Valerie Ribon is a health and wellness writer + content creator, with a focus on bioenergetics and ancestral beauty rituals. Her medicinal makeup brand, Fauna (seed oil and synthetic-free, and made with edible ingredients), will be launching soon.
#92: Valerie Ribon
Santa Fe, NM
What does health, or being healthy, mean to you?
Being healthy means so much more than just “not being sick.” Being healthy is about your having enough energy to feel amazing, sharp, excited, inspired and motivated for life. For your cells to have the energy to function optimally — they are the building blocks of every organ in our body! And our metabolism is how our body creates energy, it's controlled by our thyroid, and is the root of all health.
How would you describe your current lifestyle?
I live a very non-toxic, holistic, and “crunchy” lifestyle. I have chickens for eggs, I make all of their food from scratch, mill my own flour, bake sourdough, make cheese…I'm obsessed with nourishing through nutrient dense and ancestral foods. It's very Weston A. Price x Ray Peat! Infused with the rituals of ancient princesses, which happens to align very much with what they teach.
How do you start and end your days?
I am obsessed with the morning and night routines of ancient princesses. There is a lot to pull from that is now scientifically backed to improve your sleep and health, while feeling incredible and nourishing.
In the evenings after making dinner, I always make sure to turn off all the regular lights, and turn on only incandescent, red light, or candle light. I use blue light-blocking glasses if I'm on a screen. I charge my phone in the bathroom; it's close enough to hear the alarm, but far enough I don't use it before bed or in the mornings. Plus, it makes me get out of bed to shut it off! I love hot baths, herbal oils, beeswax candles, and mulberry silk sheets.
People ask me how I have so much “discipline,” but the reality is when you have the real, ancestral thing, the modern synthetics taste and feel gross.
The morning is *very* specific.
In the morning, I wake up and immediately put on my robe. I let my dog outside, then start oil pulling with coconut oil and a pinch of sea salt. While that’s going, I take everything out to prep my 30g protein gelatin latte and throw it into the frother. (It's all memorized, I've been drinking it for years! Normally I do a gelatin hot chocolate, but sometimes I'm craving a gelatin matcha latte.)
Once the gelatin latte is being made in the heated milk frother (it has 30g of protein, which is very important for breakfast for hormone balance, lowering cortisol and metabolic health), I go let my chickens out — I get morning sun and a little walking as I feed and water the chickens. It takes about five minutes.
Then I go to the bathroom, spit out the oil, and brush my teeth. I pour my latte into a mug, sit down, turn on my red light, journal, drink my latte, and take my supplements.
Once I'm done journaling, I head to the bathroom, I apply a layer of organic aloe vera gel to my face, step onto my vibration plate, and do my micro-current machine. The aloe vera gel is a natural conductive gel and doubles as a hydrating mask. Then I rinse, do my skincare, get dressed, and do my makeup!
Every step in my routine is stacked. I'm not just standing at the sink doing my skincare, I'm standing on my vibration plate to detox, get lymphatic drainage, and [improve] circulation. It seems like an intense routine, but because everything is stacked so precisely, it's enjoyable.
Can you recall a moment when you became more aware of your health, or your relationship to it changed?
Yes, I had terrible stomach issues, IBS, ovarian cysts, fatigue, ADHD, brain fog, burnout, and hormonal issues starting in high school. Nothing worked, so I became a human guinea pig, testing every healing modality and diet in order to heal my body.
I was beyond confused, because the next new thing would work for a bit and then my issues would come back. That curiosity led me down a rabbit hole of physiology and bioenergetics; how the body actually works and creates energy. It felt like taking apart a TV, to study the parts and how they worked separately, and then figuring out how to piece it all together.
I started studying Ray Peat, Weston A. Price, Otto Warburg, Aajonus Vonderplanitz, Morley Robbins, Albert Szent-Györgyi, Broda Barnes, and more. I began to understand the mechanics of the body, and how to heal every organ through increasing energy production.
It felt like taking apart a TV, to study the parts and how they worked separately, and then figuring out how to piece it all together.
By learning how the thyroid powers the metabolism and how minerals, sugar, salt, and saturated fats fuel cellular energy, I finally saw why the modern “anti-everything” diet never worked. Sugar wasn’t the enemy; bad energy production was. Gluten wasn’t the problem, but modern bread made with pesticide-filled GMO grains and chemical yeasts were an entirely different food from the slow-fermented, fresh-milled loaves our ancestors ate (and the fermentation just happens to break down up to 97% of gluten!). Industrial seed oils were hijacking our thyroids — our body’s literal energy generator — and changing how our body utilized glucose for fuel.
Once I began eating in alignment with human physiology, not against it, everything changed. My fatigue disappeared. My digestion normalized. My hormones balanced naturally. And I could finally eat the foods I loved again — real raw milk, butter, sourdough, raw honey — and heal my body while indulging.
What’s your relationship to self-healing?
I love doing blood work! I think if there's an issue, doing all the blood work, and things to figure it out is amazing. The more you know about what's going on in your body, the more data you have to fix it.
Do you work with any practitioners, texts, or modalities on a regular basis?
I am constantly reading and researching every single day. I do blood work regularly. I used to see tons of practitioners, but now I analyze my blood work and don't have any health issues, just personal goals I'm working on.
When do you feel the most nourished? How do you reset?
After a really nourishing meal, hot bath, and deep sleep. Basically my nightly routine.
Pho made with quality ingredients is simply a medicinal herbal tea brewed into bone broth, with steak and rice. A big batch of quality pho lasts a few meals, and makes me feel incredible. I called February “phobruary” because I did one massive batch of pho a week! I consume two 51oz french presses full of mineral rich herbal tea daily (morning batch has yerba mate for caffeine). Naked sun. Pilates. Red light therapy and detox baths.
Do you have a favorite meal?
Either my pho recipe or Korean bone broth-braised beef with pre-soaked rice. My gelatin latte has 30g of protein and is loaded with collagen, I have one every single morning for breakfast! I have the recipes up — I normally do hot chocolate flavor.
What advice would you give to the person reading this?
Modern wellness is charging you thousands to live how peasants used to. Daily gruel (aka protein bars and overnight oats), fasting, cold-plunges. And we’re wondering why our cortisol is high, digestion is off, and hormones aren’t cooperating when we’re following the literal blueprint for survival mode.
Once I began eating in alignment with human physiology, not against it, everything changed.
What would you like to see or create more of in the world?
As I’ve studied the rituals of ancient princesses, I’ve noticed we’re sold cheap synthetics and told it’s luxury because it’s a brand name. Finding quality materials and ingredients is rare, but when you do, it tastes and feels better than anything.
People ask me how I have so much “discipline,” but the reality is when you have the real, ancestral thing, the modern synthetics taste and feel gross. It not only elevates your health and how you feel, but your entire life experience.
However, people associate “health” with fluorescent lit gyms, gross protein bars, and bland salads. That’s not nourishment, and you won’t achieve true health that way. But the experience is so miserable, people think they don’t want to be healthy at all. And live their lives never even tasting what real food should taste like (most people have never even had real flour, it’s so nutrient dense and full of flavor!).
We sadly associate health with deprivation, and indulgence with “cheating.” When in reality, health is found through nourishing pre-industrial indulgences.
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