Welcome, everybody, to Midday Magazine for this Wednesday, February 12, 2025.
Have your host, James J. Mailoff here.
In part two today, we're going to talk with Kim Shields from Encourage.
We also have Kellyanne from Child Carrying Inc. looking forward to talking with them.
Right now, we have friends and family, really, family natural foods.
We have Katrina Hittner with us, Katrina.
Good to see you.
Hello, everyone.
And we have with us as well, Mike Hittner.
Yes.
Good morning, James, and everybody on WFHRland.
They caught me almost, say, Stephen, right?
Everybody almost caught that right, though.
He's here with us in spirit.
Yes.
And it's great, because now we're going to have our dad here, which is fun.
And I don't know why we don't do this more a while back.
Well, we do call family natural foods.
Yeah.
Well, we got nice.
We got Frank started it all.
I mean, really, it's family natural food, so you get all of us.
Yeah.
I love this.
Yeah.
This is fantastic.
The only problem is me not taking the whole half an hour to talk history with Mike.
I know.
It's going to be hard for me not to do that.
I'll bring in a little of that, James.
Thank you.
Yes.
You will do that within the family natural foods realm of it.
You know, he's got to wear many different hats this guy.
So it's always fun to have him around.
I just want to jump in to a little bit of what's happening for any of those people that
are the last minute Valentine's prepper people.
I just want to throw out some ideas.
So jot them down.
Remember them.
We're here for you last minute, folks.
I might even help you out next year.
Who does?
Yeah.
Or any just any good gift-giving.
Yeah.
It's great for anything.
Doesn't have to be Valentine's Day to celebrate love.
Yeah.
Right.
Well, I mean, like there's teachers out there.
It's friends.
It's like beyond just thinking of that loved one specifically.
Absolutely.
So Valentine's Day is for everyone.
And so some last minute gift ideas I was thinking of, I mean, come on, I can't not say
chocolate.
Yes.
I can't not say chocolate.
I think legally you have to.
I think so.
It's true.
And we have some amazing chocolate.
Lots of different kinds that are fair trade, good quality.
I mean, like the way that chocolate should taste.
Yes.
Yummy flavor.
That's perfect.
Wait a minute.
I didn't bring a sample for you today.
Yeah.
Notice that.
Yeah.
We'll talk often.
No, no, no, that's fine.
Valentine's Day friend.
There is some great, like I don't know if we can sell it enough.
Like I don't know if there are actual, because you hit it actually on the head, I think.
It is the way chocolate should taste.
Yeah.
It's really good stuff over there.
So obviously the gift of health, family after foods, you can come in whether it's a gift certificate
or random different gifts that are, you know, focusing on that loved one's health or
their heart, right?
Because we're in heart month.
Vomfoss, oils and vinegars, we've done so many different tastings on air before of
that.
James loves when I make him taste those things.
And the Lafayah baskets, those are always fun.
Hand woven from Africa, their fair trade, their woman owned, they're actually giving back
to them what they deserve in wage.
Okay, maybe you want to stay home because you don't like the crowds.
Well, let's talk about really good quality meat or our shrimp that we have.
I mean, there's all sorts of yummy things you can have without leaving your house for
Valentine's Day too.
So those are great things.
And then diffusers and essential oils, those are always fun.
And then I want to talk about this local bracelet that is new as a yesterday everyone.
And I will post something.
So I'm going to just hand it to you.
It's copper and it's made locally by a gentleman named Cade.
His mother-in-law makes our essential oil bracelets.
So Terry makes our essential oil bracelets.
These ones are made out of copper and it became a hobby for him.
But he loved how they looked and he loves that there's so many more health benefits to
it.
So copper can help with your immune health.
It also helps with arthritis.
So you'll see people wearing it by their wrist if they have arthritis there or maybe even
their fingers.
Let's see.
Copper also has pain really because of the circulation.
Copper helps with the circulation.
So they're fun.
They have a fun look.
Some are braided, some are twisted, some are hammered, copper.
So different fun looks to them.
And those are new as of yesterday.
But those might be fun.
And both we've been finding both like men or women like them.
It's not specific gender.
Anybody can really wear those.
Arthritis certainly doesn't have a preference.
It takes on both of us and everything.
And to your point, the style of those is very either I could see either sex wearing them
or anything like that.
I've felt a lot of these kind of bracelets before.
I don't know if I've ever felt one such a fine finish.
Yeah.
The craftsmanship on those is incredible.
It's really good work.
He's a really good job and he's got another one I didn't bring.
But it's a little bit more dainty maybe as the word.
It's like a smaller diameter of it.
And so that's nice if somebody's like, well, I want one, but I wanted a little smaller
too.
I think he can custom make them.
Again, this is all pretty new for us and he's having fun doing it.
And it's like, well, there's lots of health benefits to it too.
Yeah.
I feel like we could spend a whole show talking about the benefits of copper and some of
those things.
I think are really interesting.
And not a lot of people are just starting to kind of learn about, which is just always
fascinating when we run into these things that have been around for thousands of years.
But we're just now kind of like as a society catching up to some of it.
That's great.
That's a great and you're supporting a local artist.
Again, yeah, another local artist, which is so great.
And then when we talk about like essential oils, I have to tell everyone, don't forget,
we have our essential oil on a one class on Tuesday of this next week.
So it's going to be February 18th at 515.
So maybe this could be a fun Valentine's gift.
Maybe you're like, hey, let's go learn about this and we'll have dinner afterwards.
We'll forget Valentine's Day overall.
We're going to celebrate it on the 18th.
Like, make that part of your Valentine's.
And that would be fun.
Plus, you've been there before.
The back of the room smells so good.
Yeah.
I guess that smells so good.
And they're so very generous in giving out gifts and drawings and things like that that
everybody goes home with something for sure.
Everybody does.
Yeah.
And, and Liza, who you've talked to on air before, so you're familiar with her as well.
She's, she's so passionate and she just, she can answer like any question and she's so
good at just explaining things, but not, not like, she doesn't go over and beyond you.
She's going to, she's going to teach you and if anyone has questions, she's so eager
to help.
And so we cover a lot of topics in about an hour of time.
And the beauty of these essential oils also is that they're organically grown.
Yes.
And so they can be used both internally and externally, depending on what the situation
is.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's a great point because some of these things, we have capsules now of them or you
want to have lemon in your water, but you just want to have, you know, a drop of essential
oil.
There's a little bit more power strength to that.
And then what I think is also great about these essential oils, like my dad's saying,
they're organics, so they're safe, they're effective.
They have these lovely books that tell you kind of how to take them and dosage and they're
great.
But if you think about it, so many, there's so many chemicals that go into, for example,
a rose plant.
So the last thing you're going to want is to have a concentrated rose chemical on you.
That's why if you get that rose, you want to get it an organic form.
Yeah, the problem with these essential oils is, or any cosmetics, is if we don't know
where it comes from, the skin is like a sponge absorbs everything in.
So we might think we're living really healthily by eating certain things and taking certain
nutrients and supplements.
But if we misplaced our ideology about our skin, how it absorbs things, this is a good
reason to use the organics, for sure.
And if you've ever been kind of, you know, been on the fence about this or been curious
about essential oils, you have questions about it.
What a perfect opportunity.
You're not talking to a computer or a chat screen or on the phone.
It's face to face.
You're able to, and to Katrina's point, she's so good.
She's so good at these things and a great talker and very, very personable.
Like I don't, I don't feel like you, you would feel uncomfortable asking her any variety
of questions.
And there's never any pressure and also she can answer all those questions that maybe
you have and you feel like, well, I don't want to ask that or something.
And a lot of people do go up to her and talk to her personally afterwards too.
And there's always a nice discount for that day too.
Yeah.
So the essential oils are on sale right now.
I'm just going to, you know, I thought maybe you needed your sinuses open up today.
Definitely.
Usually you do, right?
Absolutely, yeah.
Before we're talking to essential oils, let's smell essential oils because that's the
best way to really experience them.
So this one is the sinus formula and it's great for really opening up whether it's in
the morning, afternoon, anytime.
I like to sometimes take a little, like a little tiny dollop of it and put it kind of
like right by my nostril and it really helps open up or a couple drops in my hand and
make like a cupping effect and really breathe it in because it's fantastic for opening
up your nose.
They need to replace the smelling salts on sidelines with that.
That's what every NFL player should be using for smelling salts from now on.
That's awesome.
That smells cool.
We should talk to that.
We should talk to that.
We just got to talk to them.
I guess about that.
I know a guy.
Yeah.
All right.
Sounds good.
Sounds good.
So everybody should come.
It's this next Tuesday, February 18th at 5.15.
It's going to be great.
Please come to that.
We'll be spreading the word about it on the morning show and making sure that you get
a good turnout.
Thank you.
I'm going to skip.
I should just skip.
I should just skip.
I should just skip.
I should just skip.
I should just skip.
I should just skip.
It's 6.15.
It's 6.15.
So you got 30 minutes?
I'm definitely going to.
I'm really even meaning to be the more of these and we have some other things that we've
been talking about.
Off-air and stuff that about it that I'll be down there.
I'm looking forward to it.
I'm looking forward to meeting her in person too.
I've talked to her a couple of times.
She's great.
She's great for sure.
Other great presentations will be coming up to be Linda look out for those ever about.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Keep a look out.
March 13th is our next one.
foundational nutrition with true grace, but we can we'll talk about that one later.
So what we want to talk about is it's currently snowing outside right now, right?
And we're, you know, we don't, we miss seeing those greens around us.
We miss maybe eating those wonderful nutritious greens.
However, you don't have to leave your house to get lots of good nutrition.
We wanted to talk to people about sprouting, something we both are very passionate about.
Right.
And we were introduced to this.
It's a good 40 years ago.
Gene Monson was from from Austin, Wisconsin.
He came up to me and he showed me this revolutionary sprouter.
I've seen other ones, but they were mostly flat or they use, you know, screen type material
that you put on a cord jar or something.
This is a complete container from everywhere from you sprout.
Do you put it away in the fridge and then use it gradually.
But Gene had a great invention.
I lived originally in Austin, helped his mother with diabetes with sprouts and everything
like that.
And then he's down on the Lake Mills area right now.
He lives down in that area.
But 40 years, I bet you we've sold well over 500 of those over the time.
Maybe more.
I just bought one display.
He had a nice display with it held, I think, two dozen.
And I think from then we've sold him year after year after year.
The beauty about sprouts, James, and for the public out there is that when you see him on
a salad bar and they're sprouted, you know, two inches or one inch long or something.
Like alfalfa, for example, you'll see alfalfa and it's got that long tail, right?
Well, there is actually not much nutrition in that unfortunately.
It's when that seed has all the power and it pushes through the seed case.
That's when all the nutrition is there.
So you can look at vitamin content or mineral content and it's increased, you know, 20
folds because all the energy in that seed has to be there right when it pushes out.
And so you want to get those sprouts maybe, you know, a half inch or an inch long or something.
You don't want the great big long ones because it's it's better certainly than not having
the sprouts, but you're getting mostly moisture and maybe a little fiber or something where
this way you're getting all that extra nutrients.
And in the winter time when we don't have much fresh greens and if we look at our regular
lettuce that we normally eat or buy in the supermarket, that stuff is just basically
water.
There's not hardly any nutrients in it.
It's better than nothing, but it's better to have put some sprouts with it, sprout them
yourself at home.
It's so easy.
It's one of those things that we kind of forget from year to year, but it's just take
your sprout out all winter long, especially.
And you can sprout everything from almonds to, you know, any kind of seed you might think
of.
I think Katrina's brought along sunflower seeds.
I brought some sunflower seeds for you.
So I need to do a disclaimer and then about them.
So typically when you sprout something, so right, like like my dad Mike is talking about
is we have this container that where we sprout in.
It's called an easy sprouter.
We sell them at the store there, I think like $15.99, you will use it for the rest of your
life.
It is a great investment.
And it's so easy, hence the name, easy sprout, right?
And you put like your seeds in.
So we're going to, I'm just going to give you some examples.
You can put like beans or legumes in.
You can put almonds in sunflower seeds, which I'm going to have you taste in a couple minutes.
You've got, it'll felt like we were talking about, um, mung beans.
So a lot of these different, and those are hardy when you get them, they're very hard.
So they'll have to soak in this sprouter for X amount of time depending on what it is.
So for example, sunflower seeds are pretty quick.
So you can soak them within like two to three hours, just soak them in the water in this
special contraption.
I know it's, I'm going to try to give my best visuals because you guys are trying to
imagine what this is.
I can show anyone that wants to come to the store, how easy it is to sprout.
But so sunflower seeds, I think it's like two to three hours, you can soak them for up
to four hours.
And then afterwards you let them sprout.
So what sprouting is is you drain the water off of it and you let it sit for, I think
it says that maybe like you can eat it right away up to like four hours.
It can kind of sprout and let itself, um, this is where my dad was explaining like that.
Elfalfa seed where it's, it's popping through its like seed body and that's where the
most energy comes from, um, that may take for other things, it may take a day or it
might take, you know, um, eight hours, it really depends on it.
So I'm not going to complicate that, I'll show you that if you have more details on it.
But um, they're in the beauty of the sprouts too is James, if we can't finish them, put
them in the refrigerator and maybe have some in a couple days time, most of them can be
frozen also.
And it retains its nutrient content perfectly and just be taken out of the freezer.
But I think there's only lentils, mung beans and I think Elfalfa are probably the only
ones that can't be frozen, otherwise all the other ones can be frozen.
Just great.
Make it easy for you.
Do a whole bunch at one time and freeze them and you can take them out.
But it, like my dad was saying before, it, it's nutritional value is, is exponential.
And you sprout something because you're really bringing that like energy force to it.
Um, so there's more bioavailable minerals, um, enzymes.
So the enzymes are going to help you break down your food.
So let's say you're going to eat a salad with some sprouts on it and then you're going
to have a, a steak or some sort of meat with it.
Your body might not be able to process the meat as well.
So these sprouts are naturally going to help your body digest things much better.
And also for a number of people out there, they may be having some, uh, teeth problems
or something or have dentures or something, you can take them like those almonds, those
nuts that are really hard and you can sprout them.
And all of a sudden become easy to chew and to digest and everything.
So that's another benefit from them.
That's definitely a benefit because right now, I mean, a lot of people don't want to eat
like an almond.
That's really hard for them.
But almonds are one of my favorite things to sprout, um, and so my dad was explaining
Gene, the gentleman who made this and his mother had got type, type two diabetes.
And um, he was like, Mom, we're going to change this.
This is all lifestyle.
You're going to, I think she had to start riding on a bicycle for like 30 minutes, maybe
once or twice a day.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
Once a day, 30 minutes.
It wasn't very much, right?
And then he gave her sprouts with every meal she ate and maybe had a snack of them in
between and she reversed her diabetes after doing that like this because it was, it
was completely lifestyle.
It's how we move and what we eat and these things really offer your body good nutrition.
You couldn't have picked something less in my wheelhouse.
I know nothing of sprouts and everything and I've just been sitting back just eating my
popcorn and listening to you guys because this is really interesting to me.
And on a number of different levels, one, we've done a number of stories and studies and
surveys about people now more and more wanting to make their meals at home.
And more and more kind of getting, we're almost evolving past the whole microwave meal
where we want to actually make our meals.
We want more experiences in life, even with our food.
We want to experience our food.
And most people know that you really want to enjoy a meal, make it, you know, you
think some, it's very similar to building something, you know, you build a shack in
the back or something like that.
And for decades, you're looking at the thing feeling good because you built that.
Or you had a hand in building it or something.
Making your meals are very similar.
You feel just as good from that.
And something like this is so affordable and quite easy from what I can see.
Yeah, it really is.
I mean, most people can go home and take something and sprout it right away.
Is this something, if you're giving me a fm off on this, but is this something you can
add to meals as well?
Absolutely.
You can snack on it as, you know, as a snack.
You can add it to your meal, take a tablespoon, maybe you're like, uh, it doesn't work with
my meal, but I'm just going to take a tablespoon before I eat, um, kind of like fermented food
is also so good for our digestion and so on.
But yeah, I mean, it can be eaten at any point at any time.
You're going to feel also more satisfied because you have more nutrients in what you're eating.
So you're not going to be like, oh, I just feel like I need more.
It's like, I feel satisfied by just consuming a little bits of it every day.
It seems like one of those things, too, where, uh, you want to give this a try.
It's worth it.
You know, I mean, there's no, there's no side effect.
There's no real downside to this or anything.
It's very affordable.
So there's that part of it, too.
And, uh, maybe you don't have it with every meal, but you have a new meal or a new addition
to your meals, uh, something that, uh, what once was old is new when you add something
like this to it.
And it's very inexpensive.
I mean, those cost to the seeds is two, three, four dollars and you can get, uh, you
know, probably twenty, fifteen, twenty application.
Because most times you're only using a tablespoon or two of seeds to fill this sprouter up.
So it's very economical and it's, and you, like you were saying, James, you take back
control.
You're doing this at home.
Yeah.
So you don't have anybody to go through.
You don't have any excuses.
The weather's terrible.
I wasn't going to get some sprouts in the store, but I can't get out.
Yeah.
You do them at home.
Do them at home.
Yeah.
It's a good time to do it, especially in winter.
So I just want you to just taste this.
Okay.
I need to do a disclaimer because I ultimately they didn't get to sprout as long as they
should have.
Okay.
But you're going to notice that they're just a little bit softer.
It's a sunflower seed that he's eating.
So it's been soaked.
And then it needs to get, it brings out a little different flavor profile.
And then it also, um, it also helps like it, again, it's easier for your teeth, but it's,
it's more moist.
It's bringing more moisture into your eating.
I love the texture.
Uh, uh, I'm, I'm really weird about textures and the taste of the, the crunch of things
or whatever.
The, the, the bounce of this.
Yeah.
It's not like crunchy, but it's like a soft crunch.
Yeah.
If I could explain it that way.
Yeah.
Oh, that's good stuff.
Yeah.
This may, this may take over the whole salted sunflower seed things at, at sports events.
Oh.
I was going to tell you off here.
I'm getting this from my brother.
Yeah.
My brother loves sunflower seeds.
And I, I know for certain nicks going to love something like this.
Yeah.
There you go.
We'll have a side business at, uh, the Raptors Games next.
Yes.
Get your own sprouted, everyone.
Absolutely.
Again, we know a guy.
We'll look at him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, when it comes to something like this or any of the things we've talked about today,
uh, we encourage you so much to reach out to the gang at family natural foods.
They love taking your questions, love hunting down answers with you.
Uh, if they don't already have them.
Uh, and, and anything else you wanted to touch on my floor, let's go.
Well, another thing on sprouts, James is that we got a, uh, Katrina brought a zesty mix here.
Now, just like in everything, radishes are little zesty.
So if you sprout radishes, you got a little zesty.
So if you want a little punch in your, in your, in your diet,
you can get that or you can go mellow with alfalfa for other things like that.
So it's kind of nice.
You can actually change the taste because of what seeds you sprout.
Yeah.
And just, you know, if you have questions, come on over.
We can explain it in person, which may be a little bit easier to.
And don't forget, uh, February 18th, 515 essential oil presentation.
Be sure to make plans to be there.
Everybody and stop on by, uh, by local support, local support.
Those that support this community and so much of what we do here at this radio station.
Appreciate the relationship we have with you guys for many, many decades.
Keep up the great work.
We'll see you guys real soon.
Sounds good.
Thank you.
Thank you for the time.
Good to see you, Mike, by the way.
Thanks for bringing Mike in.
That was great, Katrina.
Thank you, Kat.
We will, uh, we encourage you to find out more by heading on over to family and at your foods.
910 West Grand Avenue right here in Wisconsin Rapids.
Give them a call.
715-423-3120.
That's 423-3120.
Be sure to bookmark their web page, family and at your food dot com.
And follow them at social media, share what they have.
You just never know who might see those things.
Otherwise share their stuff on your pages as well.
And we'll be seeing and talking to them again real soon.
We'll be back with more mint day magazine right here at WF HR locally grown radio.
