TranscriptKevin M.: Mixing It Up With The Fitness Community is a podcast created by Fit Mix that introduces you to local health and fitness individuals along with their stories.Kevin M.: Episode six. Anntonette Franklin with Blended Acai. On this episode, Sara talks with Antonette about why she started Blended Acai, the benefits of eating healthy, and drinking alkaline water.Sara Y.: Hello, Anntonette. Thanks for joining us today. How are you?Anntonette F.: I'm doing well Sara. How are you doing?Sara Y.: I'm doing great. So! Today we're going to learn about Blended Acai. That's how you pronounce açaí. Is that correct?Anntonette F.: Yes, that is correct. Most people you pronounce it akeye.Sara Y.: It's a tough word to pronounce sometimes. So tell us about Blended Acai. What do you serve there?Anntonette F.: We try to be as plant based as possible and we serve a variety of smoothies. Smoothie bowls. We serve juices. We have a coffee station. We serve poke bowls. I'm not sure if you've ever had a poke bowl. We're going to be coming out with salads. I think I touched on... Oh, and we have avocado toast and stuff like that as well.Sara Y.: And you started a juice line, is that correct?Anntonette F.: Yeah!Sara Y.: Talk about those juices. Why are they special or why do you think people should take them or drink them?Anntonette F.: Well, one I think that people should juice or at least add juice into their diet, because I don't think that we, as Americans, get enough nutrients in our diets. The standard American diet is heavily processed. We tend to be deficient in a lot of vitamins, minerals, and things that people normally would get from food. Since we don't eat a lot of grains or enough nutrients then our bodies become deficient in so throw in a green juice, yo!Sara Y.: And that's kind of like the whole point of Blended Acai. Right? Just getting in those nutrients, like everything that you serve there is pretty nutrient dense. Is that correct?Anntonette F.: Exactly. That was really my passion for starting it really. I wanted to just serve delicious food that tastes to me. And that is good for your body.Sara Y.: Yeah. Let's talk about starting it. So aside from that, what really got you into this? Why did you want to start your business and Albuquerque?Anntonette F.: I'll try to make it as short as possible because I could talk about it forever. I got married to my husband and shortly after we got married, something happened in my gut. And I don't know, I never got a finite answer that that it was like this. There was like no name. I went to the doctors. I tried natural doctors. I tried Western medicine doctors. And I never really got anything clear as to what really was going on. I really just had to take a look at what I was eating and what was going on in my body to say basically feel like my body stopped breaking down the food that I was eating. And I was just like bloated. And I thought I was dying like I had like, my quality of life was just terrible. So it took me like six years. I paid attention to what I was eating. I learned about foods. I had traveled with my husband to different places and we tried it on Acai Bowl and I just fell in love with that. Plus like healthy eating. And, you know, my body is fine now and I can eat whatever I want. But I think that it's just important for anyone that has any gut issues like, yeah, it's very important to take care of your gut.Sara Y.: Yeah, absolutely. So would you say those was kind of like I mean, obviously putting nutrients in the body and making sure people are getting that is like kind of the main goal of Blended Acai or what's the main goal that you hope when people come in, they leave with?Anntonette F.: I hope that they leave inspired to eat healthier. And I'm not saying that everyone has to eat like one hundred percent healthy. I like sugar, too, and I like to eat chocolate chip cookies just like anyone else. I just believe that the more that you can incorporate healthier foods into your diet in cleaner foods because they don't always have to taste bad. Healthy food can taste delicious. It's just trying different things. Throwing an avocado every now and then or whatever. I believe that when you're feeding your body the right things, that helps you and every aspect of your life, like when you feel good on the inside, you can be a better employee, a better friend, a better mother or father, whatever it is that you're doing. It just affects everything, every aspect of your life.Sara Y.: Yeah, absolutely. I think now more than ever, with what we're facing with the coronavirus is exceptionally important to use food as medicine. And I think, well at least I hope, that people are now kind of realizing that. It's kind of sad it took a Pandemic to bring that to people's attention. I'm hoping that people will realize how important it is, what you put in your body.Anntonette F.: I completely agree. I feel that it is sad that a pandemic had to really bring awareness. I think that people can take something positive from this and realize that, 'OK, we can affect our immune system somehow.' Eating heavily processed food all the time isn't going to help your immunity. It's not going to help you fight in a attack things that your body can actually fight off. I'm not saying that eating healthy is going to 100 percent not let you get Covid-19 or whatever, but you'll have a better chance when your immune system is fully functioning to attack things right away. Like flu symptoms, colds. You won't get as sick as often.Sara Y.: Exactly. And another recent addition to Blended Acai was alkaline water. Is that something else that you can talk about with how that affects our bodies or how that can be beneficial to us.Anntonette F.: Yeah. We're super come to to incorporate alkaline water into Blended Acai because it's kind of right in line with what we believe and what we're all about. So basically, alkaline water is super important for you and for your body, because the more alkaline a person's body is in, the less acidic disease cannot thrive in an alkaline system. So the more alkaline your body is, you just can you won't get cancer as easy or any kind of disease. Your body is just supercharged.Sara Y.: That's good. Yeah, I've definitely seen the benefits, even just using alkaline water for other things, like aside from our body, like cleaning products. You can use it to like, wash your face. Another thing which is pretty crazy to me considering it is just water. People probably don't even realize how it can be used in all these different facets of our lives.Anntonette F.: Yeah, it is awesome. A lot of the water that we get from... you can see it in your shower if you don't have a water treatment system. What it's doing to your shower. So just imagine your drinking that. Your body is going to have to work really hard to maintain optimum health because it's not as clean. So when in-taking clean water, it's you're more alkaline. Your body's not working hard to fight off whatever the water is doing since you're adding clean water.Sara Y.: Yeah, for sure. Going forward, where do you see yourself and Blended Acai going in th...

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