Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
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Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
Single-Herb Vapes Done Right with Anthony Canelo
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The supplement world trains us to expect giant “proprietary blends,” but inhalation is a different game. When something goes into your lungs, “probably fine” is not good enough, and vague labels like “natural flavors” can hide a lot more than people realize.
Joe Grumbine talks with master herbalist Anthony Canillo, founder of Five To One Formulas, about a radically simple approach to herbal vaping: single-herb botanicals infused into coconut-derived organic vegetable glycerin. We unpack why vaporization temperature matters, how combustion creates PAHs, and why adding more ingredients can increase the risk of creating unwanted byproducts. Anthony also explains why big clouds can be a clue that propylene glycol (PG) is involved, even when a product claims to be clean.
We also get honest about lab testing and transparency. From third-party COAs to the need for mass spectrometry and HPLC with proper reference standards, this conversation is a practical guide to asking better questions about botanical vape safety, ingredient sourcing, and what “tested” really means. Anthony shares the current herb lineup, how he avoids medical claims, and the simple takeaway that protects you in any wellness aisle.
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Welcome And The Single-Herb Idea
SPEAKER_01Well, hello, and welcome to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and today we've got a very special guest. His name is Anthony Canillo. And Anthony is got a company called Five to One Formulas. And I'm really interested in hearing about this because he's got a different sort of formulation concept than most of these types of companies do. He works with single herb lab-tested botanicals. And instead of having a whole lot of complicated formulas and all these different active ingredients, he goes right to the source. And uh Anthony, welcome to the show. I hope I'm I'm I'm representing your goodwill pretty well.
SPEAKER_00You are. Thank you for having me on Healthy Living, Joe. Pleasure to be here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. So before we get into the substance of what you do, I always like to hear from my guests. You know, how did you get there? What what what
A Nebulizer Sparks Vape Curiosity
SPEAKER_01brought you to what you're doing here?
SPEAKER_00Definitely. So around 2016, I my grandmother got very sick, and she had a medical nebulizer that was prescribed to her. And if people don't know, that's it's a machine where you can take albuterol or topromycin or antibiotics and you put them in a sterile solution and you breathe it in. So my grandmother was getting old at the time and she had a lung problem. And this was right before all the hullabaloo with vapes, and right before vapes really took off.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00So I was working also before COVID took up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right, right.
SPEAKER_00So I was working in a wellness center for a couple years and was pretty steeped in that work. I'm a master herbalist, and I put my training to use trying to figure out this whole vape thing. But it didn't take my grandmother. That was just sort of background information that I needed at the time. Because once I saw my grandmother vaping up the whole third floor of the house, I was like, okay, so there's there could be something to this vaping. But I later learned that medical nebulizer formulas are really like water and sterile saline solution. And uh however, propylene glycol is authorized in certain formulations, so yeah, they do not real good to be breathing in that stuff, right? Right, but it's but it was considered safe enough to carry some types of medicine, so it's not it probably killed a few mice, but not too many.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. I got it. Before we go too deep, though, I I'm I'm curious how you seem like you're a pretty young guy. How did you get into being an herbalist? I uh most of us herbalists are old guys
Pain And The Path To Herbs
SPEAKER_01that have been doing it for a hundred years, and I don't meet a whole lot of young herbalists. So tell me about I'm gonna be 40 in two weeks. That's young, yeah. You I love that. I I remember those days.
SPEAKER_00Honestly, my 20s uh really became like my it's like someone's 40s. Uh-huh. I had uh not debilitating, but but very annoying and sometimes painful nerve damage from my hands up to my armpits and my cover bones, and for years I was going to physical therapy at early hours in the morning for a condition similar to carpal tunnel when what I had was a neuralgia and a bad one, and it lasted for years. So I couldn't I couldn't really write with a pen at its worst, at its worst, and it took a long time to get better, and it was very annoying. And so I really had to get serious early 20s about my health, and I did because I really wasn't trying to live with this thing for the rest of my life. I was I was a musician, and yeah, I just I like using my hands, and I'm going to use my hands.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I like that, right? It's a good thing, good part about being a human.
SPEAKER_00We get hands, yeah, yeah, one of the best.
SPEAKER_01You know, it's interesting. We have a very similar background. That's kind of how I got into it in my 20s as well. And although we didn't have the I didn't have the comfort of the internet when I when I was in my 20s, but that was a similar issue, a medical condition that brought me to it. I didn't want to do all the stuff that they were trying to give me. It wasn't good, it didn't work, and and I hated the way it made me feel. So that's you were smart.
SPEAKER_00I believed it for a few years.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. My dad was a doctor, I believed it growing up, but then once I came into my own, I was like, you know, there's gotta be something else out there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. It turns out there is. So I so about fathers, my dad and I started five to one formulas, actually. Oh, nice. Yeah, my father. So once once vapes took off 2017,
Starting Five To One Formulas
SPEAKER_00late 2016, my father was um very into it because he was very into cannabis. Okay. So his enthusiasm, which is fine. So his enthusiasm with cannabis, and then my my herbal enthusiasm were both in the kitchen enough to where we just I don't know when it happened, but we were like, we gotta make, you know, like something that we can. We my father and I, I guess I get it from him. We we like to make things. Yeah, so we start that. Thank you. We started that and we went through a few iterations of what we I learned how to make all types of vapes, the regular vapes, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And we settled on the simplest formula because everyone was doing the most, everyone was doing complex stuff and they weren't testing, and it was just such such an easy, such an easy void to fill, such an easy open lane.
SPEAKER_01Or if they were testing, they were only testing for a handful of things.
SPEAKER_00Sure, right, yeah. A lot of my competitors, I'm not, I won't name them, but they uh you have to email them and then they will email you the tests.
SPEAKER_01They don't just and who knows what that even means. I mean, that's a whole nother conversation. I've done evidence on the validity of third-party testing and and how easy it is to fake results and things like sure.
SPEAKER_00I gotta hear those.
SPEAKER_01All right, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00So, yeah, we started in 2017 and we were we were in New York. Oh, I was in New York, my father was living in New Jersey, and we had a nice thing. I was living in Brooklyn, and I kind of covered the city in person more than I did anything online. I tried to end up my products on Amazon, it didn't work then, but it has worked. So we are in Amazon now, but at the time I had to learn and grow up as a businessman.
SPEAKER_01Amazon didn't really know what that stuff was at the time.
SPEAKER_00No one did, that's true. No one really knew what was going on. So now and now everything looks completely different on Amazon. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So so yeah, we stopped all operations right during COVID. COVID just screwed everything up and we started 2024.
SPEAKER_01So tell me about you know the nature of these products. So the you know, because like essential oils, they have all sorts of devices for distributing or or causing the oil to get into the air so you can breathe it and smell it and all of that. Usually it involves heat.
unknownSure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, then you know, vaping generally involves heat as well. And then there's you know, things like a nebulizer where it it forces air into a situation where and it turns it creates a mist, basically, where you can where you can breathe like a humidifier, and uh there's all sorts of different ways of creating a vapor.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, well, okay, so good a good thing would be some background information.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
Vaporization Temperatures And Safer Carriers
SPEAKER_00So between I don't uh don't get me on the exact temperature, but it's around 700 degrees, that's combustion. I believe it's 600 something degrees is combustion. Under that is uh diffusion or vaporization. So the big difference is the polycyclic active hydrocarbons, PAHs. And so when you're smoking something, you're gonna get those PAHs, and those are not real, those are not considered healthy. They're you they're generally considered carcinogenic or what have you.
SPEAKER_01Correct. That's true.
SPEAKER_00So that's the upper scale of the temperature range, and then the lower scale, you have you have vaporization, and then you have to ask, well, what is the uh boiling point or the vaporization point of the substances I'm vaporizing?
SPEAKER_01Right. And that varies wildly, right?
SPEAKER_00It varies between vegetable glycerin, which is a high point, and PG, which has a low point. Right. You do want a high point, a high vaporization point temperature, because you don't want the creation of byproducts. So byproducts occur at the right temperature and with a lot of ingredients. The more ingredients you add, the more byproducts you can potentially get. It's sort of like a soup. If you uh add heat and add water, you may have a couple carrots, chicken, the onion. But if you as soon as you add heat and water, you're gonna actually get hundreds of little ingredients between the everything. So the key is to vape, if you're gonna vaporize something, you want to vaporize something as simple as possible. Right. You want to vaporize like a you want to create like an herbal tea, not a chicken soup concoction out of your and so you want to have it at low temperature, the lowest temperature possible. Okay, and so that's exactly what we did. We decided to take vegetable glycerin that's coconut derived and organic, and there are not many sources of that.
SPEAKER_01No, I know. I I make ozonated glycerin, and I use a very high-quality coconut derived vegetable glycerin for it, and I haven't even been able to find it in large quantities. You I'm I get these small bottles, and I I I haven't found a source of it in a 55-gallon drum yet.
SPEAKER_00Hmm. I I can tell you after.
SPEAKER_01All right, that's good. All right, we'll get to that. I love that.
SPEAKER_00And yeah, so and then we use one powdered herb. Okay, and it's a yeah, so it's a simple process, and all of our all of the other brands out there were getting trigger happy. Right. We could do lavender, but we could do vanilla lavender, but we could also do cinnamon vanilla lavender. We can also do this, and then you have all the keywords you need to go and sell a bunch of bad products that got tested.
SPEAKER_01So no, no, for sure, for sure. So the the the products that you make are vape cartridges.
SPEAKER_00No, they're like an all-in-one.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I'm trying to get my head around what we're looking at. Okay.
SPEAKER_00This is eucalyptus, which is which was my favorite.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so it is like a pod.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so it is a pod. Okay. Sorry.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, yeah. So for those of you, this is an audio experience for most people. They're starting to put the video on it. I don't know if I'm gonna get it. I I capture the video in case I'm able to play it. But for those of you who are listening, there's all kinds of different vape cartridges, and they come from these gigantic things to little teeny pen-looking things. The pod is kind of a flat one inch by three inches or four inches, something like that, and it's got a little cartridge inside of it. Is that accurate?
SPEAKER_00Almost it doesn't have it's all it's one piece entirely.
SPEAKER_01There is oh, it doesn't have a cartridge that goes into it.
SPEAKER_00Okay, it's rechargeable but not refillable.
SPEAKER_01Got it.
SPEAKER_00500, at least 500 poles on it. Got it. You know that you're not vaping propylene glycol if you don't make huge clouds. If you have, and that's important to know in in the market because the market is very unsafe. Right. And a lot of products they claim not to have PG, propylene glycol, but they they may have all natural flavors.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, which could mean anything, which could mean propylene glycol.
SPEAKER_00And you always know because the mist is thick, you know, the mist is thin. You know, and that's that's what you want if if you're deciding between propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. And so the the purpose of the carrier or the the peg or the glycerin, whatever you're using, it causes the right consistency and the right potency of the herb. It's if you were to put just pure essential oils in there, they would flash off too quickly and you get too much. Is that right? You're you're thinking, you're thinking about it.
SPEAKER_00Well, but there are are are you talk are you asking like how to get the highest concentration into the no no?
SPEAKER_01I'm just I'm I'm explaining kind of why you put these carriers in there. Like, for example, you know, somebody might be going, well, why don't you just put the eucalyptus essential oil and do that straight up? Oh, well, that's not safe. I know that's what I'm trying to get to. It's it's a concentration issue. You want to you it needs to be thinned out enough to where you're taking in to your lungs an amount that won't hurt you.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely. That's right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's if you do be a substance that's safe enough that it's not gonna cause harm in itself. And is it is it possible that you have the ratio so that the not all of the carrier vaporizes and just the essential oils do, but in a more measured way? Or does it all vaporize?
SPEAKER_00Well, we only use powdered herbs, which have some essential oils as well as other things in there.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So then so the purpose of the is that the powdered herbs get absorbed into the carrier and it creates an infused carrier. So for those of you who are listening, glycerin is often used as an extraction solvent in for a lot of herbs, and that's essentially what you're doing. And so you can put an herb into glycerin. Glycerin will absorb the value of the of the herb and create a different a different product out of just that alone, and then you can use it by itself, like you're talking about, or you can add it to something else as an ingredient.
SPEAKER_00Right. It's a sweet sugar alcohol, so it has a light sweetness to it when you vapor. It's very sweet when you eat it. Um you can actually ingest 300 milliliters of three shot glasses, roughly, worth of vegetable glycerin, and only start to see symptoms.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, it starts to pull water out of your colon, and then you can start getting some irritation that way. But other than that, it's pretty small glycemic index. It doesn't, your body doesn't treat it like sugar. It tastes like sugar, but your body doesn't treat it like sugar.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it tastes like sugar. And then if you contrast that to propylene glycol, if you drink one shell, 100 milliliters of propylene glycol, you probably have to go to the hospital.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00So they both have excellent safety records. But it's sort of like asking the CEO of Monsanto, hey, this glass of you you want to drink it? Because you said it's it's safe enough to drink. Do you want to have a drink of some glycifate? And he said, No, I'm good. Yeah, I'll pass. Yeah. What we're dealing with here.
SPEAKER_01I agree. So I can I'm I'm not a big vape guy per se, but I have gone through I I I make some vapes myself, cannabis things, but they're just pure, they're just pure oil with a little teeny bit of uh of a pure terpene. But that's a whole separate thing. I remember when vapes first came out there were some herbal vapes. And of course they put nicotine in a lot of vapes that's supposed to be safer. Most of the vapes these days have nicotine in them or cannabis, one of the two. But there were some herbal blends that I remember that came out early on, maybe some mint and some different things that were supposed to be healthy for you. So why don't you share with us sort of the idea? Like a lot of people that work with herbs, they're working with, you know, infusions, decoctions, tinctures, powders, different sort of ways of doing it. And the idea of smoking or vaping to as a as a delivery system for something healthy isn't necessarily acknowledged by a lot of people, although it's becoming more regular as these things are becoming more mainstream. Why don't you share with us a little bit about how that all works?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Well, it's obviously a simple glycerite with no water, and we want to maximize the amount of nutrients and plant material that can go in to the glycerite while still maintaining a nice vape uh experience. So there's that, and it's uh quite simple to make, but it takes a lot of time. The if you you mentioned before this that there were mint vapes and stuff like that going around, and you always have to check the ingredients because you end up with an essential oil, or right. It's like, but we're doing powdered herbs realms, and we're infusing them as much as we can into what I believe is the safest carrier you could possibly use. Nice. I wanted to uh have a business, which I I could have gone the route of like a herbal tar or like hash, you know. Right, right, right. Like, you know, I would be out there steaming a bunch of lavender flowers, it'd be taking forever. I know. So I wanted to actually have a business and not make niche, you know. So like let me see if this vegetable glycerin, and then we got the best vegetable glycerin, and yeah, we refined our craft for about a year in a proprietary way, so I can't really explain all the really the goal was to maximize the amount of plant experience you can put into vegetable glycerin.
SPEAKER_01Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_00Just decide to you know put them together and sell them. We really went rigorous, something rigorous. Over the me and my father, a year and a half, we did this.
SPEAKER_01I love that. Yeah, that's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00We came up with a recipe that I may use later on. Okay, that involved a small amount, a thirtieth the amount of essential oils.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Well, we decided to can that because this was just simpler and yeah, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So when you talk about testing, even the herbs themselves often have many compounds within the herb. And so lots of things to test for, and in even
Lab Testing Limits And What’s Missing
SPEAKER_01like different varieties of rosemary have different ratios of terpenes and different different compounds, different lavenders have different, you know, a Bulgarian lavender or you know, a different lavender will have depending on where it's grown, the soil, the genetics of the plant itself, it's gonna, they're not all side by side. That's why they make a 4140, you know, blend of lavender because it's at least uniform. So when you talk about testing, what's the testing for?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're asking a great question. That's the really the holy grail of my business. Yeah, I think we need mass spectrometry testing. Right.
SPEAKER_01HPLC, yeah, right, right.
SPEAKER_00So then we can figure out the proportions of the nutrients, which nutrients, you know. I hope like let linal and lavender, which is popular and all of that. We need to so yeah, that is that is a goal totally for us. And I'm I know they're in there as well.
SPEAKER_01I just have to no absolutely the thing is is with with mass spec testing, you have to have the standards for each thing you're looking for. Right.
SPEAKER_00So I learned I just learned that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So they have they basically have these standards that when they they heat the material up and it leaves a an imprint that they're able to read these various spectrums of of light or color or whatever it is that they're reading, and then they match it against a standard of the pure substance, and then they're able to calibrate from that the percentage of it that's inside of it.
SPEAKER_00Got it.
SPEAKER_01So that it's in it's it's interesting as HPLC is developing and they're testing for more and more things besides just cannabinoids and you know, some basic things. I think there's getting to be more and more standards out there. I know like I use herbal extracts from a number of sources and they send me a third party lab test that looks like it's pretty comprehensive, but frankly I don't necessarily trust them because I don't know, you know, where they come from and and and all the things they're testing for. But it it seems like the technology's out there now as far as to be able to get as as complete as possible. Do you have a lab that you work with directly or how how do you work it how do you work with it?
SPEAKER_00Yes, ACS labs. They work with the DEA.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And do you do you work with their technicians? Because I've worked hand in hand with the lab techs before to help them solve some problems when I was doing extracting it years ago and they didn't know what the hell they were looking at with some of the things I was pulling out and I had to help them what they were yeah.
SPEAKER_00No I have not done that. I uh I send out the samples and hope for the best.
SPEAKER_01So it would it would be my hope that maybe you can develop a relationship with one of the techs and and be able to ask more direct questions about things. It's something that when I was doing a lot of extraction for a while and I I submitted hundreds of of samples for testing and every once in a while something strange would come up and I'd have to help them solve the problem. But luckily I was working with them. So it would be a good for where you are in this process it seems like that would be great if you could make a connection with one of the people at the lab. I I couldn't disagree that's yeah yeah definitely I I would I we we got to continue this conversation. I like what you're doing. So tell me a little bit we're running a little low on time but tell me a little bit about your formulas not you know your trade secrets but about what they do and and and you know the meat and potatoes of what you guys do.
SPEAKER_00Sure. Right now we're we have on Amazon Palo Santo, Yerba Mate, eucalyptus which is coming this week molin's fantastic I work with Molin a lot. Yep we even
Current Herbs Safety And No Claims
SPEAKER_00have on the label it has hardly any taste. Faintly molin doesn't taste like much at all. It doesn't taste like anything but it's a big seller because people understand what it is.
SPEAKER_01It's fantastic yeah it it's it's I use it extensively in one of my decongestion formulas excellent yeah me I have stuff like that in my kitchen too I love that I love it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah a mullen and lavender chamomile flour we use English yes and that's that's it and then the rest of them on our on our website we have valerian root anise seed and vanilla bean okay yes and we're gonna add wild cherry bark too that's coming in a few months.
SPEAKER_01So are you are you laying out sort of the reason why they would take these I mean I know you get with with you know supplements and and that sort of thing you got to be a little cautious about making medical claims and things like that but clearly some of these herbs you're working with have desired effects do you how do how do you reckon with that?
SPEAKER_00Well we also have a mugwort that's the one that I forgot and I'm glad I forgot it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah people use mugwort for all kinds of interesting things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I I usually get people need the restocks quicker than most for the moment I'll bet I'll bet yeah it's supposed to be a good anti parasite on top of other various and sundry regions. Yeah the safety data for most of our formulas is on but I'll tell you that because we are such a simple formulation there's a lot of known data on all individual glycerites and really on a on a hazard scale they're like a zero or a the only one that is a two on the hazard scale I didn't know this at the time was valerian root. Apparently it's an eye hazard so if the if the if the glycerite of valerian root gets in your eye it can be a serious problem.
SPEAKER_01Okay I didn't know that I I I love doing this show because I learn new things all the time. Excellent yeah yeah I'd learned it too just a few months ago interesting well I will be very careful when I work with my valerian powder that's for sure although I wear glasses so usually I don't have a a problem with that but you just never know sometimes you rub your eyes and it could probably be not a good idea. Yeah yeah so so do you talk about in your in any of your literature like why you would take these things I mean you've got chamomile and valerian that obviously would help to relax you and you've got eucalyptus and molen would be good for your lungs. I mean there's all these different reasons why you would take them but do you talk about that in your literature?
SPEAKER_00I try to stay away from making claims obviously I I really do believe 100% that you're getting a light botanical experience of the plant.
SPEAKER_01I love it. That's it I love it. Yeah well I am really pleased with what I'm hearing this is you're the first person who's come on this show and I've done the show for three and a half years and I've had over 300 guests and oh no sorry I've had over 200 guests and I've done the show for three and three and a half years and I've never had anybody that does what you do. So congratulations I'm and I and it's impressive work. I like the way you think I like the you know there's being an herbalist people like you think to yourself well what does that even mean you know somebody who works with plants and it can go in a thousand directions. It's such a gigantic field that you know you can narrow yourself down to you know something like what you've created a product that's unique. I do a lot of different things depending on what people need. I work with the people and I try to you know formulate things that that meets people's needs. But it's really neat to see somebody that's really working in a field that I I haven't seen explored. So that's fantastic. I'm gonna investigate your stuff and and look look into it a little deeper myself. If you had one thought to leave our listeners with what would that sound like I will have to say read your ingredients. I love that I love that that's so important more and more people are you know more and more people are
Read Ingredients And Where To Buy
SPEAKER_01as as the cancer rates go up and the the Aaron Brokoviches get more and more people are like hey wait a minute yeah yeah I think this I would actually say this instead you have to try to stay healthy in this world you can't it is yeah now for sure that is great advice and so tell us again Anthony how do we find you your products tell us all the all the contact information five to oneformulas.com spelled out five to one formulas at Instagram and we're also on TikTok on Twitter and YouTube and on Amazon too. Fantastic well I really appreciate you coming on to the show thank you to talk to you a little bit afterward I got another interview kind of real close behind this one but I I want to talk to you about a couple of things and I really want to continue our conversation many of my guests come back and we continue a conversation nobody's at an end point in their journey we're always you know in process and so when I find an interesting guest I like to you know keep the door open and as maybe a new product comes or you discover some new things you're always welcome to come back and share that with the audience.
SPEAKER_00Thank you Joe I had a great time.
SPEAKER_01Wonderful wonderful and this was your first podcast by the way wasn't it you would never know really thank you great job yeah no you did a fantastic job. All right well this has been another episode of the Healthy Living podcast I'm your host Joe Grumbine and I want to thank all of our listeners for making this show possible and we will see you next time