Mark Bell's Power Project - Addressing The Concerns About The Carnivore Diet Supercut - Saladino, Baker, Efferding, and Chaffee

Starting point is 00:00:00 Power Project family, how's it going? Now, we are 900 plus episodes deep, and I wanna first say thank you for the ratings and reviews you guys have been leaving us on Apple and Spotify. We've been seeing them roll in, and we are glad that you have been finding the podcast helpful with all the experts that we managed to bring in.

Starting point is 00:00:15 Today's super bite, I think that might be what we're calling it, is gonna be for all the carnivores out there. We have Paul Saladino, Sean Baker, Stan Efferding, and Anthony Chaffee talking about the benefits but also drawbacks of the carnivore diet. So enjoy this episode. Aside from the nourishment that you get from the macros and the micros, why do you guys feel like it sets your body up to get rid of things like diabetes and all these other diseases that we see. I think the absence of plant toxins is just a huge weight off your shoulders. I mean,

Starting point is 00:00:50 animal foods are the ideal foods for humans and plant foods are fallback foods. They're survival foods. Well, if you never have to eat survival foods, you're always thriving. If you've always got to kill, if you've always got animals, you don't need anything else, right? And if you don't have to use survival foods, you don't get all of the toxins that come with that, all of the accompanying toxins. And I think that that makes a big difference for people, probably from an autoimmune inflammatory standpoint. We talked a little bit about earlier today

Starting point is 00:01:14 and maybe in one of the YouTube videos about insulin resistance and the resolution of insulin resistance. And I think that what we know about insulin resistance and type two diabetes, which is sort of the quintessential paradigmatic example of insulin resistance, if we have mixed overfeeding of fat and carbohydrates, we run into problems. Well, you can fix that pretty easily by cutting out one of those two.

Starting point is 00:01:35 Clearly, a carnivore diet is going to cut out all your carbohydrates, and it's going to probably normalize the amount of calories you're getting, and it's going to probably remove many of the foods that are causing inflammation. In that previous video today, we were talking about inflammation can make us insulin resistant sooner for a given fat threshold at the level of our adipocytes. But I think that, you know, like we're talking about here, if you give your body a species-appropriate diet, if you give your body the ideal foods, things are going to come back in line. And insulin resistance, I think, is a disease of Western civilization, and it's a disease of

Starting point is 00:02:04 discordance between genetics and environment. We're not supposed to be getting tons of fat and carbohydrates together and getting tons of extra calories of those mixed macronutrients. We're not supposed to be getting tons of processed food that's easy to overeat that affects our incretin hormones incorrectly. You know, when we eat processed fat or processed grains or processed carbohydrates, it completely messes with the normal sequence of incretin, which is sort of the series of hormones involved in digestion and satiety as the food goes down our guts. And so when we get to real food, number one, and then real animal food, everything kind of clicks back in line.

Starting point is 00:02:41 We get back to the normal program. They're all compatible. You guys have been working with individuals doing the carnivore diet for a while now having tons of clients? And if you're willing to share, has there been any just absolutely ridiculous potential disease reversals or just, um, just things that you would think would be kind of impossible with a diet that you'd be willing to share from that that's happened to any of your clients? Oh yeah. I mean, you see some pretty striking things that really change your perspective. I think that in the education of a physician, it takes one or two cases like this, and then you never really depression, anxiety, bipolar, bordering on psychosis, have improvements or resolution. I've had people with pretty, I had a-

Starting point is 00:03:31 I'm sorry to interrupt, but were some of those people able to come off medication as well? Oh, absolutely, yeah. And then they were under your watchful eye? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That might not be a great idea to kind of try on your own no you i mean you know nobody who is suicidal should stop their medications without talking to their

Starting point is 00:03:49 physicians but you see some pretty striking things had a couple of clients a pair of twin young men who said they had eczema that was so severe it was like head to toe and uh the carnivore diet like completely resolved it i've seen psoriasis resolve. I've seen a lot of dermatologic conditions resolve. Crohn's, ulcerative colitis, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis. I've seen a lot of people with psoriatic arthritis, which is another autoimmune disease. Yeah, pretty striking stuff. I mean, you name it. You know, rosacea.

Starting point is 00:04:22 It's pretty striking. You know, basically the majority of autoimmune diseases that are out there, you've seen lupus, Sjogren's, improvements in those. I know Sean has had a podcast with somebody who has Ehlers-Danlos who have seen improvements, which is a genetic condition having to do with collagen synthesis. So yeah, there's some pretty striking stuff. You're just like, wow, that's incredible. And it really kind of, it's tough because you forget about it, you know, and you forget about the triumphs and then quickly need to be reminded of that and think, oh yeah, there's all these people who are doing so great. Some of the clients I have are still struggling, mostly the ones with GI

Starting point is 00:04:54 issues. Recently did a podcast, did a couple of podcasts recently on the microbiome and GI stuff. I don't think we've got that totally figured out. Tricky to figure out. Yeah. I think for a lot of people, a carnivore diet improves IBS, gas bloating, constipation, but there's definitely something with the microbiome or at least with GI stuff that doesn't always get completely better. And we're still trying to figure out whether they need probiotics or fecal microbiota transplant or something else. But for a lot of the autoimmune conditions, it's pretty freaking powerful. How well can people perform on a diet that doesn't really have hardly any carbohydrates? And what happens to the body when we're not eating carbs?

Starting point is 00:05:29 I think you were mentioning your glucose goes up. How does your glucose go up when you don't eat any carbs? Yeah, well, I mean, our body is very good at defending and leaving us in a homeostatic place. It doesn't matter what our sodium intake is. We tightly regulate. Our acid-base balance is tightly regulated. And even though I don't eat carbohydrates or any appreciable amount of it, my blood glucose never goes to zero.

Starting point is 00:05:54 I mean, you just can't exist that way. Nor would you want it to. Nor would I want it to. I mean, it can get pretty low, and there's some interesting studies Cahill did in the 60s where he starved people. Starving where their blood glucose was 40 milligrams per deciliter, and then he would give them insulin on top of that, and then they'd be down to 10. And normally that he starved people, starving where their blood glucose was 40, you know, milligrams per deciliter. And then he would give them insulin on top of that.

Starting point is 00:06:06 And then they'd be down to 10. And normally that would kill most people, but they, because they were compensating, they did well with that. But I mean, because I eat a lot of protein and to some degree fat, you know, I eat plenty of calories. There's something called gluconeogenesis,

Starting point is 00:06:20 most of us are aware of, where you can turn amino acids into glucose and you can turn the glycerol from triglycerides into glucose, and that stores in your liver. And, you know, you just have it, and you become very efficient at that. And, you know, also your muscle glycogen is refilled, maybe not to the extent that you would with, you know, carbohydrates. But, I mean, again, how much do you actually need to perform?

Starting point is 00:06:44 You know, we had a good workout. I mean, I would say I hung with everybody pretty well and, you know, it was great, you know, and, and I think that's something that, uh, um, you can do very well with that. And I've gotten, you know, there's guys in the NFL now on the carnivore diet, there's professional MMA fighters on the carnivore diet. They're all doing well. Not, it's not for everyone for sure. There are people that just don't feel very good with that. And I don't know why that is yet, you know, and I mean, there's's maybe there's some people that don't eat enough. One of the things, you know, Stan and I talked about is, you know, fueling yourself properly. And if you just don't have an appetite and then you expect yourself to go perform at a world-class

Starting point is 00:07:17 level, that's going to be hard to do. So you have to be able to eat and carbohydrates help you to eat more. There's some impacts on some of the satiety hormones. We know there's studies that support that. So you can eat more, which is going to have an impact. We also know that carbohydrates are going to be very effective at restoring glycogen, which can be beneficial as well. I think that when it comes to muscle building, can you build muscle without carbohydrates? Sure, you can. Is it the most optimal, most effective and efficient way?

Starting point is 00:07:45 Probably not. I mean, again, I think as much as much of the studies we have, you can point to flaws in all these studies. You can say, what else are you looking at? When I look at, you know, who are the biggest, strongest guys on the planet? You know, when I look at bodybuilders, they're all eating a high protein diet for sure.

Starting point is 00:08:03 They're all training their asses off with mostly high volume in many cases, but they're eating some carbohydrate as well. And I think the effect may be a performance benefit. It may be an appetite and calorie benefit. And so I think that's important. But, I mean, again, do you have to do it that way? No, you don't. And there's reasons, you know, for some people, and perhaps as we get older,

Starting point is 00:08:24 carbohydrates become problematic because then, like for some people, and perhaps as we get older, carbohydrates become problematic because then you, like we said, the positive benefits of supporting appetite may be negative because you may, you know, you may eat too much body fat if you're not matching it with training output. The other thing is for some people, they have, you know, I don't demonize carbohydrates or glucose, but what I do say is there are certain compounds and certain foods that are gut irritants. And Stan's done a very good job of the vertical diet in saying some of these foods just negatively impact your gut. And so we need to know what they are. And most of the diseases, I believe, start in the gut. These autoimmune diseases, mental health issues probably start in the gut,

Starting point is 00:09:02 skin issues, psoriasis, all the things that occur. So if you can fix your gut and heal your gut, and I think a lot of us are dealing with dysfunctional guts, dysbiosis, you know, hyperpermeability. And that's probably because of the modern diet. So many people are eating this complete garbage diet. So we've ruined our gut. We've ruined our ability to properly process the nutrients in the good foods we should normally eat. And so we have people that now they can't tolerate whatever certain fruits and vegetables, which sounds crazy, but it is what it is in many cases. And you have to restore that and fix that.

Starting point is 00:09:35 And later on, like we see a lot of people that do a carnivore diet for three months, six months, they'll deal with whatever issues they have. And then they can start adding food back in, which is kind of cool. Yeah, eliminate and reintroduce. Power Project family, how's it going? Now, Piedmontese Beef is a company we've been eating literally for years now because they have some of the best beef on the market,

Starting point is 00:09:55 tons of cuts, tons of different types of beef. Check them out. Andrew, where can they get it? At piedmontese.com. That's P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E.com. And at checkout, enter promo code POWER to save 25% off your entire order. And if your order is $150 or more, you get free two-day shipping.

Starting point is 00:10:10 Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Even during World Carnivore Month, I eat a little bit of vegetables just because it assists me away from having disaster pants. me away from having disaster pants. But something that dawned on me during World Carnivore Month was that if everybody in the United States eliminated all plants from their diet, they'd be much healthier because there's a lot going on with plants. And we were just talking about the different oils and stuff like that. But sugar is a plant as well. And these processed foods are made out of plants.

Starting point is 00:10:46 They're not made out of animals. Yeah, I mean, well, I mean, to be fair, there are processed food products that have egg in it, that have dairy in it. So you can make a lot of cakes and junk food with animal products, but- But there's still going to be plants in there. Right, but they're not independent of plants.

Starting point is 00:11:00 So if you were to say everybody went on a carnivore diet or as close to that as reasonably possible, you would probably see a net health benefit to the United States. I mean, when people criticize a carnivore diet, I'm saying, well, what are you comparing it to? If you're comparing it to what everybody's eating, it's far healthier. Whatever negative connotations you think may be out there, it is clearly far healthier than what 95% of the people out there are eating, which is what Stan pointed out, 70% ultra-processed food. The majority of the products are sugar, corn, soy, and whatever else. Wheat, I think, is the top foods we consume.

Starting point is 00:11:37 So as Mark points out, most of the junk food contains plant products. It's not to say you can't eat fruits and vegetables, and some people put legumes and some of those things in there and have a relatively healthful diet. But, yeah, but if you eliminate all animal food, you can still have a very junky diet. I mean, we see that, the Oreo, vegan Oreo, you know, you've got the fat vegans. Why are you fat if it's, you know, you've got to ask that question. But, anyway. I've got to be careful going full Monty on just animal products.

Starting point is 00:12:06 I don't want to demonize food. Best diets and when you'll follow. There's plenty of those foods that people tolerate very well. Again, I said it's even with respect to the FODMAP menu, it's individualistic. Not everybody has these digestive issues. It's dose dependent. A certain amount of training is hormetic. Too much could certainly be injurious.

Starting point is 00:12:23 Same thing could be true of any vegetable, fruit, grain, et cetera. And some of that may be actually beneficial in small amounts. We talk about sulforaphanes and broccoli, et cetera, et cetera. I just don't like the idea of megadosing. And I think that a lot of the studies suggest that there's more of a positive benefit to fruit than vegetables when you look at some of the epidemiology anyhow. So I'm cautious. How it's prepared matters and it can be cumulative in nature. And so I am cautious. But with respect to, and we know so very little about this, I hate even to bring it up, but the gut microbiome and its potential need for fiber, prebiotics in particular, so that it doesn't start eating away at your own mucosa layer.

Starting point is 00:13:03 I got to be cautious and suggest that fiber in one form or another, and that's why in the vertical diet I do recommend both probiotics and prebiotics. And I put in low FODMAP prebiotics such as potato and carrots in particular and some spinach and those kinds of things and yogurt for probiotics and calcium. But I'm just cautious. I can't go full Paul Saladino here. And God love you, Paul. I love Paul.

Starting point is 00:13:28 I've been on his show. But sometimes some claims that are made that might be beneficial for, as I was mentioning earlier, a small portion of the population who has these issues, and you have to be very careful what term you use.

Starting point is 00:13:42 You can't say dysbiosis or leaky gut because because it's not scientific terms necessarily but if people do have celiac disease ibs crones you know any of those types of of problems you've got to go with a you know kind of a low residue diet that has less adverse impact on on the large colon So I think there's enough evidence out there, even if it's epidemiological in nature and probably is more about the healthy user bias that these populations who tend to eat sufficient vegetables, it also tends to offset any potential downside of eating too much meat.

Starting point is 00:14:19 It's a primarily meat-based diet with sufficient vegetables as opposed to a vegetable-based diet, we see equivalent outcomes in healthy populations when you get rid of the healthy user bias. I think that was the Whole Foods shoppers who you would presume to be generally healthy individuals, exercised more, didn't smoke, weighed less, where they weighed in in terms of meat consumption versus vegetable consumption, they had equivalent health outcomes. And so I'm just cautious. I don't want to say vegetables are bad. I'm cautious about the whole good food, bad food conversation,

Starting point is 00:14:56 because I don't want people to demonize certain things that may be unnecessary and give them more options. I do want to ask this. I know you probably mentioned it, but since we're kind of talking about fiber here, obviously like Lane Norton does love fiber and he talks about the benefits that it's going to have long-term because he references the research that always shows that fiber has a positive effect on all cause mortality. And when you take it out, it's like, there's a negative effect to no fiber. So when you hear those people continue to reference the long-term studies when it comes to fiber, it makes you wonder, damn, well, should I just at least keep a little bit of it in just to be safe? Since I don't know if long-term carnivore is the better idea. Do you think that there's any argument for keeping a little bit of it in

Starting point is 00:15:45 your diet just in case um that was the same argument for cholesterol and and sugar actually that was a hansel key said was it you know well you know whether or not cholesterol causes a problem you know what's the big deal what's the harm why don't you just cut it out replace it with sugar replace these calories with because you need these calories so what do you replace fat calories with? You replace them with carb and sugar calories. That was the argument since like the fifties. It was like, cholesterol is bad. Replace that with sugar. That was the argument. And they said, what's the harm? Why don't you just do it just in case? And then you convince a lot of people to do that. I always have a problem with this whole all cause mortality thing, because if you are, it doesn't matter what you ate for breakfast if you died in a plane crash, right?

Starting point is 00:16:27 So, I mean, that's a bit funny. And when you look at epidemiological studies, there are so many different factors that come in. They're called confounding factors. So many different things that could influence all these different outcomes, right? So, someone who eats more fiber, you know, is someone who you don't, that's a different group of people than it's just, I specifically won't eat that.

Starting point is 00:16:52 Most of the time, people that are not eating fiber are eating a bunch of processed garbage that doesn't have fiber because you can't freeze processed foods with fiber in it. It gets all mushy and mealy and doesn't work out. So if you're freezing and refrigerating all these processed garbage that's just going out, these ready-made meals, they often don't have a lot of fiber.

Starting point is 00:17:09 So you're comparing apples and oranges because you're comparing a group that eats more whole foods. You think it's more of a healthy user bias? 100%. But also, you have to compare like to like because we're not comparing. Those studies compare people eating a standard diet, which is arguably crap. I don't think anybody disagrees with that, with someone who's eating something else, anything else.

Starting point is 00:17:36 I think anything else is probably going to be better, right? It is not comparing, you know, an animal-based low-fiber diet with whatever high-fiber diet. That is not the comparison. So it's comparing apples and oranges. I don't think that you can make that comparison. Also, there's a ton of other factors that go into this. Dr. Baker talks about this. But a lot of these studies that suggest that meat was harmful,

Starting point is 00:18:05 these studies that show, you know, that suggest that meat was harmful. It's like, oh, these people ate more meat and they had, you know, higher all-cause mortality. Okay, well, people have been told for the last 40 years that red meat's going to kill you. And there's certain people, usually guys, just say, you know what, screw it. I like steak. I'm going to eat it. The people that have the well, screw it attitude with steak are more likely to have a well-screwed attitude with cigarettes and drinking, driving fast. They're more likely to die in a car accident. They're more likely to die in extreme sports. So that contributes to your all-cause mortality. Is that because they ate a steak that morning or is that because they jumped out of an airplane?

Starting point is 00:18:39 I don't know. I think it's probably the airplane, right? And so there's all those factors that come into it. I think that you have to look at things in comparing like to like. We don't have these epidemiological studies, even epidemiological studies, that compare a whole food plant-based diet and a

Starting point is 00:19:06 whole food meat-based diet. We just don't have those. Hey, I know you guys enjoyed the video, so like, comment, subscribe, and head to the Power Project Discord below. Talk to y'all later.

Mark Bell's Power Project - Addressing The Concerns About The Carnivore Diet Supercut - Saladino, Baker, Efferding, and Chaffee

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.