Bridget Conry, community herbalist, spends this conversation discussing how to approach whole health during the days of COVID-19. Bridget stresses the importance of our diet and the food we choose to put in our body before running through a list of powerhouse foods and why they’re beneficial. Next, Bridget turns her attention to fungi and herbs before wrapping up with tips on safely consuming cannabis during COVID-19. Of course water is on her list of must-haves, but most important, Bridget encourages listeners to be gentle with themselves during this time of change and self-improvement and offers advice on how to make positive changes slowly and permanently.

“Focusing on food, it’s so true, we are what we eat. What we put into our bodies builds who we are on a daily basis. It’s the quickest way that you can upgrade or downgrade your biology. It’s fuel, and so whatever you’re putting in is going to strengthen you.”

Transcript:

Seth Adler:
Bridget Conry returns. Welcome to Cannabis Economy. I'm your host Seth Adler. Download episodes on canneconomy.com, or wherever you come to get your podcasts. First a word from our supporter and then Bridget Conry.

Join us for Sensible 2020, a virtual event May 1st through the 3rd. Students for sensible drug policy, SSDP is the largest global youth led network dedicated to ending the war on drugs. At its heart, SSDP is a grassroots organization led by the board of directors, primarily elected by and from the student and youth members. Each year, SSDP brings the community together for Sensible. Sensible 2020, May 1st through the 3rd, is a virtual event, focusing on criminal justice, mass incarceration, global drug policy, harm reduction, health intersecting, social justice issues, lobbying and advocacy, psychedelics skills building, and cannabis. I have the honor of hosting this year's gathering, so please join me by registering at conference.ssdp.org. That's conference.ssdp.org.

Okay. It's Bridget Conry. It's Companion Botanicals'. Bridget, how are you and yours in these interesting times?

Bridget Conry:
We're doing okay. I'm grateful to say that my family is all well. I don't have anyone in my circle right now who's been directly affected. And in Vermont, I think we're a couple of weeks behind New York. And Vermont is such a small state too, and it's a rural state. And we really got I think ahead of this better than some other States. So we're hoping that some of the social distancing things and the shutdowns that we did are going to keep it from getting out of control. But it's still nerve-wracking, just seeing what's going on. I know people who live in areas that are very much affected, like New York and they are really scared right now. And that affects me. I think it affects everybody. We're all feeling that collective energy of fear and anxiety. And it's tough.

Seth Adler:
One of the things that folks are looking to do, is grab as much onto reality, and as much onto whatever they can do, without knowing really where we're going. And so one of those ways is to stock up on toilet paper. Okay, fine. Another way would be to dive in on Botanicals, and really understand what's going on with your body and with herbs that maybe can help. And even it's herbs plus, plus, plus. Right?

Bridget Conry:
Yeah. It starts with food. A lot of the work that I've done in herbalism too, has put the herbs in food, because that's something we have to do every day. Trying to figure out herbs on a other level, or adding supplements in or adding different routines to your life. That gets difficult in our hectic lifestyle here. A little easier now when we're all home. So it's actually a good time to start. But focusing on food, it's so true, we are what we eat. Like what we put into our bodies, builds who we are, on a daily basis. It's the quickest way that you can upgrade or downgrade your biology. It's fuel, and so whatever you're putting in is going to strengthen you.

And so, right now, as I said, it's a good time to start healthy habits to just strengthen your system. There's a lot of information out there right now, like do this, do that, do this, do that. And it's like, let's keep it simple. Let's start in your kitchen, and start looking at the foods that you can start to have on a daily basis that are going to help you build immunity. And it's not stuff that's going to happen immediately. It's building. Seth, you're shaking your head. Do you want to get in here? What do you want to say?

Seth Adler:
Well yeah, when we talked about this conversation, I immediately was able to change my Instacart order, that's how I shop at the grocery store now. I ask very thankfully and humbly for it to be delivered to me, especially because I am in the State of New York, and the State of New York ain't so great as far as the coronavirus, COVID-19, call it what you will. So I'm just out of New York City's reach, but a couple towns over, New Rochelle. So we're being as safe as possible. And it was nice at least to get a list from you of things that I can absolutely do. And so let's go through this list here, of things that I can just change my groceries, and all of a sudden I'm adding companion botanicals to my lifestyle.

Bridget Conry:
Yeah. And so we're starting with food as we said. And I tried to give you a list, and it's by no means a comprehensive list. I tried to pick things that I thought that most people probably are already having at least some of the time. And so it's taking these and bumping them up, and having them more. And adding some that you may not usually have from this list and start finding a way to put them into your recipes.

Seth Adler:
And I just want to add, you have a note here about the fact that you're not providing prescriptions, you're not [crosstalk 00:05:51]. And this is just a conversation between Bridget and Seth, and if it could help you, great.

Bridget Conry:
Yes. I am not a healthcare professional. I'm an herbalist with lots of years of experience. You should be talking to your doctor right now if you're not feeling well. These are things to improve your baseline right now. It's common nutrition stuff, plus some supplemental herbs that are easy to add in that everyone's familiar with at this point, or most people.

Seth Adler:
But to give folks a sense of what we're talking about. The first thing on the list is citrus.

Bridget Conry:
Yes, citrus. Yeah, I mean lemons, limes, those can be your best friends right now, because they're totally packed with vitamin C, which is great. And they're also alkalizing to the body. Most people think about citrus as being acidic, which it is on the outside of your body, but when your body digests it, it actually becomes an alkalizing agent. And generally our bodies are just above seven on the pH scale, and that's almost neutral. And most disease thrives in an acidic environment. And a lot of what we eat on a daily basis creates an acidic environment in our body. Alcohol, coffee, meat, processed foods, dairy, those are all acidifying. And so we always want to keep those to a minimum. And citrus is a good way to add something that's alkalizing, dark leafy greens, those are alkalizing as well. They're not on the list, but they're another thing that helps with that. So keeping your pH where it needs to be, just keeps your body where it wants to be, naturally in homeostasis.

And so I've replaced my cup of coffee in the morning with a cup of warm water with a whole lemon in it. Just squeeze a whole lemon in it every morning. That's what I have. And then I modify that infusion. I don't call it a tea, because tea is technically a plant. You know the tea plant, you got red, green ... Or not red, black, green and white tea. It's an infusion. So a lemon or a lime. And I add to that always honey, sometimes elderberry syrup, ginger sometimes. Sometimes I'll boil the water with ginger first, that's on the list, and add the lemon. But you could just do hot water and lemon, and it's just a great thing to start the day off with. It's also good for your digestion. So have that first before you have your breakfast.

Seth Adler:
And so already you're winning. What's interesting to my brain, is that citrus acidic conversation. It's acid on the outside, but it's alkaline on the inside. So it's doing the opposite.

Bridget Conry:
Right, isn't that cool?

Seth Adler:
Yeah.

Bridget Conry:
So just as good, even though when I say with grapefruit and oranges, they're awesome too, because they're full of vitamin C. But eat the whole orange, because it's good to get all the fiber too, and there's a lot more sugar in those. And so when you juice those, you really get a lot of the sugar, and that's some of the added benefits of the whole fruit.

Seth Adler:
Let me ask you something on juicing, because what I've been doing is juicing an orange, and then making like a muffin out of the pulp. So I am taking in the whole orange. Does that still count as taking in the whole [crosstalk 00:09:11]?

Bridget Conry:
That's great. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah.

Seth Adler:
Okay.

Bridget Conry:
Good for you. I'm rubbing off on you Seth.

Seth Adler:
Without question. 100%.

Bridget Conry:
So alliums. The allium family, loves the allium family. Alliums are onions and garlic. And so those are just really good for you. They're very anti-microbial. And so including those into your diet as much as possible. They also have a lot of other nutrients in them as well. The garlic's a powerhouse. It's just one of them best things that you can eat. Obviously if you eat a lot of garlic, you're going to stink. But hey, we're only around our loved ones right now. Who cares?

Seth Adler:
Exactly. [inaudible 00:09:55]. My wife has been okay with me so far, and so she deals with this.

Bridget Conry:
It help with social distancing too.

Seth Adler:
That's it. Exactly. So number one was, citrus. Number two is these alliums. and you mentioned honey up top, you said always honey. My wife has made a concoction of simply garlic and honey and we're just taking spoonfuls of that. Dive in on garlic and then also help us out with why honey is especially good.

Bridget Conry:
Honey is a natural sweetener, I prefer raw honey, try to find one that's not processed or filtered. And in [inaudible 00:10:39] honey is called an [inaudible 00:10:42], which means it's one of those agents, one of those like chemical products that helps bring nutrients deeper into the body. Which is just a really cool thing. And so I prefer it. Maple syrup would be good too, but it doesn't have that same kind of quality as the honey does. Are you taking the garlic and you're crushing it or mincing it and putting into that?

Seth Adler:
Just mincing it.

Bridget Conry:
Yeah. Cool. That's great. Garlic, as I said, is a powerhouse. When they do studies on garlic, and they throw different things at it in the lab, it like kills almost everything in the lab. And there's so many different chemicals in it, that it's hard for bacteria and viruses and things to figure out. And so it's like that's what bacteria and viruses are doing. Like when a bacteria virus gets into your body, it's trying to figure out how your body works and how to make you a good host for it. At the same time your body is trying to figure out how to deactivate it. And so it's conversations over time, and so it's hard to figure out whole plants, especially garlic, because there's so many different things that a bacteria or virus have to figure out, that they can't just be like, "I got you figured out." And just like a pharmaceutical, it's one thing. Once they figure out that one thing that's how bacteria becomes antibiotic resistant. They just need to figure out one thing. I'm getting off there. We just went deep on garlic.

Seth Adler:
[inaudible 00:12:23] why though, right? It gets us back to that whole plant medicine conversation. A whole plant right there in garlic. So it's almost the kryptonite, to a virus?

Bridget Conry:
Yes, but that's in the lab. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I'm not saying here, that'd be take garlic, it's going to kill COVID-19 it's not just if you're eating it regularly, it's just helping your body have more information and more tools to deal with things that are coming in. But I have in my honey right now, I did onions, fresh time and orange peel and you just put that in a Mason jar. Steep it really even over just over night. And the juices get pulled out of the onions and it becomes like a syrup and you can just take that and you can add it to your, just like you have your garlic, you can add that to your warm water and lemon in the morning.

Seth Adler:
What's the difference between garlic and onion in this conversation?

Bridget Conry:
Well, one thing that you can do that's different. I mean garlic I think is stronger is more potent than onions. But onions have a real affinity for the lungs. And one of the things that you can do with onions is do actually have some congestion building up. It's like one of the old folk remedies is that you like saute onions gently until they soften up in a pan, just a tiny bit of oil. And then you take those and like wrap them and cheese cloth and you can put them right on your chest and onions like cool out. You can put that on your skin too and you have different kinds of boils and things on your skin. But on your lungs it helps to expect rate. I kind of like the, the juices of the onion there, line warm, kind of get in there and it helps your body kind of try to push any kind of settled mucus up and out of your system so you can take them internally or use them as a poultice externally. I've done it with Coles before and it works so

Seth Adler:
pretty good. All right, so we've got citrus, we've got alliums. What's next on the list? How much time do we,

Bridget Conry:
we have, because we're focusing on the mushrooms are great, you know, mushrooms are immune stimulants and so like basic culinary mushrooms, shiitake my tacky oyster mushrooms, those are all really good. I mean there's reishi and, and Turkey tail and chaga. You don't even need to go there. Focus on the ones that you can find in the store. Probiotics. Awesome immunity starts in the gut, you know, and so it's good bacteria and bacteria. You got good bacteria building in there, then everything works better in your body. So, you know, kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha, a nice yogurt, not an overly processed, lots of sugar added to it. Yogurt. Those can all be good for building your guts. Hello. So I'm on yogurt. We've been eating not based yogurt. Does that count? Oh, you know what? I've never had not based yogurt. You know more about that than me.

It's made with nut milk instead of, yeah. Interesting. So I'm, I'm wondering within yogurt, what makes that a probiotic? Especially for this conversation? It's the bacteria. It's acid acidophilus. So it's the cultures that are put in there. Yeah, I think I saw live cultures on the side of the packaging. I will double check that. You just want to make sure there's no sugar in there because that kind of defeats the purpose. So you can add honey or maple a little bit afterwards, but you don't want it in the product. Fresh herbs, tons of them. You know, Rosemary, Sage, oregano, time basal. Just use them all the time. Keep them right by your stove. I have like all five of them just kind of stuffed in Mason jars, a little bit of water in them and when they're right there you, because when you put them in, everything can go into your hot water and lemon in the morning. You know, each morning I kind of just grab a different one, but Rosemary in there at time, they're antimicrobial, they're anti-oxidant, they taste great them into your cooking, handfuls of them, you know, they're wonderful for you and they've got a lot of nutrients in them too. Spices, spices are also concentrated antioxidants. They're warming, they're good for the digestion, they help with circulation. So Kumon tie in, Curry, those are all great. I'm just going to be careful with them because they're powerful and they can be irritants if you take too many.

So that's how you've been talking about the herbs. Let's talk about the herbs, right? Yeah. So some basic ones that you can add that you can find in your co op or new grocery store. Elderberry, people are talking about elderberry a lot right now. Elderberry syrup in particular, I mean the elder shrub. Yes, just full of medicine. Elderberry is a great preventative for colds and flus. It's really something that you should be taking every day. You shouldn't be thinking about it as, Oh, I'm going to take it. Once I start feeling symptoms. It's more of a preventative. Once you start having symptoms, you want to move over to the flowers, the elderflower and start drinking tea because that's a specific for upper respiratory issues and it helps to expect rate things. So that's a good one.

Seth Adler:
Roots. So tumeric, ginger.

Bridget Conry:
Oh yeah, yeah. Well we didn't talk about ginger. That's the food. And as an herbs, ginger is great for the digestion. It's warming. Like if you're feeling chills, Ginger's a great thing to do. It's called chasing the chill, taking, warming things to kind of move that chill out of your body. And it's a diaphoretic. Diaphoretic means that it helps support your body's perspiration. And sweating is one of the ways that the body gets toxins out of the body. And so when you have a fever jelly, you want to encourage a sweat so that your body's pushing things out through your skin. And so ginger is great for that. And elder's great for that too. Actually not on this list. Tumeric is in the spice list and it's funny because tumeric is one of those weird things. It's anti-inflammatory, so it works differently than those other spices. Like when you have turmeric, it doesn't kind of warm you up the way that cayenne or Curry does. Sure. Merck is one of the spices that's in Curry though, but it's very anti-inflammatory and side, so it's a little bit different than the other ones. But that's true. Definitely beyond there. Kayla meal tea, great for the nerves. Kim males, also an antiviral. So as elder, by the way, and again, not saying that it's going to go head to head with COBIT and knock it down, it's just another thing that you're using to build immunity.

Seth Adler:
So now we've got a nice list there and we'll include that. You know, obviously wherever you're seeing this, whether it's on the podcast or on video. And I guess there would be one more that could help these days. Right? And this is the platform is cannabis economy and a girl, right? So

Bridget Conry:
it is. So let's talk about cannabis. How we're talking about it right now with our registered patients is one, we're advocating that people stay away from smoking or vaping, not necessarily completely. I think that if you've got lung issues to begin with or if you have a cold or something, it's not good to be bringing things into your lungs because it taxes your lungs so well, it's very helpful and an infused products to help with anxiety. And that's, you know, if you're anxious, yeah, that's causing you to be more stressful. And whenever there's more stress, immunity goes down. And so we find that a lot of our patients have accessed microdosing with THC, you know, anywhere from one to five milligrams generally as a micro dose. You know, some people have a higher Tyra tolerance might say 10 milligrams, but that one to five and that one to three range taken.

You know, a couple of them throughout the day. You find that the right product, they can really take the edge off and not make it too tired or Hetty. And so lots of people are following that lead. And then of course CBD, you know, but CBD acts differently than THC. No, THC is more of a, an immediate effect. It kind of comes and goes within the same day depending on the product. Whereas CBD, we really talk about it as being more of a supplement. You got to take it regularly because it's pushing you towards homeostasis to help with overall baseline of nerve health and sleep hygiene and things like that. So good time to get on a regimen with taking some CBD every day.

Seth Adler:
And I just want to add, if this is the first time that you are considering THC, go as low as you possibly can. Bridget brought up microdosing micro micro micro, micro dose. Do you want to have a, you can have a good relationship with the cannabis plant. It starts by introducing yourself. You know, just think of it as dating. You know, you don't tell every it tell the other person everything at once. Just they're very, very small amounts of this is what the, if you're considering it for the first time. Yeah, yeah.

Bridget Conry:
I know we're wrapping it up but I would just say some real quick things. General diet right now that would be very good and do it at your own pace. You know that's another thing like you really don't try to do everything at once. Cause when you try to do everything at once, frustration happens, you set your expectations too high, you get frustrated and you stop doing it and so ticket at the time that you can handle right now. And I always say to folks it's easier to add good things then take away bad things. You know, because when you're taking something away it's like you feel deprived, you know, and so when you start to add good things like it's, you know, adding, you know, drinking more water every day, eating more greens, replacing that one cup of coffee with a lemon hot lemon, ginger tea. Do you do those things in your body and your mind naturally start gravitating to those things more and the other negative things fall off easier by themselves. And so, you know, start with that in mind. And then mostly plants right now, lots of water. If there's one thing, fluids, fluids, fluids. You know, your body needs to hydrate. You need water to help move toxins out of every eliminatory system that you have, whether it's urinating, well movements, sweat, you want to keep it moving right now folks, if you see hydrated, you can't do it. Less meat, less dairy, less alcohol, less coffee if you can do it. Those are all really important things. And add in the things that you talked about.

Seth Adler:
Bridget Conry. Really thank you so much. I love these. Always can't wait for the next one where we'll do part two and we'll get even further in if you don't mind. Excellent. All right. Be well everybody, and there you have Bridget Connery. Very much appreciate her time. Very much. Appreciate your time. Stay tuned.

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