The Rich Roll Podcast - Superfoods For Superlife: Traipsing the Globe In Search of Optimal Nutrition & Longevity With Darin Olien

Episode Date: June 22, 2015

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. This week my friend Darin Olien joins me to share insights and wisdom from his extraordinary adventure-based experiences as a widely recognized exotic superfoods hunter, wellness advocate & environmental activist. Darin's passion was seeded early. Attending his father’s lectures on agricultural business at the University of Minnesota birthed an early appreciation of whole food nutrition. But it wasn't until a football injury sidelined a frustrated young Darin that his curiosity in the relationship between food and health begin to truly take root. A curiosity that began with a simple question: There must be a better way to heal myself. The intrigue that evolved from that initial query has been an ongoing, twenty-year plus quest for better, more natural pathways to ultimate wellness. A journey that led Darin to study exotic, indigenous herbs and superfoods from every imaginable port of call across the developing world. 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 high-quality, fair-trade superfoods and herbal commodities to market through his company, Darin’s Naturals. 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 in his new book Superlife: The 5 Forces That Will Make You healthy, Fit & Eternally Awesome – 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. What is most intriguing to me isn’t just that Darin 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 grower communities and their long-term interests. Ripped and Malibu sun kissed, Darin more than resembles a plant-based version of his friend and workout buddy Laird Hamilton. So it would be natural to presume he has always been a model of health and fitness. But that presumption would be misplaced. Because for Darin it wasn't always this way. Like all of us, Darin has faced many challenging and relatable life obstacles on his path to living what I think is fair to characterize as his best, most authentic superlife. At the same time, the term superfoods is prone to cavalier overuse. Are these foods truly “super” or is it all just exaggerated marketing hype? This is a conversation that explores that issue and so much more. I sincerely hope you enjoy this exchange with a man who exudes positive energy, passion and enthusiasm for health. I look forward to your thoughts in the comments section below. Peace + Plants, Rich

So why do we use these adaptogenic herbs and medicinal plants and cordyceps and reishis and ashwagandhas and makas and why? It's not just a novelty. It's because they have been used for thousands of years and the medicinal nutrient density that they are providing has not only provided those people from where they came from, but it's a delivery system that we're using so that they can help those bodies out because those bodies are stressed. That's Darren O'Lean. And this week on The Rich Roll Podcast, it's all about superfoods for your super life. The Rich Roll Podcast.

Hey, what's up, people? What's going on? How are you? What's the news? Welcome. Rich Roll here, fulfilling host duties on my little show where each week I probe the mind, the experience, the spirit of the best and the brightest in health, wellness, excellence, and pretty much every other subject that piques my interest as a means to help all of us live and be better, to perhaps provide a key to unlock and unleash our collective best, most authentic versions of ourselves. So anyway, thanks for subscribing to the show on iTunes, for spreading the word, and for always clicking through the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. Why don't you go ahead and bookmark that link from the banner ad on my site and make it easy. That's a win-win for all of us. So I'm still here in New York City wrapping up a pretty incredible two-week visit. As I mentioned last week, still reeling in gratitude for the opportunity to speak

at Carnegie Hall. And that was followed up by an amazing book release party at Powerhouse Arena in Dumbo, Brooklyn, and did a super fun, fun run at Jackrabbit Sports on the Upper West Side. And then I spoke at The Seed, this really cool event yesterday in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. this really cool event yesterday in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. I love that part of town, super cool. And I've been banging out a bunch of pretty epic podcasts with some pretty extraordinary people that will be coming your way soon.

So I just wanna thank everybody who came out to all the events, everyone who took a moment to introduce yourself to me, to Julie, to my kids. And also everybody who stopped me on the street to say hi or give me a high five or a shout out on my morning runs. I mean, that blows my mind. It just never fails to amaze me when I get recognized for the podcast. Super cool. And I love New York City for that and many other reasons. In fact, I think I could stay here

all summer long. In fact, I'd love could stay here all summer long. In fact, I'd love to be able to someday split my time pretty evenly between the coasts. And that's kind of my goal to make that possible for my family. But anyway, I got a treat for you guys today. The Indiana Jones of superfoods, my buddy, Darren O'Lean, he joins us today and welcomes us into his pretty cool adventure-based life and his travels and his experience as a widely recognized exotic superfoods hunter and supplement formula and basically just life as a wellness and environmental activist. And this is a guy who has been around the world and back again on numerous remote field missions. In fact, he just got back from Peru. What is he doing?

Well, he's discovering new and underutilized medicinal plants to source, formulate, and research the world's greatest edible food sources for optimal health. He's a great guy. He's got a really cool story. More on that in a second. But first. All right. So how did Darren get involved in superfoods? Well, it happened after a football injury

unlocked a desire to search for better ways to heal himself, basically. And what evolved from this initial desire has been 20 years of traipsing the globe, researching and questing for better, more natural pathways to ultimate health. And what's cool about Darren isn't just that he's become a renowned authority on nutrition, hydration, and the potency of foods and herbs, but how he's worked closely and successfully with thousands of international farmers and growers and manufacturers and all kinds of remote indigenous communities across the planet in places like Peru, Bhutan, the Amazon, the Himalayas,

the South Pacific, Latin America, and Asia, all to get high quality fair trade, and that's important, fair trade superfood and herbal commodities out into the market that also, most importantly, fairly and sustainably support the grower communities. And Darren's perhaps best known for working with the fitness company Beachbody, you've probably heard of that, to formulate the wildly successful whole food supplement called Shakeology. I'm sure you've heard of Shakeology. Well, he's the guy behind that. He's the formulator. And he chronicles his experiences in his new book. It's called Super Life, The Five Forces That Will Make You Healthy, Fit, and Eternally Awesome, as well as on his website,

superlife.com, where he demystifies health, fitness, nutrition, and longevity into simple daily actions, simple rules of healthy eating and living to create lifelong wellness. And it's funny because when you experience Darren, he's this super fit, like super ripped guy who more than resembles a plant-based version of his buddy, Laird Hamilton, with whom he works out regularly. And you'd presume that he's always been this model of health and fitness, but it wasn't always that way for Darren. And like all of us, model of health and fitness, but it wasn't always that way for Darren. And like all of us, he had to face and overcome a lot of challenging and really relatable life obstacles on his path to living what I think is fair to characterize as his authentic life. So this is a guy who is definitely doing what he was meant to do and has created and continues to create a body of work

that is making the world a better place. He's got great energy, passion, and enthusiasm for what he does. And I think it comes across in this conversation. And it's a conversation that explores overcoming a childhood raised by alcoholic parents, the mind, body, and spiritual journey to discovering the healing power of food, the dark side of the supplement industry, superfoods in combination with a healthy lifestyle, common myths surrounding diet and nutrition, and the five life forces to optimal health. I'm not gonna tell you what those five life forces are. You're gonna have to listen to the interview to hear those.

So without further ado, let's check out Darren and find out what he's all about. As I was thinking back, like when I ran into you at Air One the other day, I was like, oh yeah, Compton was trying to hook us up. That must've been five or six years ago. I think so, yeah. A while ago, and he was singing your praise.

You gotta hook up with Darren, that was a real deal. He said the same thing. He knows what's going on with the superfoods. Yeah, because he was at my house and then he was going to yours and he says, yeah, I'm going to Rich Rolls. And I was like, I know that guy, I've heard of that guy. And then, so he was singing your praises to me

and he's like, you guys have to meet. Right, I think we, there was like an email, we had a couple of emails and then I don't know, we both got busy or whatever, it didn't happen. Life. Anyway, yeah, but you know, and now are how did you how did you meet Compton I think just through the circles uh you know most of my career was behind the scenes because I was in the fields I was in the countries I was finding the stuff and and so that was um and then I don't know originally, I think someone just said, this guy's really smart.

He's really cool. And I think because, yeah, this is how it happened. I reached out because I was looking for some new microbiological probiotics and was playing around with some formulas. So then I got him on the phone and it was- He broke it down. Like he can just go all the way to the wall with that kind of conversation.

Yeah, your hair is blowing back. Yeah, and because that world, that microbial world is just so mysteriously celestial that an evolutionarily sparked that is just, anyone who studies it knows that there's just something going on. That's humbling. And so that got us going and then he was like,

I've got this connection in Cambodia and you're traveling everywhere. And then he was like, hey, I've got this connection in Cambodia. And, you know, you're traveling everywhere. He was like the queen or something like that. Yeah. It's like somebody in the royal family had decreed him some land where they were growing these amazing. I mean, his stories go on forever. Well, it was this guy, Dina, who was actually, it's amazing story because his his family's father was killed in the killing fields and his mother and him left Thailand because he was from there they left

and of a certain amount of of the royal family adopted like 10 people. And for whatever reason, they adopted him. And so he essentially became royal just by the sheer adoption, essentially, of the royal family of Cambodia. So anyway, I don't know, even know how Compton got to know him. I don't either. Who knows? He's just, I mean, that's, that's just Compton. He finds his way to interesting people. For sure. Absolutely. And so the next thing, you know, he's like, you're traveling everywhere. You've got that experience. Let's go see what,

and of course, for me, I'm like, Cambodia has got an ecosystem and they've got an infrastructure that's horrible, but that's exciting because then you can kind of move through. So I just went with a clean slate and- So you went with him to Cambodia? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. I mean, I remember when he went, I didn't know that you went with him.

Yeah. So we went with Dina and it's like, it's funny because I've been to several countries and, and when I got off the plane, there was a guy meeting me at the airport and they just take your passport and you just walk through everything and you're like, oh, okay. So there is a connection here. It's real. And, and, um, so then the long story short, there was a, we were running around and the, the, one of the heads of the government was trying to meet up with me and he wanted to see what we could do, but then the floods were happening. So he was

jumping on helicopters going, it was, he, you know, stood us up basically three times and he said, Hey, go check out my field where I'm growing this particular wood that's super expensive. And then I have mangosteen and durian. I have all these other interesting things. And so we went there and then he had these rescued wild exotic animals that just randomly amongst this field. How much land are we talking about? Oh, wow. Just randomly amongst this field. How much land are we talking about?

We're talking like it had to be at least 25 hectares. But just like incredibly fertile soil. Yeah, and just like randomly there's a caged camel. There's some lions. There's a boar. And oh, and by the time I had gotten done, I saw Compton was over at this orangutan. These two orangutans are in this cage. And so I was like, oh, shit, I've never seen an orangutan.

And this is so bizarre. So let's go check it out. And like a tourist, which I'm totally not, right? And I just picked up my phone and I'm like, oh my God, this is an orangutan. And there was a fence with maybe a little distance and then the actual cage. And so I picked this up and this male orangutan then swung over it.

Not soon after I had lifted my phone up to take pictures, he reached his seven foot arm length out and slapped my wow my phone away and i realized in that split second i'm like that fucker's going after it right and he grabbed my phone it was in between the fence and me he grabbed it i grabbed his hand the rain tank pulled it in and then started like start eating it chewing it so so we made all of these noises and eventually one of the guys who was looking after the land jumped in there and wrestled the little thing not little but um he eventually got it out and i i looked at him and i said why did you go in there just for my phone he says says, well, he's done that to other people. And I just

figured you're American and you have a more expensive phone. And so at that point I took every bit of money I had in my pocket and just gave it to him. But Compton was laughing the entire time. Right, right, right, right, right. That's cool. So what, I mean, what came out of that? Not too much. It was the infrastructure was so incredibly challenging. I mean, you have, you have some, you know, some rare rice and you have some, the problem is, is that most of what was going on in Cambodia was controlled by Thailand. So if you were to do anything, there were starting to be too many hands in the pot anyway. So we were looking at different levels of dried durian and mangosteen and things like that. And we met some companies

then in Thailand, just maybe see if there was a relationship to utilize Cambodia. Because Cambodia was just, because of its history, it was just so desperate to get some sort of economy. And I've seen this so many times that if you go to a situation, indigenous people, and if you do that right with them directly, then it can change their world just like that. Well, I mean, just a little bit of commerce there can be such a massive, yeah, basically substantive change in their lifestyle. Yeah, because they're going to do something that may be to them not such a big deal, but to the world a big deal. And for example, it happens in the Amazon all the time. So, you know, I know we were doing some acai looking. We were looking at these acai growers around the Amazon.

We were looking at these acai growers around the Amazon, and this guy was, the fact that you guys are buying acai is then I don't have to cut down these 500-year-old trees that the illegal loggers come in because I don't need the five bucks anymore because now I have income from this. Right, and it's more sustainable. Wild. It's just right there anyway. And, you know, so those things are powerful and ultimately why I traveled. Right. So this, this, this trip to Cambodia, I mean, this is just one episode in a, in ongoing, you know, saga of you traipsing across the world in search of superfoods. It's given you this moniker of being the Indiana Jones of superfoods. I think it's more like the Anthony Bourdain, you know, kind of a representation of superfoods. I mean,

how does this all start? I mean, where does this begin for you? Where did it begin? Yeah. I mean, your interest in this, this lifestyle, this pursuit of, you know, health and fitness and exotic locations and these types of foods and all of that. Like, yeah, you know, it was a, it was a really, I hate to go all the way back, but it really, because it sets the tone of what I learned later about myself. And because my father kind of, before he passed away, he reflected back to me, things that I might not have been aware of as a kid. And, you know, first off, I was premature.

I was born two months early in 1970. And so I was three and a half pounds. And, you know, my messaging for the first parts of my life was this is gnarly, this is, I'm fragile and there's some stuff going on. On this, like just deep in your unconscious mind. Deep, deep. And so that- You do like a little regressive therapy on that.

For sure. And by the way, that's happened. Have you? Spontaneously. It wasn't even actually that. In my graduate degree, the psychology, we did this regression stuff. And I had an event where when we said like, hey, what's happening at, I know I think we did something like, what are your memories of 12 years old? And then successively we'd go back to, okay, zero.

And consciously you don't like, I don't know what's going on, but if you let yourself go there and just kind of go in, I had, you know, I had a counselor technically there that was a colleague and, and this, this energy. And this energy, when she said to me, she said, what's going on at zero? I just closed my eyes and all of a sudden I started seeing and feeling the room of my birth. And there was no part of me that was consciously making that up. I wasn't there. I wasn't going to do that. I'm not that kind of guy, right? So this was happening. And as it was happening, I felt a warm sensation from basically my anus all the way in the base of my spine. And I couldn't even stop it if I wanted to. And a surge of energy exploded through my spine and I snot came flying out of my nose.

I started crying. I couldn't stop it if I wanted to. And so I felt- You had this like rebirthing experience. Totally. That's wild, man. It's totally wild. I would have never, if someone would have said,

hey, we're gonna do this rebirthing, I would have said, I'm good. I'm good. I think I'll go surfing instead. I think I'll surf because I feel like I'm born again every time I get on a wave. But it happened. released out of me that was, dare I say, trapped because of the trauma of, you know, when you're three and a half pounds and you're born into a place where people don't know if you're going to live. And I had a 50, 50 chance of surviving. So there's a lot of fear in your immediate environment. A lot of fear. I mean, I was a, how much more fragile can you be when my father could put me end to end in his hand?

And that was me. And so that sent, you know, that my, wasn't sure if my brain was going to be developed, my lungs, certainly, central nervous system. So cut to, they watched me quite a lot. And so when I was in early grade school, I had eye problems. I wore patches. I had water on my knees. I had the patch too. Did you?

Yeah. Oh my God, it was so bad. That's a recipe for popularity. Oh my God. It was so bad. And did it work? No, of course not. Didn't work at all, right?

Didn't work at all. Yeah, I'm still cross-eyed. I'm still pissed off about it. No, I still have the weaker side. And it just didn't work. And I had like weird immune systems. I was reacting to allergies. I couldn't, you know, I'd get kicked out of class,

all this stuff. And I was probably at a resting heart rate of 120 beats per minute upon waking. Every day, your whole life? Like a freaking hummingbird when I was young, when I was young. And so there was this thing that it was reinforcing the idea that this is my body. You could go at any moment. Yeah, like this is a fragile thing.

I'm not okay. And so cut to, you know, I was very active. I was running around. I was on BMX bikes. I was, you know, luckily back then we were just gone all day and doing something. You're like an ADD kid? Yeah. Like hyperactive?

For sure. I mean, with the resting heart rate of 120, like that goes. Not a lot of sitting down in class, focusing on the blackboard. No, it's like, let's make some fun and get kicked out kind of thing. So that cut to at 13, this is a Midwestern kid growing up in a small town in Minnesota, surrounded by cornfields and, um, a hundred people in my class, that kind of thing. So like GTOs and guys with cool cars and stuff. Sure. Brother had many Chevelles. Um, uh, so, you know, it wasn't like I was being influenced

that way. And my parents were regular parents, you know, they were middle class. Dad was a professor of agriculture at the University of Minnesota. Unbeknownst to me, I was influenced by that. Yeah, so that's where part of that farming must have been. Yeah, exactly. Interest was informed by. So the story goes that at 13, then I saw this article on a grapefruit cleanse. then I saw this article on a grapefruit cleanse and and and this was and by the way I was doing my own Ritalin but you know I was drinking about five to six bottles of the old classic coke every day just like really amping it up and in some way probably sedated me but But at 13, I saw this article and I just said, hey, mom, can you get

me like a dozen grapefruits? And she didn't ask, she just did it. And so I just at 13 just started doing this grapefruit cleanse. And it was the first time that I then realized the power of food, like experience, like, oh, wow, I have clarity and I'm not like jittery all the time. So what'd you do? You just ate grapefruits for a couple of days or something like that? Yeah, I think it was like at least two, two and a half days. How old were you?

13. 13, yeah. And so then I was- And you're thinking now we got a kid with an eating disorder too? Exactly. I don't even think my parents noticed it. Right.

If I were to tell my- Do you have a bunch of brothers and sisters or? I have an older brother. Two years old. But it's not like you were lost in the midst of a whole bunch of kids. No. Right. No.

I mean, you know, an alcoholic father and some horrible, horrible relationship between my mom and my father. I mean, he got sober when I was four and after he did that to my chin. But in long story short, this comes back to play again and I'll tell you. So then after that cleanse, I was like, oh my God, I feel better. But then I'm a regular kid and I continue on eating crappy and just eating like pizzas and- Right. But you have that little seed. I have a seed.

Like food impacts how you feel. Absolutely. This is not a prevalent mainstream concept in whatever it was, 1978. Yeah, exactly. But I remember the grapefruit diet. Yeah. That was a thing.

Yeah, for sure. It was like a housewives thing. Absolutely, absolutely. And probably mom tore it and never did it, but I was probably sitting there. And then the next kind of series of events was at 16, you know, I was five, nine, 130 pounds, nothing much, a little, little kid. And, and I picked up my first dumbbell and some of them, my dad's students in college were, know working at the gym and so they kind

of you know was there and supported me and mentored me and I just was like holy shit this is another really powerful thing I can actually I'm not a victim to just the skinny, frail, weak body. And I, all of a sudden from 16 to 18, I gained like 50 pounds and played football and did all the sports and funny kind of wrapping it into, I did my first triathlon when I was, I think it was 82. Oh, wow. And because I had this kind of bmx bike uh and fast like metabolism and just

and and funny because because they originally thought my lungs were underdeveloped so i kind of in a weird way kind of proved them wrong um and then i end up cycling when I was like 12 and I won this, uh, 110 mile race. Oh, wow. 110 miles on a bike when you were how old? 12? Yeah. 12. Yeah. Holy shit, man. And, and my dad was like, and that was at the Greg LeMond time. And my dad was like, you're the next Greg LeMond. He's a Minnesota guy. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so, and of course I watched all those tours and Bernardino and him. Well, it's interesting too, this idea of the grapefruit cleanse and then the weightlifting,

they're both attempts to exercise some control in your life, which is common with somebody who's a child of an alcoholic too, like trying to find some way of, in a child of an alcoholic to like trying to find some way of, you know, in a, like a household of chaos to have a little bit of, you know, say over how you feel and what's going on with your own self.

Absolutely. And I found, you know, I became a gym rat. I just, that sanctuary of this is what I can control and I can influence this. And so, you know, that cut to the gaining of weight and I just bailed on the bike thing. Yeah. I was like, you, your dad's got this vision of you being in the Tour de France. And then I'm all of a sudden, I'm just like, you're a little too big up top. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm, I'm, I'm getting a lot of response from the women now and, and the

peer pressure, there's no one. Screw cycling. Yeah, there was no one at 12 who was going to ride with me. And there was maybe three guys in my hometown that were older and proficient at cycling. And I was like riding with a 30-year-old. Do you ever think, though, like what would have happened if you'd gone in that other direction? For sure. Because I don't know too many 12 year old kids

who can ride their bike a hundred miles. Yeah, no, that's why my dad was freaking out. But he never pushed. He just was like, he just emphasized like, you know, this is a probably pretty good area to, and I loved it. It was the first understanding of kind of being out amongst the fields by myself and kind of that first understanding of being one with yourself.

And again, the chaotic home and the peace of being out on a road was just intoxicating. But then coming back to football training camp and running circles around everyone because my capacity was just through the roof. I just then said, my peer pressure was just like, I got to get stronger and big. And so I ended up playing college football in Minneapolis. And then the next series of events, my sophomore year, I was starting full back and, uh, I got a career ending back injury. And then I was like, there's that signaling again, life is fragile, blah, blah, blah. So I said, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to take this on. I have to get stronger because allopathic PTs, all of that stuff ripped my dream away.

They can't get me back. So I decided to then switch my majors, change universities and study exercise, phys and nutrition. And then once I started realizing, learning about the miracle that this body is, I mean, really, come on, this is unbelievable what's going on.

I just was the insatiable curiosity of this and the foods we eat. And so now all of these things are kind of linking up. At the same time, pulling back the power of me healing myself just created that strength. So you were able to heal your back? Yeah. I mean, And what was the kind of, what was the methodology that you pursued to do that?

Well, you know, I listened to the PTs and at the end of the day, I just went back into the gym and I started eating better and looking at foods that were more, more healing. And, uh, and then just went back in the gym and just dissected what was, what was going on and, and then just kind of worked it from the inside out and, uh, you know, isolated, uh, the, you know, the core area of my body that, that wasn't, you know, my tore a bunch of ligaments basically. And so I just kind of, you know, they want you to have surgery or no, they, there was a potential for it, but since, since there was no structural damage and there was no impinging of nerves, it just didn't make sense. It's just a matter of getting it strong again.

So anyway, that was when I got the education coupled with healing myself, that was it. Like it was now off to the races. And once I graduated, then that's when i moved to boulder and started working independently with i did a lot of rehab stuff because i could appreciate that and i got hooked up with this guy dale grainwald and this active therapy professionals and we'd work with a lot of accident people and athletes with injuries and stuff like that and understanding mechanics and biomechanics and kinesiology. And at the same time, I'm studying foods. I'm looking at nutritional stuff. I had doctors that old retired doctor that used to come and just privately lecture me

because he was like, nutrition is where we need to be. That's the new doctor. You need to keep doing this. And at the time I was like, okay. That's the new doctor. You need to keep doing this. And at the time I was like, okay. And he'd go to the medical library and give me stacks of papers

and again, planting that seed of just learning. Well, Boulder is a great place for that too. There's an open-mindedness to this idea of alternative healing modalities and holistic medicine. And whether it's Ayurveda or just, you know, basically eating more alkaline forming foods or whatever, whatever it is, there's a sensibility that, that embraces that in that geographic location for whatever reason. So, you know, to be immersed in that environment allowed you to kind of maybe expand your openness to something like that.

Absolutely. I mean, Boulder was just this place where I just felt I wanted to go because of that intersection between this intelligent group of people and this active lifestyle. And it was wonderful through my 20s there. And then I kind of felt like I was hitting the ceiling of what was possible. And- I mean, basically you're employed like in a facility in which you're seeing clients one-on-one and kind of doing mostly physical rehabilitation.

Yeah, kind of. And then I got licensed to touch people with massage and stuff. So I used neuromuscular rehab techniques to kind of light the muscles back up that are shut down because of injuries and stuff. And so it was really fun. But then this intersection of the mind and body was very interesting to me because I could prescribe something. It was really a few clients that I would work together with and one, uh, they kind of had similar goals and they were friends. So I just worked together with them and one was getting extremely, uh, upset at the other ones, just taking off with, with the same kind of prescription.

off with the same kind of prescription. And so I kept seeing the anomaly of this, the attitude affecting how someone performed. And so then I was like, there's a lot going on. And so I started at the University of Santa Monica psychology program where really the intersection of mind, body, and spirit was such a big part of everything we do. The program at USM is completely unique. Yeah. There's no, explain a little bit about that.

I have some friends that have done that, who've gotten degrees there. Yeah. It's a pretty remarkable, amazing situation. It's taking the idea that this mental, straightforward psychological approach may be not the only aspect of it. Now you're not, you're not completely pushing that away, but you're bringing in this other element that is

regardless of your belief system, belief is one of the most powerful entities we have. If you believe you can do something there's, and the power of prayer. I mean, all this is scientifically proven. There's no debate in that anymore. And so it's, it's coming into like really learning how to listen to someone and, and really just being there for them because ultimately it's taken the stance that we're all infinite beings. We all have the power to access and take care of our life and be the custodian for everything that you might be going through, but also be an advocate for what you want to create in the world yourself. yourself, but at the same time, having that supportive structure and, and, uh, learning how to just be there with another human being was really at the basis of, of the learning because we're doing, we're doing essentially these clinicals. Every is not really clinical, but you're in this trio, you're having one observer and then you're working through a

process. And it could be like, Hey, the first thing is observer and then you're working through a process. And it could be like, hey, the first thing is just listen. Don't even say a word. And the person just brings up whatever they're feeling or their issues. And 99.9% of the time, the person who brings up their stuff figures some stuff out without you even just actively listening. some stuff out without you even just actively listening. So it was a really wonderful program for that because I didn't want to go down the traditional route because the experiences I was having in the real world was not traditional. There was no, what's the end result of psychology, usually a drug. That wasn't the avenue that I wanted to go down. I didn't believe in that for one. And I believe that we all have the power to choose

and to change virtually anything in our life, at least in how we react to everything, which is a massive. Well, that was your life experience to date, right? Being this frail child and then overcoming that to becoming this great athlete and then healing yourself when the doctors told you this isn't going to happen or, you know, sort of taking matters into your own hands and pursuing alternative, you know, routes of healing.

Exactly. And that's the, if there's any thing I want to pass on to people is I get it. I get that like things can be gnarly and hard and, but there's always a way there's always, you can always support yourself. There's, uh, you know, whether it be your health, whether it be, uh, your, your point of view, because really we shape our world based on how we view it. And, and, you know, if I all intents and purposes, uh, you know, I would be still in Minnesota and not that that's bad, but, uh, you know, a victim to an alcoholic father, uh, a victim to eating like horrible food growing up and really staying in that message that I learned, weak, scared, and this is a fragile world. And that was not the choice I was going to make, but I'm grateful for whatever wisdom came through at those intersections in my life that, that man, we can, we can do a lot to affect our

life. And, and, you know, that picking up that grapefruit cleanse was that first like, oh, wow. I'm not just a victim to this genetics. Our DNA is not just set. Right. Right. It's, I feel like a lot of people say that, like, they're like, well, it's in my genes, you know, or like, you know, it's such a, I mean, maybe that's true, who knows? But like, why would you just take that at face value? It's such a cop-out and it's like this excuse for just, you know, perpetuating unhealthy habits

or like a refusal to embrace that you really might be able to exert some control over your health and wellbeing. Well, they now know that. They now absolutely fundamentally, even in our lifetime, in last year, a Nobel Prize was given to the Telomeres research, right? So now the end of the chromosomes, they know that, oh, wow, if you take care of yourself, if you exercise, drink a lot of water, eat whole foods that, oh, wow, if you take care of yourself, if you exercise, drink a lot of water, eat whole foods, that, oh, wow, your biological age that we can actually measure is supported in being suppressed. You actually, we can measure your biological age and the chromosomes, the DNA, the genetics are

actually listening always, all the time to thoughts, feelings, emotions, and our environment at all times. Right. Just because you have a genetic predisposition to something or whether you may or may not have that doesn't mean that those genes need be expressed. Exactly. And you have control over the extent to which those genes are expressed. Exactly. You know, I love the whole telomere thing. I want to find like an expert in that to come on the podcast.

And Compton talks about this all the time. I mean, I remember like right now it's all like, here's my prediction, right? You know how it's like all about the gut biome right now? Like everyone's talking about the gut biome in like two to three years, it's going to be all about telomeres. Like, I don't think mainstream America

has really like tapped into that yet, but that's what's next. And Compton is the guy who's always on, like, he was the one in 2007, who's talking to me about the microbiome, like crazy. Not that it's a new idea, but it certainly wasn't what mainstream America was talking about. And now every other book is about gut health, you know? So you can see how these trends sort of pick up steam. And I think telomeres is gonna be the next one. Yeah, I mean, it's really, if you really think about it, we can actually prove what we're doing

is either speeding up or slowing down our biology, right? Instead of just this being passed down as like, make sure you eat your veggies and drink your water. And it's good, pretty good to exercise every day. We can actually prove that that is actually affecting our genetics and essentially affecting how that is being expressed. And so it's for the victims of the world, that's not a good thing. Yeah, that doesn't fit their worldview.

No. But I don't, I mean, I'm gonna butcher it if I try to explain it. You could explain it much better. So can you give like the, just the general lowdown on telomeres? It has to do with like the tails of the DNA strands and how they, when they shorten,

that has some impact on aging, right? Exactly. So if you can extend the length of those telomeres, then you can extend cell life. Exactly. Is that essentially correct? Yeah, so every cell, every time it multiplies, you're losing, because the genetic code

is embedded in the ends of the telomeres through telomerase, right? And so every time that a cell expands, it loses a part of that link, just as a natural part of us living. Like making a Xerox copy of something. Yeah, you lose the quality. You lose just a little bit. And so that's part of, you know, That's part of, you know, our genetic potential is 140 years old, right? That's literally our human genetic potential. What will accelerate that or slow it down is the things that will support or not support that length being shortened a lot faster. And we know that without a shadow of a doubt now,

because the Nobel prize was given to the researchers and that if you are stressed, if you don't get sleep, if you don't, if you're chronically dehydrated, if you don't exercise, what that does is that gives, gives up a little more of that length than it would if you were actually doing all those things. So, and there is now some research to start showing that through some, not only having taken care of all of those aspects of just a healthy life, that there is some supplementation through some extractions of, I think it's some of the best is extractions of astragalus and ashwagandha, I believe,

that are actually now proving at least in rats that the telomeres are actually gaining length and not losing. So that means, and that's reverse, that's literally reversing aging. And so there's been some research to prove that that is actually then giving back, which is- That's a mind blower. Yeah, it's a mind blower. So it goes to show that if you do these things and take care of yourself,

that they can prove. And right now we can do a DNA test and I have friends that do these tests right now. You and I can, in a week's time, we can know exactly how much, how old we actually are in our biology. So what does yours say? I don't know, I haven't done it yet. Yeah, come on. I got my wife's doing it

and I just wanted to focus on her first. Like you were born in 70, so you're 44? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta get that test. Yeah, man. All right. So let's get to the, the Indiana Jones part. Where does the wanderlust, like the adventure aspect of this whole story start to come into play? Well, in 2005, um, was a, a big part of my life because that's when my father picked up the bottle again. Oh, okay. And I lost him. And we were super close because a lot of things of his adventure of who he was was actually in me. Like we really shared a view of the world that was larger than where we

came from. Um, and so he passed away. I was very close to him, very open with him and his last struggles of in and out of rehabs. And so he was sober for 30 years and then he went out and go, wow. Yeah. He got sober when I was four and then, and then he was sober for over 30 years and then he went out. Wow. Yeah. He got sober when I was four and then he was sober for over 30 years. And he had another family and a couple of new kids. And he was suffering because his liver and stuff wasn't able to process. So he had chemical sensitivity to a high degree, anything, any exposure. So he couldn't, he was then a counselor at the University of Minnesota and couldn't really, um, do the things that he really, really loved, um, anymore. And so that was the grand excuse. And I kept saying, dad, your liver is bad. You gotta do a cleanse, man. You gotta.

And so, you know, when I, my, my brother and I went to see his apartment, it was the struggle, this duality of here's superfoods that sent him next to a beer bottle. And here's his big book next to a pint of Jack Daniels. Like it was this duality that was everywhere. I mean, as somebody who's in recovery though, like I get that, you know, because it's either, it's one or the other, you know what I mean? You're not like living a balanced life. You're either like

full in superfood guy or you're like, you know, passing out, you know, it's, there's no middle ground with that. So that's heartbreaking. It is. And it was, you know, and so much of my life now, I would love to share with him because he would just, he would dig it big time. with him because he would just, he would dig it big time. So that was a very powerful time. And I said to myself, and at that point I had been traveling, I was looking into foods and I kept finding foods that I was like, why are people making those things? Because they're doing so good and they're taking left turns

on putting some horrible ingredients. And so I was like, oh wow. You mean foods that are sort of people think are healthy, that they're just misinformed. Yeah, some of the superfood stuff, some of the regular supplements, hell, most of the foods on the shelves. I was just, the more I knew,

the more I was exposing my own view of how these foods just weren't great. And so I started digging into some research. And then if I really want to know about these superfoods, medicinal plants around the world, I got to show up. Because for me, I was a tactile learner. And I really needed to see the people, to experience the culture, and to understand from them how these things were used for the last 10, 20,000 years. So that's where I started getting traveling. I was playing around with that.

And when my father died, I then asked myself, okay, what legacy now do I want to lead? No more playing around. So I... This was after you'd finished at USM And what are you doing professionally at this point? I left my practice in Boulder and I came out here and I was like, do I want to act? Everyone acts here. I'm like, no, I don't. And so I was helping people on the side. I was doing a little coaching, training some people, looking at some diets for people, professionally helping people.

And just kind of like, what am I doing? Yeah, like not really sure where all this energy needs to get to. Yeah. Yeah. And then I started looking and I went to India and started traveling around there. And I was like, oh my God, there's some interesting. So then I had this idea of a project of filming like this Michael Jordan's of spirituality. Like really finding the guys, not the guys on paper or the guys that are necessarily known.

I want to go find. Just up in the caves. Yeah. The dudes that are just up there for years. Totally. Yeah. I like that. Somebody should make that documentary.

I know. I'd watch that. I know. It might come online again now that I have some money that I could do it myself. But I ended up going there with the producer and I got invited, saw the Dalai Lama's Oracle.

So, you know, funny story of how to get there and meeting a guy who stood on one leg for 15 years and met him at midnight in the middle of nowhere. Turned the camera on, started asking questions. Ultimately, that was wonderful and experience and crack. I mean, India is going to crack you open regardless. And, but there was this thing in me of, you know,

I started looking Himalayan salt when I was there. And, and so this, this very grounded passion of food and supplements and the massive, I was, you know, from college on, I was formulating stuff. So I was very clearly go, okay, six weeks in India, you got to go, get back, start doing some stuff. And so, you know, that was 2003.

So dad was struggling, be there for him, try to, you know, you know, support that as much as I can. And, and then 2005 hit and then it was like, okay, now what am I going to do with this legacy? Started my own company, had some formulas. I was in the 11th hour of that. Like meaning I was had, had a superfood bar that I was had, I had products that no one's superfoods, no one's ever heard of and packaged and ready to go. And then I got approached by the company Beachbody. Were you friends with Tony Horton or like, how did that come about? No. So this was a serendipitous thing. I hired the, uh, this indigenous guy is Native American

Mexican that was running, uh, the vitamin barn in Malibu. And we just connected. It's closed down by the way, which is a bummer, right? Come on, did they? No. The place where you could go and get the green drinks. Yeah, yeah, buy cookies and all of that. It closed down.

I don't think it's there anymore. Come on. Maybe I'm wrong. You live in Malibu. Yeah, I never go there anymore. Yeah, I think it's not there anymore. I get all my supplements direct. Yeah, I never go there anymore. Yeah, I think it's not there anymore. I get all my supplements direct. Anyway, sorry, go ahead.

So he was managing that thing and I hired him, but he was still working there because we were getting things going. And he ran into this Lady Isabel and Isabel had all this stuff and was really smart. And he clearly saw that she knew what she was doing. And he said, what are you doing? And she goes, well, my boyfriend at the time, Carl Deichler, wants to make a supplement to support the strength of their exercise programs, but make a really good one.

And the superfoods and all that stuff. And Miguel's like, you got to talk to Darren. And they just had moved to Malibu. So she called me up, we connected and it was like a kindred spirit of how we viewed health and nutrition. And next thing I know, I sat down across from Carl and he said, Hey, I want to affect the lives of millions of people. And I want to match our supplements with the strength of our exercise video, the P90X, the T25s, all of these things that they had. And I didn't even know who they were, but I believed him and he looked me straight in the eye and he goes, we're not going to compromise.

So I'm going to let you with no cap of a price structure right now, Just go make a superfood blend of what you know and go for it. And I was like, seriously? Okay. You're going to pay me to do that? Because I've been doing that for a long time. And so I was like, okay, let me just put my stuff on hold and A, I need the money and this would be fun. So I found a lab, I did some research, did some testing and put my head down and ended up creating this product called Shakeology. It's got 50 plus superfoods in it and we have a whey version and a vegan version, of course.

And then cut to that's a half a billion dollars a year. It's insane. It's insane. Because the guy at the vitamin barn was like, you gotta talk to Darren. It's serendipity, man. That's a half a billion dollars a year right now. It's insane. It's insane. Because the guy at the vitamin barn was like, you got to talk to Darren. It's serendipity, man. That's crazy. Serendipity.

So how does that work? So are you still involved with that or you just get like a royalty or you're like an owner? Yeah. Tell me, like divulge confidential information. No, no, no. I'm just curious how it comes together. Yeah, so I was hired independently to do it.

They paid me to do it. And then they gave me a little capped royalty in the beginning. Right. But once it came out and they were, it's a gamble. It's a very expensive product. Yeah, because they got to put a lot of money in it. They don't know.

They're like, who's this guy, Darren, who we met at Vitamin Barn put together. I'm throwing stuff in that weren't, that some of those materials weren't even on the market at the time. No one knew about them. Hell, and these- Like what? Well, like Sasha Inchy, which Brendan- Now Brendan uses that in Vegas. That was like, that's only kind of come onto the scene in the last couple of years. Before that, no one was using it.

Yeah. And I learned about it in 2006 and you couldn't even Google search it. It didn't exist. And so I was diving into that going, oh my God, this stuff's amazing. And originally I loved the oil because it was a perfect vegan balanced oil of omega-3, 6, and 9, unmatched. It's high in amino acids. It sounds like a perfect food. It's amazing. And so I was like, okay, let's fling that into this formula and work with that. And essentially that helped resurrect that ingredient endemic to that region. That was in Peru? Yeah, in Peru. That was revered by the Incans. They use that in their

staffs. Like the, the, it's a really beautiful plant. Um, uh, and, and they, the, the Incan warriors had these on their staffs, like the, the bulb of the Sasha Inchi. So, um, yeah, it's like a green, almost like star-like. Yeah. It's green when it's young and then it turns brown and then it's mature at that point and then you harvest it. And then another yukon, which was another one that I flung in there, which was another Incan. But how did you know about these? You went down to that region? Yeah, I was there. So I was there working with the International Potato Center,

which is the international potato capital of the planet, right? So they had researchers in the field working with them and working with farmers. And I was like, no one knows about this stuff. And this is incredible. So that coupled with many other things, it was an opportunity. Because again, like I told you before, like for me, it's got to be a win-win situation. And so if I'm looking at the people that can grow this and it can change their life and it can change the life of the people ingesting it and we do it correctly in the processing, I mean, that's a no brainer. I mean that's a no-brainer yeah it has to support the population that's growing it and and sort of give back to that community in a way that can um you know foster like progressive

growth without overwhelming them too like I would imagine like the supply chains are tricky like if you find like this thing growing and you're like yeah but what happens when Shakeology blows up and we need like shit loads of stuff yeah and some of it doesn't work anymore because in the early stages that you know we weren't selling that much and i could i could fling like a you know a lesser known ingredient because the supply wasn't but now if there is something we have to go deep into, to the supply chain to make sure that they can ramp at, at, at certain levels. And so, so, you know, there was a lot of that going on and then, but you're like, all right, so this guy wants me to do this thing. And like, all right,

you know, did you, did you like understand the opportunity or was, I mean, what was going on with that company at that point in time? Did you see like, oh, this could be huge or was this like, oh, I'm just doing this thing, you know? Of course you always think, you always hope that it is, but my contract was, you know, pay me until I'm done formulating then a, you know, a moderate, moderate little royalty. And then it was capped. And then a certain, a certain point I was done. But what was great about the company was once it was out and it was doing successful, we were like, I think you're probably the best person to talk about it. So we're going to keep you around. So we're going to redo the contract. They came to me to unleash.

Interesting. Yeah, because they could have just kicked you to the curb. I mean, you probably reached that cap pretty quickly and that was it, right? They could just wash their hands of you. Of course. And then, you know, the amount of blue collar work that I would do in order for those things to be done right, because supply chain, superfoods, listen, I've spent 10 years behind the veil of what actually goes on.

And it's astonishing. It's Wild West. It's a whole nother conversation of how horrible a lot of the products out there are and what you're getting is not what you're getting. And so- I want to talk about that, but continue. It's a big, big conversation, but passionately, I'd love to talk about it. So I spent the next year and a half formulating this thing, working on the alchemy of it, making sure that it was safe and effective. And I asked myself one question.

What do people require right here, right now? The middle America people, what do they need at this day and age? Why would we get materials from around the world and have this in a pretty package and give it because people need it. That's why, because we are getting stressed beyond our belief. We don't even know it. Brendan talks about nutritional stress. I mean, look at any processed foods, nutritional stress. We don't even know it. So cortisol levels, immune system responses are attacking the food that we're supposed to, it's supposed to be good for us, but we're not choosing that. So then you have 70 to 80,000 new toxins

being emitted in our atmosphere every year, untested. Our home environments from the glues to the plastics, to the shampoos, to the deodorants, we're just getting annihilated. So why do we use these adaptogenic herbs and medicinal plants and cordyceps and reishis and ashwagandhas and makas and why? It's not just a novelty. It's because they have been used for thousands of years and the medicinal nutrient density that they are providing has not only provided those people from where they came

from, but it's a delivery system that we're using so that they can help those bodies out because those bodies are stressed. So that's really the genesis of how I started the formula and what the, I wasn't formulating it for myself. I was formulating it for the people that require it. So a year and a half later, the formula came out and the engine, it was a big risk. It's a big risk for them. It was a very, to not have a ceiling on a formula and just let the formula be what it's supposed to be and then charge what you need to to have a sustainable business was a risk. And no one at Beachbody believed it was gonna happen except maybe Isabel and Carl.

And they just, you know, they have an amazing, one of the best, if not the best marketing histories in a company. Well, they know what's up when it comes to that kind of stuff, for sure. It's crazy how they can launch these products and it goes bonkers. Crazy.

And listen, we've all seen, you know, marketing companies and products. You're trying to market a crappy product, but somehow they still make money. And I was like, well, why don't you just make a fantastic, amazing, powerful product? Marketing becomes easy because people will want to drink it

because they're actually getting some results from it. So that was the, and from there, I'm still around and consult and still work formulas, still contribute to that, still speak to the quality and what that product is all the time. Right. And they can put you in front of the camera. They're like, this guy kind of looks like Laird Hamilton. He knows what he's talking about. He's for real deal. He should stick around. Let's make it worth his while. Exactly. So, yeah. Well, let's talk about superfoods in general. I mean, I think that it's all very trendy now.

What kind of superfoods are you eating and what's in vogue at the moment? And I think that the term has been kind of blown out a little bit. It's definitely prone to cavalier over, you know, overuse and gets attached to things that maybe it shouldn't get attached to. And this kind of dovetails back into what you had mentioned earlier about products purporting to be superfoods and consumers kind of unsuspectingly purchasing products that they think that are good for you without any idea about what's truly in it and what these ingredients really are.

So what's the difference between the kind of superfoods that you're talking about and what, you know, somebody might kind of think is a superfood when they're at the grocery store? Yeah. It's, you know, I don't even have an easy answer because, you know, superfoods, I, because I've been out in that world for so long, I pretty much know every company, where they're getting it, if it's worth anything or if they're even testing it. The reality is that the whole supplement world

is regulated, yes. Well, let me just say, has been given a rule sheet by the FDA, right? Follow these rules. Self-regulate. Yeah. And we're going to expect you to follow them. There's no governing body to check.

So it's the Wild West. People just flinging themselves into a $50 billion industry and And, and usually just looking at a piece of white paper, the certificate of analysis going, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's maca. Okay, cool. So we'll go to the manufacturer. We'll say, Hey, can we make a maca green supplement, protein blend or whatever? And the manufacturer says, yeah, yeah, no problem. We have brokers that we get all of our ingredients from. And no, no, no, here's the proof. Here's the piece of paper.

No, don't worry about it. We've tested it, blah, blah, blah. So the company itself is kind of removed from the real situation. Do they actually even know what the compounds in that food are? Right, you can be Joe Schmo and you can actually find some guy who calls himself a formulator who will put together a product for you. And you can go to

one of these manufacturers and say, this is what we want our thing to be. And they take care of sourcing everything. And you don't even have to have any idea what's going on. They'll make it for you. Exactly. And then you can sell it. Exactly. So it is pretty crazy that that is. It's scary, crazy. I mean, I spent many of the years in the middle of that, several companies that you'd know of that were trying to, they knew what I had.

I had relationships with 10, 20,000 farmers and direct sources. You want to know what the helps your bottom line, having a direct source of some of these amazing foods. And so I was, had all a bunch of these companies trying to get me to be a part of their company. And ultimately it was just, it wasn't going to be worth it to me because it was too sketchy. People were too willing to, to, to not live up to the integrity. So, so it, it is, it is a very scary thing because, you know, we all can kind of live in that denial and not, you know, not see what our food is actually like. And that, and, and, you know, my thing is no, no, the people, um, know how they're growing it, support them and how they

naturally grow it. Make sure that we're testing for the bioactive compounds that are supposed to be there because they are going to be the, the for doing what they've been doing for 10,000, 20,000 years. Process it correctly so that that's not denatured or changed to the best of our ability. Make sure that it's blended and put together properly and test it again and test it again and test it again and actually have our eyes, our quality assurance teams going to every country, every manufacturer, every process to make sure that that is everything that's in that bag is supposed to be in that bag and everything is supposed to be at the levels that it's there. And that's only done based on because we are in the integrity of what we're saying. And it's astonishing to me that most companies out there have no idea.

So that's you though, like for the average consumer who's just like, you know what, I heard that Reishi is good or my acupuncturist told me that I should get this or whatever it is. And they're just going to the, whether it's the natural food market or whatever, and there's a panoply of choices. So how can you make the right choice? How do you discern the snake oil salesman from a product that's good when there's so much lack of oversight and regulation in this field? That's a tricky one. And I think the best one is you ask your friends, your colleagues, your people who may have had that experience of the product itself. Because this tool that we have, the body, will always give us feedback if we're willing to receive it.

And it's one of the best testers that we can have. And I'm not suggesting people go out and just consume a bunch of products that they don't know about. But you ask as much as you can with the companies themselves and try to get some transparency, but also just ask your friends and ask the people that are there what products are selling the most. And aside from that, if you have the time and resources to test it yourself, I mean, it's just a tricky thing. And hopefully someone has someone like me in their own company that can speak to their quality assurance, their research and development, and be transparent about it.

Right. Every company's got a Darren walking around. Yeah. This idea that you were talking about with how we're exposed to so many toxins and like the, you know, all the kind of consumer products that we use and the foods in the air we breathe and all of this. I can see the appeal of superfoods as sort of, you know, like to use the word adaptogenic kind of healing modality. But I think that the tricky part is that you can't treat, and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm interested in your opinion of this, but my feeling is you can't use superfoods as this sort of panacea

if you're not taking care of other aspects of your life. So if you're going to McDonald's, you know, five times a week, you can eat as much superfoods as you want, but your body is so polluted that you're not even gonna be able to discern whether this is a quality superfood or not because you're messed up.

So you gotta clean house first, right? Like you gotta make sure that you're attending to your health in this sort of, you have these five life forces that you talk about in your book. And I think it pertains to that. We can talk about that, but you got to be eating clean, you got to be exercising, you got to be hydrating, you got to be doing all these other things. Then you can begin to talk about superfoods. It's sort of like the cherry on top of the sundae, you know, but, but if you start with superfoods and think this is going to be the solution to all of your problems when you're not addressing, you know, negative behavior patterns and unhealthy lifestyle habits, like you can just spend all your money on

superfoods all day long. Ain't going to do a thing. Yeah. It's the, I have a chapter of, of, of kind of poking at that too the big fix syndrome that we're all into and and you know dr oz got in trouble for that too um using those words and those kind of uh that kind of cultural uh marketing ploy which is you know listen when when harper collins came to me and said write a book the first thing is what do you want to write it on? The obvious one was superfoods. But I didn't want to because your very point. I said, listen, there is a place for it because an unhealthy person having some nutrient-dense superfoods can be absolutely great for them because it can also spark them to then want more.

Because when you feel better, you want more. You feel better, you want more, you feel better, you want to move and all of that stuff. So I've seen it both ways. But to your point, if you're healthier and speaking of microbiome, if your microbes are used to breaking down processed foods, then they're not even close. Your digestive system is not even close to being able to actually receive all of, say, adaptogen or maca or ashwagandha or whatever. It's getting a percentage of what it could normally. So it is. And so I definitely focused on that lifestyle aspect because it's like a good muscle car.

You got all the engine and the tires and everything, you got it all tuned up and then you hit that nitrous oxide and now all of a sudden you're boogieing. And that's kind of what superfoods can be. It can be that extra performance, light up the brain. It can get rid of stress. It can help you recover that much more. I mean, one of my favorite things I do when I meet kind of a cool athlete or celebrity who's getting ready for something is just I can't help it.

I meet him and I talk to him. And then I ended up making some sort of concoction that just comes to me. I send it off to them and they're like, holy shit, what is that? And that's kind of a fun part of it. And that's kind of, you know, they're already living fairly healthy. So you can kind of really hit them with that. So, yeah, there's a place in our lifetime for these superfoods. And I think it is used quite a bit in terms of just the marketing side of it. Yeah, there's money to be made.

I mean, and people are, you know, we want to believe, you know, so it can be an easy sell. And the thing is, like, these are expensive. You know, most of these superfoods are pretty expensive. So I think it's incumbent upon everyone to Most of these superfoods are pretty expensive. So I think it's incumbent upon everyone to kind of be as educated as possible about them. But I attest to their effectiveness and I use quite a few quite frequently and I just call them foods. Yeah. I think that there is wisdom in that other point that you made too,

which I probably haven't thought through enough, which is that idea of sparking somebody. Because that's kind of how the journey began for me. You have to trust people to go on their own journey. And if you can kind of light a match for them or give them that experience that kind of that grapefruit had for you, that grapefruit cleanse that sends them on their own path of exploration,

then that's a beautiful thing. Because that's really all you can hope for because you can't instill willingness in somebody to wanna change their habits. So that has to be self-generated. Absolutely. So let's talk a little bit about uh myths around diet and nutrition what are some of your favorite myths oh my god propagated right oh i know i know you'll probably love this one the protein myth

the protein oh my written extensively on this i t it up and you talk about it now for a change instead of me i want to hear what you have to say about it. Well, there's so many. But, you know, this, and I dive into it in the book. You know, the whole idea that protein is some sort of badge of courage of health is just insane to me. And subsequent to that, you have this now fear of carbohydrates, right? So there's this weird paleo world that is morphing into whatever pseudo marketing

someone wants. And so it creates this fear and ketogenic gets thrown in there. And proteins- Is that all becoming like one thing? It's weird how it's those different areas are kind of merging into one concept. Yeah, now kind of this paleo thing is,

I have nothing against paleo because the caveat to that is there's more I agree with it than I don't. And that's something I've been on Brian McKenzie's podcast and he's a bit, you know, you know, Brian. Yeah, I know. He was on my, I had him on my podcast. I know Brian really well.

He's a fire brand. Yeah. And he actually told me, I think he came from that. And I think he was doing the pool workout with us. By the way, you got to come and try that at Laird's house. Oh yeah, I would like to. We got to talk about that. Hold on.

All right. So like little caveat here, we'll talk about protein. You're probably part of that like crew on Point Doom that gets together, the workout crew with you. Who's the old guy who owned the gym? The guy who owned- Oh, Don Wildman. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're part of that, aren't you? Oh yeah. I knew it. How do I get in on that? Anytime, anytime. Yeah, but it's like super secret. Only like people like you? Oh yeah. I knew it. How do I get in on that? Anytime. Come on, man. I wanna get. Anytime. Yeah, but it's like super secret, only like people like you and Laird get to go.

Well, by the way, conveniently I'm two houses. Are you on Point Doom? I'm two houses down from Laird. You are, okay. So I walk over and get into the mayhem. All right, gotcha. And we're doing this whole other tangent right now. I'm doing the Wilhelm Hoff method.

What is that? Breathing, Iceman training. It's a whole other conversation, but it's pretty narrow. 10-week training of some thermogenic. Okay, cool. Yeah, and some oxygen stuff, which is... Have you done the cryotherapy?

No, I haven't. No, we just jump in. We do pool. We should go. There's a place in LA where you can go into that, like nitrogen gas tank or whatever. And it's like 200 degrees below Fahrenheit. Oh my God. Yeah.

But for some reason, you know, I don't know. It's weird. I'm trying to find the guy for the warehouse. We have at Laird's house, we just have a tank with an ice machine that we all bought for him. And we just old school it, jump in a bath up to our necks. Is he back from Kauai? Is he here now? No, he'll be in April.

He was here just a couple weeks ago for a little bit. Cool. All right. Protein. Protein, yeah. So, you know, protein, people have to understand the foundation of protein is it's the most sustainable, one of the most sustainable elements in our body. Meaning that in the regular kind of evolution, amino acids were, there wasn't abundance of amino acids. You know, it was a high energy cost to go kill animals all the time right and and so the body got really really good at at keeping amino acids because once

by the way taking flesh from another animal and eating it and and dairy and is very very taxing for the body you have to break it down and it's essential elements, which is amino acids. So because of that evolution speaks and says that, okay, well, I don't want to get rid of my amino acids. I want to keep as much as I can. So there's even a theory that says that a lot of our amino acids, even after we break them down, says that a lot of our amino acids, even after we break them down, gets recycled in our body. So keeping that in mind, I go to the thing, which is one of the cornerstones of my book, in that we eat for ourselves. And if you look at most of the cells, they're between 5% and 15% protein. And then there's essential fatty acids for membranes. There's electrolyzed structured water for osmosis diffusion.

You have glucose for glycolysis, all of that stuff's right there. And I was taught early on, eat for your cells. If your cells are healthy, you're healthy. If you go outside of that, there's gonna be checks and balances that are gonna have to be checks and balances that are going to have to take in take into place right so so if you take in these high amounts of protein all the time the one

element that the carbs don't have and the fats don't have is nitrogen because of nitrogen you have then the acid ash that's left behind. And then, of course, now you have the buffering challenge that your body has to deal with this extra acid. So then it robs calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, all the buffering elements away from their other job to then buffer. away from their other job to then buffer. And there's some reports that people say, okay, well, there was even proven there's some studies that people ate meat and they didn't actually lose calcium. But in fact, by eating meat

naturally sparks the osteoblasts of your bones because it already knows that you're taking in this acidifying element. It's a brilliant mechanism. So it already starts like pushing calcium back into the bloodstream from the bone. It already starts making more. Making more.

Yeah, so it kicks on the osteoblast to make more because now all of a sudden it's hitting your mouth. The body starts registering. The body, there's no separation. The body communicates everywhere. And so, so, you know, you have this very acidifying action of protein and, you know, this idea that, that you need a hundred, 200, 300 grams of protein is just. It's crazy. I mean, with that, with that sort of acidification, I mean, there's an immune system response to that as well. Like there's an inflammatory response.

There's all these sorts of... I mean, the whole thing is crazy to me. All I have to do is look at like my friend, Michael Arnstein, who was like the fifth fastest American at the New York City Marathon a couple of years ago. And the dude's fruitarian. Like he basically just eats bananas, you know? And he's like, he looks fit and healthy and happy, and he's been doing it for years. And, you know, not to say that, you know, everybody's going to just immediately become a fruitarian, but you cannot look at that and not try to rethink like, well, what is really going on with this obsession that we have with protein? Not just for performance in athletes, but this message that's being pushed that the average consumer must be taking in these extreme amounts of protein just to be able to climb out

of bed in the morning. All you have to do is go to the grocery store and look at the food labeling and it's complete insanity. Exactly. And there's so many just misunderstandings of culturally with meat and high protein is that some sort of red-blooded testosterone American, you know, will lose our testosterone if we don't increase our protein intake. When in fact, it's completely the opposite. All of the studies go that if you wipe out the protein and the meat specifically, that your testosterone, we even did a study in-house. And the guys, we took them through 21 days. And the first week we weaned them off all meat and dairy.

And the last two weeks, kind of like two and a half weeks, their testosterone went up by over 33%. And that's also peer reviewed. So that's matched in peer reviewed studies. What is the catalyst for that? Like, what is the causal factor? Well, there's not just one linear fact. I mean, health is achieved in two ways, eliminating the estrogen effect of some of the processed foods, that's going to increase a lot. And also that acidification, that onslaught that you're getting from all that meat and dairy is severely affecting. with hormones and pesticides and all that stuff, which is completely endocrine destroying for the person.

So if you eliminate that kind of food that your body's really attacking rather than receiving, which is crazy, then your body then regulates itself because your body's innately designed to thrive. If we get out of the way and, and give it what it needs, it's going to thrive. And, and so, so anyway, that, that, that whole idea of protein is just a cultural. It's cultural. Yeah. This, I, this deeply ingrained idea that somehow sort of, you know, exerting domination over an animal has to, is,

is, is, is equates to what it means to be a man in our society, which is so ridiculous because, you know, we just go to the grocery store and buy it in a prepackaged thing. It has nothing to do with me. And it, and it's along the lines of thinking like, well, if I eat brain, it's going to make me smarter. You know, it's, it's, it's silly. So how do we, you know, what are we doing here? Like, how are we, how are we overcoming this? Yeah. Well, I think just the continual education of the pseudo, getting rid of the pseudoscience that, that is kind of propagating the cultural idea of it. And, you know, a lot of this, the science just doesn't make any sense and you know you know and you know even even going with your buddy of like you know subsequent to that when you have this

high protein then you have seems to me that people get this fear of carbs then right so then you have your your buddy eating nothing but nothing but bananas and like, he's not fat. And all of that research- You need glycogen to function. Of course you do. Absolutely. And that's how the cell works. You spark it through oxygen and then normal metabolism is using that glycogen.

And all of the science, and this is going to probably fire a lot of people up that did you know that the whole insulin thing with sugar is completely backwards it doesn't make sense because when you look at calories for calories if you eliminate any of the macro if you let's say, eliminate carbohydrates and you have proteins and fats and people just consume that, do you know that insulin goes up, matches the amount of insulin that people supposedly are being spiked with the carbohydrates? It not only matches and sometimes even goes up. Insulin is not just left for sugar. Insulin regulates protein, regulates fat. All of it in consuming any of that insulin is involved.

So the whole theory of insulin is the kind of the fat creator is completely wrong. Well, that's interesting. I've never heard that before. So if you're eating like this low carb, high fat, high protein diet, you're saying that's still going to trigger this insulin spike. So what is insulin pulling out of the circulatory system then if it's not glucose? I mean, it's still pulling glucose out. It's still the gate.

It's still- If you're not ingesting that, then what is it removing? It's not, what do you mean removing? Well, so insulin is, when you have this insulin response, right? So that's there to pull the sugar out of the bloodstream. Regulate it. But it's not a matter of too much.

It's like too much protein, it's doing the same thing with protein. Not in the same biochemical way, but the insulin is there for the protein and it's also there for the fat. When calories are calories, there's no difference between someone taking out the carbs or someone taking out the protein. There's no significant fat loss. taking out the protein. There's no significant fat loss. The fat loss comes when someone changes their eating program. And it really comes down to the amount of calories they're taking in or not taking in. Yeah. Part of the argument that fuels this kind of low carb movement, high fat movement is this idea that the dietary guidelines that have been in place for however long that have been promoting a low fat diet don't work.

Like, well, that was a big disaster because we're fatter than ever. And look, we've been telling people that they should be eating a low fat diet, but that presupposes that people were actually doing it. Exactly. Because they weren't. They weren't.

They're going to McDonald's. Exactly. They're not eating a low fat diet. Did you realize, before that we're eating about 12% fat. During our low-fat phase, guess how much we're eating fat? 20%. 12%. So the same amount.

So the theory is completely wrong to say, well, hey, everyone, we tried the low-fat thing and we got fatter. No. There's this other thing called reward and palatability. We increase the reward and palatability food, i.e. processed food, that bypasses your biological stopping point of eating. So you're consuming all of these empty calories and all of a sudden now I've just increased my calorie consumption. It has nothing to do with the macro breakdown of everything. It has to do with the, you've simply not even changed your fat and now you've increased your calories based on kind of these made up manufactured foods. So much of this boils down to the inherent flaws in our reductionist

scientific method. When we're talking about macronutrients, protein, carbs, and fats, no one of these is the enemy and no one of these should be overly celebrated. And I think that's where we get into all these problems. It's like, whether it's butter is back and, you know, carbs are the enemy or fats the enemy or whatever it is, you know, pick your poison or pick your, you know, pick your king. These are flawed approaches. Yeah, you've already, once you've decided that, you're already off. You're already, you know, again, I always go back to like eat for yourselves because if your cells are healthy, you're healthy. eat for yourselves because if your cells are healthy, you're healthy. And eventually, and I get into some of this in the book, like, you know, even if you don't drink enough water,

guess what? You don't really even notice it because your body's so great at adapting and making sure that you just keep going on. The problem is that degeneration happens a week, a month, a year, 10 years, a decade. All of a sudden I have a chronic issue. That was a bunch of things that I did over a long period of time that created this situation. So my whole idea is I want to educate people, get back to your instincts, throw away this idea that, that these fads are going to get you anywhere except dysfunction and certainly eating disorders, you know, and, and I'm not talking about anorexia and bulimia. I'm talking

about, look around, this is a massive eating disorder that we're all kind of living in. And, uh, you know, if we go back to, if you survey everyone and say like, do you know what to eat? If you really, really think about it, do you know what to eat? If you really, really think about it, do you know what to eat? Most people will. They'll be like, you know, it probably makes sense. I should eat some, I should eat some- More vegetables.

More vegetables. No one's gonna argue that eating more vegetables, no fad person can argue that eating more vegetables is bad. I would have never thought that anybody would seriously contend that eating fruit is bad, but suddenly that's what's happening. So I would not put anything past anybody. You know what I mean?

It's true. But of course you're right. It's like, look, this is not rocket science, you know, like, and let's not overcomplicate it. There's money to be made in complicating it, but it doesn't need to be that way. Exactly. Most people know what to do.

The problem is much more about the psychology of eating, the emotional aspects of eating and implementation, you know, and that's tricky because we're humans. And we like to be flawed in that approach. And we like that hit. We like that. You can, you can, you know, down a row of Oreos and feel great in that moment. And if you start doing that kind of behavior every day, you're going to pay the debt. And that's the thing. And, and, you know, one of the things I stress is that you can have whatever point of view you have in your mind.

Your body has to deal with the effect of that. And you'll pay the debt. It's guaranteed. Whether it shows up right away and you have great genetics and it just keeps it at bay. But one moment, next thing you know, how did this cancer show up? How did this diabetes? How did heart condition? How did I just, how did my father just drop dead? Like it happens. And let's not live in delusion. Let's live in a

way that we can kind of thrive. Well, let's live in the embrace of the five life forces, shall we? That's right. So let's get into that a little bit. I mean, the new book, Super Life, The Five Forces That Will Make You Healthy, Fit, and Eternally Awesome. I like that part. So yeah, you kind of boil these principles down into these five life forces, nutrition, hydration, oxygenation, alkalization, and detox. And I would say that the first two are kind of elementary, like nobody's going to kind of take you to task for saying you need good nutrition and you should hydrate. But when we get into oxygenation, then you're starting to get a little bit out on a limb. And then we start talking about alkalization and now you're talking crazy talk.

it out on a limb. And then we start talking about alkalization and now you're talking crazy talk. Nobody can prove that. And now we're talking about detoxing. What are these toxins that we're talking about, Darren? Yeah. Now you're getting, you know, you sound like somebody who went to USM. That's right. So let's go through it. I mean, you know, let's, let's legitimize these concepts and their approaches. Yeah. Yeah.

So obviously the whole food nutrition is, the funny thing is all this, and you talk about reductionism and I love that because even in writing this book, all of these things, if you undercut one of these life forces, you undercut them all. So that's the important thing to keep in mind.

If you undercut your cell, you undercut your whole body. So that's the idea. And it's always interesting to kind of like, how do I write and communicate in a way that can make sense? So I broke them down on these five kind of governing principles. So you're not just kind of always saying, yeah, but, you know, like, but if you do that, then exactly. And, and so, you know, whole food nutrition supports when you're fresh, organic, um, wild, uh, food, mostly plants, um, will support, um, your alkaline balance, right? Will keep acidities low, will support the high oxygen levels because if you get so acidic, then oxygen,

there's a direct relationship between alkalinity and oxygen, okay? High oxygen can help increase alkalinization in the body. When you have high acidity, oxygen can't survive very well, right? So you have environments in your body and it all comes down to the environments. You have, you know, the problem with, for example,

alkalinity and pH is that people say, well, the blood doesn't change much. And that's absolutely true because your body's going to lie, steal and cheat its way to make sure that that 7.365 to 7.4 can't get outside that window. And that's not what I'm talking about because your body's not going to let that change because you would die. That's the misconception. So your body has to work very hard to maintain that homeostasis and pH, right? And that is influenced by the air you breathe,

the foods you eat, the stress in your life, the amount of sleep, the potions that you lather on your skin, your shampoo, all of these sorts of things impact that. And so your body is always trying to regulate. So if you're eating acidic foods and breathing polluted air and you're in some state of chronic acidosis, well, how is the body going to counterbalance that? Well, it has to find minerals in the body that can counteract that and bring it back into a more neutral state of pH. Exactly.

So it pulls calcium from the bones, et cetera, all these sorts of things. Exactly. Is that accurate? Yeah. So this is kind of a, I believe this, you talk about this, Brendan talks about this. I eat very alkaline for these reasons. I've experienced what this means in the context of being an athlete

and reducing your recovery time. But I would say that this idea is open for criticism in mainstream culture. Like there are people who say, well, this is that whole alkaline thing is nonsense. Yeah, well, of course. And it's easy to just blow that off. It's easy to also blow off

water and like water's water, right? And any credible scientist will look at that, for example, and say, I have no idea what's going on with this water. It's more celestial than it is kind of this H2O element. So even alkalinity, I mean, you can look at it. This is very pragmatic. You have alkalinity in every layer of your body. Your first layer is your skin. You have a certain acidic but not too acidic level to keep out bacteria on the level of your skin. And then you have the alkalinity of your central nervous system, right? You have the alkalinity of each cell. You have the alkalinity of your digestive system.

You have the alkalinity of your digestive system going into your duodenum. And your duodenum has to have exact alkalinity or else enzymes don't work. work. And if your gut is not acidic enough to break down the proteins, then you have a digestive system that's compromised. And then you can't actually break down the food, which then goes into gut problems and microbiome problems and all of these things. And so it's this cascade effect that that's why it's tricky that we're not talking about this one system. We're talking about multiple layers. If you continuously acidify yourself from the outside in, from, from bad water that you're showering in to lotions, to all of that. Um, and then all on top of it, you're stressed, which psychological stress 100% physiologically

acidifies you, right? Thoughts, words, deeds absolutely affect you. Then you're creating an environment. And I always like to break it down in terms of the environment because I go back to something very, very, and I'm just going to a little tangent right now, because I wanna give a context to the environment. Because all of our healers up until the time where the AMA was created, American Medical Association, which was instigated essentially by Louis Pasteur,

by the finding of this panacea of penicillin, that is the end, right? It was the title, the end of this panacea of penicillin, that is the end, right? It was the title, the end of all disease. We found this thing that cures all the bugs and the viruses. And there was this other guy alongside of it that wasn't as well-spoken by the name of Antoine Bekempt, a French chemist and scientist and researcher that said, well, wait a minute, that's not true.

Because all of the time before that until now in the research that I show is that we are not catching colds. We're not catching viruses. You're creating an environment that either hosts it or it doesn't. So he was one of the first people, at least in this modern age that was saying, Wayne, by what you're doing in the environment you're creating inside your body is either saying to the intelligence, by the way, of the bacteria and virus, because they want to survive too. So if that bacteria and virus because they want to survive too. No. So, so if that bacteria and virus, which we're getting hit every, every second right now, cancer is moving in and out of us. What MRSA, all E. coli, all of it's happening right now that all of those bacteria is coming

in and out of us. Now, if it deems that environment, you, wherever it is, if it deems that I can survive in that as a bacteria or a virus, I am going to stay here, thrive here and continue to live. Right? So- Are you a hospitable host or not? Absolutely. So it was, and that was, you know, 50,000 plus years of how we viewed health up until this point where Louis Pasteur had a, you know, was more robust in his story. that this almost fear-based, I'm going to catch something model was then created and our culture accepted it. And that's where we massively took a really bad turn because we then, like you and I spoke, this victim place came in and now what's a better defense being fearful of something or, or promoting the good of something. So I take a strong stand and don't worry about catching anything, promote the good

and know that the body is going to have its amazing defense systems, the microbiome that it actually has on its skin skin that's protecting you and getting rid of all of the unwanted, keeping that intimate balance. But if you take some antibacterial rub on there, you're wiping out all the good bacteria. Now you're keeping yourself open to the MRSA coming on and the staff and all of that stuff. So, you know, go to a hospital. It's one of the worst places to go to open yourself up to receive all that stuff because you're wiping it all out. Yeah, we're in this Purell world, right?

Which is not doing anybody any good, by the way. Robin Shukan, do you know who Robin Shukan is? She's a doctor who specializes in the microbiome, but she has a saying, it goes something like, eat clean, live dirty. She like doesn't take showers. doctor who specializes in the microbiome, but she has a saying, it goes something like, eat clean, live dirty. She like doesn't take showers. Like she's a beautiful woman, right? Professional, successful doctor.

And she's like, you should never use soap. You know, she's like, because your body knows how to do this stuff, right? And we're putting all these products that we're told that we need that are gonna keep us healthy are actually ultimately in the long run making us sick. And I think when you talk about Pasteur and the AMA and the kind of the birth of penicillin, implicit in that is this idea of prophylactically, you know,

preventing you from getting this bug. But behind that is be very afraid of getting this. And you have no control over whether you're gonna get it or not. So, you better take this because you're a victim, right? And this is infusing people with this fear-based kind of idea about disease and health. But I think that it is what that reveals if you pop the hood and look at it,

it's like, it's very clear, this is emblematic of our symptom-based medicine system, right, where we're not about preventing people from getting sick, having your approach, which is like, look, you can make yourself an inhospitable host to this, right? If you make these certain decisions and adopt these certain behaviors

and diet and lifestyle patterns, No, no, no. We don't have to deal with behavior modification. Let's just have this drug and we will treat the symptom with this drug, right? And that cascades or this domino effect to basically every single chronic disease that we're dealing with, everything from erectile dysfunction to what have you,

your inability to sleep. All of these things are reflections of what we're eating and how we're behaving and how we're living our lives. from erectile dysfunction to what have you, your inability to sleep. All of these things are reflections of what we're eating and how we're behaving and how we're living our lives. Absolutely. And we're not dealing with what's causing them. We're just popping a pill and then perpetuating the unhealthy behavior.

And then we're shocked when we wake up and the doctor says you have diabetes or you have this disease or that disease. Exactly. Look where we are. It's insane. So we're in this weird mashup time where there's guys like you walking around who, and people are listening and they're like into it.

I want superfoods. I want to be healthy. I want to control my health. And I want to be somebody who is an inhospitable host to all of these diseases out there. And yet you look around at most of Americans and we're the sickest we've ever been. The statistics are horrific right now. Yeah, we've bought into this and it's time to take our power back. And I don't know about you, but I'll double down on the miracle that we are. all double down on the miracle that we are.

I mean, this whole ecosystem of a body and us getting to inhabit it is unbelievable. And I will double down on that over a lab coat and a guy who's really smart, but doesn't know much about how the body works and nutrition and all of that stuff. So that's my stand. I know that there's a place for drugs and stuff, but there's no place in drugs for true healthcare. It's not, it will never get you there. And by the way, all drugs are so acidifying. They undermine

these life force principles so intimately that, you know, some of these things, some of these drugs are like two, three negative acidities on the pH scale. And so it undermines everything. It undermines your immune system. And of course, you know, in certain situations, they have their place. Absolutely. I'm not like somebody who's like a denier of Western medicine. If you look at penicillin and what it did, it's extraordinary.

But I think that we need to be educated and we need to understand what we're getting into every time that we decide to take a drug. And I don't think that we should be this culture of people that just takes antibiotics on a knee jerk because you got a sniffle. I know people that have serious, serious potentially irrevocable problems

with their gastrointestinal tract because their microbiome has been so raped by taking too many antibiotics over the course of their life that they can't even replenish the gut flora that is crucial to keeping us alive and functioning properly. So we need to really think hard before we make that decision is this the right thing to do in this situation?

Exactly. And when you're in an acute situation, then those things are very appropriate. Western medicine is the best when it comes to anything acute. And what we're talking about is the other 99.9% of the time that you live is make those choices that support this intelligence that we have and let this body thrive. Because going back to, I had no signal that told me starting this life that this was gonna be a easy run. And it was really only through the experience

of really food as medicine that it changed everything for me. And so it's really that humble message of just take back your power. And there's so much choice that we still have here that we don't have to just succumb to this. I don't feel that good. I am depressed. I don't have any energy. like all of that is absolutely changeable. And we abdicate that power and that decision-making authority to purported experts, you know, people with degrees behind their names. And we implicitly trust these people and assume that they have a background in what they're prescribing. And that's not always the

case. Often it is, I'm not saying, but I'm saying that like, you know, doctors, they don't, if you listen to this podcast, you've heard this mantra repeated many, many times from many doctors who have sat in that chair who are like, yeah, we didn't really, they didn't teach us about nutrition in medical school. But we assume that they have all the answers

when it comes to that, but they're getting their information in the same places that you and I are getting it. Oh yeah. So, you know, what does that say about that abdication of control? And I think, you know, the good news is we're in the internet age. Well, I guess that's good news and bad news. You can go on the internet and be woefully misled, but you know, the world of information is available to you. And, and I think that that has an incredibly powerful democratic impact on people's, um, ability to navigate the world in a more, um, kind of, uh, what's the word I'm looking for? Um, self-sovereign way. Like I look at my 19 year old Tyler, who you met and he like the way he takes care of himself and the way he researches

things on the internet, like it's incredible. Like I compare myself to what I was doing, to what, to the way he kind of like, like sort of, you know, curiously researches things in his own time at night and, and implements them in his life. And I'm like, wow, you know, that's amazing. And that gives me hope and optimism. Absolutely. I mean, it allows this whole information thing allows us to at least, you know, ask more questions and get curious and find out on your own.

I mean, I think the point of view about having, just having a body, it's like, don't you wanna? You're already winning. Yeah. I mean, don't you wanna know how this works and experiment a little bit? I mean, at the end of the day,

I've spent 20 years in this field and it's really just a little bit of education that sparked the interest and the rest is flinging myself in the middle of situations and experimenting myself and to thine own self be true. And we're all biochemically individuals and we all have different requirements and, and, you know, the closer we are to ourselves and to really the, the minutia of all of the little

signs and signals that our body's telling us, because like you said, from heart disease to erectile dysfunction, all this stuff, we're just bypassing all of the feedback mechanisms. It's the body's just giving us feedback. So what do we do with that feedback? Just slapping on another mask is just never gonna get us there and just gonna lead the last, you know, last half of our life, just kind of getting by instead of actually thriving

and being able to react to life. And really from, you know, that's why I wrote the title of the book, Super Life. Let's, we all can have a super life, whatever you want it to be, but you have to take back your power and get through some of the pseudo science and the craziness that people wanna sell you on something.

I love that. And I think that's a beautiful place to close it down, but I can't let you go until you impart a few kind of tips, I think, for people that are listening. I mean, if somebody's listening to this and they're like, I like this guy. I think I can trust this guy. What are some things that are people who are at the kind of beginning of their journey that they could explore and maybe implement to start making that shift, that transition into kind of a higher vibrating,

healthier way of living? Yeah, I mean, I can't not kind of go into the water thing. I mean, I think the chronic dehydration is so behind everything else that's happening and fatigue, depression, organs actually reacting to dehydration and then wondering why we have specialists going after our organs when in fact a lot of it's dehydration.

So I would say something to implement would be wake up every day. The first thing you do before you slam your coffee or before you scarf down your breakfast, drink a half a liter to a liter of water. Um, and, and, and let that process start to happen and try to get a half an ounce, um, of water per pound of body weight, trying to make yourself even get an ounce of, uh, of water per pound of body weight. And, you know, um, you know And the easy way to get at least structured water and water quality is a week long lecture.

Yeah, that's what my, I had two follow up questions of this. The first is, should I be spending my money on alkaline water or structured water? Like, is that hoo-ha or is that worth doing? Like you go to the, if you go to the Whole Foods or the Erewhon or whatever your version of a healthy market is in your area, you see, you're starting to see more

and more brands and they'll say like pH 10 or pH 9.5 or structured water. And it's way more, it's like, you know, three bucks a liter or something like that. And I bought it. Yeah. Is this, should I be doing this or is this a waste? Well, I mean, if you can't control your own water and you're out somewhere, then some of these waters can be better than others. And structured water is, again, I go back to the cell. Structured water has high IP,

which is high ionic potential. It's actually excited water. Water vortates down from glaciers and it doesn't run in a straight line. It vortates, right? So it twists down and it gets excited through the magnetic field of the planet and also the solar radiation. It hits it and it comes off the minerals and it creates this high IP. What that means basically is a high IP water, and I'm not talking pH yet, because it's a different thing.

High IP, high energy water is like having water, like when you boil water, right? And you put a teabag in it. The teabag doesn't disperse when it's cold, right? The hot water has high IP. It's got higher energy potential. So when you have structured, properly structured water, and it could be done through a vortator, you can run it through a vortator. And I have some of that stuff on my website, or you can anode and a cathode and you can create some energy that way,

then you're mimicking that which is in the cell. So in theory, not answering for each of these bottled waters because a lot of that can be marketing. In theory, structured water is fantastic, important and important for proper hydration. Is there like one brand that you think is good? I'm not sure about the structured side because it can be destructured by just being in the plastic bottle. It's really hard to keep that.

One brand, Smart Water, actually tests really well for TDS. Total dissolved solids are really low, which is a good thing. And pH is pretty stable. I am not a fan of high pH anything, right? You want to match your pH. So that pH of just- But what if you're so acidic that that could be a good, you know, like the idea of like counterbalancing it with something super alkaline? 7.365 pH, the pH that's positive for the body, your body doesn't have to balance it because

as soon as you take in even alkaline water, your body has to balance that because it's actually not, it's actually too alkaline for that. Now there's certain applications, the healthcare practitioners could prescribe that stuff, but for the normal person, I don't think it's a good thing to always bring in because the same thing happens if it's acidic as if it's too alkaline. Your body has to balance it so that it becomes the balance for what the body can use it for. Interesting. Here's one for you. So when you eat something, all right, this drives me crazy, but hopefully you can answer this. When you eat something, whether it's acidic or alkaline naturally, you're passing it through your gastrointestinal system. Your stomach is full

of stomach acids. Like it's a highly acidic environment. So if you drink alkaline water, as soon as it hits your stomach, it's not, there's no, there's nothing alkaline anymore happening. Yeah. But the hydration is happening, you know, from the start of your mouth to all the way down there. And yes, there is some acidity, but your body is also, when you're not combined with food, the acid levels aren't even close to being what they would normally if there was.

And so the hydration, it's not like they're mixing necessarily. They're just being absorbed straight through the membranes. I see. Yeah. Okay. And the other follow-up question, and then we'll move along here,

is one thing I do in the morning is I'll have that water, but I'll put like two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar in it. Yeah. And then people always email me because I talk about this. They're like, yeah, but that vinegar is acidic, but it has an alkalizing effect on the body. Exactly.

Right? So how does that work? It's a couple elements that called pleomorphism. They're acidic out, but the alkaline effect and fresh lemon's the same way. Yeah, lemon's the same way. Yeah, lemon's the same way. Lemon, lime or whatever, but that creates the alkalining effect in the body. And it's kind of this chemistry that happens in the body

that is more of an anomaly than anything else, but it's called pleomorphism. And it's what one thing is outside is another thing inside. Interesting. Yeah. But not all vinegars are the same, by the way. It's only apple cider vinegar that does that.

Right, right, right, right, right. All right. So hydrating early in the morning, this is the one key thing. What's another? You know, one easy way to kind of eliminate some of the acid load and some of the toxic detoxification increase and and toxic load is just eat a salad a day you know try to try to at least you know hit your lunch at a big diverse colorful salad and try not to put,

or don't put the crazy dressings on. Ranch dressing. Exactly, make your own or apple cider vinegar, splash of lemon and some olive oil, fantastic. Start to shift the microbiome. Exactly. Change the microbes, change your cravings. Change your microbes, change your life.

That's right. Compton to bring it full circle. He was the first one that started talking to me about how microbes can affect your cravings. And I didn't believe him, and I started looking at the studies though, but that's crazy stuff. Crazy.

Where it like literally hijacks your nervous system and impacts the food that you crave. Absolutely. And it starts to make you think or second guess the level to which you're ascension being making decisions for yourself. Totally. Yeah. It's not your cravings. It's you go back to the environment.

If you're creating an environment where you're eating processed foods and everything, then your microbes are going to be out of balance for your own hosted self, but in balance for the foods that it's reacting to, to balance out what is more beneficial for them to feed on. So after a while of doing that, if you starve yourself of that thing, the intelligence, which they also communicate by biophotonics, which is light, right? Not even as sophisticated as our cells through electricity, right? It's literally the microbes are communicating through light. argues that it is not your cravings, that the, the a hundred times more microbes than you have cells in your body are, are more intelligent, been around here a lot longer than human forms have.

They got to live, man. They got to live. They need more of that McDonald's in there if they want to stick around. So you change the change the the you change the gradient of your microbes and that's what that's the beauty of microbes though they can train train to almost eat anything in the world and you know compton was talking about the some of those microbes you know the the gulf of mexico and the the oil went he's like you can train those microbes to eat that oil. And over time, it's a much better situation to clean up that oil. So it's those kinds of things that it happens in the world and also in our gut. And yeah. All right. So eat a salad, drink a lot of water. Eat a salad. One more. Certainly a couple more.

I would say just find activities that you love to do and go play. Or play and double down on that and play with, find groups of guys, groups of girls, women that you can enjoy that time with because, you know, call it what you want, misery loves company or people enjoy fun together. So find ways to move and play with friends and then get a bunch of sleep. Sleep's so big and you can't override sleep by a cup of coffee. So make sure you get your seven to eight hours of sleep. So let me make sure I understand here, Darren. Make sure you get your seven to eight hours of sleep. All right, so let me make sure I understand here, Darren. You want me to drink a lot of water.

I do. Eat salad. For sure. Play and move my body and get a good night's sleep. I do. You're way off the reservation here. That's the starter package for sure. You're so controversial. I know. You know, it's, I'm asking so much.

It goes back to the thing, like it's, it's, this is not rocket science, you know, like exercise these few pillars of self-care and, and to be clear, like it's not that simplistic, but these are things that you can do that are going gonna shift your consciousness and shift your physical health. And that will like sort of like create a new trajectory for you, right? And then there's an unlimited amount of exploration that you can do within that. But like, if you can master or at least begin to grapple with those things,

then you're in a position where you have created a foundation to then make some significant changes in your life. Well, I mean, little things added up over a long period of time create results. And if I was to give this example, if I set a course for Australia from here and I'm off one degree,

I'm not gonna hit that continent. You might hit the moon. Yeah, I'm not gonna make it. So habit is health or habit is disease. What's our trajectory? So if I just come off of this call and say, okay, I'm going to drink four liters of water a day. And that's all I'm going to focus on. Your life will change. You're going to feel amazing. And I guarantee you're going to feel the effect of that in a good way. And that is changing that trajectory.

And so all of this comes down to those lifestyle choices of adding up these subtle, but yet very powerful things that you can do to reverse all of this stuff and not buy into this miracle pill or miracle thing that it's, it's all that, you know, the guy behind the curtain is just you, man. And, and, you know, there is no magic thing. It's, it's just adding up a bunch of these things to help you really then have magic in your life. And cause you only know what you know. And if you all of a sudden have a more energy, cause you're sleeping better, eating a salad a day and drinking a lot of water, now you have a different view. Oh, it affects everything, how you interact with other people, the thoughts that you entertain, the ideas that you harbor, the productivity level. I mean, there's nothing that is, there's no stone unturned with that. Absolutely. And it's about consistency.

It's not big, huge things. It's little things. Like you said, like if you drank water, but you do it every day. You know what I mean? It's not like once a week. Yeah. It's about consistent actions taken. Absolutely.

And that's the keys to the castle right there. That's where it all resides. All right, man. I think we did the podcast. Yeah, we did it finally. How do you feel? I feel good. Good? resides. All right, man. I think we did the podcast. Yeah, we did it finally. How do you feel? I feel good. It's good?

Yeah. All right. We should, I feel bad now that we, I didn't have tons of water here on the table. Oh man, I'm totally dehydrated. I gotta go to the bathroom. So I would have had to take a break in the middle if we'd done that anyway.

But anyway, man, thanks for coming by. This was very informative. It would be cool to have you come back and we could be real specific on like one thing, you know, like, hey, let's talk about, you know, like you said, you could do, you know, weeks on, you know, alkalinity or whatever it is,

you know, like we could just pick one subject and kind of go down the rabbit hole. Well, this is kind of the meeting slash inevitability, kind of getting to know each other and having a podcast all at the same time. I know. It's good, right? See, if we went out to lunch, we wouldn't... See, now we're bonded, right?

That's right. It's different, right? That's right. All right, cool. So thanks for doing it. If you want to dig on Darren and learn more about him, the best place to go is superlife.com, right? That's right. That's where it's all going down for you.

How'd you get that URL? That's a pretty sweet URL. That's a good one. You know, I just pay the calories. Somebody needs some of you. You had to buy that from someone, right? That wasn't just sitting around. No, I had to go, okay, am I committed to my own cereal?

Put some of that Shakeology money to work, buddy, for that one, right? That's right. No, that's cool. And you're online. you're at Darren, is it Olean or Olean? Olean. Olean, right, on Twitter and Super Life Living on Instagram.

Yeah, Super Life Living is across all social media, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. And then you can get the book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble. That's right. Super Life, the five forces that will make you healthy fit. And my favorite part, eternally awesome. Yeah and Noble. That's right. Super Life, The Five Forces That Will Make You Healthy Fit. And my favorite part, Eternally Awesome. Yeah, man. That's right.

All right. So am I going to get to go down to Point Doom and get my ass kicked by the elder statesman? That's tomorrow too soon. Don Wildman? Yeah. How old is he now? Don's 82.

82. But he's still killing it, right? He's a machine. This guy. All right, tell a quick story. Well, he's 82 and he will still pretty much destroy many 20 year olds going up any mountain on a mountain bike or a cycle. And he's just, it's that whole thing of like,

there's no part of him that's going to slow down. And, you know, he's naturally one of those people that you just look up to because he just lives. I mean, he still hella boards, I think, 50 to 80 times a year. It's crazy. I mean, and he'll still do the senior Olympics and the cycling. He was leading and then a guy ran into him and he broke five ribs.

And two weeks later, he's on the bike again. Like he just doesn't, two knee replacements last year. And within a few weeks, he's on the bike again. Like he's just a marvel. He's a machine. Unbelievable. Yeah, a lot to be learned from that. Yeah.

I mean, he just doesn't take age as a factor. Yeah, I got to meet this guy. All right, man, thanks. You're welcome. Peace. Peace. Plants. That's right.

Superfoods. Plants. That's right. Super foods. All right, I hope you guys enjoyed that. One of these days, I promise I'm gonna work up the courage to go work out with Darren and Laird and their crew of super fit people. I gotta admit, I'm a little bit intimidated. I might have to pre-train a little bit in preparation for that, but I'm committed to making it happen and I will report back to you. I also wanted to mention that since we recorded this interview, which actually

took place a couple of months ago, Darren went off with a research team to Peru. They just got back and they went there to explore new superfoods and work on sustainable supply chain management to create greater transparency between the farmers and the suppliers and ultimately the consumer. But what's really interesting about this recent sojourn of his is that he also went there to fight something called biopiracy. So what is biopiracy? Well, biopiracy is essentially taking knowledge and genetic resources, in other words, seeds, from indigenous farmers, and then in turn seeking illegal control, often through patent protection or IP, of the resource for profit without approval from the country of origin.

So what's happening is there is this huge increase in demand for certain superfoods because superfoods are all the rage right now. And this increase in demand has led to shortages. And these shortages have led to biopiracy. In other words, illegal export of some of the superfoods. So for example, the popular superfood maca, which is something that I use regularly and enjoy and find great benefit in using. Well, maca was originally domesticated in central Peru, yet its health benefits and

the global demand for maca have tempted other countries like China to illegally obtain the seeds and then begin growing the product in their countries without the Peruvian government's permission. And testing has shown these products to be inferior medicinally and chemically, and often laced with pesticides and other environmental toxins. So what Darren is doing is assisting the Peruvian government in its fight against biopiracy to preserve the indigenous crops and the farmers that are growing this in the manner in which it is meant to be grown, including maca, in their native lands. So it's good stuff. If you want to know

more about that journey, you can go to his website. And also I would check out his Instagram, superlifeliving, for some pretty epic chronicling of that adventure. What's cool also is that Darren's going to be traveling to Mongolia and Siberia in 2015, continuing his pursuit to make ethically sourced quality superfoods and herbs available to everyone. So anyway, that's it. Let me know what you thought of the episode in the comment section on the episode page at richroll.com.

Thanks for all the love. Thanks for sharing the podcast and for using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. If you haven't checked out my books, Finding Ultra or The Plant Power Way, click on that Amazon banner ad and check it out. It's good stuff.

And for all your plant power needs, visit richroll.com as well. We got nutritional products, books, education products, 100% organic cotton garments, meditation programs. We just released a new tech tee running shirt, a white tech tee with the plant power leaf on it. That's been a popular product. Everything you need to take your health

and your life to the next level. If you're into online courses, I've got two of those at mindbodygreen.com, the ultimate guide to plant-based nutrition, which is like three and a half hours of streaming video content, everything you need to get more plant powered. It's a pretty good sort of piece to go with the Plant Power Way actually to help you get more plants into your plate, into your life, into your body. What can I say? The other course is called The Art of Living with Purpose,

and that's about goal setting and kind of the internal work to help reset your life trajectory. And I think that's about two and a half hours of streaming content. I'm really proud of those courses. They're easy to find. Just go to mindbodygreen.com and click on video courses. Anyway, thanks for supporting the show. Thanks for telling a friend. Thank you for sharing it on social media. I'm going to see you guys in a few days, make it a great week. And I'm back to LA tomorrow for more podcasting fun. I'll see you guys soon. Thanks so much. Peace. Plants. Thank you.