Ep 470: East Asian Herbal Medicine for the Modern World – With Dr. Angela Zeng

The wisdom of East Asian medicine is passed down through generations and often only shared among those within a family.  Lucky for us – Dr. Angela Zeng is revealing some of her family secrets and research in her company Karviva Beverages. Dr. Angela Zeng is a former medical research scientist turned entrepreneur who is passionate about bridging the gap between Eastern wholistic health practices and modern wellness. Born in China, educated with a Ph.D. in Pathology and holder of multiple certificates in wholistic nutrition, Angela saw the need to share the healing powers of Traditional Chinese Medicine. As the founder of Karviva Beverages, she creates wellness drinks that use her Eastern medicine knowledge to address modern concerns. In part 1 of a 2 part series with Dr. Angela Zeng, Dr. Jannine Krause interviews Dr. Angela Zeng on her favorite detox herbs, herbal wine substitute, the East Asian way of detoxing and why the temperature of food matters for optimizing your health. 

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Resources From The Show:

• Link for 20% off Karviva Beverages – KARVIVATCM20

Podcast Transcript

2:25 – Karviva Beverages and Angela Zeng’s backstory 

15:18 – Karviva products

25:34 – Recovery drink

27:24 – Black sesame seeds and calcium

42:47 – Brain health drink – Wine replacement juice

45:58 – The unwind drink

46:51 – Schisandra berry

47:14 – Benefit of monk fruit

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[Intro] Welcome to the Health Fix Podcast, where health junkies get their weekly

fix of tips, tools, and techniques to have limitless energy, sharp minds, and fit

physiques for life.

Hey health junkies! On this episode of the Health Fix Podcast, I’m interviewing

Dr. Angela Zeng. She’s a former medical research scientist, turn entrepreneur,

and she’s deeply passionate about bridging the gap between Eastern holistic health

practices and modern wellness.

Now Angela was born in China and educated with a PhD in Pathology and has multiple

certificates in holistic nutrition.

But she is so dedicated to really helping folks explore the healing powers of nature

through the lens of traditional Chinese medicine.

And of course, if you’ve listened to this podcast for a while, you know I am an acupuncturist

and love to geek out on Chinese medicine and food that relates to Chinese medicine holistic practices.

So Angelinaire can be talking about food, but we’re also going to be talking a little bit about

her beverages because she is the founder of Karviva Beverages Company where she crafts wellness drinks

that have ancient wisdom of holistic herbs and principles of Chinese medicine in them. It’s really

cool. So nevertheless, we talk so much and geeked out so much. I had to split this podcast into two

podcasts. So this is part one where Angela and I talk about integrating time tested practices into

our modern lifestyles so that we can lead ourselves towards a more natural and balanced way of living.

And here’s the idea. Less pills, more herbs, and thinking about the temperature of your food.

All right, let’s introduce you to Angela Zeng. 

JANNINE: Hey, health junkies. I have Angela Zeng on with me

and we’re talking, we’ve been talking about a lot of fun stuff and I’m excited for you guys to hear

this podcast. So one of the big things that drew me to Angela was was the connection to the Chinese

Madison and East Asian Madison and how it can really help us to connect with Mother Nature,

help us to connect with each other and ourselves. So tell us a little bit about how Chinese medicine

kind of became one of your passions to help you create the Karviva Beverage Company as well.

ANGELA: Well thank you Jannine. I really appreciate this opportunity to share my insights, my knowledge,

what I inherit and what I learned through the Karviva journey with your audience, your followers.

So for me, traditional Chinese medicine, that’s not just like killing ours anymore.

I think, you know, people sometimes question if there’s any clinical study to back up

those holistic practice. Well, I will say years, those years of practice, right,

passed on through generation and generation and fine to refine

from generation to generation. It’s almost like a empirical study. In certain sense, it’s a very

large-scale clinical study of course, it’s a very different definition compared to the modern

days, how we define clinical study, different arms, those kind of stuff. However, for me,

it’s basically getting the essence from traditional Chinese medicine is how we view the connection

of our own body, our mind, our spirit, with our surroundings, our surroundings, including several

things. First is other people in your life that you have great, you know, deep connection with

association with, you just, you know, casually, and then with other living creatures, like

cabillopads, just birds, you know, in your backyard, and then plants and nature. That kind of things,

the modern medicine, it just, we don’t talk about them, you know, we really focus on just human

body itself, right? And then we’re so deep into the molecular cell level, which I was doing for years,

I was doing using cell biology, molecular biology,

study of heart disease and cancer, fascinating.

And I would say it’s great.

It’s great knowledge.

We need to understand that.

However, disconnection, we should never forget.

And what I try to do is get that spirit and infuse them.

I will say that’s actually the backbone of Karviva.

And the reason I come up with Karviva, well, this beverages,

People say, “Oh, you know, you just use to why.”

You were a research scientist.

You just want to be like a shorthand person.

I’m like, “No, I didn’t.

I feel bad, but I didn’t even watch.

I haven’t watched one episode of “Shark Tank.”

He’s like, “Okay, yeah.

For me, I’d never imagined myself standing on the stage

asking me, I don’t see myself doing that,

but I love sharing the knowledge you can see.”

Well, for me, it’s about I have this knowledge that I inherit, not I invented.

Let’s put it clear.

This is accumulated more than beyond thousands of years, right?

Throughout our humanity that I accumulate and I was fortunate enough last to be able

to understand those concepts, those serious or those practice through the lens of modern

medical research because to me, it’s like there’s no conflict.

They’re not had to have against each other.

It’s like the holistic is, which is practice and the modern science is the only way we should

trust because they’re concrete clinical study publications.

For me, it is our ancestors.

We don’t even know how they figured themselves.

However, it makes perfect sense.

You know, you start to understand.

For example, Jannine, we were talking about

Kinney and hard, all those connections, right?

I mean, in the modern medicine,

ways view each organ as one matter, like one thing.

Liver is liver long, is long,

whereas in the traditional Chinese medicine, it’s a system.

I’m sure you know, the Kinney is beyond that Kinney organ.

It’s seen the old days 2000 years ago.

When they wrote that book,

What is the thing about the internet?

– Cut of shell, actually show the blood vessel

in a kind of simple way, neurons, and the Qi channel.

How did they know?

You wonder how did they know?

I mean, they are this serious.

Oh, they actually got this.

– I have a journal.

– Eighteen years, warfront.

(laughs)

– I don’t know.

I mean, yes, that was what I said to say,

because they didn’t have Michael, of course,

they didn’t have Michael’s goal.

How would they know?

But anyway, that’s, I would say, I mean,

the only way they could know, except they would call by

whatever we don’t know,

is through this really kind of fine observation

to ourselves, how we feel, right?

So that connection, Kini, is not a Kini-old organized self.

It is a system.

It’s hormone, how we balance, like for example,

Kini is associated with fear.

(laughs)

And heart, it is an Organ, not just pumping blood,

keep our blood flowing, but it’s actually cattle.

It can tell us lots of things like emotion connection

with our heart.

And broken heart, nowadays, they is perfect example,

using the modern medicine.

There’s actually evidence to suggest it is,

there’s a broken heart syndrome, it’s not just, you know,

so there’s a clear evidence, emotion connection with that,

organ. So what I try to do is actually using Karviva.

Should I say is more like a information sharing system or

education system? However, you call it. It’s really, I want to

empower people to take back control of their own health.

Because nowadays, I feel like when I was in a hospital,

that people really relied on. They put their lives in that little jar of pills or hoping

someone else with a surgical tool can save their life. Of course, all those modern medicine

procedures and treatments are life-saving. I’m not disputing that. However, I think if we know

how to live our life with this appreciation. We are not just one single isolated physical body.

Our organ is not just one single isolated that little whatever, matter of a bunch of cells working

together. I think we have a much better control of our health, our destination. That’s what I try

to do with Karviva. Of course, people also ask me why beverage, why not food? I mean, I do homemade

make my healthy snacks at home and I have lots of tasty yummy recipes.

I, when waste the beverage because based on the traditional medicine, uh,

Chinese medicine, we believe the liquid form is the most potent one.

It gives you a really fast, uh, results in terms of therapeutic results.

I’m sure you see people go to the traditional herbal shop,

you get those, you know,

fuel bags so different herbs putting together based on what you try to achieve.

your traditional Chinese medical doctor prescribed that,

you go home, you boil them,

take a jar of water and then you drink the soup, right?

And a modern medicine, actually,

if you, I also working from a pharmaceutical industry

for a few years, the liquid form is actually the,

for example, I wait for it, sublinguary tablets,

they work much faster.

I think again, just our ancient knowledge, somehow,

you know, nowadays days we understand out through sophisticated

testing, all those experiments research.

But our ancestors, they figured it out

through just years of practice.

Anyway, so I went with the battery form.

Actually, my first product was detox.

It was mung bean sprouts and a rhinobary.

So, mung beans in our culture, and also for example,

Korea and Japan, is a very special,

has a very special place.

Well, similar to like few many years ago,

remember Americans were crazy about garlic.

(laughs)

Everybody wanted to eat garlic every day

to be healthy and deep forever,

and then it becomes turmeric.

Now I don’t even know what becomes what.

We always try to find that.

One single, someone’s like, this isolated,

one single super food can save the world.

That’s not gonna happen.

Anyway, but mung bean basically in our traditional

culture is not just a food, it has medicinal use.

So what we use it for is for example, in summer,

it’s really popular to drink mung bean like kangji or soup.

So you cook the mung beans in water

and then you kind of just eat the whole thing,

drink the water and eat the kind of beans.

And it will cool your body down.

So go back to the heart because in summer,

our heart can get overheated.

And so mung beans well known for trading heat shock,

digestive digestion discomfort.

for small children, we even use it for trade fever,

cause just maybe flu or cold.

And it’s very cooling in nature,

but the modern nutritional medicine just tells us

it’s packed with fibers,

and then it’s draining, lots of minerals,

by natural vitamins,

especially reaching this kind of the fiber,

the periodic fiber,

that obviously the good bacteria is in our digestive tract.

It’s not a food.

The only food, those good bacteria eat, are the prebiotic fiber.

So people have to remember that.

And that’s why the whole grain in the traditional far east

culture has a very special place.

We would never put ourselves out to low carb diet.

We don’t like to eat refined diet.

Of course, that is all westernized.

But the full grain has a very special place,

because again, it’s very nourishing.

We call it, we have all those different tastes

characteristic of different foods.

So whole grain is sweet in nature,

but many whole grains are naturally sugar-free,

believe it or not,

but it’s very nourishing in terms of

our digestive system.

So we’d calculate digestive Qi

and our belief, which makes a lot of sense,

is the first treatment of your health

is should be your digestive system.

Because you can spend thousands of dollars

purchase the most healthy, best organic food you can collect.

But if your digestive system is very weak, right?

What those food is gonna do to you

is basically becomes a burden.

So the first thing we do is really to make sure

you have a strong digestive system.

And that’s actually our connection with the outside too.

Once we come out of my our mom’s womb,

we need to use this digestive tract to process

the gifts from Mother Nature turned into our energy,

our vital Qi.

And then that allows us to have a life.

When our digestive system stop working,

will stop working well, you start to have lots of issues.

You know, so anyway.

JANNINE: Yeah.

No, I mean, I think a lot of people right now,

you know, there’s a lot of gut healing programs

and things of that nature,

but I do find that for a lot of people,

they still struggle despite doing different detoxes,

despite doing different protocols.

And when I get to the bottom of it,

often ends up being like you’re talking

about the nature of the food, the hot and cold principles,

Same with the different flavors and the organ balances.

Can you speak a little bit more

about how you have some of the Karviva drinks

that work in the different angles for helping the gut?

‘Cause you mentioned your first one was for detox.

What other products do you have

that can help for the digestive system?

ANGELA: Yeah, that’s such a great question.

The detox, like with mumbings,

because mung bean, why are you calling that detox drinks,

mung bean sprouts with a rhondia berry as a detox drink.

There are many detox regimen like you mentioned

in this country, most of the detox to me,

it makes no sense, there are two cold for our body,

most of them.

If you understand the traditional Chinese medicine,

for female, our body is very in nature.

It’s actually not really good for us.

For example, if you already feel like,

when I was, I just, I have this body type,

I have my hand and feet, usually a cold in nature.

It doesn’t matter.

But if I eat the right thing,

if I do the right movements, they will be warm.

So, but if I keep eating like raw food,

you know, like cold salad, those kinds of stuff,

it will actually make it worse.

And the detox juice in this country,

they were just cold, most of them are cold-pressed juice.

And they use lots of veggies,

a lot of cold in nature,

cold in nature, like celery.

Celery is great for lower blood pressure,

especially there’s a classic remedy

we use salary cooked with scallop,

(laughs)

or clam, that actually really, really lower

if you do a soup, right?

It really lower actually our blood pressure.

You know, if it is for people,

if you travel to another country

and your medicine is running out,

I mean, you can’t actually do that.

It actually works.

That’s real clinical study in the traditional Chinese medicine,

case by case, to show how effective it is.

However, it’s very cool.

It is worry cooling.

So if your body type is already pretty cool,

let’s say, if you’re already big and/or plant based,

mainly last meat, the dairy product,

we’re already a little cool in nature and we’re female,

just we’re, and then you do this detox.

It actually improves your digestive system.

So what I really focus on is why I use mung bean sprouts.

Sprouts is in general worry good for us,

it doesn’t matter what kind of vegetable sprouts

because it condense all the best nutrient from the seeds.

Seeds is just basically imagine that

in animal world kingdom is like an ad, right?

And then it packs away the nutrients

because it needs to support a new life.

And then the baby plants is packed with vitamins,

minerals, fibers, all those goodies.

And then most of the sprouts are naturally sugar free.

Like bean sprouts, you can eat a whole bag of that.

You won’t probably won’t get any weight.

And the thing is it contains two natural compounds.

And they actually just through this biophysical reaction,

it actually chelates, finds the heavy metals,

especially the heavy metals in our body,

which we have a lot.

At least more than based on the CDC study,

100 something, I guess even more than that,

because we’re just constantly exsposed to all kinds of chemicals,

we cannot avoid that, right?

And then it is true.

And then our body, our system basically get overwhelmed

because it’s a daily exposure,

it’s a exposure, constant exposure.

We cannot eliminate them effectively now.

So this natural compounds in the mung bean sprouts,

it actually chelays, it binds to this chemicals.

So what if it happens,

it kind of helps our body to, to flush them out.

So that’s why I choose mung bean sprouts.

And then when I pair that up with a ruania berry,

so it’s kind of explained to you,

A rhinobare is not native from East Asia.

It’s such a native, native plants in a garden.

So native Indians use it as a medicinal food.

So they use it as a food and also use it for trade,

all kinds of disease.

And if you search, go to the PubMed

or search the medical publications,

all the rhinobare, you’ll be amazed.

It’s sort of like, wow,

why would you prescribe that to your patients?

Doesn’t matter, they have diabetes or hypertension,

have lipids or even cancer.

It’s such a wonderful berry.

It is the only reason, you know,

the industry love blueberry instead of a rueinaberry

because this wild rueinaberry is very astringent haze,

very sour, is very small.

It’s like a tiny, well blueberry.

Birds love it.

And it’s naturally, it’s grown like a wheat.

So you don’t need to spray pesticides.

you don’t need to use for the lighter.

It just grows wonderfully.

So it’s naturally very sustainable plants.

However, like I live in San Luis,

so the middle-ass farmers don’t like it

because it kind of takes over their corn fields

so even if you…

(laughs)

– Yes.

– So not yet.

It is June, actually had higher people

to remove those.

(laughs)

Sorry.

I can’t sell this very,

I don’t wanna cook it.

And I can’t eat it because it doesn’t taste good at all.

It is not sweet enough, right?

So, but birds like them tells you something, right?

Anyway, so, but I use it because it’s packed with antoxids

and they are actually a professor

in University of Wisconsin, Madison.

He is all that studies why a rotiabary works.

And he can travel pinpoint to which compounds, you know,

what works?

I mean, it’s just amazing, amazing berry.

So I combine a rotiabary with mung bean, sprouts,

And then you can understand why they detox you.

They don’t make you to go to the bathroom

because when you get this cold shot

of your digestive system by drinking too much, my cold,

badgy juice, guess what?

You go to go to the bathroom.

That is not detoxing.

That’s actually, if you go to the bathroom,

it’s the most likely if you have diarrhea, right?

You start to feel really weak.

Your energy levels start to be depleted.

What we want to do is you still go to the bathroom regularly

right? It’s not like making you to go more frequently. However, your body helps your body

to eliminate the toxins, accumulate toxins, fry your body at the same time because it’s

also packed with nutrients. You have to remember that it’s not just complete the bad thing,

remove the fat thing. You also have to add a good thing. This country will never short

of who? I mean, most people compared to other sort of developing countries. However, we’re

short of nutrients. We are not short of calories, but we are short of nutrients. You understand

what I’m saying? You can eat a bag of potato chips, but that’s very different than eating

a nutrient dense tip. Like a rice ball with, you know, well combined vegetables with a

a little bit meat or whatever you enjoy.

So you want at the same time you remove the toxins,

you also want to put something that’s nourishing,

that’s cultivating your energy level.

So that’s what I tried to stick with.

So if you go to, for example,

which recently just launched at Walmart Marketplace,

we have this six day cleanser.

I mean, my team come up with this six day cleanser,

even though that was not really my idea.

I guess just a popular term.

But my son, okay,

well, come up with this regimen.

You need to drink, ideally I drink detox every morning.

My kids also drink detox because of prevent cold and flu.

But it is, you kind of, you want this gentle

elimination of your toxins,

but you also want something nourishing and hydrating.

So basically it’s like you follow this regimen,

you remove the toxins and then you nourish.

stimulate your natural energy level and then stimulate, you

know, boost your natural immunity. That’s the regimen I

go with, not just let you go to the bathroom more often for

six days. That’s not right. If you do that, I would say we

need to give you some herbal medicine to reverse that

Jannine: Replenish replenish. I mean, that that is the thing. And

that’s why people will do detoxes. And then they go right

back to eating a whole bunch of food because they’re hungry now. They have to.

ANGELA: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You need to do this nice thing, remove the child and put in a good thing,

right? Then your body won’t feel hungry all the time. That’s how I try to shake weight,

you know, unnecessary, like fast, you know, you want to preserve your muscle, right? You don’t

want to lose your muscle at the same time. You don’t want to keep those adding more toxins there,

Because people do a lot of protein power, wheat powder.

I would just say be careful.

I’m not saying you should not do it.

For many people, if you work out a lot,

you do a lot of weight training for older people,

myself and menopause stage.

For women, we start to lose muscle mass in the early 30s,

even late 20s, depending on your activity level.

Yeah, you do want to pay attention to your protein intake.

You don’t want all over consume protein.

everything is a balance.

However, then people start to use a lot of protein powder,

I would say, be careful because I’m in this food industry.

I do pay attention to the quality of the supplier.

And unfortunately, many of the protein powder suppliers,

their protein power is very dirty.

Because it is a process they have to use many chemicals

to extract the protein from that natural resource,

which is very different than your cooking process.

You don’t add 10 different chemicals.

Oh, I’m cooking chicken then.

How do you do this chemical?

That you do that?

JANNINE: No.

– No.

– No, it’s, I agree.

It’s funny.

It’s a little funny to me to think,

well, okay, we’re gonna add this to the diet,

but we’re trying to get healthier,

but yet it has so many chemicals to extract it.

It’s a little funny.

Now, you mentioned, and I saw on your website,

the Karvivo website that,

there was specific drinks for menopause.

And it looked like there was some electrolytes.

Is that what I was seeing kind of a replenishment kind of thing?

ANGELA: And the hydration, we call it the recovery drink.

So it’s always natural collagen antioxidants and electrolytes.

So again, the concept is,

maybe I just have so much knowledge.

I love to share and I try to put them squeeze every,

my knowledge into one bottle, which is hard to do.

But yeah, I don’t like just, oh, let’s just give

ethics electrolytes on me.

In that case, just hook them up with IV light.

I mean, that’s the best way.

You hydrate right away.

But anyway, for me, for us, most times,

we’re not in the training field, working really hard,

sweat like crazy, five, six hours a day.

We do a little bit workout, you walk around.

Our activity is maybe low level tomorrow,

as well as you remain that movement constantly,

you’re actually gonna be really healthy.

You’re not gonna be, for athletes,

their problem is injury and wearing out

is a different issue.

For us, it’s this natural hydration,

using natural electrolytes.

So the electrolytes I use,

it’s really simple, it’s minerals from black sesame seeds.

JANNINE: Oh.  

ANGELA: Lots of seeds.

Actually, if you’re really looking to the seeds,

especially Chinese medicine believes

is magical black collar. I’m sure you’re here. Black soybean, black sesame, black rice, all those

things has the magic healing power, right? Nothing magical is just basically the most black collar

means those pigments via actually a group of very strong natural antioxidants, which our body

really needs to repair the DNA damage. It happens every day. It just naturally happens. That’s why

when their album control humor started to grow.

(laughs)

– Yeah, right.

Yeah, so this black sesame seeds are very naturally

reached in minerals and one thing about, you know,

women calcium is a big thing.

You know, we kind of menopause, pre-menopause,

we start to lose calcium, just, it’s a natural thing,

especially when our oxygen level kind of punch,

you know, we don’t have that anymore.

The calcium, the bone density becomes a huge problem.

But I would say one thing is, if you don’t want to drink,

again, if you cannot drink my drink,

if you want to drink my drink,

go get by those black sesame seeds, right?

I like to, I have a homemade snack.

I use black sesame paste and mix the waste, Chinese yam,

and sometimes I use honey, sometimes I use dates,

You know, and I sometimes put she sent her berries, which is in my unwind drink.

And then, essentially, you can compact them into like little like energy, little energy bars.

If you just, I calculate, if you just, I just do two little squares like yummy candies,

gives you tons of energy.

All my friends love it.

You all have enough calcium for your day.

You don’t need to take any calcium.

I don’t take any calcium pills.

But, you know, at the same time, you’ll all do keep moving.

I don’t want to do gyms anymore.

I just take walk when I, that’s my way to connect with nature.

(laughs)

JANNINE: No. 

ANGELA: In the gym–

– I just, I just, I don’t know.

I just, I mean, it is great.

But if you can do it, but on the other side,

I really miss the fresh air and sunlight.

JANNINE: Yeah, there’s, I mean, there’s no workout,

like the outdoor workout that is hand-down.

ANGELA: Yeah, exactly.

JANNINE: Now you said, do you have the recipe for your little snacks online?

‘Cause I’m thinking about those, I’m like,

oh, that’ll sound amazing.

Almost like the old sesame bites we used to have as kids

that I don’t see them anymore.

Or like Hova from the Middle Eastern culture,

like the sesame paste.

Oh, those sound really good.

ANGELA: I think it’s such a great idea, I can do that.

I’m just really easy to make.

I mean, the only thing is people probably don’t,

You can get a little brander or something. In the Asian country like Taiwan, we kind of like to

use the old-fashioned stone, grinder, to ground sesame seeds or chia seeds or flaxi seeds,

they are so good for women’s health. Especially I love flaxi seeds so much because it has this

plant-based estrogen, the phytoastrogen, which is so beneficial. Like in one of my drinks, I also

use black soybean. Again, this phytoastrogen really helps our, regulates our natural

herbal system. So, but one thing you have to remember, if you’re eating those tiny little seeds,

because it’s hard to chew them into, right? They’re so tiny. And if you cannot chew them

well, your body cannot digest them well. So you’re like the bird just basically. Right through you.

You can’t, your body cannot take the nutrients out of it. So you can use a grinder, like a coffee

grinder or something which I tried at York’s. And then you ground it into fine powder, then you can

do all those mixing. And same thing with flaxi seeds, don’t buy the well, the grounded flaxi seeds.

And you can try to have one teaspoon, one teaspoon, two teaspoons a day. It really regulates our

natural hormone system. Really, really beneficial, not just only for women, for men as well,

because it’s world-riching with all those good oil, omega, uh, omega-3, omega-I has seven,

and I have to think whether it has eight. It just has different omegas there, and also has both

soluble and insoluble fiber, which is, you know, again, so important for our heart health,

digestive health, everything, and has phytoestrogen. And it has a good amount of protein too.

people cannot forget about that. It’s not the protein doesn’t just only come from chicken breast

or turkey or beef. So that’s a good source of protein fiber and all the goodies minerals. And

then lots of seeds are very rich minerals because again, because they have to support a new life.

Tiny little seeds will grow into big plants. Imagine that. And lots of like,

Afro-alpha is very rich in minerals too. So lots of plants, if their root system are very

can go really deep in underground, they also have a tendency to kind of accumulate lots of minerals

naturally in their fruits, in their seeds, or in their leaves. So– 

JANNINE: Wow. 

ANGELA: Sorry, I’m talking too much now.

JANNINE: No, no, no, it’s, you know, it’s very interesting to think about it. I think a lot of us don’t

stop to think about, oh, a seed’s gonna be a plant, right?

You know, we just think seeds, food, right?

We don’t think about like what’s packed in there

to be able to create a whole plant.

And then we don’t think about with leaves,

you know, that there’s vitamin A and C, you know,

and all those chlorophyll because of what the plant does.

So it’s nice to have the reminder

of what the plant’s doing,

especially the root too, because it’s taking in

so many different things.

ANGELA: Once we have to remember, if we believe the evolution thing is right,

I mean, people still debate on that.

Well, you know, obviously I think the plans are on this planet much earlier than

animals.

So they learn how to survive even the very harsh climate environments.

Like I love quinoa, I use it in our wellness smoothie.

quinoa, the ideal place climate is very high altitude,

up on the high-mounted South America, like Bolivia.

I love their quinoa.

Again, why are rich in minerals?

And then they’re naturally, it’s a very sustainable crop.

So for example, I don’t know why you can grow it on Mars,

maybe we should let you Elon Musk to try,

but it’s almost like, let’s just say,

if we have to escape this planet, gosh,

if we cannot leave here anymore, right?

You go to another planet,

I will say if we have, to me,

if I can’t grow quinoa, black soybean,

either of any of the seeds,

then we can survive, we’ll be fine.

We can restart a culture or whatever, civilization.

(laughs)

And then those plants actually naturally resistant

to many things, but they kind of learn how to work with harsh climate.

Sometimes you see pants coming out of nowhere in the middle of the

compra. You’re just like, what?

JANNINE: Oh my goodness. Yeah.

I, you know, I just had this conversation with my husband yesterday.

He said, you know, it’s funny how we see things as weeds, you know,

like they’re runna very like dandelions and think like we have to kill them.

have to get rid of them. But in essence, they all seem to have a medicinal property. I noticed.

ANGELA: I’m glad you mentioned about dandelions. Dandelion is again, go back to the thermal nature of foods

in the traditional Chinese medicine, right? Dandelion is cold in nature. However,

let’s say if we have inflammation in our body, we have a traditional remedy like

during the spring season, if you get infections, especially around the respiratory system,

around your nose, those ears, throat we can use dandelions, just kind of boil it and drink the soup.

We can cook it as a vegetable. So any vegetable with bitter taste, most of the vegetables are

herbs with bitter taste, they are cooling in nature. And actually that also makes sense in the

modern medicine. For example, antibodies. We should not overuse it for sure, but it’s very

bitter taste. Vitamin C also had that bitter sour taste. That bitter taste means vitamin C

actually is cooling in is a cooling thermal nature kind of. So if you drink too much vitamin C,

like I amount every day, it can deplete your young energy in certain way. So just remember

everything is a balance, you don’t want to overdo it. It’s not just, oh gosh, tumeric is great, tumeric is

very in nature. So for certain people, if you consume, take tumeric products, every day,

it may not be necessary good for you. So just remember that. Same thing with avocado. People

love avocado. Avocado is worrying in nature. So depends on your body type, it’s not good for

everyone. Kiwi is the same thing. Kiwi is very in nature. So in my drink, I try to balance that

that thermal nature too is not like only just bunch of things,

keep up your body or totally crude out your body.

‘Cause I think most people, we need that fine balance.

We don’t need extreme.

JANNINE: That’s an important statement right there

because there are a lot of companies right now

who are creating elixirs.

You know, and a lot of like the drinks now,

the adaptogenic drinks and things of that nature

where there are multiple hot, like ginger, turmeric,

add cayenne, all in the same drink.

And you know, my girlfriend and I,

she’s, she lives in LA and every time I go to visit her,

you know, we’ll go out and we’ll look at the store

and see what’s new and whatever.

And like, we’ll look at stuff and be like,

that is gonna cause like such an abundance of anxiety

in me if I drink that.

Like I don’t even need caffeine.

I’m fiery enough, I get that in me

and I’m gonna be like, ooh, exploding.

And so this is why I was really drawn to your products

because I’m like, you get the balance and things.

And especially for–

ANGELA:  Yeah.

JANNINE: Yeah, yeah.

ANGELA: Like that physician you said about menopause,

my kids also like it because they like the taste

and they start to pay attention to the nutritional table.

They’re at the age, my son is 14, my daughter is a junior,

So she’s 17 already.

So they don’t like strawberry stuff.

And I don’t use, I never, even at home,

I don’t cook with sugar.

If I need some sweetness, I add a little bit of my juice.

(laughs)

I think you sauce, or I can put in, you know,

like natural fruits.

Like I kind of use those fruits,

people kind of, well, just toss them away, I saved them.

(laughs)

Thank you, good news, won’t you, please.

Anyway.

So for me, it’s a balance so that

A’s strength, A means natural adhesions

from sea bottom berries or sea bottom berries

around like the Tivak Himalaya region.

So again, they grow high up on the mountain.

They are this beautiful yellow orange color,

little fruits, very sour in nature, packed with good oil.

I would say good fats.

And so that’s, and the orange color,

like Harris is vitamin A and reaching vitamin C.

You probably sometimes see that in skincare baller

is believed really good for your skin.

That’s because of the natural vitamin A and C there

and also the good fat.

But for me, it’s a balance of electrolytes

with natural antioxidants.

Then the C is the natural collagen from salmon cartridge.

It’s such a traditional dish in Japan.

they marinate the cartridge is from salmon hat.

It’s supposed to be food waste,

but instead of soothe that away,

they save that and they marinate that in rice vinegar

and it becomes a super healthy, crunchy, tasty food.

So like a side dish.

And then the side is actually find people

who consume those regularly,

even when they’re at their like 60s or whatsoever,

they’re joints are still very healthy.

So they start to study,

we’ve seen this thing make them so strong

in terms of their skeleton system was so good.

And what they learned is this complex of collagen

with a lack of protein, this complex,

is just it goes actually into our joint structure

underneath our skin.

So I don’t know, you know that the collagen becomes really popular in this country just starting a few years ago.

You’d actually started in Japan.

Japanese are to use collagen and fala.

You went back in the 70s.

I cannot remember.

Yeah.

If you go to Japan, the supermarket is filled with collagen and fala.

But then, you know, the Americans got that idea.

JANNINE: Yep.

Yep.

ANGELA: People say people like copycat. I mean, it’s copycat. It is good. I mean, in a certain way, it’s like people in this country start to like,

Sushi, Japanese food, Korean food. You know, sometimes they Americanize it too much. That’s the thing.

But, you know, yeah, collagen is important for us, but you can get it from actual food too.

JANNINE: And I think, you know, definitely Americanized

’cause most Americans are gonna think of like collagen

in soup with the salmon interesting, you know,

but people are making bone broth soups, you know?

And so I think it’s just if someone is used to

having seafood and liking seafood, you know,

us folks in the Midwest, it’s funny you’re

matching your and saying,

“Lilis, a lot of folks in the Midwest will be like,

ooh, I don’t know about a salmon soup.”

You know, chowder, sure.

But a salmon soup, I don’t know.

but like you go to go to Seattle where I practice, you know,

the Tacoma area, a lot of folks are like, love it all over it.

So I think it, you know, it’s a kind of depends.

Now, collagen, of course, yes, I would agree.

It’s kind of trendy.

What about the longevity brain health side of things?

Because I recently watched one of your videos on Instagram,

where you’re talking about brain health and you were pouring in the juice

had into a wine glass.

Yeah, I love that.

Tell us about that one.

ANGELA: So what happened is, well, I kind of aging process,

which is a [inaudible], I would know it.

I used to enjoy wine, sometimes cocktail.

And then I discovered well, I aged,

my stomach just cannot tolerate alcohol anymore.

I can drink half glass and then you would offset

my stomach right away, in addition to the hangover

let’s say.

So I stopped drinking wine and whenever I go

to a social event. I’m like, oh, sparkling water, cranberry juice, you know, what else?

I don’t like the cocktail. Most of them are filled with sugar and who knows what kind

of color they use. Anyway, so I thought, well, why not come up with a remedy? Because out

of all my remedy connection, there happened to be a few of them. I drink one of them in

particular tastes and looks just like a dark red wine. And the good thing, the

interesting thing is this remedy was developed to use to to to kind of reverse

the brain liver damage, you know, in certain way caused by alcohol consumption

over times. We do have lots of remedies developed for all kinds of health

reason, you know, just whatever there’s a health problem we have a remedy for you.

It is. It’s true. It’s amazing. It is amazing. So, basically it’s like, why not just tweak

that so I can make it almost like mimic like a wine. So it’s like a wine replacement juice,

but it’s a remedy. It’s not just a juice. So I use, for example, I love a runaberry,

you already know I use mulberry. mulberry again, super healthy, berry. We just can’t get a

fresh berry, but they’re super tasty too. Yeah, I like

the fresh mulberry super tasty. I’ve never had a fresh black

berry. 

JANNINE: Oh, I’ve never had a fresh I’ve only had the dried in

like different forms and mixes like I say, you know, yeah,

no– 

ANGELA: when I was a little I used to collect because I used to

raise my own silk warms with one. And they only the only

eat the mulberry leaves. So I have to climb up the mulberry tree.

And then the Maubury such a special treats. Oh, they are just so tasty. And our neighbor actually has a big tree. And sometimes actually now that you can start to see them for Maubury on the ground, I would pick them up. My husband think I’m crazy. Are you sure that you can eat those? I’m like, Maubury come on.

I’m gonna, I probably have like, don’t.

JANNINE: He’s like standing very close watching you.

ANGELA: I know, I know, so I’m sorry,

it’s kind of noisy outside, I don’t know.

But the, the mulberry, Shishandra Berry,

I used that and I blended with,

you will see, I’m crazy, bunch of other stuff.

Don’t ask me why I think of them.

I just try to come out as the different flavor profile,

without compromise the health benefits took me awhile.

So I come up with this unwind.

So it’s kind of soothing, kind of,

I would say very deep detoxing

because all the super barriers inside,

I’m hoping basically is for people who kind of love

wine too much or liquor too much,

kind of help them to reverse some of the damage

that just accumulate over years.

And it’s coming.

I will say, sometimes if I feel a little bit too

stressed out, I will throw a glass and it will calm me down.

And it pairs really well with, for example,

if you enjoy cheese with cracker with cheese,

pears that really well, even with seafood.

Yeah, I do drink it regularly.

JANNINE: Nice.

It looked wonderful.

One of the things that I’ve noticed with Schisandra Berry

is it’s very spicy.

And so I was curious, like, what did you do to counter that?

Do you have, like, how are you sweetening?

You know, because obviously when people think of juices,

they’re thinking of something slightly sweet.

What is your sweetener of choice

that you’re using in your products?

ANGELA: Yeah, well, I’m lying, I don’t use any sweetener.

So it’s all done.

It tastes a little bit astringent.

So if you taste that, it’s kind of like wine.

I got to say, to some sample, you try and let me know.

And it has this wine taste.

So it’s not like toothpaste.

Maybe it’s like that my sweet pebble wine,

it’s like malbec pebble wine.

But for my other juices, I do use monk fruit.

Monk fruit, I use them you know,

because trendy now, because trendy now

in this country, like Stevia used to be.

I use it because it is a natural herbal ingredient

we use it for treating many, many respiratory issues.

Entry is very popular for people

who use their voice a lot.

You know, if you talk a lot or you’re a singer

or a performer, it’s really popular.

They would, we have those little healthy candies

we make with herbs and monk fruits

kind of good for your respiratory system.

That’s good to know.

Yeah, and they’re studying to show a couple of compounds inside.

Again, people when they think about natural antaxes, then they start to think about by

C, by A, by A, A, E, those kind of stuff.

But it’s lots of natural, you know, the colors we see in the fruits, in the vegetables, in

the herbs.

They actually are natural antioxidants.

And people don’t understand.

They are different, structuralized, they are totally different compounds.

However, they all do really good things in our body.

So the monk’s fruits contains these natural compounds.

I think different studies show they are very strong anti-inflammatory

properties and also attack cancer.

Both natural antioxidants can be attack cancer.

And the reason is they kind of help our body to repair the damage,

you know, like DNA damage, which is constantly it happens, it happens all the time, so we’re just not aware of it.

Those compounds helps us to

to repair those damages.

JANNINE: I never knew that much about monk fruit.

I kind of honestly thought it was trendy, like, you know, the rest of the the Stevias and things, but I did know that

it’s not like when you take the monk fruit, it’s not as refined, correct?

when you add it into products.

It’s not as refined as say the Stevia to make it from a green.

ANGELA: I don’t have anything against Stevia,

but I think most of the Stevia supply on the market,

they overcooked or processed.

So they have this after taste,

people call it a bitter after taste.

I do know whether that’s the beater after taste

is from processing or from the processing chemical they use.

I don’t know because if you taste the natural steve leaves, they don’t have the taste.

No, no, it’s different. It’s different.

So the monk fruits, I have those dried monk fruits if you’re curious, I could send you a couple.

JANNINE: Yeah.

They just, they’re very sweet.

They are 200 times, more than 200 times sweeter than cane sugar.

And but we use it to cook like if you want to do a sweet, like a dessert

kanji, you can do that. 

JANNINE: Well, Angela and I had a great conversation and we just kept chatting

about Chinese medicine and the energetics of food and different ingredients that she has in her

Karviva beverage products. So we had to divide this podcast up into two. So the rest of this one

is going to be following, so stay tuned. Thanks for listening. [Outro] Hey, health junkies, thank you so

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