The advice and informational content does not necessarily represent the views of mother's market and kitchen mother's recommends consulting your health professional for your personal medical condition.

Hello, I'm Kimberly King, and welcome to the mother's market radio show, a show dedicated to the Truth, Beauty and Goodness of the human condition. On today's show, with so much nutrition information available, it's hard to know exactly what proteins to eat and how much, so listen up and prepared to learn the latest information on the importance of protein.

Plus later will tell you what's going on around town, but first step, Billy Bosh is the founder of iconic protein, one of the fastest growing natural protein during companies in the country, really attended Louisiana State University where he studied business management and worked as a brand ambassador for an energy drink company really started iconic in 2013 and is now in over 4000 retailers across the country. That's so amazing. And we welcome it to the mother's market radio show. Billy, how are you?

Excellent, thank you so much for having me.

Thanks for being here, so interested in in your story, and so why don't you fill our audience in a little bit on your mission and your work before we get to today's show topic... Yeah, certainly, you know, I always say that I don't really have any business being in the beverage world or being a beverage entrepreneur, that started as a passion project from day one for me, I actually started out... Gosh, I was in my mid-20s and I worked out a lot. And you know, you have a lot more time in your mid-20s... Right.

In a disposable time. Right, so I'm working out, but I'm not necessarily eating the healthiest diet, but I think, Okay, well, if I work out, that'll offset, and I'm entertaining clients for the company I work for, going out for dinners at night and eating fast food on the run during the day, 'cause I didn't have time or eating out of airports or convenience stores, right.

When I started to have heartburn issues that became chronic heartburn, I went to the doctor and that doesn't feel... RAI feel like maybe I'm doing something wrong, and it turns out they tested my blood and I had a high... My mid-20s and they're like, What are you doing? You look, okay, how do you have high cholesterol? Like 25 years old, and the doctor says, What have you been eating? Talk to me about your diet, 'cause it seems like you work out, I said, Oh yeah, well, last night, let's see, I had went out and how to stay and had some red Wallin and after dinner cocktail and then had some hamburger for launch fast food, and then I was on the run, so I grabbed himself at the convenience store and he's like, What are you doing, you can't eat that stuff every day, right.

And I said, Well, I don't have any time, I can't meal prep at home, and she said, Well, alright, here's a purple pill and you take this every day, and I'm thinking like, I'm walking out of there were with a prescription thinking like, Why should I be taking a pill every day, and I made one is like, This doesn't seem right now.

So I started thinking about this problem and I almost filled a prescription, and then I started thinking, If foods the problem, and my doctor had the pill is the solution, what if I flip that around and food became the solution instead of the problem... Right, so I went to a nutritionist and I said, Hey look, I really need some help. I feel like I know nutrition, I've mixed up shakes on my own before protein shakes for post-workout and things like that. But I need some guidance here. I'm having some health issues, and she said, Look, it's pretty simple, increased protein, decreased calories, decreased sugar, that can help in curb your appetite, and there's a few other benefits of that, and I said, Okay, great, tell me what to go by. And she said, Now that I can't really do that, there's a list of protein drinks out there, high sugar, high calorie... Artificial ingredients, artificial sugars. So that was really the challenge. Right, and she said, here's a long list of ingredients. Makes us up every day. And I said, I'm not gonna do that. That's not convenient. I'm gonna be a realist, I can be kind of lazy at times, I work hard, but when it comes to that, like I want convenience, I want grab and go, and I was just shocked that there was nothing out there. Right, the world knows kind of the body builder protein drinks and the diet-oriented protein drinks, and I said, Well, what if I just want to snack on the go or like a light... New replacement, I just didn't exist. So I went back to Rand, I said, I know that sounds like a crazy idea, but would you help me create a drink? And she pass and goes, Who are you again?

Why are you quli? Don't know, I Don't know why I'm qualified to do this. But nobody else is doing it, so why not? So so began the quest to create the perfect protein drink, and here we are six years later with iconic... Awesome, that's good. So again, you are living your passion, I am, I am. And loving it. Having a great time doing it.

Good for you. Well, we are talking today about the importance of protein. And you found a window and an opportunity, where does protein come from?

Yeah, so there's a few different sources of protein and protein, and the premise of protein, and when you get down to the basic element of protein, it's a combination of non-amino acids, and that actually helps, you know it's a nutritive source for your body, so whether it's your organs, your brain, your heart, everything thrives on protein in your body, so if you deprive your body of protein, you start to see issues in your diet, and conversely, we'll get to this, but if you like try to do too much and kinda go overboard on it, there can be some issues as well...

Oh, okay, yeah, so the different types of proteins... Can you spell those out?

Yeah, totally, totally. So there's a few different types. And when you look at different sources of protein, and you can look at animal-based or plant-based, and both have kind of like pros and cons of either one, so when you look at plant-based, you can look at things like vegetables, a lot of people don't think of broccoli as having protein beans, things like that, the mental family, and then in addition to that, you can look at things like hampering a popular protein source, beyond that, you can look at animal proteins, chicken, the pork, you can look at the fish. So that whole side of things, and then as well as dairy, which is what we use, we found a really clean dairy source, and one of the things I looked at for different protein sources, and I wanted to look at absorption rates, and I wanted to find something as close to, you know, human milk profile as possible, and it turns out that sourcing human milk isn't all that viable, so that can be a little bit challenging it... That said, rather than do that, let's just find a protein that's really similar to the human profile.

Right.

So when you say that, is it synthetic or is it a... No, so we actually... We went out and sourced protein from New Zealand grass-fed cows, and so when you look at different dairy options, there's organic, there's grass, then there's conventional, and I really wanted to make sure we did our homework on the different types and sources of protein and what we found is grass-fed cows are actually much healthier as everybody's getting more into kind of graph fed and pasture-raised and free-range chickens and things like that, but a lot of people don't necessarily know that it sounds good, and you may not know what the real benefit is right.

And so, and researching that, we actually have a sourcing analyst on our team that her full-time job is finding sources of ingredients and making sure they're cleaning and under really understanding why they're clean and why it's beneficial for your body, and with grass, a protein that cows are healthier because our cows has been 85% to 90% of their time and a pasture out grazing, they're walking around their Healthier counselor... Supposed to eat grass, right?

So if you say, and not to say this happens for all organic milk and protein sources, but you can claim organic if the cows are eating, so they can eat organic Sue or organic corn all day long and still organic, so that's not healthy for the consent cows don't walk around and corn all day and Evansville on a natural thing, so it tends to some health issues in humans, and so when we wanted to find a really clean label grass-fed source, New Zealand has a great story. They've been passed to raising their cattle for really centuries and never stopped, and they ban genetically modified ingredients there, so it's a really clean source to hormone-free, pass aside free. We actually went out and tested a lot of other protein drinks and protein products out there, we're seeing a lot of other products that have heavy metal contamination from pollution and other sources, as well as testing positive for hormones and pesticides, and some of those are organic, so we wanted to make sure we went a step beyond organic, which is really kinda keying in on the sources and not just stamping it organic and kind of blindly following, but really understanding, you know what's beneficial, why is it beneficial to have this pastures and grass-fed certification I was just gonna say that certification, that is the stamp that goes with organic, you've done that research, we've gone through and that's... And you've been certified?

Yeah, certainly. So we're certified and it's something that we wanna make sure we maintain, and again, we test all of that regularly.

Can you explain what our complete proteins versus clean... What you just explain.

Yeah, so a complete protein has the complete amino acid profile, so when I mentioned finding a protein similar to human milk, it's finding a protein that has a similar amino acid make up, so a complete protein has all nine amino acids, so you're looking at milk yogurt, Jesus meet grass that be things like that. One of the challenges that you will find with, say, plant for routines, while they are a nutritive source of protein, they're not necessarily a complete protein, and the challenge with that is your body is not gonna absorb it at the same rate, so for instance, you may pick on another plant protein, and if you don't do your homework, you may not know that you have to actually take twice as much, so to get the equivalent of 20 grams of milk protein, you might have to consume, say, 40 grams of plant protein is... What role does protein play in overall health and wellness?

Yeah, so it's got a ton of benefits, it's crazy, it's like when you really look into it, it's people think, Okay, there's... Weight maintenance is a weight control understanding for me, it was about, you know, carbon Miami type and making sure I was full, so it's a satiety, filling you up protein, it was one of the fundamental elements of filling you up... Right, so we make sure we have at least 20 grams of protein in all of our products, as well as a little bit of fiber to help bolster that, and then in addition to that, there's other benefits, so it can reduce brain fog, it can help with mental clarity, it can help with your learning ability, it can affect your mood, muscle recovery is a big one, a lot of people know about that, but you know when you go work out and your muscle tissues or tearing, it really helps with most of repair and building muscle faster, and that's not to be confused with a, You drink protein drinks, you're just gonna grow muscles right now, and some other brands are more oriented to that, and that was one of my... One of my pet peeves is I'd go check out if I was stuck buying another kind of muscle-oriented protein drink brand, the cash, you would say, Well, what does this drink due to to just give you muscles and I'm like, Now, I go as they're milking here I don't know, not really. Just it taste good. Actually, no, it doesn't say good one. Yeah, come on, I gotta be able to check the box at least a few of these, so it affects bone string, they can affect heart, affect heart health as well as slow the effects of Agent.

Yeah, everybody's interested in that.

So I was just gonna say to you, got my interest in a... Totally.

So how much, and this could probably vary, but how much protein do we need in a day... Yeah, it really does vary. So the recommended daily allowances about 8 grams per kilogram of body weight, which equals about 46 grams in a day for an average woman, in 56 grams in a day for the average man, but it really... Your body weight, how big you are, and how active you are, really affects that, everybody's got different metabolism, so it's important to understand your body and what your body needs. Right.

And along that line, men, women, obviously, but then... What about children?

Yeah, so children. It really depends on the age. So the good thing about protein is if, say for our drink with 20 grams of protein, people will ask, is it safer kids? Totally safe for kids. Right.

Unless you're gonna... I would be concerned personally, if a drink had 60 grams of protein or something that ends a little bit much, but 20 is a nice 40% of most people's daily value. So when you look at what's safe for kids and whatnot, it's always best to check with a nutritionist, but generally it's safe, they go over the recommended daily allowance, like your body's just gonna pass it through... You just answered my question, is there is such a thing as too much protein?

Yeah, I know it's funny 'cause a lot of people say a lot of people get caught up in this body builder movement. And I get it, if you're working out a lot, but you have what I'll call the FI body builder movement, where people just kinda wanna consume a lot of protein and they feel like, Alright, if I'm consuming a lot of protein or maybe they're still caught up in that from body building days or playing sports, it can cause some issues. So you're talking about really going overboard, you're going two, three times, four times the daily recommended allowance, that's when you might start to have that just if issues get up other issues as it relates to just your body processing other foods, and it can cause varying issues, depending on your body. Well, this is really interesting information right now, we need to take a quick break, but more in just a moment, don't go away. We will be right back with Billy Bush.

And welcome back to the mother's market radio show. And we wanna remind you that if you've missed any portion of today's show, you can find us on iTunes by searching mother's market or download the show from our website, mother's market dot com, click the link for radio and listen to the past shows, plus download our Healthy Recipes and money savings coupons, all available at mother's market dot com.

And now back to our interview with Billy Bush with iconic protein, and we're talking about the importance of protein and really, really great information, but what are some of the best sources of high quality protein... Great question. Yeah, so we mentioned a couple earlier, but just to expand upon that, you can start off with things like milk from grass-fed cows, when you... Not eggs, beef, chicken, fish, when you're looking at fish, chicken beef, all those things, it's important to understand the source of those, so I always look for wild catfish as opposed to organic fish, right.

So organic fish can be a little bit misleading because you can feed fish form Rishi sale or something like that, which I... Eston, normally it sathyan be wild in the ocean, so it could be a little bit confusing for consumers to always look for wild cat and then on the beef on pasture raised, not just grass-fed, 'cause a cow can be kept in a bar and his whole life and fed grass, but that's different from actually being out in the past year, so it's important to know these things because some companies can be a little bit tricky in their marketing... Right. And then chickens, you want your chickens free range, not just page for you, 'cause I can still sit in the barn all day, be free of a cage, but never leave the barn.

Right, so it's like it can be catches to these things, so it's important to dig in a little bit, this is what's going in our body, right, so we wanna know where these things come from, and then beyond that, you can look at things like cheese, veggies mentioned broccoli, beans, peas, hemp, the seeds are a great source of protein as well... Thank you, Tom, was like... As you said, we talked a little bit about the grass-fed, but can you talk a little bit about sustainable and becoming more popular, what do these terms... And talking about those protein sources, yeah, it's important to understand what your protein source is and how it impacts the environment, we only have one planet that we live on here, and they're not making any more as far as I've seen anywhere close to us, the new right now, I haven't seen any new ones lately around us, so it's important to understand the global impact of what you're consuming, so I'm a proponent of consuming animal proteins and moderate portions, not necessarily having a whole plate of protein and in a sprinkling of veggies, it's important to get your daily and take a veggies and starches and things like that, in addition to some protein, some healthy animal protein. But what we look for in a sustainable protein is making sure the cows are first and foremost treated in a kind of a natural way, so their pasture... In the pasture, they're grazing, they've got enough of that time in their life, and in addition to that, they're treated humanely, and then understanding their impact on the environment as a whole, right, so making sure that there's other stuff going on, there's a movement beyond organic and to buy our dynamics right now. So it's new in the US, but it's really kinda got some legs in Europe, and biodynamic is really where the simplified... It's like we're the old school way of farming, which is like, you've got the animals and you've got the plants on the farm and you're rotating the crops, and now you're using the animals to fertilize the crops and everything is kind of working together in the same environment versus saying, I'm only doing plants and no more animals will plan stand... Animals and animals and plants. So having this balance, I think is really important. And the pendulum tends to swing in health trends and fans, especially with that, so everybody's going all the way into animals and dairy, and then they kind of swing all the way on the plane, send him a vegan and say, You know what, I really amiss me and in some of these other things that are in swings back in the middle, and where I'd like to really see things land is being right in the middle and understanding that it's important to have this balance of like knowing where your plant food sources come from as well as your animal food sources on that note, because you're talking about that balancing, can you give me an idea of a menu and like walk me through a day of what menu should look like... Morning on at night.

Yeah, totally. It's funny 'cause a lot of people will skip breakfast and it's funny, it's like Everybody says, Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, which is what I was taught growing up.

But there's also this movement around intermittent fasting that's going on, and I've done that and I've actually tried it the last six months and really enjoying it, which is like, you're not eating for a period of time, so you have a feeding window, as they call it, right.

So you stop eating. I stop eating around 70 clock at night and I'll start getting around 11-00 AM. So I'm kind of skipping breakfast, but I'm packing more nutrients into the time that I'm eating, and there's some benefits, some clinical benefits that have been shown around taking a break from food and not just having a cycle of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. So that's something that people may wanna look into, if you're still doing breakfast, lunch and dinner, or doing the smaller meals during the day, which we're seeing a lot of people move into, what I like to do, and I think what a lot of people are seeing benefits from as having a protein-rich breakfast, so whether that's like, if you have time for eggs and something like a starch in the morning as well, I prefer... So some scrambled DES or over easy with a side of sweet potatoes. That's a nice start to the beat your day.

He's being along with a source of protein as well like, you know, some cheese or dairy or something along those lines, we've actually seen a lot of people using our drinks as a breakfast on the go, so a lot of people were time compressed these days, so myself included, so I would love to wake up and cook a big breakfast every morning, but I'm like, you don't have time for that. I'm running at the door.

So when I'm not intermittent fasting, I'm grabbing an iconic in the morning and it's a high protein with 20 grams of protein but only 130 calories, it's a little bit lighter, so it's not gonna kiwico down. And so when you talk about that intermittent fasting, is that the key to life... Yeah, it's more the keto lifestyle in the keto trend, and just to finish answering your question on the full diet, I like to do smaller meals during the day, so having some snacks of some ran nuts as well as maybe some fresh seasonal Fruit throughout the day versus there's this thing of people just like eating fruit that's like ripe year-round, and I don't feel like our body's really met for that, it's more like, eat what's in season chapter farmers markets, things like that. But it's important to find things that are convenient, Grab and Go options, I look for a protein bars with a short ingredient list, ruined NTs that I understand, that typically look for lower sugar items, if it's a packaged food, something that's higher in protein as well, and then finding a good lunch that will keep you going there in the day is something, a salad with a basal dressing, something kind of light with a protein, maybe like a meat or fish protein or something like that, I find that kind of keeps me going versus going out to a restaurant, getting kind of really way down with a launch and you're taking us... Yes, on the Teradata.

Yeah, and then something light for dinner, I try to meal prep during the week when I can, so doing some wild call fish, some salmon or something like that, and then matching that with, again, some seed potatoes or been getting into Rube, which is like... It's almost like a spice star who really good... It's pretty tasty doing something like that, and then some greens, like some asparagus or broccoli or something like that. Yeah, thank you.

Thanks for the tea, those tips, you mentioned the impact of the environment and the millennial generation seems to be really in tune with that sustainability and sourcing... What is your take on that?

Yeah, I think it's really important, that's why we devoted a full-time position in our small company to a full-time sourcing manager, so she's sourcing all of all the ingredients, rams camera. And she does a fantastic job, super passionate about it. She actually spent a year out in Malaysia working on court re-frustration recently, and came back and has been working with us and... I love it. Our whole team is passionate about it, and she really embodies that spirit to go and find where the ingredients come from, whether it's the protein we use or the sweetener we use, release organic cane sugar. There's only three grams of it, so there's not a lot, but finding things like in new lines, we have a match and a Golden Milk that includes turmeric and ginger are really kinda understanding where they... It's come from tumors, very popular right now, but there's a lot of sources of tumor out there, and some of them are contaminated from pollution and things like that, so it's under very important to understand where the tumor come from, you don't wanna just find the cheapest one out there and not ask any questions, really wanna understand how it's been tested, make sure there's a clean certificate of analysis for each ingredient, and make sure it's coming from a sustainable source, and that's... I mean, you're right, because again, it's the certification that you wanna have that stamp... Right, we talked... What's conventional protein?

Yeah, conventional protein is really what the US has become known for, unfortunately, there's a lot of corn-fed beef out there and even some other things like soy-fed and things like that, but corn is very popular and you know the problem with that and the benefit of some people see it as it fans the cow up a lot faster, and it helps them grow faster if they're just eating a bunch of corn, right. So it's a higher sugar with the higher sugar corn crops that have been grown, so when you're doing that, you don't have help necessarily as healthy of a college, you should... So that translates into what milk is being produced in the nutrients in those Milk... In the nutrients and the milk... Yeah, it's... What we wanna get away from?

Yeah, totally. I mean, I think so, right? So some people are fine with it, but I think that it's important to find like a cleaner source from a healthier cousin's got a better amino acid profile, and the science behind grass-fed cows and making sure they're out in the pasture and they're active and their leader you're getting a better quality product from the cows... Can we go back to... You had mentioned some body, the flavors of your product to iconic protein. It's interesting, we've talked a little bit about... You just mentioned the term Eric in the ginger, you have some sitting here at coconut cream and match ogre tea. So I was looking at some of this and we know just like some of those benefits, can we talk a little bit about that? And you have lactose-free one.

Totally, yeah, so we start with a milk protein isolate, and so that... What we mean by that is it actually isolates the protein, we isolate the protein on a molecular level from the milk, and so you get all the positive protein benefits of that complete immuno acid profile without some of the attributes that people have digestive issues with, like it's a lactose-free actives is actually separated out from the protein, in addition to that, we've got some functionality to the line, we started out with a chocolate truffle with Coco pounder, which is super good when I have... It's like a healthy chocolates, and then we have a vanilla bean, which is a really clean vanilla bean taste, what we found was that a lot of our consumers were mixing one of those two flavors with their coffee every morning as a coffee creamer. So we said, Hey, why don't we come up with a coffee line? So we have a cafe LA that actually combines Columbian coffee with our based protein formulation, so that's got the equivalent of two cups of coffee in the morning. A morning drink. Right there, exactly. And then the two newest additions are or Golden Milk, which comes with a full functional dose of turmeric, ginger, black pepper, which helps with absorption and then a little bit of cinnamon as well, and then manage the which is, it comes with ceremony or grade Manta and COBIT cream.

Wonderful, great information, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate all your knowledge and we look forward to having you on again, but in the meantime, if you wanna get more information on Billy and the website, it's called Drink iconic dot com, and we look forward to your next visit. Thank you so many, so much for having me.

Thanks for listening to the mother's market radio show and for shopping at mother's market, the advice and informational content does not necessarily represent the views of mother's market and kitchen, mother's recommends consulting your health professional for your personal medical condition.