Roots of Wellness: Adaptogens for Vitality and Balance with Sage

Hi, everybody. I'm Dr. Sandhya Moldovan, periodontist and nutritionist. Welcome to the Holistic Dentistry Podcast, the show that gives you the tips and tools to detoxify your mouth for a healthier body. As we explore together the root cause of disease. Remember, you're not healthy until your mouth is healthy. So take care of it in the most natural way.

Welcome to today's show. Everyone with me, I have Sage Dammers. Welcome.

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

I am really excited about today to talk about adaptogens and herbalism because you're really so knowledgeable about this. And you actually have a company called Addictive Wellness. And we do carry that chocolate at our health lounge in Beverly Hills. And it's amazing. We have people that come and buy actually five at a time.

Amazing.

But it's a good addiction, this particular chocolate, because it's sugar free, it's vegan, and it's full of superfoods.

Yeah. Some people get rubbed the wrong way by our company name, Addictive Wellness, and it kind of puts them off. But the idea is, well, twofold. The idea is one that you can get hooked on something that's actually good for you, whether that's really healthy chocolate or working out. There's. There's many things that can have a sort of an addictive quality to them, but they're just massively beneficial to all areas of your. Your life and your health. And then also addictive comes from this Latin root addictionum, which actually means originally to be devoted as into one's loved ones or one's God. And it was only when heroin came around that it took on this negative connotation where it started to be used to mean something. He was devoted to. To heroin, it with his God.

I see.

So now we have this negative idea. Well, we're trying to look at it in a positive way again.

I love it. That's good. So how did you get started in this world of adaptogens and herbalism?

I grew up as a, you know, a vegetarian, but not necessarily a healthy one per se. My parents, you know, in the 90s, were doing the best that they knew how to with the knowledge that was out there at the time. I was eating most the organic foods, thank goodness. I wasn't really eating much fast food, so it was definitely a step ahead. But I always felt like I wasn't tapping into my full potential. And I would see this, especially in athletics. I would do quite well to a certain level, but there was always a Higher level of performance that I wasn't quite reaching. Reaching. Same in academics. I was doing very well, but there was always this higher level of academic performers that I didn't quite know how to break into with my cognitive faculties at the time.

What kind of sports were you playing?

I was surfing, basketball, water polo and swimming.

Ah, that's a lot.

Just like anything in the water. I was, and I was first. My parents had this wellness center in Thousand Oak, California, when I was growing up, which was a super cool thing to grow up around and already be exposed to this eastern, more traditional philosophy of prevention and taking a proactive approach to your health, rather than waiting to get sick and then going to the doctor for medications. And there was a gentleman from the local community who brought in this protein powder mix that he wanted to see if they would sell there. And it had hemp protein, spirulina, chlorella, some other western herbs, things like milk thistle. And he was super fit, super intelligent, and looked way younger than his biological, than his chronological age. And I said, whatever this guy's on, I want to be on this. And he was telling me he drinks this smoothie as two of his three meals a day, this protein mix. And so I said, okay, sign me. I'm going to try this and see what it's all about. And I, I started mixing it up. I didn't know what I was doing. I would blend it with like some frozen fruit and some Tropicana orange juice, and it tasted like dirt, but I didn't care. I. I was in it for the results.

How old were you at this time?

I was like, 17. 18.

Okay.

And I started this to have this amazing feeling. After drinking it for a while, I would get this, like, incredible, very clear, high feeling. And I would just feel amazing. And I noticed I was doing better in school. I had more physical energy when I was out surfing. And I just started thinking, if this has been out there all this time and I didn't know about it, what else have I been missing out on? And this just started me off in the cycle of wanting to research and learn more about nutrition, raw foods, clean eating, traditional herbal systems of indigenous cultures. And the more I would learn, the more I would incorporate into my life, the more I would incorporate, the better I would feel. The better I would feel, the more excited I would get to learn more. And it just like this wheel started spinning faster and faster and faster. And that led me to the. The Taoist and Ayurvedic herbal systems that are so beautiful and have thousands of years of history and maybe not modern clinical research behind them in all cases, although more and more research is being done, but such deep history of use of these, that fascinated me.

So you actually worked with and trained under the world's leading herbalists in China, Indonesia, Australia, France, Costa Rica, Mexico, Europe, Central America. That's pretty amazing. What was the most memorable experience out of all this? If you were to pick one, I.

Would say it's tough to pick. There was one experience where I was gifted an incredible like 2 foot wide reishi mushroom by a mushroom grower in Bali that was just like a magical experience. There was another time where I spent a week with a small group traveling with an enlightened Taoist master to Taoist monasteries and holy sites in China. And for example, got to drink Shresi Schisandra tea with the leader of the Wudan order, which is like the group that goes back more than centuries, like millennia. And so I just, I've been incredibly fortunate to come across the right people. And whether you call it fortune or karma or the universe, has just brought these people into my life to make incredible connections and, and they've always been, as you have been, always so open and sharing in their knowledge with me. So I've been very fortunate.

So how did you connect that to chocolate to create addictive.

When back in those earlier days when I was first drinking those disgusting smoothies but loving them, I was on a surf trip with a couple friends of mine in Costa Rica and I would, I brought my little nutribullet blender with me and I would, I didn't want to push anything on anybody. I didn't want to be the evangelist. So I just would kind of be quietly to myself in the corner of our little hostel, blending up these drinks with some local fruit that I had gotten and drinking them. And then we'd go out surfing and after two hours they would be tired and hungry. They were coming back into the beach and I would be out there surfing for four or five, six hours. And I wasn't saying anything, anything about what I was doing differently, but they were picking up on it. And they said, hey, like, could you maybe make us one of those drinks? And I said, sure, of course. It's like the moment I've been waiting for, but didn't want to say anything. And I made it for them. And it was so disgusting that two out of the four of them threw up immediately. And I think part of it was also because there was a lot of detoxing herbs in there. And sometimes when you're so toxic, as they were with alcohol and drugs, you know, typical college experience, the. The toxins, when. When you mobilize, a lot of them are going to take the fastest route out of the body as possible. And sometimes that's back up the way they came in. But some of them stuck with it, and some not. The ones who stuck with it are dramatically healthier today than the ones who didn't. But it made me realize that if I'm going to have a beneficial impact here beyond just myself, I'm gonna have to figure out how to make this taste good and make health taste so amazing that the things I make, people will want to eat just because it tastes good. And the fact that it's healthy will be an afterthought. It'll be incredibly healthy, but they'll eat it because it tastes good and it just so happens to be healthy. And I was learning about cacao and chocolate. And at first, I was. I didn't understand when I first came across the idea of consuming cacao as a Super bowl. Like, what. That this is not. Like, this doesn't make sense. Chocolate is like a junk food. But I started learning about how it's the highest natural food source of magnesium, highest natural source of antioxidants, great for chromium, iron. The list goes on and on. But I saw this as really interesting because it's kind of like if you imagine the Grand Canyon, and on one side, you have foods that taste horrible but are really good for you. On the other side, you have the foods that taste great but are not so good for you. And there's not much that goes across this Grand Canyon, this huge divide. And I saw chocolate as, like, this little narrow bridge that connected the two, because it, if done right, can be incredibly healthy. And it's something people crave and love and have this romantic relationship with. And so I also started to realize that a lot of these herbs that I love so much taste pretty bitter. And it's hard to figure out ways to get them into people who are not. You know, our American Western palate doesn't have a lot of bitter flavors. You know, your European ancestry, you have a lot more bitter flavors in the diet. You know, my partner, who's also essentially European, loves bitter flavors.

I love bitter flavors.

When you're very young. And the bitter compounds in foods are the medicinal compounds very often. And we bred them out, and then we sell them back and as pharmaceuticals. But that's, you know, another conversation. But I realized that chocolate has A bitter flavor that somehow people have accepted. You know, it's, it's a very rare bitter flavor in dark chocolate that people are pretty okay with. And under that bitter flavor I realized I can camouflage a lot of these great herbs that I want people to experience. And then the chocolate acts as a vasodilator. So it's helping to drive the herbs into the system. And it's also somewhat of an MAO inhibitor which allows the herbs to stay in the body and keep working for longer. So this is like, this is a real gateway superfood and a Trojan horse of how I'm going to get other people to be healthy whether they want to or not.

I love it because, you know, some people still think, oh, chocolate is bad for my teeth. Right, but not your chocolate. Number one is sugar free. And I love that it has minerals in it, especially the magnesium, which is so important not just for the teeth, but actually for the jaw, for the tmj.

Right, for the relaxation factor.

Exactly.

And then the main stimulant that you have in chocolate is not caffeine, which people think about a lot, but it's theobromine, which actually can kill strepococci mutants, is one of the primary bacteria responsible for causing cavities. So really it's a win win.

That's great. So just eat the chocolate and kill the cavity causing bacteria.

Exact opposite of what you've been trained to believe for most people out there.

Absolutely. So what exactly are you adaptogens?

They're in a leap class of herbs. And this term was first coined by a Russian scientist, Dr. Nikolai Lazarev. And he, during the world wars he was more focused on researching performance enhancing drugs for soldiers, you know, amphetamines and things of that nature. But after the war, when that kind of stuff wasn't quite as needed, he turned his attention to more natural health supporting compounds that could improve performance. And he found that there was this class of herbs. First he was focused on ginseng and then Eleuthero, Siberian ginseng and others. This class of herbs that strengthen the body's own self regulatory mechanisms and help keep you in a state of homeostasis. So they're improving your resilience to stress, they're improving your energy and endurance, improving often cognitive function and helping to balance immune function. They're things that aren't necessarily going to push you specifically in one direction or the other. They haven't pre decided when they come into your body which way you're going to be going. They are adapting to the conditions in your body and strengthening your body's own, for example, energy production. So you could have an adaptogen like Ashwagandha, very popular, amazing herb.

For stress.

Yes. Yeah, you have it for stress, but it's not gonna necessarily, if you take it in the middle of the afternoon, it's not gonna put you to sleep. It's not a sedative. It's just helping your nervous system and strain, boosting your stress resilience. If you take it in the evening, it's, it's going to relax you so you can go to sleep. But people take it in the morning because it helps them make more energy. It's strengthening the body's own energy production mechanisms. And so it's not going to keep you up at night if you take it in the evening and it's not going to put you to sleep if you take it in the morning. It's going to allow your body to do what it's designed to do best at whatever time of day that is.

So that's kind of balancing your body balancing state.

Yes.

Which is great.

There's only so much you can do by pushing you in specific direction with something like caffeine or with sleeping pills or even, even natural sleep enhancers like melatonin or valerian, things like that. They're one directional. This is considered by herbalists to be a lower class of herbs below this superior class, which is the adaptogens, which are dual directional. And they can bring you into the balanced state no matter where you're at.

So where are adaptogens grown?

Each adaptogen has its own environment that it's going to thrive in. And this is the concept of ddao sourcing, meaning that when you want to source her, it's generally ideal to source it from the environment that it's evolved in. So you can take something that evolved to grow best on one specific mountain in China and you can bring it to the US and figure out a way to grow it here. But it's evolved to thrive and be its most robust in very specific climactic conditions that maybe exist in this one place and in the specific soil that's there and in the soil microbiome that exists in that environment. So each thing you generally want to find from its own place.

Yeah, you know, it's kind of the idea of epigenetics. Our environment influences the way our genes get expressed. And I guess it's the same in plants 100%.

Yeah, yeah. You, you can grow this, take the same seeds effectively, grow them in different environments, you're going to get something totally different.

Yeah, that's very true. So how do you choose which, which adaptogens to put in your chocolate?

So we decided that instead of taking the approach of having different flavors, we're going to go for different functions and get right to the point. What do you want your life experience to be? Where are we headed with this? Because the flavor lasts a few minutes, the function is something that's going to hang with you a lot longer. And so all of our chocolates, they have similar rich dark chocolate flavor. Just a subtle flavor difference.

So you have here love, which, you know, I actually love, love chocolate. So some of these, I mean, I know black ginger and maca, but I don't even know how to pronounce this.

Yeah, that's cistanche.

Cistanche.

And so, yeah, that's a Chinese herb. It's very powerful for supporting endocrine health and hormone health. Also it's in the love chocolate because it really helps to send circulation to the southern hemisphere. So it's a great sex tonic for, you know, it's been used for thousands of years.

Awesome.

Can you overdose on this?

Anything you can overdose. You can take something as innocuous as water. And there's a point in which it's too much. Right. So there's sweet spots with everything and with anything there's a point at which you stop getting more benefits from it and it can become a little bit overwhelming. So.

But I honestly feel your chocolate is so rich that it's enough. Like one square.

Yeah, that's. You know, it's so funny because when we were creating this chocolate, it came to my attention that the fda, their approach to how you should label chocolate is that a serving is 50 grams. That would be a little bit more than a whole bar of one of these.

Okay.

And to me, that was like too much. Everybody's got their sweet spot of like their diet and how much chocolate they feel satisfies them. But for me it's somewhere in like the 12, the 24 gram range of this nutrient density. Chocolate definitely feels super satisfying. Some people love a whole bar. But to say that for everybody, that's, you know, I think reflective of a, you know, a Hershey's milk chocolate with minimal nutritional value, lots of sugar rather than something with this level of potency.

Yeah, tranquility. What kind of adaptogens did you choose for this?

So we have in there ashwagandha, which we were talking about a minute ago. Great for reducing stress and anxiety. But then Also one of my personal favorites is reishi mushroom. So this has been known for thousands of years as the herb of immortality and spiritual potency. And the Taoist would say that it helps to guide you around the obstacles standing in between you and enlightenment. So I kind of think of it like enlightenment gps. Here's a traffic jam, here's some drama that you're going to get stuck on. You can just like go around this. Here's a new, you know, little detour to take you on. And with, with Reishi there's. It's also one of the most, if not the most well studied herb in the modern world in terms of modern science. And we see great immune benefits from it as well. And that's kind of what a lot of the research has been focused on. But there's also for these anti stress benefits, a lot of animal research has been done. It's very supportive and a little bit starting to be done in humans. And it also has great sleep health benefits. And this happens interestingly via the way it affects the gut microbiome because they did a study where they had a group of rats take Reishi and then they saw a great sleep health benefit as compared to a group of rats that were taking a placebo. Then they did a fecal transplant from the Reishi rats to a new group of rats who had never taken Reishi and the sleep health benefit passed to that group. So it's pretty amazing how like it goes from one step to the next. And so it's through, at least mostly through the gut microbiome that it's having such a powerful impact on sleep health.

That's great. I wonder how it affects the mouth. And we have, I mean there's just so much research still left to do.

Right. And I, you know, I think there's a definitely like a two way street happening between the oral microbiome and gut microbiome. So if something is affecting the gut microbiome positively, you're likely to see some benefit in the, in the oral microbiome. And also because of the way it affects the immune system, you know, it's the front line of immune warfare going on in your mouth. So I think having this is just really my theory. But I think having a more robust overall immune system as supported by a great medicinal mushroom like Reishi would be positive for oral health.

Absolutely. I find mushrooms absolutely fascinating. And what about Hou Wu?

So that's, that's a root and the quick origin story of He Shou Wu is that, well, various pronunciations I don't.

Mean to Trust me.

Half the stuff I can Shu Wu, it gets a little too crazy. And with this. It was a root. It's a root of an herbaceous vine. And there was a man. His name was Mr. Ho, and this is an ancient China. And he was never very healthy. He was aging at an accelerated, accelerated rate. He was out of shape, he was balding. He hadn't had much romantic success in his life. He had no family. He got drunk one day and went out of the forest and fell asleep. Later, when he woke up in his drunken stupor, he saw the vines of this Hoshiwu plant intertwined. And in his kind of drunken state, he thought, that looks like a man and a woman making love intertwined. And he got inspired to dig up the root and go home and cook it in a black bean soup. He started to feel a little bit more vitality after consuming this soup. And he started doing this over and over and over. And he got much healthier. His hair grew back. And it said, according to the legendary, that he lived to be 130 and had 70 children. Now it's a legend. There may be a little exaggeration here over time, but it gives you the idea. This is what the Taoists call a Yin jing restorative tonic. So it's helping to replenish your deep core reserve energy. And in modern science, this would be something that really helps with the HPA axis.

Yeah, I actually even heard that it helps with gray hair.

That's right. So that's, that's the, that that's connecting back to the legend is that this is something that can really help with, with great hair and hair loss.

Okay, now we're moving on to recharge chocolate. And I see cistanche.

Right. And then we have Hoshu. Wu actually makes a repeat appearance in this one. This one's all about good mental health and the HPA axis. So we have a combination of yin and yang, both cooling and fiery jing, which is this inner deep energy reserve that's like you're savings account of energy. So when you've been burning the candle at both ends, this is the one you want to do. We have an energy chocolate that's more like your checking account. You know, things like astragalus, ashwagandha, cordyceps for your moment to moment active energy. This one is when you've been going too hard and you need to slow down and replenish the results.

Okay, I definitely need some of this.

We all do. We all go. We all go at very high intensity.

And what is remania?

Yeah, Romania is another root that's known as the kidneys owned food. And it's an interesting one because it has to be prepared and cooked actually in a specific red wine to be turned into a tonic herb. When you have raw Romania, it has totally different properties to it. And so with a lot of these herbs, it's the preparation that goes into it. And also with he shou has to be cooked in the black bean soup raw Ho Shou Wu. It's actually a very strong laxative used for totally different purposes and only becomes a tonic herb when cooked after being cooked in black bean soup.

Oh, fascinating. Focus Chocolate.

So this is, I mean, this is a huge area of excitement for me because these days there are so many cognitive demands being placed on all of us at work, at home. The number of things you have to focus on, the demands on our time, the number of things demanding our attention left, right and center. And so this is about cognitive optimization, both for short term cognitive performance, but also for long term cognitive health.

Oh, that's great.

So we're not looking to fry you short term with some sort of speed uppers and just have you burnt out long term. These are things like cordyceps, for example, improves your oxygen utilization, so you get more oxygen that actually makes it to your blood, to your muscles, your brain.

That's good for so many more things than just your brain.

Just the beginning.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And we have lion's mane in here, which is the subject of so much exciting research these days for its ability to help long term cognitive health. And for example, where there has been damage to the axons and the dendrites in the brain, this is actually able to help restore them and help kind of regrow this tree of different neural nets that you have going on.

I actually was able to find lion's mane at the farmer's market.

It's so cool how it's becoming more available now.

I couldn't believe it. And I actually cut it up. I mixed it with eggs. It was pretty funny.

My favorite. I love to saute it in ghee like that. They're really, really nice.

Nice. Okay. Is that something I can overdose on or.

Yeah, absolutely. Anything. There's, there's, there's a possibility of going too far, but when you're eating it in a whole food form like that, you just can just listen to your body at that stage. Like, you know, you could overdose on lettuce at some point, but you listen to your body when you're done eating the salad. A lot of these things, the exact right amount is going to vary from person to person based on so many factors. You have age, metabolism, gender, body size. We can't assign one exact perfect dose. So as people get familiar with these things and learn to trust their body and listen to their body, it helps them fine tune. Yeah.

Like, what's a good starting point for someone that's never taken adaptogens? Should they start with one thing?

I would say start with either start with one chocolate and that sounds exciting to you, and meet the herbs in that fashion.

They definitely have to start with your chocolate. Absolutely.

Yeah. And then let that be your entry point. Or if there's one herb that you heard us mention today, one adaption you heard us mention that sounds exciting. I would say get that as an individual extract powder and then take it home and prepare about 4 to 6 ounces of hot water and stir it into the hot water, get it dissolved nicely, sit down somewhere quiet so you can really focus and just slowly drink it and meet that herb one on one. Because if you have, say, an herbal formulation or a smoothie or whatever, you want to make it with 5, 10 different herbs, it's like taking someone on a first date to a crazy party. You're not going to get to know that person very much. You're just going to experience them in this whole whirlwind of other factors. Right. If you want a great first date, you go somewhere nice, quiet, intimate, get to know the other person, get to know the tr, see how it affects you. Sit with it for a while, see how it feels moving through your body and how you feel in the next 15, 20, 30 minutes after. And that way you have this kind of understanding and then you can go on and, you know, incorporate it into different culinary creations. But it's nice to meet it one on one before you take it to a party.

Nice. And, you know, you mentioned actually purchasing like a powder. Is it easy to find adaptogens out there? Like in single potter format?

They're becoming more and more available. We, a lot of the adaptogens that we use in our chocolate, people were always asking us because they, they knew how obsessive I am about the sourcing. They kept asking me, where can I get this? Where can I get this? I realized I should just start making these available individually because rather than sending people, you know, everywhere else. And, and the thing was that I was just consuming the things that I was importing and producing myself. And so I was recommending people to go to places that I maybe I knew were good but hadn't consumed in many years because I was just doing my own stuff. So I wanted to really make these available as individual extract powders so that people can experience them one on one like this. Because it's a, it's a real cool experience. Especially the first time you take an herb is, can be really magical because it's. I put it this way, we don't notice necessarily speed. We notice acceleration when you're driving. Right. Like when you go in 85 on the freeway. No big deal. Don't do that. It's not safe unless you know you.

But like, especially now you're listening to.

Those podcasts, it can sneak up on you. Right. But you can be going fast and it's not that big of a deal. You accelerate in a fast car from 0 to 40 and you get thrown back in your seat. You feel it. You know, something has just changed in your reality. With herbs as well, they, it's a, it's a shift in the state of your health. So when you first start taking something, if you pay attention, you feel that shift. It's really cool. And sometimes people take something for a long time and they forget what, what it's really doing for them because it doesn't. You don't feel that shift like you did in that first acceleration. You're just going 80 miles an hour now.

Yes.

But if you have that first original experience that you can remember back to, I think, okay, this is, you know, how we met. Like, if you're in a romantic relationship, you think back to like your early romance and it can sometimes kind of help like rekindle the exact.

So I'm going to have to do that. I don't think I've ever done that, actually sit myself with the adaptogen.

Oh, nice.

I would like to do that.

Yeah.

And do you feel like, how long does it take to feel a shift? Does it take weeks or can you feel it in the first week?

Most research is done on these herbs over anywhere from a four to a 12 week period. So I would encourage people, before deciding whether something has impressed you or not, to give it at least a month. But a lot of times people do feel something pretty interesting the first time. Some people not. And different people have different sensitivities. Maybe you're taking on a full stomach, maybe empty stomach. It depends what the state of your health is. But for me, I've had a few specific herbs that the first experiences has been like absolutely unforgettable.

Yeah. Which one is that?

I would say Reishi mushroom would be one of the biggest ones for me. I felt just such an instant relaxation and melting away of stress. And I was taking it in in a tincture form at that time, the.

First time I did it.

So it's, you know, high alcohol. You hold it in your mouth and it really penetrates the mucous membrane. So it's very quickly getting into your bloodstream. And at the time I was eating as I do now, but I was eating super clean. I had nothing in my stomach. I was doing lots of yoga. So I was very in tune with my body and what was going on. So I was, I was ready for it and I just like felt slow. So blissful. And I. It was before going into a yoga class and I was there early and I had taken. Just before going in and I walked up to the front of my mat and I was just like, wow, this is really nice. Just like that. Started a total love affair for me with reishi mushrooms.

Very nice. Yeah, I love reishi mushrooms myself. Speaking of, in your immunity chocolate, you also have Reishi because we talked about the immune benefits. But you also have two other mushrooms in here.

Yes, we also do Chaga, which is a mushroom that grows in the northern regions of the world, very high in betulin and betulinic acid, which is one of the most powerful natural anti cancer compounds that you're going to come across.

Wow. I guess you couldn't call this anti cancer chocolate.

We might get in trouble with a brand of fda. And then we also have turkey tail mushroom which is very well known for breast health. In fact, it's the number one prescribed natural supplement in the US for people who have breast cancer.

Yes. Actually I know there was a study that was sponsored by the NIH on turkey tail mushroom supplementation and I did find significantly improving the state of cancer of the patients.

Yeah. And this is all of these things we should say is not to be done in place of other consultation with medical professionals and you know, take, take a holistic approach to things, pulling together the best of all worlds. But these are some amazing tools to know and to be aware of and to consider incorporating.

Absolutely. What about energy chocolate?

So this one we add just pure caffeine to it. Just. Sorry. So here we have Astragalus, which is one of the great Qi tonics of the Taoist system, helping to improve your moment to moment. Energy, vitality, cognitive function, immune function. We do have cordyceps in there again for the, for the oxygen getting into your system. And it also contains a compound called cordycepin, which is very similar in its structure and actually its function to ATP, which is your pure cellular energy. It's the energy currency of every cell in your body. And then ashwagandha for improving the energy and endurance. So this is putting more money in your energy checking account. It's not a stimulant, it's just there for you if you need to actively use it. And if not, it's just going to kind of go into your savings account, into your reserves.

Yeah, probably would go great with a little cup of coffee, a little square.

Great combo.

Last but not least is the beauty chocolate, which I actually love the flavor of this one. Oh, wonderful. Yes. And I don't even know what tremella is.

Tremella is a parasitic mushroom. Interestingly, they tried to start cultivating because previously it was only wild harvested. It was famous among some of the ancient beauties of China as being their beauty secret, that they would consume tremella mushroom every single day. And they tried to start cultivating it to make a business out of it, growing it on a farm. But it would just grow as like this weird little slime on the log. And they only realized after a number of years that the log has to be fertilized first, infected by another fungi called a Nulo, Hypoxylin archeri. And then tremella grows on top of that and then it forms this beautiful white jellyfish looking structure.

Interesting.

And Tremella is helping to improve the moisture and elasticity of the skin. It helps. It is very similar to hyaluronic acid, but actually even more effective in that regard and also helps to protect against damage from radiation. So that can be all kinds of radiation, but for example, being out in the sun and solar radiation.

Yeah, we got enough radiation in the world today, so definitely we should be eating this every day. What about blue butterfly? That's a.

It's a beautiful flower from Thailand.

It's not an actual butterfly.

No. And it's funny though because when we've imported it, we have had trouble before with customs calling us, saying that we're not allowed to import insects and this is going to be turned away. And I said, no, it's not an insect. Here's a picture. It's a beautiful flower. And this is great for inhibiting glycation. So it's helping to prevent one of the main metabolic mechanisms of aging and wrinkling of the skin. So it's great in that way. It also is an anxiolytic so it helps with stress and anxiety. Helpful with blood sugar balance. And that's when we sell individually as well. You just add it to water and it makes this beautiful blue drink. And you add a little something aesthetic to it like a, some lemon juice or lime and it turns purple instantly. It's so much fun to play with.

It sounds like we need a drink like that for the dental office.

Yeah.

The anxiety, that's firefight. And of course you have chagan chaga.

In there is, is also great for the skin, especially when people deal with inflammatory skin conditions, things like eczema, rosacea, acne as well for, you know, bacterial skin issues.

Yeah, that's fantastic. So I think these are great. Also. You mentioned tranquility. That's great for TMJ patients. You know, so many of you have stress and I think it's something.

Who doesn't have stress?

Who doesn't have stress.

Yeah, absolutely.

We talked so much about mushrooms. Are you like, what are some key things to buy mushrooms? Like, what do you. How do we go about that?

Well, you see with mushrooms becoming so popular these days, there's a huge variety of quality out there on the market. So you can see something that says that this, say lion's mane mushroom is organic, it's USA grown and it's got, you know, all these different little certifications on it. But the question is, what is it grown on? Because a lot of these medicinal mushrooms, they're not like, they're not ground mushrooms. They're not things like, you know, portobello mushrooms that you see growing out of the dirt. These are tree mushrooms. They grow on trees. Whether it's chaga, Reishi, wine and Spain, they're all growing out of trees. Wood, hardwood is their natural food. When you see a lot of these USA grown mushrooms, they're grown on a medium of grain. And there's a couple problems going on there. So one is that they're often not grown properly. So in theory, the idea is that they will eat up all the grain and what's left over will be just pure fungal material. Problem is, when researchers did a test, I believe it was 12 different, very popular. It's called Mycelium Mycelium, the mushroom brands, they found that what was in the product was predominantly grain powder and there was little to no mushroom material actually in there. So you're paying the huge premium for uncooked brown rice powder. Wow, it's horrible.

Yeah, it's the same like grass fed cows versus corn fed cows in a way, right? Yes.

It's like, you know, if, if I took you and I fed you just a diet of pure grain rather than your ancestral natural diet, you're not going to be the fullest manifestation of yourself. And so the other problem is that even if a company does it right, there are a few that do a decent job of growing them in this way properly. When the mushroom is grown on grain, it doesn't produce one of the main classes of adaptogenic compounds that we look for in mushrooms called triterpenoids.

Yes.

And so for this, they has to be grown on wood. And so what you want to look for is mushroom that's grown on wood, that is an extract of the mushroom. Because if you just take the mushroom and powder it down, it's not going to be very concentrated and it's not really digestible. Reishi, for example, has the texture of wood. And so if you. You could take like dry tree bark, grind it down into a powder and eat that, you can eat just about anything, right? Like there's world records of people eating like whole plains over the course of many years. And you can eat it. It'll go through you. It's not going to do anything for you. It has to be extracted to break through the cell wall, which is made of chitin, one of the hardest substances in nature, to actually get out the beneficial compounds from the side.

Wow, that's great advice, Sage. Where else can we find your chocolates and the single adaptogens you were talking about?

Yeah, so people can check us out on addictivewellness.com where we have all of our products and then you can follow us on our YouTube channel, Dictive Wellness as well. We love sharing educational information. So if the kind of stuff we're talking about today has been fun and interesting for you, we'd love to continue. You share?

Absolutely. And please comment. You know, our podcast episodes are also on our YouTube channel, so where you can actually comment below and let us know what questions you might have so we can perhaps have another.

I'll be sure to be there in the comment section as well. Fantastic.

Okay, well, it's been a pleasure.

Thank you so much. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be here, everyone.

Thank you for joining us and see you next time.

Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please make sure you check out the show notes for any links mentioned in the show. If you like today's show, please invite your friends to listen as well. That would mean a lot to me. Do you have a question you'd like me to answer? Message me on Instagram. Doctorsanda, this is Dr. Sandha. And remember, your mouth is the gateway to your health. So take care of it in the most natural and best way possible.