The Nick Bare Podcast - 121: Gut Health Essentials with Dr. Will Bulsiewicz

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Dr. Will Bulsiewicz joins the show to break down gut health—focusing on the power of addition, not restriction. We dive into the benefits of fiber, microbiome diversity, and how adding more plant-based foods can improve health. Dr. B shares actionable tips for bloating, constipation, and food intolerances, plus insights on fiber, magnesium, and why extreme diets like carnivore may do more harm than good.CHAPTERS: 02:11 Personal Health Journey and Gut Health03:01 Challenges with Whole Grains10:26 Generational Changes in Gut Health14:13 The Impact of Ultra-Processed Foods23:56 Dr. B's Personal Transformation34:08 Public Health and Missing Elements37:53 Challenges in the Healthcare System45:15 Common Gut Issues and Their Roots47:00 Understanding and Addressing Constipation51:09 Magnesium and Fiber Supplements59:55 Prebiotics, Probiotics, and Postbiotics01:08:14 Pandemic Effects on Gut Health01:10:35 Carnivore Diet and Gut Health01:15:38 Personal Experiences with FODMAPs and Histamines01:19:08 Understanding Histamine Intolerance01:30:51 Exploring FODMAPs and Their Impact01:40:20 Practical Tips for Managing Food IntolerancesORDER DR. WILL BULSIEWICZ BOOK:Fiber Fueled: The Plant-Based Gut Health Program for Losing Weight, Restoring Your Health, andOptimizing Your Microbiomehttps://www.amazon.com/Fiber-Fueled-Plant-Based-Optimizing-Microbiome/dp/059308456XFOLLOW DR. B ON IG:https://www.instagram.com/theguthealthmd/?hl=enFOLLOW NICK AND BPN:Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 20% off FOR LIFEhttps://bpn.team/memberIG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

It's not the focus on subtraction. It's a focus on addition. Like we're talking about how can we incorporate more plants into our diet and why and what is the benefit regardless if you eat meat or not. 100%. And I don't think people should feel bad about eating meat because that's not what my platform is about at all. I take a step back and I go, hold on. Look at the health benefits that come from fiber.

Look at the way in which this can power our microbiome. And here we are, and 95% of America is deficient in full. fiber. And if we're going to say, okay, what kind of changes do we want to make on a public health level that can improve the health of America? We need to start with the things that are missing. So if you make your platform about something that people are already doing, what's the point, right? If I want to actually pull a lever that can impact a person's health, really the most powerful lever is going to be the one that's a combination of a powerful tool that simultaneously they're not doing. If a person's already exercising, you can tweak those approaches.

you can make them better. You can make them more efficient. But you're not going to get the benefits that you would get in the way that you would if you take a person who's sitting on the couch and you get them up and moving. Today on the podcast, we have Dr. Will Bolsowitz. Welcome back. Thank you, Nick. It's good to see you in person for the first time.

It's been a while since we, our first podcast was probably over two years ago at this point. Oh, yeah, I think it was even more than that. I mean, time is flying. It feels like the pandemic is just, like sort of made things go either fast or slow. It's very true. Yeah. It's very true.

Well, I'm excited for this conversation. It's been really fun following your journey over the years since I came across your content, reading fiber-fueled. And just like you being an educational resource has been powerful in my journey with like diet and health. And I know you're a huge resource to so many other people. So first of all, before we see anything else or dive in, just want to say appreciate what you're doing in this space. I appreciate you saying that.

I mean, I think that that's one of the things that I love about you is that you keep it real and it's honest. And you're on your own journey and you're trying to figure it out. And you're incorporating pieces from different people. And it is meaningful to me that part of what you're incorporating is the things that I talk about. On that note, we'll get into it in a little bit. but I was listening to one of your recent podcast you did. It was all about whole grains. And every day I eat rice with like my meat for my second meal.

But I decided to switch out the rice yesterday. And it was, I don't know why I'm blanking on the sorghum. Yeah. It's high protein, actually. I saw that. I flipped over. I was surprised like how much fiber and protein was in sorghum. Yeah.

It's got a nice texture too. I enjoyed it. However, I find, we might as well talk about this now. I find that when I consume certain whole grains, it wrecks my gut. And there's a lot of different fiber sources that don't bother me at all. But like sorghum, for example, yesterday. And it might have been the dose that I consumed it in, super bloated, super gassy in like the back half of the day. And the only thing I changed in my diet yesterday was.

from the sore gum. Yeah. So I guess before we like, we dive into anything else. I'm curious, is it introducing the new type of food potentially? Is it the dose that I consumed it at? Because it was about a cup and a half of sore gum. Yeah. Or is like an intolerance that I might have to whole grains?

My suspicion based upon what you're sharing with me is that, you know, your gut is adapted to what your routine is. right so your gut is adapted to having rice rice and meat at lunchtime and then you basically like shifted hard in a very different direction all in that right exactly and that your gut had never been exposed to sorghum before so you're now asking this to do a new thing it's kind of like look we can talk about we can talk about being in good cardiovascular fitness back in the day when I used to go from soccer season to basketball season, I felt like I was out of shape, even though I was running all over the place for soccer season.

Right. And so I feel like sometimes when we make that pivot to a new food, we have to just acknowledge the fact that, hey, you weren't eating sorghum before. This is the first time you're exposing your gut to it. So let's not go a cup and a half. Maybe let's start with a half of a cup and work our way up from there. Yeah, I was laying in bed last night thinking about that. Cursing my name.

Well, I was so excited. You know, when I listened to a podcast, or I read a book and something grabs my interest. And in this case, it was actually the conversation you were having with Max Lugavir on Max's podcast. And you're talking about whole grains and gluten-free, whole-grain sources. And I never heard of sorghum before.

Never. Yeah. I was like, let me look into this. And based off of the photos I found, it kind of reminded me of kus-k-k-k-k-e. Even though it didn't really taste like kus-k-k-kis, but it looked like kus-k-k-k-s. So as soon as the first of the photos,

I got back from my run, which I do this all the time. I went on Instacart and I ordered three bags of sorghum. So I then go to work. It gets delivered. And my wife sends me a photo of, it came from natural grocers. You know, natural grocers delivers in cardboard boxes. And it sees three big bags of sorghum. And she goes, I think someone accidentally delivered this to our house. But then she said, or did you listen to a podcast? this morning. There it is. Yeah, listen to a podcast. It was Dr. B and he recommended sore gum. Because I'm like, how can I get more whole grain to my diet? How can get more fiber in my diet? What can I replace? I'm like, well, my second meal is white rice every day. What's a better potential option? Yeah. And as I was laying in bed last night, I'm thinking,

did I, did I overdo it? Should I have done like half white rice, half sore gum? Yeah. So like, what is the approach? I know we're kind of jumping right. in, but I'm genuinely curious. If I was going to start incorporating new different foods, especially foods that are higher in fiber, maybe whole grains, how do you kind of ratchet that up to allow your gut to get used to those? Well, you had a very firmly established routine. And part of this is that white rice is like extremely easy to digest, but also not a challenge,

not a challenge to your gut. So it's not really making the gut stronger and more capable of processing and adjusting whole grains. So I think that when you make that transition, like it depends on the individual person. Like I don't think of you as being a person who has gut issues. I don't, I don't think that you really, you really do. Right. Yeah. I don't generally have gut issues. Yeah. But like you said, my diet is very routine. Sure. So, so with a person who doesn't have gut issues, then like the way in which you approach this, I don't think you need to be too gentle until you get to where you are right now, which is that, okay, that was a shot.

across the bow right there right we got to we got now we have to be a little more attentive to how we go about doing this so for where you are now as of this morning i would probably start with like you know three quarters rice one quarter sorghum give it a couple days work your way up to half sorghum half rice give it a couple days within two weeks you're probably at full strength of sorghum flip side if you were a person who has underlying gut issues you have your old bowel syndrome you have a history of bloating, you have a history of food intolerances, then I wouldn't, you know, I would actually be gentle right from the very beginning. I would just take a very cautious approach, acknowledging that the rice is easy for your gut and the sorghum is going to be

more challenging for the gut, but the sorghum will also make your gut stronger as a result. Do you find that with some of the patients you work with or even people you interact with online, this is sometimes what I do is I go from zero to 100. And then I'm, I have a negative effect. Yeah. So then I just go back to my old ways. I'm like, well, this, this food doesn't have a place in my diet. I must have some sort of intolerance.

Do you find that's common? And then to caveat off of that, should we expect some sort of adjustment acclamation period as we start introducing new foods? Well, okay. So first of all, in terms of the last question, like should we expect an acclamation period? I mean, not necessarily. But I do think that gut issues are, number one, highly prevalent in the United States right now. So, like, we're clearly more prone to these types of problems than the generation before us with our parents.

Things have changed. So our baseline, our normal, is much more vulnerable and susceptible to gut issues than it was in the past. And your first question, Nick, you have to remind me. What was the first question? Do you work with a lot of patients or interact with a lot of people online who goes zero to 100? feel the negative effects and then go back to their old ways and don't anticipate the acclamation. Yeah, they totally do. And I think that this is, you know, this is part of what my responsibility is with my platform and when I go out and have a conversation on a podcast is to educate on this topic.

Because the issue is that if you went to the gym, if you hadn't been working out, I mean, obviously you do. If you hadn't been working out and you go to the gym on January 1st, there's a very high probability that you're going to get sore. And like for some people, it hurts a lot. You need ibuprofen. You need like probably seven to ten days of rest before you can go back, right? Would that be a barrier to you go into the gym? Does that make the gym something that you don't want to pursue? Is that something that, you know, does that make it seem like the gym is incompatible

with your life? No, of course not. You went too hard too fast. You got some soreness as a result of that. You recover from the soreness and then you work your way back into the gym, acknowledging that this time around, we just got to take it. a little bit more easy. It's the exact same thing. You brought up an interesting point there, how our digestive systems now in today's environment may not be as responsive or durable as they

once were potentially decades ago. Yeah. What's changed? I mean, there's a number of things. There's an interesting, so I guess let's start with this. There's generational loss of diversity within the gut microbiome. And that's not our fault. That's basically the industrialization of our diet that's happened over the last 100 years. And there was an interesting study that is done by the Sonnenbergs, so Justin and Erica Sonnenberg, who are microbiome scientists at Stanford. And they did this, of course, in a mouse, because you can't do this in humans.

It takes us too long to procreate. but they looked at multiple generations of mice, and they deprived these mice of fiber in their diet. And what they found is that, okay, so let's imagine that grandma has 100, I'm sorry, a thousand different species of microbes in her gut, right? But by the time grandma has mom, she's down to 700 species. So that's what mom gets. Mom gets 700 species. And then mom is still in a low fiber diet.

And by the time she has her daughter, she's down to 400 species. So her daughter gets 400 species. So basically, like, there's this impairment that took place. And what they found in the study was that if you reintroduce the fiber, you can get back some of it, but not all of it. So the concern that exists is that there's a generational loss that's taken place because we're not the first generation to be low on fiber in our diet. Our parents' generation was. But the problem is that if it started with them and then it's,

transfers on to us. We're sort of receiving the baton and then carrying that forward. Part of the problem is our diet. Like you and I, we grew up in the 80s and like ultra-processed food was taking over, right? Like I routinely grew up eating junk food, chips, drinking Kool-Aid, SpaghettiOs for lunch with spaghetti. SpaghettiOs. Yeah. Forgot all about spaghetti's. Chef Boyer D. Chef Boyer D. Yeah. Yeah. Man. Yeah. And so, and this is the kind of food that we grew up with. Yet at the same time, like I specifically remember, I was born in 1980.

I specifically remember when Nintendo, the original Nintendo, came into the world. And it changed everything. Because prior to that, I was playing outside constantly. And from that point forward, everything that I did was so that I could get some time to play Nintendo. So maybe I played outside for a little bit, but then I wanted a couple hours in Nintendo time. Right. Right. So all of these changes that if you think about are sedentary lifestyle, the devices,

like the average adult in the United States spends six hours a day on their devices, right? So, I mean, that's six hours that we could be doing something that's building our microbiome, but instead we're sitting somewhere staring at a screen. I hate when I get the notification of my phone that says, like, your daily average. It's brutal, isn't it? I'm like, dude. Yeah. How?

First off, and like, why are we doing this? Well, because we don't even realize how many times a day we, like, pull. out our phone and check because we get a little mini dopamine hit. Yep, that's a thing. So, yeah, so, and, you know, it's this combination of things, including the exposure to bright light in the evening that's disrupting our sleep that ultimately is putting us into a position where, in general, you take the average microbiome in the United States, and it's a third less species of microbes compared to someone who lives in a third world country. It's pretty substantial loss. What does cause the reduction in fiber in the diet?

over these decades, is it the introduction of processed and ultra-processed foods? I mean, I would argue, yes. I would argue that it's really an ultra-processed issue. Because the average percent calories from ultra-processed foods for an adult in the United States is 60 percent. That's the average.

So if we went to eating real food, right? If we actually ate real food, then you would have some combination, like if you're an omnivore, you would have some combination of meat, and then a combination of different plants. And that's your plate. And that's pretty basic.

And that's like actually a formula for success in 2025. Like it's amazing how far we've drifted that we have to make an argument to eat real food to try to bring people back to normal. It's insane. You have a stat that's like a certain number of plants you try to eat per day or is it per week? Per week. How many plants is it? Well, the goal should be 30. And it's 30 different?

30 different. But like, first of all, let me say this. because sometimes I think people hear this and they kind of panic. It feels too much. Okay. So this is not 30 different vegetables. This is not 30 different raw vegetables. This is all fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seeds, nuts, legumes, herbs, spices.

All that counts. Okay. Every single one. And if we, if we, you know, here's the issue, Nick, like truly, that our food system will not do this for you. So if you're relying on the food system to help you to make choices of what you put into your body, it will fail. And then your body fails as a result of that.

The flip side is that if I successfully install this into your consciousness so that when you walk through the door of that supermarket, I'm not just talking about the fresh produce section. I'm talking about the whole supermarket. you walk through that door, if you're thinking, what can I add? What can I add? You're going to be successful. And it's not a matter of did he hit this magic number of 30 because that's not what it's really about. It's about where are you today? And then where can we move this to increase the variety of different plant-based foods in your diet? And the reason why, by the way, this is so important

is that we have to think about like what is the makeup of our food. And when it comes to plant-based foods, there's certain specific things that we should be chasing in our diet that we get from unique plants. And that includes fiber. Fiber is not a generic thing. That's like saying protein is a generic thing. That would be like saying that the protein in a bean is the same as the protein from a steak. They're not the same. The protein, the fiber in a plant is unique to the individual plant. So every plant has unique types of fiber. And those unique types of fiber will feed different families of microbes. So when you eat kale, it's not the same effect on your microbiome as if you grabbing a handful of nuts. They're not the same. That's why we want both, because then we can

feed all of the different families. The other issue is the polyphenols. So polyphenols are basically responsible for the colors of the food. So when you hear people say, eat the rainbow, basically what they're saying is eat a wide variety of different polyphenols. So again, every single plant has a unique mix and blend of polyphenols. So when we start to piece this together, then we're creating actual biodiversity in our diet in terms of the chemicals that we're bringing into our body that can provide benefits to our microbiome

and to our whole body. Biodiversity in our diet translates into biodiversity within the microbiome. And that ultimately is a strong, resilient microbiome that protects us from disease. And this is why this concept works. But the problem is, like, you walk into, to your supermarket and 75% of the calories come from three plants.

Yeah. One of my favorite messages that you share on social is just the simple concept of addition rather than subtraction. Yeah. And I remember when I first came across your content, that's what really stood out to me. Or it's like a lot of people, a lot of people struggle with nutrition and how to clean up their diet and what they should be focused on. and there's so much fear mongering out there

that people are looking at what they should remove or reduce and eliminate. But if we shift the focus and the thought process into what can I add, you will naturally eliminate things because you're adding the right things too. You can't just add, I can't add broccoli, seeds, nuts,

kale, vegetables, fruits, all these things on top of what I'm already eating if some of those things were bad because I'd be overly full and uncomfortable. So one of my favorite ways to get, and kind of like you said, it probably sounds intimidating 30 different sources of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, all of these things a week. One of my favorite things to do, like tonight's dinner is a good example. We make these just like big nutrition bowls. It's just the only way we can describe them.

And we'll do like a, we'll do like a base. of quinoa and then we'll have a protein in there and then I'll add pumpkin seeds avocado bean sprouts diced up tomatoes uh some kale uh pickled onions onions uh peppers like I'll just load it sure and then I'll do like an olive oil lemon juice on top and for me it's knowing that I just got so much nutritional value out of this meal yeah and I probably knocked out 10 to 12 of these 30 sources that I need for the week. That's right. Yeah. And the key there is that you just thought about it, right? Because you thought about it and you're like, okay, this opens up the opportunity for me to crack open my pantry.

See what seeds and nuts are in there. Crack open my refrigerator and see like what are the options that I have that I could potentially throw into this thing. Right. And that's how you ultimately made that happen. But the other thing to bear in mind is like as you're sitting there and you're talking about this, dude, I'm getting hungry. That sounds delicious. Oh, yeah. Right. And there's different things that have different flavor profiles. Like the pickled onions, they kind of stand out. There's nothing else that can replace that. It's highly unique and it adds a lot of great value. And also the textures, right? Like I love the idea of having the crunchiness in there so that like the keemobat itself doesn't provide that, but some of these other things do. We'll do crunchy chickpeas all the time to get some crunch, some texture in there.

Exactly. So, I mean, I think that that's a beautiful thing. Like when I think about opportunities similar to that, I think about. I think about smoothies where you can just like pull out your Vitamix and just start dropping stuff in there. Like don't miss the seeds when you're making a smoothie. Chia flax, hemp, basil seeds, they should all go in there. Soups like what's better than like a hearty minestrone, right? Where you could literally throw 12 or 15 different plants in there if you wanted to.

And the cooking of it because it's slow cooked, it's very easy for your body. to digest that. And you're still getting tons of benefits from that. There's no loss of benefit there. So, and then like sauces. We're a big fan in our house. We go to Costco and we get Rayos, Rios tomato sauce. Yep. And I never thought that I would be someone enthusiastic about paying $8 to $10 a jar for sauce. But to me, it's worth it. And you set that up on the stove and then you just kind of figure out like, what do you want to throw in there? Right. To me, it's, Tomato sauce by itself, it's nice. Tomato sauce that basically, like, you've thrown in six different plants, including garlic

and onions, maybe some spinach, mushrooms, peppers. Like, there's so many options of what you could put in that sauce. And it cooks it down. It makes it delicious. It adds flavor, right? The addition is to your benefit on so many levels. Do you add that to pasta? How do you eat that sauce?

Yeah. So we'll do, like, in our house, we'll do an organic whole wheat pasta. But, like, Rios tomato sauce. is so versatile. You could throw that over anything. You could throw it over your quinoa, your white rice, your sorghum, you could throw it.

I mean, you probably could throw it over your steak if you wanted to, like whatever you want. Yeah. Honestly, that's one of my favorite sauce. This is like a tomato sauce. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. How can you get away from that?

All right. So we dove in real quick. I want to pull back a little bit just to set the stage and provides more context as we explore the rest of this conversation. I find it really important that people, individuals need to feel and be connected to their work. And by being connected to your work, that's the power of narrowing your focus often on that thing, having your thing.

I'm curious, how has your thing become gut health and even more specifically pooping? Well, I'd love to take a fantastic dump. So that's part of it. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But as a gastrologist, I'm the one who is given the professional freedom to actually go out and talk about it. Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah, it's a great thing. It's liberating.

You know what? I think that there's actually, like, this is an interesting story. So let's talk about this for a moment if we could. Because, so for those of you who are meeting me for the first time, this story really started. in like roughly 2012 for me where I was 32 years old. I was well into my medical training, but still in my training. So I spent 16 years total, including college all the way through to the finish line in order to like become a board certified gastroenterologist. So and I was 50 pounds overweight. I mentioned earlier like I played soccer. I played three sports in high school.

Right. So I was an athlete. But here I am and I was 50 pounds overweight, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, I was anxious, depressed. And even though on paper, everything was going my way in real life, I was like basically had extremely low self-esteem. So I was struggling. And I knew I was struggling. And I needed to fix this and I needed to figure out. All right.

And so what I did being at this time single in my early 30s, being a dude, I went to the gym. And I started doing like really quite intense workouts where I would. like basically smash the weights for 45 minutes. And then if it was cold, then I would run for anywhere from a 5 to a 10K. And if it was warm, I was in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I would jump in the pool and do 50 to 100 lengths. So that's what I was doing. I got faster. I got stronger. I did not lose the gut. I didn't lose the weight. I didn't fix the issues. That's not to devalue exercise. It's important. But what I was missing nutrition, that was the issue is that I was raised on a

where my parents were divorced. I lived in upstate New York. My mom was at work. I would come home. I had two younger brothers and we would fire up the grill and we would eat hot dogs every single day. Right. That's that's my normal. And so I had to come to the realization that my food that I loved and that my family celebrated was actually my problem. And that required me to make a change. What worked for me was to initially start with a blender. and create smoothies. And I felt instantly so much better. I was so energized when I did that.

It was like the thing that was missing from my life had come back in and I was filled up with color. What were you putting in these smoothies? Just like a mix of different like basic smoothies. So bananas, bananas, berries like heavy on the greens, maybe some chia or some hemp seeds, something like this, right? It's not a magical formula. But those things weren't in my diet at all.

And that allowed me to transform my health. I did have gut issues. And my gut issues improved as a result of me doing these things. Now, here's the part that I think is important to point out. So this, as a medical doctor, changed my life. I had to bring this into the clinic to help my patients. And that's what led me to where I am today. Because I became compelled to do that because of the way in which it changed my life.

But it's interesting because you mentioned to the Max podcast. And I was just in LA, you know, hanging out with him. He's a really nice guy, really good guy. We got along really well. And I understand. Like he has a different take than I do, right? And there's actually a lot of common ground there that people may not realize. I really appreciated and respected how you guys acknowledged that in the episode.

Yeah. Because for most people who follow Max and then potentially follow you too, you would almost think that you are complete opposites and going to debate these two different topics. But I came to realize during that conversation that you guys align on a lot of things. We align with a lot of things. And like the stuff that we don't align with is not 90% of your diet. Right. So and I think that you can absolutely take the concepts from both of us and achieve massive health gains as a result of that.

Yeah. So, but the interesting thing is that I understand from Max's percentage, perspective that his mom ate a vegetarian diet to try to protect her health and then her health failed. So I understand how that emotional element for him informs the way that he has a view to nutrition. And I get that. And I have no issue with that. And in the same sense, my friend, Simon Hill from The Proof, and he's a very close friend of mine. He's actually my business partner on 38 Terra. Simon, he grew up. up and his dad had a heart attack of 42 years old. And his dad was a heavy meat eater. So from Simon's

perspective, that's a problem. Right. So my point is that I get how there's these elements of like, something happens in our life that changes our worldview. And it's really hard to like get away from that. And I don't think there's a problem there because at the end of the day, again, like even though Max and I are not exactly the same when it comes to nutrition, I think that if you were to take the boundaries of where he is and where I am and operate in the space that exists in between them, you're in a really good place. Yeah. One of my favorite quotes is that the concepts are few, but the methods are many.

Yeah. And I think it's very applicable to health and performance and even diet that the concepts that we're talking about, there's very few that we know are effective. work. But there's so many different methods to get there. And I also do appreciate that people come from different experiences and backgrounds and

potentially dramas that have shaped what they prefer, what methods they prefer to incorporate into their life to accomplish the things that they're trying to accomplish. And even if I don't

necessarily align or or do exactly what someone else might do, I can respect and appreciate that. Yeah. Well, at the end of the day, I as a medical doctor, am driven by outcomes.

So this is not about, like from my perspective, my platform is about helping people to achieve better health, period. And so it's not that I plant my flag and say, hey, you have to follow to a T the way that I do things. And if you don't, you're a bad person. Like that's not what it's about for me. If a person achieves better health, that's where I want them to be.

That's all I care about. And I'm happy if that's the case. Right. Yeah. At what point did you go plant-based and stop eating meat? So it was a transition that took place for me. And I guess, first of all, some terminology that I think is important is like, I believe in a plant-based diet.

And to me, a plant-based diet is not necessarily the same as a vegan diet. So to me, veganism is an ethical choice. And it's the absence of animal products because of the ethical concerns that you have. And there's a couple different versions of how that exists. Whereas to me, plant-based is the idea and the concept of valuing plants, acknowledging the health benefits and not necessarily saying that your diet needs to be 100% made up of plants. There are many versions of plant-based diets that are actually omnivorous diets. and that I absolutely believe can provide the health benefits that people are looking for.

So to me, plant-based is an umbrella term that would include a Mediterranean diet, that would include a flexitarian diet, that would include versions of a paleo diet, or even versions of a keto diet, or would include a vegetarian diet, and would include some versions of a vegan diet that we would probably call a whole-food plant-based, you know, 100% whole-food plant-based. So to me, that's sort of the way of the land, as I, I see it. And ultimately, what I'm looking for is like a guy like you, I'm looking to basically help you to understand the value that comes from eating a wider variety of different plants

and making that a priority so you don't lose track of that. And then whatever that makes up in terms of your diet, if you're thriving and you're feeling well and you're where you want to be from a health perspective, I've accomplished my goal. I feel really good about that. Okay. That makes sense. But you don't eat meat, correct? I don't eat meat. Right. I don't eat meat. Right. I don't. I don't Don't eat meat, but like, and I guess to that, let me acknowledge. The reason that I'm absolute in not, so I don't eat any red meat, I don't eat any poultry. And the reason why I'm absolute in that regard is, is basically from an ethical perspective for me. Okay.

Right. But again, like I fully acknowledge that a flexitarian diet or a Mediterranean diet, where like again you're prioritizing plants those are healthy diets i have no issue there so like from my perspective those things the fact that i don't eat me is not really a part of my platform at least i don't feel that way because i'm not telling people that you have to be completely devoid of meat in order to be healthy yeah i think it's a really clear message to distinguish at this point in the conversation is you're not pushing this position or narrative to not consume meat but i i love the you that you phrase it before words, you're focused on being plant forward. Yeah. So an emphasis on

how can you, and again, it's, it's not the focus on subtraction. It's a focus on addition. And like, we're talking about how can we incorporate more plants into our diet and why and what is the benefit regardless if you eat meat or not. A hundred percent. And I don't think people should feel bad about eating meat because that's not, that's not what my platform is about at all. Right. Right. But I think that like if you take a step back, if you put yourself into my shoes, I take a step back and I go, hold on. Look at the health benefits that come from fiber. Look at the way in which this can power our microbiome. Right. And here we are. And 95% of America is deficient in fiber. And if we're going to say, okay, what kind of changes do we want to make on a public health level that can improve the health of America? We need to start with the things that are missing. So if you make your platform about something that people are already doing, what's the point? If I want to actually pull a lever that can impact a person's health, really the most powerful lever is going to be the one that's a combination of a powerful tool that simultaneously they're not doing.

So I think there's diminishing returns that exist where if a person's already exercising heavily, you can tweak those approaches, you can make them better, you can make them more efficient. but you're not going to get the benefits that you would get in the way that you would if you take a person who's sitting on the couch and you get them up and moving. Right. Right. So that I think that's a big part of like also sort of main the framework of the way that I approach these things is that people are not eating plants. The average American is 10% plant based, right? People are not eating plants.

People are not consuming fiber. And here are these foods that have an opportunity to really power our health. And it doesn't need to go from 10% to 100%. It could go from 10% to 60% or 70% and I'm in a super good. place because I think you're going to feel the benefit from that regard. I want to really get into fiber here in a little bit. But before we do, I want to spend a little bit of time around your experience in med school and prior to your discovery of food's ability to transform the gut, specifically fiber's

ability to transform the gut, what were you being taught in med school that is the solution to some of these gut issues? And then simultaneously, what are? are doctors in your field doing or prescribing that don't have this emphasis on food and fiber specifically? Yeah. Well, so I think that the big issue is that medical education is completely disconnected from diet and lifestyle.

Right. So, and I think part of the reason why this happens is that medical education happens inside of a hospital where you meet a person for the first time, they're acutely ill, they're so severely ill that they need to be hospitalized in order for you to get them like reoriented and back on track. And in that particular moment, that's not where your focus is. Your focus is on medications. What are the medications that I can use on this person who's acutely ill for me to get

them back on track out of the hospital, back home and healing? Right. So I understand why medical. education is structured the way that it is. But the problem is it's a total failure in terms of our goal of having a healthier America. Because at the end of the day, we have completely missed the opportunity to prevent the person from ending up in the hospital in the first place. And how can we have a health care system that doesn't care about your health until you're actually diseased? That's insane. Yeah. And in medical school, the amount of nutrition that we're

taught is, so you have to keep in mind, here I am. It's 2025. And, I was in medical school from 2002 until 2006. In 2003, I had two weeks of nutrition education. And that was not how do I talk to a patient about what they should eat in order to improve diabetes or to improve their blood pressure, whatever it may be, or to lose weight. That two weeks of nutrition education was, what happens if a person is deficient in vitamin B6? Well, how often do we diagnose that? How relevant is that to having a real practical conversation with your patient? So this is the issue is that doctors are not provided any sort of formal training on how to talk to their patients.

And then simultaneously, the other issue that's happening, Nick, in the healthcare system is that doctors don't have control over their time. Basically, the insurance company dictates the compensation to the doctor, which dictates the amount of time that a doctor has with their patient. because in order to make ends meet when the cost of renting your office space is going up and the cost of employing people is going up and the cost of the medical devices and equipment that you buy is going up, doctors are basically forced into more patients than less time. This is what's happened over the last 30 years. And so here we are and there's no time to actually talk about nutrition. You just write a prescription and you walk out the door.

It's really sad. I don't act like I'm on the side of the system by any means with this question or comment. But isn't there an assumption that you would bring in a specialist at that point? And isn't that the point of a registered dietitian? Or is it the fact that just the registered dietitian doesn't get integrated or implemented enough in those situations? Doctors are trained. Dietitians are trained, but they're not trained together. They're not talking to each other.

I know zero registered dieticians from my medical education. I never met any. That's wild. Yeah. I never met any. So we're in our space. they're in their space. And then the problem is that there's not this integration.

There's not communication between the parties. And truly, if our healthcare system cared about nutrition, they would allow people to use their health insurance, the money that they're spending, which obviously is a ton of money on health insurance, you would be allowed to take those funds and apply it into seeing a dietitian. And you're not. There are very limited opportunities where a person can get,

their health insurance to cover the expense of going to see a registered dietitian. So for the average person to go and see a registered dietitian have to pay out a pocket in addition to their health insurance fees, they're not willing to do it. So we end up getting stuck where basically like, yes, there are dietitians out there. And I agree. Doctors should be integrated with those dietitians where they're working hand in hand. Ideally, in a perfect world, they're in the same office, in the same room with the same patient at the same time. That's the way the health care actually should be done is we work in collaborative teams in the same space as opposed to communicating through charts. Right. Right. But, you know, here we are. And the problem is, like, if I refer to someone

to a registered dietitian, there's a high probability they're going to have to pay with their own money for that. Yeah, that seems like it's a some sort of broken line of communication. A hundred percent. an opportunity in some way. Is that why more people like yourself are leaving traditional practice and pursuing different routes because you can actually make differences outside of the traditional medical system? Yeah.

So for me, I guess there's a bit of a story that leads into this, which is that I made the decision. So I started my social media in 2016. And like this was to share the story. of what was happening in my clinic because I felt like the world deserved to hear this, right? It's like the democratization of knowledge, which is that you can change your diet, you can change your lifestyle, and it will radically transform your health, and it will ideally prevent you from having to come see me as a gastroenterologist, right?

That was the message that I was trying to put out there. It led to fiber-fueled my book, which came out in 2020. I didn't know anything was going to happen with this book, right? From my perspective, I was a gastroenterologist in the community taking all different forms of insurance, including the lowest forms of insurance that exist. And I was taking call every third night. And I worked really hard to write this book. And then all of a sudden, I have like literally journalists and new patients and like all these different things that are coming out of the woodwork and coming at me. And my time was getting completely consumed and dominated.

So I was in. Do you self-publish that book? a publisher. No, I published it through Penguin Random House. Okay. So my publisher is Avery, which is one of the divisions, one of the divisions of Penguin Random House. So, but like it was a one book deal, I'm going to write this book. I'm going to continue in my career as a gastroenterologist. But then, like, all of this work, I didn't anticipate that all of this work would come out. And so I was basically getting spread so thin that I got to a place where it's like, okay, here's your choice. You can only have two out of three things. And the

three things are, number one, you can continue to be a very well-respected gastrologist in your community who cares for a few thousand patients. Number two, you can be an author and you can scale and try to get out and connect with millions of people, using the exact same information concepts. And number three, you have a family. You have a family. So as you know, I have four kids now. And at that time, I had two.

And I could see where me not being home at all was starting to affect my kids. So I felt like, okay, I have to choose. And if I don't make a choice, it's my kids that are going to suffer. Right. And that's not acceptable to me. So ultimately, it was the decision I want to pursue this dream of like, I think that I can get out there and try to use what I've learned to try to help millions of people, right? And make this information publicly available. So that was the choice that I made.

Now, with that in mind, I feel that there is an opportunity that exists for all physicians to take a step back and ask the question, is there a better way for us to do this? So this is a question that I'm constantly asking. And it's not just in how I present things with like social media or doing a podcast. It's also like creating a clinic where I'm going to interact with people and try to guide them personally to health outcomes. Peter Atia has done this, where basically IKEA's healthcare version 2.0, which is conceptually what I'm talking about right now, where he's stepping back and saying, our current system is broken, I'm going to do it a different way. We're going to see what happens. I have many friends that are in the business who are not public figures that are looking at how can I take a step back and create something different that will help people to achieve their goals. The system is forcing this on us because when you squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, at some point, things break. Right.

And they pop. And so you force doctors into a position where they have to look elsewhere. And that's what's currently happening. But I think what ultimately is going to happen is that pressure is going to lead to the creation of new opportunities that could be good for us. Yeah. I know some of people in my life who have gut issues. Gut issues are such a common occurrence in so many people.

I feel like every time I meet someone new, like there's some sort of gut issue they're experiencing. and I'm constantly hearing about how they are let down and failed by the traditional system. So they end up fixing their gut most likely through someone they find like you on social media or going through a functional doctor or reading a book or just trying new things and trial and error and experimentation. When you were in practice, what were the most common gut issues that you were witnessing? I think constipation is epidemic in the United States. I think like there's way more people who are constipated than they even realize it.

They manifest it with bloating. Your old bowel syndrome is, was about 20 or 25% of the people who came through the door. Acid reflux is very common. The number one most prescribed drugs in America are nexium and protonics and prilosec and things like this, which are the drugs that we use to treat acid reflux. So we know we have a problem there because those are the top, you know, three of the top 10 drugs there. And then like health conditions like inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, celiac disease, microscopic colitis. These are diseases of the immune system that manifest

in the gut that are clearly on the rise. So these are the common things that I would see. But, you know, the reason why people don't get good results by going to their gastrologist is that if the root of the problem exists in the microbiome and we don't even acknowledge the microbiome, let alone start to pull the levers that allow us to heal the microbiome, then you're never going to actually fix your problem. You can patch it up and you can put a sheet over it with medication, which may help you to reduce your symptoms. But the actual disease, exists within the microbiome. That's the origin of the disease.

And so you'll be in a constant battle to fight those symptoms because you never actually healed anything. Can we talk about constipation a little bit? It's just such an interesting thing to say. Can we just talk about constipation a little bit? Very comfortable talking about these things. You mentioned that a lot of people

who are actually constipated don't realize they're constipated. Totally. And they cover up or they blame it around just being bloated. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I think that's a pretty common thing that I hear is like, I just ate this. I'm really bloated. I'm like super gassy. Like what is constipation? What are the levels? And what do you mean when you say that? Yeah. All right. So the issue with constipation is that many people,

when they hear constipation, they think, oh, it must mean that you haven't pooped in a week. Well, if you haven't pooped in a week, you're definitely constipated. I don't need any additional information to make the diagnosis there. But actually, there's many different variations and forms on constipation. And the way that I would characterize this, Nick, is that to me, constipation is the inadequate relief of your bowels. So you're just not, you're not mobilizing your bowels enough to keep your gut in a rhythm. And if they're not, if it's not moving out, then it's backing up, right? And it doesn't need to necessarily come out as a hard lumpy bumpy, bumpy stool that you had to strain in order for that to count as constipation.

You are backing up. And because you are backing up, your gut is out of rhythm. And because your gut is out of rhythm, the food that you put into your body is going to create gas bloating. And you're not going to feel well. So what you experience from a symptoms perspective is gas and bloating. I want to say that gas and bloating is the number one. symptom associated with constipation. It's commonly tied to pooping. For the listeners at home, here's a trick. Pay attention to your bloating symptoms around your bowel movement.

If you have a good bowel movement and your bloating is gone for at least a few hours, you have just proven to me that your symptoms are tied to pooping. And then the argument becomes, are you pooping enough? Do we need to poop more? There are some people who poop every day and they're still constipated, right? And the reason why is because that one poop, it was not enough to completely evacuate their bowels. So they're backing up.

Sometimes it's that they have a small poop. Sometimes it's that they did a partial. And then like 45 minutes later, they feel like they have to go. again because they never actually completely emptied. So and then sometimes there's people that are like, I poop three, four times a day. But like if you actually dig into the details with them, you discover that every single one of those poops was just like a partial because they had to strain to force it out. So what's the sweet number? What's a sweet spot? The sweet number is when you're completely devoid of symptoms. So because you are completely and effortlessly emptying your bowels,

you are satisfied. You feel good. Like it actually is slightly blissful after a good. bowel movement and you have no symptoms because your gut is not backing up as a result of this. So, and for some people, that might be once every two or three days. And that's okay. If you are free of symptoms and you're pooping once every two or three days, you're perfectly fine, right? But it could also be the person who's pooping four times a day yet they're super bloated and they're not really having good, healthy evacuations. So it's the acknowledgement that there's this tie between gut symptoms and our pooping. And that if that's the case, if pooping improves your symptoms, then there's a very strong

possibility that by increasing how often we poop or the volumes of our poop can actually make us feel better. So how do we accomplish that? Like the tactical next step. If someone's listening to this right now, I'm like, holy crap, no pun intended. Yeah. This is me. Yep.

What do I do now? Yeah. So typically where I like to start with this is a combination of a fiber supplement and some sort of laxative. So let me unpack that. First, it should come to the laxative and what I like is magnesium. The vast majority of America is actually deficient in magnesium even when they're eating a healthy diet. So we could actually use more magnesium in general. But if you choose the right magnesium, there's many different forms.

magnesium oxide, magnesium citrate, magnesium sulfate. Those are the three that are good for constipation. The reason why is because they don't get absorbed by the body as easily. Whereas if you do magnesium glycine, magnesium three in a, things like this, those are great for sleep. You should take them at night. Those are great for restoring magnesium levels in your blood, but they're not good for pooping. So again, oxide, citrate, sulfate.

And what you do is you start to gently increase the amount of these. start off at like four or 500 milligrams, and you start to gently increase the amount. So don't go too hard too fast because that will give you diarrhea. Right. So start off at, let's say it's 500 milligrams. Give it four days. How do you feel? Are you pooping any better? Have you noticed an improvement in your symptoms because you're pooping better? Right. If you're not where you need to be, then I would go from 500 milligrams to 750. Again, give it four days, right? Allow your body to readjust, to reaccommodate. Continue to work your way up. You can get easily into 1,000, 1250 or 1,500 milligrams per day. We have research studies with magnesium oxide at 1,500 milligrams per day. Now, the key here is that,

like, you shouldn't just do this on your own. You should do this in conjunction with your medical doctor just to make sure it's okay. If you have chronic kidney disease, you should not be doing this. And the thing to bear in mind is that you can very easily get your blood magnesium levels checked. So when you get to the other side where you're on a stable dose and you're maintaining that stable dose of magnesium, you just get your blood level checked and you make sure that it's where you want it to be. My experience is that the vast majority of time, even when people are taking what sounds like a large amount of magnesium, they're actually right where they wanted to be because they're started deficient and this magnesium is not really absorbed very well.

so they end up actually somewhere in the middle of the range of where they're supposed to be, the desired range. So magnesium is the laxative. Magnesium is the laxative. Yeah. And the way it works is by pulling water into the intestines to help to keep things moving through. So and then what you do is once you're pooping, phase two is to sprinkle in the fiber supplement. The reason that I don't do the fiber supplement in phase one is because for some people who have pretty significant constipation, that can actually make it worse.

So, and then they, you know, they have more bloating. They may even be more constipated. And then they curse my name and they say, Dr. B, you told me the fiber supplement and I'm feeling worse now. Okay. Get the bowels moving first. Once the bowels are moving, then next comes the fiber supplement. And the fiber supplement helps you to keep them moving.

And it gives it form so that it's a nice, healthy sausage-shaped bowel movement. It's not loose. It's not mush. It's not water. It's shaped like a sausage, but it's soft, soft and formed. Interesting. So do you take magnesium daily? I don't take magnesium daily because I don't want to time out.

I take magnesium, but not the type that I'm talking about. Okay. So like I take magnesium glycinate at night as part of my like nighttime supplement protocol. Right. But I don't take like magnesium oxide because I don't need it because I'm having good bowel movements. When it comes to a fiber supplement, What source of fiber are you recommending? So there's many different brands.

So first of all, full disclosure, I'm the founder of a supplement company. And our product that we offer, which I'll talk about more in a moment, would be something that can address this specific issue and was designed by me. So, but let's let's get the way of the land first, which is that in gastrology, it is standard medical care to include fiber supplements for this kind of issue. This is, you know, what we're trained to do. Cilium husk is a classic. That's metamusil.

You can also look at alternative choices would be like there's benefibre, which is wheat dextron, there's acacia fiber, there's partially hydroized guargaum. So those are some of the classics. Now, the issue from my perspective is that in my medical practice for many years, like going back to 2014, I was using fiber supplements routinely for problems. probably 90 to 95% of the people who came through the doors in my clinic and with good effect. But the problem is that a few things. Number one, these are monofibers, right? So we sit here and we talk about how variety is key. And then we go and we supplement with just one type of fiber.

That would be like supplementing with just one amino acid as opposed to looking at the spectrum of amino acids. So that's one of the issues. The other issue from my perspective is that these sources of fiber, there's absolutely no transparency. An example, wheat dextrin, right? That's a wheat product. Glifosate is commonly sprayed on wheat to dry it out. Do we know that this product does not contain glyphosate? No, we do not. It's not certified glyphosate free. There's no transparency. There's no third-party testing. Okay. So the reason that I started 38-terra my supplement company was basically to address

the issues that I'm pointing out right here, which is that we've learned a lot from science. in the last 10 years. And that should be incorporated into our supplements where we're not doing monofibers. We have a blend. So our daily microbiome nutrition has seven different plant-based ingredients. They're all seven are pre-botic. They're given in specific amounts that have been proven in human clinical studies to provide microbiome benefits and benefits for pooping.

And then we test aggressively this product. So we do about $5,000 worth of tests on each batch, which amounts to over 120. different tests on every single batch, including glyphosate, including 50 other pesticides, including heavy metals and all the, like the full assortment. So the, I think the point from my perspective, Nick, is that you're not required by any means to use that. But if you're, if, if that sounds attractive to you, then that's something that you could absolutely check out. But then there's these other choices that exist, partially hydrhydrized quagum. You can get organic acacia fiber. These are the ones that I would be looking at.

I want to take a quick break in this episode to talk to you. you about one of our products at BPN, and that is our peak sleep gummies. Now, peak sleep is one of those products that everyone can benefit from. Everyone can benefit from better, higher quality sleep. And the way that we formulated this product, like I said, it's in a gummy format. You consume about four gummies, 30 to 45 minutes before winding down in the evening. and it has ingredients such as magnesium, GABA, 5HTP, Levegin plus, theanine. These ingredients were put together to work synergistically and formulated to help you wind down in the evening.

Have better quality sleep throughout the night and wake up feeling refreshed, recharge, and ready to take on the day. It is non-habit forming. We did not use ingredients such as milk. That might leave you feeling tired and groggy and foggy and struggling to get out of bed in the morning. No, we didn't want any of that. We wanted to help you wind down, sleep better, and wake up, ready to perform. Peak sleep is much more than a sleep supplement.

This is truly a recovery and performance amplifier. So try peak sleep today. they are delicious. It is a berry flavored gummy. I look forward to taking my peak sleep gummies every single night. I count down the minutes until I can take my peak sleep gummies because they taste that good. They help me wind down. They help me sleep great.

And they help me show up the next day ready to perform. Now, back to the episode. So with your product specifically, did you guys take a pre-pro fiber approach because there's prebiotics in your powder, correct? Right. Yeah. So let's zoom out for a moment and just sort of address prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics. Yeah, it's something I wanted to talk about. Okay, perfect. Yeah. So everyone has heard of probiotics. By definition, probiotics are living microorganisms that provide benefits to human health. All right. But now,

you probably are starting to see in your supermarket the word pre-botic this is starting to show up What is that? Well, that is food for our gut bacteria. So in other words, this is basically something that it powers the probiotic bacteria and then we get a benefit as a result of that. Post-biotics is the third and post-botics is what they produce. That's actually what really matters is the post-biotics. biotic. So, but in order to get there, you have to basically combine pre-biotics and probiotics. You have to put them together. So when we put them together, then like, for example, you take fiber and you combine it with healthy gut bacteria. And what gets produced by that are the short chain fatty acids, buterate, acetate, and propinate. Fiber by itself would just run through you. It would do nothing.

microbes without fiber, they can't produce something from nothing. But when you combine the two fiber plus the gut microbes, you get this beautiful thing that can power your health. All right. So I tend to favor the prebiotics. It's not to say that there's no value for probiotics. We can dig into that more if you want to. I'm happy to do that.

There's definitely value to probiotics. But I tend to favor as a first-line approach, the pre-botics. The reason why is because what I'm saying is that if you have the probiotics, but you don't have the fiber, you can't make anything. What's missing is the fiber. So if we bring the fiber, we can actually grow the probiotics. So the ingredients that exist within 38 terra are daily microbiome nutrition have human clinical studies to show that they increase bifidobacteria, echomancia, and fecal bacterium. And these are three probiotic forms of bacteria that you actually grow as a result of taking the product.

So I guess the point from my perspective, Nick, is that I'd like to start with the concept of feeding them with the prebiotics. In terms of the probiotics, it's a targeted approach. So it kind of depends on what you're trying to accomplish. There is a role there. But like my supplementation protocol starts with prebiotics. Yeah, I'm really curious. I'd actually like to talk about probiotics for a little bit. Yeah.

I've never personally had success with probiotics. Yeah. Where, you know, I'd purchase an over-the-counter high-grimbing. quality probiotic supplement. It has large quantities of CFUs and multiple different strains of probiotics. Nothing targeted specifically based off of testing on myself and then identifying what I need. And it almost always destroys my gut. Why is that? And what's the problem with this mass blast probiotic approach? All right. So, So first of all, the reason why it's probably destroying your gut is it's too many CFUs.

So you're opting for a more is better approach, but it's probably overwhelming your innate microbiome. And the result of that is like everything's upset as a result of that. So we have to zoom out and sort of like, let me, let me present the way that I would approach this if I were you. Okay. So you have a unique microbiome that is. distinctly yours, there's no one on the planet with the same microbiome as you. I can't tell you whether a probiotic is going to be good for you or be net neutral, meaning it does literally nothing, or actually be harmful and cause trouble for you. I can't tell you that until you try. There's not a test that exists, including a microbiome test, that will answer that question. What answers the question

is trial and error. You try it, you see what happens. But before you try, we want to be smart about what we choose to actually put in there. And it should be, I mentioned earlier, it's targeted. So the concept that exists out there of, hey, there's this one probiotic that's going to fix your metabolism, your immune system, it's going to make you feel full, it's going to fix your digestion, like that one probiotic, because it's got 20 strains, it's going to do all those things. That's complete hogwash.

So, by the way, I was looking forward to saying hogwash while we're here in Texas. So that's complete nonsense. Instead, the approach should look like this. I have gas and bloating. I'm looking for a solution that's going to address my gas and bloating. What is the probiotic that has a human clinical trial to prove to me that in general, this is helpful for that particular goal? That's the one that you want.

You want to use it in the amount that was proven in the study. But then it still comes to the trial and error. where, okay, yes, we have a human clinical study. It says that it works. Now I'm going to try it. And when you try it, you do it for anywhere from 30 to 60 days. But if you're not getting the benefit that you're looking for, it's time to move on. Right.

Right. Even if it's proven by a study, it doesn't mean that it's proven for you. What's proven for you is what actually works. So that's the key from my perspective. So it really starts with, though, asking the question, like, what am I hoping to accomplish here? And based upon that goal, going out and finding the thing that's actually proven in a human clinical study to work. But I'm assuming the issue could be that you find the one strain that is identified for your problem, but that product has seven other strains of bacteria in there that could be disrupting another part of your gut.

So you're not actually experiencing the benefit because it's being covered up by an intolerance to another strain. It could be that you have an intolerance to another strain. it could be that look, your personal gut microbiome, this just doesn't work. It's not, you know, it's not that the product is worthless. That product, that same product may work for someone else, but it's just not going to work for you. And, you know, it kind of gets back to this broader question of like the individualism that we have within our gut microbiome. You know, why is it that I can take a medication that would work for nine out of ten people, but yet there's this one person out there that it's going to give them a horrible adverse effect, right? And I can't predict that.

And if I could, clearly, I would not have given it to them in the first place. Yeah. So why is it that the exact same thing could be so helpful to so many people and yet potentially cause serious harm for someone else? I think the answer to that question exists within the microbiome. Is there anything more unique in our body other than the gut that requires so much specificity? So there's nothing so unique as that in terms of being highly individualized. So put it this way. If you had an identical twin, they have the same genetic code as you, same parents. They in the vast majority of cases grew up in the same house, eating the same type of food, many times same similar activities.

Right. So yet you would only share 30% of the same microbes. you would be 70% different with your identical twin. And then it's way less when you're talking about a brother or sister. And then it's even less than that when you're talking about someone that you don't even know. Where you and I sitting across from one another, I mean, look, I think that there's actually quite a significant amount of similarity in terms of dietary choices that we make, regardless of whether I eat meat or don't eat meat.

I think there's a lot of similarity that exists there. But yet, despite that, our microbiome may only be 10% the same, right? whereas our human genetic code is going to be more than 99% the same. This is a one-off question, but I'm just curious. Talking about the differences in one another's gut microbiome, do you have any data or research or findings from what happened to people's guts and bacteria in their stomach, their gut during the pandemic? It's a great question.

I haven't seen any significant data. So we have to sort of reverse engineer it, which is to say if we go through and think about some of the things that were happening during the pandemic, where like forced isolation, right, let alone masking, right? And like intentionally disconnecting us from other humans, there's no aspect of that. Like over sanitizing. Over sanitizing, exactly. There's no aspect of any of those things that is good for your God. There's no aspect of that. Right.

Like those choices that were being made and forced upon us are, you know, the argument that was made was for protection, right? You don't want to get exposed to this virus. Yet I think as we sit here today, I think that like many of us have reconsidered what that looks like and whether or not those choices were appropriate, particularly for kids. Yeah. Yeah, because I just think about like the lack of diversity you're getting from interacting with other people. Yeah. Or being outside or just the health of socializing and over sanitizing and overcleaning everything and just the reduction of exposure to these

different bacterias that ultimately end up in our gut. You have to assume that it had negative consequences from isolation. 100% in the same way that people who isolate themselves and avoid illness actually become more vulnerable to health-related issues. Right. Where their immune system can become confused. And then you start to see the emergence of allergic diseases or autoimmune diseases, where they think that they're actually improving their health.

Yet actually, in a way, it's healthy for your immune system to be forced to step. up and fight once in a while. Yeah. I'm curious about people who pursue the carnivore diet, and I have a few questions around that. Sure. Because as you described and as we know, we have bacterial strains in our gut, we consume these prebiotic fibers that fuel and feed the probiotics, which then produce the

postbiotics and maintain the health and integrity of the gut, digestion, bowel movements. I know there's certain people who go on the carnivore diet for short periods of time and they get relief from some of their gastrointestinal distress. Why is that potentially? All right. So I think this opens into a broader conversation that you kind of touched on earlier, which is you mentioned the value of addition as opposed to elimination or subtraction. Right. So let me explain the way that I see. that addition versus subtraction. Okay. Okay. The issue with addition is that adding new things is in fact

challenging to your body. But there's value that comes from that challenge where you are actually adding functional ability and you are growing and you are getting stronger as a result of that. That is the benefit of addition. It's conceptually, again, conceptually similar to exercise, right? Creates an adaptation. Right. And when we think about our long term health, where we want to be in five years, 10 years, 30 years, that ultimately is what we need in order to get there, right, is to add functional ability and become stronger as a result of that. So I viewed this concept of addition as being the long-term play. But the problem, the challenge to this is what happens in the short term,

which is that when you make this move to add, conceptually similar to going to the gym on January 1st, you feel some discomfort. And then it's actually invoked symptoms. You actually brought out symptoms as a result of adding, right? The opposite is restriction, elimination, which is a symptom-oriented approach. So what you're saying here is that I don't want to feel symptoms. Therefore, I'm going to reduce my exposure to these things that cause symptoms. And by reducing my exposure to these things, the symptoms improve.

But the problem is it's the opposite of challenging your gut. It's less of a challenge. So in the same way that I think about exercise where, you know, look, if I hurt my knee, right, I could create an approach where I never feel pain in my knee for the rest of my life. And that would be by laying out on the couch. And the problem is that I suffer the consequences of making a choice where I'm not actually challenging myself to restore that functional ability again, right? Whereas healing the knee can be done, you know, working with a physical therapist, can be done in a way where you attempt to reduce the exposure to symptoms.

You're not like just written through it. You're working through it. But in that journey, there might be some discomfort along the way, right? And then you ultimately restore that functional ability so that you can get back to playing basketball again. So with the carnivore diet, this is the ultimate elimination diet. to me, there's not really such a thing as eliminating more than this, because if you're going true 100% animal-based carnivore, then there are no plant-based foods in your diet at all. And the only sort of thing that's in there that could really sort of trigger your symptoms

in the way that plant-based foods might is the dairy, because it has lactose. And you're sort of going into this place where it's like an extreme in terms of symptoms orientation, protecting yourself, reducing your symptoms. There is no doubt. Your symptoms improve. There's no doubt. But the problem is, what's the five-year play? What's the 10-year play? What's the 30-year play? And we see many of the people with respect, no disrespect intended at all, who go this route and even public figures who are forced to abandon it because they have health-related issues. You see it all the time. You see it all the time. Yeah. So is there a, are you required? required to add, add, add, add, add at all times according to what I'm saying. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Is there a balance that exists in the place in between these two concepts that can help people to achieve their health goals? The answer is yes. My second book was the fiberfield cookbook. And I saw that as a protocol for food intolerances. So it had two specific food intolerance based protocols, one for FODMAPs and one for histamine intolerance.

Both of those were elimination diets, right? But I'm not telling people to subtract in perpetuity and to subtract, subtract, subtract, subtract, subtract. I'm telling people, sometimes you take one step backwards so that you can power up to take those three steps forward. That's the idea. That's actually the next thing I wanted to talk about on my list was FODMAPs and histamines. Sure. because I found a lot of interest in FodMAPs in histamines this past year.

Where I never even thought about histamines, low histamine diet. But I did this genetic testing about a year ago. And I met this person at this wellness retreat. And I would have never done this on my own. But they offered it to me for free. so I tried it out and I was just curious and it came back and showed that I was highly sensitive to histamines. Okay. So I just started asking questions.

I was generally curious. Yeah. Because occasionally what would happen is I would, throughout the day, I would eat something and my stomach would bother me. And I couldn't figure it out. And my diet's always very clean and routine and organized, but there were certain things in certain parts of the day that were triggering my stomach. So I started researching, like, what are high histamine foods? And some of those came back as specifically dates, bananas, canned fish, like sardines. I was eating a lot of sardines at that point.

And I just started eliminating in reducing a lot of these, like, high histamine foods. And then at the same time, I also reduced a lot of high FodMap foods as well. and it was almost overnight that I just stopped experiencing some of these issues I was having and I slowly started reincorporating things back into to see what I could manage and handle and it was like, it blew my mind.

So I'd love to talk about what are FOD maps, what are highest mean foods, and what are the potential dangers or negative consequences of these foods for people who are not tolerant to them? Yeah. Okay. Great. This is a this is a good topic. And first of all, let me just comment and say that the way that you approach that is the way that, like this is what I'm encouraging is that you built an understanding about your own body. You identified where the problem exists. By identifying where the problem exists, it allowed you, it empowered you to understand how to reintroduce these foods in a more moderate way. And then you eventually were able to get to a place. where you were able to consume, it sounds like you can consume these foods on some level without really having a significant issue. Is that fair? Yeah, there's one food, though.

For the past like two years, I've been eating pickled beets and a ridiculous amount of pickle beats. Yeah. It might have been the dose that I was consuming them, but it was probably like a jar of pickled beats every three days. Amazing. I'd get them from the farmer's market, loved them. But then I stopped eating pickled beets in this pursuit of finding out what was bothering my stomach. And I realized when I stopped eating the pickled beats, all my stomach issues I was experiencing went away. So that's one thing I haven't reintroduced. And I just share that to say because I used to, for the last two years, I've been praising the pickled beet gods. And the reason I haven't recently is because I stopped eating them all together because I realized they were bothering me.

Yeah. All right. So let's talk about histamine first. Okay. And then we'll come back to FodMaps because what you're talking about here is histamine. Yep. All right. So histamine, we hear about histamine. Histamine exists within your body. And it would be wrong for me to make it sound like it's a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. When histamine is in balance in your body, it is a signaling molecule and it helps your body to work the way that it's supposed to. You need histamine on some level to be healthy. But histamine can also be something that is found in our diet. I'll explain where that comes from more in a moment. Or it can be something that's found within your own body where your immune system releases histamine. And when the body releases histamine, what happens is it disrupts all kinds of cells within the body. So like in your nose, histamine release causes a runny nose. In your blood vessels, histamine release can create things like headaches or things like this. And in your gut, histamine causes people to feel bloated.

So the number one symptom of histamine intolerance is bloating. But you can have symptoms that exist throughout the entire body. And this is an important thing for your listeners to understand because you might go to a doctor for your headache. You might go to a doctor for your bloating. You might go to a different doctor for your seasonal allergies and not realize that actually there's this one thing that's tying them all together. It's a whole body phenomenon.

Yeah, something to share really quickly on that. Yeah, it's funny when you start learning and realizing this stuff because you're so aware of your body and you're in tune. When I started just researching histamines, I realized that when I eat crab, after I eat crab, stuffy nose, sore throat, clogged ears. There it is. Yeah. And pay attention to if you, because I think that this is more common than people realize where you might have a meal. And maybe you don't get bloated, but you do get a. runny nose. And it's like, where did that come from? Like, I was feeling totally fine. And then an hour

later, I have a stuffy nose. This is what we're talking about right now. That might be a histamine-related phenomenon. Okay. So now, histamine exists in our food supply. And it's ubiquitous. All food has some level of histamine. It's a question of how much. So what we're going to talk about today are high histamine foods, things that have like a disproportionate amount compared to usual. And the reason why they have so much has to do with the life cycle of our food and the relationship that microbes have. So basically, bacteria are capable of producing histamine. And when food goes from first, like food has a microbiome. So when you first harvest food, it's going to evolve and it will, for example, take a banana,

start green, turn yellow, then turn brown, then turn disgusting. And then it needs to be turned into soil, right? That's the life cycle of the food. It's the microbes that are helping to advance the life cycle of that food. And in the process, they're creating histamine. So you mentioned bananas earlier. And the reason why a banana can potentially cause histamine intolerance is when it's ripe, as it ripens up, it becomes higher and higher in histamine. You mentioned sardines and crab. Fish and shellfish are classic examples of high histamine foods. And a lot of, lot of it has to do with if you were, if you were to go out and catch the crab yourself, you would be able to eat that crab, and you would be perfectly fine.

If you were to go out and catch the sardines yourself, you could eat them and be perfectly fine. But the problem is that's not what's actually happening. They're getting smoked or they're, you know, or they're being like stored in refrigerator. And then eventually sometime later, you consume them. And during that time in between, there's histamine that got basically like brought into this food.

Okay. So histamine doesn't mean rotten. It's just a normal part of the food. But it's part of that life cycle of the food. The further along you get from the source, the higher the histamine becomes. So the classic high histamine foods are number one above all else fermented foods. This is why alcohol could potentially trigger these issues for people. And in the case of your pickled beets, this is the problem.

And the reason why it's triggering is because you're eating something that's the size of a tennis ball, right, as opposed to when you do pickled onions, it's like shavings. Right. Right. So it's a different amount in terms of the quantities. But fermented foods and vinegar is a fermented food are going to trigger histamine intolerance because the histamine gets produced through fermentation. So be aware, if you're the type of person who can't eat fermented foods because you

don't feel well, this should be on your radar. You should be thinking about histamine intolerance. Fish and shellfish are the classic amount. the animal products, but other animal products could trigger issues as well. Dairy products could do it. Of course fermented dairy can do it. Of course cheese can do it. And then in terms of the plant-based foods, the classics are spinach, avocados, tomatoes, and eggplant. Those are the classics. But if you take a banana as it ripens, it gets higher in histamine. If you take dried fruit like dates, it gets high in histamine. So these are the things to be conscious and aware of. The way to approach

this issue is not to say, hey, you need to be zero histamine food for the rest of your life. What you do is you reduce your histamine intake and then you focus on healing your gut. The research shows, Nick, that if you can repair the gut barrier, then the histamine that's in your food doesn't get easy access to your bloodstream. The problem that's occurring is that when a person has leaky gut, the histamine that's in their food supply is able to sneak through that gut barrier. get into the bloodstream and then spread throughout the body and cause trouble because you have excess histamine in your blood that you're not supposed to have.

That's not physiologic anymore. So the solution to this is repairing the gut barrier. By the way, our product daily microbiome nutrition, the supplement, has an ingredient called salmol. Solnol is resistant starch. And it's very interesting because they have a human clinical study where they showed that by using solnol at the dose that you have in our product, which is 3.5 grams per day, It lowers blood histamine levels.

And they asked the question, how does it do that? And as they unpacked that, what they discovered from a scientific perspective is that actually it was healing the gut barrier that was preventing the histamine from getting into the blood. So what you want to do is you want to lower your histamine intake and then you want to focus on healing your gut. And that's how you approach that specific issue, histamine intolerance. Yeah, I didn't necessarily eliminate all the histamines in my diet, but I tried to reduce. And just by reducing it made a big difference.

Exactly. And you want to get yourself to a place of being asymptomatic. Now, it's not, I don't want to sit here and make it sound like the fact that you get symptoms is the end of the world. It's not. But let's also acknowledge what's happening here, which is that your normal physiology is being disrupted by this food. Right. So it's not just benign symptoms. It's disruption of your physiology. So we don't want to allow ourselves to remain in a place where we're just sort of enduring these symptoms. You did the right thing. You got to reduce the, your intake to get yourself into the safe zone. So, and again, you're never going to be zero histomy. That's important. That doesn't exist.

Right. Right. So what you're doing is you're just getting it to the safe zone where you're no longer having symptoms. I have a question about that. I prepare rice twice a week. I make it in the rice cooker and I put that rice cooker. I take the pot out.

I put it right in the fridge. And I've heard people say that when you make certain foods or you have leftovers specifically like a grain like rice and you let it's in the fridge it's already cooked that the longer it's in there the more histamines it will kind of build is that is that true is that accurate so it's true it's true that when we cook our food and then we store our food you are building histamines it will be slower when you put it directly into the fridge as opposed to having it sitting on your counter as an example um but the other the flip side of that though actually, so let's assume that you're asymptomatic, that you can eat that rice with like a cup

and a half and feel perfectly fine. Zero concerns for histamine. Here's the flip side of what you just did, though. You took a starchy food and you cooked it, heated it up, and then you placed it into your fridge and you cooled it down. The way it tastes, I'm sure you would agree. I'm sure your listeners would agree too is not exactly the same anymore, right? Rice that you cooled down does not taste the same as rice that is fresh and piping hot, right? You created resistant starch. So the process of taking a starchy food and then actually cooling it down helps the starch molecules

to recreate in themselves what we call retrograde starch. And this resistant starch for people that haven't heard this terminology before is pre-biotic for the gut microbiome. So you can think of it. It's starch. It's not fiber. It's starch. But it's starched that your body is not able to break down and digest. So as a result of that, it passes all the way through your intestines and gets to your gut microbiome. And then it feeds and fuels your gut microbiome and gets turned into short chain fatty acids. So this concept of like cooling off, whether it be potatoes or rice or even our bread, helps to actually create starch in the process. I knew that was the case for potatoes, but I didn't even realize that was the

case for any grain. Okay. And legum. And green bananas are higher in resistant starch too, correct? Green bananas are higher in resistant starch naturally, and that's a different type of starch. So there's different types of resistant starches. There's four main types. Green bananas have a different type of resistance starch than what we're talking about with the retrograde starch. And so much like when we talk about variety of fiber in the same way, you know, variety of plants, I'm also saying here that these different types of resistant starches, you wouldn't mean into just one. You would want all of them if you can. Do you still get the benefit from the resistant starch if you reheat the food or should you eat it cold? You're better off eating it cold because when you heat it back up,

you are at least on some level breaking down the starch molecules. So now there is an argument to say that if you reheat it and then let it cool again, you get even more resistant starch. So what we think is it keeps leveling up. Yeah, I always find that because I knew that with potatoes, like I said. Yeah. So I will cook potatoes and I'll put them right in the fridge. I'll eat them cold. They are the most easily digestible potatoes I ever eat.

And when I eat cold rice, now that I think about it, it digest much easier than the warm rice does. Yes. And the cool thing about this is that many people who struggle with fiber. So for the person who does have gut issues, as we sort of led into the episode talking about like what happened with sorghum, for the person who does have. gut issues. The beauty of this is that you can get your resistant starch in a package that's easy for your body to process and digest. You feel well. It's not challenging you and making you feel bad. And yet at the same time, you're healing in your gut by consuming this type of food. That's awesome. Yeah. So we don't histamine. Yeah. FODmaps. I think I thought about FODMAPS.

Yeah. Okay. Cool. So all right, FODMAPS. This is a super nerdy. So it's an acronym FODMAP, FODMAP, which stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, di-saccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols. Now, saccharide is another word for sugar. And what we're talking about here when we talk about oligoccharides is where you take a bunch of sugar molecules and you actually link them together and you're creating a chain. And as that chain starts to build out, you're creating complex carbohydrates. So it's no longer a simple carbohydrate like a single sugar or like two sugars put together. Now it's getting more complex. And And as it gets more complex, it actually gets harder for our body to digest. But that's not a bad thing.

That's a good thing. This is what fiber is. Like, I'm literally describing what fiber is right now. Because then ultimately, because it's hard for us to digest, it will get down to your gut microbes and they will digest it for you. The issue that exists, though, for people that have gut issues is that these things that are, you know, I'll describe more like some of the categories of what they are, but they're fermentable. The problem that exists for the person who has gut issues is that their gut is damaged.

And because their gut is damaged, it is struggling to process and digest these foods that you need your gut to process. So that leads to bloating and leads to other symptoms. An important point of distinction between phodmaps and histamines real quick. Again, histamines are whole body. So we have evidence the histamine treatment, low histamine diet helps people that have headache issues, right? But the FODMAP issue is pure gut, pure gut. So you shouldn't have headaches from FODMAPs. All right. Now, within FODMAPs, I'm going to name some of the categories that exist.

And I would imagine that, like, people as they listen to this, you're going to hear ones that may be applicable to you. And you're going to go, ding, ding, ding. There it is. So some of the categories include. of course, dairy products. Lactose is a FODMAP. That is the number one food intolerance that exists in the world.

70% of the world is intolerant of lactose. All right. Number two, legumes, they contain things called galactans. They're really good for us, but they can be hard to digest. Number three, whole grains contains something called fructans. So fruit tans, specifically wheat barley and rye, are complex. complex carbohydrates. You'll also find fruit tans in garlic and onions. So this is why some people will struggle with those types of foods, whether it be garlic and onions, the flavor vegetables,

or whole grains. Fruit contains fructose. Fruitose is one of the Fodmaps. So, like, I'm of the opinion that, and, you know, driven by science and data, that fruit is not unhealthy. Fruit is healthy can make a great snack. I would never advocate for a fruit-only diet. That's crazy. But like including fruit in our diet is a good thing. We shouldn't be fearful of fructose. But for people who have gut issues, fructose can trigger their symptoms. So that's what they need to be aware of. And the last are the polyols, which are basically sugar alcohols. And sugar alcohols can exist in food that we're eating, for example, watermelon, right? Or sugar alcohols can exist as a part of products that we're buying, such as the artificial sweeteners.

I didn't realize that sugar alcohols could be naturally occurring in foods. There's some that naturally occur. Some of the artificial sweeteners are truly artificial and not found in nature. Right. Right. But also some of the non-chloric sweeteners that exist. They do exist in nature, but they're being chemically extracted and then used to sweetened products.

Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. And so there is some overlap that exists between these. and they can exist in our food. So, okay. Now, with this whole concept of like FODMAPs, you'll hear people say low FODMAP diet is the solution.

And a low FODMAPD diet is to prioritize the food that has lower concentrations of these FODMAPs. The problem is that you don't want to do that long term because FODMAPs, for the most part, are prebiotic, which means that this is what we're actually looking for. This is what we need more of to feed and fuel our microbiome and to produce short chain fatty acids. So when you do a low FodMap diet,

the intent is not to permanently reduce FODMAPs. The intent is to temporarily reduce FODMAPs, feel better, and then start to go through the process of reintroducing them. That's what I actually did myself. Exactly. And I found a lot of success with that. Yeah. So how do you, how does someone know if, you know,

Going back to my experience with sore gum, how does someone know if they have an intolerance to FODMaps and they need to go low FODMAP diet or if they're just in that acclamation period of introducing new things into their diet? So for example, if I ate this sore gum, hurt my stomach and now in the beginning of this conversation, I was thinking, okay, I just need to eat less of it. But maybe it's the fact that it's high fod map that's actually causing the issue. What's the approach? Yeah. This is a good question. So let's take the concept of food intolerances in general. And let's zoom out for a moment, okay, which is to say that to me, a food intolerance is where you eat a food and then you have symptoms that you believe are

a result from that food. And obviously, these are symptoms that you don't want, the bloating or something else. Okay. We talked a little about constipation. Constipation creates food intolerances. When you eat food, you're going to feel unwell. I have had patients that literally just the thought of food gives them bloating.

They haven't even eaten anything, and they're already getting bloated. That's because anything that you put in your body, even water, can make you feel bloated because the motility is thrown off. And that's what's creating the bloating. Right. So be aware that if you're the type of person that you're sitting here and you're saying, I have bloating and it doesn't matter what I eat, everything. Even will FodMap food is making me feel bloated.

Think about constipation. You need to think about that. All right. Whereas with these other choices that we've now put on the table, FodMaps and histamine, think about what are the specific foods. It shouldn't be everything. There should be specific foods that are triggering your symptoms. And then you process that information to give yourself guidance as to which of these issues is, in fact, the problem.

So if you are someone who's struggling with fermented foods, with vinegar, with fish, and with some of the foods that we've discussed, like spinach, tomatoes, avocados, you know, a banana that's brown, things like this. If you're struggling with those things, think about histamine intolerance. But if you're struggling with beans and whole grains and garlic and onions or when you eat fruit, then you should think about, or dairy products, you should think about FODMAPs. Ultimately, the way that you prove it is by doing an elimination diet. And actually going like either low histamine or low FodMap. And then when your symptoms go away, you just proved it. With the sorghum, the question that you're asking me is, is this because of the Fodmap content of sorghum?

or is it that I just went too hard and too fast? And I think that the answer to that question is just too hard and too fast, right? But embedded in your question was, how does a person at home sort this out? And to me, if it's a one-time deal where you had an issue, but yet you can go back to the food and feel okay, a one-time deal, I wouldn't make that much of it. But when you find that there's a consistency pattern that exists where a particular class of food, is causing trouble for you, then that's where we have to sort this out and clarify the answer to the question. With whole grains, wheat, barley, and rye are the ones that are high FodMap. So Farrho is actually a form of wheat. You wouldn't necessarily realize that, but Farrho is a form of

wheat. But sorghum is actually gluten-free. And so sorghum actually should be low FodMap. So I think it's not the Fodmaps. I think it's just like the fiber and your body getting adjusted to it. Yeah, tonight with my salad, I'm going to put like a quarter cup on. I went all out, man. I did three. I weighed out 300 grams of sore gum. And I didn't even think about it.

I was like, yeah, I'll be good. But, uh. But you're excited. I mean, you just bought three pounds. So yeah. I was like, I'm going to try it. I'm going to completely like remove my rice. I'm going to add the sorgum in.

And I was fine. And it was a few hours later. I was like, oh, I definitely. I feel it. Yeah. I can tell. Yeah. When I experimented with high histamine food and high FodMap foods earlier this year, because I'm assuming the listener right now is like, holy crap, this is a lot of information where do I get started?

Yeah. What I did is I just downloaded a free app in the app store where I could just type in the food or I could even scan it. And it would say you could distinguish on this app. I forget what the app was called, like what you're looking out for. And I would scan it and it would show. like green or yellow or red for histamine, green or yellow or red for FodMap. Because I don't want to carry a list around with me all the time or just Google search stuff. Right.

But I had this app and it just helped me become more aware of, okay, these things that I'm eating, they're high histamine, they're high FodMap. These aren't. Let's eliminate some of these and then reintroduce. It was a pretty easy process. It wasn't as complicated as it might sound or seem. Yeah, I absolutely see where this could feel overwhelming and complicated. I agree.

this is the way to to this is one way that you can approach doing this the other the other option that you that you could potentially do is like this is the reason why I wrote the my second book which is the fiber fuels cookbook because the entire strategy is is this like okay yeah these topics are complicated but here's a simple approach if you follow the low fod map recipes for two weeks and your symptoms go away you just answer the question that's super helpful right if you follow the low histamine recipes for two weeks and your symptoms go away, you just answered the question. It starts with answering the question, making the diagnosis. And then how to proceed from there is what would come next, but you don't need to worry about that until you first identify whether

or not even have the issue in the first place. So that's one other way to sort of look at that. Sweet. This was one of the most tactical strategic conversations I've had in a while in terms of like if I was a listener of this, like clear evident takeaways of how to identify if you have gut issues, you're experiencing something and then next

steps. So one, I just want to say thank you for sharing all the information the way you did because it's a very, it can be a very complicated conversation. But I need to do an amazing job laying all that out. Like I am now, I now have key takeaways of

I'm actually going to go start on one of these magnesium supplements. I'm going to increase my dosage. And then I'm going to try experimenting with a little bit of a fiber supplement post-magnetium supplementation. That's my next step's key takeaway. Yeah. So a few things.

First of all, thank you for saying that. I think getting tactical is kind of fun, actually, because it should be actionable. And it's like you said earlier in the show, which is that ultimately, like nutrition or science, this world that we exist in.

It's about identifying these simple truths. So that's what I think we've been kind of doing is like identifying these simple truths and then allowing people to apply that to their life in whatever way works for them. For sure. And then I also think though that like you and I both exist in a world where there's supplements and I want to just comment on that real quick, not even being brand specific, that I get frustrated and frankly kind of annoyed when there are people in the world who want to convince us

that you're only allowed to be healthy by eating or that you're only allowed to be healthy by taking medication, which is what our current health care system is, right? Or like in some cases that the only way to be healthy is like here's our supplement protocol, right? And we're going to ignore everything else. What I come back to is, again, I'm outcomes driven. And And it feels silly and stupid to leave opportunities on the table that could improve our health. I agree. So I think it starts with food, right, which is the way that I live. And that's the way that you live.

It starts with food. You add in the lifestyle elements. Again, this is the way you and I both live in our own way of exercise and sleep and fasting and human connection and, you know, and sauna and all these other elements that we can layer in. you start with those two things but then to me you come to supplements and supplements are not medications they're not the same um but they're for optimization right we're going to take it as far as we can with diet and lifestyle and then we're going to tweak it and perfect it with supplements and then we still have the medications on the back end which are really to me intended to be you use them if you need them but that's not our primary strategy that's our that's our fallback strategy if we

really need them. Yeah, like from my perspective, the supplement industry has made so many great strides in the last decade and a half. And I think sometimes people are still tainted by what the supplement industry used to be back in the day, where it was untrusted, it was untested. And now a lot of these companies, like the companies we've created and products we've created, they are there. They've been created to solve problems and fill gaps

to like you said, optimize and create solutions. And both you and I invest a lot of money into our products and testing programs. I think I heard on Max's podcast,

you were talking about entering your products into the NSF certified for sport. Yep. That's imminent coming any day, huh? Yep.

So we're enrolled in that program because we believe in it. Yeah. It is not a cheap program to be involved with. Not at all. But it's, It comes with a lot of due diligence and it comes with a lot of certification and trust and test.

And I believe in that. I believe in this industry. I believe in these products. And like you said, there is a place for them for specific use cases to help optimize the consumer and the people. Exactly. And so like the way that I think about this is that I'm of the belief that every single person should be prioritizing their gut health. even if you're as healthy as you could possibly be, you got to keep it that way. Right.

So to me, prioritizing your gut health is part of what you should be doing on all of these levels. And that includes the choices that you make, like chasing after 30 different plants per week and chasing after fermented foods if you can and working on all these different elements from a lifestyle perspective. And that also means feeding and fueling your body with the proper supplementation protocol. I think that like that whole thing. And then like, you know, the way that I see it is that like, for example, example, as someone who's looking to optimize from a fitness perspective, right?

This is where companies like BPN come in, where it's like, yes, you're going to do everything you can in terms of exercise and in terms of your diet, but there's also this element that exists that can take you to the next level. Agreed. Dr. B, I appreciate you. This was great. Good to finally meet in person. Yeah.

You're as big as I thought you would be. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Yeah. How tall were you, by the way? I'm six four. Man, I was going to say, like, you're tall, dude. It's funny because you're a tall guy.

You're six, too? I'm six foot. That's good. You got good posture. So it's funny, though, because, like, you know, Thomas DeLauer. I'm sure you've met Thomas. Yep. He's a beast.

He makes me look small, and I don't feel like I'm a small guy. But it's funny because we got so many comments when I stand next to him. I'm very tall and he's not, I don't know. He's probably, like, right around six foot too. I think he is, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like all these people were coming out back, whoa, Thomas, you're not tall anymore.

And so it's just kind of funny that, you know, you can't tell how tall a person is when you just see him like from the waist up. No, Thomas is broad though. Oh, he's a dense. He's a monster. Yeah, dude's dense. Well, and the thing is with him is like, I could do everything right. There's no way I can get as big as him. Even if I had the time to do it, I don't think I could.

Yeah. He's got a lot of stuff going. It's really good. He was here. It was probably two years ago on the podcast. We trained together. solid guy. Yeah, really good guy.

Yeah. Dr. B, thanks. As always, good to see you. Thanks, Nick.