Joe Rogan Experience #1120 - Ben Greenfield

1. 0:00 – 2:43

   Black ant powder as an energy tonic (and the “doctrine of signatures”)

   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. 2:43 – 5:40

   Herbal claims, plant-ID tools, and the “heart is not a pump” detour

   1. JRJoe Rogan2:43

      Alright.

   2. BGBen Greenfield2:43

      ... one called, um, I for- ... I forget the, uh, the name of this plant, but it's called the insulin of the heart, and it's amazing for decreasing sympathetic nervous system activation and causing you to relax. And it has these beneficial cardiovascular properties, and people who are just so driven that they tend to have, for example, you know, a, a heart attack, or an MI. And it's, uh, it's not spilanthes. I forget the name of this, but, but it looks like a heart, and it has all these red vessels that kinda come off it.

   3. JRJoe Rogan3:14

      Oh.

   4. BGBen Greenfield3:14

      It's called the insulin of the heart. Um, w- there's, there's an app that my kids and I use to identify a lot of these. It's called FlowerChecker. And it's-

   5. JRJoe Rogan3:25

      So you read about this ant stuff online, and then you started taking it.

   6. BGBen Greenfield3:29

      Yeah. Well-

   7. JRJoe Rogan3:29

      And then you mixed it in some sort of a tincture? Here it is.

   8. BGBen Greenfield3:31

      Just vodka. Yeah. Yeah, ooh-bane. That stuff.

   9. JRJoe Rogan3:35

      "Nature's perfect-

   10. BGBen Greenfield3:36

       Yeah, ooh-

   11. JRJoe Rogan3:36

       ... but forgotten remedy for heart disease."

   12. BGBen Greenfield3:38

       Ooh-bane. I interviewed a physician on my show, a Dr. Thomas Cowan, and he wrote a book about how the heart is not a pump. And he talks about the true reason for heart disease being sympathetic nervous system overdrive, and-

   13. JRJoe Rogan3:51

       What, what does he mean by "the heart is not a pump?"

   14. BGBen Greenfield3:53

       ... mineral depletion and dehydration. And what he means by "the heart is not a pump" ... it's a fascinating book. The shape of the chest is ... I, I believe it's called, like, a tetrahedron, or some- it, it's, it's something like that. But basically, as fluid moves through the heart, the action of the fluid actually moving through the heart allows it to, to pass through the heart and not have to be pumped through the body. But rather, the shape of the heart is almost like causing the fluid to move in a vortex. And so-

   15. JRJoe Rogan4:26

       But the heart most certainly-

   16. BGBen Greenfield4:26

       ... it moves more readily out of the body. Oh, the heart-

   17. JRJoe Rogan4:28

       ... pumps.

   18. BGBen Greenfield4:28

       The heart contracts.

   19. JRJoe Rogan4:30

       Yeah.

   20. BGBen Greenfield4:30

       But, but it's less of a pumping action and more of, like, a, like, a vortex flow that it creates. The book's called Why Your Heart Is Not a Pump.

   21. JRJoe Rogan4:38

       Hmm.

   22. BGBen Greenfield4:38

       It's very interesting.

   23. JRJoe Rogan4:39

       Is it wide- well received amongst scientists?

   24. BGBen Greenfield4:42

       No, it's ... it kinda flies under the radar a little bit.

   25. JRJoe Rogan4:44

       Hmm.

   26. BGBen Greenfield4:45

       Yeah. Yeah, but it's, it's an interesting book. It's a short book. It's, like, maybe 100 pages long.

   27. JRJoe Rogan4:50

       I thought it was, like, universally regarded as a pump.

   28. BGBen Greenfield4:52

       Yeah. I don't know if, if you would necessarily classify it as a pump as much as a contracting muscle.

   29. JRJoe Rogan4:58

       Hmm.

   30. BGBen Greenfield4:58

       But-
3. 5:40 – 8:26

   Foraging gone wrong: the “wild asparagus” nicotine overdose story

   1. BGBen Greenfield5:40

      And it develops this online herbarium that then allows you to keep track of all the different plants and what you've learned about them and, and what they're good for. So we use that whenever we're identifying plants. There was one time when we were fishing off the, off the, uh, the North Fork of the Clearwater, so we went on this fly-fishing trip, and we were staying in this cabin-

   2. JRJoe Rogan5:58

      Where's that? The Clearwater?

   3. BGBen Greenfield5:59

      The, the Clearwater up in Idaho. So we were near, uh, Grangeville. Most people fly into Grangeville, Idaho. It's a great fly-fishing. Huge steelhead. And, uh ...... the, the hike that we went on, we didn't have our phones or anything with us to take pictures of, of what we were finding, and we found this, this enormous, uh, almost like a, like a field of wild asparagus, which is-

   4. JRJoe Rogan6:21

      Oh, wow.

   5. BGBen Greenfield6:21

      ... and, and my buddy who was with us, he had bear broth that he was, that he was ... It was like a bear bone broth that he had in this vat back at the cabin. So, we harvested all this asparagus, and this was before we went out fishing, and we put all the asparagus into the bone broth and then just left for the day. And then we came back and we had, we had fish, we had bone broth, we had asparagus, and we all ate this bone broth. And it turns out that this stuff was not asparagus. So, my kids and I, our heads were spinning all night. The guy that owned the cabin, apparently he didn't sleep. He was just like, hunched over the toilet the whole evening and it turns out this stuff is called, I think it was brassica. It looks like asparagus, but apparently it has very high levels of nicotine.

   6. JRJoe Rogan7:02

      (coughs) Oh, Jesus Christ.

   7. BGBen Greenfield7:02

      So we were all overdosed on nicotine for the next two days on this fishing trip. My kids made-

   8. JRJoe Rogan7:07

      Yeah, you should probably be really careful before you eat wild shit.

   9. BGBen Greenfield7:09

      Yeah. Yeah. That's the, that's the only time I haven't used that app to actually go, go plant foraging.

   10. JRJoe Rogan7:15

       Well, who, who thought it was asparagus?

   11. BGBen Greenfield7:17

       We all thought it was asparagus, you know, there ... It was me, one of the chefs who was out at the cabin with us, uh, my kids and, and twin nine-year-old boys know a lot about plants, so you always trust them if they say it's wild asparagus. But I, I was convinced it was asparagus. I mean, I, I kinda tasted it out there while we were, we were out in the field and it tasted like asparagus, but no, it's not asparagus. It's, it's brassica.

   12. JRJoe Rogan7:38

       Jesus Christ.

   13. BGBen Greenfield7:39

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan7:40

       That sounds horrible.

   15. BGBen Greenfield7:41

       Yeah, yeah. But they, uh, there's another app called A Plant Snap and apparently it uses artificial intelligence, you know, like a reverse Google image search-

   16. JRJoe Rogan7:48

       Mm-hmm.

   17. BGBen Greenfield7:48

       ... to identify a plant. I've used that and it, and it's, it's useless. Anything you take a picture of it-

   18. JRJoe Rogan7:53

       Really?

   19. BGBen Greenfield7:53

       ... it, it doesn't seem to be able to identify anything. But this FlowerChecker is just live people on the other end.

   20. JRJoe Rogan7:58

       Well, does Google ... There's, there's, uh, Google image searches, like some s- some ... There's a, an application that uses cameras and if you take a photo of something, it can identify it.

   21. BGBen Greenfield8:08

       Right, exactly.

   22. JRJoe Rogan8:10

       What is it? What is it called s-

   23. BGBen Greenfield8:10

       I think that's called like a reverse Google image search or something like that, but, but the AI doesn't seem to work as well for plant identification. I would imagine it's looking at the leaves, the shape of the leaves, how it comes off the plant-

   24. JRJoe Rogan8:20

       Right.

   25. BGBen Greenfield8:20

       ... you know, the veins, the, the, the opposite versus symmetrical, you know, everything that goes into a plant identification, but ...

4. 8:26 – 10:54

   Steelhead fishing ethics and the logic of catch-and-release

   1. JRJoe Rogan8:26

      Now, when you, you steelhead fish-

   2. BGBen Greenfield8:27

      I'd rather go with a real person.

   3. JRJoe Rogan8:29

      Steelhead ... Yeah, you gotta go with a real person.

   4. BGBen Greenfield8:31

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan8:31

      You gotta go with an actual botanist. Um.

   6. BGBen Greenfield8:33

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan8:33

      Um, steelhead are, uh, ocean-bound, uh, rainbow trout, right? They come back and forth?

   8. BGBen Greenfield8:38

      Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan8:39

      Um, do you guys ... Do you catch and release or d- or do you eat them?

   10. BGBen Greenfield8:42

       This was all catch and release. There, there's, um-

   11. JRJoe Rogan8:44

       It's a real common thing with those things.

   12. BGBen Greenfield8:45

       Yeah. There, there's a certain kind that you can catch and I d- I d- I'm not a fly-fishing expert. This was like, a fun trip with my kids to learn how to fly-fish and we didn't catch any that we could actually keep.

   13. JRJoe Rogan8:54

       Yeah, I don't understand that kind of fishing. It's weird, you know, that, that-

   14. BGBen Greenfield8:58

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan8:58

       ... take a long trip, go out into the wilderness, go to the river, catch some fish-

   16. BGBen Greenfield9:02

       Catch a fish.

   17. JRJoe Rogan9:02

       ... let it go.

   18. BGBen Greenfield9:03

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan9:03

       It seems-

   20. BGBen Greenfield9:04

       Yeah. It's, it's the thrill of the chase.

   21. JRJoe Rogan9:05

       I get it. I mean, it's great for kids.

   22. BGBen Greenfield9:07

       Thrill of the chase. Yeah, yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan9:07

       You know, I've done it with, uh, kids bass fishing before.

   24. BGBen Greenfield9:10

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan9:10

       But it's just, uh-

   26. BGBen Greenfield9:11

       You can't do that when you bow hunt.

   27. JRJoe Rogan9:13

       No. No, but it's just-

   28. BGBen Greenfield9:14

       There, there's no catch and release.

   29. JRJoe Rogan9:15

       ... it's, it's a weird thing. You're, you know, sticking a hook in a fish's mouth and then letting it go.

   30. BGBen Greenfield9:20

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.
5. 10:54 – 15:32

   Obstacle racing and training for functional fitness (Spartan + Train to Hunt)

   1. BGBen Greenfield10:54

      Yeah. Anyways, though, you sh- you should have come out and done the Spartan. I d- I know you were at Disney.

   2. JRJoe Rogan11:00

      Yeah.

   3. BGBen Greenfield11:00

      But ...

   4. JRJoe Rogan11:00

      I told you I couldn't go, so I don't know why you said I should-

   5. BGBen Greenfield11:02

      Yeah. Well, you-

   6. JRJoe Rogan11:03

      ... when I told you I couldn't.

   7. BGBen Greenfield11:03

      Well, D- uh, Spartan, Spartan's a, Spartan's a little bit more interesting than Disney, in my opinion.

   8. JRJoe Rogan11:08

      Well, I didn't go to Disney for myself.

   9. BGBen Greenfield11:10

      Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Yeah. They have, they have kids races out there, too.

   10. JRJoe Rogan11:13

       Do you, do you like ... But you were doing commentary or something? Is that what you're doing?

   11. BGBen Greenfield11:15

       I was doing the, uh ... They, they have commentary all day long at the Spartan Race. So, I was doing the commentary and then I raced the next day.

   12. JRJoe Rogan11:21

       Oh, so you did-

   13. BGBen Greenfield11:22

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan11:22

       ... one day commentary, one day ... So was it two day race thing?

   15. BGBen Greenfield11:24

       It wa- they do ... The way they do it, they get like, tens ... Probably, I would say some of these races, 8 to 12,000 athletes.

   16. JRJoe Rogan11:31

       Wow.

   17. BGBen Greenfield11:32

       In, in that, in that approximate range. And they-

   18. JRJoe Rogan11:34

       So then they break it up.

   19. BGBen Greenfield11:35

       They go out, they break it up. There's long races, there's short races. So the long race was 13, about 13 miles. Which on a road half-marathon, that'd be like a 1:05 that an athlete would do on a, on a race like that, and-

   20. JRJoe Rogan11:47

       So it's a 13-mile run-

   21. BGBen Greenfield11:49

       So it's out Bear with the obstacles and the hills and it's out at Big Bear, which is a ski resort-

   22. JRJoe Rogan11:53

       Yeah.

   23. BGBen Greenfield11:53

       ... which I just found out from my wife apparently they use fake snow. There's like a pond at the top of the, at the top of the resort that they make all the snow with. Apparently it doesn't actually-

   24. JRJoe Rogan12:01

       Well, it's real snow, but it's artificially created, right? It's like they make with the snow machines. Snow like they use in-

   25. BGBen Greenfield12:06

       Yes, artificially created real snow made-

   26. JRJoe Rogan12:09

       Yeah.

   27. BGBen Greenfield12:09

       ... from water at the top of the mountain in a snow machine.

   28. JRJoe Rogan12:12

       It's not like plastic.

   29. BGBen Greenfield12:12

       It's not ... Yeah, it's, it's not, it's not foam.

   30. JRJoe Rogan12:14

       (laughs)
6. 15:32 – 20:55

   Hunting stories: crawling stalks, Hawaiian game meat, and DIY dry-aging

   1. BGBen Greenfield15:32

      Yeah. I mean, you did that Hawaii hunt.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:34

      Yeah, that was a lot of crawling.

   3. BGBen Greenfield15:34

      Which island did you hunt?

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:36

      Lanai.

   5. 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.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:47

      Yeah.

   7. BGBen Greenfield15:47

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

   8. 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.

   9. BGBen Greenfield16:02

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

   10. JRJoe Rogan16:06

       Yeah.

   11. 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?

   12. JRJoe Rogan16:12

       Mm-hmm.

   13. BGBen Greenfield16:12

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

   14. JRJoe Rogan16:16

       Yeah.

   15. BGBen Greenfield16:16

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

   16. JRJoe Rogan16:17

       Yeah, that happened a few times.

   17. BGBen Greenfield16:17

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

   18. JRJoe Rogan16:21

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

   19. BGBen Greenfield16:24

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan16:24

       ... hunting.

   21. BGBen Greenfield16:25

       Yeah. I-

   22. JRJoe Rogan16:25

       It'd just be killing.

   23. BGBen Greenfield16:26

       I got one of those jungle scrub cows. I told you.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:29

       Yeah, you were telling me about that.

   25. BGBen Greenfield16:30

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:30

       So these ... To, to explain to people what a scrub bull is, 'cause it-

   27. BGBen Greenfield16:34

       Well, apparently, they're just, they're just feral cows.

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:36

       Yeah, they're domesticated cows.

   29. BGBen Greenfield16:36

       And they're not, they're not all bulls. There's bulls and cows.

   30. JRJoe Rogan16:39

       Cows. Yeah.
7. 20:55 – 25:47

   Chewing, jaw strength, and performance mouthpieces (plus mastic gum)

   1. BGBen Greenfield20:55

      There's this idea though that, that that's good for, it's good for your jaw, it's good for your teeth structure. Like there's this guy, uh-

   2. JRJoe Rogan21:01

      Oh, for sure.

   3. BGBen Greenfield21:01

      ... I think it's Max Mew, my, my brother sent me this, this YouTube video of this guy, but his, his whole idea is that, that humans' jaw structure, our bone density, our teeth, our trigeminal nerves, all of that don't work as well as they should because we grow up on soft food.

   4. JRJoe Rogan21:16

      Mm.

   5. BGBen Greenfield21:17

      And we don't have to chew food as much.

   6. JRJoe Rogan21:18

      That makes sense.

   7. BGBen Greenfield21:19

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan21:19

      A lot of boxers chew like big chunks of Bazooka bubblegum.

   9. BGBen Greenfield21:23

      Mm-hmm. Right.

   10. JRJoe Rogan21:23

       You know, it gets kinda hard after a while-

   11. BGBen Greenfield21:24

       Exactly.

   12. JRJoe Rogan21:24

       ... and you like dig into it-

   13. BGBen Greenfield21:26

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan21:26

       ... and it develops muscular endurance in your jaw.

   15. BGBen Greenfield21:28

       Mastic gum is another one.

   16. JRJoe Rogan21:28

       I've even seen muscles ... Um, uh, I've s- seen machines, rather, where you take like a, a leather strap in your mouth-

   17. BGBen Greenfield21:35

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JRJoe Rogan21:35

       ... and you hang a piece of weight from it and you-

   19. BGBen Greenfield21:37

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan21:37

       ... you're doing this. Like (grunting) .

   21. BGBen Greenfield21:39

       Yeah. People were selling those for a while as a way to decrease rating of perceived exertion during exercise, exercise mouthpieces. And that the advertising on them was that the Vikings used to chew on leather before they'd go into battle to reduce pain and to increase their time to exhaustion. And so, they actually sell these mouthpieces that you bite down on when you're exercising.

   22. JRJoe Rogan22:01

       Mm.

   23. BGBen Greenfield22:01

       But they w- they weren't designed to strengthen the jaw as much as to reduce how hard you felt like you were working during exercise. And some people swear by these exercise mouthpieces.

   24. JRJoe Rogan22:08

       Well, I know that mouthpieces-

   25. BGBen Greenfield22:10

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan22:10

       ... supposedly can m- m- maximize the amount of effort that you can put forth, like there's a difference in the amount of, uh, strength that you can-

   27. BGBen Greenfield22:18

       You, you bite down.

   28. JRJoe Rogan22:18

       Yeah.

   29. BGBen Greenfield22:18

       It's almost like when you shake somebody's hand, you make a fist with one hand, then you shake their hand, you're, you're stronger. You know, and, and that's, that's something that Pavel Zatulne talks about-

   30. JRJoe Rogan22:26

       Right.
8. 25:47 – 34:55

   Exosomes explained: signaling, PRP combos, and Ben’s ‘full-body makeover’

   1. JRJoe Rogan25:47

      What are you doing with the exosomes? Explain that, because, uh-

   2. BGBen Greenfield25:49

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan25:49

      ... I just got some shot into some tears that I have in my shoulders. And, uh-

   4. BGBen Greenfield25:53

      You, you got... It, it's, it's, it's exosomes.

   5. JRJoe Rogan25:56

      Exosomes.

   6. BGBen Greenfield25:56

      Exosomes, they're signaling molecules. So, your body actually has them. Your, your cells have exosomes, and they're used as cell-to-cell communicators.

   7. JRJoe Rogan26:06

      Mm-hmm.

   8. BGBen Greenfield26:06

      So, they interact with cell surface receptors, and they'll actually carry a message from one cell to another, such as, you know, uh, you know, you need to, you need to absorb this into the cell, or you need to carry this to a joint, or, you know, whatever you'd wanna use an exosome for, to carry messages throughout the body. It's part of your, I believe it's referred to as the paracrine system, right? Your, your body's internal cellular communication system. So, the idea is that if you combined the exosomes with other therapies, like, like, uh, platelet-rich plasma injections, which you do for, to increase the amount of growth factors available-

   9. JRJoe Rogan26:39

      That's what they did with me.

   10. BGBen Greenfield26:40

       ... to a specific joint. They did exosomes plus PRP with you.

   11. JRJoe Rogan26:43

       Right.

   12. BGBen Greenfield26:44

       Which I, I, I can, I can tell you the full procedure that I did, but I just got that all over my face. My face five days ago was red and swollen, because it was covered with exosomes and PRP injections.

   13. JRJoe Rogan26:55

       Why'd you do it on your face?

   14. BGBen Greenfield26:55

       It's a, it's a beauty procedure.

   15. JRJoe Rogan26:57

       You're beautiful as you are.

   16. BGBen Greenfield26:58

       Yeah. Thank you, thank you.

   17. JRJoe Rogan26:59

       You don't need to change.

   18. BGBen Greenfield27:00

       But now... But now I'm a beautiful 13-year-old-

   19. JRJoe Rogan27:02

       (laughs)

   20. BGBen Greenfield27:02

       ... not a beautiful 37-year-old. So, the, uh, the exosomes can be combined with other things like PRP, and also with stem cells or with bone marrow. And that's what I did. And, and the interesting thing is that you can get something like a, a placental cell, right? And, and in my case, they actually took placental cells from this lab called Chimera Labs. I had this procedure done in Park City, Utah, this guy named Dr. Harry Adelson. And he, he had these placental cells from Chimera Labs. They destroy the placental cell, so that there's no actual DNA from some other person that you're putting into your body, right? Which is, which is the... that's considered to be part of the risk of stem cells. Even umbilical or amniotic, you're still getting somebody else's DNA into your body, not your own DNA. So, the idea is that you would take exosomes that you've isolated from something like a placental tissue, and then you would mix those with your own stem cells. In this case, what I used was, uh, was bone marrow aspirate. They went into, into both of my iliac crests, they took out the bone marrow, they mixed it with the exosomes, and, and these, these videos... I published both of the videos on YouTube, and, and they're... It's like a, it's like a huge syringe full of blood.

   21. JRJoe Rogan28:21

       Go, go to his YouTube channel.

   22. BGBen Greenfield28:22

       You see me drawing it out, you can see it-

   23. JRJoe Rogan28:22

       I'm gonna see this.

   24. BGBen Greenfield28:22

       ... drawing it out of my hip.

   25. JRJoe Rogan28:23

       How much bone marrow-

   26. BGBen Greenfield28:24

       And-

   27. JRJoe Rogan28:24

       ... are they taking out of your hip?

   28. BGBen Greenfield28:25

       A lot.

   29. JRJoe Rogan28:26

       A lot?

   30. BGBen Greenfield28:26

       I was... Well, I was out, you know, I was heavily sedated during the entire procedure.
9. 34:55 – 40:13

   Concussion recovery stack: ketones, hyperbaric, PEMF, and mannitol for BBB

   1. BGBen Greenfield34:55

      And I had... I actually had just gotten a, a concussion 'cause I got in a bike accident when I was down in Austin, Texas a couple weeks ago. And so the other thing that... This is interesting because you, you... With... For a TBI, there's all sorts of things you can do, right? Like ketones, exogenous ketones work really well for that. And that's a lot of Dominick D'Agostino's research on concussions. Uh, DHA is another good one. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy chambers, right? With the, with the high oxygen plus the high pressure. That's really efficacious for concussions. But the other thing is stem cells. And so what I did was I ordered the stem cells that they harvested from my body in Florida 'cause I got... I think I told you about that the last time when I was on the show.

   2. JVJamie Vernon35:35

      Mm-hmm.

   3. BGBen Greenfield35:36

      They store... I have like 30 injections of my own stem cells stored down in Florida that I can use for, for joints, for anti-aging. And I also... One of the reasons that I did that was if I'm ever in a car accident or if I ever get some, some traumatic injury, I can, I can heal myself faster with these stem cells. And, and that happened. I got a concussion. I was riding my bike in Austin on, on 1st Street in, in rush hour traffic and a car clipped me on the side and I made love to the pavement. My entire face got torn open and, uh, and I got a concussion. So I did all of these things, you know, ketones, DHA, hyperbaric, um, uh, PEMF. That's also really, really good for concussions.

   4. JVJamie Vernon36:14

      What's that?

   5. BGBen Greenfield36:14

      Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. Uh, it's, it's, uh, uh, it, it, it's, uh, used for anti-inflammatory, uh, for, uh, it's, it's used for sleep. You know, it's kinda like grounding and earthing. There's a lot of interesting studies on PEMF, also for concussion. Uh, it enhances your own stem cell production and shuts down neural inflammation. So I did that, but then also, uh, stem cells won't cross your blood-brain barrier, so I ordered up this stuff called Mannitol.And if you inject mannitol into your bloodstream, it increases your blood-brain barrier permeability. So this is what you do in a, in a fighter or football player, somebody gets a concussion, you inject with mannitol first and then you follow that up with a stem cell injection. If the mannitol's already in the bloodstream, the stem cells cross the blood-brain barrier and they go in to heal neural tissue.

   6. JRJoe Rogan37:02

      Would the exosomes cross the blood-brain barrier 'cause they're smaller-

   7. BGBen Greenfield37:05

      They're very small.

   8. JRJoe Rogan37:06

      ... than stem cells?

   9. BGBen Greenfield37:06

      They're very small.

   10. JRJoe Rogan37:07

       Yeah.

   11. BGBen Greenfield37:08

       I, I think they're like 100 to 200 nanometers, which is pretty small.

   12. JRJoe Rogan37:11

       Yeah.

   13. BGBen Greenfield37:11

       And I would not be surprised if they cross the blood-brain barrier-

   14. JRJoe Rogan37:14

       Mm.

   15. BGBen Greenfield37:14

       ... as well.

   16. JRJoe Rogan37:14

       Yeah.

   17. BGBen Greenfield37:15

       You know?

   18. JRJoe Rogan37:15

       One of the things that they were saying about stem cells versus exosomes is that stem cells tend to get pooled up in the lungs.

   19. BGBen Greenfield37:21

       Mm-hmm.

   20. JRJoe Rogan37:21

       They, they don't pass the lungs and they get absorbed-

   21. BGBen Greenfield37:24

       Right.

   22. JRJoe Rogan37:24

       ... there. And they believe that the exosomes being released by these stem cells-

   23. BGBen Greenfield37:28

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JRJoe Rogan37:28

       ... are the, the reason why you generate and regenerate tissue. They think that going straight to exosomes is gonna be more efficacious than just going with stem cells themselves.

   25. BGBen Greenfield37:38

       I, I think that some pharmaceutical company or some supplement company is gonna make a lot of money in the next 10 years by figuring out a way to, to make exosomes or figure out, you know, some, some way to, to do it in a way that is more available to the general population than, you know, harvesting it from placentas in, you know, some-

   26. JRJoe Rogan37:56

       Right.

   27. BGBen Greenfield37:56

       ... crazy lab, you know, overseas.

   28. JRJoe Rogan37:57

       So you weren't supposed to do anything-

   29. BGBen Greenfield37:59

       So-

   30. JRJoe Rogan37:59

       ... for two weeks.
10. 40:13 – 59:51

    Fasting and protein cycling for longevity (and skepticism of extreme carnivore)

    1. BGBen Greenfield40:13

       Yeah. The other interesting one, uh, for, uh, not only enhancing your own endogenous stem cell production, because i- it actually would... (sighs) You know, a lot of this stuff, it's fringe, it's expensive. I mean, you know, that procedure I think is like a $30,000 procedure. Not everybody's gonna go out and do that. And th- this is another fringe one, but I wanna, I mean, there are ways that you can endogenously increase your own stem cell production, I mean, and, and your own stem cell viability and health without actually d- doing stem cell injections. Um, fasting is probably the, the one that's the most efficacious. You know, a lot of these things that are kind of uncomfortable for you seem to increase your body's ability to be able to heal or produce-

    2. JRJoe Rogan40:50

       Hmm.

    3. BGBen Greenfield40:50

       ... its own stem cells. So, fasting for long periods of time. Um, not necessarily fasting with, with caloric, uh, restriction. I think that's the mistake a lot of people make. They try to fast and they feel like crap. But the idea is the benefits of fasting don't come from not eating a lot of calories. Not eating a lot of calories isn't that great for your thyroid, it's not great for your metabolism. You don't wanna live till you're, you know, 120 and be cold and, and thin and hungry the whole time 'cause that'd be a horrible way to live a long time. So the idea with, you know, things like, uh, you know, Valter Longo's research or a lot of these, these, uh, intermittent fasting type of diets is you fast and you increase cellular autophagy and stem cell production, your own stem cell production, by going for long periods of time without eating, and the magic seems to kick in at about the 16-hour mark. So I do 12 to 16 hours every day, and then you get even more benefit once you get up to about 24 hours. So I try to do a 24-hour fast from Saturday dinner to Sunday dinner. But I'm still eating the same number of calories. It's just a compressed feeding window.

    4. JRJoe Rogan41:51

       Mm.

    5. BGBen Greenfield41:52

       Right? So, so it's not like you're starving yourself. You're getting all the benefits of fasting, but you're still maintaining some amount of anabolism, right? Because you're, you're still eating as many calories, but you're, you're almost giving your body, your gut, and your metabolism a break in between a lot of these meals.

    6. JRJoe Rogan42:07

       Mm. And that's-

    7. BGBen Greenfield42:08

       Yeah.

    8. JRJoe Rogan42:08

       ... where the benefit comes from?

    9. BGBen Greenfield42:09

       That's where the bene- the benefits are not from, you know, not eating so much damn food. The benefits are going for a long time in between your feedings, right? So, so the idea is, you know, you, you'd wake up and, and in the, the population for which this seems to be the most deleterious are lean, active females. They do not respond well to these long fasts or a lot of time spent doing intermittent fasting. It's like the cons outweigh the pro.

    10. JRJoe Rogan42:33

        Hmm.

    11. BGBen Greenfield42:33

        For that population. But for, for most everybody else, these 12 to 16-hour fasts, preferably up to 16 hours, going without eating and then eating as many calories as you'd normally eat...... with the exception-

    12. JRJoe Rogan42:45

        So, do you compress the, the amount of calories and-

    13. BGBen Greenfield42:47

        It's a- It's a compressed feeding window, right? So, um, you know, what, the guy whose house I was staying with when I was doing the stem cell procedure, Dan Pomp, he's very into this stuff and, and he's, he's a doctor down in, uh, um, uh, Park City. And he just, he goes all day and then he has a huge dinner at the end of the day.

    14. JRJoe Rogan43:04

        Mm.

    15. BGBen Greenfield43:04

        Right? Like a, an enormous, lovely dinner, you know? A couple glasses of wine and, you know, steak and-

    16. JRJoe Rogan43:08

        Thousands of calories.

    17. BGBen Greenfield43:09

        ... sweet potatoes and-

    18. JRJoe Rogan43:10

        One meal.

    19. BGBen Greenfield43:10

        Yeah, like 3,000 calories for dinner, and I'm more of, like, a two meal, uh, you know, light breakfast or light lunch, and then just two meals.

    20. JRJoe Rogan43:16

        I've been doing the 12 to 14 hour thing and sometimes I ramp it up to 16 hours, and I, I do feel better when I do that, and I, I definitely, uh, become more accustomed to not eating for long stretches.

    21. BGBen Greenfield43:27

        Yeah.

    22. JRJoe Rogan43:27

        And sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I almost think, "Should I just eat?" But I, then I'll stop and I'll go, "Well, I'm not really hungry."

    23. BGBen Greenfield43:33

        Mm-hmm.

    24. JRJoe Rogan43:33

        I mean, it's really just a matter of habit, a force of habit that I'm even considering eating right now.

    25. BGBen Greenfield43:37

        Yeah. Yeah, but, but fasting is probably one of the better ways to increase your own endogenous stem cell production, provided you're going for about 16 hours and provided you're still eating as many calories as you normally eat. The only kinda caveat to that would be protein cycling, right? This is why I'm not a huge fan of the, the carnivorous diet where you're eating four to six pounds of meat a day.

    26. JRJoe Rogan43:58

        Yeah, you were-

    27. BGBen Greenfield43:58

        Um-

    28. JRJoe Rogan43:59

        ... trying that for a while. You were putting that on your social media.

    29. BGBen Greenfield44:02

        Mm ... I, I-

    30. JRJoe Rogan44:02

        Sort of, but you had some vegetables mixed in.
11. 59:51 – 1:08:30

    Steak science and cooking methods: herbs, cast iron, and pellet-grill reverse sear

    1. BGBen Greenfield59:51

       Yeah. Crazy. Okay. Speaking of meat, rib eye steaks.

    2. JRJoe Rogan59:53

       Yes.

    3. BGBen Greenfield59:53

       This, this, this is how to make these rib eye steaks taste really good.

    4. JRJoe Rogan59:56

       Okay.

    5. BGBen Greenfield59:56

       So, what I, what I do on, on the rub is like a really coarse salt. Use this salt called Colima salt. It's super high in minerals, really-

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:03

       It's like kosher salt?

    7. 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.

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:09

       What's it called again?

    9. BGBen Greenfield1:00:09

       The only salts I travel with and use-

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:12

        Spell it?

    11. BGBen Greenfield1:00:12

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

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:15

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

    13. BGBen Greenfield1:00:16

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

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:21

        From Hawaii?

    15. 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.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:00:27

        Ooh, yeah, it does seem right.

    17. 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-

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:00:41

        Thyme or rosemary reduces carcinogens?

    19. BGBen Greenfield1:00:43

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

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:00:44

        From the charring? Is that what the idea is?

    21. 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-

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:00:56

        Right.

    23. 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-

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:23

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

    25. 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-

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:01:30

        Right, but it burns easily.

    27. BGBen Greenfield1:01:31

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

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:01:34

        Wow.

    29. BGBen Greenfield1:01:34

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

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:01:37

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

Episode duration: 1:57:16