On this week’s Bespoke Parenting Hour, host Julie Gunlock talks to Lisa Gable, the CEO of the Food Allergy Research and Education organization, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the quality of life and health of individuals with food allergies and funding research for new treatments. Lisa covers a variety of topics on the podcast — from what a food allergy actually is, the top ten allergens in foods, the number of kids in the U.S. that suffer from food allergies, the food innovations that could make food allergies a thing of the past, the “eye-roll” phenomenon experienced by many allergy kids and families, and what we can all do to help keep allergy kids safe and healthy.
Transcript
Julie:
Hey everyone, I’m Julie Gunlock your host for the 11th episode of the Bespoke Parenting Hour and the first episode for 2021. Happy New Year and goodbye and good riddance to 2020, I guess I should say. Things are starting to look up a bit, two COVID-19 vaccines have been developed and approved for use and several more are in the approval process, which will only quicken the vaccination process. The rollout, of course, hasn’t been as quick as hoped. People are getting vaccinated, mainly essential workers. These are the people that keep the trains running and also frontline health workers. These are the people who are actually treating those who’ve contracted COVID-19. So that is good news. It’s good news that some are getting vaccinated and again, I think we’ll see a speeding up of nationwide vaccinations once more are approved.
So that’s a great way to start off the year and I’m really excited to still be hosting the Bespoke Parenting Hour. For any new listeners we have out there, and we really do hope to grow the listenership of the Bespoke Parenting Hour this year, this podcast is focused on how parents should custom tailor their parenting style to fit what’s best for their families themselves, and most importantly, their kids.
So, we’re going to start off this year’s Bespoke Parenting Hour talking about a really important issue, kids and allergies. I’m joined today by a very good friend, Lisa Gable. I’m thrilled that she is the first guest of this new year.
Lisa and I have worked together over the years in a lot of different capacities and on some really interesting projects, mainly related to food and nutrition. Lisa is a legend and a true leader in Washington, DC. She’s been a leader in all sectors, the public sector, the private sector, and the nonprofit sector. She has served four US presidents and two governors and has also served as an ambassador to the United Nations.
For many years, Lisa was in the corporate world as a senior vice president of global public policy at PepsiCo and she spent 15 years in Silicon Valley. We’re so glad she managed to escape. She’s been on the boards of the Boys & Girls Club and the Girl Scouts and for many years was the president of the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, which was this fabulous coalition of both food corporations and government health agencies that worked really hard to improve, and did improve, the American diet. This is where Lisa and I really got to work closely together. It was just a great partnership and I learned a lot about this from Lisa.
Today, Lisa is the CEO of the Food Allergy Research & Education organization, it’s called FARE. FARE is known as the world’s leading non-governmental organization doing food allergy advocacy and it is the largest private funder of food allergy research, so this is a very important organization. While doing all of what I just listed, Lisa was and is busy being a mom to her beautiful and very accomplished daughter, who I think the world of. She has also mentored countless young women in Washington. I am way too old to be considered a young woman that she mentored, but I do consider Lisa one of my personal mentors, so I’m so thrilled that she’s here today. Welcome, Lisa.
Lisa:
Well, thanks Julie, you are way too kind but I really appreciate being one of your first guests for 2021.
Julie:
Well, it is a much, well look, I feel like we could start off talking about 2020 and would love to get the updates on what’s going on, but I think we can all agree, with two vaccines in the marketplace right now, and more coming down the pike, 2021, at least at this point looks like it’s going to be a lot better, so hurray for that.
Lisa:
Yeah, we’re excited too. In fact, I just heard that my chief operating officer gets his shot on January 26th. My mother got hers on Wednesday, so things seem to be moving.
Julie:
Oh, that’s great, that’s great. Well, to pivot to another really important health issue, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on here is I know that this is an important issue. I have friends who deal with this. I know children who deal with this, but as the mom of three kids who don’t have any food allergy problems, I don’t pay as much attention to this. I think that that’s at the cost of some of the kids and families who do deal with this. I think that there’s a lot of misinformation, there’s a lot of myths out there and there’s also strangely and sadly some impatience on this issue. So I’m hoping we can tackle a few of those issues today. So, I think the first thing I’d like to talk about is a little bit about FARE itself, how you got involved with this organization and what it does?
Lisa:
Sure. So I joined FARE in June of 2018. As you know, my business experience is turning around organizations, taking over an organization that has very important mission, but that mission needs to be elevated and one of the primary ways it needs to be elevated is by heavy industry having a seat at the table. So I was brought in, in June of 2018 and I was told three things. One is that we have to raise $200 million, secondly, that we need to bring industry to the table and we really need to make research our primary focus area. So we dug into that, we restructured the organization by 83%.
Julie:
Wow.
Lisa:
We’re very much focused on bringing research into the mix at the level it needs to be at, in order to drive solutions for patients and we raised $85 million. So all exciting, but why are we doing this? The reason we’re doing it is that 85 million Americans avoid purchasing products that contain the top nine proteins that can trigger an allergic reaction, that’s one in every four Americans. At the top of that peak is people with life-threatening food allergies. 32 million Americans, if they accidentally ingest a food, they can go into anaphylaxis and they can die in up to three minutes. So obviously, if you are a mom who has a child with a life-threatening food allergy, you live in a constant state of anxiety. That’s one reason, I think that it’s so hard for people to understand how the level of anxiety our moms have, because those that child begins to leave the nest, as they go to elementary school, you’re heavily dependent upon other people understanding what they need to do in order to keep your child safe.
Julie:
How many children? You say 32 million Americans total, but how many children suffer from food allergies?
Lisa:
So, we’re talking about basically 5.6 million children, that’s one in 13. The best way to think about it is that’s two students in every classroom
Julie:
Good grief. Well, that is significant and again, I think when people hear those numbers, they go, “Oh, but I don’t think people know this.” I’m glad that your organization is building up and getting the information out more. You mentioned the top allergies, can you describe those? What are the top allergies? What are things people are allergic to?
Lisa:
Sure. So we track 170 food allergies, but the top nine are those allergens … Well, the top eight are those allergens, which the FDA requires food manufacturers to label for as part of the food safety protocols. We’ve been advocating for the ninth one, which is sesame. So let me tell you what they are. Peanut, milk, shellfish, tree nut, egg, fin fish, that’s fish with little fins, wheat, soy, and sesame. So sesame has 1.5 million people who suffer from anaphylaxis, which is a lot of people, it’s one reason we want it to be added to the top nine. We’ve been in very positive conversations with industry, the FDA and on Capitol Hill about that need but those are the ones that are the most frequent.
The one that’s most frequent is peanut. That’s why you always hear about peanuts, 25%, eight million people of the 32 million people we just talked about. But most people with one allergy actually have another allergy, so it is very common for someone to have a peanut allergy and then they’re allergic to other things too.
Julie:
You list off these things, I was trying to type as you were listing them off and peanut, milk, wheat, those were some of the things I got down, obviously sesame, but all of those things … You’ve worked with food co corporations, I’ve worked on the issue of food manufacturing and goodness, those … I mean, milk powders and nut powders and oh my gosh, wheat, these are in so many things which really makes you thankful for food labeling, but there are things that don’t get labeled and how do parents deal with that? The fear of, again, it’s very, very small amounts that might not be labeled. Or for instance, if you go to a bakery and they have homemade things and you’re relying on the label that’s handwritten, I mean, how do parents deal with that kind of issue? Again, these ingredients seem to be in everything these days.
Lisa:
They are very anxious parents. They’re very anxious parents and that’s why I know that people sit there and wonder, it’s like, “Well, why do you have this anxiety?” It’s because as you say, the one thing to know about food allergens is they’re protein and so you’re talking about basic proteins. You’re also talking about foods that are basics. If you are somebody who has financial constraints, maybe you’re in an underserved community or your husband or wife’s just lost their job, we’re talking about having to forego really basic cost-effective proteins, like peanut butter and fin fish, that’s tuna fish and egg and dairy. So they do live in a great deal of fear.
On the horizon, one of the issues that we’re in conversation with right now, and we’ve been very pleased, in fact I was able to brief 40 CEOs this week and we’ve briefed hundreds of consumer goods companies, is cleaning up what we call precautionary allergen labeling. That’s making sure that all labels that tell you that these things are in your food are the same. Now, I mention that because more people are shopping online and also we have these things called QR codes and QR codes you may have seen, it’s that weird dotty looking thing on a package that you scan with your telephone.
When you do, smart label tells you what’s in the food. So as we see more and more people going into digital, we are asking companies to think about listing-
Julie:
Smart.
Lisa:
… beyond the top nine. The Europeans, they monitor 12, so labels and standardizing them, but also having information in a digital format makes it much easier for people to go on, see what’s in the food and make sure they’re ordering something that their child can eat.
Julie:
This is another example of why modernization, technology makes life better. I’ll get a little bit into that later on, because I do want to talk to you about innovation in the food industry. But before we go on that subject, I want to pivot a bit back to parents. You mentioned when we were in the beginning, you said something that I thought was very thought-provoking, which is you not only rely on a little child to take care of themselves, if they’re away from home, but you’re relying on other parents. What bothers me about this issue is that I see a lot of lack of sympathy from other parents. I see eye rolls, I see this sort of idea that everything’s made up. I think there are some reasons for that but I have an example. Years ago, I was in a classroom, this was a preschool classroom where the children ate in the classroom at little tables. The teacher said to the … It was the welcome to school meeting and all the parents were gathered around. The teacher said, “We do have a child in this class with a peanut allergy, so if you wouldn’t mind avoiding peanut butter as snacks.”
You think about the other available options in the grocery store, there’s thousands of other options to send your kid with a snack. I just nodded along and another parent actually started to argue and saying, “Oh, my little son, you know, he doesn’t eat anything but peanut butter jelly sandwiches for a snack and he has since birth,” or whatever. My jaw dropped and I really couldn’t believe it. I was actually friends with the mom who had the child who was allergic to peanuts and she was shocked as well.
So, I’m curious if you guys have looked into that. What is the reason for that? Is it just that everybody has an allergy or a sensitivity these days and, “Oh, I can’t deal with it.” Or what’s the reason for this, I don’t know, hostility?
Lisa:
Well, we do call it the eye roll.
Julie:
That’s funny.
Lisa:
I think that parents, yeah, many parents have adopted different diets for their families. Some families have really leaned into vegan and some families may lean into other diets. We do know that celiacs disease, which is a very, very serious disease, it can send someone into the hospital, that the gluten-free has become sort of a badge of honor, and it’s almost seen as a health halo. So I do think the gluten-free phenomena, although it has been beneficial to families with celiac and also with wheat allergies, has created a dynamic where it’s misunderstood and people claim an avoidance diet as a health badge as a halo and that’s detrimental to the mom of a child with celiacs and it’s detrimental to the mom of child with life-threatening food allergies.
So, we are really trying to make sure that people understand that the diseases are very real. They’re very frightening. They do send people to the emergency room. Food allergies [crosstalk 00:14:53]-
Julie:
They kill, they kill.
Lisa:
They kill, $25 billion in medical costs. It’s a big issue.
Julie:
It is, it’s interesting. I’m so glad you brought that up because I remember actually writing about this, the difference between a food allergy and this food sensitivity, which became very popular. There are people making lots of money on food sensitivity tests and these terms get thrown around where, I’m not going to get into specifics, but certain foods do not really sit well with me. I know that. I’m not 14 years old, I know now what, what foods work well with me and what don’t, and that doesn’t mean I’m allergic to that food. It means maybe my body doesn’t exactly like it. So there’s this, I guess the invention of new terms, that people tend to think are full-blown allergies, or are really dangerous that I think, yes, you’re right, it has … and that gluten phenomenon is one of the things that I think made people roll their eyes. I love that you guys call it the eye roll, but I think with this podcast, this podcast is about how you should parent the best way, but it doesn’t mean ignoring other people’s needs in parenting.
That’s one thing that I think is really important and I’ve always said all along in this podcast. That doesn’t mean, for instance, ignore what doctors say, for instance, about vaccines. Or if you go to the hospital and your kid looks like they have a broken leg, the doctors are probably someone you should listen to, not … You should probably listen.
So, I think on allergies, that’s why it’s so important that this information get out there, because I think people are confused about the different terms out there and the different conditions that people perceive as being an allergy but aren’t. But you’re right, it is a detriment to the kids who actually … Or even the adults, anyone who has an actual allergy.
I want to pivot a little bit over to what the food industry is doing to focus on these issues outside of labeling. This has more to do with science, about innovation in food manufacturing. This gets into GMOs and some of the other things that they’re doing, the really creative and interesting things that they’re doing in the food industry. Does the food industry have an appetite for innovation in terms of genetically modifying a food product so that the allergen isn’t in, the protein is taken out? What’s the status of that?
Lisa:
So, there’s a lot of work being done and scientists across the world, a really amazing team of scientists that split their time between Silicon Valley and Israel who are looking at gene editing and gene editing is different than genetic modification, right?
Julie:
Yes, yeah.
Lisa:
It’s not fundamentally changing the protein itself or the plant itself, it’s really removing things within its natural state. I have high hopes for it. I am hoping it comes to solve the problem. I have had my enthusiasm dampened in meetings of late, because I’ll go on about how this is amazing and it’s great, but I’m being reminded that these … and then I get the scientist that tells me, Well, Lisa we need to give you the facts.” The peanut industry is funding a lot of it. That is where they’re focused, is on peanut and wheat, but they are very complex proteins and do not … I am not the scientist in the room, so I am not even going to try and explain what that means.
Julie:
No, of course.
Lisa:
But what it does mean is that they’re not sure that they’re there yet and they’re also not sure how the removal of the protein will affect the product itself. So again, peanut’s the easiest thing for us all to talk about, is if they’re able to remove the protein or the proteins that are causing the problem, then will you get the same consistency? Will it tastes the same? Will it enable you to make peanut butter? Will it give you that texture that you need which is so pertinent to that particular product? So they are definitely investing in it and it is something that I believe should somebody be able to … scientists like Healy get it to a place where the texture, the taste, the cost of production, and don’t ever forget the cost of production because it is fundamental, as well as the safety element is repeatable, then we’ll be in a fantastic place.
But I will tell you the one place where the food industry has really, really done a fantastic job, and they do not get the credit for it, is on cleaning and production. We all got a taste of cleaning when we got to see the New York City Metro being cleaned in like 15 seconds during the beginning of COVID, but the food companies, I’ve told them, I think the biggest place where we need to be able to help them in telling their story is that the Fortune 500 companies, the big companies spend billions of dollars a year on cleaning equipment. They also put a great deal of thought into how they line up things on the manufacturing line. I’ve had companies, some of the largest companies in the world, will literally throw away multi-million dollar equipment if it doesn’t demonstrate that it is cleaning well enough.
They will never put something with an allergen on the manufacturing line if it is shared. They will do the allergen, or a place where there could be risk of allergen, for the second production. So if you think about first production, first thing in the morning, those are the … and then if they do second production, they do a lot of cleaning between those, but then they go into the next one. So they’re producing possibly later in the evening and they can have a longer period of time to clean and they’re testing equipment for whether or not … They can test whether or not an allergen is in there. McCormick has invested heavily in testing, they make spices, because it’s a big issue for them.
Julie:
Yeah. Well, it’s interesting to hear you talk about this, and I just want to tell our listeners and you Lisa, that my dog, and I don’t know if my microphone is picking up on this, but my dog has decided to chew on a bone right underneath my desk. So I think it’s sort of like theme music. We’re talking about food and so if you do hear crunching, I am not eating chips or munching on a Jolly Rancher. It is my dog who is kind of impolite, I have to say, to choose this particular area to chew on his bone. So anyway, to listeners and Lisa-
Lisa:
Well, we should point out that you have a dog to my dog Daisy because your boys came to my house and they fell in love with Daisy and then they wanted a Daisy dog.
Julie:
I’m telling you; Daisy might still win my heart. Your dog is the sweetest, sweetest dog. I’ve walked in threatened that I was going to stop by your house and steal Daisy, so I love your dog. Yes, indeed, right after we left Lisa’s house … My husband and I had managed to go years and years without a dog. We were kind of thrilled because we have three boys, and we have our hands full. We’d gone so long and the kids hadn’t asked. Then we went to Lisa’s house for that beautiful lunch and the kids were nonstop begging for a dog. So thanks, Lisa, kind of. No, we love our dog. She’s wonderful and she is with us today on this podcast. So, apologies for the crunching.
I almost lost my train of thought, but going back, what you were just talking about is fascinating about, you’re talking about these manufacturers being able to test products, being able to clean equipment, being able to ensure that their products are free of any kind of … and if it has a product in it, it will label it. But this is all modernization. This is all innovation and modernization. We’re talking about, by and large factories, produce this really clean, really safe, tested, labeled food.
It’s funny when you think about trends and trendy food, it’s become popular now, it’s almost like the word factory is a pejorative and mass production is a pejorative but these are the good things about that. These are cleanliness and consistency in producing the food and again, all of this safety testing. So these are the things that are really good. I do, I have to say Lisa, it’s so funny because you think of these major food manufacturers who do such great things, but there’s a big push out there for organic and clean and all these labels that take the consumer away from any kind of production, where in some ways, this kind of manufacturing is what’s really needed to ensure that certain allergens and things like that don’t get into food.
So, it is interesting and I wonder if there was some great discovery where … So this is a question more on the consumer side rather than the manufacturing side. I wonder if there’d be a market for it, like if there was suddenly allergy-free peanut butter. You know the allergy community and certainly the child allergy community much better, probably better than anyone. Would there be an appetite for that, would they rush to buy it? Or is this sort of requirement that every [inaudible 00:24:30] be non-GMO and non-gene edited, does that win the day? I mean, even if allergy parents did rush to buy these products, that’s not enough necessarily to keep that business booming. What do you think the appetite for that would be?
Lisa:
Well, it’s one reason that we wanted to make sure that manufacturers understood the complete market. We did research with McKinsey that shows 85 million Americans, one in four Americans, do not buy products with the top nine proteins that can trigger an allergic reaction. As I said, 32 million of those are life-threatening food allergy but the next segment of those are people with medically tested food intolerances. They have something in their system that they cannot eat the food.
Julie:
Let me interrupt there. I’m sorry, I just want to be sure. So you’re saying more people than who have allergies or are trying to avoid-
Lisa:
Right, yeah, people with life-threatening food allergies, but the issues around food intolerances are real. You are having more and more adults who are having, medically, issues with food intolerances. What happens is that the people in their households also avoid those foods. So for a manufacturer, what the potential is, is that they can come up with solution sets that provide an alternative of some sort to those individuals. That’s a big market for them, there’s actually a business market in this. So the question is, is it a big enough market? It is a big enough market, it’s 85 million people.
So, we flipped the conversation. We spent way too much time trying to figure out if there was a big enough market for allergen-free products, that people put allergen-free products in the market. So I think as companies look at innovation that allows them to address the broader issue, that’s actually what’s going to give us the solution sets.
I think with gene editing, I’m hoping that … Again, GMO’s got a bad rap and you and I had a discussion about our personal opinions about that. But I do think that with gene editing, it’s going to be a different conversation. There are a couple of elements that within that. The second is that we are now … People are looking for alternatives to farming in the main state agricultural space. You see more vertical farming, more urban farming. You see people that are creating alternatives to fish farms.
So I think that the broader public is now becoming more aware of where science is taking us and when that awareness and that solution set sits with their opinions about global warming, you may actually see that the next generation of people addressing these issues, that are addressing them within the broader spectrum of how far we can advance things from a technical standpoint and an innovation standpoint. I actually do have high hopes that we’re actually going to see more agreement around the different solutions that get created and that we won’t get ourselves so dug into conversations that resulted in quote unquote food fights during the last 15 years.
Julie:
Yeah and I think honestly, I think food manufacturers have learned some lessons from the initial … what was it called? The flavor savor tomato, that was the first GMO that was ever approved to be put on the market and subsequent products. I think they’ve learned some lessons from that. Again, I think when we’re talking about editing a product, gene editing, as you say a little bit different. Although, I think to some of the really hardcore activists, it doesn’t matter but-
Lisa:
One thing to think about is when we changed from natural flavors, when we changed from chemicals to natural flavors, natural flavors are proteins, they are the foods that cause us allergic reaction. When we change people into a plant-based diet, you are substituting meat with a pea protein that can possibly trigger an allergic reaction for somebody with peanut allergy. So you have all these unintended consequences and I think that’s the conversation we need to be very upfront about, is I’ve talked to folks about using AI at the beginning of the renovation or innovation process. When a food company is creating a new food, they’re now using AI to try and figure out, “Well, if we change sugars and fats, what would it do to the consistency of the food? What are the things we need to do in order to change? What are the entered allergens into that?” And you’re using AI so that if you’re creating a plant-based food, you’re actually thinking about allergens when you’re actually making those substitutions.
Julie:
Now, you mentioned AI and again, I don’t mean to get off the subject too much, but it really is fascinating what they’re doing now. Lab-grown meat, that’s not the way that the food manufacturers would like it to be called, but it is, and it is fascinating what they’re able to do now. I have eaten the … I can’t remember what they’re called, Lisa, you probably know better than I do. You know, the plant-based meat that tastes and bleeds just like beef. I can’t remember what it’s called? Beyond Meat.
Lisa:
There’s Beyond Brands. Yeah, Beyond.
Julie:
Beyond Brands, yes. It’s delicious, it could fool someone, in my opinion, it really is so meat-like. I love all these stories. I love these stories. I don’t like misinformation about the real thing that oftentimes drives people to these products, but I do think it’s great that there’s innovation. I think that that is what we’re going to see in the allergy space. I think it’s so great that you and FARE are out there doing more to publicize this issue. I think the last thing I want to … I want to go back to the kids before we conclude here, but I’d like to … Schools are on people’s minds right now for obvious reasons. How have things improved in schools for kids who suffer from allergies?
Lisa:
They’ve definitely improved and FARE provides training for schools. We have a thing called FARECheck, which is actually for colleges and universities, restaurants, food services at schools that they could go through and be trained on food allergens. Secondarily, is I do think we’re raising awareness and that’s one of our jobs, is to raise awareness about the life-threatening nature of food allergies. It depends on the school, some families are very tolerant.
Then what you also find is for some reason, we’re not sure why, you’ll find a school that has a lot more kids with allergies. Then we’ll go to another school that has fewer kids with allergies, so it also depends on the community’s awareness about the issue.
One thing I would encourage is if you have a child who is in middle school, late elementary school, let’s say fifth and sixth grade and above, get your kids … Not only is it that families should go in and talk about, “Don’t have peanuts in the classroom, and here’s the importance of knowing about food allergies,” but also get your kids trained on how to use an epinephrine auto injector because if you have a friend … I had a former staff member who would go into schools and train people on an orange and teach everybody how to suck how to administer the epinephrine auto injector. I keep calling it that versus EpiPen because there are actually now five different choices in market and we like choice, right?
Julie:
Right, right.
Lisa:
It gives you more options. So, is learn how to learn how to administrate yourself. I think by the nature of getting families to also do that, is that you really realize how hard it is. I personally used to have to use one and I had a horrible time giving myself a shot. I cannot imagine in the moment having to administer one for another child, or for a teacher too. So, I think that brings home the severity of it also.
Julie:
Well, I do think some schools could really improve. I know that my school has the allergy kid table and I used to go in about once a week to have lunch with my son. I have three, so I wasn’t the weird mom who went once a week to the same son. I would space it out and it probably was once a week. Now I sound like a total weirdo, it was probably once a month, but anyway, I would go in and have lunch with them. Inevitably, the allergy table would have one kid at it and that just drove me nuts because I felt like, come on, there’s got to be better ways. Her parents even said … In some cases it could be, I don’t know, some really, really severe allergy, or maybe a choice on the parents’ part, but in this case, it wasn’t, it was a little girl who did not have to sit by herself. So I think that more education for educators and not just public schools, private schools, all sorts of schools and community centers and that kind of stuff is really important. So I’m glad that you guys are reaching out to schools.
I think the last question I have is just more about where people can learn about FARE. I know you have a YouTube channel and several resources. So just give our listeners a little bit of information on where to find more about FARE and the work that you do.
Lisa:
Well, thanks for asking. You want to go to foodallergy.org. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok even-
Julie:
TikTok, are you dancing on TikTok, Lisa?
Lisa:
… ad most importantly … Yes. I’m not, but other people are. So, but no, importantly is go to YouTube, look up the Living Teal channel. That is a new channel that we introduced a number of months ago, it has amazing high-end content. I brought in a group of Hollywood producers that worked at-
Julie:
Wow.
Lisa:
… Sony and MTV, and we have different cooks from the Food Network. We have stars like Rashad Jennings and Shannon Miller, both well-known athletes. We have an Emmy winning award winner who is Heather Booker, that people just love. In fact Julie, Heather Booker reminds all of us of you.
Julie:
Oh no.
Lisa:
She does, you guys would be a match made in heaven. You’re so similar in personality and the way you approach things, but Heather does Living Teal holidays. So the Teal holiday series from Christmas to Valentine’s, to Easter, to Hanukkah, she is out there. So go to our YouTube channel, which is the Living Teal channel and you will see lots of fun content that really teaches people how to live their best lives and makes food allergies a little friendlier conversation.
Julie:
Can you spell that? It’s Living and then T-E-A-L? Or T …
Lisa:
T-E-A-L, which is the color of food allergies. So Living Teal, T-E-A-L channel.
Julie:
Who knew? I didn’t, so that is very interesting. Thank you, okay. That is really good. I am going to go check that out and listen, I think this issue is really important. Lisa, I mean, we talk on personal matters anyway, but please keep us updated if FARE is doing anything that you want promoted. I mean, I know you have your own promotional channels, but IWF would love to share that and we’d love to keep up with you. I’d like to have you on again as these issues come up, there’s always exciting developments in the food industry and especially having to do with allergy. So I hope you’ll come back on and I always love talking to you. I feel like I now want to hang up and then call you and we can talk about personal stuff like Daisy, but this has been great and I’m really glad you came on.
Lisa:
Well, thanks for having me. Tell your boys I said hello.
Julie:
I will.
Lisa:
They always amuse me on Facebook and in other ways. So have a wonderful new year and thanks for having me.
Julie:
Thanks, everyone for being here for another episode of the Bespoke Parenting Hour. If you enjoyed this episode or like the podcast in general, please leave a rating or review on iTunes. This helps ensure that the podcast reaches as many listeners as possible. If you haven’t subscribed to the Bespoke Parenting Hour on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts, please do so, so you won’t miss an episode. Don’t forget to share this episode and let your friends know that they can get Bespoke episodes on their favorite podcast app. From all of us here at the Independent Women’s Forum, thanks for listening.