The #1 Appliance In Your Home That Churns Out Hidden Toxins, And What You Can Do About It.

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

The highest exposure that we have of hormone disruption chemicals is actually the air inside our homes. If truckloads of dirt with the same level of contaminants in people's homes, in people's carpets, or dumped outside, it would be classified as a hazardous waste dump. Whatever laundry soap, laundry products you're putting on there have to be clean because your skin is eating them. Essentially, we have the largest degree of control in our homes. If you have toxins in the workplace or toxins driving down the road or not a whole lot you can do there.

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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Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And my guest today is actually a guy that I used to live with down in Moscow, Idaho, almost a decade ago when I went to college at University of Idaho. A bunch of us guys lived in a. Lived in a house a couple of miles from campus. And one of the guys there was Brett, Brett Bauer, who's my guest on today's show. And Brett and I used to have a ton of fun together. He. He had this. I remember, I thought it was so cool. He had this awesome red BMW car with, like, this $50,000 sound system that was featured on MTV. And, you know, we used to drive that thing around and pump music up down in Moscow. And, you know, we. We also did what. What a lot of folks who hang out, you know, down in University Town do. We. We drank a lot of beer. We did a lot of, like, you know, hot tubbing and. And eating junk food and, you know, basically doing what a lot of folks do when they're. When they're partying and living what I would consider now to be kind of a toxic lifestyle. And Brett and I have reconnected recently, and I was pretty pleased to see that he kind of, like me, has taken a deep dive into fixing up his life, into detoxing, and into really, really taking a deep, deep dive into, like, the alternative health scene and what it takes to live an optimized life when it comes to optimized performance and longevity. And he's discovered a lot of cool things along the way, and especially when it comes to detoxing your home, even if you think you live in a perfectly pristine, clean home. I actually had Brett over to my house recently, and he found a bunch of issues in my relatively new biohacked, quote, unquote, perfect home that I wasn't even aware of. And so I thought it would be really cool to get him on the podcast, hear his story of his detox journey, and also to del into some of the things that Brett particularly happens to be an expert in that I really haven't talked to a lot of other people who have the body of knowledge that Brett has when it comes to some of the things that you're probably unaware of in your own home, when it comes especially to toxins and hidden toxins and even appliances that you probably use that could be doing some damage to you. So as we move forward into the talk with Brett, I do also want to make you, if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com clean home, that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com Clean Home. All the resources that Brett and I talk about today, any of the show notes, because I furiously scribble things down as I talk with my guests. And anything you want to know, I'll put over there@BenGreenfieldFitness.com CleanHome. So, that being said, Brett, welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness show, man.

Hey, thanks, Ben. It's good to talk to you again.

So, you know, up until recently, when you and I were hanging out here at my house, you know, the last time that we parted ways, you know, down in Moscow, Idaho, I remember we lived together in that house, like, over on Morton Street. And I believe we had so much beer up in the attic that it was literally like bowing down the floors of the attic like that. That was the breath that I knew was we just, like, we drank a lot and we lived a toxic lifestyle. What happened? Like. Like what. What happened with your journey from. From that point up until, like, we reconnected recently.

You know, I kind of had a little bit of an interest in health, and it's more so on diet at that point in my life. So I tried to eat healthy other than other than the drinking and partying, but I wasn't aware that there was. And just like, okay, well, you have to. I was kind of into customized nutrition at that point. So it's like different people need different macronutrients. And I figured that out, but I wasn't really aware of like toxin issues or detoxification or just the numerous other elements to health and wellness. So I was just mainly focused on customized diet. And, you know, of course I knew that drinking wasn't the best thing for me, but it was fun. And when you're young, all your detoxification pathways are open and you have a sense of you're going to live forever and it doesn't matter. As I got older, I just learned that these things really mattered and then moved over to Eugene, Oregon for a while and lived with the hippies and some crazy weird people. That was kind of fun. And then I was searching, trying to optimize the diet, and I went to the International Raw Food Festival. Just kind of a fun little adventure. It's like all these not just vegetarian, not just vegan, but raw food people.

Where do they have that? Where did the International Raw Food Festival?

They had it in Portland that time? Yeah. So I went to that and heard David Wolf's talk on how it was unethical. I was the guy with the beef jerky in my car, by the way. I wasn't being offensive to anyone. It's just I believed you should eat meat, but I wanted to learn from whatever group that's always been my belief. It doesn't interest me where the information comes from. I just want the information. So I went to that and talked about optimal diet. And then there was this guy there that I ended up talking to that talked about a fruitarian diet and that being optimal from a structural standpoint. And it made a lot of sense. When you do comparative anatomyour digestive tract, our teeth, everything is closest to the bonobo, which is a subspecies of chimpanzee, which is closest to us genetically. And so it's like, oh, this, this diet seems to make some sense. And also there's a spiritual component in it that you're not killing plants or animals, you're just eating fruit. So I'm like, I'm going to try this diet. And he's like, oh, but you must first detoxify. I'm like, what? Detoxify? What do you mean? It's like, well, you have to cleanse your system. You have to do a fast. I'm like, oh, okay, go a day or two. No, no, no, no. You have to do it real. So I ended up going to his fasting clinic and doing a 17 day water fast.

And you did that. Was that David Wolf's clinic?

No, it wasn't David Wolf's clinic. It was Loren Lachman. He's a guy who had a fasting, really great guy, very much in this return. And he did it for 10 years successfully. Very healthy guy. Just eating fruit and leafy greens for 10 years.

Wow. Holy cow. You know, I had the 30 bananas a day guy on my podcast a while ago and that's literally what he does, is he's a fruitarian. It's the. Doug, do you know the.

Oh yeah, yeah, I know who you're talking about. It's been about a decade since I.

Since I. Yeah, Doug's somebody who's basically like. And I believe it's 80, 10, 10, 80% carb, 10% fat, 10% protein, majority of your daily diet from basically mainlining fructose into your bloodstream via fruit. But obviously you and I had dinner together a few weeks ago and we were chowing down on, I believe they were venison skewers that my wife had made. So obviously you've moved on from a fruitarian diet. But what happened there? What happened when you did the detox and the water only diet and this kind of experience, what did you discover?

The detoxification part of it was great. The 17 day water fast was spectacular. I highly recommend it. It's one of the best, most effective ways to detoxify. It's not the best way, but it's the best way I knew at the time, but it's just, I don't think it's for most people because you have to be pretty extreme to not go without food for that long. It's not as bad as it sounds, but the detoxification part was great. But then when I tried to diet, you know, I did everything right and I was like, I was actually there at Moscow selling that Morton street house, cleaning up the shop there and I felt like an 80 year old man walking around like, oh, I don't have any energy. And I was doing everything right. You know, as far as the protocol went, you know, it's like, I'm eating fruit, I'm eating organic, I'm eating, you know, I've done everything right, but I have no energy at all. And so I was like, you know, I heard this technique a while back. You know, if you, if you ask yourself a question before you take a nap, you'll wake up with the answer. I'm like, oh, I'll try that. Because I don't, I don't know what's wrong. So I took a nap there on the shop floor and woke up and I wanted a hamburger. So I thought, oh, you don't need a hamburger. You need to call support group. I'm like, hey, I don't, I don't need to support people. I just need a hamburger. So I ended up going over to Zips and getting like two Papa John burgers and two or three of them and like some fries and eating them and then thinking, oh, I'm going to be really sick, because that's what they said. I felt great. And it's like, okay, well, the fruit diet is obviously not for me. And since then I learned more about customized nutrition. And some people are genetically more Eskimo, like, and some people are more Pacific Islanders. And so some people can get away with fruit diet. But yeah, yeah.

And obviously, I mean, like, you know, and we were talking about this a little bit before we started recording today's episode. Like, you know, when, when we had dinner a couple weeks ago, like, we obviously talked for like an hour just about diet. And I know that today we're focusing on more like toxins and a clean home and, and some of the other areas that you have expertise in. But I know one of the things that we hit on was you really can feel like a million bucks when you switch to like a fruititarian or a vegan or a water only fast type of diet. And those things really, really do work for cleaning out the body. But then you can get to a certain point where you begin to experience things like amino acid deficiencies or fatty acid deficiencies or micronutrient deficiencies that stem potentially from not including something like, say, like fermented dairy or organ meats or even, I wouldn't necessarily say, zips, hamburgers, but certain other things in your diet that can round things out. And yeah, I think, you know, it sounds to me like what you discovered was that, yeah, one of these type of more extreme detoxes can certainly clean up the body. But you do get to a point where you start to have to replace some of the other basic building blocks and return to perhaps a more, a more broad, almost like, you know, what we might call like a Weston A. Price type of diet. Right?

Yeah. And that's the diet that I've been on for the last decade that I believe in a combination of Weston A. Price and then the, the leading expert in the world on customized nutrition, which is William, who wrote the metabolic typing diet, really helps you zoom in on exactly where you are nutritionally because we're all genetically varied.

The metabolic typing diet. That's what you said.

Yeah, yeah. He's a formal expert in the world Customized nutrition. So that's who I call that.

Who's that?

William Wolcott.

William Wolcott. Got it. Okay, cool. I'll make sure I put a link to his info in the show notes. BenGreenfieldFitness.com CleanHome so speaking of clean home, now you kind of specialize in removing toxins from people's home. And I mean, like, that was, like, even when you first walked into my house, you know, my relatively new house, you know, you started talking about the smells and, you know, the side of everything, you know, from, like, the walls to the carpet to the air, like, you're able to pick things up, you know, as far as these. These type of toxins in the home go, why is it that you've decided to begin to focus on people's homes and your own home? Why is it that you feel that this is so important a place to start?

I think it's so important for several reasons. One is we have the largest degree of control in our homes. If you have toxins in your workplace or toxins driving down the road or walk down the supermarket aisle and smell stuff, not a whole lot you can do there, but in your home, you have a lot of control and you have a lot of exposure time as well. Most people spend 10, 12, 15 hours a day in their home. So you have control and you have a lot of exposure. So you can potentially get a lot of benefit by getting rid of the toxins. And there's a lot of toxins in our home. It's not like we have these nice little log cabins, like Little House on the Prairie days. It's not the way it is anymore.

Yeah. And when it comes to the home and the major exposures that people might have in their home, what are some of the main things that you see as far as the areas of people's body that are most prone to getting exposed to toxins in the home?

There are several different ways that people get exposed. One thing I'll start off with, that I think is a really, really important thing that is simple to fix, is when people take a shower, what happens is most people, unfortunately, they don't live in North Idaho like you and I do, or Spokane, Washington, where we have a well, or you have good, clean water. Most people have chlorinated water. And what happens is when you take a shower in chlorinated water, that chlorine evaporates, turns into chloroform gas, and it gets into your lungs, and it's large, large quantities because you're Breathing this warm water, this warm steam filled with chlorine. And it's equivalent. Approximately every minute of showering is equivalent to drinking 8 ounces of chlorinated water. Which most people who are health oriented be like, oh, I'm not going to drink chlorinated water. And the nice thing is there's a simple fix. You can just get a shower filter. They're not very expensive. I'm so particular that I take a shower filter with me if I go stay in a hotel, whatever. I've got my shower filter. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Even when I used to work out in gyms, I would go in there, like kind of sneaky, like, oh, I'm taking apart my shower head and you know, because I'm not going to poison myself.

What do you use? Is there like a brand of shower filter?

There are different ones you can get. If you're on a budget, you can just get a cheap one and it'll get a lot of it. I like the Aquasana one because I've researched a company. They seem to have really good products and yet a reasonable price point. Also they make one that comes with an additional hose to it for like a shower wand, which people may or may not like. But the advantage of that is you can actually put it into your bathtub. So if you're taking a bath, you can use it as a chlorine filter for your bath so your bath water has no problem.

Gotcha. I'm looking at it on Amazon right now. The Aqua S A N A.

Correct.

Okay, Correct. Got it. So you can literally take that. And if you're traveling, you could put it in your bag and bring it to a hotel. And if you're showering in the hotel, you could. You could use that shower water filter.

Yeah, that one's a little bit bigger. It's a little bit bulkier. I use one that's about the size of a fist. A big fist. It's a little more portable. For my portable one, it probably doesn't do as good a job, but it gets most of it. Or you could carry that one. It's a little bit bulkier. But if you're taking a bath, that's definitely the way to go. Or if you have one in your home, that's definitely one I keep in my home when I really like that.

Gotcha, gotcha. So obviously there's a whole list of, like, personal care products like deodorants and sunscreens and soaps and shampoos, and anything that you put on your skin can Be, you know, a hormone disrupting chemical. And we've talked about those type of things on the podcast before. Are, are there things that you do as far as not necessarily omitting issues like that, you know, as far as like choosing your personal care products, but as far as things that you would put on your skin to help you actually detox? Like do you do anything from a detoxification standpoint as far as things that you would use your skin as a delivery mechanism for?

I haven't done much of that other than like Epsom salt, magnesium type bath. I'm really reluctant to put anything on my skin because it's like if I wouldn't eat it, I wouldn't put it on my skin is the basic principle that I've learned because you do absorb it so, so quickly. So I use very, very few personal care products at all. And if you do, I highly recommend really doing your research. There are a few brands that I've researched for a while. I was dating a girl and she was really into multi level things. And we found this, the first organic skin care company that has no toxins and it's no parabens. They created a great emulsifying technique to where they didn't need any artificial preservatives like for makeup and. Except that for women. So that was. But for me personally, I might put some coconut oil on or I'll use a natural sunscreen for my face, something like that.

That sounds like me. Coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil. Those are like two of my standbys for deodorants and just like skin moisturizer. Extra virgin olive oil has a ton of flavanols, polyphenols, all sorts of really cool things for the skin. And then coconut oil of course is a fantastic deodorant. But it's pretty amazing how minimalist you can go and still have health, healthy skin.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. And to me it's like the healthier skin is more of an indicator of the health of the inside of your body. Getting the right oils internally, the right fats internally, and not having a ton of toxins in your body.

Yeah, yeah. One of the things that we talked about was clothing and you were filling me in on some of the issues with like clothing and dryers and the way that we clean our clothing. Can you get into clothing a little bit?

Sure, sure. I'll tell you an interesting story. At first, clothing didn't seem like much of an issue. It's like, well, I'm not eating my clothing. It's not liquid, so it's not like lotion or coconut oil. It's not going to absorb in my body, for goodness sake. What happened is I had this natural cleaner that's like, no VOCs, and. And I was like, oh, you know what? I'm going to use this as my laundry detergent, you know, because that way I don't have to research laundry detergent. I'll just use this. It's no VOCs. It should be good. So I'm using that as laundry detergent and it's all good. And then later, some friends of mine are like, hey, Brett, I like your highlights in your hair. And I'm like, no, I don't have highlights in my hair. These little brown streaks in my hair, they're like, oh, well, what are those browns? Because I have pretty black hair. I mean, it looked good, I guess, but, you know, it was like, what's going on? So I was concerned because I realized, okay, something major is going wrong in my body. And it's like, I do everything right. Why would I have something major going on? So I sent my hair into a lab. Turns out that there was a ton of aluminum, so much so that it was bleaching my hair. I'm like, where am I getting aluminum exposure? I mean, I don't drink soft drinks or anything like that. Well, it turned out that that non toxic cleaner, multipurpose cleaner, had aluminum in it as a brightener. And so what was happening is those aluminum particles were getting in my clothing and absorbing into my skin and then detoxifying through my hair. And so I learned that whatever laundry soap, laundry products you're putting on there have to be really, really clean because your skin is eating them. Essentially, it's absorbing into your skin, getting into your body. So after that, I did a lot of research on different laundry soaps and whatnot. And the problem is the less toxic ones. I mean, obviously chemicals do a great job cleaning, as far as you call it cleaning as far as removing stains or whatever. But it's hard to find a really good quality one. But I did find one that had really good reviews and that I've been using, and that's Molly's Soap Suds. Food Babe actually recommended that. I know she's kind of controversial.

Did you say the Food Babe?

Yeah, she was one that I first saw that recommended it.

Yeah. We recently actually interviewed the science babe and that was a really controversial interview because we talked about the Food Babe and some of the stuff she says that gets blown out of proportion or that might not be accurate, but it was kind of interesting, kind of a segue that we probably shouldn't dive into right now. But you said this Molly's soap suds stuff is what you use now.

Yeah.

And that's what you use and that's your laundry detergent.

Right. And I do, I mean, I have to admit that I do have some like toxic, chemical poisonous laundry detergent. If I can't get the stains out, if I can't get my clothes clean, I'll use that. And then I'll rewash it once or twice with the mollies to where I'm using. So that's what I use. And then the second thing that's super, super important is dryer sheets. People think, oh, just throw a dryer sheet in, it'll make it fluffy, non static and all that sort of thing. And I think Merkholda recently did an expose on dryer sheets and how toxic they are. They're horribly toxic for two reasons. One, they're leaving those non regulated toxins all over your clothing to absorbing your skin. But they're also, if you've ever walked, they're also blowing into the air. If you've ever walked into a room where the dryer's running. You smell that good fresh smell? Well, that's just petrochemical hormone disrupting chemicals blowing all into the air. So there are some good alternatives to dryer's sheets. They make wool dryer balls. You can get them on Amazon for fairly inexpensively. And then if you put vinegar, vinegar seems to work the best. I spent a long time trying to figure this out, asking people, you can use vinegar in the rinse cycle of your wash. That seems to help. And then some people will use like metal, they'll use like an aluminum foil ball or they'll. I bought like 200 key rings off of ebay and put them on the corners of some washcloths. And what happens is when the metal moves around in the dryer, it's discharging the static buildup. And so that will help get rid of the static. The dryer balls help spread out the clothes and let the air go through them more effectively. So those three things are good substitutes for toxic dryer. She. I mean, that's one of the most toxic things you can possibly imagine.

Okay, so just one more time, you're actually putting aluminum into the dryer.

Yeah, I personally didn't use the. Some people use like a tin foil ball and they'll put it in the dryer. Some people, I didn't like that idea because I've heard that aluminum foil can break down again. Then there's a risk of that aluminum getting in your clothing. So that's why I personally used. I use. I bought like 200 key rings off of eBay and put them up, four on each, one on each corner of a wash sloth and like 10 or 20 wash slots that I throw in the dryer that are dry. And so they have the metal, the stainless steel, which is not going to be breaking down aluminum, but it's going to. It moves around in the dryer and is discharging the static buildup.

Interesting. And those are just like key rings.

Yeah, just little key rings. Fairly small, huh? Yeah, it was just kind of DIY hack that I came up with.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah, so. So that, that works pretty well. And then, and then paying close attention when you dry your clothes to not over drying them. I usually take them out when they're just slightly damp. That's probably the biggest key to avoiding the static.

Okay, gotcha, gotcha. And, and these are just like, like literally key rings you buy off ebay. You put them on washcloths. Like any particular kind of washcloth that you use? Or just any washcloth.

You know, cotton fabric is what I. The only thing I use. I don't use any polyester or anything like that. Polyester comes from petrochemicals. So yeah, just 100% cotton washcloth. Doesn't have to be nice or new. Just I put one in each corner, put five or 10 of them in there, and that worked really well for me.

Nice. Cool. I've never heard of doing that. That's really interesting. Okay, cool. I'm taking notes, by the way. If you're listening into Brett and I talking and this stuff's going over your head, don't worry, I'm taking notes. I'm going to put them all in the show. Notes. Okay, how about the air? How about toxins in the air in your home? What do you do about that?

Well, there are a lot of. A lot of toxins in the air. And it's kind of deceptive because people think you see dust on your tables in your house and you think we call it dust. You drive down a dirt road and it's dust. Well, there's a big difference between the dust outside and the dust in your home as far as what it contains. Mike Mutzl from High Intensity Health Radio said that the highest exposure that we have on of hormone disrupting chemicals is actually the air inside Our homes. Because the dust in our home is composed of the different things breaking down in our home. Our carpet, paint, fire retardants. That is one of the biggest things. The environmental working group just did a study on the top 12 most hormone disrupting toxins. And fire retardants was one of the top 12. And virtually everything for liability reasons, furniture, televisions, all these things are just sprayed or filled with these fire retardants and they break down and they get into the air. The new house smell. People walk in. Oh, the new house smell, so nice. Well, that's not just freshness, that's volatile organic compounds, toxins breaking down into the air from the paint fumes to the formaldehyde in the carpet. And formaldehyde is a very potent endocrine disruptor. As you know, whenever you have a hormone disruptor, it's adversely going to affect your performance, moods, body fat, all sorts of things. There are three primary things that really that are really problematic. That's formaldehyde, xenoestrogens, which come from most petrochemical plastic based items in your home, like carpet. And then the fire retardants. So those are, you know, there are so many different toxins in the home. People cook in their homes, they use hairspray, you know, different. Like they'll shampoo their carpets, they'll say, oh, I got to get my carpets cleaned. And so they'll pay someone 100, $200 to come in and what do they do but spray a bunch of soap that's not organic, Dr. Bronner Soap. You know, it's a slew of toxic chemicals. And then that soap is sitting on the carpet for months wicking out the smell, which is filled with toxic petrochemical xenoestrogen, hormone disrupting chemicals. So it's. So our homes are really, really loaded with toxins. And now does that stuff.

When it comes to the fire retardants and things along those lines, do those legally have to be included on some of the materials in the home, for example, mattresses or carpeting, etc. What can and can you not do legally when it comes to, to like, you know, whatever the, you know, the home inspectors and stuff like that?

I don't think it's as much that there are actually laws that specify that. I mean, I'm sure there are in different categories, but it's more about companies covering their backs because for liability reasons, because if somebody drops a cigarette on their couch and it lights the house on fire, that couch manufacturer could be sued. And so they so they just dose things with fire retardant because it doesn't cost them much to do and it covers them from lawsuits.

Now, when it comes to this stuff, like we've talked about this on podcasts before, like how you could make your own cleaning chemicals and ditch your toxic cleaning con your products and use stuff like vinegar and lemon juice and high hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. And, you know, I'll, I'll link to articles I've written about this stuff in the show notes because I've got like a whole, a whole article on just like detoxing your home and using natural cleaning supplies, for example, so that you're not getting a bunch of this stuff on, on your floor and your, and your carpet, etc, but then, you know, there are all these, these microscopic particles floating around. You know, everything from like, you know, toxins to mold to fungi to things that may have crept into your home from anything else, volatile organic compounds or formaldehyde or the carpets that you bring in, etc. Now, one of the things that you talked quite a bit with me about when you came over was how in many cases, when we're cleaning our home, we're blowing a lot of these Microsoft microscopic particles of contaminants into the air. Can you talk a little bit about, like, the big mistakes that people make when they're doing things like cleaning their furniture or cleaning their carpet?

Sure. The biggest issue is that people use dry cleaning methods to clean their homes. They'll use dry dust rags. They'll use a dry filter vacuum. And in order to properly trap and contain dust, you have to use water. If you use a little duster or a dry dust rag, it's just moving the dust around and actually making it worse. Dry filter vacuums are really not a very good design because they have holes to let the air through. Filters have holes to let the air through. And if you have big holes, like a shop vac, it's going to let a ton of dirt through, but it's going to work real well. It's going to have a lot of power. And then if you have the new HEPA vacuum I assume last five or ten years had become very popular, well then it has super small holes, so it traps a lot more of it. And those holes plug up really quickly. And then the vacuum does not work very well. It quits picking up the dirt other than just the stuff that's on the surface. And so then like you notice in your home, you're like, gosh, why is all this dirt in my Carpet after I showed it to you, even though you guys have been vacuuming diligently, because we think our vacuums are picking it up, but they're really not because that filter plugs in a very, very short period of time.

So what is a dry filter vacuum? Because I'm not really, like, you know. And that was one thing that kind of blew my mind when you came over was I am not a vacuum expert. I don't know that much about them. But can you explain what a dry filter vacuum actually is? Like, how it works, what it does?

So basically, any vacuum that you get from a store is going to have either a bag or a filter. For the majority of history, since vacuums came out, they used a bag, just a regular vacuum cleaner bag that you would change, and those had bigger holes. So they would pick up better. They'd allow more air through, but they would blow more dust. Whereas with a HEPA filter vacuum, which is very popular now. I remember talking to an air filtration expert years ago, and he was telling me about HEPA filters, and I was like, what is a HEPA filter? And he's like, oh, it's a super small filter with small holes that they use for cleaning rooms and things like that. And I said, well, why don't they put those on a vacuum cleaner? He said, well, it would never work because the holes are too small. It would just plug up quickly and the vacuum would quit working. Well, this guy was right from a practical standpoint, but he wasn't thinking in terms of what would sell. And so they end up putting these hepas on vacuums. And some of the dirtiest homes I go in have vacuums with HEPA filters because they think they're working. They'll have Dyson's or whatever fancy vacuum. And it's like they just simply don't work very well. They might at first. And people like, oh, my vacuums working. Well, I can. I can see the container is full of stuff. Well, you look. You look in there and it's. And it's not. It's a real fluffy material. You know, it's not like compact dirt, Right? It's real fluffy. Most of what that is is actually the fiber from your carpet. And the reason that the carpet's coming up is because it's leaving the dirt and sand and grit behind. And then the fiber is wearing out, and then the vacuum is picking up the carpet. So instead of getting the dirt out of the carpet, it's literally getting the carpet out of the dirt.

Interesting. So you're vacuuming up your carpet, the dirt is actually staying in there. So the HEPA filter is basically filtering just the carpet fibers.

That's a majority of what you're getting is carpet fiber, lint, that sort of thing. It is getting a percentage of the dust. And then once the HEPA plugs up, instead of burning out the motor, which is what it would do, because it's like if air is not going out of the vacuum, it's going to overheat the motor. It's going to burn it out. So it ends up leaking past the sides and then blowing a lot of the particles that have lodged in your carpet into the air, which stay in the air for six to eight hours. Which is why they say dust after you vacuum, because people kind of know that the vacuum blows the dust in the air, and then you dust it back down to the floor. So dry filter vacuums are very, very problematic. Which is, I would not turn one on in my home. I would not turn one on in my home.

Okay, so what. So dry filter vacuums. What are examples of, like, brands of dry filter vacuum?

You know, any and every vacuum you can think of, from a $2,500 Kirby to a $500 Dyson to a Eureka Singer, there are hundreds of different brands. Anything you look at is going to have a filter. And they originally designed them with a filter for marketing purposes, because they could sell you the vacuum sheets, and then you had to buy the bags, the belts, the filters. It's like buying a laser. It's not very expensive, but you have to buy replacements all the time.

Right. Interesting. Okay.

The other problematic thing, I'm sorry to interrupt, is that what happens is all of this stuff gets into that container, and it's warm, it's dark, it's filthy in there. And so it's a perfect breeding ground for mold, germs, bacteria, viruses, everything else. And then people literally turn on their vacuum, and then what they're doing is a vacuum simply circulates air. It's all it does. So it's pumping all your family's air through that container full of filth.

Yeah.

Polyplania.

That was actually what scared me when you came in my house and we took out my vacuum. We started vacuuming around, and then we basically open it up, and you could see all this mold and just nasty contaminants in there. Just from living, right? Just from living in our house. It's not like we live a toxic lifestyle, but, I mean, this stuff just kind of builds up from people tracking things into the home and from folks coming over and from, like, water and, like, we had. We had a small, like, mini flood at one point, so probably a little bit of mold. And basically what it came out to was every time that we were vacuuming our house, we were just, like, blowing all this stuff out into the air through this dry filter vacuum.

Yep. And that's the way every single brand of dry filter vacuum works, because they all have holes now.

And one question. I mean, kind of playing devil's advocate here, but, you know, I've talked before on the show about how, like, kids who grow up on farms or who have exposure to, like, pets or get exposed to, like, germs or bacteria and things like that when they're kids, they wind up with stronger immune systems. Right. With fewer issues with, like, autism and ADD and leaky gut and a lot of these issues that seem to be related to autoimmune disorders. If we are keeping this kind of stuff out of the air, right, like airborne contaminants or, you know, germs, you know, trying to. Trying to create, like, these pristine homes, isn't that potentially like living in a bubble, like, creating a weak immune system?

If you were talking about natural materials, I would totally agree. Like, the Chinese women would not bathe before they gave birth for that reason, so that they would get. So that their babies, when they were nursing and everything else would be exposed to all these different forms of natural bacteria. That's not what we're really talking about inside the home. We're not talking about natural forms of bacteria. Scientific American wrote an article, and they sampled the dirt inside people's homes, and they said if truckloads of dirt with the same level of contaminants in people's homes, in people's carpets, were dumped outside, it would be classified as a hazardous waste dump. So it's not just natural germs. Bacteria like being out in the garden or being out in the forest or being out and about. Another study recently showed that the contaminant level and bacteria levels in our carpets is, like, 20 times dirtier than a sidewalk. If you dropped a sucker on a sidewalk, you wouldn't give that back to her. Some food, you wouldn't eat it or give it back to a kid. But some people will drop it on the carpet, and they will. Even though it's 20 times dirtier, there's not air circulation in our homes. Our homes are sealed up, filled with toxins, and even with the best cleaning equipment, you're never going to get your home optimally clean. I totally agree with that idea of exposure to natural bacteria, but exposing them to formaldehyde, fire retardants, toxic petrochemicals, that's not going to build their immune system. It's going to be really bad for their immune system.

So we're talking about the difference between something like getting exposed to a positive immune factor, such as some kind of contaminant that you might get from the soil outside in the forest that could potentially make your immune system stronger versus getting exposed to something like staph infection in your carpet.

Exactly.

Okay, gotcha. Go ahead.

Oh, and also, I was going to say that it's interesting. You look at the age of puberty continuing to decrease, and many of these are hormone disrupting chemicals. And they're constant, continual, everyday exposure. Little babies crawling across the carpet, breathing those petrochemical fumes, those estrogenic compounds, those xenoestrogens, that's gonna affect their hormones and cause premature puberty and other problems.

Scary. So dry filter vacuums, dry cleaning methods, like just like using whatever, like a feather duster to spread all this stuff around. Sounds like it might not be the best choice for cleaning, especially things like carpet, hard floor, mattresses, furniture, stuff like that. What are some of the ways that you would recommend we be cleaning this stuff without spreading things around? Like what are some non dry methods?

Well, you want to use water when you clean anything. Water, the best cleaning agent that there is. And so like, if you look at the difference between sweeping the floor with a broom versus having a damp mop going across the floor, one's going to stir up a lot and not kick it all up, whereas the damp mop is going to. And I'm not talking about a chemical Swiffer that has horrible toxic compounds in it. I've heard of some people's pets dying because they left chemicals from the Swiffer on the floor and their dogs licked the floor and it actually killed their dogs.

Seriously.

So, yeah, I'm not joking. I have some customers that told me that. So I'm not talking about a Swiffer that's, oh, this is nice. It's damp. I'm Talking about water, H2O, a damp mop. So avoid the chemicals, use water. You can see the difference. Water is going to tend to trap the dust. We use water to wash everything else. The other thing is they do make. There are a few different manufacturers that make a vacuum cleaner that uses water. And that is what I recommend, because water has several benefits in a vacuum. Two primary benefits. One is it traps the dust traps like 99.99% of the dust and it doesn't plug up. And that's a really, really big issue because when you run a vacuum, when you run two vacuums beside each other, you think, oh, they both work, right, because they're making noise and the carpet looks clean. We have no way of telling initially how deeply explaining. And dry filter vacuums, as I explained earlier, plug up. Whereas water doesn't have holes in the way that a bag does. So it just traps the dust and it maintains its power so they clean much, much better. In fact, using a water vacuum, you were actually able to get the home to have 20% of the dust of a home that had, that was using a dry filter vacuum. So it can actually potentially work five times better because you're not blowing the dust in the air and you're getting a lot more out of the carpet and furniture. And that is really, really the key to having clean air in your home. You can run air purifiers all day long. Every time you sit on the furniture, every time you walk across the carpet, every time there's a little bit of breeze going through your home, it's going to blow and stir up the dirt off of the hardwood floors off of the carpet. Again, not just dirt, but really bad endocrine disrupting toxins.

Yeah. And I mean, I told you about this. Like, I have a central HEPA air filter in my home. I use this one called an aller air. And the air in my home, at least I was under the impression that it was, was, is pretty clean. But it's not getting trapped in a water based cleaning system like you've just described. When you came in and started showing me some of these contaminants in my carpet, and we even used a flashlight to kind of hold up and look at some of the things that are getting blown around in the air as I was vacuuming. It was kind of shocking. And one of the things that I didn't really understand and that I think probably we should explain to our listeners is how exactly a water based cleaning system actually works. How is it that a vacuum is using water to trap a lot of these contaminants or mold or fungi or germs that are floating in the air. How does it actually work from a mechanical standpoint?

That's a good question. If you simply filter air through water, like if you put water in a shop vac, it's not going to work very well because what happens is you'll get a Big air bubble coming through the water. Within that air bubble is a bunch of dust and contaminants. So you have to break up the air bubbles. And that requires a technology that was first came out in 1936 when the first water vacuum was invented. And what it does is it spins around and it creates centrifugal force and it breaks up the air bubbles in the water basin to where all the air bubbles get broken up. So all of the surface area of the air is exposed to the water. And so therefore it traps virtually all of the dust. And then of course, it does have a certified woven cloth HEPA filter as a backup. So the tiny particle that might have skipped across the water would get trapped in that. And it's washable so that, you know, you can wash it or blow it out every few years with an air compressor, but it's a secondary filter. The water is primarily what's doing the work.

So basically you fill up the vacuum cleaner with water. The water is used to trap all these contaminants and everything. And then once you finished vacuuming, you just dump the water outside the house?

Yeah, dump it outside. A lot of people dump it down the toilet, but the water replaces the filter with the water, replaces the bag. So you're not having to buy bags or filters or anything like that. You just put half a gallon of water in it, or a gallon of water, depending on what size basin you have, dump it out when you're done. All the contaminants are trapped in there, which instead of dumping out a dry filter vacuum like yours, where you get a big breath of all that crud, you know, it's all trapped in the water.

Now, one of the things that you can combine this with, that you were talking to me about, is a HEPA filter. You're talking about how some HEPA filters don't really work that well. Can you explain how you combine a HEPA filter with one of these water based cleaning systems?

Absolutely. So some of the water vacuums, the better ones, have a HEPA as a secondary filter. And HEPA filters are great filters if things are done right. If it's in a clean environment, the air has to be really clean, like in a clean room. It's very clean to start with. And the HEPA just traps the very smallest particles so that it doesn't plug up. So it takes years and years before it ever starts to plug up. The second thing that's important is that is the material that the HEPA is made out of. Many of the hepas that you'll see are made out of like a spun glass, like a fiberglass material. Some people have had concerns about it being like asbestos and those glass materials dislodging from the filter and blowing in the air. So it's best if you have a filter that's actually made out of woven cloth. They're more expensive, which is why virtually every vacuum dry, filter vacuum uses the spun blast. Because they're cheap, they make more money when they resell them. But the water vacuum that uses the HEPA is actually used a woven cloth one, so that if any of those particles do come off of the filter, it's just like the cotton off of a T shirt. It's not really harmful to you. Like a stone glass one could potentially be.

Okay, gotcha. So in terms of the actual vacuum cleaner itself, you want to use something that's got like a, a water based cleaning system combined with a HEPA air filter.

Ideally, that's what you want.

Absolutely.

And yeah, and again, just to clarify, we're not talking about a shampooer here. Some people think water vacuum is thinking of a shampooer. We're not talking about putting water on the carpet at this point. The water is the filter. That's all it is. And so instead of a bag or a filter, water is the filter.

Got it. Now how about as far as like, rather than just cleaning the air, diffusing things into the air. Like when I interviewed Evan Brand on the podcast, we talked about this research on what's called shinrin yoku or forest bathing over in Japan, and how there are these phytochemicals released by plants, particularly like, you know, in this example we were talking about like coniferous forests like pine, and how essential oils like pine or evergreen, when you smell them in the air, can help to decrease cortisol levels. Are there things that you can diffuse into the air that can kind of like compound the added detoxification or cleaning effect of using like a water based cleaning system or a HEPA air filter?

Absolutely, absolutely. So there are several different brands of water vacuums. The one that I like the most has been around since 1936. It has a two speed motor and it has an area on the back where the exhaust comes out where you can put a cloth and you can actually put essential oils right on there. So if you wanted that calming effect, you could put some pine oil. If you wanted, you could put lavender on there as a calming effect. As you know about essential oil, there are many, many different benefits to them. But the advantage of Using the water machine is it's actually a certified standalone air purifier as well. So you can set it out on low all day long and it'll clean the air and make your home smell really, really nice. It's interesting. As you know, up here in the Northwest, we've got a lot of fires and a lot of dust. A few days ago we had great rainstorm and the quality of the air is just so much better now because the water washed the air. And so that's what I use in my home is I use a water machine to purify the air and it smells clean and fresh. And then I'll put some peppermint, lavender, eucalyptus, whatever fragrance I want in there. And by fragrance, I mean essentially oil to make the air smell good as well. So you can use it on low to clean the air all day long. And then if your house kind of just cooks something and the house starts to stink or whatever, you can turn it on high and use it as a super quick air purifier. Run it for a half an hour, an hour while you're out and about, come back and the air smells really good.

Awesome. Cool. So you can basically get like a 1, 2, 3 combo of using the water based systems to clean your mattresses or your furniture or your carpet, and then using the HEPA air filter to clean the air and then finally diffusing oils out into the air. And you can do this all with, for example, like a water based vacuum rather than air based vacuum.

Yes. And the other advantage is that you have the ability to pick up water as well. So if you happen to be like me and you left your kombucha container, filling up another one and you weren't paying attention, and then you wake up the next morning, you have half a gallon of kombucha on your carpet. You can. That happened to me the other day, embarrassingly enough. And I just got my water vacuum out and I sucked up all of, I mean, I sucked up all of the kombucha and then I put it on the exhaust, pulled the carpet vacuum up, put the hose underneath and blew underneath it for an hour. And then I was able to air dry the carpet and the padding to where I wouldn't have any risk of mold or moisture or mildew or anything like that because I had the right equipment. So water vacuums are absolutely amazing because they're air purifiers. They're wet, dry vacuums. They clean your furniture, clean your mattress, clean your cars, just everything. And they Maintain their power. They don't, I mean, I just, they don't blow the dust, germs, bacteria, anything like that. They even trap mold. I mean, absolutely amazing.

You know, it's only a very small subset of the population that needs to worry about giant kombucha spills in their house, but probably, probably are several of our listeners who have to deal with that issue. So, you know, Brett, I know that you dig into a ton of this stuff and by the way, if you're listening in, one of the other things, things that I'm working on an article about right now is infrared sauna detox protocols. And this is a totally different topic that Brett has been educating me on, on how to, how to combine things like high dose niacin with infrared sauna to get a really, really cool detox effect. And I'm going to be honest with you, if you're listening in like, like the things that Brett and I talk about, we could probably fill an entire couple hours of podcasting with. But because we generally like to go about an hour or so on this show, I think, I think I've probably filled your head with enough info for now. Some of the things that, that Brett and I have talked about, I'm gonna put a link to in the show notes, like the shower filter that Brett talked about along with like the Molly soap suds and the, the metabolic typing information. I'll put all that over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com CleanHome but the other thing that I know Brett is going to do for you guys is, Brett, you're preparing like a, like a video on some of these concepts. Right? On, like how to use water based systems, HEPA air filters, essential oils, diffusers, etc, to ensure that you basically, you know, completely detox the air and the carpet it in your home. And you're producing some kind of a video, right?

Yeah, I'm putting together a little video that explains it a little better because it's a little more complicated than can be explained just over a phone call. So putting together a more comprehensive video that explains how you can really get your home clean and what methods and techniques and tools you can use.

Cool. Cool. Yeah. And I mean, again, like, I know a lot of us like to think that our homes are really clean. And I honestly think that I've written an entire book over on the website that goes into everything from mitigating dirty electricity and hardwiring your home with ethernet to creating your cupboards and any wood in your home using low volatile organic compounds. To, to even choosing more natural carpets and furniture and organic mattresses, etc. And I was still pretty shocked when Brett came over and showed me some of the things that were floating around in the air in the carpet in my house. So I would highly recommend that you check out the video that Brett's making as well. And I'll put a link to that also over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com cleanhome so definitely, definitely check that out because this is some pretty cool cutting edge stuff that Brett is delving into. Brett, I have kind of a random question for you. Kind of put you on the spot. What do you think? You know, you seem pretty tuned in to the whole like, health, detox, alternative medical industry. What do you see as like the next big thing coming down the pipeline as far as either something that people need to be aware of when it comes to things to be concerned about, or whether it comes to some kind of like a natural solution or protocol that you've discovered or that you're excited about?

You know, I would absolutely say without a doubt, it would definitely be the detoxification aspect of it. You know, the, what you've learned and are going to share with your listeners about the sauna detox with niacin. It is a total game changer. Dr. Mercola saw it at the Longevity now conference and he is, you know, he's very in tune with detoxification methods and he just absolutely was amazed when he saw it. He's like, this is the most effective detoxification method that there is and it's proven. And he's like, yeah, I always avoided detoxification because there wasn't much, much science around it and there wasn't much data and I wasn't really confident about these different methods. But when we learned about that, it just absolutely shocked him. The thing about it is, is there's not really a, it's not really any money in it. You know, there's not, it's not like, oh, you have to buy this brand of whatever. It's just, just detoxify.

Yeah, it's just like a, like a sauna with niacin.

Right. That's all it is. It's nothing proprietary. There hasn't been a push. But the benefits that people experience when they get all of those toxins out of their body is just enormous. I think in the next few years that's going to go very viral. As more and more people learn about it. I think they're going to have profound benefits in their health because of all the toxins in the world and it's just impossible to detoxify them with normal methods. You have to use another method. And that method, absolutely amazing. I mean, I. Yeah, yeah. And I totally think it's the next.

Upcoming thing for those you listening in, by the way, as far as that goes. I won't leave you hanging on that because just based on discussions that Brett and I have been having, I've got about a 3,000 word article on this whole like infrared, sauna, sauna, detox type of stuff coming out very, very soon. It may even be out by the time this podcast gets released. So don't worry, I'll fill you in on that as well. And then of course, everything else that Brett and I talked about today, from the shower filters to dry vacs versus wet vacs to the type of soap suds that Brett uses to everything else, I'll put over in the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com cleanhome and over there you'll also get to watch a video that Brett's gonna make for you guys to kind of show you some of the cool things that he does in his own house and some of the things that he helped me do in my house to really make sure everything was truly detoxed. So the other thing is, if you have questions, if you have comments, if you have feedback, if some of the stuff was unclear, I know some of it we went over pretty quickly, like how to buy 8 billion keychains on ebay and throw them in your dryer. Leave your, your comments and your questions in the show notes over there@bengreenfieldfitness.com cleanhome and either myself or Brett will reply and point you in the right direction because ultimately the goal here is to really help you not only live longer, but feel really good and not experience a lot of the hormone disruption and the brain fog and the frequent sickness and all the other issues that a lot of people have, even though you may be, whatever, eating healthy and taking the right supplements. Because there is a lot that goes above and beyond just say like eating or exercising or popping pills. And it goes into making sure that you're living in a really good, clean environment. Because let's face it, most of us don't live on a pristine mountaintop in the Himalayas, which we just got to deal with the realities of life in a post industrial era where a lot of this stuff is just getting pumped into our home whether we like it or not. So Brett, thanks for, thanks for your time and thanks for coming on the show today.

Oh, you're welcome. Thanks for having me, Ben.

You know, it's obviously a much, much different discussion and a far different way of hanging out than when we used to hang out and punish boxes of Corona. But I think that ultimately this is a little more healthy way to go.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

All right. Cool. Well, folks, again, Shownotes are gonna be@BenGreenfieldFitness.com cleanhome along with a video from Brett. Thanks for listening in and have a healthy week. I'll talk to you later. Thanks, Brett.

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

Sam.