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A blog about probiotic research and nutrition.

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Archive for January, 2012

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adia laguna

Posted by adianutrition on January 31, 2012

adia laguna

WordPress has a slightly new interface, and I accidentally published the blog without typing it. Sorry.

I’m on my way to the east coast this afternoon. Hopefully we’ll have a guest blogger tomorrow. Most likely, it will be Jay, because Wen refuses to do it. She’ll stand around in humiliating poses with bacteria on her head, but she won’t pound out three hundred words at a keyboard.

April was down at Whole Foods in Laguna yesterday, and she had a pretty good afternoon there. It was a little slow, but picked up around lunchtime. She sent over a picture of our products on their shelves.

We’ll be heading to San Diego later this week to work on getting that area opened up as well. It’s pretty exciting to move to the next county, and as we prepare to do it, we’re working through ways of getting our product down there, how to stage it, how to deliver it, etc. All very interesting, and all new.

Which is why I’m calling Carl from the airport. So I can pick his brain. I’ll let you know what he says.

Today’s article comes from theincidentaleconomist. The link is here:

http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/hand-sanitizers-as-agent-orange/

It’s an analysis of hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer basically kills everything on your hands, which is good if you’re wrist deep in salmonella. But bad if you’re elbow deep in probiotics.

There are good bacteria on your hands. It may be better to clean your hands with soap and water or handiwipes.

Here’s the second article:

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2012/01/30/new.probiotic.bacteria.shows.promise.use.shellfish.aquaculture

For those of you concerned about probiotics and shellfish, you’ve come to the right place.

Posted in bacteria, probiotic, probiotic powder, probiotic research, Probiotic tasting, probiotics and health, Whole Foods | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

If not now, Wen?

Posted by adianutrition on January 30, 2012

This is the new set up on my desk. I used to have a laptop and three monitors, but over time, two of them stopped working and I never replaced them. Then the last one started to fade, so I brought in a monitor from home and replaced the monitor “Tree”.

It really freed up some desk space. However, I asked Wen to help me move the old monitors, and while I went to my car to bring in the new screen, she went behind my desk with a screwdriver.

When I got back, she looked very angry. She started complaining about whoever had put them there in the first place (Nicole). Then she started whining about how tired she was.

I decided it was time to man up. So I stepped behind the desk and promptly loosened all the screws. She was right, though, they were on very tight. I gave Wen the screwdriver and told her I would hold the monitor while she completed taking the screws out.

And sure enough, she tightened them.

The Chinese people make 95% of the stuff in the world today. How can she not loosen a screw? She claims it’s because she’s female, but I don’t buy that for a second. My wife is female, and she could build a car with scraps from the garbage. My people invented the zero. You should see me around a laptop. I’m like Rain Man.

Anyway, we had an awesome weekend at Whole Foods. Ape was in Laguna and Julie was in Tustin. Both of them did really well given the weather. It was insanely beautiful, and there were more people heading to the beach than the grocery store.

Julie will be up in Long Beach today from 11am to 2pm. If you’re in the area, swing by. Julie came to the office as Wen and I were doing some computer maintenance, and she was highly amused. She offered to take pictures, which I blocked. Because, really, no one needs to see that. Ever.

I have two stories today. The first is from Scientific American, and the link is here:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/01/29/eating-off-the-floor-how-clean-living-is-bad-for-you/

It’s a book review. The author was initially going to title the book “People Who Like it Dirty are More Healthy”, which is a fantastic title. However, the book was renamed “Clean Living is Bad for You”.

Evocative titles aside, the book examines the “Hygiene Hypothesis” which states that humans moved from rural lifestyles outdoors to being inside hyper-clean homes with filtered air and scrubbed surfaces. This transition led to people spending less time getting dirty outside and cleaned up many of the species we need to fully develop our immune system.

The article then goes into a long discussion about worms in your colon. The article is fascinating, and well worth a read.

Here’s the second article:

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/01/chambersburg-area_dairy_halts.html

It’s about a dairy in Pennsylvania not selling raw milk any more. Don’t drink raw milk. Just don’t.

 

Posted in bacteria, probiotic, probiotic experiment, probiotics and health, water, Whole Foods | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

The Shareholder Dilemma

Posted by adianutrition on January 27, 2012

Whole Foods is doing a regional vendor profile for a regional vendor event they’re having this weekend in Tustin. I think we’re going to use this picture as our picture of the founders. Except it doesn’t include Wen, who runs everything.

Yesterday, we got a call from a shareholder in Toronto, Canada. We love talking to shareholders, and we try to do it as much as possible. But we have a dilemma with it.

This shareholder was very supportive, and asked to buy some product.

My initial comment was, “If he is a shareholder, send him some product for free!”

We want our shareholders to try our probiotics because we think it will help them, and they will become ambassadors for our business. Partners, not shareholders.

Wen, who is in charge, said, “If he’s a shareholder, charge him double. He should want to pay MORE so we make more money, thereby making his investment worth MORE”

See the dilemma.

We ended up giving him the special friends price, but that’s our dilemma. We want our shareholders to love our product, but Wen won’t let us give it away. Also, to be fair to the shareholder, he demanded to pay for it.

We need more shareholders like that!

Today is my son’s 9th birthday. We told him the story of his birth last night, and it’s always fun to walk with him down memory lane. I am crazy about my kids. Absolutely crazy, and I love being with them. In honor of his birthday, here’s today’s article:

http://newhope360.com/blog/babies-benefit-bacteria-exposure

It’s kind of gross. It’s about how babies are exposed to natural bacteria when they’re born naturally as opposed to a C-Section.

I watched all three of my kids being born. I hate even thinking about this. Anyway, have a great weekend!!

Posted in bacteria, probiotic, probiotic chews, probiotic experiment, probiotic powder, probiotic research, Probiotic tasting, probiotics and children, Whole Foods | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

No Caffeine!!

Posted by adianutrition on January 26, 2012

This is a picture of Catalina Island from Newport Beach last night. Catalina is 25 miles off the coast of California. When I was in college, I dated a girl from Texas, and I convinced her it was Hawaii.

Unfortunately, that’s not the view from our office. This is the view from our office:

It’s a good view, but people can walk by and look in at us. I feel like we’re in a fishbowl sometimes. It makes me nervous if I ever need to scratch something. I feel like I’m being judged.

One of the great things about this blog is that it not only gives us a chance to communicate with you, but it’s a great forum to hear back as well. And we got some great feedback on the caffeine discussion. You spoke loud and clear. We will not be developing a product with caffeine!

Thank you everyone who weighed in, we really appreciate your comments.

This week, we are finalizing our financials for 2011, getting ready for our test run at Sam’s Club and doing some work on our first radio ad.

April had an amazing day at Whole Foods in Tustin. Wednesday has been a great day for us in the grocery stores, which is kind of a surprise. We did better on Wednesday than we did on Saturday. The other interesting tidbit is how well the Lemon/Lime is doing.

We are expanding into San Diego, and we are looking for an area rep. If you know anyone, please let us know. There are good things happening down there, and we think that’s going to be a great market for us.

Today’s article is about tears and I’m posting it because the work was all done at the University of California, Irvine:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/01/19/145466010/how-tears-go-pac-man-to-beat-bacteria

The guy who discovered penicillin discovered a germ fighting enzyme in human tears that has an almost miraculous ability to dissolve bacteria. It’s described as an enzyme that chews up bacteria like Pac-Man, causing the bacteria to explode.

Scientists at Irvine attached the molecule to a carbon nanotube and ran a current down the nanotube to measure the activity of the enzyme.

I have no idea what that means, but the video is very cool. They call it the Lysozyme Nanocircuit. It looks like a colon, but it’s green. Check it out.

Posted in bacteria, probiotic, probiotic chews, probiotic powder, Probiotic tasting, Whole Foods | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Happy Chinese New Year

Posted by adianutrition on January 25, 2012

Happy Chinese New Year!!

Wen was supposed to blog on Monday and Tuesday but she didn’t. I was in a high level Adia strategy session, so I couldn’t do it. Actually, I was skiing. Actually, I was in a cabin in Big Bear while my wife and kids were skiing. At this point in my life, unless conditions are perfect, I’m not going anywhere near the mountain. It rained all day, so I might have sat in front of the TV and watched football.

As you know, Jay is a big Patriots fan. He was very happy they’re going to the Super Bowl. He’s also a big Tom Brady fan. I like Tom Brady. Here’s a great video to Tom at the 2000 NFL Draft Combine where he was selected in the 6th round:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g93MuptlSqo

What does this have to do with probiotics? Nothing.

We have a big week. We’re having events in 5 different Whole Foods. On Monday, April was in Long Beach. Today, April is in Tustin from 11am to 2pm and Julie is at Irvine Ranch Market from 11am to 1pm. On Friday, Julie is at Whole Foods Huntington Beach, and on Saturday, April will be at Whole Foods Laguna and Julie and Jenny will be at Whole Foods in Tustin.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, we love Whole Foods. We are also looking to hire some sales reps so please let us know if you are looking for a part-time job.

We’ll be doing a 4 day test run at Sam’s Club in Fullerton beginning February 8th, so stay tuned for big news on that as well.

We had a staff meeting yesterday, and we were talking about how to make our product better. One of the ideas was to put caffeine in it. We all got very excited, mainly because we’re coffee junkies, and getting probiotics along with our morning coffee would just be amazing. But it wasn’t unanimous. So, let us also know your thoughts on that.

Here’s today’s story:

http://www.jacksofscience.com/lol/unintentionally-inappropriate-science-papers/

It’s a list of published research with inappropriate names. It’s hilarious. My favorite? Nuts Have No Hair.

 

Posted in bacteria, probiotic, probiotic chews, probiotic powder, Probiotic tasting, Whole Foods | Tagged: , , , , | 4 Comments »

More Whole Foods. And a sad vendor story

Posted by adianutrition on January 20, 2012

There’s a fine line between whimsical and creepy. And this photo may have crossed it. I asked Wen to come up with a picture, because I’m all out of ideas and she drew a blank. For revenge, she’s going to be blogging on Monday. She’s threatened to do it in Chinese. We’ll see if it happens. She will be blogging though.

Then, April showed up in Adia gear. Here’s the picture:

As we were talking about a new initiative we’re doing at Whole Foods, we were interrupted by a guy trimming the ferns outside our office window while talking on his cell phone. Here’s a picture of that:

Three pictures today.

Here’s what’s happening with Adia:

1. April is at Whole Foods Huntington Beach today from 11 to 1.

2. April and Julie will be in Whole Foods Tustin around lunchtime tomorrow from about 10 to 2. I’ll be swinging by, and there are rumors that the winner of the 2011 Award for Investor Relations Spokesperson of the year, Mike Matsie is going to stop by. That rumor is unconfirmed.

In all seriousness, I would like to give a special shout out to Mike. He has been so helpful to us with both the product development and investor relations strategy. We wouldn’t be here without him, and we speak to him at least twice a day, sometimes more. He has great insight into positioning a product for sale at the store, and communicating with shareholders.

3. April will be at Whole Foods in Long Beach on Monday.

4. Our stick packs are scanning individually now, so we’re working up a counter box that will have an assortment of all four flavors (Lemon lime is the best). We’re working on mockups of that now, and I’ll hopefully have a picture of it next week.

Now, on to the sad story. We had a vendor we used last year to help with a part of our product. This vendor billed us a few thousand dollars in May and we paid them promptly. They had mistakenly underbilled us by a few hundred dollars, and they were right, so we sent that off too.

Yesterday, Wen got a call from the vendor asking us to send over a form so they could keep our credit card on file. They sent the form over, and Wen asked me to give them my card number. I said that sounded like a bad idea, since we weren’t using them any more, but she insisted. But Wen insisted that it was just a matter of record keeping.

I signed the form, then Wen faxed it back over. As soon as they got the fax, they told us that unless we wired money to them immediately, they were going to charge the card. In all of my experience with this company, with the exception of one shareholder, this is the single sleaziest thing I have ever seen.

I’m not going to disclose their name, because Wen won’t let me, but as I sit here and think about it, it’s infuriating. I called an explained we had already paid them in May, and they said they couldn’t find the check. But, wow. Jerks.

No news today, so have a great weekend!!

Posted in bacteria, probiotic, probiotic chews, probiotic powder, Probiotic tasting, Whole Foods | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

More Adia Events

Posted by adianutrition on January 19, 2012

I’m running out of picture ideas. If anything comes to mind, please send them over. Here’s a picture of a bobble head doll my Hong Kong staff made for me three years ago:

Here’s that same bobblehead in a box of Optimum Orange:

If we can’t come up with anything else, you’ll see my feet again tomorrow. Wen is feeling better, our experiment worked. But EVERYONE in my house is sick, including me. So today I’m going to try and heal myself. 60 billion probiotics.

April was up at Whole Foods in Torrance yesterday during the lunch hour. She had a great day, though they were still having trouble scanning the Adia Sport. All the flavors of Adia are like my children, and I try not to have favorites. But I am partial to Adia Sport. I had one this morning, and it’s just a great flavor.

April will be up in Huntington Beach tomorrow, Tustin on Saturday and Long Beach on Monday. If you’re in the area, make sure you stop by. Tustin should be great on Saturday, we’ve had a couple of amazing days there.

Julie was at Irvine Ranch Market yesterday and did really well. She tied the one store sales record for a single flavor sale at 10. Congratulations!!

Todays news story comes compliments of the Huffington Post and is here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/17/bacteria-pictures-by-fernan-federici_n_1211302.html

It’s not news as much as it is a collection of great picture of bacteria. There are some pretty awesome shots.

The other article is one I’ve seen floating around the web for a while. But the idea seemed so worthless I never read it. Until last night. Here’s the link:

http://io9.com/5876669/

It’s the worlds smallest acoustic device. A tiny piece of gold suspended in a laser beam. It can hear sounds a million times fainter than the human ear. It can hear bacteria, apparently, and the idea is that the nano-ear will be able to distinguish between different strains of bacteria by their sounds.

I’m pretty open to most experiments with bacteria. In fact, this whole blog is dedicated to that. But this one baffles me. Thoughts?

Posted in bacteria, Irvine Ranch Market, probiotic, probiotic chews, probiotic experiment, probiotic powder, Probiotic tasting, probiotics and health, Whole Foods | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Whole Foods in Torrance

Posted by adianutrition on January 18, 2012

So last Christmas, I was talking to Jonathan (Wen’s son) and I asked him what he wanted from Santa. He said he loved to play video games, but he kept losing the cord for his PS3, so could he get a couple of extras. I think Jonathan is a great kid so I got him a couple.

Yesterday I figured out why. Wen takes the cord from the PS3 when she leaves home every morning in an (unsuccessful) attempt to limit video game playing. And Jonathan is going to do something amazing with his life, because that kid’s a visionary.

That’s a great story. However, only part of it is true. Wen does bring in the cord every morning. I assume Jonathan has spares, I just don’t know it for a fact (but I do know that I sit within 4 feet of Wen and I have to work with her – draw your own conclusions).

Our probiotics experiment succeeded yesterday. Wen drank three stick packs of probiotics. Two of the Sport in the morning and one in the afternoon. Today, she’s all better. We need to get that in Science magazine.

Today, April is up at Whole Foods in Torrance. She’ll be up there from 10am to 2pm. She’ll be working the Whole Foods areas the rest of this week and in to this weekend. I’ll post more about her locations tomorrow.

My friend Carl sent me a link to this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90Dt75MVtqw&ob=av2e

Carl knows just slightly less than I do about 80s music. This is a video from 1988 and it has everything that made the 80s the peak of American music. This isn’t a music video, it’s art. There are mullets, roosters, people dressed in white, berets and random birds blinking slowly. You’re welcome.

Today’s article is here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204468004577164732944974356.html

I’m posting this because it’s from the Wall Street Journal. A paper not known for discussing new ideas in medicine. I think it’s a good sign of how mainstream the probiotics movement has become.

The article doesn’t have anything earthshaking, but it does discuss an experiment with baby rats. Scientists irritated the stomachs of newborn rats. The irritation healed, but the animals were more depressed and anxious than the rats whose stomachs weren’t irritated, and they gave up more quickly in a swimming test (drowning).

Additionally, there’s a nerve that runs from the stomach to the brain called the Vagus nerve, which is probably an important nerve, but it makes me feel dirty whenever I type it.

Anyway, if you stimulate someone’s Vagus, it reduces the symptoms of epilepsy. And I’ll just leave it at that.

Posted in bacteria, probiotic, probiotic chews, probiotic powder, Probiotic tasting, probiotics and behavior, probiotics and depression, Whole Foods | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The power of probiotics

Posted by adianutrition on January 17, 2012

We got some new banners in this weekend, and we used them for an event at Promelis on Saturday. Jenny was out there in the morning and Julie was there in the afternoon. It went great, and we were able to pass out quite a few samples!

April spent Saturday morning over at Cross Fit in Tustin. It went well, though the people there tend to be more exteme athletes than the general population at Whole Foods, for example. The people at Cross Fit are great, and Cross Fit is a great name, because they seem very intense.

The tasting went well, we bumped into a guy who thinks he has a bacteria that will work in alcohol, which was interesting. And my daughter, who wasn’t watched as closely as she should have been, sat down and ate 12 chews at once.

It made her very energetic, followed by, well, let’s just put it this way: she wouldn’t be allowed in space.

We’re doing a probiotics experiment this week. Wen is starting to get sick, so we’re going to give her 30 billion probiotics every morning until she gets better. My guess is that it will take her a week. I tried that over the holidays, and it took me about a week too.

We had a great weekend in the stores. Even though we weren’t out at events this weekend, we got a call from a customer who went to Whole Foods in Huntington Beach on Saturday and discovered they had sold out of chews!! That was really exciting to hear, and a good data point for us.

Today I have two very interesting articles. Here’s the first:

http://scienceblog.com/51602/gut-bacteria-influence-the-severity-of-heart-attacks-in-rats/

This articles references a study done at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, which is a good place for it, since it’s the home of deep fried bacon wrapped chocolate (which is delicious), fried sausage and cheese curds (delicious), beer (delicious) and the Green Bay Packers (losers).

The doctors experimented on rats and discovered that a decrease in a  key protein hormone called Leptin led to smaller heart attacks and better recovery. Leptin decrease was tied to both antibiotics and probiotics.

There seems to be some kind of link between bacteria in the intestines and heart disease, but there’s more work to be done.

Here’s the next article:

http://puffthemutantdragon.wordpress.com/2011/05/30/bubonic-plague-in-america-i-la-outbreak/

This is about the outbreak of the bubonic plague in America. Read it while you’re eating soup.

Posted in bacteria, Heart disease, probiotic, probiotic chews, probiotic experiment, probiotic powder, probiotic research, probiotics and alcohol, probiotics and health, Whole Foods | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Weekend update

Posted by adianutrition on January 13, 2012

This is a picture of 72,000 sticks of foil wrappers. We had some excess printed in case we ran out. As you can tell, we didn’t run out. 

In case you were wondering, 72,000 foil wrappers are pretty heavy, which is why I had Wen and Laura carry them into the conference room when we got them back.

Wen took yesterday afternoon off to spend with her dad. She also got her hair highlighted in brown, here’s a picture of the top of her head:

Wen is very tolerant.

She puts up with a lot from me, and even though she’s in charge of this thing, she lets me get away with taking a picture of the top of her head. Plus, I’m taller.

We have two big events this weekend. Today, Jenny and April are at Living Fitness (used to be called Fitbar), and tomorrow Jenny will be at Promelis in Costa Mesa. She’ll be outside near the coffee bar, so stop by.

We are also looking for a spokesperson, because we’re getting ready to start advertising. Some of the names thrown around are Carol Alt, Meredith Viera and my personal favorite, Michelle Obama. Though I don’t think she does commercials. If you can think of anyone, let me know. Also, if you know Oprah, give her a call. She’d be perfect.

Today we have a new packaging company coming in to meet with us, we have the radio station FISH 95.9, which is a religious station that really draws our demographic, and we have our website guy because we’re updating the shopping cart. So lots of meetings today.

We got an interesting email last night. A group from Mariners Church went on a trip to Haiti, and one of the people on the trip whipped out some Adia at breakfast time to get their daily probiotics. The feedback we got was that it was a great travel accessory for mission trips, as it helps with digestion issues on foreign lands. I’m not sure how well that pays, but it’s an interesting use of the product.

Here’s a link to today’s news story, which is awesome:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2012/01/12/ncbi-rofl-farts-an-underappreciated-threat-to-astronauts/

It’s the result of a study NASA did on the effects of farts in spacesuits. Intestinal bacteria form two gases, which could be a fire hazard in a closed chamber. I’m not sure you need NASA to figure that out, you just need to go to summer camp with boys in junior high.

NASA did an experiment where they fed two groups of men two different types of food, then someone, who must have really pissed off a superior, weighed the gas they produced FOR 42 DAYS. WORST JOB EVER. The conclusion? More flavorful food produces more gas. So does stress. That’ll be $5 million please.

So, those of you who want to go work for NASA, be careful what you wish for.

The other article is about my favorite Nobel prize winner Barry Marshall:

http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?sec=central&file=%2F2012%2F1%2F12%2Fcentral%2F10237759

Barry Marshall won a Noble prize for discovering the bacteria that causes ulcers. Before his discovery, people believed ulcers were caused by stress or spicy food. I remember my mom telling me not to worry because I would give myself an ulcer.

When he came up with his hypothesis, he was roundly criticized by the scientific community. He couldn’t get the bacteria to work on pigs, so he mixed up a batch of the bacteria, drank it, and gave himself an ulcer in 3 days.

Here’s the limit of his dedication. He had an endoscopy done before he drank the bacteria, then he another endoscopy after he drank the bacteria, to prove that he had an ulcer, then he took antibiotics and had a third endoscopy to prove he was cured.

That’s a lot of endoscopies. 1 is a lot of endoscopies.

Have a great weekend everyone! Stay away from spicy food if you’re going into space.

 

Posted in bacteria, probiotic, probiotic powder, probiotic research | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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