A Healthy Alternative To Soylent (The Controversial, Space-Age Meal Replacement Powder).

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

A lucuma is a fruit from the Peruvian Andes. So it's a fruit that grows in South America. It has this light orangish type of fruit flesh. It's very rich in iron, calcium, phosphorus, and it also has a bit of a sweet taste. It's a leafy green that grows up north pretty abundantly and its characteristics include a stinging sensation when you pick it up. But it's also pretty amazing in terms of nutrient qualities for us in Abernet, it's the main source of calcium. It's also rich in vitamins A, vitamin C and K. And it's also very dark green.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

Power, speed, mobility, balance, whatever it is for you, that's the natural movement. Get out there. You look at all the studies done, studies that have shown the greatest efficacy.

All the information you need in one place right here, right now on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield here. And I don't know if you've ever heard of this stuff called Soylent, Soylent S O Y L E N T, but about three years ago it actually popped up in a blog post entitled why I Stopped Eating Food. And in this post, this guy named Rob Reinhart introduced this special like space agey meal replacement powder that he had formulated that he claimed, among other things, would allow you to be in peak mental and physical condition for less than two bucks a day and it wouldn't spoil for months and didn't require refrigeration and would allow this full spectrum of nutrients to get mainlined into your bloodstream without you even needing to ever poop. So my eyebrows were a little bit raised when I heard about this stuff and I started digging into it and sure enough, this crazy formulation was revealed by a few different nutritionists. And I'll put some links to you in the show notes here later on to have some serious issues, including huge amounts of maltodextrin based sugar, oxidized vegetable oils, soy, lecithin, sucralose, artificial sweeteners, rancid fish oil, and a bunch of other issues. So it's kind of a bummer that that didn't turn out to work out the whole soylent thing. But at the same time, as a guy who's a global traveler and a Busy man and always kind of looking for better living through science. I'm still kind of intrigued with the concept of having something on hand, right? Like in your bag or in your pantry or somewhere that could, if you need to deliver all your nutrients in just like one shot and could be easy to transport and would cost maybe less than five bucks a serving and would be environmentally friendly and wouldn't necessarily be like a McDonald's McDonald's cheeseburger that will actually sit in your pantry for years without degrading. Try it sometime, you'll be amazed. But would actually be healthy for you. So recently I posted to Instagram a photo of me completing this brutal Spartan Agoji, this 48 plus hour race in 38 degrees below zero. And I mentioned that instead of using the standard military MREs, I was experimenting with this kind of, kind of soylent esque, almost like a healthy version of soylent meal replacement called Ambronite. Ambronite and Ambernite is something that I discovered when I was in Finland a few months ago, speaking at a biohacking conference in Finland. So, first of all, what's in this stuff is oats. All this stuff is organic, by the way. Oats, coconut, lucuma chlorella, bilberry, sea buckthorn, brown rice, protein, stinging nettle, rice bran, nutritional yeast, spinach, spirulina, almond, flaxseed, apple, mineral salt, Brazil nut, and black currant. So I wanted to delve into meal replacements for you, talk about how stuff like this is made, how it could sit on your shelf, if it's healthy, if it sits on your shelf, why it's in powder form, why stuff like this includes certain ingredients, what you can mix it with besides water, and kind of everything that goes into creating something like a meal replacement powder, and whether or not you should even be drinking this kind of stuff. So I decided to get the guy who helped invent this Amber Night stuff on the podcast. His name is Simo, and I'm not even going to try to pronounce Simo's last name because it's Finnish and because I have yet to become fluent in Finnish. I'll let him do that for you in a moment. But he's a pretty cool guy. I had plenty of time to hang out with him and even do some wild food foraging with him when I was over in Finland last year for this biohacker summit. Simo is an entrepreneur, he's a foodie, he's a crowdfunding Jedi. Actually, the Indiegogo project for Amber Night set a new Crowdfunding world record. And he's a self described serial optimist. He's a hiker, he's a wild forager, he's a speaker, he's a global adventurer and really just a fun guy and I'm pleased and honored to have him on the show today. So Simo, welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast.

Thank you Ben. It's amazing to be a part of this.

Yeah, I'm stoked to have you on the show. And by the way, how do you pronounce your last name just in case people want to google stalk you?

My name is Simon Suah. So H e I M O SU Cool.

And, and by the way, if you're listening in, I've, I've got the show notes all up for everything Simo and I talk about over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com AmbronitePodcast that's AmberNite is a M B R O N I T e kind of just like it sounds like. BenGreenFitness.com AmberniTePodcast and by the way Simo, I think ambernite sounds like some kind of like a rare like geological formation or rock rather than a meal replacement.

It does definitely have this type of a super, super mineral, super resource kind of tune to it, right?

Like kryptonite. So anyways though, what I'm curious about first, before we even talk about ambernite and meal replacement powders and stuff, one of the things I was struck with when I was in Finland was how people seem so much more open to the idea of wild foraging and plant food and wild plant extracts. And you were actually telling me an interesting story right before we started recording about how you just came back from ice swimming out in the sea and you guys do smoke saunas and it seems like a very different environment over there. Why do you think that is? And also please do include your story about this ice swimming.

Yeah, totally. So as I was just telling you, I just came back from a summer cottage, central Finland, where we did five days of pre intense ice swimming and saunas and just hiking in the forest and stuff. So I think all of that is pretty much ingrained in the Nordic mentality and in the culture and foraging and a deep connection to nature are deeply rooted in us in the Nordics and in Finland. And as a matter of fact, foraging is actually a public right. It's even legally a part of the legal system that you can forage, you can fish all year round even on private land. So it's a very Very essential part of who we are.

That's what I thought was really interesting, was like when. When you and I were there, we went. We were down in a park and we were. We were picking nettles, and I think we. We were picking some buckthorn and we were finding a bunch of things to take back to this dinner that we were going to have for the Biohacker Summit later that night. But we're just like, literally walking through what seemed like people's backyards almost just. Just grabbing things to eat, growing straight out of the ground.

Yeah, that's right. We found some good nettles, some mushrooms as well. Some of the natural. The natural reserves in Finland are among the purest in the world. And the parks and the natural reserves are pretty vast.

Yeah, sorry to interrupt, but this ice swimming concept, we also did a little bit of that when we were over there. And they had heated rocks all night long and put them in this giant smoke sauna. And we basically. I think we were with like 20 other people, and modesty seems a bit of a different consideration in Finland than in the US but we all just, you know, men and women, we just all stripped down completely naked and we sat in the smoked sauna, and then we went and jumped into the icy Baltic Sea. Is that something. Was that just something special that we did, or is that something, you know, like you mentioned, that you guys do quite a bit over there?

It was a special trip we did, but it's very commonplace here. I do it every week, basically. It's something that people truly cherish here. Just combining sauna and swimming, whatever the season.

Have you seen the longevity research on sauna use and the Finnish people?

I've seen some of it, yes.

Yeah, it's really interesting. It shows that the Finnish men, specifically, who do this sauna practice four to five times a week, have a significant improvement in longevity. I mean, like years. It's really crazy. Yeah.

The hard benefits really seem to be there. Yeah.

Yeah. So how'd you get into nutrition? I mean, tell me the story about Ambernite and how this stuff actually came to be designed.

So initially, we created AmbroKnight for ourselves with me and a bunch of my friends who were living a very active lifestyle. Anything from climbing to marathons. And combining that with a pretty busy schedule, we just got fed up with supplements, essentially as a means of solving healthy eating on the go and in a busy situation. So we started to look at the kitchens. We were all foodies. We loved great ingredients ranging from nuts to berries and Herbs. And we just started thinking like, hey, maybe we could create a food of the future out of the stuff that we already love, real food ingredients that would fulfill the entire nutrition recommendation. And I'm a very, very passionate hiker and a nature lover myself. I've guided people on hikes above the polar circle and done everything from alpine climbing to self supported ski expeditions. And food has definitely played an essential part in that, in optimizing performance. And that's how it all started.

So with the creation of this, I mean, obviously I've been out foraging with you. I know that you know your way around the fore pretty well when it comes to identifying and picking plants and stuff like that. Were you and your friends already at the point where you were just like taking a bunch of wild plants and some of these foods that you found in Finland and just combining them in blenders and Ziploc bags and stuff like that and taking them out there with you on these expeditions?

We were, yes. I've been doing that ever since I was a kid. My grandparents used to take me out foraging ever since I was five or six. So it's definitely cool.

That's so cool.

It's definitely been a big part of me growing up as well. So some of the earliest stuff that we used in these superfood mixes and in our drinkable meals were the berries that we would find here, starting from bilberries and sea buckthorns and blackcurrants. So those have definitely been a big part of the recipe ever since we began.

Well, me and I know a lot of our listeners get a little bit concerned when we see something in a bag that advertises itself as having all these superfoods in a powder based form. You always wonder whether what's in there is actually what the label says is in there. And you know how the heck it can be healthy if it can sit on your shelf for a while. So how did you guys take all these plants and foods and actually figure out how to turn them into a powder? Was this like making a mess in your kitchen? Did you guys have to bring experts on board? I mean, like, what was the actual evolution of the product?

That's a great question. So essentially we chose powdering because. Because of the superior versatility and the way that it can preserve the nutrients within. And we contacted some people up north who were working on turning bilberries into powders that are superiorly pure. And many of those companies and farms who are already doing that had a pretty significant expertise in that sense. So we did find some experts to help us find good powdered ingredients.

What's a bilberry?

So bilberry is essentially a wild blueberry. But the main difference there is that the taste and the nutrient density and the orac values of antioxidants are simply through the roof compared to a traditional blueberry. Interesting. So the Latin name of the bilberry is Vaccinium myrtillis, which is different from the North American blueberry.

Okay, got it. So you found experts there in Finland who already had been kind of like perfecting the process of taking bilberries and turning them into a powder.

Yes. The same goes for different types of berries because many of these are so nutrient dense that they're actually being used in medical research and in the search for other useful compounds within. So. So they had a pretty long and a good background in really preserving these wonders.

One of the ways that I've seen foods turn into powders before is via a pretty harsh heat drying process that tends to degrade or oxidize a lot of the nutrients. So how is powdering something like, let's say a bilberry, for example, the process that they're using in Finland is that heat oxidizing process. I mean, how do you actually get a bilberry into a powder form that's not going to say like spoil on the shelf?

So the process that they use is not a heat oxidizing process. They don't heat the berries above 42 Celsius centigrade. Instead, they can be, for example, spray dried through a very, very thin mesh, which doesn't heat up the bilberries at all. And instead they are dried in midair, so to speak, during this spray drying process.

Okay, got it. And so you figured out how to use this process with a bunch of different foods. I'm curious though. I mean, I obviously went through the laundry list a little bit earlier. You know, everything from coconut to chlorella to nettle. Why did you choose the specific range of foods that you chose to put into ambernite?

That's a great question. So every single food that we use in ambernite plays a certain part in terms of either on the macro or the micronutrient side. For example, the nuts that we use provide the fatty acid profile, the great fatty acids that we have. On the other hand, we have the herbs and the berries coming in on the micronutrient side. So it was essentially a big process of understanding the different components and the bioavailability of different great ingredients that we could find in nature and combining that with the latest nutritional science. And that's kind of in a nutshell, the method, how we created the drinkable meal to be complete.

Gotcha. Now, when the meal, when a powder like this has to sit on a shelf, right? Because I have amber nut, I've obviously been using it. You know, I've posted on Instagram multiple times how I've been throwing it down during hikes and during events like this at Goji. I'm curious compared to just like going out and say picking wild nettles or bilberries, putting them in a Ziploc bag and taking them out there with you and, you know, whatever, boiling water and making a meal with those, how much of the nutritional integrity is compromised when you actually turn something into a powder that's able to sit on a shelf? I mean, how much do you actually lose? Because it just seems strange to me that you could be able to maintain everything that a food has to offer inside of a powder that can be shipped and that can sit in your pantry.

So the main threat there to the nutrients is obviously heating up. If the product is heated, we're losing a lot. We're seeing a lot of saturation in the fats and a big loss on the micronutrient side. So instead we strive to heat treat as little as possible. And most of our ingredients are not heat treated at all. Instead, the powdering and the sealing and the hermetically sealed bag, which is completely airtight and also has a special layer which prevents gas leakage, is enough to ensure the purity of the product. Of course, over time, for example, the fatty acids do saturate a bit. So there is a bit of a loss over time. But in creating ambroknite, we took that into account and that's why we currently have very long shelf lives. Even though we don't use any artificial preservatives in the product.

What's the shelf life?

So right now it's a shelf life of 1 year, 12 months. And we're working that up to longer lengths in the future versions as well.

Okay, gotcha. And I want to ask you a few questions about this stuff too, because I've noticed a few specific things that you've done with the ingredients. First of all, the coconut. I'm a big fan of coconut, but I noticed that you guys source your coconuts from the Philippines and I'm curious why you chose the Philippines in terms of where you're getting the coconut source of this, and whether the coconuts, if that's like a powdered coconut fat. If you're putting like a dried coconut water in there. Like, why are the coconuts in there? Why are they sourced from where they're sourced?

So when it comes to the ingredients that we use, we really want to know the source and are very transparent about that. So one of our sourcing partners, who we know personally, is specialized in touring the world and getting to know the people who actually produce the ingredients that we also use in ambernite.

That's the job this person has. This is just traveling around the world.

Exactly. It's a big passion of his.

Sounds like a fun job.

It totally is. And he's a really cool guy. He's. He's a cult luss. And he's not only traveling the world and getting to know the sources, but really getting to know the people behind the products and getting to know their families and visiting them on a regular basis.

Did I meet him when I was over there in Finland?

I think you might have met him actually. Actually as part of the biohacking conference.

Yeah. Well, I met so many people from ambernite there at the conference because a lot of you guys, like, well, the house that I was living in, it had some of your employees there and it was. It was actually crazy to attest to your guys physical activity. There were like gymnastic rings hanging from the ceiling and there were like Concept 2 rowing machines in the living room instead of couches. It was a relatively active household. I felt right at home down to the sauna in the laundry room. But basically. So this guy travels around the globe, he sources these ingredients. But the coconuts, why the Philippines when it comes to the coconuts?

So the coconut of origin, which was chosen by knowing the family and knowing the farm, it was chosen because Lhasa had pretty long history of playing these different coconut sources off against each other and finding the good ones. And we essentially went with his expertise on this. So the stuff that we get from the Philippines in the coconuts, they're coconut flakes and there we've also ran them through third party tests and noticed that the coconuts that we managed to source from there are especially fresh. And the freshness plays a big part in ambernite, obviously, because the shelf stability has to be top notch. And that's just identified as a high quality source that can provide us with the type of coconut we need.

That's one thing that I've noticed because I've been using. Well, I've been ordering your stuff pretty much since I got Back from Finland, and I noticed that sometimes the flavor profile seems to change a little bit. And I think the way that you explained that to me was that you guys are having to. Is it that you switch up the sourcing of the ingredients or why is it that the flavor profile is changing a little bit from batch to batch?

So it's caused by the fact that the actual food and the actual crops are different, and they do have their own subtle differences. Much of it comes down to the fact that whenever we produce, we want to use the freshest ingredients available. And depending on the season, the taste might also vary a bit. But of course, as with the newest batch, which is from our new version 4 recipe, we also did add some of the arctic berries, some more arctic berries into the recipe for more of a berry twist.

What are Arctic berries?

For example, the bilberries that we use, we added a bit of those into the mix.

So it's like a berry that grows in like, an arctic region, like. Like Finland.

Yeah, just like we talked. It's one. One of the typical domestic berries that have been used as used by everyone's grandparents and, and for millennia before that, but is also one of the most potent superfoods in, in terms of their nutrient density. But, for example, I mean, when it comes to the coconuts and the. And the coconut flour, it does have a natural creaminess that it brings into the mix. And of course, each of these ingredients taste as the latest crop turns out. So those are definitely big factors when we use these ingredients.

One of the things that we did when I was over in Finland, I don't remember if you were over at this dinner that we had at one of the houses. I don't recall whether you were there or not, but we had this deep, deep orange stuff. I think we mixed it with vodka, actually, and put it in a shot. But it was this dark, dark orange, antioxidant, rich stuff. And Temu, the guy who puts on these biohacking conferences around the world. And by the way, if you're listening in, I'll put a link in the show notes. But there's one upcoming in Finland. Again, there's another one in London. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com AmberNight podcast if you want to check out these awesome biohacking conferences that Temu puts on. But he has, like, dropper bottles and he has, like, these tinctures and he has little alcohols and stuff like that. He was making these shots and it was sea buckthorn, I believe was the name of this stuff that he was putting into the shot glasses. And I noticed that you guys have it all over Finland. And also that it's an ingredient in ambernite. What is it about sea buckthorn that makes it so special or would make it like an ingredient that you'd include in ambernite or in a good shot?

So the reason why it's one of the amber night ingredients and also part of the shot that you were just describing is the amazing vitamin C content. So sea buckthorns are among the most vitamin C rich berries and plants on the whole planet. So they're especially valuable in that sense. But also they do pack a punch when it comes to omegas and healthy fatty acids, especially omega 7s.

Omega 7. You hear a lot of people talk about omega 3 and omega 6. What are omega 7?

So omega 7 is palmitoleic acid, and it's contained in sea buckthorns in the seeds of the sea buckthorns. So even in the shot that you guys that was just described, whenever you make a smoothie or whenever you break the surface of the sea buckthorn, you can actually see that there's an oily part in the berry as well. And it's a pretty rare berry in the sense that it has both of these qualities, both the fatty acid richness as well as the vitamin C content, which is pretty epic.

Okay, got it. So you've got Omega 7s, you've got huge amounts of vitamin C. Anything else about this? About this one?

Also a bit of vitamin K, really, Potassium, magnesium, which help you get over the hangovers. So it should be part of any biohackers vodka blending kit.

That's interesting. That's a little bit rare to have a plant that's rich in vitamin K. As you probably know, typically, it's like fermented soybean, like natto or a probiotic that you would get the vitamin K from. Exactly. That's interesting. That's kind of cool, though.

It is. And as you could also tell by tasting sea buckthorn that you're definitely dealing with something very special when you give it a taste.

Yeah. Well, the first one I tasted was right when I arrived in Finland. I was walking along the coast there, and there was like this little produce tent set up, and they had all sorts of, like, wild plants that they brought down straight from the mountains. And one of them was bilberry. And I tried a few and they're. They're, yeah, incredibly tart, but really unique taste. So that's interesting. I Think that's cool that you guys included them in there. I just think it's cool that a lot of this stuff, it's like a powder of Finland because a lot of this stuff is straight from these arctic regions that you're surrounded by which, which it's kind of cool. It gives it quite a bit of character and good flavor too. Another substance I wanted to ask you about that's in there is lucuma. L U C U M A what is lucuma and why is that in there?

So lucuma is a fruit from the Peruvian Andes. So it's a fruit that grows in South America. It has this light orangish type of fruit flesh and it's very rich in iron, calcium, phosphorus, and it also has a bit of a sweet taste to it without being overly sugary. So that's one of the fruits that we included there also as a, as a part of the. Of the taste profile in ambernite.

Okay, got it. And then another one I wanted to ask you about. And then I'll. What I'm going to do is put a full list of ingredients in the show notes. If people want to explore a lot of this stuff, which they probably already know about. You know, like everybody knows what brazil nuts and spinach are, for example. But there was one other in there. I believe it was the stinging nettle. Can you tell me about that one?

Absolutely. As you remember, we picked up some stinging nettles for the feast last time you were over here. So it's a leafy green that grows up north pretty abundantly and its characteristics include a stinging sensation when you pick it up. But it's also pretty amazing in terms of nutrient qualities for us in abernet. It's the main source of calcium in the recipe. It's also rich in vitamins A, vitamin C and K. And it's also very, very dark green, as you can remember, and has a very distinct taste.

Yeah.

And much of that comes from the chlorophyll content. That's also one of its characteristics.

I think that's really interesting for a couple of reasons. First of all, the stinging nettle. I remember one thing we did with it, with all the stinging nettle that we picked as we were foraging there in Finland was. And I'd never done this before, but I've done it now with my kids because we found wild nettle growing in the forest outside our house. Now that I know how to identify it after coming back from Finland, we fry it and salt it. You can actually fry it in a little bit of olive oil for example, and it's crunchy like a kale chip and then you can add salt to it and it's a wonderful flavor. But then the other thing that I think that's interesting in terms of the nettle is a lot of times you'll see this added to hormonal balancing compounds like a lot of testosterone enhancing supplements for men have this stinging nettle in it. Is it the same variety?

I believe it can be the same variety as well. I think much of it comes down to the chlorophyll content, although I'm not particularly sure why they added to many of these products as you mentioned.

Interesting because the chlorophyll and this was research, I believe Sayer G, who runs a really good website about plant based research and I'll link to it in the show notes, he released an article last year about how the chlorophyll content in bloodstream and in human blood when combined with sunlight can actually assist with ATP production in the absence of calories. Meaning that if you have a high amount of chlorophyll in your bloodstream, you can actually produce ATP in a very similar manner as like a plant would use a chlorophyll type of mechanism to produce energy. Super interesting. I think it's one of the reasons why people who eat a lot of wild plants like this can still have a lot of energy with at first glance what would appear to be a very, very low amount of calories.

I think that's super interesting research and it's shedding light on why it really does count, whether or not your diet includes wild plants and foraged plants versus cultivated ones.

Yeah. Now one of the things that I do, and I've talked about this on a podcast before, is I do a lot of carbohydrate backloading or cyclic ketosis cyclic carbohydrate diets where I'll save the majority of my carbohydrates for the end of the day and so I'll generally eat more of a ketogenic fat rich plant based diet for the majority of the day. You know, coconut milk and coconut oil, seeds, nuts, olives, olive oil, a little bit of fatty fish, things like that. Ambernite is not ketogenic per se. It does have, you know, obviously it's, you know, it has things like oats in it, for example, a complex carbohydrate and you have like a whole grain brown rice in there and some other things that wouldn't necessarily make this like a ketogenic low carb supplement per se. But at the same time, I've been using it again for my workouts, my competitions, et cetera. And one of the things that I've been doing besides just mixing it with water is to add other components. Like, I'll rip open a packet and I'll dump it in a bowl like cereal, add just a little bit of water to make it almost like a paste. And then I'll throw in like, a handful of frozen blueberries and a handful of, like, almonds for some crunch or some dark cacao nibs, stuff like that. I know when I was walking around with you, it seemed like you were constantly just like, sipping it out of a water bottle. But I'm curious, you know, for people who might get their hands on this stuff, what you found people are doing with it in addition to just mixing it with water? Like, are there some other recipes that you, that you've found that your fans and your users are using this stuff for that you can, you can share with the listeners?

Absolutely. People have been extremely creative with using the powder for their own recipes. Some of my own personal favorites include the avocado recipes that people use while blending with amber night, as well as throwing in the blueberries, as you mentioned. Bilberries, definitely one of my big favorites. I use bilberries that I've handpicked almost every day in some type of a smoothie. Also, lingonberries is a big one when you want to bring up the flavor and add an extra boost, especially for your mornings. Some of the other recipes that people share include, for example, adding apple juice before a workout because you can use the extra carbs before working out and having an amber night, for example, while leaving your office and en route to an exercise. Of course, honey is also a big one. Cinnamon. People are doing all kinds of weird and delicious recipes out of it.

I like the avocado one that's something I've been doing is avocado, a little bit of vanilla and cinnamon, and then I use a dark cacao powder, and then I put the ambernite in and mix that all up, and it's literally like chocolate pudding. Now, granted, don't laugh, but I like many of our listeners, I don't eat a lot of carbohydrates in the morning. And so I don't have amber night that often in the morning. But I will have that for dinner, like what I just described. I will have a chocolate avocado coconutty pudding for dinner made with ambronite and for Me, especially on a busy evening or an evening where maybe I want to be working during dinner and just eating something out of a spoon as I catch up on emails or write a blog post or something like that. It works perfectly and it's giving me pretty much everything. Except obviously there's not meat in there. This is completely vegan. Vegetarian, but it's still pretty much a full nutrition profile.

Oh, it definitely is. And even though it's a vegan product, we really paid a lot of attention in the versatility and also in the sense that it can serve as any meal of the day because it is a full meal, as you know.

Yeah, I get called out for that sometimes by my wife that I'll have smoothies for dinner, but I do it, it works. And that's something else I wanted to ask you about. So it's 500 calories in a packet, but have you done. I mean, did you guys just throw all this stuff together or did you specifically choose like a specific macronutrient ratio in terms of carb protein fat ratios?

We did choose a specific macro ratio. It's about 32% fat, 24% protein, and the rest from carbs. The reason we included a lot of the fats and protein there is obviously that they do serve major satiety effect in the product as well as the amount of soluble and non soluble fibers are also a big part of that. And the idea behind the product is indeed to be a full meal. And therefore we also included the carbs in there and didn't want to create a ketogenic product, but rather out of exceptional ingredients.

Yeah, it's a. It's not very sweet though. There's actually not any maltodextrin or. I don't even think you have stevia or anything in there, do you?

We don't. And that's definitely a part of the philosophy that we also set out to create because we really wanted the product to taste of the great ingredients that we put in rather than making it into a triple glazed, artificially flavored chocolate smoothie. We're really proud of the stuff that we have in there and we also want our customers and fans to taste them.

Yeah, I actually, speaking of ketosis, I have. And you know, like you mentioned, the product is only 32% fat, but I've been able to get into ketosis using it. And the way that I've done that for those biohackers out there who want to, who want to have your cake and eat it too is I've used exogenous ketones and a C8 form of medium chain triglycerides called brain octane. And I'll put about one to two tablespoons of brain octane in with the ambronite and then a spoonful of what are called beta hydroxybutyrate salts, which is like it's an exogenous ketone. For that one, I used this stuff made by a company called Pruvit P R U V I T and I'll put a link for those of you listening into an article I wrote. And then I tested my blood ketone values and I was actually able to get about 2.5 millimolar for blood ketone after consuming the ambronite. And granted this was in the evening I'd done an exercise session, but by adding the C8MCTS and the ketones to the ambronite, I was able to actually consume the product and then also tap into all the cognitive enhancing benefits of ketosis. So for those of you biohackers out there, feel free to jump into the comments section for the show notes to this episode if you want to chat a little bit more about that. But I'll try and put a few helpful links for you. And there's another recipe for you too, Simo Massive.

I think that's something that we get asked a lot and I'm glad you shared that, Ben, because I think the main thing here is that we really wanted to keep the amount of fructose and the amount of sugars in Ambride to a minimum. And yeah, I'm really glad you shared that point. I think that's a great point for all the biohackers out there in the community as well.

Well, it's something that I like too, because I simply do not really appreciate products that try to appeal to a western palate by making things far more sweet. I like that your guys, it's almost a little bit kind of like, I guess, nutty, kind of like creamy nutty. I suppose that's probably from the coconuts and the almonds and stuff like that, but it's good stuff. I like it. So in terms of how you guys work from a food production and a business standpoint, what is it that influences you? I mean, earlier in the podcast you mentioned you were on your fourth, I think you said your fourth generation or your fourth batch of Amber Night. What is it that you look at when you're changing up flavor profiles, ingredients, et cetera? What are you looking at and how are you effecting changes in the actual product as you go along.

Ben. We work with lots of cool people, as you know, people from sailing the Atlantic Ocean races solo to climbing mountains and to anyone who is working intensively on their own stuff like building company or whatnot. So we get a lot of feedback on the usability, on the taste, a variety of different things. So what we're right now looking at is into improving the usability even more in terms of making the product easier to mix on the go. So Ambronite is mixed with some five to six deciliters of water, so you don't need any heating. But the quality of the ingredients and the particle size has a major effect on the mouthfeel, as you know. So for example, that is one of the aspects that we're looking at for future versions. And some other things include, of course, the availability of the ingredients. That's definitely a big one because we use very, very precious stuff in the products, obviously and also want to make sure that we only use ingredients that we can provide sustainably and that the availability is there.

Got it. Cool. I love it. Are you guys going to be at the next Biohacker Summit in Helsinki?

We're definitely going to be there.

Okay, cool.

Hoping to see you there as well.

Yeah. What about the one in London?

Yeah, I'm personally going there as well.

You are? Okay, sweet. I'll see you there. And I'll put a link in the show notes too for people. And they're pretty fun conferences like I mentioned, where you can taste plenty of good foods, including this Ambronite stuff. Also for people listening in, you can get a 15% discount on AmbroKnight2ways. You can just go to the show notes to access this. The article on chlorophyll I mentioned, the stuff about exogenous ketones, the Biohackers conference, all that stuff. I'll put links over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com AmbronitePodcast that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com ambronitePodcast if you wanna check out that stuff. And then you can also go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com AmbroKnight if you just want to go straight onto the website where you can get a discount on the stuff. One last question for you. Of course, the most important question, Simo, like I mentioned earlier, the word ambernite reminds me of some kind of a rock. What does ambernite mean? Why did you choose this title?

So the name ambernite comes from Greek mythology. So the Greek word ambrosia comes from the word meaning the food or the nectar of the gods that the Greek gods enjoyed on the Mount Olympus for everlasting life. And we thought of that myth and thought of bringing that back to everyday life of top performers in the form of amazing natural ingredients. And that's how the name got picked.

I like it. I like it a lot more than soylent too, by the way.

Yeah, this one is ancient wisdom for a modern day man.

I love it. Well, very cool, Simo. Thanks for coming on the show and sharing this with folks. And again, if you're listening in, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com AmbroKnightPodcast if you want to try some of this stuff for yourself. And also try and join us over in Finland or London if you get a chance. So, Simo, thanks for coming on, man.

Thanks, Ben. Always a pleasure. Let's do some ice swimming and foraging on our next adventure as well.

I am all in. Let's do it. So folks, this is Ben Greenfield and Simo from AmberNight signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have a healthy week.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.