Darin Olien lives in California and it shows, despite which SuperLife: The 5 Simple Fixes That Will Make You Healthy, Fit, and Eternally Awesome (2015) is encouraging for any of us who aspires to be awesome – eternally or for a more modest span. It is intended to be a guidebook for those wishing to improve their health, increase their energy levels, and achieve what one might characterise as a state of eudaimonia. By addressing key factors that influence well-being, Olien aims to empower readers to make positive changes and lead vigorous, productive lives.
Olien is a self-proclaimed superfoods and wellness expert and presents a holistic approach to healthy living by focusing on five key elements: quality nutrition, hydration, detoxification, oxygenation, and alkalisation. He examines the role of different food groups, emphasises the importance of good nutrition and provides guidance on making wiser choices, promoting a plant-based diet and whole, nutrient-dense foods, left uncooked as much as possible.
Chapters discuss the need for adequate hydration and providing support for the body’s ability to detoxify those elements in the environment inimical to healthy living, and highlight the significance of deep breathing and exercise to increase oxygen levels. Others explore alkalisation, emphasising the importance of a balanced pH level in the body through dietary choices, rather than leaving it to metabolic processes to work harder to maintain the optimal balance when overloaded with acidity.
The main argument is that if we look after these processes, exercise sufficiently, manage stress, avoid processed food and sugary drinks and get enough sleep, the body will look after itself and fend off disease, without the need to think about weight and bother with faddy diets. Supplements can be binned too. Olien cites studies showing how a healthy lifestyle can help to prevent chronic diseases, improve cognitive function, and extend the lifespan.
The points are well made about the links between inadequate nutrition and poor outcomes, but he places a great deal of weight on epigenetics, downplaying genetic factors we cannot control. Taken to extreme, his advice might discourage the vulnerable from seeking medical assistance, believing problems result from not eating properly, and can be addressed through changes in nutrition.
Part Two contains a breakdown of various food types, listing what in our cupboards we should discard and what to replace them with, and a suggested diet plan with recipes, though it is doubtful many mortals will be able to follow his strict regime to the letter. It would certainly require deep pockets sourcing some of his obscure ingredients, once one has worked out what they are.
Olien has an expensive (he tells us) machine that supplies distilled water by drawing vapour from the air, condensing and filtering it, to which he adds Himalayan salt to compensate for the lack of minerals – a palaver striking me as beyond the call of duty. Lacking such a gizmo, one can obtain a vortex machine to stir and ‘structure’ the water (he’s a fan of Masaru Emoto). It’s all rather high-tech for someone who advocates taking off one’s shoes to get in closer contact with the earth.
He has travelled widely, looking at different approaches to health in an effort to locate those special longevity-enhancing foodstuffs familiar to indigenous cultures but unknown in the West. He is the sort of person who will source his herbs from remote barely-accessible passes if they are just what he requires, leaving me wondering about the air miles his ingredients must clock up. Olien is the founder of Shakeology, which gets some plugs; the company flogs nutrition shakes, and a cynic might consider the processing to run counter to his ethos, but then he has to fund his globe-trotting somehow.
The Joy of Mere Words 