#221: Darin Olien - Fatal Conveniences: Which Ones Have the Best of You?
Rip and Darin Olien, author of Fatal Conveniences
Darin Olien is the New York Times best-selling author of SuperLife and host with Zac Efron of the hit Netflix series “Down to Earth,” but it’s his most recent work that may leave the biggest impact.
In his latest book, Fatal Conveniences, Olien explores some of the toxic products and harmful habits that are making us sick―and provides alternatives that are simple, non-toxic, and life-enhancing.
He calls them “fatal conveniences” because so many of these things are so ingrained in our daily lives - our toothpaste and deodorant, sunscreen, laundry detergent, cosmetics, and so much more. Darin sheds light on the fact that so many of these products are smothered in toxic chemicals, causing our planet and our bodies harm with conditions like chemical sensitivities, allergies, and autoimmune disorders.
Listen with an open mind and come away with ideas and alternatives to make your own lives healthier and less toxic. As Darin says today, “The more we awaken to making better choices, the more we can have agency to make change. Now that you know, you can do something about it.”
Episode Highlights
0:09:02 Fatal Conveniences - pollution and harm caused by clothing and consumer products
0:19:36 The Chemical Romance: Unveiling the Hidden Dangers
0:24:13 Slow and Steady: The Insidious Effects of Chemical Exposure
0:27:15 Prioritizing profits over public health
0:27:31 The dangers of chemicalized food and products
0:31:19 Taking control of water filtration and remineralization
0:32:41 Importance of hydration and water quality
0:38:56 The dangers of sunscreen and overexposure
0:41:00 The power of challenge and resilience
0:44:10 Exposing the invisible for a super life
0:47:59 Embracing clean living and sustainable practices
0:52:08 Highlighting the impact of plant-based diets and regenerative practices
0:57:31 Connecting with hope for the ocean
1:01:31 The importance of oral health and skincare
1:04:13 Natural DIY beauty fixes: coconut oil, shea butter, essential oils.
1:09:52 Love for swimming and overwhelmingly healthy lifestyle
1:18:29 The importance of choosing organic cotton clothing
1:21:57 Making healthier pancakes using oats and water
1:25:54 Darren Olien's journey and contemplation on having children
1:29:19 The power of having a strong partner
About Darin Olien
Darin Olien is co-host with Zac Efron on the widely popular Netflix docu-series called “Down to Earth with Zac Efron” and host of the top 20 ranked podcast The Darin Olien Show.
Darin is also a highly recognized exotic superfoods hunter, supplement formulator, and author of the book, “SuperLife: The Five Fixes that Will Keep You Healthy, fit, and Eternally Awesome.”
Darin worked with fitness-company Beachbody to formulate one of the top superfoods shakes in the USA a whole-food supplement called, “Shakeology”, as well as the plant based, “Ultimate Reset 21-day” detoxification program.
Darin is one of the founders of Barukas™, a new super nut from the Savannah “Cerrado” of Brazil. Through sustainable business practices, the company is committed to supporting this important biome by planting 20 million Baruzeita trees.
Darin holds a Bachelor of Arts in Exercise Physiology/Nutrition and a Masters in Psychology. Learn more about Darin HERE.
Episode Resources
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Full Transcript via AI Transcription Service
[0:01]I'm Rip Esselstyn and welcome to the PlantStrong Podcast. The mission at PlantStrong is to further the advancement of all things within the plant-based movement.
We advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant-based living and envision a world that universally understands, promotes, and prescribes plants as a solution to empowering your health, enhancing your performance, restoring the environment, and becoming better guardians to the animals we share this planet with.
We welcome you wherever you are on your PlantStrong journey, and I hope that you enjoy the show.
[0:41]My guest today first appeared on the PlantStrong podcast way back on episode 100, so I was long overdue for a visit with Darin Olien.
And when I found out that he was gonna be in good old Austin, Texas, he agreed to swing by the PlantStrong World headquarters for an in-person conversation.
Darin is the New York Times bestselling author of Super Life and host with Zac Efron of the hit Netflix series, Down to Earth.
But it's his most recent work that just may leave one of the biggest impacts, or at least it should.
In his latest book, Fatal Conveniences, Darin explores some of the toxic products, and harmful habits that are making us sick.
And he also provides simple alternatives that are non-toxic and life enhancing.
He calls them fatal conveniences because so many of these things are so ingrained in our daily lives.
[1:48]That we don't even think about it anymore.
I'm talking about things like toothpaste and deodorant, sunscreen, your laundry detergent, cosmetics, and much, much more.
We don't even think about them, but what Darin sheds light on is the fact, that so many of these products are smothered in toxic chemicals that are causing our planet and our bodies harm, stuff like chemical sensitivities, allergies, autoimmune disorders, and a lot more.
I hope you'll listen today with an open mind and come away with ideas and alternatives to make your own lives healthier and less toxic.
As Darin says, the more we awaken to making better choices, the more we can have agency to make change.
Now that you know, you can do something about it. Let's do something about it right now, by welcoming Darin Olien back to the PlantStrong Podcast.
[2:52]Darin, welcome to Austin. Thanks, brother. It's good to be in your pad.
Well, it's great having you here. Yeah.
I'm sorry you got a little tweak of the old calf. It's, I mean, I don't understand that injury.
I've, I think I just told you, I've probably had 10 of them in the last, since I was 30, I'm now 60.
And every time I find I have to take three weeks off and I can't push it, otherwise I retweak it.
And the other thing that I find is the shoes that I'm wearing affect it.
So if I'm, something that's too flat, were you wearing, were you wearing- They're Vivos.
So like no, you know, cause I like basically minimalist and I was running on my toes more and I haven't been running.
So I was just like, I'm gonna go for a little jog, warm up to the park and do some plyometrics and do some other stuff.
And so just on the jog back, kind of on my toes on concrete, I think that scenario just put a little strain on, cause I've been just like level one, level two cardio, just with a heavy vest on.
And just like on my property with the dogs and stuff.
But so I haven't been running. So they're a little extra.
And I'm here, it was new and all of that stuff. So I think, yeah, a little twanger.
[4:18]What do you think of the heat here? Oh my God, it's gonna be 105 today. It's like, wow.
I mean, I went, sun was coming up, but as soon as I just do anything, I'm just like sweating profusely.
How concerned does this make you about the planet heating up?
Well, you know, my concern about it is, I think my talking about even climate change.
[4:52]I tend to not wanna have a conversation about the overall because it loses people.
So similar to even the book, Similar to these conversations, I tend to look from the lens of the common sense model.
So, I look at it like, I put my Minnesota hat back on, like where I'm from.
It doesn't make sense to pollute the rivers. It doesn't make sense to chemicalize our clothing and basically wear water bottles because of polyester and nylon and rayon and all this stuff.
And then by the mere fact of doing that, of having, for example, fast fashion, you're polluting the rivers, you're destroying the, overfishing, oversubsidizing of meat, dairy, fish, all of these things is detrimental to the world.
[5:53]The planet, those fish, the bycatch, all of these things.
So all of these little systems, which then the reason I don't, I kind of break it down, the climate change thing is because From my perspective, the normal, average people, that need to be aware don't wanna be talked at from turn a light bulb off because you're causing climate change.
I don't like where the conversation's going. I kinda put the Mike Rowe hat on of dirty jobs, like that common sense, like similar to what I wrote in the book.
Like I don't, it doesn't make sense to pollute your body.
[6:34]With ultra-processed food, with personal care items that have endocrine disruptors and testosterone annihilators and things that are affecting your chemistry.
[6:46]And the mere fact of those creations are infinitely polluting to the eco environments and the environments of our planet.
So you can summarize my climate change conversations and to everyone can agree that polluting, and causing harm is not a good idea.
Now how we get there and are we at the sole hand of climate change, it's beyond my pay grade.
I go back to we are causing harm, yes. We are absolutely doing it and it's insane and individually harm is being caused and obviously collectively.
You know, one of the startling things when I saw that the dyeing of blue jeans used to be great, used to be natural indigo.
Obviously it hasn't been, they haven't been using natural dyes for a long time.
Most of the blue jeans are being dyed in China.
And so when that dyeing process happens, you can see the pollution of that blue dye, from a satellite in the river.
[8:04]Of when they're dyeing those blue jeans in China.
Does that make sense? And so when you wear those blue jeans, you have phthalates, formaldehydes, that blue dye, and that combination is hurting your ecosystem, your body.
[8:24]And as within, so without, as above, so below, so below, look from the satellite, you see the blue.
That's polluting of our planet.
We can't have that shit anymore. So it's the mere fact of, just like when we break from nature, we have a laundry list of side effects, right?
When you break from whole foods, you have a laundry list of side effects that we're killing ourselves.
And just look at the numbers, right?
So all of this stuff is a detriment to ourselves and the greater ecosystem.
pollution and harm caused by clothing and consumer products
[9:02]And of course, we're causing harm.
So that's where I kind of, because I want my brother in Minnesota.
I want my cousins in Minnesota. I want everyday average people to understand.
[9:16]That this is not an out there thing. This is a here thing.
What you're wearing, what you're consuming, these products aren't safe, and how they are created is contributing to the destruction of our world in many different ways.
So that's where I like to have these conversations. Let's pull it back, let's get it down and go, yeah, do I know that the hurricane is a direct result of manufacturing blue jeans in China and polluting, I don't know that.
But I do know that that's insane for us to be doing this stuff, and breaking it down into ways that people can go, yeah, man, I didn't think of that.
Maybe baby bib that has PFOS and now is contributing to affecting my baby.
[10:10]I didn't put that together, so I'm not gonna buy that anymore.
I'm gonna change my pattern of purchase.
And then we have the numbers. So the more we awaken to making better choices as you're a big advocate for, right?
Then we have a power and a wave of a powerful tsunami of humans that can then take agency back.
And that agency is the most powerful thing we have, the power of choice.
But we have to have the awareness first.
And we have to kind of wake from the sleeping giant. And that sleeping giant is you and I.
I'm 50s, you're 60s, but we were all born into a system. And these systems, some have gotten a lot worse.
[11:01]And there's agendas along the way, right? sprinting towards the manufacturing of food, that is no longer food, right?
And they continue to do that. Sugar, salt, trans fats, you name it.
Personal care items, 60 to 80,000 chemicals created in the lab, virtually none are tested.
These are systems that I didn't choose it, you didn't choose it, people listening didn't choose it.
And they don't know that these products are safe.
[11:35]They think they're safe. They don't know that they're dangerous, right?
The three-letter words, the four-letter letters of the agencies, unfortunately, do not have your best interest.
It's not that they're trying to cause harm to you, but they're corrupted through the profits, that overwhelm the system that mean more to people than the health and safety, that you and I care about.
And so that's what I want. I wanna wake the giant of humans to go, oh shit, those foods aren't tested.
The FDA actually doesn't have agency of change and doesn't, Require food or products to be deemed safe first before they sell them. That's the alarming matrix moment right, like wow, I, Assumed I could go to the grocery store buy this product and I assumed someone out there.
[12:40]Has Taken their magic wand and looked at the safety of this product. Yeah has my back Right. And that's the overwhelming and I leave a lot of questions for that because I discover and uncover a lot of those things in the book talking about, like, does that sound like it's a good plan? No.
No, and then the plausible deniability is something that the companies do a lot where they, as long as they don't test their own product, they don't know that it's harmful, but yet there's overwhelming data in a lot of cases to show that it's unsafe.
And even WHO and the FDA or USDA is also already aware of dangers.
So the last time I had you on the show, And for everybody listening, it was episode 100.
Oh, nice. We had a great conversation.
[13:36]We touched upon your father, Howard. Yeah, yeah. And how he came down with chemical sensitivity disorder and how it had a huge impact on you.
And in reading this book, I mean, that was really the, the like the crux, I think, for why you decided to write this book, is that right?
Yeah, for sure, yeah. So, you know, think of that, you know, I was studying in college and then my, in 30 years ago, and my dad, all of a sudden, who is a college professor and bright, kind guy, you know, started talking to me about, Hey, I smell these things, I'm exposed to these things and I can't think, I get depressed, I can't function.
[14:31]And it takes me a while to kind of come back online. I was like, what are you talking about?
I've known you all my life. And all of a sudden you're talking about these, what do you mean you can't?
Yeah, it's perfumes and colognes and shampoos and conditioners and carpets and off-gassing from printed t-shirts.
And you're like, what?
[14:53]So of course, I didn't believe him, right? And then he's an educator.
So he started finding the research, highlighting it for me, sending me papers, and making VHS tapes to all of us in the family, and said, hey, you know, if you're gonna come home, here's the products that you have to use or else I can't be around you.
You're like going, okay, well.
Is this in the 70s, 80s? No, this is in the 90s, yeah. So I come home from college and I start using this stuff just to be around him.
And you start learning more and you go, oh, this is a real thing.
It's a real diagnosis from real doctors.
It's just not a lot of people know about it. So multiple chemical sensitivity.
So imagine you walk into a house, all of the carpets, the carpet cleaners, the couches, the Febreze, whatever people have, and then what they have on, the lotions they use, the deodorant they use, the shampoo they use, the conditioner they use, the gel they use, the perfume, the cologne, the makeup.
It doesn't end. It doesn't end.
So now imagine a guy who's a professor, who has a career, trying to educate all of his colleagues and all of the students that were coming to see him.
Impossible. So he was forced to retire.
[16:18]And then, of course, over time, I was like, God, this is a real thing.
And so from there, 30 years along the path, and I was continuing to kind of serendipitously meet people, meet other researchers.
I met a guy, Dr. Mohsen Hermanish, who was an incredible researcher, about 25 years ago, 20 years ago. And he was the first one to tell me about electromagnetic fields and the dangers, right?
I was like, what? Like, how is it possible that they could put these cell phones out?
And this is like around 3G, right?
This is what, and so along the way, so of course I write Super Life, I like to promote plant-based, obviously, and exercise and live in the greatest life ever, but then there's this invisible elephant in the room that has been along with me ever since my father.
So I knew that I needed to write this book.
I didn't want to, but I was compelled to because I couldn't turn my back on the very thing that underpinned the start of the demise of my father losing his life to alcohol.
Because of the depression, he picked up alcohol again, and he couldn't get sober, and then he ended up passing away.
On his death certificate, alcoholism was the cause. So yeah, it meant a lot to me to take what he suffered in.
[17:47]And dedicate this book to it, and hire a bunch of researchers, not AI, real people, and scouring deeper and deeper aspects of the alarming nature of everything from obviously food and personal care and electromagnetic fields and what's in your house and what you're putting on your body, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
But there's all solutions. This is not a doom and gloom thing, right?
This is, I still have a cell phone, I just use it probably differently than most people, right?
And let's talk about how you do some of those things.
[18:33]Because as you talk about in the book, I mean, you have a lot of DYIs in here, do-it-yourself solutions.
If you're gonna use a cell phone, these are the five things that you should do.
Like always put it in speaker mode, don't keep it away.
Guys, don't put it near your testes. Women, don't put it in your bra, right?
Totally. All that stuff. Yeah.
I can't wait to dive in and ask you some personal questions because I got to tell you, like I'm reading this and I'm going, oh God, I mean, everything is, up until I read this was completely invisible.
I never even thought about it. It wasn't even on my radar.
The only thing on my radar is basically, all right, I want to get exercise in.
I want to make sure I'm eating whole food plant-based.
I don't care about my detergent. I don't care about my toothpaste.
I don't care about my shaving cream.
I don't care about my dental floss that I'm using. I love the glide, it glides right through this. So convenient.
[19:30]Fatal conveniences everywhere I turn. So can we start...
The Chemical Romance: Unveiling the Hidden Dangers
[19:37]Is like you say we have this chemical romance, right? I didn't even know I had a romance with chemicals.
So, like, what am I to do about that? But what do you mean by that, chemical romance?
Yeah, so, it's kind of a funny start to that chapter because we're all in this soup, right?
[20:00]We're all in this chemical soup. And a lot of it started by, there's this, I ended up dedicating a part of the book, to understanding fragrances, because fragrances are in everything, right?
They're in what you're washing your clothes with, they're what you're putting on your body, they're in everything, like I've talked about.
Like the deodorants, the shampoos, the conditioners, the makeup, the lotions, the extra cologne, or perfume you're putting on, all of this stuff.
And you even talk about incense. Yes.
And I'm like, I gotta get rid of my... The VOCs of the incense.
Yeah, it's again, where is it from?
Because a lot of these things came traditionally with the idea that this was fine.
Most of these fatal conveniences have a very innocent start and somewhere along the way they were hijacked, right?
So it's really starting to look just like you. just like you, you are a healthy, vibrant.
[21:08]Lineage-strong person, right? Family, it's plant-based and all, so you have a high-level functioning, you have a high-level acuity about your health, and yet, we all, all of us, even myself included, I've learned deeper aspects of all of this stuff, even writing the book, we all have these sleeper zones where we just, we're in a habit, and we don't, we stop questioning.
And so if you stop questioning a product or a thing that you're doing, you're.
[21:42]Over agency of power to that corporation, to that product, that again, we all assume is relatively safe.
Am I saying your deodorant is acutely killing you?
No. The problem with this chemical romance is it's slow and steady.
Just like health is. It's the same.
It's insidious. It's so insidious. So if you eat like, oh my God, I had two bowls of fruit this morning and everything, but if I only eat that fruit and then eat ultra processed food for the next 30 days, fruit is barely significant in my overall expression of my health, right?
But if I eat that fruit, which I do, massive bowls every morning, I get the benefit of that over time, exactly the same way with our chemical romance, but it's the opposite.
So if I'm using this deodorant that has aluminum salts in it.
[22:43]Those are neurotoxic and bioaccumulating in the body, hurting the immune system, potentially setting up the brain for Alzheimer's, dementia, everything else.
And then all of a sudden I put this lotion on that I'm used to that smell.
I quote unquote like that smell.
You've gotten used to a chemical that probably has an endocrine disruptor or several in there.
And so now, you're reversing what you want.
We're all talking about biohacking and optimizing and all that stuff, but you're de-optimizing your system, your operating system of your body, your thyroid, your thymus, your pituitary, your testes, your ovaries, all of these things.
Hell, the heart itself has hormone-producing capability. So when we're throwing chemicals that have been known to mimic, thwart, change, and, and...
[23:41]Our operating system, that sends off a cascade of fact. And so when you are putting that phthalate and paraben and fragrance and lotion or detergent or whatever it is, and you're doing that every day, multiple times a day, you're now, quote unquote, infecting yourself with those agents that are then adding up over time and causing you harm, right?
Slow and Steady: The Insidious Effects of Chemical Exposure
[24:13]Some of these things are likely and probable carcinogens by the NIH, by WHO, like all of these things.
We are playing, you know, I talked a lot about PFAS and PFOAs, this is, and we talk a little bit about, like you said, GLIDE.
The PFAS has a classification of about 9,000 chemicals, most of which haven't been tested, and just blasting on our environment in ourselves.
And that came from this incredible compound of fluorine gas.
[24:50]And that fluorine gas was used and then manipulated and put on a pan.
So now you can put an egg on it, it didn't stick back in the whatever days, right?
And so we started using this Teflon, right?
This Teflon is that grandfather chemistry of this fluorinated gas that they're binding to materials.
So it's heat resistant, it's slippery, it's really good at its job.
Then they started putting it on our clothes. Wrinkle-free, odor resistant, stain resistant, water resistant.
What? That's PFAS. Makeup, doesn't wanna wipe off, doesn't streak.
On all day, PFOS, PFOS, PFOS. Now you're putting that on your skin.
PFOS, and it's in your leather seat, right?
It's in your couch, stain-resistant. Oh, stain-resistant, yeah, good idea.
Let's get a stain-resistant carpet.
Now it's in your children. Your children are crawling around on it.
Your pets are crawling around on it. What is PFOS? That PFOS, what does it do?
It's been linked to kidney cancer, testicular cancer, hell, high cholesterol, heart disease.
[26:15]Endocrine disrupting, and it's a forever chemical, forever.
[26:21]We have examples of that gnarly shit that we've done. PCBs, we eliminated that in the 70s.
Guess what most of us have in our blood today?
PCBs PCBs Guess what? We eliminated in 1972 DDT guess what most people have in the blood today These are examples of forever chemicals that persist in nature and persist in us, We're playing with the chemistry set that we either don't give a shit About in terms of I'm talking about the manufacturing of it the use of them or we just don't care because we have decided that profits over the health and safety of the populace is more important. And I don't have another conclusion.
Prioritizing Profits Over Public Health
[27:15]That's the only thing I can come up with. Because you also look at subsidies, you You're also, why are we subsidizing, you know, chemicalized, hormone producing, antibiotic.
The dangers of chemicalized food and products
[27:31]Inducing resistance in meat and dairy and fishing and like, why the hell are we doing that?
Right? We are subsidizing the wrong shit, right? And we are playing with this chemistry.
So PFOS, and I don't mean to be a Debbie downer here, but this is the truth.
This is through the data. This is through your products.
So what do we want to do?
Create some DIYs, create another habit. just like your exercise or that example again.
Add up the things that are pro-health over time, make some adjustments, look on the DIYs, get your kids together, make your DIY laundry soap, right?
Castile soap, baking powder, hell. If you really wanna just go cheap, take white vinegar and pour it in your washing machine.
Like, and a little baking soda or Castile or essential oil. Like, these are the kinds of things, they're cheaper, they're better, and they're not toxifying you.
So this is the chemicalized world that we are born into.
[28:48]And that we are a victim to, right? Let's talk for a second about water.
You have some strong opinions on water.
So should I be drinking out of my faucet here or should I have a filter that I'm drinking out of filtered water?
Yeah, you know the answer to that. Really? Sure I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know.
Well, yeah, I mean, just setting that up a little bit, like tap water, it's an amazing advancement, right?
[29:20]There's still two billion people on the planet that don't have access to running water, right?
So they have to go with jerry cans and fill it up and it's Russian roulette.
So it's an incredible thing that we have tap water on demand in our house, right? It's crazy, amazing.
But it's not sophisticated to deal with the chemicalized environment that we've created, right?
So 50%, I would imagine now even more, the latest research is about 50% of the American population is getting exposed through the industrialization of PFAS, re-infecting the environment and the waterways, now you're actually 50% of the population getting most of the PFOS through their drinking water.
Crazy, right?
And that's, so that's in addition to you wearing stuff that has PFOS or putting the makeup on.
This is my point of like, as.
As within and so without. As we do this stuff, the manufacturing of it is reinfecting our world and then infecting us again, right?
So because of that, we have to filter. There's pesticides, herbicides, glyphosate, pharmaceutical drugs that now we're reinfecting.
The municipalities, the water municipalities keep you from acutely dying upon exposure to bacteria.
[30:48]Typhoid, dysentery, all of that stuff.
They have not increased their effectiveness of getting rid of these ultra small chemicals.
Is it too expensive? I mean, do you know why they haven't increased their effectiveness?
I mean, yeah, it would take a whole reinvention of water cleaning technology.
So yeah, but as a society, where are we putting our money?
Like, let's demand that.
Taking control of water filtration and remineralization
[31:19]But waiting for other people to change, waiting for government to change, we are at the effect of that. So what can we do? Easy solution, easy.
Filter your water. Not with just any old filter. Reverse osmosis or distillation.
You can get a couple hundred bucks, boom, you're done. Don't use plastic because that's leaching of other estrogen mimicking compounds, et cetera, et cetera, plus it's polluting.
You don't need to buy a nice glass water bottle.
Now you're filtering all your water. Remineralize it, extremely important.
Celtic sea salt, Himalayan salt, fulvic minerals, like that kind of thing.
Drink water with the electrolytes. We need it. We are salt water beings.
How does one remineralize their water? Yeah, so add a pinch per glass.
That's all you need. Celtic sea salt, unrefined salt, Himalayan salt, fulvic minerals, add a pinch per glass and you're fine.
You can even put it on your tongue and chase your water. How much water have you had to drink today?
About a liter and a half. Yeah, I have this great new company I love called Mana Vitality.
So they've sourced cleanly shilajit from the Himalayas.
Importance of Hydration and Water Quality
[32:41]And deep sea minerals and ocean minerals from the Dead Sea. And they've combined this in this little amazing pack.
So I put that, I start with the remineralization of over 90 minerals, amino acids, and I've been using this for a long time.
And that's the thing that creates the hydration more than anything else.
So easy solution for the water is then, cause you're most vulnerable when you open your mouth and you take in liquids, you take in, and you take in the foods.
What about, cause so many people, I think.
[33:19]Over cleanse themselves, over shower themselves, right, all that stuff.
100%. I mean, what are your thoughts on taking a shower in the water that's showering down on me?
Water filter or whole, if you can afford it, whole house filter, right?
Take all those, but you can buy for 40, 50 bucks on Amazon a water filter that's gonna get out most of the heavy metals and most of those things, because that is obviously transdermally, what goes on the skin eventually goes in the body.
And yeah, to answer your point, you don't have to shower as much, You don't have to wipe the sebum, natural oils off your body all the time.
Maybe if you like to take a shower multiple times a day, just wash the essential areas and leave the rest.
Don't wash yourself, don't strip your hair, don't strip your skin of most everything.
And plus, again, buy better lotions, and not even lotions, use coconut oil or use other things for your skin.
So I'm borderline giddy right now because the fact that I have you trapped here with me, for a little while and I get to ask you all these questions. Yeah.
[34:36]It feels very selfish on my part, but I'm gonna run with it.
Let's do it. So, what do you do?
[34:44]Because obviously you look like you shaved this morning. Yeah.
What did you use for a shaving gel or did you not? Yeah, so if I'm in the shower, I'll just use my brawn or soap.
Right.
Do you like the Dr. Bronner's? Love them. Okay. Yeah, all essential oils.
And so that's, I mean, easy to travel with. Okay, okay. But I also use, so when I'm home or whatever, I use this great company.
I've known this pharmacist doctor who does, creates, he doesn't have a skin care.
He has skin nutrition from whole things called True Treatments.
Yeah. So I use his hyaluronic acid, vitamin C, and that's my shaving cream, right?
And so then I use, I wash my face, and then before I wash it off, I shave.
And then, you know, use transdermal vitamin C.
Your skin looks really good. I mean, considering, like me, probably how much time you spend out in the sun.
I didn't put anything on my skin for 25 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Only until now I'm starting, Oh, yeah, I should probably take care of it.
So, okay, did you brush your teeth this morning? Yeah.
Okay, can you tell me what kind of toothpaste and toothbrush?
Yeah, so I have this. I'm gonna grill you, because I wanna know all this stuff.
So I use this incredible company that I found. It's Byte? Byte, yeah.
[36:12]So Byte has this capsule, not a capsule, it's a Byte. It's a little, tiny little Byte that has all clean ingredients in it.
Obviously no fluoride, which is such a, also that's another infection that we get from the water, fluoride in the water.
And then, so you just bite, just take one little bite, bite down, and then I have a rechargeable like, Sonicare or something like that.
Sonic, yeah, Sonic thing, it's easy to travel with. So it was like, take, what, I was here for four days and I took eight of those little bites and they're really easy to travel with.
So you're not a fan of toothpaste with fluoride, then?
Hell, okay, hell, hell no. No, and not in our water either. Right.
And the neurological damage that that can have in some of the studies showing that literal kids using fluoride toothpaste was lowering their IQ.
Jeez. Yeah.
Okay, what about sunblock? What do you do for sunblock?
[37:18]Nothing at first, right? But if I know I'm gonna be out in the sun, So today, I left, right, and I was gonna go, I did like a 45 minute workout.
Early morning, I don't even worry about it because I'm not gonna burn.
So understand your base layer first.
Never burn, that's common sense. But in terms of sunblock, coconut oil is my go-to.
It naturally has an SPF between five and seven.
Is that all the saturated fat in there? Yeah, exactly. Don't put it in your mouth, just put it on your skin.
And if you need it, there's zinc oxide, which is great.
It doesn't transdermally cause harm.
[38:02]And so if I know I'm gonna be outside, I'll either cover up so I don't burn, put a hat on, or I'll put, you know, if I'm gonna surf or something, I'm gonna be outside, so I'll put like zinc oxide on my nose, which I never used to for 25 years.
But the sunscreens themselves have, most of them have this oxybenzene in there.
The crazy thing is, when you look at this stuff, it's like it's linked to skin cancer.
And then you're like, but the reason people are mostly using it, because they're afraid of the sun, melanoma or skin cancer, right? So, why would we have ingredients in our sunscreen that have been showing that it's potentially linked to skin cancer?
And they're afraid of the sun, and they're afraid of the sun, and they're afraid of the sun.
The Dangers of Sunscreen and Overexposure
[38:56]It's like, what the hell is going on? So, clean, clean, clean, clean and the hydrocarbons that are thrown off with the sprays, get rid of all the the sprays, those things are very dangerous for the skin and for inhalation, especially the kids.
It drives me crazy when I see all moms are just.
Turn around.
Yeah, yeah, and you're just seeing this cloud blasting their children.
And yes, are they, their intention is to help their child, but not knowing that it's potentially very dangerous.
Plus, let your child get naturally exposed first, and yourself, before you're putting on sunscreen.
You want your natural vitamin D boosted because when your natural vitamin D is boosted from the sun, it's anti-melanoma, it's anti-cancer.
Again, if you abuse yourself and burn yourself all the time, that's just stupid regardless, right?
[40:08]There's a great, there's just, again, we have to put common sense hat on, not be programmed in fear anymore. I know you're buddies with Laird Hamilton.
Yeah. What does he do for like sunblock or anything? Because he's out there for nothing.
Really, that's incredible.
I've never seen, listen, I've been around that guy for 15 years, I trained with him six days a week for 15 years, literally six days a week.
[40:33]I've never, I'm not even joking, I've never seen him put on any lotion or sunscreen.
Maybe Gabby's sliding it on before he walks out, but I have never seen him put anything on.
Wow. I went up and said hello to him at Expo West. Oh yeah, yeah.
He had a little booth there. Yeah, yeah. And he's got a, it definitely has an aura about him, right?
The Power of Challenge and Resilience
[41:00]Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a charger. Yeah. He's a, he operates differently.
I mean, to be able to do what he does on those waves and to have the sense that he does, it's, you know, when you're in a situation, there's no better person in the world to have him with you, right?
Because he's got that gear that is just extraordinary.
Yeah. Yeah. That's great that you've got to, you know, be friends with a guy like that and how certain things rub off.
Like you have a quote, and I can't remember if it's in this book or on your Instagram where you say something about how he basically challenges you to do things that you can't do.
Yeah. Do you know the quote that I'm thinking about? Do what you can't do so you can do more of what you wanna do.
There you go. Right, so that's basically saying, challenge yourself to meet that failure, because that failure creates resiliency and that can.
Straight up going in the gym, meet your failure, because eventually gravity and that heavy dumbbell is gonna beat you, right?
And through that stress, through that tension, that creates strength for tomorrow, right?
So it's the same thing, challenge us mentally, emotionally, this book will challenge people.
[42:27]But it is exposing the matrix of delusion of what's going on, but we can have so much agency.
And that agency, when you add that up, going, holy shit, I did not know that about the dental floss, holy shit, I did not know that about the aluminum in my deodorant, holy shit, I did not know that about the fragrances in my laundry, oh my god, I did not know that about endocrine disruptors in my underwear, oh my god, I did not know that about the EMF exposure on my breast tissue or my testes or, wow, but now that you know, now you can do something about it.
Not knowing puts you in a path that doesn't have your best interests and will add up in not your favor.
And you will be a victim of the things that you don't know.
So the greatest thing that we can do is continue to gain knowledge.
And then the true wise one will take that knowledge and make an action based on that knowledge.
That's wisdom. And when you apply wisdom and you add that up, you are a different breed and you are a leader in your life and you have doors that will open.
[43:45]In other ways that other people won't.
You will see things that others will not see. You will take action because you have built a resiliency.
You have gained confidence because you have taken action on your wisdom, on that knowledge, and when you've gone into the door, you've gone through that door yourself, and that's the thing that creates the strength.
Exposing the Invisible for a Super Life
[44:11]So all of the undertow of this book is to expose things that are underwhelming us so that we can step up over that and then have greater opportunity in our life, period.
That's why I wrote Super Life. That's why I want people to eat plants.
I just want people to see the invisible so that we don't have to be a victim to it.
To do what?
So we can have the best life ever, right?
So you and I can just go, it's not about those things. It's about those things so that we can have a super life, so that we can live and express our greatness, Express our dreams because you know if if you, not taking care of yourself. It's hard to dream, and it's hard to believe in that dream because you're dragging around this chemistry set of a body that's failing all the time.
How the hell can you possibly imagine walking up Kilimanjaro?
You can't.
[45:13]You cannot because you can't even walk up the flight of steps.
So I want people to learn to walk up the flight of steps, take those steps, take more steps, learn about other things, apply that wisdom, so that, oh wow, in a month from now, I can see.
[45:32]That I can walk up Kilimanjaro. Now what do I want to dream? Now what else do I want to do?
How else do I want to apply myself in life? That's ultimately why I wrote this stuff, because I saw my father's dreams get taken away, and he was a victim to this world that, yeah, He had his own challenges and demons we all do but this was a definitely a major, Component to him that he couldn't overcome. So I just don't want other people to suffer, I want I wanted my dad to express his dreams as much as possible. I, Want other people to do that? It's a better world when people do that. I, Love finding people in my tribe who are like, yeah, I'm standing for something greater I'm standing for something that means something. I'm I'm gonna overcome, We're all of our own, We all have challenges. If you have skin, you're gonna have challenges.
Like if you have calves, you might pull them every once in a while, you know?
But yeah, so that's, that's, hey.
Amen to all that, brother.
Amen, that was awesome.
[46:46]I wanna come back to that, but let's take a little departure for a second. Sure.
So what's going on right now with down to earth with you and Zach?
Is that done, you guys doing a season three? Yeah, good question.
I mean, it doesn't look like a season three is gonna happen.
There's too much kind of challenges happening with production and people and schedules and focuses and stuff. That's fine.
Yeah. I'm happy for what it was.
My creative outlet happens to express itself continuously. So I've been in development with a new TV show. Oh, nice.
For the last latter part of the year.
I don't think I can really say with who yet, but it's a great co-host for sure.
Zach was too, and now Zach has other focuses and stuff, which is great for him.
So I've been developing that, plus another one. So if I get two of them, that'll be a good problem to have. I'm just always looking for ways to express the opportunity.
Embracing Clean Living and Sustainable Practices
[47:59]Because I have a lot of curiosity around clean energy, clean living, the extensions of us, the water, power, food, healthy shelter, like all of that stuff, which after season one and losing my house.
[48:21]All of that in my life and made it more meaningful like and growing food and and and sharing, seeds with people and you know that kind of world is really excited me.
There's probably 50% of my energy people I don't even share yet of what I'm doing around the clean energy space and ultimately it's about handing the reins back in people's lives And one of the greatest things, I think we should plant food, I think as much as possible we should plant food.
You know, there's some great organizations around, you know, farmers footprint, the regeneration movement that's starting to happen, amazing work of Paul Hawken, Dr. Zach Bush, this great group Food Forest Abundance who can create maps for you of permaculture and you can start of planting food in those areas, movements of the, I think it's about 47 million acres of lawn in the United States.
If we just took half of that, we would basically solve our food issue, right?
[49:34]So that kind of thing is so empowering, I think. And what if we took subsidies and actually subsidized plants?
What if we subsidized, You looked at the geography and the zip code of everyone and what if you subsidized and sent an array of food and fruit and vegetables to grow?
And you sent that to people. And then they could send in like, hey, I have a quarter acre of lawn. Hey, I've got, and then what if every block?
[50:09]Everyone is growing all this stuff and oh and and what happens when you grow food what happens when you follow nature She's abundant that one seed created a tomato plant and guess how many?
Seeds that tomato has hundreds, right and you can give those away Right, and then and so those kinds of things I'm really I'm excited about right now and and to be able to all the show other technologies through these TV shows huge It's it's it's powerful because there's hope every week I get injected full of people that inspire me and that are going after solutions so that's been huge part of my focus so down to earth was a great jump-off point there was over 65 million people that saw that and you know big shout out to Dan Buechner show like it's getting you know live to 100 he's getting some good views on that too and it's it's it's great these kinds of things need to be out and I know I shot Dan a message the other day I know how hard it it's almost impossible to get shows out right and I know he's been.
[51:26]Working his ass off for a very long time because many people don't know Dan was was my first call when we had our Sardinia episode for down to earth because he was my first call.
He was a he was a leading the blue zone and he said at the time, hey, I'm working on my own show and it was probably this show back in the day, he didn't quite have the deal done and so he didn't want to blow up his deal by, you know, running along with us, but it's all it's all beautiful.
And so when I saw his his Netflix show come out, I was like, I was I know how hard it it is.
Highlighting the Impact of Plant-Based Diets and Regenerative Practices
[52:08]On podcasts, he's on TV, he is all over the place. I mean, literally, Dan right now, in my mind, is just ubiquitous.
It's wonderful. Because now we're getting people, hey, maybe I should be eating more plants, right?
Look at all these cultures that are doing this. Singapore, I just read Singapore's like the latest.
[52:30]Added to the list of blue zones, right? Isn't that crazy? And it's not a natural blue zone, it's been created.
Exactly. They created that culture. Probably, I don't know if it's because of Dan, but and fruits and vegetables are subsidized.
It's a beautiful thing. Yeah, and it only helps because if people adopt it in places like that, in a city and prove that it's, then it's more easily adopted.
And, you know, even Dan, because Dan and I are from Minnesota, right?
And we went to the same university, he was 10 years ahead of me, of it, um, the, what they, what they, um, highlighted the adoption of that city, Albert Lee, I it's 35 minutes from my hometown.
Like I got my first, uh, Cannondale road bike there. I raced BMX on the track and Albert Lee.
So, so it's like, those are my people.
Like, those are just, I played them in football. Like it's like, so it's cool to see that kind of stuff.
And it's cool to see the adventure of a Minnesota guy doing his thing.
So, that's where I'm at. I, again, I can't help myself, but wanna show and highlight more people doing great stuff because it creates hope.
[53:45]And people in the industry are doing a lot of stuff to make changes.
Some big companies are doing some regenerative stuff, and so it's good, yeah.
In one of the episodes in season one of Down to Earth, you and Zach are sitting in a car and all of a sudden he shows you how he can cry on a dime. Oh my God.
And my question to you, did he ever share his secret? Like, what is it he thinks of?
How does he make himself cry on a dime?
Yeah, he literally just, he thinks of something sad and he can fricking cry.
It was unbelievable. No, yeah. Seriously unbelievable. Yeah, you're like. Like, oh my God.
Yeah, it's like, you know, that's when it's like acting's out for everybody, right?
But when you can do stuff like that, it's kind of extraordinary.
Yeah, I mean, when you're doing down to earth and you know the camera's on you, you know, and it's like, okay, take one or whatever.
I mean, are you just rolling naturally or do you occasionally have to like redo it because whatever wasn't right? And that to me, because I've done enough of that kind of stuff. It's like.
It's a pain, yes, it's hard work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're, I would say 90% of it, we set up the cameras.
[55:06]They set up the cameras, and we just roll. We just go, because I'm the most comfortable.
When I'm in my zone and we're on a mission, I don't care if the camera's on.
Turn it on, let's go, we've got stuff to do. And if anything, Zach was nervous because when we initially started, because he's never been him necessarily aside from interviews, but he's never been himself on that stuff.
So it's like he's not being someone else, he's being him.
And so the more, and I've had people, superfood hunting, I've had people in the middle of nowhere with me and I have no problem because I'm passionate about.
So that kind of stuff is super fun. But yeah, there's moments where you're like, we purposely, when we didn't know the person at a time, We purposely stay in the car until they set up all the cameras.
We wanted the authentic meeting to be real. And so we would just hang out in a car and just go, are you ready?
And so when everything was happening, it was authentic. Now there's times where I know the person, right?
And we'd always talk, but then you just like, you go, hey, what's going on and blah, blah, blah.
But for the most part, yeah, you'd have to maybe get a second angle or you'd have to, to do something else, but for the most part, we were so locked in and we all knew each other so much.
Easy, easy, easy.
[56:34]How time consuming was that project?
You know, the first season we were in like, you know, country every episode for the most part.
And so, you have a full crew moving around, it was three months of a lot of travel.
Yeah, and you talk about pre-production. Like, even this next show, we've essentially been in a pre-pre-production working on this stuff, developing some stories before we even got the official green light yet.
So this stuff is, again, this is in my blood. Like I want to, like, how can we best tell these stories?
How can we best expose what these things?
We've been just in the Zoom meetings with some of these people we've been meeting, and I was just gonna tell the name of the person, but his team would inform us of certain people.
Connecting with Hope for the Ocean
[57:31]And so we'd have these Zoom meetings going, hey, what are you up to?
What are you doing with the ocean?
What all that stuff? I mean, just interviewing and talking to these people and connecting, we're already like in tears several times of what people are committed to and what they're doing to preserve the ocean, to eliminate waste, to support an ecosystem, to eliminate a destruction, destructive system, like these kinds of things, that's hope because again, yes, you have to face challenges to change them.
So you can't just put your head in the clouds and go everything's good, man.
It's not.
[58:11]But, so by knowing, though, that there's companies that are using plant fibers to change against plastic, that's happening today at scale.
So performing as good as plastic and from wasted plant fibers, they're using for alternative packaging.
For packaging, good friend of mine, Troy Swope, he's involved in a company that now, that gnarly forever chemical PFOS that's on the packaging of all the takeaway food and on your clothing and on your makeup and everything else, they have an alternative using algae as a barrier.
Performing as good and potentially cheaper than PFAS. So does anyone know about that yet?
No, but that's the hope, that there's people out there doing this stuff.
It doesn't have to be a life in a world of fatal conveniences.
It can be an opportunity to create change, to do the right thing, to put money behind the right thing, especially after knowing what the challenge is or knowing what the.
[59:29]The Inhibitions or the the the changes that need to happen. So there's this pendulum that's swinging, right?
It's the but you won't swing it unless you look at the problem You can't put your there's a lot of people that just I don't want to know. Okay, that's fine, But you will become a victim of the system that doesn't care about you, You will be a victim of that if you want to you know, you hear this all the time. Hey, man I just want to live my life Right. I don't want to worry about, Just eating plants man Okay, you just live your life then because that debt will be paid.
[1:00:10]Period. It will be. And so, okay, that's an interesting choice. I have no agency over, your choice. I can give you information and I got to keep going because I have other people to talk to. I have other expressions that I want to make and it's none of my business what people do with that. It's none of my business. If they don't want to choose it, for whatever reason at that moment, it's none of my freaking business.
As much as you and I want to change people, I can't.
I can give them information and if they're listening to any of this conversation right now and the awareness is going up, going, yeah, I know that ultra processed food is not good.
I kind of had that sense that that fragrance was probably not a good fragrance to put on my body.
There's an innate awareness inside that person. That's what I'm talking to.
And so if that awareness can open up, and then that person can make a choice that's a betterment to themselves, their children, and this life, then that's a life well spent, if those people are willing to make those choices.
Another amen, brother.
The Importance of Oral Health and Skincare
[1:01:31]Yeah. Yeah. Yeehaw.
[1:01:35]Let me come back to some kind of little specific stuff with fatal conveniences.
So you have a quote in there, you say that the mouth is kind of the mirror of the body.
Yeah. And I don't know about you, but I find when I'm meeting people, I do.
I look at their lips, I look at their teeth, I look at when I can catch a glimpse, I look at their tongue. Because to me, you know, to me there's almost nothing as attractive as a healthy mouth. Right.
As opposed to somebody that, you know, their teeth are just, they're yellow, Their lips are all messed up.
They got food all in their teeth. You know what I'm saying, right? Yeah.
And so, what do you floss with? I have a organic. I have to floss.
Of course, I do too. Every day before I go to bed. So I've gotten rid of, obviously, the glide, right?
Because of that PFOS. And it's a hell of a convenience, for sure.
That slides right in between, for sure. but now I have an organic bamboo that's covered in charcoal.
[1:02:44]It's antibacterial, antifungal. Is there a brand that you were doing?
I don't remember what it is, but it's also, yeah, I don't remember what the brand is, but it also comes in a non-plastic carton.
Right, it's cardboard, right? So it's super great. So all I do to make it glide a little more is I run it under water right before.
So it's not a dry kind of string.
And it's fine. It works completely fine. And if your gums are bleeding because of that, you have other dental issues.
Or you haven't been flossing enough, and now it takes a couple days, and the bleeding should go away. Yeah, or get a pick, a water pick, or something like that. Yeah. Yeah.
What about?
Do you do a do a DIY? I moisturize or what do you do for your skin? Yeah, so I use coconut oil and, You know, is it not is it not too slimy? I can't I don't like maybe here I mean with all of my dry, California, it's totally fine. Yeah, or I don't or I don't use it. Right, right, Like here, I don't there's not a need for it. Yeah, I don't have dry skin and humid humid, Texas, But yeah, there's, listen, if you're easy kind of formulas.
Natural DIY beauty fixes: coconut oil, shea butter, essential oils.
[1:04:13]Coconut oil, shea butter is fantastic, jojoba oil. These things are really good.
And then you can even add in some rose oil, some lavender, these kinds of things.
So that's an easy fix. I know here in the back of the book, You've got all kinds of DIY fixes for everything.
I think even toothpaste, toothpaste, moisturizers.
Deodorant. I mean, yeah, it's awesome. It's awesome. What about, so I freak people out when I say this.
I don't wash my hair with shampoo. I just use water, right? Yeah, yeah.
And then maybe, maybe once every three or four months, I'll shampoo it when it gets like straw or something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm once a month. Okay.
Yeah, like when I'm here and traveling and I gotta be, like I wash more than I would, but for the most part, yeah, I wait until it's just.
Right. But yeah, you wash your hair, but you just don't shampoo it and strap it.
Exactly. Right? Exactly. For sure, so I'm a big fan of that.
Yeah. What about, so this is kind of, there's probably a couple things we wanna unpack from what I'm gonna say here. So I went to swim practice this morning.
Yeah. I know that you kind of caution people about pools. Yeah.
Right? Yeah, the chlorine.
Yeah, chlorine. But I was in the locker room afterwards and this guy got this can of deodorant.
[1:05:42]And he's just indoors in this little locker room, he's doing this and I had to immediately walk out, because of the smell. Yeah, it's really bad.
You know, everything that was coming out of there. So, do you do anything for deodorant?
Yeah, well, so yeah, on that, Again, I would stay away from the chlorofluorocarbons, which are gnarly for the sprays, for anybody.
[1:06:07]Yeah, I mean, deodorants, Bite toothpaste, the company has a great Shea Butter.
And everything else, I find a few of them okay. I mean, and sometimes I don't even use it.
Sometimes a little coconut oil, or even if you want, which is, you can use natural lemon.
Just cut a lemon and put it on it, it'll deodor. Because usually the odor is not coming from within your body, it's interacting with your microbiome of your skin.
That's usually the chemical reaction, which then also is the healthier you are, the less processed foods you're eating, the different chemistry that's emoting out of your body and detox, because again, the skin is a detoxifying organ.
Right? So, but less is more.
Like I think that people are, there's nothing wrong with sweating.
You can't help it here in frickin' Austin, that's for sure.
You're like, as soon as you shower, you're sweating for the rest of the day, unless you're jumping in and out of air conditioning. What do you use?
I don't use anything. And I never have. Yeah, never.
[1:07:26]No, no. I mean, there was a period maybe for a month or two where I tried it, because I was like, oh, you know? And I just, I can't stand the way it feels under my armpits.
And I think I typically don't smell when I sweat.
And I think the reason is because I'm in the pool so much. And of course I eat pretty clean.
But do you know who Robbie Barbaro is with Mastering Diabetes? Yeah, yeah.
So he's the one that told me about the pool and he said, you need to listen to this podcast, that Darin did. And I listened to it and I was like, gosh, Darin, you're killing me, dude.
But I do swim outdoors, but this is my go-to exercise. to exercise and with my buddies and the thought of having to go to Barton Springs every morning, which would be great, but it's 68 degrees and not have the coach and my teammates, ugh.
Yeah, no, listen.
I know. It's a pain in the ass, but if you can eventually create a world to which you're in a pool that that is salt water and it's not chlorine, then create that world.
Or you just go, hey, this is just the thing that I do.
[1:08:43]And for the most part, you're eating polyphenol-rich foods and any- That's a good thing, everybody.
Yeah, so any reactive oxygen species that's coming by way of the chlorine.
I mean, clearly you've been doing it all your life. So you're probably not, the problem is with all of this stuff. I'll answer it this way.
It's the.
Body burden. It's all this stuff adds up. There's not one kind of smoking gun here in the entire book.
If you were, I mean, obviously swimming is one of the greatest cardiovascular exercises ever. Right?
Do you swim at all? I used to, I just never been a strong swimmer.
I sink like a freaking, but I taught myself.
My dad was a swimmer, so I would jump in the pool with him and his lunch break at his university.
And that's, I have great memories in swimming. Yeah, I did my first triathlon when I was 16 in 86, right?
Love for Swimming and Overwhelmingly Healthy Lifestyle
[1:09:52]But I'd get crushed in swimming all the time, no rich roll and I'm no rip, that's for sure.
But my dad was slow and methodical.
He was the first one to swim across our big lake in the town, I kind of set that bar.
So I have a love for swimming.
[1:10:15]So that being said, your lifestyle is overwhelmingly healthy.
Someone else who's not eating that great, just trying to do some exercise, who is then getting...
Of that chlorine and not taking care of themselves, putting on bad deodorant, putting on fragrances and all that stuff, they have a greater risk of that chlorine hurting them than you do.
So again, am I perfect with all this stuff?
No. You know, the clothes I'm wearing, I had to have made by a good buddy of mine who's been and in the fast, or anti-fast fashion, and plant, these are plant-dyed clothes.
These are organic, these are things, but not all my clothes are like that, but I try to continue to do better and better because I know the crap that's in them, and it knows that it's not great. The bottom line is you just do your best, and then you forget the rest.
[1:11:23]Let's pivot for a sec and talk about electromagnetic radiation.
Yeah. I met a old triathlete friend at one of the grocery stores here in Austin a couple months ago.
[1:11:36]And he was wearing clothes that had all kinds of like little...
Biometrics, reading, clothing and... Well, it had like wires throughout it to prevent the electromagnetism.
So he had probably silver shielding, EMF shielding. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I was like, you gotta be kidding me. But he said how him and his whole family is really- Electrosensitive? Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
And so, and then in reading your book, and I've heard of this, but like, tell me some basic.
That we can do to help prevent the electromagnetic radiation from, or minimizing it.
Yeah, yeah. So just to set that up is these EMFs are stress.
It's stress response.
It's pollution that you can't see. And it definitely needs more studies, but there's hundreds and hundreds of studies.
And the things that are scary, you can do something about.
So just a few things that we saw so that people can realize that they should take some precautions using this stuff.
Some of the things that some of the research and I put a ton of this stuff in the book, and that was a major, major chapter in this book because it was so heavy and all of what's going on in that industry.
[1:13:00]Um, and they know that proximity here's the standard to think about proximity of cell phone or Wi-Fi or or even electrical wiring and stuff that's not grounded properly.
Proximity and duration cause harm. So if your cell phone is up to your head and then you're.
[1:13:24]Using your cell phone a lot, that's a lot of exposure and it's non-ionizing, yes, but through the research is showing that it actually is epigenetically is causing alterations in DNA.
Ionizing radiation acutely rips DNA apart. So I'm not saying it's doing that.
But over time, they're showing alterations because they're showing what? Stress responses.
It's showing free radical oxygen species with duration and time.
It's showing opening up the blood brain barrier to allow compounds and proteins to be in the brain that shouldn't be there.
That creates a cascade of inflammatory responses and other things that we don't want to have happen.
It also is lowering testosterone. So proximity, women, sports bra, men, your cell phone with it on in your pocket, the proximity of testes shows motilities plummeting.
It's very similar to a chemical exposure, right?
[1:14:30]And testosterone going down. So these are all over in the research.
So what do you do? Don't put your cell phone up to the head.
Even the fine print of all cell phones tell you not to do it.
Think about that for a second.
[1:14:43]Put your cell phone up to your head. Use a speakerphone if you're in an area, that you can do that or plug back in and don't use Bluetooth.
Don't use Bluetooth. No, it's the same frequency, it's just not the same strength.
So it's in your head, constantly going back and forth, receiving signal from your phone.
Even if you're watching, let's say, down to earth and I've got my ear.
No, plug back in. get earphones and plug them back into the damn computer.
Okay. Yeah, or get your, there's even better ones. It doesn't have any EMF even traveling any way through the wire. You can get air tubes.
Wow. So the air tubes, that's what I use. And so. Have you heard of these ones where it's just a vibration.
[1:15:30]In the back of your ear? Yeah, again. Anyway, okay.
Yeah, they're signaling. So it's a Bluetooth. I don't wear any Bluetooth.
Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
So then Wi-Fi, the easy thing to do is turn that shit off at night.
Because that can disrupt your sleep patterns.
So just kill the Wi-Fi at night, shut it down.
And then keep cell phones off your body, laptops off your lap, these are basic things.
And then there's some remediation technologies that are coming on board that you can put in your home that can depolarize some of the stuff.
I have a Faraday cage over my Wi-Fi router so when it's on during the day, it minimizes the polarized radiation.
I also have a great company I researched. It's got over a million dollars in research proving the depolarization.
So it creates a field effect, a natural field effect.
[1:16:25]And the radiation that kind of sounds wacky, but it was through some engineers and they're Germans and they did all the testing and you can show many different, goes to WaveGuard.
I think it's waveguard.com. You can see all of their research and read, and it's fascinating. So the crazy thing about all of this stuff, is think of it as smoke. This is pollution.
[1:16:49]Our environment, the 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G are still here, and now they're adding a 5G.
So they're adding, think of it as smoke. Now it's more smoke in your environment.
Now you come home, your Wi-Fi router is on, your cell phone is on, your laptop's on your lap.
You're getting more and more stressed, more and more cellularly stressed.
So shut this stuff down, plug back in, get it off your lap, distance yourself from the antennas of that stuff, yeah.
So again, I still have these things, but my new home that I'm building, all of it's wired.
I will have no Wi-Fi coming in. And because I live under the oak trees and stuff, there's no, I don't get a signal, a regular wireless signal.
In the book, you have a pretty cool story about how Bluetooth got its name from the- Herald.
King, the Danish King Herald, I think it is. Herald Bluetooth, yeah.
Yeah, and when he had a rotting tooth, it was turning blue, and when his Nokia somehow- Yeah, yeah, it's like they somehow took the name Bluetooth, from like, I don't know why, but I kind of liked it because I have Viking heritage, so there you go, yeah.
[1:18:11]Okay, so let's talk clothes just for a sec. Yeah. You talked about jeans earlier and how satellite can pick up that dye that's being put into the river in China.
T-shirts. Yeah.
I love T-shirts. Yeah.
The importance of choosing organic cotton clothing
[1:18:29]I'm very picky. Yeah. It has to feel just right. Yeah. 100% cotton.
Organic. Okay, thank you. Organic.
So let's say I get a shirt or I'm producing shirts that are 100% cotton and organic, is that enough or what more do I need to look for?
Yeah, I mean, anytime they're dyeing anything, that potentially has off-gassing, formaldehydes, and obviously unnatural dyes. So if you're just having plain organic shirts, great.
Then just get a bunch.
If you find a company that's telling you that it doesn't use artificial dyes and that's a good fix.
Now it takes about a normal shirt. It's one of the most sprayed crops on the planet, cotton, conventional cotton.
It takes about, and people won't even want to believe this, 8,000 chemicals to produce a t-shirt.
And it's the most widely bought piece of clothing in the world.
On average in America, we buy about five new t-shirts a year, right? So now you have.
[1:19:35]Thousand chemicals it took, bleaching agents, GMO crops, pesticides, herbicides, solvents, all of that stuff.
All of that stuff is off-gassing.
So my whole thing is spend the extra on organic and you don't need to buy as much.
Older clothes seem to be better because they've off-gassed enough.
So don't throw away a bunch of clothes necessarily. You just want to look for all of those, those fibers, the completely polyurethane, which is basically, it's plastic, rayon, completely chemically created.
[1:20:17]These things especially change out, first things I would do is change out the things you wear all the time, like underwear.
You know, those things proximal to your genitalia. And if those are, you know, spandex and elastane and all of those things, that's not a good idea.
And I'm really, women don't wanna hear this, but you know, the spandex and all of that stuff is loaded with endocrine disruptors.
And of course, then you're sweating in it and you're exercising in it.
So, but there are some good, there's some good women's brands, trying to do some right changes in the industries too.
So that's what I have hope for.
[1:21:01]What do you do for cookware? Do you have like cast iron? Cast iron and stainless steel.
Okay, so is there any kind of a non-stick that's worth anything?
Yeah, a buddy of mine actually, he's a chef and he got a certified non-stick, non-chemicalized, it's a pan, amazing pan, called a rad.
[1:21:27]RAD rad pan. That's the best one I've seen. Yeah and And then other than that, you know, you know a little light olive oil and I don't really worry about things sticking anyway Yeah, I'm just I, Love pancakes. Yeah, and I also try and avoid using too much, you know spray so oil yeah, and so this would be good looking for a good you'd have it because I I do a cheap pancake in the morning.
Making healthier pancakes using oats and water
[1:21:57]I gotta try some of yours because I would just take rolled oats, just equal parts oats and water.
Shh, turn on that pan, get it hot, boom.
You got oat pancakes.
Yeah, you got oat pancakes. And then just flip it and then I put, you know, berries and barucas and whatever.
[1:22:21]While you're on your way out of here, I'm gonna give you some of our new sweet potato and ancient grain pancake mix. Oh my God. We got eight different whole grains in there, from, you know, kamut and oats and amaranth, millet, quinoa.
Amazing. Yeah. Oh my God, I'm salivating already. It's probably some of the cleanest pancake and waffle mixes anywhere. Wow. Super proud of them.
What about alcohol? Do you imbibe in alcohol at all? No, I mean, I lost my dad to alcohol.
And when I, in college, I had awakening where I was drinking and I woke up feeling like shit and all I wanted to do was work out.
And I felt like shit and I'm like, what am I doing?
[1:23:00]So then I just, I eliminated alcohol in my life. And obviously in my family, alcohol doesn't do well.
So I just stay away from it.
Yeah, me too. And I find my life is just so nice without alcohol in it.
I don't know what it contributes to people's lives.
[1:23:19]My awareness is that it's an excuse to be a certain way. Mm-hmm. Good or bad. I saw that like, Oh, yeah, you okay your inhibitions you go out with your friends during college and this was my awakening And I was like, I woke up feeling like crap. And so I said, well, what is it giving me?
So I just literally told myself it was like, you know internal awareness.
I was like, well, just be that and get rid of the middleman.
You don't need alcohol to be a certain way. And I trained my, you know, kind of less.
[1:23:57]Extroverted side of myself. I trained myself to be extroverted when I went out.
So, it was like, oh, I'm having a great time. All the bartenders knew that I wasn't drinking, and would always have water for me and then I never looked back.
So, I don't need to alter my chemistry in order to have a good time.
You're a man on a mission.
You know, you're like, I love how authentic and passionate you are about the path that you've chosen.
And it seems like the best Darin Olien is presenting himself to the universe.
Would you agree with that? I try to do it every day.
Yeah. And I continue to try to do it every day. So, are you in any relationships right now with women?
Women, is that something that, no, and I mean this sincerely, meaning, is that a distraction from what you are trying to basically achieve?
[1:25:01]Because to me, you're kind of like a guy and his dog, right?
You've got your dog and you guys got an incredible relationship.
I'm very jealous, right? And you don't seem to be encumbered with any of that baggage, right?
Of a family, of kids, right?
That's gonna hold you down. Oh, you know what, I can't go, you know, do this filming of down to earth because I got two kids and a wife and that's not gonna fly, right?
And I think about like the path that I've chosen, right?
And I love it. I also have got a family and I've got a responsibility there so I can't be as freewheeling as I otherwise would be, right?
And so I see you and I'm like, oh, there's a part of me that's like, Ah, I like that a lot.
So I wonder, is that purposeful?
I mean, is that intentional or not?
Darin Olien's journey and contemplation on having children
[1:25:54]Great question. And it's loaded with all kinds of answers. But I certainly, once I started.
My zone of what I cared about, I was definitely on a mission. I've never, and also to set this up properly, I've never had, I never perceived I had a strong, pull for kids, even though I love kids. And I'm nuts and crazy already. I'm a kid, still, if anyone's watched Down to Earth, right? So I've definitely lived an.
[1:26:32]Adventurous life and I shut off any sort of opportunity for, you know, I was married but we also both didn't have the desire for kids at the time. Then I got, divorced and it never was a strong thing but really, Rip, only the last couple, years did I finally ask myself the question, go, why don't I want kids? And and it opened up a Pandora's box in me of childhood stuff, relationship with my dad, and I was able to kind of recapitulate some pain and some reasons for that.
And through that exploration, on the other side of it, I was like, oh wow, I may want some kids.
I never let myself know that.
I never let myself feel that.
I never, so it goes to with, it goes into the space of, we're always here to find out who we are, right?
And to stop that journey would be a disservice. So I am in a fairly great, well, I don't say fairly great.
[1:27:43]I mean, a great relationship. It's private, I keep it private.
It's fairly new, but explosively new.
And and I believe that the only way that I could attract the kind of woman that came in was because I got through a lot of this stuff and was and now strong clear woman that is like like this I don't use this lightly but like this Goddess strength, like, and so that's been really amazing.
How'd you meet her?
[1:28:28]Just through some friends, yeah, and it was just kind of a light, surprisingly, it surprised me because I wasn't necessarily looking for it.
And so, I'm probably for the first time, my energy shifted because I had unpacked something, about myself that I hadn't looked at enough.
And so, it shifted my energy.
But I've also lived so much, I'm not stopping.
I'm also more fueled because I feel like I have this potential partner that has an anchor that I haven't felt in my life through a woman before.
And then it's kind of, I step into my masculine even more.
The Power of Having a Strong Partner
[1:29:19]So I just wanna kick some ass even more, which is wild because I've always felt like I kinda, I try to do that.
But like just feeling the sense of having a strong partner in that way, it's like, holy shit, that's like nitrous oxide, right?
It's like a, like, but also like connected to them and like wanting them to be great.
And so, yeah, it's been fun exploration to be continued. So.
Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah.
Because I think a lot of us don't ever take the time to really get to know ourselves, to taking a step back to, I think the most important relationship is the one with yourself.
100%. And I know you talk about that extensively And you know, turn off the cell phones, go spend some time in nature, you know, with yourself.
Yeah. And I mean, you, how often would you say you get the ability to like, just connect with you?
[1:30:23]Every day. Without fail. Every day. Do you meditate? Every day.
When? And journal. Every day. Like I do my routines, I drink my water, I make my little elixir, boom, I meditate.
And I'm journaling. And I'm exploring who I am. And I'm asking questions.
And I'm, am I going in the right direction? Do I, and there's moments where things get a little like, creatively I feel like pulls and like stuff, but every day. That's awesome.
Before I come here, before, no matter where I am, I'm doing that.
It's just a daily routine.
Daily. I have to. I have to be up hours before I'm anywhere else so that I can have no rush and full space, to get in touch with me because I know I am wildly uncomfortable if I'm not attuned to myself.
So what time do you typically wake up?
Four, 4.30.
[1:31:19]That seems early. Yeah, yeah. time you go to bed? Between eight and nine. Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. Then that's, I mean, probably closer to like at this point from eight 30 to nine 30.
Wow. And when you wake up before three, yeah, you can do that.
Hell yeah. Wow. Yeah. Good for you. Fire it up. I mean, the mornings are just magic. They are fricking magic.
And that's where I feel like the, if you call it this, the veil between the noise and myself is the the thinnest. And so I can listen and I can hear and then the extrapolation of like ideas.
[1:32:02]I feel stuff and I have to, I feel, I feel into things first and then creatively things start happening.
Have you had therapy at all in your life? Yeah, different forms of it. I mean, I have a degree in.
[1:32:20]Psychology so we spent two years ripping ourselves apart and putting ourselves back together again But I think like, Applying Yeah, and you know like the marriage and stuff we'd have you know sessions and things like that I had a hypnotherapy about a year ago which is just wildly amazing and like a recorded sessions and you go back on holy shit like what was that and but then the self like you said the self-investigation is so important like how am I feeling like that feeling? Whose is that? Is that mine? What do I want? Is that is what I'm doing aligned with what I truly want or am I just you know if I find myself in a, hamster wheel, oh shit's gonna get blown apart soon. Because I don't like I have to be on for me I don't I don't for me I don't get the luxury of coasting.
I mean, I don't I have to be on call it a Blessing or a flaw, but I have to be on a mission. I have to be clear.
[1:33:38]You seem like you're a voracious reader. I mean Do you read books? Do you read off a tablet? How do you how does that work? Yeah both I mean the audio books are so easy to consume, I jump from God, I've been consuming Ultra Processed People, if you haven't seen that one.
Two UK doctors that dove into ultra processed food, incredible book.
So that one, Dr. Lustig wrote another book on ultra processed food, which is cool the way. He's the sugar guy.
Yeah. So the way Robert, Robert, yeah. So he, the way he was writing, I'm kind of fascinating, but then I can jump to like, uh.
[1:34:27]You know, consciousness invoking texts. I forgot the last one I just finished, but, um, and then coupled with every once in a while out of the journaling, I'll read like something about an herb or a compound or I'm right now fascinated I'm right now fascinated with AI and how that can do some research for me, because the amount of consumptive reading you have to do to find decent research is almost overwhelming, which is why it was so hard to write this book too, because we had 15 researchers and fact checkers and you're like, wow, this is tough getting through.
You know who David Goldman is? No.
He was the head scientific advisor for the Game Changers. Oh, nice.
Nice. I'll introduce you.
Oh, that'd be great. I'd love to talk with him. And he's like really up on the AI stuff.
Ooh, nice. Yeah, yeah.
[1:35:25]Well, listen, this has been really phenomenal. You know, what's great is, tell me if your memory's the same, but I think this is the second time that we've actually met in person.
Yeah. Right, the first time? Yeah.
That's right, we were punching stuff. We were, we were getting out all of our Oogies, but we were at Expo West. That's right.
You were, you had a little booth for Barucas, right? Yeah, yeah.
And then I said, hey, if you get a chance, man, come up here, there's this, there's this punching bag and you hit it and it basically records the power and the efficiency.
[1:36:02]I wanted Darin to get the record because it was like, let's just say it was 890 and I went up there and I was like 650 and then you were like 879. You missed it.
I was so close. And then we kept trying and. Oh, that was fun to beat the shit out of that thing. It was fun.
Yeah, yeah. It was fun. And then this is the second time. Yeah, amazing.
It doesn't feel like it though. It feels like your brother. Yeah, yeah, totally.
But, you know, huge, huge congrats on this and all the work you've put into it and all the lives that you wanna help.
[1:36:40]By making the cumulative changes that we can make from our toothpaste, our laundry detergent, our T-shirts.
It's just, and my takeaway is it doesn't have to be overwhelming, right?
Which is really, really cool. Exactly.
Yeah. So I wanna end today with a quote from you. Oh, nice. And I think it epitomizes you, right?
And you're just, you're big heart and you're deep concern for people. Here it is.
The sun may be the most powerful source of energy on the earth, but the biggest source of light in this universe is the one within you.
I love it. That's true. Yeah, baby. Thanks, brother. Hey, give me a fist bump.
And I love it. It's not virtual. That's right. Right? Yeah, exactly.
Plantstrong. Plantstrong. Fatal conveniences.
[1:37:43]You buy your books and I'll be sure to put a link in the show notes. It's never too late to continue to gain knowledge and make an action even if it's just one, or two small adjustments to your routine. Remember, these ideas and solutions are not an out there thing. They are a here thing and you have agency to make the better choice the easy choice. Thanks so much for listening and sharing and as, As always, keep it PlantStrong.
Thank you for listening to the PlantStrong Podcast.
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It means everything. The PlantStrong Podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, Ami Mackey, Patrick, Gavin and Wade Clark.
This season is dedicated to all of those courageous truth seekers who weren't afraid to look through the lens with clear vision and hold firm to a higher truth.
Most notably, my parents, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr. and Anne Crile Esselstyn.
Thanks for listening.
