Ep 471: Chinese Medicine Dietary Secrets for Coughs, Cholesterol, Hormones and Longevity With Dr. Angela Zeng

This episode is the second part of a two part series with Dr. Angela Zeng. East Asian medicine has a lot of food remedies for common medical issues.  Unless you study Chinese Medicine or are born into a family that has roots in Asia you may never ever hear of these medicine secrets passed on through generations. Lucky for you – Dr. Angela Zeng is sharing her family’s remedies and research with her company, Karviva Beverages. Dr. Angela Zeng is a former pathology research scientist turned entrepreneur who is passionate about bridging the gap between Eastern holistic health practices and modern wellness. As the founder of Karviva Beverages, she creates wellness drinks that use her Eastern medicine knowledge to address modern concerns. In part 2 part of the series with Dr. Angela Zeng, Dr. Jannine Krause and Dr. Angela Zeng talk about Asian foods that are beneficial for hormone balancing, the digestive system and more!

Resources From The Show:

• Karviva Beverages – KARVIVATCM20

Our Partners

Podcast Transcript

4:09 – Benefits of eating Chinese yam for women’s health 

6:06 – lowering your cholesterol and treat a cough with black wood ear mushroom

7:18 – Clear a vaginal infection, boost your immune system and regulate your hormone cycle

15:15 – Homemade soy milk vs scientist created store bought soy milk

19:23 – Angela’s personal story with making herbs

23:28 – Where to find Karviva drinks

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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.

Again, in fact, it is part two of our two part series on the wisdom of

East Asian medicine.

And the beauty of Dr. Zeng is that she has learned from her family and traditions about

foods and energetics with foods and herbal medicine are handed down between family members

in China, Taiwan, Japan, many Asian countries.

And from my acupuncture training, I learned from my professors a lot of family secrets,

But I love to hear what is being passed down.

And in this portion of the podcast, she’s going to talk about lotus seeds.

She’s going to talk about Chinese wild yam and its benefits for perimenopause and menopause,

even vaginal issues.

Good stuff here.

She even throws out a recipe for lowering cholesterol that you would not imagine because

it’s completely different than what you hear in the US for lowering cholesterol.

And we’ve been going to the benefit of black soybeans and making black soybean milk.

Such cool stuff, things you’re not going to hear anywhere else.

So let’s reintroduce you to Dr. Angela Zeng.

ANGELA: Well, mung beans were usually like, also like to cook lotus seeds.

We just flower seeds, which we believe is really nourishing.

has this sweet nature. Again, sweet in the Chinese traditional medicine has nothing to do with sugar.

Sweet usually is a very nourishing taste group and most of the sweet food is whole grain.

Then the fruits we call it empty sweets. Empty sweets means it has the sweetness when you chew

on it. So most of the whole grain if you chew on the mouth long enough, you taste that sweetness,

right? Even though you don’t put any sugar in them. And they do fruits up, they do different things.

Fruits are very rich in minerals, vitamins, and they have natural sugars, so it’s really good for

natural energy boosts without like half the sugar fresh later on. But for whole grain is a

different thing. So we use lotus seeds cooked with mung beans in summer. And if you want it to be

sweet, you can add honey if you just want to stimple or you can use monk fruit.

JANNINE: That sounds good. That sounds good. And that’s just meant as like a dessert or is it meant kind of

what does lotus have? I know lotus is a qi, is it a qi booster? Is it also a

temperature wise? I can’t remember. Is it cooling for someone?

ANGELA: It is neutral. It’s a several minutes. So that means the neutral groups,

like the whole grain is suitable for everyone.

So, and notice is I believe naturally should be gluten free.

So there are many whole grains naturally gluten free like quinoa

many black bean’s like Lagoon’s like,

mung bean is is beans, right?

Black soy beans, they are just not they don’t have gluten

naturally. And the good thing is, well, the white

color goes into our lung. You must heard that like we also use

literally the, you know, the root we have those bulbs and then we

use those we dry them with quick voice mung beans as well. So

those white color we believe goes into long goes into our

lungs. So it’s kind of cooling, soothing, but without, without

like what I’m saying, like they don’t have to beater taste.

So they’re not going to deplete your young energy in a certain

way. So they’re very nourishing. And I also have like a classic remedy. It’s like a food

tasting food. We use the Chinese yam. It’s like a traditional roots. Like I used to make

my sesame snack energy bar. That is you get it regularly for lots of women. It actually

can really help. For example, if you constantly have the vaginal yeast infection, it will

really help to clear that out. You like to say why? I think it regulates your

microbiome in certain way because it contains this compounds. It contains this natural fiber,

indigestible fiber that our human cell cannot use, but it calculates certain type of good bacteria’s

new system and the other thing is those slimy stuff like for example chia seed

plexi seeds in certain way the slimy stuff and we also certain kind of fungus

like we have those white hair fungus black hair fungus 

JANNINE: Yes 

ANGELA: we have some good mushrooms

right the slimy stuff it has this black it’s a it’s like a very large sugar natural

sugar complex. And that actually trick our immune system to think, Oh, this is a boring object. We

need to work a little bit harder. But it’s not like a foreign, it’s not like a vaccine. Instead of

waste like a mild vaccine, I don’t know how to work the way it’s playing, but it boosts your

immune system without making it like go crazy. Like sometimes when people get the vaccine shot,

especially with the Covid shot, your immune system started flare up like crazy, right?

That’s why some people unfortunately get into heart problems and you know,

you hear those stories is from that. It’s just overreacting.

JANNINE: Over stimulating, yeah.

ANGELA: Yeah, overstimulating. So this natural compound, it just gives your immune system a little bit

kick. He’s like, hey, don’t be lazy. You’re gonna wake up.

I like that.

And so it actually helps to, it is, if you eat that,

this special root is a white color again.

And you can cook it.

This thing is those effective compounds is fat soluble.

So if you’re not there, again, you can cook it

with like some lean meat.

Actually, my uncle, my uncle who is an acupuncture scientist,

he’s like, I have this special remedy.

I was like, what do you special, he said,

I actually did test a lower cholesterol level like magic.

Is this black bongard, we call it more, the wood ear.

JANNINE: The black wood ear, yeah, yeah, okay.

ANGELA: Cook with lean pork.

If you drink this, consume this regularly,

it really lower your lipid level cholesterol.

– Yeah.

(laughs)

JANNINE: Wow, wow.

ANGELA: He said also treats coughing.

So, and we have a special black food ear.

It’s black on one side and white on the other side.

And it’s a little bit bigger than your regular black ear.

I mean, black wood ear.

JANNINE: Yeah.

ANGELA: And that has lots of good medicinal use.

So, but if you drink this, the white roots, same,

cook the wiz, you can also do healthy fats,

maybe I’ll say olive oil, whatever you enjoy,

a little bit fatty kind of seeds, nuts.

And if you consume that regularly,

well, clear out your vaginal infection.

JANNINE: That’s fascinating.

ANGELA: And you can just get in and boost your

immunosystem naturally and then kind of

also regulate your hormone cycle as well.

Yeah.

JANNINE: Wow.

That’s huge because so many women have like

bacterial vaginosis that just keeps coming back

and coming back and coming back.

Do you have– 

ANGELA: It’s the frying of

their immunosystem is kind of in certain way compromised.

Yeah.

JANNINE: Yeah.

Do you have a juice that kind of is incorporated into that yet?

Or is that in the works?

ANGELA: No, because I cannot–

the FDA has regulation in terms of what you can use

in food and beverages.

In supplements, it’s different.

They don’t necessarily regulate supplements

the same way as straight restrict as they do with food.

I might, if I can do that, my resource allows me,

I was thinking doing some remedy shots.

So not in the food / drink category,

but in the supplement category,

that I was thinking really focused on women’s health

because when I was in pharmaceutical medical,

I feel like lots of common women condition,

the condition happening among us, I just ignored.

You know, I mean, it’s just part of the,

even like vaginal infection,

that’s when I was in pharmaceutical,

that’s one big category for the company.

It’s all antibiotics, nothing else.

Antibiotics sometimes with cereal, with hormone, that’s it.

I mean, you guys see PMS, menopause,

all those issues is hormone therapy.

So, but this is actually the area.

At one of my ends, she’s the experts

in terms of study the herbal remedies

with modern kind of research approach,

but women’s health is the biggest focus area

in the traditional Chinese medicine

because recognizing our body are very complex.

You know, like we talk about today’s view

is different than yesterday’s view

will be different than tomorrow’s use.

The good thing is don’t feel bad

if you’re not feeling well right now

because tomorrow you’ll feel different

if you do the right thing.

Because we have that hormone cycle, which is very complex.

And then I’m sure women don’t believe that, right?

We also sync with each other better than men.

But if you’re living in the same dorm,

you’re period start to sync with your body.

JANNINE: Oh yeah.

ANGELA: Why is that?

– I don’t know, we need to have this better sense.

We think with, I think it’s a natural survival, right?

We can understand our baby,

what they want before they could talk, express their feeling to us.

And we have this sixth sense. I think most moms have.

JANNINE: Yeah. Yeah. I would agree. I would agree.

So I guess what I’m going to ask now, because, you know,

we talked about the vaginal infections, of course, the biggest one that I

struggle with and oftentimes it’s working on the hot and cold energy is,

is dealing with the hot flashes and the night sweats. Yeah.

What, what has been some things that maybe have helped you or helped

family members or what has your relative that is the expert?

Are there any remedies that you use that we can share today with folks?

ANGELA: Fortunately, I’m going to turn 51 soon next week.

So I’m in the menopause already.

I kind of started in the late ’46, ’49.

And then for me, it’s really quick.

And I didn’t feel any knockout work.

I didn’t experience any hot flash. Probably

because I’m eating, I’m drinking my smoothie every–

the whole grain kind of with the seeds, all those things.

I do think those vital estrogens

and those are based on clinical study.

If you eat foods or reach in vital estrogens,

it really helps to eliminate or lower down your hot flash.

And the other one is, I heard this,

and I think there’s some clinical study to back it up.

So make women who has curvy body feels a little bit better,

because most of the hormones are fast soil, right?

I think if not all of them.

So doing our younger age,

our body produced,

regularly produced is sex hormone,

and then your fat tissue would store some of that.

So when our kind of, sex organs start,

the function started to decline for women who are a little bit

curvier than people who I think you are lean, I’m lean too.

They actually, their fat issues start to release those hormones.

Actually, I was told for those women, if they’re also eating

clean, eating, I’m not saying you have McDonald’s,

drinking smoothie king stuff every day, that’s going to make you feel miserable.

But they actually have better menopause experience than, you know, people who are really thin.

So one thing to, you know, don’t feel bad if you feel like I need to lose a few more

pounds. There’s some advantage where you have some fat tissue, around you? Because you do have

some reserve there. 

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ANGELA: Try black soybean. If you want, I can send you some dry black soybean. You can homemade black soy

milk out of it. And you can swing it. Just don’t buy those store versions of soy milk because if

If you look at the research paper,

like the food scientists published,

the food chemistry, you’ll be scared.

I’m not gonna track this anymore.

But you know what they do?

So many stops, so many chemicals use

and what kind of stuff they use to try to make it.

Of course it tastes like a cow milk.

(indistinct)

JANNINE: Yeah  

ANGELA: So but home made

those soy milk use organics.

I mean, the good thing about black soybean,

there’s no GMO black soybean because

A large company has no interest to do that.

That means like black soybean?

What is that?

Nah.

No interest.

Don’t waste our research money on that.

So is that much.

So it’s very clean.

Yeah.

Use that.

And there are lots of herbs too.

But one thing you know that–

acupuncture helps.

Acupuncture helps.

And the other thing is you really

have to trade individual person as individual person.

So that part, if you have severe heart flash, some people actually need, we were talking about the spicy, the hot nature thing to make their qi energy flowing again.

That will help. And some people, they need cooling herbs, the bitter, cooling herbs to cool down their body. They could have exactly the same symptom. They could all have hot flash. But if you feel their pulse, it’s very different.

JANNINE: Yeah 

ANGELA: But I would say those black soybean, those phyto-estrogens should really help.

JANNINE: Good. Good. 

ANGELA: You just have to be consistent.

JANNINE: And this is the key. And this is where I like herbal, like elixirs and beverage companies,

like yours, because a lot of people I find over the years, nobody, you know, I can give people

the herbal, like the actual herbs to try to boil up a soup and not going to happen very often.

And the mixes that are the herbs and like the granules,

not, you know, once in a while someone might take it,

but then they’re like, you know,

plugging their nose and trying to get it down.

But something that’s palatable, let’s face it,

we’re all kind of kids at heart.

So gummy, I found gummies and elixirs work to get things in.

So I think it’s just something that’s,

that’s new human nature.

ANGELA: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

When I was little, I remember the days,

My parents did that to me.

– Oh, I’m like, ah, it’s too bitter.

I can’t take it.

JANNINE: Yeah. 

ANGELA: But it’s good for you.

I don’t care if it’s good for me or not.

JANNINE: It’s not tasty.

It’s not tasty.

And that’s really the big thing I want folks to understand

because when I tell folks like, oh, it’s an herbal drink.

It’s based on Chinese medicine.

You know, in East Asian medicine,

a lot of people are like, is it gonna taste like that stuff

that you gave me that one time?

(laughs)

No, I swear, I swear it’s not.

But no, I’m excited to try out some of your products

and let folks know about them ’cause it’s good stuff.

And I like that you understand the balance

because like we mentioned before,

there’s a lot of products out there

that have stacked heavily on super warm

or super cold side and not.

ANGELA: Oh my gosh, that’s the approach,

which I understand because you have to spend years,

you know how complex,

not to mention to become acupuncture stuff.

You have to through years of learning practice.

I would never try someone who have never studied

acupuncture and try to poke me with needles.

I mean, that can really cause some severe damage, right?

If we’re same thing with herbs,

we know many years, I mean, our ancestor knows

at medicinal, the true herbs, they can really,

I mean, if you don’t know how to use them well,

they can do damage.

I can give you a personal experiment.

I mean, a story, my husband is like,

“Don’t we share that with you scared people?”

So I started to play with herbal stuff since I was five,

no joking.

So when I was a teenage girl,

I was already an adventure enough.

I was mixing my own stuff,

experimenting on myself.

So one summer, I think I was about maybe 15.

So before I go to bed, I was just like,

“Ah, I feel too much heat.

I was like stressed out from my study and it’s summer, hot summer.

My final is coming and I overdose myself.

And that particular, with that particular ingredient, a woke up in the middle of the

night, my pulse was so slow.

I started to lose all the feeling on my fingers.

You know, I know I’m going to get busy.

Something bad is going to happen.

So I woke up my parents who took me to back then the ER, you know, they call it a

differently. And my mom’s doing remind me that don’t do that

again. 

JANNINE: Oh, no. Oh, no. What did they revive you with? What did

they have to give you to revive you?

ANGELA: I was actually really simple thing. It was some tiny fruits

with glucose. And with something else I cannot remember.

Well, they just put all the natural fruits into my system

come and maybe because I was young, I kind of just, because they probably

couldn’t understand what I did to myself.

JANNINE: Well, and, and it’s interesting that you mentioned they did just IV fluids,

because I think for a lot of people, when there’s an herbal overdose of one

dreation or the other, sometimes it’s just it depletes you.

And it’s much like you get dehydrated and, and you get the symptoms of headache,

you know, slow pulse, just lethargic, or you go the other direction.

Yeah. So no, that’s, that’s a, that’s a good story. I think I think it’s

wise for people to hear because I think a lot of times, even now when people are

self experimenting with different herbs and trying different things on their own,

this is, this is possible. And then they think it’s the herb causing the issue.

Well, yes, but inappropriate use as well.

ANGELA: Yeah, no, no, no, be careful.

Every medicine has side effects.

They have herb that natural doesn’t mean they have no side effect.

That’s why that has such a restraint regulation.

what can be put in food because we have those like mung beans, those black soy beans, they’ve

been used for thousands, beyond thousands of years. We know they’re not going to do you,

unless you’re really overeat them, then you just, if you overeat any food, it’s not good. So,

right? I mean, but we know, you know, for most people, they’re not going to cause harm, you know,

unless they have really super weak digestion system. That’s why we cook it really well. You know,

And one thing about traditional Chinese medicine

believe is we like to cook everything.

You already know.

We cook everything.

People are saying, “Why you no eat raw.”

Well, for most– because also, the culture is heavily plant-based.

For most plant-based food, you need to cook them.

I mean, meat so of course, you need to cook them.

Otherwise, it’s too much burden for your digestive system.

And the traditional, far east medicine

is all about preserve your qi, your digestive qi,

which is less burden on your digestive system is better.

So it’s like, if it is already cooked well,

your body can readily utilize it and then it just preserves your digestive

qi or is better for your longevity.

JANNINE: Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Oh, such good stuff, Angela.

We have been through a whole bunch of different things.

I hope folks like are taking this all in.

Don’t worry, guys.

I’ll have notes at doctorjkrausend.com

ANGELA: Yeah.

JANNINE: Gosh, thank you.

ANGELA: Why you just sent you the online,

sent you the hydration drink,

I sent you some black beans so you can play with them.

I have lots of them.

JANNINE: Yeah, no, I would love to,

I’d love to and definitely share with folks

like my experience.

So let’s tell folks your website,

let’s tell them how to find you on Instagram

’cause gosh, she’s got some cool stuff on Instagram

and that way they can connect with you.

ANGELA: Oh yeah, my website is karviva.com.

So it’s K-A-R-

V-I-V-A is the Italian word means happiness, longevity, KAR, H-stars, it shares your last name.

Yup.

KAR.

So your listener wants this, that is actually from Karunya.

Karunya is an ancient Indian word, means compassion.

So it’s still a very popular first name for ladies, for Indian ladies.

So compassion, we all need it.

Karviva.com, you can find it.

It depends on where you live.

We’re mainly Midwest, East Coast and Texas, in store,

but we’re online, our own website.

We’re gonna have special, I call it a six day,

the great way to cleanse your body,

because it’s not about cleansing,

it’s about remove the toxin

and also nourishing at the same time.

You have to do that.

Don’t just go to the bathroom six times a day.

Your energy level will be totally depleted.

Please don’t do that to yourself.

And we will have a package.

So we package the C-LAC,

cleansing drinks with the hydration drinks

for you to repunish your energy at the same time.

Cleanse out the toxins in your body.

So watch that.

Sign up our newsletter.

I come up with each blog article myself.

And usually I do a good mix of traditional Chinese medicine

with modern nutritional science.

I do both.

And also sometimes do a little bit like mindfulness.

I think that’s a big part about traditional Chinese medicine.

It’s almost like counseling.

We believe in emotion.

Most times it’s the cause of disease.

Again, I could spend another hour to talk about blockage.

Why hypertension?

How we treat hypertension?

More a different approach compared to modern medicine.

We believe there’s a blockage and the emotion blockage

can cause many, many disease too.

JANNINE: Yes, all of the emotions that go with the organs

are so important.

I think we should talk about that sometime.

Let’s do that folks.

Stay tuned.

Stay tuned.

ANGELA: And then deep in the organ, you know that like,

kidney is in charge of fear, right?

Liver is anger.

So that’s why PMS many times is that

liver qi technician makes us, it is you.

I sometimes, I remember there were few years

I was totally stressed out.

And I feel like my PMS was more severe on this anger issue.

I wake up in the morning, especially a few days

before my period of feeling like,

I’m just angry today.

I don’t know why, if I can’t stop something wrong,

I’ll be like, oh, I can’t tolerate this.

(laughs)

Well, it’s, yeah, and I start,

that’s the, it’s like, every morning,

I need to drink my stuff.

And it is true.

I think it’s that liver thing.

And then there’s just,

and then you can feel it.

Actually, there are simple things,

you can feel your bowels, you know,

what your body, your left bowels

will do different things than your right bowels

And with some, just a little bit training,

you don’t have to do self diagnosis, you will tell,

oh, actually my period is coming

and I need a little kick for it to come,

you know, maybe just,

the circulation is not moving.

JANNINE: No, it’s definitely,

the art of learning your pulses is definitely important too.

I think for all of us to kind of get a little tip

on how to do that.

So Angela, I’m gonna bring you back

so we can talk about organs, emotions, and pulses.

How about that?

ANGELA: Yeah, sure.

JANNINE: Deal, let’s do that.

Well, I appreciate you coming on today

and sharing all about your story and all about Karviva.

And I look forward to trying out some products

and we’ll do round two and we’ll talk about organs and pulses.

ANGELA: Yeah, let’s set it up.

I enjoy you, your podcast, good stuff.

JANNINE: Thank you.

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