[Transcript] – Ancient Healing Secrets, Tinctures, Salves, Hydrosols & Teas, Permaculture Tips & Much More From A Little-Known Superfood Farm In Hawaii.

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Transcripts

From podcast: https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/nutrition-podcasts/kauai-farmacy/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:01:53] Podcast Sponsors

[00:05:29] Guest Introduction

[00:08:40] Why Cacao is the Ultimate Superfood

[00:15:45] An Herbal Chew Containing Moringa

[00:20:21] The Fascinating Story of Doug's Kauai Farmacy

[00:28:36] Noni Leaves Heal Lower Back Pain

[00:33:34] Podcast Sponsors

[00:36:09] Techniques for Growing a Vast Array of Superfoods with Minimal Space

[00:42:58] Comfrey and Its Effectiveness in Healing Joints

[00:50:19] Why Doug's Ashwagandha is More Potent Than Others from a Libido Standpoint

[00:57:28] Why Turmeric Needs to Be an Essential Part of Your Diet

[01:01:12] Doug's Unique High-Fat, Plant-Based Diet

[01:06:18] How to Visit and Tour the Kauai Farmacy

[01:08:58] Final Comments

[01:09:44] Closing the Podcast

[01:10:42] End of Podcast

Ben:  On this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Doug:  They're giving out viruses at the drive-through. We got to shut those places down and we got to start giving out real food and take responsibility for our people, to think that that's not in our day-to-day diet in the Western world. I mean, that's one of the big reasons why inflammation is such an issue. The biodiversity that we create here is what creates the sustainability in the soil. They talk about it comes all the way back to the soil. Well, it does. The goal of all of this is to use these superpowers in a humble nature.

Ben:  Health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show.

Special show today. Special show today for two reasons. First of all, my son Terran is shadowing me at my office today. And you may have heard him in last week's podcast commercials as well. Say hello, Terran.

Terran:  Hello.

Ben:  So, Terran has been up with me all morning. What did we do so far? We have tea–

Terran:  Yeah. We have tea, we stretched, read the Bible.

Ben:  Jumped on the trampoline, read the Bible.

Terran:  Did the BioCharger, yeah.

Ben:  Did the BioCharger.

Terran:  Lots of stuff.

Ben:  Put crazy laser lights on our head. And then, we ate the frog. What's that mean?

Terran:  Doing the hard stuff first.

Ben:  We did all the hardest things first, meaning, like the stuff that we needed intense focus for in case we were cognitively fatigued from talking to you guys at the end of the day. The other cool reason that this podcast episode is special is because there is a place that is near and dear to my heart. A very special place in Hawaii that involves superfoods and amazing, amazing nutrients coming from the island, the magical island of Kauai. And I happen to get the proprietor of that place on today's show to talk all about what exactly it is for you. So, you're going to enjoy that.

Couple of things before we jump in. My new book, my new book on spiritual health has been released. Everything that you need to be able to discover not only physical health and brain performance, but instead of branched out from this book, and I talk about purpose, and happiness, and relationships, and parenting–am I an okay parent, Terran?

Terran:  Yeah. You're a good parent.

Ben:  He says I'm a good parent. So, that means you have to get the book.

Terran:  Yeah.

Ben:  Anyways, it's called “Fit Soul.” I've really been wanting to write a book on enhancing your spiritual health for a while and it's out now. Not only that, I decided I want this book to be a service to the world. I don't want to make any money on it. I just want to get it into the hands of as many people as possible to be able to make their lives better. So, it's free to download at fitsoulbook.com. Just like it sounds, fitsoulbook.com. You can also order a print version. The print version is not free, but trust me, I am not making any money off it. It just covers my shipping, handling, and printing costs to get it out to you. So, you've got options for digital version or print version. That's all at fitsoulbook.com. So, if you feel like something is missing in your life, little void in your soul, that book may help you. I think it will help you a lot, actually. So, fitsoulbook.com.

The other thing is that the Kion Fasting Challenge is happening very soon. If you're listening to this podcast when it comes out, you've only got a few days left to sign up to get our amazing fasting eBook for free. A free five-day fasting challenge from January 11th through January 15th. A bunch of video content from nutrition experts like Dr. Amy Shaw, who's a nutritional psychotherapist, my friend Joe DiStefano, who reveals a lot of his fasting tips, Eliza Kingsford, a whole bunch more. And the idea is that you get to join over 20,000 other people who are all doing some form of fasting, intermittent fasting, alternate-day fasting. What's your favorite form of fasting, Terran?

Terran:  Food fasting.

Ben:  Food fasting. That's a good one. I'm personally fond of McDonald's fasting. We just don't eat McDonald's for a year. It's amazing.

Terran:  I've done for 12 years.

Ben:  Oh, I feel so good when I do that.

Terran:  I do it for like 12 years.

Ben:  Wow, 12-year fast. Beat that, people. So, go to getkion.com/fasting-ben. That's getK-I-O-N.com/fasting-ben, and you can get in on the Kion fasting challenge along with 20,000 other people.

And then, finally, this podcast is brought to you by my good friends at Joovv. You see dad stand in front of the Joovv this morning?

Terran:  Yup. It's really bright.

Ben:  It's really bright. Sandwiched in between two giant red panels. And the reason I do that is because it's great for the skin, it simulates sunrise in the morning, it's wonderful for your circadian rhythm because of that, but it also can do things like boost thyroid function, boost testosterone function, heal all your nasty, unsightly wrinkles, because dad looks like a giant elephant if I don't Joovv, right? It's covered in wrinkles and scars. So, Joovv, they just upgraded all the units. They're sleeker, they're lighter, they have more power. They still have the low EMF and the extremely higher amount of power that allows you to stand in front of for a much shorter period of time than other lights that will require you to literally be in front of them for hours to be able to get the same exposure. And they're hooking up with an exclusive discount on your first order. You go to joovv.com/ben. That's J-O-O-V-V.com/ben, and apply the code BEN to your order at joovv.com/ben.

Alright, so we're going to head in and talk to my friend Doug from Kauai Farmacy.

Well, folks, I first met my guest on today's show, this guy named Doug Wolkon, when I was visiting Kauai, which is arguably one of my favorite islands in Hawaii. I like Kona just because I have so many memories there racing Ironman, and I go there to bow hunt and love the adventurousness of the big island. But when it comes to just like energy and just this really, really special feeling I get when I visit Hawaii, it's Kauai. Not only do I like Kauai because of that, but also because of the vast array of superfoods and bigger variety of fruit than I've ever seen in my life, like super tasty fruit, amazing hikes. If you guys are listening and you haven't been to Kauai yet, you have to go.

So, anyways, a few of my friends live down there. Actually, two people have been on this podcast before, Laird Hamilton and Rick Rubin. They both live down in Kauai. As is my friend James Radina, who runs a CBD company down there. And so, I'm always getting plugged into some of the local hotspots when visiting Kauai. And one day, Laird convinced me to go visit this local farm that he really liked called Kauai Organic Farmacy, spelled with an “F,” Farmacy. And I went there and toured it with Laird and was just blown away by this vast array of like 80 different organic healing plants, and superfoods, and food orchards, and like this closed-loop, permaculture, worm compost farm, and honeybees, and butterflies, and medicine making systems like solar dehydrators, and herb curing, herb healing teas, and tinctures, and hydrosols, and salves. And it was all on this tiny little plot right down there in Kauai, all kind of like this small, hand-harvested, artisanally crafted type of products that they were growing right there on the farm.

And since that visit, which was like two years ago–if you've been following me on Instagram, you've seen me actually using a lot of stuff from this farm at home. I actually get it shipped up to me at like their different powders and tinctures that you might see me using my recipes from different salves and hydrosols for my joint health, for my skin health. And so, I figured it was high time. I actually got Doug on the show because he is a really fascinating story about how he started this pharmacy that–I'm going to have him tell you so I don't have to spill the beans to you myself because I'm sure he could do a much better job explaining his story than I can. But what I am going to do is I'll take a lot of shownotes for you guys.

So if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/farmacy, it's with an “F,” BenGreenfieldFitness.com/farmacy. You can get access to the shownotes for everything that Doug and I discussed because he just–like, this is going to blow your mind, this guy's knowledge of superfoods and permaculture, and just how they're running the whole farm down there. It's super, super cool. And Doug also thrives on a high-fat ketogenic, 100% raw food diet, which I think some of you guys are going to be interested in, too. So, he's got an interesting dietary approach himself and he takes care of himself, which you guys can see the video. Doug's in great shape and obviously practices what he preaches. So, anyways, Doug, welcome to the show, man.

Doug:  Yeah. Aloha. Thanks for having me, Ben. Appreciate it.

Ben:  Oh, man, I'm actually stoked we finally made this happen because we've been talking about all your different blends that you sent me for a long time. I actually had your– what's it called? It was in my coffee this morning. Is it calcalina (ph)?

Doug:  Cacao Olena. Yeah. So, cacao is what they make chocolate out of, right? So, in most cases, they are just adding a sweetener or sugar, or what they call sugar. And Olena is the Hawaiian name for turmeric.

Ben:  Gotcha. That's what the Olena means. I've always wondered that.

Doug:  Yeah. Olena is one of the canoe plants that Hawaiians came here with 12 plants on their canoes, and one of their prized herbs was the Olena or the turmeric.

Ben:  Yeah. Well, actually, the reason I put it in my coffee this morning is just because I knew I was going to have you on the show. So, I thought, you know what, I need to go into today's show, just round it up with some of these phytochemicals, and that one's really great blend, cacao, turmeric, ginger. Are there few other things in that one, too? Because it gives me [00:09:39] _____ energy.

Doug:  Yeah, just those three. Those three herbs. So, the turmeric and the ginger, big roots, and they're going to help with inflammation, they're going to help with metabolism, they're going to help with immune system building. And they're kind of like ying and yang in the root family, both in the ginger family. Really help with that lower abdomen region, the roots, root medicine, rooting in and addressing that center core region. And then, the cacao is hormone balancing antidepressant.

Ben:  Is that because the cacao is more of a fruit?

Doug:  It is more of a fruit. It's got fats. So, from that standpoint, to get those veggie fats fresh is key. And what I mean by it, just right from the tree, and it really elevates your whole being as far as your moods and your elevation. So, yeah. I love the cacao. And the magnesium, right? The magnesium is kind of the jewel, the gold of the garden. Really hard to extract magnesium out of the garden, and cacao is the best way to do it. So, sourcing magnesium is–it's when people say they have magnesium in there. You're taking magnesium pills or magnesium tinctures. It's hard for me to imagine that people can extract magnesium out of the soil. So, I'd prefer the whole foods over the extractions.

Ben:  That's interesting. I have heard that dark chocolate is a good source of magnesium. I wasn't sure how much higher it was in like supplemental form, but you're a fan of cacao for like bioavailable magnesium?

Doug:  Yeah. What I like about it is the bioavailability of it in the whole food. It brings information. It's not just about the science of it. There's information that that plant is dialing you in on, and it's giving you information. It's like information that might be a little more elusive in some of the extractions. So, for example, some of our plants will help with self-awareness. Some of our plants will help with willpower. Some of them will help with intuition, right? That's kind of informational supplements, if you will. And when you're doing a whole plant medicine, which most of our teas are loose-leaf, and like the Cacao Olena is a powder coming one or two weeks right out of the garden. You get that whole plant medicine and that's going to bring the information that you need really because you can make all the strides in the world physically. But if they're not matching spiritually or mentally with that physical prowess, then you can't really get too far.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. And by the way, when it comes to cacao–and of course, we're going to take time and delve into a bunch of your favorite superfoods down there and some of the things people can learn about them in a little bit. But I remember, I think it was Laird that grabbed one of the cacao. What do you call it, a cacao fruit? Would that be the correct name for it?

Doug:  Cacao, their pods, but yeah.

Ben:  Yeah. And we cut it open and ate some of these. They're almost like little slimy seeds that are inside. They taste amazing. You feel almost immediately that rush of dopamine and all those pleasure-related endorphins that cacao is chock-full of in terms of a precursor with a lot of those bromines, the theobromine, and cacao is just amazing for that. But it's very cool to eat that instead of chocolate and just taste all of those precursors that come before the actual chocolate and get that instant energy. And there's another form of cacao that I'll occasionally chew on. I think it's more from the coca leaf and it's like a powdered cacao. You can understand how people got into cocaine at one time because I think it's a little bit related to cacao in terms of the pharmacology of it. It's obviously a powerfully addictive stimulant drug, whereas, cacao is a little bit more mild. But man, just getting my hands on that pod and getting a chance to eat some of those seeds is pretty cool. And then, I think, haven't you, since that time, developed like a dried cacao seed that you sent out, almost like a Trail Mix?

Doug:  Yeah. We actually just launched the Trail Mix. We don't have it on our website right now, but it's small batch here locally. We're making like maybe 20 bags a week, but we're going to launch on the website soon. It's cacao from the farm and coconut chips, mac nuts from the Big Island, from a special source on the Big Island. And then, we have these dried bananas to sweeten it, and it's just epic. Just a small handful would really give you the kick you need. So, yeah. I mean, that cacao really elevates the serotonin levels, kind of like a happy hormone type of feeling, and big iron, and that cacao as well.

I remember you sent me that text recently from Laird's with the cacao, ginger, turmeric, honey, which we're getting ready to make really soon, heading into winter. That is a crowd favorite. We blend that same Cacao Olena recipe into honey because the cacao, it's got that bitter, natural flavor, and with that slimy sweetener on the outside. But when we cheer it in our dehydrators, it's definitely on the bitter side. So, when it hits that honey, it's amazing. And I know that Laird and you guys had a good time with that.

Ben:  Oh my god, it's so good. Last time, I was at Laird's and Gabby's down in Malibu. I think I had a spoonful of the cacao, ginger, turmeric, honey, but then we also stirred it into some tea, and oh my goodness, it's like the best honey ever. It was amazing. I know you have like hundreds of different herbs and products that I know we probably won't have a chance to delve into them all today, but I mean that honey alone, one with the cacao, oh my gosh. There's one other before I hear your story since we're talking about energy. My wife, occasionally in the past few weeks, have thought that I was–she thought I was chewing tobacco because you sent me that herbal chew. It comes in a tin, almost like tobacco, and you put it underneath your lips.

And when I was down there visiting the farm, you showed me this thing called the toothache plant, and I liked it so much, these little berries that just give you this buzz in your mouth, like a party in your mouth. I actually went home and got grow lights and figured out how to grow that in my home, and I would make like coconut oil pulling out of it and chew on them before or after meal for saliva production, but it gives you a lot of energy, too. And you actually put that same stuff into this–what's it called? It's like an herbal chew?

Doug:  Yeah. So, our Buzz Chew.

Ben:  Buzz Chew, yeah.

Doug:  Yeah. And the Buzz Chew is created around the Spilanthes, or the toothache plant. So, that Spilanthes is a flower that–it's called the electric daisy, and it's just–yeah, it's a party in your mouth and really helps with any kind of aches, but also cleansing the anti-everything oral care medicine for circulation as well. But also, internally, if you have a cold or want some immune-boosting pick-me-up, really healthy. And then, we've wrapped two strategies around the Spilanthes, which has a hard time getting to market because it is such a unique experience. So, the two strategies around the Spilanthes is one, high, high iron through Moringa and Bele spinach, and then epic flavors through some mint, and stevia, and tarragon. And when you bring all those into a chew form–and what I find with the chew–and all these, same with the cacao, ginger, turmeric, honey, the idea with I think where the world is headed is kind of elevate their diets with less but more potent food. So, we're not eating all the time or focused on it all the time. Maybe higher, pure water, more high-frequency water, better rest. And then, yeah, the quality of our food and what we put in our bodies is so high frequency that we just really don't need a lot, and it's more about balance than it is about trying to get all these calories.

Ben:  Yeah. It's such a good point. I mean, once you dressed stuff up with ample nutrient density–and what I do is I take a lot of your powders. Probably the two top things that I have in my pantry are yours and–do you know Dr. Thomas Cowan? You ever heard of him?

Doug:  Yes, I have. Actually through you.

Ben:  See, I use Dr. Thomas Cowan's vegetable powders, and then all of your blends. And I just sprinkle that stuff liberally in coffees, in teas, on top of my lunches, mix it into my smoothies, put it into dinner. I've even used this stuff in cocktails. And it's crazy when you get the amount of nutrient density from a lot of these super nutrient-dense plants, you're less hungry, which is pretty cool. I mean, it's a calorie hack or a fasting hack as well. But that Buzz Chew is pretty cool because you literally do just like duck it in your mouth just like chew, except you have that guilt-free peace of mind that it's not actually tobacco or rotten out your mouth. But yeah, I mean the mint, the spinach, the Moringa, that toothache plant, I mean, it just makes your mouth feel fresh and clean, but you feel that energy hitting your system right away.

Doug:  The key is lifestyle, right? Because I mean, what they've done is they got the golden arches around every corner and the gas stations and all this stuff around every corner. So, if we can integrate these items around a new lifestyle where there's chews and there's things to keep you satisfied and keep you going, and spices–we have a curry powder with kaffir lime, ginger, turmeric. I mean, ginger, turmeric, 50% of the world puts ginger and turmeric almost on every meal, all of Asia, basically. And to think that that's not in our day-to-day diet, ginger and turmeric, in the western world, I mean, that's one of the big reasons why inflammation is such an issue, because we don't have ginger and turmeric in our diets every day.

And then, the access to such high iron like Moringa and Bele spinach, it's very convenient. So, whether it's in a chew, or a spice powder, or drinking tea, getting them around every corner, having my tea in your fridge along with water, being able to put some high-frequency powder in your smoothies and on your foods. Again, with the chew and some sprays, in salves, we got all kinds of salves here. That's really where you're going to really dial in your ability to connect with the earth, your ability to connect with the universe, and your relationships, and those plants will really help you diversify your diet and call in alkalinity.

Ben:  Yeah, I dig it. Okay. So, there's so many superfoods I want to ask you about, and I want to ask you a little bit more about the farm, too. But you weren't always like a super-duper healthy guy from what I understand. I recall you telling me a story about how you founded the farm, and this wasn't really your way of life before. So, can you get into that and explain how this farm actually came to be? Because I think it's a fascinating story that people would really love to hear.

Doug:  Yes. So, I was a high school athlete, basketball player, and graduated in Michigan, and then headed over to the world of finance for almost 10 years, Chicago, Manhattan, Connecticut. I was in private equity, real estate, as a partner there, and I left that world when I was 31-ish. Not really sure what I was going to do. I was 30 plus pounds heavier than I am right now. Steak dinners, tons of wine, lots of travel, lots of mashed potatoes.

Ben:  Sounds familiar.

Doug:  Yeah. And late-night, and early breakfast meetings, and lots of cell phone work.

Ben:  Yeah.

Doug:  It was kind of slowly but surely couple pounds a year. It didn't happen all at once, but I was gaining a couple pounds a year, and it was getting away from me. And all of a sudden, my neck and my waist couldn't really turn it so well and move it so well. And 20-minutes laps at The Four Seasons don't really cut it one day a week. So, anyway, when I left, I left because a lot of it had to do with my health, kind of looking at the guys, that's the path I want to take. It looks like that's where I'm going and there's no way out. So, I left not knowing what I was going to do. And my wife, she had already left her industrial design career in New York City. So, she was more entrepreneurial way and we had our first child. Soon thereafter, traveled a little bit, saw the way the other–the eastern world, lives in India and Asia. That helped a lot, opened our minds.

And then, once we had our baby, we honestly turned our back on Western medicine at that point. We just felt there was more to being able to self-care and self-heal. And at the beginning, I mean looking back now, I look at it and I was definitely a lot of anger and how our birth went down and the times–immediate thereafter. But looking back now, I look at it like–we needed to take responsibility for our own health. That's really what it's about. And growing up in the school systems, there's very little health education and wellness education of what it all means. And so, I didn't have it, I didn't have the education, and we didn't have the education on birth, and we didn't have education on how to heal. So, we, four months after our child was born, took off to Hawaii, and unbeknownst to us, settled in on a healing journey and started doing all the things that you would do when you get to Hawaii, living the life, surfing and–

Ben:  Was that Kauai that you were on?

Doug:  That was Kauai, yeah. I mean, we didn't have a huge plan. We didn't know how long we were going to stay and I had some flexibility work-wise. I was still in between lifestyles to say the least, having all kinds of identity crisis when I first got here, I can imagine. Trying to let go of that finance lifestyle was not easy. And it was having extra weight on me and it's painful, like grabbing a surfboard and just walking out, and having a bad back all the time, and not knowing how to eat, bad neck, all that stuff. I wasn't 18 anymore. So, just trying to find my body. My child, he's one year or two years old and he's just starting to run circles around me. I'm sure a lot of you know what I mean. It's hard to keep up with the kids.

So, I felt like a responsibility in that regard. And also, my wife and I really want to take back our power as far as learn and learn how to have children, learn how to heal ourselves, learn how to educate our children. So, slowly but surely, we started playing with the plants, and noni leaf was the first one. I started sticking the noni leaves in my belt buckles, failing the inflammation. We started drinking noni leaf tea. And before we know it, we're wild harvesting noni leaves all over the island. There's so much this island has to offer. The truth is there's so much the planet has to offer as far as plant medicine. It's all around us.

Ben:  But Kauai seems to have like a disproportionately high amount of diversity. Is there a reason for that?

Doug:  So, the Garden Island, wettest place on Earth, 3,000 miles from anywhere. Yeah, it's the place to be. I mean, our plant medicine, we were closed loop, we do a great job with the organic nature of what we do, and how we feed our plants, and how we care for them. But I'd be kind of ignorant to not first put Kauai up there as the main reason that our plant medicine is what it is. We got here and it was like this amazing ecosystem, the oldest island of all the Hawaiian Islands. It's got so much mana, so much life for us, so much spiritual integrity, and grounding, and foundation. It's mind-blowing. I mean, every day, it's humbling and just teaching us all about what it means to be of service to your family, to yourself, to mankind, if you will, and try to do this, do this business, do this venture in the context of the greater good, which is what we need, right? We need plant medicine everywhere, we need plant medicine around every corner, we need plant medicine in the hospitals, we need plant medicine. We need tea farms, we need tea lanais or tea houses, and we need places where you can get your turmeric shots, right?

I mean, I don't want to get into the discussions of what we can do to defend ourselves. Let's build our immune systems like the mentality of our whole–people with strong immune systems understand this, which is, “I can't think in terms of defense. I can only think in terms of building my immune system,” which I guess is somewhat defensive, but it's a balanced approach. It's not going at the viruses or whatever might be out there, and actually even thinking about them. You're not even giving them that type of identity because it can defeat you by doing that. So, what you're really trying to do is build and build and build that immune system. And then, that diversity, which you mentioned, that biodiversity of the plant medicine on Kauai, the potency of that plant medicine really ignited me and my family. It was to engage within our intuition. I mean, Ben, when I see you play music, when I see you do what you do, you seem to be very comfortable in your body and with yourself, and that's inspiring, dude. That's awesome. And I think for me, I lost that in my 20s. I lost that ability to tap into my intuition. And why? Because there are all these blockages right between my head and my sacral.

Ben:  Yeah.

Doug:  So many blockages that I couldn't connect. I mean, if we were all able to connect and free ourselves of those blockages and those pains, then I think we'd see so much of this disease be just gone.

Ben:  Yeah. Actually, I want to ask you a little bit about the pains and things like that because I know that you had all these little blockages and you're touching on how noni was one of the first superfoods that you use. And I've looked into noni a little bit because I'm intrigued by it, and there's this alkaloid in it called xeronine. And when I looked at it, I've talked about protein misfolding and how it's one of the key contributors to aging and cellular degeneration before on this show, this aggregation of misfolded proteins. And if you look at xeronine, it actually modifies the molecular structure of these inactive proteins by acting almost like enzymatically to restore proper folding to the protein, which is really interesting because from what I understand, you actually used it specifically to heal your low back issue. Is that correct?

Doug:  Yes, it is. And I mean, the noni plant is so powerful.

Ben:  Yeah. Tell me about what else you do with it, like, what have you found with it and what kind of things do you make out of noni?

Doug:  So, we have it in our salves. So, our beeswax and coconut oil, it's a main ingredient in our salves. We have a Noni Hydrosol, and then it's in our teas, and it's also in our capsules.

Ben:  What's a hydrosol?

Doug:  Hydrosol is a steam distillation. So, we put all the plant material in a pot, and we steam it, and then cool it, and we get the vapor into liquefied form. There's both the spirit water of the plant, and then the oil of the plant, and that's actually how they create essential oils.

Ben:  And you would spray that on the skin, the hydrosol?

Doug:  Yeah, you spray it on your skin. I spray it on my skin, but I also, like every night before I go to sleep, I brush my teeth with the Noni Hydrosol. And I swish my mouth with it and I use it for my gums. The lack of mouth medicine that's out there, the concept of toothpaste is sort of ridiculous to me. So, I'm seeking every day to find something that will benefit my gums and my teeth and strengthen my teeth, right? Because decaying of teeth is an issue that every human faces at some point in their life. And how do we strengthen our teeth? I've started to stick Comfrey up in my mouth actually a little bit even though we're not really supposed to suggest putting Comfrey root internally.

Ben:  Yeah. Comfrey is another one. I want to eventually ask you about Comfrey, but I don't want to leave noni yet just because I find it so fascinating. You guys grow a lot of it down there, don't you?

Doug:  Yeah. And it grows wild all over the island. But we have lots of plants on our farm. It's one of those plants you can grow as wild and it'll hold its space. So, from a permaculture standpoint, it's easy to grow and it holds. You don't have to feed it much and you don't have to worry about it. Yeah. The xeronine that you mentioned, being tumor preventative, addressing free radicals that may be cancer-causing, the ursolic acid being super anti-inflammatory and not noni plant. And specifically, we use the leaf. So, when you say some of that stagnant protein that you mentioned, I mean, when we had this conversation about–and we've had it here. What is a tumor made of? And the tumor, theoretically, it's acidic toxins, right?

Ben:  You mean like a cancer tumor?

Doug:  Yeah, cancer tumor. What is that? And it's acidic talk, it's calcified matter, it's a blockage. I mean, all these words that–you're definitely more versed in the science of what's in it, but the ugliest stuff that never was supposed to enter your body in the first place. And here it is, kind of the body is doing its best to aggregate it in some way out of a defensive mode, and that's what creates the tumor. And so, what the noni does, and all the plant medicine does, but the noni is particularly potent. And I would put turmeric and Comfrey, which we've mentioned all those as also very potent as it chips away the alkalinity of the noni, the xeronine of the noni. They're polar opposites of the toxicity. It's a pristine river attracting beautiful birds versus a toxic dump creating smoke and air pollution. It's the same concept.

So, when you stick that noni–and again, a lot of those tumors, they've been built up over 30, 40, 50 years of time. And so, to chip away at them, the plant medicine, the teas, the superfoods, sprinkling them on and drinking a tea a cup or two or three a day, that's what you really need to do because that's how it was grown in the first place. It was grown over time, right? For me, I mean, my parents fed me well and I'm very grateful for their cooking abilities and everything they did for me. But man, I ate way too much Wonder Bread growing up, and cereals, and packaged sugars, and they're worse now.

Ben:  Yeah. I grew up on that stuff myself.

Doug:  And they're in the body. They're in the body, they're left in the body, and so to chip away at that stuff, that's what the noni allows you to do. And then, at the same time, it's created circulation, right? It's moving the blood. Like a lot of times, I'll tell people like, “Don't take the noni at night.” It doesn't have caffeine, but it gets you pretty–that circulation is like nothing else. And inevitably, there's a detox effect. The goal is to create a balance of your lifestyle when you're using these products and you're using these plants so that you don't have too much of a detox and you can understand how much to take. And there's a nice balance of being able to add nourishment, as well as detoxing gently.

Hey, I want to interrupt today's show. My son Terran here is still with me. Say hello, Terran.

Terran:  Hello.

Ben:  Hey. So, we're going to talk about Vuori, about Vuori Clothing. Have you worn a Vuori Clothing?

Terran:  No.

Ben:  They spell it kind of funny, V-U-O-R-I, but you pronounce it Vuori.

Terran:  Yeah, it wouldn't be like.

Ben:  Like whenever you see dad working out, wearing short shirts, almost everything is made out of Vuori gear because they send me this wonderful gear because they're a podcast sponsor. So, I get to try out everything, which is amazing. However, it is also available to you. So, this is a clothing company that has some products for women, and the women's products are amazing, but the men's products, they have just really crushed it in terms of creating fitness gear that also looks good, like you could wear it for yoga, you could wear it out to the restaurant, you could wear it for a spin class, you could wear for weight training, and you could wear it the rest of the day at work, assuming that like Terran and I, we don't have to wear a suit. It's probably a good thing. So, we can wear Vuori Clothing at work. And anyways, what they're going to do is get this 25% discount on their clothing. That's pretty big. It's a whole core. That means if it's 10 bucks, then it would cost 25%.

Terran:  Wait. Oh, 25% off, that will be two and a half bucks?

Ben:  Two dollars and fifty cents.

Terran:  Yeah.

Ben:  Yeah, and go get yourself some clothing for $2.50. I don't know about that. But vuoriclothing.com/ben, V-U-O-R-Iclothing.com/ben. That gets you 25% off.

And then, finally, this podcast is brought to you by the absolutely fabulous Clearlight Sauna. I use that thing a lot, don't I, Terran?

Terran:  Yup.

Ben:  I'm in that thing a lot, almost every morning. I sweat, I increase my heat shock proteins, my red blood cells, my human growth hormone, detox through the body's largest detoxification organ, the skin, heavy metals, and toxic chemicals, boost the immune system, a whole lot more that regular heat exposure can do. You do this on a quite a bit, too, don't you, Terran?

Terran:  Mm-hmm.

Ben:  Put in there like at least once or twice a week, I'd say, doing breathwork, or stretching, or just hanging out with dad. So, Clearlight Sauna has come with a lifetime warranty. I have the Sanctuary, which is huge. I get a lot of people in there, just going there by myself and do yoga, and whatever else I want to do. And what they're going to do is extra discount for you if you go to healwithheat.com/ben. Just let them know I sent you for the VIP treatment and you can get the same type of sauna I have, and it's pretty amazing. The only thing about a sauna that is important, Terran, would be what you do afterwards, which is what?

Terran:  Cold.

Ben:  Cold, yeah. Get in that sauna, go find yourself an ice-cold shower or an icy cold soak, you're going to feel amazing.

Alright, back to the podcast with Doug Wolkon from Kauai Farmacy.

So, you use this noni leaf, and that was one of the first things that you grew there, if I'm not mistaken. But you guys have this whole–I want to hear more about how you've actually put the farm together, and then I have some of the more specific superfoods I'm actually intrigued with, I want to ask you about.

But you've got this closed loop vermiculture feeding system, you've got these solar dehydrators, all these different kind of like herb curing facilities. But it's a very small plot. How many acres are you on?

Doug:  It's four acres and we're only gardening, farming, harvesting out of, say, a little over two.

Ben:  Yeah. I mean, it's small. We walked it in like a half-hour and saw everything. But I'm curious, can you get into how you guys are actually growing so much on this four-acre tropical herbal oasis? Like, what are some of the top techniques that you would say that you really got into in terms of putting together scenario where you could actually grow this vast array of superfoods?

Doug:  I'll first say that we've learned so much and we have so much to learn, gardening, permaculture. It's definitely a new age. Hopefully, the young people really move towards this way of life because we need them, too, because this is–I mean, it's never-ending knowledge and it far surpass the next level scientists because you can never master the gardening technique. So, permaculture, regenerative agriculture, really backyard gardening, it's meticulous. The biodiversity is the key. That was really our implementation that we wanted to see. We wanted to mimic the jungle vibes here.

So, layering groundcovers to knee-high shrubs, to hip-high, to head high, things like noni, keeping them shorter, to tree cover or canopies like papayas and pigeon peas, really maximizing your density, having a system in place that is closed-loop, or really, we're feeding our gardens only what we grow. So, we're feeding on Bele spinach, we're collecting our grass cuttings on a biweekly basis to feed our vermiculture program, which is our worm. So, our worms are getting–

Ben:  Yeah. By the way, I was going to mention that. Vermiculture, for those of you unfamiliar with that, that's like worm composting.

Doug:  Yeah. So, it's kind of old school, you know? I mean, there's nothing new about it, and we have a lot to learn with regards to it. So, we have our worm farm, but then we also have warm nursery, but then we also have worm bins in the garden. So, we're putting our compost, our excess spinach leaves, our taro leaves, and our grass clippings are gold. The worms are breaking that down and making it into worm poop, which is in our opinion, the healthiest manure we can create. And it comes from the farm, and it's tight, it's clean, it's neat, and it's light, because we want–just like we want our medicine to be like, we want our manure to be light. We don't want to allow smells. We want it clean.

So, we also make a Comfrey tea to feed into the garden. So, we take the Comfrey leaves that we grow both as medicine. So, the Comfrey being the bone, tendon, ligament medicine, we also use it as a weed suppressant, the Comfrey. But we grow Comfrey to create a Comfrey tea, and then we also feed that back into the garden. So, twice a week, we actually feed our gardens a compost tea that's aerated overnight the prior night and we hand feed it. So, again, it's high labor intensive, we hand feed everything, and hand harvest, hand call, handcraft. And people say, “Oh, isn't that labor intensive?” Well, I mean, I think that's what America needs more than anything, right? We need labor intensive occupations.

Ben:  Yeah. I mean, I haven ‘t told you, like one of the things we really want to do, and we're still going to make this happen, is I took my boys down to visit your farm and they absolutely loved it. They're super into nature. I raise little hippies up here in Washington, and we want to bring them down there because our family loves Kauai anyways. We want to live in Kauai for a few weeks and have the boys just work there on the farm and learn a lot of these superfoods that you're making down there because–it's just amazing, not only that, but the way that you're actually farming with this closed-loop worm compost farm, and the honeybees, and the butterflies, and the other pollinators. By the way, you mentioned water as well. You guys do anything special with water in terms of structuring your water or recycling the water somehow? Are you doing anything special with the water?

Doug:  Well, I mean, for our gardens, we get tons of rain. So, we really don't have any irrigation system at all. And in fact, water can be a challenge, so we basically trench–we've trenched the entire farm. It feeds into a stream that surrounds it. So, we don't want the plants sitting in water, we don't want the roots sitting in water. We use our catchment system for our compost teas overnight. So, we have 50-gallon stainless steel drum, got three of them actually all over the farm catching the water, and then we'll mix the worm compostings in, we'll mix the Comfrey teas in. And then, wherever else we want to find, we recently mix the star fruit juice into it to feed back into the garden. But that pure catchment water coming right from the sky is what we want.

But just on the health and wellness side, we've gone down the road on what's the best water, and there's all kinds of discussion, and I was heavy into the alkaline system, and all kinds of purifiers. And I think there's all kinds of benefits of all of them, and I'm stoked for whatever anyone's doing. For me, what I was led to was just spring water. And I started to access local spring water that was delivered. And then, now I go and hike to get my spring water up at a pretty mystical place on the island and we just take out. My boy takes out about 5-gallon jug and I take out about 8 gallons of Kauai spring water out of this one spot. It's like a 20-minute hike up and down, and it's an epic spot. And it's just the freshness of your water I think people underestimate. Just like your food, you want that water coming right out of nature. You want it move in, you want it alive, and you want it having touched the minerals recently. The more it sits, the longer it sits. So, anyway, I mean, you got to do the best you can. Don't freak out about it, or you just keep upgrading and keep up-leveling your nutrition and your health.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. Alright. Well, I mean, obviously, we could talk permaculture and vermiculture and farming forever, but I want to get into a few super intriguing things. When we were there, you dug up this root, which you already alluded to, the Comfrey, and you told me it was called knitbone, and also warrior plant because not only does it look like all these little bones and knuckles and joints when you dig up the root, but then if you turn it into a salve, or almost like a mud-like topical that you can wrap around a joint, it is one of the best things I have ever used. I mean, you guys sent me the salve, but you also sent me the powder and I turned that into a full-on–what do you call it? What's the word I'm looking for, Doug, when you blend something up and get it wet and wrap it around a joint? It's not a salve. It's a poultice.

Doug:  Poultice, yeah. I couldn't [00:43:46] _____.

Ben:  Yeah. A poultice. And I know that that Comfrey has that allantoin in it, which acts similarly to that compound in noni in terms of repairing misfolded proteins. But this Comfrey, it's absolutely amazing in terms of how quickly it can actually heal up joints. And I find it fascinating. And so, is the top way you would say to use that would be to actually apply the salve, or do you have other ways you like to use Comfrey?

Doug:  So, yeah. The salve is the most convenient. I find with anything you do in the regenerative lifestyle, the restorative lifestyle, it's all about consistency, right? So, getting that Comfrey, and you inevitably make sure ligaments, tendons, and bones more supple. And that's what we're seeking, right? We're seeking suppleness in our joints. We want to be like a baby, right? So, if we fall from the sky, we bounce. And that's what the Comfrey does. I mean, if you saw what raw Comfrey look like, it's very nimble and it's very supple. And so, we cure it, and then we infuse it into our salve, and we make a Comfrey salve that's probably our bestseller.

Ben:  How do you make the salve? How do you get from the root to the salve? I'm just curious.

Doug:  We harvest the root and we infuse it into oil overnight. Actually, two to three days is the length of the infusion. It's a very slow low heat infusion into a coconut oil. And we also add the leaf because again, in dealing–same with the noni, the noni has a fruit and a leaf. The root is infinitely more potent than the leaf, but the leaf has qualities that the root doesn't. Again, we're trying to get that allantoin out. The root goes, they say–I haven't dug it myself, but they say it goes 6, 8, 10 feet into the ground. So, a plant that only comes out 2 feet, 3 feet high, goes 8 feet deep, it's grabbing vitamins and minerals that you cannot access otherwise. So, that allantoin is really the bone, ligament, tendon healer that creates those regenerative compound.

So, we infuse those compounds into the coconut oil, and then we add a local Kauai beeswax, which is also we get from all the beekeepers here in Kauai, which are just unbelievable. It's an unbelievable medicine, beeswax. And I can tell you, sometimes when I'm rubbing that Comfrey salve on my feet, I do it on my heels every night, but also massage. It's great partner massage. It's great massage for elbows, shoulders, knees. People don't appreciate whether it's after a workout, after a run. Okay. Now, what's the restorative? What's the regenerative treatment? How do you tell your body, “Thank you?” How do you tell your body, “You know, I appreciate what you've done?” And yeah, a glass of water is key, but then also lubricating. As we get older, we need to lubricate our joints on a consistent basis. And also, our heels, our feet. I mean, 50 years of walking on our heels, 40 years of walking like–

Ben:  I get super dry heels, and what I do is I put that Comfrey salve on in the morning, and then I pull socks on over that, and just wear the socks as long as possible, and do that again at night, because both my dad and mom struggle with really bad cracked heels in the winter. And in the past two years since I started doing it with your Comfrey salve, it's very rare that my heels actually crack painfully wide open like they used to.

Doug:  You got to care for those heels for sure. I mean, that's like one of the first signs of what's coming ahead if your heels go. And I've had them come and go where I've had cracked heels, too, and it's not something you want. It's not a good sign of what's to come. So, be definitely in tune with that. And if you do have cracked heels, you should address it for sure. Alignment of your sacral is off, too. It also says you're dragging your heels a little bit with some things on a spiritual level. But in any case, so the root, the way it works in the plant, what I find because I broke my clavicle, I broke my nose playing basketball, and I'll come back and I'll just grab that Comfrey root, dig it right up and just go all in because I'm not walking around with a broken clavicle. I got too much stuff to do.

So, what I'll do is I'll make that poultice on my clavicle or on my nose. And what I find that it does more than anything–and again, when you're healing, time is of the essence. People say, “Oh, herbal medicine doesn't work.” Well, you stop talking about it and just do it. Do it yesterday. As soon as you get that cut, you got to put that stuff on right away. Seconds matter, minutes matter, days matter. So, that's key. Same with the breaks, and the sprains, and the pulls. You got to address that. You got to get the rest. The Comfrey, what I find that it does in short is it comes to the breath, getting that oxygen to the body, getting that breath. I mean, a lot of what happens is you get that quick kind of–you lose your oxygen and that's what allows the acids to create the inflammation.

So, if you, say, break a wrist, the assets are going to make hay in that wrist, and all that Wonder Bread from when you were a kid is just going to charge the wrist because it's a weak spot, it's got no oxygen. So, the inflammation starts to creep in. And once that inflammation creeps in, there's nothing you can do about it. So, the Comfrey comes in. It chips away out and it breaks it up. It adds that oxygen-rich, nutrient-dense root to the zone, starts to break it up, also calls in the water. So, inevitably, you're chugging water, you're drinking water because why does something crack? It's lack of suppleness. It's dryness. That's why things crack, whether it's your heels or your bones, right? So, they crack or they break because it's dry or they're brittle. So, you're trying to create that suppleness, and the suppleness is what the Comfrey brings.

And so, now you're drinking gallons of water, literally. I mean, from the sake of my clavicle, I put so much Comfrey in and then I drink 3 gallons of water and it lied me straight on my back. So, restoration, right? People don't want to light out. “Oh, I got my arm in a cast and I'll just use it like this.” And it's like, “No, it's not how you're going to heal.” So, kind of three things it does, specifically on top of what all the herbs do is circulate. But the three things that I find the Comfrey does is it helps calm the breath, it helps bring nutrient-dense allantoin to heal and nourish the zone. It helps hydrate and it helps with restoration.

Ben:  Okay. Got it. So, Comfrey is one. Noni, we discussed. We talked in the beginning about the cacao, which I just absolutely love. And also, the toothache berry.

You also sent me some of the ashwagandha. And ashwagandha is particularly well-known for its reported libido effect, but I haven't noticed much for most of the ashwagandhas I've tried. And you sent me an ashwagandha from the farm that literally turned me into a sex animal, that's what I can describe it, the day that I took it. And the noticeable libido effect, I'm curious, was that like a certain varietal of ashwagandha, or is there something special about the way you're growing the ashwagandha? Or, what's up with the ashwagandha that you're producing the pharmacy? Because it's like something hit me in a really big way when I took it.

I should clarify, by the way, what I took, it wasn't just the ashwagandha. You sent me this–you called it the endurance powder. And I think it had Moringa in there, I think it had some of that Bele spinach in there, and there are other things in it, too, like tulsi and ginger, like it was a pretty big blend, but I know ashwagandha was one of the primary ingredients. You also sent me a tincture. I don't remember if I stack the two or what, but the ashwagandha is really interesting. What are you doing with the ashwagandha?

Doug:  So, the ashwagandha is in the endurance and it's in the love potion.

Ben:  Maybe it was the love potion I tried. Was that like the tincture?

Doug:  No. And then, I also sent you just straight up root, which we don't have on the website. I sent you some kind of back stock straight up root.

Ben:  Okay. It might have been that.

Doug:  So, that's going to be more potent. But yeah. So, what you find, what you discovered in that experience was getting it from the source and small farming and Kauai grown. And I mean, I know we've touched on a lot of the aspects and it's what made me come to this farm was I was like, “Wow, if I just drink this tea or if I just chew on this root, I can feel like this.” At that point, there was nothing stopping me from, and my wife and my family, from moving in this direction because the efficacy was so profound. I had bought the $300 ginseng tinctures and I had bought the–I had gone down the road. I wanted to get my health back. I was on the journey. And I'm also very appreciative and grateful of all that plant medicine and all those supplements as well because they allowed me to find this place. They got my sniffer kind of attuned to the next level.

But when I got to Kauai and I realized what Kauai grown turmeric, or in your case, the case like ashwagandha, it says libido boosting. And you could take lots of pills of ashwagandha or tinctures that you get in the pharmacy, you get at a local pharmacy, and it's going to be okay. But what we have is really dialing into what ashwagandha is really about. And I can tell you, it's a curious one. Some of these plants I can speak of humbly because you said you turned yourself into a sex animal and it's like, yeah, watch out. So, yeah. The goal of all of this is to use these superpowers in a humble nature.

Ben:  Yeah. Well, ashwagandha would also be considered an adaptogen. Meaning, if you are overhyped up and your key is flowing too strongly, so to speak, from an Eastern medicine standpoint, we settle you down. But in terms of supporting, particularly the nervous and the reproductive system, for me, from a sexual standpoint, it's amazing. And my wife really likes that one, too. I think we tried everything you sent, the root, the love potion, which is a tea, and then the tincture, and then that endurance powder. It's really great pre-workout as well. But yeah, something's different about the ashwagandha that you're using. And one of them, like the endurance formula, and I think another form of the ashwagandha that you sent down to me was blended with Moringa.

That's very interesting because a lot of people, they're talking about these broccoli sprouts now as like isothiocyanate compound that would increase your levels of sulforaphane, which is arguably, super-powerful cancer-fighting type of compound you would find in broccoli, broccoli sprouts, cruciferous vegetables, et cetera. But Moringa is actually really high in that as well. My friend, Dr. Rhonda Patrick, recently did a podcast about Moringa being as effective as broccoli sprouts for the sulforaphane, particularly. But I'm curious if there's a reason that you wanted blending that with the ashwagandha, why you chose Moringa and ashwagandha as a combination.

Doug:  You know, the nourishment, right? So, we're really trying to ground out that libido boost. When we bring in the nourishment of that Moringa, all nine essential amino acids that the body doesn't make super nutrient-dense, they give it to breastfeeding mamas all throughout Asia and Africa. It's one of the most highly consumed iron-rich plants in the world. So, you understand what we grow. We grow plants that are permaculture-based. So, easy to grow in our systems. So, like if we tried to grow broccoli for us, that's pretty unsustainable. Broccoli, I love broccoli, and it's really good for you. But we could never deliver it cost-effectively. It doesn't have the same kind of production that a plant like Moringa would.

And when you look at our systems and you look at something like ashwagandha, it's immersed with the Moringa. So, when you get Moringa out of the store, you get ashwaganda. You asked why our ashwagandha is different. Ashwaganda is being grown in India in rose and thousands of acres of monocropped. And I can almost guarantee some kind of chemical fertilized stuff. And what it does is it sucks the nutrients out of the ground. Like in the case of cacao, one of the biggest industries in the world, produce industries in the world. There's no magnesium left on the Ivory Coast, right? Ninety percent of the world's cacao comes from Ivory Coast. It's been happening for 30 years. They're not feeding that coast with magnesium. It's too expensive. That's what we're trying to get the kings of Europe in the 1800s. They were going after that magnesium. That was the happiness. That was the serotonin high.

So, the biodiversity that we create here is what creates the sustainability in the soil. And they talk about it comes all the way back to the soil. Well, it does. I mean, you are what your soil eats. Your soil is, at the end of the day, what those supplements, what the tea is, what your ashwagandha, what your Moringa is going to feed you. So, for us, creating diversity, canopies, groundcovers, jungle like environments to create are Kauai grown medicinal superfoods and spices. That's what allows them to hit a higher level. The Moringa in particular is very efficient molecule. It's ultra-efficient. So, yeah, the more Moringa, the better. And again, the source is key. There's all kinds of Moringa out there and now they're doing Moringa plantations. But when you think about those nine essential amino acids, if it's just Moringa plantations, they're just stripping the soil of those nine amino acids. They're not filling them back in. Input, output, it doesn't work. They're just outputting, outputting, outputting. I'm constantly close-looping this thing. And again, not to say that my system is perfect by any stretch. We got a lot of work to do, and every day, I'm humbled and questioning my own ways. But at the same time, that biodiversity is what we need to come back to.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. Well, I want to ask you about one other one before I dig into this high-fat plant-based keto diet that you're following because I'm curious what that actually looks like. I find that intriguing. But the turmeric, when Laird and I were there, he gave me some of the turmeric. And literally, we just were like chewing on it like a carrot, and it just tasted different. It was kind of like a sweet, really smooth flavor. Most turmeric just tastes bitter to me. Do you guys grow particular style of turmeric down there, or is it about the way that you grow it? Or, what are you doing with turmeric?

Doug:  The turmeric, I mean Kauai grows the world's finest turmeric. We really do. Both ginger and turmeric. I mean, you can get your stuff from other places, but our soil is epic and ideal in both–

Ben:  So, you think that's what it is, it's the soil?

Doug:  I do believe soil is a big piece of it. All the farmers on Kauai, I mean, I love the turmeric here and it is. You can eat it right out of the ground and it tastes a little bit more medicinal than a carrot, but it is edible and nourishing and really work. You feel that inside out circulation from every bite. So, what are we doing? Turmeric is in almost every one of our tea, it's almost in every one of our superfoods, it's in our salves. It should be in your daily diet, so get it in. Yeah. I highly recommend it. It's a root, so we have a zone on the farm. We've pulled it out of more of a biodynamics zone and we've clustered it because it does play–make some mess when we're digging it out. But yeah, that curcumin is really going to help with the anti-inflammatory, any issues with inflammation.

Ben:  Yeah. One is the curcumin. Also the turmerosaccharides is that water soluble component that I think is just as good as the curcumin for joint support. A lot of people don't know about that component, but the research behind turmeric–and I'll link to a lot of it. I mean, it's just fascinating in terms of anti-carcinogenic effect, and oral health, and the effects on the pulmonary and the immune system. I mean, I'll link if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/farmacy, and a turmeric. But you can eat it like carrots. Then I know you guys have all–I mean, like half your powders it seems like they have turmeric in them. But that one is particularly–if people haven't really experienced turmeric, getting some from your farm is a whole different experience. So, that's another one I'd throw in there. If people were making a wish list, I would say definitely get ashwagandha, Moringa, cacao, and turmeric, and noni. I would say those are the top five in terms of the ones that I've tried even though I know you have all sorts of blends, but those are some of the ones I really like. And you guys ship this stuff everywhere, by the way, don't you, Doug?

Doug:  Yes, we ship all over the world and it's kind of same-day shipping unless there's a big sale, it might take us a few days to get it out. But everything is off the farm, too. We're shipping it. All our packaging is done on the farm. So, it's really only touching. It goes right from the garden to the crafting where there's a couple of people in the teahouse dehydrating and right to the packaging room. So, it's days or weeks and it's just not a lot of people in between. Just one more thing on the turmeric, we do a juice as well and we do it topically. So, we can find, when you juice the turmeric, you can use it topically as well. We have it in our salves. It also has a great way, like if we have an earache, I'll drain the back of the ear. I won't even put the turmeric down the ear. I'll put it in the back of the ear like by the neck area and drain the zone of any inflammation. So, yeah, turmeric is just–again, it should be in everyone's diet as a powder, golden milk, tincture, you name it. It should be in your diet.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. Well, speaking of diet, tell me about this high-fat plant-based keto diet that you follow. I'm curious because a lot of people follow plant-based diets. It's incredibly high in carbohydrates and they see a lot of glycemic variability, which I think is one of the failures of that diet. Lots of wheats, lots of sugar. You don't see a lot of keto plant-based diets, but I'm just curious, for people who are interested, what's that look like for you in terms of like your meals? And if you're working in any of these particular powders, or teas, or superfoods from your farm, could you walk us through what a day in your life of eating would look like, or even a few of your favorite recipes, or something like that?

Doug:  Sure. I mean, I got to first admit, it's always evolving, and I'm always being humbled by my diet, right? Some days you think you just scored and know it all, and the next day you're falling down. In any case, at the moment, I'm shifting that high-fat in the evening. I do find [01:02:04] _____ my fats. So, it's a lot easier to do on an island like this for sure. My access to really clean, fresh fats is different than other people, so I'm grateful about that.

Ben:  Oh, yeah. I would imagine like macadamia nuts and avocado, and the fat from the cacao. You've got access to a lot down there.

Doug:  Yeah. And that's different than some of the nuts you get out there that might trigger something else. I'm not going to throw down handfuls of pecans. I'm just not going to do it. But at the same time, if I lived somewhere else–I still want you to take what I'm saying and say it's the same thing anywhere else. So, for me, coconuts, cacao, mac nuts, avocados, those fats are key. I'm really focused on fruits and greens during the day, the dark greens. For me, the darker and more abundant greens I'm getting in my system, the better the juicing. I'm not always as diligent and disciplined as I would like to be as far as getting those greens in, but things like the Moringa and the katuk, and spinach, like those are going to–and raw when it's alive. The body again is going to react really well to that.

For me, I'm all about endurance, like I need more until day with the kids on the farm. I do have bursts of energy that I need to also be able to do, but I'm mostly about endurance. I need longevity like diet. And I think if I were to place my opinion on diets, I think moving into longevity and reframing our focus of present health in terms of longevity. When we're in our 50s and 60s, and our 70s, and our 80s, what's our vitamins going to be like? And I find that keeping clean and light is going to allow me to stay supple and stay flexible. That balance between strength and flexibility is key, high iron plants. Again, it's not easy to find. This isn't easy to process. And big fruits, but not too much now. Before, I was doing high fats all day, and it wasn't even too long ago, and I was realizing that those fats were laying me out. I was getting tired with the fats. So, I put them at night and they allowed me to sleep better. And now, I'm just trying at least just to do my fats in the evening and just really doing fruits and green.

So, a typical day for me, or I mean a typical and ideal–I mean, those are two different events, but in the morning, like this morning, I just had some orange juice–actually, a big couple of tall glasses of spring water and some fresh-squeezed orange juice is all I've had to do so far today. And I've done some yoga, and some pull-ups, and stuff like pushups, and light workout, flexible workout. And it's early here, right? So, it's still only 10-ish or 10:30. Throughout the day, ideally a green drink. So, a green juice with some cucumbers, and there's celery, and chard, and dark greens like Moringa. If I can get a hold of something like that, that would be great. It's not in everyone's budget necessarily. I mean, a big leafy green salad, that does me well.

For me, I've reached the point where any processed foods just get stuck in my back, like it's stuck in my digestive track. The digestive track in your lower back is the same thing. People don't appreciate that fact. If it's hard to chew, or if it's hard to swallow, it's typically going to be hard to digest. And everyone is different. Again, I grew up on those challenging foods, so I blew out my digestive track. Other people might have healthier digestive tracks, or they're younger, and they can eat, chew your foods. I'm looking for slippery food.

Ben:   That's interesting. That's what agrees well with me better, too, especially if vegetables, anything pureed, anything mashed, anything boiled. I do a lot better with kind of baby food style. So, yeah, absolutely.

Now, I do have one other question. That's about visiting the farm. Like if people come there, can they actually kind of like, Laird brought me over, do a farm tour or something like that?

Doug:  Yeah. So, we were having tours up until March or April couple days a week. Certainly, we have our retail stand open at the farm where we have all our products and there's a little discount on the farm, and you can get all kinds of help as far as information education here talking to our peeps here on the farm that are all living this lifestyle. But at the moment, so you come here, and the store is in the–it's called the tea lanai and is literally in the center of the gardens. The gardens are all around it. So, you get a field of [01:07:01] _____. But as far as tours go, it's basically by appointment only, private tours. We definitely are more than willing to give them, but you got to give a call or an email and it can happen individually at the moment. They've actually just shut down the island, theoretically. It's 14-day quarantine again. They just shut it down today again.

Ben:  Every time I get amped up to come visit, that happens, it seems like.

Doug:  People like yourself, and I know there's listeners out there. Pushing the immune-boosting process is key for us and getting things like turmeric around every corner. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, there should be turmeric shots at every corner with the amount of money were thrown at this thing. So, I think that's where the mind shifts. It's got to happen. If they're given out viruses at the drive-through fast food place, we got to shut those places down and we got to switch those out, and we got to start giving out real food and take responsibility for our people.

Ben:  Yeah. Well, by the way, speaking of real food, you guys also–so if you're listening in and you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/farmacy, I'll link to the Farmacy. We also have a really great discount code somewhere. I'll hunt it down, but I think it's–I forget what the discount code is. Do you remember, Doug? Because I'll put it in the shownotes for people.

Doug:  We're going to go look for it now, but it's a 15% off discount that's across our site-wide.

Ben:  Okay. Great. So, when you go to the website, click recipes because they've got like avocado ceviche, and mac nut cream cheese, and turmeric, honey, sautéed vegetables, cardamom, coconut pudding. So, if you are going to make an order from their site, print off a few of their recipes, too, or bookmark a few of them because they've got some cool recipes you can use a lot of their products in, and it's just great for that as well.

Doug:  GREENFIELD15 is the discount code.

Ben:  Got it. Okay. I'll make sure that I put that in the shownotes for those of you who have poor short-term memory. I'm sure there's some superfood that can help with that.

Alright. Well, folks, it's Kauai Organic Farmacy. Doug and I have been emailing and texting for the past two years. He's always showcasing to me these crazy superfood formulations that he comes up with and I am just intrigued of what he's doing. If you've tried things like turmeric, and noni, and Comfrey, and ashwagandha, and haven't noticed anything, as Doug alluded to, some of us the soil, some of us the energy, some of us the processing. But I will vouch personally for anything that comes from Kauai Organic Farmacy because I literally am using this stuff. Probably this, like I mentioned, and the Thomas Cowan's vegetable powders are my top two spices I literally just go through like crazy. And I think they're fantastic additions to anybody's pantry.

So, Doug, thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing all this with us today, and also just for doing what you do down there in Hawaii. I promise I'll come visit as soon as I don't have to sit around in a house isolated for 14 days when I arrive on the island.

Doug:  Yeah. We'll be waiting for you. And I just want to mention that that one epic turmeric photo that you have here with that root, we got to retrieve that. You remember that one?

Ben:  Yeah. It's on my Instagram channel somewhere. Actually, if you do a Google image search for Ben Greenfield turmeric, you'll see the massive turmeric root that I'm gnawing on that I think Laird handed it to me when I was down there. Yeah, just do a Google image search for Ben Greenfield turmeric. It'll be one of the first things you see. So, yeah. It's a massive turmeric plan. That's the kind of stuff that they're growing down there at the pharmacy. I will link to all this at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/farmacy. It's Farmacy with an “F,” and until next time. I'm Ben Greenfield along with Doug Wolkon from Kauai Organic Farmacy signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com. Have an amazing week.

Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the shownotes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com, along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful “Ben Recommends” page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormone, sleep, digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please, also, know that all the links, all the promo codes, that I mentioned during this and every episode, helped to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. When you listen in, be sure to use the links in the shownotes, use the promo codes that I generate, because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.

 

 

I first met Doug Wolkon when I was visiting Kauai and was convinced by big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton to go visit a favorite local farm of his called Kauai Farmacy. I was immediately blown away by the vast array of over 80 varieties of organic healing plants and food orchards…

…along with a team of incredibly knowledgeable herbalists and gardeners; a closed-loop vermiculture feeding system (worm compost farm), honeybees, butterflies, and other pollinators; wildfowl; environmentally-compatible farming (water-catchments, permaculture guilds, and more); and medicine-making systems (solar-dehydrators, low-temperature herb-curing, herbal teas, tinctures, hydrosols, salves, honey, capsules, and more).

Everything is done by hand at the Farmacy, including brewing homemade fertilizers from the plants they grow. They seed, propagate, plant, hand-harvest, artisanally-craft, and package all the herbal products they grow right on the farm. The fresh and pure nature of the herbs ensures high quality, potent, consistent, and effective plant medicine straight from the source.

Since that visit two years ago, if you've been following me on Instagram and elsewhere, you've seen me using ample amounts of Kauai Farmacy powders and tinctures in my recipes, along with products such as their salves and hydrosols for joint and skin health. Rooted in the wisdom of Hawaiian La’au lapa’au, Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, and the tribal indigenous, the potent herbal plant medicines harvested from the rich, volcanic soil of Kauai just seem to have a very unique and special energy.

After graduating from the University of Michigan, Doug pursued a ten-year career in private equity finance in Connecticut. Before moving his family to Hawaii in 2007, Doug published The New Game, an economic theory and strategy for sustainable communities.

Doug co-founded Kauai Farmacy in 2010 with his wife Genna, and they currently live there with their three kids. The Farmacy is a seed-to-cup tropical herbal oasis spanning four acres and consisting of what may be the most diverse collection of plant medicine in the western hemisphere.

After spending the last 10 years experiencing the power of fresh plant medicine for both himself and his family on a daily basis, Doug thrives on a high-fat, ketogenic, 100% raw-food diet. Doug believes Kauai Farmacy's vertically-integrated herbal medicine model is a budding example of what needs to be the future of a more sustainable, preventative-care-focused healthcare industry.

You can click here to shop Kauai Farmacy, and use code GREENFIELD15 to save 15% on any products on their site, including those you'll discover below.

During this discussion, you'll discover:

-Why cacao is the ultimate superfood…8:45

  • Cacao OlenaOlena is Hawaiian for turmeric
    • Helps with inflammation, metabolism
    • Freshness is key
    • Ingredients are yin and yang with the root family
    • Cacao is more of a fruit than the other ingredients (ginger and Olena)
  • Dark chocolateis a good source of magnesium
  • Cacao pods before they become chocolate are an intense experience
    • Elevates serotonin levels
    • High iron levels
  • Trail mix is coming soon (not on the website yet)

-An herbal chew containing moringa…15:45

-The fascinating story of Doug's Kauai Farmacy…20:30

  • High school athlete; went into world of finance
  • Left that world at age 31, overweight, unhealthy lifestyle
  • Became disenchanted with western medicine and lifestyle after traveling the world
  • Saw a need for real education on health and wellness in Western culture
  • Settled in Kauai, began a “healing journey”
  • Began planting and harvesting noni leaves
  • Island of Kauai is unmatched in its beauty and potential for plant medicines
  • Building the immune system is the best defense against disease
  • Blockages between the head and the sacral

-How noni leaves heal lower back pain…28:25

  • Kauai Farmacy has noni leaves in their salves
  • Noni Hydrosol(steamed distillation)
  • Alkaloid Xeroninein noni
  • Noni leaves grow wild all over the island of Kauai
  • Cancer tumors are made up of acidic toxins
  • Noni alkalinity chips away at the toxins left in the body from bad food
  • Use caution when using noni at night due to its high circulatory effect in the bloodstream

-Techniques for growing a vast array of superfoods with minimal space…36:25

  • Biodiversity is the key
  • Feed the garden what is grown in the garden
  • Vermiculture (worm composting)
  • Worm poop is the healthiest manure possible
  • Comfrey teagoes in the garden
  • Hand-feed, harvest, cull, craft everything
  • It's very labor-intensive (but that's what this society needs)
  • Trenched farm, feeds into stream due to excessive rain on Kauai
  • Freshness of water, exposure to minerals

-Comfrey and its effectiveness in healing joints…43:00

  • Salveis the most convenient form
  • Root is more potent than the leaf, but the leaf has qualities not found in the root
  • Local beeswax added for additional medicinal benefits
  • Lubrication is a way of “thanking” your body after strenuous exercise or work
  • Cracked heels are a sign of things to come without any intervention
  • Comfrey brings suppleness to the bones and joints
  • Three main benefits of comfrey: stabilizes breath, hydrates, brings restoration

-Why Doug's ashwagandha is more potent than others from a drive standpoint…50:30

-Why turmeric needs to be an essential part of your diet…57:30

-Doug's unique high-fat, plant-based diet…1:01:15

  • Coconuts
  • Cacao
  • Macadamia nuts
  • Avocado
  • Fruits and greens during the day (the darker the better)
  • Moringaand spinach (raw)
  • Keep clean and light
  • Eat fatty foods in the evening
  • Avoid processed foods
  • Mashed, pureed, “slipper” foods

-How to visit and tour the Kauai Farmacy…1:06:30

-And much more!

Resources from this episode:

– Doug Wolkon:

– Podcast:

– Other resources:

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