Welcome to Grounded Wellness, your go to podcast for
simplified and trusted information on how to live a
more non-toxic and holistic life.
We're your hosts. I'm Bethany McDaniel, founder of
primarily pure biohacking enthusiast and mom of three.
And I'm Courtney O'Connor, holistic esthetician with over
15 years experience in the healing power of touch and
holistic skin care rituals. I am so excited to welcome
today's guest, Ashley Van Houten.
Ashley is a passionate an advocate for health and
nutrition, known for her expertise in organ meats, animal
based protein, and building muscle.
As a certified health coach, author and speaker, Ashley has
dedicated her career to educating others about the
benefits of nutrient dense foods and the power of strength
training. This conversation is full of
insights into nourishing our bodies and redefining our
relationship with food. Let's dig in.
Ashley, thank you so much for traveling all the way from
Canada to be here at the farm today.
I'm so, so excited to have you here.
It is my pleasure and it's long overdue.
I've been to come for a long time, so I'm very happy to be
here. Thank you.
We have been in touch for so many years and I was just
telling my team like you have been such an amazing supporter
of Primary Pure since like the very early days.
Yeah, Thank you. I appreciate it.
I mean, everything that you're doing is, is so in line with the
stuff that I'm passionate about and the stuff that I'm doing
too. And congratulations, by the way,
just on the growth and even on doing the podcast, which I know
personally is a ton of work, but I love what you're doing and I,
yeah, I've just been super happy to be a part of it.
Thank you and likewise love everything that you're doing and
the message that you are putting out there into the mainstream
that I think is slowly getting more and more adopted by the
masses. You've been, you've been
shouting this message tirelessly for so long.
So cannot wait for our audience to hear your expertise on organ
meats and strength training and animal based protein and all the
things. Let's go ahead and kick this off
with a 2 minute elevator pitch on why more people need to adopt
organ meats in their diets. I'm not very good at 2 minute
any. If you go a little over, that's
time. You, you can cut me off anytime
you want. I, you know, I'm not somebody
I've learned through my career. I'm not somebody who's trying to
really convince anybody of anything.
I think when people are ready, they're going to come to you.
So I'm not the person who's going to try to get, you know,
your vegan friend to eat liver. I think that's a bridge too far.
But I will say that the vast majority of us still eat animal
products, and we recognize that it's an important and healthy
part of our diet. And so if you are one of those
people wherever on the spectrum you are, maybe you love to eat
meat, maybe you're trying to eat less, but you just recognize
that it's an important part of your diet.
I believe that the best way to to really embody that is to eat
meat in a way that is as sustainable and ethical and
thoughtful and mindful and then healthy as possible.
And the truth of the matter is organ meats are the most
nutrient dense foods on the planet.
They're the most bio bioavailable for human beings.
And so if you're going to eat meat, and I think most of us
should, you should be incorporating organ meats
because it's good for you. Why do you think there's so much
resistance around this idea of eating organ meats, even for
people who are aware of the health benefits and the
nutrition I have? So many thoughts about that.
I could go in so many different directions, but I mean, there's
there's a real historical reason why they've fallen out of favor
and I can get into detail about that if you want.
I think that as a culture in North America, certainly we are
very used to our food being hyper palatable, which is a
problem in itself. You know, food is meant to be
enjoyed and it should taste good, but there's a difference
between delicious, nourishing food and really, really hyper
palatable food that makes you just kind of eat mindlessly.
And that's been artificially programmed for that purpose.
Exactly. It doesn't taste like anything
that you'd ever eat in the history of humanity.
So we're very used to food tasting too good in essence, in
some cases. So that's a bit of a problem.
And that's, that's sort of at worst, but at best, we're also
even those of us who are trying our best to eat healthy, we're
very used to food tasting also quite bland and, and
homogeneous. So, you know, those of us who
are eating our our lean chicken breasts and our salmon with the
skin off and just with the side of vegetables, you know, we want
the food to taste really kind of basic and really kind of simple.
And so anything that tastes unlike that, I think, and maybe
there's an instinctive biological component to where
things that are different you see as being scary.
So this is something unfamiliar, it's something new.
It has a stronger taste. That's bad.
I think our culture in particular too loves these these
more bland foods. Like if you think about other
cultures and the foods. That they eat there's.
They do so many unique things with the seasonings, the spices,
like there's, there's so much more flavor there.
But for whatever reason, in America, there's this guy.
We're not a. Boring here and that's one thing
that's come out when I wrote the first book it takes guts is so
many people from other cultures and even Americans who just grew
up eating maybe their their families cuisine or cultural
cuisine are like this is not new to me.
This is not weird to me. This is what we do.
So really we're kind of in the minority to not eat these types
of foods. But you know, in my practice
working with, with women, coaching and helping to, to
helping people to find their ideal diet, I still have a lot
of women who will eat meat, but they don't want to eat meat on
the bone. They don't want to eat meat with
skin on it. They don't want to eat dark meat
because they've been told all of these things about how it's
unhealthy and it's, it's heartbreaking because you're
missing, you're missing so much, not only taste wise, but also
health wise. So yeah, I mean, I could, I
could go on. Talk to me about the historical
component that you touched on. Yeah.
So I think one of the sort of biggest pieces and why organ
meats have fallen out of favor is, I mean, it really started
like with the Industrial revolution.
It started with modern agricultural practices and these
sort of large scale slaughterhouses and mass
production of and, and then harvesting of animals.
When that switch started happening from, you know, local
farmers and smaller butcher shops and, and the kind of, you
know, just sort of smaller, more intimate connection to our food,
it was happening on such a larger scale that it was easier
to get the sort of the muscle meats, the basic cuts that we're
we're used to. And the reality is organ meats
are more sensitive. So if we're talking about liver,
brain sweetbreads, all these delicious things that we can get
into later, they tend to be harder to transport, harder to
store. They're just a little bit more
delicate. So it became more of a hassle to
kind of get these. Like they go bad more quickly.
Potentially, but it's, it's even literally just the tissue, like
if you think we're probably going to get a little maybe
graphic on this podcast, but if you think about what a brain is
versus like a, a hunk of, of steak, it's literally a more
delicate cut. So it just takes a little bit
more care and effort and work to.
And again, if you're you're putting them on a truck and
transporting them across the country instead of maybe getting
it at the farm next door, it just became sort of more work.
And so less producers or manufacturers were offering it.
It became cheaper to offer this really kind of easily
standardized muscle meat option. And so people were then going to
get grocery stores and just buying slabs of meat from from
grocery store instead of maybe going to their local farm, their
local butcher, establishing relationships, understanding the
different cuts of meat and how to prepare them.
So not only did it become less available, but people just kind
of knew less about them and that and then it becomes
intimidating. And that was a process for me
writing this book. I had to figure out how to
source some of this stuff, how to cook it, how to understand
it, ask questions. And it can be intimidating
because it's it's stuff you're not used to.
Yeah. Yeah, you're touching on this
concept of being so disconnected from our food and from where it
comes from. And as you were saying that, I
was thinking about these chicken processing workshops that we
used to do at Primal Pastures in the beginning, like before we
had a facility to process the chickens out.
We were doing this all by hand, like my family and I in the
backyard. And it, this was very new for
me. Like I did not grow up with, you
know, with a farm or any type of farming background.
And so it was so it, it was weird in the beginning, like
being a part of the processing process of these chickens.
But then once I did it, it gave me this whole new appreciation
for the animals, for the process and just for the ability to eat
meat in general. And so it, we noticed that we
were getting so much out of being, of, of having this deeper
connection to our food. And we started offering these
processing workshops to the community And people would come
out and be a part of processing their chickens.
And they would, they would go through every step in the, in
the process from slitting the neck, which is actually the most
humane way to kill a chicken, to the de feathering process to
pulling out the organs. And then they would go home with
this, this bird that they they processed themselves most.
That's not the norm, obviously, like most people kind of want to
ignore that part and just the whole process of like a live
animal becoming food on your plate in our society today.
Don't really want to think about how that happens.
Everything that happens from point A to point B and same with
a lot of different foods. I think it we're just really
disconnected. And so when we think about the
realities of it, for most people who aren't used to doing that,
it can feel really intimidating, comfortable or uncomfortable.
Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think we have
to allow space for things to be intimidating and uncomfortable
and still OK and good and the right thing to do in a lot of
cases. I don't think there are too many
people who love the idea of killing animals to eat them.
Like in their hearts, they're not pumped about the idea, not
death of fighting. Yeah, great.
And you know, one of the things in, in writing this book about
organ meats, I really, I, I spoke with a lot of farmers.
I also connected with a lot of hunters, which ended up being
quite a audience for me because they're individuals who are very
connected to the food that they are sourcing and providing for,
for their families. And they also are already deeply
bought into the idea of making use of the entire animal.
And they tend to be some of the most obviously respectful and
understanding of the process because they understand how
difficult and unpleasant and uncomfortable it can be.
And I think again, because of modern times and technology and
how we can be so connected to so many of the processes that make
our life run, that we are just increasingly uncomfortable with
facing anything that is unpleasant, right?
And it's lovely and wonderful that we live in a modern time
where we can be so comfortable. A lot of the time.
It's a luxury, but it's only a luxury for so long until we run
into some of the problems that we're facing with the sort of
modern food industry. It's becoming increasingly a
problem. And if we continue to turn away
from it and say, you know, modern factory farming is bad,
so let's never eat animals again and let's go buy Beyond Meat,
it's not an answer. It's not a well thought through
answer and it doesn't fix the problems.
So I think we just need to maybe be a little bit more more
comfortable incrementally with facing the challenges that are
inevitable with the system. Yeah, it's like getting
comfortable facing these uncomfortable realities.
I always think of that phrase. I don't know where it comes
from, but like civilized beyond common sense.
I like it. I like it.
I don't know where that came from, but I.
Like it. I think that that's true on a
lot of levels for our world today.
Let's back up a little bit. How did you get involved in the
world of health and Wellness? Yeah, So I mean, I I've always
from a young age and maybe this is just, I've had brothers and I
was a kid in the 90s and I think that there was like a real
cultural thing at that time with like that was the that was the
era of like Arnold Schwarzenegger and like American
Gladiators and just like muscles and overt strength.
And for some reason I just bought into it at a really early
age. I was always really fascinated
with human capacity to be strong and to really physically express
themselves. I, you know, not being much of
an athlete growing up, I was always so interested in
athletics and like what the human body was capable of.
So I always was just into muscles.
That was never, that was never something that I had to get my
head around. As a woman, I've always liked
muscles on other people and I like muscles on myself.
And so I was always in the gym. You know, as soon as I kind of
became a teenager, I was figuring these things out and it
really was kind of this like parallel progression of as I was
exploring my own kind of physical interests and nutrition
and all that stuff, I was kind of trying to learn about it in a
professional sense and sort of marry the 2.
So eventually I did get into, you know, editorial and
publishing and, and writing for some health magazines and things
like that. And I was really getting exposed
to a lot of different nutritional methodologies and
training methodologies. And so and I, you know, dabbled
in a lot of things, like I consider myself a little bit
more of a generalist than sort of a specific expert in anything
except maybe organ needs. Yeah, I would say you're an
expert in organ needs just because there's not too.
Many of us really. But you know, and I, I got into
like, I was into competitive bodybuilding for a while.
I found CrossFit when that was really in its heyday and that
was kind of a moment for me because it really showed me what
like quote, UN quote, normal women could accomplish.
Because, you know, we're not that old.
But when I was younger, people weren't talking about women
being super strong or, or even being interested in that kind of
stuff. It was really very niche.
Much less so now if you're in the fitness world, you see a lot
of very strong women doing really impressive things.
But that's really recent. And so I just kind of always
loved it. And so as I was learning for
myself and trying to just kind of explore that for my own
interests, I was on hosting a number of podcasts and then
eventually finding my own and writing for magazines, and then
I was coaching and then writing cookbooks.
It's all just been this sort of I'm trying to make a living
doing the stuff that I like would be doing for free.
So it's pretty awesome. That's amazing, yeah.
And what inspired you to write your first cookbook?
Yeah, so the cookbooks, the first cookbook it takes Scots is
the the Nose to tail Oregon me Cookbook and how much?
Cookbooks out there are there like that focus on this organ
needs. Interestingly enough, so I was
doing some research obviously before I wrote this book and
thinking like, does this exist? And then what capacity?
There's not a ton and most of them tend to be older, so like
that really kind of old. School like, Ancestral even more
like. Classic French or like Italian
cooking. So, but it's hilarious because I
have a bunch of these at home and you know, they'll be like
these tiny little hardbound books that are absolutely out of
print now. But the recipe will just be like
acquire a rabbit brain and then put it and then Sue V like it's
just so odd. The average person is gonna kind
of feel to get us. Out of reach, Yeah.
And so I'm like, OK, so that's not really accessible for most
people. And then, yeah, there were a
couple more modern ones. Some of the bigger names have
written a couple, but they're, they again, tend to be from
really accomplished professional chefs.
And they, I think that they speak more to people who are
already really comfortable in that world.
And what I wanted to do was write something that was really
accessible to the average and novice, you know, home chef,
just myself. I have no background in this
stuff whatsoever. And I didn't grow up eating
organ meats, by the way. So we can talk about that too.
But a large part of the book is really kind of hand holding and
really trying to do this in as unintimidating a way as
possible. So I do talk a lot about history
and the cultural aspects of organ needs.
All the different, you know, people all over the world who
have always made use of the entire animal and why that's
important and how they do it. I break down every organ and the
best sort of ways to prep it, the most popular ways to prepare
and cook it, the health benefits of each.
So I really want people to just sort of feel educated and feel
like they kind of understand it before they dip their toe in.
And then almost all the recipes, I have a couple guest chefs and,
and some recipes that were submitted that are from more
accomplished people and myself. But generally, it's really that
cliche thing of if I can do it, you can do it.
Because I really, I mean, I was learning as I went.
Yeah. I can only imagine the amount of
trial and error that must have gone into this there.
Was a fair bit. Was there anything that was just
a total flop, total disaster as you were going along?
I got it. I mean, absolutely.
Maybe I've just blocked them from my mind, but I, I mostly
have funny stories of like, I did have to establish some
really cool relationships with butcher shops because again,
some of this stuff, some of the stuff you'd be surprised you can
find at your, your local grocery store and, and at a typical
grocery store anywhere around the country.
And most of us just kind of like our eyes just glance right off
it because we're not used to looking for it.
However, some of the ingredients are definitely more exotic and
definitely take a little bit more work.
And so I really started like kind of branching out to the,
the butcher shops and asking questions.
And some of these people, they eventually warmed up to me and
we're like, OK, this, this woman's, you know, interesting.
But at first they're like, why is this woman coming in and
asking for blood? Like what, what are you?
What do you want? And asking for brain and asking
for interesting things. And I have like vivid memories
of like there's a butcher shot truly like a 5 minute walk from
my house and walking home with a bag of brains and thinking like,
this is going to make a good story someday.
Like this is kind of crazy. How did you even?
Know where to begin with a brain.
Well, I mean, the, the information exists, like if you
do your research, you can find, you can find existing recipes,
you can find information and you can talk to again, farmers,
hunters, butchers, there are people who know this stuff less
and less. So again, and sort of North
American culture. But and you know, I have friends
who, you know, their families are not from North America.
I have friends who are from Africa and Asia and South
America and places with like, oh, my grandmother has a has a
Stew recipe. Of course, there's, there's no,
you know, amounts you're going to have to figure it out.
But I can give you some information like pass along.
So there was some, you know, some sharing happening.
But it really is just a willingness, I think, to
experiment and a willingness to mess up a willingness to try and
for it not to work out. I think that food and cooking is
such a low risk way to broaden your horizons and like try
something new and experiment. If you try something that
doesn't work, you're right back where you started.
If you try something you don't like the taste of it, you
literally have lost nothing. But if you try it and you do
like it and you do enjoy it, you've potentially just opened
up like an entirely new world really both like in the kitchen
and also for your health potentially.
And we're talking about organ meats.
So I really encourage people. I just, I feel like there is a
lot of fear around the unknown and the new and the different.
I really just encourage people to think of food just in in that
way, just exploration and fun and like this low risk kind of
just try something new. Yeah, think of it as an
adventure. Exactly.
But you're, you're absolutely right.
I mean, I can think of so many people who I know who probably
eat a total of like 10 different foods in rotation that that
maybe hasn't changed in the last 20 years.
It's such an interesting things in this culture.
Yeah. Yeah.
And you mentioned that you did not grow up eating this way.
Tell me, like how you grew up eating?
Yeah, so I think I was pretty standard American diet,
honestly, like I. Standard Canadian diet.
I mean, it's all the same. And I actually have American
parents, so I like a more typical, probably American
upbringing in Canada than a lot of people.
But you know, I ate, I remember a lot of skim milk.
I remember white bread. I remember we did.
We always ate meat. Like I remember steaks and pork
chops. And I grew up on the East Coast,
so I was eating seafood. So there was good and bad.
There was certainly less conversation and less awareness
around like processed foods and, and what maybe they can do,
especially to, to children. So probably eating a bunch of
craft, but I was also eating, you know, unprocessed fruits and
vegetables and, and meat and things like that.
I will say, you know, again, as a kid, I wasn't the most
adventurous eater. There wasn't really opportunity,
but I think there was always something in there because as
soon as I became an adult and, you know, I graduated university
and I moved away and I lived in a couple different countries and
I lived in some big cities. And whenever I had the
opportunity, I would, I would, you know, try new cuisines, go
to new restaurants. And I always wanted to get the
thing on the menu that I didn't know what it was like.
And if other people were like, oh man, what is that?
I don't know what that is. And I'll get that.
So I always did kind of approach it like this adventure.
I'm like, why don't you just try it?
What's? Yeah, especially if you're in a
new place and like the opportunity to try something
that you may never have access to again.
I was the same way in in college.
I was in I went to Africa for two months and I was so excited
to try everything. I actually we visited the Maasai
tribe get. Some blood.
No, I asked for it actually, because they, For anyone who's
unfamiliar, the Maasai tribe is a tribe in Africa and they are a
not a hunter gatherer tried. They're a what?
What would you call that? Pastoral.
Yeah. I would say yeah.
Shepherding, yeah. But their main, I think their
main food source is raw cow's milk mixed with blood mixed with
cow's blood. Yep.
And so I did ask them if I could try that and they would not let
me try it. Which it may have been a good
thing, I don't know. I mean, talk about sustainable
because they're able to do this and keeping their cattle alive.
I mean, it's pretty incredible. Yeah.
And and you know, they're, they've done studies on these
tribes too, about how their their cholesterol and fat intake
is really high because they're eating their blood and and milk.
But they're, of course, slimmer. They have virtually no heart
disease. Yeah.
Can you speak to the cholesterol myth or misconception?
Yeah, there's with meats I I think.
I think one of the sort of the main issues around people kind
of equating red meat with heart disease has come from some
flawed studies. And as we know, there are
there's a lot of instances of flawed studies in the health and
nutrition community where something comes out, It has a
really provocative headline like HRT for women is bad or red meat
will give you heart disease. And it's really easy to hang on
to that. It's like a sound bite that
people remember, even when those studies are later debunked, new
studies come out, new information comes out.
And I think with some of that, that study, it was really truly
like study design that just kind of it was so limited and it
caused a lot of issues. Like at one point they were
comparing essentially people who ate a standard American diet
with meat to like strict vegetarians, which is not a one
to one comparison at all. As we know, the standard
American diet has a number of issues and meat being the least
of them. And so there's, you know, the
new studies that come out that show, you know, when they're
trying to acquaint. And it's really tough to do this
because you don't know what other lifestyle factors are
going into the, the health outcomes of, of individuals, but
you know, meat eaters who are eating well-rounded, healthy,
unprocessed diets compared to vegetarians who are doing the
same. The heart disease issue
basically goes away. And then there's also the idea
of cholesterol again, being a bad word and being this like
uniformly kind of scary thing. We need cholesterol.
We need dietary cholesterol. Our.
Brain. Brain, our brains are made-up of
cholesterol, so we do need it. And I, I do know like a lot of
people who eat higher animal protein tend to have Navy,
higher LVL and some higher cholesterol readings.
And it's something to consider and be aware of in the context
of the rest of your life. It's one marker that may or may
not be indicative of something else, but I know tons of people
who are like, yeah, my, every time I go to the doctor, my LDL
is like slightly elevated, but every other health marker is
good. My weight is good.
My, my fitness is good. My every other thing that I do
is good. Yeah, there's so much nuance in
the cholesterol conversation. And even even I've heard that
I'm, I'm by no means like an expert in speaking on this, but
something about like the particle size of the cholesterol
also matters. And there's just a lot more to
it than we've been told. And I, the narrative has changed
so much over the years too. I'm thinking like that Time
magazine cover when they initially told us that to stop
eating butter and eggs because of the saturated fat.
And then just, I think five years ago or so, they published
another one with a like, a thing of butter on the counter saying
like, eat butter, it's OK now. Don't forget what we told you,
you know, 15 years ago now. It's fine.
Yep. So yeah, that's always kind of
evolving the the mainstream messages on that stuff.
And I think, you know, one thing I think we were going to talk
about at some point is the idea that there there is no one
prescriptive diet that is going to be perfect for everybody.
And anybody listening, even what I'm saying, you, you need to
take it with a bit of a grain of salt.
I think anybody who is dogmatic, anybody you see on the Internet
who says you have to eat carnivore, you have to eat this
specific way, you have to be a vegan because that's the optimal
human diet. It's short sighted and they're
probably either trying to be provocative or try to sell you
something there. There is a basic foundational
template that is best for most human beings and it's a really
great starting point for most people.
And then from there, individuals need to do the hard work and the
fun and and empowering work of tweaking and figuring out
exactly what works for you based on maybe where you live, what
your personal preferences are, what your goals are.
Are you pregnant like yours truly, or are you trying to
build muscle or are you going through menopause or are you 15?
You know, like we all have to kind of make the adjustments.
So I really, I really caution people to not fall victim to
somebody who is maybe popular and attention getting and looks
good as their their main platform.
I think that it really should be more about the education
component. What feels right to you learning
how to actually listen to your body And that's not, again, a
sound bite. That's like a real thing people
need to learn how to do. And especially women, we have a
hard time with that. But yeah, there are some
universal truths and some things that we can we can jump off
from. But.
What does that basic template look like?
I believe. I believe in my work and
experience. I believe that a paleo ish
approach is a really really common sense.
Great starting point for for most people.
I feel the exact same way about the paleo diet.
And I say paleo diet, but I don't think of it as a diet.
I think of it as a way of eating because like you said, it is not
overly restrictive and it's really just going back to the
basics of eating real food. At least that's how I see it.
So I love eating paleo with an emphasis on animal based
protein. That's kind of where I've
landed. Yeah, I love that.
That's, I mean, that's literally the second book.
So it's called carnivore ish because you got to have a snappy
name. But I'm not necessarily a
proponent of like strict carnivore, especially long term.
It's just that if you go to, you know, the healthy eating section
of a bookstore, it's all plant based, right?
The entire thing is vegan plant based.
Pictures of salads. And all I wanted was to show
that you can eat a a well-rounded diet that has both
animal and plant products in every meal that can be focused
around animal protein and it is healthy and good for you, It's
good for your family. There's nothing extreme or crazy
or aggressive about it. And you know, just the the
marketing job that's been done recently to equate plant based
health is really actually impressive.
If I it's, it's unfortunate because I don't agree with it,
but it's really been an impressive marketing plan
because. Then the dollar is behind that
it. Truly is, I mean, and you can,
you can look at like there's, there's candy bars now, which
again, I'm not demonizing anything.
I like a candy bar, but there are chocolate bars now that talk
about being plant based and they put a little green leaf on the
chocolate bar and we are immediately thinking, OK, so
this makes it healthier. It's just, it's so bizarre.
And then and then you know, the, the meat based cookbooks are in
the speciality section. It's just a it's a really
strange time in food. How do you feed your son because
you have a three-year old son? Yes.
What does his diet look like? Does he eat organ meats?
Also, yeah, so it's been a really fun and I'm sure you can
say the same thing too, because it it when you have kids that
now isn't just about what you want to eat, it's about what
what they should be eating, what you want them to eat and then
what they actually will eat, which don't always line up.
I do believe that there is an element of obviously introducing
things early which helps, and I do believe that even introducing
things in the womb helps. So when I was pregnant the first
time and now again, spoiler alert, I'm five months pregnant
again and I ate meats throughout my entire pregnancy.
I ate organ meats through my entire pregnancy.
I and this could, maybe could go down a rabbit hole if we wanted
to, but you know, I didn't stop eating a lot of the things that
conventional wisdom tells you to stop eating in pregnancy.
I mean, same runny eggs and unpasteurized cheese and raw
liver, raw liver and all of those things.
I eat all of them. And I you can't say for sure
that that's going to help your kids like those tastes too.
But there, there does seem to be some research that they sort of
recognize and maybe prefer flavors that they're used to
taking in when they they were in your body.
And also via breast milk. I'm sure as well.
Yeah, that's exactly right. So I was doing all of that to
kind of prep him and then his first real foods that he ate.
So he I breast fed for a year and a half until he said I'm
done, which was easy for me. But when he started being
interested in food, the first thing he put in his mouth was I
think it was like a a beef rib bone.
And after that I focused on I gave him some chicken liver was
one of the first things. Bones were like a little bit of
meat on the bone that he could kind of non.
I gave him cod liver. He still loves cod liver.
My kids are obsessed with cod liver.
Delicious. Do you do smoked cod liver?
I do the extra virgin cod liver from Rosita.
It's so delicious. You smoked.
I smoked. I've never got to try it.
I should want some for you anyway.
We'll talk about that later. But it's so good.
And he prefers it. He wants to eat cod liver.
And I think it's, you know, there is an element of OK.
I do the oil, are you saying? Actual.
The actual. OK, well I haven't tried that.
I'm going to get you some. OK, so good.
I, I and people give me the most horrified looks.
Most of my family even are like, what are you doing?
This is a lot even for you. I'm like, it's so delicious.
You just have to give it a try. But he he doesn't know.
And children don't know what's weird or extreme or gross.
They don't know that, you know, liver is a a stranger cut to eat
than anything else. So you do have a, a lot of
opportunity to introduce your kids to things when they're
younger. And I know that there is a
reality of kids do find the stage when they're in, you know,
toddlerhood where maybe they do get a little bit pickier and,
and there's bio individuality there too.
Some kids are just going to be pickier than others.
And I will say, you know, my kid doesn't love a lot of
vegetables. And, you know, people listening
might be like, well, duh, you're the Oregon meat person.
You're not really like pushing vegetables too much.
And that's kind of true. But we do, we give it to him all
the time. We're always giving him
different things to try. We're modeling, eating all of
these things in front of him. And even, you know, my husband
and I, this is a great example of how there is sort of a
foundational principle that looks different to different
people. So he is, you know, a much
bigger, taller person than I am. He tends to be really lean.
He needs to eat a lot to maintain his weight.
Like such a terrible thing for him anyway.
He has to eat a lot. He is much more convinced about
wanting to eat more vegetables than I am.
So his plate is going to be a lot bigger than mine and it's
going to have a lot more vegetables.
Mine does not. I'm still eating vegetables.
I'm still eating fruit. I'm still eating different
things. And I'm showing my son that the
stuff is delicious and it's fun to try new things.
And then within that framework, he's going to eat what he wants
to eat. But there is that that element
too, of like, he's not going to eat the the junk food if there
is no junk food for him to eat. And there it comes, you know,
like everyone will say, well, what about when he goes to a
friend's house? What about when he goes to
school, when he gets older? There's time to navigate these
things. But when they're toddlers, I I
don't really feel. Again, I'm not a dogmatic
person. I also don't feel a 2 year old
needs to eat like straight sugar.
I just don't think it's it's necessary.
I feel the same way. Like we don't need to give them
these, these fake foods just under the premise that like
they're missing out, like they they don't have like a Cheeto
deficiency or a Coca-Cola deficiency.
Yeah. And you can make healthier
versions of these things that are delicious.
Like every birthday, I make him his own cake.
That is a cake. It's not made out of carrots.
And, you know, sadness. It's it's a cake, but it's
healthier. It's lower sugar.
There's fewer ingredients. It probably has some added
protein in it. And you know, I know that these,
some of these really hyper palpable, really high sugar
foods like they, they are drugs. They're absolutely I'm, I fall
victim to it too. If you put some, you know,
peanut butter cups in front of me, I have a hard time not
eating all of them. So you do this to a 2 year old
or a three-year old, What do you expect to happen?
And when they've had a taste of that, how do you expect them to
go back to the cod liver or the carrot sticks or, you know,
whatever. So anyway, so my son, he's
definitely a protein kid and he eats.
Which I think most kids are, if they're given that they tend to.
I mean, my kids all have been. I think there's something
instinctual in all of us that wants protein.
I think so. And especially for kids, it's
like as they're growing, they need the building blocks to
grow. Yep, Yep.
And he needs a lot of dairy. He loves his butter, he loves
his milk. He and he just, he loves his
coffee. Eats a lot of sardines straight
from the can. Again, he just, like, horrifies.
It was one of the first things I gave my kids.
We're just eating like full fish from a can He he loves it and
I'm never going to tell him that it's a a weird, bizarre thing to
do. It's I think it's amazing and I
think it helps his his health. And I, again, this is something
that I can't say prescriptively is, you know, this caused this,
but I, you know that putting him in preschool and you know, all
the sickness stuff that comes when you put your kid out into
the world and then he comes back with all of his germs.
I really think it's been minimized because of the cod
liver because when you think about like previous generations,
they'd give their kids like spoonful of cod liver every day.
It's like helps with your immune system and he eats the actual
liver every week. And I I think it's helped make
him kind of more resilient and have a good immune system.
I mean it seems to be working. Yeah, it's amazing.
Yeah. I think there's this
misconception that just because you're feeding your kids, like,
different types of foods, that they're going to feel left out
and that it's weird to live that way and to eat these things.
But I also want my kids to grow up believing that it's OK to do
things different than the general population.
Like, yes, sometimes there may be a little bit of discomfort,
but also that's OK. Like it's OK not to follow what
everyone else is doing in a lot of different areas of life.
And I think food is one way to kind of teach them that in an
early age, Like, you know, everyone makes different
choices. These kids may eat these things
and that's what they do. And that's OK.
We still, we still love them, but this is how our family eats
and, and just kind of get them comfortable with, with making
like different types of choices. It's something that I, I try to
do for them and model that for them as well.
I love that. What about adults who are
interested in the benefits of organ meats, but nervous to to
dabble into it and start eating organ meats?
Where would you recommend that someone starts out?
Yeah, I have a lot of answers for you because this is of
course a very common question. I have a lot of people coming to
me saying like I'm interested, but I didn't grow up eating this
way. It's very intimidating.
I don't really, I don't like the taste of liver and I know you've
said that on the podcast before, so I have some advice.
For you, I love to hear your advice.
I have lots of fun because. I'm still like, this is an area
that I also still need to grow in.
Like this is how I get my organ meats is the smoothie that we're
drinking. And I haven't ventured outside
of that a whole lot. Yeah.
And you challenged me in this area.
And so I want to hear your challenges but but.
You're good for you for finding the way that it works, right?
You know, OK, so the the 1st and easiest step I would say to
anybody who's interested is go to a restaurant and order
something off the menu and have a professional make something
for you. Because you'd be surprised how
many organ meats are on restaurant menus.
Again, just train our eyes not to look for these things.
But if you go to a Mexican restaurant, there's probably a
tongue Taco. If you you know, maybe there's
menudo, there's there's Stew with tripe.
You can get pho at an Asian restaurant that has intestine in
it. Wow, heart does.
Tongue have benefits outside of because I always think of tongue
as another muscle meat but. They all I mean this, this is
this is the whole other we can. Dive into it.
Just all. So many unique things for each
other. Let's get back to that because I
can tell you about tongue, because tongue is actually
probably one of my favorite cuts.
So I have and it's pretty mild. Right.
It's delicious. It's so good.
If you could, there's a learning curve in the preparation because
it looks like a tongue and if you're getting like a cow
tongue, it's like this big. So that's another I I have some,
some stories getting my head around, you know, prepping
tongue, but it's delicious. But but going back to the
restaurant thing again, it's such a low risk way to
experiment. You don't have to go find the
the organ meats. You don't have to prep them.
You don't have to have them in your home.
You don't have to be intimidated about trying to make them taste
good. You can experience how good they
can taste because professional is doing it for you.
So you can just kind of experiment and dip your toe in
that way. I think that's a really great
starting point. The next step is to do what
you're doing and what parents have done for their children
since the eating of time, which is hide it, hide healthy stuff
in the foods that they already eat.
So a lot of the recipes in my book are.
Basically nutritionally boosting foods that you already like, so
burgers, sausages, meatballs, smoothies, things like that.
That is such an easy, Yeah, like we, we do that also.
We get the ground, the ground beef with the heart and the
liver mixed in and right. So easy.
Yep, and you can do it and it you can do it so subtly in so
many other ways. I have a a blood pudding.
I have a savory blood pudding and a sweet blood pudding, A
chocolate blood pudding, just actually based off a really
popular Italian blood, the pudding dish that was one of the
most popular desserts that I made.
And there's blood in it, which is very intimidating to people.
It's so delicious, but all it does is kind of thicken and
enrich the flavor of the chocolate.
You're not, it's not like you're eating a blood pudding, you
know, but hide it, hide it, make it subtle, and then you're just
eating the foods that you're already comfortable with, but
it's more nutritious. There's nothing wrong with that.
You don't have to eat raw liver every day for to get the
benefits. You can find ways to incorporate
it into your life, but makes sense and and it's pleasant for
you. Another practical tip I would
say, if you are willing to come start sourcing and bring some
stuff home and making it yourself is to start with
smaller animals. So start with, you know,
poultry. Yeah, chicken liver is a lot
more palatable than beef liver. Exactly.
Chicken and chicken. Heart so.
Easy Turkey. Even lamb.
Lamb heart is another one of my favorite cuts.
The smaller the animal, the milder it's going to taste.
And if you're just trying to get comfortable with this, yeah, a
chicken liver Pate is going to taste much milder than like a
bison or a beef liver. Yeah, taste right.
So starch. And that you can find at a lot
of restaurants. Too.
Exactly. And they're inexpensive chicken
and chicken liver, chicken hearts, things like that are
very easy to find and everywhere.
So I would say that. And then one other thought that
is probably my sassiest answer to this question is to just kind
of suck it up and eat it anyway because I love that.
And it goes back to the conversation that we had earlier
where I think we're just so scared of things that are
different that we don't even let ourselves try.
So again, liver potentially is something that it has a strong
flavor and maybe intimidating, but a lot of organs are mild
tasting and actually quite delicious and they still have a
ton of nutritional value, but maybe they look intimidating or
maybe just the concept of it sounds intimidating.
And again, for the vast majority of us who have come to accept
and understand and tolerate that an animal is dying to nourish
us, it's quite arbitrary and quite silly.
When you kind of step back and think like, I'm perfectly
comfortable with eating this slice of this animal's muscle
meat, but this other piece of the animal is this extreme and
awful idea. It's like this animal has
sacrificed its life for you. You're eating a part of it
already. Here's another part that
actually is more nutritious. So, and you know, again, our
parents have been telling us for generations and generations, eat
your broccoli, eat your vegetables.
It doesn't matter if it doesn't taste good, it's good for you.
And sometimes we have to do things because it's good for us.
So suck it up and figure it out. Find a way that tastes good.
And there are so many ways to do that.
You don't have to, you don't have to choke it down, you don't
have to force it, but also just get outside your comfort zone
and just do it anyway cuz it's really, really good for you.
What is the most nutrient dense organ meat?
Yeah. So it's liver.
It is liver. There is a reason why everyone
talks about liver. I will just kind of caveat and
say that again, if you are somebody who is like I've given
this a try, I've tried all the different kinds of liver.
I've I've done it. I just cannot stomach it again.
Don't shut yourself off from the organ meats because there are a
lot of other ones that are milder tasting that may not be
quite the level of nutritionally dense as liver, but still are
more nutritionally dense than a chicken breast or a steak.
Because organ meats just tend to have all the goodness that
muscle meat has, but in more concentrated amounts.
So if you can't do liver, try heart, try bone marrow, try
sweet breads, try desserts, try some.
Just keep trying things because you may find something that that
really is beneficial and delicious, but liver is the best
it has. I think it's 50 times the amount
of B12 as the equivalent amount of beef, which is in itself a
nutritionally dense food. It has more folate than any
other food on the planet. And folate, as you know, is a
really, really important thing for pregnant women.
Yeah. It's also something that we
explicitly tell pregnant women not to eat, which I find crazy.
And that's something I feel I feel so strongly about because I
even had people tell me when I was pregnant the first time,
Like, aren't you worried about, you know, you're eating liver
and you're pregnant? And I'm like, it is literally
nature's multivitamin. It has more vitamin A, It has
more zinc, copper, iron, selenium, all of these trace
minerals and vitamins that literally make our body run that
we don't think about at all until we start to feel sick.
And then maybe we get some blood work and it tells us our iron is
lower, our vitamin D is low. Liver has so much of it that you
can eat a couple oz once or twice a month and you're getting
significant nutritional. Benefit I thought you were going
to say once or twice a week, but even as little as incorporating
it a few times a month will make a big difference.
Absolutely. And this is the other thing that
I think people need to know because they think, OK, well to
get because a lot of times the fine print of things like
supplements or like greens powders and stuff like that is
like you have to be eating a ton of this to really notice the
benefits. And liver and organ meats are
actually the opposite. So people who are trying to eat
less meat, for example, organ meats are a great option because
you can eat a few ounces of liver and you are getting your
daily or more allotment of a lot of these vitamins and minerals.
Yeah, that's a big punch. And your body stores it and you
know, and so I understand why people will say like, you know,
liver has 200% of your, your iron or your vitamin A and
that's the worry. But the other thing about like
things like vitamin A or iron toxicity, which are the two that
you hear about a lot, and again, I'm not a doctor, This is not
prescriptive. You need to, you know, do your
own personal sort of blood work and research on it.
But it's really difficult to basically overdose on iron or
vitamin D and things like that from real foods.
It's much more likely that that's going to occur from
supplementation. From synthetic forms that aren't
made in combination with these other nutrients that that kind
of balance things out. Right, exactly right.
And it's even harder to have too much vitamin A or iron when
you're eating liver, because no one's eating you won't be able
to. 20 How? Much that amount, yeah.
You're not going to eat your body.
Will tell you like when enough is enough.
I think we're. Absolutely right.
So I just think that there are so many women who would benefit
from eating liver compared to the very, very, very
statistically tiny number of people who may experience
problems. And I think it's such a
disservice. And, you know, having been
pregnant now twice, and I've done a ton of research on like
sort of nutrition and supplementation and all of these
things. And there does seem to be
anecdotally for me personally, some correlation between the
friends of mine who are very scared of animal protein and,
you know, the more nutrient dense foods and some pretty, I
think, avoidable challenges and problems that they've had.
And I remember listening to, I just have to tell the story
because it just like, gets me so fired up.
But I remember the first time I was pregnant, I really like dove
deep into the stuff, like, I wanted to know everything and do
everything. And I was listening to a lot of
podcasts about prenatal nutrition and I was listening to
1 where the nutritionists were plant based.
Because I'm like, I'm going to be open minded and I'm going to
listen to everything and I'm going to hear everybody.
And I remember this woman saying that, you know, when you are
pregnant, if unless it's like a really, really strong, like
moral or religious reason why you refuse to eat meat, you
really should consider eating some animal protein when you're
pregnant because it's just so beneficial and it's so nutrient
dense and your body's going to really like accept it and it's
going to be helpful for your grown baby.
And I'm thinking, OK, so plant based people are saying when
you're pregnant it's important to do the right thing and take
care of that growing baby. When it's just you, whatever,
just kind of try to get by, eat your plant based stuff because
it's the nicer, better thing to do.
It was so telling. Yeah, but it's like when it
really matters, eat the right stuff, but when it's just you.
And that goes back to this whole other conversation we can have
about woman's health and fitness and how little understanding and
regard we have for women's Physiology and how we react to
different things and, and foods and our hormonal health and all
of that stuff. It's just, it was so
disappointing to hear like a, a woman nutritionist basically say
like, we don't really care about your health.
But when when you're pregnant, that's a different story.
You should do the right thing. Yeah, that's really interesting
and I want to get into the conversation about women's
fitness and an eating animal based protein and strength
training at all of this. To round out the liver
conversation, what would you say to someone who's concerned about
eating the liver because of this idea that the liver is a filter
and therefore stores toxins? Yeah, that's a good question.
That's when I get a lot. And that's really just kind of a
Physiology thing. So the liver is a filter organ,
but it's not a sponge. It doesn't store toxins.
So basically toxins are methylated or detoxified in the
liver and then they're sort of moved out to be excreted like
they're it's, you know, it becomes urine in the kidneys or
it becomes, you know, it's excreted through sweat or more
commonly, it's stored in our fat.
So, and this is the same for human beings as well as animals.
So if you're eating a really, really healthy, well sourced
animal and the the muscle eats healthy, the liver is going to
be healthy. That's it just doesn't store
toxins. It it filters them.
What you do want to be concerned about if you aren't able to
necessarily source the highest quality animal products, rather
than being particularly worried about maybe the organs, you want
to be getting leaner cuts. So maybe fewer rib eyes And
like, I like to eat the fat. I like the fat on I like to eat,
you know, the skin with the fat underneath.
But like if you're if you're just a little more concerned
about the the quality where your meat's coming from, you just
you're better off kind of source of leaner, leaner.
Cuts. Yeah, I always, all of our meat
comes from primal pastures and pasture birds.
So at home I eat, I eat fatty cuts of meat all the time.
But then going out, I'll order the lean stuff if I'm not sure
that the animal has been grass. Fed, That makes sense.
What is the importance of animal based protein in a women's diet?
Yeah, I mean, it's important in everyone's diet and I think it's
just. And do organ meats have protein?
Yes so generally speaking, most organs are going to have like a
similar protein profile to like the the same amount like you
know 4 ounces of this 4 ounces of muscle meat, it's going to be
about the same. Some organs have higher protein
content like I know Gizzard specifically for some reason are
really high protein and they're also delicious interesting.
But generally if if all you're worried about is protein and
amino acids, like the amino acids that the building blocks
of our muscles, you just want protein for like your games.
You can eat your chicken breasts, you can eat your, you
know, steak. But the real kind of winning
aspect to organ meats is that you're getting that protein and
you're getting all of the vitamins and minerals and
antioxidants. Like heart, for example, is
really high in Coq 10, which is a really powerful antioxidant
that people spend a lot of money to supplement this.
And it's it's found in high doses in heart and other organs.
Like what's I think it's liver is really, really high in
selenium, which is a trace mineral that helps reduce
oxidative stress and helps improve immune function.
So it's really the other stuff that makes or in meats so, so
helpful and so useful. But going back to the the women
question, the protein rich diet for women.
Why it's why I focus more on women is because we as a group
have been caught and sort of brainwashed in a lot of cases to
think it's unhealthy. And that doesn't seem to be as
much of A issue for men. We it just, it seems the fact
that there's sort of gendered messaging around food anyway, I
think is so ridiculous, like the concept that some foods are
apparently more feminine that like a small.
It is a girl food and steaks is stock.
Photos of women like smiling with low fat yogurt.
And I just, it's so it's so ridiculous, but it exists.
And you know, if you look up neat cookbooks, if you go on
Amazon and look it up, it's all like black lettering and like a
dude at a barbecue and you know, a picture of a lion and like
stuff like that. It's like.
I feel like that's shifting now though.
It's like starting starting to become cool for like, like I'm
seeing videos on social media of like these beautiful women just
chowing down on a state. It's still pretty niche.
We're we're a little bit in about, yeah, you're probably
right. The thing and the the challenge
with that, and I don't, again, I'm not knocking anybody for
their journey and their approach, but even that the
beautiful woman, you know, eating a raw piece of meat, even
that is it's not necessarily the most effective way to
communicate to the audience that actually needs to see it.
Because the people who are gonna see that and be like, yeah,
that's badass are probably people who are kind of already
bought into the idea that eating meat is good.
There's a, a really big group still of people, and
specifically women who think that low fat is best, who think
that light meals is what they need to, to eat better.
They think they need to calorie restrict.
They think that high fat red meat is going to make them
unhealthy. Those people are going to see
that and think, see these meat eater people are extreme and
crazy, right? And so my, my approach, which is
definitely less viral and less provocative, has really been to
try to kind of meet people where they are and just be, again, a
little less dogmatic, a little less provocative, even if it
gets fewer eyes on me, because I want to be accepting and
inclusive and welcoming to people who like I, I just had a
lot of people, individuals who've come to me through the
podcast or even through coaching, who are like, I was
vegan for 10 years. I was a vegetarian until three
months ago. And I heard your podcast and
they don't feel intimidated to talk to me.
They don't feel like I'm going to try to like force something
extreme down their throats, no pun intended.
So yes, that group is kind of growing and the understanding of
it is growing, But I think that sometimes the extreme
presentation of it can actually hurt more than health.
And I think sometimes we lose sight of what we're really
trying to do. Like are we trying to provoke
people and shock people or are we trying to educate people and,
and give them options to make them, you know?
Yeah, I can see how that someone could just dismiss that because
of the shock factor alone. Yeah, that's just being kind of
another tactic. Yeah, I mean, my hope with the
cookbook truly, and I've told people this is like you're
interested in in a meat based diet or eating more meat and you
go on the Internet and you may see some shirtless guy in a
field eating raw liver and you think no, thank you.
And then maybe like, one or two steps down, you might find my
book instead, because it's just the sort of more accessible,
realistic version of what they're also trying to do.
Yeah. I love that you bring up the
calorie restriction because I do think that that was a big thing
several decades ago and it's still having an effect on
people. But I think there's such a
difference between calorie restriction and like trying to
either lose weight or manage your weight that way and like
truly nourishing your body and healing your metabolism.
And, and I think there's this idea that like, you have to
restrict first in order to get to that place where where you're
healthy. But I would argue that you have
to like balance things first and then that you're, you know,
getting healthier, losing the weight if you need to, whatever
will kind of be a natural result of that.
What's your take? On I agree, I think it's it's
yeah, it's often kind of the opposite.
People want to just like lose weight immediately 1st And and I
think the big thing is really setting expectations when I work
with clients that if you really want to do this the right way,
there's going to be some yeah, just just reframing of
expectations. It's a long game.
Yeah. And I think some of this goes to
to there's the the cultural aspect.
The cultural side of it where so many, the most common thing that
that clients come to me that they want is they want to loose
that and build muscle and they want to do it at the same time.
And lots of people will tell you that can be done.
And I will tell you that while it's possible, it is from 99% of
people, not the fastest or most effective approach.
It's kind of like you're going to be doing two things in 1/2
hearted way, even if you don't intend to, instead of trying to
really do one thing properly with all of your focus and
attention and then sort of move into the next phase of what
you're trying to do. So what does that process look
like when you're training women and setting them up for for
success in that way? Is that which one comes first?
The building of the muscle, the losing of the fat.
Almost exclusively building muscle 1st and there's a couple
of reasons for it unless you have a a significant amount of
body fat to lose, maybe that's going to be more of a part of it
initially, but the vast majority of clients that's that's not the
issue. First of all, building muscle
first is important because that's healthy skeletal muscle.
You've had Gabrielle on the podcast.
We know that this is important for our health to have skeletal
muscle. It's going to minimize injury.
It's going to minimize pain. It's going to help you live your
life better. And for all of these women who
are coming to me and saying I want to look toned and look
better, what happens when they lose fat without gaining muscle?
They get smaller, but they still don't like the way they look
because in order for you to look toned, you have to have muscle
first. And if you have spent your
entire life under eating and maybe chronic cardio and not
strength training and not focusing on building muscle,
you, there's no way on earth you're going to look toned.
You just, you just aren't. Some of it's semantics.
Some of it again, is like going back to understanding our
Physiology. And some of it is the language
that we that we speak and that with the way we talk about
ourselves and the way we talk about women and how they look.
And, you know, you never hear people describe men as toned.
You never hear people describe men as well.
These are good or bad words that we ascribe only to women.
And it causes so much fear and uncertainty and, and you know,
so going back to the idea of like, build muscle first, lose
fat secondary. And often the fat loss will
happen as you're putting more muscle on your body.
Body fat is going to just sort of do its thing.
Yeah, the muscle actually. Helps you to lose.
Fat. It can help you as an organ.
You also will look better at your current body fat level when
you have some muscle on you because that is that sort of
universally. Appealing shape that everyone's
going for is kind of seeing the curves of muscles on your body.
And when you have muscle, how much fat you have starts to
matter a little bit less. But it also goes back to this,
this idea, and this is something I talked about with my clients.
That is, you know, because they say I'm I'm worried about
getting bulky, right? That's a big.
Thing, yeah, talk to us about the the bulkiness concern that a
lot of women have. So I have a lot of thoughts
about it, but one thing that's kind of coming up for me more
recently and that I I kind of pushed back with my clients is,
is getting a little bit bigger. So horrible.
That's the worst thing you can imagine.
Not losing your health, not losing your period because
you're not eating anything, not, you know, losing your libido and
and, you know, decreased fertility and all the stuff
because you're under eating. People are doing that all day
long. But the idea of potentially
eating a little bit more and building muscles that you maybe
have to buy a bigger pant size, there's nothing worse.
And that goes back to this really problematic fitness
culture that women inhabit, where it stops them from working
hard enough to build the muscle that they want.
It stops them from eating the nourishing foods that can really
improve their health. Because their number one fear is
gaining weight, weighing more on the scale, getting bigger.
And I just want to kind of challenge that.
I'm not telling anybody that they have to be bigger, bigger
bodies or that, you know, you shouldn't worry about being
overweight or whatever. I think everyone wants to look
good and everyone wants to be. Fit for anyone who's watching
right now or who's listening and not watching like Ashley is not
a bulky like you're well get the little bulk here these.
Days I'm not generally. A bulky person?
No, you're 5 months pregnant, but you're not.
But you're not like an overly like you're strong and you have
a body on your body. Over a decade.
But you are not what I would call like a bulky.
It's very, it's very. And so it's really hard to
actually get like bulky. Well, that's the other thing I
would say is that again, anybody who anybody who their main
concern is if I lift weights, I think I'll get bulky.
It kind of just shows that you probably don't know much about
strength training and weight lifting because even men have a
hard time getting bulky and that's usually what they're
trying to do. And it doesn't happen overnight.
It's something we're like, it's weights for a month and all of a
sudden, Oh no, you have too, too much muscle already.
Like it's, it's absolutely going to happen that way.
And, and it is a subjective thing too, right?
Because some people, depending on what your personal preference
is, one person's bulky, maybe another person's perfect and,
and whatever, but whatever it is that you think looks really
good, it, you will be able to regulate before you get ready,
right? Or beyond that are too big or
whatever. I, you know, I've had, I've had
women when I was in my more like fitness, muscle building phase
of life. I've had women come up to me in
the gym and say like, Hey, can you help me?
Can you tell me what to do? Because I, I really want to get
strong and I want to like look muscular like you, but I don't
want to get bulky. And I'm like, OK, so you don't
think I'm bulky, right? No, of course not.
And I'm like, I have been trying so hard for so long to build as
much muscle as possible. And this is what I ended up
with. So don't worry about it.
Just it's, it should be the last, the least of your concerns
is getting both. There are so many other things
we have to do. Yeah, don't worry about getting
too big. Can you speak to the importance
of building muscle and then maintaining muscle, especially
as we age? Yeah.
So another reason why it, it really is of maybe more specific
concern for women is like 2 parts.
One being that, again, we kind of live in a culture that does
not necessarily encourage or prize women who are actively
trying to build muscle. And again, that is changing.
But still, we we do live in a culture where women like you
have to look feminine and you should probably be smaller.
And, you know, that's just sort of a concern for a lot of women
growing up. So they maybe are less inclined
to do the actual kinds of physical work that it takes to
build real muscle. Lifting weights, lifting weights
weight, weight bearing exercise and.
Again, I don't want to to sort of talk negatively about other
fitness methodologies. If you really like Pilates, if
you really like yoga, those have benefits.
They're wonderful and they can help improve a lot of different
things from mobility to flexibility and even strength.
But at the end of the day, again, when you have a knowledge
of Physiology, what it takes to actually put muscle tissue on
your body is really hard work and it involves a high level of
intensity and exertion. So it doesn't necessarily mean
heavyweight because again, that's subjective.
It means you for you personally have to work really hard and
challenge your muscle appropriately.
And we just aren't, we as a larger society are not
necessarily encouraging women to do that.
So that can look. Different.
That can be like high weight, low reps, it can be like low
weight, high reps, or any kind of variation of that.
Basically, I mean, there, there are some nuance in terms of like
if you're really trying to focus on, you know, strength over
hypertrophy, which is muscle building, they're not the same
thing. There are some tweaks and things
you can make to kind of, you know, make some changes, but.
That's what working like you would come into play to really
get specific with your goals. But yeah, I it's like don't get
caught up in the specifics. The specific is that you need to
challenge the muscle appropriately to an appropriate
level and then you need to recover properly and you need to
eat appropriately to to be able to build that muscle.
That's what's important. And then like the sets and reps
part of it is sort of just detailed.
So anyway, it's important for women to be encouraged to do
this for that reason. And also because we again,
physiologically just we don't have as much muscle.
The average man is going to walk around with a lot more muscle
than we are without really working as hard.
And as we know sort of every decade that we are fortunate to
continue to get older, we are, if we aren't trying to maintain
it, we are going to lose skeletal muscle.
And again, another part of the nutritional element for women,
because we are not as likely to eat as much red meat and animal
protein and we are not as likely to really focus on building
muscle, we are more at risk. And because of our our hormonal
profile and all of these things, we are more at risk for things
like osteoporosis, which is bone density issues and then
sarcopenia, which is muscle wasting.
So we start out with less and we are at more risk to lose it as
we get older as compared to men. So it sounds a little scary, but
really what it means is that whatever age you're at now,
let's try to build some muscle, let's try to maintain some
muscle. You can do that at any age.
It's not like, oh, I didn't do it in my 20s and 30s.
So what's the point? You can absolutely gain muscle
at any age and you can also maintain it.
And it may get more challenging depending on what phase of life
you're in, but it's absolutely possible and it's absolutely
worthwhile and it is going to help your health.
And also the the idea of sort of the health span versus lifespan
thing, because we all know that we can, because of technology,
we can live a long time and not be very healthy and not enjoy a
quality of life. Yeah, modern medicine is really
good at keeping us alive and not necessarily thriving.
And enjoying our life. And I think, you know, there's a
lot of, for lack of a better word, like the degradation of
our body as we get older that we see as inevitable.
That is like everybody knows that an 80 year old is maybe
going to look and perform a little differently than a 30
year old. But this idea that you are going
to be full of aches and pains that you cannot, you know, enjoy
your life and do outdoor sports and move your body and, and do
the things you want to do as you get older.
That's not true. If you continue and consistently
do the right things and work to maintain the the level of health
that you want to enjoy. And it's really so much about
just trying to do the right thing consistently most of the
time for the rest of your life. It's not about being perfect
today. It's not about never eating
something sweet or never making a day off or you know it.
It's just about trying to do the right thing for your body most
of the time, kind of forever, which you know, I love that it's
not that scary. It really isn't.
I think that takes, I think that takes some of the pressure off
because one, one day of indulgence or relaxation or one
week of going on vacation or whatever, that doesn't matter in
the grand scheme of things if you've committed to these
lifestyle behaviours that you just, it's just your life.
It's just how you live. I could not agree more.
And for a topic that some people may think of as as being kind of
extreme, obviously you and I would disagree with that.
But you know, organ meats and I think that in general, just your
whole perspective is so balanced and you have done such a good
job with it takes guts and like finding these ancestral recipes
and practices and talking to all of these different people and
then making it accessible and palatable, like literally
palatable for people. I think so you've just done such
a great job with that. So thank you so much for for
sharing your message today with the grounded Wellness audience.
Where can people follow along with you and buy your amazing
books? Thank you so much.
It's been so lovely being here and I, I really appreciate you
having me on. So this has been wonderful.
You can, I mean, you can find anything you need to know on my
website. It's just my name, Ashley Van
houten.com. My books are there.
All the information about my coaching, my strength training
programs, it's all on there. I have my own podcast.
It's called Muscle Science for Women and you can hear that
anytime anywhere you listen to podcasts, the books or anywhere
that you buy books. And you can say hi to me on
Instagram. That's I'm a millennial, so I
really can't go anywhere else. I can't do tick tock I I'm stuck
on. So you can find me on Instagram
at the Muscle Maven and say hi to me there And that's.
Amazing. Thanks, Ashley.
Thank you.