Biohacking Nutrition
Biohacker’s Handbook Authors Present
Teemu Arina (FIN)
Biohacker & Technology Entrepreneur, Founder @ Quantified Self & Biohacking Finland, Author @Biohacker’s Handbook
Teemu Arina has a professional career of over 15 years as a technology entrepreneur, author and speaker. He is one of the forefront thinkers on the intersection of the human and the machine, social media, digital work and online learning. He is a Leonardo Award laureate under the patronage of European Parliament for "Humanity in Digitization". Mr. Arina is the founder of three award winning technology companies, ambassador for Rockstart Digital Health accelerator, co-founder of Quantified Self & Biohacking Finland and co-author of the Biohacker’s Handbook for optimizing health and wellbeing with technological and biological tools. Mr. Arina is a popular keynote speaker who has presented internationally in countries such as USA, UK, Japan, Hongkong, Russia, the Netherlands, and Germany.
Jaakko Halmetoja (FIN)
Nutrition Specialist, Independent Wellness Entrepreneur, Author @ Biohacker’s Handbook
Jaakko Halmetoja is a nutrition expert, author and professional speaker. Jaakko has managed multiple special caféterias in Tampere and works as a product developer for food growth companies. Halmetoja has been popularizing health benefits and unique uses of e.g. chaga mushroom, chocolate, wild foods, various berries and medicinal herbs. Halmetoja maintains a non-profit website loydalahde.com, a database for finding local springs around Finland and hosts weekly talk show – InspiRadio Podcast. He has also written a book on chaga mushroom as well as co-authored the Biohacker’s Handbook. Halmetoja is a popular lecturer with over 500 public lectures and performances.
MD Olli Sovijärvi (FIN)
Licensed General Practitioner, Helsinki Antioxidant Clinic, Author @ Biohacker’s Handbook
Olli Sovijärvi is a Licensed General Practitioner at Helsinki Antioxidant Clinic and co-author of the Biohacker’s Handbook. He is one of the pioneers in holistic medicine in Finland and the only finnish medical doctor with a psychologic-philosophical Integral Theory degree from John F. Kennedy University. Sovijärvi graduated 2006 as a licensed physician from University of Helsinki. He has pioneered health podcasts in Finland with Helsinki Paleo Podcast and Biohacker’s Podcast. Sovijärvi has also consulted many natural health brands and organizations.
The authors of the Biohacker’s Handbook explore the scientific foundations
It is not only about what you eat, but what the things that you eat eat. Listen to your body; the information is there, telling you what is good for you. We are a complex system living in a symbiotic relationship with nature, and what we take in is who we are.
Summary
- Personalize nutrition using DNA testing and blood biomarkers, as individual genetic variations require specific nutrient levels that general population averages often fail to address. - Focus on gut lining integrity and microbiome diversity to prevent systemic inflammation, as the health of the digestive system is the foundation for overall physical and cognitive performance. - Prioritize wild-foraged plants and traditionally grown crops, which contain significantly more complex chemical compounds and minerals than modern, nutritionally depleted monoculture crops. - Use low-temperature cooking methods like sous-vide or slow-roasting and incorporate medicinal spices to preserve nutritional value and avoid the production of inflammatory toxins. - Integrate phytoplankton and medicinal mushrooms to benefit from concentrated nutrients and complex biochemical intelligence that support cellular health and a resilient nervous system.
Article
Biohacking Nutrition: Upgrading Human Biology Through Gut Health And Nutrient Density
At Biohacker Summit 2016 London, Three Finnish Authors Argued That Food Had Become Too Small For The Human Task
On a Saturday in London in May 2016, the presentation hall at **Biohacker Summit 2016 London** became, for an hour, something between a laboratory, a forager’s field guide and an indictment of modern eating. The session, **“Biohacking Nutrition,”** was delivered by **Teemu Arina, Jaakko Halmetoja and MD Olli Sovijärvi**, the authors behind *Biohacker’s Handbook*, and it advanced a proposition at once ancient and distinctly contemporary: that nutrition was not merely about calories or restraint, but about upgrading the very conditions under which human biology operated.
Their thesis was clear. Vitality, they said, depended on nutrient density, microbiome resilience, genetic individuality and a return to food systems rich in biological complexity. The modern diet, by contrast, had drifted toward speed, processing and depletion. We had not simply changed what we ate. We had diminished the intelligence embedded in food itself.
A Nutritional Philosophy Built On Individuality, Density And Quality
The talk drew on the framework of *Biohacker’s Handbook*, which the speakers described as a synthesis of scientific literature, practical experimentation and visual education. Arina, the technology entrepreneur and founder associated with Quantified Self and Biohacking Finland, positioned the session as the scientific side of a broader movement. Halmetoja, a nutrition specialist with a long record of public lecturing, brought the language of traditional food knowledge and wild plants. Sovijärvi, a licensed physician and pioneer of holistic medicine in Finland, anchored the discussion in physiology.
Together, they organised nutrition around three pillars: individuality, nutrient density and quality.
That first pillar was perhaps the most subversive. “**Nobody is an average person,**” the speakers argued. Generic dietary recommendations, based on population averages, might help prevent obvious deficiency or reduce broad disease risk, but they were ill-suited to optimal health. In their view, DNA testing and blood biomarkers offered a more faithful map of what each person required. Genetic variation, they said, changed how nutrients were metabolised, absorbed and needed. The future of eating, then, was personal rather than statistical.
The Gut As Foundation, Not Afterthought
If one idea dominated the session, it was that the digestive tract sat at the centre of human health. Sovijärvi walked the audience through the digestive system in plain anatomical terms, from stomach acid and enzymatic breakdown to nutrient absorption in the small intestine and water reabsorption in the colon. But the medical point quickly widened into a philosophical one.
“**All disease begins in the gut,**” the presenters said, invoking Hippocrates not as ornament but as thesis. “**When you have a good gut lining, you are pretty much guaranteed to stay very healthy, as it is the foundation of your overall wellbeing.**”
What they described was the emerging language of the gut barrier and systemic inflammation. A compromised intestinal lining, often referred to as “leaky gut,” could allow unwanted compounds into circulation, provoking immune responses that radiated far beyond digestion. Skin problems, allergies, inflammatory conditions, fatigue and cognitive fog could all, they suggested, begin with damage at this fragile cellular border.
The talk moved naturally from gut lining to the **gut-brain axis**, that dense, reciprocal conversation between the digestive system, the microbiome and the brain. A troubled gut, they argued, could cloud the mind just as surely as it upset the stomach. High performance was not possible if the barrier systems of the body were inflamed.
The Microbiome As An Invisible Organ
This was not nutrition in the old vocabulary of fat, sugar and protein alone. It was nutrition as ecosystem management.
The speakers stressed that human beings lived in symbiosis with vast bacterial populations that helped produce vitamins, digest compounds and regulate immunity. Food, in this telling, did not only feed us. It fed the organisms that made our wellbeing possible.
Halmetoja pointed to the consequences of dietary monotony and ultra-processed food on microbial diversity. Antibiotics, chemical residues and sterile habits could further erode that inner ecology. The answer was not simply supplementation, they suggested, but nourishment of beneficial microbes through **prebiotics**, **fermented foods** and phytochemical-rich whole ingredients.
The old preservation methods, once dismissed as relics of necessity, returned in this framework as instruments of health. Fermentation, in particular, was praised as a rare culinary process that enhanced nutritional value rather than diminishing it.
Wild Plants, Rich Soils And The Lost Complexity Of Food
If the gut was the foundation, then the quality of raw ingredients became a matter of profound consequence. Here Halmetoja was at his most compelling. He described a world in which wild plants, mineral-rich soils and ecological stress produced foods with deep chemical sophistication, while industrial agriculture had selected much of that complexity away.
“**Wild plants contain a rich variety of essential oils and complex chemistry that are beneficial for us and communicate to much deeper systems inside of our bodies,**” he said.
The contrast was sharp. Traditionally grown, wild or foraged foods, the speakers maintained, often carried broader phytochemical profiles and denser mineral content than monoculture crops bred for sweetness, size and shelf life. Bitter compounds, aromatic oils, dark pigments and defensive alkaloids were not incidental. They were part of the plant’s dialogue with its environment, and part of what made it useful to us.
The argument was ecological before it was nutritional. What a plant grew in, what it defended itself against, what fungal and bacterial relationships surrounded its roots, all shaped the final value of that plant as food. Dead soil produced diminished nourishment. Biological richness produced food of greater intelligence.
Why The Ocean Entered The Plate
Among the most striking claims of the presentation was the attention given to marine nutrition, especially **phytoplankton**. Arina described oceanic micro-organisms as a frontier in human eating and quoted a line that gave the audience a sense of the speakers’ ambition.
“**The future of nutrition is in the oceans. Phytoplankton has the most complete nutritional profile, offering an ideal balance of all the different nutrients that life really needs.**”
It was, to some ears, a futuristic provocation. Yet in the logic of the talk it made sense. If nutritional power lay close to biological origins, then single-celled marine life represented a condensed form of mineral and micronutrient density. Their interest in phytoplankton was not a fad but part of a broader belief that the earlier one moved in the food chain, the more complete and foundational the nourishment might become.
Mushrooms, Medicinal Intelligence And Ancient Biochemistry
That same fascination with older biological systems led the speakers toward fungi. Medicinal mushrooms were presented not as folk curiosities but as sophisticated biochemical allies, capable of supporting immunity and resilience.
“**Fungi and mushrooms have been here much longer than plants or mammals. We can get a lot of biological intelligence out of them to help stimulate and support our immune systems,**” the presentation argued.
In this model, foods and botanical compounds were not only fuel. They were signalling tools. Mushrooms, herbs, wild berries and roots could modulate the body in subtle but important ways, especially when paired with personalised nutrition strategies that accounted for inherited weaknesses or nutrient-processing inefficiencies.
The Case Against Processed Sugars And High-Heat Cooking
The critique of modern food was not romanticism for its own sake. It sharpened around mechanism. Processed sugar, refined carbohydrates and industrial fats were discussed as drivers of instability, inflammation and sensory distortion. The more processed the diet, the less capable it became of sustaining the microbiome or preserving metabolic balance.
Cooking methods, too, came under scrutiny. The presenters warned that **high-temperature cooking** could generate undesirable compounds such as **acrylamide** and **advanced glycation end-products**, both associated with inflammatory burden. Gentler methods such as slow roasting and sous-vide were offered as ways to preserve nutrient value while limiting toxic byproducts.
This was biohacking stripped of gadgetry. The kitchen, not the wearable, became the site of intervention.
Bone Broth, Mineral Salt And The Return Of Old Knowledge
The presentation was also rich in practical, almost stubbornly traditional recommendations. The speakers endorsed **nose-to-tail eating**, arguing that modern preferences for lean muscle meats had created imbalances in amino acid intake. Bone broths, joints and connective tissues, rich in glycine, were framed as anti-inflammatory correctives to methionine-heavy diets.
They also challenged the demonisation of salt, calling instead for **mineral-rich salts** and seaweed-fortified alternatives that supported nervous system function and provided trace minerals. Refined table salt, in their view, was a stripped-down chemical remnant of something once more complete.
There were recommendations that bordered on the evangelical: soak and sprout legumes, nuts and seeds to reduce antinutrients; preserve ingredients in dark protective glass; organise the kitchen so upgraded foods are visible and habitual; abandon tea bags for whole medicinal herbs; retrain the palate to appreciate bitterness and complexity.
What emerged was not simply a diet but a way of noticing.
A Rejection Of Speed As The Governing Principle
Running beneath the science was a cultural critique. Much of what had gone wrong with food, the speakers suggested, had gone wrong because modern societies had surrendered to haste. We no longer fermented because refrigeration was easier. We no longer foraged because supermarkets had replaced landscapes. We no longer prepared food with patience because work had colonised the time once reserved for kitchens and shared tables.
This, they implied, was why diets became poorer even as food became more abundant. The industrial meal was not merely less nutritious. It reflected a civilisation that had ceased to make room for nourishment.
More Than A Trend, A Demanding Vision Of Human Performance
What made **“Biohacking Nutrition”** memorable at **Biohacker Summit 2016 London** was not that it offered a list of superfoods or a fresh moral panic. It was that **Teemu Arina, Jaakko Halmetoja and MD Olli Sovijärvi** attempted something larger. They treated nutrition as a convergence point between ecology, genomics, medicine, tradition and performance.
Their message was rigorous in its own way, if occasionally utopian. Eat according to your biology, not the average. Restore the gut before chasing symptoms. Feed the microbiome, not just the self. Seek complexity in wild plants, fungi and oceanic life. Cook with care. Distrust convenience. Return to the deeper chemistries that modern food has forgotten.
In the end, the session advanced a simple but unsettling idea. Human beings had not outgrown the biological rules that formed them. They had only become adept at ignoring them.
Part of Biohacker Summit 2016 London