$100M founder predicts what will be big in 5 years

0:00 So this is actually a company that I've I've wanted to invest in for so long. If you're doing this, like please just email me. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I put my all in it like a day song on the road, less travel, never lose. Alright, so I wanted to have you on because you are one of my healthiest buddies. Last time you were on, I think you've been on three times already. You didn't get into a lot of the ideas because we were just like peppering you with so many questions, and I wanted to be more focused. I think I asked you what are five or six like interesting health companies or health trends that you're interested in investing in.

0:36 And you hit me back with a very detailed list in a very short amount of time. So clearly You are like already thinking and acting on a lot of these things. Can we go through each of them and you just tell me what they are because I'm crazy fascinated because like For the listener, you told me in two thousand and f

0:55 fourteen or fifteen that you are quitting Tech. Like you had a software company and you were gonna launch a bone broth company. And I was like Oh man. Like you're like you're decided to throw your life away. That sucks. Like I'm you were you were gonna be one of the greats.

1:12 And then it just came out in Forbes, I think. Uh or what was that was it Forbes? Uh you had this amazing feature about your company Kettle and Fire and how you surpassed a hundred million in annual revenue. Um and it was amazing. And I'm like You definitely won. And I read the article, by the way, and I texted like five friends and I'm like Justin does everything the right way.

1:33 By the way, did I get that right? You guys d you're at a hundred million run rate or revenue? Yeah, north north of that, yeah. And you said something amazing. I think you said we're gonna what did you say? We're gonna be the best operating E commerce company in America, is that right? Yeah, I mean basically like

1:49 There are most of the big public big food companies were started pre nineteen hundred. And so A lot of these companies are very, very bloated, they're large, you know, they've been around.

2:00 Uh frankly, I think many of them are poisoning people. And then paying lobbyists and other sort of opposition research groups to make sure that like Soda doesn't get removed from food stamps and all these sorts of things. And so I think these are just generally bad actors. And I think that there's a huge opportunity. To both out innovate these big CPG companies and also just run a better business. Like I guarantee no one in You know, Battle Creek, Michigan, working at Kellogg's.

2:23 is looking at like how do we use AI to automate a lot of our workflows and process and things like that. Whereas like that's something we have live work streams going in kettle and fire to figure out like how do we apply The

2:34 craziest technology, you know, move like leap forward of certain my li certainly my lifetime. The the best possible company that we can. And I think it's working so far. We have like thirty four people for Uh, you know, for our size of business, which is

2:49 Quite good scale. You have only thirty four employees? Yeah. Wow, is it wildly profitable or is it uh working its way to be wildly profitable? No, we're we're profitable. I mean, one of the things that I'm very proud of is like we've raised

3:02 uh only ten million dollars in primary capital since starting the company. And so it's been pretty capital efficient and Yeah, we've been focused on Building the trend, but also building a good business uh since we started it like nine years ago. Yeah.

3:14 That's awesome that you have proven me and I'm sure many other people wrong. And uh you've you've been early on a bunch of stuff. All right, so let's dive deep. What's the first one you want to talk about? Yeah, so first one I want to talk about is I think that You know, there are there's this huge, huge macro trend. Where all people are talking about Maha, they're talking about seed oils. Talking about all these things for May. Make America healthy. Make America healthy again.

3:37 We're talking about all these things about fixing the chronic disease crisis in the US. And I think that Health trends specifically for dogs and other pets. Like tend to lag a couple of years behind humans. Like basically a couple years ago.

3:51 You know, you saw Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, a bunch of these companies launch. And then Couple years beyond that. farmer's dog a like fresh dog food delivery kind of company launches. And I think they're Well over a hundred or two hundred million in revenue at this point.

4:04 Crazy. And They basically think that you can look at the US chronic disease crisis, obesity rates, inflammation, cancer, autoimmune, all these things. The same thing.

4:14 It's happening. In dogs. Like something like one in four dogs are gonna get cancer at this point. This is like Unique. It's new.

4:21 Cancer rates among dogs are rising, and again, this is because Dogs like humans. exist in an environment that is actively poisoning them. Like kibble is total trash and it is literally making dogs sick. And so I think that there are a lot of these

4:36 health trends that like people are getting into Ah, that you're going to see become popular now. And in two to three, four years are going to be popular for for pets. Especially because now it's something like I think that millennials or Gen Z like literally have more dogs than babies or something like that. The the market is growing incredibly quickly. Although I don't have a dog, but

4:56 Um I I think there's like a lot. A lot of gold. In that sort of like take Human health thing.

5:02 and apply it to a dog like health product. Is this true, you say here that uh in some cities there's more dogs than babies? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and it's certainly true, like the younger the younger you go. Uh the kibble thing is interesting. I um

5:17 I had a dog for fifteen years. He was my best friend and his last five years of life it hit me. Where I was giving him so when I first got him I was poor, so I would like buy the cheapest dog food. And then I got You know, I could afford like Whatever they tell you, you know, like the shtick they tell you is like only buy something where it says like

5:36 Chicken on the first ingredient. Who knows if that's true or not? But And that's the more expensive thing. And then I was like Eating kibble like dry dog food. That would be it would be sort of like feeding me potato chips every day.

5:47 Do you know what I mean? Like and like People's dogs are You know, what do you do when you have a dog and you eat dinner, they all come in obsessed over you and you like yell at them. And I'm like If you gave me refried beans for every single meal Of course, I'm going to want like be desperate for any new food. It's kind of insane, right? That we would feed them the same thing and it's like a processed dried.

6:09 Thing that doesn't expire. Totally. It's insane, right? It's totally insane. And you look at the ingredient, it's like full of trash, full of artificial ingredients, you know, like all of the stuff that people are trying to remove from their diet. We basically put in kibble and feed to dogs for every single meal For every meal. I remember like my my in laws have a dog and he comes over and they're like, Oh, don't give him table food. I don't want him to be unhealthy. I'm like I don't know, man. I feel like the the susparagus and chicken might be all right. Um hundred percent.

6:37 And we had Kevin Rose on the podcast and he had funded a company called Dogaging Project.org. And I believe what they are doing, the whole premise is that Uh for some reason I believe it was because A lot of times you don't want to see your

6:52 You're willing to suffer or willing to let your family suffer oftentimes more than you're willing to let your dog suffer. And the premise and but at the same time, you're willing to experiment more. And so the premise was that they had uh there what's the um drug that is a longevity drug that starts with an R? Rapamycin. Yes, I believe they were doing uh they were selling this to dog owners. And what they found was like I guess there's a huge correlation between what we can do with dogs and what we'll eventually do with humans, like you're suggesting. And they have noticed that they have gotten dogs to live longer and their premise is we are gonna start here and then eventually go there.

7:27 To humans. And so yeah, that people agree with you. Yeah. Yeah, well I I think that they're looking at it as like You know, drug. Uh, and then we'll expand dog longevity and then we'll move into humans.

7:38 I think what I think that like the business opportunities exist looking backwards. Like Everyone is talking about water cleanness and water filtration and stuff like this. And yet when they go to feed their dog, they like put their bowl under the sink. And the dog gets a load of like What other toxins, the alcohol, or not alcohol, uh chlorine, like you know, all of these sorts of things. And like that's its daily water source.

7:59 Um, and I I think that there's all these things where like why is there not a reasonably sized company just doing like Aurora, like a really You know, R O R R A like a really high end water filter. Uh but Geared towards dogs or something like that. I don't know.

8:13 I think like dog saunas and dog dog cold plunges is probably a little too far. But certainly I think that uh there's like a bunch of peptide supplements. You know, water filtration, things like that that Even like doing dog kennels and things like this with more natural materials that probably would do quite well for people who already think and the view the world through the health lens and have not yet

8:34 begun the process of applying that lens to their health. Or to their pets. Can you tell me what Light Labs is? That's amazing. I looked at the website. It seems like That's my

8:44 This is your brother's thing. It might be bigger than everything you guys have done. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I I hope so. I mean So my brother and I we started Kettle and Fire together. And we grew it and after some period of of time he stepped back from the business. And so his new business, which he started last year.

8:59 is called light labs. And what they're doing Is basically there are so many toxins and other sorts of like crap in our food supply chain. And at Kettle and Fire, we spend almost half a miljonar a year. Testing all of the batches that we're making.

9:14 Uh of bone broth to make sure that like There's no glyphosate, there's no PFOS, there's no phthalates, like all these sorts of things. And So we as a company spend A lot of money and a lot of energy making sure that our supply chain is clean, but we're making sure that it's clean of stuff that you can't see as a consumer, yet you probably care about.

9:31 And so what Light Labs is doing is they're basically building a Lab testing, toxin testing. for consumer brands like Kettle and Fire. Where they do two things. Like

9:41 They We'll test for nutrition nutrition fact panel. uh run the normal like heav heavy metals testing, things like that. But they also do a longer tale of rarer tests. like phthalates, PFOS glyphosates, um pesticides, things like that.

9:55 And then But once they run these tests. They actually expose it and push the most recent versions. Of a brand's lab test. to both their website

10:05 Or if you're sold mostly in retail, the goal is to get like a QR code that a consumer can scan and see like, What is Kettle and Fire's most recent lab test show? around like PFOS and other sorts of exposures. So I I think this is like One of the most interesting Things happening in the health world right now is this broad push.

10:23 Towards transparency and like getting a bunch of these things, microplastics, stylized, whatever, that people know are bad. But don't have visibility into like Bringing transparent. transparency to that food system, which then creates The incentive and energy to make change.

10:37 So that's kinda what he's doing. I've I have a ton of questions on this. So you and I lived in Austin together, and then before that we lived in San Francisco together. Both. Uh very much like bubble cities where Austin's like, you know, v uh very health conscious and particularly our friend group was very health conscious. And then San Francisco was like, you know, the the on the forefront of a lot of tech. Do people where I'm from in Missouri, where you're from in uh uh PA, do they care about any of this stuff?

11:06 Not right now, but but I think that that's not Like, not a hundred percent of people have to care for this to make sense. Like, what is undoubtedly true is people are spending more time and energy. Focusing on sourcing toxin reduction. They're spending more money at You know, companies like Whole Foods on brands like Kettle and Fire.

11:24 on their health in general. And I think that this is one of the things that people are going to start caring about when they shop. And like the minute that Yes, it may not be like people, you know, where m my family's from, where your family's from.

11:36 They may not be asking about phthalate load in, you know, their hot dogs that they're eating or something like that. But some percentage of people will. And you only need a small increase. In order for there to be demand. From the brand and consumer side.

11:49 to incre you know, to to basically have supply chains and Agricultural resources, ranching, like all these practices that incorporate and think about toxin exposure, pesticide load and l and the like. And so I think White Labs is the type of company that

12:03 I'm super bullish on. Bringing transparency to the food system. 'Cause I think it's just going to Like once you bring transparency, then there's energy to try and clean up and improve the food system behind that. And so so this company from I I I don't know anything about the space

12:17 It's basically like putting an organic label on your food. So a fo uh food company would pay them and they would say, Light Labs is a reputable brand. We have proof that they've tested everything. We paid them money to do it. And we have a dashboard as well where we can like See where we are in the process of the testing. Is that right? Yeah, exactly. So consumer brands like

12:39 We cattle on fire, we already have to spend money on Um you know, on on these different sorts of tests and things like that. Why do you have to? Uh, because you're legally required to by the USDA or FDA to do nutrition facts panels. You have to do like heavy metals testing. You just there's just a slew of tests that you have to by long run. Yeah, by law before you can actually just sell a product. And so

13:02 That that's like A thing that you already have to do. Then what Light Labs is doing is they are bringing a bunch more transparency. to um to the supply chain and making it so that You can look at

13:13 you know, m momentous supplements or like any number of these things. And basically see, okay. Beyond just metal testing and things like this. What are the other things that they've tested for? Oh wow, I can see, you know, t like no detectable phthalates. I can see no detectable Glyphosate, no detects detectable atrazine, like some of these other pesticides that people care about.

13:33 Um and so I think it's bringing That what has been like hidden. In the depths of these like horrible Lab tests run by companies that are like sixty years old. to the forefront and making it influence consumers buying behavior.

13:45 That that makes me so bullish. How big is the biggest lab? business now or the couple biggest ones, and when your brother was raising money or when he was just brainstorming with you on describing how big this could be or like what his dreams were in twenty years, what was he saying? Yeah, so the biggest one is called Eurofin's. I think it's like an eleven or twelve billion dollar company. Like in revenue? Uh no, market cap. Um so but I mean it pretty closely maps to revenue because it's like a service business, you know, it's it's like not a great doesn't trade very well.

14:15 Uh so what he was saying is basically Step one, I think that we can build a competitor and be better than Eurofense. Like You submit to a UFENS lab. You submit an email inquiry and you get you get a response maybe in like three or four days. Uh and then

14:28 When they run your tests. They don't communicate anything and they dump like thirty PDFs on you that you have to hire someone that understands food scientists to like You know, translate this stuff. It's really like insane. And you go to their website, EuroFins dot com, it looks like you're like

14:43 You know Making a Vaccine or You're doing like uh like like some type of embryo work. Like a very intimidating

14:55 It looks like an academic sight from like ninety five, you know, like it's very intimidating. Exactly. And so they're not the type of company that is gonna build an incredible product for consumer brands. Uh and they're not the type of company that's gonna build the consumer basic product. And so what he was like my brother was Thinking is

15:13 She was like, Wow, this is going to be Incredibly interesting. We can build a Eurofin's competitor. We can do a better job servicing CPG brands. We already know how to do that from his experience at Kettle and Fire. And then We have the opportunity to build out. This entire other business. Where we can build

15:29 Like Consumer awareness of these different toxic compounds. Uh and turn You know, Kettle and Fires five hundred thousand a year of lab testing expense. into an actual revenue generating function and almost like a marketing line item. Dude, this is so awesome. Does he have any uh revenue now, your brother?

15:46 Yeah, they uh they've launched a couple of months ago and they've started to get revenue. Yeah. Did he raise funding or did he boot trap it? He did. No. This is definitely the type of company you have to raise money. It looks expensive to start. Yes. Definitely.

16:01 It's it's honestly it's the type of company that I think Is it's it's the perfect like act two company. Like Nick has experience, domain expertise. can raise money and when your first thing is like hey we have to raise You know, millions of dollars, and we're gonna write a check. for like, you know, multiple millions to like buy a laboratory and buy lab equipment on this stuff.

16:20 It's tough to make that bad on like a twenty two year old. But on a twenty nine year old with some experience, like it makes more sense. Is this in Texas? Yeah. In Austin. Wow.

16:30 This is amazing. All right. Wow. First of all, this is crazy. How much does oh and the uh The labels. So like if you go to McDonald's or fast food, they put the nutritional there. Which is like way more challenging, I think, than like an M M or a candy bar, which is more controlled. But I'm pretty sure

16:47 I've always like believed that nutritional labels are bullshit. Like in my head I've always been like it's give or take. Maybe even thirty percent of what is presented. The calories. Is it th like I I would just'cause I weigh my food. I I've I've track I've tracked almost everything that I've eaten for like four years now on my fitness pal. Wow. And like you and you weigh it.

17:07 And I weigh it and now I I eyeball it sometimes. But like first of all, I've noticed a few things. One When people eyeball their food to track They almost always overestimate or sorry, underestimate by around thirty percent. And then if you go and buy like a let's just say A big Mac.

17:24 the degree in which they are different. Is huge. And there's no way that news those nutritional labels are accurate with just the calories, let alone like Whatever else, like the macros, plus whatever else is supposed to be in it. Yeah, exactly. I mean the FDA first depending on the uh the compound

17:40 um or the nutrient, like they'll have A limit that is often it's Ten plus plus or minus ten percent for sure. Oftentime it's upwards of like thirty, forty, even fifty percent. Depending on the compound.

17:52 Um because as you can imagine, some of these things are f are fairly sensitive. uh like potassium or iodine or things like this that are present in minuscule amounts. Like It's really hard to say exactly for every single cookie or piece of bread that you're getting or whatever, that there is X amount of iodine in it. And so the FDA allows for

18:10 um you know reasonably high tolerance um on on some of these errors. Which makes a lot of this nutrition stuff even harder to figure out. Who uh who owns the like is the certified organic, is that a company? It is a

18:26 I believe it's a non profit. I think it's Ward and Tilth is one of them. Um but yeah, it's like a certifying body. And I've always contested that that's bullshit. Because like I just think that when you uh I've like I've seen farms where they have like an organic section and a non organic section.

18:44 And like It just seems like when you put medicine on one of them, it inevitably will get in the other one. That is certainly true. The thing that is good for like I think organic is better than nothing, but it's certainly not perfect. And I think that there is a lot of Yeah, there's a fair bit of research that

19:01 Organic vegetables, for example, have far fewer pesticides than their conventional kind of counterparts, but they still have some. But it's not because they're directly being sprayed. It's because of like, you know, wind, water, like all these sorts of things moving these compounds everywhere. What's another good one? You wanna do function health or skin gut health? I'm fascinated by all these. Yeah.

19:21 Let's do uh let's do function. So You know, function health, superpower, like Explain what those are. Explain Yeah. So function health and superpower, they're basically companies where you can go to their website. Um sign up. Pay an annual membership fee and they'll

19:36 facilitate a telemedicine thing where they'll be like, Hey You can go get your blood drawn at You know, a lab, or have someone come to you. And you can test your own blood for Uh, like I think it's over a hundred ninety markers. So you can get things like

19:49 P Foss exposure, heavy metals. Uh testosterone, you know. Um, insulin markers, all these sorts of things. That to just know are you healthy or do you have things that you need to work on? And so I think that

20:02 Like I believe that function is one of the fastest growing companies. In the entire Andrews in portfolio, like they're growing. Super, super fast. Yeah, I think they announced another fundraising, but I think they announced that it got to like nine figures in revenue in like Two or three years like something insane. Crazy.

20:20 Uh, so it's crazy. And like there's so much demand for people wanting to understand their biomarkers, their lipids, like all these sorts of things. I think that rolling four or five years Are we gonna know more or less about the health of our bodies and what's like going on in our systems. It's definitely more. And

20:35 What I think function, superpower, and the like are doing Is there lowering the friction? For people like you and I to Understand what's going on in our bodies and our blood and all that. And that information

20:47 creates a ton of potential for action. But why is why are why is function growing so fast? Because I've used inside insight or inside tracker. Inside tracker. Inside tracker for years. And then before that there was I I don't know. Like there there's these have always been a thing. Why like and now I'm hearing so many people talk about function health. Well I'm like I these have been cool and awesome for a decade now. Why is this one particularly awesome? I I think that their marketing is great. I think that the

21:15 Value prop is great. It's like one price, one annual membership, get this little test. Uh, like if you had if you went to your doctor and asked for the same test that function would give you, it would be like they don't let you? Well well so if you went to right, they either don't let you or it would be like seven or eight thousand dollars. Oh my god.

21:31 Function is like five hundred bucks a year. I had a my friend try to go get his testosterone checked and he went to the doctor and the doctor was like Uh, you're thirty two. You don't you're fine. Like you don't need to do that. It's insane.

21:43 The medical system is so patronizing, it's like There also there's people talking about how you shouldn't get an MRI or shouldn't get your blood work done because like it'll scare you will cause all these questions or scare you and you're like Fuck off. Like that stuff. Yeah, just like such an insanely patronizing thing. Yeah, it's crazy. Like I I you know, I've I've done this before where I'm like, I want this tested. And they're like, but you seem perfectly healthy. And Dude, just like write it on the paper. It means nothing to you and it's important to me. Just do what I tell you to do, please. Like Exactly. Like this this literally requires nothing from you and I'm just gonna learn.

22:17 It it's exactly right. I think that like The medical profession writ large. There's certainly people that do good, but I think that many of them have this like the patient's an idiot, I know everything kind of vibe. And that is if you look at the trajectory of American health. Certainly, uh I think that we need to change what we're doing. And I think taking matter like health matters into their own hands. is a huge, huge thing.

22:37 And so why this is an interesting trend to me function, superpower and the like. Is for the first time I think you are gonna see millions and millions of people. being onboarded and understanding.

22:48 Like what is going on in their blood. uh what's going on in their bodies and then taking steps to optimize or improve that thing. And so right now if you take supplements, it's like You know. Sam, you probably take creatine or something like that.

23:00 You're pr you probably take it and you're like, eh, maybe I'm a little more shredded, maybe I'm like you know, feel better or whatever, but you probably don't You're not seeing any of your lab markers change. Same is true of like thyroid or cholesterol markers or lipids or other things. I think as people get this information and start to retest. over a you know six to twelve month period.

23:18 That we're going to see Way, way, way more products and services. Yeah. Sprout up. Where people where like there is demand for people who want to optimize their biomarkers.

23:28 So sort of like today. We have personal trainers who help you get shredded because like that's kind of the only thing people can see. I think in the future. We'll have like apps, trainers, services, things like this. That are specific to Sam wants to lower his APO B score.

23:41 Or Sam wants to improve his Um You know, LDL or or something like that. Sam wants to improve his thyroid. Like, I think all of these things are newly going to be marketing angles and things that people talk about because they have this insight into their body.

23:56 This company also took off and by the way, I quit taking creatine. It It turned me into a gorilla. I got so big. Like I couldn't I could not like fit into clothing. Like it. I have you have you taken it? I I have and I stopped.

24:09 Um I stopped'cause a friend freaked me out. He was like Everyone who goes on creatine starts losing their hair, which I like didn't experience, didn't know about, but I was like huh, I'll cycle off it for six months and see what happens. I went on. No, not yet. But like I like I like I ballooned. Like I just like it got so it just felt like I had so much water like it was like fifteen pounds in like three weeks. Uh I got huge. Like I went from like

24:35 two oh two to like two fifteen or something and and then I was like all right I gotta go off of it for like eight days and it just like all went away. Um Yeah. 'Cause yeah, I don't know what happened but um And this function health thing.

24:49 These guys took off uh because uh I mean what they did was smart. They I don't know if Mark Hyman started it or if he's like considered is he like the the Kim Kardashian of skims where like I I don't know if he had the idea or like someone else had the idea and he was the face. But like Partnering up with that dude who's got two million or something followers, like My father in law is like whatever Mark says, I do. Uh and so like

25:12 Uh, partnering up with a guy like this is so much better than whatever else health influencers sell. Like uh Coaching PDFs, are you you know what I mean? Totally. Yeah. Like I I generally think also as a side comment, this is how creators are gonna monetize more in the future is like owning chunks of very good businesses that rely on distribution.

25:31 Rather than just like I'm Mark Hyman and I get an affiliate fee every time I refer someone to check out function health or something, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. What's this other one about um functional medicine doctor for your home. That is uh Amazing sounding. Explain that. Yeah. So

25:47 There's increasing awareness around How Your home can basically be a source of disease like Lighting can be bad.

25:54 Yeah, EMFs, you know, are controversial, but like I think definitely have some health impact. Wait, what's that? uh EMS electromagnetic frequencies basically like your cell phone, your Wi Fi router, like all of these sort of Things that that are That we're surrounded by all the time.

26:08 Um Yeah, water toxicity. Like off gassing things called volatile organic compounds, basically like the You know, when you walk into a A building that's newly painted or something like that. You can smell it. Dude, do you have so much anxiety all day?

26:22 No, I'm pretty chill. I really believe in the like eighty twenty thing on this stuff. Rip me up. Like I saw a a video, there's a guy named Carnivore MD. And uh he had a video on YouTube explaining like his house. And Carnivore MD is like the most extreme of the most extreme when it comes to like these type of granola health influencers. And like he had like Uh

26:53 uh a mattress that had only natural fibers, which I don't I don't know what a grounding thing is, but there was like This like uh is grounding for electricity. He had like a pole. That went into the ground of his home and all the electricity had to like touch that grounding pole. Dude, is that a thing you know I'm talking about? That's amazing. Yeah. Like it was like the that he had like um

27:15 Uh no LED light bulbs he had no Wi Fi. So there was no Wi Fi at his home and you had to plug in if you had to if you wanted to use the internet on this one particular area of his home. Like it was crazy. Uh and I was reading it or watching this video and I'm like, that's cool. And also this Fucking exhausting. Ciao. Definitely. It's very like when you just named all of these things.

27:38 I'm like, I don't know, man. Like I kinda would Maybe fucking kill me early. Like you know what I mean? Like maybe I'll just take that as a consequence. Yes. So I agree. It's exhausting. It's a multifactorial problem. It's like a thing that People are aware of wanna fix, but don't know where to get started. This is actually why I think that

27:56 A like functional medicine or like trainer that makes your you know your house healthy. is a very interesting idea. I actually invest in a company Called Lightwork. Um it's do lightwork dot com, but

28:08 They're they're basically doing this where they can send Someone to your house. And do a test around You know, what are the things that What are the things that are

28:18 Potentially causing. Disease or stress or other sorts of things in your home. Uh and It's It's like shocking what they have found. Like

28:26 They tested a um you know a a billionaire's home. Recently and Across like All sorts of things like Air quality, water quality, VOCs, EMF exposure, all of this.

28:37 You know, it rated very, very badly. Like People are not looking at the home through the lens of of health and chronic disease. And when you start to There's like a ton of changes that you want to make. Many of those are are which are, you know, confusing or

28:51 Uh, you know, people don't really understand. So I think that there is a huge opportunity. For People to start thinking about You know, home health. uh or housing through the the lens of health.

29:01 I think that a company like Lightwork or Others that brings this sort of home health test assessment. Uh almost like function, you know, uh function health for your house.

29:11 Is like a really, really big opportunity. So they have a list on their website. So water quality, I assume that includes putting some type of filter. They have lighting. Which I imagine that means like no L E D lights or a certain type of bulb. Which

29:27 I guess that is the grounding thing we talked about. Uh like basically some what yeah. It's it's more like uh it's more like are you sleeping over a Wi Fi router? Like are you spending a lot of times in air you know, a lot of time in areas that have a very high power. uh you know, electromagnetic frequency.

29:44 Dude, they're gonna get so pissed at me when they find out that I sleep with the family guy playing in my ear for my cell phone. I sleep on my phone. Oh God. I want to fail us test. They have uh uh air quality. So that means like do you have plants inside your house or what? More more like are is what is the quality of uh your air. Mostly that's contributed like things that are bad are some of the paints that are doing off gassing. Some furnishers off gas quite a lot. uh, you know, microplastic fibers kind of like floating around in the air. Um from your like corporate or something like that. So a lot of these things. Do these guys make money? Uh they just started, so the answer is sort of so far.

30:25 How much does it cost? Uh depends on the house size, but anyway, it's it's definitely a premium product. Like five thousand. Or ten grand. Yeah. Ten grand. Yeah. And it and it's I would say that it is one of these companies that

30:38 Starting out. Is expensive, concierge, like all that kind of stuff. Over time, I think there's a huge amount of potential Uh, especially using AI and whatnot. to have people kind of do a version of this assessment.

30:50 almost themselves, where you walk around your house with a camera and all these sorts of things and this company just tells you like Change this, do this. This is probably bad. This is not Um like there's a there's a really cool potential technology solve here, I think. And the guy who started this, does he have a background in this stuff?

31:05 Uh yeah, he so he got incredibly sick. He and his wife actually. Um moved into a house. Uh that house. was on top of a power line. Uh that house had like a bunch of mold issues that they didn't realize about when when they moved in.

31:18 And over the course of a year their health on like every marker, energy, everything. Just like collapse. And so they went, you know, they went they're healthy, they're thirty one. Um, they went to normal doctors, they went to all these people. And only after a crazy amount of experimentation and talking to doctors did they realize

31:35 Wow, it's our health that it like our home is actually making us sick. And that's what kind of got them down this rabbit hole. of trying to understand. The problem which is that Many people are getting sick.

31:46 feeling low energy, feeling all these things, uh,'cause they're being slowly poisoned by the house they live in. Dude, I feel whenever I hear this story, I think I'm broken. Because like You know, I describe my family, like my where I'm from in Missouri. We're basically we're we're just mules. Like

32:02 We like You know, you eat donuts in the morning. You eat cheeseburgers and fries in the afternoon and you eat steak and pizza and French fries at night with tons of beer. And you just do that every single day and you just don't complain. And like if you were to tell like you tell me that these people like if if if my house was full of mold, I would just think I have allergies. It just uh, whatever. Like this is just how I feel. Yeah. Uh do you know what I mean? And so like I wouldn't I wouldn't know

32:28 You know, to like do I'm just th I would just think this is just life. And I and I wouldn't ever complain about it either. I would just be like, uh fuck it. Like rub some dirt on it. It's fine. You're not alone. I mean, this is like how most people respond to this, right? I just think that as people are becoming more aware of these things. Were you not raised that way? My mom was one of the early like into organic people. Yeah, she would buy milk in a glass drug. That was like unpasteurized, so it had all these nasty clumps.

32:57 And you'd like pour it into your cereal in the morning and a clump would hit it and the whole like row would explode all over you. So great. Your mom's a freak. I know. At one point, I think I was like in Fourth or fifth grade. The health food store where she was buying all this stuff literally burned down and all the kids like threw a party. We were like, Yay, no more no more crafty milk. That's insane. It you know, it is funny. As my wife, you know, as we've had kids start having kids, it's so funny. Once the baby comes out of you, you automatically become granola. Yeah there's uh there's a subreddit. Have you seen the subreddit? It's called like uh

33:32 Uh granola mom. Is it moderately granola moms? Yeah, moderately granola moms. And uh ba yeah, moderately granola moms, a place for almost hippies. And honestly, it's like one of my favorite places to get information because it's people who are hippie gip hipp hippie dippy, but they're self aware. Which is like why I like you. So like I want like someone who's like you know, love the extreme stuff, but can also dumb it down to me, who's more Uh, like, you know, I don't really want to learn everything. I wish you would just tell me what to do and tell me like what's like

34:06 experimental versus what's like actually proven and like you know y you like kinda can help me as a more normal consumer figure it out. And uh I've noticed that my wife, the second You know? Uh we were we had a kid, it was like no more Teflon. Um plastic bottles are no go, like things like that. And frankly I love it. I love it.

34:25 We We hung out with Joe Debia recently. Did you know? Did you ever go to Airbnb's office? Yeah, yeah.

34:33 So I don't know if you remember this, but They were wild. So this was back in Thousand I think they did this actually from the beginning. But they

34:42 Had two thousand people working out of that office, something like that. Maybe a thousand. And they made one hundred percent of their own food. And to to an extreme. So for example, they had air bowl, which was some type of like

34:56 Airbnb Red Bull. They had uh so the the condiments, the ketchup. The mayonnaise. was literally made on site by the staff, and so and their meats were all from butcher's Uh every single thing they had. So they had trail mix where it was like nuts with like

35:13 Chocolate that they had made. Uh it was crazy. And I distinctly remember that and I thought it was crazy. And then I started thinking about it. I'm like, that's kind of amazing. And we hung out with Joe Gebbe and I asked him about that. I go, Wha why did you guys do this? He goes, Man, that's how I was raised. Like my m I think he I think he grew up in Vermont or somewhere some somewhere uh rural New England.

35:34 And he was like, My mom was basically into this stuff, and I was raised doing all this, and I just thought it was good for the planet and it was good for our bodies. And so we insisted at Airbnb that we did this. And so back then, you know, I don't know how uh maybe Joe's forty something, so he was uh raised in the uh late eighties, early nineties. Back then, if you did that, like your mom, you were a freak. Now all the young cool guys that like we follow on Instagram who we're friends with all do this stuff and I think it's like pretty amazing. That is so cool. You don't remember that about Airbnb? Uh I went there I I didn't yeah, I went there to like meet up with friends and then see a talk. Uh so I only went two or three times and didn't actually get that that level of detail. That's so cool. It was wild. I don't know if

36:16 I they still have an office. I don't know if they still do that, but during the pandemic they had to lay people off and unfortunately the the culinary staff was probably the first to go. Yeah, that that feels like the first thing that a public company like activist investor kind of yells at you. Yeah, but you know, I understand that. That's could be tough to justify when there's like no need for an office. But that was a story. It it honestly was amazing. I tell the story all the time and I when I saw that, I was kind of on board with Airbnb even further because I'm like if they sweat the details with this, they probably sweat the details with other stuff. All right, let's do two or three more. You had one on about uh skin gut health. What is that? And whenever someone says gut health, It freaks me out because the What's it called? Leaky gut is the world's greatest branding.

36:55 Yeah. So this is actually a cosmetics company that I've I've wanted to invest in for so long. I haven't seen anyone do it. If you're doing this, like please just email me. Uh my email's very easy to find or ping me on Twitter. But

37:07 B thing that I think should happen is like there's I don't know how many hundreds of billions a year are spent on The Skincare kind of space. And if you look at research.

37:18 Almo there are certain things at work, like certainly there's classes of peptides and things like that that I think maybe work decently well. Um From a skin care standpoint, but for most people. If you're buying any sort of skincare

37:30 to look younger or whatever. It's just like a waste of money or it's like marginally effective. Um that so say that again. So you're Your stance here is that skincare is mostly a waste. Skincare is mostly a scam, yeah.

37:44 Yeah, min minus like a couple things, like certain peptides. Uh sunscreen moisturizer, sure if you want your skin to be like more moist. But a lot of the anti aging stuff, anti wrinkle cream, all these sorts of things. Is that uh is there one that's touched with an R? Uh well retinol A is one of the few things that's actually That's actually relatively effective. It's like all but this is the thing. It's like

38:05 Basically only Peptides are the things that work. Right. That's a peptide. Yeah, so it's it's a peptide things like um Like one skin uses a peptide. Uh, there's something called like copper, it's copper gq u, I think, which is another peptide.

38:19 These things seem to actually work. Um as well as some compounds like methylene blue and whatnot. But other compound like any sort of random fifty dollar thing that you're gonna buy on Amazon that is like anti aging and uses, you know, Jojoba oil or like any of these things, like just

38:34 Fract like just do not work. Um or if they do, they're so marginal it's basically not worth doing, in my opinion. Um What does work is And you don't wear sunscreen either, right? No. That's one of your like bold stances, which is that sunscreen is I basically think like most sunscreen is

38:51 carcinogenic. Again, this is another thing in the in the US. We allow things like oxygenzones. that are not allowed in the EU. It's in almost ever every sunscreen in the US, uh, is definitively carcinogenic. And so like why we encourage kids to put on put this on and like use it eight hours a day. I've noticed it's a little bit of So do you use zinc? Um so I use an a non nano zinc oxide sunscreen just for my face if I'm gonna be in the sun for like a very long period of time. Yeah. Dude, just con so controversial for a white guy to just I know, I don't know. Like I I feel like I've I've am happy with my skin.

39:23 Um So so yeah, so the thing that I want to invest in is There is a lot of research that shows the relationship and the link between gut health and skin health. Uh, and so like if you have a healthy gut, or if you work on probiotics or you work on like

39:37 you know, drinking bone broth, doing things like this that are gonna improve your gut health generally. Um There's research that shows that that is reflective in skin. There's something called Things called like bioluminescence basically, but there's A way that you can measure

39:49 How much of light someone's like Skin cells are emitting. And that improves as your gut health improves, which is kind of a wild fact. How how long is the is the change so like for example, I don't have like the greatest I o I have dry, flaky skin. I just thought it was just'cause I'm just like

40:05 A super white dude and like in the wintertime my skin gets destroyed. In the summertime I'm great. Yeah. Like, you know, uh I always thought that it was just like the lack of sun,'cause like Did you like my scalp will get my scalp will get like so dry during the during the wintertime and I like need to get under the sun. Yeah, yeah. Uh so like red light chicken lamps. Does that do stuff?

40:27 Yeah, it's helpful. Dude, it like during wintertime I feel miserable. Like I I like I'm like I need like the sun to like burn off everything on my head and on my face. So if I started drinking, what's the routine? If I started doing that, how long would my skin it take for my skin to get better? I I bet it would take like six months basically. But basically I I think it's gonna be summer by this by that time. Start now, you'll be great in December, yeah. Um but I I I think that the macro like business opportunity Is people treat skincare as just a th a topical thing that you apply to your skin, not like

41:03 an an expression of your gut health and skin health and all these sorts of things. And so I think there is an opportunity to build An incredibly large cosmetics company. Um you know, in a skincare company. Combining Topical applied skin care that's actually effective.

41:18 With gut based interventions that are going to like improve your skin from sort of the inside out. And I've like wanted this company to exist for seven years now. But but isn't that bone broth? I mean, what does this look like? Yeah, so I think it would be a like a combination of specialized probiotics that um that are geared towards you know improving skin health. Uh, I think it would be probably a crash diet of like thirty to sixty days where you're removing a bunch of like toxins and uh other inflammatory foods from your diet.

41:45 Incorporating bone broth and then some sort of like effective topical skincare. And I think that regimen would outperform basically anything that exists in the skincare world today. Do you eat any processed foods? Uh I try not to. But like do on a weekly basis, how how often?

42:01 Probably very probably none. Zero to yeah, one like that that's easy for I understand that for meals. So you probably do you you probably cook or do leftovers. What about for a snack? What's a an example. Uh I use these actually I just had one earlier. So it's a Maui Nui venison stick. Oh, I have one as well. I got I got my my my uh Cettle and Fire uh collab with them. There we go. Hell yeah. Yeah. Um dude, they're so you guys you guys sent me a bunch of them. I think like each stick is like Three dollars. Yeah, it's like three or four dollars. Yeah. I I have like a thousand dollars worth of these at my house. Amazing. Um so I I do those, the like meat sticks, I'll do fruit. Um, cup of bone broth. Like those are kind of the go to snacks. I've kind of been addicted to dried mangoes recently, which But that's a process, no? Like is that not considered is is beef jerky's not considered process?

42:51 I d I wouldn't consider it process. Like if you're sourcing it You know, sourcing it from a good place, like it's not gonna have a bunch of additives. It's basically just like meat that has been dried and then some spices. Uh yeah, I do dried mango. Where do I do it from Whole Food, but the problem is is that like I'll eat I can do like a bag a day, which is like eight hundred calories uh and like it's basically like four Cokes. Yeah. Yeah.

43:15 Although I I don't know. I've been eating like I there's there's this interesting diet online that I'm I'm currently trying. called uh the honey diet, but basically you just eat fruit and honey before noon each day. And then have like a high protein meal in the afternoon. Why are you doing this? Just to experiment, frankly.

43:30 And just see how I feel. But So far I feel pretty fucking good. Dude, and so the the mangoes fit within that diet. I've been doing um my snack lately has been dates and butter. Have you ever had that? No.

43:44 Oh my God. It's the great I think I saw Carnivore M D do it, and I was like, Let me try this'cause I got a sweet tooth. Like I have a d a very addictive personality and when I quit drinking alcohol, it totally went to sugar. So I'm always having to combat that. But I think everyone is and so uh uh Uh half a tablespoon of butter. In a date. It's like the greatest thing on earth.

44:05 I'll give it a go. Actually Carnivore MD is very into this, like meat and fruits thing. Like honey, fruit, and meat is basically his diet. Uh and he's very into that. So I don't know. I I actually think that we are there's a good chance that Honey, fruit, like We're on the the very early stages of like people realizing that sugar is not that bad for you when it comes in fruit.

44:25 or honey form. That's an interesting take because I would have thought you would have said the opposite, which is like glucose is glucose. No. Oh, that's intr that's interesting. So you do high Sugar fruit as well, not just

44:40 This is something I'm just starting to experiment with. And so like I'm not even sure. So I I literally I got my labs done recently. Uh and then like last week started this honey diet thing. So I'm gonna test again in like three months and see how I see how things look. That's pretty fascinating. I would not have thought that that's something you would do. Because I like I've read about like bananas. Uh, Sam Korkos actually told me he said this in passing, so I don't wanna like attribute this to because I could have I could have been listening to him wrong, but I believe he said that a modern banana is candy and the way it used to be was like a carrot.

45:11 He's like they they were not like this as delicious, but we've like genetically you know, it's kinda like a honey crisp apple. Like you know what like uh it's basically like genetically predisposed to B like You know, yeah. Yeah, like it's I think the new Apple that's popular. It's called a cotton candy apple. I like have you seen they have that at Central Market. It was called the cotton candy apple. I'll have to try it. I've not seen that. So like you would eat that?

45:37 Uh I mean I would experiment with it for ninety days for sure. Yeah. I I don't think A lot of this stuff, like yes, if you're optimizing for sweetness, I c I understand that Um

45:46 Then you could argue maybe it's bad, but I think that nature tends to like Keep trade offs within a certain band. Um I don't know if you're Having organic

45:57 produce or whatever. Like I I I think that this stuff is like not w it's not bad to experiment with it and just see how you feel. Do you eat Uh vegetables. Yeah. Yeah. I do. Well uh Ari's laughing at me and so's and so are you. But like a lot of some of these guys are like I think kind of our MD in particular is Uh

46:16 On some parts anti v on some things anti vegetable. He's come off that a little bit. I mean, like to me, I th I think that you just have to have a macro lens on this, which is Like what have humans been eating for Hundreds of thousands of years. It's not like

46:30 You know, in in the year nineteen hundred, year rolled around or nineteen seventy when like the chronic disease crisis really started ramping up. That all of a sudden people are rampantly eating vegetables and getting sick all the time. It's like obviously, in my view, not like we are in the midst of a vegetable eating epidemic that is making everyone sick. It's like clearly like the ultra processed foods that are new to our food system. And so Does he have some good points, like maybe our vegetable is less good than than most people think like I could believe that. Do I think it is

46:57 a thing that is like worth optimizing and to never eat vegetables, like definitely not. Here's one. Um For some of these health trends, um I think that um Polyester clothing.

47:09 It's gonna um there's gonna be I mean there's already a niche of people, I'm one of'em, where I I I don't wear If a clothing has polyester, I I tried always to avoid it unless it's like you know, like special or particularly amazing where uh but but in general It's gotta be all natural fibers.

47:29 Are you all are you on board with that? Oh yeah. I mean m polyester clothing is like the number one contributor to to microplastics, basically. They like shed like crazy when you're washing them. And there was um there's some studies that have been done. Around Uh they basically took dogs and had them wear polyester underwear.

47:45 And their sperm count went down like sixty or seventy percent. And then they switched them off of polyester underwear and like it came right back up. No shit. No way. So what underwear do you wear? Do you wear underwear? Yeah. So there there's a company called NADS that does like organic Um organic stuff. There's another company called Pact.

48:04 P A C T And I usually wear those. How interesting. Is women's I mean, I don't know. Is w does this in does this matter to women? So it's unclear to me right now, I would say potentially, but It seems like the thing that is causing the loss of sperm is like there's some sort of

48:22 Um electrical charge thing that happens between polyester and The skin that seems to impact Um in impact like Yeah, sperm generation.

48:32 And so it's it's not clear to me yet. I haven't like gone super deep on it. How fascinating. So Yeah. Pretty wild though, right? Uh that dog thing is crazy. So are you crazy. Yeah, that's another great dog health idea. You know, dog all or all natural dog underwear. That's insane to me. So I use uh ex aficionado and I loved it because it was uh

48:54 It like would dry quickly after you cleaned it and they never stretched out, but I think it is highly synthetic. Uh almost certainly. And so But honestly, cotton underwear for the most part sucks, but there's some companies that are making like really good cotton workout gear. And cottonwear that I I really appreciate.

49:12 So like for example. What I like to do is A lot of my workout shorts I just get sweatpants, like all cotton sweatpants, and I'll cut'em. Uh but like I'm a big fan of like all cotton workout gear because Lulu Lemon and uh like it has like

49:28 underwear in the shorts. So your junk is just on the polyester even harder. Do you know what I mean? Totally. Totally. There there's actually a company uh there's a company called Riker. I love Riker. I love their stuff. I love Riker. Yeah, it's so good. It is so good. It's the only short company for men and they have shirts and stuff too, but it's the only but the shorts are and particularly particularly are hard to do. Because you like if a if a workout short doesn't have the underwear Then you're just kinda like

49:59 Flop all over. You know what I mean? But it's hard to do with cotton. Totally. Yeah. So their their stuff is great. I really, really like what they're doing. Um, and I I use their stuff for all my work out clothes. That's great. Um can you tell me really quick, are there a I just wanna know what Justin does. Are there any other Do you have any other stances like this? So this is like so fascinating to hear some of your stances that

50:22 might be controversial or Uncommon. I feel pretty confident that Like our current vaccine schedule is very much not good from a chronic disease standpoint. I don't I don't like make any claims around autism or whatnot, but From a food allergy standpoint.

50:36 Uh certainly the US is like the worst chronic disease issue and is the most vaccinated. Uh and has like the the the most egregious vaccine schedule of any developed country. So what are you suggesting? Spacing it out or not taking them? Yeah, I I basically think like fewer shots, more spaced out is like what I'm planning to give kids. I wrote a very long post on this. It is pretty uh incredible. Like for example, they give a kid a head B. Shot.

50:59 like literally five minutes or less, like two minutes out of the womb. And I was like Well I don't I don't know if she's gonna be around like Someone with head B anytime soon. So Well, the only way you can get a head B is through sexual, you know, sexual activity and blood transfusions. And they test the mom.

51:16 for happy before birth. And so like You're just vaccinating a kid against something and and the immunity wears off after a decade. And also not that many people have I don't think hep B is like particularly common. Uh like it's basically drug users, I believe. I I I I mean and and the other thing is like my view is that our our health organizations have been captured and Uh you know, by

51:36 Large companies and I think like you look also at the Covid M RNA vaccine was added to the infant childhood immu immunization schedule this year. It's like That is not a scientific position. That is purely. Something else is going on.

51:49 Um So I I think that's like a relatively controversial take that I have. Um that I wrote a very long piece about that I think is defensible. Any other last ones? Yeah, so against like the health tribe. Um I think that the

52:02 Yeah, I the the fruit and sugar one is probably like the biggest one that I'm that I'm focused on right now. And then I also think that It's like demonization of I think the the tribal stuff tribalness of of like food cultures is

52:15 Is something that I I think is not not good. Like I basically am much more into nutrientsity. And I think if you're eating Nutrient dense like pizzas and carbs and all that stuff. As opposed to like conventional Yeah.

52:27 Vegetables, fruits, and meats all the time that are like maximally sprayed and processed and all this stuff. Like I I actually think that eating a bunch of carbs that are from a very, very good source. uh probably your health outcomes will be better. That stuff's like impossible to find. Like for example Yeah. In order to do that, you'd have to find someone that

52:45 mills their own grain or something like that. Like that's like It's virtually impossible. Or Not virtually impossible, but it's a job. Yeah. Yeah, it is. I very much agree. Um

53:00 Dude, you're the man. Thank you. I just like uh You know, I text you these questions anyway, and so It's fun just to Kit now every time just to pepper you with all types of questions that I have, but I appreciate you. Yeah, no, this has been super fun, man. Uh thanks for having me on as always. And we didn't even promote your company.

53:17 Yeah, so my my company, um Kettle and Fire is a bone broth company, which we talked about. Uh my my company now is called TrueMed. We're basically making it so you can buy Um Exercise, healthy food, supplements, using tax free HSA or FSA money. So if you go to TrueMed.com, you can see a bunch of the brands where you can spend tax free dollars.

53:35 Um and then if you are interested in like Some of the health stuff I talk about. I also have a newsletter, which is Justin Mayer's substack. And a new podcast. True Med has a podcast. It's great. I like it.

53:46 Yeah, yeah, we're we're doing like a couple episodes on, you know, movement, exercise, nutrient density. Dude, I appreciate you. Thank you so much. God bless. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. That's it, that's the part. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I could be what I want to

54:03 I put my law in it like my day song On the road less travel never looking back

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