Realfoodology - Choosing the Best Meat for Your Health | Autumn Smith of Paleo Valley

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

313: We’ve been taught to fear meat, but what if the quality, source, and way it’s raised matter more than we think? In this episode with Autumn Smith from Paleo Valley, I talk about grass-fed vs. grain-fed meat, regenerative farming, the truth about processed meats and nitrates, misleading food labels, glycine, nose-to-tail eating, and why food quality and diversity matter for our health. → PaleoValley | Head to https://paleovalley.com/promos/realfoodology  for 15% off your first purchase Topics Discussed: → Grass-Fed vs. Grain-Fed Meat → Processed Meat & Nitrates → Glycine & Bone Broth → Food Labels to Trust Sponsored By: → PaleoValley | Head to https://paleovalley.com/promos/realfoodology  for 15% off your first purchase → Wild Pastures | Head to https://wildpastures.com/promos/realfoodology for 20% off for life + a bonus $15 off your first purchase Timestamps:  → 00:00:00 - Introduction  → 00:05:40 - How Paleo Valley got started → 00:09:00 - The Benefits of Fermented Meat → 00:15:00 - Meat, Nutrition and Regenerative Farming → 00:18:34 - Grass-Fed vs. Grain-Fed Beef → 00:24:24 - Animal Diet and Food Diversity → 00:29:04 - Grass-Fed vs. Organic vs. Regenerative Meat → 00:34:40 - Finding High-Quality Meat → 00:36:08 - Deli Meat, Nitrates and Nitrites → 00:41:08 - Vital Farms Eggs and PUFAs → 00:45:12 - Which Food Labels Can You Trust? → 00:49:06 - Country-of-Origin Labels and Imported Meat → 00:53:38 - Glycine: Benefits and Why It Matters → 00:58:00 - Glycine, Inflammation and Immune Health → 01:03:26 - Nose-to-Tail Eating and Organ Meats → 01:06:08 - Food vs. Supplements → 01:12:26 - Phyto-Melatonin and Sleep → 01:14:06 - Getting More Protein → 01:16:16 - Fermented Foods and Gut Health Check Out Dr. Autumn Smith:  → Autumn’s Instagram  → Paleo Valley Instagram  → Paleo Valley Website → Wild Pastures Instagram  → Wild Pastures Website  → Wild Pastures Burger Co Check Out Courtney:  →  LEAVE US A VOICE MESSAGE →  Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide! →  @realfoodology →  www.realfoodology.com →  My Immune Supplement by 2x4 →  Air Dr Air Purifier →  AquaTru Water Filter →  EWG Tap Water Database Produced By: Drake Peterson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just throwing the meat away because it has nitrates or celery powder, I wouldn't do that. All these studies that come out trying to claim that meat is cancer-causing, they never differentiate between where the animal came from, what type of meat it was. People are having grass-fed beef thinking it's all homogenous or the same, and it's just not necessarily the same. Americans are getting so many polyunsaturated fatty acids now. We should be consuming them in a ratio of like four to one, and we're consuming them like 25 to one right now. If you look at the nutrients, most people are deficient in, B12, iron, zinc, you know, vitamin A meat contains those nutrients in high quantities. But the most important part is in forms that your body can actually digest.

Bottom, thank you so much for coming on. Hi, Courtney. I'm really excited. I know, me too. We've been trying to get you on. We keep speaking over each other. Sorry, go. Sorry, I was just going to say I'm a big fan of your work. And I was hoping that I'd meet you when you were in Denver, but just glad to be able to meet you now. I know. I'm so bum that we never connected because, you know, you're just going to be able to meet you here. Because you live in Denver, right?

Yeah, Boulder. Oh, my gosh. I'm so bummed. I went to see you Boulder. And actually, my husband and I were telling you right before we started recording how much we love your restaurant in Boulder, wild pastures. It is, oh, my God. We would make trips from Denver just to go to your restaurant in Boulder.

We were like, well, we could, like, plan a day around it. Let's go hike the flat irons, like, whatever we needed to do in order to go have your burgers and fries. I love it. I'm just as obsessed with, like, I told you, when we moved from California, we were like, We need a good burger, like a regeneratively raised burger, gluten-free buns, no seed oils, no sugar. And so we were just lucky enough to find someone who was able to help us with the financial aspect. We all nailed it.

Oh, thank you. Yeah, we had a lot of good help. We've got a lot of great staff. And, yeah, the menu we worked really hard on. So I'm glad you love it and we're expanding. Yes. I'm so excited about that. Come to Austin.

Yeah. That's my dream. Austin and L.A. and just all the places where, you know, everybody appreciates the quality of food. And I think that's more places than ever now. But I know. Thank God. It's finally happening more.

I feel like I've been in this world long enough to where I remember in the beginning that the only place I could go to was Whole Foods, which I laugh at now, which is so funny because I go to Whole Foods now and I'm horrified by 95% of the prepared foods there. I mean, honestly, in everything that they have there. Yeah. But back then when I first started getting into health and nutrition, Whole Foods was like my Mecca. It was the only place I could go for healthy food.

Mine too. In L.A., that's where I would go. In between all my little fitness appointments, it was always straight to whole foods. And now, like you said, I'm not sure if they're using canola oil. They were in the bar last time when I was there, but that just is not worked for me. Yeah. No, I stopped going to that bar a while ago. I was like, well, that's a lost cause.

Everything is drenched in canola oil. It's such a bummer. Yeah, it's like an instant gut ache for me. Yes. Same. Oh, I can't do it. Well, you used to work with Tracy Anderson. Yes.

Right? And you actually toured, so I was listening to you on another podcast, and I was like, I am so excited to talk to you about this. So you went on a tour with her with J-Lo. And I don't know if you know this about my background, but before I went back to school to get my master's in nutrition, just while I was doing independent studying and studying about nutrition, so I was actually on the road touring with bands. And you had said something about how you felt like after that you needed to just go and do your own thing because it was so hard to stay consistent and to stay healthy and start. a healthy routine and I related to that so much. Yeah, because you went with like 303, 303, which actually they're from Boulder, you know, 303. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. I still love them. Yeah. That's amazing. And you're right. Like we were sometimes in a different country every day. I remember one day we were in two countries in one day.

So why? And yeah, I mean, many times, even when we were like Venezuela, I couldn't even go outside the hotel or there was just absolutely no time to do any of that. So, and that was seven months we were on tour. And I had just gotten married. So when I got off the door, I was like, okay, I just need to be in one place and to take back control of my diet because my, I started to just backslide. Because I recently realized what I needed to feel good.

And then I wasn't able to access it. So yeah, that was essentially why our company was created in the first place. That is so cool. So can you walk us through a little bit? Because you started on this journey because you were having health issues, gut issues specifically. So can you tell us kind of how you got to that place of discovering what was going on and how you fixed it? Yeah, so I had gut issues since I was 10 and I was put in the irritable bowel syndrome category and no doctor knew what to do with me and we didn't know it at the time but there's a gut

brain access thing and so I just kind of carried on. I took my Bino, which is what they tried to tell me to do. And as I got into my teens, my mental health started to deteriorate and they put me on antidepressants and all the things. I just really started to struggle and I still, I lost hope. And so I still did the things, went to college, moved to L.A. to dance, you know, eventually worked with Tracy Anderson. But when my husband and I met, he, you know, he could understand that I was actually really suffering when we moved in together. And so he was like, wow, you know, you're so bloated after meals, but you're a fitness trainer. You're so strong. And then you're up in the middle of the night with pain all the time. And he's like, we can't live like this anymore.

We have to figure it out. And he just got on the internet. found some people back in 2007 using the paleo diet. And so we just did that. We went to Pasadena's Farmers Market and crowded out all the processed foods. And it changed my life in just 30 days. All my digestive issues were gone. Wow. And then over the next year, my mental health changed to such an extent that I thought, I love you, Tracy Anderson, but I got to figure out what just happened to me because I had been physically fit my whole life, but not well. And like once I got a glimpse of what it felt like to actually feel good and, be stable, I decided I need to figure out how to give that away and educate myself about it because

I felt like that was my new calling. People in the fitness world, and I don't mean this is judgment or to like call them out, but it's just so interesting how there can be this disconnect sometimes in the fitness world where they just get marketed at all these ultra-processed foods and go down that path and look healthy but are not internally healthy. That's exactly what happened to me. Sometimes I would work out six hours a day and I was driving, you know, Malibu, then over to Brentwood and you know back to Studio City and so I'd have a protein bar or whatever a shake that I made for every in-between moment and yeah by the end of the day I was bloated I looked pregnant and I had gut rot and yeah it really was like just eat whole foods you know I just had to like pack myself a lunch

with you know meat and vegetables and fruit and for me that was all it took and it was it's funny that it took me so long to get there but yeah but I mean it's amazing that you got there And then you created this awesome company, which I love. And we're going to talk about it too. Yeah. And actually that was because of the J-Lo tour directly. Like I said. Really?

When I went on the tour for seven months, there were no staples. Because I never envisioned going into meat stick manufacturing. Just like never a thing I thought I would do. But yeah, once I saw how hard it is when you have very little control over your life, we came back and we were like, okay, we're going to start with a meat stick because protein. Yeah. You saw, you know, women are under eating protein. I was under eating protein and I was all over the place with my blood sugar and wanted to age gracefully and maintain muscle mass and all of that.

So that's why we eventually went into meat sticks. That's awesome. So I didn't know this was the meat stick, your first product that you created with Paleo Valley? Flagship product. Yes. Wow. The meat stick. Yeah.

And they're my favorite. I'm not just telling you this. I talk about all the time on the podcast. Those are my favorite meat sticks. Period. On the market. They are so good. And it's because they're fermented, I think.

They're so different. And that was another part of it because when we were in France, My husband brought over all these grass-fed meat sticks because I couldn't find stuff to eat, like I said. And I still got like this tummy ache from the grass-fed meat stick. So when I got back, we dug into like what is creating stomach problems. And it was, we thought, I surmised, it was like this ingredient called encapsulated citric acid, which is just like seed oils and GMO corn that melts into the stick and preserves it. So we called a lot of people and they were one guy who was able to ferment it.

And it makes for a very just tender like seed oil. tender, like seasoned and like postbiotic rich stick rather than that tough stuff. Well, and that's why your sticks really stand out because the rest of them are, they're very dry and like chewy and I have kind of a hard time eating them. Whereas yours, the first time I had one, I was like, oh, it's like, this is amazing. What is this sorcery that they put in here? Cementation. That's basically like lactic acid bacteria and meat and spices and that's it.

That's so cool. I actually never knew that until I was just going through notes before we started recording earlier today. And I was like, oh, fermented meat. So let's talk about that a little bit because I feel like the word fermented meat doesn't sound particularly appetizing, but let's talk about why you want it. Yeah. So fermented meat is essentially kind of like predigested meat. And it's something we've been doing literally for thousands of years. Everywhere in the world, you know, in Norway, in Japan, definitely in Europe, many places in Europe. People ferment. meat and it sounds gross, but what is essentially happening is the bacteria you're adding, they're just consuming carbohydrates, and then they're lowering the pH. But there's really cool compounds that are produced in between that process, right? So you have things like bacteriosins, which actually help protect the meat from spoilage. And then you have bioactive peptides. There's been some trials where they eat like a dry, cured ham and lower their blood pressure

or other markers of like cholesterol. I know it's wild. And then they also have, We, some fermented meats can contain probiotics if the water activities high enough, but essentially free amino acids so your body doesn't have to work so hard, compounds that help you absorb the minerals. So it's essentially like a gut healthy meat stick, if you can believe it. And people like in Andorra, have you heard of the story about Andorra? No. Okay.

So it's a little country that has like one of the largest, longest lives in the whole world, right? You don't really hear about it. And I think they are also like sheep herders, but they have a lot of animal products. in their diet, specifically fermented meats. So, yeah, I think for people with gut issues or just who want to eat a meat that's not dry and tough or filled with all of these random preservatives, it's a really good option. Okay, so that's really interesting. Isn't Andorra considered a blue zone technically, or?

I think it could, I don't know that it is considered. It's not what you hear about, but it should be. It definitely should be. Well, which perfectly brings me into my next question because we've been taught so much to fear meat. Yeah. But I think we're starting to all wake up and learn that meat is actually probably one of the most nutrient-dense foods we can consume, period. Why would you consider it to be one of the most nutrient-dense and therapeutic foods? Oh, well, if you look at the nutrients most people are deficient in B-12, iron, zinc, you know, vitamin A meat contains those nutrients in high quantities. But the most important part is in forms that your body can actually digest.

So I don't know if you're familiar with Tai Biel. He's a researcher for something called the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, Gain. And a lot of these algorithms, right? You don't hear a lot about meat. There's so many reasons why it's been demonized. And we could talk about that. But what he looked at is the nutrients that most people are deficient in in low and middle income countries in the world. And then he said what foods were the best sources of those nutrients?

Nine out of 10 are animal products. Oregon meats are at the top of the list, right? Small dried fish, goat, beef, eggs, dark leafy, green. was the only animal or plant-based food that actually made the top 10. So when we're looking at nutrient deficiency and correcting it, which is so important, it's such an underappreciated issue I think many people are suffering from today. Animal products are the one. Two times the bioavailability of the iron, at least, you know, two to three times the bioavailability

of zinc, 12 times when it comes to like beta-carotene to retinol, the active form of vitamin A, 12 times more usable for your body when it comes from animal products. So it's just about using the nutrients easily, right? And then also the bioavailable protein, which you've probably talked about. And the last thing is meat can be a really good source of phytonutrients too. It's actually like a photograph of the land. So when you get really high quality meat, then it becomes an even more nutritious food. So I was someone who avoided animal products for most of the food.

of my life when I was young, and I definitely think that I suffered as a result. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the first. fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. Well, it's funny, I feel like hopefully this is changing now, but when I was back when I was really starting to get into nutrition,

veganism and vegetarianism and also raw vegan were all huge back then. And I felt like there was this kind of initiation that would happen where you kind of went through, it was like almost different levels of like a video game, right? When you first got in the first level about health the nutrition, you just got immediately thrown into the vegan vegetarian world. And that's exactly what happened to me, where I was reading all these books about going vegan and how it was better for the environment. And I was reading about CAFOs, which were horrible, factory farms, which I still really believe in not supporting. But I just got down this different path where then I found myself being vegetarian for almost five years. And I greatly suffered with my health, greatly. I had

super dark circles under my eyes. I was really pale. I gained a ton of weight. Ironically, I lost a bunch of weight at first, and then slowly over the years I started creeping back because I just was starving all the time. Looking back, I never felt satiated. I never felt full. I was just starving.

I was eating nonstop and not getting enough protein. And by the way, you know, it's so funny because I feel like there's this narrative, oh, you just weren't doing vegetarian right or you just weren't eating, you know, the right foods or whatever. I was getting my master's in nutrition, studying it while I was doing this. And so I was, you know, food combining and doing the rice with the beans and the quinoa because it has the full spectrum of amino acids and, you know, doing all the right things and eating whole real foods and still gaining weight, feeling lethargic. I got horrible cystic acne.

I mean, I could go on. It just was not great for me. And then when I started incorporating meat back in, the weight went off like the, I mean, it was like overnight, not even trying. The cystic acne went away. My hormones normalized. My dark circles went away. Like, it just everything got better when I started eating meat again.

Isn't that amazing? Yes. Mine was about stability. I just was all over the place up and down all day long. And it wasn't until protein at every meal. And I was like, oh, wow, I have such stability. And I can be so productive now that I'm not just like managing my instability, essentially all day long.

So, yeah, I actually did a series called R rethink meat. And we went into all the reasons that people have been led to fear meat, and a lot of them are far less evidence in science-based than you'd think. So I'm glad the tide is turning and that people are understanding how important it can be. And like you said, especially when it comes from properly raised, sustainable, humane operations. And it can actually be a tool for good, even for the land. So yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. As I learned about regenerative farming, that was another thing that made me really passionate about meat and having animals as part of the whole ecosystem. You have to have them. Yeah. Have you heard of Alan Savory, I'm sure? No,

I actually haven't. Oh, really? Okay. So Alan Savory, and this is interesting because my brother-in-law was a generational rancher in Montana. His dad brought Alan Savory over to his ranch in the 1980s. But Alan Savory was a, he was a rangeland ecologist down in Africa, and they saw the land was desertifying, and so they had to figure out a way to bring the land back. And what he thought was what many people think is, oh, animals destroy the land, so we'll call 40,000 elephants. Oh, God. So they did. They did. And what happened was the land got worse and worse. And so what he developed was eventually called holistic management. And he found out that animals were

absolutely critical and essential for the environment, but it's not the animals. It's the way they were managing them. And so holistic management uses animals in those predator prey cycles. And he said it's incredibly important, especially in the most desertified areas. So it's just totally counter to the mainstream narrative. Like animals, when they are used right, they're not stuck in a factory farm or a feedlot. When they're moved, they are very, very powerful agents of positive environmental change. Wow. Well, that's the key what you just said, is that animals that are left to graze and do what they do, as nature intended, not locked up in little pins.

in the cave of factory farming. Yeah, and actually actively moved too because animals in the wild, they will not just sit in one pasture. So there can be like grass fed that's actually still creating environmental damage if they're not being actively moved regularly. So yeah, it's a really cool thing.

And when you get into regenerative, you get to meet all these little ranchers who are actually like scientists and just so incredibly passionate about all the positive change that you can create on the landscape when you just apply the regenerative practices. it's really exciting. I love.

Regenerative farming is my favorite thing to talk about. I know. It's so, I love it. Amazing. One of the things that I found so fascinating about everything we're just talking about is how bison will get like seeds in their fur. And so now some farmers do this. They'll plant the seeds on them, but this also just happens naturally in nature.

And then as they're going through the fields, the seeds are naturally being planted off of their fur. And it's planting more, you know, biodiverse grasses and, you know, plants and, And I just, I always thought that that was such a cool fact. I was like, wow, nature is so cool. Yeah, we're just never going to outsmart nature. No. We've been actively working against it, you know,

with this kind of like arrogant mindset that we can do better. And it's like, no, no, no, we got to backtrack on all of that. Because this diversity, this ecosystem restoration, it absolutely, we have to align ourselves with nature and learn from her. And I'm excited. Yeah, it's really cool to see that movement gaining a lot of traction too. I agree. I love it. So I'm curious, because I know you did a dissertation on this, what are the nutritional

differences between grass-fed and grain-fed beef? Oh, this is a fascinating project. So the Bionutrient Food Association, have you heard of them? No. So Dan Kittridge, he's creating a handheld meter because as you and I know so well, right now, the priorities in agriculture are yield, right? How much food can we grow? But what we need to do is we need to align it more with human health.

And so he's creating this meter where he'll be able to scan a piece of produce or a meat and it will tell you which is the most nutrient dense. I met him at an event recently because he was telling me about this. So I just didn't know his name. Okay. So, so. And Kittreda. Sorry if you're listening, Dan.

We met recently. He was telling me about this. Okay. So it's cool. So he partnered at 7-9 bleed at Utah State. And so they, in order to define nutrient density or make this meter, you have to define what is nutrient density within any one category of food. So they started with beef because it's such a commodity, right?

And so at Utah State with Dr. Van Fleet, we looked at 300 different samples and they're going worldwide. So our data set was only in North America and they just had farmers and ranchers, you know, submit three different samples. These were rib-eyes. And then we looked at from feedlots to what they call feedlot light to organic, to grass-fed and to beyond grass-fed with regenerative practices. And so what they found was there's like five really cool takeaways.

The first is that the omega 6 to 3 ratio, which I'm sure you've talked a lot about, it's pretty predictable. When they have botanically diverse pastures, lots of grass, it's very low, two to one and below. I even saw one with 0.6 to 1. But within the grass-fed category, because that's defined and often applied so differently, it was all the way up to 11 to 1. So crazy, right? Yeah, yeah.

So some grass-fed beef was actually higher than the average for. grain-fed beef, which was around an eight to one. And this was like fully gross-fed? They weren't getting any grains at all? Yeah. I mean, that's what they were saying. Wow. So they probably were getting, you know what I'm,

but this was what this study was intended to be was what is commercially available. So these animals weren't like in pens. This wasn't as highly controlled as other studies. This was like, what are people actually going to buy? Yeah. And there was some store-bought samples that we also used to round out the data set. So this is probably where those higher markers were coming from. I just say that because people are having grass-fed beef thinking it's all homogenous or the same,

and it's just not necessarily the same. But two to one and below for grass-fed and eight-to-one for grain-fed beef, which is interesting because chicken and pork, like 20-to-one, you know, often conventional. Even the grain-fed beef was like far lower than that. So I think that's interesting. That is interesting. Yeah. And the second one is that it was a meaningful source of omega-3 fatty acids.

So when people will push back that the absolute amount is in that high-reysmout. high in beef. But it was like 50 milligrams per serving. In the UK, anything above 40 milligrams per serving, they consider you can actually have like a good source of omega-3s on the label. And they've done, yeah, they've done some trials where they have people eat just grass-fed or grain-fed beef. And the levels in the blood increase significantly. So for people who don't like fish, I think grass-fed beef, awesome. Could be a potentially awesome addition, because we know omega-3s, we all need more of them. Saturated fat changed.

I thought this was interesting. Not all saturated fats are bad. You probably know that. Longer changed, saturated fats were higher in the grass fed. And more conjugated little olaleic acid, which you've probably heard about as well. And then the other cool findings were that the longer they were on the pasture and the more plants in the pasture, the higher the levels of omega-3s in plant form, ALA. And then the lower the omega-6-3 ratio. Just saying...

Fascinating. Yeah. So the beef that's actually good for... the environment is also good for the consumers. So there's also mineral profile we did, six times higher, selenium, three times higher calcium, two times higher copper, and 1.2 times higher levels of iron. So, and then phytonutrients.

Yeah. Definitely better. Well, yeah. I mean, and I think, and that is, you know, I say people do the best they can, right? And I think meat, any type of meat is better than a donut, right? But when it comes to eating this habitually, I think those changes can,

be big. They can make meaningful changes. And Dr. Van Blitz actually done some research where he had people do longer term trials where all they ate is grass fed or regeneratively raised food versus conventional. And he did see a trend towards lower markers of inflammation. And I also read a really fascinating study the other day, a girl named out of Montana, Megan Pearls, where grass fed or grain fed, the grass fed condition had lower insulin release. So interesting. Yeah, it is interesting. There's another trial. I wonder why. It must be all the nutrients that are packed in there. I think it was the leucine. Her hypothesis was that the conventional grain fed was higher in leucine, which is more, you know, animalic and like it stimulates insulin to a higher extent.

And also we have the phytonutrients that many people think of as like secondary compounds or plant-based compounds. They can be present in grass-fed meat to a fairly large extent. Some people have said, and I said on the Dr. Hyman show, that it was like eggplant or turnips and squash. And those amounts are the same as like something in lamb liver, though the forms do and can change. They're metabolized by the animal. So I just want to make that really clear. But it actually, it's a photograph of the land that you're eating, in other words. So all of those plant compounds, many of which we wouldn't normally consume can also become part of, in my mind, stimulating more microbial diversity in our gut and just, you know, more.

diversity in the world. And so I think it's a big deal. I love that. You've said this twice now, a photograph of the land, and I love that so much because to me, I just keep thinking, and then also the diversity of the plants that the animals are eating, I think so many people don't think about what your food eats. So like what your cow, for example, if you have a steak, what that cow ate before it ended up on your plate. And when I think about diversity, I think about regenerative farming, because instead of it being that monocrop agriculture that, you know, America is so unfortunately famously known for, in regenerative farming,

you have a diversity of so many different grasses and so many different crops and plants. So not only do we need to get a diversity in our diet, so do the animals that we're eating also. Absolutely. And that Dr. Fred Prevenza, he wrote, he's an amazing man from Colorado. And that's what he studied is the way animals, that nature is a pharmacy, right? And animals, when left to their own devices, they know exactly what they need, right? And they'll choose it and then they'll stop eating.

But when we put them in a feedlot, right? And then we tell them they only can have this. Sometimes they get sick. So, and they don't, they're not able to tell their body what they need. And they miss out on, you know, creating potentially more nutrient-intense meat and just having a better quality of life than animals just out on pasture. So yes, they need the diversity. We need the diversity. Right now, most of our diet, I think 75% of our diet comes from 12 plants and five animal species.

It's insane. That is insane. That is insane. And it is so scary. It's sad to think about. I know how our diet's gotten so, so, so small when there's like 200,000 plant species out there. Yeah. We're having like 12.

Oh, my God. Yeah. So. We need to do better, you all. We're going to, I think that we're on the cusp of change. I want to believe that anyway. Me too. I think so. I really believe that. I think there's more and more people waking up to it.

If my parents' friends are finally starting to talk to me about this kind of stuff, I... You've penetrated. Yeah, I know that things are working because I've been talking about this stuff for 15 years and they all look at me like I have, you know, foreheads. And now when I'm seeing my parents' friends out at, you know, various functions, they're coming to me about the headlines and stuff that they're reading. And I'm like, oh, it's really getting out there. Okay, cool. It is. I'm so encouraged. Yeah. It's all. Yeah. And I've been around 15 years too. Like I said, since 2007, that's more than 15 years. But yeah. It feels good. It feels good to be at this place. I think this is the task of our generation to fix this food system because it's creating so much havoc in every other aspect of our society. Well, we're all struggling physically, mentally, I mean, spiritually, we can go, we don't even need to go on that path. But yeah, like, it's very apparent that we're struggling on many levels right now with our health. And a lot of it comes down to our.

food and our food sourcing and how we are looking at food and how our whole system works. Yeah. And right now, like the food that we're buying is kind of like a down payment and we don't even realize that. It's not like the true cost. We're actually paying for it later in health care, environmental cleanup that costs billions of dollars, right, the destruction of our soil where 97% of our calories come from. And so we see this as cheap food, but it's actually like the most expensive of food probably ever made historically if you really consider all the externalities or how economists call it. Isn't that so ironic?

I talk about this all the time. It's there's no, you know, it's the saying that our parents used to always say to us. There's no such thing as free lunch. But that really is true because you're either paying for it up front or, you know, at the cash register. And people get so mad at you when I say this, but it is true. You're either paying for it up front or you're going to pay for it later. And it may not be monetarily, but it probably is going to be monetarily and also physically,

where you're paying for it physically in your own health and how you feel in your body. And then also you're having to then go to multiple doctor's visits and get on medication and possibly have a surgery. And it becomes exponentially more expensive. Yeah. They actually did an evaluation. I think that the average, the American consumers spent like a trillion dollars on food. But when they took all those externalities into account, it was actually $3 trillion.

It was three times. My God. They actually paid that the world actually spent on that food. So, yeah. I'm not going to believe it. I know. So crazy. I know.

We just create all this chaos. But it's why our food centers at the, or our food system is at the center of so much like potential like redirecting, redirection and like positive change. So I'm excited. Me too. I was curious to you. I meant to ask you this when we were talking about nutritional differences. But do you see a different?

between pasture-raised, grass-fed, or regeneratively-raised meat. And I have a follow-up question. If you were faced with just one, I get this question all the time, and I have to be honest, I don't know how to answer it all the time. If you're at the grocery store and all they have is either just organic meat or just grass-fed or maybe just regenerative, what would you pick? Ooh, that is a great question. Well, I would probably say regenerative.

And here's why. Because most of these regenerative ranchers, at least the populations that I've worked with, they're not going to be using antibiotics. They're not going to be using pesticides. They're probably going to have a very diversified pasture. They're going to be moving those animals regularly. So I think you kind of get all of those elements in the regenerative because I've just met so many of them and they're so incredibly passionate where there's good things about organic, good things about grass fed.

But as we learned in 2016, they don't regulate that term anymore. They're mostly affidavit-based claims, which just means they're like, what did you do? Okay, we're not going to check on it. And then there was this paper that came out in 2019 where they looked at 12 commercially available grass-fed. Have you heard about this one? No. Okay.

So they looked at the kind of the nutrient profile of these grass-fed pieces of meat, beef specifically. And they found that the omega-6 ratio was like 26 to 1 to 1.8 to 1. So they weren't eating grass because, you know, You know, all those different crops, like have a very distinct omega-6-3 ratio. So it was definitely grain-fed for the most part. So grass-fed isn't always a guarantee, unfortunately. And organic is great, but you can have a lot of grain.

And animals only have to be out on pasture for like 120 days cows per year. And screened porches are sometimes counted as outdoor access for chickens. So, yeah, I like regenerative. I'm kind of a – and it's hard to know, you know, what are their practices? exactly, but from the ones I've met, it's a pretty sure bet that they're not using pesticides and chemicals and that they're feeding their animals appropriately. I agree. And, you know, there is always the concern of, okay, are they labeling that and they're not actually practicing it? And, you know, I get a lot of concerns from people in my DMs about that. And I just say, you know,

I mean, you got to do your due diligence. Exactly. It's why for me, most of the time, I'm not buying meat from the grocery store. Right. I really, you have this illusion of choice, right? Yeah. And then there's four companies, four huge companies. that control 85% of the processing in beef. And it's almost as bad in chicken. I think it's like half. Four companies control half. And in hogs, same thing. So yeah, we're looking at, you know, I don't even, I don't even have to name them. But you've got a handful of CEOs in far off countries. Some of them, you know, China and Brazil specifically deciding how your meats raised and not really taking into consideration your community or the health ramifications of the way

that they're raising those animals. I mean, that's scary. It's very scary. That's why if you can find somebody local or also I love your meat company Wild Pastures, which in fact, we just got a box of meat from y'all recently. And I was like rationing it out with my husband because I was like, this is the best meat I've ever had. My husband eats a lot of meat. And I was like, stop. Wait, I want to eat something. I'm not joking. It's like the best meat we've ever had. It's wild, isn't it? I'm just telling you. That regeneratively raised meat is just different because I think all of that botanical diversity and the movement and the health of the animal. like they've actually shown the feedlot animals actually have a phenotype of like a couch potato, right? Higher levels of cortisol, higher levels of blood sugar and triglycerides or whatever. Whereas you have this kind of like athletic animal who's exposed to so many things. And yeah, the flavor is just, it's so profoundly different.

That is something I hear all the time. Girl, I was like, I was literally on the website, like adding more to cart because what was, there was one. Because an unfortunate thing that I've had during pregnancy is a lot of red meat has kind of been giving me the ick in this pregnancy, which is horrible. Yeah, I know how that goes. Because meat was that way for me too. I don't know what it, like, just a lot of the meat that we've been buying, I've been like, oh, and I've just been kind of forcing it because I think it's everything we've been just talking about. I'm like, it's so incredibly important for me to get it during pregnancy. And we got this I think it was the Italian sausage ground beef from y'all. Oh, I already added more to my cart.

I was like, what is this? This is so good. And the breakfast sausage. Have you tried the breakfast I haven't tried that yet. I'm not such a meaty, but it's just absolutely delicious. I can't even describe it any other way. But yeah, I think that that one will probably be more pregnancy-friendly for you too. That's one of our bestsellers. But yeah, I'm glad. And even just the stakes for people who aren't having the ick, they're just different, they're

flavorful. Dr. Provenza actually did some research as hypothesizes that all those different compounds actually improved satiety too, just like for the animal. Whereas so many people have told me too, I can eat less meat because, and feel so much much more satiated. So I thought that was interesting too. Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean, it makes so much sense. I think a lot of that satiety is just that we're not getting enough nutrients. And when you have enough nutrients, your body's like, I'm good. Exactly. It's exactly why when I was vegetarian, I was like, I've never been so starving my whole life because

I was nutritionally deprived. My body's like, you need more food because you're not getting all the nutrients you need. Well, we've bred it out of the food supply in a lot of ways. So remember 12 plants and five animals. Yeah. So this is getting thousands of those compounds back. into circulation. Yeah. I think so. So what would your, okay, so I guess your advice would be for someone who's maybe looking for healthier, more nutrient dense meat would be either find your local rancher, farmer,

which I'm always a huge proponent for, or ordering something like wild pastures, because you can order online and you guys ship everywhere, right? We ship everywhere. Yeah. Or, yeah, like you said, I love butcher's, local butcher's, local farm to table, you know, restaurants or farmers markets and just like immersing yourself in your local agricultural system. I just think that's we need these bioregional hubs. We need to take back control of our food supply because right now it's in jeopardy.

But yes, if you also want to do wild pastures, that's great. We ship to all the states, all 48 states. And it's frozen and just shows up. And it's specifically regenerative American ranchers because even 80% of the grass fed beef in America is actually imported from other countries. I know. So we were like, oh, no, we need American ranchers to be incentivized and to find that market. That's essentially why we did it. We had the beef stick and then we kept meeting these ranchers who were so passionate about regenerative egg. They're the ones who taught us.

And then they said, but we don't know where to find the market. We don't know, we just want to be watching our pigs or hanging. We don't want to have to find the market. So we decided to do that. And then also like democratize it, which is why it's a lot, lot cheaper than other meat delivery services too. So awesome. Yeah. I love that. Well, I'm so glad that that's available to us. I'm curious to know your thoughts on this. So there has been a lot of drama online lately about deli meat. Like there's literally been viral TikToks of people throwing away. They're like organic nitrate-free, nitrite-free. Have you seen this? I have not. How have I missed this? Really? The algorithm is all about meat and, you know,

you know, food. So what? Okay. Well, on what grounds? Okay. And let me be very clear for the listener because there's a lot of nuance here, but I think you're going to be able to speak to the nuance very well. We have known for a while that deli meats and processed meats are carcinogenic.

There was a really famous study that came out of France in, was it, 2022, something like that, where they were able to directly correlate processed meats to colon cancer. But they determined it was because of nitrates and nitrites. So what I have been doing for the last, I don't know, 15 plus years because I was on it even before that study came out because there's always been kind of talks about, you know, avoiding hot dogs and deli meat and all that, right? Because of cancer. So I've been buying Applegate and Organic Story deli meat and they claim to be nitrate and nitrate free, but they're using celery juice powder. Yeah. And there was recently something that came out and the whole internet like exploded about it.

And there's been all these viral videos and people throwing away their organic Applegate bacon and their organic applegate bacon and their organic. you know, true story deli meat. Is there truth to that? That's interesting, right? Okay. So that's, well, celery juice and we use that too. So I think processed meats are a spectrum, right? I agree. We just lump everything into one category. And then, yeah, so I think a hot dog made from a factory farm, right, with all of these additives, yeah, I'd probably not eat that. But something like a meat stick is made from grass-fed animal and then it's fermented and you just have spices. That's a very different kind of processed food. And so when it comes to nitrates, like Dr. Thomas, I think is Clairfeld. So he was kind of on that board when they made that delineation that processed meat

was bad. And he said, I think they only looked at like 18 out of 800 studies, right? And so, like, even that classification is maybe not as fool proof as we'd like to believe, right? And then you have nitrates and nitrates, which some people would argue, you have more nitrates and vegetables and in your saliva and that like maybe they actually have health benefits. Chris Cressor wrote an article several years back where nitrates might actually have health benefits. So I think the, just throwing the meat away because it has nitrates or celery powder, I wouldn't do that. That's not something that I would do. People get to do what they want. But I think processed meat is not processed meat is not processed meat. I think how it's processed,

what were the starting materials, I think those matter. And I think, like you said, Endorance, they're fermented sausages. They eat them every single day. it's a large part of their diet. I don't think that could be true if it was all processed meat was like a personogenic issue. I could not agree more. And this is my stance as well. And you also have to take into consideration that all these studies that come out

trying to claim that meat is cancer causing, they never differentiate between where the animal came from, what type of meat it was, to your point. So they never differentiate between the quality of the meat. And more oftentimes than not, they're just using conventional factory farm meat in these studies. And then to the point specifically about the nitrates and nitrites,

I really believe. And now I will say that this is just what I think and what I feel, because there's not studies, I don't think, that I know of the back this up yet. But I really believe that there's a difference between a chemically made, lab-made nitrate and nitrate that they're using in those meats versus the ones that we're using like celery juice or celery powder. I cannot imagine that it's going to break down

the same exact way because one is man-made, chemically made, and the other one is celery juice. It's naturally occurring in nature. Yeah, I would have to agree with you. I haven't seen studies on that, but I would say it's the context, right? Like, there are other compounds in there potentially that could lead to some different consequences. I believe, I think you're absolutely right about that. I think anything lab made, taken out of context, added to some factory-farmed meat with probably other preservatives and additives too. That's a very different food than a meat stick or a deli meat that, you know, or a ham that was cured in a traditional way that some studies would suggest actually have health

benefits. So totally different foods. I would, I would suggest that too. Okay. Good. So we're on the same page. I mean, I've still been buying those, the organic deli meats during pregnancy, gas. Oh, yeah. Oh, I would eat them all the time too. And I actually just had a podcast with Dr. Frederick Leroy. He is a fermentation and animal product scientist. Like, that's what he studies and he is of the same opinion. Fremented meats, traditionally cured meats, very, very different, need their own category than something like a poorly made hot dog from a factory farm. Okay, I love that. Yay. Okay, so there's actually another, there was some other drama online that I also wanted to ask you about. Okay, I'm excited. Which is the vital farm's

eggs. Everyone's throwing away their vital farms eggs now. Yeah. And there were two main reasons that I understood why people were up in arms about it. Apparently their Pufas were very high, which is polyunsaturated fatty acids, which is the ratio between omega-6s and omega-3s. And people were also concerned about them maybe not being as pasture-raised as they claimed. What do you know about this? Ooh, interesting. So pasture-raised, that's one of my kind of, like, misleading labels

because it's really not clearly defined by the USDA. They're moving towards a more clear definition where you'd have, like, 51% of their life would be, have to be on pasture. But I don't know exactly what Vital Farm says, but I'm pretty sure that they're not out on pasture all the time. And I don't know, I've heard people say, well, they've been clear about that. Vital Farms has never claimed that they were 100% pasteurates anyway.

But is that true? Because I don't think that's true. Yeah, I don't know. I think they have claimed that they were. 100%. Yeah, they might have, or maybe people were feeling misled by that. But yes, but a lot of animals, chickens in particular, they need some supplemental grain.

too. So that's not out of the ordinary. But I do think the omega-6 is what they were mad about the polyunsaturated linoleic acid specifically. I think it was the ratio was similar to that in canola oil. And hey, I'm someone, obviously we did research on the omega-6-3. I think that's the future. I think the future of animal products where we've kind of changed the way we raised them, we've bastardized it. And we are eating a lot more omega-6s as a result, mostly from seed oils, but I think animal products play into that too. Yeah. And yeah, that ratio is just indicative that they're probably having more grain than you thought they would. And yeah, if you eat it once and a while, maybe not a big deal. But if it's something, if it's a staple, it's something I might

be careful about too. So that's kind of my stance is I think it's sad. And I think there's a lot of other companies who are paying a lot of attention to that ratio and maybe Omega-3 enriched. I think Omega-3s are super underrated. Seventy-five percent of people are deficient in them. And so if you can get some from your eggs or your animal products, I think it's a worthy effort. So those are kind of my thoughts. I agree. Yeah. The egg one is harder. I will admit, because I've gotten a lot of messages from people and I share the same, what's the word, like uphill battle, I guess, if you will, because if you just go to the grocery store and you're trying to buy eggs from there, like, how do you even know if they're going to be

high in polyunsaturative fatty acids or not? I started ordering from this company called Nourish, and I was getting their eggs where they're soy-free, corn-free, and they claim to be really, really low in Pufus. It's N-O-U-R-I-S-H. I haven't been ordering from them recently just because life has been so crazy, and we've moved like four times. It was just hard to keep up with mailing my eggs.

But if you're really concerned about that, they do ship everywhere, and they're very conscious of that. So I think you're right. I think it is something, and also, too, to your point, that Americans are getting so many polyunsaturated fatty acids now. Yeah. I'm of the opinion that it's not so much that these poofas are really bad for us. I think it's that we are way over consuming them.

Exactly. We should be consuming them in a ratio of like four to one. And we're consuming them like 25 to one right now. I know. It's wild. And did you know, I don't know if you've heard about this. In France, they have this blue blanc core, this like new kind of set of guidelines where,

which I really hope becomes a thing in America. where everyone's testing, like animal products, they test for their nutrient levels. And I think they have like a cutoff, like a five to one or four to one cut off for the omega 6 to 3 ratio. I just, yeah, I hope that becomes a thing because I do think a lot of unnecessary inflammation, potentially other health issues could be tied to this incredible imbalance that we have historically that our genes just have been adapted to yet. Are there labels that you trust, let's say like organic, grass fed, regenerative?

And then are there ones where you're just like, I don't trust this, I don't think they're regulating it enough. Yeah. Okay, great question. So the ones I trust, I love third-party verification, and most people would assume that our meat labels are third-party verified, but they're really not. The Animal Welfare Institute did a report, and they looked at, I think it was 50% of the meat labels didn't have an application, and another 30% lacked sufficient substantiation. So essentially, like 85% according to this survey, were not accounted for. They lacked sufficient substantiation of the claims they were making. So anytime you come in with a third party,

you just have another layer of protection. So that would include things like American Grass Fed Association. Love them. Yes. So cows, pork, bison, goat, that's a label that I always look for. There's also organic. We'll have that third party inspection too,

but it won't necessarily have the grass feeding. But if you like the third party. So I like those. I love like organic, Regen organic and some other, I don't know land to market, but regenerified is another. Yeah, regenerified. I've been seeing more of their stuff recently. Genified is another one that I like a lot.

You know which one I also look for a lot is glyphosate residue free? Yeah. And there's more of those popping up. Yes. And there's also Clean Label Project, which I trust too. If I see them, I usually feel pretty confident about what I'm buying. I like, and the ones that I'm always leery of, natural, of course, that means nothing. hormone-free.

It's like on chicken. That doesn't mean anything. Yeah, when they put it on chickens, I'm like, that's been illegal for a very long time. Vegetarian fed, that, you know, that means they're definitely not on pasture. When I see vegetarian-fed on eggs, I actually put it back on the shelf.

I'm like, oh, no, that's a bad sign. And they're not eating their worms and their, you know, their bugs and they're just pasture because they would be. Ever thought that was a good idea? It was insane. Okay. I don't like that. The antibiotic free, that,

I like that, the idea of it, but I think the execution, sometimes there was a report, I think it was in animal products, maybe beef, 600 different animals. And even in the no antibiotics ever program, like 15% had, you know, antibiotic residues. So organic would be better. But yeah, just a no antibiotic random claim might be hard. Might be something you want to look a little deeper into. And then grass fed, right? Grass fed is not always regulated, something you want to verify.

and pasture raised. Cage-free, free range. Cage-free just means the animals aren't in cages. It doesn't mean that they're out on pasture. And free range often just means that they're like, they have like a door somewhere where they could go out but don't necessarily actually live outside or spend much time there. So this is a topic that I feel so passionately about.

It's funny because I was going to ask you this next. So I love that you just brought it up. These are those terms where you see them and you think that you're doing well by these animals, them and they mean absolutely nothing. And you can go, I have gone to the USDA.gov website and I've read all the parameters of it and it's actually, it makes me bad. And it's really upsetting because the cage-free to your point, like you said, it just means they're not in cages. They're all living on top of each other in warehouses, thousands of them. And then free range is honestly exactly the same except for they were required by law to have a tiny little door with a little outdoor access.

there's so many chickens in those warehouse that about 90% of them, this is not a real statistic, I'm just making it up. But I'm just saying that majority of them are never even going to find that door to go outside. But a company can have a huge warehouse and they can have this tiny little door with a tiny little outdoor access. And they can say, well, they had access. They just didn't go outside. And they can call that free range. Isn't that sad?

It makes me so mad. I know. And just until very recently, the cool of the country of origin labeling, too, you could have an animal import. and then just repackaged the United States, and it could say, made in America. It's dicey out there. You've got to really know, yeah, ideally know your farmer and rancher, and if you can't, that third party kind of layer,

or just ask farmers. There's so many farmers and ranchers, if you can get their ear, bend their ear, they'll want to tell you about their practices. And a lot of them just can't afford these really expensive certifications, but they're still doing things in a way that you would probably be very excited about. So just speaking to them directly is also really important. And also you just brought up something that you unlocked a memory for me, having a conversation with Will Harris about this recently.

And I'm curious if you know about the country of origin. So this is something that he went on a beautiful, amazing tangent with me one time where I was like, my jaw was on the floor. I did not know this. And I'm going to get part of it wrong. So hopefully you know, because I don't remember all the details. But basically what he was telling me is that with ground beef or with, I guess, any meat, but specifically it happens a lot with ground beef. you can have it come from a bunch of different countries and they put it all together. But I think if it's packaged in the U.S., then they can say made in the U.S. or product of America.

Is that right? That was exactly right. I was horrified by that. It's horrendous, right? But January, 2026, that was supposed to change. So hopefully this is changing now. But the thing to note is that it is still voluntary. So it's not something that's required, you know, that you don't have to know where it's coming from.

And I think there's still a lot of imports. Like I even said, even in grass-fed beef, 75% of it is coming from another country. So do you think that there's a world in which it's coming from another country and they're just saying that it's grass-fed and then they're not checking it? Because I've heard this too about other, not specifically about meat, but I've heard it about other things like, let's just say grains, for example, where we're getting it from other countries and they know that America's not super strict about checking on it. So they'll just say, yeah, this is organic.

And then they just say, this is organic. And then America doesn't check it. and then we stamp it with organic and we let it through. I do. I wish I didn't. But I feel like that's been, I think people have been called out for that exact scenario. Definitely.

I can't remember a specific instance, but I would absolutely say that's probably happening. It's so horrifying because we're getting meat products from China and they're like, yeah, just tell them it's a grass fed. They're not going to check. Stamp, grass fed. It was packaged in America.

Product of America. But meanwhile, the meat came from China. Yeah. And even when they do the testing, right, they can't test everything all the time, right? They're just testing like a sample set, you know. So yeah, I do think that's probably happening, unfortunately. Which is exactly why these local sustainable food systems are so important. So incredibly important.

This is why we say on almost every podcast, support your farmers, support your rancher, support American companies like wild pastures that you know are sourcing from America and you know that they have their cows and, you know, all their animals on, alternative farms and they're coming from a good quality place. Yeah, I think it's, like I said, I think we all vote every single day, whether we know it or not, about the food system that we'd like to have. And so, yeah, any vote as small as you can, you know, any type of vote in the right direction for the right system is it can move the needle. And I think especially if so many people are paying attention now.

Yeah. There's a huge opportunity. Thank God. Thank God. And it doesn't always have to be more expensive. No. My mom was a part of a meat co-op in San Antonio. And a rancher would come to like a place in San Antonio and everybody would meet him like, I don't know, every couple weeks or something.

And she would get her meat locally from a rancher that would bring it in. Oh, yeah. A lot of times it's a lot more expensive because of the markups when you have to go in the grocery store and right. And then they have to add their costs on top of it. But yeah, you can absolutely get especially this is maybe if you add organ meats. Do you know what I mean? If you're eating, you don't always need to have the steak, right? Just have the ground beef or have the tougher cuts and get out.

that crock pot. And like, there's a lot of ways, like, we have a lot of $20 meals, right? We have what we call like our pizza beef. We just have like ground beef and then we add like our pizza sauce and then we make like a vegetable. They're just like super simple meals. But like, yeah, it doesn't have to be like this elaborate, super expensive ordeal. You can get them cheaper cuts and organ meats. That's a lot of make for your book right there. So it's really just about eating strategically too. I love that. Yeah, it's so true. I really. I really. want to talk about glycine because I've heard you talk about this and I've been taking glycine most of my pregnancy for a multitude of reasons. One of them because apparently it also helps

with detox. Oh yeah. And it helps with sleep. Can you tell us more about glycine and why we want to take it? Yes. So glycine is something that we will consider non-essential, right? It's a non-essential amino acid because our body can make it. But in 2009, this paper came out and said that the amount we make is not necessarily tied to our metabolic demand, right, if we weigh more than 90 pounds. And most of us do. And it's this kind of like 10 gram a day gap that people are missing. And when we stopped eating bone broth and eating collagenous cuts and eating the animal from nose to tail, glycine got kicked out of our diet. So I got really introduced to the concept by this guy named Dr. Joel Brind and he wrote the book Glycine Miracle. So he was studying methylene

restriction in animals, which we know. Methyane is like an amino acid you find primarily in muscle meats, right? And you can extend the life of animals if you restrict methanine. But what he was thinking is, oh, I know that glycine helps the body to get rid of methyonine. I wonder if we just added more glycine to the diet. If you could do that without having to restrict methanine

because it's difficult and it also restricts growth. Anyway, he found out that adding glycine did improve longevity. But the most important thing he discovered is that glycine acts like a trigger lock. When you have amounts way above and beyond what most people are consuming, it stabilizes your immune cells, the macrophages. Now, I think the implications of this are just, they're truly, truly

profound. I've had like 10 conversations with Dr. Brind on my YouTube and thousands of people who've taken glycine, less pain, I'm sleeping better, I'm feeling better. There's just like thousands of comments. So yes, we know it's for sleep. We know it's an inhibitory neurotransmitter, so it kind of like calms the brain. They've actually used it in things like schizophrenia and Yeah, definitely helps with a detox. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about this too. Yeah. So the glycine and glyphosate conversation, have you heard of this? A little bit. Yes. Yes. I'm glad you're bringing this up. Yeah. So Dr. Stephanie Seneff and Dr. Klinghardt, I believe, have this theory, Stephanie's

theory that glyphosate actually is a glycine analog, meaning it looks very structurally similar. And it can get like, it can take the place of glycine in your body, which glycine is the third amino acid in collagen. We have more collagen than any other protein in the human body. So it's in our gut. It's in our bones. It's in our connective tissue. And so it's in our skin. So potentially they believe that glyphosate is getting incorporated into these proteins,

not only structurally, maybe creating problems, but also a lot of amino acids have like signaling properties, right? too. So he thinks that Dr. Klinghardt now, when you flood the body with glycine, you can potentially displace the glyphosate. And it's kind of like a way to protect yourself. It's a theory. It's theoretical at this point. I would love to be able to find a way to actually do that experiment. I've thought through this and I have a few interested parties. But he recommended, I think it was four grams twice a day, which is really interesting because that is eight grams, 8 to 10 grams is exactly what Dr. Brin recommends as well. Okay, so if that's actually happening, then theoretically we could be getting glyphosate

out of our body by upping our glycine intake and it would replace. Yeah, and I listened to an interview with Dr. Klinghardt, and he'd actually tested the levels of glyphosate in the urine as people did the glycine protocol. And they did. They went down? Reduced. Yeah. I think he used a few other things, too, in addition to glycine.

But yeah, he's a big detox guy. So we do know that something's happening. But it also, glycine is important for detoxification in general. So it could be something along those lines, or it could be knocking the glycine out and just making sure it gets eliminated more quickly. I don't know, but I think that glycine and the deficiency people are suffering from because almost no one is consuming enough. Definitely not eight to ten grams a day for most people.

It is a huge, underappreciated problem. But I think the biggest story around it is that inflammatory piece. because Dr. Bryn says that our macrophages essentially have two modes. They have the rend mode and the mend mode. Have you heard this? No. Okay. So essentially our macrophages, which are our immune cells, they can travel many

different places in our body. They're found almost everywhere. They're kind of our first responders. So say you get into a car accident and if they're in like the rend mode, that would be like someone coming and not asking what happened, not taking names, not cleaning up the scene, just shooting people up, shooting things up, right? So they have that cytokine release and they're just overreacting. And that cytokine release, that inflammatory response that creates a lot of collateral damage.

But if you're in the mend mode, you come in, you figure out what happened, you help clean up. And so the thing that keeps those macrophages in the mend mode is this glycine-gated chloride channel. Oh, cool. So when you have enough glycine around, it kind of allows chloride to go into the cell, which keeps it in a negative state. So it kind of hyper-polarizes it, keeps it quiet. It's like giving a baby a pacifier. So it's not going to explode because there's enough glycine. So that little immune cell just goes on happily.

Now, in the event of like an actual infection, you will still get that the appropriate response because that's a time when you would want that response. But when it's an unnecessary response, like you hit your leg, you get a burn, whatever. You're out on the sun too long. Dr. Brin's self-experimentation would suggest that he gets a gets sunburns, but he doesn't get the pain, right? He falls on his tailbone and he's able to dance that night. And I would say that's an anecdote, but I've heard it from so many, so many people.

And I've experienced myself, right now I have a really gnarly burn on my leg and it's annoying, but it's not really painful. And I think a lot of it has to do with me taking a lot of glycine. Actually, I only eat my glycine. I don't actually supplement with it. So I was going to ask you this because I want to know how much of a certain food or what foods we should be eating to upper glycine levels if we don't want to supplement it. Yeah, absolutely.

So bone broth is number one and gelatin. So in like a tablespoon of gelatin, you can get like a gram and a half. Okay. So you can just put it in water, literally, a few times a day. You'll make fun of me for doing gelatin gummies, but you can do that too. I love gelatin gummies. They're great. I know.

I recommend it. And so I was like, grow up. I'm like, what do you mean? I love a little honey. Why? Yeah. But anyway, so gelatin and bone broth, like I said, you're great. can get like two to three grams in a cup of bone broth. So I'm on a three day plan, three cup a day plan.

But also call collagenous cuts. So you can do like ox tail. Like I like to slow cook once a week. Or you take that whole chicken carcass, right? And you make a soup or you know what I mean? Like you eat the meat and then the rest becomes a soup kind of like a broth. Also randomly like pork rinds have a ton of glycine. Yeah. You really do. And chicken skin. Okay. Any kind of skin. So it really is just being mindful of bringing that whole nose to tail element back. So not throwing, you know, the bones out.

Actually, it was funny because Dr. Bryn said in our last conversation, cutting the whole animal out, cutting the glycine out of our diet, that's the worst kind of meat processing that there is. That's really fascinating. I thought that's kind of interesting. Yeah, I liked it to do it. It's true. So yeah, because methionine is balanced by the glycine.

So yeah, I think if people have trouble. sleeping or a mind that just won't shut off. Actually, metabolic. This is another really profound thing I've noticed. And there's research to suggest people actually reverse their diabetes technically with just supplementing with glycine. Even though they didn't lose weight, their A1C just came into a normal range. And if you ever wear a CGM, which I'm sure you've done a million times, and you have bone broth or glycine, I've only done it with bone roth. It brings that blood sugar down so quickly. Wow. I've never heard that. Okay, that's really fascinating. Yep. So I do a, it's like a pre-meal. I kind of do a pre-meal thing. Like if I'm going to eat out, right?

Yeah. Maybe theoretically it's going to keep glyphosate residues out. It's also going to prime my digestion and it's going to keep my metabolic health. So yeah, that's my pre-meal. Okay. Yeah. How many grams of glycine do you think roughly would your bone broth protein have in there? It's about two to three grams. Okay. In a cup. So that's why I do three a day. Okay. Do you do three a day of the bone broth protein? Yeah. I do two. I do two. two in the first thing in the morning to get or not first thing in the morning whenever I start to get hungry and then I do a nightcap because glycine has also been shown to improve sleep quality. Yes. Yes.

So and also glycine and glutathion. I don't know if you've talked about this, but it is one of the, probably the most rate limiting amino acid in the production of glutathion. And so I don't know if you've seen those trials where they supplemented with Glynec. No. Okay. So this is a big thing too. So Glynak is glycine and NAC?

And in accystine. Okay. Yeah. Exactly. And they did it in older individuals and younger, but it was able to reverse nine different hallmarks of aging. So it's like really kind of revolutionary. And glycine is the one that is in shortest supply.

Cystine's a little bit easier to get in the diet. So I just think that is also a testament to potentially how powerful just getting enough glycine is. For sure. Well, and I think it's a testament too of, you know, kind of what we've been saying this whole episode is that we're not getting enough diversity in our food anymore and that also pertains to meat. Because you think about our ancestors, they were eating nose to tail, what you just said earlier.

They were eating the organ meats. They were eating everything. They were eating the skin. And now we're not eating any of that anymore. We've been trained just to eat the muscles. And we are starting, I think, hopefully, as a species and a society waking up to the fact, oh, wait, we messed up on that. And we should be eating the whole spectrum. And why are we throwing food away, right?

No. We're wasting like a third of the food anyway. And that's just another way to make it a lot less expensive. Yeah. So you get a whole chicken, you eat the organs if you're up for it and you make a soup and you boil the bones. And yeah, I think, yeah, that's just another reason things have gotten so expensive for us because we're just eating the muscle meats. Yeah, we need to get back to that. I will admit, I am so squeamish about organs.

I do the organ capsules because I just blah. Oh, I know. I have such a hard time with it. No, I know. Me too. My husband tried to sneak it into, you know, burgers and things. And actually, he did make our pizza beef the other night with our primal blend. Oh.

First time I didn't taste it. But it has to be very diluted. Yeah. I mean, otherwise, it has to be a capsule. I know. Chicken liver for people. Chicken liver is definitely milder. Heart, tongue, mild.

If you want a gateway organ, that's the way to go. Which I've had, but I just could not. I also just have this like mental thing. I could not get over the fact that I was eating chicken hearts. Like I had a friend who's a really amazing chef and she makes. a lot of like organ meats and made me chicken hearts and I was like I'm really struggling with this right now and but like it was crazy it's such a mental thing because the actual taste was fine right yeah but it was I was like I'm eating hearts oh I know it was a shift for me too

palpable I don't know you when you um the way that I feel when I eat them is very different I had a crazy zing of energy I was like woo let's do this me too I don't know if I can eat that again, though. Like a little dance party. I know exactly what you mean. That's so funny. Research around that too about the curing anemia. Had you heard that?

No, I haven't heard that. Okay, so back in 1934, there were three scientists who won a Nobel Prize for the finding that beef liver cured pernicious anemia. And I've so many people who do the organ meats, well, many many people have been able to get off like iron infusions. Now, it's because of the copper. It's because of the B12. It's because of the vitamin A and the iron. So it's not just iron and isolation. Again, it's that synergistic presentation of the nutrients that makes the effect in your body so different and unique.

Which brings me up to the next question. I was going to ask you, what are your thoughts about supplementing with actual supplements versus getting everything from your food? Yeah. Well, I'm a stickler for food first. Because I just think there's, when we did our trial 30,000 compounds just to, in beef. So to think that we're going to recreate that in a pill, I just think it's really short-sighted now. There can be a time in a place when you have a frank deficiency, maybe you're

pregnant, and you're like, I just have to be sure, right? And then, yeah, maybe, but you have to, you can also get it from food concentrates, right? Or I like, you know, a brand called Naturalo. They actually do, like, food-based nutrients. I do think, like, more of the synthetics, you know, A lot of them are made from petrochemicals and a lot of the companies making them are actually owned by pharmaceutical companies. And so, yeah, I think there's just so much variation in the quality of supplements, but I will always be a food first girl whenever you can. I think you're just going to get so many side benefits. Well, and to your point, you just said this, but I want to elaborate a little bit more is that I think as we learn more as a species about food and about science and everything, I think we are. are learning or hopefully people are learning that we actually don't know that much.

And I always think I always use vitamin C as a perfect example for this. So we have been told that vitamin C is really vital and this is the one thing that we really need from oranges. And I always think, are we missing something else that's in the orange that works synergistically with the vitamin C that actually is what we really need in our bodies? And that's just one example that you could just copy and paste to everything where I just think like humans in general, we, we tend to be really arrogant and think that we know. Yeah. And we don't know a lot. We don't know. And did you know that there's research around that? And

like almost all of vitamin C on the market is made from genetically modified corn. Like over 90% of it. And they did a trial where they gave someone Camus Camus juice, which is just a very highly concentrated vitamin C fruit juice. And then the equivalent dose of escorbic acid, which is the man-made vitamin C. And it was only the Camus Camus that was able to reduce inflammation and oxidative stress. That's interesting. So yeah, and probably those polyphenols, right? Yeah. It's those entourage compounds, the things coming along with the vitamin C exactly. That really amp it up. And just to be clear, because I feel like people will come from me, I'm not saying that vitamin C is not good for you. I'm just saying that like we could have gotten it wrong that just supplementing just vitamin C is not the route to

go, that we actually need all the polyphenols and everything else that works synergistically. with the vitamin C in that fruit is what we really need. Yeah, and I will admit, too, like when you're out of balance or high-dose vitamin C for some people, I'm a proponent. For sure. Me too. And in cancer cases, 100%. That's what I'm saying.

I think there's some really interesting uses of even industrially produced vitamin C. Yes. But on a daily basis, I think there's additional benefits when you can get it from Whole Food for sure. It's so cool having you on the podcast and talking to you and that I get to say this to you, face to face. But I don't know if you even know this, but Paleo Valley was one of the first sponsors I ever got from my podcast like five years ago. Yeah. I just adore you guys. I love your company. And I'm truly not just saying that because you're here. You've been a sponsor for so long because I love y'all so much. I love your bone broth protein. I love your approach. I love the supplements

that you make because they're all whole food supplement based. Like just everything that you guys make is so in alignment with what I do because it's all very just basic, simple, real food and it makes our lives a little bit easier. Your bone broth protein is so good. My husband and I fight over the salted caramel like every day. I'm like, don't eat all my salted caramel. Oh my gosh. And you just wait, we just approved a chiro flavor, a strawberries and cream and a pumpkin pie. Oh my God, I'm freaking out. Oh, my God. See that. I'm so glad you like, and if you take the chocolate and you put just a little bit of the sea salt with caramel. It's like a caramel mocha.

Oh my God, that sounds so good. And yeah, we've been fans of your work from the very beginning. So thank you for all you done. Yeah, our approaches are just so synergistic. We're really, really excited that we actually get to be a sponsor. Oh, thank you. Well, it means a lot. And like I said in the beginning, your meat sticks are my favorite.

I love putting, I put the bone broth protein in my coffee a lot. The vanilla one is really good in coffee. Mm. Mm. It tastes like a coffee vanilla milkshake. It's so good. I can't speak highly enough of your products. I just love them. Oh, and you know what I saying?

Something we've recently realized that gets our glycine back into our diet, other than just like drinking it is if you cook ground beef in the savory flavor, it's incredible. You can cook rice. You can cook vegetables. Oh, my God. When you cook the meat in it, it's got this like flate. It's just like so satisfying.

I can't even tell you. It just like upgrades every single dish since we've started doing the savory. So I'm going to start that tonight. You got to. You have to. Yes, we're actually working on a lot of like ready made meals and all of them. Like we're really working hard to like get the glycine back in the diet. So we're using that as a base.

Yeah, we've gone through a lot of stuff. I feel like it's very well-rounded conversation with a lot of fun. So you can go to paleovalley.com slash real foodology and you get 15% off your first order. And then if you go to wild pastures.com slash real foodology, you get 20% off for life and a bonus $15 off your first purchase. That is awesome. Please, everyone, go check out Paleo Valley, go check out wild pastures. I mean, we've talked so much in detail about my favorite products. So go check them out the meat sticks, the bone broth protein.

Our food bars are another huge product. And electrolytes. So we have like a whole food version of electrolytes that's not so high in sodium. So not for necessarily athletes. It's just a little bit lower. And it comes from like seawater. And I make something called my electro tea every morning. if you add it to tea, it's like a flavor kind of explosion.

And it's another one of those ways that you just kind of like flood your body with nutrients for singing more. That's my favorite. Oh, I love that. I'm going to steal that from you. And we do have a protein coffee coming out soon. Oh, I'm excited. I know.

Oh, and our sleep protein. Yes. I didn't tell you about that yet. I just got that in the mail. Let's talk about it because I haven't taken it yet, actually. Okay, great. So this is interesting because glycine, as we've been saying, already naturally promote sleep. It's in collagen.

We were like, oh, this is the perfect foundation. So then we just added other elements. that were natural and that would cinnamon that supports stable blood sugar. And then a phytomelotone. I don't know if you've talked much about the difference between melatonin and phytomelotone. No. Oh, it's really interesting. So phytomelotone is like a plant derived melatonin.

Ours is specifically from tomatoes, which naturally contains melatonin. Now, why that's unique is because it has, again, entourage compounds. So it's not just synthetically derived melatonin. It has lycopene from the tomatoes and gaba. and it's in a more physiologically compatible dose. So you'll see melatonin 5 to 10 milligram doses, which is just not what your body would normally produce. It's more like 0.1 to, you know, 0.8 milligrams.

And so we went with the 1 milligram. So it's something that your body would recognize. Then we added tart cherry, of course, and Rishi mushroom, and then magnesium from seawater. And you have to drink. It's strawberries and cream. That's the flavor. So it's like a little strawberry.

shortcake latte, but you have to take it an hour before you want to go to sleep because it will it will make you tired when I was taste testing during the day. It didn't ever end well. So definitely wait until you want to wait until you want to go to bed. Okay. Yeah, and it's seven grams of protein, which is really cool that you can get like another, I don't know, for those of you trying to increase protein. Yes. I know everyone's really obsessed with getting more protein in for good reason. Yeah. But what are some quick hacks on how to get more protein in your diet every day. Okay. So my first rule is just like how I meet my protein goals.

It's just like 30, 30, 30, 30, 10, right? If I'm having three meals, that's just like you eat the protein, like a palm size amount of protein at every meal. My rule is if I'm snacking and I don't want to eat protein, I probably don't need a snack, right? So there's that. And then I start my day with two scoops of bone broth. You can do, and you can just drink bone broth too, right?

Yeah, I know. It has a lot of protein. That's like 26 grams of protein. And then to your ground beef. If you add that savory bone broth into the ground beef, you're going to have another 13 to 15 grams of protein right there. So I start my day with bone broth and then I end my day with bone broth. And that is, if you do it the way that I do, that's 40 grams of that glycine-rich protein. And then during the day, like I said, my snacks are always protein.

So they're deviled eggs. They're meat sticks. Sometimes I eat herring out of the can. You know, I just, I'm always snacking. And then last is just at a meal. I eat the protein first, right? It's not that I only eat protein, but when you do that, it becomes far easier to kind of reach that goal.

But it is for me, it's a lot. Like, I've been told I need 50 grams of protein at a meal, and I can't like eat 50 grams of, you know, like I can't eat that in all like an animal product. So adding in bone brother sneaking it in is like, it's been really helpful for me because I try to get to 100 grams a day. Me too. I struggle with that if I'm being honest.

Yeah. That's why. That's why I asked you because I'm like, how are all the girls getting 100 to 120 grams protein a day? And I feel like I'm doing so many different things because I'm eating animal products. I'm eating meat. Something I've started incorporating during this pregnancy. My biggest craving this whole pregnancy has been dairy. And I never used to eat dairy before this.

Not never, but it was just very rare. I'm eating so much dairy. I know I would eat. This is something my husband made fun of me for. I'd get to the store. I'd get a block of cheese. have to eat it in the car from the meat right now. Stop.

Please don't eat it like that, but I couldn't. Like cheese, I could not get enough. I could not. I just can't get enough of it. And the yogurt. Great way. Oh, yeah, yogurt. I mean, there's so many benefits, like, of those fermented foods.

We didn't even talk about the trial where they showed that fermented foods lowered inflammation in a way that fiber didn't. Like 19 different markers of inflammation went down with fermented foods but didn't with fiber and increased microbial diversity. So, yeah, if you can do a yogurt, oh my gosh. And that's so protein rich. Cottage cheese. Oh, my goodness. I'm loving cottage cheese right now.

Seriously. Yeah. So I don't do dairy now because it makes my nose run. But when I was. It happens a lot of people, I think. Yeah. But for most people, oh yeah. If you can rely on dairy, especially cottage cheese and yogurt.

I've been loving it. I'm having no side effects, no symptoms. I think my body is just like give me all the dairy right now. Well, yeah. I mean, the nutrients in there. And then during pregnancy, I think your immune system is a little bit less on high alert. Yeah. That makes sense. But yeah, I relied on dairy.

Almost exclusively. Cheese. I love cheese. Especially the first trimester when I really, like I'm okay and I can eat meat now, but my first trimester, I had such an ick for meat. I couldn't even smell it. My husband would hook steaks and I would have to be upstairs. I was just like barfing.

I was like, oh, I hate it. Now I'm good. Like I can eat it now. I just kind of, but my first trimester, I was just eating all dairy. I was like. That is because it was exactly the same. It's so weird. anger in me when I'd come home and he'd be cooking.

He's like, what are you doing? He was like, just cooking you a meal? Yeah, I don't know. I'd love to know what that is. Yeah, well, and you would think primally that it would be the opposite that our bodies would want it. I've heard that maybe it's more contaminated food or historically less safe, maybe. I wouldn't say that's true today, but who knows?

It's so strange. And then second trimester, it was like I was good. And then I went back to eating normal. But yeah, I was just basically subsisting on. like cheese and cottage cheese and I don't know it was crazy and yogurt it was like calling my midwife like I'm not getting any diversity and she's like you're good just get through the first trimester and then you'll be fine and that's so true yeah that's what you got to do just do what you got to do with the first man yeah it was wild well just in the essence of time um I could talk to you for hours

I loved having you on this was so much fun so I'll have to really glad I came have you back on yeah Thank you so much. Please let everybody know where they can find you. Plug wild pastures, all of it. Palyvalloy.com, wildpastures.com, wildpasturesburgr.com, if you're in the Boulder or Fort Collins area. But yeah, and you can always reach out to me at autumn and paleo valley. And then I have a YouTube too. Awesome. Yeah, where we interview all the, we get very deep into the, to the nerdy stuff.

But it's a good time. Love it. Thank you so much for coming on, Autumn. This was so much fun. Thanks, Courtney. I loved it. Thank you so much for listening to the Real Foodology podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson.

The theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to WellnessLoud.com. See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't

constitute a provider-patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca.