Becoming Virtuosa with Dr. Susan Crockett | Vinegar: The Unexpected Superfood with Lisa Bullion

Episode #108:

Vinegar: The Unexpected Superfood with Lisa Bullion

Have you ever considered the health benefits of drinking vinegar? I know, it may sound a bit strange at first. However, as you’ll hear today, I truly believe that a shot of vinegar should be part of everybody’s healthy daily habits.

Lisa Bullion and her husband started making vinegar as a hobby after a trip to Italy where they fell in love with true balsamic vinegar. They began sharing their homemade vinegars with friends and family, and the response was so positive that Lisa decided to turn it into a business after retiring from her career. That’s how Other Mother Vinegars was born.

In this episode, Lisa shares her fascinating journey into the world of vinegars and shrubs (a vinegar-based drink). She explains how raw, unpasteurized vinegars can support gut health, reduce inflammation, and even help with acid reflux. If you’re curious about the power of vinegar, you won’t want to miss this episode.

WHAT YOU’LL DISCOVER

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How true balsamic vinegar is made and why it’s so expensive.

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The difference between raw, unpasteurized vinegars and conventional vinegars.

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Why taking a shot of vinegar a day can support gut health and the immune system.

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How vinegar can help with acid reflux by balancing stomach acid production.

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The benefits of using fresh, whole ingredients like turmeric and ginger in vinegar-based shrubs.

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How taking a vinegar shot before a meal can help blunt insulin spikes and regulate blood sugar.

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The story of how Other Mother Vinegars grew from a farmers market stand to a brand carried in major grocery stores.

FEATURED ON THE SHOW

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Come find us on YouTube for the Dr. Crockett Show and subscribe today.

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Other Mother Vinegars: Website | Facebook | Instagram

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Episode #42: Grit and Grace with Lacey Aguero

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JJ Virgin

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Ep #58: Mother Knows Best with Lisa Bullion

TRANSCRIPT

Lisa: I've got lots of stories. You will be surprised at what drinking a little live vinegar can do for the body, but it's all pretty good. Not the apple cider stuff though.

Dr. Crockett: Not the apple cider stuff. Not the same stuff.

Welcome to Becoming Virtuosa, the podcast with Dr. Susan Crockett. You are listening to episode number 58 Mother Knows Best, an interview with entrepreneur and vinegar connoisseur Lisa Bullion, the owner of Other Mother Vinegar.

Welcome to Becoming Virtuosa, the podcast that encourages you to become your best virtuosa self. Each week Dr. Susan Crockett goes where the scalpel can't reach, exploring conversations about how to be, heal, love, give, grow, pray, and attune. For the first time ever, she's bringing the personal one on one teaching that she shares with individual patients to you on this broader platform. A weekly source of inspiration and encouragement designed to empower you.

By evolving ourselves as individuals. We influence and transform the world around us. Please help me welcome board certified OB-GYN specializing in minimally invasive GYN surgery, internationally in the top 1% of all GYN robotic surgeons, a certified life coach, and US News top doctor, your host Susan A. Crockett, MD.

Dr. Crockett: I am here today with my very special guest Lisa Bullion from Other Mother Vinegars in Fredericksburg, Texas. Welcome, Lisa.

Lisa: Thank you so much. It's just an honor to be here.

Dr. Crockett: This is such a cool thing because a lot of the guests that I've had on the show so far have been people that I know pretty well, like in my friend circle or my work circles. But you're not. We just met today, and we kind of met because one of the people who works with me on the show came across your product.

Lisa: That was a joy to meet Lacey.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah.

Lisa: Actually in Fredericksburg. She's precious.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah, that's how you met her. She found you there.

Lisa: She did. We met at a market. She came up and was interested in the product and talked to us a little bit about it and then went on her way. Then she came back around and said, “Hey, I have something to ask you. Would you think you'd be interested in being on the Dr. Crockett Show?” I said absolutely.

Dr. Crockett: You're like what is that. Yeah, I love that story. Because you are one of my first if maybe not the first organic meet somebody and feel like that would be a good fit for somebody to talk about wellness on the show. I've so enjoyed getting to meet you today and hear your story. So I want to give our listeners, our viewers, a chance to hear this very interesting background story. Like why vinegar?

Lisa: I know because it's crazy.

Dr. Crockett: How in the world, how did this come about?

Lisa: It's crazy. Well, we definitely are crazy to make vinegar in the first place. How did it come about? Well, I'm going to go way back because we took a family vacation to Italy. This was many years ago. We were introduced to fantastic balsamic. Not like what we tend to get in the United States. If you're paying less than about $100 a bottle, it's probably not true balsamic really in through a series of many barrels over 15 to 20 years.

Dr. Crockett: That's what true balsamic is?

Lisa: Right.

Dr. Crockett: Boy the Italians have this thing down.

Lisa: They really do .They really do. But it's a flavor explosion in the mouth in just a tiny bit. So we got back home, and we thought we'll just make some of that not knowing what we were getting ourselves into.

Dr. Crockett: That's awesome.

Lisa: But flash forward, we made vinegar for our own personal uses. I use it in my kitchen. After I retired from educating from high school.

Dr. Crockett: Because you were a teacher.

Lisa: I was a teacher, in Fredericksburg as matter of fact, and finally retired in 2016. Needed something, needed a retirement hobby. So I thought well honey, let's just make your vinegar and let people see what really good vinegar tastes like. We'd shared it with friends around the table, of course, and gotten such good response. So that's what we did.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah.

Lisa: We started to go to farmers markets and do that. We had made it for our own selves, like I said. Never got to the balsamic stage. Sorry, full confession.

Dr. Crockett: But you know what? I've tried your vinegars today. You were kind enough to bring samples. I don't know if the viewers can see it, I'm pretty sure they can, the strip of the barrel that you brought where you explained to us about how the processes that it was made. These vinegars are amazing.

Lisa: You're so kind. Thank you. Absolutely. So we found that like vinegar, otherwise, you may hear the terms like with the mother or raw or live. They all mean the same thing. It's unpasteurized, and it's a natural process. It's a secondary fermentation from, in our case, wine to vinegar.

Dr. Crockett: Because Fredericksburg is like in the middle of Texas wine country.

Lisa: Wine country.

Dr. Crockett: A lot of our viewers from like other places might not know that.

Lisa: Would probably not know that.

Dr. Crockett: Texas really is a big, central Texas wine thing. So you're right in the heart of that.

Lisa: Right in the heart of that. I must say at the very onset of it when I went to source my wine from those vineyards, they kind of laughed at me.

Dr. Crockett: Really?

Lisa: They kind of laughed at me, and they kind of were like what? Now they call me. So I'm happy to report, but it's taken a little while. But we take that wine, we blend it to a certain flavor profile, then we put it back in a barrel.

Dr. Crockett: For over a year.

Lisa: Over a year. It's about a year plus a couple months process to convert first to convert from, convert the alcohol. Acetobacters happen to be free floating in the air. They attach themselves to the alcohol. There's a lovely conversion process, takes a few months. Then the alcohol is gone, and we take it and move it to a full barrel, full size barrel, because the first barrel is a ventilated barrel to get the air in. Then it sits there in ages. That gives it a more mellow flavor, less harsh as if you’ve. If you've tried apple cider vinegar.

Dr. Crockett: Yes. So I'm so glad you brought that up because I wanted to talk about that. I'm hearing everywhere about the health benefits of apple cider vinegar. JJ Virgin’s talking about it. I have a bottle of Bragg's downstairs, and I have tried shooting it. I'll use it occasionally like in salad dressings. It's rough. So then you walk in here.

Lisa: Were you scared to try at the beginning? Come on.

Dr. Crockett: I love trying new things. Like it's one of my things is to, one of these little things is to grow. So these are all.

Lisa: Oh, they all represent something.

Dr. Crockett: They all represent something. So one is grow.

Lisa: Love it.

Dr. Crockett: To me that means like don't be afraid to try new things. So when you walked in, I was really excited. But I also didn't want to like make like an unconscious face when I didn’t like it.

Lisa: But you know, I get lots of those too.

Dr. Crockett: Really?

Lisa: Because I'm asking someone to drink vinegar, and that is not normally what you consider a drink.

Dr. Crockett: No, but these were amazing. I had, they were each no, I'm just selfish because they're really good. Each one had a different flavor. So we did the ginger and honey. The beet, is that beet and honey also?

Lisa: Yes, there's a little honey in that one.

Dr. Crockett: Then the turmeric, which is great for inflammation, and then the tart raspberry, which was just like dessert. It's amazing. Yeah, none of them made me make a face. I didn't even have to fake it.

Lisa: I love that you didn't have to fake it. They're a lot of fun. They aren't, I'll just clarify for our viewing audience, they are shrubs, which is a combination of our barrel aged vinegar and fresh ingredients.

Dr. Crockett: Okay, so I think that's a really important definition because y'all, I didn't even know what that was when she said it today. So shrubs, like bushes. Shrubs.

Lisa: Exactly what people think, as what I did at the very beginning. But this shrub is an older colonial American term. As you can imagine pre-refrigeration, they used vinegar to preserve lots of different items, fruits, vegetables, even meats, you know.

Dr. Crockett: Think sauerkraut.

Lisa: Exactly, but they were a waste-not-society. So once they'd exhausted whatever they had in that liquid, they had the liquid leftover, vinegar based. They sweetened it, and believe it or not, they were cocktail mixers.

Dr. Crockett: That's just brilliant.

Lisa: They called it a shrub. That's where it came from. So I didn't invent the term. I'm just kind of borrowing it and hopefully giving it a little bit more of a.

Dr. Crockett: Modern twist.

Lisa: A little bit more of a facelift. Yeah.

Dr. Crockett: Facelift. That's great. So you take the shrub, which is the raw, and then then you add the other pieces like the turmeric or the beet.

Lisa: Yes. So the way we formulate, it's very simple. We take, just for instance, the turmeric with a little bit of raw honey and our vinegar, and that's the full ingredient list. So we start with fresh turmeric root.

Dr. Crockett: No preservatives, no sulfites, no funkiness.

Lisa: We say no stabilizers, no enhancers, no junk.

Dr. Crockett: You're speaking my food love language right there.

Lisa: They are intended to be taken that shot, as shot as we discussed, an ounce at a time. But the good news is you have options. You can enjoy them in so many ways. You can add them to your salad, think a vinegarette. You can add them to sparkling water and have a lovely mocktail.

Dr. Crockett: Like Topo Chico.

Lisa: Topo Chico.

Dr. Crockett: We did that too.

Lisa: My favorite because I like the minerals. Yeah, you just you have more than one way to sneak that good bacteria rich vinegar in.

Dr. Crockett: So from a medical perspective, how many shots of this a day should we be taking for our gut health? Because that's the primary health, as I understand it, is getting our probiotic in so our gut health is happy and our gut is so important for our brain function. It's our immune system. It’s all of these things.

Lisa: I think more than we've really discovered, to be honest. I do think healing definitely starts in the gut and naturally occurring probiotics are the way to go whenever possible. I know there's lots of them out there in terms of pills, etc. But if you can get your sauerkrauts, if you can get your yogurts, Kombuchas, and of course some vinegar, then you're doing your body a favor really.

Dr. Crockett: So one shot a day? Two shots?

Lisa: One shot, you asked. A shot a day would be an ounce. That is what we do recommend. Some people want to go to the two ounces. So one to two ounces. We do have a small two ounce model. If you're going to do it and just do the one, go head and do the boost. Do two ounces. Otherwise, if you can do it daily, definitely an ounce a day.

Dr. Crockett: Speaking of gut health, so if we're taking a shot a day, and that's supposed to be healthy for our gut and everything, I have friends who have like acid reflux. As a doctor, we're always telling them well you shouldn’t eat citrus and you shouldn't eat chocolate and all that. So tell me about what I should tell those friends regarding having vinegar shots.

Lisa: It's crazy, but it's actually going to help them. I know it's counterintuitive. It's acid to deal with acid in a sense, but my husband is my case study. He was on meds for over 15 years and really aren't meant to take them for that duration of time. It can be very bad for you on other aspects. So he took the time to wean himself off and just go strictly with our shrub, and he does it religiously before it goes to bed at night. He takes the one ounce because he suffers when he lays down at night. That's just what happens. So it can help with that. It can calm the acid storm.

Dr. Crockett: The inflammation.

Lisa: We think it's because it can either be an over producing or under producing acid situation. But if it's under producing, you're kind of giving a little slug of acid in that would then.

Dr. Crockett: Shift the bacteria to where it needs to be.

Lisa: Then the opposite. So if it's over producing, it would just shut down on the acid production. So either way you should get a relief.

Dr. Crockett: Interesting.

Lisa: I've get lots of stories. You would be surprised at what drinking a little live vinegar can do for the body, but it's all pretty good. Not the apple cider stuff though. So.

Dr. Crockett: Not the apple cider stuff. Not the same stuff. Well, as always, like we're not giving medical advice on the show. Even though I am a doctor, you need to consult your own physician before you do any changes to your health.

Lisa: Of course.

Dr. Crockett: When we're talking from a nutritional standpoint, the other interesting thing is the bioavailability of the products like the turmeric. I'm especially interested in that because I'm somebody that has inflammation in my body.

Lisa: I think it's our process. We're about minimally processing, and we start with fresh turmeric root, fresh ginger root, fresh beets locally whenever we can get them. They are seasonal. What we do is we crack the starch for you. So we're going to shred it, juice it, press it, and in that format is the most bioavailable. You see if you take a, for instance, dehydrated or powdered form of turmeric, it's going to take the body much longer to rehydrate before it can absorb.

Dr. Crockett: I had never thought of that.

Lisa: They tend to say pair it with black pepper because that is going to be the focus first. The body will focus on the black pepper, and give the turmeric longer in the system for absorption purposes. But in the process that we use, we find it is most available and your absorption rates, that's why it's only an ounce a day. In that one little ounce, you get about 1,000 milligrams of turmeric, and the curcumin in there. That's what fights then inflammation.

Dr. Crockett: We were talking about how the shot before the meal blunted the insulin spike because one of us was wearing a, I don't have it on right now, but I like wearing a continuous glucose monitor, CGM. I'm not diabetic, but I teach about how we can watch what our glucose levels are doing. It's kind of fun just to be able to see what happens when you eat something, what your body does.

Lisa: Because you really would surprise yourself.

Dr. Crockett: Different foods at different times a day or even at night. Like I can see my sugar start to rise in the morning before I've even eaten anything because my cortisol is checking in. So one of the things that's really curious to me, and I've been playing with, is combining different foods at different times a day, and this is one of those things where.

Lisa: It can be. I have clients that report they take a little either in the pure form, the red wine vinegar on its own, or in the shrub format, the raspberry being the most often used, and it will curtail that spike. I just think it's bizarre, but the body is, it's an amazing machine. It’s an amazing machine.

Dr. Crockett: It is all the chemistry. Yeah. It's so cool. I want to hear one more story, I want you to share one more story share with our listeners before we end the talk because it's been so great. If you wouldn't mind, could you share the story of how you went through COVID, and how you ended up building your company? Because your company is not that old.

Lisa: Definitely not. We're fledgling. We're still a startup. We did go through COVID. We weathered the storm, but it was rough at the beginning. We were a market based, event based company, so young, having started and not had very many just clients, customers that knew what was going on. What we did was, as the market shut down, and we pivoted to wholesale.

Dr. Crockett: Wow.

Lisa: Now doing that in the middle of a pandemic, I know that's pretty crazy,

Dr. Crockett: It’s bold.

Lisa: But it was kind of our only chance. What happened was I received this wonderful text from a friend who said, “Hey, how about a Zoom call with HEB?”

Dr. Crockett: Only the largest grocery distributor in this part of the country.

Lisa: It was much like we're discussing now. We got on the Zoom call. We had a lovely conversation. It really was a meet and greet is all I thought we were doing, and we did.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah.

Lisa: We were wrapping up the call, and the buyer said, “Okay, I'll take it all.”

Dr. Crockett: Oh, my gosh. Wow.

Lisa: I used to think that was the biggest, being in the consumer packaged goods business, that would be the biggest hurdle. Getting it on the shelf. The truth is getting it off the shelf and into the consumers basket is because no one knows it's there. It's COVID, and no one's in the stores.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah.

Lisa: But they were kind, and they took it. They put our products. We have two sizes, the two ounce size and then a 14 ounce size. They put all of them in a series of stores. It just began to organically catch on.

Dr. Crockett: That's amazing.

Lisa: Now we started in about 80 stores which HEB, which is a big number.

Dr. Crockett: That is a big number.

Lisa: It’s a big number for a little tiny company. Now we're also in Whole Foods in the southwest region, which is just a blessing. These are such blessings. In about, I think at last count about 140 HEBs in that healthy living section.

Dr. Crockett: So that our viewers who live local and can go to HEB, they can find it in a healthy living section. So it's not with the regular vinegars.

Lisa: Correct.

Dr. Crockett: They have to go look for it in the healthy living like the health food section of HEB.

Lisa: That really teeny, tiny, small section that has the green banners. That one.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah, or they can go to your website. Like.

Lisa: Oh, of course.

Dr. Crockett: Any of our viewers or listeners could go to your website.

Lisa: Yes, we ship coast to coast, and the websites pretty simple. It's just othermothervinegar.com.

Dr. Crockett: Othermothervinegar.com because mother knows best.

Lisa: Because mother does know best.

Dr. Crockett: That's awesome. Lisa, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been so much fun getting educated about all of this and just getting to know you and meet you. Thank you for being my guest.

Lisa: My blessing and honor to be here.

Dr. Crockett: Thank you. Bye y’all.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Becoming Virtuosa. To learn more, come visit us at DrCrockett.com, or find us on YouTube for the Dr. Crockett Show. If you found this episode helpful or think it might help someone else, please like, subscribe, and share. This is how we grow together. Thanks, and I'll see you next week. Love always, Sue.

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