Neil Dudley: Folks, I’m so glad you’re here. I’m glad you’re choosing to take the time, which I know isn’t free. Anytime you spend listening to the Pederson’s Farms Podcast or paying attention to House of Keto or the Cowboy Perspective or Pederson’s Farms, it’s time you don’t get back. I mean, time is kind of our most valuable asset. So, we’ve got a really knowledgeable person that lives the truth of keto and what it means to especially her family. Well, Abby, here you go. I’m about to just start rambling about who you are. Why don’t you just tell them?

Abby Scott: Thanks so much, Neil. So, my name is Abby. I go by House of Keto on all social media platforms. I have been living this lifestyle for about five years. I went from a size 24x, lost 130 pounds. After my first year, I started helping friends and family and then realized that really the people that I needed to help most were the people in my house, and that was my children. So, my children, I have a 12-year-old, Penelope, and a six year old, his name is Huxley. They started keto about four years ago, so after I was about one year in. Basically, our entire life is keto, low carb, sugar free, and we just show people how to do that in a realistic way that’s not like, we would love to have our own farm and kill our own meat and all that stuff. But we’re not necessarily at that point yet. So, we like to pull together great brands like Pederson’s and all the others that we use to be able to just show people easy and sustainable ways to maintain this lifestyle.

Neil Dudley: Awesome. So, folks, if that doesn’t catch your attention, I really don’t know what is going to because there’s weight loss there. There’s family there. There’s success, trials. That’s the stuff I want us to talk about. And, Abby, you correct me if I’m wrong because I know you, we’ve shook hands, we’ve hugged, we met at KetoCon but that’s about it. 

Abby Scott: I ate all your bacon I think at your booth.

Neil Dudley:  We definitely kept you stocked in bacon snacks and samples. So, I feel like kind of the most interesting part, to me anyways, or what I’d like to explore first is your child that had autism that, I don’t know, explain that to us. I want to say cured. I don’t know if it’s even a thing to cure.

Abby Scott: I get found on the internet, so I never used the word cured. So, my son Huxley, he started keto, well, we started him on keto when he was about two, maybe a few months before his second birthday. His birthday is in October. We started him that June. So, he was almost two. Huxley had a referral to be evaluated for autism. He did not have an official diagnosis. I do want to clarify that. And that’s because I decided that it’s not something that I felt that we needed. So, what I decided to do, we were just having a lot of trouble with Huxley. I’m from a big family. I’m one of eight kids. I was a nanny for seven years. I volunteered in daycares, just playing and being around kids. So, I kind of knew what to expect from my own kids. I think coming from that big family and having that background, it kind of gave me a different perspective on being a mom. I don’t consider myself like a lazy mom. But I’m not one of those moms that freaks out about everything. I’m like, all right, the kids are going to eat dog food, they’re going to eat dirt, just calm down and just don’t stress too much about it. But I started to notice some things from Huxley, like he just wasn’t speaking, he wasn’t even trying, just pretty much nonverbal. We got just like these grunts from him. And he just seemed like he was working three jobs. Like, he was just angry all the time. And I’m just like, what does this kid have to be angry for? He has a great life. But he just seemed upset with the world and just not like a two-year-old would be. And so, I think as a mom, I started to kind of question like, hey, what’s going on here? But obviously, as a mom, it’s really hard to admit that there might be something that’s going on with your child because you start to blame yourself and feel like it’s your fault. I’m like, did I not take my vitamins enough when I was pregnant? Did I eat too much fish? Did I not heat up my lunch meat? Like, did I do something wrong? And he just wasn’t eating. His diet pretty much consisted of syrup, Goldfish, Tootsie Rolls, Dr. Pepper, whipped cream. That was like his actual diet. We have pictures of him where he’s got a piece of bread and he’s like putting Froot Loops on top of it. And that was his dinner. And I was like, alright, well, he’s eating. His pediatrician kept saying, well, at least he’s eating, he’s growing, like he’s not holding off on any of the charts, which was always confusing to me. So she said, just keep doing whatever you’re doing and let’s go do these tests and get him evaluated.

Neil Dudley: I just want to jump in real quick. Like kids eating is the most scary thing. I’ve got three daughters. The oldest one kind of eats what I think, in my limited understanding, is good. The middle one, she eats more than she needs to. She really prefers the carby stuff and she can just eat a lot. The youngest only wants sugar. So, I mean, I think you’re speaking, well, you’re absolutely speaking to me. And I hope listeners hear like, well, look, we’re all going through this, kind of some crazy thing with the kids at times with their diet and the way they want. It’s when it feels, and moms got to listen to that, when it just feels like man, something’s not exactly right.

Abby Scott: Yeah, something’s off. Like, you’re always going to be worried about whether your kid is eating enough or eating too much, or if they’re getting enough of this or that. And I think as a parent, there’s no greater feeling than seeing your kid sit down and eat a good meal. Like I did it. The world could be falling apart and burning around you, but you see your kid sitting there, finally eating and not picking it apart and inspecting it, and you feel as though you’ve accomplished something. So not really having that feeling with Huxley, that was difficult personally, but I also knew he was lacking so much. And because of what I had already knew from what I had been doing over the last year and helping other people, for some reason, I just never put two and two together that maybe this could be something that could help my son until after we got this referral. And sitting there with that, the weight of that, it was really hard and it was really emotional because it was like, wow, they’re trying to put a name to it, or they’re trying to label or diagnose my son. And not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I think it’s human nature, especially for a woman, you automatically start to blame yourself. And it was just hard. Around the same time, we watched this movie called The Magic Pill. I think it’s available on Netflix, if not, I’m sure you can find it on YouTube.

Neil Dudley: We’ll put a link to it. It’s a good one. 

Abby Scott: Really good. We watched it with my kids and with my son. And there’s a little girl in the video. And in the movie, the little girl had autism, her name was actually Abby as well. But her diet was actually better than my son’s was before they switched her over to a ketogenic diet, but behaviors and stuff like that was kind of similar. Like my son, he was nonverbal, but he also wasn’t very affectionate. Like if I would try to hold him or tell him I love him or kiss him, he was just like, he wasn’t interested at all. He was just, he was mean. And so I watched this video, and I really, as a Christian, I felt like God was speaking to me and told me that this was how I was going to help my son, the same way that I have been helping all these other people for the last few months, and the same way that I helped myself, that this was going to be the way that I was going to help my son. And it was really scary because I knew how hard it was as a full grown adult to take myself off of sugar, this horrible drug, and now I was getting ready to do it to this two year old little boy. So, I kind of struggled because I felt this immense pressure and responsibility. But I also felt a lot of guilt because I knew that I was the one that put him in this environment that he was in.

Neil Dudley: I don’t know if empathize is the right word, because I’m not sure I can empathize with a female just because I don’t know, I couldn’t have a baby, I couldn’t carry a baby, I couldn’t do a lot of the things. But I want this conversation to hopefully spur some compassion on within the listeners to think, man, women really, you gals internalize those things so much when there’s anything with a kid. I was talking to somebody just about mommy shaming happens to my wife, like as simple as you go to church, it is cold outside, and you don’t have jackets on them, and then every gray haired lady in the place comes by there saying, “You didn’t put a jacket on that baby?” And that hurts. That kind of makes you think- So that’s a small thing compared to now we’ve been feeding them kind of a questionable diet, we’ll say, and now they may have long lasting developmental issues around that.

Abby Scott: I mean, it was hard. And not that- I know so many families that have children that are autistic, and they are doing the absolute best that they can. I know that it’s hard for them. And not that there’s anything wrong with that. I personally felt like because of what I knew, everything that I had learned and used to change my own life, there was no exclusion on any of that research that this didn’t apply until you turn 18. The way that the sugar affects the brain, none of that research says only after the age of 18. So, it’s like, okay, I know these things. I am now responsible and accountable for this knowledge that I have. And so, it was so difficult to accept that I created this and then have to be the same person to come in and change it. But I knew that if it was all at my hand, then it could be at my hand also to fix it. So, we made that decision that this is what we were going to do. We were going to try and that’s really how we became House of Keto. I wanted a place that was safe for my children where everything in the house was either keto friendly, low carb, or sugar free. And we didn’t announce hey guys, everyone’s going to go on this diet. I literally simply just forgot – I say forgot – I kept telling my kids I was forgetting the stuff at the grocery store. So I didn’t even throw everything away. The stuff that we had there in the house, we used it until it was gone. I just didn’t buy any more. So when my daughter would ask me for the Chef Boyardee or Easy Mac, I was like, oh, man, I forgot it. It got to the point where she’s like, “Hey, do you want to go to the grocery store with you?” I think she started to think I was dumb or something. Like how come mom can’t remember? She’s making me lists. She’s like sending it to me on my phone. And I just kept forgetting everything. And then we moved shortly after that, that was about end of April, beginning of May of that year, and then we moved in June. So when we moved, we didn’t take anything with us that wasn’t keto friendly, low carb, or sugar free. So, when we moved into our new house, that was really when it became House of Keto – everything in this house is going to be safe for our kids to eat. And it was, when I tell you, it was harder than me losing 130 pounds. It was harder than helping the thousands of men and women that I’ve helped, with seeing this little boy go from being completely addicted to sugar to go through his detox. It took him about two and a half days, three days before he actually ate. He survived on like almond milk and heavy cream. But I share this in the talks that I give, and his entire journey is on our YouTube page and Instagram. But I was cooking around the clock. I’m offering him steak and tomatoes and shrimp and lobster and pork loin, all of these amazing things I’m offering him. I must have made him 10 different plates a day. And he was just refusing it. I just didn’t have Goldfish in my house, and I didn’t have syrup, and I wasn’t going to go get it. And I knew he’s going to eat. He will eventually eat. As gross as it sounds, a human body, like humans, we are designed like we will eat another human being before we starve to death. So, it wasn’t his preference. And I just kept thinking to myself, hey, what about the moms that can’t go buy McDonald’s tonight? Everyone’s like, oh, if he wants it, just give it to him. And I’m like, okay, what about the mom that doesn’t have the money, she just has to make the decision between rent and McDonald’s for her kids, but she does have chicken legs at home. Maybe that’s what the kids are eating for dinner tonight. So, my thing was, hey, I’m not going to the store to go buy Goldfish because that’s all he will eat. He will eat what I offer him. And if those things are not available to him, then it’s not an option. So, I feel like our job as parents, we get to be basically the curators of our children’s lives. I do like for my children to make decisions. But hey, you get to choose, are you going to eat your steak, or are you going to eat the tomatoes? Are you going to eat it now? Or are you going to eat it later? You can brush your teeth now or you can brush your teeth in five minutes, but you are brushing your teeth. You’re going to school. You’re going to take a bath. You’re going to take a shower. And it just became this thing where I had to put myself back in the position of being a parent and even change my vocabulary and the things that I said and stop saying, oh, he won’t eat this or he doesn’t eat this. Like your kid is never going to eat a pork chop if you never offer it to them. If you’re making one meal for you and your husband and you make another meal for your kids, why would they eat steak? You didn’t offer it to them. So, it just became this repetitive thing where we just kept offering it to him over and over again, never forcing food, never forcing meals. But if he asked for it, we gave it to him. I mean, there were times where he would try- he wanted to drink- We had these little cartons of bone broth, he thought they looked like juice boxes. If he asked for it, I gave it to him. He spit it out because he realized it literally tastes like death. It was like he saw- I think he saw a can of salmon, and I think he saw the fish and thought it was Goldfish. He asked for it. I opened it up, put it in a bowl, put some salt on it. And he was just like looking at me like what is this? But if he asked for it, if it was there in the house, we gave it to him. And eventually he started eating. And now he’ll be seven in October. The kid literally never stops talking. I share in our talks and you’ll see in our videos all throughout our page of his progression. The first week, he goes from grunting and crying to where he starts trying to say actual words. And then by week two, the words were clear enough that we could understand what he was saying. By week three, he was trying to put sentences together where we could actually understand him. And now the kid literally, he never stops speaking, and his vocabulary, he’s just so articulate. And I really attribute it to what we did for his brain. And I’m not saying that a ketogenic diet cures autism. My son was never officially diagnosed. But we saw a complete turnaround in his speech, in his behavior. Like he’s one of the most loving kids you would ever meet. And I can only attribute it to the only thing that we did and that was changing his diet.

Neil Dudley: I want to snap my fingers and duplicate your house and move into it. It’s like you’re saying so many brilliant things. Why do I not implement that in my house? Why am I choosing, why am I that lazy? Why do I not love my kids enough to go through that? Because that’s what you have to do, you have to go through the detox.

Abby Scott: You do. And I mean, it’s hard. And just like we kind of spoke about in the beginning with the mommy shaming, our platform has never been about, this is what we do, and you need to do it. I’ve always just been, hey, this is what I’m doing. And people want to know what we’re doing. So hey, this is what I feed my kids, this is what we ate last night, this is what we get at the grocery store. And whether people choose to do what we do, or they choose to adopt some of the things that we do, it’s just showing people that there’s an alternate way. I never shame and say, this is what you need to do with your kids. I really think that you should parent the kids that come from you, and that’s it. I don’t want to parent anybody else’s kids. It’s hard enough to parent my own. But the things, I’ve had to accept some hard truths myself. And that was that in feeding my kids the sugary diet that I was feeding them, that wasn’t truly about them. That was about my convenience. It was so much easier to just make those simple foods that I knew I wasn’t going to get a fight on. So, I have to tell myself constantly, I’m prioritizing my children’s health over my convenience. And then I think to myself, what is truly more convenient? Is it more convenient to just make one meal and offer it to my children? Or should I make multiple meals, and then I’m sitting in doctor’s offices or dealing with childhood diabetes, or all of these other problems that could potentially arise from it. Or even thinking about when my children reach adulthood, and they’re dealing with these problems that I literally set them up with in childhood. And it is not easy. But if you can make the decision for yourself, it’s so much easier to make it for your kids. And I think it’s just re-shifting the mindset that you have. Because we hear a lot from parents, well, you’re robbing them of memories, and they should be able to enjoy ice cream and all of these things. And I agree. However, I don’t think that my children’s core memories should be built around food. I think that’s honestly really sad. And we’ve learned that from childhood – you have a bad day at school, mom takes you to go get ice cream. What do you do when your boyfriend breaks up with you? You go get ice cream, because that’s what you were taught to do in childhood. And then we raise these children that are not comfortable sharing their feelings. We raised adults that are closed off. We raised men that are emotionally unavailable, and women that are emotionally unstable, because we’ve never taught them to deal with their emotions, we’ve just taught them to eat and to have these comfort foods. And in my opinion, I don’t know about anybody else’s kids, but I believe that my children are more valuable than an ice cream cone or a $4 Happy Meal. So, if we’re having a bad day, we’re going to talk about it. I’m going to teach them how to talk about their feelings, and they are valuable. And whether that be just talking to me or a friend or another family member or even as they get older, going to therapy. You don’t have to wait for something traumatic to happen before having a safe place to have someone to talk to. And it’s just making that repetitive decision. When we teach people how to do this, we speak about four keys: stop, start, keep, repeat. And it’s really simple. Stop buying the stuff you don’t want your kids to eat. Start filling the house with the only foods you want them to eat. Keep being the parent because it’s going to get hard, but remember, you’re the parent. You get to make these decisions for your kid. And then just repeat it. It’s going to get hard, it’s going to get like I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s so much easier to just do this. But just keep doing the same things that you do. When you go to the grocery store, stop, just don’t even go down that aisle. If you don’t go down that aisle, you don’t-

Neil Dudley:  Just stay on the perimeter. 

Abby Scott: Stay on the perimeter. Because personally, I feel like if you bring it in the house, your kid should be able to eat it. If you have Oreos in the house, your kids should be able to eat it. And I feel like it’s unfair to tell a six year old you can’t have Oreos that are sitting there in the cabinet. 

Neil Dudley:  Oh, and then you go eat them. 

Abby Scott: Exactly. You go eat it. Like, we don’t even have that self control. 

Neil Dudley:  That’s what I do. It’s sad. It’s embarrassing. 

Abby Scott: It is, but if you don’t have it in the house, it makes it so much easier to just stick to that. And so we’ve been doing this, this is year four for the kids. The first year and a half, two years, we were really strict. We did all holidays, all birthdays, and all of that stuff. And I talk about that on my channel a little bit more and kind of how we developed our rules and our parameters for that. But now we’re a little bit more lenient because, as someone that loves food, I love delicious food, I love carbs, I love donuts, I hate when someone’s like, oh, I can never be keto, I love donuts. I’m like, uh, hello, I’d bake myself inside of a donut if I could. They just don’t love me back, and I don’t like what they do to my body. But the thing is, I’ll never be one of those people that are like, oh my god, broccoli is so much better than donuts. No, you’re lying. donuts are really good and delicious. But we just have to make sure that we are enjoying them in the proper environment. So we never like to do sugar and stuff alone. I’m never going to let my kid just sit in her bed and pig it out on sugar. We like to do that type of stuff in community. So in celebration, like on a birthday or on a holiday or on a vacation or a special occasion or something like that. And it’s something we plan for. We were literally in Orlando at a Keto conference, and I got to take my daughter with me for the first time. She actually helped answer some questions for parents that had questions about how to do this with your kid. There was a restaurant she has been wanting to go to for three years. It’s literally called The Sugar Factory. And she was so excited to finally be able to go. She got to go and enjoy it. She got this drink and this desert that was the size of her head. But it was something she’s literally been with waiting for three years, not something that she does in her regular everyday life. So, there’s a time and place for it. But it’s something that we do together in community. And it’s not something that we do every single day, and it doesn’t come in our house. We have a rule, it doesn’t come in the house. It doesn’t cross that threshold. But outside of the house, when it’s something we plan for, it is something that will do.

Neil Dudley: It’s so cool. I hope all the listeners tell every friend they have about this. It is another perspective. I loved you’re not saying this is the solution for everything. This isn’t how you should do it. This is how we do it. You might learn something here. Because I’m sitting here just thinking I love this. I love this. That’s what I want to do. I’m going home, we’re getting rid of- But I like your way of just kind of letting it disappear slowly. The way my kids get me, well, there’s a lot of ways they get me, but the way they- we make a decent meal. We’re all kind of eating it on the go, or maybe we sit down together. That’s kind of rare, but it’s a thing we know is valuable, we want to do more of. The youngest doesn’t like it. Maybe it’s, who knows, pork chops and green beans. She doesn’t like that stuff. So, she just doesn’t eat then, and she waits until it’s bedtime, and she says, “I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I need something.” And because we’re scared she’s going to starve to death overnight going without any food, we give her junk. I got to believe there’s other people that live that same truth. I have to get out of that terrible tape recorder right there.

Abby Scott: Well, see, I’m pulling back out the pork chop and green beans. That’s what I’d do. One of our rules is we never force food. I really believe that, my philosophy is I’m raising children, but I’m parenting adults. So, I need to make sure that the stuff that I’m doing with them now in childhood, I need to be able to set them up for adulthood, not just childhood. So, in childhood, and in adulthood, we should not be forcing food down people’s throats. We should not be forcing people to eat if they’re not hungry. Because we’ve removed sugar from our children’s diet, they’re much better able to say I’m hungry, or I’m full. So, we don’t force our children to do this. And the internet freaks out whenever I say this, but my children often practice intermittent fasting naturally. Because I’ll say, hey, it’s morning time, you guys want breakfast? I’m not hungry. I’m not forcing my kid to eat. Now a lot of parents are like, you’re not leaving this house for school until I see you eat this pop tart. Because it makes them feel better. But you’re forcing your kid, your kid is telling you they’re not hungry. You’re literally telling them to override this feeling that they have and do what you want so that they feel better. That’s definitely not something I want to teach my daughter. If she’s getting this feeling about some boy that she’s talking to or some boss, I don’t want her from childhood to be taught to override her instinct to do something to make someone else happy. So, if my kid says they’re not hungry for breakfast, okay, you don’t have to eat it. We have a rule in our house – meats before treats. So, everything in our house is obviously keto friendly, but we have lots of keto friendly treats and things like that. But we prioritize fatty meat. So, if you want to eat some chalk zero white chocolate chips, that’s my son’s favorite, you have to have meat first. So, if it’s five o’clock in the morning, and he wakes me up for a piece of salmon, I’ll pop it in the air fryer for him, and then he can have his treat. But I know that I’m going to lessen the amount of treats that he’s actually able to consume if he’s eating a fatty protein. If it’s right before bed, and he says, “Hey, Mom, I wasn’t hungry for dinner, but now I want some white chocolate chips.” He knows, he says, “I’ll eat my burger now.” And then he can have his white chocolate chips. So, hey, you don’t want to eat right now, that’s fine. Go get your baggie, or we take a Ziploc bag and just shove the plate in it and put it in the refrigerator. And sometimes I’ll see him go in there himself, getting it out to pop it back in the microwave. And it might not necessarily be because he wants the burger. It’s because he wants the white chocolate chips, but he knows the rule. So, we never force the vegetables. Huxley, my youngest, is mostly carnivore. He eats ribeye, burgers, and salmon. That’s pretty much it. Every day for lunch, he has burger, ribeye, or salmon, and he takes his little Redmond Real Salt. And the teacher’s like, do you know that’s what he-? I’m like, yes, I know. That’s what he brings to school.

Neil Dudley:  Oh my gosh. There’s no way we’re going to get to everything. I mean, we’re already to 25 minutes. I mean, this is so chock full of greatness. Everybody, go follow House of Keto. Go to these conferences where Abby speaks. Learn from her. There’s value here. I’m taking a lot of this home. Now, I’ve learned it, but will I implement it? That’s the big question. And that’s the thing I have- That’s my journey. Abby can’t be in charge of that. That’d be your journey. We can’t be in charge of that. But there’s great information here. Okay, last thing because I think this is a huge topic, what about public school lunches?

Abby Scott: Public school lunches, so my children have always been in private school, but I get asked this question a lot when we travel- 

Neil Dudley: Even private school lunches. I just have more experience with public school because that’s where my kids go. 

Abby Scott: Yeah, the way that we do it with school is we tell the school that our children have an allergy to carbohydrates. So, we list it the same way that you would a peanut allergy. I was actually just at this last conference, and I was speaking with a doctor there and her father- she’s a nutritionist, her father is a lawyer. And she’s like, intolerance is a better word because an intolerance can’t be proven or disproven; you can prove or disprove an allergy. So, carbohydrate intolerance, sugar intolerance, we list that on our children’s paperwork, and we tell the school strictly do not feed our children. So, if they do, they open themselves up to a lawsuit, and we pack our kids lunch. Is it going to take time? Yes, it is going to take time. But there are so many hacks out there that you can do that get your children involved at the beginning of the week to have portions of fruit and veggies and things like that already cut, where your kids can literally go through with their lunchbox almost like they’re at a buffet each night after dinner and pick the things that they want for their lunchbox. And I mean, people might say- Well, we do a lot of lunchmeat during the school year. They are like, oh my God, lunch meat is so bad. Is lunch meat horrible, or is it worse for them to have six bags of Takis for the week? So it’s one of those things where it’s like, again, I’m not out here with my own farm, milking goats and stuff like that. But I’d rather my kids- We do a lot of lettuce wraps and fruits and veggies and hard-boiled eggs. And this year at my daughter’s school, she has access to be able to heat stuff up. But I mean, my kid, she’ll take lobster or she took shrimp ceviche the first day of school for lunch. And so, a lot of times we see that the kids at school are actually jealous of her lunchboxes because they look more appetizing than the food that they’re being offered. And it’s going to be a long time before we see any change in our actual public school system with what they’re offering our kids, especially when we just saw this research come out where they were saying like peanut M&Ms was healthier than beef, like we’re definitely going in the opposite direction. It’s absolutely insane.

Neil Dudley:  That just seems logically unrealistic.

Abby Scott: Well, it’s the money. I mean, the people that are paying for this research. It’s the money. When Nestle’s paying for it and Mars is paying for it, of course, it’s going to say that.

Neil Dudley: Well, I say logically or realistically. I mean, we’re two very different people and still kind of in the same space, but my experience growing up on a ranch, seeing that whole process, eating animals that I knew were right out there in the pasture three months ago. I mean, I think, to me, it seems like so crazy to think that peanut M&Ms could be as nutritious as beef. It just seems like that’s a kooky person; whoever is saying that must be kooky. Well, you got to believe then there’s other people on that exact opposite side who their experience, their truth is, beef is the worst thing you could possibly have, and there’s no way peanut M&Ms couldn’t be better. I mean, it’s crazy.

Abby Scott: Yeah, it’s insane. So, I mean, we just drown it out. Another really quick thing to mention is, when you decide to make this decision, you’re going to have lots of naysayers, family, friends, all of that stuff. We just tune it out and don’t even give them the opportunity to speak into that. So, we teach grandma where she can go and get treats that are safe for our kids, and then we try to explain to her why we’re doing this. And if those people, if they can’t understand why you’re doing this for your children, then it’s like, okay, fine, but I’m literally telling you that this is not good for my kid. And it’s like you sitting here trying to argue with me that my child with a peanut allergy should just be able to eat peanuts because you only live once. Like, you’re robbing them of the experience. Okay, well, let’s just take our chance and see, and you always get well, I turned out fine. Really? Because the health of the average American, they’ve been eating the standard American diet, have you really turned out fine? I mean, the people that are saying M&Ms are better than beef, they’ve been eating a standard American diet. So, I’m like, I don’t know. I don’t know about that.

Neil Dudley: Yeah, some of this also is like thinking about, can I break the cycle? Most of what I say to my kids is what I heard my parents say to me, and it is what their parents said to them. I mean, their parents grew up in the Depression when there was zero food. Like if you had a potato, that was the- eat it. Always clean your plate. I mean, so it’s like just getting educated over time. I think there’s some great things about that timeframe that humans and Americans and people need to learn from, like some of that work ethic. And so, it’s not any really perfect or imperfect. It’s just like hey, I think we know a little better now than we did then.

Abby Scott: We know a little bit better, but things are also worse. Cleaning your plate back then is not the same as it is now. The processed foods that we have now were not on their plate back then. So if you’re eating potatoes- and I mean, even if you just look at it, obesity, look, I’ve seen this picture of people at the beach in the 1970s versus people at the beach now. It was so rare for someone to be obese back in the day versus now. Like a fit person is rare. And we’re trying to normalize this unhealthy lifestyle because it’s what the majority is doing. We hear all the time, don’t you want your kids to be normal? And I’m like, well, if the average American is overweight or obese and has numerous health issues, that’s normal, I don’t want my kids to be normal. So no, I don’t want what everyone else is doing. So no, I’m okay with my kids standing out and being a sore thumb. And when they turn 18, if they decide to do something different, that’s fine. But as long as they are my responsibility, I’m going to give you 18 years of a good head start. My children could go on to be obese, that will be their decision after they turn 18. I will know that so long as they were my responsibility, like they could decide to be bums and decide to be homeless-

Neil Dudley: That’s the truth, you cannot control- I mean, my parents do not have absolute control of my life. They have influence. I love them. I care about what they think. I want to make them proud, but I mean, I’m going to cuss occasionally, and Dad doesn’t like me cussing on any kind of media that’s going to be out in front of people. And he’s pretty right. But I still choose to. So it’s like I love your perspective on that. It’s like, hey, I want to give them the best foundation I can and then I’m going to also release them and not hold that as baggage in my life if my kid chooses to do a thing that I really am sad they are because I feel like it’d be better for them differently.

Abby Scott: I feel like them knowing that they have the power to choose, I feel like I’ve done my job as a parent. And that’s really all I want. I want to raise confident, healthy children, and then they can go on to be whatever type of adult they decide to be. But they’re only my responsibility for so long. 

Neil Dudley: I mean, mic drop. Yeehaw. Great. Good luck at your next conference. Everybody, if you can’t catch her in person, find other podcasts she’s been on. This stuff is really good. I’m sure there’s a bunch of stuff we didn’t get to cover. But this gives you a taste of House of Keto, Abby Scott, and just her greatness.

Abby Scott: Thank you so much, Neil.