Q&A 393: How To Increase Testosterone After Exercise, Keto For Athletes, Keto Pancakes, Cream Chees

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness cbd, Keto, romaine lettuce, how to increase testosterone after exercise, aesthetics versus longevity, and much, much more.

I have a master's degree in physiology, biomechanics and human nutrition. I've spent the past two decades competing in some of the most masochistic events on the planet. From seal fit, kokoro, Spartan, agoji, and the world's toughest mutter to 13 Ironman triathlons, brutal bow hunts, adventure RA spearfishing, plant foraging, free diving, bodybuilding, and beyond. I combine this intense time in the trenches with a blend of ancestral wisdom and modern science. Searched the globe for the world's top experts in performance, fat loss recovery, gut hormones, brain beauty, and brawn to deliver you this podcast. Everything you need to know to live an adventurous, joyful and fulfilling life. My name is Ben Greenfield. Enjoy the ride.

So, Brock, besides all the other sexy things that we have planned to talk.

About today, like the most sexy things.

Trendy topics in all of health, like CBD and keto, we might as well make a trifecta and talk about fasting. Are you doing this. This five day New Year's fast that I'm on?

I am. I'm doing a variation.

What's your variation?

Pizza.

Well, what I.

What I'm doing is I'm actually, I'm. I'm doing a vegan. I'm doing a level four vegan diet, but only between 11pm and 7am Wait.

What makes it a level four?

Well, you don't eat anything that casts a shadow.

Ah, I get it. Okay, I'm nodding my head like I understand, but I still don't understand. What. What does that have to do with level four?

It doesn't.

It's.

Yeah, I think it's from the Simpsons. To be honest, I think I stole that from.

Is it really called a level four fast?

Well, it is. By Lisa Simpson when she's talking to. I think it was.

Paul McCartney's wife, Linda McCartney.

Yeah. You, my friend, are dating yourself. Because I know nothing of this strange, mysterious Simpsons you speak of.

Oh, it was just the 1990s. Come on. Anyway, so. Yeah, but I. In. That was my clever way of saying yes. I'm just doing. I'm doing the intermittent, like, extended, intermittent fasting version.

Okay, well, I am. And for those of you who have no clue what we're talking about, my company, Kion, we are overseeing a fast for. Gosh, there's like over 10,000 people doing this over this week, and I've chosen to do kind of a modified fast. It's called an elemental diet and it's a way to kind of heal the gut. So basically there's this meal replacement stuff. It's called Betty Clear. Have you heard of this, Brock?

I have not.

So it's got a whole bunch of sulforaphane in it. Like sulforaphane glucosinolate. It's a, that's from the seeds and sprouts of broccoli. And you know, you hear about, you know, Sulforaphane. Dr. Rhonda Patrick has talked about that quite a bit as being a really good way to upregulate, particularly what's called phase two detoxification, the liver and then also to protect the gut from damage and protect the cells overall. But then what Thorne did is they blended this with a whole host of other nutrients that make it almost like a medical meal replacement blend. Meaning that it has everything from like curcumin, green tea, grapeseed extracts, the methyltetrahydrofolate form of folic acid, a bunch of mineral chelates. It's everything that you would expect to put into a giant canister that would taste like ass. But actually.

I do. So breakfast, lunch and dinner. Right Now I do two scoops of that, which comes out to about 170 calories. And then I.

That's just pretty puny.

Well, yeah, but, but while I'm fasting. Duh. Yeah, I'm fasting, I'm making shakes over here, bro. So I've. I blend that with some bone broth and a little bit of salt and then the only thing that's missing, you know, for me as a, as a nutritionist, I look at the labels and inspect things and try to figure out if I'm building up any deficits. The only thing I was a little bit concerned about just because I'm still training and everything, was a little bit of fatty acids and a little bit of extra amino acids. So pre workout I'm doing about 10 grams of what are called essential amino acids to kind of keep myself in a relatively anabolic state for my workouts.

We've talked about those a couple of times. Yeah.

The other thing I'm doing is about a tablespoon of extravert virgin olive oil that when I blend that thorn mediclear, I put that in there. And that's not for a five day fast. That's not that necessary. It's not like I'm going to be fat deficient. But for a lot of people who do an elemental diet, it's particularly Effective for things like small intestine bacterial overgrowth and bloating and gas and leaky gut. They'll follow a protocol like that for a good 30 days. You know, I have some clients who I've had follow something very similar to this for 30 days. And that's a scenario where I'm like, okay, we need to add just a little bit of extra fat. So I'll have them supplement with some fish oil and then put some. Some extra virgin olive oil in with their mediclear. Plus the mediclear has broccoli in it. And last I checked, you know, olive oil tastes pretty good with broccoli. I think that's like turkey cranberry.

That's delicious. Anyways, now you should just do a shot glass. Like just pour a shot glass of olive oil. That's delicious.

You mean just like drink it straight? Yeah, it actually is. We're part of this thing called the Extrovert. What's it called? No, the. The. The Olive Oil Club. The Olive Oil Club. And every quarter we get three bottles of wonderful olive oil from all over the world into our house, from like Australia and Spain and Italy. And my kids and wife and I will have tastings when the olive oil gets there because it comes with all these tasting notes, almost like wine. And taste the herbaceous, spicy, lemony, citrusy. They kind of pull some stuff out of their ass sometimes. As far as the. The description, like an herbaceous thyme tree bark infused, piney flavor. Anyways, though, it's. Yeah. So we do shot glasses of olive oil. And I suppose now that everyone's salivating, we should go on to talk about keto and romaine lettuce. Shall we not.

Let's do it.

News flash.

All right, so first of all, before we jump in, I should mention that all I know, everybody's chomping at the bits to join the Olive Oil Club and to learn more about this mysterious Thorne Mediclear I speak of. So that along with, as usual, we do really, really comprehensive show notes for you guys. So I'll put everything over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 393. And I'll bet now you're very, very much interested in why I mentioned romaine lettuce in the.

I think I can guess.

Yeah. Okay, so did you see this article about the five foods the Internet was most obsessed with in 2018?

Only because I saw you. You put it in there. But I saw some similar ones, and this one, I have to admit, is much more near and dear to my heart than some of the other lists I saw.

Drum roll, please. Here we go.

Okay.

Number one was keto cheesecake. Keto cheesecake, baby. So that was number one. And I went and looked at the recipe. It, it's, it's a, you know, some of these keto recipes, it's kind of like what's the diet that if it fits your macros diet, you know, where it doesn't really matter what's in it so long as it has X percentage of fat. And as far as it's low enough, you know, if it's low enough in carbohydrates, this one, it looks pretty tasty. I wouldn't have particularly put this recipe together exactly as they did. It's the crust is almond flour and butter, which is not bad. I just mentioned some grass fed butter, of course. And then the cheesecake itself is 16 ounces of cream cheese with no stipulation of, you know, the source of the cheese. Yeah, I would, I would, I would potentially choose something else like a, like a really good organic. You could use a yogurt cheese or, or even like an almond cheese. If you were doing the almond flour, it could probably go pretty well with the almond cheese or you know, just like go, go organic too, if you're going with creamy cheese. And then what else was in there? Two large eggs, not bad. Vanilla extract or vanilla flavor, which you do need to be careful with. They, they do get that from beaver anus, believe it or not. If you don't get the real vanilla extract, then lemon juice, salt and erythritol. May want to use stevia instead of erythritol if you don't want your cheesecake to be a fart city. But that's not that bad. It's a keto cheesecake. Keto cheesecake was the number one or the number five food the Internet was most obsessed with. Based on, I think they're ranking on like Instagram likes or something like that.

I think it was Google. It was Google Analytics, like Google search terms. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

And that is literally like have your cake and eat it too. Kind of a. Kind of a deal right there.

Yeah. And then, and promise me we won't, we won't reverse engineer every single one of these recipes. Keto pancakes was the next one. And those actually look pretty good. But the main, it's kind of similar to the keto cheesecake, except it's a pancake. Squish it down a lot of. That's pretty much it. Well, maybe make the cheese you could probably skip it. Make the cheesecake get a griddle and just put the cheesecake on the griddle and you have the pancake recipe.

Just flatten that sucker and grill it.

Basically like coconut flour and baking powder. And then they'll add cream cheese. Speak of the devil. And lots more almond flour and lots more cinnamon. I think most people who make keto recipes, and my wife says this about the keto cookbooks that people inevitably send to our house, like every single freaking day. You only really need 10 ingredients in your pantry to follow any of these cookbooks. It's like stevia, cream cheese, eggs, MCT oil, coconut oil, you know, and cinnamon maybe something.

And then some sort of flour, like almond flour or coconut flour.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Number three was CBD gummies.

I had not seen those.

No, they're actually pretty good. There's this company called Botanica Botanica that is out of Seattle, and they make these wonderful, wonderful, wonderful edibles. And they, they do different THC CBD ratios. And I think they're expanding now into California and a few other places where marijuana is legal. But of course, most people are aware that CBD from hemp is fully legal now federally based on the farm in the US And CBD gummies, but these are not homemade. These are not like a recipe like keto cheesecake or keto pancakes. These are just sold. And people like to eat these CBD gummies. The ones that are shown here are the brand Lord Jones. I don't know what those are, where they come from.

I like the logo.

Yeah. But I'm a fan of cbd. You know, the problem with CBD is most people use it, but they don't notice anything because they don't use enough. Because all these products use paltry portions of cbd. When you look at the research, like for the anti anxiety effect, it's like 300 to 900 milligrams. And a serving in most of these CBD products is 5 to 10 milligrams. For sleep, you need like 60 to 100 milligrams minimum. Right. So I actually took CBD last night for sleep. This probably broke my fast, now that I think about it, because of the amount of oil I had to consume to deliver said cbd. I was using this, this CBD that was blended in like MCT oil. And I had to use like six dropper fulls, you know, and then you hold it in your mouth for like two minutes to actually get. I think I got about 100 milligrams, but I had to use like half the bottle to get 100 milligrams of CBD. So I think a lot of people aren't aware that CBD works like gangbusters, but there are some companies that make really, really.

Dense CBDs. Like, I think it's elemental health. CBD is one. And then I use the. The bio CBD stuff in capsular form. And then Thorn has a CBD that. Thorn. Thorn doesn't even call it cbd. Because they're smart, because they know the feds will shut them down if they did that. It is just Thorne hemp. But some of these products, you know, they have slightly higher amounts of CBD or slightly more dense or efficacious. But anyways, that's cbd. And then number two was romaine lettuce. Now why do you think people would have googled the hell out of romaine lettuce?

Maybe because it was poisoning people.

Huh? Yeah, the E. Coli outbreak. So that was pretty much it. That's why romaine lettuce appeared along with CBD and keto pancakes and cheesecake.

So, yeah, I have never wanted a Caesar salad so bad as during that whole outbreak. It was one of those, like, just because I can't have it, I want it really bad.

I knew nothing of the outbreak. I. I am so tuned out to the news that the entire world supply of like chicken burgers, vegetables, could all go completely to hell and be full of E. Coli and parasites and pathogens and, you know, God knows what else. And I would probably show up at a restaurant and order the romaine lettuce burger with the side of, you know, raw beef tartare and. And not know any better because I know nothing of the news.

Yeah, I just, I knew because I walked into my local grocery store and they actually had a sign that said no Roman lettuce until it's like, until it's proven to be E. Coli for E. Blah, blah, blah. I was like, oh, crap.

Yeah. And number one was unicorn cake, which I think was a cop out. I think whoever wrote this article was on deadline and got to number one. But unicorn cake was number one. I think they were trying to be funny.

I think so. Or maybe they were alluding or hearkening to that Starbucks drink that was out in the spring. Wasn't there a unicorn frappuccino or something? That was ridiculously. Every kind of sugar, every kind of color, all piled on top each other.

That was, that was. That was a real thing, was an actual thing. A unicorn frappuccino. Can we find the recipe for a unicorn Frappuccino? You think you could?

I think so.

Let's see. Oh, oh, hey, I. I have a recipe. They call it the flavor changing color changing, totally not made up. Unicorn frappuccino. Magical flavors start off sweet and fruity, transforming to pleasantly sour. Oh, this, this cannot have any chemicals in it. Swirl it to reveal a color changing spectacle of purple and pink. It's finished with whipped cream, sprinkled pink and blue. Fairy powders.

Fairy powders.

Here's the, here's the ingredients.

Fairy powders.

And then we'll move on because this is getting along on the tooth. Here are the ingredients. I'll do this like the micro machine guy. Speaking of dating myself. Ice milk, creme frappuccino syrup, whipped cream, cream, mono and diglycerides, carrageen and vanilla syrup, sugar water, mango juice concentrate, sugar water, natural flavors, potassium sorbate, sugar, natural and artificial flavor, salt, salt water, xanthan gum, potassium sorbate, citric acid, blue drizzle, which is made of white chocolate, mocha sauce, sugar, condensed skim milk, coconut oil, cacao butter, natural flavor salt, potassium sorbate, monoglycerides, classic syrup, sugar, sugar, water, natural flavors, Potassium sorbate, citric acid, sour blue powder with citric acid color. Spirulina. Oh, dude, it's got a super. Hey.

Well, there you go.

I'm. I'm in.

Good for you.

Water, sugar, maltodextrin, citric acid, pink powder with fruit and vegetable color. Apple, cherry, radish, Sweet, sweet potato.

Holy radish.

Oh my gosh. This is ancestral sour blue powder, citric acid color, spirulina, more spirulina. Water, sugar, sugar, maltodextrin, citric acid, and did I mention sugar? Wow, not half bad.

Let's move on. Let's move on to something a little bit more scientific. The Carnivore diet. Fantastic article. And by the way, during the news flashes, I link to all these articles in the show notes and some of these get a little dense and so I do recommend these as good reads. So the Carnivore diet, it's obviously popular. We've talked about it a lot. And this particular episode article on obscure science.com delves into how the Carnivore diet could theoretically reverse the serious health conditions that it's been shown to kind of anecdotally be able to reverse. So some of the things that this article explores in summary is that we know, for example, that intestinal permeability is the common link behind a lot of autoimmune conditions. And this simply means that dysfunctional intestinal permeability can allow these large molecules like foreign proteins to enter the body. And that can lead to the development of everything from diabetes to rampant inflammation to mast cell disorders to autoimmune thyroid issues, to a host of different problems. And of course, when you switch to a carnivore diet, that is by definition due to the fact that you're eating, although there are variations of the diet, primarily just meat, it is an elimination diet. And it is a pretty significant elimination diet in that you go cold turkey, getting rid of gluten, corn, soy milk, dairy, a lot of the lectins from plants, any of the phytic acid inhibitors, just about anything that could mount a reaction against the wall of the gut. And so, you know, this is what I've said before and what I always question is I would love to see a comparison of an autoimmune diet with the carnivore diet or an elimination diet with a carnivore diet, because I think a lot of the benefits people see in terms specifically a reversal of, you know, there's Mikhail Peterson, Jordan Peterson's daughter, made famous by this when she was on the Joe Rogan podcast. Speaking of this, how she got rid of her rheumatoid arthritis or at least controlled the symptoms of it with the carnivore diet primarily, I suspect, because it really is an autoimmune diet. You know, it's just a meat based version of an autoimmune diet. And so this article goes into some of the research behind intestinal permeability and also why the carnivore diet is probably having a pretty significant impact on specifically intestinal permeability. So that's one theory. Another one is that a lot of folks who switch to this diet and feel good may have undiagnosed celiac disease, because we know that a gluten free diet resolves celiac disease and wheat allergies. And last I checked, rib eye steak is not full of gluten unless it's sprinkled with gluten powder, which is a fantastic side of steakhouse. You can get the mushrooms, you get the peppercorn, you can get the butter, you get the pesto, or you could get the gluten powder. But assuming you're passing up the gluten powder, there is a high likelihood because a couple carnivore diet has a significantly lower risk of accidental gluten exposure or even gluten cross contamination. Right? That's the thing is a lot of these gluten free diets people go on still have elements like coffee and corn and maltodextrin and a lot of things you'll find in condiments or in so called gluten free foods that really do have detectable sources of gluten in them.

Whereas that's coffee does.

Coffee is cross reactive with gluten, meaning that there are proteins in coffee that can cause elevated reactivity to gluten. Like if you were to, if you were to go to a good food allergy testing company like Cyrex, for example, and you were to do what's called a gluten associated cross reactive food screen, they are actually testing for coffee, particularly instant coffee. That's a big culprit with gluten cross reactivity. And then they test for rye, barley, spelt. Chocolate is another that has a lot of gluten crust. So a lot of people go on like a gluten free diet, but continue to drink a couple cups of a suspect coffee and have a big bar of dark chocolate at night and they still have symptoms and they're like, this gluten free diet is crap. I'm done. I'm going back to, back to my burger buns. So you can describe me. Yeah.

That'S another theory is that it's reversing autoimmune disease because it is something that is completely eliminating gluten. And that's another reason that it potentially works. And so it's an interesting article. It goes into a lot of the studies behind this. But, you know, I personally would have no issues. You know, my take on a carnivore diet is I have no issues with it if you're eating nose to tail, right? So you're getting a lot of the glycine and a lot of the marrow and a lot, you know, if you're eating just the muscle fiber, you're getting a lot of the protein, methionine, you're getting a lot of the, some of the sugars in the meat that could potentially cause some gut inflammation issues. You're missing out on a lot of the beneficial amino acids and a lot of the beneficial fatty acids that you can get from eating the marrow. Consuming a lot of the offal like the kidney, liver, heart, et cetera. And.

The other thing is, if you are truly eating nose to tail and you're doing as you might see people talk about like the Inuit, right? They say, well, these people eat only meat or very, very large percentage of meat and they do just fine but we see some of these, some of these folks and I don't know if the Inuit in particular do this, but I was researching because I'm working pretty hard on my new book right now, which by the way, I have a, I have a landing page up for the book now if people want to start to get in line to get their hands on copy when it's released. It's the lion's share of the book is actually about longevity and about kind a natural ancestral approach to living. And there's a lot of like spiritual healing, quantum physics, energy medicine in there too. It's kind of a unique approach. Just if people want to jot it down though, I'll put this in the show notes too. It's discoverkey.com discoverki.com is the landing page for the book if you want to get in line to learn more about that when it comes out next year or this year actually it's 2019. But anyways, what I talk about in that book is the habit of a lot of these populations who do eat nose to tailor. They will cook the intestines lightly of ruminants like deer and cattle and some of these grazing animals. And so they're, they're essentially eating like a stomach salad. You know, they're, they're, they're eating a lot of these intestines that have a lot of the fibers and the grass and the produce in them. So not only does that mean that they're amping up their phytonutrient, flavanol, anthocyanidin, you know, a lot of these nutrients that could potentially be missing from a strict muscle meat diet, but they are also increasing exposure to beneficial ferments. And so they're getting a lot of those fermented foods and beneficial bacteria and ensuring that the impact on the microbiome of a strict meat diet that could potentially be deficient in some of the prebiotics that your gut bacteria need, they're kind of controlling that. And so my take on the carnivore diet is do it, but don't do it by buying rib eyes from Costco, which most of my friends who are on the carnivore diet, that's like what they do do. They're like go to Costco, you get the best meat, you get the best price. And they're just eating rib eyes breakfast, lunch and dinner. They're not doing, you know, liver pate and maybe some nice sliced up kidney or some Braunschweiger or some head cheese or you know, any of the more ancestral cuts. So anyways though, that's the deal with the carnivore diet. I think It's a good article and I'll link to it in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 393 awesome. Cool. Then the last, actually the second to last article that I wanted to touch on was this idea of the ketogenic diet and athletes. Now this article did a very good job. This was on roghealth and fitness.com and it did a very good job delving into all of the different studies on ketosis and performance. So first it looked at endurance and particularly mice and endurance and a ketogenic diet and what they were able to find out with mice. And then they looked at another study by Jeff Volek, which I was actually a part of back at University of Connecticut, where they took a bunch of male endurance freaks who they had follow a ketogenic diet for 12 months and then they tested their glycogen conservation, like how well they were able to kind of conserve and use their glycogen stores more efficiently during exercise, their fat burning capacity, etc. And then they also looked at non athletes who are exercising on a ketogenic diet. And then I'm sorry, that study didn't look at non athletes, but this particular article I'm talking about, it went on to discuss a study that was done in non athletes exercising on a ketogenic diet. And then they looked at high intensity exercise and how that responds to a ketogenic diet. Then they looked at also cyclists and a ketogenic diet. And I think there were a total of, there were nearly a dozen studies they went into, they looked into body composition and crossfitters on a ketogenic diet. They looked at higher intensity exercise performance on a ketogenic diet. The list goes on and on. Total of 13 studies that they go into in this article. But here's the summary. Here's the summary. This is interesting. Okay, so a the longer the study's keto adaptation phase, meaning the longer that the study participants follow a ketogenic diet, which we would call keto adaptation, or to use the more layman or lame woman's term, turning you into a fat burning machine, the more likely the study is to find favorable performance results. And that's likely due to increases in your ability to be able to use fatty acids as a fuel, improvements in your ability to be able to conserve glycogen during exercise, increases in mitochondrial density, potentially even an increase in the ability to be able to digest fats, right? Like increased bile production by the liver and release by the gallbladder, potentially an upregulation of lipase, one of your fat burning enzymes. So there's probably a cluster of factors that occur with long term exposure to that diet that render it more favorable long term for performance. Like when I, you know, I've, I've been following some version of a low carbohydrate or ketogenic diet, even though it's not, not for everybody, right? Like I don't possess a lot of the genetic factors that would cause that to become inflammatory for me, like familial hypercholesteremia or there's a gene called the PPAR gene that can respond unfavorably to a ketogenic diet. There are some digestive issues like gallbladder removal or things like that that can contribute to it. Aside from the fact that I'm Apoe34 and that's a gene that dictates that if I'm going to follow a high fat diet, it should be more Mediterranean fats than saturated fats. My body responds well to a lower carbohydrate, relatively ketogenic diet and I've been doing it since 2012. So, you know, I've got about seven and a half years under my belt of a ketogenic diet and I feel better than ever from a performance standpoint. So a big part of this is the keto adaptation phase then also. So here's the other things that the study found. It's highly unlikely that keto is good for high intensity or at least better for high intensity, meaning it's not going to hurt you, it's not going to help you. It's unlikely that keto is bad for high intensity. It's likely that keto is neutral for high intensity exercise. It's likely that keto is better for endurance, especially due to that glycogen conservation aspect. It's very likely that keto diets are better for body composition, meaning body fat percentages. And it's very likely that keto diets are generally healthier, right, just, just from a pure metabolic standpoint, inflammation, blood glucose, insulin sensitivity, etc than standard high carb diets for athletes. There are some weaknesses to this review. It didn't begin to delve into things like say the microbiome or let's say markers of longevity, like you know, telomeres didn't really look too much at like oxidative stress profile profiles or panels such as inflammation. But you know, from A general health standpoint, it appears that. That the low carb diet was favorable across a. Across a wide population. And I am not a keto zealot. I'm not a guy who vilifies carbohydrates at all costs. But I do think that some attention paid to mitigation of what's called glycemic variability or how many times your blood glucose fluctuates during the day is intelligent and wise when it comes to your health and longevity. And I think that a relatively ketogenic diet, along with some form of intermittent fasting or caloric restriction is a very good way to do that. So this is a good article. It's like a really good summary of all the studies that exist to date on the ketogenic diet. It so the ketogenic diet and performance and whether it works for bodybuilding or athletics.

So, yeah, yeah, I liked it, especially that first point, because some. I don't know how many times we've looked at studies in this podcast that are like four weeks of, of keto or low carb, and then they say, oh, it doesn't work, but they only do it for four weeks. That's. That adaptation phase is so key, and they really have missed that in so many studies. So that's a. I think that's one of the most interesting points in. Of this article.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Okay. And I got one more for you. Okay, so this next article was in the Wall Street Journal, and my apologies to those of you who do not have an online subscription to the Wall Street Journal. This would have been free to read when it first came out, when I first tweeted it. Now it's not. So here is my username and password for the Wall Street Journal. I'm just kidding. It's. It's like a dollar a month, I think, for Wall Street Journal access. So it's worth it if you want to have access to interesting articles every now and again. Speaking of, I actually have an interview, I think, later on today with the Wall Street Journal about cannabis and exercise. Yeah, I don't know what's going on.

You don't know anything about that? Why would they talk to you?

They don't want to ask me, but that's an aside. So this was a great article. The older I get, the more I'm interested in what older folks who are performing really well and crushing it in life are doing, particularly from a training and a nutrition standpoint, and of course, to a lifesty spiritual discipline standpoint as well. And this Wall Street Journal article goes into the story of 71 year old Grady Cash. Grady Cash, his name spelled G R A D Y. Like Grady Cash, he is at 71, still able to throw down a 2 minute 38 second half mile and continues to set records in the 200, the 400 and the 800 meter distance. And he, he, he looks fantastic. He's muscle bound. He has a very uni protocol meaning that he does extremely short efforts. Like he'll alternate 30 seconds of sprinting with 30 seconds of jogging for a 2 1/2 mile workout or do like 8 reps of 200 meters that get progressively faster with the last one being an all out rep. But he's, he's really doing like very short, intense fast track workouts. And then he, he lifts weights a lot more than the other national track and field competitors in his age group who he's competing against. He pushes a sled a lot. He does like a lot of sled pushing. He interestingly avoids deadlifts. And I found this to be the case for me too. I'm sure part of it is limb length, but I find once I really start to step up the weight on the deadlifts I inevitably throw my back like over and you know, I have long ass legs so that's probably a part of it. But I, and I can mitigate most of that by doing deadlifts with either sandbags at my side, like what's called a suitcase deadlift or a hex bar, which is a fantastic way to deadlift that protect the back. I think, I think everybody should own a hex bar. There's not a lot of pieces of equipment that I say are just must haves. But a kettlebell, a hex bar and a pull up bar are definitely three. And I would say if you have room at your house or your backyard or whatever, a sled that you can push would also be a pretty good idea. But he doesn't do a lot of deadlifts but he does do a lot of sled pushes and he does hit the weights quite a bit with what appears to be kind of like a full body kind of functional type of routine. His diet is very interesting. I thought the diet was great. He fasts for up to 18 hours, five days a week. You don't see a lot of athletes doing that. They get concerned. But when he does eat, he looks like he's eating pretty well. At 6am he has a cup of coffee with a splash of coconut oil which technically means he's not fasting for 18 hours, five days a week. I just want to name that. But regardless, I don't want to judge him. He's doing pretty well. And then after his workout he has coffee with cream. So he's kind of like on a low carb type of thing. He eats his first meal usually tuna salad with olive oil and avocado between 1 and 2. Even though the Wall Street Journal author here does not realize at that point he's probably already had a good 400 to 500 calories from his coconut oil and his cream. But, but it's an aside. He's still staying pretty non insulinogenic, not getting a lot of blood glucose releases up until his first meal of the day. Dinner it says might be black bean chicken chili. He always eats evening snacks before 8pm and a protein shake or a scoop of peanut butter are in the norm. On occasion he has a small scoop of ice cream. We don't know if it's keto ice cream made of cream cheese and eggs and stevia.

I'm sure it is.

On race mornings he eats low carb pancakes. Hey, keto pancakes baby. Once again they make an appearance. We should call the keto Pancake Commission and see if they'll sponsor this episode with local honey and two or three eggs. So yeah, it's interesting. So essentially he's lifting weights, he's doing high intensity interval training, he's eating a relatively low carb diet. And.

It'S a good example. Like anything, we could nitpick all day long and be all frickin orthorexic about these type of folks. But I think, I think this is another great example of someone who's doing things mostly right when it comes to anti aging and you know, another person who we can all, we can all try to be like. Although I, I have to admit, Brock. And then we'll wrap up these news flashes and move on that I sometimes have a thought experiment about what is better. The.

Hundred year old Chinese guy who does tai chi and eats a little bit of rice and fish and sushi and drinks green tea all day long and walks and is kind of like, you know, like a Zen master, quiet, unassuming, mild, kind of like stereotypical Asian guy, you know, meditates maybe one or two hours a day but would probably get his back broken if he ever walked into a CrossFit gym. Versus kind of like the more like modern American anti aging enthusiast who's lifting weights, eating eggs, drinking coffee, kind of a little bit more yang than yin. And what I question is which one Is better, right? Like which one is superior? Which one makes you happier? Which one allows for just better health and longevity long term? Or is it both? And that's a part of my book too. Like this whole ancestor wisdom versus modern science piece. Can you be the fasting, meditating, spiritually disciplined yogi who could also just crush it under a barbell? And I guess maybe Paul Check could be an example of someone like that, right? It like he's very, he's very disciplined spiritually, but he's also a beast. You know, just genetically he's an anomaly, I realize. But, but you know, maybe, maybe there are people out there who kind of, you know, have a foot in both camps. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah. To quote that little girl from the Internet meme, why can't we have both.

Special announcements?

Well, speaking of meat. Speaking of meat, we got a meat sponsor today, baby. I hope everybody's ready to get two pounds of free wild caught Alaskan salmon.

And they switched from the free bacon.

No, we got two pounds of free wild caught Alaskan salmon. My mouth is watering already.

That's better for me. I like bacon, but salmon?

Yeah, it's wild Alaskan sockeye salmon sourced from Bristol Bay, Alaska. Ah, it's good. I actually got some of this shipped to my house last month. I forget what we made with that. I think we did cedar plank on the Traeger grill with some olive oil and some lemon. Oh man. Okay, so two pounds of free wild caught Alaskan salmon. And then this company. I'm gonna let you wait with bated breath. They do 100% grass fed and grass finished beef, meaning that they don't finish off their cows with corn. They're grass fed all the way through. They do free range organic chicken. They've got heritage breed pork, that's old world pork before they bred out all the fat and flavor to make it the other white meat and bastardized pork. Like this is the way the pigs were meant to be. And there's an unbelievable taste difference between a heritage breed pork and like these newer pork in concentrated animal feed law operations.

And the fat is totally different too. Like it's a different color, it's a different texture, it's. Yeah.

Melts in your frickin mouth.

That's really good.

Yeah. And anyways, all of this, this company will deliver right to your door on dry ice, free shipping anywhere in the United States. This is like a dream. So all of our listeners get the £2 of free wild caught Alaskan salmon at this company. Called Butcher box. Here's how you go to butcherbox.com Ben. Butcherbox.com Ben. You get your first box of meat. It's gonna include 2 pounds of free wild caught salmon and $20 off. How do you like this?

Yeah.

Yeah, I love it. Alright, cool. You like coffee with your meat?

Uhmm, sure. Alright. I like coffee with anything.

Okay. So you already know about Kion and the fact that our coffee tests more pure and richer in antioxidants than any of the other coffees that we tested against. So we tested against like 48 plus different brands of coffee. You know, Starbucks, McDonald's, Folgers, you name it. Even a lot of the healthy so called, you know, organic coffees in the health industry. We tested against everything. This coffee kicked the pants off of anything. We have no aqua toxins, we're purely organic. But the best thing is the flavor is through the roof. The creme on the espresso is amazing. I make a French press with it every morning and it just, it tastes like you are drinking yourself healthier. And plus it gives you some really good, pure clean energy. So we just made these brand new black stainless steel, really sexy food grade coffee tumblers. And you get this with the coffee that comes double wall vacuum insulated. So it's just got this incredible aroma when you open it up. And we're calling this the Kion Coffee Lovers Bundle and it's on sale right now. You get the coffee, but you get the tumbler too. And the tumblers. For people who don't know, a Tumblr is not sweat.

I was just gonna ask you.

Not a sw. It's a cup but it's a really, really.

Who thinks it's a sweater?

That's a tumbler? Tumbler. Is it a sweater? Am I thinking jumper difference? No, I'm thinking of a jumper.

You're jumper sweater.

Tumblr is a microblogging and social networking website.

I do know it is. Yes. Yeah.

So anyways, it's not so it's not that.

It's not that. Okay. Don't wear it.

Yeah, it's good though. So get kion.com get k I o n dot com. They'll bring you straight to the Kion Coffee Lovers Bundle. It's on the front page right now. Then finally, this podcast is brought to you by Red Juice. This is something that you can put into, for example a smoothie or a shake. It can build your blood. It's kind of like Viagra for your whole body because it has beets and it has pomegranate and it has raspberry and cranberry and strawberry. You ever heard of this idea that things that you see in nature that are a certain color can be good for. For a specific part of the body? Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

So, like, red stuff.

That's a very, very old philosophy.

Yeah, the doctrine of signatures. It's not really color. It's like, shape, too. It's like, you know, avocados for your ovaries and your testicles and sweet potatoes.

Avocado actually means testicle, doesn't it? In. In some language.

I don't think that's true.

I think it is.

I think it's a myth. I think so. But regardless, it is good anyway. Testicles and the ovaries. The sweet potato, shaped like a pancreas. It's actually kind of good for insulin function. The tomato and the pomegranate, you cut them open, they look like the chamber of the heart. They're good for heart function. What's another one? Walnut. Good for the brain. Carrot. You slice it horizontally, not like. Like vertically. It's good for erections.

Probably not true. I don't think it is. But horizontally. It's got carotenoids in it. It's good for the eyes. Egg. It looks like an. Like an eye in a pan when you crack it open. It's got, like, I think lutein, possibly zeaxanthin as well, on eggs. Good for the eyes. You get the idea. So this stuff's good for your blood. It's called red juice, and it's made by organifi. And it's got a bunch of other stuff in it, but it's like a blood builder, especially if you're an athlete. Anytime you want. Increased blood flow before the sauna can be nice anyways, though, it tastes really good. My kids make smoothies out of this. Kids can. And kids can drink it, too. Kids can drink it, too. I mean, that's a selling point right there. So you go to organifi. Organifi with an I Organifi.com discount code is greenfield gets you 20% off that green juice and then a red juice and the green juice and the gold. They have every color of the rainbow. At least three of them.

Three of them.

If gold is in the rainbow, the most important three. Yeah, I am for the next month all over the planet. So for those of you listening in right now, though, I'll tell you where I'll be in January then we're going to put the full calendar. Calendar up@BenGreenfieldFitness.com calendar because if you want to come see me, I'm speaking at some amazing events that I would highly recommend you come to. So everything from Cal Jam in February to the Fitcon summit in April to PaleoFX in April to the European Detox retreat I'm leading in June. But ultimately, what's coming up right away is for those of you in the Spokane, Coeur d' Alene area, I'm giving a TEDx talk on January 12th 12th at the Croc center over in Coeur d', Alene, Idaho. That's literally in three days. So I guess I better start practicing my TED Talk because you got to memorize those. So that's on my list of things to do later today.

And you can't ramble either because they'll cut you off.

No, it's got to be like 15 minutes long. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Admittedly, I'm a little nervous about that one because I usually don't memorize talks because I just get up there and say what I know. Yeah. Anyways, though, also for those of you in the LA area, fantastic place called NextHelp. You may have heard my podcast with them last week. It's like a complete biohacking facility that's really, really cutting edge for anti aging hormones, cryotherapy, infrared light, full body MRI treatments. They've got everything there. It's a cool place. I'm speaking there. And if you heard my podcast with Khalil Rafati from sunlife Organics and you want to try one of those billion dollar meals we talked about conveniently in the location that NextHealth is at. SunLife Organics is right across the hallway from them. So you can get a billion dollar meal and then come and listen to me speak. I think that's a pretty cool. What I should do is I should, I should text Khalil. You want me to do this? I just had an idea for all of our listeners who are in the LA area. I can text Khalil and say, hey, can we do like a discount on the billion dollar bowl for anybody who's coming to my talk at Next Health? What do you think?

Yeah, why not?

All right, Khalil, if you're listening, I'm gonna be texting you, bro. So come, come see me talk at NextHelp. That's January 30th. January 30th. I forget the time. It's like 7pm or something like that. And then finally, the serious business conference in New Orleans for business leaders, for people who? Well, technically, even though it's called Serious Business, it's like a business education event and they describe it as a way to invoke thought and insight and expose people ideas and thinking on self development and business. They need a better copywriter, in my opinion.

Yeah, I don't know what that meant.

I think they've got a, they've got Esther Perel, they've got Joey Coleman, who's really good at business building and culture. They've got, they've got several people who are pretty big in terms of business culture, a lot of leading CEOs. They've got the CEO of Zen Media coming, Esther Perel, which she's an amazing author. Anyways, though, it's called the Serious Business Conference and it's in New Orleans, of all places. New Orleans. Come to New Orleans, have some shellfish with me and learn about business. So that, that's the lineup. There's a ton more we need to get to the Q and A. So I'm not even going to dive in, but a lot more you can Access over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com Calendar.

Listener Q&.

A.

Hi Ben, this is Jim, longtime listener. Love the podcast. I had a question about fasting post workout. You've talked about how testosterone levels can be prolonged if you simply fast after your workout and that they will dip if you eat post workout. I'm wondering if eating post workout just causes the drop in blood testosterone because your insulin takes the testosterone out of your blood and shuttles it to the muscle to begin recovery.

So I'm wondering if eating post workout is actually something that we could do to enhance recovery and that blood levels of testosterone isn't necessarily a desired effect.

Some clarification would be nice, thanks.

Well, I think some clarifications need to be made here regarding the actual physiology of what's going on. Yeah. So first of all, insulin is something that is going to be increased in response to a feeding because the role of insulin as a storage hormone is to ensure that glucose is partitioned into liver and muscle, that fatty acids are partitioned into adipose tissue, and it's generally an anabolic hormone. Thus, elevated insulin levels in a post workout scenario would be a favorable thing to maintain anabolism. And you would think, well, therefore eating after workout is going to maintain anabolism and potentially that insulin could assist with taking testosterone out of the blood and shoveling it into the muscle, even though that's not actually the role of insulin. Insulin will do that with with nutrients like glucose and fatty Acids. But insulin is not the main thing responsible for bringing testosterone into muscle tissue. Instead, when it comes to testosterone and muscle growth, what you're looking at in a scenario like that would be androgen receptors. Those would be what testosterone is going to interact with. And that works. Basically, the way androgen receptors respond to the testosterone release is that they signal muscle cells to increase the rate at which new muscle protein is laid down. So ideally, anything that would upregulate your androgen receptor density or your androgen receptor count is going to be the best route to ensure testosterone uptake on a muscular level is upregulated. Going after insulin, certainly if you look at insulin like growth factor, being a precursor for growth hormone would be something that's beneficial. But I'll tackle insulin in a moment. I just want to name that your goal instead should be to upregulate androgen receptor density. And when it comes to androgen receptor density, really, it's very interesting. I gave a talk on this at a 4M recently. The American Academy of Anti Aging Physicians and I discussed how androgen receptors are upregulated more via the exercise approach than via specific nutritional or supplementation strategies, particularly lifting heavy, complex multibody lifts. Longer rest periods, not meaning you're sitting on your ass playing Candy Crush and watching TV at the gym and flipping through Men's Health, but you know, just like doing, doing some foam rolling, doing some mobility exercises, you know, and then coming back to the next lift and then finally ensuring that you lift with your legs. Right? Don't be the toothpick leg person. Do squats, do deadlifts, et cetera, to really amp up androgen receptor density by working with your leg. So it's lifting heavy, it's complex multibody lifts, it's long rest periods, it's including the legs, et cetera. That's your strategy for enhancing the ability for your cells to be able to respond to testosterone. But when it comes to the insulin piece, the thing is, insulin is capable of stimulating testosterone production, that that's been shown stimulating it of stimulating testosterone production. And simultaneously it inhibits sex hormone hormone binding globulin. Right. So this is why in many cases you'll see people who are calorically deprived, overstressed, working too hard. High cortisol, which causes high sex hormone binding globulin. They can sometimes have high total testosterone, but low free testosterone. And in many cases, if you look at the blood markers in the labs, you'll see along with that, low insulin and low insulin like growth factor. And in some Cases, those people just need to like, eat some colostrum, eat some dairy, eat more food overall, and have a little bit more anabolic approach. Yeah, train less, eat more, sleep more, et cetera. I mean, that's the way that you can get insulin to be capable of stimulating testosterone production and inhibiting sex hormone binding concentrations. And then we get to this piece about the exercise. And I think this was probably triggered by the podcast I did with Mark Sisson, and I'll link to that one in the show notes. But we discussed the research behind the upregulation of growth hormone and the upregulation of testosterone when you fast for about one to two hours after a workout and then eat your post workout meal. Now, what Jim is concerned about is the fact that if you do that, then theoretically you're gonna have some of that anabolic hormone, insulin not being stimulated and not able to have its favorable impact on anabolism. But the thing is, one of the responses, what's called one of the glucoregulatory responses to exercise, particularly intense exercise, is that there is a significant release of insulin. And that release of insulin stays elevated for one to two hours following the workout. Meaning that you do not need to eat a meal to have your insulin levels elevated. In a post workout scenario.

Very similarly to that you actually see during a workout some amount of glycogenolysis by the liver. Some people will work out and their blood glucose will go up, not down. And that's because your body is mobilizing and releasing more of your storage glycogen so that you have elevated glucose available for the workout. So plasma insulin concentration after intense exercise is what occurs to restore glucose clearance and glycemia towards normal. So it's. So it's this normal response, your body causes this bump in blood glucose. And then it follows that in the post workout state with a bump in insulin to enable you to not be hyperglycemic after exercise. And that bump in insulin in most studies stays relatively elevated, significantly elevated for one to two hours hours after the actual workout. Meaning that in that post workout state, you're actually, you have enough insulin that's taking that glucose that got released and driving it back into muscle tissue. And simultaneously, as I've just alluded to, insulin is capable of stimulating testosterone production. And that all occurs without you needing to even eat a meal. So it really isn't necessary to drop the bar and go, you know, suck down your maltodextrin fructose creatine shake. It's simply not something that you have to do. And as a matter of fact, we know that the effect of this, like I mentioned from that interview that I did with Mark Sisson, when you fast, whether you are just intermittent fasting and especially if you are fasting post workout, you actually see a significant increase in testosterone and growth hormone. I mean fasting, fasting itself with growth hormone, it's crazy. Some studies show up to a 2000% increase in growth hormone in response to intermittent fasting. And so, you know, I'm talking about a short term fast, 12 to 16 hours. And very, very similarly, you know, these short term fasts, there are studies on androgenic hormonal concentrations, especially the testosterone response, and it ranges between 150 to 200% in response to an intermittent fasting protocol. So this is why I feel that, well, my take is this and I'm going to give you one more link in the show notes if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 393 and that is a podcast or a speech that I gave on fasting and exercise. And during that talk I mentioned when it comes to the intermittent fasting protocol, that if you're going to do a, an overnight fast and then you're going to work out.

There is some evidence that if you're working out and you're already fasted that eating a post workout meal is more favorable from an anabolic, testosterone and growth hormone standpoint. That is the case if you fast for 12 hours overnight, get up, you work out, don't fast again. You know what I'm saying? Don't skip breakfast.

Yeah.

At the same time, if you're an afternoon or an early evening exerciser and you've had maybe breakfast, you've had definitely lunch and then you work out at 4 or 5pm you can and you will benefit more from this. Wait for one to two hours before you have dinner. And it's that simple. If you follow that rule, you're going to be able to kind of to repeat what you said earlier. Brock, have your cake and eat it too. When it comes to striking that sweet spot between fasting and exercise, insulin, testosterone and growth hormone, the only other thing that I would throw in there, and I'm just going to link to all this in the show notes if you want to explore any of these resources even more, my podcast with Mark Sisson, my podcast on the benefits of fasted exercise, gym or anybody else listening in, is the idea of basically maintaining muscle protein recovery and decreasing the rate of muscle protein breakdown with a strategy of essential amino acid intake because as little as 5 to 6 grams of orally administered essential amino acids has been shown to stimulate net muscle protein balance significantly when consumed in the one to two hours after resistance exercise. So this is another way to kind of game that whole scenario is. And I realize this sounds like the first fox guarding the henhouse because I own a company that sells essential amino acids. I mean, I'm not, I realize that fact, but that one of the. There's a reason why, there's a reason why I'd be a fool not to, not to name this, because it's one of the reasons why I actually encourage this practice so much. And the reason I do it myself, because, you know, this research shows that as little as 5 grams, I do 5 to 10 grams of essential amino acids. I, I use kion aminos in that post workout state. And the stimulation muscle protein synthesis in the absence of any other meal, of any other calories is as significant as if you'd eaten a post workout meal. So and the other thing is, it's non insulinogenic. You don't see a greater spike in insulin. So you kind of maintain the insulin you've already released and you get the amino acids that will maintain maximum muscle protein synthesis. And so again, this falls into that scenario of being something that you can work into the strategy. So I'm going to say this one more time and then we'll end this question.

Yeah. Okay.

If you are fasting overnight for 12 to 16 hours and you wake up and you do a hard workout, eat a meal in the one to two hours after that workout. If you are eating breakfast and or lunch and working out in the later afternoon or the early evening, it would behoove you to wait one to two hours at least to eat dinner. However, in those one to two hours between your early afternoon to evening workout and dinner, consume 5 to 10 grams of essential amino acids. And that would be the best scenario for fasting combined with exercise for growth hormone and testosterone. So that's what I would do.

Hey Ben, I was hoping you could talk about the school system nationwide and the, what I feel is an epidemic and a huge issue with the food quality and offerings that are being served at our public schools through vendors like Aramark. As an example, I was at our daughter's kindergarten and her menu for the month was nachos, hot dogs, corn dogs and all kinds of things that are terrible. In addition to a ice cream truck that had Hershey's and touted real ingredients. The first thing I pulled out had yellow 5 and high fructose corn syrup. So I'm curious what your thoughts are on combating this epidemic nationwide and getting better food options through our administrators and into our school system and getting these vendors like Aramark out.

Thanks.

Bye. Man. This is a topic that is fresh on my mind. I just got done reading this book called Feeding youg Lies. It's written by Vani Hari, the food babe. Have you heard of her before? Brock?

Yes. Yeah. Yes.

So it's a great book. And it goes into just basically all the chemicals that are in all of the different packaged and processed foods. And it may sound like it's just the same old, same old, but honestly, she goes into, like, American versus European foods. And the fact that in Europe, they actually like the French fries in Europe at McDonald's. It's like potatoes, dextrin, sunflower oil and salt. And then you look at the ones in the US and there's like 12 other ingredients. And it's very interesting. Even in Europe, there are fewer processed and packaged ingredients because they're stricter over there when it comes to what is allowed in our actual foods. And you know what, what we could do in a food babe esque exploration of maybe a couple of the popular things that you see at some of these, you know, in. In some of these, you know, lunchtime foods that kids are eating. Like the Mott's applesauce. Mott's Applesauce. That's a popular one since 1842. Mott's applesauce made from 100% real fruit. These are the ones that parents pick up and put into the kitchen. Kids lunch boxes. The ingredients are apples. Right? Apples.

Okay.

High fructose corn syrup. Oh. Strawberry puree. Natural flavors, which many cases are natural. We've covered that before. And red number 40, because applesauce needs to be red.

Apple colored.

Yeah.

You look at, for example, the. What's another popular one? The Welch's Fruit Snacks. It's fruit puree. It's fruit puree. Fruits, the first ingredient. They brag on the front. And then we got corn syrup, sugar, modified corn starch, citric acid, lactic acid, natural and artificial flavors. Red number 40, blue number 40. So just a couple examples. I realize I'm preaching to the choir and most people are pretty aware of the issues with school lunch, but it is interesting, especially when you look at the US and what kids eat around the world for lunch. I'm gonna put a link in the show, not notes, to what kids eat around the world for lunch. This is a pretty good one. I don't know if you had a chance to look at this one, Brock, but Japan, Japan, school lunches. You see some fish, you see some vegetables, a little bit of miso soup, some rice, not too bad. You go to France, nice little multi course meal. They're getting some cabbage and tomato salad, a kiwi, some sliced bread with a little bit of cheese, some roast beef, some potatoes, some tomatoes and fresh herbs. That's their school lunch. Canada, Canada vegetable stir fry. This young man is eating. On this slide. There's the uk, the UK and you know, it's not perfect but roast beef with gravy, carrots, potatoes, some peas, you know, very UK esque. In Italy it's pasta, little fresh ziti, pasta with some nice homemade tomato sauce or cafeteria made tomato sauce. South Korea looks wonderful. It's rice, kimchi leaves, sauteed duck, a soybean paste soup with greens and tofu. Looks pretty good. Brazil rice, beans, beef stew and salad. Good blend of nutrients. We get to the U.S.

Oh, that's the saddest picture I've ever seen.

A hamburger bun with some applesauce sauce. Hashtag, thanks Michelle Obama for banning fat from cafeterias around the U.S. so yeah, hamburger bun with some applesauce is what this child is eating.

Is there a hamburger in that bun?

I don't even think there's an actual hamburger in the bun. If there is, it's the size of a quarter because you can't see it. And actually I don't want to throw Michelle Obama under the bus. That is actually due to some of the improvements she's made for better school lunches. There are things like salad bars with fruit, fresh fruits and vegetables and salad greens and stuff like that.

But, but yeah, I see some canisters of milk behind that sad tray.

Yeah, okay, well they got some milk.

Going along with milk.

So yeah, it is an issue. It is an issue. And when it comes to changing up and revolutionizing school lunch programs.

There, there are some steps that you can take. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, for example. They've launched what's called the Healthy School Lunch campaign which you can find@pcrm.org and I will link to that in the show notes. What they've done is they give report cards to grade school districts on their cafeteria food and health education efforts. But they have step by step instructions on their website about how to a fledgling food warrior could broach the topic with your school principal. Now when you go to the website, you'll notice that they're Heavily skewed towards plant based meals and plant based nutritions for kids. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes low in saturated fat and cholesterol. And I realized that all the ketogenic ancel keys was the devil low carb zealots out there just drew in a sharp breath. But really I'd much rather, because even at my own children's school here in Spokane, there are, there are a great deal of the students who go to the school cafeteria where they have, I believe it's a taco time, they have another fast food. They have like three different fast food kind of vendors there. Yeah. And I would much rather my kids get, if they had the option, even though they bring their own meals to school, I would rather them get a kiwi fruit with some kale salad and a slice of whole grain bread and some lentils low in saturated fat and cholesterol compared to some of those meals. I'm just saying, like I can give my kids some bone marrow and liver with dinner, right? Like, I'm just fine with them having a plant based meal at lunch if that's what their option is compared to fast food. So this website, Physicians Committee for responsible medicine, pcrm.org, they've got some good. If you go there and you click the one that says take action, Take action, that would be a good place to start. Now in addition to that, there is a Farm to school dot org. Now what farm to school programs do is they connect farms with local schools to and there's at least in the US they exist in all 50 states. And what they do is they have information there that helps you to connect your school with local farms that can get the school specifically locally grown fruits and vegetables onto the school's cafeteria trays. And again, like, if my kid goes to school, I'd rather they have just like three organic apples for lunch than the fast food. And again, even though those farms might not be supplying meat, I mean there's no reason a kid can't eat plants, fruits and vegetables that are organic or at least local farm grown for long lunch compared to a lot of these fast food options. So they're connecting local farmers to schools and I love this farm to school movement idea. And their farm to school.org website, that's a really good one too. Then there is the Lunchbox, which is a website started by a lady who's known as the renegade lunch lady. They're funded by Whole Foods Market, but they have this online toolbox, a resource menu for you for changing school lunches one district at a time. They have healthy recipes, they're scalable, they're priced educational resources and their goal is to enable and equip the parents to help convert and reform school lunches. So that one is thelunchbox.org and I'll link to those three in the show notes because those are three really, really good places to start to be able to take action. And I would love if this podcast is able to help help parents strike a movement. It actually inspired me. I have it on my to do list next week because even though my kids get all their own healthy lunches packed, I.

I still feel as though I could do their school a better service by connecting them with some of these resources. So that's actually on my to do list for next week to to approach the school principal with specifically, I'm I'm going to first introduce the, the farm to school idea and see if we can just get some more, more locally grown fruits and vegetables in there to their school. So anyways, thank you for this question because it's inspired me, Ben. And then I get a lot of questions about, well, what kind of things do we pack for our kids for their healthy school lunches? So I do have a few little ideas for you because our kids now, they're for the most part brown bagging their own lunches. But you know, for example, we'll use, you know, some, some olives, some carrot sticks, some cherry tomatoes, and then whatever leftover from last night's meat portion. And then we'll just use like a homemade mayo or we like, you know, for example, Mark Sisson has his primal kitchen dressings. Our kids love those. They can, you know, drench their vegetables in those and they're very healthy. We do a lot of avocados. We do a lot of beef jerkies from different companies as well as some of our own homemade jerkies. We do a lot of nori seaweed wraps instead of regular sandwich wraps, a lot of eggs, hard boiled eggs because we have chickens and a lot of fresh berries. You can even take things like coconut manna and coconut butter, which is not considered to be an allergen in a lot of schools. Even though you can't do nuts and seeds, coconut tends to be pretty safe. And that, that just makes anything taste amazing, as does bacon. So our kids will do a lot of eggs, bacon, olives, avocados, coconut butter, coconut manna. What are a few of the other things like, like, in addition to like the sliced carrots, we'll do sliced jicama we'll do sliced cucumbers. We have certain brands of chips that we'll get like the, you know, because kids, they're running around all day. Yeah. They're eating more carbohydrates than dad is the siete tortilla or the siete chips. That's also a really good option. And yeah, I mean, mostly it's a blend of just leftovers. And it's not rocket science really. If anything, you know, follow a Weston A. Price ish diet. Go to the Weston A. Price website and look at some of the things that they have, some of the resources they have. And because they're chock full of vitamin A, D, E and K with a lot of the recipes over there, that's exactly what you want your kids, kids to be eating for symmetry and for cognitive health. And so, you know, I don't know if Wesson A. Price has like a kids school lunch resource. I should have looked before the podcast to see if they do.

Actually. Here we go. Packing the perfect lunchbox by the Weston A. Price Foundation. I'm going to link to this in the show notes for you guys. You know, they've got mashed avocado with a drop of lemon juice in a pita stuffed with spinach, raw cream cheese sprinkled with grated carrots, grated zucchini, grated apple and topped with a lettuce leaf. What else do they have? Cream cheese. Which has now made its third appearance on today's show with wild steak totally sponsored by cream cheese, arugula or other lettuce. We're sponsored by cream cheese. And what was the other one? We're sponsored by?

The gummies. The CBD gummies.

No, it wasn't the gummies. We gave something else a pretty big shot. It was the cream cheese. And.

I'm forgetting what it was now. Oh, Keto pancakes. Cream cheese. This podcast is brought to you by Cream Cheese and Keto Pancakes. I might even change the title for this episode. So anyways, I'll link to that Weston A. Price resource as well, because a lot of the women who I work with who are about to have babies or who are breastfeeding or who are raising young babies, I have almost all of them on something very similar, similar to the, to the Weston A. Price type of diet. So that's where I would start. And I will put that reference for you in the show notes as well.

I'm gonna throw one thing in really quick. Have you heard of Big Green? Big green dot org?

They're.

They're doing like planting gardens and things at school so the kids are able to harvest their own food. And they're also learning about, they call it food lit literacy programs that they're. They're doing as well.

Let's link to that too. I have been called, I have been known to be called big green dot org, you know what I'm saying?

But we digress from kids school lunches. Well, I think that's a good place to wrap things up and talk a little bit about giving some swag away. What do you think, Brock? So we give away a goodie bag.

Sounds good. Big Green.

This is the. I don't know why we're still all of a sudden we started talking like this, this. But this is the part of the show where we give away a handy dandy gift box to somebody who left us a wonderful kind, nice review in itunes if you go to itunes. And this really helps out the show. Apple Podcasts I guess. Apple Podcast Leave a review 5 stars. Leave a review Wherever you listen in, but particularly if you're on Apple Podcast, Leave a review. We will go find one of our favorite reviews. We'll read it right here on the show and then all you need to do is is email gearngreenfieldfitness.com that's gearngreenfieldfitness.Com we'll send you out a goodie bag, a cool shirt, a beanie, a whole bunch of swag. So Brock, you want to take this one away?

Yeah. This one's from SN Yardley and the title is All Time Favorite Podcast, five stars. I never feel let down by Ben's podcast. He always has something new and interesting to talk about and I learned new information every time I listen. I've searched high and low for other podcasters who educate and entertain me like Ben does, but I have yet to find his equal. Thank you, Ben, for sharing your knowledge and expertise with all of us. I find it amusing how you always find a way to relate every little topic to your own life experience, whether it's flying to Japan to ferment your own soybeans or your did you do that?

I actually. Speak of the devil, my soybeans. I've been fermenting them for three months. I made mischief in Japan and it like three months is the minimum time. And actually I, I opened it up yesterday and tried it. It's really good. There's a little bit of mold on the top, which is very normal with soybeans. So I got rid of the mold on the top and then took a big spoonful and ate it. And probably I guess that kind of broke my fast but. But dude, it actually tasted pretty good. Had had my own signature of my biome on it because I made it without gloves on and a new and apparently that's how like miso makers put their own signature on their miso that they make is it transfers their skin microbiome into the miso. So it tasted like a little piece of fermented soy. Ben.

Yikes.

We digress.

Yeah. Anyway, so whether it's flying to Japan to ferment your own soybeans or your self enlightening micro mushroom trips, I often find myself rolling my eyes and shaking my head saying of course you did. I find myself saying that I've been saying that since 2011.

Of course you did. Psilocybin and Soybeans. That's a great name for a song. Psilocybin and Soybeans. So along with keto, pancakes, cream cheese, cbd, gummy, psilocybin and soybeans. Everything for this podcast you can find@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 393sn Yardley thanks for the review. Email us. Remember your t shirt size gearngreenfieldfitness.com we'll hook you up. Everybody else, do us a good one. How do you say it? Do us a solid. Do us a solid review. And this is. This is Big Green.org signing out along with his podcast sidekick Brock. Thanks for listening folks.

Want more? Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com where you can subscribe to my information packed and entertaining newsletter and click the link up on the right hand side of that webpage that says Ben Recommends, where you'll see a full list of everything I've ever recommended to enhance your body and your brain. Finally, to get your hands on all of the unique supplement formulations that I personally develop, you can visit the website of my company kion@getK-I-O-N.com that's getK-I-O-N dot com.