Talkin' Ball with Pat Leonard

BOOM Chaga co-founder Rich Funk: Why BOOM's health benefits are for you

BOOM Chaga co-founder Rich Funk joins New York Daily News NFL columnist Pat Leonard to explain the chaga mushroom's health benefits, what makes BOOM Chaga different from other supplements, the new BOOM products on the way, his Bengals fandom and much more on Talkin' Ball with Pat Leonard. Use the code TALKINBALL25 to get a 25% discount at BoomChaga.com.

Duration:: 26m
Broadcast on:: 03 Nov 2024
Audio Format:: other

BOOM Chaga co-founder Rich Funk joins New York Daily News NFL columnist Pat Leonard @Bleav to explain the chaga mushroom's health benefits, what makes BOOM Chaga different from other supplements, the new BOOM products on the way, his Bengals fandom and much more on Talkin' Ball with Pat Leonard. BOOM Chaga Mushroom SuperDrink is a natural extract loaded with anti-inflammatory, immune-boosting antioxidants and heart-healthy compounds. Go to BoomChaga.com and use the code TALKINBALL25 to get a 25% discount on your first Subscribe and Save Order. SUBSCRIBE to the @PLonNFL YouTube page to get the latest Giants updates and news delivered directly to you, and to participate in regular LIVE Q&A chats with Pat. Purchase a Super Chat or Super Sticker to have your comments elevated to the top of the feed and have Pat answer your question FIRST! Watch the full video of this @Bleav podcast on Pat's YouTube Channel. Find Pat also on 'X' (@PLeonardNYDN), Instagram (@PLonNFL) & TikTok (@PLonNFL). Talkin' Ball with Pat Leonard is brought to you by MyBookie. It’s MyBookie’s 10th year anniversary, and they’re rolling out the red carpet for bettors, including Risk-Free Thursdays and weekly no-sweat bets all season long. Use the promo code 'PATSPICKS' here to get your first deposit of $50 or more matched 100% up to $1,000 plus a $10 casino chip. Make your Football season a winning season with MyBookie! Bet Anything, Anytime, Anywhere. Talkin' Ball with Pat Leonard is also sponsored by @BoomChaga and @Estate98Coffee. Estate98 Coffee is a specialty coffee concentrate that's perfect when you want to make a quick cup of coffee and skip the lines. It takes less than 10 seconds to make a delicious Estate 98 iced or hot coffee, it’s great as a mixer for espresso martinis and each bottle can make up to 16 cups. Go to estate98.com/talkinball to get an exclusive offer for 80% off your first order.

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All right welcome to talking ball with Pat Leonard a special episode today as rich funk co-founder of boom chaga joins us on the program boom chaga as you guys know a sponsor of ours here on the believe network and it is a natural extract loaded with anti-inflammatory immune boosting antioxidants and heart healthy compounds now if you're a listener or a loyal viewer you've been hearing me say these words a lot as we talked NFL and talk giants but I figure it doesn't matter what I think it matters what the co-founder thinks and what rich knows about why this product is so special and why it's taking off so rich thank you so much for being here really thrilled we're able to do this on the show yeah thanks for having me and thanks for giving me the opportunity to share with your loyal listeners you know more about boom chaga and and how it came to be yeah so I want to start off with a football related boom chaga question a lot of the viewers on talking ball because of how bad the giants have played this year they've been suggesting to me maybe I need to bring a boom bag of boom chaga into the giants locker room and hand out some samples now you know that's tongue in cheek but I actually feel like I get something out of it every morning like when I put it in my coffee I get like a post-workout like energy boost is how it makes me feel right but do you actually think there would be you know a real benefit for a professional athlete somebody who's taking care of their body like these guys do what would be the benefits of a product like boom chaga yeah I've had great questions so some of you that have gone to boom chaga.com or followed us on social media you probably seen that we've done a couple things with pro athletes one we have rondee barber signed on as our spokesperson why rondee because we're based just south of Tampa Bay so we started off kind of organically where we're based to go and hit the local markets he's a huge name down here of course being a Super Bowl champ and Hall of Famer for the Tampa Bay Bucks secondly we're huge sponsors at FC Cincinnati so they're a professional men's soccer team we've done a couple events with them through the summer we have a huge Thanksgiving day 5k 10k event that we're sponsoring and why is that why sports is exactly what you're saying we know that there is an impact in it and that's that's because of the massive massive antioxidant power that's in every serving of boom chaga okay each serving gives females more than two thirds their daily antioxidant recommendation and it gives guys more than half their daily antioxidants and the particular antioxidant that's in here it's a longer word called betcheulenic acid it's a super super anti-inflammatory okay so when you think about your you're pushing yourself whether it's in the gym like you and I might go to or professional athletes which you and I are not and they're really stressing their bodies they're stressing their joints they're tearing those muscles and rebuilding them there's a lot of inflammation that's happening around that and the the speed recovery time and the amount of you know power in these antioxidants to help fight off that inflammation that's going to last a little bit longer it is a speed it is a speedier recovery time we've seen many many testimonials of that and I've heard from people that are athletes in fact we have a likelihood we're going to launch an india if not by the end of this year but next next year and we have professional cricket players there that are taking this now and saying the same thing that they have more energy they can recover faster we have pickleball players up in New York and that are playing up in westchester different pickleball indoor courts competitively and they're saying the same thing that they they feel like they can play an extra day or two week of pickleball versus before they're maybe playing two because they're they're they're they're joints for achy in there their muscles were sore so we're definitely seeing a number of examples where this is this is helping on a general working out mid-scale athlete like pickleballers or cricketers as we would say in the US or professional athletes in the US as well how did you come about understanding you know the benefits of the chaga mushroom and then how did boom chaga get started like when did you recognize the value of this product and become passionate about bringing it to to to the world yeah good question so so chaga mushroom there's there's three classes of mushrooms kind to eat the kind of New York Giants fan will probably let the jet fans about that Aaron Rodgers goes off and does whatever to in a dark cave somewhere in Oregon it's like a bellocks right and then you have the medicinal mushrooms that's like cordyceps turkey tail rishi lion's mane and chaga and chaga this is a chunk of chaga right here okay this is what it looks like it's it's got the density of wood it's it grows on living birth trees and when you have birch trees up in north northern New York Maine, Vermont, northern Michigan, Wisconsin, Alaska you'll see these big black fungus looking things growing on the side of birch and that's chaga and it's called king of the medicinal mushrooms across all those other ones I just mentioned because it's loaded with this these antioxidants these other compounds called beta-glucans okay and antioxidants I've already shared what that does it's a huge anti-inflammatory it has some other positive benefits as well and then the beta-glucans are actually approved by the FDA to lower LDL bad cholesterol and they're also because they're a soluble fiber they're really good for gut health we have a lot of testimonials about IBS acid reflux even diverticulitis pain subsiding so that's what chaga does now how to become debung chaga well if you go off and you google chaga or you look on amazon or anywhere you're going to see a thousand ways to sunday on how to how to deal with chaga sprinkle it on your food sprinkle in your coffee you know boil it for 10 minutes do this do that all these different ways and my background is more technical so I started asking the why questions and digging into you know well if this is chaga so healthy all these positive articles from around the world on all these great benefits there's indigenous people that never get cancer taken it all these crazy things out there why isn't more prevalent and I think it's like a lot of things pat where a lot of companies say oh we know this is good they just give it out there they put it in a pill they put it in a powder they say oh it's it's kind of got a halo effect around it but people haven't taken the time to really optimize it and that's why we took two and a half years of research and development we hired a third party lab out of Cambridge, Massachusetts so some pretty wicked smart chemists to help us realize what the benefits of chaga can be and optimize the heck out of those and then there's also like a lot of natural things there's some things that you maybe don't want in your body like kale and spinach have a lot of oxalic acid in it okay chaga has a lot of oxalic acid in what is oxalic acid oxalic acid forms with calcium in your kidneys to cause a precipitate called a kidney stone we are the only beverage mushroom based anything out there including vegetable beverages so smoothies and things like this we are the only ones that remove 100% of the oxalic acid so you have zero risk of any kidney issues there's zero oxalits in our product so you know we've optimized all the good stuff all those antioxidants and the beta glucants and we've eliminated 100% of the oxalic acid so that's a long winded answer but it tells you how we went from finding chaga knowing what chaga is knowing that there's this these really healthy natural components to it but then how do you optimize it and then also make sure that you know you're not the more concentrated you make it the higher that oxalic acid is in it make sure that you don't have that risk for people that want to consume it get all the healthy benefits and why do you think that the popularity of boom chaga is increasing so rapidly like is this just a matter of people being educated and understanding a new product and then once they understand and once you're traveling around the country and around the world explaining it to people once they try it like me then they understand and they get it and and they use it is it that simple yeah I think it's a lot of education um we we over index on educating when we get into new retailers um I think it's once people try it they realize the ease of it it's liquid it's no powders it's no pills um a lot of the other mushroom stuff out there and you look in our website you'll see we compare ourselves to the top sellers on Amazon and that's why we say bring your a-game because we know ours is very differentiated and a much better bang for your buck um we know that you'll feel a difference and see a difference and if you don't I tell people get your blood work drawn in three months if your triglycerides aren't better if your blood pressure isn't more stabilized and if your LDLs isn't down then stop taking it but that's the testimonials we see or across the board that that's all the positives um I think it's taken off because people are also looking for more natural healing I think a lot of this started with covid and lack of trust of covid um and just the stories that were out there I you know people were trying to figure out what the future looks like and people were seeing we're actually seeing a growth in the industry of a lot more people are seeking out more natural health remedies and I think with the power of the internet and research and all this people realizing there are a lot of um things out there that are really good for you uh it's just a matter of how you take those and again we made sure knowing that we were making this super concentrated we really wanted to get rid of the one risk which is the oxaloic acid and we're the only ones that do that um we have patent on it and um yeah that's what that's part of what makes boom chaga special it works and we're making sure that people get educated on it um we're also innovating where we have some new packaging coming out we're going to have more of the the bottled teas we do also sell it and select retailers around the country we have you know ready to drink shelf stable bottled teas uh we're going to have these um all over the place and in the ear neck of the woods we'll have distribution on these by the end of the calendar year so uh we already get the package you can get these uh of course online on walmart.com amazon.com on our website at select health wellness stores in the in the greater eastern pa new york new jersey area now um and soon you'll have these up there as well. You actually led me into my next question was that as I now that we've we've had this relationship and I use the product now and I was perusing the website the other day and recognizing there's a lot of different products you guys offer I was just curious like what's the most popular what are you most excited about um and you know what's what's rolling out ahead it sounds like the teas are are coming yeah the teas are definitely coming and those are great because there's not a lot of um the objective on the teas is twofold one convenience because people won't convenience uh maybe they don't they look at this as more of a supplement they maybe they're tired of pills powders it also takes more to realize this is a liquid not a not a powder or another pill um so the teas are convenient and they're they're different there's not a lot of mushroom based drinks out there which sounds strange or odd people try the teas it's funny if I had a camera on my shoulder looking at people's faces like oh mushroom tea and then they drink it like oh this tastes like tea well great that's we met the objective um and that's why and as you know pat you take this you know I put in my coffee every day I don't taste it you put it in your coffee you put in something the flavor dissipates so easily i was just gonna say that that's exactly what i was gonna say i did i i was expecting it to change the taste of the coffee and then have to let's say you know travel around the different drinks that i like to see what it mixed best with and the first day i put in my coffee and i drink it i'm like wait did i put it in you know i that's that's how i felt yeah that's that's one of the benefits of it is the flavor dissipates quite quite easily um it does have an earthy woody taste to it as as the mushroom would would lead you to think but when you when you put it into a coffee or tea or your smoothier protein shake you don't taste it well so it dissipates quite easily um so yeah i think i'm most excited i love hearing people's stories how it changes their lives for for the better um so i'm actually very passionate about the sashay the packets getting it into your daily routine i travel a lot as you know when you travel a lot too it's very easy to put these in a carry-on i'm going for three days throwing four in case i get stuck a day or throwing five in case i needed you know a double dose or whatever um and then the teas the teas are great because when you're dealing with retailers the bigger the retailer the more segmented they get in there what they call categories so you'll have the frozen dessert area right you'll have frozen meals you'll have um fresh produce so you get into these sub categories well the packets clearly go into like the health wellness supplement area the teas will go into grocery or functional beverages if you think about it it's very difficult to come up with brands that are healthy that land in multiple categories across the grocery store you see behind me here i was telling you this before i've got some nfl m&m packs and different things like m&m's or um you know different sugary cereals they travel well through the grocery store you can have m&m's and cookies you can have m&m's and ice cream you can have m&m's and brownies you can have m&m's at the checkout store or the checkout in the bulk area you know some multiple places a lot of sugary things exist throughout the store it's not easy to think of healthy brands that exist in multiple categories and part of our overall strategy is the more categories we can get into to be eventually a boom chaga yogurt you have boom chaga and protein shakes do you have the more you get that then boom chaga becomes more of a uh name it already has a catchy name is boom chaga and we'll have some nice uh jingles coming along soon um but you know it's just the more you can get people to take this it changes their healthy natural healthy lifestyle and you get it more easy for them to consume if they eat their greek yogurt every day then maybe it's already putting their greek yogurt if they like their their protein shakes that are pre-made they can have it that way um you know there's there's a number of things we're working on as the next phase over 25 26 27 of what the next innovations are for boom chaga so we're in it for the long hawks we know it makes a difference and uh we'll keep up we'll keep pushing that envelope do you have any favorite testimonials you said like that's your favorite part is to hear people saying how it changed their life or how it makes them feel better do any stand out to you like a top top of mind that you feel like are most relatable to the average person for them to a understand what it is and then b really recognize that this can make a difference um yeah i'll kind of go through my just a quick a few quickly um one um actually donna drake had me on her show uh she's up in law island uh and she said that you know after three days she was down um in her waistline and then after seven days she was down two dress sizes not changing diet not exercising anything and that was from bloating that's the the gut health issues as well as inflammation right so she had an impact in three days and then seven days that she saw a noticeable difference um we had another lady who ever since she had her first child she had such bad acid reflex she couldn't even drink a bottle water because the air would hit the back of her throat and she would start to get heartburn and she said within days of taking this that's gone she loves drinking a certain soda and now she can drink that soda it's like a little bit of pleasure she gets uh so she's back to being able to spoil herself with her little sweet tooth and join a soda that she wasn't able to do and again not even be able to drink a bottle of water because they they asked to reflux and then the third one i'd say there's a guy who um who shared his uh we have we've got a few but this guy in particular because he's pretty close to me he's he's he's um consultant for me in the business he started taking it and uh shared his blood work with me and his LDL after um four and a half months he gave me his three-month work and then his four and a half month his LDL was very high it was down more than 50 percent he's now in the safe level of LDL and his triglycerides are down 70 percent um and that's you know he took it consistently daily the first three months he shared it and the numbers are down and then another 45 days later he shared it so four and a half months in he's uh you know he's not at risk of having some heart issues and it's purely because of of taking boom chaga daily and it's not because we've done anything um whimsically magical with boom chaga it's just we've really isolated those healthy compounds and made sure that they're stable in a liquid format and then we got rid of the bad stuff so it sounds simple it took a long time to get a very specific process but there are a lot of answers in nature out there that um you know if you're into the side effects and you really optimize what those healthy compounds are you know you should see a difference and we definitely do with boom chaga so how do we get some boom chaga up to your Cincinnati Bengals because if I understand correctly you are a football fan and the Bengals are your team I know I know it's not going to change Joe Barrow's hair color back because that's what we want it's not going to happen uh we all but yeah the Bengals need something right am I right well I think that so we can talk to the Bengals for a little bit so first off um my background I did the Cincinnati for for my career for quite some time so uh I grew up closer to Chicago but we were pretty modest lifestyle so going to a Bears game a soldier field was very expensive versus because the the Bengals have been more like the Bengals for much of my life when I lived in Cincinnati it was very cheap to go to a Bengals game some people give the tickets away so it was uh I've actually met people at Bengals games that come in from New York or come in from Chicago or come in from LA and they're like oh it's cheaper for us to fly into here and get these great seats at the 50-yard line that it is to go to our home stadium you know um that makes sense that's more of an indictment of the of the ticket prices here than of them yeah exactly exactly so you know I think with the Bengals it's unfortunate because they have some some rare talent on the offensive side of the ball but you play in the AFC North and it gets cold for half the season the AFC North you know the the Steelers have Nagi Harris the Ravens went out they already have a running quarterback then they went out and get you know King Henry and then the Browns have Nick Chub the Bengals unless you're a Bengals fan you can't name their running backs um they let Joe mix and go because of pricing and now he's doing great with the Texans right um and it's always a gamble on running backs but if you don't have a threat to run I don't care if burrows complete 75% of his passes and or 80% breaking records eventually if Higgins is injured as he has been for more than half the year you're gonna double team or triple team chase and you got some rookies there are some known-name guys that are running routes and you're you're just not it's not gonna work out okay and no matter how good your offensive line is eventually there'll be pressure when you're waiting for chase to get open or even chase plus Higgins so you've got to have that threat of a run or you're just not going to win in the NFL and that's just on the offensive side the defensive side when the Bengals haven't had a balanced talent between the backs and the front they run this typical we're going to give you the 10-15 yards a few execute and if you watch the game against the Eagles they're DBs they're down a dead sprint they're not going to let you beat them and there's an easy 10-15-12 20-yard dump all it's it's it's almost like are you kidding me is this is this uh um you know uh LSU or Alabama or Georgia playing a Juco school it's like it was crazy just watching that the the backs and how open that the Eagles were and then the issue is the Eagles on how to run the ball too with Barkley and with um with hers so to me it was like this is just it got ugly quick the Bengals defense they got a couple good up front but they're they're linebackers to their to their backs or middle to lower it class in the NFL they just don't have the talent there and um yeah they're just not gonna you know when they went to the Super Bowl um they had really good backs um you know those guys are number one uh corners or safety on other teams now right um they had decent linebacker core and they had a decent one or two up front and now all they have really as far as if you look at just the analytics they have a one two good up front middle bottom of the row linebackers and definitely bottom at the the the backs so their defense is just porous um and they've had a lot of injuries on the defensive line as well so there's some forgiveness there because that happens but every team deals with injury so you know it's it's um as a as a as a fan that probably spends too much time thinking about this stuff uh speaking to your Giants fans they're probably the same thing and are kicking themselves every Monday or Tuesday morning uh wasting those hours but then they get ready you know hope is always uh upright stuff so you're just coming back for that that that masochism that's exactly it you're right back for more on Sunday yeah no you're you're absolutely right about the run game for Cincinnati too because that's another way to protect a bad defense right absolutely keep the ball but man what a breakdown by you you could do my job obviously um that's uh that yeah I hope I hope Cincinnati turns it around because they are a fun team to watch with so much talent when they're in it and also they're the only team who gives the Chiefs any problems in the playoffs so if they're and they're not in the playoffs we're looking at a possible three-peat we're gonna have to watch you know Kelsey and Taylor Swift up on the stage again I don't think a lot of people be able to stomach that so um so our viewers have heard me a lot say this i'm going to say it again remind you guys boom chaga mushroom super drink uh sponsor here with the talking ball with pattler podcast on the believe network we are grateful to have this partnership we met through the great big daddy rich salgado and uh very fortunate to connect with you rich but boom chaga is a natural extract loaded with anti-inflammatory immune boosting antioxidants and heart healthy compounds as we talked about you can easily pour this natural liquid supplement into any of your favorite drinks I put mine in my coffee every morning and immediately feel the difference I personally have felt a post-workout like energy boost with boom chaga also has the ability to lower cholesterol reduce inflammation and improve immune and heart health with its beta gluten and antioxidants go to boom chaga.com today to place your first order and if you use the discount code talking ball 25 or access it through the QR code on your screen you'll get 25% off your first subscribe and save order right now that means a month supply cost you only $30 start feeling the difference today at boom chaga.com rich we've talked a lot about what chaga does what boom chaga what makes it different is there anything else you'd like to share with our viewers and listeners who uh by the way a lot of them have already given me strong feedback on the product. No fantastic that's great to hear Pat I appreciate the partnership again meet me at the uh the st. Jude you know children's research callf outing sponsored by big daddy it's fantastic I'm glad we're doing this hopefully we can keep the success going and continue into a more successful 2025 for both of us on the uh on the on the football field huh that's right excited about that and you had mentioned earlier could you remind everybody the Thanksgiving event that you guys are thanksgiving we'll be uh if you guys uh or enjoy jogging you know jog wherever you're gonna be out thanksgiving it's a great event um response or an fc Cincinnati again the men's pro soccer team there in Cincinnati everybody's gonna that signs up for the racers be about 13,000 people in this race 5k or 10k they're he's gonna get um handful of these some discount cards and then we'll have the booth set up there at the end where everybody's gonna be able to walk away and have some uh ice cold tea to help them to recover after the race um we're in a number of stores in a greater Cincinnati northern Kentucky date in that part of southwest Ohio northern Kentucky across um Covington Newport and such so um yeah it's it's we hope to be not just there but again getting more involved uh eventually up in New York in Jersey um you know Philadelphia will be will be all over the place come 2025 so so look for boom chaga near you if uh you guys are racers think about us on Thanksgiving before uh you go in indulge and remember folks that have taken us have lost uh lost some uh inches so maybe this is some preventive maintenance as you get into Thanksgiving and into Christmas with the boom chaga on and uh keep that weight off that's a great reminder he is rich funk co-founder of boom chaga and it's boomchaga dot com go there today thank you so much rich thanks take your cup when you need meal time inspiration it's worth shopping king supers for thousands of appetizing ingredients that inspire countless mouthwatering meals and no matter what tasty choice you make you'll enjoy our everyday low prices plus extra ways to save like digital coupons worth over six hundred dollars each week and up to one dollar off per gallon at the pump with points so you can get big flavors and big savings king supers fresh for everyone fuel restrictions apply if you like the show please take a moment to rate review and subscribe it really does help the show to grow thank you for listening [BLANK_AUDIO]