In Conversation

Manda: [00:00:15] Hey people, welcome to Accidental Gods. To the podcast where we believe that another world is still possible and that if we all work together, there is time to create the future that we would be proud to leave to the generations that come after us. I’m Manda Scott, your host and fellow traveller on this journey into possibility. And just before we head into this week’s podcast, I want to tell you about an online book club that we’re holding for Any Human Power. It’s on Sunday the 15th of September and anyone can come along. It’s free, it’s online. It’s on zoom six till 8 p.m. UK time. So I hope that works for most of you around the world. And if you want to ask questions or bring up some of the topics and let’s explore how we can bring them into being, then this is the time. It’s on our gatherings page on accidentalgods.life, and I’ve put a link in the show notes. So there we go. Let’s go on with this week’s guest.

Manda: [00:01:22] One of the things that we look at quite a lot on this podcast are the ways that human health and the health of the biosphere are intimately intertwined. Even a couple of weeks ago, we talked to Doctor Jenny Goodman when she unpicked for us the many ways the system in which we live is poisoning our food, our water, our air. In the desperate rush for profit at all costs everything around us is being made toxic. And one of the things she touched on was the environmental toxins that we unwittingly spray and shake and flush all over our house and then into the waterways. Things we not only don’t need, but which are doing us active harm. So if I was really clever, I would say that the impetus for today’s podcast came from that. Whereas, in fact, I listened to Joe Flanagan months ago on Niki French’s brilliant Pup Talk podcast, which is very good for anybody interested in dog behaviour. And I knew then that I really wanted to get Joe onto this podcast. He is absolute podcasting gold. He has the most gorgeous Irish accent; I could listen to him talk all day. I could listen to him reciting telephone directories and it would still be lovely. But more importantly, he is also completely on top of his topic. He knows all there is to know about our biome and the way that it interacts with our health and the rest of the environment. That is, the trillions of microorganisms that are essential to our lives and to the life of the biosphere. We talk a lot about the biome in the soil and its relationship to the biome in our gut.

Manda: [00:03:14] But listening to Joe talk with Niki was the first time I really became fully aware of the biome in the air, on our skin, on our eyes, on our teeth, in everything that we do and touch. We can sterilise our hands or sterilise an operating table as much as we like, and within seconds it’s being recolonised. So why are we not colonising it with the things that we want to be there that will outcompete the pathogenic bacteria? So this is the core of today’s podcast. Joe is owner of Ingenious Probiotics, and he makes products that are primarily aimed at pets. But we are mammals, too, and everything that he does and everything that he says applies just as much to people as it does to dogs and cats or horses. So this is one of those episodes where I really get to explore the wonders of things that apply to everybody, and let my inner science geek go completely wild. Talking to Joe was such a pleasure, and listening to Joe is a joy that I hope you will share. So pin back your ears and prepare to listen to a musical voice that is talking so much sense. People of the podcast please welcome Joe Flanagan of Ingenious Probiotics.

Manda: [00:04:46] Joe, welcome to the Accidental Gods podcast. How are you and where are you this lovely sunny morning?

Joe: [00:04:53] Thank you Manda, it’s great to be here. This is sunny Essex. Sunny southeast in Essex. So this is obviously an Essex accent.

Manda: [00:05:03] Yeah, I can tell. It’s a beautiful Essex accent. I have to say, for people not in the UK, this is not an Essex accent, this is an Irish accent. But Joe’s masquerading as being English. It must be quite hard. You’re just working in Essex. Tell me how you ended up in Essex, before we head off into the esoteric things of microbiota. Tell me about Essex.

Joe: [00:05:27] Well, you know, how does anybody end up in Essex? And it’s a really interesting question because we’ve been asking ourselves. And I originally went to London, as Irish boys do, back in the late 80s. And Ireland at the time, I think our county was 27% unemployment. Yeah, so we came over here.

Manda: [00:05:49] And that’s County Louth.

Joe: [00:05:50] County Louth. We pronounce it loud. L-o-u-d. So it’s loud and proud.

Manda: [00:05:56] Loud and proud and unemployed.

Joe: [00:05:58] Loud and unemployed, with not much prospects. So I heard tell of work in London, and I knew priest over here who had a hostel for Irish boys who were coming over to work, and making sure he got them on the right road and paying tax and all signed up and all that kind of thing. So came over here to Hammersmith and could not believe the amount of jobs in London. I couldn’t believe, you know, they were actually looking for people. And the day after I arrived, it was a Saturday morning, and I was in King Street in Hammersmith, and there was a shop on the corner with A4 posters in it, advertising jobs and salary. So I thought, oh, maybe this is where the Irish boys go and put their name in the window. So I walked in and I said, I’ve just arrived,  can I put my name in the window? And there was a bit of a curious, confused conversation for a minute or so, until these people explained that this was an employment agency.

Manda: [00:07:00] These were jobs looking for people.

Joe: [00:07:01] They were looking for people. I’d never heard tell of this ridiculous idea. And then from there, one job led to another job led to another job very quickly. And that was me embedded into London. Loving the music scene in London as well.

Manda: [00:07:21] Are you a musician?

Joe: [00:07:22] Yeah, I’m a drummer.

Manda: [00:07:24] Right. Oh, fantastic.

Joe: [00:07:25] Yeah. Love a bit of rock, yes. So that was great in London and just enjoying myself. And then met my wife and she was from the Midlands in England, and one thing led to another and we thought, time to get out of London into somewhere quieter. And that brought us to Essex. I’d been working at here and I thought, that is going to save me a few thousand miles a year. And moved to a little town in Essex and that was it really. You put down roots and you think, okay, I’ll try and brighten this place up, kind of thing. No, I didn’t think that. But looking back, maybe that was what was going on, you know? Why else did we end up in a place where we knew nobody? And then you have kids, and you put down roots, and you meet some friends, and and you get back into playing the drums and here we are in Essex. And that’s condensing that big time.

Manda: [00:08:20] Yes, that’s a lifetime into a few minutes. Well done. I used to work at the veterinary practice in Saffron Walden, actually, so it’s probably not too far from where you are. Because that was Essex.

Joe: [00:08:31] No, no, less than an hour up the road. Just past the airport right there. Lovely part of the world, actually.

Manda: [00:08:37] Okay. Alrighty. So we want to head into what it is you work as. Because you own, am I right? Ingenious probiotics.

Joe: [00:08:49] Yes there’s two of us. We own ingenious probiotics, which brings in the Provilan range from Luxembourg of probiotics. And I suppose to try and help explain what probiotics are and where they fit, it’s probably a good idea to sort of do a little history lesson again. That being involved in the air conditioning industry, which is where I was when I found out and realised that I wasn’t going to be a rock star, so better make the most of it.

Manda: [00:09:22] Oh no!

Joe: [00:09:24] I know, big reveal, shock horror. So I was within that industry and got quite involved in what people breathe in. Because when you’re looking after people inside a building, health and wellness in the built environment, in other words everything that affects people inside a building or inside a train carriage, or inside a pub or inside a house.

Manda: [00:09:50] Which is a closed environment, and you’re controlling what’s coming in and then what’s being sucked out.

Joe: [00:09:55] Exactly. And this can be everything from light, natural light and fluorescent, heat, temperature, draughts, humidity controls, carbon dioxide control. Later on that became Covid control, but that’s a whole other thing. So this got us involved then in, we were naturally drawn towards the health aspect of this, because we started finding out just what people were breathing in. And there are certain rules around if you’re building a building that you have to bring in so much air from the outside for the amount of people that are going to be inside that building. And that’s all okay and straightforward and how you do it and ductwork sizing and whatever, and how you distribute that air and then how you control it. And end up becoming very involved in energy efficiency and worrying about the polar caps melting and so on, which we’ll get back to in a minute.

Joe: [00:10:48] But this idea of bringing in what they call fresh air intrigued me. And when we looked at what we were bringing in from the outside, it wasn’t fresh. So unless you are in Connemara or somewhere in the Highlands…

Manda: [00:10:58] You’re breathing car exhausts and whatever the farmers are spraying on the fields and whatever happens to be falling in the rain, which these days is polyfluorinated alkaline substances and… Wow. Okay.

Joe: [00:11:11] All of this kind of stuff. So we were very intrigued, this whole idea of our instruction to bring in fresh air. And we had this image of this guy cycling into his office in London and then getting into the safety, the safe haven of inside the building. But it’s our job to pump the outside stuff into him. No escape! And round about this time we started finding out about air purification, because we were looking at better ways to deliver air. This got us involved in one of the suppliers we were working with over on the other side of the Atlantic, had this fabulous air purification, which is effectively like a catalytic converter with UV lamps and so on. So we were taking chemicals out of the air. And that became like my first love, cleaning up the air that people were breathing in. And we were realising that people and whatever animal that breeds, takes in a lot more air, not just oxygen, but a lot more air in kilograms than it does food.

Manda: [00:12:07] So give us the numbers, because I heard this on another podcast that you did recently, and it’s astonishing. How many kilograms of air do we breathe a day?

Joe: [00:12:15] Roughly speaking, depending on your size, you’re going to be somewhere like 10 to 15kg of air.

Manda: [00:12:19] Which is huge. The amount of air in a kilogram. Do you know how much that is in cubic metres?

Joe: [00:12:25] If I remember my A-level physics, I think it’s one cubic metre is a kilogram of air. So one cubic metre. I might be missing a zero or a decimal point, but I’m sure it’s that. Or maybe it’s ten. So it’s 1000 litres, or is it 10,000 litres? Anyway, when you look at it and you put them all together in a block, it’s quite a lot. So we’re breathing this stuff in and it’s containing all kinds of stuff. And then you start finding little reports to kind of prick your ears up and go, why isn’t the whole HVAC (heating ventilation air conditioning) industry talking about this report I’ve just read? That says, for example, one that comes to mind; they thought that maybe the reports were incorrect and there was twice as many people dying in Europe from air quality than they thought. Instead of being just under 400,000, it was 790,000 a year dying from air quality. And you go, well, okay, that’s a lot of people. And then you realise that the indoor air quality is way worse than the outdoor air quality, right? And I’m thinking, surely the NHS would love to know about this. This is important stuff. So while we’re talking about cleaning up and scrubbing it and taking out the chemicals, trying to reduce then, if possible, the amount of outside air we take in, especially in the town. And it could be in the middle of Saffron Walden. You get a bit of a traffic jam in Saffron Walden. You might as well be in Oxford Street.

Manda: [00:13:51] Yeah. Yeah. And you still have to breathe air. It’s not like you can stop breathing the air.

Joe: [00:13:56] Exactly. So you’ve still got it. You can’t diet your air, you know?

Manda: [00:13:59] You can’t drink stuff out of bottles that’s allegedly purified. Unless you’re walking along with a canister and a mask of your face, you just have to breathe what’s around you.

Joe: [00:14:06] It does exist in Canada. You can go to China and buy Canadian compressed air in a can, would you believe? Yeah, I know. With a little mask on it. Yeah.

Manda: [00:14:16] Capitalism working as intended.

Joe: [00:14:18] Sell us some fresh air. Okay. So that’s like selling snow to Eskimos, but yeah, absolutely crazy. But we were seeing all these things and going hang on, why is it just us talking about these things? Why is it little old us going, hang on a minute, this is killing people! This is causing all kinds of health issues.

Manda: [00:14:38] Yeah, because there’s the mortality rate. But the morbidity rate is going to be many, many, many times the mortality rate. So the number of people whose health is diminished because they’re breathing in crap is far more than the ones who are actually dying. And provably dying just from that. Because it must be quite hard to say this person died because they were breathing in a percentage of a car exhaust. There’s going to be a lot of people who die that we don’t pick up as that.

Joe: [00:15:00] This is it. And explaining morbidity to most people, you have to explain, they don’t know that it exists. Those morbidity figures, you know, people dying earlier, dying earlier than they should do. I read another report recently about people in India. They reckon it was something like 12 years shortened lifespan because of air quality. So that was nice to read that people are flagging this up. So we were thinking why is it just us? So we just got on our merry way, we weren’t really getting traction, but we felt like we were doing something, I guess. Lighting a candle if you if you want to put it like that, you know, in the dark. So that was our focus. And then we found out, around about 2018 or something, we found that there was this thing called probiotics that we could add in after we do the air purification. So after you take the bad things out in a ducted air conditioning ventilation thing, we could put this good thing in. And the reason we wanted to do this wasn’t that people would breathe in the probiotics. It’s that the probiotics, we’ll explain what they are in a minute, but they will go into the air system and they would drop onto the surfaces. And we were trying to get people to stop using air fresheners. So how you can put chemicals in a bottle and write the word air freshener on it is crazy, right? Formaldehydes and all kinds of carcinogens. So we thought as part of finding more ways to make the inside of a building safe for people to breathe the air, we could put the probiotics in there. They would then fall onto the surfaces. They eat organic waste.

Manda: [00:16:47] The bacteria eat organic waste.

Joe: [00:16:49] Exactly. So probiotic is just an umbrella term. It’s a World Health Organisation term for any kind of microorganism that confers a benefit. So you might be taking probiotic capsules. You’d be aware of the probiotics in yoghurt and they’re going into your gut and doing a similar similar job there. But here initially we were just looking to stop the odours happening, because most odours are coming from biological sources. So if we can stop the odour happening, then people were less likely to reach for their chemical masking spray. So they’d still have whatever was causing the odour, but now they had another chemical laying on top of that, which is what they were sensing. So we thought, well, let’s get rid of that. So that’s where we got involved in probiotics in the very first place. And also by removing dust mite poop and pollens and dead skin cells that the probiotics would eat, there’s less chance of those finding their way into the breathable air, when people sort of pat the back of their sofa or walk across a carpet and disturb it, right.

Joe: [00:17:50] So there’s a double win for us there all about indoor air quality and safety. And this, remember, way before Covid changed things. So the probiotics would land on the surface and a particular cocktail and different products have different cocktails, and they would release enzymes. If they bumped into food. If they didn’t bump into any food, they’d stay in their original slumber condition, which is like a spore, sort of like a grass seed. You imagine grass seeds in your hand, it’s going to do nothing until you put it in the ground, give it some water and food and it turns into a vegetative State. So the probiotics were similar. If they landed on something that had zero organic waste on it, they’d just stay asleep. If they bump into some food they release an enzyme, different enzymes depending on whatever, so they can release multiple enzymes and multiple different types of enzymes continually. They’re breaking up the organic matter and then the probiotic are consuming it. So we were removing that organic waste or bio allergens and stopping the odours happening.

Manda: [00:18:57] Yep. And also stopping the the likelihood of allergic responses to mites or dead skin cells or any of the things. Or pet fur or whatever it is that people might be allergic to.

Joe: [00:19:09] That’s right.

Manda: [00:19:09] What happens if the people inhale the spores and they go into their lungs? Do they do they find food there? Do they do they then develop?

Joe: [00:19:19] No. The spores we use are safe enough, they’re human food grade. And it’s a lot less than the amount of bacteria you’re going to breathe in your day anyway.

Manda: [00:19:31] Obviously, yes. No. I was thinking they might do good things way down in your lungs.

Joe: [00:19:33] Not so much. Because it’s not an environment they can like. It’s an anaerobic environment and they’re in wet. Our probiotics are designed to be out in the oxygen in the open space doing their thing there. They’re actually completely safe.

Manda: [00:19:50] But I must have a lung biome as well as a skin biome and a gut biome and a brain biome. And tears and ears. There must be a biome down in my alveoli.

Joe: [00:20:02] You know, there’s going to be, but we’re not working with that.

Manda: [00:20:08] We’re not working with that. Alrighty.

Joe: [00:20:10] We do know that some of the spores we use are also advertised as used in consumable food probiotics, for example. So we know we’re conferring a benefit in other ways, but we don’t really, our plates are full.

Manda: [00:20:28] Okay, so you happen to lick your finger, wipe down the stainless steel and then lick your finger again, which I admit is extremely unlikely. But whatever you take in is is going to perhaps maintain your mouth biome or your gut biome.

Joe: [00:20:41] In fact, we go even further than that. With the pets, our biggest selling product is a probiotic for the dental area, sprayed directly onto the gums and teeth.

Manda: [00:20:50] Let’s get on to that later. Let’s stay on, because your process is really interesting. So you’re still with an air conditioning company. You’re looking at how you can not only filter out the bad stuff, but begin to put in stuff that will enhance the quality of the air and hopefully diminish people’s use of the highly toxic chemicals that are marketed as air fresheners, and are basically just poisons that smell in a way that somehow we have been educated to… I have to say, I think the smell of air fresheners is completely horrible, but people have got to a point where they like the smell of chemicals. Or they think it’s clean or, I don’t know, some weird limbic stuff going on. So you’re trying to diminish the use of the basic toxins that people would otherwise spray around.

Joe: [00:21:29] Absolutely. Chemical reduction is our big thing and I can tell you the next step in the process, but then let’s go back to something you just said, which is really ticking a box. All of this was happening at a time when we had air quality monitors in the office, and one Monday one of the guys in our team said, hey, the cleaner was in on Sunday instead of Saturday. And I said how did you know? So he picked his iPad up and look, our quality monitors spiked on the Sunday. They usually spike on a Saturday.

Manda: [00:22:02] Oh, interesting. And this is bad quality or good quality?

Joe: [00:22:06] The air quality monitor went whoa! Bad problem. Yeah. Now the probiotic company we were dealing with had a big collection of other probiotic products, including a full cleaning range. Now when it comes to looking after buildings you’ve got what we call a hard section and a soft section. The hard section is going to be your electrical wiring, your plumbing, your air conditioning. The soft section is you’ cleaning, your toilet paper, your hand soap, you know. So there was a bit of a bit of a line there, you tend to be one or the other. So we looked at this and went, oh hang on, we may be looking at this completely wrong. We may be spending too much time trying to get rid of bad things, and not enough time stopping bad things being in the breathable space in the first place. So we straight away started talking to the manufacturer and he said, yep okay. So now we had an ability to use probiotic based cleaning, which was using probiotics like we’ve just discussed, instead of…

Manda: [00:23:11] Evil chemicals.

Joe: [00:23:11] Chemical based cleaning products. Yeah. Now, bearing in mind we already knew that the cleaner products were an issue, because in the back end of the HVAC industry, you will find mentions from the people on high about cleaning products and be aware of them because they are a problem for the people you’re trying to look after in the building with your ventilation.

Manda: [00:23:30] What’s HVAC.

Joe: [00:23:31] HVAC is heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.

Manda: [00:23:33] Oh, okay. Right. There we go.

Joe: [00:23:35] You know, the mechanical guys. So the mechanical guys are saying, yeah, cleaning products are a problem. The air quality monitors are going yeah, cleaning products are a problem, and the cleaning industry is going What problem? So we started talking to people about this and started introducing the idea of using probiotics, which were shown to have benefits above and beyond the chemicals. But also because of our background, we were reading about what people breathe in, and then you started looking at let’s see what cleaners breathe in, and you realise that there’s a report on this already. There’s already reports that are saying that the person who does most of the cleaning in the house is the chemical exposure is equivalent to 20 cigarettes a day. There’s already reports showing that cleaners with ten years experience are 58% more likely to get lung cancer, even though they excluded smokers from that particular study. So there’s all of these things out there, people are aware of it.

Manda: [00:24:36] But they’re not doing anything.

Joe: [00:24:38] So we were kind of thinking this needs to change. Well you know, naively, Manda, I’m thinking I’ll mention it to all the cleaning industry one time and they’re all going to flock to our door.

Manda: [00:24:51] Yeah right: no.

Joe: [00:24:54] Yeah. Literally that. Literally that. We had people tell us yeah, mhm, what’s your price? What about this cancer, what about this, what about that? Yeah. What about the effect on the environment? And you’re talking about millions of litres in the name of hygiene, millions of litres of effectively mild poison going into the atmosphere!

Manda: [00:25:15] Yeah. It’s not even that mild because you said formaldehyde and others. I mean, the stuff that they spray around, if it’s going to kill all the bacteria, it’s going to kill everything. You know, what does it do to soil? What does it do to water if it goes out in the outflow, you know, if it ‘kills 99% of all germs dead’, then it’s annihilating the living world when it gets there.

Joe: [00:25:38] And I think I saw a speech last year from a nutritionist who was saying that Britain is something like in the top ten worst in the world for loss of biodiversity.

Manda: [00:25:50] Well, I don’t know about you, but I have seen so few insects this year. It’s terrifying. There was a report in the Guardian at the time of recording yesterday, saying that bats are dying of starvation because there are not enough insects.

Joe: [00:26:01] Wow wow wow. That is just…

Manda: [00:26:03] That’s because our government, for the last however long has, has promoted industrial farming. And the people in the industries that are poisoning stuff don’t want to know; you know, their industry is their mortgage and they don’t want to stop. It’s really hard to get someone to understand something if their income depends on their not understanding it.

Joe: [00:26:24] There’s the rub. Because as you mentioned, people would associate certain smells with cleanliness. And I was doing an expo for somebody and a nurse came up to me and said, talking about her dog’s health, she said: I really like the smell of bleach. Please help me. Yeah. She actually said, please help me.

Manda: [00:26:44] Oh dear Lord.

Joe: [00:26:45] And so we had a big talk about it, and she worked in a hospital and as far as she was concerned, that bleach smell equated to cleanliness. And I said, cleanliness doesn’t actually have a smell. And things that smell bad aren’t always bad for you. Some of the worst poisons don’t have any smell. But this is a thing we’ve been conditioned to smell. And for millions of years or however long it’s taken for humans to develop, you know, body odour and whatever, hey we smell a bit. It’s no big deal. But we’re conditioned to equate smells and scents with… I think sometimes people like other people to know that they’ve done the cleaning.

Manda: [00:27:25] Yeah, exactly. Yes, I get a tick. My limbic system gets a little pulse of other people being kind to me because they can tell I’ve been cleaning. It’s exactly like your cleaner was there on the Sunday and you got the spike in the reports of the air quality. But the cleaner is like, I’ve done a really good job because the whole building smells of being cleaned.

Joe: [00:27:44] Yeah. Furniture polish or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Scary stuff. And I think, well, I don’t need the banister to shine. Yeah. I don’t need that. I just spread my probiotic cleaner on a cloth and I run it on: job done. So the rub here is that if you’ve made a lot of money over decades, since the Second World War let’s say, in promoting this, and now you find that this is part of the problem. How do you step back from that without becoming the next round up, or the next Teflon?

Manda: [00:28:17] Or the next Kraft? Because several decades ago, the CEO, I think of Kraft went to an industry meeting and said, hey guys, ultra processed foods are killing people. We need to stop doing this. And was shut down.

Joe: [00:28:29] Wow.

Manda: [00:28:29] Because no, sorry, we’re making money. You’re welcome to label all your foods as this might not be the best thing to eat, but we’re not going to bother.

Joe: [00:28:37] And you know, that probably happened at a time when certain manufacturers were proclaiming quite heavy confectionery bars as one of those a day helps you work, rest and play. Not just have one as a treat on a Sunday, one a day!

Manda: [00:28:52] No exactly. This is an essential food source!

Joe: [00:28:55] Yeah. So how do you how do you come back from that without leaving yourself exposed? When you know full well that the chemical build up in us and around us, not just around us but in us, is a problem. Something like 99% of Danish children when they did a test, had the, you know the anti flea spot-on neurotoxins that they put on the back, they had that in their hair. It’s crazy.

Manda: [00:29:20] Yes. It’s in their skin. Because they cuddle the animals. And the whole point of those things is that they’re lipophilic. They dissolve in skin fat. That’s the point. You put it on the back of your dog and it goes right through its skin because it dissolves in the fat. And so you pick up the dog or the cat and cuddle it, guess what?

Joe: [00:29:34] And of course, you’re washing your hands afterwards, so now these are building up in British rivers. These are a problem in British rivers. Products that are already banned in farming. So all part of this thing. And then when you come to cleaning chemicals and the cleaners talk about the cleaning product as a chemical, that’s how to differentiate it from, say, cleaning equipment like mops and buckets. They just use the euphemism ‘the cleaning chemicals’. So trying to persuade people to come away from chemicals when they’re brought up that that’s how you clean; you kill bacteria. Bacteria is bad. We got to kill it. And when you try and say, look, if humans got onto the planet, if the planet is a year and humans got here at like ten to midnight, then the bacteria have been here since March. And the air we breathe, the existence of everything around us, every life form is directly attributed to these guys. We will die without them. We have about 20 trillion microorganisms in us and around us. In most cases, in perfect harmony. And you’re carrying a couple of kilos around in your gut. Very important in the breakdown of food.

Manda: [00:30:44] Vital.

Joe: [00:30:45] You know, you’re feeding your bacteria and your bacteria are feeding your body, right? And the symbiosis between bacteria and some animals is to the extent that some small animals and fish could not exist, would not be able to reproduce.

Manda: [00:31:04] Well, I imagine a ruminant could not exist without the contents of the rumen. Or any herbivore can’t exist without the gut bacteria that break down cellulose. Otherwise mammals are really bad at breaking down cellulose.

Joe: [00:31:16] So if you’ve got a cow or your dog and you’re looking after the microbiome and spending in some cases a lot of money on good quality food, and then you’re spraying stuff around them that’s designed specifically to kill bacteria. Not this bacteria or that bacteria, just all bacteria, 99.99% of bacteria. And then one of the things we try and ask people to ask themselves is, okay, you use this, what happens next? Be it an antibacterial shampoo for your pet, be it an antibacterial wipe for your kitchen table, what happens next? And most of the time you people think, oh crikey, I’ve never thought about what happens next.

Manda: [00:32:01] How long does it stay totally sterile?

Joe: [00:32:03] Does nature abhore a vacuum? Yes she does. So you’ve got a time period that you’re going to count in minutes before that kitchen table is covered in bacteria again, only this time you don’t know what bacteria is going to be covered in. It depends what what way the wind is blowing and who walks past and so on. And in some cases, of course, you don’t kill all the bacteria, you kill nearly all the bacteria. But the ones that survive can be the stronger versions of the bad ones.

Manda: [00:32:34] Yeah. They’re the ones that eat bleach for breakfast, and you don’t necessarily want those lying around.

Joe: [00:32:40] So if you said, I mean, you know about horses and so on, but if you said to somebody, right, breed me the strongest bacteria. Then they would design a system similar to chemical cleaning. Kill all the bacteria competition. Kill all the weak versions of that bacteria. Allow only the strong to survive and do that process continually. And you end up with then…

Manda: [00:33:05] MRSA.

Joe: [00:33:06] MRSA.

Manda: [00:33:07] And the odd thing is that horse people know this because we’ve been developing really resistant horse worms for quite a while now, and people have got to the oh, that’s probably not a clever thing to be doing is to give them the same wormer every three months for the whole of their lives, and you end up with worms that go, yes, feed me more of that, that’s really lovely. But people haven’t, even I… this is why I really wanted to talk to you. Is once it’s been explained by someone like you, it’s obvious. But I hadn’t really taken it on board. And I think the fact that all the air that we’re breathing in is full of bacteria. The fact that we can’t see them. The water is full of bacteria. Unless you live where I do where it’s got fluoride and chlorine. But you know, the water that comes off the the hill that we actually drink because we don’t want the stuff with the fluoride and the chlorine in, is full of bacteria and it’s not a bad thing. We’re inculcated from childhood: germs are bad. And they’re not.

Manda: [00:33:58] And I think that’s one of the things I really want to get across to people from you, is that we need these. We exist in a healthy symbiotic system and most of the bacteria that we live with are necessary for our health. Let’s go back to your path, because you’re still, in our narrative you’re still selling air conditioning. Or at least trying to make sure people are breathing clean air, which is not the same as selling air conditioning, I get that. And you’ve discovered that the cleaner came on a Sunday and that stopping people using evil chemicals that are going to create toxic residue is a bad thing. But we still haven’t made the move to Ingenious. And I remember hearing you on somebody else’s podcast saying you listened to a guy for whom English was like his eighth language, saying that the reason he got up in the morning was what he could do for the animals. Tell us a little bit about your transition from breathable air to where you are now.

Joe: [00:34:54] Yeah. You know, I’m getting goosebumps here, because I remember very precisely. And so now we’re getting into the soft side. Now we want to take the harsh chemicals out of people’s hands and put it in the probiotic based cleaner instead. And I’m talking to the guy about this. And this is a chap who was born with cancer. It wasn’t actually cancer, I didn’t ask too many questions, but effectively, he didn’t get out of hospital until he was three years old from the day he was born.

Manda: [00:35:23] Dear Lord.

Joe: [00:35:23] By the time he was seven he’d had so many infections that antibiotics no longer work on them.

Manda: [00:35:31] He’s a living MRSA, basically.

Joe: [00:35:34] So he’s got to keep away from infection. So this is the guy who’s promoting probiotic cleaning as being better for health and better for clinical health than the chemical based cleaning. So we’re talking about this and as the meeting is finishing, and you know the way the meeting comes to the close and you’ve had your 12 coffees or whatever, and…

Manda: [00:35:56] And all the interesting stuff happens in the coffee breaks, we all know that anyway.

Joe: [00:35:59] And it was just like myself and himself. And I’m getting up, hands on the arm of the chair and he says, yeah, but what gets me out of bed in the morning (and he’s speaking like I say his fourth language or something) is what we do for animals. And I sat right back down then. So we do the same technology, if I could use that word, it’s probably not the right word, but the same natural based process for dog shampoo, for ear care, for skin care, for teeth care directly onto horses, directly onto cats and dogs and any animal you want to name. And in which case I’m going, wow!

Manda: [00:36:35] You an animal person anyway? Did you have cats and dogs and budgies and hamsters and stuff?

Joe: [00:36:40] Yeah, I’ve always been a cat cat guy. So yeah. And so we learned a lot about pet care, and that’s been a wonderful, wonderful journey. And so here’s me on this day, before that thinking, oh, we need to cross the aisle, if you like, from hard mechanical services into soft. And then it’s like a 90 degree to the left. And this feeling of, ah, so this is what the universe was getting me to do! This is why I was learning about what people breathe in and so on. And you’ve got one of those moments where you go, yeah, okay, I’m listening. All right. And that led us down a particular track.

Joe: [00:37:26] But being typically dumb and stupid…

Manda: [00:37:30] Really not.

Joe: [00:37:31] I was still thinking that I was looking to focus on the cleaning, because that’s where millions of litres of nasty stuff gets used. So we were focusing on that and trying to speak to people and trying to reduce chemical use. And we started letting people know about the animal care products and using them ourselves. And it was great introducing one of my vet friends and so on.

Manda: [00:37:55] And this is importing them from Luxembourg at this stage?

Joe: [00:37:58] Bringing them in from Luxembourg, all under the same brand: Provilan. And Provilan is made up of three French words: pro-vi-lan, which stands for ‘for-life-balance’. And I love that because it’s part of the ethos, as you were saying, a little bit of bad bacteria in you is good. It keeps your immune system awake. As long as it’s balanced, as long as you got way more of the good bacteria than the bad bacteria. Most of us have staphylococcus on our hands, but we don’t have a staph infection. It’s no biggie. It’s no biggie. So we just put lots more of the good guys. So we increase that that balance in the favour of good ones.

Manda: [00:38:40] The ratio of beneficial to perhaps potentially pathogenic, but not pathogenic unless you’re very unlucky.

Joe: [00:38:46] You know and around this, you mentioned MRSA earlier. You know we’re we’re diving into this and doors are opening and rabbit holes are appearing and we’re diving into them. And I read this lovely article from a lady called Aisling Murphy, I think, from Hartpury College, and she said the third dirtiest item in the house is a dog bowl. And she had very helpfully looked at plastic, stainless and ceramic. And the interesting thing about the ceramic was, because we talk about plastic bowls in terms of chemical transfer for the dogs. Sometimes with stainless you get a bit, but with the ceramic it had less bacteria than the other ones but it was the one with the MRSA. And you go, how does MRSA get into the bowl that I’m using to feed my dog? And then you go, well, where does resistant bacteria come from? Well, it comes from two places. One is incorrect use of antibiotics. Thank God we’ve got them, they’re brilliant. But overuse of them leads to problems. Well, my dog didn’t have antibiotics, where did the MRSA come from? The other place is chemical cleaning. We talked about how the bugs get wise to it, and when one bug gets wise to how to be resistant to a cleaner, it can pass that ability to its buddies. They pass it around. A bit like if you think you’re in a school room and you’re all passing around a little memory stick and you’re all plugging it into your laptop. Now you’ve all got that program, right.

Manda: [00:40:17] Or a virus that just spreads from kid to kid to kid. Is this epigenetic change or is this sharing gene fragments? Just for my interest, how does how does a resistant staphylococcus spread its resistance?

Joe: [00:40:29] You know, I’m looking at the visuals and it’s a DNA helix. But more than that, that’s the point where I go, okay, I know enough about that. I’m off to the next thing.

Manda: [00:40:40] Okay, no worries.

Joe: [00:40:41] But we have some very clever people in white coats. To my eyes, they’re all about 12 years old with multiple PhDs, and we could ask the guys. They’re great.

Manda: [00:40:51] They will Know. Alrighty.

Joe: [00:40:52] I leave it to them.

Manda: [00:40:53] Okay, so MRSA in the ceramic bowls.

Joe: [00:40:58] Okay, so we’re learning all about this. And then we’re finding that the pet care is just wonderful, but it’s still a side issue for us. We’re focussed on the the commercial cleaning companies who are going through these millions of litres that’s ending up in our rivers or in our atmosphere as it evaporates. And you say to people, well, where does the chemical go? Well, I never thought of that. Yeah, well it’s going somewhere it’s not disappearing.

Manda: [00:41:24] You pour this stuff down your loo and it makes it all pretty blue and then it’s just in the water systems. And now we know that the water companies just chuck it straight into the river.

Joe: [00:41:32] Yeah. And they say the sea starts at your plug, your plug hole in your bathroom, your toilet, that’s where the sea starts. And to the extent that, whether you believe in climate change or not, and I know there’s a lot of people do and a lot of people don’t. Regardless of what you do or not, it is shown that the rate of evaporation from the oceans has changed because of the chemical effect on the oceans.

Manda: [00:41:56] So it’s not just ocean acidification because of CO2 uptake and carbonic acid and all of the buffering things. This is actual run off from human activity.

Joe: [00:42:07] Worrying enough as the acidification of the oceans is, on top of that they’re finding that the chemicals are changing the evaporation rate.

Manda: [00:42:16] Okay, so they must be changing the ionic content.

Joe: [00:42:19] They’re doing that. And also the biofilm at the top that’s getting…

Manda: [00:42:24] Oh, okay, they’re destroying the biofilm. Right. And as a corollary to that, I read a paper that came out, I think, at the weekend. Because one of the things that the Roslyn Institute, who did the Global Oceanic Environmental Survey, the GOES survey, and they were saying that the combination of acidification and runoff and microplastics, the oceans are going to be dead by 2045. And as part of that, the reduction in phytoplankton means the reduction in oxygen production, and we are beginning to see a reduction in oxygen now. And that’s one of those things that I don’t really care if people decide they don’t want to believe in climate change, that’s their look in. But when we have 9% oxygen in the air, that’s equivalent to standing at the top of Kilimanjaro. And most of us aren’t going to do too well up there. And that’s just standing. You try running at the top of Kilimanjaro.

Joe: [00:43:14] And thinking

Manda: [00:43:14] And we’re seeing it start. Sorry, that was an aside.

Joe: [00:43:17] No no no it’s an amazing correlation, because sometimes you talk about climate change and they think, oh, it’s just a conspiracy theory. Fine. But nobody wants that much chemical in the ocean to be causing all these problems. And if the Earth’s got two lungs, one being the ocean, one being the rainforest, you don’t want to lose either. And as you say, we’re losing both. We’re losing both. And when it comes to greenhouse gases, okay, we focus on carbon reduction, carbon emissions. Water vapour is a much bigger greenhouse gas. Much bigger. And now we’re putting more of it into… So like I say, whether you believe in climate change or not, the oceans are becoming poisoned and changed by a number of things, mainly chemicals. And whether that’s chemicals that’s coming off of microplastic breakdown or the chemicals you put down your toilet, or the chemicals that you want to put in your rain jacket so the rain runs off it, whatever, it’s ending up in there.

Manda: [00:44:17] And are you finding that if you are amongst people who are climate denial side of the spectrum, do they take the it’s only a tiny part of the of the meta crisis and that pollution is a huge part and where do you think it’s all going? Because it seems to me that the fossil fuel companies have not spent as much money in creating fake narratives around pollution as they have around the specific pollution of CO2. Does it gain more traction? Or does it just bounce off in the way that climate emergency does?

Joe: [00:44:53] I find that it’s an undeniable thing. And I take my own shift. So back in the day when we were focussed on heat pumps for air conditioning, we were very much focussed on the polar ice caps and climate change. Efficiency, heat pump efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. And now during my process, we came to the realisation that we’re going to poison ourselves to death way before we’re going to drown ourselves to death. So some people would say, look, climate change is a natural thing and the earth wobbles and we get hot or we get colder and that’s fine. I’m not even getting involved in that anymore because it doesn’t matter.

Manda: [00:45:32] Right. Because the toxic runoff is actually going to kill us all first.

Joe: [00:45:36] Exactly. And it’s not just toxins you’re using in cleaning products. You know, we do what we can do, and the wonderful thing about that is that we’re able to help other people who want to do something, do what it is that they’re able to do. And I think if everybody does just what they’re able to do, then all of a sudden you’ve got a change going on. Because you’re your celebrity won’t hire or get their private jet and fly from America to Paris for an ice cream if all of us are different. If they read their audience, they’re not going to do that. So there’s no point in saying, well, it doesn’t matter how I clean my toilet because so-and-so is polluting the airways with it for an ice cream, so I won’t even bother. And that’s the problem. That’s where we basically we just bend over and kowtow.

Manda: [00:46:20] Yeah. If 8 billion people change their behaviour, the 0.001% will have to change theirs.

Joe: [00:46:27] Exactly. And there are certain things that are undeniable, but they’re very disparate. So you can find a, let’s say, a report on the mating of blackbirds being affected by antidepressants in the water and in the environment. And so when you look at the amount of cocaine, cleaning products, antibiotics, the stuff they put on the dogs neck, the neurotoxins you put in your dog, Viagra, I don’t know, all of these things. Where are they going?

Manda: [00:47:03] In the water.

Joe: [00:47:04] Yeah. And some of these long chain molecules don’t break up very easily. And they will find them in the Himalayas. They find them in polar bears.

Manda: [00:47:10] Well, that’s the forever chemicals. They’re the kind of poster child for this. They’re in the rain. It is impossible to have water that isn’t laced with forever chemicals that are endocrine disruptors and carcinogenic.

Joe: [00:47:23] Yeah, endocrine disruption is something I think people are becoming a little bit aware of. We certainly see it in the pet world. We see it with control of allergies where they use particular medicines (I use that word lightly) to suppress the immune system, so that the dog doesn’t itch, basically. And then what happens is you’re suppressing the body’s own natural ability to deal with naturally occurring cancerous cells. And where it may not be causing the cancerous cells in the first place, it’s allowing them to come through. So you multiply that by your whatever, your teflon’s and whatever’s in our food and everything in our food packaging, all that. And you can get a bit depressed about it and sometimes think what the hell are we doing? And, well, what we can do is what we can do. So if every person just says, well, what can I do? Maybe I’ll shop at the farm shop a little bit more. Maybe I won’t wear that antiperspirant. Maybe I will drive less. You know, just drive less.

Manda: [00:48:27] And maybe I’ll stop cleaning my house with stuff that is going to destroy everything that it touches.

Joe: [00:48:32] And that’s linked to things like fertility issues. You know, the clots in particular. Fertility issues, Amr, antimicrobial resistance. Funnily enough, I was talking about this earlier. There was a report in 2005, there was a call from a professor in University College Hospital in London, where he said what we should do is start washing our hands with soap and yoghurt. Because he was seeing a correlation between the rise of MRSA back then and the areas of the hospital that were being extra cleaned. So that was that was really interesting. And the other thing that was really interesting, while we’re on it, right. So I have these thoughts going through my head like ticker tape, going no, don’t say that, don’t say that. But we had a situation back in, I’m going to say 2018, it might have been 2019. And I had a lovely chat, just a few minutes with the then Secretary for health, Matthew Hancock. He’s a great guy. He was really, really disappointed with the Machiavellian moves that got rid of him. I know the things that happened afterwards, but.

Manda: [00:49:44] Say his name, I didn’t catch the name.

Joe: [00:49:46] Matt Hancock.

Manda: [00:49:47] Okay. Matt Hancock. Right. Okay.

Joe: [00:49:49] It was a really nice conversation. He was giving a presentation and I asked a question, and to be fair to him, he said, let me get back to you on that. And later on, someone else was then talking, and I had a tap on my shoulder, and I looked and there was Matt Hancock squatting down on his haunches going, come out, come out! And we went out in the foyer. He was leaving and he said that question, he says, go talk to my guys which I did. And the question was about NHS. Because we had reports that we were looking at, that we weren’t involved with, about how getting away from chemical cleaners actually improved AMR and improved health care acquired infections, in other words, people getting infections in hospital.

Manda: [00:50:31] Iatrogenesis infections. Right.

Joe: [00:50:32] So when I spoke to those people, who were great and they they said, okay, we’ll get your name but basically they said, we’ll get your name, but good luck.

Manda: [00:50:40] Because you’re up against an industry that’s maintaining the cleaners. It’s predatory capitalism working as intended.

Joe: [00:50:48] Yeah. And I don’t know if this is the same now, but we went and spoke to one of the buying groups, because they’re all kind of clumped together. And I already knew at that stage, and they may have changed because that was five years ago, that the purchasing departments were split into 11, what they called towers. You know, one department might look after buying ambulances and  MRI machines or whatever. And the other one would look after what we would consider the soft services, what they call the hotel services. And we had a long conversation with someone and basically he was Yeah, we’re interested, but no. And we’re showing them these results from Italy where again, we weren’t involved with somebody else’s IP, a cleaning contractor, actually. But there was three universities involved; five hospitals. And they monitored for six months. Ordinary use just monitored swab, swab, swab. And then they switched over to probiotic probiotic cleaning and then monitor it again for another six months. I think it’s 25,500 swabs, 11,500 patients involved. And they found that changing to a probiotic protocol reduced the rate of health care acquired infections by 52%.

Manda: [00:52:04] Dear Lord, if that was a pharmaceutical, the company that made that pharmaceutical would never have to make anything ever again. 52%!

Joe: [00:52:12] Exactly. We tried to find information. We found some information that we thought we could rely on at the time, and we thought that reducing say by half the amount of health care acquired infections that the NHS suffered would save them I think, let me work it out, it was £19 million a week. So a billion. Yeah, but only not only that, it was also 38 people a week dying from healthcare acquired infections. So you cut that in half and it’s 19 deaths, right?

Manda: [00:52:45] So that’s £1 billion a year and significant numbers of people who are dying or not. And there’s going to be a knock on effect, because the morbidity again, it’s not just about mortality.

Joe: [00:52:56] Resources, the resources of the NHS. And when Covid comes along a couple of years later, this becomes even more important. And when you look at the figures from Wuhan, Wuhan published their figures and they said 1 in 7 people who went into hospital with Covid got a secondary infection in the hospital, bacterial infection in the lungs. And half the deaths were from that group.

Manda: [00:53:20] Oh, right.

Joe: [00:53:22] So you work that out and you go, well, that means those guys could have saved 25% of the hospital deaths of Covid in Wuhan, at the centre of it. But we got told, and I’m 65% of my way through your book and so this is why I’m talking about these things. That it was actually we got redirected, they said you’re going to have to go and talk to, and they named them, a household name corporate company that deals with this on behalf of the NHS.

Manda: [00:53:53] Because you need to persuade them to use the probiotics because they are providing the services?

Joe: [00:54:00] They would be the ones approving the purchase, they would be the ones that we would be selling to.

Manda: [00:54:05] And I’m guessing they didn’t want to know.

Joe: [00:54:07] It got very muddy very quickly. And, you know, some things were said after that I can’t really repeat. Needless to say, it didn’t endear us with anybody. But the door was closed and there was a commercial element there which I didn’t know about.

Manda: [00:54:24] This needs a post office, someone to make a documentary about it, doesn’t it? Because this is basic corruption.

Joe: [00:54:31] Yeah. Now fast forward two years later. One year later, when you’re in middle of Covid, what the hell’s going on? But if you take the basic was that there was a financial incentive for somebody somewhere in the NHS. And the NHS, which doesn’t have enough nurses, doesn’t have enough doctors and people have gone on strike. Ambulance drivers, junior doctors, nurses, consultants have talked about it. It’s just something’s not quite right. So when certain politicians talked in their manifesto about sorting the NHS, I’m thinking how are you going to do this?

Manda: [00:55:08] Yeah, well, but that’s because we’re in a meta crisis and you have to sort the entire meta crisis, and you’re never going to be able to sort just one bit of it. Can we for people, because there’s so many things I want to talk about. So you were in air quality and then you were selling all these things coming from Luxembourg. At what point did you create Ingenious? And what was the incentive to that?

Joe: [00:55:31] Well, we wanted to separate out the mechanical, like the hard from the soft. And so it was Ingenious Air, we also then made Ingenious Probiotics and put all the probiotics through that. So Ingenious Probiotics. Yeah. It’s actually Pure Ingenious limited trading as Ingenious Probiotics. Because we wanted to talk more and more about the animals and something with the air in the name didn’t make any sense.

Manda: [00:55:57] No. Okay.

Joe: [00:55:58] I mean, ideally, we could probably do with ten companies so we could talk to the horse people directly just about horses. And the dog people directly, just about dogs. But that just becomes a bit complicated.

Manda: [00:56:07] The accounting becomes complex. All right. So tell us about the things that you sell. And I think the key and the reason I wanted to bring you on this, not everybody who listens is a pet owner, I’m sad to say but there we go. Is because the implications, it seems to me, of combined human and animal health are huge. And the fact that there’s washing up liquid that I can wash the pet bowls in I can also wash everything in. I would really dearly like you to do a dishwasher tablet. Maybe you already do. Maybe that’s not possible. Maybe dishwasher temperatures kill everything. But let’s talk about what what you make. And I particularly want to drill down into the ears because again, I used to be an anaesthetist, we would alternate soft tissue and orthopaedic weeks. And in the soft tissue week we were either doing reconstructive surgery on bulldogs and pugs and things, just opening up their airways so they could actually breathe. Or cancers, or a lot of it was total ear canal ablations where a dog’s ears had got so bad the secondary infection was so appalling you could smell them coming in, you know, from the length of the hospital away, which was several hundred yards. And they would just take out the whole of the ear canal because, you know, a surgeon is a surgeon. If your only tool is a hammer everything becomes a nail. You have a scalpel, your response to stuff is surgery. But that was because all other responses had failed. And I heard from you something that literally blew my mind. So tell us, let’s not drill too much into yours because it’s probably only my obsession, but talk about these.

Joe: [00:57:39] No, no, it’s actually a really good place to start, because it’s a really nice way to explain how the probiotics differ and also explains our experiences with this. Because at the same time all this was going on, I think we got the bit in the story where people are tapping me on the shoulder and saying, come and talk to us about pets. And we’re going, yeah, yeah, we’ll get to you in a minute, we’ll get you in a minute. Because we’re stupid so it took us a while to realise. But here’s one of the biggest things. Ears and teeth and skin. So we started learning then that this ear issue amongst dogs is crazy. It’s so prevalent. Skin issues are off the charts and like, what the hell? We knew those chemicals and what the hell? Anyway, we had mixed response from vets, because you do. But we’re going to be looking at this again later this year, we’re going to look at the vets. Because now it’s five, six years down the road, we’ve got a lot more to say. We’ve got more data, things that they want to know. And what we found is that some vets will go, yeah, this makes sense. And they’re holistically minded and they’re on it.

Joe: [00:58:47] And we had one of those and I’m going to use some feedback from him to explain it, because he was finding that they would get this repeat ear infection situation. So for the people listening, when you talk about a total ear canal ablation, that you’re removing the inner ear, there’s been a sequence of events before that, of repeated ear infection.

Manda: [00:59:08] Years long, usually. Because people don’t want their dogs to have no ear canal. It’s not what you go to first by any means.

Joe: [00:59:15] And we moved into a new office round about 2018-19, and the people looking after the building knocked the door and said hello, you know, hi, welcome. And she saw the product on my desk and she went, oh my God, is that you? In which case I’m like, what have I done? And she was telling me the story of her dog who was due, having had all these years of problems, was due to have this total removal of the ear. And somebody said, go to the vet who happened to be the vet that we were working with and get a second opinion. And not only did the dog not have to have the surgery, but it stopped the repeat ear infection cycle.

Manda: [00:59:58] And that guys, I cannot tell you to people listening how much of a game changer that is. Because these are dogs that have basically got cauliflower ears, the whole of the ear canal is a stinking suppurating mess. It was one of the nastiest surgeries ever. Because it is just a lake of pus and you’re doing surgery around this and you have to flood the dog with antibiotics before, during and after, and it’s already had multiple antibiotics anyway. It’s likely to be, you know, your ultimate incubator of really nasty total resistances. Because they’ve tried everything and it’s still got a lake of pus in one or both ears. And you’re saying you just spray this stuff and it’s cleared up. It’s game changing.

Joe: [01:00:42] Yeah. And I’ll refer to a conversation I had this morning with a holistic vet that works with us. And she was asking the question, just like you said, if there’s loads of pus, can I still use the thing? And I said, look, you got to remember, we’re not vets. This is not a medicine.

Manda: [01:00:58] Right. And we’re not prescribing. We’re definitely not, anybody listening, we are not prescribing this.

Joe: [01:01:03] Exactly. So as a vet, I said, you’ve got to be comfortable and you’ve got to be confident. And I said, look, our experience is that that is what has happened. But if you want to administer something to get rid of the pus, fine. But then think of it like the relay runners in the Olympics, there’s a point where the two runners are handing over the baton and they’re both running full pelt. So you get that and then you get no gap, right? And I referred her back to the story about the vet I just mentioned earlier, where he was telling us when I mentioned what this lady had said, and I had other people give me similar stories. He said, oh yeah, he said, what we figured out was that when the dog would present with an infection, we would use an antibiotic, get rid of infection, no problem. And with some dogs, lo and behold, they’d be back. You know, the course would last a couple of weeks, and a couple of weeks after the course was finished, the dog could be back. And we would do a swab and send it away and we’d find it was a different pathogen from before, so we would maybe change the antibiotics or whatever, and we’d get rid of it and be fine for a two week course, and then a couple of weeks after that the owner would present the dog with yet another infection. And the important thing to remember here is that it’s not the same infection coming back, because the antibiotics work. The thing to remember is that what we’ve done here, like antibacterial shampoos we talked about earlier, like antibacterial flow cleaner, you’re wiping out all the microbiome. And especially some dogs are prone to it more than other breeds. So something else then can come along and set up, colonise, inside the ear because all the defence is gone.

Manda: [01:02:45] Yeah. You’ve lost the good bacteria. And it’s often a yeast infection I think, isn’t it? There’s a yeast infection. It smells yeasty. Because the bacteria that might otherwise manage to control things have been annihilated. And so the opportunistic things go, oh, look, here’s space we’ll just take this over.

Joe: [01:03:02] And the ear is a beautiful place for that. Warm, there’s food constantly being made.

Manda: [01:03:05] Especially the floppy eared breeds.

Joe: [01:03:08] Yeah. But even Frenchies. So in some cases this has gone on for years,  and he was telling me then about this dog, that they fixed it. And I said to him, oh, great so who supplies the client then every month with the probiotic spray? And he went, no, Joe, you don’t get it, it’s over.

Manda: [01:03:33] Fixed it. That is so amazing.

Joe: [01:03:34] And I’m like, one tiny part of my brain is going, I wanted to sell stuff, you know. And then the other part would explode and go, oh, my God, that’s just phenomenal. Did I do that? I didn’t make this stuff, just bring it in. You know, kind of knocking on doors and and trying to persuade people if you like. So we had a couple of other people mention this where they’d gone to this vet as a second opinion and not have to have the surgery. And stopping the repeated infections. And you’re right, in some cases you think, well, where does this infection come from in the first place? Foxes don’t get it, wolves don’t get it. But it could be a yeast thing, that maybe somebody’s using anti microbiome thing to get rid of the yeast. Because sometimes you’ve got to do that if the yeast is well established. But the important thing is, again, like that relay team, it’s important that there’s no point in which nobody’s carrying the baton. It’s got to be a seamless transfer. So start using the probiotics before you quite finish using the antibiotics. Doesn’t matter to kill off some of the good guys, look it’s okay, as long as there’s no gap. And then we know what the microbiome is in there because we’ve put it there. And then we just put lots of good ones in and eventually then you can trail off. So that’s how we treat ears.

Manda: [01:04:45] I’m wondering how, because you’re importing this stuff so you didn’t do the development, but it must have taken a while for someone to work out what, let’s say dogs ears or cats teeth, need that’s safe. That you know, if a person squirts it in the dog’s ear and happens to get some on their tongue, it doesn’t really matter. And works. And how many iterations did they go through to get to the stuff that actually works. Do we know this? Because you were telling us about this guy who spent his first years in hospital and then my goodness. But he is now making stuff that promotes the biome. Can you tell us a little bit, is he well and healthy because he’s got a good biome now?

Joe: [01:05:26] Yeah. He’s spent a lot of time. He was a semi-pro footballer for his life before getting into this. So, you know, he’s healthy, first baby on the way. So he’s all good. His father was a dental surgeon, and they were looking for something else to clean the spittoon drains with, being very aware of the amount of chemicals and products like that, and how much more exposed people like dental technicians and hairdressers and people like that, are exposed to so many different chemicals. That was the genesis of the whole thing. And as a side effect, when he mentioned that I was right there, because at the time we were dealing with a company in Bristol who looked after buildings that housed dentists. The biggest problem the guy was telling me was underfloor leaks from spittoon drains because of what they cleaned them with. So the cleaning stuff would eventually corrode through the drain.

Joe: [01:06:28] So this corroborated all the evidence and I was right there. Teams and teams of R&D, like a few years of R&D, a few millions of euros of R&D, before they ever came out and saw the light of day. Get the product right. And when you get into that microbiological world, which most of us don’t need to know, there’s rules. There’s understandings. For example, when you put forward a probiotic for use in one of our products, it has got to be in a certain classification group, which means it’s safe for food. It’s got to be also non mutatable.

Manda: [01:07:07] That must be hard because what bacteria do is mutate.

Joe: [01:07:10] Yeah, but these guys know how to select. So you get the ones that guarantee don’t mutate, because the mutation of a good bacteria isn’t good, because they can pass that ability, that mutation ability, onto the bad ones. Right, so all this is kind of taken care of in the labs and their continual R&D. So we’ve got a new formula for the soap coming out at the end of the year, for example, the hand soap. So they’re always looking at the improvements and then they are seen then as an expert in that world, they are seen as The People.

Manda: [01:07:50] Okay. Everybody else looks up to whatever it is you’ve got is the right stuff.

Joe: [01:07:53] In that competitive world, yeah. Most of us don’t ever need to see that side of things.

Manda: [01:08:02] But it’s interesting nonetheless. So we’ve got stuff that you can put in dogs ears. You can presumably put it in people’s ears. Not that people end up with such bad ear infections as dogs, but I remember getting ear infections as a kid, and it’s really painful as inner ear or middle ear infections, I suppose.

Joe: [01:08:17] So your question is loaded. So can you? Yes. You can physically hold a thing. Are we licensed to sell it to humans? No.

Manda: [01:08:25] Okay. But is there a human equivalent?

Joe: [01:08:28] There isn’t a human equivalent. There could be, but I think that will be down the line because you’re talking about a couple of years of regulatory paperwork.

Manda: [01:08:37] Okay, you got to jump through a lot of hoops.

Joe: [01:08:38] Hoops upon hoops. Rightly so of course. So in the meantime, where we focussed on dogs primarily, cats secondly, because that’s the ratio in which those animals have problems; horses is our next big area, because it’s the same thing for horses. So we have something called allergen free that we use on dog skin for dermatitis and so on. We used to have it in an equine range for sweet itch and mud fever. It’s the same problem. So all of those things we talked about the biome, the one thing that’s slightly different with horses is that we have a wound care or dermal care in a paste, so you can get it into the frog, in between the hoof and stay there. So humans? Not so much. That’s a whole other thing.

Manda: [01:09:26] But let’s stick with the dogs then, because we’ve got things we can spray on their skin, things we can spray in their teeth. I am guessing, and this is moving into ‘I am a vet, so I’m allowed to say these things’ that however much you spray their teeth, if you’re feeding them Kibble or little dried dog food or even dog food out of a can, you’re probably going to be spraying their teeth for quite a while. If you can get them onto a raw diet that is a healthy, raw diet, not all diets are equal; you’re more likely to be able to maintain healthy teeth, gums. And particularly a young dog they need to be chewing to develop their whole skull systems, the muscles and the bones and the tendons. So you and I are certainly not allowed to prescribe raw feeding for other people, but I can say that I raw feed all my animals and their teeth currently, I don’t have a dog at the moment, but when I did, her teeth were completely fine. But I would probably now also get the dental spray and spray it prophylactically once in a while. Would that be a sensible thing for me as a vet to do?

Joe: [01:10:30] Yeah, we’d say if you’re going to use a prophylactic, twice a week  because the probiotics have a life cycle of about three days. So if you stop applying them, they go away and we want them to go away, we don’t want them ever to build up, you know that’s part of the safety.

Manda: [01:10:44] Yeah. You want to have a balance continually in flux.

Joe: [01:10:48] Exactly. And also they don’t stay around forever, unlike other products.

Manda: [01:10:55] Do they not breed their own populations? So my imagining is that let’s say teeth, you create a good, healthy gut microbiome, and millions of years of evolution would say that wolves have quite a healthy tooth mouth oral microbiome, that they maintain by probably eating some elk poo and lots of dead rabbits and whatever else. Why do we need to keep continuing?

Joe: [01:11:21] So the probiotics, like I said, if you were to count them on day one after the spray and count them on day three, they would be less. They’re designed that way to fade away. So you just top them up every three days.

Manda: [01:11:36] And this is deliberately set so that we don’t end up with mutation and an overgrowth of a bacterium that we have introduced.

Joe: [01:11:44] Yes. Exactly so. So it makes it lovely and safe. And when you compare that to people using chemicals or even fine metal

Manda: [01:11:55] Colloidal silver or something.

Joe: [01:11:57] Which is not going to go away ever. And is bad for the aquatic life and it’s around forever. Anyway, so we use something that’s got a shorter life cycle. Then we know we can control that. So, for example, if you’ve got a hotspot in the skin, when the probiotics have done their job and the skin’s fine, the skin’s going to go back to its own, whatever it was, microbiome.

Manda: [01:12:22] Okay. Right. And the ear’s the same. When you were saying you’d got rid of your horrendous lake of pus in the ear, presumably it’s established its own microbiome, and you don’t need to keep spraying it. Because it’s got its own microbiome that is then eating the yeast or creating the enzymes that you need or whatever.

Joe: [01:12:39] Yes. You just spray to keep it topped up. With ears until that point comes when you think, you know, we’re way beyond, everything’s absolutely fine. And then you’d slow it down bit by bit and let the natural take over. And maybe if you’re cleaning the ears, then use the probiotic for that, onto a cotton ball and clean them and that’s that. But the dental I would keep doing it because it’s like brushing your teeth or like flossing.

Manda: [01:13:04] All right. That makes sense.

Joe: [01:13:06] You’re going to keep prophylactically getting rid of the organic matter in the sockets, you know.

Manda: [01:13:11] And meanwhile we’ve got a surface spray. I think this is one of the things that people find counterintuitive; they’re used to spraying stuff that kills everything and what you’re saying is, no, no spray on the good stuff, because you can’t kill everything for very long. And you might clean your kitchen surface and then the air is dumping a load of bacteria on anyway. But if you spray it with our stuff, you’re putting on the bacteria that you want there, that will hopefully if they get any organic matter or anything else, they’ll emerge from the little spores and and eat it. I’m massively anthropomorphising bacteria here but that’s basically what happens, yes?

Joe: [01:13:49] That’s basically what happens. So the cleaning continues. The microbiome protection continues. The creation of resistant bad bugs stops.

Manda: [01:14:02] And the contamination of the environment stops.

Joe: [01:14:05] The contamination, right. Because you imagine next time you’re cleaning your floor with something nasty and you’re pouring the dirty water down the sink, you just know what’s going on.

Manda: [01:14:13] Or your dog or your child is walking or crawling across the floor, absorbing what you’ve just put on the floor into its skin. I think that was one of the things that I really took from the various podcasts I’ve listened to with you, is the extent to which kids and animals are absorbing the stuff that we’re walking with shoes or slippers across the floor, and it probably isn’t touching us, but they’re sprawling all over it.

Joe: [01:14:32] Yeah, they’re lying naked on your floor. They’re sweating. Because there’s some products out there that will say ‘pet safe’. And when you read the small print, it’ll say keep your pets outside until it dries. Right. And then you ask the question, well, where is the nasty stuff gone? Yeah, I don’t know, it just says on the bottle and it’s fine. Okay, let’s examine this. So it’s dry, so it’s not penetrating the skin. And your dog sweats through the pads of his paws…

Manda: [01:15:00] I think most people don’t know that dogs have sweat glands on their paws, except huskies, which don’t because it creates crystals.

Joe: [01:15:06] Oh. That’s interesting. Did not know that.

Manda: [01:15:08] Yeah, I discovered. Sled dog people go for the huskies that don’t create crystals in their paws because otherwise they get micro lesions. But anyway.

Joe: [01:15:14] It’s the same with cats. Because my cat sweats when they take it to the vet and she walks across the little black mat.

Manda: [01:15:20] Yeah, it’s little damp paw prints.

Joe: [01:15:23] And the first time I thought has she urinated? But, no, she’s not. But also we get sent pictures of canine genitalia on occasion because they can also get wetness in those areas. And you get effectively what could be called mild chemical burn, for want of a better word. So it’s just really interesting. So when you say to people, look, where is the bad stuff gone? Has it evaporated now and they’re just breathing it in? Is it still there and they’re going to rewet it with their body,  they’re going to absorb it through their skin. They’re going to maybe lick their paws. I think in 2008, there was a study in New York State, and it showed through taking blood and urine samples that pets had way more chemicals in them than their human owners.

Manda: [01:16:15] Right. And more total, not just more per kilogram.

Joe: [01:16:18] Exactly. More total, not just more per kilogram. And it called it a wake up call. But that, of course, was like 16 years ago?

Manda: [01:16:27] Nobody’s woken up yet. Well you have and hopefully people listening have.

Joe: [01:16:31] Yeah we have. But you’re back into advertisements. You know, your house should smell like this. If you want your friend to think you’re not a slob or to keep your children healthy.

Manda: [01:16:42] Yes, your laundry should smell like this.

Joe: [01:16:45] Yeah.

Manda: [01:16:46] And it shouldn’t. And because you’re absorbing that stuff through your skin, then.

Joe: [01:16:49] Yeah. Fabric softener. Yeah. What the hell? So we use probiotics instead of chemicals for that. And again, what’s going from your laundry machine into the wastewater? So that’s a whole thing.

Manda: [01:17:02] Straight into the rivers. So what do you use?  Have you got laundry liquid or sheets or?

Joe: [01:17:09] Yeah. We have a probiotic laundry care. And it was originally designed for electrical muscle stimulation jackets. So these electric muscles that you might wear. Big in Germany. Not so big over here yet, but you can do a 20 minute workout and it gives you the equivalent of working out for an hour because it’s firing up the muscles.

Manda: [01:17:31] Without actually having to do any work. Yay!

Joe: [01:17:33] No, you’ve got to work. Nice try, Manda. Nice try. But you’ve got to  work. And they do them for horses. But it fires up the muscles, right? I can imagine it’d be great for rehab in certain circumstances.

Manda: [01:17:44] Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Physio.

Joe: [01:17:46] So these are jackets that have electrical components in them, so they’ve got to be washed delicately. So our product was originally designed for that. Which is why it says fitness and wellness on the bottle instead of dog. But we sell it pretty much exclusively to the to the pet owner.

Manda: [01:18:05] For them to wash their dog beds.

Joe: [01:18:07] To replace the chemical based. To wash the dog beds.

Manda: [01:18:10] But we could wash our own bedding in it.

Joe: [01:18:12] We just wash everything in it. We don’t use any chemical based cleaning products. So again, just getting rid of chemicals. And when you’re talking about dog allergies, you say to people what are you washing your bedding with? What chemicals are you exposing your dog to? Through what you’ve washed the floor with, what you’ve washed your surface with, what you wash the bowls with, what you’ve washed their bedding with, and the harnesses and the car? You what have you used to shampoo the carpets? And the pet owners are brilliant for this.

Manda: [01:18:47] Because they really care.

Joe: [01:18:49] They care. And sometimes you deal with people that are really upset, really in a bad place, worried about their dog.

Manda: [01:18:58] Because their dogs are suffering in front of them or their cats.

Joe: [01:19:00] And costing a fortune because vet prices have gone through the roof in the past however many years. So we if we can reduce the time that they have to bring them to the vet. Sometimes you say, look, if there’s a bone sticking through the skin, get your dog to the vet will you? Don’t just use the skin spray. So but if you can reduce the times that the dog needs medication, if you can reduce the time that the dog needs to go to the vet in the first place, then we’re enabling at the same time the pet owner to do what it is that they can do to reduce their chemical exposure, the dog’s chemical exposure, and their chemical footprint on the planet, which we know is way more important than the carbon footprint. So and then you’re back to like, well, just do what you can do, never mind about somebody else pumping stuff up through a chimney in a factory in the Middle East. Whatever.

Manda: [01:19:50] Yes. Because there’s this narrative of, well, stuff’s happening in China that’s bad, so there’s no point in us doing anything, which is a very deliberate deflection. Denial, deflection, despair is the route that they want us to go. So just don’t. Do what you can do.

Joe: [01:20:03] And there’s a certain thing as well, because we have these conversations and it gets a bit deep. But when you are doing what you can do, the person next to you is seeing that. From your own personal spirit or soul or whatever, you know that you are doing something. And it bothers a lot of us when we look at something on the television, we see a lot of bad stuff in the television, which isn’t good for our flight or fight responses, but sometimes there’s nothing we can do and it bothers us. But if you say, look, I can do this little thing, and if somebody else sees me doing that little thing and somebody else sees them, that’s it. And if they don’t, they don’t. But you know, when you look in the mirror in the morning, you’ve done what you can do.

Manda: [01:20:46] And you talk about it. I mean, partly I’m doing this because I feel that it’s a good thing to do for the planet. But also, I think for pet owners, you know, here’s my golden retriever that had really bad hotspots, say, or my Bernese Mountain dog that’s ears were falling apart. Or my poodle whose teeth were just a lake of pus. And I’ve used these products and my dog is now healthy, and I’ve cut out all the other products and my house doesn’t smell bad. It just doesn’t smell of chemicals. People will talk. I mean, I’m on however many Facebook groups, and I can’t tell you how often I’ve told people about Ingenious Products, and various breeders. Tell your cavapoo people about this because they will need to know, because we all know that they’re going to have bad ears. They just are. Sorry, cavapoo people, I’m not singling you out, particularly because pretty much anything with floppy ears is going to have yeast infections, because there isn’t enough air circulation, not just those. As we said, I’m a vet. I’m allowed to say these things. So it seems to me that there’s two sets of motivations that we go through. It’s the ‘I want to do less harm’, but this is the ‘I want to do good’.

Manda: [01:21:51] And that the ‘look I am doing good’ has much more tangible impact on people than ‘I slightly think I’ve done less harm, but I can’t really tell because, hey, the oceans are still dying’. But that. That will spread, I would imagine. How are you getting traction with vets? Because you’re not allowed to go to someone and go, okay, spray this it’ll cure your dog’s ears because that’s prescribing and that’s not allowed. You were saying at the beginning that you’re beginning to talk to more vets, and I would have thought if I were still in practice and somebody had come along and said, here was a Bernese Mountain dog that was going for surgery, and we used this stuff and it did not need the surgery. Look, here’s the photographic evidence. That would be my epiphany moment. But I’m also getting the same with horse gut biome stuff, of going look guys, you get the gut biome right and a lot of behavioural issues change. I want to talk about behaviour in a minute. And there are percentage of my former colleagues where they have a similar psychological response as they do to homeopathy. Which is it can’t happen, therefore I don’t see that it is happening. Is that still a thing or are you beginning to overcome that?

Joe: [01:22:56] I would say with vets it’s been interesting. So we we started into the vet route initially with the pet care and it was a tough one and we were busy doing other things. And then the holistic care community literally was tapping us on the shoulder.

Manda: [01:23:15] Right. We need these things!

Joe: [01:23:16] We’ll listen to you! And eventually they got through to me kind of thing. And then this whole other world opened up, and we found we were talking to these people who who care. These people who are, if they’re natural approaching their their feeding, for example, or their cleaning, the natural approach isn’t just segmented, it’s across the board for them. And they were a fantastic audience and we were doing great things to help them and getting wonderful feedback. And it’s  been a real kind of love in. And you meet lots and lots of people who have set up their shops to sell food that they think is best for their dog. And they’ve researched, maybe they’ve gone on nutrition courses and they’ve changed career path. And these are really wonderful people to surround yourself with, you know. And amongst them then has included, because they’re in that community, holistic minded vets. And we have holistic minded vets who sell our product. And I guess, like we were saying earlier, because a number of years have gone by and we’ve got case studies; even post op wound care where the vet says to the owner, this has healed twice as quickly as we were expecting it to be. And they say yeah, we’ve been using the probiotic spray. So all of that has given us now the the platform to go and talk to vets. We have a vet at the lab as well over in Luxembourg, but it’s a very different audience.

Manda: [01:24:45] Now we’re going to Orthodox vets, we might call the standard vet.

Joe: [01:24:48] Yeah, we’re going to go to Orthodox vets. We’re going to go to people who feed Orthodoxly, because we find that our number one selling product is the dental care. And our main area of of reach is holistic minded, usually well feeding, well aware of meaty bones and so on, and still our number one product is the dental care, how much more do these other people need? People who think that the kibble is going to get in between the teeth and clean the teeth.

Manda: [01:25:20] Or these little rusk bones that are sold to clean your dog’s teeth and you’re going, really, people, do you want to try eating one of those and tell me how clean your teeth were after?

Joe: [01:25:27] I think one of the things we’re able to find Manda is that there’s a line we can use where we can say, look, there’s going to be times you’re going to need to use medications and pharmaceuticals for your beloved pet or for your client’s pet. But in between, if we can reduce the amount you use we’re really happy with that. But also what’s the chance of having better efficacy, more chance of the antibiotics working if you’re not using them as often?

Manda: [01:25:57] If you’re not overusing them. Industrial doses of antibiotics are not a clever thing, people. So yeah.

Joe: [01:26:03] So that’s for real. And at the same time, I had a friend recently who had a problem with their cat, and the vet didn’t use antibiotics and it was try this, try that. And then eventually it turned out to be an infection. And my friend said, well, why didn’t the vet just use antibiotics in the beginning? And I’m then defending the vet going, well, you know.

Manda: [01:26:21] Yeah, it’s quite an ethical vet. They’re trying not to do that.

Joe: [01:26:24] Exactly, exactly. Not a vet that I know personally. And I thought, no,  so maybe one animal every now and again they should start with antibiotics. But by and large, if you can just have them reduce, then your pet or your client’s pet is going to do better on the antibiotics when they really, really need them. And we can help that. So I think that’s the approach that we’re taking.

Manda: [01:26:49] And you’re not flushing ampicillin down the drains. It has to become important.

Joe: [01:26:54] Yes, yes. Yeah. I think two years ago, there was an article in the Irish Times saying the rivers are awash with antibiotics. And they can extrapolate levels of antimicrobial resistance from measuring sewage. You know what goes down the drain? So all of these meds, these antibiotics and other meds like the contraceptive pill and the Viagra and everything going all ending up some place. So we just have to adjust.

Manda: [01:27:29] And then we’re drinking them because basically a lot of our tap water is recycled stuff that’s gone down the drains and they’ve filtered it a bit, but they can’t filter everything out before we finish. We’re way over time, but this has been so exciting. It seems to me, and partly I’ve talked on the podcast to Doctor Jenny Goodman, who’s an ecological doctor a little while ago and before that to some nutritionists; that human behaviour is very tightly linked to our gut microbiome. And that possibly amongst many, many other sources of real trauma and our incapacity really to connect with the world in a way that’s healthy and and generative, is that our gut microbiome is so out of whack. Because ultra processed foods and chemicals in the environment. And I’m guessing we’re also seeing, I do a lot of dog behaviour stuff, I was in a webinar the other week where we’re really looking at trauma informed care, Andrew Hale’s work. But this was someone in the States who said, she wakes every morning and she prays for something as simple as a separation anxiety, because now they’re seeing really complex trauma in dogs. And that for her, this is the canary in the coal mine, because the dogs are getting all of the trauma and the energetics in a household, but they’re not getting the dopamine hits of social media to act as an anaesthetic.

Manda: [01:28:50] So the dogs are showing super complex, deeply traumatised behaviour that the people are slightly covering up. And so, it seems to me obviously gut microbiome we haven’t really spoken about because your field is not gut biome, but your field is surface biome, all the aspects of the surface biome and that these are intimately linked. If somebody is saying we should be washing our hands with soap and yoghurt, that’s because our biomes are contiguous. Our mouth biome is contiguous with our gut biome, which is contiguous with our skin biome, which is in the end contiguous with our ear biome. And it might be that the products are tailored to these areas, but there’s going to be some overflow. Taking all that as my baseline, it occurs to me that if we are beginning to see dogs and then people, where people are really working at getting the environment to be biome positive, let’s say. Are you noticing, and this would be purely anecdotally, behavioural shifts in the people or the animals? And this might be a question too far. I’m just genuinely curious if this is a thing.

Joe: [01:30:00] Okay, that’s a long question. We definitely make the connection with behaviour and all kinds of things, including the gut biome. I’m talking to behaviour experts about this and I jokingly say, you know, you don’t give your your kid blue Smarties just before they go to bed.

Manda: [01:30:22] Or indeed at all.

Joe: [01:30:24] Or indeed at all, yeah. So the chemicals are going to be disrupting. We don’t we don’t know what they’re firing off. The connection between the gut microbiome and everything from Alzheimer’s to depression is becoming well known in humans. So what is a healthy microbiome? I think that’s an important question. A real diverse microbiome is good. Lots and lots of different bacteria. The same on the surface. You know, if we just have way more of the good than the bad. So with behaviour? Yes. If the dog is in pain, and sometimes we’ve had to ask people, because people are talking about the dogs biting their feet, let’s say. And you might say, well, have you checked the harness or the collar? Or have you got a little bit of tingling going on? Is it habitual? Is it a cry for help? Is there anxiety? It’s not just about spraying something on there. And then that’s leading on to dogs licking to the effect that they’re affecting the follicles coming through the skin, and then you get infections.

Manda: [01:31:34] Yeah. They’re getting bald patches.

Joe: [01:31:35] And interdigital cysts, and then you’ve got all kind of indigo laser surgery, all from a non-happy situation.

Manda: [01:31:43] A disrupted biome.

Joe: [01:31:45] And I think the ancients used to believe we had a brain in our tummy, you know, because that’s where we have the gut feeling. And you go with your gut.

Manda: [01:31:53] And now we know that the gut produces more serotonin than anywhere else.

Joe: [01:31:57] And some of the microbiome in there are producing some of the vitamins that we can’t get from plants or we can’t get from food. So the connection between gut microbiome and pretty much everything is becoming an easier conversation. And therapists would say, look, you can’t train a dog who’s in pain. You can’t train a dog that’s unhappy. A dog that’s just not quite feeling great.

Manda: [01:32:24] Or a dog that’s itchy. Itchiness can drive them crazy. It’s a big behavioural thing. If your dog’s got a mild itch I remember doing a training and they said if it scratches more than twice in a 90 minute consult, you need to watch it’s skin before you worry about all the other behavioural stuff.

Joe: [01:32:37] Yeah, and I think that’s one of the biggest conversations we have is about itchy dogs. And it spirals and the people get worried and the dog picks up on the worry and they’re just so sentient, they’re picking up on people’s anxiety. And yeah, like I said, we’ve had some conversations where I’ve had to grasp a nettle and say, uh, your dog’s grand, let’s talk about you.

Manda: [01:33:06] Yes. Well, and as a vet, you know one of many reasons I’m not a vet anymore is exactly that.

Joe: [01:33:11] And then the right people are really open to that and loving. And then they’ve got issues to talk about. But definitely the connection between gut microbiome and behaviour and anything that affects the dog and behaviour. We are definitely seeing more conversations. We don’t deal directly with the dog enough to see the changes.

Manda: [01:33:26] Okay, but some of the vets will do.

Joe: [01:33:29] With enough behaviour therapists and pet owners to see, yeah, it’s a connection.

Manda: [01:33:32] All right. Lovely. I think I’ve used enough of your time. This has been so fascinating. Thank you so much. I’ve learned huge amounts. And this is a field that I thought I knew about. So I’m hoping that the listeners are really opening up to, exactly as you said: each one of us can do stuff. We can diminish our use of the bad stuff, we can increase our use of the good stuff. And the world is a happier place as a result, and that this is a really good thing. Is there anything that you wanted to say at the end? I will put links to Ingenious in the show notes so people can find you. Is there anything else that you wanted to say in closing?

Joe: [01:34:06] Well, you know, the only thing that comes to mind is that we love what we’re doing passionately. And it’s a seven day week thing because it just is. And one of the things we love about it isn’t just that we’re helping dogs who aren’t in a position to make their own choices about their food and what’s used around them, but that the pet owners in particularly are lighting candles. Even the ones that don’t realise they’re just lighting candles. And I think the world has been through some really dark times and this is one of them, and we just need more people to light their own candle. Don’t worry about everybody else. You don’t have to be an evangelist. And I think that we’re helping people do that. And that warms my heart on a cold, exhausting, stressful day. Yeah.

Manda: [01:34:57] All right. That’s good. I think we might have found the title for the podcast. Joe, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast in your busy seven day week. It’s been fantastic to talk to you, thank you.

Joe: [01:35:09] It’s a privilege, Manda. Lovely to meet you. Lovely to talk to you. And I love what you’re doing a lot.

Manda: [01:35:13] Thank you.

Manda: [01:35:14] And that’s it for another week. Wasn’t that cool? Enormous thanks to Joe for everything that he knows, for everything that he does, and for having the most beautiful voice I have listened to in a very long time. Truly, listening to Joe the first time I heard him, was one of those life changing moments. I’m supposed to be a scientist, I’m supposed to be a veterinary scientist. And somewhere along the line, I still hadn’t joined all the dots of it’s good to feed your gut biome, the things that it really wants, and therefore it is possible to feed your external biota with the things that they really want. And at the same time, we can stop pouring the toxins down the sink, down the loo, washing the floors, all of those things. So much of our modern world is so incredibly toxic and is sold to us as if it were safe. It’s not safe for us, and it’s not safe for the world around us. So genuinely, one of the best things you can do is just ditch everything in the cupboard.

Manda: [01:35:14] I don’t know how you ditch them safely, that’s the sad thing. You can’t really put them into landfill. You definitely don’t want to be tipping them down the loo. There has to be something that can be done. I should have asked Joe. I will email him and if he has a good answer, I will put it in the show notes. But in the meantime, if you don’t want to buy stuff from Joe, we’re not pushing this. I think what he’s got is lovely. We tend to use white vinegar in all of the sprays on all of the surfaces around the house. It’s pretty safe, and Faith is really sensitive to domestic smells. If she comes in and it smells of wet dog, we know about it. So if she came in and it smelled of vinegar, I would know about it. And it doesn’t. It just cleans things and it will kill some bacteria because that’s the point. Most of the things that we use in our surfaces work because they disrupt pH really, really badly. They’re either intensely alkaline or they’re quite acid. Vinegar is pretty good because it’s not that acid, and I don’t really think it’s going to do everything a lot of damage. Anyway, that’s my excuse for using it. You can use whatever you want, but just please don’t use the things that are lining shelf after shelf in the supermarket. We don’t need those anymore, and the more people we can get to stop using them, the less likely they are to be made and the less likely they are to end up in the river and then the sea.

Manda: [01:35:14] And we are killing the oceans. If I can find that paper about the falling oxygen levels, I will put that also in the show notes. I have already put links to where you can find Joe, to Ingenious Products and to him on LinkedIn. So head off and have a look. Nothing to lose. And if you have dogs and cats, just think about it; the fewer antibiotics that we can use, the better. And I was genuinely blown away by the idea that you could obviate the need for a total ear canal ablation in a Bernese mountain dog by spraying something in its ears. I would really struggle to convey to you how much of a game changer that is. It would overturn half of veterinary medicine if it weren’t for the fact that most vet practices are owned now by hedge funds. So in this too, if you can find a local private veterinary practice where the people that you see are the people who own the practice, please go to them. And a lot of them have at least one holistic practitioner there. Somebody who really is interested in raw feeding and all of the other things that we’ve been talking about. It does make a difference. Okay, I will get off my soapbox because I’m aware that it can become controversial, but the bit that really isn’t controversial is that the sprays that we’ve been using all over the house are a very bad idea. Please stop.

Manda: [01:35:14] Okay, so that apart, we’ll be back next week with another conversation. In the meantime, thanks to Caro C for the music at the head and foot. To Alan Lowles of Airtight Studios for the production. To Anne Thomas for the transcripts. To Lou Mayor for the video. And to Faith for the website and all of the conversations that keep us moving on top of all of those. If you’re still here, an enormous thanks to you for listening. If you know of anybody else who wants to understand how we can interact more safely with the waterways and the air and everything that we touch, then please do send them this link. And that’s it for now. See you next week. Thank you and goodbye.

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