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Ben Greenfield
If I could predict five years from now, you're gonna see like 60 to 70% of my content is farming, permaculture and homesteading. My plan is to live as healthy as possible, as close as possible to the day that I die.
Hala Taha
Joining us for the second time on YAP is Ben Greenfield, renowned biohacker and health and fitness expert who's helped millions transform their bodies and minds.
Ben Greenfield
There's not gonna be one perfect diet for everybody. The average American family is eating out a lot and eating a lot of processed and packaged food at home and somet thinking that they are making healthy choices.
Hala Taha
I was on Amazon the other day and I found these vitamins that are like beef organs. What are your thoughts about that?
Ben Greenfield
Capsules like that can be kind of a cool shortcut. The only thing you have to bear in mind is that any thoughts around.
Hala Taha
Mind and if your mind can really control your body in that way.
Ben Greenfield
People who hang out with younger people go out on adventures and mini retirements throughout their life on average, tend to have more vitality and vigor later into age.
Hala Taha
If you were building a startup today in the wellness space, where would you place your bets?
Ben Greenfield
I would say a few of the trends that I am focusing on and would focus on would be.
Hala Taha
YAP gang. Imagine waking up every day in a home and a life that's engineered to heal you, energize you, and help you live longer. Joining us for the second time is Ben Greenfield, renowned biohacker and health and fitness expert who's helped millions transform their bodies and their minds. In this episode, Ben shares how to design a life and a home that blends ancestral wisdom with modern science to maximize your health span. His philosophy is anchored by family, faith and daily movement. Instead of just chasing extreme longevity hacks, this episode is packed with actionable tips to help you live what Ben calls a boundless life. If this is your first time tuning in and you want to listen, learn and profit, then make sure you hit that subscribe button before you continue. Ben. Welcome back to Young and Profiting Podcast.
Ben Greenfield
It's good to be back. I put a shirt on this time.
Hala Taha
I know last time, guys, if you want to check it out on YouTube, Ben took took the call while he was on a hike. Basically we were losing service in between. He had no shirt on. It was my first shirtless interview I ever did.
Ben Greenfield
I think it was like a hot summer day. I was outside. I didn't really know that much about you or your podcast or your audience or anything and just picked up the phone and I Think we still made a pretty good show out of it.
Hala Taha
It was a really good show. I love it. And if you guys watched on YouTube, you really get the full feel. And it made a lot of sense, too, because you were, like, talking about being in the sunlight and putting your bare feet on the ground, and you were basically showing us your daily life. So it worked out.
Ben Greenfield
You know, the only reason that we're not doing that right now is since our last podcast, I moved to Idaho, and there's very little cell reception out here, so it's a beautiful sunny day outside, but just gonna be me in the office today.
Hala Taha
So last time we Talked, it was 2023. We went over your life journey, your whole story. So we're going to replay that at the end of the week, guys. So if you want to hear his story, check that out. But today I want to talk about your new book, Boundless. And originally, you put this out in 2020. I think it was 600 pages. It really was the bible of biohacking. So what made you want to rewrite this one or expand it? And what's different about it this time?
Ben Greenfield
People just needed an updated cure for insomnia. Another great big coffee table book to thumb through the health field in general. This should come as no surprise to people. It's a little bit of a soft science field. Once you throw in biohacking and stem cells and peptides, longevity, anti aging, gut diets. There's so much new research on an ongoing basis that a book like Boundless necessitated a little bit of an update. And any author is well aware that once you publish a book, there's also anywhere from 20 to a billion things that go into your mind that you wish you'd put in the first one. So I thought, well, I could write a whole new book or I could just update this one. I wish I could tell you that I made it shorter. It wound up getting longer. However, I'm pretty proud of the final results. Got a lot of juicy stuff in there. That's the newest latest research to help.
Hala Taha
People out in case somebody doesn't want to go back to the last episode where we talked a lot about. About this. You say you live one foot in ancestral wisdom and one foot in modern science. So walk us through a day in the life of Ben Greenfield. What are you doing? That's ancient. What are you doing? That's cutting edge.
Ben Greenfield
My house is an odd place. I get a lot of entertaining comments from visitors because there's about a half million dollars or more of random biohacking equipment scattered everywhere. There are ozone detoxification saunas, red light beds, hyperbaric oxygen therapy chambers, light sound devices that literally whisk you off into a psychedelic experience without having to take any drugs, full body vibration chairs to down regulate the nervous system, and all manner of technologies designed for human longevity. Yet at the same time, we grow a lot of our own food. We raise goats and chickens, and soon cattle. We live on 12 acres out here in Idaho on a little permaculture farm. We really value family and relationships and the longevity and health derived from that. We eat very close to the earth, not only grow, but also prepare a lot of our own food. And the way I look at it is you can use a full body red light bed, for example, or red light panels or something like that, and you can also get adequate sunlight within moderation. And you can go into a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, but you can also do breath work, and you can go outside barefoot, but also use a grounding or earthing mat indoors. And if you look at it from almost an environmental standpoint, I think one really interesting way to think about this is through the lens of what's called building biology. This is kind of like a term in architecture and building that is based around the idea of taking a living space, a home or an office, and making it as compatible to human flourishing as possible in terms of the air, the light, the water, the electricity, the chemicals, the way that people are enabled to move their bodies in that environment, eat in that environment. And if you look at a lot of the concepts in building biology that we actually wove into our previous home in Washington, in this new home that we've just finished building about six months ago in Idaho, a lot of it involves taking what our ancestors would have experienced and replicating that in a modern environment. So let's take flooring, for example. We know that the earth touching the surface of the planet is really good for you. Have you heard of grounding or earthing, for example? So every time lightning strikes the surface of the planet, or solar radiation bombards the planet, it collects negative ions, which when our skin comes in contact with the surface of the planet, we absorb. And it helps restore the electrical potential of our body. It almost like recharges our body's battery. And when we are indoors, on non conductive surfaces, in big built up rubber soled shoes, living in a modern home environment, we're often disconnected from absorbing that electricity and also absorbing the low level, what's called a pulsed electromagnetic field that the Earth creates, which Is also highly anti inflammatory. So for example, in our home, every floor is lined underneath the floor with copper conductive surface that makes it so that you're grounding when you're say, on a third floor bedroom, the same as you would be if you were outside barefoot. Another example would be, we know that the sun, as it goes through the day exposes us to the full spectrum of light that is ideal for good sleep, for what we'd call good circadian rhythmicity. In an ideal scenario, even though this is not doable for a lot of people, I realize you would see some bright red light in the morning, simulating sunrise. The red light would begin to diminish and be replaced by blue light as the day progresses. And then as evening approaches, blue light and that full spectrum of light begins to diminish and be replaced by more red light. Almost like a bright light sandwich. So red light to full spectrum light, back to red light. Now, in our home, we have bulbs in each room of the house that will go to sunrise when you flip them on once. And then if you flip them off and flip them on again, they'll do full spectrum daytime sunlight. And then if you flip them off and flip them on again, they go to evening. So throughout the day, depending on what time of day it is, even if we're not outdoors all day, we can use these bulbs. And then there's a few different places you can get them. Like block blue light is one source, Bond charge is another source. But these bulbs are designed to simulate that outdoor ancestral environment. Back to the root of your question, Hala using modern science in indoor space to simulate that. Another example would be air. We know that outdoor air quality in most areas, maybe not Delhi or LA during the wildfires, but for the most part, outdoor air tends to be less stale, less moldy, lower in particulate matter. That's a very small particulate matter that's harmful for the lungs. And to achieve that indoors, you need to have some kind of air recirculation built into an office or home environment. If you can't get that, you need some kind of HEPA air filtration system. We did all three in our home. We have air scrubbers to keep mold and mycotoxins in the area where they can actually be filtered. And then we have air filters and then we have air recirculation. So we're trying to simulate the natural outdoor air as much as possible. And then one other example I'll give you would be electricity. So modern man made EMF is super convenient. We're using it right now to communicate over distance. Kings and queens of old would have killed to have the super library that we all have in our back pockets, and now the artificial intelligence we can use to basically have the world's knowledge at our fingertips. But there's a biological cost to that. There's a biological cost to just about everything. And when our bodies are constantly exposed to that high frequency electromagnetic field, that it's actually more of a. If we want to get deep into the physics, it's more of a square waveform than a sinusoidal waveform that can cause an influx of calcium into the cells. Well, earlier I was explaining how touching the surface of the planet increases the amount of negativity brought into the body, like negative ions, and that helps to restore the body's electrical potential. Well, one of the reasons that's important is because all day long, when we're around WI fi routers and smartphones and smart appliances and a modern electrical environment, we are draining our body's battery due to that calcium influx into the cells and the way that the channels are opened. So in our house, one of the things that we did was we hardwired everything. So I'm talking to you on the Internet, but it's in a room that is wired with CAT 8 metal shielded ethernet cable so that I don't have to run WI fi during the day. Maybe not everybody could do that. But you can, for example, turn off the WI fi router at night when you're asleep. Or another example would be during the day when I'm talking on my phone. See if I can hold it up. Here I just have an Ethernet adapter with a USB C cable on the end of it. And that allows me to hardwire my phone in and use my phone without necessarily having my phone out of airplane mode during most of the day of work. So even the indoor environment, from an electrical standpoint, we really try and make it as natural as possible. So even though I'm using a lot of the modern biohacking technologies and going beyond that into the realm of stem cells and peptides and crazy supplements and everything else, I also try to make my life, and especially my environment, as natural as possible.
Hala Taha
Oh my gosh, I have so many questions. So, first of all, this whole concept of creating a home environment that is optimized for longevity is called building biology. Now, I was talking to Dan Bootner. He's the guy who basically popularized blue zones. I was just talking to him the other day, and he basically helps design cities to be optimized for longevity and mimic the way that certain regions live, that live to be like a hundred years old and everything like that. What kind of businesses exist that can help you modernize your home in this way? Or is this an idea that you've thought about in terms of starting your own business?
Ben Greenfield
Yeah, I think that there's two different ways to look at this. It's a great question. Nobody's actually ever asked me this question on a podcast before. So the way I think about it is there's the part about analyzing your current environment to see if it might be draining your battery or harming you or making you get sick more. And typically that would involve having somebody do a mold analysis of your home that's typically abbreviated ermi, E, R, M, I. You can just Google that search term plus the name of where you live and find somebody who can come through and look at mold and mycotoxins, which are pretty notorious for causing things like brain fog and poor health and sickness. And it's pretty common in a lot of environments, so that's one thing I'd think about. The other one would be having an actual building biologist come through and look specifically at a few things. Usually they'll have a meter where they'll walk through your house and they'll find areas where you're spending a lot of time. This is usually the bedroom in the office, by the way. And it's even more concerning for a kid's bedroom just because they have thinner skulls and more rapidly dividing cells. It's a bigger issue for a young human than a grown human, but an issue for both. And they'll go through with meters and look at things like magnetic fields and electrical fields behind the headboard of the bed where your skull is resting for eight hours a night and should ideally have a little space to not be exposed to electricity because you don't need it during that time of the night. They'll go through and look at how much emf, say certain appliances in your home are putting off. And many of it's modifiable, even though most gosh, refrigerators, freezers, some stoves, air filters, et cetera come with smart features like, let's say, WI fi. Most of the time that can be disabled. And the more you just go through your home and make those tiny adjustments, the more natural you start to feel during the day. It's almost like you don't notice the low level electrical pollution you're getting exposed to during the day. And so you start to turn this stuff off and then kind of like how you feel after you've been camping for a few days. You're like, whoa, this is how my body is supposed to be. I'm not supposed to fall asleep at night, just wired up or get to 2pm and have brain fog. So a building biologist will go through and do that. Usually a mold specialist will go through and look for mold. A building biologist can also go through your home and look at the lighting. Could you replace modern overhead LED fluorescent lighting, which not only produces a lot of emf, but also this low level imperceptible flicker that keeps your body in sympathetic nervous system mode with something that's a little more natural, like what's called biological LED or oled. And those would be examples of the bulbs I was talking about earlier that we use in our home. The air quality is typically something that some type of like an H Vac specialist can come and look at and test just to see if you have good adequate air filtration like a HEPA filter in your home. You can outfit an existing space with just a good standalone filter. Two good ones right now are Air doctor and Jasper. So usually starting off with some kind of an analysis is important. And the analysis is usually going to result in you saying, okay, there's some mold or mycotoxin here that I can get cleaned up by remediation specialists. There's some light bulbs that can be changed out in these main areas where I'm working to allow for something that's more close to sunlight and that can be dimmed or shifted to a red light setting in the morning or the evening. There is space here for some HEPA air filtration so that I'm breathing good clean air. In these areas where I'm working or cooking or working out during the day, there is an opportunity to turn off a few features of smart appliances or even install a few dirty electricity filters in some corners of the office or the bedroom here and there. And then I guess one last thing that we haven't really talked about yet, but that you should definitely take into consideration is getting your water tested. Most people right now are pretty aware standard municipal water supply coming out of the tap isn't ideal when it comes to microplastics and metals and your neighbor's pharmaceuticals and whatever else is in the water supply. But countertop filter under the sink filter. We have gone whole house filtration with both of our homes. Creme de la creme being reverse osmosis to just get as many of the nasty things out of the water as possible is another thing to consider. So if we were to go down and make a list, it'd be electricity, light, air, water, chemicals like mold and mycotoxins. And then you mentioned Dan Bueter and the idea of the blue zones. Well, there's all sorts of common characteristics of the blue zones, right? They don't eat a lot of ultra processed food. They have a huge amount of dietary diversity. They have a lot of emphasis on family and relationships and love. They spend a lot of time outdoors, but they also move and they move on a regular basis. We were joking how I was hiking the last time I was talking to you. I'm walking on a treadmill now. When you walk into my office or just about any room of the house, there's like bars hanging from the doors, those gymnastics rings hanging from a balcony, and there's a treadmill in front of the desk and there's kettlebells in the corner of a few of the rooms. And it's hard to walk through the house and not feel as though you couldn't at any point have a movement snack opportunity. So I pack the home, which is also where I work, such that a standard formal workout at the beginning or the end of the day is an option, not a necessity because I've kind of hacked my environment to be able to move all day long.
Hala Taha
I love that idea. Movement snack, yeah. Bam. Let's be real. Life is totally unpredictable. Things can change fast. Nearly half of American adults would face financial hardship within six months if they lost their primary income earner. This data reminded me why life insurance is essential even if you're a young and profiter. That's why I recommend policygenius as the country's leading online insurance marketplace. They've earned thousands of five star reviews. They make buying life insurance simple, helping you find coverage that fits your budget with guidance from licensed agents. With Policygenius, you can find life insurance policies starting at just $276 a year for $1 million in coverage. It's an easy way to protect the people that you love and feel good about the future. Secure your family's future with Policygenius. Head to policygenius.com profiting to compare free life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save. That's policygenius.com profiting policygenius.com profiting yeah. Bam. Have you ever been shopping online, ready to buy that thing you really want to buy, but then you've got to go find your credit card, put in all your information and then suddenly you forgot what you were even doing and you end up abandoning your cart. Well, if you're like me, that happens all the time. And that's why I love seeing that purple shop pay button because with one click you're checked out in seconds. That purple button means the store is powered by Shopify, the commerce platform that's behind 10% of all e commerce in the US Shopify makes it easy to run everything in one place. Inventory, payments, analytics, plus built in tools for social media and email campaigns so you can find new customers and keep them want to sell globally. Shopify works in over 150 countries if you prefer in person. Their award winning point of sale connects online and offline sales seamlessly with 99.99% uptime and the best converting checkout on the planet. Millions of businesses trust that purple button. Millions of businesses trust Shopify. Stop seeing carts going abandoned and turn those sales into Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com profiting go to shopify.com profiting again. That's shopify.com profiting this podcast is brought to you by Mercury, the banking product businesses like mine use to simplify their finances all in one place. You guys know me. I'm all about working smarter, not harder. And that includes my business finances. And that's why I bank with Mercury. Running a business is tough, but managing your money shouldn't be. Mercury makes it effortless. You get banking, credit cards, spend management and invoicing all in one intuitive product. No clunky banking sites, just a clean, easy to use experience. It's helped me streamline everything from paying contractors to organizing cash flow. If you want a better way to handle your business finances, you'll love Mercury. Ready to see what powerful banking can do for Your Business? Visit mercury.com to apply in just 10 minutes. Disclaimer Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. For important details, check out the show Notes. Speaking about your family, something interesting is that you've got two sons and they're really privileged to be living in this biohacking life. Most families don't live this way, so. So if you could compare your family with the average American family, what do you think the difference is?
Ben Greenfield
Oh my goodness. Well, first of all, I don't want to be mean or throw anybody. No, be mean.
Hala Taha
Like what makes your family better, stronger?
Ben Greenfield
I'll give you a few examples. Let's say the average American family is eating out a lot and eating a lot of processed and packaged Food at home, and sometimes things thinking that they are making healthy choices like Trader Joe's, Costco, in some cases Whole Foods, et cetera. Well, back to the blue zones. The reason that I think we see longevity correlated with a relative absence of processed and ultra processed foods that are largely the type of foods that we eat out of packages and containers is because when that comprises the majority of your diet, you are by definition needing to consume more preservatives, more agents in that food that have been added to it to make it hyper palatable, so that whoever's selling it to you is able to get repeat business. Which I have nothing against, I'm a capitalist libertarian. But at the same time, you should know many of these places that you shop if you're buying out of packages, they're designed to be hedonistic, hyper palatable foods. And typically the food has less water content. Because when a food is packaged or processed, there's a higher risk of mold and poor shelf life if there's a lot of water and hydration in that product. So you wind up having food that's dehydrated, not as nutrient dense and full of more preservatives and fillers than you would have if you were, say, shopping around the perimeter of the grocery store where you see a lot of the produce, the fruit, the veg, the meat, the eggs, the dairy, the stuff that's a little less processed, or perhaps even growing some of your food at home or shopping at the farmer's market. So when you walk into our home and you go into the pantry refrigerator, you don't find a lot of labels that you could scan with one of those fancy food scanner apps. There's a lot of glass mason jars with quinoa and amaranth and millet and beans and legumes. And when you open the refrigerator, it's a lot of sprouts and fresh vegetables and fruits and foods that are for sure immediately recognizable, but also don't come out of packages. So I think that even if you're shopping at a place that you would consider to be healthy, just check yourself if you're having to open lots of packages for every meal that you can consume. And that requires some time. It requires a return to perhaps a little bit more intimate relationship with how to prepare food. We live in a place in Idaho now where Uber eats is even pretty difficult. But you and I started about 20 minutes late today. I went inside and I prepared a big cut of beef for dinner and I rubbed it down with salt and pepper and turmeric and little beef tallow. And that'll go in the smoker later on. And that's going to take like a good 45 minutes out of my day compared to just dialing in and ordering food. But I'm developing a more intimate relationship with my food. My wife will probably make a salad from the garden, one of my sons might make some carrot fries or sweet potato fries. And we'll come together at the end of the day and I'll get to this briefly and celebrate as a family. And during that time that I'm losing those minutes or precious hours preparing me. And I'm still listening to podcasts, listening to audiobooks, having phone calls with my team members. So it's not as though you can't stack productivity on top of developing a more intimate relationship with your food. So that's one thing. I'll give you two more examples. Another is back to the movement piece. We weave movement into our lives all day long. My sons and I are always on pomodoro break schedules where for every half hour we're stopping for two to three minutes to do jumping jacks or push ups or kettlebell swings. At the end of the day, our family is playing cornhole bocce ball, some new game I saw in Shark Tank called paddle smash pickleball tennis. We have the sauna heat setup, so we're going back and forth from the heat to the cold. It's pretty rare that after about 5:30 or 6pm you're going to find anybody in our family sitting around decompressing. At the end of the day in front of a video game or tv, we're all just piled outside playing. Even in the winter we'll go out to a barn or we'll go to an indoor tennis facility, or we'll gather around the family room for something active. And so we weave activity into our lives. And my goal has always been with the family to make the house from obstacle courses to an old Frisbee golf course to converted the barn into a pickleball court to make the house such a fun place to move. Video games and screen time just aren't as appealing compared to having a bunch of fun in the jungle gym that we've created. So that'll be the second thing and then the third. And again, this ties into the blue zones. Holla is at the beginning of the day. You will find our entire family every day, non negotiable, no questions asked, gathered in a special morning family huddle where we all hug each other, we talk about our day. We're a Christian family, so we read the Bible and pray together. We talk about what people are doing that day, who's got the cars and where, what people are making for dinner and who's bringing what. What time are we having dinner. And it's just this big coming together at the beginning of the day that allows us to all just connect with each other in a way that I think a lot of modern Western families don't do. It's kind of like you wake up and everybody's like a ship passing in the night and just off doing their thing. We find that very similar to the relationship with my wife and I, right? If we don't calendar and systematize and structure date nights and time together, keeping your fingers crossed that it's going to organically happen often doesn't pan out. So we have that. And then same thing. 7:00pm, Light Clockwork. Our whole family gathers together at the end of the day. My sons and I usually discuss a chapter of a book because we go through a new book every two to four weeks and it's like a father son book club. So we start off with that and then I get out the guitar, we sing a song together, we all start to pull out the different foods that we've prepared for the evening, we say a prayer and then we bust out card games, board games, party games, and just have a massive family party for like an hour and a half until 8:30 or so. Then we all clean the kitchen together and listen to music and joke and hang out and eventually wind up in one of my son's bedrooms or our bedroom chatting some more and eventually saying goodnight to each other. And so we have these bookends on the day and it's good for the family and our connectivity. It's also good for me as a workaholic driven entrepreneur to know that I. I've got boundaries. My boundaries are I cannot just lock myself away in the office from 5am on because I know I have to be right there in the living room at 7am with my family. And every day is structured around that. And same thing, I cannot be booking calls at 6:30pm or banging out emails at 7pm because I've built in that family gathering at 7pm in the evening. So it helps put some boundaries on me because don't get me wrong, I'm wired up like a lot of entrepreneurs and I'll just work all day long unless I know my family's out there tapping their fingers on the kitchen counter waiting for me. To bust out the guitar at 7pm If I'm in my office on a zoom, that's not going to happen. So those are three things. Eating close to the planet, weaving movement, making it fun into our daily lives, and then really emphasizing, in the same way that we would systematize or calendar any business activity, the activity of coming together as a family and connecting.
Hala Taha
So inspiring. And I know you've got this book, Boundless Parenting, that if anybody really wants to dive deep on your philosophy around that, they can go check that out. So you mentioned that you're making steak for dinner now. I talked to Dave Asprey. He's pro beef, pro meat. Dan, who studied the blue zones like we just mentioned, said that those regions, on average, typically only eat about 20 pounds of meat per year, whereas the average American eats 200 pounds of meat per year. And so he's like, don't do meat, do beans instead. And beans have drama too, with Lectin. So it's very confusing. So talk to us about your perspective around meat.
Ben Greenfield
Yeah, there's always an enemy. It's like the dirty secret in the nutrition industry is if you want to make good money on a book, you write about the one perfect diet for all of humankind, and typically there's some kind of villain that they need to avoid the enemy. And if you're really smart, you design some kind of supplement that will digest the villain for you, and you've got yourself a nice little nutrition business. Things just aren't as simple as that. This is such a deep question with so many tendrils into so many different areas. But a few things to think about is, first of all, there's this book I read. I think it was written in the 60s originally. I found it fascinating when I first picked it up at the library. It's called Biochemical Individuality. And as the name implies, it kind of goes into how we humans have such biochemical diversity, such genetic diversity, different sizes of our stomach and pancreas and liver, and different vitamin D excretion rates and different abilities to digest oxalates that we can't say that there's one perfect diet for all of humankind. We can, of course, look at Dan Buettner's work and say, okay, well, we know that no matter what diet you're eating, you should have meals with families and not eat a lot of processed foods and have a good amount of dietary diversity in plants and herbs and spices. But the first thing to get out of the way is there's not going to be One perfect diet for everybody. The second thing is that when it comes to meat consumption, there can be a lot of issues with the research on the health aspects, especially regarding red meat, because often the source of the meat is not taken into consideration. With these studies, the demographics of the population consuming the meat and what else they're consuming along with it is often not taken into account. And the amount is also important to bear in mind. And I'll explain why briefly. But if you look at someone who say, has heard that red meat is bad for you, which is something you hear a lot these days, that might be the same person who's smoking cigarettes, drinking a lot of alcohol, probably having a lot of seed oils and fried foods, and they can skew the demographic considerably. There's a way to eat red meat healthy, there's a way to eat red meat unhealthy. And I would say a lot of people, especially in a typical western scenario, eat red meat in an unhealthy way, depending on the source of the meat, what it's consumed with and what else their diet is comprised of. So the second thing is that when you look at meat and you look at the meat eaten as the muscle, that muscle has a high amount of the amino acid methionine in it. Methionine is something that can accelerate growth and you'll find it in high amounts in a lot of supplements designed for muscle building or whatever. But if it's not balanced out with some of the other amino acids, particularly one called glycine, there can be a lifespan shortening effect because a mammal who's always in pro growth tends to be at higher risk for things like carcinogenicity or heart disease. So if you look at the dietary habits of many of our ancestors or areas that are not necessarily in the blue zones, because despite how good the blue zones is, I think there's a little bit of a bias towards areas that eat a large amount of plant based foods. If you look at areas where there are a high number of centenarians, other longevity hotspots that are consuming meat, they're often consuming meat in a nose to tail format, meaning they're having bone, broth, bone marrow, liver, kidney, heart, and many parts of the animal that allow them to not just be consuming the muscle meat, the methionine in excess. I didn't get into the nitty gritty details of tonight's recipe, but the tri tip I'm preparing, it's got a very basic salt, pepper, turmeric, oregano, garlic rub on it, but Then, while I cook it on the grill, it's covered with a layering of beef tallow. And then I have bone marrow bones on either side of it that will go on top of the tri tip as the sauce. So I'm implementing various parts of the animal, the tallow, the bone marrow, and the meat itself when I'm preparing that recipe. And I'm also including herbs and spices that help to combat some of the potentially carcinogenic effects of heating or charring meat. And this brings me to the third thing to think about, and that's dietary diversity. We know that the gut microbiome, based on what you eat, and typically, the higher the amount of dietary diversity, the more diverse the gut microbiome. And the more diverse the gut microbiome, the better you become in departments like immunity, brain health, absorption of nutrients, bowel habits, et cetera. So if you again, return to a typical Westernized context of red meat intake, where you might have french fries, red meat, Coke, and a salad might be like iceberg lettuce and a giant tomato drowned in ranch dressing, that's far different than what we see in a lot of the blue zones and other longevity hotspots where people are eating a wide variety of herbs, spices, fermented foods, fish eggs, red meat, organ meats, a very wide and diverse array of foods. And the reason that's important is because the more diverse your microbiome, the more you're able to handle a lot of these plant defense mechanisms that you brought up. Hala, like oxalates, gluten, phytates, plants don't have teeth and claws and antlers and horns and hooves and nails. So they've developed compounds that slightly irritate the digestive tract of a mammal that would then cause the mammal not to come back and nuke that plant population or cause the mammal to poop and propagate the seed out elsewhere of the plant. But if we don't have guts that can handle those plant defense mechanisms, then they can also cause issues. Now in trace amounts. And this is why a very myopic diet isn't such a good idea. In trace amounts, these are known as xenohormetic agents, these plant defense mechanisms that can actually induce your body's own antioxidant production that allow your body to become stronger over time, the same way as it would with small amounts of sauna, cold exercise, cardiovascular movement, strength, et cetera. Now, the more diverse your diet, the better your bacteria become at being able to handle these plant defense compounds. So kind of a long Answer to your question. But when it comes to meat and diet in general, I think the general things to think about are where is the meat sourced from, what is the meat accompanied with? And hopefully that's not sugar, seed oils and processed foods. Are you consuming full parts of the animal and a diverse array of animals, fish, chicken, poultry, meat, liver organs, bone marrow, bone broth, et cetera. Do you have a high amount of dietary diversity in the realm of herbs, spices, plants, vegetables, fruits, berries, seeds, nuts, et cetera, to go along with that meat? And if so, a wide ranging omnivorous diet is overall a pretty good idea. And then finally, of course, we now live in an era where you can get a food allergy test, a genetic test, a blood test, a stool test, a urine test. And this is what a lot of my clients do when they come to me, they get all these tests and I sit down with all that data and I say, okay, you don't need vitamin D. Your levels are just fine. You are somebody who needs more vitamin C and more vitamin E in your diet. You have a true food allergy towards legumes and lectins are a big problem for you, or oxalates are a big problem for you. So you aren't one of those people who just needs to have more dietary diversity to be able to digest these. They're a true allergy for you. So the data driven approach now makes it a little bit easier to not guess. But painting with a broad brush, the devil's in the details. And for the most part, none of these foods that we call poisons are truly poisonous. It's just the amount, the sourcing, what they're combined with that you have to think about.
Hala Taha
So I was on Amazon the other day and I got into a rabbit hole and I found these vitamins that are like beef organs. And basically it's like beef liver, beef intestines, beef organs generally. And I bought a whole bunch of them. My boyfriend was like, what are you taking? Like, why are you taking these things? And I just thought it was really interesting. So what are your thoughts about? To me, I'm not gonna go eat beef heart, but I would take a pill. What are your thoughts about that?
Ben Greenfield
I won't lie. It's hard to make liver and heart and kidney and foods like that taste good. And it also takes longer to prepare them because they tend to be more collagenous and tough. And when I cook foods like that, I even have to soak them in a dairy medium for 24 hours, like kefir or buttermilk. To kind of draw out some of the gamey flavor and enzymatically pre digest some of these organ meats. And if that's not your jam, and back to the time thing, if that's not your highest priority and you're like, okay, I will grill a steak for myself and my boyfriend, but I'm not going to spend 48 hours figuring out how to do liver. Heart casserole capsules like that can be kind of a cool shortcut. The only thing you have to bear in mind is that when you grind up and powder something like that, you're getting pretty highly concentrated versions of these organ meat. And organs tend to be very high in fat soluble vitamins. Fat soluble vitamins, you don't necessarily pee out, your body can store them. And so I recommend everybody get a quarterly blood test anyways. But if you start onto a protocol that includes encapsulated organs, you should consider doing a test for vitamin A, D and E, particularly just to make sure that you're not getting any toxic buildup of fat soluble vitamins. And in most cases, if you're following the label required instructions, not having a quarter bottle a day and you're not stacking it on top of a whole bunch of other organ meat consumption, you're pretty good. And I would consider those to be kind of like nature's multivitamin. That of course, highlights the fact that if you're taking those and also taking a multivitamin that has a bunch of vitamin A or D or E or K in it, you should just take that into account and monitor your blood work just to make sure you're not getting too much of a good thing.
Hala Taha
That's good advice. Okay, so are you measuring your biological age? Do you do this? It's called a DNA methylation clock. Are you doing that?
Ben Greenfield
Yeah. You can measure basically these methyl groups, these carbon dihydrogen groups. I think it's a CH2. They can be cofactors for a whole bunch of different metabolic processes in the body. And by measuring your rate of methylation, you can get what is probably to date, the most current gold standard rough estimation of your biological age, your chronological age. Just like when you're born, biological age is how slowly are you aging now. A company called True Age Diagnostics has probably been the leader in the industry of age testing. And they've got some pretty robust large population studies and big data showing that the biological age that a methylation clock like this tells you can be pretty close to what your actual biological age is. And the more you take care of yourself, typically the lower it is. So there's something to the test. They're more accurate. The ones that you used to get 10 years ago were just based on the rate of telomere shortening. Those weren't super accurate because it was just all they looked at was the telomeres on your white blood cells from a blood spot or a blood sample that you gave, which aren't indicative of telomere length on the rest of the body. And they were known to be wildly inaccurate. The true age methylation tests are a little bit better at predicting how slowly you're aging. You know, at the same time, I raise an eyebrow. For example, if somebody who's 80 shows a biological age of, let's say, 50, does that actually mean they're going to live another 30 years until they're 110, which is pretty rare these days. I mean, the longest living human on record, I think, is 117. Not necessarily so I think it still needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but it can give you a decent idea of biological age. I've been paying a lot more attention to tests that are looking at mitochondrial health and mitochondrial efficiency, because I think that's a better acute proxy for cellular health. I recently did a podcast with Versaya Health, and they have a screening called a me screen. It tests your actual mitochondrial health. And that one, I think, is going to be a really good up and comer in terms of perhaps giving a little bit better indication of how well you're functioning biologically. And I think as they roll tests on the mitochondria out like that, it'll give us a better and better idea of biological age based on something that might even be more accurate or more informative than just methylation.
Hala Taha
Do you have some sort of age goal that you want to reach?
Ben Greenfield
No, no. I mean, back to the longest living human on record. When I see people say this happens in my industry, right, people call me a biohacker, so I fit into this category. People say I'm going to live to 160 or 180 or 200 or someone on the planet right now has reached escape velocity or whatever they call it now, where they're actually aging only one and three quarters of a day for every two days. So they've technically achieved some form of immortality. I think it's silly to expect that we are going to see in the next 10 years some kind of scientific development that's going to allow us to extend average human lifespan. BY Even, like, 10 years, really? I think that's a pretty far cry. However, I think what we can extend is health span. I think that's a more likely metric to adapt really well to a lot of these protocols like oxygen, air, light, electricity, water supplementation, et cetera. So my plan is to live as healthy as possible, as close as possible to the day that I die. If you look at how long a Greenfield man my ancestry goes, typically somewhere between 70 and 80 years old. Maybe by doing a lot of the really healthy stuff that I do, I might get 90. I'd be super stoked if it was 100. But my goal is to just basically be throwing a football, riding a snowboard, swimming in the ocean, lifting weights as close as possible to whatever that day is. So it's more important to me to maintain strength and vitality than to chase a number.
Hala Taha
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Now I'm a type of girl that wears the same types of underwear all the time for my day to day and I thought I knew what I liked. But I tried the Fits Everybody collection and now suddenly I want to replace all all my thongs and underwear and bras with the Fits Everybody collection. And it's funny how that happens. You think you like something and then suddenly nothing ever feels comfortable again. And that's exactly what happened with the Fits Everybody collection because it's so light, it's so soft, it molds to my body. And I especially love their dipped front thong. That is my favorite product so far. It's seamless under my leggings. And if you're a girl, I think you know what I'm talking about. When you're working out, you don't want your leggings bunching up and twisting. You don't want to have to think about your underwear while you're working out. And now that I wear the Fits Everybody collection, I don't think about it at all. It just feels like I'm wearing nothing under my leggings. And the Bralette is another one of my favorites. Now I'm part of the Itty Bitty Titty committee and I always thought I needed to wear underwire for that push up look. But now with the Fits Everybody Collection Bralette, I get that push up without any uncomfortable underwire. And guys, if you're tuning in, Skims Fits Everybody's collection makes an incredible gift for your wife or your girlfriend. Shop the Skims Fits everybody collection@skims.com and after you place your order, don't forget to let Skims know we sent you. Select podcast in the survey and choose young and profiting from the dropdown menu that follows. Let's talk about mindset a little bit. Like I mentioned, I've interviewed Dave Asprey a bunch of times. I think one of the funniest moments on the show is when I was like, Dave, it was when he was 48. So you're 48 years old and he's like, that's ageist. Don't call me that. I'm 27% of my age goal. I'm going to live to be 160. Or whatever he was saying. And he actually, in my last episode was telling me that it's the mindset of him wanting to live to be 160 years old that actually keeps him young. Any thoughts around your mind and if your mind can really control your body in that way?
Ben Greenfield
Oh, I mean, we have studies that show this. For example, when you take older individuals and putting them in an environment in which there was a lot of these nostalgic items of their youth, similar TV sets to when they were in their. I don't remember the exact age, but let's say like twenties and similar paintings and layout of the house and colors and music. And by almost tricking the mind into thinking that it was living in a younger environment, they saw parameters related to aging favorably respond. And I think that people who hang out with younger people who hit the gym even when science says they're supposed to be getting weak and bone density is supposed to be decreasing. People who go out on adventures and many retirements throughout their life, I think on average, tend to have more vitality and vigor later into age. I don't know they necessarily live longer per se. It's tough to say. I don't know if there's really, really good data we could pull on for that. But the idea of hanging out with young people, working out, doing adventures that people wouldn't normally expect you to do, introducing novelty into your life, learning new things constantly, and being a lifelong curious learner, never thinking because you've graduated high school or college that learning is over, doing things that scare you every once in a while. These are all things that I weave into my own life. Right. There's not a year that goes by still, and I'm 43 years old that I'm not signed up for a bow hunting expedition or a spear fishing adventure or a Spartan race or a kettlebell competition, or learning how to cook 10 random new things, or learning a different finger style pattern on the guitar like I was last night to prepare for an open mic night later this month. Every day I ask myself, am I doing something that's introducing a novel stimuli on a daily basis and on a yearly basis? Is there at least one thing that I'm preparing to do that kind of scares the hell out of me in terms of either extrinsic social embarrassment or personal physical challenges or some type of mental mountain to climb. And I do think that that factors into keeping you young.
Hala Taha
Okay, I want to do one more question, and then I want to do a game called Boundless or Bunk. So we touched on this lightly, but I never heard of this concept before researching. There's a concept called longevity escape velocity, and it was popularized by Aubrey De Gray. And it's that science and medicine could extend human life faster than we age, allowing us to live indefinitely. So help me understand. You already said you don't really believe in it or you don't think it's a thing, but talk to us about it.
Ben Greenfield
I used the term earlier. I didn't cite Aubrey, but yeah, the term escape velocity is exactly what you've just described. And maybe I am biased because I believe in two elements of immortality that go beyond the idea that we can somehow, by being cold and hungry and libido less hunched over in a hyperbaric chamber or cold therapy and injecting as many stem cells and young plasma into our bodies as possible. Just keep getting an extra year and an extra year and an extra year. I don't think there's good science to show that is possible. However, I do believe in immortality through legacy and immortality of the soul. Meaning one of the best things that a human being can do and one of the most rewarding and meaningful things that a human being can do is to have children. When you have children, you all of a sudden are surrounded by little human beings who you're training and educating and teaching and developing to become the most impactful people that they can be so they can go forward and make the world a better place using what you've taught them. And do so a long time after you're dead. And do so also if you've done a good job training them through your grandchildren and your great grandchildren and beyond. So I think that we should be putting as much energy into our family and our children as we should be putting into the science of health optimization. And then secondarily I mentioned earlier, I'm a Christian, so I also believe in an afterlife. And I believe that in the same way we should engage in the type of physical fitness and mental rigor I was describing earlier, we should have spiritual fitness baked into our lives that we're caring for this one invisible spark inside of us that will arguably go on to exist for eternity. And so for me, that looks like morning spiritual time. Reading the Bible, praying, connecting to my creator, singing songs, rinsing, washing and repeating that with the family, going to a church where I get to sing and hang out with other people who care for their souls, and basically placing just as high an emphasis on this one immortal part of me as I do on all of the covering in the shell. Which eventually maybe it is going to be 120 or 140 or 160 or 200, who knows? But eventually it's going to be gone. It's not going to be around forever. Physics and entropy dictate that that just can't happen. So I think that focusing on faith and focusing on family lets me see this through a different lens. And honestly, I think it's a really encouraging lens because I don't have to desperately grasp at straws. All I can say, say is, hey, be as healthy as I can be so I can make as much impact as I can and also accept the fact that I will die someday. But I'm going to do the best job I can while I'm here on this planet to leave a lasting impact, train my children, and also ensure that my soul goes on for eternity.
Hala Taha
That's really beautiful. And honestly, Ben, it's why so many people trust you. It's why you've been able to build such an incredible brand, is because you're really out here to help people and not sell them an unachievable dream. And I just really appreciate that authenticity. Okay, let's play Boundless or bunk. So I'm going to rattle off a biohacking trend, things that we've been hearing about. And I want you to rate it 1 to 10. 1 being not good, 10 being really good. Let's go NAD plus injections.
Ben Greenfield
6.
Hala Taha
6.
Ben Greenfield
Why they're beneficial. Your pools of NAD do decline with age. Younger people aren't going to get a ton of benefit out of them and research hasn't yet shown them to be the biggest dial mover for health, but I still place them on the side of the positive scale.
Hala Taha
Continuous glucose monitors for non diabetics.
Ben Greenfield
Oh man. Seven. Maybe closing up on an eight. You know, I obviously wear one. I think what gets measured gets managed. It's one of the best ways to know how lifestyle, exercise and food habits affect what is arguably one of the most important components of metabolic health. Your glycemic variability, you know, how your blood glucose goes up and down during the day.
Hala Taha
Peptide therapy, kind of like NAD.
Ben Greenfield
I'd put it at a 6 based on not a huge amount of robust long term human data on a lot of the peptides. Some long term data out of Russia on a few for longevity like Epitalon or Mot C. Some personal anecdotal success with things like BPC157 or TB500 for injuries or Tessa Marellin for muscle gain or even something like my wife uses when we're going to go on vacation to a tropical climate. Something like Melanitan for tanning. However, kind of like nad, they're not the biggest dial movers for health, but I still put them on the positive side of the scale at 6.
Hala Taha
What is peptide therapy? What is it exactly?
Ben Greenfield
Peptides are short chains of amino acids. Usually 20amino acids are shorter that when injected, can act on a specific organ with pretty good precision. So this morning I was just in LA and one of my friends who I was with down there, she texted me and she has Covid and I was with her for three hours. And so I injected something called Thymosin Alpha 1 this morning, which makes my body churn out a whole bunch of extra killer cells. And that's an example of using a peptide in a smart way to in this case, act on the thymus to upregulate my immune system.
Hala Taha
Cold exposure for fat loss.
Ben Greenfield
For fat loss. 5. Because it depends. New research shows that when you do a cold bath or cold exposure, the average person goes on to eat an extra 300 to 400 calories. So if you don't combine it with actual appetite control, it's probably going to be a wash. It is a myth that women shouldn't do it. It's not extra stressful for women and won't make women fat. It's a myth that it's not good for muscles because you got to be in there for 10 plus minutes for that effect to set in. So overall it can be pretty good, but only if someone is also controlling how many calories they eat. But if I can burn an extra 250 calories by doing a cold plunge and get all the blood sugar regulating and nervous system benefits and not eat an extra 250 calories that balances that out. It would actually help with fat loss.
Hala Taha
All right, last one.
Ben Greenfield
Infrared Sauna 6 for infrared sauna primarily because of a lot of the longevity data reduced all cause risk of mortality, dementia, Alzheimer's, diabetes, et cetera that has come out of Finland. But not higher than a 6 because most of that research was done on dry saunas. And infrared saunas take much longer for that heat shock protein production to set in. And so even though you get a deeper sweat and arguably I think long term research will show infrared saunas could be better for something like let's say heavy metal detoxing. I think we haven't seen as much research on infrared as we have on dry saunas. And my personal protocol is I cold plunge twice a day. I do it the morning before my workout and I do it in the afternoon, typically towards the end of the day just to refresh my body for the rest of the day. I do infrared sauna one to two times per week and that's usually some type of flow yoga that I do in a big sauna that I have that's big enough for a 6 foot 3 guy to do flow yoga. And then I do dry sauna super hot at 230 degrees for about 10 to 15 minutes every day.
Hala Taha
Okay, so I want to end this interview. I want to be respectful of your time on business stuff, so I'm going to ask you a few business questions. If you were building a startup today in the wellness space, where would you place your bets?
Ben Greenfield
I would say a few of the trends that I am focusing on and would focus on would be things that are performing really well right now on the supplement side of things, namely creatine, protein, gummies and keto. All four of those are crushing right now from a supplements or nutrition standpoint. And then I would say another area would be community. I'm very bullish on community and social combined with fitness activities and workouts. Any apps, any communities, any websites, any services, any individuals who have a method to bring people together in an analog environment or digital environment to engage in community, tribe and friendships along with their fitness is also going to be something more and more important going forward. As AI gets better and better at writing out the perfect workout and the perfect nutrition plan for you, we instead are going to see people valuing the ability to build tribe and social life and community around that.
Hala Taha
Okay, my last question on business. So you've built this great YouTube channel. You've got an awesome podcast, you've written many bestselling books, you've got a business. You're a real creator entrepreneur. You are one of the top five people. When you think biohacking, you're at the top of your field. What is your advice to everybody else, regardless of industry, who wants to be a thought leader in their niche category? From a creator entrepreneur lens, I have.
Ben Greenfield
A little bit more of, I guess a Tim Ferriss esque approach to this who probably got it from Kevin Kelly's original essay Thousand True Fans. I think that when you're excited about something, authenticity really shines through and that if you are creating content and recording you doing or talking about something that you truly are excited and passionate about versus doing and talking about something that the numbers have told you you should be excited and passionate about, you are A going to have a good number of people who are also interested in what you're interested in sometimes simply because they've seen how excited you are about it. And B you're going to be happier because you're more authentic. And if you look at the span of my career, I have gone from being 90% Ironman triathlon and endurance sports content to kettlebell Spartan obstacle course racing stuff to family parenting legacy to biohacking anti aging longevity. Well, now I've got if you were to look out my office window right now, I have a tractor out there working on a pond project. I've got four high schoolers down the driveway laying out mats and digging ditches for permaculture and soil and water. And so if I could predict five years from now, you're going to see 60 to 70% of my content is farming, permaculture and homesteading. And that's not because I've done hefty research into whether or not that's what's going to perform well with my audience. I'm simply doing what I'm interested in and loving. I'm recording it, filming it, and educating people along the way. It might actually make less money than me saying, okay, I'm gonna make my entire channel a creatine keto gummies channel. But I'm certainly gonna be happier if there's a camera over my shoulder recording me doing what I love and teaching people what I love to do.
Hala Taha
Such great advice. I love that advice. Okay, so I end my podcast with two questions I ask everyone. The first one is, what is one actionable thing our young and profits can do today to become more profitable tomorrow.
Ben Greenfield
I would say identify, at least for the next week, three things each day you're doing that you don't need to be doing because they're below your pay grade or that your skill set doesn't require those and outsource or delegate them. My business took off as soon as I got out of Scarcity mindset and hired my first va. I went on to make multiple additional hires. And anytime I still do this, I find myself doing something repeatedly that is not my best calling or purpose or that gives me a frowny face. I immediately find how somebody, either a person or a machine, can replicate that.
Hala Taha
And what would you say your secret to profiting in life is? And that's profiting in all areas of life.
Ben Greenfield
Order of Priorities Business used to be first for me, and because my business is the health business, I would say health was probably a close second or equal with business. Now it's way different. My order of priorities from the time I get up till the end of the day is number one, God, number two, my wife, number three, my kids, number four, my health and number five, my business. And that has allowed me to thrive and be fulfilled. And I would say a big reason for that is because we all have an eternal hole in our souls that longs for something eternal. And you can put all the houses and cars and money and businesses and sex and hobbies and sports and anything else to try to cram it in that hole, to fill it up. But until you filled up that hole with something eternal, you're never going to be fulfilled or satisfied. And the only two eternal things that I know of that we interact with or are surrounded by on a daily basis are, number one, God, and number two, the souls of other people. So by prioritizing God and the other people in your life as the top two things, everything else becomes way more fulfilling and you become a more happy person.
Hala Taha
So beautiful. Ben, where can everybody learn about you? How can people work with you? You mentioned that you help people with their health. Tell us about that.
Ben Greenfield
My content hub is BenGreenfieldLife.com you find my book wherever you get books. And then I also do some coaching and have several coaches who also coach for me. And that's all@BenGreenfieldCoaching.com and then I also travel all over the place and speak at various places. So that's@BenGreenfieldSpeaking.com amazing.
Hala Taha
Ben, it's always such a pleasure to have you on the show. I can't wait for you to be back already. I had so many more questions for you. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Ben Greenfield
Awesome. Thanks Hala. I'll be thinking of you while I eat the tri tip.
Hala Taha
Yeah fam. Today's conversation with Ben made one thing clear. True longevity isn't about clinging to extreme hacks or chasing some unrealistic age like 120 years old. It's about living a life rich in health, connection and purpose. We all have the power to build a life in a home that makes thriving the default that starts with crafting an environment that supports movement and energy, nourishing your body with foods that sustain you and protecting the relationships that anchor you. And and remember, there's no one size fits all solution for this. Faith, family and daily movement though, are real non negotiables for a life well lived according to Ben. The beauty of Ben's approach is that it doesn't require becoming a full time biohacker or spending a fortune on optimization tools. It's about small, intentional choices that compound over time and shape the quality of your life. So today I encourage you to take one step toward the life that you want. Create a space that invites health, a routine that energizes you, and connections that give your life meaning. Stack those wins and watch them transform not just your years, but the experience you have living them. If you listen, learned and profited from this episode, share it with somebody in your circle. You never know, it could be the spark they need to start living a boundless life. And if you can, drop us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to the podcast, your support helps us reach more people and keeps bringing you world class guests like Ben Greenfield. You can also catch the full video on our YouTube channel. Just search Young and Profiting Hit that subscribe button and drop a comment with your favorite takeaway from today's episode. To connect with me directly. You can find me on Instagram at Yapwithhala or LinkedIn. Just search my name. It's Hala Taha. As always, I gotta give a massive thank you to the Yap Media family. You guys keep this show at the top of its game. This is your host Hala Taha, AKA the Podcast Princess signing off.
Ben Greenfield
Sam.
Episode: Ben Greenfield: Biohack Your Way to Peak Health and Overall Wellness | E369
Date: September 22, 2025
Host: Hala Taha
Guest: Ben Greenfield, renowned biohacker, health & fitness expert, and author
This episode explores how to design a life—and a home—that fuses ancient wisdom with advanced science for optimal health, wellness, and longevity. Hala welcomes Ben Greenfield back to YAP to discuss the intersection of biohacking, family, business, and living fully. Together, they unpack Ben’s revised book Boundless, delve into actionable wellness habits, movement, home optimization, nutrition myths, and the business of health. There’s a special emphasis on prioritizing faith, family, and purposeful living for a truly “boundless” life.
“Once you publish a book, there’s anywhere from 20 to a billion things that go into your mind that you wish you’d put in the first one.” – Ben (03:39)
“If you look at a lot of the concepts in building biology... a lot of it involves taking what our ancestors would have experienced and replicating that in a modern environment.” – Ben (07:33)
“You don’t notice the low-level electrical pollution... until you start to turn this stuff off. Then, it’s like after you’ve been camping for a few days—‘whoa, this is how my body is supposed to be.’” – Ben (16:38)
“Eating close to the planet, weaving movement and making it fun into our daily lives, and really emphasizing... the activity of coming together as a family and connecting.” – Ben (30:44)
“The devil’s in the details... none of these foods that we call poisons are truly poisonous. It’s just the amount, the sourcing, what they’re combined with that you have to think about.” – Ben (39:56)
“Am I doing something that’s introducing a novel stimuli on a daily basis?... I do think that that factors into keeping you young.” – Ben (53:32)
“All I can say is, hey, be as healthy as I can so I can make as much impact as I can and also accept that I will die someday... train my children, and also ensure that my soul goes on for eternity.” – Ben (57:20)
| Biohack | Rating | Commentary | |------------------------------|--------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | NAD+ Injections | 6 | Useful as we age, but not a huge game-changer for most, especially young people. (59:18) | | Continuous Glucose Monitor| 7-8 | What gets measured gets managed; powerful for insights on food/exercise impacts. (59:38) | | Peptide Therapy | 6 | Anecdotally helpful, some evidence, but long-term human data lacking. (60:01) | | Cold Exposure for Fat Loss| 5 | Only works for weight loss with appetite control; benefits for blood sugar/nervous system. (61:22)| | Infrared Sauna | 6 | Great overall, particularly for longevity and detox, but most compelling data is on dry sauna. (62:17) |
“If I could predict five years from now, you’re gonna see 60 to 70% of my content is farming, permaculture and homesteading.” – Ben (65:59)
On Building Biology:
"My house is an odd place. I get a lot of entertaining comments from visitors because there's about a half million dollars or more of random biohacking equipment scattered everywhere. ... Yet at the same time, we grow a lot of our own food. ... The way I look at it is you can use a full body red light bed ... and you can also get adequate sunlight within moderation." – Ben (04:57)
On Family Systems:
“You will find our entire family every day, non-negotiable, gathered in a special morning family huddle... It’s just this big coming together... And then same thing, 7:00 pm, light clockwork, our whole family gathers together at the end of the day.” – Ben (28:58)
On Mindset:
“Every day I ask myself, am I doing something that's introducing a novel stimuli... Is there at least one thing that I’m preparing to do that kind of scares the hell out of me? ... I do think that that factors into keeping you young.” – Ben (53:32)
On Authenticity & Impact:
"I'm simply doing what I'm interested in and loving. I'm recording it, filming it, and educating people along the way... I'm certainly gonna be happier if there's a camera over my shoulder recording me doing what I love and teaching people what I love to do." – Ben (65:59)
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