Burnt Hands Perspective
This is a raw and unfiltered look into the state of the restaurant industry as a whole, powered by longtime friends Chef/Owner Antonio Caruana and former bartender turned News Anchor/TV Host Kristen Crowley.
Representing all aspects of the industry from the front to the back of the house we will dig into the juiciest stories and pull from decades of experience in one of the sexiest and most exciting industries in the world...the food and beverage industry.
From international chefs, sommeliers, industry pros, and so much more, this show will cover all of it without a filter. You turn up the volume; we'll turn up the heat.
Support the show here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2388325/support
Burnt Hands Perspective
Edibles Are Safer Than Oreos? Behind the Scenes of Cannabis Testing
What makes cannabis edibles safer than Oreos? (Yes, sadly, this exposes the dirty side of the FDA and our food that we eat every day, so even if you are not a "weed" person, this is an eye-opening episode on food testing!) This question launches our eye-opening journey through the scientific wonderland of DigiPath Labs in Las Vegas, where we discover the insane testing and regulations behind legal cannabis products.
Chef Dee (AKA: The Happy Chef) and Todd Denkin (DigiPath Labs CEO) talk about their decade-long partnership that helped launch Nevada's legal cannabis industry. As the first chef to open a manufacturing kitchen in the state, Chef Edible Dee offers fascinating insights into the painstaking precision required to create consistently dosed cannabis edibles. When a single batch can cost upwards of $50,000, there's zero margin for error.
The laboratory tour shows off an impressive arsenal of scientific equipment that would make CSI envious. Machines creating flames "as hot as the sun" test for heavy metals, while $300,000 gas chromatography systems detect pesticides down to 0.01 parts per million. We witness how every cannabis product undergoes more rigorous testing than virtually any other consumable item on the market. Sad, right?
Perhaps most surprising is the disgusting reality about microscopic scorpions occasionally found in cannabis samples, or how strain names like "Alaskan Thunderfuck OG" mean far less than the actual chemical profiles of cannabinoids and terpenes. Chef Dee explains why indica/sativa classifications are largely meaningless compared to terpene profiles that truly determine effects.
The conversation offers rare insights into cannabis regulations, including the 35-day sample retention period and how tested cannabis waste eventually gets mixed with concrete, meaning parts of Las Vegas are literally "built on pot." The technical aspects of cannabis testing show off why professionally produced edibles from knowledgeable chefs deliver consistent, predictable experiences, and you should read your labels!
Whether you're cannabis-curious or a seasoned enthusiast, this episode transforms how you'll view the science behind the products.
Listen now to gain insider knowledge on what makes quality cannabis products truly special and why embracing scientific principles creates safer, more effective experiences.
Are you surprised by this? Sound off below and demand more from our food producers and regulators!
Check out Digipath Labs here: https://digipathlabs.com/
And support The Happy Chef here: https://edibledee.com/ and https://thehappychef.co/ and smash that FOLLOW button on IG here https://www.instagram.com/edibledee
Thank you both
Welcome to the show! Burnt Hands Perspective
VIRTUAL TIP JAR: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2388325/support
CONTACT US:
www.burnthandsperspective.com
info@reframeyourbrand.com
IG @Theburnthandsperspective
Thank you to our location sponsor, Luce Secondo, located in Summit Pointe in Chesapeake, VA www.lucesecondo.com
For sponsorship opportunities, don't hesitate to get in touch with us directly.
*The views and opinions on this show are meant for entertainment purposes only. They do not reflect the views of our sponsors. We are not here to babysit your feelings, if you are a true industry pro, you will know that what we say is meant to make you laugh and have a great time. If you don't get that, this is not the podcast for you. You've been warned. Enjoy the ride!
Listen up here. The restaurant industry is grueling and unpredictable, just like this show. From the front of the house to the back of the house and all in between, we will turn up the heat, you turn up the volume. I'm Chef Antonio Caruana. Welcome to the Tell All Podcast at Burnt Hands Perspective. All right, the Burnt Hands Perspective is live, right here.
Speaker 1:We came all the way to Las Vegas. We're here doing a bunch of stuff all food related. We are here again with Chef Dani stuff all food related. We are here again with Chef Dani. She was on our show. You all see her on one of our podcasts and we actually have the privilege and honor to come in here and look at what goes on behind the scenes of making this cannabis food, the edibles, all that stuff. Along with that, though, the troubles and bullshit that you all have to go through to get what you get done here, all the laws, the regulations. It's basically a, as far as I know, as far as cooking and everything, it's the most precise set of rules that you have to go by. You're talking about getting testing by the pound, by the grams, by the ounces, everything else. You have to do so much to get what you get done here. I'm surprised, you haven't just said fuck this.
Speaker 2:We have Sometimes Very easy.
Speaker 1:So give us a little talk about where we are, who you are, what's up guys.
Speaker 2:We are behind and in front. It's your girl, edible D the happy chef, aka. My man called me Danny because he's known me 25-some years and they knew me as that back then. I was Danny Daniel Russell the happy chef, and I am with my good partner and my greatest friend, todd Dinkin. He is the CEO of DigiPath Labs, and a little short story on that your girl was the first chef that opened up the first manufacturing kitchen for the whole state of Nevada, and I was actually the supplier of edible products and topical products for the state for some matter of months, four or five months until other facilities got open, other brands came to fruit and Todd was the first lab that was open, so this man has been testing my products since 2014.
Speaker 2:10 years 10 plus years and we're going to break it down for you of exactly why my stuff is safer than everything in your pantry. Everything, total, all of it. All of it, because the testing we have to go through for microbials, powder, mildew, homogeneity, heavy metals, pesticides yeah, we are safer than Oreos, for certain. For certain. For certain and my man has got to break it down for us. Come on like talk nerdy to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So welcome. Of course, we're at DigiPath Labs right here in Las Vegas and this is our intake room of the lab. So this is where all the samples come that we go out and pick up from each individual producer, cultivator, anybody who's growing, producing or making anything. They have to get it tested before it goes out on the shelf right.
Speaker 3:A very intense testing also, as you know. Oh yeah, right, so every five pounds of flour has to be tested. Every 15 pounds of trim which is what they make the extracts from usually and then end up using in edibles every 125 pounds of fresh frozen cannabis, and then every 2.2 pounds of extract. I don't know why they finally chose a kilo in all of their stuff, right?
Speaker 3:Right, every 2.2 pounds of extracts in every edible has to pass homogeneity testing. So, as an example, for a gummy gummy one has to be the same as gummy 7,412, right? So we randomly go into all of these production facilities, choose whether it's a gummy or a flour or an extract or a topical or a tincture or whatever they're making a gummy or a flower or an extract or a, or a topical or a tincture or whatever they're making, because there's tons of stuff out there these days. We randomly select that, bring it back here, and what we do here. We check everything into our laboratory information management system. Everything gets a barcode so nothing gets messed up. Because we have to be right yeah, we track drugs here.
Speaker 2:So basically what happens?
Speaker 3:is everybody out there?
Speaker 1:who's making the red bull? Making, whatever it is they're doing, whatever, whatever the product or byproduct is they're sending to you for testing. You give them the go-ahead, they get it back and they go and do their thing.
Speaker 3:That's correct. They go out and sell it at that point. That's correct. So everybody who's doing this, in a sense they're all starting with the cleanest, freshest block, like you said cleanest, freshest block, like you said.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we hope that's what we tell them. That's what this scientist finds out right like and you know, if you don't pass, you don't sell. So that's what makes my job so important because you can't rebake a cookie, you can't, you can't break a brownie. So if this brownie doesn't pass the same potency test as this one, you know you just lost 30 grand, 40 grand, 50 grand a batch. So it can get very expensive very fast. Not like our lab tests aren't expensive enough, they're expensive cookies, they're expensive lab tests.
Speaker 3:Well, they're not that expensive. I mean, especially here at DigiPath Lab. You got to go to the lab.
Speaker 2:But no, they do get costly and you know our products are definitely the highest. You know we're the highest taxed commodity in the world and we're also the highest tested commodity in the world For consumable products and ready-to-eat food. Like the amount of testing, like everything we have to go through with this laboratory equipment, I get to play with all the big boy toys. I get to play with all the big boy toys. We are only in one little room. Yes, one Really walkable.
Speaker 3:We just signed a paper.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's exactly right. Did you sign it? I did.
Speaker 3:So let's walk.
Speaker 1:Show us a few things Absolutely.
Speaker 3:What makes the product? Show us what we got. Absolutely, we'll show you what the product goes through right when it comes here. So first thing we do is we photograph everything.
Speaker 1:Perfect we do is we photograph everything.
Speaker 3:Because, that picture ends up on the certificate of analysis. Then we put it under the microscope to make sure there's nothing.
Speaker 2:No foreign matter, no human fingernails and we found microscopic scorpions. That's right. Really, in the state of Nevada we have that.
Speaker 3:You know, you're selfish, we did. We have found microscopic scorpions and they look like a regular scorp scorpion and they live in your armpits. And they live. They're in your bed right now if you're sleeping in Nevada.
Speaker 2:Yes, they are.
Speaker 1:And in.
Speaker 3:Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona they're everywhere, but you can't really do anything.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it.
Speaker 3:So we look at everything in our microscope to see if there's any bad stuff, right? Yes, then we do moisture analysis. Those are moisture analysis scales. We homogenize everything. So the flour comes in and we homogenize it. So that just means we grind it up, so it's all even like a sand-like substance, right? Then from that we check the moisture through these moisture balances. Basically, we take a gram, put it on the scale, we weigh it, dry it out completely, weigh it again, do some math and figure out what the moisture content is. In Nevada it has to be below 15%, or else the consumer just is buying water, yeah, and there's a lot of breed bacteria.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 3:The more moist it is, the more susceptible it is to microbiology Sure.
Speaker 1:Same thing with cooking, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3:Same thing with making cheese, same thing with making wine, same thing with making a lot of fresh pastas. That's right, same story.
Speaker 2:Moisture is dangerous. Yeah, if you're into hydration, you gotta get it out. Like you know, there's no shelf life to it, otherwise, and then, like you said, you could just breathe bacteria and then you're inhaling it pulmonary embolism. So it ain't good for me. It's not good for you either, it's not good for anybody. It's not good for anybody.
Speaker 3:Right. So once all of that happens, everything moves into this room. So what happens in here is, once they prep everything, or once they set everything and homogenize everything in that room, they bring it into this room and they're all in these little. Obviously these are empty, but they're all in these tubes.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:So then each individual analyst will aliquot what they need for their specific test. So we test for pesticides, heavy metals, cannabinoids, terpenoids and a whole microbial stream.
Speaker 3:And what you're testing for is if that was on the print or the actual process of growth or picking or other. That is correct. So that way it doesn't. Okay, gotcha. And the levels that we detect are very, very low. You know, 0.01 parts per million, right, so very low. And if there's something on there, we find it's just the way it is Right. So these scales right here are very high-end scales. They're very sensitive, they get calibrated every single day and they get calibrated by the company twice a year to make sure that they're accurate. As you know, as chefs, right, I can't be off. You can't be off, right, you're a little bit off. It screws up everything, especially you. You can't be off because they're relying on you to not be off. That's exactly right. You can't be off. A couple of recipes and they're slitting. We actually create the ingredient that she puts in her gummies, right, so we don't create it, but we test it, right? So if that's off.
Speaker 3:Her whole recipe is off.
Speaker 2:Sure and like at seed to sale. What happens with testing? Like not only do they test the genetics but after it's grown, from veg stage to bloom stage to cure stage, after it's cured, it has to be tested. It has to make sure all the water's out and there's no bacteria and it's properly dried, tested. It has to make sure all the water's out and there's no bacteria and it's properly dried. And then if it's put into an extraction process and you go to food oil winterized food oil, that has to be tested. If it's distilled, that has to be tested. And then, once it's decarboxylated, then it has to be tested again to see what active compounds are in there. Then it goes into my products and then my products have to be tested again.
Speaker 3:So, basically, digipath Labs is keeping microscorpions out of your ass, that's right. So she can get it into your stomach. There you go. So this machine is a GC mass spectrometer Sounds very fancy A flux capacitor, right? So that is a $300,000 piece of machinery that tests for pesticides. We actually have to have it because of one pesticide that we can't find on a different machine. So this machine is for one pesticide $300,000, because the pesticide is on the list. So how about they just stop fucking putting the pesticide? That's right. Make that easier for everybody, right?
Speaker 1:They really do.
Speaker 3:Very few fails for pesticides. In the early days everybody was failing for pesticides because everyone was using them. They were all grown in the mother's garage.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, even 20 is on the show. Why am?
Speaker 3:I not passing my test, but no, but it's too expensive. You lose five pounds, which is $10,000 or $15,000 depending on what you're selling, and you have to throw it away. So, they've learned the hard way themselves. They have learned the hard way. So pesticide companies can go to hell and because of stuff like this and people losing money, they're going to end up going to hell because people are going to finally stop using them as much. That's our hope. We need that shit for food.
Speaker 2:Right, just ingredients.
Speaker 3:That's what I'm saying, just for ingredients.
Speaker 2:So it looks like I'm checking out her mic so this room is our main laboratory.
Speaker 3:So this is our other pesticide machine. Um, this is an LC mass spec. Lc is liquid, gc is gas. So this is a liquid chromatographer with a triple quad mass spec inside. It's making some noise, so if things are working, that's right. It's not quiet.
Speaker 3:But this you guys shower up at night. Yeah, you know, in case of somebody has to stay late, you know they can always brush their teeth and shower. That's actually a safety shower in case anything explodes. Anything explodes Chemicals, stuff like that. Well, you have to have that because things can explode and are chemically driven. That's right. It's an important process in school.
Speaker 1:Yes, for sure.
Speaker 3:So this mass spec, this finds the other 22 pesticides that we test for, that machine finds the one you know, like we talked about. So this is really a workhorse and you know it looks at the molecular level of the pesticide. So it has a library and it matches up the molecules oh, that looks like one of these. And then they quantify it. And that's when the chemist comes in and says, oh, that looks like one of these. And then they quantify it. And that's when the chemist comes in and says, is it really so? By the time things get to this room, I'm assuming, just by what you're telling me, that it's no longer about the marijuana at this point. Now you're working about the pesticide.
Speaker 3:Correct, absolutely and it's time to determine what's what If it's there, so we're removed from the marijuana. We we're so far into this now that we're not even talking about the marijuana anymore. Now we're talking about what made it or what's contaminating it. Correct what can't go through the process where you get it.
Speaker 2:That's correct it has to pass all of these before it even gets to me. That's right. And then I've got to pass my test again.
Speaker 3:That's right From that computer to this computer, it's all heavy metals. These are ICT mass specs.
Speaker 3:Heavy metal, heavy metal, heavy metal, it's always heavy metal. Rock and roll, it's always heavy metal. So these are ICP MS's. And you saw that argon tank in the other room, right? So that argon tank, when pumped into this machine, creates a flame. Okay, in that flame, the same temperature as the sun. So what happens is right. So what happens is no worries, don't worry about it, we got things in there better than the sun. There you go. So we take some of that cannabis, that ground up cannabis, we put it in one of these tubes, right. Then we mix it with some nitric acid, right. Once we mix it with the nitric acid, we put it in this microwave oven. This microwave oven holds about 40 of these. This is Kevlar, to ensure that it doesn't explode or get on, you know, just to protect the machine and protect the human that's actually doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we work with Kevlar and temperature-fired in the sun.
Speaker 3:This spins around for about 18 minutes and the acid mixed with the cannabis turns to a liquid. Obviously, everything is getting fried. Then we filter it and put it into another liquid and then you can see on this machine, same as the other side the robot will come over, take it out and then shove it through the flame. Okay, shove it through the flame. So basically, you're building infinity gauntlets here. That's right. That's what's going on. That's right. We all need Kevlar in this lab. That's right. Everything is destroyed except for the heavy metals, and that's how we determine arsenic, lead, cadmium and aluminum.
Speaker 3:So this process here, doesn't really work. This isn't how you would find metal or touch metal in anything it is. So this scientific process here is not really. You just took this and applied it to marijuana. That's correct, the animals, the oils, things like that. But you can find the same process if you're looking for gold inside of a bucket of sand.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right. See, it's like a breakdown, exactly right.
Speaker 3:So that is some severe science, hotter than the fucking sun. Rock and roll, heavy metal, heavy metal. I like this room Right.
Speaker 2:This is a badass room, only for badass people, don't listen to it.
Speaker 3:It's easy to find. Mercury is the other heavy metal. I mean, it does work. Mercury is the other heavy metal, of course, right, and we can find others.
Speaker 2:Of course we can find the others, but those are all state mandated. Well, you know, Chef, just from like, because I've done consults. I've done consults around the world and some of them, you know some of them are not working with somebody that's necessarily culinary trained. I did one consult where they were using aluminum pots and pans to make gummies and you know damn well that citric acid alone and pineapple juice will just rip that aluminum right off the fucking pan and at that point you have metals in that. That alludes to what causes dementia and.
Speaker 2:Alzheimer's, and that's another problem.
Speaker 3:With that being said, you're right Because anybody who knows it, you cook with tomatoes If any Italian person out there makes a little jargon. You're right Because anybody knows that we cook with tomatoes If any.
Speaker 3:Italian person out there makes a lasagna. You put the aluminum foil on top, you take the lasagna off and there's little holes that tore out of it. That aluminum foil went somewhere. That went somewhere. It went into your food. So that's the only way around it. So do not let any aluminum or any type metals when you're cooking interfere with the acidity of the buttons.
Speaker 2:Stainless steel cast iron. Keep it cute, keep it simple, Every day. Stainless steel cast iron Every day. Stay away from aluminum foil when you're cooking.
Speaker 3:This is a GC mass spectrometer with a headspace, which sounds awfully fancy, right it does. So it basically means what? It basically means that the vials that we use in here are about this big and there's always a headspace above it because we heat up whatever we put in there to create the gas and then test the gas. Right? So this is a gas chromatographer with this mass spectrometer, with this mass spectrometer. So it has the same but different mass spectrometer as the other ones we were telling you, right? That allows us to look at the molecules that it's able to, you know, suck out of the gas, right?
Speaker 3:So this is for residual solvents. So if anybody's using any kind of extraction solvent, like methane, propane, butane which are the approved ones here in Nevada it has to be below 500 parts per million to go out to the public, right? So if she would take an oil that was over 500 parts per million, right, then her gummies would be infected with, you know, all of this residual salt, right? So the good news is that if it is over the limit, the producer is allowed to just recook it, right, put it back in the oven and then cook off that butane or cook off that propane or whatever is left over.
Speaker 3:But it has to be below 500 parts per minute. This machine also doubles as a terpene tester, so the taste and the smell in cannabis is all terpene right. So this also tests for terpenes. We test for 22 terpenes here, even though the state only says we should we only have to test for nine.
Speaker 2:I think, as a patient, you always want to know what the chemical makeup is of whatever you're putting in your body, so and I need to know, as a manufacturer, because I can, literally I can tell you how it's going to affect you by the terpenes and by the cannabinoids and by the levels. I honestly, I don't even look at strains or genetics. The strain names are cute, don't get me wrong. Alaskan thunderfuck og is a total winner for the 88 year old grandma with arthritis. Alien crack, but hold on, green crack. What's happening? Um, but you know, at the end of the day, when I'm looking looking at the levels of CBD, thc, thc, a beta carrier filing, I can tell you if it's going to put me to sleep, if it's going to be an anti-inflammatory, I can tell you. You know everything, just by the level.
Speaker 2:There's levels to this shit.
Speaker 3:Well, you create, you guys create the end result and all the other people fucking put fancy names on them. Yep, like uh, you know big, yeah, yeah. So so when you are buying cannabis out in the market, you should really look like exactly what d said is look at the chemo profile, which is a profile of the cannabinoids and the terpenoids together yeah right, the strain name doesn't matter, because people make that up every single day.
Speaker 2:Needed like and let's go ahead and get rid of this indica sativa. Whatever you were told, it's wrong it this Indica sativa whatever you were told it's wrong. It's wrong. Indica and sativa. All it is is the genetic name of the plant, cannabis sativa, cannabis indica.
Speaker 2:Cannabis indica grows short and fat. They have fat fingers. Sativas grow tall and have skinny fingers. What tells you how it's going to affect you is the level of terpenes, if it's going to be like limonene or myosin or beta carotene or lenolol, and those certain terpenes are present in certain genetics and they're also present in mushrooms psilocybin. So, like you know, everything, like literally. That's why fda is together food and drugs. Your food are drugs, right, if I give you orange juice, it's going to give you a high. Not the high I give you, right, not the high I give you, but it's gonna give you energy, which also can be attributed to limonene, because, that's in orange peels, citrus peels, lemon peels, and you work with these compounds.
Speaker 2:you're literally making medicine as a chef.
Speaker 3:So this also tests for terpenes. This is our main machine for terpenes, but it also backs up our residual solvents over there. So again, another very important machine to get flavor and scent, you know, from the, from the cannabis. These tanks behind you are helium, nitrogen and and, and any nitrous no, and then argon, and then argon for the other, for the ICP, and then, of course, two of the most important machines that we have here are our UPLCs, which is so hold on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you said what these are the most. I thought those other ones were the more important ones. Well, those are important for safety, isn't it important, isn't it important? Those are important for safety. Okay, this is important for potency. Oh, that's important. Right, right, exactly. So this is where we test the potency, at the UPLC ultra high pressure liquid chromatography, which again is used in other sciences, and this is adapted for cannabis, and this tells you the potency. So, the THC levels, the CBD levels and all of the cannabinoids, we test for 11 different cannabinoids because, again, it's important for chefs to know exactly what's in it, so you know whether it's going to put you to sleep, whether it's going to keep you up, based on that chemo profile that we were talking about.
Speaker 3:So, a very important piece of equipment. That's why we have two of them. We use flour on one side, edibles and oils on the other one, but they mimic each other.
Speaker 1:So this is where we're at.
Speaker 3:We walk through the door over here, you go into the very first room, like we said. That's where you get in. You go in your little photo booth, you take your pictures. You think it's all good Wow this is scientific. Then you go into the next room. That's where they're going to break it all down Quick rundown of getting the metals out of it, checking out for the pesticides, things like that, finding out what's left and then going into and finding the sun. So this room pretty much is sex, drugs, rock and roll.
Speaker 3:With Kevlar sun, everything else, and then you're coming over here and after all that done. Now that is the most important part is the potency of the product and what the hell you're getting out of this.
Speaker 2:That's the machine that tells us how it's going to affect you Because, like I said, the Indica sativas lies. If they're putting it on the packaging and you think Indica is going to put you in the couch and you think sativas is going to make you clean your house, I have had sativas that put me in the couch and I have had Indica's that make me clean the house twice. Even shit that don't need to be cleaned.
Speaker 3:What's the one that makes you look through your?
Speaker 2:curtains like a fucker. A good Larry OG will do something like that, or Jeff Yule, insane OG A lot of cocaine.
Speaker 3:We do a three-day turnaround. It comes into the photo booth by the time you break it down and everything else, you're getting some sort of an extraction. Is that what happened? We are yeah, so from the extraction point to where you're running it, all through to the monodulator over here. This is where you're getting the potency right. So that's about a three day process. Well, these two rooms are really a day and a half process. The three day process is microbiology.
Speaker 2:We haven't gotten there yet.
Speaker 3:Oh shit, this is a little tiny microbiology room, which isn't very impressive, so we'll walk through it though. So this is one of our micro rooms. This is where we do most of the prep. We do both plating and qPCR.
Speaker 2:We got to go through that fun factoid about how long do you have to keep the tested product Todd.
Speaker 3:Oh well, we have to keep it once. We test it 35 days. So on day 36, I'll show you what happens.
Speaker 2:We have fun dumpster divers that like to. You know we have to put locks and safes on our dumpsters because people you know we're a weed testing lab, a cannabis testing lab, sorry so they would like to break into the dumpsters to get all the stuff that you put a lot of dangerous stuff on top of yeah, and they still want to break into the dumpster and get some of it.
Speaker 1:Just on that point, just so you know, and just so everyone out there knows that there's no big bales of marijuana here that they're testing. These people are getting samples of something that was already produced, with nothing of value to you, no, so don't waste your time.
Speaker 2:Do not go dumpster diving.
Speaker 3:We literally take 12 grams and use about 11 and a half Right.
Speaker 2:And there's nothing left once you test it for heavy metals.
Speaker 3:Plus, it's all been mixed with chemicals and it's all been extracted Sure and it's all been auto-plated. Nothing to see here.
Speaker 1:No, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3:There are way better places to rip off than this place. So this is micro. We do PCR in here. You look at the DNA of the microorganisms, you put it on a feature dish and put it in these incubators, which we have to do for yeast and mold, because the state makes us do that. So the three-day turnaround is based on the yeast and mold test because it has to sit in these incubators for 72 hours.
Speaker 3:So when you're saying that I'm not going to cut you off, but I guess I am, but you know, for the amount of work you guys put in and the amount of hate that we have not hate, I guess, but the disgruntled or disagreements we have with the state level and with the laws.
Speaker 1:It'd be ignorant to ignore the fact that they also have put in their time to realize what this stuff does to it.
Speaker 3:Right, I mean, you've got to give credit where credit is due.
Speaker 1:Am I wrong to it, right? I mean, you've got to give credit where credit is due, am I wrong For sure?
Speaker 3:So if they know that you need, they set up the standards of what needs to be tested for what the hell could go wrong, so on and so forth. They obviously put in the same type of effort to make this all happen, because if they really didn't want it to happen, it wouldn't waste any time doing that research. Is that right? Yes, so that's a little plug, because these you know what state of nevada help them out. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, no see what I did there I like the plug.
Speaker 3:I like the plug. So aspergillus is the biggest problem for microbiology in most cannabis cultivations. Right, it's every. It's on your thumb, it's everywhere and you got to be really cognizant to keep your stuff it's like a fucking microscope it's like a fucking micro-scorpy.
Speaker 3:It's like a micro-scorpy, but if you inhale it, you know it does create aspergilliosis, which is a lung disease which is really bad. So if somebody is immune deficient or has some casual compromise, they shouldn't be smoking that stuff. So that's why we test for aspergillus, because it's a problem, right? So what we do is we do a thing called free DNA removal, the free DNA being the dead DNA.
Speaker 3:So we remove all of the dead DNA before we do the test, because if something is dead it's not really producing any problems for the end user. If it's alive, then certainly it is creating problems because it's growing and, you know, multiplying, so that's right. So we remove the dead dna, we do the test and it's either a pass or a fail. So we go to the extra expense. It's advantage clients, but we do that to clean it out, to make sure that we're only testing for something that's so.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of people who would just be rolling a joint smoking weed with that in there. That's correct and that's quite common. Yes. Oh, yeah, so is that cancerous, is that something, or is that more?
Speaker 3:of just a it's not good for you.
Speaker 2:It's not good. It's definitely not good for you, and it is-. That's why Especially if you have a pre-existing lung condition, that's right. So if you have a cough, you're choking. Yeah, that too, my abs came not just from.
Speaker 3:Muay Thai. It came from Von Ritz Smash not pass. So in the incubators we keep all the plates. The other machine, computer-looking things, are PCR analyzers. And again we look at the. Dna to determine what's there and what isn't there. So does that go down into a three-day turnaround in there to get to this room? Well, it all happens at the same time, but we're always waiting for micro because we have to do 72 hours for yeast and mold Gotcha.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the longest test. I can get a potency test or anything like that yeah, I can get a potency test from 24 hours. I can get every other test in 24 hours, except for microbials, because it takes 72 hours to even have anything grow on know the colony and, of course, the implement dumpsters that we have to keep inside. Yes, we have to keep the dumpsters inside for dumpster divers.
Speaker 4:This is all cannabis waste. So, as we mentioned, we pick up, you know, 12 grams for every 5 pounds from an edible standpoint. If it's a, if it is a batch of a thousand or less, we take 10. If it's over 25, if it's 1 to 25,000, we take 25 samples randomly, right. So we have them and then we test them all. Yeah, that was pretty cool.
Speaker 1:What is in that? Is it a liquid?
Speaker 4:So it is. Yes, it is liquid, solid and any other form of cannabis that we've tested, whether it's flour, oil, extract, whatever it is right, we have to throw it away after 35 days. So on day 36, we have guys scooping out those tubes that I showed you right, putting them in one case. The tube goes into another case, right. Then as soon as we have a layer, then it's a layer of kitty litter. And then more cannabis and then more kitty litter, then more cannabis and then more kitty litter.
Speaker 1:And then they dispose of it. That's right. So when you open this, this thing is smelling like high. Hell out here, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not fun. It's definitely not like walking in the lab like you just did. The beautiful aroma of wonderful green.
Speaker 4:This is the byproduct. Yeah, it's after it's been through everything and whatever was left over, and then an environmental company comes and takes this away and they mix this with concrete. So Vegas is being built on pot.
Speaker 1:Perfect Literally Welcome.
Speaker 4:Quite literally. Literally right. Pot microscorpions.
Speaker 4:I love it High foundations, Microscopians right, these are just backup gas tanks. This is acid waste and these are the kits that we bring to the facilities. So our technicians wear a body. You know, a complete hazmat suit covers your toes all the way to your all the way to the top. You got to wear gloves. We have forceps and every instrument necessary to pick up whatever product it is, whether it's a syringe or a forcep or a, whatever right it is, whether it's a syringe or a forcep or whatever right. We have to put things in temperature controlled coolers with locks in order to transport them, which is silly, but it is what it is, and we actually have to lock the cooler to the car for the transport.
Speaker 4:Sure, it's a lot so 35 day retention freezer, everyone's everything sticks around for 35 days and, like I said, on day 36, it starts.
Speaker 1:You notice that's locked too.
Speaker 4:Yeah, everything's locked, yeah everything's locked and this is our prized possession, our paint shaker. So as they extract the cannabis and mix it with the methanol or the ethanol or whatever they're going to do to do their specific assay on all of those different machines, they have to take it and it turns into a liquid and they have to shake it. So there's table shakers, there's hand shakers, but there's also paint shakers.
Speaker 1:And it's like the home.
Speaker 4:Depot, the home Depot, patients, and now we could put a hundred samples in there at a time. Shake them all. Exactly the same right. Go and do something else instead of, you know, getting on TikTok.
Speaker 2:Not like a shake weight, huh, no, no, shake and bake, right, shake and bake.
Speaker 4:So we use that to mix to make sure everything's consistent inside the lab. And that's the life cycle of a cannabis sample.
Speaker 1:That's perfect.
Speaker 2:There you have it. Did you know that much went into your weed?
Speaker 4:All right.
Speaker 2:Well, gents, what did we think about weed science man.
Speaker 1:I love it. So, listen, let me kind of close with this. First of all, thanks for having us, of course, amazing. I never expected this to be what I was looking at here. I knew there was going to be some science to it, but I didn't realize there was this much into the science part of it. But when it comes to the food, okay, that's where she comes in. So what I want people to understand and really realize and a lot of people don't do this when it comes to culinary arts.
Speaker 1:Culinary arts comes in a lot of different forms. Whether you're getting a Michelin star or whether you're making stuff at a bowling alley, it comes at different levels. You're producing something for the masses. They're putting their trust in you and the better you do it, the better you're going to be, the better you're going to be recognized. Things like that For a chef of any level to dig into and delve into such technical aspects of what you're doing, is a surefire win right there, because there are so many people who don't really understand what it is they're doing. A lot of your clientele doesn't do what a chef does. They send it to you, close their eye and they wait for their 72-hour response and they have no idea what they're doing.
Speaker 1:You can come in here, as you just did, and literally break down everything that goes into your product, and you can't make a good fucking product if you don't know what the process of making it is. For instance, if you're going to be a Michelin chef, or you're going to be a gastro chef, or if you're going to be a molecular chef and break down a basil leaf to make it do six different things other than be just a basil leaf, you have to really understand the process of that. You don't need to know what basil tastes like. You don't need to know what basil goes good with right. You don't need to know what a foam does, but you need to know how to break that down and the technical way of doing it, to understand it so it does taste like basil in the end. That's one small example.
Speaker 1:So what you're doing is you have so much knowledge of what your product is, so people just say, oh, she's got her book, she's a weed chef, she's a weed chef. They don't realize the amount of time, effort, fucking knowledge, wisdom, constantly going out, dealing with scientists and learning what you've learned. So this is why we're wasting our time, if you would call it that, because we're not. This is why we're spending our time here in Las Vegas talking to you. You came to us in Virginia, intrigued me a lot, brought us here and, with your help, gave us a totally different insight here of what's going on and the way that you're putting your food out, your edibles, is much more than just you being a chef and it's amazing and people need to understand that. When you're going to buy product, look for people like her who you're going to buy their product from, people who know what the fuck they're talking about, and stop entertaining fuckheads at any level of the chef world who have just learned it because they watched her do it yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:Stop stealing what the knowledge that's already been done from somebody else. That's like Bayer putting out an aspirin and you buy the aspirin version you took from Bayer's knowledge. Same Same type of thing Happens to chefs all the time we get wrapped up into it. It sucks.
Speaker 2:Last words you can have my recipe, but the sauce won't taste the same.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:And, at the end of the day, like my products. I cannot push, I cannot put my products out to the masses like when it when it has fuckery ingredients in it. All my products are certified organic and my partners at Eden dispensary down in Florida from soil to my product, everything is organic. We are very focused on we're not trying to give you more crap and ailments that are going to put you in a doctor and get you more pills and more side effects. No, I'm trying to get rid of that.
Speaker 1:So, like Maury says, the test results are in. The test results are in and this is real.
Speaker 2:No offense to Biggie Smalls, but I do get higher on my own supply and I trust my products. There ain't nothing wrong with my products. My products are the best products on the fucking market Hands down, neck up right.
Speaker 4:Look, the great thing about Chef D and her products are that she embraces the science. Right, embraces the science. You have to embrace the science. That's what cooking is right. It's all science right. This has to go with this.
Speaker 2:This has to go with that Baking is way different than Chef de Cuisine. It's way different from manufacturing a ready-to-eat product. Everything. There's levels to this shit, as we always say, there's levels to this shit.
Speaker 1:It goes deep, it goes deep. This has been a great time, a great thought, everything else. I wish we could have seen some of the weed processes and stuff like that, but this right here is just bringing it all in and the scientific uh, the background to all this and what goes into an edible. When I go to this little cbd store and see that little gummy and you don't realize how much work goes into it and I'm sure everyone's putting in their level of work. However, innovators are making it easier for them to do that, and you guys, to me, are innovators. Thank you for what you do, thank you for your contributions to the culinary world. No matter what it is you're cooking is fucking fire, sunfire, yeah sunfire.
Speaker 1:We're honored to be here, so burn his perspectivehardt's perspective. Las Vegas, nevada 2025, great clip right here. I want that date to go down because who knows what happens in 10, 15 years? When we're still talking right.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And what's then? Oh gosh.
Speaker 2:To see how much we've evolved and leveled up in the industry. It's going to be a beautiful thing. Maybe you'll be testing your sauces and everything for the restaurant. That's right coming absolutely so.
Speaker 1:Again, thanks for tuning in, thanks for putting up with us, thanks for our microphone sounding different. We are live in a lab scenario, so a lot of the you know a lot of these live podcast things. That's how it works. That's when you know you're watching the real deal. Have a good day. Ciao for now.
