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Terrain Theory is hosted by childhood friends Ben Hardy and Mike Merenda, two seekers on a mission to dismantle the fear-based germ-theory paradigm and illuminate how the body’s terrain—its environment, balance, and intelligence—shapes true wellness. Through insightful conversations with pioneering guests, we reveal how nature’s intelligence, ancient wisdom, and modern science converge in the art of true health and healing. Every episode invites you to reclaim your agency, recognize that you are your primary healthcare provider, and transform your own terrain into a sanctuary of resilience and vitality.
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For months on Terrain Theory, we’ve been exploring nutrition through the lens of terrain – questioning fasting, fruit-heavy paradigms, Natural Hygiene, and the idea that healing happens not through intervention, but through removal of interference. In this episode, we step before the diet wars entirely and ask a deeper question: what is the human body actually built from, and who are we eating for? Our guest is Phoenix Be, a Primal Diet coach who was personally mentored by Aajonus Vonderplani...
What if much of today’s terrain theory conversation is missing its own scientific foundation? In this episode of the Terrain Theory Podcast, we’re joined by Lauren Farris – co-founder of the Terrain Model Refutes Germ Theory community and founder of The Raw Key – for a deep dive into what she argues has been largely overlooked: 150 years of natural hygiene science that followed Béchamp and predates modern medicine entirely. Lauren shares her personal journey from chronic illness – including I...
What happens when someone trained at the very heart of modern science begins to question everything they were taught? In this episode of the Terrain Theory Podcast, we’re joined by Dr. Jo Whitaker, a scientist with a PhD in genetic vaccines and advanced training in genetics, microbiology, immunology, and oncology, whose career took a radical turn when the prevailing scientific narrative stopped matching observable reality. Trained at the highest levels of academic science, Dr. Jo once worked ...
At the end of every Terrain Theory episode, we ask our guests the same question: What are your non-negotiables, the daily habits you do to tend to your terrain? In this special year-end episode, we revisit some of the most compelling answers from 2025. Across disciplines and perspectives, our guests reflect on rhythm and circadian health, movement in nature, nutrition and species-appropriate eating, discipline and simplicity, stillness and nervous-system regulation, and the role of joy in mai...
In this Wellness Check episode of the Terrain Theory Podcast, Ben and Mike sit down with their Primary Healthcare Providers – themselves – for a grounded, honest check-in as 2025 comes to a close and 2026 comes into view. This conversation spans the deeply personal and the deeply practical. Ben shares the story of welcoming a new baby through an unexpected, peaceful home birth – an experience that reframes birth not as a medical emergency, but as a natural, intuitive process when fear and int...
After more than three years, Marlon Azurdia returns to the Terrain Theory Podcast...and he brings with him a depth of lived experience that can only come from someone fully committed to walking the path. A former CrossFit Games athlete who famously competed as a vegan, Marlon has spent the last decade challenging every nutritional and performance assumption placed in front of him. In this episode, he shares how that journey has evolved since we last spoke: from a year as a fruitarian experime...
What if one of the longest-running human health experiments has been hiding in plain sight...quietly unfolding across the life of a man who’s never eaten the Standard American Diet, never accepted the inevitability of chronic disease, and never believed that health comes from a pill, an injection, or a supplement? In this episode, we sit down with Mark Huberman, President of the National Health Association and lifelong practitioner of Natural Hygiene – a philosophy of health that predates tod...
New York City history teacher Stephanie Edmonds never imagined that her dedication to her students would one day cost her the career she loved. But during COVID, as she watched extended school shutdowns devastate her students’ mental health and academic progress, she began speaking publicly about the harms she was witnessing firsthand. When New York City rolled out vaccine mandates for teachers, Stephanie refused — and was ultimately fired for standing by her convictions. What began as ...
What if the diet you believe is healing your body is actually holding it hostage? In this episode, we sit down with Mariah Manazza — once a full-on homesteader living the traditional diet dream — as she reveals how raw milk, pasture-raised meats, and ancestral traditions weren’t enough. In fact, they nearly broke her. Migraines, depression, numbness, leg pain, cysts — all symptoms she was told she’d have for life. Until she asked herself: “What am I really designed to eat?” Through 12 y...
Alcohol is the world’s most socially accepted toxin — a substance woven into our rituals, relationships, and celebrations, yet responsible for immeasurable physical, emotional, and societal harm. What happens when we finally confront that truth? In this episode, we sit down with Professor David Nutt, neuropsychopharmacologist, author, and founder of GABA Labs, to explore alcohol’s hidden toll on the human terrain — from cellular toxicity and neuroinflammation to cultural indoctrination and ad...
What if your body isn’t just a collection of organs, but a living, self-organizing field of light, water, and energy? In this episode of the Terrain Theory Podcast, Ben and Mike sit down with Nikko Kennedy, Director of Research at the Institute of Applied Quantum Biology, to explore the frontier where circadian health meets quantum biology. Nikko explains how quantum physics underlies the biological processes of life, from the way mitochondria generate energy to how our cells structure water....
Elizabeth Vernon is a beekeeper-activist, herbalist, and founder of Queen Bees Farmacy, dedicated to bringing together the world of wild-crafted remedies, advocacy, and deep terrain insight. In this episode, we dive into the hidden dimensions of health and resistance — from how screen time is reshaping our bodies and nervous systems to the untested and unknown dangers of biologics. Elizabeth pulls no punches as we unpack how certain systems of “controlled opposition” (yes, we talk about RKF J...
Dr. Anna Sitkoff is a naturopathic physician and herbalist whose clinical and personal journey has been guided by a deep relationship with medicinal mushrooms. In this episode, she shares how her early exposure to natural medicine—and a life-changing experience with her father’s cancer treatment—sparked a decade-long exploration into the world of fungi. Dr. Sitkoff unpacks the science and spirit of mushrooms: their role in restoring the body’s terrain through mitochondrial repair, gut balanc...
Dr. Shivani Gupta is an Ayurvedic practitioner, author, and founder of Fusionary Formulas. In this episode, she helps us rediscover Ayurveda as the original terrain-based health system — one that recognizes the body’s innate intelligence and its connection to mind, spirit, and environment (Nature). We discuss how to identify your mind-body type (dosha), personalize your health rituals, and use ancient wisdom to navigate modern stressors, toxins, and chronic imbalance. Dr. Gupta also shares h...
Can the darkness heal you? Are you willing to find out? Scott Berman is the founder of Sky Cave Retreats, a dark retreat sanctuary in Southern Oregon that puts guests in complete and total darkness for a set period of time. In this safe space, with somatic support and all needs met, a guest may relax into the rhythms of the dark, soften, and simply exist. In this conversation with Scott we discuss: How his early experiences with wilderness solitude primed him for dark retreatsHis first dark r...
This is the hill we die on. Leah Wilson is Executive Director and Co-Founder of Stand for Health Freedom, a nonprofit organization dedicated to informing and activating grassroots movements to protect our health and our families. Since their inception in 2019 they have helped empower the masses to take over 6 million actions to preserve and promote informed consent, parental rights, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and privacy. In this conversation with Leah we discuss: What prompted her...
Salima Adelstein is a Master Healer, a Sufi Spiritual Guide, and the co-founder of The University of Sufism, a non-profit, religious organization whose vision is to open the heart of humanity to the Reality of Divine Love, Gnostic understanding and complete healing. In this conversation we discuss: Understanding SufismThe central practices of the SufiThe power of remembrancePurification of the heartHow asking "what do I love?" is a step towards the SourceCo-founding the University of SufismBe...
Ryan Connor and Briana Connor Garcia are siblings who grew up in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, right around the corner from a landfill that later became designated an EPA Superfund site. Unbeknownst to them, they spent their childhood exposed to toxic "forever chemicals" that leached into the soil and water, poisoning countless community members in the process. Following separate cancer diagnoses and years of debilitating health issues, they are on a crusade to raise awareness of the dangers of P...
Dr. Shamini Jain is founder and CEO of the Consciousness and Healing Initiative, an international collaborative of scientists, healing practitioners, educators and artists who lead humanity to heal ourselves. She’s a clinical psychologist, an award-winning researcher, and an author on topics ranging from psychoneuroimmunology to biofield science. In this conversation with Dr. Jain we discuss: Her spiritual upbringing within the Jain traditionThe academic path that led her to energy healingThe...
Dr. Marizelle Arce is a Naturopathic medical doctor who practices as a Naturopath, marrying her knowledge and understanding of ancient cultures and traditions with current biology, physiology and modern medicine. Jacob Diaz, aka the Undercover Virologist, is a student of the BioTerrain Model, a certified Naturopath, and a passionate researcher into the many contagion myths blamed on nonexistent pathogens. In this conversation with Dr. Mari and Jacob we discuss: Why we can't eat poop (hint: it...
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Thanks very much for another great podcasts Cheers
Beautiful episode Cheets
Fascinating podcast
every single episode I've listened as far are what is needed to satisfy deeply, the thirst and imperative now lifestyle journey for what simply is what we as humans - honest truth it's a lot easie and more fruitful
amazing episode....thanks so much
I didn't know you were a Vermonter! I'd love to meet fellow Green Mountainers who practice TT.