How I’ve Been Able To Gorge On Delicious Gluten Filled Foods Without Feeling Like I Swallowed A Pair Of Motor-Powered Scissors Tearing Up My Intestines.

Well, howdy, howdy ho. I didn't see you there. No, I did. I knew you were gonna be there the whole time, listening in with bated breath. Speaking of bated breath, you're gonna learn in this podcast episode how to have your cake and eat it too. No, really, literally, have your cake and eat it too. Because I'm interviewing guys who have invented a way for your body to be able to digest gluten.

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.

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

Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And I've been getting a lot of questions lately about this mysterious molecule that I consume these days before I eat any bread or pasta. It's a compound that allows me to digest gluten without any of the bathroom decommissioning that so notoriously occurs after a hefty bout of gluten consumption. Basically, it's the way I've been able to gorge on delicious gluten filled foods without feeling like I swallowed a pair of motor powered scissors tearing up my intestines, as they say. I don't know if they say that, but I just said it. So anyways, I don't want to not eat bread or pasta for the rest of my life. I recently posted to Instagram. My children and I eating at this place called Wild Sage here in Spokane. One of the lovely things they bring out when you eat Wild Sage are popovers, and they fill them with lavender butter and they're amazing. But they're also highly gluten filled and I still want to eat them. So I've been using this molecule that I'm going to talk to you a little bit about on today's show along with my guests. Because whether due to glyphosate exposure from pesticides and herbicides or stress or leaky gut, there are a host of modern assailants that I think make gluten a bigger issue than it ever has been in human history. And I want to delve into a little bit of better living through science to actually make gluten digestible. The guys who I'm about to speak with and who you're about to hear from. Have actually been on the podcast before. We did a podcast called Probiotic Enemas, Digestive enzyme myths, breathing 10kg of oxygen, low Protein Diets and more. And I will link to that previous episode with these cats if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com glutenpodcast that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com GlutenPodcast Anyways, their names are Matt Gallant and Wade Lightheart. Matt's an entrepreneur, he's a poker champion, he's an ex rock guitarist, he's a serial entrepreneur. He's built 13 companies in the last 20 years. He's a strength conditioning coach with a degree in kinesiology and he's the CEO of a company called Bioptimizers. And Wade is actually a three time all natural bodybuilding champion. Happens to be vegan as well. He's an advisor to the American Anti Cancer Institute. He's co founder of Bioptimizers along with Matt and he's written some books like Staying Alive in the Toxic World and another book called the Wealthy Backpacker. So these guys are interesting fellows, chock full of information and today, chock full of gluten. So welcome to the show guys.

Great to be here.

I always love talking with you, Ben. So we're excited.

Word are you guys like punishing a baguette right now or some gluten powder?

That was yesterday. I keep it to Sunday as my spike days. So usually 6 to 10,000 calories in a day. And I gotta say, the molecule we're gonna talk about was a game changer because you know, sometimes even with the other types of enzymes we use, there was still some digestive stress. But now it's totally pain free and fun.

That's Matt talking by the way. For those of you listening in. Matt, you eat. Did you see 6 to 10,000 calories correct on every Sunday?

Pretty much, yeah.

Why?

For the caloric spike primarily. So you know, for six days and do one meal a day thanks to your guidance. Thanks for that. And then on the seventh day I spiked, I reload my glycogen. It's extremely anabolic. I've been able to build about 27 pounds of lean tissue in the last three years while burning body fat doing this.

Jeez. So you're doing one meal a day for six days in a row and then on that last day, are you eating three meals a day or is that still one meal that you're eating 6,000 calories to? 10,000 calories?

No, it's kind of eating all day. Wow. Yeah.

Healthy stuff or just. Just anything?

A little bit of both. I'd say probably half and half. So I do like making some really rich, fun, kind of superfood desserts, and then, you know, I'll go get a burger and might eat some pizza, might eat some pasta, might go to the theater or whatever. Wow. But, yeah, it's fun.

How do you feel the next day?

Good. Good. Today I feel awesome. I went. Just trained this morning, fasted. You know, when you're keto, too, I mean, you're. You're burning glycogen. Monday, Tuesday, and a little bit Wednesday. By Wednesday, most of the glycogen's gone. But it does give me a boost in the gym for Monday, Tuesday, and I'm still got ketones. You know, I'll measure my ketones on Monday. It's still usually around 0.5 because I've been on ketosis so long.

Wow.

So basically, I'm dual fuel.

All right, last question before we talk about gluten, but are you. Are you training on that day where you're eating all that food, or are you just training on those days where you're doing one meal a day and then taking that day off? That where you're eating all the calories?

I'm taking it off. I do believe I'd probably get even more muscle gains if I did train on it, because insulin is incredibly anabolic. I mean, that's why a lot of pro bodybuilders inject it.

Yeah.

But I like taking Sundays off, so for that reason, I don't.

Wow. Interesting. That sounds like an exhausting Sunday. Just eating all day long, no breaks.

I find it fun, but, yeah, his own.

Wow. Okay, well, I want to talk about how you incorporate this concept of enzymes, and we have a whole previous podcast on the digestive enzymes that you use. And we'll talk a little bit more about enzymes as well, because you also have an article on my website called how to Take Digestive Enzymes. And I'll link to that, too, over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com glutenpodcast but I want to start here. I think a lot of folks nowadays are aware that gluten can cause issues even if you don't have celiac disease. And there are books about this, like Grain Brain, for example, that delve into the neuroinflammatory aspects of gluten, even if it doesn't cause any type of stomach distress. But in your opinion, I'd like you to just talk about that a little bit, especially for people who might be unfamiliar with why we should still be cognizant of our gluten intake, even if we don't have celiac disease per se.

Well, the New England Journal of Medicine listed 55 diseases that can be caused by eating gluten. And the real big issue is about 99% of the people that are sensitive to gluten don't know it. And a lot of the diseases are primarily immune, neurological, and even psychiatric. So among them, we're talking depression, schizophrenia, epilepsy, migraines, neuropathy, anxiety, dementia, autism, and as a whole, autoimmunity is the third leading cause of death in the world. So inflammation, it's not just the gluten, too. I mean, when you're eating a lot of this stuff, the inflammation from the wheat can be a problem. And not just. Again, not just the gluten, but amylase, trypsin inhibitors. ATI is what they're called, can provoke an inflammatory immune response in the GI tract by stimulating immune cells. And that occurs in people regardless of whether they are celiac or not. And another one too, for the non celiac crowd is the wheat germs. Agglutinin is an inflammatory immune disrupting protein found in wheat. Despite the similar name, it's not the same thing as gluten.

What's the difference between wheat germ and gluten? And gluten?

Well, it's just another type of protein.

Okay. Also. Also resistant to digestion.

Yes.

Okay. And then these. These amylase tryps in here, as you talked about, that's an inflammatory molecule that is similar to gluten or simply comes packaged along with gluten.

It comes packaged. It's specifically in wheat.

Okay. Yeah. All right.

Yeah. Specifically in wheat. And then the other thing, too. And then you're going to talk about leaky gut, but I think a lot of. Especially like the wheat germ, agglutinin, it can just provoke an inflammatory response in the gut cells and disturb the natural immune barrier in the gut, which makes the gut more permeable. So then you start getting leaky gut. So a lot of this stuff. So leaky gut in our research is caused a lot by the wheats, and it's obviously extremely problematic for a lot of reasons that I'm sure your audience is familiar with.

Well, what do you think about this idea, though, that, you know, and I hear this thrown around by a lot of gastroenterologists, for example, that it's not Gluten. That's the problem. Right. It's. It's the fact that, say, people have leaky guts from stress or from an antibiotic regimen or from not enough fermented food intake. And so they've got a slightly permeable gut lining, or they've been exposed to glyphosate, which we know can also wreak some havoc on the gut and render it somewhat more permeable. And that if we address those variables, like fix leaky gut and eat foods that do not contain glyphosate or use supplements like. I've talked before about a supplement like restore. Right. Which helps to protect the gut from the ravages of glyphosate that we wouldn't have to worry about. Gluten.

Yeah. Wade, you want to tackle the glyphosate question?

Yeah, It's a great thing. And, you know, our research is indicating a couple interesting things about glyphosate. Number one is they've done testing from the 40s. Relative to now, we're seeing a 4%, or, excuse me, a 4x increase in the diagnosis of celiac disease. And what they're tracing it to is glyphosates and how it's interrupting the digestive. So let's say the whole digestive process, particularly with how it's affecting protein assimilation, it's also altering the microbiome or the microbiotic environment, changing how the bacteria grows inside our bodies. And what's interesting, there was a study, I think, in 2009, was showing how glyphosate doesn't just affect gluten, but it can affect the activity of protease lipase and amylase. So I think there's a combination of factors. I think there is a. Definitely a certain percentage of the population has trouble with gluten, but this percentage is going to continue to increase because of the exposure of glyphosates. And this was also with fish. So they were finding the glyphosate in fish. So people are eating, let's say, fish in their diets, and they're getting glyphosate through that process, which is disrupting the microvilli structure in the intestinal tract. So it's a much more serious condition than people initially thought of, and it's also proliferating into other food options.

Okay, so what I'm asking, though, is if we didn't have leaky gut and there wasn't any glyphosate, could we just eat bread and have it not be an issue? And thisthis also relates to the fact that as I'm sure you've heard, a lot of people will say, hey, I went to Europe, went on vacation, had a pizza in Rome or I had some pasta somewhere in France, and I didn't have the same issues as I had in the US It's a good question.

And I know what's interesting if you go back in the research, in 1900, the US Congress was concerned about the degradation of protein content inside a wheat. And what was interesting, after World War II, we went into monoculture farming. We started using a lot of different chemical agents and stuff. So I think one of the issues is protein degradation in food, the use of monoculture, the expansion of or the diminishment of the nutrient quality of food. So if you look at are you eating from a Mennonite farm food versus something that's come from your Monsanto seeds that are being proliferated. So I think to answer your question shortly, maybe the reality of that though, I think is very difficult for people in the modern world.

But what I was saying earlier about the weed germ agglutinin is that it does seem to create leaky gut in of itself, which is again different than gluten. So and I think the answer is always it's a combination. You know, of course we want to, as scientists, we want to isolate things, right? We love to isolate variables and we want very clear culprits. But in the real world we always know it's a synergistic combination of everything. Right? So why is Ben Greenfield sub 7% body fat? It's not one thing, right? It's the exercise, the cold exposure, the keto, the intermittent fasting, the supplement, all the other lifestyle things you do.

My parents.

Right, genetics. So, you know, again, I think it's the same thing with health problems and in this case gluten. I mean, most likely it's a destructive, synergistic combination of leaky gut glyphosates and a lack of DPP4 which we're going to talk about today.

Yeah, I want to talk about DPP4, but I mean, I'm surprised that neither of you guys have brought this up, but there is this idea, of course, that all plants have a natural built in defense mechanism and that that must be rendered inactive in order for us to be able to digest the plant. This is why you rinse the saponins off of quinoa. You don't just buy quinoa from Costco and go cook it, which a lot of people do then complain they've got quinoa in their crap and they didn't digest it and their body just must be allergic to quinoa. You have to actually soak and rinse the quinoa. And you could say the same thing for, for rinsing brown rice or you could say the same thing for, for like sprouting or at least soaking lentils so they don't give you horrible gas. I mean, in my opinion, I, I think that to a certain extent it comes down to how the food is actually prepared as well. Like I eat sourdough bread for example, and I can't get sourdough bread when I'm out at a restaurant, which is, which is when I actually use quite frequently this DPP4 stuff that we're going to talk about. But I, I'll eat my wife's sourdough bread that's been soaked and been sprouted and fermented and a lot of the gluten has been pre digested and the glycemic index gets lower when you eat that bread. So I think part of it comes down to the actual food preparation methods, does it not?

Absolutely. In a perfect world you'd be eating pre digested food exclusively, but when you can't, which is most of the time, that's where enzymes come in, because enzymes will help break stuff down. So that's the thing. I mean a perfect world you'd be using probiotics and enzymes to literally break down the food before you eat it. And we talked about this in our last podcast about using even enzymes in your shake and drinking it while you work out, which has been shown to improve results from a workout significantly. So yeah, pre digested foods, the ultimate really is.

Yeah, that's part of the research and I'm sure that you as a vegan bodybuilder looked into this way, that idea that if you consume digestive enzymes, when you take a plant based protein like a hemp or rice or a pea, there's actually research that shows that the protein in that becomes as bioavailable as what you get from like a whey or an egg protein.

Well, that's exactly what was the original design of why I was so interested in enzymes, and particularly proteolytic enzymes about being on a plant based diet. Of course there was not even any, hardly any plant proteins back when I started that. One of the reasons we cultivate it and develop that product mass times is particularly to break down so I could get the amino acids out of the Food that I was eating because I was eating such a low protein diet with a high protein requirement because of the sport I was in. So that's kind of started it. And then that cascaded into all these other applications that enzymes have. And we haven't looked back ever since.

Okay, so I do have. Before we get into how these enzymes actually work and what happens when you consume an enzyme along with something like bread, I wanted to ask you guys about actual testing for gluten and whether or not you recommend any type of test to see whether or not you have some kind of reactivity to wheat and also whether or not you have any type of issue with cross reactivity. If either of you guys want to speak to cross reactivity.

Yeah. So if you want to get your. We'll probably put a link to this. But basically you want what's called an anti tissue transglutaminase antibody, TTG and TTGA, or an endomysial antibody, EMA, DGP, ARR, total IgA. So that's the testing. It's pretty. You know, you're gonna have to have someone that understands that. But of course, one of the panels that I think is great is a Cyrex panel to summarize that you can look that up for gluten sensitivity or.

Oh, what you just described is the Cyrex panel. That's the array that they use. Okay.

Some people like to go depth though. They want to know all the.

They have their array 4, which is the one called gluten associated cross reactive foods and food sensitivities. And that's one where you could find out whether or not, for example, cow's milk or caffeine. I know coffee is a big one. They do potato, they do sesame, they do quinoa. You can find out if any of these foods, if consumed along with gluten, wind up making you even more susceptible to how gluten could deleteriously affect your digestive tract. That's how these are working. Correct.

And also they're also testing to see. One of the things they're looking at is gliadin peptide antibodies. So gliadin is kind of the big culprit in gluten. That creates a lot of problems. And then your body starts producing antibodies and that's what starts triggering these anti immune responses in the body that can be leading to leaky gut and all this other stuff that goes on where you're literally breaking down your system. And that's what they're testing for as well.

I mean, you guys mentioned Wheat germagglutinin and gluten. But they test for. I mean, there's a whole bunch of stuff. Alpha gliadin and gamma gliadin. And they look at, like, microbial transglutaminase. They've got a whole host of things that they look at on those panels. So they get pretty in depth in terms of being able to tell you whether or not you're truly sensitive to gluten. Or maybe you're not even sensitive to it, but it's more like glyphosate. It's leaky gut. It's the fact that you're consuming sources of gluten that haven't been properly soaked or sprouted or fermented, et cetera.

Exactly.

Okay, so what I'll do is. And by the way, for those of you listening in, that's array. If you go to Cyrex, they call them arrays A R, R, a Y arrays. And that's array 3x and array 4. The one I usually recommend is array 10, which just, like, tests you for all sorts of different food immune reactivities. But if you really want to dial in gluten and just know beyond a shadow of a doubt what things you might be allergic to when it comes to bread or gluten or things that, when consumed along with those, would make them more reactive, you would want that. Array 3X and array 4. I think those are the two. So I'll link to those. They're blood tests. Correct me if I'm wrong, guys, but a doc has to order those, don't they?

Probably in the States. Yeah. Yeah. One of the fun things, living in the United States, which I don't, but.

Yeah, but in Canada. You guys. Are you guys able to just order from a website?

I mean, I live in Panama, so you know that you can just pretty much do whatever you want all the time.

Yeah, I had forgotten. You're in Panama. But aren't you up in Canada, Wade?

Not at the moment, no. But most of your. Most of your tests still need to be ordered by a doctor in Canada as well.

Okay, gotcha. Where do you live, Wade?

That's a great question. Right now, I'm hanging out in Santa Monica.

Okay. All right. You're kind of nomadic or deeply nomadic. That's right. You have a book called the Wealthy Backpacker, correct? Well, we won't go down that rabbit hole. Okay, so last time. Oh, go ahead, Matt.

Yeah. So how can gluten negatively affect the brain? Well, first, gluten can inflame the brain by Causing an autoimmune response. So autoimmunity is a normal response to the body's own tissues. In other words, something comes into the body and the body goes on alert, but somehow mistakes its own tissues and as a foreign invader and declares war mistakenly upon itself. So allergies is a great example of that. In this case, antibodies meant to fight gluten also attack your body. Second, during the digestive process, gluten can be broken down to strange proteins that are a lot like psychedelic drugs. These opium like proteins called gliodorphins, also known as gluteal morphine. As you probably imagine, these can drastically change brain function and behavior. And I think that's one of the reasons people get so hooked on pasta, for example. I mean, people talk about that all the time. And then the third way is by really overloading the brain with glutamate, which people that are familiar with MSG knows that's what it does. So that accelerates, activates, irritates and damages brain cells when you got too much of them. So the excessivity is obviously linked to psychiatric disorders because glutamate is an excitotoxin. So those are the big issues and the real big issue too. I know a lot of people say, well, I don't have any gluten in my house. You know, my wife's celiac, but, you know, she's scared to go to almost any restaurant. She used to be scared before gluten guardian came out. But the problem is, unless a restaurant is like a hardcore raw food place that has no gluten in the kitchen at all, it's almost impossible because to avoid it because the whole kitchen's contaminated. So those are the real issues, besides just the bloating and all the other things that people are familiar with.

Yeah, those opioids you talked about, they're not only found in gluten, but they're also found in dairy. You'll find a lot of people when they go on a gluten free diet or a casein free diet, and I actually wanna talk with you about casein and casein pre digestion as well. They experience withdrawal symptoms and a lot of times they think it's like keto flu or they went low carb or there's something else in the diet causing issues. And in fact, you can be addicted to this. It can be like coming off coffee, but almost more profound in terms of noticeable symptoms simply because the opioids in a lot of these foods, if you do go gluten free, cold Turkey. Because gluten has almost like this morphine, like addictive property to it. Gluten and the casein in dairy.

Yeah, I used to be a big casein fan. It was one of my first shifts when I started moving into a more plant based diet. Of course that was the tradition in Ayurvedic, would use casein. And then I ran into a whole lot of troubles down the road with that. And what's interesting is the China Study talked about, I believe it was that high levels of casein anything that was around 10%. They noticed an increase in tumor growth for people who had a 10% casein diet and it fell below if it was below 5%. And all of that's related to the A1 inflammatory proteins. And so I think, you know, again, there's going back to compound factors that are causing inflammation in the body. The silent killer that you don't necessarily feel initially, but later on it cultivates into other issues. I mean, the average person who gets diagnosed with celiac or gluten intolerance, for example, is between ages of 40 and 65. Because basically they've had symptoms that they didn't necessarily realize. You know, whether it was abdominal pain, headaches, anemia, you know, joint pain, muscle pain, brain fog, all these different things, psoriasis, depression. These can all be caused by the inability toto process these inflammatory proteins in Glike, in gluten also and in casein.

Yeah, yeah, that's a lot. That's something that I don't talk about a lot on the show, but it is that A1 versus A2 issue. The beta casomorphin inin. A1 milk. It would be. That's the one that sets the opioid like peptide that causes almost like that addictive withdrawal property when you consume A1 milk. And also there are a lot of other issues. You get increased risk of diabetes, increased risk of heart disease. They've linked it to sudden infant death syndrome and autism. There's a lot of issues with drinking A one cow's milk, but the majority, the lion's share of the milk in the US actually is A1 milk. Unless you specifically go out and you can Google A2 Milk. There's one company in the US called the A2 Milk Company. You can, you can avoid milk, period, unless it's like cheeses from Europe and things like that. Or you can use goat milk or camel milk or I know one that, that's kind of up and coming right now as far as being healthy for the body is like Water buffalo milk. And I don't know who's milking the water buffaloes or where all those water buffaloes are kept, but ultimately, yeah, that's a, that's a big issue as well. Completely separate from gluten. But, you know, the. I think people need to be aware that a lot of these enzymatic issues that we talk about and the use of enzymes can at least control the susceptibility to some of the opioid like, properties of these.

And just to highlight the glyphosate issue too, because maybe some people listening aren't aware they're the ones used by the great evil empire, Monsanto, who's been bought out by Bayer. And the issue is what it does. It basically damages the intestinal tract. And Wade, you want to go on a rant on Monsanto because, you know, anybody who's clued in, I mean, they could be potentially the most evil company in the world, in my opinion. A lot of people's opinions. And I think Wade's got a good rant for us queued up here.

Well, you know, not to go too crazy, but the bottom line is I always, when there's smoke, there's fire. And during the last administration in the United States, they were written into protection against lawsuits from the Constitution, and now the first company in history to have that put forth. And of course, a lot of the former chief executive officers were actually working as advisors in the previous administration in the United States. And so that's always a big question mark. And the other thing is, it's pretty demonstrable evidence the level of damage that does inside the intestinal tract. And so the question is, why is this company being protected? Why is this product being all over there? And why are we seeing a correlation with all these increased digestive related illnesses with the massive use of this product? And then suddenly this company has now been bought by a, a large pharmaceutical enterprise in Germany. And so I think it raises a lot of questions that people need to be educated about. And I'm grateful to be on your podcast to kind of share some of these things because, you know, when you start tracking these things down, it just makes it why you need to pay attention to what you're doing, what you're eating. And our food has essentially been mutated and not to our advantage in all cases.

And just to highlight how evil these guys are, in India, there were farmers that didn't want to use their seeds. So what they did, they built some farms near these farmers. Then of course, with the wind, there was cross contamination and they sued them because they have patented seeds. So they destroyed these farmers livelihood. I mean, you know, I mean, we could keep going on and on, which I know it's not the point of the podcast today, but I think it's good to bring awareness to this problem.

Yeah, it is kind of scary since Monsanto kind of has a hand in pretty much every major subsidized food, at least in Canada and the U.S. like corn and soy. So if a farmer wants to like get a break on the cost of their food production, they're likely going to have to receive those savings on like a Monsanto brand product because they have such a dominant position, at least in North American agriculture. So. So it's kind of a shitty scenario.

For a lot of farmers and for the population because at the end of the day, how this product works, if you look at glyphosates, what they actually do is they interrupt the enzymatic function of all these various bugs that they're supposedly trying to protect people from. And the question I always ask is, well, how much of this stuff do I actually have to consume before it disrupts the enzymatic function in my body and damages the microbiome inside my body? And the evidence is mounting up to say not that much really.

So. So that's actually how glyphosate is working. It's actually targeting enzymes and then potentially inhibiting your own enzyme production or damaging your own enzymes upon consumption.

Correct?

Yeah, I mean, enzymes, there's 25, over 25,000 different enzymatic functions inside the body. And you know, we don't know what the cascading effects are, but one thing that we do know is people are getting fatter, people are having more depression, and there's a lot more dysfunction relative to digestion in the population. And so again, we can't say it's a causality, but certainly I believe it's correlative.

All right, I want to get back to these 6 to 10,000 calorie days that Matt is embarking upon and this idea of pre digesting it. So last time we were together, Matt, you told me you had this stuff that you could sprinkle on bread and you could actually watch the bread digest when you sprinkled this stuff on bread. So get into the science of what exactly you were using and how an enzyme that pre digests gluten is actually working.

Yeah. So the enzyme we've been alluding to the entire podcast called D peptidol peptidase 4, it's a proteolic enzyme, which means it helps break down protein, which is what gluten is.

You can just abbreviate that DPP4 if you want, right?

Correct. Yeah. So we'll just use DPP4 moving forward.

Yeah.

It's a really simple experiment. I took two big pieces of bread, put them in a bowl with water, and I sprinkled a few capsules of gluten guardian, which has the DPP4 in it, and it dissolved the bread in 15 minutes. And people can go to the link, which been a link, and you can see the experiment for yourself.

Oh, you have a video of it?

Yeah, yeah, I did a time lapse video. So you can see it. Yeah, it's awesome. And yeah, basically the way it works in gluten's a protein and the DPP4 is a protein that'll break it down. And we also combined four other proteolytic enzymes, which helps break down other types of proteins. Because again, the reason is most people eat protein with the gluten. For an example, if you eat a hamburger, a pizza, it's not just gluten, Right. There's bread, meat and stuff. So we use a variety of proteases that work at different PH levels, because the PH levels change several times as it passes through the intestinal tract, starting in your stomach. And then there's acid buffers and it changes again the small intestine and large intestine. And then we have also three types of amylase, which helps break down the carbs. So we got gluco amylase, which is an important digestive enzyme because it helps absorb nutrients and creates energy from some of the common plant foods that we eat. It does this by breaking down the starch that occurs in a lot of naturally in a lot of vegetables. So this starch is presented in high amounts in common foods like potato, corn, rice, etc. And also it adds as a filler and processing a lot of different prepared foods. Then we got the way the gluco amylase works are it cleaves and breaks off a glucose molecule at the end of the starch, polysaccharide molecules, and basically breaks it down so you can use it and it digests the starches. And then from there we also have another enzyme called bacterial amylase, enamelase, which helps break down the starches and carbs, again at various PH levels. So that's the formulation and that's how it works.

Okay, so when you do something like this, is this something that you. You actually break open and sprinkle on your food or do you take this before you eat? After you eat? Like, how's it work?

I just take it while I eat, you know, so before I eat I just grab the food. But yeah, because if you sprinkle your bread with it like I just described in water, it's not going to be a very good culinary experience. No, because it just becomes mush.

Your sandwich is going to turn into a soup.

Exactly.

That's great. I actually have a bottle. I both my kids have a bottle too, you know, for when they go to birthday party parties or when they're at school and if they have any gluten and I just give them a bottle, I bought them both a fanny pack and sometimes I'll put it in their fanny pack or in their backpack, but they have a bottle and they use it when they're, when they're doing their foodie thing or when they're at a birthday party. But what I wanted to ask you when it comes to this pre digestion is, you know, it's one thing to pre digest it, but do you actually see a reduction symptoms or has this been studied when it comes toto alleviating symptoms? I mean, is it breaking it down to the point where there are people, you know, with gluten reactivity issues who actually aren't feeling that.

Well, all becomes a matter of dosage. So if you're a celiac and you're eating a 12 inch pizza, you're gonna need a pretty high amount. So I think because I've done some tests with my wife, we, we went to a wedding on Saturday night. We came, she had some gluten, which she rarely does. And we came back and she had some, she took some gluten guardian and she felt good, so.

Oh, she took it after.

Yeah, because I didn't bring it. That was a loser move on my part. So we took it the next day and she felt a lot better. So it does alleviate. But ideally you taking it with the food, then the capsules are gonna open up the intestinal tract and they'll break it down as it's getting digested.

Okay. So when you're using this, it sounds like you've got enough in there to where you wouldn't actually need to take like a separate bitters or a separate digestive enzyme.

Depends what you're eating. I mean, if you're eating a lot of meats and I mean again, when I'm keto, I don't use gluten guardian. I mean, unless I was eating gluten with it. But that's when I use mass times, which we talked about a lot in our first podcast.

Mastimes is the one that's high in protease for breaking down proteins. Like steak, right?

Correct.

Okay.

And we're actually, we're actually working on a keto based enzyme which is gonna come out next year. We'll come back and talk about that. But yeah, so ideally, you know, our goal is to be the digestive company, create different solutions for different types of meals and different types of diets. And really when you're eating gluten, gluten gardening is your friend.

So if you were at like a steakhouse and they're bringing out bread with the, with the steak and I actually like to have like when I'm at a steakhouse, I like to have a big old chunk of the bread that they bring out and I'll sprinkle salt on it and usually like a good butter. I enjoy that as a steakhouse, you know, with my pre, pre steak cocktail. And then I have my steak and a glass of wine. Like my, my go to is I'll have a wedge salad and I know all the orthorexic out there just took a sharp intake of breath because I'm getting blue cheese and bacon and God knows what else on the wedge salad. And then I have a steak and I have a glass of wine with a steak. I always ask for organic biodynamic wine and look for grass fed, grass finished steak. And I actually do pay attention to the ingredients on the wedge salad and often ask for the dressing on the side because usually they use too much, et cetera. But yeah, I mean typically I'll do a Moscow Mule or some kind of bitter rich digestif rich cocktail and the salad and then I'll have a couple slices of the bread with the salt and butter and then I'll order whatever cut of steak I want with it. Like a good glass of organic biodynamic wine. But what I could do is take the, something like gluten guardian right when I get there before all the appetizers and the bread and everything come out. And then I could take something like the Mass times right before the steak comes out.

Yeah, that's what I would do. That's what I do. You know, when I have those types of meals, I'll have three to five capsules of gluten guardian and about five capsules of mass times. And by the way, and you're not going to be happy to hear this, but again, it's just another reason to take DPP4. A lot of the stuff that you eat, including wine and blueberries, is basically all the berry and citrus polyphenols have been found to inhibit DPP4. So when you do take or drink those, definitely take a few garlic with it.

And it's not something like a chemical that's added to the wine or the polyphenols. You're simply saying polyphenols inhibit DPP4 activity.

Correct. And we'll put a link in the show notes so you can see the study on that.

I wonder why nature would have had that kind of built in mechanism. That seems odd.

It's a good question. It does. DPP4 inhibitors. Some diabetics use it because in. Wade can maybe get into this. But yeah, so it has to do a little bit with the insulin. Wade, you want to get into it?

Yeah. DPP4 can break down various hormones inside the body, particularly like things like insulin or something, so which has a short half life. So that's where it can interrupt some of that function for various people.

All right, so when it comes to the wheat germagglutinin and some of the other things we talked about, like the alpha, triple and inhibitors, does this have any type of effect on things other than gluten that would be found in gluten containing foods?

Yeah, it helps break those down as well as break down casein, which we talked about earlier. So that's. That's what's awesome. So again, not just when you're taking gluten, but as we talked about with the casein, when you are having, you know, any type of, especially again the A1, but any type of the milk proteins definitely take some DPP4 with it.

What about milk sugars like lactose?

Well, then you need lactase, which is a different enzyme.

Okay, is lactase in there at all?

We have that in the master. But I will add one piece to this. If you're on a plant based diet or you have a lot of plants in your diet, probably adding this in would be make a lot of sense because the chances that you're consuming glyphosates are pretty high. And so you need to have some sort of mechanism to break that down. And I think it's a good insurance policy if you're experiencing digestive related illnesses. And what I found is a lot of people just mix and match until they find the right combination.

Okay, got it. So basically when it comes to glyphosate, you're saying that glyphosate inhibits like, like you mentioned earlier, DPP4. So even if you're consuming a plant and not necessarily eating bread, if you were to take something like Gluten Guardian before you're eating, let's say a salad, and you didn't know if the salad was herbicide and pesticide free, you could consume that and it would not make as big an impact on downgrading your DPP levels.

Yeah, exactly. And we have a lot of testimonials of people that are anecdotally confirming that people that were suffering for years didn't have any way to get out of it. And then, you know, they added this in and all of a sudden, you know, the symptoms go away. So that's always a great indicator in the real world, as I like to call it, because sometimes we can get all lost and stuff is like, does this work?

Yeah. Now what were you talking about with. With keto enzymes?

Yeah, so that's a new formulation we've been working on. It's really going to be designed for people on keto. So it's a variety of light pieces and a bunch of other co factors that'll help really, people not just break down the fat, but utilize it. And it should really boost mitochondrial energy coming from. From fat. So we're really excited and should be coming out. That's by the way. Yeah, go ahead.

I was gonna say that's a good idea because a lot of people, you know, they'll start on MCT oil or coconut oil or, or, you know, putting butter in their coffee, for example, and. And they wind up with digestive distress or big, fatty floating stool. And it's because they're not actually breaking down the fats properly. And I think a lot of people don't realize there are actual enzymes that can break down fat.

Correct. Yeah. Basically they're not producing enough lipase, which. Our friend Gary Lineman, he tested all of our products and he loved Gluten Guardian. So he. And he's not a gluten eater, but for him he found that that had the biggest impact. Went back to. In the anecdotal stories, that's Gary Liman, the Human Garage.

Okay. Oh, yeah, Gary from the Human Garage. Yeah, I drew a blank there for a second. Yeah. So. So Gary's using this stuff as well, huh?

Yeah, he loves it.

Okay, all right. Got it. So you take, you said you take 3 to 5 of the gluten Guardian capsules, but then you'll add in the mass times. Then if you were going to eat A high fat meal. Eventually, once you have this lipase digestive enzyme, you'd add that in as well.

Correct. So the idea is to have basically again, the right, the right solutions for the right meals. So if you're eating a lot of, a lot of steaks, a lot of, you know, if you're eating pure protein, then mass times is it. If you're eating a lot of fat, then this new product is going to be the solution. And when you're eating carbs, gluten guardian's your friend.

Got it. Okay, cool. Now what about kids? You know, I've been giving this to my boys. Obviously they're just taking two, three max. I usually take five or six just because I eat larger pieces of bread than they do and I'm a big old boy. But how about for kids, is this okay for them to take?

Sure. No problems.

I ask after I feed it to my kids.

Yeah, I like it.

Okay, so I want to ask you guys too about your own diet because I'm sure that people are curious. I mean, you alluded just a little bit to the fact that you have this massive, almost like cheat day on a Sunday mat and then you've got this one meal a day on the other days. But that one meal a day, is it pretty hefty? Like what's that one meal look like?

No, it's probably about 1500-1800 calories. Pure keto ribeyes, primarily. Ribeye's lamb, ground lamb, eggs and bacon. So basically it's a keto meal. And yeah, so basically I'm a calorie deficit and I'll fast all day Saturday. So I eat for five days and then spike on Sunday. So my average calorie intake ends up being around 2000-2300 a week. And my goal is just to keep recompositioning my body. So I've got goals and I should be there in the next two years.

Interesting. What kind of weight training are you doing to actually put on that amount of mass while you're eating? That meal plan scenario, it's changing all.

The time, but I just lift like three days a week right now and it works very well. I do find that with the one meal a day, my recovery is not as good as it was eating more frequently. So I've trained as much as five days a week. But right now it's just three very challenging, hard weightlifting workouts like full body.

High rep, low weight, high weight, low rep. What's it look like?

Well, I'll tell you what, I'M doing right now. It's a push, pull, split. So I just trained right before our call today was, was push day. So it was, you know, bench squats, barbell press, closed grip, bench, ball bearing, split, squats, flies, tricep, push downs and, and then side laterals. So that's push day and then there's a pull day. So pull day will be deadlifts, barbell rows, pull ups, barbell curls, and then some other moves. So it's either push, pull, and I alternate push, pull, push, pull. But that, that's my current.

That's four. Four training sessions a week?

No, I do three. So basically it alternates each week. I got eight workouts that I rotate.

Through, but they're all I see. Okay, so over, over the course of a two week time span, you're, you're hitting an even number of push and pulls.

Correct. And then. Wade, Wade, what are you doing right now? You're doing a five day body part split?

Yeah, I do a five day a week body part split and I Also add in three high intensity sprint sessions for about 15 minutes, which is there's a little warm up and then there's the little ends at the end. So that's my, that's my routine.

You're still bodybuilding, right?

Well, certainly not in a competitive level. I'd say I'm, I'm competing against Father time. Like everyone, like all of us.

Okay, and your meals, because you're not eating any meat, how does your meal day look? Are you doing the one a day also?

No, I experiment for periods of time. For me, I find better. I do better on a window of about six hours. So I'll eat. And I've just, I've done it both ways. I've done it like eating later in the day and I've done it eating earlier in the day. And right now I find that eating earlier in the day, basically after I work out, is when I start, when I start eating and then I'll eat for about six hours. So right now I train early in the morning around 6:00am and then my first meal will be eight and I'll be done eating at 2:00 clock and I'll stay in a fasted state till 2 o'.

Clock.

And then one day a week I have no, I take in no calories for about. Actually it works out to about 36 hours that I go into a fasted state. And, and the goal here, and I'm only consuming about 2,000 calories a day, but the goal here is reduction of body weight, body fat and body weight. That's what I'm on right now.

Yeah, I'm blown away by the number of people who I talk to who are smart and savvy people in the industry who are fasting or have some element of fasting now on a regular basis. So I mean, I'm doing a lot of it too.

I got to give Wade some credit because, you know, we were talking about fasting a long time ago and Wade was doing fasting what, 15 years ago? Wade?

Yeah, I started that way back and yeah, I guess it was 15. Yeah, 15 years ago I started using it. I read a lot of science related stuff and in from Indian culture, which has been quite common and experimented with myself and I just always thought it was a great, a great advent adjunct to training and nutrition.

Yeah, Ayurvedic medicine has a rich history of fasting. Like for fasting and detoxification protocols they're. There's such a, such a great number of books out there on it. Like one very simple one that people could just start with is called Change youe Day, Change youe Life. And I'll link to that in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com glutenpodcast but that's a really good one. Just to begin to wrap your head around some of these timing and Ayurvedic principles when it comes to scheduling your diet and your exercise sessions. One other question that I had for you guys regarding the supplement piece was I know that at bioptimizers you have this thing called HCl, betaine hydrochloric acid to increase stomach acid, which of course is important for activating a lot of enzymes. But when it comes to that, are you stacking HCL in at all with any of these compounds? I mean, how are you working that in?

Yeah, ideally the perfect meal would be again, the enzymes, the HCl, which you only need about two capsules, and then P3Om, which is also proteolytic, which will also help break down the meal. So in every meal you would have two capsules of HCL, maybe two or three capsules of P3OM, which is a proteolytic probiotic, and then the appropriate enzyme, whether it's gluten guardian or mazymes or both. When Ben goes and has his bread and steak.

Yeah, yeah. I mean really that's when I use this stuff a lot of the time is when I'm at a restaurant, I have to admit, when I'm at home. Home. Like we have so many bitters and digestifs and natural compounds and we're eating extremely clean and a lot of fermented pre digested food. Anyways, it's, it's rare that I even use enzymes that much when I'm at home. But as soon as I travel, I mean I've got, well right now I've got the gluten guardian that I throw in my bag and I've been kind of agnostic lately on digestive enzymes for other purposes. But you know, whether it's mass Zymes or you know, I'm throwing thorn biogest in there sometimes, sometimes I've got some of the, the onnit digestive capsules. I've kind of vary all over the place. But you guys have kind of like a, like a sweet, like a branded sweet. And I like that you're adding this, this keto one in too. So you could basically have your enzyme for protein rich meals, your enzyme for the bread, the gluten and anything that has glyphosate on it. And then your enzyme for the keto and then if you need a little bit of extra digestive support for a larger meal, then you would add in the HCL, right?

Yeah, I think HCL, I think once you're past 35 years old, stomach acids really take a nosedive. So it's a, it's a very smart thing to do regardless. And of course, you know, if you don't want to use hcl, apple cider vinegar helps. I mean, that's what it is. Basically, it's an acid and the malic acid helps with basically doing the similar purpose. But if you don't want to take apple cider vinegar every meal or travel with apple cider cider cider vinegar, then the HDL breakthrough is the answer.

Okay, got it. Now, while I have you on, I also, you know, I know that you guys have P3OM, which is that, that strain where you've got like something like 2 1/2 billion CFU of Lactobacillus plantarum in those capsules for the immune system, but then also for the general health of the gut. Now as far as that one goes, do you take that on an empty stomach at a different time of day or are you taking that at the same time as you take that these enzymes?

Yeah, well, the optimal time to take it, I feel is before bed or first thing in the morning. And the reason being it's, it's not an implant strain or a colonizer, it's a transient strain which means it not only just goes into the intestinal tract, but it goes through the whole body and just wipes out bad guys and breaks down undigested protein inside the system. And that's what kind of makes it relatively unique. You can add it in addition with your meals, you know, to augment the breakdown of foods, particularly if you're having a lot of digestive related illnesses. I, we suggest that you go with a high dosage of all our products and then you start to wean yourself off after the symptoms that you're suffering from go away. So they do work independently from each other, but they, they have a synergistic effect. And a lot of our customers, customers who have problems or significant digestive problems, we just have them reach out to our customer support team and then we'll kind of help build out what, what you need to do and for how long until you're symptom free.

Well, and to go on a tangent here, and you were your first when you showed me or showed everybody in the world your biome test. I got my biome test and I talked to Naveen Jane, who actually waited. I talked to him last year. You know, basically the colonizer myth of probiotics, it was, it seems to be a myth, right, because nobody, almost nobody has any substantial amount of any of these strains. And you know, people have been taking yogurts and kombuchas and all this stuff. And you're lucky if in the biome test one or two show up. So I think that the whole colonizer thing is going to be blown out of the water here as awareness. And there was another study that I just saw three, four weeks ago, I think out of the UK and they tested, I think, 55 different probiotics, nothing colonized. And we were aware of transient strains and we're aware that our strain, what it really does, it goes and eliminates the bad guys. You know, it's really like the Navy SEALs that come in and clean house. So that's really what P3M does. And as Wade said, when you take on an empty stomach, it'll go in, get rid of the bad guys. And it seems to have incredible effects. I know some people that really had some serious digestive issues that the P3M by itself completely fixed, but it doesn't.

Actually colonize is what you're saying, correct?

Correct. And we've always known that about P3 1. It's out of the body in about three days.

Okay, all right, got it. But you, you're saying that that would be a good thing that it doesn't colonize.

I'm saying that nothing, nothing colonizes. Okay, almost nothing. I mean, as far as commercial probiotics go, I'm saying I'm declaring that officially a myth.

Okay, got it. Yeah. That's interesting. You'd think that at some point someone would figure out a way to deliver a probiotic in a, in a method that actually allows it to colonize or maintain stability in the digestive tract. It doesn't seem like that would be that difficult a job to pull off.

Well, one of the issues with probiotics, and our friend Rhonda Patrick talked about this recently, that, you know, if they're not fed what they need to be fed, they start dying off in 24 hours. So just, just like, you know, they need the right food constantly, which is, I think a big part of the challenge. So even if you do get them in there, are they going to have, I guess, the food they need to survive?

Well, ultimately, I think the, the big takeaway here is that if you're eating plants, and this is something that, that I had no clue that they, if they've been exposed to glyphosate, could down regulate DPP for production like that. So. Or I'm sorry, D. It's dpp, not ddp, Right? I think DDP is, DDP is Diamond Dallas Page. Yeah, dipeptidopeptidase. So, so basically any, any plant based meals that, that may have been exposed to Monsanto, herbicides, pesticides, glyphosate, any bread, you just pop this stuff before and you're good to go.

Correct? Yeah.

All right, cool. And, and I should mention too, I'm not a fan of. And even my cheat days are probably different than yours, Matt. I just cheat on more of the good stuff, like more of the grass fed grass finished ribeye and stuff, sweet potato fries and like, you know, good organic wine and stuff like that. I don't necessarily go pizzas and Twinkies and stuff like that myself, but I do think there's a time and a place when, you know, when you're at a restaurant, they bring out that wonderful artisanal bread or you're at an Italian and you want to get a side of pasta, you know, with your, with your appetizer salad or you know, situations where, you know, you're not using this. And I don't want to encourage people to go out and just eat crap food. But at the same time, when you find yourself in these situations, even at parties where you want to Try little appetizers and you don't know what's in them. Or even like last night I had it because my wife made. We had a pumpkin carving party and she made like a potato, like a sweet potato. It was almost like a sweet potato pie, but you spelt in the crust. And for me, I'm really gluten sensitive. So for me, even, even for something like spelt, I needed take the gluten guardian beforehand. So there's some quote, healthy, unquote foods that it, that it comes in handy for as well. Anyways, though, I'm droning on, but what I do have for everybody listening in is a 10 discount. So the 10 discount code is greenfield and I'll link to Gluten Guardian, or you can just go to glutenguardian.com greenfield and they've already got a discounted price there, but you knock another 1010 off when you use code greenfield@glutenguardian.com and when you go there, you probably heard us talking, of course, about P3OM, probiotic and MAs and some of these others. You can, you can get all those at that same website just fine. And, and guys, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the code Greenfield will work for any of that stuff on it.

Yes. Yes, sir.

Okay.

We love Greenfield.

Cool. I like it. All right, so all of that I'll put over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com glutenpodcast and if you find Matt and Wade fascinating, go listen to the other episode where we talk about probiotic enemas. We take a pretty deep dive into some other digestive enzymes in addition to DPP that we need to talk about today and how Wade body builds on a vegan based diet and a lot more. So check all of that out as well. I'll link to that@BenGreenfieldFitness.com glutenpodcast and gentlemen, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing this stuff with us. You're allowing a lot of people now to enjoy their Italian restaurants to the fullest.

Yeah. And if everybody wants to go and try the products, we got two guarantees. One is a 365 day unconditional money back guarantee. And then we've got a new thing that we started last year. We haven't really talked about too much publicly, so I think it's the first time we do. We have a will fix your digestion guarantee. So a lot of times people try a product because they misdiagnosed their problems and they might buy the wrong thing. So we're happy to chat with that person and actually send them another one of our digestive solutions for zero cost. And 95% of the time we found that the second solution fixes the problem. And if that doesn't work, then we'll give them their money back. So as far as we know, no one else is doing this. So it's pretty wild, pretty cool.

It's a pretty good guarantee. I like it.

Yes.

Cool.

Yeah.

All right. 365 days satisfaction, your money back and.

We'Ll fix our guarantee. Yeah, I like it.

Cool. All right. Well, Matt Wade, thanks for coming on the show, guys.

Thanks, Ben.

Alright folks, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Matt and Wade signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing week. Want more? Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com where you can subscribe to my information packed and entertaining newsletter and click the link up on the right hand side of that webpage that says Ben Recommends where you'll see a full list of everything I've ever recommended to enhance your body and your brain. Finally, to get your hands on all of the Yankees unique supplement formulations that I personally develop, you can visit the website of my company kion@getk.com that's getK-I-O-N.com.