Farmacopia with Lily Mazzarella

Farmacopia with Lily Mazzarella
Lily: So often when I'm talking to my family on the East coast and they say, should I be taking this or that? Well, if you're getting it from a drug store or Costco, no, I'd rather you not take it. So we look at baseline manufacturing, as the entryway - do you even pass that?
Are the nutrients in their proper form? From my certified nutrition specialist standpoint are the nutrients in the most bioavailable forms that are going to do the least harm. So this is, for example, in looking at something like folic acid, which is a synthetic form of folate, there's a pretty big subset of the population who can't activate folic acid so, it's possible that actually unmetabolized folic acid can build up in the system and cause problems
Do I believe this is safe? would I take it myself? Do I believe it's safe and effective? - I don't carry things that are necessarily trendy. When Dr. Oz was big, they would come in and be like, do you have raspberry ketones? Do you have XYZ? No, I don't, I haven't seen clinically that it works.
Lana: You are listening to planned love radio episode number 72.
Intro
Hello friends. I hope you're having a great day. A few years back I discovered a product called Reishi Roast at one of herbal conferences. I fell in love with it and got to interview its creators sometime back. I will include the link to the previous interview for you to check out.
As I learned more about the ladies who brought it to life, I realized that one of them is the owner of a wonderful herbal apothecary and practice called Farmacopia. One of the reasons I became so fascinated is it takes a lot of skill and energy to have a formulary that carries many excellent products. And I wanted to learn more on how an owner of such practice does this.
Fast forward to today and meet Lily Mazzarella. Lily is an herbalist, nutritionist, teacher, a whole foods chef and a writer. Her journey for healing her own complex health challenges sparked her interest in herbal medicine, nutrition, and other modalities.
Lily is the formulator and creator of Farmacopia's line of signature tinctures, bitters, adaptogens, powders, and superfoods. As I mentioned earlier, she's also co-founder and formulator of Reishi Roast original and Reishi Roast elixir.
Today she can be found in her clinical practice at Farmacopia, teaching for a variety of audiences or at the California school of herbal studies, serving as a community project expert advisor on herbal medicine, botanizing in the desert and engaging in urban wildfire recovery.
This episode is coming out around the time when many of us starting to look for holiday gifts. A little while ago, I came to conclusion that herbal products, skincare, and food make the best holiday gifts. As a result I'm especially excited to share this conversation with you today.
This episode has a raffle of Farmacopia's Super Power adaptogenic powder blend for energy mood and stress. The winner of this raffle will get to experience an awesome blend of adaptogens such as eleuthero, maca, ashwagandha, and licorice with a yummy spice combination of cardamom, nutmeg, and cinnamon, and more. To enter this raffle, please head over to https://ko-fi.com/plantloveradio, and share your thoughts on today's episode.
Today we will be talking about Lilly's vetting process as she selects product lines that she carries and why you should follow a similar approach when you select your supplements or herbal products, we'll discuss some of the categories of natural skincare products and how Lily developed Farmacopia's line of tinctures and seasonal cleanses.
To get all the links mentioned in today's episode head over to the show notes at https://plantloveradio.com/72. Enjoy!
Interview
Lana: Lily hello. How are you doing
Lily: nice to see you Lana.
Lana: Nice to see you too. I'm so delighted that you are coming back. last time we talked about a product that you created when you were going through your herbal program, and I will definitely include the link to this interview for our listeners so they can explore it. But today, I wanted to talk a little bit more about some of your more recent adventures. But for our listeners that haven't heard you, could you talk a little bit on how you got started in herbal medicine?
Lily's herbal education journey
Lily: Yes. so I may have mentioned this the last time we chatted, but I grew up in suburban New Jersey and, it was actually a really beautiful and green space. I spent a lot of time in nature, and really nature is my first love. And I sort of finding myself returning to that the longer I am in practice actually. But we had no alternative medicine whatsoever. There wasn't even a chiropractor in town. I mean, it was a total dead zone, vis-a-vis any kind of herbal medicine, naturopathy, acupuncture. So I went through my undergraduate schooling, majoring in English actually. And then through college, I developed sort of mysterious health issues and kind of looking back on it they had actually been there since childhood. I had a lot of skin issues and digestive issues, lots of reactions to food, you know, just kind of strange and chronic health stuff that wasn't actually being addressed by the family doctor or the health center at university.
And so after graduation, when I was living on my own in New York city and not having the healthiest of lifestyles, waitressing and working really late nights and partying fair amount my health issues intensified. But I was in New York city, so I had so much more available to me.
There are some amazing herb stores there actually that were there way back when that are still there like, Flower Power and Integral Yoga, Natural Vitamin. I started seeking out acupuncture for my digestive, skin, immune issues, and issues I had with my menstrual cycle.
And I saw an elderly Chinese practitioner in Chinatown who someone had referred me to. And this was like one of those pivotal moments where you just recognize that there's like a whole universe there that you have been previously unaware of. So I found this place, I think it was on grand street in Chinatown and there was a younger guy and his elderly uncle was the pulse doctor there, the pulse and tongue doctor and herbalist.
And so you go into the herb shop and I didn't really recognize anything like nothing was like visually relatable to me. I had no idea what anything was and the jars. And, so it was very nice, man led me back to his elderly uncle and he took my pulses and looked at my tongue and pronounced something to his nephew.
And he said to me, double period, And that month was the first month I had ever actually had a mid cycle bleed - my menstrual cycle was really regular, very painful, but really regular. And this guy having not even spoken to me at all was able to detect through my pulses and tongue that I had this alteration or disturbance in my menstrual cycle, which was just phenomenal.
And I was in there actually for respiratory and immune issues. Those are the herbs I went away with and cooked daily for about three weeks, you know? Drank this kind of sludge, like I bought the clay pot from them and cooked everything down and I got better. I mean getting better wasn't a one time thing. You know, my lungs healed. I had been sick for months and I was no longer sick. So it was a really eyeopening experience. So I started going to acupuncture and actually for a while, that's what I thought I was going to do. I was like, I'm going to be an acupuncturist. This is clearly amazing. And then I ended up leaving New York city after realizing it was not great for my nervous system. And I had already started self study in herbs and alongside working in restaurants. I was also working in an herb shop and, just kind of doing what so many people do in the beginning of their herbal medicine careers, which is just reading everything you can get your hands on. I mean, I'm sure you relate.
Lana: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Lily: Yeah. And so I ended up moving to Ithaca, New York sight unseen. I just thought, well, this is my next move. And I found out that there was an herb school there with a wonderful herbalist named 7Song. And so I attended his Northeast School of Botanical Medicine in 2001 I believe. And that school is still running and I highly recommend it.
So it was a nine month intensive program. We learned botany and wildcrafting, he's an incredible botanizer and body systems and herbal medicine. But when I finished that program, I just wanted more. So I kept going. Yeah.
Lana: And so what was the next step?
Lily: So the next step was a year long a program with Matthew Wood that was run through some herbalists in Woodstock, New York, one of whom has an amazing book on skincare. Dina Falconi Earthly bodies and heavenly hair. She's an incredible herbalist. She's a fabulous person. And she and her business partner were bringing Matthew Wood in for like a four day stretch every month for a year. So we would go and stay there and do learning with him.
And after that I realized I really wanted a stronger clinical education and I had met the famous and fantastic herbalist James Snow at 7Song's school. They're good friends. They go way back. And he told us about a program that was starting in Maryland at what is now the Maryland university of integrative health. But there was going to be a three year master's of science program in herbal medicine and clinical herbal medicine and the head of the program was going to be Simon Mills, who is a famous British phyto therapist, just an amazing author and thinker researcher, clinician. And it just planted the seed. I thought, okay, I think that's where I'm headed, but I needed to actually go back to school and get a bunch of science prerequisites.
And I was still considering acupuncture school, which required even more prerequisites. So I did that for about a year, continuing kind of self study and gaining more science education, which is great. I love being a later in life learner, really wonderful.
And then I did pursue the program, starting in 2003 in Maryland, and it was incredible. It was three year full time education in physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, herb-drug interactions, you name it, medicine making all of it. I feel really lucky to have attended the program when it was in that form. It's kind of since morphed, I think it's being turned into a naturopathic program now. Actually the programs have split into nutrition and naturopathy. And we actually had a big nutrition portion of our program as well. Yeah, it was a 96 credit program when I went, which is actually more than a Phd. It was really intensive. So again, I feel really lucky about that. And at the end of that, I moved with my then partner out to Northern California where I still am today.
I really lucked out in that pretty soon after getting here, I started teaching at the California school of herbal studies, which was founded by Rosemary Gladstar and is just a wonderful, wonderful resource out in Forestville, California. And I recommend to anybody to come and do their intensive roots program. They also have intermediate programs and weekend programs. so I began teaching there and started my clinical practice after getting here.
Lana: That is fabulous. So was there anything in particular that attracted you to the West coast?
Lily: Well, I do love the East coast. I grew up there, and my family is in the DC area, but kind of living between two beltways. I was really missing my nature connection and just felt that I needed a move and my partner had a great job offer and I thought, okay, I'll do this. Yeah. So I'm realizing some of the bigger decisions in my life, I make actually fairly quickly and impulsively and I think it's good that I just get my brain out of the way.
Lana: I think it's pretty common, that's fabulous. So you came to California and after several years, you began managing Farmacopia, right?
Early days of Farmacopia
Lily: So there was a small business in a medical park in Santa Rosa, California called Farmacopia. And it was started by a neurologist and a lay herbalist. And they were way ahead of the curve. They started this business in the late nineties, offering herbal medicine and sort of practitioner line supplements, which then were really only available in doctor's offices and through practitioners. Now they have more broad availability, but, then that's really where you needed to go to get them.
So it was a little postage stamp sized place, and I came in there to manage it when one of the owners moved to South America and the other owner, the neurologist is a silent partner, so he was never really involved. And he did write a great book, it's herbs and nutrients for neurologic conditions. So he's a real proponent of natural medicine and nervous system, Sidney Kern.
And so I came on to manage and it was really interesting time actually. Karen, one of the previous owners, she left on the eve of the economic collapse. So I started taking care of this business, like in what was a really major recession. And I had such a great time connecting with the public. So people were coming in on a walk in basis and I was blending herbal medicines for them with our tincture bar, and really just getting so much feedback. People were able to come back in, I'd speak to them for about 15 or 20 minutes, and then they'd be able to come back in a few days later and tell me how things were going. I could change the formula and I also started practicing there. There weren't any practitioners practicing at the time.
New vision
And then after a few years I realized I wanted to turn Farmacopia into something different and bigger and more, more keeping with my vision and with the times. So I bought out the owners. And it's a very different business now, but as I was saying to you earlier, I really love the name. So I kept the name and now we are a few times in size what we were previously and we have about six or seven practitioners. Now we have naturopaths and herbalist, nutritionist and acupuncturist, osteopath, Bowen worker, people doing energy work and aromatherapy. So we have an incredible array of practitioners.
We have a low cost clinic, where some of our sort of bright, young herbal stars are beginning their practices. and yeah, and I've been practicing there now for... gosh, how long I started in 2007, so a long time, 12 years. And so we've expanded, we've knocked down walls and since really expanded, not just our clinical offerings, but also what we have in our apothecary.
Apothecary
So we still have the tincture bar, which is fabulous, but we also carry a ton of skincare and beauty. Everyone who works there is obsessed with that. It's just so much fun. We do a lot of nervous system, sleep, stress, insomnia, pain management. We have like a really big offering for that.
And so we still carry the practitioner line supplements, which we vet very carefully. Any lines we bring on as we recently did, actually when we decided to bring on CBD products, I went through a several months long vetting process, to decide what were the guidelines that I was personally using? What were my standards to bring on these products?
Vetting process
So everything from growing practices to supply chain, to types of testing, availability of testing, to both the consumer and to me as the provider or purveyor. so it's, it's a really, really interesting line of work to be in.
Farmacopia line of products
And then Farmacopia has its own line of products that I've developed over the years in working with literally thousands of people. I think there's a lot of good herbal medicine available on the market these days. I mean, it's good quality in that it's organically grown and it's been tested properly. But has the formula actually been utilized with people like with real people, I haven't been sort of clinically
Lana: effective. Right, right, right. So, when I reached out to you for this conversation, one of my personal questions was what is the process that you use to select some of these groups of supplements? And the reason for that is I've been on your mailing list for a number of months. it's always really interesting to see things that you carry and that are available to your clients, but my question was if there is someone who is either thinking of starting an apothecary or someone who is going to apothecary and kind of thinking like, what is it that they carry? Can I trust these products? How do you approach this? How do you look at the manufacturers? How do you make your decision? So you mentioned CBD and this was one of the conversations that I had not long ago with one of my teachers, David Winston. He was talking about CBD products and how difficult it is right now to actually determine who is reputable and high quality where these products are coming from, because it's just very trendy. So what is your approach? Not just CBD, but in general.
Lily's approach for vetting new products
Lily: Well, actually use CBD as an example though, it's such a good example. David's totally right about that. I guess I'll start off by saying I have some baseline standards, I guess I would call them - things being manufactured in registered GMP facilities for example. So that's very important to me when people are taking concentrated nutrients in particular like quote, unquote supplements. I want to make sure that if a product says that it contains 10,000 iU of vitamin A that it doesn't contain 1000 or a hundred thousand, which we know based on various independent testing organizations that go out and pull products from the shelf that can be so.
So I often when I'm talking to my family on the East coast and they say, should I be taking this or that? Well, if you're getting it from a drug store or Costco, no, I'd rather you not take it.
So we look at baseline manufacturing, as the entryway - do you even pass that? And then if you do, then you have, okay, how much third party testing is there? Are the nutrients in there in their proper form?
From my CNS, my certified nutrition specialist standpoint are the nutrients in the most bioavailable forms that are going to do the least harm. So this is, for example, in looking at something like folic acid, which is a synthetic form of folate, there's a pretty big subset of the population who can't activate folic acid, who can't put it through numerous steps to kind of activate it to active folate. So, it's possible that actually unmetabolized folic acid can build up in the system and cause problems or occupy binding sites for active folate, and Hey, that means that you're doing harm. so I really take first do no harm. I mean, I'm not a medical doctor, but I do think it's a really good premise to just start from there.
Do I believe this is safe? would I take it myself? Do I believe it's safe and effective? So there's just some checking in with myself - I don't carry things that are necessarily trendy. When Dr. Oz was big, they would come in and be like, do you have raspberry ketones? Do you have XYZ? No, I don't, I haven't seen this around long enough to know there's not enough science on it, or it's all based on extrapolation. I haven't seen clinically that it works or whatever.
So manufacturing purity, third party testing, type and availability, bioavailability of nutrients, form that the nutrient is in.
A lot of supplements are formulated with sort of inexpensive and poor quality forms of nutrients, particularly on the B vitamin front. Sometimes you see D2 instead of D3, things like that. We also have the good fortune to have so many good practitioners working at Farmacopia who all carry the same high standards and all are really interested in clinical efficacy. So we also kind of pool information from our own network, which I think is really awesome and important to do.
But back to the CBD issue, I had to really educate myself about all the issues around not just the legalities of caring and selling CBD based products, but the safety. And then of course, the sort of the manufacturing standards, the labeling standards, are things being third party tested? Do we know the amount that is in the bottle is actually what's in the bottle?
And I was inundated with samples. These slick they've looked kind of like pharmaceutical company like packages of dare I say, quite wasteful packaging products. I had no idea is the CBD isolate? Where was it made? And then it was really easy to start distinguishing the companies who understood the issues around growing, and manufacturing testing. So sustainability, using at minimum organic practices in growing, ideally regenerative practices, which is kind of a step beyond, it's not, sustainability is sustaining what we have, which is a little bit problematic and regenerative practices can go even beyond that.
And then looking at CBD as one constituent in hemp that actually may function better with a panoply of constituents. So that is designated as full spectrum and it's something that I believe does make a difference. So that was one of the standards for wanting to carry full spectrum products.
Isolate is preferable for some individuals for a number of reasons, but we made an effort to carry full spectrum products as well, so that CBD could function with the extremely trace amounts of THC 0.3% or less, in addition to the other cannabinoids, and that's something that's been touted as the entourage effect, but in herbal medicine we've been talking about it forever - synergy and using whole plant medicine versus constituents.
There's a time and a place for everything. I'm not a dogmatist, but, in general I prefer whole plant medicines, hence, my tincture bar and my product line is very whole plant based.
Quick reminder
Lana: Just a quick pause to remind you that today's episode has a raffle of Farmacopia's Super Power adaptogenic powder blend for energy mood and stress. The product contains awesome adaptogens, like eleuthera, maca, ashwagandha, and licorice, and combination of cardamom, nutmeg, and cinnamon, and more. To enter this raffle, please head over https://ko-fi.com/plantloveradio, and share your thoughts on today's episode. Or you can always get to the same link through our show notes.
Also a winner of our last episode's raffle of AvraVeda Enivsion elixir is LF. Please reach out to me at lana@lanacamiel.com with your contact information. Congratulations!
Farmacopia skincare offerings
So you mentioned a couple of minutes ago that you have a beauty and skin care line. And so a lot of these products come from other manufacturers. Once again, how did you decide to develop this particular line? What are some of the products that come into it? Do you have any favorites? You said that a lot of your practitioners that you really love and experience with this, and also how do you counsel your patients on these?
Lily: Yeah, so I would say that we have a range of skincare lines that we carry and they appeal to different people, different personalities, different needs. So we have some skincare products that are very sort of small batch, handmade, simple ingredient. So Urb Apothecary, for example, she is a single herbalist in California making really lovely products. She has oil-based serums that are just absolutely delicious - a green tea serum and a sun worshiper serum. I love her products. They are so alive and beautifully packaged. So there's just this pleasure in utilizing them as well, and they feel very planty.
And then we have some lines that are a little bit more results oriented and that do carry some of the more specialized ingredients in them. So things like hyaluronic acid, we curate the line Hyalogic.
So hyaluronic acid is this really interesting molecule that is diffused in our bodies and holds a lot of water. So it's amazing for tissue and skin hydration. And so it's something you can take orally as well as apply topically. And in terms of feedback from our customers, that's something that they noticed the results on very quickly.
So a lot of the more natural based skincare, you're seeing results over time. You're kind of moving your skincare routine, away from chemical based stuff towards natural stuff. And sometimes that movement is a little slower but hyaluronic acid tends to be something that people use it and kind of notice the same day. My skin looks great. I did this hyaluronic acid mask before I went out and people commented about my skin or whatever. So that's a nice feeling for people at times.
We carry a line that I love from two sisters in Arizona. So they actually live in high desert and so it's a really wonderfully nourishing, like rich line and, I'm spacing on the name right now. It'll come to me in a moment and I'll let you know. But so they have a line that I would say is kind of like hybrid at somewhere between like Urb Apothecary and Hyalogic. Like they have some of those sort of high performing ingredients.
Lana: Peak scents?
Lily: Peak Scents, thank you so much. Yes. Yes, exactly. They're lovely. I met them at the Southwest naturopathic herbal conference at the marketplace there and decided to bring them onto Farmacopia and they have a beautiful Rose line. And they're wonderful to work with. So we've really enjoyed them and our customers love them.
And then we carry some skincare from Galen's Way who is also our tincture manufacturer and, Matthew and I go way back. Matthew Persico of Galen's way is just an incredible medicine maker. And actually his first love is topical herbal medicine. And he's really, really good at it. He's known now more for his tinctures, but he still makes his Skin salvation and Rose cream and Integrity cream and Every man cream and makes beautiful, beautiful skin care. and I think he makes the best Rose cream out there. Do you agree?
Lana: I agree with you because nothing smells like roses as much as his cream, so they are absolutely divine.
Lily: I know that light texture and yeah, it's beautiful. So we carried his products, of course. and we will be actually carrying some CBD based skincare, facial skincare soon, which is really exciting. CBD actually has some really interesting applications for skin issues. So I've been researching a lot about the endocannabinoid system and skin having had a long history of eczema which I no longer have. It is one of the things I think about a lot.
And then we carry this great line of natural deodorants, things that people don't even know, like you can have a shampoo bar for your hair. So we carry this line called Meow Meow Tweet, which has Compostable or recyclable packaging. So you can step away from say a plastic shampoo bottle and not have liquid light travel, which is actually really nice. I just traveled and brought like a sliver of it. I cut off a piece and it functioned as a body soap and my shampoo while I was away. So. Yeah, I know. Yeah. They make really, really sweet products. Very, very herby, beautiful scents. And, yeah, I used their deodorant, their cream deodorant, which I never thought I do, but I love it. And it's gotten me away from like the plastic roller ball deodorant, which is really nice.
Lana: Very good. Very nice. Thank you. A couple of times you mentioned that Matthew makes your tinctures and you were talking earlier about the tincture bar. And I want to ask you a little bit about that. So, how did your line get started? So there is an entire line of Farmacopia tinctures and products. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Farmacopia own line
Lily: I can. Yes. so in the Farmacopia line we have a few powders, we have some really luscious body oils. And then as you were mentioning, Lana, we have a whole line of herbal tinctures to address different concerns.
And these are formulas that have evolved over time. Like I was saying before, kind of interacting with so many people over the years in the walk in clinic setting, and then in my private practice, which I've done full time now for many years, I'm really seeing these formulas as they're kind of the base or core formula from which I find myself adjusting for specific individuals.
When I'm seeing someone one-on-one or in person, and I'm learning about them, I'm going to adjust a formula for a whole bunch of different factors, including constitution, personal likes and dislikes, do you prefer lavender or peppermint, ginger or orange field, things like that. And also like, Hey, this ginger is a little bit heating, is that appropriate for this person or for the system that it's going to say, the reproductive system or the digestive system that might be a person that has some heat in their system, but their digestive tract is evidencing some cold and damp patterns, in which case, sage tincture is going to be really appropriate. So when I'm working one on one with a person these formulas get very much tailored to them and I select herbs based on them. But as I say, there are these sort of backbone formulas that I feel really comfortable putting out to the public as kind of a balanced formula that would address say sleep, or In the moment stress. Actually, one of our most popular ones is called In the moment and it's kind of acute stress, anxiety. Sleep now is our, probably our other top blend. So you can see what's going on culturally.
And then we have an immune line Got sick and not sick. So things that I found, to be really effective for a large swath of the population over time, like nothing's appropriate for everyone, as you know. It's why a lot of the research on herbal medicine doesn't sometimes pan out because actually we as herbalists wouldn't use it that way, or we wouldn't give it to that person.
But these tinctures, these blends really do seemed to interact with most people's physiologies really well, and we've gotten amazing feedback about them. And so we have different lines like energy and stress and sleep. We have libido, another major concern for people as stress becomes outsized in people's lives. It's often one of the first things to go along with sleep.
And then digestion, of course we have a whole bitters line and the immunity line. And then we have a couple of really popular herbal powders. We have our stress adapt powder and our Radical immune powder. So many people these days are making smoothies and energy balls and bites and alternative lattes.
And so these powders really lend themselves to all of those things and they're tasty, but they're really, really medicinally dense. They have concentrated medicinal mushroom extracts in them. One of them is basically all adaptogens.
Farmacopia Seasonal cleanses
So those products are really fun and they get featured in our seasonal cleanses, which you and I have talked a little bit about, that's a seasonal program that I wrote for people to get in touch with food and herbal medicine and their bodies in different seasons and that the kind of the health gifts and challenges that that season presents.
Lana: You call them cleanse. and in many minds it triggers a certain way of thinking about it. But when I was looking at your cleanses and tinctures, you figured out how to use this line of products to support the cleanses. Can we talk just for a second how are your cleanses different from what people might see on the market?
Lily: Well, it's interesting. I would say I was like pretty anti cleanse, anti detox, I don't believe people are quote unquote toxic. Our bodies have cleansing systems. we have detoxification systems. We just need to support them and get out of the way. so that was my belief system for a really long time. And it still is, it's my foundation.
What I found was that in practice, I was actually leading people through anti-inflammatory elimination diets all the time. And it was actually the prerequisite for healing and for moving forward on the health issues that they wanted movement on. And without it, we were asking the herbs to do too much. It wasn't fair to the herbs, to swim upstream against the wrong food supply and inflammatory processes out of control in the body and the digestive track, having habit wreaked in it on a daily basis.
So it really kind of co-evolved this use of herbal medicine, and these anti-inflammatory elimination diets, where we just simplify the diet. And they're very different from your typical cleanse. So thank you for bringing that up. So you eat food, you eat animal protein, if you desire. And so they are food and nutrient based. So for example, the spring cleanse is the liver gallbladder season and we use food and herbal medicines that support that system. And I just see people feeling great with it. So they're in their diets, they're emphasizing artichokes and beets and burdock and we provide recipes for all those things.
And then if they desire, they can either just do the food portion. Or if they desire, they can also include herbal medicines and healing, bulking fibers and things like that to kind of clear out the digestive tract and clear up accumulations and stagnations.
It's an opportunity to introduce herbal bitters. So we have a gallbladder bitters that really, really. gets file flowing, which is, again, one of our main routes of detoxification. So if we can enhance both the production and flow of bile, then you know, we're in good shape.
And then we move into seasons like summer. So we're focusing on inflammation and we emphasize foods, celery and cherries and other brightly colored berries and maybe lighter foods like salads and colder foods instead of more cooked foods, which we would emphasize in spring, fall and winter. So summer we have a cherry elixir, for example, that you can take before sleep because the tart cherry is actually a great natural source of melatonin. And then we have relaxing herbs in there. So people who might normally finish their day with a glass of wine can have a glass of sparkling water with the cherry bomb in it and everybody's happy.
Lana: That sounds absolutely lovely. So Farmacopia is on the West coast in California, but people that live in other places also have access to your wisdom. There are recipes, different things. Can you talk to us a little bit about what's available to someone who is not local?
Lily: Yeah. Well, first I want to say, I have clients all over the country. I have a big New York city contingent. I have people everywhere. So I've been working with people via Skype and zoom for as long as I've been in practice. And not all of our practitioners, but some of our practitioners do the same. And so that's a really nice way that Farmacopia has kind of spread. And then I've taught at various locations as sometimes people go off and, bring a little bit of Farmacopia back to Wisconsin or wherever.
So we have a website, which is something that developed when I bought the previous owners out, has a huge amount of information on it. So it has a recipe section with many years of accumulated recipes, all of which fall under this kind of antiinflammatory rubric.
And so there absent of ingredients that typically provoke inflammation in a body. So no dairy wheat, gluten, soy, sugar, night shades, et cetera. So for people looking for good tasty anti-inflammatory recipes, it's a great resource. And then there's some other recipes like shrub recipes and, some cocktail recipes, just some fun stuff on there, a couple of skincare.
And then we do have a blog, so there are articles online. and we also have a section for, urban wildfire because we in California deal with that quite a bit as an air quality issue and nervous system trauma issue. So we really try to offer a lot on our website and We are also launching a nonprofit in partnership with some other local organizations. And so soon there will be more information about that as well. also, you know, Instagram and Facebook, but Instagram more has become a real fantastic opportunity to kind of connect with your audience in a really broad way. And I get that there are issues with are phone-based living and with social media in general, but I happen to really enjoy it. I consider it like one modality among many, and it's how people are relating now. So it's nice to be able to post more depth, full things at times. So people can kind of understand as a business owner where I'm coming from, just my mindset about things. That's something that previously a customer wouldn't necessarily be aware of. And then of course we just let people know about products and sales and things like that also. we post when we have classes, which we do quite regularly.
Lana: As we're coming to an end, I have two questions. So one of them is, can you tell us how to find you, what the website is and Instagram. And then if you have any parting thoughts, whether this might be something that would be useful for another budding practitioner, herbalist, or for, someone that wants to understand what herbal apothecaries really carry wonderful types of products. So anything that comes to mind.
Getting in touch with Lily
Lily: Okay. well, first in order to get in touch with me, I would say our website is www.farmacopia.net. And that's F as in Frank, a R M a C O p i a.net. And that's our store, that's the recipes. It's all of it. So you can do online shopping, you can sign up for our newsletter, first of all, you get a discount on your purchase when you do that. But it also lets you know, when we have a sale or when we start carrying new products.
And then our Instagram is at Farmacopia and I have my own Instagram is at Lily.mazzarella. And, then reishi roast, which we got the opportunity to speak to you about a few months ago, is sold on the Farmacopia websites, delicious medicinal mushroom coffee substitute.
Lana: That's fabulous. Thank you.
Parting words
Lily: And then in terms of parting thoughts, I feel like the world of herbal medicine is really been exploding. I could have never imagined this when I started. And it was just existing around the edges. I mean, St John's wort had made a big splash and maybe Kava was starting to do that. But, I really could have never imagined that herbal medicine would be where it is today.
So, one thought is that we need to continue to be cognizant of herbal medicine as natural product that comes from the earth and as stewards of the earth that we want to just be careful about our appetites. And I include myself in that. it's just something I think a lot about these days. There's a lot of really good information out there, but there's a lot of like, not so good information. So to just, just practice discernment around what you're taking on faith when you're reading it. A lot of things in herbal medicine that just get repeated and it doesn't necessarily mean they're true. So that's a parting thought.
Lana: Lily, thank you so much. This was fabulous!
Lily: Thank you, Lana, It was great to talk to you.
Lana: Thank you.
Thank you for listening!
Thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you have enjoyed this conversation with Lily Mazzerella. To get all the links mentioned in today's episode head over to the show notes at https://plantloveradio.com/72
Are you listening to Plant Love Radio for the first time, please subscribe to the podcast to seamlessly, get future episodes downloaded to your device. I'm so thrilled to introduce you to too many amazing guests and topics. And of course, nothing says thank you better than sharing this show with a friend who might enjoy it and giving us a five star rating and review. Thank you so much in advance.
If you're enjoying this podcast, please consider supporting me once or on a monthly basis. The best way to do this is through the website where I post the giveaways ko-fi.com/plantloveradio. You can also find the link on my website.
The music you hear in the introduction was written by a neighbor of mine, David Scholl and it's called Something about Cat - my deepest gratitude to Bill Gilligan for this opportunity to play it.
Thanks again for being here today. I really appreciate you. Till the next time, thank you for loving plants and planting love!