Carnivore Diet: Is This The Ultimate Anti-Inflammatory Answer?

Introduction to the summit and guest 0:00

Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of inside of the Heart Attack and Stroke Prevention Summit, where our goal is to bring the experts worldwide on the best ways to prevent a heart attack or stroke, which obviously is a major concern for a lot of people. That's why we're here and that's why you're watching it. And for that, I brought in an expert in nutrition, and her name is Judy Chow. And Judy and I have known each other for a while and known each other's work. And we've interviewed each other, and I thought she would be absolutely perfect to bring back here.

She is a certified nutritional therapy practitioner and holds a say and holds a psychology and a communications degree from the University of California, Berkeley. Judy is the host of a health and nutrition podcast called nutrition with Judy, and she is, you know, she's got the bestselling book called The Carnivore Cure. So I spilled the beans here, Judy. We're going to be talking about carnivore as it relates to cardiovascular disease. You know, again, you know, people just follow Judy, and she's got a fantastic website as well.

Judy, welcome to this summit on the heart attack and stroke prevention. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk about all things carnivore, how it can actually reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, even though that is so not what we are told in mainstream media. And, just traditional health care, I guess. But I'm excited to talk about all things. All right. Let's, let's jump right into it. What is carnivore and why does it work for cardiovascular disease prevention? Maybe without making any disease claims?

I guess we can or cannot. But I mean, with that being said, I know one of your big focuses is how do we lower down inflammation and oxidative stress and how does carnivore do that. So give me those couple things. Carnivore what is it in carnivore and inflammation. Why. It's you know, a great choice. Sure, sure. So carnivore at the root of it is just all animal based products.

What carnivore eating is and why it may help 2:02

So it could it's everything from land, sea and water. And ideally you can eat all things, including then the, the products of, for example, like eggs and dairy, if it makes sense for you and if it works. And so it's nothing that comes from the plant kingdom. So no, no seasonings, no plants, no vegetables, no fruits. And in our practice we specifically use it in as an an elimination diet tool so that we can see is there something beyond the diet that is causing chronic illness. So can there be mold?

Can there be chronic Lyme? Can there be infectious disease? Or maybe at some of the mind body work, some of the nervous system. Right. Dysregulation. But if we can quiet the body and the system by reducing the noise from foods or franken foods or ultra processed foods that we are consuming that is causing low grade inflammation in our body, then that would be an ideal way to sort of detect is it food or is it some of our dietary uses that are causing some of our illness? And if you look at modern disease, so, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, a lot of these things didn't really exist before.

Type two diabetes, which is one of the biggest comorbidities for heart disease. It used to be called adult onset diabetes. And now it's just diabetes because even children get it. And a lot of the root cause of these illnesses or diseases is because of chronic low grade inflammation or systemic inflammation and oxidative stress. And so let's talk about those things. And I think where carnivore is so powerful is it reduces a lot of that, systemic, low grade inflammation. I love talking about our toxic and bucket.

And so the goal would be that if your bucket is lowered with any toxins that are being affecting you, including diet, including, you know, certain injections, we get are certain things that make us unwell. If we can reduce the noise, then you will feel better. And the way that I think carnivore really works is by reducing that noise, by removing processed foods, by removing seed oil. So seed oils are not a natural oil and they are made from. So for example, canola oil is made from a rapeseed plant which is toxic to human consumption.

Then they basically do all of this sciencey chemical stuff so that we can't smell, that it's rancid, we can't smell that. We can't smell anything. And they deodorize it, they bleach it. And so they make this really toxic oil for us. Because it's not a saturated fat. They, they started using it. But that oil, when it comes into our system, it is very unstable. And that instability in our body then causes oxidative stress. So the oils are starting to, you know, try to pull electrons from your system, and it just causes a lot of that oxidative stress.

And then the inflammation or that low grade inflammation from it. So if you can remove processed foods, any foods that are GMO or unnatural and has a lot of those herbicides and pesticides, because again, those things also cause inflammation in your body. And as you eat a carnivore diet, you can reduce some of that noise in that cup or the toxin bucket. And as you reduce it, there will be less stress on your body. So one it will reduce your insulin resistance. So by just removing carbohydrates in general, even if that wasn't the core root cause of why you have, blood sugar dysregulation or insulin resistance, it will by reducing your carb load or your sugar load or your glycemic load, that will then reduce the need for insulin or the need for your pancreas to reduce, release insulin.

And so by really reducing that, then there's less strain on your heart, there's less inflammation. And so that's one. And then if you are able to better regulate your blood sugar, it will support your sex hormones, which, if your blood sugar is not regulated and insulin is not working enough, then cortisol has to come and save the day. And then there goes your skin health, your sex hormone health, your sex drive. All the things that will, you know, just make you function and be vibrant as a human and basically carnivore.

We can talk about all these different mechanisms. But even with mitochondrial health, if you are a sugar burner, your body does not know how to use fatty acids and ketones as energy. But if you can shift from maybe, maybe after breakfast you have like a small fruit. But if you can shift from using glucose and then also using ketones, then you will have more energy and more access to energy. And and then if you eat, if you're able to also eat the richness in a carnivore diet that has a an abundance of nutrients,

Clean carnivore, cooking methods, and meat quality 6:27

you'll have more iron, for example, and you need iron and you need to create these, which you can get mostly from meats, but if you can have more iron, then you have more oxygen that is circulating the body. And it's just overall it is just a reduced risk and stress on the heart. Because it's an awesome talent. As far as all the kind of cardio metabolic issues talk about, clean carnivore versus go to Burger King and order a double Whopper. Hold the bun. Now what is what is the difference here? What is what do you and your family eat in your household?

Yeah. So the ideal obviously is to eat animals that are living in their natural state. So if you think about humans and we get sick because stress and stressors occur and then that will cause more insulin resistance, that's where we will turn to more foods and we'll gain more weight. And, fat cells in itself can be inflammatory to the body and then cause even more insulin resistance. So if you're eating an animal that's not on their most natural diet, you will be eating some of that stressors, too.

And some of the toxins in the chemicals that they've been exposed to. I still think it's safer than, let's say, eating GMO foods or GMO plant. But in an ideal world, then you want to get more of the grass fed grass finished and, and then eat the meat that's, you know, from the animal instead of it's been processed. We don't know exactly how the ground beef got to Burger King specifically. And I think eating it occasionally and removing all of the carbohydrates and the ultra processed, because if you look at the ingredients in the bun versus the bread, I'm sorry, the bread versus the meat, there is a difference in the level of stuff they put in it, and the meat is a lot more natural, but you can't be getting a grass fed, grass finished steak in its pure form, and then just eating that and cooking it yourself and not having to worry where their seed oils was.

There something else added was there. I mean, sometimes they add red food dye to meets to make it look more richer and red, and that's crazy. But there are neurotoxic effects and heart health effects. Even with food dyes, for example. How should we best cook our meat? I, take it from them. I mean, should we, is it, is it rare? Is it medium rare, or, I assume it's not, well done. Hockey puck style. What, what, and dealing with thousands of people over the years. What do you think? Yeah. Before I answer that, let me answer a little bit more about the clean versus, like, I guess more dirty carnivore.

I think when you're first starting to go really strict, really clean carnivore, sort of hard if you're especially if you're coming from standard American diet, if you're coming from dirty keto. So I think it's more of if you could get your blood sugar regulated, reduce your insulin resistance and not be so tied to sugar, then I think at that point, anything is on the table. Yes, Jack Lyons uses soy sauce and it's not perfect. But if that will allow you to not grab chips and cookies and candy, then I'm all for that for now.

And then as you're on this way of eating. So now we we order quarter steers and we, we have our own animals and we order whole hogs and we have a chest freezer. But it took me a while to get here. And we go to the farm and we get our pasture raised eggs and our raw milk. So but it it wasn't overnight that that happened. So find that balance. And then if you're not healing enough then yes there are additives and stuff that are in these more processed meats. You probably want to take that out of your diet and then eat more of the natural though, the way that nature or God intended the animals should be raised.

And then if you can consume those and see if that will bring more healing. To answer your question about cooking. So it's interesting in our practice, so nutritionally, it is true that if you cook a steak too much or if you cook meat too much, it will kill some of the water soluble vitamins. Example for example, meat is already limited in vitamin C. If you cook it a lot, it will even reduce that vitamin C even further. But the the the problem we've seen with eating more raw meats, though, is that we do some stool tests or qPCR stool test, and we see that some people then will end up suffering from equally and stuff.

And we don't know for sure if it's the raw meat. But we have seen this correlation where people that eat raw meat every single day, they may have a risk. I mean, it just takes one bad meat and have a compromised immune system, which most people that will try a carnivore diet probably have a compromised immune system. And and then they are now suffering from gut infections such as equally because they're not cooking their meat enough. Because again, that meat was not handled. And maybe that's where you have to eat more of the clean meat.

But, so that's where it gets a little tricky. I think if you were to cook it maybe more medium or maybe a little bit less than medium, but not completely raw. Like, I don't know if blue is ideal either, but if you can just cook it and I would there's certain tools that you use.

Organ meats, seafood, eggs, and dairy 11:24

Obviously you don't really I'm not the biggest fan of the sub because a lot of people use the plastic. And so to cook it in plastic just I don't feel really comfortable with that. If you can use a cast iron pan, I know some people will say that's a little bit excess iron. I think it's fine. And then if you use either like stainless steel, but you don't want it on the pan too much, if you see like smoke, and if you see like black smoke around your meat, that's probably causing oxidative stress or like the inflammation that would be coming into your body.

So it is tricky. But again, I think it's that nuance that doesn't matter enough until you need to worry about that, because we've seen people, even if they don't cook it in the most perfect way, even if they cook it. Well done. We've seen people heal with a carnivore diet because you're reducing, again that overall toxic bucket. Okay. And again, I love how you started off the conversation as well about, you know, just kind of, you know, using this as like this first kind of benchmark of, hey, let's just kind of clean everything out of, you know, your nutrition side of the story and find kind of like a new baseline.

And if that really gets you to a great place, fantastic. And if it doesn't, then we've clearly got some other issues that we gotta delve further into. Tell us about about organ, cuts, organ meats, the liver, the heart, the kidney, so on and so forth. What are you advising your clients on that? Yeah. So when I first joined the carnivore community, I thought, you know, they are really nutrient dense. I mean, that's really true. But what I found over the years, and we do a lot of pure mineral tests, so we see the status of minerals within a cell.

So it's like a three month picture of how, your cell status is with minerals. So it's not the same as when you just get blood working. You see your calcium, magnesium. Normally those are really balanced because the blood loves always being in homeostasis. So it will typically be balanced. And what we found is that there are certain people where if they eat too much liver, their their levels in copper go really high then. And copper balance is zinc. You need zinc for stomach acid. You need zinc for many other things.

Even for immune function, you'll see zinc start dropping. And then there's also a concern about vitamin A toxicity where certain people I think if maybe you eat one ounce a week, maybe you'll be fine. But we see people eat like 6oz to 10oz a day and thinking that's so nutritious for you. The other flip side of the excess or hyper nutrition is a concern that your liver and kidney is where your body detoxes. It's where. And you don't know when because some of the arguments I'll hear is that your liver doesn't store toxins, but it actually does.

But if you were to process an animal, you don't know where in the cycle of the liver cleaning that you have processed that animal. And so I think in order to eat liver and kidneys, which are very nutritious, you should one maybe limit the amount of it, but also make sure that the animal is clean. So I think if any part of the animal you're going to eat, especially when it comes to the organs and the organs that are supposed to dustox ify the whole body, you want to make sure that those organs are the cleanest and from the healthiest of animals.

I think with the heart it might be a little bit different, but, I think the heart is rich in CoQ10, so it's a perfect if, you know, like like like like, if you are trying to support your heart health. I think eating heart is advantageous. There is it's more like a muscle than it is an organ. So there's less vitamin A, there's less of those mineral imbalances that maybe liver and kidney can provide. Excellent. And you know, one thing that I've been critical of the carnivore community, kind of in general, just some of the bigger players, the bigger names, and you're one of the biggest names in the field, you know, most certainly.

But, you know, you tend to pay a lot more attention to seafood. I see other people, not to mention names, but historically they only eat meat. And even that they're not eating the organs. They just seem to be having, you know, rib eye after tomahawk after ground. But, you know, talk us through, seafood and what role that has, in this carnivore plan. Yeah. I think the goal, if you're going to stay on carnivore long term, which I think is completely possible, I've been carnivore like. Strict carnivore, meaning only only animal based foods for the first three years.

And then now I eat, like, carnivore ish. So some days I will add some plants. It's not a big deal. It's like probably 5% or less of my diet. And now I've been doing this for seven years, so I think you can totally do it long term. But if you're going to be only strict carnivore long term, I do think it's more ideal. And this is just because I've seen the nutritional data, as a nutritionist. And so I do think it is more advantageous to eat the rainbow or what I like to call the rainbow. So I'm going to steal back the rainbow, of the rainbow of meat so that you want to again eat from air, land and sea.

And it's because if you think about the sea, and you get fish and fatty fish, there are different nutrient profiles. Pound for pound, there is no animal that has more minerals than if you were to get the, the, the seafood from the ocean. So if you want a lot of zinc and a lot of copper, other, organ meats has a lot of copper, but it doesn't have a lot of zinc. So if you want zinc, oysters are the way to go. We've also seen because we run a lot of omega tests and we run other tests, we run a lot of functional tests in our practice, and we have seen a lot of carnivores where their omega threes are like sub, you know, they're not there because they don't eat.

You don't crave a fatty fish. When you're on a carnivore diet you crave like a fatty ribeye. And so what we say is for your health, just like you sometimes drink water because you know you need a hydrate, not necessarily that you're thirsty. It would be ideal if maybe you had either, like, wild, sardines or you had some wild salmon because those omega threes, we have seen so much a reduction of inflammation and in general we've seen a reduction in pain. So we sometimes if people can't get to the fish we'll do like a, like a a general fatty acid support.

And we have seen so many of our patients their joint pain reduce and their overall inflammation reduced. And they've been on a carnivore diet. So again it's that toxin bucket. If you are reducing it with carnivore without fish why not try some fatty fish to to support that omega three omega six balance and then reduce some of the inflammation that omega threes can provide. And we again have seen that the toxic bucket even lowers further. So I do think and especially if you don't take any supplements meat doesn't have a it has minerals but it doesn't have as much of an abundance as seafood does.

Excellent. Now that you mentioned your carnivore ish at times, and I think this is where things kind of go a little bit kind of questionable, maybe not so much on the egg front, but talk to me about eggs. And then, where does dairy fit in to? Maybe not even necessarily the classic carnivore per se, but, raw dairy just as far as nutritional training. What does that fit in? Yeah. So if people can consume eggs. I'm a big fan of eggs. Actually, I know it's highly sensitive for many people. Maybe if, you were to just remove the egg whites.

Egg whites? That may help, but egg yolks itself, it's a nutritional powerhouse. There is so many micro minerals, and there are such as, such as Colleen, for example. But there's a lot of people that are sensitive to egg, so I cannot, you know, deny that. So it is a food that we may introduce later as people are healing, as their toxic bucket is lowered so that then they don't have to use supplements, and instead they can eat an egg to get some of that, excess nutrition. And then in terms of dairy, it really depends.

So I think the processed, you know, conventional dairy is highly ultra pasteurized. It's homogenized. So you're not eating the natural form of the food. And so it may cause low grade inflammation. We do see some people will be able to eat conventional dairying. They're fine. But generally speaking the ideal dairy if you can consume it, if you don't have blood sugar dysregulation is the, raw dairy because it has all the nutrients, the amino acids, intact as nature intended. And so it is it is rich in nutrition.

It has all the complete amino acids. It has good fats for you. And so it is a complete whole food on its own.

Starting carnivore, common concerns, and personal healing 19:48

And if you can tolerate it, that's great. Otherwise maybe for some people that maybe can't balance some of the sugar sugar low, then they can always try raw dairy or I'm sorry, raw cheese. So that can also help to with at least supporting the gut. And we're around other people who should be concerned about starting carnivore. Or do you find pretty much everybody can jump into it? Do you have to ease people in? Well, you know what? You've been in your experience before before, you know, we kind of get into how just, you know, how do we recommend to start the carnivore diet?

Of course, you know, you got your book in the background there, The Carnivore Cure. And that's a great, great, great resource. Of course, to dive into all things carnivore and how you can achieve that. But are there any like, you know, warnings, for people getting into this? I have not seen anyone that we have had to tell. Like you cannot do the carnivore diet. Now, I think there are psychological differences in personality. So there's nuance. Maybe if you are an all or nothing the best way for your body to assimilate to a carnivore diet, especially if you're not low carb, is to slowly lower the, the, the carbohydrate intake.

But there's a lot of people that can't do that. So it's like one carbohydrate makes them binge on every carbohydrate. So really understanding your personality and what works for you. So for some people they just need to rip off the bad data. And it's go I'm going to go cold turkey, but I'm going to eat anything that's meat based. So if it's pork rinds, if it's beef sticks or, chicken wings, know whatever it is, I'm going to eat that until I get off the sugar roller coaster and then I can refine my carnivore diet.

So that really depends. There are some people that have their gallbladder removed. Actually, it's pretty common, which is not ideal, but if they've already had it removed, you might not be able to tolerate the fat as easily. And but we have seen people over time, they will assimilate because their liver will still produce that bile that they need to break down fat. So if you don't have your gallbladder, you might have to take like ox bile or some digestive supports or enzymes to help you be able to tolerate fat.

And you might just have to lower your fat intake initially so that your body gets more assimilated. There are some thoughts about people with oxalate dumping, so if you've been eating the spinach, the almonds, the turmeric, they're they are very high in oxalates. And so there is a camp that believes that if you just cut all of those off immediately, you will feel the detox effects from that. So if you believe that you're in that camp, you can go a little bit slower. In our practice, we've seen a mix with that.

We don't see people really oxalate dumping. I truly believe that some of those people are actually suffering from mold illness, and now that their body is getting cleaner, their body is like, oh, I could start dumping mold and they'd start feeling unwell. But I think there if you look at the similarities in oxalate dumping and Sirs or mold illness, they are the same. Yeah, I know that's a great point. And I know you talk so much about mold. And the other thing, you know, other environmental toxins.

So you're really kind of running full spectrum over there. And don't worry, people, you know, Judy Show is really getting into some nitty gritty here with a lot of these different terms. And it's, you know, again, your book is a wonderful resource on this. So is your website. On this, the, the, best ways, you know, to kind of jump in to, you know, it's a carnivore. What do you what do you think outside? I mean, because it's probably best, of course, to get educated on this as opposed to waking up one day and saying, I'm just going to eat meat, you know, going forward.

And then I will say, I what do you want to say? One more thing to, well, it's on my mind. You know, your history is you're a recovering vegan. And I want to ask you, there's a lot of vegans in in your community, a lot of people in your community who were vegan that are now carnivore. I wonder if there's the opposite, these that there is carnivore. People who found that that didn't work and then they went vegan and that was their answer. I are you running into any of those people? No, I have not seen a single person that's become carnivore that then ended up converting to more plant based.

What I think happens is I know that there's obviously contention between the carnivores and vegans, and I think we're actually more similar than we're not. We find that standard care is not helping us enough. We have some illness, something that's imbalanced, something that we're unhappy about. Maybe we have a little bit of excess weight because we're insulin resistant. So we're just trying to find an answer. We first hear that a plant based diet or a vegan diet is the way to go. That eat the rainbows of the of the plant kingdom.

And so we try that and then maybe our energy tanks or we're not. And initially we might feel a little bit better because we're removing a lot of that ultra processed foods, but we start not feeling as well. And maybe we're getting some muscle wasting. And so then we start saying, well, this diet isn't it? And that was me. I was 12 years plant based. And then I got really, really sick. I ended up in the hospital and I had to figure out I have another child. On the way, I need to figure out how to get my health better, or I'm going to end up in the mental hospital again.

And so it was in that process that I went keto plant based, and that helped with adding some quality fats such as coconut oil and avocado oil and olive oil. But it wasn't enough until I ate meat. And then with eating meat and then doing some, like my body work, that was truly the way that I healed. And now I never deal with depression, and I would never end up in the hospital for mental illness. But I think when we are so sick and we don't know what the answer is, and we think it's plant based, I think these people are like, well, now plant based doesn't work, what else works?

And so with the stories that you hear online about a carnivore diet, which sounds crazy, I thought it was crazy to when I first tried it, to to go from a Peta supporting, loving, plant based person to say, I'm going to eat meat because if I can't take care of my own self and my children, how am I going to take care of the animals that I also love? That that was such a hard pill to swallow, and now I realize I can do good in this world and then take care of animals if I want to, because maybe I eat one and a half animals a year, whereas if before, you know, with all the mono cropping and stuff, you end up killing a lot more animals. But I think that there are so many people that then find healing on a carnivore diet.

And so that's why they stay. I think if most people had the luxury if like, hey, you can eat anything you want and you would be perfectly healthy, would you add other stuff? I don't think most carnivores would go, no, I'm just going to eat meat. I think we know that there is some secret sauce in eating a carnivore diet and healing and reducing inflammation, having less heart risks. We have people in our practice that they'll do the calcium artery scan. I know you're not the biggest fan of it, but it was higher before.

And then, and then they get it taken again after being carnivore for a couple years, and it's either the same or it's reduced. So that means that the soft plaque is not growing, which is the most dangerous one. And so it's a win. And we are told that cholesterol is so bad for us. But why would your body make 70% of its cholesterol needs inside the body if it was so bad for you? And your brain is made of 60% of cholesterol? But again, when we're taking statins and we're taking things to reduce cholesterol, well, when most people get heart attacks, at least 50% have normal cholesterol levels.

So we're obviously missing something. And animals have always been around, no matter what age or time period we go back to. And yet this new heart disease is because of an old food. It makes no sense. And so I think if we were to, you know, I always just say just try it and see if it works. And then again, you figure out it's not just stepping in, but it's thinking of, you know, what your why? Because this diet is hard because. So one day you'll have stress and you're going to want to turn to the junky food that you used to eat.

And then you're going to have people in your ear saying you're going to have a heart attack without fiber, your gut is going to get ruined. And all of these other things are you're ruining the planet. And so you need a strong why to say, no, I'm still going to stay the course. And so building a community around it, getting knowledge, around a lot of this, the purpose of why is it that ribeye is healthy for you. What is it about fat? Well, every single cell of our body, the outer layer is made of fat.

So depending on the fat you're eating. So again if you're eating those canola oil think about that fat around. It's already rancid and toxic and inflammatory or and causes oxidative stress or it's filled with tallow on the outside. So think of like which cell is more better for you. And then we're made up of trillions of cells. So if you just think of those things and know those things, just maybe I think it was like maybe four years ago, the they remove the upper requirement of cholesterol. They used to have it that you can have maybe two eggs a day.

Otherwise you're at the cap of cholesterol and you're risking heart disease. What they silently remove that from the dietary guidelines because they found zero proof that that was true. And so it's all of these things that we have been really misinformed. And that's why I think, again, a carnivore diet or a meat based diet is actually the way we are intended to eat. And then your comfort level of plants in the end is really up to you. And what will make it a lifestyle. Yeah, that's all just wonderful information.

I mean, and you know, know you didn't make the rules. I didn't make the rules. You know, Mother Nature, God made the rules. And, you know, humans are eating on meat and seafood since, you know, really since the dawn of our human existence. So, and when you do it the ethical way, the right way, and you honor and cherish the animal, you know, I shared with you that story, you know, from a couple of years ago when my Bible and my boys and I were on a, a bison, hunt and kill and harvest, and we killed the animal along with about 15 other people.

We blessed the animal. We were thankful for the animal. Very respectful for the animal. And, you know, again, that is just the optimal way to, to eat and live. So again, Judy show the book is The Carnivore Cure. Nutrition with Judy is the website. This episode is inside, the Heart Attack and Stroke Prevention Summit. And if you want to prevent a heart attack or stroke, or you want to recover from a heart attack or stroke, you'd be wise to get a copy of Judy's book and pay attention to the work she's doing.

And you can tell, obviously, you know, you just deal with so many different people, so many different scenarios. So again, thank you so much for being on this episode. Well, thank you so much for having me. Doctor Jack Wolfson, another great episode. We'll see you next time. Bye, everyone.