The Joe Rogan Experience

Joe Rogan Experience #1120 - Ben Greenfield

Ben Greenfield is a Coach, Author, Speaker, ex-Bodybuilder and Ironman Triathlete. In 2008 he was voted as the Personal Trainer of the Year by the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) and recognized as the top 100 Most Influential People in Health in 2013.

Joe RoganhostBen GreenfieldguestJamie Vernonguest

May 21, 20181h 57mWatch on YouTube ↗

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Biohacking, Meat, and Madness: Ben Greenfield’s Extreme Longevity Experiments

Joe Rogan and Ben Greenfield dive into an extended, free‑wheeling conversation about experimental biohacking, nutrition strategies, and performance optimization. They cover everything from eating black ant powder and using plant ID apps, to whole‑body stem cell and exosome procedures, NAD IV pushes, and dry‑aging wild game. Greenfield outlines his daily fasting and cyclic ketogenic approach, plus niche tools like PEMF, compression boots, and coffee enemas for recovery and anti‑aging. They also debate highly restrictive diets (carnivore, vegan), emphasizing genetics, hormesis, and personal experimentation over dogma.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Use hormetic stressors deliberately, not obsessively.

Mild stressors like cold exposure, sauna, intense exercise, and even certain plant toxins can provoke beneficial adaptive responses; the goal is short, controlled doses rather than chronic overexposure.

Fast primarily for timing, not chronic calorie deprivation.

Greenfield emphasizes 12–16‑hour daily fasts plus an occasional 24‑hour fast while keeping total calories adequate, to boost autophagy and stem cell activity without tanking metabolism or hormones.

Match diet to genetics, activity level, and context.

Rigid ideologies like all‑meat or all‑plant ignore genetic differences (e.g., lipid handling, PPAR variants, familial hypercholesterolemia); some thrive on higher fat, others on more tubers and plants, and many need a mixed approach.

Reserve extreme interventions for specific goals and accept unknowns.

Full‑body stem cell + exosome procedures and NAD IV pushes may improve recovery and biological age markers, but they are expensive, painful, largely experimental, and lacking long‑term safety data.

Structure training and carbs around circadian biology.

Easy, fasted aerobic work plus coffee in the morning and hard training later in the day, followed by an evening carb refeed, can support fat adaptation, glycogen replenishment, and better sleep.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

That's my shit, dude. I try stuff and I write about it.

— Ben Greenfield

Sponsors can suck my fat dick.

— Joe Rogan

If it was easy, it wouldn’t be hunting. It’d just be killing.

— Joe Rogan

Meat wasn’t the medicine. It was the elimination of everything else.

— Ben Greenfield

The problem with the carnivore diet is the same problem I have with the vegan diet: it becomes an ideology.

— Joe Rogan

Unconventional supplements and hormetic stressors (black ants, mastic gum, cold/heat exposure)Plant foraging, plant identification apps, and wild food mishapsObstacle racing, Train to Hunt competitions, and functional fitness vs. traditional endurance trainingWhole‑body stem cell, exosome, PRP, and NAD interventions for performance and anti‑agingFasting strategies, cyclic ketogenic dieting, and protein cyclingDebate over carnivore, vegan, and high‑fat diets, plus individual genetic variationRecovery technologies and routines (sauna, cold, PEMF, compression boots, sleep tracking, coffee enemas)

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