Our Most Honest Conversation About ‘Big Wellness,’ Pharma & Food Lies with Illie Pt. 1

Realfoodology

Courtney Swan

Nutrition, Health & Fitness, Alternative Health

4.9 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2025

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

260: My wellness bestie Illie is here and we are not holding back. Her brand, Live Healthillie, promotes clean living through everything from food, to skincare to supplements. Like me, she’s been super vocal about exposing the toxins that lurk in our food supply and pushing for change on a national scale. We yapped so hard that we needed to make the conversation into two parts. This was like therapy for me, and probably will be for you too. Topics Discussed: → “Big Wellness” compared to “Big Pharma” → Misconceptions about the MAHA movement → Beef tallow at Steak 'n Shake → Why eating clean is actually cheaper than people think → Toxic additives in baby formula → Why current food guidelines are so backwards Sponsored By: → WeNatal | Get a free month’s supply of WeNatal Magnesium with your first purchase at https://www.wenatal.com/realfoodology → FPOO | Get your free $39 bottle for just $1 and taste the difference freshness makes at https://www.GetFresh324.com. → CURED | Right now, CURED Nutrition is offering my listeners an exclusive 20% off Serenity Gummies with a monthly subscription. Just head to https://www.curednutrition.com/REALFOODOLOGY and use the code REALFOODOLOGY at checkout. → Seed | Ready to experience a probiotic that actually works? Go to https://www.Seed.com/Realfoodology and use code 25Realfoodology to get 25% off your first month. Timestamps: → 00:00:00 - Introduction → 00:01:37 - MAHA Misconceptions → 00:08:45 - Healthier Eating Habits for Kids + Adults → 00:15:35 - “Wellness Influencers” → 00:17:44 - Baby Formula → 00:20:12 - Why We Can’t Trust Our Medical Systems → 00:26:32 - Science Needs to Keep Up → 00:30:45 - Prioritizing Whole Ingredients → 00:33:00 - The Math of Clean Eating → 00:40:46 - Link Between Diet and Health → 00:43:52 - What is “Big Wellness”? → 00:50:06 - Michelle Obama + Kids’ Health → 00:53:20 - Kellogg's Corruption → 00:54:38 - Studies + Regulations: E.U. vs. U.S. → 00:58:07 - How Registered Dietitians Give Big Companies a Pass → 01:00:29 - Our Current Food Guidelines Don’t Work Check Out: → Instagram | Iliriana Balaj → Instagram | Live Healthillie Check Out Courtney: → LEAVE US A VOICE MESSAGE → Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide! → @realfoodology → www.realfoodology.com → My Immune Supplement by 2x4 → Air Dr Air Purifier → AquaTru Water Filter → EWG Tap Water Database Produced By: Drake Peterson

Transcript

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0:00.0	On today's episode of the Real Foodology podcast, if these RDs, these Western-minded
0:05.2	R-Ds and these Western-minded doctors did their job, people would not have to go to, quote-unquote,
0:11.4	wellness influencers to try to figure out what is wrong with them.
0:15.9	Hello, friends.
0:17.0	Welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology podcast.
0:19.9	Today's guest is a repeat guest and also a dear friend of mine, Ili Bala. You probably know her on Instagram as healthily. And I had such a fun time with this episode. This was not like a normal podcast episode that I do. And I mean that in the best way because we were really just in flow of just kind of chatting back and forth.
0:38.4	And it very much felt like just a conversation that she and I have as friends. And I think you're
0:44.0	really going to enjoy this episode. We talk about a lot of different, just strange stuff that's
0:48.2	happening online right now, like this notion of quote unquote big wellness as if it's competing
0:54.1	with big pharma and trying to paint
0:56.2	wellness in this light of it being really bad and trying to compare it to big pharma, which is just
1:00.6	ridiculous.
1:02.3	And you will hear our thoughts and our takes on that.
1:05.8	We also talk about our thoughts on beef tallow and its resurgence in our food supply and companies like steak
1:14.7	and shake now cooking with beef tallow. So we talk about that. We talk about the anti-maha movement,
1:21.5	which is just a really bizarre thing that's happening online right now and just, I mean, so much more.
1:26.2	This was a long episode. So we split this into two parts.
1:29.3	This is part one.
1:30.1	So tune in next week for part two.
1:35.8	I'm so happy to have you back in the podcast.
1:38.5	I'm so excited to hear.
1:40.5	We are going to talk about all the things that we have been talking about in our text. Exactly. For a while now. We're bringing the texts. We're bringing the text. To the big screen. Let's go. Okay. So we were just talking about this and I just want to dive into it and I wish we had been recording during that. But I digress. So we're going to try to remember everything we just said.
	...

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