What’s up everyone, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the fit to fat, to fit experience podcast. It’s me drew Manning aka the Fit to fat to fit guy. Thank you guys so much for tuning in for another great episode on the podcast. I appreciate you guys tuning in each and every week. Actually, you guys are the reason I do this podcast. I actually love it. Um, being able to put this information out there, spread the knowledge, uh, knowledge is power. And so hopefully you guys get something from these podcast episodes, and I appreciate you guys and all the support that you show, if you haven’t yet, please subscribe to us on iTunes leaves a review that helps our ratings, if you will, and helps us to keep spreading the good word. So, all right. Onto today’s episode, I have the owner and founder of a meat bar company called DNX bars, which means daily nutrition.
Um, I got introduced to these guys through Melissa Hartwig. Who’s my friend from whole 30. Um, I remember she took me, actually talks about this in the episode, but she took them on a hike and she had this bar and she’s like, Hey, I want you to try this out. Cause it’s more, you have your profile higher fat. And I’m like, okay, I’ll, I’ll check it out. And it was a DNX bar and, uh, it was delicious. And I’ve talked about this before. I’ve done the giveaway on my Facebook page, which by the way, if you don’t follow me on Facebook, you should. Cause I do a lot of giveaways. A lot of companies have products that I enjoy we’ll do free giveaways. Um, so follow me on Facebook, facebook.com forward slash fit to fat to fit. Anyways, I’m John Rooney is the owner and founder of DNX bars.
He actually did not start changing his health until he was 50 years old. You guys, he was about 20 pounds, overweight, 19% body fat. I know, not horrible, but at 50 years old he said, okay, I’m finally gonna make a change. Cause he hadn’t worked out in 25 years. Uh, just been focusing on making money in the software industry and then sold the company and had a lot of time on his hands and he’s wanting to start changing his health. So his trainer put them on a, um, a paleo meal plan and it totally changed his life. You know, here he is, he’s 54 now 7% body fat, you know, eats around 4,000 calories a day. So he’s a, you know, older guy, um, and super LN, of course I’m not even that low, but anyways, uh, just a great story. And then he, he got introduced to this, the meat bar industry and wanting to make a splash and do something different.
Um, the other meat bars he found just didn’t taste good. And so he created DNX bars and um, so we kind of dive into the, the origin story of, of how it came to be and then his, his whole movement towards educating people on nutritional labeling. So the government’s coming in with some new standards in 2018. He said that is going to, it just doesn’t make any sense. We’ll get into the specifics of what it is and he’s kind of fired up about it. So you’ll see what his company did. They created this thing called the declaration, kind of putting it out there and giving the power and education into your guys’ hands. The consumers of how you can not be fooled by these, um, you know, government standards for nutrition labeling, right? Cause it can be very deceiving to be honest with you. Uh, but we’ll get into all that this episode is brought to you by D and X bars.
These meat bars are available on Amazon prime. You can go check them out. [inaudible] D as in Delta and as a Nancy X is an X factor. Um, these are the highest quality meats combined with some healthy fats and seasonings that are available for on the go consumption, right? So here’s what I love about them. You guys, they use a hundred percent grass fed beef, a hundred percent grass fed bison meat in their, in their bars. And I like the macronutrient profiles of these. Why? Because they add things like coconut oil and GUID to bump up the fat profile of these bars, which in turn makes them more moist. And I know we hate that word, but in reality, there’s no other word to describe it. These are moist meat bars instead of like jerky or other meat bars that are kind of tough and dry.
These ones have a lot of flavor and the texture so much better. It’s soft and chewy. Um, and you’re getting the highest quality ingredients in these. Now there is a little bit added sugar, but there’s only 10 total grams of carbs per bar. And you know, four to six grams of net carbs per bar. So it’s still low, low carb, you know, high quality protein, high quality fat in these bars. And that’s what I love about them. DNX bars, go check them out on Amazon prime. And sometimes they might be available in your whole foods. Our next show sponsor is organic five. These guys, I have actually met the owner, drew cannoli through a mutual friend, Sean Stevenson, as you know, he’s a good friend of mine from, uh, the model health show, which is one of the top health, fitness podcasts out there. Um, he introduced me to the drew can only through a mastermind group and I’ve seen these guys everywhere.
And here’s the thing you guys I’ve used powdered green products for years ever since my fit to fat to fit days. I’ve had one of these almost every single day. Cause I understand the benefits of these and I don’t like juicing, right? I don’t like the mess. Um, the cost of it. And that’s why I love these powdered greens. Cause you can take them with you on the road. And so I was introduced to Organifi and I’ll be honest with you guys, powdered greens. They do not taste good, right? The majority of them, you taste them and you just gotta Chuck it down. Now for me, I’m the type of person that knows how beneficial it is. So I’m just going to Chuck it. But other people out there, they cannot stomach the flavor of these. And so that’s why I love about Organifi. Every single person that’s told me, you know, I just don’t drink powdered greens.
Cause it tastes disgusting, likes or get the taste of Organifi. They do a great job at making it taste good. They don’t add in sugar, but add it is they use coconut and ashwagandha and they infuse it with that. And that’s what makes it, I think tastes so good. But um, they do a great job of making it taste good because I don’t care how something hell how I don’t care how healthy something is. If it’s, if it doesn’t taste good people, aren’t going to drink it. So Organifi does a great job with that. You guys, and they come and single serving packets that you can bring with you on the go. And this helps me upgrade my nutrition and my immune system when I’m on the go. And so that’s what I love about Organifi. And for my followers, you guys, you get 20% off.
They’re giving 20% off to everybody that uses the code fit to fat to fit. Uh, if you go to organifi.com now that’s O R G a N I F i.com use the code 55 to fit for 20% off. The link will be in the show notes. You guys, you go there and use the code. You get 20% off and I promise you, you will enjoy finally the tastes of these powdered greens and you get all the benefits and the micronutrients from juicing, but, uh, you know, less than half the costs and without the mess. And it’s so much more convenient to take with you. So organifi.com use the code fit to fat, to fit for 20% off.
All right, our next show sponsor is four Sigmatic. Now let’s talk about magic mushrooms. Okay? I’m not talking about the shrooms that are a hallucinogen that are gonna make you trip out. I’m talking about the benefits of real mushrooms, um, with science backed facts that have been used by indigenous populations for centuries, right decades. And these people have been using this, uh, not technology, but these, the benefits of these mushrooms for thousands and thousands of years. And it’s been backed up by, by recent science. That’s what I love about four Sigmatic. You guys, they’re such a unique product, right? You got people like Tim Ferriss talking about them. You got people like Sean Stevenson talking about them. And they’re so awesome because they have figured out a way to extract the benefits and the nutrients from these mushrooms into a powder drink mix. And they, um, and they, you can edit your coffee.
Like for example, my favorite products of theirs is the lion’s mane, mushroom coffee. And basically you add it to hot water and you mix it up. Eight gives you the most, uh, ultimate brain boost, plus a little bit of caffeine from the coffee, not a ton, right? But enough to give you a brain boost, plus that, pick them up from the caffeine. It’s a great combination. And they have so many of these other unique products. They got quarter steps and they got Rishi and chaga, all different types of mushrooms that have been backed up by science for so many health benefits. So many different applications that you can use, you know, increase immune system, um, cognitive function, uh, mental clarity, so many other benefits to using these mushrooms in your diet. You guys, we have a lot of us let’s face it. We don’t eat a lot of mushrooms here in America.
And so you get the benefits of this through this company, four Sigmatic, they use a dual extraction process to get the maximum benefits and nutrients from these mushrooms. And, um, and then they make it into a powdered mushroom drink, right? And this is the way indigenous people have been drinking mushrooms for years actually through like hot teas and things like that. But they figured out a better way to do it, obviously because we’re a society of convenience. So I take these with me when I travel a lot, I’m on them to hot water in my hotel room. So I can kind of have a healthier version of coffee if you will. Um, and I, I love these guys. Like I said, they’re kind of all the rage right now. They’re this new product that’s out there. So check them out at four Sigmatic. Fou are S I G M a T I c.com for slash fit.
If you use the word fit for 10% off, um, you can use that discount for, um, the next on your next purchase. So check them out. Four sigmatic.com for slash fit. Try the mushroom coffee, try the core steps. Tried the lion’s mane. Um, so many different products. You guys, even my kids love the mushroom cacao, uh, hot chocolate, right? Um, it tastes just like hot chocolate to them. I just warm up some, uh, unsweetened almond milk. I add the, the, uh, um, the, sorry I add the, um, hot cacau, uh, mushroom hot chocolate in it. And the, my girls love it. They really do so. Check it out. foursigmatic.com forward slash fit. Alright, let’s go hang out with John Rooney from DNX bars, John Rooney. Welcome to the show, man. How are you?
I’m doing great. Thanks for having me.
My pleasure, man. Where are you coming from? Where are you in Arizona?
I am in Tucson, Arizona. It’s about 78 degrees today. So yeah,
What’s funny is Utah’s actually not that far behind you were in the fifties have been in the fifties the past like week or so, which is crazy weather for February.
Yeah. The weather has been nutty all winter. Yeah,
It has been, it has been man, but I love Arizona. It’s a good place, except for those, you know, three or four months during the summer when it’s like 250 degrees, but that’s,
That’s Northern California at the time.
Yeah. So, um, so anyways, John, I kind of wanna introduce you to my audience. Obviously you’re the owner of, uh, DNX bars as the CEO. Um, let’s back up a little bit though. Talk about, you know, what were your passions growing up and how this eventually led to you starting this company? DNX bar.
Yeah. Well, I’m an old person, so I’ll try and I’ll try and give you a cliff note versions, but yeah. So look, I grew up in Montana and I grew up with a family of six. We were super active. I was a, I was a college athlete. I played college football and always, always worked out, uh, you know, super active, worked out a lot, probably didn’t eat healthy as none of us did. This was in the early eighties. But, you know, as a young person, I could get away with it. Um, but, but then, you know, when I graduated from college, I spent probably 25 years as, as just a real hard charging road warrior, you know, business person and, um, and, and was in the software industry and, you know, worked 12 hour days, uh, did not work out for probably 25 years. Literally stopped working out.
I mean, just unbelievable in how fast it kind of gets away from you. And, and, and my diet was terrible and I had lots of entertaining ideas, so I drank a lot. And, um, you know, I think that, uh, there’s a lot of people that kind of fall in that trap. And so when I was 50 years old, four years ago, I turned 50 and I sold a company and I had some time on my hands. I had looked in the mirror one day and just said, Hey man, it’s, you know, if you’re going to change it, this might be the time.
How much weight did you gain over those 25 years of no exercise?
You know, I, I only gained probably about 20 pounds. And so I say only, um, I gained 20 pounds. I’m not sure it was as much. I was never like a super obese person, but, but I can tell you when I first started, I did my body fat percentage and I was 19%. Um, and you know, at two 15, today, I’m two Oh five and I just did it in January. I’m 7%. Wow. At 54 years old. Yeah. So awesome, man. Yeah, the girl did it for him. He said, look, unless you want to be a bodybuilder, you don’t need to at any level,
And you’re not trying to be a body builder. You’re not trying to do a physique competition or anything like that. Right. It’s just where you fall. Right. Right.
Yeah. I just look, I woke up at 50, said, I want to eat healthy. I want to start exercising again. I cut out all alcohol. Um, and, and, and, and that’s really where my passion came because I started on my own drew, especially on the food part on the eating. And man, I’d say what for the first six months I tried to research on my own and I probably did everything wrong. You can do. You know? And, and, and I was frustrated because it was hard to find good info and there was so much misleading info out there. Um, and, and so I really went through a pretty frustrating experience. And it was only when I started reaching out to experts, actual people, like, for example, I had a trainer who, who was a nutritionist and, and it was only when I started to kind of reach out to experts that I really got on track. Okay.
That’s really interesting. And first of all, let me just say how relatable your story is. Even though you only gained 20 pounds and you were at 19%, you were probably lower than that when you were playing football and you’re an athlete, but I find this very common among former athletes is that they, they know how to train like an athlete when it sees them on the seasons in, but then after the career’s over, it’s kind of like, they know how to eat like an athlete still, but they’re not training like an athlete anymore because they’re not performing. Right. They kind of moved on in life. They have a job, they start a family or whatever. They focus on other things, and they kind of sacrifice their health for a while. And it sounds like you did that. Luckily you have, it sounds like you have pretty good genetics that you only gained 20 pounds and you were still at 19% body fat, which is really good for a lot of people.
But I think people can relate to you in that they just life got in the way they let themselves go. And then here you are thinking, okay, it’s fit. I’m 50 years old. I’m not getting any younger it’s time to make some changes. And you said for the first six months though, you were kind of lost with, okay, where do I start? What do I do? And then that eventually led you to some experts which led you to your trainer and which direction did he push you in? And how did that get started? How did that help?
Yeah, so it was funny because I fell into the no fat trap at first. Right. Which, you know, someone’s like, do not eat fat. Fat’s the enemy. And, and I mean, it was just pathetic. It was terrible. And so one day I’d been working out, I’d been training with him for a couple of months. And, uh, you know, I said, man, it’s just not working. It’s not happening. And, you know, part of the reason I wanted to change was just cause I didn’t feel good. Right. You don’t feel good in your clothes. You don’t feel good at, you know, walking around. And, and that was a big, uh, motivator. So anyway, he said, well, tell me a little bit about your diet. And I rattled off what I had eaten the day before. And, you know, literally I was doing a great job with no fat, but it was all sugar.
And so anyway, after he stopped laughing, um, said, okay, John, I’m going to take you on here. And, and so, uh, so basically, uh, Mike is his name. He’s a, he’s a paleo diet or, and, um, and, and I, you know, I started on a paleo diet and I started out and he printed off, you know, here’s 30 days of meal plan bands that, you know, are flexible and have options. And, and that was kind of the start of my new diet. And by the way, when I say paleo diet, I really think I’m still a paleo eater, but I don’t like to use the word diet because it really is. It’s a lifestyle for me and people get scared off when they hear that I’ve been doing it for four years. I eat as much as I want. I consume 3,500 to 4,000 calories a day. And, you know, again, I’m as lean as I’ve ever been. So I don’t look at it as a diet and it’s restrictive at all, but, but that was the Genesis of it.
Gotcha. And so when you first heard about the paleo diet, for example, were you like, like for example, you said you told them what you ate in a day, let’s go over. What, do you remember what that was kind of
Yeah. Summarize that
And shift over to what was a day in the life of the, the first, you know, your first meal, a paleo meal.
Yeah. So first of all, I had a rule when I, in my, in my, when I was on my own, my rule was try and limit my, uh, fat to 10 grams a day. If you can believe that. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So I said, Hey, Mike, my, for breakfast, I had frosted flakes and, and fat free soy milk, and sorry, I’m not laughing at this. And he laughed at me for about 10 minutes. He almost threw me out of the gym, but you know, if you think about it, go look at a frosted flakes. They don’t taste good. Look at them. There’s no fat in them. You know, I was like, Hey, I’m winning here.
Um, anyway, uh, so that’ll give you a good idea. I mean, look, I, I, lots of processed foods and, and all I was really focused on is how many grams of fat does it have? And literally, you know, I look, if you’re trying to limit yourself to less than 10 grams, you can do that in your head all day. Right. And, and, um, so that’s an of a, of a good breakfast that I was eating. And, you know, you can just kind of take that through throughout the day. There’s just processed foods, everything on it said fat free, uh, you know, or low calorie. Um, and just kind of the opposite of what I’m doing right now.
Yeah. And, you know, I, you know, I’m not poking fun at anybody. Cause if you think about it, how many years were we told fat is bad? You know, eating cholesterol is bad for, you know, you know, a couple of decades, at least. Right. And so people were so ingrained with that mentality that I don’t blame anybody for thinking that way, because honestly, if, if we just go off of what we’re told by doctors, scientists, it’s like, okay, well, these people are smarter than us. They know what they’re talking about, but we were lied to, you know, you look back at the history we were lied to.
Well, yeah. And here’s the specifics on that. And, you know, we would talk a little bit about, cause I really went on a research binge and I had time. I mean, I went to week long retreats and I mean, I really got into it. But look about seven months ago, there was a, uh, uh, a revelation that came out and I think it was 1963. It might’ve been 62. But just to your point, uh, in the early sixties, the American sugar association contracted with two Harvard PhDs, this American sugar association. And they literally told them that they and paid him a lot of money to write a paper that was a published paper on how fat was bad and sugar was good. So when you talk about how many decades ago it was like 50 years ago, it was big industry that, that went and literally conspired with these PhDs, which are considered opinion, leading experts. And you’re right. We were absolutely misled. And all of that was really kind of, uh, discovered several months ago.
Yeah. Yeah. I know. And it’s still a battle to, to, you know, I still run into people that I’m like, look, I promise you, you’re not going to have a heart attack. If you eat this coconut oil, like you’re not gonna, you’re not going to die. You’ll be worse off eating the frosted flakes and then you will be eating this coconut oil. Um, and so it’s just, it’s gonna take a while to get people’s minds over that, that hump, if you will, to embrace the fact that we were wrong and this is, this is more of the correct way to eat for the majority of people. Right. Real whole foods, you know, fat isn’t bad for you. And so we’re kind of shifting towards that now. Um, so, so here you are, you, you get that advice, you start off with your, your paleo meal plan and then, um, where you trying to w was your mentality like, okay, I’m still on a diet or when did you finally embrace it as a lifestyle change? Was, did it happen immediately or did it take awhile for you to it to realize, okay, I can eat 3,500 calories or I don’t even count my calories probably anymore. When did it start to become a lifestyle change for you versus just this diet that you’re on?
That’s a great question. And I don’t count my calories, which is something we talk about our decoration, but, uh, it was pretty immediate. I mean, it really was. And the reason is I think is because it was so relatively easy compared to any diet. And what I mean by that is I literally, I didn’t have to starve. I didn’t have to deprive myself of calories. I mean, I guess I deprived myself of, you know, Twinkies, but, but it was just, it was so easy. And, and, uh, and, and I literally started to see immediate results. And when I say immediate, I mean within 30 days, um, and, and now it’s in fairness, you know, I, again, I had started to work out again after like a 25 year hiatus. So, I mean, I’m sure that was a big component of it. Cause, you know, as you know, you’re, the body is meant to be active every day.
You just have to move. But, but, um, yeah, I, I embraced it really early on and I got super interested and then I kind of went crazy. I mean, like I said, I went to seminars, I went to week long retreats. I started doing tons of research and, and, and it all just, uh, it was working so well and there was a, there was ways to follow it too, that were easy. Like, you know, Mike always used to say, you know, little, he had little phrases for things to say fat in does not mean fat on. Right. Yeah. And, and so instead of having to become a super expert in it, there was just kind of high level guidelines that, that, that, you know, were pretty easy to learn and to follow and they were working. Yeah.
And so at what point did this lead you down the road of, uh, creating your own company within this industry, DNX bars? How did that process happen?
Yeah, so, so, uh, totally out of my wheelhouse based on, you know, my career and, but I just got super interested in food and nutrition and how it worked in the body. And, and so, um, I started, I, I started to get approached just kind of ironically, uh, by different people who had businesses that were either in startup phase or kind of early stage and having problems. And it was funny because I got approached by two different meat snack companies independently of each other over a couple month period. And I looked at them and I, I just, for various reasons, I kind of passed on them, but I, I then, you know, I, I, I started becoming aware of the meat snacks industry, uh, from a global standpoint and just how, how it’s exploding, which it really is. It has been over the last three to four years and I think we’ll continue to.
And so I, uh, I was finally the third time I was approached by a company, small company that were making, they were making, uh, grass fed bison jerky, and they were looking for some help both financially and just from a business standpoint. And I said, look, um, I’m not as interested. I liked jerky, but I’m not as interested in getting into the jerky market. I, I, I’m aware of this category. That’s starting to become relevant called meat bars. And the differences is that you can really make a balanced, uh, uh, you know, nutrient dense food product, as opposed to just a high protein, uh, jerky slab. And, and so if you’d be, I told them, you know, if you’d be interested in, in kind of changing and pivoting your, your, uh, your focus, then I’m interested in. So we put together and it’s funny, cause I had only, you know, this was probably three years into my big life change, but I was able to just pick and I put together, uh, a group of about five experts in all sorts of different areas. You know, nutritionist, I even have a raw food gourmet, uh, on my advisory board because, you know, we put lots of vegetables in fruits in our, not lots of fruits, but we put fruits and vegetables in our bar. So I put together a team of about five people and, you know, nine months later we have the bars.
Wow. That is, that is pretty crazy. And so what did you see in the industry as far as like the meat bars go that, you know, you wanted to make this different versus I think, you know, for me, the first bar that comes to mind was the Epic bar was the first meat bar I saw. And I was like, Oh, this is, I mean, there’s beef jerky that’s been around forever. Right. But actual meat, part of that tastes good. That was packaged. Right. That you could take with you on the go, you can’t just put a piece of steak in your pocket and eat that later on. Right. Um, what, how were you trying to set yourself apart? And, and what did you see was missing in the meat bar industry? Even though there wasn’t a lot of competition probably at that time.
Yeah. So, so here’s the deal. And by the way, I, you know, I I’ll, I’ll probably defer from talking about any specific companies in any category, but okay. But, um, um, I would say this, the biggest thing is, is I had tried, you know, the limited products that were on the market and I just didn’t like them. I just, the taste and the texture were not something that, that, that I would eat. And, and, and I did a lot of surveys and a lot of surveying before I ever, uh, decided to put a dollar into the company. But, but we found by survey that, you know, in the infancy, the meat bar market was a niche market that was really focused to those types of eaters that would be willing to sacrifice or compromise, taste and texture for a healthy product. And so I went in and I said, how, the way we’re going to differentiate ourselves as first of all, we’re going to be all our other than our meat are our protein is all grass fed because it’s actually a higher standard than organic protein.
So we take the highest standard meat. And we said, we’re going to be all organic fruits and vegetables, which includes, you know, coconut oil G et cetera. So we’re all organic. That’s one way we set our sales apart. But the other thing we said is, look, we don’t want to just have this focus on this niche. That’s willing to compromise on taste and texture. So we, we just, we literally have to sit down and figure out how to make this thing palatable, um, so that we can reach a broader audience. And I think we’ve really accomplished that.
No, I think you have to honestly, and I’ll just give everyone my first experience with the DNX bars was my good friend, Melissa Hartwig from whole 30. Everybody knows her, everybody knows the whole 30, right. We were on a hike. And, um, she always has some type of whole 30 approved snacks, like in her purse or bag. And so it was always funny. She, he pulls out like, you know, a million types of like whole 30 approved snacks. And one of them was this Dean expert. It’s like, you can’t screenshot this cause this is a new company I’m working with. Like, it’s kind of secret. Like it’s not out there cause I was Snapchatting some of it. And so she gave it to me and she’s like, I think you might like this. Cause I was kind of more of the, the KIDO mentality. I like higher fat foods.
And that was the problem with most meat bars or most protein bars is they’re all high protein, low fat. Right. So it was hard to find something that was high, high, fat and high protein. And so she gave it to me and it was, it was awesome. It really was, um, totally different than what I expected the ghee and the coconut oil really made the difference for me because I know everybody hates the word moist, but it does make the bar like the whole, the whole thing more moist and it’s easier to chew. Um, it’s soft, man. You know, when I give it to my girls, you know, I call it beef jerky for them. But at the same time they don’t know the difference. And for them they’re getting all these good nutrients. And I like the fact that you put in the vegetables and in some fruits, right. It’s not very, it’s not high in sugar or anything like that, but, um,
Yeah, they’re low, they’re real low in sugar, by the way. We never use that M word moist. We use tender
There, there you go. I, I couldn’t think of a different word. I’m like, I know everybody hates the inward. Tinder’s a good one. Okay. I’m gonna start using that. But people might think, I might be talking about the dating app Tinder, but off explain that because that’s super popular these days anyways. Um, you guys have done a great job. And so what, um, where is the, is the, the meat source from, is that here in the USA or is it all over the place? Can you talk about the grassfed standard for that?
It’s real, that’s important, but, uh, so it’s sourced in the United States. Uh, we have probably three or four different sources and frankly, you know, we get our meat, um, at the w we, we get our meat at some of the same sources that our competitors do, but it’s, I think the important thing is that it’s all grass fed, it’s pasture raised meat, and, you know, there’s a big push right now on restorative regenerative ranching. Um, and, and which basically, you know, basically means that from, you know, the time that the animal is born until there, um, until they’re harvested, if you will, uh, that they’re, they’re raised in a, uh, you know, sustainable a humane way that actually, uh, does not deplete, you know, all of the natural resources that they use. And so we do that and we don’t, we don’t promote that heavily. And I’ll tell you why we don’t, because just in my opinion today in the year 2016, that’s not something that should set you apart. That’s just something that should be a given. Yeah. But we do it and, and, uh, you know, it is important. It’s still really important. Um, but to me, that’s, you know, that’s just something that’s like.
Yeah. And yeah, and I love that, and that hopefully that becomes more the norm in the industry, but, um, what kind of price difference would it be? I’m not sure if he even looked into this, but what would the price difference be if you went to like factory factory farmed meat, uh, you know, versus the grassfed w what were the cost different speeds? It’s you look into that at all?
Oh, yeah. It can be like 40 to 50% on the, on the protein and our organic, uh, vegetables literally are probably about 30% higher than non-organic. So, I mean, you, you get what you pay for it.
Yeah. And I think, honestly, you know, we’re asking the wrong questions, you know, we’re asking like, why is healthy foods so expensive? The real question is why is, uh, the unhealthy foods so cheap? You know, why is it, why is it so cheap versus real food is more expensive? Why do we have, why is it so backwards? Right. So I think that’s the real question that needs to be asked, but, um, okay. What are some of the other ingredients in the DNX breads? You mentioned coconut oil, G uh, the grass fed meat. Um, what other ingredients did you guys put in there?
Well, so we use, we use some, uh, some kind of basic staples. When we, when we made the bars, we wanted to, we sat down, we said, you know, if you were to have a meal, what would you have? And so, so for example, you know, we have a sweet potato, a sweet potato fennel bar. So if you think about it, you have grassfed beef, you’ve got sweet potatoes, and again, all organic, and then you’ve got your vegetables, fennel. And, um, and, and so, you know, most of our bars are kind of designed to emulate a meal. Um, but sweet potatoes and fennel are key geek, coconut oil to get our good, good fats. Um, we have, and I hate to use the word super foods because it’s so overused and there’s, it can be a super food, but we have some, uh, healthy, unusual ingredients.
And I’ll just name four of them. Uh, one of them is we use, uh, inulin, which is a prebiotic, super healthy, um, comes from a blue, a Gavi plant. Uh, we use Sacha inchi, um, which is a plant protein, super, super, um, super healthy. We use moringa oil affair, which most people know is Maringa, um, just shocked full of vitamins, like 90 vitamins and minerals. Um, and, and we use goji berries, which a lot of people are aware of the high antioxidant components. So it’s really look, we probably overdid it on the ingredient. We just said, we just, you know, we sat in a room and just like, if I had my, you know, if I had my dream bar, what would it look like?
Yeah. It’s pretty much like a complete meal replacement. You’re getting everything you would need from a macro nutrient and micronutrient standpoint.
Yeah. And here’s the bottom line for me. Cause again, I, you know, this is the first time I’ve had a comedy that I just live and breathe and literally eat the product. And, you know, if you think about what a minimally processed bar is, what you want it to be as something that you can eat when you don’t have time to prepare for a meal or, or to clean up for a meal. Right. So, and I, I eat a lot, so I’m, I’m gonna, this probably sound bad, but you know, if I look, if I’m in a hurry and I’m on the go, what we really, what it really represents is convenience because I can eat two or three of my bars. And I don’t think most people would eat three of my bars in the city, but I can eat two or three of the bars in five minutes. I don’t have to prep. I didn’t have to clean up. And I’m getting like 34 grams of real protein. I’m getting 30 grams of fat, really good fat, you know, I’m getting 20 grams of carbs that come from complex sources of carbs. And so, yeah, I mean, how, I mean, I don’t do that three times a day, but when I get in a bind, it’s, it’s pretty, it’s pretty bad.
Yeah. And no, and I put it into the same category as you know, certain supplements, for example, there’s a, just for convenience purposes, there’s a time and place for it. Like if you’re traveling, you’re on the go, you can’t sit down and prepare every meal. If you could, then, then you would. Of course. But I think there’s a place for these types of things. Um, you know, especially for people, especially nowadays, we are a society of convenience and we have soccer practice. We have kids, we have travel, we have work, we have, you know, whatever it is, we are on the go. And so I do feel like these things do serve a purpose and there was a time and place for it, not to say, you’re replacing all your meals every single day with just these bars. That’s not what I don’t think your guys’ mission to do is, but even if you replace one of your meals with just one of these bars and you’re gonna save time, you’re gonna save money and you’ll be able to get all these, these good macro and micronutrients and from, from the bars.
Yeah. And I’ll just add one thing because I have two and a half million miles on American, and I will tell you, I, once I started to kind of eat healthy, I, I literally would go to the airport and just challenge myself to find anything that I could eat. And I’m telling you, you gotta go do it Sunday. Cause it’s just like, it’s just, it’s the only thing you can find is little plastic trays of salads, which you’re going to have still pick a lot of the stuff out of. But the point is I man, like traveling, you know, you’re sitting in an airport, ah, man, you throw a couple of these in your briefcase and you’re off.
Yeah, no, trust me. I’ve been on plenty of trips with my DNX bars, uh, you know, in my, in my, in my luggage. So it definitely has a saver that’s for sure. Um, okay. I want to talk to you about something called the declaration. Um, many people might not know what this is or what you guys are trying to, to accomplish with this, but explain to us how the declaration came to be and what it is exactly.
Okay. So first, yeah, it really falls into our mission and our mission is really simple. It’s a, we’re here to provide honest, factual information about food and also provide, uh, the highest quality and healthiest food products. And again, it, it really, it stems from my experience of really kind of being filled. Like I felt like I was being violated and tricked and fooled and, and, and having such a hard time in, uh, finding out factual information. So in January we, uh, issued our declaration of transparency that just said, look, we’re calling on all, all of industry, all of manufacturers in the food industry to basically start to self regulate and to stop issuing, uh, uh, you know, creative, deceptive, misleading information about food. Um, and, and in our declaration, you know, we state that a lot of people look towards the government to do that.
And the government does not do a good job. I got a couple of examples I’d like to talk about in a minute, but so our premise really is, is the only way that this is ever going to be done is if the manufacturers themselves take it on. And we’ve seen a huge shift over the last five to six years. And the shift is a result of the technology that exists right now, which, which helps, uh, helps mandate that there’s transparency and puts a lot of pressure on any manufacturer, big or small, uh, to make sure that they’re being really honest about what’s in their food. And so we put out the declaration, we took a position on four different things. It’s obviously there’s a lot more than four things, but we took a position on, on some of the highest kind of misleads I would, I would say, and that’s calories, fat, sugar, and carbs.
And, uh, you can go to our website and read about our declaration. And then what we’ve, what we’re trying to do again, is our mission is to provide information to people. So you’ll see in our social media, uh, we’re constantly providing all sorts of great information on our website. We don’t just tell you what’s in our, the ingredients in our bars. We actually have a section dedicated to telling you what the ingredient is, where it’s from and how it interacts with your body. We have non, we have, uh, uh, nonprofit, uh, websites that you can go to, to use as resources to go try and easily find information you know about food.
Okay. And what were some of the examples that you were going to talk about?
Well, the government examples now just give, you know, look in may of last year, they just, after a couple of years, they just released some new labeling regulations and they supposed to take effect in July of 2018. And it just blows my mind. Uh, I’ll give you two of them. One of them is a quick one. They now say that they watch, it’s going to be required, that you have to emphasize the number of calories in a product more than you did. So there’s certain new regulations on it’s gotta be bigger and bolder. And that just drives me nuts because, because I, I know that calories, I don’t want to say they’re meaningless, but they’re almost meaningless. It’s the source of the calories that matter. And so what it does is it puts even more focused on, on people out there who are all they’re looking for is calories.
And it allows manufacturers to keep gaming the system by putting artificial sweeteners in their bars, I’m sorry, in their food products. So it’s terrible. Now I give you another one is sugar and this, this one just totally blows my mind. So, uh, uh, the government now, or the labeling is we’re going to require you to put on your label. It always requires you to put like sugars 15 grams, right? Yeah. But now you have to, there’s a requirement that if you have an added sugar and it’s a little nebulous on what an added sugar is, we would all probably assume that table sugars and added sugar. Right. Um, but it includes things that I don’t really think should be on there. But the bottom line is, is whether you put high fructose corn syrup, which is an added sugar, or you put a raw honey, you don’t put what, what the added sugar is.
You just put added sugars. So now here’s the deal. Here’s the example is, so now I can have, my, my bar has five grams of sugar in it. The majority of it comes from the fruits, right? Yeah, I can. But I put, I put two grams of sugar that come from raw honey, which I consider as a whole food. It is a whole food. Yeah. So I have five grams of sugar. I can have a competitor that has 18 grams of sugar. And there are some that come for example, from apricots. And so now is going to look at my bar and they’re going to see added sugars. And they’re going to think, Oh my God. And it’s worse than that. Now what the manufacturers are doing is they’re using it in, in, in the inverse. And if they don’t put an added sugar in, on the front of their product, they put no added sugars. So, but there is, if there’s sugar in it, that’s not added sugar. They could say
Sugars. Is that what you’re saying? No,
It comes. If it comes from a, if it comes from a date or an apricots, it’s not added sugar. Now you and I both know it’s fruit toast and glucose still. Yes. My honey is fruit toast and glucose. In fact, honey has a higher ratio of glucose than fructose then dates do. But so I’m in the, I’m in a store the other day. There’s a 35 year old woman. She looks pretty educated. She’s looking at a bar and I’m, I’m a fanatic about bars now. So if I ever see somebody in the aisle, I quiz them. It’s crazy. Right. So she’s looking at a bar and I say, Hey, how do you like that bar? He says, I don’t know. I’ve never tried it. Uh, what do you think of it? And I said, you know, it’s pretty good. It’s pretty good, but it’s got more sugar than I like to eat. And she, she looks at me and says, well, there’s no sugar in this bar. And I go, what do you mean? She, she throws, shows me the front of it. It says no added sugars. Yeah. I turned it over and I showed her the ingredient list or the nutrient panel. And it said 15 grams of sugar. So, so, so think about what I’m describing. I mean, this is just a total quagmire and these new government regulations, every time, the issue of regulation, they, they, they, they basically create like 15 loopholes.
Yeah. It’s it seems like it’s kind of always been that way. Right. It’s always been that way, even though it makes it seem like, Oh, we’re doing the right things. We’re taking steps in the right direction. Um, by, you know, I remember when they first had restaurants, they had to put the calories, you know, by the food of what you know, of what the food is. And then, you know, people are thinking, Oh, well, see the government’s starting to make some changes and the right direction. They’re putting the calories on the, you know, on the food items and the same thing, you know, now they’re having to highlight how many calories are in it, because most people are living that world of how many calories am I supposed to eat. I still get that all the time. And it’s just going to take some time to shift.
People’s mindsets over to the fact that, like you’re saying, it’s not so much about the quantity of calories, it’s about the quality of the calories. Where are those calories coming from? And not everybody, you know, it takes time to educate themselves on, okay, well, let me look at the ingredients to see what the sugars are coming from and what the added sugars are coming from to see if it’s from high fructose corn syrup, or if it’s from a natural source, like raw honey, for example. So hopefully, I guess the question for you is what do you want people to get out of this? The declaration just become more educated and if so, what do you want them to do about it?
Yeah. So the declaration is all about being, becoming involved and, and, and, and it’s, it’s look, we’re a small company, so we can’t change the, we can’t, you know, change the world and change the government and lobby and do all that kind of, by the way, the reason the government comes up with some of these regs is cause there’s a lot of lobbying that goes on behind the scenes. But look, our goal is to try and provide simple, easy to understand information that you can use every day. And I say that because it’s important, look, everybody out there, uh, you know, has a job, has a family and they can’t do it. I did over the last three years and spend, you know, two weeks at a retreat and learn all the details. So what we try and do is, is kind of, uh, distill information down to something that’s simple and easy to put in place and easy to use, and we’ll continue to grow.
And, and, um, what we hope to do is as, as our, as our, as our more members sign onto our, we hope that we start to get key opinion leaders like yourself, like Melissa, you know who you mentioned and who serves on our advisory board. And, um, we, we hope to really expand the, the movement towards education in a, in a way that’s usable for people and not deceptive. Um, and, and it’s, it’s super important. I mean, think I give you something that’s kind of ironic. Think about how messed up the system is. If you think about products that you look at now, and the packages, a lot of products have to spend more room on their package telling you what’s not in the product versus what’s in it. Right. So you see gluten free. non-GMO no antibiotics, no hormones, no MSG, no nitrates. I mean, are you kidding me? That is symptomatic of how bad it is.
Yeah. That’s a good point. Yeah. That is a good analogy actually, of how much stuff there is saying no, none of this, none of that, none of this, where in reality, if it’s just real food, it shouldn’t have to say,
Tell me what’s in the food. And by the way, if you’re not trying to fool me or deceive me, you know, you don’t have to tell me why it’s not in it.
Yeah. So obviously this isn’t only affecting you, there’s other people in the industry that it will be affecting. I am sure other people are, aren’t too happy about it. Um, are you guys teaming up with other companies, other brands to kind of help spread this movement? Are you guys the only ones that have kinda, you know, created the declaration and informing educating consumers?
Yeah. So as of today, you know, look out of our, our, our leading kind of team member is Melissa Hartwig, or you mentioned him, we think the world of her, and she’s such a great advisor for us, because if you think about it, what she really is about is, is, is doing just what I’m talking about. I mean, she’s a, she’s a life coach. She’s an educator. I mean, she, everything she does really stems from the fact that she’s here to educate and help people. And so her mission is our mission. It’s just such a perfect match. And so, you know, we want to continue to partner with people like her and with companies, um, and with, you know, and with other organizations. And, and honestly, you know, they can be non-GMO nongovernmental organizations or private companies, because look at the end of the day, the government is never going to be able to regulate.
It’s going to come from self regulation. And here was our big deal. When we put this out, you’ll see the first or second paragraph. We said, what are the trends today? And really we have a paragraph dedicated to the truth is the trend. And I really believe that today. I think that the trends today are that you’re just not going to get away with this deception. You might in the short term, but when you see companies like general mills, right now, who’s taking all their artificial ingredients out of their cereals and they have a major, you know, multimillion, dark commercials talking about it. They’re not doing that because they want to, but they’re doing that because it’s, it’s really hard to hide these days. And so, and so look, we, but the trend is going is moving towards the fact that you got to tell the truth. You’re going to be able to get away with it for a little while if you don’t, but eventually it’s going to catch up to you.
Exactly. Yeah. I remember back in the day when subway, there was this, uh, online blogger, I think her name’s the food babe created this movement of, you know, this ingredient that was in the subway bread. And it was the same ingredient that’s in yoga mats or something like that. And I remember that was very popular, you know, just spread like wildfire online and eventually subway got wind of it and took, it, took the ingredient out of their, of their, their bread, but not because they wanted to, but because people were demanding it and for the people demand, it, companies are going to listen to it because otherwise people aren’t going to buy it. And so nowadays with Google and, you know, being able to research all this stuff, that’s out there, you know, the power is shifting more towards the consumer and educating themselves, you know, education is power.
It is, and, and drew our whole, really our whole mission is derived from the one really simple premise is that almost everybody in this world, every human being has some kind of a health goal. And it’s amazing. I’m telling you there. They do. I mean, because ever since I started making bars, whenever somebody asks me what I do and I say, Hey, I make a high protein nutrition bar. All of a sudden I spend the next 30 minutes talking about food. Right? Yeah. And so if you, if you believe the premise that everybody’s got some kind of a health goal and it might be, I want to lower my blood pressure, I want to lose weight. You know, I want to sleep better, whatever it is, a food is probably one of the most significant variables that affects your health. Right. And, and so what we’re here to say is, look, if you have a goal and this is the kind of food that you identify, that you need to consume in order to hit your goal, how unfair is it for somebody like me with my personal experience to be six months down the road.
Um, and thinking that I’m doing all the right things and finding out that I was misled it’s, it’s like, it’s just a huge violation. It’s terrible. So we’re here to help. We’re here to help people, you know, hit their health goals.
Gotcha. That’s awesome. So where can people find your bars at?
So today we just launched them in September last year. So we’re really newbies. We’re in about 250 stores across the country, which we feel really good about, and that’s going to be expanding, you know, literally every month. Um, you can go to our website in about a week and you’ll find, you’ll find one of those fancy store locator things, and we don’t have it up yet. Cause we’ve literally just been putting stores on in the last couple of months. Um, but we’re in local, natural, uh, and organic grocery stores. And then you can always buy our purchase bars online at Amazon. If you’re a prime member, um, you get free shipping, you can also buy online on our site or barefoot provisions is a really kind of cool online retailer that carries our bars.
Okay. Yeah, no, I think it’s good to have those kinds of options and the fact that you guys just started in September and you’re already in over 250 stores and on Amazon prime, I mean, that just makes it more accessible. Right. Versus most small companies when they started out, I was like, Hey, just go to our website. Right. Um, yeah.
Yeah. And you’re going to find that, um, you know, turn to 50 stores. I mean, that’s not huge coverage, but we’re really, I think that by June, we’ll be in every, you know, fairly major city that has a hundred thousand or 80,000 people or more.
Gotcha. And then what about the future of your product? So you have, um, four different flavors currently, right?
Well, we have five different flavors, five flavors, and they’re for grass fed beef, one grass fed bison. And we just got our first, uh, samples of our two new bars. One is a chicken based protein and one is pork nice. And, uh, I think they’re going to be really well. I’m super excited about them. There there’ll be a little bit different. They’re going to fit, you know, they’re going to be, you know, a strict whole 30, uh, type bar and meet all of those requirements as well as I think they’ll probably even, you know, I know some of your listeners are our keynote dieters, and I think that that probably be a little more of a fit for that too, but they’re really, we’re excited about those two bars.
Awesome. That’s great. I bet those ones will taste good, but even without the I’m guessing there’s no honey in those ones.
Nope, no honey whatsoever. Yeah, really good. And I’m going to Al we’re hoping to launch in June. I just got the first samples and we’ll get a couple, a little more down the road here and I’ll ship you some out. Okay,
Cool. Yeah, no, I’m excited. I’m excited to try them. And I know my, my daughters who are seven to five, uh, they’re excited to try them too, so
That’s awesome. That’s awesome.
Well, thanks. Thanks John. Where can people find you guys online? What’s your, what’s your website and your social media handles.
Yeah. So we’re DNX bar D N X bar.com.
Okay. Yeah. And what does DNX stand for? Daily nutrition day to day nutrition and then
Yeah. Day in nutrition day. [inaudible]
The X factor. There we go. Okay. Well there you have it. Thanks. Thank you so much, John, for coming on. Um, I think, I think, you know, you guys are doing a great job with, with not just your product, but also the movement you’re trying to start. And you know, things like this take time, but you know, it’s just one person at a time spreading the message, paying it forward, telling other people about it and educating others about it. Cause education is power. And especially when it comes to your health, right, the more educated you are, the less, you have to be dependent on your doctor to tell you what to do. When in reality, a lot of doctors don’t know a whole lot about nutrition. And if I had doctors on my podcast before and they’re like, yeah, it’s the F you know, four week course or something over the course of four years of medical school. And they’re just not taught a lot about nutrition. So I think you guys are doing a great job with the declarations. Hopefully people will go to your guys’ website and check that out and pay it forward by telling others about it. So,
Yeah, that’s awesome. By the way, they can sign up for a newsletter, which we send out quarterly, which is again, just another educational piece. So look, it’s all good. I really appreciate that. The invite and I appreciate your support drew and, uh, thanks.
Okay. No worries, John. We’ll be looking forward to the new bars coming out soon. Okay. Have a good one.
You too. Take care.
All right, everyone. Thank you for listening to this episode with John Rooney from Dean X-bar is I hope you guys, um, got a lot out of this. I know I did a, it’s just good to be informed and put the, uh, the knowledge back in your guys’ hands, which gives you guys the power. So you can control your health and not be dependent on other doctors, um, or you know, scientists or specialists you guys can take control of your own health. Um, don’t forget to give our show sponsors some love, go, go check out their products, organic, use my code, uh, fit to fat, to fit for 20% off organifi.com that’s [inaudible] dot com. Use the code fit to fat, to fit for 20% off. Also check out DNX bars. Of course, uh, these guys are great. You can find them on Amazon prime and then also, uh, four Sigmatic, F O U R S I G M a T I c.com for slash fit for 10% off of their magic mushrooms.
So thank you guys once again. I appreciate it. If you guys haven’t yet, please leave us a review on iTunes, subscribe to our podcast and tell your friends and family about these episodes. They’re just once a week 30 to 45 minutes, usually on average, and that we appreciate you guys tuning in every week. Don’t forget to follow me on social media at fit to fat, to fit Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat are all the same at fit. Number two, fat number two, fit sign up for my newsletter, a Fitzpatrick fit.com. And, and if you’re looking for a complete transformation program that covers the physical, the mental, the emotional, and the spiritual, you need to check out my six month, uh, transformation team it’s transformed.fit to fat, to fit.com. It’s six months of detailed meal plans and grocery lists, six months of workouts. And you get access to me through a private Facebook group where I answer your questions through Facebook live videos, and, um, you get the support and account and accountability from other people going through the journey with you.
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