Sheree 0:00
Welcome back to another incredible episode here at the wild and wild collective. This guest today completely blew my mind at a festival I went to, and so I reached out to him, and I was like, Oh my gosh, we have to have you on the podcast. He is also a co founder of one of my favorite supplements ever. You may be familiar from it with you follow me on Instagram with the hormone balancing latte that I've created, and that is with the seleno Health cacao maca, I am beyond obsessed, and Dr Corinne today is going to be diving into some of the known incredible benefits of this. So to give you a little background on the expert that we've got coming in today, we have Dr Corinne storke, who is New Zealand born, co founder and Co Co director with over 15 years of academic research and experience specializing in medicinal antioxidant chemistry, oxidative diseases and health. He holds a PhD in medicinal chemistry from the University of Melbourne, Australia and the heart Research Institute in Sydney, Australia. He has previously struggled with and overcome chronic fatigue syndrome, and now focuses his research on natural solutions to inflammatory conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, Crohn's, psoriasis, alopecia, ulcerative colitis, IBS, Lyme disease and similar autoimmune conditions. I am beyond excited to have his world of wisdom brought to you in today's episode, because your mind is about to be blown with what you may have regarded as some very simple supplements that honestly have changed my life, have changed the life of my clients, and I know can change and impact yours too. So without further ado, let's dive in. Okay, welcome, welcome, welcome. Dr Corinne, I'm so excited that you're here on the wild and well collected podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1 2:01
Oh yeah, I'm really excited to be here and to share some wisdom and knowledge and have good in depth conversations and also learn a bit from you guys too. That's it's always good. Yeah,
Sheree 2:10
we were jumping I jumped on a little earlier. We've been having some amazing discussions. We're like, Oh crap. We should probably hit record. We've been talking about the integration of the Western medicine with, like, more of the Eastern medicine and the natural medicine, and some of the pushback we can kind of get. And so before we dive into your journey and how you really arrived into doing what you're doing, are you able to just to repeat some of the gold that you would just share with us?
Speaker 1 2:36
Yeah, I like what you said about pushback, because I feel that. I mean, I came from science, so I, you know, I was a extreme rationalist, and black and white when it came to science and scientific methodology, that's just the way my mind work, kind of growing up and, I mean, I went through that educational system, got my PhD in medcam, postdoc research, and then into the pharmaceutical industry, which is very much focused on, you know, here's a problem. Here is a proven black and white pharmaceutical intervention that shows that 80% of people taking this versus placebo will have this kind of benefit, you know, like, that's the way they treat health, and it's very much pill per symptom. And it was funny, because I used, I mean, we used to look at, like, alternative health and think, oh, it's witchcraft and voodoo and crystals and, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And I think all scientists have that view, but it's, I mean, my view changed from my own experience. You know, it's all very well and good to sit on the fence and look in at health and go, but when Western health doesn't work for you, like, where do you go? You know, and that's what I learned the hard way. So we used to say in the lab, like, oh, the only thing worse than an arrogant doctor who thinks he knows everything is an arrogant hippie who thinks they know more. And that's the way that we store it. It's like, you know, these these people on on the other side are like, they're even worse, because they think they know everything without any foundational knowledge. Now I'm that I'm saying that in the past tense, because that's not the view currently. So I don't want to offend or upset people out there who think that they know a lot, but we still see that a lot. And this in the natural health industry, I work now on natural health and looking into integrate Western medicine into natural health. And I mean, I come up against a lot of very, I don't want to use the word arrogant, but very knowledgeable and and sometimes difficult people in natural health who think they have all the answers as well. And I feel like we need to be open on both sides. So, you know, let's meet in the middle a little bit. Let's learn some more science and scientific methodology and apply it to natural health. And doctors need to be open more, but I mean, this is the whole area we call Integrative Health. This is where health becomes holistic. And I'll give you a few quick examples where I think it's exciting the future of health. For example, psychedelic therapy. This is really bridging so. And some spirituality. Now it's legalized in Australia now, which is super exciting, yeah, the use of still assignment for long standing PTSD, that is for people that have really, you know, struggling with their mental health. I mean, 10 years ago, that was that would have been unheard of. And that's come about because scientists are now starting to study this type of spiritual practice, but with scientific methodology. So, yeah, that. I mean, you know, cannabis is another great example of where the industry has begun to change, and we've become to find middle ground. So John Hopkins in the I think, UK, like they've done a lot of work with integration, with their medical doctors, but also shamans and, you know, indigenous wisdom keepers and psychologists and spiritual healers coming together to help treat these kind of issues, which I think is really, really exciting in the future, hopefully. I'm really
Christa 5:59
curious. Let's back up a little bit to how you came from the black and white sort of thinking, to opening your eyes to more of an integrative approach, or what kind of led in your own personal journey to that affected you in your professional journey? Yeah,
Speaker 1 6:18
that's a good question. I would say desperation. And it was desperation because I was really sick. I got really, really sick, and I had 12 to 15 months of going through the Western Health System, seeing all these specialists for my health. I was bedridden. I was on a sickness benefit. I was living at home in my 20s with my parents and and I was so unwell, like I had within the space of 12 months. I had shingles, I had toxoplasmosis, I had constant, recurring infections, I had full body rashes, I had insomnia, I had migraines, I had seizures, I was like I had absolute horrific fatigue that wouldn't improve, you know, I and it took 12 to 15 months of seeing nine different specialists working with my GP to get a label of chronic fatigue syndrome. And at one point, I was on 11 different drugs for all sorts of different things that were going on in my body, and nothing helped, and I just got helpless, and I was massively depressed. I was almost suicidal at that point. And, yeah, I got so desperate, I said, I'll try anything. Have you told me that? You know, like I rub a lemon all over my body every morning, I would have done it like I would have tried it, because I was so desperate. And it was interesting, because my journey through natural health was just so hit and miss, but there were some things that stuck and some things that helped. And yeah, and I was like, you know, there's a lot more to this. So I learned the hard way. I had to go through that process myself of learning, you know, you don't know everything, and Western Health has a lot of flaws and pitfalls. So, yeah, I mean,
Christa 8:01
Western medicine is really great at solving acute problems, acute infection, acute trauma, but beyond that, you know, it's interesting. I spent 10 years in emergency medicine, which is where you gain a really big gratitude for what we have in the pharmaceutical industry and in our technology. But then when you switch over, and I got trained in family practice, you know, medicine, it's like, oh, boy. Okay, this is where we're failing, and this is where we really get to learn more about what lifestyle factors and what kind of natural remedies do we have to support our body. So where is your professional life now? Like, where? Introduce us a little bit to what you're doing now and how you even got to this specific
Speaker 1 8:45
people ask me that, like, how did you get to where you are? Because, like, we as a business, like, we go to, like, these big festivals, you know, great big hippie festival. Then I I talk about my past and, like, all my qualifications and and then I'm standing up there talking about ceremonial cook house, psychedelics, changing your brain state and all this. And people like, how did you get here? Like, what are you you're standing here dressed, you know, dressed differently. And, yeah, and it's a good question. I mean, I went on a journey, like I said, through integrative health, understanding different modality. I learned all about traditional Chinese medicine. You know, I did study Qigong. I Yeah, I got into spirituality and meditation and all of these mindfulness practices. I dabbled in different natural products. I had a big thing for medicinal mushrooms at one point, and got really into glutathione. I found that was really beneficial. But my journey really took shape, I think, when I went to Peru. So at that point in my life, I was in the pharmaceutical industry as a medical liaison, working for a big pharma company and lifestyle disease. And I think, like you said, that's, that's the issue where Western health suffers, lifestyle disease, autoimmunity, like. These kind of things that are there's no cure for that. With Western Health, there's treatment interventions, but there's no cure according to Western health, but there is outside of Western Health, there's full recovery for sure, for people out there that are looking for that. And I went to Peru just on a whim on a holiday, and I met my beautiful wife, Sally, and yeah, everything transformed. At that point in my life, I come off pretty much all my drugs. The only thing I couldn't get off was the antidepressants. So I'd been seven years, I think, at that point, on Prozac, and it definitely was helping with the depression and the anxiety, but it wasn't helping with my day to day. Living like I was incredibly numb. I lacked a lot of joy in my life. I felt very flat, and I've noticed it a lot in, like, my libido as well. And, you know, we talk about hormones and how important hormones are, like hormones for men are very, very important as well as women. You know, like, I get women's hormones are the suit. Like, you know, we're always focusing on women's hormones, but for men, like, it's rough when you're lacking testosterone, when you don't have your hormonal patterns and cycles, it really exacerbates depression or disconnection. And that was always a sign for me, I'm like, I'm still not there. You know, at that point, I was back surfing, I was doing exercise, but I wasn't there emotionally and mentally, spiritually. Yeah, and I met my wife, and she started force feeding me a lot of things. This one being one of them, marker. I knew nothing about this plant at that point in my life, and I was like, What are you feeding me? And she said, you need, firstly, you need marker. Mark is the food of your brain that's going to bring you resilience, teach you how to manage stress. It's going to increase your vitality. It's going to bring up back your libido, and it's going to help your brain. And as a skeptic, I was like, man, whatever you know, like, show me the evidence. Where has it been stained? She said, I don't have all the science, but I know what my grandma taught my mom and what my mom taught me, like, I'm from the Andes, this is what we use. We use plants to heal, yeah, and it was amazing. Within four weeks, like I started noticing big change, like I was waking up earlier, I was feeling more refreshed. I've started feeling more joyous than ever before. And at first I was like, oh, maybe it's because I'm in this amazing new relationship, but then I've been in and out of relationships that were sort of amazing in the past and not experience that. But what was the clinch was when I noticed my libido change, and I was like, wow, that's physiological, because for me, I could grab that and go, No, that's something beyond my mind, like my body is changing. So I got really interested in Marco, and yeah, and it was so inspiring. I came off my antidepressants. I went back to Sydney, where I was living at the time, and I just had this epiphany, and I said, I'm quitting my career, my job. We packed up a suitcase and I went to Peru to pursue whatever it was that I needed to pursue. But yeah, it was. It led me on this amazing journey to where I am today, where we work with these beautiful people in the Andes and the Amazon. We say we work with their plant medicines. We were just about to head to Peru to run retreats. So we take people into the Amazon to connect spiritually with cacao on a spiritual rebirthing process, and then also to the Andes to celebrate, enter I meet the Andy New Year and connect with Maka on the farm. So there you go. I never believed that would have happened.
Christa 13:38
Can you tell us the so I know maca a lot is used in for women, in like menopause, perimenopause, all of that, I would love to dive into how hormonally it can affect men and women alike. Now. I mean, I generally see it more for women, and so this is a really cool and not so much distinct mental health, although a lot of women, particularly and men who are getting older and androgens are lower, or women are in, you know, approaching menopause, experience depression because of that decline in sex hormones. Yeah, tell us a little bit about the science behind maca and what and how it affects the body.
Speaker 1 14:17
Yeah, amazing, and it's so interesting. You mentioned that because I we have a chain of stores here in New Zealand, health stores, and I visited one recently, and there was a woman there who, like you, said she was going through menopause. She was put on HRT, hormone replacement therapy and antidepressants because she wasn't coping. And she did a little mucker training online that we do for stockus, and she started on our blend we call market for women, and within six weeks, she said she could come off her antidepressants, stop her HRT, and she felt amazing. And it's so funny because that store now has become one of our best stores in the country. Because every woman who comes in the door with menopause, she's like, this is all you need, not everything. Down. This is all you need. So we see some incredible results and stories around menopause. In particular, with this and menopause is the most studied area for maca, because traditionally, where it's been used heavily, there's a lot of research out there now. There's some great research coming out of Australia showing alleviation of symptoms of menopause, things like hot flushes, mood swings, sexual function independent of hormone. And they're now saying this is an effective replace alternative to HRT. So there's a lot of evidence now how it works. At first, people thought it was so it's estrogenic, simulates estrogen production, and obviously if it's used in menopause, but it's not what they're finding in these clinical studies. And if that were the case, it wouldn't be so effective. For men, it wouldn't be effective. You know, in other cases, like we've seen it use people using it for estrogen dominance, we've seen Polycystic Ovarian androgen dominance, and getting amazing results. We had one girl who she had 14 months of no menstrual cycle with PCOS. When we met her, she had terrible facial acne, and within six weeks, she got her first period. Within two weeks, her skin started to clear. Within six weeks, she got her first period, and eight months later, she's on a perfect lunar cycle, like literally full moon, which is phenomenal, given that she tried everything, and her doctor was going to chuck her on a more hormones to get there. You know, we're seeing a lot of stories like this with marker. Now, the reality is, what we know about marker is that it's not estrogenic, it's not androgenic, it's adaptogenic. And the belief or understanding now is that a lot of its action is working in the endocannabinoid system and helping regulate the master glands of the brain, the hypothalamus and pituitary, which obviously produce hormones, and so they've seen a lot of benefit around HPA dysregulation, you know, like rebalancing the hypothalamus and pituitary through inflammatory processes and cycles. But what's unique to this plant is that it contains 26 cannabinoids, which are only found in maca. And these are the ones that we've got really interested in studying. This is what I learned about maca, was that the cannabinoids in the plant are unique. Other molecules it has aren't unique, but yet it has these unique properties. So I a lot of the research we've done is like understanding how these cannabinoids work, what they do, like we've isolated 26 of them, some of them we know are anti inflammatory. Some of them we know are neuroprotective. Some of them actually increase bone density, which is why, for example, Mark has been used a lot for osteoporosis, particularly post post menopause. Some of them enhance natural cannabinoid production and sensitivity. So there's a lot of new science now understanding the mechanisms. It's not fully understood how it works, but we've put marker through cannabis assays, and we've shown similar effects and benefit to what they saw with CBD or cannabidiol, which is a non psychoactive cannabinoid from cannabis. So there's a lot of crossover with marker and cannabis that people aren't even aware of. But the one thing that's different with these two plants is for marker to become a cannabinoid plant, the processes happen post harvest. So it's actually not that root that's in the soil, it's what happens when you take the root out of the soil. And this is the biggest difference with cannabis. It grows and the cannabinoids are in the bud. They're in the oil and the flowers, and you're just extracting them. So different strains of cannabis have different cannabinoids. You extract them out, and we have different profiles and properties. With maca, you have to go through traditional Andean sun drying, and that's the key process in this. When we did a lot of research on this, we looked at these processes of how they take the root out the soil, and then what do they do with it? And it really needs to spend at least three to four months at altitude under high, intense UV conditions, and be continually turned, churned and moved. And this is what we call Andean sun drying, which is a four month traditional process. They call it the process for with titanti, the sun god, which is where they are, infusing the light into the marker, and it's done under the guidance of upper of the mountain. So they have these spiritual ways of explaining it, but what we now know scientifically is that's when we make cannabinoids, and those cannabinoids will determine the potency of that marker. So we looked at 10 different types of marker powder we could find here in New Zealand, and we found only 30% of them had sufficient cannabinoids to become therapeutic in the ECS in the endocannabinoid system. So it's not all macro is the same, and that's what we're seeing globally. There's a huge shift in production processes to speed things up and to mass produce, which is really taking the meta. Percent out of the pond. I
Sheree 20:01
like when you spoke at ended spirit fest, which is when I learned a lot about this. I, you know, obviously knew the magic that Maka was and been using it for years. And definitely seleno health, although, okay, because, you know, I'm huge when it comes to supplements or nutrients and that sort of thing, making sure you've done your research and you're getting them from a really high quality space. I think when we hear the word cannabinoid, our brain instantly goes to cannabis. Can you discuss a little bit like we actually have naturally producing human cannabinoids? That was the term I picked up when I heard you speak at the festival. And I was like, Oh, wow. I didn't know we actually produce cannabinoids on our own, and how the mucker really ties into that. And I know you touched on how much that can have the antidepressant effect, but also the anti inflammatory effect, because, you know, and I'll let you dive into your story a little bit more, but I know that we can look at THC, or we can go elsewhere, if we're looking at cannabis, or the cannabis plant to mitigate some of the inflammation, but then you're dealing with the negative side effects of feeling stoned, or you're dealing with the, you know, the fact that it may not be legal in some places. So how can we really utilize Marka? And I know there's something called MCB oil, if you want to touch on that a little bit as well.
Speaker 1 21:12
Yeah, it's so funny, because every time you know you do, we give a talk on Mark and we put the word cannabinoid, which is to Class A molecule. We don't even put cannabis. People just see cannabis, and they just assume so we get all these stoners rock up, going, I just want to hear about why it's good to get stone. And I'm like, that's not what I'm promoting. I'm actually smoking cannabis. Like, I don't think it's good for you. And it's funny, because I'm like, you think you're all here to for me a scientist, to go, Yeah, we should smoke more. No, that's not what's happening at all. This is not the talk, you know. So, yeah, it's perceptional, isn't it? Like for the all of our lives, we've been told smoking cannabis is bad. Smoking cannabis disrupts your brain. Smoking. So when we hear the word cannabinoid or cannabis, yeah, instantly recreational use of a drug to get high. That's what we thinking. Now the reality is, cannabis is incredibly interesting, because through cannabis, they discovered this endocannabinoid system. And Cherie, just like you said, we have our own cannabinoids. So you don't need to go to cannabis to get cannabinoids. You make them yourself. The main one is called an undermine and it's an incredibly powerful molecule in our brain that has the ability to change our conscious state, to bring us into an experience of embodiment, to make us feel more connected to self. It helps support our serotonin levels. It brings the sense of bliss and euphoria to us. You may not even realize, but you can experience your own cannabinoids at any given moment. Exercise is the main way that we feel cannabinoids in our brain and body, and there's a thing called runners high. I don't know if you've heard of runners high. People go. Why do people run in these mountains and marathon? They get high of their own cannabinoids run as high has been directly linked to increased levels of human cannabinoids in the brain and undermine in particular and in those moments when you're exercising or dancing or running. I mean, everybody can think about a time in their life when they've been doing movement, some form of breath, and they've started to feel just beautifully euphoric, connected. That's your cannabinoids working, and they're incredibly powerful at changing the way our brain is working and functioning, and they build serotonin levels because the two are interlinked. So this system is really important in our brain and body, because it does a few things. It works on our conscious state and helps with acute state changes and long term improvement of serotonin. But the other thing that we know about the ECS is that this is a master switch for all of our systems. So the analogy would be like, it's like a thermostat for a heater. So we're going into winter here in New Zealand, and this first thing I did when I got up this morning was, like, pushed my heat pump on and I set it to 24 degrees. Sally will always select 20 degrees. We're very different people. She's always feeling too hot. I'm always feeling too cold. But this is the reality. Our bodies are individualized. What's right for me is not right necessarily for you. So we have different thermostats that we like to set, and the role of that thermostat is to tell the heater switch on or switch off, and when it does the job, well, we get beautiful balance when it's not doing the job, well, we're all over the place. So I also have this old two bar heater that has a setting, 1234, now, if I put the heater in one room and the digital thermometer thermostat in the other room, and I set them both going, the temperature in the room with the good thermostat is going to be stable. The temperature without is going to be not so stable. And when I open the window, which I would say. Is like the body experiencing some kind of stress or chemical, physical, emotional, that's when you feel the thermostat more because that's when that hater can react more effectively. And this is what human cannabinoids are doing in our brain. An undermined has the ability to tune the nervous system so it can tell your body too much, not enough, just right? I call it the Goldilocks effect, or is it, the porridge is too hot, porridge is too cold. Porridge is just right. And that's what this system is designed to do. It's through feedback on the neurons. It tells that nervous system how to react and respond. And what we find is when we're using when we're getting a good cannabinoids within our life, good levels of an undermined we're very stable. We're very balanced. We're adaptable to stress. We're resilient to stress, if we're up and down like a Yo yo, and we see this a lot with HPA dysregulation, we're bipolar, we're too high, we're too low. And autoimmunity is a perfect example. The immune system is over attacking the body, and we're seeing that, say in rheumatism in the joints, or alopecia in the hair follicles, or fibromyalgia in the muscles, chronic fatigue and our energy levels. This is the body's inability to adapt, and we're gigging over action on this system, so it's not switching off effectively. So if you tune the thermostat, that's how we're improving the condition. So it's very holistic, and wherever you have cannabinoid receptors, is where you can tune. So immune cells is one example. CB, two receptors on our immune cells. We can tune those using cannabinoids, and we can improve the way our immune system functions. We can make it more effective to switch on at the right time and off at the right time. And that's why cannabis has been looked at a lot for autoimmunity, because it's helping fix the problem at the root and doing it holistically, whereas the Western approaches block the signal to the brain, and they do that using TNF alpha anti TNF alpha drugs like HUMIRA. So different approaches, but it's becoming more mainstream and more accepted at this point, and it's adaptogenic as well. Obviously, yeah, there's
Christa 27:16
you mentioned, there's different levels, and so let's say, can you use the same type of maca, the same form, let's say, or same potency for a woman in menopause versus a man that has autoimmune like is with the same dose, the same type, do the same thing?
Speaker 1 27:34
Yeah, that's a good question. And this is where it's about the cannabinoids in that plant. So cannabis has a lot of different cannabinoids. Some cannabinoids and cannabis are direct acting on the system. So THC, it actually binds the receptor that an undermine would normally bind. And it does it more aggressively, more effectively. So we get this direct effect, whereas cannabinoids like CBD don't do that. They work indirectly. And when we look at marker the 26 cannabinoids, none of them are direct, so there's no risk of any psychoactive response, and there's no risk of dependency, because they're working indirectly. So you're not going to get this instant change. Doesn't work like that. What you're going to do with indirect cannabinoid therapy is you're putting cannabinoids in the body that are not actively binding those receptors what they are found to have done. And the thing is, we still don't fully understand the mechanism, but we know that when we get these cannabinoids in there, they seem to enhance how our natural cannabinoids are working. So we get higher levels of natural cannabinoids, more sensitivity on those receptors and more action of an undermined and we did this interesting study with Otago University here in New Zealand, where we put our high potency marker oils through this process, and we found that anandamide became more active, but we weren't getting binding of any affinity on the receptor from our marker. So different cannabinoids do different things as well, and some, like I said, some are really anti inflammatory. So if you're working with, say, an inflammatory autoimmune condition, you want higher levels of those cannabinoids, because inflammation is a big problem, some of them work better with the HPA axis. Some of them work better with hormone production. And I think the best way to understand this is to look at traditional use, and this is what we're finding like, for example, red marker has always been used more by women, and looking for hormonal balance, it's really great at harmonizing hormones and bringing cycles back into balance. Black mark has always been used a lot more for neurological function, so for brain function, and what we're starting to analyze is these differences between traditional preparations. And for example, we found black marker has higher levels of cannabinoids that. Neuroprotective. So it makes sense, then that it's going to work more effectively on memory or cognition or neurological function. Red has a lot higher levels of anti inflammatory compounds. It's got a lot higher levels of the cannabinoids that increase bone density. And red was always used for bones, and in clinical studies, they showed that only red can enhance bone density. So there are some uniquenesses to the colors as well, but traditions is really the place to go to understand which marker is best for you and your issues. We made blends too. We made blends from men and women. So women's blend is heavily focused on red marker, but we still also put some black and yellow in there, particularly black because it's great for memory and cognition and neurological function. The men's is more heavy on the black market because it's all about energy, stamina, libido, mainly, which is what men are kind of looking for. And traditionally, those are the ratios that men would follow. So yeah, depending on what you're looking to treat and manage is you need to look at what color of marker, what type of marker, and then also ratios or different ways of consuming that we have load those forms, like yellow marker, for example, is a great general harmonizer, but, you know, that's a good place to start. But if you're a more specific you could use, like our men's blend or a women's blend, and then we do these concentrates of pure red, pure black. And I think Sri, you mentioned it earlier, the latest thing that we've come up with is creating a pure essence of oil from maca. And we call this MCB. It stands for maca cannabinoid oil. And this is amazing stuff. So the theory behind this, I came up with this concept about six years ago, and that was because I was trying to get hold of some CBD oil in New Zealand, and it was impossible, and the costs were phenomenal. In New Zealand, it's a prescription only medicine, and it can cost up to $300 a bottle for your script. It's incredibly expensive. And I thought there must be a better way to do this. We can't all go to the US, to these legal states and get hold of these amazing full spectrum oils at reasonable prices.
Speaker 1 32:20
And I'd had so much success with marker, and I was like, I want to make an oil out of this, because the cannabinoids in marker are less than 1% very dilute. And I reckon my idea was, if we can get those cannabinoids out of marker and we can make a pure oil, it's going to work differently to the powders. So over the next six years, I spent a lot of time researching and coming up with this concept, and we just filed the patent on the oil and the process and the formulation, and we've been running it through trials, but it's basically a full spectrum cannabinoid oil derived purely from marker. So there's no legal issues with using the plant because it doesn't contain any psychoactives, and it's not a regulated substance like cannabis, and cannabis is regulated because of the THC in it, so yeah, we've been using this for a year now in New Zealand, in trials. It just launched a few months ago, and we found that it's really fitted into that niche area of chronic conditions like autoimmunity, those types of things where you need high doses of these compounds to get the body back into balance. But the beautiful thing is, it gives you a spectrum now, so if you're just coming in with just general mood, hormonal issues, start on our yellow marker powder. If you're focused more on arm. I want to get my periods sorted. I'm getting really bad PMS, or I've got PCOS, or there's some issue going on there. If it's fatigue or energy, you can use blends of the colors. If it's a more chronic condition, you can use ethanol concentrates, like we do the pure red or black. But if it's a real ongoing, stubborn chronic condition, then you've got an oil, and now you've got from $4 a day, $5 a day, down to 7080, cents per day. So you have a whole spectrum of treatment options and approaches you can take, starting from a whole food up to a concentrated, extracted oil. And I think that's something that the cannabis industry doesn't offer it at this point is like, where do you go beyond an oil? There's no kind of long term sustainable option. You can't eat it as a whole food. You can't eat the buds and mukherj, yeah, it fills a lot of those gaps.
Christa 34:33
Is the oil applied topically, or is it you ingest it?
Speaker 1 34:37
Yeah, you it's sublingual. But what's interesting is you can take it topically. So the idea is that you take it up in a dropper and you pop it under your tongue, and then you hold it for 60 seconds. So you're getting a lot of sublingual absorption, which is under the tongue and you take it's the kind of thing with indirect cannabinoids. You need to take them consistently. So your best results, some people get results within. Days. Generally, we say within two to six weeks of continual use, and you titrate or ramp up your dose. So you start with only two or three drops, two to three times a day, and then increase it every five to seven days. And so you're finding out, where is the balance point within your body? Like, how sensitive are you to cannabinoids?
Christa 35:20
And I guess that brings me to a question too sensitivity, can you have side effects that people don't want or would is it just reaching a threshold where you feel good and you don't need more? Yeah,
Speaker 1 35:31
but because we're working only with indirect cannabinoids, I've not heard of anyone having a problem with with overdosing or with dependency or with withdrawal, and that definitely isn't the case with things like THC or full spectrum oils containing THC with cannabis, like there is a risk of dependency that can occur because you are heavily sensitizing that system with things like THC, like you're really hitting those receptors hard. And what we know about the body is it tries to adapt this process we call tachyphylaxis. Talk to a caffeine addict about how you know how receptors respond to continual use. It's like you get less sensitive over time. And so some people find that they need to go up and up and up with a dose. So when they stop taking up, they feel withdrawal on that indirect cannabinoid therapy where you're working with these kinds of indirect cannabinoids, has never really shown any dependency issues, so it's a lot safer to use long term. And there doesn't really say it's everyone has different sensitivity. So they don't really seem to be like an upper dose, where it's what dose is right for you.
Sheree 36:36
We've talked a lot about maca, and I love maca, but one of the other products I think that's initially got me introduced to your brand, is the cacao. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about the cacao, and actually what ceremonial grade cacao can do. And you mentioned a little bit with your retreats in that that you're running, which is just incredible. I don't know if that was when we were recording or before we were recording, but it's such a powerful plant medicine. It's something that I love having absolutely every single day. But also, when you do a cacao ceremony, it can be really beautiful to bring a deeper connection to your heart space and even on a spiritual level, yeah,
Speaker 1 37:13
cacao is a beautiful plant, and I feel that we all feel connected and called to it. Well, a lot of people feel called to it, but we all feel connected to it because of our own journey with cacao. You know, chocolate, which is the Western version of cacao, so it already takes us into this nice space within our heart, you know, where we feel warm and fuzzy and loved, and brings back beautiful memories. Our journey with cacao is an interesting one. We like Sally's from the Andes, and she used cacao growing up, but there was never that same deep connection that she had to marker. But we had this experience where we were drawn to this plant. So we didn't choose to work with cacao, but we felt that cacao kind of chose us. She had this vision one day about a Jaguar came to her and said, I want you to find the origin of cacao, which is an interesting experience, because she said, I don't really cacao is not it's from the jungle, like people are from the mountains and and there was a whole lot of synchronicities that occurred with us, where we had a phone call from a farmer cacao, who invited us to his farm, and apparently, his cacao, we've been using in our blend we call chocolate maca. So we've been our farmer makes this. And he'd been buying the cacao from this farmer, and he said to us, come visit my farm, because I love what you guys are doing about sharing ancestral wisdom of the plant, like my wife teaches about wisdom of the plants and the science. And yeah, cacao was an interesting one, like so he told us a story. For 30 years in Peru, they were fighting drug cartels in the jungle. When the cocaine industry boomed, the raw ingredient for cocaine is a leaf called coca leaf, which grows in the Amazon, around the areas where cacao grows. And so all the cartels came into areas of Colombia or Peru, started coca growing and for and then a lot of these farmers got forced into growing coca and told you can't grow cacao anymore. You have to grow coca. So the jungle was all armed by the cartels, and the sky Rolando persevered for 30 years fighting these cartels to try and maintain the traditions of cacao in Peru. All the world's cacao came from Peru and the Amazon. So it spread its way north into Central America, where it was heavily taken up into the cultures of the Mayan people in the old meccas and the Aztecs. But it actually originated in the Amazon, and there's a lot of tradition and spirit and history around the use of the plant. And so we met with Rolando. We heard this amazing story, and he said, I'm trying to rescue cacao. So this program he developed was called rescue cacao, and that's what got us into. Cacao was being asked by him to help support this mission, and we both were so interested in it. And for me, cacao was it's something I've. I only really been using the last five or six years, but so powerful for mental health, for mood and so began our research into this. And yeah, we met with many people, geneticists, who were mapping cacao and its origins. We met with Marco Peru, who are the cultural stamp of ambassadors of Peru. We met with an incredible archeologist called Carina Olivera who uncovered the world's first cacao temple with the oldest cacao on the planet, which is almost 8000 years old, and this temple in northern Peru and cayenne. And we went to visit him, and we were standing in this it's built in the shape of a woman giving birth. And in the birthing canal is a spiral that goes inwards, and there was a there's a mummified body in the center, and she's it's a woman, and she's sitting with a ceramic pot containing cacao. And they dated this cacao to be almost 8000 years old. So he rewrote the history books of cacao. And when we were standing in this temple, Sally looked at me and she said, I think this is where the Jaguar was trying to get me to go, because this is the womb of cacao. This is where it began its journey. And I feel like our journey to this point is complete. So we spent four years mapping and collecting and working with people and created this online training program to to share this knowledge with people, because both Sally and I felt this whole Westernization of cacao and ceremonies. And you know, there's a disconnect there, and that disconnect can only be filled through indigenous wisdom. We feel this call, but we it needs to come from a place of knowledge and reverence. And so she put this course together. But then the true process that we wanted people to go on was the the journey to the origin, which was the retreat that we created in Peru. So it's basically, you can't you learn the knowledge online, and then you come to Peru to be initiated in the land of origin of this plant, and you experience it in its true nature and form, which is very different to what we know as chocolate. Yeah, so that's been our interesting little journey. It's a whole nother can of worms. But for me, as a scientist studying the plant, we I did a biochemical mapping process, and the idea was to make sense of the traditional use of cacao for spiritual rebirths. Here, the concept was to understand how cacao was traditionally prepared and used for the spiritual rebirthing processes to map its biochemistry, and then to create a picture of how our brain works on cacao. So the journey that your brain will go on, and it involves everything from dopamine activation to cannabinoid activation of anandamide to activation of the central nervous system through adenosine, tryptophan and serotonin, and then also and the pseudo psychedelic component of cacao. So how it was traditionally used to entourage psychedelic plant medicines, and the one in Peru they used is called Huachuma, which is San Pedro, but there's also traditional use of it being entouraged with psychedelic mushrooms in Mexico as well. So we take people on the training through that journey, and then the retreat as you come and experience with that. So we spend each day is looking at a different journey your brain is going to go on, and then how we can use traditional preparation and tools to enhance that experience and then combine it with modern modalities. So by the end of it, you understand, oh, that's why we do cacao and breastwork. Oh, that's why we do cacao and ecstatic dance. Oh, that's why cacao and sound droning is so effective. So it's kind of giving you that knowledge to understand the modernization of Cherie
Christa 43:57
mentioned that she has ceremonial grade cacao every morning. So I'm assuming then that means it gives you some level of feeling open hearted and good, but no psychosomatic, no psychedelic effects.
Speaker 1 44:12
Yeah. Okay, yeah. Cacao is definitely not a psychedelic at all. We call it pseudo psychedelic. But not all cacao is pseudo psychedelic. So pseudo means almost psychedelic. The reason we say that is some cacao particularly, a lot of the ancestral varieties we looked at in Peru contain a compound called tryptamine. Tryptamine is a biogenic amine that can activate the same receptor as psychedelics in the brain, but it's doing it much more weekly and on a micro scale. So you're not going to have this profound experience like you would with, say, psilocybin, where it directly and heavily activates that receptor, but you, through consistent use, may find that you begin to become more tuned in and aware, and we call this. Just experience embodiment. In Amazonian Cosmo vision, they talk about this concept of kite. So Kai Pacha is this world we exist in that is incredibly embodied and in the moment and present. So being in that present moment, but also being aware and connected to nature. So the natural world and cacao has the ability to move us through these realms. Another one is called the HANA Pacha, which is a space where we go, like kohanan, the heaven or the spiritual realm, where we go to seek guidance or new direction or new vision. And what we know about Tripta mean is it can entourage these effects with psychedelics, but also when we tune into it, we can go on that journey ourselves and in a conscious state. The other thing that's really fascinating is tryptamine is the precursor to Dimethyltryptamine in the brain. And I don't know if you've heard of Dimethyltryptamine, most people know its abbreviation is DMT. So DMT is probably the it's associated with Ayahuasca. It's the most psychoactive substance on the planet, and you make it in your own brain. But the the thing is, DMT is so heavily regulated and controlled within the body that it's very hard for us to experience it or to understand its effects, because we're only getting such tiny doses. But what we can see as well as like these types of high tryptamine cacao, so we have one called uturnunga, which has got 40 times more tryptamine than other cacao. They help us to achieve those states a little bit more easily. And also, this kind of cacao can help with enhancing, say, dreams day, because DMT peaks more throughout the night. So if we're feeding ourselves the pre crisis, we can get more intense effects during those peaks. Yeah, so you're not taking it daily. You're not going to suddenly trip. Don't worry. It's not that kind of plant medicine. What cacao, this kind of ceremonial grade, quality, ancestral cacao, can do is help your brain go on different journeys. And what we try and do as a company is help teach you how to go on that journey. What can you combine it with to enhance that effect? And most of it is these modern things like breath work or movement or dancing or cold emotion, or, you know, all these different types of things. But the last thing I wanted to mention was this idea of ceremonial as well, because it's such a buzzword. Everyone wants to run a cacao ceremony and use ceremonial properly trained. And it's funny too, because I was like, Sally said, like, a ceremony is like, you know, I in theory, you just need to be a shaman. You can't just run a ceremony like this is a whole, you know thing that people dedicate their lives to, like they're born into it, and they they spend their life working within that realm. So it's something we need to be really careful of. It's the terminology. And when it comes to cacao ceremonies, I mean, ideally, you'd want to be trained and initiated by someone who has that experience, who can so you're doing it with reverence. And I think knowledge is really important. If you're not trained and you haven't gone through those processes, I probably wouldn't call it a ceremony. Could call it a gathering or something else. And the other thing is to do with ceremonial grade cacao. So to be classified as ceremonial grade, it has to come from Central or South America that's the most important thing, from an indigenous background or cultural tribal affiliation, ideally, traditionally grown, organically grown, agroforestry, farmed with tradition. I mean, we have a ceremony. We do agricultural ceremony before harvest, where we do blessing of the trees and the soil. So this kind of practice is really important to the energetics of the plant. It also has to only be full, being full cacao. So you can't add things into your cacao and call it ceremonial. Then it's become chocolate and, yeah, produce with reverence, blessings, those kind of things. So a lot of this practice isn't done, you know, people just buy cow paste from wherever and put it in their own bag and label it as their own John's ceremonial grade for cow this we wouldn't classify. So it's misuse of the terminology. It's cultural in appropriation, understanding that this plant medicine and its cosmovision is developed in the Americas Central and South, and therefore that's they are the knowledge holders. And if we're not following or learning from them, then we're not doing it appropriately. It's like, you can't call sparkling wine champagne. It's not from Champagne. You know, there's terminology is really important, because it's misleading for consumers. Otherwise, I
Sheree 49:41
think it's beautiful, the respect, and I think that's what's really coming through, is the ethos that you hold, and, like you say, the indigenous wisdom that comes from this. And it's showing, like, the utmost respect for the culture. It's also showing the utmost respect for the plant, and then the use of the plants and how it can really support our body. Is, and so I think, and you know, a lot of time similar with marker, you know, it's not heat treated, it hasn't gone through, like you said, there's four months of processing. And this is why. And just like, I think a lot of supplements and a lot of things that can support the body from a natural level, will go down to the local chemist or pharmacy and just pick up something off the shelf. We go to supermarket, oh, there's marker there. There's maca, there's cacao, I'll just grab that. And then, oh, didn't work for me, and I it's when you have the obviously, a pure intention with it. But also, you've done your research. You know you're going with a trusted brand, the effects are going to be profound, and they're actually going to do what they say they're going to do, because you've gone and done that, and you are having it at a therapeutic dosage. You are having it from somewhere that's been actually sourced beautifully, and the quality is so so important. I think there's something you guys do so beautifully. So thank you for that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1 50:55
mean, conscious consuming is so important, and as a consumer, the way I consume is completely changed. Working in this industry, I even have this thing now. It sounds crazy, but I have this thing where, when I'm shopping, I'll look at the four different brands. I'll, most of the time, I'll choose the most expensive. Because for me, like, if I can't differentiate based on what I can read, that's generally the rule of thumb. And it sounds, you know, funny, but it's true. It's like, these guys who are 50 cents cheaper probably copied these guys, to be honest, somewhere. Yeah. And we see it all the time. Everyone tries to copy our branding, our idea, and they think that, oh, it's because we write ethically sourced. That's why people are buying. No, it's that's not at all like you can't just steal the buzzwords. Conscious consuming is about making that decision to really investigate your products, to align with something that you value. And that's what we want to do. We want to resonate with people that align with those values. If you just want the cheapest marker, don't buy ours. If all you want is cheap, go to supermarket and get a $5 bag. I don't know what it's going to do for you, but you know what I mean? And you know what really, I think has been in our favor is, is with covid Like it was the first time I've ever seen people going out to specialists and natural health and saying, What is the best? What is going to work? You don't you didn't see people running out and going give me the cheapest immune supplement? No, they're like, what works. And it's really transformed the way that people have viewed the supplement industry too. It was the first time ever people were shopping based on show me what has results. What is the best brand you've got, what is the one that's going to support me. And I feel like we should have had that mentality all along. You know, it's like, you don't need to take 10 supplements. You just need to take one good one, and it can do a hell of a lot more for your body. So, yeah, I'm a completely transformed consumer now. I investigate brands all the time. I even ring companies sometimes to ask questions, like, I really want to know, like, why did you get into this? You know, why are you selling this? Are you doing it because it's the end thing, and you want to jump on that bandwagon. Are you doing it because of some story or some background? And when you find people who have these incredible stories, like, people buy on values, if you were selling, we're selling an experience of value, a concept, like, if we wanted to just make money, I would have stayed in funds. It was a hell of a lot easier to get my paycheck just doing that. Like for Sally and I, it's like, even with cacao, we didn't want to do cacao, and we said, if we're going to do this, we need to really know our stuff. You know, that's the investment, the journey that we need to go on. We're not selling chocolates like we're we want people to truly, deeply have profound, life changing experiences like we've had. So to do that, you need that depth of knowledge. Totally.
Christa 53:54
How do we get this in the US? Yeah,
Speaker 1 53:57
it's a good question. We actually can I promote? Yes, friend of mine, amazing friend, Josh bowton. He's based in New York. He's a herbalist. He's worked in the industry forever. He was a consultant on FDA approval. And this guy started a company called rooted nutrition, and for me, I call it ethical Amazon. Every single product that he has in that shop has a story like ours. He will. He doesn't just buy from anywhere. He goes to Ireland to get his spirulina. He goes to India to get his tumor. He goes to Australia to get his grass fed, organic collagen beef broth. And his website is heavily underrated because it i For me, I buy it from his website, because I can't get a lot of these things in New Zealand. Yeah. Rooted nutrition, R, O, O, T, E, D, nutrition, Josh bowton, he's a consultant as well, and he came to us because he found us. He was going, I've been trying to have market for years in my shop, but I just don't trust any brand. And. He's actually coming in three weeks to Peru to experience our retreat. He's the kind of guy who wants to actually go and ensure the supply of everything that he stocks. And he does a lot of articles on problems in the industry with Nestle and big corporations, how they buy out and they take over. So very knowledgeable. So I'm going to promote his website. He's the only company in the US that sells our products, and that's because we're super selective, like we Okay,
Christa 55:30
so we can get it through him, your product, yep, we're
Speaker 1 55:33
stocked all on his shop. That's express shipping all around the US. I think there's free shipping for orders over 35 or $45 but check out everything he has. Because I would say, from my experience of working with Josh, it's the best of the best, for sure. Like he's an amazing guy who's really trying to transform the industry. And the problem is he just doesn't get enough enough credit. You know, he doesn't get enough attention, like, he doesn't have many followers. I was like, this is the best gym. Like you guys in the UA, you have some amazing people out there doing great stuff, but they're just gobbled up by iHeart and Amazon and all these big corporates, you know, like, you've got to look local and boutique, and he doesn't Google well, because he doesn't want to invest his money in SEO. He doesn't want to invest he doesn't want to give his money to the corporates, but to
Christa 56:27
show him in our show. Because I think after this conversation, people in the US are going to wonder, where can you get it? And I certainly, you know, in my clinic, would love to bring in some, you know, maca, that that can really help support hormones, women and women, and knowing that we can get it through. You know somebody here we're promoting. We are promoting.
Speaker 1 56:48
You should get Josh on one day. He's got so many amazing talk he can tell you about his experience in the industry. He's really interesting. We've had him on. We did some podcasts and webinar free webinars and stuff for people to know what one was about. Know who owns your food, and he talks about how Nestle basically bought everybody out Santa. Yeah, interesting
Christa 57:09
conversation source. And I think sourcing is just so important, like you mentioned, whether it's supplements or whether it's our actual food, I think we need greater awareness as a consumer, what's actually happening? Because it does affect your physical body. It really does affect your life. So he could be a really interesting one as well. I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation just learning a bit more about it. To be honest, I've heard cacao and I've heard Maka, but I didn't really understand the sourcing of it, and really just the the incredible impact, how I love learning about new plants that work with our body, like work on systems that our body already has and and truly, everything within nature is meant for us on some level, right? So that's really awesome.
Speaker 1 57:55
Yeah. Thank you. So both of these plants have been life changing for us and so many levels for me, on a personal level, with my own mental health journey, I've been drug free for antidepressant free now for nine years, and never felt better full recovery from chronic fatigue, and I'm just about to go surfing. Actually, here I was like climbing mountains in Peru, and last year I surf for eight hours in Costa Rica and a day and like that kind of thing was just when I was at my worst and my worst, I wouldn't have ever believed in my life that I would be in that position and running my business with a one year old baby and sleepless nights and all the things we do and going to prune. It's just, I feel like these plants are make it all manageable. For me, incredible power and resilience that you can get when you work with plants, but when you connect with them. That's the thing that we really want to promote, is like, truly connect with this plant on all levels. It's not just about popping a pill. Understand the Cosmo vision, understand the concepts, understand how you're going to work with that plant and and integrating in that holistic side and nature to it like I use plants mindfully. Two weeks ago, we had some stress with work, and I was feeling anxious. And when I would make up a brew of my marker, they'll put in a thermos. I will go sit by the river. I will create a little space, a little ceremony. I will drink my drink of plants in the water. It's about using it with intent and using it holistically. And that experience is so much more powerful than I'm stressed. I'm going to have a cup of cacao and marker on the run. Like how you use the plant medicine is as important use it as a tool to bring yourself into those spaces of consciousness that you want to be in, that healthy you is, don't just use it because I tell you that it's got cannabinoids in it and it's, you know, like there's, this is what I mean about that. That's the bit that Western. Health doesn't focus on Yeah, yeah.
Christa 1:00:01
I love that. Where can people find you? And do you do online trainings around this where people can pop in?
Speaker 1 1:00:08
Yeah? We go, so go to selenohealth.com
Sheree 1:00:13
we'll pop the link in the show notes. And
Speaker 1 1:00:15
we have our online course for we have one for Maka and one for cacao. We have our retreats on the website. You can buy our products globally through the website. The thing is, we promote though, in the US to buy through rooting attrition, because it's a lot easier for freight, and we want to support them as well. But you can buy through our website. We ship globally, all around the world. We have customers everywhere, and yeah, through the website, connect with us on social media as well. We have a lot of amazing stuff on Instagram. Sign up for our mailing list, and you get all this useful tips and tricks and info. We have a free downloadable guide to ceremonial cacao. We have a free downloadable lifestyle guide with a free downloadable recipe guide, and they're all on the website that you can get hold of. So if you want just a general introduction, that's a great place to start. Amazing.
Sheree 1:01:06
Thank you so much for your time. I learned even more than I did about her initial talk and after years of using your beautiful products. So really appreciate your time and energy and everything you've shared today.
Speaker 1 1:01:19
Thank you so much, and thank thank you as well. Like, I really, I love your social and I really appreciate and enjoy the way that you promote Hormonal Health in such an educational and informative way. Like, I think it's so good to have a different view and perspective, because we get so many women out there coming to us. I've been with my doctor struggling with this and they never look at these other things. And I always see your posting on, hey, what's really important, inflammation and stress and food and all these other things. It's not just about popping another pill. So yeah, keep up with the good work. It's, I think women need it. Definitely women need it. Thank
Christa 1:01:56
you so much. So.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
