Vander Meade on The Grounding Mat That Cures Inflammation While You Sleep (Science-Backed)

In this episode, Rob Pene sits down with Katie Vander Meade, founder of The Healthy Living Lady, to explore how living a healthy lifestyle doesn't have to break the bank. Katie shares her journey from a thrifty mom looking to improve her family's health to creating a business around affordable, natural wellness solutions.

Katie Vander Meade is a civil engineer by day and passionate health advocate by night. As the founder of The Healthy Living Lady, she helps people discover simple, affordable alternatives to expensive health products and pharmaceuticals. Katie specializes in DIY natural remedies, grounding techniques, and mineral-rich nutrition solutions.

Episode Highlights

Natural Home Remedies (DIY Recipes)

• Homemade Toothpaste: Made with crushed eggshells (for calcium), bentonite clay, coconut oil, and trace minerals - takes less than 10 minutes to make
• Flu Bombs: Turmeric, honey, and ginger combinations for immune support
• Cough Medicine: Cuban oregano, ginger, and garlic boiled into a tea
• Sore Throat Remedy: Ceylon cinnamon mixed with honey
• Laundry Detergent: Homemade alternative to chemical-laden commercial products
• Natural Deodorant: Coconut oil-based with tea tree oil or essential oils

Grounding & Earthing

• The science of discharging inflammation through earth connection
• Benefits: Better sleep, reduced inflammation, increased red/white blood cells
• Grounding mats: 100% organic cotton with carbon fiber mesh ($169, lasts 5-10 years)
• Simple practice: 20 minutes barefoot outdoors daily
• Tree hugging actually works - pulling energy through water and earth connection

Sea Moss Benefits

• Provides 92 of 102 essential minerals your body needs
• Most diseases stem from dehydration and mineral deficiency
• Can be made into a gel and added to foods (eggs, yogurt, smoothies)
• Available as sun-dried (for making your own) or pre-made gel

Water Quality & Filtration

• Standard filters only remove chlorine, not pharmaceuticals or "forever chemicals"
• Alcaviva hydrogen ionizer: Removes 249 harmful chemicals
• Level 5 setting removes pesticides from produce
• Tap water contains everyone's pharmaceutical residues from birth control to heart medication

Key Takeaways

1. Healthy living doesn't have to be expensive - many remedies can be made from affordable ingredients or things you can grow yourself
2. Do something rather than nothing - even if you can't afford the "perfect" ingredients, start where you are
3. Inflammation is the root cause of most chronic diseases - address it through grounding, hydration, and mineralization
4. Our environment is depleting us - from water quality to soil depletion, we need to supplement what we're missing
5. Small, sustainable changes win - don't try to overhaul your entire life at once

Resources & Products Mentioned

• Grounding mats: 100% organic cotton with carbon fiber mesh
• Alcaviva hydrogen water ionizer: Whole home filtration system
• Sea moss: From Jamaica, available as gel or sun-dried
• Ceylon cinnamon: Healthier alternative to regular cinnamon
• Diatomaceous earth (food grade): Available on Amazon, 10 lb bag ~$30
• Digital recipe guide: $7 on website with DIY recipes and information

Where to Find Katie

• Website: TheHealthyLivingLady.com
• Instagram: @TheHealthyLivingLadyUS
• Katie welcomes DMs with questions about natural health and remedies

Transcript

Rob Pene (00:01.011)
Alrighty, alrighty. Thank you everyone for joining and listening. I'm excited because in 2024, at one point, I couldn't walk, talk, eat or sleep all at the same time. Bananas. And it had everything to do with health. So with Katie Vandermede, I am excited to talk about health and how to live well, how to make the right choices so that we can be in optimal state.

Now, Katie, the question that I usually try to kick off the conversation with is this. If you were to reflect in the last six months or 12 months on your life and you were to turn that into a Netflix movie, what would that story be and what would it be called?

Katie Vander Meade (00:51.191)
I think it would be.

Katie Vander Meade (00:58.806)
It's a mom looking for, that's not really a title, let me think.

Rob Pene (01:06.897)
What's going through your mind as you

Katie Vander Meade (01:07.628)
Healthy doesn't have to be expensive or hard.

Rob Pene (01:11.363)
that's great. Healthy doesn't have to be expensive. I love that. I love that. Now with that in mind, was that a recent realization or was it like a thing that you kind of tested back and forth or did you always live like this?

Katie Vander Meade (01:29.774)
Well, I've always been thrifty and everything. And I'm known for getting free stuff and I'm known for finding a deal for things and everything like that. but, but healthy things. mean, if you even go to a restaurant or you go to a store, I mean, the healthier it is, it seems to be the more expensive, even though it's cheaper to grow cheaper to.

Rob Pene (01:33.063)
Yep, that's good.

Rob Pene (01:38.951)
That's a skill set. That's a great skill set.

Rob Pene (01:52.135)
Yeah.

Katie Vander Meade (01:54.198)
produce and everything a lot of times it's because it's a gimmick. It's the trendy thing to do and everything so it's going to be more expensive because I can make more money. But there's things in nature and things like that. So me being wanting to save money but I was a mom trying to get my family healthy first myself. I was like I don't like all these processed foods and all these medicines and different things because I didn't ever feel good.

I was achy, I was tired, I was different things. So I started just looking into stuff myself. I took little changes throughout our home. Like I mostly use vinegar for cleaning, which vinegar is super cheap and everything. We take taking chemicals out of your environments, things like that. So I started as just a mom and for myself to find easy, simple things that's easy to make.

So I started with making my own laundry detergent, which I mean, laundry detergent is a big thing. Whatever you put on your skin absorbs in your body within 15 seconds. So if you don't want to eat it, don't put it on your skin and hair and everything. So I started looking at those things and then, know, especially like this time of year, it's cold and flu season or whatever you want to call it and everything. So there is pills out there, but

Rob Pene (03:06.791)
Mmm.

Katie Vander Meade (03:19.17)
Did they really do anything or they mask it a lot of times and everything? So I started finding and reading up on like the internet and things of flu bombs to make them easy. And actually it's super cheap to make and everything with that turmeric honey and ginger and different things like that. And then I was making these things for myself and our friends and family. They were like, well, y'all don't really get sick anymore. I mean, if we do, it's not very long or we don't feel good for maybe a day or something.

So they started to ask me and so I started, especially around COVID and 2020, 2021 people, I started making these COVID care kits, which is a ginger shot, it's apples, lemon and ginger. Sorry, I forgot the name. And I just would make those and squeeze fresh OJ and bring over different things. And I just drop it off at people's houses because I, a person that wants to help everybody. I want to help myself.

and then help everybody in turn. So I just found all these little simple things and then people were like, you should sell this stuff. You could make money. And I'm like, well, I mean, I just really like helping people, but yeah, that sounds great. So that's where kind of the healthy living lady started with that. But then I looked into other products and if you know me, I hate wearing shoes and everything. I ground all the time. I only wear shoes when I have to.

Rob Pene (04:27.549)
Yeah

Rob Pene (04:44.221)
Well hello.

Katie Vander Meade (04:46.528)
I mean, I do yard work and bare feet and everything. My neighbors are like, don't you need shoes? I'm like, nope, I'm good. So that's what we started looking at, grounding mats and things like that, because grounding to the earth, we need to discharge all of our inflammation out of our body, all the positive energy down to the earth, which is negative. So we're a salt cell, think of yourself as a battery and you need to discharge it. And that's how you get the inflammation out of your body. So we started

Rob Pene (04:51.283)
Yeah.

Katie Vander Meade (05:15.278)
Me and my husband, I was like, well, let's try grounding that. And there are things like that. And so we tried out a couple of different ones and that's, and then we started into copper, which takes out information out of your body. So all the products that we sell or I recommend, we personally use ourselves. And then I love just getting things out to people. And that's my big thing.

Rob Pene (05:35.335)
Yeah. Wow, that's really interesting. So I'm intrigued about the grounding. I'd like to learn more. then the copper idea, that's definitely foreign to me. how did, now, the website, that started out of people saying, hey, you should sell it. Or did you always have, like, were you writing articles anywhere or blog posts or doing nothing? Wow.

Katie Vander Meade (05:42.254)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Vander Meade (05:54.85)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Vander Meade (06:00.142)
No, no, my husband's more of the entrepreneur. We had a water and juice business years ago and we closed that down. He always wanted to start something up. So I gave him two criteria. We're not going to have employees and we're not going to have vehicles because those are our biggest expenses. So he has went off and now he's on a construction, he's a GC and everything and different things, but he always wanted to do another business. So as soon as I showed interest in wanting to do something.

He's like, okay, I'm gonna find things. And so he found what I was interested in, because he knows, he tells me that...

I'm not a very good salesperson unless I believe in it. So I could sit here and talk all day one-on-one to people. I'm not the flashy person. Look at me on Instagram and all these different things. So that's how we kind of started with the grounding mats. I was just doing like CMOS. I make CMOS and everything and then laundry detergent and toothpaste. And I kind of was giving them to people and people were like, we need to give you money for this.

So I was doing that and then I started, I really interested as I said, grounding. I ground as much as I can and everything. So my husband encouraged me to, he's like, well, why don't we sell grounding mats? So we, in your house, you have,

Rob Pene (07:17.799)
Yeah, what is a grounding mat?

Katie Vander Meade (07:24.162)
There's the plug that has the little round portion of your plug. Well, that's the ground which connects to the ground of the earth. And like I said before, our bodies are a salt cell and the earth has a negative charge and we have positive charge, inflammation, stress, all that. So we need to get that out of our body because that's what causes most diseases.

What we found and what most of our customers and everything is when you ground, you're discharging to the earth. So you sleep better because you're pulling out that inflammation out of your body. And then you, your red blood cells, everything starts regenerating because your

getting out that inflammation where your body can work properly. So your red blood cells will start getting more oxygen. Your white blood cells will increase so your immunity will come up. A lot of people they won't have back like people will say I'm aching when I get out of bed especially when you get older and everything. When you sleep on the grounding mats majority of people some people don't feel anything but other people are like

Rob Pene (08:06.771)
you

Katie Vander Meade (08:30.156)
I haven't been able to get out of bed like this in years. It's not curing you. It's taking the inflammation out of your body while you sleep. But there's many ways you can ground. Like I said, go barefoot outside, 20 minutes a day. Everybody should do that because you need to get this discharge positive energy out of your body, which will in turn heal your body because we need to connect back to our earth or to the earth. We get energized back from the earth.

Rob Pene (08:59.091)
So barefoot on the grass or the cell, but not on the cement or the pavement. No, no,

Katie Vander Meade (09:01.954)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Vander Meade (09:05.632)
You still can get some from there. It's not a full connection and everything. So that's why we came up with, because a lot of people don't want to work outside barefoot and everything like that. we came up with and other people sell grounding mats too. But the grounding mat we sell is 100 % organic cotton and it has a carbon fiber mesh on top.

Rob Pene (09:09.66)
Yeah, yeah.

Katie Vander Meade (09:28.364)
what I consider a higher quality because some of them I've felt they're paper thin and they feel like they could rip and everything and ours is a little more sturdy and then people have grounding sheets too. No, you can stand on it but we have one that you put on the bed so you sleep on it all night long.

Rob Pene (09:37.885)
So then you stand on those, you stand on.

Rob Pene (09:45.171)
So you that goes on top of the sheets or underneath the the Does it have to be plugged in

Katie Vander Meade (09:49.494)
You can do it either way in everything.

Yes, and we have two ways you can plug it in because some people have where their house isn't fully grounded. Most houses are grounded, but sometimes there's, you know, different Wi-Fi that you have in the house. It can consider dirty electric. So you're getting some of those EMFs and everything, electric magnetic frequency. So we also have an option where it has a grounding rod. So it's a grounding rod that goes directly in there and then comes in through most of the time a window. I guess you could put it through a door.

And then it has a 40 foot cord that connects back to the mat. So. And it surprises me that people don't know about, I don't know. It's like second nature to me. And it has been all my life. like, I mean, it is true. You call people tree huggers and stuff like that. The trees have the energy because their roots are deep into the, some of them are deep, some are not. You can pull energy from a tree and it could calm you down.

Rob Pene (10:27.16)
so interesting i've never heard this before

Rob Pene (10:46.099)
Mmm.

Katie Vander Meade (10:51.318)
immediately. So go hugging a tree is actually really good. I know people will look at you strange. You can just lean on it and everything. And you get that energy because you're connecting back to the earth, but the tree has water in it and everything and it's pulling back up into you. Because like I said, our bodies are a salt cell. And from what we have in our environment, mean, stress alone and everything. And then

Rob Pene (10:52.785)
and

Rob Pene (10:56.976)
Do I have to actually hug it or can I just like lean on it and put my hand on it? Okay. Okay. So just touch.

Katie Vander Meade (11:19.822)
Different things cause the inflammation. mean, there's many things that are causing inflammation in our body. And that's why people are so sick and aching and pains and everything is because we need to get this inflammation out of our body. And you need to hydrate too and everything.

Rob Pene (11:34.045)
Gotcha, gotcha. So toothpaste, you mentioned something about toothpaste. I heard that I'm like, okay, okay, rewind it. Now what are you making the toothpaste on and how does it like function? This is cool.

Katie Vander Meade (11:46.478)
I have a whole recipe and I can't remember it off the hand and that's what on my website I have a it's pretty cheap. There's a digital product for you to learn how to make all this stuff yourself and I'm gonna make some more digital products and stuff because I really I want to be a person I'd love to give it all out but in turn I should make a business out of it and make some money and do things and like but

Rob Pene (11:52.156)
Okay.

Rob Pene (12:08.263)
Yeah, I'm as well.

Katie Vander Meade (12:11.604)
I more want to get it out to people. But there are people that don't want to make stuff on their own. But the toothpaste has, it has crushed up eggshell in it. Because eggshells have the calcium and put the calcium back up into you.

Rob Pene (12:16.988)
Yeah, yeah.

Rob Pene (12:21.874)
What?

Rob Pene (12:27.581)
So do you like, what is it, blend? You blend it?

Katie Vander Meade (12:30.478)
I make it into a fine powder. I save our eggshells and then I dry them out and everything and then I grind them up into a fine powder. And that is one of the ingredients in our toothpaste. There's bentonite clay, there's coconut oil. I am not remembering everything so I can send the recipe to you and everything. But, and there's trace minerals in it too.

Rob Pene (12:33.075)
Rob Pene (12:46.875)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Pene (12:52.839)
Wow, that...

How long does it take to make?

Katie Vander Meade (12:59.886)
probably less than 10 minutes.

Rob Pene (13:04.083)
And so you do freeze it or you just let it sit room temperature.

Katie Vander Meade (13:07.308)
Just let it sit. And I usually just make it in small batches. And a lot of times, like, I make me a little four ounce jar, and then I give it to, like, my mother-in-law or somebody else. so when I make my batches, you can make a small batch and you can make a larger batch, however you're making it. I just, you can do that, or you can get a little scoop and then put it on there, or you can just get it off on your finger, however you want to do it and everything.

Rob Pene (13:23.131)
And you put toothpaste in? Or with a toothbrush?

Rob Pene (13:30.189)
Wow!

Katie Vander Meade (13:34.646)
It's super simple and there's other ways to make toothpaste too. You can just ground up ginger and lemon and diatomaceous earth and make that. And that doesn't last as long. I've made it that way and about a week or so I just make a little small batch and then dip the toothbrush in it. It's very gritty and stuff because the ginger is just kind of shredded and everything. But that's just own simple toothpaste.

There's a lot of different ways, the way we make it, it's kind of mineralizing back your teeth. so it'll help with cavities and all of that.

Rob Pene (14:07.298)
Mmm.

Rob Pene (14:10.867)
No way. So you're saying a lot of these things that we buy at the store for super expensive and even at the pharmacy, you can find ingredients from nature and make your own recipe to

Katie Vander Meade (14:22.154)
yes. There's so many things and that's what I'm actually a civil engineer. I'm an engineer during the day. I'm trying to build this business on the side and everything. So I do this on the side and then the evenings and different things like that. It's a passion of mine and I enjoy engineering, but this is a big passion of mine because I just like, I wish I could make every single thing we have and I keep finding new recipes for stuff. I wish I could just keep

making everything that we have. That's my goal is to start making all of our. Like this time of year there's a simple cough medicine. It's you can grow Cuban oregano and it grows like crazy. It's easy just buy one plant and the thing never dies. I mean you almost can't kill it unless you use up all the leaves. So you get a couple of those leaves cut up.

Rob Pene (14:55.653)
Yeah, yeah, everything replacing it. Holy smoke, this is...

Yeah, yeah.

Katie Vander Meade (15:16.782)
slices of ginger and slices of garlic boil it in a pan let it steep for a little while you make a tea out of it basically and then strain it and Drink that and it'll get rid of your congestion and your And like my son loves his cough if he starts getting a sore throat I just mix cinnamon and saline cinnamon and honey

Rob Pene (15:23.814)
Okay, okay.

Rob Pene (15:30.545)
What?

Katie Vander Meade (15:41.164)
So just keep that in a little jar and he goes and gets a teaspoon full if his throat starts hurting or anything.

Rob Pene (15:46.424)
it's not that that is not a tea. That's just honey dipped in with the cinnamon. And then he just eats it off the spoon.

Katie Vander Meade (15:49.344)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. And it'll help with your sore throat. Mm-hmm. cinnamon's very powerful. It's in, I mean, a lot of things. But it's hard to just take cinnamon by itself. So that's what you mix in the honey. But the honey will help coat your throat. Plus honey is a natural sweetener and everything. You don't get all the sugar and everything with that. But honey has got healing properties as well. So.

Rob Pene (15:55.271)
and it helps it feel better.

Rob Pene (16:02.907)
Yeah

Rob Pene (16:14.483)
So on Amazon, you might find the cinnamon and there's all these variations. How do know what's the right one for honey and cinnamon and ginger? Like, it's hard.

Katie Vander Meade (16:26.39)
Yeah, you could use any of them and this is the thing that I tell everybody. Doing something is better than nothing. So if you can't afford this or you don't have it right then, don't think that you can't make something. You just have plain cinnamon that you buy in the store. Use that. Ceylon cinnamon is better. It just has more minerals and...

Rob Pene (16:35.415)
okay.

Rob Pene (16:42.003)
Okay, okay.

Katie Vander Meade (16:52.3)
It's a healthier version, Ceylon cinnamon. And like you could buy a big bag of it. And I have a huge bag of it that I spent nine bucks on. And I think it's going to last me a while because like you can find these things that are simple. And I love sharing that with people. If people want to DM me about things, I'm more than willing to say, this is where I got it from, or this is how you do it and everything.

Rob Pene (16:53.501)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (17:13.331)
So this, yeah, I love the healthy kick, that's super important. And it sounds like you're pretty methodical with how you're approaching things. Now you're on podcast. Do you have a book? Cause this is very important information.

Katie Vander Meade (17:17.677)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Vander Meade (17:27.502)
You

would love to do that. And that's what I'm just kind of new to all of this. I'm not a, and that's why I'm struggling a little bit with our business right now because I'm not the social media person and different things like that. Like I said, I love talking one-on-one. I love trying to partner up with people because I can share all of this stuff to you and I'm not the flashy person and I'm not like up in your face about things. I,

This is where I'm like struggling a little bit with our growing our business. I've got like, it's steady, but it's not coming up because I'm not that type of person. I'm trying to find my niche right now of trying to partner up with people, get on podcasts where people see me more and different things like that. The income of everything is not important as me getting out the information to people. I...

Rob Pene (18:10.022)
Okay.

Rob Pene (18:21.896)
Yes.

Katie Vander Meade (18:23.298)
That's more of my passion is getting all of this information out with people and telling you it's easy. It's simple. It's not that expensive. Yes, our grounding mats cost 169, but it's going to last you probably 10 years or more. We say five years just because I don't really have any test market on it for everything, but all you do is wipe it down to clean it. There's really nothing to harm or discredit, but think of

Rob Pene (18:39.41)
Wow.

Katie Vander Meade (18:52.398)
taking all that inflammation out of your body, you sleeping better, how productive you're going to be the next day. So that's our most expensive product that I sell right now. But you've got to in turn look at, well, is it helping me heal? So I don't have to go to the doctor anymore. Is it helping me get better production? So I'm more active the next day. So there's certain things that you do have to spend a little money on. And then other stuff can be almost free or

Rob Pene (19:10.129)
Yeah.

Katie Vander Meade (19:22.028)
you get it from your backyard, from some herbs that you do and different things like that. Like you can buy ginger at the store and then cut off a little piece and get the roots to grow and start growing your own ginger. It's super simple. Like buy the first piece and then you just keep producing it yourself. So you just spent two bucks on a piece of ginger and then cut little pieces and then you grew it for yourself. So it can be that simple, but we all live super busy lives. I'm one of

Rob Pene (19:35.576)
smart. Yeah.

Katie Vander Meade (19:52.31)
And that's why like, I would love to sit here and make every remedy things for people and my own family and different foods, but there isn't enough hours in the day. And there's not, I do have to sleep sometimes. and that's what I would love to, and that's what I came out with. I do have a small digital product. Like I said, it's $7. You can, it has a bunch of different recipes and it talks about the grounding. talks about the copper.

Rob Pene (20:05.745)
Yeah, so that's good that you're doing the podcast. That's good. Yeah.

Katie Vander Meade (20:21.602)
And I also do sell hydrogen water machines. We bought one for myself and I just became a dealer because it takes out all the harmful chemicals because most, it's a hydrogen ionizer and a whole home system. When you have a water softener or something like that, it's only taking out chlorine. It's not taking out the pharmaceuticals. It's not taking out arsenic, forever chemicals, all that stuff. The one that we sell takes out 249 of the harmful chemicals that because

Rob Pene (20:24.477)
Mm.

yeah.

Rob Pene (20:42.419)
Okay.

Katie Vander Meade (20:51.778)
The water trip, if you're on city water or county water, you, they can't take out all the stuff that all the birth control, all the depression medicine, all the heart medicine, you're drinking everybody's pharmaceuticals because when it goes, yes. And people don't realize that that's why people are more sick and everything. Yes.

Rob Pene (21:05.433)
No... No...

Rob Pene (21:12.133)
No That's it they're drinking it from the tap water, yeah, that's not good

Katie Vander Meade (21:19.094)
But most filters only take out the chlorine. They don't take out all of the other harmful chemicals. So there is other products. I sell in Alcaviva. And that one I like over some of the other ones just because of the low maintenance on it. And there's other machines out there. There's Berkey's, there's Kangen, there's... They're all good products. It's whatever you can afford and different things with that because...

There's so much in our water system that that's another reason. And then what's sprayed on our fruits and vegetables. That's what the Alcoviva, if you put it on a level five, which is, it's mid grade of the, actually it's a little more of the acidic, takes all the pesticides off. Yes, you can wash your fruits and vegetables, but it's, the pesticides are mostly an oil base. So you have to pull them off and you're not going to sit there and.

Rob Pene (21:54.994)
Yes.

Katie Vander Meade (22:15.212)
soap and water and different things. You can put vinegar, but I've already noticed like even just vinegar in that and then I can put it in our Alka Viva machine and it's still pulling the stuff off of it. Those little baby carrots that a lot of us eat are terrible. Those were worse because what it is is a big carrot and then it's washed in a bunch of chlorine water and so that all soaks into the carrot. So it's better just buy big carrots.

Rob Pene (22:26.49)
Yeah.

No!

Katie Vander Meade (22:43.598)
and cut them up yourself.

Rob Pene (22:45.619)
Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness.

Katie Vander Meade (22:48.738)
We're a society that wants convenience. And that's what I'm saying. So I'm happy to sell all my products to you and consumers and everything because we don't want to take the time to make stuff. But if you take that little bit of time, you can make all this stuff yourself too. But if you don't, then me or somebody else you could buy from could help you. And like we have CMOS and CMOS

Rob Pene (22:51.249)
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yep, I agree.

Rob Pene (23:18.168)
Yeah, what is Seymoth? I hear a lot about Seymoth. I see it all over social media.

Katie Vander Meade (23:18.35)
Have you ever heard?

Katie Vander Meade (23:22.062)
Is so good for you because the reason probably 90 % of all diseases from dementia to heart disease to Liver stuff is all because we're dehydrated Because of what's in our environments what's in our foods were all that no matter if you're drinking a gallon of water a day if you're going to the bathroom Constantly, you're not absorbing the water. And so the sea moss

Rob Pene (23:43.08)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (23:49.267)
Mmm.

Katie Vander Meade (23:50.862)
puts back in the minerals in our body that we're not getting from our foods anymore because our soils are depleted and everything with that because of the crop rotations and different things and the pesticides and different stuff. We're not getting those minerals anymore. So sea moss gives you 92 of your 102 essential minerals that you need. So.

Rob Pene (24:09.779)
So it seems like kimchi where I just dig in to eat it? is it?

Katie Vander Meade (24:13.678)
It is, it's a, the way I, I get it from Jamaica, the one that I use and everything, and it grows in the sea off of the rocks, which pulls the minerals and everything. So then I hydrate it back for 24 hours, 36 hours, whatever, and then wash it and blend it and it becomes a gel. So, and you can put the gel, the gel I have, you can make it plain, you can put fruits, you can put cinnamon and maple syrup in it.

Rob Pene (24:33.199)
Katie Vander Meade (24:41.718)
One of my friends just made me some from her house and it had lemon, honey, and cinnamon and it tasted just like applesauce.

Rob Pene (24:49.937)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK. Now, do you make that? Do you? And that's what you sell?

Katie Vander Meade (24:52.878)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. I sell that too and I sell because shipping for the gel is so expensive. It's almost I sell it for 25 or $30 depending on if it's unflavored or flavored for a 16 ounce, but it almost costs that much to ship it. So if it's somebody that I have to ship to then I'll ship the sun dried and teach you how to make it.

Rob Pene (25:16.142)
Katie Vander Meade (25:17.678)
And it's simple to make. just, like I said, you just hydrate it for 24 hours and in water. So you just have to soak it and then you wash it off and you put it in a blender and you put water. And it's that simple. And then if you want to put flavors in it, you put flavors in it and it lasts, if it's unflavored, it lasts about six, seven weeks for a 16 ounce or for your jar. And then if it's unflavored or if it's flavored, it depends on if your fruits were really ripe, then it's

Rob Pene (25:33.756)
Any

Katie Vander Meade (25:47.394)
gonna last about four weeks and you should eat about a tablespoon a day but sometimes your body like I'll go in and eat a couple of tablespoons a day because my body is just craving it. Your body will crave anything when you're really wanting something your body's lacking something. So in the times that I want more of the sea moss it's telling me hey you need some more minerals. Your body always tells you what you need. If we listen

Rob Pene (25:52.038)
Okay.

Rob Pene (25:57.331)
Mmm.

Rob Pene (26:15.581)
Can I go to Whole Foods? Is Seamask at Whole Foods?

Katie Vander Meade (26:17.934)
It is. You just have to watch it there because it does have preservatives in it. But like I said earlier, doing something is better than nothing. So you don't beat yourself up. Well, I don't have all the right ingredients. I don't have this. Do what you have and what you can afford.

Rob Pene (26:30.909)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (26:35.035)
I want to try it. think I'm because whole foods is right there. So we might just pick it up. But I'd like to taste that applesauce that you make so I could probably find it on your website.

Katie Vander Meade (26:38.862)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Vander Meade (26:47.03)
Yeah, don't have that's like I'm so bad. I've got to upgrade my website and that's what I'd love to find somebody that isn't costing an arm and a leg that helps me devise all this. I'm trying to learn all of it and I'm new to all of this and everything. So.

Rob Pene (27:00.635)
And you ship directly, like you package and ship it. Okay, so it's not a, is it on Shopify, your website? Is it a Shopify store? Okay, how many products do you have?

Katie Vander Meade (27:03.263)
Yep.

Katie Vander Meade (27:12.43)
Right now I have three main products and then I sell the CMOS and if you're local I'll sell like the deodorant, the laundry detergent and the toothpaste.

Rob Pene (27:24.546)
Mm, okay.

Katie Vander Meade (27:25.068)
just because it's so expensive and I don't want to charge somebody $25 for shipping and it only costs $25. yeah, so there's the deodorants and that's another thing that I make. forgot to mention earlier and the deodorants are so simple and I will ship those. It's just it has coconut oil in it. So I always worry about it leaking out and stuff because being hot when it's shipped and everything with that, but I have shipped it to people before.

Rob Pene (27:31.633)
Me and Emma. Yeah.

Rob Pene (27:46.347)
yeah. Yeah.

Rob Pene (27:51.795)
So does it smell good that the art like do you add the like lemon and ginger?

Katie Vander Meade (27:57.275)
whatever that people want in it. Sometimes, a lot of times I put tea tree oil because that's just another kind of almost disinfectant, like just with, it's just helping you out. So I'll put tea tree oil on the one that I make, but I'll put lavender or I'll put vanilla or different things with that. You can put any different flavors, not flavors, essential oils.

Rob Pene (28:17.415)
Yeah, yeah, I saw it. was, wow, this is fascinating to me. I'm.

Katie Vander Meade (28:22.712)
But the laundry detergent is a big thing and I will ship that and everything and that is on my website and everything with that.

Rob Pene (28:28.869)
Yeah, yeah, Wow. Well, good for you.

Katie Vander Meade (28:32.577)
But if there's any of your listeners that want to partner up with anything, that's the way I really want to go is partnering up with people that are like minded and have similar things. And we just grow our businesses together because everything should work in community. I'm not here to get, be a millionaire off of this and everything. I'm out here to get it out to people. And if I make money in the long run, mean, in term and everything great. And that, mean, that's good for me. And then I can do what I love and everything and keep this going.

Rob Pene (28:46.13)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (29:01.937)
Yeah, have you talked to any nonprofits?

Katie Vander Meade (29:05.633)
No I haven't.

Rob Pene (29:07.377)
Yeah, those are great for partners because they have a huge list of targeted people. So what you would do is you'd find nonprofits that have a similar kind of, you know, approach as you in health or organic stuff. And then you could be the SME, the subject matter expert, right, that does teaching and all that stuff to their audience. So now you've immediately adopted a distribution channel, right?

Katie Vander Meade (29:20.066)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Vander Meade (29:27.777)
Okay.

Katie Vander Meade (29:31.758)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (29:36.263)
That's just one. So then you can go and do 10, right? And then it just exponentially grows. So it's just a matter of finding the right ones, sending an email, and then following up. Now, if you send an email, follow up consistently for 30 days, you'll land probably two or three partners. That's two, three X'd your distribution, your reach, right? So what you're doing, I definitely think you should do it. You should 100%. Now, it'll make it easier and

Katie Vander Meade (29:56.802)
That's a great suggestion. Thank you.

Rob Pene (30:06.806)
monetized in terms of what you'll be able to monetize your knowledge with your book, right? Because at the nonprofits, they'll pay market price in bulk for the book to distribute to their donors or their people. So not only do they see you online digitally, but you could also give them a book, right? So it costs you three bucks to make, you sell it to them, whatever you want to sell it, right? And they'll just write the check and now you've got a little bit of penny.

and a lot of purpose going out to reach their people. So I'd encourage you to do the book as fast as you can, It doesn't have to be a big mega book. How many podcasts have you been on?

Katie Vander Meade (30:40.563)
Okay, that's a good suggestion too. Thank you.

Katie Vander Meade (30:47.436)
Mm-hmm. This is the third podcast, but I've also been on local TV too. Or it's a nationwide, it's local, but it's nationwide shown. I've been on there a couple of times.

Rob Pene (30:56.883)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

My recommendation is once you hit podcast number five, that's more than 30 minutes, and then you have a VA, transcribe it, right? And then that now becomes your knowledge base to then go in to build your book. If you have 10 podcasts, that's 300 minutes, right? 30 times 10, 300 minutes of raw data that can be repurposed into a nice book, probably 10, 15 chapters.

Katie Vander Meade (31:17.165)
Okay.

Rob Pene (31:29.715)
boom, boom, boom, get it out. You can do it pretty quickly. So with AI, incredible, incredible.

Katie Vander Meade (31:35.328)
Okay, great suggestions. Thank you.

Rob Pene (31:37.181)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, hit me up when you have like 10 podcasts and then I could probably whip all this stuff like crazy for you. Yeah, I got you. can Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'll be good

Katie Vander Meade (31:45.71)
Okay. Yeah, I love to, I could send you some sea moss or something and everything.

Rob Pene (31:54.323)
I definitely want to try CMOS because I'm struggling with diabetes, type 2, and I was so bad in 2024. Wow. Is it 2024 or 2023? Either one. I was at 14.9 A1C. My A1C was at 14.9. It was nuts. But I got it down to 6.5. Being able to maintain it, it fluctuates, you know, 6 to 7, whatever. But I know how to get it down.

Katie Vander Meade (32:00.895)
yeah.

Katie Vander Meade (32:16.514)
Good. Way to go.

Rob Pene (32:23.763)
I haven't done any grounding and I haven't done any CMOS.

Katie Vander Meade (32:26.986)
Yep, that will help you.

Both of those, because the grounding will take that inflammation out, which is affecting your body with the diabetes and everything. And then you need to mineralize yourself. And diatomaceous earth food grade, which you can buy that on Amazon. You can get a 10 pound bag for like 30 bucks and it lasts you a while. But if you don't want to take a bath in it, you can soak your feet.

You can drink it yourself. You can put it on anything. I know diatomaceous earth, it's the food grade kind, not the one that you use for the bugs because that's a cooked version, which is a little, it could harm your insides, but this is a food grade one. And what it is is silica because your body is 70 % water.

which they're changing that right now. And then 25 % silica and 5 % bacteria. And what it is, is we don't get, again, from our foods, we used to get the silica. And then just what's in our environment and everything is depleting us of that silica. So there's no way your body can make all the silica that you need. And we're under-mineralized. So between diatomaceous earth, if you can, you can drink it, you can just, it tastes chalky. But I put it in smoothies sometimes, or I'll put it in yogurt. I've even,

put it in eggs with the diet with the sea moss because my husband and son don't like the gel of the sea moss. So I have to put it in other things for them to take it. Me, I can just eat it out of the jar because it's a texture thing and stuff. So I've put it in their eggs before and they don't notice the difference. I tell them later that it's in there and they're fine with it.

Rob Pene (33:53.648)
Rob Pene (34:00.275)
Okay.

They don't

But when you cook it with the heat, it decrease or no? Okay, okay.

Katie Vander Meade (34:12.77)
No, you can put the sea moss, you can put it in soups, you can put it in anything that you want to eat. Like sometimes I mash it up and put it in my son likes yogurt. So I'll mash it up and put it in yogurt form and everything. But the diatomaceous earth and the sea moss highly, highly recommend to you. And you will see a difference in.

Rob Pene (34:24.039)
Yeah.

Katie Vander Meade (34:35.374)
with your diabetes and everything. And then I think you've already worked on what you're eating and everything, because it sounds like and everything, because that makes it what you put in your body. Less preservatives, the better. But I mean, it's hard to get away from total non preservatives and everything. It makes it difficult. I mean, you go and look in, like, say Europe and a can of green beans is like three ingredients. Here is about 19 ingredients.

Rob Pene (34:50.181)
It's crazy man, this country.

Rob Pene (35:01.915)
Yeah.

Katie Vander Meade (35:03.476)
It's I mean ketchup over there anything you get over there is Less ingredients because it's more natural and over here. We put all this preservatives We put all these different things so we can have a long shelf life. All that stuff is ruining our bodies So we take i'm not perfect in our house and I will tell you flat out Sometimes we go for the simple thing, but I try to not have pre-packaged stuff at least here and try to get stuff that's

Rob Pene (35:15.739)
Right.

Right, right, right.

Katie Vander Meade (35:33.428)
less ingredients more the less the better but it's hard to be totally perfect and everything.

Rob Pene (35:36.711)
Yeah, yeah.

Rob Pene (35:42.843)
Yep. But if you know what to do, then it just makes it a lot more easier.

Katie Vander Meade (35:47.085)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, there's different ways you can clean up your body. mean, fasting is another thing. Intermediate fasting or I do three day fast every once in a while where I just drink water and it starts by that it's between two and three days. I think it's like two and a half days. Your body starts building its own stem cells again. So it's hard. I don't think it's that hard, but other people just even half a day they are like, I can't do it. can't do it. But you work yourself up to it and that's

Rob Pene (36:08.584)
Mm.

Katie Vander Meade (36:19.66)
That's my biggest, what I tell everybody. Don't try to totally change your life because you will resist it. You'll be great for a month. You'll be great for a week, whatever it is. And then you're like, no, I want this and all that. So take out, say one thing a month. Start with that. Take out a...

Rob Pene (36:27.324)
Yes.

Katie Vander Meade (36:38.84)
cleaning up your house, taking out a chemical out of your house, or changing to non-fluoride toothpaste, or just do one change a month. And as you see, that's easy. Then try every two weeks, and then try once a week. And then don't ever beat yourself up, say you fall back and do something else. If you beat yourself up, you're never gonna get ahead.

we're gonna have those times where you want a piece of chocolate bar, just say or something, and you've been so good for three months and then you want a chocolate bar. Well, give yourself the chocolate bar, but then don't keep having it every day or all the time.

Rob Pene (37:09.383)
Yes, yes.

Rob Pene (37:18.03)
Yeah, yeah.

Katie Vander Meade (37:20.046)
You can't sit there and deny yourself of stuff. And that's what people go on these diets and things. And as soon as they get off the diet, then they go back to their old way of doing it or they work out. I mean, we're coming up to the new year and everything. And so everybody's going to work out and eat healthy and all of this.

but it only lasts for so long because we're forcing ourselves to do it. If you do it simple, like one change a month or whatever you can handle, everybody's different. So it's whatever you can handle. And then if you fall back on it and you don't do this, say walking, you're say you're going to walk three miles a week. I don't know. And you could do it all in one day. You could do it and break it up into five days, however you want to do it. But if one day you don't,

Rob Pene (37:37.436)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Vander Meade (38:04.832)
make that three miles, then just start back up the next day and everything.

Rob Pene (38:08.871)
Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good. So where can people find you?

Katie Vander Meade (38:12.046)
It's the the you gotta put the the in front of it the healthy living lady.com When then I'm also on Instagram the healthy living lady us on that

Rob Pene (38:26.841)
US. Great. That's where they can find information, but also your products and the Seamoth. Good. Okay. The HealthyLivingLady.com.

Katie Vander Meade (38:31.95)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Katie Vander Meade (38:38.926)
That's the website and then just the Healthy Living Lady US's Instagram.

Rob Pene (38:44.059)
on Instagram. All right. Well, thank you for the time. I appreciate it.

Katie Vander Meade (38:46.71)
Yeah, I'd love for people to DM me and just ask questions. I love answering questions about this stuff.

Rob Pene (38:51.665)
Yes, yes, yes. Good. That's good. We got to get you in front of these nonprofits so you can teach more and exponentially grow. Definitely get your book going. Good. All right. Thank you.

Katie Vander Meade (38:58.892)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, thank you for having me on.