NO HEALTH = NO FREEDOM

Hello, and welcome to Freedom Tech Friday, a weekly live and interactive show hosted on Ungovernable's X, Noster, YouTube, Rumble, and Twitch feeds. We go live for one hour every Friday at 9AM eastern or 2PM UK time.

You can also catch up later on the Ungovernable podcast feed. On FreedomTech Friday, we cover the latest news and trends for anything related to FreedomTech. That could be anything from Bitcoin or Monero, encrypted messengers, privacy tools, local AI, and everything in between.

Essentially, if there's a news item, tool, or topic that can help take back some of your freedom and control in today's digital panopticon,

we want to talk about it. My name is Max. I'm joined by my friend and cohost, Seth. I'm actually not because he's not arrived yet, but hopefully he will do. And we're not joined by the lazy robot who's on holiday again.

This is a live and interactive show. You can help steer the conversation by commenting live, presubmitting questions or topics on socials, boosting the show via podcasting two point o, sending in tips, and sharing the show.

Today, we've got a return guest, Zach Herbert. He's the CEO of Foundation, the team making Bitcoin security simple enough that even this fuckwit can do it. But today, we're skipping seed phrases and secure elements.

Zach's been applying that same systems mindset to something else entirely, his own biology, Specifically, water filtration, blood work, two things that most of us ignore until something breaks.

Zach, I know we're gonna be talking about more than just water filtration and blood work. Excited to hear what you've been doing, hearing about this rabbit hole journey, and welcome back to the show, mate. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I can't believe Seth is abandoning us right now. He is gone. What's going on? It's unbelievable.

The two of them, yeah, let's do this Friday show. We're never gonna miss a show. We're never gonna miss a show. And they've always got something going on. Always some excuse, a holiday, hungover from a night out.

I think it's Q who has too many friends. Yeah. He does seem to. A little bit too sociable, isn't he? Yeah. Yeah. They also make me read at the beginning of shows now, and I'm the most dyslexic fuck on the planet. So getting through that is painful for both the listeners and for me.

Well, I'm excited too. I'll be talking about this stuff because I know I've, you know, I've done the podcast over the years, and, this health stuff has come up. But I don't think we've actually dedicated, like, a period of time just to talk about that.

And, I'm not crazy either. That's the thing. I think that, a lot of the the health influencers are a little crazy. And we were just talking before this, before we started streaming that, know, if you don't have kids, if,

you know, if you're if you're just, you know, young and and, you know, living by yourself and everything, it's easy to do all these crazy protocols. It's harder when you have a family. And so I've definitely experienced that over the last year with a toddler now.

And I was also cracking up because, I get sick, like, once a year. And so if I sound a little nasally, it's because, of course, the universe has decided to spite me knowing that we booked this weeks before that, my my son got sick last week, and, I'm a little sniffly, this morning. So I When you texted me last night, I did laugh.

I hope it doesn't destroy my credibility and your credibility for, for this recording. We're allowed to get sick once a year, I think. Once a year is okay. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, we've we've talked about some health stuff a few times, but, you know, like you say, we've never really gone into it properly.

I think, you know, when we talk about freedom tech

freedom in general, like, you can't be free if if you don't have control over your own body and you're not healthy. You can't look after yourself. You can't protect your family. You you can't do anything without your health. So it is kind of, like, the foundation of everything else. And then when we're talking about Freedom Tech,

there's a lot of things technology wise that can actually help with our health. And, you know, when we're talking about blood work and some of those other things, that, to me, that goes more on the tech side, whether that's that or, like, wearables, data tracking, like, whatever it is. That's a little bit more on the

on the technology side, but I don't know where the best place to start is here. I think talking as a general about how someone can improve in the most I think in the, like, the first things that you would do after you've gone down the is is probably the best thing because, like you say, like, it's all well and good saying,

here's my a 100 step protocol to optimal health and, like, going to Brian Johnson route or, you know, taking things to the extreme. But when you're busy, you've got work and family and everything else. It's kind of

not pointless to go through these things, but it's not reasonable to stack in the way that they have. So let's go through, like, maybe the quick and easy wins where you could say, you'd be stupid not to almost.

Yeah. Maybe we can start talking about, like, the home. Right? Like, your health at home and what you can physically do to optimize your living space and your living conditions because I think that's a really important one that is often overlooked.

And then maybe we can get into some of the, you know, blood testing, DNA, some of that fun stuff. And I'm also happy to talk about all the different products that I use as well because I've that's I saw some questions that came in before,

you know, the stream that you shared with me asking about some specific products. I even see one right now in the chat asking about salt, which is hilarious because I made a note about that with a specific brand that I I purchased. So and and that was I did not know that that question was coming.

So, you know, may maybe we can start talking about the home because that's kind of how I I started going down this this journey where I I started to get really serious about optimizing, like, my my living space and and, you know, my home. We we bought a house in 2022,

I think. Mhmm. You know, we got we were living in Downtown Boston renting, you know, for years when we got out of the city. And there's still a lot you can do even if you do not own your own own home. Right?

So we should we could talk about that as well because I don't wanna make it seem like, oh, you know, if you don't own your home, and you can't make permanent, you know, alterations, then, you know, does that mean you're screwed? And the the answer is absolutely not. But, you know, when when we bought our house, I spent

several months, a year plus, learning about, all of the different, ways that you can really make an optimal living space to have, if I was to break it down into categories, it would really be water, air, and light.

And and these are topics that I keep seeing come up on x as well. You know, the water one, I actually don't see as much. I see a lot of stuff coming up time to time in my feed about air, air quality.

I saw some, like, viral, tweet the other day. I think it was, like, a week ago about, and and this happens, like, every few months. There's some big viral tweet about, you know, like, c o two levels, someone realizing that their their home has no ventilation.

Mhmm. And they buy one of those c o two monitors. And then also light has become a pretty big hot topic. Maybe not as much in the last several months, but definitely in the last year or so. LEDs, incandescent bulbs, right, all that kind of stuff. And so maybe we can we can start talking about, like, the the water, air, and light and Mhmm.

Why that's important, but then also, like, what you can do both, like, if you if you own your home and you can make, you know, permanent changes to it versus if you're renting, you know, like, the kind of products that you can get. Yeah. The I think that's a good place to start. It's where, you know, most of us spend a lot of our time and

where the most precious people to us are staying, our families. So it's an obvious place to start. I think yeah. Let let's do it. Let let's go through each, like, water, air, light, and then, yeah, like you say, give give the options for if you're renting versus buying.

And ideally as well in a budgeting sense because some of the changes you make are gonna be cheap. Some of them are gonna be extremely expensive and and just not affordable to everyone. So, yeah, some of them are gonna be, like, easier, quicker wins than others.

What have you done on your place then? That would be that would be the best place to start. Yeah. Maybe I'll just kinda give the full overview, and then, we can go from there and talk about it. Yeah. So Sounds good.

Yeah. So I've optimized a lot of stuff. So so firstly, we were lucky to actually come into the house, and it had a water filtration system in the house. But it it's like a single stage filter system that I replace. I change the filter every six months.

It also has, like, a permanent water softening system, which is just kinda nice, to have. And then also a UV filter that I change once a year, which is actually kind of expensive to change.

And so I didn't really know anything about this stuff when we bought the house, and I was really excited to have that, especially when you think about

the, the UV filter, which can kill any viruses, you know, in the water that that flows through the pipe. So this is, like Mhmm. Positioned at the entrance to where the, like, where the water enters the house. It goes through, you know, the filter and the softener

and, and then the UV before it flows into the, you know, the pipes to the rest of the house. What I quickly realized, though, is that that single stage filter is not filtering out a lot of the nasty stuff.

Fluoride, you know, PFAS, which are these forever chemicals, you really need to have a reverse osmosis system for that. And so I installed one of those, in in our kitchen under the sink, and I also split it and routed it to our refrigerator, which has, like, an ice maker and water dispenser as part of So

I had to do, like, a pressure tank and everything with that, a remineralization as well, which we can talk about. I I believe that was a question that I saw come up too.

And so we have a really great water setup where, you know, we have the initial filtration and UV filtering as it comes into the house, but then all of our drinking water is reverse osmosis with remineralization.

And then just to give a couple other things that I've done and kinda come back, and I'll I'll let you, you know, guide how we wanna talk about everything. The air filtration, we got really lucky.

The previous homeowner, I think, we found out had some kind of, like, bad asthma or allergies. Mhmm. He put a whole home electronic air filter,

which is it's, like, crazy. It's it's, like, several times better at filtering the air than these, like, HEPA filters or however you say it, HEPA filters. Mhmm. Mhmm. And you don't even have to change it. You just vacuum it and wipe it down once a year. That is something that's, like, permanently attached to the a AC system.

Most people are used to changing their AC filters every number of months, at least if you're in America and have AC.

Yeah. Europeans don't really know what AC is. I know. Especially central air. Right? But, you know, if you have central air, you have these filters. You change them. They look kinda filthy every month. This electronic one is really cool, and it and it performs better than anything else out there.

But we also had, which wasn't working when we moved into into the home, didn't even know what it was. We had an an ERV, which which is effectively is a it's an energy recovery ventilator.

There's also HRVs. And this thing, brings in fresh air into the home, which is crazy. And and it's something that is getting more popular in The US. I don't know how popular it is elsewhere in the world. We can talk about that because there are some options for folks even without centralized seat for that.

But once I got that up and running and working again, you know, our indoor air quality is almost the same as outdoor air quality in terms of our c o two levels, which is Okay. Incredible.

So we're basically even though we're living in a home, working from home, you know, enclosed in the home most of the day, especially, you know, Boston winter, that kind of thing Mhmm. Our indoor air levels, like our we have a c o two monitor, and it's in the five five hundreds, which is almost as good as as outdoors most of the time.

So we can talk about that and the air quality stuff. And then also the lighting, which has been more of a journey for me in just the last year or so or year and a half maybe. But we've replaced the LEDs in the house with incandescents

in the bedrooms specifically. Mhmm. And then for we have a lot of light bulbs in the house, unfortunately. So, practically, we didn't do all incandescence, but I replaced them all with these, like, fancy LEDs that are no flicker and very high CRI, which is color rendering index for color accuracy.

We can also talk about that because I think the the lighting environment is very important. And you can do all these things even if you're renting. We can talk about the different products and Mhmm. Different options. But, obviously, if you own your home and you can make some of these permanent changes,

it's, it's, you know, pretty amazing. So that's just a a sense of what what we've done since I moved in in, end of twenty twenty two with the air, water, and light. Okay. Cool. So if we start at water, so you've already said you've got reverse osmosis,

and then you said there was some sort of what would you say? The light thing that kills the bacteria that you've added as well that's at the source. What's that called? Yes. So that's a UV, right, ultraviolet UV. Of filter stage, and it's not really a filter.

What it is is it's like a the water flows through it, and it it's kind of like a filter in the sense that it's shaped like a, you know, like a tall water filter. But inside is is a very powerful UV light bulb that only lasts a little bit over a year.

Right. And that light bulb is always on. And so as the water flows through, it's basically killing all the viruses in the water if there was to be anything like that, right, that was alive in the water supply.

And you're not gonna get that from, like, a a normal filter. So Right. We we were lucky to have that in the house, and it it actually also was not working because, like, it was it was long dead, and I didn't really know how it worked. And I think it was unplugged. But I was able to, you know, get a replacement bulb, set it up again, and,

works really well. There are, though if if you start looking at reverse osmosis systems to buy, like, on Amazon, some of them do actually like like, the un beneath the sink under the counter systems, some of them do have a UV stage as well. Okay. Yep. So so for that, I guess the the obvious thing to ask is, like,

the water. A lot of people go, ah, tap water's fine. Like, obviously, this changes depending on which country and area you're in as well. But, like, for most places, a lot of normies would say, water's fine. I've been drinking it all my life. It's not a problem.

Obviously, that's not correct. What is it that we're trying to achieve? Like, what are the things that are a problem? You mentioned fluoride. Mhmm. Obviously, like, different bugs and viruses, chemicals.

Like, how bad really is it even even in, like, developed places? So it's it's quite bad. Okay. And I think there's a there's a bunch of things. Fluoride is a big one. They in in most municipalities, at least in The US, and I don't know as much about the rest of the world, but I think basically in every municipality in The US,

they actually put fluoride in the drinking water. Mhmm. And supposedly, that's for dental health because, you know, one one theme I think with all this health stuff is that so much of society is designed for that bottom quintile.

It's like Yeah. Like, the the bottom 20% that don't take care of themselves, right, and don't follow any kind of medical mean, all of society is is is designed around that. And so if the the the dental recommendations for, you know, many decades have been to use a a fluoride toothpaste, which we can also talk about that because

I stopped using that stuff Makes years ago as well. Yeah. Mhmm. But putting it in the water is the the idea that you would drink it and it would touch your teeth and it would help your teeth is, like, ludicrous to me. And and and it actually, at a population level, reduces IQ Mhmm.

Having that in the water and drinking that. And so that's one of the big things. Many types of filters can catch that. I don't think you need an RO filter specifically for fluoride. There are multistage and other filtration options that catch that.

But specifically where I live in the Boston suburbs, our town has actually had an issue with PFAS, which is like a forever chemical, And virtually no nothing can filter that out except for, like, reverse osmosis or or, like, water distillation.

Mhmm. And when soon after we moved in, we actually had a a problem that the town had some issues in the water treatment plant. And this is like Boston suburbs. This is not some, like, you know, middle of nowhere,

kinda town. So it's kinda shocking. But they were distributing bottled water and stuff from the town because the PFAS levels were higher than what was legally allowed, and they had some issues at the water treatment plant.

And so we immediately got the reverse osmosis stuff back then. And so and we've been living with that ever since.

And the the only other option would be that you're, you know, buying bottled water, right, or or or that kind of thing. So this can happen. And and just because our town happens to properly measure it and is, you know, pretty savvy and

is able to let everyone know that it's a you know, they're testing actively and it's above the levels. I mean, there's so much stuff in the water. There's there's, hormonal birth control in the water.

Yeah. There's there's, you know, viruses and other stuff in the water. There's tons of different chemicals. And the craziest thing was when I went to go do that initial filter change on the existing

single stage whole home water filter that we had in the house, you know, I didn't move in and change it. I moved in and, like, several months later, it's like, okay. Now I need to figure out how the water stuff works.

Let me go figure out how to replace this filter. It was, like, almost black,

the filter. And it starts out as bright white. And every I change it every six months now on a schedule. And every time I go to change it, it's, like, brown and disgusting looking. And so this stuff is in the water. So, like, if you're not doing anything, you are bathing in this stuff. Right? You are drinking this stuff.

It's it's, like, disgusting, and it's disgusting if if you wanna go just Google a picture of what the inside of a of water pipe looks like from the this. Reality. And by the way, to me, that's a lot of like, you don't need to go get some chemical analysis done.

And this is where I think the very, like, midwit IQ level. Right? If you're thinking about the midwit meme where you have, like, the low and the high and then the middle. And the midwit take would be like, well, you know, there's all these laws. My town is handling it for me.

They say it's safe. The government says it's safe, so everything's gonna be okay. But then you just look at a picture of pipe. Look at what your water filter looks like after six months. You don't even need to dive further than that. So that that's kind of my perspective on it. Yeah.

And so you were talking about bathing in the water and sharing the water as well as drinking the water. Like, say you have one of these reverse osmosis things under underneath the sink.

That's one option. Obviously, you fit that if you own the house probably more often than not. And and if you don't, then maybe you have one of these countertop ones. How does that then flow to showers and baths and sinks and everything else? Like, is that a separate system that you then have, or is it It is. Same?

Yeah. Okay. So that that's why it gets harder if you're so if you're renting, like, what I would do, if you are allowed to go under the sink and if you I mean, you you're allowed to go under the sink. I think the prop the question is, are you allowed to drill a hole through your countertop

if you don't already have a hole for, like, the water faucet? Oh, yeah. What we did is we had one for, like, a soap dispenser, which is kinda common in The US. Like, a dish soap dispenser already had a hole drilled through the countertop. So Mhmm. I just removed that, and I popped in the faucet for the RO system.

But, like, my mom's apartment, she she only had the the hole for the, like, the the nor the the the water faucet. Right? Like, the normal Mhmm. Just just the one hole. Exactly.

Yeah. Just the one hole in the sink. And I actually bought on Amazon a combo faucet that also had a drinking spout attached to it. So even if you do rent you know, it's just a it's just a bolt under the thing. You could you could very easily remove the existing, like, you know, water tap faucet assembly

and swap it with one that also has a basically, under the sink, you get an extra connection for, like, the the filtered water spout. Mhmm. And you could definitely put one of these under your sink.

And they can be bulky or not bulky depending on what you get. So we have a system by FrizzLife, which is just one of these, you know, unfortunate, like, Amazon brands. Mhmm. It plugs into power.

And we have power under the sink because we have, like, a disposal and a dishwasher that's plugged in under there. And so if you have a power outlet under the sink, you can get one of these systems that's much more efficient than the, the alternatives, which I'll talk about in a second.

And then what you do have to do, which is also might might make your landlord angry if you're renting, is for reverse osmosis, you have to drill a a small hole into the drain pipe. Because depending on the system you get, let's say for every, you know, two gallons of water or liters, if you're, you know, one of those, that

you, for every let's say for every two liters you filter, one of it goes into the drain. So it Mhmm. It's actually flushing the the dirty water that it, you know, filtered out. It it's like it's filtering it out separately, and and it's it creates a wastewater product that has to be flushed down the drain.

Yeah. If you have the plug and you have one of these systems that's powered, it has a little pump inside, and it pumps it, you know, down the drain. And then, also, whenever you turn on the spout, it pumps the water through the filters and into the spout. So Right. It works really well. If you do not have power,

you'll see that there's the ones that have the big tank, and that's what most people thought of when they thought of, like, RO water. There's a pressure tank under the sink, and it could be pretty large, which

historically has been challenging for folks that don't have that kind of space under the sink. Mhmm. Because as soon as you flip on the water, if you didn't have that pressure tank, you would have, like, almost no pressure at all with the system. And so you have this pressure tank there. So we have the kind that plugs in.

You can get them on Amazon anywhere from, like, 400 to $600. And then we also got the one that has the remineralization filter. However, you you can get countertop RO systems as well now that that you fill up a tank from, like, your sink.

It sits on your counter, and you you do have to dump off dump out, like, the wastewater tank. But, like, if you have no other options, if you're not in a in a home or in a or or something that you can install something under the sink that you can drill into the drain pipe,

you can buy one of these countertop systems for around $500 as well. And, I mean, it's a lit it's it's definitely more inconvenient. But if your alternative is, like, you're not doing anything or you have one of those, like, water pitchers or something Yeah. It's, like, it's, like, 10 times better, and it's much better for you. So

I would also recommend that. So that's 500 reverse osmosis systems, what, a couple of thousand? No. No. No. So, the one I bought was, like, 600, and it was, like, was, like yeah. Yeah. That's not so bad. And so, I mean, obviously, people are gonna look at that and say, oh, that's expensive,

which is not cheap. But Yep. If you compare that to drinking bottled water, bottled water is expensive. It doesn't take you that long to get your money back on that anyway. And if you're thinking about health seriously,

actually, over the lifetime, it's not gonna be too crazy. And but then you have to think about the filters and things like that. So, like, per year to keep this thing maintained and serviced and filters changed and stuff. Yeah. There's three filters. So two of them are replaced annually, and one of them is replaced every two years.

And so the two ones that are replaced annually are, like, anywhere from, like like it's, like, $60 total per for those. Mhmm. $60.70 dollars total. It's just one of them is, like, one of the RO stages, and then the other one is the remineralization filter, which, by the way, is so important if you're doing RO water because

it makes it strips all it's almost like distilling the water. It strips all of the minerals out of it. Mhmm. And if you were just to drink that, you would be, dehydrated because you're you're drinking water that's devoid of any kind of minerals.

Yep. And so having that miner remineralization layer is is is or or stage is really important. And I bought, like, a little pH testing droplets. It the water is very acidic without that, which is also, like it's it's, like, not great for you.

And, of course, it's devoid of any minerals. And then the water is just slightly basic. Like, there's a pH of, like, about eight when you do the remineralization, which is awesome. And sometimes people I don't know how I feel about that. People will, like, pay for the fancy, like, bottled water with a high pH.

I would rather just buy nice mineral water, you know, than do that. But it's it's nice knowing that that the water you're drinking at home is remineralized. It can actually help hydrate you, instead of the opposite. And I'm I'm I'm confident that most people doing RO water are not remineralizing,

and that's crazy. You know? That's that's like drinking distilled water. You you don't wanna do that. And and how is it remineralizing then? So, like, it strips all the stuff out, and then you've got these filters that take everything out. How is it then remineral

Yeah. It's, like, passing the it's passing the water through a filter stage that is just filled with, like, minerals in it. Okay. Alright. Yep. Okay. So it's kinda artificial in that sense. The other thing I've heard people doing is putting a little salt or something, or you could buy these, like, mineral

concentrated droplets that are very popular in the coffee and espresso world. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know this because I'm a total espresso guy as well. But but we just fill up the espresso machine from the RO remineralized water, so we don't need to do anything like that. Yeah.

Okay. So it's it's a little bit like if you don't have enough salt, you're gonna be dehydrated, and people have these little pouches they put in in all the time. Like, it's it's like a lower concentration version of that, basically. Much lower. Yeah. It's it's similar to what you'd get from, like, a nice mineral water.

I mean, it's not I I would rather drink a mineral water, which, by the way, we've been drinking every every night with dinner. We do, like, a bottle of mineral water because I want those naturally occurring minerals.

It's kind of a shame that you have to kind of artificially recreate it. But it's also kind of amazing that that's my norm at home. Right? Like, the norm for us is that we're drinking remineralized RO water, you know, for everything, and it flows into our fridge and ice maker as well. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.

Alright. And then linking into this question that we've got, which I can pull up if I can work out how to do this. Hold on. Show. Here we are. So we have the question in the chat. XMR enthusiast tipped zero point zero two seven XMR.

And he said, good morning, gents. Would love to know Zach's thoughts on salt. Mhmm. Yeah. This is firstly, salt has been, like, demonized right in the modern medical culture, which is insane to me.

But at the same time, it's kind of flipped where, like you just mentioned, and and I we do this as well, all these electrolyte packets everywhere now. So Mhmm. The more health conscious, more more athletic, you know, people

or even nonathletic are are carrying around, you know, the big water bottles and dumping in there, like, element, you know, packets of Mhmm. Salt and everything like that. I'm a big just just before you go further than that. Like, I'm too tight to

I've looked at the shops around where I am, and it's, like, a dollar or a dollar 50 per little sachet. And I'm a savage, so I'll go through, like, five liters of water or more day. So I'm like, I'm not paying that. We did it for years, though. Like, we bought from Element, and

there's a bunch of issues with any of those types of packets that you'd find in a normal store now. Mhmm. Even though it's considered healthy. I mean, one is they have it's like stevia in there or monk fruit extract Yeah. For the spen especially stevia.

It's not real sugar. It's much better to have real sugar in my opinion, and that's a whole another rabbit hole I I've gone down over the last few years. And a lot of my mutual follows on, like, health Twitter are, from, like don't know if you've heard the term or we we may have talked about it, I think, at one point, briefly,

but it's the Peters. They follow this doctor Ray Pete, p e a p Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I was think I mentioned to you at the end of one of the pods once that, you know, I've introduced a lot more natural sugar into my, diet and and have felt a lot better.

Mhmm. And it's really helped my stress levels and, you know, everything like that.

But not to go too much on a tangent and to bring it back to the, like, the salt packets, but I think it's much better if you have real, sugar, not this stevia or artificial stuff. And then, also, they have, like, citric acid. So I just saw a thread this morning actually on X about heavy users of those element packets.

Many of them, reporting that they have, like, a tooth decay, like, to their enamel. Mhmm. And there's a bunch of folks in on on my Twitter feed right now that are saying it's probably all the citric acid that's in there because it's all artificial,

and you're if you're drinking it from a straw, maybe it's not a big deal. But if you're, like, drinking it where it's, like, hitting your teeth right, then over time, that's not the best thing for you.

But I buy from a company called Sport Drink. That's who I buy my electrolyte powders from. And I don't know if you've heard of those guys, but they they have, like, the the craziest The twitch. Media presence.

Yeah. You shared it with me. Yeah. Yeah. I I remember. They're kinda psychos, but they make they make a great product in a good way in a good way. Yeah. Yeah. They're they're they're very off putting and and kinda crazy on on x, and I I I love it. And

it doesn't come in packets, unfortunately, but I I buy, like, their cans of, you know, electrolytes,

and and I I use that personally. And it it has real stuff like, you know, real types of salt, real sugar. It doesn't have any, like, fake citric acid, fake sweeteners, anything like that. Then on the salt side, I actually buy my salt at home from a company called Vera Salt, v e r a. Mhmm.

They're an amazing company kind of in, like, the the health they're they came across them from, like, the health Twitter space over the last couple years. Their founder is a is a mutual follow on on X for me, and it's a great product. They it's like a microplastic free salt. They get it from a specific spring somewhere.

It's lab tested. And because, like, we cook every meal at home, basically Mhmm. The salt you're using to cook is really important as well. And I've I've been kinda scared off from a lot of the sea salt, especially the ones that or, like, the the salts that have, like, the red hue to them.

Yeah. The Himalayan pink salt. Yeah. Where it's a lot of it's a lot of iron in there causing the red. And I just wanna have the most pure salt possible because we use so much of it when cooking and throughout the day. So I buy my salt for cooking from a Vura Salt.

Okay. So so if we were to,

like, clarify with salt, good, bad, what your thoughts your thoughts are basically, you do need it, but have good stuff. Yeah. You need a lot of it, but have good stuff. Yeah. When you say a lot go on. When you say a lot, what do you mean by what's a lot?

I mean, you need it with every meal. And if if you're gonna be drinking water with the meal, totally fine.

But if you're gonna be, like, going through the day chugging water for four hours without having any food, especially if you're outside, you're working, you're doing a sport, you're doing some something. Right? You have to have some kind of salt in there.

Otherwise, you're just gonna be dehydrated drinking plain water throughout the day. Okay. I think that answers the question. Yeah. We've got more questions coming in, but I am conscious. We're we're thirty six minutes in, and we're still on water.

And, normally, I have q and a and Seth, like, jumping straight off the stream one hour in. Are you have you got something straight after this? Because could go a little bit longer than than usual. Yeah. This is this is probably important stuff. Right? I think so. I'm I'm happy to go longer.

They're not here to to ruin the fun. We can be a little bit ungovernable and break our own one hour rule. Yeah. I could do, like, an extra twenty, twenty five minutes or so. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's perfect. Alright. So I think we're pretty much through the water stuff. And, like, to summarize

Oh, the the one other thing actually just to that I didn't mention, we don't do shower filters in the house because we do have a pretty good, like, single stage filter setup. But, I mean, if you're if you don't if you can't do that, definitely shower filters as well are are are great thing to have

if, you know, if you can't filter the water that's coming directly into the house. Okay. And that's for the chemicals and all the stuff that's gonna be coming through on your bathing in it. Right? And and like I said, looking at the water come looking at what the filter looks like when we change it after six months,

you're bathing in that stuff. And it's it is being absorbed through the skin. Yeah. Okay. Makes sense. Alright. So I think that rounds up the water, and then the other two that we had were light and air. So

where where do you wanna take it next? Obviously, you've talked briefly about your systems. But Yeah. We we probably don't have to dwell as as much on these topics, but I would say a couple things.

One is you should have a sense of your c o two levels at home.

If you're in a house even even if you have central air conditioning or an apartment or whatever your living situation is and you're you know, depending on the size of your house, if you're if you're sleeping with the windows closed, which, of course, most people have to Mhmm. Depending on if they're in a hot or cold climate,

you might be very surprised by your c o two levels at home. I use a thing to measure the c o two from a company called, I think it's, like, Aranet or something like that.

It it's not cheap, but you could definitely find stuff on Amazon to measure your c o two at home. And you should be aware generally of the c o two at home and then also, like, your, your humidity at home as well because you might be in the winter and not realize that the humidity in your home is, like, 20%, which is very low.

Mhmm. You know, it could be much easier to get sick when you have low humidity. And then you may also be in a warmer climate where your humidity levels go above 55%. And once you go above 55%, you can get mold.

And that's not good either. And so you should definitely be aware of these basic, like, stats about your home air quality. I don't wanna say you could just buy one the thing and then, like, return it as well, but, you know, you you should you should definitely be aware of it. And so we have, an ERV, an energy recovery ventilator,

that brings fresh air into the house. We maintain outdoor like air quality in terms of c o two levels at all times, but the air is filtered because it comes in through that same, HVAC system we have with the electronic air filtration.

So one thing to keep in mind is if you don't have that, you know, maybe you get benefits opening the windows, and you'll see the c o two levels drop significantly. But depending where you live, your air quality might go down. So any kind of air filtration, air humidification

like, my mom's in an apartment, and so I set her up with a pretty sizable it was only, like, a couple $100 on Amazon, but it's like a combo air purifier and, humidifier. And so that was, I think, really good for her. If you can build it into your house, even better.

We have a built in humidifier that I installed on our central air duct, like a whole home humidifier. We have, like I said, the ERV to bring in fresh air. And I also installed last year a whole home dehumidifier because I noticed the humidity levels ticking up above 55%

as I as we I built out and we built out, like, an like, I'm I, have, like, my whole attic studio space right now. Mhmm. And when I started measuring the humidity in the attic after finishing that space, it even got to, like, 60%.

So I started freaking out, and I started cutting holes in the attic and doing all this stuff. And, we now have a whole home dehumidifier. But, if you go through a normal HVAC company for those three things, I mean, you're gonna be spending thousands of dollars on each of those, if not more. So it can be very expensive if you,

you know, if you don't have it and if you're if you're paying to have that installed in your house permanently, you can easily get into, you know, 3 to $5,000 for the humidifier or dehumidifier.

If you're doing an ERV from scratch and you have to cut through, like, the walls on the side of your home, you could be at over $10,000 for that. So it is it is expensive. The alternative, though, is, like, you open some windows and you you have, like, a whole you have, like, a not a whole home. Excuse me. Like, a freestanding humidifier

air filter kinda setup. Yeah. I guess it depends where you are as well. Like, if you're in a a hot climate, you can have your windows open, but you probably need bug nets and all that kind of stuff because you can get the airflow, but you don't want all the bugs coming in as well. Yep. And then if you're in if you're in the city,

then maybe the air is actually fucking horrible anyway. I guess it just depends where you are. Or if it's freezing cold and wet and rainy, you maybe don't want it. But, yeah, generally, airflow is gonna be better, isn't it?

Yeah. And then the too too high humidity is important. I mean, dehumidifiers are some of the cheapest stuff you can buy as well. I mean, so our humidifiers, if you're just putting in, a freestanding one, I want to do, like, a whole ducted one that was part of our AC system,

but it's very easy to you know, a lot of people already have dehumidifiers in, like, crawl spaces right now in The US depending on the climate. It's very easy to, to have those set up. The only annoying thing, right, is if it's, when it's connected to the central system,

you don't have to do any maintenance on it except to maybe a filter change once every six months or a year.

If it's like a freestanding humidifier or air filter, you're having to fill that thing with water, like, every day. Mhmm. So it it does get to be a lot of overhead to do this stuff, and that's why I invested so much time and and in some cases, money in the systems that we have in our home because

now I just change a few filters every six months, and I don't have to think about the day to day aspect of emptying out the dehumidifier, filling a humidifier, you know, those kinds of things.

Nice little trick for a dehumidifier. Just get one of those pipes out the back and just have it empty itself. Yeah. So it's not fucking around. Yeah. You can even buy one on Amazon now for under a thousand bucks that has a built in pump.

And Okay. Has a tube that sticks out of it. And if you depending on what you put the tube into, even if it's something that goes, like, up, right, like, it's doesn't have to be, like, at a decline Mhmm. It'll it'll pump out itself as well. So I got one of those initially for our attic space,

and I returned it. And I was like, I'm going all in. I'm I'm doing a built in one. Nice. Yeah. Nice. Okay. And just finally, before we move on from air, you mentioned this, c o two checker.

You said, oh, it's quite expensive. What what sort of expense are we talking for something like that? Yeah. Like a couple $100, $150, that kind of thing. But there may be cheaper ones now that are, you know, just Amazon.

I would just so you do, like, c o two monitor. You get one that combines c o two, and, typically, it'll give you temperature and humidity. Mhmm. Those aren't as valuable. I mean, a lot of people have thermostats that have temperature and humidity.

Yeah. But if you don't have central air, right, it mean it might be very valuable to see your humidity level. So Yeah. Yeah. I was just gonna say as well, if it's a couple $100, then what you could do if you're a good citizen is

buy one and then check everyone that you care about for them as well. And then it quickly pays for itself. Like, know, you go around all your family and friends and anyone who wants to use it and just be a good citizen.

Exactly. Yeah. And you're gonna be surprised. You're you're gonna be surprised, especially you wanna check when you're asleep. Mhmm. You wanna put it you wanna put it in your room. A lot of folks sleep, like, you know, with the door closed. You have, like, a couple in a in a bedroom that's, like, a small or medium size.

Your c o two levels can go sky high in the middle of the night. Mhmm. And it it does affect you. And, it's it's really important to know that if that's happening. Yeah. These that out. You don't wanna be living in that kind of climate every single day.

The little changes, not little, but, like, things that people might discount. But then over the course of the next twenty five years or whatever, living in a home and, you know, the compounding effect of air quality, light quality,

water quality, everything else. Like, it actually makes a big difference. Well, there's there's also a mental clarity aspect to it with c o two. I mean, they've done a bunch of studies, like, so many studies about, you know, like, kids taking standardized tests in different different c o two environments.

Mhmm. You know, you have a high level of c o two, which is very common. You have sky highs on things like airplanes as well, which is why and one of the reasons I just I don't like flying. I mean, of course, I do, but but, you know, it it'll it'll degrade your mental performance, if you if you're in a higher c o two

environment. And if you're working from home or you're you're, you know, you're you're living at home, you have kids, your kids are doing their homework and schoolwork and other stuff, and you're spending a lot of time at home, you you do not wanna be in a high c o two environment.

Okay. And the light? So so we've done water. We've done we've done air. I think it'd be cool to to know what that machine, the air quality test,

can message me. I can put it in the show notes or whatever. It's called the one I have is from a company called, like, ARANET, a r a n e t, I think. Okay. That one is, like, a pretty credible one. You don't wanna buy, like, a $10 one on from Alibaba, right, because you'd be worried that, like, is it even calibrated properly?

So, like, these things have sensors that need to be calibrated. Right now, it's it's a $189 on Amazon for this thing. Okay. Alright. Yeah. That's not terrible. And it's Bluetooth. I have it I have it connected to my home assistant

home automation system so I can always see what it is, which is kinda cool. Nerd. You're such a nerd. Yeah. I've I've tried to be a nerd and join you and q with the the home assist stuff.

I've got it sort of, like, half set up with some of these Philips Hue light bulbs and trying to connect it to my security system. But I've got, like, boxes and boxes of shit, like, trying to be a nerd, but I just keep fucking it up and things won't connect. But I'm sure yours works beautifully.

By the way, you can still hear me okay. Right? I can hear you. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. My whole computer is, like, visually spazzing out, and I don't know why. Like like, the all the text in the chat looks like it's written in, like, Star Wars font characters.

My the things are, like, vibrating, so hopefully, I'll be okay. Let me let me know if there's any problems. I'm gonna yeah. I'm gonna other I mean, worst case, I would disappear and reappear in, like, a minute, but, hopefully, everything's okay. No. You sound fine. You sound fine. Cool. Okay. So and then you mentioned, light.

Obviously, there's natural light options, and then you mentioned, replacing light bulbs, the LEDs with incandescent and other LEDs that are of high quality. Like, before we jump into, like, how let's think about why,

most people would say, oh, well, obviously, I'd have LED lights and, like, it's cheaper to run and blah blah blah blah blah. What's the reasoning behind changing these things out from a health perspective?

Well, there there's a bunch of stuff, and it depends how kind of hardcore you are, I think.

One is just to talk about the stuff that's not as, like, I don't wanna say woo. I think I mean, I'm I'm a big believer in natural light. I mean, humans evolved for our entire existence with natural light, which is full spectrum sunlight Mhmm. And incandescent bulbs, which, you know, have only been around for, I guess, maybe, what, like,

hundred and fifty years probably, like, at the light bulb, those are still natural light because they generate the light from, heat. Right? It's it's it's like running electricity through a filament that's creating heat and light.

And so that's why they're not efficient. That's why they're hot. But the benefit is that you get full spectrum light. Or if you were putting it under the CRI, which is a term you'll see when buying LED bulbs, color rendering index,

there are a 100 CRI. It's, like, accurate colors because it is full spectrum light. It's, like, the same as, you know, having light from, like, a fire. Right? It's also real stuff that's, burning, and and it's it's there's nothing artificial about it.

LEDs are completely artificial, and they they lean very heavily to blue light. And so that can be very disruptive, especially in the evenings because we evolved to have different spectrum throughout the day where you have more blue light in the peak daytime, right, when the sun is at at a tide in the sky.

And then you have sunset, dusk. Right? It's redder in terms of the hue. Mhmm. And your whole circadian alignment is based on that. So that's one aspect of, like, why LEDs are very challenging because

it's not you're not getting that full spectrum. And it and especially if you're indoors most of the day, can really mess with you from, like, a circadian perspective, which is why you should always just try to get some sunlight in the morning

Mhmm. Afternoon and evening so you're out outdoors so your body knows what time it is from, like, a circadian perspective. But then you start to get into some of the challenges, like the the very cheap, LEDs Yeah. Are

not only do they lean much more blue than some of the more expensive ones, which have a much, much better balance that's closer to what you would get from an incandescent light, which is what we use. We have, like, Philips iComfort LEDs that are 95 plus CRI and and no flicker

for the rooms that we do have LED lighting in. They're not cheap. They're not super expensive, but they're not, like, you know, they're not $5 a bulb either. Yeah. The cheap ones also have flicker, and it's flickering on and off so fast that your eye can't see it. Mhmm. But it's totally messing with you from, like, a, like, a fatigue

perspective. Like, just because you can't see the flicker doesn't mean that you can't feel the flicker. And the same thing is kinda happening with all your LCD or LED screens as well. It's like this flicker.

Yeah. And these cheap bulbs flicker like crazy. So, like, the first thing I would say is if you're gonna do LEDs, get high CRI, no flicker bulbs. And then two is what we did in in the bedrooms, because I thought that was a good trade off for now, is we have incandescence again.

Mhmm. And we don't use the lights in the bedrooms that much except for a little bit in the evening. So I haven't even had to it's been, like, over a year. I haven't even had to replace them yet because they're only on for, like, maybe a couple hours a day. Yeah.

But the other great thing is you can dim them very low, and there's no flicker when they dim. And even high quality LEDs struggle with flickering if you have them on a dimmer switch. And so I've noticed just, the the the whole the bedroom environment feels just there's a feeling that you can't even describe.

It feels so much more natural, more relaxing. Mhmm. There's just a completely different feeling, and I'm I'm very much considering rolling them out to the whole house.

Even though we have a lot of light bulbs, it would be a huge pain to, like, change them all the time again. Like Yeah. You and I like, were kids and you have, like, the pole and you had to change you know, we have some, like, high you got a high ceiling total pain,

but I'm really considering doing it because it it feels so nice in the bedrooms. Yeah. If I definitely noticed that. And one thing I noticed, and I don't know if there's any science behind it, is both me and one of my kids are really sensitive to light and noise. Like,

always I've always had it, like, get very, very stressed around certain lights and noises. And there are certain shops we go to, like supermarkets, different places where as soon as I walk in, my stress levels go through the roof. Yeah. And as soon as

one of my kids the other one's fine, and my missus is fine. Doesn't make any difference to her or the other kid. But but my other one, they go in, and they turn into an absolute nightmare.

And it's it's like immediate because I noticed it, and then my missus noticed it, and we're like and then we're monitoring it every time we go to certain shops, and it's these long, very white strip light type

lights. It's really bright. Those would typically be, like, the fluorescent lighting, which is Yeah. Which which is very harsh and I believe flickers even more than a lot of the LED lighting. Yeah. It's it's remarkable. Like, we walk from outside. They're fine. We're walking real calm. Walk through the car park. Fine. Fine. Fine.

Walk in there. Within seconds, this child turns into an absolute nightmare, and I get really stressed as well. And it's just like I don't know. I I can't describe that feeling, but for them, like, a a completely different animal. Like, completely different that they're they're

yeah. Have you have you heard about, like, the street lights in the cities and how they've all gone from, like, the nice warm lighting to the harsh blue, you know, huge LEDs. And and I believe there's some studies about the effect on, crime rates because of that.

That it's that it's actually gone up in these harsher lighting environments. Mhmm. And then also, it's like, man, for kids that you for folks with kids in school, you know, what kind of lighting are they sitting under every single day?

And that that's really scary because, like, when I was in school and a kid, I think it was still mostly, like, incandescent and stuff, and and things were switching from those fluorescents, which were getting harsh.

Mhmm. But now you go into these like, you see, like, a school or a gym or you're in an airport or you're in a conference. Like, I have a I personally have a hard time in these conference venues, like, whenever we go to, like, Vegas or Nashville or Miami, where whatever it is. These conference venues always have the most harsh, bright,

very blue hued lighting, and, like, it kills me. Like, I need to and and the thing is I don't wanna sound, like, pathetic. Right? And I think that's one of the issues with this health stuff. Like, something went viral a few days ago on x where people are talking about, oh, I had a had, like, a sip of

wine. Oh, I saw that. Like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, incapacitated for three days. Like, no. Okay. I'm not I'm not pronouncing, oh, yeah. We we went under the light, and now I'm I'm blinded for and my head hurts for, you know, a week. No. It's not like that.

It's that you go into these environments and you've you you can people other some folks are more sensitive than others. I probably become more sensitive to it because because my home is such the opposite. Right? Mhmm. But

I go into these areas, and I'm like, yeah. Like, I can't I can't be here for long. Or in the conference, I'll just, I'll put on a hat, you know, like a baseball cap to to to give my eyes a rest because, like, I can feel it. You know? And I can feel that flickering. And it's a shame because because you you know it's so you know it's bad,

and and you know it's having a negative effect, but, like, you can't do anything about it. And so I think it's so important, especially if you're if you're home a lot, right, that your home has the best possible lighting. And that's something that you can do in most cases

even if you're renting, but it does get complicated. So many new homes and apartments are being built with built in LED lighting. That is very harsh. When I finished my attic space last year, I chose, these strip LED lights that are so expensive, but they're, like, absolutely zero flicker and, like, 98 CRI,

and they're dim to warm. So as you start to dim them, it actually gets warmer and warmer. Mhmm. And it it's it feels great up here. And and they are LED. Right? So I did supplement though. I bought a supplemental lamp on Amazon from Honeywell

Mhmm. That does a bunch of bright white light that I do in the morning in the in in, like, the middle of the day if I'm working. We don't actually get enough natural light in here. So during, like, late morning, peak, you know, middle of the day, actually, you add supplementary, like, blue, white you know, it's like bright white light

to simulate more of what the sun would look like, you know, up in the sky because my LED strips are, like, too warm. So there's an element of that as well. You you don't wanna go a 100% ultra warm lighting everywhere because if you're trying to do some work in, you know, in the middle of the day, late morning,

your body's gonna get all confused. And so it's a shame that, like, if I was building a house, I would probably have, like, light tunnels and skylights, right, and all that kind of stuff. But, unfortunately, you know, don't have that. There's no question, like,

taking the science out of it and testing and stuff like you just know like, I know that both me and one of my kids in in the sunlight outside, you you wanna approach us and have a conversation with us and interact with us in that environment.

We're gonna be nicer, more calm, less agitated, less likely to be assholes to you. If you wanna come and approach us in an unnatural, like, supermarket setting, you're gonna be dealing with a completely different animal. Like, it it just it there's no question there to me. And so

just with that, like, having the natural light is gonna be the best, and it doesn't have to be, like, crazy expensive to do it. Like, it it doesn't have to be

even just, like, you know, positioning and thinking about where you're gonna do your work. And if you are working from home, like, can you sit outside for parts of it? Obviously, but the screen is difficult, etcetera. But, like, yeah, it's it's an it's an obvious thing. And and going back to, like,

taking things too far with that guy saying about, you know, drinking a glass of wine that fucked him up for three days and stuff like yeah. Okay. You're you're being a pussy there, but it's when you're talking about the home, that compounding effect of all day, every day, especially when you're working there Yeah. Making these changes

does definitely improve the quality of your life and your family's life and and the interactions around your family. Because if things like light are gonna affect you, if you've got brain fog because you're not getting enough quality air, you're stressed because you're around, like, flickering, horrible, harsh lights,

and then you're stressed from work because you're working from the home, and then you're interacting with your your wife and kids, you're gonna be a worse person to interact with than you would be if you make these changes. So it, you know, it completely changes your whole life of your family.

Yeah. And then also, like, there's just the long term chronic effects as well. So that's with all this stuff, air, water, light. You know, one of the hypotheses from, like, a lot like, the I I don't know. I I call it Health Twitter. I know it's not even Twitter anymore, but it's like these, like, all these health accounts. But

not like the I don't know. May maybe more obscure Health Twitter is, like, you know, how much are things like cancer connected to, like, your circadian environment? And if you if you maintain if you live twenty four seven in an environment where you you your body doesn't know what time of day it is. Right? Like,

so many potential chronic or long term health issues from that. And then I I suspect too, I suspect a lot of the there's a lot of a lot of people have gut issues. You know, there's a lot of, like, kind of, you know, IBS, colon cancer, all this kind of stuff. I mean, I know I think a lot of it is food related,

you know, and and also, you know, just so many different prescription medications and and everything like that and and all the chemicals and all the crap that everyone's eating and seed oils and stuff.

But I also wonder how much of it is water related too because I I don't think it was this bad in the water, like, thirty years ago, you know, twenty years ago. I think things have gotten worse, especially with, like, this PFAS, you know, which are these forever chemicals and microplastics and all this stuff. And you should

there's absolutely no reason you shouldn't filter them out. Right? And you shouldn't you shouldn't create this environment for you at home. Yes. It takes a little bit of effort, depending on whether you're you own or you're renting. It might be initial effort, or it might be, like, ongoing, you know, effort.

But there's absolutely no reason that you shouldn't like, especially as, like, the folks listening more of the sovereign individual mindset, You shouldn't create that environment for yourself and your family.

I'm actually against most like, I'm not some crazy supplements person. Right? I'm I I I think there's a less is more attitude. I think it's it's more about to me, like, trying to restore your environment to be as as as natural as possible.

And, unfortunately, you have to use, like, technology and artificial tools to restore your environment to be as as natural as possible, right, which is kind of funny. But that's that's how I think about all this stuff. Like, you're you're you're getting products. You're you're

you're adding things. You're being careful what you're buying. You're you're you're putting in these systems, right, whether it's filtration, whatever, to try to get back to a more natural environment.

Mhmm. Yeah. And and we're talking about using technology there to test the environment, whether it's whether it's your air or your water or your light, whatever it is, and and then making these changes sometimes with technology to make it better.

I wanna talk a little bit about blood blood work, finding a finding like, testing your own body. I think it's something I've actually never weirdly never done, which is fucking stupid, actually. I agree. Yeah. It's like it's so retarded. I know it is. A lot of stuff I do, I know I know it's retarded, but I do it anyway.

Checking your blood before making all the other changes. Like, I go to the gym almost every day. I I I don't drink. I don't do drugs. I don't smoke. I'd I'd, like, try and look after my body as best I can. I try and make changes around the home so we live in a in a good environment. I do, like, most of the

the last steps that you should do, but I'm not doing that first step, which is, well, what about my health is actually good, and where do I need to improve? Because I'm just sort of blindly guessing at the changes I need to make when actually there could be serious issues that I'm not checking and and that's dumb. So

for someone else who might be retarded like me, never done blood work, or they've done it, but not enough, what are your thoughts around it? Well, Kelly, I I even wanna take a step back from that because

the way I was gonna answer this, I I would I'm gonna answer differently now than I would have even, like, six months ago, I think. Mhmm. And I'm struggling with the AI stuff from, like, a privacy perspective.

So that's Mhmm. That's one thing. But I it's hard to talk about this stuff without bringing the AI into it Okay. In order to figure out, like, how do you help figure all this out for yourself and parse and understand all this data that you can get now. Right? Because the blood stuff is very important.

We've been using, Function Health in The US here, since they launched, like, a few years ago where you pay them, like, an annual fee and you go in twice a year for the blood tests. There's a bunch of these, like, competing offerings now in The US, but, you know, we've been using that one, and it's been it's been a good offering for us.

But a few months ago, I decided to give one of the AI tools my raw DNA data. And I tried to do it, like, as privately as possible. Like, it doesn't have I don't think it has my name or anything like that. Right? It's like a different account and and, you know, that kind of stuff. But

I had my AncestryDNA data from, like, a decade ago. Because before I was privacy conscious at all, I did, like, the AncestryDNA thing because I thought it was cool probably, like, you know, fifteen years ago.

And then I was like, oh, this is horrifying. I'm gonna delete my account. I want them to delete my data. I hope they did, but who knows. Right? But I I downloaded, like, a decade ago, my raw DNA data file, which is just a giant, like, text file, just a huge text file.

And I gave it to one of the AI tools a few months ago. It's clungy. I mean, if I could be so lucky to have multiple, you know, me running around. And

I gotta tell you though, Max, like, the the stuff I learned from it, I I got very angry was and I was, like, ranting to my wife. You know, I remember, like, we're walking, and I was, like, totally going off on a rant because I wish I had done that and understood that before ever doing a blood test.

Right. So that's the big thing for me. And I don't know what the most privacy conscious way to do it is, and I think that's one of the the challenging aspects for this stuff.

Mhmm. I've seen some cool threads on x about someone buying, like, a DNA thing and and doing it at home themselves and having an AI help them do it at home themselves, which is, like, insane.

Yeah. Like, it's at home sequencing. I don't think that's accessible to most people yet. No. I don't think so. But, like and then there's other companies that are not, like, you know, Ancestry or, what's the other one? Twenty three and Me, right, that may have some sketchy ownership. There's ones that are much more like science,

like, real company, like,

like, not trying to monetize, like, your data, you know, kind of thing, but just make their money from, you know, doing, like, whole genome sequencing and, like, that's all they do. But it's still really difficult, right, to do that. But let's say you're able to do that. Oh, man. I learned so much stuff from the DNA stuff that I did

that have helped inform how I understand all of the blood tests as well. So Okay. That's the one thing I wanted to mention. So, like, I found out that genetically, I have a hard time converting sunlight to vitamin d,

which helps explain why my vitamin d levels like, when I first started doing the blood test a few years ago, they were they were much lower than they should have been,

which concerned me. And so now I make, like, more of an effort to, of course, you know, get out into the sun, but I also do supplement vitamin d with, like, a very high quality based supplement. Is that the best thing to do? No. But, like, I do it just because I know genetically, like, I have a harder time converting it.

The big big realization for me was discovering that I have don't if you've heard of, like, the MTHFR stuff. The that's this is like so, like, half of all Americans have, like, at least one of these MTHFR mutations.

I think there's, like, three that you can have, but it's your your methylation pathways. So, like, this came up. I don't know if you if you followed recently, but, like, the Trump administration and RFK talking about, like, causes of autism.

And one of the things was, like, supplementing vitamin b. And I found out that I have all three MTHFR mutations. So my methylation pathways operate at, like, 30% of what they what a normal person's would, which was, like, a crazy realization for me because over my life, I've had issues with, like,

different kinds of, like, inflammation and that kind of stuff. And I wonder how much of it was caused by a significantly impaired methylation pathway that maybe I could have done something about,

you know, twenty years ago. Right? Or Mhmm. If if I knew that that I had this. So I I I'm I take, like, a methylated v vitamin b complex right now, and I have for the last few months. And I actually do think it I feel I feel like it it does have a positive effect on me.

I only do that because I I figured out that I had this, you know, genetic mutation. And I paid actually for the extra for, like, $200 extra to do a blood test for this Yep. With Function Health because you can, like, add stuff on.

And they only told me I had one of them because you you couldn't check for all three of them just from the blood. Okay. And I was like, holy shit. Like, I had this text file sitting on my computer for a decade.

Yeah. And now I know I also know that my the way I respond to dopamine is different. There's, like, the warrior or worrier as in, like, how you respond to dopamine. And I have, like, the warrior, you know, like, WARR.

Like, like, I need like, I I I, am am naturally going to, you know, find new challenges because I I need more more interesting, more challenging stuff to stimulate those dopamine levels as opposed to the opposite. So that's just interesting because I, like, learned that about myself, and I learned about my whole dopamine response

just from the genetics. And then other stuff, like, my my wife found out that the way that she metabolizes certain, like, I'm trying to think of the word. You know, like like anesthesia or different types of sedatives.

So, like, she had done LASIK a few years ago, and they gave her Valium, and she had a really bad response, almost like a inverse response to it. Oh, really? That would have come up if she had done the DNA stuff. And and so I'm I'm a fan of trying to figure that out in the most privacy preserving way you can do it,

whether that you maybe you go do the DNA stuff with, like, a, like, a fake name or something, right, like a pseudonym, and then you use one of these AI tools like Venice or something where you don't need to give any private information or use a VPN and sign up with something that doesn't have your information, right, pay with Bitcoin.

There's ways to do it, but I've become a huge proponent of figuring this stuff out because It seems it seems Yeah. Fucking obvious. Like, you know, whenever you go to a doctor

Yeah. You only ever go when you have a problem. As a general rule, like, you go to GP. I have this problem, and they Yeah. They just try and, like, work out what it might be. But it's it's actually such a backwards way to deal with things rather than, like, let's find out what could become a problem,

and then let's steer us away from the problems because we know how to do it. And let's not just throw every single supplement in the world down our throat every day because we don't need to, but we know, like you're saying, with your vitamin d levels, that this is the one to target.

But it's you know, I'm saying I've never done any of this stuff, but I don't think I'm alone there. I think the majority of people don't do any of these checks, even health conscious people.

So you're completely just fumbling around in the dark, which does it is not necessary, but then the privacy concerns are there, the the who to trust, the cost, the like like you're saying, how to pass the information. The the AI helps a lot with that done correctly. But it seems like that should be

number one. Like, before you do any other health stuff should be, let's find out, like, what am I made of, and how do I work? Let's work out what the system needs. And and so I I highly recommend the blood testing.

But I but, like I said, if you were asked me three months ago, would say, go sign up for one of these blood test companies. I know it's difficult depending on where you live. In The US, it's very easy. Yeah. And I would say, you know, go get the report. Go figure everything out. Now I would say, figure out your your genetic

stuff first because the blood tests are are I think you're you're in the dark. So let's say you do a blood test, right, and you and you just do the standard, like, function health panel. It's 365 a year.

You see all my vitamin d levels are a little low. You maybe see some your home homeocysteine level is, like, a little elevated, and you're like, okay. Why is that? But you don't know that you have, like, three MTHFR mutations, So you don't know why the level is off. If you go in armed with understanding, like, the genetic data first,

then you say, oh, well, like, I expect my vitamin d level to be a little lower. I have I'm gonna have to make more of an effort. I'm open to supplementation for that. Or, oh, I expect because I have these MTHFR mutation, you know, that I'm gonna have to watch a few of these specific tests

to make sure that that I see that my methylation pathways are working optimally. So Mhmm. One thing with MTHFR, which is crazy, is that the type of b vitamin that you have is so important.

The cheaper vitamins have folic acid, and that could be very bad for you if you have this mutation because your body cannot break it down. It cannot break down, like, the synthetic folic acid.

And so you could get a much higher quality, more expensive vitamin, and it can actually help you. If you don't know if you have this genetic status, you have no idea what you're supposed to do from a supplementation perspective if you find that some of these levels on the labs are off, or you may find that the

level seems right because you're within the range. But for your specific genetic profile, maybe it's actually not optimal. Yeah. It makes so much sense. It's it's just that privacy concern because with that data, you know, it's it's like of all the data that you don't want

out there and, like, profiled against you, that's probably, like, the most important one really, isn't it? It's it's the most sensitive data. But done right, it can completely change. Yeah. It can completely change your life, couldn't it, really? I I know I need to do it. It's just yeah. It

no. You're you're 100% right. It it could completely change your life. And I was part of my rant to my wife, you know, a few months ago when I did all this stuff with the AI is that I was saying every single kid when they're born should get the the genetic analysis run Mhmm. Because you should know, okay.

What what is my kid what do I need to look for, right, with my kid? Does my kid have a specific mutation, a specific is it the metabolism of M and D, or is it specifically, like some of this stuff comes into play when it comes to god forbid, you have you have to get put under for surgery. Right?

Yeah. They give you some kind of general anesthesia. Should they be giving you a little less than most people? Should they be giving you a little more than most people? Believe it or not, that stuff comes up

on the genetic screening now. Like, you it it like, for my wife, like, it it says that. It tells you, you know, that your response to to these these types of sedatives or or anesthesia or so on.

The fact that we now have the technology that it's cheap and readily available, like, you could go to one of these specific whole genome sequencing companies, pay, like, $500 and get all the raw data and know everything.

Like, why would they not wanna spend $500 per kid to get that done in the beginning? Privacy stuff is high. So that's drugs. Like Yeah. Exactly. Because you Yeah. And so instead, you go in. You you you don't know what's wrong.

And if you do the blood test, you don't necessarily know the why behind these numbers. Right? You'll see that something's high or low, but you don't exactly know why. Is it is it because of something that you're doing wrong? Like, is it your diet?

Is it that you're not getting outside? Or is that you're already predisposed to a specific you know, you're too high or too low on something because of your genetics? Like, you need to look at this as a holistic picture.

And I think right now, that's just that's not happening for, like, ninety you know, five, ninety eight, ninety nine percent of people. And so I do feel like I'm ahead because I actually understand it all now.

Yeah. And I didn't understand it before the genetic stuff. And so, yeah, I'm still struggling. I really am with the the privacy aspect of all that. Yeah. It's it's a trade off. It seems like it's probably worth doing just taking certain steps to to try and protect your privacy where you can. But Yeah.

Cost wise, you said 500 ish for the the genetic testing and then blood work. My understanding with blood work is, like, they can take your bloods, but then they're only searching for certain things. Like, to get a full picture and test everything that you would want doing, what's the cost? Yeah. So in The US, functional health is $365

a year now because there's been a bunch of competition, like that Brian Johnson guy, the crazy vampire guy who I think is is, like, the opposite of what everyone should be doing.

He he has his own now, like, called I think called Blueprint. And so there's a bunch of competition. So Mhmm. You could really just pay 300 some like, $365 a year and get, like, a pretty good overview, but their their whole model is they're gonna try to upsell you on, like, dozens of other tests.

Right. And they have all these screenings. They have these cancer screenings. They have hormonal screenings. They have a really interesting one for me, by the way, was, my lead levels in my blood. I paid a little extra for, like, lead, aluminum, and other stuff, like, to get those levels. That's an heavy like, a heavy metal panel.

And then I saw my lead. It wasn't, like, too high, but I was like, this doesn't look that great. Yeah. And so I

I did a lot of sauna. We have a sauna at home luckily now as well Oh, nice. Which I really infrared one or, like, the the old school one? We have an infrared one. If I was to do it again, I would try to buy one that is both, like, a two in one, which you can get now.

But we have an infrared one, and I did a lot of sauna, and I actually did a lot of I did blood donations, like, every four or five months. Mhmm. And my lead levels dropped by, like, more than half Okay. Which was crazy. But my iron levels and my, what's it called, ferritin levels, which is like your body's iron stores,

went down too much. And I was like, oh, shit. Like Yeah. I gotta stop donating blood for for, like, a year or more. Mhmm. And so, like, if I wasn't doing the tests, I would be like, oh, yeah. Like, I'm donating blood,

Yeah. My iron levels went down too much, and and that wasn't good. And so I do think it helps a lot Yeah. Makes sense. These tests every six months. It's not too expensive. But I do think it's that, like, retro like, in hindsight now, any test I do, I'm gonna be figuring out how does this fit in with the genetic, results as well.

I need to do it desperately. I'm not sure if where I am in the world they they know what blood tests are, but I might have to fly over to The US and and check. But, yeah, it's it's been a fascinating talk. I think Yeah. You know, it's something that so many people are neglecting.

I I think, actually, a lot of people in our industry and in our space as well, like, yeah, they might be, like, thinking they're healthy because they're eating a steak and, like, doing gym and whatever, but it's it's actually a lot deeper than that, and and this is a a much more important thing to be testing.

If I was to kind of push one thing, it's like, one is you wanna try to create an environment that takes you back to be, like, as natural as possible. Mhmm. So, you know, products that you're even, like and we talked about some of, like, the structural stuff, like, in the home and lighting and water and everything like that, but

salt. Right? Like, I'm using this VeroSalt with no microplastics. Sport drink, I'm doing for my electrolytes if I buy any of that stuff because it doesn't have any crap in it. It's real sugar, real salt. It doesn't have artificial stuff in it.

And to drop some other products, and I'm not I'm not getting any money from any of these. I use that Knobs toothpaste with the nano hydroxyapatite. Okay. It's not the cheapest, but it's, like, way it's it's no fluoride, and it actually can help remineralize your teeth. I've been using that for years.

NOBS Nobs. I use, like, tallow based skincare products, and I got my wife on yes. So I I get from a company called Clara and Fritz in The US, but there's a lot of great companies out there. And, like, I got my wife using all that stuff, so she does you know, because especially women, like, the the women in your life, like Mhmm.

Don't let them do these crazy skincare routines where it's all artificial after artificial after artificial. Like, it's terrible. And so

there's a lot of great products like that. So I buy a bunch of stuff like that. I'll just, like, give her stuff. I'm like, oh, I bought you this, like, tallow based lip mask. You know, I bought you this whatever. And I'll just, like when I buy, like, the boring stuff for myself, like, once a year, I'll buy all this stuff for her.

We use shampoo and conditioner from a company called Fountainhead Hair, which is in The US. That's another thing. You think you you're putting a shower filter on, but you're using, like, garbage stuff you buy from, like, the local drugstore.

Mhmm. You know, that's filled with, like, chemicals. So, like, you just filtered out the chemicals in your water. Right? But then you're you so that's You're you're not remineralized. You're re chem chemical ing.

Yeah. And then for good point. And then for immunity stuff, I start to use a lot of too this this beekeepers natural propolis related stuff. Alright. All that natural honey and and propolis and all this, you know, cool stuff there you can get. So,

anyway, those are just some products that I use because I know some people have, have asked about that as well. Mhmm. But, yeah, I mean, I I think it's like you're gonna have to pay more and make more of an effort to go more natural,

and that should be the goal. Yeah. Well, it's yeah. To to round it out, couple of things. I'd I'd just say that, like, with everything, you are paying more today, but you have to look at this as how much is it gonna cost me to have unhealthy habits

ten years down the line, twenty years down the line, thirty years down the line. Because it's the it's the same argument that could be made for the obvious stuff like going to the gym and, you know, making time for that because

everyone kind of knows that part, and they're like, yeah. Obviously, I need to go to the gym, and I need to train. I need to be, like, relatively healthy. Otherwise, I'm fucked when I'm older. But this stuff matters just as much or more, and people ignore it because it's

easier to ignore it now and just think, oh, well, everyone else does it, and it's gonna be fine. But, actually, you're gonna thank yourself for it further down the line.

And the other thing I wanted to just touch on, which is so random, but I know John's got, like, a real fetish for asking this question, so I'll bring it up now, is parasites. It's, again, like, health Twitter.

John has this thing he always wants to ask about parasites. Do you think it's a real problem? Do you is it something you worry about, or is it just, like, nerdy stuff? No. I think it probably is. I think

you can get a little wacky with that. I don't mean that in, like, a bad way. I mean that in, like, a there's the folks that would say, like, cancers, parasites, and and that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not I'm not really one of those, though I do believe that the antiparasitics like ivermectin

can have an have a positive effect on, like, cancer type, you know, treatment as well. Mhmm. I have taken ivermectin during the COVID era and after the COVID era. So part of me wonders, like, have I inadvertently done parasite cleanse? I

did have I had some, like, horrible we came back from our hilariously, we we ended our honeymoon in Paris, you know, a few years ago. And Mhmm. And I we had the most horrible food poisoning in Paris. I'm, like, never gonna go to Paris again.

And I thought at one and I was going down the rabbit hole then. Like, could it be parasites? Right? Like, could it be something else? So I did do one of those, like, quasi parasite cleanses. Like, I got all that powder.

There's, like, that, like, wormwood stuff or whatever and all this other shit. It's disgusting, and you're supposed to, like you know, it's so disgusting. And but then I ended up getting company Thorn, which makes a lot of great, like, high quality supplements.

Mhmm. Though a little they're they're good, but, like, also,

I wouldn't recommend overloading on any supplements. But the t h o r n e, they're like a US based supplement, you know, company that they're they're they're they're they're expensive, but they're very good. They released a series of, like, at home tests, and they have, like, an at home stool test.

Mhmm. And they'll they'll do all the parasite stuff as part of that test. Right. And I did do that, and it came back as negative. And so I'm like, well, either either I did some kind of cleanse or or maybe I didn't have anything at all. So Mhmm.

I do think it's interesting that in in cultures across the world, in more of the, you know, poverty areas, right, without this, like, clean water, clean food, The parasite cleansing is a is a part of their culture Mhmm. On, like, a semiannual basis.

And so I do think that it's something that the Western world has, like, overlooked in terms of medicine, and I think it's a very interesting, important area. I have done kind of like a quasi one before I bought all those parasite products.

I don't know if I needed it or if it did anything. And then, of course, there's the the conspiracy theories about, like, why did they repress, like, ivermectin so much during COVID. Mhmm. Like, maybe they don't want the entire US population to go on a course of ivermectin for a week.

Yeah. Maybe maybe there is, like, may maybe they maybe there is a lot of parasite stuff that's contributing to a lot of sickness and chronic health issues and that they really, really, really do not want the population going on that as a whole. Because I always thought that was really weird too.

You could argue it was purely like, they want you to take the new vaccines. Right? And they wanna push through the new vaccines and everything like that during the COVID era. But I do wonder, like, why why did they demonize ivermectin so much when it's, like, one of the most popular

medications in the world and is a Nobel Prize winning medication with virtually no side effects? So you can put your conspiracy hat on for that. Be good. If they're pushing that hard against it, it's gotta be good for something, whether it's cancer or or or parasites or whatever. It's gotta be something. Yeah.

And I was I was reading more about the cancer stuff with ivermectin, and and there's there's this one guy that's all over. There's a doctor all over, you know, ex that posts a lot about this stuff.

I'm definitely this is not my expertise. But what what he was saying is, like, the the similar pathways for how, I'm trying to I don't wanna speak out of my ass here, right, because I don't wanna sound like a total idiot.

I don't know if it was, like, a, like, a glucose metabolism pathways for cancer and parasites are similar enough where the antiparasitics can also have an effect against cancer. Some something like that.

The conspiracy theory people would say that that the cancer is the parasites, that the tumors are like parasitic sacs and stuff. I don't know if I ascribe to that viewpoint. Yeah. That sounds a little bit far

out for me, to be honest. But Yeah. For me too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But but yeah. I mean, I so I've I've kinda tried it. I don't know if it if it helps or not. I mean, would it be that bad to do a course of ivermectin once a year? I don't think so. Yeah. Probably not. Yep.

Alright. Well, thanks so much for coming on and sharing all of that with us. We've obviously gone way over. It's the first time we've done this. Fun. Yeah. Yeah. It was good. Always good to chat through these types of things. And And sorry I sound like absolute shit with my

You sound fine. Breathe on my nose. I it's like, there goes all my credibility. I I would say, though, that I

actually had a fever last night, and I don't I don't do I'm a big fan of letting the fever run its course too. Mhmm. Everyone should look into the, the other, you know, RFK autism announcement from several months ago or whatever with the, Tylenol.

I I'm a I'm a big believer that you don't wanna, suppress the fever. You know, you wanna like, there's a there's a functional mechanism for it. And Yeah. And and you wanna be really careful when taking this stuff where, oh, yeah. Papatyalinol, Papatyalinol, Papatyalinol, whatever. Like, this is totally normal.

You know? Oh, you're you have a 99 fever, Papatyalinol. Yeah. That's not good. Right? And so I'm I'm very much still a fan of natural, you know, let the body do its thing. Let it run its course.

Yeah. Absolutely. Alright, Zach. Well, thanks for coming on. I'll do our outro now. I'm sure we'll have lots of questions and and things after the show. I'm sure we'll have you back on soon to talk through whatever the next rabbit hole is. But, yeah, appreciate you.

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