Realfoodology - Eat More Salt with Dr. James DiNicolantonio
Episode Date: April 13, 202289: We dive into evidenced based nutrition - more specifically why we should all be eating more salt with Dr. James DiNicolantonio. He is a cardiovascular research scientist and doctor of pharmacy at ...Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, and author of The Salt Fix and Superfuel. He serves as the Associate Editor of Nutrition and British Medical Journal’s (BMJ) Open Heart, a journal published in partnership with the British Cardiovascular Society. He is the author or coauthor of approximately 200 publications in the medical literature. He is also on the editorial advisory boards of several medical journals. He has shared his expertise on The Dr. Oz Show, The Doctors, and international news media outlets.He’s also the author of The Salt Fix, The Immunity Fix , The Longevity Solution , The Mineral Fix , Win and Superfuel. Check Out Dr. James: Dr. James' Instagram: @drjamesdinic The Salt Fix The Mineral Fix The Immunity Fix Superfuel Win The Longevity Solution Check Out Courtney: Courtney's Instagram: @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database Further Listening: Reversing Climate Change Instead of Just Stopping It Organic For Everyone: Quarter Pounder with Cheese Why Grass Fed Meat is Going to Heal Our Earth
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on today's episode of the Real Foodology Podcast.
And so we're very susceptible to losing it,
and we lose a lot of it just through sweat.
And you can become rapidly depleted in salt
on like a hot summer day.
So like, it's one of the only nutrients
that within literally an hour or two,
you could die from loss of this nutrient
simply because it's just too hot out.
That's how basically susceptible we are to cell
loss. Hi friends, welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology podcast. If you are new here,
welcome. I am your host, Courtney Swan. I am the creator behind Real Foodology, which
was a food blog about 10 years ago. It has morphed into an Instagram where I educate people on evidence-based nutrition and more
recently this podcast. So welcome. I have my master's of science in nutrition and integrative
health. So that's kind of where my background is. And I just have a real passion for helping
others and unraveling the food industry and just unraveling all the lies that we have
been told about what truly means
to eat healthy and to live and be healthy in this modern world. Speaking of unraveling food lies
that we have been told, I am so ecstatic about today's guest. I interviewed Dr. James D.
Nicolantonio. You may know him for his books, The Immunity Fix, The Salt Fix, The Longevity Solution,
and Superfuel. Today, we really dive into the salt fix and what we got wrong about salt.
Well, friends, it turns out that we have been demonizing the wrong white crystal.
We have been so focused on vilifying salt as the contributor to hypertension, which is high blood pressure.
We have vilified salt as being the bad guy in the story, but it turns out that salt is an essential mineral and we all need it. So telling people to
cut back on salt is actually detrimental to our health. And Dr. James and I go into all of the
science and research to back this up. The studies, This man is very well-researched. I highly recommend reading
his book, The Salt Fix, because what we go into is just the tip of the iceberg. If you really want
to get into the studies and read the science behind why we need salt and why we're vilifying
the wrong white crystal, I highly recommend reading the book. We answer all of your burning
questions, like how did we get here?
How did we start demonizing salt in the first place?
Does it actually contribute to hypertension, high blood pressure?
What about salt and bloating?
This is a big one, and we talked about this.
We talked about processed foods being really high in sodium.
Should we be worried about that?
What about iodized salt? And what is actually really to blame? While we have been so focused on
blaming salt, we have been completely ignoring this huge part of the picture.
We even talk about how lower salt intake actually promotes weight gain. It revs up your appetite for
unhealthy foods. And we go into
all of that. And at the very end, I was asking him about seed oils. I know this is a huge topic
of discussion right now. A lot of people are confused on sunflower oil. I hope by now everyone
knows that canola oil is really bad for you. Also, uh, rapeseed is another oil. Um, well,
rapeseed is canola oil, but companies have now caught on to the fact that we are
trying to avoid canola oil. So a lot of them will write rapeseed oil. That's the exact same thing as
canola oil. And also sunflower oil is popping up in a lot of quote unquote healthy foods. And we
talk about why all seed oils are actually not good for you. So stay tuned to the end of the episode
for that. All right, we're going to get into the episode. I just have one favor to ask of you. If you are enjoying this podcast, could you do me a huge
favor and just take one minute to leave a rating and review? I would appreciate it so much. It
helps the show grow. And as the show grows, it allows more ears, more listeners. And that is
ultimately my goal because I'm hoping to get this life saving information into as many years as
possible. So I really appreciate you guys and your support and thank you so much for listening. And
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I am so excited to have this conversation with you today.
I originally found you because a friend of mine who's a doctor recommended the immunity
fix to me, which I actually have sitting right here.
And then I didn't realize I put two and two together that I was already following you on Instagram. I love your Instagram. It's so informative, so informative, such a great
follow. And then I just finished reading the salt fix and I want to dive into all of that today.
So for everyone who does not know who you are, can you tell everyone a little bit about your
background? Sure. So I graduated from the University of Buffalo with my doctor of pharmacy.
And shortly thereafter, I took a position as a cardiovascular research scientist at St. Luke's Mid-America Heart Institute. So I have published a bunch on nutrition and nutraceuticals and
nutrients and things like that, including on salt and a lot on E vitamins and things like that.
And so I've published probably about 300 academic papers
in the medical literature.
So a lot of my background is on cardiovascular health
and then sort of applied that to athletic performance,
which is why I put out this most recent book called,
The Win, and that goes into a lot of hydration and salt.
And then I'm also the associate editor
of UK's largest open access cardiology journal. It's called EMJ open heart.
Wow. That's pretty incredible. So I just mentioned this, but I just finished reading the salt fix.
And this is something that, um, you know, I've over the years had read and kind of unraveled
for myself, this narrative that salt is really bad for you,
but it was cool to really see the science behind all of this and how we got to this place of demonizing, in your words, the wrong white crystal.
So for people that have not read your book, let's start from the beginning.
How did we get to this point where we started demonizing salt? Most of the demonization for different dietary substances, whether it be salt or saturated fat,
stems from the 1977 dietary goals, which then translated and turned into the dietary guidelines.
And then based on that, those were just updated every five years.
And we need to understand that the Cochrane group, who is like the experts in basically meta-analysis, where they gather all the data from randomized clinical studies, that actually didn't form, that group did not form until after 1990.
So any type of dietary recommendation prior to the formation of the Cochrane group is really just going to be based on expert opinion and not actual good clinical evidence.
And that's exactly where most of our nutritional advice stems from is simply expert opinion. And so really a lot of it has to do with the fact that in certain people with high blood pressure, lowering salt intake has been shown to lower blood pressure.
And then that was translated into the general population, which of course has nothing. They have not the same responses in the slightest as someone with high blood pressure.
How did you originally get to this point where you, like, how did you start unraveling this
and discovering this yourself? When I was practicing as a community pharmacist,
a lot of my patients were put on low salt diets or put on diuretics to excrete salt,
and they felt terrible. And they really asked me, like, is this necessary? Do I really need to be restricting my salt intake? Like I'm craving salt. My body feels like it wants salt,
but my doctor keeps telling me to like, just limit it to just limit it as if it's not some essential
mineral.
And so when I would push back and sort of have my patients go back to their doctors
and talk to them about this, as soon as they introduced salt back into their diet, they
instantly felt better.
A lot of times their atrial fibrillation would improve dramatically, if not completely go
away.
Their dizzy spells or passing out or f if not completely go away. Their dizzy spells or
passing out or fainting would go away. So what I was seeing in clinical practice didn't match
what the guidelines were stating. And again, we need to understand that the actual
level of evidence for limiting salt is based on level of evidence C,
which is simply just expert opinion. Wow. It's so interesting. You know,
there's this doctor that I follow who says this who says this often, and he says, logic is fast and science is slow. And what he means by that,
you know, obviously is that, um, sometimes like our intuition will know first before the science
has time to actually catch up to it. And that has definitely happened with salt because like you
said, like you were literally witnessing patients craving salt. I mean, I think all of us listening probably at some point in our lives can relate to like really just you're like, why I'm craving salt so bad. Why? And that's that, you know, our body's innate need for that really important mineral. So where, so obviously they did studies that then made them conclude that salt was actually
what the problem was.
Where, how did these studies come to this?
How did they come to this?
That salt was the problem?
Like what were these initial studies?
What's really interesting if you look at like some of the earliest systematic reviews
and meta-analyses of salt restriction in people
with normal blood pressure there's really no reduction in blood pressure when you limit your
salt intake and so it really doesn't apply to that population if you have what's called
pre-hypertension or high blood pressure there is some data that reducing your salt intake may lower
your systolic blood pressure by like 2%,
which is essentially, I mean, you can, you essentially get twice the benefits
or twice the blood pressure reduction by increasing your potassium intake
rather than restricting your salt intake.
And what's really interesting is that I've argued this point many times
that even if you get a reduction in blood pressure,
you're simply dehydrating the
person. You're just dropping their blood volume. So I don't think that's actually a good reduction
in blood pressure. And most of the studies, really, a lot of the evidence was based on
salt-sensitive rats. So there was a guy named Louis Dahl, and he was a doctor that practiced in the fifties and sixties and he could not make salt, make rats
hypertensive when giving a normal amount of salt. So he decided to give like 10 times a normal salt
intake. He still couldn't do it. He had to breed genetically susceptible sodium sensitive rats to
do it. And a lot of that evidence got translated into humans.
Is there any human that a low salt diet does work for? Like, is there any clinical setting that you do need to go on a low salt diet? So I would say it's very nuanced in the fact that
for every single person, when you sodium intake below 3 000 milligrams of sodium
which is like one and a half teaspoons when you start going below one and a half teaspoons i don't
care who you are all the artery stiffening hormones like renin angiotensin 2 aldosterone
they all start to go up as well as insulin goes up, total cholesterol, LDL, and triglycerides.
In other words, like low-salt diets have all of these harms. And then in a certain subgroup,
there may be some benefit. And it's like, how do you know if all those harms are actually
outweighing some of those benefits? It's very hard to say. When you look at large population studies looking at 24-hour
urinary sodium excretion, which is a pretty good measure of intake, we see that between 3,000 and
5,000 milligrams of sodium consumption per day is where people are at the lowest risk of death,
the lowest risk of cardiovascular events like stroke and heart attack. And so when you go below
3,000, you are increasing the risk of dying and
increasing the risk of a heart attack and stroke. Now, who could potentially benefit from a low
salt diet? I honestly don't know, because you first need to address the three main factors
that might make salt somewhat harmful. And I say somewhat because it is an essential mineral that
you have to get. You have to get some amount of salt no matter who you are. One would be insulin resistance due to a high
refined sugar and carb intake. So in other words, if like 80% of people who are salt sensitive,
if they just drop their refined carbohydrate and sugar intake, they'd be able to probably
tolerate a normal salt intake just fine. So if you were to eliminate refined carbs and sugar, get a good
amount of potassium, get a good amount of magnesium, there's probably virtually very few people that
would benefit from a low salt intake, except for people with maybe genetic issues or certain kidney
issues, because a lot of kidney issues actually cause you to be unable to reabsorb salt in the
tubules of the kidneys, which causes a lot of salt loss.
And it's actually, as we age, we become less and less good at reabsorbing salt, which is why so
many people that are older become so dizzy or they fall a lot is because they can't hold on to the
salt that's in their blood very well. But there are certain kidney diseases where you over-retain salt and fluid.
And then in those certain instances of going on a maybe moderately restricted sodium intake may
have some benefits. That's so interesting. So for everyone listening, so that we understand
why salt is so important, what role does salt play in our body?
Well, we wouldn't have a blood pressure
without salt. Um, and we need a blood pressure in order to, you know, basically circulate nutrients
and oxygen to all our organs. Um, so salt is composed of sodium and chloride, which are two
essential minerals. Sodium's primary role is to control blood volume and blood circulation and
nutrient delivery and oxygen
delivery. So you can actually contract a muscle. So your neurons can fire, you need sodium to come,
you know, basically into the cell and you get like these depolarizations and action potentials
that all require sodium. Chloride, which the other 60% of salt is another essential mineral.
And it makes up our stomach acid, like hydrochloric acid.
The chloride, chloride is what makes up half of that acid molecule.
Um, you also have, uh, hypochlorous acid, which is secreted by our white blood cells to kill off basically pathogens requires chloride.
So if you want to have a good immune system, you have to have a good amount of salt to actually kill pathogens. And then there's
something called taurine chloramine, which is another molecule secreted by our immune system.
And that chloride is part of that molecule, which we get from salt. And that helps to actually
reduce inflammation after the white blood cells have basically you know, basically used hypochlorous acid
to kill off pathogens. Wow. Well, and sodium is considered an electrolyte, right? Exactly. Yeah.
And it's the main electrolyte because it's the main osmotic electrolyte. In other words, like
not everything that dissolves in the blood can actually move fluid, even if it dissolves.
But sodium, meaning like sodium has that osmotic gradient that it drives.
In other words, like it's hydrating.
Like if you want to hydrate your cells and your brain and all your organs, you need a good amount of salt.
And the key here is that like we cannot manufacture salt.
In other words, like,
if you don't get enough salt, that's a problem, your body just can't make it. But if you get too
much, you can just pee out what the body doesn't need. In other words, it's better to go a little
too high than a little too low. It's funny, I was just gonna ask that question. Is there a point
where there's too much salt in the diet, but you just answer that. So you would, your body would essentially flush out the excess. Exactly. So in the sulfics and you're
well aware, since you read the book, I talk about how like our salt intake has actually gone down
since the invention of the refrigerator, because we used to use salt as the main preservative.
So like in Roman times, we used to consume like three times as much salt as we do today.
And in other Scandinavian countries in the 1800s, we used to consume actually up to 10 times what we consume today.
So like we're not even consuming a high amount of salt compared to what we used to.
Yeah. And you talked about how there is this correlation of the rise of like insulin resistance and disease as we, as our salt intake has gone down.
Yeah, there are, there are at least 14 human clinical studies confirming that low salt diets
induce insulin resistance, increase insulin and glucose responses to an oral glucose load,
um, and increase fasting insulin. And part of the reason is because the kidneys use insulin to retain salt. So if the
body doesn't have enough sodium, the insulin levels will go higher and you'll become more
insulin resistant to try to hold on to the salt that you lack. So getting normal amounts of salt
is one of the best ways to improve insulin sensitivity. It's so interesting in that,
I mean, if you just
think about it, you know, common sense from a common sense standpoint, it makes sense, right?
If your body is in this, um, you know, scarce mentality of like, Oh God, we're, we don't have
enough salt. It's going to hold onto it instead of just allowing it to do its thing. And you know,
if it's getting ample amounts of salt. So what about, you know, I hear girls talk about this all the time when, um, when they're
complaining about bloating, right.
Or like rings, not fitting, like actually this ring is like not really fitting me right
now.
Why, why do people link that to salt?
Is that linked to salt consumption or is that something else happening?
Okay.
So it's a good question.
Um, swelling is typically due to expansion of what's called the
interstitial fluid or the fluid surrounding tissues. Salt can increase the fluid in the
blood, but that's not where you get, you see swelling. In fact, swelling cannot typically
is actually not enough salt because salt is needed to move fluid where it's supposed to go.
And if you don't have enough salt, it can start cooling and lead to edema and magnesium deficiency
can cause this as well as can thiamine deficiency, but essentially swelling is nothing to do with
too much salt for most people. Okay. Yeah, that's interesting. So what would I tell my girlfriends? I'm trying to apply this
into real life because I was recently out with some friends in Mexico and everyone was complaining.
They're like, oh, I'm so bloated. I've been eating so much salt on this trip. Like my rings don't
fit anymore. What's like kind of a skimmed version that I could tell people that I can say like,
that's actually not really true and don't limit your salt consumption because it's really bad for you.
Yeah, well, I mean, there were experiments done in the 1940s showing that not getting enough salt
actually leads to swelling and edema. And so I think for a lot of people, a lot of that is due
to not enough potassium, not enough magnesium, not enough vitamin D1,
because your body should be able to handle salt well. You should not swell from consuming a normal
amount of salt. That's actually an indication of potentially other issues going on, maybe even
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So I, um, when I was getting my master's in nutrition and I started learning about salt
and started kind of unraveling this narrative around demonizing salt, there was one thing that I kept hearing all the time.
And it was that salt itself was not the issue, but it's all these processed foods that are really high in sodium.
And after reading your book, I'm having a hard time even applying that because I think we can both agree that processed food is not good for
you. So this is not an argument for processed foods, but is there a truth behind that or are
they just still trying to kind of demonize sodium in the wrong way? Yeah, I don't think there's much
truth to it because salt, even if you were to consume a quote unquote high amount, that amount
has been associated with the lowest risk of death and heart attacks and strokes.
So I don't think it I personally don't think it's the salt that's the problem.
It is usually the sugar and the refined carbs, which cause some people to over retain salt. If you think about it from like an evolutionary perspective, like if you're consuming a whole nutritious diet, it's going to be very low in salt because we no longer consume the entire like animal.
We're not consuming the blood.
We're not consuming the interstitial fluid, which would have given us a ton of salt.
Like if you see a pack of lions before for them to get to the meat, they're covered in salty blood. Like they're getting
a lot of salt when they consume true nose to tail. We don't do that anymore. So unless you
add salt back to your diet, you are going to be in serious trouble because you're not going to be
able to get a lot of salt if you're consuming real whole foods.
God, I love your work so much because salt literally makes food taste better.
This is incredible, you know, and it's, yeah, I just love this so much because it's really important for people to understand.
And it's making food more enjoyable again for people, you know.
Think about everyone that has been cutting back on salt for so long.
They try to limit the salt they put on their food.
I don't.
I'm very liberal with my salt after I learned all this.
But, yeah, it's just um
it's very freeing I love it so how do you feel about iodized salt because this is another one
that I learned in school was that um you want to avoid it because with iodine we know that it's
imperative for thyroid function but for some people if their iodine is already super high
there's a very delicate
balance. So from what I understand is that you want to avoid iodized salt and make sure that
your iodine levels are okay. And you want to be consuming more Himalayan pink salt and sea salt,
but what is your take on that? Right? That's true. Iodine has a small, what's called neurotherapeutic index meaning basically the RDA for iodine for most
adults is 150 micrograms when you go start to go about twice that like 300 micrograms or higher
that can start causing some issues in certain people um you know, particularly with the thyroid. So yeah, it is a narrow therapeutic
index. That being said, some people don't get enough and others get too much. So a urinary
test is probably the best way to know like what your diet is for iodine. And if you're not getting
enough, maybe you want to consume more iodine. But if you're getting, I would say 300 micrograms or
more, then you probably want to cut back because you really want to stick between usually 150 to about 250 micrograms per day.
Otherwise, you can be increasing the risk of Hashimoto's thyroiditis and some other issues.
Okay.
I mean, again, this is just another argument for bio-individualized diets. You know, we, we try to take a blanket statement, um, for one nutrient
that we think everyone needs in the population, for example, with iodine and depending on where
your individual iodine stores are, it could be really harmful actually. And the thing is too,
is just like with, um, the supplies of salt too, not just iodine is how athletic you are and how
much you're sweating per day. We do lose a bunch of minerals through sweat, primarily salt, but we also actually lose
quite a bit amount of iodine.
And if you are someone who works out every single day and you're constantly sweating,
you are losing anywhere from 50 to 100 micrograms of iodine per basically hour of exercise.
And we also lose salt through coffee intake. So we never used to
as a species until, I don't know, maybe a hundred years ago or so, consume like caffeinated beverages.
And so coffee, four cups of coffee causes us to lose about half a teaspoon of salt.
And so, I mean, coffee is the second most consumed beverage in the world. And so most people are actually on diuretics because they're consuming, you know, fair amounts of coffee.
Yeah, that's a great point. I just had my coffee before this interview. So I'm going to, I'm going to up my salt intake after.
There you go. that was done, I believe it was in the 70s. And they, they basically found that it was heart,
sorry, that it was sugar that was leading to heart disease. And they paid off these Harvard
scientists to say that it was fat instead. And then this is how we got into this whole low fat
movement. You mentioned something in the book, kind of similar to where they tried to demonize
salt instead of what they were finding, which was actually sugar. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. I mean, it's so the sugar industry and the food industry funding scientists
is still going on today. There are many very prominent scientists that are publishing,
you know, meta-analyses on sugar, that it's not bad. And they've literally received hundreds of
thousands of dollars in either grants or direct funding from Big Food, from sugar.
So it's still happening today.
There was actually an article in The New York Times, I think in 2017, on some of these like really big experts on exercise.
And they were paying them essentially to shift the blame away from sugar that were not exercising enough.
And I believe it was An a hot O'Connor who
wrote that article. So that was pretty eyeopening, but yeah, in the fifties, sixties, seventies,
the sugar industry was paying some of the leading scientists at the time to basically write review
papers that it was saturated fat. That was the issue and not sugar in regards to, you know,
causing, you know, heart disease.
Yeah. It's so frustrating and we know that it's still happening today and it just makes it so hard to really truly know, um, what good information, you know, like what you're
getting and how to navigate this. Cause we're all just trying to get healthier. And, um, you know,
the food industry is notorious for doing this. I remember,
in I believe it was like the 90s, or maybe like the early 2000s, when soda was starting to be
really demonized and mainstream. And they had these campaigns come out where they were basically
blaming the public for not having self control. And they were also blaming the public for just
not exercising enough instead of actually saying like, okay, well drinking these super sugary beverages are
actually harming your health. They were saying, oh, it's fine. It's all part of balance. You just
need to exercise more. It's so infuriating because it, yeah, it just creates so much confusion.
And then we don't allow people to actually understand what's truly detrimental to their health so that they can make the best choices for their bodies.
Yeah, totally. So, I mean, one of the easiest things you can do is simply to look when you're looking at a paper just to look at the conflicts of interest, which are supposed to be disclosed.
And that can kind of give you at least a decent barometer if this scientist is funded by, you know, the food industry or not. And then if they
are funded by the food industry, then you, you want to be just extra scrutiny on what their
conclusions are. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and for me, I don't know, this might be controversial
to some, but for me, I also like to use my intuition as a guide. I like to take a step
back and really think about it and, and think about it
from a logical standpoint, right? Like we know that sodium is imperative for keeping us hydrated.
So if you logically think about it, and again, I like to apply this to many things in life. If the
earth gives it to us, it's probably good for us. Right. You know? Yeah, totally. And what's really interesting, too, is if you look at human beings as a species compared to any other species, there's not a single mammal that loses as much salt as we do in order to cool off.
So we sacrificed essentially a really good ability to dump heat through salt loss and evaporation of fluids we sacrifice that ability so we could
actually tolerate high heat so we can basically persistent hunt animals for a very long time
so so like as as humans we can track down very fast animals we can just basically hunt them down
until they go to exhaustion because they cannot lose salt and fluids and cool off like we can
um so we are very susceptible to salt loss more than any other mammal.
I mean, the only mammal that comes eating somewhat close is a horse.
But even horses only lose about half of what we lose in regards to salt just to cool off.
So we need to sort of think of ourselves as like, we're really like these walking oceans.
And we use salt to basically move almost every single nutrient in
and out of the body including glucose including amino acids and we also use it as a primary way to
basically lose fluid to cool our bodies off and so we're very susceptible to losing it and we lose a
lot of it just through sweat and you can become rapidly depleted in salt on like a hot summer day. So like
it's one of the only nutrients that within literally an hour or two, you could die from
loss of, of, of this nutrient simply because it's just too hot out. That's how basically
susceptible we are to salt loss. Wow. That's so interesting. Does sodium,
this might be a really dumb question, but does sodium naturally occur in water? water. Um, but yeah, I mean, when you're talking about just typical fluids though, you know,
there's not a whole lot of sodium. We would have gotten it through consuming animal nose to tail
through, um, blood, which is extremely salty. Um, it's 3,200 milligrams of sodium per liter,
which is like one and a half teaspoons of salt per liter of blood.
Okay. Wow. That's so interesting or mineral water, water, I'm assuming, right? That
comes from like fulvic, um, areas and stuff like that. Yeah. There are certain, um, there are
certain waters that are very high in salt, but typically when you're talking about just like a
freshwater body, it's not very, very high in salt. Um, but it's, it's sort of interesting to think that from an evolutionary time that we, we consume blood. I
mean, we, we just did. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's tough to wrap your brain around because the
thought of doing that now I'm like, whew, but I mean, you know, it makes sense. Yeah. I mean,
most African tribes, like, um, they'll actually cook their food in blood, um, because nothing goes to waste.
Whereas nowadays we're just, just eating, you know, muscle meat.
Yeah.
And we're so far removed from it now, you know, I mean, I love this new movement of
people trying to get back to eating as close to nose to tail as possible, you know, eating
liver, eating all the organs, um, because we're missing out on a lot of the really,
uh, really amazing
nutrients and all of that. Right. And what's interesting too, is a lot of the studies and a
lot of the people that are super like into paleo and we should follow what we ate ancestrally,
which I do think there makes a ton of sense. A lot of the original papers, they never took
into account the fact that we would follow animals directly to salt licks and consume salt directly, nor did they ever take into account the fact that we would consume salt through blood.
So those early estimations of what a paleo person consumed in regards to salt are so much lower than what they actually probably consumed. Yeah. Well, and to a lot of people don't take into account that
imagine, you know, back then people weren't traveling all around the world to different
continents. And so you were eating what was available to you in that climate that you were
living in. So paleo looked different depending on what region or what continent you were living on.
It's very true. Yeah, it's really interesting.
I want to go into what is really to blame.
You kind of touched on this a little bit,
but I want people to really understand this.
So what happens with sugar, or I'm sorry,
what happens with salt as the insulin rises in your body
and then leads to this cascading effect of craving more sugar?
And can we
go into that? Yeah. So in regards to craving sugar, low salt diets can actually induce an
increase in addiction to things like sugar to even prescription medication. So the animal studies
show that if you lower their sodium level in their blood or you induce salt deficiency, you activate the dopamine reward system in the brain because there had to be a way for animals to seek out salt when they don't have enough.
Otherwise, they would die.
And the way the body works is when you don't have enough salt, the dopamine reward system in the brain becomes hyperactivated so that you it out. And that when you get it, you get like this nice rewarding sensation. That's what
prevents animals from dying of salt loss is the activation of the dopamine reward system.
The problem is, is now we live in an environment where we have really highly refined, super
addictive substances that can now hijack that dopamine reward system that used to prevent
us from dying from salt loss. Things like sugar, prescription medications that are already
addictive. And so not getting enough salt can actually increase food cravings,
increase sugar cravings, and increase addiction to things like sugar and medications,
which is interesting. Yeah, this is really interesting. So I remember
from your book, so you you basically said so insulin rises as if if you're in salt deficiency,
because it's a protective mechanism. So then what happens is you have an out of control appetite,
and then something that you called internal starvation. So you're literally starving on the inside, which is then
promoting weight gain. I didn't never, I don't know, I was really blown away by this because
I feel like I was really putting together a lot of pieces as I was reading your book, because
I know that sugar consumption is not great for us, especially in the high quantities that we're
eating. And like you said, our palates are being hijacked with all sorts of different stuff. So
now our innate ability to really tap into what our body is truly craving has been completely
messed up.
But seeing that connection of, so now people are consuming lower salt for the most part,
if they're following the standard American diet and trying to be quote unquote healthy,
and then they're consuming more sugar.
And a lot of them are now in a pretty
constant chronic state of high insulin levels. And then you just have this repeating cycle of
more cravings for sugar and for these processed refined carbohydrates. And then we're wondering
why we're dealing with an obesity epidemic and a whole population that is really addicted to sugar.
Yeah, I mean, and it's so funny.
Like when you think about it,
we're talking about things that I think intuitively people understand.
Like don't eat refined sugar.
Okay, duh.
But like it's hidden everywhere.
And so, you know, it just becomes a habit that people, you know,
buy these packaged foods and start eating them.
And then after a few weeks and
months, they're like, why am I putting on weight? Well, it's because you're getting all this added
sugar, seed oils, you know, all these other substances that are hidden in there and you
realize it. Yes, exactly. Well, and like we keep saying, you know, your palate was hijacked. I mean,
I talked about this on another podcast recently. I was around some friends that
were eating like ruffles and Doritos and stuff. And you know, I, like everyone else used to love
those. And I took a bite of one and I was like, I mean, I almost spit it out because it tasted
like chemicals to me now. Because I don't eat that kind of stuff anymore. And so my palate has
completely changed. And I think what happened is a lot of people don't understand that their palate has been so hijacked by these highly
processed foods that they, that you don't even realize, um, until you start to unravel all that
and you start eating actually real food that hasn't been, you know, put in a lab with, uh,
scientists that create this like perfect bliss point. that's going to, you know, cause all
the neurons in your brain to go off and cause you to be addicted to this food. Yeah, totally. And I
mean, a lot of people struggle with sugar, quote unquote addiction. And it's sort of like, I kind
of view it like alcohol, not everyone becomes an alcoholic that drinks alcohol. But there are
certain people that consume sugar that simply cannot do it because
they will just be out of control in consuming it. And so we need to understand sort of like
what is causing sugar cravings. Sometimes your body literally is low on glucose and like one
tablespoon of like raw wild honey is going to really help you out. And you actually need
some healthy sugars. Um, and I'll use like berries or clementines if I get a sugar craving,
because I know that I'm probably just, um, just low on my carbohydrate intake.
So it's like, I don't want people to feel bad when they have a sugar craving. It's like,
find the healthy foods that provide natural sugars, um, to sort of get you over the hump.
Yeah, absolutely. It's more about,
okay, well, I'll use myself as an example. So when I was in college, looking back, so I didn't know
at the time, but I was severely addicted to sugar. I could not go a day without buying some sort of
candy, whether, you know, it was like gummy worms or my favorite were peanut butter M&Ms. And I mean,
even like saying this out loud, I'm horrified by it because I don't touch any of that stuff anymore. Um, but I mean, I would literally, I was so addicted to
sugar. I would drink a vitamin water every day. And those things have the same amount of sugar
as a can of Coke. And I did not know. And I thought I was being healthy when I was drinking
it. Um, I was so addicted to sugar. Like I said, that I had to have candy every day. It's stuff like that where you feel like you're almost a prisoner of your cravings that it starts to become a problem.
Totally.
Yeah.
And I mean, I think most of us like grew up on drinking like Gatorade or like Nesquik or whatever.
And so we were just like integrated with with like liquid sugar from from the womb,
literally, like I'm my mom, she like she told me like, James, I'm sorry, but like, I drink Pepsi
all the time, like when you were in the womb. And it's like, you know, we're being like sugar
bombed before we even like come into this world, which is kind of crazy when you think about it.
And then that sets your cells to sort of like needing sugar because the body becomes more insulin resistant and it can't really utilize fat and proteins as well.
So that's why you crave sugars.
And there's also obviously dopamine and glucose responses too and the crashes that kind of cause you to keep consuming these high sugar foods.
Yes, and you touched on something else that you wrote about in the book that I really want people to understand. So when insulin is elevated, um, your body is not able to utilize fat and protein
for energy. And so the only way to get energy is through these fast carbohydrates, right?
So the body can, can always utilize fats and proteins to a certain extent, but yes, the utilization is definitely
significantly decreased. And so the body is now relying more on glucose for fuel. And that's why
your body's craving that substance more because it's just, it's not able to use fats and proteins
as well. So I found this really interesting. And again, it was another part of the book that I was like, oh, I'm putting all the puzzle pieces together here. So when I was trying to get off my addiction
of sugar, um, oh, also at the same time that I was, you know, that I was talking about the
candy and stuff, I had to have dessert after every single meal, quote unquote, had to,
this was like part of my sugar cravings, right? It was like, I just had to have something sweet
all the time. Um, and, and by the way, I'm, I'm not claiming to be a perfect human. Of course I still,
you know, eat dark chocolate and all that stuff, but it's, it's, I have a different relationship
with sugar now than, than I did. Um, Oh God. And where was I going with that? So with my cravings,
Oh, okay. So when I started reading about sugar and the detrimental effects on the body,
I started getting really interested in keto diets because what I wanted to do is I wanted to train
my body to be able to utilize fat for energy instead of always just relying on glucose.
And I remember in the beginning, um, I was so lethargic. I could not do it. Like I, I still,
to this day, don't really do keto, but I try to eat more keto stuff
and my body now utilizes fat, um, for energy. But I think it explains why my body was in this
perpetual state of needing these fast, this fast energy, the fast carbohydrates that I wasn't even
able to utilize the fat and the protein in order to create energy. Right. Yeah. And I think that's what a lot of people struggle with.
And the term metabolic flexibility has been thrown around a lot.
And really what that is, is it's the ability to utilize either glucose or fats when you
need to for fuel.
And that's just something important, not just for like on a daily dietary basis, but also
for athletes as well.
They should
be able to use both fuels, whether you're working out fasted or working out with complex carbs in
the system. Absolutely. And I think it's important for people to hear that and understand because,
you know, I think we're so inundated. Everyone's like, go keto, eat less sugar. And then a lot of
people come back saying, man, that did not work for me.
It didn't, it, you know, it wasn't good for me. And there is a lot of truth to that. But I think
also to what people are in understanding is that it takes a while for your body to acclimate.
And if your body is really used to just subsiding on carbohydrates and, you know, glucose,
it's not going to work right away. And I think what worked best for me, so now
I am at a place where I'm very metabolically flexible. And I know this because I had one of
those glucose monitors, the continuous glucose monitors for a while. And I was really excited
to see the results of all the hard work I've been trying to do for the last, I would say it's been,
you know, probably a four year journey of me, um, wean myself off of my sugar addiction and getting to a place
where I really don't eat as much sugar when I do. Like you said, it's, um, organic raw honey.
I love Manuka honey. Um, I love to eat dark chocolate. I try to, um, really just not eat a
lot of sugar in general. And as a result, my body is able to utilize fat and protein better for energy. And
also when I do get a higher level of glucose, it doesn't just send me spiraling, you know,
like crashing and then craving more sugar later, my body is able to utilize it healthier now.
But it took a long time to get to that place. Right, exactly. So I guess the key is, is that
it can be being consistent,
small stops for people, it might take a couple months, but you can get there.
Yeah, absolutely. And just, for me, the biggest thing was understanding what foods were best for me to eat. And just slowly changing my palate and, you know, eating healthier. I said this in the
beginning, I really love your
Instagram and I love everything that you talk about. You emphasize a lot on just really easy
steps that people can take to overall better their health. I love your posts where you say,
get vitamin D every day, try to get sun in the morning on your eyes, eat steak and eggs,
eat more salt, make sure that you're getting good
sleep. Can you talk about a little maybe like five things that people can do, they can start doing
that will really, really better their health and that are, yeah, easy to incorporate into their
lives? So when it comes to sort of like satiety, the two main factors in the diet that induce the best satiety is protein and fiber.
So that's really what I try to sort of focus on.
I try to consume about 50 grams of protein per meal.
I try to consume about you know, maybe I don't really set a target for fiber, but I like to try to get
like one or two greenish bananas or like some lightly cooked potatoes into the diet because
to offset the acid load from the animal foods, um, because the kidneys only have a set capacity
of how much acid they can excrete. And so balancing that acid with alkalinity from certain plant foods, I think is beneficial. So, so that's, my diet is basically high protein, not super high fiber,
but like, I definitely try to consume potatoes or bananas, um, and definitely berries and citrus
to offset some of the acid load from the animal foods. So that's like two things. The third is try to get electrolytes
and fluid in the morning because we sort of wake up dehydrated. So getting that on board pretty
early is good because I typically have a couple cups of coffee, which will then kind of deplete
me. So hydrated in the morning, good amounts of protein. If you're working out, I try to do resistance training like three to four times a
week. And, you know, definitely on workout days, I'm consuming three meals a day. I mean, some days
I'll consume just two meals a day and practice intermittent fasting a couple times a day.
I think that's, you know, that's good for some people as well.
Yeah. Well, the beauty of getting to the place where I am, and I'm assuming that you are as well. Yeah. Well, the beauty of getting to the place where I am, and I'm assuming that you are
as well, is that you can truly practice intuitive eating. For me, I'm, I'm pretty much solely led by
my cravings, but in, in a way that feels intuitive. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, it's not like
I'm craving Doritos and I'm like, Ooh, my body must need Doritos. It's like, if I'm craving red
meat, my body probably needs it. Or if, you know, whatever I'm craving Doritos and I'm like, oh, my body must need Doritos. It's like if I'm craving red meat, my body probably needs it.
Or if, you know, whatever I'm craving that day is kind of is what I use as a guide to
eat.
And for me, I'm just I'm so excited to have this food freedom because when I was younger,
you know, going through school, trying to understand really what was the best diet and,
you know, trying every diet under the sun, just completely
exhausted and confused by what to do. Um, yeah, it's, it's a great place to be where you feel
like you're actually feeding your body from an intuitive place where your body's like, Hey,
I really need this. Right. Yeah. I mean, 80% of my calories probably come from animal foods. So pastured red meats, pastured eggs, and also blends,
organ blends of liver and heart. Super important because muscle meat does not contain really any
copper. And we need to understand that copper allows our bodies to utilize iron. So a lot of
women who are iron deficient are actually deficient in copper because they never consume liver. And so I try to consume these blends. I get them from North Star Bison.
They're just basically 25% liver and heart and the other 75% are just ground meat. So you don't
really taste it. And if you don't like that, you can add another pound of just ground beef to it
and make burgers or taco meat. And I try to do that every week is to consume organs for those, um, certain
nutrients that are very difficult to get unless you're consuming organs, particularly copper,
but also folate and vitamin A are high in liver. Yeah. And this is really important. I'm,
I'm slowly getting to a place where I'm
going to start doing that as well. There's a company also called force of nature that does
the blends as well. And if you're aware of them, um, but I'm going to start doing that because I
have tried eating just liver on its own and I, I have a very hard time with it, but I know how
good it is for me. It's just, um, it's sad because our ancestors,
those organs were prized, you know, like if you got that, like you were, you know, you were winning
at life and now we're grossed out by it. And so I'm, I'm trying to unravel that narrative in my
head right now. Cause I'm, I have a hard time with it. Yeah. Well, here's what's interesting
too is, um, the liver stores a fair amount of glycogen and it used to be one of the first organs to be
consumed before the glycogen would be depleted. So you were at, it was the taste of actual raw,
like fresh liver would have been completely different than what we're eating because it
would have been, it would have been full of glycogen. So it probably would have tasted
much better and more actually more sweet because it's holding on to like a hundred grams of glycogen.
Wow. That's so fascinating. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. Well, I love your trick of getting organ meats blended into, you know, just, uh, beef because then you can put it in burgers,
make tacos, put in your pasta sauce, whatever it is. And it makes it a lot easier. Um,
well, is there anything else that we haven't gone over that you think it's really
important for people to understand either about salt or about their diets or just really anything?
Omega-3s come to mind a little bit. Like I do take cod liver oil for vitamin A and vitamin D.
It's a good natural way. And for omega-3s too, I do take fish oil, I like fluctuate like on, okay, I know I should be eating wild salmon,
but it's like difficult to get down like true wild salmon. Um, cause I try to avoid the farm
salmon cause they, yeah, it tastes good, but it's not good for you. Um, because it tastes good.
Cause it doesn't have a lot of omega threes in that. Um, so I just think upping omega threes
for a lot of people would help because I think a lot of people probably are not getting nearly enough. Oh, absolutely. And then you take into account how many people are eating
seed oils and seed oils are higher in omega-6s. And the higher your omega-6s are, the lower the
omega-3s are going to be in the body. And so I think a lot of people are really depleted because
of that as well. Like we're not consuming enough omega-3s and then we're piling on top of that more omega-6s with the canola and sunflower oil and all that.
Totally.
And omega-6 seed oils are so pervasive.
They're in everything.
I mean, you can't grab a bag of any packaged food without flipping it over and seeing soybean oil or canola oil.
And it's, again, so pervasive.
And most restaurants cook with these oils too.
So if you can, try not to eat out like more than once or twice a week.
And if you do, see if they can cook it in just like butter or something.
It is so frustrating.
I recently – so I have my few salad dressings that I know that I can buy that are either made with avocado oil or olive oil.
But, man, it is so hard to find them now. And I recently was like, you know, I was feeling a
little bit bored. I was like, I've been eating the same salad dressings forever. And I make it
a lot too at home, but sometimes you just want to go and like buy one. And I was, I mean, I probably
spent 20 minutes in the salad dressing aisle. And I was just like one after the other, after the
other, even the ones at Whole Foods that you, that look healthy. I was like, this has soybean oil. This is sunflower oil, a lot of canola oil. And I'm just like,
my God, it's so frustrating. And the oat milk too. Everyone's consuming oat milk now. And I'm like,
guys, this is not healthy. Pretty much 98% of the oat milks that I see on the shelves all have
sunflower or rapeseed,
which is new splash canola oil.
Right.
Yeah.
And for kids, it's even harder.
Like I cannot find a tartar sauce without seed oils.
No chips.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
Primal Kitchen makes a tartar sauce and it is so freaking good.
And it's made with avocado oil.
Perfect.
I did not know that.
I'll have to.
Oh my God. It's so good. That's awesome. I mean that my kids will be thrilled then because like, you know,
they're eating these bland, like, you know, fish sticks and it's like, can I, can I get some
tartar sauce? I'm like, no, it's got seed oils in it. You can't. That's so funny. He's like, come
on, dad, can't we get some tartar sauce? Well, you're going to make your kids very happy this
week because Primal Kitchens is like, oh my God, I love it. I put it on everything.
Awesome. Yeah, it's really good. Well, so for people listening that hopefully my audience by
now knows how bad seed oils are, but can you explain a little bit why? I get this question
asked all the time on Instagram. Everyone's like, wait, wait, wait, we can't have sunflower oil.
Why is that bad? Right. Two main reasons. One, how they're processed,
they're extracted with high heat and hexane. So that's number one. Number two is that you then
cook with them and that further oxidizes the oil. So it's really those two main things. And so,
and that's the difference between fish oil and omega-6 C-dose because they're both polyunsaturated
fats. So some people say, well, why is it okay to consume fish oil, but I can't consume seed oils. They're both like
polyunsaturated and highly susceptible to oxidation. That is true. But most fish oils,
at least a high quality one, their extraction process does not use high heat and they will
actually, good ones, you can actually ask for the certificate of analysis and make sure it has low
peroxidation products.
And then you're not cooking with fish oil.
You just take a capsule and that's it.
So it's really the cooking of high quantities of amazing seed oils that are, that's the issue.
Interesting.
Okay.
Well, and I didn't really understand the sunflower.
I've known for a long time canola oil was bad, but I couldn't really explain why sunflower oil was bad.
So that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
I mean, sunflower, part of the problem is too is that not a lot of the vitamin E is retained in the oil after they extract it.
So if you get like a cold, porous sunflower oil that has high amounts of vitamin E and you're not cooking with it, then maybe small amounts of that is okay. But your typical sunflower oil that has the normal high heat and hexane extraction,
and then you're cooking with it is just going to be just as bad as canola oil.
Yeah, that's so interesting. Well, everyone listening dump out your sunflower oil
and canola. I'm sorry, it's in everything, but you'll thank us later.
You know, I thought of one more question and then we can start
wrapping this up. Um, cause I'm sure a lot of people are wondering this. Can you, um, obviously
there's no definitive way to avoid a hangover, but putting salt in your water before bedtime,
will that help maybe curb hangovers if you've had a few too many glasses of wine, which we've all been there.
Yeah. So without getting too scientific, um, no, go scientific. Let's do it.
Um, so alcohol, when you over consume it, um, there's something called anti-diuretic hormone that it suppresses and be, so basically induces a large amount of diuresis
and you lose a lot of actually a lot amount of free water. So what ends up happening is your salt
goes kind of high because you've lost so much free water that pulls fluid from the brain cells to
then try to dissipate and decrease the high salt. And it's the shrinking of the brain
cells that leads to the hangover. So it's really just plain water actually is probably the best
solution for a hangover. Interesting. Okay. So me slamming the element packets at midnight before
I go to bed are not really helping. Well, it depends though. So I don't want to, I'm just
putting it in the straight context of what alcohol does in the body. But if you're someone who consumes a lot of caffeine,
you were sweating or partying and losing a lot of salt, then actually maybe something like that
would be better. Interesting. Okay. So kind of, it depends on the individual. Okay. So before we go,
I want to ask you what I ask all of my guests,
what are your health non-negotiables? So these are things that you do on either a daily or a
weekly basis that support your health, that no matter how busy you are, you have to do this.
Eat grass fed animal foods. Um, do not consume seed oils. Those, those two are probably my
non-negotiables. I'm always eating
animal foods that are sourced well, and I'm trying to never consume seed oils.
Oh, I love that. It's so good. I love to hear you say that too, because there's this,
you know, I mean, it's blaring in our face right now, this movement of trying to force everyone
to go vegan. And I don't want to shade anyone that loves being vegan. But I think a lot
of people are being duped into thinking that this is healthier for us. And I don't buy it.
Yeah, no, it's I don't even blame these people for the longest time, maybe just up until two
years ago, I was leaning towards being more plant based. Because a lot of the evidence is saying,
oh, whole grains are healthy and this, this, and that.
And I was trying to be evidence-based.
But when I started eating more of these whole grains,
like I've never been more metabolically sick in my life.
And so I'm like, okay, this is not working.
And there was this article in the Daily Mail where this, one of these,
I forget who it was.
They'd watched a documentary on Netflix, like game changers it was called promoting i hate that yeah but i mean that's what that was a compelling documentary like after i watched it i was like oh
my gosh maybe i should start eating more plant foods but it was it was an article in the daily
mail like this woman went vegan and she gained like
a ton of weight after just a few months and became so metabolically sick.
And so it's just a lot of the evidence in the literature that you should be eating all
these whole grains.
It just doesn't translate into benefits in the real world.
And it took me having to actually test this out on myself to know, okay, this is wrong.
I need to actually go with what
works. Absolutely. And you brought up a really great point. Everyone needs to go down their
own health journey in order to figure out what works best for them. I have a similar story.
I went vegetarian and I was vegetarian for four years. And then I was pescatarian the last year
because I started eating, um, I was eating eggs the whole time, but I started eating fish towards the end and same. I mean, I was so hormonally imbalanced. I had cystic acne all on my chin. I could not
figure out what, where it was coming from and why, cause I had never had an issue before.
I had gained almost 30 pounds. Um, I was perpetually fatigued. I was starving 24,
seven. I mean, starving. Like I was just constantly chasing snacks and food. Like it
was just, it was, um, it was horrible. And then when I finally started eating meat again, and the
only reason I did is, well, there was two things that happened. One, I sat crying in a nutritionist
office as she, um, as I remembered at the time at being really harsh, but now I looking back,
I'm like, that was the most loving thing she could have ever said to me. She goes, look, you have to start eating meat. Sorry. Like you're
sick. Look at this. Like you're not well. Um, and then I started craving meat really bad. And then
that's when I started eating it. Um, and then, you know, you hear these stories of that woman.
She basically was pre-diabetic after going vegan after a couple of months. And then I just tell
everyone, I'm like, look at our population as a whole. We have been following the food pyramid, which actually,
if you flip it is the way that we should be eating, but they're telling us by the basic
food pyramid that we should be eating mostly grains and look at our population. We have, um,
88% of our population is metabolically sick, pre-diabetic or already diabetic, we're dealing with an obesity
crisis and we need at some point to look around and be like, wait, the grains are not serving us
well. Like what should we be doing differently? Well, fat and good high quality proteins.
Totally. Yeah. And I mean, I think, you know, back in the day when you were consuming traditional
grains that weren't just pulverized into a white powder and you were a population that literally did manual labor for eight hours. Yeah. Maybe consuming traditional
grains was quote unquote beneficial, but nowadays you're consuming 99% of grains are highly refined
and we're a population that just simply does not move nearly as much as what we used to.
Absolutely. Yeah. That's such a great point.
Well, for everyone listening, where can they find you and where can they find your books?
So most active on Instagram at Dr. James Deneck. And, um, I have six books. They're all on Amazon.
My most recent one is when, which is on athletic performance.
Amazing. So everyone definitely go check out those books. We'll put all the links
in the show notes and thank you so much for coming on. This was such a great episode.
Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Thank you.
Thanks for listening to today's episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. If you liked this episode,
please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know. This is a resident media production
produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Chris McCone. The theme song is called heaven by the amazing singer Georgie
spelled with a J. Love you guys so much. See you next week. 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.