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Transcript
- 03:24 Why is Soy considered such a health food?
- 09:55 Other health issues that soy causes
- 18:48 Soy’s popularity is because of its high profitability
- 19:40 Recovering from soy
- 24:40 Metal Toxicities in Soy
- 27:40 Doing hair mineral analysis with clients
- 31:01 Can soy contribute to leaky gut?
- 32:41 Forms of soy that are good to eat
- 34:27 On Bone Broths
- 41:12 Health issues solved by consuming bone broth
- 46:48 Food freedom: the most pressing health issue in the world today
- 50:55 About Dr. Kaayla Daniel
Wendy Myers: Welcome to the Live to 110 podcast. My name is Wendy Myers and today I’m interviewing Kaayla Daniel also known as The Naughty Nutritionist. We’re going to be talking about how to recover from soy. And yes I did say recover because soy is not as healthy as many people have been lead to believe. We’re also going to be talking about her new book about bone broths called Nourishing Broth which she’s writing in collaboration with Sally Fallon Morell.
But first I have to do my little disclaimer. Please keep in mind that this program is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or health condition and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. The Live to 110 Podcast is solely informational in nature. So please consult your healthcare practitioner before engaging in any treatment we may suggest on the show. For those of you who are not in the know, I just put a new and improved version of my Live to 110 by Weighing Less e-Guide on the site. I am a perfectionist and I just wanted to re-write it and wanted to add a couple things to make sure it is right. So if you want to learn about Weight loss and also all about The Modern Paleo Diet, my version of Paleo, go to myersdetox.com™ and sign up for my free 35-page Live to 110 by Weighing Less e-Guide.
Today, I’m honored to have our guest on the show Dr. Kaayla Daniel. She is known as the Naughty Nutritionist because her blog and her book about soy is a little bit naughty. It’s very very funny and I highly recommend her blog. I love it. She earned her Ph.D. in Nutritionist Sciences and is a board-certified Clinical Nutritionist. She might know what she’s talking about. Haha. She serves as the Vice President of The Weston A. Price Foundation and is a member of Board of Directors of the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund. In 2005, Dr. Daniel received the Weston A. Price Foundation’s Integrity in Science award. Dr. Daniel’s book, The Whole Soy story The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food, has been endorsed by leading health experts including Dr. Russell Blaylock, Larry Dossey, Nicholas Gonzalez, Joseph Mercolla, and many many others. Today we’re going to be talking about soy and also about her latest book, Nourishing Broths.
Wendy Myers: So, Kaayla it’s so nice to have you on the show.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Thank you. It’s an honor.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. So why don’t you tell the listeners a little about yourself and how you became known as the Naughty Nutritionist.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Yes. I am the Naughty Nutritionist because I outrageously and humorously debunk nutritional myths and some of those myths include the idea that fat is bad for us, that cholesterol is going to kill us, and that soy is a health food; so many myths. And laughter is the best medicine so I think this is a really good way to get some of these important massages out.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, your book about soy really made a huge impact on so many people. Any time I read an article about soy your book is always quoted. It’s really the go-to book to learn about the dangers of soy. So why, in your opinion, is soy considered such a health food?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: It’s all about marketing. Back at the point that soy oil was used heavily in margarine that had a lot of soy protein left over. And if you’re smart in business, you’re not going to spend money to take that to the landfill and dump it. You’re going to find a way to use it. The USDA had spent decades trying to figure out how to use more and more soy protein in animal foods, but there’s only so much you can use before the cows, sheep and chickens get really extremely unhealthy and die prematurely. The fact that they get fat, it’s an acid because the sooner they get fat, the more profitable but the problem was too much soy was killing them off. So bottom line: only so much soy protein we could feed to animals, they had a lot left over and they realized, “Well, how can we feed more of it to people?” And here’s where some very smart marketers get in to the picture. They said “Well, soy has a real image problem. It is perceived as a poverty food, something hippies would eat or something that starving people in, say, Cuba or Russia would eat.” It’s got a really poor image. How can we get soy a good upscale image? How can we make people want to pay for it and want to pay well for it? And they realized they can make it a health food and that way rich people would want to pay for it, would want to get healthy with it and the whole problem would be solved. Everybody would want to buy more soy.
Wendy Myers: So people are really eating a lot more soy than they think. How pervasive is soy in our food supply?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: That’s a wonderful question. It’s not these people who think and know they’re eating soy. Like we all know people who are drinking soy milk all day long, or eating soy energy bars. Those people know they’re eating soy or maybe they are mixing up their soy shakes in their blender, adding it into their smoothies or whatever. Those people know they’re eating soy because a whole lot of people who might not even like soy and don’t think about soy, they’re not trying to be healthy at all, but they’re eating the standard American diet and the thing is, if you’re eating processed packaged foods, you’re getting a whole lot of soy. Little bits in each food usually, not huge quantities, is not like drinking soy milk. But there is a little bit of soy in say your canned tuna, there is soy in pasta sauces, there is soy in fast food. There is soy in more than 60% of processed and packaged foods and nearly 100% of fast foods. So a lot of people don’t even know they’re eating soy or getting it and it does add up.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. My father went on a medical fast and all the bars and the shakes that they gave him all had soy in them and he was just sick as a dog, Ha-ha, because he was actually allergic to soy like many many people are, especially genetically modified soy. It’s in so many foods. I heard we’re getting 9% of our calories from soy. Is that true?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Your father was one of the lucky ones. He recognized right away that he was feeling good from it because a whole lot of people don’t recognize that their health might decline slowly and they don’t realize soy is the reason for it. Your dad was probably allergic to soy and so he had some sort of more immediate reaction. Now most people have delayed reactions or they don’t even realize that, bit by bit, soy is having a devastating effect, for example, on the thyroid. So your dad was actually lucky in that respect.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. I had the problem too. I was a vegetarian for a couple of years and just eating soy in every which way I could figure out. At the end of that 2 year stint as a vegetarian, I had thyroid problems. So, definitely, it causes issues. What health problems, besides the thyroid that we just talked about, can soy cause that really warms our discussion about recovering from soy?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Yeah. There are so many possible problems. People who notice they have a problem with soy right away, besides the people who have some kind of allergic response. The thing that people will also notice usually quite soon would be digestive problems. They eat soy and then they’re having cramping and digestive difficulties, or perhaps they’ll get a whole lot of gas. Most of things that people will recognize pretty quickly “I ate soy and pretty quickly I’m not feeling so good”. Again, they are the lucky people because the cause and effect is fairly easy to note. Now the thyroid difficulties, that can manifest somewhat slower and people may not realize it. And then say people go to their doctor and the doctor just goes, “What do you expect? You’re 42 years old or you’re 50 years old. You’re slowing down.” It’s also important to mention, your soy is not the only culprit. There are a whole lot of thyroid-destroyers in our food supply. I mean, chlorine in the water, fluoride in our tooth paste, a lot of medications, a whole a lot of GMO foods. Soy is not the only culprit but it is a food that a whole lot of people maybe eating in excess. The good news is this is something we can avoid. But if you got thyroid problems, definitely you want to avoid soy. And if you’re taking thyroid medications, whether we’re talking something natural like synthroid, we should never be taking it at the same time that you’re taking soy because the thyroid is being pushed with the medication and it’s being pulled down with the soy and that push-pull can actually cause cancer. It’s how they cause cancer in laboratory rats.
Wendy Myers: Oh wow. Yeah, that’s really compelling because 1 in 5 people are on thyroid medication and if so many people are ingesting soy unwittingly, it’s really causing a lot of problem it contributing to this epidemic. So, are there any other health issues that the soy causes that you could talk about?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Very much. Soy has a terrible effect on the reproductive system. Soy contains phyto-estrogens which are plant estrogens. And they’re not true mammalian estrogens but here’s the thing, they’re close enough so that it fools the body. So they are hormone-mimickers. It affects the body’s ability to manufacture as well as use hormones. And were not just talking estrogen here and also testosterone. It overly estrogen-ize men. His testosterone goes down because of soy is a man whose going to experience reproductive problems and loss of libido, and overly estrogenizing women who may already be overly estrogenized, is definitely a problem for women. We know that soy connected with infertility in both men and women. With women, it can prolong menstrual cycles and cause unovulatory cycles that means she does not release the egg and obviously there are going to be fertility problems if that’s happening. With the guys, it can affect the quantity and quality of their sperm so it’s not a good thing. Another big thing, soy will tank the libido. We don’t want that.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. It’s something I always tell my male clients and they can’t believe that. They immediately go off-soy. They don’t want anything messing with that. Ha-ha
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: This is something that a whole lot of body builders recognize, that soy is going to affect the testosterone levels and, the Naughty Nutritionist, putting out the libido problems.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. Well, hey you got to say whatever motivates people and that’s the number 1 thing for guys, Ha-ha, and definitely for my female clients as well. When I have any female that’s coming to me and talking about how they’ve been trying to have a baby for the last year and whatnot. The number 1 thing, got to nick soy because it really does mimic estrogen but doesn’t do its job.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Well, it’s amazing with some of the clients I’ve worked with one to one. Many come to me because they’re having fertility problems. Here’s the thing, it is amazing how quickly someone may get pregnant when they start including a lot of good old-fashioned fats and cut soy out of their diet. Some of these women get pregnant too quickly actually. They don’t believe they’re going to get pregnant quickly and I’m telling them we want to get you really really healthy first so use birth control in the meantime. They don’t want to hear that. They totally don’t believe that because they see themselves as infertile. We get them on butter, we get them on bacon, will get them eating meat again soy isn’t on the diet and bingo!
Wendy Myers: Yeah. I love that bacon is a fertility food. Haha
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Bacon is a great fertility food and that’s your tease.
Wendy Myers: Hey, I eat it every Sunday. I have my Sunday bacon. So, whenever I mention people should be cutting on soy, I’d mention it on my blog and whatnot, people always invoke the Asian argument, that Asians eat a ton of soy so soy must be really healthy and they have a lower cancer rates. What do you say to someone that poses this question?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Yeah. We heard so many stories about all those soy-eating Asians. But, here’s the thing: first of all, Asia is a big content, many different people, many different dietary customs, but wherever we go, Japan, Korea, China, China of course another huge country with many different people and different dietary customs too, but wherever we go, soy is not used as a staple food in the diet. It’s used as condiment. And that’s the thing, they’re eating a little bit of soy every day and just little bits. Traditionally, they would be eating things like Miso as in Miso soup, tempeh and maybe a little tofu, nato which is a true health food popular in Japan. But here’s the thing, small amounts, like a few little cubes of tofu and Miso soup, for example, but not eating a whole one pound slab of tofu with dinner.
Wendy Myers: Yeah
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: And this is another thing, a lot of people think that soy milk, because it is something you could make in your own kitchen, is a food that people in Asia have been drinking for centuries but the first historical reference is 1877. This is very recent in terms of evolution. And soy milk was not even popularized in all of Asia until the 1930’s and guess who was doing it? Seven men who were missionaries from the USA. They were promoting the idea of vegetarian diets and soy and their intentions were great. They wanted to help a lot of people who were starving. But the point I’m trying to make here is until they started promoting soy milk and, in turn, soy infant formula, these things did not exist to any extent in the food supply in Asia.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. When I was writing a blog post about soy , I started really digging in to how soy milk produced and the waste product which is soy protein isolate. It’s horrifying. It’s really hard to turn a bean into soy milk or soy powder. It goes through so many different processes. It’s really a highly processed, really unhealthy food.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: I want to clarify; soy protein isolate is a modern industrialized food product that came in after World War II. And the only way you could make soy protein isolate or soy protein concentrate or some of these other modern ingredients is with a lot of modern high tech equipment, high temperature, high pressure, a lot of chemicals. These are not things we can make in our own kitchens at home. And that’s part of the problem. One of the things that I tell people that I think they find quite helpful in understanding the whole issue is that, say for example, soy oil, you can’t take a soy bean and smash it and turn it into soy oil yourself. It’s going to take a billion-dollar chemical plant. You can make miso yourself. You can make tempeh or even soy milk yourself. So there’s just some real differences and of course in terms of healthy oils, you can make your own butter, you can eat avocados, you can make olive oil yourself. But soy oil, canola oil, when some of these other unhealthy newer oils that have come in to the food supply, we would be hard-pressed to make them ourselves. Our ancestors didn’t make them and I think that’s a good warning to folks.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. Do you think we should just generally avoid any kind of food that you can’t make at home? Is that such a good general rule?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: A lot of us aren’t going to want to make things at home but the idea is, think about what our ancestors could have made. Think of what could have been in the food supply, perhaps anywhere in the world, a couple of hundred years ago. Those are probably safe foods for us to eat. Then think about all the other things that came in after World War II, all the things that father technology has brought us and be suspicious. The thing is father technology’s inventions are very popular because people can make a lot of money from them. But Mother Nature’s whole foods people find harder to make high profits from Mother Nature’s whole foods. So, of course what we’re taught is we shouldn’t drink, say, whole milk, for example, we should drink skim milk. Well, why would we be taught that? Because if you’re making skim milk, the food manufacturers cannot only sell skim milk, but they can sell the cream from of it, and because your body is craving the missing fat when you drink skim milk, you’re going to crave ice cream. It’s not truly about will power. It’s about how your body is missing what did not come with the milk you drank. But the food companies make a whole lot more money selling several products instead of one whole milk product.
Wendy Myers: And isn’t that why the food manufacturers have pushed soy so much? Because it is such a high-profit food?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: It is very much a high profit food and, once again, you’re dividing soy bean. At first, they were taking out the soy oil and making vegetable oil and making margarine and making shortenings from them. They had a lot of soy protein left over so let’s take the soy protein and let’s turn that into a health food. Let’s make soy shake powders and let’s make energy bars, let’s and put it into tuna no less. Well, with canned tuna, actually it’s soy protein isolated.
Wendy Myers: Oh Wow. No! Haha. I don’t eat that much tuna these days but I didn’t know that. Ha-ha
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: This is just one of those things we need to check. Anything’s got a label on that we need to check.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, so how does one recover from soy? I know for myself, I have a lot of clients that come to me that have been vegetarian and really the longer they’ve been vegetarian, assuming they’ve been eating a lot of soy, really the worst off their health is. Some of the people have been vegetarian for 10 years are just really really sick by the time they find me. I fortunately, was only a vegetarian for a couple of years and my health and thyroid and adrenals took an absolute nosedive just after 2 years stint. So how does one go about recovering from soy if they’ve been eating it unwittingly for a long time?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Yes I have report on recovering from soy. And of course, first thing is common sense. You got to cut the soy out of your diet. It’s like if you got a nail in your tire, you don’t just pump more air into the tire. You got to get the nail out. So of course we need to avoid soy and I like to say practice safe soy. Haha. If we’re going to practice safe soy, we’re going to really need to look at, basically, everything we’re eating, and anybody who’s eating processed and packaged foods, or going out to eat at meaning fast foods, is getting soy so we got to change that. The only real way to get healthy is to stop eating packaged food in any way, even health food store packaged foods and get back to real foods, whole foods, and slow foods, the foods that mother nature gave us. And that is going to need to include animal products, it’s going to need to include meat, fish, sea food and poultry, it’s going to need include of course vegetables and so forth. But real foods, whole foods, things that have nourished people for thousands and thousands of years.
Now somebody’s coming to me as a vegetarian, this may be a little hard to hear. And occasionally people who are big and if they switch to vegetarian, if they’re able to get access to, say, to raw milk and they’re willing to eat eggs from pastured chickens and chickens who get to run around and frolic with the roosters, eat bugs in the great outdoors. If they’re able to eat eggs and raw milk, raw cream and raw cheese, if they’re able to tolerate that, they might be able to get healthy as a vegetarian. But the problem for a whole lot of people I run into these days is they come to me where they felt allergies to just about everything. Particularly they’re not tolerating milk products even raw milk. They develop problems from, say, supermarket milks because of pasteurization and other problems. So maybe they can’t tolerate the milk or maybe they can’t tolerate eggs and maybe the reason they can’t tolerate eggs is that supermarket eggs were from factory farms and the chickens were eating soy. The second-hand soy from factory farm chickens is another whole issue.
Wendy Myers: Yeah.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: So for a whole lot of people, unfortunately, vegans who would like to become vegetarians that does not always work out. So people are going to really need to go back to an old-fashioned omnivorous diet with a variety of good foods and that’s going to be the start. But beyond that, we’ve got people who at this point in their healing journey, they’ve got digestive problems. They probably got leaky gut; they’ve got all sorts of food sensitivities and allergies. Their thyroid may have tanked, probably got adrenal dysfunction, there’s a whole lot of things. The first thing people really need to understand is you didn’t develop these problems overnight. It’s not going to go away overnight. Don’t give up too quickly and the other thing that’s very important is there’s a lot we can do on our own, but this is not really a do-it-yourself project.
Coaching with somebody who can help you and some laboratory testing, and a real plan in place is going to help speed things up. If you’ve already been sick for a few years, you don’t want this to drag on any longer than necessary. Some of the things I point out to people and that I’m frequently find besides the thyroid being down, I see a whole a lot of women, particularly, but also men and even children now have copper toxicity and, often, manganese toxicity. We need to start getting rid of those from the body. Just about everybody today has aluminum toxicity and mercury toxicity. We’re not blaming just soy here. There’s a whole lot of problems. It’s just that the more of these things holding around down that we could clear, the better chance our body’s going to have to clear the rest.
Wendy Myers: Is soy high in copper? Is that why people are having issues with copper?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: In people high in copper or estrogenized women are some of the symptoms we often see will be difficult menstrual periods, terrible PMS, difficult menopauses, if they become pregnant they often have a lot of extreme morning sickness, difficult pregnancies, more miscarriages perhaps. Also copper toxicity is related to depression, bipolar, any sort of mental health problems, anxiety. It manifests differently in different people but whenever I hear about that kind of symptom, I think we want to do a little testing. Let’s see what’s going on with you and copper.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, that’s what I do. I do hair mineral analysis and put people under Nutritional Balancing program and that helps them to get rid of their excess copper. Isn’t soy really high in manganese? Does that contribute to manganese toxicity?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: It contributes to babies on the first 6 months of their lives if they’ve been put on soy formula. Because a baby at that young and vulnerable age does not have developed liver to excrete the excess manganese and the baby’s developing brain is going to make it prone to manganese toxicity and problems from that manganese. Now as we get older, we theoretically should be able to get rid of the excess manganese but here’s the thing, there are other sources of manganese in our water supply, in our environment and I’m just seeing a lot of people with manganese toxicity and maybe it’s not coming from soy but if that’s part of the picture we want to start eliminating it.
With the people I put on these programs, Nutritional Balancing, based on hair mineral analysis test, the body and its ways to decide what aluminum needs to go first, maybe copper doesn’t show up right away. And then copper shows up or maybe copper and manganese show up at the same time. They’re not all going to show up at once. Here’s the thing, what comes out in our hair is out of the body. It’s not an indication of all that’s in us. It’s an indication of what’s already coming out. So, maybe with the first test we’re not going to see very much. We’ll see patterns that indicate ‘Hey, this could be a problem’. We get to work with them a whole 3 months, 6 months or 9 months or whatever. This one’s coming out, that one’s coming out. Bit by bit we start clearing the body and bit by bit people start feeling better. In the meantime they may some detox symptoms and maybe some ups and downs. It’s not always a smooth and easy process but it’s just got to be done.
Wendy Myers: So you’re obviously doing hair mineral analysis with your clients. Correct?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Yes I am.
Wendy Myers: That’s great! I love to hear that. Haha. What lab do you use to do that hair test?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: I use ARL.
Wendy Myers: Oh great.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: I actually like ARL for several reasons. One of the main reasons I like them is a incredible reports on the problems we are seeing in vegetarian clients. And I really like that because the whole lot of labs these days, just like a whole lot of alternative health practitioners, they all act like plant-based diets should be all an end-all and that they’re the very best. And the reality is we see a lot of problems in clients like that. It’s not just soy beans. Paul Eck, several decades ago recognized that. He saw that. He breaks about it. So clients who use ARL will get this kind of report which I think is very supportive of what I’m trying to say.
The second reason I like ARL, and this is an addition to the fact that they do a good job of course but in their reports they will indicate that if on the first test, somebody is showing no toxic metals coming out, maybe almost no aluminum, cadmium, lead, mercury showing up. And it looks like they got nothing happening. ARL bless them, will point out that the reason for this is the person is too weak to be eliminating the metals. Because if we’re not getting that message my clients will be looking at that saying, “Well, it looks like I don’t have any toxic metals. What else is the problem?” This is what some of the other laboratories will do. They’ll say, “Your toxic metals are of no concern at this time. Well hello! They’re a huge concern. The person is so weak that they’re still in the body and nothing is coming out. This is not a good thing and so, at this point, I’ll point out three things when I first talk to a client I’m going to say: your first test may actually not show anything but the likely thing is there’s going to be some patterns that we can read and indicate that in fact you’ve got a problem but we want to get you stronger so it can come out. And then the report that comes from ARL will back that up.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. People’s thyroid sets the metabolism. That is one of the main glands that helps rub up the body’s energy so that it can detox these metals and finally get rid of them and soy inhibits that. So people have to cut out soy if they have any hopes of getting healthy and detoxing the body.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: They’re going to have to cut it out and a whole lot of people really think that if they just eat the right products or if they eat less of it or eat certain amounts of, forever asking what is the safe level I can have. That might be a good idea, a good question when you are still a very healthy person but at the point that excess soy has really damaged you, it becomes a real toxin for your body and has to be cut out. Because at that point I really need to be focusing on what can truly benefit my body.
Wendy Myers: Doesn’t soy have a big scouring effect on your intestines? Can it contribute to leaky gut and food sensitivities?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: It very much can contribute to leaky gut and it is a big problem with, say, delayed food sensitivities and some of those issues. It is horror on the gut. One of the things that’s really amazing that’s coming out, some of them, the new sophisticated gluten testing that Cyrix offers and that I offer to some of my clients at the Abcap laboratories–is that many people who do not tolerate gluten should also avoid soy. I’ve been saying this back since 2005 but the really good news is other people are starting to recognize this as well. So all these people are going on gluten-free diets and they think they’re clearing the gluten completely, they’re eating gluten-free products from the health food store, and guess what some of those gluten-free products contain? They contain soy and other garbage ingredients. This is not going to help us get better. This will maybe help us with directly having to deal with gluten sensitivities and that’s good. That’s one of the nails in the tire that we do want to kick out if some of them are gluten sensitive. But for people to truly heal their intestines and their brain they’re going to have to include getting rid of soy from the diet, getting rid of MSG from the diet. There’s just many many things that need to be removed. You really need to get on optimally healthy real foods.
Wendy Myers: So, are there any forms of soy that are okay to eat?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Sure. I really enjoy miso soup. I often have that. Nato is incredibly healthy. Now, admittedly, it is a real acquired taste. It smells pretty bad, it tastes pretty slimy, the texture of bile. There are restaurants in Japan with a special Nato eating room so that the rest of the diners won’t be offended by the smell and the appearance of this.
Wendy Myers: Oh Wow. Ha-ha. I have not had the pleasure of trying that yet. Haha.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Well. It’s something some people really enjoy. If you enjoy it, it’s an incredibly healthy food because it’s loaded with vitamin K2. Now, this is not because soy beans are for K2, it’s because the bacteria that act on soy beans to create nato, create a lot of K2. It is an ideal food for getting K2, so if you love nato and you’re not sensitive to soy, nato is incredible healthy.
Wendy Myers: So fermented soy is fine?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Right. They’re ideal. A little tofu once in a while, not a big deal. And if you go in to a vegetarian potluck, I’m not sensitive to soy. I will enjoy a little bit once in a while. And likewise if you are healthy maybe it is not an issue. You can have a little of this or that or any number of things on a once-in-a-while basis if you’re healthy. It’s really what you’re eating day in and day out that’s the key. But for the increasing numbers of people that are allergic and sensitive to soy, eating out is a real challenge because soy is in so many things.
Wendy Myers: One of the things I tell my clients when they’re having health issues, when they’ve got leaky gut, or any kind of food sensitivities. I always tell them to eat bone broth because it’s one of the number 1 healing foods for the gut. It’s full of L-glutamine which is the number 1 amino acid that people use to heal the lining of their intestines. So, when they’ve had damage from soy, or whatever their diet is lacking in animal foods that contain amino acids that we need to rebuild our bodies. I taught bone broths, to start out with bone broths. So my clients were always really surprised because it seems like this whatever food, people are just kind of used to having it around and kind of taken it for granted, but it’s really an incredibly healthy food. It’s just not on people’s radar as a health food. So, why did you want to write a book about bone broths?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: My friend Morrel and I just finished our book on bone broth. It’s coming out in fall of 2014. We’ve had a major New York publisher. It’s going to be on all the stores. We’re very excited about this. And we feel we can really help a huge number of people with the healing they need to do because bone broth is very healing to the gut. So we’ve had an epidemic of digestive disorders and gut problems and bone broth, I’m talking here about genuine old-fashioned chicken soup made from the chicken carcass, made from chicken feet, lamb broth from lamb bones, beef broth from beef bones, fish broth from fish bones. I’m talking about the way our grandparents and ancestors made soup. I’m not talking about canned soups and packaged foods many of which never even use the bones and foods with a lot of flavors coming from MSG and other additives.
So we do need to get genuine old-fashioned bone broth either by making it ourselves at home or from some of the very few small companies like Saffron Road or Chef Gems, some brothery products that are genuine bone broth or maybe you live near Amish people and you can buy it from them. But we need the real thing here, the genuine bone broth can heal leaky gut. Many people will go on say a broth fast doing nothing but eating soups and broths for several weeks to do some healing and then gradually introducing other foods. Now, foods are eaten as soup and eaten as stew which of course contains the broth or the gelatin. They’re easy to digest. That’s such a real big factor. They’re much easier to digest than, say, steaks and chops. So all these people eating lean protein and thinking about steaks and eating it as part of their diet every day, they’re missing a big component that Mother Nature designed for us which includes eating the bone broth.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. That’s really huge in Asian cultures. There’s broths everywhere. Every Asian culture is eating tons of broth.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Yeah. We’re thinking about chicken soup as Jewish penicillin and of course it’s very big in Israel and with Jewish People everywhere but the people who eat the most chicken soup are the Chinese. Do you know what happens to all the chicken feet from Tyson’s and all these big American companies? They all get exported to China and the Jews for soup.
Wendy Myers: Haha. That’s really interesting.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: So, the trick is Mother Nature designed us to eat all parts of the animals so not just the muscle meats but also the bones, the cartilage, the collagen, the skin, and of course the organ meat. So, if we’re eating all these things, we’ve got a real chance of being healthy and healing from any health problems we might have.
Wendy Myers: So, how healthy is bone broth? What nutrients can be found in it?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: A whole lot of nutrients are in bone broth. Surprisingly, it doesn’t look like there’s huge amounts of calcium and other minerals. That does surprise people because there’s a whole lot of Internet stuff about how a cup of bone broth will be equivalent in calcium to, say, a cup of milk, but that’s not the case. And we’ve actually known that since 1930’s, but here’s the thing, all the research coming in indicates that what we need for healthy bones is not so much calcium but collagen and we get a whole lot of collagen in properly made homemade bone broth. And that is going to be bone broth made from the skins, the cartilage, and the bones. So we’re getting all the components we’re going to find in there. That’s going to include the amino acids like glycine, proline, and glutamine which are conditionally essential amino acids that we need for health and healing. We need those for wound healing, for gut healing, and for auto-immune modulation. Our immune system needs them. So these are all found as well as seems like glucosamine and chondroitin. You don’t need to take those as pills. Just make sure that there’s a whole lot of broth and stews and soup in your diet and you’re less likely to have joint problems. This is something a whole lot of athletes realize, that they’re not likely to have over training injuries, they’re more likely recover quickly from injuries if there’s a lot of soup and stews and bone broth in the diets.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. When I made chicken broth at home, I put it in little tubs and put it in the refrigerator and when you take it out to heat it up, it’s this solid gelatin basically. It’s just because it’s full of that collagen that people need. Your bones are all collagen. There’s this collagen matrix that we have to have for our minerals to deposit into and I think people don’t realize that if they don’t have that collagen matrix, if they are on a vegan diet or whatnot, even if they’re getting their minerals or supplementing their minerals, their bones can be very fragile and fracture very easily and be brittle. Even if they have enough minerals in their diet, they don’t have that collagen matrix that makes their bones flexible.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Yeah. You need that scaffolding. If that’s not present, you can have bones that look thick but they can fracture or they can disintegrate like chalk so that’s not good.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. So, what health issues can be helped by consuming bone broth?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Well, there’s actually a long list of them. With the digestive health issues, we have a story after story after story about people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome, colitis and Chron’s recovering with bone broth and also it’s helpful of course to have things like probiotics and cultured vegetables and things like that. Two is part of the mix but the key being the bone broth. Then we also have a long list of autoimmune disorders that respond wonderfully to a lot of bone broth in the diet. And they would include rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, prone seizural autoimmune disorders, many stories to that effect. Of course you know their first researched having to deal with rheumatoid arthritis came from sensitive health, the joints of people with osteoarthritis started to wonder if, say, cartilage supplements could also help with rheumatoid arthritis and Bingo! It was very very helpful. And then discoveries that it helped with other autoimmune disorders as well. We also know that broth is wonderful for infectious diseases. Of course there’s that phrase, ‘Jewish penicillin’. People seem to know it’s something you need to take if you want get rid of colds and flu. But it looks like the broth can be helpful in getting rid of unwanted bad microbial populations. It’s just very important on a lot of levels.
Wendy Myers: So, how many broth recipes are in the book?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: I believe we’re going to have around 75 to 100. I think they’re working out how many we want to include. We’re also going to have a website and keep it updated with new recipes and we’re also going to be continuing to collect healing stories from people, reviews of how they recovered from autoimmune disorders and even diseases like cancer.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. I’m excited for that book because I just do the same old same old every time. I just make chicken broth. Ha-ha. I just might try to intrude. I just stick to it but I haven’t been able to find as many recipes as I would like. I’m kind of scared to do a lamb broth. I don’t know why. I’ve tried a few at the farmers’ market and they just weren’t made very well. So I know I kind of need advice for myself, a little guide on how to venture out and increase my repertoire of broths. Ha-ha
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Well what I often recommend with my clients is, first of all, just learn how to make the basic stock to start with and Sally Fellon Morell’s books on Nourishing Traditions as well as the Eat Fat Lose Fat book, they all include directions on that. There’s a great recipes on Nourished Kitchen, a great blog by Jenny McBrother. That can all be helpful to start. Once you have the basics in place, what I recommend is to pull out any of your old cook books and just adapt whatever recipes you’ve enjoyed to include the bones and whatever spices and vegetables appeal to you, you can continue to use. It’s just that many of the more modern cook books don’t have the bones as part of the original recipe. So we just need to adapt it to include bones and then go from there. It’s really not that hard to do.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. So how long do you need to cook the bones to get the most out of them? I’ve heard that to get the most minerals, you need to cook it for 24 hours or put some of apple cider vinegars splash in there to increase the leeching from the bones. What is your take on that?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: It really varies. With the fish broth just a few hours, with chicken broth maybe 8 hours, with the lamb or beef it’s going to be 24 more hours. It’s really going to depend on what you’re working with. There’s quite a lot of debate on that. That I’m still trying to study and understand more fully. Some people are doing things like, they’re making perpetual broth, they keep taking some out and adding more bones in and keep it going for a while. I think there’s a whole lot of different of points of view, but my advice is, don’t wait until that’s all figured out. Just start to making it right now.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. I’ve been doing my broths for 24 hours. My husband thinks I’m going to burn the house down because I have it simmering overnight. Oh my gosh! It’s just simmering on the stove and it terrifies him. Ha-ha
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Well, the biggest piece of advice I’d have at this stage is if you’re not getting a jiggly jell-o like broth after you refrigerate it, you probably need to be easy in different cuts or more and certainly adding things like chicken feet.
Wendy Myers: Okay.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: If you use things like shanks and you use things like ham hocks, you’re going to get an abundance of gelatin. If your broth doesn’t have enough flavors, probably you need to be using more. A lot of people seem to think that if they throw in a drumstick and a wing, they’re going to get a rich broth. It’s not going to happen. Definitely throw those into the mix but we need to use a fair number of bones: knuckle bones, marrow bones. They’re very rich and very nutritious. For gelatin, just get those chicken feet.
Wendy Myers: Haha. I have to remember that. Haha. I have a question that I like to ask all of my guests. What do you think is the most pressing health issue in the world today?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: I think the food freedom issue is absolutely critical and no matter what our own dietary preferences are, whether we’re vegan or omnivores or whatever, food freedom, the right choose what we’re going to feed ourselves and our children is an essential freedom. Our founding fathers certainly accepted that we would have that freedom and we’re losing it. It’s just so important for all of us. Our farmers, few members of the farm and consumer legal defense fund because we’re fighting for that freedom and if we lose that right there is just no way we’re going to be healthy.
Wendy Myers: Is that one of the things that you’re fighting for? For instance, the right to enjoy raw milk? I’m kind of horrified that in so many states, raw milk is not available for purchase.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Raw milk is probably the most volatile issue. That’s the one that we will say yes we of course are fighting for that. But there are many other issues as well. Many vegans for example feel they cannot be healthy if they’re not getting raw unpasteurized almonds so we’re fighting for the right to be able to get the almonds of your choice.
Wendy Myers: Yes.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: It’s going to the point where, say, little kids making lemonade and selling it in their front yard are being shut down. People are being arrested for gardens in their front yards. People are having problems selling at farmers’ market and it just goes on and on. Food freedom is just so important. I suppose the second issue is the GMO but understand that food freedom includes the right to not have our food contaminated by somebody’s GMO crops. The food freedom is the overarching issue of everything else.
Wendy Myers: What does that have to do with that? Is that related to the FTA’s controls over the food supply? Does that have to do with the head the FTA being a former employee of Monsanto? What exactly is causing us to lose our freedom?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Well, of course the revolving door between government agencies and big corporations that is an obvious source of corruption and that’s one of our biggest problems. But, the real issue is not the FTA looking out for us. It’s our freedom to make our own choices and Joel Saliton points out that the real issue we’re going after for GMO’s is making up labeling. Though I think that is extremely important, but the issue of somebody else’s GMO crop going over and contaminating somebody’s organic crop, the trespassing issue.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. It really does terrify me because the future of organics is really in doubt. As long as people are allowed to grow GMO’s and once the GMO’s are out there and they are pollinating and the wind is carrying them and bugs are carrying the pollen on their backs to other fields, it’s too late.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: It’s a trespassing issue. If you think about it, it’s just the same issue as somebody entering my house without my permission and doing some damage. That person should end up in jail and all that. I think that Joel is making a really valid point that that should be the number 1 way we’re going after the GMO controversy.
Wendy Myers: I agree. So, Kaayla, can you tell the listeners a little bit more about you and where they can find you?
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Ah Yes. My website is drkaayladaniel.com and I do a lot of blog posting and video posting. I do what I call a lot of ‘edutainment’. I’m the Naughty Nutritionist after all and I like to present a lot of good valuable content put in a way that’s clear and hopefully also entertaining because we’ve got so much tension and stress in our lives and let’s got some information in a way that is enjoyable.
Wendy Myers: I love your Facebook page. It’s so funny! I’m always really entertained by the posts that you do. Ha-ha
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Well, thank you. I welcome people to join my Facebook page. It’s drkaayladaniel.com and youtube videos, I’m sharing a lot of this information and I really love to connect with my viewers and my readers. Ask me questions, I do respond to people. So let’s connect that way.
Wendy Myers: Well, thank you so much for being on the show, Kaayla. I really love this show because it’s hard to convince people that soy is not healthy and that they should probably stop eating it. So, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Dr. Kaayla Daniel: Well, thank you Wendy.
Wendy Myers: And listeners if you want to learn more about health you can find me on to myersdetox.com™. You can also follow me on Facebook and twitter at iwillliveto110 and if you like what you heard on the show today please give the Live to 110 podcast a review on iTunes. I need reviews to push the show further up on the charts and into the search engines. I’d appreciate it so much if you take 2 minutes of your time to do that. And listeners thanks for tuning in, remember if you see someone ordering a soy milk latte or buying soy milk at the grocery store, take a minute to tell them to listen to the Live to 110 podcast that says it’s going to make them infertile and reduce their libido. Ha-ha. So, thank you so much for listening to the Live to 110 podcast.
