Amanda Chantal Bacon On Self-Care, Building A Wellness Empire & Surviving Controversy

What do you become when your mom is the CEO of a prestigious fashion empire and your dad is a musician accompanying notorious acts like Billy Idol and the art punk group Suicide? You alchemize that business savvy with artistry. And pivot. Such is the tale of plant alchemist and holistic heroine Amanda Chantal Bacon – a wellness entrepreneur committed to the idea that food is equal parts art and medicine; as much about pleasure as healing; and that creativity and sustenance can be one and the same. A graduate of the New England Culinary Institute and former Food & Wine Editor at the LA Times, Amanda served apprentice duties under Suzanne Goin, the James Beard Award winning chef at the famous Luques Restaurant, who served as her mentor and inspiration behind Moon Juice, an online holistic apothecary and chain of elegant community-centric juice shops with three locations across Los Angeles that Amanda founded in 2012. Amanda is also the author of the exquisite Moon Juice Cookbook, and has been profiled extensively in the most prestigious publications in the world, including the New York Times Sunday Magazine, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Elle, Vogue, InStyle, and The Hollywood Reporter. In addition, Amanda is no stranger to controversy. Last year found her square in the Internet's vicious, vitriolic crosshairs — an experience we explore at length. This is a conversation about Amanda's eclectic upbringing and unique entrepreneurial path. It's about taking control of your education and your path. It's a conversation about self-care habits, and the power of plants to heal. And it's about food not just as nourishment, but as an experience. Spending time with Amanda was soothing and delightful. I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  Step one through 1,000 and maybe forever could just be focusing on eating plants in all forms. I happen to like raw plants. I don't only eat raw plants, but I love salad greens and herbs and love to get those in every day. I like to drink green juice. I make green juice in my shop, so it's easy for me to get it, but you can make it at home, too. So, I mean, that could be the beginning, middle, and end of a beautiful life, fully in wellness, is you are sleeping, you have loving relationships, you give yourself 20

• 1:47Speaker 01

  minutes to sit down and have some quiet time by yourself, and you focus on eating plants. Like, that sounds like wellness to me.

• 1:57Rich Roll?

  That's Amanda Chantal Bacon, this week, on the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:12Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody. How you guys doing? What's happening? My name is Rich Roll. Indeed, I am your host. Welcome or welcome back to my podcast, the show where each week I go deep with all manner of movers and shakers across the spectrum of wellness, fitness, entrepreneurship, spirituality, recovery, sports, literature, medicine, entertainment. And I share these people, these stories, this wisdom, all as a means to help you and me both become just a little bit better, a little more self-actualized. So, I just got back from Sweden a couple of days ago, three days ago, I think, settling into re-entry

• 2:54Rich Roll?

  here. And no real need to recap that adventure too much, because Chris and I just went through it all in the last podcast in quite some detail. But I did want to take a moment to once again say thank you, because I got so many messages of support, so much love from everybody out there who followed our eutile adventure. And it's amazing how many people actually got lured into the live cast, which is awesome, and just warms my heart. It means a ton to me that you guys took the time to check in, to send me a little support, and I'm super duper grateful about that. And speaking of grateful, I woke up the morning after Chris and I laid down that podcast. It was like 3:00 a.m. I just, I couldn't

• 3:39Rich Roll?

  sleep. My brain was just restless, even though my body was so jacked up, I just couldn't, I just couldn't sleep anymore. So, I got up, I popped open my laptop, and that's when it hit me, because I noticed that my friend, Adam Skolnik, do you remember him from the podcast? He's the guy who wrote the book about the freediver Nick Mivoli. It's called One Breath. And he shared that story on the show. It must be like a year and a half ago at this point. In any event, Adam had just published a story about eutile and me and my work and this podcast in the New York Times. The New York Times, people, the New York Times. And it had three pictures with it, three. Honestly, it still feels totally surreal, because...

• 4:25Rich Roll?

  You know, I didn't know if I was gonna make it. I mean, not the race. I'm not talking about the race. I mean, in life, to be here, to be sober, to be able to do what I do, to live this dream, to share this podcast. It's just, it's an incredible gift, and it was hardly a foregone conclusion that I would be able to sit here and, and do what I do. And there were a lot of years where it was really touch and go. So, to be recognized in that way, on that stage, in, in that publication, of all publications, I mean, I, I just, I don't even know what to say. It's, it leaves me at a loss. And it's emotional for me. And when I was in that hotel room, reading it at three o'clock in the morning, I just, I

• 5:09Rich Roll?

  lost it. I completely lost it. It was like my whole life, everything that I have endured and weathered, just came flooding into my awareness. And I, I, I just, I broke down. I had this, like, catharsis. Like, I've been holding my breath for 10 years, and, and suddenly, I could, like, exhale. And I don't want to get too crazy about it. Basically, I just look at it like it was this symbol that confirmed that, I don't know, maybe that I'm doing something right, and that feels pretty good. So, again, thank you, guys, because it's only because of you guys listening that I get to do this, that I get

• 5:50Rich Roll?

  to share with you guys. So, that's it. Anyway, if you didn't see the article, you can go to the episode page on my website, and I'll link to the show notes, or you can just go to the New York Times and, and search for the race, and I'm sure it'll pop up. Hey, did I mention that I got Amanda Chantal Bacon on the show? Amanda Chantal Bacon. Who is Amanda? Well, Amanda is a graduate of the New England Culinary Institute. She is a former food and wine editor at the LA Times. She formerly apprenticed with the great Suzanne Goine, head chef at the famous Lueq Restaurant, I think that's how you say it. L U Q U E S, Lueq Restaurant. And she is currently the founder and CEO of Moon Juice,

• 6:32Rich Roll?

  which is a chain of juice bars and nutritional products. She's also a cookbook author. The Moon Juice Cookbook is really quite exquisite. But I would say first and foremost that Amanda is an artist or sort of an alchemist, an artistic alchemist or an alchemic artist. I don't know how to say it, but you get the idea. And Amanda is quite the press magnet. She's been profiled basically everywhere, including the New York Times Sunday Magazine, which was quite the spread. The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Elle, Vogue, InStyle, The Hollywood Reporter, on and on and on. She's also no stranger to controversy. She found herself in the internet's crosshairs this past year on the receiving end of,

• 7:17Rich Roll?

  let's just say, a little schadenfreude, a little snarky vitriol, I think it's fair to say. And we get into all that.

• 7:32Rich Roll?

  All right, so Amanda, she's great. She's so cool, super groovy. And this is a really fun conversation that covers all sorts of terrain. We talk about all things health and wellness, sleep, meditation, nutrition, adaptogens, herbs, all kinds of crazy food stuff. We cover her entrepreneurial journey to launching and growing Moon Juice. We talk about her extraordinary cookbook, the Moon Juice Cookbook. We talk about her cool upbringing in the Chelsea District of New York in the 80s to her super rad parents. Her mom was CEO of Betsy Johnson and her dad was a musician who played with Billy Idol and Alan Vega of the art punk group Suicide, which is wild. Can you imagine growing up in a household like that? And we talk about her many careers,

• 8:16Rich Roll?

  starting out with her Path is a kindergarten teacher in New Zealand to becoming a food stylist, a freelance journalist, a food and wine editor, and even as a chef being mentored under, again, the award-winning chef Suzanne Goyne, which is a really cool story. Plus, of course, as I referenced earlier, we dig into how she was put through the social media wringer on Twitter for a minute. She was like a trending thing. I'm not going to spoil the story, but it is kind of amazing. It's super crazy. In any event, I really enjoyed this one. She's really great. I've known Amanda for several years and I'm delighted to be able to bring her to you guys today. So let's talk to Amanda.

• 8:59Rich Roll?

  All right, Amanda Chantal Bacon, thank you for making the trek up to Malibu Canyon. It's a delight to sit down with you and talk about my favorite subjects, wellness, diet, nutrition, all these things that I know you're so passionate about. And I thought like the first, the first thing, I'm sitting right here. I've got your book, your new, your, well, I was going to say new cookbook, but it's not that new at this point, right? When did it come out?

• 9:24Speaker 01

  It came out in the fall.

• 9:27Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. It is a work of art.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 9:31Rich Roll?

  It truly is. And, you know, because we're, we're in the business of like, you know, doing cookbooks ourselves. I remember when we got it in the mail, you sent it to us a while back and Julie and I just sat down and went through it. And I was like, oh my God, like this is from the photography to the layout, to the aesthetics, to, you know, not to mention the recipes themselves. I mean, it is beautiful.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 9:51Rich Roll?

  It really is. And I think the reason that I bring that up, not just to like butter you up, but which you deserve, but you know, I think it speaks to your level of intention and attention to detail, like this, you're an artist. I mean, this is, this is the work of an artist. So like, how did you do this? Like, I mean, every page is like insane.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  It was an insane journey.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  I think I went about that book.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  In a very naive way, which was, I'm just gonna, you know, sit down and write the whole thing and make all the recipes at home and shoot everything at home and go off the cuff. And I understand now why with cookbooks, there is such production and you get prop stylists and food stylists and people to prepare the food and recipe testers. And I, it all makes sense to me now, but that was really blood, blood, sweat and tears. And done in my home and it was done over, gosh, I think it was a two-year process or something.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Um, I moved homes in the middle of that, that most of the photography was done in the first week that I had gotten into a house that I had just bought and everything was in boxes. And so I did my best to, you know, pull things out and set shots up. But I worked with a photographer who was really interested in having this creative experience. And, um, we, you know, the two of us just went at it. And so he had the patience and the time to let me like build a crazy temple to, you know, a walnut.

• 11:56Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  And he'd like take a nap and I do all that.

• 12:00Rich Roll?

  Instead of saying like, okay, he's like, no, that's awesome. I mean, you know, a couple of things. I mean, I think what you have done is really inverted the expectations that one has when they open up a cookbook, because they adhere to certain specifications, like this is how they kind of look and this is how you do it. But the photography really pushes the boundaries of what you would expect. Like you have that, I don't know what it is pouring over that skull.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Walnut milk and like the walnut in the eye.

• 12:26Rich Roll?

  It's like, yeah, it, it, it looks like a photograph that would belong in an art installation. So you definitely had a talented photographer who was willing to like, you know, go places that a cookbook usually wouldn't go. And I think secondarily, There's something beautiful about that naivete, you know, when you don't know what the expectations are, what the rules are, and you're just in your, in your freedom, you know, in your creative flow. And I think that provides space for magical things to occur.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  And God bless my editor Pam Kraus, who watched me and sort of let me go out there and do it in the most unproductive way one could.

• 13:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know Pam a little bit, and I think that that speaks to her integrity, because a lot of times you run into issues where they're like, okay, you want to do that? Okay. But like, you know, it has to be like this, or they're going to then, you know, sort of temper it down and make changes so that it fits a more mainstream expectation.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  No, she was, she was really with me the whole time in letting it be that way, letting me learn lessons on my own. So, and we're working on another one now.

• 13:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you should.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm actually overdue for copy. I think that copy was due a couple of months ago.

• 13:51Rich Roll?

  Oh, man, I'm in the same boat. I'm supposed to, I have a deadline coming up on September 15th that I'm just, I'm terrified I'm not going to meet. You know, when I wrote my first book, I just didn't have that much going on. And so it was a lot easier to focus and get more writing done throughout the day. And every day I wake up with the intention of like, this is what I'm going to do. And then stuff, I allow things to intervene on that sacred time and space. And I've got to really work better on boundaries, but it gets harder, you know, and I can't imagine with everything that you're managing with this business and all your entrepreneurial endeavors, that you could find that kind of quiet contemplative space to, you know, create in that way.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  It's really, it's really hard. And I have days that are boldly marked book day, oh, oh, oh, don't call me, don't email me, I can't do it. And every one of those book days, there are fires that are urgent, and I've got to be on the phone with a lawyer and this, and looking at numbers and getting back to my team. And that has gone on for quite some time.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  You know, which has forced me to actually let go. And I think that's one of the nice. Well, we'll see if it's nice in the end. Well, maybe, maybe it's not nice at the end of the day, but there, there has been

• 15:19Speaker 01

  this thing of finding that quiet sacred space where it's going to flow out of you with other people in the room, with noise, with your kid throwing things at you, um, with work calling, with texting, budget answers. Um, in the midst of doing that and.

• 15:46Rich Roll?

  Well, I think that's an enlightened perspective because it transcends that, that, uh, paradigm of being the control freak CEO and understanding that, um, yes, you can make your way to some extent with that, uh, sort of mentality, but a better way, a more sustainable way is to be in the allowing and in the letting go and empowering the people around you and not sort of getting caught up in the minutia. I mean, when I see that cookbook, I'm like, this person's a control freak. She must be because like every detail of this is so dialed in. And yet, you know, running on that fuel is a fuel that you're going to crash and burn on, right?

• 16:28Rich Roll?

  So at some point you have to transcend that and allow the people around you to contribute and let go a little bit.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:35Rich Roll?

  I mean, is that a fair representation of what you're saying? Like allowing it to channel through you as opposed to.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and having that energy channel through you and finding your muse moments, you know, not when everyone is going to go away and leave you alone and the phone is off. And that's certainly helpful, but also how does that happen? When you have got the demands pouring down and you're just in the eye of the storm to also be able to squeak something out at that place and, you know, maybe look back on it in a couple of weeks and say. Yeah, I'm still getting it. It's all still coming together.

• 17:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's a mindfulness practice. I mean, it's easy to be serene when you're meditating in a cave. But how do you take that, uh, how do you take that approach into the world where you can't manage everything? And you know, there's chaos abounds.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, and nonstop. I've had, um, you're spot on when you say, oh God, she must be a control freak. I came from such a scary place of control. I mean, I can think back, I often think back on times when, you know, I didn't have a child. I didn't have a business. Um, I would make my bed so tightly. I was so particular about the way the sheets.

• 18:04Rich Roll?

  I'm shocked.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Went, went, you know, just.

• 18:08Rich Roll?

  Everything is just so.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Just so. And I worked in kitchens and would just, you know, each plate that went out was like this. Parsley, the parsley ploosh is all wrong. It's all wrong. It's at the wrong angle on the plate. It simply cannot go out, you know, and so I came from that place and, um,

• 18:31Speaker 01

  that has evolved into CEO of, and founder of a company and very active and still there every day and making that happen. And essentially, you know, in some ways it's a business that has matured. And in other ways I look at it as like, it's very much a startup. I'm still in startup mode.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  And simultaneously, I've had a spiritual practice that, um,

• 19:02Speaker 01

  I think again, has had moments of being very.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Precious and contrived and controlled and needing to do my meditation in silence, no disruption, you know, it's got to smell a certain way. I got to sit on this thing. It's all got to be like this.

• 19:22Rich Roll?

  And you freak out if it doesn't go that way?

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Well, no, I mean, I, um, you know, I, I got to enjoy it in that way and was really so, so particular. And then I, you know, I don't know. I wake up 10 years later or whatever. And it's like, wow, none of that exists. And there is not any hope of any type of control like that at all anymore. And I'm finally actually just really relaxing into it.

• 19:49Rich Roll?

  That's good. You deserve to. You know, it's, it's got to be an interesting, um, puzzle because you are the face of the brand, you know, the brand exists, but you are part and parcel with of that brand. And, you know, as sort of the, the, the, the name behind it and the face behind it, those details are super important because I think that is what distinguishes you from what so many other people are doing. And yet you still have to make the bandwidth for the vision and the big decisions. So you have to be like in the dirt, in the granular, and also like up in the clouds.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. Up in the clouds sounds really nice.

• 20:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Which one do you like better? You like that? I don't know. I could see you getting super into the details, too.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  I do. That's how I spent, you know, I was up at 6am, went to sleep at 3, up at 6, just in the, in the dirt.

• 20:41Rich Roll?

  It doesn't end, right?

• 20:42Speaker 01

  It doesn't not end. Now, this feels like we're up in the clouds.

• 20:45Rich Roll?

  Right. We're in the clouds now. So I've had a lot of entrepreneurs on this show, but I don't think that I've had, uh, very many female CEOs and entrepreneurs. Well, I had Arianna Huffington on, but I don't, you know, I'm trying to think back. Maybe I've had one or two, but, um, you're unique in that not only are you a, a female founder, CEO of, it is a startup, um, but also you're a mom and, you know, you've built this incredible brand, uh, that has achieved, you know, a level of sort of notoriety and prom- and, and prominence and really has traction. And it's got to feel good, but like, how do you balance all of that?

• 21:27Speaker 01

  I think, you know, that's part of this thing of letting go of control in some way.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Also letting go of balance in that controlled, contrived ways. I think, you know, when I think balance, I had a very specific picture of what that looked like. And I think

• 21:48Rich Roll?

  What was that picture?

• 21:49Speaker 01

  I don't know. It's, I think, you know, all the things that are out there that are the sounds sage and well and good and how much sleep you should get and how much personal time you should have and self-care rituals. And all of that is wonderful. And then also not being rigidly attached to that and spanning out a bit, you know, having a different perspective around times. So maybe that doesn't need to happen every day. Maybe that doesn't need to happen every year. And looking more at seasons in life. If this is a season now, it's, you know,

• 22:33Speaker 01

  would be hurricane season.

• 22:36Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  And to look at, well, you know, I'm not gonna get outside and go lay in the sun because it's hurricane season. But the sun's coming back in a few months. And so shifting my perspective around balance, also really being able to feel my body and feel when it's no longer okay and to not have any guilt or shame.

• 23:09Rich Roll?

  That's a big, that's a big part of it, I think. You know, we have these conventional ideas around balance and something I've put a lot of thought into and And you know, this idea that every day has to you, you sort of are apportioning your time in equal measure to all these different areas of your life. So all the plates are spinning at exactly the same number of RPMs. Like it's just, it's an impossible task. And for somebody like you, like it, you know, your business, your child, all these things require an intense amount of focus and energy. I mean, you just said you were up at, you were up till three, up at six, like, you know, that doesn't meet a conventional idea.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  Doesn't sound very balanced, does it?

• 23:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but, but at the same time, like that's your, your, your fulcrum point is going to be different from somebody else and being okay with that. Like, yeah, I'm going to go all in on this because this requires my focus and attention right now. I'll let that pendulum swing back. You know, you can use that seasons analogy for that in the micro as well, from hour to hour, day to day, or week to week.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:08Rich Roll?

  So.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  But there are, you know, there are daily things that I do so that I can burn it really hard. And as I'm burning really hard for that season, I meditate daily. Um, there are certain foods and substances that I avoid if I know I'm in crank mode. Um, I take adaptogens daily. That's a must for me. Um, you know, I do have things to keep me on board and they're just non-negotiable.

• 24:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Um, and sleep has actually been something that I did not get enough of. And I watched just some chronic inflammation and stress chemistry in my body. Um, that I couldn't get over the hump. No matter how much meditation, how many adaptogens I was taking, stress, I mean, sleep was a real component of that.

• 25:07Rich Roll?

  How much were you getting on average?

• 25:09Speaker 01

  I mean, this, that, my, you know, sleeping three, four hours a night was almost a nightly thing. And you just.

• 25:17Rich Roll?

  That's not sustainable.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Watch your HPA access.

• 25:21Rich Roll?

  You can't be a doyen of wellness when you're sleeping three hours a night for extended periods of time.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Well, and they, but you know, there are Band-Aids you can put on that with like, well, I'm meditating a lot and I'm taking so many adaptogens and I'm doing cryo and I'm doing breath work. So there are things that you.

• 25:40Rich Roll?

  But all that time going to cryo and you could just get an extra hour.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  I know. I know. It was actually, and it was really, it was Ariana who

• 25:52Speaker 01

  said something to me about sleep and it definitely stuck in there. And then it was when I got together with my boyfriend.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  We're in Bellinas and we were taking a walk and he very gently approached the subject, but he let me know that he would be introducing me to sleep. And making sure that I was getting sleep and I sort of just laughed and, you know, no, I don't need it. But he really has introduced that to me and I've seen such an incredible difference. So sleep, adaptation, adaptogens.

• 26:36Rich Roll?

  That's good. Well, let's, let's unpack all of that stuff, but let's do it in the context of, of like telling the moon juice story. So right now you have, I mean, the one in Venice was the first one, right? And you've got one like near, near, like on Melrose Place.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  On Melrose Place, yeah.

• 26:53Rich Roll?

  And then you have a couple more?

• 26:54Speaker 01

  And then there's one in Silver Lake.

• 26:56Rich Roll?

  Silver Lake, okay. But not one, you, your stuff sells in, in like shops all over the place.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're all over the world.

• 27:01Rich Roll?

  Right. That's amazing.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:03Rich Roll?

  So when did you start this? And like, let's, well, let's just go back to the beginning. You have a pretty cool, like upbringing, origin story.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I was born in New York.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  My mom was in fashion.

• 27:18Rich Roll?

  She was the CEO of Betsy Johnson, right?

• 27:21Speaker 01

  She was, yeah.

• 27:22Rich Roll?

  That is, it sounds like a super interesting job.

• 27:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, um, I was a really fun place to grow up and see her, you know, my mom was always working, so that must have stuck in me somewhere. Um, I think about it now, you know, at the time I didn't really, didn't mean much to me, but to think about that she had, I think at the end, you know, 50 stores or something nationwide and was doing licensing deals with Japan and didn't have a business background with a model in London and.

• 27:57Rich Roll?

  How, so she, oh, she started out as a model? So how did she ascend to becoming a CEO of such a?

• 28:02Speaker 01

  I don't, you know, she was a model in London and traveling around and wound up moving back to the States and I think met Betsy through a mutual friend. And they became fast friends and Betsy, you know, was making little things and my mom said, okay, let's, let's partner on this. Let's do something. And I think it really started with Betsy sewing things on the floor and then my mom going out and selling them.

• 28:28Rich Roll?

  So she was there from the beginning then?

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, they started it together.

• 28:31Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow. That's really cool. So Betsy Johnson's like hanging out at your apartment and?

• 28:36Speaker 01

  She's my grandmother.

• 28:37Rich Roll?

  Oh, really? Wow.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, she lives in Malibu now.

• 28:39Rich Roll?

  Oh, really?

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:40Rich Roll?

  I didn't know that.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Paradise Cove.

• 28:42Rich Roll?

  What an amazing human being.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  She really is.

• 28:45Rich Roll?

  That, that's interesting because you have this sort of the business savvy with like the extreme creativity, like mashing up against each other in those two individuals, right? Obviously, your mom must be very business savvy to have grown that business to become as successful as it is. And I mean, there's nobody more creatively prolific or, or sort of unchained Betsy Johnson, right? So that must have been interesting as a kid to be exposed to that by osmosis. I can see in you now, like this, this amalgamation of those, you know, of that kind of merged ethos.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, and they were such good friends and partners, but so different.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  And just even their offices.

• 29:26Rich Roll?

  That's why it worked, right?

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Were totally, but just even their offices were always next to each other. And there was the door that opened between them and hang in my mom's office for a little bit. All neat, tidy, buttoned up, you know, and then going to Betsy's office and it was like super crazy. And there were like a lot of crazy girls in there and everybody was smoking cigarettes and like eating candy and popcorn. And it was like a big party.

• 29:53Rich Roll?

  And your dad was a musician? What kind of musician?

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Played the guitar and did vocals and he played with Billy Idol when he came to the US. And then he wrote some music with.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Alan Vega and Suicide.

• 30:12Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  And played with them.

• 30:14Rich Roll?

  So, did you, did you grow up in like, lower Manhattan?

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I grew up in Chelsea.

• 30:18Rich Roll?

  That must have been wild.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  And Chelsea was not.

• 30:21Rich Roll?

  I'm kinda jealous.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  Not cool.

• 30:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but it was like, there was an energy.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  But it was really cool.

• 30:24Rich Roll?

  So, this is what, like, early 80s, late, you know, late 70s, early 80s? I mean, that was, it was a super interesting time in New York, you know?

• 30:32Speaker 01

  It was, and I'm so grateful to have grown up there. And I think back, and I think, I'm being in my mid 30s now, I can really start to appreciate the characters that I grew up with, and what they were doing, and that energy that was in the city, and, and watching people really go out and make it.

• 30:56Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, through art.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Through art.

• 31:00Rich Roll?

  Through art.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Really make it through art and really

• 31:05Speaker 01

  push the consciousness in a major way, 30 years later.

• 31:09Rich Roll?

  So, what kind of kid were you?

• 31:12Speaker 01

  I was quiet. I was, I was quiet and really enjoyed listening, really enjoyed all of these interesting, insane adults around me.

• 31:24Rich Roll?

  It was like, a lot of chaos around. I mean, it was like Billy Idol coming out. I mean, I was trying to get it like, a mental picture.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Well, my dad, my dad got sober.

• 31:33Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Um, my dad got sober at a certain point.

• 31:35Rich Roll?

  That's good. How old were you when that happened?

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 31:38Rich Roll?

  Did it get crazy first?

• 31:40Speaker 01

  Maybe, I don't know.

• 31:42Rich Roll?

  Can't remember. That's probably good.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, he, he got sober when I was young enough that, um, that was, that was, you know, home was sort of relaxed in that way. But my mom was in the fashion world, and I was, you know, like, five, getting pushed down runways with like, tutus on and insane makeup and like, a flower pot with a Barbie doll coming out of it strapped to my head.

• 32:11Rich Roll?

  That seems like, I got just the thing for you.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was just like, every, you know, every fashion, every season, it was just like, oh.

• 32:20Rich Roll?

  Did that make, did that turn you off to that world? Or was there an expectation that you would kind of move into that?

• 32:25Speaker 01

  I was really not into it. I, you know, it was kind of like fun and I grew up in it and I love the people in it. But at a certain point, it was like, man, I'm just wearing jeans and

• 32:38Rich Roll?

  You're rebelling, yeah.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  And

• 32:40Rich Roll?

  Like going to the Gap.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  I don't care about fashion or beauty. This, this is the last thing I would ever want to do.

• 32:47Rich Roll?

  Right, well, you're pretty fashionable now.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Well, thanks, Rich.

• 32:53Rich Roll?

  So some of it rubbed off, I guess, but all right. So, so where does the, you know, where does the interest in food? And I know like at 18, you went off to Italy, right?

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I was there and I was thinking that I would

• 33:08Speaker 01

  try to learn a fine art medium. I knew I really wanted to work with my hands and it seemed like that would be the right thing to do. Although I had always wanted to be a doctor.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  And that just didn't seem in the cards for me. Like we had horrible attendance at school. I don't even know if I'm like officially graduated from high school.

• 33:31Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah. Which, did you go to public high school in New York?

• 33:33Speaker 01

  No, I went to Friends Seminary. And then I went to the day school.

• 33:38Rich Roll?

  With like a bunch of nuns and stuff?

• 33:40Speaker 01

  No.

• 33:41Rich Roll?

  The seminary, though?

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Well, it was, it's the Friends School.

• 33:44Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  I think they're actually not, I don't know.

• 33:46Rich Roll?

  Oh, like Quaker, like Quaker Friends? Got you. Okay, all right.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  With a bunch of nuns.

• 33:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I was like, well, seminary, wow, that's a trip. Dad's playing with Billy Idol and you're going to seminary school. That's an interesting mix. All right, so you, so you head off to Italy, you go to like Florence or something?

• 34:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was in Florence and thought that I was gonna do that. And I, all I was interested in was food and going to the farmers markets. And, you know, this, I think at this point, America has such a different relationship with food for the most part, and everybody understands farm to table. And we can thank Alice Waters for that. And, you know, there is a whole movement that happened that educated us. And it's so normal for people to know these esoteric, you know, heirloom bean varietals that they are going to cook up, and that's a fun thing to do. But that wasn't happening so much in the US. So my eyes were really opened. Being in Italy and seeing

• 34:46Rich Roll?

  Did the food thing start before Italy? Or did something, it got triggered when you were there?

• 34:50Speaker 01

  It did. No, it, it, my favorite place on earth was a restaurant. And I love food and I love reading menus.

• 34:57Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Um, my dad cooked some as well, so he always cooked at home. Um, and studied, studied for a while. I think he was at the French Culinary Institute, right when they opened or something in New York. Um, but it was there, I was always there. And then, and then it got to the point where it's just like, I don't, I actually don't want to draw or paint. I wanna, I wanna go to the farmer's market and I wanna taste thirteen different types of basil.

• 35:27Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Um.

• 35:29Rich Roll?

  And so do you get involved in like the restaurant scene in Florence? Do you start working in, in, you know, in kitchens and stuff? Or what does it look like?

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Well, then I went on to actually teach kindergarten.

• 35:41Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  So. No, in New Zealand. And I found a place where, um, for some reason they didn't need credentials. And I was just stuck in this charter school, um, teaching kindergarten. And I was really into Rudolf Steiner. And, uh, way before I had my child, um, was really into Waldorf education. Um, and had not found that my educational experience had, did not feel so good to me. Um, and I knew I wasn't dumb, but the way that things were presented to me,

• 36:24Speaker 01

  it just didn't sink in and they were not very interesting. Um, and so I was really curious about other educational models and thought that that was something um, I would like to do. And working specifically with people who's

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Brains latch on to information in a very different way and also taking into consideration which the Waldorf model does, the spiritual development of a little soul, who you don't just pump a little soul into a classroom and shame them and make them feel insecure and

• 36:58Rich Roll?

  No, it's about empowerment and respect and and providing them with autonomy.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I was really interested in that and threw myself into this situation where they would take me and also where it was beautiful and I could explore some nature when I wasn't teaching. And I realized that I made probably just a terrible teacher, would one day make a really good parent, but I had these almost inappropriate attachments to some children. And then

• 37:34Rich Roll?

  You're picking favorites.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Very little interest in others. I was like, I'm gonna cut myself off right now.

• 37:40Rich Roll?

  So you did that for a little while.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  I did that for a little while. I wound up swinging back through New York and working in PR, which was also not my calling, but it was an interesting thing to see how the mechanics of that worked.

• 37:59Rich Roll?

  You probably learned a little bit about marketing that's applicable with how you advance your brand these days, right? Yes or no?

• 38:07Speaker 01

  No, I feel like I sort of was doing just not high level thinking and it was more going through what it's like to actually sit there and try to contact 150 editors and try to contact, you know, 100 different spas that might take the product. And so it was sales and PR and just seeing the reality of that, which does serve me today, you know, having that experience, knowing that. And then I wound up falling in love and traveling through Central America on buses for a while with someone and we wound up in Argentina

• 38:51Speaker 01

  and wound up living there for almost four years between BA and Jose Ignacio, just a little beach town in Uruguay. And that was a place where I really Was able to dive into the hospitality scene and had friends that had hotels and restaurants and bars and there was an explosion happening there at the time. It was just after the devaluation. So, everybody came home, many people came home from living abroad and

• 39:29Speaker 01

  there was incredible creativity happening in the city at the time. And so, it was so exciting to be there and again, get into

• 39:41Speaker 01

  styles of cooking and farming and flavors and simplicity and hospitality. And I had attempted opening a hotel in Jose Ignacio.

• 39:52Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  And so-

• 39:54Rich Roll?

  How long ago was that?

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Oh, that must have been

• 39:59Speaker 01

  like 14 years ago, 14, almost 15 years ago.

• 40:04Rich Roll?

  And so, what happened with that?

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Well, it was really nice because I got to see what it would be like to raise money. What does raising capital look like? Putting a business plan together.

• 40:19Rich Roll?

  Did you have partners with this or was this just your idea?

• 40:23Speaker 01

  It was with the person that I was living down there with.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  And so, we were both so passionate about it and but I really took on it was, it was a great learning thing and what are the costs associated with having an architect draw plans and getting into permitting and though it was a different country, it already enlightens you to everything that you have to go through to really get something up and running. And in that process, I realized that I was probably not in the right partnership.

• 41:02Rich Roll?

  Romantically and professionally?

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:05Rich Roll?

  Both?

• 41:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:06Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  And that I really wanted to dive deep into, hey, if I'm looking at opening this project and it is a hotel and a restaurant and a bar and I am so passionate about food, I actually want to be able to do all of those things myself so that I'm never in a position of, and that's really what I'm interested in and I'm not in a position of not knowing how to fix things when, you know, the chef runs off in a huff.

• 41:38Rich Roll?

  Right, back to the control thing.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Right, back to the control thing. I was in the height of control then. Everything was so controllable, you know, and it's just you. So I went and I studied at the New England Culinary Institute. This must have been, I don't know, 13, 13, 14 years ago somewhere.

• 41:59Rich Roll?

  Was that like up in Vermont or something?

• 42:00Speaker 01

  It's up in Vermont. It was in the Green Mountains and I chose that school specifically because they were dealing with food politics. They were dealing with sustainability and seasonality when, like, seasonality wasn't even a thing in mass consciousness. And, you know, like, well, why wouldn't I be able to get a tomato?

• 42:20Rich Roll?

  Right. It's still, it's still not to the extent that it should, I would argue.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, and we're still pushing, but at this point, it really was not out there. So I was really interested in going about things in that way and intuitively had been dealing with that in Italy and in South America. And that's naturally how most of the world is thinking, in small towns and in small restaurants and going to farmers markets. So diving more into that and through that I discovered Suzanne Goin, who had just won a James Beard Award. And I had thought that I wanted to go work with Alice and would most likely move to San Francisco.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  And I found Suzanne and Suzanne was still in the kitchen seven days a week and really in it and she studied with Alice and they really came from the same camp and I wrote Suzanne an email and you know in Vermont, can I come stage? She wrote me right back. I got on an airplane. Oh, I didn't have a license. I moved to LA and I didn't have a license or a car. Right, and I was always living in cities. And so I moved, I wound up, I staged and God, I think I probably made such a fool of myself, but she saw, but then like cleaned up really well.

• 43:52Rich Roll?

  So that was your first like legit kitchen experience?

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I had been working in Vermont and so I was working at a restaurant there and working at a bakery there and spending time in some of the dairies, so.

• 44:06Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. And so Suzanne really becomes like your mentor?

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:10Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:11Rich Roll?

  So explain a little bit about like who she is and what she's meant to you.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  She, I mean, she's certainly the woman in Los Angeles that has pushed that. I guess what we can attribute is that Chez Panis, Alice Waters, California cuisine, that ethos probably brought that to Los Angeles in a way that I don't think anyone else has and

• 44:40Speaker 01

  is, is an incredible woman, is an incredible intuitive chef and at the same time, an incredible business person. So to really be hands on with her and to be learning technical skill, you know, where she is a perfectionist and everything has got to be just so. And so I also speak that language. And it was an incredible experience to be able to have a mentor where all I wanted to ever do was get inside of her brain and figure out what she wanted.

• 45:22Speaker 01

  You know, five, 10 minutes before she could ask for it, or you know, hopefully she'd never have to ask for anything, but how each tomato should be seasoned, how it should taste, the way basil should be sliced. And there was nothing that made me happier than really being in her kitchen and finally, you know, getting to the point where you know you're not fucking up because she's just not.

• 45:52Rich Roll?

  Right, you're totally in sync, you can anticipate her needs, like you're, you're just, you're on the same wavelength, so it all runs like a seamless machine.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 46:01Rich Roll?

  But was the intention at the time, like, that you would ascend to, you know, having your own restaurant at some point?

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was in there, that was in there. And I also was so, um, I was so happy just working in kitchens. And there are days when I would like to just go back to being a line cook. Those were probably some of the, Ben, I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back to that place.

• 46:31Rich Roll?

  You can turn the brain off and just do?

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's full flow state, you know, it's like a musician or an athlete where everything is happening so fast and your physical body is, you know, it's, it's musical and athletic.

• 46:48Rich Roll?

  When it's going well.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  When it's going well. And when it's not going well, you know, it feels like the end of the world. And, but there's some, there's some part of me that really likes that, you know, that pressure, that highly pressurized situation where if you don't just stay on point, again, I think it's musical or athletic, you have just, it does not matter the chaos that's going on around you, or how terribly you've screwed up, you are just going to keep a straight face and get right back on track.

• 47:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, keep your shit together. It's exciting.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Very exciting.

• 47:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So how long did you do that for?

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Um, I was with Suzanne for a couple of years and then I went and worked with some other chefs in the city who were incredible, um, and helped open a restaurant. And so, and you know, tons of catering was happening along the way. And then I really dropped into, um,

• 47:44Speaker 01

  I know that, oh, and then, you know, I went off and was a food and wine editor

• 47:53Speaker 01

  at the Los Angeles Times Magazine when they launched that. That must have been eight, eight years ago.

• 48:00Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Eight, nine years ago when that came out.

• 48:02Rich Roll?

  You've done a lot of stuff.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then I was, um, did a bunch of, um, journalism, freelance journalism and food styling. So there, there were some years there where it was, I was cooking and if a chef was going on vacation and needed a stand-in to like run the kitchen, I would do that and I would do catering gigs.

• 48:24Rich Roll?

  Food person at large, catering chef. I could write about it. I can do, like, I can make it look good.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  I mean, I was like doing-

• 48:31Rich Roll?

  But it's kind of all over the place, right?

• 48:32Speaker 01

  It was all over the place.

• 48:33Rich Roll?

  So how do you take this, all of this and like congeal it into a vision that then becomes Moon Juice?

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I think that is still my role at Moon Juice where it's like, um, up at six in the morning going through legal documents, but then I was up, you know, super late at night looking at like, at how millennials speak on the internet these days. And then that flows right into meeting with my creative team and, um, a launch that we're doing and diving into coffee and then tasting, you know, we're going to replace the Hoshowu with, uh, Makuna in the chocolate milk. And so, you know, like finalizing three samples of that

• 49:21Speaker 01

  and, um, diving into some R and D and then dipping into some IP stuff and it's-

• 49:27Rich Roll?

  Right. So basically you're saying it's the same thing. It's almost like you're freelancing in your own-

• 49:31Speaker 01

  I am. And here I am. And then it's like, I gotta go, I gotta get to Malibu to do a podcast.

• 49:38Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, when, did you have like some epiphany? Like this is, I don't want to do a restaurant. I have this idea.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  I did, I did have that.

• 49:44Rich Roll?

  Or, you know, how does it come together?

• 49:45Speaker 01

  Totally had that moment. Um, you know, part of my story was that growing up I had

• 49:52Speaker 01

  very early on, health issues that allopathic medicine couldn't quite figure out. And I just got put on so many antibiotics and it was respiratory issues. And so that really, you know, from that-

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Young age of four or five, I mean, you know, first memory stuff, um, not being able to breathe, coughing so much at night, that was the, some of the first stuff I can remember being on earth.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  And that's where, you know, the breathing thing is so real because that affects how you're going to run around, how you sleep at night, real quality of life stuff. Um, and going to doctors and not being able to figure it out and actually having, um, an Ayurvedic doctor who was visiting stopped me in a health food store after hearing my hack, just clocking the hack all around the store and came and did what I now know very well to be the typical Ayurvedic diagnosis, but pulse diagnosis, looking at the tongue, asking me some questions, made some very simple recommendations, no sugar, no wheat, no dairy,

• 50:58Speaker 01

  was at the heart of it. And within 72 hours, my quality of life had gone from, you know, X to this incredible thing of I could fall asleep easily and I could run around and I wasn't coughing and I was breathing. And so at that young age of four or five, also having parents that fully explained to me and I fully understood from the doctor and then it was really handed to me as now it's your responsibility to make sure that you stick to this.

• 51:30Rich Roll?

  Right, investing you with, with, uh, with, with that responsibility, I think is huge. I mean, that had to be like a big light bulb moment and, you know, perhaps you're too, you were too young at the time, but, but that thought of like-

• 51:42Speaker 01

  It was like the, you're doing the little science experiments of going to a birthday party.

• 51:47Rich Roll?

  Tell me this.

• 51:50Rich Roll?

  Like my regular doctor.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Well, I, I probably wasn't at that point. I got to that point when I, you know, as a teen and, and now I can look at it and say, okay, I had food allergies. Um, I had some environmental allergies. I had been put on so many antibiotics as a young child that my, you know, there was no gut health.

• 52:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Happening whatsoever. My immune system was really low. I had, I think because of all of those things, I was particularly susceptible to stress and was taking in all, you know, also living in New York City, there's a lot of environmental stress there. Um, I think I had some emotional stress happening, which turned into this perfect storm and then constantly sick and getting sicker. And so, um, you know, it was the early nineties when I think it was quite fashionable to give children, get children on drugs. And so maybe it started with you've got learning disabilities, let's put you on speed.

• 52:53Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. They put you on the Ritalin?

• 52:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  And so.

• 52:57Rich Roll?

  What was that like?

• 52:58Speaker 01

  Well, and then I felt really depressed. Then I felt really weird and depressed. So then it's like, well, you, you must be bipolar or just be really depressed and, and here's this. And then you're in this loop of, oh, I was on so many cocktails, I think. And then you just feel awful. And so not only do is I have a compromised immune system and the gut's probably not functioning. Probably just have some like really normal emotional things that I could have talked through, but I've gone down this path. So that was actually part of the inspiration to, um, leave the United States at a young age and not really

• 53:40Speaker 01

  interested in going to college. I was really interested in, I want to get off all of these medications. I don't trust the system. There's something fundamentally wrong with it for me. And I'm, I'm a huge advocate for science and medicine and, um, have used it in my life and it's been a wondrous thing. And, um, I haven't had to use it in my child's life yet, but would not hesitate to do so. And it's a miracle, you know, and the modern medicine is a miracle, but not in the way that I had been exposed to it. And I had gotten very sick from being on all of these, um, pills. And it was also really confusing to hear that, um,

• 54:25Speaker 01

  I was feeling a certain way because the brain works in a certain way and it's just black and white and we're scientists and we're doctors and we know and I'm going, no wait.

• 54:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you need to do this.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  This doesn't feel right.

• 54:36Rich Roll?

  You put your hand down, we'll tell you what to do, it'll be fine. So when you go to Italy, do you just, did you just go cold turkey or did you titrate off all that stuff or how did that go?

• 54:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a little sloppy coming off of it. I was actually, um, my boyfriend was asking me last week, like, so, so tell me about the time when you like got.

• 54:54Rich Roll?

  Like a hot mess for like three months?

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Well, it was like more than three months.

• 54:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, wow.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  It's, it was rough and I did, and it was, it was birth control, it was prescription medication, it was, you know, all over the place. It was, it was really rough. It was rough and it was messy and I think that was also when I, um, decided that if I could make it through that time, I'm feeling so awful, that there was just like this flame alive in me that had faith that there was some existence outside of that physically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, that I was going to be able to break through that and find something else.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  And, um, that was really when the journey in finding that consciousness started and, you know, when I grew up, um, as a teenager, I really loved psychedelics. It was my thing.

• 55:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  I really didn't care about drinking, um, didn't really care about social.

• 55:56Rich Roll?

  Tabs of acid and going to school, kind of thing?

• 55:59Speaker 01

  No, I wouldn't go to school, I'd go to the woods, but like I took acid when I was shockingly young, I was like 11 or 12 or something and I've got a six year old now and I'm just like, no!

• 56:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah, oh my god.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  I loved mushrooms and I really loved just being quiet and sort of wandering off on my own and thinking about time and space and, um, I think I had a lot of guilt and shame around that, you know, as a teen, because it was, I would get caught and then it would be like, oh, you're just terrible, you're never gonna make it.

• 56:35Rich Roll?

  But you're seeking something, right?

• 56:37Speaker 01

  But I was seeking something.

• 56:38Rich Roll?

  And it sounds like on some level, it contributed to.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  Wait, it stoked the flame that was alive in me of like, hey, there's something beyond this. So let's try to break into that place without psychedelics, without prescription medication, without alcohol. And so at a very young age, I went cold turkey on everything and really just tried to find that place within myself. And walking was a big part of that. Nature was a big part of that. I think being alone and being in foreign lands was really helpful. And then starting to look at meditation and breathwork and asana and herbal medicine.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  And so that's when that journey started for me as well.

• 57:28Rich Roll?

  Right. And this idea that that food can have these healing properties, right?

• 57:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:32Rich Roll?

  This little sort of sliver or nugget of experience from your youth, where you had this experience with this Ayurvedic practitioner who seemed to do wonders for you, right? I mean, we talk about Ayurveda on the podcast all the time. And I think it gets into the seasonality that you talked about before. But this powerful idea that, you know, the, the body knows what to do when it's in proper balance. And the trick is figuring out how to get those imbalanced systems into balance so that the body, you know, can like take over and, you know, do what it's been made to do, right? And food is a big part of that. And adaptogens and herbs and all these things that you've infused all your products with,

• 58:16Rich Roll?

  you know, play a huge role in that kind of systemic approach to maintaining and improving your wellness. But it's, did you, did you end up like studying Ayurveda? Or like learning more about?

• 58:27Speaker 01

  I did, you know.

• 58:28Rich Roll?

  Cause that starts to, you're having this, you're having this gourmet experience, you know, kind of this farm to table, organic thing. But then the whole Chinese medicine.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  And all of that was happening simultaneously.

• 58:39Rich Roll?

  Okay, it's coming together.

• 58:40Speaker 01

  So it was professionally, um, working in that environment and performing on that level. And then, you know, again, with the staying up all night. But I, I would, I'd get off work late from a kitchen and.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  Dive into books on consciousness and dive into traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda. And, um, and, and those two really go hand in hand.

• 59:09Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  The chemical and the energetics and, um,

• 59:17Speaker 01

  starting to put all that together and then working with, um, kind doctors and healers along the way where, you know, I could afford to go in once in a while to get a tune up or like ask some question because it became clear to me that I had an autoimmune condition and was dealing with that and had, um, lots of thyroid stuff going on, which probably had been going on since a late teen. But, you know, it becomes, you can no longer ignore it when you're not menstruating and you're in your early twenties. Um, and again, I having, having some

• 59:57Speaker 01

  fear around allopathic doctors and so not wanting to go back into that place and

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  put myself in a vulnerable position of saying, I don't know what's happening with my body. Please tell me. And so I spent so much time, um, trying to figure out what was going on with my body and learning from all the kooks and geniuses and freaks out there where I was trying, you know, three different modalities of healing a week. And that's what I spent all my money on. And, um, I would try any cleanse that was out there. You name it, I've done it.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  And that's what I, you know, that I, that's how I spend.

• 1:00:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, that was your, that was your graduate degree, right? And it allowed you to do what you do today. I mean, what, where, where was the point where you thought like, I can do my own formulas. Like I've learned enough now. I've seen what works. And I feel like I have a base of knowledge that is profound enough to the point where I can now step into this in a professional way.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  I think I'll probably never feel like that, um, cause I, you know, every day that goes by, there's so much more that I want to learn.

• 1:01:10Rich Roll?

  Some of these Chinese medicine doctors and Ayurvedic doctor, I mean, the, the vast knowledge.

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  Well, the more you get into it, the more.

• 1:01:16Rich Roll?

  Taken by somebody who really knows what they're doing, it's astonishing.

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  It is. And the deeper that I get into these practices and particularly Ayurveda, um, the more I realize I don't know anything. Um, and doing, going to India and doing Panchakarma and really having that experience, um, and seeking out some of the great Vaidyas in India and spending time with them is, it's insane. And just when you think that, you know, you might potentially be able to go to medical school and get into the science of it and just grasp that in this lifetime. You go and you spend time with these Vaidyas and then you realize that it's, they're playing with phenomena.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  And that most of Ayurvedic medicine, these great doctors, that they are calling in, um,

• 1:02:12Rich Roll?

  Consciousness from beyond.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Knowledge from other realms. And that's where it's all happening, man. And I'm just like, shit, cause I just did the math and like, maybe I was gonna be able to get enough of that scientific knowledge to be useful to someone. And now I'm realizing that I should have started when I was five.

• 1:02:32Rich Roll?

  Right. But I think it's fair to say that you stand at this juncture, you know, between these two worlds. And, and what you've done beautifully and successfully is really translate a lot of these ideas in a way that is not just palatable for, you know, the average human being, but like, looks cool and is inviting and is wel- and is welcoming and is, you know, kind of like, has this positive energy around it. Like, look, you can, you know, let's take control of your life. Let me help you. Let me show you. This is like a beautiful way to live as opposed to, you know, these ideas that are shrouded in mystery, you know, on another side of planet earth.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  And I think that, you know, if I think about what my job is and what I've done and what I'm good at, um,

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  I think it's really, um,

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  Being a little manager, cheerleader, salesperson, marketer for these plants that really came in and have saved my life, you know, really,

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  really just being rock bottom. And, and I've got almost 15 years of blood and hormone panels to really track this stuff. And so the normal person is going to take these things and feel a little less stressed out, have increased libido, shiny hair, some good vital signs, and be really happy with that. But I think when you are in some chronic situation where it just, you just don't fit in your own body anymore, things are not right. And you can't separate the mind and the spirit from that.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  So it's all three things, really being in that place and having these plants come in and revolutionize everything. And I didn't intellectually have to know that much about it. It was really just like, okay, I heard that if I did these things, it may help. And having this miraculous experience and then wanting to go back and intellectually understand like, all right, now what is the neuroendocrine system? And how did all of that happen? And so I've personally been obsessed with that. And I'm so passionate about advocating for these plants as in addition to somebody

• 1:05:11Speaker 01

  who is having an allopathic treatment, as preventative medicine, as daily maintenance, as a beauty ritual, as, you know, and athletes perform. I mean, there are so many ways to go about it. For me, it was just really like rock bottom. And now I'm standing here and I'm happy and I have a kid and I have a business. And like, maybe it wasn't going to be that way. Maybe I was just going to be a freak that never fit into my body and my mind. And I don't know.

• 1:05:57Rich Roll?

  Do you think that you always held the vision? Like when you look back now, are you like, man, how did this even happen? Or were you like, no, I always kind of knew.

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  No, I knew.

• 1:06:05Rich Roll?

  I would arrive at a place like this. And where do you think that comes from? Do you think that began with the, you know, the mushroom trips?

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  I didn't know back then. I definitely didn't know back then. I was sort of like, you know, watching the clock melt off the wall, wondering what the hell we were all doing here. But, um, no, when Moon Juice came in and I thought, well, let me take all of my training and attention to detail and ability to get up every day and work for 16 hours. Why don't I take that and put it behind something that I really believe in? And, um, what, what the world actually wants and, and needs? And, um, I don't know if I need to open another tasty restaurant featuring vegetables in Los Angeles.

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  So I sat, I sat with myself and I thought I was gonna, you know, like really sit with myself for a while. And I had been, um, just worked to the bone and had just come off of opening a restaurant and was just haggard. And so I thought I'd like to, you know, sit with that for a while. But I sat and within 12 hours or something, you know, I had the download. I was on fire and had to go out and make this thing happen. So I never really caught a break. Um, and then I started writing the business plan and, you know, it was all stuff that I'd been doing in my kitchen already. Um, and it was to bring a level of hospitality and service and aesthetic to something that,

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  you know, it was like making these smoothies that were saving my life. And, um, I mean, truly, you know, bringing my thyroid back online and, um, giving me enough energy to go out in the world and perform and see the world through open eyes. Um, and, and then making them taste really good. So making them taste like melted mint chip ice cream.

• 1:08:08Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  But putting insane amounts of herbs in them and, um,

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  I don't know, I was just doing that like in my underpants at home alone.

• 1:08:21Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  Every day. Yeah, and I was like, well, I, you know, there should be a place in the world where someone could. Yeah, because I want to go out and see the people again. I wasn't drinking coffee, wasn't drinking alcohol, wasn't eating animals. And it was like, well.

• 1:08:36Rich Roll?

  Mushrooms.

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, it'd been like a long time since I had done the mushrooms in the woods and um, there just, there wasn't an establishment where I could go and actually meet someone and have a social experience or feel um excited. So I was going to like weird places that nobody wanted to meet me to.

• 1:08:59Rich Roll?

  Like the weird macrobiotic restaurant kind of place, you mean?

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, but yeah, I'd even get some people to go there.

• 1:09:05Rich Roll?

  Let's go to the place where we get the herbs, like the smelly, you know, weird place.

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I had to get most of those in the mail. I was really like, don't you want to join me for, you know, my $23 smoothie that I'm making myself every morning at home?

• 1:09:20Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, here's the thing. So you you open up this place. Venice was the first one, right? Yeah, like right across from Cafe Gratitude.

• 1:09:28Speaker 01

  And it wasn't there. Rose Avenue was pretty.

• 1:09:30Rich Roll?

  Oh, that's new. Where was their original location?

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  No, no, um.

• 1:09:33Rich Roll?

  Oh, Cafe Gratitude wasn't there. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  It wasn't there. It was pretty, pretty desolate.

• 1:09:37Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, I know. It was, it's, it's had a renaissance, but you were there before all of that kind of transpired, which is great for you because now it's so bustling there. But um, I'm interested in, in kind of the, the, the plan going in because I feel like it's almost like you created this Trojan horse situation because it's like, oh, super tasty smoothies that are amazing, that are totally different than the smoothies smoothies I get anywhere else. And it's not emblazoned with this like adaptogenic sort of marketing speak around what's in them. Like you bring them in with the super tasty smoothie, expensive, but awesome.

• 1:10:18Rich Roll?

  But that other stuff kind of comes later, like you're hooking them, you know, on the taste and then you're like, oh, actually, that's just kind of window dressing to what you're actually doing, right? Was that, was there an awareness around that or is that a happenstance kind of?

• 1:10:32Speaker 01

  And I. I still have it going, you know, it's what I am really passionate about and what I really nerd out about and then also taking into consideration the hospitality aspect where it's like that may not actually be interesting to you and so how can I serve you and how can I make you comfortable? And how can I make this just fun and tasty and make you feel good? And if you have more questions after that and you want to know, then I'd be happy to share. And so, and if

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  there are no questions and people don't like it, then let me figure something else out that people will like. But, you know, it, this has all been a natural progression of, hey, I thought you were insane for charging me nine dollars for this bottle of stuff that you said was a smoothie, but it wasn't frozen and it wasn't thick enough. And I don't even know what these ingredients are. All I know is I feel amazing. And now I'm going to come back and, you know, buy 10 of them. So I watched that happen enough and had put herbs together that I was using in

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  my life again, that I, there was so much I could do with food. And that was so life changing. But having an autoimmune condition and having thyroid stuff really required me to dive into adaptogens and supplementing with that and getting really serious.

• 1:12:13Rich Roll?

  Explain adaptogens for people that are not familiar.

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're super herbs and mushrooms that, you know, really simply, to put it simply, is they go in and they help your body to find homeostasis. So the way that that plant acts in each body is going to be different and it really works with you. And that adaptive energy comes from where these plants actually grow on the earth. So these plants come from some of the toughest places on earth, top of the Himalayas, where they have to adapt to survive. And some of these plants have made it through the Ice Age.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  Or they are the most adaptive little creatures on earth and um that potential is in the plant. And when it's extracted in the right way and it's pure and it's got the right potency. Those are super important things to um check for when you're using them. They will go into your body and help you in the same way and um really changed my life. You know, and I could and then have mystified doctors, doctors that still I have um somebody that I work with. And he takes my blood and we do full blood and hormone. Actually, I have to get my blood taken tomorrow at seven AM.

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  There's a lady that comes to the house, lay on the couch.

• 1:13:39Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  She just, it's like barbaric. Just drains me.

• 1:13:44Rich Roll?

  How often are you getting your blood taken?

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  Um, when things are going well, once a quarter. If things are not feeling like they're going well, um, you know, I'll do every six weeks and tweak, tweak what I'm taking and until I get it, get it just right again.

• 1:14:06Rich Roll?

  Well, the extraction process and the purity factor with these plants, you know, is super important. And I, and I, and I know you put, you know, a lot of intention and, and research into making sure that you do that right. You know, I think it's confusing for the average consumer, even for the well-intentioned educated consumer. I mean, you can go to Arowan, like our fancy market down the street here, and there's 20 different varieties of meringue. You know, it's like you don't know, there's no way of like, how is this stuff extracted? Where did it come like?

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:35Rich Roll?

  I had Darren Olean on, he's like, yeah, 95% of that stuff is garbage. It's not, it doesn't, it doesn't even have the active properties that you're looking for because of the land in which it was grown, the conditions under which it was harvested, the way it was, you know, packaged and dried or what have you, that you're not even getting what you think that you're getting. And, and I know, you know, with you being so insane about quality and all of that, like how you're sourcing these things, where you're getting them from and how they're prepared and, and all of that becomes super important. And that, that drives the price point, right? Like, which I want to talk to you about in a minute.

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  Well, it should.

• 1:15:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:15:11Speaker 01

  It should, but it doesn't always, because then I go out there and I'm like, wait, this is insane. These people are selling this reishi for.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  More than our reishi and you know, you can just take it out and look at it and smell it and touch it and just by the color of it, see that they're, you know, they're

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  putting the fruiting body in and so, yeah, I mean, that's what I've actually done for the last two years is I have spent an insane amount of money and time and energy and have built out a team, have an in-house herbalist. Um, we have gone on this journey of finding the best herbs to put in our formulas on earth. I actually gave Julie, you've got sex brain and power of the new formulas. You guys can get into that. But yeah, it's been a two-year journey. Um, and we are sourcing all of the herbs directly from their source.

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  So working directly with farms and we've got farms in India and China. Um, we work with organic farms in India, um, and have relationships with them there. And so those herbs are sent to us and we double test them for purity and potency. Um, and then the herbs that are coming from China are also people we have relationships with and um, work with doctors as well out there that are helping to source and test those for those herbs come into the US whole and we test them for purity and potency and then we send them to Oregon where we have somebody who is doing a proprietary extraction method

• 1:17:01Speaker 01

  using wind power and local spring water. So at that point, we then have all of our raw ingredients and then we take them and we blend them to make the formulas and pack them. So.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  I mean, that's been my obsession.

• 1:17:17Rich Roll?

  It's a whole thing.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  That's all I've done.

• 1:17:19Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:17:19Speaker 01

  That's actually not all I've done. That is wrong. That has been my obsession and has really taken over

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  the company's time. I mean, that's what we're doing. I think a lot of companies are out there and building like tech media platforms to sell their products and investing in marketing. And we've really gone into this bunker. And, you know, I think in 2018 is when I'll really be able to rounding out the series B, start spending money on marketing and going about business in that way. But this first round was really used for, I just want to find the best stuff on earth and make sure that it's safe and that we can scale.

• 1:18:08Rich Roll?

  And you have an investor base that's supportive of that because typically you hear like, well, listen, you got to bring the prices down. Like, we got to, you know, maybe dilute this stuff a little bit.

• 1:18:17Speaker 01

  No, I have an incredible investor in the series A who had an experience with Moon Juice and really understood the quality, understood the brand. And he has been so supportive in, in going for that.

• 1:18:34Rich Roll?

  That's great.

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:35Rich Roll?

  And in the growth of the company, was there one moment where, I mean, it's blown up, but like, was it, has it just been an organic like climb? Or were there, were there things that happened where suddenly things like got crazy because of, I mean, now you've had movie stars come in and get photographed, you know, eating or drinking your stuff. I mean, how did that go in terms of getting the word out there and kind of growing your brand and creating awareness?

• 1:19:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like I don't have great perspective on, on any of this at this point because it's almost been, you know, it was day one and I had a little tiny baby strapped to me and I was like making the juice and making the smoothies and ringing you up and explaining what the hell cold pressed juice is. And, you know, like, let's not even get started on Mocha yet.

• 1:19:25Speaker 01

  And there has been an organic interest there and I can just remember like an editor from Elle and Alora like calling, calling the juice shop, you know, right? Pick up and the blenders are going and it's so loud. Hey, Moon Juice. Hi, this is blah, blah, blah from Elle magazine. We would really like to um, interview the, the owner.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, sure. I'll leave, I'll leave a message for her.

• 1:20:01Speaker 01

  You know, cause there's like a line out the door and I'm just trying to bust the line with, with the smoothies. So, um, there has always been some element of that and certainly I think there have been moments of um, Gwyneth Paltrow loving our products genuinely and using them.

• 1:20:23Rich Roll?

  And so she through group, through group, like she sort of helps, you know, uh, spread the word about what you're doing.

• 1:20:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, and she shared her genuine experience. If she asked me to make her something um, and get her on a program and she used it and she loved it and it really worked. And so then she was so generous and put it out there and shared her experience. Um, so that was, I think in the, that threw us, I mean, she's under such scrutiny with her regime that I think us falling into that. Um, was one way that it blew up out there. And then, you know, there was like some, uh,

• 1:21:07Speaker 01

  there was some diary I did of what I ate in a day that had been pub, I think it was in Elle.

• 1:21:15Rich Roll?

  This is an Elle. All right. Hold on. Let's talk about this. Okay. I mean, first of all, let me preface this by saying you, you get insane press. Like you had this beautiful profile of you and your business in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. That was, it was cheeky. We talked about this a little bit before, you know, like they took a couple of shots at you, but overall, um, I thought you came out looking quite well and the photographs were beautiful. I mean, that's insane to get like a profile of you in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Like that, that like, That's unbelievable. And then like The New Yorker, like you've gotten some killer press, but this Elle magazine thing became like a thing, right? So, correct me if I'm wrong, but essentially, somebody followed you around for a day, and it's like, this

• 1:21:58Rich Roll?

  is a day in the life of Amanda Chantal Bacon, what you eat, your kind of routines throughout the day. And this person decided that they were going to convey this information in a kind of sarcastic, mocking Jezebel kind of tone, right?

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  Well, that got picked up a year later.

• 1:22:20Rich Roll?

  Oh, that was after.

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  So, the Elle diary went out, and it was like, hey, you know, it's just really low key, Elle.com. I took some pictures of like, hey, now I'm having my tea. What kind of tea is this? Oh, it's silver needle. Okay, now I'm having silver needle tea.

• 1:22:37Rich Roll?

  It was like, really detailed, like, stuff that most people don't know what it is, right?

• 1:22:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's also real.

• 1:22:42Rich Roll?

  But that's you.

• 1:22:43Speaker 01

  I was just being real.

• 1:22:44Rich Roll?

  This is, this is Amanda. This is like, authentic and real. But for the average, you know, person, they're like, I've never heard of any of these things that she's doing. She sounds like a Martian.

• 1:22:54Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:22:55Rich Roll?

  Okay. But that piece was not intended to be flippant.

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  And nobody, that just was normal. There was no press. And then I think it was in Australia. All I know is there was one day, I was going to pick my kid up from kindergarten, preschool at the time, and there were like moms whispering in, in the parking lot, kind of looking at me funny. But I was like, well, I don't know, you know, that's what you get as a working mom is, I don't, you know, I don't quite fit in at school. And I thought it was that. And then I started getting text messages from people. Hey, I really think you should look at this. You know what they were talking about? I grabbed my son and

• 1:23:38Speaker 01

  someone also mentioned something to me at a school pickup. But it was like, I guess people are really out there on the internet and see things, because it was just, and then I looked at it when I got home, and I saw that there was a, somebody had done a spoof video. I think it was the spoof video. And I remember watching part of it. And I was watching it with, my son must have been four or something at the time, and he was watching it with me. And he said, he calls me Wa, Wawa. And he said, Wa, can we just turn this off? It was like, I didn't quite know that it was horribly negative. I thought, oh, that's kind

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  of funny. The guy's kind of funny. And my son wanted me to turn it off.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  I haven't actually watched it in its entirety. But then I, that night, you know, people were sending me links to things. And I looked and I was like, oh, this, this is insane. I didn't even know the internet worked this way.

• 1:24:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it became.

• 1:24:40Speaker 01

  There were like hashtags of Free Rohan, which is my son's name.

• 1:24:44Rich Roll?

  Right, that's your son's name. Yeah, it became a thing. Like, I'm glad you weren't on it. I saw some of it. I didn't see all of it. And my heart went out to you. I felt terrible for you because you, you became a meme for like 48 hours or 72 hours. Like, you were a meme. And there were all these, like, people were writing parody versions of that article on Medium. And I think there was an article on Jezebel. And a lot of people were like, just like, sort of, like openly mocking that L article in a way that was kind of cruel and, and sort of funny. Like, some of it's funny.

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  But sometimes like social commentary, you know?

• 1:25:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but it was also, there was, there was a mean spirited to it, to some of it, like, not all of it. And it's just, it's that thing that happens on the internet, that schadenfreude thing, where like, something happens and everyone jumps on, you know? And it becomes, it takes on its own energy. And these people who have no connection to you, or couldn't care less, just pile on. You know, it's like that, there's a book, you know this guy, Jon Ronson? He wrote a book called, So You, So You've Been Publicly Shamed. And he kind of looks at this sort of sociological, cultural situation that we're in right now, where somebody can be living their life, and then they make a left turn, they do one thing wrong, and then the internet like destroys their life. Like, what happens to these people? You know, it's like, this is, never before in the history

• 1:26:02Rich Roll?

  of humanity has, have we found ourselves in this kind of highly charged, you know, kind of environment, right? And I felt like you got caught in the crosshairs of that for a minute. And so, I'm glad, I was wondering, like, one of the questions I want to ask you is like, how did that, like, how did you weather that? Like, or, that must have been painful. I know that if that had been me, I would have, it would have, it would have, I mean, maybe I'm on the internet a lot more than you, but it was.

• 1:26:26Speaker 01

  No, I definitely, you know, when my son went to sleep, I was like, well, okay, I'm not going to really watch the, um. Video because I feel like it, he felt so weird about it that it was like, well, I'm just actually not gonna do that. But what, what is going on? Because then I had, you know, my phone had blown up with, are you okay? It's like, well, I don't know. Am I okay? What should I be looking at? So I kind of dived in for a moment and just saw, I mean, it just was brutal. It was um, like really going after my son, um, going after why was

• 1:27:04Speaker 01

  I a single mother? Must have been because I wouldn't let his father eat steak and he couldn't get his dick hard anymore and left. I mean, I was like, really, like, really went out there. I was like, oh, wow, Jesus. Um, but I did, you know, I did take something from that, which is there, there is a resistance, sort of a general resistance out there. There's some confusion. Um, there's concern around the price of this stuff and it being inaccessible.

• 1:27:44Rich Roll?

  I think it went to the core. It really pushed this button that's at the core of

• 1:27:51Rich Roll?

  an issue in wellness right now, which is the kind of elitist edge of wellness, right? That if you want to be like, if you want to really maximize your wellness and live your life like, like Gwyneth Paltrow, that you're going to have to spend all this money that you don't have. And only the 1% you know, can afford to have these products and you know, engage in this lifestyle in this way. And for a moment, you became the target of that angst and that ire. Um, but I think it, it, but I think what we can do is have a conversation about what the state of wellness is and the accessibility of, you know, not

• 1:28:34Rich Roll?

  just your products, but the accessibility of, of maximizing and optimizing your health, irrespective or detached from. Your social, you know, economic status. So how do you think about that? Like, where do you see wellness going? And I mean, I think it's a problem and I think it's a barrier that, you know, a lot of this food is like peasant food, like you can eat really well, pretty cheaply. But when you start talking about cordyceps and reishi and moon dust and all these sorts of things, you know, spirulina and moringa, like it does, it does add up. So how do you conceptualize that in terms of the message that you're trying to promote and put out there

• 1:29:15Rich Roll?

  to people who are just trying to like, you know, live, you know, like just the average person who's just trying to do a little bit better?

• 1:29:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, so I mean, I think that the experience was, was I crushed and hurt oddly not?

• 1:29:30Speaker 01

  And like reading the personal, you know, like the really ugly stuff that was out there. For some really weird reason, I was not crushed or

• 1:29:43Speaker 01

  hurt by it, which is, which is strange because I'm actually a really sensitive person.

• 1:29:47Rich Roll?

  Well, you must have good self-esteem. I mean, I've seen this, you know, our, you know, our mutual friend Doug Evans got caught in the crosshairs of this kind of thing too. You know, like a lot of people took hits at Juicero. And, you know, there were a lot of like articles out there that, that I think treated Doug unfairly. And it was painful to see that. And I don't think it was right. And I think people are projecting that same kind of like ire about, you know, the elitism of wellness onto, onto Juicero for very similar reasons. So they're almost like analogous events.

• 1:30:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you know, it also, I mean, it was also valuable because

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  I do want to keep having a conversation with people. And I specifically want to be having a conversation with all of those people that were so upset by.

• 1:30:40Speaker 01

  Um, a, a day of whatever the hell it was that I ate. Um, and so triggered by my existence and my company, which, you know, in my mind is like, wow, I'm burning the candle at both ends to bring something to really help people. Um, and sort of being sheltered and in my shop and just having people come in and say that they felt so much better and that they had gotten their mom on adaptogens and how she was doing so much better and just kind of getting all of that, um, positive feedback. And so to get an avalanche of such negative feedback and to really tune in to

• 1:31:22Speaker 01

  how some people are feeling and feeling, um, ostracized and feeling like it's bullshit. And that was also, you know, there, there was some value in that. And I think that it has certainly, um,

• 1:31:37Speaker 01

  gotten me to be really mindful about the way in which I want to move. And I think that it woke me up and, um, may have been the greatest thing to have happened. We'll see in five years, but it has definitely inspired me to move the company in a way so that it is moving towards, um, something that can scale and be more approachable for people. And, and how do you do that? And not cut quality. And that was one of the things is looking at herbs.

• 1:32:15Speaker 01

  Maybe juice is not that scalable and maybe that's something you should be doing at home or supporting your local person with like any type of juicer. Um, what is a product that I can go and find the best thing on earth? And I know that it's going to have a huge impact on someone's life and have hopes of being able to, um,

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  Scale it and have that benefit, not only the quality, but the pricing and how I can reach people.

• 1:32:46Rich Roll?

  And with the scale comes scale, like is the more scale you have, then the more volume you're doing and then the more affordable the product.

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  Exactly. And that's been part of the inspiration on like, do I need to HPP juice and put that out there? No, not really, because there are enough cool juice shops all over town or all over the country, all over the world at this point. And I go frequent them and appreciate them and love them and find really great things out there. But to undertake really finding all of those herbs and going through safety and potency testing and putting them together in a balanced way and finding distribution and that that actually is something that takes way more capital and commitment.

• 1:33:31Speaker 01

  So that was something that I felt was actually positive to scale and to bring education around. But you know, it's, there's so much you can do for free when it comes to wellness. And some of the things that I do for wellness are free and you don't have to go to a fancy guru and pay him. You don't have to subscribe to some wellness site and do that. You don't have to go on a retreat to Bali. You don't have to, the things that keep me.

• 1:34:09Rich Roll?

  But that's no fun.

• 1:34:10Speaker 01

  I, well.

• 1:34:11Rich Roll?

  It's a weird thing about, it's a weird thing about human psychology, right? Because on the one hand, like you can look at the L thing and go, all you did was like say, this is what I eat in a day and people got angry. They got angry because you said, this is what I eat, which is weird in and of itself. And I can understand it, like we can do a forensic analysis and I can understand why people feel that way. And at the same time, you can also tell a lot of people like, look at all these free things. You don't need me. Here are these free things to do. But then, but people also want to, they're like, they want to find that thing that they can pay for, that makes them feel like they're in or they're invested, you know?

• 1:34:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, and also look at the world that we live in. Everyone is striving to have a bigger car, a bigger house, a bigger ring, a bigger sneaker, a bigger iPhone, you know, that's sort of like-

• 1:34:59Rich Roll?

  If you tell them a sneaker costs $400 or $500, some limited edition, whatever, crazy, you know, sneaker, people want that. But if you tell them like, hey, you should spend more money on quality food, they get like angry.

• 1:35:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's an interesting thing. And that's, you know, a lot of times when I talk to people about the cost of wellness, I would start with, hey, here are four things that I do for free that really keep me on track.

• 1:35:30Rich Roll?

  Let's do that. Because I think that's a good, you know, a good, I want to leave the audience with, you know, for people that either don't, can't have access to your products or can't afford them. Let's, let's get into these things.

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the things that I would say I'd be lost without them, and they really are the cornerstone of my sanity is meditating every day. And I, you know, I used to speak specifically to what my practice is. And at this point, I feel like it's actually not even important, because what I have found in my own personal experience and experiencing people that are super into their practice that I haven't been into is that if you commit 20 minutes a day to just sitting with yourself quietly, and that could be in the form of

• 1:36:22Speaker 01

  drinking tea, that could be in the form of sitting with your eyes closed and repeating a mantra in your head, that could come in the form of using your breath. That could come in the form of prayer in a church that could come in so many different forms, but whatever that is, I think if you can give that to yourself, it's 20 minutes. I'm sure everyone spends more than 20 minutes on Instagram a day. Like you can find that 20 minutes. You just really have to be aggressive about it.

• 1:36:56Rich Roll?

  Is that something you do first thing in the morning?

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  It's something that I like to do first thing in the morning, but again, I am a mom and some mornings you wake up and have to hop on the phone or get your kid ready for school. So my most sacred meditations happen usually in a parked car by myself, like in a weird alley after I've dropped my kid off. And then like shit, I'm gonna be late for this meeting and I was supposed to take a call on the way to that meeting. And then I just put my phone in airplane mode and I sit in my car in an alleyway in Santa Monica, like trash trucks coming and dumping things and I just take 20 minutes.

• 1:37:43Rich Roll?

  And everything gets done?

• 1:37:44Speaker 01

  Everything gets done. I'm always a little bit late these days anyway, you know, and

• 1:37:49Rich Roll?

  You weren't late here today.

• 1:37:52Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:37:52Rich Roll?

  Were you?

• 1:37:53Speaker 01

  No, no, I wasn't. No, I wasn't. I was on time, but I almost ran out of gas. So I'm gonna

• 1:37:59Rich Roll?

  Usually everyone's late coming up here because they underestimate how far away I live. So

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  No, it was good. I was, I was, I, you know, I was not late, not late today. So I make that happen. And that takes some time getting used to, but it's really, it's like brushing your teeth. Just think about it that way.

• 1:38:19Rich Roll?

  All right. So you got the meditation?

• 1:38:21Speaker 01

  Got the meditation, sleep.

• 1:38:25Speaker 01

  Makes a huge difference with having an autoimmune condition and really riding that wave of it. When you have a condition like that, it lets me know immediately when when I'm not in homeostasis just becomes so clear. And that is one of the things that will really throw me off. I don't get enough sleep.

• 1:38:49Rich Roll?

  Do you have a routine to kind of lull yourself into the best possible night of sleep?

• 1:38:54Speaker 01

  I'm actually really

• 1:38:55Rich Roll?

  Ariana?

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  I'm a really good sleeper. I don't have trouble going to sleep or staying asleep. I just have energy that will keep me talking and reading and wanting to do things. And so I do, so it's just being diligent about, and now it's time to go to sleep. Um, I do take dream dust at night, but I actually, I don't

• 1:39:21Rich Roll?

  Wait, what is that?

• 1:39:22Speaker 01

  Dream dust is one of the moon dusts, so it's a

• 1:39:27Speaker 01

  But I take that one not because I'll get you that one. That one's really good and I

• 1:39:31Rich Roll?

  I use, I take the brain dust. I like that one.

• 1:39:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I brought you the new brain dust. It's really good.

• 1:39:37Speaker 01

  But the dream dust I actually take to, I'm fine, I'm, you know, a little bit like a press the sleep button and I just go. But there's um, polygala in there, which I use to, it's been used traditionally to um, metabolize some of the stuff out of the subconscious that um, you won't do in a waking state. So it takes your sleep cycle and um, really optimizes that like subconscious unstressing.

• 1:40:12Rich Roll?

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 1:40:13Speaker 01

  That happens in the night. So it's kind of like my my sleep, sleep bump that I do. But again, sleeping's free. You don't have to

• 1:40:22Rich Roll?

  Right. So we got meditation free, sleep free.

• 1:40:25Speaker 01

  Sleep free. Um, and personal relationships are

• 1:40:33Speaker 01

  So key, um, having friendships in your life that you actually dedicate some time to and dedicate time into intimacy, whether it's romantic or familial or friendship.

• 1:40:54Speaker 01

  That is something that I think I, you know, got caught in a work loop and a single parenting loop.

• 1:41:05Speaker 01

  And I would neglect at times, um, just in, you know, friendship and family and grounding back into making time and space to sit down and have a meal with friends. Talk, not text, actually sit and be in their presence and hug them and have that experience made a big difference. And then I

• 1:41:30Rich Roll?

  I gotta, I gotta get better at that.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, it really

• 1:41:33Rich Roll?

  I mean intimacy with Julie's great and the family and all of that is good, but we, but I have not been, um, as engaged as a friend with a lot of my friends as I could be because I am caught up in that work loop and all these things that I have to get done. And, and, you know, living kind of, we live way out in the middle of nowhere. So it's, it takes a lot more time to like go into town and engage on that level. And I have a couple of friends that are bummed right now because like I haven't made myself available and I can, I'll always be able to say I'm too busy, but at some point I have to make that time. And I know that's like a growth area for me.

• 1:42:11Speaker 01

  Well, it's just scheduling it.

• 1:42:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:13Speaker 01

  You know, it's like a meeting, just schedule it and throw it in the calendar and do that. That, that has been really great. And then I, um,

• 1:42:24Speaker 01

  I got stuck in the single parent

• 1:42:29Speaker 01

  working day in and day out and sometimes dating people a little bit here and there. Um, but not prioritizing that and or just not dating anyone and none of that happening.

• 1:42:48Rich Roll?

  Or like the half ass dating.

• 1:42:50Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, it was, I don't know, you know, it would be

• 1:42:55Speaker 01

  dating focused on one person for a little while, but somebody maybe who was didn't live in the same place or um.

• 1:43:06Rich Roll?

  Not emotionally available.

• 1:43:08Speaker 01

  Things like, yeah, you know, things like that where it was like, well, I'm dating, but it's gonna be over.

• 1:43:15Rich Roll?

  So you can compartmentalize everything.

• 1:43:17Speaker 01

  Exactly. And um, I can keep working and keep doing all of that. And I um, got to a point a year ago um, when

• 1:43:31Speaker 01

  and this was part of probably the meditation and the sleep um, and spending time with friends where I could just get really quiet and think about what I actually wanted in my life. And I realized that there um, was a huge gap and that I had a child and I was doing all sorts of family things like making pancakes and planting little herbs so we could watch seeds grow, but it was just me and my son and that I really wanted a partner and I wanted a male in the home and the opportunity to have more children. And so that is something that is free, giving yourself that space and time

• 1:44:14Speaker 01

  to be quiet and actually listen to what what you really want, what your soul needs. And for me, it was also realizing that there was only a certain amount of um growth I was gonna get on my own and diving so deep into a spiritual practice and prioritizing that was um absolutely necessary to even get to the point where I could have a partnership that I wanted, but I had reached that stage.

• 1:44:45Rich Roll?

  Right. You can also use that to hide.

• 1:44:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:44:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:44:47Speaker 01

  And then I was verging on that and I was aware of that. So um. Opening up and really asking for

• 1:44:58Speaker 01

  love and partnership and intimacy and to have somebody that I could build something where there is microscopic truth and honesty and devotion and also that person that is going to mirror me. So that is, I think, high-quality relationships, friendships, romance, family. One of the most healing things you can do for the physical body as well, you know?

• 1:45:31Rich Roll?

  And you got that going on now?

• 1:45:33Speaker 01

  I got that going on.

• 1:45:33Rich Roll?

  That's good. Awesome. I'm happy for you.

• 1:45:35Speaker 01

  It's so nice. It's actually somebody that I had known for many, many years. So, yeah.

• 1:45:42Rich Roll?

  Cool.

• 1:45:42Speaker 01

  And I've watched my physical body really change with that in ways that, you know, I think sometimes you can go at things

• 1:45:55Speaker 01

  physically, sometimes you can go at things chemically, and sometimes you need to go at things spiritually. And that that is part of our spiritual nature

• 1:46:04Speaker 01

  is human interaction.

• 1:46:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, to be complete, to be fully rounded. I like that. Well, we got to wrap this up in a little bit here, but I don't want to let you go without at least diving into a little bit of nutrition guidance, you know, maybe just on a rudimentary level that you could let, you know, let people in on some takeaways about some of these herbs and these adaptogens, you know, beyond, you know, being able to access your products if they're available in boutique stores wherever people are. You know, where, where, where can someone begin the journey of learning about this and bringing these kinds of items into their, into their homes and into their kitchens?

• 1:46:45Rich Roll?

  Who are kind of coming from a starting point or unfamiliar with, maybe they're just, you know, maybe they're just like, just trying to eat a little bit better and and like, you know, what's, what's the, you know, step one?

• 1:46:58Speaker 01

  I mean, step one through a thousand and maybe forever could just be focusing on eating plants, eating plants in all forms. And I happen to like raw plants. I don't only eat raw plants, but I love salad greens and herbs and love to get those in every day. I like to drink green juice. I make green juice in my shop, so it's easy for me to get it, but you can make it at home, too. So I mean, that could be the beginning, middle and end of a beautiful life, fully in wellness, is you are sleeping, you have loving relationships,

• 1:47:42Speaker 01

  you give yourself 20 minutes to sit down and have some quiet time by yourself and you focus on eating plants. Like, that sounds like wellness to me. And if you do that and you feel so good, and you have some extra income that you want to put towards something else, or your priorities start to change and you decide, hey, I don't want to go to the nail salon anymore, and I don't want to buy expensive shoes, and I don't really need an SUV because I live in a city, and so let me get into a smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicle, something like that, and you find that you've got some extra income. And then

• 1:48:27Speaker 01

  I would highly recommend adding high-quality fats into your life. I mean, that's something you can do just in your diet. Coconut oil's great. I really like ghee, made in the traditional Ayurvedic way. And that has been revolutionized my brain health and my hormone function and hormone production. Fat is, good fat is so necessary, especially women, to have that. And I think we've all been trained to think otherwise with some powerful marketing campaigns and maybe some doctors out there. But for the most part, healthy people could use some

• 1:49:12Speaker 01

  extra good fat. So avocados, nuts and seeds.

• 1:49:18Speaker 01

  Gee, um, mineralizing has also been really great for me and my nervous system and brain function.

• 1:49:26Rich Roll?

  What does that mean, mineralizing?

• 1:49:28Speaker 01

  Well, eating foods that are gonna be higher in minerals, one of the things that, and that's something where I'll actually look at supplementing sometimes. So if you wanna go for the craziest thing out there, I really recommend Quinton, um, which is something that you can order online, I'm sure.

• 1:49:45Rich Roll?

  What is that? I've never heard of that.

• 1:49:47Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, really?

• 1:49:48Rich Roll?

  Quinton?

• 1:49:49Speaker 01

  I have to get you some. You're gonna love it. Okay, so it's this, um, it is this, these minerals that are harvested off the coast of Spain, um, and they, it was originally discovered by Dr. Quinton, you know, over a hundred years ago. And so there are libraries of his research and findings on this, but it is a plankton bloom that happens in the ocean. And that plankton bloom happens in this deep sea vortex. And so all of these ancient minerals from this mineral bed churn up and they come and

• 1:50:30Speaker 01

  the plasma from the plankton bloom will, is a non-discriminate host. So another way I like to mineralize is I love eating seaweeds.

• 1:50:39Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. Right, because it just captures, it condenses all of those minerals that are passing through the sea.

• 1:50:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's not a plant that's just pulling what the plant needs to grow. It's this perfect host that pulls all of it. So that's cold harvested and then they're put in little glass files and you can take those. I'm, you're gonna freak out. I love them. Um, but that's like crazy.

• 1:50:59Rich Roll?

  That's super high-end stuff.

• 1:51:00Speaker 01

  That's what I like making people angry, so.

• 1:51:02Rich Roll?

  People are gonna get really mad right now.

• 1:51:05Speaker 01

  I know, shit, you're gonna get hate mail. Um, so, you know, if you wanna go crazy, do that. But seaweed is so great and they sell seaweed at Target now.

• 1:51:15Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:51:16Speaker 01

  I like went and got some seaweed in Target in Minneapolis, but, um...

• 1:51:20Rich Roll?

  It's amazing to me, like, I have a practice where I just put like some really good chlorophyll and some lemon in water and drink it in the morning and it, you just feel amazing. Something about the, you know, the, the, the green marine plant life that is like so...

• 1:51:39Rich Roll?

  Energizing.

• 1:51:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, you just feel your blood come alive. And so again, like you could just have the most amazing life and stop there. If you want more-

• 1:51:53Rich Roll?

  Or you could eat all the crazy Quinton and whatever all day long, but if your relationships are a disaster and you're an asshole and you know, whatever, like you're, that's not-

• 1:52:02Speaker 01

  And I've also been to, I've been to that place. I've been to that place of, I, Jesus, I couldn't meditate anymore. I couldn't take any more adaptogen. I couldn't have any more green juice. I'm avoiding anything that could possibly be harmful, but I was not sleeping enough, or I was not making enough space in my life to also be a human being on the planet that got to have a family and experience love and friendship. And I was in the worst health of my life, you know?

• 1:52:42Rich Roll?

  So- Right. As this, as this, you know, poster child for ultimate wellness.

• 1:52:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, when you're the poster child-

• 1:52:51Rich Roll?

  The baked in irony into that is-

• 1:52:53Speaker 01

  For, you know, ultimate wellness and I just had chronic inflammation that I couldn't get rid of-

• 1:53:00Rich Roll?

  You're working so hard on wellness that you're just completely unwell.

• 1:53:02Speaker 01

  Your thyroid stops, you know, you know, you've got like an inch of inflammation that lives underneath your skin and you just can't figure it out. And it's like that really obvious thing that was there that probably, you know, my grandmother could have told me, which is, honey, you just need to lay down and get some really good rest. And, you know, you're probably a little bit lonely. I think you work too hard. So-

• 1:53:33Rich Roll?

  Well, cool. I think, you know, the good, the most powerful kind of takeaway or through line through this whole thing is just this idea of taking responsibility for this journey for yourself. Like, it started with you recognizing that early on and believing and having faith that there was a better way for you and then experimenting and learning. And I think everybody can engage in their version of that path to their own benefit. You know, I don't see any downside in people, you know, educating themselves and really not relying on these third parties to like, tell them what drug to take. Not to say that, you know, those, that medications aren't appropriate in many, many situations, but to just really

• 1:54:18Speaker 01

  As long as you're feeling good.

• 1:54:19Rich Roll?

  Develop agency over, over this, rather than divesting yourself of any responsibility and relying on other people to tell you what to do.

• 1:54:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:54:29Rich Roll?

  Beautiful. How do you feel?

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  I felt great. I feel like you and I have to talk about gas stations because I've got eight miles left in my tank.

• 1:54:38Rich Roll?

  Oh, you do?

• 1:54:39Speaker 01

  Tell me there's a gas station

• 1:54:40Rich Roll?

  That might be tricky.

• 1:54:41Speaker 01

  Within eight miles.

• 1:54:43Rich Roll?

  Well, it might be seven and it might be nine.

• 1:54:46Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:54:47Rich Roll?

  You know what? I'll follow you, though, in case something happens.

• 1:54:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:54:50Rich Roll?

  We'll figure it out.

• 1:54:51Speaker 01

  Okay, I've also got AAA.

• 1:54:52Rich Roll?

  Is that like, is that like swimming in the back of your mind the whole time that you're gonna like, run out of gas going home?

• 1:54:57Speaker 01

  No, but it was definitely swimming in my mind. I saw I was going uphill to get here. It was like, you have four miles left. I checked. I was like, oh, I'm eight miles away. This is so interesting. Do I have cell service up here?

• 1:55:11Rich Roll?

  There's cell service. Internet not so good.

• 1:55:13Speaker 01

  But then once I started posting downhill to you, because I came, came from the PCH, so.

• 1:55:19Rich Roll?

  All right, we'll go together. I'll make sure that you get gas.

• 1:55:20Speaker 01

  Then, then the numbers started climbing. Then I had 14 miles of gas.

• 1:55:23Rich Roll?

  All right, cool. Thank you for coming and talking to me.

• 1:55:27Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:55:28Rich Roll?

  That was beautiful. I am wishing you much success. Is there gonna be, like, what's the next step with moon juice? Like, what are you working? I know you're doing some more formulations and stuff like that, but are you?

• 1:55:36Speaker 01

  Oh, man, so many things, so many things. I'm writing another book right now, which is not going to be exactly like the last one. I get to show, I get to nerd out a little bit more on what I'm really interested in, you know, the neuroendocrine system, the thyroid, how adaptogens actually do work on the body.

• 1:56:01Speaker 01

  Getting really excited about doing collages and illustrations on

• 1:56:09Speaker 01

  on really like, what is the HPA access? We all hear about it. We all kind of know about it, but let's really get into it. Cause once I started learning about that and drawing charts for myself and knowing my body in that way. And again, I'm obsessed with this because that I have difficulty there. Things really started to click and make sense and I could tune in. And again, help myself. You have the education. You know what's working for you and what's not. And to address that. So the, the second book is just diving much deeper into that. We've got, um, moon dust chocolates that just came out. They're just in the stores. We've got the new, uh, dust formulation that just launched last week.

• 1:56:51Rich Roll?

  And do you ship direct to consumer? If people go to your website? Oh, you do?

• 1:56:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:55Rich Roll?

  Okay, cool.

• 1:56:56Speaker 01

  It's my favorite way to reach people.

• 1:56:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And is that, is that international? Like no matter where, if somebody's listening to this in like New Zealand or whatever?

• 1:57:04Speaker 01

  So there are some countries we don't ship to yet. And, um, but Netaporte does. So they, they kind of cover the EU and Asia for us.

• 1:57:17Rich Roll?

  Is it just moonjuice.com?

• 1:57:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, moonjuice.com. Yeah. Sephora is launching our moon dust, um, in a couple of weeks, which is super exciting. And that again is that scale thing that I'm talking about and opening up the conversation. And I'm so, can I curse on this podcast?

• 1:57:36Rich Roll?

  You already have.

• 1:57:37Speaker 01

  Oh, I have shit. I am so fucking excited to, um, be in a place where there are predominantly women, but there are so millions of women going into Sephora all over the world. And they are going in to Get something for their eyelashes or shampoo or, you know, whatever it is and for them to be able to stumble across what I know to be the highest quality ashwagandha in the world, to find a product with that and to be able to reach that person in that moment and get that plant into them is, I can't tell you how excited I am about that. Yeah.

• 1:58:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, that's mainstream.

• 1:58:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:23Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 1:58:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:25Rich Roll?

  That's pretty cool and exciting.

• 1:58:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:27Rich Roll?

  Awesome.

• 1:58:28Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 1:58:30Rich Roll?

  All right. We'll be talking to you.

• 1:58:31Speaker 01

  Okay. Thanks, Rich.

• 1:58:32Rich Roll?

  Thanks so much. So if you want to connect with Amanda, uh, moonjuice.com, uh, for the products, netaporte.com for the products. You personally, where can people, if people want to say hello to you?

• 1:58:44Speaker 01

  Um, I'm at Moon Juice Shop on Instagram. I also have, um, a personal handle there. But you know, if you follow the Moon Juice Shop, cause that's actually still me.

• 1:58:58Rich Roll?

  Is it?

• 1:58:58Speaker 01

  All me. Taking those pictures, typing it out. Um, no, I have, I have a great team that's starting to work with me now, but I'm, I'm all over that. Um, say hi there. And then when I show up places, we'll put a little notice out, come find me. I love more than anything when I go out and talk and see you guys. So.

• 1:59:21Rich Roll?

  Well, cool. You're a powerful manifester and you're putting good stuff out into the world and it's cool to see, uh, you know, a woman, a single mom, build this incredible business that is helping people. So I commend you for that.

• 1:59:34Speaker 01

  Oh, thanks.

• 1:59:35Rich Roll?

  And it's awesome. I can't wait to see what you do next. And I can't wait for the new book.

• 1:59:38Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:59:38Rich Roll?

  In the meantime, check out the Moon Juice Cookbook. It really is a work of art. Can you just get this everywhere on Amazon and all that kind of stuff?

• 1:59:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It's really quite something. And, uh,

• 1:59:48Speaker 01

  Prime it.

• 1:59:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah. We'll come back when your new book comes out. We can talk, we can go more in depth into all the crazy adaptogens.

• 1:59:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, we'll nerd out.

• 1:59:55Rich Roll?

  We can like get really granular. People love that.

• 1:59:57Speaker 01

  Holiday, holiday 2018. We'll just, we'll like seriously nerd out on my favorite organs and herbs.

• 2:00:04Rich Roll?

  We're gonna make it happen. All right, Amanda. Take it easy. Thanks. Peace. And plants and adaptogens. Awesome.

• 2:00:15Rich Roll?

  All right, we did it. It's over. It's concluded. Conversation is complete. What did you guys think? I liked it. I think she's really cool. It was so soothing and calming to talk to her. It's almost like she's a human adaptogen or something like that. Anyway, I found it delightful. Of course, as soon as we ended the podcast, Amanda asked me, well, what are you using nutritionally in terms of performance and recovery leading into the Ode to Low Race? And I answer her, I tell her about my smoothies, etc. And then I'm like, well, what do you think I should be doing? And then I'm like, duh, why didn't you ask her about that on the podcast? That would have been a perfect subject matter to explore with her. So that's my bad. I'm sorry about that.

• 2:00:59Rich Roll?

  But anyway, she gave me all of this stuff, a bunch of her products that I took with me to Sweden. She gave me her Power Dust, which has all kinds of great stuff in it, like cordyceps, which are awesome for boosting endurance, and adaptogens like Shizandra and Rhodiola and Astralagus. And I like this stuff. She also gave me her Dream Dust concoction for helping facilitate a better night's sleep. And I've been using that. It's got a bunch of super herbs in it and adaptogens for relaxation. So anyway, thank you, Amanda, for that gift. For more on Amanda, of course, go to moonjuice.com. She's on Instagram at @moonjuice shop. Maybe go to Instagram, give her a shout out, let her know what you thought of the conversation. Also, I have another really cool announcement

• 2:01:43Rich Roll?

  I want to make for you guys. Lots of people reach out to me to tell me about the challenge that they're either competing in, or that they're hosting or producing. But I wanted to tell you about one that really stands out. You guys remember Jesse Itzler? He was on the podcast. He's the Living with a Seal guy. That was episode 197. Super charismatic guy, really popular podcast episode, good friend, and just a, I don't know what to say about him. He's an amazing person. Anyway, he-

• 2:02:12Rich Roll?

  Rented out the entire Stratton Mountain in Vermont for a weekend this October, October 13th through 15th. And the challenge is this, you run, jog, or walk up the mountain, and then you take the ski lift down, and then you repeat that. And you keep doing it until you climb the equivalent of Mount Everest. That's 29,029 feet. He's creating his own base camp village, and he's limiting the whole thing to 150 people, which I think is a really amazing thing. So if you want more information on this wild challenge on Everesting, go to

• 2:02:49Rich Roll?

  29029.com. That's 290, spell it out, Z E R O, and then the number 29.com. And I'll put that link up in the show notes as well. It's a very cool idea. Congrats, Jesse. I wish I could be there for this. It sounds totally wild. Again, 29029.com. So how are you guys doing with your nutrition? Have you mastered this plant-based nutrition thing yet? Come on, you guys. Are you plant-powered? Are you plant-perfect? Are you plant-centric? Are you plant-strong? What is going on? I get so many messages from people. They're like, "I love what you do, Rich, but I just can't figure out how to make this plant-based nutrition thing work." Despite all the cookbooks and the podcasts and, I don't know, everything that I'm putting out into the world, I understand

• 2:03:33Rich Roll?

  that that toolbox is still lacking a certain number of critical utensils to make it stick. And that's why we created our Plant Power Meal Planner. It's this incredibly powerful, robust, online, mobile-friendly resource tool that takes all the mystery and guesswork out of the whole affair at an incredibly affordable $1.90 a week, which is basically loose change. And in exchange for that, you get an amazing package of tools that are going to allow you to step into this lifestyle, to make this switch and make it stick. You're getting thousands of plant-based recipes, unlimited meal plans and grocery lists. We're now metric system compliant for everybody who is not in the United States. And everything is totally personalized and

• 2:04:16Rich Roll?

  customized based on your goals and your food preferences and your allergies and your time constraints. We have amazing Amazing customer support from a team of experts. Not some people that are sitting in cubicles somewhere overseas that don't even speak the English language. I'm talking about real people who live and breathe this stuff. People with graduate degrees in nutrition, athletes, moms, people that have been plant-based for years and are there for you to answer all of your questions, no matter how rudimentary, how elementary. We also have grocery delivery in 22 metropolitan areas. Basically, you put in all the recipes that you want, based on all your customized preferences,

• 2:04:57Rich Roll?

  and it will just automatically deliver the groceries you need to make those recipes. It's amazing. We're getting amazing feedback. People are really digging it. I'm really proud of this product. It is essentially everything you need to make all of this stuff work. No more excuses, you guys. So for more information, go to meals.richroll.com or click on the meal planner at the top menu on my website, richroll.com. If you'd like to support this show and my work, you can support it in a number of ways. We have a Patreon account for people who want to financially support what I'm doing, and I appreciate everybody who is doing that. I only want people to do that if you can afford it. Basically, if you can't just go to Starbucks and get whatever you want, or whatever, then

• 2:05:41Rich Roll?

  please don't contribute to the Patreon. But if you do have some extra loose change, it really does help us out a lot, and I greatly appreciate it. Otherwise, just share it with your friends and on social media. Leave a review on iTunes and make sure you hit that subscribe button. If you would like to receive a free short weekly email from me, I send one out every week, well, mostly every week. Again, I missed this week again. I'm on a writing deadline right now, and I just didn't get to roll call. I've been really hit or miss with this thing, but I love doing it. I think I'm going to send one out Monday. In any event... It's a free short weekly email, just five or six cool things that I came across over the course of the week. Usually a couple of articles that I found compelling, a podcast I listened to, a documentary

• 2:06:22Rich Roll?

  I watched, a short video that I enjoyed, or a product that is benefiting my life. That's it. You can sign up for it. Again, it's free. There's no affiliate links. I'm not trying to sell you anything or make any money off it, but you can sign up for it on my website. Just enter your email in any of those little email capture windows. And that's it, you guys. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering and production, Sean Patterson for graphics, and theme music as always, my Anna Lema. Thanks for the love, you guys. I really appreciate it. The New York Times. I can't believe it, The New York Times. See you guys soon. Peace. Bye.