The Truth About Protein Powder, Heavy Metals, and What’s REALLY In Your Supplements

Oliver, I'm so excited to have you on the show. For anybody listening to Biohack It and my community, I'm really, really careful when it comes to supplements because I think the market is so oversaturated and everyone's trying to sell you something. So when we recommend a brand, and when we bring a founder on our podcast, it's because we've vetted them, we really believe in their product, and Peore is one of those brands. So I was really excited to have you fly down and sit down with me in London and tell us a little bit more about how you got started. And thank you, I appreciate that. Like, that's what we need in this industry too. So we got started back in 2008, 2009, actually, when I think we were just really consumers, like looking for a solution for the, at the time, omega-3, omega-6 fatty acids imbalances. So we were looking into how can we actually supplement with omega-3 fatty acids when we get too little from our diet. So that was kind of step number one. We start researching the space, what's the best product out there? And we look into like, what are the actual key components of a good product? Oxidation levels, purity, and concentration. Those three are kind of the key bullets. And when we start researching, that's for us, that was all data points. But almost no brands were giving you that data point. So we felt like, how can there be an industry where everybody knows what is actually supposed to be the right way to a good quality product, but nobody will share the data point. So we felt like as young entrepreneurs at the time, like there must be a brand that will just never publish a product, like release a product for sale before they published like a lab report on it. And that was kind of what got us started and kind of not knowing what we were diving into for sure at the time, but really just like that passion for trying to do something. And how, what comes up in rancid fish oils versus non-rancid fish oils? Like when it comes to the data, what are the markers we're seeing? So you're looking at the oxidation scores obviously most often measured in something called TOTOX, which is a combination of two different measurements. And the TOTOX has like a, there's a few different standards out there. The standards that are like what's generally recommended as safe for human consumption, which I think is too high. It's probably under 30 or something like that, a higher standard. Then there's like the IFAS, which is I would say probably the best organization for these standards is the international fish oil standards. And they have like a maximum limit of oxidation in the fish oil at 19, meaning that the product has to be below 19 to be considered five stars for, you know, freshness in their end. And then you can go further down if you actually test every single batch, every single product of the product you do, you can probably get even closer to like a five, six, or seven and that's the measurement. But that's like if you're consuming fish, you would never be consuming a fish that would like super smelly, rancid, you know, because it's been lying around like on a sushi plate for maybe five days before consuming it. You would never do that. And I think with fish oils, most people tend to not see that, whether they're encapsulated or they're masked with different like flavor components to a liquid oil. So you can kind of hide that, but that's again, you can actually measure that in a lab. So this whole thing between marketing versus science, what do you think are some of the biggest mistakes people make when choosing their supplements? I think there's a lot of different things. I think a lot of people choose a lot of different supplements without maybe have fixed the foundation first. So if you go one step back before supplement is a supplement to the diet. So I think like fixing, you know, are you actually moving and working out? Do you get enough real nutrition from your food and are you getting enough sleep? I would stop there instead of just adding on layers and layers of supplements for a broken diet and a bad training program, right? Or a non-existing training program. So when you've covered that, I think there is a, there is the foundational products where we have so much data now pointing that the health outcome, for example, of having a low omega-3 index in your body looks like it's become even more severe or as severe as being a smoker. So just put that into perspective. So some of the data that are coming out right now in longevity shows that if your omega-3 index, which should be ideally, let's say around 8%, for most Americans it's below four, four or five. Why is that? Because you're not getting enough through the diet. So you're just simply not getting enough omega-3. And how do people test it? So they test that in red blood cells. You can do that in a lab. So that's a lab. So when they follow these and they look at it, what they saw was when a population went from 4% to 8%, it added around 5% in careers in life expectancy. And if you saw the graph next to smokers, you could actually see that a person that was smoking but had adequate levels of omega-3 fatty acid in their blood, you would see kind of the same life expectancy as a person that's not smoking. So I think we're not putting enough attention to these things when we know it's not half the population that's smoking, but it's more than half the population that's below that point. So think of an easier fix to actually get going to improve people's health and wellbeing. So I think when it comes to these key foundational supplements, there's some foundations. There's like the omega-3, the divitamin, the magnesium, creatinine is really sneaking in there as well, even more foundational than workout-wise, right? Just protein intake, there's a lot of different things, multi, it could be various things, but those are the foundations that I would dial in before I start with like maybe the neuroscience supplement or the longevity supplement or XYC. What are the supplements that you think everybody should be taking to also, like so you get the foundational health rate, which is asleep, taking protein, movement, all that stuff, hydration. Then from there, what do you recommend people start doing with like supplements that are essential to everybody? So omega-3 is obviously one. I think, again, based on macro data, though like in the perfect world, we would actually get individual block work data, right? Like we would get knowledge from the individual so that we can give like a specific recommendation. When that's not possible, and we just have, let's say, macro data right now, I would say like the divitamin, even if you're in a sunnier place, you know, I would still get divitamin, magnesium. We tend to see people having a really hard time getting enough and the crops and the food that we're consuming might actually have less than what they had 50 years ago. So it kind of is a minus-minus that doesn't equal plus. So I think from that, I would add magnesium. I think it's very interesting to start adding creatinine for more people for various reasons, also for health, brain health perspective and energy. I would also take a classic multivitamin if I didn't know the person, like high quality, types of vitamins that can be absorbed by the body, but I would add that and I would start there. I think the only thing I would add to that is in my, like kind of perspective would be zinc, because zinc is really important in high-dose vitamin C. High dose, yeah. Because of all the stuff that it does, but like I think that is the core foundational side. When you start with the minerals, you start with things that stabilize you, vitamin D is actually considered a hormone, it's not just a vitamin, it has so many different functions in your body. And I, for example, I'm dark-skinned, I live in Miami, and I was deficient in vitamin D, completely deficient in vitamin D. And I didn't know that until I did some blood work and I was like, wait, this does not make any sense. So, and I think when some of these baseline supplements are out of whack in your body, it can lead to so many different issues. Oh yeah, you're out of balance on something, right? So those are the simple balances. And then you can go deeper, obviously, into, you know, your gut health and all the different things that you could look at. I think it's a very interesting route and there's a lot of good opportunities out there and there's a lot of good science coming. But again, like I think there's a foundation. That you need to start with. What do you think frustrates you the most about the industry, especially in the US? I think US is something also we could learn a little bit from. So it's like a pro and a con at the same time. But I think Americans are very good at communicating. And they're very specific on like marketing strategies. And they can almost like, they can find that, like this is what I'm saying, I keep drilling it in. And it becomes almost a thing. So I think, you know, there's a lot of marketing, which is maybe not rooted in science and data, which makes it a little bit like a Wild West sometimes, right? I would definitely say that that's something that can be improved. I also think like the looseness on everything, on the chemical side, like that you can actually use a lot of chemicals instead of, you know, they need to be approved first before you use them. I think there's some things we can do to upgrade. On the other hand of the spectrum, we have like California and Proposition 65, that's now like, and you know, have mandated heavy metal testers in baby food. You know, we're not doing that over here anyway. So I think that's something we should look into. I think there's some standards from Prop 65 that's actually very strict and really protective of the consumers. So my biggest thing is like, I wish the industry was more regulated because sometimes you have brands that come out and make claims and they're just not true. And people are consuming these products, not knowing that, listen, this is completely false. And then they get sued eventually, the brand, and they'll do a class action lawsuit and something crazy like that. Yeah. And I think we're in Denmark, which is even further like crazy. I think it's too much. And I'll give you an explanation of what they're doing in Denmark. So they actually go in and check all the marketing. So there's twice a year we get visits. So twice a year we'll have someone coming from the Danish Health authorities. They will sit down. Always twice a year. Twice a year. Yeah. They might have come more. If somebody have said like, hey, these guys, you should take a look at the social media or something like that. If they got like a secret information or a tip off. Anyway, so they come twice a year. They will go through all the marketing we do. They would look at our social media. They will say, oh, is this European food safety claims approved? And whatnot. And sometimes, you know, it's even, it's been way too much. It's like, it's also kind of, it's not really strengthening our positioning outside of Denmark. So to speak, right? Like because it could be... You have to be careful how you market it. Yeah. It's too much. Like there's some, like, for example, we kind of say a lot about, let's say, inflammation, markers and omega-3 and omega-6 and fatty added balances. Those are really, you know, kind of proven that, like if you're low on omega-3, it's more pro-inflammatory, high on omega-6 and vice versa. But something like that, we cannot say that omega-3 can actually help in that regard. So we have to talk about like heart, brain, and eyes in a very certain way to say it. So I think sometimes it gets a little too strict and they pay attention too much to that side, right? That must be really tough from when it comes to marketing your brands because then you're looking at competitors and they're able to say that. You're like, wow, how can they... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that even true? Like, you know. Have you thought about maybe having, like, a separate Instagram account for the US? We did that. You did. So we just recently did that. Okay. So that's a good point. We actually had to. Because they were saying that even though we were communicating in English and it was like, through on, we have an American company as well. Yeah, of course. The US is our biggest market, so it doesn't make sense. So we're like, we had to create a Danish account now. So now we have like another Danish account where we're talking Danish and then we could also tell them, this is for like the American market. This is for... And we're allowed to say this. And we can say we're still following like European safety rules. We think that's actually a good benchmark to have. So sometimes we will not say as much as probably other brands would. But but we feel, you know, purely we want to try to do, we say we practice virtuosity. We want to try to do the common supplements uncommonly well. We don't come out with the newest like the newest tech in supplements, the newest science that will do that. We come out with like the foundation of supplements, like the magnesium, the protein powder, but just done at a quality that you would consume a day in and day out for decades. Not just like for, you know, let's say I'm on a bodybuilding routine for, you know, six months or something like that. But we believe that our consumers will consume these products for decades. If you are taking protein powder, you definitely need to hear this. The Clean Label Project tested 160 different proteins from different vendors and brands across the US. And you're going to be shocked at the discovery that they made nearly half of the top selling proteins in the US tested high for lead. And if you're somebody who consumes protein powders daily, this is something you have to be concerned about. And to make matters worse, most brands do not value transparency and will not reveal their test data online. And I want my community like myself to always make an informed choice of what they want to be exposed to and how they consume their daily protein. And that is why I love Puri. I also sat down with the founder and had a full, honest, transparent conversation with him about how they source, how they educate their consumer and also what their products offer on the market, which sets them apart. Their Puri PW1 protein tastes absolutely exceptional. And you know, you're not getting the gunk of heavy metals in it to start your morning with. And that is why I absolutely love Puri's PW1 whey protein. And that is how I choose to start my day every morning. Every single batch is third party tested by the clean label project and no product is ever sold unless it passes these tests. And Puri is one of the only brands in the US that has a clean label product certification on their products. And that is only possible because they make all their third party testing completely, transparently available to the consumer through a QR code where you can track the exact journey of the batch of product that you're purchasing. So you guys can see for yourself exactly how clean the PW1 that you're consuming in the morning is. Every single serving gives you 21 grams of minimally processed, high quality, bioavailable protein. It comes from pasture raised cows, no GMOs, no hormones, no herbicides, no pesticides and definitely no heavy metals. So this means I can start my day with confidence knowing I'm having something super clean to support my skeletal muscle mass. My personal favorite flavor is a berber and vanilla, no artificial flavors and no funky aftertaste. To make sure your daily protein powder is not hiding any nasty chemicals and they're not being open and transparent with you. So if you want something clean, delicious and bioavailable with transparency, you go now to get this amazing discount. Puri.com. BIOHACK IT. Switch over to Puri's PW1 protein and you can thank me later. How do you test like bioavailability? How do you know? OK, this formulation, the way we're doing our vitamin D or our magnesium is the best absorbed and is there a way for you guys to have you tested that? Yeah, so we rely on like a lot of different. So the science team we have, we rely on a lot of different science out there. So there's a lot of different literatures to say, OK, if you're looking at omega 3 fatty acids, there's different forms of omega 3. There's natural triglyceride form. There is the ethyl ester form, which is actually not something we're using in Europe. But then you could look at bioavailability on those two across and you could see, OK, when vast majority of the studies is pointing to natural triglyceride form in omega 3 fatty acids or creatin monohydrate and creatin, you know, then it's not up to us to question, let's say, is there something more absorbed out there? We would rely on more data because that's also something that I would say the industry or the big manufacturers out there would have to invest a lot in to get like really good data. A lot of protein powders have come out that have heavy metals. And I know you've talked about that as well. A, why is this happening? And B, how do you guys prevent having heavy metals in your products? So yeah, this is a big one. So and you know, this is something that I'm like, like a really firm believer based on what we've seen now the last several years, like in the industry, that probably protein powders should be the first step we as not just pure as a brand, but like as consumers as like the industry we tackle. So if we could get like we've seen in baby food mandatory regulation on heavy metals to begin with protein powders, there will be a huge win for the industry. Because as Clean Naval Projects, recent studies showed like they tested 83 percent of America's protein powder. So it's not a small study. It's very representative. I think it was 160 different brands. So it's like as a broad study. Right. So they said that the data would like this would be 83 percent of what you normally would have access to as an American. From that on, they found that 47 percent of them had above proposition 65 levels of heavy metals in their products. 47 percent. That's like flipping a coin on. You're getting too much lead in your morning smoothie that you go down into like over on Whole Foods, whatever a fancy story go to and buy expensive powder. And potentially there's a big chance you're getting a side like a dosage of heavy metals like lead, which makes no sense. Why are these powders all having such heavy like high amounts of heavy metals? So like most of it comes from the like the origin. So and what we tend to see that the plant based protein powders, they're much better at like removing heavy metals from the ground. So it's due to how we treat the planet over years and years and years. Right. We're still polluting the planet more than we're cleaning it. Right. So the planet, like what ends up in our food chain, like what we're doing to a planet end up in our water, our air, our soil, which eventually will end up in the plants because they're really good at removing this stuff. When you're concentrated that into a protein powder, you're concentrated into your smoothie, basically. So what we saw in the study was that I think was 77 percent of the plant proteins were above proposition 65. So I very counterintuitive if you are on like a fertility journey, trying to add a quality plant based protein, you're being recommended to your protein goal. Like getting that like, like I think was 46 percent had double the amount of California proposition 65. So it's some doses were much higher. I can say like we're at an issue here where we like we got to do something. So the plant was one thing. The other side was what type of flavor component are they using? So we tend to see even though cacao beans, cacao beans are really like like like a healthy, you know, flavor component. There's a lot of good bioactive compounds in the cow and so on. But the cacao beans also really good and really high often in they're good at removing lead and cadmium out of the soil. So we tend to see that. So yeah, I would say like if you didn't have any knowledge on like the brand that you are buying, I would buy something that's non flavored or vanilla flavored and I would go with a whey protein. That's what the macro data was showing out of that study. But if you have a brand that's testing everything, you could go in with like without having to kind of have your eyes closed or blindfolded when it comes to encouraging and educating the audience on purity and testing. What do you recommend they do when purchasing from a brand? I recommend that they ask the brand. Like that's actually how we started. Like we were like we were asking brands because we this is we're consuming this fish oil. You want to know what's in it. And they were like, most of them didn't give us any real answers. Just send it to a customer service person on the team or DM the brand. Keep asking. Yeah. I social media anyway. You can keep asking because I think the brands, they want to move where the money is, right? Like they will follow, follow that. So the consumers are asking for something. I'm a firm believer that we will get it. Like, like, like that's how the nature of the world works. So there's, I believe in like the brands are good. They want to do good. Yeah. And they want to do, I think most of the brands don't know. I think it's getting harder for them to hide that they don't know right now because of these bigger studies, but they don't know because they're not testing, but technically when we didn't see these mass testing, we see. So I would say again, that's why we should probably see if we can get something regulated on start symbol. We don't have to be super over complicated and do like purists doing where we're testing 200 different contaminants in every batch of every product. Start by testing like the key risk, like protein powder, you know, the fish oil, oxidation, maybe, you know, key risk factors that we see and then start there. I actually have a different take on it. For example, I think you guys have done a great job of being transparent. And having ethics and principles, but a lot of brands out there more often than the not, because it's a five point four billion dollar industry and it's only growing, do not have transparency and don't have integrity. And they are selling you snake oil. And what they do is they go to these third party manufacturers. They want, they're like, oh, let's do a weight loss supplements. Let's do a gut health supplement. Let's do a sleep supplement. And they just pick it up like off a list. They tell the manufacturer to put it together. And that's how they get their product. And all they do is put it into like pretty packaging branding and just get it out there. So I think it comes down to when I look at supplement brands, I think it's very important to connect with understanding the founders who started the brand. What is their why? What are the core principles they stand for? Do these people have integrity or not? Because that's what they'll put into their products. And how transparent are they about their testing? How much are they pushing always to improve the formulations they're testing their products and or are they just in it to make a quick buck and get out and get acquired? Yeah, I think you're right. That's my hot take. I like it. I like that take. I think it's, I think it's important. And I think, I think more and more brands are also trying to do the right thing. Yeah. But it's, as you know, it is a growing industry. It's expensive to do the right thing. What? It's expensive to do the right thing. It is, it is expensive. Yeah. It's cheaper to just shove things down people's throats. For sure. And like, like, I can say that, that the, the, the different co-manufactures that we work with, we like, we really source ingredients. We call it self-ingredient nerds. We really want to know this is exactly what we want to use. And I love that about you guys. That's kind of the thing. But when we go to the manufacturers and we tell them all of you things, they're like, like, so we got to have a testing procedure in place when we get organic cacao beans, even from the same farm, you need to get a few cacao beans, pick them up, ship them to your lab to test it, not our lab, because you want your data point. So they're like, wow, it's like, it's a tedious process. Yeah. That's how you deliver great products. Especially when you know there's a risk. So I think a lot of products you don't, we can, at the end, of the day, and this is what we are really trying to push out there. At the end of the day, if there is third party testing on a batch level, on the final products, then the consumer is protected. Then what we guys are doing in the supply chain to kind of figure it out, you know, that doesn't, that like, that doesn't have to be the consumers issue. The consumer can trust if they can actually just say, like, we've added the QR code on every single packaging of every single product. You can scan the QR code. You'll find the product you have in hand. You can see the batch number that will take you to a clean able project lab report that has been going through different laboratories testing for, you know, in protein powders, they'll be testing for antibiotics, heavy metals, pesticide, residue glyphosate, this, like all these different things. And you use the consumer. See, here's my data point. It's done by there. You know, I feel good. Then it's up to us to figure out when we suddenly see, hey, why is there a pesticide sneaking into this product? Yeah. We got the same ingredients that we normally do. And that's, that's what we are seeing sometimes. So we don't test every raw ingredient when they come in. We test them in high risk. And, but the other ones, sometimes we're standing with a product where like, well, this is coming and, and we can go backwards. So we don't release the product until we have that third-party lab report. Even if it was like, let's say you made a batch of like, I don't know, 300 bags and he came up high and heavy metals or herbicides or pesticides. Would you just be like, sorry, it's out of stock? It's out of stock. Yeah. Oh, it's even sometimes we've had to cancel products. Wow. Okay. We've had a green product many years back. We just couldn't consistently saw screens at a, like, at an enough dosage that we wanted to have in there to give us a product that had the results that we wanted. It kept banging out for heavy metals. Right. So. And that's really great that you guys have that level of integrity because again, there's a lot of green products in the market. We know brands have built their entire identity on green products and they're A, not high enough so they don't deliver what they promise. B, they're full of herbicides, pesticides and heavy metals. And I can tell you for a fact, they're not testing. I would love to see that testing. Yeah, I don't think they even have it. So since you started appearing in 2009, what are some of the biggest things that you've seen shift in the industry? I think when we started out, we joke a little bit about, we were not like tip of the spear, we were ahead of the spear. So when we were telling people, like show this data report and people like, they didn't know there was an issue. Right. So like we're benchmarking up against ourselves at the time. We're like showing them this, Hey, look at this lab report on our fish oil. It's so fresh. It's like amazing amount of omega three fatty acids in the finished product. You know, see no impurities, you know, really like we were this, like we call it the pretty baby theory. You know, you're showing your baby, like it's so pretty, but people are like, it's a regular baby you got there. Yeah. And you're like, no, it's the prettiest. So we, we felt like when we, when we got going, it was really hard just to educate about the issues. Then we saw more and more organizations, consumer groups starting to put attention to it, which helped like back up what we were seeing. And that ended up being like, you know, at least on request for higher quality products. And I think we're seeing that from the, the influencers, the podcasters, people out there, they're asking these questions too. And they have such a powerful voice in actually pushing the brands. So I think we are, we are in a better today. Showing. That's for sure. Again, a lot of new stuff keeps popping up, popping up here and there. And, you know, I'm not the one to, to say what's working was not, but, um, I think, I think we're moving in the right direction. When it comes to, cause you're an industry insider, you guys have been around for, for a while. What are some of the trends you're seeing in the industry over the next five, 10, 15 years? I think I've always said that, but more personalization is key, which like really tying the functional practitioners out there, the labs into something that's like easily accessible for most people. So they can actually adapt based on that and, and, you know, measure your actual divide them and levels and see, you know, do I really need it or do I actually need more than I was taking? Because it's not, you know, you know, that depth, I think we'll see a lot of, uh, over the next, uh, period. I think we'll continue to see more new stuff coming as well. And, and new kind of ingredients. Between AI and health. Yeah. And just like new science testing, like whether it's like, uh, timeline nutrition, your DNA, looking at mitochondrial health and so on. And I think those are really interesting. And I think the companies that are doing that is also playing an important role. Yeah. To, to, to see if there's something more that can be done. When it comes to you being a founder and kind of, you know, seeing all the space, are there any like thought leaders, scientists, entrepreneurs, um, other founders that inspire you and your journey and what you're building? Oh, for sure. I think there's a lot. Yeah. You know, and they can be anybody from, you know, different, like even from juice chains that are really passionate about what they're doing or like regenerated farmers that are really passionate about what they're doing with their, and in the supplement space, like the, um, the different brands out there that's really pushing it to try to do something different, cool and new. So I, I think I get a lot of inspiration from that. And yeah, I, I hope to continue to get a lot of inspiration from that. That's for sure. And as a founder and an entrepreneur, what keeps you motivated? Like what is, you know, what gives you purpose every single day? At the end of the day, having, you know, like, like a good team of people that we work with gives a lot of purpose because you have, we have a group of people that are all into like a passion, you know, they're passionate about health and quality. They want to do the right thing, but seeing also like the customer, the customers, the consumer feedback, the key opinion leaders coming back to us and saying, wow, this is like, you know, I've recommended fish oil in my practice for, you know, X years. I really love, I think has such promising factors, but I actually never known the exact data point on this. Now I can find that. I feel comfortable in recommending that. So seeing that and then the, the good stories that you, you tend to get as well from people who's changed their life. And I think supplement is not changing people's lives for sure. But it can be part of like the, the puzzle. And sometimes it's, it's an important part in like making the lifestyle changes needed and so on. So I think when we hear those stories back from, from our customers, you know, I always get so excited and like, wow, I like, I almost feel like Danes, we're maybe a little conservative. So people are like, can, did that really happen? Like she was never walking up her stairs and now like she's taking fish oil. And now I can walk up and down the stairs and I'm like, surely must have something else been going on. But, but again, it's like part of that mindset. I think, you know, making sure you're making meaningful impact on people's lives is one thing. And then the other thing is we want to be part of pioneering the industry towards this transparency. So we can say it's not just us, but all the brands. So there should be no people out there getting, you know, 10 X the amount of heavy metals in the shape because they're consumed. Like we should be able to eliminate that. My morning coffee is part of a ritual for me. It is from the first sip to the last sip is something I really enjoy. So being able to do that and consume coffee that does not leave me feeling sick, nervous or anxious or rigid. Is such a true pleasure. And that is why I'm so excited to also bring you life boost coffee. Imagine starting your day every morning with a rich, smooth coffee that is USDA certified because what you guys do not know, coffee tends to carry a lot of mold. And most commercial coffees have mold 80% of the time due to how they're manufactured and how they're stored. Life boost is sourced from single origin farms and scientifically tested for over 415 different toxins. Things like mold, mycotoxins, pesticides, herbicides and even heavy metals. It's so gentle, comes in different flavors and different strengths and does not leave you feeling jittery or stressed out after. So you can enjoy your morning cup of coffee without any side effects and have a beautiful start to your day. So therefore I'm so excited. We partnered with life boost coffee to bring our biohacket community. An incredible offer. Our listeners are getting 10% off their life boost coffee to give it a try. And I promise you guys, you will not be disappointed. So head to life boost coffee and use the code below. And I promise you, you will be left with a smile on your face, feeling grounded and caffeinated in the right way. And let's get back to the show. And when it comes to some of the biggest struggles you've had, like when you look at your entrepreneurial journey and building this brand, because it's not easy to build a brand in this way. What are some of the biggest struggles you have? And was there a moment in time that you were like this, you ever consider being like, maybe I shouldn't be doing this? Cause I get to this moment at times. I get, I somehow I don't really, I still feel that there's a path. I've been, you know, lying on the ground outside my house and looking up in the sky and thinking, Oh my God, can this really be true? That's like happening and things. So, you know, from when we've had, we've had like trucks stolen of products. What? Yeah. So, so we were like, where did the truck go? Like a truck of collagen in the US. It disappeared from like, so. And did you guys ever locate the truck? We, they, like the police went on, like, and I think they located the truck eventually and like the truck driver from the Vetted Company that was driving it from between two facilities. Right. And he tried to steal the collagen. They stole the collagen and sold it. And suddenly, to what? Like the, to Amazon or the black market or what? Suddenly we saw it weird places. Like suddenly we had like somebody took a picture of me and said, I didn't know you guys were in TJ Maxx. And I was like, we're not TJ Maxx. So we were like, so the product got out there through distributors and so on. So it was like, you know, that was something that's crazy. Again, we have the QR code so we can actually mark that. So if people scanned it, we could see hope that's that batch that was stolen. So we can, but again, it's, it's, it's impossible to figure out the product quality was fine. So did the driver go to jail? I don't know. I don't know that. That's crazy. So you had a whole truck of products. Like a lot of money for us as a brand disappeared. Yeah. And it was insured, but insurance companies are hard to work with. So I think we're still, we haven't, we haven't got the claim yet. So things like that, you know, things can happen. We've seen products where we suddenly couldn't get that raw ingredient that we were getting and we couldn't get that quality we had. And we had a lot of people on subscription that would want that. And we're like, we're going to be doomed in a second, right? Because all the stuff we spent building, suddenly people can't get the product. Right. It disappeared. We've seen a product disappear on Amazon where you're like, where did it go? And it's just like flack for something weird stuff. And we never figured out exactly what happened. Come back up, you know, but it's gone for a period of time. So yes, I think we as entrepreneurs, you know that we go through, it's a rollercoaster, we go through a lot of ups and downs. Yeah. But I think again, if you're having, you have a long set of goals and you're having fun while you're doing it. Absolutely. I think those are the two key things that I kind of tell everybody, you got to love what you're doing every day. Right. And then you can run for a marathon. It's not a sprint. Like we could be in it 20 years from now, hopefully. Like. And for you guys, like when things like that happened, like let's say, you know, you can't get a high quality ingredient for a product that's on subscription. What do you tell your community? What do you tell these people who are waiting for it? Tell them we can't source them. Yeah. If that's the case. And do you give them a credit or? Oh, of course. Nobody would ever be like, so they would get all money back. If there's, they wouldn't be deducted any money because we don't, we wouldn't pull from anybody. So, but I think we've had issues where we said, okay, do you want like a chocolate protein, like instead of this, maybe transition over to something else if we've been out of stock and one thing. But I think when you're building a, like a raw material product, ingredient brand, and you have a loyal group of base and suddenly, you know, there's growth in something you didn't expect and something goes like, there's a lot of back and forth. Yeah. That's a lot of details that, you know, it's, that's an ongoing thing. And being Danish and having obviously come from a different culture, how hard was it for you to adapt to the American entrepreneur style? Because I think culturally it's two different places. It's different, but I also joke about the, like we Danes are very similar to a lot of like, I'll say Californians and so on in mindset, like, like some things like the science styles, quality, like there's a lot of things, there's a lot of similarities in mindset. And I think Denmark, see we've, despite all the countries around us in Europe, US is by far the country we do most like work with. Really? Like, yeah, it's, it's like we've really, we've been very passionate about like, you know, we always been into health to tech, to these things, a very educated society. So I think for me it was, it was fairly natural. It was fairly easy transition. And I always, I got to early on get a working experience from an American company and I worked for CrossFit Inc. Like when they got started back in, yeah, it's many years ago now. So it was probably, did I start working for them back in 2006 or something like that? And so, seven maybe, but anyway, so I got like that experience, that experience of a growth journey because CrossFit at that time was like a few gyms and it exploded into 10,000 gyms and it CrossFit games and all that stuff. And then it exploded again. But, but it was like a journey that was so crazy and it was a lot of fun to be part of. And I got to meet a lot of great people and I see a lot of these people are still here in the longevity space. Now maybe they step into a different role and so on. So I, you know, I was, I really enjoyed it. And I think we've lived in U.S. My wife has family in U.S. So, so I'm, I see ourselves, we come back and forth all the time. I really want my kids to have a lot of close ties to, to the family. And talking about your kids, you have three beautiful children. What are some of the supplements you're giving your kids or do you not give them anything? Cause I think you said one's five, one, five and seven. So I can, I can tell you what I am, what I'm doing, but I'm not recommending you guys to do the same. So your kids, your family, each one. But I think some of the things we obviously, we want to have enough omega three in the diet. So they're getting fish oil. And like, even though like our capsules are not that kids friendly, they actually chew them and spit them out. So that, yeah. Just break them up. Yeah. And you could, you could cut them up, put them in a smoothie. In Europe, we also have a liquid fish oil. So you could use that if you wanted to. And like D vitamin is obviously something then we, we, we circled probiotics also from other brands. So they get different strains and so on. Which ones do you like for kids? I like seed has done a good job. I think they also have like a probiotic, prebiotic stick with a lot of different things. I like our own product that we're using also. And hence, and then I will just, I will try to give them as much as that from food too. Okay. So like different weird kimchi, different things where they can get good bacteria from, right? And I would try to get them a high protein, higher protein breakfast. And I think that's more due to that. I know I can't control midday doing school, even though we give them lunch boxes, but you know, start their day right? We start the day as right as we can. And we, we see that the classic like oatmeal banana and a juice, it's like, it doesn't cut it. And it also likes their sugar level. Insanely. So we, we, we want to try to kind of incorporate. So we do like in the oats that we are making will have like different eggs. It will have a lot of different good fats in it. Might have broth in it and it might have protein powder collagen. So it's really like a rich dish. And then they get all the crazy berries they can get on top. So it becomes less like nourishing. And maybe they sprinkle with almond butter or something like that. Exactly. So they, they actually like that. So, so we try to do that. And I say, I will give them sometimes like a classic kids' multi vitamin. I've, I've used Mary Ruth's a few time. They're a lot of somal for kids. I like that. And I'll do green juices quite often. Okay. Which I think vegetables. From vegetables. And we haven't given them a lot of like sweet juices. So we've kind of kept their palate on the green juices. So they liked that from, they were tiny. So we try to mix a lot of different things and herbs and ginger and turmeric. And I'm, I say we, it's, it's my wife doing most of the heavy loading here. So, so she's doing a lot of this good stuff at home. And, and they tend to still like it, which is like, obviously when they go out and people serve them the apple juice, like, wow, this is so sweet. It's great. But again, when we go to join the juice or something, they drink the juice that has no fruits in it. So it's like cucumber, you know, right. Ginger, spinach, kale, like they'll drink it. That's amazing that you've really, I think it's so important that when you have young kids to start them off right with developing their palate, because that's the habits they will carry through adulthood. So when your kids go to college, they won't fall off the bandwagon, especially if they decide to go to an American college. Your kids will not go and put on 20 pounds because they're eating all the junk food in the world because their baseline health and palate and habits will be healthy to begin with. That's the dream. That's the goal. Yeah. We're, we're fingers crossed that we get to that point. That's for sure. But we can see that we also say it's like, like you say with the palate, you got to practice. Of course. So, and the best time to practice is when they're hungry. So when they're really hungry and come home and it's easy to give them an easy snack, no, that's where you're going to give them like a green juice or weird smoothie, the, the, the lots of vegetables that will be on, because they will, they will eat it. They're hungry. Right. And it's much harder like post that. Yeah. And if, and if they have the option to get like there's a, let's say a piece of bread. Yeah, they'll just grab it. Of course. Like who wouldn't, right? Like so. And yeah, it's, it's a journey, but it's, it's fun. I wanted to ask you, do a quick rapid fire with you as well. Sure. Cause I wanted to get you, get my audience to get to know you a little bit more as a founder, what are your non-negotiable daily healthy habits and what do you never skip? I do quite a lot, but I am. So I would say is strength training is a key thing. Okay. I don't do it every day. I will do that four or five days a week. Okay. So, and I think that's because I will, I'm, I will tend to be like more skinny and naturally, so I have to actually fight to keep muscle and build muscle. So on that regard, I will also make sure I get my protein goals and I'm really trying to hit them a little bit more strict than I can see when I do that, I actually keep my muscle mass. So, so it does help and creatin really does help in that regard. How much creativity now you're taking a day? So I could say what I'm doing again, but, uh, but I obviously in Europe, we cannot recommend more than three grams in the US. It's five grams. I've had a concussion as well. So I worked with a concussion specialist and they got me up to 20 grams. Uh, but that was more from the head side. I would say and more maintenance doge would probably be closer to 10 grams is what I would do. Do you see the study? I think it was Rhonda Patrick who talked about it, about how when they looked at this research and creatine, that if somebody was sleep deprived and they gave like, let's say truck drivers, whoever doesn't sleep all night, even doctors, and you completely sleep deprived and you gave that person 20 grams of protein. And sorry, 20 grams of creatine. It was as if they slept eight hours at night. That's how incredible it is for neuroplasticity. Yes. And I think I saw that too. And I love what Rhonda Patrick is doing in general. So she's a really good communicator. Absolutely. Um, I think, uh, I think I've played with this a little bit myself and I feel, and this is super anecdotal, but, and you should play with it yourself. Um, I feel an impact. Different. Yeah. I do it in the morning. So if I've had a worse night, whether it's like kids having up, or you know, you got a little too late to bed with us calls and you know, all the different things that can happen in daily life, you know, I would, I would increase my dose in the morning. Right. What is the one thing besides weight training, you would not skip. So I tried to get like out in nature. It can be as simple as just going outside in the morning and have my cup of coffee outside, just walk outside in our garden, but really like try to do that to, you know, obviously reinforce my circadian rhythm and so on. But also I feel so happy when I get outside and when I bring the kids outside too. So now it's not as, you know, I used to have my little meditation moment in my head. Like, you know, I was like in my little appreciation stone in the morning. Now I have like a one year old sitting on my leg and all the one that is like playing soccer around me or something like, and it's, I've, that's just my new nice. It's still, it's not as, but it's beautiful. But it's still beautiful. But still like, I have a little one and a half, she's one and a half now and she's walking over to the tree and like touching it in the morning and looking up at it. And like, and you're like, because she's just following you because I've been walking outside. So they're just copying. And now they're like, they're smiling. Be mindful. Yeah. Because kids learn in the mimic behaviors from you. So it's really important how you operate. If you're a parent who spends all their time on their phone or your constant online stuff, that's what you can pick up. It's they're hyper sensitive. I try to avoid the phone. Like, so I don't, I have like, when I come home from work and with Danish US work hours, which would be somewhat tricky. Yeah. Kind of tricky. I try to really be off from like five to seven. Spend time with your family. They, then nobody can catch me there. So they, like, I forget my foot. So it's on sound, like there's no sound on it somewhere. And then I'm there in that period. And then, you know, I might go back down. I might take a call and so on and catch up. But that's your family time. They don't. So they don't see it. So, and they actually joked that, like, is daddy going on vacation again this time when I'm going on travel? They don't think you're working. So I'm like, maybe I got to show them that I'm working a little bit. What do you think is one wellness trend that is completely overhyped? I think the quick fixes in general. So I have a hot time pointing at one thing specifically, but I think there's so many, whether it's driven by social media trends or, you know, just in general quick fixes, like do this for X amount of days and you'll see a different, yeah, something like it's a journey. You got to, you know, I'm much bigger fan of like micro habits and stacking them and keep reinforcing them and building them in consistency. What do you think is one health practice that is overrated? Health practice, such as, could you give me an example? Be cold plunging or, you know, something that people are doing that you think, really the benefits are not there. I don't want to be too kind to it, but I think because I have a hot time, like pinpointing one again, that I would say, because I think something gives different to different people. So I think it's really hard to apply like cold plunging for everybody. Yeah. Bioindividuality. There's a lot of individuality. There's different times and like women's cycles. There was like so many different things to pay attention to. So I have a hot time point pointing at one thing that I think is overrated. And I, yeah, my mindset is really, I also, I see a lot of stuff, but I try to not be, you know, negatively impacted by it. I really try to look at the positive in whatever that person is doing. But that's, that's a different, yeah. And to just leave our community with, is there a certain piece of advice or a message you, you just giving great sound bites and great information to our community, but for people listening to this episode, obviously they've learned about you, learned about the brand. Is there a piece of advice that you'd like to leave our guests with? Sure. I think community with not our guests. Yeah. No, I think for sure. I think one thing is never accept not knowing like on the supplement side, keep asking those questions. Like if you're in doubt, keep asking the brands. Don't let them just like stonewall you. That's one thing I think on the other side of just like longevity in general, keep going. Yeah. You know, you know, it's like, it's like adding those incremental acts. Sometimes you'll fall a little bit off one of that. You maybe not do as much like infrared sauna that you really enjoy because you're traveling and whatnot, but get back on something or do something else. Like make sure you reflect on where you're going and set a direction. Right. Like set something. I want to feel XYZ. I want to be able to do this when I'm 80 or whatever it is, like set something. So you have some goals out there. You said, I think that's probably my biggest advice. You use at least once a year where you reflect on like, who am I? What do I want to be and where do I want to go? Right. And then try to make that plan. And if you want to be really bold, you look like 10 years ahead. Right. Because then you can be a little bit more, okay, I want to be over here. I want to be doing this. I want to be able to, you know, walk on my hands and do muscle ups. So I want to have like, it can be health goal, family goal, financial goals, whatever it is, and you put them out far and then try to break them down backwards. You know, you will get crazy far. So being from Denmark, you're consistently ranked one of the happiest countries in the world. Why is that? I think it's a multitude. So one thing is we have a really highly educated community in general, and we live close to our families. It's a small country. So you tend to always be close to your family. So there's a community aspect. And then we have a welfare system that is like second to none. I think there's a lot of different things that you can point to too. But when I really think about it, feeling safe, you know, that there's always health security for everybody. Right. There is school for everybody. You know, you can come from any background and you could go to the best schools in the world. They will pay for it. You will get paid to go to school. So I'll let that hang for a second because I think coming out of like grown up with a single mom, you know, working two jobs, really trying to run her own way. If I was in a good area, a good neighborhood, the best school you could be in, but you could go to, you know, like you go to college. And if you want it, you got accepted to Stanford, Denmark would pay and they will pay you to study. That's insane. So I didn't even know that. How big is the population of Denmark again? That's also, it's easier. We're like six million people, right? Okay. It's a, it's like an area of Manhattan. Where do you think the world, knowing what the Danish are doing well, obviously you guys are doing it on a smaller scale. But when you look at the US, what advice would you have for the US to apply even things in a micro way to, to their cities and, you know, counties and stuff? I think we think, you know, wellness, nature into all the infrastructure as well. Okay. So it's like, if you go to the Danish Metro, it's like a beautiful experience. It's not like a, you feel like you're in a whole, like it's a design experience. So it's like, there's a story behind the stations of like, you know, this is colored red because it used to be the post office upstairs. And this is in marble because the marble church is there. So they really tried to think stories. So in, in Bill, that's obviously one thing I think, I think the school side is a key thing. I think healthcare is harder. I would love for the Danish healthcare to be way more preventative and less reactive because from that perspective, it's very similar to like a health insurance. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So I don't think it's not like, I think we have really good doctors and good, but I think it's because of the education. Right. So if we could give free education and, you know, encourage, you know, you get, I think it might change now. So it's a higher amount. But when I was like growing up, you would get around, you know, I'll say 1200 to 1500 dollars a month to go to school and you could get that for, you know, after high school for seven years of college. So what is the education rate then? I haven't looked up, but I would guess that like 60% has a long, like a longer, yeah, not like a, like a, at least a bachelor's degree. Okay. Yeah. That's, that's pretty high. It's pretty high. I would look that up. So I don't want to quote the wrong. We will, we'll look that up for you guys and we'll give you that. Yeah. That's when we were published. Maybe we're all wrong. You gave me a beautiful book and I don't want to butcher the name. The little book of high gay. Is that, did I pronounce that right? Or did I put you? Hugo. Yeah. It's like, it's impossible to pronounce that. Yeah. Thank you for correcting me. It's a little book of Hugo. So it talks about the Danish way of living. How does that influence how you think about health and wellness? I think again, there's a lot of like connection and family around the traditions. So we have a lot of old traditions that we're playing in, whereas the food, the seasons around Christmas, like we like, there's a lot of different things that, that who could build on. And it's basically a concept of like getting together and doing something nice. But I think the nice about the old traditions is like it's eating, you know, this might not sound delicious, but it's pretty, pretty delicious. It's like eating like pickled herring, which is a really, it can be like a winter food. Right. Winter food, but it's like rich Omega threes. It's like good, good food, high quality food and coming together. I think that's a big part of it. I think you've, what was really inspiring for me, you know, sitting down with you and talking to you is a learning about a different culture, which is always amazing. But the fact that Denmark has these great value systems that are in bread and you guys as a community, as a culture, as a country. And I think that transfers over into how you're building your brand in Puri in taking it out into the world. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty obvious from, you know, speaking to you and learning more about your background, your culture and obviously integrating it into Puri. Thank you, Oliver. It's been such a pleasure getting to know you and I'm really excited about your brand and the integrity and the principles that you guys carry and the transparency that the space I think so desperately needs. So thank you for coming on to bio hack it. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to bio hack it. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please don't forget to subscribe, rate and leave a short review. It really helps us reach more listeners just like you. Follow us on Instagram at bio hack dash it for exclusive content and the latest updates. Remember, your health is in your hand and curiosity heals.