Home » Podcast » Hunting, Spearfishing & The Truth About Cannabis: A Father-Sons Florida Adventure with Adam Wenguer

Hunting, Spearfishing & The Truth About Cannabis: A Father-Sons Florida Adventure with Adam Wenguer

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Reading time: 5 minutes

What I Discuss with Adam Wenguer:

  • How Sahil Bloom's The 5 Types of Wealth sparked a multi-year father-and-sons adventure project including skydiving and race car driving… 03:30
  • Adam Wenguer, my sons, and I share our answers to the question, “Why do you hunt?”… 10:45
  • Clean meat, hidden toxins, and the controlled-feed fish we get from Seatopia… 15:29
  • Where I land on trophy hunting and mounts, and why using the whole animal changes everything…18:10
  • Traveling to hunt, dietary variety, and using hunting to reset your nervous system… 20:00
  • East vs. West hunting: swamp buggies and lodges versus brutal mountain pack-outs…22:35
  • The difference between hunting with a bow, a rifle, or a knife, and why an up-close kill hits completely differently… 26:24
  • Cooking wild game that actually tastes great: braising, sous vide, non-leaching Stasher bags, and U.S. Wellness Meats…29:38
  • My two starter cookbooks: Tim Ferriss's The 4-Hour Chef and Molly Stevens's All About Braising…33:50
  • Why spearfishing and free diving rival bow hunting, lessons learned from James Nestor's Breath, and Ted Harty with Immersion Freediving…35:15
  • Teaching kids breath work, sauna heat, and cold plunges young to build comfort with discomfort, plus Jules Horn's skull-compression technique to calm down…39:13
  • A plain-language intro to cannabis and the endocannabinoid system (the body's master regulating network)…42:15
  • How CBD, CBG (cannabigerol for daytime energy), and CBN (cannabinol for sleep) differ, and how CBN helps you stay asleep…47:17
  • Why full-spectrum beats isolated THC, and why today's high-THC products aren't what earlier generations used…49:28

In this episode, recorded at Lightsey Family Ranch in Venus, Florida, I'm joined by my sons River and Terran, plus repeat guest and my longtime friend Adam Wenguer, founder of Element Health, for the first stop in a father-and-sons adventure project inspired by former guest Sahil Bloom's The 5 Types of Wealth. You'll hear about the ethics and deeper meaning of hunting, why harvesting your own meat changes your relationship with food, the differences between hunting in the East and the West, and how to cook wild game so it actually tastes great. You'll also explore spearfishing and free diving; learn how to teach kids breathwork and build their comfort with sauna heat and cold exposure from a young age; and get a grounded, plain-language look at cannabis and the endocannabinoid system with Adam, including how CBD, CBG, and CBN each work.

Element Health is a Florida-based company known for potent, full-spectrum hemp and CBD products. Raised in Miami and a graduate of the University of Florida in applied physiology and kinesiology, Adam spent more than a decade as a strength, conditioning, and health coach at a five-star wellness resort before founding Element Health in 2017. He is a lifelong martial artist and Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, a meditation practitioner, and a passionate advocate for ethical, conscious hunting. He lives on a farm in Florida with his wife and son.

Want to try Adam's full-spectrum CBD for yourself?

You can check out Element Health here (use code BEN15 to save 15% off).

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Do you have questions, thoughts, or feedback for Adam or me? Leave your comments below, and one of us will reply!

Ben Greenfield

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Boundless Life podcast, it's

Adam Wenguer

not easy to take a life, but if you do it properly, I guess it's God's will in a sense. Yeah.

Ben Greenfield

What I don't like is the trophy hunting, where if you are actually harvesting the animal and eating it as close as nose to tail as possible, keeping the mount or the hide or the head or something like that, and even displaying it in a prominent location, is just a memory of the hunt. There's

Adam Wenguer

something about seeing the animal. It's a spiritual, deep experience when you do it, and you're sitting with it after the hunt, and you've harvested the animal. It's a deep reminder to your soul. It is a really special experience. When I see you guys doing it, father and son, this is like something I can't wait to

Ben Greenfield

do. Welcome to Boundless Life with me, your host Ben Greenfield. I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiologist, and nutritionist, and I'm passionate about helping you discover unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity, and beyond. Welcome to the Grand Hunting Lodge podcast. This is a big hunting lodge. We are surrounded by, what do we got, guys? Lion,

Taryn Greenfield

turkey,

Ben Greenfield

many, many white-tailed deer,

Adam Wenguer

maybe a bongo,

Ben Greenfield

some kind of alligator, several alligators, a big bear back there. So in case you are wondering if we got carted off by the local county zoo, we are actually hunting in Florida. We're on a hunting and spearfishing trip in Florida. And in case you're wondering who all is sitting here on this plush leather couch with me. We keep shifting the wrong way, and it's not because we have gas, it's the leather. I'm sinking into this thing. Say hello, left to right. Introduce yourselves. Here we go.

Taryn Greenfield

My name is Taryn Greenfield. I am this guy's son, and should I say what I shot as well?

Ben Greenfield

We'll get into the hunting in a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll get there. There you go, there you go. His original son. All right, and then me, hello, Ben Greenfield, you guys know me. And to my right, Adam Wenguer, who actually is a, what, three-time podcast guest if you count this one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Adam is actually from Florida. I'll link to his other episodes. He's kind of like the resident expert on all things cannabis and cannabinoids, and we've done episodes on fertility, on everything,

Adam Wenguer

ayahuasca, ayahuasca, hunting, yeah,

Ben Greenfield

hunting, black belt in jiu-jitsu too, right?

Adam Wenguer

Thank you. Yeah, yeah,

Ben Greenfield

cool. So we are here in Florida for a couple of reasons. I thought it'd be super fun to go on a father-son trip, and I actually kind of got this trip for my sons for their 18th birthday, and then I reached out to Adam, and I'm like, dude, we'd kind of like to just go hunt somewhere other than Idaho. Not that we don't have great hunting in our backyard. So you had some ideas about Florida hunting. That's

Adam Wenguer

actually something we spoke about, hunting gators, hunting wild boar, a little bit different than what you would expect.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, and

Adam Wenguer

I think our first podcast we talked about it, a light bulb went off. Yeah,

Ben Greenfield

yeah. I

Adam Wenguer

could see the interest in your eyes, you know.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah. So Adam was kind of boots on the ground down here in Florida. He found this cool ranch. We're actually at a place called Lightsey Family Ranch, and we've been hunting for the past couple of days: axis deer, black buck, gator, and hog primarily, and it's been a blast. So the thing that inspired this trip was this book, The 5 Types of Wealth. You guys remember that book we went through, by Sahil Bloom?

Taryn Greenfield

Yes, five types of wealth. Yeah,

Ben Greenfield

five types of wealth, good memory, you're getting an A on the quiz. And in that book there's a viral infographic that basically suggests, I forget, I'm going to make up the statistic, it's like 90 or 95% or something like that, of the time you will spend with your children is done by the time they're 18 years old. So River and Taryn and I have been working on this idea for a project, because they're 18 now, as of what, guys?

Taryn Greenfield

March 19th.

Ben Greenfield

March 19th, yeah, 2026. And so they're 18 now, as of the time of this recording. And we weren't a big fan of the idea that we weren't going to see each other much after they turned 18, and that over 90% of the time you're going to spend with your kids is done by the time they're 18.

Adam Wenguer

Every moment's got to be important with the kids, you know.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, yeah. It's stages, chapters, and we wanted to defy the status quo and create this project in which River and Taryn and I go on a series of adventures, including this one we're on right now, as a way of working together, facing challenges together, going on adventures together, doing creative projects together, and coming out of two years of doing that, writing a guide for fathers and sons to bond through life. So what all do we have lined up, guys?

Taryn Greenfield

Skydiving.

Ben Greenfield

Skydiving, gonna

Taryn Greenfield

make some traditional bows,

Ben Greenfield

longbows.

Taryn Greenfield

We're gonna race cars in Seattle, I think.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, we've done that before, off-road race car driving. Yeah, I went to race car driving school a long time ago, made me a better driver, I think. Mom would disagree, but

Taryn Greenfield

we'll see, on those gravel back roads. Yeah,

Ben Greenfield

we're doing open mic comedy night, we're writing a children's book, we're taking cooking classes in Vietnam. There's a couple more that are part of the project. But anyways, over the series of each of these adventures, we're going to write, not with AI per se, but we want to write actual real human stories from the trenches about how each of these adventures went. So we're on our first one now, and we promise more episodes in the future as we go through this. Hopefully to inspire you, parents, to spend more time with your kids, whether they're kids, teens, or adults, and give you some cool ideas. So as we talk, all the show notes are going to be at bengreenfieldlife.com/floridahunt, and I'll link to your previous podcast episodes, Adam, as well. You guys had a podcast. You had your own podcast for how long?

Taryn Greenfield

We did. Oh man, four years.

Ben Greenfield

Tell people about that one.

Taryn Greenfield

Go Greenfields. You haven't heard about Go Greenfields? It was a little cooking podcast that we had. I think it started out we were reviewing restaurants, and it kind of evolved from there, and we went into cooking all sorts of things. I think we made python at one point. Yeah,

Ben Greenfield

insects, crickets, we

Taryn Greenfield

never made gator though. Yeah, we never, oh yeah, it's true. Yeah, cooked

Ben Greenfield

gator, only God makes gators, and well, Elon Musk might try someday. And yeah, they did this cooking podcast for a while, interviewed chefs, did restaurant reviews for a little while. We thought it might be a good way for us to get discounts at restaurants and come do a recording. I don't know if that ever happened, actually. Never happened, not once. But the chefs came out a few times to talk with us, which was cool. We interviewed

Adam Wenguer

chefs a couple of Spokane days, yeah, we were in

Ben Greenfield

Spokane, yeah, yeah, back in Spokane, Spokampton. All due respect to Spokane, we love you still, but Idaho's better. Anyways, that podcast is done, and tell people what you guys are up to now.

Taryn Greenfield

We turned off the podcast after we started making card games, which is our gig now, along with a few other things. This guy's into, well, what are you into? I'm doing real estate right now. Yeah, he's doing real estate, he's a real estate agent.

Ben Greenfield

Well, you don't have every other license yet, right? You're working on it. I'm working on it. Yeah,

Taryn Greenfield

unlicensed real estate game.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, and Fried Pickle Games, that's right, Fried Pickle Games website, is it FriedPickleGames.com?

Taryn Greenfield

FriedPickleGames.com is correct. Still

Adam Wenguer

live? On ASAP, because my kids are gonna love this. Love this first game,

Ben Greenfield

Fart of War, yeah, yeah,

Adam Wenguer

exactly, yeah. Every bedtime story I tell my son now, there has to be a mention of like three or four farts so he can laugh enough to go to sleep. Yeah, yeah,

Taryn Greenfield

laugh enough to go to sleep, yeah, storybook.

Ben Greenfield

Your son is our ideal

Taryn Greenfield

new business prospect. Yeah, business opportunity.

Ben Greenfield

So I wanted to talk a little bit about hunting, because I know it's super controversial. I mean, Adam, you used to get reamed for putting some of your photos up on Instagram. Yeah,

Adam Wenguer

I did. It was a weird thing, you know. I took so much pride in it because I grew up in a city and hunting was so different, and it was such a special experience for me, and I would post about it, and then the comments were just brutal. I can't even say half the things on the podcast that people would write me, and I didn't really understand it. I had to kind of get in other people's shoes about the whole thing. But it is a really special experience when I see you guys doing it, father and son. This is like something I can't wait to do. Yeah. Did

Taryn Greenfield

you ever realize that when you post a fish, it's like crickets? Yeah, nobody says fish

Ben Greenfield

and insects are okay. Yeah, as well as all the small animals that die during the harvesting of the massive amounts of plants and grains necessary to follow a strict plant-based diet. I don't want to get super deep into the politics of that, but life is taken for us to have calories and cuisine and food on a constant basis, whether you're a carnivore or a plant-based eater. It's just a fact of life. I don't know, maybe it won't be that way in heaven, we'll see. Yeah, I like to think there'll be ribeye steaks in heaven. I

Adam Wenguer

know, we have sharp teeth right now, I mean, we'll see.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah.

Taryn Greenfield

Results with the poll,

Ben Greenfield

but I think I would love to hear from you guys, like if you're sitting next to somebody on an airplane who doesn't hunt, or you're talking with somebody who hasn't hunted before, why it is that that's a part of your life, or why it is that you do it, or why it is that you think it's okay to do.

Taryn Greenfield

Let me think, that's a tough question actually. If I was sitting next to somebody on a plane and they asked why I hunted, I'd probably say that, well, number one, it is good to know where your meat came from, and it's good to know that it was sourced ethically. And if you do it in an ethical manner, I think your conscience is pretty free. But also it tastes very, it tastes very... it's a taste you don't get, it's a flavor you don't get in most restaurants, most societies. I don't know though, that is a tough question, because for me I can't get behind somebody saying it's unconscionable. That's, yeah, it's a big word.

Ben Greenfield

Unconscionable, unconscionable, grocery

Adam Wenguer

store. Yeah, that's what you're supposed to. I mean,

Taryn Greenfield

yeah, it's just kind of cutting out a middleman in some sense, but it's not that different from, but how much of society eats meat? Like 80, 90%?

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, we'll make up a statistic. I don't know exactly how much to say, but

Taryn Greenfield

probably a

Ben Greenfield

lot. Yeah, I think what you're getting at, Taryn, is there's a sort of disconnect for many people when you're eating a burger, let's say at a fast food restaurant, about how that meat was harvested and where it came from. And I know that when we're talking about like CAFO feedlots or cattle ranches, that's a different scenario than hunting. But just the idea of understanding from the field, or wherever the animal is, to your plate, some of the processes that go on behind that, I think give you a greater appreciation for what you're eating. I mean, even when I sit down to have a burger at a restaurant versus, let's say, a roast from an axis deer or something like that we shot, it's a different experience. You appreciate, it brings

Taryn Greenfield

back memories,

Ben Greenfield

what it took to get it there. You appreciate the life of the animal more, in my opinion, and you have a deeper relationship with the food you're consuming, as far as its sourcing and what it took to get it to your plate. You're not hunting steaks and sausages and ribeyes, you're literally hunting a whole animal that then has a great deal of forethought and processing put into it before it actually makes it to your plate. Yeah. So I don't know, what would you say, River?

River Greenfield

I enjoy hunting. I think it's a super fun adventure for anyone who hasn't done it. It's unique, and it's different from a lot of other hobbies that people can do. The thrill of hunting, the difficulty, at least with archery, that I found I really enjoy, and then kind of like what you said, just the appreciation you get from eating the meal. I get a greater appreciation cooking a meal, and I get an even greater appreciation when I actually hunt the meat that I can then cook and eat. So it's, I don't know, it's a whole experience that's just unique and fun and different, and I love it.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, and the preparation that you put into it. Like when we're hunting elk this September in Idaho, we will literally be wearing rucksacks, going up and down the steep hill behind our house. We'll be shooting with our heart rate high. There's a lot that goes into it. You don't just put on camouflage and go walk out there. You've been shooting your bow, in many cases, if that's your weapon of choice, or you've been sighting in your rifle, you've been learning everything about scent, tracking, and if you're using a lot of the digital hunting apps now, where you're going to go, what the wind is like, what the topography is like. There's a great deal of studying that goes into it. And when we're in a place like this, where we show up and don't know the territory, you have guides who are helping you know where to go and where the animals are, et cetera. But there is still preparation involved, just in terms of getting ready to take an ethical shot, for example.

Adam Wenguer

Deep. And you said something really interesting about the appreciation for the animal, the appreciation for the life of having to take it so it can give you sustenance. But I always found, also this is why I got into hunting, it made me appreciate my own life, knowing that my ancestors had to do this, their ancestors so far down the line, for me to sit here and do that. And it makes you so grateful. And it's funny, because with hunting, I always thought, why am I doing this? Is it the challenge? Is it wanting to eat sustainable food, or do it the way our ancestors did it, healthy food? And I always found, I guess growing up in a city, that it was about regulation and adaptability, because in a city you're hit with stress all day, and it's not like a natural stress. My great-great-grandparents, what was their stress like? And this brings me closer to that

Ben Greenfield

smallpox, polio, yeah, I mean,

Adam Wenguer

like, okay, we're hunting hogs, it's not like we're sitting 50 yards away, the hog could get you. I mean, we experienced that last night.

Ben Greenfield

One rushed out. We were hunting with dogs and knives in the dark last night after big hogs, and there was at one point this massive hog, I was shining my flashlight right into this deep hole in the bushes, and it just came rushing out at us, big, and launched one of the dogs several feet into the air, over and over. Yeah, yeah, the dog was literally wearing a Kevlar vest for it,

River Greenfield

and he kept going, going.

Taryn Greenfield

He still got nicked though, in the butt, a

Adam Wenguer

little bit.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, yeah. But I think one of the things you can't get away from, even as a hunter, and I think this is a misconception for a lot of people, if you do want the cleanest meat possible, right? Because a lot of people get worried about toxins, has the animal been eating corn and grain, has it been exposed to herbicides or pesticides, et cetera. If you really truly want the cleanest meat possible, whether it's fish, which we'll talk about later on, or animals, you're looking at hunting or harvesting or catching something that has been in a very tightly controlled environment from a feed standpoint. Even when we're hunting whitetail out in Idaho, right, it's great meat, but you still, at the back of your mind, know that deer probably at some point wandered onto a farmer's field and possibly was feeding on whatever pesticide-infused alfalfa or something like that. I think it's a legitimate concern. I think it depends on the area that you hunt, but for fishing, most of the fish we eat is actually farmed fish. We get it from a company called Cetopia, and it's just clean fish where they've controlled the feed, so you're not getting a lot of metals and microplastics. But I don't think there's a good way around the idea that when you're hunting, you still don't have complete control. I guess unless you're hunting in the Himalayan mountains or something,

Adam Wenguer

letting go of control, right? Yeah,

Ben Greenfield

yeah. And for me the pros outweigh the cons. I think you're no matter where you're eating your food going to get exposed to a certain amount of chemicals, and that's where you get into the health concept of, do you have a regular sauna practice? Do you have regular bowel movements? Do you detox your body? Do you move on a regular basis to move lymph through the body? A lot of people now are into concepts, I'm not saying you have to do this, but plasma filtration and blood filtration at the higher echelon. Yeah, it's a legitimate concern, and I don't have the perfect answer for it, because you are hunting animals that are in the wild, and you don't have complete control over it. But if you're pretty smart about where you hunt, and you have certain parameters you follow, I don't think it's a huge issue, but it is one that a lot of people ask me about, and I don't have a perfect answer for it. Really,

Adam Wenguer

no. If you have the choice, that's okay, you go for it, right? You go for the healthier areas, the animals that aren't as high in heavy metals and whatnot. Yeah, learn to just not stress about it that much, that's been the biggest thing for me. I'm not trying to change the topic, but even with CBD, people go, "What made you get into CBD? What made you get into CBD?" And I'm like, I wasn't into CBD, I was into how can I regulate my nervous system.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah,

Adam Wenguer

how can I come back to, I guess, a controlled state from a high stress level, being in a city. And I'm realizing it's jiu-jitsu, like we were talking about hunting, fatherhood to young kids, stress hits us so many ways. How can we tone that down?

Ben Greenfield

And then the other thing, I think, like the elephant in the room here, literally and figuratively, surrounded by mounts on the wall, is the idea of trophy hunting, right? People say, well, if you're out there doing this to have a deeper relationship with your food and to get meat, and do so in a primal way, then why are you saving the mounts, the hides, the horns, etc.? My take on this is that if you are actually harvesting the animal and eating it as close as nose to tail as possible, and truly using it, and not doing as some hunters actually do, so-called safari hunters, or grip-and-grin photo hunters, just getting a photo and not even doing any harvesting, which sadly happens sometimes, then keeping the mounts or the hide or the head or something like that, and even displaying it in a prominent location, is just a memory of the hunt. I think, in my opinion, if you really are using the animal, it's more honorable to the animal. It technically lives on in perpetuity on your wall. I know some people don't like looking at the sad eyes, but I don't really have a problem with it if you're using the actual animal. What I don't like is the trophy hunting where you're discarding the meat. Yeah,

Adam Wenguer

that's brutal. Oh yeah, there's a lot of that in African hunting. It's hard to bring the meat back. Yeah, yeah. There's something about seeing the animal, it's a spiritual, deep experience when you do it, and you're sitting with it after the hunt, and you've harvested the animal. Being able to see it later, it's a deep reminder to your soul. It's not easily forgotten when it sees you every day.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, yeah. And then the issue that I think people also wonder about is, why are you going outside of your backyard to hunt, because we've hunted in Florida and Hawaii and Texas, and I've hunted in Colorado and New Mexico. Yeah, technically, from a pure environmental sustainability standpoint, you are burning jet fuel, and it costs a little bit to ship the meat back in coolers to your house. But I think it's part of adventuring on this massive planet Earth we have, with so many different species and so many different pockets of nature, that going outside of your immediate zone to hunt, I don't really have an issue with that either. I mean, yeah, there's a bigger carbon footprint, but in the same way that many people will travel to different locations to hike instead of just hiking in their own backyard, or travel to different places to go to restaurants instead of eating at restaurants in their own city, traveling to hunt, to me, isn't really an issue. Again, especially if you're actually doing it to still, at the end of the day, be reaching into your own freezer or refrigerator back home and using the meat you shipped or brought back.

Adam Wenguer

You know, I was really big into metabolic typing years ago, like 20 years ago. Remember that?

Ben Greenfield

Yeah,

Adam Wenguer

you remember that, and it would talk about tracing your genetics to see what's best for you. And at this point, your parents, where were they from? So many different places across the globe, I'm assuming.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, I'm a mutt, yeah, exactly. We're

Adam Wenguer

all mutts. You guys

Ben Greenfield

are mutts, we're in there too.

Adam Wenguer

So dietary variability is very important too. We can't just eat, we're in the U.S. now, right? What are we going to eat, whatever's in our backyard? We can't eat that all the time. So I think this fuels our genetics and the variability that's required of

Ben Greenfield

us. Yeah. And well, I don't think any of us are saying you have to hunt, but I'm saying if you want to hunt, and even if you want to travel to hunt, and even if you want to have a mount or a trophy after you've hunted, I think that can be very character building. It's a great adventure, and again, just the relationship with your food and the ability to experience planet Earth in a different way, I think it's pretty high up for me on the list of activities I'll likely do my entire life. Where do you guys,

Taryn Greenfield

you ever worry about being eaten by an alligator?

Ben Greenfield

That's true, or a lion.

Adam Wenguer

Or a lion, right? I mean, I got into hunting a little bit later, but you guys, from a young age, have been hunting, and it's impressive to me as an adult. What goes into it? It's not easy to take a life, but if you do it properly, I guess it's God's will in a sense. Yeah,

Ben Greenfield

there's also the physical, we talked a little bit about the physical preparation. I don't know about you guys, but at least the times I've done it, hunting in the East seems different than hunting in the West.

Taryn Greenfield

Oh yeah, from what I've experienced here, I've never hunted in any of the ways we've hunted here in my life. Tell them about

Ben Greenfield

River. Tell them about some of the vehicles we've been in. Yeah,

River Greenfield

yeah, swamp buggies. We've been in swamp buggies, basically it's almost like a tractor, but it looks like, with the wheels,

Ben Greenfield

storming through it,

River Greenfield

high up, yeah, storming through it. I love it, we did that.

Adam Wenguer

Like this is what I've done forever, and hearing how exciting it is, it's, yeah, moon

River Greenfield

rover, it's like

Ben Greenfield

a moon rover. Yeah, all sorts of buggies and rovers with huge tires, and you're chasing out through the fields. It's a lot of vehicles, tree stands, which aren't uncommon in the West, and when we're hunting out in, say, Idaho, if you're hunting in Colorado, you're trekking up and down mountains, you're covering sometimes 10 to 12 miles a day. Out here it's the biggest thing, whacking your way through the brush, doing so-called spot-and-stalk hunting. I don't know if it's just the hunts I've been on in the East, but East-style hunting seems a little bit more like vehicles, motors, which I guess is hunting smarter, not harder. It

River Greenfield

depends where you are, right? Yeah, yeah, and the species you're hunting. Yeah,

Ben Greenfield

I won't lie, I like to be physically gassed by the end of the day. Yeah, if I'm hunting, that's why we like the

River Greenfield

hogs a bit, because it's a lot of running, because we were

Ben Greenfield

chasing those, yeah, full sprint. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you guys think, do you like the West versus the East, or what are your thoughts on the physical demands of one versus the other?

River Greenfield

I like the West, but it's way harder than the East place, it's a lot more hiking, you can't take a vehicle up the mountains and stuff like that. Oh yeah, you can out in Florida. Yeah, it's, I like this is the

Ben Greenfield

first time in my life I've ever hunted out of what would be considered kind of like a fancy hunting lodge.

Taryn Greenfield

Yeah,

Ben Greenfield

and I won't lie, we're eating hush puppies and banana pie, and shout out to Antony, who's actually back there behind

Taryn Greenfield

us. Yeah.

Ben Greenfield

But it's way different than literally just being gassed at the end of the day, eating a bar out in the field because you're out there for 10 hours, then having campfire spaghetti when you get back to camp. Yeah, maybe

River Greenfield

it's just me, but I feel like I appreciate it more, though, when I get an animal in the list.

Ben Greenfield

Ah, you're definitely working harder for it. Yeah, because

River Greenfield

you're working harder for it, it means more to you, especially if you get it mounted, even cooler stories. Yeah, which yeah,

Adam Wenguer

no doubt, I appreciate way more the stalking, hiking, I did a lot of that in Tennessee, Texas. This is just more like traditional Florida hunting, and we do spot-and-stalk for deer. When it comes to gators and hogs, it's a different thing. You know,

Ben Greenfield

yeah, yeah, it is. And it's interesting because your legs are heavy, your body's just destroyed, you've had heavy straps on your back, a lot of times if you're doing a pack out, your pack out's three, four, sometimes six hours. It's a lot more physical and

Adam Wenguer

sleeping outdoors too,

Ben Greenfield

and hunting like this is more expensive too. You're paying for a guide, you're paying for a lodge, and there's nothing wrong with that. We have so many hundreds of thousands of acres of public land in the U.S. that's accessible to the public for hunting, so I don't want to give people the impression that you have to write a check and get a guide and go to a fancy lodge, but this is an interesting experience, it's definitely a more comfortable experience,

Adam Wenguer

and it works if you want multiple species too.

Ben Greenfield

Right.

Adam Wenguer

We also have such an abundance of gators and hogs that you could hunt like this every day. Yeah, versus finding the elk or the deer that you specifically want, yeah,

Ben Greenfield

yeah. And on this trip we've used bows, rifles, handguns, knives. What are you guys' thoughts on weapons and hunting?

Taryn Greenfield

I like the bow. I actually shot an animal with a gun for the first time while I was here, which, oh my goodness, it's so much easier, like

Ben Greenfield

yeah,

Taryn Greenfield

yeah, it's just way easier.

Ben Greenfield

That was like a high-speed buggy chase, safari style. Sure,

Taryn Greenfield

we'll talk more about that later. But bow, I love it, tons of fun, you get to sneak up, which is probably the best part, or sit there depending on where you are. You

Ben Greenfield

got to be a lot closer, you got to sense the animal. Yeah, yeah.

Taryn Greenfield

The knife was tons of fun too. I've only ever butchered chickens with knives, I've never killed an actual big animal like a hog with a knife, so for the first time, that was pretty cool. It'd be more interesting to do it by myself, I know we had dogs and people, which is normal, I guess, but yeah, yeah.

Ben Greenfield

I actually thought it was more difficult to kill an animal up close with a knife versus shooting an animal with a bow from 50 yards. I think there are levels, like shooting with a rifle from 150 yards, being that close to the animal again, back to the understanding of the life that's taken for you to have meat on the table, is that much more impactful when you are literally right there, not to gross people out, but literally taking its life with a weapon in your hand. You definitely feel a lot more.

Taryn Greenfield

Yeah, the hogs are pretty visceral too, you

Adam Wenguer

feel their pain. Yeah, and I think that's necessary. It's very different shooting from far away and then seeing it once you've tracked it, versus being in it, sharing the experience with the animal, you have to suffer to an extent, you know.

Ben Greenfield

What do you think, River? What's your favorite weapon, or your thoughts on bow versus firearm?

River Greenfield

I liked the knife, that was cool, it was up close, like what Adam said, it's totally different from a bow.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah,

Adam Wenguer

bows, right?

Ben Greenfield

Yeah,

River Greenfield

I don't know, can you hunt any other animals with knives? I feel like a hawk would be

Adam Wenguer

different stuff, I'd use it on alligator.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah,

Adam Wenguer

yeah, there's the hatchet.

Ben Greenfield

I had a buddy who was hunting axis deer, and it was so swampy, this was in Molokai, and the deer was in a bog, and he chased it down and waded through the bog and took it down with a knife in the bog, which is pretty uncommon. I think for me the idea of the eye training, the practice, the certain amount of physical strength required depending on how many pounds you're pulling, the gearhead nature of it, and the idea that you do have to be better with camo and with wind and with tracking for something like a bow hunt, puts bow probably top of the list for me. I hunted with a firearm for a couple of years, and then once I started hunting with a bow, it's just a way better experience, it's harder. If I was starving and had to put meat on the table, I'd do firearm 10 times out of 10, but the bow is a little bit more of a physically challenging sport.

Adam Wenguer

Yeah, I've got to get into bow. The technical aspect is just incredible. I've always used a rifle, and it gets the job done, but bow is so much more complex. Yeah,

Ben Greenfield

what do you guys think about, I know River and Taryn, you guys have done some cooking, not a ton of wild game cooking, but you've dabbled in it here and there, what are your thoughts on the actual cooking process, as far as the way you view wild game versus, say, a ribeye from U.S. Wellness Meats, or that whole cow we have in the freezer?

Taryn Greenfield

I think the gamier it is, the more you should heavily consider slow cooking it or braising it, or something like that, because the gamey flavor is nice, but it's nicer when it's in a broth or when it's been cooked down a bit. For stuff like the backstrap or the tenderloin, some of those softer, tender cuts, just salt, pepper, and roast that thing, it's perfect.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, yeah. You've done much wild game prep yet, River? Not really a whole lot. Yeah, yeah, you guys are going to get to practice on a lot of this meat we're bringing home. I want to make sauce. Yeah, I think some of the key tools you've got to have at home, and shameless plug, I've got a lot of wild game recipes in Boundless Kitchen and Boundless Cookbook. You need a good sous vide setup so you can do long slow cooks, which is good for tenderizing wild game, and for animals like, say, bear, killing off the trichinosis, because you can sous vide something, hot water cooking in a bag at 145 degrees for 10 or 12 hours, and kill off those types of pathogens. And then people worry about the plastics in the sous vide bags, and there are companies like Stasher, you guys know those thick silicone bags we have at the house, so those don't leach plastics at the lower sous vide temperatures, down in the hundreds. And then a slow cooker like a crock pot, a roasting pan, a Dutch oven, and a smoker, if you have those, sous vide, slow cooker, Dutch oven, smoker, and crock pot, then you've got a pretty good lineup for being able to take just about any cut and make it taste good. Whether it's a three-hour smoke for a deer hind roast, followed by grilling it at a higher temperature, or an eight-hour sous vide at 145 degrees on beef heart when you guys were out of town last week, and then just cutting that thin into slices and grilling it with olive oil on the grill top, or frying it in olive oil on the stovetop.

Taryn Greenfield

If you were just

Ben Greenfield

longer cook times, though, definitely need longer cook times.

Taryn Greenfield

If you were super strict, I'd say all you really need is an oven and a Dutch oven.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, because you could

Taryn Greenfield

you could reverse sear, you could braise, you could slow cook, you might be able to pull off a sous vide, I don't know if that would work.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, as a matter of fact, you guys, when you were young, remember when I brought you through Tim Ferriss's Four Hour Chef?

Taryn Greenfield

Yes, yeah, well, do you

Ben Greenfield

remember, River, the scrambled eggs page?

River Greenfield

Yeah, it was like 30 some ways to cook scrambled eggs. He still doesn't like mine.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah. Well, Tim Ferriss's idea was, if you can learn all these different spice combinations to cook eggs, whatever, Thai style, Vietnamese style, French style, Italian style, Mexican style, American Southern style, then you can use those different spice combinations for a lot more advanced meals. And eggs are a pretty forgiving protein, and if you learn how to cook a protein like that properly, it's a good way to learn how to cook. And River and Taryn, when they were young, one of the reasons they got into cooking at such an early age, and why they're, in my opinion, good cooks now, is mom used to take them around the kitchen, they'd put a pinch of sugar into this, a little bit of salt into that, and help her spice stuff. And then I busted out that scrambled eggs page for you guys when you were super young, and you basically went to town on that for several years. Yeah, eggs.

River Greenfield

Tim Ferriss and Martha Stewart were my idols. I don't know if I've ever seen you make scrambled eggs.

Ben Greenfield

I don't like eggs that much, yeah, yeah, I used to make them all the time, and now I'm just a smoothie guy. But then the other book, and this was recommended to me, I forget who recommended it, but it's basically the one book you could get to learn as many different cooking techniques and styles as possible using just one general method. But the idea behind this method is you're learning a little bit about grilling, about browning, about braising, about sauces, about spicing, about deglazing. It's a book by, I think her name is Molly Stevens, it's called All About Braising. I got that book and kept it by my bedside, and I'd read it at night, then get up in the morning and try one of those recipes about once a week or so. Super simple book. Have you ever tried braising?

Adam Wenguer

No, no, never.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, very simple. The idea is you take out your meat and your vegetables, you brown the meat in something like a Dutch oven, then remove the meat, put it to the side, take your vegetables, brown those, put the meat back in, cover that with a broth, maybe some wine or vinegar or bourbon or whatever the recipe calls for, your spices, a couple of bay leaves, and then cover that, and you're either letting it go in the oven at a low temp for a while, or on the stovetop at a low simmer, and everything just kind of stews, or braises, in that pot. You can do it with vegetable dishes, fish dishes, meat dishes, wild game dishes. But that book, All About Braising, I think if you had that and something like Four Hour Chef, those are probably the top two general cookbooks I've ever read. I'm saving those then. Yeah,

Adam Wenguer

I've been into speed cooking lately with kids, you know.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about what's going on in this next adventure though, spearfishing. How many times have you guys been spearfishing, River and Taryn?

Taryn Greenfield

Twice, but one time I didn't have a spear.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, camera.

Adam Wenguer

Fishing, he was

Ben Greenfield

shooting the fish with his camera. You ever been?

Adam Wenguer

I haven't, I'm stoked, yeah, I'm very excited for this.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, we went down to Wilmington, North Carolina, with a friend of ours who's also on this trip, Andrés. Shout out to Andrés Preschel from Know Your Physio, who's also been a podcast guest. And River and Taryn and I took a free diving course, learning the proper breath hold and safety tactics, and then went spearfishing for a few days, surrounded by sharks, which mom loved, off the coast of Wilmington. But before that, I had interviewed, a long time ago, this guy named James Nestor. He wrote a book called Breath. He was talking about all the health benefits of free diving, like compression of the spleen that occurs at a certain depth that causes you to create new red blood cells, the benefits of inspiratory and expiratory muscle training and diaphragmatic control when you're doing breath work or diving itself, the idea of cold thermogenesis from water exposure, the increase in nitric oxide and carbon dioxide tolerance that happens when you're doing breath work. And after I interviewed him and read that book, I got a hold of the guy he talks about in the book, Ted Harty, at Immersion Freediving in Fort Lauderdale. Went down there with four of my buddies, we stayed in a house for five days, took his entire course, and then I went out spearfishing after that. And as an inland Idaho boy who rarely gets to spearfish and rarely gets to free dive, not an expert by any means, but I'd put it right up there with bow hunting as far as intimate experience with the fish, physically challenging, physical benefits, breath control benefits. We're going out six hours in a couple days, just up and down after fish. That's another one that I think for people looking for a bucket list adventure item is pretty fun. What are you guys looking forward to as far as spearfishing goes?

Taryn Greenfield

Oh man, last time it's kind of hard to beat, last time we did a shipwreck, we went past an oil rig.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah,

Taryn Greenfield

there was a hammerhead shark,

Ben Greenfield

yeah.

Taryn Greenfield

But I think all in all, it's so cool to go down there, see a fish you want, swim around, explore, find a spear one, you can just take your time, they don't run away, they'll stick around, they're kind of stupid, they're like turkeys kind of. Yeah, you back

Ben Greenfield

down, you grab a rock, scratch a rock, they come in around you, they'll

Taryn Greenfield

just come and say hi.

Ben Greenfield

You can take your fish up on the boat, lemon, lime, salt, ceviche right there on the boat, depending on the parasitic nature of the fish you've chosen, be careful which fish you do that with. And then you can also just be prepping fish in your condo or Airbnb that night after a hard day spearfishing, which we'll do on Saturday night. It's just super fun, again, intimate relationship with your food. What do you think about the breath work process of free diving, River?

River Greenfield

I'm a big fan of spleen compression, which is a huge component, compresses his spleen all the time, you're not a real biohacker until your spleen is compressed. It's a big part. I think the breath work part is, oh, my bad, is super important, at least for me, in a lot of aspects of life, with running or working out, just being able to control your breath, for me, one of the biggest

Ben Greenfield

yeah,

River Greenfield

biohacking tips, I guess. You thought of running, how old were

Ben Greenfield

you guys when you started doing breath work with me?

River Greenfield

Like, eight years younger than that, you were younger, no, no, you were

Ben Greenfield

you were like five or six when you started breathing. Yeah, I remember when we were doing, again, proceed with responsibility, if you're a parent listening in, or a child convincing your parent to do this, but we used to do hour-long breathwork sessions in the sauna when you guys were as young as nine years old, full-on holotropic breathwork sessions, even before we were thinking about free diving or spearfishing, just because I identified breathwork early on as a free, natural tool built into every human being that allows you to control your physiology and your emotional state at the drop of a hat. And the problem is that a lot of people just don't teach their children to have this intimate relationship with their breath, whether it's how to nasal breathe instead of mouth breathe, which affects your jaw and your teeth, or breathing when you're stressed out or anxious, long breath in, longer breath out, to even being able to breathe yourself into a deeply meditative state. You guys remember some of those long exhale breath holds we did, yeah, where you'd just be on a totally different planet, getting high on your own supply, as Wim Hof does. Yeah,

River Greenfield

it's like drugs, but healthy.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, drugs without drugs. I mean, it's your body producing its own drugs, right? Nitric oxide, carbon dioxide, DMT. Have you done much breath work?

Adam Wenguer

I do a ton of breath work.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, I'm

Adam Wenguer

actually getting my son into it, because I meditate every morning, we're talking like 4, 4:30 a.m., but when he wakes up, he comes in and he wants to meditate with me, so he sits on my lap. He's been doing that since he was two, and we lasted about 10 seconds the first time, and then we built up to 30 seconds, but he'll go like five minutes now, which is remarkable for a four-year-old boy. Yeah, yeah, four-year-old boy, you're having an intimate conversation, he goes, "Dad, look at my finger." I'm telling him how much I love him, so their attention is all over the place, but breath work, I see a noticeable difference. There's this guy, Jules Horn, who does somatic work, breath work, and he showed me this technique of skull compression that mimics coming out of the womb at birth, so I'll do that with him, or he'll do it himself now while he's doing breath work, and noticeably I see him calm, his breathing settles, his heart rate settles down, because kids naturally have a higher heart rate, yeah,

Ben Greenfield

yeah,

Adam Wenguer

and seeing him focus, it's mind blowing. Yeah,

River Greenfield

tears, skull compression with lung compression.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, some people think it's like bougie, hippie, Burning Man stuff to be teaching your kids breath work when they're young. But for me, it's right up there with getting your child, again, responsibility, and knowing their limits, comfortable with heat, comfortable with cold, comfortable bearing heavy loads, comfortable breathing hard. River and Taryn did a ton of triathlons and Spartan races when they were young, they followed me all over the globe just learning how to push their bodies, and I would throw cold plunges, cold baths, cold soaks in there. But beyond just putting your kids in sports, if you can get them involved in thermal stress, breath work, weight training, and high-intensity interval training, I think those are tools, especially if you get them started young, it's a lot easier to learn that stuff, kind of like a language maybe, when you're young, versus getting into it when you're already set in your ways of comfort when you're older. You guys glad you did it?

Taryn Greenfield

I think this trip to Florida is kind of thrown in the training.

Ben Greenfield

It was like a sauna, an all-day sauna yesterday. So the thing I also wanted to touch on, since we've got him as a captive audience, and I would love to hear some of your questions too, River and Taryn, is with Adam about the idea behind cannabis and some of these cannabinoids, which I know some people still just associate with weed, but it goes way beyond that. But real quick, before we shift to that again, I'll put the show notes at bengreenfieldlife.com/floridahunt, because I would love to hear everybody's comments and questions and feedback. I guess since we're in Florida hunting, I should say y'all's questions and comments and feedback. But River and Taryn, how much do you guys know about cannabidiol, CBD, CBN, CBG?

Taryn Greenfield

Nothing.

Ben Greenfield

THC, I mean,

Taryn Greenfield

really, yeah, not much. I know CBD is relaxing, right, and I think I've taken it maybe a few times when we're trying to go to sleep on an airplane or something, but other than that, I know nothing, I know very little. Yeah, I don't know that much.

Ben Greenfield

All right, all right, so we're going to do a little deep dive into CBD for those of you listening in. Adam, Taryn said that CBD was good for sleep and anxiety, but then yesterday you offered me these gummies that were designed for energy, and they had CBD in them.

Adam Wenguer

Low dose CBD, CBG also, which is a little bit more of a stimulating cannabinoid, and we put a little bit of cordyceps in it. I formulate all these different products specific for my needs, which I find, I listen to my customers, and I listen to all my clients of the last 20 years, seeing what they need. And like you said, people associate it with cannabis, and that's the biggest mistake people make. The real thing we're working with is the endocannabinoid system, and that's something that's in everyone's body. It's one of these master regulating systems that interacts with nearly every other bodily system. We're talking hormones, neurotransmitters, bone, digestion, everything you can think of. So what I personally like to do is work with the hemp plant, because that's one of the main tools we can use that helps, I guess you could say, optimize, I don't like using that word, this endocannabinoid system that really helps us have an interface with the outside world. That's what it's really about, it's not like, oh, I feel stressed out, I need to take something. It's not really about taking something, it's about allowing our system to work more efficiently, and it's from getting into these high stress states, whether it's more in the country hunting, and we had a wild boar, we did that at night, and I have a very specific sleep schedule, I go to bed around nine, maybe 9:30, I'm up at a certain time, and that's what I like. I could see you looking at the clock

Ben Greenfield

from around the buggies last night, yeah, and you know I like to wear my blue light

Adam Wenguer

blocking glasses and all this stuff. But I recognize that there's stress I can't control. Fatherhood has taught me that more than anything, and I need to know I can trust my body to come down, to regulate and get calm again as quickly as possible, because maybe I'm not accustomed to 10 p.m. chasing after a boar, or they might be chasing after me, bright headlights in my face, and then trying to get to sleep so we can wake up really early again. So I want to know this system is being fed, and omega-3 fatty acids are a great way to do it. There's just having lower stress, but we don't always have that. In this day and age, we're in this technological revolution where we have so much sensory input all the time. This is why I like hunting, because we don't have so much of that. But on a regular basis, how often do you have to look at your phone? How often are you getting messages and emails? What's required of us as a parent, as a CEO, as a business owner, as everything, as an athlete? And I think it's so important to have this powerful response to stress that we can enjoy, we can thrive from it, and then come back to baseline. That was something we talked about in one of our previous podcasts.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, I actually think nature immersion involves more sensory infusion than cell phones and devices and social media, but I think it's deeper, it's richer, and it's the difference between ultra-processed fast food and the fanciest French restaurant you're ever going to find. I think the latter involves you sitting at the table for a long time, and you're patient, and you're savoring every bite, and you're attentive and mindful. And with social media, you can be scrolling on it while watching a YouTube video with a podcast in your earbuds. So I think a lot of people could benefit quite a bit from the sensory immersion you get in nature. So CBG would be more energetic then. It

Adam Wenguer

has more stimulating properties, I think you mentioned, so it's a great daytime one. My wife loves this, because we co-sleep with our kids, and she's caring for our kids a lot, she's just with them all the time, ensuring they're loved, they're taken care of, they're experiencing challenges all the time, she's giving them the right amount of freedom. But you know what, it gets you tension in your neck sometimes, it's a different type of stress, and she likes those a lot. I actually do as well, but it's a very different type of cannabinoid that's not spoken about much. It was kind of in the spotlight a few years ago, but I think it definitely.

Ben Greenfield

What's the G stand for, do you remember?

Adam Wenguer

Cannabigerol, I can't remember.

Ben Greenfield

Cannabis, cannabis something. What about CBN? Because I think you and I were talking about this a few weeks ago, a tweet I sent out about a research study showing it's comparative to an anxiolytic sedative like Valium or Diazepam when it comes to sleep, but without deleteriously affecting sleep architecture. Have you messed around with CBN much?

Adam Wenguer

Oh yeah, cannabinol,

Ben Greenfield

cannabinol, yeah, CBN, there we go.

Adam Wenguer

Yeah, it's a very interesting compound. I don't always look at them as separate cannabinoids, I think together is the most important thing, but I think the study used 20 milligrams of CBN, they tried it with CBD, they tried it without, and they found that it allowed people to sleep without more wake-ups, less wake-ups. It didn't help with sleep latency, they didn't fall asleep faster, but it prevented that one, two, three a.m. wake, where people had trouble getting back to sleep.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, it was, I remember this because I actually talked about it a bit on the podcast, I think it was 30, but then they cited other studies that go up to 300, right? Yeah, and don't you have a gummy that has CBN in it?

Adam Wenguer

So actually almost all of our products have a certain amount of CBN, whether it's our full spectrum oils, because that's part of the hemp plant, I try not to pull out isolated compounds. Is

Ben Greenfield

that what full spectrum means, you're just taking as much out of the hemp plant as possible,

Adam Wenguer

right? So we do a whole plant extract, it's kind of revolutionary, it's a mid-critical extraction, so we're maintaining all of the plant's cannabinoids. Most companies aren't doing that, they're claiming full spectrum, I don't want to talk badly about other companies, they have their following, but I want to make sure it's exactly as nature intended, and I think that's one of our mottos, really, it's giving it to us, nature has given us something, and we need to use it as a whole. That doesn't mean it doesn't have a place, because I have hemp-rich strains that we've combined with our traditional full-spectrum oils, so we have higher levels of CBN specifically geared for sleep, when people have that extra stress before sleep,

Ben Greenfield

that would be, is that the THC-CBN gummies?

Adam Wenguer

Slightly elevated THC, just enough so it's not negatively impacting REM, right? I think you took them the other night.

Ben Greenfield

I took two the past two nights, and I generally don't use THC just because I think long-term high doses of it can, I mean, I don't think, I know it can affect the brain in terms of free radical leakage and effects on memory pathways, even more so in a young, developing brain, which is why I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the two gentlemen to my left are not smoking weed.

Taryn Greenfield

I'm 18, I'm an adult now. Yeah,

Ben Greenfield

yeah, legal, my brain

Taryn Greenfield

is fully, so is that a yes or

Ben Greenfield

a no on a weed post? I'm pretty sure neither, I don't do weed, mom.

Taryn Greenfield

I don't.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, mom, they don't smoke weed. So somebody who's doing weed. But for instances in which a fully grown or fully formed brain is in a potentially anxiety-induced state, traveling, circadian rhythm disruption, etc., I have used THC before, I've used it on airplanes as well to help with sleep. I'm a bigger fan of that pure full-spectrum CBD you have, or if I could use pure CBN, nudge nudge, wink wink, I want you to come out with a pure CBN, just without THC, I think you should. I think it would crush. But the idea behind THC is, I think you definitely need to modulate usage. I know some people who will take a mega, like 10 to 12 milligrams to get to sleep, and I think two of yours is what, six milligrams?

Adam Wenguer

Two of mine would be six. Yes. But we have to understand that what we see in dispensaries, when we're seeing these potheads, I hate saying potheads, I was a pothead, people who smoke cannabis, they're using these exceptionally high THC strains with almost no other cannabinoids, they've been genetically modified, hybridized to have such high THC. Is that

Ben Greenfield

what people mean when they say this isn't the weed your grandparents smoked?

Adam Wenguer

Exactly. The weed our grandparents smoked, and my dad, it was very balanced with cannabinoids, and it was a lower THC content, so it felt like a calm buzz. The stuff nowadays just gets you blasted into outer space, and if you go to a dispensary and get edibles, because edibles last a little bit longer, it's more discreet, it's still THC isolated, they're just taking the THC molecule and feeding it to you. Your body doesn't know what to do with it, it's hyperstimulating the endocannabinoid system, the cannabinoid receptors, and it's really unhealthy. And that's a funny thing, because I was a madman with cannabis for many years in college, high school, even afterward. But I want to do it the right way, so I'm getting the health benefits and also enjoying myself. So CBD, when we're getting higher CBD in a full-spectrum formula, it's negating so many of the negative effects of pure THC, it's an antioxidant in its own right, and you have a wide range of cannabinoids, so you're getting effects on different receptors without overstimulating them, you're allowing them to be, they call it an allosteric modulator, so it allows your body to do the work better.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, it's an antagonist to one of the CB, I think the CB1 receptor, which is why, I don't know if everybody knows this, but if you did use THC or smoked weed and got too high, if you take CBD, it takes some of the edge off, because it antagonizes that same receptor that THC agonizes. So CBD can actually balance it out.

Adam Wenguer

Yeah, they're actually using it when people come in who've taken too much THC, instead of giving someone Valium or something like that, that's the first line of defense, and it's incredible what it's doing, because it's allowing you to do better work. And our body produces anandamide, which is a cannabinoid, and CBD just allows your body to produce it more effectively on its own. Yeah,

Ben Greenfield

River and Taryn, does that answer all your questions and so much more about CBD? Do you have other questions about cannabis?

Taryn Greenfield

What is the, the cannabinoid, what is

Adam Wenguer

that, cannabidiol is the long name for CBD.

Ben Greenfield

Okay, yeah, yeah, okay. And as far as the plants go, if you see a plant, like you use the term hemp plant, growing in nature that has all of the compounds, THC, CBD, CBN, CBG, there's literally dozens of them, right?

Adam Wenguer

Yeah, dozens, there's hundreds, there's many that haven't been discovered yet. And we're talking about cannabis, which is sort of the umbrella term, and then you get your traditional what you think of, smoking and getting high. And then there's a subspecies, it's called hemp, so it really is all under the cannabis umbrella. I guess most people would say marijuana is what you smoke and get high on, high THC, but it really should have a balanced profile.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I also was a pothead for probably like four years, mostly when vape pens first came out, and I didn't even realize how powerful they were, and I used to always have one in my fanny pack. I wouldn't say I was a full-on daytime user, but I would often just take a hit at night, before dinner, after dinner. At one point, somebody sent me, because I did a few podcasts on THC, something called a magic butter machine, and I would make my own nighttime edibles and chocolate. I remember that, yeah, yeah, I mean, I made other stuff in there too. And then

Taryn Greenfield

I wasn't allowed to use it to make.

Ben Greenfield

Once I learned about the deleterious effects long-term of THC on the brain, I pretty much quit that cold turkey. Like I mentioned, I'll have a few of your THC gummies every now and again, and then I might hit THC like once a month maximum, and that's usually date night with my wife, when we want to do that, so I'll have a glass of wine or whatever. Yeah, yeah, it's very sensual. Yeah, so there you go, guys, now you know that mom and I are potheads. Yeah, I never see tie-dye shirts and the glasses. Yeah, all those tie-dye shirts and bandanas and colored glasses, no, we are not, we are not. What's that, Taryn?

Taryn Greenfield

Do you think them?

Ben Greenfield

Well, this has been a pretty cool adventure so far. We're going to be releasing photos, videos, and eventually a book on father-son adventures, and then Adam, we didn't even say what your company is, but it's Element Health, right?

Adam Wenguer

Element Health, yeah.

Ben Greenfield

Element Health, I've been using your guys's product since, what's it been, like seven years? Yeah, it was

Adam Wenguer

2018, eight years, just

Ben Greenfield

training, yeah, I gave you a bottle.

Adam Wenguer

Yeah, and you're like, when I travel, normally my sleep's a little bit off, and you wrote me, and you're like, "Dude, what is this?" Yeah, and it was right when I created the company, actually, and elementhealthsupply.com is the website.

Ben Greenfield

Cool. Yeah, I'll put links in the show notes for you guys, which can be at bengreenfieldlife.com/floridahunt. Leave your questions, your comments, and your feedback there, fellas. Any last words for the viewers and listeners around the world?

Taryn Greenfield

No,

Ben Greenfield

konnichiwa.

Taryn Greenfield

What's that quote, last words are for fools who haven't said enough.

Ben Greenfield

Last words are for fools who haven't said enough, there you go. Adam, any last words? Just

Adam Wenguer

live outside of technology, you know, it's so easy to get consumed and be indoors more. Just be outside, whatever it is.

Taryn Greenfield

Amen.

Adam Wenguer

Find your adventure.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, turn off this podcast and go outside if you aren't out there already. You want to buy me with a

Adam Wenguer

shotgun.

Ben Greenfield

All right, folks, thanks for listening. To discover even more tips, tricks, hacks, and content to become the most complete, boundless version of you, visit bengreenfieldlife.com. In compliance with FTC guidelines, please assume the following about links and posts on this site. Most of the links going to products are often affiliate links, of which I receive a small commission from sales of certain items, but the price is the same for you, and sometimes I even get to share a unique and somewhat significant discount with you. In some cases, I might also be an investor in a company I mention. I'm the founder, for example, of Kion LLC, the makers of Kion-branded supplements and products, which I talk about quite a bit. Regardless of the relationship, if I post or talk about an affiliate link to a product, it is indeed something I personally use, support, and with full authenticity and transparency recommend in good conscience. I personally vet each and every product that I talk about. My first priority is providing valuable information and resources to you that help you positively optimize your mind, body, and spirit, and I'll only ever link to products or resources, affiliate or otherwise, that fit within this purpose. So there's your fancy legal disclaimer.

Ben Greenfield

Ben Greenfield is a health consultant, speaker, and New York Times bestselling author of a wide variety of books.

What's Blocking You From Living Boundless?

Thoughts on Hunting, Spearfishing & The Truth About Cannabis: A Father-Sons Florida Adventure with Adam Wenguer

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