Hi folks, I just released an episode of my Healing Culture Podcast featuring Derek Nance, who posts here using the handle Sabertooth. It is episode 14 of the podcast, and in addition to being able to listen on my website (linked) you can also listen on most podcatchers (Apple, Stitcher, Google Play, etc.) as well as on YouTube. The YouTube vid does not have video, unfortunately, it is just the audio file with my podcast's logo as a background. Here is the episode's description:

Derek Nance was featured in a 2013 Vice article titled This Guy’s Eaten Nothing But Raw Meat For Five Years, and in a documentary series called A Million Ways to Live. He talks with Eric about what drew him to make raw meat a cornerstone of his diet, the benefits of intermittent fasting, and the importance of choosing quality meats in a raw food diet, among other things.

I think Sabertooth lives in Kentucky, and if I remember he had an AirBnB going for a while. Hopefully he will chime in.

I am not full-time carnivore; I cycle through various eating regimens and happen to be in carnivore now. For me, carnivore is only grass-fed meat and wild-caught fish, mostly salmon. No dairy, and fruit and veg are eaten only as condiments with meat.

I do not see it as boring. I get fulfillment from other areas of life, and do not need an endorphin boost from eating food. If you want the food to taste better, try adding a little horseradish or mustard or pickled ginger as a condiment. If your boredom leads to loss of appetite, that might mean it is time to fast for a while, until your appetite comes back naturally. And if none of that works for you, it might mean it is time to stop being carnivore for a while. I do not hold a carnivore diet as a moral or ideological ideal. It is a tool. There are times when it works, and when it should be used, and there are times when other eating patterns would work better to achieve various goals, at which points it should be abandoned in favor of superior alternatives.

I see a raw carnivore diet as a time of intense healing. The diet contains no fiber, which means it is very easy on the small intestine, which can be damaged by fiber for those who suffer from leaky gut syndrome. One of the big reasons I cycle through carnivore is to give my intestines a rest, and allow them to heal in the event that leaky gut symptoms are brewing. I also find it much easier to gain weight on raw carnivore than on more diverse diets, so use it as a period to bulk up. I box, lift weights, and circuit train, and will spend periods where I do not eat carnivore to get stronger and leaner, then use carnivore periods to put on muscle mass, then go through periods where I might fast for awhile (drink only water) to enjoy some of the benefits of autophagy.

This is a cycle that works well for me. Obviously, it might not work well for others, so do not just mimic it. I always treat eating patterns as an ongoing experiment with an 'N' of 1. 

Thanks for these links, great listens.

Thanks for sharing this. I might reach out to him about coming on my podcast or recording a YouTube video.

Greetings folks. I have alluded to my intentions to start a YouTube Channel, and have finally gotten around to do this. Here is a video where I talk about eating raw wild-caught salmon.

Eric Eats Wild-Caught King Salmon

Comments, feedback, and Patreon support are all welcome. I am particularly interested in folks' thoughts on whether I should put 'raw' in the title of the video, or just leave it as is.

I most often buy organs. I bought a grass-fed beef heart this morning at the farmers' market for $4.50 per pound. That is probably about $10 per kg, or around 8 or 9 Euro per kg.

Fiber might well have been a big cause of your gut problems, but that does not mean you should avoid it.

Not all dietary fiber is created equal. The two main groupings are soluble fiber and insoluble fiber. Most gut microbes require soluble fiber, which comes from fruits, nuts, leaves, stems, roots, and tubers. If you eat a lot of this type of fiber, your gut microbiome will probably be quite diverse, which is good, and the 'good' gut bugs will likely outcompete the 'bad' gut bugs for space, helping your gut to heal and helping to properly regulate your immune response and reduce chronic inflammation. They also tend to release short-chain fatty acids as 2ndary metabolites, which is beneficial because these are useful metabolically.

Insoluble fiber comes primarily from cereal grains like wheat, rice, corn, etc. Eating a lot of this fiber leads to a gut microbiome that is much less diverse and that tends to favor types of bacteria that are inflammatory.

So if your diet included a lot of fiber from cereal grains, then it is not surprising that did a number of your gut.

Why are you so devoted to eating carnivore? Although I eat a modest amount of meat (raw), my diet is definitely dominated by plants. Lots of roots and tubers especially, for the fiber that feeds good gut bugs.

I have never figured out why people want to 'play games' with their online personas. Why not just use your name?

First, why are folks so interested in converting people? When people talk like that, it makes it sound like a raw food diet is some sort of religion. I do not want to be seen as a religious extremist just because I choose to eat unprocessed foods.

Next, as far as convincing people to explore raw foods, I do not think we need famous people. I think we need mentally stable people who do not have sketchy pasts that involve perpetrating violence, abusing people, or goofy conspiracy theories, who are decent looking and articulate, and who are willing to talk about their experiences. Someone like that who starts a YouTube channel would work wonders at legitimizing an unprocessed diet.

Probably true. I will still work hard to avoid that tick though. Tick-borne illness is no joke!