Matt Blackburn (@mattblackburn) is the founder of Mitolife, a wellness brand rooted in mitochondrial health and his CLF Protocol — a framework that looks at aging through the lens of cellular stress and energy.
I first came across Matt’s work years ago, and have since come to admire his willingness to (publicly) change his mind — a quality that feels increasingly rare in the health space today.
On his podcast, Mitolife Radio, he’s tracked many of these changes, revisiting earlier positions while exploring topics like iron overload, high-dose melatonin, and the neuroprotective benefits of tobacco. His approach aligns closely with the Health Gossip ethos, viewing health not as a variable to optimize, but as the practice of tending to your life as a whole and iterating as needed.
You can find more of Matt’s work on Instagram and his website.
#98: Matt Blackburn
North Idaho
What does health, or being healthy, mean to you?
Being healthy means using resilience instead of avoidance. You can be in an electric vehicle without getting a headache, and can go into big cities without feeling sick immediately from all of the electromagnetic radiation. Supplementing the right vitamins and minerals in the right amounts and forms — on top of a balanced diet, including animals and plants — creates this resilient state.
How would you describe your current lifestyle?
My current lifestyle includes a healthy blend of technology use and nature immersion. Being 100% off-grid creates a unique challenge when juggling two or more wood stoves in the winter and operating heavy machinery to clear snow or downed trees. Living by myself in a cabin in the woods has given me rugged resilience and a sort of initiation into manhood that I didn't receive in my younger years.
How do you start and end your days?
I wake up without an alarm, usually around 7:30 to 8:00 AM. If my cat Lava is nearby, sometimes he wants to cuddle. If he crawls onto my chest, then I will lie there with him for a few minutes until I get out of bed. I take three capsules of my systemic enzymes (Dissolve It All) and wait about 30 minutes before making breakfast that consists of three sunny-side-up eggs from my free-ranging hens and a slice of local sourdough bread with salted butter. Sometimes I have sauerkraut with it or some green herbs from my garden, cilantro or parsley.
After I eat, I fire up the La Marzocco Linea Mini espresso machine that's filled with the Mitolife EZ Flow structured water and search for what will become the daily health fact on my social media stories. I pick out a song on Spotify to play during the story, which is usually old country genre.
I froth about a cup of heavy cream, brew one shot of espresso from 17 grams of beans that I roast myself, and mix those with maple syrup and a splash of MCT oil. I sip on this while relaxing in my living room, often watching the cats wrestle. If the weather is nice, I'll drink it outside on the deck in the sunshine.
After that, I get to work responding to texts and emails regarding my brand, Mitolife. The past two years, the majority of my day consisted of working with contractors, whether it be dirt workers, carpenters, electricians, or plumbers, but lately that has slowed down, which has helped to reduce my stress level. It is very hard to be creative or focus when there are people coming to your door, knocking with a question, or texting you to go outside to guide them on what you want for a project. That was my experience from 2024-2025, building out 100+ acres with an underground bunker, which I have since put up for sale. Now that my days are slower and people work part-time instead of full-time on my property, I have more time to meditate on what is missing in the natural health world and where I can contribute my unique perspective.
Living by myself in a cabin in the woods has given me rugged resilience and a sort of initiation into manhood that I didn’t receive in my younger years.
From a nourishment perspective, I usually only consume liquids during the day and sometimes soft-boil three eggs and eat them with salt.
In the evening, dinner is usually either a grass-fed, grass-finished top sirloin steak or ground beef. The carbohydrate source is either jasmine rice, basmati rice, or high-quality pasta. I am a big salad fan, and so was the late Dr. Cass Ingram, whom I had on my show before he passed, and will defend eating a salad alongside a steak for digestive benefit and phytonutrients, regardless of what Paul Saladino and others say about oxalates. Sometimes after dinner, I will smoke a cigar and drink a kava drink called TruKava.
Bedtime is usually between 10 and 10:30. Lately, with how isolated I am, I've been enjoying oxytocin cream and troches, which seem to have a very positive effect on my nervous system, being in somewhat of an astronaut-like, socially disconnected situation for much of the week.
Can you recall a moment when you became more aware of your health, or your relationship to it changed?
I am currently 38 chronological age. Around 2004, I was taking an aikido class in high school and had a very influential sensei who broke through my Christian belief system. I watched a documentary called Zeitgeist, and that plunged me into four years of heavy research into paranormal phenomena and so-called conspiracy theories, including extraterrestrials and black government projects. By the start of 2010, I had discovered raw veganism and green juicing through YouTube and went from a (low-quality) bread-and-cheese-eating vegetarian to about 80% raw vegan overnight. The acne that had plagued my skin for most of my childhood vanished almost overnight, and so did my eczema.
Around 2012 to 2013, I introduced bison and grass-fed beef into my life, and my health went to the next level. I lost a lot of my plant-based friends in the process, but I kept researching and experimenting. The combination of raw goat milk, filtered water, beef, shilajit, and magnesium made me feel like a light bulb that had been energized turned on in my brain. My IQ immediately jumped, and it gave me relief understanding that I underperformed in school because of vitamin and mineral deficiencies that I had had my entire life.
Do you have a spiritual practice?
My spiritual practice is my life experience, which almost always contradicts what I see on social media in memes and especially the recommendations by the Abrahamic religions (Islam, Christianity, Judaism).
What’s your relationship to self-healing?
Being sixteen years into self-experimentation, I never feel the need to see a doctor or health practitioner. With enough quiet time and introspection, I always find what I need at that moment in time.
When do you feel the most nourished?
I feel the most nourished when I go to sleep before 10:30 PM with freshly washed bedsheets, and if I've finished dinner before 8:00 PM.
How do you reset?
I reset by kayaking on my lake with a cigar in hand, watching and listening to the wildlife — the swallows, turtles, fish, and eagles. I reset in the winter by spending quiet mornings with my two cats next to the fireplace.
Do you have a favorite meal?
Grass-fed ground beef, jasmine or basmati rice, Masa Harissa mild red sauce, probiotic sour cream, and Icelandic sea salt. Sometimes there is cheese that I grate myself over top.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
You will feel broken many times but keep going because your capacity to recover is greater than you think.
What advice would you give to the person reading this?
Do not consume so much natural health information that you feel overwhelmed. If someone you follow makes you feel anxious, or your gut tells you something is off with that individual, unfollow them and move on to the next.
What would you like to see or create more of in the world?
Less fear and avoidance around different stressors (EMFs being one) and more resilience and knowledge of proper supplementation to reach that resilience. It is not found in liposomal pouch-style supplement products that are all the rage in the health world right now. It is basic, simple powders that are lab-tested, with bamboo extract as the only excipient.
