Adam Torres and Farnoush Fadavi discuss Bala Enzyme.
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Show Notes:
What is the science behind the brand Bala? In this episode, Adam Torres and Dr. Farnoush Fadavi, Founder & President at Bala Enzyme, explore Bala and how it is helping people with hydration and recovery.
About Farnoush Fadavi
Dr. Faye grew up in Boston and attended several schools, including Harvard, Northeastern, Tufts University for her DMD, and Boston University for postgraduate studies. At Boston University, she and her husband researched Bromelain, a plant-based enzyme from pineapple cores, as an alternative to pharmaceuticals for reducing facial inflammation and bruising. They brought this research to their practice in Southern California, where they gave Bromelain to patients after oral surgery. Its anti-inflammatory benefits inspired Dr. Faye to start her own company.
In 2018, Dr. Faye fell in her office and broke her left shoulder and hip. She was diagnosed with severe osteoporosis. Because she is very sensitive to medications and prone to internal bleeding, she couldn’t take pain relievers like ibuprofen. This chronic pain and the need for ongoing treatments made her quit her job, as her shoulder injury stopped her from doing surgeries and delicate procedures. Looking for a natural way to manage her pain, she turned to turmeric, which she knew had healing and anti-inflammatory benefits.
Along with her prior research on Bromelain enzyme, she learned about the Pepin enzyme found in papaya fruit. These enzymes cumulatively and electrolytes helped her develop Bala Enzyme that helped eliminate inflammation and deal with chronic pain. She also shares, “Bala comes from balance, the first word of balance, because we feel like by reducing inflammation in your body, your life can be balanced with us.”
About Bala Enzyme
Bala Enzyme is dedicated to giving people back their freedom, by supporting hydration, muscle recovery and quickly and effectively supporting joint function. We do this by working on the leading edge of understanding the healing power of nature and producing products that deliver results with simple, healthy, proven solutions.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today’s guest is Dr. Farnoosh Fadavi, also known as Dr. Faye, she is the founder and president over at Bala Enzyme.
Dr. Faye, welcome to the show. Hi, Adam. Thank you so much for having me today. All right. got a lot to talk about today. So I’m excited to learn more about Bala Enzyme, the concept. I’m excited to get more into your background as well as an entrepreneur, but just to get us started, we’ll start with what we call our Mission Matters Minute.
So Dr. Fay, at Mission Matters, our aim and our goal and our mission is to amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives and experts. So that’s our mission. Dr. Fay, what mission matters to you? Excellent. So what is BALA comes from the name balance first for border balance and our product is a anti inflammatory hydration supplement.
That is in the market right now and is actually all plant based zero sugar. It tastes great and reduces inflammation and on top of that helps you with hydration. So it’s an alternative solution. To pharmaceutical for people who are looking to do more and by us aging a little bit, we know we have to reach out to do a cabinet and get some Adelaide or a leaf.
But what does help you to reduce inflammation and make you do things that you love to do that, , are a little bit of exam pains and are joined and here and there. we’ll stop us from doing it. how’d you originally get the idea to come to market with Bala? Like , where’d that come from?
Excellent. So that’s a great question. I am in nature, you know, I’m a dental surgeon practicing Southern California for over 20 years in Newport beach. And I got trained at Boston university. And while I was at Boston University doing my postgraduate study, I was doing research on bromelain enzyme.
Bromelain is actually a hard core of pineapple that everyone toss. That hard core is full of enzyme named bromelain. So we were doing research on bromelain enzyme looking for an alternative to pharmaceutical to reduce inflammation and bruising after oral surgery. So bringing that into my practice after doing any type of dental surgery, we ask patients to take bromelain enzymes and for 20 some years of my practice, when patients come back, you know, to do a suture removal, they were informing us and giving us a testimonial that, This was so much better on reduction of the inflammation on their face.
However, you know, they were feeling so much better on their joints if they were elderly or if they were younger people, they were feeling so much better after doing exercising. So they were wondering what was that all about? But was that surprising to you though? Was that surprising to you? Like, did you have any idea like before?
Yeah. Yes, we know because you know, even though bromelain reduces inflammation on a, a mouth and a face, I mean, it reduces inflammation. It could reduce inflammation anywhere in the body, but at the time we were doing research for the, you know, facial swelling. So we were not. Thinking about performing any , making any branding or anything like that.
Very successful practices. At the time, I had two young daughters, which now they’re much older, so we keep getting all the testimonials and just listening to it and not doing anything. So in 2018, I actually fell in my office, broke my shoulder and my hip really badly, got a second accord, and I was diagnosed with severe onset of osteoporosis, which I knew I had some osteoporosis because I cannot take pharmaceutical, I’m very sensitive to pharmaceutical.
Cannot take any NSAID, which is an anti inflammatory, such as Advil, Aleve, Ibuprofen. I get internal bleeding and I could not take at the time any hormones. So that’s how I end up being very severely osteoporotic. So, I broke my shoulder and my hip and I could not practice dentistry anymore. So, at the time, I needed to come up with something to help me.
me get rid of my chronic pain because getting treatment for osteoporosis, you know leaves you with side effects of a joint pain, muscle aches and overall fatigue. So at the time we think,, I need to come up with something to get rid of my chronic pain because I could not practice anymore.
I was in chronic pain. And I grew up with turmeric and, we knew about enzymes, called papain, which comes from actually papaya fruit as well, which that is an anti inflammatory enzyme as well. So we got a biothermist and start doing the formulation of BALA and is an amazing formulation.
It’s been changing my life and I do one or two,, packet a day, add it to the water, and drink it, and that’s how Bala was born, basically, from 2018. Wow, what an, what an amazing story, and , I’m always curious, especially when somebody enters entrepreneurship from whether it’s, products or otherwise.
And they come from a,, highly technical background like yourself, like a surgeon, right? So like being an entrepreneur , is many times a different skill set when it comes specifically to products and things like products. How was it like developing the formula and everything like that?
Was that kind of fun or like, how did that go? Learning experiences? It was , of course, it’s very different than what I used to do. It’s just different type, but very enjoyable. We had to go through a lot of batches of, formulation to make sure that we mask the turmeric taste, , and because it’s kind of a little nasty.
By the way, mask that’s really, really good. Our product is very tasty and we do have three different flavors, which is one is pineapple and berry and lime. They all taste really great and they all help you with your. Joint pain, muscle recovery. And on top of that, , we are having some , hydration electrolyte in there that helps you with dehydration.
And of course, as a dentist, we did not want to have sugar in our product. So is zero sugar because , as a dentist, we always educate patient by every sip of, , liquid or any sugar you put in your mouth for 20 minutes after that your process of cavity is going on in your mouth. So we definitely did not want to have any.
Sugar in our product, so zero sugar, tastes great, and it just overall helps you a lot. And, , it’s very for me because I loved what I used to do, and I loved helping patients, but I feel like it was a very limited number of people that I could help. Per day, but I feel like having BALA in the market, I can help much more number of people out there than in my small clinic.
You mentioned hydration is there any point of differentiation between the hydration you get from BALA and let’s say like maybe an alternative? Sure. That’s a great question. We are very differentiated, actually. So, in this store, in a lot of stores, because we are actually on Amazon and our website, DTC, and we are in retail stores, like around 1, 500 stores at this point.
And so what it is, we are sitting next to a lot of a store next to sports nutrition, next to liquid IV, noon, or any other hydration product. Our Bala is very differentiated because hydration is only an icing on a cake for us. Our main, thing is we are anti inflammatory, we do muscle recovery, reduce inflammation in people’s body, and, you know, help with joint ache.
So, that’s our point of differentiation than any other hydration product out there that is only helps you with dehydration. So, we do have about 20 different ingredients in our product versus other hydration that is only electrolytes and some sugar and, , potassium we do have enzymes. We do have turmeric in our product and a lot of other ingredients.
So it’s a very scientific formulation and, we do have patent pending, and our patent, hopefully we’re getting our patent by Q4 this year. And our patent is actually on the way you get absorption of BALA into your system. So if you want, I can just, like, go more into detail on the patent. Yeah and especially I would like you to go a little bit more in a detail, but especially around the science behind it and like the ingredients and the mixture, what you can talk about, like just to give people an example.
Sure. So our patent is actually the way you absorb the product because we have a product that is very, if the efficacy of the product is really high and , when people take people who have inflammation or the heavily exercise, you know, it’s good for either or you need to take Bala for five consecutive days.
Okay. One stick pack a day, add it to 16 ounce of water and drink it. And after five to seven days, taking it consecutively, you are going to feel the reduced inflammation in your body and less aches and pains. So it needs to build into your system before you can feel it. So the science behind that is that.
A lot of people who are familiar with turmeric, they know that they have to a lot of turmeric product has black pepper for absorption and a lot of other, hydration products such as liquid IV or other ones, they have sugar. For absorption, so the electrolytes, , attaches to sugar or tumeric attaches to black pepper and through the small and through the gut, it gets absorbed to people’s body with our situation, our scientific, , Bala formulation, we are using amino acid.
We are using a small, different type of amino acid that tumeric enzymes and electrolytes attached to those. Specific amino acid as at specific dose, and then you get the absorption of all these. So that’s why it’s very efficacious and, , it works really fast by and by having three different anti inflammatory product into, into Bala, which is tumeric and the two enzymes of bromelain and papain.
So your inflammation gets really reduced. Is the way that you get absorption, a lot of pharmaceutical, they do use amino acid and this comes from our pharmaceutical background and medical background that we’re using that. Now for the product, like who is this, who’s this good for? It seems like based on the natural ingredients, it’s plant based, like, you know, pretty much anyone could take this, right?
Like, or am I off on that? Anyone can take it, definitely. Anyone can take it. We only suggest people who are, , pregnant not to take it, but , that pregnant people, a lot of time people, , they have to be very careful of what supplement they’re using. So they have to always talk with their doctor and if they’re breastfeeding, because enzymes can break down the mom’s, milk.
So we recommend not to take it. Why the breastfeeding? So that’s the only person cannot take it. I’m very low percentage of people are maybe allergic to pineapple. So unfortunately, if somebody is allergic to pineapple, we recommend not to take it either. But for majority of the cases, Everybody else can take BALA with no other complication or problems.
And the delivery, it looks pretty simple. Like it comes in a little packet, you pour it in, and you mix it. Like, talk a little bit more about that. Sure. So we are actually in a stick pack. you just have to tear the stick pack and add it to 16 ounces of water. It needs to be shaked. We recommend it to put it in a shaker and not.
In the glass, because it needs to be really shake in order to get really mixed well. And of course, because of turmeric, it can stain. So you have to be careful when you put it. So we recommend that always not to put it in a glass and not to like mix it with a spoon or anything like that is always best way to put it in a shaker, close it and shake it.
And you can always add. ice on it and chill it. And it really tastes very pleasant. The other thing is all our, our three flavors, which are pineapple, lime, and berry, they all have the same color. So this is the important for people to pay attention because they feel like, okay, it’s lime and it should be probably green.
And why is it like orange? Yeah. Yeah. We actually choose not to use food coloring, you know, artificial coloring in our products. No red number 40. No red number 40. Or no, like, yeah. Exactly. What’s my favorite flavor? Red number 40. Definitely. So we want it to be all natural, so they all look beautiful orange turmeric color.
but different flavors. When I do make a lot of, smoothie with them as well. So you can add it to the smoothie and then drink it that way, or just add it to the water and drink it. And I have a lot of, like, in our Instagram, there’s recipes that people can look at Bala Enzyme. And on Instagram, look for a recipe.
It’s really very yummy. I Sometimes lime to the watermelon juice. It really tastes good when you do that. Hmm. That sounds delicious. You’re making me thirsty. Dr. Fay. I’m not going to lie. Yeah, it is very, tasty and , Very, very beneficial. So people can definitely benefit from using it and anybody can use it from young kids to older people.
So it’s good for everyone. Wonderful. Well, Dr. Faye, this has been great having you on the show today. I’m always excited to bring entrepreneurs on that have new ideas and are also, you know, helping in our mission base. So let’s see if somebody’s listening to this or watching this. And they want to follow BALA.
They want to pick up some product. Like , how do they do that? You can always if you would like to, they want to get it online. Our website is BALA, which comes from first four word of balance, because we feel like by reducing inflammation, you can be balanced with us. So it’s B A L A N E. Enzyme.
com. So it’s BalaEnzyme. com or we are on Amazon on Bala Enzyme on Amazon. We do have our store there so they can subscribe, they can get 20 percent discount you know, free delivery. So either our Amazon or find us online, or We are in, like, if you, they go on balaenzyme. com and they put their zip codes, it tells them that which retailers closer to their home are at this point.
They’re carrying BALA. In Southern California, they can always look at Bristol Farm, Mother’s Market, some other places. So by placing your zip code, it tells you where. We’re almost in 1500 stores. We are very excited that we’re launching on H E B in Texas in August as well. Absolutely amazing. And you mentioned Instagram.
What’s the Instagram? The Instagram is Bala Enzyme and when they see that Bala is a big, I want some recipes, I want some recipes, you said there’s some recipes on there, right? Definitely, and we do have TikTok shops, so it’s all Bala Enzyme, Facebook, , it’s all Bala Enzyme. Amazing. And for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll put some of those links in the show notes so that you can just click on the links and head right on over and check out Bala and speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you have not hit that subscribe button yet, hit that subscribe button.
This is a daily show each and every day. We’re bringing you new guests, new entrepreneurs, new ideas to hopefully inspire you on your journey as well. Dr. Fay, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much again for coming on the show. Thank you, Adam.