Why “Healthy” Diets Are Making Women Sick (And the Nutrient They’re Missing) – With Dr. Autumn Smith

Introduction to nutrition myths 0:00

Nutrition is one of those controversial sciences. People that specialize in food and medicine, depending on who you listen to, one person might tell you that you need to be a vegan. Another person may tell that need you to a carnivore. And there is so much information, I would say misinformation out there about meat protein and how it can be inflammatory and problematic. So today on Thyroid Pharmacists Healing Conversations, Im joined by my dear friend Autumn Smith. Dr. Autumn Smith. Thank you, Isabella.

It's so good to be here. For those of you that don't know me, I'm Dr Isabela Wentz, also known as the thyroid pharmacist. My passion has really been about helping people take charge of their own health, figure out what is causing them to have their health-related challenges and symptoms. I became a pharmacists to try to help people until I was really passionate about medications as kind of the be all end all to healing until i was diagnosed with Hashimoto's myself and realized that medications weren't really cutting it.

That's when I started exploring additional routes and healing methodologies and I think this is how I came to meet Autumn. On my journey, finding that food can be powerful medicine, sometimes more powerful than medications. Autumn, like myself, has also had her own health challenges. So she had digestive issues, crippling anxiety most of her life, and she was going to different specialists, not really much we can do for you, right? Like here's some medications and maybe be more relaxed. She decided to actually turn to food as medicine.

And within 30 days, her life completely transformed. So IBS gone, anxiety lessened, and then her bubbly personality, which you'll get to meet, came back, she was sharp again. This really has led her to dedicate her live to creating ways to make real food, sustainable, approachable, and educating about this topic. 2013, she and her husband Chas launched Paleo Valley. They are committed to providing essential nutrients without added sugars, grains, or harmful ingredients, some of our favorite snacks and foods.

She's been inspired by the healing powers of grass-fed, pasture-raised meat, both for human health and the planet, and they also have Wild Pastures, which is a regenerative meat delivery service that you can get right to your front door. She is doctor of science in holistic nutrition, functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner, certified eating psychology coach, soil advocacy, certified and then also a fitness trainer for the Tracy Anderson Method.

Autumn's health struggles and food-as-medicine turnaround 2:50

Formerly. Yes. Well, thank you for that generous introduction Isabella. You've just lived such an interesting and fantastic life. I love you and Chaz and I loved that the passions that you have for getting the information out there about how food can be healing and really dispelling some of those myths out Like many of us, I think we become passionate because we went through our own journeys, right? Can you tell me a little bit about what your journey looked like? What were you doing when you were struggling with all these symptoms?

Oh, yeah. I felt like I was living in this body that was working against me, that it was unpredictable that I didn't have control over. And unfortunately, as a young ballerina, You don't do anything wrong. It doesn't really matter what you eat as long as you don' eat too much. So in ballet class, they were smoking cigarettes. They told me to take ginseng and eat lettuce. And so I grew up just thinking, okay, I'll, you know, smoke and, and take lettuce and then maybe I also just had a little candy on the side, but just was basically like counting calories, just never overeating.

As you might imagine, that didn't end up I didn't end up feeling very well. And as I got into my teens, well, probably around 10, I started having digestive issues. Then around 11, 12, teen years became very stressful for me. I had these mental health struggles. The doctors were like, you have irritable bowel syndrome because you don't have more serious pathology. take some Beano, try to, like he said, relax. And then eventually I got an antidepressants. I actually didn't even live with my mom the last year of high school because my behavior was pretty unpredictable and out of control because I had got into substances when I didn' t feel good.

Right? I'd had this awful baseline, low-level emotional and physical pain, I think, because of my brain was starving and my body was starving and I did not know how to cope. So, yeah. My life kind of went off the rails until I went to college and I realized I had to kind of pull it together. Got a job with Tracy Anderson. She kind turned my life around, made me very excited about things. Again, I met my Chaz. And that's really where my story changed, because he's such an amazing, wise, stable presence in my live.

He was like, we can figure this out. We can do this. You shouldn't be suffering like this, you shouldn' wake up looking pregnant, and you should have pain in the middle of the night. found food. Some people were using food as medicine. And so we just literally cleaned up our diet. We just said, we're going to go to the Pasadena Farmer's Market and we are going eat whole foods and cut out processed foods. It was probably the journey of a year for us to get on a strictly whole food diet, but the change in even just two weeks of no bloating anymore, no intermittent pain, I wouldn't wake up.

And then over the next course of the year, about my anxiety went, you know, from like a nine, where I lived most of my life, down to like, a four. And I was like oh. So it really was, I had a horrible lifestyle. I didn't realize that the quality of food mattered profoundly for the health of your brain and body, and so I doing all the wrong things. and I think that's why my transformation was so incredible, Maybe not something everyone experiences, but for me it was really dramatic. It's interesting because we think about the dietary advice that we got as teenagers and young adults.

I remember watching Subway commercials and it's like, okay, you need more carbs, right? I have a theory that a lot of women, young women end up with irritable bowel syndrome Partially because they're eating lettuce all the time and all these salads and they are so tough to digest. And they aren't supporting themselves with proper amino acids to really help with their gut health so they end up with irritable bowel syndrome. We know there is a big co-occurring IBS anxiety. whole thing if you were to look that up or look on TikTok or wherever you get your information.

There's like a whole things where if, you've got one, there's a good chance you have the other. And part of that is that amino acid depletion, that deficiency of all of the things that we need that, we can get from protein, the building blocks to grow ourselves, right? To heal ourselves to like make our bodies function. So I'd love to know what was your diet? What did it look like when you, before you got on your healing journey? Oh, it was really bad. It was a protein bar here or there and, you know, chips, mostly gluten and cheese.

Honestly, I think gluten was big problem and a big part of a lot of my digestive issues. And really, was someone who never wanted to eat meat. I just wasn't drawn to it. So I was like, OK, just bread, cheese, salads. Like you said, that was pretty much it, That's what I preferred. Eggs, but not a. Yeah, so really devoid of nutrients. Mac and Cheese was always my favorite. That can cheese with hot dogs. I mean, not that there's anything wrong. It's just like that was where the majority of my calories came from is salads, cheese, and bread.

That sounds like my diet in college. I remember I had that Easy Mac. Do you remember that? Like you could microwave it? Yes. And the cup of noodles. That's what I grew in College specifically. Cup of Noodles, EasyMac all the time. Once my friends and I went for spring break and we didn't want to spend any money on food. So we just got like a bag of Wonder Bread. We would just eat the Wonder bread the whole entire week and go out drinking. Shortly thereafter, I developed ideas. It's shocking, isn't it?

I know. The shocking part is that the doctors don't really talk about this, right? Like I remember one day I was in pharmacy school and I made this. I Was studying. It was nighttime and i made This like ramen noodle soup and added some soy sauce to it. And I woke up in the middle of the night with diarrhea going to the bathroom like every other hour. Um, I had an exam the next morning and had to miss the exam and my my teachers were like, You need to get a doctor's note right like you we think you just you know didn't study and whatever like You they wanted proof that I was actually sick.

And so I go to the doctor and He's like, well, you probably have irritable bowel syndrome probably because you're stressed out because your in college But he didn' even ask about what I ate. Yeah, right. Like there was no conversation or consideration that like, hey, you've been eating like crap the last like three years of your life.

Early diet, IBS, and anxiety 9:20

And could that have anything to do with it? Right? Yeah. It was shocking to me too. Yeah, they just basically said take B no, and there was no examination. They said it's a stress-based condition, so you just need to learn how to relax your intestines. That's kind of the advice I got and no one looked under the hood. And the funny thing is when you changed your diet, did you actually change your stress levels? I mean, how did that- That's the fun thing. Yeah. I don't know, I was working a very stressful job with Tracy Anderson.

So I working out five or six hours every single day. Now I getting newly married, so that's just an exciting part of life. But I also in that relationship prior, like when I had the bad digestive symptoms. I don't know. I can't say that stress relief was a huge part of it. We were getting married, so I wouldn't that. It seems like the job was kind of stressful. The relationship was enduring and had been in place for several years. So I think it was lot of food. But I do know that once I saw that shift, initially and it started to impact my mood, then I went on a deep dive into like, oh my goodness, what else can I do?

And so I did, you know, I became a yoga teacher, so did yoga and I've done somatic therapy and psychology has always been a love of mine, but I hadn't always practiced its principles, But I think though I had to, that biological stability kind of preceded my ability to go and really explore the psychological in any meaningful way. It makes sense. Stress reduction is always a great idea, but it's not necessarily the right entry point for most people. Sometimes, yeah. I think it depends on who you are.

Some people find it easier to meditate regularly than to change the diet. For whatever reason, at that point in my life, it seemed easier and it worked. It's, like you said, one entry-point. But a lot of times, like I'm postpartum right now, and one of the things that's helpful post partum oftentimes for mood is like progesterone. And like, I could be meditating for seven hours a day and probably pro gesterones would be still more helpful, right? And the same thing, if you're nutritionally depleted and if your eating a terrible diet, all the yoga, meditation, mindset in the world won't take you as far as just nourishing your body properly.

It's so true. It was like I've always had this like background noise is the best way I can describe it. Just kind of like this, like buzzing or something. They're like when I started to eat enough nutrients and protein, I think specifically because I was just on a blood sugar roller coaster. it was Just like there was a like silence like peace in my mind. So I'd love to know, like, what did Chas find on the internet? Like, did he find a website or a blog? Mark Sisson. I think he found Mark and Rob Wolf, you know?

Back, this was like in 2007. So there's like two people, talking about it. Well, of course, Lauren Cardin, his work, and he was just like oh, I see people with IBS, if you change the diet. And I was, that is so silly. But of, course it's not silly, it is food that's in your digestive tract. So now it makes a lot of sense. But yeah, he's kind of like a keyboard warrior. Chaz can solve any problem. It's like his passion in life. So I was just the one on his list at the time, but he did me a solid for sure.

I wasn't blown away by him and how committed he was. Because that's another problem for many people, right? You want to make these changes, But your partner maybe is a little bit more reticent. but Chas like jumped in with both feet. And so that made it a whole lot easier for me too. I love that. I know I've worked with a lot of women over the years, and a lotta times there's a barrier of, we need to change your nutrition, you need a change of diet, maybe you go gluten free or dairy free, or eat more protein, so on and so forth, Many of them go all in, others are like resistant.

They're like, well, then I have to talk to my husband about it and my has been doesn't like this or my children, so on and so forth. And then, I've had male clients where I said, hey, you would probably do better this eating this way and they've been like I'll let my wife know. Right? And it's been such a big difference when somebody has a supportive partner versus when they are trying to do it against the grain or they're trying it on their own and their partners aren't there supporting them through that.

Yeah. I mean, I owe him everything because he was the one who decided we should try it and then kept me on the path. He's pretty amazing. You know. That's some beautiful masculine leadership. It is, isn't it? I appreciate him. Yeah. And then also you for listening to that because some of us can be so resistant to like our loved ones or people in our lives trying to help us, right? I think I've learned through the years though that Chaz often has the much better ideas. He's definitely just like a guide, right?

I don't know. If you know, you'll know Chazz is just a wise soul and I'm just very, very grateful. But yeah, I am that person who just realizes I, don' know a lot and i'm willing to jump on board and try things. So I that has served me too for sure. I absolutely think so because I know I've worked with some people in my past that have said, I don't want to change my diet. I didn't wanna take different medications. Well, it's often the thing that you don't want to change the most that, you really need to.

So I think yoga really helped me with that mindset piece too. I just think that practice of trying to really understand yourself and your places of resistance and going towards that rather than backing away and protecting it. It's something that's been very helpful for me. Yeah, I think that can be very helpful for just becoming more flexible, right? Like not just in your body, but also in our thought patterns. Yes, and in you life and just realizing there's just lessons to be learned all the time and that you never stop growing.

And that was just something I had never paid any attention to when I was eating because I fit, it didn't really matter until it really mattered. And that's actually a really good point that I want to bring up because a lot of times people, and I know when I first started my healing journey, I was actually very thin, thinner than I am right now. And I would say I'm going to go on a diet and people would look at me like, what is wrong with her? Does she have an eating disorder? Why is she eating this way?

And they'd be like... why would anybody ever diet unless they were overweight, right? And there wasn't this connection of like, food can actually cause other things than being overweight. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? Because I was much thinner when I working for Tracy Anderson too, and I a mess. I'm coming home at night, crying, my skin was breaking out everywhere, I looked pregnant after meals, so I know it was like I fit but not well. And then when had that stability, oh, that's stability is so much more important.

than being thin. How do I get that? That feels like the portal to a far better life than just looking the part. Yeah, and I still think our society is very much focused on that. Like when you look at conventional medicine, it's like BMI and sure, you know, It's nice to be fit. I love being fit, but also like let's make sure your brain and your body is functioning the way it supposed to. That's right. And we have so many nutrient deficiencies. and like I said, your neurotransmitters, they're made from protein.

So if you're not getting that, so I feel differently. No, that was it. I want to know, how did you change your diet to begin with? Were there things you added? Or I know you guys stopped eating processed foods. So was that anything in a package that went in the trash? Yep. It was basically, we did the Paleo diet. Two tea. I did really high quality animal products for the first time in my life. That became the beginning of the meal. the centerpiece. And then I also eat as many vegetables as, you know, as I do animal products, of course.

Healing with whole foods and supportive partnership 17:20

But basically, it's fruit, vegetables, and meat. That's where we started. Now I'm much more diversified. Lots of fermented foods. Oh, we went a little crazy, right? We did fermented food all the time, bone broth all of the times. So yeah, I guess I was like in a healing phase, Right? I Was getting back that gut health, the microbial diversity and healing the gut lining and without even really knowing what I but just increasing nutrient density. So yeah, any sort of sugar, you know, we did it on the weekends.

In the beginning, it couldn't be perfect. We did like five days on The Plan, and then two days off The Planet. And then we'd feel so terrible after the two-days, that eventually it was just like self-perpetuating. Oh, so we don't want to feel like that, then it went to one day, eventually our diet just became that. And so, you know, I'll eat the occasional legume now or, a little bit more, little but broader, because I think diversity is great when that's what you can have. But it took a bit of restriction in the beginning for a few years.

I think that's such an important point to consider. I know when I first started on a healing diet or was thinking about it, I was like, ''I can't be eating like this forever.'' I'm Polish and I like pierogi, like I don't want to never eat one again, but I can eat them now. Like I could eat a lot of different foods these days, or I eat dairy and don''t react to a ton of foods anymore. But when you are feeling terrible, You do need to go a little bit more narrow and you need figure out which foods are working for you and which food are not working.

I love that point. Yeah, you never want to be too restrictive for long term, right? I think we have all learned that too. And yeah, I add in all the foods I loved now, but on occasion. So a big part of your healing journey was animal products. And I know there's a lot of controversy and differences of opinion on, you know, we go to LA and everybody wants to be a vegan, right? And it's just different parts of the country. I think, um, You know you and I both lived in Colorado and Boulder for a while.

One of reasons I moved to Boulder was looking at Google searches. It was 2013, 2014. Paleo diet was the most searched term in like Colorado. Was it really? Yeah. I didn't even know that. Wow, okay. Makes sense. So there was a big community of eating the way that I found to feel my best. And, you know, different parts of the country have different opinions. It's just been very interesting living in a few different places where I live in Austin, Texas right now and people I feel like are just not as aware of food as medicine as they were in Boulder.

And LA, everybody was a little bit more into fitness and just so many different clean options, but it's a different thing that they might strive for without knowing what's serving them and not. Absolutely. And yeah, the animal products for me were a huge part of my healing, but I like people to just be curious, right? I think for many people, nutrients in animal product are really important, and you're replaceable even, because deficiencies are rampant. We need to be mindful. But I definitely am not here to say that my diet is what everybody should eat.

I respect the choice of anyone to eat meat or to not eat meat, but I can say for me and for a lot of the women I've spoken with, it's life-changing when you can get meat. Especially when it is high quality and you really pay attention to what it does to your body. For me, I think animal products are one of most important changes, just prioritizing them. And then I studied beef for my dissertation. I really did a deep dive, and I understand the nuance around them, I think that's important too. But yeah, again, everybody needs to find exactly what works for them.

Can we get into some of the nutrient depletions that people might get if they are not getting enough quality meat? Yeah, definitely. Iron is a big one. Sometimes even vitamin A and zinc, omega-3 fatty acids also, and vitamin B12 is very big because vitamin b12, there will be debates about this, but for the most part exists only in animal products. And the B12 deficiency can be tied back to those mental health issues. I think that was something driving a lot of my instability and also maybe the omega-3s.

And I was just very, very tired a lots of the time, like very fatigued. Iron is far more bioavailable in animal products. Especially when you incorporate, which I did early in the game, organ meats. I don't know how open how much you've talked about them, but you probably have a lot. But iron, specifically the synergy, the synergistic complement of nutrients like vitamin A and copper and just very, very effective for raising iron levels for me. So And omega-3 fatty acids, right? So you can get omega 3 fatty acid in the ALA form, in plant form from plants.

But the conversion is often very low to those longer chain forms that you need more specifically for your cardiovascular system and the health of your brain. And so I think some people might be low on, and I actually think that's a huge issue that not enough people recognize today. And vitamin A, right? So vitamin a in retinol is 12 times, you need 12 more than the plant-based forms, like the carotenes. And so I think a lot of people suffer with that, which can lead to skin issues, immune issues.

Reproductive issues as you know. So I just think those are some of the main ones. Zinc too. a mineral, right? Zinc and iron, copper. They're much more bioavailable for your body when they're in animal based forms. So I think for a lot of women, the nutrients that many of us are missing, like for that vitality and mood, they come from animal products because they are just, it's like having cash rather than a check from like a meat source rather then a plant. Not that they both not important. I just think it is easier for you body to access in animals products.

That makes so much sense, and I will say a lot of women with thyroid dysfunction and Hashimoto's, one of the big reasons why they don't feel well on thyroid medications such as synthroid, levothyroxine, why the keep losing hair, having brain fog and fatigue issues, even like restless leg syndrome and mood-related issues. Anxiety. They're actually low in iron. I like to recommend the ferritin test to see if you have a deficiency in that and typically like if your ferretin is low that's your stored iron and you're not going to be able to grow hair even if are taking thyroid hormones.

Some people try to bypass that by taking like the T3 thyroid hormone and that can help some of the symptoms, but still like a lot of functional medicine doctors and integrative doctors will just say, okay, we'll just take armor or take natural desiccated thyroid and they won't actually test ferritin levels. And that is like, a big red flag that you are iron deficient and perhaps that your lacking something in your diet. I love that, you brought up organ meats. So I grew up, I'm Polish and so we would eat organ meat but not a lot of people find them delicious.

Oh, I know. Chaz tried to sneak it into our diet for a very long time. Because after the first time I ate liver, it was so invigorating that I was like, wow, something in there, my body needed badly. It was really missing. And so he put tripe in our burger and it made me vomit, which is why we eventually freeze dried them and made a product out of it because I just couldn't. I needed that whatever was in their, but I couldn' get myself to eat it, unfortunately. Yeah, that's actually my preference is taking that in like a capsule form and then the Paleo Valley one is my favorite and I recommend it all the time and people have seen such major differences in their ferritin levels.

Can you tell us a little bit more about it? Yeah. Well, in 1934, you probably know this well, there was like three Nobel Prize winning scientists that discovered that pernicious anemia could be cured with beef liver. because of that complement of iron, vitamin A, B12, and the copper that all work together. And I am telling you, so many people I've worked with, spoken to, people write in, that they get off even iron infusions, but somehow they've been trying so hard for so long to improve their iron levels and nothing could do it like liver.

Why animal products matter for nutrients 25:40

So I think that's very scientifically validated. But it's just heart, liver, and kidney. And then we just freeze-dried from grass-fed and finished animals because, like I said, we tried to eat it for a very long time. We soaked it in the milk. we went to the chicken liver because it is more palatable for anyone who wants to and is open to it. Heart, tongue, chicken, these are more paletteable options than just going straight for the beef liver. If you can eat them, I highly recommend you do. For anyone, who can't, you could also just get them in encapsulated form.

And it is like nature's multivitamin. They actually, are you familiar with Ty Beale's research? Tell me more. Okay, so Ty is a researcher and he did what's called priority micronutrient density. So we have all of these nutrient density rating systems and it just kind of depends on what are they prioritizing, right? Many rating system prioritize, you know, the plant-based nutrients and then they demonize saturated fat. because traditionally we thought saturated fat was dangerous. But what he did instead was his kind of north star was, what nutrients are we missing worldwide in middle and low income countries?

And what are the foods that fill those gaps most effectively? So the top 10 foods were liver, heart, kidney, spleen, beef, goat, eggs, small dried fish, crustaceans, and then one dark leafy green. So it was like all animal products and liver at the very, very top, hear and kidney and spleen. So if you are, like many people are deficient in these nutrients, they are literally nature's multivitamins. And so that's why I realized we got to get them in the capsules and I take them every day. So. That's incredible.

Um, and there's like cofactors too, because if he just takes straight up iron from a pill. you're not going to be able to necessarily absorb it if you are deficient in certain cofactors, is that right? Yeah, and it's notoriously difficult, right, for it makes people constipated. And that's what I'm saying with people telling me, oh, I've been taking iron or, it just hasn't worked for me. But it is, that is what they believed, at least in that study that it was the B12, you know, pernicious anemia has B-12 deficiency also, but the vitamin A and the copper, these copper and vitamin actually help the iron to used by your body.

And so it is. And in my dissertation, we did this metabolomic study, which is where you look at thousands of compounds in food because we have like this nutrient label that has 13 nutrients, but food is incredibly complex. So we can't really recreate that with an iron pill. Do you know what I'm saying? So there's probably hundreds of other compounds that are also assisting that utilization by your body. We haven't even recognized, but for now I know that the B12, the iron and the copper and vitamin A are all working together, at least that.

It's incredible, it's like nature created this for us and we can try to recreate it because I know there's some practitioners that will be like, if you're on iron, you should also take some vitamin A, but make sure it is bioavailable and make that you take copper along with it and then you end up with, my brother likes to use the term, pill bow baggins, right? You end with all these pills trying to do something that nature just created for you. Exactly. And it's like, yeah, you can combine those ones that we know are worried together, but what about the other ones?

Exactly, so yeah. I think we can't really outsmart nature. That's why I like all of our products. Whenever I'm supplementing, it is usually with a food, like a freeze-dried food. Then I will, obviously. You're a pharmacist, I go strategic sometimes. If I have a deficiency, for whatever reason I've an absorption issue, if I can get it up, then I need to do something else. But that's a very last resort because I don't want to just end up someone taking taking a bunch of pills, who knows what's working for me or against me.

And like you said, there's just too many variables. One really interesting thing I found is carnitine is another deficiency that is common in people with hypothyroidism as well as an overactive thyroid. The only place you could really get carnatine, like, you can make it internally, but the only food source is actually red meat. I love that. I remember you talking about that in our docu-series. And honestly, there's been studies, too, where you look at carnitine and depression. Have you seen those?

Where when you supplement with carnotine, your mood improves. I was just so blown away by that after you had said that. So there are so many nutrients, right? And carnatine answering, they actually did a study where they looked at all of these more lesser known nutrients and their benefits for potentially like protecting its cardiovascular issues. So yeah, we are just scratching the tip of the surface because there's so many things in food that are especially animal products that we don't even recognize.

Like I said, 30,000 compounds just in beef. I just, I think that's mind blowing. So, yeah, with carnitine, it helps mood, fatigue, brain fog, constipation, building muscle, like it was traditionally used, maybe not traditionally, but a lot of bodybuilders look to add that to their stack. And I kind of think about that. I'm like, that's a of the things that people with hypothyroidism struggle with. It's been very, very interesting because When I started working with people, a lot of them had come off the vegan diet.

And one of the things they really attributed to feeling their best and helping them turn their health around was eating beef, eating red meat. Isn't it wild? Yeah, that's why I found so many stories in that when I did the rethink meat series, I heard so much stories from you and our other dear friends that had worked with many women and saying red meet was literally the thing that got them pregnant. or red meat was a thing that turned their health around, the one thing has been demonized for so long.

So yeah, I love that. I think it was very, very important for me. And I actually wear an aura ring, and I notice when I eat like a grass-fed steak, you know, my HRV is so high. and i don't know why, right? But there's something in there, it's so consistent. Um, i just feel amazing. I'm gonna have to track that. You should. Now I am doing that, like we're going out to Valentine's dinner. Yes, check it out. And I prepare it a specific way too. Maybe it's just like my enjoyment of it, because you know HRV is very much about the state of your nervous system, but you do like a little onion powder, a litte paprika, maybe a lil garlic and you just put it on both sides and then like three minutes on each side.

But that's what I do and it is just life changing for me. Thank you. You'll have to share that recipe with us. So question for you, there's a difference between the meat that you get from the grocery store that looks like maybe it is meant for dogs. and grass-fed meat. Can you go through that? Because the inflammatory profiles, the omega-3 profiles are going to be so much different, right? Yeah. Oh, goodness. I have so, much to say. First of all, when you got to the grocery store, most of the meat, you have this illusion of choice, but it comes down to four companies, especially in the beef sector, 85% owned by four company.

And And so then they have these other smaller companies that make it look like it's maybe a different product, but it might not be as different as you'd think. But my dissertation was with Dr. Stefan Van Vleet. Are you familiar with his research? Okay. Yeah. So basically he wants to categorize. Okay, so Dan Kittredge of the Bionutrient Food Association. Do you know who he is? Okay. Yeah. So he's creating a handheld meter so that when you go to the store, you're able to scan a piece of produce or a peace of meat and get the nutrient density so the basically we can incentivize consumers and producers to put nutrient but density back at the foundation of the creation of our food because right now it's about yield and something else entirely.

And so first they have to go product by product, crop by crop. or meat by meat in order to define what nutrient density is. So we took 300 different samples from 100 different production systems in beef in North America. soil samples, forage samples rib-eye samples and then use this metabolomics analysis to be like, okay, what are the real changes? So the big changes were omega-3s like you said, three times more omega 3s in our samples of grass-fed beef than grain- fed beef and that's huge. 90,000 Americans die as a result of omega three fatty acid deficiency.

And there have been trials where they show that just changing to grass fed meat, it significantly increases the amount or your omega balance in your red blood cells. pretty rapidly, more than you'd like imagine based on the absolute amount. So that was pretty good. Then, and like you said, the inflammatory profile, there was an early trial in kangaroo versus feedlot beef. And it showed that when you ate the feed lot meat, your inflammation after a meal went up far higher. Now obviously it's confounded, but yes, I think that inflammation and Dr.

VanVleet's done a few studies on that too. Longer term trials do show a trend towards lower inflammatory markers if you go all regenerative with your meats. So, and the omega balance is another one. Omega 6 to 3 balance was different, like a 2 to 1 in the grass-fed scenario and then a 7 to one, which is interesting, 7 and 1 and in feedlot. Now that's interesting because it's still much lower than standard pork and chicken, which I think surprises people. So you kind of want to balance that ratio.

A lot of people believe that you can have a more pro-inflammatory state in your cell membranes. And if you would, so yeah, much more omega-6 to 3 profile, higher levels of CLA. We know that potentially has cardiovascular benefits, maybe even anti-obesogenic benefits. different saturated fatty acid profile. I am really fascinated by this conversation around the diversity of types of saturated fat and I love that like we're not necessarily demonizing it anymore but there's longer chain saturated fats that seem to be protective against cardiovascular disease and those are increased and stearic acid is a more neutral saturated.

So and then there is, you know, pentadecanoic. Have you heard about C15? Probably. So yeah, those are all higher in grass would be and then minerals. So the minerals, I think there was six times selenium, which will be interesting to you for the thyroid and three times the calcium, two times, the copper and 1.2 times. The iron. And then maybe the most surprising part is just the phytonutrients. so like animals are a photograph of the land that they are raised on and people are often surprised by, you know, antioxidant,

Organ meats, liver, and nutrient density 35:40

anti-inflammatory, phenols, terpenoids. These plant-based nutrients actually go right on into the meat. Now, they're metabolized by the animal, so they are not exactly in the same form, but they do find a diversity of these plant based polyphenol compounds in meat when they raise on diverse pastures. And they find more, the more species diversity, we hire that phytochemical richness and the higher the level of omega-3 fatty acids. and the longer they graze at the end of their life. So clearly, a lot of nuance.

But what it looks like is grass-fed meat and feedlot meat, they're very different. They're different foods when you really get down to it. Now, I'm not here to say that you can't eat feed lot raised meat. I still think meat is a healing food, and it's way better than a donut. but I also think that when can access grass fed meat One of the interesting things, I think, is that it's more satiating, too. Dr. Fred Prevenza talks about this a lot, that those phytochemicals actually tell an animal, because he studied animals, the way animals eat.

And in nature, nobody has to tell animals what to eat, right? Their body just has this innate feedback. But maybe that's why we're not as satiate anymore. Because we don't have all those kind of like feedback mechanisms in the meat anymore, so. The research was fascinating. They're doing so much more. My friend Joseph, who I worked with too, is going on and measuring the omega-6 to 3 fatty acid ratio in all of the different animal products. And when you eat them, how does that change fatty-acid profile in your body?

As you saw, there was the big vital farm egg controversy. So yeah, lots of changes. My mind is completely blown and it's just fascinating because we don't even realize that, but the things that the animals eat really impact. their nutritional profile, right? It's like they're eating poison and then they are going to pass that on to us, if they eating things that are nourishing and they well nourished, we're going be eating that, Right? Yeah. And that's the funny thing too, what they notice with the animals who are raised in the more feedlot based scenarios, they kind of like a couch potato phenotype.

They have like higher levels of triglycerides and just indicators of kind of like a metabolic dysfunction. And so, yeah, I mean, it's a good question. Can you eat unhealthy animals and then become healthy yourselves? I means, maybe, but I think you have a better chance when you something that's like eating what is supposed to be eating, right? And I it has different health effects. Well, in Poland, where I grew up, there was like, if there were ever like roadkill, people would eat it. But if an animal died because it was sick, you wouldn't eat.

Right. And I think that kind of leads us to realize, hey, the diet that we're feeding these animals, if it makes us sick, they're going to pass that poor metabolic profile to us. Yeah, this is really mind blowing. Can we talk about the vital farms controversy? Because I've been eating those eggs. I have been buying them, and they are brown eggs, in these beautiful containers. Yeah, eating a lot of them for choline and can you talk to us about that? Yeah It's it's interesting because I did actually have lunch with the ceo of vital farms and he cares deeply about the humane treatment of animals, right?

I have nothing to say about what I think they're providing great options. The controversy was that they Someone did some independent testing and said that there's more linoleic acid or an equivalent amount to something like canola oil And so what i think is interesting is I love this omega 6 to 3 ratio I think linoleic acid is not itself toxic. It's actually an essential nutrient. But I do think you want to minimize. You know, I want, people are way overdoing it because they have so many seed oils in their diet.

And like I said, on a massive scale, we've changed the way that we feed animals, right? Like we're not eating, they're eating grass anymore. They're on pasture. So I what surprised people is that they might not be, A lot of chickens eat corn and soy, right? That's just, and people don't know that even though they're pastured like they do. And so the amount of time they are on the pasture or the percentage of their diet that comes from corn or soy largely determines that fatty acid profile. I think they're doing a great thing and they prioritize the humane treatment.

I don't know how long they are on pasture, but that's not a truly defined term. They're moving towards defining that. But right now, you can have them out on pastures but living in barns many times. That's what Vitals Farms is doing, I'm not sure what they do. If you're looking for a company that is specifically looking at that omega-63 ratio, look for someone who's doing corn-soy-free eggs. But also, people can improve that ratio just by improving the percentage of the diet on the grass. So I think what's happening is, I wouldn't also though say that an egg is toxic just because it has, you know, there's obviously so many important nutrients in an ag, right?

But if you're eating it every single day and you really want to be mindful about that omega-63 ratio, it's definitely something to consider. What do you think? Like, did it change the way you? Changed my shopping habits once I found that out because one of the things that can happen with Hashimoto's too is a lot of times people might be soy sensitive, right? Yep. And so if you're eating eggs, This is so interesting too. And I think this is an area that we need more research in. I've had Paul Cech, do you know who Paul cech is?

Okay, yeah, so he's told me there's so many people with autoimmune conditions specifically that when they eat beef or animal products fed corn and soy, they react. They can't do it. Now I haven't found any good quality evidence to suggest, like in terms of like clinical trials, but I was wondering, is that something that you see? I've seen that clinically where I had women who would eat store-bought eggs and they'd test positive for those eggs, and would react to them. They'd have skin issues, digestive issues so on and so forth.

And then they would get their own hens, right? Or they buy from Amish sources or soy-free feeds and see a difference. It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah, I just think just because there is a science that says it's true doesn't mean that it isn' true. And I think that's pretty powerful. But yeah, for people corn and soy sensitive, absolutely. It is something that we should all be very aware of. Wow. It's like so many things to think about. And the other thing is that labels can be very misleading. Can you educate us a little bit about those?

I know every now and then I like, I think I have it figured out and that I'm like wait a minute. I had no idea about this. Like I said, many of those big companies, they kind of are onto the fact that people want to eat really clean, but they don't necessarily want change their practices because wow, across a large supply chain, that's a lot. Also, there's something called the Food Safety Inspection Service at the USDA that monitors these labels, but it's very affidavit-based, meaning they're going in there asking the farmer to submit written examples of what's going on rather than any sort of third-party verification.

Pasture, for example, that's one. We're not super legally defined, right? Are they on pasture? Maybe, but how much of their life are they spending on pastures? Now, I've heard that they're going to move towards like 51% of life on a pasture, and so that might become more defined. But as of right now, you kind of have to inquire maybe, how long? What are the eating? Stuff like that. So pasture raises one, cage-free, when it comes to eggs. That means just that, It doesn't mean they're not in a large warehouse on top of each other.

They can still be that and not living in the cage. So cage free doesn' mean a lot many times. Free range, it means they have access. Like they could have like a small door, but they also could still living most of their lives just in warehouse and they might not even know the doors there. And it doesn''t even have to go out to like pasture. It can kind of sometimes go to a concrete plot. Then we have grass fed. This is one of the things that in 2016, they kind of took the regulation away around grass fed.

Grass-fed meat, regenerative farming, and egg labels 43:40

And so all cows are grass-fed for the first part of their life. That's just how it goes. It's usually in the last third of your life that they're gone. They go to a feedlot. But right now, no one's really regulating that. So technically, Any cow is grass fed, and it just kind of is up to the discretion. Now 100% grass-fed is different. There seems to be another layer. And there are third-party verification systems like American Grass-Fed Association will come in every 15 months and actually verify that an animal is only eating grass.

Then organic. So organic's great, right? It has that layer of protection with a third party verification, but they can eat organic corn and soy. So if you're someone, again, sensitive to those foods or who wants to be mindful of that ratio and the omega balance, and they don't necessarily have to on pasture, like 120 days, they have be on the pasture rather than, you know, all the time. So that's interesting. Oh, country of origin labeling. Have you heard about this? No, this is the other one now this recently changed should be changing but before you could get beef from anywhere in the world and then maybe Bring it in and process one thing package it as a product of the United States And so they're working to change this but it is still voluntary.

So Right now, we need a way to ensure that we can support American farmers that are born, raised, harvested, because COVID showed us how very vulnerable we could be if our main supplies are shut down. So country of origin labeling is something you should definitely be aware of. But like I said, it is voluntary, so you can't always assume. And the other one, I guess, you know, there's natural. I don't think anyone really thinks that means anything, but if you do, it doesn't just means there are no artificial colors or additives added after the fact, nor hormones can be misleading because hormones have been.

not able to be used in poultry for a long time. And then antibiotics. I guess this is the last one that I want to talk about because 73% of the world's antibiotics are used and animal agriculture. You probably know as well as anybody how dangerous it is if we see a day where antibiotic resistance becomes rampant. no antibiotic residues, no human-important antibiotics, these are ways that they can get around it. And you can still use antibiotics to kind of promote a cleanly and sanitary environment.

They're no longer allowed for growth promotion, but some people get round that by just saying, oh, we need it because these conditions are really unsanitary and it costs less to use them than it does to clean up the conditions of the animals living there. There's been a lot of testing. A recent test found even 15% of the animals in the No Antibiotics Ever program ended up having antibiotic residues, and 25% percent of those in The GAP program. That's like a Whole Foods-based program, so I'm not saying Whole Food's has antibiotic residue or anything like that.

I am just saying there's too much incentive right now for the use of antibiotics because it just makes more sense economically than, like I said, uprooting all of their current practices. And Moms Across America, are you familiar with them? They do lots of testing and they still they find antibiotic residues and ionophores, which are like animal based antimicrobials. So levels of those. And then the last thing is chicken antibiotic levels can be so high and lobbied for that I have a chicken farmer who says basically a highly medicated chicken could still pass the testing.

So it's just something you really, really wanna be mindful of because we don't wanna get those antibiotic resistant bacteria. I've even heard some of them can be latent and then be activated. Don't know if you know about this, like in later stages of life, which I think is dangerous and just, something everybody needs to be aware of. Yeah, it can quite scary. And one thing I wanted to ask you about is how antibiotics can used for growth. Yeah, they basically alter the bacteria so that, and it's interesting, right?

Because we're all having, if they allow kind of like more calories to be used more efficiently, like basically you're allowed to, you gain more weight because of what it is doing to the microbiome. And that's why they're giving these animals in addition to keeping the environment more cleanly because they are very unsanitary conditions and 90% of animal products today come from factory farms. So yeah, that is I think the one thing that I thing needs to change the most about the way we're raising animals.

I think that's so incredibly dangerous. Imagine what it's doing to us, right? If they're gaining weight because they are eating antibiotics and then we are getting the residues, like, that can't be good. It can be. Yeah, absolutely. It's been really fascinating. My recent book is about Irritable Bowel Syndrome and so I've gone through a lot of research studies about the microbiome and I have done a lots of microbiomes tests over the years with myself as well as with clients and the interesting thing that I noticed is there are certain bacterial patterns that will, and research does support this too, not just my observation, but Essentially, you're going to extract more calories from your food if you have a certain microbiome profile.

And so that means you could be eating just as much food as somebody with a different microbiom and yet you are going gain more weight. It's been really, really fascinating. Isn't that wild? Have you heard of the Kevin Hall research around metabolism? He has this new book called Food Intelligence, which I just find fascinating and one of things that really stuck out to me was that an inefficient metabolism was kind of like one thing he saw in people who had a more stable weight. Do you know what I'm saying?

So it was again, that less extraction of all of the nutrients was something that worked in their favor. I just felt that fascinating. That makes a lot of sense. And berberine, which is one of these really popular supplements for metabolic control and for helping people maintain a healthier weight, a lots of what it does is it blocks the absorption of carbs from your system. Amazing. I don't think I ever knew that, but I have taken berberine more to kind of balance some things that were happening.

So that's fascinating. Yeah. And it also does impact the microbiome too. Now, another thing I wanted to talk about is one of my favorite things as a new mom and a woman in perimenopause and it's glycine. Oh my gosh. Are you as obsessed as I am? Yeah, okay. What's your favorite part? Well, skin benefits. You sleep better at night if you have good amounts of glycine. So you can wake up multiple times a night, but still you feel more refreshed. Yeah. It helps detoxify various compounds like the estrogens that we build up later on in life.

really like it helps detoxify various toxins through like the glycine conjugation pathway to get them out of our system. Now, this is something that a lot of us are deficient in. Yeah. Oh, yeah. This is one of my favorite topics. And so there's a paper that came out in 2009. What you find is, glycerin is not an essential amino acid, but your body makes it. It doesn't make necessarily the amount you need. If you're over 100 pounds or something, they found that it doesn' necessarily fill in the gaps.

And for proper collagen turnover, like bile salt production, glutathione production. Like I said, if you want to maximize all the benefits, most people are working with like an 8 to 10 gram a day deficiency. I don't know if have you heard of the research from Dr. Brind, Dr Joel Brinde. Have you heard about this? No, tell me. Okay, so this is like, I was always a fan of glycine, because I feel like it takes me down a few notches, right? Like you said, that sleep benefit, and they found in schizophrenia and other like mental health conditions, it's kind of just like a calming neurotransmitter.

But Dr. Joel Brand was actually looking at methionine restriction. So he's been studying glycein and amino acids for like 15 years. And what you know is when you restrict methione in animal models, which is an amino acid that's heavily found and muscle meats, you can actually extend the life by 30 to 40%. So it's interesting. It's very well known and has been repeated. But what he did was like, well, what if we just add glycine back in? Because glycein kind of helps to detoxify methionine. And he found that the animals live 10% to 20% longer when you just added glycyne in.

So what's interested about that is methione is muscle meats. Glycene is in the bones, the tendons, and the collagen. He said it was because we're throwing the bone in trash rather than back into our soup that we have this happening. His big discovery, which I think has so many important implications, is that Glycine, when in concentrations higher than you would need for just the production of collagen, or just actually its building block role, actually acts as a trigger lock for macrophages. Have you heard this?

No. What does that do? Yeah. So a macrophage is like one of those first responders, say you have injury or infection, your macros will kind of show up, assess the damage, you know, and then either, release cytokines, like he kind, of likens it to the cops are going to come in. They're either going shoot things up or they're going just peacefully help people resolve whatever traffic incident is happening. So when the macrophages don't have enough glycine present, they become what he calls in rend mode rather than like the cops that show up and just start shooting things, rather then the mend mode, which is a different mode that macrophyse can be in, and which was like, the traffic cop that helps people.

So what are you saying is he fell on his tailbone, he gets a sunburn and he doesn't actually get inflamed. after really taking like eight to 10 grams of glycine. And he thinks it's because his macrophages can finally be silent. Now you think, okay, that's a few anecdotes, but I did some podcasts with him about it. Thousands of people, when they're having higher doses or having bone broth every day or eating the collagen or doing the gelatin or adding that glycin back in, I was blown away by the amount of the people who said the same thing.

I don't have pain anymore. You know, autoimmune stuff has gone away. And so there's also a second very nerdy type of reaction within the immune system that it inhibits called pyroptosis. You don't need to get in the details, but it's just like the final stage before like a cell bursts and creates another huge wave of inflammation, which we know can create a lot of collateral damage. there's a group at Joel Weinberg did some research, I think it's University of Michigan. Glycine in high doses will also inhibit that inflammatory process.

So I just think that because we're focusing so much on muscle meats rather than eating, you know, nose to tail and bringing back those healing foods, bone broths and just collagenous cuts, like even if you just throw things in a crock pot regularly, um, just that it could be creating this havoc in our immune system, which I and so important, ridiculously important. I personally used like a bone broth kind of cleanse rather than like, a juice cleanse or fasting, I don't do well with fasting in general, like I'll get angry.

But I did this with bone, broth and eating a lot of soups and my gray hair like came back brown, my skin looked nicer and like I just became a lot more. My stomach got a little bit more flat and just it was really, really amazing for my health. And I think that part of that is like the glycine content. Can you tell us how much? Yeah. How much and what are the foods that we need to eat to get eight to 10 grams of glycine per day? I sure will. And also I want to say, like, you've probably heard the research around Glynac too.

Have you heard about that? Okay. So it's another, it is a compound they've created that's glycyne and cysteine that in these trials, recent trials has like reversed several hallmarks of aging, which is kind of, It's been a big deal. But again, just like speaking to that glycein importance. You can have like Bone broth. I'd say you need like four cups of bone broth in a day, okay? And ours has about two to three grams in in scoop. You can also do gelatin. Gelatin is going to have like a gram and a half per tablespoon.

So you can make some gelatin gummies or whatever you want to do it that way. Um, you could also just like do a lot of very like oxtail. Oxtails are these really collagenous meats. Grass-fed meats are going have more of that collagen. And you're obviously going need to eat a little more because when you eat a lot of muscle meat, you need more glycine. But I think that would be just like really collagenous cuts, gelatin, bone broth, collagen is another way to do it. And then, of course, there's glycein supplementation.

You can always do that, and that will tell you. Dr. Brind has a sweetener that he's made that can help people get it in easily, too.

Glycine, collagen, and protein strategies 56:20

So, I mean, however you want to get, I try to do it from food every day just because, you know, I'm not like supplement averse, but that's just my go-to because I put a lot of energy that way. But yeah, lots of ways to get your glycine. It seems like it's really helping people. Oh, and the glycine and acetylcysteine study. So yes, I have seen that and it's quite fascinating. I don't recall how old the participants were, but when they used mega doses of glycein and an acytocystine, these are dosages that are higher than what I would put in a supplement as a Supplement Manufacturer, they were able to get all of their lot of different lab markers to the same level of people in their 20s, right?

Exactly. And their glutathione levels. So detoxification was just off the charts. I just found that to be so, so fascinating. We'll link the study in the show notes for those of you guys that wanted to take a look yourself. Yeah, and there's one other source I forgot to mention. Magnesium glycinate is 86% glycein. So if anyone's taking that too, Dr. Brynn thinks that might be a reason that a lot of people notice a benefit, not only for the magnesium, but the glycerin content. There's like one to two grams in a serving of that, too.

I love bone broth and I loved making it in my crock pot. Like I just kind of set it and forget it. Now, everybody loves making their own. I didn't. I mean, I do, on occasion. But yeah, we sell a bone broth and we actually make it chocolate and caramel and vanilla. And we have two savory flavors now and an unflavored. It's really become probably one of our best-selling products is the chocolate bone breath. and it sounds so crazy, but it's absolutely delicious, sugar-free, and you pop it in your coffee, water, milk, whatever, a smoothie.

it is incredible. I'm so excited. Can't believe you haven't tried it yet. Yeah. Isabella. What am I doing with my life? What I am doing in my live? How have I not made sure that you tried and I was so sorry. I'll send you a bag because it's like, that's why Dr. Druin has become such a fan because he was like that chocolate bone broth changed my like. He's just like can you have too much of it? I don't really think so. But he just really, really loves the flavor and 13 grams of protein in a scoop.

And like you said, there's been this conversation around complete and incomplete protein. I do think that's important to be mindful of, but I also think certain proteins provide very different benefits. The fact that collagen and bone broth is glycine-rich makes it stand out from maybe something you should even prioritize regularly, which is why I think bone-broth is so important. And you know, a lot of us ladies, there's a big push on making sure we get our protein. And somebody was saying like, I am getting so much pressure to get my protein up in my 30s, 40s and 50s.

It's like worse than like peer pressure, to do drugs in high school or college. But 100 grams of protein a day, like that can be quite intimidating to you. It is, right? And it's something that I have to work and that's what made it. So I do my 30, 30 rule, if you can just make your meals around 30 grams of protein, three eggs and some turkey sausage or salmon and vegetables or five, six ounces of beef. You can do it that way. You can also do it with adding something like bone broth, right? If you have one, I start my day with it, and then it's a nightcap, because again, that glycine will help drop your body temperature.

And so that's an extra like 26 to 30 grams of protein. So it is a lot less intimidating for me to say I need to get 70. right? That just seems more doable for me. And that's something I do. But the other way I just snack really strategically, right, you can also just, if I say if i'm not hungry enough to snack on protein, then I'm probably not really that hungry. So that kind of, it's not like I never deviate, but if you just have, I love to keep deviled eggs around. I loved to have obviously meat sticks or and I actually love mackerel and herring that I just eat out of the can.

So if you snack really strategically. And then the other one is just like eating your protein first in the meal. It's just a simple rule so that you're not becoming full on all of these other less, you know, protein centric and maybe less nutrient dense calories. Not always, but those are the kind of, the four ways that make sure I'm getting protein, but I am not perfect. I don't do it every day. But definitely the bone broth makes it a lot easier if you can just knock out like 25 to 30 grams in a form that you actually enjoy.

Sometimes easier. Makes such a big difference. And I want to try that for my son because as you and I have talked about, he's always been kind of a picky eater. Yeah. Um, and he has always on the leaner side. So I always try to find like really healthy foods for him to eat. For a while he was drinking bone-broth, But now he is like, I do not like it. So I'm going to try the chocolate bone broth with him. And I know you guys actually started off with the Paleo Valley sticks, right? The beef sticks.

Because you have kids. You have a son, and you know, Right? We know. We take that and then add it to milk for a MAF. It's like a chocolate milk. So, I mean, hopefully Demetri would love that too. And yeah, our meat sticks were our first product. And that's why, because as a fitness trainer, and I realized, oh my gosh, protein is really centric to my mental health and my stability and building up and recovery from that physical exertion I was always having. So yeah. We made a fermented meat stick because the thing that was different is it's fermented.

So fermenting meat is a normal thing, but here in America, they take a lot of shortcuts, often use things like encapsulated citric acid. So we just wanted to get it as close to traditional preparation as we could or as like a very traditional clean meat stick. Yeah, our meat sticks were our flagship product and grass-fed grass finished from regenerative farms, fermented, no sugar in all the MSG and all those other weird ingredients. And they're different because they are like tender, right? They're not like jerky.

They just have a very different flavor and tang and tenderness. And I remember when you guys were starting Wild Pastures, you would go to all these different farms and you wouldn't inspect them and all of the different farmers. And like, hardly anybody made your cut. Oh yeah. Well, my sister's husband, John Etchert, we're from Montana. So they have like generations and generations of ranching. Like, so when he joined up with us to launch Wild Pasteurs, I mean, he already knew exactly what he was doing.

and we knew, the work of Alan Savory. Have you ever talked about Alan Savoury? Okay, do you know about him? Okay. So he was a rangeland ecologist in Africa. And what they thought was animals were causing desertification in his home. What they decided to do with him and his colleagues was to cull 40,000 elephants. They killed 40 thousand elephants, but what the found was that the land actually got worse. And so he said it was like the biggest mistake of his entire life. And he then went into studying this intensively and found that it wasn't the animals, it's the way that we were managing the animal.

So he created this system called Holistic Management AMP Grazing, where animals in nature, they run around and they don't stay in the same plot of land like we do with most animals today where they can overgraze. And so we just created these highly managed systems. So we knew about that. Our criteria is obviously no antibiotics, no hormones, living on pasture, diversified pastures whenever possible to get as many of those amazing compounds, but also regenerative grazing. The animals are always moving.

Yeah, we have strict standards, but I think that changing the way that we raise food, it solves so many of our problems, whether they be environmental, human health, even just farmer livelihood. Farmer suicide rates, they're higher than many other professions because it's a very hard business. When you see farmers raising animals and food regeneratively, there's like a spark and like, a hope that comes back because they're just, I don't know, it's an inspiring business and one that they can make a really good living on rather than something they have to take out all this debt for and kind of like plug themselves into a system for.

So yeah, that's really exciting and we're very passionate about it. And mostly because, you know John, John came from a ranching family, so he was like the perfect addition to Paleo Valley to kind catapult us in this new direction. Yeah. You guys have created such a big movement to get people healthier through giving them access to real food. Oh, I know. And it would start with the birth of Maverick because we realized, wow, if we run out of topsoil, which people predict that we could because of depleting it, and I think it's like 4 billion tons of tops oil a year 10 times the rate that we're producing it, you know, some people say 60 years left.

So we realized, oh no, like Mavericks generation could run out of the ability to grow their own food. And so yeah, but regenerative agriculture is the one thing that reverses the cycle. It's different than organic agriculture, right? Because Inorganic, it might be sustaining what we have, but sustaining is still a dangerous, very precarious position to be in because we're still depleting the topsoil. So really, I think the most important question you can ask when you raise food, if you have the ability to ask those questions is, is it building or depleted top soil?

Like, what is what I'm eating doing to the land? Because that's where the minerals come from. That's were the nutrients that build our bodies come form. threat that we really wanted to be part of helping people access that. And it's really expensive and people don't know where to find it. What does regenerative mean? Where is that? And how do I find people producing it? So we wanted just to connect people easily to regenerate farmers so they could do the regenerated farming and then it could be affordable.

That's the other thing with well pastures. It's like 40% less. We have only raised our prices once and we do that is the absolute last resort because we believe everybody deserves to able to opt in. if they want, right? It's more of a priority than almost anything for us is that accessibility. Yeah. I love how accessible you make it because you can just get a package to your house and then you have all of this delicious, healthy, healing food. From America. That's the other thing that's like 75%, 80% of the grasshead beef in America is actually imported.

So if you really want to support and create food sovereignty, which is the ability for people in their bioregion to control their own food supply, which I think is so incredibly important, something not a lot of people understand, then yeah, that's what we're trying to create too, an American domestic supply. I love that. And then you have a huge product offering now through Paleo Valley as well. So tell us more about that? Ever-expanding. Oh my gosh. My husband raises, product development is a daily adventure in our home.

We have superfood bars. Um, we have really cool new bars coming out that I can't wait to share. They're coming very soon. we've a sleep formula like glycine we already know is really bone broth, but we added ingredients, other ingredients that creates a literal nighttime sleep formula. We have a fish roe product right now, but we have upgraded our fish row product, one that will contain, you know, pro-resolving mediators and those kinds

Paleo Valley products and closing reflections 1:07:20

of compounds that actually turn off inflammation. And they're ro, right? So there's a lot of debate around fish oils and are they beneficial or are there? But I always think if you're going back to like a whole food source that is not highly rancid, then that's the best way to go. So we that coming out. Protein coffee so many things. I mean we just ever expanding and always creating something new but Yeah, and then supplements are of course the whole food supplements the Oregon complex the vitamin C that most 90% of vitamin c on the markets from GMO corn and so just creating an omelette very and camu cami very variation, but so Many things going on always Yeah, I've loved your products and I loved just watching your journey, you and Chaz, from taking care of little Maverick and having little snacks for your beautiful son to really expanding and growing and just really meeting the needs of people in the world.

You guys have just seen what the word needs and you've been so impactful in creating it. Thank you, Isabella, that really means a lot to me, because I've admired you for so many years. You were actually one of my original inspirations, like for really diving in feet first to this new kind of career path. And so that means really a lots coming from you and I'm so grateful for our friendship. Likewise, thank you so much. It's such an honor and a pleasure to know you. and you inspire me. Oh, likewise, Thank You so Much.

Can't wait to read your book. I am so excited because that's where it all began for me That's what I'm saying. I was just really excited to see what all of your research has found about that because I knew it worked for me, but I know it's a huge issue for so many people. Yeah, one of the crazy things is like food additives. They can be a powerful driver of inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome. And it just goes back to like eating real food, right? It seems so simple, right? And yet, what they call is like structural violence.

Have you heard that term? No. It's like, it seems like a simple thing to do, but when we are constantly surrounded by processed food, everywhere we turn, and it's far more accessible, where a thousand calories of cookies is at the same price as like 200 calories, of carrots, It is not always just a choice, Right? It sometimes comes down to like the environment that we have is working against us. So yeah, I think it is important. to just be aware of. And I'd be interested which food additives you've seen be the biggest drivers.

Carrageenan, erythreal. So unfortunately, there are some of these addatives that maybe they might be marketed as sugar alternatives, right? Yeah. But they still can be problematic. Yeah, If you guys wanted to learn more about Paleo Valley, you can go to paleovalley.com slash whence that you could learn about their products. I'm going to put that in the show notes and then paleovalley dot com slash promo slash Isabella snacks. So I am going also put in that show note so you guy can learn there. And we'll also a link to wild pasture so that can get meat delivered to your home.

Before I let Autumn go, I wanted to put her on a spot a little bit. Are there health hacks that you refuse to participate in? Has there been anything like that, that maybe you're like I don't do cold plunges or I would never do that? Oh, gosh. Well, I think there are some that I am reformed from. So I did used to do the cold plunges. And now that once I turned 40, my body was like, no, and I'm like nope, i'm not doing them anymore. Maybe a little bit lukewarm shower, but like not in doing the Cold Plunges anymore, another one like I haven't done like the methylene blue and I don't know why, but like my body's just like, I want to do that.

Not that I'm saying there isn't any benefits. And then the other one is just stacking all of these different supplements on top of one another without a really good reason. I just refuse to just believe that whatever somebody else is using and seeing these remarkable benefits is exactly what I need. So I am just very strategic about that, just really choose supplements very, very carefully. But, and you know, have had my day with coffee enemas. And I'm not willing to do those anymore. So I think those are my main health hacks I refuse to.

What about you? I am curious now. That's a great question. Well, cold plunge has definitely been the most popular answer. I think partially because this is a thyroid-centric podcast. So a lot of us thyroid girlies, we just don't really like the cold plunges as much. And a of women in perimenopause and perhaps women with adrenal issues, it's like not the first thing that we go to. We might gravitate more towards like a Epsom salt bath or maybe a sauna session versus those cold lunges. To piggyback off of your coffee enemas, What's the craziest or most unhinged thing you did to try to take back your health?

That's The One. I would say that I haven't done anything else that crazy I don't think I mean I've done like multiple day fasts but I actually don' think that's that that' crazy and I always feel like incredible afterwards but yeah I did you know when we were trained for functional diagnostic nutrition and even when I worked with our friend Krista she had me do them and you it's not like I didn't don think there was benefit there might have been but it is just not something that incorporate regularly, anything like that.

And also, one thing that's been really impactful for me is caffeine, just really learning how to use caffeine and when not to. Because again, once I hit 40s, I realized that I could really overdo the caffeine. So I've been very, very focused on how do you use that strategically. That's game changing for Oh my God, same. So I used to be the person that could drink like caffeine at bedtime and sleep just fine. And then once I turned 40, like the day after, it's like I can have caffeine 259, but if I have it at 301, I will not sleep the whole entire night.

Like seriously, just one day difference and one minute difference. It just really makes such a big difference for my sleep and my energy levels. Last but not least, if The supplement police were to come to your house and say, you need to surrender every single one of your supplements, but we're going to be nice and let you keep one. What would that be? For me, it's going It's gonna be the organ meats, I'd have to keep them. Because I just think it's going to cover the broadest range of nutrients.

My runner-up would be omega-3s. I think they're so important for my mood stability, but I would think organ meat are the ones that I have keep, because nature's multivitamins, for sure. We'll let you keep two of them and we're going to link to the organ supplement in the show notes. Okay, awesome. Autumn, thank you so much for being here. It's been such a pleasure having you and everybody listening at home. I hope this has been helpful on your healing journey. Till next time.