The Food Me and My Family Currently Eat

I am often asked what foods I eat, as well as what foods I feed my two boys. Thus, in the Health Update this week I want to share with you what my family’s diet mostly consists of.

This update is less about WHY and more about WHAT we eat. Please email, call, or visit me if you have specific questions.

Let me preface this update my saying the following: EVERYONE has, what I call, a dietary philosophy of how they want to go about eating. This includes those individuals that claim they don’t care at all about what they put into their bodies. Perhaps they just eat what sounds good, is cheap and/or affordable, or is the most convenient within the context of their unique lifestyle/schedule, or maybe a combination of all those things. In that sense, their dietary philosophy is to not care at all about what they are eating.

Eating is also inevitably influenced by political, religious, and cultural bias. The way we eat has little to do with those things, and more to do with what I truly believe are the best things to put in the human body for optimal health, regardless of your political, cultural, or religious bias. This way of eating does not need to be labeled as something (keto, carnivore, vegan, low-carb, low-fat, etc.).

Whatever your dietary philosophy is, I’m not here to tell you what your life values should be. That’s for you to decide.

That being said, if you’re taking the time to read this post, I have a hunch that you value maintaining and achieving health and are at least mildly concerned about the substances you put into your body.

I share that same value.

Why? I value feeling and functioning optimally, and it is explicitly clear that what I put into my body on a habitual basis greatly affects how I feel and function. Thus, what I put into my body habitually, drastically affects my overall quality of life, which inevitably will influence the quality of life of those who I interact with regularly.

Eating well then becomes important for more than my own personal gain. I want the best life for my kids, family, friends, patients, and really, the best life for every human on earth.

While there is no “one-size-fits-all” way of eating, and there are certainly individuals with unique health conditions that will require specific dietary protocols, I believe the following way of eating is the best way to eat for most humans.

Also, there is context with every dietary approach. For example, someone that is physically active on a regular basis may do well with more carbohydrate rich foods versus someone who leads a more sedentary lifestyle. To me, regular movement isn’t optional. It is required for optimal health.

After many, many years of trying all sorts of dietary approaches (low fat, low carb, keto, plant-based, carnivore, raw veggies, and everything in-between), I currently would summarize my dietary philosophy as follows:

1. The bulk of our diet is high-quality animal fats and proteins, with an emphasis on ruminant meat (beef, elk, venison, bison, etc.). This also includes organ meats, broths, eggs, pork, chicken, and mostly raw dairy (butter, kefir, milk, sour cream, cream cheese, cheese).
   • I would say 70-90% of the foods we consume regularly are part of the above. These are the most nutrient-dense, gut nourishing foods on the planet.
   • Some might say there is too much cholesterol and saturated fat in these foods. I’ve explained why I don’t worry about that in THIS webinar, and countless other posts.
2. We complement the above with high-quality, ideally organic/local fruits (apples, oranges, bananas, pineapple, watermelon, blueberries, raspberries, dates, avocados, cucumbers, etc.)
   • Roughly 10-20% of our diet consists of these foods.
3. In addition to fruit, another 10-20% of our diet consists of organic and/or local vegetables/starches/plant foods that are well tolerated.
   • Certain vegetables can be difficult to digest and/or can trigger autoimmune responses and disrupt hormonal function.
   • We more commonly consume potatoes, sweet potatoes, white rice, squash, and the like. These foods are typically easier on the gut. This also adds variety to the diet.
   • These foods mostly come down to individual preference and what’s tolerated best.
   • In general, plant foods are nutritionally INFERIOR to animal foods when it comes to digestibility and nutritional density/availability.
   • Herbs, spices, and other vegetables can be very medicinal and useful for therapeutic purposes depending on specifics of one’s health condition. However, I do not feel that we need to consume them in high amounts or on a regular basis. Good quality salt is the most common item we use to enhance the flavor of our food.
4. For beverages, we drink mostly RAW milk, purified water, and lesser amounts of cold-processed organic juices.
5. When it comes to sweeteners, we prefer RAW honey and pure maple syrup. Stevia, monk fruit, and other natural sweeteners are fine.
6. Also, I do drink about 12-16 oz. of organic coffee daily. Quality, the time of consumption, and not drinking too much in one day are important factors for coffee consumers.

In addition to our diet, we do all use whole-food supplements to complement the food we eat. I will do another post on supplementing in the future.

This is a general outline of how me and my family eat on a regular basis. However, we certainly aren’t “perfect”.

We do give ourselves a leash. We still have ice cream, cookies, chips, cake, bread/grains, and/or other processed food on occasion, particularly during social events/gatherings. In a perfect world, we would never eat any processed junk food, but we do our best, within reason, and through the context of enjoying life, eat as best as possible and minimize the junk. It’s important to step back and objectively analyze how you’ve been eating. We do our best to make sure eating junk/processed food does not become a daily HABIT.

I will follow up this week’s post with another on WHERE I source the food we eat.