Eating a diet completely devoid of vegetables sounds like a recipe for health disaster. But that’s what the carnivore diet is! My guest this week, Dr. Paul Saladino, is the author of The Carnivore Code and is thriving on a diet without veg.
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About Paul Saladino, M.D.
Dr. Saladino is the leading authority on the science and application of the carnivore diet. He has used this diet to reverse autoimmunity, chronic inflammation, and mental health issues in hundreds of patients, many of whom had supposedly untreatable conditions. In addition to his personal podcast, Fundamental Health, he features on numerous podcasts including The Minimalists, The Model Health Show, Bulletproof Radio, The Dr. Gundry Podcast, The Ben Greenfield Podcast, Dr. Mercola, Health Theory, Mark Bell’s Power Project, and many others. He has also appeared on The Doctors TV show and authored the bestselling book, “The Carnivore Code: Unlocking the Secrets to Optimal Health by Returning to our Ancestral Diet.”
Dr. Saladino completed his residency at the University of Washington. He attended medical school at the University of Arizona focusing on integrative medicine and nutritional biochemistry. Prior to medical school, Dr. Saladino worked as a physician assistant in cardiology. It was during this time that he saw first hand the shortcomings of mainstream Western medicine with its symptom-focused, pharmaceutical-based paradigm. He decided to return to medical school with the hope of better understanding the true roots of chronic disease and illness, and how to correct and reverse these. He now maintains a private practice in San Diego, California, and sees clients from all over the world virtually.
When he is not researching connections between nutritional biochemistry and chronic disease, you can find him in the ocean searching for the perfect wave, cultivating mindfulness, or spending time with friends and family.
About This Episode
Paul joins me to talk about his approach to healing our chronic health problems. For his whole life, Paul suffered from a pretty extreme eczema skin condition and tried everything to clear it up. It was only when his research led him to a diet high in animal products that he found any kind of relief.
Paul believes that a carnivorous diet is essential for optimal health. He talks about how plants are full of chemicals and biological defenses that make them bad for human health and consumption.
Paul explains how you can get every vitamin necessary for optimal health from animal products. He shares exactly what the essential vitamins are and states that these vitamins are not readily available on an omnivorous or plant-based diet without supplementation.
Paul’s approach to the carnivore diet is top to tail, meaning you need to eat every single part of an animal. He’s a big proponent of organ meats, as am I, as these are very nutritionally dense food.
He also explains what plant foods you should absolutely avoid at all costs, stating that cruciferous vegetables are some of the worst you can eat. Paul believes that some health conditions, like PCOS and fibroids, will improve dramatically if you cut out certain vegetables from your diet, too.
Finally, we talk about the role carbohydrates have in your diet. Do you need to completely eliminate them or can you eat them in a healthy way? It’s all about how you prepare these carbs.
Is the carnivore diet something you’d consider following? Have you found you’re sensitive to any types of veggies? As always, you can ask me anything and let me hear your thoughts in the comments below. If you have questions, email team@drannacabeca.com.
In This Episode:
- How many of our chronic health problems are linked to the food we eat
- What the problem with eating plants can be
- What vitamins are necessary for optimal immune function
- Why you need to eat every part of an animal, including the organ meats
- What plant foods you should absolutely avoid
- How your long-term health conditions might improve by removing certain vegetables from your diet
- What role carbohydrates should have in your diet
Quotes:
“If you look at where the nutrients we are getting come from, there are unique nutrients in things like the liver that are hard to obtain elsewhere.” (25:22)
“It’s really an incontrovertible argument, in my opinion, that animals are valuable in the land. We should select the best quality animals that are raised in the most well-meaning, intentional ways.” (29:58)
Resources Mentioned
Buy The Carnivore Code by Paul Saladino, M.D.
Listen to the Fundamental Health Podcast
Find Paul Saladino, M.D. Online
Follow Paul Saladino, M.D. on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
Join the KetoGreen Community on Facebook
Buy Keto-Green 16
Transcripts
Dr. Paul:
It's crucial for all of us to get all these little pieces of our biochemistry and all these little micronutrients. And if we're not eating organ meats, we're missing out on some really nutritious foods there. We either need to be supplementing intentionally or thinking about what those deficiencies may manifest as. I mean, eating meat is the great first step, but it's meat and organs. And so a nose-to-tail carnivore diet, which is what I advocate for strongly, and we'll talk about this as well, from well-raised grass-fed, grass-finished animals is going to provide all the nutrients that humans need.
Dr. Anna:
Hi everyone. It's Dr. Anna Cabeca. I'm The Girlfriend Doctor, and it is my mission and my passion to help women live better lives before, during, and after menopause. So welcome to The Girlfriend Doctor Podcast, an intimate place for intimate conversation. And hey, I am here for you. You can ask or tell me anything. No shame, no guilt, no apologies.
Dr. Anna:
We pull back the curtain on all things related to our health, libido, PMS, menopause, you name it, we talk about it. Our goal is to shine a light on your overall wellness, mind, body, and spirit. So let's get started today. Today I'm in conversation with Dr. Paul Saladino, who is a leading authority on the science and application of the carnivore diet.
Dr. Anna:
And let me tell you, we get into some good discussions, right? We can agree to disagree in any conversation. Well, he used this diet to reverse his own auto-immune chronic inflammatory issues with eczema, as well as he's used it in hundreds of clients. And he's written a book called The Carnivore Code: Unlocking the Secrets to Optimal Health by Returning to Our Ancestral Diet.
Dr. Anna:
He completed his residency at the University of Washington and attended medical school at the University of Arizona, focusing on integrative medicine and nutritional biochemistry. Prior to medical school, he worked as a physician assistant in cardiology where he saw the firsthand shortcomings of mainstream Western medicine.
Dr. Anna:
So in our conversation today, we're going to talk about why he believes a meat-based diet over a plant-based diet is helpful in many of these conditions with auto-immunity, chronic inflammation, in fact, insists upon it, as well villainizing some plant food sources as toxic to our body as well as certain supplementation, preferring organ meat and gives his argument.
Dr. Anna:
So this has been a fabulous conversation. I encourage you to listen and please be sure to email me back or comment on your questions and comments. I look forward to it. Here we go. Hello everyone. Join me in welcoming Dr. Paul Saladino to The Girlfriend Doctor Podcast. Hi Paul, how are you?
Dr. Paul:
I'm great. Thanks for having me on. It's good to be here in these crazy times.
Dr. Anna:
It is great to have you here. Well, I just want to share with my audience that I have been somewhat critical about the carnivore diet. But the importance of ketosis and ketogenic lifestyle right now, as nutritionally as possibly focused, is critically important to boosting our immune system and just creating resilience and keeping us strong and as healthy as possible during this time. So I'm looking forward to our discussion.
Dr. Paul:
I think a lot of people when they first hear about a carnivore diet are quite skeptical. And I was quite skeptical when I first heard about a carnivore diet, but what I've found over the last two years of researching it deeply and writing my book which is called The Carnivore Code, it's been a pretty interesting time for me to explore the nuances of this and really understand how this may be a very viable strategy for a lot of people and how it might be very helpful for people. But happy to dig into all of the concerns people may have and clarify lots of stuff about the carnivore diet.
Dr. Anna:
Well, and let's talk about that too. Initially, your skepticism when you heard a carnivore diet, because we get that a lot. And when I tell women about keto dieting, right? And that it's the bacon and butter perspective. So tell us about initial perceptions and then how you've come across, why you're so passionate about this now.
Dr. Paul:
Well, when I first heard about the carnivore diet I was a certified functional medicine practitioner. I did my residency at the University of Washington and throughout medical school at the University of Arizona and residency, I'd always been interested in kind of integrative medicine, trying to get to the root cause of an illness.
Dr. Paul:
And I'd never really been super bought into the idea that pharmaceuticals were the answers, symptom-focused pharmaceutical-based treatment was never very exciting for me. I was always much more interested in what was at the root of illness. And so functional medicine ideas were fascinating. And as you know, within functional medicine, there is a lot of ideology that plants are very valuable in the human diet.
Dr. Paul:
And so when I first heard about a carnivore diet, I thought that doesn't make any sense. What about all of these chemicals and plants that I've been told are so good for us as humans? And that was my original concern. Now, the reason I got interested in the carnivore diet in the first place was because I had persistent eczema. I've been atopic my whole life with asthma and this itchy skin rash called eczema. And it's been persistent.
Dr. Paul:
And for many years, perhaps for more than a decade, I had been doing various dietary interventions and had a very good diet by many standards, a paleo diet, an organic paleo diet doing a series of elimination diets in which I was trying to understand which foods were triggering my eczema. Because I always believed that so many of the autoimmune conditions, so many of the hormonal issues we have, so many of the psychiatric issues people face are related to food intolerance inflammation, leaky gut, things happening within our digestive track related to damaging foods that we are eating.
Dr. Paul:
And so I always thought there's probably something in my diet that is triggering my own auto-immunity and my own atopic syndrome. And I just kept cutting things out until I was on a pretty simple diet that was basically salads consisting of romaine lettuce, avocado, a few berries and grass-fed, grass-finished meat, and yet my eczema persisted.
Dr. Paul:
And so it was at that point that I had this real cognitive dissonance occur when I realized that I was not able to resolve my own autoimmune issue on a diet that seemed to be pretty good by all purposes, by all examinations most people would say that's a great diet. And yet my immune system was still being triggered. And it was at that point that I heard about the carnivore diet.
Dr. Paul:
And I think because of my consternation, because of the lack of resolution of my own issues, I was open to the idea with sort of the concerns, what about all these plant compounds? And that was my stepping off point to really dive into the research. And what I found was so fascinating. And I talk about that in my book, and I talk about that on much of my own media and my podcast, which is called Fundamental Health.
Dr. Paul:
And what I discovered in a nutshell, and we can dig into this in more detail, was that plants are rooted in the ground. This isn't surprising to any of us, but plants make chemicals that are defense chemicals. And plants do exist on a spectrum of toxicity. We know this, it's not very foreign to us to imagine that plant foods could be toxic to humans. We're all familiar with things like gluten or other plant molecules that are damaging to the gut.
Dr. Paul:
And what I discovered was that the spectrum of plant toxicity was much wider and much more detailed than I expected. And that was really the beginning of my research to understand which plant chemicals were harming us, how broadly plants were trying to defend themselves, how many plant defense chemicals were in so many of the vegetables that we are told are so good for us and how people might be able to achieve health if they are not optimally healthy by eliminating the most toxic plant foods.
Dr. Paul:
The flip side of that discussion is something that you and I will probably both agree on, which is that animal foods are very valuable for humans. They have unique nutrients for humans and should probably be a part of everyone's optimal diet as a human. That's a whole sort of different discussion around plant-based ideas. I think that animal foods have been incorrectly vilified. And to remove animal foods from the diet is a catastrophe nutritionally for humans.
Dr. Paul:
But often the more controversial or the more striking part for people is that plants exist on a spectrum of toxicity. And we should respect that and understand that not all plants are always good for all people. Removing the most toxic plants or in some cases like a full carnivore diet, removing all plants either temporarily or longterm can be extremely powerful for many people. And that's what we see clinically is hundreds of cases of autoimmune disease and unresolved issues now getting to be so much better when people remove plant foods that we're told are traditionally good for us.
Dr. Anna:
So how are these plant foods and these plant chemicals working against the immune system?
Dr. Paul:
So there's a wide variety of plant chemicals that can harm us. There's phytoalexins which are actually the molecules that plants make to defend themselves against predation, against fungi, bacteria, arbors, animals. These are molecules plants make to protect themselves. So these are vast and wide. There are molecules all over the plant kingdom and that are phytoalexins.
Dr. Paul:
There are also things like lectins which are carbohydrate-binding proteins. There are oxalates which is a simple dicarboxylic acid molecule that can chelate minerals and plants. And both lectins and oxalates can both inhibit the absorption of minerals in the human body and potentially trigger immunologic reactions in the gut.
Dr. Paul:
Gluten is a lectin for instance. And so people are familiar with the way that gluten appears to mimic bacteria in the gut triggering these pathogen-associated molecular patterns causing the release of the zonulin molecule and leading to leaky gut. When we get zonulin released, which is a molecule in the gut that signals to the gap junction containing cells to open those gap junctions, we get crosstalk between bacteria in our guts and the immune system which resides in the lamina propria.
Dr. Paul:
That is kind of the beginning of, I think, a lot of auto-immunity or at least one hypothetical model of the auto-immune genesis. The phytoalexins, as I said, are a large category of plant molecules. Most of these are things that we've been told are good for us, but I challenge that assertion in my book and in my messaging. Just like when we go to the grocery store or the pharmacy to pick up a medication that you or I might prescribe, metoprolol or lisinopril or an ACE inhibitor.
Dr. Paul:
Again, I don't prescribe many of those medications anymore. But you go to the pharmacy and that medication has something that we know pharmaceutically it does, but there's also a package insert. There's a series of side effects associated with that medication that the pharmacist is responsible for telling us about. And so why are we surprised that plant molecule have the exact same thing?
Dr. Paul:
It's totally analogous that we can look at plant molecules like sulforaphane or resveratrol, which are both phytoalexins, these are plant defense chemicals, and we can say, "Oh, they do this beneficial thing in the human body." But what's being forgotten is that they also have side effects.
Dr. Paul:
There's no nutraceutical pharmacist at Whole Foods when we go to buy sulforaphane or resveratrol saying, "Hey, did you know there's a whole list of side effects for these plant molecules in the human body?" Those are the things I highlight in my book. But if you really dig into the plant literature, the list of side effects lifts these potentially damaging effects from these plant molecules.
Dr. Paul:
Sulforaphane, resveratrol, curcumin, they're vast and they're long. And so I offer the challenge to people, we need to consider risk versus benefit. If there are unique benefits from plant molecules, perhaps they're worth the risks. But in my research, I've yet to find any unique benefits to plant molecules that we can't achieve through things like ketosis, intermittent fasting, sauna, heat, cold, and another nutrient adequacy.
Dr. Paul:
So it's a little bit of an involved discussion. But I think that by and large, what we're really dealing with here with plant molecules are plant toxins that are net negative. We're told that they're good for us, but that's missing the forest for the trees. That's not broadening the scope widely enough. And I think that it's these molecules, the phytoalexins, the lectins, the oxalates, the salicylates and other molecules that can both trigger problems in the body, physiologically, biochemically and trigger immunologic reactions in the gut leading to the genesis of autoimmune disease.
Dr. Anna:
Well, this is fascinating. And you've said so much already. I want to go back to the discussion on zonulin and gluten. So we're talking about gluten creating zonulin molecules in many of us, and that creating an increase in the gap junction and how that really affects our immunity. I really want to just stay on this topic for a minute as we are doing everything we can to boost our immune system.
Dr. Anna:
So with that said, zonulin alone is not the culprit, right? Cortisol is the culprit. Cortisol is the key that unlocks the gate to these gap junctions. And that's what makes one person more pathology, let's say than another person. And so we can see this leaking across the membrane because I tell my clients, "You have a gate around your garden for a reason, it's to keep out the critters," right? So we want to keep out the critters.
Dr. Anna:
But when we lose pieces to that gate, we get holes in it, the critters come in and eat through our garden. And essentially that analogy to our breakdown and our immune system that causes this cross-reactivity, this inflammation. And a point that's so important is that the leaky membranes don't just only affect our gut or GI track, right? It depends on where we're exhibiting these leaky membranes, often all over our bodies.
Dr. Anna:
But for example, leaky membranes in our heart vessels causing coronary vascular disease, leaky membranes in our brain causing dementia, Alzheimer's memory loss. And so it depends on where in our body we're having this breakdown in our cellular membranes. But if it's happening in one place, it's likely happening in other places too. So the key is that we do, we want to remove these toxins.
Dr. Anna:
We want to remove toxins that are causing this problem from our systems and keep the cell membrane strong. So I'm always, from a functional medicine perspective and in my training, it's the getting to the underlying cause of this disease. So let's go back to the cell membrane. We know we can break down the cell membrane, right? Lack of omega-3 nutrients, infection, inflammation, mineral imbalances, toxicity, mold toxins, parasites, viruses can all affect our cell membrane. But what will keep our cell membrane strong? Paul shares with us what keeps our cell membrane strong, what fortifies this gate?
Dr. Paul:
So there's a lot of things there. And I love that you bring up the fact that zonulin is not the enemy. Zonulin is a signaling molecule that's released by cells in our body, and it signals to other cells to open their gap junctions. So there have been some studies by Alessio Fasano and others to make monoclonal antibodies against zonulin. But essentially it's like getting rid of a hormone.
Dr. Paul:
It's signaling to things, but it's not the problem. It's the inciting insult that's causing the cells to release zonulin. But where the real issue is found, and I love that you highlight the fact that all the membranes of the body get leaky because the endothelium of all the membranes of the body looks very similar. The endothelium on the inside of the gut looks very similar to the endothelium on the inside of our blood vessels, which looks very similar to the endothelium at the junction of the blood-brain barrier.
Dr. Paul:
These are all very similar cells and they all have this analogous pathology where zonulin, which can occur throughout the body and can actually be made both in the gut and the liver and everywhere causes this issue in response to insult. And so how do we make these gap junctions strong? I think as you said, there are nutritional things we need to do and there is the avoidance of the pathogens which will cause the body to naturally make them leaky.
Dr. Paul:
I think that it's been an evolutionary adaptation to have leaky gut or leaky membranes from time to time when we are fighting off a pathogen. But we have to be very careful to avoid putting things in our bodies that mimic pathogens that are not actually pathogenic. If we get Campylobacter in our gut or Shiga toxin E. coli, we absolutely want to get a leaky gut. That is an evolutionary adaptation, that's when zonulin is supposed to be released.
Dr. Paul:
But is there the possibility that this evolutionary discordance or this environmental genetic discordance that is happening with changing food supplies is creating molecules that mimic pathogenic bacteria and causing our body to be tricked into making zonulin and leaky gut when it's not actually fighting an invader? So I think, like you said, the keys to having healthy cell membranes and healthy, tight junctions between cells are both nutritional.
Dr. Paul:
A lot of people are thinking about nutritional interventions now, especially with these immunologically challenging times and the Coronavirus. And what we know is that vitamins A, C, D, E, selenium, zinc, copper, B12, B6 and riboflavin, probably all the vitamins and minerals, but especially those that have been highlighted in nutritional studies as necessary and really required for optimal immune function.
Dr. Paul:
This kind of loops us back to the idea around animal foods. What are the most bioavailable sources of almost every single one of those? It's animal foods. We can talk about vitamin C as an aside.
Dr. Anna:
May I just add in carnitine because carnitine is one of my... I consider it essential, although it is classified conditionally essential, right?
Dr. Paul:
[crosstalk 00:17:44] essential, absolutely.
Dr. Anna:
And as an obstetrician and gynecologist, certainly in pregnancy, carnitine was one of the supplements that I added into my mom's programs, whether nutritionally or supplemental, because it is so important for brain development, metabolism development, hormonal development. It's certainly a combination supplement that I've incorporated into my regular regimen as well.
Dr. Paul:
And where do we get it? We get it from meat. In the book, I talk about this as well. There are all sorts of nutrients that are really only found in meat that doesn't occur in the plant kingdom. A lot of them start with C, carnitine, carnosine, creatine, choline. These are super important animal-based nutrients that we can't ignore. And again, it makes meat and animal foods the foundation of any healthy diet.
Dr. Paul:
If you want a lot of carnitine, you can get plenty of that by eating meat. You can also get coenzyme Q10. There's also other amino acids that we never hear about, anserine, taurine. We know all of these are crucial for proper optimal immune function but only found in substantial quantities in animal foods.
Dr. Paul:
I'm talking to my parents who are 69 right now and there's Coronavirus, and I'm saying, "You guys, please eat well-raised meat, please eat grass-fed, grass-finished meat. You need these nutrients." And the organ meats, which we can talk about as well. I'm a big proponent for a nose-to-tail carnivore or nose-to-tail eating, even if we're not eating a fully carnivorous diet.
Dr. Paul:
So you're right. These nutrients are so critical. And I really want to advance this discussion around. I think that with regard to Coronavirus, which is on everyone's mind right now, it's not so much about hiding from the virus or living in a fear-based state, it's about understanding how we can make our immune system the biggest, the best Spartan warrior it can be. And I think that that starts nutritionally and that is critical with these animal-based nutrients. So I think we've pretty much touched on how to keep those tight junctions there. And we segued into how to keep the immune system healthy.
Dr. Anna:
Which is really important to spend a little more time on as well. I think I'm absolutely with you. And it's not just about what we're eating, right? I would say with my keto green diet, it's about 25% of what we eat. It's how we live, who we're eating with when we're eating, all of these things that can really affect us positively or adversely. So it's the lifestyle approach.
Dr. Anna:
And I know you'll agree with me how important fasting is and intermittent fasting. And so a couple of things I definitely want to move into. We're going to continue on this fortifying our immune system through the strategies that we implement and recommend for our clients. And starting with, all things are not created equal when it comes to I'm eating this steak, this beautiful cow has been sacrificed for us, how their life was, what they ate, what stressors they were on, all affects us.
Dr. Anna:
And I think that's an important point to make. So lets about how you judge when we're eating meat. I'm an omnivore. I love a good piece of... we just had some organ meat from... we were at Thrive recently in Portland, Oregon. And we were introduced to this beautiful variety of organ meat sausages that my daughters were convinced that we needed pounds and pounds of to bring home.
Dr. Anna:
And again, pasture-raised loved on. And it was really beautiful, and I think this is a really important point. I'm saying organ meat, anyone listening, don't get turned off here. And I know I have a lot of vegetarians and vegans. Just stay with us because I want to share with you just some more points as we move on. Always it's good to keep an open mind and perspective.
Dr. Anna:
But traditionally, I know my family's Middle Eastern background and Mediterranean background, I mean, nose-to-tail eating was part of it. What did we eat? We ate adrenals, we ate the heart. There's parts of the nervous system that we're eating, we eat thyroid, every part was eaten. Now we take thyroid pills, we take adrenal supplements, right? Not very different, but eating the full design. Especially hunters in our area are really good about nose-to-tail eating, very conscientious of that. And so I think that's another critically important point to make.
Dr. Paul:
I love that you bring that up about the quality of the food and nose-to-tail. The idea with nose-to-tail is that you touched on this a little bit in the beginning when people are thinking about a carnivore diet, they're thinking, "Oh, that person is just going to eat hamburger meat all the time." It's nothing like that.
Dr. Anna:
Or the keto bacon and butter, right?
Dr. Paul:
Exactly. There's ways to do dirty carnivore, there's ways to do dirty keto. And I don't think either of us would advocate for that way of eating in general. We need to be more intentional about how we're doing it. When we look at the way ancestral people, indigenous hunters, and gatherers eat animals, they always eat the animal nose-to-tail. They often favor organ meats. Things like the liver are sometimes so sacred that they're not allowed to be touched by human hands.
Dr. Anna:
I have to share a story with you. You will love this story, Paul, I know you will. My father was World War II. He was born in 1926 and he started serving at age 17 into World War II. He was multilingual so he was sent around the world. One of the places he was sent after he learned Arabic and Hebrew, he was sent to the Middle East. He grew up speaking Portuguese and English.
Dr. Anna:
And so then he learned Arabic and Hebrew. He was sent to the Middle East and he was a naval attaché and an incredibly social man. He never met a stranger. He was so friendly. And that's why he got everyone to drink and talk. That was my dad's forte. He was invited as the guest of honor to a Bedouin dinner. And so almost like a nomadic tribe of people.
Dr. Anna:
And so he was eating with the sheikh, the leader of the tribe at a long, long table. And my dad was the guest of honor. So was given the eye of a goat. He was given this eye of a goat. And dad was like, "Ooh, well not so sure, but I know I will not be leaving with everything I came with if I do not eat this eye of the goat." So very diplomatically, he put the eye of the goat in the mouth.
Dr. Anna:
And he said, "It went over to one side, tried to bite, went over to the other side." I mean, he just couldn't do it. So very discreetly he ended up hiding it away in his napkin and had a death grip on it for the rest of the night. But the eye of the goat, that's got to be healthy. I have no idea, are the eyes healthy? I mean, tell me.
Dr. Paul:
They're absolutely healthy. They're a source of vitamin A and collagen. And then you think about all the growth factors that are throughout the animal and-
Dr. Anna:
How it became a delicacy, isn't that cool?
Dr. Paul:
I think that so many of these things, so many of the organs that we believe are kind of the gross, ooh factor organs are delicacies in other areas of the world. And so there's a lot of cognitive limitation here for us. It's just conditioning. And there are ways to eat these organs now that make them easier. We can take pills like you said, desiccated adrenal, desiccated thyroid.
Dr. Paul:
There are many companies now making desiccated liver, desiccated bone marrow, desiccated eye. And these are great ways to get the organs if we can't eat them normally. But the intention of our ancestors or the ethos is very clear here that these things carry unique value in humans and people say, "I don't care. I'm never going to eat an eyeball."
Dr. Paul:
You probably don't have to eat an eyeball, but eating liver, or at least starting with heart is a great way to do this. And they're much cheaper. I mean, the liver is not expensive, the heart is not expensive. Some butchers will give it to you for almost free. And if you look at where the nutrients we are getting come from, there are unique nutrients and things like the liver that are hard to obtain elsewhere.
Dr. Paul:
You mentioned that you have some members of the audience who are vegan and vegetarian. And in those people, I worry about riboflavin deficiency because riboflavin is really only present in robust quantities in animal foods, just like so many of the other nutrients. And where is riboflavin found in the most concentration? It's found in the liver?
Dr. Paul:
Why do we care about riboflavin? Well, because anyone that has a polymorphism in the MTHFR, which is this widely known enzyme now, if you get enough riboflavin, you probably need two to three milligrams a day, which is more than the RDA. That MTHFR polymorphism will function normally with more riboflavin. So it's crucial for all of us to get all these little pieces of our biochemistry and all these little micronutrients.
Dr. Paul:
And if we're not eating organ meats, we're missing out on some really nutritious foods there. We either need to be supplementing intentionally or thinking about what those deficiencies may manifest as. I mean, eating meat is the great first step, but it's meat and organs. And so a nose-to-tail carnivore diet, which is what I advocate for strongly, and we'll talk about this as well, from well-raised, grass-fed, grass-finished animals is going to provide all the nutrients that humans need.
Dr. Paul:
This was kind of the other amazing thing that I realized as I was doing my research for the book and doing my own personal experience with the carnivore diet over the last two years, was that every single nutrient that humans need can be found in animal foods. And they're in higher quantities and they're more bioavailable. So there's really nothing we can't get by eating animals. They're the ultimate multivitamin.
Dr. Paul:
And I want to emphasize to the listener that I'm not saying in the book that we have to eliminate all plants. I'm saying that animal foods are critically valuable for humans and that plants exist on a spectrum of toxicity. And if we are aware of which plants are more toxic and which plants are less toxic, we can often figure out what is best for us as humans.
Dr. Paul:
And then we can take some inspiration from the way that our ancestors ate plants. If you look at the way traditional people eat plants, they don't really eat plants the way we eat plants now, they do a lot of fermentation. They're selective on which part of the plant they eat. They eat plants only seasonally. And generally, if they get more animals, they will eat more animals.
Dr. Paul:
A lot of plants are used only as fallback foods. But I'll just touch on the quality of food thing for a moment just to finish this point that in the book I have a whole chapter on the ethics of eating meat. So many people will get worried about the environmental implications of eating meat. And I think it's something to consider no matter what we do because we are fortunate to have the ability to eat any good quality food.
Dr. Paul:
And what I talk about in the book is the fact that if you are looking at regenerative agriculture, that is grass-fed, grass-finished agriculture, farms like White Oak Pastures in Georgia, Belcampo, Circle C Farms in Florida. There are lots of farms doing this, in the method of Allan Savory, doing a rotational grazing practice and truly caring for the animals in a way that mimics the way they would move across the land, the way that buffalo eat grass and then migrate, eat grass and migrate.
Dr. Paul:
You can really create an ecosystem and an ecosystem which has been shown by multiple life cycle analysis to sequester more carbon into the soil than is released by the cows. So it's carbon negative. And you can look at the soil and see that the organic matter in the soil is increasing. You can see this in the quality of the soil. You can pick up a hand of dirt in a field that's been used for mono-crop agriculture with plants, and it's very light brown, the organic matter has been depleted and all the other nutrients have been depleted.
Dr. Paul:
And then you can pick up a handful of soil from the pastures, that White Oak Pastures, is dark dirt. It is like chocolate dirt. And you can see it has 10 to 20 or a hundred times more carbon organic matter in the soil. Why does that matter? Because when you have more organic matter in the soil, you can sequester more carbon, it holds more rainwater, it prevents runoff, and you can grow more root systems, which are these mycorrhizal fungal root systems of plants that make the plants more nutritious and the animals get more nutrition.
Dr. Paul:
So it's exactly the way it used to happen in the Great Plains of the United States and why the center of our country was one of the most fertile regions anywhere in the world until big agriculture moved in and did generation after generation of mono-crop agriculture which depletes the soil of nutrients. That's not sustainable. The way that we regenerate the land is by using animals.
Dr. Paul:
We have to do an ecosystem space with animals which is carbon negative, and that is regenerative grass-fed, grass-finished animals feeding. So it's really an incontrovertible argument, in my opinion, that animals are valuable on the land. We should select the best quality, whether they're raised in the most well-meaning intentional ways.
Dr. Anna:
Well, and I think I definitely have had experience with this firsthand. My now ex-husband had a buffalo ranch. So he and my daughters raised some buffalo. And there are so many restrictions on what buffalo can be fed and what they are definitely not allowed antibiotics and hormones and other ways that we have, I don't want to say adulterated our current grazing animals.
Dr. Anna:
And so with buffalo that it has for generations, never have they been allowed to interfere with its natural hormones. And I think that's really beautiful, plus all grass-fed and very careful about what is given to the buffalo and also how they're sacrificed, right? The squeeze boxes to reduce stress and how they live and how they die is something that is very conscientiously done for most, not all, but buffalo farmers and form a historic perspective how that herd has been able to just naturally stay as was intended.
Dr. Anna:
And as you said, not all are created equal. It's important to know what we're eating ate. And so that it's as wholly healthy as possible. And I think that's just a critical point to make. And especially not to stress if we can't find, or can't get the best sources right now, right? We're going to make do with what we have available. So explain Dr. Saladino, what would you recommend now with scarcer supply if we don't have access to grass-fed, grass-finished?
Dr. Paul:
Well, one of the things that's interesting, at least where I live in San Diego is that every time I've gone to the grocery store, there's plenty of meat. So there's no shortage of fresh, healthy food. There's been decent amounts of produce and decent amounts of fresh food. The foods that are flying off the shelves are processed foods.
Dr. Paul:
And I'm not sure if that's because people are stress eating and making poor decisions or are looking for things that will not spoil in the event of massive changes in the way our society looks right now, perhaps both. But I think that for many people, I hope they can still get access to fresh foods, both the least toxic, fresh plant foods and animal foods. They're pretty easy to get.
Dr. Paul:
So if you don't have access to grass-fed, grass-finished meats, this is where a lot of the online purveyors come in. Places like White Oak Pastures, Belcampo, US Wellness Meats. There's another one in California, Buy Ranch Direct.
Dr. Anna:
Western GrassFed's one of my favorites.
Dr. Paul:
Places like that are doing a great effort right now to get people these meats delivered. And that also means you don't have to go to the grocery store. But most grocery stores, I think, will still have meat available. It seems it hasn't come short yet. Every time I've gone, it's still there.
Dr. Paul:
So that's the good news and also kind of bad news, I guess, if people are not eating the freshest foods. Interestingly, and a lot has been made of this, many of the plant-based burgers are also in great supply in the grocery stores, because I don't think anybody wants to eat those anyway.
Dr. Anna:
That's funny. Because we did talk about eating organ meat, and so there are sausages, organ meat sausages. I can't remember the company that I got mine from a small farm in Portland, Oregon. But looking at that, our butchers, the farmers, local farmers, but even asking the butchers too for the liver. Now that is something that my mom made us eat occasionally.
Dr. Anna:
But there were chicken hearts and chicken liver, those are very palatable, yummy. Beef liver, not so palatable for me. But just an interesting aside that my mom instructed when cooking liver, you're definitely going to cook it in additional fat, like it's butter or ghee, you can use that but also saute in any of the alliums. So garlic or onion because they're anti-parasitic, antiviral. And so you want to cook in that.
Dr. Anna:
And I know that that was just traditional wisdom that I grew up with. I never fact check that but cooking with that. And then it was pretty yummy with the seasoning. So don't be afraid to use herbs and seasonings. And that's certainly something that I advocate. We've got to make it taste good for it to be even better for our bodies.
Dr. Paul:
I think that for a lot of people, it's an acquired taste. And most people I know who eat liver grow to like it. If it's not something we've grown up with, it may be irony or strong tasting at the beginning. But I think that intrinsically our body really wants it and will become something much more palatable for people over time if they do give it a fair shake.
Dr. Paul:
But interestingly, in the book, I talk about one study which is kind of related to this point that you can look at something called event-related potential, which are changes in the brain's neural firing between networks of the brain that indicate our sort of intrinsic responses to food at more cortical and subthalamic levels, sort of deeper regions of the brain, more sort of instinctual levels.
Dr. Paul:
And when pictures of meat are shown to vegetarians and vegans, they have a response which is often unpleasant at a conscious level, but at an unconscious level, at more instinctual levels, their brains still respond positively to the meat suggesting that our human body still craves the meat. They have this sort of conscious framework they've built around meat being bad, but at a more subconscious, a more instinctual level, there is still a very positive response to the meat in the brain suggesting that our millions of years of evolution cannot be undone so quickly and that our body still realizes that foods like liver and meat are good for us.
Dr. Paul:
So even if we are having this conscious negative response to the liver, I suspect that most people in the deeper regions of their brain and their body will be nourishing themselves vary significantly by eating those foods.
Dr. Anna:
Paul also talks about what plant foods that you're suggesting people absolutely avoid.
Dr. Paul:
So we may differ in opinion on this, and I'm happy to offer some point and counterpoint here. When you think about how plants are living in the ground, they're rooted in the ground, they can't run away, all life on the planet needs to have a way to defend itself. And as I suggested earlier, plants have chosen to defend themselves or have co-evolved with animals over 450 million years to defend themselves with chemicals.
Dr. Paul:
And there are certain parts of the plant that are more vulnerable to predation than others. In fact, plants almost want their fruit to get eaten most of the time. So fruit, the actual flesh of the fruit probably doesn't appear to have as many phytoalexins or phytochemicals that are toxins in it. Sometimes that's not the case, but most berries and fruits are at least correlated or connected with some animal that is intended to move the seeds in there around.
Dr. Paul:
Conversely, animals are usually going to experience negative reactions if they eat the seeds of plants. Seeds are like plant babies, they're some of the most highly defended parts of plants. So this may not be a surprise to anyone listening because grains are actually a plant seed. Grains, nuts, beans, and seeds are all seeds, they're all plant babies.
Dr. Paul:
So if we look at those, if we look at "all of the seeds", those are the plant parts that are usually the most highly defended. Those are the highest concentrations of digestive enzyme inhibitors, oxalates, phytic acid, lectins. And generally speaking in my experience, both personally and clinically, those are the foods that cause people a lot of digestive discomforts.
Dr. Paul:
So many people listening to this may be familiar with the problems with grains and perhaps legumes. But I would also suggest that nuts and seeds may cause similar digestive issues for many people as well. Beyond the seeds of plants, things like leaves and stems and roots are also often highly defended. There's a root vegetable called cassava in South America, which is highly toxic unless it's very stringently, very specifically processed to remove the hydrocyanic acid.
Dr. Paul:
So in order to eat cassava without dying, many of the core peoples of South and Central America have to grind it and soak it and then let it dry for days so the hydrocyanic acid, which contains cyanide can evaporate. So it's very clear that there's a molecular mechanism, there's a molecular booby trap in many roots like cassava, which are meant to dissuade or discourage animals from eating them.
Dr. Paul:
Incidentally, cassava also contains things like isothiocyanates, which are goitrogens. And the goitrogens in these plants are very well known to cause endemic goiter. We're all familiar with the reports that people with large necks from iodine deficiency related to overconsumption of goitrogenic foods, cassava being one of them, vegetables in the brassica family being another.
Dr. Paul:
So things like kale and spinach and collard and chard, these are all brassicas. They have the same goitrogens which can affect thyroid function by inhibiting iodine uptake at the level of the gland. So from my perspective, we have to be very careful when we're dealing with roots and stems and leaves and seeds. And this is perhaps where we will differ most in my opinion.
Dr. Paul:
I think that for many people, some of the foods we've been told that are very healthy, specifically things like broccoli and cauliflower and cabbage, which are leaves and brassicas, I think those are causing a lot of problems for people. And as I talk about in the book, there's a whole chapter on this family of plant foods, I don't think that there's anything in those foods that we can't get other places without all of the toxins and other problems in those foods.
Dr. Paul:
If people listening to this are unsure of this but are still having digestive issues, I would recommend or offer, do a week without any leafy greens and see how your digestion gets. I think for most people, that gets much better. Broccoli and cauliflower and kale are the sources of much digestive discomfort for many people. And I think we're always told they're so good for us that we can't imagine they could be the source of the problem. Again, this is something that's different than what other people are suggesting. So this is one of the more controversial parts of my messaging.
Dr. Anna:
Well, I think that's a really important note to mention is again, like we talk about what came first, the chicken or the egg? What were the problems first that now the substances are causing reactions in other individuals. So are you saying these reactions will or won't show up on food sensitivity testing?
Dr. Anna:
Because I will talk about the brassicas and just using it clinically for now using either supplements, such as sulforaphane in clients with breast cancers, breast cysts, uterine fibroids, cervical dysplasia, papilloma, or genital warts and using sulforaphane's dietarily as well as supplement to actually eliminate those conditions without surgery, eliminate or have surgery confirmed after having a negative diagnosis.
Dr. Anna:
So surgery resulting in a negative follow-up diagnosis. What I mean by that, let's say, for example, with cervical dysplasia, encouraging methylators and sulphators SGS, for instance, from the brassica family and putting a client on that for one to two months, following up with a LEEP procedure with an excision of the cervix and that being completely negative.
Dr. Anna:
And the same with followup breast biopsies, or lumpectomies after initiating this regimen that I talk about. I talk about my keto green approach, how important greens are. Now, it's a fraction of people that have such food sensitivities, whether it's from this leaky membrane, in the case that you talk about eczema, chronic eczema, autoimmune diseases that are so fragile right now that anything is an assault on their system. Essentially their system is fighting anything that's coming into it.
Dr. Anna:
I think there's the tug pole, right? In my program I talk about there's times where we're fasting completely, there's times where we're keto green, there's times where we're feasting, there's times where we rotate in a plant-based basis and just discern what helps you feel better, what doesn't help you feel better? And where do we see that result?
Dr. Anna:
I think that too, I'm curious because definitely I've seen a difference in working with male and female patients especially with hormone balance and period of post-menopause are these dynamic hormonal changes, the depletion in hormones, and if you've noted any shift with your clients as compared male to female and also age groups.
Dr. Paul:
Well, I think there are definitely differences between men and women. Across both sexes, I have not found a clinical role for sulforaphane or isothiocyanates in my practice. I think that the risks outweigh the benefits. I think that we know that things like DIM and sulforaphane can have physiologic effects on the human body. But again, I don't think that those effects are unique. And I think that there are safer and better ways to get those physiologic effects without the associated side effects of the isothiocyanates, which are difficult to ignore.
Dr. Anna:
So you're saying the side effect of isothiocyanates are what?
Dr. Paul:
Well, membrane damage. They induce with the peroxidation, they compete with iodine, the level of the thyroid, and can lead to thyroid abnormalities at baseline. Isothiocyanates are phytoalexins. These are plant defense chemicals that are not good for humans in my opinion. And if we are going to use them clinically, we need to be very careful that we are telling patients about the side effects of these and very vigilant to understand the risk versus benefit profile.
Dr. Paul:
I think like I said at the beginning of the podcast, there are ways to achieve many of the same benefits of these molecules without using those, what I would consider to be highly bio reactive molecules with many side effects. For instance, I think you can do low carbohydrate diets, I think you can improve insulin sensitivity and resolve many of the conditions you listed being treated with sulforaphane in and of itself without the downsides of molecules like sulforaphane.
Dr. Paul:
As I said, the isothiocyanates I believe are pretty damaging for humans and are not meant to be used as medications. And they do have biological effects, but I think we have to not forget the pretty serious side effects of this class of molecules in the human body. And remember that, in fact, they are plant defense chemicals. They're not really meant to be benign in humans.
Dr. Anna:
Give me some clinical cases, give me some clinical examples.
Dr. Paul:
So I've had patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis that have completely resolved when they removed brassicas from their diet, a number of cases. In fact, some of them are quite high profile athletes. In other people, you can see titers of anti-TPO and anti-thyroglobulin resolved and thyroid normalized when they remove brassicas from their diet.
Dr. Paul:
These are the class of plants that contain the isothiocyanate molecules and other goitrogenic molecules beyond sulforaphane, things like goitrogen, which is probably even more goitrogenic and has even more of a potential to inhibit iodine level in the thyroid. So I think in terms of hormonal balance, using these molecules is a pretty dangerous game, at least from my perspective.
Dr. Paul:
I've also seen patients have pretty significant improvements in their gut health and overall feeling of wellbeing when they remove these foods from their diet, things like fibroids and insulin resistance, PCOS. These things are pretty regularly resolved on diets containing both carbohydrates, and without carbohydrates that improve insulin resistance.
Dr. Paul:
So I'm not a fan of using plant molecules to cover symptoms. Like we talked about in the beginning, I would rather try and understand the root cause. Is it insulin resistance driving fibroids? Is it something else driving breast cysts that we need to correct? I sort of don't like the idea of using plant molecules which have side effects to cover those things when we can correct the root cause.
Dr. Paul:
And so always digging for that root cause. And I think so often that root cause is food sensitivity, leaky gut, damage to the gastrointestinal lining, and immunologic activation because of these plant molecules or hormonal disruption because of these plant molecules. So things like PCOS, fibroids, Hashimoto's, all these things I think I see commonly improve on people when they remove these molecules.
Dr. Anna:
Well, and I think there's the confounding variable, right? Because too, in my clinics and in my client base and my virtual practice, what we've seen is an improvement in fertility, right? Improvement in PCOS, improvement in Hashimoto's with watching decreasing titers, as well as improving in TSH in general, thyroid function in general, free T4, free T3 in clients with incorporating plant-based low carbohydrate. My keto green approach is low carbohydrate.
Dr. Anna:
And the other concept that you said intermittent fasting. I don't think using supplementation in and of itself, in general, is isolatable. We have to do it in combination with the lifestyle practices that make a difference, the intermittent fasting, the detoxing, the removing chemicals that we're putting on our body.
Dr. Anna:
And so I'm sure you don't offer the carnivore diet in and of itself as the solution without doing these other lifestyle habits and behaviors like removing toxins from our skincare product, removing toxins from our food sources, from our drinking sources, as well as removing mold toxins, right? We're physicians, we're functional physicians, functionally trained.
Dr. Anna:
So we're looking at the underlying cellular cause and also resolving hopefully any need for further surgery or medical intervention as time goes on. And so both our practices differ in this. And again, really monitoring clinically what works well for our patient. And again, if something not being held to it so staunchly that if it's not working or it's not working for everyone, that there's a time and a place to try to discern to see what does work best for you, how is it affecting you? Test don't guess. So let's talk about the markers that you use to follow clients to see their success. What are the key markers that you use to follow clients?
Dr. Paul:
So many important markers. I think I would start with fasting insulin and C-peptide. I think that insulin sensitivity is at the center of all of this or much of it for people. One of the things I'll note about plant-based approaches is that I think that they can work to resolve insulin resistance in the short term.
Dr. Paul:
And I worry that longterm, they lead to nutrient deficiencies because of inadequate consumption of animal foods and they lead to worsening auto-immunity because of these plant molecules. So I think that a plant-based approach could resolve things in the short term that are based on insulin resistance, in ovulation, and fertility PCOS. We could also resolve that with fasting.
Dr. Paul:
I don't think it's a function of the food as much as the function of the improvements in insulin resistance. But what for me is unique about a carnivore diet or a carnivoreish diet, which looks at the spectrum of plant toxicity is that we can improve insulin sensitivity and provide nutrient density longterm and avoid the majority of plant toxins. So for me, it's the best of all of those worlds.
Dr. Paul:
I think we have to be very careful and rigorous in our consideration of why these things work. There's a whole section in my book about why vegan diets work. And I think that they do work short term for some people. But what I fear is that I have seen over and over nutritional catastrophe longterm due to nutrient inadequacy or the sudden appearance of auto-immunity due to overabundance of plant alkaloids and plant toxic molecules.
Dr. Paul:
So I have great concerns about these things longterm, and I think some things work in the short term, but they don't work longterm. And there's ways to improve insulin sensitivity in the short term that doesn't work long term because of nutrient inadequacy and plant toxins. Insulin is a great measure, fasting insulin is a fantastic thing. A continuous glucose monitor is something I recommend to all of my clients.
Dr. Paul:
I think seeing postprandial glucose levels indicative of postprandial insulin levels is so valuable. And I think so many of us are missing postprandial hyperglycemia or postprandial persistent hyperglycemia, which can result in endothelial dysfunction throughout the tissues of our body. And that certain foods may do that more than others. So a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor is valuable.
Dr. Paul:
I'm always following as many inflammatory markers as I can think of, hsCRP of twice a prostate and creatinine ratio, myeloperoxidase, TBARS which is lipid peroxide testing, glutathione, both oxidized and reduced. And intriguingly despite the fact that meat is so often vilified, the inflammatory markers are essentially zero on a meat-based diet.
Dr. Paul:
So I don't think that you would expect that meat would be inflammatory, but in the media sometimes we get misled to think that. But interventional studies and my own clinical experience argue strongly against that. I'm also always going to check iron studies and thyroid studies in my patient. I talked about that in my podcast with Al Ross in which we went in-depth into thyroid studies and how to look at those.
Dr. Paul:
I'll check hormones, I'll check always liver and kidney. But the majority of the things I'm checking are sort of the thyroid as sort of a central gland and the pancreas with insulin markers and things along with that range and the insulin sensitivity assays like a CGM as well as the inflammatory markers. So pretty fascinating stuff to track in patients.
Dr. Paul:
And generally, you see a lot of it get better when insulin resistance gets better. And I want to also make it clear to people that I don't believe that you have to do a ketogenic approach to improve insulin resistance, nor do I think that carbs are the enemy. I think that there are many examples throughout antiquity and anthropology that there are populations of people who eat lots of carbohydrates and remain very insulin sensitive.
Dr. Paul:
So I'm very careful to not overly generalize with regard to carbohydrates. I think that people can eat carbohydrates, but the source of carbohydrates is quite important. And I think the thing that's been overlooked repeatedly is the existence of oxidized vegetable oils and overconsumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids in the human diet.
Dr. Paul:
So these are the things I think that are the main issue for people. It's the processing of carbohydrates. So I think that grain-based carbohydrates are probably very difficult for most humans to consume, but I think that carbohydrates within fruit or occasional honey or starch-based carbohydrates are totally fine for a lot of people. Again, a continuous glucose monitor might help differentiate that by looking at postprandial glucose response, but that's not really going to lie nor would fasting insulin or C-peptide or postprandial insulin.
Dr. Paul:
I think for some people low carbohydrate diets work great. And I think that we should be careful not to overly vilify carbohydrates or overly generalize to say that they're a bad thing for people. I think that there are ways to improve insulin resistance for much beyond ketogenic diets. It's not the only way.
Dr. Anna:
What do you like the postprandial curve to look like, what's your top level of glucose?
Dr. Paul:
Well, it's going to depend on where you start, right? So I wouldn't want somebody to move their glucose more than 30 to 40 milligrams per deciliter. And I wouldn't want it to stay elevated for more than 20 to 30 minutes, which is a much more stringent criterion than most people have. I think that some people will see postprandial glucose that moves 50 to 80 milligrams per deciliter. I think that's much too much.
Dr. Paul:
And if it's staying elevated for 45 minutes, an hour or two hours, that's much too much and it's really indicating something pretty problematic. So one of the things I've noticed in myself, I do both carnival diets that are carbohydrate including and not carbohydrate including with the use of organic raw honey, which is really an animal product in the first place. And I can see a spike in my glucose, which is about 25 milligrams per deciliter when I eat honey.
Dr. Paul:
But within 20 minutes, it's back down to baseline, which for me usually runs between 80 and 90 milligrams per deciliter. My fasting insulin is usually about 2.5, C-peptide is usually less than one and my fasting glucose is usually less than 80 milligrams per deciliter. So I think that those are important metrics for people to know, but I think even anything greater than 40 milligrams per deciliter postprandial is too much of a bump in your glucose and indicates that something is wrong, whether it's underlying metabolic dysfunction or a food which is really not working well with your physiology.
Dr. Anna:
Now that's a good point. I use the continuous glucose monitor, the FreeStyle Libre, or Libre FreeStyle for over a year into monitoring and creating the recipes in my books. And it's really fascinating. I was so surprised when after a black cup of coffee, my blood glucose was going up 20 points, 20 to 30 points on occasion.
Dr. Anna:
And I think this is where it's such good self-discovery, which I encourage all my clients with discernment to decide and tracking, right? Information is good, information is king. So what works for you and what doesn't work for you. But I was super surprised that when I did my high-intensity boxing workout, my blood sugar would go up to 150 to 200, sometimes depending.
Dr. Anna:
Even fasting, completely fasting at even 24 hours so fast that it would be up that high. But it makes sense, right? Glucagon and then glucose. And we would see that food for fuel for our body. I thought that was fascinating though.
Dr. Paul:
When I've done workouts with my CGM it doesn't go much above a hundred, but it'll bump 10 to 15 milligrams per deciliter. But I think during intense exercise, you can definitely get glucose bumps and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Dr. Anna:
No, I think it's a good thing. I think it's fine. And I think it just also reserves too just depending. So I want to thank you for spending so much time, so much extra time with me today here. I appreciate your time and honor you. Please tell people where they can find you and learn about you as well as your book that's available and soon to be republished.
Dr. Paul:
It's going to be republished. It's still available now on Amazon, you can go to thecarnivorecodebook.com. There's the cover. It's my baby. It's my labor of love. So you can find The Carnivore Code on Amazon. If you want to read more of my thoughts on this and really dig into it, it's a very comprehensive book. There's over 650 references.
Dr. Paul:
And I knew that I had to write something that was comprehensive and not high level because so many of the ideas that I'm advancing are contrary to mainstream thinking. People can go to my website which is carnivoremd.com. And you can find there a listing of my podcast, which is called Fundamental Health. And all of the social media sites I am at CarnivoreMD.
Dr. Anna:
Thank you. Thank you for being with us. And I appreciate your time. And I look forward to picking up the discussion later and in future conversations. Thank you.
Dr. Paul:
I can't wait. Thanks so much. Have a great day.
Dr. Anna:
Well, we did get a little heated in that discussion, not too much. As I said, we can agree to disagree. It was fun talking with Dr. Saladino and going over these key points to keep our mind open. If we are struggling in one direction, we need to keep looking for answers in other directions. And again, what we eat does matter, what we eat does matter.
Dr. Anna:
But it does not overpower how we live our mental and spiritual atmosphere in this time, right? In all time. And especially now as we're empowering our immune system, we want to test, not guess and get our body as healthy as possible, as resilient as possible. So with everything that I come up to challenge my own views, I will try and see.
Dr. Anna:
And I know from the past having tried a carnivore diet, it was not perfect for me. It was not perfect for me, hence my keto green approach. But as with everything, if you are still struggling, there are still issues, we need to look outside the box and keep exploring. So mentioning keto green diet, do not forget my Keto-Green 16, 16 day plan to improve your metabolism, boost your immunity and skim off some extra weight is available.
Dr. Anna:
And I'm thrilled to be able to share that with you. We've had so much fun in listening. I've had so much fun in sharing this in groups virtually and all over the world now. So thank you so much for sharing about Keto-Green 16. Thanks for sharing this podcast with your friends. Remember I am here for you and so happy to be your girlfriend doctor. Bye, till next time.
