Health Longevity Secrets

The Cookbook That Saved My Life

• Robert Lufkin MD • Episode 235

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What if everything you've been taught about nutrition is not just wrong, but actively harming your health? Cary Kelly's story might make you question your most basic assumptions about food and wellness.

Cary grew up in a household religiously following conventional dietary guidelines—low-fat everything, margarine instead of butter, minimal red meat, and plenty of "heart-healthy" grains. Yet by his late 40s, his health was deteriorating rapidly. Chronic inflammation ravaged his body, extra weight accumulated around his middle, and simple activities became painful ordeals. When his arm suddenly went numb during a walk, Cary feared the worst.

That frightening episode became his turning point. Desperate for solutions after being told he would simply have to "live with" his conditions, Cary reluctantly tried a new diet that seemed to contradict everything he'd been taught about nutrition. The results were nothing short of miraculous—within just three days, the inflammation that had plagued him for years began to subside. As Cary describes it, "It's like it had been raining inside my body every day for a decade and then, all of a sudden, the sun came out."

Now, Cary has distilled his culinary expertise (from 28 years in the restaurant industry) into Carnicopia, a cookbook featuring simple, accessible meat-based recipes anyone can prepare. His approach isn't about perfection—it's about finding what works for your body and challenging the nutritional dogma that may be keeping you sick.

Whether you're struggling with chronic inflammation, carrying extra weight that won't budge, or simply curious about why meat-based diets are transforming thousands of lives, Cary's story offers both inspiration and practical guidance. 

https://healthrecoverywithcarykelly.com/

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Bluesky: ...

Speaker 1:

All right, here we go. Hey, Kerry, welcome to the program.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, Rob. I appreciate you having me here. I'm a big fan.

Speaker 1:

Well, likewise, I'm a big fan of yours too. We follow each other on social media. We get to. You know I love your comments and posts and everything. It's so thoughtful. But today I'm super excited about talking about your new book and all that entails and everything carnivore. But before we do maybe just this is the first time you've been on the podcast Maybe just take a moment if you don't mind, and share with our audience a little bit about your story, how you came to be interested in this area and got here.

Speaker 2:

Well, I grew up a very thin child. My mother was all about following the guidelines. Everything in the house was low fat. We had margarine and red meat once a week and red meat once a week. Lots of veggies, lots of starch. My mother's Korean, of course, so we mixed in a lot of Korean foods rice, at every meal and I ate pretty much whatever I want within that context, including tons of sugar. And I never got fat. I never gained weight, never had any serious health problems.

Speaker 2:

Um, but uh, little by little, all of that started chipping away and, um, by the time I was 40, my, my health just started deteriorating, deteriorating and my, my insulin sensitivity turned into insulin resistance and I just started gaining weight suddenly, when I didn't want to, and it was all around my belly, lots of belly fat. Every year I gained a good five, six pounds, and that went on for about eight years until I just hit the end of my metabolic rope. One day I was walking uphill on a really hot summer day about this time of year and my right arm went numb and I didn't know if I was having a stroke or what, but it really scared me and when I got home I thought long and hard about making some changes in my life because at that point I had so much inflammation in my body every single day that it was just a struggle just to get through every day. I just was a miserable, achy person and I had heard a man earlier that summer talk to me about keto. He just out of the blue, told me that he lost 80 pounds in a year eating mayonnaise and butter, and at the time I thought it was, you know, nonsense, because it defied everything that I had ever been taught about nutrition you know all those things, clarkia, arteries and I just kind of filed it away. But after um, my arm went numb and I had that little moment, um, where I had to decide, you know to, to make changes in my life, Otherwise I may not make it to age 50. I was 48 at the time and for, for some reason, um, fate, God chance, whatever, Um, I thought about that conversation I had with, with Todd that was the guy who told me about keto and I just, out of the blue, said you know what I'm going to?

Speaker 2:

I'm going to try this tomorrow, starting tomorrow, I'm going to give it a week and, um, after three days, uh, it's like it just had been raining inside my body every day for a decade and then, all of a sudden, the sun came out, it stopped raining and I didn't ache to the bone, and that just struck me so profoundly. I hadn't even lost a pound. I may have lost a pound or two, but the inflammation leaving my body like that it I was committed there was. There's no way I was going back to, to feeling like I used to and um, that's, that's what started it all for me.

Speaker 2:

And then I just fell down rabbit hole after rabbit hole, trying to learn everything I could about, um, health and nutrition, and, and how it related to me, and and, and wondering why everything I had been told steered me away from all these things that I was learning. It's, it was just, it was profoundly um, it was, it was, it was incredibly great, but it was incredibly sad and and and frustrating to to learn that, uh, um, all this had been kept from me, that you know, I'd essentially been been lied to for most of my life about everything nutrition.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's amazing that this information isn't more widely available and your story. It echoes so much. You know much the journey that so many of us have gone through, in other words, mining our own business and then in our 40s and maybe 50s we come down with these diseases obesity and the whole list of chronic diseases and fortunately for many of us, it forces us to rethink our lifestyle and we can make a difference. You know, sadly for some people it doesn't, but at least it sounds like that worked for you. And I'm so excited to talk about Carnicopia, the new book, the meat-based cookbook your doctor doesn't want you to read and it's great it's out now. People can get it on Amazon, barnes and Noble, independent bookstores or even your local library, but highly recommend it. Well, as we get into it, you mentioned it Well, first of all, you mentioned a ketogenic diet as being so helpful. Now is that? Is that the same as carnivore? Or how did you get from keto to carnivore, or what was that like?

Speaker 2:

Well, I initially started keto. I'm basically a low-carb diet, trying to keep carbohydrates under 20 grams per day, and that included, like my very first day, I had broccoli and a steak for dinner and I had bacon and eggs for breakfast. It's maybe, you know, 10 or 12 carbs per the day, and and that was the extent of my ketogenic diet for the first, I would say, 18 to 20 months. And then I just kind of got tired of vegetables. They just didn't taste as good to me anymore. I found that my taste for everything changed once I detoxed from sugar, I believe my taste buds sobered up and was suddenly tasting things and vegetables just didn't do it for me anymore, especially if I didn't have a lot of butter or salt or bacon grease to cook it in. And I just gravitated away from the ketogenic and became more carnivore, carnivore being you know no plants, basically meat, eggs, dairy and seafood. And I never tried to be fully keto or fully carnivore. I tried to just find what worked best for me and where I ended up was like maybe 95% carnivore. What was like maybe 95% carnivore? I eat three or four vegetables, onions, cabbage that's pretty much all the veggies I eat, and then a handful of fruit, tomatoes, peppers, pickles, which are cucumbers. Those are pretty much all the things that I have a taste for anymore, and they just happen to be low carb. They don't have a lot of glycemic impact, which you know suits me just fine.

Speaker 2:

Occasionally I'll have, you know, 50 or 60 carbs. I'll eat a potato potato or a couple cups of rice, but that's rare for me. And what I've noticed is that when I do eat those things, my blood sugar shoots up a lot higher than it does than when I just eat meat and eggs, like 150, 160. And then I get tired and, and you know, I feel like taking a nap or sleeping or not doing anything. But but that never happens to me when I just eat meat and eggs. So that's what I mostly focus on. And and and of course, uh, the inflammation, um, not having inflammation in my life, that that's taken 25 years off of how I feel. I honestly feel better in my 50s than I did in my 20s. You know, in my 20s, if I was on my feet for more than three or four hours, I just my feet just started aching, aching to the bone, and I blamed it on my flat feet, but it wasn't so much my feet that were the problem.

Speaker 1:

I do have flat feet, but it was the inflammatory things I was putting in my body, and it took me a while to realize that, yeah, so many people have reported all these improvements. Now, when you started back on the ketogenic diet, are you one of those people that you know checks your ketones, or you know measures things, or it was more just about how you felt?

Speaker 2:

Well, I did check my ketones, even though you probably shouldn't. I was so excited about you know ketosis and how I felt and learning everything about it that I wanted to know what mine, what my ketones were at, you know. Is it normal, is it high, is it average, what not? I'm a data nerd. So, of course, I went out and bought some ketone strips and every time I tested I was dark purple, which was borderline ketoacidosis. I'm thinking, you know, am I dying? What's going on? I can't be dying. I feel great, I feel amazing, and after doing some research, I, uh, I realized that the strips I had were probably ancient, they were old and they just weren't reading right because, no matter what I did, they were dark purple like, and so they're pretty much worthless to me. But I still laugh about it. I still. I still have the rest of the ketone strips in my medicine cabinet, just just to remind me of that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and just and just for our audience, ketoacidosis, which is extremely high ketones, it is not a complication of a ketogenic diet, so you don't have to worry about that. It's more type one diabetics is a completely different thing. But but you know, when people have high ketones, that's what they, that's what they think about. But what we did, you did you check your labs at all? Were you noticing lab differences as well when you're on the ketogenic diet?

Speaker 2:

I haven't been to a doctor in quite a long time, to be honest.

Speaker 1:

Maybe that's a good thing.

Speaker 2:

Well, the last time I went to see a doctor was my 40th birthday, when my back just I started having some serious back problems and they diagnosed me with um, uh, osteoarthritis.

Speaker 2:

And the doctor told me that, uh, I was just going to have to live with it for the for the rest of my life.

Speaker 2:

And, um, there was physical therapy but, uh, drugs weren't, weren't you know, something he was going to be able to give me, because that was at the height of the uh, opioid, opioid um crisis, you know, where doctors were getting a lot of scrutiny for giving out pain meds. So he basically told me that, you know, I was just going to have to deal with this pain for the rest of my life. And that put a very bitter taste in my mouth when it came to, you know, thinking about going to the hospital to seek treatment for any of my problems. Since then, I've met a lot of doctors like yourself and you know, I know Dr Berry and Dr Baker and Dr Westman, tons of doctors out there who are not like that. You know, and I'm trying to reconcile my past with you know, all these great doctors that I'm meeting now, and you know, hopefully I can find a doctor that I can see and trust near me here in the future.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, that's a challenge we all face. You know, finding the right doctor, and you know I've mentioned this before on podcasts many times that even though I'm a doctor, I've come to realize that doctors really don't make me healthy. Doctors just make me less sick, and if I want to be healthy, it's about lifestyle, which includes diet and choices about food, that we're going to talk about here and that's really on me as a patient. And doctors can you know they can help acute things, but you know, but the chronic diseases that you had that we're all talking about here don't really there isn't a pill or surgery for the root cause. So it's great that we're addressing it with these things. Then, and you were 40 when you had the diagnosis of osteoarthritis, which, of course, is a very common condition that most people have degenerative changes in their bones as they get older, but it's also pro-inflammatory. So how old are you now, did you say?

Speaker 2:

you were 50?.

Speaker 1:

I'm'm 56. Okay, and so how did the ketogenic diet, and ultimately the carnivore diet, affect your osteoarthritis symptoms?

Speaker 2:

well, um, from age 40 to 48, I probably took six ibuprofen a day every day I worked. So that's five days a week, that's 30, 30 ibuprofen a week, I think. I did the math and it was over 15,000 ibuprofen that I took over those eight years just to cope. And after a couple of weeks of doing keto, I just, you know, said, let's see what happens if I don't take this ibuprofen, because it was just, you know, a regular part of my day and in hindsight I know it was terrible for my gut and my you know my digestive system. But, um, anyway, um, I quit taking it and I realized I didn't need it anymore. It I felt great without it. I didn't need that bandaid anymore.

Speaker 2:

So, um, uh, I couldn't run 50 yards, um, when I was age 50. And then, um, when I was 54, I ran, uh, 15 half marathons and a full marathon. I got really big into to running, um, for for a good year, year and a half, and, and it just kind of blows me away thinking, you know, I struggled to walk to the bathroom without, you know, feeling like an old man not so long ago, and then I can do this. It's it's, it's not, it's not an age thing. It's, it's uh, it's external inputs and it's in its mindsets, and it's it's giving your body the right fuel. That isn't like tearing it down at the same time yeah, yeah, that's.

Speaker 1:

That's such a powerful story and and we hear that so often when people make this change to the metabolically healthy way that you're eating with, with the ketogenic diet and then ultimately, the carnivore diet. So when you switch from ketogenic to carnivore, was that more sort of a choice? You just got tired of vegetables and plants, or were you looking for something? You wanted to improve things even more?

Speaker 2:

Well, like I said, I naturally gravitated away from the broccoli and the Brussels sprouts and the cauliflower and all that stuff, just because I got tired of it. And then one January, dr Baker was pushing World Carnivore Month and I said, you know, let me try this, let me let me see how I feel after you know, just doing a pure carnivore for a month. And, and I did, and I got really really super lean, um, my abs were popping out, I, I, I felt like a beast, um and um, and I just really felt on top of my game after doing that. And and uh, I came to uh, like I also um, cut out dairy for the for that month, and, um, that really led me to understand a lot of my with specific foods like full fat dairy.

Speaker 2:

A lot of people say fat doesn't make you fat, but in my experience, when I eat a lot of full fat dairy, I can gain weight. Yogurt, not yogurt, heavy cream cheese if I eat those as much as I want, as often as I want them, I can gain a few pounds and hate to burst people's bubble, but the idea that fat doesn't make you fat isn't necessarily true. However, there are some carbs that are in cream and cheese and dairy products and the two, fat and carbs, together, are scientifically proven to cause weight gain. So it's hard to isolate just fat and blame just fat when I'm consuming a lot of dairy, because the carbs are packaged in with it. But it is what it is and for me, I I I've learned a lot of things by uh doing these um elimination type diets, carnivore being one of them. And then Dr Berry also has uh the, the, the BBBE, which is bacon, butter, beef and eggs, which is an even um more concentrated uh carnivore diet for people you know, who aren't getting the results that they might be looking for in a carnivore diet.

Speaker 2:

And BBBE is really it's such a simple, straightforward concept. It's so easy to shop for, it's so easy to prep foods for concept, it's so easy to shop for, it's so easy to prep foods for, and um, I feel really great doing that too. But, um, me being someone who's who's very creative, I I like um creating new, new, new, um, uh recipes and uh, that's that's just built into me, because I I worked in the the restaurant industry industry for 28 years, everything from dishwasher to chef, so I need a lot of dairy products to make some of my recipes work. So that's why I don't stick with those things, like I probably should if I want to be at my best. But I feel pretty damn good, you know, eating the way I eat now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, you look good, you look healthy, so that's great, and I want to get into Carnicopia and the recipes and talk about that. One last question before we leave. That, though, is I'm always struck by how everything's politicized today, right, you know, even the food you eat. The food we eat is almost politicized. You know, I love my vegan friends, I love my carnivore friends, and I've I've practiced both types of those diets over my life, but, you know, it seems like there's there's a uh, you know, one group doesn't talk to the other. Why do you think that is that one political party is one way and one political party is the other way as far as eating food, you'd think everyone wouldn't align that way on politics.

Speaker 2:

I can't explain it. I feel like people have forgotten how to compromise, how to look at the things we have in common and focus on what our common beliefs are. Between vegans and carnivores, what we have in common is the ones that are doing it right, believe in real food, things that come from the earth and not factories. And why can't we just, you know, agree to disagree on everything else and focus on, you know, the positives and doing what's best to you know, feel and be at our best and not destroy the planet at the same time? But then you get all those people that will believe all the hype you know about, you know, cows destroying the earth, which is nonsense. Cow farts destroying the planet is just absurd. But people believe this stuff and they can't get over it. And I don't know why there's so much division and nobody wants to compromise.

Speaker 2:

I can't explain why it is that way, but I try to keep those things in sight when I'm talking to somebody. Keep those things in sight. You know, when I'm talking to somebody, I try to remember that it wasn't so long ago that I argued for a lot of the things that they're arguing to me now, like uh, you know, uh, fat causes, uh, makes you fat. It makes you uh, you know, clogs your arteries and and you're going to have a heart attack.

Speaker 2:

I believed all that stuff too and and I try to be patient, remember that. But, um, it's hard sometimes, especially when you know somebody's just trying to straight tear you down and and they've gotten nothing good to say and it's all negative. But you know that's. That's the world we live in today, especially with social media and people not looking you eye to eye, because a lot of these people wouldn't say what they're saying to you or talk to you how they're talking to you If, if we were face to face in real life. You know that's a blessing for social social media and a curse, because it brings out the best and the worst in people.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, it's certainly a fascinating way to communicate and there is so much misinformation about eating meat basically, and that you know meat, growing meat is somehow harmful for the planet and you know that it causes cancer and we won't get into that. But you know there's a lot to unpack there and debunk there. But one thing I'm curious about is, like we hear the advantages of organic farming and then we hear this word regenerative farming. Are you in favor of that and what is that?

Speaker 2:

absolutely. That's um um, cows being the, the, the, the core of an ecosystem. The cow eats, the grass turns that carbon into beef and butter and cheese and then the cow defecates and that defecation leaches. Then the grass grows and the sun soaks the cow manure and the decomposition of the manure, as well as the, you know, the cow farts, get pushed up into the atmosphere. Methane takes 10 years to break down and it's just a natural process.

Speaker 2:

The amount of methane in our atmosphere from cattle today is less than it was in the 1970s, because the cattle populations in the 70s were a lot larger than they are today. Today the cattle industry is a lot more efficient. We don't need as many cattle to feed more people. Therefore, there's less methane from cattle in the atmosphere today and, like I said, the methane going up today is being offset by methane that's breaking down from 10 years ago. That's just. You know, that's the cycle. And all kinds of animals flourish. If you look at a regenerative pasture, there's deer and there's rabbits and there's snakes and birds and trees and thousands of species of flowers and other plants, and you don't get that on a monocrop farm. As far as you can see, it's nothing but soybeans or nothing. But corn, no bugs, no birds, nothing else.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and even the meat, instead of being raised on soybeans and corn like sort of factory farms are, which has high linoleic acid, high omega-6, pro-inflammatory, so the meat is actually less healthy than regeneratively raised meat. And also, we can do regenerative farming for plants too, where they have a nutrient-rich soil and they're not a monocrop like you say in there.

Speaker 2:

That's true, but I would like to say that I went from the standard American diet eating, you know, a little bit of everything from junk food to veggies to low fat and all that stuff. I went from that to eating factory finished meat in the grocery store and it put me into the best health health of my life. Um, it's the worst grocery store meat is better than the best ultra processed food. So I I will say that, yes, you can do better with uh, regenerative raised meat. Um, the nutrients and the, the, the, the balance of the, you know, the, the, the fats and the omega sixes and omega threes is greater in regenerative. But you know, we should do the best that we can and it's, it's a lot better than most people.

Speaker 1:

Totally. That's a. That's a great point. Yeah, the worst meat is better than the best junk food for by a long shot. And and the other the other quote that I love about methane production of large animals and I'm blanking on the exact number I think it's about 60 million. There are now 60 million by you know, in the in the middle of the 8th and 19th century there were about the same number of buffalo running wild and we didn't have a methane problem and and we don't have a methane problem now from that so, in addition to those 60 million uh buffalo back then there, think about all the the other ruminants that were in greater numbers at the time.

Speaker 2:

It was a lot more than it is today.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, so yeah, definitely. Well, let's talk about the book. What are some of the highlights you want to emphasize? Or, first of all, who is this book for?

Speaker 2:

Well, a lot of my followers on X were telling me, you know, I should make a recipe book, I should make a recipe book, and even people like Nina Teicholz, and that really got me thinking like, hey, you know, maybe I should do this. And after being prodded for a good six, eight months, I went for it and said, let's see what happens. And, like I said, I thought I would sell a couple hundred copies and and I'm in the thousands, which, you know, kind of blows me away. I'm just, you know, some regular guy from Pittsburgh and people in other countries are buying my recipes and that's that's pretty cool. And um, these, these recipes are are available for free.

Speaker 2:

I have a um um web sharing, uh recipe sharing website, um, that I link on my profile. You know people can go dig up these recipes for free, but, um, a lot of people you know wanted something they could put their hands on and you know, have direct access to, and so so I did it and, um, it's this, this, these, these recipes are for anybody. Um, if you can follow instructions and read um, you, you can do the recipes in my book. I I am for simple, I aim for uh, common ingredients. I aim for simple. I aim for common ingredients and you know not a lot of a lot of fancy chiffonades and marinades and you know all that hocus pocus you see on the Food Network. This is just basic stuff.

Speaker 1:

You just need a skillet, a few seasonings, some butter and, you know, a little bit of time and attention. What are some of the biggest things that people get wrong when they do carnivore recipes or they mistake things with carnivore. What are some of the challenges that people encounter?

Speaker 2:

It's hard to say. It's hard to say. I think a lot of people don't understand the inflammatory nature of seed oils. Maybe there's a lot of debate as far as you know how seed oils go, but the way I see it is, you know they may or may not cause problems. But I don't have to find out about it because I can just focus on lard and tallow and butter and be very, very, very happy and healthy. And whatever happens to you know everyone else happens to everyone else. But I do find that if when I was eating a lot of seed oils, I felt terrible, like fries fried in canola oil, it just made me feel like trash. And I think if you're frying your steaks and your eggs in canola oil, I don't think that's optimal.

Speaker 2:

Try some lard or some butter, I honestly think you're going to feel a lot better. That's the main thing that I can think of. I mean, it's hard to really screw up carnivore if you're just focusing on the basics meat and eggs, butter, a little bit of seafood.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and with seed oils, they're certainly gaining a lot of attention. Now, I never would have thought that I would have heard national level politicians utter the word seed oils in chronic disease, like we're hearing now, which is a good thing. I mean, we need more attention on our health and wellness. But, yeah, I would agree with you. I would agree with you. The seed oils are.

Speaker 1:

They're controversial and you know the evidence for the harm they do, I would submit, in my opinion, isn't as strong as with, let's say, sugars and some of the other things. But I, you know, I believe they are harmful. But even if they're not, I love your approach. It's almost like Pascal's wager. Pascal the scientist, many years ago, made the argument that to believe in God or not to believe in God, if you don't believe in God you risk eternal damnation and if you believe in God you get everlasting life. So cover your bets and, do you know, do it that way. So it's almost. It's almost. With seed oils, unlike sugar, which affects the taste we have and you know there's actually addictions to sugars and junk foods and things like that Seed oils for the most part are are substitutions, right, they're. Just because they're cheap, right?

Speaker 1:

Instead of olive oil, and you know, and and they're so it's not like we're giving up anything by them. It may be slightly more expensive, but I love that approach you're doing so. So in your, in your book, you, you avoid the seed oils also.

Speaker 2:

Then right, I don't think I talk too much about what to cook things in, but I think a lot of the people that follow me understand that almost everything I cook is in butter or tallow. That's my main things. If I'm ambitious enough to save my bacon grease, I will use that, but for the most part it's beef byproducts that I do my cooking in, like like they did for for eons of you know in the past.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, yeah, trust, trust our ancestors. Something worked for them, right? Hey, what about honey? I hear you know there's several, a few prominent carnivore diet enthusiasts who make a point of including honey in their diet. How do you feel about that?

Speaker 2:

I've experimented. I've taken some blood glucose tests to see how much it would spike my blood sugar and it would put me in the 140s. Not too big a deal if it's only temporary, for a couple hours. But the problem I find with honey is if I buy it like I'll buy it to try and make a General Tso's chicken, a low carb General Tso's chicken or as low carb as possible with honey, it's kind of hard to keep carbs low with honey.

Speaker 2:

I I find that if I have that stuff in the house I think about it and I want it and I, my brain, won't leave it alone until it's gone. So for me personally, um, things that are, are really sweet, like that, aren't, aren't, aren't good for me to have around because, um, I'll be be wanting to put it in my yogurt or my coffee and I just a part of me, an old part of me, really obsessed over sweet things and it's hard to make that completely go away. But we can keep it in a bottle and I think having honey around opens that bottle for me. So you know, maybe other people have better luck at managing that, managing their demons, keeping them, you know, at bay. But that's my experience.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I would certainly agree with that. I'm a recovering junk food addict myself, and if I keep any junk food around, you know it's a slippery slope and it becomes a willpower issue. And sadly, you know, willpower fails sometimes and that's made even worse by having two teenagers in the house who are constantly bringing junk in.

Speaker 2:

The memory of enjoying those foods is so powerful you can't erase that from your mind. You just have to think of that time that you were eating that bag of potato chips and you can almost taste it, and that's just hard to make go away. And like, I bought some potato chips that were fried in avocado oil to see you know if I could handle it, and nope, I had to eat the whole bag until it was completely gone. No saving it, can't have it around me. Goodbye.

Speaker 1:

So you're not holding your breath for the French fries to be back in tallow again, and that won't do it for you. Instead of seed oils, right, maybe?

Speaker 2:

Well, here's the thing with potatoes. I feel like I'm a little more under control of my cravings. They don't hit me like the sweet things do, but potato chips, something about them. I don't know why, but I've had some potatoes here and there, once, once or twice a year, year. Um, is, you know, part of my? You know, have something that that you used to have, just to see if um, how it affects you and you know, can you handle it? Yes, I can handle potatoes, but um, french fries, I don't know. I had some French fries fried in lard not too long ago and it didn't trigger me too bad. But, um, something about potato, potato chips. I don't know what it is. Um that, maybe it's the, the crunch and the salt together french fries. You, you can't replicate that. I don't know what it is yeah, yeah, it's something.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the french, the potato chips, are definitely engineered to be addictive and, like you say, not having the junk food around is sort of like. You know people who smoke cigarettes, you know who've given up cigarettes, who have given up alcohol or other addictions. It's best not to have it laying around the house and being tempted all the time, especially in the wee hours of the night or whenever our, whenever our personal willpower is weakest, you know right.

Speaker 2:

I've, um, I've given up, uh, cigarettes. I've given up, um, marijuana. I've done hard drugs. I've given up alcohol and um, the thing about like cigarettes was probably the hardest for me to quit, um, because my skin crawled every time, um, I went a couple weeks without it it it crawled so bad. I just wanted to smoke to make it stop crawling. And but now, now that I'm away from it, I beat that stage.

Speaker 2:

When a cigarette I smell a cigarette burning, it doesn't. It doesn't tempt me, it annoys me. I hate the smell of it. It's very powerful and strong and I don't like it. But if I see somebody eating potato chips, it's very powerful and strong and I don't like it. But if I see somebody eating potato chips, that's different. It makes me think about, you know, when I used to eat potato chips and and it's harder. So the junk food thing, the sweetness and the sugar it's, it's, it's so much more powerful than the nicotine was, even though you know, like I said, it was harder to quit but it's easier to stay away from the nicotine than it, even though you know, like I said, it was harder to quit but it's easier to stay away from the nicotine than it is the sugar and everything else, especially if you're having a bad day, you know, then it's like screw it, who cares? You know, give me that bag of chips or that donut.

Speaker 1:

So easy to say that. Yeah, yeah, and, and, and. It's socially acceptable too, right?

Speaker 2:

Right, nobody will say that word.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I always tell this story. You know, if you in my daughter's elementary school. You know, if a parent handed a cigarette to a child and lit it, you know they would be jumped by all the other parents who would wrestle them to the floor. You know Right, wrestle them to the floor. You know right. But that same parent could, could hand the child a bowl of sugar. You know, cornflakes with chocolate milk on them and no one would do anything. You know, and it's. You know it's also damaging to their health, but somehow it's socially acceptable to eat all this. You know this junk food. We need to get the social outrage around junk food and harming our health in other ways other than just cigarettes.

Speaker 2:

But can you see that really changing though? I mean, our culture is so geared around celebrating food every minute, every time you turn around, creating food every minute, every, every time you turn around. You know it used to be just birthdays and holidays, now it's.

Speaker 2:

It's every day, um, if you gain 50 pounds, um, nobody really says anything, but if you lose 50 pounds, they think you're sick that's that's, that's the culture now and and I don't know if I see it changing I mean I see, um, these things happening with the Make America Healthy Great Again movement and that gives me, you know, reason to be a little more positive about it. But I still see that we have so far to go to break this mentality that we have right now. It's just, it's a living nightmare.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, I think it's possible to celebrate food, but just not celebrate it with junk, you know, which is what we're increasingly, you know, taught to do with all the advertising dollars, which, which is another reason we shouldn't allow advertising for prescription drugs, because it corrupts, you know the system as well. Uh, but that's a whole nother. It's a whole nother, whole, nother thing.

Speaker 2:

I am I try to maintain that philosophy. The italians are great with celebrating food without, you know, having a lot of junk. Um, they, they do it with you know, know real food, traditional cooking and and the food is a celebration, but but they're not in nearly the the you know, the dismal. They don't have the dismal health that we have, and so I think it's, it's, it can be done to celebrate food, you know, and do it with class and enjoy your food. But a lot of people in the carnivore community think that's taboo. You know, it was that mentality got them into trouble. But I think if you do it with real, wholesome ingredients, you can do that and not, you know, get into trouble.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. So what's? What's your personal favorite, or, alternatively, the most popular recipe in your book? Can you just walk us through it briefly, a little bit to make, but they're so good I like onions, but onions with the bacon together.

Speaker 2:

It's special. It really is, and I let the people in the house who are not carnivore or low carb try them, and they're constantly asking me to make them for them. That's probably my favorite thing, but I don't make them all the time because they are a little tedious.

Speaker 1:

Are they battered onion rings or is the onion just wrapped around?

Speaker 2:

No, no no, it's just a whole onion ring and you wrap a piece of bacon around it, or a piece and a half, and then you bake it in the oven and the the outside of the bacon just gets nice and crisp and all that fat um soaks into the onion as it softens and it just does some wonderful things to your taste buds.

Speaker 1:

I'm getting hungry now. Um, and anybody who's this book? Not for anybody should not, anybody should not do a carnivore diet. Are there any health concerns or anything?

Speaker 2:

It's not for people who believe everything their doctor tells them about. You know, heart disease. That's who it's not for. But it's actually even for them if they, you know, give it a try for 30 days just to see what the hoopla is all about. You know all these hundreds of thousands or even millions of people doing carnivore and low carb or animal based. You know they must be, they must know something that mainstream doesn't. So maybe it is for you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, I want to be sensitive of your time here. Is there anything that we haven't covered today, that you want to touch on, that we've left out?

Speaker 2:

I think we touched all the bases.

Speaker 1:

Rob. Well, this has been so much fun. I really appreciate you taking the time to spend with us, kerry, today. Could you tell the audience? We'll put this in the show notes as well, but tell the audience your website and how they can get in touch with you.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm mostly on X at Kerry Kelly 11. That's where my main haunt is. I'm also on YouTube. My main, my main haunt is I'm also on YouTube. It's Kerry Kelly's Carnicopia, which is similar to my book. I don't post as regularly on YouTube, but I do have some stuff on there. It's a little more organized. If you're looking for recipes to check me out on YouTube.

Speaker 1:

Great. Well, this has been a blast. The book is Carnicopia. It's like cornucopia, but with like an A for carny Carnicopia the meat-based cookbook your doctor doesn't want you to read. It's available on Amazon, Barnes, Noble independent bookstores, everywhere you buy books. Get it. It's great. Check it out. Thanks so much, Kerry, and we'll look forward to seeing you again.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Thank you for having me.