#1120 - Ben Greenfield

Joe Rogan (0:00)

Bam, bam, bam. Four, three, two, one.

Ben Greenfield eats ants. Just want everybody to know.

Ben Greenfield (0:08)

Hey, if I was gonna go to Disney, as much as you go to Disney, I'd eat a lot more black ants.

Joe Rogan (0:13)

Why are you eating ants?

Ben Greenfield (0:15)

Well, supposedly, I actually don't know that much about ants. I'm just eating it, because it supposedly gives you energy. I needed a pick me up this morning. We lived through the waste this morning, and I needed a second boost of energy. But apparently these ants live in ginseng roots, and they have something that grows in their heads that acts as like a nootropic. It's like some kind of a chemical nootropic.

And it also supposedly is one of these Chinese energy tonics.

It's like the whole, you know, the doctrine of signatures. You know the doctrine of signatures?

Joe Rogan (0:45)

No, what's that?

Ben Greenfield (0:46)

It's the idea that things in nature give you clues, right? So like when you slice open a tomato, you've got the four chambers of the heart, and tomato is supposedly good for the hearts, or pomegranate is good for your blood, and the little pomegranate seeds look like red blood cells. You slice open a carrot, it looks like an eye, or you crack open an egg, it looks like an eye. Those are good for your vision.

Sweet potatoes, which everybody thinks is like a sweet, sugary food, those are actually shaped like a pancreas, and they can actually help to normalize your beta cells, like your insulin-producing beta cells in your pancreas. So you look at, you know, walnuts for your brain, and people talk about avocados, right? Supposedly they look a little bit like an ovary, and they're good for female reproductive function.

So you can carry that over from the plant kingdom into the animal kingdom, and say that if you eat ants, because they're such energetic, endurance-driven creatures, that it supposedly will make you stronger.

Joe Rogan (1:43)

Boy, that's a stretch.

Ben Greenfield (1:44)

Wait till this stuff hits me, and then we'll arm wrestle.

Joe Rogan (1:48)

Have you been doing it for a while? How long have you been taking this stuff?

Ben Greenfield (1:51)

That was the third time I've actually used it. I mean, I used it for a workout a couple of times.

Joe Rogan (1:56)

So this is your concoction, right? You took ground-up ants.

Ben Greenfield (2:00)

I didn't grind up the ants myself. That would have been exhausting to catch.

Joe Rogan (2:04)

Did you buy them ground-up?

Ben Greenfield (2:05)

I bought ground-up black ant powder.

Joe Rogan (2:07)

Okay, Jimmy just pulled up some ginseng ants.

Ben Greenfield (2:10)

I don't think they're called... That's where I bought them. That's where I bought them. Lost Empire Polyrachus Ants, a ketonic of Chinese herbalism.

Joe Rogan (2:19)

But you know what? The Chinese people are also into the rhino horn.

Ben Greenfield (2:23)

It's not just a pre-workout herb. According to the website, it's a pre-workout super herb.

Joe Rogan (2:27)

Oh, a super herb?

Ben Greenfield (2:28)

Supposedly far more scientifically super than a regular herb. Right, it's like a super food, exactly.

Joe Rogan (2:35)

I'm a little annoyed with that word, super food.

Ben Greenfield (2:37)

I like that idea, though, of the doctrine of signatures. Well, like certain things that you see in nature being good for you. There's one called, I forget the name of this plant, but it's called the insulin of the heart. And it's amazing for decreasing sympathetic nervous system activation and causing you to relax. And it has these beneficial cardiovascular properties and people who are just so driven that they tend to have, for example, you know, a heart attack or an MI. And it's not splenthes.

I forget the name of this, but it looks like a heart and it has all these red vessels that kind of come off it. It's called the insulin of the heart.

There's an app that my kids and I use to identify a lot of these. It's called Flower Checker.

Joe Rogan (3:24)

So you read about this ant stuff online and then you start taking it and then you mix it in some sort of a tincture. Here it is.

Ben Greenfield (3:32)

Yeah, yeah, Oobain, that stuff.

Joe Rogan (3:35)

Nature's perfect but forgotten remedy for heart disease.

Ben Greenfield (3:38)

Oobain, I interviewed a physician on my show, Dr. Thomas Cowan, and he wrote a book about how the heart is not a pump. And he talks about the true reason for heart disease being sympathetic nervous system overdrive.