** AI GENERATED: Some terms and spellings may be inaccurate **

Zachary Cartwright [00:00:06]:
What is water activity and why is it important to probiotics? Welcome to The Drip, where we keep your mind hydrated with some science, music and a mantra. I'm your host, Zachary Cartwright. As a lead food scientist at AQUALAB, I've recently received many questions about what is water activity and what's its effect on probiotic stability. Specifically, companies that produce probiotics are interested in setting the right moisture spec for production, preventing fast die off of probiotics and making the right capsule and packaging decisions. Here to help us understand this better is Subhendu Nayak, who holds a master's degree in pharmaceutical technology. For the last ten years he has been working on probiotics at various companies and has been approved for two us patents for stabilizing probiotics at room temperature. Hi Subhendu, welcome to the show. Subhendu, what is a probiotic?

Subhendu Nayak [00:01:02]:
Thanks for having me on the show. Very good afternoon. Yeah, probiotic, probiotic. There is no FDA definition. Again, there is a who definition, of course, and everybody is using that. As long as it's a live organism and it provides beneficial to the host, you can call it as a probiotic and probiotic. Now, on today's era, you can define into three different categories. Spore forming, non spore forming and next generation probiotic.

Subhendu Nayak [00:01:31]:
Spore mainly broadly divided into bacillus, coagulants, bacillus subtilis, bacillus clausi. Now you can see in the market which are kind of much more resistant to temperature. So definitely the is more application of the spore or spore forming probiotic bacteria because of its resistance to heat or moisture. So that's why you see in the market those are implemented or the application area much more in terms of food beverages, in terms of gummy application. The other category is non spore, which is lacto lactobacillus or bifidobacterium. The use is limited or application type is limited to only capsules or in some cases to tablet because these are quite moisture and temperature sensitive. And again, when we go for, even if for the tablet application, because of the compression force, there is die off. Always there is a selection of strains from non spore ones and whichever is viable, only those options are explored and based on the stability those comes into market.

Subhendu Nayak [00:02:44]:
And the third generation is the next generation probiotic. Now you can see people talking about Ackermansia mucinophila. So that's the next generation probiotic. So broadly, these are the different kinds of probiotic. What you can see on today's date.

Zachary Cartwright [00:02:59]:
And when it comes to measuring water in probiotics. What are the methods that you see companies use and what do you use to measure water in these types of products?

Subhendu Nayak [00:03:09]:
Yeah, no, that's a very good question actually. People also sometimes get little bit of confused between loss on drying or water content. But the real measurement is water activity. Again, water activity by simple definition is a measurement of availability of water for biological reactions. It determines the ability of microorganisms to grow. If water activity decreases, microorganisms with the ability to grow will also decrease. And it predicts whether water is likelihood to move from food product into the cells of microorganisms that might be present. And water activity generally represented as aW.

Subhendu Nayak [00:03:51]:
Or it is expressed as a ratio of vapor pressure in a food to a vapor pressure of pure water. Or we can tell is aW is equal to p by p zero, p is the vapor pressure of food and p zero is the vapor pressure of pure water. That is how we define how to measure the water activity. And most of the strains are particularly non spore probiotic bacteria like lactobacillus or bifidobacteria. Those are quite moisture sensitive. That's why water activity is used as a marker. And all those things are provided in the market, particularly in terms of lyophilization. So liphilized once generally comes with a spec like 0.050.06 in that range, or particularly less than 0.1.

Subhendu Nayak [00:04:39]:
And the idea is once it's put into different kind of delivery formats like capsules, tablets or any other formats, the idea is to keep the water activity as low as possible so that throughout the self life claimed time it can remain low and it can provide the desired amount of potency. As long as the water activity goes beyond 0.25, then you can see there is drastical or dramatic changes or you can see significant amount of loss occurring in the potency of the probiotic.

Zachary Cartwright [00:05:13]:
Yeah, and that's really helpful, Subhendu, because I meet with lots of clients or companies who are a little confused about moisture content versus water activity. And once they understand water activity, how does this relate to the stability of probiotics? And as you mentioned, usually the lower the better. As you start to get above 0.25 water activity, that's when you start to run into issues. Is that correct?

Subhendu Nayak [00:05:38]:
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's a very good point actually. So as I mentioned earlier, generally you get the probiotic strains from the vendors around with a spec of 0.1, less than 0.1. But generally when they lyfe it, they really dried in the secondary drying step using a cryoprotectant, they generally dry up to a level of 0.05 or 0.06. But the real challenge occurs once someone provides you that strain with 0.050.06 in life Eli state, then someone receives it. Then the interesting part is actually when someone try to process it at their end in the production facility. Suppose we are going for a capsule. Then someone put it in dispensing area or kind of a pharmacy to weigh it. So while weighing it, it also get exposed or it takes certain amount of time for dispensing.

Subhendu Nayak [00:06:32]:
Then it get transferred to blending. So in blending, what is the temperature or humidity of the blending room? What kind of blender is used? How much amount of head space is in the blender. If the head space is really high, then it gets a good amount of air exposure also. So some people are now using a kind of a suction also in the blending so that that can minimize the amount of die off. Then it gets stored the intermediate bulk. Then after the blending process, then it goes to encapsulation. Then in the encapsulation again comes to the point that what is the temperature and humidity of the encapsulation process? When they load the blend into the hopper of the encapsulation machine, there is a lead, whether it keeps open or they can close it. And once the final capsules get made, the bulk capsules, people think oh, it's a capsule cell, it gives protection.

Subhendu Nayak [00:07:25]:
But no, it's just a capsule cell which people ingest. And it goes inside the stomach very fast and gets dissolved in water. So it doesn't give any protection against moisture. So that also needs to be stored unless and until you are ready to go for the packaging. Again, the packaging also needs to be happened in controlled humidity condition. And as long as you can control these steps, each and every step, starting from dispensing, blending, encapsulation, intermediate storage, packaging well below 25% or preferably 25% relative humidity or 30%. That will give you, that will minimize the amount of die off because the water vapor transmission rate will be minimized and the water activity will not suit up. The second factor is actually when you take these probiotics and add with some other excipient lower water activity.

Subhendu Nayak [00:08:20]:
Some of the exception might come with higher water activity like 0.3 or 0.4. And when you formulate certain amount of delivery format, that excipient remains adjacent to the strain. So if that excipient remains on the higher higher water activity, suppose like 0.3 or 0.4 that immediately makes the water available to the probiotic strain. So as these are moisture sensitive and hygroscopic in nature, so that sucks the moisture from the other recipient and the water activity shoots up and it dies off very fast. So it's very important that whatever excipient we are going to add or use in the delivery format needs to be dried or preferably should be kept at less than 0.15. And if we can find some material or excipient which is non hygroscopic in nature, that also provides a better case. So that's the second factor. Then the third factor which comes into picture is actually which kind of packaging format we are going.

Subhendu Nayak [00:09:23]:
So depending upon the packaging format. So suppose someone is going for a glass bottle. Glass is good in terms of water vapor transmission rate. But if someone is just going for a paid bottle, the WVtR or the MvtR moisture vapor transmission rate, or we call it water vapor transmission rate, that is too high. So the water really goes inside the capsule and the water activity suits up for the overall capsule and ultimately the bacteria dies off very fast. So nowadays there are desiccated bottles available, which is called CsP. Now, it's been acquired by Aptar, which comes with desiccation. And there are different kinds of desiccation also.

Subhendu Nayak [00:10:08]:
Like you can use silica gel kind of desiccation, molecular sieve. We have done different studies using different kinds of desiccation. We have seen that molecular sieve type really works better as compared to silica gel. That's why if you can see also the CSP original people who made those desiccated bottles, they only used molecular sieve type of desiccation in those kind of bottles. So that's a nice approach to control the water activity. The other thing is also people can use HDPe bottle, which is okay in terms of water vapor transmission rate. But you can put some molecular sieve like 1 gram or two gram, which comes in a pillow packet and insert that in the GP bottle. And that also works fine.

Subhendu Nayak [00:10:56]:
So that's the third point in terms of packaging, how you can control the water activity. Other interesting thing, what comes to mind is actually when you put this probiotic material in a refrigerated condition or refrigerated storage, there is very minimal loss of potency occurs. We call it, or we generally know that this is moisture sensitive. But the thing is that when we put it inside refrigerator, inside refrigerator, I am referring something five plus minus three degree centigrade, as per FDA things which is called cold or two to eight degree centigrade, that is something really cold. And there is a lot of moisture inside. But the beauty is at that low temperature, the kinetics are really slow or very negligible. So that's why the moisture don't really transmit or don't get from outside to inside of the probiotic strain. So when you store the probiotic, particularly at low temperature or at cold temperature, because of the low kinetics, irrespective there is huge amount of moisture, still it does not get impacted.

Subhendu Nayak [00:12:04]:
Rather it provides a very nice environment, temperature sensitive, it creates a nice condition. So the potency is unaltered if you can put it also in terms of refrigerated condition of storage. So those are the different criteria or factors, what we need to consider while doing any kind of formulation. To summarize in terms of excipient, what is the water activity of the excipient, non hygroscopic excipient storage and handling of the process. Starting from dispensing, blending, encapsulation intermediate, then bulk packaging and packaging matter, packaging pattern, how or what kind of container it can be packed so that it can give an ultimate stability throughout the self life, if it is 18 months or 24 months, how it can maintain the stability.

Zachary Cartwright [00:12:52]:
And I think you hit on so many great points there. So Subhendu and I just want to revisit a few. Uh, one of the things that you talked about is that water activity is always changing. And even though you might start with a low water activity, all these steps during manufacturing, whether it's dispensing or blending or encapsulation, every time you go through a step, you have to really watch the temperature and the humidity of your environment. And I think you mentioned trying to keep a humidity less than 25%. And of course, lower temperatures is also going to help keep the water activity lower. So I thought that was really interesting. And again, a common question I get, because even though you might start with a low water activity, you may run into problems down the road.

Zachary Cartwright [00:13:34]:
Another point that I just wanted to hit on again is the importance of starting with low water activity ingredients, especially those excipients that you mentioned. And I see more and more companies setting limits on incoming ingredients to have as low of water activity as possible. And any company that tries to do this by looking at moisture alone doesn't have the resolution that they need in order to really stay on top of this and prevent some of those moisture challenges down the road. And finally, you talked about the packaging and just the importance of having a low water vapor transmission rate. The lower, the better the packaging. And I thought that was interesting about, you know, how the kinetics are slower at refrigeration and how this may also prolong shelf life. One of the other common things I see now is people or companies looking into delivering probiotics in stick pack form. Do you see that? And what are your thoughts on being able to provide probiotics using this method?

Subhendu Nayak [00:14:34]:
There is also nowadays a lot of like people are getting into gummies. Stick pack is also getting lost. Lots of people also like that or the particularly younger generation because they wanted to feel the test not like conventional things like capsules or regular tablets. So as people prefer. So there is a lot of strains are coming into a form in terms of stick pack. So that's also an interesting format. And of course including the non spore probiotic bacteria, those can delivered in a form of a stick pack. So as you bring the point of stick pack depending upon the.

Subhendu Nayak [00:15:11]:
Again, it all depends on the water activity. So the idea is to keep the water activity low, as low as possible during the starting point. The excipient, what you add in stick pack, particularly people use in stick pack industry ten kinds of sugar alcohols like xylitol, mannitol, isomalt. So based on my experience I have seen that isomalt is actually non hygroscopic or the adjustment curve is really starts at very higher end of humidity as compared to mannitol followed by xylitol. Xylitol has less or how much more hygroscopic. So when you generate or formulate a stick, stick pack, the idea is actually go with. Again, people prefer also xylitol because xylitol has highest amount of negative of heat of enthalpy. That's why when you put it in mouth it provides a very cool sensation.

Subhendu Nayak [00:16:13]:
So the amount of coolness you feel in xylitol is much more higher as compared to manitoba or isomalt as it has very highest rate of enthalpy. That's why the cool sensation is higher. But you have to adjust that because if you just go with xylitol, then the problem is actually it's very hygroscopic in nature. So you are putting probiotic, which is hygroscoping along with xylitol which is another hygroscopic material, creating a complete blend which is now completely hygroscopic. So the stability will be a question mark. So the thing is the judicious decision will be to add some amount of xylitol so that you can get the cool sensation. Then mixture with something else like isomalt. And make sure that you use that mixture of xylitol and isomalt with water activity.

Subhendu Nayak [00:17:03]:
If you don't get it dried from the vendor, you need to dry it to a level of 0.1 so that you give a nice room. And the other idea is, while you are choosing these things, you have to go to a granular form. Granular form helps in terms of actually better stability and grasping less amount of moisture because of particle size. And the other thing is granular particle helps in creating less amount of dust and better flow, which is really required in a stick pack. So when you make stick pack, what happens from the hopper there is ejection. And because of the ejection of the hopper to the aluminum foil, the aluminum foil folds and create a sac to that from the hopper, the powder flows. So if you got much more granular particle, what I am referring to get in terms of a mixture of xylitol and isomalt, so that will have better flow. And because of better flow, it will not stick to the neck of the stick pack.

Subhendu Nayak [00:18:02]:
We have seen, or I have seen so many cases, if you use powdery material, it sticks to the pin or the neck of the stick pack and gets stick there. And how it closed. When the time it comes for sealing by means of heat, the powder got interrupt on the way. And you can see it in naked eye. But there is breaching occurs and because of there is some amount of leakage. When you store the stick pack, then water vapor can go inside and take the water electricity off. So these are kind of real life experience in terms of taking these kinds of precautions. And the other things comes into picture.

Subhendu Nayak [00:18:39]:
Nowadays you can actually get a stick pack which comes desiccated. Different peoples provide different kinds of desiccation. Some people do provide desiccation which comes kind of like a what you see in HDPe bottle, like a pillow pack. And that just remains inside that aluminum foil. But based on my experience, that works. But to certain extent, I'm not a big fan of that. As compared to that, there are some better options. What you can see that comes impregnated in the film itself.

Subhendu Nayak [00:19:09]:
It just looks like a regular film works on the regular sim kind of machine. You won't feel it, it's little bit of thicker. And the desiccation aluminum foil barrier, which really works as a nice barrier for water, for transmission rate. And there is desiccation which gets impregnated inside the film. So for probiotic, if you're going for non spore, definitely someone should consider using desiccated film, using also aluminum foil as a barrier in that case that really keeps the water activity low. So I think that's another important point to consider. And the other thing is in terms of stick pack, someone definitely need to consider whichever flavor they are adding. The flavor should be compatible in terms of the probiotic strains.

Subhendu Nayak [00:19:58]:
Sometimes people try to get natural flavors and if it has some antimicrobial impact then it also inhibits the growth of the bacteria and has some adversely impact the potency of the bacteria. So the flavor profile, what has been used need to make sure that that is compatible. And the other technique is actually try to dilute the amount of probiotic strain. Dilute means suppose out of 100%. Try to put something, the probiotic bacteria maximum something recommended 30% to 40%. The remaining amount can be excipient which will be non hygroscopic in nature. So that what happens, you keep the hygroscopic part of your probiotic which remains around 30% to 40% which is hygroscopic. So you create a generate a nice balance.

Subhendu Nayak [00:20:49]:
So these are the conditions you need to consider while formulating a stick pack. To summarize, in terms of excipient, you have to select the excipient, drive the excipient if it is required, you have to use a desiccated stick pack. And thirdly, in terms of you have to use proportion of the active or probiotic to excipient in a judicious way or probiotic maximum around 30% to 40%, not to exceed that. So that you can make a stable.

Zachary Cartwright [00:21:19]:
Formulation in addition to stick packs and also gummy forms. I'm also in a lot of discussions where duocapse are brought up. Can you tell us what a duo cap is and is this an effective way of keeping the moisture and the water activity levels low?

Subhendu Nayak [00:21:34]:
Yep. Those are two different things. One is the do cap and the gummies. Let's get into the docap, then we'll come back to the gummies thing. Yes, do cap. You can see that's a nice application. Some people actually, if you see company like Nori seed who are actually putting those things in probiotic in a form of docap. But here is the interesting thing.

Subhendu Nayak [00:21:58]:
When docap things got introduced by Lonza, what they did, they did actually put the capsules or the solid capsule of probiotic, particularly in size two or size three inside the capsule and the outside capsule is actually combined with a liquid. The thing what has been promoted, it has been promoted that as there is a oil, so the probiotic remains inside the or embedded outside the oil, so the oil gives a protection so the water cannot penetrate inside that. So we have taken some amount of market analysis or market samples and analyzed it, but exactly, we find the opposite. What happens that people think that's the concept. That is how it works. Yes, that is how it works. But there are small things here, like the oil, what has been taken, which should act as a barrier. Rather.

Subhendu Nayak [00:22:55]:
If the water activity in the oil is remains, suppose around 0.4, then you run a control capsule, as it is a single piece solid capsule, versus this do cap where you get the oil with water activity 0.4. This capsule with oil actually dies off faster because you get the moisture available just right adjacent to it. So it grabs the moisture within two months and the water activity will shoot up and within no time, two to three months, it will reach up to 0.30.35. And that is how you can see die off occurring. So again, not against any idea or new delivery format, if you can make it feasible, then you have to choose right amount of right oil, which should be dry enough or dry means particularly in terms of water activity, should be less than 0.1. And in that way you can make it feasible. And the other interesting thing is when they put the oil, there is a sealing or outer band, how it goes. You need to seal the outer capsule.

Subhendu Nayak [00:24:08]:
So sometimes during the sealing process, they expose it to higher temperature, even longer duration. And during that exposure, probiotics, inner probiotic, get that higher temperature and exposure for duration. So that's how it also get killed. So that process also needs to be optimized. So if someone ask me about docap, my opinion is, yeah, it's a great idea, but you have to consider the sealing or the banding process. However you're doing it, you have to optimize the process in terms of exposure to how much amount of heat you are exposing and the duration. And the oil, which remains kind of adjacent to the probiotic, it should be remain low in terms of water activity and should be non hygroscopic in nature. In that way you can make it feasible.

Subhendu Nayak [00:24:59]:
But as you also bring up the thing in terms of the do cap, you can see in the market that whoever are doing those things, they are making the claim in terms of AFU, not CFU. So that's also another it takes to a different discussion that they go to flow cytometry rather than using the CFU.

Zachary Cartwright [00:25:21]:
Yeah. And that leads perfectly into my next question. How do you measure die off of probiotics? What, what measurements or what techniques are you using to prove that you've preserved the probiotics? And there's a certain amount in that final product when it reaches the consumer.

Subhendu Nayak [00:25:39]:
So the thing is that if we go by the conventional technique on today's day, that is still powerful, that is plate counting and that is what we do it in terms of CFU program. And that is the most followed technique. And if you see all the companies who are making the brand in terms of selling the strain, most of the people, or I will say 99% people, or I can say 100% people sell those probiotic bacteria strain in terms of CFU program, nobody sells those things in AFU. And how these things works, you just have to take that life fly powder, add it with specific media, where it grows, or in other layman's language, you are providing the food, putting it up to a desired cereal dilution, taking up to that limit, then culturing it and putting it in the incubation temperature inside the incubate incubator and getting it out. And you can see the colonies and you generally count the colonies. And that is what if you have done it in a billion, then you know, okay, it's 1 billion, 10 billion or 100 billion, as simple as that. And if you also go, I think 100%. Again, all the companies who are selling probiotic strain, all of them did this study, clinical studies, what I mean, all related to CFU.

Subhendu Nayak [00:27:04]:
5 billion CFU of lactobacillus provide you immunity. 2 billion of bifidobacterium lactase giving you digestive things. Everything is related to CFU. So I think the most, much more preferred method for measurement is actually CFU. And if someone is making a structured functional claims, then all these studies are also done in terms of CFU. So you can do a direct establishment of CFU. And if someone is making a claim or shelf life for 18 months or 24 months, at the end of 24 months, you can see that suppose your 2 billion clinical studies providing you digestive health still that 2 billion CFU is there at the end of the 24 month self life or not. As long as you have maintained 2 billion, you are good.

Subhendu Nayak [00:27:52]:
Your claim is still holds good. That's why in the industry people starts or do the calculation that how much amount they lost during the process of manufacturing it from strain to the finished format. There is method variability, how much amount of process loss in blending, encapsulation, packaging, and also during the process of storage. That's why packaging also comes into picture. And all these things correlated. The potency, what we count in terms of CFU, correlated in terms of water activity. So if really water activity suits up, the CFU count also goes down. That is how it is been being managed in terms of providing an overages.

Subhendu Nayak [00:28:32]:
And the die off occurs during the process of manufacturing and also during the process of storage as well. But there is an alternate approach. Some people take it, particularly in the finished product. Instead of going through the plate count, they do it using flow cytometry, where there is a die and there is light passes through the dye. And you can see that how many cells are live, how many cells are injured, and that is how you present in terms of. There is no direct establishment of correlation between CFU and AFU. Just for simple logic, we can tell that suppose we start a capsule, suppose at 10 billion CFU during the process of manufacturing, initial time, time zero. If it is 10 billion CFU, it is also 10 billion afU.

Subhendu Nayak [00:29:22]:
There is no difference, same number. But what happens during the process of storage? Some cell integrity happens, or something happens. In terms of membrane, there are some cells converts into. It's called VB and C, viable but not culturable. So when you plate it, it will not form colonies. That is why it's called viable but not culturable. And when it cannot make any colonies, you cannot get those numbers in CFU. So the capsule, what we started at 10 billion CFU, or 10 billion AFU.

Subhendu Nayak [00:30:02]:
When you measure it after six months in CFU, it might be 8 billion CFU, because you lost 2 billion. But in Afu, it might be having 9.8 or 9.9 afu. That's why you always end up in getting a higher number in AFU, when you go between CFU and AFU comparison. But the real question comes into picture that the cells, what you are counting, which are injured cells, or it might have injured 90% also, but still you are getting a count against that. And those are called VB and C, viable but not culturable cells. Does it really have any health benefit? That's a big question mark. And all the clinical studies, whoever is doing, or whatever structure functional, it has been claimed, all has been correlated to CFU. So if someone is taking an approach in terms of AFU, how true it is, how can they can make structure functional claims? I think there is a lot of questions arises there of course we can tell that it doesn't take that much time as compared to plate count where you have to culture it for two to three days to get the colonies thorn but at the end of the day in plate counting, you are exactly getting if the cell is 100% healthy then only you get colonies.

Subhendu Nayak [00:31:18]:
If it doesn't healthy, you don't get any colonies. So you are 100% sure that you are getting that many colonies and that is exactly that. CFU and you have carried out the clinical studies with that 10 billion CFU. So you will get that claim. But if you are taking the approach of AFU, then whether you are doing a right justice or not, it's totally up to you how you are manipulating or you are altering the things you are measuring those injured cells. Is it the right thing, wrong thing? These are the things I think has not been answered by FDA or FDA don't provide a clear guidance also on that. But again, most of the things if you see on the today's market it comes with CFU and the people who sell strain who carried out the studies also they put it in CFU program.

Zachary Cartwright [00:32:03]:
So Subhendu. Thank you so much for walking us through that and taking some time today to talk about some of the moisture challenges related to probiotics and how water activity specs can be used to especially prevent die off and all the different factors, whether its manufacturing choices or what that final product form will be or the packaging that youre using, how all of these play an impact in preserving that probiotic and how water activity can be useful and also going into CFU versus AfU. I havent heard that discussion very much and I think thats interesting. The VBNC viable but non culturable and how that can cause maybe some headaches or some discussion. So switching gears a little bit, what is some of the music that you like to listen to? You know, when you're in there trying to get a colony count, what is a music recommendation that you brought with you today?

Subhendu Nayak [00:32:52]:
I like to listen one dance by Drake.

Zachary Cartwright [00:32:55]:
Me too. That's one of my favorite songs. And what is a mantra or a saying or something that you use to motivate yourself and bring some balance to your life?

Subhendu Nayak [00:33:05]:
I think everybody has their own mantra so I would like to keep it very simple. The idea is to not to complicate the things. There might be much more ways of making it complex. But if you keep it as simple as that and put it really straight, that makes everyone's lives easy and sometimes small efforts. Innovative idea. Innovative thinking really keeps us really getting the successful journey again.

Zachary Cartwright [00:33:33]:
Thank you so much for your time today and all the insights you provided and your music recommendation and this mantra you provided. You have a lot of expertise in this field and I think it's, there's more and more questions about it as we start to work in different forms, whether it's gummies or stick pack or maybe some new format that we haven't thought about yet. So thank you so much for your time. Savindhu thanks Jack.

Subhendu Nayak [00:33:54]:
I appreciate that.

Zachary Cartwright [00:33:58]:
Todays episode is sponsored by AQUALAB. In this episode we discussed probiotics and water activity. As Subhendu mentioned, monitoring the water activity of any product containing probiotics is essential. However, theres a very small range of water activity that needs to be maintained between about 0.15 and 0.25 water activity units. Did you know that water activity makes the most accurate, reliable and fastest water activity meters on the market? Specifically, aqua lab uses two primary direct methods called a dew point sensor or a tunable diode laser sensor. Whether you're measuring the water activity of excipients, gummies, powders, or another ingredient or medium containing protein, whether you're measuring the water activity of excipients, gummies, powders, or any other ingredient or medium containing probiotics, using these methods, you can take a reading in five minutes or less with an accuracy of plus or -0.005 or zero, zero three water activity units depending on the sensor type. Links to learn more about these technologies are available in the podcast description. Today's track is brought to us by an artist I met this summer while djing a wedding.

Zachary Cartwright [00:35:14]:
His name is Eric E. And he provided live music during dinner and played an impressive amount of covers. He had people shout out any year, and then he would play one of the top songs from that year. Here he is to introduce his unreleased song called sometimes somehow.

Eric E. [00:35:31]:
This is a song about God's timing in relationships, friendships, and how when we're lonely, it's just a matter of time. And yeah, I just. A song like this, I just start finger picking and coming up with a pattern that sounds good, feels good, and then I just start humming along nonsense syllables and eventually a word or two comes to mind that fits with the melody that I'm creating as I go. And then I just kind of flesh it out. A lot of times. Usually the chorus comes first and then it takes some work to flesh out the verses. And this was just a quick recording that I did on, on garageband and then I just slapped a harmony on top of it. It's not really from an album or anything, but it's one of my newer songs, and I've been getting some pretty good audience response from it and hope you like it.

Eric E. [00:36:28]:
Thank you. But sometimes somehow some things go deep how deeper than the shallows we'd never dare to seek sometimes, somehow we've never sown you reap sometimes, somehow some things go deep isn't it amazing what grows from a little seed we scarcely can imagine we hardly can believe but some things have been decided a long, long time ago that something's meant to be before we even know but sometimes, somehow some things go deep how deeper than the shallows we never dare to see sometimes, somehow you find a treasure you can keep sometimes, somehow.

Zachary Cartwright [00:38:25]:
As always, to finish off this episode, I'll be offering another mantra as a reminder. This can be a single word, a phrase, just something that you repeat to yourself. To feel calm, maybe motivate yourself. Or express something that you believe in. Today's mantra is I radiate energy and uplift everyone around me. I'm going to repeat this three times, and maybe you can say it to yourself. Or maybe even out loud. Here we go.

Zachary Cartwright [00:38:52]:
I radiate energy and uplift everyone around me. I radiate energy and uplift everyone around me. I radiate energy and uplift everyone around me. As you keep this mantra in mind, I also challenge you to think about one thing you've done, no matter how small, that you're proud of. That you are proud of. As you keep this mantra in mind, I also challenge you to think of one thing that you've done, no matter how small it is, that you are proud of. Thanks so much for listening to this episode. My name is Zachary Cartwright, and this has been another episode of The Drip brought to you by AQUALAB.

Zachary Cartwright [00:39:39]:
Stay hydrated and see you next time.

Eric E. [00:39:46]:
Some things go deep oh, yeah sometimes somehow some things go deep.