21 Year Vegan Turns Carnivore and Can't Believe the Results!

welcome to the plant free MD podcast with Dr Anthony chafee where we discuss diet and nutrition and how this affects health and chronic disease and show you how you can use this to optimize your health and happiness both mentally and physically hey guys just want to take a second to thank our sponsor at carnivore bar I don't promote many products because honestly all you need to be healthy is to just eat meat for those times that you're out hiking road tripping or stuck at work and you want nutritious snack that is just meat fat and salt if you want it the carnivore bar is a great option so I like this product not because it's just pure meat but also because I want the carnivore Market to thrive as well and the more we support meat only products the more meat only products that will be available in the mainstream so if this sounds like something you'd like to get behind check it out using my discount code Anthony to get 10 off which also applies to subscriptions giving you 25 hello everyone this is Dr Anthony chafee I'm here again with the plant free MD podcast and today I have a special guest and a personal success story from Irvin Dazzle over in St Louis is that right you're still in St Louis no no actually I live in uh Canada St Louis is my last name that's a good last name all right yeah yeah yeah okay so so you're in oh that's right you're in Montreal is that right yeah Montreal Montreal okay all right yeah very good yeah yeah yeah so you had a you had a a pretty interesting story you were saying that um you were telling me online that you had a very interesting lead up to what you came to uh carnivore you were actually vegan for 21 years is that right exactly I actually started my vegetarian vegan lifestyle in 95 96 uh and I held on to that up until 2017. and uh I really thought that I had found the the promised land of nutrition and that I was like in the best health of my life until I discovered recently uh the carnival lifestyle so what what got you into uh uh getting into vegan all that time ago what was that what was the influence well listen at the time I was reading a lot of literature you're talking about the mid 90s so I was reading some stuff and I was also watching videos uh I discovered a guy named Dr Sabi that was actually in the late 90s it was probably a few years within uh my uh my vegetarian lifestyle you must have heard of him he's not a real doctor but we called him Dr Sabi he's uh he's very uh influential and uh known in the quote-unquote African-American community so he was a guy that kind of influenced me there was another guy before him named Layla Africa who passed away also they were holistic doctors and so these guys kind of influenced my journey into being vegan and vegetarian but the first time I became vegan is because I read a book a Buddhist book it's funny because I'm not even a Buddhist I'm actually a Christian and I read a Buddhist book and it sounds so philosophical and so nice about you know the you know you had to be a vegetarian and vegan and you know I kind of like the philosophy and influence my decision of becoming a vegan you know yeah and were you having any any health issues at the time or did you just think like oh this is a good idea it makes sense what these guys are saying funny enough no health issues at the time I just thought that it felt you know it felt it was what it was saying was really you know sounded good so I kind of went through with this so it would uh I kind of saw the benefits of it in the sense of I was very active at the time I was a dancer I was doing a lot of performances shows and all that stuff and I mean I mean I was young so felt good at the time and I just held on to it you know and I didn't I did not realize my issues until really later on and that's when you know I mean I I I listen I was a guy who used to go to the bathroom at least minimum five times a day and so and I thought I thought that was a great thing I thought to me that was a wow that was a superpowers you know I'm releasing everything I'm not keeping no waste in my body everything was going out so I used to speak about this like I was the proudest guy about this you know but until I realized it's actually IBS you know and so I was like man so I mean until I mean literally until the last until five months ago I was going to the bathroom a minimum of five times a day minimum so uh days some days have eight nine times in a day and it's no lie and like I said I proud of myself thinking that it was a good thing until I realized it's not a good thing yeah and did you you said that um 21 years that's a long time were you taking supplements during that time and uh I I I try I did here and there try to take supplements I would dabble and fish once in a while I would fall into fish you know uh I I had I had cut dairy product so for at least a good I would say good 20 years I was without dairy product once in a while I would I would dip into cheese here and there and I would feel it affected my and my stomach so I I felt that maybe I was lactose lactose intolerant so I wouldn't really go too much into cheese but uh here and there I would go into fish fish is the only thing I would go back and forth with uh but um yeah that's that's pretty much what it was you know yeah did you notice that they had any effects on your health um physically I have to say no however uh psychologically is what I I could say today I could speak with confidence and so it did have an impact on me because physically I was since I was a guy that was very very active uh I could send you a picture later on to see how I look I was very fit I was very cut very lean uh like I said I danced I danced and trained seven days a week so I was very very fit into physically speaking but I was out I I had and this is what got me into carnivore like I'm kind of jumping but it's it's a the brain fog thing is what caught me it's not even the physical aspect or the you know it's the brain fog that once I heard brain fog I was like wait a minute this is what I was feeling the whole time that I was a vegetarian I I felt like I had something going on in my brain but I could never explain it I just thought that maybe it's just something that I have and that I'm going to live with you know for the rest of my life and I'm still functioning functioning so it should be okay but I realized that brain fog is something that carried me throughout the whole time and I could never put my finger on what it was and that's what clicked to me when I uh started watching uh some of the some of the carnivore content that I seen you know interesting so what made you I think you said you came back to meet like six years ago is that right yeah about 2017 I mean next year we'll make it six years now 2017 is when I went back I came back to meet in Dr Shafi I just one day after 20 after being vegetarian vegan for 20 years out of the blue one day I got a massive craving where I couldn't even control myself and it's like my body was calling for me and I just and I just got up that day and I just went to the store to the store to the restaurant and I bought like two pieces of chicken and I think I went to a Haitian restaurant about two pieces of chicken and rice and that and that's how I started eating meat again yeah that was it that's how I just went back to me my body just I couldn't control it I had never had this kind of craving I was like what's going on I need this I kept my body was just asking for it I couldn't do it anymore you know yeah yeah just and I just started eating meat again you know did you notice a difference after that after you started incorporating meat back in well one thing I noticed I noticed first of all I I muscle wise I became way more muscular uh it was much easier for me to gain muscle mass uh strength wise I was much stronger I'm much stronger now than I was in my 20s uh this is something I I definitely noticed uh so those are the two things that I noticed and I gained a little bit of weight because I started eating uh the first thing I introduced with the meat was eggs so I started eating it a lot before I started eating meat I introduced eggs so I noticed that with the eggs I kind of gained weight I was like what's going on like like my arms got a little bigger and you know I still was lean but my arms got a little bigger my chest was getting bigger I was like what's going on so then a couple a little bit after that I I went into the meat and like I said I I saw that physically speaking my must my musculature was much greater than it was before and that's something I noticed that I was struggling even though I was lean and pretty fit I couldn't get too muscular that's something I I may have looked but I wasn't getting I couldn't I couldn't keep the muscle mass so I noticed that once I started eating meat again that's it kind of stayed you know nice yeah and so what what made you you were saying that it was mostly the brain fog that made you want to try carnivore full-on is that right yep exactly I think I was the first person uh one of my friend uh Julio sent me a video about of Dr Baker it was he actually sent me his IG page and I started watching him I mean earlier this year in January and I was like okay wow so this guy's this guy's pretty intense like just meet me I said man and I saw how big he was I said okay but I really started getting into it and I would say April and May April that's when I started watching more content and that's when I fell on you I felt on your videos you're the second guy I fell on and Dr you're a doctor very very pretty much around the same time and I started eating your contents and I was like man these guys are important like you guys would come up with receipts I was like there's nothing I could say about this I mean listen so it's I watch your videos for about I would say a solid four months um regurgitate your content Elise four to five hours a day for four months before I said you know what enough is enough I've heard enough let me just try this I mean these guys are talking but let me until I try it I won't know in mid-august is when I started I said let me just go full on I know this one I I advise going to my friends they said listen man you should I just fell into something I've been watching it for at least six seven months I I don't know man you should look into it so you started looking into it and me and him we started together we started the the thing together and since then it's it's it's it's it's history man that's awesome yeah yeah so have you been feeling since like what are you what are the results listen I've been feeling fantastic since mid-august I've lost listen I didn't do this to lose weight but I've lost 45 pounds wow uh I was yeah I'm six foot two I was about 296 pounds when I started this um listen I was I I I wasn't in the best shape of my life to be honest I hadn't I hadn't been training in a while because of pains like uh joint pains my knees I was like it was to a point where I couldn't even do regular squats without any weights I couldn't even do regular squats anymore because of my knees inflammation in my knees um my ankles I had plantar fasciitis in both of my feet that manifested uh I would say less than a year after I turned vegan my uh I think the same year uh the same year that I turned that I started eating meat again my fasciitis uh started and I was playing with this until I would say last year so I it was it was intense both of my feet so it was really hard for me to to push my training the way I used to my both of my arms I had tennis elbow golf elbow and I'm a guy who used to do 20 30 pull-ups no issues I had to stop at least three years ago I had to stop because the pain was too much so I only I was only doing push-ups so I kind of gained weight I gained a tummy my belly I had a Dunlap belly like uh Dr Berry likes to call it you know yeah I mean if I stand up and look down I couldn't even see my knees it was bad yeah it was bad it was really bad I was like oh man so I lost that my belly's gone I I'm seeing my packs again they're back I'm like wow okay um and that's not even the reason why I started doing this my brain fog completely gone I noticed my brain fog gone within the first month it was gone and I was like something is up something's going on I'm not feeling this this weird like this Cloud around my head anymore and that was completely gone within the first month I kept on saying this to my girl I said listen you know this whole thing I've had this brain fog for years at least 25 years and this is it's gone now it's crazy it's really gone and it hasn't come back uh so those are the those are the main things I could say uh I feel like a completely different person Dr I I don't I'm more patient less irritated uh like I said a more focused more clear-minded uh and that's absolutely something that that's what really blows my mind more than the physical stuff it's the psychological stuff for me I'm completely blown away by that oh it's great yeah I remember the same thing like with brain fog I remember when I was getting ready for my mcats I normally would eat just a lot of meat anyway it wasn't really heavy on carbs certainly not vegetables I would mostly just eat meat anyway and [Music] I remember when I was when I was getting ready for my my mcats I was just it was just because it was just quick and easy I was just getting like whole grain pasta I was just like I was just eating that I had brain fog all the time and I couldn't figure it out I thought it was like allergies or something and I thought I was just tired all the time and just felt Dopey and tired and weird and I didn't know what was going on I I would wake up fine I'd had plenty of sleep and then just halfway throughout the day it was just Dopey and tired and I looked back well that was when I was eating you know I would eat some of this grain stuff and my brain would just shut off and it was very difficult and yeah I haven't had any of that problem since then it's fantastic you know that's that's amazing that's really really really amazing yeah I mean uh for me like I said my friend that started this with me he's he's telling me the same thing and uh he was on I think uh on anti-depressive from him from right and he's uh he's diminished his antidepressant like tremendously I think he he I think he spoke to me last week and he said uh that he was about to uh to completely get rid of them but uh he same thing as me he's telling me the same thing we're going back and forth about the symptoms that we used to have how we feeling right now and it's very very similar and it's good to have a partner where you could bounce back and see and see the similarities of what's happening to you guys and then we're like man this is what's going on like where have we been all these all this time like we've been lied to and this is absolutely like we we've been red pill with this whole nutrition thing man you know we came out the Matrix and this is really it's just really mind-boggling and and it's crazy because it's something I announced it to my children last week uh they came because they don't live with me they live in Toronto so they came to see me last week and um and I announced to them that yeah listen I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm carnivore and I don't eat no vegetables and uh I I practically not eat no fruits at all and they were like what what because I raised them to be vegetarian so some of them are yeah so it was like they were like what what's going on pops are you okay my my 19 year old was like you you your heart is okay is your heart okay I was like honey I'm fine trust me I'm I feel better than ever and but that's my only regret man I I just like really I'm like that's my only that's my biggest regret that uh that my kids are like I raised them as vegetarian now I realized man that was the biggest mistake and I was thinking of doing good for them yeah it turned out that I was I was completely in the wrong man and I admit that today and I realized that today well but you know but at the same time it's probably better than a lot of people because it you know even though it's vegetarian at least you're probably thinking Whole Foods I mean it's not like it'd be like you know yes processed garbage and candy and things like that which are all vegetarian you know at least it's going to be Whole Food things that you cook yourself and having that conscious awareness of putting good things in your body so at least the concepts are there now you can just sort of switch the the angle and direction of that absolutely absolutely yeah listen I was I was I was I was a huge ideologue when I was a vegetarian like listen you could not eat meat in my house yeah that's how that's how bad I was I was like for me me as the devil like you eat meat you're you are going to die you're going to get all these sickness and I I used to throw people out of my house if they were eating me I said you go eat that outside you don't eat that in my house that's how bad it was and I mean I have some friends who probably listen to this they're related to that because they were there they're like oh my God this guy so that's how bad so for me to have made the switch believe me if I'm in the switch anybody can make this switch because I I mean I was I was bad I really thought that I had found the the promised land I was in the Garden of Eden this is it this is the way to eat human beings should not be touching anything dead if you touch anything dead you're evil I mean I was one of those crazy vegans I was one of those guys yeah yeah and then um so so you were saying like you had you had a whole bunch of joint pains as well and the plantar fasciitis has that has that improved since uh cutting the the plants I mean Dr Sheffield my my knee my knee pain is completely gone my ankle my fasciitis is gone um I used to I used to give I mean I still give classes but about I mean let's say two years ago three years ago before right before the pandemic there was this contract that I used to have on uh every fall where I used to go to Quebec City and teach uh like seven to eight classes for my weekend uh the first year that I did it I was it was only five classes and I would go on a Saturday back-to-back classes and then I would come back home my fasciitis would flare up and I'd be in pain for a whole week I couldn't it was bad it was really really bad my joints my knees I would walk home and I'd have to take Epsom salt bath and it was terrible this year I did the same exact contract I was getting seven classes for my weekend uh no soreness no fasciitis flare-up no knee problem I would Outlast these kids that were three times half my age or three times younger than me and I would come back from the weekend on the Monday I had another class on the Monday at class on a Tuesday I had class on the Wednesday I had class on a Thursday never feel any pain never feel any uh soreness so I'll be 48 years old in about what a month that's February 2nd I'll be 48 years old you know nice yeah yeah I was just gonna say plantar fasciitis is nasty too I uh thankfully not really had to deal with that but it's uh I've had a lot of friends that have had that and had a lot of problems with it and and the treatment for that medically are steroid injections into the soul of the foot which is very thick tissue and so have you ever had one of those horrible things oh no no no no I didn't want to do none of that yeah I didn't want to do none of that I was like you know what I had what you call it sold insoles for my shoes yeah that uh that she get that the doctor gave me and I wore those there was some massages I had to do I I just try to go as natural as possible with it I I switched shoes I used to wear like Nikes like switch shoes it wasn't working for me so I went into you know I got other shoes New Balance shoes that was better for my knees and for my fasciitis so I just switched my shoes did my little rituals for massages for my feed took breaks you know did not do when I was given classes instead of going full out I go five ten percent you know so I had to go around it yeah but now I don't I don't even have to go around anymore not just nice I could do my squats like I used to I could do jump like I used to I could even run I had to stop running for at least three years I couldn't even run nothing running nothing jumping I couldn't do none of that because it was it would flare up my fasciitis it was bad it was terrible terrible terrible and I think it's one of the reason also why I had gained so much weight I wasn't doing what I used to you know and I was and I kept on eating the carbs and a lot of carbs a lot of fruits a lot of bananas bananas was my favorite I I used to eat like three to five bananas every day my smoothies and so it was crazy and I stopped all that yeah no that's awesome yeah those those injections are for people that don't know that's considered the second most painful injection in medicine it's a plantar fashion yeah wow yeah I forget what the first one is but uh that was when I was doing um uh rotation Orthopedics in medical school we would do those and and that was what was said it was like the second most painful injection and and you'd see people and they were just they were not happy getting that that injection but it would uh it would take care of it for three months and then they'd have to come back and get it again and they just hated it hated it yeah yeah I did not want to deal with that that ever I never wanted to have to get that thing yet or ever get into myself yeah uh well that's awesome man and you were saying that um uh that you you said that you had there were some some mental issues and some actually even some depression issues that you went through as well and obviously anything uh too sensitive please feel free to not uh go into but um if you're comfortable um you mentioned that there was some some serious depression issues that you uh were dealing with as well is that right yeah in 2016 December 2016 December 3rd 2016 my mom passed away um yeah thank you and um that was that was a big rock you know in my life that went away but the thing is it didn't kind of I kind of and that's that's when that's the first time I kind of really realized how deep the brain fog was because throughout the time the first two weeks I felt like I was living in a cloud obviously I was warning but that that that intensified then my my depression manifested I would say maybe a year after she passed away a year a year and a half after she passed away and I had some issues also with my kids they were living with me and you know uh so then they left they got all of the left it was a it was a bad situation between me and then it wasn't cool I kind of felt depressed and for a whole year Dr Shafi I I used to take a train to go teach a class that I had downtown because I lived a little bit up on the outskirt it's not really the suburb but it's on the outskirt so you have to take out the train to go out I wasn't using my car because it was easier easier for the commute so I would take the train for a whole year I visualized myself jumping in front of that trip but holding on I was sit I would sit there and I would say my life is a failure I I feel my kids uh my mom passed away I have nothing holding me I I had my last relationship I failed also so I wasn't really in a relationship with no one so I was for a whole year I I replayed and I replayed and I replayed the scenario and I even thought about what I was going to write for my letter and uh then and I did not realize I said you know you know I'm I'm also a very religious guy and I said you know what what would God think if I if I did something like that you know that was my first instinct then my second one was like what what kind of Legacy would I leave for my kids so so then I I at the time I used to drive buses for the city so I I I um contacted uh there was there was a if you call it the I think for workers that that to help employees if they have depression so I contacted the uh the people there and then they did they call me right away who booked an appointment the next day so I went to see a therapist and from there I started seeing a therapist for like for months then calmed down but that was I that's that was the first time that I actually really thought of doing something like that and um and like I said I had to go see the therapist but the suicidal thoughts though had been through going through my mind the whole 20 years that I was a vegetarian it's something that I was really ashamed I've never said it to nobody I never spoke about it but it is something that actually went through my mind throughout the whole time but it was that was the first time that I went through the depression I had to stop work for at least three months and see a therapist that was the first time that I actually contemplating while doing the action of killing myself you know well and uh and how are you doing now Matt I'm great the last thing on my mind is thinking he's thinking of taking my life or dying I don't want to die I want to live forever I feel like I can live forever now so uh I mean listen I feel like I have a second win uh like I feel like a different person I also feel that so much decision and so much things that I went through I was like man if if I was in that state of mind there's no way I could have been fully like taking like fully conscious and and clear-minded decisions you know so the way I feel now I'm like it's like I want to tackle life with a new with a new you know with a new bounce with a new energy with a new flare you know so this is this is how I feel right now no way I feel my my brain fog no way I feel any form of depression like I said I I think things through differently now process things differently I don't like things stressing like it used to I accept uh things and you know I just I just flow with certain things you know yeah that's good yeah well I'm really sorry to hear that you went through that and I'm very happy that that things are better now that's great yeah I'm happy too trust me I am especially for my children you know I like that and that was one of the main things I was like what am I and that's one of the things that kind of stopped me from doing this is like what am I what are they gonna say once it's done it's no there's no coming back yo and that's the Legacy I'll leave for them you know they've never heard me say that they're probably going to hear this story from this podcast before they hear from me because I've never said that to them you know I've never talked to them about this yeah and so so when did you when did you come out to your kids as carnivore when when was that is that just recently last week yeah last week yeah last week last week I came out the closet that was my coming out the closet and uh a lot of people a few people know like a few of my clients they know uh obviously my girl uh it's very few people around me know that I'm fully Carnival yeah so that's like my coming out party yeah yeah yeah yeah and then uh and as your girlfriend uh as she's sort of doing it too or is she supported at least yeah oh she's supportive she's she's having a very very hard time yeah um you know yeah she she likes Whole Foods and all that stuff and she she very much likes her her fruits and her juice in the morning and you know between you and I she's very addictive to that stuff right you know and I keep on nagging her with that but you know it's a process and but she's very supportive of me I love her for this she's amazing when it comes to that I'm trying to get her to um to transition with the keto so I sent her a whole lot of stuff on keto you know what start with keto then you know at least in February something will go 60 days carnivore so she's having a hard time with that but I'm pushing it I'm sorry I'm really really trying I'm really trying listen her her argument with me is always like well you know I can't believe it you know vegetables are natural why would they do this to us fruits are natural and I'm like listen Chief if you could explain that to her right now that would be great well that was always the the thing people say you know well it's all natural and and I I just counter back he's like so is arsenic you know yeah that's these all these things are natural and um but that's what people think you know people do think we're in the Garden of Eden right and we think that you know this is everything is just given down to us you know the Bounty of the Lord and it's just everything's there for us but unfortunately um plants are living things too and and that's just the way they defend themselves they defend themselves by being poisonous and um you know in the Nate in nature it's killer be kill it's wild out there it's not it's not nice you know and flowing robes and dancing with you know you know Pixies and fairies and and uh and all the animals just loving each other and getting along that everything is trying to kill everything else and um and the same with plants as well as animals so if you you are not going to survive out there as a as a static bush you know if you don't have some way of stopping all the deer and rabbits and people from just eating all your leaves and killing you and so you know that is nature that is natural the natural existence of plants is being poisonous and some plants we have more defenses against and we can detoxify them uh more readily than others but I mean think about it you get lost out in the woods and you run out of food you can't just eat any random plant right most plants will make you very sick or even kill you so that's true of spinach as well you know Hemlock is just as actually is more natural than spinach because spinach has been cultivated spinach has been bioengineered to fit a product idea Hemlock is just Hemlock is natural that's as natural as it can get it will kill you half a leaf will kill you and so the idea of Nature and natural being good for you just in the broad the broad understanding of nature is um you know is is uh is incorrect so what's natural for us is good for us but plants aren't natural for us because you know we we aren't designed to eat plants uh as well as say a cow but a cow can eat grass they eat specific grasses they eat other plants those plants will kill them because those plants are not natural for a cow grass is natural for a cow meat is natural for us cow is natural for us and so that's the thing so when we're talking about natural that's that's how we should think about it what's natural for us and what's natural for us is is eating meat it's done that very clearly now and I'm not finding that never will I do yeah I get it now yeah that is the proper human diet and that's it yeah it's funny yeah like and I noticed there's a big wave right now specifically in uh in the black community where a lot of you know a lot of my peers are now going towards like a vegan lifestyle or and you know it's like I'm like wow because I when I started my journey I was one of them few ones around me in 95 96 none of my friends everybody were looking at me everybody was laughing at me I was always the center of attention when I would go to a place always I would get into debates the arguments it was it was crazy but it kind of sharpened my skills because I was like I would debate with these people and obviously they didn't they weren't really aware or some of them didn't really know so it was not much of the debates but I was like having deep debates that's why I was able to stay vegan vegetarian for so long because nobody ever busted my bubble you know what I mean I wish that would have happened earlier man I wish yeah well that's the thing I mean yeah you were ahead of the curve because you know you were you know that you know now it's really becoming more and more prevalent people are are arguing this a lot more and so it's it's condensing a lot more people and I think it's in a sense it's it's good because it's getting people to think it's and getting people to be health conscious I think people have been health conscious I think people have been trying to do the right thing I mean even since the 1980s when they said you know fat and cholesterol are bad for you people took that seriously they stopped eating fat they stopped eating cholesterol they stopped eating meat and they started eating other things that were fat free heart healthy you know and and so people have been health conscious for a very long time I don't think that's a problem I think it's just that um you know and so when you you came across that and said like wow this is really the healthiest way to go you know you you latched on to that and that's that's I think that that's the normal thing to do I think that's the rational reasonable thing to do and uh because you were ahead of the curve on that end you know you knew a lot about things that these these guys had no idea they had no idea how to counter and so they were just like look I I just knew fat was bad I'd that's all I got and um so you could probably uh uh get them that way but you know I think that um you know people that go vegan people that go whatever it's just it's still the same frame of mind it's over right frame of mind that you're you're trying to do something good you're trying to do something positive you're trying to you know benefit your health you're trying to you know potentially benefit the health of the planet and you're trying to do do nicer things for animals and things like that all of those are good motivations um and I think and I and I and I share them um so the motivations are right it's just a matter of of getting more of the facts involved and showing that we'll actually nutritionally this is this is actually really uh a better way for us to eat is this other way and for whatever reasons and that it can actually help the environment as well that when you do regenerative agriculture properly it really helps the environment and if you're eating you know a big ruminant animal you're you know one person is going to need one animal every two years or so and so you're really reducing the amount of you know animal uh suffering and debt that has to happen whereas when you're when you're making animal you know Agriculture and crops uh there's a lot of field mice and snakes and birds and deer and pigs and Kangaroo that have to be killed to protect that crop and so there was a study out of University of New South Wales and um in Australia in 2011 that calculated this and said that if you're just eating you know big animals that you're that your your impact on sentient animals is much lower obviously insects are you're killing these things by the billions to grow these crops with pesticides and bees and things like that but just sentient animals like mammals and birds and snakes you have to kill 25 times as many sentient animals to grow one pound of plant-based protein as animal-based protein and if you think about the bioavailability of that protein is much worse in in plant protein I think that number goes up if you're thinking of actual bioavailable protein as well and so when people learn that that same you know that same drive and those same motivations I think is is uh you know going to be steered in the right direction I think you know that's that's great information right there but my and I have to say Dr Shafi I I really implore your work and the work of uh the others Bakers and the berries and the Elizabeth brides and the Nortons I really enjoy your work and I and I pray for you guys because I'm like you guys are going against the grain right now you guys are going against the psychotic uh big farmers out there and and I I every night I pray for you guys and I say you know what you guys are doing such a great work they're influencing converting a lot of people as myself as people that I've spoken to that I've that I are trying this and I'm like you're changing lives and you're making people very health aware uh very conscious and not having to rely on on drugs if it's not necessary for them so I really employ your work I really thank you for for what you've done for me and for my friends and for I mean I'm sure thousands and hundreds of people that have been watching your videos and I really see I really see clearly right now what's uh the the impact this has on the planet as a whole not just as me but uh and Planet as a whole and the medical field as a whole as well I wonder why it's like that I wonder why the lie is so big it's just I'm just you know dumbfounded by this you know well I think a lot of it has to do with money you know there's a lot of money in in this cheap garbage you know you think about you know potato chips uh per pound costs more than steak right and potato does not cost as much as as steak does to produce and so there's a massive profit margin there and you know same thing with with uh celery and spinach and things like that per pound this is very expensive stuff and and you don't get all the nutrients that you need so you have to eat all these other things all these other things all these other things so there's a huge profit motive from these companies they get a lot from plant-based Agriculture and you know Whole Foods you know maybe not as much but the processed foods there's a massive massive uh um profit margin and these sorts of things very cheap to produce and they sell them for actually quite a lot because you know per pound these things are very expensive and you know it's it's it's not fun to think about but there is a profit incentive on people being sick as well you know when when people are sick we're spending literally trillions a year treating people who are sick and we think of that as like well that's a good thing we're able to treat so many people we're able to help so many people but a lot of the things that we're treating are a result of the things that we're eating and we don't we wouldn't need to have them there if we if we were eating correctly and so you know that that again you know we have the the the the incentives are to give people pills and say you have this problem here's this pill and there's there's pills that line up with every problem and so you come into the doctrine and the doctor says this is your problem this is your pill and and what we do is doctors try to figure out what the problem is so we can give the appropriate pill or surgery or treatment whereas if we say Hey you know if you change your diet in your lifestyle you know you can actually change uh your your you know your demand for these these pills that's a longer conversation you know talking to someone about diet and lifestyle can take 45 minutes or an hour whereas it's a five minute consultation to come in prescribe a pill and go away and so the incentives even for the the providers are such that you know you have 30 people to see um you don't have 45 minutes to an hour with each one this it's not going to happen um there are some places that that model in diet and lifestyle but unfortunately they're all being influenced by the same sort of you know vegan vegetarian getting rid of meat getting rid of that sort of thing so even when they do give advice they're giving the wrong advice and so I think there's a lot of a lot of problems there so it's just the only thing that we can do now is is this Grassroots sort of movement you know people like yourself just you know taking a look at things and thinking about things and saying hey this isn't uh my my health isn't isn't where I want it to be these guys are saying this will improve dramatically this way I'll give it a try wow look at that it does and then looking into it more and and getting all the information you can about it and then spreading the word and this is something that's been uh spreading that way um you know for the last couple of years and I think that it it will hit critical mass it at this point you know it's it's big enough that people are at least having to talk about it if not to condemn it they say this is a terrible idea this is a fad this is Abyss this is a that at least they're they're it's big enough now that they have to recognize it they have to at least say it's a fad that at least say this is ah don't worry about this or this is a bad idea before it wasn't even on the radar you know before this wasn't this was not a thing and so now they at least have to address it and so I think that you know and no no publicity's bad publicity so when people talk about all this is this that and the other and people go like oh yeah these guys are crazy and then they come and they start watching uh some of those people are going to watch some of these videos and some of those people are going to watch conversations like this and some of those people are going to relate to your experiences and and your um and and and you know the way that you were feeling and they'll say like actually you know I do feel like that and I don't like it and uh you know maybe I'll give this a try and see how it goes and then they'll see for themselves so I think that I think even that is going to help us you know move forward in this and then we'll be able to reconsider you know what it is to be doctors and what it is to have a medical system because I think what medicine used to be is we were treating you know accidents and injuries you know pregnancy and childbirth childhood illnesses uh and you know congenital malformations and genetic issues and then infections and then like poisonings right now it's all chronic disease that's all that we're doing we're just we're just managing chronic diseases and we're just prescribing all these pills and everything like that whereas really what that is is I think that's that fifth one is is um toxicity and malnutrition obviously not getting enough nutrients and I think that's really what what these chronic diseases are is malnutrition and toxicities you know toxic buildup of a species inappropriate diet and lack of species species specific nutrition and so we're getting those problems from that and if we just start eating right again we'll go back to treating just those other uh those other main four or five things and I think healthcare will look very different I think it will be much less expensive I think we'll it will be a much lower burden uh on our on everyone's GDP and everyone can start freeing up that money to go and do more useful things and uh and everyone will be a lot more healthy and happy and that's that's my hope for um that's the reason I do all this is to hopefully someday get there I have a question for you um yeah um what do you think of raw food it's not people that eat raw meat but raw fruit is I I have my opinion but I'd like to know what do you think about people who are fruitarians or they eat everything raw they don't eat nothing cooked what do you think about that what's the car what are the dangers the dangers and the consequences of being a raw foodist yeah well you're going to open yourself up to even more of the defense chemicals that are in Plants you're gonna you're gonna be even more limited in the things that you're able to eat uh you know a good example of that are beans of all description they are very toxic and a lot of these things have a lot of Defense chemicals that uh some of these can just kill you you know there's that poison rice and uh is invariably fatal it's just a little bit of powder if it gets on your skin it'll soak in through your skin and it will kill you there's no antidote there's no way to stop it and that comes from the shell around Castor beans so that's a lectin that's exists in in beans and it's there to kill anything that comes near that seed because a bean is a seed and a seed is a plant's baby and that's where generally the highest concentration of toxins are to protect their babies and to stop things from eating the Next Generation which is all they're trying to do is just procreate and make more of themselves so you can denature some of those lectins by heat treating you know you soak kidney beans for four hours at least and then you boil them for 10 minutes at least and then that will reduce the toxicity of those toxins and in this case lectins but it doesn't completely eliminate them they still have them in there but if you eat them raw or even undercooked it can be even more toxic undercooked than not cooked at all and on the who website and the who is is all part and parcel with this pushing this whole uh you know vegan vegetarian sort of thing but they have whole websites dedicated towards uh just the the plant toxins that exist in just everyday plants that we eat all over the world and they recognize this is like hey these are all toxic you have to prepare these things in certain ways or just avoid them completely and one of those is is kidney beans they use that as an example as little as five kidney beans uncooked or undercooked can put you in the hospital and so people that are doing raw food raw food vegan you're in a bit more of a conundrum because you're you're your options are quite limited or quite or even more limited now and so it's going to be much more difficult to get uh well to eat less toxic food but also to get a complete set of nutrition because you're not going to be eating all the all the beans and legumes and seeds and all these sorts of things that that you could otherwise if you were doing it raw because you really you really can't eat those things raw safely but that's part of the the examples of why you know that this is something that we're naturally designed to eat because we don't need to put it through a chemical process heat treatment or anything like that to extract the nutrients or eliminate toxins you we we have the Machinery to just eat meat and get everything we want out of meat like Sashimi uh you know um steak tartar things like that or even just you know just a seared blue steak or you know medium rare rare steak like most of the steaks that I eat now are just seared on the outside and that's it you know and they taste great so yeah we have all the Machinery to to eat meat raw okay but what about what about the argument that some some say on now I I still hear it until this day when I have argument with some people or they mean discussions with some people about uh meat like staying in your stomach and rotting and whatever for for a long time what about that argument when you try to say well you know you eat the meat and you know stay in your you know you you'll get toxin from it but for its thing and you're stuck it for so long what about that yeah so so the counter to that is um you know what what's the benefit of eating fiber what's the what's their point about fiber right is that you can't digest it you can't break it down and so it moves through your digestion so if if you couldn't digest meat if you couldn't break it down wouldn't that do the same thing wouldn't that just be a lump of you know Hamburger just mushing through and then you just defecate that out uh but you don't right so you actually absorb uh 98 99 of the meat that you eat if there's no gristle in it it would be 100 and so you know and even if even if you didn't even if you couldn't break it down even if it if it just sat there and didn't digest you would excrete it in waste that's what fiber is so they've got these these um mutually exclusive ideas they say that you can't break down meat and that's a problem and it sits there and rots and it takes 10 years to break down and that's bad and then on the other side they say you cannot break down fiber at all you cannot break it down you cannot absorb it and that's good which one is it they're both they're both they're both saying the same thing about these different different things and they're saying that one's good and one's bad right so if if you if indeed it took 10 years to break this stuff down where is it spending that time your intestine last time I checked it's just a tube it goes one way you know so it goes in here in a certain number of hours it's going out the other end if it's not absorbed into your body so if it were to take 10 years to break down it wouldn't be doing it wouldn't be staying in your body for 10 years it would just be out of your body so and and fiber you can never break that down you do not have the capacity to break down fiber no vertebrate animal can break down fiber only certain micro uh um microorganisms can break down fiber and because of the transit time through our guts it moves so quickly you know we don't have that we have an appendix little tiny thing in uh gorillas and chimpanzees and other koalas and other sorts of things they're called hind gut digesters that little appendix is actually several feet long and that's actually and it's a blind pouch and that's where fiber packs in and gets stuck there and it just sits and sits and sits and ferments and breaks down into short chain fatty acids which are actually what you absorb so you eat the F or these animals will eat the fiber but what they absorb is fat and protein and we eat animals that are fat and protein that's the whole point the animals Kingdom runs on fat and protein mostly fat and so if you can't derive fat and protein from Plants then you need to eat animals that have already done the work for you and that's why 66 of animals in the world are carnivores um because they don't have the ability to turn plant tissue into animal tissue so we have to eat animal tissue in order to build animal tissue and that's the whole idea of eating is you're building and meaning maintaining meat so what's going to have everything that you need meat right it's you're just you're just cutting out the middle man you know we're not trying to build celery here we're trying to build meat and so if you eat meat you will be able to build meat and yeah and so the fact is that you you liquefy and absorb um like a steak within a couple hours and almost none of it will come out the reason that people think like oh well I'm constipated it's like you know I'm not going to the bathroom as much well that's because you're absorbing 98 of the meat that you're eating so nothing's coming out you don't have waste to come out so it's not that this is all just sitting there getting bigger and bigger and backed up and backed up some people get very nervous and say well I have to take laxatives every few days just just so I can get going I was like you don't you don't need to there's nothing there for you and ask them it's like did you have some big massive you know clogged you know stuck there that then came out and they're like well no it was all liquid well that means that you didn't have anything there that needed to come out and so there wasn't anything blocked there wasn't anything stuck there you've just absorbed everything and there's very little waste coming out contrast that with uh you know eating a lot of fiber like you say you're going to the bathroom several times a day because you have all this stuff that your body can't use it's just trying to get rid of it get rid of it get rid of it get rid of it because it can't use it so um yeah you know so anytime someone asks you says that you know oh if you just eat steak it's just going to sit there for 10 years just ask them where where is it going to sit you know it's a it's a one way too where is it going to sit you know it doesn't have we don't have that blown blind out pouching that you know gorillas have and they use that for fiber and and again you know fiber you can never break that down and so is that a good thing or a bad thing you know then why wouldn't it also be a good thing for meat as well which if it did which it didn't you know I mean that's just that's the whole thing there's so many things wrong with that that you know that it's uh it's hard to know where to start um I mean I me I hear a lot of oh about the iodine I hear what about the iodine uh argument because I hear a lot of stuff about iodine what about this is it is it necessary for if we're in a carnivore or anybody to take that as a supplement or do we get it in our meat or is it you should get it in your meat it also depends on what what the what the meat's eating you know if it's if it's in an area that there's iodine in the soil and that's getting in the plants and that's getting into them um there are people that you know can develop goiters because they're they're not producing enough you know thyroid hormones so they're getting a lot of thyroid stimulating hormone it's just growing growing growing growing growing um and and that can be an indication that you're not getting enough iodine if you're not getting enough iodine for whatever reason maybe it's not in the food supply in your area maybe that the animals that you're that you're consuming don't have enough of it in their food source then you're supplementing with with some iodine isn't isn't a bad idea or having some seafood every now and then that has some iodine um I don't uh I haven't supplemented with that I've never gotten goiters my thyroid function has always been very good um is it bad to supplement with iodine probably not you know Dr Berry does a good video on this where he talks about iodine and how the Japanese because of all the seafood that they eat you know they're eating thousands of times more iodine than um than you'd get elsewhere and they do fine they don't have any health ramifications from that that amount of iodine so you know even supplementing with much less than that but more net potentially than uh you know we would normally recommend is probably very safe and so I think that because there are so many differences in the nutritional value of plant versus animal based meat and nutrition that we really have we'll have to re-look at our rdas the recommended daily allowances because some people um you know say well how do you get this and how do you get this well I don't know but you know my Bloods all say that I do so you know there's obviously something going on there they're saying no you need this much in order to be um to have a a proper amount of whatever nutrient that is and yet by eating just meat I have plenty of that so there are it's obviously there's something else going on there obviously those rdas are not accurate you know these were done almost 100 Years Ago by Ansel keys he was a known liar and a known fraud and known to be bought and paid for by the sugar companies and put out a lot of fake information and and studies for the sugar companies to say that cholesterol cause heart disease one is really sugar so we know he's a fraud so we can't really trust anything that guy says even if he was a good scientist at one point in his life he's uh he's a fraud in a charlatan so who knows when that started who knows what he was being paid off for and what he wasn't he's everything he's ever done is suspect um also when he was looking at the rdas he was looking at things in the context of a mixed diet so everyone was eating plants and fruits and carbs and meat and all these all these different sorts of things that changes what you need I did a talk on low carb down under um it was a a medical conference and it was called just plants are trying to kill you and I talk about that in there and there's all these different sorts of ways that plants either sequester nutrients that either bind up these different nutrients so they're not bioavailable because they're bound up in such a way that we don't have the Machinery to get them out meaning that we're not meant to eat that and so we'll get vitamin deficiencies if we're eating this even though that plant has a lot of those vitamins in it or iron or whatever and also they have nutrient disruptors and digestive disruptors and anti-nutrients like phytic acid will bind to different minerals they will not make them they will make them unavailable to us oxalates will do the same thing protease Inhibitors were like in in wheat and soy they'll block our enzymes that that help us break down different proteins so even in perfectly bioavailable protein from meat if this will this will stop the enzymes that break it down into amino acids so that we can absorb it so even then even though we would normally be able to absorb all of this we can't now and so and then you know a lot of the protein like um like gluten uh that's completely unavailable to us that's a protein that's part of wheat Protein that's calculated to say like oh look at all this protein in wheat eighty percent of that is gluten all of that is unavailable to us and that's before the protease Inhibitors right so so you say like oh this is how much nutrients are in there and this is how much we need to get proper nutrition that's wrong because all of these things are disrupting how we absorb vitamins and minerals and and nutrients and so if you're only eating meat you need a very different constellation of nutrients because everything in that steak you're getting and whereas if you're eating a mixed diet it completely disrupts that and so you know when you're when you're eating a mixed diet you will simply need more vitamins minerals proteins and fats than you would if you're not eating a mixed diet so that that's something I think about as well even when you're just eating carbohydrates you need a lot more vitamin C than you would otherwise so when you're eating carbohydrates you need Vitamin C measured in milligrams right you need at least and this is what's taught is that you need at least 10 milligrams of Vitamin C A Day to stop scurvy uh and you and recommend it 90 to 120 grams you know for for normal Health right if you don't eat carbohydrates you your Vitamin C requirements are in nanograms so it's one millionth the dose so you need one million times less uh you know vitamin C than if you're eating carbohydrates so you need very different uh nutrients based on what you what what you're eating now so I think that it's it's um I think that you we need to re-examine our recommended daily allowances in the context of a carnivore diet because it's very very very different um and so they say like well there's not enough iodine in meat and yet there is right because you know I don't have a goiter you don't have a goiter you know the Inuits don't have goiters now they're eating a lot of seafood and things like that probably actually have quite a lot of iodine in there in their diet but you know the Maasai don't have goiters and they're not having uh thyroid issues you know if you have thyroid issues they're it's very serious you can die from that and you're very unwell and you're very unhealthy you feel really really bad and just rotten and miserable but also if you have low thyroid and while you're pregnant you'll have a serious uh deleterious effects and and developmental uh defects with your kid called cretanism that's what Tranquility you know people calls you like are you Creighton that's where I came from it's a it's a medical term and it's from congenital hypothyroidism you have two little hypo uh you have too little thyroid and and the kid doesn't develop properly and so they have specific facial deformities they're much smaller that short stature and they're in their brains are smaller and they're of lower intelligence they have a intellectual delay as well and and if that perpetuates throughout childhood they'll get worse and worse and worse and worse and so that's not something that is possible to survive with you know if we're not getting enough iodine from our natural diet then obviously you know we're not going to make it past a generation or two because everyone's going to end up with cretanism no one's going be able to survive and everyone's going to die out so uh whatever we're getting out of meat I think is just fine like if you have if you're having a problem and you're having some health issues or you take your Bloods or whatever for just you know just a well wellness check once a year or one twice a year and you find that you're deficient in certain things sure I think supplementing is a great idea because for whatever reason you're low you are low right and so I would just uh top that up uh with some supplement you know maybe a bit of iodine just eating a bit more Seafood um you know cows that are raised closer to the coast will have more iodine in their meat just because there's more sort of sea spray and iodine coming from the ocean getting in the in the grass and the soil and they're eating that so they're having it you know more Inland cows uh they're not going to get as much exposure to that supply of iodine however it could be that these people you know the ranchers and things like that you know are supplementing someone I don't know I'm not involved in that process but um it does depend on where your food's coming from but so for so for whatever reason if you're low on iodine and your thyroid is being affected you know I think that's perfectly fine to supplement yeah long-winded answer but uh we got there in the end it's excellent it's excellent it's very very clear I was looking at all these things um I also um another thing that got me to stick to you when I was watching your videos I was like uh I realized that you are a type of Soul proponent and I was like yeah this is the guy yeah all right yeah I love him too and I was like yo he's the I was like you're the truth I heard you say that I paid even more attention to your video yeah no Thomas Saul was amazing man bye guys oh yeah buddy yeah no I honestly think that he's the most brilliant and well developed thinker that America has ever produced and I don't say that lightly I think he he's just brilliant and and well and a well-developed thinker that's what I mean I think he's he has a true genius and coupled with the rare uh um the rare edition of common sense as well having genius and Common Sense uh which is something he said of Milton Friedman he was one of the few people that had you know genius and Common Sense and so will definitely uh that can be applied to um but he's an extraordinarily well-developed thinker he has his massive massive intellect Brilliance and common sense that has been so well developed and refined that it's this something very very rare is a very very rare thing uh in any society Society at any time you know these are these are some of the some of the people like you know like a Marcus Aurelius or a Socrates or a Plato someone that that really shown out even in their in their time with a lot of other brilliant people I think soul is definitely definitely one of those people I agree absolutely 100 yeah well you know it's reading him you know and seeing and you're cutting to the quick on a lot of these subjects that a lot of people take for granted or maybe put a lot of time and effort and thought and go yes this is what it is and then Seoul just digs to the Bedrock of the issue and say this is what's going on this is the history these are the facts and this is what they're not telling you just go wow okay look at that and it just you know no one no one uh has you know no one gets digs Down Deeper to the Bedrock of an issue uh to get to get at what's actually happening as Seoul does and he has a particular genius for explaining extraordinarily complex systems and issues and very straightforward and accurate terms and making it very relatable to everyone so he's just yeah he's he's a special person and like reading his his works and seeing how he you know analyzes things and dissects things and and looks for things to say okay is this actually what's happening uh that's really helped me in what I do and paying attention to things to find out okay what is actually happening here in health and in one and and just reading uh things in medicine so many studies are just based on nothing they're based on nothing they're based on a good guess at the time that uh was just repeated so many times that just people it just started showing up in textbooks and no one actually worked back to the origin and say okay what was that based on was that based on good hard science and evidence and facts and um you look back and you find out no it was not and then when you do the studies when you actually look at the evidence you find out no that that that is not what's going on and so uh Seoul has definitely helped me with that no he's he's brilliant like he's I absolutely love that guy he's basically 95 of the books I've read in the last six years have all been his wow amazing yeah that's amazing yeah I love that guy yeah me too man yeah well that's awesome well cool um well that's what I really appreciate it I really appreciate you coming on and and uh sharing your story with us and spending time uh you know out of your day uh to to help pass along this information and hopefully Inspire someone else in your position six years ago to you know make some make some changes in their life and um and help their health for the better so I really appreciate you taking the time to do that well thanks for having me it's an honor I appreciate you taking the time to talking to somebody like me it's really it was cool it was fun and uh I hope to inspire and help other people in their Journey as well that's that's really my goal to to kind of to spread the word man like be part of this grass movement that I see going on and that's spreading like wildfire you know yeah it's wonderful well I'm sure it will man and uh you know and I'm sure a lot of people really appreciate uh the uh your story and and for what you had to say so uh yeah looking forward to getting this out there and and uh and getting more more people on board yes sir thank you sir all right man we'll see you later okay okay [Music]