Aaron Perry
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[Got Healing Adaptogens?] Danielle Ryan Broida, Co-Author of Healing Adaptogens: The Definitive Guide to Using Super Herbs and Mushrooms for Your Body’s Restoration, Defense, and Performance, provides a comprehensive overview of 21 key adaptogenic medicinal herbs and mushrooms in this special podcast episode. In this interview, you’ll hear about the key health and wellness attributes of: Chaga, Eleuthero, Turkey Tail, Turmeric, Goji, Schisandra, Acerola, Ginseng, Cordyceps, Maca, Lion’s Mane, Mucuna, Gotu Kola, Rhodiola, Ashwagandha, Reishi, Tulsi, Cacao, Gynostemma, Moringa, and Astragalus.*
About Healing Adaptogens
This amazing book, co-authored with Four Sigmatic Founder and CEO Tero Isokauppila, provides one of the most concise and accessible resources available to better understand the “defense, performance, and restorative” characteristics* of these twenty-one adaptogens that have been utilized for thousands of years in folk and indigenous cultural traditions world-wide. With antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, digestion-aiding, endurance-enhancing, energy-boosting, neurotropic, neurobiochemistry enhancing, cognitive-boosting, restorative, nutrient-dense, immune-boosting, stress-mitigating, sleep-enhancing, mood-balancing, gut health promoting, beneficial microbiome enhancing, hormonal-balancing, and libido-enhancing effects, these adaptogens are utilize by millions of people world-wide, and are being studied throughout the global scientific community for their myriad benefits on overall impacts on health, wellness, performance, longevity, and quality of life.*
*These statements are of an educational and cultural anthropological nature and have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Moreover, these products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Consult your physician for guidance on the appropriate use of these adaptogens. Although the United States FDA has been in existence for mere decades, humanity’s use of the treasure trove of ethnopharmacological abundance found on planet Earth dates back thousands of years, and, many believe, has been essential to humanity’s health, wellbeing, and evolution since time immemorial. Some people consider the systematic obfuscation of traditional herbal and mycological medicinal knowledge to be a form of cultural genocide, and to be an instrument of economic and political exploitation, not to mention the recent abuses by “Big Pharma” that have come to light through myriad criminal and civil legal proceedings, individual and class-action litigation, and critical investigative journalism.
About Danielle Ryan Broida
Danielle Ryan Broida is the co-author of Healing Adaptogens. She is a Registered Herbalist (AHG – American Herbalists Guild), Certified Holistic Nutritionist, Instructor of Mycology, and National Educator for Four Sigmatic. After receiving her degree in Environmental Studies and Philosophy from Whitman College, she studied Ayurveda in India became a Certified Yoga Instructor on the banks of the Ganges River and opened a private practice specializing in functional mushroom-based treatment for individuals with autoimmune conditions and chronic illness. Danielle has found her calling as an Instructor of Mycology at the Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism, and as Head of Education at Four Sigmatic. She brings her passion and expertise in herbal medicine, clinical practice, teaching, formulation, and her deep love for fungi, to the Everyday Magic® of Four Sigmatic.
Get a 20% discount on orders over $60 at foursigmatic.com using code: YONEARTH, and partial proceeds will be donated to the Y on Earth Community.
Resources
foursigmatic.com (Use code: YONEARTH for 20% discount on orders over $60)
healingadaptogens.com @danielleryanbroida
Podcast Episode 118 – Miguel Gil, CEO, Organic India USA
Podcast Episode 117 – Mike Bronner, President, Dr. Bronner’s, the “Chocolate Episode”
Podcast Episode 116 – David Sandoval, Founder, Purium Organic Superfoods
Podcast Episode 110 – Brigitte Mars, “Cannabis as the Tree of Life”
Podcast Episode 19 – Brigitte Mars, “The Power of Herbal Medicine”
Podcast Episode 05 – Stephanie Syson, Biodynamic Botanicals Herbal Medicine Farm/Garden Tour
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Transcript
(Automatically generated transcript for search engine optimization and reference purposes – grammatical and spelling errors may exist.)
Welcome to the YonEarth Community Podcast.
I’m your host, Aaron William Perry, and today we’re visiting with Danielle Ryan Broida,
the co-author of Healing Adapted Jins, the Definitive Guide to Using Super Irbs and Mushrooms
for Your Body’s Restoration Defense and Performance.
Danielle, it’s so great to visit with you.
How are you today?
Thanks so much for having me.
I’m well.
I’m excited to be here.
I’m excited for a conversation.
I actually think this is going to be one of the most important episodes that we share
with our audience because we’re going to take a dive into the world of adaptogens, herbal
medicine and medicinal mushrooms that you’ve managed to boil down to the top 21 that can
really enhance our health and well-being, and so I’m so excited to dive into the material
with you.
Right on.
Yeah.
They’re so important.
They’re so relevant.
And as we were chatting a little bit before the show, we’re like, we’ve tried so many
times to make this work, and for some reason it’s like this pivotal moment of stress and
weirdness and all these environmental factors that brought us together today to have this
conversation.
And we’re like, oh, there’s actually a purpose to that.
I think that ties in exactly to what we’re trying to tell the audience.
So yeah, it feels like a really fitting, important time to be having this chat.
Yeah, truly.
I agree completely.
Danielle is a registered herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild, a certified holistic
nutritionist, instructor of mycology, and national educator for four-sigmatic.
After receiving her degree in environmental studies and philosophy from Whitman College,
she studied Ayurveda in India, became a certified yoga instructor on the banks of the Ganges
River, and opened a private practice specializing in functional mushroom-based treatment for
individuals with autoimmune conditions and chronic illnesses.
Danielle has found her calling as an instructor of mycology at the Colorado School of Clinical
Herbalism, and as head of education at four-sigmatic.
She brings her passion and expertise in herbal medicine, clinical practice, teaching, formulation,
and her deep love for fungi to the everyday magic of four-sigmatic.
Danielle, yeah, it’s great.
We’ve got a lot to talk about, including, we’ll be talking about the line of products you
guys offer at four-sigmatic.
But before getting to the products, let’s talk about your book.
This healing adaptogens book, in my opinion, is one of the most important resources for
all of us to have on hand, and the reason I say this, I’ve looked at a lot of different
herbal medicine and medicinal mushroom books over the years, and many of them are so
chock full of information, largely scientific and specialized information, that for the
regular kind of day-to-day lay person to have quick access to information that helps
us understand what we can do in our own lives, is actually kind of difficult, I think,
to sift out of a lot of these resources out there, and your book, on the other hand,
boils it down so beautifully and so excessively and so concisely, and I’m flashing it on screen
here for the audience who are looking at the video.
So I just, I want to kick off talking about the books, and note that you co-authored
this book with Taro, as a copella, and who is the founder of four-sigmatic.
We’ll talk a little about his background a little later on, but just let me ask first,
what was it that compelled you to put this book together, knowing that there are so many
other resources similar already out there on the market?
Yeah, it’s a really good question.
What I found, and similar to what you mentioned, is there’s these really awesome, more medical
herbalism-focused textbooks on adaptogens that are thick and they’re rich, they’re denser
full of awesome information, but unless you have a background of a practitioner of some
sorts or an herbalist, it’s really challenging to find that user-friendly aspect to it.
I’m like, okay, well, now what?
Where do I actually source this and what kind of dosing do I need and what kind of thing
should I be looking out for in the marketplace and just really kind of that bridge between
understanding the information or maybe even having a little bit more difficult time understanding
it because it’s a lot of that deep science and research that’s not familiar to a lot of
common people who really need the benefits of what these can offer, or I started finding
that as adaptogens were really exploding in popularity, we saw, you know, a few years
ago, Oshwaganda surpassed Greenjuices in Google Search, which is crazy.
Oshwaganda is very hard to spell, you know, and it’s like, Oshwaganda, Hindi, Ayurvedic
Roots, and yet Greenjuice, and we were like, okay, there’s a need for this because it’s
becoming relevant in the public eye.
You know, I recently saw Dove did a line of adaptogen body soaps and different men’s products
using adaptogens.
I mean, they’re really starting to pop up in unexpected places.
And it was like, we have these great herbal textbooks, but not something that recent.
There are a couple decades old as well, or there’s tons of information on the internet
that a lot of it, frankly, was inaccurate, or not backed by research.
And so I’m like, okay, there’s got to be some middle ground, you know, for someone that
really loves the research and wants to dive in and wants to know what clinical trials
are out there, but also wants to just start using this and say, hey, you know, I’ve never
used Moringa before.
What are the things to look out for?
How do I, you know, source this appropriately and use it so I experience benefits?
And that benefits thing is, I guess, the third piece that I’ll mention.
So the book is meant to be a bridge between, you know, all the information out there and
that middle ground.
That’s what we say.
It’s definitive, but it’s also this really accessible guide trying to cover both grounds
there.
But the benefit piece was also what really drove me and motivated me through the process
of writing because with the hype and with kind of the explosion of adaptogens in the
marketplace, there’s a lot of mislabeling.
There’s a lot of people buying adaptogens in the wrong amounts or the wrong forms.
This is like a huge problem in the functional mushroom arena.
And so people would come to me, especially in private practice and, you know, through
college, full of clinical herbalism, where I teach my young aspiring herbalist and
they’re like, yeah, I tried that or someone else tried it and one of my clients have tried
it.
It didn’t work.
I’m like, all right.
Let’s dig into that.
Why didn’t it work?
You know, were you actually buying what you thought you were buying?
Were you getting the right amount?
Was it extracted properly?
Was it coming from the right country of origin and all of these things to ensure that essentially
the supplements were buying are viable?
And I like to remind us like the most expensive supplements we buy are the ones that don’t
work.
And so how do we avoid that happening?
One to save us time and money and resources, but also to help maintain the reputation
and the value of these incredible ingredients because it just breaks my heart when people
are like, yeah, I tried Chaga and I didn’t do anything.
You know, I don’t believe in that.
Michael, let’s make sure you are getting what you wanted to get because these are incredible.
But there’s certain things that you’ve got to check off the list to make sure that you
can actually reap what these are capable of offering us.
It’s really interesting in that point about trying something in it, not necessarily working
right away.
Obviously, it can be caused by a number of different factors as you just elucidated.
This reminds me of a conversation I was having with my mom just yesterday where she’ll
often recommend she does a daily golden milk with turmeric and it’s a huge, a huge game
changer for her and she’ll often recommend this to some of her other friends and colleagues
in that older age bracket and it struck it off the air to really address and reset
and to have the right conditions for those benefits to be sustained on a going forward
basis.
And so, yeah, I imagine not only is this a matter of quality and dosing but also giving
the supplements and our bodies enough time to have those changes kind of take hold,
yeah?
Huge.
I mean, I like to say adaptions are an appeal for an L. Same with many of our herbal
medicines, right?
You’ve got to be consistent and know that you’re going to do something for several weeks
or several months to experience the outcomes, you know, for years to come and we’re in
a society where we’re kind of obsessed with like short-term wins and so how do we, is
this balance?
You have to make sure something works but also something working might not mean you feel
it in 15 minutes.
With some of these adaptions, that’s actually the case, like cordicets is an awesome example
if people like don’t believe in the benefits of them, all right, try this high potency cordicets
fruiting body extracts 1,500 milligrams, like let’s see, you’ll feel it.
But predominantly, as a group, you’ve got to be patient and know that they’re much more
subtle and they replenishing a lot of nutrients in our body that have been depleted and we’ve
been chronically depleted in, I think, the first and foremost because of how stressed we
are.
You know, stress takes a huge toll on our body, not only energetically, right?
Of course, you know, resources are reallocated to like the survival mechanisms of our body,
but on a physiological level as well, being stressed pulls nutrients from our bodies.
Like, we use a lot more vitamin C when we’re stressed, we’re running through our reservoirs,
our banks of resources and what’s so unique about these 21 adaptions is there’s some
of the most nutrient dense foods that we have on the planet.
So I really look at them like we’re punishing and restoring these reservoirs in our systems
so that when the stress commas, which is inevitable, we are like watering our roots, you know,
we’re really, we’re fertilizing our roots so that we have this strong foundation to draw
from so that when the stressors do occur, you know, which are, which are always going
to happen, we’re not so far pushed off of our center, which then takes, you know, many
weeks of not months to to get back to a state of equilibrium, we can become more resilient,
we can move them like thinking of Tai Chi, you know, we can like shift and move and still be
in a place of balance because we’ve done this long term healing work, you know, we’ve,
we’ve been drinking, been drinking the herbs or the mushrooms for days for weeks and we have
that foundation. Well, yeah, it’s interesting and one of the things that jump right out at me
with the book is the way that you’ve organized the information and the, uh, really, uh,
recommendations according to three major categories, defend, perform and restore. And I should,
I should note this, this is, uh, non-tended to diagnose, treat or cure any illnesses, right?
And we got to put out all the disclaimers here as we’re having this conversation and I may even
put a little language in the show notes, but, um, nonetheless, you’ve, you’ve organized the 21
adaptogens according to these three major categories of defend, perform and restore. And so,
could you just walk us through what each of those means and, uh, help us kind of develop that
same framework that you’ve got in your book? Yeah, let’s think about it in terms of stress,
which I think they’re like simple like, there’s, uh, before the stress occurs, it’s like, how can
we prepare ourselves? This is another word for defend, uh, to prepare ourselves before the,
the inevitable thing comes our way. So, let’s do that pre-work. It’s almost the, um,
there’s this really quirky thing that my friend, Danika, says, she’s like, let’s, uh, pre-charge so
we don’t have to recharge. So, the defend adaptions can be thought about in that way. It’s pre-charge
and a lot of them focus on immunity gut health, which of course are interrelatable, 70% of our
immunity lives within our gut. So, really that’s the sound age in. And then of course,
skin beauty is part of that as well, which when we think of it internally is really related to our
detoxification systems and our, um, our liver health. So, I think of those as kind of the foundations,
how can we set ourselves up to have, uh, really strong gut health immunity, liver, um,
processes working actively. And then from there, you know, okay, a stressor does perform,
or a stressor does occur. The next brings us to report, which is how do we, how do we show up
acutely in the face of these stressors? And so, I’ve kind of broken this into two categories where
we have like brain and body. So, a lot of times, you know, we have to stare at a computer all day,
even if we’re being, we’re really stressed and being yelled at all day or whatever the
programming is coming at us in some direction. Uh, so these more neutropic cognitive supporting
adaptogens or the physical energy and endurance adaptogens. So, um, when the stress comes and we are
wanting to be totally bedded out and depleted, how do we actually give our bodies the resources
to show up and have the energy we need to combat that acute physical stress? And then of course,
just like in a exercise regimen, this third phase is the, the restore. So, once that stressor
has passed, how do we support our systems to replenish? And this is really actually where I
recommend most people start, because a lot of us have already been through all these stressors
and we’re needing to really begin in this restoration phase. These are also our most gentle adaptogens.
They’re really targeting, well, all of them target stress. These are particularly helpful at
the stress, the mood benefits, as well as sleep, which is, which is so relevant. And, you know,
it kind of, some of them more general well-being, those that don’t have this one specific benefit,
which none of them do. They’re adaptogens. That’s what makes them adaptogens is they’re
non-specific by nature. And yet, I think another thing that’s relevant here when categorizing
is always trying to meet people where they’re at. So, well, you know, let’s say I talk about
Chaga in the defend category because of its antioxidant profile, amazing for skin health and
immunity and digestion. And yet, it does so many other things as well. And that’s part of the
beauty and the magic of these ingredients. But this categorization, this like three tiered system
is a way to gently start to think about them either in, you know, by different times of day,
or to support the cycles of stress. But take it loosely, you know, I think continue to be
open-minded and potentially even like, expect surprises when you start using adaptogens.
Right. It’s not like, okay, I’m going to take this cortisapse adaption because I need that
immediate performance and I need that quick energy today. Well, you might also notice that,
you know, you don’t get sick whenever an else in your community gets sick in a few weeks or
maybe your stress response has been reduced and you’re sleeping better, right? There’s these
secondary benefits that come from all of them. So, the categorization is loose. It’s like not
hard doors boxing them in, but more of a way to start to think about them in different segments
based on supporting the phases of stress. Yeah, that’s great. And one of the other attributes
that you discuss for many of these adaptogens is effects on the libido, which of course might be
of interest to some of our audience. And I’m curious, does that fall into the defend
performer’s store categories neatly or is that just sort of another dimension of
attribute or effect that you’re seeing with these 21 adaptogens?
Yeah, great questions. So, when we think about how stress is taking a toll on our body,
libido is our libido is often suppressed when we’re in a state of stress, along with many other
systems in our body. Like when an acute stressor occurs, we have to think about how we evolutionarily
evolve to respond to the stressor. And in that moment, when a, you know,
saber-shoothed tiger is coming to attack us, the body concentrates its energy into
immediate survival needs, right? So, your body’s not telling you when you’re either going to
fight that tiger or run for your life, it’s not going to tell you whether you’re hungry or thirsty
or tired or horny, right? All of these things that are fundamental to being a human being,
but not necessary for that acute state of survival. And so, resources, you know, we only have so
many resources, those are pooled. And what has happened today is although it’s not a tiger coming
to attack us, our body responds in a similar way. And it’s not only once, every couple of months,
it’s actually often, once an hour, you know, it’s not more often. And so, when people, especially
in private practice come to me and they’re like, hey, you know, my sex drive is really low,
I have no libido. And I start talking to them about their stress. They’re like,
they almost get frustrated. They’re like, why are you talking about my stress? I want to talk
about my libido. Like, give me a quick fix. But if we want that long-term rejuvenation, that vitality
back into the body, right, to have oxygen in the bloodstream and to circulate blood appropriately,
and to have those feelings, like, we need to make sure that the stressor is removed. I give
the metaphor in the book, like, if someone is pushing on a certain part of your body,
that’s the only thing you’re going to think about. And that’s where all your attention goes,
and when that pin or that pressure point gets removed, the energy can start flowing into the
rest of the body again. And so, this is the approach with adaptogens in libido. Although, some are
more directly, you know, have this direct tie, things like mocha and cordiceps. But in general,
when we support our stress response, and we remove, it’s like a river, and we remove these
blockages, the body can start to move energy in all of these other systems in the organs of the body.
And, oops, where’d you go? And the libido can come back naturally for the long-term, right? Not just
not just to take a quick pill that might help you for that moment, but actually, you know,
a healthy libido for weeks and years.
Yeah, that’s so wonderful, you know, and I’m actually right now. I’m enjoying a beverage,
and this is not an IPA, although it looks like it could be a seem to be one. This is actually one
of the four sigmatic products, a defend plant-based protein shake with a variety of mushrooms and
adaptogens, vanilla flavor, and it’s delicious. So, I just want to bring that into the discussion,
and when I wrote the book YonEarth a number of years ago, I wrote a chapter called
Change, which is about our opportunities for changing, changing our own habits, changing our
own health and well-being, and our personalized well-also working for positive change in our
communities and in our broader world. And in that discussion, there’s this notion of
picking up and putting down, right? Like, as we’re picking up better habits for ourselves, often
that also means we need to and or have an opportunity to put down some of the other habits that
perhaps aren’t serving us as well. And I’ll take this opportunity to mention that for me,
one of the things that had to happen over the last several years was no longer drinking alcohol,
and I noticed, you know, right in the introduction of the book here, and I’m going to quote you,
there’s something, speaking right to this, it says the most common unifying experience in modern
life is stress, and it’s taking a serious toll on our health. To cope, it’s easy to rely on hyper-palitable
food, alcohol, and pharmaceuticals, yet we are not getting better. And more over the tools we
are using to cope are keeping our mental and physical energy low, prohibiting us from sleeping
well and causing us to perform at only the level of merely scraping by. And we’re going to go
through each of the 21 adaptogens in super brief form here so that the audience can get a sense
in a flavor, a taste, so to speak, of each of them. But before we get into those, I just want to
speak for a moment about these other things that so many of us are turning to and are perhaps
an unhealthy balance or relationship within our lives. Like I was with alcohol a number of years ago,
and I’m curious, when you’re speaking with folks, whether it’s in a formal setting or not,
how often does it come up before or while you’re also recommending certain adaptogens that folks
are, you know, taking a good look at some of the other things they might do less of?
It’s an integral part of the conversation. Adaptions are not a magic pill. They’re
pretty close, you know, for to stick a plan, you’re like, what’s the most phytocomal complex and
something that’s really going to support us in a short and long term, but they’re not a
magic pill. None of this is a magic pill. And so we have to look at the other practices and
the other things we’re doing in our lifestyle. I mean, first and foremost is what are we nourishing
ourselves with? And that’s in the form of liquids and in food. And if you’re eating a really unhealthy
diet and drinking a bunch of alcohol or having processed foods every day, the adaptions,
yeah, might help a little bit, but the kind of compounding benefits that you have when we start
to look at our health holistically is so much greater. And so I just did a series. I did like a live
radio show with this host and we did on air as his herbalist. I’m like, okay, we’re going to walk
through this and he was so excited to see it just read the book and he’s like, it won all these
adaptogens. And they didn’t offer him adaptogens in that full first session until like a couple
weeks in. And it was like really looking at exercise and the water he was drinking and what’s
what sorts of foods were nourishing him. And these other aspects to what what makes us
human and the practices that were involved with. And so yeah, we have to bring them on board.
And I don’t blame anyone, you know, first and foremost. It’s like we do have to meet ourselves
where we’re at. So when we have these crazy demands being parents or working multiple jobs or
even working a job and being a parent or being a spouse or having farm work or having an herbal
practice, you know, we’re juggling a lot. Like we’re all doing many, many things. We were talking
earlier. I don’t know if we just have more energy or if we know the world needs these skills,
but there’s a lot on all of our plates. And it can be overwhelming and exhausting. And so I don’t
blame, you know, anyone for saying like, okay, I just need a glass of wine or I just need whatever
this thing is that they’re turning to, but I encourage. And we know what I’m trying to do with
with this book and conversations like this is like, what if there’s another way? Because right now,
we don’t really, we’re not told there’s other ways. We’re just like, this is the most available
thing or this is the easiest thing or the quickest fix. But what if there’s another way that actually
got you to where you want it to be temporarily and could help you get and achieve your goals
more easily, you know, next month or next year. And so just at least trying on that possibility
is really exciting. It’s like, wait, what do you mean? There’s another way to unwind besides
alcohol. It’s like, yeah, we’re seeing this amazing rise of like non-alcoholic beverages with
herbs. It’s the same thing. I think of when people in my practice would come to me and they’re like,
yeah, I’m using cannabis for digestion or headaches or sleep. And I’m like, what if I told you
there was at least a dozen other herbs that would maybe do the same thing, but be more relevant
for your specific body and symptoms. I’m like, what do you mean? The weed isn’t the only way.
And I’m like, no, let’s create this squalcat passion flower hops beautiful combination tea for
sleep. And then when you wake up, we can add these adaptions. There’s so many other ways that
we’re just, they’re not really available to us in the same way as the quick fixes. And so,
yeah, it’s really about slowly, slowly breaking that cycle. And it’s almost like humor as how
easy it becomes when you take that first mental step to like, okay, I’m going to try something
else. I’m going to change something. It’s like, I always recommend adding before subtracting.
So rather than like looking at your whole life and like, oh my god, I got to cut out alcohol and
dairy and gluten and I have to get off all my medication. Like, no, no, no, that’s not what it is.
Let’s start thinking of what healthy habit can you add, you know, and really build into your daily
life. Maybe that’s, you know, a timeout. Maybe that’s breathing for a minute without a screen.
Maybe that’s adding a case of blueberries into your week every week. Maybe it’s putting some
trace minerals in your water. It’s simple things and you motivate yourself, you know, these little
things we start feeling like even 2% better and it gives us the confidence to do the next thing and
the next thing. And adaptions I find are an easy first thing to do, especially if it’s stacked onto
a habit that you already do. So this is, you know, what we do with ForSigmatic, we look at, okay,
what routines do people already have every day? What are they doing that they’re not getting rid of,
you know, drinking coffee, having a protein smoothie and we add these really potent adaption
extracts into these daily habits so that without even really doing anything different, you start
to feel those benefits subtly and it’s that little shift that encourages you to do the next thing
and the next thing. And like all of that accumulates and adds up and it’s exciting, you know,
before you know, you’re like, wait, and what did I even do? But my body’s not really craving that
that wine anymore or I don’t really want that like really sugary treat. It doesn’t sound great,
you know, I know that it’s going to make me feel like crap in an hour. So yeah, I guess all
that to say, you know, holistic looking at all parts of your life, your diet is so, so relevant
and meeting yourself where you’re at, adding before subtracting and just starting slow and knowing
that like every little percent of change is building to that future of a life really full of
vitality that I think all of us are searching for. Absolutely. Yeah, it’s wonderful. You know,
one of the ways I like thinking about how some of these craving responses show up is that,
you know, a lot of this, as you know, comes from our gut microbiota, biome, and we’re literally each one of us, every single one of us is a farmer, whether
we know it or not, and we are farming this huge colony of a variety of microorganisms in
our digestive system.
And when we’re growing the ones say that really like sugar because we’re eating a lot of sugar,
well, they’re going to send signals to have us crave more sugar, possibly several times
a day, right?
And as we make those switches, that population will actually decrease in number.
And so they won’t be putting out those signals quite as strongly, and eventually those signals
won’t show up at all anymore.
And so yeah, it’s fun to think about it, right?
Like we’re farming our own colony of billions and trillions of organisms.
I love that metaphor.
I’ve never thought of it in that way, but it’s so true.
And with every bite of food, we can think, who am I feeding?
Because we have all of these bacteria.
We have fungi.
I mean, we have more different organisms within our microbiome than we do human cells in our
body, right?
We are made of what’s happening in our gut.
Now we’re realizing our mood is dependent on our gut health and our immunity and all
of these other parts of being a human.
And so we can say, yeah, who do I want to feed more of?
And it reminds me of like in psychology, different thought patterns, where my fiancee
works in mental health and as a physician.
So in like the Western sense of the word, but he, we talk about, you know, what thoughts
are you, are you feeding and what thoughts are you exercising?
And really the more we think about something, the more those neural pathways are connected
and stronger.
And when we divert our attention or start thinking about something else, those neural
pathways get stronger.
Same thing in our gut, right?
Like who are we feeding?
Good guys, bad guys.
And that can be so empowering too, like, oh, it’s all, well, there’s all these different
connections that get sent in.
But it’s like our dollar too.
I think about this all the time, like, how can I make a difference environmentally?
And I’m like, you vote with your dollar every single day.
That is your investment in the future of that farmer or in the future of the Walmart
or whoever it is you’re investing in, you are saying here, I support what you’re doing
and I believe in your future.
Here’s my dollar, right?
And so same thing with our gut, okay, I want more of you to thrive, okay, so I’m going
to feed those that crave sugar or I’m going to feed those that crave kale, right?
And how powerful to kind of distill it to that simple of like, yeah, what am I feeding?
Looking at our plate.
Absolutely, yeah, I’d love that you mentioned the power we have with our purchasing decisions
and in why on earth there’s actually a chapter called demand that speaks to this, I call
it a Jedi superpower, each one of us is wielding every day where we’re putting hundreds
of signals into the marketplace every day.
When we go to order a single meal out of restaurant, for example, that meal is comprised
of dozens of ingredients, right?
And so depending on the type of restaurant we’re choosing to dine at, those are all signals
going to the marketplace and of course the foods that we choose to purchase to consume
at home.
Same thing.
It’s really, really powerful, it’s absolutely shaping not only the economic landscape
and who’s thriving financially and who isn’t, but that is a major feedback into our political
landscape as we, I think, know.
So there are all of these systemic relationships in the macro, kind of political economy world
with these specific choices reach making every day, that in a way mirrors, I think a lot
of the complex interconnectivity we find within our own bodies when we’re looking at these
systems and understanding these interrelationships.
Totally.
Love these, yeah, mirrors, what’s happening inside, what’s happening outside and yeah, it’s
exciting, it empowers us to think about it in this way.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I wanted to pick up on this thread of water.
You mentioned it, you know, we can add more trace minerals in our water.
And I find that, you know, probably there’s a whole lot of us who simply ought to drink
more water than we’re currently drinking in any given day.
And that’s really important to consider.
And I think that there’s a major question right now around water quality, what’s in the
water, what’s imprinted in the water.
And I’m really curious what you tell folks when they’re asking about water, where to
get water, how to work with water, depending on the sources available to them.
So, so, so, so important in conversation.
Yeah, it’s not even about drinking more water, it’s how do we drink better water, you
know, it’s like more is better, better is better.
And water is so water is life, right, this is vital to to every cell in our body.
And so often, especially in higher elevation zones, you know, you’re in Colorado, people
are, are dehydrated.
But a lot of us are just dehydrated and that’s, you know, and we think about inflammation,
which is at the root of so many diseases, especially the most common diseases people
are dealing with.
It’s an internal state of heat, right, we think of inflammation, it’s hot and it’s dry.
And so how do we replenish ourselves with water, but what what I found is a lot of people
are drinking, drinking, drinking water, and they’re not actually hydrating themselves.
Why is this?
Our water is void of the minerals, the trace minerals that were always involved, that were
always a part of water when we would drink spring water.
And not to get too political or conspiracy, but our springs have been purchased by big
companies.
And so we don’t, many of us don’t drink spring water.
Instead, we’re drinking water that’s coming out of our tap.
And what happens with that water, especially in this country, is it’s been treated, right,
to kill different pathogens and bacteria in the water.
And I think of that almost like, our water is getting a dose of antibiotics, you know,
it’s like, okay, we got to kill all the bad guys.
And in response, that’s exactly what it’s doing, so it’s clean.
And yet, it’s killing all the microbiome in our body as well.
And it’s void of the minerals that we need.
So yeah, essentially, you know, filtering our water is so important, but what happens,
you know, I have a burky filter I’m looking at, which has these great, great option charcoal
filters and then a fluoride filter.
But then what happens is we’re left with what I call empty water, you know, so it’s so
clean, it’s been stripped of minerals.
And so we could drink, drink, drink, but we’re not actually, you know, we need the salts
and the other minerals for our cells to actually utilize the water.
So there’s a couple options, you know, if you’re totally, you know, you have a classic filter.
I often tell people to start with adding some lemon and like a high quality Himalayan salt
to their water.
What I put in the bottom of my burky system are a type of rock, they’re called miphon stones.
And they’re really porous and they actually leach a lot of minerals from the stone back
into the water.
You can get really heavy and I put a bunch of crystals in there as well, you know, in
re-program the water.
So that’s a great option.
There’s an amazing company called Trace Minerals that you can actually drop, they get their
trace minerals from Utah and it’s this concentrate of many of the minerals that are, should be
in our water that are devoid of it today and you can drop that into your filtered water
afterwards.
Or if you can have access to spring water, you know, there’s a great website called
Find a Spring and you can try to find springs near you.
Of course, be careful, know what’s around, if so many environmental issues to be aware
of who’s dumping things into the, into the ground and who’s upstream.
But yeah, there’s so much healing that can happen if we just shift the water that we’re
drinking by, you know, really starting to re-mineralize, I think is the biggest thing
that people aren’t talking about.
Yeah, it’s so important.
Yeah, by the way, I think sometime in the near term, we’re going to have a podcast interview
with my friend Pratchett, Pratchett Gressgoan, who has a water mineral company sourcing some
very special minerals from different volcanic sources around the world.
And so that’ll, that’ll be of great interest, I think.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, our food used to have so many of these minerals as well.
I talk about this a bit in healing adaptogens, but it’s like, not only are we so stressed
and more stressed than ever before, the tools that we have to deal with that, that stress
are less, you know, the foods that we’re eating.
They don’t contain the minerals, the vitamins, the, the phyto compounds that we need.
And of course, all of these used to be so present in our soil.
And now because of monocultures and pesticides and herbicides, all the sides and what
we’ve done to our agricultural system, even foods that used to be rich in these key minerals,
they’re not rich in them anymore because they’re not present in our soil.
And so, yeah, replenishing through our waters is profound, truly.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, that’s so important.
Let me, let me remind our audience that this is the YonEarth Community podcast.
I’m your host, Aaron William Perry.
And today we’re visiting with Danielle Ryan Breuda, the co-author of Healing Adaptogens,
the definitive guide to using super herbs and mushrooms for your body’s restoration,
defense, and performance.
You can find more information about the book at healingadaptogens.com.
You can also get right to Danielle’s website, which is Danielle Ryan Wellness.com.
And we’ve been talking about ForSigmatic, the company you can go to ForSigmatic.com.
However, let me point out that when you go there, use the code YonEarth to get 20% off
any order over $60.
And we will also have a link for ForSigmatic on our partners and supporters page, which
is YonEarth.org slash partners and supporters.
Speaking of those partners and supporters, I want to give a shout out to a few special
ones.
This includes WayLayWaters, WayLayWaters.com.
Our friends at Purim and Patagonia.
And if you’d like to join the monthly program, you can go to WhyOn earth.org slash support.
Line up at any level.
If you sign up at the $33 or greater level, we’ll send you a jar or more than one depending
on your donation of the hemp infused, regeneratively and organically grown hemp infused aromatherapy
soaking salts from WayLayWaters.
Also, please like, follow, and subscribe to the podcast series on YouTube and all the
other audio channels, Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, etc.
And track us down on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn and do the same as well.
That helps a lot.
We are already covering so much, Danielle, and I want to be sure that we have a chance
to go through the 21 Adoptogens that you recommend.
The book is so well written and at the end of the book, there’s even a mini quiz that
can help you as a reader assess your knowledge, absorption from the book.
There’s also a top 10 commandments of starting a life on Adoptogens and a guide to shopping
that helps you understand what you’re really getting when you’re spending your heart and
dollars on these Adoptogens that ranges from the form to dose, the purity, the bioavailability
and the sustainability of those products.
So we’ve got 21 here to talk about and let’s just go and order if that’s you, Danielle,
shall we?
Yeah, let’s do it.
Okay.
So we’ve got Chaga.
Tell us about Chaga.
Chaga is the most antioxidant rich food on the planet.
It is incredible.
I mean, when we think about why antioxidants are important, they’re fighting for radicals,
which are released when we age, when we exercise and we’re exposed to sun, when we travel.
So really fueling our system, Chaga is like your body is like your internal bodyguard.
You know, I think about Chaga.
It’s like a bunch of people are sick around you, coughing around you.
If your system is strong and supported, it’s also anti-viral and anti-inflammatory.
It contains super oxydisneutase.
It contains melanin, just like a really powerful functional fungi that is kind of like your
immunity’s best friend, your internal bodyguard, like know that when you have Chaga on board,
you’re like your own defense system.
You’ve got, I think of Chaga as like a shield for protecting the body.
That’s great.
That’s wonderful.
Okay.
How about a loose row?
Yeah.
A loose row is also known as Siberian Jinsing.
So it’s not actually part of the Jinsing family, but it’s an incredible, adaptogenic root
that we often think of for not only immunity, but for energy and endurance.
So it’s a little more gentle than the classic Jinsing, but if you need more of kind of an
acute boost, both cognitively immune system, a loose row is a great option to turn to.
As a T, you want to boil it if you’re using a T or as an extract, some good T-shirt.
Okay.
Great.
Thanks.
That’s good.
Yes.
So how about turkey tail?
Oh, such an amazing mushroom.
Abundant all across the world and most forested ecosystems.
You can find turkey tail, unique to turkey tail.
It contains prebiotics, so when we talk about gut health, right?
Not only the food we’re eating is feeding all the microbiomes in there, but we also mean
prebiotics to feed the probiotics that we know are so essential.
Turkey tail is incredible for the immune system, the only and first mushroom-based anti-cancer
drug in Japan called Crestin actually comes from a compound found in turkey tail.
So amazing kind of preventative and long-term immune support via these amazing compounds
that are working with in our gut.
That’s wonderful.
And one of my favorites, turmeric.
Tumeric, I mean, probably the most used adaption of all.
We know how important turmeric it is.
So potently anti-inflammatory, that deep orange color, when we think about the hues in
our plants and our foods that we’re consuming, that is a key sign of the phytocompounds
in it that are beneficial for our body.
So for so many different things in the book, I specifically highlight turmeric for its
kind of beauty and skin benefits, but again, this is all coming from the inside out.
So while you can use turmeric, topically, think of it as anti-inflammatory supporting the
liver and so many other of our internal organs to kind of fuel and replenish and reduce
inflammation, which is foundational to so many other diseases that many of us are experiencing.
Absolutely.
And what’s the thing about working with black pepper together with the turmeric?
Yeah.
In the book, I have a best friend’s category.
So essentially, these are ingredients that you should use in combination with the key
adaption.
And it’s like one plus one isn’t two.
You know, one plus one is like a hundred.
So there’s this amazing synergy that happens.
And formulation is so important.
But if you are going to be using turmeric, black pepper actually activates the curcumin,
which is the key anti-inflammatory property in the turmeric root.
So it becomes like two thousand times more effective.
I mean, it’s crazy when we add black pepper.
So it doesn’t have to be a ton.
You know, if you have a golden milk tea or something, you’ve got a few cracks of black
pepper.
And a lot of high quality supplements will have that black pepper added in already to enhance
and make sure you’re getting the most out of your supplement.
Cool.
Right.
Now we’re going to talk about one that I’ll have to confess has become a go-to substitute
for gummy bears.
I love gummy bears.
And I still do enjoy an organic gummy bear on occasion, but not nearly with the frequency
I used to.
One of my go-to’s that’s kind of like a gummy bear is the goji berry.
Oh.
And of course, go-jee is one of your 21 recommended adaptions.
Can you tell us about go-jee?
Yeah, go-jee is such a super fruit.
So easy.
You know, a lot of these are like weird roots and mushrooms.
You have to extract them.
Go-jee is probably the easiest adaption to just grab a handful of, throw into anything.
So incredibly rich and a range of different vitamins, you know, vitamin C.
So just add go-jee into anything.
I mean, a great for libido endurance, really like that lift and energy and can be consumed,
you know, all your long, they dry really easily and just snack on them.
I do.
It’s lovely.
Love it.
How about shesandra?
This is such an interesting adaption.
It’s called a five-slavery berry.
If you don’t think of, you know, if you have a go-jee first and then have a shesandra,
be prepared to be surprised.
It has all five flavors that build as you’re tasting that, and I really believe in tasting
our medicine.
There’s something really important about that and it signals the other processes in the
body when we start, you know, by using the medicine in our mouth.
But shesandra is wonderful for so many things.
I mean, beauty.
Again, all of our berries can be put in this beauty category when we think of like skin
and liver health.
We think of all these vitamins and minerals.
But beyond that, shesandra is a really powerful, like, energetic lift.
I find a lot of people that are, like, new parents are craving shesandra, right, giving
them that kind of endurance and that extra kick of energy to make it through the day without
having an extra stimulant where they then feel depleted later.
So kind of this combination of helping to tackle the stressors of the day as well as kind
of giving us that extra endurance to keep going.
Cool.
Yeah.
So helpful.
So helpful.
How about acerola?
So this is actually a cherry.
And it’s one of the richest foods in vitamin C. So just to, like, give us an idea, it contains
like up to 100 times the amount of vitamin C as things like oranges, which we often
tout for their high vitamin C content.
And again, I mentioned this earlier, but when we’re stressed, we use a lot more vitamin
C in our body.
So all of these umbrella categories are helping with that stress.
But particularly, so many of us in, you know, it’s changed a season right now, we’re moving
into the winter.
We talk about vitamin C for fall, the ascorbic acid, which is more of this form that a lot
of people are using.
This is kind of synthetic version of vitamin C. It can actually be more detrimental than
beneficial to us.
So I really recommend if you are going to be using vitamin C for its immune benefits or
stress benefits, you know, we don’t talk about that as much as we should, using acerola
instead, right?
So really using, it’s like the whole form of the vitamin, or even using it in combination.
So it’s like if you’re taking vitamin C, take a whole food that contains that as well.
And your body recognizes how to process it and use it a lot more efficiently.
So same thing.
And then of course, just because of the sheer range of phytochemicals in here, it’s like
a amazing longevity berry, really amazing kind of anti-aging benefits and long-term health
support.
That’s great.
Well, and ginseng.
Probably the most famous, I don’t know, if people think of adaptions.
And one that I actually put kind of like feel a little weary about using ginseng, I recommend
it really can give you a kick, ginseng is strong.
But I think of like old, you know, traditional TCM practitioners using ginseng when people
are really like on their last straw, like totally worn out, and they need that like wake
up with a cheat, you know, like kick the vital force into being.
So unless, you know, for an older aged audience, I recommend ginseng, it can kind of help
re-invigorate libido, it can have kind of cognitive benefits as well.
But it’s powerful.
And one thing I’ll say with ginseng is like, if you want to try it and feel, I feel really
good taking ginseng for a little bit, know that it’s not the rest of your systems, like
we talked about holistically before, the rest of your symptoms aren’t going away when
you have ginseng, ginseng might just kind of for me, help you forget that you are really
tired or you are really deficient in other things because it is strong and you feel vital
and alive and energized, but yeah, it really is one of the few adaptions that’s kind of
specific to an older audience and when you’re like totally strung out, then reach for ginseng
to kind of turn back on your fire.
Interesting.
That’s really interesting.
Okay.
And then we’ve got cordyceps.
One of my favorite species of all time.
I’m sure originally from the High Himalayas, so grows about 14,000 feet in elevation.
Think of it.
Where these ingredients come from can actually give us a lot of information about what they
do for our bodies.
So cordyceps is amazing for lung health, for libido, for energy, for endurance.
And again, without having any stimulation, cordyceps can really give you that kind of quick
boost, that quick lift.
And secondary benefits, so a lot of people think of it as the athlete mushroom or energy
mushroom, but beyond that, it’s the first functional mushroom that was classified as an adaptogen.
So it does have these amazing benefits to the HPA access and our bodies ability to deal
with stress and this affinity towards the lungs.
And so I’m like if there’s any one of the, I mean, they’re also relevant, but especially
for the past couple of years, it’s like we want energy, we want long-term immune health,
we want to combat our stress, we want greater ability, it increases VO2 max, so we have more
ability to breathe and have these respiratory benefits, I mean, cordyceps is like a total
all-hitter.
Wonderful.
Okay.
This brings us to Maka.
Oh, Maka.
Yeah, I have to mention Maka is the highest elevation crop in the world.
And so important, I talk about this in the shopping guide section, but where you’re
getting your adaptogens.
And so Maka is a great example, it’s this phenomenon called Xenohormaceae.
So where ingredients are growing out in the wild, they develop compounds to basically
be able to survive and thrive amongst the environmental conditions.
So a high elevation crop, you’re exposed to a lot of stressors.
And so in response, the plant itself will develop whether it’s different amino acids
or these nanonutrients, and so that’s what gives us a lot of the adaptogenic benefits when
we consume these from their native lands.
So Maka is kind of often touted with its hormonal benefits, so a lot of times for women, but
really has a great association with libido, of course, part of that.
We can’t talk about libido without energy and stress being part of the picture.
So again, whether you’re starting to take Maka for a lift in energy, and then you notice
your libido increases, or you start taking it to reduce stress, and you notice that your
libido increases know that they’re all kind of part of the same branch, and it’s just
what stage you’re starting with and what’s filling those aspects of your body first.
That’s so interesting.
Okay, this one I had last night with my dinner, Lyons, Maine.
You eat it?
Cooked it up?
Yeah.
Yeah, some of these functional foods and adaptions also can be culinary.
Lyons, Maine, is so great.
Know that it’s different, you know, and it’s medicinal properties and strength when
you’re eating it, but totally eat it versus like a high-ponsent trait.
But it’s our one adaption that’s also considered a new tropic, so a lot of people take it for
the cognitive memory brain, enhancing, and supportive benefits.
Of course, it also has the same polysaccharides as their other mushrooms, so it’s going to be
awesome for immune health, gut health, and yeah, just like really incredible, like the overall
longevity benefits as well.
So it’s so hard to put these in a box, it’s like, they all, there’s the point of them being
adaptogens, if they’re not, they don’t have one benefit.
But yeah, I mean, the nerve support is really unique to Lyons, Maine.
So whether that’s, you know, nerve damage after an accident or with neuro regeneration,
so a lot of times with neurodegeneration is when people are called to Lyons, Maine, things
like Alzheimer’s Parkinson’s dementia, or as just a daily support because we have so many
demands on our minds and our brains, so to really keep us going and have that acute
cognitive support.
Yeah, wonderful.
We’re over halfway through the list.
I feel like this is almost like a speed quiz or something, and so I appreciate you doing
this in a way that I think really helps us as an audience to get a snapshot of what each
of these can do.
Of course, everybody gets this book, I highly, highly recommend it, healing adaptogens.
In fact, I was so struck by the value of this book that we are actually giving copies
to our board members at the Y Honors community, so that they can each dive in and get an even
better understanding.
And some of our board members already have a pretty deep background in this arena.
So I just want to mention that this speed summary thing that we’re doing here is not meant
to be a substitute for reading the book and getting that deeper dive discussion that
Danielle put together so beautifully in the book.
So okay, here we go, continuing on, we’ve got Makuna.
Makuna, the Valhavi and the Dopamine Bean, really cool, Ayurvedic pod, and we use the
speed or the bean or whatever you want to call it.
A lot of times we talk about the happiness beans, so precursor to al-Dopa, think of it
for brain benefits and stress benefits.
Yeah, I’m going to keep it quite, I’m going to do like one high level for each of these
now.
Love it.
And then we’ve got Rhodiola.
Oh, Rhodiola, I think it has some Rhodiola behind me.
I found Rhodiola in Iceland a few summers ago and it was like the highlight of my life.
The incredible root amazing for endurance, also cognitive benefits.
Rhodiola, again, it grows in some of the most extremely stressful places on earth.
So when we source true Rhodiola from the wild, it contains these amazing polyphenols
and compounds that are giving our bodies the ability to combat the stressors both cognitively
and physically that we’re exposed to daily.
Cool.
Rhodiola.
Rhodiola, this is another brain herb, we’re like in the brain section right now, so it’s
a leaf.
You can make it more like an infusion and how most of us are used to taking tea, a very
popular leaf in Southeast Asian countries and amazing for longevity.
It’s just a powerhouse of different nutrients in there, but really kind of touted particularly
for its brain and stress supporting benefits.
Great.
Okay.
Ashwagandha.
Oh, Ashwagandha.
Who doesn’t hear Ashwagandha?
There’s so much going on.
When we think about Ashwagandha, I really like stress comes up, but really like the Latin
name with Thaniya Somnaphera is like helping with restful sleep.
And so so often when we think about stressors, people want to turn towards those like energy
and endurance, brain adaptogens, but instead, like this is my favorite section, there
are restorative because when we can replenish from the roots, then we can wake up the next
day with the energy that we’re craving without needing, you know, a quick fix or a bandaid
for it.
So Ashwagandha is an amazing adaption to start with, really gentle, but yeah, I think
of stress, longevity benefits, there’s also some really cool research with Ashwagandha
supporting the brain and cognitive ability, but for now, yeah, I think of that like restful
sleep relaxation, the pre-charge before you have to recharge with Ashwagandha.
Great.
How about Rashi?
Oh my gosh, Rashi, before I said this, I’m like, we can have three hour conversation just
on Rashi.
Rashi’s keen of mushrooms is the most studied of all the adaptogens, has the most amount
of identified compounds.
I always tell people if you can only start with one functional mushroom, Rashi should
be the go-to, total, total powerhouse.
A lot of people talk about Rashi in response to stress, that has amazing cardiovascular
and heart benefits, both energetically considered a heart medicine, chitonic, but also, I mean,
has amazing benefits to systemic stress without being sedative in any way.
And of course, you know, all of these polysaccharides are really supporting our immune system
in a long-term, modulating immunability.
So without stimulating, or directly stimulating, or directly downregulating, Rashi is an awesome
option to take, you know, throughout the entire winter to keep your immune system in a kind
of homeostasis level that is unique to your body.
That’s great.
You know, during the holidays, when I’m just on my own or when I’m expecting some company,
I’ll keep a chai tea stock on the stove that has clove, cardamom, cinnamon, and Rashi
in it, and you know, people can doctor it up with oat milk or honey or whatever, but
that stock tea is easy to have around.
You love that.
I’m going to do that, too.
And the cool thing with Rashi with decoction is you can just keep adding more and more
water to it, like throughout the winter often do different mushrooms, and it’s like,
OK, you saturate that amount of liquid, and you drink that, and you can add more and
more and more and more until there’s no more, you know, color of flavor.
So a little bit of Rashi slices or, you know, fungi fruiting body goes so far when you
extract it properly.
Yeah.
OK.
And now we come to Tulsi.
Oh, holy basil, the whole one, the matchless one, it’s like, it has these amazing Ayurvedic
names, the incomparable one.
It really is similar to how Rashi represents like mind body spirit, and has these harmonizing
effects.
Tulsi kind of does that in the plant kingdom.
It’s part of the mint family, so you can think of the same, like Limea, C.A. benefits
with respiratory digestion, but really furthermore, it has these amazing ability to lift
mood and to support stress.
Cool.
And of course, many of our favorites, Kakao.
Yeah.
I was really stoked to include Kakao and I asked a lot of people don’t think about Kakao
as an adaption, but I like to argue that it is, Kakao on its own has been most nutrient
dense food we have.
You know, I feel like I got repetitive in the both, like, every one of these is so powerful,
but truly in the regions that they’re found around the world, these are like the number
one in that area.
And Kakao is so powerful.
I think for today’s chat, because we talked a lot about trace minerals, Kakao is incredibly
rich in magnesium, which is the number one mineral deficiency in the American population.
And when we think about how dang stressed we are, and then we think we’re deficient in
our, I think of magnesium, like our cellular relaxer, right, the mineral needed to help
us combat that stress and relax and unwind.
There’s just, like, never been more of a time to have more cacao, and no, you know,
it’s the real raw, fermented cacao, very different than like a Hershey’s chocolate bar, although
they both start from the, the field realm of cacao tree, really using that, that real
cacao for, I mean, longevity benefits and for today’s purpose, magnesium and relaxing.
Yeah.
And of course, we can get our cacao from four-sigmatic, and also, if you’re looking for
a bar, our friends at Dr. Bronner’s have an amazing regenerative organic chocolate bar.
It’s a favorite.
And check out our chocolate episode with Mike Bronner, if you’re interested in learning
more about that.
Okay.
Gino Stema.
Gino Stema.
This is like an off the air thing, but our friend, mutual friend Jack gave me, he drinks
Gino Stema all the time, who’s like my first intro to Gino Stema, and if you can picture
Jack, he’s, you know, well in his 80s and is so full of life and vibrancy, and I think
of that.
It’s called like, miracle grass.
And it just has these wonderful longevity benefits.
It can give us a lift and energy, help us, it’s hard to say reduce, but really like ease
stress to enable us to, yeah, combat whatever comes our way.
So, you know, especially afternoons, like you got that little slump instead of drinking
in green tea, that has that direct stimulant in it with the caffeine of porous Gino Stemas
and awesome, like a replacement option for you, habit sacked option.
That’s wonderful.
All right.
We’ve got two more.
We’ve got next up more ringa.
Again, another super packed nutrient dense lease.
Meringa is actually used in developing countries for malnourished children because of how
cheerly rich it is in different antioxidants.
It has a ton of essential amino acids in it, minerals, so you can eat it, you can make
a tea out of it.
I’m just amazing benefits for one, it’s nutritive potential, but of course that leads into longevity
and then some really cool clinical studies around Meringa for mood as well.
Wonderful.
And this brings us to last, but not least, a stragglist.
Oh, a stragglist.
Oh, there’s, you’ve got to dive into my book and read about a stragglist and how it affects
telomeres and DNA, but really like longevity and action is really cool with a stragglist.
It also has wonderful immune benefits.
It can be a little more immune stimulating, so just note that if you’re working with an
autoimmune condition or something, but you can add it like in that, in that decoction
you have brewing, all winter, it’s great in soups and stews, and especially post an illness.
A stragglist is really great at kind of the recovery phase and re-activating and nourishing
the body after about of illness.
So longevity, immunity, and those recovery benefits are kind of the key to a stragglist.
That’s so wonderful.
And, you know, I’ve been enjoying many of these superfoods in these four-sigmatic products
that you have shared with us.
This one is the super powder I’ve been enjoying in the morning time.
It’s an apple cherry with probiotics, prebiotics for gut health.
We’ve got many different maringa, chaga, turkey tail in here.
And then, as we’ve been talking, I’ve been drinking this one, the plant-based protein vanilla.
This has p-hemp chia, pumpkin coconut along with the ashwaganda, elucero, chaga, cordicips,
raci, turkey tail, lion’s mane, and then this one, boy, this made me happy.
I do enjoy some coffee.
And to get some coffee that also has lion’s mane and chaga in it is pretty special.
So, if you’re interested in getting these four-sigmatic products, be sure to use the
code Y on Earth to get your discount.
That’s a 20% discount on any order over $60.
One I also mentioned you can connect with Danielle on Instagram at Danielle Ryan Broida.
You will have these links in the show notes, and you can also connect with four-sigmatic
at four-sigmatic.
The book, Healing Adaptogens is published by Hay House, and they’re at Hay House, and
they’ve got a number of other wonderful books, resources, authors, et cetera, if you’re
interested in learning more about that body of work.
And I’m just looking over my notes, Danielle.
I do want to mention that you co-authored this book with tarot as a capella, and he is
the CEO and founder of four-sigmatic, and also is a 13th generation family farmer from
Finland.
He did his degree at Cornell and chemistry and business, where he also did a certificate
in plant-based nutrition.
And he’s written a couple of books that caught my attention, one called Healing Mushrooms.
The other called Santa Sold Shrooms, a children’s book for adults about the magical origins
of Santa Claus.
I think that might be of interest to many of us, especially this time of the year.
Yeah, that makes it.
Yeah, we’re going to continue for just a few more minutes in our Behind the Scenes
Chat, Danielle, which we share with our ambassadors.
You have to have the access code to get that additional material.
And if you’re interested in becoming an ambassador, you can go to yhonours.org, it’s letter
y-o-n-e-a-r-t-h.org, and you’ll see the pages for the ambassador program and can join
us and get access to these additional materials.
And I’m looking forward to Behind the Scenes.
We’ll dig into just a couple more of these threads, Danielle.
But I want to thank you.
This episode is so packed full.
I mean, I’m going to say this is the most nutrient-dense episode after that we’ve put together
certainly when it comes to adaptogens.
And thank you for running through all of that material with such a succinct pace.
I think it’s very helpful for our audience.
And before we sign off from the podcast episode, I just want to open the floor to you.
If there’s anything else you’d like to share, mention, suggest it would be wonderful to hear
that from you.
Yeah, I just think, first of all, thanks, it’s been so fun and such a great chat.
I’ve never done a show where I’ve run through all 21 and tried to cram it in, but it’s
really fun.
I just like a little spark notes, but I think we made it very clear that there’s more
to discover beyond those little snippets.
And I just feel really grateful to be in this time right now where these ingredients are
accessible to us, really, for one of the first times in history, for each one of these
21 ingredients.
The stories are wild, you sometimes had to be part of the emperor’s palace of a royal family
or different mushrooms were only willed their location upon the deathbed of the father
and the family.
I mean, with Cacao, it was a currency.
I mean, you had to travel so many miles or trade or be in these elite circles to even
have access to these ingredients.
And today, we can find them on Amazon or like in most of our grocery stores.
And it’s just wild to me that they’re so here for us and yet the, and we need them so
desperately, like really like more than ever, we really, really need the benefits they can
offer us.
And yet there’s a gap, you know, we’re not using them all every day.
And we’re not all drinking mushroom coffee yet or having Cacao instead of wine at night.
And so my goal with this book and with life, I think, is to be a bridge in any way I can
between the fungi and plant world and the humans and just to help remind us and help us
remember that these exist and that we have allies and we’re not alone and throughout
all of history, we’ve always relied on plant medicines, fungal medicines, through all
chapters of life, through all seasons.
It doesn’t have to just be when you’re sick or, you know, when you’re going through a big
life change, but incorporating them as food, as teas, as, you know, as just part of our
weekly lives can be such an enriching experience to connect us back to the earth, ultimately,
which, you know, is really why we’re here all along.
I think the more we can honor and respect these ingredients that allow us to feel alive,
the more we want to protect the places that they come from.
And yeah, they just teach us connection in so many ways, whether it be, you know, reminding
us we’re not alone, that we have allies that were supported.
And so I hope, you know, this chat and this book can be a little dose of that.
Absolutely, Danielle.
And, you know, this, this connection with earth is so important to all of our work right
now.
And the relationships we get to build together in this work is, I think, one of the
richest rewards that we get to cultivate together.
And I want to give a final shout out to our dear friend, Jack, whom you mentioned earlier,
who has been an advisor to the Y Honors community is a dear, dear friend of mine.
And who connected us, it got us connected so that we could do this podcast together.
So shout out to Jack and we love you, Jack, it’s, yeah, so great talking with you.
Thank you for sharing so much of this today.
Thank you so much for having me, my truly, my pleasure.
Bye-bye.
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