January 14, 2015

Podcast #305 from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2015/01/305-kettlebell-yoga-bens-top-healthy-baby-tips-measure-body-voltage-much/

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Introduction:  In this episode: Is Aluminum Foil Healthy, How To Measure Your Body Voltage, How To Do Kettlebell Yoga, How Much Dairy Is In Grass-Fed Butter, My Top Healthy Baby Tips, and much more.

Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast.  We provide you with everything you need to know for total performance, fat loss, recovery, digestion, sleep, brain, and hormone optimization.  So whether you’re an ironman triathlete or you just wanna shed a few pounds, get ready for non-run-of-the-mill, cutting edge content from bengreenfieldfitness.com.

Brock:  Yo, yo!  What’s going on at the Greenfield house?

Ben:  The Greenfield house is full of action.  I’ve got a security guy upstairs, who’s installing, like, motion detectors, and smoke alarms and all that jazz… So if in the midst of this recording you hear, like, I don’t know… The fire department pull-up or sounds like my house is getting broken into or burning down?  That’s probably why.

Brock:  Probably.  I’ve got a delivery coming, so it’s not quite as exciting as you but we might hear a door knocking and I might have to runoff.  So we’re gonna be good and focused today!

Ben:  That’s right.  This podcast would be full of distraction.  So I hope everyone is taking their… whatever people who are listening to this are taking.  Smart drugs… Focus… Nutrients…?

Brock:  Caterol?

Ben:  Caffeine… Ungodly amounts of green tea?  Whatever it is that helps you keep out the distracting beep sounds, whistles, doorbells, dogs barking, etc. so… let’s roll!

Brock:  Let’s go!

News Flashes:

Brock:  twitter.com/bengreenfield has been ripping it up once again on the interwebz.

Ben:  That’s right, if you can actually rip something up on twitter, quite sure if that’s possible…

Brock:  You can rip twitter a new one.

Ben:  … versus just being a one hundred and forty character propeller hat geek.  And I’ve got some things on twitter this week that I think you’ll find interesting if you’re listening in, and of course links to all these and oh so much more of the goodies that we talk about on the show on bengreenfieldfitness.com/305, where you can also of course get transcripts.  So, the first thing that I thought would be interesting because I’m always looking for ways to get better workouts when I’m travelling, like in hotel rooms, airports, and random public places…

Brock:  The last time I did a hotel workout was when you have that one where you run up you go up the stairwell, run up the stairs and then you do some burpees and run another flight of stairs, and every flight of stairs had cigarette butts all over it!

Ben:  That’s a good workout though, where you ran to and landing and you drop and do push ups and then up to the next landing, you drop and do mountain climbers…

Brock:  Oh, it’s an awesome workout except I got like cigarette butts got stuck to my hands.

Ben:  You should have done squats…

Brock:   I guess…

Ben:  So, this was on the Journal of Strength Condition Research this month, and it compared the bench-press or traditional form of getting our pecks to look like Captain America, where the push-up, and specifically they looked at elastic band push-ups, and just so you know, elastic band push-ups are where you kind of put an elastic band over your back and then one of the end of the elastic band goes in each hand, right?

Brock:  And you’re standing up, you’re not down in a plank position..

Brock:  Yeah exactly, so when you are doing your push-up, you have the – no,      you’re down in a push-up position.

Brock:   Oh!

Ben:  Yeah.  So when you’re doing your push-up, you have the force of the   elastic band kind of pressing you down into the ground which you have to resist, and then of course you are pressing against the form of the resistance band as you push out of the bottom of the push up.  And they did what is called an EMG or an Electromyographic analysis of muscle tissue comparing what happened with the pecks in response to a bench-press versus an elastic band push-up.  And what they found was that in terms of both muscle strength gains, and also the amount of muscles activated in the chesticles, it was equal between the bench-press…

Brock:  I don’t think that’s what they’re called.

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Ben:  … the bench press and the band push-up.  Meaning that, yeah, you may not be able to say toss a barbell and a bench and some weight plates into your suitcase, but you can get like a nice sturdy resistance band or piece of elastic tubing, toss that into the bag, and you could get a pretty good workout.  So, I first kind of tapped it to the power of the resistance bands for travel when my wife and I were bicycling across Italy, and I was biking all day but I wanted to get an upper body workout.  When we get into our little beds and breakfast and Agricola’s where everyone else were staying… so I just take out my elastic band and like take a 20-minute workout and I was like, curls, elastic band push-ups, and side raises.  You can get a pretty dang good workout with those things and it turns out that now, science has proven…

Brock:  Eventually proven what we’ve always known.

Ben:  … that you can actually get; it’s going to work with even a freaking steel.  So there you go, elastic band push-ups, try it out the next time you’re on vacation.

The next thing that I wanted to mention was black seed oil. I actually just put a video up at youtube.com/bengreenfieldfitness, where I crawled out of bed in my bright red boxers, and my wife shot a video of me making a smoothie, and adding my new favorite smoothie ingredient, black seed oil.  And I’m putting a link in the show notes to this really interesting article that came out looking into this stuff, and it’s called black cumin oil, and it comes from a cumin seed.  And the number of different benefits this thing has, this stuff has is freaking amazing.  And also the history behind it, like Cleopatra used it as a beauty treatment; and Hypocrates used it to cure digestive disorders, and you know, King Tut kept a bottle of black cumin seed oil in his tomb for use in the afterlife.  So there must be something to it. Get this, get this, dude, the prophet Mohammad calls it, “a remedy for every illness except death”.  I’m not quite sure what his remedy for death would be, but anyways, this stuff has a huge history as far as being used by practitioners of Ayurvedic and Chinese traditional medicine for thousands of years.  And the amount of research is pretty staggering on black seed oil and I was scratching my head about why I haven’t heard of this stuff before because they can like lower your blood glucose response to amino when you take it and this in amino, they can like cure intestinal parasites and like Candida and yeast and fungus and stuff like that in the digestive track.  It has pain-killing properties, so it acts as an analgesic; it has anti-anxiety properties so it kind of calms you down when you add it into a meal. I’ve been putting it over my salad, like I mentioned, in my smoothies, so its black cumin oil.

Brock:  And where the heck can you buy it?

Ben:   Well there’s a lot of different places; there that one I get – and what you want to make sure when you use black seed oil by the way is you want it organic, just like any other oil, you want it organic, you want it pure pressed, cold processed you preferably want it in like glass or in urn like a non-transparent bottle I’m using this stuff same place I get it this marine phytoplankton that I use, like the little marine phytoplankton drops, it’s called Panaseeda black cumin oil.  So, I’ll put a link on the show notes if you wanna check it out.  Over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/305.  Pretty cool stuff, black seed oil.  That’s my new fun thing.. so… Other people get excited about new TV shows, video games, and I get excited about black seed oil.

Brock:  No worries, that’s fine. That’s why we like you!

Ben:  Really  cool, cool article at Suppversity.  So of course, we are all big fans of lights and now right now I’m bathed in blue lights because its morning here in the Greenfield house and so addition to like sirens and motion detectors, going off all over the place I got this blue lights, they’re called Awake and Alert, and you know, I’m constantly looking at the effect of light on the human body ‘cause it has such a profound effect on your circadian rhythm, your recovery, and brain inflammation, the website’s suppversity did a really cool round up of 10 new studies that go into the health effects of light exposure on your health and your physique.  I’ll put a link to this article in the show notes.  But some of the studies were really, really are interesting.  For example, let me find a good one for you here; bright lights at work, they did a recent study that showed that bright lights at people’s workplace keep them sane, happy and alert.

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So if you’re feeling a little bit down, maybe it’s not disrupted sleep that you’re dealing with.  Maybe you just have an annoying co-worker who’s looking for their stapler or something like that.  Office-based reference for anybody who’s an office-based fan.

Brock:  I got that one.

Ben:  Have you seen my stapler?  But bright light like blue light boxes or using some kind of a bright light exposure can help quite a bit with your mood.  And now it’s been studied…

Brock:  And sanity, apparently, as well.

Ben:  Yeah, once again science has proven.  Staying away from nightly light exposure has been shown now to help keep arteries clean in old age. So, this one study found that even after adjustment for confounding variables like age and gender, and smoking status, and diabetes and sleep medication, and all this other stuff, exposure to light at night was associated with what is called carotid intima media thickness, or basically hardening of the arteries.  So the more blue light that you get exposed to at night the harder your arteries become.  Crazy!

Brock:   That’s crazy!  The iPad is really killing you.

Ben:  Another one showed that if you dabbled on to your smart phone the evening before an important sport event and you’re looking at light for as little as 30 minutes, it influences your exercise performance specifically under hot conditions they said this cyclists, this temperature controlled rooms with high humidity and high temperature, and they found out they were less able to maintain their body temperature when they have been looking at light from their iPhones the night before.

Brock:  That’s interesting. I’ve been waiting for them to do a study where they talk about the duration of exposure being the factor, so that’s 30 minutes.

Ben:  Yeah, this was 30 minutes.  Let me tell you one more here that they found, back pain, they found that three sessions in from the 5,000 lux lamp which is very similar to this blue light boxes that you can get off of Amazon, it reduced pain intensity with people who struggle with chronic back pain during the day.  I’m not saying that you got to go and buy like a light box but I mean freaking try and get out in the sunshine for a 15, 20, 30 minutes…  And ah.. pretty big effect there. Really cool article that just kind of scratches the surface of some of the stuff that I went into but I thought that was pretty cool.  And then the last thing, is that as  I mentioned a month or two ago, my wife and I were in Israel, shooting videos, recording podcasts, and writing about the burgeoning health  and wellness and nutrition seen in Israel…

Brock:  And eating, and eating and eating from what I could tell!

Ben:   Yes. Even though I’m not a Jew, I have a Jewish name, Benjamin       Greenfield, and ah so, of course, I love Israel.

Brock:   Of course.

Ben:  We’re now releasing all the videos that we shot over there and the first video is up right now over at youtube.com/bengreenfieldfitness, my wife went into like a healthy chocolate-making class and had learned to make chocolate at home and she shot a video where she basically, in the kitchen shows you exactly how to do this, in this case, did this as a project with the kids.  So if you want to know how to make your own healthy chocolate at home and you’re tired of paying $5.99 for your organic dark chocolate bar at the grocery store…

Brock:  I wish mine was only $5.99…

Ben:   You can bulk make it yourself.  Check out the video, we’ll put a link to it in the show notes, so make your own healthy chocolate while you’re staring at your blue light, doing your elastic band push-ups, and drinking black seed oil and you’ll be all set with this week’s news flashes.

Special Announcements:

Brock:  Did you hear that?

Ben:  My petting kitten?

Brock:  Ah, kinda…  scratching my hairy chin.

Ben:  Well, that’s a great segue, Brock, because this podcast is brought to you by Harry’s shaving.

Brock:  It is?

Ben:  Yes!

Brock:  Fantastic!  I love those guys!

Ben:  Yeah.  High quality, German-engineered blades, that aren’t the cheapo blades that you get from the drugstore but actually cost about half the price of the big name drugstore brands that you’re gonna find out there.  I won’t name any but there’s one that rhymes with Hillet.  Anyways though, you can get these Harry’s shaving blades along with their completely healthy, like a – preservative free, not really preservatives like parabens and phthalates, and all the nasty stuff that disrupts endocrine function.  They’re foaming gel, you put in your face, smells fantastic even though there aren’t endocrine disruptors in it.  So you can have your cake and eat it too. 

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Brock:  That’s interesting.  I was gonna ask you about that, last time we talked about it here is if it actually fits your criteria of – could you eat it without getting sick?

Ben:  No.  I just indiscriminately take sponsorship, funds from any major brand.

Brock:  I knew it!

Ben:  Coca-cola, Pepsi, birth control pills, you name it.  If you wanna sponsor the podcast just…

Brock:  Cyanide…

Ben:  No.  Anyways, Harry’s is good stuff and you can go to harrys.com and get $5 off, that’s 5 bucks off, this really cool package that you can get shipped to your house which is like blades, and the foaming gel, and the awesome Harry’s handle.  So it looks really good.  It’s fun to shave with, it’s fun to shaving actually “can be”.  And you get 5 bucks off with discount code BEN at harrys.com, that’s h-a-r-r-y-s dot com. Harrys.com with $5 discount code BEN, so.

Brock:  Nice.

Ben:  You gotta wonder how much do you think that URL cost them to get harrys.com?

Brock:  I don’t know that.  I can’t imagine that was available.

Ben:  Yeah, I don’t know.  What’s this, somebody, somebody had a sugar daddy payin’ for URL – harrys.com.

Brock:  I tried to one of the company’s I worked for was going to be charged $35,000 to get the URL from a squatter one time.

Ben:  Yeah.  I wanted to buy, I wanted to buy, I think it was superhuman.com couple of years ago and it was some crazy, it was like $30,000.  Yeah, amazing, yeah.

Brock:  And they’ve not even doing anything with it.  Oh.

Ben:  So, a few other things to announce.  First of all, coming up here really soon, I’m gonna be speaking in Dubai.  And this not just like a talk.  This is a full on workshop – the How to Become Superhuman Workshop.  I’m teachin’ for anywhere from 6-8 hours each day and it’s gonna be a blast.  You can come listen in if you happen to be near Dubai or if you wanna fly in to Dubai, check it out, we’ll put a link in the show notes to all the details, but it’s a two-day intensive workshop where you’ll come up the other end pretty much knowing everything that you need to know, and spending lots of time getting sick of hearing me standin’ up there and talk.  But it’s gonna be a lot of fun.  We’ll eat good food, we’re goona have fantastic sessions, it’s gonna be a good time.  And Dubai is always fun ‘cause you can get lattes with gold on top of them – with gold flakes on top of them.

Brock:  Oh man, that place is crazy.

Ben:  Yeah, speaking of getting gold on top of you, if you wanna get your tan on, the Spartan Cruise is happenin’.  Thespartancruise.com, it’s the ultimate tropical obstacle racing experience.  There’s gonna be tons of partying, beautiful beaches, probably beautiful bodies too, you know, it’s a Spartan race, so.

Brock:  Oh, beautiful bodies with cuts and bruises all over them.

Ben:  Yeah, a lot of people covered in mud, and scrapes, and MRSA, all sorts of nasty stuff.  Anyways, we’re all gonna stuck in boat together, it’s gonna be great.  Thespartancruise.com, you can use code BEN10, BEN10 – that’s B-E-N-1-0 and save 10% off.  My family’s gonna be on it, my kids are gonna be there racing, my wife is not yet aware of this fact but she signed up for the race.  So, it’s gonna be – it’s gonna be a good time.  I don’t know when I’ll spring that one on her but she does…

Brock:  Yeah, it’s like an hour or before.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah exactly.

Brock:  She’ll kill it, no matter what.  I’m not worried.

Ben:  Swim to shore, you’re racin’.  And then the last thing is that Paleo FX, Paleo FX is happenin’.  I just booked my hotel for that.  You can sign up at bengreenfieldfitness.com/paleofx15, bengreenfieldfitness.com/paleofx15 or just follow the link in the show notes, but basically it’s kinda the can’t miss conference.  It’s the who’s who gathering of like world-class speakers, bestselling authors, physicians, nutritionists, research scientists, professional athletes, food activists, biohackers, you name it.  And it’s actually a lot of fun, there’s really good food, awesome talks, good workouts, freaking off-the-hook parties.  So, PaleoFX, it’s in Austin, Texas too, which is great because that’s a pretty cool town.  Anways, whether you wanna run or paddle board, or go to some good bars and restaurants – awesome place.  So, PaleoFX, good one to add to your list if you’re looking for a conference to go to.  So, that about wraps up this week’s special announcements but for any of the things we talked about, you can go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/305 and all the link goodies are in there in case you’re like running, biking, or lifting weights, or floating on an isolation tanks, or something like that and you don’t have a chance to write in these stuff down.

Hey, it’s Ben Greenfield.  You may not realize this but I actually have developed many different nutrient blends designed to help with a variety of different goals.  For example, if you visit greenfieldfitnesssystems.com, a few of the things that you can find there are, Nature Cleanse which is this botanical blend of herbs that naturally cleanse things like your gut and your liver.

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There’s also Nature Colostrum which is one of the best ways to not only heal your gut, but also to do things like increase growth hormone, burn fat and build muscle.  And finally, there’s Nature Flex which is the most potent injury recovery, workout recovery, and joint healing supplement that I’ve ever seen.  Now, you as a podcast listener get a 10% discount on any of those things.  The Nature Cleanse, the Nature Colostrum, or the Nature Flex when you go to greenfieldfitnesssystems.com and use code PODCAST10.  That’s greenfieldfitnesssystems.com and code PODCAST10.  And now, on to today’s show.  Enjoy.

Listener Q & A:

Joan:    Ben, hi.  This is Joan.  Question!  I know I’m finally going off to deep end with all of this information.  Do you ever wrap food in foil like big potatoes.  I’ve always cooked them by wrapping them in foil.  And also if I reheat things, oftentimes I wrap them in foil and put them in the oven – aluminum foil.  Would you use it or not?

Brock:  Aluminum…

Ben:  Aluminum…

Brock:  Say, say in to your places…

Ben:  Yeah, I use aluminum foil but I’m pretty careful about using it around heat.  The reason for this is they’ve done research on this and they found pretty high levels of aluminum in foods that have been cooked and then reheated with the aluminum foil like for example, if you like reheat your leftovers in oven on the broiler with the aluminum foil on them, the problem is that the aluminum can accumulate in your body.  That can cause things, I mean, it’s been shown to cause things like osteoporosis, and Alzheimer's, and the higher the temperature, the more the leaching that occurs from the foil.  So, I’m pretty careful with that.  It’s safe for cold foods, it’s safe to wrap cold foods.  They’ve never observed any leaching in studies to be happening unless you actually get heating, and it doesn’t matter which side, like if you put the shiny side against the food or the dull side against the food, both can increase the amount of aluminum that leaches off of aluminum foil.  So, you do have to be kinda careful with the stuff.  I mean like, I’ve talked about before on the show, we primarily use glass containers, sometimes stainless steel.  Usually we’ll reheat and just like a good cast iron skillet on the stove, and I know that this is probably annoying to folks to hear about yet one additional thing that they shouldn’t put usually in the foil.  But I mean like, we use aluminum foil.  For example, my boys – I took my boys skiing on Saturday and made everybody sandwiches and wrapped the sandwiches in aluminum foil, and put them in our ski backpacks.  And honestly, aluminum foil like cold temperatures is better than plastic because plastic actually can leach even at room temperature or cold temperature.  Aluminum is not gonna leach from aluminum foil unless it gets heated up.  So, you do want to be kinda careful with that, I mean high aluminum levels in the body can alter things like bone mineralization, they can affect your thyroid activity, and you get really high calcium levels in your blood when you get aluminum accumulation and just for the same reason, you wanna just take like a high dose calcium supplement without getting extra vitamin K for example, to increase the calcium absorption.  High levels of calcium can cause calcium deposition in your arteries.  So, you wanna be careful with that and of course, you wanna be careful with any type of metals because of the neuro-toxic effect, because of the association between things like aluminum and Alzheimer's, for example.  So, I’d be careful with it for that reason.  The other interesting thing that they found with aluminum foil is they did a study on potatoes and aluminum foil, and what they found with the potatoes was that there was potential for botulism.  They found that baked potatoes wrapped in foil were linked to cases of botulism and this is because the spores that cause botulism, they can survive the baking process.  If you bake a potato in aluminum foil, and the foil wrap seals the potato and that prevents oxygen from being present, and in that environment spores on the potato can germinate and grow.  And so, – I know I sound like I’m just being like one of the ironically tin foil wearing hat.  Tin foil hat wearing…

Brock:  Uhmm.  Oh!  That’s one good use for it.

Ben:  You could use aluminum foil though to make your little tin foil hat.

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Brock:  Make your beanie.

Ben:  As you’re sittin’, impress your neighbors about why they shouldn’t be using aluminum foil.  But no, it’s got its uses, and by the way, one cool thing that you can use aluminum foil for, and this is probably a good segue into our next question, is that it can be use to ground your body.  Meaning that, if you want to increase the amounts of electrons that you get like when you gonna go stand on the ground and try to get all the antioxidant effect of electrons coming off the ground to the floor.  You can stand on aluminum foil.  If you can’t afford one of those expensive grounding mats or earthing mats, and it actually works pretty well.  So, there you go.

Brock:  You know, my favorite thing to do with aluminum?

Ben:  What’s that?

Brock:  Chew on it.

Ben:  Uhmm, yeah, that’s pleasant.

Brock:  Have you ever done that?

Ben:  Uhm, yes.  Once.  Never again.

Brock:  I dare everybody out there to try it.

Ben:  Send in your videos.

Mike:   Hey Ben and Brock, this is Mike from Seattle.  Though right now I’m livin’ in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, I just have a quick question about grounding or earthing, and how to measure “need” for it or if nothing else just the hypothetical way to quantify it.  So, to throw out a couple hypotheticals:  if somebody had a long airplane ride, let’s say to Africa or Asia and then they were  inside all day using their cell phone, iPad, and watching TV, could they feel good about going outside barefoot, for couple of minutes and getting sufficient electrons to counteract their plane ride and all that electronic activity.  Or conversely let’s say somebody were to go outside, fully outside, barefoot all day, come inside and sit at their computers for a couple of minutes and then wanna go to bed, but if they wanted to reset themselves and kinda get to an optimal level of electrons from the earth, could they just go back outside again for couple of seconds?

Brock:  Mike, sorry dude, you went on and on and on, I had to cut you a little bit but I’m sure we got the – we got the gist.

Ben:  Yeah.  This is a really interesting topic so I think that we probably should explain what’s going on here first and I’ll talk about how you could measure your body voltage or whether or not this stuff is actually working.  So, most of us have noticed that we feel better when we’re walking barefoot on the earth or on sand or on ground, and research has shown why this happens.  Your immune system actually functions a lot better when your body has an adequate supply of electrons, and you get a ton of those when you’re on barefoot contact with earth.  Research has also shown that when you get exposed to electrons from earth by literally having your skin touching the ground, there’s a really significant antioxidant effect and that can help protect your body from inflammation, and a lot of the other health consequences that tend to happen when we get exposed to a lot of electrical pollution from computers, and cell phones, and stuff like that.  So when you look at substances like asphalt and wood, and rugs and plastic, and even like built up shoes, you know, that have thick surfaces and don’t allow you to ground, we get separated from that contact.  So, earth – the planet ground rocks, etc., they maintain a negative electrical potential on their surface, and when you are in direct contact with that surface, whether you’re walking, or sitting, or laying down or standing, those electrons get conducted to your body and essentially bring your body to the same electric potential as the surface that you’re standing on – the earth.  So if you live in direct contact with the earth, you’re consistently grounded, and there’s a lot of really good physiological and electrochemical changes that occur in your body that promote really, really good health.  And there’s all sorts of really interesting studies coming out all over the place now that show improvements and everything from like heart rate variability, to decrease inflammation, to better stabilization of cortisol levels, to better sleep, to reduce stress, when you get this grounding or this earthing effect.  So, grounding or earthing traditionally just defines putting your barefeet on the ground.  So it can be like dirt, grass, sand – concrete actually works as well.  You know, assuming it’s not like concrete at the top of some kind of like a skyscraper.  So that the earth is the best natural source of electrons.  There are other ways to get them, like grounding mats and earthing mats, and even shoes.  There are some shoes now that they make with carbon plugs in them that help you to get more grounded when you are walking around in shoes.  Like I’ve got these sandals, they’re called Earthrunners, and they look kinda hippie.

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They look like Jesus’ sandals but they’ve got these carbon plugs in them.  And I toss those in my suitcase when I’m travelling, anywhere where I know I can wear sandals where snow is not covering the ground.  And they have this really significant grounding effect when you’re walking around even if you can’t walk around barefoot.  So they’re called Earthrunners, another cool things about those is that you look like you came out of the last The Mohican’s Movie or the Bible.

Brock:  Yeah, I was thinking more biblical – Old Testament.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah, but anyways, they’re pretty cool shoes, I mean, leather and like this little carbon plugs.  So, modern running shoes like things like plastic and rubber, and stuff like that, they’re really good insulators, right?  They’re used to cover electrical wires for example, the same materials to keep the conductors from touching each other and from touching your skin so you don’t get shocked but the bad part is when you’re walkin’ around on the surface of the planet earth, you don’t get a lot of those free electrons getting transferred into your body when your feet are covered like plastic and rubber.

Brock:  So if you get hit by lightning, you’ll be okay?

Ben:  That’ll be probably okay, just go out in the storm.  So, good idea, Brock.

Brock:  Thanks!

Ben:  Thank you for your contribution, your valuable contribution.  So, the other thing that you have to understand here is how your home and your living environment is going to affect your electrical potential, and that requires you to understand kinda like the three different forms of electricity that there are.  So, one form is direct current or we know as DC electricity.  So, if you think about a flashlight that’s got two type D batteries in it.  When you turn the light on the flashlight, you get this current that’s created by the chemical reactions in the batteries that causes the electrons to go to the bulb, that converts the electrical energy into light, and all those electrons are kinda moving and that’s a perfect example of a direct current.  Now an alternating current or AC is what’s in your home more often and that’s produced by electrical generators and then it’s distributed throughout say like, a neighborhood or out to your home via wires that are either overhead on the power lines or wires that are buried underneath the ground.  Now, like I mentioned in direct current electricity were you got electrons traveling like the battery up to the bulb with alternating current or AC, the flow of electrons in that circuit – in an AC circuit, is not very significant ‘cause mostly the electrons are just going back and forth without actually progressing along a wire.  They’re just vibrating back and forth by a hundred thousandth of an inch.  So, they’re barely moving at all, they’re not actually flowing, and it’s really interesting because this means like the electrons that are in your household wiring are – they can be the same ones that were present like five years ago when your house was built or whenever you moved in because inconstrasted DC or direct current, the electrons aren’t flowing all over the place, they can just stay in that same circuit vibrating back and forth and creating energy to, you know, power computers or TVs or whatever.  So, sometimes when you hear about like lots of power travelling back to the substation like through the ground, it’s not quite as significant as what we’ve been led to believe and even – you know, I’ve talked about this big power surges.  They’re not quite as big, once you start to understand that it’s really more of an AC current that’s in the home and you’re not getting this huge surges all the time.  Now I’ve certainly have used this dirty electricity filters in different outlets in my house, and I have found when I walk around with one of these little EMF meters that measures the amount of electromagnetic fields in your room, the field is a little bit lower when I use this anti-electrical pollution devices.  But you do need to understand that this idea of that power companies use the planet earth as part of the alternating current circuit to like save on the expense of overhead wires or something like that, that’s not quite accurate just because most of the time you’ve got alternating current or AC, and electrons are having to travel all over the place.  They’re just kinda sitting there in your home, vibrating back and forth.  So, either way though, you can still get affected by electrons whether they are in your home, whether it’s a DC current or an AC current, or the electrons that are just naturally present on the planet earth.  So for example when you look at things that can cause spikes in the number of electrons that are in the air circulating around you or like wireless signals, everything from electric heaters to refrigerators to vacuum cleaners, to wifi routers, to high efficiency lightings, specifically like fluorescent bulbs, all of those can cause some pretty significant electrical spikes that just get radiated into the atmosphere.

[0:35:13.8] 

Because any wiring around your house can act like an antenna and you can act like an antenna because you are an electrical machine.  This is why you can get affected by a lot of the electrical signals that are taking place around you.  Electrons can travel through the air, just the same ways they can travel through the ground, or in and out through your current and that type of thing.  So you can measure the actual voltage in your body and you can do this via what’s called the Body Voltage Meter.  And specifically what that measures is how much electricity is being induced on you wherever you are, and you can also measure how much that charges change by things that you do in your environment.  So, I’m gonna put some links in the show notes for you because you can either buy a body voltage meter off of Amazon, for example has several.  You can also make your own and I’ll link to a website that shows you how to make your own body voltage meter.  But the way that you use these things is you’ll – so a meter comes with a pair of standard test leads – is what they’re called, and you’ll plug…

Brock:  Those are alligator clips?

Ben:  Yeah, exactly.  So, you plug them into the meter and then to read your body voltage, you’re holding the tip of one of the test leads between your finger and your thumb, and what you’ll find is that your proximity from electrical wiring and appliances really affects that reading, and the general level of EMF in your environment like wifi signals being on and off, etc., that affects that reading as well.  And the idea is that you’ll see a 150, 200 volts whatever showing up on the screen as you’re measuring your body voltage meter, and ideally when you ground your body, right, like when you’re standing on top of a grounding sheet or yes, even aluminum foil or you’re standing on the planet earth, or you’re using like one – like I use a biomat for example, you’re laying on a biomat.  You should see the reading drop to very near zero and that indicates that what you’re doing is actually affecting you.  You’ll be able to measure not only how the EMF in your environment is affecting you or how much EMF there is in your environment, but you can also measure the effects that is having on your body whether or not something, you know like, grounding really truly does work, and it does.  You can measure yourself with the body voltage meter and see that it actually does work.

Brock:  So if it drops that much, does that mean that that voltage is actually gone or that it’s just being pulled out of your body the same way a grounding plug would make it?

Ben:  What it means specifically is that when you’re grounding or earthing negatively charged electrons are passing into your body from the grounding surface and bringing your electrochemical status back into balance.  So, it’s resetting the circuit basically.

Brock:  It is kind of electrical circus going on in your body.

Ben:  So yeah, that’s the idea.  So you can test that.  As far as quantifiably measuring the need for grounding like Mike says like seeing where you’re at or if you need to be grounded, that’s technically how you would do it.  Just get a body voltage meter and test.  Now what I do and I’ve got one sitting on the edge of my desk right now, is I use this little device and we had these people on the podcast before called the Lapka, and that allows me – it does all sorts of cool things like it measures the amount of radiation, and the nitrites in fruits and vegetables with this little pro-orbit but it also allows me to walk  around my house and measure EMF.  And so, I do that just to measure the amount of EMF in a room and it’s kinda like one of those correlative activities, right?  If you know that there’s a high amount of EMF in the room, you can test yourself using a body voltage meter to see if it affects you.  I can just tell you right now, it does.  Like you don’t have to go out and get a body voltage meter which tends to be more expensive than an EMF meter, or if you just wanna use EMF meter and measure the amount of EMF in your vomit.  If it’s high, you do two things: number one, you mitigate the EMF, right.  Like you figure out ways that you could like unplug the wifi router and do any of  these other things that I’ve talked about multiple times on the podcast, or if that’s not an option, right, if you’re at your office and you’ve got 12 colleagues using the wifi router, who’ll all get pissed if you walk over there and unplug it, you figure out ways to ground yourself.  I mean, figure out ways to warm outside every hour and reset your electrical circuit by getting in contact with the ground.

[0:40:05.2]

Mitigate some of that damage at least if you can.  So, ultimately you have to test your body voltage, but it’s kinda cool to see how it changes when you ground and how your body actually is an electrical machine.  And things that you do, just like taking your shoes off, you’ll notice that body voltage meter dropped.  So yeah, that’s kind of the – it’s kinda the I guess that’s not a short answer, it’s a long answer.  So, there you go.

Brock:  That’s a very long answer.  I don’t know if you actually told Mike exactly if he was playing outside all day, and then he’d jump to his computer before bed… can those screw ‘em up?

Ben:  It’s pretty astounding the rate at which your body can accumulate the – well, they’re basically positive electrons right, not negative electrons.  So yeah, if you’re playing outside all day and then you went in and exposed yourself to a bunch of EMF, it is going to affect your body’s voltage, and so the answer to this would of course be like, get a grounding mat or an earthing mat or a biomat, or something like that and just lay on that for a few minutes before bed and you’ll at least be able to mitigate any of those last minute things you did before bed that affects your body’s electrical potential.

Brock:  Bummer.

Devi:  How are you, Ben?  I just finished listening to episode 302 and you mentioned kettlebell yoga.  And I have researched but I can’t find much of it.  So if you could link to some references to where you found the routines, especially interested in doing like the kettlebell sun salutation routine and then the others you might recommend.  Thanks Ben.  Bye.

Brock:  Yeah, I kinda wanna give this a “go to”.  You did talk about it a couple episodes ago…

Ben:  The reason you can’t find it anywhere is it’s completely my invention.

Brock:  Ah so there you go.

Ben:  It doesn’t exist except in the world of Ben Greenfield.  So, I just finished writing an article that hasn’t been released yet for quickand dirtytips.com, and it’s about how could technically stay fit doing nothing but yoga.  Like yoga fitness workouts, and I’m kind of on this kick right now where for 20-30 minutes every morning, I’ve been doing yoga but a hard yoga.  So for example, one of the routines that I talked about in that article and I’ll link to the website for quick and dirty tips ‘cause if you sign up for the free newsletter over there, you just get it in your inbox every time I release an article, or you can subscribe to an iTunes too ‘cause there’s audio versions of each article that I release.  But one of the sample workouts is, you’ll start off with sun salutations instead of doing your sun salutations traditionally, you do them with dive bummer pushups instead of just like going through your plank to your cobra type of thing.  So, dive bummer pushups which are a lot harder version of the pushup part of the sun salutation.  And then you’ll jump up into a standing position after you’ve gone to your sun salutation, and you’ll do 5 super slow overhead squats holding a kettlebell overhead, like super slow controlled deep nasal breathing stuff.  You’re working on mobility, you’re really activating a lot of your muscles more than if you weren’t loaded, and then from those super slow overhead squat, you’ll transition on to the ground and you’ll hoist the kettlebell overhead with one arm, and you’ll do 5 Turkish getups on that side and then you’ll switch and you’ll do 5 Turkish getups on the other side.  And the breathing is really important here, right?  Like it’s all deep nasal breathing where with every move, you’re either going through a full inhale or an exhale cycle.  Okay, so we’ve got the warm up with the sun salutations and then you’re doin’ the super slow overhead squats with the kettlebell held overhead and then around 5 Turkish getups on each side with the kettlebell hoisted above your head.  If you don’t know what a Turkish getup is, use the google machine.  And then you’ll stand up from those Turkish getups and you’ll do 30 kettlebell swings except you’ll do ‘em – my favorite way to do this is where you actually let go of the kettlebell in between each swing and you let it float in the air right in front of you for a split second, and then you catch it with your other hand, and you do the swing, you let it float in the air in front of you.  So, it puts you in the almost like this trance-like meditative state.  You’re doing the swings but your heart rate is up there too.  You’re just like flowing with the kettlebell.  And then, I’ll like pull the kettlebell into my chest and then drop down into a squat, hold that for 5 deep breaths and then set the kettlebell down, stand up, reach for the sky, go through another sun salutation series and then pick the kettlebell back up and go on that first move like the super slow overhead squats.  And you’ll go through that for like 3-4 or 5 rounds taking anywhere from 20-30 minutes.

[0:45:04:0] 

And by the time you’re done, you feel really grounded and in your hyper-oxygenated way that you normally do after yoga, but you’ve also got this really good condition workout too ‘cause your heart rate gets pretty jacked, you’re loading your muscles, and that’s kettlebell yoga, TM.

Brock:  Patent pending.

Rob:  Hi Ben and Brock!  Hey, love the podcast.  Guys, it’s pretty much been life all training for me over the past couple of years.  Got a question about a topic you’ve talked about a lot.  I went full vegan then vegetarian, now I eat fish, feel like I’m definitely missin’ out by not eating meat, so that maybe something I go back to, but my big question is – what’s your take right now on grass-fed butter?  Thanks, appreciate it.

Brock:  How do you feel about grass-fed butter, Ben?

Ben:  They’re great!  About grass-fed butter, Brock.

Brock:  Me too!  There, next question.

Ben:  Do you guys have Kerrygold up in CA?

Brock:  Ah, probably.  I actually don’t know.  We’ve got some really good organic grass-fed butters like that are made nearby, that I buy… so…I don’t really worry about getting it from Ireland.

Ben:  Yeah, so grass-fed butter.  Why would you do grass-fed butter?  Well, first of all when we step back and look at butter as far as who should be eating it vs. not, butter is dairy but it’s only got minor traces of the dairy proteins and the sugars remaining in it like the lacto-sugars and the dairy proteins that people who are allergic to dairy might normally not be able to tolerate.  I’ve found that most people who are allergic to dairy can tolerate grass-fed butter pretty well.  Some people have some pretty significant auto-immune issues can’t even do butter, some people who are really has struggle with dairy.  Now, those people can sometimes do okay with ghee which is basically pure butter fat that’s been rendered down like ultra-clarified butter because you heat up this temperature that’s high enough to cook up the water, and it browns the milk solids, and it gets rid of a lot of more of the lactose in the dairy protein.  So, it’s got even less of the “dairy” in it than butter does in a lot of people can’t do butter at all, do just fine with ghee.  So, if you just can’t do butter, try ghee and you can get really good Organic Ghee off of Amazon like Pure Indian Foods is a good brand.  Ancient Organics is a really good brand.  You can get that stuff just straight off of Amazon.  I’ll put a link in the show notes for you if you want that.  We get Kerrygold butter, that’s generally what we use, it’s like an unsalted organic Kerrygold butter.  Sometimes I get it from the grocery store, sometimes we order it from US Wellness Meats.  That’s a really good source, but why would you wanna do butter?  Why would you wanna do grass-fed butter?  Well, first of all, few of the things that you look at in butter.  Butter has conjugated linoleic acid in it.  It’s abbreviated as CLA.  Now, CLA is actually a trans-fat and we often shove trans-fatty acids under the bus but this is a naturally occurring trans-fat that is actually good for you.  It’s been linked to tumor suppression, and reduce belly fat, and superior cardiovascular health, and even fat loss because it enhances your ability to burn fats.

Brock:  It’s the fat that burns fat!

Ben:  It’s the fat that burns fat, that’s what CLA is.  And grass-fed butter has about 3-5 times more CLA in it than butter from grain-fed cattle.  So the CLA content is definitely higher.  When we look at vitamin content, that’s another benefit of butter, like vitamin K2 and all these fat-soluble vitamins, and a nice yellow butter is yellow, assuming it hasn’t been died which some companies do.  I can’t believe it’s not butter.  Vitamin A content is you know, that carotene is what ‘s gonna make it yellow, so you get a lot of vitamin A, you get a lot of vitamin K too and both of those have fantastic benefits.  Everything from hormone and steroid precursors, to helping your body like I mentioned like vitamin K2 helps your body use calcium correctly and effectively.  And vitamin K2 and vitamin A are both found in significantly higher amounts in grass-fed vs. grain-fed butter.  And again they’ve done studies on this and it has been shown.  Fatty acid composition, when you look at omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acid ratio, omega 3 of course being the more heart healthy fat that is higher in anti-inflammatory potential, omega 3 fatty acid potential is much higher in grass-fed butter vs. grain-fed butter.  Few other things as far as grass-fed goes, in my opinion it tastes a lot better, it’s like creamier, smoother, richer.

[0:50:01.1]

So ultimately, you get way more in grass-fed butter than grain-fed butter, I mean, grain-fed butter’s still gonna be better than like canola oil, or margarine, or “I can’t believe it’s not butter” but ultimately, grass-fed butter is gonna be a – better.  So, it’s a better butter!

Brock:  Better butter buddy.

Tyler:    Hey Ben, my name is Tyler from Southern California.  Question for you:  If you wanna get Jessa pregnant again, what would be your top adjustments in your life for healthy family and babies?  Thanks, Ben.  Love the podcast.

Brock:  It made me slightly uncomfortable the way Tyler said, if you got “Jessa pregnant again”.  Like, hopefully it was consensual.

Ben:  To my knowledge, it was.  Actually I can tell you exactly how we conceived.  I had just done – I believe it was my first Ironman, it maybe my second Ironman, and so I’d had like a stressful past couple of weeks going in, I raced and like a few days after I raced Ironman, we conceived.  It was literally like one of those things where – you know, since I share my entire life on this podcast anyways, I might as well delve into this.  My wife doesn’t use the pill, we don’t really use any chemical contraceptives and we generally just have protected sex.

Brock:  With the sheep intestine?

Ben:  Yeah, exactly with the sheep intestine, exactly.  You’ve got it, Brock, the sheepskin.

Brock:  Such a hippie.

Ben:  And when we wanna have babies, we have unprotected sex, easy.  Pataboom patabing!  So anyways, we decided we wanted have a baby and we had sex and we conceived that night.  So, there you go!  Go race an Ironman triathlon and you will induce enough genetic mutations in your body where you’ll not only conceive but like me, you’ll get a double whammy.  Make two.

Brock:  You know, I tried to have sex after my first 70.3 and I gave up after like the first two minutes.  I’m like – I’m just too tired, I’m sorry.

Ben:  Yeah, exactly.  That’s the problem with racing, that’s just a few days after, right?  But racing in Ironman or doin’ anything really hard like that.  You’re so jacked up from an adrenaline standpoint, cortisol, caffeine, everything.  You’d think that you’d just passed out after an event like that but you don’t.  And I think I’ve said this before on the podcast but the one time that I’ll use something like Valium or benzodiazepine, or diazepam, I will take that after a really, really tough race.  When I know that I am so much in pain and just like thrashed, and I can’t sleep, and then later things would be – I’ll just take Valium and a glass of wine, honestly, it’s like the – my big Valium time of the year.  So…

Brock:  I know you don’t do this anymore but I think both of us used to do the [0:52:58.2] ______? and  I think my first 70.3, I think I’d like 25 [0:53:03.5] _____ or something during the day.  So, I’m just like Beeeeeee!  Vibrating with sugar and caffeine.

Ben:  I used to get through 40 gels an hour during a race.  Nuts!  So, anyways though, if I did get Jessa pregnant again, the top adjustments I would make in my life, well, I can tell you, I can tell you.  I’ll give you five – I’ll tell you five of the top adjustments that I would make, the things that I would change.  But before I do, let me give you my best resources as far as babies and children are.  Like if – like the resources that I – I guess this would be a six, right?  Like the things that I would have gone through completely, given enough time.  First of all, there’s a guy name Chris Kresser, really intelligent like a wholistic medical practitioner, he’s like an integrative medicine guy.  He has this thing called The Healthy Baby Code.  And it’s just like this step-by-step walk through everything from fertility to gestation to breast feeding, and it’s all just like this online series of modules that go through.  And he covers like micronutrients and food toxins, and putting it all together and kind of like – it’s really, really good course.  I’ll put a link to it in the show notes but that’s one thing that I would have gone through rather than just trying to piece it all together myself from the eighteen different courses in the internet.  I think his is like 200 bucks which seems kinda spendy but honestly, it’s like seems taking like a college course and raising healthy babies.  So, that’s one thing that I would have gone through.  Next, I don’t think it was out when I had my kids, I wish it would have been but Dave Asprey’s Better Baby Book, that’s another really, really good resource.  Dave and his wife Lana wrote that book.  Kinda flew under the radar, not a lot of people know that Dave Asprey wrote a book about having better babies.

[0:55:02.5]

Sometimes Dave catches some flak about like for example, his new bulletproof diet book, I know he’s got a lot of flak for that about just like being a big huge advertisement, right, for like supplements, and his upgraded supplement company.  Whether or not you think that’s the case, I can tell you right now that the Better Baby Book really doesn’t push nearly anything at all, issues like about raising a healthy baby, and so if it concerned you that it might have you feeding your baby charcoal and glutathione, don’t worry.

Brock:  Coffee.

Ben:  Yeah, Better Baby Book though, that’s another really good resource.  And then a couple other resources that yours truly created, after I’ve had my kids, I have an entire course.  It’s literally about 20 hours with the content on Udemy.  And Ari Meisel, who is like a productivity expert who runs the Less Doing website and myself taught an entire course on Udemy that you can download to your phone or watch in your computer, and it’s just like a – Udemy is a place where you get courses for learning things.  And we did an entire course on raising healthy kids and we specifically targeted it towards dads raising twins, but to be honest with you, every single element of that course are things that I learned since I’ve had kids.  We go into everything from like, light, and electricity, to sleep enhancement to increasing their level of intelligence naturally, to supplements that babies can take, to just like everything that you’d wanna know about the way that he and I raised are twin kids.  It’s called the Double Dads Course.  So you can check that out at Udemy.  Double Dads Course.  And then the last resource that I have is my Ten Ways to Grow Tiny Superhumans Book which is based off of a talk that I gave up in Toronto that eventually turned into an electronic book.  That’s just like 10 really, really good ways to increase the health of your children, or increase their beauty, their bone density, their immune system strength, everything.  So it’s called Ten Ways To Grow Tiny Superhumans.  I’ll put links to all of those resources at bengreenfieldfitness.com/305.  But now, as far as the things that I would change, first of all, my wife had a C-section and the thing about this is that we plan for about 7 months to have a natural birth at home.  She had doula, she had a few midwives, we had like the full on freakin’ like water – like tub in the bedroom like a big turtle tub with a slide and everything.  I thought it’d be a special birthing tub but it was just like the big turtle tub with a slide that kids play in.

Brock:  Yes, the Mr. Turtle Pool?

Ben:  Yeah!  Mr. Turtle Pool.  So, we’re gonna have the Mr. Turtle Pool baby and the whole home birththing, but ultimately my wife is the person who would’ve died like in the old west movies having babies ‘cause her hips are so small and she’s got these two big head boys, you know, big head twin boys inside her. and she couldn’t get them out.  I mean, we had good doulas and good midwives, and every half hour were taking the heart rates on the kids to make sure that they’re okay.  We only live 10 minutes from the hospital so we knew that was there if we needed it, we went to classes, courses, everything you need to know about natural birth, but when it came down to it, it was at my wife or the babies, right?  Like, that’s – it was just like, you know, either she was gonna, she was not – they were not gonna come out of her and they were gonna just like – go through this extremely traumatic time and then not make it out or else my wife is gonna like crack open her hips and break her vagina and whatever else happens, trying to get the babies out.  So, we went to the hospital and she got a C-section.  So, as far as what I would have changed there, as far as the C-section goes, I really didn’t have a choice at that point but the problem is, it was just a complete rush out, like rush to the hospital, get rushed in, and basically I paid for two births, right?  Like I paid the midwives and the doula and everybody for the natural birth, it was not cheap, but then I also paid the hospital for the C-section which was also not cheap.  So what this comes down to is probably going back and looking at it all over again, I would (shocker!) have probably just gone straight for the C-section.  Just because that’s a reality of the situation frankly is, you know, if we look at things from ancestral standpoint without modern medicine, my wife would’ve probably died or the kids would’ve died if we would have just stuck with the natural birth in that situation.

[1:00:08.9]

I’m not saying natural births are wrong, but I’m saying for a tiny woman, with tiny hips trying to have twin boys at home without any help from modern medicine, is just like she would’ve basically died in the wide west movies.  So, there’s that.  So, do your research especially if you’ve got twins and a small wife.  The next thing is, I know this is really controversial topic but I would have gotten even more educated on vaccinations and specifically on vaccination schedules than I did.  There’s really good book out there called The Vaccine Book written by an MD named Bob Sears, and the book goes into a comprehensive discussion of every disease that a child can get vaccinated for, how common or rare that disease is, the ingredients of each vaccine, the possible side effects from each vaccine, and then goes into what would be considered like kind of the vaccination schedule that not only minimizes some of the specific vaccinations that tend to have more of the harmful ingredients in them but also how you can spread out a vaccination schedule from the time a child is born until they’re about 6 years old rather than assaulting a new born baby’s fragile immune system with a huge overload of some of the ingredients that are in some of the vaccines.  I’m not saying I’m anti-vaccine but I think that there’s a better way to vaccinate and to get some of benefits of herd immunity without necessary doing every single immunization under the face of the planet compressed into a very short timeframe for a child.  Now for us with our kids, we ended up getting – we did the MMR, we did polio, and – we didn’t do chicken pox, we didn’t do tetanus, we didn’t do diphtheria, we did not do the pertussis 1, we didn’t do HepB.  Some of these ones that tend to be higher in some of the nasty ingredients, and the heavy metals, and the things that might deleteriously affect the child’s immune system.  The reason that we got the vaccinations that we did was because we did a lot of international travel with our kids when they were little babies.  You know, we went to Thailand, and Chile, and these places where we weren’t really comfortable not immunizing them completely.  But if I could go back and do it all over again, I do two things:  I’d read this book, The Vaccine Book, and I’d spread out the vaccinations over much longer period of time, and I would also reconsider travelling internationally with my kids.  And I’ll get in to some other reasons why I would that in a second.  But – alternative vaccination schedule, so basically I’m not saying no vaccines but I’m saying at least consider spreading them out over a longer period of time than what most countries actually recommend as far as vaccination schedules are concerned.

Brock:  I have a feeling in the last few years the changes in some of the vaccines have been quite dramatic too like the nasal delivery have a lot of the – like flu shots and stuff like that are so much better than what we had especially that I had in the 70s as a kid too.  Like it is getting better and better.

Ben:  Yeah, exactly.  And you can follow a few guidelines like you don’t want combinations of vaccines ‘cause it’s easier for a baby’s body to handle just one thing at a time, and you can insist on single dose vaccines which aren’t preserved with mercury or anything like that vs. a multiple dose vaccine.  So, you know, like Brock says, you can – it’s not like all vaccinations are created equal.  So, you can educate yourself on that topic.

Brock:  And there’s one thing that’s came out of all these hysteria around vaccines, it’s actually like it kinda kicked the medical community into actually looking at how they could make it better and make it a little bit more streamlined.  So, that’s one good thing.

Ben:  Yup, exactly.  So, and again this book goes into which vaccines are most dangerous, which ones have the nastiest ingredients in them, and it kinda comes down to some of the tougher ones to get really clean versions of it like the HPV, the one for meningococcal diseases, the MMR, and then the chicken pox.  So, anyways though, I didn’t do as much research as I probably could have on vaccines.  That’s the second thing I’d do.  And I’ll put a link to that vaccine book in the show notes.

[1:05:00.0]

Couple other things like I mentioned, I would have reconsidered international travel, not just because it would have decreased the need for compressed vaccination schedule, but because a child’s growing skull is thin.  They get exposed to radiation more intensively than adults, and because of their rapidly dividing and growing cells in the nervous system, they’re more susceptible to a lot of the potential mutagenic effects of radiation.  So, I would have done a little less airline travel with my kids when they were babies.  I really think the less you can toss your kid on the airplane, the better.  And I know that that might mean they get exposed to less, I don’t know, like Chinese street food, and being able to visit mosques when they’re two years and what-not, but you know what, they’re gonna get plenty of opportunities to travel internationally as they age.  I just think that throwing a baby on a metal tube expose to solar radiation and all the other electro-chemical effects of hurdling through earth’s atmosphere 30,000 feet high in altitude.  I just don’t think that’s the best thing for a baby.

Brock:  So would you have waited until they were like 5 maybe?

Ben:  Yeah.  I’d wait until a lot of the – specifically the neurological development had taken place which is generally like around 4-6 years old.  So, you know.  Couple other things, I wasn’t really onboard quite as much with artificial lighting.  I would have used just blue lights, so this Lighting Science company that I’ve talked about before on the show, they have what’s called the Sleepy Baby bulb now.

Brock:  I want one of those.

Ben:  Which I think is great.  So if you go to the Lighting Science website, it’s called the Sleepy Baby bulb, and this is basically just a bulb and at the same time it makes the Awake and Alert bulb that I use in my office, and the night time bulbs that I use in my bedroom, but they got one for baby’s rooms.  And in my baby’s rooms, I just would turn on the lights.  I didn’t know at that time as much about how lights affect the baby’s circadian rhythm and their sleep cycles.  And so, I would have made more conscious decisions specifically about the lighting in my kid’s bedroom.  That’s a low hanging fruit, right?  That’s easy for anybody to do, it’s just unscrew the light bulb, and screw a different light bulb in, and be careful with the type of light that you expose your baby to a  night.  Frankly, if you’re getting up and down, taking care of your baby at night, it’s better for you too when you aren’t as exposed to as much as blue light.  Like you’ll be able to get back to sleep faster and you know, God knows we all need more sleep when we’ve got more babies around.  And then the last thing that I would have done, again related to the airplane radiation, the airline travel is, I had a wifi router going in my home and the office was next to the babies’ bedroom, and I wasn’t really aware the really enormous negative health effect that a wifi router can have on neurons and electromagnetic fields, and some of the things we’ve talked about earlier in this podcast.  I would have – even though all I had in my home was wireless, I would have completely moved that wifi router to a different area of the house, right like the kitchen, and just it got really, really far away from the babies specifically like the farthest spot in the house that I could get it from them and me while I was sleeping, and that’s somethin’ else that I didn’t do that I’d probably go back and do.  So, those are some of the things that come to mind right after that would be like the natural birth vs. the C-section, the vaccination, the airline travel, the lighting, and then the wifi.  But you know, for the most part I did a lot of steps right, we made our own baby food, and we’d rub like fish oil into our baby’s feet at night and we use like this liquid multivitamin that had like magnesium and all these really high dose nutrients in it.  And so, we did a lot of things right.  That’s why my kids are freakin’ awesome.

Brock:  They are pretty awesome.

Ben:  There’s some things I’d go back and do differently because you know, frankly the third arm that’s growing out of one of their backs, one of them has a bright glowing green eye, you know…

Brock:  That’s what makes them awesome.  Why did you wanna change that?

Ben:  That’s what makes them special.

Brock:  That’s what makes them X-Men.

Ben:  You’re special!  So yeah!  That’s how you can avoid having little X-Men mutated babies.  So…Uhm, all right!

Brock:  Let’s wrap this sucker up.

Ben:  Let’s do it, dude.  So, as we usually do on the show, we always end but with a nice review and if you hear us read your review that you leave on iTunes on the show, and you email [email protected] with your t-shirt size, I’ll put in the mail to a sweet Ben Greenfield fitness beanie, a BPA-free water bottle, and awesome tech t-shirt that makes your chesticles look freakin’ awesome even if you don’t do elastic band pushups.

[1:10:05.1]

So, looks like this week’s review is called the “Car Talk” of Fitness and Nutrition Podcast by Whole Doods.  You’re listening to Car Talk, Brock?

Brock:  I haven’t but I looked the map because I wanted to see who this Click and Clock people were.

Ben:  They’re pretty cool.  My favorite car talk episode is really got calls in it about how to wash a car and about – this kid calls in about how to wash a car properly ‘cause his parents wanted him to start washing the car, and like their response was do it with like one of those steel wool pads.  And your parents will never again ask you to wash your car.  Your problems will be out the window.

Brock:  Do it!

Ben:  Anyways, take it away, Brock.

Brock:  All right.  “Ben and Brock are like the Click and Clock of health and fitness, but instead of teaching you how to fix their rusty old automobiles, they teach listeners how to rev the human machine and get the most out of their bodies.  Since I’ve started listening to the podcast I’ve started doing my grocery shopping wearing a weighted vest, stopped wearing deodorant,”  Oh dear.  “And I’ve recently started wearing those stupid looking orange glasses everywhere which seemed to completely cancel out any success with the ladies that would have resulted from my vastly improved physique and fitness level.  So thanks for nothing guys.  But really, the podcast deserves to be at the top of the charts.”

Ben:  Uhmm, wow!  So we’ve kinda, kinda destroyed his life but…

Brock:  Well, it’s – evened out.

Ben:  At the same time we even things out.

Brock:  Yeah, I think he’s pretty much where he’s started.

Ben:  We should probably sign things out by talking like click and clock.  I think they’ve got like New Jersey accents.  I believe they have New Jersey accent, so maybe it’s New York, I don’t know.

Brock:  I don’t have any idea.  I haven’t seen the show, but I’m expecting the guy with big beard sounds like this.

Ben:  Yeah, anyways.  It’s probably your fuel injector…

Brock:  It’s always the fuel injector.  I hate those things.

Ben:  It’s gonna make a sound like this: cu cu cu cu cu!  It’s the fuel injector.

Brock:  Why don’t we just have the carburetors like the old days.

Ben:  And by the way, if you’re gonna wear weight vest at the grocery store, make sure that you push a shopping cart over to the baking soda section, and get some baking soda in your armpits.

Brock:  But just don’t get it in your catalytic converter.

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

[1:13:06.1]      END   

 

 

Jan 14, 2015 Podcast: Is Aluminum Foil Healthy, How To Do Kettlebell Yoga, How To Measure Your Body’s Voltage, How Much Dairy Is In Grass Fed Butter, and Ben’s Top Healthy Baby Tips.

Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the tab on the right, use the Contact button on the app, click Ask a Podcast Question at the bottom of this page, Skype “pacificfit” or use the “Ask Ben” form… but be prepared to wait – we prioritize audio questions over text questions.

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News Flashes:

You can receive these News Flashes (and more) every single day, if you follow Ben on Twitter.com/BenGreenfield, Facebook.com/BGFitness and Google+.

• You can’t have a bench press in your hotel room, but you can have a band, right?
• Black seed oil like this? … Turns out there’s really something to it.
• LIGHT’S effect on your health. I’ll tweet out a few of the more interesting takeaways from this over next few days, but this is a must-read in my opinion.
• Here’s a perfect way to make healthy chocolate with your kids (video with Jessa Greenfield).

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Special Announcements:

This podcast is brought to you by Harry’s Shaving. Harry’s high-quality German-engineered blades are crafted for sharpness and precision, at half the price of big name drugstore brands, with free shipping straight to your door. Just go to Harrys.com and get $5 off when you use discount code “ben”.

The Obstacle Dominator training plan – has launched. Click here to get it now. This is going to make you tough as nails, give you a third lung, change your workouts forever, and thrust you into the fittest 99% of the population (probably the craziest and most nefarious thing Ben has ever created).On sale for $77 until Jan 15.

January 30th – 31st, 2015: Ben will be speaking in Dubai – Talise Fitness and Jumeirah Emirates Towers, proudly invite you to take part in an exclusive two day seminar held by the renowned nutrition and fitness expert, best selling author, coach, speaker, ex-bodybuilder and Ironman triathlete, Ben Greenfield. Click here for all details.

March 6-9, 2015: Come on the Spartan Cruise with Ben Greenfield and family! Use code BEN10 to save 10% when you book this cruise to a private island in the Bahamas for the ultimate tropical Spartan Race. This cruise includes free travel for kids and a kid’s Spartan race, along with a sprint Spartan for the adults, tons of partying, beautiful beaches and new, exclusive island challenges.

April 24-26th, 2015: Come hear Ben speak at PaleoFX 2015. The can’t-miss conference that is the Who’s Who gathering of the Paleo movement, with world-class speakers including best-selling authors, physicians, nutritionists, research scientists, professional athletes, trainers, sustainability and food activists, biohackers, and more.

The Ben Greenfield Experience is now available for either May 15-17 weekend or May 22-24 weekend (you choose): This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for you to be completely immersed in Ben’s unique combination of healthy, ancestral living and cutting-edge biohacking. Total cost is 10K for entire weekend(Fri/Sat/Sun) – includes yoga, workouts, food, and the full learning and living experience. You’ll leave completely equipped with everything you need to know to reinvent your home, your body and your life.

The entire experience takes place at the Greenfield home in the forest, which is completely biohacked to support optimum human biology, including 100% organic and green experience with zero electrical pollution, allergen-free materials, natural mattresses, circadian rhythm matched lighting and much more – including:

-Outdoor obstacle course on 10 acres of forest, with nature walking trails, climbing wall, rope traverses, spear throws, sandbag carries, Tarzan swing, monkey bars, mountain bikes, woodchopping and everything you need for the ultimate outdoor fitness experience.

-Completely outfitted gym with power lifting rack, indoor swim trainer, hypoxic air generator, bike trainer, elevation training mask, luxury Tru-Form running treadmill, outdoor yoga patio and much more.

-Cold thermogenesis endless swimming pool with chlorine-free, naturally ozone-treated hot tub for a one-of-a-kind outdoor, winter forest swimming and soaking body treatment.

-Plenty of biohacks to play with, including a recovery-enhancing Biomat, infrared lighting, electrostimulation, inversion table, power lung, and ore.

-Locally-sourced, natural and nourishing food from over a dozen nearby organic farms and Ben’s goats, chickens, organic vegetable garden, along with filtered, structured and deeply hydrating well water.

-Giant living room with wood burning stove and enormous oak table for learning, socializing, working, eating and relaxing.

-Outdoor obstacle course workouts, hiking excursions, yoga and high performance living led by America’s top personal trainer.

E-mail ben at bengreenfieldfitness.com if you are interested, and Ben will set up a private phone call with you to discuss details and your eligibility.

Grab this Official Ben Greenfield Fitness Gear package that comes with a tech shirt, a beanie and a water bottle.

And of course, this week’s top iTunes review – gets some BG Fitness swag straight from Ben – leave your review for a chance to win some!

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Listener Q&A:

As compiled, deciphered, edited and sometimes read by Brock Skywalker Armstrong, the Podcast Sidekick and Audio Ninja.

Is Aluminum Foil Healthy?

Joan says: She often uses aluminum foil to cook things or reheat food. Would you use it?

How To Measure Your Body Voltage

Mike says: Is there a way to quantifiably measure the need for grounding? For instance if you had a long flight from Africa or Asia and then spent a bunch of time using electronics, could they just go outside barefoot for a couple minutes to get sufficient electrons to counter act the trip? Or conversely, if someone was playing outside all day and then spent a few minutes at their computer before bed, would they undo all the good they had built up?

In my response I recommend:
–A Body Voltage Meter
–How To Make Your Own Body Voltage Meter
–Guide to Measuring Body Voltage
–Earthrunner Sandals

How To Do Kettlebell Yoga

Devi says: She just listened to episode #302 where you talked about Kettlebell Yoga. She searched and couldn’t find any references to it. Could you share the routines? The sun salutation routine and any others your recommend.

In my response I recommend:
–The Get-Fit Guy podcast

How Much Dairy Is In Grass Fed Butter?

Rob says: How do you feel about Grass Fed butter? How and when are the best times to use stuff like that, cream and yogurt.

In my response I recommend:
–Kerrygold Butter from US Wellness Meats
–Organic Ghee

Ben’s Top Healthy Baby Tips

Tyler says: If you got Jessa pregnant again, what would be the top adjustments that you would make in your life for a healthy family and babies?

In my response I recommend:
–Healthy Baby Code
–Better Baby Book
–Udemy Double Dad’s Course
-10 Ways To Grow Tiny Superhumans book
–The Vaccine Book

Read more https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2015/01/305-kettlebell-yoga-bens-top-healthy-baby-tips-measure-body-voltage-much/