How To Hunt Down And Destroy Hidden Health Hazards In Your Environment.

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Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield, and I'm actually holding in my hands a device that I've been having a lot of fun with lately. You may have heard me mention a Brock on a podcast episode a few weeks ago about how I found out that the carrots in my fridge that I thought were organic actually had a ton of nitrates in them. And this was because I've got this little probe that I shoved into one of those carrots and measured the amount of nitrates with. And I've also been going around my home and annoying my wife and kids, not just by measuring nitrates in our the fruits and vegetables that we eat, but I've been playing around, for example, in our bedroom, unplugging and plugging certain things back in. Because this thing will measure how much EMF is in my bedroom. I've gone outside and measured the radiation in our backyard, the humidity in our house, the EMF in my office. Office. It's pretty cool. Basically, I've been able to kind of hunt down and destroy all these little hidden health hazards in my environment. And what I've been using for all of this is this little device called the Lapka. And Vadic, the designer of the Lapka, is on the podcast with me today. And we're going to delve into not just what this thing is and how it works, but how it can actually help you because it's actually got some pretty cool applications. So, Vadic, thanks for coming on the call, man. Hello.

Thank you for having me.

So tell me exactly what this thing is, because I don't really quite understand how it works, but can you kind of give the basic overview of Lapka and all the things that it measures and then we can kind of delve into as you talk about this, like how each of the measurements actually work. But can you go into how you came to design this and what it measures?

So, yes, of course. Thank you for a great introduction of the devices. Actually, it's really great. So Labka is a company, so it's not just four devices that you own, it's actually five devices. And our first product calls Personal Environment Monitor. It's a Set of four separate units, basically four separate sensors which measuring things that you don't see. And they made in a beautiful way. And actually we call it ridiculously beautiful because people don't believe that they real. They're so small and they're so cute and beautiful that people think that they.

Look like little Lego pieces that you plug into your phone.

Yes. And I don't think that's good thing or bad thing, actually, this point, but people think that's just a set of toys or something like this. And also another interesting part is that almost unintentionally, girls are our biggest fans and we have requests from guys asking us to have a black edition.

So a black one.

Black one, yes.

Because right now it's like beige with wood.

It's beige with wood with some very cute patterns on top. And we intentionally don't say things like, so, yes, there's four devices that measure radiation, humidity, temperature, electromagnetical fields, and nitrates. Your fruits and vegetables, all these things are not very positive in real life, like radiation. It's not something that you want to, you know, discover at one point, but also that's something that. That you don't want to think about, even. Or electromagnetical fields. It's also a sensitive topic. Nitrates, which basically measures whether you produce organic or not. It's also something not typical to talk about. It's kind of sensitive topic. And the idea behind the design was to make the devices very, very friendly and very cute. So people will think about the object first and about the story and about the beauty of it. And they will just want to own this object and hang it on the desk or in some cafe with people, conversation starter, rather than think about the purposes. So basically the idea is that people will buy the device because it's just beautiful, and then on the second day, they will realize that it actually measures radiation, for example. So in the app and the story and everything, starting from tweet to Facebook posts, to packaging, to manuals and to actual use of the device, of the application, the industrial design is based around the store. That is just very, very fun. And again, that's a good thing.

It is pretty fun to use to just run around your house measuring all this stuff. But we got a bunch of geeks that listen to this show. We're all nerds at the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast. So I think the people are probably going to want to want to delve into the science of this thing a little bit, because it is kind of weird how, like this little Lego piece that you plug into your phone can measure stuff. So, first of all, my first question for you is going to be the whole EMF thing, because that's something we've talked about on the podcast before, and people are aware of the dangers of. Of electromagnetic fields that get produced by our phones and wifi devices and nearby power lines and microwaves and all that kind of stuff. But how in the heck is this thing actually measuring the emf? Like, when I'm walking around my house with this plugged into my phone, what kind of device is in it that's measuring emf?

Have you tried to place it near the microwave?

Yeah, I've tried it in all sorts of areas in my house.

It's different, right, Than you see it. So I actually tried microwave, actually in us in Los Angeles in my friend's apartment. And the microwave was very fancy, but it emits electromagnetical fields like 5 meters away from it. So it's interesting.

And incidentally, we actually keep our microwave unplugged now. But there are other weird things. Like I plugged in the lamp next to my bed and just the simple act of having the lamp plugged in or unplugged jacked up the EMF in the room.

That's true. And you know, things like, for example, the monitors in airplane, they also emits emf. So you just. I mean, it's not. I don't think that it's super dangerous. It's just interesting to see that there's stuff around you. And coming back to your question about the accuracy and how we're doing it. So there's no magic, of course. It's just the computer inside your pocket. Smartphone or iPhone in this case is super, super powerful. So we leave out all the processing power, the battery, any components besides sensors from the device. So there's just a sensor. That's it. And it plugs by cable. So that means there's no Bluetooth. Again, there's no battery, there's no synchronization. You just plug the cable into your iPhone and it works. So by doing this, we were able to reduce size and make it very simple.

Does it work the same as one of those EMF meters? Like, there's websites like less emf.com where you can buy.

Well, there's many variations. There's very professional tools, but there's amateur tools. So I would say that we are an amateur part still. However, the only difference is the size. So if you want to make the measurement very, very precise and accurate, you just need to have a bigger antenna. We have Two antennas inside the device. There's for low frequency and for high frequency. So high frequencies, cell phones, microwave, et cetera. In low frequencies, fluorescent lamps or high voltage lines outside your apartment. And these antennas are just tiny. They're very small. And that's why we can't detect some things like the source of the electromagnetic fields. The professional devices, they actually can detect the source and the direction of these fields. So you can detect where it's come from. We can't do that because the antenna is so small. We can just sense that something is there.

So it's basically like an antenna inside this little block.

Yes. There's just two antennas for low frequency and for high frequency electromagnetical fields.

Well, I don't know how other people are using this thing, but I've found a bunch of application in my office. Like I published a video on my YouTube channel the other day and if people want to watch it, you can go to YouTube.com BenGreenfieldFitness but I've got my wife router with the radio turned off and plugged in, like hardwired. And then I've got my computer grounded and I have a dirty electricity filter in all of the power outlets in my office. I've got a negative ion generator. And what else do I have in here? I've got a, like a, like a dirty electricity filter between the router and my computer. Anyways, I set all this up and then measured with the Lapka and then like put it all back into the kind of like the situation where I was producing a lot more dirty electricity in the office and it was like tens of units higher with the WI FI router on and with the dirty electricity filter. Like, my next thing is I'm gonna try things one by one and see what makes the biggest difference. But it's, it's pretty cool how I.

The difference between this device and the professional one that will cost you like a couple of thousand dollars is that these devices will be able to give you the direction, the source and the measurement will be professionally precise. We can guarantee that we can detect the source of the field, but we can certainly say that it's there, it's higher than it's supposed to be, and that's the number. Again, the only compromise is just the size of the device. It's basically about all other devices. For example, radiation sensor.

Yeah, that's what I want to ask you about next actually. Is the radiation. Yes.

People confused why it's so small and.

Yes, tiny.

It's tiny. And there's Actual Gaeger counter inside, it's a small tube, and it comes.

What'd you call it? A giger counter?

Giga counter, yes.

And it's just small, like what we say over here in the States. A Geiger counter.

Geiger counter, yes. Okay. It's a small metal tube. And every radioactive particle which passes through this tube, we can detect it. And we actually count these particles. And based on this, based on the amount of particles in some period of time, we can tell you your level of background radiation. So that's how any other device works. The only compromise that we had to do is that we make it very small. And that's why the time that we need to make the measurement is longer than it will be in professional device because the tube is bigger. So that's the only difference.

It only takes like 60 seconds or something like that.

60 seconds is not the precise one. So you have to wait like five minutes. And after five minutes, you can compare it with any other professional device. It'll be the same number. So it's just the only compromise. Again, the time.

Yeah. I'm actually measuring the radiation right now, but you can look at the radius like everybody else using the device. I can see the amount of radiation across the entire United States right now.

Yes.

From everybody else.

Yes. We have real time map and every measurement. You, of course, can switch this off, but by default, every. And you can. We ask you, of course, in front. That's important. That's privacy. But if you say yes, we'll send every measurement that you take to our map in real time. So you'll see your measurements, but also you'll be able to see other people's measurements, and it's interesting to see how different they are. For example, we have two apps. One app is kind of more fun, more playful. There's achievements. There's, you know, there's no numbers. There's less numbers, more fun. And there's a second app. I don't know which one you tried, but there's a second app, it's called Spro. And in Pro app, there's no fun at all. It's just numbers in graphs and you can see just the number. And that's it. So you have. We leave this.

Yeah, mine is a fun one. It's got like this Tetris thing on it.

Okay. Yes, exactly.

It gives me points for measuring my environment as I go. So it kind of gamifies it.

Yes, yes, yes. And it's interesting to see that sometimes for some measurements, there's more people, which Measures with pro application rather than fun application. And for example, if they measure organic with nitrates, they measure it with fine applications because I guess that's how they feel. But if they measure something sensitive like radiation or electromagnetic fields, they use Pro app. So, you know, this kind of information we have, we now proceed 500 measurements per day around that. And of course it's not 500,000, but it's still okay number.

Yeah, I'm downloading the Pro app right now. I want to ask you about these radioactive particles, actually. So you've got. Just for people who don't really understand this, can you explain what these radioactive particles are? What kind of things would emit radiation and why we should even care?

I wouldn't go this deep, especially.

Because.

The idea of Lavka is not to give you. Not to give you. Not to participate in this holy war. You know, either organic food or there is no organic food. Is EMF fields dangerous or they not? You know, these kind of questions, we don't really want to participate in that. So we not ever talk about the danger. And that's on purpose because we just produce these beautiful and convenient tools for you. And it's for people to decide if a danger or not. So that's kind of our position. I think that's, that's important because we, again, we don't want to be in this war between two universes. But just small information about the radiation is that there's three types of particles. It's Alphabet and gamma. The alpha is the easiest one because you can protect it even with piece of paper. So the alpha particles won't pass through piece of paper. The better particles are more dangerous. I don't know the specifics and I won't talk about this, but there's a beta and there's gamma. So gamma is the most dangerous ones and it's a bit harder to detect them. So we detect the better particles.

Okay, gotcha. And there's different limits for radiation. Like legal levels of radiation limits.

Yes.

So you can, you can set this up differently depending on whether you're in like your baby's bedroom versus whether you're on an airplane.

Yes. So that's coming back to, you know, imagine that there's a person who just bought the device because it's just so beautiful and so fun. So this person won't know where to find electromagnetical fields or radiation because normal person won't do this ever. That's. That's kind of strange thing to do, I think. So we put this presets for people so they can to guide them where they can find them. Like for example, if you're flying on the plane, your radiation background level will be 10 times higher than on the ground because it's just closer to sun. So it's natural thing and you can change it. It's not that dangerous. It's just, you know, nature. So if you want to measure the ocean on the plane, you have to switch to the plane preset. Because the threshold will be different.

Yeah, it's got a different threshold depending on the environment you're in.

But if you will be, for example, you know, if you have newborn baby, then every particle is super important. So if there's even the tiny, tiny sign of radiation or electromagnetic fields, you want to know this. So the threshold is different for every situation.

What are some things that would be in like a baby's bedroom that would produce radiation different than emf?

Well, it's very specific, but once I was in a cafe in San Francisco and there was this very beautiful.

Long.

Marble table and it was just beautiful. And I was showing lapka to someone and then I turn on radiation. It was super, super high just because there's this huge marble stone in the table. So, you know, it's hard to say. There's many, there's many things that could emit some. But I think just to be.

Honest.

There'S not much thing that you can find in daily life around you.

But I mean like things like radiation, things like Fukushima and things of that nature, like that might cause a little bit of like nuclear radiation, right?

It might. But again, I think that we are safe more or less in the nitrates is more sensitive because there's really difference between fruits and vegetables. And not to freak out, but still you can find a very good one and a very bad one.

Yeah, but there's some stuff too, like lead based paint and things of that nature that can produce radiation that could theoretically kind of put you in an environment where you could measure in one room and see the difference in another room. And that could be due to something as simple as the paint on the wall, right?

Could be, yes. Well, we are working on this. You know, another bunch of sensors and the one of the most requested one is actually radon. Radon?

Radon, you know, radon. Yes, it is, yeah.

Something that. Something in the paint or so that's.

Also very requested sensor or like carbon monoxide from household appliances. That'd be another interesting one.

Yes. Also in progress. Yeah, maybe that's a secret. I shouldn't Say this.

So we've got emf, we won't tell anybody we've got emf, we've got radiation. And then another one that we've already mentioned a couple times is this whole nitrate based issue. First of all, how does this thing measure nitrates?

So. There's two types of sensors. There's many types of sensors, but there's basically physical one and electrochemical one. I mean electrical and electrochemical. So electrochemical is very complicated sensor and we don't have that. We have just electrical sensor, which, which means that it measures the electricity conduction. That's it. So then you place this tiny steel probe in your produce, fruits or vegetable, say potato. It measures the conductivity of this potato. And the conductivity depends on salt. And the salt. In most cases, the higher amount of salt could be the amount of fertilizers that left there after they pick up this potato. Of course, the salt there could be natural. Natural fertilizers will leave the big amount of salt. That's also possible. But again, in most cases, this amount of salt in the big one, the very high one, could be from artificial fertilizers.

Right.

Based.

From like nitrogen based fertilizers. Yeah. So basically if you got an organic fruit or vegetable and they weren't actually using organic farming practices and the produce had been exposed to nitrogen based fertilizers, you can pretty much audit your produce to see whether or not it actually does meet the defined limits for nitrate concentration.

Exactly. However, there's, you know, they could be very organic fertilizer. So these things we can detect because it is just conductivity. Yeah, it's not a chemical, so it's not pesticides. It's nothing. So the fruit, the fruit or vegetable could be still poisoned. We can't detect it, unfortunately. But I just want to.

Yeah, it's just like this. Just to clarify for people listening in, it's like this probe, like this needle that you like stick into.

Exactly.

A carrot or a cucumber or whatever.

Yes. And so just to clarify this even more, this device is not capable to detect, Say is it 25 or 26, you know, because this precision is not possible in non laboratory surroundings because you have to do the process right and you have to involve chemicals and the professionals to deduct this experiment in a very precise way. However, I think that that's the closest that we can get to measure the nitrates. Just in a shop or, you know, before you make a salad.

Yeah, yeah. Interesting. And it's been a lot of fun. I have Been annoying my wife quite a bit, just walking, plugging stuff into her produce and leaving small holes in it. But it's actually really co. And I like too that you can, you know, it gives you a basic idea of the amount of nitrates and it gives you some information along with it. Like when I measure it tells me what the average concentration, like the accepted nitrogen limit is. And then where, where my produce measures up, which is pretty cool. So another one that, that you guys have, I guess this would be like the fourth one is the humidity. So you got radiation, electromagnetic fields, how organic your produce is, and then humidity. Why did you decide to put humidity in here?

So we just had a list of the sensors that we want to build and we thought that it would be very great to come up with this environmental set that will expand further in the future. And I think if you think about the environment, the temperature and humidity together is very important. So it would make sense to measure just humidity because even if it's in a good position, say 55% relative humidity is a good one, but then it's colder, you know, it's not great. So we actually show you results based on the temperature and we compare them together and we're saying that that humidity is okay for this temperature. And we have this kind of sweet spots, we call it comfort zones. And then you measure something, you have to hit this comfort zone. That's how we know you're in the right place. And these comfort zones, they actually come from just common sense sometimes, but also they come from, you know, the specific parameters for office, like there's a actual numbers for perfect office conditions, or there's some research based, some research for the best sleeping conditions or just something for fun like the temperature, humidity to store wine or cheese.

So you could, for example, instead of just looking at whether or not you sleep best. A lot of people sleep really well in a room that's at 66 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit. But you could also start to play around and figure out, for example, the humidity in your room. I have one of those portable humidifiers that I'll travel with. You plug a water bottle into it and it will humidify your room. And when I go to a hotel, if I have this little square box that I plug a water bottle into and I humidify the air, I sleep better. But it'd be really interesting to see if there's like a law of diminishing returns with humidity, or if I could walk into a hotel room and just pull this thing out and Measure humidity and see whether or not I would even need to plug this, you know, like my portable humidifier in. I could see there being some pretty cool application for something like this.

Exactly. It's interesting because you said that EMF for you, the most interesting one for me personally, I use humidity and temperature more than any other blocks other sensors because again, there's a sweet spots and every time you want to hit the middle, you don't want to be outside of this comfort zone, you want to be in the middle. And every office, I'm, I mean, some friends or partners. Yeah, I always check this because you know, sometimes it's actually perfect because they care about this, but sometimes it's just so way out and people saying like, I know, that's why I feel like this so interesting.

Cool. So basically in terms of feedback you've been getting so far, have you found people using this in ways that you hadn't anticipated or you know, like, like me, like I measured. I could potentially use humidity, for example, for optimizing sleep. But have you gotten some user feedback that you found interesting?

I would say that we achieved interesting results not by how people measure, how people measure in what they measure, but who actually measuring. And for example, we sell the devices in Urban Outfitters, which is kind of incredible because that's a place for teenagers and they can buy their EMF detector or giga counter. And I think that's our biggest achievement because these people will never buy these kind of devices by their own will because the topic in general is just boring or scary and the devices are just ugly and super expensive. So we managed to do the device for just teenager, for example, who were able to buy the device and use it because it's fun and because it's cool. And I think by doing this we actually introduced these things to them because again, there's no way they will measure this stuff around. And if you think about other devices like blood sensor or urine sensor, you know, these kind of things, how you would, how would you introduce this to teenagers? How would you introduce it to people who not sick yet, who don't have prescription? So how you make these people, especially young people, to buy these devices by their own will, I think we're getting there. That's our goal. And I would say that we just managed to 16 years old, boy or girl, measure radiation because it's cool. I think that's our biggest achievement.

Yeah, yeah. Is this only for iPhone right now, by the way?

So we have, as I said, we have two products. One is this Personal Environment Monitor and another one is Breathalyzer. So Breathalyzer is iPhone and Android Personal Environment Monitor is just for iPhone at this point, but we will launch Android soon.

Okay, so you get an Android sin. Nice. Well, I'm going to put a link to it. I mean, I don't have any financial association with your company or anything like that. I just think it's a pretty cool device. And by the way, just so I'm totally clear with our listeners, full disclosure, I did get a free device to trial, but after trying this thing out, I would definitely buy one. And I think it's pretty cool to be able to just walk around totally quantifying everything in your environment. So anyways though I would encourage folks visit. Well you can get it@mylapka.com or you can check it out over in the show notes where I've got some more information on some of the science behind it and everything over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com but it's spelled L A, P K A Vadak. Was there anything else that you wanted to share with the listeners before I let you go?

I think it's important to create the medical devices for healthy people because we can help and we can make something different before we get sick. And I think that's very important. And the only way to make it is to make it very cool, maybe strange, super fun and with a very interesting narrative. That's what we're trying to do.

Yeah. Cool. Well, I like it and it is cool. It's beautiful. I just have to make sure my kids don't get a hold of it and think it's like a special new Lego toy. But other than that, yeah, it's beautifully designed. So kudos and it's super helpful and I love it. So folks, it's called the Lapka and you can check it out at mylapka.com or over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com in the show notes. So thanks for joining us today, Vadic, and telling us all about this thing.

Thank you, Ben.

All right.

This was very, very fun.

I'll talk to you later.

Visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice. Sam.