The Carnivore Way Episode 4: A Single Mother Cures Her Son's ADHD Through Diet Alone

Darlene Mansue, a single mother of a young boy shares her story of struggling with treating her son's ADHD with the medical system's standard of care (drugs), how he struggled in school and with daily life, and how she came to treat it successfully, and eventually cure it through a carnivore diet alone. He is now ADHD med free and getting A's and B's in school.

Strap in for a great story!

Carnivore Diet Planning Guide: https://4343867330708.gumroad.com/l/fqtjv
Website: https://www.carnivoresoldier.com
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Discord Server: https://discord.gg/eqyzCqtwgd

I'm a retired US Army Chief Warrant Officer living the carnivore lifestyle since March 22nd, 2023. I lost 30lbs in the first 90 days, and continued my weight loss beyond that losing another 14lbs in the following 60 days. I have become much healthier, both physically and mentally in the process. If you’re seeking a sustainable and effective weight loss method, the carnivore diet might be the answer you’ve been looking for!

Prepare to be motivated and inspired as I share my success story, offering valuable tips and insights for anyone ready to embark on their own weight loss journey. Don’t miss out on this incredible transformation – hit that play button and let’s dive into the world of carnivore diet weight loss!

DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor and am not giving medical advice. This is simply a channel about my experience. Please consult your own physician if you have questions or concerns about nutrition, weight loss, or your conditions.

Transcript

0:00

All

Larry: 0:00

right. All right. All right. Carnivore soldier coming at you from Austin, Texas. Today, we've got a special podcast guest, Darlene Mansu from New Jersey. And she's here to talk about how the carnivore diet has affected her and her son, who, had ADHD So let's get her on here and introduce herself and she can talk about what she's done. Hey, Darlene, how you

Darlene: 0:23

doing? Hi, Larry. Thank you so much for having me on. Sure. I ended up coming across your podcast and just a little background about myself. I'm from New Jersey. You're a carnivore, retired vet, and that struck, a nerve with me because my dad was a former Marine.

Larry: 0:40

Yeah, I never say ex marine. There's only a few ex marines out there. Those are the bad ones. Yeah,

Darlene: 0:44

yep. He went to Vietnam, so that, he did the whole thing through, spent a couple years over there. And in my early 20s, he committed suicide.

Larry: 0:55

Oh my gosh,

Darlene: 0:56

I'm sorry. Sorry to hear that. Yeah, so that's definitely impacted me as far as what your mission was. And then last year, I had another friend who In the Air Force committed suicide. So it really, I love what you're doing and just really wanted to share how, my myself and my son's journey of switching to a carnivore diet has impacted us because if that could help somebody or inspire somebody and maybe prevent them from. Deteriorating to the point where they commit suicide I will talk your ear off about if that's what I can accomplish. So I'm very passionate about it and I'm just trying to get that message out there to as many people as possible. So the, I'll just give you a little short of how the journey started. So I was diagnosed with in about 1st grade. Okay. The first standard of care, we took him to the doctor and they put him on medication and I asked the doctor, I was like, should we do anything dietary and it was no, no, like medicine. This is it. This is what he needs. And I was like, okay. And my mom's a nurse. And God, since the seventies. So, I also looked at her and was like, all right, do we, this is the way to go. All right. Okay. And so we cycled on and off different medications for 4 years. Now, he also has so he was diagnosed not only with ADHD, but anxiety and dysgraphia. He also has an other medical condition. He has severe hemophilia. So he's a bleeder. He's missing a factor 8 in his body. So he gets weekly infusions 3 times a week. And So we had a lot of stuff going on over the course of four years. We cycled on and off different medications to the point where we were on the latest and greatest medication, the insurance wasn't even going to cover it at first. It's going to cost me 500 a month, but we just literally had to give them the paperwork. Hey, we've tried everything. I have bags, of stuff we've tried. And we were on that and. It just got to a point where he was still struggling. The mood swings. It was like kind of good at school, but like he was terrible in the morning, behaviorally, terrible at night, hard for him to go to sleep at night. And he wasn't eating. Like he was right around 10, 11 years old and he wasn't gaining any weight for a whole year. And I was like, this kid is not, that's not normal for a 10 year old to gain zero weight. And, and it was just a miserable existence, like his behavior issues, the mood swings I just, and then he started talking about wanting to be dead all the time. I just, I don't want to, I want to die. And I was like, this is not normal to talk like that. So I had a friend online who mentioned something about trying this carnivore diet. And I was like, You eat chicken and rice. What are you talking about? You're from Peru. So he sent me a couple of links because a couple of people at his gym had mentioned it and just raved about it, the mental clarity. So I dove into this, I guess you could say the black hole, listen to tons of podcasts. And what struck me about some of these podcasts about the diet that I was hearing was over and over. What struck me is people that were on, you know, bipolar, schizophrenic, getting off medications and that's what really struck me at first. And I was like, well, ADHD and the anxiety, and he was on a mood stabilizer as well. And I am, as far as a stimulant medication and a mood stabilizer. And I was like, well, if maybe this could help him get off these medications what do I have to lose? And so I just. decided we're gonna wean him, literally we're going to change our So, my son was on a mood stabilizer and stimulant medications for the ADHD and when I decided to. Switch our diet to a carnivore diet, and we just did it really slow. We did it where I just stopped buying fruits and vegetables and Any kind of snack foods and just really started. I started making my own jerky And pretty much red meat, you know the ground beef chuck roasts London broil any beef I could get my hands on. That was like reasonably priced. I don't, you know, the cheapest I'm a single mom. So I'm like, what's the cheapest I can put my hands on and get ready, got rid of the seed oils. And just, I've always been really into butter. So that was not a hard thing for me. But I did have olive oil and vegetable oils and I was like. Nope. Those are gone too. So we only have in the house, it's butter, ghee, tallow, lard. If I cook bacon, I'm saving that bacon, lard and cooking with that. And what struck me was when I started the research was, my grandfather was from Yugoslavia originally had migrated to Germany and then migrated to this country. And he had a heavy meat diet. Most of it was pork, but like we used to marvel at the fact, he was outside did construction all day, never wore sunscreen. Never had any like skin issues, didn't have any like cholesterol or heart. Like he took no medications, up to a certain point. And we all marveled at it because like he would come home from work and pull out a coffee can of lard that he had in the refrigerator and put that lard on a piece of toast and that would total hold him over until dinnertime and he used to do pig roasts and process whole pigs and it just clicked in my brain that like. Maybe there's something to this, right? So, by the, let's see, we started in February of 2022. By June, when Tyler, my son, finished school, I decided to take him off his ADHD medicine. I was like, we're gonna try this. Without medication, did it through the summer? The more and more I researched, it just clicked in my brain that, all these ADHD medicines are is legalized cocaine and meth and I was

Larry: 7:05

like,

Darlene: 7:06

yeah, I'm, am I creating a drug addict? That's what I had to ask myself. I was like, what am I doing to my kid? I'm. And his mood swings were so crazy that I was like, it just made me think am I really serving his health in the best way possible? Like not gaining weight, mood swings, not doing well in school. There's gotta be a better way. So it was. It was not easy. Like I had so many people who, I mean, my family members who were like, you're hurting him. He's not doing well in school. He's going to get bullied. This is what he needs to be successful. And I was like, but he's not and he's all I have. He's my only child. I just feel like, no, we're not, we're, this is not, we're not doing this. And, um, you know, I just really stuck with it. You know, didn't realize that there, there was a withdrawal, just like any drug addict goes through, you have years of medication in your system. It takes a lot, like I would say it took nine months for him to truly detox and stop with mood swings. And now it's like, he's a different kid. I have my kid back. That's awesome. I mean, so good. He's the one who now turns around to me and is like, mom, breathe for you, you know, every morning when he's, getting ready for school, which our mornings were terrible. And, I still have to push him a little, he's 11. It's hard to get them moving in the morning, but you know what? He comes up to me, gives me a hug. I love you. Like running out the door. I love you, mom. I didn't have that two years. He, you know, it was like, you hate me. And I have the worst life and it was nothing but back and forth and just. not healthy, like mentally not healthy. And I would say that was like the biggest thing. Like I, when I decided we were going to go carnivore, I was like, we're going to do this together. I was like, I'm not going to just have him do it. And then I'm going to eat the fruits and vegetables in front of them. That's not going to work. Right. I would say I was surprised how affected me mentally. Like the level, like I didn't have that anxiety anymore. Like things just flew off my back, so to speak.

Larry: 9:30

Totally.

Darlene: 9:34

I was like, wow. And I was the type of eater who every meal was what I call well rounded. I had. The vegetable, the protein, and maybe potatoes or some kind of noodle or rice. And I thought, I'm doing the right thing. I'm making all my meals, it's not processed, and

Larry: 9:54

Using healthy oils.

Darlene: 9:57

Yep, I know. Olive oils, the canola oil, like Oh yeah, so healthy for you. So healthy. Then you see how it's made and you're like horrified. I'm like, Oh my God. So that was like, like pretty early. I felt that weight lift off and just, I don't feel stressed about things, I just feel much lighter. And everybody was comments like that was one of the first things that people like who hadn't seen me, they would see me and they'd be like, what are you doing? Like you're glowing. And I was like, yeah. I changed my diet. I just eat meat.

Larry: 10:29

That's common. I've had friends that are females and they're like, people ask'em are they, did they find a new guy or something? Or because are you in love? Or because they're glowing, right? And they use that term. Yep. Well, how else are you gonna say it? guys don't glow. All right. We're just in a good mood or bad mood. Girls glow, you know when they get happy and it's funny'cause you notice it.

Darlene: 10:48

Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny when like other, like just, you get constantly the same reaction from people that you didn't get those reactions from those people before. So, you know, smoothing has

Larry: 10:59

changed. It's authentic. It's not. Yeah. Yeah. For guys, we get so used to internalizing all our feelings and trying to not show that we're stressed or we're under pressure that I think we, you don't see it as well when we're not. But we feel it. And this is the suicide thing we were talking about earlier. The the burden that was raised off my shoulders, physically, everyone sees and comments on. Mentally and emotionally, no one sees and comments on. But I know it's bigger than the physical change. But everyone's amazed by the physical change. But I'm like, that's nothing. That's why I'm doing this channel for the Mission Carnivore to get other vets. That's because. I've lost too many, too many. I can't, yeah, I don't want to talk about how many it's just, it's more to suicide than combat. I can tell you that after 20, 21 years. And it's sad because those guys didn't have to go. And I have a friend who's a nurse at the VA and she tells me that the world war two vets. And the Korean war vets fared much better later in life than the Vietnam in past. And this is because I think that the introduction of McGovern commission of the standard American diet that we have now, which was the low fat, high sugar diet that we were given, right? And so once you have that and you go for a low cholesterol diet too, right? And there's studies that say low cholesterol in your blood serum cause violent and impulsive actions, gambling mental illness, bipolar, schizophrenia, a violent suicide. These are all symptoms of people with low.

Darlene: 12:33

Any kind of addictions, I feel like it ties to

Larry: 12:35

it. Yeah. Well, and then the other thing is every addiction known to man, almost exclusively if you tie it back to low cholesterol, which eating a vegetarian diet does every addiction known to man is plant based. Yeah. Alcohol, opium, cocaine, nicotine, sugar, all plant based. And then if you, and then if you tie it to impulsive behavior, you can tie gambling to that and sexual addictions and pornography, these can be tied to it as well. So once you get your brain right, you don't, you're not a slave to all these addictions. That's pretty much, that's one thing that happened to me. So I used to drink every night pretty much I did, and I was self medicating now that I'm off. Now that I'm, carnivore for since 260 days or so, I can have a drink and I do occasionally with friends socially, but I don't feel the need to have it all the time. I have no desire. It's, there's, I have a full bar. I can go get a drink whenever I want. I just don't want to. Yeah,

Darlene: 13:34

no, I mean, I gave up coffee last year. I thought that would never happen. I worked in the restaurant business for almost 20 years and it was like, I lived off of, I lived off of coffee and diet Cokes. It was terrible. The one thing that saved me though, is the restaurants I worked in. Had a French nouveau cuisine and they used tons of butter sauces and did like the whipped, we had to whip butter to go out to the tables with the bread. So I lived off of like butter and I was like, Oh, that's why I stayed healthy probably. Cause I eat butter all

Larry: 14:08

night. Especially women. They need that butter. I don't know if you've seen Dr. Bright talking about female hormones and butter and for sure. So

Darlene: 14:16

I think that saved me and kept me like technically body composition wise, like I'm the same weight. And size as I was high school.

Larry: 14:25

Oh, wow. That's crazy. I'm

Darlene: 14:28

46 years old. What's the secret? I was like, like people like always like, Oh, it's genetics. And I'm like, I don't think so. I don't think so.

Larry: 14:36

I can prove it's not because I was up at two 80 and I've been athletic all my life. And now I'm back in the size I was in college. Yeah, that just happened like Jordan Peterson. Same thing. It just happened and I have not been exercise. I now I have started exercising. I've implemented sprints And some band conditioning, lifting with bands cause my, cause I have injuries. I can't lift with three weights like I used to, which I did all my life, but now I I get four, 10 minute workouts a week. So four days. So I do 10 minutes a day, four times, and then I sprint twice a week. And the sprints I do are like not long. It's like one to six reps. Of five to 30 seconds sprint. So they're not long sprints and that's all I do. And that's all you need. And I have amazing results.

Darlene: 15:21

I don't work out a ton. Like I like to get out and go to the gym. It just gets me out of the house. I do 30 minutes. But it's nothing like I'm, I'm not spending hours in the gym. I'm not spending hours on cardio. And it's very, it's fairly easy. Like I just find it like when you talk about the addiction stuff I just don't crave like the alcohol or, the coffee anymore. Like I miss, like when I smell coffee, I'm like, Oh, that sounds good. I'm like, I don't want to even have it. It's like, eh. And for me, part of the healing I think I got from it was I had chronic back issues where I was doing acupuncture once a week to keep my back from locking up and being like on a heating pad and not moving for a week because in my early 20s I was hit by a truck walking across the street. I ruptured my spleen and I tore my MCL and then my head violently whipped and actually dented the guy's hood. So I had all this trauma and scar tissue in my neck and back and struggled with back issues for years from that. And it's all, but I haven't done acupuncture since two months into doing carnivore. Like I just, my back, it may get a little sore from lifting or being in the gym, but Literally, I'll do ice for one day, it's gone. I'm like,

Larry: 16:42

I'm good. Yep, that's the same with me. I've got surface related injuries that are not going to heal because they're tissue issues, you know, injuries. They're ligaments that are ruptured and destroyed, you know, things like that. So, they're not coming back, but they used to hurt all the time. And they affected the way I walked, my back, everything got affected by those injuries. And now, like you said, there's no arthritis or no pain. I can actually run. So, being a soldier, I'm 57. I'm an old guy. So I retired at 53. So I was still active running and gunning with my troops, but my last two years in the army, I could no longer run because the injuries piled up. and all the old injuries and, and all this. And I, and so I haven't run since 2017. So I thought that I would never run again in my life. I just accepted that until this. And now I just felt good one day. I'm like, I wonder if I can run and I went and did it. And it was like, Oh my gosh, I sprinted. I felt like an athlete. Like when I was college, when I was running guys down and tackling them, I'm like, this is amazing. I felt young. It's so cool. I'm sure when you work out, you feel that too, right? You must feel totally different when you work out.

Darlene: 17:48

Yeah, it's definitely I've always been into this. I, I did track and swimming in high school. My mom was a bodybuilder, so I kind of grew up in a gym and She had like a short period of it. Cause then my parents got divorced and then it a lot of things changed, but having that atmosphere, it was like I'm comfortable going into the gym and lifting weights. And I've been around weights, all that kind of stuff for, since I was a little kid. I feel better now at 46 than I did in my late twenties, because. thE accident that I had were, it was miserable. I had years of recovery there that I literally did physical therapy for over a year after that accident. Because I didn't, luckily I still have my spleen. They did not have to do surgery on my knee because I had great doctors who were like. This, you're young, you can heal. Luckily I was like in the gym. I was athletic then I was running, doing yoga. So it was kind of like, we're going to give you a chance here. But after that, the recovery, because of all the medications, the pain they were like, take some Percocets if your back hurts. I wasn't able to walk weight bearing for three months. So like my body really atrophied, from a year and a half of really not being able to do the things I used to from the accident. And it left me in my twenties, like not living a real good life. Like I said, painkillers like Advil, like Tylenol, Percocet

Larry: 19:23

you know, I mean, don't you wonder what it would have been like that recovery if you had been carnivore? Cause I'm, as a carnivore, I heal up faster. I do injure myself still, and I heal quick, and I wonder how much shorter that would have been.

Darlene: 19:35

I definitely look back at that and I'm like, wow how would my life have been different if I had started this way earlier?

Larry: 19:44

So back to our kids, this is their opportunity, right? And even if they choose to go off it down the road, they may My son, I didn't force him, I did it myself and I told him what I was doing and I introduced him and I showed him some videos and that's like I said, I don't force stuff on my son. I let, I give him information, try to teach him how to make a good decision. And if he makes a bad one, I'll challenge it, and we'll discuss it. And that's kind of the way I do it because I want to teach him critical thinking. So I'm like, this is why I'm doing this. Here's the facts. Here's seed oils due to you. Here's what this does to you. I know your mom, her mom, my ex. Soul thinks that I'm crazy and he needs that balanced meal. So, when he's with me, it's 100 percent carnivore. When he's with her, he's keto bore. I'm like, here's what you do, son. You just eat double portions of meat. You pick around that stuff and you don't eat any bread or sugar. And you'll be okay. That's fine. So, that's kind of what he does. But, yeah. So, I did it myself and he saw the change in me. And he had a foot injury from soccer, right? Because he's an athlete. And he said, Dad, do you think it would heal my foot? And I said, you know, I, I don't know, son, but it can't hurt. So he's like, well, I want to do it in summer when I, with you, cause he was with me for a month in the summer. So I'm like, all right, we'll go hardcore carnivore for a month. And it was sad because the first day of vacation, I took him to a pool party and they brought pizza in and he's about to jump in. And I'm like, Oh, wait a second. Son. I said, you're carnivore now. And he goes, Oh, you're right, dad. I said you can eat like a top of a pizza or something. He's like, Nope, I'm not doing it. I'm like, cool. Good deal. And he's really strict on himself, but he's. But because of that, he has shaved two minutes off his two mile run. He's a track guy, too, in the cross country. And he placed in his first race. He's never placed in a race before. He's always finished, but never placed. Which is top five, right? And then he's set PRs on every race he's run. And he plays soccer, too. And at the end of this season, they had a tournament. And he had three games to play. He didn't sub out one time. And he said, Dad, I didn't get tired. Even by the third game, I wasn't tired. I'm like, yeah, you were running fast. That's pretty crazy, right? But that's what we could have been like. And maybe your son, I he's doing athletics or if he can't because it's medical. But if he does I think it's it's amazing what they could do.

Darlene: 21:54

So he it's funny cause I really haven't pushed because of his medical condition, this thing, cause it would involve more infusions for him. Right. And so, um, you know, I was a little leery about that. And I just, part of me has really struggled with his old, he has an older brother, he has three older siblings. They all have the same dad. Okay. And his brother did travel hockey and I just saw mentally what that did to his big brother. Yeah. I mean, his brother played junior hockey in Canada. Like, he was good. Wow. But mentally and like physically, some of the things it did to him. It was just like, he wasn't having fun with it. I was like, that to me I just I feel like your kids, like you should be having fun with this, so that's part of the struggle with, for me, with some of this organized sports with the kids is like, are they really having fun? Are we pushing them way too hard to break down their bodies? Like my son, I didn't want to do that. So he actually this year was interested in trying out, cause he's in middle school for the soccer team. Okay. I was like you've never played. So it's going to be tough. hE's, supposedly I want to say the, they had a week of like tryouts and they did some scrimmaging and supposedly the, like the one day he like scored twice, never, he was never like, really played or whatever, just very loosely. It's not like he did. Okay. No, he didn't make the team, but most of the kids that made it, or actually I don't think any sixth graders made it on the team. So I was like, listen, you can't beat yourself up. You tried. They didn't even take any sixth graders and you've never really played. You've got some catch up if you really want to do this. But part of me actually wonders if we've been successful managing in the past two years his hemophilia because of him being meat based.

Larry: 23:43

Yeah. So that's something DC learning to live David Charles from Australia, who I interviewed in the first video of this series, I believe. He had blood cancer twice and his blood got all messed up because he did standard care twice two different rounds of different chemos Radiation his blood was messed up now I think it's a couple years after his last series where he was stage four of cancer twice and now he's Completely cancer free and his bloods completely normal and he's looking at the gym again. He's a he's a fitness guy He's a health coach that trains people in the gym I mean, his body looks amazing. He's doing sprints upstairs and, carrying the sandballs and doing all the crazy, the deadlifts and stuff, and he's looking great. And I really think that, your body can heal from, so we just don't know what your body can heal from. If it's, yeah

Darlene: 24:32

that's one of the things I feel like I'm, as I've, gone through this journey and still, every day I learned something new about it that makes me think like. Intuitive eating to just how amazing the body is. I

Larry: 24:45

mean, that'd be a good question for me. I'm interviewing, I'm on with Dr. Kiltz coming up, and he's not a robot or anything, but I've asked for people to submit questions so I can ask them about he says a hemophilia, right? He's

Darlene: 24:57

severe hemophilia a i'm actually Yeah, A it's his missing factor

Larry: 25:02

vii. So I mean, maybe he's got some knowledge of that. I can just ask him have you ever heard of anyone treating, or how hemophilia A can be affected by this diet? Maybe he'll have some answers.

Darlene: 25:14

So there's actually I need to reach out and put myself in contact with another hemophiliac who, oh. goSh, his name is Vaughn Ripley and he supposedly is on a carnivore diet and is wondering the same thing. Can this help, our, because the problem with hemophiliacs is they can have spontaneous bleeds. Like they don't even have, it doesn't even have to be trauma related. They just have a spontaneous brain bleed. You can have a spontaneous joint bleed. And the thing about that's really detrimental for them is if they have a bleed in their joint, you have say a hundred blood vessels in your knee and you have a bleed in that joint. Now you have 200 blood vessels in your joint. So you increase the chances that you're going to have a bleed there. So. It's one of those things where the joints are so critical. So that's why, the infusions, yeah, it's like the sports is like, yeah, I'm kind of like, not that they don't do it. The hemophiliacs do participate. They can't do contact sports. So things that were off the table when we got this diagnosis were things like football, hockey, lacrosse, like too high. I think there's maybe one or two guys that actually do the hockey thing, but it's like, they got to go through a lot more infusions with it. But, the wonderment is whether or not, this is helping him not have, maybe some bleeds or maybe just healing better and the. have traumas that aren't maybe not as impactful because of this is the way he's eating.

Larry: 26:48

Yeah. That's the thing we just don't know. Someone probably knows out there. Someone's probably done some research or there's some hemophiliacs that have tried it and it can tell you

Darlene: 26:55

maybe it's a really small pool. It only affects, um, So there's only about 20, 000 hemophiliacs in, in the country, in the U S like it's a really small population.

Larry: 27:07

And yeah, so you probably have to go to doctors and see what they say that are carnivore doctors that know, they understand. Yeah.

Darlene: 27:14

That was one of the things I was wary on with telling his specialist as hematologist about doing the diet. You know,

Larry: 27:23

to be on board of the carnivore first, right? Because then you got

Darlene: 27:25

to understand, I'm changing his diet. And, but they do, he has to go to a specialist once a year and they do a full blood panel. And I literally asked for some extra things make you guys going to do his cholesterol? Just curious. We'll take the total of it, but. And so far everything, they haven't called me about anything. So I'm like, no news is good news.

Larry: 27:47

Speaking of cholesterol, have you seen the Dr. Diamond interview where he talks about cholesterol with I think it was Dr. Baker, Sean Baker did a yeah. Where he talks about, there's no upper level cholesterol that's of concern in your blood.

Darlene: 28:00

I, that was, yeah, I literally was like, that's, it's hard to believe. It's, and that's the thing is that's probably the biggest criticism I get from people when I tell them. How's your cholesterol? Yeah you're gonna have a heart attack. And I'm like, I don't think so, but okay. And my stepdad he's, he had a blockage. He had the widow maker. Oh wow. So he had a 99%. So he had stents put in. So he's on all kinds of statins and yeah, I've tried to have the conversation of Hey, me, my mom, who's also a nurse and I've tried to, push her. She's like complaining of like hip pain and stuff. And I'm like, Stop eating vegetables. Just have some meat. But she's definitely been into that standard American diet. Not that she cooks real whole foods. Like she has her own garden. She's definitely not one of those processed food people. She makes everything from scratch. But I said to her, cause she said something to me the one day. And she was like, some kind of dessert she was making. And or maybe we were talking about bread or something. And she said I made it myself. And I said, but the flour is

Larry: 29:13

processed, right? Sheet oils you put in there too, probably not. Yeah. Not butter.

Darlene: 29:16

So it was one of those moments where I was like, think about it. That's processed. And she paused and was like, Oh yeah. And I'm like, yeah. And hearing people talk about, when you have that term carb addiction. And how they've done MRI studies that when you eat wheat, it's the same, like chemical reaction, your brain, as if you were taking heroin. I was like, That's that struck me when I heard that I think on one of Sean Baker's podcast.

Larry: 29:46

Dopamine Yeah,

Darlene: 29:48

that really hit me where I was like, oh that now this makes sense.

Larry: 29:53

There's another good Cholesterol one from dr. Zoe Harcombe. Have you heard of her? Zoe H a r c o m b e Zoe Harcombe. She's a She is fantastic. UK research doctor and she researched all the, she did a meta study of all the cholesterol out there and did her PhD on it. And she does this awesome debunking. It's like when you watch it, if you share that video, it dispels cholesterol and fiber. And I

Darlene: 30:28

may have listened to a pod. Now that I wrote it down, I'm like, I may have listened to a podcast with her on it.

Larry: 30:33

Yeah. The doctor that interviewed her on that was He's a an MD resident, so he's not an MD right now, he's in his residency, but he, and in Canada, and he's a, he's a podcaster and he interviewed her and that, I'll send you a copy of that video too, because this, these two videos you already saw the Jamie, the, the Dr. Diamond one, that was great, but this one she talks about the difference between LDL and HDL, She gets in discussions with doctors and doctors like your cholesterol is high. And she's okay, so tell me what the problem with that is. And he's your LDL She goes now you're not talking about cholesterol. You're talking about nanolipids. Are we talking about cholesterol or nanolipids? Because LDL and HDL have the same exact molecules. Molecular change. There's no change. No, no difference. What the difference is what they're doing as a job right now. And I didn't know this, but like LDL, I think is bringing new parts to the cells and HDL is bringing the damaged parts back to the liver. So it's really like this cycle of things that are happening and it's, and everything has a natural process. So it's really interesting when they get into the details of, you can correct people like don't worry about cholesterol because cholesterol is not a problem. If you were to HDL and LDL, that's nanolipids. That's not a, that's a different discussion. Yeah. And then she can shoot that down too, because she knows all this stuff. It's pretty amazing. She's so brilliant. And fun to watch. So she was actually in a couple of documentaries too. fat fiction and fat, a documentary. And I don't know if you've seen those yet, but those are fantastic documentaries to share with your family because they're not carnivore. They're not carnivore. Right. They show the problems with what they are as pro healthy fat and anti plant fat and plant diet.

Darlene: 32:14

Yeah. Yeah. So I definitely, it's one of those things I was listening to Sean Baker the other day on a podcast and, I liked his approach to it. Was that like he, his philosophy of he was stating that I don't believe like carnivores for everybody, but I think it can help a lot of people heal.

Larry: 32:35

Yeah. Keto is definitely for everybody. I think keto is for everybody. I mean, it's fair to say that a ketogenic diet is the proper human diet and carnivore is the most strict version of that, which, you know, a lion is the most strict, but so I think for sure you can say that. A keto vore diet is probably the proper diet for everybody.

Darlene: 32:54

And then I think, you have to take some of it into account of I think heritagely or like ancestrally, like, where are you from? My ancestors were all European. So, Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and the predominant diet through those regions was heavy pork. There was wild boar and pigs and. I mean, those were two really big things. And then it was a seasonal thing. Like my mom tells stories of going out into the forest when she was growing up in Germany and picking wild mushrooms and they would do it sustainably. She said, you know, that was one of the most disappointing things. When she returned to Germany in her teens, she's like the mushrooms in the forest were totally depleted. She's like, when we picked mushrooms growing up, she's like, we knew to leave. We wouldn't pick them all. We would leave so that we knew we could come back and they would replenish themselves. So I think we've lost that sustainability around our food. From farming, as far as like meat,

Larry: 33:56

yeah, you'll see from Zoe, she's big into that too, into sustainability because we're losing topsoil because we're not rotating crops and having ruminant animals eat. So there's supposed to be a three year rotation, one year of crops. One year of rest and one year of grazing and pooping on by the ruminant animals. And that's what gives you topsoil. Topsoil is poop for these animals. And if you don't do that, you lose topsoil every So there's experts that are saying we have between 9 and 90, depending where you're at, between 9 and 90 crops left. Yeah. So between 10 and 90 years. And then we're going to be out of topsoil. It's going to be destroyed. Unless we keep, we had 130 million buffalo. in America before we got here and that they were doing. They were making our top soil literally, but yeah, and then here's an interesting fact about potatoes. So yeah, Germans were eating it, but ancestrally potatoes didn't come over until we found the new world. There were no potatoes in Europe. I thought they were native, right? I thought, cause I heard about the Irish potato famine and everything. And Germans always have potatoes. I thought, Oh, they must be native. No, they came over from the South America. So that happened after Christopher Columbus obviously found the new world. Right. So they're pretty recent in our diet. If you look at tens of millions of years versus. A thousand years or not even, maybe a couple thousand years, right? Or it's still new to our diet. So I think that's probably one of the reasons. Now, if you were from South America and you eat them, you probably handle them better than you would, like you said, or if you're from Finland, you probably handle fish really well. And the red meat would be like the goats and the Caribbean or whatever they have there. So it just depends, like you said, where your ancestors came from too does make a difference, I think.

Darlene: 35:41

Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's, um, it's very interesting. Like I said, I learned something new every day about it and I just try to keep in check, as far as trying to teach my son I, when you say you don't want to force your kid to do something, but for his health, I felt like I had

Larry: 35:59

to, you have to for that.

Darlene: 36:01

That makes difference, a place of mental wellness for his sake. But I do try to approach certain things where I allow him, like if he goes to a party and he wants to have and then if he complains about something later, I reflect back of what did you eat

Larry: 36:18

earlier? Yeah, yeah. That's good. That, and that's what I would do too. So for Halloween, I didn't tell my son he couldn't have candy. I never did. I would never do that. Right. I told him that sugar is bad for you. It's a poison and he knows that so I asked him after the fact because he had Halloween in his mother's house, not mine. I said, so how's Halloween man? What'd you do? And he says, well, I went trick or treating and I gave all my candy to my classmates and I'm thinking, okay, that's a good decision, but man, you're poisoning all your friends, but okay, they're going to get it anyway. It's kind of, I'm mixed on that, but you know, I'm not going to be, and I didn't hand out any candy. I handed out Glow stick bracelets. And I saved money. They were actually cheaper. You can buy them in bulk at Walmart and all the parents loved them because they make the kids easier to see. And the kids loved them. No one was complaining that, Oh, I got a glow stick bracelet.

Darlene: 37:06

And my son actually it's funny because I let him go out. I let him do the whole candy thing. I gave him the advice of the fact that like anything that has like colors in it, trade that away. You're going to have something and rather have something that's chocolate, just no food, like food dyes in it. Yeah. But one of the things that I thought was interesting is he's, he was really excited that somebody gave out Pokemon cards. He's like, mom, that's a better idea. We should just get out poking like little packs of Pokemon cards. And I was like, that's not a bad idea. You know, like the kids are into it. That would be something I'd be on board with. So he gets it to some degree. There's still days where he complains about it. He just wants to be a normal kid. You know, he goes to school. He sees all these kids with all their like. Crappy snacks and yeah, happy food and I'm like, yeah, okay, but I remind him that you know In school, grade wise, for the past couple years, he just shifted this year in 6th grade, where they're doing a grading system, like A's, B's. Last year, it was a number system. It was 4, 3, 2, 1. 4 being the highest. Okay. He was getting for the past two years 1's and 2's. They were passing him, because he was attempting the work, but he really wasn't doing the work. He was struggling. Oh, yeah. He's, because of the ADHD, he does have an IEP and they make certain modifications and he's in a smaller class, but this year starting school, it's been night and day he's gotten four A's the first market, four A's a B plus and a C plus I'm like I literally thought I would never see an a. On this kid's report card. That's how not good things were with school. His teacher gives me feedback that he finishes projects and wants more.

Larry: 39:02

Yeah. He's enjoying school. What a concept, right? Right.

Darlene: 39:06

Like that was not him for the past four or five years. He hated school, didn't want anything to do with it. And now he's like excited about school. The learning and like we, we were actually driving from the post office and we passed, there's a strip mall, maybe he's like, mom, can we go to Barnes and Noble? And I was like, what? And he's like, yeah, I want to pick out what books I want for Christmas.

Larry: 39:29

Oh, nice. That's good. So reading books. That's great.

Darlene: 39:33

Yeah. I mean, I'll take it. I'll take the win.

Larry: 39:38

Yeah I think that my son, the reason he is. He's totally on board because he went the whole summer and a whole soccer season and a whole cross country season and saw the difference improvement, setting a P. R. Every race. You cannot deny and then feeling great, right? The whole time he couldn't deny that it was amazing results. So he's like, dad, this is amazing. He tells me he's like, this is amazing. So he's on board and he's not going to sacrifice that. Like his mom sends is. Snacks in his lunch, like those bars that I used to think were healthy, the snack bars. And he gives them to his friends. He's like, I don't eat those. I'm like, good. I send him cheese sticks. So when I make him lunch, like I'll get a meatball, I make my own meatball with my recipes on my channel. And I dice it up after I cook it and throw it in there in his tray. And then he has, he'll eat meatballs. I'll put some bacon in there with him, some cheese cheese whips. Cause they're a hundred percent cheese. Or some cheese cubes and either a meat stick or a cheese stick. And that's all he needs and water. And he's great. And he doesn't really get sick of it. And I do make them shrimp and stuff. So like tonight, today I made a shrimp and I just get a bacon fat and fry up the shrimp in there. And he just goes to town on that. You know, I

Darlene: 40:49

did that last night. I did I did shrimp and scallops. I, I did a cold smoked salmon and I just diced the salmon up and I just tossed that in with butter. heavy cream. That was it. Super easy. How much, how

Larry: 41:04

generate now compared to tiny. I know,

Darlene: 41:08

right? It's out now.

Larry: 41:11

It's like I have it never fills up.

Darlene: 41:15

I actua Like a tiny size garbage. It's only about this big in the kitchen. It's like something you would see in the bathroom. Because if I had a bigger one, it just got, it was smelly.

Larry: 41:28

Yeah. That's why I have to take mine out. I take it out at least once a week, but it's not full. It just starts stinking or it's been, it's been too long. I was like eggs, shells going there. It'll stink.

Darlene: 41:38

Yeah. So we literally have a small garbage and yeah the waste is so minimal now. Right. You know, it's great that I don't, we don't throw a lot away. We don't waste a lot. Nope. Anything that I can compost, which mostly is like the eggshells that goes to my mom's, compost. But there's just, we don't do any of those like crappy snacks anymore. Like I, I got like a meat stick subscription from paleo valley and That goes in my son's, lunch. And I would say there's been days where I could just, when we first started this, that I switched to literally for breakfast, I'm like, do you want eggs or do you want a steak? Yeah. And the dates that he had a steak, I mean, his, he was like good, like his mindset and just like behavior was good. Yeah. And so that's kind of like the biggest change is that his behavior and his mindset. I mean, there's still days where he gets frustrated about certain things. He's going, he's starting to get into those teen years and

Larry: 42:38

grow up. I'm a 14 year old. Yeah, I get it. He

Darlene: 42:41

notices the difference. Like he's not involved in sports, but he rides his bike most of the time to school on a daily basis. But he's like, I got some guns and I'm like, And where do you think that's coming from? Like you are what you did. So he's starting to recognize some of the

Larry: 42:59

things that this diet is anabolic. I put on muscles so fast now I feel like I'm on steroids. I do. And it's crazy because I'm not, I'm not doing any, I'm not even eating. I used to have a whole regimen. I was working out like all these pills and protein powders and all these things I had to take. And now I'm just eating meat and it's just comes on and my energy level and my muscles. I just. Yeah, the guns are coming back the everything not only lost fat, but I gained muscle and bone density I could tell my body weight like leveled off because I just started hardening like it's 57, right? I'm like crazy.

Darlene: 43:34

How many medications do you take

Larry: 43:37

none? None? Yeah, basically all I take now, I'm not even allergy pills. I just take allergy pills religiously Now, no allergy pills.

Darlene: 43:46

I used to call myself the Sudafed queen. And I used to thank God I did trade shows and traveled because I used to buy so much Sudafed. I was like, if I bought all of this in New Jersey, they'd think I'd be cooking meth. Like how much Sudafed I had. Nothing. Don't. No, zero medications. I can't remember the last time I took a Tylenol or an Advil and I used to religiously take those things because of my

Larry: 44:10

back pain. Yeah, I do take Advil occasionally, but I'm working out again. So if my ankle flares up, I did sprints, I'll take some Advil and I put some ice on it and do an elevation. I'm good. What's that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I still I have reintroduced coffee and that's probably why because I did I removed coffee for a while and that took care and I just reintroduce it. Maybe I'll kick it. I don't I'm not I don't love coffee It's just a habit. But you know what I drank when I got off coffee. I still like my hot drinks So I would get bone broth. Yep, and I'll get beef bone broth and I'd put butter and the secret is I put Redmond smoked salt in there. A quarter teaspoon. It gives a little bit of bitterness and smoky and it's. It's almost not, it's not coffee ish, but it gives you a little bit of that. You got a little flavor to a little handle to it. Right. I mean, so I like that. I put butter in there and yeah that's a great drink. So I might switch back to that while I'm doing these sprints.

Darlene: 45:05

I gave up the coffee because I was just reading in so many of the Facebook carnivore groups that people were having a lot of success as far as not being sore with giving up coffee working out. So I was like, let me give this a shot. And. I feel great. Like I don't feel fatigued and I like, I go to the gym, I work out. And I don't have that soreness that would literally go for days after working out hard or upping my weights. And that's enough for me that I'm like, yeah, I'm good. I don't need

Larry: 45:36

it. I have less soreness than I did when I was a standard American diet. Much less. I'm probably about like only at 10 percent the soreness that I get. But every now and then my ankle flare up. And I have just reinstated sprinting and doing these lifts on a regular basis. So I might, I think I might kick coffee off for a month or two and see what it does because it's easy to do for me. I can just not, not do it. Right. It's no big deal.

Darlene: 45:59

Yeah. No, it's definitely, and since it's gotten cold, I don't know how it is down where you're at, but it's

Larry: 46:03

Texas in the forties. Yeah, it's chilly here too.

Darlene: 46:07

At night. At night. Yep. Yep. So I've definitely switched to drinking more hot fluids and I just, I do the bone broth like every day I have bone broth. I feel like it's multivitamin.

Larry: 46:17

Yep. It's, it's a super food. I mean, that's a, that's funny. They throw super food around about so many things that aren't, oh my god. But with real super food is egg yolks butter. Those are real superfoods human beings.

Darlene: 46:31

People that mean, I used to think spi the green brussels

Larry: 46:35

sprout

Darlene: 46:38

shopping. Oh my God, have how many carcinogens

Larry: 46:42

gonna have

Darlene: 46:45

brussels sprouts

Larry: 46:48

And I just turned people, I point them to the World Health Organization. Cause that's the page that says all the carcinogens in there. And it's like, don't you prescribe to the World Health Organization? Well, look, that's what they say. Here it is. Yeah, it's crazy. But yeah, I don't know my carnivore journey has been miraculous. Only been since March 22nd. Mm-Hmm. So, I'm well into it and you get, my experience is after a hundred days, it gets so easy just to keep going. It just becomes new normal. The food freedom is amazing, right? Yeah. The relationship with food has changed so much now. You're single right now. I'm single, so. Dating has been challenging for me because, uh, I just tell you what, I, for one thing, I sit down and I try, you know, I'm not going to be pushing this. I try not, I'm not gonna push on my son. Definitely. I push on a date. But people will defend certain things. Religion, politics, and diet are right up there with, they'll die on their hill defending

Darlene: 47:42

that. I think honestly it's been easier from my standpoint of dating. I mean like, just so you know I only eat meat. And they're like, really? Yeah,

Larry: 47:51

that's, they think that's cool,

Darlene: 47:53

right? They call up to me like, what? And then I tell them all about it. And like the one guy I dated, he went full carnivore drops tons of weight. I mean, he looks great now. And all because like, I pretty much came in and was like, gave him all this research. I, I bought him books. I bought him like Sean Baker's book, Anthony Chaffee's book.

Larry: 48:11

What a great girlfriend. I need to find someone like you. You're a little

Darlene: 48:17

far away.

Larry: 48:18

Yeah, I know.

Darlene: 48:19

But now, so I mean like most of the guys I've ended up like have been pretty receptive, but I do, you know, what's funny. I, I don't want to say there might be some political lines there, but I feel like there might be some political lines to it.

Larry: 48:32

I think it's, uh, yeah, because certain it's the whole critical thinking and open minded. Basically, this is our Copernicus moment. This is our Galileo moment. When Copernicus and Galileo, Copernicus first came up with a theory that the sun was the center and the earth was rotating around it. And the earth was not the center of the universe. And then Galileo confirmed it. And they both did, they both got persecuted and did jail time and went to court. And because they were going against the system. And everyone were like, why are you causing trouble? You know, like just go along with the system. And that's what I think, Oh, the people that go along with the system are more of one side politically. And the people that want to buck the system are more the other. And I don't even say Republican Democrat, cause I'm not either of those. I'm much more outside of that. I am a, an independent, free thinking person who doesn't have to identify with some party. I think they're after being in the military, as long as I was. and seeing the different parties take power and still seeing drone strikes going on and still seeing general dynamics and Martin Marietta making obscene money. That's what it was all about. And I'm like, listen, I don't care. Those parties are both opposite sides of the same coin. You flip it, you get one same result. And I want something completely different. So same with our diet. Right. And you can look back. I was disillusioned with the military after my time in the military. And then after finding this, I became disillusioned with everything and I can see it. It's basically farm.

Darlene: 50:00

All of the

Larry: 50:00

money. Follow the money. That's all you gotta do. And if people don't want that though, a lot of them, a lot of people on both sides, so they just don't want to do, they don't want to believe that they don't want to follow it.

Darlene: 50:10

They're so suspect. They're so impassioned. I mean, to hear people talk that. What's killing the environment is some cow farts. I'm like, it's ridiculous about it. The cow doesn't need electricity. It literally could live out in a pasture kind of by itself and eat some grass. Like, how is that this country before it was settled, how many thousands, hundreds of thousands, Buffalo roamed

Larry: 50:37

this land, 130 million. Rick

Darlene: 50:40

millions. I feel like cows are like really close to that Buffalo. Like same, right. And you think the cows are the problem, but you want people to eat something that was created in a factory, that the environmental footprint of that factory, nobody wants to talk about.

Larry: 51:01

Right. Oh, and there, listen, seed oil. I've worked in refineries. I did a wireless network design for refineries for 15 years. And I've been in a lot of different refineries and none of them are clean. None of them are environmentally sound. They are terrible places to be. Now we need them. I'm not saying we don't need, we need plastic. We need fuel. We need everything that those things make. But what we don't need is seed oils. Absolutely not 100%. We don't need that. It's like that's something we could totally live without. Right? So I don't understand where the, if you agree, if you want to save the environment, let's take out the ones that are least necessary. First, let's just dump those. And you can shut down all those refineries.

Darlene: 51:43

It's just one of those things that now I see it as follow the money. There's an agenda, there's an agenda behind it. Why they're pushing this, why they're pushing that. Somebody's got some deep pockets and somebody's filling it.

Larry: 51:57

That's what I tell my son now, whenever he sees something that's weird, I'm like, who's making money on this? Think about it. How's it work? And I just try to, like I said, let him make those kinds of decisions. So it's, it's good, but like I said, we are in our Copernicus moment where we're going to have to make, we're gonna have to hold the line and keep growing this groundswell of. popular people, on YouTube sharing these stories like your son's story. Think about if people found out that through diet, just ADHD, not any other stuff that's wrong with him, just how many kids, how many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of kids are on ADHD drugs.

Darlene: 52:33

I mean, there was a shortage during COVID of getting the medications. I used to have to go to different pharmacies because his script would be at this pharmacy and be like, we can't get it. And I'm like, well, I'm supposed to have it. What do you mean? And I have to have them send the script. It was like a rat race to find a pharmacy that would have some of the medicines. And it's funny, cause like I'm in some of those Facebook groups for ADHD. And whenever I put it out there, like some people like it. And then other people are like. You're crazy. Like what? And I'm like um, I'm just telling you if you want to try something different, just saying, like,

Larry: 53:13

here's another way. And that's the thing. You can't, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them think. Right. And that's the thing. So you got to give them the information. That's what I do too. I just share it out there. And I'm like, listen I don't know if it's for you or not. I just know that you're homo sapien and I know how we're made. And I know how my body and not just my body, but I know how a lot of people's bodies react to the proper human diet. And when you look at the proper human diet, you can look at anthropologists. I know I think there's another Dr. No, it was Dr. Ken Berry. We interviewed this anthropologist talking about the proper human diet. Evidence is called evidence for the proper human diet. If you Google that with Dr. Barry, you'll find it. But this anthropologist talks about. that, you can tell what these skeletons, what they ate based on their teeth and also based on their bones. Because if they were a carnivorous community where they ate meat and they were hunter gatherers and they primarily lived on meat, then once they get to adult, they can't tell how old the adult was when they died because the bones don't have any indication. There's no tooth decay. There's no arthritis. The bones are just an adult or juvenile. That's all they can tell. If they've been eating, if they've been eating like they looked at people in Egypt, the Egyptians where they ate a lot of bread, they could tell they ate bread because their teeth were ground down. They had tons of tooth decay. They had arthritis. They can tell how old they were. Oh, this guy was in his forties or this guy was in his sixties or this guy was in his twenties because you didn't have this problem, right? So it's so amazing that when you're on the right diet, you don't have any signs in your bones of, of abuse basically, or it's actually chronic exposure to toxins.

Darlene: 54:52

Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, that part of it's really, it's good to give you something to think about. And, that's something that's just not taught, and, you start to realize starting this journey that your doctors. Are really just taught how to prescribe medication by the pharmacy companies. That's it. They're not And I found this in my own like years ago I remember I went to a doctor and I was having issues with eczema for years I had issues with eczema and I remember I went into the doctor I was it was a new doctor because I had moved from delaware back to new jersey And I brought the tube I was like, hey, i'm having a flare up and this is what I've been treating with for the past 10 years. It works really great. She fluffed me off and was like, well, I don't know anything about that. I'm going to write you this script for this other stuff. And I was like, what? You're going to give me something that I've never used before when I've been using something that's effective. And it really, like that really made me pause and go. But wait a minute, there's this big book that you can look up all the medications in and find out, but you want me to take your, this one medicine that you're writing a script on it just made me put two and two together really quick. All the

Larry: 56:10

money. Yeah, all the money. She's getting bonuses. They're getting paid directly by these guys too. And then when you find out that, our medical system and our dietary guidelines are from a religious, Day Adventists, a religious They're training basically everyone that this is the way and then they're made up by the the grain companies, right? The the cereal companies, Kellogg and Graham, which is, I forget who they are now, but Graham crackers, you know, and Kellogg cereals. Those are all to make guys not be lustful because apparently meat makes us lust. Oh, well, I mean, that's the way it is. They wanted to make us not masturbate by giving us grains. And I guess they're worth it. Look at soy boys. I can't imagine. I can't, you know, they are pretty freaking tame. I

Darlene: 57:01

mean, there's, I think it's starting to kind of come out a little bit more right now. I don't know if you're seeing it, but this whole gender thing, is it because of the American diet that we have?

Larry: 57:14

Beyond the mental illness is the hormonal imbalances all across. Yeah. You know,

Darlene: 57:21

I remember. And so the funny thing is when I graduated high school and I was going to community college I worked at a restaurant and for whatever reason, starting to work in a restaurant and seeing them process the meats when they came in, it kind of just grossed me out. I don't know what happened, but I was like, I stopped eating meat. I went vegetarian for two years. I thought my opal was going to disown me. My, my grandfather. Yeah, did all the pig roast and was like You're not eating meat. What's wrong with you? And I was like, yeah, it's just, I can't. And I did the whole I thought I was doing better for myself. I was like, oh, I'm going to be healthier. And I was, I did all this research, went to the health, got all these supplements, a health food store. I remember reading an article. In one of the newsletters and it was an article about there was an uptick in breast cancer in men who started drinking soy milk. And it made me pause and go if it's doing that to guys, what's it doing to women? Yeah. And I was like, I swore off. I had started drinking soy milk cause I was like, this is healthy. This is what I should be drinking. Oh my gosh. I was like, never again. And literally it was like, I was almost two years where I did the vegetarian thing and it was just like. All of a sudden I just was like, I need to eat meat again. I just listened to my body and I was like, I started craving it again and started eating meat again. And I don't know what happened, but that was a small, thankfully very small phase in my life that I did not stick with. But so I understand where some of these vegetarians come from. that, Oh, it's the greatest, and I'm like any elimination diet of processed foods is going to make you feel good. Probably.

Larry: 59:11

That's the thing. If you cut that out and they probably feel even more amazing. If they cut out seed oils and did vegetarian where you're doing whole foods. It is survival food in my book. You can like the potatoes. That's why the Irish had them. Think about it. If you think about the aristocracy. They didn't allow commoners to hunt their deer. You got caught poaching a king's deer. You're going to get hung, right? But you could eat potatoes all day long because people eat potatoes are easier to manage, right? They're a little sick. They're a little sick. They're not the sharpest people, not the sharpest tools, and they're not going to rise up because they don't have strong opinions, so I think they're just easier to control. And I think this has been known for, thousands of years. Even the Egyptians, they all eat, the Pharaohs didn't eat bread like that. They were eating all the meat, right? They had all in the Caesar, they ate meat. And peasants ate bread. Right. Yeah. Even in Rome, the peasants ate bread. They gave the bread to them and and grains and the rich people ate meat. They all kinds of exotic meats. So if

Darlene: 1:00:16

If you actually study more infantry military, like campaigns, like I've heard references of I want to say, what is it like the Huns that they just ate, they lived off of the horse meat. They ate the horses. Yeah. They were, I mean, drank the blood. Yeah. They were a force to be reckoned with. I think, what is it? Napoleon's troops, maybe that they, a lot of those guys were older, like forties, fifties, sixties, like generals in their seventies.

Larry: 1:00:42

And they were Romans, Roman soldiers that were in our sixties and they meet. And yeah the Napoleon, I think I was talking to Dr. Chafee and he said that. They like boiled cows down to like liquid, took all the bones out and then poured it in cans and canned them. And they'd bring these and eat them. They didn't require any refrigeration, just canned meat. And full of fat and meat. And all it was just fat and beef protein. And that's all they lived on. And then in I don't know if you've tried pemmican or carnivore bar yet. I have not. It's a, it's an acquired taste, but it's tallow and beef chips. Yeah. And this is what the Indian, American Indians ate. Especially in the, uh, plains where that there's no fruit. Wyoming Plains naturally to not like these guys are eating this. And then the in the war of 1812, the British army fed their army on that, on Pemmican. Yeah.

Darlene: 1:01:33

So, uh, yeah. I've been wanting to actually try to make my own, cause I'm definitely one of those who like, I'm going to make that myself. I do my own beef jerky.

Larry: 1:01:41

You got a dehydrator? I got a dehydrator. Yeah,

Darlene: 1:01:44

yeah. I snagged one of my mother's like dehydrator stacks. And she keeps hers for her vegetables. I, mine just has meat in it all the time. Yeah. I started doing my own cold smoked salmon because all the smoked salmon in the store, it's all farm raised. And I'm like, this is garbage. And I was like, why did I do this myself? And I was like, it's so easy. I was like, why not? But so I'm more into doing it, making it myself. For convenience, I do some beef sticks and I, I've had it on my list to try the carnivore bars. Cause you know I hear them talk about it. And what's the other one? The puck one carnivore crisps. No, it's not the carnivore crisps. There's this like puck one. Oh, a puck. I don't know. Yeah, it's like a disc thing. I think it's like a pemmican type

Larry: 1:02:29

carnivore. If you actually google pemmican, you can find pemmican cheaper too. Actually made by people online that are offering it. So you can buy, much cheaper than carnivore bars, but they're not individually wrapped. They come, you just, but they don't require refrigeration or anything. So you just cut off a piece, right? Yeah. So I'm going to try some of those. They're grass fed, grass finished, organic.

Darlene: 1:02:49

Yeah that's one thing that I'd be interested in really seeing some data on eventually maybe yeah, the whole debate of whether, what they're eating, as far as like, You hear people put out that, Oh, all the beef is so injected with, hormones, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, is

Larry: 1:03:09

it? Yeah, I catch hell for that because I put out, I don't know if you saw my carnivore on 40 a week video I put out, but I was, I went to Walmart and I was like, okay, if I had to survive and I made X amount, I had less than 200 a month to eat on, could I do it? And I did a BBB and E. With cheap butter, it's still pure butter though, 100 percent salted butter. Cheap ground beef. And it was Walmart beef, the 10 pound tubes, cheap eggs and they're not great eggs or the cheapo eggs, but everything was cheap, but I got everything salt. So he did and cheap bacon and people like, oh, there's sugar in the bacon. I'm like, yeah, don't worry about it. I did that. I've been eating bacon with sugar in it the whole time and I've lost 56 pounds and feel amazing. So if you're at that point, you're like getting your doctorate in carnivore. You're not just starting out. You're like dialing stuff in. To the minute point where you're like, I'm going to try this and see what happens to my body, right? Yeah.

Darlene: 1:04:04

It's definitely one of those things where that's the, one of the biggest pushbacks I get is. I, when I decided to do this and I was telling my sister about it she was like, oh, I can't afford that.

Larry: 1:04:15

And I'm like, can

Darlene: 1:04:16

you, I was like, can you, cause I tell people like what I spend a weekly basis on groceries just for me and my son. And they're like, how I said, because I plan my meals and I bargain shop. I shop at Aldi's. They have some decent prices on things like meats and dairy. If you're looking for a good value, like all these. So they're meat selection. They have pasture raised eggs.

Larry: 1:04:44

And you don't dine out, you're not getting snacks at the gas station. All that stuff I used to do. I don't do any of that stuff. Yeah. And I can tell you, I've had people comment on that video. That video became huge. I published it right before Thanksgiving and it's already got 30 something thousand views. It was crazy. It became my number one video instantly. People, I've had people log in and say how terrible I am because I'm not telling the grass fed butter or all this stuff. I'm like, whatever. I don't care. I said, if money cannot be a barrier to this, you cannot, and I've had other people come in and say, man, I'm a senior, I'm on a fixed income. You've shown me I can do this. I'm so encouraged. I'm like, man, I don't care about all the negative comments when I get one comment like that. I'm like. That's awesome. Because I've had more than one. I've had a lot of comments like that. People say, thanks for, because I put a spreadsheet in it too. And I lay out the dollars. I'm like, here it is, man. This is your, and I put calories and I had people come after about calories too. You shouldn't count calories. I'm like, listen, I put calories on it because brand new people coming in are used to calories. And this is what they understand. And if you tell them 2000 calories a day, they get it. I'm not, you can't go to people and expect them to, I don't understand there's so much dogma in this. People expect people like be pure carnivore right from day one and not deviate. And then you have people that are like, well, I can just cheat and eat syrup and sugar and still be carnivore. It's like, there's crazy sides on this. And then there's me in the middle of just saying we can do sensible carnivore. We can learn as we go and we can make it affordable. We don't have to, I, I appreciate that. I don't eat any grass fed beef, really. I don't. I just eat beef that I get from Costco. Hey, oh, well,

Darlene: 1:06:27

It's definitely one of the, I like, I look for sales on stuff. My local shop rate last week, for whatever reason, they had bunch of stuff in their special section, manager special that they'd marked down. And it was a bunch of grass fed, stir fry. I was like, all right, whatever. I picked up a ton of that and, for a pound, it was 499. I was like, That's great. Like I put that right in my freezer. So for me, I just, it's, I don't know that debate is still, I don't know. I'm, I don't really think it's, you need to be so curious about the grass

Larry: 1:07:02

fed. I'm not saying that it's not better. It probably is. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying it's not necessary to be, you don't need to let perfection to be the enemy of excellence. You can have excellence in your life just doing regular. And I, now I buy grass fed butter because they have it easily at Costco in bulk and I do add that to everything I eat. So I do have grass fed omega threes coming in there. Right. And butter's really great. It's stock full of that. Now, one thing you said about the fish, farm raised fish is probably the worst fish you can ever eat because you're trying to get your omega threes up on your fish, right? Omega three comes from fish eating smaller fish who eat smaller fish, but if they're farm raised their fish eating corn, so they're not getting any omega three. So you're getting. A worthless piece of meat

Darlene: 1:07:48

is what you're getting. Especially when it's salmon they're giving it dyes to make it like, they're giving it something to make it look that orange color. Cause they naturally get that from eating things like krill and shrimps. They're not getting that in the farm raised part. So it's one of those things that it tastes so like farm raised salmon tastes so good, but it's so not good for you. Like it's so bad. Yeah. So it's definitely one of those things. Like I want wild caught stuff. That's what I look for. But most, that's like a treat. Like we don't have a ton of seafood. I maybe once a month we do sushi. Cause my son likes sushi. It's like the treat for him.

Larry: 1:08:25

My son loves sushi too. We haven't done it in a while, but he

Darlene: 1:08:27

does love it. Yeah. We do that once a month, but like I said, typically it's all and that's it I feel like. You can find like deals out there, like Chuck steak. Oh yeah.

Larry: 1:08:38

I mean, I do pot roasts all the time.

Darlene: 1:08:42

I'm getting my bones for my bone broth and I'm getting like a nice fatty cut of meat. Perfect. At a reasonable price, you don't have to go for the ribeyes that are 1499, 19, whatever a pound.

Larry: 1:08:56

I went crazy on the ribeyes when I first started. Cause I was like, well, I'm just gonna do the right. And I love them. I still love ribeyes, but now I might eat one or two a week and I'm almost all ground beef with butter. And very little dairy, very little, maybe some cheese on it today. I had some cheese on it, occasional eggs, but I can just eat ground beef all day. And I'm good. I don't know why something, my relationship with food has changed so much that my hunger signals have changed. My desire to eat different foods has changed. My tastes have changed. Yeah,

Darlene: 1:09:26

I would have considered myself a big foodie because of all, I worked in a fine dining restaurants for so many years that, I learned how to make all those fancy butter sauces. They used to joke with me when I worked in the restaurant, cause I was like, I would taste stuff and they'd be like, okay, chef. And I'd be like, who made the soup today? Cause there's no salt in it. And I got to a point where I used to be able to jump on. the cold side and make salads and desserts when they got slammed. And it's just one of those things where I've had an appreciation for all this like tasty foods. And now it's like, I don't know. I don't need it.

Larry: 1:10:03

I know that we used to go to Disney world every year. And we, I would plan out every restaurant. I have reservations at every restaurant before we went, steakhouses, whatever, all these different, it was like, that was part of the experience. And this year we're going, and we're not going to Disney World, we're not servicing that business right now, so we're going to Universal Studios. Okay. And staying at the Marriott, because I got Marriott points still from when I do all my travel. And yeah, and we're gonna bring a air fryer, and I'm gonna, and I'm, when I get there I'm just gonna go to the grocery store and buy, or the Costco and buy some frozen patty and we'll eat burgers. And yeah, that's going to be the cheapest trip I've ever done to an amusement park for a week, in Florida, I'm sure.

Darlene: 1:10:43

Yeah, no, there's definitely I've changed where, if we're going anywhere, I make sure I pack my steaks and, pack or, cook up some, one of my favorite things is just to cook a big chuck roast and, it's so easy, falls apart and I just, not for a couple of days, but I know.

Larry: 1:11:03

I have some now. That's what we're gonna have tonight for dinner is my leftover chuck roast. So I freeze half of it because I make so much, I can't eat it all. And then I freeze half and I just thawed it out. So we're gonna have that tonight. Yeah, and then luckily being in Texas we have barbecue on every corner. And barbecue in Texas is real barbecue. It's not this stuff with sauce. And if you have to put sauce in your barbecue, it's bad. It's a bad barbecue joint. Real barbecue is just salt and pepper on meat that's smoked. And that's all it is. And if it's smoked right, you don't need anything else. And you get it with the I actually, I get mine extra moist. It's got marbled fat through it. Oh, it's so good. My son loves it too. So I, for now I take him to barbecue and he'll get that. And he's like, Oh yeah, get me some brisket, dad. You know how to order it.

Darlene: 1:11:46

I'm like, yeah. Yeah. I've really I've come to my local shop right here, grocery store. They have beef ribs. They have a club size package. And, I just. I get that big thing and I can't wait to cook it. It's like the fattiness of it just falls off the bone and it just like melts in your mouth. And I don't put anything on it. Like I just do mine plain with just a little bit of salt. That's all I need. Just some, just a couple of ribs.

Larry: 1:12:13

That's cool. That's what I just put salt on mine. I've smoked mine. I've a smoker and a barbecue and a grill.

Darlene: 1:12:19

that's, that's good. So, yeah, like I said, part of me thinking back now, like I said from our, the start of our conversation and your mission as far as helping that's, you know, soldiers with mental health and, looking back now I really wonder if. Some of the suicides and mental illnesses that people are dealing with can really be treated by changing the diet to a carnivore diet. And whether, it could have saved my dad, whether it could have saved my friend, cause I think he was, and he was fit. That was the, that's the hardest thing. My friend who committed suicide, he was a bodybuilder. He, but I think now, and I wonder what. What he was putting in his body that was it was he really getting everything he needed to be good up here,

Larry: 1:13:05

right? And that's the thing. I think it is a Reactive mental illness condition that when they get a permanent solution for a temporary problem, right? And they just and I you know, I didn't understand it for a long time. I understand it now But for a long time, I didn't. I'd have soldiers commit suicide and it was terrible being in a unit where you had that

Darlene: 1:13:27

yeah, no I would agree with that completely, you know, because my dad, when he went to Vietnam, he was, I think one of three guys in his original company that came back. Wow. Yeah. At that time, like I always said, he always had weird tastes. He's the one who introduced me to things like. Smoked oyster, like canned smoked oysters, canned, like weird stuff like that. And it's because of who he was in the military, that's what they lived off. It was like anything that was canned, they were eating it. Yep. And that's, what they had. So I wanna say to some degree that I wonder if he was actually mentally better when he was over there and seeing all the terrible things he saw. And then when he came home and started back onto that American diet, if that's really what. Low downhill fall

Larry: 1:14:21

spiral. Yeah, it's a spiral. And I think that's the fact. You can look at also back then in Vietnam, they had K rations and C rations. And these are canned and they, and potted meat and things with fats in it. It was meats and now they're vegetarian. All these MREs are vegetarian. They're terrible. I did a video cause I have soldiers who are active duty trying to do carnivore. Like, how do I do it in the field chief? We go in the field, we have to have MREs. I'm like, okay, here's how you do it. So I'm telling about Pemmican. I'm telling them about which MREs I broke down the MREs you could eat. bUt there's very few of them, very few, it's almost because these are meeting the standard dietary guidelines of the United States. And that's what they push. Just like hospital food is terrible. It's all sugar. It's all grains. It's all carbs.

Darlene: 1:15:06

I'll never, I'll forget the week. So when I was hit by a truck, when I'm walking across the street and I in the hospital for a week and I, because I ruptured my spleen, they wouldn't let me eat anything or drink anything. Cause they're like, we want your spleen to see if it'll clot and heal. Cause they were doing a, they were doing a study. And I was like, Oh, okay. Well, I eat, like I was a grazer. I. Little meals all day long through the day. I was like, I can't eat anything. That was so hard. And I remember the first day that they were like, you can eat today. And I was like, they gave me the menu, the hospital menu. And I was like,

Larry: 1:15:42

you don't want it.

Darlene: 1:15:43

But, and I literally called my friend Matt and I was like. I need a Big Mac. Like I haven't eaten in forever. It feels like forever. I need some meat, please. And he brought me I don't think I finished it, but it was like, I was like, I just want some meat. And I remember.

Larry: 1:15:59

That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And the hospitals are terrible. Their food, especially people being treated for cancer and getting all that sugar. Knowing that, glucose and glutamine feed sugar and it's terrible. So I don't know, but listen I gotta get off. It's been a great talk, darling. It's been fun. We'll do it again sometime. If you're ever in Texas, look me up. I'll hook you up with some good barbecue. All

Darlene: 1:16:21

right. I got a deal.

Larry: 1:16:23

All right. I'm going to let you go and then stick around for a second. I'll say hi after I sign off.

Darlene: 1:16:28

All right. I wanted to actually if I could grab a quick kind of like selfie sort of video. Okay. Give me one sec. I just want to like hop back and see you on the camera there. Perfect.

Larry: 1:16:40

Okay. All right.

Darlene: 1:16:43

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, Larry.

Larry: 1:16:45

Yep. Stick around. All right. That was a great interview. Thanks for joining the podcast. The carnivore way. This is a podcast where we talk to people who are Living the carnivore lifestyle and implementing it in their lives. And this is a great one because it does talk about some things I'm compassionate, I'm passionate about soldier suicide, first responder suicide, and of course, kids, cause I'm a dad and how the carnivore can benefit them. So thanks for joining me stick around, go check out my other videos and we'll talk to you later. Stay strong and overcome. Carnivore soldier out.