Dr Paul Saladino: The Complete Guide to the Carnivore Diet

Content by: Dr Paul Saladino

Watch the full interview below or listen to the full episode on your iPhone HERE.

Stu: This week, I’m excited to welcome Dr. Paul Saladino. Dr. Saladino trained at the University of Arizona with a focus on Integrative Medicine obtaining his MD in 2015. He’s a certified functional medicine practitioner who is passionate about understanding and correcting the roots of disease.

In this episode, we discuss the main principals of the carnivore diet, and dig deep into microbiome, the need for fibre, supplementation, and so much more. Over to Dr. Saladino.

Audio Version

downloaditunesListen to Stitcher Questions asked during our conversation:

  • How would you define the carnivore diet in terms of the food groups to include – 05:17
  • What are your thoughts on fibre, is it as important as we’re lead to believe – 41:26
  • How might this diet affect our microbiome – 41:01
  • Do you need to supplement on this diet – 38:37

Get More of Dr. Paul Saladino

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Full Transcript

Stu

00:00:00 Hey, would you like a free sample of our 180 Superfood Protein Blend? Or, even better still, you might know somebody that might want a free sample of our 180 Superfood Protein Blend. Now, the first question is … you might be asking, “Well, what the hell is it and what does it do?” The easiest and quickest way, especially if you’ve listened to our podcast for a while, you know that we are fans of real food. Our Superfood Protein Blend is exactly that, a combined mixture of 10 to 12 or some ingredients, depending on which flavor you get, chocolate or coconut. It is a very simple way of getting nutritious, dense, real food into you in under two minutes. And we suggest it done in a smoothie.

00:00:42 So, replace breakfast. I can’t tell you how many times people struggle with breakfast and they end up eating the processed carbohydrates like breakfast cereals, toast, and so forth, and sending their blood sugar levels sky high and they’re wondering why they’re getting 3:00 PM crashes in the afternoon. So, what we suggest is having a smoothie and it’s a scoop of 180. I love it to have it with half an avocado, quarter to half, yes. Get those good fats in there and simply half a banana to sweeten it with a little bit of good source of carbohydrate, or some berries, or something like that. And then you can make a delicious smoothie in seconds and that will keep you going all morning. And not only that, it’s high in fiber, which absolutely keeps you regular, which is huge on the digestive system and gut health, if you know anything about it.

00:01:30 Anyway, all you have to do is go back to 180nutrition.com.au and there’s a banner on the homepage saying, “Grab your free sample here.” This offer is running at the moment. All we ask is that you pay a small fee in shipping and handling. So make sure you check that out, guys. Awesome.

00:01:47 Brought to you by 180nutrition.com.au.

00:01:49 Welcome to the Health Sessions Podcast. Each episode will cut to the chase as we hang out with real people, with real results.

00:02:08 Hey, this is Stu from 180 Nutrition, and welcome to another episode of the Health Sessions. It’s here that we connect with the world’s best experts in health, wellness, and human performance in an attempt to cut through the confusion around what it actually takes to achieve a long lasting health. And I’m sure that’s something that we all strive to have. I certainly do.

00:02:28 Before we get into the show today, you might not know that we make products, too. That’s right, we’re into whole food nutrition and have a range of super foods and natural supplements to help support your day. If you are curious, or want to find out more, just jump over to our website. That is 180Nutrition.com.au and take a look. Okay. Back to the show.

00:02:49 This week, I’m excited to welcome Dr. Paul [Saladino 00:02:52]. Dr. Saladino trained at the University of Arizona with a focus on interpretive medicine obtaining his MD in 2015. He’s a certified functional medicine practitioner, who is passionate about understanding and correcting the roots of disease. In this episode, we discuss the main principals of the carnivore diet, and dig deep into microbiome, the need for fiber, supplementation, and so much more. Over to Dr. Saladino.

00:03:22 Hey, guys. This is Stu from 180 Nutrition and I am delighted to welcome Dr. Paul Saladino to the podcast. Dr. Saladino, how are you?

Paul

00:03:30 I’m doing really good. It’s good to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Stu

00:03:32 Very excited about this topic today, but before we delve into that, and for our listeners that may not be familiar with you, I would just love it if you could tell us a little about yourself, who you are, and what you do?

Paul

00:03:45 So, I’m a classically trained physician. I am an MD. I’m in the states, right now I’m in Seattle and moving to San Diego pretty soon because I love to surf and I miss the sun, and I’m gonna be opening a private practice there. I am formally trained as a psychiatrist and formally trained in psychiatry, and have postgraduate training in functional medicine so I kinda see things through the lens of root cause medicine and functional medicine, and yeah. I’m a physician. I do psychiatry, but I also do functional medicine and, again, kinda see people as a whole.

Stu

00:04:17 Yeah.

Paul

00:04:17 Try and address the root cause and end up seeing people from all sorts of walks of life, with all sorts of problems, even outside of mental health.

Stu

00:04:23 Fantastic. Well, we’re always excited to talk to functional medicine specialists because over the course of the last 10 years, there have been so many advances in that space, and it just seems to be so more beneficial to the overall patient to be able to come in, dial in, and see what’s actually happening rather than just treating symptoms with medication, as quickly as possible. But the big reason why I’m really, really keen to talk to you today was because of the carnivore diet.

00:04:56 So, I’ve been following you on YouTube and I’ve realized that you’ve dialed into this way of eating, for whatever reasons … We’ll find that out a little bit later on. But our audience have just been hitting us up about the carnivore diet. Tell us more about it. Really, really intrigued. And so, I thought, right, reach out to an expert and here you are. Thank you very much.

00:05:17 So, we’re talking about the carnivore diet. For our listeners that don’t fully understand it, myself included, how would you define it in terms of perhaps the food groups to include … Is it just meat? I don’t understand.

Paul

00:05:33 Right, right. So this is a wild field, and it’s something I’ve been quite interested in, and very involved in, for about the last year but if you look back three years ago, nobody was talking about the carnivore diet. So I don’t think anyone fully understands what it is, and so it’s really interesting to help people understand how I would conceptualize it. I think there are multiple conceptualizations of a carnivore diet out there.

Stu

00:05:58 Right.

Paul

00:05:59 My perception of the best way to construct a carnivore diet is to do it like our ancestors would have done. And on my YouTube channel, I did an interview with [Meekie 00:06:08] [Bendore 00:06:08], who is a pretty well-known paleo-anthropologist. He’s a fantastic guy. And we talked all about early Homo erectus, Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and evidence for the way that we would have been eating. And I think that we can also look at indigenous hunter gatherers, and what we know from those peoples was that when we would kill an animal, we would not just eat the muscle meat. Whether it’s the Inuit, or a hunter in Siberia, or a hunter in South America, you don’t just eat the muscle meat. They don’t just eat the back strap or the haunches. And if we look at carnivorous animals, other than humans, like lions or tigers, they don’t just eat the muscle meat.

00:06:49 And I was actually reading some stuff from some of the zoo journals, looking at zoologic journals and studying behavior of lions, they’re gonna eat the whole animal. And this is very foreign concept to human beings because we’re sort of divorced from this idea. Most people don’t hunt their own meat, and people that hunt their own meat might just eat the muscle meat. We don’t eat the organs much anymore. But if you look at our ancestors, as much as we can tell, and you look at living indigenous peoples, they eat the whole animal.

00:07:20 And this is really a fascinating concept, and I’d love to dig into it more, but when you eat the whole animal, nose to tail is what we say, something really magical happens. If you look at what’s in an animal, nose to tail, from a nutritional perspective, things really start to fall into place in a neat way, and you realize … Or what I’ve realized, is that if you eat an animal nose to tail, you can get all the nutrients that a human needs, in the most bioavailable forms, in the proper ratios, without any of the anti-nutrients or toxins found in plants.

00:07:56 So it’s kind of this cheat code. It’s like, “Wait a minute.” It was kind of a mind blowing realization for me, a year ago, when I started thinking about it, I thought, “What do you mean I don’t need to eat plants?” And we can get into it. We need plants for fiber. We need plants for vitamins. We need plants for phyto-nutrients and one of the wild realizations is when you eat an animal nose to tail, that would include muscle meat, connective tissue like collagen, organ meats liked liver, fatty parts of an animal, the bone marrow. Not many people eat the brain anymore, but we can use the brain as a model as an omega-3 source.

Stu

00:08:34 Sure.

Paul

00:08:35 And then even the bones as a calcium source. So if you look at that, it’s like, “Wow, everything that a human needs from just a basic nutritional science perspective, is present there in that animal.” And not only that, but it’s in these really bioavailable forms, and the ratios work out. We can talk about zinc to copper ratio or calcium to phosphorous ratio. There’s this really interesting … It’s almost like a singularity. It works very well. Its this elegant balance.

00:09:01 If you read a nutrition text book and you say, “We need to have zinc and copper balanced.” Okay. Okay. Well, if you look at a an animal, the zinc and the copper are balanced in an animal. There’s a lot of copper in the liver. There’s a lot of zinc in the muscle meat. So we can do this. It’s almost like a perfectly constructed multivitamin. I’ve talked about this on my social media, as an analogy. But if you could design the perfect multivitamin for a human, it would be an animal. And so that’s what I mean by a carnivore diet.

00:09:29 And the only thing I would add to that is that I would urge people strongly, if they were going to pursue it, to think about doing it that way rather than just eating the meat because I have suspicion and concern that just eating the muscle meat, or leaving out a part of the animal, could result in long term deficiencies, and that’s not what we want. We want to try and create a healthy diet for humans, however we’re doing that, whether it’s carnivore, or Keto, or Paleo, or whatever.

Stu

00:09:54 Got it. Yeah. It’s interesting. And I think it’s the way that we’ve been conditioned over the years. We went through this whole high carbohydrate and “Fat is the enemy” era which, predominantly then, is seen as tend to veer to very lean cuts of meat, predominantly muscle meat, as well. And then a lot of us now shun our noses at things like liver, as well. And I know that when I go to the local butchers, because I do like liver, personally, but it’s just the most … You get a huge hunk of liver for like five bucks. Which will feed you for a couple of weeks. But then you go to a lean chicken breast and you could pay like 10 bucks for that. And that’s one meal.

00:10:44 So I think it’s people’s perception and it’s like, “Oh, I’m not eating any of that kind of stuff.” Which is kind of crazy. But in terms of health benefits, then, what have you found to be the main benefits for this way of eating?

Paul

00:11:02 This is such a good question. I think there are multiple benefits … From my perspective, the overall … The most profound benefits for this way of eating are autoimmune and immunologic. And a lot of people get into different ways of eating because they’re looking for weight loss. But as a physician, through the training and psychiatry, I see a lot of psychiatric disease as autoimmune. Mainstream Western medicine doesn’t necessarily formulate psychiatric disease that way, but I think there is emerging evidence that overwhelmingly that is the case for psychiatric disease, whether it’s depression or anxiety. It’s autoimmune.

Stu

00:11:44 Yup.

Paul

00:11:44 Many cases we can see inflammation in the brain. And if we look at other chronic disease in our population of humans, it’s autoimmune. Chronic inflammation and autoimmunity are nearly synonyms in my mind, whether we’re talking about known autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, or Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, or we’re talking about autoimmune conditions that probably people don’t know are autoimmune, like SIBO I would argue is autoimmune, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth I think has a strong autoimmune component in the hypo motility. I think it’s an autoimmune insult to the myenteric plexus that causes the migrating motor complex in the gut.

00:12:23 And then I think people would not argue that things like inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis. These are clearly autoimmune.

Stu

00:12:30 Yup.

Paul

00:12:30 And so this is where I think the most benefit is, and the corollary hypothesis is that plants and the associated toxins, whether they are lectins or oxalates, or endogenous plant pesticides that … Those are pesticides that are actually made by the plant themselves, not the pesticides that we spray on the plant, but that those may be triggering autoimmunity in some large proportion of the population and that by removing those, we can rest the immune system, give the immune system less to react against, and hopefully see improvement in many of these autoimmune conditions, and then furthermore, these things in plants may also be triggering leaky gut or hypo-permeability of the gastrointestinal barrier, which may be a precursor legion for autoimmunity in many of these conditions, so it’s all kind of in the same circle, right?

00:13:18 So, you’re either triggering leaky gut and then something else can trigger auto immunity, or these compounds may be triggering autoimmunity directly, but I think of it as immunologic intervention. And so it’s very different than just a body composition intervention, although it can be very helpful for that. There are many diets that can help people lose weight and we see that when people lose weight, they generally improve in all of their health markers, but what’s so fascinating to me about this way of eating is an overall improvement in health and immunologic improvement or a calming of this overactive immune system, calming of this chronic inflammation.

Stu

00:13:54 Got it, got it. So when we talk about plants, then, and I’m interested to hear your thoughts about the defense mechanisms of certain plants, and how that reacts to a body, as well. If there is a sliding scale and you think, “Well, you can eat these plants and they’re not gonna react so well with our body right now.” But then bring in … Fast forward to today when we’re spraying these plants with God knows what, Roundup and everything else that just … We don’t see … And many of us can’t afford to go organic. And so we go out and think we’re doing the right thing at the supermarket. I’m gonna get all the broccoli, and kale, and all these wonderful plants. I might just wash it under the tap, hoping that that’s gonna get rid of some of this stuff.

Stu

00:14:41 Is it the defense mechanisms of the plants, the Roundup and the pesticides, and herbicides, and all that kind of stuff … How do we negate this in terms of knowing what to do when we just … We’re on a budget. We can’t afford organic.

Paul

00:15:00 Right. Right. I think that … I don’t think that anyone would argue that glyphosate, Roundup, or any of these pesticides are good for humans, right?

Stu

00:15:11 No.

Paul

00:15:12 There’s different legislation around these, and different countries. In the US, there have been a number of large cases, recently, awarding people money on the premise that glyphosate is carcinogenic, and so I think that as we move on in time, we’re gonna see more and more that glyphosate is a very harmful compound for humans, and there is really … One of the greatest injustices that has been done the human population over the last 20-30 years is the introduction of this compound by Monsanto, because it’s water soluble. And so it ends up in every water supply, and every water table. It ends up in tap water. It ends up all over the place. It drifts across fields and even crops that are not sprayed with glyphosate are gonna have some contamination.

00:15:56 And so, I think if we’re talking about glyphosate, we do the best we can to mitigate it. There are strategies specifically to mitigate glyphosate perhaps. There’s been some research, at least [inaudible 00:16:06], that molecules like humic and Fulvic acid may be able to prevent glyphosate mediated injury at the level of the GI mucosa, but beyond glyphosate, I think one of the messages that I’m excited to share with people is that the plants are making their own toxins, and this is less talked about. And you bring up broccoli and kale.

Stu

00:16:27 Yeah.

Paul

00:16:28 And other brassica vegetables, and if we look at just the brassica vegetables specifically, that family has been well-studied and there are many, many endogenous, meaning plant produced toxins, in the brassica vegetables that are meant to dissuade animals from eating them, and this isn’t talked about at all, and it really is something that is a pretty big deal.

00:16:50 Even addition to the glyphosate, there’s a really striking paper published by Bruce Ames in 1990. The tite of paper is Dietary Pesticides 99.99% All Natural. And he talks about, in the paper, that when we eat a mixed diet, we’re probably eating 1.6 grams of plant pesticides per day, and the majority of those, for most people, are coming from things like tea and coffee, which he would argue, and I would probably argue as well, have a lot of the polyphenolic compounds in tea and coffee are actually defense compounds.

Stu

00:17:23 Right.

Paul

00:17:24 And this is one of the underlying nuances of the message around a carnivore diet is that many of the compounds that we perceive to be beneficial like polyphenols, may in fact not really be that beneficial for us. The evidence is quite limited and there is evidence that they may be harmful in many situations. So that’s a real paradigm shifting topic that we can dig into, but if you look in that paper, and people can find that online. I believe it’s open source. If not, it’s pretty easy to get. On the second page, there’s a table and it’s 41 naturally occurring pesticides, or toxins, in cabbage.

Stu

00:17:59 Wow.

Paul

00:18:00 It’s this list of the most esoteric names you’ve ever seen and they are hugely influential to the human body. One example there is this family of molecules called the glucosinolates. And this includes things like isothiocyanates. Now, people may begin to recognize this as I tell the story, but the way it works with glucosinolates is these are defense molecules that the plant produces, but the plant produces the molecule in a stable form and it also produces this enzyme called myrosinase. And when the plant is chewed, the myrosinase combines with the glucosinolate, in this case glucoraphanin, to make a very active compound which is toxic, or harmful, to the animal. In this case, it makes a molecule called sulforaphane which is widely touted as a beneficial molecule, but if we really look into what’s going on here with sulforaphane, it’s quite a good illustration of the way that plants are doing things.

00:18:56 So, the sulforaphane molecule is an oxidant, meaning that when a plant or an animal has this molecule present, it’s going to move around creating free radicals. Oxidation is the movement of electrons. It’s the loss of electrons, is oxidation. So, sulforaphane is gonna go around pulling electrons from other molecules and creating free radicals. Now, then actual broccoli plants can’t have sulforaphane in them because it’s such a strong oxidant. It would kill the broccoli plant. So they use this precursor and this enzyme, and only when the plant is chewed by the animal does the sulforaphane get produced.

00:19:28 So, sulforaphane is a toxic compound that’s held in a precursor form. So the animal says, “Hey, you’re gonna eat me? Well, I’m gonna put this toxic molecule in you.” But why is everyone so confused and thinking this molecule is beneficial for us? It gets into this concept of hormesis and the fact that a little bit of a poison can be good for us, but let’s not get … In fact, this molecule is really a poison. And my problem with sulforaphane, though it can be a hormetic molecule, and it can activate the NRF2 system in the liver, which is the system that makes glutathione … I hope I’m not getting too complex-

Stu: 00:19:58 No.

Paul: 00:19:59 But the system make glutathione, so glutathione is the body’s endogenous antioxidant. The molecule, sulforaphane, may do that, but that’s not a process that we need sulforaphane to do. There are plenty of other ways to get hormetic benefits in our life and make plenty of glutathione. We can exercise, cold stress, hot stress, sun exposure, many, many things can create glutathione to adequate levels. So it’s doing this … effect. It’s touted as this glutathione or touted as this antioxidant, but sulforaphane doesn’t have direct antioxidant effects. It works as an antioxidant because it’s an oxidant, because it’s a toxin. It increases our own antioxidants, which we don’t need it for. And then it also runs around the human body until we detoxify it, competing for iodine at the level of the thyroid.

Paul

00:20:43 So that’s really how it acts as a toxin for animals that are eating it. So this is really what it does in animals, is when animals try and eat a lot of brassica vegetables, they will get thyroid disease. And they will think, “Oh, I don’t feel good.” Or “I’m not as reproductively healthy.” And it will dissuade the animals from eating a lot of kale, or any of the mustard seed, brassica plants.

00:21:03 And that’s just one family of the toxins, these endogenous toxins, in these plants. If you read the paper, there’s tons and tons of these molecules, many of which has been studied and found to cause chromosomal breaks in humans. So it’s kind of a scary picture that we’re told that they’re antioxidants, but I think that we’re sold a fake bill of goods here.

Stu

00:21:23 Yeah.

Paul

00:21:24 None of the plant molecules participate directly in human biochemistry. We don’t need the the plant molecules. If they benefit us, it’s because they’re making glutathione through this kind of redundant system. And then if you look hard, they always have these detrimental effects on the back end.

Stu

00:21:38 Is that raw versus cooked? Is there a scale, then, to be able to try and deactivate a lot of this stuff, or preferred way to eat these vegetables if we were going to persist?

Paul

00:21:52 Yes, yes. So when you cook a brassica vegetable, you will deactivate myrosinase.

Stu

00:21:58 Right.

Paul

00:22:00 And when you ferment a brassica vegetable, you will break down the glucosinolates.

Stu

00:22:04 Right.

Paul

00:22:04 So the cooking of the brassica vegetable will deactivate the myrosinase which means that the glucosinolates, the glucorafanin, won’t get turned into sulforaphane. Right?

Stu

00:22:14 Okay. Yup.

Paul

00:22:15 And at that point, you have to ask yourself, why are you eating the vegetable? Because one of my friends sent me an article the other day that spinach, which is not a brassica vegetable, and there are other compounds in these plants that are not broken down by cooking like oxalates, things like this, but in this case, yes, the myrosinase is deactivated by the plant pesticides are not always deactivated or denatured by the cooking.

00:22:42 But my buddy sent me an article about spinach saying that once the spinach had been at room temperature, that all the vitamins were basically gone.

Stu

00:22:50 Right.

Paul

00:22:50 Once it had been at room temperature for two days, then all the vitamins were gone. So, it even gets to this idea that if you … Yes, you can detoxify the kale somewhat by cooking

00:23:00 … the heck out of it. But, at that point, you have to question if you’re getting any nutritional value from it. It’s not a whole lot of calories and I would argue that fiber has no benefit for humans, which we can talk about it and essentially, quite harmful. And I think, especially in cases of things like small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, that’s very clear, or idiopathic constipation. But, if there’s no benefit from the vitamins and minerals, because you’ve pretty much cooked them all out or it’s denatured because the plant is not fresh, then you’ve just made it cooked, then there’s not really much point to eating it at that point, unless it’s just a garnish. That’s fine if people want to eat that. But, we just have to be clear on like what do we really get out of it, right? You know?

Stu

00:23:43 Got it. Yeah. Oh boy. You know what? There are so many different roads here that I could go down, and I’m so keen to discuss as many of them, because I know that there’d just be a ton of questions coming out of this conversation. So, I think what we’ll do, so we’ll start at the beginning. So, people are thinking, “Right, you know what? I’m so intrigued. I’m just going to give this a go and see what happens over the next three months, by adopting this way of eating.” But given the fact that we’re all so radically different in terms of genetic makeup, our microbiome, our hormones, all of the above, how do we get a starting point? Because I know that you’ve done lots of tests in terms of blood and hormones and microbiome, all that stuff. Would you recommend testing, and would there be a standard test that you think that we should obtain before proceeding with this, so at least we can check in three months time how we’re doing?

Paul

00:24:42 Yeah. I think that that’s very valuable for people to see a baseline, right?

Stu

00:24:46 Yeah.

Paul

00:24:47 I think that you can start with subjective markers, and most people are fine starting with subjective markers. I think that this sort of a thing is going to be most appealing to people who are looking to improve some metric, some aspect of their biology, whether it’s sleep, mood, energy level, libido, body composition and autoimmune disease. You know, what I would say to people is if they’re thriving and they’re totally kicking ass in every way, why would you change anything?

Stu

00:25:16 Right.

Paul

00:25:16 No need to change anything, right?

Stu

00:25:18 Yeah.

Paul

00:25:18 Presuming that your labs look good underneath. But I think people can start with just what is the metric that I’m looking to change? Is it that I have insomnia? Do I have depression, anxiety? Do I have rosacea, psoriasis, whatever? So there are some subjective measures they can start with.

00:25:32 But in terms of laboratory measures, yeah, I think it definitely is a rabbit hole once you start checking labs because then you have to know what the labs mean and how to interpret them. But there are different degrees. I mean, I really appreciate blood work, and I like data, so as a functional medicine doc, I do a lot of blood work on people. If people wanted to start with this diet, I think they would want to start with a basic complete blood count, which is going to give them a sense of their red blood cell populations. You want to get a comprehensive metabolic panel, which is going to have all your electrolytes, your liver function, something called a GGT, which is a gamma glutamyl transferase.

00:26:11 I think it’s important to have a pretty good understanding of where their thyroid is at with TSH, free T3, a free T4, probably a reverse T3, maybe even thyroid antibodies. If people do have positive anti-thyroid antibodies, that would be most likely a case of Hashimoto’s and you’d want to know.

00:26:29 I think it’s important for people to get a sense of where their lipids are when they start, and then look at things like a fasting blood sugars, and calculate what’s called a HOMA-IR, which is a measure of hormone resistance. I think it’s important for people to get a sense of their hormone sensitivity prior. And then I like to look at inflammatory markers, hsCRP, ESR, fibrinogen, ferritin, iron stores, these type of things. And then, you know, you could also look at hormones. So the list is already getting pretty long, you know?

Stu

00:26:58 Yeah.

Paul

00:26:58 You can look at testosterone and you know. But, I think that the basics would probably be inflammatory markers, lipids, and measures of hormone sensitivity would be a good place to start. Yeah, and then people could recheck.

00:27:16 Generally, what we see is that inflammatory markers go way down. Hormone resistance goes away. And LDL can go really high, which is sort of a whole nother conversation, but the way that LDL goes high, usually the HDL is high, the triglycerides are low, and it doesn’t seem to be the same phenotype of elevated LDL that we see in hormone resistance or cases of familial hyperlipidemia. That’s a whole separate conversation.

00:27:44 But yeah, I think people should check their blood work and get a sense of what’s going on, in addition to their subjective symptoms, which are often the most powerful.

Stu

00:27:52 Yeah. So, we’ve got our blood work. We’re ready to start, and then we think, “Great, this is game on. I can eat all the meat I want, so I’m going to go out and stock up on hamburgers, sausages, bacon, salami, all of the above,” now I’m guessing that probably isn’t the right approach to take, and the quality is of the utmost importance here. What are your thoughts on that?

Paul

00:28:14 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s what a lot of people end up doing, and they might feel good for a month or a few months, and then not feel so good.

Stu

00:28:21 Yeah.

Paul

00:28:23 It goes back to the nose-to-tail idea that yeah, bacon and sausages and salami are delicious, but that’s all muscle meat, right?

Stu

00:28:30 Yeah.

Paul

00:28:30 That’s all muscle meat. And the quality is super important. That goes back to the conversations around glyphosate and many of these other things. You know, I think that there is strong evidence that you’d want to get a pastured animal, the best quality animal you can afford, but work within your means. I do think grass fed is better for a variety of reasons, the simplest of which being that a grass-fed animal is not going to be fed grains at the end of its life. The grains would likely have glyphosate, et cetera, et cetera. You know, it’s an interesting thing.

00:29:04 So, I think that the quality of the meat is important, but then, as we talked about in the very beginning, to really do this evolutionarily, correctly … correctly according to our genetic program, as I would suggest, we need to eat the whole animal. You know what? I think nutritional science is pretty advanced, and we know that we have nutrient needs that are found outside of the muscle meat. There are some in the carnivore communities who would say, “No, no. You can just survive on muscle meat. Look at these examples.” But, if you really look at the nutrients that a human needs, in order to substantiate the sort of the postulate that I suggested in the beginning, that we can get all the nutrients we need from an animal, you really have to eat the organ meat and the bones and the connective tissue. Once you do that, everything starts to come together. So, people should not just go out and buy bacon and salami and muscle meats, and all those kind of thing. It’s too much.

Stu

00:29:54 Yeah.

Paul

00:29:55 Yeah.

00:29:56 With regard to the bacon, specifically, I’ll just mention this. You know, this comes up a lot, and we don’t have to go into the idea of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, heterocyclic amines, and advanced glycation end products, but when people are starting a carnivore diet, I think bacon is okay to have from time to time, but I dissuade them from eating bacon all the time. It’s quite high in advanced glycation end products. And there are many ways to cook meat that don’t produce as many advanced glycation end products. There’s just something about the way that we’re cooking the fat of the bacon in fat that produces more AGEs. Your listeners will probably be familiar with those concepts.

Stu

00:30:31 Yep.

Paul

00:30:31 AGEs are produced in all sorts of things, but generally, the frying and browning and stuff produces a lot of AGEs, which probably are not great, you know? A little bit your body can handle. And there’s carnosine in meat, which is something our body uses to deal with AGEs, so maybe it’s not as big a deal, but I generally dissuade people from bacon.

00:30:51 The other issue with bacon is that it often is seasoned with nitrates, which are not great, and they’re from plants, so there’s all sorts of research now about plant nitrates, and they’re not super great for humans, so you don’t want to be thinking you’re doing a carnivore diet and getting some celery salt with nitrates. It probably won’t hurt you, but it’s not the best thing. We know that plant nitrates are probably dangerous.

Stu

00:31:12 Yeah, boy, that will … Again, a talking point. I mean, bacon is like the holy grail in a lot of people’s diets, and rightly so, in terms of its taste and the smell, as well. But, I’m guessing then that with the quality of meat and the nose-to-tail, and all the different cuts and parts of the animal that we’re going to [inaudible 00:31:35] so many nutrients in there, it’s certainly more about the protein … or, it’s not so much about the protein, but it’s the inclusion of fat and everything else that comes along with that.

00:31:46 So, in terms of dairy, your thoughts on dairy, and specifically if you don’t tolerate dairy well, how can you negate deficiencies?

Paul

00:31:57 Yeah, dairy comes up a lot. I have a few concerns about dairy. Casein and whey are particularly immunogenic proteins in dairy, not for everyone, but some people … And usually people know who they are. You know? They’re like, “Oh, my eczema …” I mean, personally, my eczema seems to be triggered by dairy. It’s a strange thing. Then there’s the issue of casomorphin. So, casein breaks down into casomorphin, which is one of these opiate-like compounds in dairy, which has been shown to change satiety mechanisms. And you know, in the experience of my clients, they’ve found that when they stop dairy, they have a much easier time appreciating proper satiety as they’re eating. It’s easier to lose weight. And you see on ketogenic diets, people can gain weight on ketogenic diets when they’re just doing all this dairy fat. And so, I think there are uniquely challenging things about dairy for many people.

00:32:55 As another aside, if you look at many of the studies that have been done showing increased levels of postprandial LPS endotoxin, a lot of them are done with dairy fat, and saturated fat, heavy cream. And so, you’ve got to wonder if there’s something in the dairy or the processing of the heavy cream, that is perhaps creating a leaky-gut condition, or is not good for adult humans, or could be immunogenic. So, it’s a strange topic. It seems that people generally do better on dairy from many perspectives, whether it’s an immunologic perspective or a weight-loss perspective, and so I recommend to people in the beginning that they try and live without it. Some people seem to do fine with it. As you know, it can be an individual thing.

Stu

00:33:41 Absolutely.

Paul

00:33:41 Without dairy, the main deficiency is going to be a calcium. As we talked about, I think calcium is hugely important in this diet. Very few people thinking about carnivore diets or maybe even ketogenic diets, are thinking about calcium. I think a lot of people on keto eat cheese, which for better or for worse, but … But on a carnivore diet, if people are not eating cheese, then they’re going to get a calcium deficiency. This is something I just posted on Instagram about today is this calcium to phosphorus ratio, and the importance of, if you look at our bones, they’re about twice as much calcium, about two thirds calcium, and about one third phosphorus if you’re looking at the balance of those two minerals.

00:34:22 And meat is fairly high in phosphorus. There’s 180 milligrams of phosphorus in three ounces of muscle meat. So, you know, I might eat two pounds of meat a day. I’m going to get 2,000 milligrams of phosphorus, I better be sure that I get about 2,000 milligrams of calcium in a day to balance that, because everything we’ve seen from human nutrition, from animal nutrition, if you look at other carnivores, if you look at tigers and lions, in captivity, which is sort of an interesting experiment, they will get osteodystrophy. They’ll get problems with their bones if they’re not fed calcium to balance the phosphorus in their diet.

00:34:57 So, this is another one of those really elegant ratios, elegant balances we see with eating nose to tail, is that when you do that, you’re balancing the calcium with the phosphorus. There are phosphorus-rich parts of the animal. We know we need phosphorus. And then there are calcium-rich parts of the animal, like the bones. And so, I recommend to people that they get bone meal or egg shells as a source of calcium if they’re not going to do dairy.

Stu

00:35:19 Okay.

Paul

00:35:21 Bone meal is interesting. If we look at indigenous cultures, they have eaten bones. Many of them grind the bones up, or use them. They make bone meal. Lions eat bones. We know that animals eat … I mean, your dog eats bones. They like bones, you know? That’s something that they want to eat. In bones, there are other trace minerals, too, manganese, vanadium, strontium, boron, important to get all those things. So, bones are probably a really important part of this equation, as well.

Stu: 00:35:46 Got it. If I’m living a modern-day life, so hectic, I’m out the door at 7:00 in the morning. I might get back at 7:00 in the evening. I’m stressed and tired and wired, how could I easily adopt this diet and follow this diet to determine that I’m going to get all of these beautiful minerals? Would you be thinking along the terms of like a crock pot? Like slow cooking something throughout the day? Because I’m guessing that I can’t just go out to my local deli and get this beautiful meal in a tub, sprinkled with bone meal and things like that.

Paul

00:36:23 Maybe you will be able to eventually.

Stu

00:36:25 Yeah.

Paul

00:36:27 One of the things I’m thinking about designing is a bar that has liver and muscle meat and collagen, and maybe a little bone meal, like a nose-to-tail bar. That’s in the works. But, you know, I think that one of the interesting things about doing this way of eating is that a ketogenic way of eating lends itself to intermittent fasting or one-meal-a-day eating, or two-meals-a-day eating, which can make it a little bit easier in terms of managing the food. What I would say to people who lead busy lives is that I think eating this way is much easier, and it saves me on grocery shopping. You know, I go to the store and basically I buy meat. You know? Basically, you can just go to a butcher and get everything you need at a butcher, but you know, you’re going to need meat. You’re going to need connective tissue. You’re going to need liver. You’re going to need some bone meal. And you’re going to need an omega-3 source.

00:37:13 In the beginning, it feels like a lot, but when you get down to it, it’s very simple. There’s only like five or six things you need to eat if you want to make it as simple as possible. You can make it as complex as you want, including fish, or all sort … There’s all sorts of animals to eat, as a hunter. You cook chicken or bison, or whatever you want. But if you want to make it really simple, you can really boil down nose-to-tail eating into five or six foods. Well, that’s pretty easy. Once you get the hang of what those five or six things are, you know, it just requires that little bit of preparation, and you can prepare food, bring it with you. That’s often the key is preparation, right? If people really want to take charge of their health, what we learn is that we have to usually make our own food.

Stu

00:37:56 Got it.

Paul

00:37:57 If people are really stuck and they’re out somewhere, usually they can go get meat somewhere, you know? That’s better than nothing, but you got to make sure that the rest of the time, you’re getting all the muscle meats and the organ meats and stuff. You don’t have to eat nose-to-tail at every meal. It’s totally fine to eat a meal that’s just a steak if you want to go out with your friends. You know, you could just get the steak and that’s fine. It doesn’t have to be nose-to-tail at every meal, just as long as overall, you’re thinking about it.

00:38:23 So, I think if people try and espouse a nose-to-tail philosophy, they’ll find that steak and meat are available everywhere, liver, collagen, not so much, so … Those will be the special pieces you got to bring with you. Bone meal, not so much.

Stu

00:38:37 Okay, no, I get it. And supplementation, do you supplement? Do you advise, recommend that people supplement just to cover the bases that perhaps could be missed?

Paul

00:38:49 You know, I do not supplement. I think that most people will not need supplementation if they’re getting a reasonable amount of liver and bone meal and fairly good quality fresh meat. That’s one of the really interesting things. Now, people are individuals, and they want to work with their healthcare practitioner. I work with people privately for this. And sometimes micronutrient testing is important and valuable. People may have preexisting nutrient deficiencies that I think would gradually correct eating this way. But they may feel better faster if they knew what kind of deficiencies they had going into it. Some sort of like micronutrient testing might be helpful for people.

00:39:29 But, as far as I can tell, and I’ve gone through multiple iterations of the diet over the last year, there’s no need for any formal supplementation. I mean, some people might consider bone meal a supplement because sometimes you get it from a company that it comes in a bag, you know? But it’s bones. It’s bones of an animal.

00:39:46 I actually found for myself that my eczema finally went away completely when I stopped all my supplements. I don’t know if it was a binder or silicon dioxide. I do think that a lot of times supplements can cause more harm than good. And I’m not a fan of whatever people want to use, whether it’s … I’m not a fan of the supplements. And I think like, “Why are we using so many supplements?” Can’t we just create the most high-quality diet, and then check to see if there are deficiencies. But generally no. From a nutritional perspective, which is what I think is so cool about this way of eating, if you eat an animal nose to tail, there aren’t any deficiencies, because essentially, that animal looks a lot like you do. You know?

Stu

00:40:25 Yeah.

Paul

00:40:25 Like, you’re a human. That’s a cow. That’s a mammal. You’re a mono-gastric human. That’s a ruminant, but they have a liver. They have a heart. They have all the same organs you do. They have essentially the same biochemistry as you. It just kind of makes sense, right? Everything you need, an animal is the ultimate multi-vitamin as long as you eat the whole thing in reasonable ratios.

Stu

00:40:50 Yeah.

Paul

00:40:50 People shouldn’t need a multi-vitamin. They shouldn’t need supplements. Some may have benefit in the short-term, if they’re having preexisting issues. But, the other thing to point out is that I think that they can cause people harm, as well.

Stu

00:41:03 Yeah, no, absolutely. And I guess, ultimately it comes down to how we feel, as well, because often we’ve got through this transition period, and we’re on this road of eating this way. If we’re not sleeping, or if we’re feeling stressed or anxious, or tired, wired, all of the above, then there’s probably an issue that we need to address.

00:41:26 I wanted to talk to you then, you mentioned fiber earlier on. I know, again, this is a very contentious topic in that on one side of the fence, people are saying, “Fiber is absolutely crucial for human health. It’s the cornerstone for microbiome diversity and digestion, which is linked to toxin elimination and all of that stuff.” But then there is another camp that says, “We don’t need fiber. It’s just all a story that we’ve been told for many, many years.” And I know we’ve been told many, many stories for many years that have got us into a lot of strife. So, you mentioned that fiber may not be as important as we’re led to think. I’d love for you to talk just more about that, please.

Paul

00:42:16 Yeah, that’s such a good segue. I would say fiber is one of the most contentious issues. There are many people whose work I respect greatly, whether it’s David Perlmutter or Mark Hyman or whoever, who are adamant that fiber is so beneficial. I think it’s such an interesting conversation, and hopefully at some point in the future, I’ll get to be on a panel with them, and we’ll get to have a discussion simultaneously, and do point and counterpoint.

00:42:42 But, what I would say to people is though they hear that fiber is the cornerstone of the microbiome, and that fiber is really beneficial, if you actually look into the literature, and I can detail some of that now, the story doesn’t really hold up. I believe strongly that it’s a fairytale.

00:43:01 Anecdotally, there are many carnivores who have done gut microbiome testing, myself included, and I’ve seen no issues with gut microbiome or microbial diversity, without any fiber. In fact, some people, many people, have even seen an increase in alpha diversity on a carnivore diet, which is just crazy. Like, only in the context of what we’re talking about now, I mean, the overarching zeitgeist now would be, “Fiber is what creates microbial diversity. Fiber is what’s going to give you a healthy gut.” That is wrong, in my opinion. There is no evidence for that. That is essentially hypothesis and conjecture. If you actually look at what’s happening in people’s guts, or people that test, the alpha diversity often goes up. There are plenty of populations in the gut. The gut will shift.

00:43:53 If you look at experiments that have been done with entirely animal-based diets, it’s not that the microbiome goes away, or that you can’t make short-chain fatty acids, it’s just that the microbiome shifts to organisms that like protein and fat, from organisms that like carbohydrate. And you make different short-chain fatty acid. Instead of butyrate, you make propionate, acetate, isobutyric acid. And you can use beta hydroxybutyric acid in the blood as a ketone.

00:44:20 So, the short-chain fatty acid thing gets brought up a lot, but if we dig into the fiber fairytale, I think most of it began with Burkitt in the 1960s and 1970s. He was an American surgeon, I believe. He might have been English. He went to Africa. At the time, he was thinking about diverticulosis, which is the outpouching of the submucosal layer of the colon through the muscularis mucosa, forming these blind pouches. He observed in African populations, who were eating a lot of fiber, that there was less diverticulosis. There was essentially none. And so he said, “Ahah! This is the thing. It’s fiber that prevents diverticulosis.”

00:44:56 You know, diverticulosis is very common in the population above the age of 50. I think it’s 60% to 70% of people have asymptomatic diverticulosis. But when you look at the studies that have been done subsequently in the last 15 to 20 years, we don’t see any association. There’s no protective association for fiber with diverticulosis. And there have been studies that show that as you increase your fiber by quartile, there’s more diverticulosis. And these are colonoscopy studies followed by surveys of how much fiber people are eating.

00:45:27 So, the story starts to really not look very good for fiber and diverticulosis. So, if people are suggesting that fiber is in any way, shape, or form, protective against diverticulosis, that’s a fallacy. That’s never been shown in the literature, and in fact, the opposite has been shown to be true. It’s not clear if fiber causes diverticulosis, because those people in Africa were not getting diverticulosis and they were eating a lot of fiber, but fiber doesn’t seem to be protective against diverticulosis.

00:45:54 Diverticulosis is most likely an autoimmune condition. You actually see lymphocytic infiltration

00:46:00 At the areas of the diverticuli where the bowel wall gets weakened. So, I suspect the diverticulosis is autoimmune, so fiber’s not protective. The other thing people say is, “You need fiber to poop.”, and if you look into that story that’s completely wrong too.

00:46:17 There are some very often quoted studies. Paul Mason is an Australian physician and has done some great talks, and in those talks he’s brought up this article, I can site it here if your listeners are interested. What you find out is that in a study of 63 people with idiopathic constipation, they divided those people into three groups. One group with zero fiber, one group with moderate amount of fiber, and one group with the regular amount of fiber that everyone else was eating. A striking thing happened when you see the results of that study. This is people with idiopathic constipation. What happened was that the people who ate zero fiber had complete resolution. Meaning, 100% of those people had complete resolution of gas, loading, and constipation with 0% fiber. Subsequent studies have confirmed this finding and showed that really, fiber is not beneficial for constipation, it’s not protective.

00:47:23 I think that anecdotally many people would say the same thing, especially people with SIBO and all these other issues. That to suggest that fiber has any benefit in constipation is not something that is substantiated by any amount of science. I think people would find that if they removed fiber their constipation would get much better.

00:47:47 I can’t even tell you the number of patients who have completely eliminated fiber, and have had resolution of idiopathic constipation. The title of that study is Stopping or Reducing Dietary Fiber Intake Reduces Constipation and it’s Associated Symptoms. It could say, “Eliminates constipation and it’s associated symptoms”, if you were being accurate.

00:48:06 That fact that we need fiber to poop is not true. And then people get into these ideas. “Oh, you need fiber because it protects you against colon cancer.”. All the studies that have been done from 99 to 2002, there were three or four studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine, both with increased intake of fruits and vegetables and cereals, fiber supplements, and then ispagolo which is like psyllium or MetaMuscle, they all failed to show any benefit in adenoma recurrence, which is a precancerous legion, or in recurrence of colon cancer in general.

00:48:39 There’s never been a trial that showed that fiber was protective against colon cancer. So then you’re going, “Okay. It’s not beneficial for diverticulosis. It’s not beneficial for constipation.”. It probably causes constipation especially for people with SIBO or overgrowth of bacteria that are methanogens. It causes a lot of gas and bloating. Anybody who eats a lot of fiber knows that their partner or significant other doesn’t wanna get near them in the bed. We call it dutch oven here, they’re just farting in the bed. It causes gas! Fiber causes farts, it’s just not a healthy thing. And then there’s no benefit to fiber in terms of cancer, so we’re like, what’s the other benefit?

00:49:20 We addressed it a little bit earlier and I’ll happily talk more about it. But I think we just have to admit that the idea that fiber is necessary for a “healthy” gut microbiome is a fairy tail as well. And if you really look at the people who are making these claims they have no science to support that, they really don’t. There’s nothing to say that and the science is very confusing and we just don’t know. But in myself, and other people on carnivore diets who have done microbiome testing, and there’s probably 10 or 15 now that I’ve seen and have data from, there’s no problem.

00:49:52 We don’t need fiber to have a healthy gut microbiome, or does that make any sense from an evolutionary perspective really in my opinion, because I think that there would’ve been many times throughout our evolution … And we can talk about evidence that early humans were probably carnivorous based on nitrogen deposits and collagen. But I think many people have gone without fiber in human evolution for long amounts of time. The Inuit, I mean there’s clear evidence.

00:50:19 People would say, “Oh, if you don’t eat fiber your microbiome is going to get really unhealthy and you’re gonna get really tons of inflammation, and you could even develop inflammatory bowel disease.”, well, in fact what we see is people with Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis getting better. I’ve never heard of a case of ulcerative colitis on carnivore diet, I’ve only heard of resolution of Crohn’s … Ulcerative colitis on a carnivore diet. We don’t see that clinically at all, it just doesn’t seem to be the case. We also don’t see inflammation, we don’t see people having bloody stool or elevated calprotectin, so it’s really, like you said, it’s a fairy tale. We are not at the point that we understand the microbiome well enough to make those claims right now, it’s kind of disappointing. It’s a crazy world with fiber.

Stu

00:51:12 It’s radical to hear that inflammation coming from a medical doctor as well. It’s refreshing because it could be so easy to just follow the train. Just follow everybody’s advice and think, “Yup. This is right.”. But the moment you become curious, the moment you just start to second guess any of this and then dig deeper, you’re in Ancel Keys territory where you think, “Well, this is just nonsense.”.

Paul

00:51:39 Exactly.

Stu

00:51:40 Totally potentially damaging, detrimental to your health. It’s very interesting. I know that you mentioned ulcerative colitis as well. I have three daughters, and the youngest daughters last year with diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, and-

Paul

00:51:58 Oh no.

Stu

00:51:58 Yeah. Ten years old, and we think that it was a parasite she picked up when we were traveling overseas that just caused all this trauma in her gut. And of course with what I do and the people that I connect with I’m very mindful that a lot of this stuff can be managed to a very high degree with what you put in your mouth. So, I was very keen to hear the experts from the hospital tell me that it doesn’t matter what she eats, it’ll have no baring on that. When she came back we put her on strict paleo and lots of bone broths, and lots of high-quality meats, and over the course of the next three months everything cleared up. And we went back to the team-

Paul

00:52:48 That’s fantastic.

Stu

00:52:49 And they said, “I don’t know what you’re doing, but don’t stop. Keep doing it.”. So I just … What you’re telling me really resonates because we’re doing it at home, and going completely against the grain of the majority which is just insane. So thank you.

00:53:09 I had a question then.

Paul

00:53:10 Yeah, and I-

Stu

00:53:12 No, please go on.

Paul

00:53:13 I think it’s just important there to highlight this idea that within western medicine it’s just time for physicians to admit that diet is connected to health. You bring up such a good point. If nothing else comes out of this, I hope that this movement helps people understand that diet is connected with health. Whether it’s a carnivore diet, or a paleo diet, or even a vegan diet, if that creates health in an individual we need to study that.

00:53:41 It’s just mind boggling to me that western physicians … That any physician anywhere, would say that diet does not have a connection with any disease. And you hear this. Whether it’s a dermatologic condition, or an inflammatory bowel condition, I mean, it’s the gut. That is where the food ends up. I can see where somebody would say, “Oh, the skin. No connection with the gut.”, I mean clearly they just don’t understand how things are all connected. But when it’s a primary gut condition, how can anyone say, “There is no connection with food.”? I just hope that physicians will start to think that way, and asking questions like, “Okay, yes. We accept that depression, anxiety, dermatologic conditions, rheumatologic conditions, ulcerative colitis are connected with food. Let’s figure out what foods trigger this and what foods help so that people can get better.”, because that, that is the first step.

Stu

00:54:37 There has to be a connection there, it’s just crazy. I always liken it to the vet analogy, where you take your dog to the vet because it’s lifeless and it’s lost its luster, and it’s coat. And the vet says, “Well, what are you feeding it?”. Where does that happen anywhere else? You go to the doctors, they don’t even ask you what you’re gonna eat. It’s insane.

Paul

00:55:01 It is insane. And I just wanted to add for people, circling back to the previous discussion about supplements, that I did a whole video on my YouTube channel, which is found at PaulSaladinoMd About vitamin C. That’s probably the thing people think about the most with the carnivore diet. It’s a very interesting backstory which includes many other fairy tales, many other stories and fables. But if people have worries about vitamin C on a carnivore diet I would encourage them to watch that video. It was a conversation with Bart K. It was really good. Basically what we were able to show, I believe pretty strongly, was that the human need for vitamin C is much lower, and that scurvy is essentially unheard of on a carnivore diet, that there’s a moderate amount of vitamin C in muscle meat and liver, and that you don’t need 1,000mg of vitamin C a day, and that’s probably harmful to the human body. Anyway, no need for vitamin C. If people have questions about that there’s a video on my YouTube regarding the supplements.

Stu

00:56:00 Fantastic. Well it’s good stuff. There’s one question that I wanted to ask and I would be … I’d be stoned if I didn’t. What do you eat? Tell me what you eat throughout the course of your day, because you’re the expert, and I’m sure people are very, very interested from the point you get up in the morning to the moment you go to bed. How do you nourish yourself?

Paul

00:56:25 Yeah, yeah. It might be different than what people are used to, but I’ll walk you through it. I eat two meals a day, and I find for myself if I eat breakfast and a late lunch that’s how I feel best. And then I try and create some sort of a time restricted eating window, and I feel like if I eat five to six hours before I go to sleep, then that helps with sleep. So, I get up in the morning and I do eat breakfast. Before I eat breakfast I have a pretty big glass of water, and I’ll eat a calcium source. So I’ll either have an egg shell, or bone meal first thing in the morning. I give my body maybe 45 or an hour for that to kind of pass through, and then I’ll eat breakfast.

00:57:08 I try to take the calcium sources away from food. I want the stomach to have full acidity. I think that I if I eat an eggshell, or if I’m gonna eat bone meal I’m gonna do it away from food so it doesn’t interfere with the acidity of the stomach. So the first thing I do when I get up, I do that. I do the water, and I’ll do an eggshell or I’ll do some bone meal, because I think the calcium is really important.

00:57:28 Then for breakfast I will usually have muscle meat, grass fed beef. I tend to eat two meals a day and they’re both a bout 15-20 ounces of meat in that meal, so they’re both between a pound and pound-and-a-half, pound-and-a-quarter of meat per meal, and I eat two meals. But it’s not just the muscle meat, I’ll usually have two meals of grass fed steaks, and in addition to the grass fed steak I’ll add a little bit of collagen or connective tissue, whether it’s bone broth or hydrolyzed collagen. I’ll add little bit of extra fat to my meat, because I think a little bit about that fat/protein macro. I’ll add salt to the meat, but that’s the only spice I eat.

00:58:12 And then in addition, for breakfast I’ll have salmon roe … Salmon eggs. It’s a great source of phospholipid DHA. Then I will eat a couple of raw egg yolks. Right now I’m eating duck egg. I don’t eat the whites because there’s avidin in the whites of an egg, and I prefer to eat them raw. So I’m gonna eat the egg yolk raw, and I don’t eat the white raw because the avidin will bind biotin. So I eat a couple of raw egg yolks, the salmon roe, and then I’ll have some previously frozen raw liver. I usually eat maybe three ounces of liver a day. That’s pretty much breakfast, and dinner is kind of the repeat. So, it’s pretty simple. People might say, “does it get boring?”, I don’t think its boring at all. I think that most people on a carnivore diet find that steak never gets boring. Meat and animal products don’t really get boring. I really don’t get bored of salmon roe, I don’t get bored of … I really I never get bored of egg yolks. They’re delicious foods.

00:59:20 It’s interesting to me, when I got out of college I through hiked the pacific crest trail which is a 2,700 mile trail in the United States from Mexico to Canada, and that was many years ago. But what I realized on that trail was that the animal foods were by far the best foods. The only foods that didn’t get boring on that trip, were either processed foods that were absolute crap, like pop tarts, or animal food. But if I were eating plants I got bored of all the plants that were not processed and full of sugar. So, the only foods that I could eat everyday on the trail were crappy processed foods, and animal foods. I never got bored of steak, I never got bored of hamburgers, I never got bored of animal foods. Just as a side for people.

01:00:02 So that’s my breakfast. It’s muscle meat, it’s tallow, it’s collagen, it’s sea salt, it’s salmon roe, it’s raw liver that’s previously been frozen, and it’s egg yolks. And that’s generally what I do twice a day kind of throughout the day, and usually within a six or seven hour window. That’s how I do it. Later in the afternoon or the evening, I might have another eggshell. Maybe a little more bone meal, but that’s it.

Stu

01:00:29 That breakfast, I’d love to pick that apart in terms of it’s nutrient breakdown against a standard Australian/American breakfast of toast and cereal, because it’s like zero to hero. Surely it couldn’t be bursting with any more nutrients with what you’ve just described. It’s insane.

Paul

01:00:53 I mean if you think about it, muscle meat has all the essential amino acids. There’s collagen. Between the liver and the muscle meat I have all the B vitamins whether it’s thymine, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, peradoxime, B12, folate, biotin, cobalamine. All the B vitamins are there in spades. There’s zinc in the muscle meat, there’s copper in the liver. There’s a decent amount of magnesium in muscle meat, there’s potassium in muscle meat, there’s selenium, and iron. You look at what a human needs … And I’m getting Omega-3’s from the salmon roe, I’m getting a ton of choline from the liver and the egg yolks, I’m getting iodine. I’ve gone through it in my mind and I think, “Is there anything else nutritious that I could include?” … Oh, the other thing that I forgot to say that I do is I often will eat bone marrow. I’m looking across and I have bone marrow on my counter, or some bones. I’ll add some bone marrow, so sometimes I’ll just bone marrow as extra fat, some times I’ll use taro.

01:02:02 If I could think of anywhere else in the animal or any nutrient that I could get anywhere else I would do it because that’s essentially what I want. Two times a day I just want the biggest nutrient bomb that I can get in terms of micronutrients. It’s not hard macronutrients these days, it’s pretty easy for people to get macronutrients. It’s easy to get fat or protein, even carbohydrates if you want, but where are your micronutrients? I think that’s where you get your health.

Stu

01:02:30 Yeah, totally. Fantastic. That will raise a few eyebrows and prompt a lot of curiosity as well for people who want to find out even more. I’m mindful … We’re just about coming up on time. I guess before I get there, what’s next? You’re clearly on a mission to try and communicate the benefits of this amazing new way of looking at food. So what’s in the pipeline for you?

Paul

01:03:05 Lots of great things, lots of great things. I’m writing a book, it’s still about six months out, but people can look for that before Christmas, and that’ll be all the nuances of the carnivore diet. I’ve got a lot of … I’m starting my own … I’ve got a YouTube Channel which is PaulSaladinoMD. I’m starting my own Podcast which I’m posting on the YouTube channel, so I’m interviewing lots of people talking about ketogenic and carnivore diets and nutrition. Then I’m gonna continue to work on social media stuff and promote the message. I’m on Instagram at PaulSaladinoMD. I see patients privately as a functional medicine doctor. I see patients who are in Australia, I’ve got patients in Britain, I’ve got a patient in Bangkok. So if people wanna work with me, they can email me at PaulSaladinoMDgmail. com I’ve got a website, which is PaulSaladinoMD where I try and index all of my own podcasts and all of the podcasts that I’m doing with … That I’m on other peoples podcasts. The name of my podcasts, which will be out soon on iTunes and [inaudible 01:04:15] is Fundamental Health. So if people look for Fundamental Health with PaulSaladinoMD that’s the name of my podcast.

01:04:22 Lots of exciting things. I’m gonna be at KetoCon in Austin in June. I’m gonna be at Paleo f(x) later this month, in April. I’m not sure when this podcast will come out. And I think I’m gonna be at lots of conferences and stuff. Basically book, podcast, I see patients, and I’m moving to San Diego to open the private practice there.

Stu

01:04:43 Fantastic. We’ll put all of the links that we’ve spoken about today in the show notes so everybody can find exactly where to find you, where to go, where to dial in more about this message. But, really, really appreciate your time today and I’m fascinated by what we’ve discussed. So I’m super keen to get that message out to our audience as well and just share it with as many people as we can, because I know that so many people are suffering with digestive health and their own personal health issues that can be addressed with what we put in our mouths. So thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

Paul

01:05:17 Of course, yeah. It’s my pleasure, it’s my pleasure. I think you hit the nail on the head. I think we just need to … I think that as a society as people that are in the health space we just need to really continue pushing the understanding of how what we put in our mouths effects the way we feel, and I think that that will be the greatest intervention for most people.

01:05:39 It’s so powerful. It doesn’t make any supplement manufacturers a million dollars. It just empowers people. And it means you need to know your farmer, and you need to source the best quality food and I love that. It’s not about fancy supplements it’s not about complex supplement regimens or herbal detoxes. It’s just about starting with the highest quality food that you can get with the lowest number of antinutrients. I think it’s so cool.

Stu

01:06:06 Fantastic. Again, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. I look forward to the book when it comes out and learning more about all of the stuff that you’ve discovered on this journey as well. Thanks again.

Paul

01:06:20 Of course thanks for having me

Stu

01:06:22 Bye bye Thanks for listening to our show, The Health Sessions. If you would like more information on anything health, from our blog, free ebook, or podcasts, simply visit www.180nutrition.com.eu. Also if you have any questions or topics you would us to see cover in future episodes, we’d really love to hear from you. Simply drop us an email to info@18nutrition.com.eu. And if you listen to us through iTunes and enjoy the show we’d really appreciate a review in the review section. So until the next time wherever you are in the world, have a fantastic week.

 

Dr Paul Saladino

This podcast features Dr Paul Saladino. He is passionate about understanding the root cause of chronic disease. In 1999, after graduating with honors from The College of William and Mary with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry,he spent 6 years traveling and exploring the Western United States and New... Read More
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