Episode 500: From Darkness to Light: How Cannabis Changed Sage Amdahl’s Life

Welcome to Cannabis Health Radio, where healing stories meet science. Join Reverend Dr. Robin Swann for conversations with patients, physicians, and advocates exploring the power of cannabis and other sacred plant medicines. Trusted information, real experiences, new possibilities for healing. Hello, friends and family. Here we are for our very first Cannabis Health Radio podcast with yours truly, myself, Robin Swann. As the host. And I wanted to do this 500th episode with somebody who I really love and appreciate in the cannabis space. We've been parasocial virtual friends for over a decade. I've watched her bob and weave through the industry. She's so brilliant. She's incredibly smart. She's wearing molecules on her clothing. That's how richly geekism. She is, which, who doesn't love a geek? I know I do. I wanna introduce you guys, if you do not know, Chef Sage. Hello, darling.

Hello.

How's it going?

It's going pretty well today. How about yourself?

I am so happy to be visiting with you down there in Mexico. There's so much I wanna talk to you about. First of all, you're a chef and you know what, you really, so I have been making cannabis products for 30 plus years. Plus years and I could never master a gummy. I just couldn't. I don't care how many classes I took. I don't care how much I read. I don't care how many times I made them. And you just gave me one simple tweak. Don't use an emulsifier, dumb dumb. Use a blender. And that was a game changer. So thank you. I appreciate your knowledge so much. It's all the little tiny tweaks. So I know that you love cannabis because you were wearing it on your clothing. You are just always sharing such great stuff. But how, why, why do you love cannabis, Miss Chef Sage? How did you end up with this plant?

It's because it's literally saving my sight every single day. I was born with cataracts in both eyes, and then at about 11 or 12, I was diagnosed with glaucoma as a side effect from my cataract surgery. And I tried many kind of eye drops. Over the years, in my very young formative years, and really had a hard time with the pharmaceutical drops because a lot of them had very nasty side effects. And I came across cannabis in a very counterculture way, just hanging out, met some girl at 7-Eleven. She invited me over. We had some bong hits, right? And then I go outside, it's just about dusk. The streetlights come on in Saratoga, or sorry, no, Palo Alto, California. And for the first time I noticed that I no longer had halos around the lights of the light posts when I was looking. And I was like, whoa, that's interesting. Because normally my pressure, because it's high, all the lights have starbursts around them. And this is the first time it didn't have anything. Everything looks sharp. And I hadn't quite put things together yet, but I later on made brownies with some friends.

Like just randomly one day you were like, let's make some brownies.

Like took some flour and basically back then we didn't know anything. This is in the '90s. So we ground it up and literally threw in the bowl, 10 mug brownies. And I ate not just one, but I ate half a pan. But I tell you what, I did get vertigo, but for that first time ever, my vision was so crisp. It was incredible. And it lasted for quite a long time because as we know now, edibles can last for 6 to 8 hours in the system rather than smoking, which is maybe 1 to 2 hours on average for people. So this for me opened up a lot of doors and I knew that my doctors were not going to be like pro-cannabis. This is still work. This is still the '90s and early 2000s. And so I had to trick my eye doctor. So I went in regular and he was scared and he took my pressure. He's, oh my gosh, it's 27. This is way too high. We've got to get this down. Try this eye drop. Then I go back for my second appointment, but this time I eat an edible 2 hours before the appointment and I don't tell him. And he tests my pressure and he's like, "17? What did you do? This eye drop wouldn't have done that. I know you did something." And I said, "I ate cannabis edibles." And he was like, "What?" I was like, "Yeah." Is that good for you, Doc? So then I ate it and it lasts for 6 to 8 hours because I knew if I told him like that, then he'd be like, okay, because the thing is always they want to discount it because smoking is bad for you, right? But eating it, can't say anything about eating it. So he actually wrote it in my doctor's notes and I used cannabis, but he spelled it wrong. He spelled it canibus. It was so cute, but it's in there. And it's documented. And I, at that point, knew for myself, this works.

And were you living at home at that time? You were pretty young, right? Did you like, were your parents like, yeah, that's great. Let's get our kid a pound of weed and get her to cook some edibles. Like, how did you, you knew it worked in that moment, but how did you extrapolate that into 20+ years?

Yeah. So basically it was around when I was 18, then I was actually living on my own when I was 18. I had already moved out of my mother's house at that time because she had some medical problems of her own going on. And so she wasn't— we just weren't a good fit. So I had my own place and this is where the exploration began because I was already very mature for that time anyways, because I had already been going to boarding school before that for several years. So I was already—

You were good to go. So did you start— you remember Mary Jane, the brownie lady up in San Francisco who was like originally walking around passing out brownies to people? Did you become from like her?

Yeah, actually, yeah, yeah. Basically my friends, they would have me help with stuff. One of my friends, her mother had dementia really bad, and she kept— she was beyond the point of being verbal, but she would hum all the time and kind of act as I was— she was describing to me, but she seemed uncomfortable. And so I made her some very low-dose edibles to help her so that maybe it would calm her. And my friend did, she gave her the edibles and she ate them and she stopped humming and she had a smile on her face. And see, this is still up before the internet's around. There's some internet, but people were really not, it's not like today, people weren't living on the internet. And a lot of it was just friends in my neighborhood and stuff like that. And if I If it was something that I generally felt would help, like with cannabis, and I knew at the time, I would make things for them, but I didn't know all the conditions that we see now.

And did you stay in the food family? Did you, as you extrapolated and started to learn about cannabis, did you stay within the edible family or did you roll into tinctures or infusions?

I was making tinctures. Actually, that's my first extraction was like the herbalist way of making it. And so I did a Four Seasons and I didn't decarboxylate it in the oven beforehand. I let it naturally do it over time.

I'm not a fan of decarboxylation. I will die on the hill. Do not kill the plant before you extract it. I don't, where did that come from? I don't even know why that's a thing. Stop it, whoever you are.

What I was doing when— so I'll tell you this. So you know that company, the Magical Butter Machine, right?

Yeah, the Butter Maker.

So I was in their group for a really long time because I was re— like, I was an admin in that group and I was reteaching them how to make it better because everybody was baking it in the oven. And I said, what are you doing? You don't need to bake it in the oven. You're going to make the burnt green tea flavored. What are you doing?

Yeah, exactly.

I think all the flavonoids and terpenes in your product with that high heat, because they can't, they can't sustain that. So I taught them about doing a very low base heat of 160°F for approximately about 16 hours per day with an 8-hour rest overnight. Using the machine. Now, in a Crock-Pot, which is where I originally came up with my methodology for making my butter, I would do a 4 to 5 day butter in a water bath in the Crock-Pot doing the natural decarboxylation. And I tell you, that butter tasted good. And a lot of my friends who said weed doesn't affect them, for some reason this affected them. I had a man— I was living in an apartment that I got from a woman who ran a cannabis intake company in Berkeley, California. And she and I were really good friends. And so she would have her patients down below and occasionally I'd come down and hang out. And there was a man, a veteran in a wheelchair, and he had an amputee. And so basically he had phantom pain syndrome and the edibles didn't work for him. I made him edibles with this butter and he said, oh my gosh, for the first time I don't feel it. I don't know, I don't miss it that it's not there. I was like, that's incredible. And it's just about the synergy of the plants because you're burning it all up every time you bake it in the oven. You're destroying 70% of the medicinal properties, in my opinion.

I don't think I could nod my head any faster. I'm gonna be like, exactly. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to visit with you today so much is because these are a lot of like kitchen witches that are making things and they're scanning the internet and they're seeing this decarboxylation thing. And they're killing their plants and then they're, and then they're killing it in like the machines because they don't understand the low, slow heat. So as not just an alchemist, but as a chef, can you just speak to baking with cannabis? Like what is the best way to really get the cannabinoids into your food without killing them?

The best way is in fat. Cannabinoids. Are fat-based. They're not going to bond to water without an emulsifying agent. And that means using maybe synthetic products or other things that you don't want to use in your baking if you're trying to do wholesome cooking. So it involves fats. And there's vegan fats, there's animal fats, all kinds. You can choose what you will, but the best ones are the ones that are MCTs. MCTs are multi-chain triglycerides. And They are the powerhouse that will carry it to your brain. So if you want like a cerebral effect, if you want it to get all the way up here, you need MCTs.

So to break your initial flour down in a like, what's an MCT?

Okay. These are just part of coconut oil.

And there's, that's what an MCT is. It's a coconut oil. It's an already deconstructed, if you will. Coconut oil so it could take a higher heat so you could extract better, right? Am I right about that?

Like the Bread and Babe oil and you pulled out the MCT. You basically, what, then you've just extracted that aspect of the coconut oil for your product.

So since you're like an original OG maker of cannabis products and like your first brownies, you mentioned that you would just ground up some flour and threw that in there. What do you, I've done that before. I've just ground up flour and used it. As flour.

Yeah, I think that it, I think that it worked okay for the fact that it was the kind of flour that I was using. So we're talking about this is the '90s. So in the '90s in California, we used to get brickweed from Mexico.

Heck yeah, I was just talking about brickweed.

And brickweed is very, it's already very cured. It's already very it's already very old and brown and high in CBN, right? It's gone through its own decarboxylation.

Exactly.

Very naturally on the plant. And that probably aided in the fact that I got my zing. Not that THCA won't give you a zing, but it is different.

Yeah, it's a very different thing. And now what are you, are you, do you make things for people now? I know you're in Mexico and the laws are like actually sort of cool. They're a lot more. Relaxed than the United States, it seems like.

Yes, it's, it's basically, it's decriminalized for personal use, although I wouldn't say you could walk around smoking it, but in your home, people don't bother you. However, you can get medical cannabis here in Mexico. I did it, and it's a process, but I'm happy to have that conversation with those who are interested about it. So if you want to hit me up, But basically here I do make some products. Actually, I make mainly CBD for commercial sale, and that is made in a very natural way because I use a very pure CBD that I also combine with natural plant terpenes to create a synergy effect because you want to have almost a full entourage effect. Sometimes we can't always stay at that. Sometimes we can't always source full spectrum CBD oil, but we can get the CBD and the terpenes. And then through my knowledge of terpenes, I use certain ones like myrcene because it just flows with that calm and that relaxation. And a lot of people find that it really aids them with sleep, especially women of a certain age.

Women of a certain age, like all the ones listening to this podcast, for sure. I am sure of it.

Yes. So, you know, okay. Okay. But like, I'm just saying, like, we have, I think as we get older and some of the CBD tinctures I have helped, majority of those are the patients that I've been treating with my CBD is for that reason, which I find very interesting. And pain as well, but majority of that. And there's a doctor's office here. It's a, basically a woman who, who does integrative therapies. Like hormone therapies or peptide treatments, different things like that. And we're working together and I make my CBD tinctures for her, but I also have custom products available as well. I create different isolate combinations depending on what a person's needs are basically, and treat it from there. Yes. And then of course it can be in a variety. It could be edibles. It could be topicals. And it would be some boss words.

Those are— we're all big fan of sticking things in your tuchus for sure. So let's talk about terpenes. Okay. Especially a lot of people don't really, they don't know about terpenes and I'm always fond of saying, you don't know what you don't know and you don't, everyone's like, oh, I need this strain.

It's this strain.

And it's not the strain, it's the terpene profile that's coming from that plant. And terpenes are found in everything. And they feed our olfactory sensation, right? So when you're working with cannabis and you're adding terpenes to it, can you just speak about like how terpenes from the chef perspective to making cannabis things, like how that really works?

Absolutely. You can pair with it just like you could wine with cheese. Basically, certain terpenes obviously carry a bouquet, linalool's gonna have more of that earthy scent, maybe good with olives, maybe good with pepper, like a black pepper or something, something that's already got this kind of earthy— or if you're trying to offset something, go with little mango because you can create that kind of— okay, I'm trying to think of the name in Mexico. It's not tequila. It's the other one. It's very like tequila, very agave.

Agave.

Oh yeah, it'll come to me. But anyways, riceia. It's very riceia. It's very, you know, it's got this bitter tone, but when you mix it with something sweet, like people make like a riceia mango cocktail. So they're taking that bitter smoky with the sweet fruity and blending it together. So you can do the same thing with the linalool and pull that together with certain fruits. But then also you have lemony, bright and fresh, right? Could go great with a lemon sorbet or maybe some seafood even. Limonene is basically just bright and fresh. And so if anything you want to bring that to, you can add it. And a lot of times people like to add terpenes on the top of cocktails. And the reason why is because they get that sommelier kind of vibe, right? You're going to slur it and smell it before you drink it, right? And so you can create that same pairing on your drinks with the terpenes. You wanna make mocktails, impress your friends. You don't wanna drink alcohol. You wanna still have some fun.

And just to be really clear, terpenes are not flavorings.

And they're not just flavorings. They have effects.

They have effects. And they don't necessarily taste like what they smell like.

Oh, no, they don't. That's good.

So you can't go to the grocery store and get like almond flavoring, lemon flavoring, and do what we're talking about. We're talking about, yeah.

The thing is you have to treat these like essential oils. Now essential oils are concentrates. When you have terpenes in a bottle, it's a concentrate. In order to use it properly, you need to create a dilute and you need to make it represent what it would be in nature because they can be caustic. Okay. Just like oregano oil can burn you. You have to be careful.

Just ask my children.

Yeah, you have to be careful with it. It's exciting, you can play, but remember that you have to do it in very small increments. Hydrate to where you feel it should be. Less is more.

Less is always more with terpenes. We were just making some vape pens over the weekend and they— we have a terpene called Huckleberry Bliss and it spilled. Oh my gosh. It took 4 days, 4 days for this environment not to feel like I had just fallen into a vat of huckleberry, which was not delicious. Let me say.

No, it's kind of like a perfume at that level. It's very—

Yeah. But, but when you're eating them, like, this is where like the food science comes in, right? And it parleys into cannabis science as well. So when you're formulating like a cake or something, You're thinking about all of the notes of that cake, right?

Yes. And one of the things about it is that I don't, unless the terpenes are already in the cannabis oil, I won't add them until the very end if I'm cooking. So there'll be a finisher, like a garnish almost at the end. And the reason why is because terpenes can convert just like cannabinoids, but terpenes are actually more sensitive than cannabinoids. A lot of carbohydrates. And so you don't want to create a conversion in your oven or on your stove. So it's best to add those at the end. And there's always, if you're doing baking and you want to include turpines, consider making your, your liquid that you spray onto your cake after, for example, after you hydrate, you want to hydrate your cakes and wrap them if you're making a fruitcake or some fancy cakes. So make your solution with the terpene, add it onto the cake as it's still hot, wrap it in, and chill it.

Good advice. So I have a personal question. Since you've been dealing with Psyche your whole life, I imagine your nose is phenomenal. Like, I imagine that your nose is off the chart, and that's why you're able to really smell these terpenes. And like really be able to dance with them in such a beautiful way and make 'em so strong because you're hitting notes that your average meat suit can't hit.

So. That's true. 100%.

I'm sure it is. Terpenes are not something that you could create in your kitchen though, right? You can't just make a terpene. Terpenes are an extraction process. Like you said, they're like a, they're like an essential oil, but they're usually pulled with, they're usually distilled. That's how they're done.

Yeah, they usually go through a water distillation because terpenes are actually water-based, not oil-based.

Which is why they burn off so fast and why they're at the end of it, right? Absolutely. So, yeah, so you could even add like a dab, like a tiny bit, and we're talking like fractionated little points on things that you're smoking as well, right? Is that a possibility? Yeah. To do that, to burn it, like that's what the vape pen is basically. When you smoke a vape, you're just burning terps.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Basically, it's not quite combusting them, but it is hitting them at a very high vaporization point that's made for a cannabinoid and not a terpene. So sometimes, I'm sure you've experienced this, but you're like halfway down a pen and you, I don't know, you do it or you share it with a friend, but somebody just goes, like wants to mega hit that pen, right? And they're heating up that coil, right? And sometimes they, fry up that coil a little bit. We didn't just fry the coil.

We fried the terpene.

We fried the terpenes too. Yes. And so that's why the rest of the pen kind of tastes a little bit like butt.

Yeah, that's why. So don't do that. You've like, and on that note of, you know, sharing and learning and stuff, what have patient, your patients taught you that science has overlooked? We're talking about some science things, do these kind of things, but when you get down into practical application, working with people, it's a little different. So what have your patients, your clients taught you about cannabis?

That everybody's homeostasis is drastically different.

Yeah. Amen.

Yeah. Yeah. And that there's no one way. Some people don't absorb cannabinoids one way and you have to find other ways to do it. Some people can't have THCv, which is what it turns into in your body after it passes through your liver. And so they have to find a way to get in THC in without it converting through the liver. There's a lot of different ways that you have to think.

And that's a very subtle thing that you said, okay? Because nobody thinks about what happens to it after you put it in your body. Then what?

Exactly. Exactly. And conversions still happen because when you're doing digestion, there is a lot of processes that go into what digestion really is and the way the body handles sugars and salts and fats and everything.

So what do you think is a good way? What do you think is a good gateway way to, to use cannabis? What do you think is one of the ways, if you didn't know anything about it, but you're really curious and now you're hearing all this conversation about terpenes, how can you, the novice, begin to explore?

You have to decide what you're going for. Okay. If you are looking for something quick, you don't want to wait, and at the same time you don't necessarily want to smoke, I would say try vaporization. If you're looking for something to treat your back pain because it's been aching all day and you can't smoke on the job, I would say try a low-dose edible. There's— it really depends on what you are experiencing, what you want.

And, and if I want to avoid crossing my liver at all and not failing a drug test, Then what?

You could do suppository. Yes. And let me just say, for women, we have two choices for suppositories.

We have multiple holes.

We do. So if you have endometriosis, consider what we call bad stabs.

Bad stabs. Oh my God. Okay, that is— that's what we're going to call this episode. The Vag Dab. And what would you like, what would be your, if you're sitting with a total novice, somebody who's just beginning their journey of healing, not just cannabis, they just get, I always feel when people get diagnosed, it's like getting hit by a bus. You, your whole life you've dealt with, I don't want to say a disability because I don't see you disabled, but yet like you've dealt with a conflict that other people have not had, right? Like you've had challenges that other haven't. So how do you— you had to have been— it was so great that somebody landed in your life and gave you some bong rips and you were like, oh, that's cool. But maybe you don't have that friend. So how do you find— how do you circumvent the noise of everybody telling you what to do and find what could possibly work for you?

I would say that it's great to have first a conversation if there is somebody that you have seen that speaks knowledge that speaks to you, then speak to them. But also, I would say, don't be afraid to explore. There are so many states that have stores, and you may never have been inside one, and that's okay. And there's gonna be a lot of things in there that you're not gonna know what are. But the best way to get a lesson is to go to the classroom. And so go to the stores. Talk to the budtenders. There's no— you don't have to buy something. They're there to educate you too. So you can go into there and say, look, I don't know anything about anything. I'm curious because I have this going on and I'd like to try it. Are there particular products that you might be able to recommend to me that could assist with this? You can also Look for many support groups. There's so many groups online. Like there's—

There's hundreds. Yeah, but be careful when you're cruising through the internet looking for information. Just remember that there's 3 sides to every story.

Absolutely. And never accept the first thing you read. Okay? Because as a chef, I can tell you, I have tried many recipes and they weren't all good. You don't just subscribe to the first thing. You gotta look at it, make sure you read it, then compare it against other things, and then formulate your own opinion about it. And then even when you've done that, open your ears if you learn something new. Maybe we're doing something and it wasn't the correct way. It's okay to change.

Yeah. It's super okay to reach out. Like, here I am, super educated, already established, and like, you saved my life. You saved my gummy vine. So no one is above learning.

I would say reach out to Robin. Feel free to reach out to me.

Yes, Sage. Speaking of that, how does, how does one reach out to Chef Sage?

I do have two Facebook pages. Pages. One is called Chef Sage or Chef Sage Amdahl, A-M-D-A-H-L, very Scandinavian. And the other one is Sage Advice LLC. And so both of those are my Facebook pages, but I'm also very public on Facebook and you can find me as Sage Amdahl. Jeff Sage.

Uh, we have a lot of people who are in Mexico who don't know. You're in Mexico, so that's such a gift. And Mexico is not a country that you can get anything into. It's just such a challenge to— the mail, the mail is something there. So how do people, if they're in Mexico and they would like to reach out to you, do you do consultations? Do you— you said that you make things for people?

Absolutamente, sí. A mis amigos en México, que tú quieres un poco ayuda con hacer de medicamentes con indica, es ok, me salve a mí y yo puedo describir una receta para te ayudar.

Sí, I'm doing Duolingo. I'm like, she's talking about herself, cannabis, where she's at, her location.

Yes.

Yeah.

And honestly, like, I knew French before I moved here, but I didn't really know Spanish. It was Just living here and—

Yeah, sucking up and listening. Okay, so before we wrap this up, it's just been such a huge pleasure for me because like I'm just your number one fan. I just love you so much and I really recommend anybody who lands on here to head on over to Facebook and find her at any one of these pages. We're going to post them in the comments. You're going to be able to catch her through all of that because she's such a wealth of knowledge on so many levels, not just cannabis, not just food, but she's got some other things to say about the earth and the world that are also positive and need to be heard. What is the one thing that you wanna leave these listeners who have no idea who you are, have never heard of you before? What would you like to leave them with?

Free the plants and free Palestine.

Oh, right on. I second both of those. And thank you all for joining us here at Cannabis Health Radio, where we speak for the trees. God bless you and take care of yourself. Thank you, Sage.

You're welcome. Thank you.

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Cannabis Health Radio. We hope today's conversation has reminded you that healing is possible and that you are not alone. If you found this episode valuable, please share it with someone who may benefit. Every story shared helps bring the good medicine of cannabis to more people. For more episodes, educational resources, and community, visit cannabishealtheradio.com and consider joining our Patreon family where you'll connect with like-minded individuals as well as help support our work. A special shout out to Smarty Pants Production for their engineering expertise and creative support. Until next time, stay informed, stay curious, and keep advocating for yourself. I'm Reverend Dr. Robin Swann. Thanks for listening.