Demystifying the Carnivore Diet
In this episode, I discuss the controversial carnivore diet and share my personal experience with it. The episode aims to clear up misconceptions and provide insights into the benefits of the diet, such as increased energy, improved overall health, and weight loss. I explain that the carnivore diet involves consuming only animal-based foods including beef, pork, chicken, fish, dairy, and eggs while gradually eliminating plant-based foods. I emphasize that the shift to a carnivore diet should be gradual, taking between four to eight weeks in order to avoid side effects. This episode goes on to disprove common criticisms of a carnivore diet, stating there is no real scientific evidence to suggest the consumption of animal foods is harmful; instead, studies show benefits to health. Anecdotal evidence is provided through examples of individuals who have seen improved health conditions following the diet.
00:34 Introduction to the Podcast
00:48 Unveiling the Topic: The Carnivore Diet
01:15 Personal Experience and Disclaimer
01:44 Understanding the Carnivore Diet
02:28 Challenges and Misconceptions about the Carnivore Diet
02:57 Starting the Carnivore Diet: Tips and Guidelines
04:37 Benefits of the Carnivore Diet
05:25 Testimonies and Success Stories
06:42 Debunking Myths: Carnivore Diet and Health Risks
12:13 The Carnivore Diet and Climate Change
15:29 Understanding Ruminant Animals and Their Role in the Carnivore Diet
17:10 Benefits of the Carnivore Diet: A Deeper Dive
22:04 Addressing Concerns: Cost and Variety in the Carnivore Diet
27:39 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
31:46 Debunking Plant-Based Diet Myths
32:23 The Truth About Kale and Spinach
33:22 The Sustainability of a Carnivore Diet
35:07 Navigating Restaurants as a Carnivore
35:54 Carnivore Diet and Family Meals
36:26 Snacking on a Carnivore Diet
38:07 The Best Animal Foods to Eat
40:45 The Truth About Dairy
43:40 The Role of Coffee in a Carnivore Diet
48:11 The Benefits of a Carnivore Diet
49:35 The Importance of Fatty Meats
54:14 Dealing with Social Pressure
57:08 Conclusion: Embracing the Carnivore Lifestyle
βWelcome friends. To the reality of health podcast.
Yes, it is time to finally hit this topic. You've heard it in most of my episodes so far, I kind of hint to it all the time.
You're hearing it from your friends. You're seeing it in the news. It's in your social media, it's all over the place now.
The new.
Controversial diet of all time. Well, maybe the grapefruit diet was more controversial, but this one really. Polarizes people.
Today, we're talking about the carnivore diet.
Obviously, if you saw the title of this episode, you know what this is about. It's going to be a little bit of a long one. I'm going to make this a primer. We can talk about more of this in the future. We can get into more details. I'm just going to give you a really good synopsis, both from my point of view. Some science behind it. Why people are doing it, what to expect all the goodies. And yes, right off the bat, I'm going to tell you, I am a carnivore.
Just wanted to get that out right away. The other disclaimer, I want to let you know, is I am not telling anybody to be a carnivore. I'm not telling anybody in this podcast. The whole podcast, not each episode. To do any diet. I just want to give you the truth of what my understanding is from everything I've ever learned, and then you can decide what's best for you.
At this stage in my life, the carnivore diet. Has been exceptional. The best thing I've ever done in my health journey. And I want to share that with you. I want to share other people's experiences with you.
Maybe you haven't heard the truth about the carnivore diet. Maybe you've heard it from other people. That don't know what they're talking about. Probably because they've never done it before. Or they've been influenced by somebody who doesn't want to believe it. That's the problem with most things. People are compartmentalized. They don't want to look outside of their situation of what they've been sold to believe.
I'm of the opinion.
Try new things. Just know how to do it. Rather than just jumping in.
And believe me, I am not going to sit here and tell you. That everything is roses and daisies. This is not an easy thing to do for most people.
And it's not that it's hard to do. It's just that it's very healing. So you're going to feel some stuff most likely in the beginning. I'm going to teach you how to do it. To minimize anything in your life. That's difficult going through this change.
Okay. Strap in, let's do this. You got to start slow. And this is true for any diet. The biggest fault everybody makes when they start a diet is they go too fast. They usually do the whole cold Turkey thing. You shouldn't do that. There's a lot of reasons why you should never just do something cold Turkey in the health world.
It's called healing. That would be episode number two.
You want to take at least four to eight weeks getting into something as an I'll use the word here extreme as carnivores. And the only reason I'm saying extreme is not because it's an extreme thing to do because it's actually not. It's just extreme compared to the standard American diet. From what you're used to.
And it's also Extremely healing.
There's basically two types. There's kind of what. Most people do, which is just, they don't worry about the amount of fat that they consume. And then there's high-fat carnivores and those people eat a lot of fat. You know, the whole entire ribeye, that kind of thing.
If you go slow from that four to eight weeks transitioning into it, it doesn't matter what.
Amount of fat you eat. If you heard bad stories of carnivore that's because people did cold Turkey and they didn't become fat adapted. So if you go slow four to eight weeks, You'll see huge benefits. Every week, you just start feeling better and better and better.
You will rarely.
Be hungry. The more fat you consume in the future in the beginning, you're going to be transitioning. So expect some stuff. Now, why would you want to do it? Well, It's high-fat. It's high cholesterol. It gets rid of chronic diseases in weight issues. It gives you more energy and it's super simple, like really easy. When I go grocery shopping. Which is pretty rarely. I go in, I get eggs. Maybe some butter, if I'm low. Ah, maybe some, uh, cream cheese. Sour cream, maybe. But I really don't go to the grocery store anymore.
I get my meat, which if you remember the histamines episode, I actually order from billydoemeats.com. Because it's not aged meat.
I don't do well with histamines. So essentially I go to the store to pick up. Four or five items I'm in and out. I don't spend long time anymore. And I love going to the grocery store. I'm a serious foodie.
If you've never heard of Jordan Peterson. Or his daughter McKayla.
Well, they radically changed their lives. Mikayla actually had serious rheumatoid arthritis and we're talking debilitation here. Cause depression and all kinds of things. After they did a lot of testing with her, they found out the only thing she could eat was beef. So now she's on the lion diet, which is basically just be salt and water. Jordan decided, well, if it worked for her, maybe I should try it.
Well, he did, he's been carnivore for five years. Got rid of all of his ailments. He lost 50 pounds. He's the same weight now at 61 that he was when he was 23 and very active. And his wife's an athlete basically. She got rid of nine health conditions. And looks better than she did at 42, when she was seriously active as an athlete, she has just as much muscle now. Actually looks better. There are countless testimonies. Of incurable ailments, mental disorders, addictions. Athletic improvements. Many many people are carnivores for decades and decades with no side effects.
Excellent health. They will tell you that once they did it, they could never go back.
All your lab work gets better. By the way there are no clinical trials, no real scientific evidence showing consumption of animal foods, especially beef is harmful to your health. Actually on the contrary, it all proves that it's beneficial.
But if you want one, I'll throw one out there.
Harvard did one recently. Proved all the attributes of the carnivore diet improved every condition of all the
participants.
Here's a really fast list in percentages. Bear with me. I'm going to give you all of them. 69% improve chronic disease.
95% improved overall health, 91% improved hunger. And food cravings, 85% improved mental clarity, 66% improved memory. 83% improved focus. 69% improve sleep. 78% improve strength. 76% improved endurance, 89% improved energy. 93% improves or result overall weight obesity and their BMI increased 93% improved or resolved hypertension. Thought it was bad for you to eat meat. Isn't that interesting. 84% improved or resolve cardiovascular issues. 98% improved or resolved diabetes and insulin resistance.
That's huge. 97% improved or resolved gastrointestinal conditions. 89% improved or resolved auto immune conditions. 96% improved Or resolved musculoskeletal issues, 96% improved resolved psychiatric symptoms, 92% improved or resolved your urologic issues. 92% improved or resolved dermatologic issues, 90% discontinued or decreased insulin. 92%. Discontinued insulin for type two diabetes all together. And 100% of participants discontinued. All diabetes injections. This was over a six month period between ages of 18 to 35 averaging 44 years old, two thirds were men.
Third women. This is what they ate. Meat eggs, dairy pork fish, bone broth, condiments, salt spices. They ate two meals per day. I'm sure the condiments were not, you know, Hellman's mayonnaise and sugar filled ketchup and stuff like that. I'm sure they were better than those.
And I'll guarantee you that a lot of people snuck them, be, you know, nobody knew. Absolutely no fruits, no vegetables and no grains. And they had all of that success.
The opposite argument is from the medical establishment that says increases diabetes and heart disease and all this kind of stuff. And that the carnivores diet isn't safe. We have no longterm studies. Well, We don't have long-term studies on weight Watchers or weight loss drugs, but I'll tell you. What we do have, we have 40 to 50 years of being on the food pyramid. They're type of diets, low fat diets, high carb diets, and all these other ways to eat.
None of those proved to increase.
Good health. What did they do? They actually proved to be the opposite.
And I'm not even going to get into all the societies throughout the entire planet's history that are mostly carnivore. We're healthier than just about. Everybody else that's in modern society. We're all eating carbohydrates and sugar and plants and fruits and oatmeal, which by the way, is peasant food.
It's grool. It's what the Kings would feed the peasants so that they could have all the good food like meat and eggs and fish and dairy. We got all the. Garbage foods, the stuff that animals would eat.
People have been eating animal foods literally forever. If there were unhealthy. We'd be dead by now.
Notice in the last 60 years or so we are not getting better. We're getting sicker. In all of history. We're rapidly getting worse and worse. Why? We're following modern advice on how to eat.
If you listen to Monday's episode on the food pyramid,
I told you that studies from universities and food science and stuff. They're all funded.
Buy food companies. But guess what? It's more than that.
All the food science that determines what you should be eating and what's pushed on you. Is actually funded by. The seventh day Adventists and the Mormons. Y. Because they want to promote veganism. Y. Well, you ready for it?
They want everybody to be a vegan. Because in their religion, they believe that Jesus Christ will come back. Once everybody has become a vegan. Yeah.
Why are you listening to this podcast at this point? I'm telling you the truth. Does that offend anybody? I'm sorry, but that's, that's what's happening. If you were to look at all the nutritional research and food science, that's going on, it's all supported. I think it's more than 80% is the recent one. It's all funded by the seventh day Adventists in the Mormons. They're on all the boards.
They're the ones given the money. They have all the power and control on what. They tell you to eat.
And I'm serious about that.
Don't even get me started on the climate change and cow farts. Uh, climate does not change because of cow farting.
I know that might upset some people, but guess what? It's just the way it is. If cow farts destroyed the world. Then we wouldn't have massively huge herds. Of all these large animals that were on the planet before us, before we slaughtered them all. There wouldn't be a climate. They would've destroyed it.
Here's a point for that matter and then I'll leave it alone.
Uh, crop requires a tractor.
Not only are you running that tractor over that field multiple times from start to finish the growing season, but then you have to get all of that harvested plant. Into trucks and other types of transportation vehicles to get it to the manufacturing facility. To turn it into something you can eat. Then you get all the industrial complex.
That's making that food into something you can eat like cereal, whatever that requires energy to do that. Then they got to get it to the grocery store. Whether you're using heat and air conditioning. To which you drive your car to that facility to pick up the food, to bring it home, then you cook it, which uses more energy. To eat it. Pasture raised animals don't require anything.
They just eat what they eat from the ground. They defecate. And they fart. Of course. You ever heard a deer π fart? I don't know. Do they even fart? I've only heard a cow fart. Maybe a π horse. I'm just saying.
Then they go get slaughtered. So it takes a little bit of transportation, really small footprint, and then it gets to the store and then you go get it and you make it and you eat it. Much less footprint. And there's all kinds of stats put out there on how much. Carbon footprint comes from. Agriculture and.
Transportation and all these other figures who knows most of that stuff is made up.
It's guesstimated. You can't measure all of that stuff. It's literally impossible. All right. I digress.
Almost no one has a negative reaction to beef or animal foods. Unless those animal foods are full of histamines. Like it does to me, but. When you age. Animal foods, they can create more histamines. There's still histamines in vegetables and things like that, but not as much as there is in meat.
Or you might be sensitive to chemical toxins.
That could be in the poorly raised beef.
Or maybe the animal is genetically modified. Like in dairy, there is such a thing called. A2 dairy in a two dairy. Dairy. Is better for the human. Then the other types of conventionally raised dairy.
So if you have a dairy problem, Not just lactose, I'm talking about other dairy issues like protein intolerances from the caseins that are in there. You might want to try you might find that you're fine with it. Maybe even. Raw dairy. Even if it's a one dairy.
That way the proteins aren't all messed up from all the. Pasteurization.
Plants have chemical toxins to. Many people are allergic to those fruits, vegetables, all that kind of stuff.
They can be in the plant. Or what the.
Company used to grow them.
No. What a ruminant animal is. Those are animals that. Eat grass. They've got multiple stomachs.
Well, here's the thing.
They don't cause any negative reactions in the body.
Now you've take a room in an animal and feed them grain that they're not supposed to be eating. And people can be sensitive to that type of ruminant meat. Ruminant animals like.
Beef Buffalo. Venison.
Go. Lamb. Et cetera.
They have multiple stomachs. So they process that grass that they eat.
Which is hopefully just crass.
So far down into microscopic ingredients that essentially. You're just eating fat, protein, vitamins, and minerals that make up their flesh.
Their stomachs ferment. The food that they eat, that destroys pathogens and toxins.
And all kinds of manner of things that could affect most people. This is why when you take foods as a whole and muscle test people or allergy test people, Or even go on a elimination diet, you'll find that you respond. Less to beef than any other food or any other ruminant animal, actually. But beef seems to be the one that's the most. Tolerated. Buffalo I would say is probably.
The same as beef, but most people just don't eat it.
So basically. They break it down in the mouth with their teeth. It goes through their esophagus, gets into their rumen which is the largest stomach. And then into the reticulum. Then it goes into the
omasum. Then into the.
obamasum
And then through their intestine, then that goes to the ground and then you step on it. π
Carnivore diet works because it's, anti-inflammatory. It lowers cholesterol and takes you from this hyper sympathetic state into a parasympathetic state. That means you're no longer. In a fight or flight state all the time.
Antagonistic foods like fruits and vegetables, carbohydrates, and fibers. They antagonize your body. Animal foods. Don't antagonize.
It absolutely transforms people's lives. Inflammation is the driver for most acute and chronic diseases. Especially joint disorders and gut disorders. And mental health disorders, skin disorders, circulatory problems, heart conditions, obesity. If you reduce this. You will feel better. Inflammation is a killer. So I have a whole episode on it.
Number one thing, people experience is weight loss, and by the way, it's not overall weight.
It's actually body fat and inflammation and water. You end up retaining muscle in your bones. Get denser.
I think one of the best benefits for Carver diet is actually your oral health. You see, gum disease literally goes away and it won't come back. As long as you are.
On the carnivore diet. You should have a 100% success rate.
The only.
Caveat to that is if you have degeneration underneath your gums, that's a totally different thing. I'm just talking about regular people. You won't experience plaque. And the other one is weird. Is. You don't have those crusties in your eyes in the morning. You know what I'm talking about? Those go away in earwax. Y, I can't figure this out.
I have tried to figure this out and, and I can't come up with anything. Your wax gone crusties in the eyes gone. Plaque in the mouth gone. It's gotta be a carbohydrate thing. That's the only thing I can think of.
It could be a plant. Chemical anti nutrient thing. I don't know.
If it doesn't do that for you, maybe comment, let me know, uh, send me an email or something because I'd really like to figure that out. It's kind of the weirdest thing, you know, if you think about it, Person goes on carnivore diet and they're like, yeah, I don't need Q-tips anymore. And I don't have the crusties in my eyes and, uh, oh yeah.
Uh, I don't technically have to brush my teeth. I good. Dot. I'm not saying don't brush your teeth. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying this. There's no plaque.
I know it's not for everyone. That's not what I'm telling you. You should go and do this. I'm not. I'm just giving you information so that you can make the best decision based on yes. Somebody who is in the health field and is a carnivore.
Because of that. I want to tell you, you can have some side effects. You got to go slow.
One of the ones you can have a side effect with. If you go too quickly is the amount of fat you're consuming because you're not a fat adapted.
Specially cooked fats. Okay. So.
I'm not talking about the fat that's in the structure of the, of the food. I'm talking about what came out.
For example, if you make eggs, Add butter at the end. Don't add it in the beginning and get them all hot. Cooked fats can, can, they can just, they can work on your gut a little bit. So if you made things like ground beef, Don't eat the fat that's in the pan just yet. Don't pour it onto your beef and your other food port away.
Maybe use it in cooking later. You know, store it in the fridge or something.
Cause you're not fat adapted. So it's going to be difficult to digest your liver and your gallbladder are not used to digesting that much fat, so it can give you a little nausea, maybe. Mostly a little loose stool.
So just take it slow. This is why the four to eight weeks, if you go four to eight weeks, you shouldn't have any issues with salt. Electrolytes. Or fat adaption, which are the three things that everybody talks about. Those are the only three negatives that you'll ever hear about.
You're going to want to eat till you're full.
And you will know exactly when that happens. All of a sudden, you know, I'm done. I don't want to eat. Another bite. You will not get that same experience. If you eat pizza.
You know where you say I'll just have one more piece and you can actually eat the whole thing. Nope, that won't happen on carnivores. You're done when you are done. That is it. You are finished.
When leptin that's a hormone. Signals your brain to stop eating. It is. Over you do not want another bite. It's pretty cool, actually. Physiologically. It's one of the neater things that you can experience because you know, that hormone. Got secreted. Out of your stomach. And went to your brain and said, that's it. Pretty pretty neat actually.
One of the things that everybody brings up all the time is, oh, eating animal foods must be so expensive.
It's not.
The cost of the food is actually pretty small compared to the cost of pain and suffering by not being on a diet, like a carnivore diet, which is so healing.
And then you got pain and suffering later on in your life from eating all those crappy.
Process foods and high sugar and high carb. I'm not telling you that you can't eat vegetables. I'm not telling you not to go on
a a keto diet. Um, for a keto diet. If you want to do a vegan diet, I'm fine with that. You just got to know what you're doing. And I'll help you. If you want a vegan episode that tells people how to do it, let me know. I'll make a vegan episode. I used to be a vegan long time ago and vegetarian. I know how you could do it properly.
And I'll tell you right now, 90% of the people don't know how to do a vegan or vegetarian diet correctly. I'm telling you.
But in this industry a long time, knowing a lot of vegans and vegetarians, I've studied this stuff. There's a right way and a wrong way. It is that simple.
So if you're going to buy.
Animal foods, your need to think about conventional or organic. In the beginning. I wouldn't worry too much what you're doing so much as.
I would be a little bit more concerned with. Really poorly raised animal foods. We had an episode on that. It's called the amyloid episode, a M Y L O. I D amyloids are created when you raise animals in a very poor way.
Amyloids we'll destroy your health. No one ever talks about it. You never hear about it. Yet medicine. As in modern medicine knows about it. But they ignore it. And I will tell you even natural medicine ignores it.
Conventionally raised animals are extremely unhealthy. So do your best to buy organic naturally raised. Especially.
If you can get it from a local.
Farmer.
You know, a side note on that. Wouldn't it be really nice to know the farmer. Who raised the animal that you're going to consume, where you could go to the farm and actually see the farm and meet these people. I'm not saying you need to go meet the animal. Cause that could be weird for some people.
I just mean, you know, where it's coming from. Did you know most of the meat that you're seeing in the stores coming from countries other than AmErika? Yes. Mexico and China and Brazil. Argentina south AmErika, Canada. It's not even American.
So when it says USDA on the label, Like United States.
ral years ago, I think it was:They can write USA meat. On the label and it can come from Mexico or any other country just means that it was processed here.
A lot of people say that.
The other reason that people think it costs too much is because they look at their normal standard American diet food.
Grocery store bills. And they see this really high number and they think, oh man, Ella foods are really expensive compared to some of the other foods, but guess what? When you make animal foods to eat as a carnivore diet.
You eat all of it. And if you have leftovers, there's very little bit. And you always end up eating it.
Do you know how much food people throw away of leftovers? And then of course you didn't buy vegetables and things and put them in your refrigerator, your cupboards that you don't ever eat. You end up eating all of it. It nothing really goes bad. And you're getting super high nutrition.
You're not overeating, which it's basically impossible to overeat on a carnivore diet. When that leptin kicks in, I'm telling you. You will stop.
I could go on and on about cost. You can look this up and you can see all kinds of calculators. People have done most carnivores people spend less money in their food than more money. That affords them to buy more naturally raised meat. You always want pasture raised or organic. Regenerative farm raised foods.
Anyway.
And by the way, it is not an elimination diet. A lot of people say it's an elimination diet.
You could construe that it might follow some of the principles, but the really only carnivore diet that is. I would consider to be elimination. Diet would be actually straight. Uh, beef, salt water, and that's a lion diet. Great diet.
Like I said, McKayla Peterson is actually on it.
If you can do that. I say, go ahead and do that.
But technically an elimination diet is you're consuming. One thing. That's it. Something that agrees with you. And then you start adding in. Things slowly to see how you respond.
So if you start out carnivore diet taken four to eight weeks to get involved and you're eating eggs and butter and bacon and beef and. Venison and fish and seafood and all these types of things. I don't care if you like snails.
That's not an elimination diet.
That's basically just eliminated.
Plants. Essentially.
So, if you went on a ice cream diet, you could say that's an elimination diet because I eliminated everything except ice cream. That's just not the way it is. Or you could say. I'm on an elimination diet, a vegan diet. Well, no, you just stopped eating animal foods. It's not an elimination diet. A true elimination diet is one thing.
But Erik, my doctor. And everybody says I'm going to have heart disease in cancer.
That could not be further from the truth.
I could do an entire episode on just that concept. But I'm not going to.
We can do one of the future. I would say, if you want to believe that, go look it up. And if you know how to read studies and read science, you'll see, you will not find. One.
Bit of true science, proving that animal foods cause heart disease or cancer. Not there. Literally not there. I'm not the one just saying this. There are main stream. Neurologists heart. Doctors. Surgeons. Researchers.
Professors that can show you. Yeah, none of the research says that it causes heart disease or cancer.
It's actually the opposite.
Of course, there's an argument that stays that I don't think I could ever eat the same thing all the time. Really. You are, you're doing that right now. If you look at the majority of the food you eat, it's all basically the same thing. It's like it's, that's, that's the way it is for everybody. It doesn't matter. Like. People like what they like, and they fall into a rhythm and they eat those things and you go to the grocery store and you pretty much buy the same things over and over and over again. So once you get used to eating a certain way, you think you can't eat any other way. Until you try something else and then you find you can eat more. No biggie.
If you go slowly four to eight weeks and work yourself into this. You will find that you're craving animal foods more and more and more that you don't want all these other foods you don't feel well when you eat these other foods from plants. And I mean anything from a plant.
So it's easy to say when you're on a standard American diet eating all this high fat. Which are bad fats, high sugar, high salt. Super intensely flavored food.
To say, there's no way I could eat just meat. Well, I'm not saying just eat meat. And carnivore people unless you're on a lion diet or not eating just straight meat. The lots of foods. Tonight, I'm having.
Chicken thighs. Strip steak and shrimp.
Yeah.
That's three different foods right there.
And if you want the reality. The reality is. You are addicted to most of the foods you're eating right now, they are so hyper flavored. That they've got you hooked.
The food scientists know this it's in all of your foods.
Everything from your.
Can of Cola, that's red, white, and blue. If you know what I'm talking about. Has flavor enhancers in there to make you addicted. And they come from a boarded.
Baby kidneys. Yes. It's a fact. Look it up. And they know it's there. And it's approved by the FDA.
All the way.
To fast food. That is a quote science. That's not food science. Like, let's see how good a potato is for a human being and how to grow it. So it's the most flavorful out of the ground because we nourish the soil. We made sure it had good sun. No, no. They're adding chemicals in there. Doing things to trick your brain into thinking this tastes good when it's really just fake.
So when you say. There's no way I could be a carnivore and just eat meat all the time. No, one's saying just meat. We're saying all kinds of different animal foods. All right. I killed that one enough. How about, I don't like me. Well, there's more than just quote, meet. When people say meat, what they mean is animal food that is. Flesh. Right.
So don't eat. Animal food flesh. Find other animal foods that you can eat. I know of carnivores that do live on.
Chicken and fish. But. The chicken. And the fish that they consume is high quality. Not farm raised. You can do it.
Can't tell me you don't like cheese and butter and some of these other things you can add all of this into your life.
But Erik, I thought plant foods were healthy.
Well, Are they.
Because I can't seem to find any research. Any clinical trials, any science showing. That plants are actually healthy. But I'm finding and have learned over all these years. Plants actually work against you.
There's a lot of proponents out there that are anti plant, and they're starting to realize what plants do to the human body. I said this. Countless times just because.
Something. Seems healthy or you were told that it was healthy. Doesn't mean that it is. Don't take my advice. Look it up yourself, just because kale. Has vitamin C in it doesn't mean you get the vitamin C out of it. That's the first thing. And second. Doesn't mean that it doesn't come with a package of other things that are really bad for you. But Erik it's green, it looks like it would be healthy.
Sure. It does.
But it causes kidney stones to such a level. That it's absolutely insane. It is the worst food. That and spinach that you can put on your body.
And they know this. And the medical profession. And the food scientists push the stuff. They make tons of money on this kind of thing. And the pharmaceutical makes money on the drugs because you feel sick. They don't have these issues with meat and animal foods. None, unless you're eating really, really, really bad animal foods.
I'm talking to worst raised. Super. Hormone chemical . Laden. I mean, just bottom of the barrel.
I don't know, Erik. I don't know. It doesn't sound sustainable. Oh, Okay. So is eating fast food. Standard american diet.
That creates. Really bad health later on. Is that sustainable?
You seem to be pretty much okay. To your 30, and then you start seeing all these health conditions.
Guess where those came from.
What you ate? I'll tell you right now, it's 80% of your problem.
Is that sustainable? I don't think so. Eventually you're going to have to change some things.
But Erik, I can't eat just animal foods all time. I love the crunch of salad or I'm not seeing you can never eat those things. But if you want to be a carnivore and you want to try it, you might find you don't want those things anymore. You might find if you ever do eat one, you feel terrible. And you don't feel terrible because you know, you haven't had it in a long time.
No, you actually know you feel terrible. You don't get that when you had a steak. When you're eating the standard American diet and you go out to dinner and you have this really amazing steak, you don't go, oh, I feel so bad. I had the steak. I feel physically terrible.
It doesn't happen. It never happens.
Another big one everybody thinks about is where do I buy quality meat.
Online for sure. Local for sure. And then yes, because you're not spending so much money on other foods. You're not consuming. You can spend more money on quality meat. So you go to a quality butcher. A quality grocery store that has quality animal foods. Trust me, they taste better. You feel better? And then, you know, they were raised better.
The only weird one. Is a restaurant.
Restaurants are difficult to be a carnivore. So you want to go with the easiest things on the menu? Usually burgers. Breakfast, you do things like omelets.
You can ask them, do you cook your food in any oils or anything? Weird. Most don't. Some do. But if you go out. To a restaurant. That's good. Like a good restaurant. You can get a steak with a side of eggs. You can get a steak with bacon. You can get burgers with bacon and cheese. Side of cottage cheese.
I mean, there's all kinds of things you can put together.
If you then don't feel good by eating in that restaurant, then you'll know that they're using some really nasty stuff. But if you feel all right, you're fine.
The carnivores have figured out how to eat at restaurants. No problem. And you just have to do the same thing.
The rest of your family might say, oh no, you went carnivore. You're going to carnivore. Well, you got to deal with all of their situation too. Erik. I've got kids. You don't understand. I don't have time to make my food and their food. It's the same food. You just don't eat the side. Dishes.
And trust me when you feel awesome.
Some of the people in your family might say, well, maybe I won't eat this either. I'll start eating more of the animal foods. Cook a little bit more. If you already putting burgers on the grill, add another one, have two, rather than one. You see what I'm saying? It's not that hard.
One of the ones that people have a hard time with is snacks. Well, there are carnivores snacks. But you'll find you don't need snacks. I very rarely need a snack. And I guess if I do it's. It's something that I don't really need to go do. It's not like if I don't have a snack here, I'm going to lose it.
It's not like that.
But if you try and get into a fight with your hypothalamus, By the way, which controls your hunger, you're going to lose.
This is why people snack all the time. So if you're not eating enough protein and fat, your hypothalamus will tell you to eat. And then you got to go snack. Of course. You're not going to go snack on beef jerky. No, no. You're going to go eat potato chips and candy and anything. Pre-made. That's easy to pick up and eat.
Right. You're not thinking snack. I'm going to go make food. You're thinking snack. Oh, I'll go get something. That's already made most things that are already made. Not a good snack. Then you get fat and sick from eating snacks. Why is eating snacks a problem? Because it raises your insulin. And when your insulin raises all the time, it's never going down because you've had food or raised.
You wait a little while it starts to come down a little bit. You have another snack, bring it back up again. That creates all kinds of chronic inflammation and chronic diseases. And you just feel terrible. Carnivore gets rid of all of that. It's wild, how this works. This is why keto low carb and. Carnivore diets worked so well.
Your insulin level is extremely low and it's down low all the time.
Pretty rare that your insulin level goes up and then you go, oh, I got to have a snack. It's pretty rare. And if you do, yeah, there's things you can do. It could be anything that comes from an animal as a snack. One of my things is cottage cheese.
But seriously, the best animal food you can eat is beef or anything.
Ruminant. Then the best after that would be egg yolks. Yes, you can have the whites too, but the yolks specifically. Then I would say butter's the next best one. And then they have to be. Truly pasture raised, but pork pigs. π π That would be next. Amazing food. Like really, really good. It'd be second. To beef as far as like an animal, like if you ate an animal. And then I think the next after that would be wild caught salmon. I mean like seriously wild caught, not. They say it's, wild-caught you look at it and it's kind of, not all that red.
You want red, like seriously red, but wild caught because if it's farm caught in red, that means they added red dye. Or other red enhancing things like astazanthines.
The biggest question you probably get on a carnivore diet is what about bacon?
Yeah, you can do store bought. You can make your own. You could actually buy pork belly. It's pretty inexpensive. You can cut it as thick as you want, make your own.
Do you want to add salt or sugar to cure it first? Knock yourself out. Just want to leave it alone. You can do that too.
You could actually cut it and whatever seasonings you'd like to it just like same way you would let's say if you were going to make a burger or a steak or something like that. Pork belly cut thick and seasoned in whatever way. And then put on the grill. Oh, it's insanely good.
If you're not going to do pasture raise though.
And you know, the pork is not pasture-raised. You might want to limit it a little bit daily. You can have some bacon, but if you get it pasture raised, You can eat all the bacon and pork belly, which are kind of the same thing, but you can eat all the pork you want pulled pork to bacon. Doesn't matter.
You can eat as much as you want. Pork. Pasture raised is so nutrient dense. It has zero downsides. By the way lard is pork fat. If you don't know. Extremely healthy.
So if you don't like beef, For other ruminant animals like elk. π It was the last time you had elk. You can eat as much pork as you want. Okay. Now I was famous for eating nothing but pork. Although we decimated their population in world war II. It's since come back, but generations long and we're talking thousands of years, they consume pork as their main animal staple. The island was full of pork. It ate, whatever it wanted to eat. They didn't have to herd it.
It was just everywhere.
And then world war II happened and the soldiers need to be fed. So they slaughtered them all. Since no, they've come back.
What about dairy Erik? π
Erik. What about dairy?
Dairy's totally fine. If you're on a carnivore diet. I think it's totally fine. If you're sensitive to it, that's different. And you'll know if you add dairy in and you don't do well with it, you need to take it out. But if you do fine with it, it's totally fine. She just know what dairy really is. You want to go raw as much as possible.
You can get it online. There's local farms that you can get raw dairy, especially if you can get A2. Some of the best butter you'll ever have is raw butter.
By the way I said this before, if you don't remember, but one of the reasons people love cheese so much. Is cheese has.
Naturally occurring morphine in it. So. So yeah. When people are saying I'm a cheese aholic. Yep. They're a drug addict. I'm kidding.
Poultry is totally fine. Just need to make sure it's pasture raised. Not conventionally raised. Organic is good. You know, all that kind of thing. Let them go in the grasses and Peck of the dirt and eat the worms. And. Run and fly and everything they want to do that chicken is totally fine to consume in.
You will know it. As a carnivore, if you eat conventionally raised poultry. You can tell it feels weird in us. It's amazing how sensitive you get to food when you're on a carnivore diet? Honestly, I can tell when my poultry that I eat is not quality. It literally doesn't feel good and I'm hungry super quickly.
And it's not that hard.
To cook food on this type of diet, right. Because. I'll go do his batch cooking. Like you normally do anything else. Make 10 hamburgers on the grill when you're gonna make some burgers and then freeze them.
Same with.
All the other foods you might cook. Could be just be ground beef on the stove. It could be steaks in the oven, whatever it is.
Chicken wings. All of it.
But if you're sensitive to histamines, You're going to know it on a carnivore diet. Let me tell you.
So, if you are don't age, your meat, especially beef. And if you have leftovers and you're done put 'em in the freezer. At minimum, put them in the refrigerator for a few hours, but don't leave them in the refrigerator too long. They will create the histamines if you're sensitive and you'll feel it. So put it in their freezer, pull it back out, reheat it on the stove, and then you can eat it.
You can purchase un-aged meat as well. There's online places you can do it. Like I said, Billy DOE meats.
Or you can find from local butchers, ask them, Hey, do you know anybody that doesn't age their meat? Or can you get me? Un-aged meat. You'd believe a lot of them can. Basically, you're just slaughtering it and freezing it right away. You're not, you're not going to let it hang for two weeks. Like they normally.
Would do.
The histamine thing does not apply to eggs. So you can eat all the eggs you want, buy him, leave on the counter. But on the fridge, whatever you want. I go through eggs so fast. It doesn't matter if they're in the refrigerator or the counter.
The biggest question next to bacon. On the carnivore diet lifestyle. Is what about coffee? π
I am not pro or against coffee.
I am for coffee. If you do just fine with it with no side effects. However, if you have side effects, Than I am anti coffee for you. In the beginning. Going into this diet, But if you want to do without it. Because, you know, after all it's a bean juice, so it's not carnivore.
Get used to the diet for like, I don't know, six months or so before you try to eliminate coffee.
Get off it for a couple of months. See how you feel. We'll let you know if you're experiencing any ill health. And then from that.
If you get off it. Don't really notice any different and it's probably okay for you.
Life without coffee is way easier than life with coffee.
When you're on a carnivore diet, you'll find your energy levels are very high. You go to bed earlier, you wake up earlier. You may not need the caffeine from coffee anymore.
Most people that take a break from coffee, say they feel better. Obviously. Go to half-caff before you just, you know, straight up eliminated. Most people don't think it's the caffeine that they're actually addicted to.
They think it's the flavor, you know, the soothing, warm beverage, the morning ritual.
If you add sugar. And it's the sugar and caffeine mix that you were actually addicted to. If you don't add sugar, then it's just the caffeine. Trust me, caffeine.
Is probably what you're addicted to.
So, what is caffeine? It's actually a neurotoxin that plants produce to keep insects from eating them.
It's a pesticide. Made by the plant.
But in us, it can give you energy.
But it can also give you anxiety. Reflux and joint pain and nerve pain. Headaches can affect your hormones and all your cortisol levels. Do you remember when I talked about cortisol levels and the acid alkaline episode? So in the morning when your body secretes cortisol in order to wake up. And then later in the day, starts to secrete melatonin to put you asleep. So if you have coffee too late, Then you increase your cortisol levels. And you're keeping them up later in the day.
And that interferes with your melatonin. To that. Is why it's very difficult to go to bed when you drink caffeine too late.
Another reason why you get addicted to coffee. Is the effect it has on your adrenal glands.
Oh, yes.
When you mess up those adrenal glands. You're in for a world of hurt.
So if you're actually addicted to coffee and I mean, a real addiction.
And by the way, it's never good to be addicted to anything. Doesn't matter what it is.
Since it can affect your adrenals, you can have chronic fatigue.
You can really mess up your hormones. Talking to you ladies.
It can be so disruptive to your life.
It's amazing.
Best tip. If you're going to go on a carnivore diet. Add butter to everything, especially in the beginning. You don't have to add a lot. It's your best. Sauce your best condiment. After all it tastes amazing. It goes with all most, everything.
It's not that expensive and it is so super healthy for you. One of the best things you can put in your body, I might have an episode on butter as well.
When you first start off transitioning over to carnivore diet. Don't worry about your portions. Don't track your calories. Don't worry about any of this stuff. And then when you've totally transitioned in, you don't want to think about that stuff anymore. Don't worry about. Your macros and. Tracking all this garbage, you don't have to do any of that anymore. You eat until you're full and you're done.
And then when you get hungry again, you eat again. If you want to go on a timing situation, breakfast, lunch dinner, for example. You'll know what you can eat, how much you can eat. And you'll know when you're going to be done for me. Three eggs in the morning, four or five strips of bacon. I'm done. Come lunch. Two. Hamburger patties, decent size. Half pounders makes a pound. I'm done. And for dinner. Usually some type of.
Chuck eye steak. About a pound done. And if I don't eat dinner, it's not even a big deal. I don't even have to.
Everybody gets so worked up about calories and all this other nonsense. It's the most. Beneficial thing about carnivore diet is you don't have to worry about any of that stuff. None of it.
So simple.
One of the main benefits about going on a carnivore diet is it will rewire your signals for satiety. And how much you want to eat.
We'll get you out of all those cycles of sitting in front of the television, just chewing and chewing out of pure boredom. You're don't get that desire to go, oh, I want some, uh, potato chips, you know, every so often I'll like, yeah, I want something crunchy and I'll have some really, really high quality. Pork rinds. High quality pork rinds. Are awesome.
They don't taste like pork. They don't have a weird anything. They're just like, I don't know how to describe. Just crunchy and salty and that's it.
So when it rewires your signals, You'll know what true hunger feels like. It's not what you're normally used to.
It's hard to explain. It's different for everybody. For me, I'm not ravished. I can wait till I eat. I'm not like in a hurry. You know what I mean? I, it's hard to describe. I can go a really, really long time without eating sometimes, you know, eight, 10 hours. I'm like, am fine. Yeah. I could eat kind of hungry, but I don't have to.
Now if you're extremely active. Yeah, you're probably going to want to eat more and you're going to get hungry.
People can get themselves into a trap, getting into a carnivore diet. They think, well, I can eat anything. Animal foods. And I don't want all this quote calories. So they try and eat all these lean animal foods, like egg whites and shrimp, and, you know, non fatty fish and Turkey breasts and all these types of foods that is not good.
You do not want to do that by the way, when you eat that much protein without fat, you are spiking your insulin all the time. Your body will turn that protein into high sugar levels. So you don't want to do that. You need fatty meats as well. And I'm not saying you have to eat chunks of fat. There's just fat in the meat.
And if you're going to eat. Lean super lean type of animal foods, then. I have fats with it like butter, cream, cheese, and cottage cheese, or add sour cream. Make a. Make some kind of condiments, you know, sour cream, add some spices to it, you know, whatever come up with anything that you like. I love cream cheese, just straight, grew up with it as a child. it's just awesome.
If you're only going to do lean proteins, I'm telling you you're not going to feel good.
You'll have definite side effects.
So you also don't want to eat too little either. It's okay to eat one or two meals, but you have to eat larger amounts. You'll find you're naturally going to eat. You're going to, how should I say this? You're going to find your rhythm. You're going to find how much you want to eat. And when it's. It's amazing.
I'm telling you your day. Changes because of doing this. And I'm not mean in a bad way either. This is a good way.
Some people actually gain a little bit of weight right away. It's totally temporary. It'll go away. Your body's just adjusting. Just let it happen.
My favorite little snack, I guess if you were to say. I have one, which is butter. Uh, I can't help it.
I go to the kitchen and. I got to take a little swipe off the. You know, off the butter chunk there. Quick little treat. It's amazing. Super satiating. Sometimes we'll have three or four of them. Don't need to do it all the time, but I'm telling you butter straight when you're on a carnivore diet is so unctious. And delicious and satisfying.
It's insane. You have to tell yourself to stop. At least I do anyway.
Do not keep carbs or plant foods in the house. It's only going to create temptation. Now if the family has those foods in there. Well, you're just going to have to have really good. Self-disciplined. Just tell yourself I don't want to eat that. It's going to either make me fat. Give me inflammation. Make my body hurt.
I'm gonna have diarrhea. Headaches skin problems, whatever it is that you needed to use the carnivore diet to get rid of. Don't fall into temptation. I'm telling you your digestion will improve quite rapidly. You won't have things like gas.
You see animal food, get broken down fast. Liquified super easy. Fiber on the other hand. Well bacteria in your colon, digest it. And then they fart. And create gas to which makes you then fart. You see. The human body doesn't need fiber at all whatsoever. I just like it doesn't need carbohydrates or sugar at all whatsoever. We will have a fiber episode coming up.
it's the exact opposite for vegans and vegetarians.
They fart more than animal-based.
People do. You have to break down that fiber. Turns into gas. Animal foods have no fiber. Means you don't have any farts. Well, you might fart once a day. Real small.
So if you want a lot of farts. Super smelly poop. Super smelly farts. Well, eat up that fiber. Oh, and don't forget about the bloating.
Carnivore diet people at max will have a bowel movement once per day at minimum, a couple of times a week. It's not because they're constipated because they're digesting all their food. Very little bit undigested. Besides most of what you're pooping out is dead microbiome.
So if you eat plants, It's going to be. Insoluble fiber.
Undigested food. And mostly your microbiome that's dying off. That's what makes up feces.
So. If you're going to switch over to a carnivore diet.
I'm going to preface it with this. Of course, if
change your diet. You're going to notice things in the beginning with your bowel movements. This is why I said in the beginning of this episode, you need to take four to eight weeks to transition. That transition time takes away all the side effects. That you normally would experience by changing to this diet.
And by the way, this isn't a diet. This is a lifestyle.
If you decide you want to go carnivores.
You might experience. People. In your life who tell you everything you're going to die from. You're going to get cancer and you're going to get this and you're going to have these problems. It's all nonsense. Just no. You're going to have to deal with that. I personally have not experienced any of this. Most people ask me questions about it.
They're genuinely interested. My family's all in supportive of it. My friends and.
Besides in life. You don't have to tell anybody anything. About what you're doing. It's none of their business. So if you lose weight, you look great. Feel awesome. And they say, wow, what did you do? You can say I changed my daily habits into positive ones. Leave it at that. They say, like what. You say well, and a bunch of things, maybe I can tell you in the future right now, I want to make sure this is sustainable. And leave it at that. Then if they press you, you could say. I would tell you, but. It's a bit controversial and I would need to know that I have your full support.
Because I feel great and I don't want to stop what I'm doing. If they can't say yes. Then just tell them. That you'd rather not talk about it.
Why do you have to go to such link? Because people have been sold. On what to believe? Their belief is so strong. They are so uninformed that all they can do. Is tell you that your wrong. About what you're doing. Because it doesn't line up with what they were sold to believe. It's called cognitive dissonance. And by the way, Unless it's your significant other.
It doesn't matter what other people think. If you're unhealthy and you feel terrible. And you have to do what you have to do. It's about you at this point. And again, If, what you were sold to believe actually worked. Everybody would be healthy. I guess what. Almost nobody is.
If you don't experience the benefits from a carnivore diet. Or a low carb diet or any keto diet. Then most likely you might have a hormone issue. Okay.
That's when you want to go get it checked, see where your levels are. For everything. Main one, usually a thyroid issue.
If you take away What inhibits your body from working properly? And it still doesn't work properly. Something's interfering or something is not functioning as well as it could. And that is usually your hormones. They control your metabolism and pretty much most of everything.
It's pretty rare that people don't.
Experience extreme healing. Went on a carnivore diet. But. Maybe you should look into hormones, but it's not really helping you as much.
Otherwise I say, try it. What, what do you have to lose? What's the worst thing that could happen to you. You feel better. You look better. It's easier to do.
It's an amazing transformation. I guarantee you, there's probably people in your life that have done it or are doing it and you don't know. And you say, wow, you look so great. What are you doing? Oh, I went on a diet. And you left it at that they might be on a carnivore diet. That's the hot thing right now.
And there's a reason for it. It is the best way to eat as a human bar. None. Period. I will stand by that until someone can prove me otherwise.
Maybe this cleared up something for you, any of the questions you may have had? I know I went through this stuff pretty quickly. Not super, super in depth. But maybe you have a better understanding now. Maybe you might want to try it. I don't know. I say, give it a go.
If you know of anybody that you know was thinking about this diet or.
They had questions and they talked to you about it. Maybe send this to them and say, Hey, I heard this. Episode on carnivore diet that Erik did. And maybe you should listen. That'd be great. I'd appreciate that. And by the way, if you haven't actually followed me. I would love for you to click that follow button. You don't have to comment and all the other stuff you always here, but just to follow me would be totally amazing.
Thank you.
Appreciate you listening. Take care of yourselves.