Is An Animal-Based Diet Good For You?
What did your great-great-grandparents used to call grass-fed, grass-finished, pesticide-free, unvaccinated, hormone-free, antibiotic-free, organic meat?
Meat!
The food industry is radically different from what it was 100, 50, or even 20 years ago- and not for the better. The food in America has never been worse and people have never been more sick than right now.
Cancer is up. Depression is at record high levels. Other countries make fun of how fat and unhealthy Americans are.
I started becoming healthy when I stopped listening to what “authorities” were telling me. Out of the smoke and mirrors of bought-and-paid-for research, indoctrinated doctors, and corrupt government officials, I found a real solution.
I found that an animal-based diet is good for you.
What is an Animal-Based Diet?
An animal-based diet is exactly what it sounds like- a diet largely centered around animal products such as meat, fish, dairy, organs and eggs. Fruits and vegetables are accepted under this diet, but they’re not the primary focus. An animal-based diet is good for you for several reasons:
Why I Switched to an Animal-Based Diet
1. Minimization of Bad Food
Hands down the best benefit from an animal-based diet will be the minimization of toxic and processed foods from your diet.
Seed oils, commonly used as machine lubricant, have been silently substituted into the standard American diet in more ways than you know. Seed oils can be:
Corn oil
Canola oil
Soybean oil
Safflower oil
Grapeseed oil
Cottonseed oil
Any vegetable oil
Once you start reading labels on food, it’s game over. Seed oils are found in:
Cereal
Fried foods
Mayonnaise
Salad dressings
Sauces and condiments
Chips and other “junk food”
Most vegetarian/vegan food substitutes
Seed oils offer a host of issues, including heart disease, cancer, dementia, and other health problems.
Chemical-Laced Food
Pesticides are found in heavy amounts across many types of produce including strawberries, spinach, apples, kale, peppers and more. Cancer, neurological issues, and reproductive organ problems are just a few of the issues that stem from toxins in our environment.
BPA, found in canned food, plastic food packaging, and receipts, disrupts your brain chemistry and causes elevated levels of estrogen in the body.
Processed sugars, another culprit, wreaks havoc on your body.
Grains such as bread and cereal aren’t without their problems either.
The food in America has greatly diminished in quality from several decades ago. When you focus on an animal-based diet, most of the issues mentioned above become non-issues. You feel better not just because you’re eating better food, but because you’re no longer consuming fake food!
2. Whole-Nutrition Foods
Animal-based foods are what your hunter-gatherer ancestors sustained themselves on for thousands of years.
They kept chickens for eggs. Cows, goats, and sheep provided milk, cheese, and butter.
When a successful hunt was made, the entire body of the animal was utilized- nothing went to waste. Organs weren’t only consumed but were cherished for their magnificent nutrition profiles. Animal hides were used for blankets and clothes. Bones were sharpened and carved into tools or given to pigs and dogs to crunch on.
While you might be hard pressed to find people today dancing around a fire celebrating a successful hunt, the facts stay the same: eating nose-to-tail has untapped nutrition most people neglect.
Liver, for example, is considered the most prized possession of any animal. In fact, orcas have been known to kill sharks just to eat their liver! Heart, kidney, brain, tail, tongue, and more are all enjoyed by cultures around the world.
Some essential nutrients in organ meats, found in their most bioavailable form, include:
Iron
Zinc
Folate
Selenium
B vitamins
Magnesium
Vitamin A, D, E, and K
Dairy, Fruits and Veggies
Dairy products such as milk, butter, kefir, and cheese are all included in this diet. You’ll find many animal-based eaters opting for raw, unpasteurized dairy products for its superior nutrition (despite what “government authorities” and “scientists” tell you.)
Fruits and vegetables are welcome in whatever amount you feel comfortable with. It’s important to be wary however, considering most produce has pesticide residue. You’ll be well served to buy organic fruits and vegetables, where pesticide use is limited. You’d be best served to grow your own fruits and vegetables in a garden!
When cooking, you should still leave out the vegetable oils. Healthier and tastier alternatives include olive oil, coconut oil, tallow and butter. (As it turns out, butter is better for you than you thought!)
To the detriment of many, bread and grain products aren’t encouraged in an animal-based diet. Fortunately, many people that adopt an animal-based diet report higher levels of energy and decreased sugar cravings after minimizing bread and grain products.
“Give them bread and circus, and the people will never revolt”
Juvenal, Roman Poet
3. Greater Appreciation & Sense of Well-Being
In more ways than one, humans have fallen out of touch with reality. One of these ways is how people obtain food to eat everyday.
Humans used to hunt animals for days, sometimes without success. Now, meat is packaged up and presented nicely so you don’t have to think about the animal you’re killing. People take for granted the meat they find at their local grocery stores, and they’ve become detached from reality.
As you adopt an animal-based diet, your worldview opens up. Switching to animal products forces you to acknowledge that your life depends on other animal sacrifices. You learn to be grateful.
You start caring if the cows were grass-fed or grain-fed. You ask if the chickens are pasture raised or just cage-free. You notice that the darker the yolk of the eggs, the more nutritious they are.
Summed up shortly, you are what you eat!
4. Support Local Farmers
You’ve heard it a hundred times before, and you’re gonna hear it a hundred times more- small farmers are the backbone of America! They aren’t the heroes we want, but the heroes we need.
An animal-based diet should compel you to learn about local farms around you and create relationships with farmers. People buy quarter cows, half cows, or even entire cows at a time from local farms to store in their freezer. By doing this you not only directly support your local economy, but you get a great price on grass-fed meat, leaving you money to spend elsewhere.
From the adoption of this new diet, I have three people I purchase eggs from. I’m friends with a several local beekeepers where I can get quarts of honey in bulk. I live close to a small farm that sells raw cream, raw milk, and raw butter.
When you take animal-based eating (and your health) seriously, you realize just how important local farmers are to your overall well-being.
5. Promotes Freedom and Independence
Unsurprisingly, animal-based foods happen to be the most bioavailable, healthy and natural for you! Here’s where homesteading and animal-based diets come together:
If you need eggs for breakfast, you grab a few from the chicken coop.
When there’s leftover food scraps, you give them to your livestock.
If you want milk, you milk it from your goat, sheep or cow.
When your livestock is of ripe age you butcher them, supplying your family with home-grown, healthy meat that will last you weeks, if not months.
The combination of an animal-based diet and homesteading means getting the most out of life. It’s a way to live in harmony with mother nature while cultivating a renewable and sustainable environment.
(For best results, trade with your neighbors!)
How to Start Eating Animal-Based
1. Minimize seed oils, processed sugars, and grains
Stop buying products that contain seed oils. Seed oils, as discussed above, are industrial machine lubricants that corporations lobbied to publish as “heart healthy.” This alone changed the landscape of food and waistlines of Americans for decades.
Processed sugars are linked to diabetes, depression, dementia, liver disease, and cancer. If you’re looking for natural, healthy sugars, use honey and maple syrup.
Grains might be the hardest food to minimize, but you only need to do that- minimize it. Inflammation, gut issues, and lethargy are some of the notable negative impacts of bread and grains. If you have to eat a sandwich every day for work, it is what it is.
This isn’t an all-or-nothing diet. This is a do-what-you-can diet.
2. Focus on Natural Foods
Did you know pasteurized milk has been around for less than 100 years? You’ve been taught raw milk is dangerous and needs to be “cleaned” before consumption. The reality is that the more bacteria in your food, the better your stomach processes and extracts the nutrition from your food. Opt for raw, natural foods where possible.
Look for grass-fed or pasture-raised animal products. This means the animals were raised in an environment most related to their natural environment.
If it doesn’t say grass-fed on the package, that means it’s grain-fed. Like humans, cows blow up in size when fed grains. Factory farms do this because it makes for a heavier cow with more meat, which means more $$$. If you want a cow who’s enjoyed a healthy life in its natural environment, opt for grass-fed meat from a local farm (not to mention its higher nutrition value!)
Lastly, incorporate organs into your new diet. It might be difficult not only locating healthy, grass-fed organs, but also getting them into your stomach!
Organs are packed full of bioavailable nutrients that can’t be found anywhere else. The most common organs to consume are liver, heart, tongue, tail, sweetbreads, and brain. A few recipes can be found here and here.
3. Consistency
Rome wasn’t built in a day; take baby steps.
If you try and 100% eliminate all seed oils, sugar, and bread on day one, you’ll turn into a nut case. Take it easy and don’t make a new diet more stressful than it needs to be.
For example, newbies to animal-based foods may not see organ meats as the most appetizing thing in the world. Begin with one or two types of organs, and prepare them in different ways that make them appealing and tasty to you. However, if you consume organs raw (which is fairly common) you stand to absorb more nutrients than the cooked counterparts have to offer.
Conclusion
The tidal wave of convenience and affordability has dominated and destroyed most people’s bodies. Information about what constitutes a healthy diet is loaded with personal anecdotes, financial incentives, and a sheer amount of contrasting information.
I used to eat cereal, pasta, and pop-tarts almost every day. My health suffered and I had massive inflammation and bloating throughout my body. Eventually I started focusing on an animal-based diet and I started feeling better immediately. After only a few weeks, I felt like a brand new person!
An animal-based diet is not only good for you- it’s the best, most natural human diet! Civilizations lived and thrived on this diet for thousands of years. You can transform yourself into a whole new person with this diet because it:
Minimizes toxic food
Includes nutrition needed to not just survive, but thrive
Generates appreciation and sense of well-being
Supports local farmers
Promotes freedom and independence
The best way to start is to:
Minimize seed oils, processed sugars, and grains
Buy grass-fed, pasture raised animal products in their most raw, natural and nutritious form
Take it slow- this isn’t an all-or-nothing diet. This is a do-what-you-can diet. And the best diet is the one kept consistently!
