Paul Saladino Pt. 2: Why Cholesterol is a Myth, Fruit Over Vegetables, Ghee & Tallow, Seed Oils, Animal-Based Living, Anti-Aging Hacks.
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Welcome to the pursuit of wellness.

What's up, guys? Welcome back to The Pursuit of Wellness and welcome to part two with Paul Saladino. This episode caused quite the uproar. You guys are absolutely loving it, but it definitely caused some controversy. So if you haven't gone to part one, I highly recommend you do. We covered all the bases in terms of animal-based living, why meat is so beneficial and why plants are toxic. In part two, we cover everything we didn't talk about, like fruit, the right fruit to eat, when and why, and then we covered the

Seed oils, why they are so harmful and how much we're eating on average every single day, how to avoid them in public, how to order at restaurants, what to buy at grocery stores. The oils we should be cooking in,

in our homes and it's not what you would think. Why having elevated LDL cholesterol isn't actually as harmful as we think and why it's a myth and what Paul thinks about Bloom Greens. Everyone was asking and he did answer. So keep listening to find out guys. And I believe we have a discount code for you in the description. So check that out. And as usual, it helps me out so, so much when you subscribe to the show and leave a review. Hope you guys enjoy part two.

Talk to you soon. On the topic of fruit, I have some questions for you because while experimenting with this diet, there's a couple of things I'm unsure about. For example, tomatoes, avocados,

plantains. I know you're very particular with fruits. So what fruits are okay? Is there a particular season you'll eat them in? How do you go about that? Yeah, that's a great question. So when we think about fruit, just to help people understand the framework, fruit is the part of a plant that plants want us to eat if we can anthropomorphize. We have them as mostly colorful. They usually change from green to a color when they're ripe. Not always, but often.

You know that when you go to the store and you see the green bell peppers, those are kind of unripe and they turn to red or orange when they ripen. Like plants are giving us a signal, this is ripe. And we see that in those fruits, many times plants will put defense chemicals, which decline as the fruit ripens. The plant is really saying like, wait, wait, wait, it's not ready. Don't eat this. A green banana, different in terms of anti-nutrients and defense chemicals than a yellow banana. And it makes sense, right? A green banana tastes like crap. And this movement to like eat green bananas and green mangoes makes no sense. Like,

We can talk about resistant starch and why I think that whole thing is misguided, but like a ripe mango tastes a hundred times better than a green mango. Like you can't debate this.

So plants are giving us a signal that they want us to eat the fruit. And this is kind of this synergy between animals, humans, and plants. Hey, eat this fruit. A mango seed is obviously too big to eat. And then the seed will end up somewhere else. It'll get moved around or you'll poop the seed out somewhere else. Because plants want to be spread. Plants want to be spread. Or the plant is going to put so many seeds in something like a strawberry that you're not going to be able to destroy all of them in your mouth. This kind of thing, right? And so the idea is that, in general, fruit is clearly the least toxic part of plants.

relative or in contradistinction to things like leaves and stems and seeds and even roots. And those are the parts I think people should be most careful of. Leaves like spinach or kale, roots like white potatoes especially are problematic for people. But even within the family of fruits, there are some fruits from a family called nightshade, which

have immunologic issues for people. So not even all fruits are probably that good for people. And we know this because there are not, some fruits in the wild are just poisonous to humans or you can't eat everything. And so tomatoes are one of those fruits because they're part of this nightshade family that also includes white potatoes, eggplant,

Goji berries are actually in the nightshade family. These tend to cause, may cause autoimmune issues for some people. I think they cause autoimmune issues for me. Manifest differently in all people, whether it's acne or for me, my low back just gets kind of tight. And I think, oh, that's weird. Like, why does my little back feel tight now? And this is probably because of lectins, something that's been in the nutritional zeitgeist for almost a decade now. They're carbohydrate binding proteins in

all foods, but plant lectins appear to be most immunogenic or more highly immunogenic for humans. And white potatoes, things like tomatoes have more of these lectins, so it can cause issues. Tomatoes, if you remove the skin and the seeds, that gets rid of some lectins. Isn't that what Italians do? Supposedly, yeah. Okay. Yeah, when you make the tomato sauce. But even with that,

Personally, my experience, which is just my N of one, is that even a tomato sauce that I made from no skin and no seeds seems to trigger my... Are you Italian? I am. I feel like Saladino is very Italian. Yeah, my father's from Sicily. But you still don't react well to tomatoes? I don't. Interesting. So kind of in my head was like maybe ancestrally someone from that region would...

be okay with tomatoes. I also have genetics from my mom, German and Irish, and it's so complicated at that level. Yeah. I'm from the UK and I feel like tomatoes probably aren't the best for me. Maybe not, but you could include them or exclude them and see and do that kind of intentionally and follow the signal. What specific fruits do you consume? So in Costa Rica, I'm doing a lot of tropical fruit because it's there. And the nice thing about being in Costa Rica is I have a very clear signal to what's in season because I just get my fruit at a farmer's market. We don't import a lot of fruit in Costa Rica. And when I'm

in the grocery store, which I rarely go to. I just go to farmer's markets for my fruit because I like the community aspect of it. You can see, oh, there's blueberries. And I'm thinking, there's no blueberries in Costa Rica. Like, first of all, they're sprayed with a ton of pesticides or, oh, there's grapes. There's no grapes in Costa Rica that I'm aware of. Correct me if I'm wrong, anyone listening. But you can tell there's not a lot of apples in Costa Rica. So there are some oranges. Obviously there's banana, mango, guanabana, which is a special type of fruit in Costa Rica. There's things like mamey, whatever, mamonchinos, which are like rambutans, papaya,

kind of like lychees, all kinds of tropical fruit that people may not have here. So when I'm in the States, I like to eat what's seasonal here. So right now, it's actually enjoyable to be in Los Angeles because I love cherries. And then peaches are in season and apricots are in season and oranges are kind of going out of season and bananas are coming from another part of the world. So

I think there's probably some wisdom to eating more locally and eating what's in season. It's just that when you go to a grocery store, you need to have a little more awareness of what is from the actual region-ish where you are. I imagine in the Central Valley, they're growing cherries in California and this kind of thing. But you asked about avocados earlier too. So avocados are a fruit. They're probably fine for most people. Plantains are, you know, they're probably fine. Plantains are a little more fibrous and I think they're better cooked. Obviously, most people are going to cook the plantains anyway. And

If someone has oxalate issues, plantains have a moderate amount of oxalates. It's one of the fruits that has more oxalates. Kiwis also have a significant amount of oxalates, usually around the seeds that are protecting the seeds. And bananas and plantains are interesting because there's lots of little seeds in there that we don't see because of the way we've hybridized them.

I'm going to jump to seed oils if that's okay. I reposted one of your videos the other day in regards to switching from olive oil, avocado oil to beef tallow and ghee or butter, which I actually had done already because my naturopath recommended it. And I feel great. I think it tastes great.

Me reposting that caused an uproar. Like I got phone calls from my husband's mom, from Fee's mom, from... No, seriously, people freaked out. Oh my God, what do you mean? I thought avocado oil was great. So everyone's freaking out because I just managed to convince my husband's mom to get rid of the margarine. And she switched to olive oil and I was like very happy with that. And now she's like, what do you mean I have to switch again?

Can you tell us why it's so important to switch? What was wrong with that, with cooking in olive oil and avocado oil? So the first thing to say is that avocado and olive are better than seed oils. They're from a fruit. So they're fruit oils. Because, you know, to make olive oil, and I was just in Greece, so it's like the home of olive oil, you take the olives and you just press them.

There's no refining, bleaching, deodorization. There's a great video on YouTube of how they make canola oil, which is rapeseed oil. I've seen it. It's disgusting. It's disgusting. I actually went to a full course on how canola oil is made. What? Oh yeah, I went to a course and I left being like disgusted and I made like a PSA on my social. This was three years ago because it looks like tar.

It's like black. I need to go to that course. Oh yeah, it was fantastic. That's great. Okay, I'm going to go to that course and like do some combat journalism or something. They're not even going to know I'm there. I'm going to put a mustache on and like sneak into the canola oil. It's Paul Saladino. Don't tell anyone. All the seed oil companies are going to find out on this video that I'm coming to your course and I'm going to sabotage you. But so seed oils are from the seed of a plant, whether it's a grapeseed or a sunflower seed or a soybean, which is a seed or a corn grain, which is

seeds or corn, canola, sunflower, safflower, soybean, grapeseed oils. And these oils are much higher in linoleic acid than animal fats and then the fruit oils. So olive oil, avocado oil, better than seed oils. And I'm making that distinction in terms of number one, the way that they're produced and the amount of linoleic acid in the oil. So the problem with the seed oils, just to make sure people understand this, is that the refining, the bleaching, the deodorization creates a

oxidation in the oils and breaks down the oil and creates a lot of problems with the oil. And there are residues from the production of the oil in the oil. They're an industrial byproduct, essentially, originally used in the late 1800s, early 1900s as machine lubricants. They're not really meant for human consumption, but I think it was Procter & Gamble in 1911 made Crisco and figured out they could sell people this garbage. And we've probably gone down a really negative path since then. So seed oils versus fruit oils versus animal fat.

Animal fat has a significantly lower amount of linoleic acid than any of those. 2%, 1% to 2% linoleic acid in animal fats. The animal fats from ruminants being tallow, ghee, and butter, much lower linoleic acid. 2%, 1%. Olive oil, avocado oil, 10% to 15%, up to 20% linoleic acid. Canola oil, 25%. Soybean oil, 45%. Grape seed oil, 55% linoleic acid.

So if we believe that this 18 carbon omega-6 polyunsaturated fat linoleic acid is a problem for humans, then we want to limit it. And I believe that to be true. And that's kind of the paradigm with seed oil. So olive oil and avocado less. But the problem with olive and avocado is that they are number one, they still have a significant amount of linoleic acid. And number two, they're such a big business that they're often fake. There's a recent study that

which is almost an expose. I mean, I think like 60, 70% of the avocado oil was tainted or oxidized. Tainted with what? Tainted with seed oils. Oh, wow. To like fill it up. You guys know I've been really focused on my stress and nervous system lately. Everything I can do to have a more calm life and really...

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Available wherever you get your podcasts. So olive oil has to be in a dark glass bottle and cold pressed and extra virgin. And organic. And organic. And that's still okay to use on a salad, even though I know you're anti-salad. Never heat it. If you're going to use it raw, it's okay. Never heat it. Okay, never heat it. Yeah. And what's happening to our bodies when we intake seed oil? So this is interesting. We accumulate it and we specifically accumulate that linoleic acid.

The human body can interconvert saturated fats and monounsaturated fats. A saturated fat is a chain of carbons with no double bonds between the carbons. There's a molecule on the end. There's a few atoms on the end that are not just carbons, but essentially it's a chain of carbons. A monounsaturated fat has one double bond in the whole chain, and these are 18, 16, 20 carbon chains.

And polyunsaturated fats have multiple double bonds. And the omega designation says, where is the first double bond from the end of the molecule? So omega-3 means the first double bond is three carbons from the end. Omega-6 means the first double bond is six carbons from the end. That's just what omega-3 versus omega-6 means. It's nomenclature for fatty acids.

So omega-6 fatty acids appear to be very problematic for humans because they have multiple double bonds. Omega-3s are also very unstable, but omega-6 are what are most pervasive in the supply chain, in the food supply, because of these processed oils. So historically, evolutionarily, for our 500,000 years as homo sapiens, we never had access to large sources of linoleic acid.

You could eat a few nuts maybe if you were starving, but there are a lot of work to get them. And do you have any idea, it was really interesting for me to do the research, how much corn is needed to make five tablespoons of corn oil, which is the equivalent of the average consumer's consumption every day in the United States. So if you look at seed oils, the average American eats five to seven tablespoons of seed oils a day. So how much corn would someone have to eat to get five tablespoons of corn oil? How many cobs? 60 to 90. Cobs? Yeah.

60 to 90 cobs in three tablespoons. Five, three to five, yeah. That's insane. So we'd never get this, right? You would never get that much linoleic acid. You can do the same calculation with soybeans. You can do the same calculation with grapeseeds. You can do the same calculation with canola or sunflower. I mean, I think it's two to three, it's like two plus pounds of sunflower seeds. They get five tablespoons of sunflower. Oh my God, I'm so triggered right now.

I was already anti-seed oils and now I'm just terrified. We would never have gotten this. We threw Chipotle under the bus. Maybe three tablespoons of rice bran oil. Do these businesses just hate you, by the way? I mean, I've had people warn me about these things. I'm sure they hate me. But interestingly, Chipotle's awakening and perhaps shifting their oil, which is interesting. Yeah, we can talk about that.

I don't know if that had anything to do with me going in there, but they kicked us out when we were filming, which is always the best part. They're like, you can't film in here. So Chipotle uses rice bran oil and they use about three tablespoons in one serving of a bowl or a burrito.

So to get three tablespoons of rice bran oil, you would have to eat something like two pounds of brown rice, three pounds of rice with the bran, like two pounds of what the heck? Well, you'd never do that. The point is it's an evolutionarily inconsistent amount of linoleic acid when it's 1% in tallow and then it's 55% in grapeseed oil. So if you look at the amount of linoleic acid in human adipose tissue in our fat, it's gone up steadily in the last 50 to 70 years since we've been measuring it.

it. And adipose tissue is really the only reliable indicator because we store linoleic acid. So your original question is, why is linoleic acid bad? Because we store it. Because it accumulates in our cells and our membranes and in our skin, which is really important for anyone that is in the sun, men or women. And that's a problem because we can't get rid of it easily. If you or anyone listening to this stops eating seed oils today, it takes two years for

to completely turn over, based on the best pharmacokinetic studies we have of cell membranes and adipose tissue depots, it takes two years to turn over all that and go back to whatever level you're eating. That was my next question. How long is it in the system? Essentially two years. This is why I'm so intense. I'm speaking to everyone who hangs out with me, why I'm so intense about asking what's in the things I order, because I know how long it's going to be in my system. We were just out for a birthday dinner for my lovely assistant Fi at a steakhouse,

and everyone ordered their steaks and I said may I ask what this steak is cooked in and the waiter told me I was like is it cooked in butter that was my request and he was like I'll go check with the chef amazing comes back and tells me that the chef said it's cooked at such a high heat that it has to be cooked in vegetable oil what and he's able to finish it off with butter and I said first of all you're wrong I didn't say that I said that my head I'm too I'm too polite to say that out loud I

I would have brought my own tallow. I would have preferred to have brought my own tallow and said, please make it in this. Do you want to throw the restaurant under the bus? And I know a lot of chefs prefer corn fed meat because it tastes better and they prefer vegetable oil. But to me, it's just not worth it to have that one meal and have that be in my system for two years. What was the name of the restaurant on Abbot Kinney that we went to? A lot of the seed oil stuff gets flagged. Instagram doesn't like it.

Wow. Greenleaf. It was Greenleaf. Oh, Greenleaf's full of seed oils. They cook their steaks in canola oil. I'm sorry, Greenleaf. I love you guys, but you got to stop cooking in seed oils. You got to cook in tallow and you'll get a million. It would be a fantastic restaurant if they just removed the seed oils. But most places I go to with steaks, they do not cook in seed oils. So the meat on ocean doesn't use seed oils. I've gone all over LA asking this because I go out to dinner sometimes and I don't want to have the things. I went to Boa. I don't think they cook in seed oils in the steaks because I'm not paying...

$80 for a steak. It's marked up like crazy and have them cooked in seed oils. For everyone around the country listening, whether they live in Kansas, Florida, LA, what's the best way to avoid seed oils when you eat out or when you're traveling? My friend has an app called Seed Oil Scout.

I have it. Yeah, okay, yeah. You know about it. So it's really cool. We actually went and I met the guy that built this. No affiliation, no financial connection with him at all. Just a really great guy. And I went to Hearth, a restaurant in New York City that's very forward thinking with regard to this. It's like Waze. It's like this crowdfunding, crowdsourcing of no seed oils. But you can just ask to like get, be militant and do guerrilla warfare in restaurants. Because if enough people ask at restaurants, then restaurant owners are going to wise up. And it's not...

The restaurant doesn't need, a lot of them will just flame boil or they'll cook the steaks on a grill. You don't have to do much. And if they're going to cook it on a flat top, just put tallow on the flat top and you're great. But if a restaurant says they cook in tallow, you have to be careful and say, is it just tallow? Yeah. Because I've been to some places, we went to Smashburger and they said they cooked the fries in tallow. And I was like, oh, this is great tallow fries. I'm not a fan of potatoes, but if you wanted to eat fries, fries cooked in tallow would be great. And some amazing person in my audience actually emailed their PR department and said, actually, it's a mixture of canola and tallow.

Kind of defeats the whole purpose. It does defeat the whole purpose. It sounds better if they say tallow for marketing. You know, McDonald's used to cook their french fries in tallow. No. Oh, yes, I did know that. Until 1990. Is it because, like, is tallow more expensive now? It's much more expensive. Okay. It's become kind of like a fancy health food. It's becoming a fancy health food and you have to grow a cow to make tallow and there's fields of rapeseeds in Canada. So canola is Canadian oil low acid. That's an acronym. There's no canola plant. It's just a Canadian sort of PSYOP.

in my opinion, to get rid of all the rape seeds, which they can grow in Canada. And there's also great evidence that all of these rape plants, these Canadian oil loac, these canola plants, are really destroying bee populations in Canada and around the world because of the way that they're spraying them with pesticides and

moving the bees out of the area. So it's a big issue. Seed oils are problematic at every level. So I'll just finish the story about seed oils. Linoleic acid accumulates in membranes. And then because it's a polyunsaturated fat, I mean, this is basic organic chemistry that is much less stable. It oxidizes way more quickly and it causes the membranes to have to shift their fluidity. They need to do different things to manage the sort of fluidity of the membrane. And then it just

causes membranes to break down more easily and more quickly over time. So acutely, seed oils don't cause inflammation, but in the long term, they cause lots of problems for humans because of this membrane structure. So every cell in your body has a membrane. And your mitochondria, which are little power factories inside the cells, have membranes. And all those membranes

yet full of linoleic acid. And they're always recycling and turning over, but it takes two years to get out of your system. And so it causes problems at the mitochondrial level, causes problems at the cellular signaling level, causes problems at the membrane level. And I think that there's good evidence now to say that

So we know basically every piece of the equation. We know that if you reduce the amount of linoleic acid in your body, that reduces basically bioactive metabolites of linoleic acid associated with inflammation. Things like 4-HNE, they have these fancy names. And we know that if you have more linoleic acid, there's more linoleic acid in your membranes and you get more of these things in your body over time. So it's a real problematic thing. But I'll tell you this because people are going to respond to this. The reason the Western medical system likes seed oils...

is because they lower LDL. They lower cholesterol. - Western doctors are a fan of seed oils. - Yes, you can find it on Harvard websites. I mean, we were just, when we were in Greece, we were looking at the Harvard Mediterranean diet pyramid. On the Harvard Mediterranean diet pyramid, in a paper published by Walter Willett, it says, "Choose vegetables

vegetable oils, canola. They also say olive, which is great if it's organic and all the things we talked about, but probably not as the only oil. But they say choose canola oil, choose vegetable oils over animal fats. That's on the Harvard. Why does this divide happen? Like at what point are doctors being told that that's a healthier option? Because we're using the wrong metrics, right? We have the wrong goalposts.

If the goalpost is lower your LDL as much as possible, then it looks like canola is better for you. But if you realize that there are great studies which show that if you lower the amount of LDL in your body...

or at least in circulation with a seed oil, you also increase the amount of oxidized LDL and LP little a, which is a marker for cardiovascular disease. LDL is essentially, there's a type of LDL called LP little a, which is highly associated with cardiovascular disease. The whole lipid conversation is very complex and nuanced, but just suffice it to say at a high level that lowering LDL, I think is clearly not the best metric for cardiovascular disease.

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You have super high LDL, correct? It used to be very high. It's actually not that high anymore. It's funny. LDL fluctuates a lot. So the last time I checked my LDL, it was 160. I think I've even had one recently that was 139 milligrams per deciliter, which is above the reference range. If I went to a doctor, most might recommend that I go on a statin.

I'm 46 years old. I have a father with a history of heart disease. But what I think most doctors are missing is that my HDL is high, my triglycerides are low, my fasting insulin is low. So this myopic focus on LDL to me is so misguided. It's a very poor predictor of cardiovascular disease. And again, I don't want to get too technical in the LDL discussion, but I think the evidence that LDL is directly injurious to the endothelium of human arteries is not there. It's just bullshit. Right.

People will say ApoB. ApoB is just a fancy name for LDL and a few other particles in our circulation that are lipoproteins that contain the ApoB lipoprotein, chylomicrons, VLDL. But essentially, ApoB is talking about LDL as well. So I don't worry about an LDL in someone that is metabolically healthy, meaning a fasting insulin less than five micro IU per ml. How would you measure that? A continuous glucose monitor? Oh, no, you can just get a blood test. Oh, maybe $25 for a fasting insulin check.

So just to summarize everything you said. Everything. Not everything. Just in terms of the cholesterol for everyone listening, we shouldn't be worried about high LDL because I think a lot of people, when you say you're eating an animal-based diet or you eat a lot of eggs or something, that's the first response is what about your cholesterol? It's a very interesting question and it's

predicated on this notion that LDL is directly causing atherosclerosis. And I think that's false. And I think that there are other nuanced things to be aware of. Your metabolic health, get a fasting insulin, all these kind of things. So I don't worry about LDL in someone that is metabolically healthy. And I don't think a

a food that might raise your LDL 20% is problematic if it also improves your metabolic health and your insulin sensitivity. Does that make sense? Yes. I'll just say this for people. So my point is really clear. My position is clear. I don't worry about people eating red meat. Even if it's a diabetic, I don't worry about them eating red meat because the nutrients in the red meat and the red meat is not making you more insulin resistant. The red meat is not worsening your diabetes. Right. Red meat is only helping your diabetes. And if you get rid of the seed oils, which I think are the major cause of your diabetes and maybe

other garbage you're eating that are damaging your gut and increasing cortisol, I think you're putting yourself in the right direction.

Greg and I order our meat from Force of Nature for the most part. I love them. Yeah. What would you recommend for people who maybe don't have access to an Erewhon or a local farm? Where should they get high quality meat? Force of Nature is great. They do all the different animals. I know the guy who runs it personally. He's a friend of mine, Robbie Sansom. And they source from Rome Ranch part of their meat, which is a farm in Texas. There's a great farm in Georgia. White Oak Pastures does good stuff. There's a farm outside of Austin called Shirttail Creek.

If you just look online, there's all sorts of these regenerative farms popping up. And if people want to find raw milk, there's a website called realmilk.com, I believe. And that is actually a website. It's kind of like a Google map of where you can find raw milk in any city in the U.S.,

California is nice because raw milk is illegal and it's sold in grocery stores. Here in LA, you can get it at Sprouts, you can get it at Rainbow Acres. What is it called? - Rainbow Acres, yeah. - Yeah, yeah. And you can get it at Erewhon. But other places I go, like when I was in Arizona, I go to realmilk.com, I have to find the raw milk. Some states it's illegal. I'm sorry, guys, you live in the wrong state, you should move. But if you can't get raw milk where you are because it's illegal, raw cheese is illegal almost everywhere.

Okay. And how about organs? I was telling you off, Mike, I've been on my organ journey. I swallow a chunk of frozen liver every morning. You said you already had it today. I had it today. I feel amazing. And I will say I was telling my friends that when I swallow it, it hits my throat and I just taste blood. It's disgusting. But...

The benefits just outweigh it for me. I just feel so much more energy and just it's this feeling of being alive. It sounds dramatic, but... It's true. So what's interesting is I have a niece and a nephew. They're five and three. And...

What I've seen with kids is that if you give them liver early, they love it. It's like their favorite food. I've had friends and family or people that have contacted me on social media who give liver to their six month old. It's often a first food. It's a great first food. Again, sourcing matters. The quality of the sourcing is important. And if you give a child liver, they will kind of grow up with the taste and appreciate it. If you don't give a kid liver by the time they're two or three, they're just, they've had so many other things on their palate that are

not like liver in any way, shape or form that it's going to be difficult and you have to undo it. I didn't like liver when I first tried it. I probably first had liver

10 years ago and I pretty much gagged. Right. And so it takes time and you can hide it in a smoothie. I built a company called Heart and Soil, which makes desiccated organ capsules. And we're actually putting this desiccated organs in the smoothie I'm doing with Erewhon. No way. Yeah, yeah. It has the beef organs in the capsule. I'm really curious to see how people are going to react to this. Well, I'll tell you, I mean, come Friday. I'll come. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%. I'm excited to see how people react to it too. But so there are ways to get organs. You know, with Heart and Soil, you can get organs in a desiccated capsule to start. And it's so funny as I was in

I was in San Diego and I met a woman there who said, I was at a rock gym and she just came up to me and said, your stuff really helped me. I was a vegan. And the first thing I did was started taking the organ capsules from hardened soil to get the animal foods back in my diet. And that was really cool. And then she was able to kind of gradually incorporate the meat and stuff. So there are ways to get organs.

But I feel like the heart and soil pills are probably a great first step for people who can't mentally even look at it. We have some really cool ones. So we have a capsule that's beef organs. So it's a bunch of the organs. But we have one for women that has ovaries and uterus and fallopian tubes.

And that's kind of interesting. That one is called Her Package. We have one for men that has testicle in it. Wow. And that one is probably our best sell. I've eaten testicle with liver king actually. Really? Not to flex, but. That's a pretty good flex. Are you guys friends? Yeah, we're good friends. So I would regret not asking. Obviously we're at the Bloom office. We sell greens. I think you know that. I'm not going to be offended. I just want to hear your take. So I think that, like I said, there are nutrients in plant foods, right?

I don't know exactly what's in bloom. My concern would be that some people are sensitive to certain leaves. Yeah. And that can be problematic, right?

And that if you don't have a problem with it, great. Combining bloom with hardened soil could be a lot of nutrients. Oh, I love that response. You know, combining bloom with the capsules from hardened soil, you get a lot of great nutrients. Or combining bloom with liver or meat, that's great. If you don't have a reaction to it, that's kind of how I feel about everything. Look, like vegetables are not public enemy number one, in my opinion. I think that for people who are struggling and are really dialed in, can't quite figure things out.

then they should look at vegetables and they should look at mushrooms and they should look at the nuance. But if you're really kicking ass and you're eating some kale every once in a while or you're eating some broccoli, it's fine. It's not the worst thing in the world. Seed oils are probably enemy number one, but if I had to rank them, in my mind, it's like seed oils, processed food in general, which has a lot of fillers and carrageenan and gums and artificial colors, artificial sweeteners, artificial flavors, like the artificial colors. And what I'm learning more and more is that processed food

adds a lot of things to the food that are problematic. It just results in a bunch of excipients, which are binders and things like this, like silicon dioxide, which we know triggers inflammation in the gut. Or you get things like hexane, or you get things like heavy metals occurring in the foods when you process it too much.

That's the main issue for people. The gums, the seed oils, like the things that get added to processed food. Right. For a lot of people, it's possible to eat vegetables from time to time or moderate amounts and not have issues. Yeah. What I want people to know is if you have issues and they're not being solved, then think about the vegetables and think about kale. Think about spinach, which is high in oxalates. But look, like if you want to, I think you can even ferment your vegetables and that makes them less problematic.

So cabbage, for instance, that's a brassica. That's like in the same family as kale, which I'm not a huge fan of because it has a compound that inhibits iodine absorption level thyroid. We know this from science. But if you ferment the cabbage and make sauerkraut, most of those are gone and you can get different flavor. I mean, people need variety and spice in their life. Yeah. And the way I like to think of it also is kind of like a bridge to wellness. When I started Bloom, it was because I was on the far end of the spectrum eating muffins every day, living a super unhealthy lifestyle. And I wanted something that would take me

to that healthier lifestyle. And I think sometimes if you can have something that you can incorporate every day and tastes good, it just takes you to that next level where you can start learning more about your body. - I know a lot of people that eat significant amounts of vegetables and they're super healthy. Think about how you cook them. Obviously think about organic and the pesticide residue on the vegetables. I think if I had to think about plant foods, vegetables is kind of this idea that it's the non-fruit part of a plant. I think grains are probably the most problematic thing for humans.

The grains being the oats.

the wheat, that kind of stuff. And then probably nuts and seeds are also problematic for humans. So if you were going to get something out, think about those first. And then the leaves, probably less problematic. And then the roots, some people have problems with white potatoes, sweet potatoes, probably not the worst thing in the world for some people, but people react to all kinds of things. But people also react to eggs in all fairness. Some people react to egg whites because of the albumin. So it's not, you know, it's not to say that animal foods are this, some holy thing that doesn't cause problems for anyone. I've had people who react to beef and I think,

okay, you need to eat lamb. It's just helping people navigate and understand that a lot of the foods we've been told are healthy, seed oils, things like this, and even vegetables are not great for all people.

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For someone who's listening who might be intimidated by an extreme lifestyle, like they're too intimidated to go full into carnivore, what is a key takeaway you hope they have from this conversation?

I think that it's just that the first step in my mind is get rid of the processed foods. And that's been said so many times. I always struggle with how do you say that in a way that actually lands for something? Maybe it's by describing the problems with the processed foods or what it does to them. Or I could just say something like, you know, I think getting rid of the processed foods will improve and potentially completely reverse so many of the chronic issues people have. And like even mental health issues get better when people improve the quality of their diet, depression, anxiety,

that's autoimmune too. That's neuroinflammation. So the spectrum is broad and there's so much hope for people who suffer from so many things. And just getting rid of the processed foods means if you're just eating vegetables and fruit and meat, that's a great diet. That's a fantastic diet. Increase the quality of the foods in your diet. That's the first step. And you will eliminate the seed oils. People have to understand that it's those ingredients and the seed oils and these little things sneaking into the processed foods that are problematic for them. So

I think that's kind of the high level. Like you don't have to get that extreme about it. You don't have to cut out all those things. You can, there's a lot of on-ramps. Start with seed oils. Start with processed foods. Go from there. Start with eating more meat, not fearing meat. Start with eating organs. Those three, those four things alone will massively change someone's health and they'll be able to feel it.

And I hope they'll get the feedback and think, "Wow, I do feel better." Even if it's a woman or a man who's fearing eating meat or bringing it back in their diet. You don't have to go full in. And the verbiage is a little complex for people, so I'll just clarify this. When I started doing this, I did carnivore, which was only meat and organs and fat for a year and a half. That actually didn't work well for me because of the electrolyte issues that came with ketosis.

I've tried to talk about this term called animal-based, which is meant to be positioned in contradiction to plant-based so that you have some plants in your diet, but it's mostly animal-based. That's what I think of as fruit and raw milk and maybe even a sweet potato or something. That's like a little more in that sort of middle ground. Hopefully there's something there that can...

be an on-ramp to someone. I'll need to have you on for a part two because I have questions about keto as well, but I'll save that for next time. Now it's time for the question we ask every guest. I started this podcast because I believe everyone's pursuit of wellness looks different. What does wellness mean to you? It means getting up after having slept really well,

And feeling good and feeling happy and excited to do things in the world, whether it's interact with nature and spend time with friends, you know, do quote work that brings value to people's lives. It's having the energy, the mental fortitude, the mental clarity and the zeal and the enthusiasm to live life well and do things that I find valuable.

Fantastic. I love that answer. Where can people find you and Heart and Soil online? So Heart and Soil is at heartandsoil.co. And I am at Paul Saladino, MD, like medical doctor everywhere on all the platforms. You used to be Carnivore MD. I did. Why did you let that go? So we rebranded it because I wanted to be...

Not as dogmatic. Right. You know, I have good friends here who are the minimalists. You know the minimalists? Yeah. And they were saying, I think they thought that carnivore MD would turn people off. Right. It might scare people away before they get to know what you're actually talking about. Right. And that was why I wanted to just add clarification to when you were saying carnivore. Because I think when you say carnivore...

probably your male audience goes, yeah, I want to be a carnivore. My 5%. And the females go, I don't want to be a carnivore. Exactly. Right. Exactly. I really prefer this approach. And I think people will actually get to hear the full story and get the full picture. Exactly. Because I really think it benefits women as well. I mean, so Heart and Soil is an amazing group of people now. I'm so glad. I'm so...

proud of what we've done. They're in Austin. They're outside of Austin in Dripping Springs and they've been doing a lot of film projects and they did a film called Nourished. It's on YouTube. So Hardened Soil has a YouTube channel and it's all about sort of animal products and women's fertility and it's incredible. There's a midwife on there, Lindsay Melas. We have this scene in there where she looks at two different placentas and one of them is from someone who's eating meat and one of them is from someone who's vegetarian and it's

The difference is really striking. Wow. And I hear this from midwives, and this isn't really my world, but I hear midwives say all the time that vegetarian placentas, especially vegan placentas, look like smokers' placentas. And I think this has got to hit women in the ovaries. And men too, but especially women who want to conceive or have had kids. That is very striking to me that animal foods shouldn't be feared. It's just a healthier human lifestyle.

when you're eating animal foods. That's insane. Yeah. And so there's a documentary on that on YouTube called Nourished from Heart and Soil. It's amazing. What's your demographic split, if you don't mind me asking? You know, it's changing, which is really encouraging. It used to be like 70% men. And I think my brand manager was just telling me it's like 60% men now. So we've

That's pretty good. So it's like 60. So to have 40% women listening to me talk about meat and liver is incredible. I think this will help as well. I hope so. Because we were talking about linoleic acid accumulating. Yeah. And I think your audience of women will appreciate the fact that one of the things I worry about most with linoleic acid and seed oils is it accumulating in the skin. And so this goes back to sun fearing, right? And...

You think about what is in some quote healthy sunscreens contain seed oils. Yep. So just like you don't want to eat a seed oil, you don't want to put a seed oil on your skin. Like sunflower seed oil. Like sunflower seed oil. I've seen that in a ton of products. And you can look at the ingredients of your face care products or your personal care products. And this is complex, but you can actually search the amount of linoleic acid in various oils. I'm actually building a skincare brand and

So, I was doing some research on this. I think it's argan oil is actually pretty high in linoleic acid. Wow. And that ends up in a lot of skincare. Carrot seed oil is very high in linoleic acid. Raspberry seed oil is very high in linoleic acid. A lot of times they're low on the list, but the goal is to create skincare with very little linoleic acid. Are you going to do beef tallow skincare? Yeah, yeah. No way. No way. Have you seen the clip of Paul rubbing beef tallow on his face?

It's iconic. I feel like that blew up for you, didn't it? Yeah, yeah. People are... People were shocked. Yeah, and it's amazing. I was tempted. I'm just so scared. I'm so scared of messing my skin up. Yeah.

I get it. Like, I don't think it will. It's not really comedogenic. Let me try the raw dairy. Yeah. I'll get back to you and then I'll try the beef tallow. You can put it on your skin, you know, beef tallow. Yeah. Like your arm or something or your shoulder. Hand moisturizer. Yeah, it's definitely moisturizing for your hands. I mean, we're going to mix. It's not going to be all tallow, but it's going to be tallow based because we like the animal fats. Yeah. And probably a little bit of MCT oil in there too, but just for texture because you want it to absorb. Right. And that's tricky. But the thing is that don't put seed oils on your skin. Right.

and realize that if you're eating seed oils, your skin is more susceptible to aging. So that's what I really want women to know because I know that women think about that. Some men think about that, but not as many. So you think about this face and this whole body that you have, and if you're eating seed oils, you are feeling every cell membrane in your body, including your dermis and all of your epidermal, everything facing the sun,

with seed oils. That's a problem. And I think that, you know, it's funny because I was talking to Lauren and she has this book, you know, Get the Fuck Out of the Sun. And I was like, we have to talk about this, but we didn't have a full conversation. I think sun is valuable for humans in moderate doses. And I don't want people to fear the sun because of vitamin D and the nitric oxide and the endorphins. There are things produced in the sun that are not produced when you take a vitamin D capsule. And

the lights and the circadian rhythms, we need sun on our face, on our eyes and our skin, all these things. And I don't want women to fear that. And I think the way to make your skin resilient and healthy for as long as possible is to eat a very low linoleic acid diet because you think it's in every cell in your body.

Love that. Yeah, that's an important piece. Thank you for adding that. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Go comment on my last Instagram at Mari Llewellyn with the guest you want to see next. I'll be picking one person from the comments to send our bloom greens to. Make sure you hit follow so you never miss my weekly episodes. If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to share and leave a review. See you next week.

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