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Hello and welcome everybody.
You are probably getting familiar with this company because I really enjoy working with them. They are Touchstone Essentials. We’ve already done a few interviews on the impact of toxins and sugars on your skin and on your fascia. Now I want to peel it back to something that can help support your kidneys, support your body, better oxygenate, and remove excess proteins in the blood.
You know me, I always want to challenge the idea that ageing has this inevitability to it. Instead, I see it as more about noticing what your body needs and where it can be given support, whether it be your fascia, through detox, or through all-natural supplementation.
If you’ve noticed any puffiness in your face or tenderness to the points of pain where you’re working on your fascia, then this is going to be especially interesting for you.
I want to introduce Eddie Stone, the founder and CEO of Touchstone Essentials again, and the lovely Sonia O’Farrell, who has joined us multiple times in interviews with this company and their incredible products.
We’ve all known each other now for over 14 years, and I kind of feel like instead of us looking 14 years older, I genuinely feel like we are finding natural ways to slow down the ageing process. I’m finding that really exciting. So thank you for being on this journey with me.
It has been a journey. Always appreciate the chance to be with you and your audience. We get a lot of thoughtful follow-up questions and I appreciate that.
If I could manage better the hairline, I really would feel like we’re getting it there. But I think it’s at least better than it would be otherwise so, ageing’s okay, right? You accumulate some knowledge and wisdom along the way.
Absolutely. I feel like there’s vitality in the mix here and that’s something that often you see in decline as you age. That’s definitely the opposite in this instance. I’m very thankful for that and very thankful for what the company offers that helps facilitate that as well.
Eddie, perhaps you would be happy to talk a little bit about the background of the company for anybody who’s new. There is a reason that I’ve partnered with you guys over any other companies.
You’ve been in the health industry and wellness industry since 1989, and you founded Touchstone Essentials in 2012, specifically because you saw a problem with the supplement industry and other people were unwilling to talk about that problem.
Before we get into the science of what we’re here to talk about, can you tell us what made you say, “This is something that needs to change in this industry?”
Yeah, I’d be happy to. I’ll just be really blunt about it.
It’s one of those industries where the more you know, at least in my case, the more I knew, there was a loss of confidence, but also a realisation that what people spend their money on is not necessarily what they get.
Often times you see a label, maybe there’s some fruits and vegetables or things on the label. Then you look at the ingredients and realise not really, there’s not really fruits and vegetables in there.
This juxtaposition that is often said, ‘supplement your diet’, which is what I think supplements are supposed to do, is really supplementing with fractionated ingredients and synthetic ingredients.
If you peeled it back a little further and travelled to Southeast Asia and other places around the world to see where these ingredients were manufactured, you’d be a bit horrified. You know, whatever people think it is, it really is not.
Not just talking about the industrial waste and other things that go on with the manufacturing of the ingredients, simply the sourcing. It’s just a collection of chemicals that have been assembled to act as mimics of what natural compounds look like.
And they lack life.
They may meet a standard from a chemical structure standpoint, but there’s no way that they perform in the body in the same way that fruits and vegetables or good clean proteins or things like that do.
It isn’t to say that those things can’t play some role, but there’s an outsized expectation that people have that that measure wasn’t being met.
And so for myself, I’m a consumer of supplements. I mean, I’m committed, have been for a very long time.
I’m 62.
I do feel like my level of energy, recovery, quality of sleep, lots of things have benefited from this dedication along with some lifestyle choices.
But I feel like for the most part, people don’t get what they want.
And I certainly became concerned essentially with what was happening with my own family, even my own products.
People don’t really think about, sometimes from a digestive standpoint, which is some of the discussion here, how you metabolize things, the inflammatory responses that can be created from the body when there’s poor diet and other dynamics like this.
And so I just felt like there had to be a better approach and began to really educate myself along with Sonia and other key people I’ve worked with throughout my career.
We began to look at what are the properties of whole foods that can be harnessed, put into supplements so that people can begin to get what they’re looking for, what they anticipate, and the value for their money.
And that’s really condensing a long story. It’s a long journey, but it’s really what led to the formulations, the products, and the philosophies behind Touchstone Essentials.
Then we went down the track, what does clean look like? That’s just thrown around in a way that’s unfortunate for people.
And so what clean really looks like is also thinking about certified organics so that we can be confident about pesticides, fungicides, herbicides or other petroleum byproducts that wind up in trace amounts in products.
And so certified practices associated with organic and otherwise are important.
So that’s really what’s behind the brand.
And there’s no question the end result of that and the products that we put into the marketplace and people’s repetitive use of them and the benefits they’ve gotten are what has propelled us to really today, and I say this quite proudly, a global brand.
We operate on multiple continents and countries.
It’s because people are getting what they’re paying for and receiving value at a very personal level.
And so that’s what we look to deliver and at least for a lot of people out there, that’s what they’re getting from the products.
Yeah, I love that so much and it’s definitely been my experience, which is why I’m so passionate about working with you both because I know how committed you are and how much background and research has gone into everything that turns into a product.
It’s more than just a bottle. It’s thousands and thousands and thousands, maybe tens of thousands of hours of time and effort.
And I get the benefit and other people get the benefit of it because of that.
So I’m incredibly grateful for it.
And I think there is definitely, unfortunately, within the supplement industry, a lot of people struggling to live well because the supplements that are out there, despite people paying a lot of money and putting a lot of effort into their health, are failing them.
And there’s a lot of marketing and noise and empty promises, both in the anti-aging space and in the wellness space.
I just feel like it can be disheartening for people because I think people invest in these ways and then they end up feeling like there’s something wrong with them or that nothing is going to work for them, when actually there are very real solutions, which is one thing that I’m very passionate to get in front of people with my work and also the things that I bring to them like Touchstone Essentials.
Let’s think about this.
So there are a lot of things happening with people when they’re aging, both in terms of the way people look but also the way people feel.
And people might think that there’s an inevitability to have more lethargy in the body or a lack of general energy.
You might think that slower muscle recovery is normal as you age or slower metabolism.
It’s just a general slowing down that everybody thinks happens as you age.
And people sometimes feel heavier, puffier, like puffier in their body.
And I see a lot of people kind of accepting, “This is where my body is at now.”
And some of it for sure in my experience is stuck fascia.
Some of that is also a lack of nutrients and some of that is inflammation or the body’s inability to break down sugars in the way that it used to.
So some of what’s going on for people, I believe, could also be excess proteins in the blood.
And that’s what we’re going to talk about today because this is something that most people genuinely have never heard of.
And even though it turned out that I was actually personally dealing with a lot of this and had been for most of my life, could you put in plain terms for people what it means, what could cause that buildup, and what it might feel like in somebody’s body?
Let me say a few comments and then I’ll get Sonia to speak to this as well.
But from my perspective, and I want to try to make this really easy for people to understand, one, as you get older, your digestive system just isn’t the same as it once was.
And you can kind of think about in your teens and twenties, you could eat anything you wanted and feel pretty good the next day, right?
And things went through you fast.
Your metabolism was really at its peak.
And so you could handle whatever and quite well and feel good because there’s a robustness to the amount of enzymes in your body, the production of enzymes, digestive enzymes and otherwise.
Enzymes are not just confined to the production and the impact on the digestion of food.
There’s many more facets of that and that’s not for this discussion, but it is a very, very important thing to get an idea of.
So as you get older, if you just fast forward, probably everybody listening has seen to some level, if they’re let’s say in their forties, it’s just not the same.
A meal sticks around a little longer.
And with each decade they probably find that to be true.
And all of a sudden you realize, I can’t eat as much as I used to.
That may be a good idea, but in part because you just don’t digest at the same rate.
So that’s just a general idea that I think most people would recognize.
But at a micro level, what’s happening is that the proteins that you eat, so we’re talking about your animal proteins as well as your vegetable-based proteins, the metabolism just sort of gathers around red blood cells.
Just a real simple idea.
They gather around red blood cells and they accumulate.
And you might think about it as metabolic waste.
Now metabolic waste is also fecal matter and other things going through the digestive system, but in your bloodstream this very much occurs.
And so what happens is they occupy space that doesn’t allow the use of oxygen in the bloodstream.
And so if that red blood cell can’t react with oxygen in the bloodstream in the way that it’s intended to, you lose the ability to use oxygen to create energy, which drives ATP production and all these dynamics in the cell.
So this isn’t a biology class or anything like that, but the bottom line is you lose efficiency.
And everybody listening has noticed when they eat a meal, their energy level, generally speaking afterwards, is down for a while as their body goes through digestion.
Well, that’s the macro level.
The same thing is happening at the micro level.
And if this is prolonged, it does create other issues in the body that you referred to.
And so if you take or utilize proteolytic enzymes, and that just simply means enzymes that break down proteins, you support the body’s ability to manage that metabolic waste or those metabolized proteins that are clumped around red blood cells.
And if you wanted to go to the extreme, you could actually take a blood sample, look at it in a microscope, and you could actually see the movement of those red blood cells.
You could then take some of the product, take yourself a couple, three capsules, and do that same test, all things being equal, 30 minutes later, and you would see a greater level of movement around those red blood cells.
And so you’re processing oxygen more efficiently and you’re going to have more energy.
So it’s different and more healthy than, say, stimulation that you find with caffeine or things like that.
And this is one of the attractions because you just have more sustained energy throughout the day because of the efficiency in your body.
Now I want to get Sonia to comment because she is really, in terms of these enzymes, quite the expert.
So Sonia, I ask you to kind of pick it up from there
I think you gave a great overview of how that’s actually working in the body.
For me, looking at it, it’s really fundamentally about oxygen, right?
I mean, we all know that oxygen is essential to life.
We even think about it from the standpoint of, if somebody has an injury, they might do hyperbaric oxygen therapy, right, to try and get more oxygen into their tissues and into their body.
Athletes really try to optimize their oxygen flow, that VO2 max, because they know if they can have their oxygen moving more efficiently, they’ll be able to have better athletic performance and better athletic recovery.
So oxygen is where it’s at, both for healing, for life, and also for energy.
And in the body that oxygen is transported by red blood cells, as Eddie was saying.
So the efficiency of that transport, of those red blood cells, is what determines how energized, how much oxygen we’re getting throughout our body, which is life-giving, sustaining, healing, all of those things.
And yes, protein fragments, whether that’s from excess waste from the meal, we’re just not as efficient at breaking that down.
It can be cellular debris.
It can be some of the debris that happens from inflammation.
All of these things attach and make our red blood cells clump together and they slow down.
They just do not deliver the oxygen as quickly or as efficiently throughout the body.
And as Eddie was saying, a lot of people turn to coffee.
There’s nothing wrong with coffee, but having that caffeine kind of hijacks our nervous system.
It gives us a jolt, but it’s not addressing the underlying problem, which is making sure that we’re getting more of that life-sustaining oxygen where we need it.
And that’s one of the reasons why having that more efficient oxygen transport has so many beneficial effects in your skin, in your fascia, for healing, for recovery.
After a workout you’re able to bounce back easier and faster. Because it’s really fundamental, right?
It’s really about making sure that you’re getting that life-sustaining oxygen where and when you need it.
You both well know this, but I have a love affair with this particular product that you’ve created because for me, I think I was dealing with excess proteins in my blood, probably for most of my life.
And I think I realized after I’d had some heavy metal poisoning, which again was only really brought to my attention when we first started working together, part of the reason that I had these extra proteins is because my kidney function is a little bit lower than maybe it would be for most people.
And so for me, when I first started taking this product, it was literally transformational because I went from having very heavy legs and feeling lethargic and having to really work to get my energy up and going, and not having used caffeine at that point I think for maybe 10 or 15 years.
I used to have coffee and it didn’t really create a solution for me.
But when I started to take this product, all of a sudden the momentum that I had in my body, I felt younger than I’d felt even in my teens.
And I just felt like everything was really possible and very easy for me all of a sudden, which was a real surprise.
I was not expecting it at all.
And I know this product’s called Natto-Clear now, but if you’re familiar with Touchstone previously, it was known as Green Energy.
And for me, that’s exactly how I would describe what it gave me.
I felt like it was very clean and genuinely clean, not in the way that it gets thrown around with other supplements, but I felt very clean.
There was no kind of kickback from it and there was no peak or trough with it.
It was a very constant, well-sustained energy that I have been able to enjoy now for the last 10 years, or however long the product has been out for.
This is my story with this particular product, but I’m curious, is there a particular reason that you chose to create this product?
Because I know the Touchstone Essentials range, for as established as a company as it is, it’s a fairly unique, small, tight boutique range in that you really only pick products that you see a problem in the market that needs a solution and you cater to that problem.
I’m curious what you saw the problem to be when you started creating this product.
Well, there are quite a few things, but let’s just start by looking generally at what people consume.
And I’m not going to get off into the amount of fast foods and processed foods and things like that. That’s a whole other discussion.
But I would imagine this audience, most everybody sort of realizes that that standard fast-food diet is not a great idea long term.
Sure, maybe a temporary solution.
But when you look at that, where people really struggle is with energy, and for whatever reasons.
Let’s just look at the explosion of these high-caffeine, highly caffeinated soft-drink-like products that are out in the marketplace.
Some of the more advertised brands around the world really represent soda-like products that have so much caffeine in them they actually outstrip espresso and regular coffees, whatever it happens to be.
And then we also have coffees that are now drilling down on highly caffeinated beans that once used to be a part of a mix and now it’s the whole mix.
And so we are a caffeine-focused world right now, at least in the developed world.
And I’m not going to be critical of all that. There’s definitely a role for caffeine for people that tolerate it well.
But people are masking, at least as we look at the data, other underlying issues with all the caffeine-type products that serve as nerve stimulants and now can start to impact sleep and other dynamics.
And so we wanted to have an alternative.
The original name of Green Energy, which served its purpose, was to give people the idea, ‘Oh, here’s an alternative to something that doesn’t have caffeine in it.’
We later changed the name because what people are most familiar with are the fundamental enzymes in the products. We wanted to meet the consumer where they were.
But that was really the impetus behind this, to give people another tool, one more way to think about this, an alternative to the highly caffeinated products that could in fact give them energy in the same sort of dynamic.
And then more at a base level, if you look at our product line, we’re using cold-processed ingredients that maintain relative amounts of the native enzymes that are in those fruits or vegetables.
That’s what’s in those dried powders that represent the capsules and the powdered products.
And so we also then add digestive aids in there, plant-based enzymes to aid in digestion.
And that is because generally speaking about 40% of the energy consumption that happens to a person throughout the course of the day comes from the digestion of food.
And so people don’t even realize what they’re consuming, how it impacts this overall portfolio of energy expenditure, what they’ve got left in the tank to have fun, play with the kids, complete the workout, whatever it happens to be.
And so to be able to address healthy digestion with what people are consuming and then at a micro level get down to how it’s affecting the metabolism of proteins and clumping around blood cells, that was the impetus behind the products.
And I believe we’ve now just really seen it resonates with people that pause more than 30 seconds to look.
For someone that just takes 30 seconds to make these kinds of decisions, it’s probably a deeper dive than that, maybe 90 seconds.
But as people have begun to look for solutions beyond just one more 16-ounce heavily sugar-laden, 440-milligram caffeine jolt to their system, which the body gets used to over time, there are all kinds of other dynamics associated with it.
Now here’s an alternative for people to look at.
And really, in the product line, that’s what’s representative of these gaps with what people can obviously see is available and convenient.
And so that’s really the motivation behind building a product line like it is.
And I’ll just add to that, which I think is a great point.
Energy is a fundamental challenge that so many people face today.
So when we think about Natto-Clear, it’s really about the fact that it’s not just addressing the root cause of a lack of energy, but also mental fatigue.
So you’ve got this physical fatigue, but we also have this mental fatigue.
Natto-Clear is really there to help address both of those issues.
The proteolytic enzymes, the nattokinase that Eddie was referring to, are really there to help optimize that oxygen flow so you feel a much greater energy.
But what we also have within there is organic green tea, and that is so important for mental energy, for mental alertness, for clarity.
So it’s both the mental and the physical aspect that really come together and make this a very special product for helping to clear away those excess proteins, but really help to deliver clean energy and mental focus.
Amazing.
I know I’m quite thorough with my testing and I did actually try eliminating it for a little while to see how I got on.
And the reality was that I noticed massively that it was definitely the Natto-Clear that was doing the job.
And so I went straight back on it after I’d taken it out for a specific amount of time.
But physically, other than mental clarity, because the mental clarity was definitely also a key thing, physically for me I noticed an enormous reduction in swelling in my legs.
I’d say maybe a 60% reduction just from taking that product.
So I am a huge fan and I’m so happy that we’re talking about it finally.
I am really curious because there are a lot of… you mentioned nattokinase, which is one of the ingredients.
And the research on nattokinase talks about having a meaningful daily dose.
Could you talk a little bit about the dosage?
Because there are a lot of nattokinase products on the market at the moment and I’m really curious as to why you’ve picked the dosage amount that you have, and also why the dosage matters and how it compares to other products that are out there on the market.
And I’m going to add one more thing, and probably it’s going to be too many questions in one, but I’ll go back over it if you need to.
It’s also how is this nattokinase different apart from the dosage?
How do you know if it’s clean?
What makes it cleaner than another nattokinase, for example?
You want me to address this question, Eddie?
So nattokinase is an amazing enzyme.
Not only is it a proteolytic enzyme, which means that it helps to break down those excess proteins in the body, but it’s also a fibrinolytic enzyme, which means it helps to break down excess fibrin.
So that’s really, really important in terms of when you’re talking about fascia, when you’re talking about movement, when you’re talking about all of those things.
It is an amazing enzyme.
And what’s remarkable in all of the research about it is that it has all of these incredible health benefits and no side effects, no downside.
But when you look at the research regarding nattokinase, one of the most distinguished studies on this is research that was done in Japan.
In a study of over 1,000 people, they evaluated different levels of nattokinase being consumed over a 12-month period of time. So this is quite a long-term study in terms of a supplement ingredient.
What they found was that a lower dose, and they defined a lower dose as being 3,600 fibrin units, did not have any significant impact relating to heart health.
And that’s what they were looking at: cardiovascular health, circulation, plaque buildup, that’s what they were evaluating.
What they did find is that a daily dosage level in a supplement at 10,800 fibrin units per day had significant beneficial effects in terms of arterial health.
In terms of circulation, there were benefits for cholesterol levels.
So that’s kind of the threshold where you want to be able to see those beneficial effects, not only for the excess proteins but really for cardiovascular health.
And that’s where nattokinase is truly a star because the research on that also indicated that there were no contraindications even when people were taking it with aspirin.
So it was really a significant study in terms of showing this is something that can significantly help people who want to support their heart health.
But the lower level does not have those kinds of benefits.
So when we look at Natto-Clear, what we actually include is all of the enzymes based upon their activity level.
So it’s not so important with enzymes that you have a particular amount by weight, like milligrams or something.
What’s more important is that you actually have it in there based upon its activity units.
And every enzyme has its own type of activity unit.
For nattokinase, that’s fibrin units.
So we do include 10,000 fibrin units of nattokinase in every serving of Natto-Clear.
That really does distinguish it within the marketplace.
A lot of supplements that have come out recently include 100 milligrams and they say, ‘Oh, that’s 2,000 fibrin units of nattokinase,’ because maybe they have an off-the-shelf unit.
We do not.
We have a custom blend of an enzyme that actually really has a very potent nattokinase fibrin unit.
So it’s about five times more potent than you would find in any other standard supplement.
So it allows us to deliver a really, really effective level of nattokinase, far more so than anything else that’s out there.
And to answer that secondary question that you were having in terms of the enzymes, how they make them so clean really relates to, of course, it coming back to the facility where those enzymes are cultured, how they are done within a cGMP facility, and how they are tested to make sure that the activity levels are what they say they are so that is kind of done throughout the process and it is a clean enzyme that comes through.
Enzymes aren’t eligible for organic certification because they’re not a fruit or vegetable that’s grown, but it is very much a clean product.
We don’t have fillers. We don’t have magnesium stearate.
We choose organic green tea because it’s important to us that you not have pesticides in what you’re eating or consuming.
So that really goes back to why you want to have a really high potency level of nattokinase and how we’re able to achieve it.
Wow.
I know for me it’s been a life-changing product and I also know with people I’ve seen take it, when somebody’s working on their fascia and beginning to open it up, I notice that as soon as they put the addition of the Natto-Clear in place, it seems to me that their recovery time improves.
It makes it easier for the tissues to mobilize because everything can just move a little bit better. It’s less sticky.
And obviously there’s the benefit of the improved circulation because of the oxygen and therefore that impacts how your skin is and the vibrancy that’s coming out of your skin.
I do feel like that is a key component, I would say, for my own personal vitality and well-being.
And as I said, it’s one of my favourite things about the company.
One of them. There are many. I have many favourite things.
But I also love that whenever you do have a product that you’re getting out there to people, you really offer it in a way that gives a benefit to people physically, but also you have offers that you allow first-time customers to take advantage of.
So tell me, Eddie, what have you got for us today with the offer with this?
I’m in fact going to take some Green Energy, sorry, Natto-Clear, whilst you do that.
Based upon the depth of our relationship with you and your audience, we will run on rare occasions a 40% off discount, not just for a single product, but whatever.
And so for the promotion period, they can enjoy 40% off.
And we do that because we’ve learned over time our customers are very loyal and they’re great to us.
So we want to be able to give back, and this is one of the ways we can give back, by giving them that discount.
And it’s website-wide.
Amazing.
Thank you. That’s so kind of you.
I really hope you all will take advantage of this because this really is, I mean all of the products are amazing, but this one really is one of the game changers, at least for me.
And I think if you’re doing a lot of fascia work, it’s a must as far as I’m concerned.
Thank you both so much again.
If you’re happy to, we will have you back to talk about further things.
Always an education with you here.
I will just add, Savannah, as you pointed out, this is an amazing offer.
It is for new customers, but it is a wonderful opportunity because it’s sitewide to explore what else is there and be able to really load up your cart and take advantage of those savings because everything is backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.
There’s zero risk, so it’s all upside.
But it’s a tremendous opportunity for your listeners to be able to really explore and get organic goodness that’ll help them in every aspect of life.
Amazing.
I’m excited to hear how everybody gets on with it.
Thank you so much again for this opportunity.
Thank you.
