Nutrition Nutz, with Philip Pappas Ph.D.

2025 EP 4 Herbs, Soil, And Straight Talk with Dylan Elmer

• Philip A. Pappas Ph.D. • Season 1 • Episode 4

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SPEAKER_00:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Nutrition Nuts where we explore the latest information on nutritional science, wellness trends, and information on cutting-edge supplements. This is where you will hear experts in clinical nutrition, healthcare practitioners, researchers, and supplement industry experts discussing today's most important health care issues. I'm your host, Dr. Phil Pappas. I'm a certified clinical nutritionist, cognitive researcher, and psychologist. We would like to thank our sponsor, Holly Hill Health Foods and Hollyhillvitamins.com, the place for great selection, service, and great pricing. Use coupon code NUTs, that's N-U-T-Z, for 15% off, and remember restrictions may apply. And today we have a great show lined up for you. Our guest is Dylan Elmer, who is, in fact, the son of the creator of Wild Harvest, Argon's Wild Harvest Herbs. I mean, this is a great company. And uh Dylan um has been in this business since he was seven years old. He knows and has done just about everything you can do when it comes to harvesting herbs. So as he says, he can drive the tractor, he can make up the uh the concoctions, the extracts, he can harvest, he can do just about everything. He does a lot of marketing from what I can see. And uh he comes out and does educational things, and today he's gonna be a guest on the show. So welcome Dylan Elmer to the show and tell us a little about you and the company.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh well, a little about myself. Um, I started from a young age um working on the farm. So um every summer was spent uh on the tractor, um uh uh tilling. Uh we would uh uh I talked about that I spent one summer just picking up rocks and uh loading them into the uh into the bucket of the tractor and then taking those rocks, dumping them on a pile, and then coming back. And uh you got to clear the fields, right? So um worked in almost every part of this company. I've worked in production, uh uh encapsulation, milling, um, done a lot of wildcrafting, um, and uh spent a lot of time in customer service as well. So answering a lot of the questions that um you folks probably get asked quite a bit. So um yeah, just uh nice rounded uh uh um career at Oregon's Wild Harvest. And uh we've been around for 30 years, over 30 years now, still 100% family owned um and operated. And you work with your family every day. I worked with my family every day. My brother's on the farm, my mom's on the farm, uh, uncle, brother-in-law. Um, so we've got uh it's it's a family affair for sure.

SPEAKER_00:

And it's a brutal farm work.

SPEAKER_01:

It's not easy work. It is not easy. Uh farming is uh especially organic farming. So you don't you you don't get to cheat and use chemicals or anything like that. You're using uh your hands and it's uh physical labor. And uh um there's a lot that goes into it. Um when you see it on the shelf, it doesn't do it justice. When you see an ashwagandha or an echinacea, you there's so much that has gone into that product. Yeah. So there's a lot to it.

SPEAKER_00:

You even make your own organic fertilizer.

SPEAKER_01:

We do, we do. So uh we're a biodynamic farm, and uh a part of biodynamic farming means that uh we're self-sustaining. So uh we don't bring in fertilizer, we don't bring in manure. Uh, we're producing it right on the farm. So we grow the alfalfa and we feed it to our livestock, and all of our livestock on the farm, we raise them for their manure. There's no slaughtering on the farm. We just want that fresh manure. So we feed them that biodynamic alfalfa, and then we take that manure and spread it over those fields. So um, yeah, self-sustaining ecosystem.

SPEAKER_00:

But you even have to work the manure.

SPEAKER_01:

We do. I plant fascinating. We do. There's it's not ready to go. It comes ready to go. That's uh yes. Um, so it's uh, I say we take it from the cows and spread it over the fields, but that's not how it goes. So we take it from the calves and we add it to our manure piles. We've got several, and um, there's a lot that goes into it. So manure is heating up, so there's bacteria that's breaking down those nutrients and you're literally cooking it. We're cooking it. It gets up to 160, 180 degrees inside that pile. Steam's uh uh billowing off, and uh, and we got to turn the pile, right? Because the stuff on the inside's breaking down, but the stuff on the outside isn't. So you got to turn it constantly. And um, we actually add back nutrient-dense herbs to our manure pile, like nettle and valerian. These are very nutrient-dense herbs, so we're enhancing our manure. So when we add it to those fields, it's as strong a quality as you're gonna get.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, it makes sense. Now the term regenerative farming. I can't say that I've heard that used a lot. So what is that?

SPEAKER_01:

Regenerative farming is well, yeah, I I often say it's like old-fashioned farming, right? We are an active farm. It's not a commercial farm with one crop. We are an active live farm and um biodynamic that practices um are it's its own ecosystem, but it's people, it's the planet, it's the animals, it's the insects, all working together, right? To produce these um plants that we um rely on. Um, so regenerative farming just means that we are giving back to the soil. We're not just pulling, we're not constantly uh harvesting. We're actually giving back to the soil. We're doing cover crops, um, which a cover crop just means when you aren't growing a plant in that field. You're coming and growing a cover crop. Um, this can be like barley or oats milky tops, very nutrient-dense herbs. And um those cover crops are so important because uh instead of an empty field, now you have a plant that's converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. You don't have just a barren dirt field. You've got this um active live field. And then you till all that um material back under and you put it back in the soil. So then when you plant your herbs on top, now those herbs have all those nutrients that were provided by the cover. Everything they need. Exactly. Enhancing that plant. It's been provided. So important. It's so important.

SPEAKER_00:

So um I want you to discuss, and and I heard you talk about this earlier, discuss clean supplements.

SPEAKER_01:

Clean supplements, uh it's very important. So important. And um, you know, uh what I like to, you know, I tell people, uh no one's looking out for yourself besides yourself. You gotta you gotta pay attention to what you're putting in your body. And um, these days, uh the other ingredients, that's that's the part that you really gotta pay attention to. I'm asked that all the time by customers.

SPEAKER_00:

What are these other ingredients?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, what does this mean? I can't even say this word. What is this? And a lot of times they're unnecessary. And um what I mean by that is a lot of these other ingredients, uh I'll throw out like silicon dioxide and magnesium stearate, these these are um flowing agents and uh anti-caking agents, and um, they're just making it so you can process material faster. And uh I I've I always mention that we are all about quality over quantity, and we want to make sure that we're given the best plant medicine available. And um those other ingredients can get very hairy and it's unnecessary, and it's just one more thing for your body to process out. Um, you know, your liver's working all the time. We don't need to give it more work to do. And uh those those other ingredients we stay away from clean supplements, um, using whole herbs, so important. Um, making sure that these uh products are properly tested, right? Um we're testing for heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, aflatoxins. Um, you get in uh salmonella, A. coli. Uh, we have a micro lab that we've invested so much in our testing um to make sure that it's the top quality, it's the cleanest supplement available. And um uh as the industry grows, as more people are uh interested in supplements, um, you notice that the quality tends to go down. There's more players in the game, there's more demand. People are always looking to, you know, control the market or uh, you know, to corner the market. And uh uh so the quality does seem to diminish over time. And uh being family-owned, 100% family-owned without outside investors, allows us to uh stick with our morals, um, our pillars of this company is um we're not gonna deviate from that. We are not gonna deviate and make an inferior product. We we would discontinue a product, and we have discontinued products over making an inferior product.

SPEAKER_00:

I uh have taken a couple herbal courses, and what you're saying kind of rings a bell. My professor said, when you chop, you know, when you don't use the whole herb, when you modify it, that type of thing. He called it herbal chaos. And I thought you what you're just saying sounded like herbal chaos if you don't handle it correctly. Absolutely. And you handle it in that wonderful way. Absolutely. So right now we're talking to Dylan Elmer, who is what is your title at the company?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm director of sales now, so I've been in this position for about a year and a half for Oregon's Wild Harvest. Oregon's Wild Harvest, yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Wonderful, wonderful herbs. We've been selling them here at Holly Hill for how many years?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, geez, it's been uh over a decade or decade before my time. Yeah, yeah. All right. You guys have been carrying this for a long time.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, yeah. It's one of the first new things I saw when I joined the group. Oh, that's awesome. And I thought I have never seen that line, you know. So I was fascinated and I noticed it kept growing. Ah, that's great.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we're doing really well with Hollyhill. That's great. It's well, you're doing really well, aren't you, overall? We're seeing some really good growth. You know, I I mentioned I mention it when I go out and I say we're 30 years in, but it feels like we're just getting started for a long time. Because like yourself, there's a lot of folks out there that don't know about us, they haven't heard our story. Um, and we got to get the word out. That's on us, right? So we got to get the word out there. And so that's been a big part of why I go out and you know, give have these discussions and talk more about the family.

SPEAKER_00:

So with that in mind, yeah, what are the hot products uh in your lineup?

SPEAKER_01:

Good question. Um, well, the best seller and has been the best seller for a decade plus is our ashwagandha. And um not surprised.

SPEAKER_00:

Not surprised.

SPEAKER_01:

Sell a ton of them. Yeah, ashwagandha is very popular. And uh I know you don't have any stress, but there are folks out there that do. And yes, that's right. I am stress-free. Completely stress-free. Um, but there are folks out there that uh are looking for um stress-reducing herbs, uh, something to help with uh balancing the body. And that's that's what ashwagandha is all about. It's a it's a balancing herb, it's um known as an adaptogen. So it's helping the body adapt to stress. And yeah, I was actually just talking to one of your customers out there, and um, he was an he's an Indian guy, and he was talking about, you know, these herbs like ashwagandha go back 7,000 years. There's the writings on these herbs and being used for medicinal purposes. And um, it's really you don't think about it a lot of times, but it's like, wow, you know, this is uh um, this has been going on a long time and we're kind of just rediscovering it for a lot of folks. Um, but ashwagandha is a huge seller these days, um, you know, especially in the last uh handful of years, detox herbs have really picked up like milk thistle, milk thistle dandelion, um, folks understanding that, hey, our livers are taking a beating. Um, the air we breathe, the what we're drinking, what we're eating, it all has to be filtered out through the liver. And um uh so we've really noticed like detox herbs, um, the the milk thistle products, um, even an herb that I knew for the longest time because I could smell it in our garden from a young age. Um, we've been growing wormwood forever. Yeah. And uh we've had that in our line for gosh, 30 years. And uh, you know, it was a low seller, middle to bottom. And then um the last handful of years, um, with these detoxes coming out, wormwood has become a top seller for us. And uh it's funny, uh Ashwagandha is our best seller. And at one time, gosh, it's probably been 20 years now, but no one knew Ashwagandha, and we almost discontinued that product. And then the the uh Ashwagandha craze took off, and uh thank goodness we didn't discontinue it.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, I've been selling a lot of your cinnamon, and I believe your cinnamon is marked salon cinnamon.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

There are other cinnamons. There are, yeah. So actually, you know, with diabetes, I've actually done several diabetes lectures. Yep. And it always comes up. I mean, how do you control blood sugar? Yeah. And that's what cinnamon does really best, doesn't it? Tell us a little more about why cinnamon works so well. How do you make yours?

SPEAKER_01:

Cinnamon is awesome, and there's a specific type of cinnamon, and it's known as Ceylon cinnamon. Uh, cinnamonum barum is the uh botanical name. And um, this this cinnamon is the one that you want, especially for folks that are concerned about their blood sugar levels, um, because folks that are concerned about their blood sugar levels are probably not gonna have it uh, you know, fixed in a couple weeks. And so there's another uh cinnamon on the market, um, cassia is the what it's known as. Um, cassia cinnamon has a high level of coumarin in it and it's hard on the liver. And so when you take this for extended periods of time, it can actually have negative effects on your liver. So you want to steer away from the cassia cinnamon. Whereas with Ceylon cinnamon, that is very low trace levels of coumarin, and it's health, it's perfectly safe to take on a regular basis. And most folks that are taking cinnamon are taking it year-round, every day, you know, because they're eating every day, right? And it's it's gonna help that release of the blood sugar uh the b sugar into the bloodstream. And uh it's just a really cool herb.

SPEAKER_00:

So in um I'm not an I am a I have uh chef credentials. Oh, right on. Um but I don't do it as a living. Yeah. And um both my grandfathers were chefs. Uh one of them was pretty famous. And uh I know um European cooking, very old European cooking. Awesome. And cinnamon was uh one of the main ingredients in a lot of the desserts, even in some of the dishes, which I do myself, but in the desserts, cinnamon. Now, did they know that? Or and what cinnamon were they using? Yeah. What do you use in cooking? What is cooking cinnamon and how does it differ?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so um cooking cinnamon is um gonna be the cassia, is what I'm talking about, and that's the flavor that you're used to. Um uh ceilan cinnamon does have a similar flavor, but it's not gonna be as strong as the others. Um, so that's why um cassia tends to be the most popular because it's most common and it's used a lot in cooking as well. Probably less money. A lot less money, a lot less. So Ceylon cinnamon comes from one place in the whole world, and that's Sri Lanka. Um, these trees are native to that area. And we were just talking about trees. You can't just plant a tree and harvest the next year. You gotta plant a tree and wait decades for it to produce. And so Ceylon cinnamon comes from one part and that's Sri Lanka.

SPEAKER_00:

And yeah, and for a while, that was a problem since they were having a civil war there, and we were having trouble getting it, if I remember. Yep, yep. But everything seems to be okay now.

SPEAKER_01:

Does seem to be okay. We've been working with the same um uh group that's uh growing cinnamon for gosh 20 years now. It's been a long time. Yeah, and it's uh um, but there's a finite amount, and a lot of these herbs, um, there's a finite amount of quality herb out there. So when you see a high price on a product like a cinnamon and it's right next to another cinnamon and you don't know the differences, you're gonna say, well, for the lesser. Yeah, it's like, well, I'll just go for that cheaper one. Same thing, but it's not. It really isn't.

SPEAKER_00:

I think as long as I remember, let's just pretend I can remember back to the year 1999 or 2000. Salon cinnamon has always been the go-to product for controlling blood sugars. Maybe not for cooking. Yep. Although I've gone out of my way to use it. Me too. And um I don't see a problem with it. You may have to use a little more than you would the other one, but you know, who cares? Yeah. And it gives everything a nice color too, which I kind of like your presentation. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01:

I add it to my oatmeal. Yeah, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Put it on uh yogurt. Yeah, absolutely. It's always there are so many uses for it.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00:

Is is cinnamon one of your bigger sellers?

SPEAKER_01:

Cinnamon is a top seller for sure. I would say it's probably top, it is definitely top 10, maybe top five, but it's definitely a top 10 seller. Um, and you know, especially over um there, there has been more information out there for folks. And people will, you know, I worked in customer service for a dozen years, and people will call and ask, you know, is it the the Ceylon cinnamon? And it's like, oh, this is great, you know, folks are becoming aware of the differences. But um, yeah, no, it's a big seller. And um, these days, uh, you know, diet and healthy lifestyle is so important. And uh blood sugar is, you know, you want to be able to control that, right? It's uh um so important for our bodies.

SPEAKER_00:

I want to go to Astragalus. Yeah. A day doesn't go by where I didn't don't see something either in my email or a study on my desk. Something comes up about astragalus. Yeah, yeah. Tell us about astragalus.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, astragalus, I'll tell you right from the start. Um, we we grow astragalis, we grow a lot of astragalus, and um, it's a really unique herb. Um, as I mentioned earlier, it some of these herbs are in the ground for a few months and you harvest, but astragalus needs to be in the ground for three or four years before it actually develops to where the levels that you want for the medicinal value. Um, there's certain um constituents in astragalus that are higher and lower the first couple years that it's in the ground. So you won't harvest astragalus until about year three and four. And this is my dad's favorite herb, actually, is astragalus. And um, he he loved it because it was so effective, but very mild, right? Like so um echinaasias and elderberries, these herbs that you take when you're feeling sick, um, they they activate the immune system. And it's not something you want to take on a regular basis because you don't want your immune system constantly constantly being exactly, you don't want that happening. So um a stragalus is basically just keeping the light on for that immune system, making sure that it's ready to go whenever needed, but um, it's not activating it. And so um it's a really great herb. Um, but there's actually more research in what you were talking about. There's um this is a traditional Chinese herb, and um, there's been research done on um telomeres and helping with the telomeres and uh repairing those. And as we get older, our telomeres break down and old age sets in. Yeah. And um, so this herb has um, and with so many different herbs, is we're finding out different applications all the time on these, right? And so astragalus is uh um there's more research coming out on longevity and helping with uh um us living longer.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Yeah. Um phytonutrients. Yeah. That used to be a much bigger word, if I remember. Yeah, but that's part of this story, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. What are all those phytonutrients? We can't even figure them out. No, we can't.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's that goes back to the whole herb philosophy, right? Because there's so many constituents of phytonutrients that are in these plants, and we don't even know. We might be able to pick out and say, hey, you know, we we think this is working, but we don't know if there's other constituents found in that plant that are helping that. We're gonna get some future surprises. Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

You've been using this all along.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so um we we always try and keep the um it's the whole herb approach. And obviously, there's um there's been research. I'll use milk thistle as an example. There's there's uh um been quite a bit of research on milk thistle and turmeric as well. Those are two more uh popular researched herbs and uh the constituents found in there, like silamarin. Um, that you know, there's been research that silamarin helps with the liver support. But so we'll include, you know, a uh silamarin uh extract in our milk thistle, but we always include the whole seed in there as well, because even though there's one part of that herb that's helping the body, we want to make sure that all those other beneficial constituents are being uh being delivered with our supplements. So um there's not a ton of research done on a lot of these herbs. And so that's where we always hearken back to the point of hey, how have these been used for hundreds, if not thousands of years? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I guess some of them were originally uh used in cooking. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh dandelion. Dandelion, uh, turmeric. Um, you know, so there's turmeric, you want to include black pepper. Um, most uh turmeric supplements are gonna have black pepper in there, and the reason for that is absorption. Turmeric is not a very bioavailable herb. And um what's ironic about it is you know, turmeric's a spice, and um, it's been used with cooking. And what else helps with uh turmeric absorption happens to be fats. So typically folks were using turmeric in with their food, and there was a fat in that food, and it was being absorbed. So there's we don't even know, you know, that, but it was used for many, many years in this one way, and it was being absorbed in the body. Turmeric was being absorbed, and then correctly we correctly, exactly. And then, you know, we come along and we just take a ton of turmeric and then find out that it's not being absorbed. So um there's a lot that we still need to figure out with this stuff. And well, you have a pretty full line of products.

SPEAKER_00:

We do, but you're adding more products all the time.

SPEAKER_01:

Tell us about the new skews. New skews. We've got all kinds of new skews. Um, well, you know, first off, we've added some uh value sizes of popular products, uh, the most popular products out there. We've we've already had some value sizes, but we extended our value size line because um a lot of these folks uh rely on these products, and we want to be able to get it to them for a better price point and a larger uh bottle. So um we've come out with some value sizes. Um, we've come out with some new liquids like an Oshwagandha glycerate, which is an alcohol-free ashwagandha product. And then um something I'm really excited about is our new vitamin line. And um, this has been in the works for gosh, I would say at least seven years. Um we've been, we've been, we've been working on this for a long time. And um, a lot of it is the RD and um making sure that uh we are supplying the best quality out there, right? So um our vitamin line is all organic, all plant, whole, whole food sourced. Um, so what you're getting is um, you know, talking about bioavailability, a lot of these vitamins and multivitamins are synthetics, uh, megadoses, and they just go right through the body. So you think you're taking all these great things and you're just flushing them out, and your body's not absorbing any of it and doesn't recognize it. Your body doesn't recognize what you're putting in there, so it's just gonna get rid of it. So, what we came up with was whole food vitamins. And uh, so we have four that we just came out with our zinc, our vitamin D, our biotin. Um, really excited about that, our vitamin C as well. Um, and these are all whole food sourced vitamins, um, along with every single one of them has a uh prebiotic blend in there as well. So it's gonna help with the absorption and also helping with gut health, which as you know, we're we're finding all about these days of how important our gut health is to overall well-being, mind, heart, everything is, you know, healthy gut, tobacco feel better. Absolutely. You look better. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Your hair is better, that's right. Skin is better. It's a wonderful thing. It's so important. And um, as our diets have changed, you know, um, I always stress folks um uh getting into the bitters, right? The herbal bitters, because we've we've cut that part out of our diet these days. What people aren't eating a lot of bitter foods, right? The the uh fruits and vegetables have kind of gone down and uh uh processed foods are up. And um, so we just we need to be cognizant of what we're putting in our bodies and is our bodies really accepting what we're putting in our bodies? Are they gonna is it gonna be absorbed or is it just gonna be washed, washed away?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, as a kid, I always hated it, but at our dinner table, there was either dandelion, escroll, or endive. Yeah, yeah. And I remember trying to eat it, and and the bitterness was like, you know, you're a little kid. Yeah. And uh very hard to do. But you know, you learn, you watch the adults, they would put a whole lot of lemon juice on it. Yeah, and it turned into a pretty good um green. Yeah. Of course, it got older, it wasn't such a problem. For little kids, it's a little problem. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, it's very important. It's so important for digestion. And um, folks are having all kinds of uh, you know, I'm not excluded from that uh diet and uh um can play such a big role on how we feel, um, how we think. Um, you know, it's it's so important. And um supplements are needed for some of this because we're just not getting it, you know, we're we're not getting what we need. So uh another new item, yellow duck, uh awesome, awesome herbal bitter. Yeah, tell us more about that. So it's in a liquid form, and that's really important for these bitters, right? Because you want to taste it. As soon as it hits your tongue, that's signaling to your body, hey, get ready. You've got some food coming, time to release those digestive enzymes. And so your gallbladder releases it into your small intestines, and then your liver is stimulated to produce more uh bile, right? So yellow doc is awesome because as soon as it touches your tongue, it's signaling, hey, there's some food coming. And uh, the other great thing about um yellow dock is it's considered a natural acidive. And what that means is it doesn't mean you're gonna take it and have to go run to the bathroom. It's not like that. But what it is is it's constantly, it's making the food, it's making sure that it's constantly moving because that's so important to digestion. That's guaranteeing transport. Exactly. And that is so important because as soon as something sits, that's where you get the gas, that's where you get the stomach pains, and that's you know, and constipation and all that stuff that goes along with it. So you want stuff, what you want, and an ideal body is you ingest it, and your body's taking out everything it needs, and then it's getting rid of it. And that's that's how you want it to go, right?

SPEAKER_00:

You don't want stop and start.

SPEAKER_01:

No, you don't, you don't. And so yellow dock is so great for that. And we we grow that right on our farm, um, along with 40 other different herbs. You know, we're growing the milk thistle and ashwagandha, stragalus. Um, we're growing some really cool herbs, and uh yellow dock is one of the newer. I think we just, yeah, last year was our first year growing yellow dock, and it grew so well. It's such a pretty root, too. It's really it's got this beautiful like golden color. It's almost like a little V, uh, upside down V. It's it's such a great root.

SPEAKER_00:

I use your, I've been using for a while, your fenugreek. Oh, great. People who we want to stimulate appetite a little bit. Yeah. And of course for um breastfeeding. Yeah. And it's been amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that is so great. Really nice. My sister uh uh swore by that during her pregnancy or you know, uh after her pregnancies for um uh lactation, and uh she swore by it. But you you say that uh about the um uh helping with uh digestion and uh stimulating appetite, and it's uh we always marketed fenugreek for the longest time as uh lactation herb, right? Yes. And then there was more research that came out all about digestion and how important fenugreek is for digestion. And uh so we've actually kind of pivoted, and I talk way more about fenugreek with digestion now, but for the longest time, I mean it was a top seller and it was we only marketed it as for lactation.

SPEAKER_00:

I have a lot of um post-treatment cancer patients um who aren't eating well. Um they've lost weight. Yeah, so I use that most of the time with them. In fact, probably on all of them. That's good. And uh the difference from what I was trying to do before and just good old fenugreek, which is very inexpensive, by the way, right? Yeah. Um, it's amazing what it does. That's so cool. Yeah. I I love hearing that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's um that that's so cool.

SPEAKER_00:

That's one of the really big ones that I've stuck with in your line. It just seems to work amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's great. It's it, you know, fenugreek is is one of the original. We've had that forever. Is that right? Yeah, it's one of the original herbs. Um, and it it is, it's just a seed, just you know, just a little seed. And uh, and it, you know, it was a top seller for us, and then it kind of got pushed down, and then the started talking about the digestion part because lactation is a very small segment, right? So it's like, okay, you're you're appealing to a small segment, and then the all the stuff about um digestive health, and um, it's really picked back up to and it's and I have you to thank for that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you're welcome. It works so well, I could not walk away from it. I mean, I'll be using that for a long time, obviously. Uh, the other thing we that I personally, and I think most of this people in the store here are suggesting is your nettles and your nettles with quercetin. Tell us a little bit about those two.

SPEAKER_01:

So, nettle, it's such a cool herb. Um, most people know it is stinging nettle, right? So um, stinging nettle, uh most people have brushed against that plant and had a nice little rash because it's covered in these little hairs, these fine little hairs. And um, and that's the part that makes you all itchy when you brush against it. And uh, but and we grow a lot of nettle. We've got about 20 acres of nettle. We we harvested about 30,000 pounds this year. Um, and that plant, the part of that plant that we need to keep intact is those fine little hairs. Um, and the reason is because the constituent found in nettle to help with the histamine response in the body is found in those hairs. So if we were to traditionally dry nettle, uh all those hairs would burn up. And now, nettle is a very nutrient-dense herb. It likes to grow uh near water, so it pulls a lot of minerals up, uh high in silica. So it's a very nutrient-dense plant. Um, but we want those hairs. So what we do is we harvest it about 30,000 pounds. We load up 30,000 pounds of fresh nettle right into the back of a freezer truck, two freezer trucks actually. And then we ship it uh to a freeze dryer and it gets freeze-dried. And what freeze-drying does is there's no heat involved. So it's more of like a vacuum and it pulls the moisture out and it keeps those hairs intact. And so what we're left with is a great allergy herb. Um, it works wonders. Um, I swear by it, especially this time of the year, changing seasons. Um, but because we keep those hairs intact, it's a great allergy supporting herb. And the quercetin is just gonna uh help with the uh the antihistamine response as well. And we actually have another one that's um called Alerate.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

And it has nettle, quercetin, and then N acetylcysteine, which is great for the mucus buildup because if you've got allergies, you get mucus, and that N acetylcysteine will help break down that mucus and help drain you out.

SPEAKER_00:

And N acetylcysteine um is not an unknown quantity. Yeah, you'll find it in hospital pharmacies as an IV. Yeah, exactly for well, for that and for other reasons. Uh, but it can be used as a mucolytic and it does a wonderful job. It does. Um, that's terrific. Yeah, it I mean, those two products in particular, the quercetin and the quercetin and the um um acetyl n nettles and the uh nettles by themselves, yeah, uh are they fly out of here.

SPEAKER_01:

They're so great. It's uh um, you know, we so we had that product, it's one of the original products we had. Um, and about oh gosh, it's probably been about four years now, maybe five years ago, we had a crop failure. And so we had a crop failure on our nettle, and there is no other freeze-dried nettle out there. All the nettle on the market is dried nettle. And again, if you're to use dried nettle, you lose those hairs and you lose that part of the herb that helps with the uh histamine response in the body. So um what happened was is we actually had to basically uh we were out of stock on those products for a good year and a half, two or three. Oh, yes, the shelf was empty. People were very upset. Ah, you remember, yes. It was uh, and we had plenty of calls. And um, you know, what we could have done is we could have very easily just got rid of freeze-dried, put out the exact same product with dried nettle in there, but it wouldn't work. So what happened was is we lost uh a lot of customers we lost over the years because we didn't have that product. And then we reintroduced them, and people are realizing, hey, they're back out. And so they've picked right back up. And we actually just invested in this um uh blister pack machine, which is great because now we can produce samples because a big part of that product is it actually works. Um, so like just get in people's hands and if you've got allergies, just take this. And then that's how we originally sold that product 20 years ago, 30 years ago is we made little sample bottles and we just handed them out. Yes, and that's how we built our audience. That's how we built our customer base, and then we lost part of our customer base. So now we're coming out with samples of those products because they actually work. There were a lot of very upset people.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, let me tell you because they were counting on their freeze-dried stinging nettles.

SPEAKER_01:

I know, I know that uh listen. We had people calling, we had folks saying, Well, I know you're out of stock, but do you have some just like in the back somewhere like on the shelf? It's like, no, I don't have any. I'm like, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, we're we're hiding them all in the back just for you. So we've got them. But we were out, and that was talk about a bummer. And during that time, I was in customer service and talking a lot of people off the ledge, like, hey, we're gonna get them back. Just give us time.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. Well, I think we've done a pretty good job here. I think I know a lot more about herbs uh just from your short talk. Uh, I appreciate the time. Now I just want to remind everybody um you can listen to the podcast, obviously, but we are on our website, we sell wild harvest herbs. And you're gonna like the price, you're gonna love the product, so don't be afraid to go there and check out some of these products. You've got allergies right now's allergy season, those stinging nettles would be perfect. Oh, they work great. Um, Astragalus if you get sick.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh turmeric for the aches and pains. I mean, there's so many things that you can choose from. You'll see them all on the website. And uh right now, I just want to thank you, Dylan Elmer, for coming on the show, telling us all about Wild Harvest, and thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much for the time and the opportunity. Really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00:

Don't be a stranger.

SPEAKER_01:

No, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00:

Come back soon.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. I'll be back for sure.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Cheers.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks to our loyal listeners, and thanks to our sponsor, Holly Hill Health Foods and Hollyhillvitamins.com. Don't forget to use coupon code NUTS NUTZ for 15% off. You can reach me with questions and comments at two one five three six one seven seven seven zero. Until next time, this is Dr. Phil Pappas wishing you good health.