Sakara Life Founders Whitney Tingle and Danielle DuBoise

The following podcast is a deer media production. Okay. Hi ladies. Hi. Hi. So nice to see you. Nice to see your two gorgeous blondies. I had never been to me. Two icons. I'm so happy to finally get to talk to the two of you about Sakura. I had my metabolism super pet of this morning. Oh amazing. I did too. I had our latte. Have you tried our latte yet? I have it. No, I make a fake version of it at home but I see it on Instagram all the time and I was like, oh that's so good. It's great for people like myself. I don't tend to have time to make my smoothie in the morning so I get to do it. It's like ready to drink which I appreciate. Yeah. When you're too lazy to make your own coffee. I know we've really reached peak busy. Have it way where there is no ritual in the morning. It's survival. It is. Two kids. My two kids are fed in out of the house. They did a great job. Yeah, exactly. I know with the only one and I'm sure like Whitney, I feel like you have one. I look at people with two and I'm like, what? Yeah, I know. I want another child and then I'm like, do I really want another child? I know. I'm not the person to talk to because my kids are like I think just getting to the age where it gets really good and they entertain each other. But I've been in the opposite for the last years because my youngest is two. So yeah, don't ask me if you should have a second. Well, you're over the home. I mean, I knew dream world I'm having like four kids, you know, in this fantasy of, that's just breeding and having to nurse and big family parties over here. That sounds amazing. So yeah. So both of you are from Sedona, which is a positive energy vortex. Yeah, so cool. Yeah. What a special, what a special place. What was it like growing up there? I don't like what you imagine. I was actually just having this conversation with my husband. He just started making his own kombucha and I was like, you know, he's like, I, I wish I would have learned this earlier, but I just found out about kombucha a few years ago. And I was like, really? He's like, I've been drinking kombucha since I was like five. And then, you know, you realize it gets such a hippie town that some of those things. Totally. Yeah, that's what I was going to say that, you know, growing up, it was just normal for us. You didn't realize how kind of weird and unique some of the things were until you left. And you saw the rest of the world. And then you went back and you're like, Oh, the rest of the world doesn't live like this. No one else is drinking rice milk. Yeah. And kombucha and all the alternatives. I know it's very little pockets of the of hippie towns across the United States that have that type of, but Sedona calls that type of energy and because you're so tied to nature. Yeah, I think it really, I think it really is a vortex too. Like I think it really does call in a very specific type of person. And for us, it was obviously or has been such an important part of us kind of being on this mission and creating Sikara. It really was the thing that taught me about my body food medicine. I mean, it was a conversation when we were kids. And so I'm really grateful. It wasn't necessarily in my household. My mom wasn't a hippie like Whitney's mom, but it was around me all the time. And I'm just really grateful for that. Yeah, what a presence because most kids don't get to understand that concept by any means most adults don't either. So what was the genesis of Sikara? You guys were best friends and kind of both had hit rock bottom as you have said in the past. So I would love to kind of know, you know, what those, let's talk about the bottoms and what those, what that looked like for each of you. Yeah, we love talking about our rock bottoms. I think we're not taught that that's that can be such a revolutionary and pivotal moment in our lives. But yeah, so we grew up together, known each other, our whole lives basically. I moved to New York City to study medicine and she came later just to work out in Wall Street. So my mom was in and out of the hospital for most of my life still is. And so I grew up around a lot of doctors and watched her, you know, really suffer through the medical system. And also saw doctors really save her life many times too. And I just wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to figure out how to help people. And I wasn't really sure what that meant. But at the time, you know, as a young kid, I thought, you know, doctor was the way to do it. But I suffered from disordered eating patterns from a young age. Like, I think my earliest memory of trying to lose weight was around nine, which, you know, if you know, you have a young girl too, it's just heartbreaking. Like, I told this story so many times, but now that my child, my oldest is five, almost five, she's getting older. I just realized how young I was. And how early it, like the culture and our world and our worth, it just gets so wrapped up and how we look. So yeah, you know, from, I guess, about the age of nine, I tried every diet for the next 15 years. Like every single one. And I was really good. Dieter, if you gave me rules, I'd follow them. And so there were really high highs and low lows. And I learned how to count calories and carbs and points and pounds. Never once learned how to eat well or talk about an empowered body or a healthy body. And then fast forward, I was in New York City, setting pre-med, working in a hospital with a cardiologist. And we were so beautiful. You were like trying to be a doctor studying medicine. Yeah. Yeah. So I did pre-med in New York. Wow. As part of that, you had to, you had to shadow a doctor. So I chose to work in cardiology. And, you know, we, we ended up working the free clinic up in Harlem, which was an insane experience. And we saw so many patients with late-stage lifestyle diseases, because, you know, heart issues, vascular issues are usually, you know, you have some sort of symptom from a lifestyle disease, whether it's diabetes or, you know, the array of lifestyle diseases we all have. And I, I guess I had this aha moment that kind of coincided with my own hitting rock bottom. So I had done a 21-day crazy retreat in Southern Arizona that included a water fast for seven days. It was all raw food. And I got really, really sick, like I ended up in the hospital. And I had pneumonia. And I, they, it was the first time they diagnosed me with IBS, which is like, not a thing. Really? Yeah. I mean, like, IBS leaky got and PCOS are a terrible blanket term. It's like a bunch of steps going on and we're someone needs to figure out at some point, clustering symptoms. But like, even when you look to the literature, like we have no idea what it is, we have no idea what it means. There's some correlations around like dysbiosis or like, yeah, you know, like that impermeability. So anyway, I'll just say I, I was so sick and working in a hospital, seeing patients who are also so sick. And I just realized like, I'm on this path. I already have a lifestyle disease like IBS, you know, and if I don't quickly change my relationship to food and my relationship to my health, then I, you know, I sound myself in every single patient that came in. And then I also realized I never once talked to any of these patients about their lifestyles. Like, it was really, you know, what do they have from a clinical perspective and what can you give them from a pharmaceutical perspective or, you know, sometimes surgical intervention was necessary. But, you know, it was very limited and it wasn't, I learned in that moment, it wasn't what I wanted to be in my toolkit to help both myself and potential patients and clients. So I decided to setting nutrition. And it was around that time though Whitney hit her rock bottom too. So we were down there together, at least. Yeah. And I agree with Danielle, like, rock bottom sounds like a terrible place to be. And it is when you're in it, but at the same time, if you can realize that you're in it and it's this reckoning moment, it can be an incredible place because it's a moment where you're like, shit has got to change. No. And so we kind of found ourselves in that moment together. How I got to that place was after a decade of battling with terrible cystic acne, you know, big red cysts all over my face. And when did that start for you? I mean, I remember starting to get acne at 11 probably. Really? And yeah, you know, it started out as little bumps on my forehead and then it just started to grow from there. And, you know, it makes sense like when you're in puberty, your hormones are changing, you're more insulin-resistant, and, you know, the food that I was eating, like, Danielle and I played, you're around volleyball together. And we'd go, you know, like, out after volleyball practice and the team would eat stuff, you know, like french fries and- Yeah, french fries, french fries. Yeah. Sun ice cream Sundays and whatever. And all of that was just aggravating my skin. Yet, at that time, you know, however many years ago, that was 20 years ago. Doctors thought food and acne had zero correlation. Like, there was nothing to ask you as something because I think this is an important point. So we're all parents. I don't want to have the kid who goes to the post game dinner. And he's like, oh, I can't eat that. I can't eat that. Yeah. So what's our, are we? I mean, David is saying, everything, he's- David says, this country just lacks moderation. And that those things bring joy and their celebratory and the more you take them away, the more the obsession happens. And so those things shouldn't be deemed these evil things, but should be taught those things in excess have repercussions. And here they are. I think it depends. I mean, like nothing, like I don't, there's no like villainizing a food in my mind. Yeah, that's, I don't want that to be a thing either. Except like, I think there are things that aren't kind of like our bodies aren't naturally equipped to digest, like ultra-process foods. Completely. I agree with nature and like the fake cheese on nachos. When you're talking about, when you're talking about like what you think of when you think, I love the fake cheese. I mean, it's delicious. So when you're talking about like what you think when you go to Italy and like mozzarella and pizza and it's like so many of those foods are like homemade. It's not so. It does not count there because that's real, that's food from local places. It's illegal to process food. They're the way that it is here. Yes and no, like Europe actually is doused in tons of things like life. I say like I tell people a lot of times like they do have stricter things on like what can go in foods in terms of like preservatives dies. Like if you look like a look at it like a mac and cheese, you know, ours contains yellow diet number five or six, six, but the the UK version does not. So there's things like that for sure. Like it's less maybe like there's less perhaps chemicals in the ultra-process foods, but the agriculture in Europe is still not great. But anyway, I'll just say like I do think that the culture around food is different and so there's more time spent around meal time. There's more, you know, you spend more time making the food like you actually make the pizza crust instead of like buying it. So, but I think it's an important point because it might be really obvious to you, but I think sometimes people will just villainize pizza. And so then it's like like I'm going through this with my kid's school where I'm like we can have pizza and cupcakes like I'm not the mom who's like no only broccoli for like end of your school party. Let's do it. But like let's just make it ourselves or find a place that does it in a healthy way. We don't have to choose. And I think you know to your original question, I think we'll have to be continual advocates of you know in public places. And then when we're out of control and it's really up to our kids, like I constantly try and teach my kids body intelligence. Like how does this food make you feel? Because like checking in with themselves, I think is such an important muscle. So it's like I never tell them oh that's a bad food. We can't eat that. It's like you know how does that food make you feel after eating? And they're still learning of course. But I think it's like signaling to them that foods are not just about like oh it's here. I'll eat it. The foods that actually are indicative of how we're going to feel maybe now and also later in time as well. I ask especially since you were talking about having disordered eating and that started for me around the same time as it did for you. And so when I if I think of yeah it's such a tricky thing right? Because then if I if I if you which I never want to do, but if I villainized food to her, there it fucking starts, dude. There here we go. Here is the long windy road of weird conversations around I can't have that and then guilt with you do and then restricting if you have something you think you're not supposed to and then them when we've entered the abyss. But I think that all of this this whole conversation is why we started Sakara because our country does lack a culture when it comes to food that is a healthy like lifestyle, a healthy way of eating. Like the American culture and the American way of eating that has been formed is this culture of fast food on the go, a drive through picking something up, even just like munching on snacks, chips, puffs, whatever in the cupboard. And and so you know, we had to create our own figure out what does healthy eating look like and nutrition look like on the day to day because then you are what you do the majority of the time. So if you're eating, you know, healthy foods, flooding your body with nutrients and plant fibers and all those things, then when you go out and you have that ice cream, the cupcake at the birthday and the pizza and whatever, your body is in a stronger position, your immune system is in a stronger position to be able to handle those things. But if you don't have that like foundation, healthy culture of eating and know what foods will make you feel good, then you can go down the path of thinking about restriction. So like with Sikara, you don't see a list of nose anywhere. We're focused on, are you getting the right things into your body to build your immune system to to have your body in a healthy place so that you can handle the rest of the foods, which is just life, you know? I'd like to get back to your, I think so many people suffer with acne. So I'm sorry to diaper, but I think there's so many important points there. So I would love to know kind of like I'm sure were you on? I mean, I did it all. Yeah, I did it all. I put on birth control pills at 14 to try and fix my skin, spironalactane. I mean, every antibiotic you can imagine tetracycline, aminocycline, z-packs, so many z-packs, the acutane, and then with the acutane, you get the prozac to go along with it because suicide can be a side effect. My brother carved his initials into his chest on acutane and he was a shesco. Oh my god. My mom is like, we'll take acne. Like, you know, then that stuff, you know, then your gut's destroyed and then your mental health is destroyed alongside it. So I'm sure that contributed very much to a rock bottom moment for you because you had no foundation for like, it was already serotonin in your body at that point. Well, yeah, and I, you know, I was really seeing different doctors for different things. I mean, I had anxiety and so, you know, they put me on lexapro and I still had the acne and so they were giving me more z-packs and still on birth control pills for years and years and on it and I was doing, you know, I didn't want to do acutane again and so I was doing lights and lasers that were like peeling layers of wash off of my face and I would have to hide from the sun for seven to ten days. I, you know, literally was just like trying everything that people would talk about. I was seeing this acupuncturist who she would do acupuncture on me and give me herbs, but then also her philosophy was that she needed to squeeze my cysts and remove the sac inside of them, which was extremely painful and I swear I have so many scars just out of faith. Because I've had this again. You can't, those things that aren't supposed to leave your face. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, I remember one day she was squeezing and all this blood like splattered up at her face. Oh my god. Yeah. And just really terrible, awful things and, you know, I, I just, I remember being in this place of like, but is it something I'm eating? Is it something I need to cleanse out of my body? And I would ask all these dermatologists and healers, you know, what, if it's something to do with my food and these dermatologists would just say, no, food has nothing to do with it, you know, it's not pizza and chocolate. That's an old wives tale. Now, pizza and chocolate definitely has something to do with it. And, you know, and it led me to where we are today of like just tired of being overprescribed and not finding the solution out in the world. And so in that moment where I hit my rock bottom, it was, you know, a doctor handing me another prescription for a three-month mega round of antibiotics. Geez. I'm like, no, not going to do that. And they're like, all right, here's your six months, your another prescription for acutane for six months. And, you know, maybe I would need another six months after that. I'm like, no, I'm not going to do that either. And so in that moment, I was like, I have to figure this out for myself. I need to take my health into my own hands, go back to my roots and figure out what is the root cause, what is causing these symptoms on my face. And, you know, turned to Danielle and she was in that rock bottom and we're both like we need to turn to food as medicine. How incredible that that happened at the same time for the two of you as best friends. What a blessing. Unbelievable. For many reasons, like one, even if we hadn't created a car, like to not feel alone, and that is such a gift. And to have someone to talk to, like, I'm sure there are so many people out there who feel like they're the crazy person when they want to talk about their skin and their food or, you know, their bowel movements. How their symptoms might be related to their gut or their digestion. It's like, wait, you said earlier, you know, back then doctors didn't they, but still to this day, I would say most doctors are not talking to you about your health in terms of your nutrition. And it's not because they're bad people, it's because they're never ever trained in it. They're literally trained in pharmacology and maybe surgery. And that's what you do. You identify like the clinical case. What is going on with this patient? What are the symptoms? What are you, you know, what's where I'm looking for diagnosing them with? And then here are the jugs that help with this diagnosis and help with the symptoms. It's never it's not like a root cause protocol whatsoever. Still. No, unless you have the, you know, privilege to use a functional medicine doctor, that conversation will never come. But thank God we have things like Sakura and podcasts and information in the internet. So people who have these symptoms can at least, you know, start thinking about the way that they're approaching their lives and their health and all of that. Support for today's episode comes from my favorite Jenny Kane. Perfect timing, honestly, because summer is here. And my wardrobe could definitely use a refresh and Jenny Kane is all about that California Yaminess through and through their summer staples make getting dressed so easy. Jenny Kane is a huge staple at my house. I mean, I have all their furniture, but the closer to die for it's minimalist and effortless and totally refined. 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And like I said, we're going to give you this 15% off because I love Jenny Kane. They love you. Find your forever pieces at Jenny Kane.com. Our listeners are going to 15% off your first order when you use code best. Check out that's 15% off your first order at J E N N I K A Y and E dot com promo code best. Let getting dressed be one less thing to worry about. So you all know that I have transitioned to a mostly clean maker protein. And that can seem daunting as all hell, right? It is just so overwhelming. I'll tell you why it was so seamless for me because Sephora really does all the work for you. If you go to Sephora.com slash clean, they have a large variety of products in every category, but especially makeup. Right now I am wearing an entire face from the clean section of Sephora. I have my coasters like little luminizer. I have an SPF on. I have my same mascara. I have say blush on. I have coasters bronzer on. They have every single brand, tower 28, like nutritional brands, everything under the sun to let this seamless transition be just that completely seamless. And it still feels like you're wearing, I mean, there's really like no difference, right? You're doing good by your body. You're doing good by the environment. And you know that it's clean when Sephora puts that cute little Sephora clean approved tag on it. Just go to Sephora.com slash clean. That's Sephora.com slash clean to learn more. So now the two of you think you want to start a business. How did food delivery like how did it go from we need to change the way we feel what we put in our body did it. How did it go like what was that conversation? Because I mean, what year is this? Were there a lot? There weren't any really. This was like meal delivery services at that time. We were going through this in like 2009, you know, with our body journeys and things. And it was juice cleanse time. Yeah, it was just cleanse time. Yeah. And we, you know, we tried before creating this for ourselves, we tried everything out there. We were doing all of the juice cleanses and I tried master cleanse and, you know, we were vegans, vegetarians, raw foodists tried all of those things and none of it worked for us. And it wasn't it wasn't a lifestyle. It wasn't focused on the foods that you're putting into your body. It was it was all about elimination, which doesn't build up your immune system and give your body the nutrients it needs to thrive. And I think like to that point, we all have to be really careful because I think it's part of the human condition to be way more seduced by what not to eat than like what to eat. Like all of us want to like, it's the diet or the thing like it's more kind of like silver bullet mentality and like the boring thing is get your sleep, you know, making sure you're getting enough plant fiber, enough healthy clean protein, enough healthy fat, enough superfoods, enough micronutrients. Like the things you do actually do every day and need to eat tend to be a lot less seductive. But it wasn't a business, you know, when we started it was just so transformative for us personally, you know, for me, it was I realized that my whole life food had been the enemy. But food was really there to nourish me and I had spent my whole life thinking how do I not eat this and what if I eat too much. And then it was like my brain switched and it went from that to how can I get enough? Like how can I get enough of the right foods? And that switch was really empowering because it was like a lens change where, you know, food wasn't the enemy. It was the thing that I needed to get to this place. I wanted to get to feel better to have my brain back to have my energy back, etc. I feel that way about food now and it's completely changed my life. Like like the lunch I had before we hopped on. It's like a big salad with kale and garbanzo beans and spinach and radishes and seeds and sour crowd and like I made a delicious dressing and I put some salmon on it and like I when you can switch your brain to the concept of like how many like what rainbow can I get in a bowl and it switched it to abundance. Your life feels like a whole different fucking ballgame. Yeah. And did you feel? Did you ever since say did you feel a big shift after becoming a mother in like your relationship to food? I mean I gained so much weight when I was pregnant and it took me so long it took me six months to even dig myself out of and then I got a PCOS diagnosis and I worked out so intensely through my whole pregnancy and realized that I was like putting my pregnant body into fight or flight and so I was gaining like more weight. I ate you know I eat well it's not like I was eating potato chips and pizza when I was pregnant like I you know I really wanted like a mogidor breakfast. I was eating like Labneh and eggs and Israeli salad and hummus and big I wanted so much lettuce like I felt you know my body was craving a variety of delicious yummy things but it really was PCOS and understanding blood sugar and what and stress and changing my workouts and all of that. I mean your your body like weight is there it serves a purpose your body is inherently smart it's way more intelligent than our conscious brains are and so it makes decisions for us that we might not know or understand and like I put on 55 pounds during pregnancy and I think you know and I kept it on for a while after giving birth and I think it was because I had a big baby and he was going to need a lot of milk and I needed to have enough energy to to supply life force energy to for me and another living being and like you're saying if you're putting that energy into working out and stress and whatever else then your body is going to need to retain more storage of energy right yeah and and so I think that that's a piece that people don't think about of you know it even into Perry Manopause and beyond that like the the stress and having that our our fat plays a role in protecting us and having that backup absolutely energy source for us. I was definitely like a fighter flight I was really stressed when I was pregnant I was so excited for her but like you know as the financial pillar for multiple people in my household I was like how am I going to have the bandwidth to keep you know I didn't take any days off of work I worked up until I gave birth I worked the day after just to make sure I was on top of things but honestly I wasn't even you know she slept so I was like I don't what am I going to not take these meetings and he's like no problem so but I think you know my body was like we got to keep some fat on this girl because like we might be in the middle of a fucking desert yeah totally and also you know I think the way a conventional medicine approaches weight throughout pregnancy is is not healthy or or safe like I saw midwives and and they didn't weigh me at all oh no I had to get my way in it's like a metric that they use I mean they can just look with their eyes and just say like something might be going on if between you know month two and month six like I look like a different human but you know yeah it's like I also think it's the the pressure that is put on us through this kind of conventional medicine lens that I think has best intentions but you know I think I gained like 65 pounds of my pregnancies and I didn't mind gaining any weight by any means and I expected it that's way more than they say you should that's way more than they say you're supposed to get the 30 yeah oh my god you guys will love this the first doctor I saw delivered me he's a very cute little old man he's our neighbor like my mom loves him he's to die for but is you know 76 and got a young sweet girl in the office and so I had my first meeting with him and then he was like I'm going to pass you on to Amanda who I love and is an angel and did a great job with me but he said okay you know congrats to your pregnant it's cute he's like I delivered you I love when this happens you know full circle that he said no sushi no alcohol you're not eating for two the baby right now is the size of a peanut so don't gain too much weight you're not it's minimal weight gain is what we're looking for here and I and it was just like boom boom boom and that's like okay good luck see you later and I got pregnant you know 15 to 20 pounds overweight because I thought I was going to have to do IVF and I was depressed and I was drinking a lot of them taking all this matter of these warm up you know and so I was just in a bad some already feeling like I'm in a weird place but I was so happy to finally get pregnant and then he like I'll never forget him saying that to me because I just want to be like fuck you are you serious like ew I know and it just takes the joy out of it too like and especially for those of us who come from disordered eating past it's so triggering beyond it's like okay thanks I sent my whole life you know hyper focused on what to eat not to eat for 10 weeks or you know the next eight weeks I I can't work out and I'm tired and I'm sleeping and I'm craving things and like that's torture for disordered eating percent I'm just like okay but then you're telling me I'm not supposed to gain weight like it was and my husband's like let's get pizza like he's like wanting to just be joy filled and eat everything and I was like okay we or I think the hardest part though is the like pressure after that it's just supposed to come off and you're supposed to look like you did before I mean I'm shocked how many girls on the internet look so like back to normal so quickly it's genetics and that's there is no what did she do what didn't she do we all are genetically different and that's just what the fuck it is because I'm just like what like so you're already in jeans yeah I mean you even see it in pregnant women like I remember writing this post when I was pregnant about like people saying oh you're all bump first of all was a lie it is not like and I'm really grateful like I gained weight everywhere and to Whitney's point like I think it was one of the reasons I could breastfeed to baby like I'm very grateful but it's like why when did we start saying like being all bump is the thing we should all strive like it's just it's so much crazy yeah it's over judge women's bodies even through this no wouldn't it be nice if we're like dang you look healthy like you know I said I was like you look like you look glowing healthy you don't even have to comment on like just say it just even even when you're not pregnant right yeah you look healthy like I think both of it would take that as like a not a compliment I know yeah but here's how I feel is everyone's intentions are really good like it takes a lot to set me like I'm not a person who gets easily triggered it was hard at six months whenever I kept saying any day now or like my dad's cousins being over here who are in their 70s and they were like there has to be twins in there and then like and then the other one was like no she said there's only one I'm standing right here no no no and my aunt Ross just like smoking cigarettes she's like I'll tell you this story I had a friend there was a twin behind the one baby the whole time they didn't see the baby there has to be another baby in there she's just too big to only have one baby in there and I'm like guys I'm right here I mean one of her there was one baby wrote in and because we we sent out an email with a picture of me you know like I don't know a couple of weeks before I gave birth or something and and they were like thank you for sending out real pictures of your your founders like real bodies see like real bodies healthy bodies you need to change that yeah that is such a compliment but like I want like a real healthy body to be what's hot yeah you know we're changing more than ever I absolutely and so I feel more positive for children than ever I it's really going to be like me making sure that I don't talk about my body in front of her in a way that isn't anything other than joy filled and you know having food be like a fun ceremony and something that we all cook together and you know it's just about like like you guys always comes back to what you guys say is lifestyle I was gonna say you know my son has type 1 diabetes and so he does yeah and it's really hard with him you know it's like even these conversations around villainizing foods and things I think about that for him you know when he goes to a birthday party and everybody's eating crazy fried chicken tenders and french fries and cupcakes what do you tell him I mean I just have to do my best to let him have it and you know and in moderation but you know I don't want him to feel different yeah because that's a whole thing yeah oh my god go bless you yeah although I also will say like I don't I don't think different is bad and I know my oldest daughter feels different even in our conversations of what we've had around food like she I'm trying to explain to her like what you know organic means and she's a little confused so now she just asks if anything's organic when I think what she's actually trying to ask is like is this gonna make me feel good yeah yeah so she's learning but you know like and she's very curious and and I will tell you one of my tricks when I'm surrendering and I'm not saying anything to her I just say you go enjoy that baby like you enjoy that even though inside I'm like oh there was like I know like hydrogenated oils not okay guys saying but anyway you know it's like I just like let it go and I really want her to feel my joy for her like go enjoy it baby go enjoy yourself have fun enjoy the cupcake but you know she also does kind of know that we eat differently and because she asked she's like how come kids eat candy like wait that's kind of like some I just never keep it in the house and so she's like why don't we ever eat candy in our house like my friends eat candy so like she knows she's different too and in a world where the food system is not our ally food system is not designed to make us feel good like I think different is kind of not a choice but like a necessity until the rest of the country decides we're gonna change the food system and the government decides we're gonna change the food system so I'll just say like I think there's a balance between villainizing and stressing kids out about what to eat and what not to eat or like just being different it's okay to eat differently you're making it almost like it's a different and a positive light and and I think that that's the the energy that it needs to come from and like not like this the bummer yeah and I haven't I haven't figured out exactly how to do that yet for Bodhi. Holdy? He's two and a half it'll be three in October. He's only two and a half oh angel guy yeah little babies how has it been working together as best friends? It's the best yeah it's the best it's so cool I mean it's such a journey you know it's doing it alone yeah it's it's not for everybody because I think everybody doesn't have the same kind of friendship or everybody that doesn't have the same kind of personalities that like we have listen personalities friendship communication is all one thing I know many best friends and I will tell you it just happened to me when it comes down to financial decisions you like really see a side of people that you would never truly could possibly imagine exists inside of them for a financial gain and it's unavoidable at some times and so to be able to avoid that we would you guys been a business what 14 years yeah something like that 14 years yeah all right I mean it's this is a big victory guys oh thank you yeah and we're actually still best friends also but you know you can imagine just getting to this place where you know you decide to say business partners but you know for us like this work is so personal that it's like the the friendship is I think what helps it feel like our life's work and our mission in a way like it rarely of course sometimes but it rarely feels like work it feels like we just have this mountain to climb together and interesting problems to solve and yeah I think no matter go ahead I was just gonna say I think no matter if you start with the co-founder or not I think having that thought partner yeah and now somebody to bounce ideas off of and and call and talk through thing I mean can you imagine doing it alone and to give each other reassurance like yes girl that's the a great idea you go do that and you show up as your strongest best self and like no that is a good idea because sometimes you can start to second guess yourself like what am I doing is this stupid I don't know like or even should I wear that somebody would be like you do it and you look great and just keep going is so powerful so how has it been I mean you guys are running a huge business so you weren't business people before this you know so so you know I mean I'm sure you have I mean how many employees do you have 300 now yeah yeah so 300 fucking employees you have a food business which on top of that people don't understand the codes and the logistics and I mean I always say this when we like when I talk about the car on the podcast I'm like I don't know how it happens but the food just shows up here like four in the fucking morning and it's fresh and it's good I don't know who brought it here or what like but it happens and I don't know how this can happen across the country so I mean I know we literally have like the hardest business in the world you do because I have friends who failed at it so I've seen a small part of how hard it is so how I mean how did it go from okay let's do this to money and logistics we just kept and tears and we just kept going like yeah literally you know we decided one day like this is so transformative let's see if one other person's interested one person was interested and then you know we're like okay we have to cook out of our houses because we're not gonna you know let's just see how this goes and then it turns out you can't cook out of your apartment especially right now more than one client so then you figure out what you have to do and then you know four plans turns into 14 so you just started doing you were doing clients and doing this yourself kind of yeah we built a website we were our own accountants we like we did everything we would deliver ourselves yeah sometimes we'd stay up the whole night cooking and then the delivery guy wouldn't show up and we'd have to then pack it all into taxis yeah of course you know like we we started out delivering on bicycle until it was too many bags and whatever to carry and then it would be like the winter pack it yeah that was where they were freezing yeah and like pack it up into taxi cabs and go deliver and knock on our client's doors and they'd open up the door in their bathrobe what are you doing here really like one woman had a hairbrush like in her hair she was like expecting not yeah and was so shocked and surprised to see us and we're like yeah we're just as surprised to see you here's your food she was like do you want to come in do you want to have some food with me or like we got to deliver these others like 18 bags on our shoulders at what point did you realize this was going to be a bigger business like did you get I'm sure you guys did like a raise clearly like how the first few years I was like we got it to like you know a few million in revenue before we did our first raise so you were doing a few million with the two of you yeah yeah you probably had a team yeah we're a team but none of them were like full-time like it was it's asking favors and hoping people believe they need a word but yeah you know I think like the important part when I look back the important part of this lesson from me is just the lessons we learned building the business and doing every single part of the business like pay back in like like million folds like the things that we did at the beginning when you when you're cooking for 40 people versus 4 million like of course scale changes everything in terms of a lot of things but some of the fundamentals really stay the same and so now that we're managing you know our head of production and our COO and like we you have like a viewpoint and a lens and an understanding that makes it so much easier like I can imagine it be much more intimidating to you know manage our COO who's been doing this for 50 years and like as two young women but I'm just so grateful for that early experience because it just allowed us to have like this deep understanding of every part of the business what do you hope your customers are taking home besides food like what do you think and you could say your individual answers because I'm sure there might be different outside of the brand as you as an individual who owns a company what do you hope that you're leaving with people and telling people and that people are integrating into their lives I love this question yeah that's a good question because at the end of the day like we we really do get annoyed when people call us a meal delivery because while we deliver meals it's that's not what we are we deliver people the opportunity to change their health to change their bodies to change their lives to give them freedom to focus on the the the things that are most important to them in their lives their family their work and be able to share their gifts with the world and so you know I I hope that we're delivering like this sense of freedom and empowerment with these meals like not thinking about you know calories and should I eat this or should I not eat that or you know the all those are things that like Danielle went through for me like helping people delivering them hope that yes your body can change your like that microbiome can change that you're not going to have this acne all over your face for the rest of your life like there is there's a possibility mm-hmm there here mm-hmm yeah I have this quote I don't know whose quote it is but you know it's a healthy person has a thousand dreams and an unhealthy person has won and it's just for me it's this beautiful reminder that when we are out of our own way anything is possible we can dream big we can go after things we can and you get to define what getting out of your own way is what health is for you what you want your life to look like and I just think back to the time you know before I had my reckoning that my whole entire life was wrapped up and what I shouldn't eat and my body and my worth and my and I was like so much of my my like life force was going toward self-dislike toward fixing myself and now in this place where food is just there to help me live an incredible joyful empowered life in service to others like that is that is what I want for everyone and if you feel like your health or your relationship to your healthy relationship to your body or your food is in the way of that it is it is fixable it is there are things that can help and we talk about our mission here is to put you in the driver's seat of your health like to give you the tools to sit in the driver's seat we're not your you know we're not here to tell you how to live your life exactly you get to decide you're in the driver's seat you know your body better but you have to have a toolkit because the scariest place to be as all three of us know is in a place where we don't feel good and we don't know what to do and so if you don't have that toolkit you feel helpless and alone and so my hope is for you know where that toolkit or at least one of the tools for people to really sit in the driver's seat of their health if someone's listening right now and is feeling a little lost and a little overwhelmed and wants to you know integrate some of your practices into their life is there a product or you know I know you guys also have like a cookbook you know is there something that you would suggest if like someone came to you and was like I don't know where to start I mean I would say the metabolism superprone because that's it instantly makes you feel so different yeah but is there you know what would be what do you think is like a nice easy entryway into this new era of someone's life you think I think our metabolism powder is great it depends on what they're looking for I mean with that you're gonna feel a difference right away you're gonna feel more energized it's gonna help you know reduce bloat and sugar cravings I think our complete probiotic is really powerful and I feel like we need to change the name of it because it's so much more than a probiotic so it has 11 strains of probiotics like a really complete offering of strains of probiotics and it has prebiotics it has enzymes in it has minerals in it I mean it's really like a microbiome overhaul like a you know a reset for your gut and we all know just how powerful the gut is that it's the epicenter of your health and so I'm a really big fan of our complete probiotic and then you know if and that's at a reasonable price point I think it's like 45 bucks and you know you're gonna feel a difference with that if you have the means to like take a step up into our meal programs or nutrition programs I mean you can get even if you just sign up for three lunchbox it's like 85 bucks and it's all delivered it's all organic it's nutritionally designed and it comes ready to eat you just open it up and eat it it's not one of those you know like have to prepare it meal kits it's ready to eat and starting to eat this way whether it's just with three meals a week and then working your way up your body starts to change from a biological level where the more you eat these foods the more your body starts to crave these foods it changes the ecosystem within your gut and then it's not about willpower if you know eating this way isn't if it's hard for you then it starts to make it a biological change rather than a mental willpower change where your biology starts to work with you and your cravings start to change to wanting more healthy foods so I think you know that that's a great entry way into eating this way more often yeah I would agree with that because it went to start also if once you breed ingredients on a label and you're kind of like oh okay like I kind of understand how to put a meal together now you know like that meal tasted good and it made me feel good now I know kind of like the little layers and I mean I always approach it like how many vegetables can I get in here what's my source of fiber what's my source of protein and then everything else is like a fun add-on do I want to add on kimchi or a scoop of sauerkraut or like what seed can I put on you know everything just becomes like a fun layer of nutrition and I think it feels overwhelming until it becomes delicious and fun and you're right you do start craving like I crave vegetables constantly yeah start to see like like you said you start to see what are those ingredients oh okay maybe I want to buy some of that and try this and you get ideas and you start to experience like oh eating healthy canned taste really good because for so long I don't know people it just people thought it was rabbit food or had to taste like cardboard if it was healthy and I think that once they taste the secara meals it completely changes their mind you guys have donuts that are delicious delicious and that was a big part of it too it's like joy is a nutrient and so the food should be joyful and that was a big thing for me creating it as I was like I'd never feel like I want to feel like I'm on a diet ever again okay I'm gonna ask each of you one last question so you know we are now a generation of women who have intense jobs and were moms and we have a lot to do in one day is there a routine or a practice for each of you that is a part of you know your day that is a non-negotiable and what is it this is for me to copy so I can be a better I mean because of my reverence for food and what it can do for us dinner time at our house is really important time and so I make sure I'm home for dinner time good to love that it's really important I think I think for me two things one is remembering that if I don't take care of myself I can't take care of anybody else and so I know that for me getting these meals into my body every day making sure that I get nourishment because I could just go a day and live on snacks and chocolate covered all men no you see so many moms that are like I've had yeah one slice of cheese and three almonds and this and like there has been no like three cups of coffee or a matcha and you know whatever else and you're in meetings and you're running and you're going and you're taking the kids to the park and you're doing whatever and you're putting yourself last and it starts to show up in your health it shows up in your energy it shows up in your mental health and it shows up in your physical health and so I have to constantly remind myself like I need to take care of me and even if it's just one meal once a car a meal a day I know that I'm getting you know all these different ingredients in that one meal lots of diversity of nutrients that I'm getting hydration antioxidants so it's kind of like my multivitamin that I get into my body and getting enough like leafy greens with that so that I'd say is one non-negotiable and then the other is mindset around I think one of the greatest gifts that I received was the gift of a growth mindset and I think about like you know how I can give that to my child and we give that to our team constantly helping them to see you know when challenges arise how can you see it as an opportunity to learn to grow not to get down on yourself but to say the universe is always conspiring in my favor what is this showing me how do I need to change what you know and how to move forward and it's a practice because our natural biology as humans is to spot the negative to spot the danger and and if we're always looking at the negative and the danger it can become a very dark world so just constantly practicing looking for the magic in the world I love the word practice I always say that every that like love is a practice like all these things take work and I think we've been so conditioned to see women portrayed like moms portrayed as these stressed out frazzled there's like a toy in your bra and your hair is not done and you haven't eaten anything and by the way obviously like those things happen but I think being like the mom who's a little bit more collected because she's at like a boundary to eat a meal which is possible you know that it's not impossible to to feed yourself and I and I'm saying this for anyone who I'm sure someone's going to say like you don't know my life is like and that's a privileged statement but if you're you know I think like with me like we're not taught to give ourselves boundaries no we're not I think it's a practice here and and looking at everything's a trade-off right if there's only a certain amount of time in the day where are you making trade-offs maybe it's making a list of what your priorities are and making sure that those priorities get done because we can otherwise fill our life with you know like oh I don't have time to make a meal but I accidentally just spent an hour scrolling through Instagram TikTok and online window shopping that I didn't buy anything you know and so you know it's I think if we can put our like even if it's just okay these three things I need to remember did you do today and knock those out then you can really feel accomplished and and have time to take care of yourself thank you ladies for spending this hour with me I am honored and inspired thank you and congratulations on all your success because it's epic hello thank you all right thank you ladies yeah bye have a good rest your day so miss you and that ladies and gentlemen concludes this week's episode of everything is the best I hope you enjoyed it please rate review subscribe all that stuff maybe leave a comment but remember shitty comments are for shitty people go ahead and follow me on Instagram via baron jeanine and I hope you have a fabulous fabulous rest of your day love you ciao please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode