Joe Rogan Experience #1120 - Ben Greenfield

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

Mm.

Just want everybody to know.

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.

Why are you eating ants?

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-

No, what's that?

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?

Mm-hmm.

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

Hmm.

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.

Boy, that's a stretch.

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

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

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

And?

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

So this is your concoction?

It was-

Right? You took ground-

Well, I-

... up ants-

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

Did you buy them ground up?

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

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