Welcome everybody to Midday Magazine for this June 12th, 2024.
Have your host James J. Mail off here.
In part two today, we're looking forward to talking
with our good friend, Rock Larson.
We'll kind of veteran service officer,
get you up to date on all the changes
and all the things going on in that field.
Right now, our family really,
joining us, Stephen and Katrina Hittner
from Family Natural Foods with us right now.
Guys, how you doing?
Hey, good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
Great to have you with us.
Thanks so much for joining us.
I want to get in, I know we have a lot to cover
and I always don't feel like we never give you guys
enough time.
So I want to get into some of the great things
that you have going on over there.
What's happening?
Yeah, there, again, there is just always something
happening in Family Natural Foods.
We're keeping the presentations rolling.
We found people loved them so much at Terry's event.
Like we anticipated it was a great turnout.
We had about 90 people came to that presentation.
So our presentations are really picking up steam.
We're getting a lot of folks coming into them.
I mean, Terry's obviously there's always
going to be the most.
Historically, that's certainly been the case.
Though my Kittner gave him a bit of a run for his money.
That's true.
I believe it.
Two health food people veterans here.
But yeah, we were like, well, this is going so well.
Why are we stopping now?
So we're going into summer, but we
want to kind of do some things that are unique to summer
and have fun with it.
So our first presentation is actually
coming up this Saturday.
Yeah, so it's Saturday the 15th at 11 a.m.
And your very own Stephen is going to be doing it.
Yeah, it's fun doing it on Saturdays
because you get some people can't make it
during the weekday.
And Saturday makes it just a little bit more relaxed.
And you get different people that maybe can't make it.
And Ken, I love Saturday at 11 o'clock.
Like you're not committing your whole day.
It's not stuck in the middle of your day.
You also don't have to rush off.
You can enjoy your cartoons in the morning, James,
or other.
I just, that's what I need you to do in the morning.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Saturday morning.
Heaven changed since I was 30.
It's same thing, same thing as that.
These presentations are also a really good example
of how you guys are listening to the community,
paying attention to the community.
You're touching on subjects that are interested,
they're interested in things that you know
that can be beneficial.
Not just health wise, but mental health wise too.
We'll talk more about that with the herb walk
and some of these.
It's interesting, on our morning show,
I was highlighting the olive oil presentation
you have coming up.
And off air, Melissa and I were rambling,
like we got to ticked out this herb walk.
There's different things that you guys are highlighting
and touching on, like bringing Terry to town
and some of that, that just show how much you guys care
about the community and that it's,
yes, you want to keep the lights on,
but you want to keep people healthy.
You want to keep this town in this area going.
Yeah, for sure.
And so I think this presentation on Saturday
is it's going to be fun and interactive.
It's more an experience.
Yeah, it's an olive oil tasting.
We're going to travel to what I'm thinking,
I'm still working on the details,
but it's going to be traveling to four countries.
For your taste buds.
Yeah, taste of four countries.
Through olive oil, each olive oil has its own character.
Different olives are used.
The toer, the environment, the land is different.
And some of the health properties
are a little different as well.
So we're going to cover that.
Obviously, we've had a lot of folks
that are interested in some of the health properties,
but also a lot of folks that just like
want to taste olive oils and find the right fit for them,
or if it's like my house,
you have a couple different olive oils
for different purposes,
and you kind of keep them all in rotation.
So yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun.
It's going to be fun and like something Terry,
when he had his presentation just a few weeks ago,
he talked about olive oil for probably 10 minutes
because it's something that he does on a regular basis.
He believes in it.
In fact, Stephen and I saw him traveling in India
bringing his olive oil all the way with him.
He does it daily.
Lil' glass bottles filled with liquid
that when they spill, they would be terrible.
But he takes the risk and the effort
to carry these things across the world
so he can make sure he gets his health
providing olive oil every day.
Yeah.
And you know, folks,
after they heard Terry talk about this,
they were really interested in olive oil thing.
A lot of people said,
hey, we're going to come to the presentation.
We also sold quite a bit of olive oil that night.
And it was just sort of like another thing
that people thought, hey, I didn't realize
that what I, you know,
I've got to use an oil to cook anyways.
I didn't realize that I could get
so much health benefits from that.
Like one of our olive oil companies
that we recently got and in fact,
we got it because it's Terry's favorite.
It has researched articles on its health benefits
and immune health and different things like that.
So we'll talk about a few of those things
and just think wine tasting maybe,
but it needs olive oil.
So you're going to taste it
and we're going to, like,
you can taste the differences.
You're going to taste more like some,
it might be more grassy notes versus buttery notes.
And I'm not going to give away all of it
because it's going to be really fun.
But come, you're going to get health benefits
by tasting it.
You're going to learn a lot about it.
And it's a Saturday.
It's a great day to just come and, you know,
try something.
Did we want to do a tasting with James here?
I mean, you are Italian, right?
You have some Italian in your background.
I was going to say to all my pizons out there,
all my fellow Italians,
this subject is very well known.
My Nana growing up,
we didn't have much of anything,
but we always had a good olive oil
and it was always from Italy, always from Italy.
My Nana did not buy stuff from that.
We'd go to Chicago, go down there and bring it up.
That's what they did.
And part of the reason was because of how much she cared
about it like the good olive oil
and all of those things.
But the benefits of it
have never been lost on our family, at least.
One of the snacks that we used to have growing up
was having some bread and a little bit of olive oil.
You dip it in there.
We would toast the bread sometimes and dip some on.
I mean, just all the different uses we had for olive oil.
To the point of my first apartment,
I'm moving in.
My Nana brings me a thing of olive oil.
That was her.
That was my home cup, my present for that.
It was a swarming party, was olive oil.
Yes.
And for the longest time, all I had in my house
as far as that was, I had a gallon of milk,
some arm and hammer and olive oil.
That's what I had.
Probably some bread.
But it's one of those things that not only
is it a fun one to learn about and to be able
to take in this meeting or this presentation,
but you might come across an olive oil
that you didn't know about and maybe find a new flavor
or a new taste that you like.
Yeah.
So let's see if you can taste the different notes on it.
The first one we're going to start with
is an Italian organic extra virgin olive oil.
I'll take you home.
Yeah, this one's called, hopefully I can say it right.
Bella, see?
Bella, let's see.
Bella, let's see.
Bella, let's see.
Balucci is another way that in southern part of Italy,
they'll say balucci in northern part.
Balucci.
All right, thank you, Mr. Italian.
So again, you don't, it's interesting.
We don't think about like drinking olive oil again.
There's so many health benefits.
But it's, there's different notes
that you'll pick up on too.
And a lot of times we have olive oil with other things.
So this is fun just to try it solo.
So what is your experience James?
I got a little, a little bit of a smoky,
a little bit of a woody kind of taste to it.
That's fun.
A little bit.
And almost a buttery kind of taste to it.
This seems like a thicker olive oil too.
Okay.
Yeah, I found that one was a bit more on the buttery side.
Compared to the one you're going to try, which is cured.
And this is a Greek olive oil.
This is Terry's favorite.
This is Terry's favorite.
Great, another great country with another great olive oil
and an incredible bottle.
Is that a bottle of you?
That is really cool.
Yeah.
This company cured has spent a lot of time
and money on research.
Tons of time and money on research.
So they have a lot of...
If you look to the health benefits,
this is probably the one.
And that's obviously why Terry's come to it.
You can tell I've watched food shows like this
because I just took a drink of water to clear my palate.
I'm doing this all professionally.
Exactly you are.
And this one definitely has different flavors.
So it's kind of fun, different countries.
You'll taste different flavor notes off of it
compared to the first one.
Yeah.
Ooh, well a little more of a fluid,
a little more of a water taste to it.
Whoa, and an after taste.
Whoa, it's got a bit of a bite to it a little bit.
Yeah, Terry explains it.
I like that.
That's the polyphenols.
So that's like the real health benefit to olive oils.
And if you're looking for the most health benefits,
you go for the one that catches you in the back
of the throat that kind of has that maybe slight peppery taste.
And you know, at times they'll even kind of make you
want to cough a little bit.
That's the good stuff right there.
Wow.
I mean, they're all good, but there's a different,
like Stephen say, that polyphenol benefit,
which is what we're going for with the olive oil,
the health benefits, that little bit of that pepperyness,
not hot, but pepper-like.
Yeah, it's not hot.
You're right, but you definitely notice it.
And then again, that second taste that hits you
in the back of your throat there.
And you really do notice that.
That's really good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So if you'd like to have the same experience as James
and actually go to a couple more countries, perhaps.
And learn a little bit more too about it.
We can't spoil everything.
No, there's lots to know about this.
Yeah, come on.
We even have some free books for folks who come into the talk.
Yeah, specific to olive oil.
Yeah, about olive oil.
So you can go home and continue your reading.
But yeah, come on.
It's going to be on Saturday, this Saturday, at 11.
June 15th.
Yeah, 11 o'clock in the morning.
We'll be hitting this on the morning show.
Make sure you guys get a good crowd.
Yeah, thank you.
It's going to be a fun presentation.
Keep in mind, they have great presentations coming up
in July and September as well, everybody.
Yeah, let me just tease that for a second.
So we have, like, Steam was mentioning before and James,
like we have different presentations
we're doing with a little different kind of themes to them.
We've had people ask, gosh, I'd love to learn
about plant identification.
And a handful of us love doing plant identification
at our own homes or using herbs on a regular basis
or have taken herbal classes on it.
And so on July 10th at 4.30, this is a Wednesday.
We're going to meet at Lake Waziccia.
We're going to meet at the Red Sand Beach by the Pavilion.
And we're going to go for a little walk.
We're going to maybe walk in different areas
where there might be some herbs that grow more in shade
versus in sun.
We'll explain how to identify it.
And then we will also talk about some of their health
properties.
And this one's going to be led probably by a couple of us.
But Jamie and Steven, maybe my self will jump in.
Our main thing we want to let people know
is that we are going to be walking.
And we might be walking on different terrain.
So bring good tennis shoes, maybe a notepad, water,
because we're going to be outside.
Yeah, it won't be super long and it should be pretty easy.
And also encourage people to check in with our Facebook page
if there's any updates.
And or give us a call, especially if the weather's
a little questionable.
Give us a call before you head out just
to make sure everything's still on target.
This is the first talk we've done that's been off site
and outdoors.
And it's got some extra variables.
But it'll be a lot of fun.
We'll be on the radio again to talk more about it.
But yeah, like a trueness of this is just going
to be a fun walk around beautiful place with each other.
And look at what's all around us
and what the health properties of some of these herbs are.
It's an adventurous idea.
I like it.
It's a really fun idea.
And it also speaks to, again, to think that one of the things
I think you guys do so well there is, well,
you inherited a business that was already well established.
You keep doing that.
You're going to be all right.
But no, you guys are keep you evolve.
You keep growing and looking for different ways
to impact the community, to help the community.
And I really appreciate that.
I admire anybody in any industry that does that,
especially something like this.
It's so important to our day-to-day lives.
Yeah, I think that will be really fun.
And then it's a ways off, but save the date.
September 24th at 5.15.
We're going to have Dr. Tracy back.
She's going to talk digestive health.
And she's fantastic because she knows so much digestive health.
And we have digestive health could be like,
I have acid reflex to like, I have constipation to,
I just have, I don't know what's going on in my stomach,
but it hurts.
She's got the answers.
She's fantastic.
So save the date.
It'll be September 24th at 5.15.
And that's with Dr. Tracy.
And of course, after that, we'll
have more like fall winter presentations.
But this is what we got for now.
Just a quick note on Dr. Tracy.
I'm really appreciative of her.
She got me to really start understanding
my body a lot better and my weird, crazy stomach
and some my own relationship with food because of this.
That I never even thought one second
about to be honest with you.
But all of a sudden, because of understanding one thing,
it led me down this rabbit hole of other things
that have kind of really helped me beneficial to me
as far as my, not just my stomach,
but the kind of food that I take in.
She's in, it's a subject matter that she approaches so well.
She talks about this so great.
It can get, you know, some of these things
can get a little embarrassing or a little awkward for people.
Not with her, she does such a great job
being able, everybody comfortable,
everybody being able to share information about this subject.
Really a chance to know mental person,
you know, just talking straight up to somebody
who really knows what they're talking about
about your gut and your health.
Absolutely, she's fantastic.
We're excited to have her back.
And then last little, like what's happening?
Michaela put up a nice display for us yesterday.
All focused on like hydration,
because we're in the summer month.
So how electrolytes really heal us in these hot,
we're sweating and we're losing certain minerals.
This helps kind of balance yourself out.
If you're feeling tired, that could be part of it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, leg cramps could be part of it.
Yeah, definitely, et cetera.
We also are highlighting like sun and bug, of course,
because of that season.
Or maybe you have, you know, you have gotten some bug bites
and you're like, oh, I just can't stop itching them.
We have great things for that.
Or how to recover from like getting sunburns.
So we have a nice display highlighting
a lot of hydration for the season and sun and bug.
It's a good thing to check in, you know,
just this time of year and like,
see what you've got in your house already.
And then make sure you get it what you need
because you don't want to get to the weekend
and find out, oh yeah, we had this whole thing.
We're going to be outside with friends
and oh, there's mosquitoes shooting for God about that.
Or, you know, we're going to be outside gardening
and the sun's pretty hot.
I'm going to get a sunburn, you know, like kind of,
kind of got to like check through your stuff
and I was doing that myself recently.
I was like, oh, man, I've got a lot of sunscreen,
but half of it's expired or more than half of it.
So I'm like, I'm going to get a new bottle.
Just because it's not worth the risk.
I mean, you don't understand this James, because.
Yeah, I, this is a new world to me.
This is new.
I'm just starting to start using this stuff
and I'm so thankful that you guys carry these products
because the first time I used it,
I remember who's years ago and I didn't like that,
I felt like I had a chemical on me.
And I know that makes sense
because I have a chemical on me.
But I shouldn't feel it necessarily.
I put lotion on and don't necessarily feel it this.
I felt like there was something caked on me
using the products from you guys.
And I've tried a couple.
It felt like it just was a lotion and it was doing its job.
But I didn't notice it a second after I put it on.
That goes a long way for people
in enjoying the outdoors.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's one thing, oh, I don't want to go out.
I'm sure I've got suntan lotion,
but I don't like the way it feels
or I don't like putting that on me or something.
Whether it is this, it is bug spray.
The options that are available for you
at family and natural foods are much healthier,
natural option than the most that you're used to.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, definitely.
So last week, the week before,
we had Terry Lemeron at the store.
It was fantastic.
We want to do a little recap for it.
It's so hard to recap.
There was so much.
I know, but just a mini recap for those of you
who couldn't do it.
I feel like most of the city was there.
It did seem like it, yeah.
It was just a wonderful gathering.
And if I could summarize, I mean, he's fantastic.
He's so passionate.
And he has so much knowledge to share,
but this time, because he's been at the store before,
and we are so fortunate for that.
But this time, my summary is,
it felt like our community,
he's part of our community now.
Like this little regular thing
and he's just part of our community.
People were like, it's so good to see you again, my friend.
I've been to it each time.
Yeah, I've been to your talk every time you've been here.
And then they said, this time I brought a couple of my friends,
they had like four friends when they're like,
they had like an entourage.
I was like, this is great.
And like, that's when you know it's not just like,
oh, yeah, we did a nice article
and you know, like a nice advertising or something.
It's like, no, this is like,
people once they knew what was happening,
they called up their friends
and they put it on their calendars.
Really made us, I was really like,
I was very like humbled by the community
and just like kind of moved by it.
Imagine how he felt.
Yeah, no, it's true, yeah.
He, Terry's been very impressed because he's done this
all over the country,
probably outside of the country even.
But he's been really impressed with Wisconsin Rapids.
And in Katrina, I was like, yeah, it's a great community.
People are, people really value knowledge and mill.
They'll come out, they'll come out to learn about it.
And that was, that was certain in the case,
such a great turnout.
And there was so much, so much to learn about.
This time he did a little bit more on heart health, I think.
Yes, definitely.
And the product that stood out the most
is called Red Sage.
It's a relatively new product that he's come out with.
But it helps, it helps increase blood flow
through nitric oxide production.
People think about that with beets,
which a lot of people don't like eating.
And you have to get a lot of beets
to really make an influence on it.
But this Red Sage, you just need a couple capsules a day,
maybe just one even.
And we've had people with really great results.
I know one lady came through and said,
it helped with her, was it A-Rhythmia?
A-Rhythmia, yeah, she's taking it for A-Rhythmia.
And it's gotten her back in sync,
which is really fun to hear from the community,
how it's helping them.
Circulation, just in general, for like eating in hands.
Didn't Terry himself say he had some like circulation issue
in his leg?
Yes, in his legs, like a vein issue, I think you might.
Yeah, vein issue.
And he, like he obviously has tried everything, right?
If anybody's tried everything in the camera.
And this new thing that he's selling, he tried that.
And he said, wow, this made a huge difference.
And I know like with the lady with the A-Rhythmia,
she's taking like three days in.
I think it was two a day, so she's taking a little bit more.
And I think you kind of have to play around with it
if you have like a more specific issue you want to resolve.
But we've heard just phenomenal results
from this new product.
And what's special about it too is it comes from Europe.
So it's actually a Chinese medicine herb.
I think it's called Don Chen in Chinese medicine terms.
But the problem with a lot of Chinese herbs that come from China
is you don't know how they were growing, what chemicals,
all this kind of problem.
And some of them are kind of like endangered
or they deplete the soil or whatever.
Jinxin's a good example of this.
So there's this company in Belgium, I believe it is,
in Europe anyways, and they grow all these herbs indoors,
hydroponically, in controlled environments.
And they've been doing this with Jinxin
and this red sage is their new one.
And they're able to optimize the growing condition
to get the most nutrient value in the herb just naturally.
It's really cool.
That's amazing.
We can come back and talk about another day,
but I'm gonna go down that rabbit hole.
Yeah, it's really fun.
So we met the gentleman who is growing it
and doing the, this was like three years ago,
we met him and he was fantastic.
He had so much knowledge to share
and it was really cutting edge,
what they were doing.
But just to think like you're taking something
and you're able to maximize its absorption
and its nutrient value
without any of these harsh chemicals is just fantastic.
So they're gonna have way more products coming for the future.
But the red sage has been.
And then all their popular one
that everybody was really interested in
and Terry spent a lot of time on was comfrey cream.
His product's called trauma plant
and it comes from this plant called comfrey,
which grows around here.
But his comfrey cream is really unique
because it's been in a lot of clinical studies
and been well proven for so many things.
It's a cream you put on topically.
It gricks great for joint pain, muscle pain.
If you break a leg, it's called bonnet
as another traditional name for it.
So it actually helps your bone together.
I've known people who they broke a bone
and they came back to the doctor a month later, whatever it was.
And the doctor was like,
oh, your bones are a lot further along
than it usually should be.
This is progress.
That's incredible.
I've also known people who went through
cancer treatment, radiation therapy
and then you get these burns.
You can imagine radiation burns.
They tried everything.
Oliveira, all those kind of things.
Nothing really helped too much.
A little bit here and there.
Comfrey made a world of difference.
So it works great for burns.
So another thing you'd want in your cabinet
in the summer for sunburns.
And a bug by it's cream of bug bites.
Any kind of bruises, balls.
Any skin issues, really.
It's fantastic for healing.
It's sort of like what's that Greek movie?
My fat Greek one.
Yeah, my big Greek one.
Where the guy goes around with that bottle of index
and says, hey, this is good for everything.
That's kind of what Comfrey is.
Yeah.
And it's great.
What?
I haven't found something that's not good for him.
Definitely.
I do want to take a note and not only
shut up this area for showing up
for the Terry presentation and everything,
but thank you to Terry as well for coming by.
And it is so cool to hear that.
Doing over-the-back fence a lot and listening to the show
before over-the-back fence for years,
or when I would do that, I'd love listening to Terry's show.
One of the things he would talk about from time to time
is when he first started in this industry.
Now, hard it was to get into a room.
How hard it was to talk about these things.
And how far this industry has come with this
to where now doing presentations
and people are going out of their way
to come up and talk to them and say, hi, Dom,
I can't imagine how good that must make him feel
and how proud he must be.
Not just for himself.
I mean of the industry and of the work that you guys
and other places are doing and everything.
He deserves that.
Like that, that's really cool to hear.
A little along with all the other great stuff
that came from the presentation.
That's awesome.
Yeah, he's an amazing man.
We're really fortunate to have him
and have the community show up for that too, definitely.
Be sure to bookmark on your calendars this Saturday,
June 15th, 11am, the olive oil presentation happening
over at Family Natural Foods.
Join them for that.
And all these presentations they have coming up.
We'll talk more about those next time we have you on.
And we'll talk about them on our morning shows too.
Thank you both for the time.
Appreciate you.
Thank you.
Find out more, reach out to our friends
at Family Natural Foods at 910 West Grand Avenue
right here in Wisconsin Rapids.
You can give them a call 715-423-312-423-3120.
Be sure to bookmark their web page
and follow them at social media.
Great way to keep up the date and all things going on
at Family Natural Foods and in your area.
We'll be back with more Midday Magazine right here at WFHR.
