383: Dioxins in Your Fish Oil? The Truth About Clean Label Testing
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Hello, friends. Welcome to the Ancient Health Podcast, where East meets West. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Motley. And today we have a guest that does everything through transparency, something that I'm super passionate about with products, with supplements, with protein.

Mr. Oliver Amdrup Chambi. I hope I said it well because I love Danish language. It sounds so cool, but thank you so much, Oliver, for joining us today. Thank you for having me on here. It's exciting to be here. It's really great. We were catching up, guys, about life down near the Florida coast. I could already tell that I'm going to have a good conversation with Oliver today. I'm really impressed, and I want everybody to know this, that

With how much of a stringent investigation you do with your company, Puri. So guys, I have his products here. I use his protein. I use his omegas.

And I'm very passionate about how clean a product is. And you have been one of the leaders in the Clean Label Project. Before we jump into that, because all of my listeners, they really are very passionate too about how clean something is. We're really thankful that there's people out there that are being on the forefront of this. So first, thank you. But we do want to hear about you. We want to hear about your passion, why you chose this pathway.

So what made you so passionate about finding products and creating products that were so clean?

I think it goes all the way back to the starting point of Puree back in like when we started to talk about me and my co-founder and I back in 2007. So quite some time ago. And we were like on our own health journey. I was like, I started the second CrossFit, one of the first CrossFit gyms in Europe, the first one in Denmark. It was super early in the CrossFit career. I was like a personal trainer. I loved like being involved in health and wellness. And I was on my own journey as well.

And one of the things that we stumbled upon was the omega-3, omega-6 fatty acid imbalances in the Western diet.

And we were like, you know, totally nerding out on, okay, what products should we take? We read Dr. Barry Sears, the Omega RX zone was just excited about some of the things that we might be able to adjust by reducing intake of Omega-6 from, you know, whether it's vegetable oils or whatever it were coming from in our diet and meats and whatnot, and increasing the amount of Omega-3 in our diet to just even out that imbalance.

And when we went down that rabbit hole, you know, everything was kind of giving us this great piece of advice was like, just make sure if you start to consume something on a daily basis, like fish, it needs to be clean and pure. Because, you know, there's heavy metals in fish, there might be dioxins in the oceans and different like environmental pollutants that you need to be aware of.

And we were like these great consumers, I think, and I still see myself as a consumer to this day. Like, okay, that sounds great. That must be a data point. So, you know, what clean and pure is like the amount of heavy metals is measured in parts per billion or parts per million, depending on the dose. But, you know, that's something I can measure. So let's go out and find the cleanest fish oil in the market when we start taking it, taking it.

And we start researching and reaching out to brands and products. And we found it very demotivating to say the least. That was almost impossible to get the data points. Most people, when you went to a store and asked for, can I get the parts per billion of mercury in your fish oil? And they were like, what?

Most of them at the time were not even aware maybe that it could be an issue, so to speak. So we thought that's pretty interesting. In health and wellness in general, people tend to have various routes to right outcome. You can go down the diet hole of vegetarian. You can go omnivore, carnivore. There's so many routes and it's never one size fits all. I think that's pretty hard. Anyway, but when it comes to environmental toxins, like

heavy metals, nobody was saying, you know, you need a little lead in your diet or mercury in your diet. Everybody was saying you needed to get to close to zero as possible. There's no safe levels of that in your diet, right? So we thought this is so interesting. Everybody says, when you eat fish, be aware of this. It's a data point. It's fairly simple, but nobody had the data point.

So how are we as consumers able to navigate this? We felt there must be a brand out there that front and center on their homepage would like share this piece of information of like, this is a lab report. This is what we found. This is what we didn't find. And that's how Pure was born. And the passion for Pure products was born.

I love it because that's amazing, Oliver, because one of the things that I've noticed about your omegas, and I want everybody to really investigate, and I'm not just saying that because I myself have always had, Oliver, gallbladder issues, and my family line has had it. And one of the things that I've always had an issue with was taking fish oils. And for some reason, when I would take a fish oil, it would make me bloat. And everybody told me in the past, like, you need to start doing fish oils.

So I would always have to find a fish oil that had some cleanliness to it. And I didn't know anything about that for the longest time. And your products, literally, when I take it, it doesn't make me bloat. It doesn't make me feel discomfort, uncomfortable. So when you couldn't find that, you know, the research behind it, was it a tough thing to do to get that thing started to like start going into the research and such or finding labs that would actually look for it?

I think we fairly quickly found at that time IFAS, like International Fish Oil Standards, which were doing some tests on products already. It was kind of the beginning. And we could find a few brands that were like testing here and there, but we couldn't find anybody who was like consistently testing every single batch of every single product.

So we felt that was our opportunity. And I think with, you know, you call the term in Danish, I don't know if it translates to English, but we'll try. With Blue Eyes, you know, you walk into something, you just believe that you can just like get it done. And I think that was both a strength and weakness, obviously, because it had us like think about creating a fish oil product slightly different than, let's say, a more mature industry was creating fish oils. And we were thinking more as the consumer. And that obviously helped.

had some impact in how we were kind of able to be part of the supply chain and more and more so as we've kind of ventured into the business, but all the different steps that it takes to create a product that is that superior over time, because it really is about like virtuosity. That's what we call ourselves, right? It's about doing the common uncommonly well.

There's so many steps from catching the right fish to actually you have the capsule or the liquid or whatever fish oil you're consuming in hand at the end as a consumer where it can go wrong.

And how much can we minimize that process to go wrong is really what we want to do. So in fish oil, there's a lot of steps in because it's a very fragile product. But again, as pure means pure origin, it starts with the purest origin. It starts with the best source possible that you can. So we've been spending time investigating that. Where does that come from? What does it look like? And then from there on, there's several steps because

Let's be honest, like fish oil, there's no instant gratification. There's no fun about or like no feeling of consuming a capsule. It's not like it gives you anything. It doesn't fulfill a need that you're hungry or anything. It's building. It's giving you some micronutrients.

long chain fatty acids here that you need in your diet, but it's not something you feel right away. So it got to be as pleasant as humanly possible. And it obviously got to deliver a result. And we can go down into that further down, but there's a lot of things that can go wrong from the end. And oxidation is a big part of it. And that might be the one that you're seeing as well.

as well. Yeah, that's a good point. And I hope I'm not trying to go rabbit trail to another point. But I do think that when you're looking at companies, because I think the people listening would be when you're looking at a fish oil, because they would bring me one in the office here. They'll go, hey, doc, I got this fish oil and I do some muscle testing. I do some things and I would be like, well, it doesn't really help your meridian system really well. Your products really do. And I'm just saying,

And not bashing or trying to talk negatively about other companies, but is that what was happening back in the day and even now? Some of their standards, they weren't really testing a lot? I think, and we still is to the day and age, I think there's still an idea for many consumers that a fish oil is fish oil.

What can really be different? It's a fish oil. An egg is an egg. And that depends really, if you ask the chicken that laid that egg, I think they had very different lives at some point and what it ate and the micronutrient profile of that potentially, if it came from, let's say, a very harsh conventional farm to a pasture-raised free range. And the same goes for fish. So there's something in that part as well. So I think if we just take fish oil as the example there.

And there's really three things you want to do in fish oil. One thing is it needs to have, coming back to that point from before, the active ingredient that delivers salt. That's why you're taking fish oil. That's the EPA, DHA, the other omega-3 fatty acids.

acids, that is what you're really at the end of the day consuming. So it needs to have that. And you know, in our capsules, it's a fairly high concentrated dose. So you get 80% of the oil in there is actually omega three fatty acids, which means that from three capsules get 2000 milligrams, which is a pretty

So if you take another brand, you would have to actually convert sometimes for yourself to figure out. Maybe they suggest one capsule, but the capsule is 1,000 milligrams in the capsule and it has 60% fish oil. So you're actually only getting 600 milligrams of nutrient fatty acids versus 2,000 milligrams in three capsules. So it depends a little bit on that. So that's one thing you've got to navigate.

But that's phase one, active ingredient. The second part is the absence of environmental toxins. That was the reason we got started into this was like, okay, if I take this day in, day out, you add it, you recommend it to others. People make it a staple in their diet that they actually do again and again and again. You know, like, please, let's get as close to zero as we can on the big heavy metals, the dioxins, the furans, the other things we tend to find in fish. So that's the purity level of it.

level of it, making sure that it says and then the final and that's where fish oil compared to maybe some other products and supplement space is a little harder. That's the oxidation. And that's the oxidation measured in what we call toe tops or the total oxidation in the capsule of the oil, which is a multiple of different things.

That is when you as the end consumer oxidation, when you buy that product, that capsule you're chewing in, that's where you want to test it. So you want to test that through a third party laboratory. So you make sure that that oxidation level is as low as possible because it's the same if you are going to a nice restaurant.

like having sushi, fresh fish, you would not want a super oxidized, like harsh, rotten, to say at least, fish. And you would taste that right away because you're consuming raw fish. But that's what can be kind of math sometimes in fish oils. Like you're getting an oxidized, maybe not enough omega-3 at the same time, and it's very heavily oxidized. And that will give you those fishy burps that you do not get if it's super fresh.

That makes a lot of sense. So Oliver, because seriously, like I've had times when, you know, when I get the burps and some people say, I don't want to take a fish oil because I'll keep burping it up. So now this is us for people who may not know, like when you say oxidize, I've heard some people say that it's like the term like rancid, like the oils go like bad basically. And is that a problem? Like a lot of times now they're just taking oils that like you said, have maybe been sitting too long or is it just like they just have a bad source? I think that's the, I think it's a lot of that. It's actually the,

production from, you may, they might start with a decent fish, let's say, and it was fairly fresh in the beginning. But then like from how the encapsulation process, where it was stored, how long it was stored, you know, like how it was transported and so on, that can heavily impact, you know, the end product. And that's back to what we see in manufacturers in general is there's some testing requirements done in production.

But to be honest, like for a lot of these products, it needs to be done at the consumer level. And that's what we have been advocating for a long time, because it's what the consumer gets that we consume. So it doesn't matter if the brand had a really fresh oil in production, because maybe then when they did the capsulation process and they did the warehousing and the fulfillment, and at the end of the day, you are ending up with something that's like 10x more oxidized compared to what they had in production.

And that obviously, we should benchmark towards who's actually consuming it, right? Not towards the manufacturing side of it. So I think that's really the key. And when we look at other brands and look at IFAS, and IFAS, which is this international official standard organization where brands submit. So it's like you generally see the good brands there.

So that's one thing. If your brain is IFA certified, they generally care about quality. So that's one. The second thing you could go in and look at is how much omega-3 am I getting in the dose? Because that's the active ingredient. That's what you're spending your money on, basically. And the second thing that I would look, because normally to be on IFAS, it would pass the purity standards, but the oxidation levels might vary.

So if you're really into it, you can see that number. Say we're aiming for a Cho-Chuck score around six on many of our products. But the IFA standards are below 19. I would say most brands is around 12 for that regard. And some, when we see from less quality fish oils, are way higher. Wow. There is so much intel. And again, remember, Oliver, I'm not trying to lead us. I want you to bring me back in. But when you became part of the Clean Label Project team,

And I want to talk about how you got in that, but I'm also like, I went to a really smart physician. He's from England and he was telling me, this is long time ago, Oliver, but he would say, he said, well, be careful because most of the fish in the oceans are probably contaminated with some forms of mercury or some forms of heavy metal.

And is that where the Clean Label Project, where you got involved, like there were a group that just can't have this anymore? Yeah. So I think Clean Label Project is a nonprofit out of US that it's doing a great job putting attention on consumer products that Americans are consuming. They generally go out in the category and buy very large amount of data and throw it through labs to see is there an issue in a category.

And they've looked at baby food, pet food, protein powders, like at various different things.

different things. And when we met them, it was around our protein powder. So they tested in 2018, a big category started on protein powders in the US, like 130 brands, very representative of the category in general. And in that study, they benchmarked like BPA, heavy metals, protein content, a lot of different things that you're not supposed to find in protein. And we were part of that study too.

the product, our vanilla protein came out on top in that study as kind of the purest per amount. So that was like what we've been working for for 10 years at the time to get to that level. We can, like with pure ingredients, we can never say we're always the purest.

But that's the whole point because we're talking natural ingredients that you're sourcing from Mother Nature in some shape or form, in most regards. And I think you can never control that 100% because there's natural occurring heavy metals and earth cross. There's various things that will vary. But when we test every single batch of every single product we do at the consumer level, like the finished product, we know our data sets, what the consumers are getting. So we will always rank in top five.

It's our 5%. That's basically what we can say now, right? In these types because that's what we're focusing on. And if you focus on something, it tends to where you drive results as well. So that's one thing I'm really impressed with and everybody out there listening. I'm super impressed because with your protein powder and your fish oil, again, it's complete transparency even on the website. You're willing to get tested and willing to go through the stringent codes to see how clean your products are. So

That was your goal. You drove in, you're driven in getting the omegas and the protein powders. Now, one of the things people may ask, and we know like you're an expert at it, but some people may even ask, like you're talking about brain health. And I want us just to talk about like with fish oils, omegas, why are they important for brain health?

Yes, I think we, and I say this always, we regulate it in Denmark, which is very different from being regulated in the US as a brand. That means that there's very little I can say on claims in terms of that. So we're very, like we can say it's good for your eyes, your brain and your heart, but that's pretty much it. Like it maintains like normal function. And I say normally normal function, those are pretty, let's call them,

brain, heart and like, it's fairly important features of your body. Right? So it's fairly important parts anyway. But so what does mobile function mean? There's a lot of different things. And I'm sure like, as yourself, doctors, experts around can talk a lot more of what they see. But what we generally tend to see is when you have a lot of studies pointing in one direction, like in positive direction of, you know, your brain just

performs better when you have omega-3 in your diet versus not having it. So I think when you see all of these positive studies pointing in one direction, yes, there's always studies pointing in the other direction based on how you're seeing it. When the amount of macro evidence and the quality of the studies is high, it's something that I would really consider. And then we look at it on an individual basis. What does your own intake of omega-3 look like?

I think that's really critical because I think most of what we can see in literature from very respective organizations around is like two to four grams of Omega three a day is what is an optimal dose for many people. Yes, varying on size and so on. You can probably add more to that and nuance that than I can.

But I think when you're looking at that, it depends a lot of what are you consuming? Do you consume the fatty fish on a regular basis? And I'm not talking like once a week. You probably need to do it more to get those doses right. Like the mackerel, the sardines, the anchovies, the salmon, those heavier in omega three fatty acids fish.

I think, yeah, you can come back a little bit on time loop, but I think like maintaining proper function of your brain is, is critical. It is. I think one of the things I'm most impressed with was I've had patients here and they started omegas and you'll find that like, even, I mean, again, we gotta be careful with claims, but I've had people that had their cognition, their brain fog has reduced literally and

I've had patients with their parents in assisted livings and in memory care started giving them omegas and their memory starting to get tons better. They're like, why is like, cause we're in a culture, I guess where our, our cholesterols are getting eaten away and getting annihilated. So that's one of the biggest things I love to see. Even like,

My mom, for instance, started doing the omegas and her eyesight is getting better. Like literally, Oliver, this is great. So this is amazing research that you're doing. Those are the stories we're getting to, right? When we get a lot from our consumers coming in and say, even they've been

taking other products in the past. Now they started adding out and they actually see other benefits coming along that they didn't see before. And again, potency, that's probably when you get a larger dose, you know, there's something to that and freshness, because I sincerely believe that the more oxidized it is, the less beneficial that fish oil will be for you. So if you have a product that delivers almost twice the amount of, let's say, omega-3 as most other products out there when you're consuming it, and it's maybe three or four or five times fresher,

You're getting a really different experience over time with that quality of fish. It's for the same reason I would give it to my kids, myself, my wife. I use myself as an example. We've been playing with my blood work a lot as well for various different... Just measuring data points and what does it look like. I've had concussions where I've been recommended by doctors as well to increase my intake again of things like that. Yeah.

I think it's hard to run around the heavy evidence of how beneficial it is for human health and an optimal performance to get adequate amount of omega-3 in your diet, which is so freaking hard actually through food. It really, really is. That is a huge point, Oliver, because I mean literally when I was a kid –

kids would make fun of me truly when I was a kid, I lived out in the Midwest and my mom's Korean. So we would eat, we would take dried anchovies, right. And so dried sardines. And we had it part of our diet. Like we would eat dried ones. And my mom is always like, it's good for your eyes. So I was used to eating tons of fish, even in stoops and broth and such. Um, and one of the things like I've seen too, is like patients with their joint pain. Like I am, I'm so surprised when, uh, when we increase in megas in patients, um,

And your product's like, my joints have felt better. And I'm just so surprised. So I think like, does it coat the joints too? I mean, I guess it's just an anti-inflammatory in some way. I think that's where you want to point the focus without me kind of again recommending it. Yeah, yeah, I got it. But I think that's like what we've seen with that.

you know if your body has too little omega-3 and too much omega-6 you're in a pro-inflammatory state the entire time so if you start increasing your omega-3 levels quite significantly when you're at that and if you're doing something smart about like maybe reducing your omega-6 you have a powerful anti-inflammatory in that balance right so and i think a lot of stuff can be avoided by again tweaking up your nutrition and food right this is great great combo i mean

Now, I'm not trying to switch gears. We can always go back to the fish oils because I think it's so important. In my opinion, I'm saying this for eyes, for brain, for health of your joints, and

But your protein is very impressive. And I don't just say that. It's literally too. I've had times where I've had so much yeast in my digestion when I was a kid. Now, anytime I did any type of protein, especially like anything like with whey or casein, anything like that, my stomach would get a little bloated. But you and your protein is very clean because I don't have any of those feelings, like even in my itchiness or anything of that sort in my body. Could you talk us through like the protein that you guys source and what makes it so special?

Yes, and I can and I can just also say, before I jump into that, just touching on the Clean Naples project will tie me into it. Because this is so recent Clean Naples project just came out and like with the 2024-25 study of protein powders. And they tested

83% of America's best selling protein powders. This is like, it's not just a one brand over here and a few brands there. It's like 83% of what is accessible for Americans, right? Which is like 160 different products that they went through. 47% of these products would be above Proposition 65 standards set for heavy metals.

47%. That's like flipping a coin if you're getting it. And that's the dose, like if you're taking one scoop of the recommended dose of the product. That is like flipping a coin almost if you're getting too much and it was especially lit in your smoothie in the morning. And I think here it is so extremely extraordinary critical because people are buying protein powders because they think they want to do something healthy to themselves.

Most people are not doing it. It's not like buying it, let's say, going down to McDonald's and buy a Big Mac. You might know it's not the best for you, but you have other joys out of it or whatever you're getting out of it. Anyway, but I think when you're buying a protein powder, even if you go to an expensive store and buy something expensive and organic, even plant-based, you would see even higher numbers of brands that goes above Proposition 65 thresholds for things like lead.

And I think that is crazy. And again, that's where like our whole dream and purpose and the Clean Label, they want to put attention on it. Our goal is to see if we can help the industry by showing this is how we're doing it. Hopefully others can follow so you can benchmark against each other based on data. So that's one side. Again, that's the purity side of the protein. And again, protein, you're taking 15 to let's say 30, 40 grams a day. Like it's quite a lot. So if your powder is slightly polluted,

You're actually inflicting yourself with quite a lot of powder, right? Versus let's say a capsule might be less because it's just a smaller dose you're getting. So dose makes the poison. We know there's heavy metals out there. But I think when we're doing something that's supposedly good for you, we should get as close to zero as we can. That's really amazing because one of the things I love reading about your processes was that even cows –

can get grains or get their feed or get something that actually can be sprayed with pesticides and heavy metals. And they found that it could transfer into some of the products of the cow. And that's why I really am thankful for the Clean Label Project. And honestly, Oliver, I would say this, like when I saw this, I knew that there were certain, you know, certain agencies out there. But the more I read into this, I was really, really glad because I would say, I don't know how it is in Europe because I don't live there. I mean, I'm not from there. So

I feel like they're more stringent in many ways in Europe about certain things too. And then is the Clean Label Project a global nonprofit? It's definitely global. So it's growing. I think they're seeing the need. We see the need for Clean Label Project in like one of the most regulated countries like Denmark and so on. We definitely see the need because there's things in general food and food supplement industry are focused on what makes you instantly sick.

like the E. coli, these different types of bacteria that you will feel right away, but they rarely focus on the stuff that we, despite knowing it will make us sick over time. But how can you trace back if you're, now I'm saying daily protein smoothie for five years had too much lead in and that was a cause of a disease later on. It's impossible to make that trace, right? So I think we need this for consumers

especially when we go into a category that's so big and massive, we're talking in the US, it's probably a $10 billion category. And we're having half of the categories above Proposition 65.

That might be a strict standard. It's still the standard we follow. And we think, again, since we know there's no safe level of these heavy metals, like, you know, we want to, at least when we're doing something good for ourselves, go as close to zero as we can. I think that's where we need to do something. And I think what Clean Able Project has done also in baby food, we are now seeing regulations in baby food coming in through the AB 899 that brands must have a

third party validated lab report on heavy metals and baby food because they had similar findings when they did baby food category studies. Right. So generally, but I'm still in a positive mindset here because when we find out we can do something about it. I sincerely believe that brands are not in it because they're like willingly knowing that has not a lot of heavy metals in them and they're like, you know, doing bad. I sincerely believe we don't know because it's not something we're supposed to test for.

So that's why first we got to map it. Then we got to figure out how it enters into this product. And then we got to fix it. And with transparency and consumer trust, we can get there. And it's data points. So it's not like the brand that has the biggest marketing budget will win. It's eventually just like measuring up against the data point.

point. So I really, I love them for what they're doing in that and other there's a lot of other good institutions pushing in that direction, like the EWG. And I think that's where the difference may be between Europe and US is more on the chemical side, unless the heavy metals slash natural occurring. They're not coming naturally into the products. Unfortunately, it probably comes like heavy metals probably comes from

You know, like industrial agriculture, mining and so on. There's many reasons for why we'll enter into our food chain. But I think the man-made interest into our food chain, at least Europe is a little bit more strict there. Like we got to do more on the pesticides, the chemicals in general before they kind of are allowed to enter. And I think we should look for that.

So on the other hand, Proposition 65 in California is much more ahead than Europe is on heavy metal regulation. And again, people think that because maybe it's organic, it's free from heavy metals. Organic is great for the pesticides side of it, right? And that's what I would pick. But even this category study, we saw that organic products have more heavy metals in them generally than the conventional. So it doesn't protect you on that side. And that's where this Clean Label Project and others, you know,

The products in risk of contamination should have some kind of quality assurance, third-party quality assurance, if we know there's a risk of contamination. So that was one of my next questions was – and you've already answered it, but like the organic piece. It's not the same. I mean like you could say it does help us with no pesticides, but there still could be heavy metals within them. So –

If a person gets organic, their protein powder is like you, you're not bashing anybody. And I love it that you're positive. You're light filled. It's like, but we have to be really look at the data to find out. Right. Because organic doesn't mean it's always organic or the best for you. A healthy gut makes such a difference in so many aspects of health, processed foods, antibiotics, stress at work, and even toxins in the air can overwhelm our digestive system. Our bodies are literally being attacked on a daily basis. So what can we do?

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Unfortunately. So I think that's where, again, finished product testing is the future. And again, we've seen it now. I'm so excited because we're seeing this coming to baby food, meaning it's doable for the brands. Every brand has to follow that if they want to sell in California and US, right? So it's like...

It's possible. And I think when we have a category where 47% is polluted, according to Proposition 65 in California, then we need to do something about it. And I think that will happen. So I'm positive that we'll move in that direction. But again, back to your protein, that's one part of it.

Like it's that's the purity part. Again, obviously, when you're consuming a protein powder, you're doing it to increase your intake of protein. And you do that for like, I would say there's so many reasons for doing that either we're getting too little through our diet, you know, like our body's functions need protein, right to consume. And maybe we have like a dietary preference and makes it harder to get protein, you know, philosophical, there can be various reasons why you would add a protein powder, right? So

So yeah, and so I can come a little bit back to, to like the puree protein and how we tried to do that, because it's also something we played with for a long time. And you mentioned, so on paper, like if you look at the back, it's not organic, it's a whey protein powder, vanilla, but there's none organic.

because we third party test the end result against pesticides, glyphosate and whatnot. It's technically organic because the cows were actually grass fed and pasture raised. So they were actually out there on that gut. But on top of that, we have the heavy metal side of it, which the organic certification will not have because you can see exactly how many parts per billion of lead did you find in the serving and so on. So

I think for that regard, it's again about finding we could use several different sources of whey where it comes from. It could be from this farm over here. It could be a farm in Denmark. It could be US. It could be Canada. We've used a little bit from various places. We test the raw ingredient before we play with it. And then we test the finished product in the end so the consumer know what they're getting. And I think that gives us that certainty at the end of the day that we have a high quality product right there.

right in terms of purity standards and protein content which is another key piece right you want protein when you're consuming protein powder truly truly because you have like i love that your term whoever wrote your your description it's like literal ingredients no funky ingredients and that i love that terminology because like there are so many times when you look at a protein powder

And then patients will say, hey, I got this protein, but it's got all these other things. And I'm like, I think sometimes people could have adverse reactions to extra stuff or even binders and such, right? Like different things. Sure. And I think, again, there's without knowing what they are, but the dose make the poison is a big part of it. But I think we've actually used to say, so this is something like we've decided to use organic coconut sugar.

So we use three grams in a serving, which is when you think about it in the grand scheme of carbohydrate during your day, it's pretty little. But many people would say, I'm trying to not get the carbohydrates out of my protein powder because it's a protein powder. But then most brands would use quite a lot of like monk fruit or stevia or even artificial sweeteners or

other type of sweeteners, some sweeteners that are not yet allowed in Europe as well. So we've seen when we use natural ingredients like an organic coconut sugar that has fairly low glycemic index compared to some of other sugars, but also has a great flavor component.

to it. We can get the vanilla flavor, which comes from real Madagascar vanilla and there's vanilla seeds in it, actually chopped vanilla seeds. When you pair that with a little bit of real natural sugar like that, which is the equivalent of a fifth of a banana or less than a date. So it's that little in the serving. It tastes like burned vanilla, almost like a creme brulee you get and burned in a positive way. But it gets that rounding flavorful component, even with water.

And we feel that's so much more natural when you're consuming on a daily basis that we would prefer that over, let's say, heavier sweetened with a monk fruit or something where we can get carbs down. And I get if people have that wish, I try to put it into the big picture of the day. So if you're consuming a lot of foods, just like if you had an apple afterwards, just avoid eating the last bite of the apple and you can have our protein powder almost. If that's the case. So

Yeah. So, again, coming back to natural ingredients or real ingredients, we do use natural flavor. And I think natural flavor is something that is different from US to Europe because natural flavors coming from Europe has to come from natural origin. So, there's no alteration. There's no like the natural flavor umbrella in US has become a little bit of an umbrella of a lot of different things that you don't really know what's in there. So, that's...

that's a different component for sure to it. That's a very key point to me too. Cause I was reading it and I read your, your research and I was like, that was one of the things I really was impressed with because, you know, now they'll say like in the U S oh, there's natural flavor. You never know. But I was like, it's stringent in different areas. For instance, there's a,

One product I used to get over in Britain, I had to get it was a B vitamin. And I had noticed that it always worked well for me. And I was like, man, I don't know why, but this, and my dad Oliver is the most sensitive guy to give you anything. And so we get a couple of things from Europe and they were very strict about stuff. And he would come to me and say,

do you feel pretty good on that b is like yeah and he goes i had to say i feel really good more than any i said they had to have different you know regulations which i'm so thankful for so now the product's like the one i'm going to touch base about the taste the taste is amazing too so like sometimes like for me like i'm running in the day

And I know I'm not saying we skip meals, but I mean even if I get 20 grams or 40 grams, I mean like to me, I get in a big smoothie like in the middle of my day. I mean I have a little like shake thing and I just put in there, put a little of my plant milk in there and I go – or you put water. I just go and it tastes great. So I'm just saying whoever was your taste tester was really good. And again, you come back to that like pure taste.

good, high quality start ingredients, you can actually make it taste really good with like vanilla and so on. So it's, yeah, but I agree that people on our team have done a great job on that side. And again, taste is different. We also get that, but we highly encourage people to try it out. And vanilla is easy to work with.

I do want to touch on, I think, cacao as well. Yeah, I was going to ask you about chocolate. I think it's a topic that always comes up and it's been one of the harder things that we've played with because cacao as a bean, as an ingredient by itself, it's a nutritional powerhouse. It's a good thing, right? It's by itself like these super, let's say, chocolate, heavy sweetened... That's not where... But the real cacao beans really...

it's really good and we've been playing with that and have a we do have a chocolate protein powder but we tend to see cacao beans are fairly polluted especially when it comes to cadmium and lead and i think you've also seen several chocolate studies uh in the us as well and like chocolate

bars and different chocolate here where we're seeing, unfortunately, very high numbers of heavy metals in these chocolate bars. And we are seeing the same from our cacao farmers that we've been testing, like organic cacao farmers, high quality cacao farms from various areas. And we're seeing the same. So we've had to actually implement another set of testing of our cacao beans before we can actually enter them. Because not even from the same area, the same place, we can be certain that it will always be at the standards we want. So we can be below proper.

proposition 65, meaning that with cacao, you will always get a trace of heavy metal, but you want to keep that trace so below that you can consume this on a day in and day basis without getting above proposition 65 or that standard set for safety. Wow. It's possible, but it's been a hassle to say the least.

giving consumers a little bit of feedback or a little bit of guidance without having very sophisticated tools yet to give people good recommendations on what cacao beans should I take, what protein powder should I take when they don't have a lab report, like a third party testing lab report where they can actually see the... You need to switch between products, unfortunately. That's how sophisticated we can get at the point. Wow.

Because you don't actually really know what you're getting unless they provide that data point for you. Which is like when we think of how far we've come with technology and so on, that's the best we can do for something we know that's bad for us. It's like, hey, my best recommendation for you is to buy different products so you don't get the exact same every time because they might be blue, but nobody knows. It's like more than flipping a coin. But it also means that if you're into it and you don't have the data, like the vanilla flavor tends to do better on the purity side.

So vanilla flavor versus cacao, even though there's good stuff in cacao and I would love to be able to use that more regularly. Right. So, um, that's a really big point because sometimes I know that people could have like genetic variants that makes them not consume chocolate, but I think that's a huge thing. Cause I, I did not know like they were so high in lead and cadmium, but yeah,

I think that it's really important because some people do have reactions to chocolate. And I'm so glad that you've taken the initiative to do that because like my mom is the truly is like one of the best testers that she doesn't even know it. She's a little Korean lady and all of her, like, I'll give her something. I give her your protein. She drinks. It's good. Okay. Sometimes I'll have like a protein, like a colleague will say, we'll try this. Maybe she wants to taste change the flavor. Sure. And it's true. Like I'll give her chocolate.

And a lot of times she goes, no, I don't, I don't, I don't want the, I don't want it. Like, and she just naturally doesn't know. And it's not, they just test to be good, but I didn't know that they were so high in metals. And I think it's a lot of people are, you know, it's good for them though, because most of the world's chocolate, if it's already with metals, I didn't know this. However, this was really crazy that I was learning about like anxiety. And I know people talk about GABA and they were talking to this one gene where it says it takes lead and,

And lead can stop your glutamate, your excitatory juice from turning into GABA. And you have a lot of people eating chocolate, literally, to try to calm down magnesium. But I've had people that said, no, I get amped up. And I was like, that may be something there. So I went down a rabbit hole, Oliver. This is great. I like it. Yeah. This is really good. And I know I'm so thankful because I'm really cautious about time because you're a busy man. But one of the questions I got, me and my producer, I wanted to ask you too. It's like when we talk about

clean food and clean products. You practice it in your business. And I think that it's one of the biggest things that I'm so attracted to. Are there certain foods that, maybe this is too general to ask, it's like that you would say that you yourself think is a requirement like with your daily diet? Like, I know it's a very general question, but are there certain foods that you think are really good that's been shown on testing? Like you need to eat more beef or eggs? Are there anything that you think that's really needed?

I think we look at general consumption of like macro data of populations that people tend to get like there's the big ones like they tend to get a little too little magnesium, they tend to get a little too less omega three, they often don't get enough protein, they get hard time getting B vitamin out of the diet. So I try to eat nutrition dense foods. That's what I aim for first, like how dense can I get them and I say that the supplement is a supplement to your diet. So I would like

try to get vast majority from like green leafy vegetables from, you know, they just eat the colors of rainbow of different things that are like, so I get different types of like antioxidants and so on. Like, but I think there's several things that just had to add enough of from the diet. Yeah.

I'm pretty focused on getting enough protein myself as well. And also for my kids, because I see so maybe if that's what I would touch on, I'm like, because I see the world around them is focused on like carbs, you know, everything that's about kids growing up now, and every event that they go to every like dinner out like every, it's just it's carb feeding, basically, whether it's necessarily can be good, better quality carbs, like higher nutrition density carbs.

But most of the time, also really poor quality carbs with lots of sugars and wheat based and so on, which is tough on gut microbiome over the long run. Right. So the kids in general, I say, and for myself, I try to get enough protein at breakfast and dinner. And I do the same with the kids because that's where we can control it.

So it would require a fairly heavy breakfast. And if they want, let's say they want oats like other kids and they do want that too. I would mix up the oats with protein powder. I would mix eggs in an oatmeal so that it had more protein and nutrient again from the egg. I would mix it in so it's there. So I still get like a

a protein rich breakfast and a protein rich dinner. Those are the two. Then everything in between when they're getting snacks, when they're getting stuff, even if it's good stuff like fruit and that thing, like it's carbs, all of it. Right. And no grandparents take your kids out for steak and eggs in the morning, right? They take them out for pancakes or something like that. If that's the case, you just know the culture is not like come to a birthday party and you eat

it's a protein rich meal. That's rare. It's more like in Denmark, it would be like big cakes and, you know, buns with different stuff. So and that's okay, too. And that's why I just like if I can control the other environment, high quality, high nutrition, dense food, like, you know, heavy, my

like green leaf vegetables and colors of rainbow, and then some, some good quality proteins from, you know, regenerative or pasture raised or fish or whatever farm animals or fish. Like that's what I would try to get in eggs and so on because the other stuff they will get. That's my opinion. You can only control so much. Like I have a, I have a, my nephew and he's a young guy and I love the kid and I have to give him like extra stuff. And I'm like, well, he's going to get the sugar somewhere else. And that's a great, you know, I,

I'm just really thankful because this was a great, this is a great conversation. And then with your company, you,

You have transparency, you're moving forward. Where do you see it going? Like, are you guys going to just focus solely, which is beautiful on the protein and the omegas, or do you guys see yourselves moving in any directions? We have, we have a, we have a little selection of products in our portfolio from like creatine and the magnesium and so on. But I think where, where we make the most impact is in these, you know, higher risk of contamination. That's where we can do a difference in the, in the category or the subcategory of, of the supplement industry. And,

And then if there's a virtuosity approach to it, is this something we can really do so well that the end product for the end consumer, which in my opinion, that's what it's all about. How high quality can you get to your end user? I think as long as we can do that, we can do various things. And I love big ideas and wonder and vision. I think it's...

I don't even know what chocolate bar to buy. I don't know what rice I should buy. I don't know what, like, there's so many other food. What are my sweet potatoes? Why are they not, like, I don't know what's in them. I know there's issues in them, but I don't know what I'm getting. So I'm still just using my rotation concept, right? And not sticking on one solid, like, source of high-risk contaminated ingredients like rice or the sweet potato oil.

or, you know, dark chocolate. So I would love to go in other routes or have other brands going that route. And I think like what we will continue to do is just, you know, show that it's possible to set the standard, measure that standard, like continuously, continuously, continuously, and then, you know, have other brands follow along. And then eventually consumers, we can see that consumers are voting with the dollars. Like when they see, wow, I don't want protein powder in like,

with lead and my smoothie in the morning. So we see people start to transition over and that will again make the wheels go in the right direction because we are driven by, you know, like businesses are driven by the dollars that are coming in. So if we can get that going, liking baby food, like our dream is to help improve food safety on those type of products and just do a really good job of the stuff we're consuming ourselves on a daily basis. Yeah.

I know you're passionate about it and I'm just very happy because you can see in your business and I hope like with your companies and that you see it like because I really wish when I was a kid, Oliver, like here that I had companies. Literally, I was like, how strong would my body be even more like clean creatine? Mm-hmm.

You should see my love. I'm like a beanpole. But I got an Asian mom and I've got like an Irish Scotch dad and he's a tall guy. I mean – and so you go, man, if I'd had more muscle building or had cleaner food, I really believe that. Like I know I'd have gotten stronger. And like my nephew, I'm loading him up. I'm like, you take this. You take this because you're not going to get in your daily diet. So thankful for this. And I do like to ask things like –

As a friend of a friend, I always say, what is your – one of your habits, like another health practice that you like? So we know food is passionate. You're passionate about food, cleanliness. Is there a particular health practice or practice that you say, I would just tell people, like, try this out because I've been doing it and it really helps me out daily? I think like –

there's a lot of different routes we could go. But I think the route of being reflective and appreciative and journaling and going inwards as well in this crazy, noisy world that we have, like when we live in and when we live in cities and so on and not necessarily out in nature as much, I think

Doing those reflection, making sure you know what you like, setting goals for yourself so you always move forward, but also do appreciate the journey because it's about the journey. It's not about the end results, right? I think that's a big component and that will propel other health professionals

forward, like other health hacks forward, whether if you're dreaming to like myself, I've always been skinny too. I need to work really hard to keep up muscle mass compared to others. So I know that journey of like, I need to hit my protein goals. I need to that. But if I journal about that at night as well, like, how far did I get? I got to X grams. Okay. I'm a little bit more motivated next day. And then I have my appreciation underneath that. Okay, really make sure that we enjoy this.

beautiful day getting to meet great people around the world but even be able to do that on a zoom call or something like this it's amazing so just yeah yeah reflection gratitude I mean yeah I need to practice it I don't just say that lightly I love to ask this like what's your favorite music

Oh, this is a good joke in the Puri team because we just came home from Expo West, which is this big natural products fair in Los Angeles. It's crazy. It's just amazing. When we go out for dinner as a team afterwards and we normally switch Spotify playlist, right? And when they get to my list, when I get to steer the music, we talk, is it a little, is it

I hate I don't have the right word. It's not psychotic, but it's crazy. So the word for like, you know, they can't put me in a box. Some weird piece of like classical music, crazy piece of hard rap, hard rock, and maybe something EDM mixed in between. I feel music has so many different sides of it. So I'm a little schizophrenic maybe in my music.

I don't have a single off. I do have something I do more of if I work out or if I drive. When I read or reflect in the morning, it's a different type of music, obviously. But I love throwing it out because music can do so many different things too. Definitely. It can...

It can get you going like crazy or it can make you like sit and enjoy and reflect. Right. So I can, I don't know what to live without. That was a really bad answer. I know that. I'm sorry. No, no, I get it. Like, that's what people know. It's like people out there are going to say like this. I'll be like, that's me. Me too. I just like, they're like, people can literally go.

One of my best friends goes, I really don't have a favorite type of music. I literally just sort of, I go with the flow in certain ways. And so I listen to this here and he'll be like, listen to bluegrass. He's listened to rap. He like brought me the day, like Russian rap. And I'm like, wow. Like it was, and it was pretty hardcore. I was like, well, okay, you can listen to that. But I just think, I love people see the personality behind the voice too, when they're listening. So for sure. And I think again, it's also what about like, it's a little bit,

A lot of the my music is also reflected in history. Like if I had some good memories around something like I remember like touring around CrossFit in the early days of that CrossFit community and traveling to different gyms and they were playing crazy like hardcore heavy metal music. And if I listen to that again, you get a little bit of that vibe. Or if you go back to your mom's playlist from when you were younger, you get a little bit of that vibe. So yeah, like the powerful of like

of your brain's memory of these musics are just also like incredible so yeah you're right music can heal music can excite so yeah

Man, all this has been great. Really, truly. Where can people find you? Puri, where's your social media and your website? Puri, go to Puri.com. P-U-R-I.com. Puri is a contraction of Pure Origin, which is where it comes from. It's also a fairly simple domain when you can spell it. It takes a few times the first time because it sounds a little weird Nordic language or something like that, which we kind of like too because that's where it originated. We're a Danish and a US company, so we're like...

Yeah, we're all over the place. But go to Puri.com and our social media account is called Puri Life. I also have a personal account called Oliver Amtrup on Instagram. So you can just...

Tag along and take what you like and get inspired by what you do and don't with the others. And that's how we'll continue to move forward. Oh, man. This has been good. I mean, Oliver, we got to stay in touch. Seriously. Guys, he's so generous. Their company has created a discount for us. So you go to Puri.com slash Dr. Molly, all caps.

spell out not just dr motley why 20 off and i just want to tell you guys truly please give it a try i'm not just being you know you know i'm not gonna recommend anything that i'll try so and i use and i'm just like i'm telling you like my little mom is like one of the best testers as well and i just when she likes it i know my body will like and that's why like it's been really really good seeing something so clean so um and guys everybody out there sorry i got a little nasally but i've been doing all of i've been doing a

I know it sounds crazy, but I'm doing a bladder cleanse in Chinese medicine. And the bladder meridian starts right here in the middle of the eye, right here on the canvas. So I started doing lasering and doing some extra, you know, cleansing of my kidneys and stuff. And I'm telling you, it gets this area like any infection that's coming up right here, it's going to start flowing, man. And I'm like, I was like, yeah, the other day I was like flying and I was like, well, I did start that cleanse. And I was like, well, here comes the cleanse right now. So yeah.

But everybody out there, please follow Oliver. Oliver, thank you for taking your time to come talk with us, man. I really do appreciate it. And hopefully I get to see you and give you a hug when we're at one of these expos. Okay, so-

on things we could do with our kids health as well from some of the previous podcast episodes as well. So we are excited about that in our family as well. And I think there's a lot of cool stuff we need to implement at our team too. So yeah, it's good learning. It's been shared around a few episodes in our team just with some of these hacks we can do for kids health. So keep doing what you're doing. And I love the mix of ancient knowledge and new medicine.

Thank you so much, my friend. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. And everybody follow Oliver from all of us here at the ancient health podcast. Remember, if you liked this episode, please comment, send it to somebody who needs clean omegas, clean protein that needs clean products and guys just subscribe. And, uh, we really appreciate everybody out there. So until next time, take it easy, everybody. Thanks, Oliver.

Before we wrap up, please remember that the information shared in this podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. No doctor-patient relationship is formed through this podcast, and the use of information here or materials linked from this podcast is at your own risk. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Always consult with your health care provider before making any changes to your health regimen and do not disregard or delay seeking medical advice for any condition you may have. Thank you for joining us today on the Ancient Health Podcast. We hope you've gained valuable insights into the harmony between Eastern and Western medicine. If you've enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe, share, and leave us a review.

Remember, true health is about balance, mind, body, and spirit. So stay tuned for more episodes where we continue to explore how ancient wisdom and modern science can work together to help you thrive. Here's to your health, balance, and well-being. I'm Dr. Chris Motley, and I look forward to our next episode together.