THE ACCRESCENT™ PODCAST EPISODE 202

[00:00:00] Hello. Welcome back to the Accrescent Podcast. I’m your host, Leigh Ann Lindsey. This is a really, really special guest we are having on today. For those who don’t know, Ric Scalzo was the founder of Gaia Herbs, a very, very well-known and established supplement brand, but he was really in the field of naturopathic medicine and herbal medicine way before it was common or popular.

To give you guys a little bit more background, Ric Scalzo began his exploration of herbal and naturopathic medicine. In 1980, he earned a Master’s degree in herbal medicine from the School of Herbal Medicine and was awarded an honorary doctorate of naturopathic medicine from Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine.

After several years of medical practice, Ric founded Gaia Herbs in 1987 and grew Gaia to the most respected and successful herbal company in the country. After selling Gaia in 2019, Ric established [00:01:00] the Institute of Botanical Research in Arizona and established CR medicinal farms, a regenerative organic farm in Costa Rica.

These became the stepping stones for his new adventure called Korkora, an herbal products company focused on regenerative organic cultivation with the mission to create the finest herbal remedies that promote health, that promote health and vitality for all. Celebrated for his pioneering work in herbal medicine and his dedication to preserving herbal integrity for over four decades.

Rick continues to innovate in the field and plays a key role in integrating regenerative agriculture with herbal medicine. Ric has such an amazing track record of success and impact and prestige in the field of herbal medicine. There is so much more I could say, but I’m gonna let us get right into the episode.

Ric was kind enough and the team at Kokora Life was kind enough to give us all a [00:02:00] discount code to use. That code is LAL one 15 LAL 15. I’ll make sure it’s in the show notes below. And with that, please enjoy this conversation with Ric Scalzo. Ric, welcome to the Crescent Podcast. Thank you. It’s such a joy.

Such a joy to be with you. So I was telling you off air that we had sent you some interview questions in advance, and after listening to a couple of your other podcasts, I changed all those questions to something different. When I was hearing more about the research center you’ve now set up, I have so many questions about that and getting into your new product line that we’re gonna be talking about.

But I do think for anyone who is new to you, if you can give us a little bit of an origin story, I think we should start there. Yeah. So, um, it goes back quite a ways. Um, I started when I was, uh, actually interested in, in philosophy in college and, um, I wanted to know the, the story about [00:03:00] God, uh, you know, and, and for me, I was, I was unsatisfied at the time, so I went out to meditate and the only thing that could come back to me at that point was if I really want to know about.

Spirituality, Spiritu, I need to know about plants. And that’s when I started my journey of, of I left, I left the school, the college I was going to, and completely went full course full circle. Started studying herbs and um, that led me down to finishing my herbal education, then naturopathic education, then all the diagnostic education, iris, um, medical iris diagnosis, pulse diagnosis, and then went into a practice.

And so saw about 10,000 patients at that time. And that was the foundation for starting Gaia herbs. That, that was in 1987, I believe. And that journey took me 30 years downstream to the point where, um, I sold Gaia in [00:04:00] 2020. And here I am now, um, journeying on a new path with cocoa. Yeah. I’m so excited to get into all the different facets of this.

But can you also talk about, so in 2020 you sold Gaia, and then you worked with a university in Arizona to set up an herbal research institute. Yeah. The story behind that was, I’m, I’m good friends with the, uh, he just retired, so I’m gonna call him the former president of the university. And, um, we had always talked about when, when I did sell Gaia, I wanted to make a contribution to the college, to, at the time it was a college, not a university, to set up a botanical research institute and put the study and sort of the, the, you know, the ownership of botanical medicine under the roof of a naturopathic college.

So we did it, and here we are. Five years later. It just came from the institute last week and things are, are really amazing what the work they’re doing there. I can’t, [00:05:00] I have a couple questions. So I, I am, um, I use a technology called evox therapy, which is voice mapping. So we can measure tones of emotions in the voice.

Oh really? Output, balancing frequencies. And I’m also getting my PhD in depth psychology, so it’s all about the unconscious mind. But I primarily work with cancer and chronic illness patients, looking at not just helping them through the diagnosis, but deeper potential emotional root causes to illness. To that end, I know I have a lot of questions I wanna ask you.

As much as we’re able to talk about publicly. About some of the research you’re doing though with herbs and cancer and chronic illness and some of these different things. But I do think the place we have to start is touching in on regenerative organic farming. You’re in Costa Rica. I can see the beautiful tropical background behind you.

Yeah. I think we need to distinguish what is the difference between organic and then regenerative organic. And there’s a couple specific things I’m excited to [00:06:00] get into here. Yeah. Well first, you know, I’ve done it both. When I was at Gaia, we were always organic. Um, and, and then when I bought this farm in Costa Rica, we converted a sugarcane farm to regenerative organic, straight, straight away.

The, the big difference, there’s several. First one is no-till. So the idea of, of regenerative farming practices means that. Uh, when we say no-till, it means that we do not turn over and plow the soils. Mm-hmm. That’s very important because when every time you turn over and plow or rott till your soils, you are disturbing the soil, food, web, the microbiome of the soil.

And we can explain why that’s, that’s so relevant. Um, so that’s an important facet of, of, um, regenerative farming. Also, you know, the more, the more carpet of green you have over your soil, the more carbon you’re gonna sequester, and that’s another important part of it. And then, uh. You know, this whole idea of [00:07:00] how do you repair the microbiome of the soil?

Mm-hmm. Because that’s where all life starts, and that’s where our nutrition is orchestrated by the soil, food, web in the soil, all the nutrients that are in the soil. It gets orchestrated by the soil food web to come up and take, take up to cycle up into the food and into the, to the plants that we use for our medicine.

Yeah. It starts there. I, I already can’t help. So depth psychology is, there’s a lot of symbolism, there’s a lot of mysticism in a lot of ways, phenomenology in a lot of ways. But I already can’t help but see the symbolism of it starts in the depths. It starts kind of in the darkness below the surface where the foundation of everything else is laid, just like kind of, I think in our psyches, our inner self, that deep place is where it all starts from and is what is influencing everything that’s getting seen on the outside.

You know, it’s interesting because in Ayurvedic, um, philosophy, that is certainly [00:08:00] the premise of Ayurvedic philosophy. You know, how the soul expresses into consciousness and how consciousness expresses into matter, and how different permeations of matter become, you know, either, either distressed or stressed, you know, in terms of whether we stay healthy or, or not.

But, you know, from the soil perspective, you know, it really is relevant when we’re talking about how we are orchestrating and integrating all the formative forces of nature to come together for this very moment, this very moment that we want to take all that is within our soil, orchestrate it into the roots, into the plants, so that’s for our betterment.

And you know, that that implies that we are showing up with respect to, um, the sunlight. The, the, uh, you know, the greatest photonic source of energy, the sunlight, and the mm-hmm. That, that implies that we are honoring the fact that we can use the carbon that’s in our [00:09:00] atmosphere to our benefit to make more nutrient dense plants.

Um, I’m gonna just make, hold on a moment. That implies that, you know, all of the, the, you know, the beneficial fungi, the be beneficial bacteria, the protozoa, the, um, the phe, the mycorrhiza, you know, um, theropods earthworms that are in the soil, they are all orchestrating a dynamism together to, to make this moment of bringing upcycling nutrients into the plants to make it happen.

And it’s fascinating and, you know, the data that we’ve been collecting to see how quickly this happens mm-hmm. It’s phenomenal. It’s funny ’cause talking about philosophy, we could go down a whole, I won’t, I won’t, but we could go down a whole road here of how nature really is the model of how to tend to ourselves.

When we tend nature in this, you know, regenerative, reciprocal way, [00:10:00] well that nature is, you know, I look at nature as the master, CEO. Mm-hmm. Um, and that, you know, and this, this whole thing is this an amazing, uh, you know, business model that we can emulate and, you know, nature. Definitely, definitely manages through a regenerative principle.

And so I’ve tried to adopt these regenerative principles in nature and into korra mm-hmm. Into our leadership and our culture and into how we show up, you know, with our products. Yeah. So that, so that we can really, you know, be, you know, be aligned. That’s the important thing is be aligned with nature.

Yeah. And the, the idea of reciprocity and good stewardship is that it’s sustainable really. You’re not taking more than you’re giving, you’re creating this cycle that is regenerative and allows you to continue on. When I heard you talk about that, you, you’re doing more kind of research and speaking around, [00:11:00] um, regenerative business and regenerative leadership.

From this model, I was like, oh, there’s a gentleman in my cohort, one of my colleagues in the PhD program who’s doing his dissertation around business leadership. And so I just was like, oh, he’s, I’ve gotta put him onto that episode. ’cause he would love to hear that perspective on it. It’s just so powerful.

You, you, you know, I couple that term. I love that term by the way, reciprocity. Mm-hmm. And I couple it with receptivity because that’s the spiral. You know, you, you, you. You have to be receptive for somebody, you know, to be willing enough to give and share and the person giving and sharing needs to feel and know that there is something or some body that is receptive for that.

Mm-hmm. So it’s a spiraling of, of dynamism that takes place. And I love those two terms paired together. ’cause that’s how it shows up in nature. Every relationship in nature [00:12:00] includes those two principles. Yeah. Well, in a real depth psychological question would be, you know, are, are we, is a part of why we’re lacking reciprocity in modern day world because we’re lacking an ability to be receptive.

To receive. So that’s my philosophical tangent. I will bring us back on track now, but from what I understand of regenerative organic farming, it really is about creating the most reciprocal, sustainable way where we are not harming the earth. You, I even heard you talking about how the carbon footprint, I, I don’t know all the technical jargon of it, but how much it impacts the carbon footprint.

Um, the air quality, the nutrient density of the food, it, it ripples out in so many different ways. It does. Um, so very quickly and simply for those who are listening. You know, here you have the [00:13:00] plant and it’s, it’s taking in the sunlight, it’s photosynthesizing sunlight, and it’s also taking the carbon into its structure.

Um, and that carbon is getting transported into the, into the roots and into the soil. And so now you have the sugars in the plant that are also present. And what’s happening is when the plant is taking in all this carbon from the atmosphere, it starts to generate the reproduction with all that carbon in the soil of more beneficial fungi and bacteria.

And they multiply by the thousands and thousands and thousands of fold. And then these protozoa that are in the soil, they begin to consume the bacteria that’s eating the carbon. And when they consume the bacteria. The, the release of nitrogen in a form where the plants can assimilate the nitrogen. It’s called, it’s called ammonium or ammonium nitrate.

That starts to get released in large volumes, and that [00:14:00] starts to cause the root of the plant to put out more root tendrils, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom. Suddenly you have one or two little roots, or rootlets having hundreds of new tendrils taking up all these, you know, these are points for nutrition to be taken up.

So all of the nutrients in the soil have much more access points for the plant to take up. And this is why, this is what we call, um, nutrient upcycling. And this is how you really get, you know, not just by a small amount either. The, the, the amount of, of nutrient upcycling from conventional agriculture is four to 10 times greater, the amount of nutrients.

Oh, wow. Yeah. This is what I would love to talk about better, especially as it then translates over to the supplement line because can, can you help me understand this? Because I do think when someone picks up a supplement and there’s one that’s regenerative, organically farmed, let’s say turmeric, and [00:15:00] then there’s just a standard turmeric one, they might look at the back of it and go, huh, well, both of these supplements have, I’m making up a random number, a hundred milligrams of turmeric.

So it’s the same thing. Why might that not be true? Oh, gosh. It’s, it’s not true for a couple of different reasons. One is just the fact that a regenerative turmeric grown, and we’ve, we’ve actually done all the measurements. I’ll give you some stats on a regenerative field of turmeric compared to just an organic field.

The amount of biomass that we, um, produced regeneratively was 80,000 kilos per hectare of tumor group, and in a organic field, the amount of biomass produced was 15,000 kilos per hectare, so about a five plus x. On the amount of production. Wow. But then the amount of curcumin, the bioactive molecules in turmeric were increased by fourfold.

Hmm. [00:16:00] So when you, when you give that example, there’s another, another complicator in the equation. ’cause a lot of turmeric products today are made with this 95% curcuminoid, um, uh, material, which is highly purified and, and isolated, purified and structurally elucidated. So you just get curcumin in the product.

You don’t get everything that turmeric is, you know, that is in the whole thing. All co-factors and that complete thing. Yeah. Beautiful. Co-factors a great word for it. Beautiful. And, and we’ve done just, uh, I just came back from the institute measuring this, so it’s interesting you’re asking. Oh, no way. Just two days ago I was in Arizona.

We were looking at tumor, we were looking at comparing these, these 95%. Concentrated turmeric products compared to the cocoa, turmeric, and, um, which is regeneratively grown. And we found that even though there’s more curcumin, a lot [00:17:00] more curcumin in the 95%, the, the amount of reduction on inflammation mm-hmm.

Or the inflammatory, you know, uh, uh, benefit that you get from taking tumor was tenfold greater in the cocoa product than something that was highly purified. Wow. It’s, it’s pretty, I mean, yes, these are in vitro models, but they’re, they’re models that are using, um, uh, human cell, uh, mechanisms on of inflammation.

So it’s just, it’s just exciting to me when you. Give nature an opportunity to heal. I have done so much research over the years into different nervous system, tools, techniques, modalities, and honestly, the Apollo Neuro wearable is the one that I come back to again and again. It’s powerful, practical, and so easy to integrate into everyday life.

What I love about Apollo is that [00:18:00] it works through gentle, soothing vibrations. You can wear it on your wrist, your ankle, or clip it to your clothing. You don’t have to stop what you’re doing. I wear mine while working. I wear it while I sleep, and I love how their results are backed by real science. In a number of published studies, Apollo users saw a 25% increase in heart rate variability, one of the strongest markers of nervous system resilience.

They experienced up to 40% less stress and feelings of anxiety, and 19% more time in deep sleep. Apollo also can help people fall asleep faster, feel more focused during the day. It can support an uplifted mood. Apollo is something I use every single day to support my nervous system, to make sure that I’m giving my body gentle safety signals all throughout the day to help me be more resilient, to help me recover faster, to help me sleep deeper, and [00:19:00] it’s something that I recommend to clients all the time because it’s so gentle.

Non-invasive is backed by science and is so, so accessible. Click the link in the show notes below and you’ll get $60 off your Apollo or use discount code the A Crescent for $60. Off to to that end, the point I wanted to make with that for the audience is it might not to us who are a little bit uneducated, be immediately clear.

The difference, right? Because you might look and go, huh? The amount of turmeric in the capsules in these two different products is the same, so the impact must be the same. So whatever, I’m gonna choose the cheaper one. But what we have to understand is there might be more nutrient density, the impact the.

Bioavailability of that product. Maybe they’re both a hundred milligrams, but the regeneratively, pharm, turmeric, my body can [00:20:00] absorb a hundred percent of that capsule versus maybe 50%. Again, I’m making up stats, but especially with turmeric, because turmeric, these curcumin are really difficult to absorb and you know, when they’re in their whole plant, um, you know, construct as nature constructed, it’s much easier.

And we’ve seen that going back thousands of years in Ayurvedic medicine. Mm-hmm. Are there any other ways that, because we’re talking about the supplement line and we’re gonna get into that more and kind of how you launched it. I know I jumped us ahead a little bit, but are there any other ways that regeneratively farmed ingredients produce.

Translates into a better supplement product. I’m gonna share with you what we’ve just kind of, uh, were talking with our scientists last week about finding that, um, in the regenerative farmed herbs, there seems to be a self, a mechanism where, um, the microbiome in the [00:21:00] soil is anti pathogenic to other pathogens in the soil.

Hmm. That’s one thing. And, and the second thing is the kind of, of the nature of the organisms that are in the soil that kind of are taken up into the plant are the, the one we started focusing on and seeing like almost 100% of what ended up in the plant in terms of the microorganisms was bacillus subtilis.

Bacillus subtilis is a two things here. It’s a very important probiotic for the gut. And secondly, it acts as a mechanism to, um, uh, it’s, it’s what we call an endophyte probiotic, which means that it lives inside the cells of the roots or the cells of the plant. And it actually is what makes the, the secondary, um, uh, uh, metabolites in the plant.

It actually manufactures [00:22:00] them so the plant can be more effective. And what we’re finding is though it’s not, may not just be the phyto active chemicals in the plant that’s taken up greater in the plant, it may be the presence of this bacillus subtilis as an endophyte actually activating the, the nutrients in the plant and making them more accessible to us.

Uh. So you, you’re hitting on all the right questions, Leigh Ann, about in terms of asking, you know, is a whole plant, um, type of product, more absorbable. Mm-hmm. And, and I would say there’s evidence surfacing that. Yes. There’s some, some validity to that statement. Yeah. Well, let’s, let’s pivot to what made you decide to start this new line?

Tell us a little bit about it. Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting because it didn’t come per chance. We, we actually did a consumer survey [00:23:00] and we went out and interviewed 25,000 people and mostly women. And, um, found out that, um, there was. Similar demographics still present. Um, this was five years ago.

Still present than there was when I was running Gaia. And that was, you know, um, Jennifer and Jessica who are our demographics. Mm-hmm. That’s the things we’ve, we’ve given them. Uh, Jennifer and Jessica are, um. They’re between 30 and 50 years old. They are kind of highly educated. They’re, they love, love, self-care.

They take care of their own wellness. They take, take care of their family’s wellness, and they prefer to choose supplements over pharmaceuticals. They’re, you know, on and on, they exercise and so forth. And, and, and yet, so that was one thing. And then the thing that kept coming up, the, the reoccurring theme was this concept of regenerative life.

A lot of these, uh, Jennifers and Jessicas were really [00:24:00] interested in how to extend their health span and lifespan. Mm-hmm. And so this whole concept of regenerative life started to come up over and over. And that was the first kind of name we gave Cocoa as a company. It was called Life Regenerated. But it, it, it turned out we, we.

Gave, we changed the name to Cocoa, um, and used life regenerated as a tagline. Mm-hmm. But the idea of why I started this again, because I wanted to create an impact on the lifespan and healthspan of people and do it in a way that was going to clean up the environment and, you know, improve the quality of our foods and so forth.

Yeah. I think something that you can see, you can see the trajectory of all of it and the ripple effect of all of it, Gaia had to happen. So you could have that sale. So you could set up the research institute so you could buy the farm, so you could create this brand. Pretty much, you know, [00:25:00] and so it’s all beautiful.

It’s all meant to be, and it’s all kind of working in conjunction with each other. So one of the things I wanna talk about is beyond being regenerative organic ingredients in the products, how else might they be different? And one of the things I wanna point out, I’m looking at my notes here, is I heard you talk about how, how they’re kind of encapsulated, they’re not freeze dried like other products.

Can you talk about that for a sec? Yeah. So, so the herbs are not freeze dried. We dry them in the typical way, um, using low heat and, and, um. Uh, you know, keep them in a heat and humidity controlled environment before they’re processed. Then we extract the herbs with, in the typical way with, uh, pure, um, organic cane alcohol.

And then we do the freeze drying. So freeze drying of the extract is kind of a, I don’t know of, of it being used in the United States as a production [00:26:00] technology, but I’ve heard you may have heard of spray drying herbs, but Okay. I mixed them up. So, the spray drying. Yes. The problem with spray drying is the, once you make your extract, you have to spray the extract onto something.

And a lot of people do not know this, but there is this onto something. Something is usually maltodextrin or some sort of substance that you and I probably don’t want to put in our bodies. Hmm. And the amount of that, if that goes into a capsule, the amount of that. Substance that the herb is sprayed onto that’s in the capsule is about 40%.

Oh, wow. And you’re not required by the the GMP rules to list that on the label. So with freeze drying, it’s a pure process. Mm-hmm. You just take the liquid extract and you pour the liquid onto trays and you freeze dry it with no excipients, no malto, nothing. And all you get [00:27:00] is the pure, um, dried extract and it’s highly, highly concentrated.

And so that makes the product, um, you know that in itself, there’s no interference in any way in the body when you take the product. None. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I wanted to point that out because that was something that, to your point. You, you are kind of looking at what, what are the ingredients and there’s some things that might not be listed on a bottle and things like how this is actually get, how this actually gets put into the capsule, what’s in the capsule, all these other things that we might not think of that you with this brand are on a mission to really, in all facets of it, create the best, healthiest, cleanest product on the market.

Yeah. And I’m, I I, I was talking about what questions should retailers of natural products and consumers of natural products be asking of the product that they’re selling and consuming. And that’s part of the problem, problem. There’s so little [00:28:00] education around this topic, and I’m glad you’re raising it because there’s so many points about, um, that lead to is it safe and is it efficacious?

Yeah. By the way, when we did our research study, those were the two drivers of what makes a person purchase a product and use a product, and they wanna know, is it safe and efficacious for mm-hmm. Right. The problem is, is the conventional world will say what is safe and efficacious might be very different than what us over here in the holistic regenerative world might say is safe and efficacious.

But yes, and I think too. Um, to your point, as a consumer, knowing what questions to ask, there’s education involved in that, and then getting that information, I think can be a bit of a wormhole itself. Having to, ’cause a lot of that isn’t on the actual product. You’ve got to probably, I imagine, reach out to the brand itself directly and probably even get, like, pushed through the higher ups until someone can actually give you an [00:29:00] answer to some of these questions.

Yeah. Unfortunately, the, the, uh, Institute in Arizona answers a lot of these questions. We do a, a liver cell toxicity study on every herb to be sure Uhhuh, the herbs are actually nontoxic. Um, this came up because, um, the use of ashwagandha leaf has some, uh, um, there’s some question about whether or not the leaf versus the root.

Mm-hmm. Um, is the leaf safe to use? And so we did a liver cell toxicity study, challenging liver cells in vitro to determine at what point do the liver cells become effective from, uh, the chemistries of ashwagandha leaf and. This, you know, this, um, put to put to rest any questions that might have existed for me about safety of gon leaf.

And, um, and so we do do the safety study even before we do the in vitro study on human cell lines. And so this, the, the in vitro [00:30:00] study on human cell lines, it tells us, you know, it gives us a good indication of what might happen in the body. Mm-hmm. And so it’s not a clinical trial, so we can’t translate one for one.

But yes, we can, um, essentially get an idea of how these herbs are gonna work in the body and, you know, if, if they really do work. Yeah. And to your point, how they’re comparing to conventional or even organic products. You know, similar products, which is really exciting. So what, what is the current line?

And then, you know, in the episode I listened to you, there’s some exciting things coming later this year, I’m sure next year as well. But what’s the current line and then what’s coming down the pipeline? So currently we have, uh, we launched the line with five functional powders. And these are, um, the idea behind these was to take a spoon or two, mix it into your smoothie or into water or nut milk, um, and drink it as a functional beverage to, so [00:31:00] if you like, for example, we have a product called Five Mushroom, um, uh, I’m sorry, seven mushroom, uh, mocha.

And it’s basically mushrooms and, uh, cacao and some coconut milk powder, all organic. And it tastes delicious. And that’s a great way to make a drink, but have it regenerative and have it, you know, with all the benefits of the mushrooms, have it do something good for you. Hmm. Um, so there’s this functional powder line.

Then we launched the capsules of, um, mushroom capsules with a regenerative herb, which is a unique, uh. Way of formulating mushroom capsules. So we took the organic mushroom extracts and added, um, for example, our five mushroom wellness and our rishi and our Turkey tail all have ashwaganda root and leaf extract, freeze dried extract added to it.

And our lion’s mane has freeze dried bacopa extract, which we grow on our farm added to it. So that’s five products. Those are on the [00:32:00] market now. And then the other products that are on the market now are turmeric, ashwagandha, and bacopa singles. So, you know, they’re, a lot of people are familiar with, at least with turmeric and ashwagandha.

And what just launched into the market last week was regenerative energy, regenerative stress, and um, soon this week, regenerative adrenal and next week regenerative sleep. Oh. So some formulas that are, that are very, very, um, you know, they speak to the need at the time. You guys know I have loved SymbioticA supplements for years.

I had to jump on and share with you guys a couple brand new products. They just came out with their liquid colostrum and their liquid Sheila G Complex. But I also wanted to point out some of the general benefits we colostrum, I think has been such a hype right now. It’s amazing for gut health immune resilience repairing [00:33:00] at a cellular level.

Colostrum has over 200 different functional nutrients that help with growth factors, antibodies, peptides that seal the gut lining, help balance the microbiome and even support skin health. But most colostrums come in powder form. In fact, SymbioticA is the only liquid colostrum on the market. It is so easy to just grab a packet, take it on my way to work, have it at some point throughout the day.

And then there’s the Sheila Jett. If you’re not familiar, Sheila Jett is a mineral rich resin from the Himalayas that’s been used in Ayurvedic medicine for thousands of years. Their liquid Sheila Jett Complex contains 84 trace minerals. It’s known to boost cellular energy, mitochondrial function, hormone balance, and detox pathways, giving your body a lot of the raw materials it needs to be able to run better at every level.

I have been loving taking both of these. Like I said, it has been so easy and [00:34:00] seamless to work these into my daily routine and they taste delicious. I feel like I’m in a little bit of a phase in life where I need things to be easy. Accessible, practical, or they’re just not gonna be worked into my daily routine.

So I have their liquid pouches stashed all over the place in my office. They’re so easy when I travel, they’re in my fridge. But I also love, a lot of us are sometimes taking so many different capsules that can be difficult for the stomach to break down, or the powders which are messy and annoying to mix.

And so these liquid supplements are just so easy for my digestion. It’s a nice break from all the capsules. So check the show notes below for a link to learn more. And you can use discount code Lee and Lindsay. Yeah. Oh, I’m so excited. I have to jump on and see ’cause I looked at it a few weeks ago and you’re, you’re already shaken and bacon with so many new things since I was last on there.[00:35:00]

That’s so exciting. Okay, now anything else about cocoa that I missed or can I ask a couple questions about the research institute? Ask. Ask away. Okay. So, and I know that there might be things that we can and can’t cover in this very, very public setting. So you say yes or no to wherever we can or can’t go.

But one I did hear you talk about in the interview I was listening to you guys did some research with herbs and COVID and you found some really interesting things there. I was wondering if you could speak to that as much as you can and then well, let’s start there. So this, this research on, on COVID, um, it was more, um, what we wanted to do at the time.

Um, we wanted to study and understand the broader spectrum of plants that have, um, that have the capacity to support our immune function. And, um, so we started with 80 plants and very [00:36:00] quickly, um. And, and the way we did this actually, so the, the listeners know, is we took the extracts of these plants and we tested them in vitro.

On against the live COVID virus. So for this work we partnered with Arizona State University, um, which is a, a bio safety lab level three. So we could actually use Stew the study against the live virus. So we knew what we were working with and um, we took that list from 80 down to 10 very quickly. Hmm.

Those 10 actually began to show a lot of promise. I looked at the list and I took that 10 and reduced it down to four. And those four were actually highly, highly active in vitro. And um, and again, this study was using the live COVID virus in vitro to see if there’s any effect. [00:37:00] And, um, in every case there was very powerful, powerful effects.

So the question was, now how can we bring this product into. Into the market and talk about in a way that is, um, you know, allowable through Yeah. Through FDA limits and, and, you know, I can speak not about the product, but generally speak about what happens when people feel like, um, you know, I, and we all have had this experience that, oh, I think I’m getting sick.

Have you ever had that experience mm-hmm. Where you say to yourself, oh, I’m not feeling well today. My nose is stuffy, I think I’m catching a cold, or, I think I’m getting sick. Everybody has that experience. And long ago when I was at Gaia, we did a NAH uh, funded study on echinacea. And we found out that echinacea is actually best [00:38:00] used not to actually treat a cold, but at the very onset, at that moment where, oh, I think I’m getting, you know, stuffy nose or something like that.

When. The full inflammatory expression is not yet set in. Mm-hmm. You take echinacea and it has, uh, an uncanny ability to compete with the same receptors that the virus competes for, to trigger on the inflammation that causes cold. And, um, so by, by targeting those receptors, it prevents the, the, the viruses from being, from attaching on, attaching and messaging into the cell.

Mm-hmm. Same thing is happening with o other viruses, secretory viruses as well. So you want to, your best effort is to do the work. Before you know, you, you’re full, full on symptomatic. And, um, and so that was one thing about how [00:39:00] quick can we deliver this into the body? Mm mm-hmm. So this is gonna be a quick response type of, of, of approach, you know.

And then the second was not just how quick, but how targeted would this be for this particular, you know, situation. And we hit on it big time and we, we, in every in vitro study, we, we got amazing outcomes. Then we made a lot of product and started giving it out to friends. And we didn’t do a fully formal clinical trial, but based on the hundreds of people who started taking this product, they were all getting amazing results.

Mm-hmm. Very quickly, very, very quickly. And, um, so the concept of a quick response. Um, product sort of came into life and we’ve been developing it and it should hit the markets this September. And, um, and that should be paired with, um, a whole body total, um, uh, defense [00:40:00] type of product. You know, in the event you’ve missed your immediate opportunity mm-hmm.

What happens now that you’re not feeling well and you know, what do you do at that point? Yes. Got it. Okay. I understand because I also, I have a number, I’m a part of a kind of holistic health center, biohacking center, and we again, work with a lot of cancer patients. We work with a lot of chronic illness, long COVID, so I know that that’s just a topic that’s particularly interesting to my audience.

So come September though, that FAST Act product is a great one to just have on the shelf stocked at all times, but then you’re also creating that more kind of. General long-term immune support. Exactly. And, and or immune support. Or at a time where, you know, now you’re full into whatever it is you’ve been dealing with.

Mm-hmm. And, um, so you’ve missed your opportunity for a quick response and now you need, you know, a deeper [00:41:00] defense. Mm-hmm. And so you have a one-two punch, is what I’m saying. And yeah, they’ve both been studied, uh, extensively at the institute. And, and this is what I mean about, you know, when we say safe and efficacious, efficacious does imply that it has been tested.

And, you know, you know, we have demonstrated, at least in vitro that it has a good chance of being a very effective. Which can we talk about are other supplement lines doing that? I, my hunch would be that they’re, you know, they, they know research that has been done in other places that, oh yeah, turmeric is good for this at this dose, and so they just create a product of turmeric at that dose, but they’re not actually testing their product.

That would be my hunch in Mo most of the cases, I would say. Your hunch is correct. Um, I, I, yeah, I know it’s correct. Mm-hmm. Uh, there are some, some exceptions to that. You know, and, uh, but I would [00:42:00] say in 90, 95, 90 8% of the cases, most brands do not do this type of testing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which I think makes me, it makes us so excited.

And again, with our, the demographic I work with and the audience, they’re so into the research. They love being able to look up those research studies. They love a brand, a company that is doing the research. So that is such a trust building point for Korra. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the whole, that’s the whole point I’m trying to make, you know, it’s not good enough to just put a supplement on the market, on the shelf these days.

Mm-hmm. People, people really do want to know that it is science, science, there’s, you know, science backed evidence to prove that it’s gonna work. And, um, you know, and I, I feel like I have an obligation to do that, to ensure that it is going to work. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now I wanna ask a similar question, but related to cancer, and again, I don’t know if this is a place you can go into or not, so if not, [00:43:00] we’ll totally pivot.

But are you guys, have you done, are you guys doing, are you planning to do any research with herbs and cancer? Oh my God. You’re asking all the, all the interesting futuristic questions. The questions that are leading to product development, Uhhuh, the, the, but the, the topic is a little bigger than this.

Okay. Please. In naturopathic school, we learned about something called mTOR. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this. That sounds so familiar, but refresh me. Well, it’s complex, so I, I don’t know if it’s too complex. Just cut me off, I’ll bring you in. No, no, go ahead. Um, mTOR stands for the mammalian target of rapamycin.

Now, rapamycin was first discovered as a bacteria, um, in the soils on Easter Island in 1972. It was found in soils that were far away from any civilization [00:44:00] as far away as can be. And scientists discovered first in, in animals that rapamycin can treat, um, insulin dependency or, or you know, people who were having, or, uh, animals that were having symptoms of, of diabetes.

And they eventually developed a drug called rapamycin, um, to tr treat diabetes. And, um, and. I got inter interested in this whole concept of mTOR because, um, mTOR is sort of a metabolic, um, functional pathway, cellular mechanism that actually, um, you, you might say targets rapamycin and destroys its function in the body.

Mm. And one of its functions in the body is to promote, um, you know, cell cell mechanisms, cell repair, cell energy and longevity and so forth. [00:45:00] And it’s not, it’s not surprising to me anymore that rapamycin actually has made its way out of the drug status, still a drug, but it’s being used as a drug in the longevity, um, community for promoting long, long life.

Okay. I began to think, well, what, what does rapamycin really do? It. You can look at the re research and it shows that it is very good for neurodegenerative disease. Hmm. For, um, uh, cognitive diseases like obviously, um, for, um, immune disorders, deep immune, you know, disorders and the list could go on and on and on.

And I began to question what if we can do some research on rapamycin, mimetics, plants that, you know, mimic the actions of rapamycin in the body. And sure enough, there are quite a few. Okay. If you look, we look [00:46:00] in the literature, there are quite a few and they’re not plants that you and I haven’t been, you know, haven’t been have, you know, expensive.

Familiar, yeah. Yeah. So they include plants like turmeric, um, green tea, um. Astragalus root. Mm-hmm. Chira berry, um, uh, ashwagandha, resveratrol, berberine. These are some of the plants or plant constituents that actually have a rapamycin like action in the body. They target the same pathways that rapamycin does.

Mm-hmm. So I began to think is what can we do to extend, uh, the quality of our life health span and lifespan and to, you know, really, I mean, honestly, it’s all about managing the genes that get turned on right. And the disease gets expressed, and how do we upregulate the genes that are good for [00:47:00] us to promote long life and downregulate the genes that are going to mm-hmm.

Express disease. Mm-hmm. Yeah. To, to that end, something I talk about with my patients all the time is, again, I’m, I’m focused on the. Emotional, spiritual, energetic side of it. But one of the things I remind them at the start is we’re not asking the question, why did you get cancer? We all have cancer cells.

Most of us are able to fight them off and clear them out before they can take root anywhere and start to then build a home and build a tumor. So the question we’re asking is, why was your body no longer able to fight these cells off? And that’s where I think there’s, you know, interesting implications in the herbal world of what are those supports that really come in.

I often will use the analogy of the army, right? If the immune system is a little army, you know, but if 50% of your army is off fighting mold and 20% is off fighting heavy metals and [00:48:00] 30% is off fighting past unmetabolized trauma, you might only have 10% left to fight off the cancer. And that’s why it was finally able to take root after all these years of kind of that storm building, building, building.

Yeah, so true. And, and also, you know, so when you speak about it this way, you’re speaking about the very, uh, formative or causative kind of underlying, you know, the, the initial underlying, um, underlying whatever it is, stagnation or impression that’s going to lead to the buildup of mm-hmm. Of toxicity. You know, in, in Chinese medicine, there are three things that is spoken about.

As the, the causative of chronic disease and they are dampness, stagnation and inflammation. Mm-hmm. And if we don’t take care of these three things, then um, just take dampness alone. Dampness is governed by the spleen system, which is part of our, [00:49:00] what in Chinese medicine is our middle j, um, or the organs of digestion.

The spleen, the stomach, the liver, the pancreas, the all the duct work system and so forth. And, um, if we’re not digesting properly, more than likely we will either have a damp heat or a damp cold situation. And when we have too much dampness building up from poor improper digestion, that dampness can in some people does turn into phlegm.

Mm-hmm. And over time, that phlegm can congeal, and over time that phlegm can become, that congeal phlegm can become a tumor. And so it’s kind of the, the elaboration of something that took place that wasn’t addressed. Right. You know, on a physical level, you’re speaking on a very fundamental, formative level.

But, but even, I think. When you don’t attend to the things that you speak about, it can manifest in the physical as [00:50:00] well. Yeah. In, in these ways. Completely. And to that point, I, I do, because this is what I do all day long. I talk about the mental, emotional, spiritual components and contributors, but I use that word very specifically contributor because I’ve never seen or worked with a cancer patient who didn’t also have physiological contributors as well.

So it’s all of it, all of it, all of it needs to be looked at and tended to. But the point of that being actually your body is inherently equipped to fight off cancer. There’s something, or some things, and I’ve never seen it be just one thing. So there’s some things picking up that capacity that we’ve gotta address and start to clear out.

And it usually is mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical in a number of different ways. That makes total sense to me. And, um, gosh, it’s, it, the opportunities are tremendous, right? Yeah. Yeah. And to that end, I think, I just think [00:51:00] regenerative organic products and knowing how much more bioavailable they are, right?

Everyone I’m working with in this realm is on some level in the holistic world and bringing in so many different things and looking, looking at these root contributors and supplements is a huge, huge part of that. And so it can be life changing, if, if not lifesaving for a cancer patient to be able to have a, a significant line of regenerative, organic products that are gonna be so much more impactful than maybe what they’re being given or offered or taking thus far.

You know, there’s one product that I worked a lot on. It’s, it’s in the cocoa line, it’s called, um. Five mushroom wellness. And this, this emerged from some research in the Tibetan literature that went back 5,000 years of this formula. Um, and it was five mushrooms at the time. Um, I changed the formula. I took out one because the, the supply chain on that one species [00:52:00] was not, was not, uh, available.

And I added a, a separate one that I thought would be a good substitute, but essentially the formula. Was written about 5,000 years ago in the Tibetan works for immortality. Oh my gosh. Isn’t that amazing? It caught my attention and you know, and of course that’s, that’s a big word, but what it was really saying to us is that here’s a pathway to longevity, pathway to staying healthy and preventing, you know, chronic illness.

And, um, so I think, I think, you know, it’s all about education, teaching people giving guidance and support. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’ll be following the university for sure. Keeping my eye out for if and when that cancer research research comes through. What was the name of that mushroom product though? Five mushrooms.

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Click the link below to learn more and receive 20% off your first order. I have a couple selfish personal questions I might ask you if I can. All right, well, let’s see if I can answer. One of them is [00:55:00] talking about a regenerative life, a life of reciprocity and receptivity. I think you, you’ve been in the, this world so long, and I’m selfishly a little bit curious of what are some of those things that might be non-negotiable parts of your day or your week that foster a regenerative life for you?

And these could be products, these could be modalities, these could also be practices I observe in nature. The, the answer to that is quite simple in nature. And, and I, I, you know, in nature you see these principles re repeating itself all the time. It’s rest, restore, revitalize. Hmm. Applied into the body.

You know, it’s nourish, connect and move. So if I look at what does rest mean to me? How do I nourish myself? You know, it, it includes everything you’re talking about. Spiritual nourishment, emotional nourishment, and so [00:56:00] forth. You know, with the meditation, with the qigong, with, with the restorative self massage, with the, mm-hmm.

Um, the type of breathing exercises I do all provide me a sense of journeying inward, and that’s a non-negotiable. Mm-hmm. I’ve gotta, I’ve gotta sustain to that nourishment every day. The connect is, is something I’m working on because I live alone on top of a mountain and I have, you know, a community here, but it’s a small community and connections for me are very important to meet those social connections that are, that are life supporting and, and enriching and.

And how that, how, you know, you see it in nature. Everything is, there’s relationships everywhere in nature. We just don’t pay attention. But they exist. But the way that expresses in the body this point, this concept of connection is through the fascia. Yeah. And how, how do we keep the fascia healthy and, you know, keep all the cells, you know, getting the [00:57:00] nourishment and clearing the toxins that has to happen.

And then the concept of movement is pretty obvious. You know, that if you look at all, all the blue zones and where people, you know, live to be a hundred years old, and I, I, I have gone to three of them in the last three years in Italy documenting them, and they all have a natural, um, way of staying active.

Mm-hmm. A lot of them just walk up a lot of stairs to go to church. Yeah. And that’s the way they stay active. That’s their movement. But, and then there’s a fourth one, so to speak, that I, I applied personally, it’s so important for us to be aligned to our Ikigai. Mm-hmm. I guy, that’s a Japanese term, which means stay aligned to your purpose.

Yeah. And so for me, that’s, those are all non-negotiables. I have to have that in my life to feel nourished and to feel a sense of, of that I’m contributing to a regenerative life. Oh, I love that. Those are beautiful. Okay, so then I have to ask a clarifying [00:58:00] question. What do you do for fascia work? How do you support fascia?

Oh my God. Do you really want me to answer? I so do. I just had a fascia guest on. She was Oh, really phenomenal. And I’m, again, I’m particularly interested in, because I work with so much trauma and I think we have to engage with trauma in terms of the psyche and the unconscious, but there’s very real physiological aspects of it too, and we need that, that.

Synergy between all of it. So I’m, I would love to hear, well, per personally, I, I do, um, I do a lot of this, um, this is a silver guha tool. Yeah. And I am, I’m doing Guha a lot. And, um, twice a year I take an extended period and go to China for 10 days where I get 10 hour, uh, eight hours of treatment for 10 days.

Uh, yeah, it’s crazy. Eight hours a day or eight hours over the course of 10 days, eight [00:59:00] hours a day each day for 10 days. And during that treatment, I get. Really, really deep gu. Mm-hmm. And, and I also get extremely deep, um, fascial massage and, uh, I mean, so deep that you, you wanna just scream, you know, to really get the, to breakup the, the, the, the congestion and toxins in the fascia.

Mm-hmm. But then that’s followed with full body MOA therapy to help clear out the release toxins that get dumped into the lymphatic system. So, moa. Um, so there are several points on the body, the chest. Mm-hmm. The abdomen, the, the thighs, and then the, the, um, calves and ankles where they put these mos of boxes.

And each box has about 20 mo of sticks burning in it. Oh. Oh, this is, this sounds like five elements. Acupuncture or something. So the whole idea is after you get this [01:00:00] kind of deep fascia work Mm. You want to clear out the dampness? Mm-hmm. Because that’s really, you know, how the fascia, the fascia is storing all this dampness and so you wanna clear it out.

And so the, the, the, the, um, MOA therapy, and then you’re covered with blankets. So you’re just baking inside of a MOA box for about four hours a day. Wow. And so it’s kind of a, it’s, it’s not for the feeble, but it does work. Yeah. Oh, that’s amazing. I’ve just been on a bit of a fascia kick lately, and there’s so much out there, so it’s just fun to hear what people are doing.

Okay, last question and then I promise I’ll let you get back to your tropics Again, kind of a selfish question. I’m an entrepreneur, I have a business, I have a podcast, I’m getting a PhD, and there’s always the next thing I’m pursuing. I, I think that is a big part of my purpose, is I feel I’m meant to have a big impact in the world, especially in the cancer world, [01:01:00] and shaking up the way conventional cancer treats and supports their patients from this more holistic perspective.

But to that end. I, you’re, you can, you’re such an expander for me because you have grown things with Gaia, with your practice. You have really been so ambitious in a lot of ways, and I imagine there’s days or moments where you either feel misaligned or you’re having a hard time getting clarity. And so part of my question is if and when you’re in a tricky moment.

How do you ground yourself back in when it comes to the direction of your business or the next direction you might wanna go in? Because I imagine, especially for someone who’s achieved as much and probably has as many professional connections as you do, there might be opportunities coming your way left and right, and you have to be really discerning with which ones you choose.

And how do you make some of those decisions? How do you get clarity? Are there practices you use or do or just something that helps you kind of ground into that [01:02:00] clarity and inspiration? Yeah, I, I will, I will summarize it and I’d be happy to talk with you. And I have coached a lot of people about this very point about what do you do when you’re at a junction point?

Yeah. And you, you can choose this and it might make you a lot of money, but if you choose this, it might bring you a lot of happiness. Yeah. And, um. And, and I’ve developed a whole model for developing internal and external identities for cocoa. Mm. And helped a lot of people in their business journey and their life journey, their journey for their purpose in Ikigai, to establish their internal and external identities.

But then I’ve gone further and helped to translate the six principles of naturopathic medicine into six regenerative principles and kind of elaborated on them as principles of leadership and culture. And, um, the bottom line is, is [01:03:00] if you’re at a junction point. And you have to make a decision and it’s not aligned to your values, then move on.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. That’s, that’s the simplest answer. Yeah. You know, I, I, I’ll give you an example. With Gaia, I remember a distinct time where four months and months and months, the team at Gaia wanted to launch a green coffee berry extract. This was at a time where it was popular for weight loss, and we just couldn’t figure out how to do it in the, in the proper, you know, way that I needed to do it in order to, you know, satisfy the way I would make a herbal product.

Mm-hmm. And it went on and every single meeting, it took 10 of us. We tossed this around for hours and hours, and then after about. Four or five months. I said, look, we’re just going to do this one little exercise. And I said, I’m gonna ask you all is green coffee, very extract what we know about it today and what [01:04:00] we know, what, what we can do to make it the way we need to make it as a company?

Is it aligned to our values? Everyone said no. Mm-hmm. 10 people said no after months of trying to toss this around and we never looked back. Yeah. And, and that’s because we stuck to our values. Mm-hmm. Completely. Yeah. Completely. I love that. This is such a random question. Do you, do you know, um, your human design?

Oh yeah, I do. To give me some and I’ll remember what, uh, there’s five generator manifester manifesting generator. Projector and reflector. I’m a projector. Projector. Okay. Interesting. It’s just really, really fascinating because everyone has different energy types. I’m a manifesting generator. Oh wow. Okay.

Everyone has different energy types and so it’s again, like it’s very expansive for me to talk to a successful, established, but also aligned and happy entrepreneur like [01:05:00] yourself and go. Yeah. He found a way to be ambitious and sustainable. And I think especially in American culture, those feel at su such odds with each other.

And I’m trying to build a life and a business and a brand that is ambitious and reciprocal and sustainable and aligned all at once. There is something, uh, and, and again, I’m happy to shoot this over to you offline, that I, I borrowed from the Harvard Business Review long ago. They had a, a published article that, um, uh.

Presented these, this model I just mentioned about developing your internal and external identities, and they use this model with some of the bigger, like, um, the, uh, um, Nike used it, the agency that gives the noble prizes out uses it. And so a [01:06:00] lot of big entities use this model and it, it’s said to give a lot of clarity on how they show up in the world.

Hmm. Me. It, it’s just like, I wouldn’t start a business without going through this exercise. Oh, wow. I love that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I will definitely reach out. Well, for the audience, just I will be all linked in the show notes, but, um, where can they find coura? What, what is the website? What is the Instagram?

What’s the best way to learn more? So the website is cocoa life.com. K-O-K-O-R-A-L-I-F-E life.com. Instagram. We’re on Instagram, Facebook, um, and LinkedIn. And I believe it’s just, uh, cocoa Life, um, or at kco life. And, and, um, and yeah, and our, our website is ever changing, so we will, uh, there’ll be a lot of newness coming on.

Yeah, I know. Like we said, shaken and bacon, so check in regularly, guys. [01:07:00] Well, Ric,, thank you so much. This was fabulous. Yeah. Thank you for bringing out all these beautiful thoughts. I love it.