Who is David “Avocado” Wolfe? He’s a raw food nutritionist and alternative medicine promoter. He is perhaps most widely known for his TV infomercials, where he serves as spokesman for the NutriBullet blender. As a businessman, he has many endeavors ranging from retail sales of foods and herbs, books, selling nutritional certificates, website subscriptions, and holistic travel packages.
Apparently he got his “avocado” nickname around 20 years ago as part of a superhero troupe he had with his best friend and cousin. It’s stuck around since.
What is David Wolfe’s age? His birth date is reportedly August 6, 1970, which makes him around 45 years old.
For retail product sales, Longevity Warehouse sells “David Wolfe-approved” superfoods which they say come from the “best organic or wildcrafted proprietary sources.” To the best of our knowledge, he does not have ownership in Longevity Warehouse (more on that in a minute).
Sunfood no longer uses Wolfe’s name and likeness
Previously, he was the CEO and 50% owner of Sunfood Nutrition, a brand you may recognize for selling cacao powder, goji berries, smoothie mixes, and the like. Their products are sold both online and some retailers like Whole Foods. David has had no ownership in the Sunfood company and no part in it since severing ties with them in 2009.
David Wolfe Adventures is a tour operator. When we looked, examples of trips they sell included a retreat on the Big Island of Hawaii and one along the southern coast of Iceland.
As an author, David Wolfe has several books including The Sunfood Diet Success System (2008), Superfoods: The Food and Medicine of the Future (2009), and Longevity Now: A Comprehensive Approach to Healthy Hormones, Detoxification, Super Immunity, Reversing Calcification, and Total Rejuvenation (2013). They all have high marks on Amazon, at least based on those reviews.
The David Wolfe Nutrition Certification is an e-course consisting of online videos and guides. We were only able to find the Canadian website for it – or at least the prices are in CAD – and those are $599 CAD or a $54 CAD per month payment plan. Also part of the Body Mind Institute but on a different website are individual courses and packages ranging from a one-time free of $29, all the way up to $274.90 per month. The latter is titled “The Wholistic Nutrition Master Practitioner Certificate – 12 month payment plan” which we would presume means $274.90 x 12 months = $3,298.80 as the total cost.
As far as reviews of David Wolfe’s educational programs, we came across a couple which were overwhelmingly enthusiastic, with phrases like “highly recommend” and “it’s chock full of great information.” However at the bottom were affiliate links for the program. They pay “14-25% on your first tier affiliate bonuses” according to the page about it on the Body Mind Institute. If you have a personal review which is not swayed by earning a commission, please do share it with us below.
The Best Day Ever is a “premium longevity member site” which offers a subscription at $9.99 for the first 30 days, followed by $14.99/month after that. It publishes written information as well as audio and video programs.
Fruit Tree Planting Foundation (FTPF) is an organization he is president of. Their goal is to “collectively plant 18 billion fruit trees for a healthy planet.”
Sacred Chocolate appears to be his most prominent venture for products he sells and/or markets. If our memory serves us right, before we even knew who David Wolfe was we bought Sacred Chocolate’s cacao powder and it was quite good.
In addition, on Longevity Warehouse there are many, many other products with his face on the package and/or marketing materials. A lot of what we see is not exactly cheap. For example, a $6.99 Brainstorm Bar (chocolate energy bar) and his signature hot sauce at a “special price” of $9.97 (regular $19.97) for a 5.07 oz. bottle. Sure, it does sound to have high quality ingredients, but there are many great organic hot sauces on the market for much cheaper.
The most peculiar product we saw was the “Longevity Zapper” for $297 which they describe as a a Schumann resonance device that you can clip onto your belt. It claims “zapping leaves negatively-charged healthy cells intact” and “does not harm friendly bacteria.” It is talked about in reference to being a “jet lag/car lag aid.”
Those are the business ventures we could easily find but he appears to be involved in so many things, apologies in advance if we are leaving any out or have any details incorrect. He’s definitely a busy guy.
What does his Wikipedia say about him?
We like the NutriBullet, it’s a great product for the price. We even like David Wolfe’s enthusiasm for raw food diets and nutrition. Even though they’re not the best value relative to competitors (at least in our opinion), it appears many of the products he sells are very high quality and if it weren’t for their price, we would certainly be open to buying some items on his superfoods list. Last but certainly not least, we dig his hair.
However what we don’t dig – or more accurately, simply just don’t agree with – are some of the claims he has purportedly made, at least according to some quotes published on his Wikipedia page (1). The following 4 indented blocks of text are not our words/opinions, but rather a copy/paste of alleged statements by and/or about David on his Wiki biography.
About salt…
“The reason why the oceans are salty is that’s what’s needed to hold the water onto the Earth. If that didn’t happen the water would levitate right off the Earth, that’d be the end of it. The salt holds it on, in the same way it holds it into our body.”
This is actually the least controversial of the four.
About cocoa…
“Chocolate lines up planetarily with the sun, chocolate is an octave of sun energy. In fact, it’s the energy of the center of the sun. It’s a male energy that comes down off the sun. Actually, out of all the plants, the cacao is right on line target the center of the sun, which we call, in our body, the heart, and actually cacao is right up with the center of the sun, which is the center of the heart, which is called the sacred heart. So the cacao is hitting the frequency of the sacred heart.”
Hmmm… on the other hand, we simply think chocolate is nutritious because of its high ORAC value.
Since deer antlers are not vegan, are they included in the David Wolfe superfoods list?
About deer antlers…
“Dear [sic] antler is not a product. It’s a cosmic substance. And it’s an androgenic substance, by the way—very androgenic. And it needs to be taken with respect and understanding, which is why we’ve been getting into this whole thing about estrogenic forces and then androgenic forces. You gotta know that deer antler is an androgenic force. And why? Because it’s cosmic in nature. It’s elevating. It’s levitational in nature. Which actually makes you younger. The forces of levity make you younger. Rudolf Steiner said that we gradually age due to substances in our body that are seized by the earth’s gravity. He could have said anything. He could have said anything at all, but he said that. That’s amazing. Then he said that you want to use the force of levity to drive the force of levity into your body. Then he talks about silica, that silica can be made to be levitational again.”
No comment. We are at a loss of words.
About mushrooms…
According to Wolfe, he believes that mushrooms have an “advanced intelligence and consciousness”. He has stated that mushroom spores can “levitate off the planet” and believes they are trying to “get to the center of the sun”. He has stated that mushroom spores originally came from “distant planets” and were “carried by cosmic winds or meteors into the Earth’s atmosphere”, stating “the preliminary work develops as the mushroom mycelium sets itself up to network and nourish multi-celled carbohydrate-forming organisms”.
All we’re going to say is that this theory would make for a fascinating adaption in a movie script. Perhaps an animated kids movie about cute little mushroom characters who are trying to get off planet earth and travel the galaxy?
What critics have said about him?
He has a huge following. From browsing blogs and social media, it appears his critics are far outnumbered by his massive fan base. Some critical comments we read describe it as being a “cult following.”
Some skeptics have accused or alleged David Wolfe might be a hoax, a scam, or a snake oil salesman. To be clear, we are not saying those things, nor are we implying them. Rather, we’re only reporting on those names and allegations which were made by others.
Mom told us if we don’t have anything nice to say, then to say nothing at all. We’re going to follow that rule here.
In David’s defense, some of his online critics appear to be disgruntled or unsatisfied ex-business associates from the past. Some purported statements made by David and published online (i.e. his Wikipedia page) may or may not be accurate because of that.
We live in a free country. People are free to believe whatever they want, no matter how far-out it may be. So we’re not going to critique his purported theories. You can evaluate those yourself.
What are his business roles?
Our only questions are out of curiosity… what roles does David “Avocado” Wolfe have in his many ventures he’s associated with? Some are clear – i.e. president of the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation – while others are not.
Below is the entry for him on CorporationWiki (2). This may or may not be accurate/complete.
Assuming the domain WhoIs registry info is correct for it, the owner of Longevity Warehouse is New Horizon Health, Inc. You don’t see that listed above, which indeed does support what Wolfe has said in the past about not having ownership in that company.
There was a post authored by David on Longevity Warehouse’s blogspot in 2012 titled “Why I’m Not a Millionaire” which has since been deleted. However that shouldn’t be construed as some coverup, as it appears they deleted all of the posts on blogspot, regardless of which individual post you try and visit. It appears they transitioned to their corporate website. Makes sense, since blogspot is at least decade past its prime.
We did find that particular “Why I’m Not a Millionaire” post reproduced on another blog (3). In reference to Longevity Warehouse he states:
Many people believe I own Longevity Warehouse. I don’t. I was offered a large percentage of the company last year and I refused.
Regarding The Best Day Ever, The Longevity Now Conference, and Sacred Chocolate, he says:
I love these businesses and I support their success and they support mine, but I don’t have any ownership in any of them at all. I also don’t own any stock in any companies… nor do I own any companies that own companies. Many people think I own lots of property too. I don’t. I operate two organic farms that are mostly owned by banks and if I ever end up owning any equity in these properties at all, I will immediately donate them to charity.
That was in 2012. Is he not a millionaire? What is David Wolfe’s net worth? The reason we wonder this is because we came across this YouTube video:
Now we don’t know when exactly any of these video clips are from, but at least from this one statement, it’s clear he’s talking about an event which was before his 2012 blogpost, since Google’s IPO was August 19, 2004:
“Google has been near and dear to my heart because the first day that the stock came out, I bought it. Check this out, I made so much money on it I bought a house, and so my house was paid for by Google stock.”
That confuses us because in his 2012 post he said “I also don’t own any stock in any companies… nor do I own any companies that own companies.” Maybe he was just referencing present tense?
In a different clip from that same YouTube montage, he says “I’m the wealthiest hippie on Earth, I probably am.” Does the wealthiest hippie on earth have a net worth of less than one million dollars?
Or the house paid for by Google stock, is that referencing the same thing or something different than this: “I operate two organic farms that are mostly owned by banks and if I ever end up owning any equity in these properties at all, I will immediately donate them to charity.”
Now there’s nothing wrong about David Wolfe making a lot of money. How much that is, we have no clue. We are just trying to better understand who he is. Because based on what we’ve seen, he is an enigma… to put it mildly!