The "Fat Fueled Family", Unschooling How-To's, Montessori Education, Does Spanking Damage The Brain, Rites Of Passage With Danny Vega (Boundless Parenting Book Series)

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life.

Podcast, if you have this in place, your child won't be deceived. They'll be able to make good decisions. They'll be able to make mistakes, and they will make mistakes. It's so important. They're only a child once. They're probably 70 to 80% of the time in their sweet spot, which is, you know, what really makes them, like their eyes twinkle.

Faith, family fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show. Well, folks, it's time once again to feature one of the superstar parents who is in my book, my upcoming book, Boundless Parenting, in which I interview a whole host of folks who I have noticed over the years have been doing a really good job raising impactful and resilient and free thinking and unique young human beings. My guest on today's show unfortunately isn't able to be joined by his significant other, but he is the leader of the Fat Fueled family. That's literally what their business is called, the Fat Fueled Family llc. His name is Danny Vega, and I'm sure that he will get a chance to share with you more about why he calls it the Fat Fueled family. But basically, he runs an entire movement YouTube channel, blog, podcast, along with his wife Maura, dedicated to empowering families to eat better, to move more, to grow closer together. They have a lot of similar interests that I do, including things like unschooling and an emphasis on the importance of faith and family, race, rites of passages, and a whole lot more. So their chapter in the book, which is now available@boundlessparentingbook.com is absolutely fantastic. And in this interview, we're going to get into even more of the nitty gritty details behind some of the cool things that they share in that chapter. So I will link to everything that Danny and I talk about@bengreenfieldlife.com Vega that's V E G A. I'll link to his website and everything as well. So BenGreenfieldLife.com Vega and Danny, I'm sure you've been called out on this before, but I mean, with a last name like Vega, calling yourself the Fat Fueled family, man, I think you'd go more of like the plant based route, you know, kind of like Dr. Paul Saladino with the last name has salad in it. Should obviously be a vegetarian, right?

Dude, I get, I get people texting me all the time, like the vega protein, like the vegan protein. I'm like, Gosh. And they know. They know. It's kind of like a trigger.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, there's a protein brand too called Vega.

Yeah, it's very. It's definitely ironic, especially with my wife. I wish you could be here. She's the superstar. But, you know, she's basically genetically just terrible for to eat like vegetarian and vegan diets. You know, a lot of her snips are basically anti vegan and so she, she. But obviously she didn't know that back in the day when she tried to do that and she felt terrible.

Yeah.

Yeah. It is kind of ironic.

Yeah. It's interesting. I think a lot of people don't realize that genetic predispositions for things like methylation ability, for example, can dictate whether you actually feel good on a plant based diet. And some people actually do feel really good on a plant based diet. Those are probably like, I don't know, the rich rolls out there who do just fine on it and then others just get kind of screwed. But anyways, that might be a discussion for another day because today, even though I do want to talk about nutrition and why you call your family the fat fueled family and how your kids eat and everything, but first I'd love to hear about what exactly the fatfield family is like. How did that actually come to be?

Oh, yeah, man. So obviously when I started the ketogenic diet, I've always been into nutrition and I played college football. I started off as a strength and conditioning coach in college, but this keto thing sounded absurd to me, but I was at a time where I had just dieted and I was open to trying something new and I just felt awesome. And so my wife joins me on everything we do. When we started PALEO Back in 2011, she was with me and I really just felt like especially where I was and where I am now, my age, it just the best baseline for most of the year. And so we started to do what we always do, which is talk to people about it and share and. And then I started the ketogenic athlete podcast with Brian Williamson in 2016 and we were focusing on like the athletes, but obviously at home we're just implementing everything we learn. And I think a lot of parents, they come to this period where like, they, they're getting healthy, they're feeling better, but there's like a disconnect. And then they realize at some point, oh, crap, I gotta. I should do this with my kids. Why am I still buying them cereal? Why am I still, you Know, feeding them the way I fed them before.

Yeah.

And. And a lot of people, we would just have conversations with them or whether we were having them over or just in passing, these conversations, and they're. They were like, man, you should. You should talk about that. You should talk about how parents, whether, you know, you're starting off, which is obviously ideal because you don't have, like, any habits that you got to undo or you're dealing with a preteen or someone older. Like, how does that conversation change? How do you get your family on board to this whole lifestyle, which, as you know, is never just about nutrition or about fitness. It's about all of these things kind of working together. Your parenting style, education, the unschooling, the mindset aspect of it, getting your kids to understand, you know, maintaining that freedom and that autonomy that's so important to a child, but also helping them understand the whys behind certain things and at times, you know, limiting the options because, listen, at this point, you don't know any better. And that's. Obviously, we've evolved there because we. We used to be over the top, like radical unschoolers, and then we realized it was too much, too little structure. And. And there has to be a little bit more of a definition between, like, you know, what. Who's. Who's the authority and who's not, because, you know, it's something that we naturally do where we. Well, obviously we do it a little bit too much where we trust the authorities, but we should. If we have a relationship with our children where, where we've built their trust, we're honest with them, they should be able to trust us. But we have to first kind of establish that. And because kids don't know, they. They don't. They. They're just like, I want this food. You know, like, I. Yeah, it tastes good. Why. Why can't I have it?

Obviously, human beings will. Will err towards the universe itself and nature will err towards entropy and. And chaos without a little bit of structure and organization. And we're the same way with our un. We do, as unschooling would dictate, allow our sons to follow their passions and their interests and desire and try to formulate an environment that allows them to do that. But yet there is some structure. For example, this morning, they had a math nasium class at, I think, 10:00am and they had a meeting with the educational coordinator who we work with online at 11. And then there are certain other elements. They have a kamana workbook. They'll be out in nature later on this afternoon, going through their Thom Brown wilderness style course. It's not as though they wake up and it's just a free day to choose whatever they want to do. There is still structure, there is still timing. There still are things scheduled. There's still Even like the 12 core subjects that Washington State requires us to demonstrate core proficiency in that we have to put into spreadsheets and journals. And so a lot of people, I think unschooling, think unschooling just involves your kids outside barefoot in the dirt all day, I don't know, shooting bows at squirrels, shooting arrows at squirrels. But it is, it is a little bit more structured than I think what most people would think. I think the, the lack of structure, though, is in that it's going to be different from child to child based on their passions and their interests and desires. But then structure is built around that. So it's more of the absence of a cookie cutter approach rather than the absence of structure and organization. You know?

Yeah, it's funny because people, the, the initial thought is that unschooling is unparenting. And, and they think, oh, I'd love to do that. But I just, I just, it's almost like, like a humble brag, like, oh, you know, I can't, I can't leave that much to, to like, to chance. And it's like, wait a second. I don't think you understand the commitment that it takes as a parent. Like, you have to know your child better than they know themselves. Like, the amount of observation for, for you to be able to like. And then obviously the flexibility to be, for both the child and the parent to be able to admit that, you know what, we thought that this was going to be a passion and we thought that this was going to be something that we can really throw ourselves into. But either they've conquered it and lost interest and now they're going on to something else, or it was not. You know, initially maybe they thought they liked it for certain reasons, but then they realized that the process is not something that they would enjoy. But it's so natural. Like, you get this child. And obviously not every parent, because a lot of parents wised up after 2020 and they started to take their kids out of school. Not all of them are coming with this, like, pristine blank slate like we had where we were doing all the research before they were even born. And so there has to be. I can't speak to that experientially, but I can say that it's totally Fine to be able to say, you know what, either, you know, we were wrong because we do that in our own lives. You know, how many of us, we, we went to college and no one asked what we wanted to do. It was like, what do you want to study?

Right.

That doesn't even make sense. Right. Like, and so a lot of us had to figure that out, but we didn't have the tools or the experience as a child where they're just these sponges in there and they're. And it's so fun and learning. Hasn't. They haven't gotten jaded about learning and they're just like, you know, like John Taylor Gatto says, like geniuses as common, as common as dirt. You know, like, yeah.

John Teller Gatto, great author, by the way. The Underground History of American Education and Weapons of Mass Destruction. Like, and another one, he is dumbing us down. He has some great, great books. I highly recommend anyone who wants it to take charge of their child education should look at Gaddo's work. Now back to the keto thing. Not, not to spend our entire discussion talking about feeding your kids sticks of. But you know, you start up this fat fueled family and I guess it begs the question. I'm sure other people are wondering if I am. Like, how do your kids actually eat? Are they also, you know, because I interviewed Brian Johnson. Right. The liver king. And his kids actually do have like raw liver and bone marrow. I think with all their meals of the day. I'm curious, like, how do your children eat? I think a lot of people would love to hear like a few sample meals that, that you feed them or that they feed themselves.

Yeah, yeah. So first of all, like, we don't, we don't focus on keto or you know, we basically with them, like, it started off really early. Like we weaned them both. My wife nursed them both for a year and a half for the first one, because he wanted, he was eating steak. Like, he was like grabbing for the steak like at six months. Like, he's just such a monster. My second one, it was like two years and four months and he was just so attached to her. But we weaned them both with, with raw liver and soft boiled egg yolks. That's what, that's what the original foods that they had. And you would see it, they'd eat it up. They had like a huge mess on themselves. And you know, both of them actually, the first one a little bit more because we started to get that second child syndrome.

Yeah. I Gotta ask, by the way, how old were they when you started giving your kids liver and egg yolks?

I would say anywhere from like eight months to like a year. Yeah, right. If I got this right, this is why I wish Maura was here, because she remembers these little details better.

But I read that's all right, but pretty young. And I'm sure that some nutritionists and, you know, folks who are dyed in the wool, you know, USDA food plate or food pyramid enthusiasts would claim that you might be risking like a parasitic infection or something like that, feeding your kids raw liver. Like, were you guys concerned about that at all or were you looking at the sourcing of the liver or did that ever cross your mind?

100%. Yeah. The sourcing was like everything that I had read. We came, we started with paleo, but then we moved more to Weston A price, which for us and with the kids is for the most part is really how we do things with them. Obviously, there's lots of times when they're probably in ketosis, and I want to do a better job of this because of what I've learned with leptin the last year or so of having more concrete, you know, feeding times to really help establish their circadian biology. But I mean, they're so insulin sensitive. They're both really lean and really active. They spend a lot of time outside, so I'm not as concerned. But like, generally speaking, they'll start their mornings with like always eggs and maybe turkey sausage. And then they also, like, they've been crushing paleo pancakes lately. Like, my wife makes them with like, it's like banana and it's very like, it's like two or three ingredients. I forget what's in there. And then for lunch, you know, they'll have. Desmond is my oldest, he's 11, and my youngest dean is 8. And Desmond is like me, you know, like, if you tell him something's healthy, he's really excited to eat it. Like, he doesn't care what it is, he'll try it, you know, even if he'll pretend he likes it because he knows it's healthy. That's kind of how I am. I'm not. I'm not the biggest fan of liver, but I'll throw it in the burgers and stuff. And so he'll take like peppers to school and eat them like an apple, you know, like with. With, you know, and avocados and. And turkey and cheese roll ups and things like that. Like, where it's. I hate to say school, but it's the only thing that we can. The only way we can describe when. And I'm sure we'll get into this, like, what it is they do at Urban Cottage.

Yeah, Yeah. I definitely want to hear more about Urban Cottage once. Once we get off the nutrition ban for sure. Yeah. But you brought up leptin dysregulation. I think that's important. A lot of parents, I think, are unaware of this concept, like the role of leptin, the hormone. It's a hormone secreted by fat cells, but it plays such a key role in energy homeostasis. And a lot of people would associate leptin deficiencies or abnormalities to be something that you might have in an obesogenic individual. But kids who have leptin dysregulation, you see low bone density, you see sugar cravings, you see low immune function, you see staving off of puberty, late puberty. And I think people aren't familiar with leptin. Just the broad overview is not enough sleep, like poor circadian rhythmicity in a child, too much stress, and then too much of the wrong foods, particularly high sugar foods that are fed at the wrong times or constant snacking throughout the day, all results in this type of leptin dysregulation. I think it. It flies under the radar as far as a lot of the causal incidents for the health problems that kids have in adolescence. A lot of it can be tied back to leptin. So I'm glad you brought that up. I know we didn't talk about it too much in the book itself, but it's such an important hormone to pay attention to. And interestingly, this is something that you might be familiar with from Dr. Jack Cruz. Danny, this idea of cold exposure for kids, like having your kids do cold showers, cold baths, go outside in the snow. My kids used to go out in their underwear and do snow angels as a dare before they'd start their school for the day. And having a kid get used to temperature hormetic stressors, both heat and cold, but particularly cold, can do a really, really good job at keeping them leptin sensitive. So it's not just adults who benefit from this type of focus on leptin regulation.

Oh, yeah. And I mean, the other benefit of the cold exposure, besides obviously the Beijing of the, you know, brown, you know, kind of Beijing of your fat cells, but it's also like, it increases, at least transiently, adiponectin, which is another one like low adiponectin and high leptin are both like in and of themselves, like risk factors. So we've always like, from a nutrition standpoint, like we, we, we've been beating this drum of like it's hard because like a lot of people, they come into it at a certain point. But like if you can, if you're young enough or if you know, you're in between children, get yourself right because you know, get your nutrition on point, like really focus on, you know, all these least these really naturally high bioavailable B vitamin foods like namely, you know, beef, grass fed, you know, or ruminant meat. And because the leptin, you know, that leptin resistance that an adult has that can get passed on to the child and that initial huge, I think while the child is in the womb, if I remember this correctly, like leptin is, is causing them to eat more and be well fed. But it's, there's like a switch at birth where that initial surge of leptin kind of sets up their life, you know. And so like if you, if those things are dysfunctional when the baby's born, it's automatically going to, it's just going to be harder for them throughout life. So I guess this whole conversation was, was about, I've changed in the way because I realize there's, there's other benefits to eating meals together, which Friday we always do. But like there's, there's always things going on. There's jiu jitsu, there's, there's, you know, playing outside where I don't even know where my kids are half the time, especially in the summer. And so now I do like the idea which kind of goes into the importance of routines and schedules which we do have. So it's not like we were completely doing something different. It's just bringing a little bit more structure on the nutrition side to where not only are their days predictable mentally for them, so they know their expectations, but at the same time, you know, just biologically eating predictable feeding times. Like there's something to be said about having a good old 6am 7am breakfast, 12pm lunch and 6, 7pm dinner where the body is just less stressed. It has predictability. And you know, I know that with the keto community where I'm always having to like, guys, guys, wait, there's this too. I mean intermittent fasting is great, but it's like, what is your state like? Generally speaking we are way overstressed and everybody's skipping breakfast, which to me I'm beating that drum like get your food. That's when leptin's lowest. Get your food in.

In the lean active individuals. I mean, it's been shown that breakfast skipping, frequent breakfast skipping and excessive intermittent fasting results in a lot of adrenal dysregulation, which especially for kids, is a problem. I think I have had some friends, probably the most notable, Dan Pompa, who's a well known, kind of like fasting enthusiast and detoxification expert. He and his wife do a lot of fasting and their kids also did quite a bit of fasting. But from what I understand with them, a big reason for that was because some of their kids had gotten overweight and so they used it as a weight loss tool for their kids. But just because that whole idea of longevity enhancing 12 to 16 hour intermittent fast seems to work well in some adults, in both lean adults and in lean children, a lot of times the cons outweigh the pros, especially if someone's not eating adequate calories later on in the day. Like I run into a lot of people who have issues with like bone density and hormonal dysregulation, a lot of issues due to excessive fasting. So it kind of depends on who you are. You know, a lot of these fasting studies have been done in people who are, who are not just normal weight, but overweight or high body fat. Not to the, you know, like lean crossfitters who sometimes are shooting themselves in the foot with too much of that, much less children.

Yeah. And you know, like you said, it's like people who are already relatively lean, for them, these, it's going to be a point of diminishing returns that happens much, much quicker and it's great, like try it out, do it. You know, I tend to, on my day off, which Saturday we do the Sabbath, you know, like I tend to just naturally fast that day. But, but overall, especially a growing child where, you know, you asked about one of our like kind of cornerstones is, you know, protein is the animal. Protein is the cornerstone. It's the most important. When the children are eating, it's like eat your food first, which is like the meat and then you can eat your other stuff after, like the rice or the, or the veggies or the fruit that you're eating. And we have our non negotiables which, you know, for the most part we stick to, which is like, you know, we really minimize grains, but we do bring in some grains, but we usually minimize them. We do a lot of sourdough. As of like the last month, we're Making sourdough, everything. You know, no food dyes and no processed seed oils. And like, it just so happens that if you just buy real food, it's easy to stick to that. So when parents are like, should, should I buy this or should I buy that? I'm like, that has, that breaks all three of them. You know, it's like, it's a high grain, you know, low quality protein, like a soy. And it's like, you know, it has seed oils in it and it has food colorings. So like all those things. Because we've seen the downside to it, like we can. When your children usually eat healthy and they eat real food and you give them something like that, the. You really have no background noise. So you're, they're very sensitive to it. So it's like, I can say, this one's going to get eczema, this one's going to bleed from his nose. This one's going to like, have I lose eye contact when I like when there's like red 40, you know.

Yeah.

So like, those things are like. And obviously the medical community and just media and culture at large does not really put anywhere near the amount of importance behind, like, what those things can do, even acutely, let alone chronically.

Yeah, yeah. And you brought up the Weston A. Price diet. Also. I'll link if folks go to BenGreenfieldLife.com Vega I'll link to the dietary guidelines for that. But it is different than a strict paleo approach. There are whole grains, there's legumes, there's nuts. But it all involves soaking, sprouting and leavening. You neutralize a lot of the phytic acid and the enzyme inhibitors. You see a lot of ghee and lard and full fat raw cheeses as well. Many times you don't see dairy on a typical paleo type of diet. And unlike a ketogenic diet, it allows for unpasteurized wine and beer. Obviously not in kids, but in adults, there's a great deal of some of these slightly higher carb foods like berries and grains and legumes and nuts that appear in it. But I think it's a very well structured diet, especially for the average person. I think it's one of the best diets out there. As a matter of fact, most of the women who I've helped with their pregnancy diet, I'll have them on something very, very close to that. And all these big gorgeous kids, 8 to 10 pounds with, you know, nice teeth and hair that grows in nicely and that Weston A. Price diet, I think works really, really well for the lion's share of parents and children, especially those who aren't restricting carbohydrates, for example. Now we could obviously talk about nutrition until we're blue in the face and you get into more of your guys nutrition concepts in the book. But you also mentioned, and I'd love to, to kind of segue into this, this school that your kids go to, I think you called it the Urban Cottage. Tell me about that.

Oh man, I'm just like so blessed to find this place. So we, like I said before we started radical unschooling, you know, and obviously over time, you know, people as, as a parent, you know, when you homeschool or unschool, you know, you got to deal with first your fears. So that's where the research comes in. John Taylor Gatto a bunch of really good articles and books that we've read. And then like, then the next thing is you got to prepare yourself for the, for like your family. And that takes a little bit longer because you have, you have no proof at that point. When they're little and every time the child acts up, they're like, oh, you see, I told you. And then they always act like, you know, they're going to turn on you like a pit bull naturally, like at some point. But we did, we're able to learn and pivot and we realized that we didn't have enough structure. And here comes in 2019, Christina Kirp, a friend of ours, she moves to town and is looking for a place because she needs to have some time to do content. And she's a writer and she finds this place and she tells Maura about it and it's called Urban Cottage. And this was in 2019. And so Marisa, she's the owner, it's like this little house and very much completely in line with us as far as educational philosophy, but with a much more just robust background in like pedagogy and like the actual cause, you know, I used to be like, well, any parent can homeschool their child and like, to some extent I still believe that. But you know, there's, it's an investment in, you know, you have to learn, you have to research. You know, you can't just, it's not that you're unqualified, but just like anything in life that, that doesn't require school, you have to learn. And you know, we did a lot of the parts that we liked, but there were certain things that we didn't and we had certain things with unschooling that are still in place where generally speaking, at Urban cottage, they're probably 70 to 80% of the time in their sweet spot, which is, you know, what. What they. What really makes them, like, their eyes twinkle. But then there's still going to be that attention paid to. All right, like, you are. Like, your reading needs to be better, your writing is kind of sloppy, you know, your work. And then there's. Obviously there's. There's kind of a loose agenda. Like, there's. Right now we're doing history. We're doing. Well, they're always doing history, actually. But, you know, last year, I think the big focus was like, on Egypt and. Or this year's on Egypt. And last year was a lot on. On, you know, the American history and world. The wars and Civil War, but, like, Urban Cottage. So Marisa, she's very much, like, she's very Montessorian. And hopefully she doesn't get mad at me if she listens to this, like, about me pigeonholing her, because she's just. She was a teacher and she had a lot of passion and she homeschooled and she just had this idea to start this place. There's never more than five children in that place. You know, they take their shoes off when they go in there. It's a. You know, the environment is very Montessorian as far as, like, having that really good. Like, just setting them up for success.

Yeah. Montessorian, by the way, just a quick explanation for people.

Oh, yeah.

It emphasizes a lot of free physical activity, like just basically mind body awareness. A lot of informal instruction and individual instruction, rather than everybody learning at the same pace as the rest of the classroom. Typically, a really good early emphasis on writing and reading. Right. Expression of thoughts and the ability to rapidly assimilate information. And then a lot of sensory motor training. So people throw that term around sometimes. I think some people might not understand what it means, but those are the basic principles of the Montessori method. And it sounds like that's what the urban college is kind of following.

Yeah. And I think a lot of children, we. We keep, as parents trying to, like, I remember when they were younger, we already knew, like, flashy toys, toys that have. That are like, basically just crush the imagination, whether they're making noises or they already have sounds, or the character's already, like, well defined where you can't use your imagination. Like, we knew that was wrong, but for the most part we were like, it's interesting. Children are just so imaginative and, like, you give Them. These toys, and they're like, I want to play with your phone. You know, I want to play with this box. And I think the Montessori. And like. Like, Montessori is very much. They. They understand that. Like, let's give them some. Some smaller, you know, plastic knives or whatever, you know, bamboo knives. And. And let's. Let's let them do these things. They want to do them. They want the responsibility. And it does develop their motor skills, but they're. They just. She's also Christian, which obviously that doesn't exclude anyone because there are all types of people that go there. But she's just amazing in the sense that, number one, every time we pick them up, whoever's, like the facilitator at the time, which they're all very highly qualified, they came from, like, some of the best schools, and they say, this is ten times better than. Than what I did. And they get paid well, which is. Which is important. But they give us a review of, like, what's going on for this week. There's always a printout of, like, what we're doing this week, what you can practice at home. And we have regular meetings. We have. There's a therapist, a licensed therapist that can diagnose things and can evaluate things that we have, you know, from time to time. And then we also have book club where, as it should be, parents are invested and will read like, Last Boy in the woods, or we'll read, you know, things that. About the importance of outside play or interesting conversations that get all types of parents from different lifestyles to talk about subjects and. Which is just kind of like a pet thing of hers as well, because, you know, we've lost the ability to have a dialogue where everything is just so red or blue, you know, blue pill or red pill this or that. And it's like, people don't understand that that's not how life is. And we need to be able to. You know, I guess this is a good segue if we want to talk about it, like, you know, the trivium and the quadrivium, you know, like.

Yeah, I noticed that you did talk about the trivium and the quadrivium in the book when you began to discuss some of the failures of modern education, how you felt that it was a form of, you know, indoctrination. But some people might not also be familiar with this idea of the trivium and the quadrivium. Can you get into that?

Yeah. So, like, the. The trivium stands, you know, obviously, tree Tree trust is a threefold discovery methodology. It's, it's how we discover truth. You know, we have grammar, logic, and rhetoric. So grammar is kind of like the information gathering, which is, which is what most school is. What, you know, it's, which is indoctrination. It's like, know these facts, right? But it misses that, that processing, that processing part, which is logic. You know, like, we need to, we need to understand and have like open conversations about how do I read that versus how do you read that? I mean, if I read a Bible verse, Ben, and you read a Bible verse, like, you'll get something and I'll get another thing. And you know, like, the Jews call that midrashing, which is super cool. Like, we're very much Greek, where it's like the instructor, like, it's that Western, you know, education that, that the instructor's telling you what to learn. But, you know, having the, the ability to, to have the knowledge, the understanding with which the logic is. And then the wisdom, which is the rhetoric. The rhetoric is like, how. How am I able to defend what I, what I know? And if you think about it, if you miss out on any part of that, you know, the second one you can't do as well if you, if. Well, the third one you can't do as well if you don't have the second one, you're not going to be able to defend, you know, the knowledge that you have if you don't spend time understanding. Whereas, like, in the typical education, we have these, like, just completely arbitrary, you know, guidelines and milestones where they need to do this by this age and this by this age. And, and, you know, you're basically. It's the idea of like, what does a school do? You know, a school of fish. Like, you, you can't have, you can't be too out in the front. You can't be too far in the back. And like, you know, it's, it's. Without even getting into the, the ethical part of it, just, just like the overall utilitarian side of this, like, how is this going to work? It's a management system. And you're just. The best you're going to be able to do is manage people. There will be people that thrive in that. But like you said, like, you know, like you said there are people like, like rich roll that do great with vegan diets. But that's not everybody. And you know, the whole idea of having this education, it's like, well, I got to work and I got to work, but As a parent, we're very much, you know, we are committed to this lifestyle. And to be committed to this lifestyle, there's, there's certain sacrifices that we make because like they're only a child once that developed all these different developmental stages. If you have this in place, your child becomes just first of all, like, they won't be deceived. They'll be able to make good, good decisions. They'll be able to make mistakes. And they will make mistakes. That's the other thing that people are afraid of is, is, you know, danger or mistakes. But that's the, that's the trivia and I think it's, it's so important.

So just, just real quick to summarize for people who quick summary that the trivium is basically a threefold process. It's grammar, logic and rhetoric. And typically the grammar is the knowledge component, the logic is the understanding component, and the rhetoric is the wisdom component. So using modern terms we might classify that as basically input, meaning the knowledge and the grammar, processing meaning the understanding the logic, and then output, meaning the wisdom and the rhetoric. So essentially you're creating an information filtering and dissemination process that allows. This is very similar to like Naval Ravikant's idea behind education that a well rounded education that sets someone up for success anywhere in life would include some element of writing, the ability to clearly express one's thoughts, reading, the ability to be able to digest and understand information, and then rhetoric, the ability to be able to express oneself. And I think he classifies rhetoric as also persuasion. Right. The ability to make a case or argue for something that you want to make a case for. Now Naval also highlights the importance of logic and, or computer programming, which is just basically logic applied to technology. And then the final one is arithmetic, like basic processing of numbers and quantities. Now the quadrivium is the other component of this classical education approach and want to understand the quadrivium is what is arithmetic? What are the other three? Geometry.

Geometry, yep. And music and astronomy.

Music and astronomy. Okay. So yeah, Naval Ravikant says arithmetic would be one and like I mentioned, logical computer programming would be another. But it sounds like the quadrivium says arithmetic and rather than logical computer programming lists geometry, music and astronomy. So basically that's kind of like the quantification aspect or understanding the universe, like the science of the universe is split into in the quadrivium, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. And then that's paired with the trivium, the grammar, the logic and the rhetoric.

Yeah, I mean like you Know, to have logic, to have understanding the way logic, quote, unquote, logic is applied now is all subjective, if you notice. Like, not all, but I hate to make, you know, generalizations, but most of it is just here is the, our subjective understanding and here is the explanation for this, here's why this is happening, which, you know, confounds like, you know, effects with causes and you know, it's full of, of what's the word? Fallacies. Whereas, you know, if you, if you're looking at, you know, how do we apply logic? Like how are we things? There's natural laws and you know, quantity. There's no subjectivity like in quantity, you know, like you'll have. And then geometry is kind of like that, the shape, size and proportion, you know, spatial stuff. And then of course you have music, which is vibration, you know, like thermodynamics, you know, like understanding how arithmetic goes through time. And then of course astronomy, which is why you mentioned how everything. It's interesting how there's so many scientific principles that completely fly in the face of modern science. Like everything is naturally like the second law of thermodynamics, you know, like everything just leans towards entropy. But, and I, and I believe that to be true with human beings in general. I believe that back then because of, we were less degenerated, humans were just better built, your minds worked better. And we focused on these what we call the seven lost arts, which is the trivium and the quadrivium. And you know, having the ability to understand like, like the heavens, you know, the stars, the arithmetic of space, of time and space. You know, it's. Honestly, it's so cool because, you know, it literally is like a clock up there. And you know, children, you know, you want to get a child just like lit up like, I have a Nikon P900, like, look for stars, you know, and see what stars actually are, how they actually look. They look like these vibrating orbs in like some sort of liquid medium. It's amazing. And it also helps us with signs and seasons, which obviously the Bible says we're able to predict the next eclipse. We're able to. These are all. It's like clockwork. It's a perfect design. It's amazing.

Yeah, it's interesting. It's always puzzled me why they don't just put the quadrivium and the trivium together and just call it like the septimium or something like that. But those really are the seven basic tenets of a well formulated liberal arts education. As a Matter of fact, both of my sons have expressed interest in attending a liberal arts institution up here in Idaho called New St. Andrews College. And although I'm disillusioned with many forms of modern university education, I've given them the green light thumbs up on that because again I feel if they did want to go and do coursework after high school, studying those seven subjects prepares one for success in law, in medicine, in art, in writing and in any career that they want to pursue. It's simply helps to create a well rounded human. And there's of course you don't have to wait until a liberal arts education in college to get there. You can weave this stuff into a high school or a junior high or even a K through 6 type of curriculum if you are unschooling or homeschooling. I should note that I think a couple of the better resources out there for learning about the type of books and curriculums that could exist, that could be woven in are one book called Unschooling to University. I think that's a fantastic manual that goes all the way. I haven't read that from K after college. Oh man, it's good. And it's relatively new. It's only a couple years old. I interviewed the author a few years ago when the book first came out and I'll link to that@bengreenfieldlife.com Vega that interview and also the book. But then also John Holt has a wonderful, wonderful list of resources on homeschooling and unschooling. That's John Holt, GWS.com I'll link to that one in the show notes as well. And so yeah, it sounds like you're doing a lot of right stuff. This urban cottage sounds fascinating. I may have to go check out their website and see some more of what they're doing. I wanted to also ask you about discipline because this is something that you cover a little bit in the book. I think you guys have an interesting approach to discipline. So tell me a little bit more about discipline. Whether you guys did spanking or some other form of discipline.

Yeah, so we started off like just hardcore, you know, anti all of that. You know, we were like, you know, this doesn't, it doesn't do anything. And it was way too, it was idealistic to be honest. You know, it was not reality based. It was, you know, it was kind of something that we're always talking about on the mindset side, which is like our perception was how we wanted things to be, but not really how they, how they are. And so we started off with like, it was very little discipline. And you know, with the first one, he just naturally responded to the whole idea of living in partnership as, you know, parents and the child. We're like, okay, we're building trust, you know, and it's very woo woo stuff. And honestly, like, I don't really agree with it anymore, but we, we just were, we were thinking about the. What does spanking do to the brain? And, and you know, all, all the stuff that we learned about that, you know, it decreases brain matter and, and.

How, you know, you said spanking decreases brain matter.

Yeah, there's actually, there's actually really. Yeah, there's. You know what? I'll, I'll make a note to see because my, my wife knows that one, but it's basically, it decreases gray matter and I'll look for that. So I can give that to you. And also, by the way, wooden books for the trivium and the quadrivium. I would also recommend wooden books. Wooden books, Yep. I think it's all one word. There's one of each and we have those. But yeah, let me, I'm writing a note on this.

I've seen some research like trauma and child abuse may lead to alterations in neural tissue and a loss of gray matter. I'm not sure how closely that extends to a clear and defined discipline for something that a child has done that's obviously. Well for us, at least when we spanked, it would be when our child was doing something that could potentially put their life or their health at serious risk or something that they were repeatedly engaged in that they obviously were not getting the message via consequential based parenting or some other form of discipline that this was wrong or could harm them in the future. And we've probably spanked our children. Gosh, they're 14, and I don't think we'd really spank them at all at this point. But I would say probably I could count on both hands maybe like 10 times or less that we've ever actually spanked our children. We tend to use consequential based parenting, but I think there's a time and a place to slap a child's hand if they keep on going towards the hot stove or something like that. And I would doubt that that would cause a reduction in gray matter versus like emotional neglect or physical abuse. But it'd be interesting to see the data on that.

Well, you know what, and this is, this is. I think we mentioned it when we answered that question in the book about how, you know, we were generally, my wife and I, you get us both together, we're naturally very rebellious, very libertarian. And we had to reconcile that with our beliefs, you know, and we realized that, you know, I had a friend who's a pastor, who's a chaplain for the Dolphins. He's great guy, he spanks his child, he does it the right way. And we did actually bring in some spanking later on, especially with the younger one. And it seemed to be much better. But like you said in the right context, not out of anger. And maybe we were reading into. And I just took my wife's word for it when she's like, you know, spanking decreases gray matter. Maybe she was conflating, you know, spanking the child with like all out abuse, which could totally be the case, like you said. But like I said in. And both of us, when we answered this was, we realized that, you know, adding really just focusing in on a biblical approach where in general, like do anything that you do needs to be grounded in really good principles. We started to see certain things where, like I said, bad perception. So we basically added an emphasis on God's law. Because if you're teaching your child about natural law, natural law is God's law, science is God's law. You know, for example, highlighting the fifth commandment, it says honor your parents, you know, and then I, in Deuteronomy 28, you know, I've read this over and over to them. It's really obviously I get theatrical with it when I read it. And it's funny because it's all like, you know, if you follow these commandments, you know, you'll be blessed in the field, you'll be your oxen, your the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your trees, you know, like you'll never owe someone, you'll always be the lender, you'll be the head and not the tail. And you know, everything. Your enemies, you know, they'll come running one way at you and they'll run away seven ways from you. But if you don't. And it literally talks about the curses and those are things that aren't even in my control. They're natural laws that if you're not obeying your parents, you're not honoring your parents. And it's definitely. If someone is listening to this and is like me, who is just very libertarian minded, I would ask to examine that a little bit and examine your beliefs.

Yeah, I think that a lot of the concepts that you'd find in the Ten Commandments, for example, that are often misinterpreted as silly rules from on high, they actually lend themselves to a great deal of societal stability, Right. Whether that be monogamy or honoring one's father and mother, or not stealing or taking something that doesn't belong to you. There's a reason that I think our forefathers were very wise in founding this country upon some semblance of these Judeo Christian principles. Because again, let's take the fifth commandment, for example, this idea of honoring your father and mother. Well, there's a pretty distinct connection between honoring parents and maintaining civilization, right? So for example, we know that fatherless boys, right, they're more likely to grow up and commit violent crime and mistreat women and act out against society. We know that girls who don't have a father to honor or to love, they're more likely to seek the wrong men or to be promiscuous at an early age, which can of course, lend itself to things such as abortion or, or fatherless children. And I think the other thing to think about is that if you look at a lot of totalitarian movements, one of the first things they do is they try to break the child parent bond, to shift the child's allegiance from the parents to the state. And that tends to usurp the parent's role and also result in the ability for more totalitarian governmental control. And then finally, when you look at the issue of, you know, things like hospice, the way that old people are cared for, the way that we dishonor elders in our society, the way that traditions are lost and legacy is lost, a great deal of that comes down to not honoring one's parents. And so you look at these laws, then you start to investigate how they produce these tendrils that extend into multiple aspects of societal stability. And the light bulb goes off, you're like, oh, these are actually some pretty good rules for running society in, in general. And I think that the Israelites were a perfect example of how that did create a great deal of success for them to have these laws of absolute morality. And I think that's one of the reasons that America became great, is by being founded on these principles. And so when you hear something like honor your father and mother, there's a lot more to it than just being nice to your parents. It's pretty important for society and legacy as a whole.

Yeah. And not to mention like anything else in your, in your lifestyle, like eating the right way so your child can eat the right way, you're modeling what you want for Them, you know, you're modeling this, this, this stable family structure that's that, that a developing child that needs stability and needs nurturing and needs discipline. You're modeling that for them so that they can continue to pass that through their genes and pass that through their actions. So yeah, it's like, I think a lot of it is just like our typical, you know, kind of postmodern culture, which everything is like, you know, question everything and I question everything I do. But at the same time, like you look at even evidentially, like you said, I don't know if you ever heard of Alice Bailey's ten point plan, but she's like a big new age person, like from the 30s. And it was like literally everything that's happening now is that. And it tends to like always lead its, like lend itself to mind control and, you know, warped views and a perception and a view of life and just a way of being that is much more pliable to others and less, you know, individually, like independent and honestly, like effective, you know, and capable in, in different areas of life. Because it's, it's like, so. Yeah, but in general, like, I'm with you, man. Like, I definitely consequences, I think are huge. It's like, you know, if, if I have, you know, it's the same way we say like, you know, sharing. We don't force them to share because that's forced sharing. That doesn't make sense. Or, or like if, if we teach them that their bodies are their own, you know, like your body is yours. If you don't want to kiss grandma today, you're not in the mood. I'm not going to say go kiss Grandma and grandma is going to get mad about that. I get it. But at the same time, like, you know, you, you want grandma, you want my child to be able to, especially if it's a girl, which we have boys, but still, like, your body's yours. You want them to know that their body is theirs and you know, you want them to have a strong sense of property rights, like, this is my property. And children tend to be a lot more graspy when they're afraid that their parents are going to take their toy away and give it to Johnny because Johnny wants his turn. Or the whole idea that like, well, Johnny's not sharing with me and now I need to go find the authority figure to make them share with me. I mean, how does that play out as in adulthood? Like we've seen it, you know.

Yeah, yeah. Now in the time that we have left, I Would love to visit Rites of passage. This is another section that you talk about in the books. So what rites of passage, or I guess significant moments of maturation to adolescence or adulthood did any of your children experience? How did you weave that in if you did?

Well, we definitely have, like. I talk about the importance of, like, it's not 0 to 100. Like, you have to have increasing difficulty, increasing independence and responsibility for the child. So, you know, we do poppy days. Like, our next Papi day is going to be really fun. It's going to be both my sons with me. Where we're going, we're just going to go ride, go karts, you know, but we will do hikes. And, you know, one of the things that I had years ago, probably like five, six years ago, he was like five or six. Desmond, my oldest, he was the original. And then I actually, he. He was. We were walking through. We were hiking, and I heard him behind me telling his brother and teaching his brother, you know, because when it gets hard, you know, the natural inclination is just to. To quit or just, I'm bored. I want to. I want to go home. I want. Let's go eat some ice cream, you know, whatever. And so I. This was not hard for me to do because I have a terrible sense of direction. I was like. We went hiking with the goal of getting lost, and because I knew that it would be. It would be hot, it would be harder for him. And that's when I heard him starting to huff and puff and starting to, hey, you know him. And ha. And.

And.

And. And then I was like, now is the time. I said, I did this on purpose. Okay? Now is the time where you have to think about, there's times when things are going to get hard and what are you going to tell yourself, you know, because your mind is going to say, I can't believe this, and get. Get into this, like, crazy pattern of, like, victimhood or just not problem solving and not addressing the actual issue. And so develop a mantra. And I heard him, like, behind me, and. And he was just, like, kind of trying things out. And he finally. He's changed his mantra since then, but, like, because he says it's dumb now, but he was like, you can do this. Nobody's better than you. You know, and so things like that, you know, I got Desmond when he turned 9, he went to, like, two gun safety courses where, like, they were each, like, two to three hours, and he shot, like, 100 rounds. So, you know, shooting a.22 handgun, shooting a 9 millimeter shooting a.22 rifle. He now has a.22 rifle. And so increasing the. And we do all types of stuff outside. Like we made a raised garden bed and he does the hoeing to take out the grass and we put in the dirt. He's an amazing horticulturalist. Like he's at urban cottage. Like his plants and his fruits and vegetables, out of all of them, they live the longest. They actually the person who does. Because now there's a forest school aspect to it, which I didn't mention, like two, three days away. They have for us a week they have forest school where they're, they're doing stuff outside. And all of these things have to build up to a point where I mentioned in the book how a book that was really transformative for me, which was Wild at Heart by.

Great book, great, great ministry, great website, great resources. John Eldridge.

John Eldridge. Yeah, there you go. So like every man has that question, you know, do I have what it takes to be a man? And you have three boys, right?

Two boys, twin boys, 14 years old.

Two boys.

Two boys.

Well, by the way, I failed to mention this, like I got your raising superheroes, like little PDF like 10 years ago. I was like, oh, this is awesome. You know, nobody talks about the importance of eating boogers. You know, all this like really cool stuff. But I'm like, it's all, it's really important because every man has that question, do I have what it takes to be a man? And you know, like, like if we don't have that father figure, we see it like in these, these cultures that are still connected to like the traditions and still connected to the land and to their food. They have these rites of passage and they're, they're never like giving it to them is not going to work. You can't just say, you're a man now, son. Because even if he agrees, he's subconsciously going to say, I didn't really earn this. So you have to increase the responsibility over time and make it a little bit more dangerous. Don't be afraid of things like we don't risk life or limb, but you know, things that are more dangerous doing like survival type stuff. Like they were in Cub Scouts, both of them. We did tons of camping and increasing that. Because then when you say that then it's going to mean something. And that's how you avoid that false self manifesting where it's either like you become the tough guy or you become the workaholic or the ladies man or the wimp and all of these are just like a poor expression of your masculinity, where the father's needed for that. And you have to like basically inculcate that and do those things. I think rites of passage are huge.

Yeah. It sounds to me like you did. From the learning how to shoot several types of firearms to some of the trips that you guys are going to be going on for hunting, to these mantras that you did with your son on the difficult hike that you've kind of implemented almost like many rites of passages throughout their upbringing. And I've taken a little bit of a similar approach. Right. Like we've got our next one is a free diving and spearfishing course that I have coming up with my sons for them to learn as little inland Washington and Idaho boys how to deal with water and depth and sharks and fish and darkness and kind of the fear of the ocean. Or for example, we've gone on multiple hunts together where they harvested an animal. Or we'll be going down and doing in a couple of months the Warrior Weekend near Encinitas, California, where we have a couple of days of almost like a miniature Navy SEAL Hell Week for fathers and sons. We've done the Father Son Wilderness Survival Camp. But then I think also, and this is something I think is important, we've woven in two distinctly ceremonial rites of passage. One rite of passage into adolescence, which they completed when they were 13, which was backpack, wool, blanket, knife, wilderness overseen by a wilderness survival instructor, in which they were given the opportunity to survive in the wilderness and face their fears. And they came out of that. And there was a coming of age ceremony and a fire and a family and friends feast afterwards. And then the second distinctly ceremonial rite of passage that they'll do when they're 16 is something similar, another rite of passage in the wilderness, but it'll be longer, five to seven days. Again, self survival, facing fears, being alone. And so I'm a fan of both identifying times of a child's life where you have the opportunity to foster their entry into adulthood and help them to face their fears. And then actually having this time where a child might know three or four years in advance. Oh, when they're 12. Oh, when I'm 16, this is going to be when my rite of passage occurs. I better be getting ready for that right now via plant foraging and fire making and shelter building. And I think that both are good to weave in. But it's interesting that nearly every parent who I interviewed for this book has either kind of like the casual approach of just identifying Times and opportunities to teach a child about what it means to be an adult and to put them through typically, a hard scenario, a hard, mental, physically difficult scenario to do that. Or these ceremonial rites of passages that are clearly identified as, oh, hey, you're an adolescent now, in which, in the case of us, they were given more responsibility in the home, more chores, we began to call them young men instead of boys, et cetera. And then a rite of passage into adulthood, after which they will be expected to contribute to the home's income. They will have two years before they're out of the house and not allowed to live in our house. After that point, they'll be expected to have a job for themselves, et cetera. And they know, they've known since they were 10 years old that that's what's coming down the pipeline. So we give them plenty of time to prepare. But I think that weaving these type of things intentionally into a child's upbringing is so, so important.

Well, I mean, you think about the typical approach, the only real rite of passage is like getting your license, you know, or, you know, and, and like, you know, you go for maybe a.

Bar mitzvah for, for a girl sometimes it's. It's her first period, you know, or onset of menstruation. But yeah, I think we can be a little bit more intentional in that. In many cases.

Well, I mean, yeah, cuz like you go from having to ask permission to go to the bathroom to, you know, either fighting in a war, God forbid, or, or like deciding what to do with your life.

Yeah.

You know, you need to have that, that, that stair step approach like you're doing. And a lot of it is fun, like processing a chicken. You know, my son did that when he was 6. You know, just, you know, dissecting animals, things like that, that for boys. I know boys because, you know, God blessed me with two boys. I guess he didn't think I could handle girls, and I guess I agree. And, and I know boys and I know what's important for them. And I think as a parent, we need to know specifically, like, what, what each gender needs and how they can. It's all, you know, like the education, you know, it's, it's that, that specific approach for each, you know, customized approach.

Yeah, yeah, tailored approach. Yeah, exactly. Well, there's so much more that you get into in you and Mora's chapter in Boundless Parenting. I will of course, link to the book or you can go to BoundlessParentingBook.com to check it out. And hear more of Danny and Maura's responses to 31 different questions that I asked each of the dozens of parents that are featured within the book. But then I will also put resources in the show. Notes to everything that Danny and I talked about today, including books. Books like Unschooling to University, the Weston A. Price dietary guidelines, more information about leptin. If you want to learn about that, we'll include some of the research on spanking and gray matters. Everything that you'd want to hear or read more about I'll put@bengreenfieldlife.com Vega that's V E G A. And when you go there, you can also leave questions, comments or feedback for Dani, for Maura too. Even though she couldn't join us, she, I'm sure can hop in and comment here and there and I'll also take a look at any of those. So I love to keep the discussion going. And again. And Danny Moore's website is fatfueledfamily.com you can check out all of their writings. More resources on that website as well. So Danny, this has been fun. Thanks so much for coming on and sharing all this stuff with us.

Man, oh man, this is my favorite thing to talk about. Thanks brother.

I can tell. All right, well folks, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Danny Vega signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com have an amazing week. More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh, entertaining, well informed and often outside the box approach to discovering the health and happiness and hope that we all crave. So I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode today. If you liked it or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel, wherever that might be. And just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Nice. Thanks so much. Means a lot.