Ketones and Coffee Podcast with Lorenz
Ketones and Coffee Podcast with Lorenz
Episode 175: Dr. Peter Ballerstedt ON The Role of Ruminant Nutrition in Sustainable Agriculture and Human Health
In this episode of the Ketones and Coffee Podcast, host Lorenz welcomes Dr. Peter Ballerstedt, an expert in agronomy and ruminant nutrition. They discuss the critical role of animal source foods in sustainable agriculture and human health. Dr. Peter shares his insights on the relationship between nutrition, agriculture, and sustainability, and argues for the necessity of ruminant animals in addressing global malnutrition and chronic diseases.
The conversation covers the history of dietary guidelines, the benefits of a low-carb, high-fat diet, and the misconceptions about the environmental impact of ruminant agriculture. Dr. Peter emphasizes the importance of animal source foods for proper human development and urges listeners to spread the good news about metabolic health and sustainable farming practices.
00:00 Welcome to the Ketones and Coffee Podcast with Dr. Peter Ballerstedt
00:13 Dr. Peter's Journey: From Agronomist to Ketogenic Advocate
02:20 The Sod Father: Nicknames and Sustainable Agriculture
03:29 Addressing Global Health Issues Through Diet
04:33 Peter's Personal Health Transformation and Advocacy
11:42 The Essential Role of Animal Agriculture in Human Diet
23:23 Confronting Malnutrition: A Global Perspective
31:32 Sustainability and Health: Rethinking Environmental Impact
34:42 Debunking Livestock Feeding Myths
36:44 The Environmental Impact of Livestock vs. Human Diet
38:33 Exploring the Benefits of Ketogenic Nutrition
39:12 The Economic and Environmental Costs of Healthcare
47:56 Challenging the Pharmaceutical Industry
53:25 Personal Health Stories and the Power of Lifestyle Changes
01:00:08 Advocating for Sustainable Solutions in Animal Agriculture
01:06:04 Empowering Individuals for Health and Sustainability
Connect with Dr. Peter Ballerstedt
Website: http://grassbasedhealth.blogspot.com/
Call to action for listeners: Follow ketones and Coffee Podcast on Instagram ( https://www.instagram.com/keton.esncoffee ), Youtube ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsZZmBEenvZnU8tA1npAODA )
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Hey guys, this is Lawrence and welcome back to the ketones and coffee podcast. I'm so grateful to have you joining me on this journey. Every week I bring in guests to have the knowledge and experience to help you on your own journey to a better health. So aside of this guys, today we have a very special guest with us. It's Dr. Peter Ballerstedt is a renowned agronomist and a ruminant nutritionist with extensive experience in. Forage production and utilization. He is a, he is a passionate advocate for sustainable agriculture and the essential role of animal source foods in human health. He has dedicated his career to understanding and improving the complex relationships between nutrition, agriculture, and sustainability. The Saad father himself is an honored Dr. Peter. Welcome to the Ketocin Coffee podcast.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. Well,
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:You're also a ruminant nutritionist. That's a very interesting job, sir.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:you know, there's a lot of us. Um, people may not be that familiar with us, so maybe we can increase the awareness. Um, agronomists, there's not that many of us, you know, so forage agronomists, we get kind of specialized. Um, but I want people to know that there's some really, really good news that, um, and, and that has to do with the, the fact that there's a effective lifestyle intervention for people to follow to treat a wide variety of issues that are the current pressing global health issues. And I said global, so it's not only in the high income Western countries. And that a solution will involve ruminant animal agriculture. And therefore there's all this work that needs to be done. And so I want to encourage people to look after their own health, but also to look into the future. The areas that I was trained in as I'm now retired. So there's room for lots of young people to come into this space, to do this kind of important work. I,
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Congratulations, by the way, on the retirement. Yeah. You're also called the sod fodder, right? How did you get that name? And, uh, what's the story behind that?
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:yeah, I didn't have to pay anybody for it. That that's what's wonderful. It was given to me. Um, the whole thing was given in stages. So it started with me showing up at, you know, metabolic health conferences and talking about ruminant animal agriculture and its role in sustainable food systems. Um, And, and so this idea of people didn't know this, yet there are people that know this, so I'm trying to build this herd of people. Um, and, and so that became the Ruminati, right? These people that knew this apparently secret knowledge that wasn't all that secret, but okay, there it is. And then somebody said, well, you know, you're, you're the sod father of the Ruminati. And I was like, okay, that was good. And then somebody said, well, you're actually Don Pedro, the sod father of the Ruminati. All of those ideas were given to me because I'm not clever enough to come up with anything like that on my own.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Oh, I love it. I love it. You know, you talked about the epidemic that, you know, you talked about. That sweeps the globe, and you call it malnutrition, I, I call it the sick culture, the people responsible for the food system, you know, they're just playing with people's lives, you know, real health consequences, um, we all know this, that it stems from, you know, manipulation created by personal agendas, but maybe you can enlighten us, uh, you have a this wealth of knowledge and you bring this unique perspective on how we can address some of the most pressing challenges with the food system today. I know you advocate for a low carb high fat diet as well, uh, for optimal human health. Um, everyone who believes this and, um, that includes me, we all agree that it is the best for human, uh, optimal human health. Um, but we all have a story on how we got. to that conclusion. So I want to know what led you to this path you're on today, Dr. Peter.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:Well, I was, and first of all, you can just call me Peter. Um, the. I was just listening to the consensus conference in London that's taking place today as we're recording this, where they're trying to come to some agreed upon definition of food addiction. And, and so listening to many of those people, combined with my own experience, you know, the, how we talk about things and the words we use matter. And you can find people that we might not agree with. 100%, but we can agree with 75%. Well, we need all the allies we can find. And so let's think about how the words we use might not be helpful. You know, in the whole campaign. So that, that's just something I want to always be aware of. Um, my personal experience starts in 2007. Now we're skipping over my training and, and, and what I did as a profession. But in 2007, I just realized that, you know, I was a 51 year old, balding, obese, pre diabetic. And. At that time, my wife, Nancy, had been five years, so she started in 2002, looking into what was then called low carb, and so she had information that when I was ready personally, then she could have direct me towards some things to read. Um, this was about the time that, um, Gary Taubes's first nutrition related book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, came out. And, um, the diet that I mostly followed was, uh, Michael and Mary Dan Eads Protein Power. I believe I read The Life Plan first, which was a little later. So, I got started on that around 2010. I started speaking. to various public areas. I showed up at a health and nutrition, what was it called? It was a joint meeting of the Nutrition and Metabolism Society and the American Bariatric, uh, American Society of Bariatric Physicians. So those two were meeting. It was up in, um, Seattle. So that's five hours north of me. And I could see Gary Taubes in person and I could meet all these other people and it was like, of course I'm going to go to this. And that was the first time in a while that I had stood up and described myself as a forage agronomist. I had left academia, uh, in 2002. And so, um, sorry, in 1992, um, and some very interesting things happened there. One was, um, here are all these people, medical people, they're at this conference, and I know more about this topic than many of them did. And there's some stories I could tell about that. Um, then also, I got to interact with some of the speakers in a way I hadn't done for a while. I call it stump the speaker, where you sort of throw questions at them to see what's going on. And as a result of that, um, I had to introduce myself and what my specialty was. So I introduced myself as a forage agronomist, which then led to conversations like, What the heck is a forage agronomist? Um, and when I explained that, then they said, Okay, but what are you doing here? And for me, I believe that One, there's an amount of animal source food that's essential in the diet. Okay, we can talk about how much that might be, but there's some amount that's essential. And I already knew that animal agriculture is essential to sustainable food systems. I already knew that ruminant animals were particularly essential, and we could talk about those. Um, what I hadn't quite appreciated is how animal source food is part of our cultural heritages and traditions, regardless of where those come from. Looks different, obviously, but you cannot find a naturally occurring vegan tradition. It, it, it's a, it's a construct of the wealthy high income countries, particularly northern. Um, and so the combination of those things, and then I find people that are helping you know, physicians, clinicians, researchers that are helping people find answers through therapeutic carbohydrate reduction or therapeutic ketogenic nutrition. But these issues come up that are sort of You know, yeah, but, well, let, let me help you with those issues, right? Let, let me direct you to some information to make you feel better about adopting a lifestyle that will actually improve your health, and the health of your families, and the health of your communities, and In other words, don't worry about this other stuff, but yeah, I understand why people would be. So that started for me publicly, like I said, 2010, um, I joke sometimes about how I've been stalking many of the people who, you know, the audience would recognize. And I'm a, I'm a shameless name dropper. Um, and now I've gotten to, introduce the metabolic health message to my agricultural tribes. So I, I, I like to think that what I'm doing is I'm building bridges between my various communities. So I have my agricultural communities and I'll invite people like Eric Westman to come speak to the National Grazing Lands Coalition meeting that they had a couple years ago. Um, Or, um, I, I try to have people come, um, and certainly I try to represent what I've learned from people throughout the animal agriculture, especially the ruminant animal agriculture, um, into the metabolic health focused meetings.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Maybe you can help us understand your tribe. Us, the listeners, a, you know, are very familiar with metabolic health, but how does it relate to the food system, the agriculture, uh, food system? Now, we talked about that crisis though, about earlier, the global crisis of malnutrition. And I don't think the regular folks like I am, I don't think we are aware of the severity of that situation. Um, you've talked about the statistics on one of your, uh, talks on YouTube. I believe that was, uh, Low Carb Under. Um, and you said, 800 million people are deficient and 3 billion are malnourished, but it wasn't always this way, isn't it? Like we see pictures from the early 19th century, people look slim, right? Unlike today, we're almost, what, 90 percent of the U. S. population overweight. I want to ask you this. At one point in history, can you point to and say, this was the start of this global epidemic? Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:Yeah, so that, uh, there's a lot of things there I could, I could respond to, but directly to that last point, I, I think that, um, the, you certainly you can look at data plotted and shows a dramatic increase in, uh, obesity. And then, you know, some years later, a sort of mirroring increase in, in type two diabetes. And it's going to start somewhere in the eighties. Of course, we had the dietary guidelines that were first, the first edition was 1980. A few years before that, there was a report out of a Senate committee. This is all in the United States. Um, that, you know, Ended up driving this creation, uh, of these dietary, uh, guidelines. The, the report was called Dietary Goals. Um, and that represented as, as somebody who's read Gary Taubes understands or, or Nina Teicholtz or others, Um, will, understand this story of, you know, there was a controversy, there were some scientific issues that were being explored, and then through a series of political maneuverings and what have you, this one side of the argument was adopted and codified into the official dietary guide, uh, guidance and food policy. Um, You know, it's, it, I think it's always good to remember that what they say about correlation doesn't prove causation. Um, but my version of that is, every, Oh, we're back. Wow. That was weird. Both screens just went black. I'm sorry for that. Um, the. We were told to eat this way to avoid the killer diseases and then that was including obesity at some point. So it's fair to say, while it's fair to say it didn't cause it, right, because correlation doesn't necessarily Proof causation. It is fair to say it dang sure didn't prevent it. That was the reason we were told to do this. And then we need to understand that there were people at the time saying, no, don't do this. So now let me address some of the points that I think you were, or at least I perceived, you in the beginning of that question. We as organisms have to eat other organisms, right? We don't have the ability to take inorganic materials and make organic compounds out of them. So we are technically known as heterotrophs, right? Um, and so we have to be consuming other organisms. I view agriculture essentially as man's history, and mankind's history, of altering its environment to increase the production of biomass. over what that ecosystem would have provided had there not been the intervention. Kind of takes all the romance out of it, but I, I, and I've run that by a number of people and they say, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. The reality is the majority of biomass that's produced isn't human edible. So we're not even talking, you know, eating plants. No, these are not plants you could eat. Right. Um, so Even if I grow a crop of corn for grain, or I grow wheat for grain, over half of that biomass, the material from the ground surface on up, over half of that's not human edible. So, even if we're going to entertain the systems that we have, the vast majority of that is not going to be human edible. So what are we going to do with it? Well, what we can do now and what we do do now with that is we use those as feed resources to feed livestock. Now, ruminants because they have this specialized digestive anatomy, and physiology. And thanks to the microbial populations that they host within their rumens, they're able to take this high fiber material. We can't use fiber. Um, the, the, the cellulose that makes up the majority of the biomass being produced, is unavailable to us because we don't produce the enzyme cellulase. But the microbes do, and so those can either be in rumens or elsewhere in the environment. within the rumen, they degrade that material, build more of themselves, they can use non protein nitrogen to build more of themselves, they make microbial protein, they also produce these volatile fatty acids, so they eat a low fat, high fiber diet, poor protein quality from our perspective, either the byproducts of the fermentation within the rumen or the microbes themselves that get harvested and digested by the cow, the sheep, the goat, the deer, the moose, the bison, the buffalo. host rumen it ends up getting the majority of its energy from the volatile fatty acids that are produced. So we have no essential amino acid in a ruminant's diet. We have no essential fatty acids in a ruminant's diet. Now humans have both of those as essential nutrients. An essential nutrient is one that has to be in our diet because we, the, the animal, the organism doesn't have the ability to make it. It gets a little shaky because some of these, as we look, there could be conditions in which Yeah, we can make some, but not enough. And so then they talk about those being conditionally essential. Um, some researchers have said, actually, if you could envision a diet with. None of the, um, severely limited in certain amino acids, there's a chance we couldn't make enough of them. So, this is kind of an area of some debate. But, in any case, there's this nice ecological fit between ruminants and humans. Which makes sense, the ruminants long predate the arrival of primates, let alone human beings. So they were utilizing the grasslands and, or the savannas, the mixed tree grasslands, and then humans came along with them. Subsequently, and utilize the resources that were made available by the ruminants. So those are things that I want people to understand. There's no either or in agriculture. We can't have plant agriculture without animal agriculture. And really, we need the plant agriculture as well for the animal agriculture. But there are certain things, like the majority of the fertilizer that's used to produce human edible crops globally is manure.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Mm hmm.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:So, if you get rid of the animals, as some envision, how are you going to replace the manure? And we've said nothing about how much more plant source food would have to be produced to make up for, if that was even possible, make up for the elimination of the animal source foods. Um, so, so there's a lot of keys here that I want people to just be aware of and feel better about. When they kind of come to this point where they say, you know, if I eliminate these foods, I feel better, my, you know, condition improves, the, the, the symptoms go away, whatever, how, you know, my A1C is better than it's ever been, you know, I don't have to take as much medication. And so there's a lot of things to this. I want people to be aware of.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Because we're not meant to eat those things. And we, and nowadays we are going away from animal source foods. Right? And all that to say we are. We are human beings that have to have, you know, animal source foods, right? We're meant to eat animal source from an animal source, right? We are not meant to eat plant based. Is that what you're saying? Essentially.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:Yeah. I, I'd say, well, as I said earlier, some amount of animal source food is essential for proper human. development and function. I think that that's real clear. We have evidence of many, many human beings currently today being harmed by too little. It's high quality. There's, there's, there's no controversy with it. It's not like we're looking at epidemiological evidence here. We're, we're, we're looking at people who are harmed because of certain essential nutrient deficiencies and people will acknowledge that the best or sole source for those nutrients is animal source foods. So, okay, not everybody, you know, meat is an animal source food, but not all animal source food is meat. So it could be dairy. It could be fish. It could be poultry. I mean, there's a, it, and even within the meat category, some people don't want to eat pork and some people don't want to eat beef. beef, but that still leaves lamb and mutton and bison and venison. And, and so it's important for us to have all that on the table because we have on the other side, a lot of oversimplification and, and broad generalization, which is not warranted. So you know, you, you have these data points like somewhere between a fifth and a quarter of children under five years old globally. are stunted. And that means primarily brain development. That their brains are not developing properly because they're not receiving the essential nutrition that they have to have for proper brain development. Okay. Um, But don't assume that that's all in the, I mean, it's, it's worst in the low and middle income countries. There's a really good correlation with increasing stunting with decreasing meat consumption. Okay. That data is clear. Um, but What is because of a lack of access or affordability in some countries is produced as a result of choices people are making in high income countries. Um, you know, we have, um, in, UK and US, something like a fifth of women of childbearing age are anemic and that in many cases is the result of food choices. Uh, now affordability and access, we should always keep, and I try to keep in mind because clearly, you know, being able to afford the appropriate food is an issue. And so how are we going to build a better system that, that, that, that, that, alleviates that. Um, we have, so you mentioned earlier, there's like 820 some million people by the last statistics I saw that were calorically undernourished. Okay. They're not getting enough raw calories in their diet. And what happened in the 60s probably into the 80s was a lot of concern about an expanding human population and an inability to feed it, okay? And so there were various efforts and I fairly or unfairly characterized that as focusing on calories. Right, we just had to produce enough calories for people to get, okay. And, and, and, I've known some of the people who were involved in that effort. What I think we now need to do is focus on the quality of the diet. Right, it was just a, you know, if you're starving you have one problem. Nothing else matters, right? That's your sole focus. Um, but now we know that just, you know, if all you want are calories, eat sugar, right, or, or guzzle corn oil or whatever. I mean, clearly it's more than merely calories once we've reached a point of sufficient caloric intake. So while we have 820 some million people calorically undernourished, Which is a shame and a scandal. We've got 2. 2 billion who are overweight or obese. That's malnutrition. And too many people still look at that and they say, Oh, that's overnutrition. That's the phrase that they use. Implying to many that if they would just eat less or exercise and or exercise more, then they wouldn't be overweight or obese. And many of us within the metabolic community would understand that that's probably not, right? The, the, the answer that perhaps Obesity is one of the manifestations of the metabolic syndrome, right? Not a cause of, and we're still talking about risk factors and causing and whatever. Maybe it's the case of human beings not being fed properly based on
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:I agree.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:genetic background, uh, whatever.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Yeah. I love that you've differentiated between the low income countries or societies versus the high, the high income societies, the high income, uh, countries. Right. One is. Not by choice, and the other is deliberately, um, choosing a diet that is causing malnutrition, right? No, in another, in another side of that, where you have poor countries, they're just struggling to survive, right? Any, any, anything, any caloric, any food that has calories is the focus in those countries.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:Well, and, and there's some other things too, right? I mean, if, if, if you're talking about something, you know, people lack refrigeration, right? I mean, it's, it's an amazing to me to think about life without access to electricity, and yet, you know, 45 percent of humanity consumes less electrical power per year. now let's talk about perishable foods like animal source foods, when people are in cities, which is where 70 percent of the population is going to be in 26 years. Right.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Mm,
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:how are, you know, there's lots of pieces to this puzzle, but until, you know, people kind of catch a different vision than has been driving a lot of the conversation, we don't get there. You know, W. H. O., Which, you know, may or may not be a credible organization at this point, um, said in one of their, um, publications that meat, eggs, dairy, and seafood were the best sources of the essential nutrients children need ages 6 months to 36 months, I believe was the age range. UNICEF says that 60, 6 0 percent of global children in that age group do not get meat, eggs, dairy, seafood. Okay, so you, you could not run studies ethically where you withheld food. essential foods from populations, right? I mean, that would just be wrong. You know, that's going to cause harm. So that wouldn't be allowed, but we can go into communities where for any number of reasons, those foods are not available and we can add them as a supplement. That work's been done. It demonstrates an improvement in childhood development, scholastic performance, a number of measures. So we know that there is such a thing as too little in the world. Too little animal source food in humans diets is a demonstrated fact. And then we need to get people to confront some of the mythology that talks about the harm that comes from too much. In terms of human health, Right, I understand that there's another argument that they want to frequently conflate and say, Oh, it harms the environment, right? No, let's set that one off to the side. Because Right now, something like ninety, nine zero percent of the U. S. healthcare spend is for chronic diseases and, and, and yet this is not confined to the high income countries. So I am given the opportunity to speak to audiences in India and they're telling me about the, the, the, can we call it a pandemic of diabetes and heart disease? And now cancer that that country is facing, economic resources, you know, if you, if you misapply them, there's a cost to that. And so is, would it make more sense rather than developing a sort of healthcare industry on the model of us in India, would it be better to focus on, um, Ensuring adequate essential nutrition, know, focused on metabolic health because you don't need to build up a huge infrastructure to do that. Um, and, and at the same time, healthcare industry has an environmental impact. And healthcare industry, dang sure, has an economic impact. And the failure of current models of healthcare has a societal impact. And if we're going to have an honest conversation about sustainability, we have to look at each of those three, uh, broad categories, as well as several topics within each one. And unfortunately, anytime somebody talks about sustainability these days, it tends to be oversimplified, and only look at the environmental bucket, and only look at the emissions. within that environmental bias.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:because they're not connecting it, they, I think, you know, they've, they're investing resources to push a message just like what they did when they vilified, you know, red meat and fat back then. I feel like, um, it's a great point when you talked about, um, Why don't they look at chronic diseases and, and healthcare, uh, costs as opposed to focusing on just environmental impact. You talked about it. Um, one of the strongest arguments is. You know, the environmental impact against ruminants, isn't it?
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:Well, and, and that's for a number of reasons. A number, well, let me put it this way. A lot of arguments that are used in that are misunderstandings. So you will hear people say that it would be better to feed material to humans rather than livestock. Well, I've already talked about the fact that most of what they eat isn't human edible. So there's this tremendous upcycling, that's a term of art, where something that is of lower value becomes increased in value. And so that's what's going on when we feed livestock in general and ruminants in particular. Um, number two is people will say, okay, but that human edible food that is used as feed should be fed to humans. Well, that's only 4 percent of the global ruminant feed consumption is human edible. Number two, it's foods that I would argue maybe we shouldn't be eating, right? Cereal crops have a number of issues related to them when fed to humans, especially when they're processed. As most are these days, very few people are eating whole wheat berries, right? That that's not what's happening. Um, and, and even those arguments. are frequently oversimplified because they'll say things like, you know, you look at the feed consumption and conversion into meat and they'll throw out some values, but what they ignore is how much of that feed was actually utilizable by humans. And that's just looking at feed as a general term. You drill down and you look at actual human utilizable protein and you see the beef is a net. protein contributor to the, to the humanity's food supply. Um, people will say, well, if we weren't using all that land to raise livestock, we could grow more food. The problem with that is the vast majority of the land that's used for livestock. isn't suitable for producing human utilizable food. And, and then there's also the, the, the, um, integration already mentioned about using, um, the by product feed. So one estimate from Europe was that for every, kilo of vegan food, that was the term that they used, uh, four to five kilos of inedible biomass were produced. So this is the processing, um, byproducts. Um, you know, one of the things that people need to understand is that you can't replace food production with food processing. So we start with something that's okay, arguably a commodity that you could say, yeah, humans could eat that just because you can't and doesn't necessarily mean you should, but okay, let's accept that, that, but when we process it, some loss in that processing. There's no hundred percent, there's no creation of new. You're, you're changing it in some way, but you're not creating more food. And then we're discovering more and more that when we do that, we're decreasing its nutritive value. So we're actually decreasing humanity's food supply by this processing that takes place. And animal source foods, we don't see that. Um, there, there's a number of things here, but back to, I'm just frankly amazed that there's such a thing as drug free remission of type 2 diabetes. I'm really encouraged that there's such a thing as drug free remission of mental illnesses as a result of ketogenic, you know, therapeutic ketogenic nutrition, again, with appropriate healthcare help. And, you know, maybe it still requires some pharmaceutical use, but we're hearing more and more about reducing or deprescribing all of those things. And again, the pharmaceutical industry has an environmental impact. And why is it that we sort of focus everything on this side, and, and, you know, the conversation about sustainability sort of stops at the farm gate at this point. It doesn't really go through to the, the welfare of the population that we're trying to, support. Now, 95 percent of the world's vegetarians are economic vegetarians. They're not philosophical vegetarians. would eat more animal source food if it was available. Right.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:absolutely. I, I feel like that has to be, um, that has to be said. And, um, I feel like most of. The criticism that's aimed at ruminants are just arguments that can be made by anybody, right? Um, the, you talked about, if we talk about cost, right, how big of a, an issue is cost, environmental costs, as opposed to if we focus on consuming animal sourced food, we can reduce the healthcare costs. Which can help with overall
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:Well, not only, yeah, not, so if we're right, it's always good to keep that phrase in mind, if we're right, um, you know, the U. S. healthcare spending is somewhere between four and four and a half trillion dollars a year. So that, that puts the chronic illness health care spend somewhere above three and a half trillion, right? Because we said 90%. So, um, that's a huge amount of money. Um, number two, the, the U. S. agriculture emissions footprint per the Environmental Protection Agency, which puts out a sources and sink estimate, is somewhere in the nine to ten percent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gases. In the U. S. All of animal agriculture is 4 percent of total, so a couple key points there. One is it's less than half of agriculture's. Number two is plant agriculture has a footprint, and if we're going to replace animal source food with plant source food, the emissions are going to go up for the plant source food, right? There's no, there, there's no solution here. There's only trade offs. Okay, uh, beef is 2%, somewhere in there. Those numbers are. depending on when you talk. Um, but okay, so that gives us, you know, beef is about half of the greenhouse gas emissions of livestock agriculture in the US. And, um, all of animal agriculture is less than half of agricultures. Meanwhile, you've got transportation somewhere in the 25, 28 percent range. Power generation is somewhere in the same range. So, gives you an idea of where that is. Um, another estimate of the U. S. healthcare industry said that the U. S. healthcare industry is a significant source of pollution, including 10 percent anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. So think medical waste, you know, think, um, other, other products of healthcare, but then 10%. Now it's not an apples to apples comparison. They, they did their estimate differently than what the, um, EPA uses, but it's fair to say that's a significant. It's a significant number. Okay. The, there was another estimate that looked at the global pharmaceutical industry and it reached the conclusion that the global pharmaceutical industry is a higher intensity emitter than the automotive industry and based and and a wider variation across the industry than you see in the automotive industry. And someone else took the results of that estimate and they said from that if the average adult American could eliminate their, uh sorry, if the average adult American with type 2 diabetes could eliminate their medication use They would lower their carbon footprint 29 percent to 9 percent more than if they shifted from a high meat to a vegan diet.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:hmm. Yeah.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:So, so the conversations, and, and there was another re, uh, study that came out, uh, from Food and Agriculture Organization, Global UN Organization. In December, you know, Pathways to Achieving Targets in Global Livestock Agriculture. And what they, they, they looked at the available science and they said, what are the options currently available or potentially available for reducing emissions from livestock agriculture globally? And so they looked at a number of things that we could talk about, but the least impactful one was personal dietary choices. So the thing that's getting all the press is the least impactful one. And keep in mind that if you're going to say, I'm going to do this for the environment, we're saying for the rest of your life, right? That those typically are the estimates. And we understand that many of these dietary choices are not personally sustainable. that people adopt a lifestyle change but then frequently change back and frequently it's, it's fairly quickly. Um, we have, and, and another piece that was part of this for a long time and now is understood to not be valid but it's still, it's sort of like one of these zombie myths that just won't die. Um, when a ruminant animal burps out Methane. Methane is a product of that natural process. So a paper from a little over a year ago now showed that you have similar or comparable emissions from wildlife dominated savannas and livestock dominated savannas. So many of the conversations are sort of artificial because they ignore the emissions that would come from grassland if it was wildlife dominated. Like, that
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Mm hmm.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:okay, but if it's livestock dominated, then that methane must be bad. Number two is that methane that's burped out gets oxidized to CO2 within about 10 years. So the cycle then is photosynthesis. takes CO2 out of the atmosphere, produces carbohydrate, matter, that the ruminant animal ingests, some portion of that is emitted as methane through a natural process. That methane is then oxidized to CO2 and completes the cycle within about 10 years. So, if you have stable or decreasing herd size, You actually have no contribution toward warming potential, based on that understanding. And there's a lot of controversy involved in that space, but this is now the understanding of that particular thing, and how many people know that. How long did it take me to explain that? It's not a soundbite, it's not sexy, but it, it is the reality.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:I want to say something controversial. You talked about controversy there. Um, it's like they figured out how to legally extract money from the general public. How many people are, you know, taking, Maintenance metformin for type two diabetes, right? How many people are taking cholesterol medication, even though cholesterol is a myth or it has been debunked, like how, like the fear of, you know, having high cholesterol, um, you know, any, like they, they're taking money from low income families. They're taking money from regular people, right? It's just legally they figured out 90%. You talk about 90 percent of, of the costs. Right? Is going to healthcares. it's, it's legally robbing.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:care. Yeah. Well, and, and so, uh, you know, I, I need to, you know, I'm not that kind of doctor. I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, you know, so, uh, you want to know how much fertilizer to put on your pasture, I'm your guy. Um, but I do want to point out, I think it's fair to say that the current use model for pharmaceuticals is one that is, it, it represents overuse. Right? And, and, and we can understand how we got there. There's lots of factors behind all that. I don't think anyone would argue that we need to be taking more of them. Now, I'm, I'm, I'm sure that in some cases under, you know, advice and consent with trained You know, medical people that these pharmaceuticals are useful and necessary, and I don't want anyone to make any changes in their, you know, medication use based on what they hear me say. Um, so, but on the other hand, When there are these case histories that are published, when there are organizations like the Society for Metabolic Health Practitioners to help other practitioners learn how to deprescribe medications, right, which is something that needs to be done carefully, because, you know, I've trained myself to say things like, if you say Atkins, people's brains explode. If you say therapeutic carbohydrate reduction, okay, that's fine. Um, if you. If you say, um, that, you know, that people can get off their medication, some, oh, no, no, no, you can't do that. That's very dangerous. Well, so maybe we should stop giving them an out and talking about side effects.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Mm hmm. Yeah, I
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:because the way the medication industry now is running is, and forgive me, this is an agronomist perspective, subject to correction, but what we have is the industry looks for the worst, most gnarly condition that this drug can treat. Right? So the cost benefit analysis will be, you know, heavily weighted toward the benefit. And then as soon as that happens and they've gotten a use label for it, then they find, then they start talking about all these other effects.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Mm hmm.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:And, and any medication that you take has multiple effects.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Mm
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:are good. Some of those may be not so good. Right? Some, but the whole thing has been this dance of cost versus benefit. And now we're finding that they're, they're now bringing these medications that once were for diabetes. Oh, look, we found that under those conditions, people lost some. So now let's market them. You know, so we've already gotten it approved. We don't have to go through that process again. So I, I just want people to understand that medication isn't necessarily the panacea that people have been led to believe. Like, you know, it's easy doc, give me something to take for this. Well, you know, who is it, uh, Dr. David Unwin, um, offers his patients, you could, here's lifestyle intervention or lifetime medication.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:And he said, remarkably enough, people tend to choose the lifestyle
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Yeah, I'm gonna steal that.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:especially when you then realize that we're going to start you on this medication and then after a while we'll have to move you or add this one to it and then a little later we'll have to add another one. You know, the statistics on the number of prescription drugs that the, you know, American public is on is quite remarkable.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Yeah, yeah, you know my dad
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:of
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:go ahead go ahead I'll come I'll follow you.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:Yeah, no, please, about your dad.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Yeah, no my dad he No, I'm just glad and happy that his doctor, you know allowed him to get off Uh, cholesterol medication and, uh, his metformin medication for, uh, maintaining his blood sugar. So, uh, I'm happy that some doctors are willing to work with their patients, but not every, not all doctors are, um, certainly his doctor before, um, is, uh, Opposed to a lifestyle intervention, but, um, when he, um, found a new doctor, found and, and looked at his blood work and saw how, you know, remarkable his blood work has been since adapting a ketogenic lifestyle, you know, they were, she was happy and, um, finally got him off statins medication and, uh, You know, Mitt Foreman.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:Isn't it remarkable to think that a diet that would sort of represent the vast majority of humanity's evolutionary experience might be one that is reflected by good biomarkers in the individuals today. That's remarkable. Who would imagine? This is sarcasm on my part. Um, yeah, exactly. And, and, and yet I, I need to keep in mind that it, it, it takes something in the individual to maybe not, maybe confront isn't the right word, but to kind of push back against the white coated You know, professional. And so, you know, credit to your father and credit to anything you did for him. Well done, son. Um, and, and a lot of people have, don't have the background and don't feel comfortable doing that. So we have to do what we can to make them feel better about that and give them the tools. so that they better understand what their, you know, how many times have we heard somebody say, my doctor, you know, is on me about my cholesterol levels. And you say, well, what are your levels? And they don't know, right. So they just, and, and so how do we, how do we foster a respectful conversation and respectful for everyone involved conversation to say you know what is is this really uh so my mother in law was on a low dose statin for another heart issue Over time, she heard Nancy and I talking about this enough that she ultimately said, Pete, could you give me some papers so I could review before my next, you know, um, um, exam. Remarkable. She's, she was in her mid 80s at the time, I think. So that's kind of remarkable for someone of that generation to, you know, You know, confront the, the, the, the doctor. So I, I went to the doctors I know, and I said, which would be the best ones to give her and bang, bang, bang. I got this back. And so she goes to the doctor and they're sitting down reviewing her medications. And she said, I don't think I want to take this anymore. answer was okay. Like she was all prepared for this argument. And as soon as she said, no, he was like, fine. Cause he could just write. Right. He's covered. She's so, so again, I may be misunderstanding the current state of the, the practice. My impression is, and again, this is in the U S might be different. Your results might vary, but in the U S if you get a lab result, Right on your printed form as the software is taking information from the test results and inputting it into the form that it's going to print out if it's outside of a certain range, then it like insert some text and changes the font color right and out it comes and okay now the doctor reading this. is expected to offer a medication,
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Mmhmm.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:and if they don't do that, then they're in some jeopardy. But if they do, and the patient says, I don't want to take this, then they can say, patient declines, I'm covered. And we go on to the next thing. How many people know that?
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Nope.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:how many people know? And so I, I think that what is really broken is the patient physician relationship. And I've heard lots of evidence that just makes me scratch my head. Um, and I wasn't there. I don't know. Um, but I, I think that We need to kind of look at that as we're imagining the rest of this conversation.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Yeah, I feel like, um, Congrats to Was that your mother in law, did you say?
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:Yes.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Um, I feel like we have to start them with history. We talked about Gary Tubbs. We talked about Nina Tickles, the books that they've written, the author. I think we should, we should start them with history, right, on how It all happened in the past and how, you know, fat cholesterol, uh, red meat, we've been vilified and that whole Ansel Keys, uh, situation. I think people would understand if people understand how it happened and the history on, you know, there's events that happen. That's that got us here today. Um, I think, you know, Having that history and explaining the metabolic side of things and how the food system works, I think both goes hand in hand. I know, before we, I want to be respectful of your time, given the challenges we've talked about here, um, if you can suggest a You know, sustainable solution. Like we always talk about sustainability address both malnutrition and metabolic issues.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:so humanity's existential crisis is a lack of animal sourced foods. So don't worry about that. Um, that if you, that when you improve your health, you are improving the world. And a lot of this is, you know, we have people who are working in various levels. Like I talked about the meeting that I just listened to, um, where they're trying to deliver some consensus into the professional practitioner community. And that's great. That needs to happen. We have people who are trying to affect changes in dietary guidelines and that needs to happen. We also need to work this from the grassroots, you know, pardon the expression, um, from the ground up. Right. And, and so. The, the more that we can do to spread the good news and that could be, you know, amongst our family or our, you know, uh, community of friends, you know, social events where we're expected to bring food. What are, you know, what are we doing? What are we bringing there? Um, and then being prepared. You know, giving some thought to what I call the elevator speech, right? That, that idea that if you found yourself, if you had a project you wanted the company to do, and you found yourself in the, in the elevator with the CEO or whatever, and you had the moment to give the pitch, what would the pitch be? Something comparable on the personal health. This was my condition. I did this. this happened and, you know, happy to help, right? Don't, don't crank open the firehose nozzle all at once and give them the full blast, you know, little, little, little, little servings probably will increase the adoption rate. Um, I think that there's a lot of work in some of my communities where they're looking at how to best integrate animals into the environment. And crop agriculture, like in the same field, you know, within the same year or in rotations over a couple seasons. Um, you know, one example ended up with more food being produced from the same area with the same or less inputs and then some benefits to the environment as well. We need to be looking for those things. As I mentioned, the FAO document from last December, there are things about animal genetics, animal feeding, animal health. Forty percent of the meat that's produced every year is lost due to animal diseases. Twenty percent. So here you've, you've made that whole investment, right? And, and whatever impact on the environment occurred, and twenty percent. is not available for use. Well, just imagine what could happen in terms of making an impact if we could address that. Um, you know, over half of the world's cattle are in Africa and Asia. Three quarters of the sheep are in Africa and Asia. Asia and virtually all of the goats, 98 percent or something like that, or in Africa and Asia. So whatever you want to do to address the impact of livestock, just translate that. That's Africa and Asia that you're talking about. And imagine then whatever these solutions that are being entertained in some communities, how that would impact people in that part of the world. And again, people will say, I've heard it, that we can't feed everyone the kind of, you know, diet that you or I might advocate. You know, we can't produce it. It's, you know, whatever. That's, that's their starting point. And my response is, no, we must. Right, that, that's a moral imperative for those of us that are so blessed to help other people achieve that, and it's not producing it in Canada and U. S. and shipping it. Some of that's going to take place, but it's doing the, the outreach and supporting initiatives in those parts of the world where they have this tremendous potential for improvement. And that's the kind of work that more and more people need to understand if they really are serious about sustainability. If we're not just going to have these virtue signaling conversations, luxury beliefs, I've heard somebody describe them as, you know, we're going to, we're going to say the farmers here can't produce it. but we're still going to import it. We're going to do things here that increase the cost to the consumer. But hey, what do we care? We're rich enough. We can afford it. Yeah. You know, I'm getting less and less tolerant of that kind of behavior.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:Maybe we, maybe we, uh, can seek help from our listeners today or anyone who is listening. Right. About maybe, you know, telling that another person about this, you know, I feel like it's, uh, if you're in the know, you're already right. But what, what about the people around you? If you can help people around you and, and, uh, share that same message, maybe we can slowly, but surely, uh, You know, open eyes and, uh, maybe, you know, create a small change, right? Um,
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:I mean, in order for darkness to win, right. All light has to be extinguished.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:I like
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:So any light that's any light at all, and the darkness is defeated. The second part of that is it costs the candle nothing to light another candle, so pass it along once, once it's been given to you. And I, it's not to say that we don't need the people doing the research or all those other levels, but I, I, I think that we underestimate the impact of have achieving that tipping point in the population and we overestimate how many people that will be. And, and I think that just like you said, you know, telling the people within your orbit and, and then also just coming to value your own health. And the impact that will have on your children's welfare, let alone what we now know about how they're fed as they're developing and growing. And, and then, you know, what life is going to be like for them later, but just to have a parent that's not impacted by chronic illness. That alone has a positive impact on, on your children. And so if we're not going to value it for ourselves, value it for others, and hopefully at some point value it for yourself too, because each of us as human beings has a value and a worth that is well beyond what most of us can comprehend. And, and so that's part of what animates me as well.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:You talked about hope. There is hope. Thank you so much, Dr. Uh, Peter, for coming on and sharing your story with us today and such a great topic. It's such an honor to have you here, uh, talking about this. Um, I can't follow that. Maybe we can end here. Such a great, uh, wisdom that you've shared with us here today. Always a
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:It's my pleasure. Thank you for the opportunity.
lorenz_2_05-17-2024_131424:thank you, sir. I appreciate you. All right. Bye bye.
peter-ballerstedt_2_05-17-2024_101424:Be well, everyone.
