Food Allergies and How They Effect Your Health - Boone Zavik

This the Beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story.

Sebastian Rusk

And now, Sebastian Rusk Boom. Welcome to the show, man. Pleasure to be here. Thanks so much for having me, Sebastian.

Boone Zavik

It's great to have you here, man. Full circle here. We've known each other for only 15 years.

Sebastian Rusk

Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I think I moved here 2009 ish. And yeah, pretty soon after that we met up at a, what was that? Emerge Broward I believe.

Boone Zavik

Yeah. Emerge Broward. They still around?

Sebastian Rusk

I think so. If it's not called Emerge, they may just like have gone to the parent one called a leadership Broward. So kind of like young entrepreneurs and whatnot in the Broward County area. Yeah. I lost touch cause I aged out. That's true. I definitely, I probably aged out of Emerge Broward. I don't remember what the cutoff was, but yeah, it was younger. And then, yeah, the next step would be Leadership Broward. But, you know, at that point, you know, we're kind of, we're doing well. So we're just keeping the movement.

That's it. Well, it's great to still be in touch with you. I love being in touch with people from Back in the day when the early days and it wasn't as pretty as it is now, you know? Yeah.

And listen, I remember your branding was social media sucks was what I recall. And now it's, you know, podcasts suck if you don't have one, which is a very good statement.

Bow ties and whatnot.

That's true. Oh, my God. I forgot about that. Yeah. Why did you drop the bow tie? You're just tired of tying them.

Yeah, I mean, and I look like a fucking circus clown.

Yeah.

Listen, everyone's got a niche, you know, you gotta just, you gotta do your thing. Yeah, I mean, you had to be memorable, but I, um, I look back on those days and I was like, who the fuck were you trying to be, dude? Cause you weren't Sebastian, you know? And after some deep healing and some deep work in 2016, I came out of that and I'm like, I found out who I was once I figured out who I was and I stepped into my power and my identity as a powerful, lovable, authentic leader. Part of that is a shedding process and the bow tie, the facade of what I thought that I was, was just gone. And I think there's a, There's a portion of that that also includes just not giving a fuck as much anymore about the outside noise. Yeah, and opinions of others.

So yeah, here we are with just some, uh, I remember with some trade shows and, you know, trade shows, the number one thing is, you know, grabbing attention, right? Getting people to stop and chat with you. And at one of the events, there was a guy who was not only some business owner or high level operator, but he was also a magician. So he was doing like magic tricks. And I was like, look at this guy. I'm like, man, this dude is like killing it with like booth traffic. And, you know, back to what you're saying, like not being authentically you, I was like, all right, let me get some like wild ass, like what they call the oppo suits, which is like, you know, kind of like a nice suit, but it's basically a costume. And I had a couple of those went to trade shows. I mean, we got a bunch of leads and people are, you know, want to take photos and stuff. But it's like what you're saying. I was sort of becoming a caricature of myself instead of like being myself. And it's just not sustainable. It doesn't feel good. So, yeah, I can definitely see where you're coming from. And it is that message of like, You got to stand out. You got to have your USP. You got all this stuff. And a lot of what that is, is just who you are, because you are the only you, you know? Right.

Right. But what's the quote? Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, there I was trying to pretend I was a magician even though I definitely wasn't.

Hey, we try, you know, we try, we try stuff till it works, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. That's the beauty of life.

It is. It is. So, um, you've had a pretty exciting 24 months, past 24 months, you and I have stayed in touch pretty consistently thanks to social media. And we had reconnected, um, a couple of weeks back and had a conversation about food sensitivity. And I had almost bought a food allergy test on Amazon. And you're like, no, don't do that. Um, we can help. And I came up to your incredible facility up in Fort Lauderdale. took the food sensitivity test and was happy to find out. I'm not as sensitive to a bunch of different foods, but I was really interested on what you're doing. So I thought, you know, let's get you on the show and share with the audience, you know, what food sensitivity is and what people need to know about it and specifically what you guys do. But let's back up a little bit. Let's go back to the beginning of the story. Cause I know that you moved to Florida to go to work in the family business some 15 years ago. And now you have purchased the business and run the business and own the business and D all the above. But let's go back to the beginning of the story and help our listeners better understand a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah, so I mean, to take it way back, you know, my father created this back in 1978. So back then, this idea of the food that you eat affects how you feel was remarkably foreign. You know, it just wasn't even thought of. I mean, even a nice little funny anecdote about is once he first started moving forward with the lab, there's various governing overbodies, such as CLIA. And at the time, My dad was like, oh man, I have to get this licensure. And he applied to them and they're like, you know what, you're doing something so different than what is normally done that you're exempt. You don't even have to be licensed. So that was decades ago. But jumping back, he realized that he had his own health issues. And at one point, he went to a doctor to try to find out what was going on with his digestive issues. And the doctor referred him to a specialist. The specialist ran some various tests. And back in the day, the doctor, you know, a lot of offices had that top window that would kind of crack open. Sorry, my daughter's here with me. Yes, dear, I got it. I'm going to meet you right now. And she's trying to tickle me. And so there'd be a window that would tilt up and you could kind of hear what was going on in the offices. And what he heard was the specialist looking over the results and telling him or telling the other doctor, yeah, there's nothing wrong with this individual. they just need, you know, something to kind of help their brain. And it was essentially, you know, telling my dad that he just needed to be on, you know, like, was a Xanax for the rest of his life because, you know, he's just feeling stressed about it. So with him hearing that, he realized that there's got to be something else here. You know, it can't be that I am deficient and, you know, Xanax and I need, you know, this thing to just tranquilize me, but there's something going on. So that led him to a whole remarkable journey of just trying a whole bunch of different things and realizing that there is a connection between what he ate and how he felt.

Excellent. Surprise guests on the show here. Yes, surprise guests.

Let me show you my sweet, sweet daughter. My sweet daughter.

Hi! He's got a boo-boo. Oh, no. I feel like the guy on the BBC.

Yeah, so his story is one where he was trying to scratch his own niche. And I think that's the story of so many entrepreneurs. And fortunately, this happened to be something that relates to a lot of people. And that's why I was happy to be on the show, because all of us eat food. And I feel that the vast majority of us, at some point, have either altered our diet, tried a different diet, or we're seeking an outcome that maybe we're having a challenging time achieving, whether it's weight loss, fitness, you know, improving our digestion, not having, you know, mucus buildup, sore throat, lethargy, all these things. And what, you know, made me decide to want to be a part of my parents' business is I was helping them at various events. I have a unique last name, it's Zavok, and people would see my name tag and they'd be like, oh my God, Zavok, like, you guys changed my life. And I was like, definitely not me. I mean, it's like, I, I'm just like, you're giving people badges at this event. Like I've done nothing. I was like, frankly, it probably wasn't even my parents. It's really, you know, our laboratory scientists and ultimately, you know, you, the individual that took the information, you know, acted upon it. Um, and that just kept happening, you know, over and over at that event. Cause once again, unique name, people see it. Oh my God. I'm so grateful. And that made me realize that, you know, there's, there's something special at what my parents were doing. And there's a lot of stuff that we are, doing that, um, doesn't make the most business sense because it's not, you know, the most profitable thing to do, but it ensures the best outcomes, you know, for the individuals. And, you know, now as I'm older, have kids, you know, have more experience in going to, you know, uh, doctors and hospitals and whatnot, especially as my kids, you know, fall and hurt themselves like the tiny boo boo. Um, I realized that there's, there's a big gap in what we as an individual want to see happen and want to be cared for and what traditional medicine is doing. Can I share one example? Yeah, please. Okay. So I was talking with an individual the other day. And they're asking me, you know, what it is we do and you know, how it matters. So I said, yeah, I was like, let me get into that in just a moment. I was like, when was the last time you saw a doctor? You know, when's the last time you visited any physician? He's like, Oh, you're not too long. It was like, you know, probably a few months ago. I was like, okay. I was like, I'm going to take the guess that that was probably your annual exam. Right. And he's like, yeah, it's my annual exam. I was like, and they ran certain testing. He's like, yeah, they did the, you know, the normal test, the CBC, the hormone panel, all this stuff. I was like, okay. I was like, you don't have to tell me all the details like, but was there anything that wasn't an optimum range? Like, it wasn't like perfect. I'm like, I'm sure there's probably something right. Cause you know, unless you're in your twenties or something, things are going to slightly be off. And he was like, yeah, you know, there's a couple of things that were off and he was like, yeah, I won't get into all of it. He goes, but you know, my, my blood sugar was off and I was like, okay. I was like, knowing that did the doctor then recommend a fitness diet or sorry, a fitness program to help with your blood sugar. And he goes, no. Like, okay, did they recommend a dietary advice, like things that you could do to improve your blood sugar? He's like, not really. It's just the basics. You don't need to make sweets. I'm like, okay. I went, did they recommend any supplements that could assist you in this? No. Any peptides, you know, that would be helpful. No. I was like, and at this point, do they recommend any medication? And they said, no, but you know, they did mention that if things don't improve that, you know, medication may be happening next. I was like, I was like, so what was the next actionable? And they said, well, you know, just next year we'll do a test again and just see what happened to me. That's just seems crazy. And the reason it seems crazy is because the easiest time to make a change is one thing. Aren't going perfectly bad. It's really hard when you're an individual with IBS planning your entire day around where the next bathroom is. That's really hard. It's hard to stack on additional new habits that you need to do to make an improvement in that. When you have diabetes and you have an insulin pump, that's a really hard point to try to potentially reverse your diabetes if you're in a type two situation. So the point where traditional medicine decides that now's the time we're going to do something different is when it's the absolute hardest and largely the solution ultimately can only be we need to put you on a medication. I'm not saying medication is bad. I'm just saying that there are many signs and signals throughout that journey where someone could easily reverse it. Not all disease, not every single symptom, but for the individual that was talking with me, I was like, man, did you know that if you do, I forgot the exact number, I think it was like 20 squats, four times throughout the day. So 20 squats, four sets throughout the day, that has a greater effect in controlling your blood sugar than several of the other drugs out there. And he's like, no. Now, once again, I'm not a doctor. Don't quote me or hold me on that. But it was a recent study I remember seeing talked about by Mark Hyman, Dr. Mark Hyman. And it just made me think. And so that's a whole long answer of why I want to be in this business. But I view it as we're in the business of empowerment. A laboratory is where a doctor gets 70% of their diagnosis from. I recognize that in my space, food sensitivities, food allergies, I'm more on the fringe side, right? I'm not diagnosing cancer. My testing is not diagnostic, but it's helping someone understand, should I eat this or should I eat that or should I stay away from this? And even as we're chatting before we started the recording, you were mentioning for yourself, which I won't speak for, you can share what you'd like, but you're saying like, yeah, there's certain things that I was just wondering, like, what was triggering or was this thing or was that thing, or I had a feeling about this. So it can be challenging to figure it out on your own of like what that item is.

Yeah. And you know, what I found is that, you know, through my own personal emotional healing journey there, you know, I've found that there are a lot of things that the body can't heal itself, you know, and I think we live in this world where here pop a pill and you'll be better. And all that does is kind of put things off.

Yeah, definitely. The way I view it, and this is actually, you know, funny enough, something we branded because I thought it was such a great idea. Well, actually, it's really my father's idea, but the thing that we branded our trademark was this term food signals. And, you know, take away the food part. I just feel that our body, it communicates in symptoms. And if you look at like, you know, any large library of disease and you look through like, what are the symptoms of it? majority of the symptoms are the same across so many different diseases, meaning that there's only so much your body can speak to you for, right? It's not speaking English or Spanish or whatever, even Spanglish. It's speaking in symptoms, it's speaking in itchy eyes, it's speaking in hives, it's speaking in lethargy, it's speaking in restlessness, right? It's speaking in all these different symptoms. And unfortunately, a lot of us just want to pop the ibuprofen or whatever the over-the-counter drug is to just take that symptom down and just keep pushing forward. I think there's another way. There's another opportunity of what can be done. I guess you have three choices. One, you can choose to do absolutely nothing and you essentially be suffering in silence or even suffering loudly. We all know that person that we go to lunch with that has a lot of stuff going on. The other option is, you know, maybe you go the more traditional route and you get on your various medications and, you know, you just kind of, you know, go, go that route and, you know, to each their own. I just, not the route I would choose. And then the last route is, well, let's be proactive. You know, let's do something that, you know, may not have every single science thing behind it, but there's also not a lot of risk to it. So if you know this, there's a huge movement from traditional medicine over to functional medicine. Why? Well, if I OD on a prescription drug, I will die. That's point blank done. And it's pretty simple to do. It's not like it takes pounds of the drug to OD. It's probably five or 10 more pills, right? Which whatever you have in your canister, it's not an absurd amount. It could quite easily happen. On the flip side, if you take way too much vitamin C, the first thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna have diarrhea. How do I know? Because I've taken too much vitamin C. It was very dumb, but hey, learned that lesson, still alive, everything's okay. And if I wanted to remarkably OD, which is possible, I would have to take an absurd amount of vitamin C. So the point is there's a lot more safety, a lot less risk, and potentially there's a lot of great benefit there, especially over time. Medication is great because you can take it, you can instantly get some kind of benefit, you can start moving yourself towards being able to do something different. We have individuals that we help determine their immediate allergies and they're like, oh, but I'm taking an antihistamine or Benadryl or some drug to just manage it because I just can't deal with it, deal with not having that drug. And it's like, no problem. at least with the IgE testing, you can continue to take that drug, we can still be able to test you to find out what is the trigger. Because if the trigger is Fido or fluffy, then you can make a determination of maybe getting a different cat or adjusting what potentially you're doing with the cat to improve that for you. But it's just helping people figure out what is triggering this. There isn't a headache fairy that comes at night and blesses you with a headache, right? Or I guess curses you with a headache. Instead, it's something that you're doing more than likely in your daily life and probably unknowingly.

Yeah. So what are you guys doing over at Immunolabs to help people figure out what works, what doesn't work, what they should be doing, what they shouldn't be doing when it comes to food?

Yeah, so in our laboratory, you know, we're full-blown real medical laboratory, federally licensed CLIA or CLIA licensed as well. And, um, what we do is we work with physicians across the world at this point, I'm pretty sure we've worked in 88 countries, every single continent, except for Antarctica. So if anyone knows how he did a test in Antarctica, I could check that one off the list. Um, but yeah, so what we do is we work with individuals and we help find out What foods is an individual eating in their diet that's triggering inflammation that is then leading to these chronic symptoms that are going on? So the way I view it is food sensitivities don't cause everything, but they could be anything. The caveat with that, and that helps people understand how this could relate to them, is chronic. What are the chronic, recurring, regularly happening symptoms? In my mind, that is being fueled or triggered by something in your daily life. So if you're getting headaches weekly, daily, regularly, it's potentially something in your diet. It could always be other things, but in my mind, the easiest thing to change is the food that you eat. So what we are doing at ImmuLabs, we work with physicians. They get specimens from individuals. We're actually soon to launch out directly to the consumer. And we'll be able to have that testing come back to our laboratory. We'll take in that specimen. We'll analyze their specimen for 88 to 207 different foods to find out exactly which ones are inflammatory to the individual. We give them back the results to simply say, hey, right here in red, stop. These are your reactive foods. Just below that, depending on what panel you ran, maybe foods in yellow, like cautionary foods, these are your plus ones. Still reactive, but maybe not as inflammatory as the ones above there in the ranking from two, three, four, or five. Otherwise, it's the plus ones. And then lastly, on the next page is the results showing you all of the foods you can eat. So as I mentioned earlier, our goal is empowerment. If I just told you what you're reactive to, your first question is going to be, what can I eat? Because more than likely, it's the foods that you're regularly consuming. If you're chronically having digestive issues, lethargy, joint pain, eczema, hives, et cetera, acne, that's a huge one, then it's probably caused by something that you're eating. And if I was to give you a report that lists out 20 foods that you've never ate, then it wouldn't really do you much good. There would be much of an actionable. So it's, of course, unfortunately going to be the foods you're regularly eating. We'll be able to determine which of those foods are the inflammatory ones and then help guide you towards what you can eat. Otherwise, on the immediate allergy side, those are usually less of a mystery. It's more of a mystery, you know, on the on the pediatric side. Although, unfortunately, there has been a lot of research showing that now there's kind of, I guess what I'll term as like adult onset allergies where individuals may not have had a problem with shellfish. But now as they're hitting their 30s or 40s, now they're having an issue with shellfish, which is wild because usually it was the reverse. Like you're having allergies because your immune system hasn't fully built up like with children. That's why, you know, they're very people are very cautious with their kids when they expose them to. And then as you, you know, age and your immune system develops, then you no longer have that issue. But yeah, now we're seeing the reverse where, you know, may have been fine when you're younger, but now, you know, 30s, 40s, you're having problems. So we can help determine those as well. The immediate allergies, uh, the best depiction of that was in the movie. I mean, several movies have shown it, but the one that always comes to my mind is a hitch with Will Smith, where he was like on a date with a lady, they're making sushi and like, boom, his face blows up. And the lady looks at him like, Oh my God, what's going on? They run to, uh, the pharmacy. He's like, I don't know what's happening. I'm like, wait, what do you mean I feel fine? He looks in the bubble mirror, and he's like, oh my god. His face is blown up, and he has to get Benadryl and take care of it. And that's the example of how fast an immediate allergy can be and how severe it could potentially be. You know, of course, there's a movie, so everything is fine. But, you know, the worst case scenario is, you know, you're on that date, something happens, you hit anaphylactic shock next thing you know, you wake up in the hospital and you're wondering, like, what happened? So we can help determine what those immediate allergies are. If you feel like you're having any seasonal issues or if you feel like it may be something immediate and food, but you're having a hard time pinning it down. Because, you know, of course, when we eat food, just as you mentioned to me earlier, it's like there's several ingredients. It's like, I think it might be this one, but maybe it's that one.

Yeah. Well, so if people aren't local here to South Florida, I saw that a day ahead of Gander at your website and it looks like people can buy the test kit, have it mailed to their house, do the test, send it back to you guys and then get the results.

Is that right? Correct. We have, I guess, three different ways someone can work with us. One, we can connect you with one of our physicians. We've got about, I think, like 12,000 physicians on our network. Otherwise, we can send an at-home finger stick collection kit. You just take a simple lancet, prick your finger, you know, bleed on a couple things. All that and everything you need in that kit to collect the specimen and send it back to us is in there. And then the last way is we can either connect you with a brick and mortar phlebotomy service. So, for example, those in South Florida, or I guess for most of the nation, there's a location called Any Lab Test Now, and they can go into that brick and mortar location, have a phlebotomist do what's called a venipuncture to do a traditional blood draw. or depending on where the individual is at, we can assist them with a mobile phlebotomist that will visit them at their home or work and be able to collect their specimen and return it back to our laboratory.

Very cool. Very cool. Where can they do that at?

They can just reach out to us at Immuno Laboratory. So they can go to immunolabs.com. So immunolabs.com.

I love it, man. Love it. Like, well, um, it's been great too. And I appreciate you having me. And I, uh, I wouldn't say I enjoyed getting my finger pricked because it wouldn't stop bleeding, but we finally got to stop bleeding. And, uh, I got the test results back amazing, beautiful facility there in, uh, in, in Fort Lauderdale and, uh, man, great to see you again. I, uh, glad to see your, uh, the business is doing well and you're now a King of the throne here.

There we go. Let's see what we're in now. 47 years of business. We've helped 600,000 individuals. And my goal is to help serve a billion people. So listen, every single person matters. I would love to, you know, have you, I'd love to be a part of your health journey. Um, we may not have the answer to everything and anything, but the good news is when it comes to our food sensitivity testing, we offer 100% money back guarantee. So as long as you're willing to feel better. I think it's worth giving us a shot because that's the only thing at risk. Because if you don't feel better, we'll give you your money back and we'll help you figure out what avenue you may need to go down to get the answers that you need.

Yeah, a billion people. You got some work to do, Boone.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've started this. We've started it. But yeah, definitely a few more. And after a billion, that's the entire world. After that, we're going to Mars.

Let's go. Hey, thanks again for your time, Boone. It's great to have you on the show, brother. Keep rocking and rolling. Wish you guys the best of success. So thank you so much Sebastian. You got it. Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story podcast. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. We sure do appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, launchlab.com studios. We'll talk to you next time.