Nick and Brandon from Raw Pet Medics walk through functional medicine testing for pets and humans: the Dutch hormone panel (£300), ZOE microbiome analysis, and vitamin D blood work. They cover practical changes like an 8-hour eating window, cutting sugar, and raw milk safety, plus why the FDA restricts pet food health claims.
Chapters
Hi, we made it. We made it. My goodness me.
This is a fantastic start to the year, guys. 9 minutes late to a 45-minute show we have to do once a week. That is not ideal, really, is it? Thank God we've got the best fans.
Oh, I know. Well, we better just check whether we've gone live.
Do we have any fans?
Yes, it looks like we are live. And greetings everybody, very happy New Year to everybody. Welcome to 2024. I think '24 is going to be good. I was a bit uncomfortable with '23. Apart from anything else, it's a prime number, but, and it was a funny old time, wasn't it?
Oh, did you work that out all in your little—
you can't divide anything into it, so, you know, yeah, it won't take long to work it out.
That's pretty prime. Yeah.
I can't remember how I felt coming into '23. I think, I think, I think looking this time last year, myself and Elaine do this thing where we, we write on a card things that we hope for the next year, you know, things that we hope we'll achieve or family stuff and, you know, work stuff and that kind of stuff. You write down 3 or 4 wishes that you hope to get done and then you look at it when you take down the Christmas decorations. The card is always there and you open up. It's really interesting. But this time last year, I got the sense of myself that I was not looking forward— I was looking forward to a very busy year. A lot of things were changing and in flux business-wise, and I thought, oh, and I feel much calmer. I feel much more positive about '24. Are you guys not feeling very positive about '24? How are you feeling?
Oh, sorry, Nick.
No, he's just gone. But blow it up your arse, Nick.
That always works.
Yeah. Nothing's coming out of your mouth.
Yeah, no, I'm really positive.
Lots going on.
I was thinking we should maybe just do a review of your Christmas and New Year's, and then maybe we can just go through each month and just see if there's anything on the horizon. It might be quite nice.
Oh yeah, have you got your Zoom recording on, Brad? I know you're in a rush. Yeah, all right, cool.
No, I'm on it. Don't make noises like that, not around in Yorkshire.
Record on my phone as well. Awesome. Okay, okay. So yeah, um, guys, we are Raw Pet Medics. You'll find us on patreon.com/rawpetmedics where all the fun and frolics take place. So, uh, that is great if you can help us out, we do appreciate it. But as you know, at this stage we will be here nonetheless. I have been, um, working away at looking at all our old videos, guys. We have got many, many, many, many, many, many videos, so much content. And we were all discussing how we're going to put it all in one place soon, and we'll tell you all about that in due course. But as Nick was saying there, Bren, how did you get on over Christmas? What exciting things did you get up to? Have you anything to report or do you want to go on to the next person?
Oh, I am moving house, hence I'm in a random room. What?
A random room in a new house?
No, back into the old, old house, but it's all got the air source heat pump in. We're super warm and cozy. It's chugging away on its own little thing. No gas, no petrochemicals anymore. So no fireplace. We do have a fireplace, but it's not a gas fire. It is solid fuel from the little bit of woodland that we've got.
Nice.
So that'll be, you know, just if we need to top up, but we haven't. We just haven't needed to top up, so it's been really pleasant. So can't wait for the solar to come on and just to sort out some battery backup, and, you know, then we'll be sort of able to go semi-off-grid at points. So that's all good. But it's been quite busy outside of that. It's been just getting things, feeling like getting things sorted and then bang, straight back into work this morning and got a new starter, which is great news. He's really enthusiastic about holistic medicine. We've expanding the practice, so we've got a lot of things to kick off this year. So we're really looking forward to just how we push forward. So that's really enjoyable. And then And just so much to look forward to with what we've got planned. As you say, not just with the website, but the future projects that we've got, let alone the stuff with the Health Sensei side, just bringing in some more to everybody from the human side as well as the animals. So yeah, it's just action-packed. 2024 is going to be a blast.
Action-packed.
Bren, just lay it out for me. I've got a vague feeling of what you and Rowan are doing with the Health Sensei, and it sounds very exciting. Can you just lay it out? In words of one syllable?
Not quite one syllable, but certainly it is looking at health, health up and down the leash. So, you know, very much the influence that we have on our pets and our pets have on us, but actually looking at all of our lifestyles. So what we do in our lifestyles, how that affects our pets. So that could be the environment you have around you, you know, what you're doing with all of your dietary habits through to your social habits as far as how you're getting up in the morning, how much sleep you're getting, what your patterns of the day are like, all the way through to just are you giving yourself space at night, shutting all your Wi-Fi off, getting all of the EMF out, all of that side of things, to then also looking at stop guessing, start testing. Do this thing where you can test how good are those supplements? That you're taking? Are you literally taking them on a fear basis, or are you actually getting a benefit out of them? And this is what we can do with our pets too. So lots of great information out there. Some people will be doing some of the metabolomics testing through Dutch Test. We've got the cellular health tests, things like that to go for. And we're looking at that transference into our canines as well. I've got a meeting with the guys from Precision Analytical, which do the Dutch test, and just really getting the stuff around.
How do people do these tests? Because like you think about your local GP and it's like they never would have heard of any of this. And so tell us about the Dutch test. Is this an order to your home, spit in a tube type test, or is it you use the local nurse and take some blood?
So there, there is some of the tests that are available through saliva testing. However, the most comprehensive hormone metabolites testing that is in there. It's a dried urine, hence Dutch, okay? Dried urine test for complete hormones. And that looks at you urinating onto a piece of blotting paper 4 times through the day, okay? Just spreads it out. You need to— so for females, you need to be at a specific time of your cycle, okay? And you need to be in that window. You need to be off hormone replacements and things like that, preferably. But we're not going to pull the rug for the sake of it. So we're looking at— so you can get them to urinate on that. Looks at the metabolites of those hormones that can be really influential on everything from just your glucose tolerance all the way through to your influence on cancer for how you're metabolizing some of those, because you can switch genes off with your microbiome to how methylated they are, as to how your body then metabolizes certain hormones and that influence on cancer. So it's actually, you know, it's not a done thing. Yes, you might have the genes that if they're not methylated predispose you to certain cancers.
But actually, what does methylated mean for everybody?
So methylating— so if you add a CH3, so a carbon and 3 hydrogens Okay, that's a methyl group. Okay. So you methylate a gene that activates it effectively.
And where do we get these methyls from?
So you can get them from many of your vitamins. So you have methyl vitamin B12, so you can get that methylated. Some people will methylate amino acids so you can get trimethylglycine. So all of those will pass on the methyl groups 2 genes so you can actually start to increase methylation. It's just 2 options that are in there.
So it's normal. So these, these little— these— I'm sorry for asking the questions, but these are questions that I'm going to have. A lot of these compounds sound like things I buy. Is this not a normal part of the food process?
So you're— so if you've got the right microbiome and it's activated with the right foods, then of course it will produce the active vitamins that it produces, the active amino acids, the things that are key to good nutrition. Should be presented to your body in a methyl group form. Okay, so realistically, yeah, if you got everything right and you don't transgress and go out on the rip and get pie-skied and all the rest of it on New Year's Eve, or you are occasionally smoking, or you are eating the occasional bit of junk food, those things can disturb that microbiome and that capability to have optimized methyl groups coming into your body. Now, of course, you could purchase a supplement that would effectively get you over that little hurdle, and that's how to speed up recovery from some of those. But optimally, of course, how can you improve your lifestyle, your breathing technique, your hydration, nutrition, all of your movement, all of those gentle things, getting your parasympathetics right, all of that, that obviously would negate you needing to necessarily supplement. The downside, of course, is that many of us don't do that. We are not some monk on a hillside doing the perfect ideal, that side of things. And I'll be the first to confess, I've had a drink or two. Okay. I occasionally have a bit of junk food. I too had a dreaded pig in blanket along with my Christmas dinner. Was it an ideal chipolata in there? Possibly not. Okay. But some people would say that's processed food. That's a bit too much. Did I have a lot of rich cheese and mince pies? Yes, I reached for a mince pie. I dared to have one or two or six. So we do transgress. So of course we can always look to the things that would what can help us, and that's fine. Knowing what can help us is the next step. And that's why I really love going in with Rowan and talking about what they're doing on the human functional medicine side and looking at that detox and how to improve our nutrient uptake and bringing that to animal patients.
Brandon, have you got any stats on how many people who actually come to you initially or start with this testing process, how many of them A, have a good functional biome, and B, how many have a good functional diet? I would wager that it's probably pretty low, kind of 10% of each.
So I am amazed.
There are some results which are like, wow, you know, you have, you know, just got all of the ticks in the right boxes with whatever you've done. And some of them, it's because they're taking remedies or they're taking other things to influence their health already. Some of them. But I mean, you just need to look at the amount of poor health influence out there. Just look at obesity rates. I mean, that just says it all in Western culture, especially in the UK and over in the States, I guess, to a degree in Ireland. I don't know. I consider the Irish to be healthier, that's all the difference.
It's nothing, right?
So I think that says it all, Nick, that actually you're right. We all have been dragged in a direction and it's almost commonplace. I have friends and family that constantly will talk about what's happening with their gut issues, what's happening with their own weight issues, what's happening with their cancer predisposition, what's happening with hormonal health, the perimenopause, what's happening with fertility, if they're trying to have a child, all of those, and just not joining up the dots to even think about the influence of all of those tubs of chocolates, the candy, the processed foods, the pizzas, the burgers, all of the rancid fats and cooking oils and things like that that's going on out there that they just, you know, it's almost because you don't see it. That's not everybody eating that. So it can't be.
Yeah, but yeah, you couldn't see— you feel fine. Well, you don't. You feel terrible after McDonald's, but you know, you feel fine enough after a mince pie that you don't think about that down the way. Here's— this is my problem I have with these tests. I just checked the rate of obesity in Ireland, 23%, bang on 25.9% in the UK. And so the— here's the problem with the test is if I was to take— if I was to measure myself, let's say the Zoe test, which a pal of ours just did there recently, and she wasn't at the absolute peak of health when she did the ZOE test. And a ZOE test involves— we can hear feedback there from Nick if you're watching that on Facebook. Um, no, okay, okay. So with the ZOE test, it's going to be a fecal analysis and they're going to look at your biome and they're going to see what shape it's in. And so when people start off with ZOE, which, you know, is a kind of a nutritional way to, you know, feed your biome and get yourself back to health, one part of the jigsaw, you'd say, But the problem is when people start off on Zoe, they're usually not in the best place as Niko's highlighting. So you're coming at it from not a good start. And if you— this is why somebody was saying recently that don't do biome tests in gut sick dogs. It's like the biome is going to be in trínacail, as they say in Irish, it's going to be all over the place. And so let's get the poo stabilized first and see where he is in 3 or 4 days and then do a sample. Far more realistic to see what's going on there. But like So if you take a sample of me now after this Christmas I'm after having, which I was not good to myself, and I am— this is it now, I'm gonna— I'm off all sugar and drink as of— this is day 2 of it and I'm fit to kill. In fact, check out my new light, look what I can do. This is how I'm feeling at the moment.
A little blue.
Um, so it depends on— I'm good orange because that's what people expect. But, um, so yeah, so here's my, my point is I want to do all these tests, okay? But I feel like I need to get myself back in some sort of shape before I look at my gut flora, which I know is going to be screaming for sugar at the moment because I've been feeding it huge amounts of sugar. So I have grown a gut flora that's screaming for sugar. And if I do a Zoe test now, they're going to say, hmm, your gut flora is a state. By the time I get those results back, I would have done 2 weeks on a serious health buzz. I would be a different human on the inside out. So with the hormone test, is it the same thing? How accurate? How represent— has there been any sort of comparative works to say, yeah, listen, we've got 100,000 people's wee samples for hormones and it's a pretty accurate result of their disease status in a year or 5 years, or you know what I mean? How accurate are these tests if I'm doing that?
Look, there's some great resources. You can go on and see the videos on the Precision Analyticals website, okay, um, for the Dutch. If you just type in Dutch, there's some great video resources, there's some great stats and stuff on there to show just how many— I mean, they're into hundreds of thousands of tests down the line now to looking at that. So this is not something that's pissing in the wind.
This is—
I think of all of the urinary— this is all of those things that, you know, actually, how long has it been going? I think I think it's probably getting on for 10 years that the Dutch test has been around. So yeah, in the early days it probably was fairly on the edge of what people were thinking, you know, how accurate is this? But you know, they're, they're quite down the line now. And this is why I'm really interested to see how much we can draw that in for our dogs, especially for the entire ones, and then how much we can draw that in when it comes to looking at our neutered dogs, because that's the next influence, because there's other things that are going on in those circumstances. And then it also gives us an opportunity where we supplement— are we affecting an appropriate change on their hormone levels? So are we accurate? So there's like testosterone replacement is becoming a bit of a thing. There's a clinic in the UK, there is a few in the US that are talking about that's the way to get away from this LH escape that we've been talking about in the stuff about neutering a few weeks back. And is it right to do this? But just as with hormone replacement therapy in humans, that element of is it just slap on a patch and hope, or are you, for your metabolism, getting that hormone level right? Okay, because it isn't, you know, one woman's level of testosterone is not going to be the same as another's, you know, moving on to their conversion into estrogens and then into progestogens. It's not the same, you know, for each and every one. And that depends on your metabolism. So you need to work out how you can individualize that more. And that's the beauty of this test, is it's showing you the metabolites they can actually trace back up the path how you're producing that and how you can therefore go to influence it and to monitor that you're influencing it correctly.
And this is just a Dutch test we're still talking about?
Yeah.
So would you recommend repetitive Dutch testing and taking action?
There are some follow-on tests and they give you the— because obviously for a woman in cycle, you're going to be doing that not in 2 weeks because that would put you in the wrong point of the cycle, but the same point in your cycle each time. Okay. You look at where that would be, especially in perimenopause, which is really hard to determine, unlike the postmenopausal stages, which is then still a way of how do you create that pattern, that monthly cycle, and improve them on that so that they're not just on a testosterone drive and really feeling great, but then all of a sudden get overwhelmed with a progesterone overload and feel really down and put on loads of weight and all the rest of it. So it's getting that right. And that's why testing is— and the tests that are out there, just seeing— once you get— as a vet, I almost feel like I'm amongst Neanderthals when I look at what I've been doing for years And then you suddenly look at some of these functional medicine tests that are out there and you're just thinking, these are pinprick tests in many cases, or urine tests or some saliva testing and the stuff that they can get out of that to show what we need to be doing, what we could be doing. It's just amazing. And I do feel like when I'm doing a standard profile now, a little bit almost embarrassed that, you know, my lab can only do this much to give me that information. And yes, I can give you more than you can just looking at the animal. But boy, you know, if we could do all of this other stuff that they're doing in functional medicine, just how much more we could do.
What's there to— like, are these Dutch tests available for pets? Can you not just do— like, if my, you know, the pet's been desexed 3 or 4 years ago and I want to see what state her hormones are in?
So we could, we could do that. You know, it's what, it's about £300. So it's not off the scale. It's not £1,000. Many people have come to us thinking, oh my God, it's going to be £1,000, you know, to check my fertility or to check my perimenopausal state or whatever. Now it's about £300. Okay. Yes, there's some interpretation needed on that. But, you know, yes, there's some standard blood tests that are that much at the end of the day. So of course we could do that. And yeah, it's been very tempting to do that for dogs. But just as there's 10 years of experience now, and before that there was all the experimentation to show how that influence for humans was there, there's an element of we need more information. There's always more research needs to be done. And that's my next goal, is to get over the line with we can translate some of the stuff that's done from humans get that for our pets, but then can we get sufficient numbers to show that actually the absolute same is for our dogs as it is for us? Yeah, there's a different cycle length, for example, you know, the fertility's slightly different, all of that.
Yeah, there'd be different genes. Like, it doesn't— sorry, sorry for cutting you off— doesn't Brecker go on about these MTFKR genes and he says at a minimum them, uh, you know, you guys need to check these genes and make sure they are—
yeah.
And yeah, so it kind of suggests that I wonder what those genes are in pets. You mightn't go for the same ones because they maybe have different little quirks. And then you've had these terrible bottlenecks with the Frenchies and Boxers and a few other breeds that suffer as a result, you know. And so they have probably all sorts of their own little individual issues that would be unique to the breed that mightn't come as too surprising when you look at it. So does nobody— is nobody looking at this yet? It's like, tell me someone's looking at this.
Yeah, well, I would hope so. I mean, people like Nicky Kammack, I would think, you know, in Georgia State, you know, and that side of things would be looking at that. They're all into metabolomics and I'm guessing that's the next, you know, he's looking at how that— but when Precision Analytical has a lot of the information about out the specific metabolites and the test, you know, is effectively under their patent, then they've got, I guess, the majority of IP around, you know, what those metabolites are. And so that takes a discussion with them.
We need to get you and Nikki yapping away about metabolites and testing and what, you know, I'm interested. So let's say there's people listening here and they're hating themselves. After Christmas. Okay. And what is the, what's the basic, what is the basic kind of like, you know, what's the testing-wise if you wanted to maybe invest in your health? Too few of us invest in our health. We wait until you get to that last little bit of your health when you start getting sick and then, oh no, I'm having a few wobbles and you start investing in your health and we don't do it enough when we're healthy. What would be the very basic stuff from your, from your limited amount of stuff that you've done for the last couple of years at Raw. What's leaping off the page is if I was to do anything, I would do this and this. What would you do?
Do you know what? Just knowing the influence of omega-3s, just get your cellular health test. It's a pinprick test. So literally just like taking glucose, pinprick on the thumb onto blotting paper, send it away, get them to check the omega-3 levels within your red cells. Okay. They can give you an indicator of how much of that is oxidized, how much of that is normal, what your levels are compared to what they should be in an optimal person or animal. Okay. And then look at a supplement to that and then retest. Okay.
Will they look at omega-6s, Bren? Because obviously you do look at ratio and the more omega-6, the more omega-3 you need. So where does that—
there is a ratio. There is a ratio, but what they're doing is looking at how your cellular health looks. And then if you supplement with the omega-3s after the changeover. So red cells take 123 days, so approximately 4 months to totally recycle. So after 123 days, you should have totally replaced all of your blood cells because they roughly last that length. Okay, so that's why the test length is 4 months down the line, because then if you're retesting having had the supplement, you can truly see the influence of that level for you as an individual.
Okay.
Because your requirement, your ratio, although a lot of functional medicine practitioners will talk about a 3:1 ratio. Okay. Now of omega-6s to omega-3s rather than the 10:1 or even the 30:1 that's allowable under some legislations. I think that actually that 3:1 ratio for Eunuch may be spot on and ideal, but for me may not. And it's then down to, well, what other dietary influences are you taking? What other lifestyle choices have you made? So this is the point of do you need to dial back a bit or do you need to dial it up a bit? Comes from repeat testing, as, as Conor was saying, seeing the progress of what's going on rather than just taking what one pinprick, taking a supplement, taking a follow-on, and then saying, that's me for life.
But what are you actually testing? Are you looking at oxidative products? You're looking at the influence of omega-3s on those oxidation products?
No, you're looking at the omega-3s in the cellular walls of your red cells.
Aha.
Okay, got you. Got you. And so where do I get this? If they're low, you try and bump them up. And if they're excessive, you take them down a notch. But if you look at the work of Dr. Chris Kenobi, which I think we've all three of us looked at his stuff— Conor, you definitely have. Yeah, I know. He was looking at tribes in Papua New Guinea and all these kind of things. And he was saying that basically the ideal is something like for your fatty acid Ideally, you should be at about, off the top of my head, about 1.5% omega-6, and the, the omega-3 should be about a 3-ish to 1 ratio down from that. So for every 3 omega-6s, you want to have about 1 omega-3. Okay. But the thing is, and he was saying something like the standard American diet rather than being 1.5% omega-3, omega-6, yeah, pro-inflammatory omega-6, it's more like 22% omega-6.
And the worst kind, some of those with some of the plant fats.
Absolutely. You know, with the influence that we have with adding oils to our food. Look, you know, Conor asked for, look, if we had to simplify and add one test, you know, what would that be? I think that's That's the one. So I think definitely—
Where do I get that? Sorry for cutting you off because these are these questions I'm actually asking more for myself here. But like with the omega-3, am I going to get that kit sent out to me and get like, do I have to involve the local GP in taking any pinprick tests? Are the pinprick tests done at home and posted back to the company? I love those sort of tests. Okay, cool. So omega-3, that's number one. Give me two more.
So I would say definitely when you're then looking at your vitamin D levels, that can be a massive influence. And I did this a little while back. I think I shared it with you guys. Got some bloods done myself before looking at all of this. And it's one of those things. I advise people for their pets so often to consider at least getting normals of where they're at when they feel relatively healthy. And I just thought, do you know what, about a year ago now, just slightly over, I needed to do that for myself just to see what was going on. And just looking at some of those results, and I was quite satisfied with some of those results. I'd just come off the back of a shoulder injury. I was thinking it took some time to heal, but I'd managed to speed it up with other treatments. And I was thinking, well, what else do I need to be looking out for? Obviously, I'm I'm not as young and fit as I think I am. So I wanted to take that test and it was great to just look at liver function, look at kidney function, look at what my cell counts were doing, look at those as a baseline. That's great to get in if you can find somewhere to do it. But it could, you know, to look at some of those hormone levels on a blood test level, to look at your vitamin Ds. You're looking in the region of about about £400 to £500 to do that. And that's probably given me a level of looking at doing things. There are vitamin D tests now for literally £50. Okay.
Are they any good?
Compare that up to the cellular health. They are as good as the blood tests that we send off to the lab.
And are they a pinprick test or are they a full blood test? Because I believe needles.
I tell you what, I bet that hates needles. That's brilliant. I tell you what, when I come past, what we'll do is we'll put some Emla cream on it, I'll get Conor to sit on your head, and then we'll draw some blood. Anyway, it's just—
I'll stay still. Oh, that'd be a great video. Just do that live. Just give a pint of blood live.
No, I, I tell you what, when I was a kid, yeah. Yeah, I had a crowded mouth and they were going fishing around in the vein to get— they probably— what would it be? Just a single bolus of thiopentone. What was it? What's the stuff that we don't use anymore?
Thiopentone. Thiopentone is the barbiturate anaesthetic.
Uh, no, what do we—
what, in the old days, what do we use to induce anesthesia? Yeah, I haven't done it for 20 years, guys.
That's more than 20 years ago. 30 years ago.
No, but what was it? Was it called thio? Yeah, I mean propofol, obviously, and what have you.
Yeah, that's since then.
Yes. Okay, so it went thio and then— okay, so they were trying to jab me with thio, I I think, because in the old days that's what they used to do to get— take teeth out of kids. They do it in the surgery, in— not even in the doctor's surgery, in the chair, in the dentist's. Like, right, we're going to fill you up with this, you're going to go somewhere near death. Yeah, there you go.
Yeah.
And I think they were fishing around with that, and I've been completely traumatized ever since.
No way.
Wow.
I got the gas when I was a child for my milk teeth, you you know, if they were stuck, and they used to gas you with ether and nitrous oxide.
I took loads of that when Elaine was pregnant. It was great. Just having a baby.
Not ether, not ether, that's nitrous oxide.
Just the nitrous oxide. That's a good hit off us. I was happy enough for a few moments and then just bang back into reality. Okay, do not listen to this man.
Yeah, don't try this at home, kids.
If it's okay for pregnant people, it's bloody okay for the terrified husband in the corner eating a tuna sandwich. They said, of all things, Lance, whatever you do, don't come in eating a tuna sandwich. I went down to the cafeteria, totally forgot, and all Elaine can remember from the first baby— pretty tough birth, a long process— and all she can remember is me sitting in the corner eating a tuna sandwich. And it's just like, oh my God, the one thing I wasn't supposed to eat, a tuna sandwich, and everyone trying to work away and I'm just munching on tuna sandwich.
That's hilarious. I'll tell you what I did. For Ellie, she had a home birth, right? And I thought, okay, these poor midwives. It was— this was— we kicked off at about 7 PM with Arthur. And I thought, these poor midwives, they're going to be arriving here. They're going to be here between what, 2 hours and 10 hours or something. I'll cook them some sausages. We're in this kind of bed seat, as you like, single room. So the entire amazing, beautiful process had this waft of roasted baked sausages for the entire time. And nobody ate.
They didn't eat them.
I didn't eat them.
Ellie didn't eat them.
Arthur wasn't that keen. Yeah. But he had these 20,000 sausages the next morning.
You just got to do something. It's such a typical man thing. I'm going to cook some food. I'll go I'll get food. The hunter returns and now I'm going to set a fire and now I feel like I'm doing something. Yeah, guys, I have, I have some more kind of very basic tips, right? So I'm going to get off sugar and it's just, it's a pure chop chop because I'm an absolute addict and everybody is. The more sugar you give yourself over Christmas, which is anything from just white foods to the sugar in your mince pies to the drink that you had, it's all sugar and it all creates a biome screaming for sugar. So that's sweet tooth that you think is genetic or that you think runs in the family. You're just a pure addict for sugar. Chop chop, like the way you give up anything that's really bad for you. You got to get off the sugar. There's no easy way. And I'm also giving up the drink at the same time.
So I've been saying this for the last 3 years, and I'm a short window, a short window. We're not talking about nothing but grief from this lot.
Yeah, we could challenge ourselves, Nick. I just need to get to February 8th. Okay, so I'm just thinking, okay, I could surely to God I can do 5 weeks, uh, like clean and, and whatnot. Considering the position we're in, they're giving us—
you're going to do dry January?
Oh, 100% I'll do January. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, so February, I'm going away for a couple of days to Portugal. It's not a good one. It's going to be a bad one. So here's my—
here's a little tip for you, okay? Have a chat to the barman, get him to get you some of the alcohol-free gin.
What's the point?
And when you go to the bar and ask for gin and tonic, tonic. Yeah, okay. He serves all of your mates normal gin and tonic.
It's not about—
you sure you get your special gin and tonic? Yeah, which has no alcohol.
Or Guinness Zero is apparently very good. I haven't tried it.
Not bad. Yeah, it's not bad. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Look, listen, I don't drink enough Guinness to know what the difference would be. Nobody could tell you the difference in Guinness Zero or not. It's fine. But anyway, I'm gonna have to go cold turkey. So here's a couple of my falling points for anybody. This might seem painfully obvious most, but I work late at night. Okay. So this is a habit that I need to stop. I'm working too much. I'm working during the day, obviously get the kids to bed. And then I will work at night. If Elaine doesn't demand, I sit down and watch TV or something. And I'll work till 8 or 8. I'll start at say 8, half 8, whenever the last kid goes to bed. And then I'll be there till about half 11. My problem is I'm working hard at nighttime. I do my best focus at nighttime. I come down at half 11 and I'm like a demon then. And I'm rooting around the cupboards and I'm looking for something to eat. And so I eat late at night and that's a big problem for me. That's a big problem for your metabolism. And it's great for putting on weight. So I want to get a bit healthy, and so I need to stop eating late at night. So I need to start getting to bed early. It's such an obvious tip. So stick religiously to this 8-hour feeding window. So I can skip breakfast easy peasy. I do not want breakfast. Rarely ever do I want breakfast. And so I'll eat a decent lunch, I'll eat a dinner, and I need to get to bed early. So like, that's a real simple, simple tip. So that's step 1. I'm gonna chop out my crap food, anything processed.
Test.
So, like, you can have a few potatoes, you can't have pasta, you can't have anything that comes in a packet, okay? So if you can just avoid the processed food, you're going to be doing great. Pasta sauce, all that crap has to go. Bin the crackers, eat the cheese, okay? Cheese is fine, the crackers are causing you damage. So all that, you already heard us saying that enough. So get the diet rice, cut out the sugar, get to bed early, stop eating late. Last little tip, okay? I don't know what you guys are going to think of this, but all the lecturing, all the lecturing we tell people to do and eat these little green things, I like this one tip Zoe test. I'm not recommending this brand, by the way.
Just change your mirror, you've got— we're backwards. You, um, I was changing your hands, changing the mirror.
It's a slightly different—
you can't turn it upside down and think that it's gonna— there you go, there you go, there you go.
Okay, so look, and there's— look, they do— look, I have nothing to do with this company. It's probably an Amazon product for all I know, and I'm going to look like an absolute active. But the point is, these products, okay, make it extremely easy. Okay, no one's recommending you eat big sugary smoothies because all people do is pump a load of fruit into it and then you're just drinking— you might as well be having a can of Coke. It's the same effect, a bit more fiber, and it's a bit better than a can of Coke. But the point is, you can make pretty healthy smoothies in the morning where it's not that nice. Okay, you're getting it done. Okay, so some of the basic— the reason you're going for these greens is you know that absolutely all the chat about. Here's the ingredients: wheatgrass powder— you wish you were taking a bit of that in the morning— barley grass powder, moringa powder, chlorella. These things are the detoxes. And when we get Matt on here to talk about detoxing, those 4 are going to be spoken about because it comes from this book Toxic in the Innate. And there's great studies to show that these dark greens are really, really good for you. Okay, so you get this powder, it doesn't cost that much, delivered straight to your home, and you look at it and you say, right, there's 16 servings in that, and I am going to eat 2 of these in a month. Simple as that. I'm going to go through 2 in a month. So I got this one, and I got the Gut Restore because I love the same ingredients in that. It's all these other cool bits and pieces in that. So I'm going to go through these 2 tubes in the, in the month, and it's the first thing I eat. So I'll skip breakfast, I'll get the gym done early in the morning. I enjoy that bit because I get to get into sauna and the plunge pool. I love all that bit. And before lunchtime, I am going to eat a little drink of those it's not easy. And I also put in a tablespoon of chia seeds, and I neck that drink before I have my main lunch, okay? Empty stomach. And the tablespoon of chia seeds, the reason being, if you can neck that, which you can, it's easy enough, particularly put in that ever so slightly sweeter one here, which is absolutely gross. Uh, you put— close your nose, you can drink it, no problem. When— by the time you go to eat your food half an hour later, the tablespoon of chia seeds would have done the business, and it makes you want ever so slightly less food. And you've also got a powerhouse hit of all this cool stuff that you wish that we're putting in on the dog's diet, but we don't give ourselves ever, you know what I mean? We get all these, you know, mushrooms and, you know, wild mushrooms and this amazing anti-cancer lion's mane for the dog when we don't even give this to ourselves. Seaweed. So I can put some seaweed into that, I can put the chia seeds, a little bit of pinch of good quality salt, whatever you think is cool. And make yourself drink that at 12 o'clock, 12 o'clock. They're my 3 tips. Cut out the sugar, get to bed early, get your exercise done in the morning, get your vitamin D in if you can, walk the dog early in the morning, let that sunshine hit your face. And your first thing should be a healthy smoothie. Buy 2 of these or products like this, just a magic green powder with 5 or 6 things in it. 'Cause Zoe, the test Zoe, your man behind it, Spectre, is constantly talking about species, it's all about species richness. And the way you do it is by feeding, eating different things. But we rarely change our diet too much. So a cheeky little product has 4 or 5 different things in it he very much approves of because he says even a spice is an extra addition. So if you can jam in 5 or 6 of these wonderfoods every day, you'll feel completely different in 2 or 3 days. I'm sure of it. You'll feel like you're making— they're my tips.
Could I ask you that for a question? Because you guys might already do this. That's one resolution I want to make is about mealtime. Do you guys sit down to a table and eat with the family and have that family. And somebody made a comment about the French and they get away with eating all of this stuff and still grow old, but they have so much more of a slow eating nature, not gobbling it down, to actually sit, enjoy conversation, to have a parasympathetic blast whilst eating rather than it just being a sit-down watching a high-octane film, shoveling in processed foods, TV dinner style, not being sat at a table. So do you guys, do you already do that or is that something you're bringing into the mix?
I aspire to it and I've been pushing for it for the last last, you know, since Arthur was eating solids, but it rarely happens. And it, you know, the family who eats together stays together, you know. And, um, so it is something that I, I would very much aspire to but rarely get to do that, unfortunately. How about you?
Yeah, it might be— I do, we do, but like, the kids are— the kids are— my kids are very young, don't forget. And so that means they are running around your feet from, you know, 4 o'clock till 8, 7, 4, half 4 till 7, or whatever the youngest one goes to bed. So, you know, it's easier to sit down and eat food at 6 o'clock. Had Bren's question only been, do you sit down and eat food together? The answer is yes, for about maybe 2 or 3 minutes. There may be 4 people at that table. And we just eat like the Simpsons. Nom nom nom nom nom nom nom. No talking. And then one or two of them off and I'm just left there sitting there with Elaine in silence because you've been working hard all day, you know. And, uh, and that's kind of what— so we do manage to sit down together, but yeah, you know, it's not quite the French meal of let's start with the starters and then go on to this, you know. It's just—
there's a lot of wisdom in that, isn't there? You have your starter and then you sit for a minute and then you have your main, you sit for a minute, then you have some, some cheese and some fruit and yeah, and off you go.
Yeah.
And it's not necessarily what they eat eat, I think with the French, is what they don't eat. Yeah, they don't, you know, McDonald's has only been, you know, a lot later than in the UK. I actually went to the first McDonald's in London when I was about 8 or 9. How about that for an admission?
No way.
Yeah.
No way. That's interesting.
Yeah, I had a guy in my class at school who was from America. When I was 9 years old, and, um, yeah, he was, he was going on about McDonald's as if it was God's gift to children, which it probably is, and especially root beer. Do you remember that? I'm not sure whether you even get root beer these days. I wouldn't touch it.
I know what it is.
Yeah, a tiny bit.
Yeah, yeah, no soda pop in our house. That's the one thing we're doing right diet-wise.
Yeah, that is really well done.
There's no nothing. There's milk or water, and that's all there is in the house.
Raw milk, if you can get it.
I got some raw milk. I got some raw milk in from Belfast and I drank it, and I have to say I was a bit disappointed.
Why were you disappointed? Tell me.
It's just a different taste. It's a completely different taste. Like, I'm used to creamy. Yeah, it was creamy. Actually, do you know what happened was I froze it, okay, as soon as it came in, because I wasn't going to drink it straight away. And it was goat milk, uh, and it was for the dogs, but I drank it. So it was goat milk for the dogs, which had come out of the freezer. So I don't think that's an accurate representation of what milk can be, uh, and I necked a good glass of it in there and I thought—
just a little cautionary note out there, uh-oh, um, because, you know, there's a lot of people feeding goats milk to their pets and to cats in particular. Um, and there is this unpasteurized raw goat's milk, but all of the tests we do for cows to ensure they are TB-free, we are not doing the same level of testing for goats, even though they can be be as affected as cows. Okay, so it is just a cautionary note. Be sure about the farm that you are going to for that raw milk. There are certain areas of the country to be aware of that have a relatively high TB rate, and you know, that then is in the wildlife. It's in wild boar, it's in deer, it's um, hedgehogs, mice, rats, you know, all of that. Because it's not— it's raw, it's not pasteurized. Pasteurization was all about how to kill the TB off. So therefore there is that risk. That's why in Cumbria they're really strict on which farms are releasing raw milk, okay, and how free they are from TB. And they absolutely be on testing those farms more frequently if they're producing raw milk for dogs. Yeah, not for human consumption is almost their get-out. And actually, we've got to be cautious because we've heard about the few cat outbreaks, we've heard about even a kennel outbreak, you know, in down in Wiltshire at that time a few years back, you know, they allocated it to raw foods, but actually a lot of that was possibly crossover from wildlife, but also, you know, where some of those raw products were coming from.
I didn't think you could get TB from milk. I thought that was just— I really thought it was just organ consumption. I didn't think it even came from the meat.
But the thing is, the whole TB thing and Pasteur coming along and offering this process whereby he kills TB is because back in the day, and we're talking maybe, oh, kind of 1850s or so, there was massive urbanization in the cities. And so they found out the cities were growing so large that they couldn't get the milk into the cities. And so what they did is they took the cows into the cities and fed them on brewer's grains and all sorts of really poor quality. And they had them, you know, stacked up up, you know, in very poorly ventilated areas, which was a thriving breeding ground for tuberculosis. And so that's how this has— that's how it started, the requirement for pasteurization, because everyone was getting tuberculosis because the cows were not treated well. You've got regenerative, regeneratively raised animals and they're eating fantastic pasture and they are— they've got a good breeze going through. As much as possible and they're out as much as possible. You've got the direct opposite of those.
Yeah.
You know, there's, you know, poverty situations even in the cows, let alone the people who are drinking this raw milk. So this is Joel, Joel, Joel Salatin. He says, well, actually, if you get, you know, raw milk from well-raised cows, it's as healthy as anything else. They've had, you know, a dozen cases of tuberculosis in the States from raw milk, and therefore the FDA go, oh, we're going to close it down. Actually, 12 cases versus, you know, 250,000 people being killed by—
I feel free to say I'm a naysayer. I would absolutely agree. I was putting a cautionary note in.
Yes.
As with all our foods, choose carefully. That's all I would say.
It's hard for us to know. It's hard for us to know as a consumer who knows nothing about adults, you know, it's very hard for us to know. I mean, you're not going to tell from a label of raw milk whether that farm has done its due diligence. There's no way. There's not that stuff.
Ideally, you get it from a farmer who you know. That's, again, that's Joel Salatin. You know him because then he's— he— it's in his interest to not poison you, keep you alive.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, speaking of, speaking of, uh, outdoor reared and organic and whatnot, did you see there's a famous enough pet food company in the US, it's called Solutions, and the lady came from another pet food company, I can't remember her name, but I know there's gonna be a few Americans listening tonight expecting me to say this, but I put up a post today saying this company in Colorado got a slap on the wrist and they said that the FDA, in all their wisdom, although this is a state legislation type thing, but probably FDA/AFCO led because AFCO is actually a branch of the FDA. Well, it's not really, the NRC was anyway, but they came in Colorado State and they slapped them on the wrist and said, you are not allowed to talk about the health benefits of your product or share studies that may mislead the public. And so they had studies of raw dog foods and the benefits of outdoor-reared animals and whatnot. And if you look at, you go to the Solutions Pet Food website now, you'd see across the top it's saying, we are now no longer allowed to discuss science or share scientific scientific literature. So I posted this up. I've been sitting on it for about a week because I just didn't want to deal with it over Christmas. And then I just shared this just to see if I could get some opinions from folk over in the States. And you can see the opinions on it. They just said, oh, it's not just Colorado, there's a number of states where they're cracking down on anybody in the natural side of things trying to say, here's an interesting study that shows raw-fed dogs are less inflamed than dry-fed dogs, or whatever study they shared. Now, there is a tiny kind of chance that maybe that was the language they used around the study and inferred something upon the product they were making when the study wasn't about their product. Who knows what it was, but they are definitely not alone. You can see a number of people in the US are under the kibosh now that if you're trying to sell pasture-reared organic kind of meat, you have to be able to talk about the benefits of that because the price tag is going to be 2 or 3 times what this CAFO horrible concentration camp beef is. And so now they're not allowed to talk about those benefits. So how are you going to be able to charge 2 or 3 times more for your products when that you need to create.
I just thought, wow, how can, how can a government organization limit your ability to talk about science?
Yeah, I'll tell you what, um, uh, truth is the first casualty of war, my friends.
Indeed. I mean, perhaps we're at war. But, um, yeah, so they said, like, I don't know if it's the FDA who do set the rules, or, you know, AFGOD don't set it. People were saying it was AFGOD. It's like, well, no, AFGOD AFCO can't— they are not regulators and they have no teeth. They're not law. You do— then you're never going to be in court with AFCO. They're just a group of pet food companies that make up, um, some rules and you don't have to stick to them. But your stateside people will then look at what AFCO say and go, these are the rules for the state. And so apparently word on the street is that AFCO said, hey guys, we don't think it's really in our interest that people go around sharing studies 'Don't make dry pet food,' or whatever product, 'does not look too good.' And I just thought, oh, that was a bit of darkness. So I just thought I'd start off the year with some glum, dark foreboding. I was like, right guys, game face is on, let's get straight back into it. But, uh, yeah, so pasture food, pasture-raised meat under the kibosh over in the US. And I'm not surprised really, 90— more than 90% of their beef comes from CAFOs. And I think it's— it's— have you ever seen the price of the outdoor-reared meat over in the US? When you're talking to US clients points, they can barely source it. Like, I've been talking to Texans who can't get outdoor reared beef. I was like, you produce more beef than anyone else in the entire world. What do you mean you can't find pasture-reared beef in your supermarket? You know, so it's, uh, I'm sure they're not looking in the right supermarkets. America has enormous amounts of outdoor reared beef. But like, yeah, very worrying that. But anyway, look, that's not ending.
You do wonder.
Yeah, look, um, gents, what are we going to do next week? I'm gonna have to to go and see my family because it's, uh, uh, FIFA is at school tomorrow. So, um, very good. Let's go for an early night.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, we will skip.
Well, we've got a nutrient, have we?
Yeah, I was thinking TB. Should we do really deep dive?
I don't know anything about TB. Yeah, let's learn about TB.
Okay, is it a nutrient? Mycobacterium tuberculosis? There may be others. Are there others?
Well, let's learn about it.
Because it— well, mycobacteria. How cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You want to do mycobacteria? Let's do mycobacteria. Okay, just throw the cat amongst the pigeons.
Aren't they all micro? Aren't all bacteria micro?
Um, no, no, myco, myco, because they, they, they look like fungi when they grow on a petri dish. Ah, yeah, mycobacteria.
Yeah, interesting.
I see from somewhere.
Cool.
Amazing, amazing. Great, guys. Good to see you, and fantastic to see everybody. I've missed, I've missed you guys and everybody, and it's great to be back in the saddle, really, isn't it?
Yeah, absolutely. Isn't it?
Yeah, it's wonderful, wonderful.
Brilliant.
Take care, guys.
Talk to you soon. See you soon.
