[00:00:00] Luke: Here we go again, dude.

[00:00:01] Darin: Yeah, man.

[00:00:02] Luke: Last time we chatted was in 2018, which the way my brain works, that seems like, oh, it was like two years ago. That was many years ago now at this point.

[00:00:12] Darin: Pre-fire.

[00:00:13] Luke: Yeah. And for those listening, we're going to put the show notes today at lukestorey.com/darin, D-A-R-I-N. And we will link Episode 168, which was called Confessions of The World's Top Superfood Hunter at the time. That was a great episode because we talked about all your adventures, and you were an OG in the superfood space. Not kind of. You were an OG in the superfood space. So that was a fun episode talking about all your finding the baruka nuts in Brazil and just all the obscure edibles that you've located around the world. So I encourage people to go check that out.

[00:00:49] Let's start out telling us about your new book, Fatal Conveniences.

[00:00:53] Darin: Yeah, man.

[00:00:55] It was a heavy lift, but I know you're in tune with a lot of these things, but Fatal Conveniences essentially is looking back at the things we're doing in our modern-day world and asking some questions within them. And a lot of that looks like what kind of deodorant are you using, what kind of shampoo are you using, what kind of, how are you using your phone, what is that Wi-Fi doing, what kind of clothes are you wearing, what kind of underwear do you have on, what kind of perfume, or cologne, or fragrances in some of your things, what kind of food are you eating, where did that come from.

[00:01:36] All of these things that people that are not as dedicated as you or maybe even some of your listeners have some awareness of this stuff, I really wanted to unpack these invisible not seen not smelled even, like the tobacco and the tobacco industry and that whole thing, this invisible world that for me, superfoods, living a great life, exercise, breathing, sleeping, hydration, all of this stuff, but this invisible elephant in the room of our modern-day world was screaming at me. It was screaming at me for many reasons.

[00:02:17] Thirty years ago, my father developed multiple chemical sensitivity. So I'm in college, studying physiology and nutrition. I basically get this call from my dad saying, hey, if you come home this weekend, which I was an hour and a half away, I need you to wear unscented products because what I'm discovering is that I smell chemical things, and it brain fogs me, it doesn't allow me to think, it shuts me down, and we'll come to find out, which I'll explain, is a dangerous position for my alcoholic father to be in. So I didn't really believe him at the time. I've never heard of it. I've known my dad all my life, clearly, and then all of a sudden, I'm 20 years old and my dad's telling me he smells things that makes his brain shut off.

[00:03:23] Luke: Your Axe body spray or whatever. Yeah.

[00:03:27] Darin: Exactly.

[00:03:28] Luke: I would have told you the same thing.

[00:03:29] Darin: Drakkar.

[00:03:30] Luke: Yeah, yeah. Totally. Dude, you just reminded me of something back when I worked in Hollywood in the fashion industry. I'd have to obviously go to all these clothing stores, and at the Grove, they had one of those, I think it was Abercrombie & Fitch stores, and I think they pumped just totally toxic cologne through the entire air system. Did you ever walk in there? A lot of stores smell like perfume, but this store, it was like part of the brand, that you walk in there and just-- I was already chemical-free for years, and I used to go in there. It was just like a brick wall hitting me.

[00:04:08] Darin: Let well, let me tell you something. I was shocked. Here, just because we're Ubering around to all of our appointments, we couldn't find an Uber that didn't have a huge--

[00:04:20] Luke: The Black Ice Air.

[00:04:21] Darin: To the point where a seven-minute ride, the first time I just stuck my head out the window, but having a longer ride, we just keep canceling the rides until someone came up and they didn't have these chemicals in there in the air because it's abusive. So cut to my dad as a college professor went into the mode of educating before the internet.

[00:04:52] So he's finding articles, he's making copies, he's highlighting, he's giving it to all of us in the family, he's giving it to his colleagues, he's giving it to his students, if they're going to come and be around him, he's making VHS tapes, he's sending us all this stuff. And then he's sending us care packages of chemical-free, laundry detergent, shampoos, conditioners, body wash, all of this stuff.

[00:05:19] So that was my first feeling. And so then when I did it, because if I was going to go home to see him, I'd have to do this or else he couldn't be around me-- so I did it. Come to realize that I didn't know I was being affected by it. But having broke the bonds of the chemicals that I was also just naturally using, I was feeling better.

[00:05:48] So the mere fact of following the protocol that my dad had to have to be around him, I then go, this is crazy, the fact that all of the-- and this was, dude, 30 years ago. So then I started to go, wow, this is a chemical cocktail. And then stopped using weird fragrances then and everything else, and my dad couldn't even wear a shirt that had print on it because it would off-gas formaldehydes, and dyes, and azo dyes, and all of this stuff. So it was gnarly.

[00:06:27] That world continued for him, and he had to be a forced retirement because he couldn't be around people anymore, because they couldn't detox themselves. So that led him to depression. He picked up alcohol again, and that killed him.

[00:06:48] Luke: Wow. Damn.

[00:06:49] Darin: I saw firsthand the spiral. Because what happened is, and you'd appreciate this, he started working with doctors, because of his brain fog, and he was a highly functioning person, he wasn't able to think. And so someone started giving him Ritalin. He never had any foreign substances since he got sober 30 years ago. That Ritalin felt pretty good, then he started playing a couple of doctors off of each other, manipulating them, getting more Ritalin. Think about that.

[00:07:29] He's 60 years old. And now, boom, addiction kicks in. He picks up alcohol for the first time since he broke sobriety in his life. Got sober when I was four, and he couldn't get his shit together. So that killed him. He just dropped dead and alcohol was the cause, direct cause. So I'm running around. I like a healthy life like you. I've dedicated my life to it. This giant modern-day elephant in the room of chemicals, and untested products, and plausible deniabilities of companies is screaming at me.

[00:08:14] And I didn't want to write it, but I was compelled to write it. And then the legacy of watching this man that I loved so much suffer, and ultimately the spiral of his demise, I just knew I had to. And how can I do it in a way that maybe can bridge a gap of people that have no idea that there's these agencies, these three letter words of FDA, and NIH, and WHO, and EPA, and FCC, and USDA-- you name it, that there isn't some magical group of angels that are protecting you that have tested these products for legit safety.

[00:09:03] And so I saw it as this playbook of like, wow, they don't know that these aluminum salts are in their favorite deodorant. They don't know that 50% of our population now is being infected by PFAS in our tap water, not to mention all of the other things in the tap water, which you've covered many times before. They don't know that we're virtually wearing clothes that might as well be a water bottle of plastic, that is a number two polluter of this planet of discarded rayon, polyurethane, spandex, elastane clothing that is on your genitals, that you're sweating in, working out in, performing in.

[00:09:53] And so in this world of then biohacking, I'm seeing like, hey, we're running around trying to improve our lives, but you also have to get rid of the things that are undermining testosterone, estrogen, domination. It's lowering sperm, lowering our ability. The fabric of our humanity is being pulled. The countdown has started. The motility is going away for men-- the ability to get pregnant, endometriosis, all of this stuff. You know what I mean?

[00:10:34] Luke: I know. Yeah. Two things come to mind about that. And later on in this conversation, I actually want to get into breaking down a bunch of these things because even on this show over the years, I've mentioned something just in passing with people about Teflon or something. And then I just think, well, everyone knows that.

[00:10:54] But then I go stay in an Airbnb, and I open the cabinet to get pots and pans out and they're all still nonstick Teflon. I'm like, oh shit, I live in this bubble where similar to you 25, 30 years, I've been just fortifying myself, and my house, and my family against all this stuff and just naively thought that everyone else already knew this too, but they don't. So it's important work.

[00:11:18] Later, we'll get into just breaking down a bunch of your greatest hits because I love on your social media and your podcast, you'll just niche down on one thing and then give solutions for it, which is really important. But two points. One is that when I stopped using fragrances, and chemicals, and all that stuff, and even just putting a shower filter on my shower in LA, I noticed very quickly that I became chemically sensitive because my body got used to not having it around to the point all these years later, God bless them, but we have some neighbors that I think their dryer faces our yard.

[00:11:59] And so I'll be out in the backyard, and it's always when I'm in the ice bath, and I'm taking deep trying to chill, literally, and then they'll have their dryer on, and I smell their Downy shit just chemtrailing me in my ice bath, and I'm just like, how do I have that conversation with the neighbor? It's none of my business. It's their yard there. They can do whatever, but it's wafting over into our crib.

[00:12:23] So that's the first thing. And the other thing I just learned recently, I've known it's not great to wear plastic as underwear. But I've been wearing these EMF-shielding underwear from Lambs for a long time, and they probably have some stretchy material in them, but I was like, ah, it's better to not fry your nuts with EMF. Get a little plastic.

[00:12:48] But then I learned the other day, and I don't know if this is true, but I read it somewhere on the Internet, that in terms of sperm count, because we're really wanting to get pregnant, that synthetic underwear on men, it's not just the endocrine disruptors of that stuff going into your pores, a plastic oil basically getting in, but that there's a friction that's created by those artificial fabrics that creates a static electricity that stops you from producing sperm.

[00:13:20] And I'm just like, Jesus, man, as if like just the plastic being on your skin wasn't bad enough. It has, apparently, a secondary consequence of the static electricity, irritating your nads. So I'm just like, geez, man. So that leads me into the next question to get your thoughts on, and I always struggle with this because I'm such an advocate for things like EMF awareness and, as you mentioned, having the availability of purified water, just the fundamental stuff, air purifiers in your house and all the things.

[00:13:57] Where do you draw the line between having an awareness in your own life and being an advocate to share that awareness with the world for those who want to listen and the downside of the paranoia and the hypervigilance of trying to live in a bubble? This is something I always I'm straddling and trying to find balance within myself.

[00:14:22] When do you just say, you know what? There's so many things out of my control. I'm just going to live my life. But if you do that and just don't protect yourself at all, you're inevitably going to get sick. But you can also get sick from being paranoid, and going orthorexic, and freaking out about seed oils, and all the things that they're to freak out about.

[00:14:43] So what's your emotional position on sharing this information, learning this information, but also not contracting into a limbic system, fear-based life that can also make one sick?

[00:14:58] Darin: Yeah, that's a great question, and it's certainly an individual monkey mind scenario, where you're watching your own thoughts because one of the greatest fatal conveniences, if I were to call it that, is the unleashing of the mind chatter running your life and causing you all kinds of stress. So I agree.

[00:15:24] Because you can easily look at this stuff and have an anxiety attack based on all of the stuff that I uncover in this book. I look at it as, if anyone's listening, especially your podcast, they're listening for information to apply, to integrate so that they become-- they take knowledge, apply it, they become more wise.

[00:15:51] And then when you get to integrate that wisdom, you now are in another hilltop, another perspective, another opportunity, another possibility. You opened a door, you took action, you walk through the door, and the whole world changes. So I look at all of that as that. If you're a constitution where you can just add on all of these things and make it stressful, oh, the world is blowing up, and hurricanes, and fires, and all of this stuff, and we're all doomed, that's an individual constitution that needs to be nurtured in a different way.

[00:16:34] If you're that constitution, I would say, look at my book as a guide, open it up, point to a page, and just learn something, and then apply the solution, and then just start there. Just like anything, choices added up over time will help or hurt you. So the whole idea, I get this all the time, as I'm sure you do, I just want to live my life. Okay, I'm going to keep moving. Is that okay? You know what I mean?

[00:17:10] If people want to change, they're going to change. If they don't want to change, fine. We learned a lot about that in the last few years. You're not going to convince anybody. You can spend a lot of energy doing that. So my idea and really my agency for wanting to do this is, give information, and from my point of view, I am not interested in changing somebody at all.

[00:17:43] So I want to give the information, and if someone's ready to change from a Glide dental floss, PFOS, Teflon derivative between your teeth, and you don't want to give that up, and you don't care that it's linked to kidney cancer, okay. You've taken that knowledge. You've made your own choice. All good.

[00:18:12] Or you're another person who says, hey, there's actually a great bamboo, charcoal, dental floss that you can just run under the water, which I do, and it basically slides just as easy, and it's not plastic, and it's not PFOS. So now you've done two things. You have eliminated toxins, and you've upleveled and had a great product having antimicrobial, antibacterial benefits to you.

[00:18:45] So I look at all of these changes as we think they're linear, that they're not linear. The side effect of divorcing nature, betting on all the 60 to 80,000 chemicals that are created every year, blasted in our products, those are the same things as pharmaceutical ads. They have side effects, and those side effects continue to grow.

[00:19:11] So if you don't want to give up your deodorant that you're so used to smelling and they're aluminum salts and it's connected to cancer, breast cancer, Alzheimer's, it's all on you. I'm here to provide information. Do with it what you want. Sometimes it's a seed, and it grows later. And from that, that's what I ultimately want.

[00:19:38] As anything, when you know this, when you are willing to change, everyone believes, first off, that I'm pretty good. Life's okay. I've got my stressors. I'm pretty good. Usually, people will say, no matter what their economic status, out of 1 to 10, I'm a 7 or 8. I'm pretty good. That person could be suffering. They could've gotten used to a fragrance. They've gotten used to their back pain, but they're pretty good.

[00:20:18] But when you take an action, based on knowledge and apply it, you've seen this. Oh my God, I had no idea I could feel this good. You've now changed your set. You've changed it-- forever different. Fatal flaw, and the benefit of being human is we get used to anything. We freaking can get used to anything, which also helps us thrive.

[00:20:49] So if people are hearing anything that we'll talk about, or see in the book, or anything that you share, and they're willing to apply it, which is I would imagine most of your listeners are coming to listen to something going, oh, wow. I never thought about that. It's such a good interview. I'm glad Luke talked about that, just like we were talking about that.

[00:21:11] The wind at your sail gives you energy when you know that you've affected somebody. Not everybody listening is going to listen to even this conversation and apply everything we're talking about. They're listening right now, and they're going to blow off that dental floss comment, and they're not even going to change it, even in spite. And I'm not making this stuff. It's in the research. I had 20 researchers on this damn book. I should add 20 AIs. I would have--

[00:21:40] Luke: Did you really?

[00:21:40] Darin: Yeah. Two and a half, man. Because I spent a year trying to train the researchers to understand the breakdown and to also dig because obviously with the algorithms, you can't get all the research.

[00:21:54] Luke: Yeah.

[00:21:56] Darin: You cannot find it.

[00:21:57] Luke: I don't even bother trying to Google things. Like, is such and such safe? You just get bombarded with propaganda and misinformation. You really do have to dig.

[00:22:08] Darin: You do. And what was great is when you'd find a good book, you'd find a good article, and then follow the trail of those cited materials, and you're going, why did that not show up when I did a Google search? It's talking exactly what I was looking for. And like the history of electrification, holy shit, I didn't know that the birds migratory patterns were being thwarted and changed when we were putting up the electrification of the United States.

[00:22:38] That's important information that no one's ever told me before. Why is leukemia connected to electrified power poles? And this is not even talking about 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G. This is just electrification. This is magnetic fields and frequencies that are just a part of us throwing electrons connected to wires.

[00:23:02] So looking at the history of some of this stuff, it's so fascinating to then create a construct that wasn't told to us. So you have to dig, and unpack, and unplug, and look at this differently to then try to reassemble some understanding to almost an impossible history to try to understand, how the hell did we get from an innocent-- I'm going to just use the dental floss again, I'm going to beat the shit out of this dental floss idea.

[00:23:38] But how did we get from an innocent great idea, get stuff caught between your teeth-- it's common sense. Get it out. It's going to sit there and rot, create halitosis and all this stuff. Yeah, it makes sense. But when we took the left turn and we allowed DuPont to create a chemical using fluorine gas and bind it to plastic-- because it's not string. It's not paper. It's not from a tree. It's plastic.

[00:24:11] And then bind this fluorine gas to this and then put it in our mouth knowing. Someone knew. It was connected to all kinds of endocrine disruption, kidney cancer, freaking high cholesterol, diabetes, all crazy shit, and it's a forever chemical. So that also doesn't leave, and we have horrible examples of the shit we did already with forever chemicals, PCBs. Well, guess what? It's still in people's blood today. DDT, we got rid of in 1972. There was a study that showed adolescent girls today, 2019, 94.6% of the girls had DDT in their blood today.

[00:25:00] Luke: Wow.

[00:25:01] Darin: That's what we're doing. And so when we're binding PFOS, making wrinkle-free shirts, stain-resistant shirts, stain-resistant carpets, you can't wipe off the makeup, all of these things have PFOS in it. And then, oh, by the way, we don't want our food to stick to our takeaway, so let's throw PFOS on that too and let it interact with our hot food.

[00:25:32] We're now playing again with a forever chemical, that intel, we have a pushback of population. We're just going to let it ride. So we're going to let this created fluorine gas, the grandfather being Teflon, which you mentioned as the great nonstick, heat-resistant.

[00:25:55] Luke: That's one of the worst offenders because not only do your pots and pans, chip and age and it gets in your food, but I'm sure you know about Teflon flu. It's an illness from breathing the gases from heating it up as you stand there and cook. It's what I'm saying. There's a certain point at which all of this just gets-- even for me, and I'm super into it, it's just like, oh my God.

[00:26:20] But to something you mentioned earlier, it's death by a thousand cuts because it's all of these tiny insults over the course of our life, and then we wonder why we get cancer, diabetes, etc., and go on all these pharmaceuticals. But what I find encouraging and what's worked for me is just over the 25, 30 years that I've learned about some of these things, I've just made actually very minute changes along the way and I think when people first get into this, it's very overwhelming because-- we're going to go through this list in a minute. You already covered some of them. People are just like, well, fuck it. I guess I can't even live because I'm going to have to change everything in my whole life in order to avoid early demise or chronic illness.

[00:27:03] But what I've done is just slowly over time habituate myself to just, there's choice A and there's choice B. Choice A sucks. Choice B is in some cases better. At the best case scenario, it's optimal. It's actually really good for you, like flossing with essential oils and bamboo or whatever. So some people come to me, and they're like, oh, you have such an extreme lifestyle. You're so controlling. You got to do all this shit. All the bedrooms are EMF-shielded. This house is like a healing center.

[00:28:57] But I didn't do it all at once. It would be too overwhelming. I learned something, and then I just replaced that one thing with something better. And then next thing you know, the life I have now, there are very few things in my home or in my habits of day-to-day eating and drinking, etc., that are harmful.

[00:27:52] But I don't sit around worrying about it or think about it. I've just eliminated the bad things and added the good things. And I was telling Alyson this yesterday too because there's people getting life-threatening diseases all the time. Everyone knows someone that has something really gnarly going on. I still have minor health problems that come up.

[00:28:15] Now, I just was dealing with some MARCoNS infection in my sinuses, and just randomly, I'll go through a little micro challenge, and I'm like, if I'm having problems and I'm so hardcore, imagine how much worse off I would be if I just ignored all this shit and was like, you know what, I'm going to live my life. I don't want to be thinking about all this stuff. I'm just going to be a standard American normie. Being 52 now, I'm sure I would have many more health complications than I do.

[00:28:50] Darin: Less resiliency.

[00:28:51] Luke: It's crazy. Because I still have things that come up, and I'm like, God damn it, I'm so healthy. Why am I dealing with this? Just a few months ago, I got this horrible case of tinnitus, which is why I had the headphones set so low at first. I'm fine, but I'm just like, God, man, the world is really stacked against us.

[00:29:11] Darin: What's part of that is timeline of life as well. We have these beings, and we have these bodies, and we're running, or we have these beings. Some of us have more.

[00:29:23] Luke: Yeah.

[00:29:24] Darin: I went for a run to a park, and jumped around a little bit, and exercised, and coming back, just winding down, I pulled my calf, and I'm like-- yeah. But the thing is the ability to respond. It's also like life is also the now that we have is also the preparation for your tomorrow.

[00:29:57] So I always try to remind myself, nor am I perfect, but sometimes when I'm having a hard day, I try to do the right thing, even though it's sometimes harder when I'm having a hard day because I absolutely know at my core that I'm setting up the seat of my tomorrow that I will be sitting in as a result of my choice.

[00:30:25] And most of that is here, watching my mind do all of that. Even the thought that you brought up that this is overwhelming means that you're no longer here, and I'm talking about all of us that do it because we easily can. And you brought up a very important point. The moment I'm here, I can pick up this cacao. If I gave myself a choice B, I could pick up a plastic water bottle.

[00:30:59] It's not going to be found in your house, thank God, but it could be here. So I have a choice. Pick this beautiful ceramic ceremonial cacao created by your wife-- thank you, Alyson-- or this petroleum endocrine disrupting, phthalate-full, plastic, dead water inside. That's a choice. Is that overwhelming? No. I'm thirsty. Make a better choice. It doesn't have to be the best, the scenario that you're in. If you're in the airport, okay. You want to dehydrate, or do you want to have some sort of hydration? So pick a better water, right?

[00:31:49] Luke: Yeah. And even crap water at the airport like Dasani is better than drinking out of the water fountain.

[00:31:54] Darin: Exactly, exactly. Even though aluminum can be questionable and it can be chelating, at least they're moving and there's now options for smart water to be in there. A little thing I will do, even though it's probably doesn't do much, I will have my crystal water bottle with structuring imprint in it. And it will be empty, clearly. I buy water. I dump it in there. I add my unrefined salt. And I let it sit. I do a little mojo on it, and it feels better because I took an action, whether it's perfectly changed from where it came from, at least I took an action. We just are in an A to B scenario, every choice.

[00:32:49] So people are listening, and may be they're eating right now. You made a choice on what your fork went into and what you're putting your mouth. Life lives that way. So I think the way you're approaching your life is healthy. The information you're giving out is important. So people just like you're sitting there right now. Are you listening to this podcast on your Bluetooth inside your cranium? That's a choice.

[00:33:19] Luke: I hope not.

[00:33:21] Darin: Or are you plugged back in, and maybe even another choice would be an AirTube to eliminate all extra EMFs, which is just stress, and we can talk about those stressors that show up in the biology. You're still listening to the podcast, but you're now taking a stressful event inside your head with EMFs, and you're changing it.

[00:33:52] Seemingly, someone looking at you going, oh, it looks like they're enjoying the podcast. But you've disconnected from a Bluetooth, you've plugged back in, and also if you're using an AirTube, you've eliminated EMFs going to your head at all. Now you're receiving the Life Stylist podcast with no EMFs in your head, and you're receiving more information, getting excited to make your next choice that you can integrate.

[00:34:23] And it comes by way of, what is the dental floss? What is the toothpaste that you're going to use? What is the aluminum? Okay, when your toothpaste is done, make another choice. That's an up leveling of your life. What off gassing colognes and perfumes are you putting in your home? Maybe not use that. Maybe pull it out of the thing and throw it away.

[00:34:52] There's just all these little things that you can do, but I think it's important to stay here and go, don't go into overwhelm because overwhelm's a lie because it takes you out of here, takes you out of the presence, and it puts you into, just throw your hands up, I just want to live. Luke, you and I want to live, but we have dedicated our lives to just wanting to live the best that we can.

[00:35:24] And going back to your original question or your example, even us, things happen, but we have also built up a resiliency to expand our aperture because we are healthy. We are healthier than the average person because we have dedicated ourselves to that, not to have podcasts, not to superfood hunt, but to first amplify our lives and to make our lives better.

[00:36:00] Hell, the place that you came from, the scraping of the bottom that you were in, you're like, I got to go that way. So it's the thing that let's not wait until we're there. Let's just build on where we're at and then continue to just go one step at a time. And everyone with children, please eliminate a lot of these exposures that are coming from toys and, God forbid, EMFs, and clothing, and throw away freaking plastic diapers, and all of this, and perfumes, and exorbitant--

[00:36:47] Luke: Baby powder. You just made me think of baby the powder.

[00:36:50] Darin: Oh, my God.

[00:36:53] Luke: Yeah. No, it's great, dude. I think the takeaway from that is the antidote to overwhelm, as you so beautifully stated, is staying in the here and now. So your example of your cacao, you don't need to worry about the EMF and all the other shit out there. All you're doing now is just having a conversation with me, and you have choice A or choice B of a beverage. So you don't need to worry about it. You just choose the better of the two choices-- choice B, and you live your best life.

[00:37:24] That's funny. As you were talking about your cacao, I was like, I wonder if they tested it for lead, and I wonder what the oxalate level is for that cacao. Even with the good stuff, later on you find out like, womp, womp. There's potential shittiness even in the best of the best, but that is some good ceremonial grade cacao. I wanted to ask you, what's it been like to co-host your Emmy Award winning number one Netflix documentary series, Down to Earth with Zac Efron?

[00:37:55] Darin: That's something that's been different since you and I talked, right?

[00:37:58] Luke: Yeah. I watched a couple of them. The last one I watched was-- you guys, I think you were in France going to the water treatment facilities like, oh, I have to watch this one find in-springs and stuff. This is, of course, close to my heart. Yeah. What's that process been like?

[00:38:13] Darin: Oh, man. Yeah. That was very serendipitous. From a podcast that Zac had heard, Rich Roll's podcast that I was on, I don't know which one, the second one I was on at the time, he liked something I said, and he's into health and superfoods. And so it was a mutual friend of Rich's, Conor Dwyer, an Olympian swimmer that knew Zac.

[00:38:41] And that came, Zac told him, and Rich just says one day, you mind if I give Zac Efron your number? You've probably gotten it too. Celebrities or athletes come to you and say, hey. They want a little hack or they want to-- I've had that happen several times. You don't think much about it, right? And I'm like, okay, another person wanting the perfect superfood to change their life, the one thing.

[00:39:09] So I just didn't think about it. Months later, Zac reached out, and he seemed very genuine in him asking like, hey, I'd love to hang out and talk about some of the things that you've been talking about. And so we had lunch, and just chatted. Very sweet person. Talk about manifestation. So years, people have been saying, you should do a superfood hunting show.

[00:39:39] And as my aperture of my life has expanded and being exposed to cultures and people around the world and the environment being a strong advocate and teacher in my life, other things of water and power, and shelter, and growing food, and sovereignty, and all of that stuff has been informing me throughout my life.

[00:40:01] And so I wrote the show idea like, yeah, let's do a show, one episode on superfoods. And then I wrote let's go to a blue zone, and let's talk about water. And I had so much. I really wanted to get into water. So I wrote all these things down, and in the process of just getting to know Zac, it was just one comment one day, he was like, yeah, what else are you doing?

[00:40:25] I said, I had this idea for a show, and I'm thinking about seeing if that can go. And I wasn't pitching him at all. And I didn't know he did any of anything else other than movies. And so after that, a couple of hours later, he shot me a message, and he was like, hey, you know that show idea? He goes, yeah, I was so stoked about, like, we were going out in the world, and seeing all this stuff, and being an advocate for all these things. And he goes, I talked to my team, and I have a show at Netflix already.

[00:41:05] Luke: Oh, no way.

[00:41:06] Darin: But it's not this show. But I asked them, can we just change it to this show idea that Darren has? Fuck. Months later, dude. I'm like--

[00:41:17] Luke: That's great.

[00:41:18] Darin: We started to shoot in Puerto Rico. So it was really that the last thing I wanted to do was do a show with a celebrity. I wasn't thinking that. I wasn't needing to do that. But it was the way it happened and because Zac, his heart and his care about it, and he felt like my little brother, serendipitously, it just happened. And so, yeah, we just had a lightning in a bottle with that.

[00:41:49] Luke: It is serendipitous that you would meet and it would get discussed and then that it would actually get made.

[00:42:01] Darin: Impossible.

[00:42:02] Luke: I'm sure everyone wants to make a reality show about everyone, and they 99.9% of the time don't happen. But for it to actually get produced and then be super successful, it's like a trifecta of the odds being against something happening that way. So it's pretty cool.

[00:42:19] When I found out about it, I was, of course, happy for you. And also, just thinking about the trickle down of influence, it's like you can get a couple of knuckleheads like me and you being an advocate for this or that, and there's a certain number of people that are going to become aware of that and maybe listen and try some things out.

[00:42:37] But when you get into the realm of celebrities, and CEOs of corporations, and people in politics, and people that have more influence getting on board with this stuff, that's really exciting because these are people that have levers they can pull that actually affect change on a wider scale. An idea can catch fire and really take off in a meaningful way, and then that option that you had of choice A that sucks and choice B that's great, but it's 10 times more expensive and inaccessible to the average person, which forces them to divert back to the shitty choice A.

[00:43:16] The more demand you have for safe versions of products, for example, lowers the price. It becomes a commodity in a positive sense. And then people can't use that excuse like, well, I can't afford to eat organic food or use the no- aluminum deodorant or whatever it is. So I congratulate you guys for getting it done and being successful. It's very cool.

[00:43:39] Darin: Yeah. It's a vulnerable thing to create anything and put it in the world. You don't know how it's going to be. I don't know. And it's so true what you said. It's a miracle these things are even out in the world. It's a miracle. And I now see from the outside in all of the things that absolutely were going wrong, could go wrong, did go wrong.

[00:44:05] The first season, we shot the whole thing and it still wasn't going to happen, and then the second season. The third season's not going to happen for a variety of different reasons, but I've been creating something for the last year, and I've got-- I can't out him yet, my new co-host for a different show is even more integrated, and powerful, and awesome. And so it's the opportunity of-- here's where it all comes down for me. It's hard work. I don't make money on the show.

[00:44:59] Luke: Yeah.

[00:44:59] Darin: The amount of energy--

[00:45:01] Luke: A lot of people don't realize. They see someone as a Netflix show and they're like, oh man, they're rolling. No, there might be other opportunities that come as a result. Your podcast is probably much bigger. Your books will do better. But yeah, I remember taking meetings for non-scripted TV, and they're like, yeah, cool. You get, I don't know--

[00:45:20] Darin: $500 a week.

[00:45:22] Luke: Yeah. Just not a living wage for anyone.

[00:45:26] Darin: Right. So part of it is you put a huge amount of work into that, the creativity and the opportunity. So the door is open, but for me, they open from a sense of finding cool things, new technologies, new power systems, new waste annihilation systems, new people, doing ocean preservation stuff, things you don't hear about, you don't know about.

[00:46:00] And so for me, the more exposure I get to that, the more I continue to want to amplify those people doing great things. So if I can continue, and also, whatever celebrity wants to come along, and then I can go, no, no, no, no, look over here, and then all of a sudden you blow their mind, now, all of a sudden, they get open. Because that was authentic to Zac too.

[00:46:29] He was in a world that he wasn't getting exposed to. So the audience could vicariously work through him to experience like, holy shit, Iceland, and Peru, and Costa Rica, and all of these things. So the opportunity of showing, and I also hope, Utopia, great people doing those great things. Even now, to this day, we talked a little bit about PFOS, and the fluorine, and the gnarly Teflon.

[00:46:59] I know today solutions at wide scale from algae that is, yes, you have a solution, but it's also price sensitive to combat the chemicalized version, that within a year, there will be major, major outlets of food producers wrapping their food in healthier versions of PFOS without forever chemicals. That's happening, right?

[00:47:29] Luke: Rad. Yeah.

[00:47:30] Darin: So at those bigger scales, I'm starting to touch, and see, and meet. So I want to continue to bring those messages out. So if the system of the show moves around a little bit, that's fine. Zac needs to do his own thing? That's great, but I'm still flying.

[00:47:55] Luke: I relate 100%. That's one of the things I love about hosting this show, is just finding people doing cool things and giving them a platform. It's especially fun. I'm sure you've had this. I met a guy in LA on my last trip there who is a wild forager of Amanita Muscaria mushrooms, which up until very recently, most people thought they were poisonous and it turns out they're incredibly medicinal.

[00:48:24] They're not psychedelic per se, but they are a mind-altering substance if you take enough of them. Anyway, a friend of mine told me about this guy, Dragon, and I was like, I never heard of this guy. Yeah. His name is Laughing Dragon-- incredible guy. And I was like, that's interesting. I've never covered that topic. I don't really know anything about those mushrooms. Interview the guy. He's amazing. Beautiful soul. Very fascinating. He'd only been on one podcast before. He doesn't have any social media, no website, no company.

[00:48:56] His life is committed to bringing these healing mushrooms to the world. We do a podcast, and I'm not taking credit for this. I played a small role in it. We do a podcast, and I told him, man, be ready because people are going to want these mushrooms. So he basically popped up a company, and now he's killing it and giving all these people access to--

[00:49:17] Darin: Come on.

[00:49:17] Luke: Yeah, yeah. They're called Amanita Warriors. And I check in with him, he's like, dude, thank you so much, man. I just launched a company just because people listen to your show. But what is great about it is you have someone who has a beautiful intention and life's purpose that's very knowledgeable about a pretty niche topic in the realm of health and who is hip to any and all research that's been done on the more legitimate scientific side but is also just a wild, crazy, open-hearted hippie.

[00:49:50] And you get a guy like that. Thousands of people's insomnia could be solved in the course of a few weeks from drinking Amanita tea at night and their REM sleep goes up to two and a half hours from zero. It's just massive impact. And then there's going to be a bunch of other foragers that go out and start playing around with these mushrooms and teaching people how to do so safely and so on.

[00:50:13] It's just one guy I met, had a two-hour conversation, and no pun intended, but his life is now mushrooming out to positively affect all of these other people that he probably wouldn't have been able to reach. It's so fun.

[00:50:28] Darin: That's one of your superpowers. Knowing you since basically you started, one of your superpowers is always keeping that curiosity. But also, even that example, just feeling that, your ability to listen to yourself about your guests and extract that opportunity, because every once in a while, you had Aaron from 360, who I know really well. So I've been in and out of there going, I didn't even think to interview him because he's such an interesting-- I love that guy.

[00:51:14] Luke: Yeah. He's rad.

[00:51:15] Darin: What he's doing, come on.

[00:51:17] Luke: It's like the future of medicine. It's right there. It's all right there.

[00:51:21] Darin: But that was a testament of your ability to always be open and also listen to yourself and feel that, and then go-- because you're not looking for who's got the greatest following so that I can amplify my numbers. You're going, no, what do I feel?

[00:51:46] Luke: 100%.

[00:51:47] Darin: And you've been doing that from the beginning.

[00:51:49] Luke: Thank you for the recognition. And I've learned over the course of these few years that my criteria for sitting down and having a chat with someone is really solely based on having a feeling inside. It's like this charm that goes, 51% yes. Because I get all of these inquiries nonstop. I'm sure you understand, having a popular podcast. And there are so many brilliant people, doctors, scientists, spiritual teachers. And there's just all these emails, even to the point where our sites, we don't take incoming requests because I have a list of a 100 people just personally that I've had that feeling about.

[00:52:32] But the criteria for a conversation is, does it feel like I'm supposed to do this? That's it. And it's actually quite awkward sometimes because someone that I know or someone that knows, or a friend of a friend would be like, hey, we want this person on your show. And I'm like, I have no good reason to not do it other than I'm just not getting that excited feeling inside. And I just have learned to honor that, and not be apologetic, and just say, go start your own podcast. I built my thing so that I could be the one that gets that feeling or feeling or doesn't.

[00:53:02] Darin: It's so interesting that you're saying this because the timing for me, I've been talking with Melissa, my COO, and my team. I've gotten a little bored. And also, shit's downloading. I have a lot of stuff coming through, and I don't know how it's playing out. There's some creative stuff that's like, okay, I can see where that's going a little bit. And I, a little bit, left the podcast selectively, and I'm just almost to the other side. I'm just receiving it, and I find myself on the podcast. I prepared for it, or I started, going, why am I talking this? I'm not feeling any-- not all the time.

[00:53:54] Luke: I know what you're saying.

[00:53:56] Darin: So I am, right now, rejiggering how I'm going to go about my podcast to invoke a whole other way of going after it in the sense of what I'm feeling. Because probably similar to you, I don't do well when I'm not clear.

[00:54:18] Luke: Yeah.

[00:54:18] Darin: I'm wildly uncomfortable.

[00:54:22] Luke: Yeah. It's the spidey sense of refining that intuition and learning how to listen to it. And in terms of having a podcast, I look at it as doing the listeners a disservice by having a conversation with someone who might be beautiful, and brilliant, and just an incredible soul doing great things on the earth, but if I'm not, personally, feeling that passion about having a conversation with them, I'm going to be going through the motions, and it's not really going to have the energy and the oomph of talking to someone like you.

[00:55:04] I have some history with you. I love the work that you do. We have a great rapport. We got good chemistry. Even if you were just in Austin, I'd be like, come hang out. We'd probably have the same exact conversation without the mics on. And I'd be really excited to learn from you and be inspired by you. You can't manufacture that. It's like you go on a date and you're not into the person. It's nothing wrong with them. It's not a fit. You're not excited about it.

[00:55:27] Darin: I'd love to go on a date with you.

[00:55:29] Luke: Yeah. We could arrange that. I have to talk to Alyson. I don't know. She's pretty traditional. I have to warn you.

[00:55:35] Darin: So am I.

[00:55:37] Luke: So yeah, there's something to be said for creative ventures. You know Rick Rubin, I'm sure, in Malibu.

[00:55:47] Darin: Of course.

[00:55:47] Luke: So we did a podcast recently about his book, The Creative Act, which is just such a beautiful book, and it reminded me that everything is art, and that none of it's original. It's just a matter of--

[00:56:00] Darin: That is the way of saying that.

[00:56:02] Luke: Yeah. And it's just a matter of learning how to tune your antenna and really pick up that reception and start to honor and listen to when something good comes through. And in this case, it might be picking a podcast guest. And for someone, it might be like a guitar solo or whatever. It's not us that's doing it. It's just us that's getting better at the reception part of it, and just having the integrity within ourselves to stick with that knowing that I'm either excited about this or not.

[00:56:34] And if I'm not excited about it, I'm not doing it. Whatever it is. Sorry, I'm going to get back to letting you talk as the guest, but I get excited about this particular topic. It also keeps life so much more interesting, not only for you as the person who is tuned in to the art of life, but also anyone around you is going to catch the fire of that enthusiasm and that passion, right?

[00:56:59] Darin: And it's so attractive that way.

[00:57:01] Luke: Totally.

[00:57:01] Darin: It's invitational.

[00:57:04] Luke: 100%. Yeah. So thank you for your acknowledgement of that and reminding me that that's something we can each honor within ourselves, because we're all curating our life. That's what the show started. The Life Stylist. Building a life, taking all these composite, a meditation here, a breath work here, a plant medicine here, for those that need it.

[00:57:28] Using the ozone laundry thing instead of using soap ever. There's just so many little things. It's like you build this lifestyle and everyone is curating their life in their own unique way. And that's how you do it. That's how you curate is you get a feeling in your heart that's like, this is a yes. Boom. I'm going to follow that. And when it's a no, follow that, despite what other people might think about it. Because everyone wants your yeses to be their yeses when they want something from you.

[00:57:56] Darin: That's so true.

[00:57:58] Luke: Yeah. And I hit up people to be on their podcasts all the time, and they either don't email back, or they say, no, we're not interested. I just get a little butt hurt for a second and remember it's not personal. They're following their own giudance like, Luke's cool, but I'm not feeling it.

[00:58:15] Darin: Right. For now. The infinite amount of stuff going on with you, going on with someone else for the infinite amount of things in that particular time that someone asked that person about you, it's impossible to understand and unpack all of that stuff, right?

[00:58:38] Luke: Yeah, very true.

[00:58:39] Darin: It's impossible. But then a week could go by and a shift of something could happen, and then all of a sudden, a podcast you had said, and then someone pushes that going, oh, he talked about that. And I just went through this. And then now he's the person that you want to talk to more than anyone else, and nothing happened except everything happened.

[00:59:02] Luke: Very true. That's a good reminder because yesterday I was sharing with Alyson that I have a very hard time asking for help. I'm just that guy. It's a big stretch, and I'm writing a book.

[00:59:13] Darin: Oh.

[00:59:14] Luke: And so I'm in the process of talking to some agents and things like that. And a friend of mine a couple of years ago who had written a very successful book, at that time, offered to help me. It was like, oh, dude, I'll introduce you to my agent, and this publisher and yada yada. Just let me know when you're ready because these are big time people and you don't want to go off halfcock.

[00:59:31] So I took three years and finally back on track with it, sent him an email responding to that one from three, four maybe years ago. I was like, hey, here's my proposal. I'm here at the thing. If you can help, that'd be great. Didn't answer, so I thought it's been a while since we emailed. So I texted him, hey, I just sent an important email to your old email. Hasn't texted me back. It's been a week. Now, I don't take things like that personally, but you can't help the mind to wonder like, well, what's wrong with me? And Alyson, I mentioned to her, and she said just what you said.

[01:00:06] She's like, dude, they're probably traveling, their family, someone might be sick. They could be in jail. You literally have no idea. This person, likely not, but just saying you literally have no idea other than the, you said, monkey mind creating all of these stories in a narrative around why they're rejecting you or why this thing that you really want isn't coming to fruition and isn't in flow. And it's like you said, man, everything has to coalesce in the universe for a thing to actually manifest.

[01:00:37] Darin: And then that other trip is the more you can understand and thwart the mind giving its attention to all of the radical scenarios we're talking about, the less your potential to actually help create that for your seat tomorrow, to create more chaos, to support the chaos that you're giving and feeding in that moment because that's also the control of the mind going, okay, you can witness it, but then there's the, I'm seeing it and giving attention to it, and so now it's ampling up, and then I've decided on the story. I've decided that there is something wrong with me. And now it's triggered all of my wounds. And now I'm just this hurt little four-year-old again. And then again--

[01:01:35] Luke: Didn't get picked for the team on the playground again.

[01:01:38] Darin: There it is-- an opportunity for healing.

[01:01:42] Luke: That's so true.

[01:01:43] Darin: Or you support your story, and you don't heal it, and you just create it again.

[01:01:46] Luke: Yeah. Speaking of healing, since I've known you, you've always seemed like an emotionally healthy, really grounded guy. Just the way that you speak is being the witness of your thoughts. And you seem to have a contemplative, meditative life view, worldview. You mentioned your dad sadly died of alcoholism. Did you go through shit as a kid that inspired you to get into things like yoga and meditation or whatever you've done to figure out how to master the monkey mind and be emotionally regulated?

[01:02:31] Darin: Of course. Yeah. I don't even know where to begin. Drug-free, I had a spontaneous recapitulation of my birth that I lucidly saw. So this was when I was studying psychology. We're doing this regression stuff. Again, everyone, it was drug-free, and you just have to suspend like, okay, one month, we were doing it from seven.

[01:03:04] Your current age to 10 years, what was the first thing that came up? Let's go heal that. Let's go back. Let's explore that. And it got to this regression where it was zero, in the womb. And you can't possibly follow that consciously, so this is the exercise. You have a counselor, and I was in the patient seat, and we had a third party witness.

[01:03:35] That was our trio of learning techniques and stuff to help people process stuff. So I'm in the center of that, and the counselor started taking me through this regression. I closed my eyes, and she kind of said, okay, so where are you? All of a sudden I'm in the womb. I'm there. I'm feeling it. And all of a sudden, she goes, what's going on? I'm like, it's stressful.

[01:04:03] And now more and more information keeps coming, and then all of a sudden-- I'm not going to go through the whole story. So I was born premature, two months. I had a 50-50 chance of surviving. Shit was intense. While I came out, the counselor saw the emotion in me. My eyes were still closed, and she goes, what's going on? What do you want? And in that question, I had a flood of emotion coming from the base of my spine, like a river of hot fluid that I couldn't make up. It literally unleashed itself up my spine and in this room of counselors, again, drug-free, I exploded in snot and crying.

[01:04:55] Luke: Wow.

[01:04:55] Darin: Because what I answered, I said, I want my mom. And what I didn't get was my mom because they thought I was going to die. So they poked me, they prodded me, they tested me, and they put me in an incubator.

[01:05:10] Luke: Dude, you're tripping me out right now because I had the same shit.

[01:05:15] Darin: What?

[01:05:16] Luke: Yes.

[01:05:17] Darin: Really?

[01:05:18] Luke: Yes. It's in my book. It's what I'm writing about right now, is the awareness of being unborn and being born and the trauma of being put in an incubator and separated from my mom and not breastfed, the whole thing. It's literally the way my book starts. Yeah, it's crazy. And my realization of that was almost drug-free.

[01:05:48] First time, years ago-- I'm 22 years sober-- I go to Costa Rica to an ayahuasca retreat because I was called. You know what I'm saying? Just as it goes. I'm like, I'm supposed to do this. I'm stuck in my life and in my recovery. There is shit I cannot heal, and I've tried everything. So I go there. First two nights, long story, beautiful experiences, super deep, very powerful medicine, life-changing, the whole thing.

[01:06:14] Third night, this was supposed to be the most powerful, this Yahé from Colombia. Different shaman each night. They bring in their medicine from different countries and cultures, etc. I'm like, here we go. Tonight I'm going to blast off. Long story short, drink the medicine, just lay there writhing, sweating, nauseous, with explosive diarrhea for six hours, and no psychoactive effect whatsoever. Totally stone cold sober. Everyone around me is like, I see the entities. Doing the thing, doing the ayahuasca thing.

[01:06:46] I'm laying there just going-- it's funny because it's so fresh because I just wrote this story in my book, and I'm laying there talking to myself. I said, Luke, you fucked up. This is not for you. You're not like these people. You are supposed to be sober. I went into this whole shame spiral. This is God punishing you because you're not supposed to be playing in these realms. You're never doing this again, ever, ever, ever.

[01:07:07] Eventually, I'd doze off for a little bit and had what would be akin to just like a mild daydream, kind of, but it's in the middle of the night. Half asleep, half awake, super sick. Have a vision of this whole hospital scene, similar to what you just described. I was like, oh, that was weird. So the next day, text my mom. I'm like, Hey, I'm drinking ayahuasca in the jungle. I just had a dream about my birth. Does this sound like anything would happen? She said, that is exactly what happened the day you were born, the whole story, which is a longer story.

[01:07:40] But it was the missing link to my entire life because of that abandonment wound. Unconscious, but still, could never get close to people, always felt like I'm in a bubble, like an incubator. Just can't really connect, can't be vulnerable, couldn't never dream of having a healthy, romantic relationship, no way could I ever allow someone get close to me.

[01:08:05] Darin: And let me guess. You didn't bring in the idea of having a kid either.

[01:08:11] Luke: No way. That was my worst fear. Up until I met Alyson, there's no way I would have ever considered. My number two fear would have been having a kid because I'm afraid of what happens to them in the hospital and all the things that happen to me. So it's crazy. It's just wild that you said that.

[01:08:34] And I didn't mean to steal your thunder there. I'm just like, what the hell? Literally, dude, parallel path. And also, the greatest gift because I chose those circumstances, and I came in, picked the perfect family lineage, the perfect ancestors, the perfect parents, the perfect dysfunction, the perfect addictions, and alcoholism, and trauma to motivate me to become a ride or die drug addict and have to find God or not live.

[01:09:05] Darin: Totally.

[01:09:05] Luke: It's all perfect now, but man, what a huge missing link, what a gift to be able to, especially not have to go sit through a really challenging night of ayahuasca to find out.

[01:09:16] Darin: Yeah. 27- year-old, did ayahuasca. So I did the ayahuasca 20-- how many years ago? Yeah. 20 some odd years ago at this point. But I guess to answer your question, I was always feeling a little strange, I said, having these awakenings in college.

[01:09:41] So this alcoholic father, I woke up not feeling good from a night before drinking, and I was like, I want to work out. I feel like shit. I'm going to throw up. What am I doing? And it was this awareness that came from somewhere, going, what are you getting from the alcohol? I'm like, okay, I get to be with my friends. I get to let go.

[01:10:09] And then this literal common sense, little angel, comes into my head, going, just be that and eliminate the fucking poison. And that turns out a hell of a gift coming from an alcoholic family. My dad's dad, my dad, his brother's. I was primed to be an addict, and I quit alcohol in college.

[01:10:40] Luke: Wow.

[01:10:41] Darin: And started waking up at 4:00 in the morning, realizing that this space in the morning is nectar of the gods.

[01:10:51] It is.

[01:10:51] Oh, my God. And then with that, I could integrate-- so here we're going back to A and B again. I'm not drinking. I'm teaching myself to be extroverted when I choose to be, have fun without the crutch of abuse. So I get to integrate that choice, which is infinitely powerful. So I've eliminated poison, and I've increased the ability to receive and to be something that I was unwilling to be, and also, release this lineage of a possibility that easily could have destroyed my life and clearly, destroyed my dad's life.

[01:11:36] So those little awarenesses. And then at 27, I had a breakup with a girl and just crushed me from a, you directly lied to me, and it was as if someone, the quintessential humanity, was lying to me because I couldn't believe someone could look you in the eye and lie to me. And so that crushed me. I was crying for months. It wasn't necessarily that girl, but it opened me up to this spiritual consciousness and started my metaphysical journey.

[01:12:08] And then this guy comes up to me. This is in Boulder, Colorado, in what? '97? '98? There's a thing called ayahuasca. And keep in mind, at that point, I was just drinking alcohol. I'd never smoked marijuana. I had never done another drug. And I knew this naive kid, barely off of the boat from Minnesota-- not that we have a boat.

[01:12:38] Luke: The tractor from Minnesota.

[01:12:40] Darin: The tractor from Minnesota, the bean fields, I knew I was going to do this ayahuasca, so I did. And the compound, the molecule, she sent me down an incredible path and also said, you never have to use me again because I'm always right here-- a shift of awareness.

[01:13:04] That opens up a whole other story that I had some horrible experiences not listening to that, which I don't need to get into, but my path and then many great medicine men along the way, many incredible humbletches and ceremonies and sages and saints from India to mountaintops to shamans and the Amazon to incredible people to all, of course, coming down to the ability to continue to listen, which I do every day and I still wake up at 4:00 in the morning and I do my practices without fail, that nourishing of self and the listening is superfood I could possibly give myself.

[01:13:56] Luke: It's working, it's working. You got the sparkle in your eye, dude, the 4:00 AM sparkle. That's inspiring. There's, there's been a few stints, very few, where I'm like, I'm going to get up at 4:00 and do my sadhana and have my whole thing. And there really is something special at that time in the morning.

[01:14:13] And it's just different. It's different. You could wake up at 6:00 or 7:00 and meditate. It's nice. You get up at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning and do some spiritual practices. You don't need plant medicine. You will trip if you do the right stuff.

[01:14:27] Darin: You add a little breath, and you're there.

[01:14:31] Luke: Yeah. That's a good reminder. Next time I have random insomnia because sometimes I'll wake up just at 3:00 or 4:00, and I'm like, oh man, I can't go back to sleep. And then I'll just listen to podcasts and just waste my time when I could-- hey, listening to podcasts is not a waste of time guys, but you know what I'm saying? I'll just entertain myself, or just numb, or bore myself back to sleep. But it'd be a good idea to get up and do some practices.

[01:14:55] All right. Thank you for sharing that part. Man, time is really flying on me here. Because you cover so many of these specific topics, I want to go through some of them. And of course, people can buy your book if they want the deep dive in the alternative solution.

[01:15:12] But there's things I hear you talk about that I'm like, oh, duh, I already knew that. But there's quite a few things that I don't. So I'm imagining many people listening to this might be unaware of a lot of the thing. So I just want to go rapid fire through some of the offenses in the environment and you can give us a little bit of information because you did so much research behind each of them.

So you talked about deodorant, and cosmetics, and dental floss. In that category, and I hear a lot of conflicting ideas, on this one, I'm not personally afraid of the sun. I look pretty good for 52. I'm out in the sun all the time. I just don't get sunburned. I put on clothes or a hat, and it's called shade,

[01:15:36] All right. Thank you for sharing that part. Man, time is really flying on me here. Because you cover so many of these specific topics, I want to go through some of them, and of course, people can buy your book if they want the deep dive in the alternative solution, but there's things I hear you talk about that I'm like, oh, duh, I already knew that. But there's quite a few things that I don't.

[01:16:00] So I'm imagining many people listening to this might be unaware of a lot of the thing, so I just want to go rapid fire through some of the offenses in the environment, and you can give us a little bit of information because you did so much research behind each of them. So you talked about deodorant, and cosmetics, and dental floss. In that category, and I hear a lot of conflicting ideas on this one as sunscreen. I'm not personally afraid of the sun. I look pretty good for 52. I'm out in the sun all the time. I just don't get sunburned. I put on clothes or a hat, and it's called shade.

[01:16:38] Darin: It's called common sense.

[01:16:39] Luke: Yeah. But what's your take on sunscreen? What have you found out about that?

[01:16:43] Darin: Well, I agree. Don't be afraid of the sun, and don't put your put sunscreen on until you have some healthy dose of Sun, and never burn. So that's common sense. If you're going to be outside, cover up, and everything else. Most of the sunscreens have some oxybenzene and other carcinogens.

[01:17:06] The irony here is that the very fear that a lot of people have of the sun is rooted in, I'm going to get cancer. And some of these benzenes and oxybenzenes and everything are actually been shown to cause cancer. Why are they in the sunscreens that are supposedly going to help us from the UVA, and UVB, and all of these things?

[01:17:30] So that's insane, and also it thwarts and disrupts your natural immune defense system, which is your melanin, which is your vitamin D which is absolutely important. And if you're also going in the sun and throwing on sunglasses, there's a growing research to show that you're disrupting your melanin production, which is pushing you more towards carcinogenic activity because your eyes are the receiver of the light, and if it doesn't believe that there's light there and you have shades on, your skin is actually not going into the proper production of that.

[01:18:12] Luke: Right, right. Your eyes are like the gatekeeper of the early warning system to tell your skin and the melanin in skin.

[01:18:20] Darin: Hey, we're outside.

[01:18:20] Luke: Oh God, it's so frustrating to me the way everything's backwards. Another interesting thing about the sunscreen and the skin cancer scare is that I could be a little bit off on this, so I won't say the most prevalent cases of skin cancer are for shift workers that are working under blue light, but it's definitely very high amongst those people who are never out in the sun because they're sleeping all day because they work graveyard. Skin cancer is rampant in that population.

[01:18:51] Darin: And their vitamin D levels are super--

[01:18:54] Luke: Yeah. And they never go in the sun it's the freaking blue light, dude.

[01:18:58] Darin: Yeah, yeah. It's a frequency.

[01:19:00] Luke: It's crazy.

[01:19:01] Darin: Yeah. And there's certain common sense things like again, get your body exposed and even your children never burn, but then, coconut oil is fantastic. It's a natural SPF of between five and nine. And if you're going to be outside, just put on some clothing. And zinc oxide's great. You can use some blocking things that's not transdermally ending up disrupting your chemistry in your skin and getting in your bloodstream and causing downstream effect.

[01:19:34] Luke: Nice. What about laundry, detergent, and bleach?

[01:19:40] Darin: Yeah. Bleach can wipe out your microbiome of your skin. That is then also getting into your skin, so that is going to set you up potentially for more skin cancer, that kind of thing. Laundry detergents, the alarming nature of all of this is the loopholes of the fragrances, and hundreds-- first off, they don't have to disclose what the fragrances are made of because that's proprietary. So that's their loophole. And of those, when tested, about 85% of those are carcinogenic and/or endocrine-disrupting. Laundry detergent is easy to change. Cheapest is pour vinegar in there. You have an oxygenation, ozonation--

[01:20:48] Luke: Dude, this thing is incredible. It's called, oh Jesus, Oh my God, it's right there in the laundry room. I'll think of the name, but it's an ozone generator that hooks up to the water lines on your washing machine. You turn the washing machine on, and it just infuses your laundry with ozonated water, and you never use soap ever again your whole life.

[01:21:16] It's crazy. It's the best thing ever. It doesn't smell like ozone. Alyson was concerned. She doesn't like the smell of ozone. She's like, I don't want our clothes smell like ozone. I'm like, it won't. It'll be cool. O3 water works. That's what it's called. And they have this other little spray bottle that plugs in and charges.

[01:21:30] You put water in that and it makes ozonated water. All your cleaning products are gone. You have one bottle, and we have a couple of them around the house, and it's just like instant disinfectant, no chemicals. You could spray it in your mouth and drink the ozonated water if you wanted to. It's that harmless.

[01:21:47] Darin: Yeah, so you probably described this before, but the ability for an O3 molecule is it wants to attach itself aggressively. So it's got a high ORP value. It will go after bacteria and virus and dirt and grime. It will attach itself and help disassociate that. So it's an incredible, natural molecule to use. So I haven't even had heard of the ozonation.

[01:22:18] Luke: I'll send you a link.

[01:22:19] Darin: I can't wait to--

[01:22:19] Luke: You can find it at lukestorey.com

[01:22:21] Darin: Amazing. Fragrance-free. If everyone can just go out and do a fragrance-free or make your own bicarbonate a little castile soap essential oil Vinegar if you want to go after your whites, you can use hydrogen peroxide. Nice, clean, grade A hydrogen peroxide, dump that in, clean all your whites, it's fantastic. That's ozone again.

[01:22:52] Luke: Yeah. That brings me to chlorinated pools. And this is one that's really close to my heart because you can see we have a pool out there. For two years, I've been trying to eliminate the chlorine, so I got, a UV bulb thing, an ozone generator. I've thrown so many things at that freaking pool, and the pool guy still has to use a little bit of chlorine.

[01:23:18] It's super annoying. So then everyone said, you just do a saltwater pool. When the sun hits salt water, it makes chlorine. So you're still chlorine. And then some smarty pants were like, oh, just use hydrogen peroxide. So I was like, oh, that makes sense. You get the 35%. Dude, it's 800 for a drum of it, and it only lasts two months. Do you have solutions for hot tubs and pool?

[01:23:45] Darin: There is a way, and I can't describe it because I don't know enough, but I just had a friend of mine, my buddy Chris Patton, who's one of the brightest people on the planet that I'm working with and all the other alternative stuff. He has a way of creating, from your tap, on demand hydrogen peroxide. On demand. So let me talk to him and see how far along that is, because if you can create that I know the technology works. Is there a unit that can be used right now today? Or it might be a little bit down the road. Because that's what they're using as jet fuel, hydrogen peroxide. So imagine, making your own, and then--

[01:24:34] Luke: Amazing.

[01:24:35] Darin: You an energy source, and you have a disinfectant.

[01:24:38] Luke: Rad. I love it. All right, cool. We'll look forward to that. Another thing you've talked about is plastic cutting boards. I think when I saw it, I was like, do we have any of those? I don't think so, but I'm sure I've used them probably whole life. Not even thinking about it.

[01:24:56] Darin: Yeah. Plastic interacting with food. We know that a good friend of mine was at Yale and worked at Intel. He was testing circuit boards and saw the leaching of plastics at a minute level and then had this awareness that when his takeaway food came, he used his sophistication at his lab at Intel and started testing the food and saw all of the plasticizers, the phthalates, the petroleum, all of that stuff in the food. And so these are carcinogenic, these are endocrine-disrupting, these are problems. So any time. Food interacting with plastic, of course, harder plastics are better, but the cutting board, the reason I brought it up is because we're cutting on it, we're purposely cutting--

[01:25:50] Luke: Slicing little pieces of microplastics.

[01:25:54] Darin: Of course, I didn't even realize this much, on average, 200,000 grams of microplastic every year that we're ingesting. And with that, it's a chemical soup. It's not just plastic. It's everything that plastic was created to bet. It's the phthalates. God forbid. It's got PFAS, and BPAs, and BPHs, and all of these things. And then you're ingesting it as a foreign body into your body. So these are the things again. Use natural, hopefully, because a lot of wood is also formaldehyded and things like that. So try to get wood that is not preserved in that way. And then use your ozonation to clean it, or vinegar or things like that on a consistent basis and just get rid of the plastic interacting with your food.

[01:26:51] Luke: I like it. I think that one is one of the tougher ones because even a lot of great organic, any prepared food, we get these frozen meals and they're in a plastic tray and it's all farm to table and beautiful but the food is pre-cooked so it was probably hot when they pour it in there.

[01:27:08] Darin: Hopefully not, but probably.

[01:27:10] Luke: And then it's frozen and then you take it out of the plastic and heat it up, but it was sitting in the plastic for quite a while. I'm just thinking of even some of the really healthy raw milk and things from the farmer's market are great, but ultimately, so much of it is still in plastic.

[01:27:25] Darin: You can't get away from it. I too. I've looked at a lot of these-- they're convenient, man, and you find a company that's doing great food, and you're doing that. My thing is some of them, when they can, they're using glass, or they're using harder plastics. It's the cheaper plastic and the more malleable that's an indicator of plasticizers.

[01:27:55] It's more and more chemicals to make that squishy. So that has a higher propensity to leach in the food. So when I look at these things, minimize that takeaway option, and I've talked to a few of these companies trying to push them in a better direction. And I'm connected to some of these companies using plant-based fibers and the alternators, the PFOS, and so I'm watching both sides.

[01:28:25] So when these guys finish the blending and the possibility of other packaging, then I start linking these people up, and they start knowing each other. So that's where-- some of these things you can't get away from-- the oxygen barrier on supplements and food. There is just nothing better yet that protects the food and the supplement. So I buy supplements, I buy stuff, and it's in plastic. It's like, okay, you do your best.

[01:28:59] Luke: I'm thinking about my supplement cabinet down there, it's probably 99.999% plastic. I don't know how much that's leaching into a cellulose capsule, but yeah, it's also a lot of waste. I have a friend named Matt Blackburn, has a great company called MitoLife, and he's in the process of this very expensive venture, which is moving his supplement capsules and stuff out of plastic containers and finding an alternative that's biodegradable.

[01:29:24] So it just takes a few people to take the hit because it's going to be exponentially more expensive and probably affect one's margins, but then it starts to become industry standard. And then, like you said, in a few years, we'll look back on the time when everything was in plastic and go, oh my God, what a joke. There was such a better way.

[01:29:44] Just needed some mavericks like you to make those connections. All right, here's another one I've been hearing a lot about lately. And I see this stuff on TikTok and Telegram, whatever, and it's too depressing, so I don't even look. It's this appeal.

[01:29:59] Darin: Oh, yeah.

[01:30:00] Luke: Appeal, coding on fruits. The first things I saw were like, oh, they're starting to put it. I was like, okay, just avoid that, Luke. And then I saw some other posts that were like, oh, they've been doing that for six years or something. Just didn't tell you. What do you know about this appeal stuff?

[01:30:14] Darin: That was interesting, because I had myself and my researchers start looking into that, and of course, you can't find all of the information. So it's these mono and diglycerides, which are the primary coating, and they inherently have trans fats in them.

[01:30:37] Luke: Wow.

[01:30:41] Darin: And so why that's a big deal is because you're coating fruits, and veg and avocado with that. You can't wipe it off. It's now embedded into it. So now you're exposing yourself to potential trans fats, and there's very little safety data. There's a few other benign chemicals that they're showing, but interestingly enough, we really looked into this.

[01:31:17] We tried to look under the hood. They don't reveal everything. I go back, going, okay, I'm coming off of Fatal Convenience books, this book. PFAS is not on the back of any label. Zero. BPA and BPH, it's not on the back of any label. The fragrances are not on the back of any label. They're not revealing all of it. This is the same thing. We only are dealing with, okay, these mono glycerides, they're trans fats. That's not great.

[01:32:00] We can't find out enough of all the other binding interactions these are having, like, what is it making itself bind and unwashable? You can't wash this off. Is there data to support the shelf life? Seems to be. It's improving shelf stability over time. What does that improve? They market it, more food for you.

[01:32:30] The truth is it's more profit for them because it's less waste and less waste is good. Sure. But there's a chemistry set that we're not clear about. It hasn't been revealed, and there hasn't been safety studies. So I look back at all of the research I did in Fatal Conveniences. Why does fatal convenience book exist? Because they haven't been telling us all the information, and we discover it later. So as soon as I saw that pop up, let's start doing the research now.

[01:33:07] The next phase, I would love to go test it, but here's the thing with testing. What are you going to tell them to test? I've tested hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of supplements, and compounds, and foods, and everything else, and here's where you go-- let's say a gold standard, one of them is Covance, Mickelson Labs, all this stuff.

[01:33:29] So you go to Covance, and you go, okay, I got my baruka nuts here. I want to test for omega-3s, omega-6s, omega-9s. I want to test for the vitamin mineral profile. I want to test for the active vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K. You tell them what you want to test for. But if you don't know what to test for, you don't know what you're trying to test for, so that's why you want to get data.

[01:33:59] Again, I go back to the book. Plausible deniability. If I'm finding all of these products that haven't been tested for safety and they're selling them to us, I want you to prove your appeal is safe before you're putting it on innocent fruits and veg. So again, I don't trust the system because they have proven to not tell the truth.

[01:34:29] Luke: And the burden of proof in any argument is really on the person making the claim. So if the makers of appeal are bringing it to market and their claim is that it's safe, the burden of proof to prove that that is in fact the case is on them, not on a guy like you or me going, this seems questionable. So now it's on me to go prove that it's unsafe. I'm not the one that's selling it.

[01:34:52] Darin: Totally. That's why organizations like EWG, Environmental Working Group, why do they exist? Same reason why my book exists. Because people aren't doing their job. FDA is not doing the job. EPA is not doing the job, FCC, all these people. So it's again--

[01:35:09] Luke: Well, they're doing their job, but they're not doing it for the population. They're doing it for the people and the corporations that line their pockets.

[01:35:16] Darin: It's a poser.

[01:35:17] Luke: They're doing a job, but not their real job.

[01:35:21] Darin: Exactly. So from my point of view on the stuff, it doesn't have enough data to support. I understand the great green washing marketing of it, that you're preserving food and all of that stuff that. By the way, the EU and UK banned it. Inorganic certification, from their perspective, they looked at it. Makes sense. Going, that's no longer organic. You've put something on the organic fruit and veg that is no longer a part of nature, so we're banning it now.

[01:35:56] Luke: Wow. Good for them.

[01:35:56] Darin: Yeah. And they may let it be unconventional. I don't know. I just read the article in the research that they banned it there. We don't lead that. We are the worst offenders of proving or pushing back and safety. People think we're the best and all that stuff. We're the worst offenders. We're one of two countries that allow pharmaceutical ads to happen. Us, and weirdly enough, the Kiwis, New Zealanders, allow pharmaceutical ads. So we're not leading in these categories.

[01:36:30] Luke: Definitely not. We're leading in disease, though.

[01:36:33] Darin: If you wanted to hurt people, what we are doing is a great way to slowly do that.

[01:36:40] Luke: With the appeal, I was immediately out because I saw that Bill Gates name was associated with it.

[01:36:46] Darin: Totally.

[01:36:48] Luke: So it's an immediate no. That's all need to hear, is he has half a percent in their ventures I'm 100% out. Oh yeah, this is a good one.

[01:37:00] So the last time we spoke, you hadn't eaten meat in a long time, and were eating a plant-based diet. Is that still the case? I think I was telling Jared, I was like, I think Darin's the only person I know who's like a long-term plant-based that looks healthy. And no offense. I'm sure there are others out there that I don't know, but you've always been a big muscular guy.

[01:37:22] You don't look malnourished. Your teeth aren't falling out, which is what happened to me when I went plant-based. So that brings me to the question of fake meat. This has got to get under the skin of someone who's thriving as a plant-based person. And then all of these solutions are brought to market that, to me, look-- I never eat any of them, but I just look in the grocery store, and I'm like, oh, fake meat. I wonder what's in that. It's horrific.

[01:37:48] Darin: Yeah, it's ridiculous. It goes directly into the camp of ultra-processed food. I don't care that their marketing is plant-based or whatever it else. Oreos. It's all ultra-processed poisonous food. So I don't prescribed it. I don't eat it. I have tried it, and it's nothing that I would--

[01:38:14] Luke: Also, it's funny to me, with all the fake meats, it's like if you're craving that flavor enough to eat something that is knowingly toxic, it's probably your body telling you you need a hamburger.

[01:38:28] Darin: Right, yeah. It's just nutrients.

[01:38:34] Luke: Yeah.

[01:38:34] Darin: From that perspective, I'm not on board.

[01:38:38] Luke: Sometimes I'll see, like at Khalil's Place, they have this, like, mushroom jerky, which I don't like the taste of mushrooms, so I've never bought it. Is there anything that gives you the salty, chewy satisfaction if one doesn't want to eat meat? Is there any fake meat that's viable, or is it just not even a category you're interested?

[01:38:56] Darin: I'm not too interested in. At one of the stands here in Austin, I had a jackfruit. When you harvest a green jackfruit and peel the jackfruit open, it's fleshy, and it's harder. A ripe jackfruit is one of my favorite fruits in the world.

[01:39:16] Luke: Oh, the best. Oh my god. Smells like feet. Tastes like heaven.

[01:39:21] Darin: Are you a durian fan as well?

[01:39:23] Luke: Oh, no, that's what I was thinking. Durian like feet. Not jackfruit. Sorry, I had the wrong fruit.

[01:39:27] Darin: But jackfruit can have a little bit off.

[01:39:34] Luke: It has a slight umami note to it.

[01:39:37] Darin: Yeah. But durian's a whole, oof. My favorite. But green jackfruit has a fleshy-- so it's not that I look for that. I like jackfruit. And I like it when they put barbecue sauce on it and whatever else, but I don't crave that. I don't need that. I don't have a lack around it, so my microbes and my constitution is completely-- I don't suffer from missing any of that stuff.

[01:40:11] Keep in mind, and I've said this a couple of times, the context of me plant-based, it's from 20 years of finding the most nutrient-dense food in the world. So I have convinced myself that I can find the greatest foods ever with the highest nutrient value. Think the mindset when I said, if I stopped alcohol and eliminated the middleman and just had the inhibitions and the fun, I also did that for meat.

[01:40:46] Killing and eating flesh or the menstruation of another being like an egg, I just go, okay, so where are they getting the omegas? Okay, phytoplankton, raw spirulina. Raw spirulina has B12. I've had so much exposure to whole food and plants that I just go there. And so I've been living that way for as long as you've known me.

[01:41:18] Luke: That's a good point. And I always just make fun of myself for when I went vegetarian with the best of intentions for health and just nonviolence, etc. But when I was a vegetarian, I was living off gluten and rice, and I was eating super shitty vegetarian food, so I was totally inflamed, malnourished, my teeth fell out.

[01:41:39] So I rag on that period in my life, but to be fair, I wasn't eating the most nutrient-dense superfoods on the planet. So it wasn't like a true case scenario test that was fair because I was just eating super swag food. And then the minute I started eating meat again, I felt much, much better. I never turned back.

[01:42:00] Darin: Yeah, you can make your broccoli sprouts in seven days for 25 cents, and there's some of the most nutrient-dense, antioxidant, sulforaphane, anti-cancer foods in the world.

[01:42:12] Luke: Yeah.

[01:42:13] Darin: And complete proteins, more nutrients than a full head of broccoli. It's those little things. And then fortify my life with that eating and close-- I have food growing on my property. I go out and I pick it. I saute the char that I just got. I get the thing, and I get the fresh food. Watermelon's about to burst. That's it. And then fortifying adaptogens and all these other plants that I've been exposed to. There's just no need that I have had to-- and I get nutritional panel tested, and I'm not stupid.

[01:42:55] Luke: Yeah. I just don't understand how one could live without butter. I mean, steaks, fish here, and there is nice-- but I'm like, man, I eat butter like it's going out of style and ghee. And I remember years ago, I interviewed David Wolfe. He's a big first raw food and then vegan. And I was like, man, on the down low, I'm like, bro, you don't even eat ghee. He's like, I eat a little ghee. Not totally vegan.

[01:43:22] Darin: I think he gives himself a little latitude.

[01:43:24] Luke: Yeah, yeah. But that was the one thing I was like, man. I couldn't do it. Oh man, there's so many things here. And I'll try to speed through these in the interest of time, because I know we got another recording, but there were just some cool things on this list that I just figured were bad but had never really heard of.

[01:43:43] What about AstroTurf? A lot of people in Texas, because there's droughts all the time, have these plastic lawns. It seems like a bad idea to me. It's plastic.

[01:43:52] Darin: Yeah. Especially with the turf. And I just wanted to raise that because the turf, in theory, it's a great idea. Some of it's recycled. Some of it's virgin. But then if you watch an NFL game or a soccer, you'll see this black stuff come up almost like it's dirt. That's chewed up tire. Some of the most toxic shit on the planet.

[01:44:19] So you have children. You have young healthy adults playing on this stuff off-gassing all day in a hot day. It's a bad idea. I was an athlete. I played on Minneapolis's old Metrodome Artificial grass, and I wish I had a choice to do it. It's incredibly efficient, but your tour days, your hours, your years of your life, some of these kids are playing on this, and it just was an alarm bell for me having been an ex-athlete on this stuff and then seeing young children growing up with artificial grass. It's plastics. It's petroleum. It's old tires, and it's off-gassing, and it's carcinogenic.

[01:45:15] Luke: Speaking of off gassing, there are many reasons why I never see the inside of a gym, but one of the main reasons is because I've been chemical-free in my house for so long, dude, if I walk in a gym, the off-gassing of all the rubber.

[01:45:32] Darin: Totally.

[01:45:33] Luke: Five minutes in there, I have a headache. And then people are in there breathing hard on the treadmill, and lifting weights, and I was going, how do you guys even sit in here, let alone exercise? I couldn't even take a nap in here. It's just so gnarly.

[01:45:47] Darin: Yeah, it's intense. Sure.

[01:45:49] Luke: Yeah, it's crazy. Especially with gyms, it always gets me because I'm like, wait, these are the people that are going the extra mile to be healthy. And then you go in there and have the gas chamber steam room with gaseous fluoride and chlorine, and then you walk out on the floor under the blue light, and they got 50 Wi-Fi routers, and it's just like the least healthy place you could ever go besides maybe an airport.

[01:46:14] What about flea and tick collars? I was so grateful to hear that you still have your beautiful dog, Chaga, that I met when we recorded at your place in Malibu. I'm always trying to find natural alternatives for our pets, and it's been a little challenging to be honest, especially when the fleas hit here in Texas. We've had to just get her the shot and it kills me, but it'll infect the whole house, and the cat gets it. It's a shitshow.

[01:46:37] Darin: Fleas are tough.

[01:46:39] Luke: Brutal.

[01:46:41] Darin: Yeah. When I got Ella, the black German shepherd, she brought them in. Oh my God. It is really challenging to deal with that. And it's hard. And again, knowledge is power. When I looked at some of the edibles, the neurological damage that that can cause all for the inconvenience-- it's massively inconvenient for that time, but the broad spectrum of that time, we can get rid of the fleas.

[01:47:07] Ticks are less. I definitely pull ticks off my dogs. I am choosing not to use any medications. I use essential oils. Peppermint is great. Tea tree is fantastic for healing and extraction. Very easy to just take a little cloth, and find the tick, and douse him and then he'll just go, holy shit, and he'll let go.

[01:47:33] Luke: Really?

[01:47:33] Darin: Easy, easy, easy.

[01:47:35] Luke: Because I'm always afraid to pull and leave head embedded, whether in me or like--

[01:47:39] Darin: And happens all time.

[01:47:41] Luke: A couple of years ago, our dog had a bunch of them in Eusamity, and I was like, God, please me use these tweezers.

[01:47:45] Darin: Totally. And if you do have just tweezers and you don't have the essential oil, you have to get very close. And then ideally get as much close and slowly pull and twist. But easy, easy is tea tree. Just wet it around that, and then just hold on to him, and then eventually, he'll get the whiff and the toxic exposure to him, and he'll let go. And then the second phase of that the tea tree will help heal the wound.

[01:48:14] Luke: Right, right. Yeah. So I'm imagining these flea collars that people put on their cats and dogs. That's got to--

[01:48:22] Darin: Neurologically toxic.

[01:48:23] Luke: Get in their skin.

[01:48:24] Darin: And you.

[01:48:25] Luke: And when you touch them or they're on your bed or your sofa--

[01:48:28] Darin: And your children.

[01:48:31] Luke: Yeah. Okay. I feel so bad. Anytime we have to do anything medical with the vet, with our pets, it just bums me out. But sometimes I just get to--

[01:48:41] Darin: You got to weigh it out for yourself.

[01:48:42] Luke: You just get to a point where it's like, I've tried all the natural shit and nothing's working. I've just got to bite the bullet.

[01:48:48] Darin: Yeah.

[01:48:49] Luke: Yeah. What about mammograms?

[01:48:52] Darin: Yeah, mammograms are interesting, and it's quite volatile conversation too.

[01:48:57] Luke: Especially if you're a male trying to tell women what to do and not do.

[01:49:01] Darin: Yeah. And I'm not. All I'm doing is looking at the research. And so you're trying to be preventive and I understand that. And it seems as though the research is showing that there's a lot of false positives. And so if you look at the false positives, I think it's upward to over 50% false positives. So imagine you're a woman trying to prevent-- oh, sorry, we found a mark. And now there's fear. So we found a mark. You might be cancerous, blah, blah, blah, dah, dah, dah.

[01:49:41] So now you have weeks before you're testing. You have all of this stuff. Therein lies a challenge already, but also it's more non ionizing radiation. So now you're exposing the breast tissue directly to more radiation, which doesn't serve it well anyway to then get what? There's very little preventative-- yes, there's times where women see something and they prevent further breast cancer. I'm not saying that you got to choose for yourself, but there's other alternatives. There's UV, alternative ultraviolet. There's a bunch of good procedures that are also preventative that are not exposing you to dangerous radiations.

[01:50:30] Luke: Yeah, I get concerned when I hear women like, oh, I'm off for my annual-- I'm like, oh, there's got to be something better out there by now. I've heard some of its doulas or people in my sphere have been like, oh, you can just manually inspect the breast if you know what to look for. You don't need any machine. You just need a human that has good hands.

[01:50:52] Darin: Exactly.

[01:50:54] Luke: Oh, something that you've ragged on a little bit is sparkling water.

[01:51:00] Darin: Yeah.

[01:51:00] Luke: I didn't go into but I saw it on your list of potential bummers. What's up with sparkling water?

[01:51:06] Darin: Yeah, it's the carbonization that can potentially--

[01:51:09] Luke: Really?

[01:51:10] Darin: Yeah, that can potentially cause some dysbiosis of the gut. And again, this is a delicate-- people just get freaked out over this stuff. Some people take this on as their primary source of potential hydration, and that's not a good idea. So the acidic component can throw off the digestion. And so that amount of carbon always being used potentially can throw-- and once you throw off digestive, uh, not so much the bacteria, but the acids, then your downstream effect on digestion can be harmful. A lot of bloating can happen and people just seem to get used to it. I guess the takeaway is don't use that as your primary hydrative source. If you drink it every once in a while, enjoy it.

[01:52:10] Luke: It makes sense because in nature you do have a few springs around on the planet that are naturally carbonated. So as we've evolved, there would have been times for certain populations of people every once in a while that would have had carbonated water out of a spring, but they're not very prevalent, so it's not something that would have we subsisted on a regular basis. Yeah. That makes sense to me.

[01:52:35] What about fireworks? Like I said, some of these I never thought about, and then I've seen you talk about it, and I go, shit, that smoke has got to be toxic if you're out there on 4th of July with your family and everyone's breathing and all that. That's the thing that came to mind to me.

[01:52:49] Darin: Yeah, yeah.

[01:52:50] Luke: Also, environmentally horrible.

[01:52:52] Darin: That's the primary thing. And the amount of dogs that die and go missing, I forget the exact stat, is so alarming that we are putting pollution in the air. Raining back down on us, littering throughout, certainly in the United States, but you have Disneyland blowing this stuff up every freaking night. It's not to say don't celebrate being a great American, but can we not harm?

[01:53:34] Luke: Light a beeswax candle.

[01:53:37] Darin: Yeah, yeah.

[01:53:39] Luke: Gather around a campfire or something.

[01:53:41] Darin: Make some music, celebrate, sing.

[01:53:43] Luke: Right.

[01:53:44] Darin: Grab a guitar. Let's celebrate.

[01:53:45] Luke: Dude, if hit a snare drum hard enough, it'll sound like a firework.

[01:53:49] Darin: Exactly.

[01:53:50] Luke: And then what about botox?

[01:53:55] Darin: Oh, botulism in your face?

[01:53:56] Luke: Yeah.

[01:53:58] Darin: Yeah, clearly a lot of people do it. And if you're doing it, do it light. But the paralysis numbers are climbing because people are getting more so permanent paralysis. And if you have someone that doesn't do it right-- so just to be clear, it is botulism that they're putting in your face that kills the signaling and the muscle's ability to be used.

[01:54:35] So it is a neurotoxin. It is toxic, and some people say, okay, it's just a small amount. Yeah, potentially. No part of me can understand how putting botulism in your face over time is a good idea. Plus, once you go there. It's impossible to stop.

[01:54:58] Luke: I wonder what the implications are neurotransmitter-wise from having an expressionless face. Because so much of our mood and our emotions are processed through the micro expressions. That's one of the reasons I can't stand doing remote recordings of the podcast because it's like when you're sitting here, I know when to shut up sometimes. I know when to jump in.

[01:55:25] There's subtle cues of energy and mood, and so much of that has to do with the subconscious perception of someone's face. So if your face isn't moving at all, subjectively, as the one with the frozen face, it seems like that would be potentially limiting to your expression and your relationship with yourself and how you feel.

[01:55:45] Darin: Yeah. And I totally understand people in the public eye, and women have so much more intensity around this stuff, but limit yourself around it. And it goes back to, take care of yourself, do the basics as well. Sleep, hydrate your skin. High amount of vitamin C builds collagen. These kinds of things are the cornerstone.

[01:56:13] Luke: Red light therapy.

[01:56:14] Darin: Red light therapy.

[01:56:15] Luke: Great for your skin.

[01:56:15] Darin: Incredible.

[01:56:16] Luke: And I think as I age, it's obvious why I'm adopting this point of view, but age is beautiful.

[01:56:23] Darin: Yeah.

[01:56:23] Luke: So I remind myself. Sometimes I see a photo of myself, and I'm like, oh shit, you're an old guy now. Snuck up on me.

[01:56:30] Darin: I know.

[01:56:31] Luke: Man, along with that age comes life experience.

[01:56:33] Darin: Totally.

[01:56:34] Luke: Hopefully a little wisdom.

[01:56:35] Darin: But then watching the mind going to, am I old? Yeah, the body. I pulled my freaking calf this morning running around. But the irony is I was bouncing on the road, and I was remembering when I was like 20, and I was feeling that, and then all of a sudden, ding.

[01:56:52] Luke: Yeah. And your body's like, and we're not 20. Easy, Mr. Playful. All right. Last one. I could go on and on, but tampons. I'm trying to think of what's the most useful to people, and this shows probably half female listeners, if I could guess.

[01:57:08] Darin: Yeah, there's rayon in tampons, which is a chemically derived material for absorbency, which is scary. There's potential huge amounts of dioxins that come by way of creating some of these absorbencies. So these are things not found on the label. And all of the tampons are not natural. Again, it's this petroleum created thing, and literal seeing studies showing to endometriosis because you're putting something in the vaginal canal that is highly absorbent, transdermally so.

[01:57:53] So now your ability to receive more of the endocrine disruptors, more of the probable and likely carcinogens that these things are made from, now you're receiving that in the most delicate areas and the softest and thinnest skin potentially.

[01:58:14] Think about when people do enemas, because that's where you absorb medication, or suppositories, and things like that the mucus membrane or putting something sublingually, under your tongue.

[01:58:24] Exactly, exactly. So toxic shock is a thing, and women can die. And also, I didn't realize there's a huge amount of women that forget to take these out on a regular basis. And there's cups, diva cups, and other alternatives that you can use instead of putting toxic substances.

[01:58:48] Luke: Well said, sir. Tell me, what's the latest on the Baruca nuts? I was secretly hoping, when you guys walked in, that you'd have--

[01:58:57] Darin: Oh, my God.

[01:58:58] Luke: I ran out probably a year ago or something. I just forgot to reup.

[01:59:03] Darin: The thing is I had a bag for you.

[01:59:05] Luke: They're so good.

[01:59:06] Darin: Except I didn't realize that this one was running over, so we had to come directly here.

[01:59:11] Luke: Oh, and you didn't go back to your hotel. Tell us what are.

[01:59:13] Darin: I'm sending you, by the way, after this, the whole Baruka's team.

[01:59:17] Luke: Yes.

[01:59:18] Darin: The whole package.

[01:59:19] Luke: I love those freaking things. It was hard for me to eat them before because I had really bad teeth, but I got all new teeth, and now I can eat anything--

[01:59:29] Darin: Nice.

[01:59:30] Luke: with impunity. So I could crush those things. Because they used to get caught in my teeth because my teeth were all jagged and broken, and in a--

[01:59:37] Darin: Well, barukas live and well. It almost went away. I quit the business for two weeks because we had internal challenges and dysbiosis.

[01:59:50] Luke: Yeah.

[01:59:51] Darin: And I got a new partner who ended up buying the people out that wanted to leave, and it was a peaceful departure. And so amazing guy, Steve Favoshe created the first vegan bakery in California. He's 70 years old or so, and he's an amazing human. I've known him for a long time. So we are now getting geared up in a big way to have a relaunch party. So I'm happy that since 2015, I've been working at this. I've never made a dollar yet.

[02:00:28] Luke: Are you serious?

[02:00:28] Darin: Never. Not once.

[02:00:29] Luke: Dude, when I first got them from you, which I think was shortly after you had launched them, I remember thinking, this guy just struck gold. He is going to be loaded, because they are so they're so good and so healthy.

[02:00:43] Darin: Yeah.

[02:00:43] Luke: I'm not blowing smoke. It is the best tasting nut on the planet, hands down, to me.

[02:00:48] Darin: Thank you. And the nutrient-dense nut.

[02:00:50] Luke: Oh, really?

[02:00:51] Darin: Yeah. So we tested all that. The most fiber of any nut, the most micronutrients of any nut, complete amino acid profile, three times more antioxidants. And keep in mind, dude, it's a wild food.

[02:01:04] Luke: Right.

[02:01:05] Darin: So it's not cultivated, there's no chemicals. There's no artificial watering.

[02:01:10] Luke: It's not hybridized and devoid of nutrients like so much of our food is now.

[02:01:16] Darin: And it's supporting the biome, the Sahadu, the savanna of Brazil, and it's supporting those people. As you know, superfood hunting, I care a lot about the people and the land, and this is a direct contribution to them, and so we are proudly getting ready to blow it up, and--

[02:01:39] Luke: Rad.

[02:01:39] Darin: Chocolate covered now.

[02:01:41] Luke: Oh, nice.

[02:01:42] Darin: Really good cacao. We've got butter that'll change your life.

[02:01:48] Luke: I'm getting hungry now.

[02:01:49] Darin: The butter's going to change. You have to be ready. Are you ready for life?

[02:01:51] Luke: Oh, dude. I'm ready. I'm ready right now. All I had today was one of my Ketone IQ drinks. That was all I've eaten, which is fine. But then I start talking about food, and I get hungry. I'm going to highly encourage you guys, go check out these baruka nuts. You can find them at barukas.com/luke. B-A-R-U-K-A-S. barukas.com/luke. And we'll put all that in the show notes at lukestorey.com/darin. And in the notes, there'll probably be some discount code for you guys, too.

[02:02:22] Oh, I have one final question. Who have been three teachers or teachings that have influenced your life, your philosophy, the way you do your thing?

[02:02:31] Darin: Dad, for sure, he continues to teach. Wallace Black Elk was from the lineage of Black Elk Speaks. He's 80 years old. Taught wisdom in the fire ceremonies in Colorado, life-changing moments. And I have to say the mother of ayahuasca. I don't use her anymore.

[02:03:03] Luke: You finally listened?

[02:03:04] Darin: I haven't used her since 23 years ago.

[02:03:11] Luke: Did you go back after the medicine told you you're done?

[02:03:15] Darin: Yes.

[02:03:15] Luke: Okay.

[02:03:15] Darin: I did, and it was short lived, and hell to pay.

[02:03:19] Luke: Yeah. I've heard that.

[02:03:21] Darin: And I wouldn't recommend it.

[02:03:23] Luke: One of my greatest fears is to not be mindful venturing into medicines and psychedelics, man, because if it goes wrong--

[02:03:31] Darin: It's dangerous.

[02:03:31] Luke: It goes real wrong.

[02:03:32] Darin: It's dangerous, and it's real, so you've got to listen.

[02:03:34] Luke: Yeah, yeah.

[02:03:36] Darin: You can't listen from a-- it's a in-vogue thing to do. That's not the thing to--

[02:03:43] Luke: But that's interesting, that all those years ago, it still had that much of an impact on you.

[02:03:48] Darin: Yeah, because what she said rings true to this day. It's right here. So my practice is this first lesson that she gave me, is listen to myself, create that connection of the infinite and God with myself every day, and to the best of my ability, listen to that, follow that. And when I fail, get back up and go, oh, yeah, I didn't listen.

[02:04:17] Luke: You're still integrating that experience all these years later. That's the thing with those. Sometimes you're one and done. If you just listen, it does give you a lifetime of practice. So that's cool, man. I didn't know that about you. I think because when we met before, I hadn't Intentionally worked with any medicines. In my youth, I was an idiot, and did all kinds of dangerous, crazy things with psychedelics, but at that point like that world was totally off limits to me, so it's probably why it never came up.

[02:04:53] Darin: Right. And it's something I don't-- it was so long ago.

[02:04:55] Luke: Yeah.

[02:04:56] Darin: And because I see what's going on in the ayahuasca and the plant, I just don't resonate with how it's being used.

[02:05:05] Luke: Yeah, I get it. Burning Man just ended. God bless. I have so many friends that were there. It's never been my calling, but yeah, there were so many people ragging on that culture, and their use of medicines, and drugs, and stuff. It was funny. All right, dude, we did it. Thank you so much. We'll take a break, and we'll turn these mics around and record your podcast. Oh, and by the way, tell people real quick about your show and we'll put that in the show notes too.

[02:05:35] Darin: I can't really tell all the secrets of the new show or the new show.

[02:05:39] Luke: No, the podcast.

[02:05:39] Darin: Oh, yeah, the Darin show. Yeah, man, I get to explore new people and things, and I'm like taking some shifts right now to dig into solutions off of the things that I'm most excited about with energy tech, and food sovereignty, and healthy living, and healthy home, and all of that stuff, and just highlighting some of the great people in my life.

[02:06:05] Luke: Awesome.

[02:06:06] Darin: So continuing to dive in and explore.

[02:06:08] Luke: It's fun, huh?

[02:06:09] Darin: Yeah.

[02:06:09] Luke: It's a lot of work, but it's fun. It's rewarding.

[02:06:12] Darin: Yeah, yeah. For sure.

[02:06:12] Luke: Yeah. Cool man. We'll make sure to put that in the notes and send everyone over to listen to your podcast as well. And, it's been great chatting with you, man. Thank you.

[02:06:19] Darin: Thanks, my man.

[02:06:22] Luke: All right, cool.

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