Malnutrition should be defined as any diet that results in metabolic derangement. Few Americans suffer from lack of access to calories. But we are unhealthy, with metabolic and chronic diseases increasing steadily. These are true statements, but how we should respond to them individually and societally is controversial. Peter Ballerstedt ("Sodfather of the Ruminati”) earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Georgia and his doctorate at the University of Kentucky. He was the forage extension specialist at Oregon State University from 1986 to 1992. He worked in the forage seed industry from 2011 until 2023. He is a member of several national and international scientific societies, participates in related global initiatives, and is a Past-President of the American Forage and Grassland Council.
Peter’s personal experience has led him to re-examine human diet and health. What he has learned doesn’t agree with the advice given for the past several decades. Peter is an advocate for ruminant animal agriculture and the essential role of animal source foods in the human diet. He strives to build bridges between producers, consumers, and researchers across a wide variety of scientific disciplines – increasing awareness of metabolic health and ruminant animal agriculture’s essential role in social, economic, and ecological sustainability. Peter has spoken at many different events in the US and internationally. Many of his presentations are available on YouTube. Peter and Nancy live in western Oregon (northwestern USA) with their three dogs, Conor, Noni, and Iris.
The Art of Range Podcast is supported by the Idaho Rangeland Resources Commission; Vence, a subsidiary of Merck Animal Health; and the Western Extension Risk Management Education Center.
Transcript
[ Music ]
>> Welcome to 'The Art of Range', a podcast focused on rangelands and the people who manage them. I'm your host, Tip Hudson, range and livestock specialist with Washington State University Extension. The goal of this podcast is education and conservation through conversation. Find us online at artofrange.com.
[ Music ]
Welcome back to 'The Art of Range'. My guest today is Peter Ballerstedt. He has an LLC called Grass Based Health and is affiliated with the Society of Metabolic Health Practitioners. But we met several years ago because he was a regional rep for Barenbrug Seed. And although I'm primarily a range ecologist, I have interest in irrigated pasture as well. But I think, more importantly, we had common interest in what I call mind food. In continuous learning across a variety of knowledge domains. In giving your brain a diverse diet of ideas. Sort of some Fred Provenza thinking that we've applied to thinking. And I think that that leads to better decision making in complex learning environments like grazing wildlands and understanding human health. So here's my slightly awkward, but I think fitting segue. You know, we, the people, have become increasingly aware that there are hugely significant connections among physical nutrition, gut health, brain function, and immune function, and whole human health, and longevity, and we could go on. And on the one hand, this should not be newsworthy. You know, we shouldn't be surprised if research shows that eating meats, fruits, and vegetables, and using our bodies the way they're intended to move, I mean moving quite a bit. And not spending 12 of our waking hours hunched over a hyper-stimulating, glowing screen, and I'm -- is good for us. And in saying that, I resemble that more than I want to. So I'm preaching to myself here. And by -- But by all accounts, people in the developed world are not very healthy. And I don't think there's much disagreement over that, although there are wide-ranging philosophical commitments to how we might solve it that get people pretty riled up. But that's not really in disagreement, and I want to trace some of that. So that's a long-winded introduction. Peter, welcome.
>> Thank you, Tip. It's -- I'm glad we're sitting down to have this conversation. We've talked about doing this for a while, and it's --
>> Yeah.
>> -- it's nice that we're getting to do it face to face, too, as opposed to --
>> Yes.
>> -- you know, through the screens.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, we're visiting in person at the Montana Grazing Lands Coalition Expo, the first expo in 2025, in Billings, Montana, which seems like a good place to talk about Grass Based Health. A little bit more set up, maybe. I want to sort of trace the history of American diets going back maybe 150 years, and along with some of the health trends. But if we look back, say, a hundred and fifty years ago, this is 2025 so that'd be 1875, which was right after the Civil War. This was a world on the precipice of what I think is truly unprecedented change. We say that about a lot of things, but I really think it was. Human population exploded at the time, starting about that time. But in 1875, people were still traveling by horse and boat, although train tracks had been built across much of the country. I think I heard recently that by 1875, in the Midwest Corn Belt, over 80% of farms were within five miles of a railway by the end of the Civil War. I didn't realize that the railroads had gotten quite that far by then. You know, so within 50 years after that, planes, trains, and automobiles had spread like wildfire. And I guess one thing that means that people weren't walking or caring for horses. It's also when they stopped wearing hats because they were no longer outside when they traveled. And -- But also 80% of people, according to the statistics, were involved in agriculture. Meaning that they grew some kind of food. And, of course, it was a combination of subsistence farming and local division of labor. So if I'm a sheep farmer in Iowa in 1875, I'm not running 100,000 lambs that are going to go all over the world to international markets. I'm growing meat and wool for a local to regional economy with some trade, but it was a different world. And -- But then we had pretty significant advances in medicine and food distribution that resulted in really significant population increase, both by virtue of increased longevity and, I think, somewhat increased fertility. So the Green Revolution, which was a combination of plant breeding and chemical fertilizer breakthroughs, massively increased the quantity of food in the world such that, I would say, today, food insecurity and hunger is largely an economic and political problem. Not an agricultural one. And then cheap, simple carbohydrates and sugars flooded the market, literally flooded the supermarket, you know, by the period immediately after World War II. Maybe it started earlier than that, I'm not sure. At least in the so-called developed world. And that seemed to be the beginning of a decline in human health, you know? But even in saying that, I'm making -- I'm assuming causation from what, at the moment, I'm only aware of as a correlation because I'm not a nutritionist. So those are kind of the big -- in my mind, the big historical events that led to what we might call the modern era.
>> I might add just a couple just --
>> Yeah.
>> -- points along that line. Because, I think --
>> Yeah.
>> -- I agree, it was a tremendous change. Somewhere along that line, we went from primarily homes producing the goods necessary --
>> Mm.
>> -- to not --
>> Not just cooking it, but growing it.
>> Growing it --
>> In their own soil.
>> Making clothing. Fixing --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- items. Making items of hardware, et cetera. I remember one colleague, he discovered a tally, a ledger, or he had inherited it. He's living in an ancestral home. And so here is an accounting of all of the goods that they purchased in a year.
>> Mm.
>> And it's only a couple pages.
>> Yeah.
>> And, you know, it was things like nails and things --
>> Yeah.
>> -- that they would go and purchase. So that transformation obviously took place from about the time that we started this, certainly until 1910s, 1920s. I once heard someone say about the Americans, North and South, engaged in the Civil War. For many of those men, they'd never been more than a couple miles away from their home.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And now they're marching all across the country.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Quite literally. And then we had the advent of a -- of mechanical equipment --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- internal combustion engines --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- coming onto the farm. We had rural electrification in the '30s and --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- '40s, which made this huge impact that we can kind of take for granted until we really think about all the needs for electricity in a modern life.
>> And creating a cash economy where now you've got to buy a washing machine and on and on and on.
>> Mm-hmm. Of course, World War II, we had this, well, the -- With the Depression and people leaving the land because they were destitute and they had to find something else, the Dust Bowl and those sorts of things. But World War II, you had tremendous relocation of populations across North America, not to mention the people that left the farm to go into service. And then I've often thought about the people that trained me in college, and maybe the people that trained them --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- were the product of the GI Bill --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- coming back, going, well, maybe there isn't a role for me on the farm. Or maybe I don't want to go back to the farm, but I don't want to leave agriculture.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And so then they became the scientists of various disciplines that led us then through the, you know, '50s, and the '60s, and the '70s.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And I graduated from the University of Kentucky in '86. And so I was kind of the tail end for a lot --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- of those really significant researchers within --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- our disciplines. I remember trips with Tom Bedell. He actually flew me in his plane once, which was an experience. And, of course, John Buckhouse was another --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- presence at Oregon State. And others that -- It's tricky when you start naming names because you're going to forget some and you don't mean anything by that, except I have failing --
>> Yeah.
>> -- memory. So there's been this significant change over time that you've spoken about. Then we need to overlay on top of that social --
>> And probably by that year, the number of people involved in agriculture had declined to maybe 5%.
>> Mm. Mm. Yeah, absolutely.
>> In the space of five decades.
>> Mm-hmm. I once --
>> Or less.
>> -- heard somebody at a meeting say the average adult American is more likely to have direct personal experience with the criminal justice system than with production agriculture.
>> I have not heard that one, but.
>> And that was one of those let me write that down because I want to get it right.
>> Yeah.
>> And then let me check it because I don't want -- And, yeah --
>> Yeah.
>> -- sure enough.
>> Oh my goodness.
>> So -- And there's a lot you could say about that. But just, again, to reinforce that so few people are engaged in the agricultural enterprise that supports the --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- primary industry of agriculture.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And then we had this constellation of individuals and movements that, by the '50s, we had one of the many losses that World War II produced was the destruction of the scientific community in Europe.
>> Mm.
>> And especially in the area of medicine, and endocrinology, and nutrition.
>> Mm.
>> And Gary Taubes is one author who's helped me see this. That largely that was a German enterprise, German speaking. So --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- Austria or Germany.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And learning to read the literature, or if you were really good, you got yourself over into one of those institutions, universities to study in a course.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Many of those people had to flee or the institutions were damaged and disrupted and --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> So then the United States --
>> Mm.
>> -- reinvented some of these disciplines in the '50s. And there's --
>> Yeah.
>> -- a disconnect between what had been found and then what they start espousing.
>> Mm.
>> And then that carries forward influenced by some social movements. And then by the '70s, you have people who are advocating, for a number of reasons, a diet that's more heavily based on carbohydrate and oils from plants as opposed to fats from animals.
>> And was that because it was available and cheap? Or what were all the motivations behind that shift?
>> Economics is always one that --
>> Yeah.
>> -- you should put on the list.
>> Yeah.
>> And, yes, the best -- the data available at the time showed that there had been this change in consumption of fats. Now more plant fats were being consumed than animal fats were being consumed. The irony is that there were people who were saying, well, this heart disease epidemic that they were talking about, that's a questionable thing.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> But that was due to the -- all that animal fat they were consuming. Yet their own data showed that more people -- that people were eating more plant fats than -- So it seemed to --
>> Mm.
>> -- contradict their message.
>> Yeah.
>> We also -- You know, I was born in 1956. I believe '55 was Salk's polio vaccine.
>> Mm.
>> Major change just prior to World War II was the advent of penicillin. That was a --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- huge issue. So these really transformational discoveries in medicine.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And --
>> To treat acute problems.
>> To -- Exactly. And -- But then Eisenhower, President Eisenhower, had a heart attack in office.
>> Mm.
>> And that --
>> I don't think I knew that.
>> That was a major issue. And that story's been told where he obviously had access to the best, I put air quotes around it, medical advice. And they put him on an increasingly lower fat diet.
>> Mm.
>> And he followed it. He -- Tremendous willpower.
>> Took the doctor's orders.
>> And his cholesterol levels, which everyone was very concerned about, actually got worse. So much so that at the last one of his term in office, his physician lied to him about what the results were.
>> Mm.
>> Because he knew he was following the advice and he was getting so wrought over his lack of achieving the results that was promised, that the doctor told him he was doing better than he actually was, which is kind of questionable. But that's background to everything that was going on.
>> How old was he when he had the heart attack?
>> That's a good --
>> Do you know?
>> -- question. And I don't know, but clearly he was a smoker.
>> Right. Middle-aged.
>> And middle-aged man, obviously, because he was probably middle-aged when he served in World War II as a senior leader. So all of that is kind of background, and then we have some other factors that come in. And by the middle of the second-half of the 1970s, you had a Senate subcommittee, Senator McGovern's select subcommittee on human nutrition. And they had done work to avoid the sort of lack, you know, the overt poverty kind of malnutrition. And they explicitly shifted to looking at over-nutrition, which is how they phrased it. That phrase is still used.
>> Malnutrition in the United States.
>> In the United States.
>> Yeah.
>> So school lunch programs were one of the things --
>> Yeah.
>> -- that came out of that. Food security for low-income communities. And clearly there was a need. That wasn't -- That's not something I criticized them for. It was that --
>> Right.
>> -- shift into this other aspect. And it was heavily influenced by people who had alternative ideas. And despite prominent scientists trying to say, well, we have evidence that isn't -- We're not as certain about that as, you know, these people who are saying so. Or we have evidence that we might actually cause harm by going in this way. But, you know, they were speaking in the couched languages that scientists were taught to say.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> They were not listened to. And the people who were very confidently speaking were listened to. And so, in 1977, we have the dietary goals, which is the report.
>> That was the year I was born.
>> Thank you very much.
>> Anytime.
>> And then, in 1980, and there's a process and there's more details. But in 1980, the first dietary guidelines were released.
>> Hmm.
>> And every five years, we've had a version released.
>> By the Food and Drug Administration? By the USDA?
>> By the USDA and the Health and Human Services. Now, at the time, it was Health, Education, and Welfare.
>> Yeah.
>> I think HEW was --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> So the things shift around. But, basically, you have that sort of shared --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- responsibility, and I believe it sort of alternates. And I -- Maybe it's HHS this year, the -- Or this edition that --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- has the responsibility. Everything is in flux because of the change in administration, so we'll see what happens. And so there's a lot that we could talk about in terms of that. But, basically, the advice was we need to follow a diet that's 60% of calories coming from carbohydrates. And we need to be eating a low-fat diet and a low-saturated fat diet. And then there's some other things. There was a recommendation to limit sodium. And then there was also a recommendation, originally, to lower or restrict added sugars. That one's kind of been ignored.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> But it's still on the table as advice. And, increasingly, the goal to lower animal source food consumption has been part of it. And I can't recall whether it was the last edition, so the 2020 to 2025, or the one previous. I believe it was the last one, 2020 to 2025. The Scientific Advisory Committee that is supposed to consider all the relevant research and then make recommendations to the agencies to then use to create the guidelines --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- wanted to specifically include sustainability issues --
>> Hm.
>> -- as guidance within these guidelines. That was smacked down --
>> In the '80s?
>> -- pretty hard. Sorry?
>> In the '80s.
>> No, this would be --
>> Later.
>> -- in 2019, 2020 --
>> Oh, really?
>> -- leading to that --
>> Okay. The current ones.
>> -- guideline. Yeah, the --
>> Yeah.
>> -- currently in place ones.
>> Yeah.
>> That got pretty well smacked down saying that's not where your expertise lies. It's not where -- That's not within your charge. But that still is in the --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- conversation space and has been from the beginning, really. There was a book published before you were born called Frances -- 'A Diet for a Small Planet' by Frances Moore Lappe.
>> Hm.
>> And that book is cited within the dietary goals. So it influenced the people. And the lead staff member who's credited with doing most of the writing is widely understood to have been a vegetarian. There are other influences that we could talk about that are not coming from a scientific basis --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- but are coming from some more philosophical basis.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And so to a large extent, what we have is not necessarily a science-based policy.
>> Yeah.
>> There's a heavy influence of philosophy.
>> Yeah. You mentioned that there was a shift in the people's perceptions about fat in the diet shift, meaning that it changed from what it had been. And what was the received nutritional wisdom, say, prior to 1930?
>> Well -- So I have one slide in -- that I use in various presentations. It's a quote from a meat board publication --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- 1933.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> 'Science has conclusively proven that meat does not cause disease.' And then there's a long list of diseases that would sound very familiar today. And it closes with, 'In fact, science has now shown that meat can be part of the treatment of these various -- varied diseases it was once thought to cause.'
>> Mm.
>> So the thought that meat consumption led to chronic illness and, in fact, to moral weakness is one that we can trace back into some 19th century movements.
>> Hmm. So the meat board was countering that idea.
>> Yes.
>> And, of course, the cynic would say, well, yeah, the meat board has an interest in countering --
>> Understood.
>> -- that idea.
>> Yeah, of course. But --
>> Presumably they're citing research showing that meat does not cause moral weakness and unhealthy persons.
>> But what's ironic is that doubt, you know, never gets applied to the folks that might be advocating for an alternative based on whatever reasons. Is it animal --
>> Yeah.
>> -- rights? Is it that they're involved in plant-sourced food production? Are they a member of a religious movement --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- that holds that, you know, avoidance of meat in general as a category. Not any --
>> Right.
>> -- species. But it is essential. It's --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- their perception.
[ Inaudible ]
It's their perception of the God-given diet.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And so we are very quick to castigate people who work for industry who say something. And --
>> Right.
>> -- yet we are largely unaware of some of these other players in the space.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Or if we are aware -- And, of course, if someone is, you know, putting money into a cause I approve of, well, that's public advocacy. And if somebody's putting money into a cause I disagree with --
>> Oh yeah, then it's propaganda.
>> Yeah, that's. Yeah, exactly.
>> Yeah.
>> So there's a certain human nature involved in this --
>> Yes.
>> -- too that we just need to accept.
>> And that's been the case for all of human history. We think we're a noob.
>> Not me, of course.
>> That's right.
>> But those -- Yeah, exactly.
>> Yeah, I'm objective and everybody else is not.
>> Precisely.
>> Yeah.
>> Right.
>> Yeah, I think you mentioned in our conversation a few weeks ago about doing this interview, that in the 1930s they were treating epileptics with high-fat diets.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Presumably with success. Like, it was used because it worked?
>> Mm-hmm. Exactly.
>> Mm.
>> There's two things I'd point to. One, this -- It's called a ketogenic diet. We can call it a high-fat diet. And, again, I'm not a medical professional and nobody should take anything I say as medical advice. You should always consult your healthcare team.
>> Right, maybe more than one --
>> Exactly.
>> -- person.
>> But I am happy and it seems to be my mission to direct people to various sources of information and missions. So, yes, childhood epilepsy was treated with a ketogenic diet in the '30s. That information got forgotten over the intervening years as we obtained anti-seizure medications. But still a significant portion of children with childhood epilepsy, maybe a third of them, do not respond to any of the medications.
>> Mm.
>> And this information has been rediscovered. And I've listened to --
>> Mm.
>> -- researchers say that they routinely take children from multiple seizures a day to seizure-free in a week --
>> Hm.
>> -- on a diet that's perhaps 80% of calories from fat.
>> Mm.
>> As close to zero calories from carbohydrate as possible. There's the personal story of one family who their child was afflicted, and they discovered this information online and went to their doctor. And their doctor was like, 'Yeah. Well, those diets are too hard.' And --
>> Mm.
>> -- they went ahead and found the support they needed and saw this happen for their child. They formed a foundation called the Charlie Foundation to spread the news of this to others so that --
>> Hm.
>> -- you know, more parents could be made aware.
>> That was the name of the child?
>> I believe that is the case.
>> Yeah.
>> And then there's the evidence of diabetes certainly was not as common as it is now. But evidence goes back thousands of years. And in the '30s, they did not understand because they had no ability to measure insulin at that time. So diabetes included both Type 1 and Type 2. They didn't understand the difference.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> But one of the approaches to treating diabetes was a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet --
>> Hmm.
>> -- prior to having exogenous insulin and then any other medication. And, again, that information got forgotten over time and is being rediscovered. And the Society of Metabolic Health Practitioners has been trying to train medical professionals along this path. There's one more, and that is the realm of mental health. And the fact that you could treat seizure disorder with a ketogenic diet led -- and then some other sort of patient outcomes, led people to start saying, well, what about these mental illnesses and then some neurological conditions as well? There's now a movement that's called metabolic psychiatry, and research is being conducted. But, again, we had a couple whose adult child in college became disabled due to bipolar, manic depression. I'm not an expert in that. But he went from being disabled and on multiple medications to drug-free remission.
>> Hm. On diet.
>> On this kind of diet. Now, other aspects of lifestyle clearly need to be addressed as well. That led his parents to form an organization that's now, you can find them online, called Metabolic Mind. And lots of information. They're funding research. They're funding efforts across the board to try to increase awareness --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- of this information.
>> Hm. Yeah, I think starting 15 to 20 years ago, scientists were calling the human gut a second brain.
>> Mm.
>> And, at that point, had not -- You know, all the -- Everything said more research is needed. We don't know yet, you know, what we ought to do about that. But it was understood by mainstream medical science that there are really significant and previously little understood connections between our guts, the various components of the digestive system, and our brain. We've been dancing around it a little bit. Maybe I waited too long to do an introduction, but you clearly are in favor of something like a ketogenic, or meat-based diet, or a diet that includes significant amounts of what you would call healthy meats. Maybe say what your sort of overall message is. And also how did you get there? And then we'll get back to discussing some more of the nutritional science.
>> Sure. So I think it's fair to say that insulin resistance is the most widespread disease state in humanity. And most people don't -- who have it don't know it.
>> Mm-hmm. And spreading.
>> It's -- At some point, it's got to stop merely because it's so large --
>> Right.
>> -- now.
>> Once everybody is --
>> Yeah. One estimate said that 93, nine-three, percent of adult Americans do not exhibit optimal cardiometabolic health.
>> Hm.
>> They --
>> That's a really high number.
>> Yeah. Yeah. They show some degree of one of the symptoms of metabolic syndrome.
>> Right.
>> So it's a huge -- It's well over half of the population is in some phase of metabolic syndrome, and then the diseases that are associated with that.
>> And what is -- How would you define metabolic syndrome?
>> Metabolic syndrome is -- You are said to have metabolic syndrome if you have three of five symptoms. And the exact numbers are ones that I don't have committed to memory, but abdominal obesity is one. Elevated triglycerides is another. Depressed HDL cholesterol is the third. Elevated blood pressure is the fourth. And then elevated fasting glucose is the fifth.
>> Hmm.
>> Now, some of those metrics are interrelated when you understand the metabolic processes. But, basically, if you have three of those five in this country, and it differs in different countries, you will be said to have metabolic syndrome. You will be at an increased risk for pre-diabetes, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, dementia, long list. Okay.
>> As I'm sitting here, I don't know whether or not I have three of those five. But I don't think so.
>> Yeah, I --
>> But I'm not sure either.
>> We can find out. We not -- You can go to your --
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
>> Yes.
>> We can have that conversation. Again, I want to emphasize nothing I say should be treated as medical advice.
>> Right.
>> And I'm happy to introduce people to literature and physicians who are --
>> Yeah, that's a clean --
>> -- of this mindset.
>> -- medical definition.
>> And I think that's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- criteria. And, again, that varies in different countries.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> So my most important message is people should understand that a lot of what gets treated is a symptom of this underlying condition called insulin resistance, chronically elevated insulin. We can now measure fasting insulin. There are other markers that we could look at and get a sense of it as well, that are different from the standard sort of metrics that have been used.
>> Mm.
>> And then we now have better metrics to drive at. And we can see how we're doing based on whatever choices we make.
>> Yeah.
>> I have no interest in telling adults what to eat. I do get concerned about pregnant and lactating mothers, and their infants and young children because --
>> It's a little more critical.
>> Yeah. There are some deficiencies that can occur there that will last their lifetime.
>> Fetal programming.
>> Well, that's --
>> It's what we call it in cattle.
>> Exactly right. We can't call it that. We call it epigenetics.
>> Yes.
>> Same, same.
>> Yeah.
>> And so my personal experience, sorry, my personal experience from 2007. I was the 51-year-old balding, obese, pre-diabetic.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And then the line is today I'm just balding. But that started this journey for me. And then starting in 2010, I started talking publicly about what I was learning about metabolic health. The role of animal source food in human development and function. And then making the connection to ruminant animal agriculture. And then coming forward to today, I have the opportunity to interact with people in a number of countries, as well as across this country, to find ways to sort of complete the picture. So here we are in a community of people that understand healthy soils, and healthy plants, and healthy animals. Yet this information about healthy people, I don't think is as well understood as it should be. And so if we could complete that cycle, that circle, then I start wondering, well, what impact would that have on policy, on research funding? If we truly understood that malnutrition today is our existential threat globally across all income level countries, and that we cannot have sustainable food systems without livestock in general and ruminants in particular. What if we could add the health of the population? You know, public health could be added to the ecosystem services that the grazing community is producing under well-managed grazing systems.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And --
>> Yeah.
>> So -- And then --
>> And the ruminant is the only thing that really can convert structural carbohydrates into something that's digestible by humans. And do --
>> Sure.
>> -- a great job --
>> I --
>> -- at it.
>> We -- Yeah, we could look at horses in --
>> Right.
>> -- some cultures.
>> Right.
>> Right. We could look at other animals, herbivores, in other cultures.
>> Yeah.
>> But, yes, I think beef is the big driver.
>> Yeah.
>> Or lamb or goat.
>> Right, other true ruminants.
>> True ruminants. So that's part of what I'm advocating for. A ruminant revolution is --
>> Yeah.
>> Globally we need to improve the productivity and efficiency of our global ruminant animal systems. Appropriate to the environments and the cultures, et cetera, et cetera.
>> Mm-hmm. That was also a change that, I'm just thinking out loud, that happened around that same period of time. Prior to the turn of the century, ruminants were involved in cropping systems because, for most of the world's history, that was how you got -- that was how you maintained enough soil nutrition to grow a crop of any kind.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And that all got separated, you know, both physically and systemically around --
>> Well, I --
>> -- that period of time as --
>> I -- I --
>> -- well.
>> I may be -- Some of the figures are not quite as clear as I'd like them in my mind right now. But something like half of the nutrients required for the production of human edible crops in the world are coming from manure.
>> Mm.
>> Still today.
>> Today?
>> Yeah.
>> Interesting.
>> And we got, like, 2 billion people in the world, human beings in the world that are dependent on burning dirty biofuels to cook on.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And half of those are burning dung.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Which then leads to respiratory disease. Draft animals are still a significant contributor to humanity's food supply.
>> Mm.
>> Something like a third of humanity's food supply is coming from these small mixed farms.
>> Yeah.
>> So, yes, we, in the United States, have gone through this transition. Now happily --
>> Yeah.
>> -- we're seeing a kind of, again, rediscovery --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- of how to integrate --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- the cropping livestock systems.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And next month I'll be a speaker at a national integrated cropping livestock system congress in Brazil, where they've been doing some of this work for years. Basically showing, in a nutshell, this is one example, that their rotation was -- has been, soy is the cash crop.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> So, okay, they grow soy. This is southern Brazil. So it's kind of like northern Florida, southern Georgia kind of climate.
>> Subtropical.
>> Subtropical.
>> Shifting to temperate.
>> Right. So we'll grow soy. We'll harvest. We'll plant a winter annual grass crop. We'll then graze that with stock or what we would call stock or weaned cattle. Put some more weight on them. Come the spring, we'll go back to soy. So that's their system. Since soy is the cash crop, that's where the inputs go.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> So that's where they were fertilizing under traditional systems. Somebody's --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Their question was what if we move that input to the forage? And, unsurprisingly, they produced more grass. Good, that worked. Right?
>> Yeah.
>> We fertilize the grass, we get more. Good. Okay. Unsurprisingly, we produced more beef. Good, that worked. Surprisingly, they got the same soybean yield.
>> Mm.
>> And then you get whatever benefit you have from having those old soils covered with a living grass crop.
>> Right.
>> So you have more food from the same area, with similar inputs --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- with a benefit to the soil. So those sorts of, I call it a quadruple win --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- are what we need to find globally. I guess -- We've gone through things. One of the arguments against ruminants is they're not as efficient at converting their ration into meat as swine and poultry. But that's skewed because they've done it on total ration.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And the majority of that ration is not human edible. And so when you look at the human edible in to out, they're actually comparable to slightly better than --
>> Mm.
>> -- pork and poultry.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And so there's a number of those things that should elevate ruminants within our food system conversation.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> That's another conversation that needs to be taking place to say nothing about the quality of the protein in terms of human nutrition.
>> Mm-hmm. So there's a number of these things that have played a role -- They still play a role in the human nutrition conversation. And then we have the food system conversation.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And then we have the sustainability conversation.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Which part of me asks what -- If we accept that 80% of our healthcare burden is chronic illness, and if we accept that a significant to, you know, different numbers, but depending 70 to 80% of that is malnutrition. Okay, how do we put that on the scales when we look at the impacts?
>> Mm.
>> Or how do we evaluate the societal, economic, and environmental impacts of that? And include that in the conversation space?
>> Mm-hmm.
>> So I think I've gotten a little far away from your question. I guess, basically, I found myself in this position where I'm trained as a forage agronomist and a ruminant nutritionist.
>> Yeah.
>> I'm connected to ruminant animal agriculture. I learn about this metabolic health and human nutrition component.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And so I've spent now 15 years trying to introduce those communities to each other.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And as we'd said at the very outset, this is one of those bridge issues. Everybody eats. Rural health and urban health are facing the same issues. And this is one of those issues that could bring together these communities so that we could better understand each other.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And, as I said earlier, I think it could then impact wider conversations --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- about rangelands and people's valuing those. Or leading into next year, International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> What happens to traditional, you know, nomadic, pastoral people when they get displaced and go into the city? Well, their health deteriorates.
>> Yeah.
>> We've seen that again and again. And, clearly, one of the drivers for that is the food that's now not available to them --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- that used to be.
>> Mm.
>> So, again, this is a global issue, and I'm looking for ways to advance the general knowledge of it.
>> Yeah. I feel like I've got a pile up of ideas and questions. One of them is that I think you offered a definition of malnutrition when we visited a while back, and I don't know that I can remember what it is, but I felt like it was noteworthy.
>> Mm-hmm. So malnutrition is commonly understood -- deals with some, you know, over --
>> It's the deficiency of calories. Yes. And some overt lack of essential nutrients.
>> Yeah.
>> So famine is associated. We think of Kwashiorkor, which is --
>> I don't know that term.
>> It's the condition that you think of when you see the --
>> Emaciated?
>> -- children with the bloated belly, but --
>> Yeah.
>> -- skinny arms and legs.
>> Yeah.
>> I've been told it's a West African word that basically means the sickness the child gets when the next baby comes.
>> Mm. Hm.
>> And you think of that, okay, you have a child who's been breastfed.
>> Yeah.
>> Gets weaned onto a cereal ration.
>> Right. You go from the best food in the world.
>> To a very poor protein quality diet.
>> Yeah.
>> And then you see the essential amino acid deficiency showing up.
>> Huh.
>> So that's one part of it. And, typically, that's what we look at. And then we have this sub-section that people call over-nutrition. And that's where obesity gets put. We need to talk about that later. I've heard people defend the current food system by saying, 'Well, look at what a great job we're doing. Look at how many obese people we have.'
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Okay, well --
>> Getting plenty of calories.
>> I would suggest that we could define obese -- I would suggest that we could define malnutrition as any diet that evokes a metabolic derangement.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Period.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And then that opens up the gates, if you will --
>> Right.
>> -- to increase the burden of malnutrition deaths a year by a factor of 10. And everything else expands.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> So with that understanding, we then have to say is obesity the result of overeating and sedentary behavior? You're eating too much. You're not exercising enough. Well, that's one narrative. And then there's another narrative that says obesity is an excess in fat accumulation. What drives fat accumulation? Insulin. It's -- One of its many jobs is to take, if you will, excess calories in the form of fats and sugar. And put them into tissues. Get them out of the bloodstream.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Especially the glucose. Get that out of the bloodstream to maintain a healthy level of glucose in the blood.
>> Mm-hmm. My inclination would have been to say, because I think it's the -- What appears to be the simple conventional answer is that if you have caloric intake that exceeds the calories burned --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- then you gain fatty tissue. But, of course, you have people that have similar activity levels and that are -- maybe even similar caloric intake that have different levels of obesity.
>> Yeah. We're familiar with energy partitioning.
>> Right.
>> And, you know, in our feed tables, we'll look at net energy of maintenance and gain and production. Lactation.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Whatever. Well, not so much in human nutrition. And so we're familiar with how one breed of cattle is more likely to put calories into milk than another.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Or put on fat tissue than another. And so, you know, you put a basset on a treadmill, you won't turn him into a greyhound.
>> Right.
>> You might get a lean basset, but not necessarily.
>> Right.
>> So, yes, it's commonly thought and by definition, of course, there must be more energy on the one side of the -- But how did that happen?
>> Yeah.
>> Somebody once said if -- You know, if you ask Warren Buffett how he got rich, and he said, 'Well, you just earn more than you spend.'
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Well, yeah, thank you very much. That doesn't give me much useful information.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Why is this restaurant so full? Well, more people went in than came out.
>> Right.
>> That doesn't give me useful information.
>> Yeah.
>> And there have been animal studies where, for example, and it's always tricky taking rat studies and applying them to humans, but, as an example. You take normal rats, not some genetic mutant. Females. You let them eat as much as they -- You know, ad lib intake of a good rat chow. And you've --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- got to be careful about that. And they just stay normal rats. They don't get fat. Just doing rat things in a cage, right? I mean, it's --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Okay. So you then take those rats and you remove their ovaries. And you put them back with the same rat chow, unlimited access. And they begin to overeat and become --
>> Hm.
>> -- fat. Okay, clearly there's a hormonal regulation going on in there.
>> Right.
>> Fortunately, they did the next step and they said what if we took another group of those same kind of normal rats and determined baseline diet when they stayed lean. Remove their ovaries. Put them in, and restricted their intake to only what they ate before. They got just as fat.
>> Hm.
>> But they became almost completely sedentary. Like, literally, if the technician picked them up from next to the food dispenser and moved them to the other side of the cage, they'd walk back and lay down and just sit there and eat.
>> Yeah.
>> And there's other models that clearly show that the organism will partition energy differently. And so we have then to ask the question, well, what disrupts the insulin to the point where this small change can result in the accumulation of fat tissue over years?
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And carbohydrate is the macronutrient that primarily drives insulin levels.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And so, ironically, in the '70s, and '80s, and into the '90s, we had people saying we need to eat a low-fat diet in order to avoid heart disease and these other killer diseases. Which is a phrase that they used. Which means we're eating a high carbohydrate diet. And the high carbohydrate diet is what drives insulin. And so it should not then be a surprise that we've seen a rapid increase in obesity and Type 2 diabetes since the adoption of the dietary guidelines.
>> Right. This seems like it shouldn't be all that complicated. If that was the recommendation and people largely followed it and it was true, then everybody would be healthy, right?
>> You are hard pressed to think of another public health situation where we thought we had the answer, we implemented that answer, and it's gotten worse that we haven't then said --
>> Change course.
>> -- what's wrong?
>> Right.
>> And so there's a lot of lessons there. The biggest lesson for me is at the time there was a scientific controversy.
>> Mm.
>> And that scientific controversy was not resolved through science. It was resolved through politics and then other interests. But that --
>> Yeah.
>> -- political, you know, choosing one side, despite equal quality evidence on the other side. And then, over time, there have been key pieces of scientific information that were discovered. We had new technology that allowed -- radioimmunoassay techniques that allowed us to actually measure insulin or triglycerides within the blood. All these kinds of -- And that wasn't permitted to come back in --
>> Yeah.
>> -- and influence or inform --
>> Mm.
>> -- the policy. So one of my hopes is that we can find a way past some of these institutional roadblocks, for lack of a better phrase.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And one of my ideas is in -- in the 2010 guidelines that ran from 2010 to 2015, there's a quote something along the lines of, 'The health benefits of these diets have not been tested.'
>> Hm.
>> Okay. Then in the 2015 to 2020, and then in the 2020 to '25 editions, there are statements that are essentially not intended for the treatment of disease. Okay. So that's your healthy eating pattern meant for people to avoid disease.
>> Right.
>> Okay. That's for the 7% of the adult population, arguably. Clearly, what we need is a therapeutic diet. And there are medical organizations that have said, yes, a restricted carbohydrate diet is an appropriate treatment. For example, the American Diabetes Association has that in their educator materials.
>> Hm.
>> Okay. So can we talk about a therapeutic diet as opposed to avoid having to have these arguments --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- and sort --
>> Mm.
>> -- of jurisdictional fights is one of my hopes.
>> Yeah. Yeah. My sense is that we could talk for about three hours. So I'm going to try to find a few questions that'll help us nail something down. It does feel like the -- a non-simple carbohydrate-based diet is now in vogue. Regardless of what scientists are saying about it, it's definitely gained popularity. Either -- Yeah, for some reason. Either because it's being promoted or because it's working for people. My other question that might be a precursor to answering that one is that there's an awful lot of talk about inflammation now. And we haven't -- I don't think we've even used that word yet. But, you know, that's another thing that you're starting to hear in the public discourse about nutrition in mainstream channels. How do those two things play into this? Is inflammation one of the sources of some of the chronic disease or is it more like a side effect? Yes and yes?
>> Yeah. I think that, yes, a restricted carbohydrate. The very first diet ever publicized was a restricted carbohydrate diet in, like, 1880.
>> Mm.
>> So popular was the book that its author, who was named Banting, became a verb in some languages to diet. To bant is --
>> Hm.
>> -- to diet.
>> Wow.
>> So it goes back that far. And we've had these sort of recurring reawakenings --
>> Yeah.
>> -- rediscoveries.
>> And, yes, we're in one of those now for a number of reasons. And, certainly, there's a political moment that there's some alignment there as well.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And for a substantial part of the American public, they can afford choices. And so they can go do things that another portion of the American public is still being impacted by dietary guidelines and policies. So school lunch programs, institutional feeding, you know, incarcerated populations are being fed. Yeah. Our armed services are being fed according to -- Right? I mean --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> So I forget how many million people a day the government feeds. And it's done based on that. And then that --
>> Yeah.
>> -- policy influences research priorities, et cetera, et cetera. So, yes but is the answer that I would offer --
>> Yeah.
>> -- for that growing popularity. And my hope is that that growing popularity gets to a point where it affects change because of a tipping point.
>> Right.
>> So there's that. Inflammation is a reality and there's a lot of reasons or causes for inflammation. Not the least of which is a diet that chronically elevates insulin and keeps it there.
>> Yeah. Got it.
>> So, you know, treating one treats the other.
>> Yeah.
>> But then there are other things like reduced stress, better sleep hygiene, eliminating environmental toxins, you know.
>> Right.
>> Any number of things.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> But 80% of the issue is diet.
>> Yeah. Like, in the '80s, you could have blamed it on smoking or something. Like, my grandfather's brothers all died in their 50s of heart attacks. They were all smokers. They also didn't eat well and, you know, were a product of the dietary guidelines you described, you know, coming out in the 1950s. But people are still dying of heart attacks in the 1950s, and smoking has plummeted.
>> Right.
>> Particularly among that population. It -- You've got young smokers now, but not quite so many old smokers.
>> Yeah, so the -- Something is masking the undoubted benefit of reducing the degree of cigarette smoking. All right, we -- So there's some other factor. And I'm not advocating for cigarette smoking, but --
>> Right.
>> So --
>> No. I'm just saying people could have argued about causation --
>> Mm.
>> -- in the levels of heart disease and heart attacks, you know, in the '70s, '80s, and '90s.
>> Yes, absolutely. And they still will argue about, you know, correlation doesn't prove causation.
>> Right.
>> And absolutely. But we need to understand that correlation is the basis of human nutrition recommendations.
>> Yeah.
>> The nutritional epidemiology of chronic illness is one of the weakest forms of evidence that science has. And it's widely recognized as that. There's so many confounders.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> One -- I'm sure you have many people that you could look at as inflection points in your life, you know. And one of mine is a woman named Adele Hite. And she, I met in 2010. I had her come to the dietary -- to the American Forage and Grassland Council meetings to speak on a number of occasions. And I made the mistake of thinking once that I needed to set her up. She was fully competent, you know. But I -- For anyone who's ever done an animal feeding trial or a plant nutrition soil fertility trial, we could frequently assume that human nutrition is equally rigorous.
>> Mm.
>> But it's really hard to find large groups of genetically similar human beings that you can completely control for long --
>> Right.
>> -- periods of time.
>> Right.
>> Know exactly --
>> For [inaudible].
>> -- what they're eating because you measure it in and out and you've qualified it through rigorous testing of each --
>> Yeah.
>> -- batch. And she speaks up from the audience and sacrificed them at the end of the study to determine body composition.
>> That's right.
>> It's like, yeah, sit down, Pete. I got this. Yeah, that's a production cycle --
>> Yeah.
>> -- in agriculture. And it's not a problem that you can't do that with human beings. Thank you. The problem comes when you act as if you are as rigorous --
>> Yeah.
>> -- as. And you marginalize the work that's done in those disciplines. And so today -- For over 40 years, swine nutritionists have balanced the rations on an indispensable amino acid basis.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Go look at the last version of the dietary guidelines and see how many times essential amino acids are discussed and with what degree of specificity in terms of recommendations.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And because we don't talk about protein nutrition in humans based on the latest research, then we have all these conversations about alternative diets.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> When, as one researcher told me, a five-year-old boy in India physically cannot eat enough rice and lentils to meet his lysine requirements --
>> Mm.
>> -- if he had unlimited access.
>> Right.
>> Now, I don't know why it would be specific to India, but that's what he said. So --
>> Right.
>> -- you know, gut size becomes a problem. And then you think about, you know, there are negative consequences to some plant source foods in the diet.
>> Yeah.
>> And filling a growing digestive tract with rice and lentils might --
>> Right.
>> -- create some problems. So --
>> Mm.
>> -- all of these -- You know, back to the diet, again, Adele Hite gave me two points. People of goodwill ought to be able to agree that we should focus on providing adequate essential nutrition for as many human beings as possible.
>> Mm-hm.
>> And --
>> That's non-controversial.
>> Should be, or shouldn't be. Whichever. And then the second is that we ought to focus on maintaining metabolic health. Now that, of course, leaves conversations underneath.
>> Right.
>> My experience has been that there are a lot of people who will disagree with those because they have some other agenda.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And it's just the nutritional side of things that they're using as a front for those. We just need to know that so that we can say, all right, let's -- Where will we invest our energy?
>> Right. So what should I eat to avoid metabolic derangement? I love that term.
>> Well --
>> I'm going to start using it.
>> How are you doing on those markers of metabolic health? Again, we can find out.
>> Yeah.
>> How are we -- How are you doing on -- It is possible to be, what do they call it, thin on the outside, fat on the inside. They call --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- it TOFI. And so you can find people like runners who die of a heart attack. Or you can find people like Professor Tim Noakes in South Africa. He's a sports nutritionist. He promoted, you know, running. 'The Lore of Running' was his book. He talked all about carb loading. And in his late middle age, he's still active. He's still lean. But he develops Type 2 diabetes.
>> Mm.
>> And so now he's gone to the literature and realized, no, he needs to be following a, you know, low carb, healthy fat kind of diet.
>> Yeah.
>> So what are your goals health-wise?
>> Mm-hmm.
>> What are your economic means? So --
>> Dr. Ballerstedt is not that kind of doctor.
>> We've covered that.
>> Right. But Dr. Ballerstedt--
>> I want to feel good and not be fat.
>> Yeah, Dr. Ballerstedt says be sure to take your daily meds. M-E-D-S. Which stands for meat, eggs, dairy, seafood.
>> Yeah.
>> You pick. Whatever. Whatever you like. Whatever's appropriate to your background. Whatever you can afford. And non-starchy vegetables. So if you can tolerate the broccoli and related vegetables, you know, corn and peas. The seed -- They're not a vegetable. They're an immature seed as we --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- eat them. But the pea pods can fit. The green beans.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Immature pods can fit. Various forms of lettuce, leaf lettuce, are fine. Other leafy vegetables. I avoid grains in any form. I tolerate dairy. So cheese is a part of my diet and heavy cream in my coffee or on some, you know, cane berries. Raspberries, blueberries.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> That's a nice dessert for me. Nuts are okay so long as I'm not thinking that, you know. It's the amount I can physically hold in my hand.
>> Yeah.
>> That's not what a handful means. It's --
>> Right.
>> -- something smaller.
>> Right.
>> Beef is the primary meat in our diet, although we'll eat pork as well. Especially these days, the price difference in the supermarket.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> We eat a lot of ground meat, which we'll cook ahead of time. And then have in the fridge so we can put some into --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- whatever we want to have. My wife does not follow the same kind of diet I do. Again, genetics matters.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> What else? Eggs are a big part --
>> And that remains controversial. This is probably not the time for it. But I read something, I think just in the last week, in a -- yeah, that was making the scientific case that meats are still a risk. That red meat is still a risk for -- still considered a risk for heart disease.
>> Well, risk factor associated with. Those are key --
>> Right.
>> -- words.
>> Everything's a risk factor.
>> Exactly.
>> Everything we --
>> And, again, the epidemiological data is very weak and yet very confident assertions --
>> Mm.
>> -- are made.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> People will say things about lipid measurements and say, well, you're -- Because you eat a diet that includes red meat, your LDL cholesterol is high relative to some relatively arbitrarily set target.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And that means you're at greater risk. And yet, if you apply even some of the risk models and see that, okay, somebody who's eating a diet that's higher in saturated fat, higher in red meat, but restricted in carbohydrates, actually has a lower risk factor. Because their triglycerides are lower and their HDL cholesterol is higher.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And those are more powerful indicators of risk than. But, at the same time, we can now have scans made of -- non-invasively to show actual arterial plaques.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> So instead of relying on risk factors, we can actually measure disease now.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> So if somebody's concerned because they have a family history, it's encouraged by some to go and get a coronary calcium scan and other scans --
>> Mm.
>> -- depending on the outcome. And then determine what you want to do specifically to that.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> I am not anti-drugs, pharmaceuticals. On the other hand, I think a lot of pharmaceutical use is being -- happens to treat malnutrition.
>> Yeah.
>> And we -- It would seem from my training that it's more appropriate to get the diet adjusted. And see what that does to these metabolic --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- markers that we're --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- assessing. And then we also need to ask normal compared to what?
>> Yeah.
>> Again, if we have a --
>> And according to him.
>> -- population that's doing as poorly as we are, maybe normal for them isn't where we want to be. But that --
>> Right.
>> Again, the Society of Metabolic Health Practitioners is an organization that has lots of resources. I've been involved with them, basically, since their beginning. And lately I've been saying to them, you've very wisely been focusing on medical professionals. But how about outreach to non-medical professionals? Because we have communities. And we have training. We can deal with science. We can --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- understand these things. And we have personal need.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And, again, you know, these are people that I went to school with that trained me. You know, we're all of that age where these things are of interest. And to be able to give people information that they can then take it to their medical professionals.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Their healthcare team. And see again and again, people report. You know, a colleague, a former colleague of mine had the experience of being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. And recently had his doctor take it off his file. Because after seven years, six or seven years, of repeatedly being tested and shown to be in a healthy A1C and a healthy --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- fasting glucose, there's just -- You're -- You know, we don't need this on. And yes, once upon a time he had an A1C --
>> Yeah.
>> -- above 11.
>> Yeah.
>> Which is very high.
>> Mm.
>> And that's something else to help people learn what these things mean so that they can have more informed conversations with their doctor. Not just --
>> Mm-hmm.
>> -- you know, 'Oh, look. It says this is high. What does that mean?'
>> Right.
>> So -- And then I'd like to help introduce that metabolic health community to more of the rangeland, forage, ruminant animal --
>> People.
>> -- community.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> So that they get a better sense of what are our concerns? What are our challenges?
>> Mm-hmm.
>> What do we actually do? As opposed to what they've heard about. And it's not always the same thing.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> So, again, building --
>> Hm.
>> -- bridges. Trying to --
>> Yeah.
>> -- connect.
>> Yeah, you mentioned that the Metabolic Health Society has some good links. I really dislike canned closing questions, but it is an obvious one. You know, if you were going to recommend someone to -- who was interested in learning more, what's the best place to start?
>> I hope to give away the remainder of the seventh box of books that were written by Professor Benjamin Bikman. He's a PhD biomedical researcher at BYU. His whole specialty is insulin resistance.
>> Mm. How do you spell his last name?
>> B-I-K-M-A-N.
>> Okay.
>> The title is 'Why We Get Sick'. It's all about that topic.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> So, clearly, that's a book I recommend. There's another -- There are two other books that I have links to at the table dealing with metabolic psychiatry. And there's a Metabolic Mind. I mentioned them earlier. You can look them up. They've got lots of free content, video, and resources. Two books, 'Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind' by Georgia Ede. E-D-E.
>> Mm.
>> And then another book by Christopher Palmer called 'Brain Energy'. And they both treat this subject.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> And so for anybody who's interested in those topics, recommend those two.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> But the one that I, as I said, I'm giving away so the information gets distributed is --
>> Yeah.
>> -- 'Why We Get Sick'.
>> Got it. Excellent. I'm excited to learn more about that for my own purposes. And thank you for your time, and for what you've been doing, and for not retiring in retirement.
>> Thank you for the opportunity.
>> Thank you for listening to 'The Art of Range' podcast. Links to websites or documents mentioned in each episode are available at artofrange.com. And be sure to subscribe to the show through Apple Podcasts, Podbean, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting app so that each new episode will automatically show up in your podcast feed. Just search for Art of Range. If you are not a social media addict, don't start now. If you are, please like or otherwise follow 'The Art of Range' on Facebook, LinkedIn, and X, formerly Twitter. We value listener feedback. If you have questions or comments for us to address in a future episode, or just want to let me know you're listening, send an email to show@artofrange.com. For a more direct communication from me, sign up for a regular email from the podcast on the homepage at artofrange.com. This podcast is produced by Connors Communications in the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University. The project is supported by the University of Arizona and funded by sponsors. If you're interested in being a sponsor, send an email to show@artofrange.com.
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