#92 – Introduction to Ancestral Superfoods (and much more!) with Ben Greenfield

There are so many supplements out there that, if we believe the advertising, we should be taking. It’s confusing and even when we have the funds to dip our toes in, it’s challenging to know where to start. Today’s guest, Ben Greenfield, knows a lot about supplements and ancestral living in general. My family has been learning from his work for over a decade. We first heard about the light toxicity of modern devices and the benefits of cold exposure from him.

In this episode Ben and I talk about so many things: light, dentistry, the importance of eating in a parasympathetic state, Ben’s daily family routine and his philosophy on parenting and homeschooling, and then we dive into Ben’s expertise on ancestral superfood supplements and cover two different ways of thinking about how to choose supplementation for yourself and your family. Ben really knows his stuff – this episode is absolutely chock full of information and insight.

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One Earth Health make the grass-fed organ supplements we use and trust. Get 15% off your first order here and 5% off all subsequent orders here.

What we cover:

• Non-harmful computer screen options/technology
• Non-harmful light bulb technology
• The steps involved in braising meat
• Eating in a parasympathetic (non-stressed) state for digestion
• Jaw and tongue alignment
• Bioesthetic dentistry
• Ben’s daily family routine
• Ben’s homeschooling/parenting rules and responsibitiles
• Ancestral superfood supplements
• Dark green powders and ATP
• Salivary genetic testing and how Ben’s using it to aid supplementation
• Lion’s mane mushroom
• Two different approaches to starting with ancestral supplements
• Protein digestion

The personal views and opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect our own personal views or opinions. We recognize that our guests are whole persons and this may include views we or our audience actively disagree with; our guests are invited to the show because we feel they have something valuable to share with us all, and we do not ask them to censor their personal views on air. Our sharing of their work is not necessarily an endorsement of their personal views.

Resources:

Ben’s site

Ben’s podcast

Latest eink computer

One Tap Wifi Zap

Boundless Kitchen by Ben Greenfield

Boundless Cookbook by Ben Greenfield

Jaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic by Sandra Kahn and Paul R Ehrlich

 

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Transcript:

Alison Kay (00:04.781)
Welcome to Ancestral Kitchen podcast. Today I have with me a guest, Ben Greenfield, who I first heard about through my husband, Rob. When Rob and I met 15 years ago, Rob was already seriously into health and he soon came across Ben’s work. And we talked earlier today about where we originally found Ben, but it was so long ago. We can’t remember. It feels like ages ago. And I know that Ben’s been doing podcasts since before podcasts existed.

And his work has given both of us so much in the health field that has moved us forward. In fact, as I sit here recording, I’m reading my notes from an ebook reader, which is the device I use for virtually all of my computer work. And by ebook reader, there’s no flicker and I’m not using a regular computer screen. And listens to the podcast will know I’ve talked about that before. And that journey into the relationship between light and our health was inspired and informed by.

one of Ben’s podcasts over five years ago. Ben comes from a fitness background. Originally, he has been a performance coach and is a nutritionist, but he’s got a wife and kids and his work covers so many areas of health, many of which we talk about here on the podcast. And he lives in Washington state, which is where my cohost Andrea lives, as you know, but she’s just had a baby. So I’m on my own with Ben today. Hello, Ben and welcome to the podcast.

Ben Greenfield (01:29.276)
That’s not a very good excuse having a baby. I mean, come on. Lazy. Hello. Hey, by the way, that e -reader thing’s pretty cool. Have you heard of this new company called Daylight? I just got one. I haven’t messed around with it too much, but you should look it up or I remember what their website URL is, but they developed this new paper -like technology, and it’s one of the coolest little tablets I’ve ever seen.

Alison Kay (01:31.942)
I It’s lame, isn’t it? Of course. Exactly.

Alison Kay (01:41.499)
No, I

Ben Greenfield (01:58.424)
and they’re planning on rolling out like a laptop, possibly even a phone in the future. And it is, it’s even better than Kindle Paper. It’s incredible. And it’s got like a stylus. You can put all your apps on there. And yeah, they’re really interesting. You should look them up, Daylight. I think they just launched like a month

Alison Kay (02:01.575)
Okay, a phone.

Alison Kay (02:07.921)
Wow, okay.

Alison Kay (02:19.636)
I will, thank you. Because it’s literally changed our lives working like that. I have a completely different relationship with screens now and my eyes are, and my state of my brain, you know, my mental health is so much better. It really is.

Ben Greenfield (02:32.455)
Yeah, it’s incredible. I mean not just for screens I mean I I I use the the iris software on all my computers Which is great because before that there’s one called flux that did a pretty good job But iris is way more customizable as far as like being able to adjust the blue light and the textile and Automatic adjustments for where you happen to be in the world and then in on the phone then at least on the iPhone the

Alison Kay (02:39.524)
Yeah.

Ben Greenfield (03:02.615)
Night mode is not fantastic. Like it doesn’t dim that much, but there’s there’s one app called One taps app that you can put on the phone and there’s there’s like three different ways to do this There’s also a shortcut function for it, but you press the button once and it will suck all the blue light out of the phone Turn off the Wi -Fi turn off the Bluetooth and a lot of people don’t realize this if you put your phone in airplane mode,

Alison Kay (03:03.246)
Hmm. Okay.

Alison Kay (03:12.086)
Mm -hmm.

Alison Kay (03:27.681)
I it.

Ben Greenfield (03:31.205)
location services is still on, your phone is still producing a mild radio frequency signal. So these apps will just disable everything all at once, which saves you like 20 seconds every time you wanna go to bed or shut down your phone or whatever. So yeah, it is so important

Alison Kay (03:33.981)
okay.

Alison Kay (03:51.007)
Yeah, I remember you doing a podcast about Iris and we got Iris on the computer we were using at the time, know, quite a few years ago because of that. And we still have it on one of the normal computers that we use. The phone is the problem I’ve had because I don’t want a normal screen phone at all because I’m so used to the E now that I don’t want to go back. So I have a 30 year old phone which can’t do anything, which actually I’ve just learned to embrace. But I think in the future I’d maybe like an E Ink phone. So I’m going

look up that daylight and see what they’ve got planned.

Ben Greenfield (04:21.505)
Yeah, yeah, I don’t know how far out they are from developing a phone and I would I kind of want one of those stupid phones but Which is what I call them But I just I use my phone enough for business and there’s certain apps that I rely on for Communicating with my clients or my team that I just kind of have to have it But I’m assuming you also kind of pay attention to the light bulbs in the home Okay

Alison Kay (04:30.396)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Alison Kay (04:45.488)
Yes, completely. Again, that’s another thing that completely changed when we learned about light from you initially, that our light bulbs are all old fashioned light bulbs and we’ve got a lot of red light in the evening. yeah, that’s made a huge difference as well.

Ben Greenfield (05:01.686)
Yeah, you’ll think this is cool. This is a new discovery of mine. There’s two companies, one called Bond Charge and the other one is called Block Blue Light. And they both now have developed the light bulb that you just, it looks like a normal light bulb, where you plug it in and all the different light bulb cans in your house. And the way it works is you turn on the light switch once and it starts off in daytime mode.

And then if you flip the switch off and switch it on again, it automatically goes to twilight mode. And then you flip it off and flip it on again, and it automatically goes to evening mode. So instead of let’s say having, you know, some really reddish or warm incandescent lights in a bedroom and brighter lights in a gym or an office or twilight bulbs, and let’s say like a living room, you can have the same bulbs all through the house. And all you do is flip on and off light switch.

Alison Kay (05:48.565)
Mm. Mm.

Ben Greenfield (06:00.725)
for whatever time of day it is. And they’re still low EMF, low flicker, like a lot of these newer kind of biologically friendly light bulbs. But I love the convenience of that because you don’t have to have different light bulbs in different areas of the house depending on whether it’s a sleeping area or a waking area or something like

Alison Kay (06:21.481)
Yeah, yeah. I feel like I need to kind of plug into you. I guess that’s what your podcast is every couple of weeks. Did you get the latest information on all of this? So can, I can go away and learn about it. Thank you. Okay. Let’s, let’s apply that kind of, scientist investigation to these two wonderful books that I have in front of me. The first one is called Boundless Cookbook and the second one is called Boundless Kitchen. And they are, yeah. Yeah. I have them both.

Ben Greenfield (06:26.311)
Hahaha

Ben Greenfield (06:47.774)
no way, you have the new one? sweet.

Alison Kay (06:51.432)
Yeah. And they are companion books to your non cookery book, which came out a little while ago called Boundless, which Rob and I read together. It was our bedtime reading for a few months. And these books are not only a full of delicious looking family meals, but also draw on and celebrate your slightly mad scientist love of ancestral superfoods.

which we will dive into a little bit later in the interview. The first thing I want to ask you is what we ask all our guests, which is what was the last thing you ate?

Ben Greenfield (07:25.471)
The last thing that I ate was stew So I’ve been trying to get better at braising and I like the concept of braising because If you know how to braise if you learn how to braise you are having to learn how to Select the right meat Brown and spice the meat properly

Alison Kay (07:32.153)
okay.

Ben Greenfield (07:54.225)
And I mean, technically you could braise with non -meat, like say potatoes and onions, for example. And then you need to learn how to add the proper aromatics and spices. You need to learn the right cook or braising times for each different cut. And so it’s kind of like a method of cooking that allows you to learn a lot of cooking tactics all at once. And the beauty of braising is that, especially if you’re into eating more ancestral cuts,

like heart or kidney or liver or some of these bigger cuts like a roast or a shoulder, the long, slow process of braising not only helps to break down the collagen in those tougher cuts to make them more tender, which is also nicer on the pocketbook because you can get less expensive, tougher cuts and make them taste really good, but then

the long process of braising releases a lot of the gelatin from those meats. So you get this nice gut nourishing gelatinous like stew. probably one of the best books that I could recommend, even though there are some braising like recipes in my cookbooks, but if you really want soup to nuts to really get good at braising, there is a cookbook author.

Her name is Molly, I think her last name is Stevens. I think it’s Molly Stevens. She has a book called All About Brazing. she does, I didn’t know this. So, cool, well, looks like I’ll have to subscribe. So, All About Brazing is fantastic. And so, I had three beautiful grass -fed, grass -finished beef hearts in my freezer a few days ago. So, I took them

Alison Kay (09:23.017)
Yeah, she has a podcast. Yeah. Yeah, she has a podcast.

Ben Greenfield (09:47.357)
And the first thing I did was I soaked them for 24 hours in kefir because a kefir or buttermilk or dairy medium helps to enzymatically break down a little bit of the meat, draw out a little bit of the gamey flavor that some people find unpalatable in heart or liver or something like that. And then I rinsed the heart and then I dredged it in almond flour.

and browned it. I think the best browning fat for a braising recipe is bacon fat. It’s just incredible for braising, but I didn’t have any bacon around, so I just use grass -fed butter. That’s really, really beautiful New Zealand butter. And so then after you’ve browned all of your meat, preferably you got to do it in batches because you want a real even browning or else you can just use multiple pans for the browning process. So you brown your meat, which takes about

you know, six to eight minutes or so. Then you set the meat aside and you take your stock vegetables, your typical stock vegetables like celery, onion, carrot, those would be my top three. And you caramelize those, you know, cook those in butter over a skillet. Usually that’s another 12, 15 minutes or so. And if you have a separate skillet, you can do that at the same time that you’re browning the meat because we’re all about time hacking, right? And then what you do is you’ll then combine

the browned meat and the vegetables and then cover that about two thirds or so with your braising liquid. And so in this case for the stew, that was my last meal, I’d use a third bourbon, a third wine and a third apple cider vinegar. It’s usually you want like an alcohol or a vinegar type of medium for that. Some people will just use broth, but I find you get a little bit of a watery flavor. So I like alcohol a little better. Plus

Alison Kay (11:40.009)
Yeah, that’s what I do. Okay.

Ben Greenfield (11:46.715)
It’s a good use for those extra bottles of whiskey you’re not gonna drink, but somebody left at the house. then once you’ve brought that all to a boil, you’re adding your spices and seasoning. So in this case, I was just using garlic salt, onion salt, salt, pepper, bay leaves, and then just a touch of cayenne for flavor. I braised that over the stove top, which

It’s more of an Italian braising method, not because it’s superior, but a lot of Italians back in the day didn’t have ovens, so they used flame. And so you want it to stay pretty moist. So one little pro tip is if you’re braising, take some parchment paper and put that between the lid of your braising pot, which is usually like a Dutch pot or a real, real good pot that’s gonna hold in heat. And so I braise that

about five hours under low heat and I add a little bit of extra flour for thickener and then I took some of my wife’s beautiful homemade sourdough bread that she had yesterday, she had made yesterday and I put a little bit of butter and manuka honey on the bread and then I dipped that in the stew.

that had the heart and I left all the vegetables in there even though in some braising recipes you’ll discard the vegetables and have just the meat. And it was just a gorgeous meal. That was my last meal.

Alison Kay (13:18.808)
It sounds beautiful. Did you use almond flour because you’re not eating the grains or did you use that for a specific reason in this braise?

Ben Greenfield (13:28.06)
I have nothing against grains. know, especially grains have been properly soaked and sprouted and fermented like my wife’s sourdough bread. But if I have the option to use a gluten free grain, I often do. And for me, that’s because I did a special kind of food intolerance or food allergy panel called a zoomer panel. And I tend to have a

kind of pronounced white blood cell reaction to a lot of gliadin and the gluten like proteins. So I’m careful about how much I have. And since probably the only source of gluten I really consume these days is my wife’s sourdough bread. So I thought, well, know, if I got to choose between the sourdough bread or the stew, I’m just gonna give you a gluten free flour in the stew and have the bread. So I’m not getting too much gluten.

Alison Kay (14:21.548)
Yeah, that makes sense. Nice. Okay. I wanted to, before we talk about superfoods, I wanted to talk a little bit about the guidelines and mindset that you outline in the newer book, The Boundless Kitchen. You talk about the blue zones in there and we all know how much they’ve been used as marketing ploys. But you do say that there’s no one perfect diet and that there’s so much diversity among us.

But you also say that there are some key patterns that come out of those long lived humans. And I wanted to talk about a few of those. The first one is eat in a parasympathetic state. And I think all our listeners know that they should do this. And I wanted to ask how you physically actually make sure that you eat in a parasympathetic state.

Ben Greenfield (15:10.518)
I love that question. Yeah, the Blue Zones do have some controversy behind them as far as you know everything from birth record verification to the fact that the author and inventor of that idea is a little bit skewed towards more of a plant -based approach. But regardless, you’re right, we can learn specific lessons from anywhere where people live a long period of time or even case studies where people seem to have healthy guts and eating

in an unstressed state certainly is one of those key principles.

If you’re eating and you’re stressed emotionally, physically, mentally, you tend to see a suppression of digestive enzymes. You see suppression of these in cretin hormones, including many of the hormones that help you to feel full, know, hormones like cholecystokinin or one called PYY or the now pretty famous GLP -1, the glucagon -like peptide. You know, these tend to not be as activated if you’re eating in a stressed out

So you don’t get full as sooner. You definitely don’t digest your food as well because you’re producing fewer digestive enzymes, thus leading to issues like leaky gut or intestinal gut permeability or the, you know, the pesky, you know, corn and carrot slices in your crap the next day. You know, all these, all these issues tend to pop up when you’re eating stress. And yet it’s so common, especially in more of a Western industrialized society to suck down

your superfood smoothie while you’re driving 60 miles an hour down the highway on your way to work or, you know, be hunched over your desk, spooning some, you know, I don’t know, know, cereal or stew or whatever else in your mouth or mowing through a sandwich while you’re walking to a meeting. And the fact is that all of these involve eating in a state in which the more sympathetic fight or flight branch of the nervous system is activated compared to the rest or digest branch of the nervous system.

Ben Greenfield (17:14.162)
And while I am a fan of moving, like I’m walking on a treadmill while I’m talking to you, I don’t sit that much. You know, I’m kind of engaged in low level physical activity throughout the day. The one time that I will make sure I’m sitting, I’m relaxed, my heart rate is low. And I even go so far as to make sure that if there has been anything stressful that’s happened that day, I’ve taken care of it. Like if I’ve had an argument with my wife or a disagreement with a coworker,

I don’t eat like I make sure all those things are taken care of before I go and stuff food in my mouth and That’s important for the reasons that I’ve stated from a you know from a biochemical standpoint and so I sit to eat I get into a relaxed state I pray before a meal which allows for a pause and an act of gratefulness prior to eating and allows me to eat a little bit more mindfully and be aware of my food and

Alison Kay (17:47.085)
All

Ben Greenfield (18:14.539)
If you look into some of the Some of the research that I think is becoming more commonly known in the process of Mastication, you know, there are books now like like jaws a hidden epidemic or this growing process of Mewing which involves proper tongue posture proper jaw posture and almost like a bioesthetic approach to the mouth

The idea of chewing and chewing properly and even chewing foods that can be difficult to chew comes up repeatedly in books and in sectors like that. And so I’m very cognitive of chewing now. I chew 25 to 40 times per bite. And that helps a ton with digestion, with gas, with bloating, et cetera. And yes, I still will have

Shot of apple cider vinegar or some lemon juice, you know prior to a meal to enhance the production of digestive enzymes If I’m traveling I’ll even travel with you know, like a bottled digestive enzyme supplement But all of this just helps so much with satiety with digestion with gratefulness for the food with with the ability to be able to properly assimilate what you’re eating and what’s really interesting This is not something I’ve really

talked about before ever on a podcast because it’s kind of new for me is a couple of weeks ago, I finished a treatment with a dentist, a biological dentist down in Phoenix, who I’ve been working with for about two years. And this dentist practice practices bioesthetic dentistry, involves measuring and analyzing via scans and x rays, the alignment of your jaw and your teeth.

Customizing a mouthpiece that you wear for a period of time until your jaw is properly realigned and then redoing the areas of the teeth that have kind of broken down or been worn away from grinding or improper jaw alignment and as a part of that process the dentist center team have been teaching me things about you know how the tongue should be held in a suction posture against the roof of the mouth just in normal day -to -day life

Ben Greenfield (20:38.039)
And how important nasal breathing is and how important caring for the jaw and even doing specific jaw massage and jaw exercises have become and so since that treatment I would say that I have about Doubled the amount and I was already a pretty good chewer because I was aware of a lot of the stuff I’ve already talked to you about but I have about doubled the time That it takes me to eat a meal. I am I feel so good like my even in the

two weeks my digestion has improved so much and that’s all from mouth and jaw and teeth work that have almost like Retrained my jaw how to engage in proper mastication and I swear my food is pure Liquid before I swallow because now my teeth are working the way that they’re supposed to my jaw is chewing the way it’s supposed to it’s grinding the food properly I’m no longer ripping with my front teeth. Everything’s kind of getting chewed in the back

And it’s incredible. It’s a game changer. And I think probably people want to learn more about this.

look up the field of bioesthetic dentistry and also look into the concept of mewing, -E -W -I -N -G, and also that book, Jaws, a Hidden Epidemic, if you want to learn more about the very important link between jaw, teeth, mouth, bite alignment, and digestion of food.

Alison Kay (22:08.462)
Thank you, thank you. I think a lot of listeners to the podcast are, you know, they have lots of family things going on. You know, they’ve got kids, they’ve got work, they’ve got family to look after and gardens and perhaps animals as well. And so they’re kind of rushing around and you know what it’s like when your kids are around you and they’re rushing around and they’ve got this energy. It’s sometimes really difficult to move into that parasympathetic state. And the fact that you said,

that you literally don’t eat if something has happened. And that’s a strong choice, but one that means that you’re not putting that food in your body when you’re in a state where it’s not going to be digested. And I know that, you you have kids and I’ve heard you talking on the podcast about how you come together to eat as a family and how you try to slow things down and how you’re playing games as well at the table you have done. Can you talk a little bit about

you interact with your family during dinner and how you come together to eat as a family and why that’s important.

Alison Kay (26:04.664)
Mm

Alison Kay (26:51.03)
Yep. Yep.

Alison Kay (29:45.839)
Mm

Alison Kay (29:53.779)
think that the thing with games is a bit like the thing with chewing, you know, people know that they need to chew, but they kind of don’t remember to or they’re overtaken by something kind of stressing them and they don’t. With the games, what I found with doing things like that at the table is, you know, people always say, well, you should put your fork down between bites because that encourages you to chew more and you know, it’s giving more time for you to digest properly. If you’re playing a game, you don’t even think about having to do that because it’s your go again.

And so you’ve got to, like you say, look at the cards in your hand and pick something up, or you’ve got to move your counter on the… And so you’re doing it without actually doing it. And at the same time, you’re connecting with everyone at the table and having fun. So it just seems like a win -win -win, this playing games at the dining table, I think.

Alison Kay (32:43.198)
Yeah.

Alison Kay (32:55.475)
Yeah, I can believe it.

Alison Kay (33:31.657)
Yeah, completely, completely. I liked so many things about what you just said, just the whole concept of parenting in that way, you know, because if you’re banning something, you’re kind of creating this sort of aura around it of attraction in a way. And then by educating instead, you’re giving that responsibility to the child and then they are learning to manage it. Just like you give them responsibility for money or you give them responsibility for chores, they’re learning.

to manage that and they learn themselves what the consequences are. And that is so much deeper than anything that you’re trying to instill on them. And then the idea of showing by example. I I think that’s huge for Rob and myself with our son, Gable, who’s 10 now. We’ve never had phones around when he’s around. And I had a smartphone until he was about two and a half.

And I could see what it was doing to me when I was with him and I could see how it was affecting me. So literally I just got rid of it. I thought, can’t, I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want him to see this. And it extends to other things. You know, he’s seen us eating liver, heart, kidney, and he’s been eating that and seeing us eating it since he was six months old. And so he just thinks it’s normal. That idea of kind of leading by example and showing rather than telling is,

such a gift I

Alison Kay (35:03.219)
Yeah, yeah, it appears to be recording,

Alison Kay (35:59.945)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alison Kay (36:10.335)
See ya.

Alison Kay (36:16.282)
Yeah.

Alison Kay (37:04.681)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alison Kay (37:19.606)
Yeah, completely, completely. Okay, let’s switch and talk a little bit about supplements and superfoods. So there are a large number of recipes in both of the boundless cookbooks that use superfoods. And I kind of wanted to talk about where to start. I think not many of our listeners will have experienced powders. I mean, they are used to whole food and perhaps if they’ve dabbled with superfood,

rather than just, you know, vitamin or mineral supplements, it would be perhaps collagen powder or liver capsules. Your book includes so many different superfood supplements. Can you explain why you use them to start

Alison Kay (41:47.524)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Alison Kay (42:14.14)
Can you unpick, is it possible to unpick what those superfoods are bringing you above and beyond what your home cooked nutrient dense food is?

Alison Kay (44:16.364)
Can you explain to listeners who don’t know what ATP is what it is?

Alison Kay (46:05.509)
Do your children eat the superfoods? Do you put them in their food as well?

Alison Kay (48:46.101)
Okay. Where, if our listeners, someone’s perhaps listening and hasn’t gone beyond perhaps some collagen powder in their breakfast or some liver capsules, where would you suggest that they start with trying to look beyond that? There are so many different options in the recipes in your book and it can be a bit bewildering kind of flicking through. Where should people start if they’re not used to

Alison Kay (52:41.982)
Great, that’s really helpful, thank you. What’s your favourite supplement at the moment?

Alison Kay (52:50.74)
Yeah. Okay.

Alison Kay (53:49.414)
Great, thank you. Okay, do you use that NAD, do you just take it with water or have you come up with some weird recipe to put it in?

Alison Kay (54:43.046)
Okay, we’re getting close to time. Tell us what you’re up to next. What’s your, either in the kitchen or with what you’re doing with your work or your podcast.

Alison Kay (55:05.094)
Mm -hmm.

Alison Kay (55:29.824)
Okay. Yeah.

Alison Kay (56:15.198)
And is that up yet? Do you have a URL for it or not?

Alison Kay (56:29.384)
Okay, awesome. Okay, so for listeners who don’t know where you are and how to follow your work and want to, can you tell everyone where you are and how they can connect with

Alison Kay (56:54.254)
Wonderful. Is there anything else you want to add before we say goodbye,

Alison Kay (57:34.554)
Okay? Wow.

Alison Kay (57:52.282)
That sounds like a really interesting journey.

Alison Kay (58:04.346)
Excellent, we should look out for that. Wonderful, thank you for your time Ben and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank

No problem. Bye.

Alison Kay (58:24.606)
Thank you very much, Ben.

Alison Kay (58:30.504)
Thank