Latest / Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh / Transform Your Health: How Food and Nature Can Heal

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Transform Your Health: How Food and Nature Can Heal · Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh

0:03
Well, hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode
0:06
of Chatting With The Experts.
0:09
My show is a weekly one in which I highlight women from Africa, from
0:15
the Caribbean, and in the Diaspora.
0:18
These women are entrepreneurial, successful entrepreneurs, or
0:23
they're professional women.
0:25
And the mission of this show is to inspire, to educate
0:33
and encourage women globally.
0:36
I have sometimes had a few men join us, but for the most part, it's always women.
0:44
So the title of today's show is Healing With Food and Nature.
0:50
And my guests will be telling you, or we'll be talking about how the
0:54
food you eat or do not eat and the environment in which you live can
1:00
cause you disease or it can heal you.
1:04
So we'll explore how to optimize your health with food and nature.
1:13
With me to do that is Dr.
1:16
Stella Iwuagwu, and she is a public health professional,
1:21
founder and executive director of Center for the Right to Health.
1:28
It's a Nigerian based nonprofit organization and she's a garden
1:33
enthusiast as well as an entrepreneur.
1:37
There's so much more I can tell you, but I always love my guests
1:40
to talk about themselves on this show and to introduce themselves.
1:44
And so with that, I will welcome Dr.
1:47
Stella to Chatting With The Experts.
1:57
Hello.
1:59
Hello, Dr.
1:59
Stella.
2:00
Welcome to the show.
2:01
I'm so excited to have you here.
2:04
Thank you so much.
2:05
I'm excited to be here with you too.
2:08
Wonderful.
2:09
So I introduced you and every time I introduce my guests, I get so excited so
2:14
that I just give a snippet of their bio.
2:17
So can you, I mean, is there anything I left out?
2:19
Is there anything that you'd have liked me to add?
2:22
No, you said it all.
2:25
Just like you said, that's I'm a Nigerian.
2:27
I'm the Executive Director of the Center for the Rights of the Health.
2:30
I'm also a farmer and a nature enthusiast.
2:35
A nature enthusiast.
2:37
Yeah.
2:38
And something that I didn't mention, you may, as the conversation continues,
2:43
is that you initiated a sustainable demonstration farm of farms.
2:51
Right?
2:51
Am I correct?
2:52
Yes.
2:52
Some time ago, I think I started, I actually went home to Nigeria after I
2:59
used to work as an assistant professor at Cleveland State University.
3:03
What a tragedy where I lost my younger sister to the
3:08
health challenges in Nigeria.
3:10
Overwhelmed my family and I had to go back home to Nigeria.
3:14
With intent of working to see what I can do to improve the health system.
3:20
However, I also started a homestead garden that I was growing just to nurture myself,
3:30
but gradually I came to found out that Nigerians are so unhealthy and a lot of
3:36
it has to do with the food they are eating and the ones they are also not eating.
3:41
And with the overwhelming number of persons that are ill, there's no
3:46
way doctors and nurses could cope and provide quality health care.
3:50
So I started thinking, what can we do to reduce the disease burden, you know,
3:57
especially chronic diseases in Nigeria.
3:59
People are aging, they're falling prey to a lot of chronic diseases
4:03
and the doctors are overwhelmed.
4:06
So, I thought that food is a major determinant of our health.
4:12
Our environment is also a major determinant of our health.
4:17
And those are the two things that are crucially poor in Nigeria.
4:21
People are not eating right.
4:23
They're not eating quality food.
4:24
They're not taking their fruits and vegetables and, you know, getting their
4:27
vitamins and their nutrients, and those are the building blocks that the body
4:31
really needs to be able to maintain our health, because if you give the body the
4:35
right nutrients, it will heal itself.
4:39
Then I also noticed something really heartbreaking.
4:43
Most of the food that are grown, are grown with chemicals.
4:48
Every farmer is carrying knapsack left and right, and there is basically no
4:52
training on how to use this thing safely.
4:56
And so you find that a lot of the, you know, even when you use even over here.
5:01
One, we already know that most of these chemicals are carcinogenic
5:05
and cause a lot of challenges.
5:08
And then even when you use it, there is a certain number of days you need
5:11
to give before you can harvest for it to be safe for human consumption.
5:17
But who is educating them about this?
5:20
So you find out that the food that people are eating is
5:23
causing a lot of harm to them.
5:25
We're having high level of chronic conditions like cancers, liver issues,
5:30
kidney issues, you know, and then this is really causing a major challenge
5:35
in the health of the population.
5:37
So the environment is then of course, it is not only in the food,
5:41
it is also in the environment.
5:44
There's so much toxins.
5:45
Every house has a generator.
5:47
The vehicles are there.
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Nobody checks for emission.
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And so you can't run away from it.
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The mechanics pour diesels and engine oil in the gutters and the ground all over.
6:00
So the groundwater is contaminated.
6:02
The air is contaminated.
6:04
The food is contaminated.
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So little wonder that we have the kind of health challenges we have.
6:12
Then the noise pollution, the stress and tension, the
6:17
criminality, the, you know, just...
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it's very overwhelming.
6:23
And all these environmental issues have challenges.
6:28
They impact the free radicals.
6:30
They bombard ourselves and cause the denaturing of those cells.
6:37
And when the cells are denatured, they become abnormal, and they
6:42
start rapid multiplication.
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And when cells are feeling like they're about to die, they don't just die, they
6:52
begin rapid multiplication, and what they are multiplying is not normal cells, it
6:58
is abnormal cells that actually causes a lot of the organs to not function right.
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That's why you have high incidence of cancers and inflammations.
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And of course, the body would come into defense to try to get rid of
7:17
this denatured or diseased cells.
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What now happens, the body goes into chronic inflammation.
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Inflammation is a good thing when it limits the damage to the cells.
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But when the damage is occurring at a higher rate than the body
7:34
can actually take care of, then you have chronic inflammation.
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So your body is in a chronic state of inflammation.
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And that is what is causing all the arthritis and, you know, combination
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of the cellular denaturing is, which is leading to the cancers and cells.
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And then the food also, people are eating the diabetes, the high
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blood pressure, the liver issues.
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So people are just dealing with a lot of chronic conditions.
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And when you look at the immune cells, when two people take two
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instances, two persons, one is eating right and is in a good environment,
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the other is not, they'll be beaten by the same diseased mosquito.
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One person or they will drink the same unsafe water.
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The one with the healthy immune system is not likely to succumb to any illness,
8:29
but the one with an unhealthy immune system will succumb to many illnesses.
8:34
Yes.
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So little wonder that when people are living and most people, I mean,
8:39
this is the environment, everybody's breathing the same air anyway.
8:43
And all of this makes people, makes the citizen chronically sick.
8:49
Yes.
8:51
And then something personal also happened to me that sealed my
8:56
conviction that food is indeed medicine.
8:59
Tell us about that.
9:01
Yeah.
9:02
You see I had a spinal cord injury from an accident in 2007 when I went
9:08
to Nigeria to do my dissertation.
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The same Nigeria.
9:12
Same Nigeria.
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Because the roads are poor and even.
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If I had had that accident in America, I wouldn't have become paraplegic because
9:21
it affected my spinal cord injury.
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They would have known what to do at the right time and they would have had the
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equipments to do it here, but they didn't.
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In Nigeria, I was poorly, I was seriously mismanaged.
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Oh my gosh.
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They couldn't even do what they're supposed to do for me and they did
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the things they're not supposed to do, which complicated my case.
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Eventually they had to fly me to Ghana.
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It was in Ghana that they did the surgery to decompress my spinal cord.
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So I became paraplegic and wheelchair bound.
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It's actually one of the reason I stayed back in America to, you know, take a
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job because my intention was actually to go back home because I love Nigeria and
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I want to be part of the changemakers.
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But when my sister died, I knew that I can't stay back.
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I had to go back and get in the trenches and do what I need to do.
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I wasn't even afraid of dying anymore.
10:08
But because of my spinal cord injury, almost every organ
10:11
in my body had a doctor.
10:13
I was on several medications.
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I was on about 21 different medicines three times a day.
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So, but I took a leap of faith.
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I still went home.
10:22
I had devices that needs to be refueled.
10:24
I have a baclofen pump.
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I have a spinal stimulator.
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All of this equipment, I need to get them refueled on a regular basis.
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But I still went home anyway.
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That's your passion for home.
10:37
That's my passion for change.
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That's because I really believe I can make a difference.
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I can contribute.
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I have all these ideas that are sitting in my head and burning holes through my head.
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Yet I can't do really much with it over here.
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So when I went home, what I did, of course, noticing the food
10:53
landscape, I wasn't confident eating food from the market.
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So I started a garden.
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Even in America.
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I grow my own garden.
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Some of my friends, I have five apple trees.
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I have two pear trees.
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I have two plum and I grow vegetables around my trees.
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So my house is a food scape.
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So I started the same, initiated in my house in Nigeria.
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And the goal was to just grow my food.
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So I was growing food, my vegetables, I planted fruit
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trees, they're all dwarf trees.
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So I had every fruit tree you could think of.
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I had vegetables of every size of every type.
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I have herbs and I started growing my chicken green, my
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snail, a little bit of fish.
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So.
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I was living sustainably, you know, and every morning I go
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out there, feed my rabbits, you know, interact with my fishes.
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It's just, oh, it's like eating.
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And then I'll pluck my orange trees, my lemongrass and, you know, everything.
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I'll pull them together, boil them, I'll make my tea.
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I blend them, I make my smoothie.
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Every food I'm eating have vegetables and fruits as an
11:59
important components of it, you know.
12:01
So you're telling us all of that, you're getting me hungry.
12:06
Yes.
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When people come to my house, oh, and the best part, I had mushrooms too.
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I was growing mushrooms.
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Oh God, I had the best time and guess what?
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My body started healing itself to the glory of God.
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God did it because all these initiatives are God's initiative, God's insights.
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Yes.
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But I followed through and healing started happening.
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I was stronger.
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I was losing weight.
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The pain was gone.
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I was getting off that pain medicines.
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And before you know what is to say, Jack, I was on three
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medicines instead of 21 medicines.
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That is remarkable.
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Just for a second, because I'm thinking you're doing all of that in the ground
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that, you know, we said is pollutant because we have, you know, the diesel
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and generators and we have mechanics pouring diesel and other waste products
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in the ground into the drinking water.
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How did you achieve that or you weren't in the city?
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What?
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No, I wasn't in the city.
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All of this is happening in the city.
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A lot of the pollution is more predominantly in the city.
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Okay.
13:19
But I was in the outskirts of the city.
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Oh, wow.
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Yes.
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As a matter of fact, my land used to be a refuse dump.
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So what I did, I cleaned out all the plastics, I cleaned out all the
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rubbles, and you know, there were potholes in the land, you know, I
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just built a small cottage house, so all the rubbles and rubbish, I
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used them to fill, like a landfill, I used it to fill all the potholes.
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And then I covered in the paths, in the pathways and roadways around
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the house, and around the farm, so and I covered it with topsoil.
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And with red soil to make the road and I brought in topsoil and put in
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there and then I got, you know, from the fish, from the chicken, from the
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goats, I was getting a lot of manure.
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I was composting.
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So all of this is generating new soil.
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By this time I removed all the plastics out of the ground.
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So I had to do a lot of reclaiming of the soil and I started growing
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things there and they were doing so well and I was eating so healthy.
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And all these changes happen to my body for good.
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So that food is, I mean, I always know that food is medicine.
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I hold it, but it's really almost like a theoretical concept.
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But when I personally experienced it,
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it's no more a cliche anymore.
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It became a reality and it became a living passion.
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For you.
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That your body can heal itself if you give it the right food.
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That you can live disease-free is actually possible to live disease-free.
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The body is a regenerative machine.
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It can regenerate.
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But then if you don't pay attention, all the thing we call about aging
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and all of that, it is really the environment is really all those
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radicals that are destroying ourselves.
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It's really the anxiety, the loneliness and all that is really very degenerative.
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But when you're in an environment where you have nature, the trees
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are there giving you loads of oxygen, taking away all the carbon
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dioxide that you're excreting.
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It's cleansing.
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You're breathing cleansed air.
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So it's almost like you're in an oxygen tank because you have all this foliage.
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Then you are touching the ground.
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Your feet is touching the ground.
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You're connecting with earth.
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You know, you don't have to go to the gym to do exercise when you're fat-burning.
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And then
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you're interacting.
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You know that in America when there is an epidemic, what do they do?
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When there's a disaster like all those hurricanes and stuff.
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I remember I experienced it in Carbondale and I saw these people with
15:53
their dogs and they also come to the hospital, pet therapy, they bring their
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dog, they allow you to pet their dog and you find yourself calming down.
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So animals themselves help us to calm down.
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When I carry my rabbit and pet my rabbit, Oh, I'm in second heaven.
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That's why those that have pets seems to do better than those that don't.
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But I had all of these animals that I love.
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I sit and watch my goat jump around.
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I wake up in the morning.
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I have to feed the fish.
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And then even beyond the house, of course.
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So what started as a passion and as a homestead thing slowly became
16:36
a business because now people come to my house and they'll say, Oh my
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God, Stella, you're living my dream.
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Can you come and make my house like this?
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And then I asked that going to landscape people's house, and that
16:50
brought me to the concept of edible landscaping, which I call ediscape.
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So
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I love about that, because that was a question I had, you know, what
17:01
exactly and how do we, let's say what exactly is edible landscape, let's
17:06
start with that and then we can talk about how we can in our own little
17:10
spaces start doing that for us.
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It's really growing while you eat.
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Letting you know, we are I have nothing against flowers.
17:18
I love flowers, but how do you plant flowers?
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And then you go to the store and buy poison to eat.
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So edible landscaping is just using edible food, edible things
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to beautify your landscape.
17:34
Okay.
17:35
So you're saying like, okay, I like, well, mine is not possible.
17:39
I like grapes.
17:40
I like mandarins.
17:41
So like planting fruits...
17:44
Is it grapefruit or grapes?
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If it is grapes, like I tell people, you can grow things.
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And if you can grow flowers in containers, you can grow food in containers.
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And then I taught people horizontal space, which is the ground is very limited.
18:02
But vertical space is practically unlimited.
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So I taught people the fence in your wall, in your house, your fencing,
18:11
you can turn them into landscape.
18:13
Your roof, your, the wall of your house, you can turn them into, you can
18:17
plant crawling and climbing plants.
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Zucchinis, ugu, all the things that can trail, you know, tomatoes that
18:25
can actually trail on your wall.
18:27
You can plant around and you don't need a lot.
18:30
Papaya takes very little space and they're so beautiful.
18:33
Papayas, really?
18:35
They don't take much space?
18:36
They don't take much space and within six to nine months you're harvesting them.
18:41
There are dwarf bananas, you know, so my house is like a holiday resort.
18:45
It's like a tropical dream.
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It's a tropical scape.
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So that is the concept.
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And then I also have a concept I call Mediscape.
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Mediscape.
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So there's ediscaping.
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Now there's Mediscape.
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Landscaping or scape.
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And then we have medical landscaping, which is also called Mediscape.
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And Mediscape is really about herbs.
19:11
Okay.
19:12
Tell us about that.
19:13
Yes.
19:14
So when you have, maybe you've eaten a little bit too much, you
19:18
have indigestion, what do you do?
19:19
You reach for tums, right?
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Yes.
19:22
You have to go to the pharmacy store to get for tums.
19:25
But if you have mints growing in a pot, you know, either in your balcony or even
19:32
in your home or outside, what do you do?
19:35
You pick some mint.
19:37
I remember when they garnish your food, when restaurants garnish your food
19:40
with mint and spearmint and all of those things, herbs that are edible.
19:44
It's used to cleanse your palate.
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So instead of looking for those things, you want to get it right
19:51
into some mint or make a mint tea and drink your mint tea and you find out
19:56
that it relieves your gas and stuff.
19:58
The same thing, scent leaf, in Igbo, we call it nchuanwu.
20:03
Scent leaf is also a kind of the African basil.
20:07
That is lemongrass.
20:09
There are plants that actually drive away pests.
20:14
Yes.
20:14
But every day we are busy spraying more chemicals to kill pests and
20:19
also pollute our environment.
20:21
When we can plant lavenders, rosemaries, lemongrass, all of these plants, you
20:29
know, that are very strong smell.
20:32
They're healthy.
20:34
Pests don't like them.
20:36
So why don't you surround your landscape?
20:38
Why don't you create a landscape?
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Especially when you have a garden.
20:42
People build beautiful houses and build amazing flower gardens, but they can't
20:46
go outside to enjoy it because the pests, the mosquitoes and stuff takes over.
20:53
So why don't we build those landscapes with.
20:56
That's what our forefathers did.
20:58
I remember my grandmother.
20:59
We had lemongrass.
21:00
We have scent leaf.
21:00
We had all these herbs that act as hedges around our homes and then when we had
21:07
malaria or we had any of the ill or fevers, they will cut some lemon grass.
21:12
I learned a lot of these also from my mother.
21:15
You know, I started want to begin to look back at how our ancestors lived.
21:21
They lived with nature.
21:22
They lived in harmony with nature.
21:24
So the concept of Mediscape is to plant some of the herbs,
21:28
miracle plants, oregano, some things that we call the herbs.
21:32
That we use only for their flavors actually are powerful medicine.
21:38
Oregano is antibacteria, antiviral, antifungal.
21:42
Can you believe all of this anti this in one plant?
21:45
No, I did not know that.
21:47
Antibacteria.
21:48
Bitter leaf.
21:50
Our own bitter leaf.
21:51
Can you believe that?
21:53
I saw bitter leaf capsule in an American store and they're doing all
21:56
this advertisement made in America.
21:58
I said, when did America start growing bitter leaf?
22:00
Bitter leaf.
22:01
They're spending millions for treatment of diabetes.
22:04
There are plants that actually can bring down your blood sugar.
22:10
Bitter leaf is one of those plants.
22:12
Even blood pressure.
22:15
The king of bitters crushes your blood sugar.
22:17
And this same plant has antiviral and antibacterial properties.
22:22
And we don't know about it.
22:24
And we don't know about it.
22:25
And when we know about it, we don't take it seriously.
22:28
In India, in China, the health system integrates both alternative medicine
22:34
and our regular western model.
22:37
Yes,
22:37
That's allopathic medicine.
22:39
And that is where they have complementary medicine.
22:42
Yes.
22:42
But we threw all our own away and call it native doctor or is this, they
22:47
tell you all the scary things that will happen to you when you take them.
22:51
But when you eat them as food, ginger is anti inflammatory.
22:55
Ginger will help you deal with your nausea instead of you going to look for some
22:59
tablets that you have to spend so much money and deal with so many side effects.
23:03
The same turmeric.
23:03
Turmeric has stem cell properties.
23:06
Turmeric will help with anti inflammation, with cancer prevention, helps your heart.
23:11
They package it as cocoa mean, and then you have to go to the
23:15
pharmacy and buy very expensive.
23:17
Yet it is something you can incorporate into your daily
23:20
nutrition and give your body a boost.
23:23
Our food should contain the sweet, the savory, the bitter,
23:26
and the salty to balance.
23:29
But we tend to eat more of the sugar
23:34
in everything.
23:35
Particularly the processed sugar.
23:37
Yes, that is.
23:38
Then we go into juicing.
23:40
Oh, good juice.
23:41
You do the juicing, you do the juice, and then you drink the dish juices, sugar.
23:46
You throw away the fiber.
23:47
You throw away all the, yeah,
23:48
You
23:48
throw
23:48
away the fiber.
23:50
Fibers.
23:50
You eat an orange, you eat only this juice, and then you throw the fiber.
23:54
The goats will rush to it because they know the best thing.
23:59
We have our herbs in Igbo, we call them Mbaise, Uziza.
24:03
When a woman gives birth to a baby, you bring Negro peppers and all of that.
24:07
All of that will help flush the system, detoxify the system.
24:11
In a few days, you'll see them bouncing around.
24:14
Is it when you're trying to lactate, do better as a lactating mother?
24:19
There are herbs.
24:20
We need to learn from animals, you know?
24:23
So
24:24
Things like that.
24:25
Yeah.
24:25
My sister, I'm listening to this and I'm like, wow, where has she been the last 30
24:30
years of my life where I needed all of it.
24:33
But what I am hearing is that, you know, it's never too late to start.
24:38
It's never too late.
24:39
And we can start where we are.
24:41
So let's talk about most of us at least most of the audience I know
24:45
are based in the United States and some we have in in the UK.
24:50
We have a few coming from like Africa, Nigeria for one, but because I'm in the
24:54
States, I'm going to ask this question.
24:56
So if I wanted to start like what do we call edible landscape
24:59
or ediscape, you called it?
25:01
I like that name.
25:02
Ediscape.
25:03
Landscape.
25:04
Okay, where do I start?
25:06
Because I was saying to someone, oh, I had another guest on the show and I
25:09
was saying that it shocked me that when I went to get organic potting soil or
25:14
potting soil that it wasn't really soil.
25:18
So where do I start if I am here in America and I want to eat healthy, I
25:22
want to start planting my own food.
25:24
Where would you tell me or advise me to start getting soil that I know is not
25:29
filled with or, you know, some chemicals of some sort, or processed, so that it'll
25:36
If they call it organic soil, you know, sometimes they use the leaves, you know,
25:41
I saw that over here, they'll collect the leaves, they'll go compost it, and they'll
25:44
bring it and compost that, and eventually all those things break down as soil.
25:48
They bring them as manure and manure as soil.
25:50
Add a little soil to it, it becomes soil.
25:52
And you can also compost.
25:54
You can start putting away your food scraps and all your garden scraps and put
25:58
them and eventually it will become soil.
26:00
You use it to grow your thing, your food.
26:02
Then you can grow in your container, in your back porch,
26:05
in your balcony, in your yard.
26:07
You can grow these things.
26:08
Start small.
26:09
Start on the things, you can grow your kale.
26:11
You can grow tomato.
26:12
I used to tell people, what is the sweetest fruit in the whole world?
26:15
I said, the one you grow yourself.
26:19
So you can start small and see what works.
26:21
There's a lot of DIY project programs.
26:24
You can grow in containers, even the boxes that Amazon used to bring you things.
26:28
You can grow potatoes in them.
26:29
You can grow soil in them.
26:31
So you don't need to a lot of expense and then, but if you don't want to make
26:34
it crappy, I mean, you can also get nice ornamental pots and actually create a
26:39
beautiful scape that you can sit in your balcony and enjoy your means growing
26:43
in your beautiful ornamental pots.
26:47
You understand?
26:48
So you're creating beauty and function.
26:50
So, start small, and then believe me, once you start, there's a
26:54
lot that you can accomplish.
26:57
However, go to your garden spaces and ask.
26:59
There are some small garden spaces where you can get advice.
27:03
Well, it's most of these big stores.
27:05
They have good garden species.
27:06
So if you're looking for organic soil and all the things you need to be able to
27:10
grow your things, you can get ginger from the store or tumeric from the store, put
27:14
it in the pot and it will still grow as long as you're not putting chemical in it.
27:18
It will still come out okay.
27:19
You can plant your own tomato.
27:21
You can plant your peppers.
27:22
You can plant kale.
27:23
You can plant oregano and all of the other herbs.
27:26
You can plant rosemary.
27:28
So those are things that...
27:30
you can plant your onion and your own garlic.
27:32
Those are very easy to do even in containers.
27:35
You know, as the system keep coming, you keep cutting what you need
27:39
to cook just whenever you want.
27:42
So, but let me ask you another question because someone, all these
27:45
suggestions agree, but someone said to me, okay, so if I'm creating a
27:49
compost and I'm putting in like the vegetables or the wood scraps that have
27:56
all these chemicals in them already.
27:58
And I'm using that for the compost.
28:01
Am I not just creating chemical compost and feeling good for myself?
28:04
Does that make sense?
28:06
Sorry, eventually it breaks down, though it takes a while to break down.
28:10
And then another thing I would tell people when you buy food from the store,
28:15
try and wash it, soak it in baking soda.
28:20
That's a good one.
28:21
Yes.
28:21
Soak it in baking soda, whether it's fruits or vegetables, whatever it is,
28:24
soak it in baking soda for about 5 to 10 minutes and then rinse it out thoroughly.
28:30
Rinse it out thoroughly.
28:33
Yes.
28:34
So bicarbonate of soda.
28:37
Both of them.
28:37
Baking soda.
28:39
Baking soda.
28:40
I know of baking soda.
28:41
Okay.
28:42
All right.
28:43
Ooh, learned a lot.
28:46
The other part of this was, you know, talking about opportunities
28:50
when there are challenges.
28:51
Mm-Hmm.
28:52
Every challenge can become an opportunity.
28:54
Yes.
28:54
So while I was doing this on a small scale, just sharing with my
28:59
friends and people started making demands and I said, before you
29:04
know it, it turned into a business.
29:06
Yes.
29:06
And I got excited and that was how I now called it Sustainable Demonstration Farms.
29:12
So I was not only running mine.
29:15
I was helping other people set up their own.
29:17
I was teaching and training in this new way of doing things.
29:21
And then during COVID, when COVID came, there was this lockdown and
29:27
we couldn't particularly our fresh products, we couldn't sell them.
29:31
So we're dealing with post harvest loss.
29:34
So that is where I got the idea to start dehydrating.
29:39
I started dehydrating the mushrooms.
29:41
And then I started grinding them into powders and slowly I said, Oh, if I
29:48
can dehydrate and grind and powder mushroom, I can powder other things.
29:53
I started powdering kale, I started powdering ugu, I
29:57
started powdering scent leaves.
29:59
And before you know it, we are packaging this and we're making
30:02
teas, we're making capsules.
30:04
So we're not just dehydrating.
30:07
So that was how we have the business initiative where we are
30:10
now producing teas and you know, so it's not only just for culinary use.
30:17
It is also for medicinal purposes.
30:19
Because by now, I have enough clients that are taking this and getting good results.
30:23
So, we are putting them online.
30:25
They are available online at sdfarms.store.
30:28
It's also available on our Facebook link, and you know, so, It's just
30:33
been really an amazing opportunity.
30:34
So that's that I in the U.
30:36
S.
30:36
can go to sdfarms.store and they'll see a range of teas from beetroot
30:41
tea to lemongrass to oregano to bitterleaf, king of bitter.
30:47
So it's a wide range of products and it's just been helping people.
30:52
Yesterday during Halloween, I gave one to one of my friend's mother
30:56
and she wrote back and said, Stella, my mom said she had the best sleep
31:00
ever and that gives me so much joy.
31:04
Whoa, that is so impressive.
31:06
So you talked about how those of us in the United States can get your product.
31:09
What about if we are, because our audience is global.
31:13
What about those who are not in the United States?
31:15
Can they order any of these other, I mean, these products on other storefronts?
31:20
Yeah, they can, but we are not global yet because of delivery costs.
31:25
So it's only in the US that we're online, but I'm looking for partners.
31:29
I'm looking for investors, people that can work with me.
31:32
I'm looking for mentors because half of the time I don't know what I'm doing.
31:36
I'm just passionate about this thing.
31:38
So I'm looking for those that are in the UK that can be my mentors and coach and
31:44
distributors that can find the market in the US, in the UK, in Australia.
31:48
I'm already talking to someone in Australia, but I'm open to other nations.
31:52
I'm looking for Europe because when you look at them online, if you go to
31:55
sdfarms.store, you could see the wide range of products and that is really
32:00
an opportunity for everybody to come on board and help in the distribution chain.
32:06
We're looking for expansion and we can also do white label where if you
32:10
like the concept and you don't want to market our products and you want
32:14
your own brand, we can create some of this product in your own brand name.
32:18
And you handle your marketing.
32:20
So this way our factory will be busy even when we don't have the order, but
32:26
I'm really trusting God and trusting the support of my sisters in the
32:30
Diaspora and in Nigeria, I'm needing like some of our products in Nigeria.
32:35
Like over here, I have FDA certification.
32:37
I've been able to get FDA certification for our facility.
32:41
So all our products can come into the US without any stress.
32:45
And I don't know what the requirement is in the UK.
32:48
I'm waiting.
32:49
I'm looking forward to Europe.
32:51
We'll have the, what you put the certification call Oh,
32:54
God, that escaped my mind.
32:55
It's HACCP.
32:56
Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point.
32:59
So that is a food certification that ensures that the food is safe.
33:03
I think that is one of the certification you need before you can export to Europe.
33:08
So we have that certification so our food can be able to enter Europe.
33:12
In Nigeria, we have NAVDAC number.
33:14
Nigeria does their own a little differently.
33:17
You have to have NAVDAC certification for individual
33:19
products instead of the facility.
33:21
So we have NAVDAC certification for some of our products.
33:25
And so we're ready to enter Nigerian pharmacies and Nigerian supermarkets.
33:29
So we are really ready to make a big business out of this and appreciate
33:35
the support and I need investors.
33:37
I need partners.
33:38
I need coaches.
33:38
I need mentors.
33:40
And I need those that will buy the product and share their
33:42
experiences to help other people.
33:45
That's why you are here.
33:47
And so, you know, immediately after this, you're good to be able to talk
33:51
to the interactive audience member.
33:53
And that's another opportunity for you to network and spread the word with people
33:58
who are looking for alternative ways of keeping healthy, not just a conventional
34:03
way, but also being as natural as possible without all the side effects that we
34:08
hear from, you know, regular conventional medicine, and you have that opportunity.
34:15
Thank you.
34:16
And then I wanted to read this invitation to all of you who are in the audience
34:21
and those who are listening after this recording to say that if you would like
34:25
to be a guest on the show, please reach out to me, Paula Okonneh, on my website,
34:30
which is chattingwiththeexperts.com.
34:34
You can also get in touch with me on LinkedIn.
34:36
Just look for Paula Okonneh or I am also on IG under, what's my
34:41
handle, I always have to remember that, at chat_experts_podcast,
34:48
or on Facebook as Paula Okonneh.
34:52
Dr.
34:52
Stella, I am always amazed when I speak with you about your wealth
34:57
of knowledge and even more so about your passion for what you do.
35:01
And so now we'll give you an opportunity to talk with the audience members
35:05
for them to get even more information that we haven't been able to share.
35:10
During this limited space or this limited time of the show, but
35:14
I want to also say thank you.
35:16
Thank you.
35:17
Thank you.
35:19
You're welcome.