Realfoodology - Red Meat is NOT a Health Risk with The Meat Mafia

Episode Date: December 14, 2022

124: **REALFOODOLOGY PODCAST IS NOW ON YOUTUBE!** I sit down with Brett and Harry of the Meat Mafia Podcast to talk all about meat and it’s health benefits! Topics Covered: Why would someone want to try the carnivore diet? Would you do carnivore 100% of the time  Why there is demonization of animal and saturated fats  Amino acids  Propaganda  Accessibility and affordability  Importance of supporting regenerative agriculture  Slaughtering practices  Grass fed vs grass finished  Where to find good meats  Labeling laws  Check Out The Meat Mafia: Podcast Instagram Show Links: https://www.eatwild.com/ https://carnivoreaurelius.com/all-of-the-evidence-that-red-meat-is-not-bad-for-you/ https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2022/11/14/red_meat_is_not_a_health_risk_a_new_study_slams_years_of_shoddy_research_864601.html Find a farm with Weston A Price Sponsored By: Cured Nutrition www.curednutrition.com/realfoodology REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% off Higher Dose higherdose.com use code REALFOODOLOGY FOR 15% OFF SITEWIDE Organifi www.organifi.com/realfoodology Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% Off My Immunity Supplement by 2x4 Order Now Check Out Courtney: **REALFOODOLOGY PODCAST IS NOW ON YOUTUBE!** Courtney's Instagram: @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com My Immune Supplement by 2x4 Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database Further Listening: Food Lies with Brian Sanders

On today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. And you see this big push with millennials thinking that they're being healthier by cutting out meat, saturated fats. They're trying to do the right thing, but their intentions are unfortunately misguided just due to this large amount of propaganda. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. I am your host, Courtney Swan. I am the creator behind Real Foodology, which is of course this podcast. It's also an Instagram where I share a lot of the knowledge that I talk about here on the podcast. And believe it or not, it actually started out as a food and recipe blog about 11 years ago

when I was getting my master's of nutrition and integrative health while I was living in Austin. It's crazy to look back on those times and see how much it's morphed into. So if you guys are new to the podcast, that's a little bit about my story. And if you guys are an avid weekly listener, I just want to say thank you so much. Well, thank you to everyone listening. I really appreciate your support. It means so much to me. On today's episode, I sit down with Brett and Harry from the Meat Mafia podcast. We really wanted to dispel a lot of the confusion around red meat and the lies that we've been told that it's really unhealthy for us. So we talk a lot about meat. Both of them eat mostly carnivore diet. We go into what their diet looks like on a day-to-day basis. We talk about the amino acid profile and what the difference

is in meat and animal-based products as opposed to plants, the bioavailability. We also talk about the amino acid profile and what the difference is in meat and animal-based products as opposed to plants, the bioavailability. We also talk about how the food industry tricks us and all the different labeling and just all the confusion there is around eating healthy. Before we get into the episode, I just want to share a little bit about my perspective personally. So I am not inherently against vegetarian diets. I really believe ultimately in people doing what's best for them and for their bodies. And if someone is thriving on a vegetarian diet, or also if someone is doing it for morality reasons, I will never argue with that. So I just want to really say that this is an incredibly supportive community and I'm here for all different facets of diets and everyone is welcome. The reason that I really like to talk about meat

a lot and the health benefits of it is mostly just because over the last like five years or so, maybe a little bit longer than that, thanks to documentaries that have been coming out and thanks to really big funding from tech companies and these large corporations like Beyond Meat and Possible Burger, they're really pushing this narrative that plant-based is the healthiest for humans and that it's the healthiest for our planet. And that could not be further from the truth. So this is really why I feel like it is a bit of an obligation to just share the truth with you guys. As I say quite often on this podcast, as well as my Instagram, that I'm really just here to share the truth. I believe in informed consent and informed consent means that you know everything, you know all the facts, you know the truth about it. And then from there, you can make a decision that you deem best for yourself based on the knowledge that you have of knowing all the facts and knowing the truth. So as long as the information is out there and the truth is out there, I fully support

everyone in making the best decision for themselves and for their own life. I really just am here because I want to see everyone healthy, happy, and thriving. It's also a bit of a personal thing for me because I was vegetarian for five years and I kept being told that I just wasn't vegetarian enough, that I just wasn't doing it correctly. And I was the sickest I've ever been. I was hormonally imbalanced. I was covered in cystic acne. I was fatigued. I was about 20 pounds overweight. I was constantly starving. I could never get satiated. And that was my story. So I'm only here to share my story

in hopes that it will help others. And I'm just here to tell the truth. And the truth is, is that eating meat is not bad for us. And there's a lot of studies that back this up. I know the carnivore diet is pretty controversial. And a lot of people have a lot of things to say about not eating vegetables and produce and what have you. I am here for hearing about everyone's different stories

and as Brett and Harry share on the podcast, this is just their experience and they are sharing anecdotally what works best for them. But I wanna remind you that at the end of the day, you really need to figure out what works best for you. I am not sitting here saying that I think the carnivore diet is the only way to go. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm not saying do it. I'm just sharing their story. So I just want to be really clear about that. I personally still eat produce and yeah, I just wanted to make that really clear. But again, this is what's working

for them and they're thriving and they feel really good in their bodies. So more power to them. At the end of the day, I'm just here for supporting everyone and supporting humans thriving. So with that, let's get to the episode. Okay, before we dive in, if you guys could just take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would mean so much to me. Your support means the world to me. And something as simple as a quick rating review really does help this show. So if you could take a moment to do it, it would really mean a lot to me. And I just want to say thank you so much for your support. With the holidays quickly approaching, I am starting to wonder what the heck am I going to get my parents for Christmas? Or for if you're Jewish, what are you going to get your family for Hanukkah? If you have a friend, a family member, someone in your life

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Well, friends, the holidays are officially upon us. I cannot believe that I'm even recording this ad right now because it feels like they are coming very quickly. So I wanted to share a couple gift ideas that I think would be awesome for anyone in your life that's either struggling with some sort of health issue or if they are on a path to get healthier. So I'm a huge fan of the Higher Dose Infrared Sauna Blanket. I've had one for, man, it's been like four years now. And what it is is it's essentially like a sauna blanket that you can lay on anywhere in your house, on your bed, just as long as your bed does not have flammable materials in it. You can lay it on your couch. You can do it on your floor. And I always joke that it's like my sauna burrito

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Yeah, it's going to be awesome. I want to dive into meat and the carnivore diet and all the things. I mean, this is kind of what you guys are experts in. And I want to first hear a little bit about your personal stories. Are you guys both on the carnivore diet or where are you kind of, where do you guys sit with that? Yeah, I would say that we both have interesting stories because so both Harrison and I, we played college baseball together. We went to a small school up in Boston. That's kind of how we initially became friends. Interesting stories because so both Harrison and I, we played college baseball together.

We went to a small school up in Boston. That's kind of how we initially became friends. And we both had our separate nutritional journeys, kind of like leveraging the carnivore diet, animal-based diet, things like that. So like we can go into those stories if you want to learn more about that. But kind of how we view it is like I feel like the carnivore diet is just an amazing way to kind of reset your health and figure out what your baseline is. So I would say that we're not carnivore all year round, but like good example is I was just back in New Jersey, visiting my parents for a few weeks. It was kind of, you know, my mom's a great Italian cook. So

I'm eating some pasta. I'm not really being mindful of what I'm eating. And I just moved out to Texas with Harry two weeks ago. And then I kind of used the carnivore diet as my way to like reset my baseline, get my gut under control. I think a lot of other people have used that as a really effective tool too. I think both of us kind of found the animal-based diet or carnivore diet. Like I think the way we eat is we cook most of our meals. And a of a lot of times we're cooking uh meat-based meals i would say like 95 percent of what 95 percent of what we're eating is meat-based so um we found them through different ways like brett cured an autoimmune issue through eating

an animal-based carnivore diet and i was working you know your standard uh corporate job and sort of saw myself go from an athlete to a non-athlete and use an animal-based diet to really get back into peak health. So I think there's a lot of power behind it. And, you know, one of the things that drew us towards putting this message out there around why saturated fat and animal products are good and healthy to be consumed is that there's this huge prevailing counter narrative that's like saturated fat's bad, animal protein isn't something you should be consuming a lot of. And both of us just realized that there's a lot of people who

could benefit from actually including that more in your diet. Yeah, absolutely. And I like the, it sounds like you guys take a more balanced approach because I think we lose a lot of people in this conversation about the carnivore diet when you have certain people speaking out saying all vegetables are going to kill you. You shouldn't touch a vegetable. I come from a world where, you know, I went to school, I got my master's in nutrition and we learned all about all the amazing antioxidants and all of the nutrients and stuff in plants. And I really believe that the truth is more in the balance, right? Like when we go to the extremes, like one or the other, it's like you only eat meat or you only eat plants.

I think we're doing ourselves a disservice and I don't think either is super healthy. I do think though, I really, really believe in a clinical setting, like for example, you were saying that you were dealing with an autoimmune, like doing a carnivore diet, like that can be incredibly beneficial and healing. And then Harry, you brought up a really great point,

which is something I wanted to talk to about with you guys. There's a lot of propaganda happening right now about plant-based diets. And there's a lot of propaganda happening right now about plant-based diets. And there's a lot of a narrative being driven right now that the healthiest diet is being plant-based and we don't need meat. We don't need the protein for meat. We need less protein than is actually being stated. What do you guys have to say about that? And I really, you guys, we're very aligned on this and would love to talk about it.

Yeah, I think that this is like the juicy stuff that we love to talk about too. And it's concerning to us just because we're both around 28, 29. So we fall in the millennial demographic. Prior to COVID, Harry was living in Boston. I was living in New York. So like these huge metropolitan cities. And you see this big push with millennials thinking that they're being healthier by cutting out meat, saturated fats, things like that. They're actually, they're trying to do the right thing, but their intentions are unfortunately

misguided just due to this large amount of propaganda. It feels like whether it's like the game changers, forks over knives, are these kind of sensationalist documentaries that come out every year or two that sweep the nation by storm. And then you have these companies like Oatly, Beyond Foods, et cetera, that are really run like technology companies. And what I mean by that is they've done such an incredible job of securing hundreds of millions of dollars of funding, IPOing, billion dollar market caps, which just gives them the ability to launch these marketing campaigns, kind of glorifying their own products, and unfortunately spreading a false narrative around animal products, saturated fat. And so I think one of the things that you mentioned is that we're experts in regards to animal protein and nutritionists. In nutrition,

we kind of try and view ourselves more being like enthusiasts and learning through anecdotes and stories. So we were both two guys that were like, look, we want to just, we don't feel as good as we should. Let's try and play around with diet and lifestyle and see if that can ultimately give us the results that we're looking for. And we learned that when we ran towards saturated fat, animal products, particularly in the form of nutrient dense red meat, that was really how we achieved the ideal health outcomes that we were looking for. So it's obviously very concerning to both of us just seeing the demonization of saturated fat animal products. And that's a huge motivation for why we do our show. I'm sure for why you do your show too. And I'm sure something that hits home with you is

I think it's, I think almost, I think it's 80% of all vegans are women. And so we had a number of women on our show that were plant-based that made the conversion over to the animal-based diet. And they've mentioned, you know, in regards to their cycle, improving their menstrual cycle, their period fertility, like just the benefits of them incorporating really nutrient-dense animal products, what that's done for their overall metabolic health. And that's what motivates us is just trying to like correct the narrative on meat, which we just feel is unjustly demonized. I don't know if I could have said it any better. I would just add like, you know, the food system is something that I think, like if you look across

the board board a lot of the systems that that we have in place in society everyone could make major critiques on all of them whether it's the education system the health care system the food system in particular is really concentrated and a very few number of people's hands and And I think that that is actually a really big driving force behind the messaging that we hear, you know, the ideas that we have around what is healthy and what isn't. And we've gotten so far away from just going back to the basics and trying to eat foods with the fewest amount of ingredients, the highest quality. It's like those things shouldn't really be a privilege. And I think that when few't really be a privilege and i think that

when few people have so much control and power that's when that starts to feel like oh my gosh like access to really high quality food from a local farmer is is now something that is seen as you know like a rarity and um you know a lot of people aren people don't have great access to that. So I think it's a huge issue when you have these big players who have tons of money and they can really just protect their own interests by, you know, pumping different narratives out there. Yeah, absolutely. I really founded Real Foodology on was because when I started getting into health and learning about our food and our food system, that was what I was most passionate about because I felt like what you're just speaking to, so many people are very unaware of this. There's this common misconception that if it's on the shelf, that it must just be okay and safe for us. I hear this all the time in my DMs and comments. People are like,

there's no way that they would sell this if this was actually true. And it just makes me realize how disconnected people are from our food system and from the corruption that's actually happening. And to go back to what you said, Brett, about just seeing it in our health. I mean, I can speak to my own story. I was vegetarian for five years. And by the end of it, I was so sick. It was crazy, like hormonally imbalanced, fatigued. I had gained like 20 pounds. I was constantly starving. And it's because I was never told that with red meat, for example, you can get almost every single essential nutrient from red meat, especially if you were to consume it from like nose to tail, which we don't really do anymore. But I know you guys are a huge

proponent for organ meats, which I also want to get into. And the problem is, is that people don't understand that they're essentially being lied to that they can get all their nutrients from a plant-based diet. But unfortunately, a lot of these essential vitamins and nutrients just aren't bioavailable in adequate amounts in plant foods. I'm not saying that they don't exist at all, but it's like, I'm sure you guys have seen those memes on Instagram where they'll show like, you need to have like five cups of broccoli or however many cups of quinoa just to meet the equivalent

of like a small little tiny piece of steak or a small piece of chicken. And this is what people need to understand is that it's just not adequate enough nutrients for us. Yeah. It's such a good point. And it's like to everything you're saying, Courtney, people's intent, like someone that's going plant-based, their heart is in the right spot. They're trying to do the right thing. And I still think like, if you're, even if you're shifting away from eating junk in the inner aisle of the grocery store and you're shifting towards plant-based, you probably will feel some benefit in the beginning, but to everything that you're saying, you're eventually just missing out on the incredible nutrient

density that comes from animal products. And I think that those infographics that you mentioned are such an amazing point where it's like, you can compare five cups of spinach to a small serving size of red meat. And maybe you can get there with five cups of spinach, but we're not even accounting for the bioavailability. And what I mean by that is like, that's one of the things with the animal products that a lot of people don't realize is that it's actually incredibly digestible. Your body is actually able to use it and shuttle it the right way, where a lot of times due to these like defense chemicals and some toxins that are found in plants, you're not even able to absorb that. You're just like pooping it out for the most part. And I think a lot of it goes down to

like developing like this intrinsic understanding of what makes your body feel really good. So like something that Harry and I both did on our journeys is just very simply keeping a food journal. What did you eat? What time did you eat it? How much of it did you eat? And how did you feel? Did your energy feel good? Did your stomach feel good? Did you have the urgency to go to the bathroom? Like when I was coming back from ulcerative colitis, that's how I realized that, you know, ultimately like cruciferous vegetables and dark leafy greens and things like that, things that I thought were healthy and they tasted delicious. They just unfortunately didn't sit great with my stomach. But like you had mentioned

earlier, like there are clearly some advantages of, you know, incorporating plants and fruits and real foods, but all three of our bodies are so different with the same thing with your listener. And it's about like finding this understanding of what actually makes you feel good and not just taking everything we're saying at face value like kind of do your own research and be the ceo of your own health your own health and figure out what makes you feel your best that except that self-experimentation one of the things that um i've learned through doing our own podcast uh we had dr bill schindler on who used to, he's an amazing guy. He wrote a book called Eat Like a Human. And he used to have a National Geographic show where he, I think he like traveled the world and was like recorded living out on his own for a certain period of time. So he's big on sourcing

your own food and figuring out how to forage and hunt and all these things. But he talks about like the importance of just the preparation and the technology that we use to prepare food as a way to release the nutrients that we need while getting rid of the things that we don't need is a huge part of our evolution and our relationship with food. So like raw vegetables, there's a lot of defense chemicals in raw vegetables, but if you ferment them or cook them, you're kind of accessing those nutrients without having to run into a lot of the problematic things with vegetables. So I think Brett and I both don't really consume a ton of vegetables, but if we do, it's in fermented form and trying different ways to repair it so that we don't run into those issues. Yeah, that's a great point. I actually just watched this clip this morning that someone sent me on Instagram.

It was Bear Grylls, and I don't know what it was from. Maybe you guys have seen this clip where he goes kind of off on this rant where he's like, I eat eggs, meat, and I forgot what else he said. Maybe it was butter every day. And the guy was like, you eat that every single day? And he was like, yeah, and I forgot what else he said. Maybe it was butter like every day. And the guy was like, you eat that every single day? And he was like, yeah, think about our ancestors. He's like, we weren't like plucking broccoli out of the ground. We were eating meat and maybe like foraging for berries and like honey and stuff. And so that's really, I think we've become so disconnected from nature and what it actually really looks like to eat real food that everyone's

so confused now. And we forget that as humans, we've been eating these foods for a very long time for hundreds of years. A hundred percent. We were just talking about the idea of seasonality in the car ride over here and how seasonality would have played a massive role in terms of what you're eating, depending on the time of year and what you would have had access to. I mean, during the winter, are you really going to be finding all that many fruits? Probably not. Exactly. Yeah. I think our diets should be framed more through that lens. That, hey, we wouldn't have had an abundance of food every day of the year and maybe start seeking out foods through that lens. Yeah, absolutely. Do you guys

know what the difference is in amino acids found in meat as opposed to plants? Not off the top of my head. I mean, I know meat is complete at a high level. I mean, meat has every amino acid that you need. Yeah. I think this is a really important component for people to understand. So there's 22 specific amino acids to build proteins for the body. And there are essential ones, meaning like there's 13 amino acids that you are sorry, there's 13 amino acids that your body can produce on its own. And then the other nine, you have to get from your diet. And the only place that we can get all nine essential amino acids is from animal protein. So you can't get them all from plants. I know a lot of, I hear this a lot from vegetarians are like, well, if you put, or I guess quinoa maybe has all essential amino acids, but then it's not super bioavailable because it

has other things that are blocking it like anti-nutrients. And then there's a big conversation that if you put beans and rice together, it produces an essential, all nine essential amino acids. But my point being is that if you just eat meat, you get all nine essential amino acids. A hundred percent. I mean, it's, it's so interesting because it's like, I didn't even, I didn't even know that to be honest with you. So you think about the general population has no idea that that's the case. And I think it goes back to some of the stuff that we were talking about earlier. It's like, there's just a lot of, I hate to use the word, but it's like just propaganda around what real food actually is.

It's like, we've almost been styled into thinking what a real, what a plate of food is supposed to look like. It's supposed to have all these different types of, you know, grains and plants and fruits and things like that. And I remember the first time that I went carnivore, I think it was like, I had like a big ribeye with like a bunch of butter on it and like three eggs. That was like the first meal that I had in 2019 when I wanted to heal my

stomach. And I remember staring at the plate and being like, am I going to die eating this? Because I was just, I was in a whole psyop state of thinking, oh, I don't know, you know, red meat causes cancer, all these chronic diseases, when in fact, it's the opposite. And now I look at that plate and I'm like, this is the best possible food that I can put into my system. That's going to nourish me. It's going to digest well. It's going to help

me keep great musculature, help with my skin, anxiety, depression, all these amazing things. And, you know, to your point, it's like there's all these amino acids in it that you can't get even if you wanted to. And I know for both of us, and I'm sure yourself, it's like, I don't want to have to live a life where I need to be reliant on supplements and these artificial things that are made in a lab probably in China. I'd rather just be able to source my food directly from a farmer, know exactly where it was raised,

the lineage of the cow and just have the best quality meals that I can with my friends and family and feel amazing. That's a great point. I feel the same way. And also if your diet requires a lot of supplementation, then you probably wanna rethink your diet, you know? And I also think about this from like, I hate to be this person to have this kind of conversation

around like privilege, but a lot of people twist it where they say like, oh, you're so privileged to be able to have meat, this and that. And it's like, well, actually, if we're really talking about this, for people living in really poor conditions, they can't afford all the supplementation that is required in order to fill in all the gaps for a plant-based diet. So if we're talking about accessibility, affordability, one of the healthiest ways that people can get their nutrients is they can go to Walmart or whatever they have access to,

and even if they can't get the grass-fed organic meat, it's still better to just get the red meat than to not have it at all. Yeah, totally. Especially when the alternatives are, you know, eating out potentially at like fast food restaurants or having to supplement because you're not getting the nutrients that you need. Like, yes, I think that maybe you are paying a little bit more up front uh in some in some cases but I do believe that looking at food and health under the same scope of the like what you're paying like what you're paying for your health you're either paying for it now or later so like um again like a lot of people don't have the socioeconomic access to like maybe think of it that way.

But if we can start changing the systems that we think about food producers in a way like, hey, we can create more abundance of these types of products so that they are cheaper. Then I think that's where we start seeing some real change in terms of what's going on with the health of people in the modern world and specifically the U S it's like, it's crazy how many people are probably relying on fast food or like, you know, gas station meals. It's sad. There's a lot of like food deserts out there. So I think this is a real issue that is not going away anytime soon. It must be really addressed with some thought. Yeah. That's why we're big fans of the content that you put out, Courtney, too, because we think you do such a good job of just teaching families how to actually navigate the grocery store and be able to get these budget-friendly things that are actually incredibly nutrient-dense and really good

for you, too. You don't need to be going to Whole Foods or Sprouts to get an amazing meal. Like the local Texas grocery store, HEB, or even a Walmart, they have this massive tub of ground beef and it ends up being like $2.16 a pound. And it's like, yeah, is it as nutrient dense? It's like the grass-fed, grass-finished stuff from your local farmer. No, but if you're still basing your diet around something like that, it's still going to be amazing for you. It's way better than anything you're going to get in the inner aisle of the grocery store. And it's just ultimately really affordable for your family. And you can make delicious gourmet meals with it. You know, sauteing some onions or some garlic or spices or seasonings.

Like even before this conversation, we didn't get to prep our meal for the day. So we just ran to like a local food truck and got like lamb and beef over a salad, like great meal. But it was like, it was like 15 bucks to meal. And like, we could have literally just made this on our own for probably less than $5 a meal each. So, you know, I think it's, you know, less price dependent and more so just like taking the actual time and the intention to prepare your meals. And I know not everyone has the ability to do that, but I do think a lot of people can. Have you ever tried CBD products and just felt like you didn't really understand the hype or you felt like it really didn't work for you? Well, there could be a couple of reasons why this is happening.

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CBD. If you want to hear more about the products and why they're so amazing and important, definitely check out my episode with their founder, Joe Sheehy. We talk all about CBD. We talk specifically about Cured, why I love them so much. Their farming practices are above and beyond. Everything is organic, really high quality. They show all of their lab work. You can go and see all of the different batch numbers on their website and see the lab testing and see that everything that they claim is in there, the levels that they claim, the high quality CBD dosage that they claim is in the products you can actually see on their website from their tests and from the lab work. So highly encouraged to go check that out. And if you want to try any of the cured CBD products, go to curednutrition.com slash realfoodology. Use code realfoodology

and you're going to save 20%. That's cured, C-U-R-E-D nutrition.com slash realfoodology. With cold and flu season around the corner, I just want to take a quick second to talk a little bit about a supplement that I created with 2x4 Nutrition. It's called Real Defense. And what it is, is a liposomal supplement. If you are unaware of what a liposomal supplement is, I would highly recommend going back and listening to the episode with the founder of 2x4 because we go into extensive detail what it means and why liposomal supplements are up to 15 times more effective than supplements, traditional supplements like capsules and gummies. When you're taking a supplement and you're spending money on it, you obviously want it to be bioavailable for the body and for it to work.

So this is probably one of the most highly effective supplements that you can find on the market. And I created it in conjunction with 2x4 after everything we went through the last couple of years. I mean, we just became more aware than ever of the importance of our immunity and making sure that our immune system is in a place where we can defend from whatever it is that our bodies are exposed to. I spent a lot of time helping them formulate this and everything

in here is science backed and specifically in this supplement because it has immune modulating properties. It has vitamin D, zinc, quercetin. Quercetin is a zinc ionifer, which means that it pushes through the cell wall and gets the zinc ionifer, which means that it pushes through the cell wall and gets the zinc into the actual cell so that it can help fight off whatever it is that your body is going through at the time. It also has elderberry, which is really high in vitamin C, chaga mushroom, which is really great for the immune system, aluthero root, and astragalus root. And of course, because I created this supplement with them, it is non-GMO, it's sugar free, there's no natural flavors, and it tastes so good. You can take it on a day-to-day basis. Also,

children can take it. You just want to consult with your doctor on how much to take if you're giving it to your kids. And I really love this supplement. I take it every day and I really double down on it when I feel like I'm getting sick or when I catch a cold or something like that. So if you guys are interested in checking it out, go to 2x4.com. That's 2x4.com and search for Real Defense. I hope you guys love it. So I want to talk a little bit about why, if you can afford it, why it is so important that we do focus on supporting our local farmers and buying organic grass-fed pasture-raised when we can? Yeah, I think, so one of the things we talk a lot about is there's kind of like two worlds of the food system when it comes to eating real foods. And there's this model that exists

today, the legacy model, which is really dependent on monocrop agriculture to support a lot of what's happening in terms of food production. So that monocrop agriculture is funneling into feedlot beef production, which is not the best source of beef from a nutritional perspective, but also a planetary perspective, environmental perspective. And so all of this is essentially subsidized by our government tax dollars. And I think that the alternative world is the guy up the street who's trying to do things the right way, who's creating a local economy around his production or his or her production. So there's a few great examples that we run into through the course of our podcast, one of which is Will Harris, who

runs White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia. He's completely changed the town. His whole farm is the major driver of the economy in that town. And he creates food for thousands of people. And what he's doing from, Will's created a blueprint for the right way to do things. And so he's creating biodynamic ecologies where animals, diversity of animals

is creating better soil health, better nutrient density in food, and they don't have to use all the chemicals that monocrop agriculture is really relying on. And that's kind of the big issue is like low input farming is what well does, and it is not reliant on these chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides that ultimately run off into our water system and end up in our food system. And it's dependent on using animals as nature intended to create an ecosystem that actually runs itself. So it's harder. And the reason why, and since it is harder, people should try to support that system. You know, it's like they're doing the right things.

And again, coming back to the budget point, it's like, yeah, like everyone's constrained by money. But like if you can support that system, I think it's really worthwhile doing that. Yeah. Well, and when you're supporting that system, what I think a lot of people really need to understand is that you're helping a lot of different facets of things in our society that really need to be fixed right now. Because by supporting farmers that are taking care of our soil health and are concerned about that, and they're concerned about the animal welfare, and it's also helping us with our health. So basically, we are helping climate change by supporting this. We are also helping to support practices that actually take care of their animals and are concerned about animal welfare. And then it's

also taking care of our health. Cause like you said, they're not using all these inputs that are these chemical fertilizers and herbicides and pesticides that we are now linking to cancer, um, that are now running off into other towns and people are being exposed to it. Like there's so many different facets that could all be, um, really cleaned up if we, as a society decided to really start supporting these farmers that were doing it better and doing it the right way. Yeah. It's such a, it's such a good point. And it makes you think how like we think about technology, just always trying to iterate and get better and better, but maybe that necessarily that mindset shouldn't necessarily be applied to our food.

And maybe we actually had things figured out hundreds of years ago, and we maybe never should have intervened the way that we have. And what I mean by that is like, you know, back in the day, like beef processing is an amazing example of this. You used to have like one processor per county. You used to have a relationship with your local farmer, like Harry mentioned. You know, now I think the statistic is like 99% of Americans have never actually gone out and met their farmer before. Like a lot of people have this almost like two stages of their journey where they like either go like paleo, keto, carnivore.

Step one, they heal their health. And then step two is they try and get more intentional about where the food comes from. And I remember the first time I'd ever heard the phrase, like, go out and shake your rancher's hand. I was like, what the hell are you talking about? Because I was living in New York City and like, didn't even know where I would find a local rancher. And then you actually go out and you meet these people and you realize how much skin in the game that they have, how difficult it's been for them to like sustain their business and have these regenerative practices. It just makes you appreciate where your food comes for, comes from that much more.

It's almost like that energy and that effort that they put into growing your food and like that love that they have for the animals. You know, you're, you're inheriting that in every single bite of food. Like a statistic we love to go back to, like going to the, to the beef processors is that four processors control close to 90% of all the beef in your grocery store. So, right. It's like, there's that, there's the food web that, that image that's gotten really popular on social media that we all talk about how 10 companies control like 33,000 products in the average grocery store.

Like we know about that centralization, but there's also a massive amount of centralization in the meat industry. So it's like you can have a rancher that's doing everything the right way, but they're kind of beholden to these massive corporate tackers. And so like on a single head of cattle, the rancher might only make 150 bucks on that head of cattle, whereas the processor is making like 1500. So like centralization has never really been good at any facet, especially it's a lose-lose situation because the ranchers making no money and they're overcharging you. Like prior to COVID, I would go to the Whole Foods in New York and get a ribeye for like 15 bucks. Now it's like, I can't find a ribeye for less than $25. That's what happens when you let a small amount of companies control the entire beef supply. So like, not only is it more nutrient dense, like Carrie's talking about,

it's also just a better system. It's kind of like this way to decentralize and just take like autonomy over the food that you're putting into your body and the system that you want to support. Yeah, that's really important. I think just to add to that too, we had a really great conversation with Joel Salatin on our podcast a little while back. Love him. And he talked about, yeah, he's the best.

But he talks about this idea of resiliency in the food supply chain. And no one was really paying much attention to that until COVID happened when the big four packers had to pretend they were running into issues because people were getting sick. And then they were contaminating, potentially contaminating the food and having smaller packers that are more local that support localized economies, you know, instead of having to employ a hundred employees, you're employing five. So maybe you don't have to run into the same level of issues and you can be a little bit more flexible and dynamic when those sorts of sort of stresses come up. So I think we've kind of gotten to the point where like the centralization of the food system is created. It made the system a bit more brittle and fragile. And this idea of being able

to decentralize it and make it more reliant on local, local, you know, food producers, processors is really a more resilient way of going about things. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, and it's, it's healthy for us too. You know, it's there, it's kind of a win, win, win situation there. If we are, if we're conscious of this and we're actively supporting the people that are doing it the right way. And I've heard you guys talk about this a little bit before, doesn't it, uh, the processing and all this that you guys are talking about right now, doesn't it affect the like gaminess of meat as well? There are some people that think that like the grass fed grass finished beef, that's literally like before they died, they've been fed grass their whole life and

not switched to corn. There's some people that think that that meat tastes a little bit gamier. Um, and then we talked to a few grass fed farmers that have said that the gaminess isn't necessarily from the grass finishing itself. It's from the stress level of the animal and then like, I think releasing adrenaline or I don't know what the exact cortisol. Yeah, so there's a system in processing

that was developed by a lady named Temple Green and she essentially created a way to get cows into the processing facility without stressing them. And it's kind of become the norm, but it's still not fully the norm. And what happens when these cows realize that they're going off to getting like, they're smart, they're animals. Like they understand like if the cow in front of them is getting slaughtered, like they start stressing out their entire quarters.

They have never lived this way their entire life. And so they release cortisol like us and that's their stress hormone. And a lot of people like Brett was talking about say that, you know, some beef does have a different flavor that is like linked to the stress through the processing or the processing process. Yeah.

Like the grass finished beef, we've heard people say it's either like the best beef you've ever had or the worst beef, like there's more variability. And that's part of the benefit of being able to finish cows on grain is it kind of creates this more like consistent flavor across the board where it's all like pretty good to good, where it's more difficult to actually go through the process of finishing it on grass. But if you do it the right way, like there's this farm in Missouri that we buy a lot of our beef from called Zimmerman's and they're all grass finished. And he takes amazing care of his cattle. And it's like some of the most incredible beef you've ever had. You know, I didn't even really know that this was a thing until quite recently because,

um, I, I actually just shared this on my Instagram like two days ago, but I haven't even really been eating bread meat for that long. Because for some reason, when I was a kid, I grew up in Texas and my parents would have something called Steak Sunday. They called it Steak Sunday. And every Sunday my dad would grill up steaks. And I, for whatever reason, I just, I hated it. But I had a rule that I had to finish my plate before I could get up. So I would chew it and I would chipmunk it in my it, but I had a rule that I had to finish my plate before I could get up. So I would chew it and I would chipmunk it in my cheeks or I would like chew it down a little bit. And then I'd go to the bathroom and I'd flush it. And I would literally do this every Sunday. And so

I kind of had PTSD about eating red meat for a long time. So me going vegetarian was pretty like par for the course for me because I really wasn't a big meat eater until more recently. And I actually, I had a conversation with one of my dad's friends this summer, and I don't want to fully put him on blast, but let's just say that he owns a really big barbecue chain in Texas. And I was trying to convince him to do grass fed. And he's old, he's like 80 something, probably stuck in his ways. And he was like, hell no. He's like, I'm never going to do that. He's like, are you kidding me? Corn fed always tastes so much better. He's like that grass fed shit tastes like shit. Like, no, no, no, no.

And basically it was just like, it tastes like shit. And I was like, I'd never even heard that there was like that much of a difference in the taste of it. definitely. Cause they can, they can make the animals a lot fatter. So the fat is really where all the flavor is. And so, um, yeah, especially if you're raising animals only for like 36 months, um, and not really letting them mature. Like I've heard like more mature grass fed beef really has like this rich flavor, but still a lot of people don't, um, like butcher their, their meat, um, or let their cows, like a cow on pasture is the best way to make you money. So they try to butcher them within 36 months. And so, yeah, it's just easier to control the process of the flavor when you can finish them on grains and fat

them up pretty quickly. So for people listening that maybe feel that way, where they're like, yeah, corn fed tastes a lot better. What are maybe some tips on like how to find really good if they're wanting to find higher quality meat and they want to support the system that we're talking about? How do you find good, high quality grass fed, grass finished meat that actually tastes good and is comparable to the corn fed? Yeah, that's a question. That's probably like a top five question that we get in our DMs. And I'm sure it's probably similar. Really? Yeah. Cause like a lot of people just don't necessarily know where to start. Um, so I think I mentioned to you prior to us hitting record, I moved from New York to San Diego last year and I didn't know there, there just are not a ton of regenerative ranches in San Diego, but I was like, all right, well, there has to at least be like a local farmer's market. So I just Googled San Diego farmer's market. There were like five within a 15 minute drive. And I just, I showed up one Saturday and I just met all the different ranchers that were there. And I just asked them questions. I said, Hey, you know, are you, are you finishing

your cattle on grass? Are you finishing them on grain? Just like very basic questions and just kind of sussing them out to figure out, you know, are they even growing it on their own? Because like a lot of people don't realize that, you know, a rancher can show up to a farmer's market and we just blanket assume that they're healthy, but they could be buying it from like some grain fed operation and just like selling it under their own label. But I think an amazing place to start is just, you know, either finding a local farmer's market. I would, I would pretty much guarantee that anyone listening to the show

has one within 15 to 20, maybe 30 minutes away, but there are, there are some other amazing websites like eatwild.com is awesome. You can literally filter by zip code for meat, eggs, and raw milk in your area, which is somewhere that we love to point people in the right direction of. And then I think you have a service too. Like there's some like grass-fed, grass-finished, like beef box delivery services like D2C. We just had on the owner of Colorado Craft Beef,

who's an amazing guy, Jeff Smith. And then I forget, what's the service that you use? There's this brand called First Light. Is that what you're talking about? Yes. Yeah. Oh my God. I have to tell you guys like, so that story that I told about really hating steak my whole life, um, that I think that's one of the first times I've had steak since I was a kid. Like I was kind of dancing around. I've had burgers and like ground beef and whatever. And I have a point in telling all of this is that, um, that steak that I had from first light was

legit, like the best steak I've ever had. And this is coming from someone that like, doesn't like steak. And I was like, Whoa, this is actually really, really good. It's incredible. Yeah. I was, I was going to say, um, just in terms of another resource, the Westman Price Foundation, they have a great website with lots of information, but also can help you sort and find really good producers. That's actually a good point. Yeah, they have that little chapter on every single city. So say you're in LA, they'll give you like, maybe 10 to 20 local ranchers that are close to you that you can at least connect with or just learn more about. So it's like the resources are out there. You just have to do a little bit of digging. And also something that we learned, we talked to some ranchers and said, hey, what else should we be looking for?

And something that we consistently got a piece of feedback on is that if the rancher is open to you coming out and checking out their farm, that's an amazing sign. Whereas like a little bit more closed off, that might be a red flag because they don't necessarily want you to see what's going on under the hood. So you can even ask those questions too. And you know, I think between those resources, you should be in a great spot to be able to find some, some really good quality beef that's raised the right way. That's a really great point. And I was actually just going to bring up another place that I get a lot of my meats from is Force of Nature. And they're in Fredericksburg. They're actually really close to you guys, Rome Ranch. And they invited me and a bunch of people down to their ranch last year to literally tour the ranch,

see their practices. And that's a great point is that anyone that is doing it the right way and they're proud of it, they want people to see how they're doing it because they want to set an example for other people to do this way as well. Because a lot of this is like what we've been saying this whole episode is about education and like showing other farmers that they have the ability to do it the right way. And then showing consumers that this is the better way and that it provides a healthier meat for us and it's better for the planet and it tastes better and all the things, you know?

Absolutely, yeah. We've had the fortune of getting to know Taylor and have had him on the podcast. He's the man. What he's done with that property is incredible and just reintroducing bison. It's really been a huge inspiration for us and learning more about not just the food we're eating, but what are those animals actually doing in terms of their life, actually providing something to the ecology of the land and being a really

important part of restoring the soil health and making those habitats for all these different animals like he was saying there's like no birds on the property and then within like two years after introducing bison he has birds new birds every season so it's just cool like hearing the stories because you don't really appreciate it until you go out and put your foot your feet in the dirt and talk to someone like Taylor or someone up the road. You know, I think most people would be surprised at how many food producers are actually within like a 30 to 60 minute drive of them that are doing things, you know, maybe not exactly like Taylor, but they can at least teach you something about how food is being raised.

So we talked a little bit about this as far as like going to the farmer's market and asking the right questions, but what are some other things that people should be aware of, of just how the food industry tricks us with their marketing and their labeling and all of that? I just, one of the things that I've, I think labeling in particular is, it's just a really highly manipulated topic, even just from like how people identify with a diet. And then also like, so people will be like, oh, I'm keto. And then, you know, five years later, cookies and brownies and everything, that's keto labels on it, right? And so it's almost this trick that as soon as you put a label on how you eat, then the marketers figure out how they can use that against, you

know, the next generation of people they can use that against the next generation of people trying to get healthier through the keto diet. So it's really, I think, about how to combat that is just thinking about food through the lens of real food versus processed food and trying to just only eat real food. Because then marketers can't really have their hands in your pockets and their voice in your ear trying to steer you in the wrong direction. So I think labeling in general is just really this topic that makes people very prone to being manipulated by marketers. Yes, yes.

Yeah, I remember I talked to Harry about this a lot. I remember when I was a sophomore in high school in my science class, to their credit, they showed us Food Inc. And that intro is something that always stuck with me. And I think I watched it in 2009, maybe. And it's Michael Pollan narrating it. And the camera is just panning around the average grocery store. And it's saying how there's 33,000 products in the average grocery store. It's only controlled by about 10 companies. Seasonality doesn't exist. Things that were never meant to grow year round are now grown year round. And really like what these companies are doing in the inner aisles of the grocery store,

like you see different boxes and colors and packages and labels. But it's really like these 10 companies are just mixing different variations of refined grains, sugars, and oils to create these addictive things that are made by scientists that are just hyper palatable. It's like, you can know about a carnivore diet, but still it's like you put your hand into a bag of Doritos and you don't finish until you eat the entire bag because they're so hyper palatable. And then you're still hungry. But I think it's a lot of what Harry was saying and just really, and it's a lot of what you do too, Courtney, is like learning how to really read an ingredients label and just like determine what actually is healthy for you versus what is not.

Because I think a lot of people unfortunately get deceived by these products, whether they see like a green label on it or they see something that says like no GMOs or gluten-free or vegan, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's healthy for you. It can even take a page out of your playbook. We're in the office today and I saw this bag of skinny pop, but I want to do a video. You actually might have already done a video on this, but it's like, it passes a smell test because it's like green label, non-GMO, gluten-free, no artificial ingredients three it's three ingredients on the back and then the second ingredient is sunflower seed oil but it's got all the labels and then it's also it's owned by hershey they sold to hershey for like 1.7 billion so um so just because it's skinny

doesn't make you it's not going to make you skinny yeah oh my god i love the way that you just put all of that it's so so, yeah, it's perfect. First of all, the Hershey's buying them is once again, what we've been, what we said earlier, it's like there's 10 or 11 different corporations that own our entire food system. It is so nuts. And then what you were just describing with the Skinny Pop is what, it's a term that's called greenwashing, which is essentially they make you think that by looking at the front of the package, that this is a really healthy, nutritious snack or meal or whatever it is. And then you turn around the back and you look at the actual ingredients and you're like,

oh my God, like I almost got duped there. I actually just literally filmed a bunch of videos yesterday, just showing all the different products that sunflower seed and canola oil is in now. And it's three parts because we filled up an entire cart of stuff that had them in there in one grocery store. It's so insane how pervasive the vegetable oils are. I mean, it's an epic process. But I wanted to add, I think I maybe oversimplified too with the real foods because real foods can get greenwashed too like um I think we're seeing it now like uh grass grass-fed beef um the labeling laws changed and so um you really need to be mindful of the stamp like so certain groups are out there trying to accredit what grass-fed really means. So grass-fed now encompasses, this cow only needed to have some grass over the course of its entire life.

Those labeling laws changed, I forget, 2011. And so today you should really be looking for the AGA standard, which is grass fed their entire life. If you're looking to buy grass fed beef, it needs to be that AGA standard because that's how you know whether or not it's been eating grass its entire life. So the labeling laws are confusing. And I think that's, again, another reason why we say go support your local source because then you really do know what exactly is happening. And if you can't find a good local source, there's plenty of resources. Weston Price Foundation, eWild. So yeah, I just want to make sure I didn't oversimplify that because there's definitely problems in the real food industry as well.

It's a great point. Yeah. To everything Harry's saying, we've had ranchers that have told us that like legally you can label something as grass fed beef, but they can literally finish the cow on like a total mixed ration of Skittles and candy. But they were fed grass at one point in their life, which every cow is, you can legally call it grass fed beef. And like, you, you know, this being a Texan, like we we've heard this from some old school ranchers that said like back in the day, you know, you could go to your whole foods and talk to the butcher behind the counter. And they could tell you the exact farm that it came from and what they were fed.

They knew so much, so many little details about your food. You know, now you go to the butcher behind Whole Foods or your local grocery store. They probably, they maybe know where the farm is, but they can't tell you anything else beyond that. So, like, that's just another benefit to Harry's points. Like when you're buying from a local farmer, there's no question mark of where your meat is coming from or how it was raised or how it was finished. You can answer everything. You can ask everything that you want and get the exact answers that you're looking for. Yeah. It reminds me of that skit in Portlandia. Have you guys ever seen this where they sit down at a restaurant? Oh my God. It's so funny. Uh, they sit down at a restaurant? Oh my God, it's so funny.

They sit down at a restaurant and they ask where their chicken's from and they get like an entire pamphlet about like, this is Steven. He lived his life on green pastures and it's like this whole, it's like his life story. That's pretty much like what we're looking for. And of course it was a parody, but like, you know, in a way that's like, we really want to know where our meat's coming from. And I'm so glad that you brought up the Skittles and the candy bars, because I don't think a lot of people know this. This is like a known fact, guys. You can literally look this up. I can't remember who did a piece on this a couple of years ago, but there are farmers in these like big factory farming conventional systems where they're quite

literally feeding them Skittles, candy bars. They're notorious for feeding them the candy bars with the wrapper still on it too. They just throw whatever junk. They have like a deal with these candy companies because guys, again, all of it is connected and they feed them the expired candy bars as a way to like get rid of their excess candy bars. It's unbelievable. It's all these little things that you're just so shocked that these things are actually legal. It's like with a three seconds conversation, the average person is going to think that we're conspiracy theorists, but it's like, there's just so many loopholes

that are allowed in the food system. And that's why for us, we always come back to like, it's no shock that 70% of Americans are overweight or obese. Now it's affecting our kids. 40% of our children are overweight or obese. Like one in 10 kids now have fatty liver disease. So like something that aged alcoholics used to get, our children are now getting because we give them so much sugar. And it goes back to like the fact

that we're not eating real food and we've allowed these loopholes to occur like you're talking about like letting our our cows and animals eat crap and we think that we're not going to inherit that too exactly which is why again it's so important to support the farmers that are doing it right that are protecting the animals and then as a result they're protecting our health too because they're giving us a higher quality meat. Absolutely. A hundred percent. Yeah. You are what your animal eats. So I think you got to keep that in mind. Yes, exactly. So I'm curious from a more personal lens, what your diet looks like on a day to day basis. A lot of meat. Yeah. We try and keep it like super simple, like be able to explain it to a five-year-old and have them understand it. But it's like, you know, we're, we're both around like 200 pounds,

like larger guys. And so we just try and we just try and eat foods that keep us full, satiated, feel our best to make sure that our stomach feels great with good energy levels. Like for us, like red meat just sits very well. Super nutrient dense, like I keep going back to, and I would say we probably eat, you know, I eat like a pound of red meat for lunch, pound of red meat for dinner. You know, maybe every once in a while,

I'll throw some fruit in or some vegetables, like pickles or cucumbers or things that sit decently well in the stomach. Throw some eggs in there. Like I love to cook in tallow. Like tallow is an unbelievable animal fat to cook with. That's extremely underrated. You're basically just taking like the fat of the animal and you're, you're kind of rendering it down into like a liquid or a butter. Um, there's no dairy in it. It's got a really high smoke point too. So, you

know, we do a lot of tallow. We, we top our food with a lot of butter or a lot of salt because we're pretty lower carb, but it's like, you know, once you start to get your palate and your appetite under control, it almost feels like you have a superpower because it's like you wake up, maybe have a coffee with some cream in it. Not super hungry. If I am hungry, I'll have some eggs, maybe some bacon. If not, I'll go to lunch, have like a pound of beef, maybe like ground beef, maybe some steak, maybe some chicken thighs, something that's fattier. And then after that have, um, have like a pound of beef, maybe like ground beef, maybe some steak, maybe some chicken thighs, something that's fattier. And then after that, have like a big ribeye or something like that for dinner, or, you know, throw on some different cuts, you know, pork belly, could roast a whole chicken, some fish, some raw oysters, bone marrow, things like that. But it's like the simple stuff,

just like done time and time again, that always seems to be the most effective thing slow cooking too if you can get bone or um meat that's still on the bone like a chuck roast that still has a bone in it and do like some sort of like um slow cooking of a chuck roast or like a bone broth those are my favorite types of meals because they last all week and I think being able to get a broth out of cooking is great because that in itself is a really nutritious um source of protein and fat and there's I think bone broth is an incredibly valuable uh staple of my diet like always it has tons of glycine in it so so it's really good for your skin, hair, nails, gut, and high in protein. So you can basically just sip on that. It'll satiate you.

So that's another one that I love to cook. Do you ever get sick of this? Are you ever just like, oh, my God, I'm so sick of meat and eggs right now? And I'm just asking out of genuine curiosity. Yeah, I think it's such an interesting feeling when you kind of get yourself out of this like metabolic rut and being still relying on sugar and processed felt like my palate almost shifted where like, I really wanted the salty fatty cuts of meat. Like I couldn't get enough butter. And it was like, the more of these things I was doing, the better I felt. Um, so, and to be honest with you, it is still something that I struggle with, right? Like I'm going to go back for Christmas, see my parents

and like, I want to enjoy that. Um, but I know I'm probably not going to feel my best, but I also want to just like eat Christmas cookies and like kind of just be there with my family. But like outside of that, I just feel so good on this diet that you almost like, I think we both do a good job of like focusing on how good we feel. And also the meals are just delicious that it's like, we never really feel like we get tired. And if you do get tired, like you could do things like order beef in bulk. So get a quarter of a cow or a half cow where it's giving you a bunch of ground beef, a bunch of different cuts of meat,

meat on the bone, like Harry talked about. And then you can make things like, you know, bone marrow and slow cook dishes. And, you know, it's not all just like rib eyes and ground beef. Like there's so many different types of dishes you can incorporate. So, you know, if you're going carnivore, maybe your thing is

like, Hey, I'm going to learn one new recipe a week online. Like there's so many good recipes that you can learn now. So like there definitely are ways to add different types of like just variety. So you don't get that palate fatigue. If that's something that you struggle with. Yeah. I don't struggle with it all too much, but I, yeah, I just felt like I kind of focused on what Brett was talking about there at the end, which is just like making it exciting in different ways. Like it doesn't necessarily always need to just be like ground beef that you put on the stovetop. Like if you put a little bit of extra effort into it and figure out like a new recipe a week, you can make things taste great in a different way. And it's still, I mean, I don't know. There's something about what Brett was just talking about in terms of unwiring your brain from sort of that like standard American diet that your palate adjusts. And I think that like at this point, all I crave is just like nutrient-dense food. Do you suffer from IBS or other digestive issues? Are you looking for a new podcast to listen to? From the producer of the Real Foodology podcast

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pronounce on the back of your cereal boxes, Bethany has you covered. There's a reason why it debuted at number two on Apple Podcast Nutrition Charts. Check out Digest This on your favorite podcast app. New episodes every Monday and Wednesday. Produced by Drake Peterson and Resident Media. I can very much relate to that as well. When I started eating more whole real foods, I don't really crave the junk anymore. I get questions from people. I don't eat carnivore, but I get a lot of questions.

Similarly, what I'm asking you guys is, well, don't you get sick of it? Don't you ever want McDonald's? Don't you want X, Y, and Z? And I'm like, no. No, I don't you get sick of it? Don't you ever want like McDonald's? Don't you want, you know, X, Y, and Z? And I'm like, no, like I, no, I don't even crave it. Cause I don't, my palate completely changed and I crave whole real foods now. And that's not to say that I don't ever eat like French fries or anything like that. Like I'm not perfect and I'm not claiming to be, but for the most part, like my cravings are driven by a changed palate because I eat differently now.

Do you guys ever eat vegetables or do you guys just do strictly like animal-based foods? I would say it just kind of like depends on the season. Like I would say that when we're cooking for ourselves, I really don't like maybe some pickled onions or like cucumbers, things like that. Maybe some avocados every once in a while, but I really do like, especially with my, my stomach is so sensitive with colitis that it's like all about minimizing the inflammation. And I just feel like when I'm as close to red meat and salt as possible, not saying I'm going to do that every meal, but that's personally when my stomach feels the best, when my symptoms are the most minimal. And that's really what I'm focused

on. But you know, sometimes it's like anything else, I'll go over for a friend's dinner, and they'll make some amazing meal with some vegetables in it that are prepared, I'll go out to eat at a restaurant. It's like, you know, I want to indulge in those things. I want to taste something that the chef invested time into. And it's delicious. Like, so it really just depends. But I would say most of the time now, I think I think we probably cook like 90 to 95% of our meals. And I cannot remember the last time I cooked a vegetable. So it's like those random circumstances where it's like, you know, you go out to eat and someone orders like some asparagus or somebody has some asparagus. But yeah, typically just when it's

under my own control i'm not having vegetables yeah you kind of just reminded me courtney um you posted a really good video that i think would be could be cool to talk about i think you it was like a very simple video and you showed like the toll house cookies the christmas cookies in the inner aisle of the grocery store or no the like the the outer aisle and you just said i'm not saying you can't have these cookies, but like, instead of eating this crap with all these ingredients in it, like why not make the extra effort to actually prepare your stuff? And that's something that we spend a lot of time thinking about is like, just because we like carnivore doesn't mean that you should just be depriving yourself of these foods. Like the preparation makes the poison or it could even

make the antidote. So it's like, no one's saying you can't have cookies and they probably, you probably shouldn't be eating them every single day. But if you're, you are going to celebrate, you know, get some high quality sugar or some local flour, or like if you're going to make a burger, cook it in tallow and get like some sourdough from the bakery or something like that, like kind of like make that extra effort so you can enjoy these foods that you love, but prepare them the right way. Like I think, right? Like French fries is a great example.

It's like if you cook them in vegetable oil, they're poisonous. Whereas like if you're cooking them in tallow, it's really like, it's a health food. So, but it's all about the preparation. Yes, yes. I'm so glad that you brought that up there. I don't even know if this place still does this

because I haven't gone in a long time, but I used to go to this one restaurant in LA that fried their French fries in ghee. I was like, ooh, yes, ghee is really good for you and potatoes aren't inherently bad for you. It's what I say all the time. Well, I got this from Diana Rogers from Sustainable Dish where she says, it's not the cow, it's the how.

And you can apply that to literally everything like you just said. It's not necessarily about demonizing these specific foods. The only reason that we demonize French fries is not about the potatoes. It's about the frying them in these horrible vegetable oils. If we go back to using tallow and ghee and butter, then you can really consume yeah, like consume any of these foods that you want, but you got to just make them at home or buy from places that are making them the right way. Yeah, a hundred percent. It's insane. Yeah. Just that little bit of extra effort can really avoid you running into some, like we were just talking about seed oils, but I mean, that's the one where it's just so easy to like misreading a label and you're eating Toll House cookies that have seed oils in it instead of going home and making them yourself.

And it's just flour and eggs and some like dark chocolate or whatever the ingredients are. So there's just a better way to do everything. And I feel like if more people start thinking about taking that extra effort, it can go a long way. Well, in the interest of time, I feel like I could talk to you guys about this literally all day. I just love, I really love this conversation and I love how huge proponents you guys are for me

because we are very aligned in that. Is there anything else about me or really anything we talked about that you wanted to say before we go? Yeah, you mentioned nose to tail and I think it's a really important topic. Most people are still getting over the fact that they need to incorporate meat into their diet.

So nose to tail might sound a little bit extreme, but I do think that most people, when they do get to the meat-based diet, they think it's just ribeyes and ground beef. And there's so much more to the animal than that. And so like bone broth, bone marrow are two that come to mind for me where I'm like, these are like- Morgan meats.

Yeah, Morgan meats too. Like if you can get like an ancestral blend ground beef to sneak some liver into ground beef, like I think there's huge upside. Liver is nature's multivitamin. I think that there's so many benefits that can come from people getting the vitamin A, copper, all the other minerals that are in liver. So that's another great point. Just don't shy away from the things that might seem a little bit extreme because you can

make, I think these are staples of a lot of, not even ancestrals, just like older cultures. Like if you look at a dinner menu in France back in the early 1900s, there's liver, there's pate, there's some ceviche or whatever it is. There's all these things that are just are kind of like out of the scope of a normal diet, but that you should be thinking about when it comes to being a healthy,

healthy person. I mean, this applies to me, but like, I think just food in general, just we've been thinking about this a lot, like almost, and I don't know how controversial this is, but just getting away from this, like overly sciencing of information and food and just focus on things that make your body feel really good. That's why I think a carnivore diet is powerful. I think any, I think just setting a two week challenge where you're going to say, look, I'm just going to try and cook either all or 90% of my meals and change nothing else besides the fact that you're going to take that time and that preparation. You don't even have to be low carb or carnivore. Just cook all your meals and be intentional about how you source your stuff. And I would be shocked if you didn't feel better just within a few days

of doing that. And I think that will give you this feeling, this understanding of how food is supposed to be nourishment. It's supposed to be medicine. You should feel energy after you have a meal. That's what food is. It's this nourishment. You shouldn't feel like you need to pass out. And I would just, and I just hope that everyone can, can just grasp that and like, just learn how to be their, their own coach and their own mentor when it, when it comes to nutrition. So that's the only other thing that I would add. Yeah. And then I want to say one last thing, cause I think you guys both sort of mentioned this and I think it's important for people to hear this.

At the end of the day, follow how you feel in your body. I mean, you guys mentioned about journaling and making notes of the foods that you eat and how they make you feel afterwards. And so you can listen to any of us and we all share our various diets that we consume. And we've all gotten to these places by really experimenting with different stuff and ultimately taking note of what feels good in our body. So that's the most important thing is to

really just, you know, fuck what anyone else says. I mean, take it all in and then try all the different things and then see what works best for you and then go from there. Yeah, totally. And we both, you just remind me of something. I'm sorry to add. No, it's okay. I love it. One of the things that we did early last year was get CGMs.

And I think that it's just a valuable tool to be able to self-govern and just like understand how you're feeling and understand how that relates to the food that you're eating and different lifestyle things that are happening whether it's not getting enough sleep not drinking enough water not moving enough so there's a lot of value in doing this sort of self-experimentation because even just a month of doing that can be a lifetime worth of value like you can now really start to like, and I don't think people need to do it every day. I think that there's an extreme point where it starts to get unhealthy when you start really looking into all the details of everything. But if you do it for a month and start to understand your relationship with sugar or, you know, eating more fat, whatever

it is that you're trying to change, you can then apply that to the rest of your life and get all the value from it. So it's a great tool. Yeah, it's a great point. So before we go, I want to ask both of you guys, what are your health non-negotiables? So these are things that you do to prioritize your own health, no matter how crazy your day is, like non-negotiables. This is actually, the timing is perfect for this because since, so I moved out, I think I was telling you, we just moved out texas so we're living under the same roof right now and our non-negotiable has been uh run three miles every morning and then do 60 squats and so it doesn't matter whether that's walking the three miles running walk run body weight squats weighted squats whatever that's just like our form of exercise like Like just get out of bed,

start the day on a positive note. And it almost feels like it's like there's two different versions of you. It's like the version before you exercise and the version afterwards. So that's been incredibly helpful, really simple. And then I would say besides that, like just consistent movement throughout the day, cooking all of our meals as possible, like prioritizing protein. And then also just like being diligent with sleep hygiene as well, like forcing yourself to get into have seven to nine hours of sleep, just like most people are that are listening to this. They know what they need to do. It's just the, it's the consistency every single day.

And you'll look back in six months and you can literally be an unrecognizable person just doing these very simple things day in and day out. I think the one thing I was going to add to that, we were talking about this last night, is cutting off your eating window like three hours before you go to bed. I actually think like eating right before you go to bed

can be borderline unhealthy. Like it really disrupts your sleep. And so if you're not mindful of that, if you're like drinking a lot of water, eating like 30 minutes before bed, it's going to really pay a toll on your sleep over time. And most people have other sleep habits that they need to change. Like, um, like alcohol, like drinking a bunch of alcohol before you go to bed. Like that's probably a common one, but, um, yeah, I think

just like no eating and drinking like two or three hours before bed is a good rule for most people to live by. Well, for everyone listening, please let them know where they can find you guys and where they can find your podcast. Yeah. So very simple podcast is just called the Meat Mafia Podcast. And then we also have a sub stack too, where we post a lot of our longer form content, blogs, things like that. And if you go to just do type in the Meat Mafia Podcast, the sub stack should be the first thing that pops up. And then we're the Meat Mafia Podcast blogs things like that and if you go to just do type in the meat mafia podcast the subs to actually be the first thing that pops up um and then we're the meat mafia podcast on instagram and then on twitter we're like semi-anonymous which is pretty funny so harry's handle is at carnie clemenza and

then i'm at mr salazzo so it's like an ode to the godfather but um but i would say yeah we do most of our posting on twitter but like instagram sub, we're all really active there too. YouTube, all of it. Awesome. Well, you guys are a great follow on Instagram. That's how I initially found you guys. And I'm so grateful that I did. And I'm just so grateful that you guys came on today and shared your wisdom and glad that we got connected. Thank you. Awesome. Thanks, Courtney. Yeah. Thank you guys so much. Thank you so much. the J. For more amazing podcasts produced by my team, go to resonantmediagroup.com. I 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.