It’s Obvious We’re Omnivores but Vegans and Carnivores Won’t Listen

How did you get linked up with Sean? Because Sean is such a polarizing figure. Because he's the carnivore go-to guy and he's like a full-on carnivore zealot, as it were. I mean, he doesn't even... He thinks vegetables are bad for him. So I think Sean sometimes gets misrepresented and part of it is just like the way he interacts on social media and stuff. But I met Sean before he, I think, went full carnivore, but on Twitter. I thought he was an interesting person, not because of what he ate so much. What was he doing back then? What was he eating? He was kind of more like high-fat, low-carb, I think. Something pretty similar to what I'm doing. Maybe less carbohydrates since his activity levels are really short and fast. And I just thought he was an interesting person because of his background. He's a highlands game athlete, professional rugby player. He's doing this high intensity... He's a gigantic dude. Yeah. I mean, he's twice my size. So it's like my thought is like, okay, here's a guy who has a similar nutrition plan that I do, but he's doing the exact opposite athlete type stuff. He's twice the size of me. We're kind of two ends of the spectrum from an athletic standpoint. So I was just interested in kind of like what he was doing and what he was up to. And that's kind of why we started the podcast together. But yeah, I mean, one of the things that Sean always says on the podcast, I think, is kind of a better reflection. I mean, he'll say, the only thing I know for certain is that I'm wrong about something. So it's like, I think it gets tough for someone like him who gets identified as the face of the carnivore movement because then you get all the positive and the negative coming your way too. So I think we can feed into that. But I mean, when we record our podcasts and stuff, I mean, he's a very open-minded person. We're looking for answers and we're asking questions and things like that. And it's a learning experience, I think, for me anyway. So well, he clearly enjoys fucking with vegans. Well, yeah. And it's he's been on this fruitarian kick lately, which is kind of hilarious. I didn't know there was that many of those people out there. Yeah. And Sean has died, one fruitarian doctor died during a fast. Oh really? Yeah. And Sean was talking about it on his YouTube channel. There's people out there that think that you could just get by by only eating fruit. Jesus Christ, folks. You know, I've got a theory with social media and that stuff in general is that like for a lot of the people who are most active on it, it's like they either take it 100% serious or it's like kind of a joke or a game. And then when those two polar ants meet, that's where you get the big kind of like, blow up interactions. And then it becomes like kind of a game of like, well, the vegan told me that I should die or something like that. So then I'm going to go tell that vegan that, you know, this, that, and it goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. So stupid. This is such a waste of time, but the most interesting, the one I always get a kick out of though, along those lines is someone will come up with like a picture of like, here's the human's, you know, jaw system. And this clearly means we're, we're frugivores. And then someone will say, well, look at the, the digestive tract of a human being. It is clearly designed more to be eating meat or animal products. And you know, they go back and forth with different like parts of the human anatomy to try to like prove that we're like vegetarian or vegan, fruitarian or farmer. The arguments are so stupid. And then I'm thinking the whole time, I'm like, so what we have here is people who can have, have specific traits that are good for eating fruits and vegetables and some specific traits that are good for eating animal products. So we're omnivores. It's biologically, it's been established. It's not, there's no real controversy. The controversy is fake. Look at particularly from the vegans where they say that we're herbivores and our jaws are designed to crush, you know, roots and shit. And like, no, no, no, we, we had tools and fire for fucking hundreds of thousands of years. You know who, one of my favorite podcasts we've done was with this guy, Dr. Bill Schindler. He's an archeologist out of, I think it was Washington University. And he's such a cool dude. He like told me what he said something that was really resonated with me where he said, you know, humans were, were unique in that. Like we, we've, we've, we've like over time developed ways to use like tools and things like that to liberate nutrients. So to look at anything in his raw state is kind of the, missed the point of why humans are the way they are. Sure. Well, like lentils, like I've seen this argument that human beings aren't supposed to eat meat. Cause if we were, we'd be able to just rep it apart and eat it with our own teeth and go, go eat a squirrel with your face. Well, guess what? You can eat a squirrel with your face if you're so inclined, if you really wanted to do that, you could do it without tools. You know what you can't do? You can't eat a lot of beans without cooking them. Like we have, we figured things out folks. I mean, in cassava, the, in the, the jungle, they figured out that you have to cook this stuff and strain it and it, and it's a primary staple of the diets of many people that live in the, in the jungle, you know, and it's fucking toxic as shit. If you don't do that, I mean, it literally produces cyanide. Cyanide is produced by cassava, which is like one of their primary foods. They just figured it out. Just like you figured out, you have to boil lentils just like you figured out. You have to cook beans. Uh-huh. You can't eat most of these things that we eat are not good to eat if you just eat them in their raw state. Some things like fruits are, some vegetables are, but some just are not. And this is the same with meat and this, this idea that you're supposed to be where we're clearly an herbivore because of the fact that we, you know, we're not supposed to be, you know, killing animals with our teeth. Like that's so dumb. Like we, we kill animals with tools and we've done it for so long that our bodies have adapted. We've adapted to the fact that we have clothes. That's why we're not covered in hair, you fucking idiots. Like this is, this is like real clear, obvious stuff. People who live in the coldest climates of the world aren't covered in hair. You know? Yeah. You know, and it was interesting because like, like what you're saying too, when, when we had Bill on the show, he, he's got this unique experience where he's actually gone in and visited these indigenous tribes that have been relatively untouched by modern society to basically with the one question of like, well, how do you eat? So he's been, he's seen like a variety of different stuff. I think he even had a show on National Geographic for a while that looked into some of this, but he, like just to show you the polarization of what humans can kind of do. He went and he visited the Samburo, which is a branch of the Masai over in Africa. You know, they're, they're basically drinking blood and milk for the, for a huge portion of their nutrition. And you know, so you have this, this, this tribe that's basically on a primarily animal based nutrition plan and they're super healthy. He said that they were maybe one of the most healthy groups of people he's seen from just like a physical stature, like tooth health and that sort of thing. But then he also went down to, I think it was in South America, I can't remember the name of the tribe, but they found a way to basically liberate nutrients from a poisonous potato. And. Casaba. Is that what it was? Maybe it was. Yeah, that's what we're talking about. Oh, okay. It was maybe it was cassava. Well, maybe there's other ones as well. I think there is a purple, some weird purple potato that has a similar sort of a toxic profile. Yeah. And what he said was this, this tribe that ate basically mostly potatoes, what they would do is they'd literally dig like a pit and put like some, like, like thousands of pounds of these potatoes in there and let them sit there and like ferment, I guess for like up to six months. Oh God. And then they would actually make this clay that they would use in because there was still a toxin or something in there that they needed to kind of prevent from like interacting. Oh, this is something totally different. Yeah. So they would, they take this clay and there's potato and when they dip the potato in this clay, it's, it like binds to that toxin. So it becomes, it doesn't become an issue when you eat it. So like by itself, that potato could potentially kill you, I guess, but with the clay, it doesn't. And so I was like, how the fuck did they figure that out? That's what I want to know. I'm just thinking like, who, how much trial and error goes into that? It's like, oh, this guy dropped dead. This guy dropped dead. Oh, this guy lived. There's so many things like that in the jungle. You just have to really wonder how do they develop all these different medicines and all these different ways of eating things. And it's just fascinating when like your, I guess when your only goal when you wake up in the morning is to find your next meal and kind of build enough around so that you can kind of survive, like you put a lot of time and energy into it. But yeah, it is interesting to think like how they all got passed along from generation to generation and how it got fine tuned to where it is today. But I think it's, it's cool to look at that stuff when it just comes to your own nutrition too and kind of when you understand like it's less about like this food is bad for me or this, this food is this particular food item is bad for me across the board. And this one is great for me across the board more so about, well, this is what this food does well. This is what this one does well. So let's find like you mentioned mix and match to where you get, get the profile that you're looking for. Yeah, I think the problem is what we're saying before is that people are entering into these conversations with this, this goal that they want to achieve, this goal being plants are bad for you or meat is bad for you or we're supposed to be only eating meat or we're supposed to be only eating plants and here's why. And you know, you have this confirmation bias. You're not looking at any other piece of evidence and particularly the biological variability of human beings is pretty incredible. Yeah. I mean, I can eat peanuts all day long. If you're allergic to peanuts, you're dead if you eat one. I mean, it's, it's, uh, we're, we're strange creatures. And what is this change? What do you got here, Jamie? The ancient, oh, here it is. The ancient and ancient and Indian tradition of eating clay may have helped to protect health. I think it goes back to ancient Egypt. I was just trying to find out how far back this goes and probably you can still buy clay dust right now. It's like, I'm looking that up too. So eating dirt is good for you. Yeah. So they found a way to like package the dust and huh. Peruvian clay dust. This is a whole history on potatoes and how it changed the world and like. Wild potatoes are laced with solanine and tomatine, toxic compounds believed to defend plants against attacks from dangerous organisms like fungi, bacteria, and human beings. We are dangerous organisms. Cooking often breaks down such chemical defenses, but solanine and tomatine are unaffected by heat in the mountains. Wow. Say that word. Guánaco and Vicuña. Like llamas. Wild relatives of the llama lick clay before eating poisonous plants. The fucking llamas figured it out. The toxins stick more technically absorbed to the fine clay particles in the animal's stomachs passing through the digestive system without affecting it. Mimicking this process, mountain peoples apparently learned to dunk wild potatoes in a gravy made of clay and water. Eventually they bred less toxic potatoes, though some of the old poisonous varieties remained favored for their resistance to frost. Clay dust is still sold in Peruvian and Bolivian markets to accompany them. Wow. That's interesting. That's crazy. But it tastes like shit though. It's still dirt. Still eating dirt with potatoes.