The Rich Roll Podcast - Darin Olien: A Superfood Hunter On Peak Nutrition & Next Level Hydration

Episode Date: January 16, 2017

What's it like to traipse the far outreaches of the globe in search of the the world’s greatest edible food sources for optimal health? Meet the Indiana Jones of Superfoods. One of the most popular guests of 2015, this week my friend Darin Olien (@superlifeliving) returns to the podcast to delve deep on the next level nutrition insights he's gleaned from his extraordinary adventure-based experiences as a widely recognized exotic superfoods hunter, wellness advocate, supplement formulator & environmental activist. Over the last twenty plus years, Darin has explored every imaginable port of call across the developing world questing for better, more natural pathways to ultimate wellness. Communing with thousands of rural farmers, growers and manufacturers in remote communities across Peru, Bhutan, the Amazon, the Himalayas, the South Pacific, Latin America and Asia, Darin now shepherds exotic, high-quality, fair-trade superfoods and indigenous herbal commodities to market. Perhaps best known for his work with fitness company Beachbody, Darin was instrumental in the development and ongoing formulation of the wildly successful whole-food supplement, Shakeology. He chronicles his experience and expertise in Superlife: The 5 Simple Fixes That Will Make You Healthy, Fit & Eternally Awesome* (just released in paperback), as well as on his website Superlife.com, where he demystifies health, fitness, nutrition, and longevity into simple daily actions designed to promote life-long wellness. Plant-based, ripped, and bearing more than a passing resemblance to his workout buddy Laird Hamilton, what is most intriguing to me about Darin isn't just that he is a respected authority on the healing potential of food. And it isn't just that he has been instrumental in introducing these so called superfoods to western consumers. What is most interesting is his commitment to do it right. A deep rooted responsibility to fairly, sustainably and transparently support the long-term interests of indigenous grower communities against the industrialized threat posed by the well-funded, politically powerful agricultural interests responsible for decimating the planet's precious rainforests at an unfathomable rate. An inspiration to me personally, this is a guy who walks his talk. From the foods he consumes to the lifestyle habits he practices, Darin is the thriving embodiment of what it means to truly own and take responsibility for your health, your life and the planet we collectively enjoy. But what exactly is a superfood? Are these foods truly “super” or is it all just exaggerated marketing hype? Our first conversation tracked Darin’s life story. Packed with takeaways, today's exchange deep dives into the efficacy of exotic fruits, herbs, adaptogens and mushrooms. Parsing fact from hyperbole, it's a conversation about the most important superfoods you should be incorporating into your daily routine and why. It's a mind-blowing discourse on the importance of water quality and next-level hydration. It's an exploration of Darin’s pre-workout routine and nutrition essentials. Enjoy! Rich

What's the number one thing? People, you have to take responsibility for yourself and your life and your health, period. Regardless of what we're even talking about. You can't just throw it to some doctor. And you can't just kind of divorce yourself in listening to advice. You have to be educated. This is your body. This is it.

This is your vehicle. This is your body this is it this is your vehicle this is your deal if you don't think that that's an important thing to have something that's out here and open your mouth and let it inside your body and if you're not looking at that as something really important then I don't know that that's a big freaking deal and that's a big disconnect because that's what it's all about man in order to make any lasting change and just for me being here and you being where you're at we didn't just turn on a light switch and we were eating this way. It was a slow burn. It was a slow education and it's not sexy to market it because everyone wants

the quick fix and I get it. I can put a concoction together that will light your ass up and make you freaking climb a mountain. But what I'm really interested in is inspiring people to go listen. What you're doing, the choice you're making today for your breakfast or your meal or your every little choice. I want to inspire millions of people to be excited that today I'm sitting in my chair of my past choices and I'm proud of it. That's superfood hunter Darren O'Lean and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, what's going on? How are you? What is happening? You guys doing okay? Everything all right? Good to hear it. My name is Rich Roll.

I'm your host. Welcome to my podcast, the show where I get intimate and go long form with some of the world's most intriguing thought leaders and positive change makers all across the globe. I really appreciate you guys tuning in today. Thank you so much. I love the fact that you have subscribed to the show on iTunes and share it with your friends and on social media and mad love to everybody who has supported my work through Patreon and by making a habit of always using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases.

Really appreciate that. Okay, so today marks the return of my good buddy Darren O'Lean to the podcast. Long-time listeners may remember our first conversation. That was RRP 153. Definitely one of the most popular episodes of 2015 for sure. So if you missed that one, I highly suggest you go back, give it a listen, check it out. It's really fantastic. But for those of you who are new to the show, who is Darren O'Lean? Well, Darren is basically the Indiana Jones of superfoods. He is one of the world's most knowledgeable, most experienced, most well-traveled, and widely recognized experts when it comes to exotic superfood hunting and supplement

formulation and essentially optimal wellness and lifestyle design. So Darren is perhaps best known as the formulator behind Beachbody's wildly successful whole food Shakeology product line, but he's also a passionate environmentalist. He's a guy who has traipsed the most remote regions of the globe to discover, to source, to formulate, and to research the world's greatest and most underutilized food sources to promote optimal health, all while also sustainably supporting the indigenous communities that harvest and produce them. He chronicles his experience in his book. It's

called Super Life, The Five Forces That Will Make You Healthy, Fit, and Eternally Awesome. It is a must-read primer. I highly suggest you pick it up. And it also just came out in paperback. You can also find copious information on his website, superlife.com. There he demystifies health, fitness, nutrition, and longevity into simple daily actions, simple rules of healthy eating and living to foster lifelong wellness. Basically, Darren's just super awesome. And I've got a few more things I want to say about him and this conversation before the deep dive, but first. You know, so I think what's really cool and unique about Darren isn't just his incredible knowledge on both the basics and finer points of nutrition, the potency and purpose and effectiveness of certain foods and herbs and adaptogens and mushrooms and hydration. I mean,

wait till you hear our unbelievable discussion about water. It's really going to blow your mind and leave you rethinking everything you thought you knew about optimal hydration. But most of all, it's that Darren walks his talk. I thought I was a freak about my food, but Darren is really next level. He is a living embodiment of everything he preaches. And not only is he incredibly ripped, a sort of plant-based version of his workout buddy, Laird Hamilton, and a guy he bears more than a passing resemblance to, Darren's attention to detail when it comes to the foods he enjoys and the lifestyle habits he practices really demonstrate the power of what it means to truly own and take responsibility for your health and your life. He's an inspiration to

me personally. He's a guy I have learned so much from over the last year, both on the food front and on the training front. He's put me through the paces more than a few times at his legendary functional strength beach workout. And I think after listening to this conversation, you'll definitely be inspired to take more control, to exercise more autonomy, to really reprioritize your food and lifestyle choices. I've said it before, I'll say it again. This is a guy who is definitely doing what he was meant to do.

And also in so doing, creating a really important body of work that is making the world a better place. So in our first conversation, RRP 153, we really kind of tracked Darren's life story and background pretty comprehensively. So we're not going to repeat that here. This second conversation is really focused on parsing fact from hyperbole in this exploration of the efficacy of certain superfoods, including the most important ones you should be incorporating into your daily routine. We also talk about the power of consumer choice to direct positive change. We dive deep into this

of consumer choice to direct positive change. We dive deep into this mind-blowing discourse on water and next level hydration. We explore Darren's morning and pre-workout routine. But ultimately, this is a conversation about big picture fundamentals. What is required to adopt healthier long-term habits with staying power when it comes to nutrition and lifestyle and

overall wellness. I absolutely love this guy. I love this conversation and I think you guys will too. All right, man, you ready to rock? Let's rock. Let's do it. Super good to, uh, it's super good on a super nice day to talk about super life and super foods. Hey. Thanks for coming back on the show, man. Absolutely. Thanks for. This is going to be good.

Since we first spoke, we spent a bunch of time together, so we know each other quite a bit better than we did the first time that we sat down. So I'm looking forward to digging into it with you. Let's get into it. let's get into it so just to set the stage a little bit we are uh encamped in your uh reclusive uh former what is this a hunting uh lodge turned into ranch down deep in the mountains of malibu hidden where no one can find you exactly just like i underneathyear-old oak trees and surrounded by woods. It's a beautiful spot and historic and amazing driving in here, coming down this crazy long driveway. I mean, you are really remote back here.

I mean, it's just as soon as I got here, man, I put my hand on the ground, and I was kind of shocked that Malibu had this. Like 50 acres, no one around. Like what? How is that still possible? You would never know that this was here. No. And there's a beautiful kind of full circle irony in the fact that it used to be a hunting lodge.

And now it's occupied by a vegan superfood hunter. I know. It's a hunter. There's a universal joke in there somewhere i think right well we've had to let's just say we've had to do some smudging and clean it out in here and just kind of you know i really felt is i don't want to go too far esoteric but you know we all have feelings and as soon as i came here i had a very deep feeling that that i was to steward this land and um so then you have then you have to go through the muggle side of it and banks and finances and lawyers and scrutinies and inspectors and all of that stuff but but it's out it's kind of like it

was an it was kind of an interesting thing because as everything in life when you're clear about what you want then my why was bigger than all of the financial stuff and all of the hard negotiation and all of that stuff and it's it's now through all that and it's a gift to be here. I mean, there's no better place I think I could be. Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine anyone else living here and, you know, we've talked about this before, um, you know, beyond the why it was like this knowing that this is where you were supposed to be. And then the battle ensued, you know, you were just full on, you know on in warrior mode to make it happen. Well, I said to myself,

there's not going to be a human mistake on my part of not getting this land. So I will show up in whatever capacity I need to to do whatever I need to do, you know, to respond to all of those things that people ask of you and the banks and the lawyers and the, all of that stuff. And if it's beyond that, then I'm not supposed to have it. And so be it. But I am, it's not going to be as a result of anything that you screwed up i'm turning on my inner viking for sure on this one well i think that's a pretty good lesson for life right when you commit to

something or you have a dream or you have a goal to make sure that your side of the street is as pristine as possible and then you can lay your head you know on the pillow at night knowing that you did what what you could and releasing the rest to you know fate or the universe exactly well that's the thing and i think people get confused it's like you know you got to work and if you're clear you know just because you want to be a millionaire or or you know be a celebrity even for the sake of being celebrity in any capacity you got to do some work and of course having talent is helpful um but but that's the you know being a uh midwestern kid from minnesota you know throwing hay bales and picking beans and all that stuff i'm not afraid of working so right

and you're just telling me before uh before we went live that uh you saw a bobcat in the backyard yeah oh my god that's no joke no joke no like a big big bobcat like not not a kitty right um so we're in plain daylight plain just strolling wow right in front of us basically so we're in the wild here we have owls the size of mid-sized dogs and and red-tailed hawks and snakes and and uh i've seen this is my third bobcat i've seen wow so and so what's the long-term plan for the land like are you going to develop it are you going to like build your own commune here what's's the vision? All of the above, yeah. I have a, you know, I have a, the only way to deal with as much as I want to do here

is I just have to go, well, it's a 25-year plan, right? So, you know, I have, I may or may not have gotten some exotic seeds from around the world. And so I'm definitely going to be playing. Did you declare those in customs for sure i did um um so you know i'm gonna practice with that some greenhouses some exotic plant growing i have a moringa tree growing um it's cold down here we're in a little valley um there's some um medicinal mushrooms growing around in the area so yeah there's there's some potential here um so i'm going to try to grow almost anything and just see how it goes but but yeah and there's little huts and yurts and things like that we'll

place around right right right yeah it's pretty cool man and the cool thing is we're not going to get too far into this subject but i have a very very interesting smart buddy of mine i've known for 15 years who has dedicated his life to alternative energies even before there was a thing um and uh his life was actually the based on the blood diamond Diamond movie. So he wasn't selling blood diamonds, but his story was sold from the standpoint of he was doing healthy gold and diamond excavation in Africa and then got caught behind the civil unrest. So he survived. He got stabbed and shot, and all of his friends got killed. He survived. He got stabbed and shot and all of his friends got killed.

He took that experience and also has an understanding and education in history and science. Then he spent the rest of his life to this point stuff here on the land to utilize gravity-fed systems to use as alternative sources for creation and generation of energy. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, you showed me a prototype battery thing, I think. I don't know if that's public. It's not public. Yeah, the vision is huge. And the idea that you can go off grid and then have, you know, use this, you know, be a steward of this land to harvest these superfoods, you know, be a steward of these plants and use it as a, you know, a base point to educate people, you know, would be really amazing. For sure.

So that's pretty cool, man. Absolutely. And you just got back be really amazing. For sure. So that's pretty cool, man. Absolutely. And you just, uh, I think you just got back from Indiana, right? You get doing public when you get up in front of, I mean, you, I saw an Instagram that was a big crowd. It was a big crowd. What's the, what's the, do you have a locked in like keynote that you deliver or like, how do you manage your public speaking? Like what is the, what's the pitch or, you know, what is the angle that you're delivering? It depends on the population you know if it's a population that knows me already then i can kind of step into the side this was um a crowd uh of of people that know beach body and some of the the shakeology uh people um so the formula it's a passionate crowd of people yeah so i could step into kind

of get down in the weeds a little bit so um you know this particular talk i i talked about things that i haven't really had the space for um and so i talked about the journey of a superfood you know you start with maybe i'm superfood hunting. I discover, I find. And then what happens? How does a superfood end up in a bag? Right? Successfully. Because there's a lot of ways unsuccessfully that can show up. And you're just consuming a powder that has a great marketing story to it.

But is it really the quality? Is it really what it's supposed to be so you know having spent 15 years you know superfood hunting and traveling the last thing i want is a food that has some fantastic properties to to grow it to process it to dry it and to preserve it incorrectly so now it just becomes kind of a a poor stepchild of itself and it doesn't deliver on kind of this ancient and and long track record of of health properties so so that's really where i was able to kind of bring people in and in a way and we've got some good feedback and sense like oh okay we really get it like this is a lot not not all companies do that right so so to to take people through you know

you find something you test something you observe something something, you talk to the farmers and the collectors and you observe their situation, you test their situation, you help them where they need it from a fair trade point of view, from a sustainability point of view. For me, I educate. from a sustainability point of view you for me i educate so this latest trip to brazil was a full-on superfood mission and so we were able to kind of get this massive education in the savannah of brazil which is which is a incredible story of kind of a cousin of the Amazon, a completely different ecosystem,

but largely most of the plant lives underground. So the carbon devastation that happens with that is arguably greater than the Amazon devastation because the Amazon and the rainfall, most of the plant is above ground. so, so anyway, it was,

it was whether, whether all of those facts are a hundred percent true, we're not sure, but what does reign true is we met some experts that are making that argument that, that, that with, again, kind of coming back to the superfood hunting and the journey of a food, once you understand, Hey,

the impact that a plant or a superfood can have and not only the health benefits and stuff, but you're actually then can, can can, with your effort and with your money as a consumer, you're voting with what companies you want to survive. I mean, really, whether we want to acknowledge that or not, every time you're buying something, you're giving that company money saying, yes, okay, I'm going to buy your product. You're giving that company money saying, yes, okay, I'm going to buy your product. And for me, I'm dedicated to making sure that there's a win-win all the way, that the environment's going to be better for it, that the farmers and the collectors and growers are going to benefit and their lives are going to change and improve. and most important not most importantly but equally that that product or that in this case that food or supplement is going to survive the growing harvesting processing drying or whatever preparation it needs to and then traveling to the united states or wherever it's being sold and then final packaging so now is that fingerprint what it's supposed to be is that active compound what it's supposed to be it's still active yeah i mean in

everything you just said there's a million threads that i could pull and we could go down the rabbit hole on each and every one of them and i want to sort of unpack this uh methodically i want to talk about your recent brazil trip and and kind of what you experienced and learned in that. But maybe, you know, in prefatory to that, we could talk a little bit about, you know, what you were talking about with respect to the integrity of superfoods, right? So right now, you know, superfoods are a thing. People are interested in them. There's a lot of excitement around certain foods and certain compounds and the positive health impacts that they can have. And as a consumer, you go to the, you know, whether you're going to the super fancy natural food market or you're going to the GNC, whatever it is, wherever you, you know, purchase these

products or even online, it's very difficult for a consumer to know or to tell, you know, purchase these products or even online, um, it's very difficult for a consumer to know or to tell, you know, the difference between a product that has integrity and something that's crap. Right. So, you know, pick Moringa, for example, like you were telling me the other day, like, well, most of the Moringa that's on the market, it's actually not really active because of the way that they process it, blah, blah, blah. And you can explain that more in depth. But it's not actually doing what it's purporting to do because of that chain of manufacturing and processing and packaging that goes into it. So how can you, as a consumer, make more discerning purchases about what's good and what isn't?

Yeah, man. I mean, I don't know if I have a direct answer, you know, and it is a challenging thing. I mean, you know, I hope that, I mean, I hope that companies are leaning more in that direction because you can't turn a product over on a package or label and fully know that obviously you can you can stay away from kind of the the ingredients in there that are um suspect and additives and this whole laundry list of stuff um so a you can do that but it doesn't really tell you um the real story because you can you can grab almost any like rich if you want to go and start your own supplement company you can go to i can give you a handful of manufacturers and all you have to do is say hey i want moringa in it i want camu camu i want chaga

i want yerba mate i want i want all these things and i want to make it a great stimulation it's whole food it's great sounds good right but then that manufacturer is like well does he have do they have experience in the field very very few do very few and they have their go-to vendors that are gonna be the cheapest right yeah and so they're gonna package it as leanly as possible and who knows where any of that stuff comes from and what went into it and and whether it's actually being packaged in the ratios and proportions that the formulator is dictating exactly and so that's that's where it really goes sideways because they're passing there's no regulation no they're they're well

they're they're the it's the basic it's the minimal so they're doing basic at this point they're doing basic heavy metal which is great they're doing microbiological testing to make sure it doesn't have e coli you say they well the the the commodity guys they have to at least show that they have tested some of their basic things so they so it doesn't have e coli salmonella listeria all these things and then um so that microbiological load and then um it's gotta at least have on that piece of paper that hey this is moringa but that says nothing about the thousands of compounds that are in there it says nothing about the 36 active antioxidants that are there when when the plant is fresh it says nothing about

the concentration of vitamins and minerals and all the other phytonutrients and antioxidants so so it's all of that that that is largely lost when you a don't know the plant you don't know how to grow it properly you don't know how to harvest properly you don't know at the speed at which it needs to be processed. I'm more pointing towards what Moringa needs. And largely you get this next to dead, pale, yellow, brown, in this case Moringa, right? So, you know, we get the Dr. Oz effect these days. It used to be Oprah effect, but now we have this Dr. Oz effect where a few years ago, maybe three years ago, or even more at this point, Dr. Oz mentioned Moringa. because I knew having seen moringa in six or seven continents from Indonesia, India, all throughout Southeast Asia, Africa, all these places, I've seen it. I've seen the potential of it, but I haven't seen the good processing of it. So when I knew that Dr. Oz mentioned that, I knew that the market was going to flood with Moringa and easy to grow.

Here's the trick. Easy to grow Moringa. I can grow it here. And we should say just foundationally, you know, maybe define, you know, Moringa and its properties. I mean, it's kind of the ultimate super fruit, right? It kind of, it fires on all cylinders. It's kind of like if you were going to pick one, know sort of food it's pretty awesome yeah it's it's it's pretty much the top of my list in terms

of its uh wide spectrum deliverable uh with its 35 antioxidants so what are antioxidants whether disease fighting free radical scavengers that we need constantly. And then with that, it's got huge amounts of vitamins and minerals. So comparable to a lot of these superfoods can kind of lean on one very powerful compound when in fact Moringa is leaning on and has handfuls of very, very, I mean, super high vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin A, and high mineral content. So, I mean, they call it the vitamin tree, for God's sakes, right? So there's all of these benefits, but here's the marketing slant. So everyone kind of markets the fresh product but if you haven't understood how to deliver that now as someone who really cares and really knows and really supports people getting nutrient-dense food that I know that that isn't and so I make it my mission to improve those situations.

And for example, moringa, easy to grow. As soon as you cut that leaf, why do you think the quality goes down so much? Well, the antioxidants are there supporting the plant, right? And as soon as you cut it, now it's getting denatured and it's getting oxidized. And if you don't wash that and dry that within a short window of time meaning having that processing facility at the field um your quality is hitting the toilet so so that's that's one of those things where i'm like i see it and i see the industry behind the scenes in the commodity world that

people are struggling with finding a clean source. Yeah, and it's analogous to the sort of mainstream food industry, whether it's animal agriculture or otherwise. There is a certain lack of transparency and accountability for how our food is, you know, grown and processed and made and shipped and packaged and all of that, right? We just, we just buy it and we go, oh, well, it must be good because it's here on the shelf. And we have no awareness and no ability to, to, you know, get into the information of what went into that. And that seems to be like a giant regulatory oversight. And I think as, you know, this is something I say on the podcast all the time, but like

young people demand transparency on a level that I think our generation doesn't. And you're seeing more and more, uh, companies understanding that and becoming more transparent. And those are companies that are succeeding by virtue of that sort of corporate decision. But there's a lot of, you know, places, you know, a lot of industries out there that could benefit from this. And the supplement industry is like a black eye on the whole thing, right? Absolutely. Yeah, it's surprising. The more you kind of pull the string, the more you kind of see this, um, uh, issue. And, and again, it becomes this money thing instead of, you know, my heart's in this, it's always has been. And,

and, and, and, and for me, when you, when you see the benefit that it has not only with the growers and the farmers and stuff and their lives changing and then i know that it's going to benefit this consumer how could i go against my own kind of humanness and just do it to make money like or do it to you know sell these things so is there any kind of consumer watchdog website or agency out there that says, here are the companies to avoid, here are the better ones? Like, that's a public service that I feel like, you know, a lot of people could benefit from. Yeah, I think there's not just one. I mean, there's some cool things.

And, for example, there's, I just talked to pollinators.org. So it's bee-friendly and other insect-friendly pollinators.org. So it's bee friendly and other insect friendly pollination situations. So, so for, I mean, you know, if our bees are gone, we're gone. Every, every third bite that you're eating of your food was needed. An insect needed to pollinate that food. So, so if our pollination goes away, we're screwed. And then you have water conservancy situations where you can, for example, the Baru nut, which we'll get into in the Savannah,

is a water conservative super nut as opposed to almond, which, you know, of course I love. They take up a lot of water a ton of water in california when we don't have a lot of water so and then you have of course fair trade organizations and you have organic organizations so you have you have organizations Some sense of regulation that's supporting kind of all of these extensions of what happens with unsustainable practices, right? So if you're unsustainable, then you need to lean on insecticides and pesticides and herbicides and larvicides and all that stuff. And then you all of a sudden now that's called conventional farming which is completely unsustainable and that's a whole obviously topic but then you have things like you know almonds actually are very unsustainable so so you have things like okay well and then other you know types of farming is

unsustainable for bees so so so there's a lot of organizations rich that are, that are here to help support. And I think, you know, listen, there's no downside. So if you align yourself with some of this stuff as a company, then you can use that as, as a way of, of marketing your support of it too another situation actually this was in china last year where um uh we were following up a schizandra and schizandra is probably one of the greatest adaptogenic herbs in the world it's it's kind of like such a balancing kind of the five senses and the five flavors it's a very interesting herb and when we are looking at the wild harvesting side of it it just so happens that we were the only people that were able to come into the world wildlife federation's panda protected friendly zone so all of a sudden now this shizandra is supporting

the the the panda protected area and it's all done very consciously so there is a way to do this for some of our most precious foods and plants um and it kind of reminds me of too like people say well um kind of a random thought but you know what is a superfood even like you know it's like you can kind of there isn't really a definition but this is what i say kind of all well created or whole types of food can be considered a superfood but it's really per calorie per bite it has more nutrients that it's giving you per something else right like the most nutrient dense of all foods yeah exactly so it's like okay if i'm gonna eat this chia seed all right i'm gonna have a spoonful or a bite of chia seed or if i'm gonna eat this donut the donut's not a superfood it has it has macro uh nutrition very little micronutrition and then

also a bunch of toxins too um so that's kind of where it is so again i i dedicate my life to to making sure that the food that has been here for a very long time and as uh epidemiological use sometimes thousands and thousands and thousands of years so do do with it the best that we can in order to preserve that which it has been used by humans for a very long time so that we can thrive because ultimately that's what it's about like i just want for me personally my angle of health and and the exposure i've had to it in this chemistry set of a body and suffer. That's at the end of the day. I don't want people to suffer. I don't want to suffer. The weird tragic thing is, I mean, beyond just buying produce at the grocery store,

like it's become more, rather than easier, it's become more challenging to, you know, remove yourself from the processed foods and the chemically induced foods. Sure. And more difficult to get foods that are actually what they advertise themselves to be in the purest state, right? Like it requires a little consciousness and a little intention and perhaps a little bit more effort

and a little bit more money, you know? Exactly, well. It should be the opposite as we evolve as a culture and as a society, it seems like those should be the things that are, you know, sort of up front and center as opposed to things that we have to hunt for. You know what I mean?

Yeah, exactly. And maybe on that, you know, on that note, speaking of superfood hunting, we can talk about your recent trip to Brazil and, you know, and I think that brings up the sustainability issue that we were talking about a minute ago as well. Yeah. Yeah. the sustainability issue that we were talking about a minute ago as well yeah yeah so uh a company a brazilian company also has a um offices here now in la called labra uh they reached out kind of randomly um and kind of got my attention like hey have you we're thinking about importing some interesting foods in the Sahadu. And I was like, what the hell is the Sahadu?

Like, oh, it's the savanna. Yeah, you're like adventure Gene, just like perks up. Yeah. Ooh, sounds adventurous. I'm like, holy cow. It's been a while since I've been on my last adventure. No, not really. But so I said, okay, well well why don't you send me some of

it let me look at it let me read some research on it and and then the guys were here like two Brazilian guys were here so they came over and we talked in length and and there was a you know can you help us kind of thing so I you know I was intrigued enough at that point to know what the product was. And the nut was called Baru, B-A-R-U. And it was, and a lot of these things, you know, Rich, you know, that, you know, when we, and I say we in the health world, you know, when we, and I say we in the health world, um, and maybe on the fringe of the health world, I've tried some crazy tasting stuff, right? And it is definitely not going to translate to the mass population. It's just not right. What's the craziest thing that you've tested or eaten? The craziest? Or maybe the worst tasting. Well, this is twofold.

I mean, of course, durian is up there. But people that love durian love it. I love it. I lose my mind over durian. Yeah, I've never seen more passion around a food in my life than people that are into durian. Yeah. And then, yeah.

And jackfruit will come in as a close second for me losing my mind. As soon as I, you know, jackfruit, the biggest fruit in the world. But that's not, that doesn't have a funky taste to it. No, it definitely doesn't. But just in terms of losing my mind, I lose my mind. I mean, going back to schizandra, schizandra is sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, all at the same time. Because you eat it and you're experiencing all of those tastes, which is kind of a magic tonic from the traditional Chinese medicine. So it's a balancing herb right so

adaptogen so your hormonal balance all that stuff but the first time you taste it it's kind of whoa right like you you kind of on the tip it's sweet and then it's kind of punching you with this salty bitter pungent kind of thing. But, you know, people with me, I never partake in some of that stuff. But, you know. Yeah, these are foods that are never going to break through in, you know. Yeah, but they're used in a different way, for example. They're not, it's not like you're going to cut a, you know, sit down and eat a porridge of schizandra berries.

It's just not, you know. But you do. Were you the one who was telling me, like, in certain parts of, of i think it was you in certain parts of asia like in the airports they tell you like you're not allowed to bring durian on the plane oh yeah yeah no public it was doug evans was telling me he brought durian on the he brought durian on an airplane and he almost got like thrown out thrown off the airplane yeah because because for all the listeners out there durian smells like a really bad toilet and rotten eggs right so it's it's so intense that it will take over a room it will take over a hotel so no public you can't bring durian at a public building right yeah but the baroo nut

we're on the other end of the spectrum. Right. I mean, so that was all a way of saying, look, a lot of this stuff is, you know, most people aren't going to go in for it. Right. But, but here's a nut that actually has the potential to, um, be something that the mainstream could enjoy. So it's kind of like a taste, uh, flavor between a peanut and an almond. And it's kind of, the shape is very kind of cool and sexy. And so that got my interest because that could be a barrier to entry, right?

A barrier to entry to the market. And it wasn't there because they taste fantastic. And you let me taste some of these. And I think I had some of the Barunup butter. It was insane. Insane. It's so so good and i'd never heard of this before i know no one has it's new to to america and that's what we're trying to do here and um so again so this brew so i said well like before we kind of enter into a some sort of agreement to see if I can help you. I mean, the best thing to do is show up, man. So buy your tickets and let's go.

So I could see the product chain development. I could see the farmers. What's the limitations? What's the hang-up? Where are the bottlenecks? What do we need money for in order to improve the quality or because listen when you're in i mean brazil's not a third world country but when you're in a situation or a town or a village that has never done any of this stuff you you have to have a

quality standard in order to bring it to america period. So I was going with that. And so there are many, many adventures along the way. And some of that was learning about the Sahara as it relates to the Amazon. And we saw a lot of clear-cut devastation in Brazil. So what does that look like when you see this rainforest being cleared for i i presume for grazing and and and feed you know livestock feed that's was a pretty much a hundred percent of what

i saw was those two reasons 100 centered centered around cattle not human consumptive foods we hear you know we hear in america it's like we know you know i don't know one it's like it's like a full football field of rainforest gets cleared every second for this purpose but it's sort of a statistic it's an academic you know idea but to be able to be boots on the ground and witness that like what is that like when you're driving thousands of kilometers right and you're seeing this where you were that is still left but now most of your travel is just nothing but a few trees and so now you know 10 to 20 percent you see like these farmers so there's a mandate now but it's it's so underwhelming that they have to keep some of these endemic plants up in their field so baru is one of them baru babasu which is

a fantastic oil that we're going to get into at some point that's comparable to to coconut oil but also has disease fighting compounds like lauric acids and stuff like that um so it's kind of it's you're so sad i was so sad and at the same time rejoicing when you're finding some of the the what was left over and and so so yeah we we saw a lot of that and then you know went into the wild and and saw saw it all in in in nature and and then and then you're meeting the villagers and the farmers and how they're collected and so so baru itself is a very beautiful tree um and every nine months similar to birthing uh humans every nine months that produces these these seeds and these seeds well it's fruit really and this it's got this sweet outer fruit it's maybe i don't know what is a very very very small uh say it's bigger than an apricot seed

probably four times as big as apricot seed and and so it has this sweet on the outside and almost impossible to crack open so so indigenously you have to the a lot of the farmers created some sort of lever and tried to break these open i mean it's very very hard and every one of those is just one seed. So it was one Baru nut. So there's a high amount of labor that it costs. So part of the mission was developing these hydraulic machines. And supplying them in certain strategic regions cooperatively.

So they could all bring their supply there. And then pneumatically it was cracking these things open so that was part of the thing and and again this is changing an economy and this is changing uh uh the sahara the savannah that's getting annihilated and we don't even know it i didn't even know it so so this is again this is now this brew is is an endemic endangered plant that we absolutely can create a value there that is largely would be you know lost eventually right so you are not only sort of supporting these indigenous communities you are preserving this this plant that is on the you know precipice

of extinction and you're sort of taking a stand and combating the you know gestalt of animal agriculture that is basically ravaging this part of the world right so it kind of functions on all those levels and then beyond that it's super nutritious right like what is the nutrition profile of this thing it's crazy god it's crazy so you know of course from a plant protein it's one of the highest plant uh not it's one of the highest proteins of any nut um it doesn't have a huge amount of oil so in fact you can you can eat a lot of it and get a lot of uh nutrient density it's got a lot of powerful antioxidants um copper magnesium uh a bunch of minerals and and so we're we as soon as we got back we've been doing a bunch of tests on it and and finding out more and more stuff and we're also investigating some secrets around that

i'm not even going to reveal it but because no one's kind of looked at certain aspects of it but we're looking at other parts of the shell and other things where it could be sustainable kind of burning materials, building materials for the locals, stuff like that. But nutrient wise, it's, it's one of the most nutrient packed nuts we've ever seen. Right.

So the trick is, is to create a vertically integrated sort of supply chain that is sustainably supporting these communities and harvesting this land in a way that is simultaneously preserving it and introducing this nutritious food product to the West. There's no downside. There's no downside. So you get it out here to someone, again, buying it by voting, right?

They're voting with their dollars and they're now getting a super nutrient nut. And that is then going all the way back to supporting the people and supporting the land that is in dire straits right now. That's beautiful. It can't be grown here. right now. That's beautiful. Can it be, it can't be grown here? You know, the funny thing is it may or may not grow here, but it literally only grows one place in the world. You know, it grows in the Sahara. It grows in the Savannah. It doesn't grow anywhere else. You know, I may put some in my greenhouse maybe and just see, you know, get to know the plant more and then take that information as a research and take that information to potentially help with harvesting and stuff like that. That's what I want.

Again, we kind of go back. That's what I want to, that's what I use my land for, you know, to better understand some of these plants to then have them benefit. Right. Well, that's exciting, man. So how far along in this process are you? We're getting our new website done, and we have a new shipment coming in right now. I think it's maybe even in today. So we'll be supplying and be able to get some stuff on Amazon. So that's happening, and we're going to slowly grow it.

So my big plan for Moringa, Baru, Babasu, all these things, I have a list of superfoods that need to be out in the world. My big plan is to create this superfood conservancy, and that is using real video, showing where things are coming from and using social platforms social campaigns whether it's i don't know you know by the time this airs i probably won't have it up yet but but that's the idea so that the transparency of where this stuff is coming from and also learning about it, meeting the people, that you can at least have a lot more assurance that this supply is the best.

It's for real. And now, okay, I'm getting what this is supposed to be for me and my body and for health and healing, but also now I am influencing and helping these people. And that to me is, you know, that's the biggest, right. That's the, yeah, that's beautiful. That's a beautiful, beautiful mission, man. Yeah. That's exciting stuff.

So, you know, when we talk about super foods, I mean, one of the things that comes up is, and this comes up in the context of kind of getting more into wellness, whether you're plant-based or not, um, the idea of incorporating a lot of these high density, high nutrition density foods, you know, onto your plate, uh, people will say, well, you know, I'd love to eat the way that you do, but I just, I can't afford it. Right. So maybe we could talk a few minutes about separating fact from fiction, hype from reality when it comes to these super foods.

Like if you are going to, you know, invest some of your hard earned dollars into some of these you know, health enhancing foods, what are the ones that you should be looking at? How can we do it affordably? What are the ones that you should be looking at? How can we do it affordably? What are the ones that, you know, probably aren't worth it? And, you know, how do we, you know, I'm just imagining somebody who's listening to this saying, you know, like, all right, I'm in, so tell me exactly what I should get and what I don't need, you know? Yeah, it's a big conversation. Obviously, I could handle that conversation one-on-one

better than massive population of, because it depends on the needs, right? And it depends on the wallet, like, as well, you know, because, listen, these foods do travel a long way, and there's a lot of work that it takes in order for them to have those nutrients. And that's a beautiful thing because they have been used in that way for a long time, and now we get to experience them. So, you know, there's probably a few ones that are pretty, I mean, every day you have things like new reports coming out with turmeric, for example.

Turmeric is widely accessible and you couldn't come to me with any straight face and say you couldn't afford turmeric yeah it's affordable buying the root not the powder go to you know find find the root if you can it looks like ginger except it's orange and the ginger family if you can find the root great and if you can't organic a nice organic powder with the right kind of recipe to activate it fantastic so you know you can make a paste out of it you could I have some on my website I have many little recipes for turmeric but here's the thing there's there's so many you can can you can use turmeric from a digestive from an immune system you can use it for anti-inflammatory you can also use it for enhancing your brain so now the tumorones and even the curcumin that these are

active compounds in the turmeric that are are showing brain activity meaning more specifically neurogenerative action so so now you're really starting this is it gets me excited because once you start looking at the compounds of these things now you're like oh that's that's where it's all happening with no downside with no side benefits so so the turmeric on a daily basis is one of those that you can take every day without having any kind of backlash. When I say that is sometimes if you eat almonds every day without preparing them correctly, you can have a backlash of phytic acids and enzyme inhibitors that does your gut bad. Right. So but turmeric is a very easy one to incorporate you can make

turmeric lattes you can make turmeric paste and just put it in your tea put it in your tea you can you smoothie and if you have you know more aggressive things like i have a lot of pain i have a lot of inflammation so now you you can go and get supplements that are curcumin standardized, more aggressive towards those types of behaviors and situations. But that being said, that's an isolation. So you're also not getting the hundreds of compounds that are also in the turmeric itself. So curcumin is not a replacement for the full root, but it has actions that can support specific things based on an individual. My question that always comes up is once you isolate out the active component of these foods and put it in a capsule, how effective is that really?

Like, you know, if you extract the beta carotene out of a fruit and put that in supplement form, I mean, I'm sure it has some benefit, but it's not the same as when you're ingesting it in the matrix of fiber and all the other phytonutrients and micronutrients that comprise that whole food 100 and we don't even know the degree at which it's helping because there's a natural synergy period to to a full a full food matrix um so so yes that's true. And, yeah, I mean, from an industry standard when you're talking extracts, now not having, let's kind of push the quality to a side. Whatever the whole food, let's say, for example, the turmeric shows up and then they use that. So, let's say, just leaving that aside, the standardization of extracts are pretty solid right so if they they have to standardize to certain levels so for the most part you can get fairly good action with the standardized supplement but you can't always trust even on you know you have uh consumerlabs.com or dot org i mean they do a watchdog of supplements and they'll grab like hey this week we're going to

test uh curcumin supplements and they'll they'll do it and it says it's supposed to be standardized to this amount and they fail. Some pass, some fail. So again, it's trusted consumers and I think from a societal point of view and a social point of view, you want to start asking experts. You want to ask experts, you want to ask practitioners, you want to start narrowing in on those kind of supplements that are at least been used by people that you respect and and and kind of that kind of thing so so again it's a it's a it's how you're applying it from a turmeric point of view as a longevity plant as a one that's combating like listen health is created every choice and every day and every meal and and so from from that point of view when you grab things like chaga and turmeric and chia seeds

and moringa and these things are can be consumed and several others can be consumed on a daily basis that is now supplying your body with these phytonutrients that it needs it desperately needs and i really make a strong argument of why we need superfoods in our in our diet every day because we are a you know the the con the congress in 1992 did soil testing, and every continent in the first world is deprived of minerals, and we've known that for a very long time. So, A, we're not getting the nutrient density, number one. And number two, the other side of it is just environmental toxin annihilation.

We're just getting the crap beat out of us. And because of that, we have stress. And because of that stress, the more stress you have, the more micronutrient needs micronutrients and vitamins and minerals from food that is then less than ideal soil and then you add on top of it our our weird world that we're in with environmental toxins that a hundred thousand new environmental toxins are emitted in our atmosphere every year. And of that, not even 10% of them are being tested. We're in an experiment. And we're getting stressed on such a level that we don't even know.

But that's a slow stress. So we also have to combat that with these nutrient-dense powerhouses. Right. I mean, it's strange times. You know, we're simultaneously, you know, fat and starving. You know, we're sick. We're bombarding ourselves with stress and these environmental toxins. And then we're wondering why, you know, the rates of chronic lifestyle illness are through

the roof. Absolutely. wondering why you know the rates of chronic lifestyle illness are through the roof you know so we're gorging ourselves on poor nutrient density you know high caloric value foods that are making us sick and meanwhile starving because we're not getting the healthy nutrients in compacted form in part due to the food choices that we're making and in part due to the soil depletion it's it's fucking disastrous actually and and it's it's sad that we have to reach into the you know the the sort of edges of the planet into these communities to try to find food that's healthy pretty much we we're the worst our soils are the worst of all the continents so you know that that's that's where we're at and and so that the message to the consumer to the listener is it's it's more incumbent upon you than ever to be more conscious about these choices that you're making exactly

right well what's the number one thing people you have to take responsibility for yourself and your life and your health period regardless of what we're even talking about you can't you can't just throw it to some doctor and you can't just kind of divorce yourself in listening to advice you have to be educated this is your body this is it this is your vehicle this is your deal if you don't think that that's an important thing to to have something that's out here and open your mouth and let it inside your body and if you're not looking at that as something really important then i don't know but that's a that's a big freaking deal and that's a big disconnect because that's what it's all about man it's out here in space and we need to bring it inside so we open our mouth and the fact that we're just thinking these twinkies and this fast food and and all this stuff is is oh we're fine no it's i mean come on it's yeah

every action has a has a reaction and in the same way that every you know decision that you make and behavior that you engage in either moves you in a positive direction or a negative direction it is the same with every food that you put in your mouth it in a positive direction or a negative direction it is the same with every food that you put in your mouth it's either making you healthier or sicker and the idea that it's static or that it doesn't matter or you know whatever you put in it's all the same because your body breaks it down in calories or calories is nonsense it's nonsense. And that's where I'm like, you know, even before I was full on into this stuff and I never, never made sense to me to skimp on food. Right. Pay, pay the money, pay it. Because here's the thing. It's you're going to pay for it. You're paying for it eventually, no matter what. electors coming and you know luckily i got into this early because of challenges in my own life and and and uh and i'm formed that have i have a great i've got a fantastic addictive personality

that luckily i turned and went this direction and now i'm obsessed but not obsessed in the that's all i think about i'm obsessed to the point where i want my body to function so that i can live so that if you and i want to go to the beach and pull a log or jump in the ocean or run up a mountain i can do it without kind of dreading the last half of my life and and barely kind of doing the things and barely playing with my kids. And like, that's no, I'm not interested in that. I'm super particular about my food, obviously, but you're next level. Like your kitchen is insane. Like you're a freak, you know?

I mean, the way that you have meticulously organized, you have this, yeah, you're opening up this cabinet that's behind you that looks like it was a pantry or a walk-in closet. And it's literally organized like an author's bookshelf or something like that. And in your kitchen, you've got a million mason jars that are all filled with who knows what coming from where. And you've got it all dialed in and you're very particular about it but there's there's something really beautiful about them i mean right now we're sitting here we're drinking this incredible tea that you made that is what's in here chaga chaga and yerba mate and some uh coconut cream right very simple and you let me taste that uh it was like a coconut uh probiotic yogurt like non-dairy coconut it was the

best tasting thing i've ever had it's incredible ridiculous yeah you know i love doing that i love you know grabbing buddies who eat better yeah here my my vegan pizza and i love a heavy carnivore that comes over and i'll i'll give it to him and and i just had this ex nfl guy who's like six six still i mean he retired in the 90s but he's six six 280 and he ate it and he goes best pizza i've ever had period i love it what's on what's on it uh well there's uh it's uh i use the ezekiel because i'm not even making i'm not even going to attempt making the crust um especially with people around um so i have this ezekiel sprouted thin crust. And then I have pesto, beautiful, fresh pesto, olive oil. And then it changes, but then I'll have a series of layers of vegetables.

Sometimes I'll even throw a layer of beans down. And then, but the key is it's phases. You have to toast first. you have to toast the thing because it won't handle the amount of vegetables i'm going to put on it or the layers to it yeah because you can't overcook those vegetables or it'll get soggy and gross no so then so it's layers and then at the end it's kind of these very careful laid out in patterns almost of spinach. And then that's put in. And then at the end, I'll put these big fat heirloom tomatoes,

spread some garden vegetable spices on it. And then now at the very end when it's done and it's cut, I'll put a dollop. Oh, of course, I use nutritional yeast as kind of that cheesy. But at the end, I'll put this light little film of the coconut yogurt. And it gives you that little cheesy. Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous. That's nice, man. Yeah.

All right. So we talked about turmeric but if you had to make like if somebody's listening to this and they're like okay i'm in like just tell me like the five or the ten superfoods that are sort of the the most bang for my buck or what i should really like focus on or invest in and and how do i use these things? Yeah. So, well, aside from plugging the formula that I made in that way, I mean, Shakeology was made because I had the opportunity to spend two years formulated in an alchemical way. So that's 70 superfoods. So if you want to get really lazy, you can just pick that up and get a bunch.

Darren's already made those decisions for you yeah exactly and there's tons of adaptogens and stuff so the that being said there's many ways to go with this thing but turmeric is is is that's in the first aid kit of food for sure moringa is now that has an asterisk by it because I for me i've seen some boutique moringa companies have okay quality but nowhere near the volume that's gonna make an impact so is there is there a particular brand that you could recommend if people that people could buy online yeah the company i've been helping out with it actually connected to the product is called more moringa but this the product product chain is mor moringa um the product chain is suffering too which is why we're trying to help out and there's some other ones and um but i i'm not

gonna i'm not gonna out anybody right now because there's ones i've tested and they're just horrible and there's some of the bigger ones um but more to come on that. So, you know, if people want to connect, then just stay connected because there's more to come on Moringa. And Chaga, king of all mushrooms. Right. So maybe we can just put a pin in mushrooms for a minute because mushrooms are definitely having a moment right now. You know what I mean?

They are. And probably due in no small part to our friend Taro and what he's done with four sigmatic he's really blown up that company and he's done a great job of introducing these mushrooms to a mainstream audience by putting them in formulas that are palatable to you know the average american and he's done it well i mean it was one of the people i got out here to come on the compound and you know we kind of measured each other on, on, you know, because obviously my head's fully, my body's fully engaged in harvesting and

understanding. And then we, I was like, boom, instantly this guy's doing it right. Uh, so I really, I really loved what, what those guys are up to so that yes they do make a nice formula chaga is dual extracted dual extraction of chaga is very important i mean i've before i even knew of that company i was doing um uh water extraction for 68 hours making a huge pot and it would last me a couple weeks we're going to talk about water so we'll leave that aside for a minute but uh what is dual extraction like dual extraction so water extraction is allowing for the water extracted constituents to come out i mean we know water extraction is tea right it's tea you're boiling water and certain constituents are able to to come out um when you dual extract the other side of it is pure triple quadruple distilled clean alcohol is now pulling out a whole other layer of constituents so you're really

getting from a dual extraction point of view you're really getting as much embodiment of the healthy compounds of chaga so that's a very important side of it because so now instead of me buying the quadruple distilled alcohol and doing a whole other thing i'm just like well i know the company i know tarot i i know what they're doing they're wild collecting they're doing it right so So now I just buy the forest schematic. And what is it about chaga? Like sometimes I see all these mushrooms. I was like, well, what's the difference between chaga and reishi?

And what do these things do? And like, what am I supposed to drink when? And all of that. I know. I mean, chaga is kind of the diamond of the forest. It's the king of mushrooms. And you could kind of call reishi as the queen of the mushrooms. So that's kind of a way to start the conversation.

And chaga has got all of these. Let's just make it very simple. It's one of, if not the greatest antioxidants you can possibly consume by one food right so so that thing alone is fighting free radicals it's it's allowing for the let's use the word it's it's helping the telomeres it's it's doing some anti-aging butylenic acids it's proving showing fighting strongly against a lot of cancers um there's a lot going on with chaga so so and and that being said you know that you look at which i love looking at and then also visiting um where chaga comes from you have everyone from the emperor in China, you have the Russians, you have the Vikings, you have all these major, major classes of people drinking it for a very long time.

So chaga is kind of one of those things where, again, you can drink it on a daily basis. There's a whole other side of it too with the melanins. The melanins and the interaction that it has with the skin and the vitamin D production. I think there's a lot of correlations that are happening between having a lot of melanin to therefore make your body's ability to utilize vitamin D a lot better. So there's a whole other side of that. That's interesting because so many people are vitamin D deficient. Exactly. So then once you have that mechanism in place,

your benefits of the vitamin D side. Now that's not going to make up for not getting vitamin D. But if your body's having a problem metabolizing it like i'm always like well is it because they're not taking in enough vitamin d or is their body not able to absorb it you know exactly two different things exactly and and i would also argue because of the melanin side of it and and kind of from the inside out and helping the skin you're also now you know know, and this is me. I haven't seen research yet,

but this is me kind of putting two and two together and therefore making a healthy skin and lowering cancer rates and stuff like that. Because also you can start making that argument of not even getting into the poisons that people are putting on their skin, but also the lack of vitamin D is very much correlated. Your lack of sun exposure, your lack of vitamin D production,

and your cancer rates without a doubt go up, and that's proven science. So there's a lot going on. So that's chaga, and chaga is one that you don't have to stop drinking there's no there's no build-up so you can you can do it on it you don't have to cycle it exactly um and then um yeah so sticking with mushrooms reishi is a and and and they're very much adaptogenic as well all these most of these and i think we talked about this last time but maybe explain to people what an adaptogen is yeah so so adaptogens are usually a plant that's in a situation where it's being stressed in some way and that stress is developing compounds for its

survival um and it just so happens funny that that when you consume those that they become biologically usable for us so adaptogens are different than like a molecule of like caffeine if you take in caffeine it's a stimulant you're being stimulated when you're taking compounds uh in things like rhodiola and reishi and and schizandra and maca and tulsi and all of these things a list and lists of of great uh adaptogens that it's it's essentially to make the conversation easy it's essentially a modulator so if you're um um say you're you have autoimmune disorder. There's a lot of arguments that many of these adaptogens will help kind of dampen the immune system kind of going off its rails.

If you need a boost, one of the first things I will do is lean on the adaptogens when I'm feeling a little off or I'm feeling stressed in some way or i may be coming down with the cold even so so again if you need something it will help you mitigate that and then then you know kind of going back to the stress side of things if you're stressed in any way that that adaptogen is going to help modulate um that hormonal system and kind of get you back into when you need to get you back into parasympathetic and uh nervous system and not let you

kind of burn yourself out and that can look in many different ways it can help calm down and regulate the adrenal glands that can help calm down and regulate the adrenal glands, that can help calm down and regulate the thyroid, that can calm down and regulate the pituitary and pineal and all of that stuff. So adaptogens, I think, are probably, if you were to say, a class of tonics and herbs that the adaptogens are, from my point of view, one of the most important set of herbs that we can possibly consume on a daily basis, on a somewhat regular basis because of all of those things that we talked about before. That, hey, we've got stress of just, you know, I'm a dad, I have kids, I have a job, I don't have enough money. But then that's kind of the normal stress.

And like we talked about, now we have toxins that we don't have enough money but then that that's the kind of the normal stress and like we talked about now we have toxins that we don't even see we have uh elements in our water we don't even know uh we have perfumes that we're taking in that we don't even understand like there's a lot of and we're under hydrated and you know lacking sleep yeah you know all of these things, right? And so the adaptogens really are kind of like this weird Ayurvedic artificial intelligence that reads your body and says this is what you need and then attends to that need to bring your systems more into balance. That's a great way to put it. Yeah. And so I'm consuming adaptogens every day in some

form or fashion some help in other situations so again some of those are rhodiola and schizandra and which are two of my most favorite and maca of course i have a long history with and um and and and tulsi and of course the mushrooms fall into that category as well. Let's talk a little bit about like sort of parsing that between kind of daily superfoods for just boosting overall wellness and then kind of more performance enhancing, you know, pre-workout, during workout, post-workout rituals. Yeah. Which one do you want me to talk about first? Well, we kind of covered overall wellness, right?

Well, I don't know if we finished the list, but we hit turmeric and the mushrooms. They keep people busy. They can pick up the book, right? Yeah. You got lots. I mean, we're only going to be able to scratch the

surface on this right you know of course yeah so and and we should note that the paperback is out yeah the cover's way better by the way it's cool yeah it's really cool so you know if any of this interests you guys at all like darren's done an amazing job of laying all this stuff out um and then the website website's getting into a lot of yeah cool but all right so pre-workout like what's and we could just use you as the case study right like you know you're super fit you're jacked you're working out hard you're how old now 40 40 46 you gotta think about that i don't know like what year what what year is it um yeah super duper fit you know no problem pulling up that log you know up the hill when we were on the beach the other day which i could not do so you know shining example of health so when you get up in the morning

and you're looking at your morning workout you're going to go down to the beach and hammer, you know, what's, you know, what's going into the body first thing? Well, water. I mean, there, there, you know, which is, you know, the, the irony is that the, the book publisher was like, what, you know, how do you want to talk about superfoods in your book? I'm like, I, I, I don't, I mean, I am, but the main things are foundational stuff because I don't want to misrepresent where they are placed. So it's water. So I get myself hydrated because a few percent low in the proper amount of water and my energy is going to be horrible. My recovery is going to be horrible.

I won't be able to sleep as well. My detoxification potential of moving through and not only filling and fueling myself and delivering nutrients, but also getting rid of the waste from exercise will be bad. So the non-sexy first thing I do is I drink a lot of water. And where do you get your water?

Like there's a lot coming out about the water that we're drinking, what's wrong with it. And people are going out and testing these consumer brands of water that we're buying in plastic bottles and realizing like, hey, man, this stuff might not be so good. So how do we know that the water we're drinking is the water that we should be drinking and what do people not realize about water that you could help educate them oh my gosh is a big topic yeah i mean so big you know we do a whole podcast on this we could do a whole podcast some of the you know hot button so so let's dispel maybe some myths a little bit or some marketing truths with some lies attached to it. So water, of course, if you can find a spring that is uncontaminated and is chelating and

vortating its way down a stream and clean and you can do that. Yeah, that's the water you want to drink. So I just want to be clear. But 99.9999% of the people on the planet don't even have access to that anymore. So now you have to look at water from a perspective of like, okay, what's in it that I need and what's in it that i don't want and unfortunately most of the water coming out our tap is filled full of you know now it's very well documented the prescription drugs the micron doses of prescription drugs that have been put down toilets and stuff and that's been done for

you know decades and decades now that's a part of our water and now you also have chlorides and fluorines and formaldehydes and all of this stuff so now what we have to do is we have to deconstruct water so that we can reconstruct in the best way that we can in order to mimic nature so that we can receive the water and when i say receive water receive it on a cellular level if if my cells don't receive the water if they don't recognize or have the electrolytes or have the energy that it's needed to receive it, then it's not going to work. And so people say, I drink a lot of water, I drink a lot of water, but very few of it's effective. And at the same time, your body has to kind of use a lot of energy to kind of, A, deal with the toxic load,

and also to energize the water and construct it in a way that it can receive it. So there's a lot going on. So the conversation is everyone talks about pH, right? So a slightly alkaline water. Yes, there's a truth to that, but it's only an aspect of water. It's not everything. You can have a good pH water, 7.365 and above. If you go too far, your body's then going to have to deal with too much alkalinity.

So if you have, I could influence, I could grab some water out of the tap right now, Rich, and throw a sodium bicarbonate in. We can test it because I have a little mechanism that we can test that water, and it's going to be an eight-pointer. Of course you do. Yeah. Of course you have that. I have a whole bunch right there. There's about four different things that I can test. So I can test the pH, and I can influence that water, and I can go, Rich, this is a 9.0 water, and I'm going to sell it to you.

Right? Right. Super alkaline. Super alkaline. This will solve your alkalinity problem. This will solve all your problems, right? But that's not telling you everything. So I have another testing device that shows TDS, total dissolved solids.

That is the junk that you can't't see but this little testing unit shows you right it's giving you an indicator so so now it's showing 200 500 a thousand parts per million of stuff of of it doesn't tell you what that stuff is it's just there's stuff in your water there's stuff in your water that you probably don't want to consume. So again, we're talking on a cellular level. So if you're just taking in tap water and that's fine, then you're just dumping garbage in your cells. So essentially around your cells.

So then you have this other thing called oxygen reduction potential. And this is a big conversation, but that's essentially oxygen reduction potential is the water literally is going to be in a position where it's either going to give you more free radicals or it's going to have a very good oxygen reduction potential. it's going to have a very good oxygen reduction potential and it's going to essentially be reducing the load of antioxidants in your body so if you don't if you've just influenced ph and you haven't even tested the tds and you haven't even tested the orp you could be harming yourself and not even know it. So all that being said, that's a rabbit hole that, you know, and now you have the fourth phase of water with a great book called Dr. Gerald Pollack wrote. So there's this other phase of water that I'm not even going to approach.

We can do it on some other time. Is that like structured water? Exactly. an approach uh we can do it on some other time is that like structured water is that exactly so it's a it's a phenomenon that they found that literally exists upon what's called an exclusion zone so if i pour water in this cup and if i look under a microscope there's this a few a few levels of molecule space that they see that is essentially structured, energized, clear water. And then all of the few structures over, the few molecules over, now it's all regular. But it has created this exclusion zone.

So it's kind of like it operates as a kind of a gel so then that goes back into how is this insect running across water how how is this water performing aspects that we can't explain so all of these doctors that actually look at h2o once they start looking at the physics of it it defines all logic of what they know h2o to be so dr gerald pollock wrote this great book the fourth phase of water and he gets way into the the science of that. That's super, that's like fascinating. That's otherworldly stuff. Well, if you want to go even one esoteric step further, do you know Mizuro Emoto?

Of course. Yeah, so. So that's the whole other. Right. Exactly. So let's explain for people that aren't listening. I mean, this will get, this ventures into some pretty new age territory, for people that aren't listening i mean this will get this go this ventures into some pretty new age territory but he is this japanese dude who did studies exposing water and water crystals to

various types of stimuli either like loud music or symphonic music or um or words or words or spoken words written words and he kind of tested it at the ends of the spectrum, like positive versus negative, like love versus hate, like anger versus compassion, sort of thematically in that way. And then took these sort of microscopic photographs of these water crystals and how they respond to the, yeah, frozen water crystals and how they respond to the frozen water crystals and how they respond to the stimuli and the and it's pretty fascinating yeah and what you see is is the

harmony around positive words so it's a good versus evil as a word that's placed on the on the on the on the cup of the water right so there you have a cup here that says good and you have a cup here that says evil and then you freeze the molecule and the good molecule is a perfect geometry a beautiful kind of snowflake looking um structure and then you look on this evil and it's all emorphed and twisted and not unified. Exactly. So then you're like, okay,

well, whoa. And you kind of dive into that and you're like, Oh wow. We're, we're mostly water. So if, if, if in fact that is true,

that by my words and the things that I think, um, I'm influencing the greatest kind of element in my body. Right, the people that you're around, the environment that you expose yourself to. Exactly. All of these things. Exactly.

So a lot of that research is starting to go to, and there's a lot of Russian, gnarly Russian researchers that started to scientifically started to take that and kind of go further. And they kind of like described it as a list like water doesn't really have a point of view it's it's a blank hard drive so if you want to if you want to you know save uh you know a journal entry of all your emotional stuff on your hard drive and then you want to save a business graph on your hard drive hard drive doesn't have a point of view what you save on it but it's there it's there so the idea is that the the water receives these messages and it receives them on such a deep level

that it has imprinting in the water it has a signature that's left in the water. Um, it's like coding on coding on the hard drive. Exactly. So, so, so now, now that was first.

And then you start talking about this scientific guide, Gerald Pollack. And then he's gone. It's not three phases of water. It's not vapor. It's not liquid. It's not ice. There's a fourth phase. There's this gel-like stuff that operates completely different than anything else we've seen. And so the point to all of that is water is, dare I say, celestial. It's operating more like quantum physics, but also very much a part of our reality, right? You know what's awesome?

Is that this whole thing emanated out of me just asking you what you put in your body before you go work out you know and and we're like down the rabbit hole it's that and what did i say first water water water yeah exactly so so so for me at the house i have so for everyone everyone, so make it really simple. The thing that I do is- Well, hold on a second. Okay. So if you are going to drink water, then what is the water that you're like, look, most

people, they're not going to go invest in all this equipment. Like, where do I get the good water? Right. How do I know the water I'm drinking is good? Or what is the water that I should be purchasing? Well, most of the water that you're probably purchasing is not good let's just be straight so what do you do so let's not talk about what i do it's non-replicable no it's just it's just it's just so extreme it's a level of responsibility that i've taken it to because i have my one of my good buddies dr dick willard

uh is is one of the top water scientists on the planet in in especially in the united states so he personally put in my my water device all right so succinctly walk me through your system though and then we can talk about what other people can do okay so so this is what everyone can do and it's my system the for one of the first things that have that's happening is there's normal charcoal filters that are taking out heavy metals uh fluorides chlorines fluorides all of that stuff the very solid basic it's kind of like the first filter system that's taking out the macro junk right so that's happening the other that gets you what like 70 there yeah maybe yeah at least from one perspective from yeah maybe not for you but for

right all right yeah so that's getting that's getting no from a from a junk perspective it's doing a really good job this doesn't mean that burrita filter is working and burrita filter is hardly doing anything um so so you're having it forced through those filters and then essentially it's going through a reverse osmosis so you have a membrane very small micron size 0.01 micron, I believe, or even 0.02, that the water is being forced through this very, very small hole membrane. It doesn't allow anything else to go through. So you're virtually stripping that water of everything. Is that distillation, or is distillation different it's close because you're going to have a tds total dissolved salad that's very similar to distillation so the things that people can do is get distilled water or ro water okay so reverse osmosis water

mine's reverse osmosis so now that you have this stripped water you have an you have a kind of a 7.0 ph neutral water so what is it lacking it's lacking some energy well and the minerals and the electrolytes and the electrolytes and and because you have 70 million cells right in your body um then then you're you're needing just like a battery you need the electrolytes for electrical conduction to happen your body is electrical um so every cell so you need the angstrom size electrolytes so now that you have this distilled or ro water you need the the elements right you need those electrolytes so the easy thing i do and i tell people is that the the 250 million year old plus um used to besea-water Himalayan crystal salt has got 84 trace minerals

in the exact cellular molecular size that's required. So a pinch in your liter of water, half a teaspoon per gallon kind of thing, is pretty much the ratio that you need in order for that water to become active it may even influence the ph just a little bit more that is the that is the easiest way to start consuming a positive ph water a water that's filled full of the necessary electrolytes and a water that doesn't have the damaging toxins in it right so that is number one that's and and very important don't drink the water of straight ro or distilled. Don't be drinking that water

because over time that water is neutral and it requires a balance and will pull the minerals out of your body in order to balance itself in order then to be hydrated. So you don't want to do that. All right, so that's the home setup. But what about, let's say you're traveling,

you're stuck in an airport, your flight's delayed, you want to get some water, you don't have any left with you. And, you know, you go to the shop or whatever and you're looking in the thing and you got Evian, you got Smart Water, you got Dasani, you got, you know, whatever. You know what I mean? Fiji. Which one do you pick? Do you not pick any?

Do you use the water fountain? Like, you know, what are you going to do? I wouldn't gamble use the water fountain like what do you know what are you gonna do i wouldn't gamble on the water fountain but um so i choose because i've tested it uh smart water really yeah some of the best testing water fiji's okay um you know if if it's a mystery water i've never seen the brand and there's a fiji i'll choose fiji if there's smart water or fiji together avion's actually tested pretty well as well but i usually for me if i'm jumping on a plane it's over two hours i'm i'm pretty much two to three liters of water that i've just purchased and so i even have a traveling vortator i pour

water through a vortator yeah that's right what is that we need a vortator um so a vortator is essentially starting to mimic the as water goes down a river it water molecules don't move in a straight line they vortate they they twist they turn all all of reality is structured through vortation and vortexes so when water vortexes it energizes itself so that energy is necessary for biological absorption um so so again i take the water i run it through the little vortator what does it look like what what is it uh it's i got i mean it's uh you can show me afterwards but is it like a big device no it's just it's about it's about this big and and it's got a little spout in the bottom and i put it over the thing and then i just pour

it through pour it through okay and it spins essentially you could buy these things you could like get this on amazon or yeah i bet you could on amazon yeah there's even people that have di y'd it and did it your own so they've used some marbles and stuff so so the one i have has has um elements little elemental balls in it that that are chart you know there's got a charge to it um but as long as you're vortating uh the water and moving it you're you're re-energizing it. Again, you have to understand that once that water is sitting in that plastic bottle, it's kind of dead. It's lost the energy.

So you want to energize it again. That's next level. That's next level. But also you start feeling it when you get a sensitivity to that kind of water. The other side is, yeah, you don't want to rely on bottled water because of the phytoestrogens that are going to wreak some havoc in your body. So I'm not stoked that I'm drinking water out of a bottle or out of a plastic bottle. But if I'm on the airport, I'd rather be somewhat hydrated than dehydrated and deal with the ramifications of, of, of, of that. So, yeah. All right. So pre-workout, we go through

the water routine, you get hydrated. What else? So for me, I will, you know, I get up around, you know, around 4 AM everym. every day to be water. Then I'll do a variety of different tonics. It could be as simple as having a yerba mate tea. It could be a lot more aggressive. Definitely mushrooms, definitely guarana. I love the right kind of caffeine. I like and I love using it for pre-workout

um um and mushrooms like even rishi has got some atp uh uh uh influence right so getting my mitochondria all fired up um cordyceps cordyceps is a fantastic one um and then there's some other ones uh um uh like uh beets have been shown to have a lot of uh great nitrogen effect and helping the the oxygen levels and of course the super secret stuff that i even gave you right it's not on the market um but it's from a plant compound and and that stuff is is something i've been playing with um and and that's kind of like it's fun when you start playing with this stuff and you've been working out with your buddies and you know that you've taken some some some extra stuff plant boost yeah little plant blues and and like i love

actually with some tonics i love using cacao not only for the phenylethylamine and the neurotransmitter side but the the the theobromines and those kind of caffeine like substances um substances. Um, I'm a big a hundred percent Peruvian cacao guy. Um, so those, those are kind of the way, and I, and I will add some coconut milk to some of those tonics and start and go right to my workout from there. So, but you're keeping it pretty light, like liquids, tonics, elixirs, things like that. I do. And I like kind of going empty to not, you know, combat with trying to digest something. And then, you know, after that, I don't, at this point, I don't rush to think I need to fill my glucose levels and protein levels up. I don't, like, I don't freak out if I can't get that.

That 30-minute window thing. I mean, yeah, there's some truth to that but i also i also like challenging my body and kind of starving it sometimes i've been playing around with that a little bit more lately yeah it's cool it's cool to feel the differences right because you get a different barometer of your body um because it routines are really good for health and they're also, it's also nice to throw, throw a wrench in it. Um, well, it, it, it also, it's a feedback loop too. You know, we're programmed to think, you know, somewhere along the line, somebody decided

that we're supposed to eat three meals a day. I don't know what that's really based on. Um, and that, you know, we're cautioned against going to work out unless we're, we have a backpack full of gels and all kinds of, you know, green and purple liquids that we're putting into our bodies every 15 to 20 minutes, or we're going to keel over and it's just, it's nonsense. So to kind of say, you know what, I'm going to play around today. I'm not going to eat until dinner and I'm going to see how I do. Maybe it'll well maybe it won't but it'll be information you know and i can take that information and you know put that into a data bank and learn from it and figure out like what works best for me and i have noticed

that you know i really don't eat before i go work out in the morning i don't like it and i perform better when i don't and then i've experimented with making sure that I replenish right after. And sometimes I've gone all the way until dinner before eating to see what will happen there. And, and sometimes I feel great, but then the next day I don't feel as good. And I'm like,

okay, that's information, you know? Yeah. But it's, it's taking responsibility for that and using your body as, as a, as your own laboratory instead of saying,

well, Darren, tell me what you do and I'm going to do that. Right that right you know you have to own it for yourself a little bit I think exactly and that's kind of the like the wild thing there's some foundational things that people can grab grab from what you and I are both doing but at the same time you that's a that's that's the point that I like to empower people with as well because I only got here because I've been experimenting since I've been 16, basically. And that will change. So if you ask me next year, I'm probably going to say a few things that are quite different.

Well, maybe that's a good place to ask you, you know, what have, what has changed maybe in the last time since we spoke or what have you learned that you didn't know even in the last couple of years with respect to, you know, fitness, nutrition, your daily habits? You know, the kind of, this is probably going to poke some bears here, but, you know, listen, I, I, I am an anti-fad guy i you know even like we've joked it's like yeah we're both vegans but but uh you know and i was saying earlier like when i talk to people i'm like i'm a vegan but you don't have to be because i just don't want to like that whole i'm right, you're wrong intensity is just, I'm just not interested in it. So, so learning and seeing like from the paleo world to the ketogenic world to even activities that I don't necessarily like to align myself up with other vegans. I'm just like,

to align myself up with other vegans, I'm just like, you know, it's been interesting. So I'm kind of, I'm more of this year, I'm more of like, you know what? I want some solid information that I would like to share with people in a balanced way. Because I'm, I know, here's the weird thing. You and I got connected because we are integrated. That kind of with Compton and Ram and all that stuff. And like, and Compton will always say,

Darren, you practice what you preach. There's not a lot of people like you. And which is such a strange thing to me. Like it, it kind of didn't even land. It doesn't even land. But the more I see colleagues and not everybody, but they do some things and not others.

And I'm just kind of like, so, so my, this year is kind of like, you know what? I have a lot of information that I want to get out. And, and I,

I'm not interested in fads. I just, I just don't like it. I'm actually anti-fad because the reality is that in order to make any lasting change, just for me being here and you being where you're at, we didn't just turn on a light switch and we were eating this way. It was a slow burn. It was a slow education.

And it's not sexy to market it because everyone wants the quick fix and i get it i can put a concoction together that will light your ass up and make you freaking climb a mountain but what i'm really interested in is inspiring people to go listen what you're doing the choice you're making today. For your breakfast. Or your meal. Or your every little choice. I want to inspire millions of people to be excited. That today I'm sitting in my chair of my past choices.

And I'm proud of it. And I want people to be stoked that hey you know what you're choosing today and maybe tomorrow you don't have everything you want and maybe you still have aches and pains and everything but I promise you if you decide to do this every day that a year is gonna blink by and your life is gonna be sustainably different and you're not going to be yanked around by weird marketing and weird fads and yo-yoed around and be more shamed than you possibly can imagine. I hate that shit. I just, I, I, I just, I don't like it it's not real it never works so i know it's not sexy i know it's hard to market because people want but yes of course you have wins along the way

and you feel better and all that stuff but but that's what i'm kind of most interested in. You know, you know, you, I think, you know, as we get older, you kind of see these things come and go, you know, and,

and you start to get attuned to the, you know, the, the kind of wave of fads and how they work and how marketing works. And the truth is like, people love it when they get good news about their bad habits and as beautiful as the information age is, you know, when you can go online and find some study that justifies whatever bad habit you love to engage in, this is not good for us. Right. And so

for you and I to be sitting in this place and, and, and be fortunate enough to have platforms to talk about health and nutrition and fitness and the like, there's a certain responsibility that comes with that. But also an understanding that some of the things that we talk about are, they're not catchy log line type things. We're talking about lifestyle transformation and you know, it's truth talk. It's like, Hey man, it's hard.

You know, that stuff you like to do, can't do it anymore. It doesn't serve you. So you got to let it go. Yeah. You know, I'm not going to co-sign your bullshit and tell you that you can keep doing

it so that you can feel better about that only to wake up, you know, a year or two years later and realize that you're no further along the path in your evolution than you were when we first had that conversation. Exactly. So how do you take these ideas and not only live them to walk your talk

and exude them in your daily existence, but share them in a way that can get people excited without, you know, having to resort to marketing techniques or, you know, whatever it is that gets people excited, you know, on Instagram. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, I've been looking at a lot of stuff, a lot of research and books into habits and habit forming. And it's very basic stuff. Like if you have a bad habit, make sure to replace it with something pretty close and pretty similar. Oh, come on, Darren.

It can't be just that, right? Take me beyond the velvet rope. Like what's the latest science saying about this? You know? And, you know, we're combating one of the most addictive things in our brain too with bad habits, and that's dopamine. Just doing something consistently produces dopamine. And even this bad, I mean, so let's talk about the coffee ritual, for example. Okay, throw a bunch of butter in your coffee don't work out um and you're gonna be a fat burning machine what the hell does that even mean

like it's it's a hit. Aside from the caffeine, aside from all this stuff, you are performing a ritual that you're getting something from in your brain, in the neurology. So you have that massive thing. So let's say. But even like, not to interrupt you, but to even take that one step further, there's also a very tribal sense of becoming, you know, belonging to a group, right? That goes into that. And we all want to align belonging to a group, right? That goes into that. And we all want to align ourselves with a team, right? And so there's a team aspect to that

that plays into all of this. Absolutely. And it's human nature. For sure, for sure. And so that's, you know, and again, you're running around with this kind of glazed eye, like, you know, you know, uh, not to beat it up, but you know, you know, uh, butter in my coffee kind of thing. And, and Hey, a bunch of

coffee is antioxidants and all this stuff. Well, what if I were to tell you a researcher, I, I, I researched one of the best researchers on the planet that's been studying stem cells longer than almost any living person um who's got patents on stuff that haven't even come out in the market it'll blow your mind and go into science fiction really fast and the number one thing is caffeine from coffee annihilates immortal stem cells annihilates them kills them so i've never heard that that's interesting yeah because it's not it's not out there but he's observing it he's seeing it so because because we came together to look at compounds that excite and turn on these inside your body stem cells that over time go down so so my my point to that is you can find like you're

saying you can find this truth if you so want it you can justify all of this stuff but if you don't step back and see the bigger picture and willing to look at that bigger picture then you'll be taking something that you think was whole tribe of mine, a great and we're fat burning machines. But at the same time, it's sticking you in the end. And of course, now that's a ritual. So you're doing it every day. So every day I'm doing something

that's annihilating my stem cells. At the same time, I'm convinced that it's the best thing i'm doing that's the problem with industry that's the problem with pseudo-scientific kind of marketing slants and and uh you know it's a it's a tricky thing we all find i've i've sent out articles i haven't done enough background research because i had a point of view and i thought it was correct and i put out stuff and i got annihilated on social media for we've all done it right so i get it no one's perfect but but you know i think the

core of what you're saying really is that when you do you know decide to bear that mantle and take responsibility for your own health that puts you in a position to no longer be necessarily reactive to these fads as they arise and just latch on to whatever the latest thing is and ping pong around, right? Because then you become your own sort of regulation device to make a conscious, non-reactive decision as to what serves you and what doesn't. And the only way that you can really make those decisions, you know, in your best interest and as consciously as possible is to do your own research and to use yourself as your own personal lab, right? Exactly. Well, it reminds me of what you're saying too is if i'm someone that's honoring myself and following a day-to-day plan of how to what do i really know how to take care of myself i'm not really worried about that person when a fad comes down the road because they're kind of

solid and they're gaining strength inside themselves and physically and stuff what i'm concerned about is when people are not taking care of themselves well and they have suffered and they've put on the weight and they have chronic disease and they're they're in pain and all that stuff and then this information comes out they're desperate so then they grab on to it and then they're yanked around and then there's a bunch of other consequences to it. Not to mention making someone feel like crap about themselves. So, you know, it's a, it's a tricky thing. Yeah. So, so let's presume that you're speaking to that very same person, that person who is, you know, has struggled who has ping-ponged around and is

looking for a way out like what are the primary principles like what is the information that you want to impart to that person that's that's exactly what i wanted to write the book about that's what i wrote so i was like listen dude uh get yourself some water get hydrated because that the number one side effect of that is fatigue. You're just going to feel bad. And if you have a buildup of toxins and you're dehydrated, no one's going to do well. Try one meal where you're just eating plant-based food. Try a salad.

Make a big-ass salad. Throw a bunch of great nuts and seeds and stuff on there and enjoy that. Don't worry about anything else, right? Water and a meal and call it good for now. I'm not going to say do this and then the next meal and you do this and then the next meal and then try this superfood and all that stuff. You know what? No. Drink. How about drinking a liter of water? That's the only thing. Drink a liter of water in the morning before you grab your coffee and then pick one meal that you're gonna replace with a fresh, organic, huge, wonderful, vibrant salad.

And then you know what? Stay with that for three weeks or a month because I guarantee you, this always happens, when you fill your body up of micronutrients you literally start to feel better that's a win and then you reach for more just like you and I were talking we started that way you started that way I started that way and we continue to go in that way now we try to impart that stuff so for us not to kind of get that that's how everyone's gonna do it so that's what I would tell people

I could sit there and they could listen to this podcast and try to implement all this stuff but the truth is don't just implement a little bit grab some some water. Eat really well. Start there. And then in February, because you've actually gone slow, you're starting to develop a really important habit. And you're starting to get a win. And then in February, maybe grab another meal. Or implement, hey, I do have a little pain. Implement turmeric. And now you just have that little thing. And start on that. You know what? A blink goes by. A year goes by. hey, I do have a little pain. Implement turmeric. And now you just have that little thing and start

on that. You know what? A blink goes by, a year goes by, and now all of a sudden you've implemented things that are like brushing your teeth and your whole life is different and you're not yanked around by some weird fad. You are doing some basic solid information that that is timeless any fad any guy selling whatever if he's going to come to me and say well no i don't think water's good thing don't drink water no he's not going to say that so what a hydration diet yeah exactly so for me i just wanted to kind of cut through all of that stuff yeah i mean what's beautiful about that is is that uh it's completely doable because you're not overreaching you're not over asking you're saying master one little thing like just focus on this don't make a big deal about it do it until it becomes rote and then that is a lifestyle adaptation that has a shot.

It's not a guarantee, but it's got a shot of sticking around for a while. Absolutely. And if you can perpetuate that over the long term, that's gigantic. Now do one other little thing. You know what? Don't buy milk at the grocery store. Buy almond milk or coconut milk or whatever. Exactly.

Get used to that for a while until you don't think about it anymore. store buy almond milk or coconut milk or whatever exactly get used to that for a while until you don't think about it anymore and see what that feels do another thing and then as your body starts to feel better then you want more of that and it becomes a self perpetuating machine and before you know it it's true you blink and you're like oh my god a year went by look how different my life is i just did a couple little things it's like that that you know that like trite adage like if you're doing a moon shot and you're like one you know one hundredth of a degree off like you hit mars instead or whatever you know what i mean exactly so it's just those little things mastered over time big time that move mountains absolutely i love it man yeah it's the way to go i i think that's a

good place to wrap it up for today that's a good that's a good one but you're welcome to come back we could do this monthly yeah for me you know because we could go deep on a whole bunch of stuff but that was beautiful thanks a lot man thanks man i really appreciate any uh any parting words yeah i would say you know whenever this is out, it's going to come out in the beginning of this year. And, you know, people just, you know, back off on all of this monster stuff and just take it slow, just like we were talking about. Just grab some things that you know you can do that are sustainable. And be gentle on yourself too.

Be gentle because that shame and all of that stuff and that sadness and that all those things you know have an avenue for that because we're only where we're at because of where we're at and and and and we're a integrated human being mentally emotionally physically spiritually so when you move the needle everything comes with so be gentle on yourself and and you know connect with us you know we're here you're here i'm here to supply information so that we can help people move that needle and that's i've committed my life to doing that yeah it's a beautiful journey man so thanks so much brother thanks man appreciate it so the the paperback is now out uh super life i wrote down the the subtitle because i always forget five forces that will make you healthy fit and eternally awesome yeah so they changed it oh they did so now they changed the

five fixes oh the five fixes yeah instead of forces yeah so they changed it what's up with that it's the same it's the same damn thing but they thought it made so they put a broccoli heart on it and then then on the cover and then made the five fixes that will make you healthy fit and eternally awesome yeah cool man so obviously we as i said earlier we only touch the surface on all this superfood stuff i mean it's it you can go on forever about all these things but um you know you talk about all these things quite uh in detail in the book and you break it down into the five fixes are basically quality nutrition hydration detoxification oxygenation and alkalization right yeah all worthy

of your time and attention so yeah pick up book. And if you want to connect with Darren, you can go to superlife.com or at superlifeliving on Instagram and any other places. Yeah, that gets us everywhere, I think. Are you speaking anywhere? Are you doing any more crazy hunts or what's going on? Yeah, I got some stuff coming out.

The thing that I'm excited about is watch for the Superfood Conservancy. I mean mean that's where the transparency of superfoods so so we haven't had that up yet but that's coming um the stem cell stuff we'll save that for next time but yeah so super life you'll be able to find everything sign up for the for the information and the newsletters and all that stuff we have some cool programs coming out excellent man yeah thanks dude thanks for coming here peace lance let's get some more chaga chaga i love it that was so packed with unbelievable information that you guys can take away and incorporate into your life.

I hope it inspired you. I hope it educated you. And I hope you leave this conversation with a bit of a more robust toolbox to take back into your life and put into practice. Don't forget to check out Darren's book, Super Life, now out in paperback, as well as all the resources on his website, superlife.com. And while you're at it, please make a habit or a choice to go visit the show notes on the episode page for this episode.

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the show notes and theme music by Annalema thanks for the love you guys graphics, Chris Swan for additional production assistance and help compiling the show notes, and theme music by Analema. Thanks for the love, you guys. See you back here soon. Make it a great week. Peace. Plants. Thank you.