Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity: Julia Lupine

Aaron Goodman  00:05

Welcome to the Chemical Sensitivity Podcast. I'm Aaron Goodman, host and founder of the podcast. I'm a journalist, documentary maker, university instructor, and Communication Studies researcher, and I've lived with multiple chemical sensitivity, or MCS for years. MCS is also known as Environmental Illness, Chemical Intolerance, and Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance or TILT, and it affects millions around the world. 

As you know, many people with condition are dismissed by healthcare workers, employers, friends, even family, countless people with MCs struggled to find healthy housing, get accommodation at work in school, and we suffer in all kinds of ways. The purpose of the chemical sensitivity podcast is to help raise awareness about MCS, and what it's like for people who live with it. We featured interviews with some of the world's leading experts, and researchers on MCS and lots of people with the condition and we're just getting started. I'm grateful to listeners to support the podcast. If you'd like to make a monthly contribution or a one-time donation, please find links on the website chemical sensitivity podcast.org. Your support will help us continue making the podcast available and creating greater awareness about MCs. Thanks so much. The podcast belongs to the community. And the purpose is to advocate for all of us and your help means a lot. 

You're listening to Episode 39. It's called Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity. It features a conversation with Julia lupine. Julie is the author of “Under a Rock: An Electro Sensitive Survival Guide.” The book explores Julie's experiences with Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS), as well as Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), how she managed to build a life for herself away from electromagnetic fields. Julie is also a goat trainer, primitive skills enthusiast, backpacker, gardener, herbalist and songwriter. She's based in the western part of the US. 

People with the NHS often experience a range of debilitating symptoms including headaches, physical pain, ringing in the ears, heart palpitations, and more when they're close to electromagnetic fields. These are commonly referred to as radiation and the source of EMFs include computers, smartphones, microwaves, Wi Fi routers, and others. In our conversation, you'll hear Julia talk about how she adapted to living with EHS, her experiences with MCS and how she manages to still communicate with the world using a computer and social media, how she's dealt with people who are skeptical about EHS, the some of the supplements that work for her, and more. 

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Aaron Goodman  03:52

Julia, thank you so much for joining me.

Julia Lupine  03:54 

Thanks for having me on.

Aaron Goodman  03:55

I'd like to invite you to start by just sharing with us some of the basics. So because a lot of people listening, including myself aren't experts on Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity. Could you walk us through some of the basics the different ways the illness is called different acronyms etc, please?

Julia Lupine  04:14

Ah, for sure. Well EHS is what I call it sometimes for short, which stands for Electro Hypersensitivity. Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity is just another word for the same thing. You can't have an electrical field without a magnetic field and vice versa. It's all the same. So I usually either say EHS or electro sensitive, and we don't actually consider it an illness. It's complicated, but it's not necessarily an illness. Because when we're away from the fields, the symptoms go away completely. I'm totally fine. I work on a farm all day long, and I'm probably in better shape than most 41 year olds but when I am in town, even for a short time around anything electric or around humans that have anything electric on them, I get debilitating symptoms to the point where I can't even talk I just completely brain fog, just extreme disorientation. bad headaches are a common thing. Vomiting is common in some people. It's just it's reactions to Wi Fi cell towers, cell phones, household power, pretty similar to chemical sensitivity. And there is an overlap.

Aaron Goodman  05:29

You also have MCS?

Julia Lupine

05:33

Ah, yes, definitely. At least for me, it's less debilitating than the electrical part is. But I can't stand this the smell of fragrances and I live in a remote area and mostly just hang out with goats and don't see a lot of people. And the people who I do hang out with also, don't use fragrances. So if a normie walks into the house, we can all smell them from across the house. And we open all the windows and, and but I can usually handle that in small doses, more than I can handle if someone walks in and makes a cell phone call. But yeah, there's definitely an overlap. And what helps me with the chemical stuff is that it's easier to avoid, I can't but cell towers, I live in a remote area where there's little to no cell phone service. And that's awesome. But these places are getting harder and harder to find we have to we're pretty much at the farthest reaches of civilization to get away from this stuff, and may have to go even farther things change.

Aaron Goodman  06:39

 Okay, so can you walk us through where you are calling from today, where you're joining me from today? And you're speaking, you have a headset and you're you're wearing your phones, and I believe you're talking on a computer. So how does that work for someone with EHS?

Julia Lupine

06:57

For sure. Well, landline is typically fine, as long as the wifi and Bluetooth are turned off on the computer. And we all had landlines until about the early 2000s When people started getting Wi Fi. And that was around the time when I noticed that my brain was a lot less functional. Although I didn't know why. I just had trouble concentrating all the time. But when I was back in nature, in most places, I felt fine and my functionality came back. So yeah, landlines are fine for electro sensitives. 

Aaron Goodman  07:35

You're using a computer. There’s no Wi Fi in your home, right, and it's connected to the plug in the wall?And I don't exactly know how it works. But there's no Wi Fi happening? 

Julia Lupine

07:46

Exactly. And I actually, so we have to turn on regular household power in order to turn on the internet. But it's all the way in the corner over there. And six feet away from a household power sources generally safe. So I I use a eight foot pole with a horseshoe nail at the end to actually flip the switches on our breaker board to turn this on. And then I just stay away from that corner when while the power is on. So I can use limited household power and that way. And because it's a longer segment, it's 60 Hertz in America, I think 50 hertz and European countries. And that's a longer wavelength than the wireless signals are. So it doesn't travel, it typically doesn't travel as far. And it's easier to avoid. Whereas the cell phone towers use mid millimeter wave radiation, which goes really far and is generally more deadly. 

It's usually the thing that people react to first as a cell phone, and then or a computer with wifi on. And then later, as they get more and more sensitive, they may find themselves unable to even use household power or refrigerator or anything like that. So that's my situation here. I'm at a friend's house that does have AC power. But she turns that she's electro sensitive to and she turns it off, whenever we're, hey, whenever we're in the house. And we have a breaker board so we can just turn on that one wall where the electricity is or we can or for the internet, I mean, or we can turn on the hot water heater to do dishes. Or if we take the goats out for a walk or at night she'll turn on the fridge but normally we leave it off. So that's how we're able to interact safely with household AC power. Now as far as wireless devices, I don't use a cell phone. I haven't used one since 2010. It was 2012 I smashed it with a rock because it gave me one too many headaches and I recommend everybody else do the same. And then go back to landlines and then we won't have this problem.

Aaron Goodman  10:09

I’d really like to know kind of what your life is like these days. You know you've talked about you have goats, you live in a remote area? 

Julia Lupine10:18

Well, basically I wake up early in the morning sometimes go for a walk or barefoot run out in the desert where I live. There's no people for miles around pretty much. And the neighbors Well, I'm actually house sitting a friend's farm right now that's more remote than my own farm. But they're both pretty remote, and they're about eight miles apart. So basically, yeah, wake up in the morning, maybe go for a walk or run, drink some coffee, and milk the goats then take the goats for a walk in the sunshine for about an hour. And then maybe come in, make the cheese, do online stuff work on some writing maybe Thai sage bundles for money. Sometimes I do some stuff with wild plant seeds too. And then maybe, depending on the seasons, in the summer months, I'm usually really busy doing yard work and building I'm building a farm from scratch. So with no prior experience, so pretty much teaching myself how to build, how to build out of recycled materials. I've built goat sheds and roofs to cover my hay sheds. I'm currently working on digging it underground house, like a small underground house for myself made with mostly recycled materials. So yeah, a lot of that sometimes gardening just basically work really hard if I want to and have leisure time if I want to. And there's always goats, mostly keeping them quiet and keeping them from getting into everything.

Aaron Goodman  11:57

Was this the kind of life you imagined for yourself when you were younger and did the illness? Well, you've said it's not an illness, so I won't call it an illness. But did EHS change your, the path you you're taking in life?

Julia Lupine 12:12

No, totally. I guess I'd say yes. And no one what I imagined I definitely imagined being in remote areas I wasn't sure about didn't know about the goat thing. That was a surprise. But I was originally studying wildlife biology. But college didn't work out too well, because I was always getting headaches and couldn't calm even though I'd been a straight A student, I would get headaches and couldn't concentrate and basically like couldn't function at all. And I didn't know why. So I dropped out. And I've got some suspicions now about what it might have been. But then after that, I got into wilderness survival and some freelance writing, and was actually living in caves before I became a lot before I knew I was electrosensitive. And it was the contrast I felt fine out there. And then coming back into civilization, for the weekend, I would not be fine, and couldn't hold a cell phone to my head without burning in jest. And then I go back to the wilderness to recover and feel great. So just years of that. And finally, culminating with me, hardly being able to go into town at all, and actually doing the survival stuff, not just for fun, but because I had to and serendipitously found, found a friend with a farm who also was electro sensitive. And then also and so yeah, that helped me to find my own farm. And I met up with a researcher who is a top expert in electro sensitivity. Just serendipitously met with him through a friend, his name's Gary Duncan. And he helped me immensely and gave me literature about electro sensitivity and told me it's not in your head. It's not your fault. You're not weaker than other people, you just have this sense that other people don't. And I like being a part of a secret club that you didn't really want to be a part of originally, but it turned out for the best. 

Aaron Goodman  14:28

As far as you know, how many people have EHS?

Julia Lupine 14:31

It's probably very under diagnosed. Because there's a lot of sick people out there. And people in mental institutions and people on all these medications who can't function. And I would just bet about anything that a lot of these people they got out to a remote area where there's no Wi Fi, and they turned off their cell phones and got away from that they get better, but hard to know until we do it. As far as percentages. There's been different estimates on it, I'd say, just hard to tell with the rise of 5g. It's right. It's getting more and more all the time. But as far as people like me who are aware of it, that's I meet them all the time. 20 years ago, people thought I was nuts. And now, they might still think I'm nuts, but I'm not feeling it so much. I definitely have, it seems a lot of people are more aware of it. And yeah, I meet people all the time who tell me that they feel their cell phone.

Aaron Goodman  15:37

I think a lot of listeners will have experience with EHS because there definitely is an overlap between Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and EHS and Julia wanted to ask you a little bit more. When you first got ill, you mentioned you destroyed your cell phone. Where did you start living at that time? Did you take yourself out of an urban environment and go to remote area?

Julia Lupine  16:09

I sort of I had just moved to Moab, Utah, from the east coast. And I was at the time I was just living out of a backpack and finding gardening freelance garden and work here and there when I wanted money, just really reveling in the bum lifestyle and hitchhiking around and partying. And it slowly became more just doing it for from doing it for fun. It became more of a survival situation. So I had a few different caves that I traveled around to in a rock shelter on a friend's piece of property in a remote area that I lived in for a while. And then I would have sit in the winter and turn off the wifi and, and I even had a hobo camp in town that I would sleep in if I couldn't get out of town after dark. And I would walk everywhere I had a large backpack and I'd walk 10 miles if I had to do to get to a remote area. And so that's what life looked like before becoming electro sensitive. And then after being after I couldn't do the town thing so much anymore. And found this found this farm. Now I guess life is a lot calmer except for the goat noise it's except for the goat nice. But yeah, mostly mostly a hermit I don't really see that many people except for occasionally I see. Gary the researcher as telling you about and my friend who I live with I call her Sula in the book, but a friend of mine who is chemical, both chemical and electro sensitivity. And her son, her son also who says he doesn't believe us, but he doesn't use a cell phone or have  wifi. But he actually believes us. He just doesn't want to admit it, because he has it too. A little bit. 

Aaron Goodman  18:07

How have people in your life responded, you know, family or friends when you first got ill? And over the course of years. How have people in your life responded? 

Julia Lupine. 18:19

Well, they all thought I was nuts at first, but they were used to me doing things that was nuts because I was crazy Julia who lived in a cave and ate dandelions. So they responded to it maybe better than if it just came entirely out of left field. But when they saw me getting when I'd asked them to turn their cell phones off, like that got to be an annoyance for people. And yeah, they definitely thought I was crazy. And then I think what change what changed a lot of people's minds is they saw I got really sick, but then they saw moving out here I got better. And actually kind of have my life together now somewhat. And I still avoid all of the things that I avoided before but I'm thriving and not acting like a victim and just trying to not get it down, get down buy it too much. And I think it being in the media more than it used to be and hearing about it from other sources. There's just less resistance to it than there used to be.

Aaron Goodman  19:26

In terms of things that help you feel better. You talked about avoidance. Is there anything else that you find helps you? 

Julia Lupine  19:36

Definitely. So avoidance is best but medicinal mushroom powders are great. They can really raise your resistance when you go to into town. Chaga Reishi lion's mane is a great one of my go-to’s. And you can buy these online, they're powders and you just put a scoop of it and tea or coffee every day. And I'm mega I was on it whenever I go into town, and then also cut for me coffee itself really helps but I only drink it on town days generally. And it lets me get through it better than I normally would have. Magnesium is a good one. I didn't talk about it in the book, but high dose mag high dose, magnesium, it's a liquid that the kind that I take, actually, I think I have it. I had it right here, leather, leather coats and this leather helmet that I have worked really well it's at you're making yourself literally get thicker skinned and some of the millimeter waves can't go through it, it blocks it significantly, if you test with a meter, I understand that when it worked for all chemical sensitive people, sometimes leather has a bad smell, even if you from the chemicals, they treat it with mine works for me, after I washed it a couple of times. Also, these meters really help because you can test this test for the cornet meter, it tests for high frequency radiation, low frequency household power, and to different strengths on magnetic fields. And it just helps me if I'm in a new environment to avoid areas of high frequency although I barely eat it, I can tell I can just tell sense. And

Aaron Goodman  21:24

 So when you go into town to do errands, is that part of is that probably the biggest challenge in your life?

Julia Lupine  21:32

I'd say so or to go to the dentist. That's pretty bad. But yeah, quick in and out as much I plan it out, like I'm going into battle or something and put my leather helmet on and my leather coat look real cool. Get my double dose of mushroom powders. And just, yeah, get through my errands as quickly as possible and get home.

Aaron Goodman  21:58

You probably talked to some folks with EHS who still live in urban environments. And if so, how do they manage?

Julia Lupine. 22:08

They’re sick a lot, basically, and they turn off, they're generally turning off your Wi Fi at night really helps or just not having Wi Fi having a landline would be great. But you're still subject to your neighbor's Wi Fi and everybody's cell phone and all the disgusting chemicals that are in the environment. So I recommend to people get out if you can. Dangerous and the longer you stay the more sensitized you get it but for some people it's not easy to I lived in a house for six months when I when I was at eye level of high sensitivity. And it was all I could do to get out of there.

Aaron Goodman  22:46

What led you to write the book?

Julia Lupine. 22:49

I thought I had a lot of I just needed to tell my story. And I thought I had a lot of tips that could help people. And also I wanted to inspire people and just tell him, hey, it doesn't have to be a tragic story of living in a basement surrounded in tin foil and being sick all the time. You can have an awesome life out in the country and really thrive if you know what you're doing.

Aaron Goodman  23:16

Have you connected with some supportive people along the way? 

Julia Lupine  23:19

Definitely. I mean, ironically, it's the internet is helping me meet a lot of people right now. I didn't have Facebook for years, because I hated it. And I finally joined up to promote the book. And I've met a lot of people through there, I joined a support group and it's been it's been great. And even though I still hate social media, and I think it's destroying people's attention spans and highly addictive, but it's a tool like anything else. And and then just people in my people in my real life who I've met to have been really supportive. And really even some of my friends who aren't electro sensitive, still are supportive because they kind of friends with hippie people who live who like to live in remote areas anyway, we tend to agree with me. 

Aaron Goodman  24:13

Hi, just pausing briefly to say thanks for listening to the Chemical Sensitivity Podcast. You’re listening to Episode 39. It's called Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity, and it features a conversation with Julia Lupine. Julie is the author of “Under a Rock: An Electro Sensitive Survival Guide.” I hope you get a lot out of the conversation and this episode. Please subscribe where you get your podcasts. If you'd like to support the podcast please find links on the website, chemicalsensitivitypodcast.org. Your support will help us continue making the podcast available and creating greater awareness of MCS. Thanks so much. The podcast belongs to the community and the purpose is to advocate for all of us and your help really means a lot.

Aaron Goodman  24:05

In the book, you talk about some of the problems as you see them related to research that's done about electromagnetic hypersensitivity. What are some of the major issues that you see with the research that's been done?

Julia Lupine. 25:14

Yeah, that's a good one, I'd say the major issue is that the tests, the research tests are done by the cellphone companies themselves. So who are you going to believe? And if you actually look into these tests, they're pretty stupid. The main test is, they have this giant head filled with water, and they put a cell phone next to it and see that if it heats up the water, if there's thermal effects, and they don't even put it next to the head, they put it away, and nothing happens. And then they say it's perfectly safe. Or they do studies on rats, but they rig they're rigged in various ways. 

Aaron Goodman  25:52

And when you see a head filled with water, can you talk about what you mean, please?

Julia Lupine. 25:57

I don’t know it’s name, but it's this plastic head that's about the size of a regular person's head. Beyond that, I don't know much of the details, but just that it doesn't seem very accurate to me, right.

Aaron Goodman  26:10

So the science has yet to be conclusive or affirmative about EHS.

Julia Lupine. 26:18

Well actually, there's been a lot of independent studies that tell a totally different story than that studies done by the telecommunications industry themselves. And just looking it up on PubMed, I've found, like on mainstream websites, I've found correlation between, for example, cancer and EHS, it's, it is classified as a class to I believe, carcinogen. On the who is website. If you just look really carefully, it's in there toward the bottom on curves of carcinogens, electromagnetic frequencies, right? Right, right. Yeah, man made electromagnetic radiation is officially a carcinogen. It's just not really adware. They don't really want you to think that. But this isn't really hidden information, if you know where to look for it. 

Aaron Goodman  27:11

Did you ever go to a doc go to medical professionals about this, and I tried.

Julia Lupine. 27:15

They had one doctor who actually believed me, but he was he was just kind of a volunteer doctor at the free clinic and there wasn't much he could do. And then other doctors, I mostly tried to not yell at them too much, because they were extremely unhelpful. I just had to go to them. And so I could get food stamps in Vermont, basically. And you had to get a doctor's note. And they were they were pretty unhelpful. And then they'd start talking to me about medication and MRIs and things. And I was like, I don't need medication, my brain works fine. When I'm not around wifi. I don't, I don't need anything. I just need to be protected from this. And a little supplemental money, what it helps, since I can't really get a job, but I still don't have any kind of disability beyond food stamps. I still don't have any kind of disability. I've just figuring it out myself. And you actually write money if you're creative.

Aaron Goodman  28:13

I'm definitely not surprised to hear that that's been your experience with medical professionals, right. Yeah, a lot of denialism and dismissing sounds like.

Julia Lupine  28:29

Yea, for sure. Well, they're just not helpful. And their answer to everything is drugs. And when you're chemical sensitive, Drugs aren't a good thing. So it, it's, yeah, they're not helpful. And naturopaths are, were somewhat more helpful. But it still was such a little-known subject that there wasn't that much they could do I mostly just, and all of this was a blessing in disguise, because I had to be my own doctor. So basically, I became a really good herbalist just by learning how to treat my own symptoms, and probably stayed in the cities way to way longer than I should have been like, because I was so good at treating my own symptoms. But anyway, that's That's why partly why I wrote the book too, is just to share, share my knowledge of things that I have learned.

Aaron Goodman  29:18

 And do you think that like, in terms of society, in general is the level of skepticism and denialism Is it getting lower? Or is it still Are you still met with stigma and denialism?

Julia Lupine  29:35

Well, both, I'd say people are waking up to it. But it's it's an uphill battle. They still you know, it's, well, it's this thing that our whole society runs on, and there's and people are addicted to it. And you're telling them, I'm telling them that that it's harmful to me and that it's harmful to all Life and that they should stop using cell phones and that it's killing the bees. And so people aren't going to want to admit that they're that everything our society is based on is wrong and deadly. So there's definitely going to be some, some blowback on that. But at the same time, I think people are waking up to it, and they're realizing that something is wrong, and they don't feel so well either. So I think it's just a matter of time. Before before more people want to see start seeing changes.

Aaron Goodman  30:37

Okay, what do you think the connection is between EHS and chemical sensitivity? What do you think's going on there?

Julia Lupine. 30:44

It's proven that electromagnet EMF allows chemicals to cross the blood brain barrier. There was this study done, where the scientists were trying to figure out how to get this specific top toxic chemical to go across the blood brain barrier of rats. And they couldn't figure out how to do it. And then one of the scientists accidentally left his cell phone next to the rat cage. And they found in those rats, it was it was a lot easier to get the chemical to toxic chemical to cross the blood brain barrier of the rat. So they just started using radiation in the study to do it. So yeah, that there's definitely, definitely a crossover. All EHS people have chemical sensitivity. And all chemical sensitive, people are somewhat sensitive to EMF, even if they don't realize it. But people have predominantly one or the other. For me, that electrical part is disabling. And the chemical parts bad enough, but I don't see the extreme reactions. I just think it's gross. Somebody walks in the door, and they I can smell them from across the house. And it's disgusting. But I can mostly mostly keep it out of my life. remote areas, whereas the electricity, it's harder.

Aaron Goodman  32:11

You talked about that it's getting harder for people to remove themselves from electromagnetic frequencies. How's that been for you? And your experience? Where you are in Colorado? Do you think there's a future for where you are? Or is it going to be? Is it getting challenging to be where you are?

Julia Lupine  32:30

Yeah, I don't know. Where my farm is, is closer to the road to a main road than I would like. And that concerns me. And it still is a zero on my meet her most of the time. But, you know, all it would take would be one neighbor with a string with a booster and it would wreck everything. And I'd have to either sell or rent my place and move to a cave again, which I'm prepared to do. I've got my goat herd I've got a pet goat boy who and carry my backpack and a milk goat I can drink the milk for and just live on that and gather wild edibles. So I'll be okay. I'll survive. But yeah, it's getting harder and harder for people. For sure. And especially with the satellites. You know, there might not be a lot of places left on earth for us soon.

Aaron Goodman  33:26

What does satellite technology do? How does that become of a troubling factor for people with EHS?

Julia Lupine  33:35

 Well it's in Elon Musk's own words. It’ll be like a cell phone tower in space radiating down at all times. With nowhere to go to get with no dead zones for your cell phone, as he says. So I mean, I'd say this, that that's generally probably a bad idea. And that it's untested and that we're the lab right now.

Aaron Goodman  34:03

 Untested, right. We just don't know what will happen. 

Julia Lupine  34:07

Let's let's turn it on and find out. Like what could possibly go wrong?

Aaron Goodman  34:13

When you wrote your book, what were some of the things you enjoyed most writing about?

Julia Lupine. 34:21

Yeah, it was all pretty fun. The section on Elon Musk was pretty fun to write. And also just some of my memories, like my memory of my friends thinking I was crazy and haven't been trying to wear a tinfoil hat to see if it would work. Which it didn't work, but it gave us it gave us all a few laughs

Aaron Goodman  34:40

So you made a hat out of tinfoil? How old were you and what did you do?

Julia Lupine. 34:44

Well, I was 30 years old, and I probably had a few drinks with my friends and I realized I was electro sensitive and didn't know anything about that had never met another electro sensitive person. But you know I do just figured that wearing tinfoil hats were what people who did who felt this stuff naturally would wear. And I asked my I asked my smart genius friend if it would work. And he fought to maintain a straight face and said, Oh, yeah, it'll go excited showed that that would definitely work. So they made one and put it on and didn't work. If anything, it probably would have made it worse. It's a highly conductive metal. So, yeah, mostly probably wouldn't recommend. But it was like a fun thing to do.

Aaron Goodman  35:35

But was it something you were really trying to find something to help you stay in the city? 

Julia Lupine  35:43

I wanted to be a radio DJ the time, you know, when I wanted to, you know, I definitely wanted to hang out with my friends and have a social life and go dancing on weekends. And but yeah, I guess that that all wasn't meant to be. But now I wear leather, but it still doesn't really work. It's enough to get to town and get some groceries, put gas in the car, but I'm definitely not lingering there anymore.

Aaron Goodman  36:08

It sounds like it is beneficial being able to be in a rural environment. But have there been a lot of costs for you, something that you don't always like?

Julia Lupine  36:26

Well, I work really hard, and I shovel a lot of goat poop. And I have a few really good friends but mostly don't have a social life and have decided to not care about that. And I'd say I'm a lot happier than I was when I was younger. But that said, I'm glad this didn't happen when I was 20. 

Aaron Goodman  36:48

But what about the goats? Is? Are the goats a source of livelihood for you? Can you explain them?

Julia Lupine  36:54

I sell the cheese. And I also eat a lot of the cheese that saved my life because I was dying of malnutrition when I came here, just from my from years of surviving, eating the wrong things. I just couldn't absorb anything and started Yeah, drinking the goat milk and eating the cheese and yogurt and brought me back to help. So I love goats. And they're good. They're they're like dogs with clubs. They're good friends.

Aaron Goodman  37:23

How many goats do you have?

Julia Lupine  37:24

I have three. But I also today I have set a friend's farm and she has four. So they're all together right now. Being amazingly quiet, which I'm happy about. They're fun. I hike with them all most days.

Aaron Goodman  37:41

 So it's a little pack, a little herd. 

Julia Lupine  37:44

Yeah, I used to train pet goats, I had a group of five boy goats. And I was gonna keep them all and just go out to the wilderness and style because each one of them can carry 50 pounds when they're fully grown. But five boy goats was a lot to deal with. So I just kept the best one, Tito. And I'm sure that so he can carry 50 pounds, and I can carry some weight, too. And I can put a little pack on the girl on the milk goat. So it can probably still go to the into the wilderness and pretty good style.

Aaron Goodman  38:15

It takes a lot to do what you do. And I'm not I'm not sure everyone's cut out to kind of take on these challenges.

Julia Lupine  38:22

Yeah, well, we shouldn't have to we should be able to live in society without being refugees, for sure. But yeah, luckily, I was up to the task of surviving because if I hadn't done all of this, I would probably be dead or severely disabled. But I'm not and I'm enjoying life. And I'm an optimist. But I definitely am going to still do everything I can to educate people, and try to convince people that what we're this experiment that we're doing to our planet right now is not a good thing, and we should stop it and figure out something better.

Aaron Goodman  39:11

That brings us to the end of this episode of the Chemical Sensitivity Podcast. Thanks so much to Julia Lupine for speaking with me. I'm grateful to listeners who support the podcast if you'd like to make a monthly contribution or a one-time donation, please find links on the website. It's chemical sensitivity podcast.org. Your support will help us continue making the podcast available and creating greater awareness about MCS. Thanks so much. The podcast belongs to the community and the purpose is to advocate all of us in your help really means a lot.

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