Realfoodology - The Biblio Diet: Red Meat, Raw Milk & the New Dietary Guidelines | Dr. Josh Axe

Episode Date: February 24, 2026

289: Dr. Josh Axe joins me to explore the powerful connection between ancient wisdom and modern nutrition. We break down the latest U.S. dietary guidelines, why animal fats and extra virgin olive oil are making a comeback, and what the Bible actually says about red meat, alcohol, and balanced eating.We also unpack why carnivore and vegan diets don’t work for everyone, eating to avoid parasites, and what to know about raw milk if you’re curious but cautious.  Topics Discussed: → How have the new U.S. dietary guidelines shifted?  → What does the Bible actually say about alcohol and red meat?  → Why don’t carnivore or vegan diets work for everyone? → Could parasites be silently draining your energy? → Is raw milk worth the risk? Sponsored By: → YAYA’S EVOO | YAYA’S is offering 15% off your order, and it even stacks on subscriptions. Go to https://www.yayasevoo.com/realfoodology. → Cowboy Colostrum | Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code REALFOODOLOGY at https://www.cowboycolostrum.com/realfoodology. → Our Place |  Stop cooking with toxic cookware, and upgrade to Our Place today. Visit https://www.fromourplace.com/realfoodology and use code REALFOODOLOGY for 10% off sitewide. With a hundred-day risk-free trial, free shipping and returns, you can experience this game-changing cookware with zero risk. → Paleovalley | Head to https://www.paleovalley.com/realfoodology, or use code REALFOODOLOGY at checkout for 15% off your first purchase.  → Just Thrive | Get your health in check and save 20% on your first order at https://www.justthrivehealth.com/realfoodology.  → Manukora | Head to https://www.manukora.com/realfoodology to save up to 31% plus $25 worth of free gifts with the Starter Kit, which comes with an MGO 850+ Manuka Honey jar, 5 honey travel sticks, a wooden spoon, and a guidebook! Timestamps:  → 00:00:00 - Introduction  → 00:05:08 - New Dietary Guidelines Explained  → 00:15:48 - The Biblio Diet  → 00:38:40 - Parasites, Pork + Cancer Treatment  → 00:45:34 - Wisdom from the Bible   → 00:52:28 - Alcohol + Hormone Therapy  → 1:02:25 - Modern Medication  → 1:06:50 - Raw Milk  → 1:10:55 - Health Myths: Cholesterol, Sunshine & Sickcare   Show Links: → The Biblio Diet | Book   → The Dr. Josh Axe Show | Podcast  → The Health Institute  Check Out: → Instagram  Check Out Courtney:  →  LEAVE US A VOICE MESSAGE →  Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide! →  @realfoodology →  www.realfoodology.com →  My Immune Supplement by 2x4 →  Air Dr Air Purifier →  AquaTru Water Filter →  EWG Tap Water Database Produced By: Drake Peterson

Do you feel like bacon even coming from organic pasture, raised, maybe regenerative? Do you still think we should probably be avoiding that? I do. If you're comparing grass-fed beef to pork, pork is still higher in saturated fat. Okay, so for the people in that group where saturated fat's bad, they're going to have a problem with it. The Bible talks about staying away from things like pork and shellfish. And the reason for that is, is that these are carriers of parasites predominantly and other microorganisms that are very harmful to the body. And just the way their digestive systems are set up like a pig.

They just don't detoxify well. so they're storing so many toxins in their fat. And whether it's wild or farmed either way, it's not healthy. In the Bible, there's a section that it's called Solomon's provisions. And it goes through, what did Solomon eat on a regular basis? And the number one thing he ate was likely red meat. And it was a mixture of things. It was beef.

It was elk. Lamb. Lamb. Hi, friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology podcast. Today's episode is perfectly timed. Just last week, the new dietary guidelines were announced, and there is a lot of confusion once again.

about what we should actually be eating to be healthy. My guest today is my dear friend, Dr. Josh Axe. You probably know him as a functional medicine doctor and nutrition expert. And today we're actually diving into his brand new book, The Biblio Diet, which explores how ancient biblical principles around food, fasting, rest, and even environmental health can help heal the body, reverse autoimmune issues, and rebalance the hormones in the modern world. We talk about what the Bible actually says about eating red meat, dairy, bread, and wine.

and how different these foods were back then compared to today. Think freshly milled grains, fermented sourdough, A2 dairy, and no glyphosate or ultra-processed fake food products. We also get into alcohol, fasting, rest, parasite exposure, and why these biblical instructions may be far more relevant now than ever. And if you're thinking, I'm not religious, or the Bible is too ancient to apply to today, we address that head on how these principles can benefit anyone regardless of belief and how to apply them in a modern food environment

full of artificial sweeteners and ultra-processed foods. This is a fascinating conversation that connects ancient wisdom with modern science and I think you're really going to learn a lot. I really hope that you love the episode. If you could take a moment to rate and review it, it will take two seconds. It really does help the show,

and it helps me get this out to more listeners. So thank you so much for listening. And if you love any parts from this episode, or if you're loving the episode altogether, make sure that you tag me at Real Foodology on Instagram and also tag at Dr. Josh Axe. Thank you so much for listening. I used to think that all extra virgin olive oil was basically the same.

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full fat, high protein, and incredibly nutrient dense, which is why it's considered the highest quality bovine colostrum you can buy. It's super easy to use, too. You just add a scoop of their chocolate, Madagascar vanilla, which is my favorite, macha or strawberry, into your coffee or smoothie, and it genuinely makes you feel good all day. And beyond gut support, these peptides and growth factors help your skin and hair look amazing. For a limited time, our listeners get up to 25% off their entire order. Just head to cowboy colostrum.com slash real Foodology and use code Real Foodology at checkout. That's 25% off when you use code Real Foodology at Cowboy Colostrum.com slash Real Foodology. Josh, I'm so excited to finally have you on the

Real Foodology podcast. I know I've actually had you on years ago. I don't know if you even remember this. It was when your book came out. Yeah, Ancient Remedies. Yes, ancient remedies. This was back during COVID times and we just did virtual. Yeah, this had been like 2020. Yes, long time ago. Yeah. So I'm very excited to finally have you in person. because it's so much better. Well, thanks for having me, Courtney. I'm excited to be here. Yeah.

So we have actually become great friends doing a lot of stuff with Maha, which I also want to talk a little bit about as well. Yeah. Because there have been so, in my personal opinion, there have been so many amazing wins. There's a couple things that we'll probably talk about on your show that I'm not super happy about,

but overall I'm actually really happy with what's been happening with Maha. Do you feel the same way? Yeah, same thing. I mean, I think the big thing is if people take more of a big picture perspective and say what advances and changes have happened in one year, one single year versus when you look at, you know, every regime before this, what people have done,

whether it was Biden or Bush or Trump or whatever, like, RFK Jr. has made major changes. And it's so funny to me that you have some people criticizing what he's doing. But at the same time, you know, who has made this many positive changes towards, you know, natural health and reducing, you know, metabolic issues and a number of things? So overall, I'm really thrilled, and we've got another three years with him being able to make some big changes. So, yeah, I'm very positive and excited about what's happened so far. Yeah, same. I think so many people forget that it took us about 70 years to get into this mess.

We're not going to change that overnight. Yeah, right. And to your point, there have been so many changes that have happened in the last year. I almost feel like my head is spinning. I can't even believe that we've been able to make as many changes as we have. Yeah, you know, there's a quote that I remember him putting on. Twitter, which is now X, this was probably, you know, a year or so ago. And he basically said, hey, I'm going to work on making all these changes. And there was a lot of them. It was everything

from the food pyramid to peptides to raw milk to food dyes. I mean, there's a lot of things, you know, that we need to fix in this country to get healthier. I definitely don't envy his position because there is so much that needs to be changed. It's a little overwhelming if you think about it. But he's been doing a great job. I'm really excited. So one of the things that I was very happy about was actually just this week, they announced the new dietary guidelines that were up for revision. And I really want to know what your thoughts are on it. Were you happy with it? Yeah, I will say generally I am happy with it. You know, I think, so my dietary philosophy is very much in alignment with a lot of the ancient wisdom in terms of, you know, Chinese medicine, biblical

medicine, Iroveda, and looking at what are those recommendations? And one of the the things across the board and all of those is this, and this is important to understand, everyone is unique. There isn't one diet that's perfect for everybody. I think that's one of the hard things. I think we see a lot of people get on this bandwagon of everybody should be carnivore. Everybody should be vegan. Everybody should be keto. Everybody should be low carb. I mean, we see this people trying to do this all the time. And here's why this happens is most of those people have good intentions because they had a health issue. They went on a diet and that diet actually help them. But that's not right for everybody. And I can tell you from running a functional medicine

practice, like if I have a patient come in with irritable bowel disease, that diet is very different than if I have a patient come in and I'm working with somebody who has cancer or hypothyroidism. I mean, they're very different. The person with IBD, we've got to do a lot of warming foods, a lot of soups, a lot of ginger tea, a lot of those things to kind of help nurse their gut. And that's different than maybe some of the raw foods and things I would do with somebody on a different type of diet. So I just wanted to throw that out there first is that everybody should be following a personalized diet that's right for them. And you can discover that through just being in tune with your body and understanding which food you respond well to. There are practitioners that can do testing and functional medicine or, you know, or TCM and help dial things in for you.

So I think that's ideal for most people. But when it comes to the food pyramid, here's what I think they got right. One, there's all real food on there. I don't even think sugar's on there. Because, you know, the old food pyramid, that's what's funny. And that's why, like, anybody that says this isn't a radical improvement is crazy. They weren't paying attention before, I think. Yeah.

So even if you don't agree with everything, can you say there's an improvement there? So, again, sugar isn't even on there because it shouldn't be on there because it's not a real food. Well, in fact, I want to add this in the old guidelines, they actually said that it was healthy for children. under two to have a certain amount of sugar. That was part of the guidelines. Yeah, it's wild. It's crazy. So when you look at it, you'll see things on there.

Basically, it's all real food. It's very protein and fat heavy up top. Now, you're going to have vegetables in there in that top ranking as well, kind of the second tier there. You're seeing some fruit and berries specifically. And then near at the bottom, that's where you're seeing these whole grains and things like that. But there's no processed foods.

There's no sugar on there whatsoever. And it's only real food. Yeah. And I think that's the. big thing, and that's the biggest thing that I'm a fan of when it comes to it. I know there's a big debate, because one of the things you'll see on there is butter and you'll see red meat. My take is maybe, it's maybe somewhere in between when you see a lot of the people out there today who are saying, you know, maybe Paul Saladino is an example, or a lot of people that are in carnivore

movement saying, hey, eat as much butter and as much animal fat as you want. I actually don't agree with that. I think that's very personalized. I think there's about 20% of the population that probably will thrive with that. By the way, I think also there's some evidence that maybe your caloric intake matters as well. If you're eating just some animal meat and some vegetables, and with that, you're also getting quite a bit of saturated fat, but then there's almost no carbs or sugar in your diet. Some people will get away with doing higher saturated fat with that type of diet.

But if you're doing a lot of saturated fat with a lot of sugar and other things, even if it's animal-based, I do think, and this is the Chinese medicine perspective, is that fats that are saturated, coconut oil, not as much, but more of the animal butter fats, it is a little bit slower in terms of what it does in slowing down your liver, okay, and your detoxification. And so I do think there is an element of, I do think everybody can handle some, but I do think if that's a big part of your diet and to say everybody can eat as much butter and saturated animal fat as you want, I don't think that's true. I do think it could increase heart issues because of the liver has happened to work pretty hard and what it's having to do.

So all that being said, I understand kind of both perspectives of what people are saying there, but this is where it comes down to, I think everybody needs to follow a diet that's right for them. But again, for the food pyramid, it has all real food on it. It's a big step up. So I'm generally a fan. Yeah. Well, and to your point that you just said a minute ago is that people need to really figure out what works best for them. And this is what's really hard.

I was actually having a conversation the other day with a friend about this that I don't envy people in the public health space that are having to write these guidelines that are an overarching blanket statement for everyone because it's almost impossible. It's why I think the dietary guidelines should really act as a guide, but not an end-all, be-all for people. People really need to find a practitioner that they trust that really knows what they're talking about. They can help them figure out what works best for them. Because, I mean, my story is a perfect example of this. When I first started getting into health and food and all of that, you know, 15, 20 years ago,

all the books I was reading were saying, you have to go plant-based, you know, go vegan, avoid eggs, avoid meat. I was the sickest I've ever been. I mean, I was literally, I looked back at photos of myself and I was like gray and sickly. I had no energy. I was getting cystic acne. I just, my health really tanked. And it wasn't until I finally found this one integrative practitioner that looked at, you know, me straight in the face and said, you have to start eating meat again. Like, you're so sick,

look at yourself. And, you know, look at your numbers and your blood work and all this. And it finally, after five years, I really, I had to come to Jesus moment where I was like, shoot, I really need to start eating meat again. And my story is just a perfect example of I was listening to all these experts saying that meat was so bad for me and that I had to follow this very strict exact diet or it wasn't going to be healthy. And then I realized, well, okay, so maybe they're on to some things. maybe I need to make sure I'm getting enough of the vegetables, but avoiding the meat was not good for me. And you know what's really ironic is a couple years ago I saw a new doctor who I got some blood work done with her. And she, it's so funny because she didn't know my past about being vegetarian.

And she said, we did a genetic test. And she goes, well, one thing's for sure, don't ever go vegetarian because it's actually really bad for you in your genetic makeup. And I laughed and I said, well, I figured that out on my own already. So it just goes to show that it really is bio-individualized. And it's really hard to do a blanket statement like that for everybody in the population. It's just tough. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. You know, I think there's a few key foods that you could have bumped up a little bit higher on that pyramid.

And I'm still don't understand exactly. I mean, I think it's some of it is, there's a hierarchy there, but then some of it is sort of mixed in and saying, hey, all these things are good. And it's almost hard to tell what level certain things are at. And maybe that was done intentionally with that pyramid. I think, you know, when you're looking at fats, extra virgin olive oil, I mean, I see people arguing all the time about sort of fats. Yes.

I think everybody across the board can agree extra virgin olive oil is probably the best oil you can use on a regular basis. Yeah. I see people both from the plant-based, you know, saying that, I see people, you know, generally from Mediterranean, a biblical diet. I mean, people believing the extra virgin olive oil. I think fish like wild caught salmon could have also been at the very, very peak there because the importance of omega-3 fats, EPA DHA.

And then I think even berries and antioxidants there can have been moved up. And I don't remember this, but I don't think I remember seeing hunting. there. I would have had honey at the very bottom of the pyramid, but I do think that it has tremendous benefits for cold and flu, for energy and endurance, for things that, you know, for specific instances. Can be for allergies. Allergies. Immune health. Yeah, absolutely. So, but overall, again, I think it's a, you know, it was a major step in the right direction. I agree. I think for my last take is just, and you pretty much said this, is that I feel like I've been waiting for so long for our government just to acknowledge that we need to stop eating ultra-processed

foods and eat real food. That's right. So when I saw that eat real food and then they verbally wrote out avoid ultra-processed foods, I felt like I was going to cry because I've been waiting for that for so long. And that alone, if people follow it, will make such an impact. Amen. Yeah. I thought that was so cool. So you brought up the biblical diet kind of, and I want to start diving into this. So you wrote a book last year with your friend, Josh Rubin. Jordan Rubin. I'm so Sorry. Okay, I have to say this. I really, pregnancy brain is actually a thing and I've, I've been starting to notice it a little bit and I'm not fully on my game with that, so forgive me. I got to tell you, so Chelsea and I, we have two of our really close friends. We were,

we had just watched this whole movie series. It's like seven movies all in a row the year before. Yeah. She got pregnant. And we said, and she said, hey, do you guys want to watch this movie series? And we're like, we just watched that whole thing the year before. She literally didn't remember. So anyways. It's a thing. It really is a thing. It's wild. Seeing how I operated before and how I'm operating right now being pregnant, I'm like, oh, wow, it really is a thing. By the way, congratulations. I'm so excited for you. Thank you. Well, we should talk about there's a few things. When you are pregnant and post-pregnancy, you really want to focus right after you have birth building your blood. Yes. It's something a lot of women, a lot of women go through,

you know, a level of postpartum depression and just a low energy. And so you want to do everything you can't. It's lots of soups. It's beetroot juice. It's everything you can't. It's taking liver tablets. Building your blood is really the key post-pregnancy just afterwards. Well, I had a girlfriend actually tell me that she noticed a remarkable difference between baby one and baby two because baby one, she was really avoiding red meat. She wasn't eating a lot of like iron rich foods. Yeah. And then baby two, she said that she went a lot harder on the red meat. and kind of more focusing on her iron. And she said it was night and day difference.

Such a big thing. And even with wound healing, too, and you think about after you give birth, too, that really helps the wound healing. Yeah. I mean, the placenta is pretty much all collagen and blood. Yeah. And you lose so much blood during pregnancy. And then actually even producing breast milk, there's a lot of blood that it's taking

from kind of the same area of the body. So it'll help. Thank you. Thank you for that. If you're someone who cares about what you put in your body, you also have to care about what you're cooking on because here's something wild. Most non-stick cookware still contains P-FAs, also known as Forever Chemicals. These are the same toxins linked to hormone disruption, immune issues, and long-term health concerns, and they can actually leach into your food when your pans

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To try the superfood golden milk today, go to paleovali.com slash real foodology, and you will save 15% off when you use code real foodology. Again, that's paleo valley.com slash real foodology. Okay, so let's get to the Biblio Diet because I've been very excited to ask you about this, because I've had some personal questions. is just to give you a little background and context, I grew up in a very religious home, like very Christian home. Went to Bible study like every week.

And so I moderately know the Bible from my upbringing, but I haven't really been diving into it in the last 10 years or so. But I really feel like there's been this whole resurgence in the health movement as well. Like I feel like there's been this movement back to Christianity and really a focus on the Bible. And so when you guys wrote this book, I was like, this is amazing. I started to notice that there was some parallels between what's written in the Bible as far as what we should be eating and what God provided us to eat. And then when y'all wrote this book, I was like, this is perfect. I want to learn more about it.

So I want to know, what does the Bible say about eating red meat? Yeah, the Bible is for it. Generally speaking, it is for it. And again, it's always important to throw this disclaimer out there. And I think this is where sometimes we get mixed up in a lot of these studies. You know, there's a lot of people. And I remember there's even documentaries we've seen about this, talking about how bad red meat is. There's just such a radical difference between red meat that is completely grass-fed,

that's slaughtered biblically, that's just raised the way God intentionally created us to raise them, versus a McDonald's. Versus a McDonald's hamburger. I mean, they're so different in terms of their omega-3 ratios, having less CLA, which has anti-cancer and, you know, really metabolic supportive price. properties. I mean, it's just very, very different. So that's the first thing I want to say. In the Bible, there's a section, it's called Solomon's provisions. And it goes through, what did Solomon eat on a regular basis? And the number one thing he ate was likely red meat.

He also did a lot of extra virgin olive oil. He did sourdough bread, things like that. But it was predominantly red meat. And it was a mixture of things. It was, it was grass, it was beef. It was elk. Lamb, probably too. Yeah. Venison. And it was so, so, you know, the wisest man that ever lived in terms of during that old test in the time period, it said I do have eaten a lot of red meat. And, you know, one thing I'll say, and I think just for people to understand the difference between how you might know

what foods best for you versus not best for you is there are foods that are more anabolic and foods that are more catabolic. So, and you want a mixture of this, and Chinese medicine captures this point in terms of yin and yang. Yin is catabolic, yang is anabolic. Anabolic means, the thing about anabolic steroids, it's helping growth, regeneration, building muscle, which we want to do, right?

We want to regenerate. You want to heal tissues, all that you want. Cautabolic is supporting autophagy. It's cleansing. It's getting rid of things. That's fruits and vegetables. They're going to help your body cleanse and detoxify, reduce inflammation, and do that more so. So we really do want to balance of both meat and fruits and vegetables for most people in most cases.

But yeah, the Bible is a big fan of red meat. meat. We look at the Passover. Every year, they're eating lamb. Yeah. And so it's probably the most reference along with fish. It's a lot of red meat. It's a lot of fish. And throughout the Bible. And, you know, I think that when you looked at, if people could afford eating meat, they did. They ate a lot of it in the Bible. You know, I remember I took a mission trip over to Africa. And they ate a lot of beans and rice because it was just the most, you know, it was the least expensive. It was the things they could do the most of. But whenever they would do a celebration, they would eat red meat as much as they possibly could or meat. So, yeah, I mean, you know, there are things that are really kind of today.

If you look at the American Heart Association, they would read the Bible, and they would have a heart attack. Because they would see, you know, they're talking about red meat, raw milk, salt, honey, you know. Basically all of the quarter of those. No-no foods. Yeah, well, actually, they'd be okay with the bread, which is crazy. That's the one thing. So, but it's sourdough, it's an ancient grain bread. So, but that's, but the Bible talks about all those things and says, hey, they're fine.

You know, the Bible, though also, I think when you take the whole thing together, they're also promoting things like staying away from being gluttonous. Yeah. They're also promoting fasting during seasonal periods. So I think that's one thing where people get themselves, you know, you're going to get in trouble where it goes back to the saturated fat conversation. If you're eating saturated fat, a lot of it all the time, and you're really under high stress and you're overeating other calories, well, that's going to be another thing that's going to

probably contribute to heart issues if it's done with all of these other things versus the Bible is really balanced and saying, hey, eat some red meat, eat some fish, do lots of extra virgin olive oil, eat pomegranates, eat figs, eat berries, you know, and also but practice fasting and don't overeat, you know? So I think it's an important sort of distinction and understanding of looking at the Bible as a whole and what it's talking about in terms of diet nutrition. It's so cool because before you guys wrote this book, I had never really thought about using the Bible as a guidebook for what we should be eating. There were points of reference that I had. Like, for example, I shared earlier that I've been vegetarian for a long time. And I really,

on a moral grounding in my soul, I wrestled with it for a little bit because part of the reason I had gone vegetarian is because I'm such an empath for animals. Right? But what helped me really come back around besides, there was part of me that was, you know, you know, you know, fighting on the inside of just like, you've got to fight for your own life here. Like you're really sick right now. But there was also another aspect that really helped me come around that my mom really helped me a lot with this was, look, Courtney, in the Bible, it talks about how God provides us the food that we need, you know?

And part of my message with real foodology is I would always say, you know, nature, aka God, has really provided us all of the nutrients that we need. And not only is that fruit and vegetables, but that is also the animals that he's provided for us. Yeah. Yeah, we see this in Genesis 9.3. right, right after the flood, and God tells Noah, now you can eat the things that creep on the ground. There's also belief that around that time,

quite a few scientists believed that, you know, before that there was sort of this, there was a greater level of like oxygen saturation and a number of things happening that allowed, that also allowed people to live longer, right? Because we see before this time of NOAA, we see people living to be 900 years old, and then after the flood, then we also say,

we see the lifespan drop, we also see, hey, you can eat meat now. And so there were definitely some changes happening at that time. But yeah, God says, hey, you know, eat meat. And that's even, you know, soon after, you know, there's the sacrificial system of sacrificing animals. And of course, later on we see Jesus and his atonement of being that sacrificial lamb, as the Bible talks about,

for eternal salvation rather than just, you know, eating meat or something just for general health, you know, today. Yeah. So I can imagine some people listening will probably be asking this question, so I would be remiss not to. but you'd mentioned, so we had a really long lifespan, and then it went down, we started eating meat. Are you saying there's a correlation there? Or just it more had to do with the Bible and what happened there? No, no. What I'm saying is it was due to the change in the environment. But no, just in terms of

the air we were breathing, the other thing is, and you may be aware of this, is like before, it didn't rain up until, up until that point. Ever until the flood? Yeah, never rained before. I actually never knew that. Yeah, you know, water came up out of the ground. And so, yeah, it never rained. So obviously there was something very, very different in the environment and a shift that happened at that place. And so no, I actually believe the guts that eaten meat. And part of that was to potentially extend our lifespan and help us stay healthy. We now needed that sort of nourishment and those nutrients in order to be healthy post-flood. Yeah.

Okay. That's interesting. And the other thing, I just want to say this, because you kind of referenced this earlier, a lot of people would never think about the Bible as being a guide for health and nutrition. but it is the greatest guide ever written for health and nutrition. You know, there are so many verses about regenerative agriculture, letting the land rest every seven years and things like that going through. Yeah, I mean, the Bible talks about farming.

You know, two-thirds of Jesus' parables were food and agriculture-related. Wow. And so the Bible talks about food and nutrition and diet and things like fasting and foods constantly throughout the whole Bible. It was really fun writing the Bibliot Diet with Jordan because for about two years, it's like I went through, and I was already, I'm in the health industry, so I'm aware of some of what it said. But being able to go through and read the entire Bible with a microscope of saying, what does the Bible say about health, diet, nutrition is really profound.

You know, because we also got into praying for healing. You know, what does the Bible say in terms of, you know, not just things that are diet-related, but prayer. You know, it was pretty cool reading about, I went and read this historic document and it goes through how far Jesus walked his three years of ministry. and it was an average of like almost 10 miles a day, but there were some days he walked an entire, there were a couple of times he walked in a marathon, 26 miles in a day,

to get from one town to another. So we read this 10,000 step thing, and Jesus blew that out of the water. I wonder what he was doing to, if he was fasting or if he had like bread in his pocket for energy. Yeah. You know, I wish that we knew that kind of stuff. Well, and it's interesting because you just said a minute ago,

you were talking about how, yeah, how it's like a guidebook and how all the parables, so many of them mention agriculture and food. And it makes sense to me. All I thought immediately when you said that is, well, food gives us life. That's right. And Jesus is called the bread of life. Wow. Yeah. That's so cool. So I'm curious to know. And the reason I'm asking all these questions, I mean, maybe it's already obvious, but, you know, I think for so long we've vilified so many of these foods, like red meat, salt, even honey. And so I want to really know what the Bible says, also about bread. So bread is something that I've been getting really into recently because I've been learning

more about stone milling and milling on the spot and then baking your bread right away versus what we do here in America. Well, and probably everywhere is that, you know, it's probably been milled maybe sometimes even months prior. And by the time you buy it, it's been sitting on the shelf for a while and it's basically gone rancid. And so I think that's a whole other conversation. But I think that there is a conversation here to be made about if we're making bread in the way that God intended I would assume it's probably going to be more of a health food. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, when you're reading the Bible

and you're looking at more of the just, like, likely during Jesus time when they were making bread, it was very similar to an inkorn wheat. And they would tend to also add in things like barley and rye in there. So these are really, you know, very nutrient-dense grains. They actually have different properties when you look at rye and barley, and barley is more drying, getting rid of candied and dampness.

Rye is more detoxifying, supporting the liver. iron corn is definitely more moistening to the body. And then they were fermented. And their study after study shows when you ferment something or it goes through a sourdough fermentation process, it creates certain types of probiotics that are great for the digestion. There are two studies done on 17 people each.

And when people had, all of these people had psiliacs disease. So this is an ultra-glutin sensitivity. When they had sourdough bread, that was true sourdough, Zero of them of the 17 had a gluten intolerance reaction. Wow. So what's happening in sourdough process is you are predigesting the gluten and a lot of the carbohydrates. So it's a completely different thing you're eating now when it goes through a fermentation process. I do think if somebody is trying to, here's where I think when eating sourdough is great,

and then here's where it could be problematic. A lot of it comes down to your macros. Like, if you are eating, let's say your diet is this. Lots of wildcat fish, lots of red meat, lots of, you know, vegetables. Okay, and then some berries. Let's say that's the predominant part of your diet, extra virgin olive oil. And then we add in some sourdough there. Perfect.

Great. Little butter. That's really good. Little butter. That's great. Perfect. But if you're doing sourdough and then you're doing spaghetti for lunch, you're doing potato chips and whatever in the afternoon, whatever, and you think, hey, sourdough, this is like taking

a vitamin. no, I mean, you're already so carb-heavy that it's not necessarily, it's not as bad as these other things you're eating, but now it's adding onto the total carb load for your body, and then it's probably not ideal. So that's the thing is I think we need to look at people's diets. We need to look at the whole diet, not just the one food by itself in a lot of cases. But overall, I'm a big fan of sourdough. My wife, Chelsea makes sourdough. In fact, we make sourdough pancakes. We make sourdough, you know, for Christmas she's made sourdough. Cinnamon rolls. I mean, so, yeah,

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coffee. Now it's easier than ever to try ManuCora honey. Head to ManuCora.com slash Real Foodology to save up to 31% plus $25 worth of free gifts with the starter kit. which comes with an MGO 850 plus Manuka honey jar, five honey travel sticks, a wooden spoon, and a guidebook. That's Manukora, M-A-O-R-A-com slash real foodology to save 31% plus $25 of free gifts. That's a great point. And all I kept thinking about was the old food pyramid that said have six to 11 servings of grains. And we're saying, no, the new one, let's go by that, where it's around like two servings, maybe one to two a day. Exactly.

Perfect. Yes. Okay. I love that. That's a great point. Well, and this brings me to another point I was going to bring up, and I want to ask you is, so, you know, the Bible was obviously written a really, really long time ago.

So how would you explain to somebody that they would be able to apply that to modern day when it was written so long ago as far as, you know, we know that our modern food practices are not ideal? You kind of touched on this a little bit. And, you know, to bring up the grains, for example, they were obviously not spraying glyphosate on the grains back then. So how do you explain that to basically how does somebody apply that to modern day when it was written so long ago? Yeah. Well, I think we always have to do this with the Bible is take our current situation and apply the principle that the Bible teaches to today.

Yeah. And so the Bible was written for those people in that point in time, but it was also written for us to apply the wisdom today. So, you know, I think about this sometimes, you know, if Moses were back here sitting right now and redoing the food laws, you know, for, you know, what would make it and what exactly, RFK is kind of in Moses seat right now for the food, you know, in terms of the U.S. and sitting on this authoritative throne and being able to, you know, dish out what goes where. You know, I think that many of these things just wouldn't even be considered food. Yeah.

You know, today. So it's almost like, you know, so of course it's not going to make it. But of course, you know, this is where I actually think the food pyramid today is actually very close because it's all real food. Yeah. It's all real food. You know, the Bible talks about staying away from things like pork and shellfish. I was going to ask you about this.

Yeah. Yeah. And the reason for that is, is that these are carriers of parasites predominantly and other microorganisms that are very harmful to the body. And just the way their digestive systems are set up like a pig, they just don't detoxify well. So they're storing so many toxins in their fat. And whether it's wild or farmed either way, it's not healthy.

So I was going to ask you about this. I want to get true clarity about this, because this is one area that I really have struggled with. I will say, I don't like pork chops. I really don't eat pork a lot. I love bacon. Do you feel like bacon even coming from organic pasture, raised, maybe regenerative farm, and maybe it's a heritage pig? Do you still think we should probably be avoiding that? I do. Okay. Yeah, and now here's the thing, if you're comparing grass-fed beef to pork, pork is still higher in saturated fat. Okay, so for the people in that group where saturated fats bad, they're going to have a problem with it. The other thing is, as I mentioned, the parasites, I mean, the number one carrier of parasites of all landborn animals are pigs.

Yeah. So we know the parasitic load is high. And the argument tends to be, well, if you cook it at a really high temperature, you're not going to have an issue. I will tell you this, I had a cousin who was a hunter, killed a wild boar, and made it into sausage and cooked it really well. He ended up getting a parasitic infection all over his body from it still. So listen, you still are at risk of parasites. And I'm seeing more and more people today with parasitic infections. Of course, other things like lime and mold and other things too.

But I'm seeing so many people get infections now than ever before. But parasites are a real problem. So yeah, pork, again, there's, it's just less nutrient dent. You're not getting the same level of iron as beef. It's just, it's the very lowest one of the worst meats you could ever consume. And, you know, and listen, people love bacon. I'm here in Nashville. People love their bacon.

You know what we get in our house? We do beef bacon. What? Whole Foods Market has it. You can order it online. Beef bacon tastes amazing, and that's a good replacement. Oh, I'll have to look into that because I was buying turkey bacon for a while and it's just, it's not the same.

It's just not the same. Beef is much closer. Okay. I'll have to look into that. Wow. You brought up parasites and I just want to ask you your opinion on this. Why do you feel like we're seeing so many more parasitic infections now? Because I feel the same way.

Do you think we're just paying attention to it more? Yeah, I think that's it. I think we are paying attention to it. it more. You know, and I also think just being more aware due to so many people coming down with chronic issues that we can't figure out. Like, again, Lyme is another one that we see with a lot of people mold is another one. But, you know, I read a study. So my cousin was diagnosed with glioblastoma. And when you get that diagnosis, your chance to live is less than 1%. I think that might even be the one-year mark, but it's at least the five-year mark. It's very low. And it's over a year now,

and he's still living and thriving, completely cancer-free, doing really well. Wow. And he was a missionary in Indian, Pakistan. And they believe the reason he developed cancer is their studies showing that if you have a parasite, your risk of getting brain cancer grows dramatic. I'm going to talk about very, very dramatically. And what happens is if you have a parasitic infection, your body now has to spend so much time dealing with the parasite that now it can't, you know, your immune system just kind of gets weakened

over time and it can't fight cancer like that. it should. So really his number one treatment for fighting cancer was, one, he went on a ketogenic diet and a very clean ketogenic diet. It's like salmon and avocado and olive oil. I mean, that's like his... Yeah, we're not talking about like the keto ultra-possus package foods. It's literally vegetables and wild salmon and then like all, you know, very clean, ultra-healthy fats. So that's all he ate. And then he also went on a parasite cleanse, did ivermectin, did a lot of the antiparasitic herbs like wormwood and black walnut and just does a lot of things for for killing parasites. And he really noticed a massive difference when he went and did these anti-parasitic protocol

felt just a tremendous difference in his body. So he's thriving and doing really, really well right now. I had him on the show. His name is Dr. Pete Sulac. But all that being said, a lot of people don't understand, know how dangerous having infections are for long periods of time. They basically just wear your body. and they start pulling nutrients and wear out your blood, your organ systems. They're very, very hard on the body. And a lot of times, it's sort of this low, so you're like, I'm a little tired. I'm a little more tired. Like you kind of just over the course, all of a sudden, you look back.

And a year later, you're like, what happened to me? Yeah. I feel just like, you know, so if that's ever happened to you, there's a chance that there's some type of infection like parasites or Lyme or, you know, some sort of like long COVID, a very similar thing that people experienced there as well. Well, and it lowers the immune system. And when the immune system is down, the defenses are down, so they're not attacking the cancer in the way that they should be. That's right. But yeah, it's so interesting that you brought that up with the cancer because I've been following this for a very close family member, which I think I texted you about them. We're just not really talking about it publicly. Yeah.

But we've been going down this rabbit hole too because more and more people are starting to come out and saying that they were able to overcome their, you know, stage three, stage four cancers with taking things like Ivermectin and Ben Benazol, which are anti-parasone. acidic drugs. That's right. And so I think that that's going to be a huge breakthrough that we have in the cancer space. Yeah, you know, I remember years ago, there's this, there's this practitioner's name was Doug Kaufman. And he believed that cancer acted more like a fungus or a mold. And then there have been other people saying it acts more like a parasite. But overall, when you look at a lot of these, these are the people that were tended to be more of the, you know, Barbara O'Neill is an example of this. Like more of the people that were more. And well, most of them were actually practitioners, though. But all the being said, they were at the top of their field. But they

we're not embraced by the medical industry. I wonder why. Yeah, exactly. But those people, almost all of them believe that when you look at how you should treat cancer, a big part of it was related to treating things like funguses and parasites in the body. It's more of that type of protocol. And then there are other ideas there, too, in terms of we really need to flood the body with oxygen and with nutrients.

That was more aggression or Joanna Budwig. But I think if somebody does have cancer, the other thing is different types of cancer require different types of diets and different types of treatments. I mentioned brain is really focusing on going more keto. And that's not true with most with a lot of other cancers, but with brain it should be. You know, in Chinese medicine, if you have breast cancer, that should be really focused on you're undernourished. So you want to nourish and nourish and nourish and nourish your body as much as you can. And then there's others that believe, you know, a lot of cancers are due to toxic illness. So that's where Gersham protocols and doing a lot of liver and a lot of certain fruits and

vegetables and just flooding your body with those vegetable juices there as well. Okay. Yeah, that's great. It's such good advice. So I kind of want to wrap up the biblical thing a little bit. I want to know, let's say that there's someone listening who is maybe, you know, thinking, okay, I don't really follow the Bible and maybe even atheist, you know, and they're just like, how would this apply to me in my life? And so can we give them kind of a broad overview of how, even if somebody doesn't necessarily believe in the Bible, that this would still be applicable for them. Yeah.

You know, our entire, the entire success of the United States as a country is based on the Bible. I mean, all of the success there. You know, I think that the Bible, it's just the source of its longevity and how long it's been around and how it's benefited so many lives. In fact, there are many scholars who believe,

and I believe the same thing, that the reason why slavery, was abolished throughout most of the world, including the United States and England, was due to principles of the Bible. You can read on people like William Wilberforce and the amazing things that happened there. You look at women's rights, the Bible. You look at overall, you know, just in terms of people having good morals and ethics and just in terms of just, you know, justice being applied throughout the world. It's the Bible. So I think overall the Bible is the greatest guide for our health, for our political regimes, for relationships.

And so I think that just knowing that the Bible is such a great source of wisdom for everything, I think is the first thing to embrace. And just listen, you don't have to necessarily, when you're starting, embrace the Bible as, you know, as a religion. You can embrace it as, hey, this is a great source of wisdom that I can learn from. And that's what I would encourage people to do. But you just look at the amount of people. Let me just, I'll give an example of this.

I'm looking forward to meeting him here soon, Russell Brand. Oh, yeah. You know, I look at Russell Brand's life before the Bible and after the Bible. Wow. Which is better, you know? I look at my life before I accepted Jesus and really dove into the Bible and after the Bible. It's so much better. There are millions and millions and millions of people more than anything else anyone ever could say is what radically changed someone's life

where you look at someone's life and you're like, whoa, something is radically different about that person. It's the Bible. It's Jesus. That's the thing that has radically changed so many people's lives. You know, I've been reading just more and more people. Finally, you see somebody just, you know, makes a major change in their life, and that's what it is.

You know, it's interesting. We've talked about Robert Reneff Kennedy, Jr. I, you probably read this. He said for 20 years he prayed every day. Yes. God, will you give me the opportunity to be able to change health care in the United States? And I will tell you, he was the least likely person five years ago to be able to be in the position he's in. It's crazy.

It is crazy. The least likely person. So I would say the Bible in Jesus more specifically as a person, but is the most transformative thing. If you're in a place in your life where you're depressed, you're lacking health, things are not where you want them to be. Dive in, read, you know, and see what happens. And, you know, I have a few words. Jordan, I think we share this story in the book. There was a pastor who was diagnosed with cancer.

And he went and he started having a conversation with God. He's like, God, why? Like, how do I have cancer? And finally he felt like this sort of still small voice said to him, you know, read my word. And it's like, I do. And he's like, okay, I'm going to start reading it with the lens of how to be healthy.

So he just started following the Bible in terms of what to eat. He started fasting. He started praying for health. he started, you know, eating primarily extra virgin olive oil and wildcat fish and vegetables and berries and pomegranate. And his cancer completely reversed. Wow. So I say all that to say, you know, the Bible has so much wisdom if you read it with the right,

right, right lens for healing, for all things in life. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a great guidebook when you're confused, lost. Yeah. And especially really looking to, you. said you strengthen your relationships or if you're you're confused on something and you're looking for answers it's a great guidebook. I'm so glad you said this because I think this is why so many

people are turning towards the Bible and Christianity right now is coming out of COVID. Yeah. Everybody started realizing, wait, the government isn't telling me the truth. Everyone, the media is not telling me the truth. So everyone has been lying to me now and I've been believing it for years. And here's a reality. If you ever follow a lie, it leaves, it leaves, leads to being miserable, it leads to not being healthy, it leads to living a lower level of life. And so, the more that you follow the truth and tell the truth yourself, the greater life you will live. And so, but you have to have truth. And the Bible is the greatest and the only source of full truth out there today. So that's why when you read it and apply its principles, your life only gets

better. Wow. Isn't it interesting that we're living in a time right now too, where it's, it's interesting because I'm seeing this really clear divide now where either people are really getting closer to God or they're really getting further away. And there's this overarching narrative right now that has really been pushed a lot in mainstream, that there's no such thing as the truth. Have you noticed that?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, for years this has happened, yeah. And there's been this kind of confusion. I mean, I've had friends say this to me, and I was like, oh, okay. And there's been this kind of narrative of like, there's no the truth. And it's kind of like we're trying to erase

this objective reality that there is truth. Yeah, that's right. And I see that very much as like a spiritual attack on what's happening in society right now. Yeah, I totally agree. I also want to say this. I think a lot of times people grew up

in maybe a religious household and they had somebody who was very judgmental or they were hurt by someone in the church because they were judged. Yeah. I see this a lot. And then they kind of throw the baby out with the bathwater.

That was me. Yeah, that's so many people. And I think don't let somebody who had poor character and was being hypocritical, don't let them ruin your life or hurt your life or keep you from being the very best you could be. I mean, when I read the Bible, I read it in a way of,

I'm building a relationship with a person of Jesus and God. So I'm building a relationship. I'm growing closer to somebody. And also, I'm reading this to be able to apply principles to live the best life possible. You know, so I think if you read it like that, that'll be helpful as well versus I think a lot of people kind of step into church or the Bible and think,

okay, I'm trying to look perfect on the outside. that's not what it's for. Absolutely. I completely agree. And they're lying to themselves at that point. They're not being honest with themselves. Okay, I have been dying to ask you this question, actually. So there's been a lot of conversation lately in the last couple of years

a lot of studies coming out about how harmful alcohol is. Before it was kind of like, oh, you know, alcohol is okay, you know, one to two glasses a day for women and don't drink too much. And now all of a sudden all the science is coming out. We have people like Dr. Amin coming out and saying, no alcohol is safe whatsoever. So I've been wondering your stance on this about what it says in the Bible.

So what does it say about alcohol in the Bible? Maybe more specifically wine. Maybe that's the answer. Yeah. Well, first thing it says is the most often thing quoted about alcohol is don't get drunk. Oh, interesting.

Okay, so if you want to know what it says the most, the most common phrase around alcohol is, don't get drunk, okay? I don't think it ever promotes drinking alcohol. I think one of the things the Bible does is there's a level of grace in there of understanding that people are going to drink alcohol. Yeah. But don't drink too much. You know, there is one health quote around wine in the Bible, and it's when Paul is telling Timothy, Timothy's like his young protege, and he's got all

these digestive issues. Can you imagine he's, I kind of like to picture this in the Bible. A guy's like nervous and he's anxious and he's running around and he said, listen, drink just a little bit a new wine. It was probably like a fourth a cup of wine. It was just a little bit, almost like we do apple cider vinegar day a little bit, a little bit of that acid to support his digestion. So, but, you know, I don't think the Bible really promotes drinking of alcohol. We know that Jesus took a Nazarite vow, which means he didn't drink alcohol. Oh, I didn't know that. But then he turned the water to wine for everybody. He did. Yeah. Yeah, he did. He didn't drink it himself, but he did it for his mom who asked. Why do you think that is? Do you have any theories?

Well, yeah, I think, I think it's so interesting. I think just getting in the real, let me just give you an example here. We all have moms, okay? And so for myself, there are things on a time where my mom asked me to do something, and I honestly don't want to do it or don't agree with it. Like his mom went to him and there at a wedding and his mom is like, Jesus, I need, you know, we need some wine here right now. He's like, it's not my time yet. Like, you go and read this girl, he's like, no, I don't really want to do this. As mom's like, do it.

Okay. It's almost, so all that being said, I think that wine in small amounts on occasion doesn't have to be detrimental at all. But again, it's very occasional. Let's say you have one glass of wine away. And part of it is this idea of what's the trade-off. Let me give you an example. Let's say you had a really stressful work week, okay?

And you just kind of need to kind of get out of this really high stress state. And let's say you have a half a glass of wine. And you're like, okay. And then that's all you have for the whole week. That might have been better than not having any wine at all, potentially. I think the problem is people overdo it and they have one a night or they start having two or three glasses. I think anything over one is definitely going to be toxic. personally. So do I think somebody going to have one glass of wine a week and that may be just as

healthy for them and that's not going to be detrimental? I do. But again, the Bible does not promote drinking alcohol. The Bible understands that people are drinking alcohol and saying don't get drunk if you're going to drink. And the Bible is also about ebbs and flows. It talks a lot about fasting. also talks a lot about feasting. Yeah. So you're not drinking anything when you're fasting, and then there are feast days and you do things. So overall, again, the Bible doesn't ever promote drinking alcohol.

It does understand that people are drinking. And it says if you are going to, don't drink too much. I love that. And that's really the principles that I've applied to my own life. And it's funny because every time I bring up my stance on alcohol, I always get these people that are so mad at me. I get called a hypocrite, whatever. I don't care because my thinking is that if it's really good organic wine that has not been exposed to glyphosate, it's really low sugar.

And if I'm having, I mean, in my wedding, I had two glasses of wine the whole night. It was my wedding. You know, like things like that where I do not in any way, shape or form think that it's healthy to have wine every night for sure. I definitely don't think that it's even healthy to say like, oh, I drink once a week. You know, people that are like, oh, I drink just, you know, every Saturday. I don't think that's healthy at all. I think that if you're with your friends, every once in a while you're celebrating and you want a single glass of wine, I just don't have a problem with that. And I think that's okay. Yeah. You know, I think what we're really getting into the problem is is when, you know, we've just normalized a society now that people just have a glass of wine with dinner every night and it's just become a thing. Yeah. And I think that's where people start getting into trouble. I'll give you another just really example here of it is, you know, there's always tradeoffs with things. Like, like, like a example. I, uh, hormone replacement therapy is very popular today. Yeah. And

this could be somewhat controversial. I know Robert Kennedy Jr. removed the Blacksbox warning for women specifically on this. I think that hormone replacement therapy is not the ideal. I do think that sometimes though it's better to do it than to not do it. Yeah. My preference with hormone replacement therapy is to first change your diet and lifestyle. The amount of women in Japan who need hormone replacement therapy is almost none. It's very, very low. Interesting. And the reason is, is they are doing so many things to just, you know, their lifestyle is so much more relaxed. Yeah. They're eating healthier, less, way less stress, all of that, that they just, they don't need it.

So my preference for people is, let's get your diet right, right where it should be. Let's reduce stress. Let's take the right supplements like black cohosh. Let's do all of these things to balance your hormones. The majority of the time, if somebody comes to me and I work with a woman, they don't need hormone replacement therapy. We can fix it without it. And you're healthier for it because there are some women and it's something,

of it depends on your certain estrogen levels. And I definitely don't believe it's good for women that are under 45 in almost every case. But all that being said, I do think there's a point where, and let me talk about it from a male's perspective now, too, with testosterone. I don't think men taking testosterone is ideal for most men. However, once a man takes testosterone, sometimes they're more motivated. They have more energy. They feel more like a man. So what that does psychologically, now they're working out more, they're pursuing their wife more, they're playing with their kids more, that benefit of they took testosterone, now they're more active, now they're more engaged, now they generally feel better, outweigh some of the minor negative effects of taking testosterone.

Because what happens when you take hormone replacement therapy, you're turning off your body's own internal tap. That's not good. I mean, men become inferred, men are then infertile when they're taking testosterone, and women, there's increased risk of things like estrogen-based breast, cancer and some other things. However, because your energy is so increased and symptoms decrease, now you're able to just generally feel better and do more of the things you should be doing. But my point there is almost a similar thing with wine is we always need to be thinking about what is the trade-off here with this thing I'm taking. Yes, I love, I think that was so great. And I also loved hearing your perspective on hormonal replacement. Because a lot,

I mean, a lot of people are talking about that right now. And it's a really nuanced topic. Well, it's so funny because I've seen so many people come out and say, this is such a great thing for women, almost like it's a... Like a fix-all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like it was a fix-all. Like every woman now should be on hormone replacement therapy. And my mindset as a functional medicine practitioner is, okay, well, this is the right thing for some women,

but it's definitely not the right thing for other women. And the other thing is, here's the other thing I see. I see oftentimes when we create a medication, we now stop doing more of the root cause things and the right things. I'll give an example. Okay, insulin and metformin, those things might seem great for diabetics. But is it possible that if they didn't exist, that those people who have diabetes would have to change their diet, eat more protein, eat more fiber, reduce their carbon intake. They could also take berberine.

they can take mulberry, they can take chromium, and we would fix it that way. Wouldn't that be better? Of course that's better for their overall health. So my concern with the HRT now is that now women are just going to flood in and everyone's going to start taking HRT rather than taking the herbs they should take, fixing their diet, working on the things that truly get to the root of, why are their hormones and balance in the first place? Because God did not create you to have all of these massive symptoms like hot flashes and

major dryness when you're going through menopause. Yes. You shouldn't be having those to that extreme. That just, these are all signs that your lifestyle's out of balance, your diet's out of balance, we should fix it. So when you don't fix that at all, you might feel better, but there's probably still a level of disease, you know, proliferating somewhere in your body, even though you feel better. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I was just thinking as you were saying that, I was thinking of the, of a depiction of, let's say there's like a hole in a boat and you just slap something. some duct tape on there, and it's still going to be leaking a little bit. You know, and it's like if you're not getting to the root, if you don't actually plug that hole, you know, or like, what's the word, remediate it? I can't think of the word right now, pregnancy brain. If you don't fix that, then you're going to start having other issues. And so if you're not looking at the root cause, you're going to miss so many other things. Yeah. And so what I would prefer, and again, I'm okay

with certain people with hormone replacement therapy. But I think the first thing you should do is diet and lifestyle supplementation, and then if you still need it, you can do a lower dose of of HRT. And this is both of our approach to, I would say, medications in general. And this is why I have such a hard time with, you know, the big pharma complex that we've created in this country, where immediately you have a symptom and your doctor just matches you with a medication instead of actually asking, well, what's going on here? What's the root cause? What's happening here? What's happening downstream? Because what's happening now is then all these people are just throwing a bunch of medications. Callie Means actually talks about this with his mother, where, you know,

20 years ago they were seeing signs and symptoms of her having some sort of metabolic issue. And they just kept throwing drug after drug and just, you know, they put her on metform and they put her on a statin. And then all of a sudden she was diagnosed with a really aggressive form of cancer that everyone missed. And she was gone in like a month. Yeah, it's so sad. It happens all the time. And it's, you know, and he says this all the time. I mean, he said this on my podcast where he just said, we were ignoring the sign. and symptoms 20 years ago, and I just wish that someone had started asking, well, what's going on metabolically in her body instead of just throwing all these fixes on top of it?

Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah. Every person that comes in, what most doctors do is they say, here's a drug, you need to be on it the rest of your life. Every medication, doctors do not tell patients this. Every medication starts draining and drawing certain nutrients out of your body. I mean, birth control is maybe one of the worst offenders out there. It's so bad. Birth control drains your body of vitamin B1. B2, B3, B6, B9, B12. So pretty much every major B vitamin. Selenium, zinc, and there's a study shows that if woman takes birth control for up to 10 years,

their chance of getting hypothyroidism goes up by 287%. Wow. Part of what happens there is those are things responsible for methylation in mitochondrial health. So now we deplete mitochondrial health. We slow down methylation. Well, now your chance of hypothyroidism goes up dramatically. Well, and think about how many women have MTHFR, and many of them don't even know they have it. Oh, yeah. And that's a whole other. And then they take that with birth control. Well, now you're almost guaranteed having hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's.

And it's so interesting because I can't, I mean, I could probably count 10 people right now, 10 women that I know that have some form of hyperthyroidism. Yeah. And here's the crazy stat. It's like 60 to 80 percent of women who have hypothyroidism. They don't know they have it. Wow. So it's very, very high. And this is why, you know, one of the things I do when I see patients virtually is I, you know, we can almost always fix hypothyroidism and reverse it. It's just a matter of we have to know there are these nutritional deficiencies. You're so deficient.

We've got to go and just build those back up. And most of the time, I mean, you can reverse almost every condition. Diabetes, hypothyroidism, PCOS, infertility, all of these issues, just as long as you get on the right program. But the problem is most of the time people don't have something. personalized for them. They just say, oh, well, my friend did carnivore. My friend did, was a vegan, and I'm just going to follow that rather than having something that's just really precise for what they have going on. Yeah, this is why I'm such a proponent for everyone to find a good

practitioner and to just, I always say this test, don't guess. That's great, yeah. Because people will write me all day and they'll say, oh, do you have a, you know, I just got a message the other day. I'm really struggling with my hormones. Do you have some supplements I can take? And I said, you've got to find someone that can test you because I can't just, you know, blanket statement, throw out a bunch of supplements because it completely depends on your nutritional deficiencies. It depends on what's going on with you right now. It depends on if you have genetic mutations. I mean, I have MTHFR.

I also have something called hemachromatosis. If I was following what someone else did, not knowing that I have hemachromatosis and I'm throwing my iron stores, you know, out of whack, it just you're not going to have the same results as somebody else because we're all bio-individual and you need to know what's going on in your body specifically. That's right. Yeah. Oh, I just, I love the work that you're doing. It's so cool. Applying the root cause approach is really, I mean, it's going to be the medicine of the future. And it's going to be so cool to see what Bobby Kennedy does with that aspect of things.

I really hope he's going to start putting some things in place that require doctors to, you know, take nutrition courses and have more of a focus on root cause. He came out about six months ago and he said, I'm going to require doctors to take some nutrition courses because most people don't realize this. Medical doctors get zero hours of nutrition. Yeah. Zero. That's absolutely crazy. So yeah, that's something we've got to fix fast. I know. What are your thoughts on A2 milk? And do you think that it's the future of dairy? Absolutely. Well, it's not only the future of dairy, it's the history of dairy. Oh, I love that. Yeah. So when you look at A2, there's a great book written. It was called

The Devil in the Milk. And basically it goes through, like when you're reading the Bible, that sort of dairy, all those, you know, all of those type of cows were had A2 dairy. So in dairy today, in cow's milk, you have two types of protein, A1 casein and A2 casein. A1 casing, sometime when we were hybrid, when we were breeding certain types of cows for greater milk production, like a lot of these Holsting cows, they started creating a type of protein called A1. And halsting cows, let's just be clear, are the like spotted cows, right? The black and white cows. And now, now those genetics have gone over into certain other cow jerseys and a number of others. The only cows you're probably pretty darn safe with are more of the Brahma bowls or Zibu's.

They have the hump on them. They come over from India in the Middle East. And I know this, Jordan Rubin and I own 4,000 acres of certified organic land. We raise all these animals. We raise a lot of water buffalo, Zibu, sheep, goats, elk, things like that. So, but this sort of protein is very inflammatory, very hard to digest. And A2 means you've genetically tested it and only has this ancient protein rather than this more modern protein that happened via the breeding of certain types of cows today. So A2 is absolutely what you want. I will say dairy is one of those foods that probably more than any other food, some people thrive on it and some people, it is still very not healthy. I'll give an example. Jordan, when I first met him, we were actually in,

well, this is when we first met pretty soon, our first trip together. We went to Denver and we went to Whole Foods Market. And Jordan for lunch ate an entire block of cheese. Like, you know how some people have entire block of like raw sheep's cheese, like Manchego. Oh, it's my favorite. And then had like a, I mean, literally everything was dairy. His whole lunch was just basically dairy. And honestly, if I would have had much, my nose would have ran. I would have all types of issues. Now I'm at the point just from building up my tolerance. I can do a little bit of raw cheese and do fine. But I still can't do a lot. It causes mucus and phlegm, even. So my point there is, you got to really listen to your body with dairy. If you feel like your GI does well,

and you have no mucus or phlegm after eating dairy, then things like, you know, really quality cottage cheese or raw cheese or raw milk, that's fine and good. Kiefer, yogurt, of course, are probably the best. Yeah. But, again, there's still a lot of people who have sensitivities, and so you just got to really listen to your body on that one. Yeah, I think that's great. And with A2, to your point, a lot of people that don't feel well when they have A1 milk will switch over to A2 and then they feel fun, which is actually me. I feel great on it.

I've waited dairy for years. And all sheep and goat's milk, that's all A2. Yes. It's only cow's milk that's, you know, you don't know if it's A1 or A2 unless it's listed as A2 and then you know you're good to go there. And I'd also recommend raw. Raw A2 is really what you want. And why is that?

Well, when you pasteurize something, you're killing off a lot of the enzymes and the probiotics that are in there. And it's funny, I still see people, you know, criticizing raw milk. It's been consumed since the beginning of time. I mean, you're just as likely to get a food-borne illness from spinach. Yeah. In fact, there's a ton of recalls on spinach, all the mixed greens. Yeah. All the time.

I mean, it's just as likely. So, but listen, you got to make sure that your farmer knows what they're doing. It's a quality establishment. You're getting it from the right place. But I think raw is better. And if you want to do the safest thing, do raw kiefer and yogurt because that fermentation process is also going to create a greater level of safety around the dairy. All right, Dr. Axe, what have we gotten wrong about cholesterol? Well, really, cholesterol is your body's repair substance.

That's the biggest thing we've got wrong. we think it's some sort of villain. No, cholesterol is your body trying to heal and passion to repair your arteries in your entire body. In fact, like 25% of your brain is made up of cholesterol. So it's absolutely critical. So really a better thing that we should be looking at is inflammation or APOB. I mean, there are other blood tests that give us a better idea. In fact, HDL is one of the greatest predictors or is a predictor of longevity.

So if you want to live a long time, you want to heal and regenerate, you want to have a good amount of HDL cholesterol. So now, now there's no doubt that having certain types of LDL puts you at risk of certain health issues. But generally speaking, the way we used to look at cholesterol isn't correct. If you see cholesterol's high, you know your body's trying to repair and heal itself. And you just want to reduce inflammation, some, get more antioxidants. And then that's really the approach you want to take with cholesterol. But it's not a villain. It actually can be a hero.

I love that. And I want to add one more thing. Yeah. Because I feel like people don't know this. the number that doctors go by, as far as determining whether or not you need to go on a statin, the cholesterol number that they're giving patients, they keep lowering it. And they've been lowering it and lowering it because the lower they can make it, the more people they can get on statins.

That's right. That's exactly right. What's a health myth that's driving you crazy right now? I think that the sun causes cancer. I mean, the sun actually helps prevent cancer. You know, there are studies showing this that if you get more sun, your risk of cancer can go down. Now, here's the big thing. You never, ever want to get burnt.

Burning your skin at all, any type of sunburn increases your risk of cancer. So never getting burnt. But you do want to get as much sunshine as you can without getting burnt, I think is the thing that people need to know. I mean, this is where we get vitamin D. Vitamin D boosts our immune system.

It builds our bones. It supports our overall immunity. It has so many great benefits. It balances our hormones. So we want to get quite a bit of sunshine. And listen, using sunscreen is okay if you're using a zinc-based, a mineral-based sunscreen later in the day, but you at least don't want to get 20 to 30 minutes of sun without getting burnt before you put sunscreen on in most cases.

So again, the sun is our friend. It's anti-cancer, as long as you're not getting burnt. What do you see as the biggest gaps in the medical system? You know, well, the gap is this in our medical system. And this is a wide gap. Getting people healthy. It doesn't do it at all. I mean, people think if I have hypothyroidism or if I have, you know, heart disease or diabetes,

that if I go into my doctor, they're going to help me get healthy. We don't have a health care system. We have a sick care system. So when you go in your doctor, they just prescribe you a drug. You're not actually getting healthier. You're actually getting sicker. More nutrients are being drained from your body. You have this chemical that's now negatively affecting your body.

And so really, there is a massive, massive gap right now in our system between actual. health care and what we actually are doing today, which is sick care. If people truly want to get healthy, you've got to eat healthier, you got to take the right supplements, you need to get outside, you need to walk and move, you need to reduce stress. Those are the things that will truly get you healthy. Medications will never get you healthy. They're okay for an emergency. They're not true health care. So really the gap is massive because there is no health care at all taking place in our mainstream health care system. Yes, I love that. And there's a quote, I wish I could remember how many years Pfizer has been in business. Maybe you do. But Pfizer has been

in business for, let's say, 100 years. They have never once created a cure. That's true. That tells you everything you need to know. There you go. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. For our last question, Dr. asks, which is the dirtiest food we could eat? Pork or shrimp? Oh, gosh. That's really hard. I mean, let me just say it's very close. It's very close. But if I had to pick, I would probably say pork. but it's very close. Yeah, I mean, I think pork, you know, if you look at actually what pigs do, I mean, they're eating their own feces. I mean, they're very, very dirty animals, the dirtiest of the dirty.

And I also think just the amount of parasites they're carrying with them is even worse than what you're getting in shrimp. So I'd say overall pork is the single work, one of the single worst actual foods you could eat out there. In the Bible, they don't even consider those things food. It's that really unhealthy for you. And why eat pork when you can eat beef and bison and, you know, and other foods that are healthy and taste just as good or better?

Again, I know bacon is the thing that people have a hard time with. Switch to beef bacon, it's a much better option. But pork is the dirtiest of all the foods. I would say it's probably safe as just to say to avoid both if you can. Yeah, I absolutely agree. Yeah. Yes. Well, thank you so much.

This was awesome. I loved this episode so much. So I just want to say thank you so much for your time. And please let everybody know where they can find your book and also where they can find you. Yeah. You can find my book. It's the Bibliode Diet. It's on Amazon.com, bookstores nationwide. You can find my virtual practice. It's at the Health Institute where we take care of a lot of patients with, again, hypothyroidism and hormone issues,

that type of thing. And then just my social handle at Dr. Josh Axe. And podcast, which you're coming on, and that's the Dr. Josh Axe show. So, but Courtney, thanks so much for having me on. You're such a great friend. I know we got to meet up last year in Michigan, you know, when we were protesting and speaking out on the food dies. And I just continue to follow you since then. And so it's been a real joy. So thanks again for having me. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening to the Real Foodology podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson. The theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always,

you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com. See you next time. The content of 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. The creative economy is broken, but some people are still making it work.

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