Bulletproof Launches MOLDY, New Documentary To Combat Toxic Mold Exposure
A friend of mine recently changed his life. He started eating and exercising differently, traded his belly for abs and got off all his asthma medications. Says he feels better in his forties than in his twenties. I called it naturopathic living. He calls it Bulletproof. I already totally agree with his spot- on views of how important healthy dietary fats are, so I set out to learn about the Bulletproof way of life. Here is our Q and A with Bulletproof executive Dave Asprey: entrepreneur, biohacker, and creator of Bulletproof coffee.
1) Most of our NaturalPath readers are obviously familiar with your story and your mission. You were a successful entrepreneur and yet you suffered from poor health- were overweight, overstressed, sleep deprived, had low energy, and were susceptible to illness. What was the moment of awakening for you that lead you to develop and live the Bulletproof philosophy?
One of the reasons I wanted to film my first documentary ever, MOLDY, was to share the information I spent over a decade learning to help other people. I was dieting and working out hard, yet I continued to be sick, overweight at 300 lbs and my brain was no longer functioning the way I needed it to. Being an early tech entrepreneur, I began to look at my health like the Internet – a complex system where data is missing, hidden or often misunderstood. That’s when I started to apply my tech skills to hack my own system.
My first biohack was a single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) scan. I wanted to learn why my brain was underperforming. Basically, I found that when I concentrated my brain there was essentially no activity. Can you imagine? This was a major turning point (a true no-brainer!) where I became a full on biohacker. Gathering missing and often misunderstood info from my own body was really the ground zero, the foundation of the Bulletproof lifestyle.
2) Two of the tenets of Naturopathic Medicine, Primum non Nocere (First do no Harm) and principiis obsta: sero medicina curatur (Remove the obstacles to cure) seem to align with one the Bulletproof philosophies of removing toxins from your life. You have a special, personal interest on the negative effects mycotoxins and mold can have on health. What effect did mold and mycotoxins have on your personal health? How did this lead into your new documentary Moldy?
As a young child, I lived in a water-damaged basement and experienced many mold related symptoms from weight gain to lethargy to arthritis at the age of just 14. It took years for me to understand why sometimes my body worked well and sometimes I felt like a zombie. I struggled greatly until adulthood simply because knowledge about water damage to buildings and toxic mold was simply unavailable. 28% of all people, including kids, have genes that make them extra susceptible, but mold in our environment makes everyone weaker.
The science is solid, yet few people know about the devastating effects of mold. That’s what inspired me to help patients and practitioners to connect the dots by taking missing information and making it into the first ever Bulletproof Films documentary, MOLDY: you can watch MOLDY here. It’s a kickass information hacking tool!
3) As a little girl I read a folktale where the grandmother buttered her tea, so when I first heard of Bulletproof coffee I thought, wow, I’ve been secretly buttering my tea for years without thinking of the health benefits! You’ve brought the science behind healthy fats into the national conversation and made Bulletproof coffee a household name.
Remind readers of the main benefits of Bulletproof coffee.
Where to start? Bulletproof works at every step of the coffee process from seed to cup to produce Upgraded Coffee for the lowest toxin, no mold, highest performance cup of coffee you can imagine. Yes, there are a lot of moldy coffees out there, which are as gross and bad for you as it sounds.
The Bulletproof Coffee recipe calls for grass-fed butter and Brain Octane Oil. Adding butter to our coffee is satisfying and allows you to to get all the healthy fats for making cell walls and hormones with none of the damaging effects of casein in cream. Brain Octane oil is an ultra-distilled extract of coconut oil, a true MCT oil that is 18 times the power of regular coconut oil in caprylic fatty acids for increased brain power, fast, yet even energy up to 6 hours and the reduction of brain fog.
Fact: I drink my coffee in a glass beaker! The borosilicate glass of laboratory beakers is a great tasting canvas for great coffee, much like the right glass does for wine. They’ll be available to use at the Bulletproof Cafe.
4) What is your vision with regard to the Bulletproof coffeehouse opening in Santa Monica, and what’s in store for us next?
The Bulletproof Coffee shop opens in summer 2015 and will bring the Bulletproof lifestyle street level. The coffee shop is an all-new kind of coffee experience. We hacked the typical coffee shop, a place where so many stop in for a quick and dirty caffeine fix that can drop you as fast as it picked you up. It isn’t just about caffeine: anything that increases human performance is fair game in the Bulletproof Cafe. Besides Bulletproof Coffee, you’ll find body friendly food options, technology that helps you hack your own biology, and a super green beautiful environment with custom-made grounding furniture.
What’s next? Sign up to get a free screening of MOLDY, the movie and a free Mold Awareness Report, beginning June 4th 2015.
5) Another principal of naturopathic medicine is Docere, or “Healer as teacher”, as a professional Biohacker and teacher, what would be your first lesson for someone new to a Bulletproof lifestyle?
You owe it to yourself to see what it feels like to feel truly good, to live in a heightened state of performance and to see what great things you can achieve with your new found energy and stamina. Being Bulletproof isn’t about counting calories, it’s about being the best version of you in every possible way – mentally, emotionally and physically.
You are your own ultimate teacher: Bulletproof provides the starting point – get the free Bulletproof Diet Roadmap here – then you experiment and track your own data to learn what makes you feel amazing every day!
6) You talk about a wellness spectrum that ranges from Toxic to Bulletproof. Can you share this with our readers and the steps taken to progress through that spectrum?
There is no one direct path for everyone. Becoming Bulletproof is a journey, a way of thinking, but the first step is really about a commitment to want to feel better and go on that journey, knowing that you are going to learn new amazing things about what the beautifully complex systems of the body can do. Plus, we all want to buy smaller pants!
Secondly, wellbeing is not about willpower or a test of fortitude. Wellbeing is simply making a series of thoughtful decisions that are good for the mind and body. Even when a roadblock is hit – that’s a valuable opportunity to learn and hack.
Lastly, I’ve gone to great lengths and expense to use my experience as a roadmap in the Bulletproof Diet book to go from toxic to Bulletproof, but it doesn’t end there. Our community also has access to some of the greatest minds in science, health and technology through Bulletproof Radio and Bulletproof blog. You just have to dive in! If you’re a beginner, I suggest you start here. The Bulletproof movement is constantly embracing and sharing new information.
7) Bulletproof exercise eschews mainstream thoughts on frequency and intensity and embraces a “less is more approach to fitness”. How did you discover this and what advice do you have for our readers who are on the NaturalPath to getting and staying in shape?
I’m not the kind of guy who pulls up his shirt to show off his abs, but they are there. It took me years to test and prove that the quality and composition of the foods you eat is far more impactful than the quantity eaten or the type of exercise you do – even the intensity.
After some experimentation, I finally found the optimal time to workout when I learned about mTOR (mammilan target of rapamycin), which plays an important role in cell growth and proliferation and when suppressed by coffee, fasting and exercise, it bounces back to build muscle. I get the best results near the end of my Bulletproof Intermittent Fast. I eat dinner, go to sleep, and enjoy Bulletproof Coffee for breakfast. Then around 1pm- 2pm, I work out.
Afterwards, I eat a high-vegetable, high-protein and high-fat meal. You can also supplement after working out with a quality protein such as grass-fed collagen or cold pressed whey. To stay in shape, it’s not about doing more exercise, it’s about cutting out toxins and eating high fat.
8) Fasting is a powerful tool for healing and is widely used in traditional naturopathic medicine. You strongly recommend intermittent fasting in your book. Can you share with us your experience with fasting?
I knew about the obvious benefits of fasting, but I kept stumbling across one common problem with intermittent fasting – protocols require that you skip breakfast and not eat lunch until after 2pm. Anyone with a job or family knows this is impossible. Just when you need to be in high performance zone, you’re cranky, cold, tired and your Labrador brain (the part of your brain that tells you its the end of the species and you need to eat) is barking to eat. For overweight people, it gets even harder.
I hacked this process by adding a cup of Bulletproof Coffee in the morning and the results were astounding. The introduction of MCT oil and butter, which don’t contain proteins, allowed my body to quickly make ketones rather than turning on protein or sugar digestion. The fats satiated me until dinnertime and I was able to function at my normal high performance level. If you want to shed fat and improve your health, Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting is a great hacking tool that is quick and won’t slow you down. You can find the protocol on the blog.
9) What new biohacks are you developing?
I am constantly evolving my sleep hacks. Optimal sleep is a major variable in energy levels, brain performance and overall wellbeing. If you want to kick ass at sleep, you want to have more ATP (adenosine triphosphate), or better mitochondria.
How can you do that? Many of the sleep hacks, and performance hacks I recommend are ATP-centric and work at the mitochondrial level, sometimes to even cause you to grow more mitochondria. Things like ice baths, electrical stimulation, intermittent fasting, high intensity interval training, and supplements.
Avoiding mitochondrial poisons in the environment and in your body lets you feel spectacular and perform at your peak.
Razi Berry, Founder and Publisher of Naturopathic Doctor News & Review (ndnr.com) and NaturalPath (thenatpath.com), has spent the last decade as a natural medicine advocate and marketing whiz. She has galvanized and supported the naturopathic community, bringing a higher quality of healthcare to millions of North Americans through her publications. A self proclaimed health-food junkie and mother of two; she loves all things nature, is obsessed with organic gardening, growing fruit trees (not easy in Phoenix), laughing until she snorts, and homeschooling. She is a little bit crunchy and yes, that is her real name.