What's going on? Ladies and gents?
Robert Sykes, keto, Savage.com today, I've got special guest,
dr. Anthony Chaffee on the line.
I'm super excited to talk with him.
I've been watching this content for a while now.
I want to dive deeper into his stance on the carnivore diet.
How long he's been doing it? Which is quite some time.
He's been incredibly strict with the carnivore that does not
deviate from it. Wanted to pick his brain on his
thoughts. Towards grass-fed,
grass-finished versus grain finished the higher fat versus
the lower fat higher protein, whether you should have sugars
and honey. And fruits on a carnivore Diner.
Should just stick with a strict card up carnivore diet, the
whole debate between Oregon me. Tino's Taylor pretty much just
eating muscle meat so we don't dive into all things, everything
and all thing, carnivore die with this podcast.
I learned a ton have a lot of respect for dr.
Chaffee I have no doubt that you will take something from this
conversation. So that further Ado, sit back,
relax and enjoy the podcast with dr.
Anthony Chaffee. And we are live, dr.
Anthony Chaffee. How are you man?
Good man, how are you? I'm good, I'm getting your Us in
Australia, correct? Yeah, that's correct over in
Perth. What is the keto carnivore space
looking like in Australia? Well, it's improving.
Probably the main proponents. Here are low carb down under,
which is actually really good group.
They've got a lot of doctors here.
They're quite knowledgeable. Able about that whole side of
things and are incorporating that into their practices all
across Australia and they do a lot of different talks and have
a lot of great speakers as well. So it would be similar to sort
of the larger Kyo conferences in America and yeah, and I have a
lot of great talks. I have a YouTube channel as well
and, and that has as quite a lot of subscribers now and a lot of
people seeing their videos. So it's great.
Yeah. So but otherwise Um, there was a
massive vegan push for a long time.
So like when I got here, not everyone thought that I was
absolutely absolute Maniac that I was only eating meat and
because everyone else was was, was going hard towards veganism,
but now it's sort of the tides sort of turning.
And now I talk to people if it comes up that I only eat meat
instead of being absolutely shocked and appalled, they'll
say oh yeah you know my oh my brothers.
Doing that, you know, where my cousin's doing that and I feel
really good or something like that.
So now that it's growing slowly but surely in a sort of a
Grassroots movement, sort of thing.
Nice. Nice.
I was just on a like Google Trends last week and I think
that's mostly pulling. I think I was looking at just
from the American data, but it was like the vegan Trend that
wasn't like, of it specific spike.
It seemed, but it's just always been pretty high and then paleo
spiked and then keto and then carnivore.
And I think right now The thing that the word that, you know,
the thing that everybody's trying to dive into his
metabolic flexibility as a diet, but it's interesting how these
diets kind of come and go in the Hypes, rise and fall, just
interesting to see what wands up shaking out when it's all said
and done. Yeah, absolutely, it's, it's
funny. I just wanted me down your
doctor Jade Salisbury, you know, he knows this upon us for the
Salisbury steak back in the 1800s, and he was showing that
people could Verse things, like tuberculosis or rheumatoid
arthritis, gout altar of clot colitis, Crohn's, lot of
different autoimmune issues back in the 1800's, just by going on
a pure red meat and water diet and, and specifically, the
Salisbury steak, which was grinding up hamburger meat in a
certain way, that it filtered out the crystal.
So it was, it was you could just you would absorb just 100% of
this and it would be really easy on people with bad Crohn's or
you see. And and that that took off for
decades and decades Shades of people doing this writing about
it researching it and, and curing problems with it or at
least resolving issues and living living optimal lives.
And that was called sort of the first fad diet which is funny
because it's I guess you could call it a fad diet I but it's
the way we're supposed to live. It's the way we're supposed to
eat and so I don't know if that's that can ever technically
be a fad but I guess popularly. It was Yeah, I don't really I
don't really put that like, Kita, diets, carnivore, diets
Into The Fad diet group. I kind of think of fans.
I think of like the South Beach Diet, or something like that,
you know. Yeah.
Well and and something that's, you know, that that's temporary,
right. I mean, I guess that, you know,
Salisbury that was temporary because something else took
over, but it was, it was incorrect and it made people
less well, it made them sick and so, yeah.
I don't, I don't think that you And you can be a, I don't think
you should call something a fad. If that's if that's our
biological way of eating like eating grass is not a fad to a
cow you know, even if you start feeding it, something else.
Yeah, totally. So what got you into carnivore
man? Like what does that trajectory
look like? Yeah, I was a bit, was a bit
weird for me. I just had a professor back in
my undergraduate degree, back at the University of Washington in
Seattle. In cancer biology, and we were
just learning about how plants actually can cause harm.
That's their natural defense mechanism is by using poisons
and toxins to to guard themselves.
You know, they're living organisms and they like to stay
living organism. So every living thing down to
single celled organisms have have defense mechanisms and
quite robust defense mechanisms. Otherwise, they would be extinct
because something else is always trying to eat them.
It's killer Killed for plants as well as animals and wild animals
can run away or fight back plans.
Can't and so they need to use other defense mechanisms.
And one of those is just by being physically poisonous to
animals trying to eat them and, you know, this is something that
you actually learn in seventh grade biology, sir, I certainly
learned it in 7th grade biology and then we're told to eat our
spinach as well where it was apparently, just only applies to
every single plant on earth, except the ones are trying to
sell us. And so we were learning this
again in cancer biology, but just from a cancer perspective.
So we were looking at carcinogens and we were
learning. This is some, this isn't like 22
years ago. Now that brussels sprouts had
already identified in them, 136 known, human carcinogens, and
that white table, mushrooms have over 100 carcinogens
individually. Identified at that time, and we
were Handouts with just page after page after page of every
single plant that you would ever buy in a store and the number of
carcinogens that were in them and there were there wasn't a
single one with less than 60 and you know, that could be.
That you may not be that big of a deal.
If it's not that concentrated, but we do know since the 1980s
from Professor Bruce Ames at Berkeley, who did research
Looking at this that the naturally occurring, poisons,
the natural and insecticides and pesticides because that's what
they make these things to stop passing insects from eating them
and the naturally occurring. Insecticides, and pesticides
were outweighed. The the pesticides, we sprayed
on them industrially by a factor of 10,000 and that the naturally
occurring ones were a thousand. Well, well, a lot more likely to
cause cancer Sure. Then the best says we sprayed on
and depending on the plant so like they were looking at
mushrooms and a larger that was roughly 1,000 times more likely
to cause cancer than the a lure which is what they were using on
apples at the time and they were trying to ban them.
They're trying to make all these pesticides, illegal uses.
Oh look these poisonous, this isn't good for us to eat them
and they were right. But he was pointing out that,
you know, we use these pesticides for decades and never
had a problem and so you didn't he didn't see why they would
just all of a sudden, make it problem now.
And that's why we still have pesticides is because he showed
that they're not as bad as the plant themselves.
And so, I was quite taken aback by that.
We all were. We were very, very surprised by
all this information in class. And, you know, thought that he
must be joking. I was looking around for someone
to be in on the joke and there were no one was, and it
eventually dawned on me that it is guys serious.
And, but I was still, you know, I still had that Indoctrination,
since I was a kid that vegetables were good for me.
So we're still fighting that. And I remember thinking in my
head I was like but but vegetables are still good for
you though, right? And he just, you know, he must
have just looked you, read our minds and you looked at us and
he just said, I don't eat vegetables, I don't need salad,
I don't let my kids eat vegetables.
Plants are trying to kill you, and I was like, it was like you,
my head. I was like, right, screw plants.
And and so I just stopped. And, you know, I went to the
store. I was just looking around and
just everything had plants and it everything you had mixed
ingredients or were just purely plants like pasta or the
produce. And I was just for walking
around, what the hell doesn't have a plant?
And, you know, I came, it was just like, eggs, meat milk,
that's what I found. It didn't have plants.
And so, that's just what I ate. I didn't, I didn't think of it
as doing a carnivore diet. I didn't think of it in the
context, the biological context or evolutionary context that.
Actually are carnivores, which is something that I did know, at
the time as well. We were apex predators and apex
predators, eat meat. They don't graze, you know,
sharks and dolphins. Don't eat kelp for roughage and
neither do you know, tigers and lions and wolves.
They just they just eat meat. That's that's what they do.
And so I did that for a number of years and I slowly slipped
off of it when I was traveling around the world and it was sort
of more difficult to get, you know, just me.
Meat and some of the tough sometimes was breaded.
I was like, well, he's that big a deal.
Maybe it's the oh, just dose-dependent and which it is.
But, you know, just a little bit of this stuff will derail you
and I noticed that a few months in just eating just a little bit
of breaded stuff here and there that I just absolutely did not
feel the same. I was getting these.
These little lasting injuries and aches and pains it just just
never were there before and just didn't feel myself.
And remember thinking I was like, hey why don't I feel just
Unbelievably amazing. As I normally do.
And I was like, well, maybe not working out as hard.
Maybe I was 25 at the time, I was like, maybe that's it.
Maybe I just just crested The Hop and it's just downhill from
here. Somebody's just gonna just die
now. And, but, looking back at, you
know, I realize that's when I slipped off of that.
I realized several years ago, that that's what I was doing.
I was living as a carnivore. I was only eating as a carnivore
and that's biologically what we are.
And, and that was the difference there and so it Everything just
sort of clicked in this into place and and I, yeah, and I
went with it from there. So, yeah.
And then I've just been just digging into the research and
just doing as much as I can to just try to familiarize myself
with what we can prove and what we know in the literature.
All right. So how long have that?
Is that made it that you've been strict carnivore now.
Entirely basically, In total I I I'd say roughly around the last
10 years of the last 20 years. So it was roughly five years.
Yeah. Around five years one in my
early 20s and then sort of the last five years again I've
picked it up and are you testing like your blood levels your
lipid panel hormones, everything still rocking and rolling, Yeah
no I have I mean it's not something I have just to satisfy
other people's curiosity. I know I'm absolutely convinced
that this is this is biologically way were supposed
to eat. So whatever my blood levels are,
I'm sure their optimal. I certainly feel that way but
I've friend of mine who's an endocrinologist here in Perth, I
was telling him about all this and he's just hormonal medicine
and As well as functional medicine and preventive
medicine. Need a, he incorporates diet and
to his practice and just you know, what's called bariatric
medicine. So your medicine weight loss,
and optimizing health. And so this was something he was
very interested in because he's been in that in that field for
40 years and so you know he said he's like hey you know you look
like you're you really healthy, you know, everything you're
saying makes sense but you know let's check under the hood,
let's check all your Bloods. You know, would you be willing
to do that too? To see what's going on.
And I would say I was happy to do that just to just to see.
And yeah, everything was everything was perfect.
So my my hormone panel was fantastic you know I'm 42 I'm
not 25 anymore so things aren't going to be what they were when
I was 25 but he was saying that that if you so he actually does
carnivore now too and he actually promotes this for his
patients as well, he tries to get them on it as well and the
start of that was because of these blood tests.
He Me up and I went and met with him to go through the blood
test. And he said if if you took a
hundred thousand people off the street that were my age and did
all of their bloods, that mine would be number one without a
shadow of a doubt. And so that made him very
interested in this. And that was a huge is doing
like hormone panel. Like total testosterone, free
test, things of that nature. Yeah.
And then incomplete, you know, pituitary adrenal, axis
hormones, everything to be coming out of your pituitary.
Terry, you know you including your, your thyroid, your
quarters, all the different different hormones in that axis
as well as vitamins minerals, certainly, my cholesterol as
well. The only thing that you know, he
he said my hg0 was was fantastic.
My triglycerides were fantastic, my LDL.
I think it's was fantastic as well because I look at LDL
cholesterol differently than other people, you know, like I
like how how dr. Ken Berry puts it.
He says that HDL is the good cholesterol and LDL is the other
good cholesterol. Both good cholesterol.
Yeah. And so I'm very happy with were
my LDL but it was slightly higher and I mean, slightly
higher. Then the the accepted reference
range for healthy LDL. But seeing as uld L was never a
problem. It was never a marker for
disease or heart disease. You have to Just throw that out.
You know we know now that you know all the the studies that
even suggested a correlation between higher LDL cholesterol
or even saturated fat and heart disease were all you know bunk
they were there, they've been debunked now and because they
were fraudulent, they doctor data and information to make
this look different to what it was.
And so anything based on a false premise has to just be thrown
out and I think that's what you need to do.
Our reference ranges for certainly LDL cholesterol.
And so, whatever my LDL cholesterol is I'm happy with it
there because that's its physiological because I'm eating
in a physiological biologically appropriate way.
And so as long as you're not eating carbohydrates or sugar
drinking alcohol, you're not going to be damaging your LDL
cholesterol and that won't play a role in the larger disease
process which is after sclerosis.
And so since I'm not in that You know, process, my LDL is perfect
whatever it is. But yeah.
All my all my other Bloods and hormones.
It was a very, very, I mean, at least a dozen pages of blood
work and yeah. And he and as he said, it was,
it was optimal. Nice.
There's a big push right now.
That seems for, you know, bioidentical hormones, a lot of
exhaustion has testosterone even for people like I From the
bodybuilding community. So that's been in the space for
decades, but just the general population Now is really leaning
heavily on exoticness hormones for, you know, coming back up to
quote, unquote, natural levels and for me as a natural body,
but I can't even, I can't do that, because then I wouldn't be
able to compete naturally. And I feel like any time you can
really dive into how to improve those levels, through your
lifestyle design through your diet, through reducing your
stress. I mean, that's, that's what
people should do. And Oftentimes that's often
times. The last thing people turn to
they always go to the prescription or, you know, the
doses. But here and that you've got
great number. You said you're at 42 years of
age? Yes, that's correct.
Yeah, so I mean you're obviously doing something right?
I mean, you look healthy, you get you pretty yolk, man.
You get pretty big arms on. He said, you were, you were
doing rugby previously, right? That was your sport.
Yeah, yeah. I've wrestled, since I was a
kid. I trained in MMA, since I was 14
and then, and then, but then Took off with rugby.
I was All-American and high school and and they prefer
actually for roughly 10 years before Medical School.
Nice. Nice.
What's your sport of choice? Now, do you have any sport that
you're participating on a regular basis?
So I was playing rugby. When I first got here and like
you, I even even though when I went to medical school, you
know, I still played rugby, I was still playing rugby six days
a week even in medical school and then as a doctor, as well.
Well, but I just don't really have the time anymore, like,
it's, it's even busier than that.
So like sometimes I'll have, I'll be working anywhere from
like 90 to 130 hours a week. You know, sometimes even a
little more, so with on calls, they can get very busy, just in
some in, you know, I'm specializing in, and still
specializing in neurosurgery. So, sort of going through
residency. It's much more busy than other
times. Neurosurgery is even busier than
that. So, the on calls are just quite
busy. So you might be on, call two,
three, sometimes, four days a week and sometimes you'll get
you'll get a couple. Well, you always get, you know,
how did with calls, but you may not have to go to the hospital.
Other times. You're in the hospital, all day
all night, operating the whole time, and then you're, you're
working whole next day as well. And you're doing that multiple
days a week, so it can be quite busy.
And So when I have the time I play rugby but it hasn't I
haven't played in the last couple seasons.
Have you have you noticed any any?
I wouldn't imagine. So, but I didn't notice any
reduction in your explosiveness, with your, with rugby since
adopting, a carnivore diet, and the actions of hydrates.
Yeah. Yeah.
We just the opposite. You know, I mean when I was when
I was down here, when I first was playing, you know, people
were you were very impressed by my athleticism and they didn't,
they didn't know how old I was because I don't look my age.
And and so people were seeing what I ate and seeing how I was
performing athletically. And a lot of guys were actually
just starting to do that talking to me about it.
I mean like oh hey you know, what's this about and and
wanting to follow suit and and then they found out my agent
like Jesus Christ. It's like there's like thirty
nine at the time and they were like you're 39 years like yeah,
it's like Jesus and then they got really interested in the
diet because they're like you know, I was I was you know, Just
just physically, you know, I was I was competing at a very high
level of probably higher than a lot of other people that were in
their early twenties. You know, as you were saying
about the optimizing, your hormones, especially in this
athletic realm, or other people, you're taking exoticness
hormones, you're right. I mean that's that is something
that's growing. It's a growing field.
And people are getting, there's less stigma with that coming.
From, you know, the perspective of replacing physiological
levels, which is something that we've done for women with HRT
for decades and decades and decades.
And, you know, that's, that's a normal thing.
Getting their, their estrogen and progesterone in particular
up to certain, you know, up to back to physiological levels.
At something that's commonly accepted as okay for people to
feel better. And so, you know, there's not
It's not a nun, untoward thing? I think to do that for men, as
well coming up to physiological levels.
But we if you look at the testosterone levels in men, now
from like the 1970s, you know there's a massive drop off a
massive, massive drop-off. And so, you know, something's
happening that is requiring, this more.
We haven't really needed this as much as we do now.
And so, you know, that's, that's probably also a And why this is
this is growing in popularity now because there's simply more
of a need. Now I have seen people go on a
carnivore diet and you know one guy that just released the
podcast with yesterday, Joshua Rogowski, he started in December
and he just been got tested in, I think April.
And his thought, testosterone went from like 320 up to like
4:30 you know, so it was a massive job just completely
naturally it is testosterone and and that's something that you
know, That that like you say you can do naturally that's just
your just optimizing your body and you're giving your body what
it needs and you're not curtailing it with all these
sort of plant toxins that are screaming out because one of the
things that plants do is screw up your hormones and, you know,
and they can, there's a lot of things in plants that mimic
estrogen, and will Jack up your estrogen.
And it's a bit of a, it's a bit of a slippery slope because your
You know this but your fat tissue is actually your largest
endocrine organ in your body or certainly can be because it can
produce among other, things can produce estrogen.
And so if you were getting a lot of excess body fat, you're going
to start producing more estrogen, and that's going to
make you deposit more body fat. And so, you get down this, this
this this spiral where you're just putting on more and more
fat, which is causing you to produce more estrogen and And
more fat. And so it's a difficult cycle to
get out of especially for men. And so it's, you know, when you
When you go on a carnivore diet, you're getting rid of all these
exotic Enos hormone disruptors and health disruptors, and your
body starts working how it normally would and you're going
to get rid of this, extra fat bodies, going to start
optimizing your testosterone for men and, and your estrogen for
women because women get get the other side of things, they get
too much testosterone to little estrogen because testosterone
gets converted in ovaries to estrogen.
But it starts as testosterone and high, insulin will block
that. And so if you're eating a lot of
carbohydrates, just that will just block the conversion of
testosterone to estrogen, and so they'll come, they'll come into
the hormonal problems as well. And then obviously all the
different food that will disrupt their hormones.
Also. So it's, you know, it's a nasty
pot to be in because there's just so much going on there.
There's so many different ways that not eating naturally, and
Logically which I would argue is is eating carnivore.
There's so many ways that that can screw with your health and
your hormonal Health in particular suppose I should back
up a little bit like how would you define a carnivore die?
Because like I'm in the keto space.
I've been strict Quito from seven years now and when I first
got into it like Kita was you know there's like single
definition for Aikido and now there's like 15 definitions for
Quito as I only versions of Quito.
I don't know if that's I mean Kind of becoming the case with
carnivores seems like carnivore, plus fruit carnivore. + Honey,
high-fat. Carnivore, high-protein
carnivore. Like, what would you describe as
a carnivore dime? Yeah, that's a good point.
And yeah, I think I think everyone I think when more
people sort of get into these spaces, they sort of look for
ways of cheating. I guess is just the best way of
saying it. You know, they want to do Kido
but they don't actually want to do key.
Do you know what to do cornrow? But they don't really Ali want
to do carve or so they'll, they'll change it.
They'll do whatever the hell they want.
And they'll just call it, you know, key to or a carnivore and,
and they'll justify that in certain ways.
But I think, I think carnivore is, it is simply just eating
meat and water. Not even just animal products
because you could argue that honey is an animal product, but
really it's bee vomit. I'm not going to, I'm not going
to go around eating Cal vomit, either.
And, and so, It's I think of it is as much what not to eat as
what to eat, you really, what you're eating is just meat and
just drinking water. And and that's what I would say
is, as actually carnivore. The, you know what, our animals
eating what are carnivores eating in the wild including
Human animals? Yeah, they're eating animals.
That's just what they're eating you and you it's there just
eating a seal polar bear Wales and, you know, you have other
examples of that you are the Messiah would would drink.
Arie. And that's that's something we
do. We do see in Native populations
in certain areas but not all of them.
But, you know, you could do could consider that in there as
well. But certainly wouldn't consider
honey or fruit any part of that. So when I think of things, I
think of it and I when I discuss it with people, I think of it as
much to do with what not to eat as what to eat.
So my hard rule is no plants, no sugar, nothing artificial, and
that will go for sauces Seas. Things and drinks as well.
And that sort of covers the honey or the fruit or different
spices and you can sort of think about this.
Well, you know, everyone says, well, what about this?
And what about this? And what about this, you know,
put it against that test, you know what about pepper?
Well, that's a plant. Well, what about Honeywell that
Sugar? You know, what about, you know,
Stevia. Well, that's a plant and it's,
you know, you could call it artificial or whatever.
And so that's what I try to think of it.
You know, what is, what is a line going to eat?
What is a wolf going to eat? What does a human going to eat
in our natural environment? Now I totally respect that, man.
I the longer I've been in the health and nutrition space.
The more I've come to appreciate and admire and respect people
that are just hard and fast on their their lifestyle factors.
When it comes to nutrition, I see so many people, you know,
jumping from one thing to the next kind of, you know, follow
the trends ride, the hype trains and just you know, grow a bigger
Instagram following like I respect people that practice
what they preach every damn day without fail.
Without exception, I feel like that's what I've tried to do
with my approach to ketogenic diet.
That's obviously what you're trying to do with carnivore and
I feel like that carries just exponentially more weight than
these people that, you know, preach one thing.
And then six months later, they're on a totally different
course. Yeah.
And that's the thing. You know, it's just like it's
one thing that I think it's good when you've looked at something
and you thought this is the way to go and so that's what you've
promoted and then you look at who.
Okay now I've got new information now I think it's
something else and I think that's I think that takes some
some Integrity to do that. But if the person keeps doing
that, you know there's just like, okay have you really
thought this through you know like you've changing And that's
fine. Try to work in progress, but you
know you're saying, note this is definitely what it is.
You have to listen to me. This is this is the only way to
do it and then you change that in six months.
And so, you know, maybe maybe you just be happy that you're
sure, you take a couple of years to think about it and then come
talk to me about it. But yeah and I think that some
people will maybe get on to you know like a fad sort of thing,
they'll sort of Hop. Pain.
And they won't necessarily really understand it at its core
principles, which is that this is biologically, the kind of
animal that we are and humans are carnivores, and that is what
we are biologically. You know, Optimum optimized to
eat, and we can eat plants and we can eat other things because
we have certain defenses against them and we can eat those
things. Certainly for survival, but that
doesn't mean that that's optimal.
And that's where I come in from this.
I don't You know, I don't think that everyone needs to eat like
me. I think that everyone should eat
any way that they did. They choose.
But I just want, you know, I just want people to know.
I think that this is this is optimal.
This is if you, if you are looking for the best health, I
think that it's going down, a carnivore root and at least this
seriously, at least a ketogenic route.
I think that's a big, big part of this, you know, the sugars
and the carbohydrates just derailed.
And our metabolism in various ways and make it very unhealthy.
But, you know, that's what I think of as optimal.
And if people want to live off my, I want it live optimally.
I feel the best like this. And so that's what I, that's
what I want to continue doing and, you know, but if people
want to eat fruit or they want to eat some honey every now and
then, like I don't begrudge them that I just, you know, I just
don't want them to do that because they think that that's
that they're supposed to do that, but it's important for
them to do that. You know, some people would
Argue that you need to eat, you know, fruit and honey.
And sugar in general and carbohydrates or else you'll get
organ, dysfunction, which is clearly wrong because these
people have been carnivore for like a year or two and then all
of a sudden, they're like, oh no, you can't be in ketosis that
long. You can't be, you know, any kid,
agentic state that long or you'll come into problems and
you've got, you know, Robert Sykes here who's been ketosis 47
damn years. So obviously that's not true,
you know. And you know So, and so, so that
I think is not really looking at things, you know, quite clearly,
you definitely do not need carbohydrates.
Assuming that that's even recognized by the International
Medical boards and science foundation's like that.
That there there is no such thing as an essential.
Carbohydrate, your body, makes everything that you need in that
in that realm. And there are plenty of examples
of people. Living all over the world who
have never eaten carbohydrates their entire life or or maybe
haven't done. So for years and years and years
at a time. So you know that that myth is
long been put to bed and, you know, so you know, I just try to
let people know the information that I found and it could be
that, you know, I come across things later on and I'm like, I
don't sheet, you know, you and I didn't get it, you know, quite
nuanced enough. But Or what I can see now from
all the available evidence, you know, I think that, you know,
full carnivore diet. Not eating any plants
whatsoever. No sweeteners of any description
is the optimal way to live and so that's what I want.
And so that's what I do and I just feel a lot better doing it.
Yeah, I respect them and I feel like, you know, there's a lot of
people, they get dogmatic with things and I totally get that.
And, you know, I don't begrudge people that want to have more
varied diet either but I mean, just as you said, I've always
tried to look through the lens of.
Hey, look, what can I truly optimized for?
That's what I'm going to pursue, that's what I'm going to
implement. That's what I'm going to
recommend and then people can take with that and do it that as
they may. But when you, when you view
things to lens of, hey, what is optimal, that's what I'm gonna
strive for. And then after that, it's pretty
much just personal preference as to how broad a window from that,
you want to go, then that can kind of be the Pinnacle that You
that you set yourself against but I feel like like that that's
that's a wise path when it comes to nutrition when it comes to
carnivore and optimizing. There's there seems to be you
know, one train of thought that suggests that it doesn't really
matter if you're eating more, organ meats and kind of like
nose and tail. As long as you're getting in
good quality, muscle meats and you're consistent with that and
there's other the other end of the spectrum.
It's like look, if you're going to eat carnivore, you absolutely
need to eat nose and tail. Had that very nutrient pool and
Just, you know, eat everything. Is there?
Do you have a specific stance on that?
Yeah, no, that's a very good question and that's something
that's important to talk about because organ Meats.
Specially liver is very nutrient-dense.
I 100% agree with that but you know, we're talking density
here, right? So density means there's a
higher concentration per ounce and and that can be a
double-edged sword. Because, you know, if your if
your nutrient to pry Ride and you're eating a standard
American diet, livers, probably your best friend.
You know, that's going to be that's going to fill the Gap and
all these nutrients that you're losing out on.
And you know, when you eat different things, your body
needs a different constellation of nutrients.
So you know, when you're not eating, if you're only eating
meat and you're not certainly not eating carbohydrates.
We need carbohydrates. In particular you need more
vitamins and minerals and so good example of that is Vitamin
C if you're not eating carbohydrates.
You need a daily amount of vitamin C measured in NG.
Whereas if you start eating carbohydrates, you need it
measured in milligrams, okay? So that's thousands of times
different, you know, and and that makes that's a huge huge
difference and you know, so it's it really does change what you
need. And so, if you are eating a
mixed diet, you're going to need more vitamins, minerals, livers,
probably a good addition to your diet.
And when you're eating just carve, or it can be too much,
you know, if you look at the proportion of an animal organs
to muscle meat and fat, it's it's a very very, very large
difference. So you're going to have, you
know, just looking at liver. And this is something that
everyone gets convinced, you know?
Because there are people pushing this, and there's certainly
people pushing supplements for this.
And I think, anytime someone's, you know, selling a supplement,
you Q. Maybe, you know, ask where their
motivations are, they could be completely pure.
I like the idea of people putting their money where their
mouth is and saying, I think this is a really good thing to
do. I'm going to invest in it, I'm
going to try to help people with that.
I think that's great. But you know you know think
about it with organs liver in particular, you know.
If you're just eating carnivore you can get too much right.
Because how much You've got hundreds of pounds of muscle and
fat in a cow to every 1 pound of liver, right?
So, if you take down a deer or a, you know, a, you know, a
bison in the wild, you're mostly going to be eating muscle meat
and fat, and you're probably, you know, if you are just
hunting for your food, you took down a bison.
That's going to feed you and your family for the rest of the
year. So you're going to have one.
Liver for the year, you know. And so that's a very different
thing than, you know, eating, you know, 200 grams of liver
every day, you know, which is, you know, something that people
may do. So you look at people like the
video and the Inuit, they traditionally don't eat the
organ Meats. They give those to the dogs and,
and other other tribe to some do.
But the ones that That do they're, they're, you know,
they're eating a again in proportion to the animal, you
know, Native Americans who go hunting, they would, you know,
take down an animal. They would gut it and you, maybe
they would eat certain organs or even met on the on the spot or
whatever. But you know, they're having to
pack this thing back, they don't have trucks to put this in the
in the back of you know they might be ranging out you know
dozens of miles and have to pack the stuff back.
So they Only take aching back, you know, the really, you know,
the high-end stuff which would generally the four quarters they
would cut off the hindquarters and they would know I was taught
as a kid that they would hang this up as a as an offering to
the spirits. And this is, this is your
portion of that. And they would bring back the
four quarters and, but they wouldn't, you know, they're not
packing back. The organs, they would all they
would skin this thing. And so, you know, those four
chords, that's where most of the fat is, that's where the stakes.
It's our that's where the, the the, the brisket and his
shoulder Chopped, all these sorts of things.
It's much, higher fat, portion of the hindquarters are very,
very lean. And so they're bringing back the
higher fat muscle, you know, actual skeletal, muscle and fat.
And so, you know, they weren't, they weren't really just eating
tons and tons of organs all the time and if they were, they were
eating it in proportion to the rest of it.
So the majority of what they're eating, Was just the skeletal
muscle and fat. So that's something that the
polar, explorers, like staff Onsen writes about in his book,
The Fat of the land and talks about it in various interviews.
He was just like, yeah, I don't know where this came from.
Your people say, you have to eat all the organs.
That's a myth. That's not something that we see
in nature and that sends something that he never did,
that was just something they just fed to the dogs.
And so, you know, I just eat just the muscle meat itself and
there are plenty of people. People who just eat Ribeyes
every day and have done for 20 years or more and they don't
have any any sort of nutritional deficiencies.
Like I said, and I know I don't have any nutritional
deficiencies because like I said, I got all my blood work
done and we check vitamins, we checked minerals reject all
these things. And I've been, you know, pure
carnivore for I don't know three years of that time 34 years when
I first got that done and subsequently now and I still
have no deficiencies. In fact, my my Bloods are
optimal, you know, and as my as my friend said, you know,
they're better than 100, you know, everyone else at my age
and that includes my vitamins and minerals so I don't have any
deficiencies and I donate your organs.
I think I could count on one hand.
How many times I've had liver in the last five years and I
probably ought to Hands, how many times I've had liver, you
know, the rest of my life, you know.
It's not, it's not something that I would normally have
myself. And I've, you know, proof
positive on blood work that I don't have any deficiencies.
And so, if you are on the other side of that and you're eating,
you know, a lot more liver than is in proportion to the animal.
You're eating, you can get hypervitaminosis and, you know,
You know, a height. Yo, toxic taught your vitamin
toxicity is just as dangerous as Vitamin deficiencies, and so
that's something that you should definitely watch out for.
I mean, you know, like what you eat enough?
See little kill you from the vitamin.
A helps your liver. It'll kill you from the vitamin
A toxicity. And any amount of polar bear
liver will kill you from the amount of vitamin A, that it
has. So, you know, a cow's liver is
not anywhere close to that but, you know, you eat enough.
It will build up and because it's a fat-soluble.
Vitamin. It does, it doesn't clear as
quickly as like, you know, the bees and see where those are
water soluble, you just drink enough water and we'll just, you
just pee it out, you know? That makes sense, man.
I mean, I'm, I occasionally like to have liver.
I occasionally like to have you, no heart.
And I mean Hearts, pretty much a mussel meat though.
I'm not really putting in the same group as liver.
I'm an avid Hunter. So I like the idea of taking
everything that I can Um, the animal and using it.
But again, it's all kind of in proportion to the rest of the
animal. So I don't think that, you know,
if you eat a pound of liver every day you're going to want
to looking like liver King by any means.
You know, like the sun has not been mined General consensus by
any means. No.
I don't think so. You know, but like, you know, if
you're if you're eating a standard diet, you know, I think
you I think people are going to be more, they're going to need
more nutrients and and So, I think that that's your, that
could be why, you know, some of these guys are sort of slipping
back into a more standard way of eating, and a high-carbohydrate
way of eating. Could beat me these are, these
are all guys that are pushing liver in particular and it could
be and I don't know. I'm not there doctor, but it
could be that they're getting too much of this stuff and that
they're getting problems from the hypervitaminosis.
And you know, as a result, you know, eating carbohydrates,
eating fruit eating, honey, eating sugar, that's going to
make them feel better because like I said, you know, you eat
that stuff, your vitamin requirements actually go up.
And so now they're vibing, requirements are up and it's not
as at toxic levels anymore. That could be what's going on.
It could be something completely different.
I don't know. But I do know that it's not from
lack of carbohydrates. Yeah, because there are plenty
Examples like myself like yourself like the Inuit who have
not eating carbohydrates in years and years and years or
even their entire lifetime or generation after generation
after generation. And they do not have the
described problems that these gentlemen are having.
So it's something else, you know, like they're doing
something differently, you know? And one of the one of the main
differences there is the amount of organ meat that they're
eating and So, that's what you know, I'm thinking maybe there's
something to do with that, but it's not the carbohydrates.
Anyway, I know that because, you know, you know, like I've been
doing this for many more years than they have, and I have not
had the problems that they've had.
Yeah, so why is that, you know, and the difference is not
carbohydrates, I don't eat carbohydrates so it's not that,
you know, it has to be something different.
And so, just looking at things empirically, you know, It's you
know, it's more likely to be something like hypervitaminosis
from from from too many organs, but it could be something else.
No, man, I think that makes total sense.
I mean I if I was to guess what you're talking about, who you
talking about and all the things that I've seen being promoted
within the carnivore space, I would I would put my money on
that hypothesis more so than any other for sure.
Because I mean like you said, you're a classic example.
Some of that hasn't had the carbohydrates I had the harp cut
Carbohydrates. There's been no adverse effects
and we are one in, you know, countless number of people that
have can they share the same story?
I mean, there's there's too many instances of people that have
completely and totally removed carbohydrates from the diet and
only seen an improvement in their health, so I can't imagine
that. You know, we're all anomalies.
Yeah, no, I totally agree. And, and, you know, and like I
said, I mean, there's just there in tired civilizations that
don't eat carbohydrates generationally.
And so, you know, What's going on with that?
You know this these guys you know they go carnivore carb free
for a year and a half two years maybe a little more and all of a
sudden they're having problems must be the carbohydrates.
It was like well maybe but you know, that's not necessarily the
case. And when you when you look at
people that are living generationally, that's they're
not having these problems are not having the exact same
problem. So I think that, you know, that
that should tell you something, you know, one of the things they
say is your thigh I roid tanks. You can't, you can't have a
normal thyroid function unless you eat carbohydrates, which is
nonsensical because if you low thyroid is, is very, very
dangerous. It's of horrible illness to have
and horrible state to be in. And also, it is not compatible
with Life. You get your thyroid too low,
you will die and you will also not be able to Bear children.
And if you do bear children, His children will be seriously,
developmentally delayed. So there's there's a thing
called cretinism, that's you. All of the best insults.
All all were originally medical terminology, right?
So you kill someone, you call someone an idiot or more on
that. That actually, that actually
describes a very specific IQ range.
So, an idiot was a medical terminology for someone with an
IQ range of 0 to 30 in the so was 30 to 50 more on was T 270.
And so that's why we call people morons and idiots, and idiots in
particular because that was the worst thing you could call them
and Cretin is another one you people.
Do you cretin? Well the cretinism is congenital
hypothyroidism meaning that the mother while pregnant had low
thyroid. And so, her child didn't develop
properly and developed a short stature and certain facial.
Deformities as well as serious intellectual impairment.
And that's it's a very, very serious illness and you don't
recover from that. And so let's say that the Inuit
you who have never, you don't eat carbohydrates traditionally.
Let's say that they develop cretinism you know because
they're good, low thyroid, that's the theory, right?
So if you have two competing theories, you should be able to
find evidence with which to test them against And Inuits are a
prime example because there aren't really any carbohydrates
available anyway, up in the, you know, the extreme Northern
reaches. And so if if this if it was the
case that you would get low thyroid, the Inuit would not
exist. They just would not exist
because you wouldn't make it one generation because all of the
kids would have cretinism and that would be it, it would be,
they would Be able to survive in that you know hellscape of the
North Pole in those extreme conditions and you know their
kids would get worse and worse or than they probably wouldn't
be able to be fertile anyway. So that lasts exactly one
generation. And then that's it.
Those people are dead, you know, they are wiped off the Earth, so
that doesn't even pass the smell test for me.
Yeah, and I think there's other examples as well, but I don't
think you really need to go further than that.
If this wasn't the Optimal way biologically for humans to live,
then we wouldn't be able to live that way now, period.
You know, I feel like a lot of people, I'd be curious to get
your thoughts on this, but I feel like a lot of people have a
growing concern for hormonal Health.
When following a ketogenic, a carnivore diet, often times,
because those individuals are just simply chronically under
eating in general. And like, whenever I'm doing a
prep and I'm down at a very low caloric intake for a finite
period of time, I'll see my Numbers tanked, you know, for
that finite period of time. I feel like a lot of people who
are not in a bodybuilding, you know, Endeavor, they're not
going through a period of reverse dieting or not, going
through a strategic, you know, caloric, Surplus phase.
They're just chronically under eating.
They're seeing a negative effect on their hormonal health, and
they're not. Knowing that pointing the finger
at something like the lack of carbohydrates, like a fruit,
something of that nature. Yeah.
And and and especially in In when you're cutting for show,
you probably eating a lot of low fat as well.
And that's, I don't issue, but a lot of people do.
Hope I'm good. Okay good.
Yeah, well that's one thing. Obviously, you know, cholesterol
is a major component in your hormonal health, because
cholesterol is what your hormones are all made from, you
know, cholesterol is a precursor for testosterone estrogen
progestin. Progestogen is even cortisol and
all of your mineralocorticoids and glucocorticoids.
Everything made in your in your adrenals, above your kidney.
Those are Derived from cholesterol.
And so if you're not getting enough cholesterol, you're not
getting enough fat. You're not going to you're not
going to have the building blocks necessary to make these
these hormones properly. But yeah, you're right.
You know, if you're if you're chronically under eating, you're
not getting enough, you're not getting these precursors, you're
not getting these building blocks.
You're not going to have robust hormonal health either and so
you know I don't know. It's funny, you know, that's
another part of, you know, eating actually is, is I think
that that means eating high fat as well.
I think when you look at animals in the wild, they generally eat
between seventy eighty percent of their calories that that are
derived from fat. And and that goes for carnivores
as well as herbivores because carnivores eat animals with
that. And they go for the fat first
people. You know, will say when they're
arguing for organs, they'll say, oh, look at a wolf alpha wolf.
If you know gets the liver Alpha we know that go for the the
organs and you look at you know lions king lion, you know gets
the Lion's Share right eats as much of what he wants as he
wants and then and then allows the other lines to come in and
eat after. He's had his fill of his of the
choice part, and they go for the belly.
They often go for the belly first, and this is where bacon
comes from the, the belly meat. And then you get into the organs
are all. Look at that they're eating.
Org is eating organs is to say, well, okay, well, they are
eating organs, but what do they also eating around?
The organs is the fat. That's where most of the fat is
in the abdominal cavity. You have the omentum.
It's just, it's an organ but it's just fat.
Really. You get all the perinephric fact
you get all the injured um abdominal fat, which there is a
lot of, you know, in the mesentery which is the the
vascular structures of the intestine.
That's all covered in fat, you know?
So these animals are eating organs.
But I think that really what they're going for is the fat and
so, you know, King line gets the fattiest B.
First alpha, wolf gets the fattiest B first and get the
organs along with it. But That makes sense to me.
I feel like there's been. It's weird man.
I'm not sure if this is the same in the carnivore space but
certainly within the keto space in the last year.
Or so, there's been this big push towards really low dietary
fat and really high protein, which is just confusing to me,
because that's kind of counter to what the ketogenic diet is in
its Essence. But I'm assuming the same is
probably true. In the carnivore, space has been
this big push for leaner cuts and less dietary fat.
And that's always just baffled because anybody that I've Seen
make a transformation or, you know, seen success with as a
client but they typically function much better from a
psychological standpoint from a performance-based standpoint and
don't seem to have any issues losing body fat all in the
context of pretty considerably High dietary fat.
Yeah. Oh, absolutely.
And that's a thing. You know, like, I mean, animals
that go for the fat first, you know, like any of these survival
shows you see I people out in the woods or whatever and
they're there for like months. At a time, they all say like,
you, I've got to get the stat. I have this fat store like that.
So fat is life all this sort of stuff.
And when animals raid their little stores of food, they
always go for like the fat first.
They just eat these tins of fat that they're saving their damn
it. That's what I needed.
That is. That is life.
That is what, you know, makes the animal kingdom run.
And, and even, even even herbivores, as I was saying, you
know, people don't realize this, you know, they look at they look
at grass and look. Plants and they say, oh, that
that has carbohydrates that has this.
As that, yes, they do. But that's not what the animal
absorbs, you know, the bacteria in their intestines and guts and
so forth. They break down the fiber.
They actually eat the fiber known vertebrae.
Animal can break down fiber. We just don't have the enzymes
to do that. And so, it's actually the
special bacteria that are breaking it down, and that's
what they eat. And then as a by-product,
basically, their waist is Short chain fatty acids.
And that's what the animal. Absorbs is, are the short chain
fatty acids and then the, you know, the bacteria dies off and
you know, the body breaks those down and actually absorbs, those
well I guess protein and other nutrients.
So that's actually what the animal is absorbing.
They're not, they're not really eating and absorbing the plant
material. They're sort of using that and
farming. The bacteria which are actually
producing the nutrients that they need, most of which is fat.
And so, you know, gorillas it just eat green leaves.
About 70 percent of their calories from fat and cows that
eat grass. They're more efficient at this
and they get about 80%. And so, even in herbivores,
you're seeing this, this is high fat intake.
You do get things like like rabbit poisoning rabbit
sickness. Protein poisoning were if you're
getting more than 40 percent of your calories from protein, you
know, you people start noticing that it is actually actually can
cause harm. And eventually can be can be
fatal if you're eating a lot more protein than.
And so that's something that you have to contend with that is
really, really important. You know, I talked to you about
this but you know, we have four organs working in concert just
to absorb fat. So if that wasn't extremely
important, you know, we would not have that system setup,
right? So liver makes bile gallbladder
stores. Bile bile is what is a mole?
Sighs fats that we can absorb it better, and your body and your
pancreas secretes enzymes to help break this stuff down
further and then it can be emulsified and then your small
intestine, absorbs it. So you have four, organs all
working together, just to absorb fat.
So that is something that's very, very important and I think
that it's very easy to tell how much fat your body wants by how
much bile your body produces. Because I think that that's, you
know, I know I don't have a study to say this, Us.
But just thinking about things physiologically, I think it
would make sense that your body is going to make the amount of
bile that it wants fat, you know, as it's making x amount of
bile because that's how much fat it can absorb.
And that's how much fat your body wants.
I think that makes physiological sense.
Your body is very, very exacting.
It doesn't just make a whole bunch of something just because,
you know, it's not going to. It's not going to waste its
energy on that if you're wasting energy in the wild, you're dead.
And so, you know, Are biologically.
These systems are measured to exacting levels and so you know,
if you're constipated to having dry hard stools on a corner
board diet, that means that your body is absorbing every ounce of
fat that you're eating and you probably want more and that if
you because it's very hard for your body to absorb fat without
by like and absorb some, but most of it comes from from the
bile. And so if you eat more fat than
you have bile for well that that spills over and you excrete that
and that's what actually keeps your stool soft.
And so if it's if you have hard stools while you're absorbing
all of it, you know? And so if you're if you have a
little bit extra, what that means, your body is absorbing as
much as it wants and then there's a little extra.
So I think that's where, you know, that's the sweet spot.
And then, if you're eating a lot more fat than your body can
absorb it will just come out in more dramatic fashion.
You get, you get loose, stools and other things and costly
stools, like coffee or artificial sweeteners,
especially the sugar alcohols like Xylitol or sorbitol, but if
you're not doing any of that, you're only eating fat and
you're getting loose, stools. That it's been the you're just
eating more fat. But you can sit there just eat a
bucket of lard and your body will have a hard time absorbing
write anything more than what you have bile for.
So, you know, it's not going to cause harm.
It's going to be very inconvenient.
Yeah. Not as desirable.
Well, we don't like yourself, that's predominantly no muscle
meat, you know, and a good portion of it.
Are you, are you particularly strict on the sourcing of that
meat especially with like a ruminant?
I would imagine and they've done studies on this that the
difference in the amino acid profile between a grass-fed
grass-finished. You know, ruminant is not too
too different from that of, you know, conventionally raised
beef. Now that the that contrast
bronze more, when it's, you know, like a like a Can report
or something of that nature, but what's your stance on the whole
grass-fed grass-finished debate? Yeah, I almost exclusively just
just grain finished cow, but I'll mostly be if I just feel
the best on beef, Lambs. Good.
The all the roommates animals are great, but I prefer beef,
chicken and pork. I eat sometimes as well, but
very rarely, I barely ever eat chicken pork.
Maybe I'll get like pork bellies.
Or something like that. Sometimes, if I want to increase
the fat content, I usually don't eat and much else from pork.
So, like, you know, 97 percent, or more of what I eat is just is
just fatty beef. Grass-fed is, is great.
You, I was able to Source an older cows like 10 years old and
I get that something you haven't had dry before is definitely
worth doing the older. The cow, the better.
It tastes as is more concentrated beefy flavor.
Is generally cheaper, you know, you get you go straight to
Rancher and you just say hey I want to get one of your older
cows. They generally just have to, you
know, break them down for a hamburger meat and they sell at
a lower rate. So you're doing them a favor and
you are also getting this at a cheaper price as well.
And it was like hands down the best at.
I almost feel like I don't want to like give this secret away
because I don't want to like pump up the market because that
gets so good like, for to me. Anyway, maybe, you know, other
people prefer a different flavor but it was Was it would
absolutely outstanding and I had a New York strip, a prime New
York strip from Costco and you know the New York portion of
this older completely 100% grass-fed cow and I did taste
test. I tried to Prime Steak first.
It was like amazing. Oh my God, I love this like such
a great you know just Beach just tastes so great.
Then I tried the, you know, the older cow and it's like yeah
this is so good too. And I just sort of a little bit
more of that a few more bites of that and A psycho psycho, right?
Well, let's try the other one again and it would be, there was
no beefy flavor was just it, just tasted Rich because it had
a lot more fat, but it was completely overpowered in flavor
by the, by the older cow. And it was, it was just amazing.
And, you know, if you look at like, the omega-3 versus Omega
sixes, you know, if your, if your grain finishing a cow for
the study I saw showed about after, like about Three months,
which is quite a long time that you you're getting a diminishing
amounts of Omega-3s and so it eventually you sort of, sort of
run out of that if it's just, you know, just eating grains for
a long enough period. But I think I think otherwise
it's, you know, it's not that big of a deal honestly and I've
been doing that for a very long time and I feel absolutely
fantastic. You know, the the 10-year old
grass Fed its whole life cow like that.
I felt super charged on. I did feel better on that but
even though it was leaner, but I feel absolutely fantastic on the
on the grain finished beef as well.
I think of it as like, you know, in the Olympics, you know, the
first that, you know that gold and silver medal in the Olympics
like you know, silver metal silver medalist lost to Gold but
the silver medalist also beat, absolutely everyone else on
Earth, you know? So is it gold?
No but you know what? It's it's absolutely fantastic.
So I wouldn't, I wouldn't lose too much sleep over over that if
you can't get great grass-fed but which can be a lot more
expensive to. Yeah.
I feel like that's always a limiting factor for some people
from a financial standpoint. They feel they just can't even
carnivore because they can't get everything, you know, perfectly
dialed in. But at the end they if you're
eating a room in it I mean they're up regulate the
nutrition from what they're eating so I mean, you know,
pretty much covering your bases know.
What if you're eating beef for the most part?
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
I think, yeah, you're not going to go wrong and and, you know,
even even just like the wag, you sort of sort of stuff.
I don't think that you're going to run into too many problems.
I think you have the you'll probably be better off.
You'll have better fats. If you're not doing like a full
wagon has only eating grains, its whole life.
But you know it by and large, it has As absolutely everything
that you need in the proportion, that you need it without all the
extra crap that you don't want as well even even if it's grain.
Finished, how are you typically cooking your steaks?
You doing like a pellet grill? You going with the hate the, the
auto wild Grill at flame-broiled, Super popular,
right now? They were trying that one.
I haven't tried that either. I think that would be great, you
know, you really just just, you know, charring the hell out of
one side and then flipping it over, you know, at high heat
sit. To get a good result, are you?
I just, I just just pan-fry mostly, you know, put in animal
fat like, you know, Tallow or sometimes ghee in the pan and
just fry it up, you know, I done a couple videos on YouTube about
my refrigerator is just it's just packed with meat and that
sort of terrified, some people and excited to others.
And but, you know, I wet age things and I do like dry
brining, you were Or I'll cut things up into steaks and just
salt them and with the salt soak in it'll and put it on drying
racks in the fridge and let that salt soak in it, dry out a bit
and it will just concentrates the flavor and just the salt
gets all the way through the meat and it tastes amazing.
It also dries it out a bit so it Browns much better and you doing
that on the grill and it tastes fine.
But when you're doing that on a pan, With your animal fat, it
almost it almost fries, it and it crisps up the outside.
So it's like this crunchy crust on the outside, it's amazing.
And so, you know, I like, you know, I like that side of
things. And so I have an air for are
actually having an impact it yet.
I really should I'm looking at it now, like I really actually
just open this thing up and use it.
My brother really likes air fryer and I know a lot of people
that had like the airfryer as well but you know, just just on
the pan is so easy. It's just you High heat, 3
minutes on each side, and you've got this perfectly cooked steak.
And so, that's mostly what I do. I do sometimes, I'll use, like,
appropriate, propane grill. And, you know, my girlfriend has
a, got a smoker from Costco. And so, we'll do like briskets
in there as well. Nice, nice.
Yeah, I got one of those pellet grills.
I use that but you gotta have a Char on again, at that crust.
Rest. You just doing something wrong.
I feel like, you know, you get the skillet Rock and you can do
that. That the air fryers are pretty
good for getting a good crust on there, but you just feel less
manly cooking them on a air fryer, when you got a group
sitting outside, you know? Yeah, yeah, I like the grill.
Yeah, I think it I think it works.
Well, totally totally well, shoot, man.
I want to be respectful of your time, but I want to kind of
round this out with just a little discussion on, you know
what, you're seeing with your patients.
You said you're doing typically neurosurgery's afternoon.
Yeah, that's correct. Yeah.
Are you kind of able to have a conversation with him and bounce
these dietary? Is the Carnivore Dinosaur.
They are they taking any interest in that or what's been
your, what's been your experience with kind of leading
them down that path that they pretty receptive to it?
Yeah, absolutely. It's, you know, it's something
that you have to be sort of careful with obviously because
you're working in a hospital system and, and you have their
certain dietary recommendations and official government
guidelines and all that sort of nonsense.
But, you know, I don't I don't really obviously, I don't listen
to those because they're just full of carbohydrates and sugar
and processed crap, which is crazy.
You know, you look, we walk around the hospital and you see
the food that we as a hospital or giving them and it's just
like, this is causing the diseases that they're in here
with and it really bothers me. And, you know, I've sent a lot
of notes and letters and, and emails to the powers that be and
obviously never never heard anything back.
But as Or as patients are concerned, you know, it's a long
conversation. It's obviously something that
that goes against a lot of the, you know, the dogma of of the
past half-century. And so it's it's difficult to
sort of crunch That Into, You know, an office visit or the
amount of time that I have to speak to people.
But when it when it does come up and they ask me something, I
don't feel that it's ethical to not talk about it.
And so you know, people have Cancer, like metastatic cancer
or even primary brain cancer, you know, they ask me, what is
there something I can do is order.
I just at the whim of, you know, the oncologist and adjust its
Gon Work or it's not, you know, is there something I can do to,
to help my situation? I don't feel that it's ethical
for me to not talk to them about this because there are studies
that show that it's just at least a ketogenic diet helps
fight, cancer significantly. And so, you know, and At
optimizing. Your health in general is going
to help your health in general and so I don't, I don't feel
that I cannot tell them and so I do have conversations with them,
but I preface it by saying that this is not the Official
Guidelines not. Is it, aren't they departmental
recommendations or the hospital recommendations?
This is this is purely my my views on this and I have reasons
for for that. And I'll share these Resources
with you and so if they're interested, I'll talk to them
about. That and then just share the
resources, share the studies, share the different.
People like Thomas seifried because professor at Boston
College and he's done a ton of research into this, and I just I
just point them in those directions is a look here.
Some studies here. The research groups here are all
these different people, you know, bettering their situation
with diet and and you decide, you know, you do what's right
for you. And, and What I, that's what I
try to do and then there's other people that have chronic pain
because I can neurosurgery deal with spinal issues and nerve
compression that cause great pain in the back, but
particularly down the legs or the arms and neurological
dysfunction, you'll be gotten from that.
And When you reduce the inflammation, when you stop
eating all of these things, you know, I don't know if you've
noticed this in your workouts but I've certainly noticed that
I don't get sore anymore after working out.
It doesn't matter how long I've taken off between working out or
how hard I go, I just don't, I don't get sore, what I've
noticed that it's these different inflammatory factors
in Plants. Particularly in grains and
carbohydrate containing plants that really caused a large
burden of inflammation. And eliminate that out.
And it's just, it's just not there anymore.
When people do that in a chronic pain setting and they're having
a lot of back pain and shooting nerve pain or fibromyalgia.
That's another thing is to sort of a basically doctors throwing
up their hands going. I have no idea what this is.
So we'll call it fibromyalgia and finding that these people,
when they go on a carnivore diet or even just a ketogenic diet
and Get rid of all these grains and carbs and sugar that their
pain levels, reduce significantly, some people to
the point of not needing surgery anymore.
And I think that, if you can get someone into that position where
they don't need surgery, I think that you've done them a real
service because, you know, surgery is that you always avoid
surgery. If you absolutely have, if you
had absolutely no. Anyway, can its destructive.
You're cutting through tissue. You're damaging tissue you're
causing different problems. Sometimes you need, You because
it's providing more good than harm, but, you know, it can go
very wrong and it can cost you your life.
And so it's not something to do lightly and being able to Avoid
surgery in these in these patients is I think a very, very
good thing to do. And and even though I like doing
surgery, it's something that's fun for me.
You know, that's not something that I want to do.
I would never want to do surgery on someone who didn't strictly
need it. And so that's, yeah, that's what
I try to sort of bring to the table.
Yeah, man. I think I would have to think
that they're receptive to what you're saying.
Cause I mean, you look Department.
I mean, you're healthy. You obviously know what you're
talking about and I feel like Like, I don't spend much time in
hospitals, we just got the house, but we had to have
emergency surgery for my wife, baby.
That was a whole lot of students.
Oh, but you see all these doctors that are overweight
there? There's clearly unhealth in
their prescribing, these nutritional protocols or, you
know, dietary wisdom and like, for me, like I have someone is
not living the life that I would want to emulate.
I'm not really gonna put much weight in there what they're
saying. So I think, you know, for you
being able to talk to people and just level with him and speak,
To lie about him or to them about what's clearly worked for
you. I feel like as a patient that's
in there and they're going to be so much more receptive to what
you're saying and I feel like any time you can have that
conversation, even if it takes longer, I think I think you're
making an impact in ways. You don't even realize man.
Yeah. Well thank ya.
Thank you. Like ya did, it does me be
different. So it then people do say that
they say well what are you doing?
Like obviously, you know, you're you know, you're onto something
and, you know, and I told her I talk to them about it and say,
look, this is what I do and this is why I do it.
You know, it does help that, you know, I that I look like I'm in
shape, like I'm not, you know, I wouldn't consider myself shape
because I don't have time. I don't work out as much as I
want to. And so I don't feel that
athletically I'm where I want to be, but Definitely look as if I
did. And so you know, because the way
I I'm able to maintain my physique very easily and and so,
you know, yeah. And and you're right, you know,
it's funny too because a lot of doctors who don't look the part
and that sort of e traditionally they don't even realize that
they're doing it wrong. They're like, oh yeah, no this
is right. I eat healthy blah, blah blah.
And they can't even see themselves in the mirror.
Me like I am clearly, not healthy and No, I remember
someone saying, they're like, oh yeah, the reason that people are
all fat and sick is because they did, they just don't listen to
die. They just don't listen to the
dietary recommendations and and I had to point out to them like,
well, no, actually the problem is that they did listen.
You know, when you look at the consumption data in America and
around the world, the problem came when people started
changing their their dietary habits to eat less meat, less
fat start eating more fruits, and vegetables and Grains.
And There and that's when the weight started coming up.
That's when the disease is started to climb and you know
this person that I was speaking to a particular was overweight
and I thought they just don't listen like will do you, you
know, you because you're overweight, you're not in very
good shape. But they consider that like oh
well I just don't have time to exercise and I'm living proof
that you don't have to exercise in order to be you know, slim
and and muscular. Yeah, it helps you know it We'll
add to it. You know what?
I definitely get bigger and bulkier and more athletic when I
work out but you know, I stay slim and trim either way.
Yeah, I think I think that's that's He-Man.
I mean, I don't know, all the success I've seen when it comes
to my athletic Endeavors and my just overall lifestyle, Health
Journey has come when I've started to go against the grain
and not do what, you know, the, the dietary, you know, powers
that be encouraged us to do so. You can't really get much more
contrarian than a carnivore diet.
It's obviously working. So I think I think you're the
right past there. Yeah, I think.
Yeah, there is exactly the opposite of what, what we've
been told for the last like 50 years.
But, you know, you know, the results speak for themselves
and, you know, it's, there's a quote that I say a lot, but I
think it's so relevant in so many aspects of life, which is
from Richard, Fineman use the physicist, and professor at
Caltech previously, if he said that, it doesn't matter how
brilliant your theory is and it doesn't matter how smart you
are. If it doesn't agree with
experiment, it's Wrong, you know?
And so we say, no, no, if you eat fatty meat, you're going to
get fat, you're going to get sick and yet I'm find, I get the
opposite. Well, that's the real-life
experiment showing that is wrong and so, you know, if you, if you
have something and you just seeing this like, no, no, no,
this is the theory. It must be right, as I will, but
it's not though, it's clearly not because you're getting the
opposite results when you actually put it into practice.
And so you have to be able to recognize that and And I had to
adjust and that's what I've been trying to do.
Ya feel like simply just practice what you preach and and
living by experience and just if they haven't common sense, like
people, I mean, people have lost touch of their self-awareness to
know how they feel like people don't even know how they feel
anymore. So, just coming back to that
having that sense of self-awareness, trying things
experimenting. And then just being honest with
the results, I feel like people would gain so much more, you
know, awareness of themselves and what they're capable of, if
they Simply learn to do that and just start with the foods that
they're eating being the first step.
Yeah. Oh, absolutely.
And that's the thing, you know, if you if you try corn borer
diet or even a ketogenic diet like a high fat meat based
ketogenic diet, you're going to be eliminating out so many
things that are harmful to your body and you're going to be
giving yourself the actual fuel that it needs.
You will feel so remarkably different and I certainly felt
wildly different in the First couple weeks and I was eating
more. I was eating more calories which
is people the calories in calories out crowd which are
just people who have MS. Didn't pay attention in
Biochemistry class you know are you know saying that that's
impossible that you you eat more calories?
You're going to put on weight. Well, sorry dude I didn't, you
know, I was eating like, you know, again back to Richard
Fineman, it doesn't meet with experiment, you know, I increase
my calories, probably four or five times and I lost something
like 23 pounds in the first 10 days of just dropping green.
So I was really eating a ketogenic diet even though I
wasn't doing kedo, I was just not eating carbohydrates and
Grains and sugar and I was just eating a lot of greens and then
some me but I was limiting the meat that was limiting, the fat
certainly and then all of a sudden I was like nope, this is
what it is. I knew plans were trying to kill
me like get rid of these damn things and I just dropped them
and I started eating a lot more more meat and at a stop trimming
the fat off. And so I was He's way more
calories and I just shed weight and you know, that's not
possible. Is it?
Well, it happened. So I guess it is possible.
Yeah. And you know, and I felt amazing
and that was that was the main difference for me was I just
felt so much better. And after two weeks I was you
I'd been in Bangladesh doing humanitarian work, not your
volunteering as a doctor in the refugee camps, there between
2017 2018 and I just I wasn't really, I was definitely not in
shape. And I had a lot of excess weight
and it was like a huge like you could still sort of see my
six-pack, but it was it's definitely padded.
And and you know, I was trying to get back into shape so I
could start playing rugby again and I just wasn't feeling, I
just didn't feel great on my. I'm really gonna have to put in
some work to get into shape and then, you know, two weeks on
Carnivore diet and I was just like, yeah, I'm ready to go.
Like, I'm just, I just feel amazing.
And even though I was still out of shape and hadn't really been
running and run it all months. And I still looked, I was still
carrying excess weight. I felt absolutely incredible and
I was able to perform at a high level as well, and I was using a
dead Sprint. The whole time with people that
had been training the whole time.
I was gone and and we're professional athletes.
Very professional rugby players. And and I was able to, you know,
be right up there with them even though I was not in shape.
And then but my fitness just came back very, very quickly and
my body just And as well. And I was eating a lot more than
I than I was before. So, you know, just the real life
experience, trying these things. I think will sell it to pretty
much everybody, you know, because like it is such a
dramatic difference. And like, to the point that I
just, I will never willingly go back to eating, you know,
standard American diet ever. Again, unless I'm starving to
death and I absolutely have to to, to save My life, I will
absolutely not do it in any other circumstances if I have
any control over. Well, I don't think we'll have a
hopefully, that will have an issue where we can't eat the
foods that we desire. Hopefully, which you will have
meat in in abundance for the foreseeable future for sure.
But yeah, I think like simply living living that and and
leaning on those experiences like that to me carries a hell
of a lot more weight than just throwing out some random study.
That's been cherry-picked to support an argument.
I feel like what you've been able to implement and Dated a
life like that, that's what you can relate with, that's what you
can become, you know, you know, passionate about and share with
others. I feel like that.
I mean you're a neurosurgeon you get the highest accolades, a
big, but people listen to you for what you've personally
experienced and what you've personally seen yourself.
I feel like that. And that's the Pinnacle in my
opinion. Your why?
Yeah, I think that, you know, you can you can be thrown off by
studies and you can look at data and studies are great.
And if they're done well, Well, and they can provide a lot of
information and sort of sift through a lot of background
noise, and you're trying to sort of, especially if you're able to
control things really well. You know, it, they're they're
great for that, but it really does just come down to what
happens in the real world. And, you know, we have all these
studies and all these, your brilliant.
Professors saying that you've baton meet.
We're going to kill you and it turns out that they were corrupt
and bought and paid for by the sugar company.
So you have to contend with that as well.
Contend with, you know, that that scientists are people.
Some people are assholes and and they're going to be corrupt and
and corruptible. And so you have to, you know,
you have to take everything with a grain of salt and you really
have to just temper it with what is your real world experience?
What is your real life experience?
And if you're, if you're doing what they tell you to do and you
feel like crap and your health is going to crap, then obviously
there's something wrong there and if someone else is say, well
actually you should do this thing and that AIDS benefit.
Well, it doesn't really matter what the mechanisms are.
What matters is that? You're getting benefit?
And that your life is improving. Bingo.
Could not agree more. Could not agree more.
Well on that note, man, I'm not gonna lie, I'm gonna go home,
I'm gonna Grill me a big old fatty ribeye steak.
I'm gonna enjoy every single bite of it and I'm going to feel
good about it. Awesome.
I hope you do, I'm sure you will.
I will? Where did that more about you
man? Yeah so you know I'm large on
YouTube channel, they're just ants Chaffee MD is my channel.
I have a podcast just called the plant free Andy and that's on
your Apple or Spotify Google, although all the rest and then
Instagram, I'm probably most active on Instagram as well of
the social media platforms. And that again is just Anthony
Chaffee MD. Awesome, I will certainly linked
out to all of those. Make it easy for people to find
you. And again, manager wanted to
congratulate you for being consistent.
I mean, I've had a lot of people in the podcast.
I've listened to a lot of people Those approaches to nutrition.
And for me, it just it resonates so much more when I see people
that are doing, you know, some pretty much the same thing
they've been doing for years because it's worked, they've
tried everything else, they know what works for them.
They've been consistent their messaging and I feel like that
carries so much more weight than the people that, you know, just
flip flop and go to the next the next thing.
So seeing that you've been consistent for, as long as you
have carries a hell of a lot more weight, in my opinion.
So, just keep doing what you're doing and preaching the message
Man. Well thanks man.
Appreciate it. You too.
You bet take care. Keep in touch and have it going
brother.