Ben Greenfield has been a hugely popular writer, blogger, podcast host and instagram influencer who seems to do it all from ultra marathons to cold showers. A former bodybuilder and 13 time Ironman triathlete, Ben has been voted America’s top personal trainer by the National Strength and Conditioning Association. He has provided us with his new book “Boundless” which came out in March this year to provide a huge amount of value to those reading it. Featuring anything from Diet to Infrared Sauna Usage, Ben Greenfield seems to offer something for everyone in this book. If you want a cheaper way of getting the knowledge of this book, I recommend Amazon Audible, which has the book available at around £6 as UK users can buy three audible credits for £18. Alternatively you can buy this book off amazon.co.uk when at time of writing, it was available for around £35 .
This book is huge. Even the audiobook version comes in at a massive 41 hours long, which is the longest audiobook I’ve personally purchased ever. I recommend listening to it slowly, taking it at 1 chapter every other day. Reading this all at once will leave you feeling a bit overwhelmed and unable to digest the information properly. The book is divided into 22 Chapters, each one delivering advice about functions of health from air quality and EMF to diet optimisation. It covers a wide array of supplements and biohacks in clear format that is easy for the average joe not from a scientific background to understand. This, in Ben’s own words, is not designed to be read as a normal book but rather to be divided in the sections that you yourself want to read from it. I.e. If you want to learn more about air quality, go straight to Chapter 20. This is a New York Best Seller that I’ve found has had this intention, which might seem a bit alien to some people who usually expect to read a health book from start to finish.
Pros
- It’s refreshing to see a biohacking book focus so much on light, water and EMF rather than the usual health book that goes into detail about diets and rambles on about the power of plants rather than what I believe has a greater impact on our health, which is light and non-native EMF. I see more books on health and wellness moving in this direction, and Ben certainly sheds detailed light (mind the pun) on the situation with thorough guidelines on the best blue light blocking strategies and the impact certain light bulbs have on our health. I’ve yet to see a mainstream biohacking book go into this much detail. Head Strong by Dave Asprey did to an extent, but Ben has gone into some more additional detail, which I think is extremely important as I believe light, water and non native EMF will play far bigger roles in our health in the future.
- The book’s layout is nice and clear, similar to a science textbook but a bit more colourful and insightful, which makes it user-friendly. There are no real overwhelming science equations.
- For those who are massively into health and wellness, this is definitely a book that will provide those additional tips and info that can help you get your health to the next level. If you’re past the stage of reading books like the Bulletproof Diet or Superhuman by Dave Asprey, then this will give you the foundation for that next level.
- Provides a great overall blueprint in the modern day Biohacking Sphere. Whoever you are, whatever your knowledge level, you’re bound to learn something from Boundless.
- Really good to see an author in the health space write about air quality and mould and how they impact your health. I thought chapter 20 was a terrific insight into this on a topic that’s often lacking in other modern health books that fail to look into the impact mould from food, mycotoxins and poor quality air can have on our health.
- As far as I’m concerned, this the first “all in one” modern health book I’ve come across, and it’s done a decent job at covering most things the modern day biohacker will find important, and at £38, it’s still a good value for the amount of information you’re getting.
- Each chapter has follow ups with additional interviews from top scientists in the health space as well as additional information about his podcasts. As said before, I recommend the EMF chapter and the follow up interviews with Jack Kruse.
- The detail and in-depth analysis that Ben provides can be extremely useful where he provides diet advice based on inflammation markers. IN Chapter 21, he offers diet plans that match your blood, urine, stool, genes and symptom markers as well as additional daily meal plans, which can be very useful for those who are having differently finding a diet that fits them.
- One of the first books I’ve read that’s provided a proper in-depth analysis between a vegan and meat-based diet and goes in quite clearly about the advantages and disadvantages of both. It also looks into the disadvantages of carnivores in a clear way, which I believe was definitely required. The points of debate are laid out clearly, which makes them very easy to understand.
- There’s the additional classic “self routines” and rituals which some may find useful.
- Thought one of the best parts of the book was the explanation on Nootropics, which was clearly and coherently laid out, being easily understandable.
Cons :
- Felt his viewpoint on parasitic treatments were unfair and unjust. Didn’t mention Mimosa Pudica, which has been a game changer for me in terms of combating parasites. Could have mentioned the Microbe Formulas brand, which has been a very prominent brand in helping people to cure from them. I felt his assessments on parasite cleanses were a bit harsh and dismissive. I personally believe that everyone could benefit from them, and the fact that Ben left them out all together is extremely disappointing.
- A few products mentioned in the book have caused more harm to me than benefits, most notably “Restore” supplement, which was meant to be used to fight off the damaging effects of glisophate, but instead caused more harm than good for me personally with issues like digestive pain and insomnia. It felt that a few of the products in here were being mentioned due to partnerships rather than them being the best possible solution.
- Some products recommended have had a host of negative reviews. One being the “Molekule” Air filtration ,which had a host of negative reviews on amazon.com. I really wish he’d done his research and offered a fairer assessment before providing recommendations on products.
- He also endorses several products in the EMF space that have also been controversial too, like The Blu Shield, which at the time of writing this had no real human studies on their website. The one animal study was done on chickens rather than humans. How can you endorse a company’s product without taking the time to see whether or not there are real human studies. He could’ve instead promoted some Anti-Emf devices, which actually do have human studies to back up their claims (albeit small ones) like CMO systems or the Vivobase.
- The book’s sheer size means it’s not practical to carry around; you’re not going to be able to read this on the way to work. I wish he could’ve divided the book into several smaller books and released them gradually rather than dumping a life’s work into one book.
- I felt some parts were unnecessary like the story where he went and bought “gas station dickpills” to enhance his sex life. There’s a lot of unnecessary tail offs to this, which personally for me, I found boring and irrelevant. I wish Ben has spent less time on these topics and more providing more in-depth high quality supplements instead.
- There were times when I felt he wasn’t really recommending the best supplements out there. For example with CBD, he could’ve mentioned some better brands like Gron or Farmacy Bliss. He could’ve also gone more into quality sourcing of CBD, forgetting to mention that 95 percent of all CBD products come from China, which tend to be high in heavy metals, moulds and other toxins. Whilst he’s very strict when it comes to toxins on his food and water, he’s quite careless when it comes to recommending supplements that can and often have been known for their contamination problems in the past. CBD being the most prominent ones without offering any real solutions to these problems. He repeats this issue in his recommendations of Lion’s Mane. He could’ve gone into more detail about the problems sourcing medicinal mushrooms mainly that the bulk of them (again 95 percent ) come from China ,which have been laden with moulds, heavy metals and various other toxicants. He could’ve name dropped a brand like Life Cykel, which tests individually for heavy metals and other toxicants .
- Just too much Information for the average person to find relatable to. The average middle class American might not be able to afford the host of biohacks that Ben is offering here and may find the constant recommendation of hundreds of supplements and herbs just too much to take all at once and all too expensive. Would’ve been good if the book had a breakdown list of biohacks that could be done from cheap to expensive at the end of each chapter to help out those on a budget more.
- This book is huge and may be overwhelming for people starting out their health journey. For people beginning on the journey towards better health, I would recommend more simplistically designed book, like The Bulletproof Diet Book which are easier to digest and understand and move on to Dave Asprey’s Headstrong before embarking on this book.
– There are clear inconsistencies in the information displayed. For example on page 84, Ben tells us to get curcumin, the active substance in turmeric which has powerful anti-inflammatory effects. – Page 534 we learn that “an effective dose is 1,000 mg but doses as high as 1,500 mg can be absorbed without any negative side effects”. Page 102 tells us that “an effective dose is up to 8g a day”. That’s quite an increase between 1,000 mg to 8,000 mg. Which is it? Page 156 tells us then that the dose for this product is 1,000 mg.
Conclusion
Ben Greenfield has accomplished a huge amount in his glittering biohacking career and Boundless is no different. It offers a concise guide to everything you need to enjoy the world of Biohacking but lacks consistency in terms of supplement recommendations and could be more thorough with the quality control of some of his recommendations like the “Molekule” filter and the Blu Shield. Whilst being an advocate for good meat quality and organic vegetables, he shows little consistency in recommending the best quality supplements and biohacks, recommending some, which I personally found ineffective or in the case of Restore supplement made things worse. All in all, it’s still great that those in the biohacking and health optimisation sphere finally have one book they can call on that will always provide at least a small quality of value to those that need it.
7/10
The Rational Biohacker 