In this episode of the Human Upgrade podcast, Dave Asprey interviews Darren Olien, the "Superfood Hunter," bestselling author of Super Life and co‑host of Netflix’s Down to Earth. The conversation opens with the premise that cooking, fermenting, and processing plants reduces harmful plant toxins while unlocking bioactive compounds that can dramatically improve longevity markers and even reverse neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and dementia. Olien explains how these rare plant toxins bind to cellular pathways, prompting the body to heal itself. The hosts then explore the broader landscape of hidden daily toxins – from EMFs and blue‑light exposure to plastic and metal contamination after wildfires – and discuss how the most pervasive pollutants undermine health. Olien shares personal anecdotes about losing property in the 2018 Woolsey Fire, the under‑reported scale of fire‑related runoff, and his decision to relocate to a 50‑acre parcel surrounded by a national park to minimize exposure. The dialogue weaves together environmental activism, bio‑hacking, mitochondrial health, and metabolic flexibility, highlighting Olien’s work with Barucas, a super‑food company, and his belief that fixing the environment is ultimately a pathway to fixing ourselves.
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The reason we cook plants is to reduce toxins. We ferment them, we process the hell.
Out of them, we have compounds in plants that we ingest and they actually support us in our health. And improves virtually all longevity markers in the body. So there are studies today that are reversing Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, dementia. We induce this high active compound naturally in plants and it binds to pathways in our body and our bodies start freaking healing.
Known as the Superfood Hunter, Darren Olien is the author of the New York Times bestseller Super Life and the host of the number one health and wellness podcast around the Darren Orlean Show. He also co hosts the Netflix series Down to Earth with Zac Efron about the global search for healthy, sustainable ways to eat and live.
What's the most shocking thing you've come across that people do every day that's making them sick? You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Thank you. Our episode today is with a true pioneer in health and wellness. And there's a lot of us out there and everyone has different perspectives, different lenses to look at this and you might find one person who's, you know, it's all about meat is bad for you. I would suggest that person's wrong. Although maybe there's some edges there or someone else. Could be it's all about EMFs, or there's one guy who's like, the world.
Is full of toxic blue light and emfs and you're all gonna die.
And the bottom line is everything is good and bad for you to some degree, depending on what you want to do. So our job is to figure out what are the most distributed things that are having the most negative effect and what we can do to change those, either to make ourselves more resilient or more importantly, to fix whatever the root cause is so that it stops happening so we don't have to be resilient anymore. And our guest today is Darren Olene, or if you were to spell it, Oen is an environmental activist and a best selling author looking at hidden things that affect your health. If you saw the Netflix show Down to Earth with Zac Efron, Darren's traveled the earth looking at how do we fix the environment so that we can fix ourselves. This makes me really happy because I do not believe in fixing the environment for the environment's sake. And I'm sure he'll yell at me as soon as, as soon as I finish the introduction. Um, just because I don't think hungry people care about the environment. So we gotta take care of ourselves, so then we'll take care of the world around us. We'll get into that. And Darren's also the founder of Barucas, which is a superfood company that makes nutrient dense foods. And he's into biohacking and adaptogens and metabolic flexibility and all the good stuff. So we're gonna do this combination of environmental stuff and mitochondrial stuff in this episode. I'm actually really looking forward to it. Darren, welcome to the show.
Thanks, Dave. It's been a long time and we're finally at least connecting in this, in this way. I look forward to it.
I do too. You're in Malibu, right?
Yeah.
I thought you cared about toxins.
Luckily, I'm far enough away from some of that stuff and I'm. And I'm, you know, I found a piece of land with 50 acres surrounded by the national park. And so it's usually me, oak trees and a couple dogs. So.
Okay. Yeah, I like that. That's actually super cool.
Yeah.
And you're not worried about all the plastics and metals from the fires?
Of course, if you're closer to it. And I'm certainly not surfing at the moment. And you know, it's a lot largely is underreported too, because if they did, they would have to basically take up the entire beach of all the water runoffs and stuff. So it's. It's big problem for sure. And you know, and I. I'm sitting on the property that I lost in 2018 to a fire, the Woolsey Fire. And it was started by. It was started by a derelict power pole from Edison and that started 96,000 acres. So, you know, we have to be careful when we say wildfires because even in that. Yeah, the.
