The Truth About Raw Milk, Fats, and Fertility | Sally Fallon

Summary

Realfoodology Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: The Truth About Raw Milk, Fats, and Fertility | Sally Fallon
Host: Courtney Swan
Guest: Sally Fallon Morrell, Founding President of the Weston A. Price Foundation
Release Date: February 11, 2025
Produced By: Wellness Loud

---

Introduction

In this enlightening episode of the Realfoodology podcast, host Courtney Swan sits down with Sally Fallon Morrell, the founding president of the Weston A. Price Foundation and author of Nourishing Traditions. The conversation delves deep into traditional nutrition practices, the role of fats in our diet, the controversies surrounding raw milk, and the impact of modern dietary choices on fertility and overall health.

---

Background of Sally Fallon Morrell

Courtney Swan expresses her admiration for Sally Fallon, highlighting her influence during her master’s program in nutrition where Nourishing Traditions was required reading. Sally shares her journey of writing the book, which began as an initiative to translate Dr. Weston A. Price's findings into a practical cookbook for American audiences. Despite numerous rejections from publishers who preferred canola oil over traditional fats, Sally persevered, self-publishing her work and eventually selling over 850,000 copies through word of mouth[^07:10].

Sally Fallon Morrell ([07:08]): "I just persevered and felt that I should continue this... it was definitely word of mouth that spread the idea about the book."

---

Traditional Nutrition: The Importance of Animal Fats

The discussion emphasizes the critical role of animal fats in human nutrition, challenging the prevalent misconception that fats contribute to weight gain. Sally underscores that traditional diets, rich in animal fats, are essential for various bodily functions.

Importance of Animal Fats

Sally explains that animal fats provide cholesterol and vitamin A, which are crucial for hormone production, thyroid function, and overall health.

Sally Fallon Morrell ([12:47]): "Mother's milk is very rich in cholesterol and contains special enzymes to ensure that 100% of that cholesterol will be absorbed."

Myths About Fats and Cholesterol

The podcast debunks the myth that dietary fats make you fat. Instead, it highlights how traditional cultures thrived on high-fat diets without experiencing obesity.

Sally Fallon Morrell ([55:30]): "The fats make you fat. And when you look at these traditional cultures... they couldn't survive without that fat."

---

Baby Formula vs. Breastfeeding

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to critiquing modern baby formula and advocating for breastfeeding and traditional feeding practices.

Issues with Current Infant Formula

Sally points out that most commercial formulas lack essential animal fats and cholesterol, which are vital for a baby’s growth and hormone production.

Sally Fallon Morrell ([12:47]): "There's no cholesterol in human baby formula. There's no animal fat in baby formula... mothers want to use the next best thing to mother's milk, which is raw milk from another species."

Health Implications for Infants

The absence of cholesterol in formula can lead to impaired hormone production, affecting physical development and fertility later in life.

Sally Fallon Morrell ([13:40]): "Our nutrition decisions are being made by accountants. They're not being made by people who care for babies."

Raw Milk as an Alternative

Sally advocates for raw milk as a closer alternative to breast milk, enriched with additional nutrients to match human milk.

Sally Fallon Morrell ([28:31]): "At least that thousands of babies have had this formula and it's based on the next best thing to mother's milk, which is raw milk from another species."

---

Fertility and Diet

The conversation shifts to the impact of diet on fertility, emphasizing how modern dietary practices contribute to declining fertility rates.

Foods That Promote Fertility

Sally recommends incorporating raw milk, egg yolks, butter, and cod liver oil into the diet to enhance fertility.

Sally Fallon Morrell ([15:23]): "All of these can help you get pregnant by getting on our diet. Raw milk, egg yolks, butter, lots of butter, cod liver oil."

Declining Fertility and Diet’s Role

The episode links poor dietary choices, particularly the consumption of seed oils and lack of healthy fats, to widespread infertility issues.

Sally Fallon Morrell ([17:27]): "All the foods we need for fertility have been demonized... they're using seed oils, sweeteners."

---

Sustainable Farming and Food Systems

Sally criticizes industrial agriculture, advocating for small, local farms that prioritize animal welfare and nutrient-rich foods over profit margins.

Industrial Agriculture vs. Small Local Farms

Sally argues that industrial farms favor grain feeding over pasture feeding, leading to nutrient-deficient animal products.

Sally Fallon Morrell ([23:30]): "The Department of Agriculture is actually follows a Marxist agenda of industrial farms... They want you to grain feed your animals."

Impact on Nutrition and Environment

She highlights how industrial practices not only compromise food quality but also contribute to environmental degradation.

Sally Fallon Morrell ([24:21]): "We're not feeding people now. They're starving... In quantity as well as quality, we can feed the world with small farms."

---

Raw Milk Controversy

The episode delves into the debate over raw milk, addressing both its benefits and the controversies surrounding its safety and legality.

Health Benefits of Raw Milk

Sally emphasizes that raw milk contains essential proteins and antimicrobial components that are destroyed during pasteurization.

Sally Fallon Morrell ([51:10]): "The pasteurization process destroys the proteins in milk. One of the things they don't tell you is there's between 20 and 30 deaths... They are anti pathogenic."

Risks and Regulations

While acknowledging minimal risks, Sally argues that the dangers of pasteurized milk are often overstated for economic gains.

Sally Fallon Morrell ([52:44]): "They immediately shut him down... So you have to be very careful of the statistics they're using."

Industry Opposition

She explains that raw milk restrictions are largely driven by dairy and grain industries aiming to protect their profit margins.

Sally Fallon Morrell ([67:11]): "The dairy industry... they pay the farmers practically nothing... it's the grain interests."

---

Dietary Trends: Keto, Paleo, and Traditional Diets

Sally critiques modern dietary trends like Keto and Paleo for their imbalance of macronutrients and lack of traditional food practices.

Keto and Paleo vs. Traditional Diets

She points out that high-protein diets often neglect the necessary fat intake required for optimal health.

Sally Fallon Morrell ([60:15]): "High meat diets... don't have enough fat... these diets really need more fat?"

Protein Consumption Issues

Sally warns against excessive protein intake, linking it to kidney strain and vitamin A depletion.

Sally Fallon Morrell ([61:32]): "We're getting too much protein... These diets are very hard on the kidneys."

Importance of Balanced Intake

Advocating for a balanced diet rich in healthy fats, moderate proteins, and necessary carbohydrates, Sally encourages returning to nutrient-dense traditional foods.

Sally Fallon Morrell ([62:22]): "You don't have to have a weird diet... it's good news for most people."

---

Conclusion and Hope for the Future

Despite acknowledging the slow pace of change, Sally remains hopeful that increasing awareness and grassroots movements will lead to a healthier population.

Sally Fallon Morrell ([73:33]): "We're going to change this through the grassroots level... This is the Natural selection of the wise."

Courtney and Sally emphasize the importance of informed dietary choices, supporting local farmers, and prioritizing nutrient-dense foods for future generations.

---

Notable Quotes

• Courtney Swan ([00:10]): "We talked about a lot of things that I've talked about in passing on the podcast, but I've never really dove into things like raw milk, why we should be eating more butter..."

• Sally Fallon Morrell ([12:47]): "There's no cholesterol in human baby formula. There's no animal fat in baby formula... Mothers milk is very rich in cholesterol..."

• Sally Fallon Morrell ([23:30]): "The Department of Agriculture is actually follows a Marxist agenda of industrial farms... They want you to grain feed your animals."

• Sally Fallon Morrell ([73:33]): "This is the Natural selection of the wise... Eventually, we will have a healthy population again."

---

Resources and Further Reading

• Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon Morrell
• Weston A. Price Foundation: westonaprice.org
• Realmilk: realmilk.com
• Podcast Websites: Available on Spotify and YouTube

---

Disclaimer: The content of this summary is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult with healthcare professionals before making dietary or health-related decisions.

Transcript

[A]

On today's episode of the Real Foodology.

[B]

Podcast, our nutrition decisions are being made by accountants. They're not being made by people who care for babies.

[A]

Hi, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Courtney Swan, and today's episode is with Sally Fallon Morrell. She is the founding president of the Weston A. Price foundation, and she also wrote a book called Nourishing Traditions. I was really stoked to get to be able to sit down with her. Not only do I love the work that Weston A. Price is doing, side note, if you don't follow them on Instagram, I highly recommend doing that. They also have an amazing podcast which is full of all the information that we go over today and so much more that I didn't even have time to cover. But I was really excited because she is the author of Nourishing Traditions, which. Which was actually a book that was required reading for me during my master's program in one of my nutrition classes. So it was really cool to be able to sit down and talk with her, pick her brain. We talked about a lot of things that I've talked about in passing on the podcast, but I've never really dove into things like raw milk, why we should be eating more butter, what healthy fats she recommends, and just overall, what does a nourishing real food diet look like that our ancestors ate? And also a diet that promotes fertility. But you all know that I am on my own fertility journey, hoping to get pregnant later this year. And so we talked about what foods I should be eating that will promote fertility and hopefully a healthy pregnancy. We also talk about baby formula. I do want to say I said this in the podcast. I want to reiterate this again. I know the topic of baby formula and breastfeeding is a really sensitive topic, and I know it's extra sensitive when it's a woman who doesn't have experience breastfeeding and being pregnant yet. I get a lot of heat about that from women who have gone through the experience. And I know, and I wanna recognize that obviously I have not been through that yet. And I recognize that there are things ahead of me that I will not be able to predict. And I have no idea how I'm gonna handle it when I'm in that moment. But I do just wanna remind you that try not to take on any guilt or shame with the information that you hear in this podcast. If you are a mom and you're past the breastfeeding formula phase, and maybe you did things that you wish that you could change. Now look, at the end of the day, we're all doing the best that we can with the information that we have at the time. And when we know better, we do better. And I believe that this information can help a lot of women, including myself, who have not been down this road yet, who have not been down this path. And if I can help any moms going down that path and give them as many resources as possible to have a healthy pregnancy, to have a healthy baby, to navigate if they're unable to breastfeed. And also, to be honest, I wanna be a proponent for breastfeeding if you can. Cause I think it's the healthiest thing that we can do for our babies. And if we can do it, I wanna give as many resources to women on how to do that successfully. So I know it's a sensitive topic. I hope that you'll listen to the whole episode. And she has really amazing resources for what to do if you're unable to breastfeed. It was an incredible episode. I learned things that I had never heard before. And she's just an amazing woman and I'm totally in awe of all the work that she's done and I just think she's incredible. So I hope that you love the episode. If you want to take a moment to rate and review it, it means so much to me. It also really helps the show. And if you're loving this particular episode, if you want to tag me on Instagram ealthoodology, I try to get to all of your messages. I see most of them and I just want to say thank you so much for the support. I love you guys and I hope you enjoy the episode. Thank you. I am a huge fan of Manuka Honey. In fact, I've taken it for years because of its antibacterial and antiviral properties. It's rich, creamy, and honestly the most delicious honey I've ever tasted. What makes it so special? It's ethically produced by master beekeepers in the remote forests of New Zealand, and it's packed with powerful nutrients that support both immunity and gut health. The bees collect nectar from the Manuka tea tree and the honey they produce contains three times more antioxidants and prebiotics than regular honey. Not only that, but Manukora honey also contains a special antibacterial compound called mgo. Every single harvest is third party tested for mgo and you can even scan a QR code to see the results for yourself. Now, it's easier than Ever to try Manukora honey, head to manukora.com Real Foodology to get $25 off the starter kit. That's M a n N U k o r a.com Real Foodology for $25 off your starter kit. Are you trying to stay hydrated but still feeling tired? No matter how much water you drink, it's time to rethink hydration. Introducing Element, the electrolyte drink mix designed to replenish what you lose when you sweat. Unlike plain water, Element provides essential sodium, potassium and magnesium to prevent muscle cramps, headaches and energy crashes. Element Element contains zero sugar or artificial additives with refreshing flavors like citrus salt and raspberry salt. There's something for everyone. And for my sparkling water lovers, Element has created a sparkling water called Element Sparkling. I'm so excited about this product with the same trusted electrolyte formulation you love now in a refreshing 16 ounce can of sparkling water. Try Element Sparkling today and experience hydration with a sparkling twist. To get your free sample pack with any drink mix Purchase, go to drinkelement.com Real Foodology that's drinklmnt.com Real Foodology and if you're an Element insider, you have first access to Element sparkling, a bold 16 ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water. Sally, thank you so much for taking the trip to come up and talk to me today.

[B]

Oh, you're so welcome. I'm happy to be here.

[A]

Oh, good. I'm so excited. So I was telling you before we started recording that I. I'm so blown away that I'm sitting here right now talking to you because I read one of your books as required reading in one of my nutrition classes around. It was seven or eight years ago now, and I'm so grateful for the work that you've done.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Yeah. So I'm curious before I start getting to all the questions, how did you get into all of this and how did you get to a place where you wrote a book called Nourishing Traditions? How did you come to all that?

[B]

Yeah, I don't know. It just sort of happened. I feel like the universe is kind of tugging on me. You need to go this direction. So I got this idea to write a cookbook putting Dr. Price's Weston Price's Discoveries into practical form for the American audience. And I'd never written a book. I didn't know what I was doing. My kids, oh, yeah, Mom's writing a book. But I just persevered and felt that I should continue this and of course, couldn't find a publisher, I had to self publish. Wow.

[A]

Is that because they didn't like what you were writing?

[B]

Yes. In fact, my co author, Mary Enig, had been told by someone in the publishing world that we won't publish a book that doesn't promote canola oil. That's what she was told. So.

[A]

Oh, my God, I can't believe that.

[B]

And I have a box of rejections. But a lot of them were very nice, saying, gosh, this sounds so interesting, but we can't publish it. Well, I'm up to 850,000 books now, and even my kids say, you know, mom, you actually did it. You did it. Yes. So it started off very slowly, and it just. I didn't know about marketing. I didn't know what I was doing. But it was definitely word of mouth that spread the idea about the book.

[A]

Yeah, well, and then there's people like me now that are taking nutrition courses. I got my master's of science in nutrition and one of my classes, actually, I think now looking back, I think I had two classes that it was required reading and they would have it have us read different chapters. And back then, I was pretty well versed in real food. So I created my brand called Real Foodology because I felt like the basis of all of everything I was talking about was real food.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

And when I read your book, you put a couple things on the ma for me. Things like bone broth. I remember you had a whole chapter about how nourishing it is, and I want to dive into that too. But you were the first person that really put that on the map for me. And I just. The way that you wrote in that book, it really spoke to me because it goes back to our really primal, innate, what we know to be true about health and what we should be eating. And you just did a wonderful job with writing all that out in her book.

[B]

Oh, thank you. Well, my mother was from the south, and the southerners were still making chicken broth, even back then. So she made chicken broth, and she talked about how good it was for you and it was good for your skin and helped you sleep, and so that's where that came from.

[A]

You know what? You just reminded me, too. So there's a little story that you tell, or I don't even know if it was a story, but it was. You were explaining why mothers give their children chicken soup when they're sick. And I still tell this story to this day to my friends. I think I've maybe even shared it on the Podcast before. Will you share that with the audience? Why is that a tradition that when you're sick, they give you chicken noodle soup?

[B]

Well, I don't know why they had that tradition, but what I love about these traditions is that they're validated by science. And if a nourishing tradition is validated by science, we can pretty much count on that. So we know there's a lot of glycine in chicken soup, and that's very important for detoxification. It supports the liver and detoxification, and that's what getting sick is. It's a detoxifying process. It's not something we should fight. We should kind of go through it. But the chicken broth really supports that process that's going on in your body, but it does a lot of other things, too. So basically, when you're eating chicken soup, you're eating melted collagen because there's a lot of glycine, and you make this chicken soup out of collagen. So all of the amino acids that you need for healthy joints and healthy bones are there in the chicken soup.

[A]

Okay. And, yeah, there was another piece of it, too, that I thought, I remember reading in your book, that the minerals and the bones go into the broth. Was that.

[B]

Yes, they do. Although we were disappointed to find out that there was very little calcium in the broth. Oh, okay. So what's in the collagen and the connective tissue is not bone. It's connective tissue, and there's not a lot of calcium there, but there were a lot of other minerals.

[A]

Okay, sure. Okay. Well, still, I mean, that's amazing to know. And I just thought it was an interesting thing that I read in your book, and I told a lot of people about it. Okay, So I want to talk about baby formula, because this is a really hot topic right now.

[B]

Yes, it is.

[A]

And there's a lot of people arguing back and forth about this. And there's also. I have a lot of concern because out of all of the conventional formulas on the market on the shelves, you can't find a single one that doesn't have canola oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, one of those. What is your biggest issue with the formula that's available right now, or all of your issues?

[B]

If you go out and buy what they call. They call it milk substitute for animals, for cows or goats or whatever, the third ingredient in that formula is, is animal fat. It says that right there on the label. One, two, three, is animal fat. And that's because the vets know that these animals will not grow normally if they don't get animal fat. The growth in mammals, and that includes human mammals, requires cholesterol and vitamin A, and you get that from animal fats. Now, there is no cholesterol in human baby formula. There's no animal fat in baby formula. And this is just the time when babies need that cholesterol. Mother's milk is very rich in cholesterol and contains special enzymes to ensure that 100% of that cholesterol will be absorbed. The baby can't make cholesterol, and the baby can't make vitamin A either. And these are the two critical vitamins for lots of things, but mainly for hormone production. Now, we think babies don't produce hormones, but they do. And the testosterone levels in a little boy are supposed to be, for the first six months of life, as high as those of an adult male.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

They're just as high as a man. Okay. But if the baby can't make that testosterone, he won't make it. And that six months of testosterone primes the baby boy to express male characteristics at puberty. If he's getting formula, this is much less likely to happen. Why doesn't the formula industry put whole milk into the formulas? They're all made with skim milk and vegetable oils. Why don't they do that? And they vowed they will never do this because they don't want to waste the butter fat by giving it to babies when they can get five times more for that butter fat by putting it into ice cream. So our nutrition decisions are being made by accountants. They're not being made by people who care for babies.

[A]

Oh, and something about cholesterol, too, because I think this is important to note, because we vilify cholesterol like crazy. We need cholesterol in order to create testosterone, to make testosterone. So that's why they need it.

[B]

Estrogen.

[A]

And estrogen. Yeah. And it's also really good for the brain.

[B]

It's essential for the brain. It's essential for the digestive tract. You need a lot of cholesterol in the cells lining the digestive tract. And babies, you know, they're very. Their digestive apparatus is just getting started. And they can't make a lot of these things. That's why they're in the milk, and that's why cholesterol is in the milk. There's a reason for it. Yeah.

[A]

And so when you do skim milk, it's not gonna have as much cholesterol in it.

[B]

It has no cholesterol in it. Okay, okay. So we're giving babies skim milk, vegetable oils and the wrong kind of sugar and a lot of artificial vitamins. And no wonder we're getting stupider. No wonder we have widespread digestive problems in our children.

[A]

And we're also dealing with infertility like crazy.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

I mean, my generation, it's also something I want to talk about is with my generation, I mean, women are.

[B]

They're crying to get pregnant. Crying and trying to get pregnant.

[A]

I mean, I have so many friends that are going through IVF right now and they're early 30s.

[B]

Yes. Yeah, I know, it's sad. We've had many gals now. See, the female can kind of recoup more than a male can. And we have so many gals who've gotten pregnant by getting on our diet. Raw milk, egg yolks, butter, lots of butter, cod liver oil. They get pregnant, but nobody's telling them this. There's a lot more money in IVF than in healthy women.

[A]

You could be eating all the right foods for your New Year's resolution, but if your body isn't properly breaking them down, you're literally flushing money down the toilet. That's where mastimes from bioptimizers comes in. This isn't just another digestive enzyme. We're talking about a powerhouse supplement with 100,000 units of protein digesting enzymes per capsule. If you're hitting the gym and upping your protein intake for those 2025 gains, Massimes will help you actually absorb those expensive protein shakes and meal prep high protein meals that you are eating every day. Users report better digestion, increased energy and faster muscle recovery. Plus no more feeling bloated and sluggish after meals, which is exactly what you don't need when you're trying to stick to those New Year's fitness goals. For an exclusive offer, go to bioptimizers.com real foodology and use promo code Real Foodology. If you want to know how to get glowy skin and also get your antioxidants in every day, keep listening. I love the Peak radiant skin duo because it has the Matcha and then you also get the BT fountain Electrolytes Matcha. You get sustained energy without jitters or caffeine crashes. It's also packed with Alanine for calm focus. And it has the powerful EGCG antioxidants to firm and brighten your skin. And then the BT fountain electrolytes hydrates on a cellular level with clinical proven ceramides to reduce fine lines and wrinkles helps to keep skin soft, supple, and free from redness. There's no added sugar, preservatives or, or artificial ingredients. And I love this, this duo together because they protect my skin, strengthen its barrier, and keep it deeply hydrated for that lit from within look. So if you're ready to transform your routine right now, you can get 20% off on the radiant skin duo, plus a free starter kit, including a rechargeable frother and glass beaker. With my exclusive link peak. That's P I Q U E life.com real foodology. Don't miss out. Glow naturally in 2025 while supplies last. Why do foods like that promote fertility? Because largely those foods have been demonized.

[B]

All the foods we need for fertility have been demonized. All the foods that traditional people that Dr. Price studied have been demonized. So organ meats, liver, animal fats, eggs, and lots of seafood as well. There's no money in them. You know, there's a lot of money in processed food. And they don't want to use expensive ingredients in processed food. So they use seed oils, sweeteners.

[A]

Yeah, they use a lot of things that we're subsidizing with farmers, too. And so that's why it's cheap and we have a lot of it and it's super accessible.

[B]

And it would be so easy for us to subsidize butter. Do we really want to have a healthy, prosperous, robust nation? We should be subsidizing butter and we should be warning people, especially moms, against low fat foods. Skim milk, all this kind of skinless chicken breasts. That's one of my big. That's one of my big peeves.

[A]

I have such beef with this because I'm sure you know about this. But there was that study that was done in the 1970s with these Harvard scientists, and they got wind that it was sugar that was actually leading to heart disease and heart attacks and the sugar industry. This sounds like conspiracy, but it is literally true. NPR wrote a piece about this. The sugar industry got wind of this study and the results that they were going to publish. So they pay these Harvard scientists off. And it wasn't even that much money. It was like the equivalent of like $50,000 in 2025 to say that it was fat instead of sugar. And then this was around the time when I was a young. I was probably maybe, well, the 1970s. I was not born yet, but I remember there was q the low fat diet when I was young because all my mom's friends Remember were eating those Snackwell cookies. Do you remember those? The low fat.

[B]

No, no, no.

[A]

Oh, God. And then it's still, to this day, people are terrified of fat.

[B]

Well, there was a study in the early 2000s. The man was named Chavarro, he was at Harvard, and he was studying women who couldn't get pregnant. And two groups, a control group and the other group was told to eat full fat dairy products. And the group eating full fat dairy products, they got pregnant.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Have you heard about this study?

[A]

No.

[B]

Has it been published? Has your infertility doctor told you about this study? No. And then they said, well, if you got pregnant on a full fat diet, when you get pregnant, you can go back to your low fat diet.

[A]

Why would we do that?

[B]

Don't you think that the same diet that helps you get pregnant would be the diet that helps you stay pregnant and develops a healthy child?

[A]

Not only that, but anything that promotes fertility in my mind means overall, well, being vitality in your body. Because your fertility is a marker of where your overall health is.

[B]

Absolutely. And that's what the study showed. But who knows about this study except.

[A]

That I know and it's so maddening. So let's clear this up for the audience. Eating fat is healthy for you. And does it make you fat?

[B]

Animal fat actually helps you keep the weight off. It normalizes your fat. If you're too thin, it'll make you a little heavier. But animal fat supports thyroid function. That's really important to know. Butter is the most healthy food that you can eat for your thyroid gland because it contains vitamin A, which you can't make thyroid hormones without vitamin A. And it contains iodine and it contains butyric acid, which is something else important for thyroid function. And butter will help you keep the weight off.

[A]

It's really. That's really interesting. And there was a. I don't think it was an actual study, but there was something that was reported that has been circular. It's been recirculating recently. And we actually read this in one of my nutrition classes when I was in school. There was a farmer that tried to fatten up his pigs with coconut oil. Do you know about this?

[B]

Well, it was actually a USDA study.

[A]

It was, yes.

[B]

And they didn't publish it. But my colleague Mary Annig knew about this. They were looking at how to fatten pigs. If you gave them whole milk, they wouldn't get fat. If you gave them coconut oil, they wouldn't get fat. If you gave them butter, they wouldn't get fat. But if you gave them skim milk.

[A]

They would get fat and canola oil.

[B]

Oh, is that right? Well, there you go. And the pig is very much like the human being. It's an omnivore. We have very similar digestive tracts.

[A]

Isn't that so fascinating?

[B]

So in the old days, what they did with milk is they made cream, butter and cheese. They didn't want the skim milk. They knew it was garbage and that was given to the pigs. The whey from making cheese and the skim milk was given to the pigs and that fattened the pigs. So it was a nice synergy. All on the same farm. Now we've got the pigs in South Carolina and the dairy cows in Wisconsin, and you can't do that.

[A]

Oh, that's so sad. I hope there's a world in which we can get back to real farming.

[B]

And in support of real farming. The problem is that they would deny this, but the Department of Agriculture is actually follows a Marxist agenda of industrial farms. And they would say, oh, no, that's just efficiency. But it's not more efficient. It's just what Karl Marx wanted. The big industrial farms, animals as units of production. And they sneer at small farms. Oh, these are just like museums. Okay, we can have a few of them so you can see what it's like. But we can't feed the world with small farms. We can feed the world with small farms, and that's where we need to put our support. But I don't think that's going to happen with the mindset of the Department of Agriculture. Their mindset is sell grain. That's what we're here to do. Sell grain. Sell grain. So they want you to grain feed your animals. They don't want you to pasture feed your animals, and they don't want you to give skim milk to your pigs. They want you to give grain to.

[A]

Your pigs, and they want to give you all of the leftover remnants of whatever is coming out of the industrial food, out of all the factories. They want to give all the remnants of that to the livestock. Animals.

[B]

Yeah, they give it to the cows.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

So the cows get potato chips.

[A]

I saw the candy bars and expired bread that they pull off the shelf. I mean, it's really sickening what's happening right now.

[B]

It is.

[A]

I'm really tired of this narrative that we have to feed the world. I'm really tired of this.

[B]

Well, there's a surplus of food here. What we need to do is even out the food production, keep it local so you aren't dependent on the big transportation train, but that's everywhere they go. They push industrial agriculture at the expense of local farms.

[A]

Would it be possible if we were to go back to smaller, more local farms to not only make sure that we. That we fed our local communities, but is there a world in which we could appease the government and feed the world in that system while also doing the smaller local farms, or is that just not possible?

[B]

Well, we can feed the world with small farms. We're not feeding people now. They're starving. That's why they eat so much, you know.

[A]

Exactly. They're nutritionally deprived.

[B]

Yes. So. But in quantity as well as quality, we can feed the world with small farms.

[A]

I want to go back to baby formula for a second because I don't want to leave the mothers listening hanging because I'm sure they're listening to this and my audience is very smart and they keep up with all this. So a lot of them, this is not new information, but I think the cholesterol thing might be new to them because not a lot of people are talking about that piece.

[B]

And the fact that these little boys have such high levels of testosterone. They're supposed to. Yes, I said that the other day at one of these discussion luncheons and people were shocked. They didn't know.

[A]

It explains somewhat of what's going on right now. I think there's a lot of different things going on. There's also astrazene.

[B]

Yeah. All of the pesticides and plastics and things. Of course, they are a factor. But the biggest factor is that we're not feeding these babies Right. Starting from the womb to. Well, all through their growth period.

[A]

And does breast milk contain. It contains cholesterol. Right. Or body natural.

[B]

It's very high in cholesterol and it contains enzymes that ensure sure that the baby absorbs all the cholesterol.

[A]

So I would argue that, well, this just doesn't even need to be said. When I hopefully become a mom, I am going to fight tooth and nail to breastfeed. And I really pray and hope that I don't have a problem with it. I also want to be sensitive and acknowledge that some women really struggle with it. I think it's a lower percentage than we've been told. I think a lot of women want to go back to work sooner or it's a really hard job and they don't want to do it anymore. And I say this just point blank fact. I'm not placing judgment. I am totally a firm believer. And you do whatever is Best for you. Truly, I feel that way. I just want women to have full informed consent because I think women are being told that formula is exactly the same as breast milk. It's totally fine, it's healthy for the baby. We're also hearing fed is best, which really bothers me because there's this narrative they say now anytime you try to talk about formula and say that breast milk is better for you, they say, well fed, a fed baby is best. And I always say fed is the bare minimum.

[B]

Yeah, just keep them from crying.

[A]

Bare minimum here. And do we want the bare minimum for our children? Cause I want my child to be thriving. So I pray that I don't struggle with it. And if I do, what would be your advice to somebody who's really, really having a hard time with it and maybe they need a supplement?

[B]

It's funny you should say this now because I just went to visit my latest grandchild and my daughter in law, she's just a wonderful girl and big breastfeeding advocate and she's struggling, she had to supplement and she's supplementing with our baby formula, which the recipe's in nourishing traditions and on our website. And I would say that at least that thousands of babies have had this formula and it's based on the next best thing to mother's milk, which is raw milk from another species. And that's what people did all over the world for thousands and thousands of years. So it's based on raw milk and we add things to it that bring it more in line with what's in human milk. We add extra whey. Human milk is very high in whey. We add cod liver oil, we add some cream because mother's milk tends to be higher in fat than cow's milk and the babies just thrive on it. And this formula has been a lifesaver and it's also been a lightning rod because we've been heavily criticized for promoting raw milk for babies. Well, breast milk is raw milk.

[A]

Are you looking for a coffee that's more than just a morning pick me up? Let me introduce you to Paleo Valley organic coffee, a blend that's good for your body, brain and taste buds. First off, there's no pesticides, herbicides or synthetic chemicals. Unlike conventional coffees. Paleo Valley Coffee is grown on organic, sustainable farms in Honduras and Peru, meaning no harmful chemicals. We love it. You get pure, natural coffee that preserves all the flavor without the residue. It's also brain supportive. This coffee is infused with organic coffee fruit extract, which has been shown to boost brain derived neurotropic factor, otherwise known as BDNF, by 143%, which is really awesome because I actually struggle with lower BDNF just based off of my genetics. So this is something that can help boost it. That means better memory, sharper focus and an energized mind, all with a rich, bold flavor that brightens your morning. Paleo Valley takes it a step further with neural, immune and energy support from eight organic mushrooms like lion's mane for clarity and cordyceps for stamina. Plus its low, low acidity makes it gentle on your gut so you can enjoy it without worrying about digestive issues. Each cup is packed with polyphenols, antioxidants that help combat stress and protect brain health. This coffee is also tested for mycotoxins and mold, so it's as pure as it gets. If you're ready to make the switch, go to paleo valley.com real foodology for 15% off your first order and experience a coffee that nourishes your body and mind every single day. Criticism for raw milk is really interesting to me because all of our ancestors drank raw milk.

[B]

They did, yes.

[A]

We've been drinking raw milk as a species since the dawn of time.

[B]

They weren't drinking raw milk from confinement dairies, though. They always pick the best cow and put her on grass. And that's the milk they use for their babies.

[A]

Yeah, and that's the thing with a lot of this stuff in nutrition. There's always going to be caveats. Right. I mean, would I advocate for somebody to get raw milk from a factory farm? No. In fact, I would argue that's incredibly dangerous.

[B]

Yes, yes.

[A]

And I would be with the anti raw milk people on that team on that part of it.

[B]

However, I will say, I will say one of my boys I couldn't get. Well, this is California. You could get raw milk, but it was in the early days and the only milk came from a confinement dairy and he thrived on it. So it's not going to be as good as grass fed milk for sure.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But what people don't realize is that there are so many components in raw milk that they're anti pathogenic. In other words, they kill pathogens, they keep you from absorbing these pathogens. And because cows and goats are dirty and so are humans, they once tested raw milk in a milk bank in China and the milk was loaded with pathogens but didn't make the babies sick.

[A]

Oh, interesting.

[B]

Because of all these antimicrobial components in the Milk.

[A]

Well, it's funny because we've really done a number vilifying pathogens. And I know you talk about fermented foods in your book. Not all pathogens are bad. And I'm probably gonna get bacteria.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Not all bacteria are pathogens. I like that. Yes.

[A]

Sorry, I meant to say bacteria, but what I'm saying. Yeah, not all bacteria is bad for you. In fact, we know that our gut is full of good and bad bacteria, and we need both of those to live in symbiosis.

[B]

Well, the paradigm about bacteria has completely changed in the last 30 years. Thirty years ago, all bacteria were bad. The human body is sterile, and bacteria attack us and make us sick. And now we know that a healthy person has up to 6 pounds of bacteria in their guts. And these are, as you say, a symbiosis of good bacteria, and some that are considered not so good, but we need these in our digestive tract or we won't be healthy. Literally all traditional cultures had fermented foods, some really high fermented foods, sometimes really stinky fermented foods, and they ate them every day. And this replenished the bacteria in the gut.

[A]

Yeah. And so not all bacteria is bad. And I get it. I actually just finished watching this show. Have you ever watched Yellowstone or any of their other shows, like 1883?

[B]

No. No.

[A]

It was interesting because it really reminded me of what humans have been through to get, like, our ancestors and what they went through to get to where we are today. And it really did give me this perspective of. I felt a little bit more empathetic to that narrative that we have now in 2025, because I get so frustrated when we're talking about stuff like this, because I feel like the conversation and the narrative hasn't been updated to where we are, what we know now, but I get it, because back then, when they were. So the show 1883 is about them taking the Oregon Trail, essentially, and traveling up through America, and they were in covered wagons, and the smallest cut could kill you.

[B]

Yes. Right, right.

[A]

And so it just gave me such a different perspective of, okay, I understand why there's so much fear, because not even that long ago, something as simple as a cut could just completely take you out.

[B]

Well, and also, our cities were absolutely filthy.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

They were up to your eyeballs in horse manure. There were no sewers. There was no good water.

[A]

And even the lakes or rivers they came across had pathogens in them. And so they're trying to bathe in that. And then they could get an infection from that.

[B]

We were dumping sewage in Lake Michigan, for example. The water for Chicago came out of the same place they were dumping the sewage. So it took us a while to learn about sanitation. And once you get a lot of people living together who are not moving across the landscape, then you really have to understand about sanitation and take steps to protect yourselves. Yes. So I like you, I understand why people were afraid of germs because they had too many germs, I guess. But now we went through, you know, we went too far in that direction, and now we realize we let our kids play in the dirt and we don't want to be too clean.

[A]

And why is this important? Because I do think we kind of. We had amnesia about this during COVID because everybody was sanitizing everything to high hell. Why is that important for our immune systems?

[B]

Because I guess there's a lot of discussion about this, but it kind of primes you. It gets your body used to dealing with all of these things. And also many of them, most of them are good for us.

[A]

I think it also doesn't it just make your immune system. It's like a workout for your immune system.

[B]

Well, that's the. The.

[A]

Okay, so maybe it's a theory. Yeah. Oh, I wanted to ask you about this about baby formula. I read recently that lobbyists for big formula are lobbying to. They're. They're lobbying against paid maternity leave so that women are forced into the workforce sooner and made to rely on formula.

[B]

Why am I not surprised?

[A]

I'm not surprised by this either.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, this industry is so evil and all the push for breastfeeding has died. Back when my daughter in law was in the hospital with the baby, they said, well, now we can give them some sugar water or formula at night so you can sleep. And my son, one of the things I said to him, when you go to that hospital, you do not take that baby out of your sight. You have him in your all the time. So they take the baby to the nursery and he said, you know, she had pumped milk for the baby, but everybody. All the other babies in the nursery were getting formula. And this is so you can. We helping you so you can sleep at night. But I tell you, the hospitals are pushing formula.

[A]

They are.

[B]

They tried to stop that, you know, to make it illegal, but they're pushing it.

[A]

I believe some of the hospitals have contracts with those companies, right?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah. Because I've also heard, I've had a lot of people write me on Instagram saying that not only were they Pushed formula on the formula was pushed on them in the hospital, but many of them started getting samples in the mail.

[B]

That's hipaa, that's your privacy, right? Yes. They can't share with your next door neighbor, but they share with all the companies.

[A]

And where. How are they getting these addresses? Is it through their doctor?

[B]

Yeah, it all goes into big data system. And if you're sell formula or adult diapers or whatever, they know which ones to send these to.

[A]

I mean, it's insane because I had some women write me saying they had just found out they were pregnant, like not even that long ago, and they started getting stuff in the mail. And I was horrified by that.

[B]

Or if you're doing ivf, you'll get stuff in the mail. This is all shared. Wow.

[A]

That really should be illegal. If a woman is struggling to breastfeed, your first thing would say or you would tell them to make the formula correct?

[B]

Well, first I would say, you know, keep trying. Yeah, but the baby has to be fed. Of course, you don't have much time. So I would make the formula and give it with something called the Lactaid, which is you put the formula in this little bag and the baby takes the formula through a tube while he's breastfeeding. So you're still getting the stimulation of the breast. And a lot of times you only need to do that for a few weeks and then you don't need that anymore.

[A]

Okay, interesting. And I want to ask you too.

[B]

Because are women told this? No. Even if you're giving formula, you should be giving it in this way so that you're still breastfeeding.

[A]

I've heard this because I've had women tell me before that they, for whatever reason, they thought that they could just give them formula for a day or two because something happened or whatever, and then they stopped. And then they're lactating, they stopped making the milk.

[B]

You have to have that constant stimulation. And this is a wonderful little gadget. Again, nobody tells you about it. I was very fortunate to have a pediatrician who did tell me about it so I could keep nursing while I was giving the formula.

[A]

That's amazing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think a lot of women don't know that. There's a lot that women are not told.

[B]

Yes, exactly.

[A]

And it's really frustrating.

[B]

Well, I do have a book called the Nourishing Traditions of Baby and Childcare. And so it's all in there.

[A]

Yes, highly recommend. Anyone listening? If you're a mom, if you plan to be a mom, or if you're a dad too. Buy it and read it and check out because there's a lot of amazing information in there. So I mentioned this earlier, but I want to dive a little bit further into it because this is also not told, I think to a lot of women. Why? I think there's a couple different reasons. Why? What are the main reasons that women do you think are struggling more with breastfeeding now?

[B]

Well, one could be thyroid problems. The thyroid is very much involved in milk production. It could be other hormonal problems. It could be their basic nutrition. But a woman who's struggling, she might want to take some desiccated thyroid. That might help up the fat soluble vitamins up the butter. Get all these good fats to help you produce milk.

[A]

Okay. Do you think do the lactation cookies and recipes that people make, does that help with milk supply?

[B]

I don't know what they are, but there's also galactagogues. I love that word. Galactagogues are herbs that help you produce more milk.

[A]

Okay. Amazing.

[B]

Quite a few of them. Yeah.

[A]

I've also been heard too that sometimes people will not be aware that their kid has a tongue tie and that.

[B]

Can affect, you know, that's. I never heard about tongue tie when I was having my babies.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Nobody had tongue tie. I don't know what's going on here. It's like the tongue is not fully developed or fully separated from the floor of the mouth. We did do an article about tongue tie in the Weston Price Foundation Journal. There's a big question of whether to cut or not to cut. Yeah.

[A]

What do you think?

[B]

Easy answers on this.

[A]

I wonder. And this is just theoretical and just where my brain went. I'm wondering if that's happening because we're not as nourished as we once were.

[B]

I could be. Yes, it could be.

[A]

And we're not giving the babies the building blocks to do everything it needs to do.

[B]

You know, it's interesting. The baby's hand starts out as a paddle and then the fingers separate. And what causes the fingers to separate is testosterone. So possibly if a mother is in a too estrogenated environment, the tongue is just not going to separate.

[A]

That's really interesting.

[B]

That's just a theory.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting to explore all of this. Right. I mean we have to ask questions. Right. And go down every avenue.

[B]

But I think the diagnosis of tongue tie is given kind of glibly. It must be tongue tie. And not necessarily so.

[A]

There was also another thing that I heard that I like to share this every opportunity that I can. Because I heard this from a guest of mine a couple of years ago and I was horrified because I'd never heard this. If you do not explicitly say if. If you decide to get an epidural and if you don't say that you don't want the fentanyl in it, they give you fentanyl in there and they don't tell you. Did you know this?

[B]

I did not know this.

[A]

Isn't that crazy?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I was horrified. I had a guest on my podcast that told me and I've since confirmed it with several people. She was. So if you. And you can request to not get it.

[B]

I don't understand why they're doing this.

[A]

I know. I don't understand either. And then get this. So then the babies are coming out and they're a little messed up on the fentanyl and they're not latching right away. And then the mom takes on herself and thinks that it's something that she did and it's her fault or they don't lie or it's tongue tie or oh my gosh, there's something wrong with my kid and I'm not ever going to be able to breastfeed them. And they're not going to latch on. And then they start putting them on formula. This is actually a story that I got from somebody who follows me, who sent me a dm. This exact thing happened. They didn't tell her that it was from the fentanyl. They immediately put the baby on formula because they couldn't get the baby to latch. And then her milk supply dried up because nobody told her to also. What do you call that? Pump.

[B]

Pump.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

By the way, the breast pumps today are great. They've been much improved. And you can pump and give your milk to a premature baby. There's no reason why you can't give them formula.

[A]

I have a friend, yeah, I have a friend that had a really cool mobile one that she would just put in her bra and then it would sit in her bra, which was really cool.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

They've done a lot of amazing things with all of that, which is cool.

[B]

And I really have to take my hat off to moms who do this to understand how important it is. You know, there's this saying, food before one is just for fun. That is just so wrong. Food for one. Everything about their future life depends on it.

[A]

Say that, Ann, because I've never heard that food.

[B]

Well, that comes from the baby led weaning folks, which I'm Extremely opposed to food before. Wine is just for fun. And, you know, babies weaning foods, that's a very important choice you're gonna make. These need to be very nutrient dense, high cholesterol foods. We recommend egg yolks and pureed liver as the first winning foods for baby because baby will get everything she needs from those two foods. And you put salt in these foods. Another big problem we're having is the pregnant moms are not getting enough salt. The nursing moms are not getting enough salt. Salt is essential. It's essential for just everything. Digestion, the brain, for the electrolyte balance. Electrolyte balance. So I have to tell you a funny story. My husband, this is a while back, was in the hospital. And in the hospital, they give you saline. That's the best thing about a hospital is you get the saline drip and you might get as much as 10 teaspoons of salt per day in that drip. And it helps you. The recovering body needs salt. And then when you leave the hospital, they tell you to go on a low salt diet. That's so like, we want to see you back real soon. Okay.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

See, one of the very good things about living in the modern world is that everybody has access to salt and it's cheap. Now, it might not be exactly the right kind of salt. We recommend unrefined salt, but we do have. Everybody has salt today. Of course, they're trying to get people not to eat salt, but you absolutely need a teaspoon and a half of salt per day. And in 1900, people ate three teaspoons of salt per day, and they didn't have heart attacks and stuff like that. So we need salt. We shouldn't cut back on salt.

[A]

I actually have salt in my water here right now.

[B]

I do too. Yeah, I love that.

[A]

Yeah, it's interesting. Fun fact. If you're not eating a ton of fast food or eating out a bunch or eating a bunch of processed packaged foods, you're actually probably not getting enough salt.

[B]

And this is why people crave. We call them the pornographic foods because they're on the puritanical diet and not eating enough salt, and then they go right into the arms of the pornographic foods.

[A]

Oh, God.

[B]

Why not just this pure, wholesome diet that contains salt and fats and all the things that satisfy us and then we wouldn't. You just don't want that junk food.

[A]

Yep. So we talked a little bit about introducing foods to babies when and what age. I actually had just had somebody DM me about this.

[B]

Okay. It was a big, big debate about this, and I've written about it. So people have studied when weaning foods come in, and it's anywhere from one to six months, even at one month. Some cultures do this. No culture does exclusive breastfeeding after six months. And there is a reason for this. Breast milk is not very high in iron and cannot satisfy the baby's requirements for iron after six months, and the baby will become anemic. And you don't want your child to be anemic. That's not a good thing. And babies who are anemic tend to be very shy, and they don't interact well with others. They don't smile. So I know there's a lot of moms who want to be heroes and breastfeed exclusive breastfeeding, but it's not a good idea. So you start anywhere from four to six months. If it's a very robust, hungry baby, you can start at four months.

[A]

Amazing.

[B]

But by six months, they need that egg yolk.

[A]

Yes. So, okay, by six months, give them the egg yolk in the liver.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And I would assume you just want to chop it up really well and.

[B]

Make it all you puree. Now, the baby led weaning, and I have to say, moms, please do not use that book. It is a horrible book. And they say, well, you don't have to make purees. You do have to make purees. You either make purees or you chew the food, which is what traditional moms did. They chewed their food and gave it to the babies. But they don't have any teeth. You know, they can't chew this food, and they'll just starve if you're just giving them chunks of meat.

[A]

Yeah. Or I'm assuming if people are not making their own purees, they're buying, you know, the Gerbers or the. I know.

[B]

Baby food today. I mean, in the old days, you could buy egg yolks and liver and milk and things like gizzards pureed in jars. And that's what we need to go back to. We need to force the baby food companies to do this, because, let's face it, not all moms have the resources to puree or the time. But what are our babies getting? They're getting basically fruit either cooked in plastic or aluminum. And this is high sugar. It's just like giving them sugar cubes, but with the additional aluminum and plastic and glyphosate. Yes.

[A]

And a lot of those baby foods are coming back really high in microplastics, which I think you might have just said the plastics and also heavy metals, which is really concerning.

[B]

Horrible. What's the way we think we should be feeding our children? And we're reaping the whirlwind. These children are so unhealthy.

[A]

I know. It's really heartbreaking.

[B]

It is heartbreaking.

[A]

You know, my mom used to do with my little brother, because my little brother, we were 10 years apart. So I actually remember this. When I was little, she would puree his food, and then, like, she would make a huge batch of different flavors, and she would put them in ice cubes and freeze them.

[B]

I did that. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. My mom was amazing. She made everything from scratch for us. Yeah, it was pretty cool.

[B]

You're very lucky to have a mom like that.

[A]

I'm very grateful. So what would be the first. So the first food would be to introduce them. Egg yolks and liverpool.

[B]

Yes. Yes.

[A]

And what would be some other foods that would be really good? Maybe, like, avocado.

[B]

I'm not actually a particularly big fan of avocados. For babies. They're pretty high in. What's that? What's the thing in spinach?

[A]

Oh, I always forgot how to say oxalates.

[B]

Avocados have a lot of oxalates in them.

[A]

I didn't know that.

[B]

Yeah. I would do. You can do mashed banana. Add some cream to the mash, mashed in a little salt. Oh, your baby will just love that. And then you can start doing pureed meats, and eventually you can do soups and what the family is eating. Hopefully the family is eating good food.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, hopefully. Yeah. We're trying to encourage everybody to get back to eating.

[B]

And then when you stop breastfeeding, you give them raw milk, which is next best thing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, the raw milk covers a lot of mistakes. We all make mistakes. There's no question. But raw milk kind of fills in with all the nutrients that they might not be getting elsewhere.

[A]

Let's talk about that a little bit, because there's a lot of confusion about raw milk. Why is everybody in the nourishing real food world a huge proponent for raw milk? What is it about it that's so good for us?

[B]

Well, what we've learned is that the pasteurization process destroys the proteins in milk. The proteins in meat are pretty tough. You can cook them and they're still good for you, but the proteins in milk are very fragile. They kind of get untwisted and warped, and the body says, oh, this is a foreign protein, and has to mount an immune response. And they basically have reactions to these proteins and sometimes anaphylactic shock. One of the things they don't tell you is there's between 20 and 30 deaths. This is not illnesses. Deaths from anaphylactic shock to pasteurized milk per year.

[A]

I never knew that.

[B]

Yes. And there's no deaths from raw milk. They say there's been three deaths in the last 30 years, but they're making these up. We know that there weren't any deaths.

[A]

But also I would argue three deaths in the last 30 years is a pretty decent track record. Every human life matters compared to 20.

[B]

To 30 deaths per year from cephalactic shock.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

And so what's happening is the consumption of pasteurized milk is relentlessly declining. Gives the kids a stomach ache, so the parents don't give it to them. And you wouldn't either, of course. And then they find out that the babies can tolerate raw milk. The children love it, they digest it. They calm down. They're fun to be with. They're not having temper tantrums all the time. And once a parent learns this, no government official is going to dissuade him.

[A]

Yeah. Is it true that most of us are not actually lactose intolerant, we're just not consuming the right type of milk?

[B]

Yeah, I would say we're pasteurization intolerant because we can't tolerate these warped proteins. It's really pasteurized milk. And you know, pasteurized milk today, in the old days it was 160 degrees. Today it's 284 degrees. That's above the boiling point. You can't do that in your own kitchen on your stove. You can't get the milk that hot. But they rush it past superheated stainless steel plates. So it's extremely violent process and very high temperatures. One of the things they don't tell you is that the largest outbreak of foodborne illness in human history was from pasteurized milk.

[A]

Really? When was that?

[B]

1980S, mid-1980s. About 200,000 people became sick and there were some deaths. And that was when they were consolidating the dairies and confinement dairying. And so what did they do? They didn't go cleaner. They went hotter. Well, we'll solve this by going hotter because pasteurization is not enough.

[A]

I want to pivot a little bit and I want to talk about fat.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Because you have been called the butter queen before, which I love, because I very much relate. I love butter. I eat it almost every day. And every time I tell People that they're horrified because we have completely vilified butter.

[B]

The thing is that people are getting the butter, but they're getting it in ice cream along with all the sugar and the antifreeze and all the stuff that's in ice cream.

[A]

Or they're getting margarine and they're not even getting real butter.

[B]

Yeah, or spreads. Yep. People don't eat margarine anymore. They don't admit to it, but they eat the spreads, the healthy spreads, which.

[A]

In my opinion is basically margarine.

[B]

It is margarine. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

But it's just a new, new branding of margarine. So what are some common myths about fats?

[B]

Well, the fats make you fat. And when you look at these traditional cultures, let's look at the Eskimo, that's always what comes to mind. Their diet is 80% of calories are fat. They couldn't survive without that fat. They're very slender people. They look chunky because they're wearing a lot of clothes, but they're slender people. And even if you go down to something like the tropics, one of the most prized foods was the pig fat. And they saved all the pig fat and cooked it with the meat and they put the fat in these kind of tubs made of banana leaves, but they saved all the fat. Australian aborigines, they hunted animals at the time of the year when they'd be fattest. And if an animal wasn't fat, it was rubbish and they threw it away.

[A]

They wouldn't even eat the protein.

[B]

No, they would just throw it away. It's no good. Because they understood that if you ate protein without fat it would be bad for you. And there is a real scientific explanation for this. When we eat fat, the body, the liver releases vitamin A because we need vitamin A to use the fat. And so if you're just eating lean meat, you rapidly deplete your body of vitamin A and then you really get sick. They call that rabbit starvation or rabbit hunger. So they always ate the meat with the fat. And that's what we don't do. So we throw the skin away from the chicken or cut all the fat off the meat. You can't even get a good steak anymore because they cut the fat off.

[A]

Yeah. Or if you get the fat, it's usually grain fed and it's not.

[B]

Well, that's better than no fat. Yeah, definitely better than no fat. But yeah, you want grass fed animals.

[A]

So what are your favorite types of fats to eat?

[B]

Well, butter, of course, and I eat a lot of butter just like you do, so butter on everything.

[A]

It's so good.

[B]

And I'm really getting into poultry fat because poultry fat is our best source of vitamin K, which we now know was Dr. Price's X factor. It's a very important vitamin for putting calcium and phosphorus in your bones and teeth and keeping it out of your soft tissue, like your arteries. And the best source of that is goose fat. And I have a dear friend, very beautiful friend, who grew up in Denmark, and she's. Oh, yeah, we ate goose fat on our toast. We spread our toast with goose fat or could be good. Yeah. I've never tried it.

[A]

Oh, okay, you haven't tried it.

[B]

Or it could be duck fat or chicken fat. And we should not be taking the skin off the chicken. We should be eating the skin. And then you take the fat that goes into the pan and make gravy out of it with your broth. And that's a delicious, healthy meal.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, this is making me hungry. Do you like beef tallow?

[B]

We're just talking about beef tallow. There's a chain, I think it's called Steak and Shake. Steak and Shake.

[A]

I actually just posted about this today.

[B]

Yeah. And they've switched back to tallow. I can't wait to find a restaurant and try it.

[A]

But insider scoop is that they are not using 100% beef towel. I'll show you the photo afterwards. I posted it on my Instagram and apparently it has BHT and TBHQ in it. Or there was one version that had BHT and the other one had tbhq.

[B]

Yeah, they don't need to put that in. What they used to use was something called 9010 blend. That was 90% tallow, 10% palm oil, and. Yeah, so both of those are saturated fats.

[A]

What's your thoughts on palm oil?

[B]

I think it's fine oil. The thing about palm oil is you get five times more oil per acre from palm oil than the next oil. So it's a very efficient oil, and it's nourished people in tropical regions for thousands of years. And it's what they use. In Europe. They use a lot more palm oil than we do. And that's because the soybean industry has created this whole thing about monkeys and jungles and stuff.

[A]

Okay, so is that not true? Because I was just about to say.

[B]

I don't know if it's true, but any. Any agriculture is going to displace animals.

[A]

So that is true. Well, because anytime I've posted about Palm oil, I get an uproar back. The jungles. We're concerned about the rainforest. I'm not throwing shade, I just. A lot of people talk about it.

[B]

Well, do you want people in Africa to farm or do they want them to import soybeans from the us? Because if they're farming in Africa, they're getting rid of the elephants.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They can't farm with elephants. And they don't get rid of all the elephants, but they get rid of some of them.

[A]

I mean, there's always going to be death. And no matter what farming situation you're.

[B]

In, they reckon that for every acre of grain that's cultivated in the United States, 300 animals are killed.

[A]

So heartbreaking.

[B]

Yes. So you can't farm without creating death.

[A]

But that's exactly. That's it. That's why, in my opinion, the vegan diet is a fallacy. Because there's death no matter what.

[B]

Exactly. Exactly. If you eat beef, you kill one animal per acre. If you eat wheat, you're killing hundreds of animals per acre.

[A]

Yep. Oh, it's so heartbreaking.

[B]

And sometimes in very horrible ways, too. Yeah.

[A]

What are your thoughts on the various dietary trends in this healthy world? So there's keto, paleo. Where does this traditional foods approach fit into this modern, modern dietary.

[B]

My big concern about these high meat diets and even the Atkins diet is that they don't have enough fat and they're eating 30 to 40% of calories as protein. And no human diet was like that. They were no more than 20% of calories as protein. Another. So just. So these diets really need more fat? They need some carbs. You do need carbs. You need at least 50 grams of carbs per day for your thyroid gland to work. So these are kind of artificial diets. And I challenge you to raise a child on one of these diets, because they will rebel. If you raise a child on really delicious food and give them mashed potatoes and put butter on their carrots and make gravy, they'll eat that food. So I always say that the test of whether a diet is healthy is will your children eat it and eat it in the face and the teeth of all this processed food out there? Another thing that very much concerns me is the use of protein powders, protein shakes and, oh, we need more protein. No, we don't need more protein. These diets are very hard on the kidneys and very depleting of vitamin A.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

Yeah, I think we're getting too much protein, actually. Such an emphasis on it.

[A]

I, like most Americans, was scared of fat when I was younger because I thought it was going to make me fat. And then when I realized that it was actually really good for me and healthy for me, there was kind of this journey of me learning, oh, I should actually be eating way more of it, like butter and tallow and olive oil and avocados. Although the avocados is really interesting about the.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, I eat avocados. It's not that I don't eat avocados. I'm not sure it's the best food for babies.

[A]

Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. And that really changed everything for me because I started focusing. I started building my meals specifically around meat and good, healthy fats first. And then I would build in, you know, the vegetables and whatever else.

[B]

And carbs. It's okay. Exactly.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think that's good news for most people. You don't have to have a weird diet, you know, kind of a manufactured diet. In my case, my problem was hypoglycemia. I'd get these blood sugar crashes. And, of course, I ate a lot of sugar when I was a kid, and I'd get these blood sugar crashes where you're ravenously hungry and you have allergies. And once I went blind from low blood sugar.

[A]

Really?

[B]

I couldn't see anything. Yeah. And I very quickly learned. I learned from middle school that if I ate butter at every meal, I wouldn't get low blood sugar. So to me, it was just survival that I had to eat these fats.

[A]

And they taste so good.

[B]

They do. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

And they keep you full for a long time. I don't really snack anymore.

[B]

And, you know, in spite of a lot of mistakes I made in my diet, I never had a problem getting pregnant. So.

[A]

Yeah, this is amazing. I'm getting married in June, and I'm hoping to get pregnant very soon afterwards. So this. This episode is very timely.

[B]

You both need to eat these good fats.

[A]

Oh, yeah, he's on. I've completely uphauled his whole diet, and he's eating very healthy now.

[B]

Oh, good.

[A]

And feeling good. Yeah, yeah. It's exciting.

[B]

Lots of oysters.

[A]

Yes. So, okay. I thought this was kind of interesting. I've actually never done this before, but when I was preparing for this podcast, I put in something in Grok, and Grok gave me back some questions.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

That I think are really funny. I don't want you to answer all these questions, but it was just. I talk a lot about the current landscape that we're in right now and how we're getting so much pushback in. There's this, like, battle, right, between the traditional, allopathic, conventionally trained doctors and RDs and scientists. And then there's the people in our world that come from the more. You know, we're looking to the past, we're looking to the traditions. We're looking to go back to the way that our ancestors ate. And it was really interesting. And I wanted to just name some of these. And I'm curious what you think about this and what you would say. So one said, isn't advocating for raw milk consumption irresponsible considering the health risks and legal bans in many places?

[B]

Well, let me say there is no law against purchase, possession, or consumption of raw milk anywhere. So you, as a consumer, are not breaking any laws.

[A]

Really? What about all the Amish that are getting their raw milk taken and confiscated?

[B]

Well, it's not the drinkers that are getting it confiscated. It's the people selling it. So in some states, there's laws against selling it to the public, and that's what we're fighting against. But there's no law against purchase, consumption, or possession of raw milk. What does that tell you? It tells you this is all about the economics. It's not about the health. So what was the other part? The other thing is, you have to realize the governments, the local governments, the departments of agriculture, they are lying. They exaggerate. Let me just give you an example. A few years ago, we had a cowshare program in Wisconsin. It was the first one, and the Department of Agriculture hated it. And there was an outbreak of foodborne illness. And some of the people who got the foodborne illness had drunk this raw milk. So they immediately shut him down. But there were people who got sick who hadn't drunk his milk. And the people who were customers did a little survey, and they found out that 100% of the people who got sick had eaten at a local restaurant.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Okay. So it was obviously the local restaurant, but this is still in the books as something caused by raw milk. And there's lots of cases out there. I mean, the first thing you need to do when you have an outbreak of foodborne illness is to test the water. But they never do that. If some of the people were drinking raw milk, that's what they blame it on. So you have to be very careful of the statistics they're using. If they were. I mean, we looked into all these reports and we found that 100% of them didn't show that pasteurization would have solved the problem. Interesting. You have to be very careful. They say there's been three deaths in the last. I think it's 20 years. But we know that. Well, two of them. We know there wasn't a death. One of them was just made up. Well, they're both made up. And I don't know about this third one, but these people are lying.

[A]

Yeah. And they're creating a lot of fear.

[B]

And that's, of course, that's how they do it. That's how they control people, is they make them afraid.

[A]

Why do you think they're going so hard after raw milk? Why don't they want us to? And they. Everybody's always like, who's they? Our government agencies.

[B]

Well, I think it's two forces. One is the dairy industry that has very narrow profit margins and they pay the farmers practically nothing for their milk. The dairy farmer today gets the same price he got in World War II, and they don't want to have to pay that farmer more because that farmer can get 5 to $25 a gallon for his milk if he sells to the public. And the dairy industry does not want to compete with them. So that's one reason. But I think the other is the grain industry, because the raw milk is. They're not using a lot of grain. They're pasture feeding. And because it's less expensive for the farmer to do it that way. So I also think it's the grain interests.

[A]

I wonder, too, if there's also some sort of pushback there with the local farms. Because in my opinion, and in my experience. Well, one, you can only really get raw milk from local farms. And I also think. My opinion is that it's much safer to get raw milk from somewhere that was close to you versus having it shipped across the country.

[B]

Right, right. And it kind of necessarily needs to be a local thing. I'm glad this is regulated on the state level. And it is. It's basically local farms. And that's great. So when you're drinking raw milk, you're drinking nature's perfect food and you're supporting a local farmer. Yeah, yeah. We're not going to change this system through the government. You know, I'm all for Bobby trying and we might make some changes, but this is going to change on the grassroots level. Yeah, literally the grassroots level.

[A]

Yeah. I love that. I mean, we're trying.

[B]

We're.

[A]

I feel like a lot of people are waking up and we're all trying to demand better for our food.

[B]

Yes. And for Our children.

[A]

So what's another one of these? I mean, I just. I want to preface this by saying that I was horrified by all of these, and I don't agree with any of them. Another one said, in an era of climate change, how can. How can you justify promoting diets heavy in animal products which have a significant environmental footprint? I cannot. With that narrative. Regenerative farming. We already know you need animals in regenerative farming. And regenerative farming reduce the carbon footprint because it pulls the carbon out of the atmosphere back in the soil.

[B]

Well, first question is, is there any climate? Is there global warming? There's climate change, yes, because the climate's always changing. It goes in cycles. I mean, we had a warm spell in the Medieval Warm Period. I think it was from 1100 to 1400, where they had grapes in Denmark and cows in Greenland. I think it'd be nice to go back to a warmer climate, frankly. By the way, we do have more carbon dioxide in the air today. A little more. And the plants are growing more. We have more growth of plants today than we did 30 years ago.

[A]

Interesting. I haven't heard that.

[B]

Yeah. So my little push for membership in the Weston A. Price foundation, if you had been getting our journal, you would have read a series of wonderful articles challenging the climate change narrative.

[A]

Okay, I need to read that. I'm a huge fan of Weston A. Price and his work. We studied some of it in school, too. For people listening who are not aware of him and his work, can you give just, like, a little synopsis?

[B]

Yes. So Weston Price, back in the 30s and 40s, he studied traditional people, healthy people, and what their diets were, because he wanted to answer the this question, what is a healthy diet? I mean, people today don't seem to know. And that's where we get our principles that we teach. These diets were very rich in nutrients that we get from organ meats and animal fats. And everything they did in their diets was aimed at maximizing the nutrients and maximizing the assimilation of the nutrients from their foods. So, for example, they didn't just eat wheat, they soaked it, or they made sourdough bread. And these are processes that break down all the harmful things in the grains and that help us assimilate them. The good things in the grains.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So the Weston A. Price foundation is a membership foundation. We publish a journal. We have a huge website. Please visit the website and get familiar with it. Westonaprice.org we also advocate for raw milk if it's. If it's unpopular, we're for it. Okay.

[A]

A bunch of rebels over there.

[B]

The website for that is realmilk.com we set that up in 1999. At that time, there were probably 30 sources of raw milk in the whole country. Now there's over 3,000. And there's an interactive map. You put your zip code in and you can find the raw milk near you.

[A]

Amazing.

[B]

And descriptions of the farms and what they did. We don't judge them. We just tell you this is what they do. And we. When we started, there were 27 states that allowed the sale of raw milk in one form or another. Now we're at 40, 47. So we just have three states to go.

[A]

What are the three states?

[B]

They are Rhode Island, Hawaii. I think we've got good legislation in Hawaii this year. And Nevada.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Those are the only three left.

[A]

I didn't know that you guys had that many states that were.

[B]

Yeah. So we're almost there. And then we want to, of course, liberalize things in a lot of states.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. I have one more question for you. I just wanted to read. You don't need to answer this. I just want to laugh at this because these questions were just. It's just funny to me how backwards so much of our narrative is around nutrition. So this one was talking about butter and it says, do you think promoting high fat diets is reckless in an obesity epidemic? Which is so funny because we know already that butter doesn't.

[B]

Well, yes. Butter consumption has gone down. Obesity, heart disease and cancer have gone up.

[A]

That's a great point.

[B]

So it can't be butter causing these things.

[A]

Yeah. In fact, I think low fat diets actually promote obesity.

[B]

Yes, they do. Because you're hungry all the time.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

And you compensate by eating a lot of carbs and a lot of seed oils. We know the seed oils cause obesity.

[A]

Yeah. So my last question is, what are you hopeful for in this whole movement? Are you feeling hopeful that we are going to be able to change this around?

[B]

Well, yes and no. There's definitely change. Very good. Change slow. It's a small group of people. What we have going on is what I call the natural selection of the wise. The wise who wise up and eat real foods, cook for themselves, feed their babies. Right. They will survive and have more children. Whereas. And this is nature's way. It's not me saying this is nature saying this. Those who don't will not survive and will not reproduce. We're already seeing this with widespread infertility, as you know. So this is what I call the Natural selection of the wise. It's a slow process. It will take several generations, but eventually we will have a healthy population again.

[A]

Wow. It's heartbreaking when you think about it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Well.

[B]

But by the way, members of our foundation receive a lot of really helpful little trifolds that you can give to people. We have one on butter. We have one on cholesterol. Why cholesterol is so important? So we have one on grains, one on the word vaccinations, so.

[A]

Oh, I just did an episode. Actually, the last episode that I recorded here in D.C. was with a woman called Alexandra. She has a website called Just the Inserts. Actually, she's amazing. If you're not aware of her work, I would highly recommend checking her out. She wrote a book about this.

[B]

It's called Just the Inserts.

[A]

Just the Insert. And the reason she called it that is because she is taking the information from the vaccine inserts themselves and just sharing it with the public and just saying, hey, this is what the inserts say.

[B]

And they leave a lot of stuff out of the inserts too.

[A]

Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. When you eat this way, you don't need to vaccinate. Even if vaccination worked, you don't need to take that risk with your children, because this is a diet that creates health.

[A]

Yeah. It's amazing. Thank you so much for all the work that you're doing.

[B]

Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.

[A]

Thank you so much for your time today. Please let everyone know where they can find you personally and your books.

[B]

Okay, so My blog is nourishingtraditions.com and I do have on that blog a series of articles called Bringing Up Baby, where I talk about my least favorite book in the world, Baby Led Weaning. And then the Weston A. Price foundation is westonaprice.org and that's got a huge website where we'd love to have you as a member. We're in a big membership drive right now. We have a conference every year. This one will be in Salt Lake City in October. We have lots of information. We have a wonderful podcast. Our podcast is where I think we're at. 15 million downloads now.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And people just love Hilda, our podcast lady. And then our third website would be realmilk.com if you're looking for raw milk. Also a lot of articles about raw milk. And of course, you can find a farm near you or a store near you where you can get raw milk. Isn't it interesting? In California, you can go into any health food store and get raw milk and people aren't dying like flies there.

[A]

That's a great point.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Everyone I know is buying raw milk from Erewhon. Oh, yeah, they're all still here.

[B]

Yeah. They're still alive. Yeah.

[A]

Thank you so much.

[B]

Thank you, thank you.

[A]

Thank you so much for listening to the Real Foodology podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Fry. Theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com see you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.