Exploring Ancestral Diets with Dr. Bill Schindler: Eat Like a Human

for most of the people that are eating ancestrally um eating a carnivore the reasons that they're making those

decisions the reasons are exactly the same reason that somebody's deciding to go vegan they're trying to improve their

health they're trying to they care about the planet they they care about all of these things so I think we have more in

common than we than we don't welcome back to another episode of the Peak Performance Life podcast today

we have a great topic we have the author of a book called eat like a human his name is Dr Bill Schindler and in this

book he is an archaeologist and A Primitive technologist who draws on cuttingedge science and a lifetime of

research to explain how safety nutrient density and bioavailability are the cornerstones of a healthy diet he shows

readers how to live like modern hunter gatherers by using the same strategies are ancestors use as well as techniques

still practiced by many cultures around the world to make food as safe nutritious bioavailable and delicious as

possible Dr Schindler thank you so much for joining us here today thank you so much for having me I'm looking forward

to the conversation yeah great well uh let's start out with a little bit of a

backstory kind of a brief history of how you got into the pro you know what what led you to write the book you know like

so many people that are probably listening to this uh food diet and health have always been important to me

and uh getting to the point where I was happy with my food and my diet and health was was a mystery to me for for

decades of my life and I and I had an incredibly unhealthy relationship with food for probably the first 30 years of

my life in a number of different ways and maybe we'll dive into some of that as we continue the conversation but like

so many other people I have tried just about every diet that's out there in order to not only um you know lose

weight and and look my best but more importantly to feel my best and and just to live my best life and none none of

them worked some of them were short-term fixes for different things but all but but none of them were ever lifetime

Solutions and it wasn't until I really started to rely on my archaeological work and anthropological work I I taught

archaeology and anthropology at the college level for for over 20 years um and all of my research turns out has

been in ancestral diets um and when I started to apply that information to our mind diet today everything about my

health transformed and then when I realized how powerful it was I implemented it and and made it a part of

our entire family me and my wife and I Christina and and we have three kids Billy brand and Alyssa and I've realized

how transformative was for our family so about four years ago uh our family opened up a restaurant called the modern

Sonage kitchen and we have a nonprofit called the food lab and between both of those entities together uh we are really

working towards not only nourishing the community but But continuing to conduct research all over the world with

indigenous and traditional groups and implementing what we learn into modern diets

today amazing amazing and so yeah I've seen some pictures traveling the world I don't know if that was your son with a

cup of milk and blood like that I seen your your your photos there so tell us a little bit

about that what what have you learned from you know studying traditional cultures and traveling the world like

that the number one thing and this is really important for everyone to understand uh you know and and my family

has been very fortunate to you know we've done everything we can to to make it to different places all over the

world and and and and meet people and learn from them and share food with them and cook with them uh the the thing that

we were able the number one thing we've learned is that humans are amazing like literally all over the world humans are

amazing and I think this is a very important thing uh especially you know in in today's political climate where we

have so much that's tearing us apart I I when we get past all of that nonsense and just meet real genuine people and

families and and communities we have always been so incredibly impressed with just humans and human nature and and you

know food was Central to everything that we that we were looking for to learn and food is a great way to learn about

people so I know that isn't directly related to diet but really it is I mean it is related to health for sure um I

would also say Dr Weston Price and his work has in the 1930s has really had a strong influence on on my work and the

way that I view food and diet and health and traditional cultures and all of that and everywhere that we've gone has just

reinforced what he um what he reported on animal sources of nutrients were the most you know are the most coveted they

are the safest they're the most nutrient-dense they are the most bioavailable um fat is in high quality

saturated fat is incredibly important no matter where we are and although I have been around a few people

who eat only animal in in most cases even in these traditional groups they're eating a lot of every different a lot of

different things but when it comes to vegetables when it comes to plants people are very selective about the

plants that they choose to include in their diets as far from a food perspective and they're always doing

something to that food to make it safer or more nutrient dense or or more bioavailable or or in many cases all

three at the same time the idea of just you know running out and grabbing a something you know a vegetable and

eating it raw is is not a thing you know it it is it is literally this is what we're going to Target this is how we're

going to process it and this is how we're going to consume it and all of the and that's across the board F the other

thing I think uh in every single case fermentation is at the core of every traditional diet around the world I have

never seen come across a diet that doesn't have fermentation at its core for a number of different reasons and

when I say fermentation I don't mean just making you know sauerkraut although sauerkraut is an amazing food uh you

know fermenting vegetables fermenting fruits fermenting alcohol fermenting meat fermenting Dairy fermenting all

sorts of things fermentation is uh at the core of so many of these diets and I really believe that um for people

dipping their foot into this world and trying to connect with their food at a deeper more meaningful level

fermentation is something that people can start implementing in their homes immediately in a very safe way and

you'll learn so much about microbes yourself your environment the past all of that at the same time it's an

incredible way to start that's super interesting yeah let's talk a little bit about that so I mean a lot of people

have probably heard okay fermenting yogurt or uh sauerkraut like you mentioned or kombucha or whatever but

you mentioned fermenting vegetables and fruits what does that look like well couple things so first of all as far as

vegetables are concerned uh every single and I know people have probably heard this you know over the past two years U

you know on repeat that plants are trying to kill you um plant plants do I will that's a little bit strong for for

my take but I will say PL every single plant on this planet has some level of toxin in it some of these toxins will

kill you some of these toxins will make you sick some of these toxins are not a very big deal um some of these toxins

will will not are not a very big deal right now but eating the same thing over and over again week after week month

after month year after year can cause all sorts of problems like oxalates for example but um plant all plants have

some level of toxin in them there's a number of different ways to mitigate the issues related to these toxins or in

some cases get rid of these toxins through different technological approaches fermentation is one of them

it doesn't work on all toxins but it does help in in in a lot of different ways fermentation of grains for example

is a powerful powerful tool so there is no need for grains in our diet whatsoever but if you're choosing to eat

grains things like Long Wild souro fermentation is creates a completely different food than the foods created

without doing it soaking sprouting nalizing those sorts of things are incredibly important sometimes with

plants it's things like drying or uh uh you know like I mentioned soaking there's a lot of different things you

can do with different plants to help detoxify them and make the nutrients in them in them more available

so fermentation is one of the tools in our ancestral tool kit to help make that happen got it got it and fruit and then

this is this is really really cool again there's no that I know of nutritional need for alcohol in our diets whatsoever

however one thing that's very interesting there there was a theory put out about a 20 years ago by an

anthropologist at University of California Berkeley it's called the Drunken Monkey

hypothesis and the idea is uh the suggestion is that every mammal in the world naturally seeks out alcohol and I

know everybody say what are they go into a liquor store no no you know when you have a a fruit a ripe fruit fall on the

ground it's covered with wild yeast it will spontaneously ferment and if anybody's never seen it I know

everybody's on the T Tik Tock thing now but if you go to Google and and Google drunk and monkey hypothesis and watch

videos of animals just drunk giraffes and and monkeys eating these these fruits and getting themselves drunk it's

actually quite hilarious but what does that mean for us well this part of the suggestion is and I wholeheartedly agree

with this two parts of plants that are typically low in toxin or toxin free are

flowers and fruits and that makes sense because in both cases they are the only parts of the plant there to attract

everything else is trying to repel and protect itself but a flower is trying to track like pollinator in pollinating

insects for example it's part of the reproductive cycle so it makes sense that they're beautiful and they smell

sweet and they taste good and they're not not not toxic some are but in most cases they're not fruit is another

example of this the role of a fruit is to attract animals to come and eat the fruit when the seeds are ripe to make

sure that the seeds go through the digestor track out that animal and get you know get deposited in a pile new or

somewhere else and then Sprout and you know it's the next generation of of the plant but that only works when the fruit

is completely ripe and if you look at all fruits unripe fruits have a level of toxin in them that is much higher than

what the ripe fruit has in it and in some cases there's no toxin At All by the time the fruit is ripe when the

fruit is unripe it is trying to protect itself it doesn't want those seeds to get eaten until they're absolutely

mature and this is the case for all sorts of wild fruits but it's also the case in the grocery store I mean if you

look at the toxin load of a green banana and I know people that are trying to eat less available sugars and and and lower

the carbohydrate intake believe that if they eat a green banana it's going to um you know somehow and it is it's less

sweet there's less available sugars in it um but it's not worth the risk of of eating it in the toxin Lo that you get

with it but as soon as the banana turns fully ripe the that toxin those toxins are now gone the fruit is ripe there's a

ton of sugar and the idea is that you're you know the plant wants you to eat it and then spread the seed somewhere else

so part of this Drunken Monkey hypothesis is suggesting and I think there's something to

this you it doesn't especially when you're talking about wild fruits it is very dangerous to eat unripe wild fruits

because if they're unripe they have the these toxin loads and a great example if anybody's from the east coast of North

America like I am a a wild Pimon is one of my favorite fruits on the plant it when it's ripe if you eat it too early

and I mean it could be two days too early you'll never eat one again it's h High stringent that sucks all the water

out of your mouth it's very very bad if you another local wild fruit around here is a pawpaw George Washington's favorite

dessert was a ripe paw paaw chilled and he would eat it during pawpaw season but an unripe if anybody's ever eaten an

unripe Paw Paw you're going to be on the toilet for three days because you have massive diarrhea it's it's it's toxic in

the unripe state it's not toxic in the ripe state so one way to be sure and this is part of that junk and humy

highis that that fruit is perfectly safe to eat is that when it already started

producing alcohol so when it already started producing alcohol by default it had to have gotten to the place where

all those sugars are now available and they're getting eaten by the yeast and then you can do it now again it might be

a little bit of a stretch I don't know but it is very interesting to think about all these different mechanisms

that have been you know that honed over millions of years of evolution that the people that did it right lived and had

babies and the people did it wrong got sick and and died and and and didn't have babies so that connection with our

senses and our food is is very very interesting there is nothing in nature that is truly sweet that is uh toxic and

to make sure that we've gotten to that sweet place again that alcohol might might be a part of it so I I don't know

where that leaves us but it is an interesting thing to at least Ponder well yeah that is interesting I hadn't

heard that especially about the banana I actually in my mind thought that uh more of a of a green kind of greenish

obviously if it's too greenish and you can't even open it it's it's it's too much but I thought was better than a

fully riped banana because you hear oh it has less sugar it has more Prebiotic fiber you know these are things that

you've heard over the years so this is the first time I'm hearing about it having a heavier toxic load so that

that's good to know I don't eat bananas very frequent is it is it an issue if you eat

one banana that's no but these are the kind of things you should keep in mind if you know if your go-to is a banana

shake every single morning with peanut butter and cir or something like this and you're doing this to yourself

repeatedly I mean first off in your right there's no the bananas that are in the grocery store bear no resemblance to

the wild ancestors that you know our ancestors were eating you know back in the day there's and they're way high

sugar yes absolutely but you know these tradeoffs that we we tell ourselves oh you know I don't want that high glycemic

index I don't want all that available sugar so I'm going to eat an unrip banana well there's other things to to

to consider I mean maybe we just shouldn't eat bananas at all it's probably the better the better

answer right you know it's interesting the ban one is the banan's like got to be super controversial there's like all

sorts of stuff about bananas being bad for blood sugar spikes and other stuff and then other people like no no the

potassium and the you know there there's a lot of back and forth about bananas and fruits in general uh you know

personally I don't know longtime listeners know my backstory I don't know if you do but be back in 2013 I had

massive pain and inflammation all throughout my fingers hands and arms uh I had experimented with different diets

such as trying the vegan diet and then I was going to sub and getting a foot long sandwich that had a little bit of

lettuce and carrot you know in a foot long of bread and eating that thinking I'm healthy because it's vegan and and

meanwhile I'm just inflaming my my body and and eating horrible stuff right so it didn't work out for me now again for

some people if if vegan does work for them and they do it a better way than I did and don't just eat bread and pasta

all day you know fine you know that's your that's your choice certainly but uh would love to talk about like what are

some of the things that you've seen when people eat like a human like book is is called and what are some of yeah like

let's talk a little bit about like the benefits of that and I want to eventually get into like what you eat

and and what the kind of diet is comprised of sure so when I say eat like a human uh I'm I'm certainly not

suggesting that there's any one diet that that that fits everyone uh for a variety of different reasons what I mean

when I say eating like a human is the following that we need to understand that when we started making tools to

process our food uh get different resources from our environment uh do things outside of our body to raw

materials before it ever enters our mouth we started down this path of literally self-domestication we

literally started um you know our bodies responded to this incredible safe nutrient-dense bioavailable nutrition

that we were creating and then putting into our mouths and our bodies and our brains grew over millions of years uh

but our digestive tract did not we what we did with these tools before the food before we ate it was so incredibly

powerful that our digestive tract didn't have to change in fact in proportion to our bodies it was actually shrinking our

teeth were actually shrinking the only few things that we have in our bodies that allow us to physically and

chemically break down food properly and then allow and then you know have those nutrients go the where they need to be

to help nourish our bodies those things were getting smaller and going away as our nutritional needs were skyrocketing

as our bodies our brains were getting larger until eventually at 300,000 years ago you get modern Homo sapiens like us

massive brains large bodies compared to our ancestors massive nutritional requirements so eating like a human

means recognizing the role that technology has played in our food and implementing those Technologies to

accomplish those three things you mentioned when you did that introduction and thank you by the way for the

introduction uh to make food safe nutrient dense and bioavailable and that's what the technological uh input

that our ancestors uh continued to create over millions of years did and then our diets changed our nutrients

changed our bodies responded and here we are as modern day Homo sapiens the problem is you know the food processing

for the majority of three and a half million years was all for the you know all I'm sure they were making mistakes

but in general it was pushing for that safety nutrient density and bioavailability and now food processing

today serves other purposes it serves other people to to make money or uh create shelf life in Foods or uniformity

in Foods or all these other things and not that some of those things are all that bad you know okay if people are

working really hard they want to make money great if people are trying to ship food in different places well maybe

there's something good about some of that isn't necessarily by itself inherently bad what's bad is they're

doing trying to accomplish those goals at the expense of things like safety nutrient density and bioavailability the

the very things that actually made our diets what they are that literally made us what we are so things like uh

recognizing the incredible role that animals played in our dietary past and making that the main stay of our diets

that's eating like a human doing things like uh fermentation or nalization or soaking or sprouting or drying or

grinding or geophagy all these other things that we did to make plant resources safe nutrient dense and

bioavailable implementing those into our diets and and that that's what I mean secondly so the role of Technology is

number one the most important part of understanding how to eat like a human number two the other thing that we need

to recognize is that food is ingrained in everything we are as humans food plays such a central role to everything

it isn't just you know being nourished meaning you get the the macro and Micron nutrients you need into your body that

doesn't suffice for humans that might suffice for a deer that might suffice for a rat that doesn't suffice for a

human because in order to be fully nourished as a human we need to recognize that food plays a central role

in our health in our religion in our emotions in our culture in our traditions in our politics and

everything so in order to be fully nourished we need to meet our uh nutrient needs our emotional

needs our cultural needs for some people religious needs what whatever all of those things together come come to

create a complete package of what nourishment is and we can't separate any of those they all have to come together

for you know whatever is important to you and I think those are the the two main parts of of what I mean when I say

eat like a human now for me I would say um I and I mentioned earlier our our biggest change from an evolutionary

perspective in body and brain size happened at about two million years ago where we jump in body and brain size

almost to Modern proportions and the biggest difference at that moment was we started hunting

we've had our diet for a million and a half years earlier but we started hunting about 2 million years ago and me

and and several other people like Micky bendor and some other anthropologists and archaeologists believe that it's

that influx of incredibly uh nutrient-dense bioavailable parts of animals like uh

blood fat organs the awful in addition to the meat uh what was able was what was able to fuel our bodies in our

brains and to to the to support that massive growth that to me right now is still the

what should be the main state of our diet that's where we should be getting the majority of our nutrition however

plants and if you look into the past we were eating plants and this is part of I I love the carnivore diet for a lot of

different reasons I think it is a a simple and I mean simple in a good way we don't have to think too hard to

follow it it's like if it comes from an animal eat if it doesn't don't it's a simple way for people to who have have

lived an entire life of of of hor able diets to start to get on track immediately by going carnivore you're

immediately low carb you're immediately taking out all the plant toxins from your diets I mean you'll see massive

benefits uh from that approach however if you look at our ancestral dietary past I mean if you really look at it

under a close lens that wasn't the way that our ancestors ate I mean we had we had plants in our diets before we

started eating animals we had plants in our diets the entire time we were eating animals sure are there places in the

Arctic and towards the poles where where um you know plants and our diets were only for a very short period of the Year

absolutely but the majority of our ancestors were eating plants and animals the way I like to think about it though

is and just like you I I never was vegan or vegetarian however for a large part of

my life I was of that mindset that Health starts in the produce section of the grocery store like that's where all

the health is and all the other stuff including the meat section of the grocery store was was nonsense or

superus or something like that or or gluttony so this is the way I like to think about it I think it's a very good

way animals are should be the primary source of nutrition that's where your high most high quality digestible

protein is going to come from that's where the highest quality fat is going to come from that's where a lot of your

micronutrients are going to come from plants are are here for several reasons or we should think about plants in our

diet in several different ways they're there they're poison they're there for entertainment they're there for medicine

and they are there uh for certain uh supplementation of of different things I if we need it in our diet but let's

break that down very quickly we we know about the poison part easily we what about the pleasure part I mean I love

the texture of different vegetables I love the taste of different vegetables I absolutely love brussels sprouts I know

some people can't stand them and I know some people think they they smell like poop and sometimes they do but I love

brussels sprouts so that's it's pleasurable to me to eat certain foods eat certain plants and you know what

there's something special about that I mean that should be our diet should be pleasurable um plants create most of our

alcohol so if you're somebody that drinks and it's important part of your life or if you have a glass of wine what

what that is a plants are a source of that in almost all cases re most of your you know many of your recreational drugs

I'm not I've never even smoked pot in my life but you know I would if people do those are those are coming from plants

plants also are where your your herbs and your spices are coming from to to season our

food and at low levels those things the flavors that come from them are pleasurable to us but it is important

for us to understand that uh the same thing that at low levels in our food gives us the pleasure of the the flavor

of the spice or the Herb at higher levels can become medicine and at higher levels become poisonous I mean it's no

surprise cinnamon is this is from the bark of a tree and the flavor that we get that cinnamon at low levels we very

much enjoy it but it's actually an insecticide it's there to keep it's insecticide and a fungicide to keep

fungus and insects off the tree so it's again low levels we love it uh higher levels we can actually use it in many in

a lot of these things for to help detoxify things or what have you and at or as medicine and at much higher levels

cinnamon can make you incredibly sick and so can to many these other things let's not forget that mace that you you

know get sprayed with it you know and the police are trying to clear out a bar or break up a fight is is you know what

what it is when it's when it's at lower levels at lower levels is a very pleasurable thing for us to include in

our food so we need to if I I do truly believe that we don't need to count calories we don't need to count all

these things um I do believe if we're in tune with our senses truly in tune with our senses and and our presentative with

real Genuine food prepared properly we don't need to ask anybody what to eat but we need to categorize these

things in the right way animals provide an incredible source of safe bioavailable nutrient-dense nutrition

Plants provide all sorts of wonderful things and a whole sorts of dangerous things as well so that just means we

have to be conscious of what we're selecting to eat and when we're selecting to eat them how we prepare

them yeah yeah that's really good stuff I mean people who think they're eating super healthy but they're eating a kale

salad a big kale salad every day over and over and over and over full of oxalates right that could be an issue we

had actually a podcast with the author of the book called toxic superfoods and Sally nort good friend yeah Sally Norton

yeah exactly and and I was surprised to learn that even sweet potatoes were a problem for her um right they don't seem

to be a problem for me but I also don't eat a very high oxalate diet right so every once in a while I can tolerate

them um but yeah for me personally going on the Paleo style diet is what really healed me from all my inflammation and

uh you know I've never I've never gone back and so yeah I personally don't eat grains uh I don't eat bread or pasta

It's been many many years uh those kind of things and I just feel great so I'm not going to go back and I feel like now

I am intuitively eating I can tell you know okay this is going to feel good this isn't going to feel good I can do

this I can't do this I know my body's kind of craving certain healthy foods for me uh for me it's eggs I just love

Love Organic pasture raised eggs I I eat them pretty much every day for lunch a whole bunch of them and uh you know I

feel great on that and then for dinner you know having some sort of meat and veggies feels great for me I think

probably where I'm lacking is on some of the organ meats and blood and things like that I mean is that practical in

the US like uh how do you even how do you even get blood can you buy blood to to drink blood's hard uh

and what I was trying to do with the book you know most of that book is is filled with actually the recipes in

that book are what we found at the entire restaurant on they're incredibly the recipes in that book are incredibly

practical at home and Incredibly practical which we found over the past several years even in a commercial

situation you know creating a lot of food for for the community which I'm very pleased about but what I was also

trying to do with that book was push the boundaries just a little bit in our thought process because we get very

comfortable in things like for example um when when people started talking about

the paleo diet it was like this this weird thing like it was pushing people's minds so hard they couldn't even think

about it then when people started talking about keto like oh my God like are you kidding me I was raised my whole

life thinking I'm supposed to eat like 80% carbohydrates or whatever you know but now we're we're taking these steps

where okay paleo diet it's it's it's now something that people regularly can talk about or carnivore pedo and all of that

now we're at that next level what is the next thing because none of them are 100% right by default none of them ever could

be 100% right but they all have the these merits that now are ingrained in our you know they're they're almost a

standard thing that we just talk about so now we can talk about that next sort of barrier and and what I was trying to

do is break down a few like insects and I wholeheartedly believe that I listen I am 100% confident that insects were the

as much as animals are the primary source of food for us now and have been for Le two million years insects were

the primary source of nutrition prior to three and a half million years ago probably all the way up to two million

years ago the entirety of the time that we were hunting we were still eating insects insects were the original

superfood continued to be a major part of our diets throughout time and throughout the world and are still a

major part of diets in different places around the world today insects are incredible

unfortunately the insects have been too politicized and polarized right now that it's that the con ation has come down to

insects or meat and that's a silly conversation I mean it's silly I mean everybody's arguing about something that

we shouldn't be arguing about what we should be thinking about is insects and meat because truly if your if your

approach to food is an ancestral one if you're trying to be ancestrally appropriate with the way that you think

about food and get your nutrition into your body that insects have been in the diet the entire time there is there is

no doubt that's true it's a little bit much for us to think about because it's not really in our minds set in in

America but it it's 100% true so from an ancestral appropriate place it's true from a nutrient density and

bioavailability Place insects are incredible like incredible and from a sustainability perspective they're

incredible as well from an economic perspective they're okay depends on where you who's raising them but across

the board you know whatever your boxes are that you're checking if you if you can get away from the gross ick Factor

all the boxes you're trying to check not you I mean somebody who's thinking them in these

ways they probably meet all of them or most of them so again I'm not suggesting that we all just sit first of all please

everybody listening to this I am not suggesting we eat I'm I'm not taking your meat away I'm not suggesting you

don't get your riy any longer that's not what I'm suggesting what I'm suggesting is think about the idea that insects

were the foundational food for us before animals entered and you know when our ancestors didn't

have any tools at all they were literally eating insects fruits and vegetables and of that fruits and

vegetables are by default most of them are out of out of our diet because they're toxic and then you have to eat

hyper loal and hypers seasonal you right you're not storing any food you're not doing any of that sort of thing so it's

very limited what you can get insects are there all the time insects were that animal of then now animals are something

we can access all year round and plants are seasonal continue to be so anyhow it it what I was trying to do with that

entire chapter on insects was let's at least think about this let's let's really realize recognize how important

insects are in other diets around the world how important were they to our ancestors and at least start to think

about this I have a I have a chapter on on on clay and Ash and charcoal all three of those things were incredibly

important in our ancestral dietary past all three of those things are incredibly important in many animal diets there's

something for us at least to think about so as far as as far as the blood is concerned do I think that the only way

to be a fully nourished human is to drink blood every day like the Messiah in the samuro absolutely not but I will

tell you that the S Warriors that I was with when we drank blood and milk I get in the picture behind me were 100% the

healthiest looking people that I have ever seen in the entire world and all that they consume every single day is

blood and milk I mean that's the main state of their diet raw I'm sorry blood and raw milk it's unbelievable so to me

at least to bring that up in a conversation that it's in somebody's head like maybe they think it's gross

but it's in their head this is the food that is nourishing the healthiest people I've ever seen in my life and neither of

them are easy to get or legal in many places in the US like they're not even they're not raw milk you know is is

impossible to get in many places and for a variety of different reason blood is impossible to get in many places so

something's wrong and at least if we can push that barrier in our heads a little bit to maybe someday it will be part of

our diet but I do think it's it's criminal to kill an animal and take half of it and put on the grocery store

shelves and and the other half which actually has more nutrition in it than the stuff we're actually eating uh

doesn't ever never makes it onto the table for for us or our families there's there's something weird and and crazy

about that so from a nutritional perspective from a e um ethical perspective from a sustainability

perspective and from an economic perspective eating more of the animal makes sense across the board and it is

ancestrally appropriate so here's some tricks one is um heart is essentially a muscle with more nutrients in it than

any of the other muscles in the body so heart is a great sort of gateway drug for organs because you can cook it in

many cases just like you would cook meat and you're going to get a similar texture but just more nutrition and

you'll start to you know it's an easy step uh liver chicken liver is again a very easy milder way to get into the

liver world uh chicken liver is is one of my favorites pork liver is amazing beef liver for some people's a little

bit strong so uh like you probably know but I know a lot of people they'll eat a piece of it frozen every day and when

things are cold our body doesn't uh register the flavors as much so for example if you're salting food that

you're going to serve you're salting food and tasting it while it's warm but you're going to serve it cold you have

to Salt it heavier because you're not going to taste that salt as much when it's cold so those the organy flavors

are not as apparent when it's cold as as when it's warm and then the texture is not there when it's frozen but one thing

to do uh and we we deal with a lot of organs in our house and a lot of organs here at the restaurant is if you soak

the organs in milk overnight then it really does help to mild out you know some of that some of that uh organy type

flavor we use a lot of liver heart liver heart and kidney is very easy for us to get we do we use a lot of fat in our

cooking um we use a lot of skin and different things as well like pork skin you know we do a lot of pork rinds but

there's other things our pork skin goes into as well like our scrapple for example and then another trick is to if

the texture is something that you're not used to then put it in something else so things like Pates for example are great

or grinding it up and putting it with other with other meats or um things like again we make we make scrapple with it

scrapple liver worse that sort of thing and a final little trick if you're already grinding your organs up and

putting it in with the meat and the fat and making the you know your ancestral blend burgers or hamburgers or whatever

it is or meatballs uh some the organs have a very distinct

color and texture and even many times when you grind it your kids are going to look at and say I see the liver in that

hamburger like they will so what we started doing was this when we grind the meat and the fat we grind it like we

normally would but we take the organs and we throw them in the Vitamix we throw them in a blender and we puree

them up and then mix them together with the meat and the fat and it distributes out the color and it distributes out the

te the texture is imperceptible and it's a fantastic way to um to make that burger look like a meat and a fat burger

not an awful burger or you know meatballs and that sort of thing yep y yeah I have heard of people having like

little pieces of Frozen liver and like throwing it in their smoothie or stuff like that as well yeah I haven't

honestly and I mean what do you what's your thoughts about like for people like me who first of all I'd love to know

maybe you have some resources maybe maybe you guys sell this stuff uh where's your restaurant located by the

way well it's called the modern Stone AG kitchen and it's in uh Chestertown Maryland on the Eastern shore on the

east side of the ches beake bay in Maryland it's a cute little historic town you got to come see us so we're

here other restaurants there's festivals it's a really cute old historic town yeah I would I would absolutely love to

um you know again I don't think there's any restaurants that I know of around me that serve things with like organ meats

or you know specifically or anything like that um and so I'll take like an A A grass-fed desiccated Oregon complex

from New Zealand or whatever um you know that that's kind of what what what I what I take is that okay obviously if I

can't is that is that a is that is that the second best option do you think if I can't get the real stuff or do you have

maybe a resource like a certain website that's uh that's really good for people or maybe you uh sell and ship uh

Nationwide these kind of organ Meats well unfortunately because of the way that so

we are not a USDA inspected facility and if if we are and I have no desire to be one at the moment if I if I wanted to

ship any animal products across state lines I'd have to become a USDA inspector facility which which comes

with a whole bunch of of uh resource needs that we just don't have so you can cut anybody who wants to come and eat

with us we be we'd be very happy to to to serve you all these amazing nourishing foods but uh and yeah so to

to answer the first part of your question yeah I think if an absence of real I would always go to Real Food

first real food to get all of your nutrition real food processed properly uh is my number

one go-to short of that something like those the the freeze-dried desiccated organs stuff coming from New Zealand is

amazing stuff uh things like uh and and if you're just starting to dip your toes into this as well you know another great

resource my friend James Barry uh who has pluck seasoning pluck seasoning is awesome met him too yeah I like I love

pluck yeah I met him I mean that that's a that's a great way to I mean you're he's he's brilliant he actually is not

hiding the um organ flavor he's actually celebrating it it it's brilliant it works it works well we we we love pluck

um so the desicated freeze dry things that that that's great uh there's a lot of online resources that have um uh you

can have access to really high quality organs as well things like force of nature for example or um uh nose to tail

and uh paleo Valley and all those places that where and there's a lot more I know

I just just just know a few of them where you can ship in these organs and again it's hard because so many people

and I know I've done this so many times in my life I would hear a podcast of somebody you know I really resonated

with or I'd read a book and the author like really spoke to me in the book and all of a sudden I want to like change my

entire life and then adopt everything that they that they've done like the next day and it's impossible it can't be

done it always ends in Failure so you have to be able to create a hierarchy either write it down or just have it in

your head of things that are important to you so for example a lot of people will we'll have a large conversation

about the importance of raising animals properly and slaughtering them properly and butchering them properly and

preparing them properly and eating those to tail and doing all of these things and the importance of supporting local

farmers and doing all of this stuff and then you would leave okay I'm going to do nothing but eat Beyond a 20 mile

radius and I'm going to eat 98% of the animal in the and for some people it's possible but in

all those those cases it take three years to make all the contacts and get all the skills you need to be able to do

so you know what is you have to pick what the most important thing is at the moment so is the most important thing to

get incredibly high quality liver and start to play with it and and start to implement it into your cooking in your

diet and and if that's the case then using some of these subscription services that you trust like some of the

ones that I mentioned uh are are a fantastic way to start doing this immediately and then you can start

looking around and say oh my gosh I didn't even know but the farmer five miles down the road you know goes to the

Avatar that's 10 miles down the road and the entire thing you know it's only moved 12 miles and then I didn't do the

math right I know but and then you you now are there but if you if you leave this and say hey I'm GNA only I'm only

going to use stuff that's five miles away and all the or it's for many of us unfortunately it's impossible at the

moment we're very lucky we have some incredible Farms not far from us and we have an avire that's about 7even miles

from us and you know we have and in fact we have two avatars within you know about 10 15 miles away it's fantastic

but a lot of people don't have that but we do have these other resources the other thing that's incredibly important

I think as well is I'm confident is to learn learn some of these skills you know YouTube is great for some some

stuff it really really is but inperson is awesome you know one of the things that we part ourselves on we had we're

in our teaching kitchen right now and we teach all sorts of classes from cheese making to home butchering and all these

sorts of things and sometimes it's just being in the presence of somebody holding that knife

or seeing that animal in front of you or actually cooking it and smelling it and realizing yeah it can be done and only

took seven minutes or those are the the humps the hurdles that we need to get over in order to take that step in our

own kitchen we just uh last weekend I was with a good friend of mine Robert Sykes I don't know if you who he is he

owns keto brick he's a fantastic guy uh me and my wife Christina were with him and and his wife Crystal and he rented a

cabin in Northwest Arkansas and Rogers Arkansas and we had about 14 people come and we did this ancestral living weekend

we were butchering and we were cooking together and doing all we were making HED chees we're doing all these amazing

things but now everybody's left having been a part of all of those different pieces and they can now start to

implement them into their own kitchen so I think getting that check list you know

that that that what am I going to do first and when I tackle that what's second that sort of thing is is very

helpful at first taking those first steps but then finding somebody you can work with to learn from is very helpful

as well yeah yeah absolutely and for people listening who are who are like well why do we need these organ meats

and blood and and things like that um and why why is meat good for you know why is meat good for you I heard for for

many years it's not you know we've talked a lot about kind of like the food foods and and things like that but for

the people who may be listening who again it's confusing out there man you know you listen to a lot of podcasts and

you'll hear a lot of different opinions about things right um so is it does this go back to basically what we started off

with saying about nutrient dense right is is it because meat is just so nutrient dense compared to to other food

is that why we we want to make these the the focus of our diet I think there's several different pieces

one is nutrient density but another really key factor is bioavailability so gundry who wrote a plant plant Paradox

yeah in plant Paradox this is one of the things that I really like that that he said in it he was talking about this

idea of bioavailability and I use it in all of my class I think it's great I I was the kid who grew up and I would sit

there you know we didn't have cell phones we growing up so what did we do when we ate breakfast and at we we we'd

read the Cheerio box when we're eating our Cheerios right and and I remember I just stare at the nutrition label and

and I'd read it and then at lunch I'd have a you know Campbell Soup and Campbell Soup I'm eating the Campbell

Soup I'm reading the Campbell Soup can and I had the I call it Thea uh can of soup effect I had that idea that okay if

I'm eating the Campbell Soup and it said there's two servings and it has you know one serving has 100 calories and it has

this much protein and this much fat and well that's what I'm eating and that's going to go everywhere it needs to be

and it's going to nourish my body with all those nutrients and it's 100% wrong know what what uh gun spoke about was

the idea that um he equated putting food in our mouth like being in New Jersey and going to

New York City and getting in the Lincoln Tunnel to do it and when you putting food in your mouth it's like going into

the Lincoln Tunnel when you go into the Lincoln Tunnel you're not in the Hudson river right you're in a tunnel and the

only thing you can guarantee is you're going to come out the other end of New York City right so the idea is you put

food in your mouth the only thing you can guarantee is some of it's going to come out the other end in order for that

food to get absorbed and used properly by your body two things have to be in place at the same time one is that food

needs to be broken down properly and number two is your body and your gut have to be healthy and if those two

things are working then the nutrients in there the max amount of those nutrients are going to get absorbed through so it

doesn't matter how nutrient dense a food is if it's not broken down properly Andor your body and your gut aren't in

the right state to absorb those nutrients properly so the cool thing so animals are not only incredibly nutrient

dense but they're also incredibly bioavailable and they're incredibly safe they don't have the kind of toxins that

we see in in these plants so that that plus the diversity of nutrients and I grew up just like I know Shan Baker

posted something the other day about um I think it was Shan Baker you know we thought meat had fat and protein and

then the reality is these are all the things that meat has in it it never cross my mind I grew up meat has if I

eat a steak I'm getting fat and protein and that's it if I want anything else I have to go you know eat a s salid to get

all those the pl I'm sorry meat has an amazing amount of nutrients diversity of nutrients in it but more importantly

animals have a larger diversity of nutrients in them so when we think you know meat is a lot more nutrient densen

and bioavailable than any plant on the planet but if we're talking about nutrient density and bioavailability as

as key you know factors in this conversation meat and meat is the least nutrient dense and least bioavailable

part of an animal right so the the the blood the fat the organs all of those things are more nutrient-dense and more

bioavailable than the meat is so again meat is awesome but the gold standard is is the entire animal and in addition I

know most of the time we talked about the Nutri you know the nutritional aspect of this kind of approach but if

we're eating the entire animal then that sits better with me from an ethical perspective you know if we're eating the

entire animal it's more sustainable it is more uh it's more economically appropriate as well and there it's a

win-win win across the board for all three yeah yeah definitely I I I really agree with that and I think you know I

had someone who who I met uh kind of an acquaintance and he was just dead set like just for lack of a better word

brainwashed that like vegan was the only way and that's the healthy way and you know I watched him talk about how he has

like really bad psoriasis and all these other other issues and you know you meet other people who have lots of other

issues as well and I would highly encourage people to think about going on you know this type of sort of ancestral

diet and seeing if you can elim or even like you said carnivore is so great because it's really like an Elimination

Diet right you're eliminating anything that could be possibly causing your whatever it is autoimmune inflammation

IBS you name it right um and so that's that's something really powerful to try and see if someone's dealing with some

sort of chronic issue uh to see if they can resolve it by eliminating all of the things that could be possibly causing

that so yeah really agree with that uh one more question for you I know we're coming short on time uh and was about

carbs so you look like a fit guy you you clearly like work out you eat good um are carbs a part of your diet do carbs

need to be a part of your diet uh for me these days I've kind of I do I do organic raw honey I do some blueberry

sometimes um sometimes I'll throw in some sweet potatoes and other stuff uh I wouldn't say that I'm keto anymore

necessarily but I would definitely say I'm lower carb like under 100 grams of carbs per day personally where do you

stand on that conversation well I'll tell you this I am keto most of the time and I am when I

eat carbs it is for fulfilling one of those other needs and emotional need or a

cultural need or a situational need traditional need something like that um I don't

I don't feel for myself at the moment that I need any carbs whatsoever I do not know enough to even suggest that uh

that it would be the true for uh young kids or pregnant or lactating women or that sort of thing I I don't know um but

I will or or or high-intensity athletes I don't know enough about that and again I would I would default back to say I do

believe in most cases our ancestors were in a state of ketosis for most of the year most of their

lives but I doubt in in all cases where they in ketosis from birth all the all the way till death so but but I I

do I I think a ketogenic approach for me is is a very healthy approach however I will also say this

and and I this is something I think people need to talk about more than ever uh one of the issues with you know all

the dietary jargon going on today is that our diets for most of us are so incredibly bad that any change we make

we see improvements we just see improvements so if we decide to go local or vegan or vegetarian or carnivore or

keto or whatever it is like we all see improvements because it's better than the lifetime of terrible diet that we've

experienced for decades prior to that but then we fool ourselves into thinking oh my gosh like this is the diet for me

for the rest of my life I can promise you no matter who is listening the diet that

healed you is not the diet for the rest of your life there has to there's always going to be some sort of tweak so for

example if the most important thing to you right now is to lose weight and you and you go on a carnivore diet or a keto

diet to do that and you accomplish that goal then the next underlying you know problem in your life or your health is

going to show itself and you're going to say oh maybe I need to adjust a little bit here to now accomplish what your

next goal is so the idea that again what whatever it was that you accompl you know your your Skin's better or you've

lost weight or your guts better whatever that is that approach fantastic but just remember it's okay to shift in fact you

should shift because the other part of it doesn't seem that important when whatever you're dealing with at this

moment is like over you know T taking over your entire life but when you've taken that monkey off your back there's

going to be something else that's going to need some sort of and that's not a failure that's actually an accomplish I

used to think okay I did this I did this and and I did this for two years and and I was feeling better feel then all of a

sudden I have this other that other thing that popped up that was there I just was living you know I was in such

poor health that I just didn't even realize it and at first I feel like a failure like oh my gosh I didn't have it

100% right well actually I think I did have it 100% right for that moment in my life and then when I needed to to shift

I shifted and accomplished whatever that that next goal is so um please please don't don't you I see this a lot in in

in the vegan world people a vegan diet and look I know there's this animosity between carnivores and vegans and meat

eaters and pl I know this um again I think that's hyped up a little more than it should be as well because I truly

believe that for most of the people that are eating ancestrally um eating a carnivore the reasons that they're

making those decisions the reasons are exactly the same reason that somebody is deciding to go vegan they're trying to

improve their health they're trying to they care about the planet they they care about all of these things so I

think we have more in common than we than we don't but again it's it's it becomes a lifestyle and allc consuming

because food is about everything that we are and everything that we do is Embrace and and culter it into our food once

we've taken a step now I'm a carnivore it's hard to then shift or now I'm a vegan it's it's hard to take a step out

of that but that's exactly what we should do yeah yeah that's very well said you see

that right once people become you know carnivore or vegan now they're in the they go to all the vegan restaurants

they're in the vegan community and it's becomes so ingrained in them that and and like you said they might start a

vegan diet go from eating fast food every day to eat a vegan diet and say I feel great on a vegan diet this is

amazing right then six months later if they have some other issue because now they're deprived of B vitamins and and

protein and everything else that we talk about in the nutrient dense meat then it's like oh okay okay well like how do

I get out of this now I'm so intertwined with this community and this everything and then I've been posting on Facebook

you know every day for the last year about how I'm a vegan so I you know I can't change now so yeah it's very it's

very important to be open-minded to be able to uh not be afraid to change when you need to so yeah really really love

what you said there uh and really love what this what what you've been saying this whole entire episode so um yeah Dr

Schindler please let people know where can they find you follow you learn more you mentioned some cooking classes maybe

you do some treats or cooking classes that people could join but please mention it all absolutely so a couple

things like I said earlier we love in person we love the connection I mean we're all we're all about connection we

have two entities here in Chestertown Maryland uh which is very close we're about little over an hour from

Philadelphia a little over an hour from Washington DC and just a few hours from New York city so we're not that hard to

get to uh one is our restaurant the modern Stone Age kitchen and the other is the modern Stone Age Food Lab where

all of our research all of our teaching all of our Outreach is funneled through the nonprofit through the food lab and

then the restaurant is the mon Sonage kitchen so you can come here and take a class you can come here and eat uh we I

know we talk about some crazy Foods today we talked about blood we talked about insects we talked about eating

clay and that sort of thing U the I will tell you we do have a couple of crazy things here but the majority of our food

is is would be very familiar to you our goal is to take familiar food and make it as nourishing as it can possibly B

and that and we make everything entirely from scratch entirely there's no two ingredients put together outside of our

walls so we can control that entire process and make sure it's as safe nutrient-dense and bioavailable as it

can possibly be and I hope we did our job well and made it made it delicious uh you can find us online you can so

again you can come and take a class here we also have a bed and breakfast right next door so you can come and stay and

you can eat with us and take a class whatever you like we're trying to make this a destination so people can just

come and connect and embrace and learn and be fully nourished online you can find us at modern Stone age.com and all

we we're literally in the midst of rebranding and we have one Consolidated website modern stone age.com and you can

find everything out there about our food and our classes and we do all I know this is a little bit far for some people

to come so we do offer all sorts of online classes as well so some are are pre-recorded and some uh are are live

and we have uh couple other opportunities if anybody's interested in in the kind of connection that we do uh

we run a at least one this year we're probably going to run two really cool immersive trips so we run a trip to

Ireland every summer and it's a food history prehistory incredible uh experience for

a week and I believe we're going to run one to Kenya in December and in that you will have the opportunity to drink a

blooded milk nice nice amazing and the book eat like a human uh any social media handles that

people can follow anything like absolutely so the books eat like a human you can get it in bookstores and and

online but if you get it from us I'm very happy to sign it or if you get it somewhere else come visit us I'm very

happy to sign up as well uh and then uh we have social media handles there's there's two uh ones to follow so

anything that has to do with the kind of stuff that I was talking about today uh you can follow me at Dr Bill Schindler

so drr Bill Schindler and then the restaurant and and the other entities that we have here you can follow at

modern son AG kitchen amazing Dr Schindler this was a a really great episode and I hope we can do it again

sometime thank you thanks for listening if you enjoyed the episode can you please leave us a rating or review And

subscribe I've realized that while we have actually increased our downloads a lot we're actually getting a lot of

downloads which I'm really happy about we actually have very few ratings so and I realized that I've never asked people

really to rate much so I'm asking you now if you could please rate and review And subscribe and if you enjoyed the

episode please forward it along to anyone that you think will get value out of this also if you haven't checked out

our line of products at bu Peak performance.com you get 20% off your first order that's www. buby Peak

performance.com we have some incredible products including our organic high altitude coffee if you don't know this

coffee is one of the most heavily sprayed with pesticides out of any crop so it's really important that you drink

organic coffee we've gone above and beyond to Source what we believe is the highest quality and healthiest organic

coffee in the world we're also famous for our organic green superfood powder you can get 20% off of that as well at

bip Peak performance.com we also have an organic vegan and paleo plant protein see most of the vegan proteins out there

are using brown rice protein which is really not a good source of protein and it's also a grain and if you're paleo

you know that grain tend to cause inflammation in some cases for some people and so we wanted to make one that

was paleo friendly and vegan and organic we made an amazing amino acid profile so it's really one of the best plant

proteins for muscle building so you can check out Peak Performance organic plant protein you can find that on our website

of course all our products are on Amazon as well so thanks again and again please if you enjoyed the episode please

forward it along to someone who you feel can get value out of it and please leave us a rating review And subscribe thank

you