Balanced Bites Podcast: Episode #19: Paleo 101, Part 2

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Liz Wolfe: Hey everyone, welcome to the Balanced Bites podcast; Paleo 101 part 2 is our subject matter today. As just a reminder, the materials and content contained in this podcast are for general health information only and are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. And if there’s anybody out there that’s like a good freestyle rapper, I think maybe we want to record that medical disclaimer intro maybe with like some beatbox or something like that. I don’t know. Diane, what do you think?

Diane Sanfilippo: [laughs] That’d be awesome. At least when you say it without the like librarian tone, I’m not completely cracking up at it. But if it were a rap version, I think that’d be awesome! Yeah.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, I could get with that. [laughs]

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, cool.

Liz Wolfe: By the way, if you’re new to the podcast, I’m Liz and I’m here with Diane Sanfilippo of Balanced Bites.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, Liz of Cave Girl Eats. If you haven’t been to CaveGirlEats.com yet, go there. Now-ish…or…yeah.

Liz Wolfe: That’s the place. And this week I’m going to have some really kickass giveaways. Today I’m going to be announcing the winner of a kombucha concentrate, and if you’re not familiar with kombucha, just go to my website, CaveGirlEats.com; I got a whole write-up on it. Just good stuff. But definitely this is the week to be checking out my blog and signing up for the newsletter because I’m giving away free stuff.

Diane Sanfilippo: What else are you giving away? Can I get free stuff? Am I disqualified?

Liz Wolfe: Uh, yeah, you know what? We need to talk about this because you put out the call on your Facebook page that you’re potentially looking for an assistant,and I think you have potentially found one that’s going to work for you, but when you said that, I was like, wait, I thought I was your assistant. But apparently…

Diane Sanfilippo: That was really funny.
Liz Wolfe: I graduated. [laughs]

Diane Sanfilippo: No, you are not…if you were my assistant, your list of things to do would be so much longer than you can even imagine. Wait, that’s not pitching very well for my looking for an assistant. Well, I am going to be looking for an assistant. I don’t know. I have a handful of sort of qualified candidates who’s come across my desk, but I will probably be posting something within the next week or so. It will be a virtual assistant position, not somebody who has to be sitting next to me because that would be pretty unlikely to find. But yeah, I’ll post details about that. So if you’re like sitting at home, pretty well versed in the whole Paleo/Real Food/Weston A. Price-oriented nutrition information dn you’ve got some time to do some work in the span of a week, keep your eyes peeled for that.
What else? Talk about what’s going on this week…what’s today? So this will go live on January 4th, so January 7th, which is Saturday, I’m teaching a class at Lululemon Athletica at Garden State Plaza in Paramus, NJ, a sugar and sweeteners class, which I actually taught a really similar class back in California at my Lululemon there. It was a really great experience. I love teaching people who don’t even have any knowledge of the whole Paleo shtick at all. So I really can just talk about nutrition in sort of a more base level, you know, let’s talk about sugar. Because it’s really probably the biggest thing that we need people to understand the impact of in our diet . But yeah, so I'm teaching that class this coming Saturday, and then, I'm teaching one two weeks later at the same store on eating fat, and why eating fat is good for you and all that good stuff. And then in between that, i'll be in Austin, teaching at CrossFit and Fearless, a whole day, Paleo..Practical Paleo seminar. So people can find me all over the place this month. And then the next couple months I've got a pretty busy travel schedule, so that's all on the website. People can check that out there.
And if anyone is not already familiar with my 21 Day Sugar Detox program, we have a huge,m huge, huge group-I feel like I have thousands of new clients, almost, on the Facebook page for the 21 Day Sugar Detox. Tons and tons of people have signed up for it, and you know, a lot of people started on January 2nd. but it's the kind of thing where it's definitely rolling. you can start anytime you want. I usually start a group, like the first Monday or the first of the month, every month, so that people are kicking off together and kind of going through the same stages at the same time. But if you just want to start it whenever, you can always download the guides at 21DaySugarDetox.com, get yourself ready, and get started whenever.
And what's cool about that program is that as much you know, I am a Paleo nutrition educator/evolutionary nutrition. You know, I teach grain free and all of that. The program itself has 3 different levels, so if you are somebody who, you know, you're listening to this podcast, you probably are interested in Paleo or eat Paleo, but maybe you've got a friend or family member who that's really intimidating to. This program, you know, the first level of it will really just get them on board to skip refined foods, to get gluten out of the diet and sugar, so it's not quite, you know…it's not quite as hardcore as people might think from the first level. And what I love is that peole tend to come back and attempt the next level the next time they do it several months later, just to adjust some hbits, you know, see how they feel and you know, it seems to be a really nice way to get people kind of leaning into this whole lifestyle, you know, that most of us who are talking about this for a long time, we're kind of already there, but rememebring that not everybody's in the same place and having that eye towards what's really important as the first step of removing refined foods and you know, sugar from the diet, I think, is a really nice way to just introduce people to it. So it's still definitely a big challenge for those people, so don't be fooled that it's not, but…
Yeah, that's kind of what's going on with me, so I'm kind of juggling a ton of questions from the Sugar Detox, and you know, updating the guides all the time every month or two. I send out updates, so if anybody owns the program already, they can get the updates for free by getting on the mailing list. Just have to use your order number to get on there, and that's pretty much it. That's kind of what's been going on over here since the New Year. What about you, Liz? What's going on with your program?

Liz Wolfe: Oh, you know, it's going. I've been working on this guide, like we talked about last podcast. I've been working on it forever, and it's just grown and grown and grown. And it's a little, kind of different from the 21 day Sugar Detox. I actually recommend your 21 Day Sugar Detox within my guide, but what my guide is kind of focused on is all the things that I've put together piece by piece over the course of several years. All of the kind of resources, all of the things that I've learned, and all those things I wish I knew from the beginning. You know, all of it together kind of in one place. And it's continued to grow and I just-you've been kind of kicking me in the pants about this. Like i just need to let it go, you know. It's good enough. And gosh darn it, people are going to like it. And I just need to put it out there because like you say, you update your guide frequently, and of course, I will definitely offer, you know, free lifetime updates and all that good stuff. But I think at this point it's 65, maybe 70 pages, and most of that is just information. There's a couple pages of recipes there at the end, but as you know, that is not my strong suit. Cooking is not my strong suit, but writing definitely I think is. So anyway that should be ready to go by hopefully tomorrow, actually. Maybe a little earlier than I anticipated. And one thing I do want everybody to know is that I will be…Steve's Original PaleoKits-they have sponsored the first hundred copies of the guide, which is awesome. And that first dibs will go to the subscribers to my newsletter, so if you are not subscribed to the newsletter, and you want to try to get in on that free “No B.S. Nutrition Guide” when it comes out, definitely go to CaveGirlEats.com; there's a box just in the kind of upper right hand corner-ish where you can just type in your email address and sign up for my newsletter. I'm not going to harass you about anything, but when good stuff comes along, I will definitely update, and yeah, that's pretty much it. Did I cover, I think, everything I needed to cover about that?

Diane Sanfilippo: I think-I think so. What I think is really cool about all of these different, you know, guides and field guides and whatnot that are out there is that, you know, a lot of us have a really deep steeping in the education around this stuff, right? Like you and I have gone through programs that have taken months and months. You know, I was…mine was almost 2 years of study, and I know yours was a long time, too…

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: Like we've learned a ton, right, and we just, what we do is boil it down into, like what do people need to do? What do they really need to know, and what do they need to do? It's almost like-it's almost like, you know, just making it into something useable for people because they don't necessarily take years and years to study all of it and learn the, okay, so what's the most important. And I think, you know, I think we've all got something to say. I think we've all got a unique viewpoint. Unique bits of information, like what you were saying you feel like you wish that you had known when you sort of started this lifestyle. I think that's awesome. Like I'm psyched to see what's in there. I know I got a preview of it before and it looked awesome, and I just was like, wow. You know, this is something really, really useful for people, and you know, to the same effect, the Sugar Detox is like, that's a struggle that I've had with sugar for pretty much forever. Blood sugar regulation, so I just felt like that was important for me to write about, so I think for you to have what you feel is really important for people to know, I love it. I think it's going to be great, and I just don't think that there's any way that there's ever too much information available to people, and every, you know, every practitioner has their own point of view, and their own approach, and I think it's always useful for, you know, there will be different people who really kind of connect with each of our points of view. So I'm psyched for it. I'm excited to have people grab it and use it, and I think it will be awesome.

Liz Wolfe: Thanks, D-Sizzle.

Diane Sanfilippo: D-Sizzle. Oh my God. [laughs]

Liz Wolfe: [laughs]

Diane Sanfilippo: So okay, this is our Paleo 101, part 2 podcast, in case we hadn't, you know, made that clear for the first ten minutes.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: Well, we always need to catch up. So hopefully people tuned in already to the Paleo 101, part 1, where we talked a lot about what is Paleo, what are the quote unquote rules, you know, why do we, Liz and I, and you know, what we recommend to our clients, like why do we kind of follow this approach? We talked about a lot of that stuff at length, just the basic understanding of what's the nutritional perspective of why this is what we feel is the way to go. And that took us quite a while to get through, so we wanted to do a follow up with some of the more specific questions that we've gotten. they don't have names on these questions. It's like we know these are frequently asked or a few of them may have been from some specific readers or listeners. But yeah, why don't we jump into some of these questions and then, you know, as we finish up, if we feel like we need to do another part to this, we'll definitely do it, or maybe it'll be Paleo 201 by that point. [laughs]

Liz Wolfe: Yeah. I think, you know, we will graduate into sophomore year of Paleo college maybe by…

Diane Sanfilippo: Okay.

Liz Wolfe: the next one. All right.

Diane Sanfilippo: Okay.

Liz Wolfe: Question number one.

Diane Sanfilippo: So maybe this is like, yeah, let's go for it.

Liz Wolfe: This is freshman pre-requisites, right now maybe. All right. Not that I did well in college or anything like that. I mean, whatever.

Diane Sanfilippo: What? I don't believe that.

Liz Wolfe: Rock Chalk, Jayhawk! It's just a party. College is a party.

Diane Sanfilippo: Okay.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, shut up, Liz. Let's go. Okay. Question number one. What should I eat? Should I count calories? Should I Zone? Does Paleo have to be low-carb? To me, oh, are those your notes? Wow. Is this…?

Diane Sanfilippo: Are these my notes? We did keep notes.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, are these the notes that…[laughs]

Diane Sanfilippo: Nah, I think the question is basically just you know, what do I eat? How do I do this? How do I balance it, kind of deal.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: All right, so my take on this is the following: I think that people generally, you know, should not be worried too much around how to rebalance around what they’re eating. Like once you get rid of grains, legumes, and processed non-fat/low fat foods or dairy that might be in there, just balancing out a plate with a portion of, you know, protein from preferably an animal source, veggies, you know, one maybe two kinds of veggies. I usually tell people to eat like at least a cup of veggies per meal. It’s not really that much. I mean, I usually fill up at least half my plate with vegetables, whether that’s salad or something cooked. Just because I think it’s fun, too. It’s pretty. It’s colorful. But I don’t really think for the most part, for the general public just to be healthy, that it’s necessary to count calories or really go for any specific macronutrient ratio. I think when people don’t generally weigh and measure food, you see if you were to write it down and enter it into FitDay.com to see what you did? I mean, I know when I was free eating Paleo for the most part, without keeping any watch on anything, without any eye to like, okay, maybe I should watch my fruit intake, any of that stuff, I was probably eating around 50% of my calories from fat, 25% from carbs, 25% from protein. That’s where my percentage landed. I think generally free eating, you know, people who aren’t avoiding fat, generally come out with about 50% of our calories from fat, and the carbs and protein breakdown from there can really vary. And that happens just naturally because fat calories are higher per gram, and if you’re not avoiding fat any time you’re eating it, you’re getting 9 calories per gram, which I think is great. It’s tons of energy. I used to look at it, like, “What can I eat that will give me the most food with the least number of calories? And least number of fat grams?” And it’s totally a different approach now. It’s like, “how will this satisfy me?” And if it doesn’t have enough calories or enough fat, then I won’t be satisfied. But most of our food doesn’t have labels. So unless you are writing down really detailed information, like, you won’t know the specifics.
So all of that being said, I think when it comes to, “Should I Zone?” I think for the most part for the Zone, which is a 40% carbohydrate, 30% fat, 30% protein approach, that’s what the Zone has been prescribed as, I don’t think that most people feel satisfied on that plan. I think it can be very effective for fat loss. You have to eat tons and tons of vegetables if you are doing a Paleo/Zone approach, where your carb calories or carb grams are all coming from vegetables. They’re not coming from, you know, bread and refined foods. But I don’t find that most people feel satisfied with that low amount of fat. I think somewhere in that 50 to 60% of your calories from fat feels a lot better for most people,and it’s much more natural, and you will find as you’re trying to hit that lower range of fat, you have to throw away the skin on your chicken or you’re only eating chicken breast. You have to get rid of the egg yolks. You can’t eat whole foods. So if you’re eating whole foods, I think most people naturally come at around 50% from fat.
So just kind of my last take on that is if you are experiencing issues with performance, not being where you want it to be in the gym, you don’t have the energy you think you should have. Or you’re not sleeping well. Or you’re having trouble losing body fat. That’s when I think, if you don’t know what you’re doing. If you don’t have any concept of, you know, portions or satiety makings ense from different portions, that’s where I think a little bit of weighing and measuring is useful. I think it’s a useful tool to see, okay, I know how I feel, but I’m not really sure what I’m even eating. You know, you may know that you may even feel like you didn’t have enough energy all day. Or you may feel like your blood sugar isn’t quite regulated. If you’re not aware of how much food is going in to adjust…it can be a really, really useful tool. Sometimes people think they’re eating just fine and they turn out that they’re eating 1500 calories a day, and they’re doing a really intense workout that day. And I look at their, you know, height, weight, and their body composition, and I’m like, that’s not enough food. And, you know, how amazing to hear that you should be eating more. And for some people, a couple of ounces of extra protein at every meal just because we can cook really delicious food and eating like a few more bites is really not that hard. But you may end up eating almost a whole nother meal’s worth of food every day just because you’ve kind of overdone it a little more. And I think it’s important to just note that.
I don’t think it’s critical to do that all the time every day, but I think if you’ve got goals that you’re not reaching, and you’re unaware of what you’re doing, I think it can bring an okay sense of awareness to that. It’s not necessary everyday to do all the time, but I like the idea of logging. Just as much as the logging kind of what you’re eating and how much, I like when people log how they felt before and after the meal. You know. what time it was. How long it to eat. And who they’re with, because for a lot of my clients, we find that you know, the situation they’re eating in, if they’re eating in a social setting, if they’re more engaged in conversation, if they, you know, packed up a meal, and they premeasured what they’re going to eat. You know, they didn’t overeat, if they’re being more social and not feeling like they’re filling a void with food, they didn’t overeat. Or if they pre-packed their meal, they didn't undereat. They knew that was how much they needed to feel good and didn't let stress get in the way, or just a work distraction. So there are ways to balance that out, but in general, this idea of just eating Whole Paleo food, there isn’t one approach that works for every person, whether or not it’s lower carbohydrates, higher, etc. It really just depends on what’s going to feel good and work for you. Your thoughts, my friend?

Liz Wolfe: My thoughts are sometimes people want to know these things. I feel like a lot of times, this question comes from people who haven’t really gotten started yet. Like they want to know everything they can possibly know how tod o it, how to execute it, how many calories, they’re supposed to do x, y, and z. But, I don’t know, my feel on it is kind of like…Just get started. Just get started, eat from, and if they want some instructions, if they really reqally want some rules, I say eat meat, vegetables, and healthy fats. Okay, if it’s not from that family, then you know, you can learn a little bit more about what’s appropriate or what’s not, and just go down that road, hwoever you want to do it, but just get started and these things are going to kind of unfold. And you don't have to know everything right away. I think that's just that kind of a hold over, you know, from the diet book mentality, where you read a book, it tells you everything you're supposed to know about how to be, you know, skinny, healthy, fabulous, whatever, and then you go and you execute it, and you know, you fail miserably and you fall face first into a plate of chicken fingers, and it doesn't work, so…Just don't worry about knowing everything ahead about how much you should eat, how many calories, whether you should Zone or not. It's just kind of like, just start eating real food. You're going to resolve your hunger signaling issues, and then once you've kind of got that kind of peaceful roll going after the first couple of weeks, you can maybe start doing some fun, you know, self-experimentation. Overall the whole key for me is just patience. Like you have to like allow yourself that opportunity to learn what's right for you, like you said, Diane. No one approach is right for everybody. And I just feel like as hunger signaling tends to kind of fall into place, the whole journey becomes less about these details and more about just the mental connection and how well you know your body and what it needs, which is really a beautiful thing. And we all have that capacity. We just need to kind of connect with it through this journey. And I feel like I just read like some kind of New Age/Hippie-Dippie manifesto or something, but I really do feel that way.

Diane Sanfilippo: I think those are really good points, and I think that like a lot of times, people look for rules to be in place that then can create a barrier for them. That they say, oh well, I can't eat that way because of this. You know, they're looking for like that list of non-negotiables that then they can find the reason why it's not okay for them. And I think your point is totally what people need to understand is that it's like, just starting from whole foods and then you'll find your way. Like you'll discover your question, should I be eating more or less carbs will be more valid when you discover how you feel just eating whole foods. Like maybe you lean towards eating like salads and non-starchy foods, but your performance in the gym is suffering in the type of activity of activity you like to do requires more starches. You know, and we can't know what to tell each person to do until they get in and see what they're doing and then it's like, oh, did you notice you weren't eating this? Or did you notice, maybe you had a little too much of this? Try that. You know, see how that works and I think that's really the best way to do it. And that's why I like just roll with it for awhile. ANd then if things really aren't working or you're just not feeling right after, I would give it at least a few months, you know, like you just can't know what's happening.
I think too like the idea of the challenges of the whole month, you know, 3 weeks or a month of like cleaning things up. Sometimes it's nice because even when we have been doing this for a long time, we kind of fall off of our own little wagons of like, hey, wait a minute, I did get myself off the rails a bit over the holidays or you know, life got busy or hectic and I forgot that I don't feel as good when I eat this way over that way, and so it's nice to, I don't know, just kind of present ourselves with a fresh new plate, so to speak, of like, hey, this is what's my plan right now. And then see how you do. I don't know. I think people can tune in for more answers to like detailed questions on the what should I eat. A lot of our older podcasts have a lot of those questions, right? People with different goals and we kind of give them some more specifics, right?

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: I think so. Cool. All right. Let's hop onto the next one.

Liz Wolfe: All right, next question. What can strict Paleo eaters integrate from Weston A. Price principles to achieve an even more optimal diet? I love this question.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, I really like this one. I think-I think you probably have more to say about than I do, but I think that people can definitely check out the post I put up for New Year's because…

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: it actually incorporates a bunch. For some reason, I don't think I mentioned Weston A. Price that much in it, but a lot of these-a lot of the points, I think you'll be able to bring up. It kind of comes back to that. So yeah, why don't you take this one?

Liz Wolfe: Well, I think-I just think this is the way, the whole Ancestral Health community is going. It's kind of merging the Paleo and the Weston A. Price principles, and I think it's amazing. I think it's a perfect marriage. I write about it or I have written a lot about it on my blog. There are tabs just right on the homepage. There's What is Paleo/Primal/Weston A. Price-all that good stuff. Just quick summaries on kind of what these different kind of families of eating philosophies are all about, and how they come together. I-we talk about our buddy Laura a lot from Ancestralize Me, but she was raised like in a Weston A. Price family, right? And she's really into this PAleo stuff as well. She's going to be an RD here pretty soon. And she and I have talked about this a lot, and we actually had the opportunity to talk to some people that are involved in the Weston A. Price FOundation and publicity and all that good stuff about how we can kind of meld these things going forward, just kind of for the benefit of everybody. And this is kind of the way I look at it. I really think Weston A. Price principles are focused on nutrient-density, as are Paleo principles. But what Weston A. Price kind of understands-the Weston A. PRice Foundation-is that you really get the most nutritional bang for your buck when you look at food not for their conventional value as in we go and we see vegetables, we see chicken breast and ground beef. We see, you know, I don't know, coconut milk in a can, that type of thing. Whereas, the Weston A. Price Foundation kind of looks at food as I don't know, amalgamations of nutrients that were ancestrally valued. So that's kind of obscure, but if we kind of look at traditional peoples, more recent traditional peoples, across the world, you see kind of the same thing, across every single culture. Even if they're eating different foods, they're getting an extremely high intake of fat soluble vitamins: vitamins A, D, E, and K. Traditional foods, like nutrient dense bone broth, organ meat, cod liver oil, butter oil, that type of stuff, is so so nutrient dense that irrespective of calories, they can really provide some super charged nutrition. Like a Paleo style diet that at times I think can be a little bit too focused on like macronutrients, if that makes sense, you know…

Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.

Liz Wolfe: protein comes from chicken and beef, and carbs from veggies, and fat from coconut oil. We're looking at the whole kind of synergistic interaction between all of these fat soluble vitamins, which even in a really good, you know, conventional strict Paleo diet can be missing. Like if you're really only eating some meat, some vegetables, and nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, no sugar, you might not be getting adequate fat soluble vitamin A. You might not be getting adequate K2. You might not be getting a whole lot of minerals in your diet. And I think it also kind of helps to address the question on calcium. A lot of us Paleo people were kind of resting on our laurels with the argument that calcium involves active face balance or you can get plenty of calcium from leafy greens, and you know, while that second part is true, leafy greens are really rich in calcium, I think what the Weston A. Price Foundation is doing is really putting out a lot of research on things like vitamin K2 and these quote unquote fat soluble activators that really kind of help regulate calcium balance along with other factors like hydration and other minerals and stuff like that. So you see a lot of the Paleo folks kind of adopting the vitamin K2 stuff and Diane, I know you're big into like the bone broth, the chicken liver pate, the fermented foods and all that good stuff, but it's just really interesting to note that a lot of that stuff is pulled straight from the Weston A. Price files.

Diane Sanfilippo: Absolutely.

Liz Wolfe: It's really really cool stuff. And last but not least. We talked to Robb-Robb Wolf about this when he came onto the podcast. Sustainable agriculture and, you know, biodynamic perennial polyculture, responsible farming, stuff like that. The Weston A. Price Foundation is really actively involved in that, which I think is amazing. They're really all about returning to this way of life where we're producing nutrient dense foods in small economies and really supporting local farmers and local growers, and stuff like that, so…yeah, I just talked for a long time. I hope it all made sense. I'm really passionate about the Weston A. Price stuff and I really hang my hat on a lot of the things they've put out there.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, I think what's interesting too about that slant is that I guess sometimes-sometimes I almost forget that those are such huge principle teachings from that foundation and from, you know, Dr. Price's work because in my studies, both of my main instructors were really really big Weston A. Price Foundation supporters, members, etc. And it was just kind of, I think at this point, you know, a lot of our listeners and readers are like, okay, we've heard you talk about this stuff a lot now. The kraut, the liver, the, you know, fat soluble vitamins, all that, and yet, I'm sure there are tons and tons of people who are totally new. I get people almost every day who are like, wait, I don't understand what I am supposed to do, why are you eating it raw, should I eat it or not, all of that. All those questions that are awesome, and I think there's no limit to how often this stuff might need to be repeated because just like with any other conversation that we're having, the repetitions helps to reinforce it, and it also helps us to make sure that we are questioning as we go along, you know. Some people might think more is better when it comes to something like raw sauerkraut, and I try and make sure that people know, you know, you don't need tons of it. You know, you're trying to rebalance gut flora in a positive way and you can push it the wrong direction if you just eat a whole jar of raw sauerkraut every day, you know. Like with everything we do, there's a matter of balance, and same thing with you know, balancing macro/micronutrients. All of that. It's all a matter of keeping just like everything in check. So I think if you, you have to just keep people reminded of all that stuff and I think it's important to, you know, keep looking to the different foundations for information and Weston A. Price Foundation is absolutely in sync with what we're teaching people. Possibly even some more modern updated information to some of the older research that's done on PAleo nutrition as well. So I know we're always trying to keep on the cutting edge.
And you mentioned vitamin K2 a bunch and calcium. I link to this book in our post, but it's called Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox. I know Laura at Ancestralize Me wrote a review of it. I haven't had a chance to finish it yet. I'm still in the middle of 50 projects, so getting through every book I have on my nightstand is like virtually impossible. But I'm pretty sure–do you have a copy of it? Did you get through it already?

Liz Wolfe: I do. I don't know that there is a paper copy. Is there? Do you have it?

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox: How a Little…

Liz Wolfe: Okay. I thought it was unavailable.

Diane Sanfilippo: How a Little KNown Vitamin Can Save Your Life by Dr. K-I don't know how to pronounce your last name. Looks like a French name or something blue.

Liz Wolfe: NOt a clue.

Diane Sanfilippo: She-yeah, I actually received a review copy, so…

Liz Wolfe: Nice.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. If you don't have that, maybe I can see about getting you one. [laughs][ But yeah, very cool. And I think those are, you know, little nitpicky things that for the people who are getting into the details of this, research it, learn about it, you know. For people who are new, what you had said in the previous question about eating whole foods and then coming into this whole nutrient density, like I'm not….I'm getting off an on a tangent. But I'm not huge on taking supplements. I line myself up with these protocols, and then I basically suck at taking them, and so…The reality is I'm great at eating raw sauerkraut, I'm great at cooking and making pate, I'm great at using grass fed butter. I mean, we were cooking…I probably cooked for like ten days straight for Bill and Hayley down in Pittsburgh at Primal Palate, and I think I probably used grassfed butter for almost every single time I was cooking. That's just how I-it's what I like, it's what I cook, and you know, every recipe will say, grass fed butter or coconut oil or whatever other fats might be useful to use. But the reality is, I think if you are cooking at home, if you're buying quality foods, you know, people talk about the price of things and how much it costs to eat Paleo or eat good food, it's like well, if you invest in the food, you don't need tons and tons of supplements.

Liz Wolfe: Right.

Diane Sanfilippo: You know, those foods are basically like those fats are superfoods. Grass Fed butter is a superfood. Liver is superfood, you know. It's like…

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: fermented raw sauerkraut has multiple times the amount of vitamin C per serving because you're eating…when you knock that head of cabbage down into one jar of sauerkraut, and you're eating so much of that per serving, so anyway…I just think it's really important and I think the nutrient density point is awesome, and I think people need to really understand that with this whole perspective.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, I think it gets tough a lot of times, like when you try and tell people, because like you said earlier, people a lot of times are kind of and I know like I still struggle with this a lot, just the mental game. I want to eat as much as possible, you know. I want a big full plate and I want to finish it, and you know I want to eat 15 100 calorie packs and 25 glasses of Diet Coke, whatever. But it's not about quantity and I promise people, the clients that I've had, I promise them that they're not going to want as much food once they get all of this figured out. They're not going to be….

Diane Sanfilippo: YUp.

Liz Wolfe: eating as much because you're not going to need as much, and that's how you're going to save money. But that's tough because the whole culture is just so,,,we're just inundated with “You can eat more for less calories,” you know? Keep stuffing this in your face and you can eat more and more of it and still lose weight. I mean, that's what the Weight Watchers commercials say.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.

Liz Wolfe: Eat what you want, still lose weight. So but, and it's taken me awhile to get there. It's taken me awhile to be satisfied with this fact that I am happy with less food. I think I get all scrambled in my brain about it, and I'm like but wait, don't I want to eat more? No, I really don't. I don't need to, and that's the cool thing about it. That's another place you save money with this lifestyle is by getting more from less.

Diane Sanfilippo: I think that's a good point, too. Yeah. Eat more…get more from less. Yeah, I think I talked about that and I know I talk about that in my seminar, and I talk about this whenever I tell people to eat fat. Like that's probably…and that's why when I prioritize for people and somehow I guess we've gotten onto sort of a, you know, isn't this an expensive way of eating question for this podcast, even though it's been inadvertent. I guess we're kind of talking about the whole budget question. But when you prioritize getting high quality fats into your diet, you end up with satiety that you never had before for a pretty low amount of money, you know, if you’re using something like coconut oil or grassfed butter, you know, the bang for your buck with nutrient density and calories is so high, that you don’t need 4 plates of broccoli to fill up and you won’t really fill up on that 4 plates of broccoli. I used to make… I used to build a plate-and I say 4 plates of broccoli because I feel like I used to fill the plate up with half broccoli or three quarters…you know, a huge amount, like a whole bag of whatever it was from Trader Joe’s or something like that as the florets, and I would make the whole entire thing with chicken breast and like a low fat/non fat tomato sauce and spray olive oil. That kind of deal.

Liz Wolfe: [laughs]

Diane Sanfilippo: Essentially it’s a really low fat meal. I mean, this is a nutritionist recommending this to me as an athlete at the time. that’s what I was eating. 20 minutes later, I was like “And I’m hungry again.” And I’d just ate the biggest plate of food, you know, imaginable. I filled it up. A huge plate. And that’s when the whole transition of like, “okay, let me try this.” FInally I tried it. You know, eating some fat, cooking with coconut oil, eating chicken thighs and a little bit of kale. And it was like, I ate half of what I had prepared for myself because I felt full. And it was just like earth shattering. Like I couldn’t even believe that I didn’t want to finish what was on my plate because I was full. So I think that’s like a little bit of what you were talking about before with the macronutrient levels and whatnot, and really just getting it in tune with how much whole food satisfies you, how much, you know, eating fats and nutrient dense foods satisfies you.
And it’s not just-You know, you may think in the beginning, it’s a visual thing, it’s a psychological thing, you know, you need a whole plate of food to be full. But the reality is, it’s at a cellular level that we feel satiety. You know, our cells need nutrients. They need nutrition. They need, you know, the caloric effect of our food, they need there to be nutrient density with it to actually send those signals hormonally throughout our bodies that we’ve received adequate food and we’re not hungry anymore. It’s not just about a volume filling our stomach. It’s about actual nutrients that come with that food that help to signal the rest of our body that we need more. So that’s the point that you were making, that it’s not about this, “oh let me eat 4 cups of whatever for only 100 calories. “ Like that’s not actually going to do it for people. And I think that people find that after awhile, right? Like they’re eating microwave popcorn or something and the snacking just never ends. And you end up eating a lot more than you thought you would cause it never actually satisfies you…

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: Fills you up nutritionally. So maybe that was a budget question? [laughs] and how often can I break them?

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, I think we covered it, and I think we could cover, even just real quick, the question people have is when can I break the rules? And which rules can I break and when can I break them? I think it’s a good segue because I just have this feeling, like if you feel the need to cheat or you’re planning on this crazy cheat day and you’re going to eat this on this day, maybe you’re not 100% nourished like at the deepest level, because I am find when I am like really pushing the nutrient dense foods and I'm adding some liver to my routine, when I'm taking cod liver oil, some butter oil, drinking my bone broth and all that good stuff, I don't care to cheat. And I don't care to do something that is quote unquote off plan. It just doesn't interest me. So you know, that's that. If you have that urgency and that feeling where you need to go off the rails a little bit, maybe you need to kind of look at incorporating some of the Weston A. Price principles, you know, all the nutrient dense food principles and see where that gets you. It's fun. We have plenty of time, people, too, you know, self experiment. It's a good time.

Diane Sanfilippo: Awesome. Who's-what's next?

Liz Wolfe: All right, let's do…here's a good one. Why were lean meats and canola oil recommended in Cordain's Paleo Diet book a decade ago? We're talking about the original Paleo Diet book which I think is the one that a lot of people still have and maybe start out with. What do you think, Diane?

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, and let me preface this by saying I haven't finished listening to the entire episode, but I know that Loren Cordain was on Paleo Solution podcast, I think it was just last week, with Robb and Greg, and he was talking a lot about his new book, The Paleo Answer. And the differences in the books, and how the new book is so much more his own voice and things that he wanted to say that he didn't get to say in the first book, and also just new research about Paleo nutrition. So I haven't read the book yet. That's the, you know, that's my first-my first note about that. I haven't also finished listening to that podcast, but I do know that when I did read the original PAleo Diet, at a certain point, I was really turned off by the book because of the recommendations to eat canola oil, and lean meats, that didn't really throw me off so much because I think the recommendation to eat lean meats is primarily around the concept that grass fed meats are leaner than conventional meats. When we look, I mean, you can see in the case…if you, or even if you get a cow share or something, the meat that you're getting typically is not as marbled and that's because cows that eat eat grass don't get as fat as cows that eat grain.
So I think that's probably the first point is that, you know, perhaps the fat content in traditional Paleolithic, grass fed ruminants was a lot lower. I think the second part of that is that if you are buying conventional meats, that the theory is that any toxin load or the balance of the type of fats in the meat won't be as positive as the type of fat you're getting from grassfed meat, which is higher proportionately in omega-3 fat or conjugate linoleic acid. CLA. So I think that that's probably the other perspective is that lean meats, okay, if you're buying conventional meats, that you wanted to avoid some of the fats in those meats because they maybe weren't-they weren't the best fats to be eating. I don't know. I don't really tend to tell people to go crazy on them. I think if you;re doing the best you can to get the best quality meat that you can, then I Wouldn't avoid the fat. You know, if somebody's really concerned about that, that they really-they have to buy conventional meat all the time, that's the point where I might say you know what, maybe get the leaner cut and buy some good quality fats that you can add back to it, like the grass fed butter, like the organic unrefined coconut oil, if you're concerned about it. I don't know. I don't have any other rationale for that. BUt that's kind of my take, like I don't tend to avoid fatty cuts of meat when I'm out to eat because what I eat at home is always grassfed and quite frankly it's cheaper if you buy grass fed in bulk. So I buy it in bulk and throw it in the freezer.
But anyway, when it comes to canola oil, I think that the perspective on that was a really conventional perspective that at first glance, the omega-3/6 profile of canola oil looked beneficial. And I don't think that at the time, Cordain was taking into account the fact the processing in the refinement process that happens to the rapeseed, which is what is used to make canola oil, I don't think he was taking that into account, and I don't think for some reason he was taking, you know, what happens when we cook with those oils that are maybe rich in omega-3 or omega-6 fats. I think canola oil actually might be pretty high in omega-3, which might be why he was recommending it, but once we look at the refinement process and how damaged it is, right, when it hits the bottle and we look at the further damage that comes from cooking it, I mean, I literally think I put the book down when I read that. I was like, I already knew from my own education process that that was not a good recommendation, and I was really really turned off by that. It didn't keep me from subscribing to most of the other information in the book, but I really was turned off by that, so much so that I wrote a post called, “Canola Oil May Be Paleo Diet Approved, But I Won't Eat It.” Since then, you know, Cordain's actually said, okay, we don't think canola oil's the best thing to be eating, but it was a really upsetting thing for me to read. And I think it's just part of the whole point of why I was saying that your point of view is valuable, my point of view is valuable. We all have our own point of view based on different things and we're constantly learning, right?

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: And I think it's awesome that he's put out another book. I think it's awesome that he's kind of reversed or at least modified his stance on saturated fat not being horrible for you. And I think that's what it';s all about. And I think it;s the best we can do for our readers and our followers to constantly re-educate ourselves and just share the best information that we have and the best information about how we live our lives with them. And so, you know I have absolute total respect for Loren Cordain. I was really upset by that part of the book, but you know what, he's done his due diligence and he's come around. I'm not upset, and that's kind of the lesson there. And your take?

Liz Wolfe: Well, yeah, like I'm completely 100% with you on that. I just-I appreciate so much when people are willing to shift their point of view based on new information and we just don't see that in the conventional, you know, medical community to the conventional paradigm that we're dealing with. You know, all this Food Safety Modernization Act and all this crazy stuff that is just not really taking into account the most current science and the most current information. In my opinion, you know, I don't know everything. I know very little actually when you come right down to it. But you know, all these people that I look up to, you and Robb and Chris Kresser and Loren Cordain. They just-they're willing to shift their point of view as new information becomes available because they're not attached to some ego-driven “well, this is what I said and it has to continue to be right.” They're really just, you know, prisms to this kind of filter to these different things that we know and put them out to everybody. Which I think is absolutely what all of our mission should be is to…

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.

Liz Wolfe: just be like prism to the information and not, you know, get personal and egotistical about it. I really think that what's damaged a lot of people's health is just people who are unwilling to shift based on wisdom and new information, you know. Man, I'm wordy today. I'm talking a lot.

Diane Sanfilippo: You're really not. Really, you're not.

Liz Wolfe: [laughs] Okay.

Diane Sanfilippo: You're not at all. No I think it's good.

Liz Wolfe: Do you think we have time for one more? It's your favorite.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, I think we can do this one. And then we've got another one a couple down that I think we definitely want to hit towards the end there. Yeah, let's do, let's do this next one.

Liz Wolfe: OKay, cool. All right well: Well…

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, you want to do it? Want to do it? Yeah?

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, yeah, do it.

Liz Wolfe: Okay..we'll see how it…”Since I am avoiding fruits due to candida and dealing with hypoglycemia, am I getting enough nutrients from the meats and veggies? I eat tons of cruciferous veggies daily.” Thoughts?

Diane Sanfilippo: So my thoughts on this, and I haven't like built a day with a nutrition calculator which this…I think this came from Facebook, so that Facebook follwoer can absolutely, you know, run a day's worth of food through FitDay.com or NutritionData.com and see what you come out. But my hunch is yeah, you can absolutely get everything you need from meat, veggies, and healthy fats. Cruciferous veggies are great form, but you're not probably getting the full spectrum of like, I'm going to guess like carotenoids and you know, maybe beta-carotene, things that you would get from veggies that have other colors. Cruciferous vegetables are things like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussel sprouts, kale…there's actually a lot of vegetables in that family, but I would make sure that if you are not getting on some other, you know, red, orange, yellow types of veggies, that you try and get those in, too. They're just going to have different phytonutrients and different micronutrient levels. I wouldn't stress much about it if it's something that you're doing short term because of the candida overgrowth, which is just like a fungal type of infection that feeds on sugar and different types of sugars, so if someone's dealing with that, and you're just avoiding sugars, I wouldn't really be too worried about it. You shouldn't really need to be on that type of specific diet for more than a few months, and when we look at the way people need to balance macro-not macronutrients, sorry-micronutrient levels and intake, it's not a really a meal to meal, day to day thing. It's really more of like a week to week, month to month, year to year type of thing, so you know we have seasonal fruits and veggies, and getting them in when they're in season and not when they're not, totally fine.
And you know, I think it's important to note too that it takes a long time to see any kind of deficiencies in people…it can take years to see any deficiencies which I think is a sign that, you know it can take years to develop them. So unless you're avoiding things for that long, I don't think you'll have a problem, and I would just say that to vary your veggies. We-a lot of us get really into just [xxx 51:05-07] all the time, and so you know, if you're doing…if you have one sort of approach right now for this goal, don't forget when you've gone past that type of cleanse or your type of hypoglycemia has sort of resolved itself and you're not eating as many sweet things, you know, don't forget that you can reintroduce certain things back in when that period has passed. That's something that I definitely did last year when I was doing like a cyclic ketogenic diet, and I just kind of forgot that there were other vegetables I could eat after awhile because I had just been eating like leafy greens and tons of herbs and really, you know, that was what my shopping was, and I just kind of forgot that there were bell peppers, pickled peppers and tomatoes and other types of things that I could be including, and carrots…I know, it was just like kind of crazy and yeah, so that's kind of what I think about that. I wouldn't be too worried about it.

Liz Wolfe: Cool. All right, last one. Do you want to do this? SHould we do the next one?

Diane Sanfilippo: Let's do the one that's a couple down about gum.

Liz Wolfe: About gum. You want your gum? OKay. Paleo 101 topic: what about gum? HOw do you feel about gum? Sugarfree? Sugarful? Paleo alternatives to gum, if there are any. ANd I'm going to read the rest of this question because I love the term that she uses. “My husband and I have been Paleo for about 4 months now and are loving it. I started out extra fluffy [laughs] probably about 50 pounds overweight, and I haven't been on a scale in forever. And while I'm definitely still in the middle of my weight loss journey, I would say mildly fluffy at this point.” I love that. Fluffy. It's so awesome. “I'm very happy with my progress and results to date. Prior to going Paleo, I used gum to keep myself from eating out of boredom. A big problem for me, as well as using as a breath freshener and post-meal cleaner. After reading what you, Diane, posted about sugar, I'm now freaking out a little that chewing gum is totally sabotaging myself. Help!”

Diane Sanfilippo: First of all, don't freak out. [laughs]

Liz Wolfe: [laughs]

Diane Sanfilippo: Don't freak out. A few things about gum. So I think what this reader was pointing to was some of the like hormonal appetite type signaling that can happen just from a sweet taste, and i think actually…I saw an article that got shared about this just within the last day or so. THe artificial sweeteners are basically not doing us any favors in the whole weight loss category. I think that we think when we're tricking our system with an artificial sweetener that has no, you know, calories to follow it up, we think we're doing something great. But we're not because our body is hard wired to receive calories with sugar, or with the sense of sweetness. So you know, a couple of different perspectives here on this one.
Number one, when you eat something sweet without calories, your body is naturally looking for those calories. It may raise your insulin just because it expects calories to come in or nutrients to come in with that sweet taste. So that's kind of point one.
Point two, artificial sweeteners, I never like. They're chemicals. Avoid them. I don't have more to say about that because it's like I don't need to tell you to stop eating chemicals any more times, I don't think. [laughs] But number three is just the whole mastication process or chewing that begins to signal your whole digestive system that food is coming. So I used to think that that was a smart approach as well to keep yourself from being hungry, or you know, keep yourself from being bored, but the reality is by chewing and creating more saliva, you're telling your body to expect food. I think they're actually stimulating your appetite even more. I don't think it's a good idea. I used to chew gum like mad crazy amounts of gum. I had packs and packs of gum in my drawer. Somebody could ask my old, you know, graphic design assistant, I mean, I had…I think it was Orbit gum, I had a million different flavors. I would chew the stuff like crazy. I loved it. I thought it was the best thing that was when I was on a low fat diet, eating two breakfasts every day, and a whole mess of things going on. But I realized I'd maybe chew gum like two or three times year, just because if I really have something going and I'm like, I really need to freshen my breath or I'm just, I don't even know any other reason why I would do it. That would really be it. Totally emergency. I don't buy it anymore, but if you're going to use one or another, I just say, don't do anything with artificial sweeteners. I would offer something that has regular sugar as opposed to an artificial sweetener. There's one kind of gum that's supposed to be like a more natural gum. It's called Glee gum, and it's just G-L-E-E G-U-M that you can find out there. And they have a sugar free version sweetened with xylitol. I'm still not really the biggest of sugar alcohols. I don't really know what the deal is with them. I can't-I can't really get on board with that stuff. But I mean, I can be totally wrong that they're harmless and whatever, but I'm just not that into it. I would just rather people, you know, sparingly have something with sugar if they need to. But that's kind of my take. I don't think gum's the best idea for regular consumption and I absolutely don't think artificial sweeteners are doing anybody any favors at all.

Liz Wolfe: Agreed.

Diane Sanfilippo: Paleo alternatives to gum? I almost missed that part. I don't know. I've heard of people chewing on stuff like honeycomb. I don't know. I think if you get the honey in there, that's a lot of sugar. Or beeswax. I think some people have chewed on beeswax before. I mean, that's like pretty hardcore.

Liz Wolfe: That is. I think over time if you're persistent enough, you can kind of eliminate behaviors like that, you know. it's the same with…I don't know. I-revealing a little too much about myself, but in college, I did a little bit of, you know, smoking. I'm so mad at myself that I just admitted that, but really it was a matter of just eliminating that behavior and getting over it. I know that's difficult for some people, but it's the same with gum. It's like you have this thing that you want to do. You want to chew. You want to smoke. You want to whatever. You just have to give yourself like two, three weeks of commitment to eliminating that, you know, tendency, that feeling, that urge to do that, and you'll be fine. You won't want gum anymore.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, it's funny. I never think about it anymore, but I used to chew it really incessantly.

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, there was something else I was going to say about that, too. Oh, you know, if it's a problem of breath and bad breath, then you've got something else going on. Like obviously, if you chug a whole bunch of raw onions and garlic or you know, whatever, and ate something pretty gnarly, okay, fine. You know, we're going to smell that. But if you've got an issue with halitosis, it's probably some sort of other digestive issue happening in your stomach like low stomach acid or some kind of gut pathogen, so if that's what the issue is, then I would, you know, look at it there. If you're just going to like chew gum once in a blue moon, I would just, you know, avoid the artificial stuff or not sweat it if it's really, really random. That's it. That's all I got.

Liz Wolfe: Cool. I think we're right at an hour.

Diane Sanfilippo: Cool, so let's wrap up for today. I'm sure there's probably a handful of other questions that we could definitely tackle in sort of a next level-next level of questions, and I don't know that that will be our next podcast. It may or may not, but I also have a couple of guests lined up. Hmm. Again, I'm not exactly sure the date or the timing on it, but I definitely have Dr. Brian Walsh lined up to be a guest who I'm like super super excited to talk to and geek out about adrenal fatigue with him. He-I like have tons of respect for this guy because I just think his approach makes so much sense to me. I talked about him a bunch when I did the whole adrenal brain dump a couple of weeks ago, and he's the doctor that I had just kind of, you know, really makes the most sense on this stuff. So I'm going to have him come on and basically get to be self-indulgent and ask all the questions I want to ask, and hopefully you guys can learn more. It'll be kind of a part 2 follow up, in more detail with an actual doctor on that subject, so I think that'll be really cool.
What else? That's pretty much it. I should have more information to share on my book within the next few weeks. I just want to wait until there's a little more to kind of tell you guys, but I do think I have an estimated release date. I'm just not 100% sure on that, today. So probably by the beginning of February, I'll be able to share a lot more information about that with you guys. So I'm really excited. I think some of you have seen some teaser pictures that I've put up on Facebook, and they were like not even the tip of the iceberg because I'm so excited. I wanted to share, but I was like, I can't show people yet. So…stay `tuned for that. Until next week.

Liz Wolfe: Until next week, talk to you later.

Diane Sanfilippo: Bye.

Liz Wolfe: Bye.

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