Joe Rogan Experience #1120 - Ben Greenfield

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   Bom, bom, bom, four,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      Bom, bom, bom, four, three, two, one. (slams table) Ben Greenfield eats ants.

   2. BGBen Greenfield0:06

      Mm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:07

      Just want everybody to know.

   4. BGBen Greenfield0:08

      Hey, I, if I was gonna go to Disney as much as you go to Disney, I'd, I'd eat a lot more black ants.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      Why are you eating ants?

   6. BGBen Greenfield0:15

      Well, supposedly... I actually don't know that much about ants. I'm just, I'm just eating it because it supposedly gives you energy. I needed a, a pick-me-up this morning. We lifted weights this morning, and I needed a second boost of energy. But apparently, these ants live in ginseng roots, and they have something that grows in their heads that acts as, like, a nootropic. It's, like, some kind of a chemical nootropic. And it also, supposedly, is one of these Chinese energy tonics. It's like the whole, you know, the doctrine of signatures. You know the doctrine of signatures in nature? You've heard-

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:46

      No, what's that?

   8. BGBen Greenfield0:46

      It's the idea that, that things in nature give you clues, right? So, so like, when you slice open a tomato, you've got the four chambers of the heart, and tomato's supposedly good for the heart, or pomegranate is good for your blood, and the little pomegranate seeds look like red blood cells. You slice open a carrot, it looks like an eye, or you, you crack open an egg, it looks like an eye. Those are s- those are good for your vision. Um, sweet potatoes, which everybody thinks is like a, like a sweet, sugary food, those are actually shaped like a pancreas, and they can actually help to normalize your, your beta cells. Like, your, your insulin-producing beta cells in your pancreas. So, you look at, you know, walnuts for your brain, and people talk about, uh, w- avocados, right?

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:27

      Mm-hmm.

   10. BGBen Greenfield1:27

       Supposedly, they look a little bit like an ovary, and they're good for female reproductive function.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:31

       Hmm.

   12. BGBen Greenfield1:31

       So, you can, you can carry that over from the plant kingdom into the animal kingdom and say that if you eat ants, because they're such energetic, endurance-driven creatures, that it supposedly will make you stronger.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:43

       Boy, that's a stretch.

   14. BGBen Greenfield1:44

       Well, wait till this stuff hits me, and then we'll arm wrestle. We'll find out.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:47

       (laughs) Have you been doing it for a while? How long have you been taking this stuff?

   16. BGBen Greenfield1:51

       That was the third time I've, I've actually used it. You just-

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:54

       And?

   18. BGBen Greenfield1:54

       ... dissolve it in ... I mean, I, I used it for a workout a couple of times.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:56

       So this is your concoction?

   20. BGBen Greenfield1:58

       It was-

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:58

       Right? You took ground-

   22. BGBen Greenfield1:59

       Well, I-

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:59

       ... up ants-

   24. BGBen Greenfield2:00

       I, I didn't grind up the ants myself. That would've been exhausting to catch-

   25. JRJoe Rogan2:04

       Did you buy them ground up?

   26. BGBen Greenfield2:04

       ... to catch that many black ... I bought ground up black ant powder, and-

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:08

       Okay, Jim, Jimmy just pulled up some ginseng ants powder.

   28. BGBen Greenfield2:10

       ... yeah. I, I don't think they're called ... that's actually, that's where I bought them.

   29. JRJoe Rogan2:13

       King of herbs.

   30. BGBen Greenfield2:13

       That's where I bought them. Lost Empire-
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Very much. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      ... Those are really interesting. The idea behind them is kinda cool too, because it lets people know what ... Like, if you're, if you're involved in one of those backcountry backpack hunts, it's, it's very much a physical event. Like, you-

   2. BGBen Greenfield15:12

      Very much.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:12

      You're carrying, most likely, at least 35 to 45 pounds on your back, especially if you're carrying your camp on your back. And then you're hiking, you know, thousands of feet of elevation. You're up and down.

   4. BGBen Greenfield15:23

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:24

      Climbing over logs and shit. You're carrying your bow. There's a lot of physical exertion involved, like-

   6. BGBen Greenfield15:29

      There ... Well, there's a lot of crawling.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:31

      Yeah.

   8. BGBen Greenfield15:31

      A lot of crawling.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:32

      Yeah.

   10. BGBen Greenfield15:32

       Yeah. I mean, you did that Hawaii hunt.

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:34

       Yeah, that was a lot of crawling.

   12. BGBen Greenfield15:34

       Which island did you hunt?

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:36

       Lanai.

   14. BGBen Greenfield15:36

       Lanai. Yeah, I had ... I hunted Kona, uh, I guess that was like five weeks ago. And on the sheep hunt, because the sheep stay out in the, in the open plains, you'll crawl sometimes for an hour and a half.

   15. JRJoe Rogan15:47

       Yeah.

   16. BGBen Greenfield15:47

       To, to, to get close enough for a shot on the sheep.

   17. JRJoe Rogan15:49

       Yeah, the final day, um, when I killed, I killed two axis buck, uh, uh, out there. And the final day, we crawled for at least an hour, at least an hour. Like, super fucking slow. Those things are switched on.

   18. BGBen Greenfield16:02

       And it's frustrating too with, with an animal. Or, or sheep. Sheep are not stupid.

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:06

       Yeah.

   20. BGBen Greenfield16:06

       They're smart. Now, they're not as fast as an axis, but that's the most frustrating part, is, is you'll put on a crawl, right?

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:12

       Mm-hmm.

   22. BGBen Greenfield16:12

       Maybe you're 200 yards out and you spend an hour getting 60 and then the wind swirls-

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:16

       Yeah.

   24. BGBen Greenfield16:16

       ... and they pick you up and they're off.

   25. JRJoe Rogan16:17

       Yeah, that happened a few times.

   26. BGBen Greenfield16:17

       And then you have to stand up and brush yourself off and you gotta go crawl again.

   27. JRJoe Rogan16:21

       Yeah. But, you know, if it was easy, it wouldn't be-

   28. BGBen Greenfield16:24

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan16:24

       ... hunting.

   30. BGBen Greenfield16:25

       Yeah. I-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   How come... Wait a…

   1. BGBen Greenfield30:00

      anyways, he, he did-

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:01

      How come... Wait a minute, what do you mean by rock tape? What is rock tape?

   3. BGBen Greenfield30:03

      Kinesio tape, you've seen this stuff before. It's, it's like what you see CrossFitters wearing and Olympians wearing.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:08

      Oh, that stuff like when you have like tendonitis and shit?

   5. BGBen Greenfield30:10

      Yeah, yeah. It supports, it supports the joints. Um-

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:12

      Oh, Jesus, they're going in for another tube after they sucked that out?

   7. BGBen Greenfield30:14

      They did, they did four of those, four of those big tubes.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:17

      Huh? How much... Jamie, how much-

   9. BGBen Greenfield30:18

      This is-

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:18

       ... do you think you have in your body? Do you think you have four tubes of marrow floating around someone could pull out of you? I don't... What? Yeah. (laughs)

   11. BGBen Greenfield30:25

       Uh, but, well, the tubes also, you know this... When you give blood-

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:28

       Yeah, this is crazy, dude.

   13. BGBen Greenfield30:28

       ... you can give like 19 tubes of blood, but it's not as much blood as it actually looks like, 'cause it's inside of that little skinny tube.

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:33

       Right. No, I get that.

   15. BGBen Greenfield30:35

       So, so he and his partner-

   16. JRJoe Rogan30:36

       Seems like quite a lot.

   17. BGBen Greenfield30:37

       What they did was he went with, with that bone marrow...Mix with the exosomes, they mix it with ozone, which apparently using an ozonator, which apparently increases the efficacy of the bone marrow.

   18. JVJamie Vernon30:49

       And you're doing this for a no specific injury?

   19. BGBen Greenfield30:52

       No specific injury, no. This is all just for... Well, for two reasons. Number one, anti-aging. Number two, just immersive journalism.

   20. JVJamie Vernon30:59

       Mm-hmm.

   21. BGBen Greenfield31:00

       Just to write about.

   22. JVJamie Vernon31:00

       Right, right.

   23. BGBen Greenfield31:01

       I think this stuff's fun to write about and look into and study.

   24. JVJamie Vernon31:03

       Right.

   25. BGBen Greenfield31:03

       So... And-

   26. JVJamie Vernon31:04

       Jesus.

   27. BGBen Greenfield31:04

       And apparently, these stem cells stay ... So, so into- this is an over-exaggeration, but it's almost like you'd be like Wolverine, where like you recover faster when you get hurt-

   28. JVJamie Vernon31:12

       Mm-hmm.

   29. BGBen Greenfield31:12

       ... for the rest of your life.

   30. JVJamie Vernon31:14

       So here he goes pulling out round two.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Jon Baker. …

   1. BGBen Greenfield45:00

      would do, like the, the Eastern Orthodoxy Church or the Mediterranean diet, they have certain periods of time where there's complete meat restriction or your protein intake is restricted to, to fish and eggs, for example. And the idea is that you would strike a sweet spot between not being in a constantly anabolic state, right? And, and not having, having this, uh, mammalian target of rapamycin constantly activated, which would theoretically accelerate aging, or, or in, in a lot of, you know, rodent models, we see that, you know, unrestricted protein feeding actually causes aging to accelerate. So, the idea is on your lower activity days, especially for an athlete, you could still intermittent fast and get all the benefits of that, and you could still eat as many calories as you would need to sustain a normal, healthy metabolism, right? So, so you're not starving yourself, but on the less active days, you would shift to a lower protein intake, right? So, you're talking about, like, 0.5 grams per pound of body weight rather than what a typical athlete would need, which would be, depending on who you ask, you know, 0.7 to 0.85 grams per pound of body weight, right? So, so there's some days where you're high protein, some days where you're low protein. Some periods of the week, such as a meatless Monday, or some periods of the year, you know, such as every quarter, you know, for a week where you're eating a plant-based diet, or you're restricting meat. You're basically giving your body a break from being in that constant anabolic state. And I think that the, the carnivore diet causes a lot of people to miss out on some of those elements. And then if you look at the blood work of a, um, you know, that doctor who does the carnivore diet-

   2. JRJoe Rogan46:34

      Jon Baker.

   3. BGBen Greenfield46:34

      He published his blood work online.

   4. JRJoe Rogan46:36

      Mm-hmm.

   5. BGBen Greenfield46:36

      And I don't know what else is, is going on with him from a health standpoint, but, but you know, he had really high blood glucose and really low testosterone, and some things that suggest that it might not be healthy to eat just meat, you know? And, and did even-

   6. JRJoe Rogan46:50

      Did he have really low testosterone? That's interesting.

   7. BGBen Greenfield46:51

      It was like 200 to 300. It was pre-

   8. JRJoe Rogan46:53

      Really?

   9. BGBen Greenfield46:53

      ... it was pretty low. It was, like, it's like-

   10. JRJoe Rogan46:54

       That's really low.

   11. BGBen Greenfield46:55

       Yeah, diagnosable hypogonadism combined with, uh, uh, you know, almost, like, borderline diabetes, right? And-

   12. JRJoe Rogan47:01

       Did, did he ... Is it possible he did it after a workout?

   13. BGBen Greenfield47:04

       Uh, uh-

   14. JRJoe Rogan47:05

       He does a lot of rowing.

   15. BGBen Greenfield47:06

       I'm not sure a workout-

   16. JRJoe Rogan47:06

       Like, real high-intensity.

   17. BGBen Greenfield47:07

       ... would suppress your testosterone that significantly. It would increase your hsCRP and your inflammatory markers, right? Which is why-

   18. JRJoe Rogan47:13

       Mm-hmm.

   19. BGBen Greenfield47:13

       ... you never wanna, you never wanna go to a doctor for a heart checkup after you've done a workout 'cause they're gonna tell you you're gonna have a heart attack based on the levels of hsCRP that you have.

   20. JRJoe Rogan47:20

       Right.

   21. BGBen Greenfield47:21

       But, uh, you know, that blood work is just one example, and I don't wanna pretend like that one example, you know, is gonna, you know, paint with a broad brush the entire-

   22. JRJoe Rogan47:29

       Right.

   23. BGBen Greenfield47:29

       ... carnivore diet phenomenon. But I just, I think that unrestricted protein intake and unrestricted meat intake probably has an accelerated aging effect on the body, and-

   24. JRJoe Rogan47:38

       Well, here's the difference.

   25. BGBen Greenfield47:39

       Dr. Ron Rosedale is a doc who has some good information on that. He's got a good video online.

   26. JRJoe Rogan47:44

       What's going on with this carnivore diet is there's no science behind it. There's a lot of people that are giving it a shot.

   27. BGBen Greenfield47:49

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JRJoe Rogan47:49

       A lot of people are finding good results, but I find that-

   29. BGBen Greenfield47:51

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan47:51

       ... people, when they just change things, there's a period of time where they say they feel great and, uh, that is absolutely-
5. 1:00:00 – 1:02:01

   It's like kosher salt?…

   1. BGBen Greenfield1:00:00

      coarse salt. Use this salt called Colima salt. It's super high in minerals, really-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:03

      It's like kosher salt?

   3. BGBen Greenfield1:00:04

      But it's coarse. No, it's different. They harvest it from the Mexican coast, and, and it tastes fabulous. It's really good.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:09

      What's it called again?

   5. BGBen Greenfield1:00:09

      The only salts I travel with and use-

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:12

      Spell it?

   7. BGBen Greenfield1:00:12

      ... is Colima salt, and then this stuff called, uh-

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:15

      C-A-L-I-M-A?

   9. BGBen Greenfield1:00:16

      Yeah. C-O-L-I-M-A, and black Kona salt. Black Kona salt.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:21

       From Hawaii?

   11. BGBen Greenfield1:00:22

       From Kona from Hawaii. Yeah. I use that when I cook some of the meat from Hawaii just 'cause it seems right.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:27

       Ooh, yeah, it does seem right.

   13. BGBen Greenfield1:00:27

       To use salt from, from, from the, from the volcanoes in Hawaii. So ... And I rub, uh, cayenne, black pepper, salt, and then to reduce the, the carcinogens that can form when you cook meat, either thyme or rosemary or both. I just rub that-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:41

       Thyme or rosemary reduces carcinogens?

   15. BGBen Greenfield1:00:43

       Yeah. They're, they're, they're-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:00:44

       From the charring? Is that what the idea is?

   17. BGBen Greenfield1:00:45

       ... antioxidants. Yeah. They reduce, they reduce the formation of, uh, I think they call them polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, these, these, you know, things that form on the meat when you blacken the meat. 'Cause you wanna get it a good crisp sear on the other side-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:00:56

       Right.

   19. BGBen Greenfield1:00:56

       ... of the meat so it's nice and crunchy on the outside. So you restrict a lot of the, the unhealthy effects of doing that when you get some kind of an herb in there like that. So you take out the meat, you get it to room temperature. You put this rub in. And then you take a cast iron skillet. So I don't do it on the grill at all. It's a cast iron skillet. You heat up the cast iron skillet in the oven, and then you take it out of the oven and you put it on the stovetop. You put the stovetop on medium high. And I either use an extra virgin olive oil, uh, I've used lard before. Um-

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:23

       Why do you use vir- olive oil when it has a low flash point?

   21. BGBen Greenfield1:01:26

       It gives me a good plai- no. Extra virgin olive oil has a bunch of antioxidants in it, so it's actually got-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:30

       Right, but it burns easily.

   23. BGBen Greenfield1:01:31

       It has higher resistance to the heat. It's never burnt.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:34

       Wow.

   25. BGBen Greenfield1:01:34

       Never an issue. Doesn't burn, doesn't smoke.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:01:37

       But I- when they sear things, w- that's one thing they tell you is never use olive oil.

   27. BGBen Greenfield1:01:41

       Well, I use extra virgin oil. I'm part of an olive oil club, so maybe it's 'cause I have really good olive oil. (laughs) They ship me three bottles of olive oil every quarter from a different part of the world.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:01:50

       Well, Google that. Let's find that out.

   29. BGBen Greenfield1:01:50

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:01:50

       Because, uh, I've really read don't cook things at high heat with olive oil.

Episode duration: 1:57:16